Liberty Newsprint Dec-23-09

E-reader News Edition

22/12/09 - 23/12/09

Obama’s “winter White House”

By Deborah Zabarenko (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:35:54 AM

President Barack Obama’s “winter White House” has a few perks that even the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can’t claim. Purple taro chips, for one.

A breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean, for another.

The Obama family is renting a $4,000-a-night Hawaiian home in Kailua, on the windward side of the island of Oahu. Centered on a lagoon-like pool, it’s got plenty of open space and privacy for Malia and Sasha. ABC’s Good Morning America offered a video tour of the place, which is on the market for $8.9 million.

Kailua beach is one of the most gorgeous in the Hawaiian Islands, though less reliably sunny than Waikiki. It’s also familiar to the first family: they stayed here last year after the 2008 elections. They also are renting two neighboring houses for family and friends.

About those taro chips: they come as an extra benefit for the president, who reportedly likes them, along with sweet potato

http://www.LibertyNewsprint.com

Closing Bell: Pre-Holiday stocks, oil, dollar all on their own (RUTH, RIMM, RHT, ACHN, CGEN, PFE)

By Jon Ogg (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 PM

chips. There is also an imported evergreen tree — most Christmas trees get to the islands by boat, since they don’t really flourish in the Hawaiian climate.

The Obamas will be getting to their Hawaiian hideaway a bit later than expected, since the president has said he will stay in Washington until the Senate finishes its work on healthcare reform legislation. That’s expected to take place with a vote on the bill on the morning of Christmas Eve. Then everyone will head for the exits (and the

airports) in the middle of the holiday rush.

There won’t be any waiting lines for the Obamas of course — just a quick trip to Andrews Air Force Base and then a flight on Air Force One. For more Reuters political news click here Photo credit: REUTERS/Hugh Gentry (A woman kayaks past a stand-up paddle surfer along the canal near the compound where Barack Obama stayed last year, December 27, 2008)

Filed under: Pfizer (PFE), Red Hat Inc (RHT) Today was a mixed trading day on somewhat light trading pre-holiday volume throughout most of the trading day and there was no real feeling for a positive or negative close until the afternoon. A drop of 11% in new house sales in November added concerns over the housing recovery. This was in contrast to personal income and spending rising 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively, in November. Oil had a solid day with a $2.22 gain to $76.62 close on big inventory draw-downs.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels: Dow 10,466.44 +1.51 (0.01%) S&P 500 1,120.59 +2.57 (0.23%) Nasdaq 2,269.64 +16.97 (0.75%)

Top Day Trader Alerts Top Analyst Calls Top Stock Rumors Continue reading Closing Bell: Pre-Holiday stocks, oil, dollar all on their own (RUTH, RIMM, RHT, ACHN, CGEN, PFE) Closing Bell: Pre-Holiday stocks, oil, dollar all on their own (RUTH, RIMM, RHT, ACHN, CGEN, PFE) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

2

World/

E-reader News Edition

Iraq inquiry reveals chaos that led Britain to war

By Patrick Wintour (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

bureaucratic in-fighting and their shuffling admission that they went to war knowing the aftermath was unplanned – a Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:26:54 PM "known unknown" in the Evidence details ignorance, immortal words of US defence hasty plans and a one-sided secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one relationship with the US of the villains of this inquiry so Some will always believe that far.

Tony Blair took the country to Yet what has emerged already war in Iraq on a lie, but the most from the 12 sessions with British damning charge emerging from d e f e n c e , i n t e l l i g e n c e a n d the Iraq war inquiry so far is that diplomatic officials is the extent Britain went to war on a wing to which Britain seemed to slide and a prayer. The main charges, into war, ultimately with little a f t e r f o u r w e e k s o f c r o s s Whitehall resistance. The inquiry examination, are that Britain had has also shown the extent to minimal influence over American which Whitehall went to war diplomatic and military strategy, ignorant of Iraq's near economic did not plan correctly for the collapse, or the risks of a Sunniaftermath of war, and utterly Shia civil war. misconstrued post-war Iraqi On the basis of the evidence society. given so far, these are the key It is these charges as much as questions the political class will w h e t h e r i n t e l l i g e n c e w a s have to answer: doctored that are likely to make • Did Tony Blair and the cabinet the Labour political class squirm gradually commit itself to regime when they give evidence to the change in Iraq and always know Chilcot inquiry starting in they would join the war if UN January. support was not forthcoming?

The chronology to disaster that Almost all the evidence from the has seeped from the inquiry military insists that British joint makes sometimes shocking planning with the Americans was reading. It is after all the first c o n t i n g e n t o n p o l i t i c a l time the British diplomatic and endorsement, and the backing of military establishment have had the UN. Yet former ambassador to discuss openly their secretive Sir Christopher Meyer claims relationship with the US in the that Blair committed himself run-up to the war. intellectually to regime change.

The diplomats have been freed • Did Blair give the defence to disclose their distaste for the ministry conditional permission simplicities of the neo-cons in to prepare for war at a secret Washington, their limited entry meeting in Chequers the weekend p o i n t s i n t o W a s h i n g t o n prior to meet George Bush at his

ranch in Crawford in April 2002?

• Should Britain in March 2003 have withdrawn its support for the war after the failure to secure a second UN resolution giving Saddam a final chance to comply?

Edward Chaplin, Foreign Office director for the Middle East, claimed he persistently flagged up that an invasion without UN support would lack legitimacy, as opposed to being unlawful.

• Did Britain plan for the aftermath properly?

Lieutenant General Sir Freddie Viggers, the chief British military representative in Baghdad after the war, told the inquiry: "We suffered from the lack of any real understanding of the state of that country post-invasion. We had not done enough research, planning, into …the country coming out of 30 years of the Ba'athist regime, the dynamics of the country, the cultures, the friction points between Sunni, Shia and Kurd."

SIr Peter Ricketts, the foreign office political director said " I think they (the Americans) had a touching faith that, once Iraq had been liberated from the terrible tyranny of Saddam Hussein, everyone would be grateful".

Sir David Manning admitted " I think the assumption that the Americans would have a coherent plan which would be implemented after the war was over obviously proved to be unfounded. There was confusion over this.

• Was Whitehall geared up for war?

Whitehall realised that Rumsfeld had won a turf war with the state department on post-war planning, and no plans were in place.

Hastily the UK set up an Iraq Planning Unit on 10 February 2003 with fewer than 10 staff.

Major General Tim Cross, the only UK military official appointed to help plan the invasion aftermath told the inquiry the unit "suffered from chaos, lack of planning and a chorus of competing voices."

Apart from that an ad hoc committee of civil servants with a cabinet office secretariat met ahead of the war, but at junior level . No Iraq cabinet committee existed and according to Cross "I got no sense at all cross Whitehall that there was any coherence in a single pan Whitehall perspective on what this was all about."

But Desmond Bowen, deputy head of Overseas and Defence Secretariat admitted was there a moment when the OD secretariat put up its hand collectively and said 'you know you should stop and think'. I dont think I can say that was the case" .

Once the war began Bowen said "There was no formal ministerial group. It was run out of Number 10 and there were ministerial meetings, with what frequency exactly I don't know.

Viggers complained " There were lots of plugs and lots of sockets, but not too many of

them were joined up. Without a single minister to drive it forward it was very difficult to get the officiala to focus on the whole" .

• Did the Treasury not commit the resources for the reconstruction ?

Chaplin said: "If you have a decent plan and an idea of what you are aiming for, you need to identify the resources necessary to carry that out. It was certainly one of the constraints in the early months – seeing the need for additional expertise but not having the mechanisms to identify, train and dispatch those people quickly enough."

• Did Britain stumble into running Basra and the south-east?

Successive witnesses have said Britain did not want to run southern Iraq partly because of the potential cost and fears that the absence of a full UN mandate made the occupation illegal. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair's foreign policy adviser from August 2003, said: "We had no plan for handling Basra because that was something that only emerged during the course of the military action."

• Did the Department for International Development (Dfid) refuse to participate?

Lt General Sir Robert Fry, deputy chief of joint operations, said: "I think we had the Dfid representatives who came to the Permanent Joint HQ who would hardly conceal their moral IRAQ page 9

World/

E-reader News Edition

3

As at Auschwitz, the gates of hell are built and torn down by human hearts | Timothy Garton Ash

By Timothy Garton Ash (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

central and eastern Europe, and then put their MEPs under the leadership of Michal Kaminski, from Poland's Law and Justice party.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:15:56 PM In the ensuing controversy, the A wrenching debate about author and actor Stephen Fry antisemitism in Poland's past said"there's been a history of leads us, in the end, to ask rightwing Catholicism which has questions about ourselves been deeply disturbing for those B e t w e e n H a n u k k a h a n d of us who know a little history Christmas, the sign over the and remember which side of the entrance to the Auschwitz border Auschwitz was on". A extermination camp is stolen. little history, indeed. To blame Polish police recover it and catch Catholic Poles for the Nazi the thieves, who were apparently extermination camp in Germancarrying out a commission from annexed Polish territory, a camp abroad. We struggle to imagine in which Catholic Poles were the kind of human being who also imprisoned and died, is so would want such a thing in his absurd that Fry's remark met with private collection. For all the a torrent of criticism. And Fry, to mass murder, enslavement and his credit, swiftly apologised. torture that has been perpetrated Yet this is not just one since, Auschwitz remains, for a Englishman's folly. Watching a European of my generation, the German television news report on symbol of human evil in our the trial of John Demjanjuk a few time. weeks ago, I was amazed to hear This grotesque episode ends a the announcer describe him as a year in which the relations g u a r d i n " t h e P o l i s h between Christians and Jews in extermination camp Sobibor". general, Christian Poles and What times are these, when one Polish Jews in particular, have of the main German TV channels again been the subject of debate. thinks it can describe Nazi camps The ghosts of a tortured east as "Polish"?

European past even howled In my experience, the automatic through the corridors of equation of Poland with W e s t m i n s t e r , a s t h e Catholicism, nationalism and Conservatives announced their antisemitism – and thence a slide a l l i a n c e i n t h e E u r o p e a n to guilt by association with the parliament with a group of Holocaust – is still widespread. rightwing parties, mainly from This collective stereotyping does

no justice to the historical record.

It has no place, for example, for the incredible story of Witold Pilecki, a Polish officer who in 1940 volunteered to get himself imprisoned in Auschwitz in order to discover what was going on there. He remained as a prisoner in Auschwitz for two and a half years, smuggled out reports, organised resistance cells inside the camp, and then escaped.

Having fought in the Warsaw rising against the Nazis, Pilecki survived the last months of the war in a German POW camp, only to be arrested and tortured by the communist secret police in Soviet-occupied Poland, and executed in 1948.

Blanket stereotyping produces a defensive reaction among Poles, and therefore also hinders their coming to terms with a deeply troubling history of Polish and Catholic antisemitism. (It is not confined to the right: the Polish communist party was convulsed by a notorious antisemitic campaign as late as 1968.)

Especially since Poland regained its freedom, that process of facing up to a difficult past has been well under way. At the beginning of this decade, a historian's exposure of the slaughter of the Jews of Jedwabne by their Polish Catholic fellow villagers, in the summer of 1941, sparked off what the Polish Jewish writer

Konstanty Gebert calls a"stunningly profound and stunningly courageous" debate.

In its wake, Gebert says, "the country has undergone a serious moral transformation."

I yield to no one in my criticism of the Conservatives' new alliance in the European parliament, but the political verdict must be kept separate from the historical and moral one. The language of today's party politics, with its prefabricated phrases and glib half-truths, is so pathetically inadequate to the terrors of Auschwitz and the heroism of a Pilecki, that even to bring such synthetic verbiage close to them feels like a kind of sacrilege.

There is a political judgement, for which the issue of what a rightwing opportunist like Kaminski said in Poland's Jedwabne debate a few years ago is a relevant though subsidiary consideration. There is a historical judgment, which scholars are enabling us to make with a growing appreciation of the complexity of east European and Jewish history. There is a legal judgement, which must apply to those who committed crimes against humanity. But beyond all these, there is a dimension of human understanding which perhaps only the language of art can fully encompass.

To see what I mean, please buy, beg or steal yourself one of the last available tickets to the brilliant first production of a play called Our Class, by the Polish writer Tadeusz Slobodzianek, which is on at the National Theatre in London until midJanuary. Drawing on the now extensive documentation of what happened in Jedwabne, Our Class tells the tragically intertwined life stories of 10 pre-war schoolmates, five of them Jewish, five Catholic.

It spares you nothing of the horrors of one of the worst chapters in the history of Polish antisemitism, showing a gang rape, a man beaten to death, and finally the Jews being burned alive in a barn. But it also shows you Wladek, the Catholic peasant farmer who shelters and then marries a Jewish girl. Then there's Menachem, the Jewish survivor who after the war becomes a communist secret police interrogator. And Zocha, the Polish Catholic woman who saved Menachem's life by hiding him in her barn, then emigrates to the US. Hearing an American Jewish couple banging on about Polish antisemitism, she explodes: "And what did the Americans do for the Jews during the war?"

And Abram, the lucky one, who AUSCHWITZ, page 9

4

World/

E-reader News Edition

Jack Straw faces Iraq inquiry grilling over Tony Blair letter

By Patrick Wintour (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

to interrogate any serving minister still holding ministerial responsibility for Iraq. Straw is not exempted on this basis Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:00:03 PM because he is now lord Claims that PM was told UK chancellor, with responsibility for should not assist in overthrow of the justice system.

Saddam It has been claimed that in the The former foreign secretary letter Straw suggested the UK Jack Straw is to face potentially should offer the Americans explosive questioning at the Iraq "political and moral support" in inquiry next month over a private their campaign against Saddam letter he sent to Tony Blair on the H u s s e i n , b u t n o t m i l i t a r y eve of the invasion, urging the b a c k i n g . prime minister to look at options He reportedly urged Blair to tell apart from pressing ahead with George Bush that British troops British military involvement in would help clear up the mess and the attack. keep the peace once the war was It is understood that the inquiry over, but could play no part in is to receive a copy of the Saddam's overthrow. personal letter sent by Straw, The US president had offered written after discussions with Sir Blair the chance to pull out, and Michael (now Lord) Jay, the the then chief of the defence F o r e i g n O f f i c e p e r m a n e n t staff, Lord Boyce, has told the secretary, on 16 March 2003, two Chilcot inquiry that the US days before the Commons voted invasion would not have been to back the war. delayed by more than a week if Straw was yesterday named by British military forces had been the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq held back at the last minute. war as one of its star witnesses Downing Street has never denied next month. Ten serving or the existence of Straw's letter, but former cabinet ministers have claims he did not oppose British been called, including Tony involvement in the war, and Blair, the former attorney general instead merely set out the options Lord Goldsmith and the former for how the UK could remain defence secretary Geoff Hoon. involved in Iraq's reconstruction B u t t h e i n q u i r y h a s in the event of MPs voting to controversially decided not to o p p o s e B r i t i s h m i l i t a r y cross-examine Gordon Brown i n v o l v e m e n t . before the general election, on The dispute over the letter's the basis that it would be wrong precise contents and motives is

one of the great mysteries of the high politics of the British invasion. If Straw did urge restraint at the last minute, it will place an extra onus of responsibility on Blair himself for the decision to go to war. It will also raise questions as to why Straw decided to defend the war so strongly subsequently.

In public Straw has always argued that the invasion was lawful and that Iraq is a better place for the downfall of Saddam. He has also maintained that the whole of the western intelligence community genuinely believed Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

But it is known that in common with the then US secretary of state, Colin Powell, he challenged the way in which the neo-con Bush administration viewed regime change in Iraq and its optimism that the fall of Saddam would not lead to a civil war between Sunnis and Shias.

Chilcot's treatment of the Straw letter will also be a major test for the legitimacy of the inquiry itself, which has been criticised for repeatedly failing during examination of witnesses to refer to written documentation made available by Whitehall. Since July, the inquiry team has received more than 40,000 government documents, including 12,000 from 10

Downing Street.

In his closing remarks before the end of the pre-Christmas hearings, Chilcot said: "The inquiry will increasingly wish to draw on government records which are currently classified – in some cases highly classified – in its questioning. Where we do, we will seek the necessary declassification of records in advance of the relevant public hearings, with a view to making the written records publicly available."

As well as the prime minister, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Douglas Alexander, the development secretary, have all been excused for the moment and will not give evidence until after the general election, because the inquiry wants to remain "firmly outside party politics".

When Brown is questioned, he will have to answer claims that British confusion over whether to take responsibility for southern Iraq stemmed from Treasury resistance to funding the reconstruction.

The inquiry has broken new ground by revealing the lack of serious postwar planning in the UK, Whitehall's late awareness of the implications of the US defence department taking responsibility for reconstruction, and the collective failure of Whitehall in the days before the

war to consider whether delay was necessary. Civil servants under cross-examination have repeatedly admitted that they struggled to influence US thinking, and sometimes revealed deep disdain for American methods.

Others to appear in January or February include the former defence secretaries John Reid and Des Browne, and a former legal adviser at the Foreign Office, Elizabeth Wilmshurst – who resigned after Goldsmith's final advice to the government reversed her legal opinion. Lord Jay, the former Cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull, Alistair Campbell and Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, have also been summoned to appear.

• Iraq war inquiry • Politics and Iraq • Jack Straw • Tony Blair • Geoff Hoon • Defence policy • Iraq • Middle East • George Bush • Military Patrick Wintour 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

5

Cold snap leaves record numbers of motorists stranded

By Dan Milmo, Paul Lewis (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

by the cold snap.

Edmund King, president of the AA, said the organisation had dealt with an estimated 116,000 breakdowns since Friday, a Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:48 PM number he described as a record, Icy weather has seen estimated w i t h d r i v e r s i n S c o t l a n d , 1 1 6 , 0 0 0 c a r b r e a k d o w n s Merseyside, Lancashire, the reported, and has disrupted south coast and south-east flights and train services England the worst hit.

About 4 million motorists are He said: "We've never had that expected to make a dash for their many days in a row when things Christmas destinations after have been so bad." The RAC said another day of icy weather it had attended up to 50,000 stranded thousands of drivers, breakdowns in the past five days. forced a Ryanair jet off a runway An estimated 8 million drivers and cancelled train services. took to treacherous roads today, The AA said many avoided as local councils defended their taking to the roads today in the reaction to the icy conditions by hope of improved weather this claiming 1m miles of road had morning, but the Met Office been gritted over the last five warned of slippery surfaces in days.

Wales, Yorkshire, the Midlands The AA had expected 10 million and east England as the cold snap drivers on the roads today but maintained its icy grip. now estimates that 12 million Liverpool John Lennon airport will travel over a two-day period, closed tonight because of a heavy with 4 million driving tomorrow. deluge of snow, a spokesman The black ice causing problems said, while a Manchester airport on the roads across the UK also spokesman denied the reports it forced a Ryanair jet off the was closed. Other main airports runway at Glasgow's Prestwick are cautiously optimistic that they airport this morning. There were can operate good services after no casualties among the 129 s u f f e r i n g h u n d r e d s o f passengers and cabin crew on the cancellations since the weekend, inbound service from Dublin as with most runways operating treacherous conditions saw the near-normal schedules today. Boeing 737-800 slide on to a Drivers have overtaken airline grass verge while taxiing to the and Eurostar passengers as the terminal. "When you come on to group of travellers worst affected the runway it's full of black ice,"

Ryanair passenger Alex Paton told the BBC. He added: "Everyone was pretty shocked. I don't think most people realised we were in a field. It wasn't until we were off that we realised how deep the wheels had gone into the field."

Prestwick was closed temporarily but services resumed two hours later, with the empty plane still stranded.

A Ryanair spokesman said passengers and crew were bussed to the terminal after disembarking routinely, albeit on to a patch of frozen grass rather than the tarmac. The spokesman added that the 66-tonne aircraft was travelling "very slowly" at the time of the accident. The Department for Transport confirmed that the Air Accident Investigation Bureau had launched an inquiry into the incident.

Edinburgh had the worst affected airport after a snowstorm blanketed the Scottish capital, closing the runway for six hours and forcing the cancellation of at least 17 flights. Luton and Gatwick have cancelled hundreds of flights since last Friday but reported much improved schedules today with only a handful of cancellations. A spokeswoman for Luton said the prospects for Christmas Eve looked "promising" with no

heavy snow expected, while a Gatwick spokesman said Britain's second largest airport was "hopeful" that conditions tomorrow will be even milder.

Heathrow cancelled eight flights due to early morning fog but is expecting good weather tomorrow with only some delays for incoming flights that have taken off from snowbound airports abroad.

A spokesman for BAA, which owns Heathrow, Stansted, Edinburgh and Glasgow, said: "Our airports are recovering from the effects of severe weather in the UK and abroad over the last few days, but delays may continue."

In central London queues for Eurostar services stretched out of St Pancras International station to the nearby British Library this morning as hundreds of passengers with valid tickets waited to board packed trains.

Eurostar said it carried around 24,000 passengers on its second day of operations since resuming services following last weekend's debacle with failed trains.

A spokeswoman for the AngloFrench company said everyone with a ticket booked for tomorrow will be able to travel as a further 24,000 passengers are carried between London, Paris and Brussels. "We have asked people with non-essential travel

Approaching January, Apple Tablet Rumors Run Wild

By Brian X. Chen (Wired Top Stories)

Multiple independent reports claim Apple is preparing a

January event to announce its highly anticipated touchscreen

tablet.

to postpone their trips or ask for refunds. They have respected that and we are very grateful," said the spokeswoman.

The Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) said the outlook on the rails had generally been good but there is a danger of ice causing problems in the south-east on Friday. Rain is expected in parts of the southeast tomorrow night and there are fears that a drop in temperature will cause ice to form on the electric rails that power the majority of train services around London.

"A combination of rain and very cold conditions may cause further disruption in some areas," said an Atoc spokesman. He urged passengers to check the national rail inquiries website before travelling.

• Road transport • Weather • Transport • Rail transport • Air transport Dan Milmo Paul Lewis guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

6

World/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Are we still in the thick of it? | Zoe Williams

By Zoe Williams (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

work out that way. I can't quite see the point of the leg-up for Sky, unless of course the debate was offered to Channel 4 but Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:00:01 PM their schedule was already full of Our understanding of the media racist members of the public, has moved on a lot since the US arguing, and teenagers with broadcast its first election debate suppurating, sexually transmitted in 1960 sores.

Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and Every time this topic has come David Cameron are to face each up, long before anybody agreed other in three epic, hour and a to it, before Brown was marked half-long debates which, being down as the reluctant one (on on television, must heretofore account of his withered smilealways be referred to as "US- m u s c l e ) a n d C a m e r o n t h e style election debates". It's enthusiast (for obvious reasons), massive, isn't it, this mighty this format been held up as clash? Four and a half hours in a s s u r i n g a n e a r a u t o m a t i c total. Who do they think they are, election victory for the betterThe Lord of the Rings? looking candidate. This is always Apparently this already scores delivered in exactly the same massive kudos for Clegg, having tone of voice as "nobody will equal billing to the other two vote for high taxes", and it is when he is not exactly on equal always illustrated with the footing. It is also a leg-up for curious case of JFK versus Sky, gaining as many live action Richard Nixon, in the first-ever minutes as the BBC and ITV – television debate of 1960. a l t h o u g h i t ' s q u e s t i o n a b l e Kennedy is said to have won the whether this will translate into election because he looked young actual viewers; probably it won't. and vigorous, where Nixon had a It's more like a thought-that- grey complexion and a dicky counts kind of deal. knee. I call it curious because, I can see the point of giving the e v e n t a k i n g i n t o a c c o u n t leg-up to Clegg. This is a good confounding events like a bloody way to convince the casual voter assassination, Kennedy is easily that he and Cameron are, in fact, the most popular, eulogised, two separate people. A vote for m y t h o l o g i s e d p r e s i d e n t o f one is not necessarily a vote for modern American politics. His the other, though it might yet sex addiction and privilege only

serve to make him more impressive, dearer to the nation's heart, closer to their ego ideal. So we can't have it both ways, people – he is either Superman, effortlessly superior to other beings by birth and breeding; or he was superior to Nixon by a trick of the studio light, because he was wearing a light coat of makeup and Nixon wasn't. And on these shallow waters floats a nation's allegiance.

I only mention it because it's a bit insulting, isn't it? People being too dim to listen to the words, only being able to see the faces and decide who's the prettiest. The result of ascribing this kind of idiocy to the electorate can be clearly seen in US politics, where the vocabulary of the debates has gone greatly downhill since the advent of TV. This is a wellworn observation, but normally used to demonstrate that George W Bush's intelligence was so low he would have been allowed extra time on his driving test. In fact, everybody succumbs to it: Bush was thicker than Al Gore (speaking at the level of 6.7 on the US standard vocabulary test, the same as a 10-year-old; Gore was at 7.9), but Clinton was thicker than Gore (7.6), and none of them exactly redraws the rhetorical map – 7.9 is only the

level of a 12-year-old.

It's an unfalsifiable assumption: "The voter is thick, so I will speak as though addressing a 12year-old. If I win against a more sophisticated opponent, this proves the voter is thick. If I lose, this proves the voter is still thick, but my opponent is betterlooking than me." What can a voter do to defend him or herself against these assumptions, when all the available parties are making them? Nothing, except abstain or spoil their paper: and this, putatively, proves "apathy".

So, first, even the assumptions attending that 1960 US outcome could take some re-examining.

Since that time, our relationship with TV has totally changed. On a techno-philosophical level, the idea that the camera produced a legible truth, wouldn't lie – well, that has been totally unpicked, by a probably universal awareness of the tricks, edits and omissions that visual media can get away with.

Furthermore, the prevailing idea is that, when TV gets less sophisticated, this is a reflection of the mores of the man on the street. Simon Cowell's ubiquity, Jonathan Ross's prosperity, Bruce Forsyth's career longevity – all these things indicate a nation in intellectual crisis. But what if that isn't so? What if rubbish TV

Buy a Kindle, get free one-day shipping

By Matt Burns (CrunchGear)

Just saying… [ Amazon]

indicates nothing but the laziness of those making it, that the populace is no stupider, indeed is better informed and less docile and more diverse in its interests than it has ever been?

Then, the notion of sitting in front of a TV set for 90 minutes, gazing at the would-be leaders, unable fully to understand their fancy talk but letting our guts decide which one is trustworthy… this is absurd. You aren't like that. I'm not like that.

Why should anybody else be like that? I'm not saying people don't exist who aren't totally politically disengaged. I'm just saying there aren't that many of them, and they probably don't vote.

• Television • Television industry • Gordon Brown • Nick Clegg • David Cameron • General election • Richard Nixon • John F Kennedy • Simon Cowell • George Bush • Al Gore Zoe Williams guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

World/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

7

Church recruiting drive targets two-year-olds

By Polly Curtis, Riazat Butt (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

young people by being out of touch with their lives. "The tragedy is that we appear to be failing even those with whom we have already connected. The Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:15:06 PM challenge is how to creatively Children as young as two are to offer children and young people be targeted as part of a new encounters with the Christian campaign to recruit young people faith and the person of Jesus back to the church, the Guardian Christ," it says. has learned.

It comes as the archbishop of The Church of England is Canterbury, Rowan Williams, planning its first concerted drive prepares to deliver his annual to engage under- 18s after Christmas message. It is expected a d m i t t i n g t h a t i t i s that he will speak of his comprehensively failing to c o n c e r n s a b o u t t h e c o n n e c t w i t h c h i l d r e n a n d commercialisation of Christmas teenagers. and focus again on the ravages of Proposals will be put before the capitalism following a year of general synod in February that continuing economic turmoil. include a blueprint to set up The archbishop faces a difficult breakfast, homework and sports new year because of a continuing clubs in schools as well as revolt over the ordination of working in publicly funded w o m e n a s b i s h o p s , w i t h toddler playgroups to spread the potentially hundreds of clergy Christian word. converting to Roman Catholicism A document outlining the in protest over the issue, and the proposals, seen by the Guardian, prolonged disintegration of the says urgent action is needed to Anglican communion over gay shore up the number of children and lesbian clergy. Added to this in church. already combustible mix is a "We need to reconsider how we p a p a l v i s i t , t h e f i r s t f r o m engage with and express God's Benedict XVI. It will be their love to this generation of children most public encounter since the and young people, whoever and papal decree allowing Anglicans wherever they may be," it says. to defect to Rome en masse.

Using frank language, it The document, Going for suggests the church is failing Growth, sets out a plan devised

by the Church of England's education division that promises to make churches more "childfriendly" and to work towards every child – regardless of their faith – having a "life-enhancing encounter with the Christian faith and the person of Jesus Christ". It includes: • An information campaign to supply schools with materials to fulfil their legal duty to conduct a daily act of worship amid reports that many schools have dropped it.

• Creating a new "social, moral, spiritual and cultural curriculum" for further education colleges.

• It identifies environmental campaigns as a key concern of children and says it must do more to act on such issues in order to win them round.

• To work in youth clubs and children's playcentres to reestablish links outside of church.

The document says: "Contact centres, Sure Start projects, children's centres and extended schools provisions hold potential for the church to engage with children, young people and families through activities, breakfast and homework clubs, parenting support and sports activities."

In October Williams announced plans for a major expansion of

church schools. The Church of England already sponsors 27 academies - government-funded but independently run secondaries - and has eight more in the pipeline for 2010 and another 30 under discussion.

Today's plans suggest the church intends to go beyond schools into the community in an attempt to engage people from an even earlier age. They will be debated at the general synod, the Anglican governing body, in February. If backed, the programme will be rolled out nationally.

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: "For most people the church is an irrelevance and it is abusing its privilege by intruding into taxpayer-funded secular places in order to recruit the next generation of churchgoers. Parents should not be forced to have their children endure religious proselytising as a captive audience as the price of receiving public service."

The Rev Jan Ainsworth, the Church of England's chief education officer, said there was no compulsion on anyone taking part in a church-run group to become Christian and the emphasis in training would avoid the use of heavy-handed tactics.

"We do not endorse highpressure techniques, we would not endorse anything that places psychological pressure on someone. We would endorse ways of interesting children in the Christian faith and the Christian story."

She said the decline in children attending church was part of wider trends. "Sundays have changed. People go shopping or go to football. If you're in a split family will you go to church or go to see your dad? You'll go and see your dad. It's a different day than it used to be and the impact on the old-fashioned model has been quite serious." The church would target all children, not just those in Christian families, she said. The primary purpose of Going for Growth was "making sure every child does encounter the Christian faith and the Christian story".

• Anglicanism • Religion • Christianity • Children • Rowan Williams Polly Curtis Riazat Butt guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

The Apple Mouse, Evolved (and Humping) [Apple] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:40:00 PM

Living, breathing mice evolved over millions of years. The Apple mouse has mutated from a beige

box to contoured sliver, like a big drop of mercury, in just over 20.

There are way more awesome

shots at Raneko's Flickr gallery: [ Raneko/Flickr via Cult of Mac]

8

World/ Finance/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Cleopatra's mausoleum discovered

By Helena Smith (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

antiquity would have held a seven metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented her from consoling her Roman lover Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:10:51 PM before he died, reputedly in • Threshold to massive door 30BC. found off Alexandria "As soon as I saw it, I thought we • Queen's mausoleum part of are in the presence of a very sunken palace complex special piece of a very special They were one of the world's door," Harry Tzalas, the historian most famous couples, who lived who heads the Greek mission, lives of power and glory – but said. who spent their last hours in "There was no way that such a despair and confusion. Now, heavy piece, with fittings for more than 2,000 years since double hinges and double doors, Antony and Cleopatra walked the could have moved with the earth, historians believe they may waves so there was no doubt in finally have solved the riddle of my mind that it belonged to the their last hours together. mausoleum. Like Macedonian A t e a m o f G r e e k m a r i n e tomb doors, when it closed, it archaeologists who have spent closed for good." years conducting underwater Tzalas believes the discovery of excavations off the coast of the threshold sheds new light on A l e x a n d r i a i n E g y p t h a v e an element of the couple's dying u n e a r t h e d a g i a n t g r a n i t e hours which has long eluded threshold to a door that was once historians. In the first century AD the entrance to a magnificent the Greek historian Plutarch mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, wrote that Mark Antony, after queen of the Egyptians, had built being wrongly informed that for herself shortly before her Cleopatra had killed herself, had death. tried to take his own life. When They believe the 15-tonne the dying general expressed his

wish to pass away alongside his mistress, who was hiding out inside with her ladies-in-waiting, he was "hoisted with chains and ropes" to the upper floor of the mausoleum. But, Plutarch wrote, "when closed the [mausoleum's] door mechanism could not open again".

Tzalas said: "For years, archaeologists have wondered what Plutarch, a very reliable historian, meant by that line. And now, finally, I think we have the answer. Allowing a dying man to be hoisted on ropes was not a very nice, or comforting thing to do, but Cleopatra couldn't do otherwise. She was there only with females and they simply couldn't open such a heavy door."

The threshold, part of the sunken palace complex in which Cleopatra is believed to have died, was discovered recently at a depth of eight metres but only revealed this week. It has yet to be brought to the surface. The archaeologists have also recovered a nine-tonne granite block which they believe formed part of a portico belonging to the

adjoining temple of Isis Lochias.

"We believe it was part of the complex surrounding Cleopatra's palace," said Zahi Hawas, Egypt's top archaeologist. "This is an important part of Alexandria's history and brings us closer to knowing more about the ancient city."

According to Plutarch, who based his accounts largely on eyewitness testimonies, Antony died within seconds of laying eyes on his beloved queen and mother of his children. Cleopatra, the most powerful woman of her day and Egypt's most fabled ruler, is believed to have taken her own life days later – possibly with the aid of an adder.

• Heritage • Egypt • Architecture Helena Smith guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Rfiddler Rifle Zaps USB Sticks and RFID Chips Into Oblivion [DIY]

By Sean Fallon (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:20:00 PM

Sensitive data is no match for the Rfiddler rifle. It can burn out RFID tags and USB sticks by zapping them with a strong electromagnetic field generated by a hacked 0.6kJ photo-flash unit driving a 50 turn copper spool.

So, in addition to frying data, the resulting flash from the gun will also fry your retinas. It even has a built-in MP3 player with a 2-watt amp for sound effects. Needless to say, if you do decide to build something like this, I wouldn't go aiming it at credit cards, hard drives, passports or living creatures. Hit the following link for instructions. [ codeninja via Hack a Day via Technabob]

Geithner Expects U.S Job Growth by Spring

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks)

spring. it's getter better, getting "Most economists would say that, stronger," while underscoring by the spring, we'll have positive that the big variable in the Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:40:00 PM job growth," Geithner said in an expansion concerns when the F i l e d u n d e r : F o r e c a s t s , interview Wednesday on ABC's U.S. economy starts adding jobs Employees, Recession U.S. "Good Morning America," while again.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner adding that it's unlikely there was Continue reading Geithner said he's expecting net, monthly any job growth in December. the U.S. economy is "growing, Expects U.S Job Growth by U.S. job growth to resume by Geithner also emphasized that Spring

Geithner Expects U.S Job Growth by Spring originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Finance/ Tech/

E-reader News Edition

AUSCHWITZ, continued from page 3

emigrated to America before the war, became an unctuous rabbi, and, 60 years after the fact, exacts from his former schoolmate Heniek, now a Catholic priest with a liking for little boys, endorsement of his entirely unfounded claim that back in 1941 the rabbi of Jedwabne led his flock into the barn with Torah held high, glorifying God's name, Kiddush Hashem. No one's selfcomforting myth is left intact.

The historian's proper questions about strict historical accuracy, about what is typical or exceptional, cause and effect, are secondary here. For here is a deeper truth: this is what human beings are capable of when they find themselves in the wrong

place at the wrong time. (And to be a small town in eastern Poland occupied first by the Soviets, then by the Nazis, then by a Soviet-imposed Polish communist regime, is almost a definition of wrong place, wrong time.) Anyone born in a luckier place and time must say: there, but for the grace of geography, go I. Except that we all walk that way, only without the extremes. It is not just that some people are villains, others heroes; it is that the very same man or woman can behave terribly at one moment, magnificently the next. We can be both lower than the apes and higher than the angels. We are weak; we are strong. We acquire a burden of guilt; we stake a

claim to mercy. Then we grow old, sicken and die.

• Poland • Germany • Judaism • Catholicism • Christianity • European Union • Holocaust

influence on the US? Dominic Asquith, former British ambassador to Baghdad, said: "I think there was an unrealistic expectation among our political leaders of the degree to which the Americans would absorb and act upon our advice."

Admiral Lord Boyce, the former chief of defence staff, said "I could not get across to the US the fact that the coalition would not be seen as a liberation force and that flowers would be stuck at the end of rifles and that they would be welcomed and it would all be lovely."

• Iraq war inquiry

• • • •

Timothy Garton Ash guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

IRAQ continued from page 2

disdain for what we were about to embark upon."

• Should Britain have worked harder to stop the American Coalition provisional authority chief, Paul Bremer, going ahead with "de-Ba'athification" of the Iraqi army and civil service in the summer of 2003?

Viggers described the decision as "crazy". Manning said: "I'm not aware of anybody in London, either an official, myself or at ministerial level, who thought that disbanding the army or having a purge of the Ba'ath party was a good idea".

• Did Britain overestimate its

Iraq Tony Blair Foreign policy Politics and Iraq

Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

9

A resolution for Hollywood in the new year: Get home video moving again

By Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)

traction, and that digital distribution and rental of discs are also acting as offsetting Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:00:00 PM elements. While that may be true, Filed under: General Electric I'm not so sure I can be as (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt positive, because I still believe Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), that the studios have a long way Comcast Cl'A' (CMCSA), News to go in terms of answering the Corp'B' (NWS), Media World DVD issue.

The DVD market continues to Continue reading A resolution disappoint. There's an article over for Hollywood in the new year: at The Hollywood Reporter Get home video moving again discussing the industry and its A resolution for Hollywood in sorry state. According to the the new year: Get home video piece, sales of discs are down moving again originally appeared 13% at the end of the third on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 quarter.

Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please Interestingly enough, the article see our terms for use of feeds. goes on to give a positive spin to Read| Permalink| Email this| the news by pointing out that the Comments Blu-ray format is gaining

VoIP service Jajah Twitter: Home gets acquired by for your holiday Telefonica hangover cure?

By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

By Chris Matyszczyk (Webware.com)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:41:00 AM Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:58:48 AM

United States-based communications company Jajah g e t s b o u g h t b y telecommunications giant Telefonica Europe for $207 million.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Because you will need a hangover cure over the holidays, a site called Blinkbox has dedicated a Twitter page to the latest and greatest methods of surviving your excesses.

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

10

Finance/ Tech/

E-reader News Edition

California's Mojave America Movil Is Desert may not become Undervalued a solar capital after all

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks)

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:20:00 PM

Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:20:00 PM

Filed under: Other issues, Politics The solar energy movement, so promising, has hit a speed bump. Just as solar's cost per kilowatt hour starts to become attractive, from a U.S. residential use standpoint, sure enough another roadblock has appeared.

The problem? Environmental concern about destroyed or altered vistas -- essentially sight pollution -- but also pollution that physically harms the environment.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's, DCalifornia, stated opposition to building in the Mojave Desert has effectively ended 13 big solar

energy plants and wind projects there, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Continue reading California's Mojave Desert may not become a solar capital after all California's Mojave Desert may not become a solar capital after all originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Filed under: Stocks to Buy America Movil SAB de CV ( AMX), the leading wireless provider in Latin America, continues to capitalize on its prospects for new business in the region, which is a major reason I'm reiterating my buy rating for the company's shares, first recommended on June 24, 2009, at a price of $36.47. If you bought AMX in June, you're up about 30%.

Look for 14-16% revenue growth in 2009 with AMX, followed by 10-12% revenue

Facebook COO friends Disney board

By Tom Taulli (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:00:00 PM

Filed under: Walt Disney (DIS) The Walt Disney Company ( DIS) has a high-caliber board of directors, which includes heavyweights like Apple, Inc.'s ( AAPL) Steve Jobs. Having solid leadership has been critical for the company's growth, which is

For example, she managed the highly successful AdWords and AdSense programs at Google Inc. not easy when dealing with the ( GOOG).

Continue reading Facebook whims of kids.

So, this week Disney added COO friends Disney board another top operator to its board: Facebook COO friends Disney the COO of Facebook, Sheryl board originally appeared on Sandberg. While she has held the BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec post since only March 2008, her 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see Internet savvy is much deeper. our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

growth in 2010, led by improving performance in two, key markets: Brazil and Mexico. Subscriber growth should remain in the strong 9-11% range in 2010.

Continue reading America Movil Is Undervalued America Movil Is Undervalued originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Twitter buys developers of GeoAPI

By Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:48:00 PM

With location-aware services hot right now in the social-media segment, Twitter is buying the developers of a popular API used by developers on the platform.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

Airgas: Pull -back is buy opportunity

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:40:00 PM

Filed under: Stocks to Buy Investors who think long-term with Airgas Inc. ( ARG) will be rewarded, and that's a major reason I'm reiterating my buy rating for the company's shares, first recommended on June 24, 2009 at a price of $39.89. If you bought Airgas in June, you're up about 19%.

As expected, Airgas is performing better, and institutional investors (IIs) have looked past near-term sluggish revenue to projected, brighter quarters in FY2010 Continue reading Airgas: Pullback is buy opportunity Airgas: Pull-back is buy opportunity originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

11

UFC targets online piracy. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go all RIAA on us.

By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear)

identified 271 unauthorized streams, which is where the 140,000-person estimate comes Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:00:53 PM from. Surely there were more It’s been a running theme for the s t r e a m s t h a t U F C d i d n ’ t past few years, and as more and find—how can you patrol the more people get faster Internet e n t i r e I n t e r n e t ? — a n d t h e c o n n e c t i o n s , a n d a s v i d e o numbers don’t include non-live compression technology viewership. You know, continues to improve, we’re BitTorrent and the like. I can’t going to be hearing a lot more help but think that they are about it. I refer, of course (of people out there who avoid course!), to illegal streams of live reading UFC results until they sporting events. Whether you’re are able to download a torrent the firing up TVAnts on Sunday to next day. watch Arsenal take on Aston You’ll recall that WWE started Villa, or trolling USTREAM for going after illegal online streams a live feed of WWE’s Royal earlier this year. The thing is, Rumble, or looking for MMA- WWE claimed, quite like Fertitta TV to watch this month’s UFC here, that online streams were pay-per-view, you are, in fact, damaging its bottom line. That’s breaking the law. Not only are not necessarily the case. The very you breaking the law, but you first pay-per-view that WWE may even be taking money away actively patrolled illegal streams from the companies/teams/sports for, June’s The Bash, was among you purport to support. But is the least purchased pay-perthat all there is to it? views of the year. If we were to Lorenzo Fertitta, the co-owner of f o l l o w W W E ’ s l o g i c , t h a t UFC (the more famous Dana buyrates (the number of people W h i t e i s t h e c o m p a n y ’ s who buy a pay-per-view) would president), recently went to increase once the streams were Capitol Hill to discuss the eliminated, well, then The Bash problems facing UFC with would have done better than the respect to online piracy. He told previous pay-per-view, May’s the House Judiciary Committee Extreme Rules. It didn’t: The that some 140,000 people Bash did 178,000 buys to w a t c h e d U F C 1 0 6 , t h e Extreme Rules’ 213,000. company’s November pay-per- (I would suggest that the best view event headline by Tito Ortiz way for WWE to improve its vs. Forrest Grifin, online using bottom line is to improve its various streaming sites. UFC had p r o d u c t a n d n o t b l a m e

business being on its television, act as if they’re “above” the crowd and people watching at home (insulting the audience isn’t exactly a good idea) or refer to non-existent events like “SummerFest”; when a wrestler who co-headlined the biggest WreslteMania ever(buyrate-wise) dies and not a single word is mentioned on television. I could go on but that would be boring.

The point is, WWE isn’t very good these days and illegal streams have nothing to do with that.)

All of this assumes, of course, that people viewing illegal online externalities like illegal online streams are inherently lost streams. You cannot expect customers. That’s the same people to continue to buy pay-per argument the RIAA tried to -view events or watch the TV make, and look where it got those shows when the talent roster is guys. Believe it or not, but stale, bland, and woefully people do exist who have zero misused (see: pushes starting and intention of purchasing a pay-per s t o p p i n g t o t h e p o i n t o f -view. If the stream goes down destroying a wrestler’s future they’re not going to call their credibility); when storylines cable company to buy the event, make little to no sense, even but rather will go about their accounting for the suspension of business as if nothing happened. disbelief required to watch pro You don’t have to worry about wrestling in the first place; when these guys: pay-per-views could comedy, and I use the word cost $2 and they still wouldn’t lightly, becomes the focal point buy ‘em of each and every show at the Here’s how I look at it: you have e x p e n s e o f , I d o n ’ t k n o w , to figure that the people who are wrestling(see: The Little People’s watching these illegal streams are Court and the Tiger Woods gag younger people. What 50-yearfrom last Monday’s Raw–what old man is going to sit down and does Tiger Woods’ current pickle figure out how to forward his have to do with WWE?); when router’s ports so that some guest hosts, who have no

Chinese-made P2P application works properly? Piracy is a young person’s game. Now, if you’re UFC or WWE you can look at this as they currently look at it, which is to freak out and yell, You’re stealing our money!

Or, you can look at it like this: let’s assume some 15-year-old kid is tooling around on a message board in one window with a UFC stream in another window. This kid doesn’t have $50 per month to pay for UFC pay-per-views, and maybe his parents wouldn’t let him buy one in the first place. So rather than eliminating this kid’s exposure to your product, why not bank on the fact that, in a few years when this kid has a proper job and can afford to buy things, he’ll throw some of his new-found discretionary income your way?

“Oh man, I remember UFC from a few years back. I used to love that shit. Let me order a pizza and invite my friends over so we can watch the fight tonight on my huge TV.” Does anybody in these organizations think like that?

Yes, I understand that that’s an unorthodox way of looking at things, but what great company or organization didn’t think “outside of the box” every once in a while? Again, to make the music industry comparison, they UFC page 17

12

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Review: Aerial7 Sound Disk Beanie headphone-hat

By Devin Coldewey (CrunchGear)

there’s no padding on them at all except for the millimeter-thin material making up the inner Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:40:36 PM lining of the headphone pockets Short Version: The audio is only in the hat. That can be pretty passable (at least at speed) and rough on your ears if you have a the fit questionable, but hey, helmet pushing on them or if these do just what they set out to they’re just not aligned over your do: put some headphones in a ears just right. In the next decent hat. generation of this product I’d Feels a little weird to plaster my really appreciate a little bit of face all over the front page like padding in the headphone pocket. that, but hats without heads in The sound is what you’d expect them are even less photogenic from a plain pair of traditional than I am. headphones — something you’d Features: pick up at a drugstore for $15-20.

• Several styles to choose from They’re loud enough if you want (this review is for “Cotton T to push them and I didn’t hear a Black”) lot of distortion, but there wasn’t • In-line mic for too much clarity either. But the iPhone/Blackberry fact is I could hear my music • Low-profile headphone drivers perfectly well while zooming • Regular 3.5mm jack around on my bike, so really, mission accomplished there. I’m Pros: I have to say that when I first the lyrics over the wind rush, beyond me. But this one was a not expecting a high-fidelity • Hey, they work tried these out, biking about a that’s better than nothing. And bit tall and narrow for me; it fully audio experience while trucking • Hat is decent quality, fairly mile over to the Central District, while they weren’t beating my covered my ears and still had a down to the coffee shop. warm I was pretty disappointed. I found eardrums with their bass or little poof at the top. Not Smurf Conclusion: I think $60 is a little • Easy to set up and remove the fit too tight and the sound allowing me to marvel and their levels of poof, but enough that I steep for what they’re offering. (handy for washing) tinny. But a friend tried the hat crisp highs, they did sound clear felt I had to pat it down. I wore it However, if you do spend a lot of on and pronounced it perfectly enough once I got the alignment during a cold snap a while ago time on the slopes, for instance, Cons: comfortable, and on the way back right. here in Seattle and it did all right, or riding your bike around, and • Sound quality not so good I played a different playlist and The hat itself is a plain cotton, though it took forever to dry out want to listen to music or talk on • White cable not so hot against the phone, this is definitely a found that they really didn’t quite decently made, with a red when I got rained on. black hat, or going to non-iPod sound so bad after all. I mean, patterned interior that showed as The headphones themselves are simple and workable solution. I’d device let’s be honest here. You’re a sort of rim. It fit snugly — touted as having a flat design, go with the knit version, though.

• Tight fit can make headphones going to be walking, running, almost too snugly for me, but I which is true, but then again so Product Page press against ears too hard biking, or skiing while listening tend to prefer looser knit caps. do most headphones once you to these, and if you can make out Why I didn’t review a knit one is take the padding off. Yeah, Full Review:

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

13

The Engadget Show - 004: The decade in gadgets, with special guest Peter Rojas!

By Joshua Topolsky (Engadget)

you get your chance to see how it all went down. This is a long one folks, so grab some popcorn and Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:15:00 PM settle in for the show!

What a crazy 10 years, right Update: The HD download is guys? It's really flown past; the now live! highs, the lows, the stuff in the Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul middle that didn't seem very Miller, Nilay Patel impressive one way or another. Special guest: Peter Rojas For our final Engadget Show of Produced and Directed by: Chad the decade, we asked site founder Mumm Peter Rojas to join us for a look Executive Producer: Josh back at our picks for the most Fruhlinger important and / or interesting Edited by: Tony Chen gadget developments since 2000. Music by: Bubblyfish A hardcore crowd came out just Visuals by: CJ after a gigantic snowstorm to Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec witness the proceedings, and now Download the Show: The

Engadget Show- 004 (HD) / The Engadget Show - 004(iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted) Subscribe to the Show: [ iTunes] Subscribe to the Show

directly in iTunes (M4V). [ Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (M4V). [ RSS M4V] Add the Engadget

Show feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

Continue reading The Engadget Show - 004: The decade in gadgets, with special guest Peter Rojas!

The Engadget Show - 004: The decade in gadgets, with special guest Peter Rojas! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out?

By Paul Miller (Engadget)

75% chance of happening, and the tablet is squarely at 50 / 50.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:31:00 PM The most interesting word, Breaking news, everybody: however, comes out of the Apple's working on some stuff. Silicon Alley Insider, who is The rumors are flying in all quoting a "plugged-in source in directions today, starting out the mobile industry" who says fairly innocently with word from that Apple is working with some the oft-innacurate DigiTimes of select app makers on prepping an iPhone-destined 5 megapixel high-res apps to demo on a "new, camera sensor. Piper Jaffray's larger mobile device." The device Gene Munster piled on with an would be shown in January but redesigned apps to mature (at investor note saying they're not available at that time -- WWDC, perhaps?). While that giving an Apple January event a presumably in wait for these rumor is being piled in with the

ever-present tablet hubbub, if we were to read between the lines we'd say it sounds more like a higher-resolution iPhone in the style of Google's Nexus one or Motorola's Droid -- both of which are making the iPhone's 320 x 480 screen look a tad archaic. Certainly more likely than Apple releasing " several tablets" to match up with all the disparate rumors we've seen of the 7-inch / 9-inch/ 10-inch unicorn device.

Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Gizmodo, Pocket-lint| AppleInsider, Silicon Valley Insider, DigiTimes| Email this| Comments

14

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Fan Giz Facebook, Follow Giz Twitter [Announcements]

By Christopher Mascari (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:50:00 PM

Did you know Gizmodo has a Facebook and Twitter page?

Depending on which site you use the most, our Facebook and Twitter pages are a great way to see Gizmodo's most interesting stories. Here's what you need to know: Don't worry, we never spam our Facebook or Twitter pages with a crazy amount of updates. We reserve these pages for our most interesting stories or breaking news. Becoming a fan of the Gizmodo Facebook Page or following the Gizmodo Twitter is super easy and all you have to do Continue reading FCC commish is follow the links below. says Verizon's ETF response is Gizmodo Facebook 'unsatisfying and, in some cases, Gizmodo Twitter troubling' We think you'll enjoy seeing our FCC commish says Verizon's stories in your Facebook or ETF response is 'unsatisfying Twitter updates, and if you have and, in some cases, troubling' any friends or colleagues that get originally appeared on Engadget the same entertainment from on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:30:00 reading Giz we suggest you tip EST. Please see our terms for them off to become a Fan or use of feeds. Permalink| FCC| Follow.

Email this| Comments

FCC commish says Verizon's ETF response is 'unsatisfying and, in some cases, troubling'

By Chris Ziegler (Engadget)

that she found Verizon's answers "unsatisfying and, in some cases, Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:30:00 PM troubling," noting that customers A member of the FCC's five- a r e a l r e a d y p a y i n g " h i g h " person commission, Mignon monthly fees and suggesting that Clyburn, has sent out a letter the public interest isn't being today in response to Verizon's served when someone gets earlier reply regarding questions slammed with a three-digit surrounding its gargantuan $350 cancellation charge mid-contract. early termination fee on so-called She also straight-up calls the "advanced devices," and in brief, company out on its claim that it looks like this issue is far from c u s t o m e r s a r e n ' t b e i n g tied off. Her choicest quote is inadvertently charged when the

press the web button on their phone without an appropriate plan, saying that "press reports and consumer complaints strongly suggest otherwise."

Commissioner Clyburn's conclusion? "I look forward to exploring this issue in greater depth with my colleagues in the New Year." Dum dum dummmmm. Follow the break for the full text of the letter.

[Thanks, Daniel P.]

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Home theater setups

By Richard Lawler (Engadget)

the finest Williams-Sonoma has to offer just won't cut it. Luckily, Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:11:00 PM we're here to help, especially if Welcome to the Engadget that poor soul is limited to some Holiday Gift Guide! The team old school XGA projector, h e r e i s w e l l a w a r e o f t h e juggling multiple remotes or still heartbreaking difficulties of the waiting to make the jump to Bluseasonal shopping experience, ray. Dig in after the break and see and we want to help you sort what will distract them from the through the trash and come up HDTVs unnatural light long with the treasures this year. enough to say thanks.

Below is today's bevy of hand Gallery: Holiday Gift Guide: curated picks, and you can head Home theater setups back to the Gift Guide hub to see Continue reading Engadget's the rest of the product guides as Holiday Gift Guide: Home they're added throughout the theater setups holiday season.

Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Congratulations, you've reached Home theater setups originally the end of your holiday list and appeared on Engadget on Wed, have only one person left -- 23 Dec 2009 17:11:00 EST. unfortunately, they're the one that Please see our terms for use of never leaves the living room. feeds. Permalink| | Email this| With eyes constantly glues to the Comments screen, a simple sweater or even

15

The 50 Worst Gadgets of the Decade [Y2k10]

By Brian Barrett (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM

We're almost clear of the aughts.

Just one more week, and we get to leave this decade behind for good. But before we do, it's worth taking stock of the absolute worst gadgets these last

By Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) cells, even while they are 10 ten years have given us. times thinner. How much? They We haven't ranked our picks, but Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM can get 14.9 percent solar-to- we have put them in a rough When I first saw this abstract electricity power conversion chronological order. Think of it image, I thought I was looking at efficiency at only 14 to 20 as a guided tour through the some weird crystals, or maybe m i c r o m e t e r s t h i c k n e s s . B y v a r i o u s c i r c l e s o f g a d g e t some snowflakes under the comparison, a human hair is 70 hell—and feel free to have a little guilt when you spot the ones microscope using polarized light. micrometers thick.

The answer was much more As a result of their thickness and you've owned (or still do). amazingerest and surprising than overall size, the Sandia Labs' Anything we've missed? Share it that. solar cells can be attached to any in the comments. There have These are the new solar cells flexible surface, including cloth. been thousands of gadgets developed at Sandia National In other words: These things released since 2000, and we're Laboratories, the guys who have the potential to turn your sure there are at least fifty more brought us the nuclear bomb and jacket or underpants into a giant out there that should never have m a n y o t h e r w o n d e r f u l walking power source. Or a small seen the light of day. inventions. The cells are made of one. That depends on you. [ Update: OK, now all you gallery haters can view the embedded all crystalline silicon, which means Physorg via Inhabitat] in one long skinny post, if you that they can produce the same prefer. Here you go. You're energy as most standard solar welcome.

What Is This? [Power]

16

Gadgets/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Nook shipping update assures pre-orders arriving on time

By Laura June (Engadget)

Apple to Host Event in Late January, Possibly (Yeah, Yeah) TabletRelated [Apple]

Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:09:00 PM

This should come as a relief to all you anxiously awaiting your Barnes and Noble Nook preorders. We've received a statement from Barnes and Noble affirming that all pre-orders which had an original pre-holiday ship date will be fulfilled, and that the rest of the orders will be filled starting on Friday. Here's the full, reassuring statement: "We're happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a preholiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there's been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong

By Dan Nosowitz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:10:00 PM

and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010. " Happy, happy holidays!

Nook shipping update assures pre-orders arriving on time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

The Financial Times is reporting that Apple rented out the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, its preferred convention center, for a few days in late January.

Does this mean all the tablet rumblings are correct?

Likely as not, it means a product

By Donald Melanson likely indicates that this one's a announcement. The last time (Engadget) multitouch tablet -- the Eee PC Apple rented out the YBCA, it T101 that we've seen previously was for September's iPod event, Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:04:00 PM was a 10-inch tablet with the which while sort of unexciting Asus' Eee PC T101 convertible usual unremarkable netbook did see the introduction of the tablet has been floating around in specs, but an upgrade to Pine new video-shooting Nano. With one form or another for quite a Trail seems a safe bet for this the grumblings about Apple while now, but it looks like it's model. cutting deals with cable TV now finally cleared the FCC as Asus Eee PC T101MT revealed networks, analysts are bound to the Eee PC T101MT, which by the FCC originally appeared be going crazy with the thought seems to suggest that it might just on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec of the Tablet being announced. be getting official at CES next 2009 14:04:00 EST. Please see Either way, we'll know January month. While details on this our terms for use of feeds. 26th, and will keep you updated particular model are pretty light, Permalink Netbook Italia| FCC| as invitations and other hints the FCC filing does confirm that Email this| Comments come forth. [ Financial Times] it packs 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and the "MT" in the model name

Asus Eee PC T101MT revealed by the FCC

Tuesday Night Music: Weezer, 'Can't Stop Partying' (Little Green Footballs)

Rivers Cuomo has an affliction. his distress.

He can’t stop partying. Imagine From Raditude. (Here it is at the

iTunes Store.)[Video]

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

17

The next logical step for both bacon and popcorn is bacon-flavored popcorn

By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

KOR's Special Edition Water Bottles Are Pricey, But Charitable [Design]

Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:30:00 AM

You like bacon? Who doesn’t?!

Howsabout popcorn? Yes? If you find yourself short on time every day, perhaps you could combine bacon and popcorn by using BaconPop. Each bag is filled “with delicious, buttery, bacontastic popcorn,” according to ThinkGeek.

“Damn your tempations, Aamoth!” you scream. “I only eat Kosher food! I can’t eat bacon!”

Well this has no actual bacon in it, just bacon flavoring. Although BaconPop NOW WITH REAL BACON CHUNKS! might be the next, next logical step for both

By Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:20:25 PM

Put down that bottle of Evian (or worse, your gym-branded bottle) bacon and popcorn. and check out these "natureFive dollars gets you three inspired" water bottles from microwaveable bags and a whole KOR. Each bottle represents a lot of weird looks at work as you different water charity, with $5 moan with delight inside your from the sale of each $35 one cubicle. being donated.

BaconPop – Bacon Flavored The "sunrise orange" bottle Popcorn[ThinkGeek.com] represents the Bottle Container Recycling cause, the "sawgrass green" is for the Watershed UFC Protection, the money from the continued from page 11

By Donald Melanson QWERTY keyboard, and 3G, "ice blue" goes towards Ocean tried to sue everyone under the mainly the UFC) have the (Engadget) WiFi, and GPS capabilities. Also Protection, and the "orchid pink" sun to bring things back to the potential to be absolutely huge. on track for an official launch: helps out the Global Water Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:11:00 PM way they were. That clearly Don’t mess it up by overreacting the dual-boot Windows CE / Crisis. Pricey, yes, but they're didn’t happen, and it only served to your piracy problem.

We've already gotten up close Android Viliv P3, and the effortlessly stylish and you can't to harm the music industy’s with the S10 Blade that Viliv is Windows CE-based, 1080p video turn your nose up at charity for image in the eyes of the public. too long. [ KOR Water via promising to show off at CES, -playing HD5 PMP. So to the UFC and WWE I say but this invitation is the first Viliv N5 MID set to debut at Tuvie] this: chill out. You don’t want to we've heard of the company's N5 CES originally appeared on end up like the music industry, mobile internet device, which is Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 especially when you (well, also slated to debut at the show. 15:11:00 EST. Please see our As you can see above, this one is terms for use of feeds. Permalink| a clamshell MID, and packs a 4.8 Viliv| Email this| Comments -inch multitouch display, a fully

Viliv N5 MID set to debut at CES

18

Gadgets/ Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Web sites that shuttered in 2009

Barnes & Noble Will Ship Around 60,000 Nooks This Year

By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

By Michael Arrington (CrunchGear)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 AM

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:44:24 PM

A lot more people have ordered the Barnes & Noble Nook, first announced on October 20, than the company expected (despite getting panned by the officialreviewers). The company had Foxconn, their ODM, build far fewer of them than they should have. The original plan was to ship pre-orders by November 30 but that date was pushed back to December 7. It took a mere month for the entire

order process to break down.

Now a small number of preorders still haven’t arrived and most brick and mortar stores are sold out and even then they were only available in “higher volume” stores on December 7.

Reset Your Windows XP Password

By How-To Wiki (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:45:00 PM

Lose your Windows login

New sites launch all the time, but there are also quite a few that shut their doors. We highlight 15 that bit the dust this year and explain what happened.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Motorola to show “whats next” at CES

Help Mozilla Improve Firefox's New 'Home' Tab

By Greg Kumparak (CrunchGear)

By Scott Gilbertson (Wired Top Stories)

password, and you're left with Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:49:28 AM one very expensive doorstop.

The rumor mill has been Learn to go around the operating system and reset your password cranking way too hard over Motorola as of late for us to feel manually. confident in taking a stab at what they may launch, but Motorola has just more or less confirmed

that they'll be launching something at CES. Got any guesses as to what it is? Drop it in the comments. We'll come back on January 7th, run through all of them, and pick someone at random from those who got it right and send them a box of fun stuff we've got laying around the office.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM

Mozilla is challenging its users to envision the best use of the browser's new dedicated "Home" tab. The winning design will be incorporated into Firefox 4.0, due to arrive next summer.

Nexus One specs leaked, limited launch date revealed?

By Greg Kumparak (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:07:26 PM

Google's semi-secret Nexus One handset has been more or less exhaustively leaked at this point, with very few cats left to let out of the bag. The only two major

points left were the tech specs and the release date - and now, even those have made their way out.

BlackBerry Users See the Fail Whale Twice in Week

By Priya Ganapati (Wired Top Stories)

BlackBerry users faced a service outage that made e-mail, text

messages and web services such as Twitter and Facebook

inaccessible on their devices.

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

19

3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010

By Ben Rattray (Mashable!)

term impact might be greatest in inspiring an explosion of micromovements.

Ben Rattray is the founder and In 2010, online organizing tools CEO of Change.org, an online will start to be used en masse by media network for social change. thousands of small groups of 2009 saw a proliferation of geographically dispersed people o n l i n e c h a r i t y e v e n t s , who connect around a common competitions, and “friendraisers” interest, share information, and that spilled across Twitter and take powerful collective action.

Facebook and filled email The potential for the web to inboxes everywhere with more serve as a tool of democratic requests for money than any empowerment has been long Nigerian prince could ever hope discussed. But until recently, to make. And while it’s hard to examples of people successfully argue that this is a bad thing — self-organizing on the web to anytime someone gives money to achieve a social goal were few feed the hungry instead of buying and far between. The reason is another digital potato seed in that though the rise in blogs, Farmville, global karma rises, if social networking and social even just by a little — this focus media tools have enabled people on using the web as an ever-more to connect and share information elaborate means of getting people like never before, achieving to fork over cash misses the social change requires people to much bigger opportunities just do more than express an opinion over the horizon.

– it requires coordinated action.

As we close the books on a Cue the rise of free, easily decade in which the Internet has accessible organizing tools to tip b e e n u s e d p r i m a r i l y a s a this movement. m a r k e t i n g v e h i c l e f o r I’ve seen the power of this shift fundraising, social change on the firsthand on Change.org (a site I web is poised for a shakeup. In founded). Since launching a new 2010, three disruptive trends that social media-enabled petition ask for your participation rather tool a few months ago, our than your pocketbook will members have responded to our emerge and use the web’s unique news stories not just by telling potential to empower new forms their friends on Facebook about of social change. 1. Social an important issue or tweeting Activism Will Explode Across about a gross injustice – but by the Web taking immediate, coordinated The Obama campaign showed action. As a result, our members the unparalleled organizing have won more than a dozen power of the web for large grassroots campaigns – from national campaigns, but its long- convincing the US Department of Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:44:13 PM

Sound like an exciting way to spend a Saturday? Not to me, either. The social web enables a much more flexible, personalized and valuable exchange of volunteer labor. The most successful example of this microvolunteerism thus far is Wikipedia. 2010 will see the Labor to release a confidential Wikipedia model of microreport on slave labor, to helping volunteerism expanded into a end the food industry’s deceptive vast new array of opportunities – nutrition labeling program, to enabling lots of people to work in compelling Live Nation to cancel loose coordination to contribute a series of homophobic concerts. to worthy goal using their own Each of these victories was personal knowledge and skill. achieved with only a few The most promising thousand people who came o r g a n i z a t i o n d e v e l o p i n g a together without any prior p l a t f o r m f o r t h i s t y p e o f connection to work toward a v o l u n t e e r i s m i s T h e collective goal – showing the Extraordinaries, a Silicon Valleypower of distributed groups of based social venture. The l i k e m i n d e d p e o p l e r a p i d l y Extraordinaries allows users to responding together to a breaking accept a mission that aligns with story. their interests or skill set – such In 2010, the exportability of as to translate an organization’s organizing tools will enable these website into a foreign language sorts of dynamically created or review congressional bills for micro-movements to explode hidden pork – and complete this a c r o s s s o c i a l m e d i a s i t e s , task at their leisure, via the empowering millions more iPhone or on the web. people to translate their shared The rise of social gaming further interest around an issue into extends the possibilities, and collective action. 2. Micro- shows how individual elements V o l u n t e e r i s m W i l l E x t e n d broken up into a series of small Beyond Wikipedia engaging tasks online can Traditional volunteerism was become addictive. Millions of made for the industrial age: hours are spent playing online volunteers were slated to appear games each week; imagine the at a specific time and work an amount of good we could do if agreed-upon set of hours on the the objective of the game weren’t weekend doing a task that treated to build a virtual farm but to help you like an undifferentiated cog a real one? 3. Giving Work Will in a machine.

Become as Important as Giving

Money A couple years ago I asked Dr. Paul Farmer, an internationally acclaimed physician known for his work on infectious diseases in Haiti, what the most important single thing is for the people he serves. His answer? A job.

Although his primary focus is on health, Dr. Farmer’s rationale was that a job provides the means for not only health care, but education, food, shelter, and social status (something particularly important for women in the developing world).

The problem is that getting jobs to rural Haiti, or anywhere in the developing world, isn’t easy.

Micro-finance is one powerful enabler, empowering domestic entrepreneurs to create their own micro-enterprises. But not everyone is an entrepreneur, and many people don’t need a loan; they need a job.

In 2010 we will see the rise of digital work as a means of economic empowerment and development in the poorest countries on earth. Digital work can be completed on computers, whether in rural Illinois or rural Rwanda. One organization pioneering the movement toward digital work for development is Samasource, a Silicon Valley social business that gives poor women, youth and refugees work ranging from data entry to image tagging to Facebook application testing (yes, I’m serious).

POWERFUL page 25

20

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Marketing in 2010: It’s All About the Data

By Josh Jones-Dilworth (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:07:50 PM

Josh Jones-Dilworth is the Founder and CEO of JonesDilworth, Inc. a PR consultancy focused on bringing early-stage technologies to market. He blogs at joshdilworth.com.

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

– Mark Twain Remember that quote. In 2010 the very best marketers, PR professionals, and social media consultants will put data at the center of everything they do. For anyone unfamiliar with these concepts, just as with social media, data marketing may seem opaque or intimidating at the beginning. The only way you ever learn is by jumping in headfirst — become a data nerd, because data nerds are changing the world. Your Data Is An Asset In the near term, learn to think of data as an asset, and be creative.

Data shapes conversations and markets. But data doesn’t come to you – organizationally, the gathering, filtering, curation, visualization and publishing of data will in many cases require a reorientation of the marketing function and its relationship to other roles, but it is well worth it.

Using one’s own data to tell a broader category story is one tried and true tactic that will continue to gain popularity.

Comscore has done an excellent job of this for years, as have

companies like Mint and ZocDoc in more recent memory.

What is happening is that companies large and small are starting to turn on to the idea of the data as an asset – and not only that, but a marketing asset — one that can be used to shape discourse in ways that no number of retweets ever can. Data Journalism Is the Tip of the Iceberg Journalism itself if profoundly changing, and becoming more data oriented. The idea of “data journalism” has taken off, and everyone from Y Combinator with their recent RFS, to AOL with their controversial new automation strategy, to the Texas Tribune, which has put their databases front and center, are good indicators of what is to come over the next year.

Even non-profit offerings like This We Know, which is built on open public data, surface important stories and trends that might not have otherwise made their way across an editor’s desk.

And if you’re a PR person, the reality of data-driven reporting is going to make or break you.

But it’s not just journalism – it’s advertising, conferences and events, SEO, social media, television, promotions and offers (think Groupon), web and application development, etc. — the vehicles of communication are themselves evolving.

Getting your organization’s data game together is one thing, but understanding the mutating DNA

our fingertips.

But, the downside is that data can be darn scary, and for good reason, even despite the legions of early adopters pioneering the concept of personal data as a new form of self-expression. There are lines that should not be crossed, and there are power o f t h e m a r k e t i n g c h a n n e l s dynamics already at play that risk t h e m s e l v e s i s e v e n m o r e tipping the balance too strongly important. Privacy, Privacy, in favor of certain parties.

Privacy Despite tepid reviews, Google’s Facebook’s recent privacy new privacy dashboard is a step changes are a great example of in the right direction – the vision how privacy issues will take is to allow individuals control center stage in a data-driven o v e r t h e i r o w n d a t a . world.

P r i v a c y , s a f e t y , Empowerment and personal authenticity and transparency are freedoms are key concepts in this paramount – but what have new world, and they will be b e c o m e h e a l t h y - s o u n d i n g debated heavily in 2010, from buzzwords in word-of-mouth every angle. marketing circles will be put to The truth is that he who owns the test. the data, wins. Even though right The Twain quote that starts this n o w government is post says it all – data can be used enthusiastically hopping on the for good or evil, it can reveal open data bandwagon with great great truths and propagate results(and kudos to them for it), outstanding lies – which is it over time the gathering and going to be? How will users and dissemination of data will customers respond? When will become a highly-regulated government get involved? Who industry. will solidify their brand and who Realize that any serious will self-destruct? company that thinks of data as a Personal privacy, as it relates to core marketing asset likewise data, is an important subject for needs to think about where it gets marketers to consider seriously. that data, and the potential The upside of the proliferation of backlash if users or customers data may be that campaigns are feel manipulated or outright more measurable, strategies are fooled. We often talk about more empirical, and “release authenticity and transparency early, iterate often” is a reality when it comes to social media because social media gives us a best practices – those attitudes massive, real-time focus group at must be heightened and extended

when it comes to data. That’s So Meta Finally, looking beyond data to metadata – that’s where the biggest opportunity lies in the long-run for marketers. Metadata is already here in the form of microformats and the Semantic Web, but it’s still in many ways a frontier.

What is metadata? It’s data that describes data – it’s data that tells us about the data. It is reasonable to expect that new classes of selfdescribing data will eventually tell us not only what it is, but how to use it, who it is best suited for, what geographies it should be targeted at, and how much inertia it requires to achieve critical mass. Over time, however, marketing will transition from being based on data, to being conceptually inseparable from it. A lot of money is going to made in the process, and huge numbers of jobs will be won and lost. It’s too early to tell exactly how it’s all going to play out, but the groundwork has certainly been laid.

Robert Scoble’s idea of a “Supertweet” is a nearer-term example, and rather compelling – it is the idea that advertising (among other things) can and will be delivered at the metadata level inside of tweets, with the help of clever new data-driven interface elements. The metadata might tell you where a tweet originated, MARKETING page 29

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Washington Post Reporters Believes Bogus Police Report Over Own Editorial Aide Eye Witness And Photographic & Video Evidence

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

staffer's lying eyes?" Even worse, by the time the Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:42:00 AM Washington Post put out its Post updated to clarify that it r e p o r t , t h e r e w a s a l r e a d y was an editorial aide, rather than photographic evidence of the an editor who witnessed things drawn gun posted online, along Via Jay Rosen we learn of the with a video where the cop absolutely bizarre story of how a admits to pulling the gun.

Washington Post editorial aide Later on, the Washington Post witnessed an altercation did "update" its report, involving an off-duty police mentioning the online evidence, officer who pulled his gun on but waited for quite some time people in a snowball fight -- and before finally linking to the video the eventual Washington Post (and never linked to the photos). writeup on the story which As the Washington City Paper c o m p l e t e l y i g n o r e d t h e notes about this, it's in part due to e y e w i t n e s s a c c o u n t o f i t s very old school media thinking: editorial aide in favor of the Yet the reason why the Post claim by the police that the gun screwed this up is that they all wasn't drawn.

Y e s , a have linkophobia. If you link to W a s h i n g t o n P o s t s t a f f e r an outlet---such as, God forbid, happened to have been on the the Washington City Paper--scene and witnessed the whole you've lost. You got scooped and thing. He called it in and told a all your colleagues are going to reporter about it -- but the look down on you. Linking is a reporter simply ignored the guy's huge sign of weakness---you just account. As Jay Rosen notes: can't do it. Far better to, like, call "Who you gonna believe? The a top police official, buy his police department or your own version of events, and just place

it in a post, regardless of the contradicting evidence that's already posted elsewhere.

Take a close look at that 10:20 update on the maybe-gun-pulling cop: "The plainclothes D.C. police detective may have unholstered his pistol during the confrontation with participants in the huge snowball fight, based on video and photos posted on the Internet."

Bold and italics are mine.

They're mine because this is the most cowardly, selfish, arrogant news conduct out there today.

What the fuck is "video and photos posted on the Internet"?

How does that help readers? It's as if I can go to www.internet.com, and there, on the first screen, will be the video and photos of the snowball fight and the maybe-gun-wielding cop.

"Posted on the Internet" would be acceptable if this were 1997.

The reporters used this hazy phrasing because they were too chicken-shit to do something that

FTC asks for more info on Google-AdMob deal

By Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:18:00 PM

Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob will likely be delayed following a request from the

government for additional details.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

we all have learned to do over the past, say, decade or more. And that's to link to competitors and acknowledge their contributions to stories. Remember, this is the Washington Post, that recently had a column claiming that a blog linking to a Washington Post story (multiple times) had ripped off the Washington Post.

So, perhaps that explains why the Washington Post refused to link to others who had more accurate takes on the story. It didn't want to "rip them off," and preferred to get the story wrong, even though it employed an eye witness.

So where are all those reporters who insist that the professional press is needed because they get this stuff right, while it's the upstarts that rush to post false claims?

Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

21

What Will The Recording Industry Be Blaming For All Their Problems A Decade From Now?

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:54:00 AM

At the very end of an NPR story about the decade since Napster there's an amusing quote from Eric Garland of online music tracking firm Big Champagne, where he says: A decade from now, executives may be longing for the days--when they could blame piracy for all of their problems. Indeed. "Piracy" makes for an easy -- if totally incorrect -- scapegoat. The reality is far different. As we've seen over and over again, those who learn to properly use file sharing to their advantage don't see any "problems" from file "piracy," but actually see it as a huge opportunity. That, alone, makes it clear that piracy has never been the problem, only a failure to adapt. And yet, as we've noted repeatedly, the industry itself is actually thriving.

So that raises a separate question.

A decade from now, what will industry execs be blaming their problems on? Or, will the old "blame game" execs have moved on, and we'll be in a new industry that doesn't even think of the challenges it faces as problems, but as opportunities?

Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

22

Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

iPhone vs. BlackBerry in the California outback (CNET News.com)

to Borrego Springs for AT&T to finally kick in on the iPhone. Not a huge Verizon win, but still a On a recent trip to the California win. desert, with access to both a In Coyote Canyon, it was not a BlackBerry Storm and an iPhone definitive Verizon win but, again, 3GS, I had a chance to test Verizon was always showing a Verizon's vaunted claims about bar or two, while AT&T was better coverage. fading in and out (mostly out) of Let me preface this post by service. saying that it is not meant as a In the desert outside of Shelter comprehensive test of AT&T and Valley (the Pinyon Mountain Verizon coverage, it is simply area), nothing on either Verizon trying to show my experience or AT&T. with the iPhone and Storm and So, my experience proved, more their respective carriers in a very or less, that Verizon does have large remote area in southern better service in parts of the California. (And, yes, it's not just California desert. the carriers, coverage can be That said, Research in Motion phone specific, especially in the has had two BlackBerry outages case of the iPhone.) in the past week with e-mail Anza Borrego Desert State Park, either down or coming in drips about two hours south of Palm The largest town in the area, by a desert (figuratively) of dead On San Felipe Road, about 10 and drabs. I use a Storm2, so I Springs by car, is California's Borrego Springs (the 2000 zones, is the exception. Outside m i l e s o u t s i d e o f t h e p a r k , have experienced it first hand. largest state park and covers census put the population at of town, in places like the Verizon was showing bars (and e Put that one down in the loss roughly 1,000 square miles of about 2,500), is famous for outback of Coyote Canyon or in -mailing wasn't a problem) on the column for the BlackBerry. desert. In other words, it's mostly having rock-solid 2G (and the desert east of the Shelter Blackberry Storm, while AT&T Updated at 2:45 p.m. PST: to raw, but stunningly beautiful, increasingly 3G) coverage. In Valley area (part of Julian, was indicating no service on the b e t t e r r e f l e c t t h e s p e c i f i c wilderness. Over the years, I fact, in the spot shown in the Calif.), it's very hit or miss. iPhone 3GS. A Verizon win c o v e r a g e a r e a . have often made day trips (alone photo (embedded in this post), Map of Anza Borrego Desert there.

Five Filters featured article: or with friends/family) to boulder which was taken after an hour of State Park(Credit: Google Maps) Inside the park, approaching Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: up washes in the surrounding bouldering up a wash just west of Note that the trip was not made Borrego Springs from the south PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, mountains (see photo).

Borrego Springs, the cell phone for the express purpose of testing (about six miles away on Yaqui Term Extraction.

Anza Borrego Desert State Park: reception is no different than that Verizon and AT&T service, it Pass Road), Verizon came looking east towards the Salton in downtown San Diego. was simply done on the fly as we through again on the Blackberry Sea: surprisingly good coverage But Borrego Springs, surrounded traveled. But here's what I found. Storm. But we had to get closer here.(Credit: Brooke Crothers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:28:00 PM

Female Ducks' Twisty Tracts Defend Against Screwy Males

By Susan Milius (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:00:00 AM

Male Muskovy ducks have impressively long, screw-shaped penises that move rather quickly, as can be seen in scientists' high-

speed video. Now it appears females may have evolved oddly shaped, curved vaginal tracts to defend against unwanted males.

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

23

Hey Whatever Happened To Those Andrew Dozen Daily Deals for Cuomo-Backed, RIAA Agreements With December 23, 2009

By Victor Agreda, Jr. (The ISPs To Kick People Off The Internet? downloads for free Unofficial Apple Weblog • GoldenGadgets: [Store Events]

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:46:00 PM

It's now been over a year since the infamous announcement, leaked to the Wall Street Journal, that the RIAA was going to effectively drop its strategy of suing individuals in favor of agreements, worked out between the RIAA and ISPs with NY AG Andrew Cuomo adding pressure, to kick people off the internet on a "three strikes" regime. The whole thing sounded pretty ridiculous at the time. Cuomo had absolutely no legal standing to pressure ISPs into such a deal, since the ISPs had every legal right to say no. And, since the "leak" many ISPs have insisted, quite vocally, that they have never made any such agreement with the RIAA and that they would never kick their customers offline in such a manner.

And so Greg Sandoval, over at News.com, smartly realizes that these"preliminary agreements" we were told about last year are still nowhere to be found and goes exploring to find out why.

Reading between the lines, it appears the answer is that the RIAA flat out lied (no surprise, but...) and the Wall Street Journal bought it (again, no surprise,

but...). Basically, with various record labels hemorrhaging money, they started to cut back on their allowance to the RIAA, such that the legal strategy of suing tons of people was getting too expensive. But they didn't want to make it look like they were just giving up.

So they concocted a myth: this idea that ISPs would cut people off. It was, in fact, what the RIAA and other international entertainment industry lobbying groups had been pushing for with little success (since then they have had a few wins on that front, but also many losses). But they couldn't wait for their usual process of pushing through legislation (*cough* ACTA *cough*) to complete before they had to cut back on individual lawsuits. So they brought in Andrew Cuomo, because he had successfully threatened ISPs to get them to cut off Usenet, despite no legal basis for doing so. But, that worked because Cuomo threatened (again, despite no legal basis) to shame them for offering access to child porn.

When it came to unauthorized access to music, the moral outrage aspect isn't nearly as strong (not that the RIAA and their lobbyist friends haven't tried

six dozen ways to try to link file sharing to child porn -- but most people realize how ridiculous that is).

Given that the ISPs seemed to have little interest (i.e., no interest) in moving forward with this plan, they leaked it to the WSJ, figuring that if ISPs thought others were doing it, then they'd start to sign up, and the whole thing would become a self -fulfilling prophecy. Except they failed to account for the simple fact that people protested against any ISP dim enough to think that it's smart to kick off customers based on accusations (not convictions), and ISPs quickly stepped up to deny any such deal, shedding light on the RIAA's big lie.

So, here we are today, with no such agreements in place, and the RIAA back to trying to sneak through "three strikes" legislation through international treaties that they write (which the public has no access to). But, shouldn't someone call them on the fact that they blatantly lied last year?

And also, shouldn't someone ask where the WSJ's correction is on that story?

Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

(TUAW))

Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:30:00 PM

Filed under: Deals'Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we'll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com.

Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won't. Each is lovingly generated by the dealbot every day, so get 'em while they're hot. Enjoy!

• iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] App Store Freebies: Super Santa, Roller Uberball, Enso-Dot, BuddyFeed, more • Other World Computing: [Store Events] OWC Holiday Sale: Accessories, HDDs, RAM, LCDs, more • Other World Computing: [Apple Computers] Used Apple laptops at Other World Computing: Deals from $95 + $5 s&h • Staples: [Office & Supplies] Staples coupon: $20 off $50 • Walmart: [MP3 Downloads] The Hit Crew "Christmas & New Year's Sampler" MP3 album

GoldenGadgets.com coupon: 20% off sitewide • MacMall: [Apple Computers] MacMall Holiday Blowout Sale: Up to $250 off Apple systems after rebates • PC Connection: [MacBook Pro] MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo laptops from $1,049 after rebate + free shipping • Meritline: [Camera Accessories] Flash Diffuser Softbox for $6 + free shipping • Meritline: [Camera Accessories] Wireless Remote for Canon Digital SLR Cameras for $3 + free shipping • Meritline: [iPod Accessories] USB Data Cable for iPhone / iPod touch for 45 cents + free shipping • iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] New Feed Elite for iPhone / iPod touch downloads for 99 cents TUAW Dozen Daily Deals for December 23, 2009 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

24

Tech/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

High Frequency Trading: The Best Of Technological And Financial Innovation... Or The Next Bubble?

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

meltdowns as well. After someone figures out a "system" for making lots of money (say, This post is part of the IT mortgage-backed securities a few Innovation series, sponsored by years back), everyone starts Sun & Intel. Read more at piling in. Then, the "innovation" ITInnovation.com.

Of occurs. Now, much of it is wellcourse, the content of this post meaning, and even useful. With consists entirely of the thoughts mortgage-backed securities, and opinions of the author. Over things like credit default swaps the last couple years there's been actually were a very useful growing chatter about the rise of insurance tool originally. But at "high frequency trading," which some point, they basically flipped is the increasingly sophisticated from insurance to gambling. algorithmically-driven way of People weren't using them to financial trading, where it has back up an investment, but as the little to do with how smart your investment itself -- so you'd investment philosophy is, but actually have what was, in effect, how fast your hardware and thousands of people all buying an algorithms run. As a principle, insurance policy that one house there's nothing wrong with the wouldn't burn down. If that concept of high frequency h o u s e b u r n e d d o w n . . . t h e trading. And, as many defenders insurance company (hi, AIG) of the concept point out, such defaulted, and everything comes systems, in theory, provide more crashing down. The problem is liquidity to many markets, and that these systems become so basically skim pennies off the top complicated that it's actually in return for that liquidity. The pretty difficult to figure out what potential problem, however the "trigger" is and how the comes in when such operations disaster will spread. No one take over the market. The latest accurately predicted how the last estimates put high frequency Wall Street meltdown would trading at 61% of the market -- occur (though some certainly up from 30% just five years ago. predicted a meltdown), and the That should be a warning sign. fear with the rise of high It's typical, but you can see it in frequency trading is that the plenty of previous Wall Street situation is even more opaque.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:23:52 PM

iPhone + robot marimba player = instant band (CNET News.com)

Eigenharp, electronic music concerts can benefit from a more dynamic physical performance, What's happening is built into the Tired of Guitar Hero? Try and that's where Shimon, with its algorithms, and with more and jamming with your iPhone or bobbing cyclops head, comes in. more companies piling in, it's iPod Touch and Shimon, an As the vid after the jump shows, inevitable that some of those autonomous, marimba-playing, Shimon can take your ZOOZ algorithms are going to have a octopus-armed hipster robot. loop with a Wi-Fi flick and run bug (or, not even a bug, but Gil Weinberg, director of music with it. Here, it repeats and basically programming to do technology at Georgia Tech, is improvises on a jazzy loop, something that has serious developing Shimon as a socially playing in a variety of styles unintended consequences). dynamic band mate. He says the resembling jazz greats like John Again, I doubt there's anything robot "listens like a human and Coltrane or Thelonius Monk. nefarious in most of this (unless improvises like a machine" Shimon was recently involved in you consider making money thanks to complex algorithms what was billed as the first nefarious -- which I don't). But, that allow it to perceive and intercontinental human-robot a t s o m e p o i n t t h i n g s g e t improvise a groove. musical interaction when people overwhelming, and many are Weinberg is also behind at Siggraph Asia 2009 in beginning to wonder when we ZOOZBeat, an app that turns Y o k o h a m a , J a p a n , u s e d reach that point. I'm all for your iPhone into an instrument ZOOZBeat to jam with Shimon f i n a n c i a l i n n o v a t i o n a n d and sequencer, letting you remix in Atlanta. In a sense, the concept technology innovation -- but I and loop your own music by takes the idea of the virtual band have to admit to a bit of worry shaking, tilting, and otherwise to a new level by including when the tech innovation seems getting down with it. Beats come i n t e l l i g e n t r o b o t s a n d to be taking over to such a level bundled with the app, but you s m a r t p h o n e s . that there's little rationale for the can also download packs with No word yet on whether Shimon financial side. It's about who has vocals, hooks, and instruments. has an agent or a record deal. the better techies and hardware, If there aren't iPhone-only bands (Via NPR Music) rather than who has the better out there already, ZOOZBeat will Five Filters featured article: financial thesis, and that leads to probably start a trend. But as I Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: dangerous results, because the mentioned in an earlier post PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, p u r p o s e o f t h e m a r k e t i s a b o u t t h e e x c i t i n g n e w Term Extraction. separated from the mechanisms that make the market run. When you get that kind of separation between form and purpose, bad By Susan Slusser (Fanhouse Main) things happen.

Permalink| Comments| Email Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 AM This Story Filed under: Stars We get to Dallas Stars goalie Marty Turco. know NHL players with some quick questions. Today's subject: Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:21:00 PM

Backchecking With ... Marty Turco

Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

How iPhone apps can ruin your Christmas

POWERFUL continued from page 19

Companies take pride in the amount of money they give to charity, in many cases aiming to (CNET News.com) iTunes store customers who have garden, bang your head against give 1% of total revenue. In previously paid $60 to spy on one of the fishing gnomes and 2010, I expect at least one Silicon Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:42:57 PM others. suffer a concussion while Jerome Valley company to blaze a path Everyone who is anyone, or who However, what if you decide to repeatedly zaps you with his toward the more ambitious and potentially transformative goal of would like to be anyone, knows check up on your lover and iPhone? that the apps you have on your discover she spent 18 months in What if you suddenly and offering 1% of their work in a iPhone say a lot, well, almost an open prison in Connecticut inexplicably spend the whole of digitally enabled way to people everything, about you. for, um, fraud? How might that your Christmas dinner revealing without employment prospects – However, there are a couple of affect your experience over the your distaste for your half sister, t h e r e b y m o v i n g b e y o n d new apps that might truly Christmas morning stocking? Griselda, by consistently zapping traditional aid in favor of revolutionize your Christmas and What if you discover that your h e r o v e r t h e l a m b s h a n k ? e c o n o m i c e m p o w e r m e n t . not necessarily in a good way. parents don't actually own the Wouldn't this be augmented C o n c l u s i o n T h e f i r s t i s c a l l e d t h e house in which your gifts are reality augmented to the level of These three trends – providing new ways of giving voice, giving Background Check App. Not under the Christmas tree? What if dangerous mental instability? only is it wondrously free, but it you find out your sister regularly Christmas is supposed to be a time and giving work – represent also strikes a huge and lasting bounces checks? time when we embrace the the future of social change on the blow for personal freedom.

Still, does Background Check shared values of love, joy, web.

You can look around your have quite the potential to ruin altruism and free food, wine and I don’t mean to imply that giving money will stop being important. dinner table this holiday season your Christmas enjoyed by spirits. and, with your usual lithe grace, Gunman?

Then along come these two On the contrary, the web will pull out your iPhone. Using your Gunman encourages you to apps, subtly targeted at the continue to be an essential tool Background Check app you can enjoy the beauties of augmented "Shared Values of Christmas" for fundraising in 2010, and for discover everything you need to reality to participate in "an epic market, encouraging you to take good reason – donations are the know about the criminal history, battle with your friends." physical and emotional risks that lifeblood of non-profits and the property records, and so much Y e s , w h e n y o u h i t y o u r might result in anything from Internet is a highly efficient more of everyone there. opponent, his iPhone will vibrate. paranoia to broken relationships means of raising money. There It could be your neighbors who You can leap around the rooftops to broken crockery and garden are also an increasing number of effective fundraising platforms always seemed too good to be of your neighborhood (please see gnomes. genuinely neighborly. It could be the embedded Gunman video) Who on earth would create such your Aunt Agatha, whose affinity before Christmas dinner, shaking things? Perhaps one should for the schnapps might screen your iPhone to reload before you Background Check these people. some vital information about her take aim at those closest to you.

Five Filters featured article: past life and associations.

But what if, while you attempt to Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Background Check was released evade a sneaky attack from your PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, December 18 and it has already cousin Jerome, you slip from the Term Extraction. received plaudits from happy rooftop, fall into the neighbor's

Bring a Wet Cell Phone Back From the Dead

By How-To Wiki (Wired Top Stories)

Your mobile phone is built to go to dry the sucker out as fast as pretty much everywhere you go, you can if you want to save your except in the water. You’ll need contacts. Learn to make a wet

25

cell phone ring again.

that leverage the unique power of the web to enable new types of giving – including well-known innovators such as Kiva and DonorsChoose, and new entrants such as Vittana.

But fundraising isn’t where the innovation will be in 2010.

Instead, we’ll see the rise of new forms of participation that move beyond fundraising and make 2010 the most interesting year yet for social change on the web.

More social good resources from Mashable: - 4 Social Good Trends of 2009 - Why Social Media Is Vital to Corporate Social Responsibility - 5 Essential Tips for Promoting Your Charity Using Social Media - 20 Ways to Change the World in Only 15 Minutes a Day Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Maica, Kronick Tags: 2010, List, Lists, predictions, social change, social good, social media

26

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Digg’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories Rumor: Apple event in January, possible 10" tablet of 2009

By Ben Parr (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:55:42 PM

It’s the end of the year, traditionally a time for selfreflection. While many of us are making our New Year’s resolutions and looking back on what we accomplished, a lot of social media companies are sifting through their data and sharing what was hot in 2009.

Yahoo, Bing, Twitter and Facebook have already revealed their top searches and mostdiscussed trends and stories of 2009. While social media giant Digg has yet to release such a list, it did recently launch a tool called Digg 365, which summarizes the top stories for every day, month and year on Digg since 2005.

With the information on the social media tool’s most dugg stories at our fingertips, we decided to figure out what diggers cared about most. Thus, we uncovered the top 10 stories for Digg in 2009. While some match top trends on Twitter, Facebook and others (e.g. Barack Obama’s election, Michael Jackson’s death), other stories were decidedly humor only Diggers can truly understand.

Here’s are Digg’s top stories this

year: The Top Ten Stories on Digg in 2009 10. 11,200+ diggs: This is why I love Digg… (PIC) - Summary: Digg bands together to “sing” a classic…

9. 11,400+ diggs: Girlfriend’s angry emails to her vacationing boyfriend - Summary: One of the best humor videos from CollegeHumor this year. The text says it all..

8. 11,500+ diggs: Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard - Summary: The Onion mocks Apple and Apple’s fanboys with the “Macbook Wheel.”

7. 11,800+ diggs: Mythbusters vaporize a car with a rocket sled doing 650mph - Summary: Do I really have to explain this one?

6. 12,200+ diggs: AT&T blocks 4chan!

- Summary: AT&T blocks 4chan.

4chan responds angrily. A

ceasefire is declared and AT&T unblocks 4chan. AT&T says it wasn’t aimed at 4chan. Moral of the story: Don’t piss off 4chan.

5. 12,800+ diggs: The Pirate Bay Trial: The Official Verdict – Guilty - Summary: The Pirate Bay’s founders were declared guilty of copyright infringement, beginning TPB’s long spiral downward.

4. 14,300+ diggs: We Didn’t Start the Flame War [Music Video] - Summary: CollegeHumor hits another home run with this video.

3. 18,800+ diggs: The Story of Prisoner F95488 - Summary: This ESPN Magazine article touched a nerve with the Digg community as a rising soccer star was thrown into jail for something many believe he didn’t do.

2. 24,900+ diggs: Michael Jackson Dies - Summary: The world mourned together.

1. 25,500+ diggs: Barack Obama Officially Becomes 44th American President - Summary: Digg saw Obama as change it could believe in.

Tags: digg, digg labs

demoing iPhone apps

By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:15:00 PM

Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, Software, Apple, App Store There's a flurry of rumors this morning that Apple is planning an event as soon as this January, though exactly what they'll be showing us is still in question.

Most of the buzz (along with our buddy Gene Munster) says we will finally see the long-awaited tablet, and that after a January showing, it might actually be released as soon as March.

Which means, of course, that by August, it'll completely revolutionize whatever industry it happens to fall into. That's usually how these things work.

While a tablet is still only being bounced around, it's possible that a bigger screen is involved in some way, whether that be in a netbook style computer or something else. A few developers have reportedly been asked to ready their apps for a"full screen" resolution, which would seem to suggest that even if the new device is larger than an iPhone, it'll still run apps off the App Store.

And we've even got a size for

the screen: 7" has been the rumor, but now you can add three more inches to the diagonal, as a few sources are saying 10" will be the standard. Of course, all of this is hearsay and speculation so far, including the fact that we'll have an event at all. But 2010 has long been expected to finally be the year of the tablet, so why wait? We're looking forward to it.

TUAW Rumor: Apple event in January, possible 10" tablet demoing iPhone apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tech/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

27

My wife needs an intervention for her Live Cams addiction

Twitter buys developers of GeoAPI

By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

(CNET News.com)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM

Filed under: Software, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review It's a problem worthy of an episode of Intervention. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit that my wife is addicted to the Live Cams app on her iPhone.

It all started when she was searching for new apps in the App Store, and she noticed a little app called Live Cams[US$0.99, iTunes Link]. It sounded innocuous enough -- the app provides a way to search, browse, view, and in some cases, control live web cams all over the planet. At a price of less than a buck, Live Cams couldn't harm anything or anybody, could it?

We were both sure that the developer, Barry Egerter, couldn't have any evil intentions, so she bought Live Cams and installed it on her iPhone.

That's when I noticed the changes coming over my wife.

Rather than conversing over dinner, she would stare at her iPhone, occasionally touching the screen to switch to a new webcam or aim a camera at a new target. She'd interrupt my constant attempts at reaching a new high score in DoodleJump [ iTunes Link] by waving her

control live web cams all over the planet. At a price of less than a buck, Live Cams couldn't harm anything or anybody, could it?

We were both sure that the developer, Barry Egerter, couldn't have any evil intentions, so she bought Live Cams and installed it on her iPhone.

That's when I noticed the changes coming over my wife.

Rather than conversing over dinner, she would stare at her iPhone, occasionally touching the screen to switch to a new webcam or aim a camera at a new target. She'd interrupt my constant attempts at reaching a iPhone in front of my face, new high score in DoodleJump [ forcing me against my will to iTunes Link] by waving her look at cute kittens cavorting on a iPhone in front of my face, cat cam in Tokyo. And when she forcing me against my will to started waking up at 3:30 AM to look at cute kittens cavorting on a see what the "Really curvy road cat cam in Tokyo. And when she in Slovenia" looked like in started waking up at 3:30 AM to daylight, I knew she had a see what the "Really curvy road problem. It's a problem worthy of in Slovenia" looked like in an episode of Intervention. Yes, daylight, I knew she had a I'm ashamed to admit that my problem.

TUAW My wife needs an wife is addicted to the Live Cams intervention for her Live Cams app on her iPhone.

It all started when she was addiction originally appeared on searching for new apps in the The Unofficial Apple Weblog App Store, and she noticed a (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 l i t t l e a p p c a l l e d L i v e 13:00:00 EST. Please see our Cams[US$0.99, iTunes Link]. It terms for use of feeds. sounded innocuous enough -- the Read| Permalink| Email this| app provides a way to search, Comments browse, view, and in some cases,

and Microsoft to work. Elad Gil, the co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs, is a veteran of Twitter is usually the subject of Google and McKinsey, saying on steamy acquisition rumors, but his company bio that he coc h o s e p e r h a p s t h e d e a d e s t founded Google's Mobile team. afternoon of the business year to Seven employees are listed on announce that it has made an Mixer Labs' "About" page, but acquisition of its own. that might not be an exhaustive Twitter has bought Mixer Labs, list. the company that created the Twitter acquired Summize in GeoAPI location service for July 2008, but the company has developers building application made few acquisitions, instead atop Twitter. Evan Williams, fending off perpetual rumors that CEO of Twitter, announced the Google, Microsoft, or another acquisition on the company's tech heavyweight is poised to blog, saying "when current snap up the company. Geolocation is added to tweets, new location is definitely one of the and valuable services emerge-- hotter segments among the social everything from breaking news - m e d i a b u t t e r f l i e s , w i t h to finding friends or local companies like Foursquare and businesses can be dramatically Gowalla drawing significant enhanced." attention.

Financial terms of the deal were Five Filters featured article: not disclosed, but it would appear Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Twitter is putting some of that PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, money it now gets from Google Term Extraction.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:48:00 PM

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins Break Up (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:09:00 PM

Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who've been together for more than 20 years, have reportedly split up.

"Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer," their rep tells ET.

28

Tech/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

Is Vimeo Arbitrarily Taking Down Videos It Deems As 'Commercial'?

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

(much nicer than YouTube's), and I've recommended many Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:04:27 AM others to use its service. I had With Vimeo recently getting my own odd problem with sued by EMI for supposedly Vimeo last year when for some encouraging infringement of their unknown reason the company music in videos, it's interesting to completely deleted my account note that Vimeo is apparently and locked me out of using the arbitrarily and ridiculously service. Eventually they restored aggressive in cutting off anyone the account, but no explanation who uses the service for any sort for the deletion was ever given of "commercial" purpose(found (and it made me look bad, via Shocklee). The story is quite because I had been discussing bizarre, but apparently Vimeo stuff with someone, who then has buried in its terms of service accused me of deleting my that you can't use the service for posts). commercial reasons -- though The other oddity is the claim that almost no one knows this. Yet, Vimeo says you cannot embed Vimeo itself seems to decide Vimeo videos on sites that show rather arbitrarily if your videos ads, as that's "commercial use." are commercial or not and then Once again, we get into the gives you a 24-hour notice to difficulty of figuring out what is remove your videos. This is commercial use? If I embed a rather disappointing. Vimeo's Vimeo video in a blog post is that player is actually quite nice commercial use? This is a blog,

but it's part of our business.

Similarly, some of the speeches I've given in the past couple of years were put online using Vimeo. Are these "commercial use"? Are they then commercial use if I happen to embed the video in the blog? What if I embed someone else's video in this "commercial" blog? Like -as we did with the Vimeo getting sued story -- embedded a video from Vimeo itself? It's nearly impossible to figure out what is and what's not commercial.

About the only thing you can say is that you probably shouldn't use Vimeo for anything, because its policies appear to be totally arbitrary and prone to suddenly losing the videos you thought you had legitimately posted.

Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

BREAKING: Twitter Buys Mixer Labs to Boost Location Features

By Ben Parr (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:02:06 PM

Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams has just announced on the company’s blog that they have acquired Mixer Labs, creator of the GeoAPI. Mixer Labs is primarily a service for helping developers build geolocation apps. According to the announcement, Twitter has made the Mixer Labs team part of the company and is moving them to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. The team will work on Twitter’s recently added geolocation features and APIs. Mixer Labs has a variety of location-based products that are likely attractive to Twitter. They include Reverse Geodecoder (find a city or location with latitudes and longitudes), Places Finder (complex, local geoqueries), and Media Layers (players other media, like Twitter, into a geo-specific context).

A lot of the reasons for this acquisition have to do with the emergence of geolocation apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla, which have recently started to gain significant traction. Twitter likely hopes not only to build their own location app, but to integrate deeply with these services via their APIs. It’s also partly a talent acquisition, as both founders are ex-Googlers and were instrumental behind Google Mobile, Google Gears, and Google Toolbar.

The details are just emerging.

We’re going to keep updating this story with more information as we get it.

Tags: acquisition, twitter

Letterman ruins A Charlie Brown Christmas

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:07:00 PM

Everyone enjoys A Charlie Brown Christmas(you do enjoy

it, right?). But what if a certain late night television host was inserted into it? Let's take a look!

He's not sure which network the special is on this year (and he

calls it It's A Charlie Brown Christmas), but animated Dave is amusing. They should make a web series featuring him.

[Watch clips and episodes of The

Late Show and other shows at Permalink| Email this| | SlashControl.]

Comments Filed under: Late Night, Video, Watercooler Talk, Talk Show, Reality-Free

Tech/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

BTstack Keyboard jailbreak app provides iPhone text entry

By Erica Sadun (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

packages on a jailbroken 3G or later iPhone or 2nd generation or later iPod touch. The software has been tested with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, a Think Outside Stowaway Universal keyboard, and a Palm Wireless keyboard. There's no reason to think it won't work with any

keyboard, but the availability of folding on-the-go Bluetooth solutions makes this an exciting development for anyone who wants to expand their text entry possibiilities.

Expect to pay $5 for BTstack Keyboard when the software goes live. For more details, see Ringwald's Keyboard information page at his website.

Ringwald is the same developer whose BTstack work brought iPhone-Wiimote integration into play recently.

TUAW BTstack Keyboard jailbreak app provides iPhone standard Bluetooth keyboard, i.e. text entry originally appeared on one that uses standard BT The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 protocols.

With this small utility, users will 17:45:00 EST. Please see our be better able to take notes on the terms for use of feeds. go using a standard keyboard in Read| Permalink| Email this| a n y t e x t - b a s e d i P h o n e Comments application. Yes, you'll have to haul around the physical

you’re not technical, is that eventually, marketing will no longer be something that happens based on top of data, and the insights gained therein. It will happen literally inside the data, as a constituent part of it.

This change won’t be fully effected for several years at the earliest, but we’re starting to see

concrete examples of how this might work. The imminent arrival of true software-based assistants, for example, will only accelerate metadata assimilation.

The efficacy of machine-tomachine marketing will eventually supersede human-tohuman and machine-to-human marketing as the primary seat of

Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:45:00 PM

Filed under: iPod Family, Bluetooth, iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage Due to hit the Cydia store momentarily, Matthias Ringwald's BTstack Keyboard app allows users to type text into any iPhone application using an external Bluetooth keyboard.

Built on the open source BTstack project, BTstack Keyboard runs a daemon in the background of any jailbroken iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS or iPod touch with Bluetooth support. As you type text on the keyboard, the daemon generates synthetic keyboard tap events; the effect is the same as if you'd typed that text using the on -screen keyboard.

You will need to install BTstack and the BTstack Keyboard

29

Here's the promo for Undercover Boss (and a question I have about it)

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:30:00 PM

The other day Allison told you about CBS deciding to run the first episode of the new reality show Undercover Boss after the Super Bowl. Here's the promo that the network is running for it.

I don't know if I want to see a reality show get that coveted spot, but the question I have is this: if the CEOs don't reveal themselves to the other employees until much later, how does the camera crew explain to the employees why they're being filmed? Do they tell them they're being filmed a la DunderMifflin?

Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Video Permalink| Email this| | Comments

MARKETING continued from page 20

what tweets it is related to, how many times it has been retweeted, or what concepts that tweet is about – but the point is that tweets will become much more rich, and our understanding of their intent and use will be that much more sophisticated.

The core thing to understand about metadata, especially if

innovation in our discipline. predictions, Full Disclosure: Siri and R E L A T I O N S ChallengePost are clients of Josh Jones-Dilworth, and are referenced in stories linked to above. ZocDoc is a former client.

Images via Nick Russill and Thomas Hawk.

Tags: 2010, data, MARKETING, metadata, pr,

PUBLIC

30

Tech/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

Creator codes make a comeback in Snow Leopard with LaunchCodes

Next-gen iPhone to get a 5 megapixel camera?

By Brett Terpstra (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

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

creator code functionality to Snow Leopard. The creator codes never went anywhere; they're still in the metadata. LaunchCodes Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 PM just tells the system what to do Filed under: Software, Cool with a filetype. Setup is fast and tools easy, just enter the extension for In Mac OS X (and back into OS the file and assign an application 9 history), a creator code is a to it (similar to "Always open hidden value attached to a with"). It runs quietly in your document and bound to a menubar and directs OS X to preferred application, allowing open the application you prefer t h e O S t o k n o w w h i c h For many users -- especially for any given type of file. application to use for opening Windows switchers -- the new LaunchCodes is $4.95US and is that file. This is particularly method is an improvement, available as a free trial at the helpful for filetypes that have allowing a more standardized PageHand website. multiple valid 'target' apps response to double-clicking a TUAW Creator codes make a (JPEG, PDF, etc.); the creator document file that's driven by the comeback in Snow Leopard with code lets Preview 'own' its PDF file name extension (.doc, .html, LaunchCodes originally appeared o r i m a g e f i l e s , T e x t E d i t and the like). If you're in the on The Unofficial Apple Weblog automatically open its text files, former group, though, and (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 and so on. missing your creator codes, the 16:00:00 EST. Please see our Those who are familiar with the developer behind PageHand has a terms for use of feeds. process are already (painfully) treat for you: LaunchCodes.

Read| Permalink| Email this| aware that Snow Leopard ditched LaunchCodes is an extremely Comments this system a while back (some simple utility which restores the great details at Ars Technica).

Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM

Filed under: Hardware, Multimedia, Rumors, iPhone I'm about due for an upgrade to my first generation iPhone, and a sweet camera would help seal the deal. That's the rumor going around (more or less unrelated to the other set of rumors we heard today, though I probably wouldn't turn down a higherresolution iPhone with better camera included) according to a few places, which seem to stem from a company named Omnivision Technologies.

They're expecting to not only see an increase in production of iPhone CMOS image sensor parts from 20 million to over 40 million in 2010, but they also say they've landed a deal to put together 5-megapixel CIS pieces for a new version of the iPhone.

Take this with the requisite grain of salt, of course -- we've expected cameras in some of Apple's devices before, and a few

of us were disappointed. But it's not a big stretch to think that if Apple does release a new version of the iPhone as expected this year (be it a normal handheld or a larger tablet product), the camera in there will be able to take nicer video and better pictures than before. [via MacRumors] TUAW Next-gen iPhone to get a 5 megapixel camera? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

The Vatican Hearts ‘The Simpsons’

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:43:57 PM

L’Osservatore Romano [the Vatican newspaper] on Tuesday

congratulated the [Simpsons] on its 20th anniversary, praising its philosophical leanings as well as its stinging and often irreverent take on religion.

Without Homer Simpson and the

other yellow-skinned characters

“many today wouldn’t know how Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: to laugh,” said the article titled PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, “Aristotle’s Virtues and Home’s Term Extraction.

Doughnut.” via Variety.

Five Filters featured article:

Tech/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Wait! Nook arriving for Christmas after all (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:11:00 PM

Customers who placed early orders for Barnes & Noble's Nook e-readers will get them in time for Christmas, the company said Wednesday, despite its statements to the contrary a few days ago.

Barnes & Noble: "Just kidding on that latest delay."(Credit: Barnes & Noble) Got whiplash yet?

On Friday, the retailer told some customers by e-mail that it aimed to get the device to customers by Thursday, Christmas Eve. Those who did not get the gadget in time would get an e-mail notification on Wednesday with a $100 Barnes & Noble online gift certificate, the company said.

It appears those gift certificates won't be showing up in in-boxes, however, as the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that all B&N's Nook shipping orders will in fact be fulfilled. "We're pleased to tell our customers today that we're shipping out all our orders in time," Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, told the paper.

Various shifts in plans have

Mall of America Tweets Holiday Parking Updates

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:50:51 AM

It may not be rocket science, but it is pretty cool: The Mall of America is using Twitter to tweet parking info for last-minute holiday shoppers hoping to avoid the ever-annoying quest for a space.

The official Twitter account was launched on December 19 and will actively tweet parking updates and route suggestions to help shoppers avoid congestion.

Tweets will be ongoing — at a rate of one tweet per hour from plagued the Nook since B&N Then, later in November 20, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. — through officially entered the burgeoning B&N announced on its Web site January 1, 2010. e-reader market in late October. that its e-reader, a challenger to Of course the updates At that point, customers placing Amazon's Kindle and Sony's — especially SMS notifications early preorders were told they Reader, is officially sold out — w i l l c o m e i n h a n d y a s could expect the Nook to ship by through 2009 and customers Minnesota shoppers head out to the end of November. ordering after that date wouldn't the mall today and tomorrow to In November, however, the receive the device until January cram in down-to-the-wire holiday bookseller pushed that date back, 4. gift romps. telling preorder customers they Five Filters featured article: If you’re concerned about c o u l d e x p e c t s h i p m e n t b y Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: December 11. The company PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, declined to say how many e- Term Extraction. readers had been preordered.

Seeking Tranist Gloria Mundi [Pic Of The Day]

By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM

31

[ Stranded travelers fiddle with their hand-held devices in Penn Station today when all trains out

of the city were suspended for

nearly three hours due to an electrical problem. Image via Getty]

drivers using their phones to follow along, Bridget Jewell, a PR coordinator for the initiative, tells CNN“she feels the mall is providing a valuable service, it’s doing its best to discourage texting while driving. People rarely shop alone during the holidays, she said, so having a passenger check Twitter or taking a peek before leaving for mall is preferable.”

We think it’s simple and smart, and we hope to see more malls adopt similar practices next holiday season.

Tags: mall of america, social media, twitter

32

Tech/ Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

FTC Inquiry Hinders Live at 5 (PM ET, that Google’s Acquisition of is): TUAW TV Live AdMob

By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:45:00 PM

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:26:35 PM

When Google formally announced their plans to acquire mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million, they didn’t expect any regulatory interference to impede upon the processing of the deal. Unfortunately they were wrong.

Today Google has released a statement on their Public Policy Blog admitting that they’ve been in ongoing talks with the FTC for weeks. This week the FTC even went so far as to make a “second request” for more detailed information on the deal.

The bottom line is that deal isn’t done, nor is it a sure thing, though Google still anticipates it to be completed eventually.

Google writes: “This week we received what’s

called a “second request,” which means that the FTC is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal.

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. And we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.”

Tags: admob, FTC, Google

Filed under: Video, Odds and ends, Other Events, Podcasts Join TUAW Lead Blogger Steve Sande today at 5 PM ET (2 PM PT) as he hosts the first-ever TUAW TV Live broadcast. We'll be broadcasting live on Ustream (see live window below) and feel free to join in on the fun by using the chat window to talk with Steve about any topic (as long as it's Apple-oriented) that interests you.

Today's possible topics include addictive iPhone apps, some news we might not be posting, why remanufactured inkjet printer cartridges might not be a good idea, a quirky idea that's helpful for any MacBook owner, what one Apple product you'd

Comcast Settles Class Action Lawsuit, Will Compensate Throttled BitTorrent Users [BitTorrent] like for Christmas, and what you'd like to see as topics on future episodes of TUAW TV Live.

TUAW Live at 5 (PM ET, that is): TUAW TV Live originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:30:00 PM

A couple of years back Comcast gained some bad press for throttling BitTorrent traffic on their network while pretending they were doing no such thing.

After several reports confirming the throttling and a leaked memo, the FCC ordered them to stop. A few class action lawsuits later, and Comcast has put $16 million dollars into a fund to pay back users they swindled with their BitTorrent throttling. [ TorrentFreak]

2010: A Year of Digital Distraction?

By Pete Cashmore (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:11:33 AM

The real-time web is a top web trend for 2010, with scores of startups springing up to satiate our desire for immediacy in our

interactions.

“Engagement” is the buzzword of the moment, while the instant gratification of a Twitter reply, a Facebook comment or a breaking news alert on our phones sends our brains’ reward systems into overdrive, psychologists say.

Could the real-time web prove a

distraction rather than a route to efficiency? With studies showing that multitasking does not work, are we headed towards a state of continuous interruption? Or could new tools help us to keep the content tsunami at bay long enough to

get things done?

That’s the topic of my CNN column this week. Check out the column at CNN.com >> Tags: cashmore, cnn, pete cashmore

Tech/ Politics/ Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

Maine Wants Mobile Phones To Carry A Cancer Warning...

Despite Lack Of Evidence

Italian Courts Continue To Attack YouTube; Demand It Remove All Content From Berlusconi-Owned Mediaset

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:28:00 AM

It seems that the Italian legal system really has problems with

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) politician in Maine pushing for a Y o u T u b e . W e ' v e a l r e a d y law that would put cancer detailed the absolutely ridiculous Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:58:27 PM warning labels on mobile phones. criminal lawsuit against Google There have been ongoing But here's the thing: even if execs over a video of some kids arguments and conflicting studies these warnings were put on t a u n t i n g a n o t h e r k i d ( w h y for years over whether or not phones, what would it do? Google execs are criminally mobile phones can cause cancer. Would people really stop using responsible for this still remains However, we had thought that their mobile phones or make any unexplained). Then there's the the general scientific consensus behavioral adjustment just Italian politician who has tried to was that mobile phones have because of these labels? There s u e a b u n c h o f Y o u T u b e such weak radiation that it is might be a few people, but I'd extremely unlikely to have any imagine that those who already meaningful impact on causing are sure that mobile phones cause cancer. Yet, that doesn't stop the c a n c e r h a v e a l r e a d y a c t e d worries that have long been a c c o r d i n g l y . associated with (almost always Permalink| Comments| Email unscientific folks) when it comes This Story to wireless signals. The latest such situation involves a

commenters. And now comes the news (via Michael Scott) that a court has ordered YouTube to remove all content from Mediaset, an Italian broadcaster owned (of course) by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

It's unclear how the court thinks YouTube can somehow figure Pingdom Brings Web o u t w h a t c o n t e n t i s f r o m Site Monitoring to the Mediaset, but it doesn't appear that Italian law cares about such Desktop [Downloads]

By Jason Fitzpatrick practicalities.

Permalink| Comments| Email (Lifehacker) This Story Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:00:00 PM

Windows: If you're a fan of the web site monitoring service Pingdom, they've released a handy desktop alert app to put site updates in your system tray.

After going public earlier this year, Pingdom offered free single -site monitoring including SMS alerts, email alerts, and an iPhone app. Now you can grab a free account and the Pingdom Desktop Notifier for instant conspiracy theories and paranoia. or right wing blogger has so system-tray confirmation that If I still had any allegiance to the much as blinked at the news that your monitored site is online and GOP, I’d probably be upset. But they’ll be sharing CPAC with functioning. at this point, the only emotion I this group of creeps, creationists, Check out the site for additional have left is amusement. This is racists, and extremists. This details and if you have another where the conservative CPAC is going to be a favorite site monitoring movement has been heading ever h o o t . [ V i d e o ] application, system tray-based or since Barack Obama was elected, Also see: not, let's year about it in the and now they’re finally arriving John Birch Society to Cosponsor comments. Pingdom Desktop at the black helicopter landing CPAC 2010 Notifier[via Download Squad] pad.

And not a single GOP politician

John Birch Society Rides Again at CPAC (Little Green Footballs)

conservatives but now brought back into the mainstream by Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:11:51 PM Glenn Beck, Ron Paul, and a This is really going to hurt the “conservative” movement of Republican Party. angry tea bag nutjobs gone Last week I noted that one of the totally off the rails. cosponsors for the Conservative On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow Political Action Conference has been covering this ugly (CPAC) in 2010 will be the development; here she talks with whacked out John Birch Society, Wall Street Journal columnist once ostracized by William F. Thomas Frank about the Birchers B u c k l e y a n d o t h e r s a n e and their appalling heritage of

33

34

Politics/ TV/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Ridiculous Right Wing Nontroversy of the Day (Little Green Footballs)

we just need to take back the country.

Justrand on December 22, 2009 Andrew Breitbart’s Big at 10:37 PM Government blog is having a cow […] about some ornaments on the Keep pushing Obama. I hope to White House Christmas tree, see you in an orange jumpsuit touching all the right wing hot and leggings by Christmas 2010. buttons — commies, gays, and journeyintothewhirlwind on Obama’s “arrogance” — and December 22, 2009 at 10:58 PM evoking the desired Pavlovian UPDATE at 12/23/09 1:16:04 response: EXCLUSIVE: pm: Transvestites, Mao And Obama And in the comments at Big Ornaments Decorate White Government, they’re calling for House Christmas Tree.

Barack Obama to be executed: The facts: the Obamas sent over Raul · 14 minutes ago 800 ornaments left over from We can’t wait until 2012 to get previous administrations to local rid of this comunist bastard of community groups, and asked Hussain Obama. The people of them to decorate the ornaments Last week Jon Stewart had a this is cause for a Christmas the United States must revolt, and to pay tribute to a favorite local s e g m e n t o n t h e O b a m a ornament revolution, or for demand that this low life, landmark. a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ’ s e v i l Obama to be thrown in prison in President be impeached and tried The most horrific of these indoctrination of schoolchildren leg irons, whichever comes first. for treason agaisnt this great Christmas ornaments, according into mindless commie Christmas You can’t make up silliness like nation of ours. Mao Tse Tung to Big Government: would have allready placed him ornament worker units. But not this: Gahh! It’s a commie on the even Stewart could foresee the I am waaaaaay past tired of this before a firing squad. A fate he White House Christmas tree! true horror that was to come. And Il Duce wannabe pissing on deserves, but that we are too Gahhh![run around screaming] now a Warhol print is hanging on EVERYTHING American. civilized to impose upon this Well, actually, it’s an Andy the White House Christmas tree, FUCK Obama. bastard.

Warhol print, but if you really t o A m e r i c a ’ s e v e r l a s t i n g At the moment I do NOT have a want to run around screaming, s h a m e . [ V i d e o ] President. don’t let me stop you.

UPDATE at 12/23/09 1:12:24 2010 we need to take back the UPDATE at 12/23/09 12:06:36 pm: country through the ballot pm: For the commenters at Hot Air, box&##x2026;otherwise in 2011 Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:01:45 PM

Here's the Christmas episode of The Price is Right (from 1983!)

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:35:00 PM

I'm watching the Price is Right Christmas episode right now and thought to myself, I wonder if there's any old Christmas episodes of the show online. OF COURSE THERE IS! Here's Part 1 of the Christmas episode in 1983 (you can watch the other parts here). The show really hasn't changed all that much.

Filed under: Video, Festivus, Game Show, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

New Pics: Christina Aguilera's Fender Bender (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:24:00 AM

Christina Aguilera was in a fender bender on Tuesday in Beverly Hills and we have pictures from the paparazzicrazed scene.

The Sex and the City 2 movie trailer is out!

By Isabelle Carreau (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:04:00 PM

In mid-October, spoilers about the Sex and the City movie sequel started to leak as shooting

begun. It won't spoil the fun if I confirm that the four ladies -Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis -- are back and so are Chris Noth, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis.

Today, it's time to open your

first Christmas gift as the first Sex and the City 2 trailer has been released!

Trailer and a few slight spoilers coming up!

Continue reading The Sex and the City 2 movie trailer is out!

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on the Bigscreen, Video, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Politics/ Tech Tips/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

35

A Reply to David Frum (Little Green Footballs)

Where are you personally?

Well, you know I’m an evangelical Christian. I believe David Frum quotes my post that God created everything and about Minnesota Governor that he is who he says he was.

Pawlenty and his support for The Bible says that he created teaching “intelligent design” man and woman; it doesn’t say creationism to public school that he created an amoeba and children, and takes exception to then they evolved into man and my remarks: A Problem for woman.

Pawlenty.

That’s creationism, David — Johnson’s comment seems to me a n d n o t e v e n t h e p s e u d o radically unfair. Pawlenty is a scientific “intelligent design” m o d e l o f s e n s i b l e m o d e r n type. It’s pure Biblical literalist conservatism. His answers to creationism. Pawlenty explicitly Newsweek’s barbed questions rejects the scientific theory of indicate an instinct for practical evolution, and in a particularly compromise, even as he eschews ignorant fashion: his reason for a n y p e r s o n a l s u p p o r t f o r rejecting evolution is that it isn’t creationism. mentioned in the Bible, and you Well, I don’t know which don’t get any more creationist interview Frum read, but the than that.

Newsweek interview I quoted It’s curious that Frum doesn’t makes it exceedingly clear that even address the other part of my P a w l e n t y a b s o l u t e l y d o e s post, about Pawlenty’s anti-gay personally support creationism. statements, which are just as Quote: troubling as his support for Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:46:36 AM

creationism. Pawlenty wants to specifically deny medical benefits to same-sex couples, although he voted in favor of this policy in the 1990s. And he justifies this switch with a bizarre homophobic fantasy about crossdressing elementary school teachers who do not exist.

In this, he’s mirroring the modern GOP’s shift from a party that used to stand for personal liberties, to a much more radical and atavistic party beholden to the religious right.

If “Pawlenty is a model of sensible modern conservatism,” as David Frum seems to believe, he’s also a model for how badly the party has gone into the weeds — creationist, anti-science, and anti-gay. And by defending this attitude, David Frum shows me again that I made the correct decision to break with the GOP and the right wing.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:35:17 AM

The ReadWriteWeb team will be live today for a 45-minute discussion about the year's best We will post the recording after products and biggest trends.

You can listen to the show at the live event. noon today on Blog Talk Radio. Show Details:

By Lisa Hoover (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM

Somebody needs to keep track of Santa Claus as he makes his way around the globe Christmas Eve, and, once again, NORAD has stepped up to the plate. This year they're providing radar coverage and up-to-the-minute info on his every move.

Volunteer military personnel work into the wee hours of the night tracking St. Nick on special equipment that pinpoints his location on Google Maps and Google Earth. "Santa Cams" catch him in action as he crisscrosses the Earth in his sleigh and, if you watch closely, you'll even get to see Santa do a flyby of the International Space RWW Live Special: 2009 Year Station. in Review Santa trackers issue regular Time: Noon PST, (GMT -8) reports on the web site as the Big L i n k : Guy stops at various countries on http://www.blogtalkradio.com/re his way to the United States; the adwriteweb trackers also remind kids about Sponsor the importance of going to bed so he doesn't have to skip the homes

ReadWriteWeb Live: 2009 Year in Review (Today at Noon PST)

By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb)

NORAD Santa Tracker Tells You Where the Big Guy Is on the Big Night [Holidays] of boys and girls that are still wide awake. (How convenient!)

The trackers also keep busy answering live phone calls and emails from kids around the country who call or write in with questions. You can also track Santa in Google Earth, visit m.noradsanta.org on your mobile device, or just search for "Santa" on Google Maps on your phone.

NORAD's holiday web site is already up and running with games and activities, but the real fun begins at 12:00 a.m. MST on December 24th. That's when the Santa Cams flip on and viewers can watch Santa and his elves get the sleigh and reindeer ready to go out for the night.

Be sure to check out the video compilation of scenes from last year's cams to see some of the places NORAD caught Santa last year. If you've never visited the NORAD Santa Tracker on Christmas, you really must do so.

It's so cool that you'll want to make it a holiday tradition.

Official NORAD Santa Tracker

36

Tech Tips/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Microsoft Security Essentials Ranks as Best-Performing Free Antivirus [Antivirus]

By The How-To Geek (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM

Anti-malware testing group AVComparatives.org not only gave Microsoft Security Essentials a top rating for malware removal, but now they've given it their best ranking in their performance test as well.

AV-Comparatives.org ran a series of real-world tests running through common scenarios like downloading, extracting, copying, and encoding files, installing and launching applications, and they also ran through an automated testing suite as well. Once the dust had settled, it became clear that not only is MSE one of only three products that both blocks and removes malware well, but it's also very light on system resources.

Out of all the products tested, Microsoft Security Essentials

Make Your Last-Minute Gifts Printable [Gift Giving] was the best-performing free antivirus solution, and one of only two that received "very fast" on each of the real-world tests, earning it their top award: an "advanced+" ranking. We've been telling you for a while that you don't need to pay for Windows security, and now with MSE ranked alongside the top paid apps in both malware removal and performance, you might want to consider making

the switch.

Hit the AV-Comparatives link for the full report in PDF form, or check out the PC Mag story for the overview—if you can deal with some irritating in-text ads.

Performance Tests[AVComparatives] AV-Comparatives Rates AntiMalware Performance[PC Mag via@edbott]

Fierce Fashions: The Red-Carpet Looks of the 2009 Holiday Season!

(ETonline - Breaking News)

stars from donning form-fitting minidresses, gorgeous gowns and sparkles! Take a look at glittering Despite the winter weather, stars of 'Avatar,' 'Nine' and nothing could stop your fave 'Sherlock Holmes' as they sizzle Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:08:00 PM

down the red carpet this holiday season!

By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)

more concrete than an email, those are good options. We've also got a whole tag category full Just realized you've still got one of printables that could help you person left to buy for, don't have find some fun, inexpensive, and time to hit the stores, but don't l a s t - m i n u t e g i f t i d e a s ( w e want to show up empty handed? e s p e c i a l l y l i k e T h e S m a l l Lifehacker alum Rick Broida Calendar business-card-sized highlights five printable gifts calendar). You'd probably need a that'll give you something to fairly nice printer and paper if hand over. you wanted avoid looking Broida's options cover the e x t r e m e l y c h e a p , t h o u g h . printable gift certificate territory Got any last-minute gift ideas of pretty well (including Amazon, your own? Let's hear your best Gifts.com, iTunes, Netflix, and bets in the comments. Five lastRestaurant.com, so if you want to m i n u t e g i f t s y o u c a n take the quick online gift card p r i n t ! [ C N E T ] route but would still prefer to hand your loved one something Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:30:00 PM

Tech Tips/ Tech News/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

37

Save Cash, Stick to Cheap Olive Oil Meaning Tool: Training When Cooking [Cooking Hacks] Semantic Search With Feeds

By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:30:00 PM

High quality extra-virgin olive oils are perfect for salads or drizzling over cooked food, but they're also expensive. When you're cooking with oil, food author Molly Stevens suggests saving your fancy olive oil—the cheap stuff will do just as well.

Photo by avlxyz.

In her excellent book All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking, Stevens explains: [T]he best-quality, highestpriced, estate-bottled extra-virgin olive oils, especially any nonfiltered oils, should indeed not be used for cooking. First, the flavor and character will fade as you heat the oil, and if you've paid a hefty sum, it's a waste to pour it into a sauté pan. Second,

By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:30:00 PM

If you've ever believed that semantic search is meant exclusively for researchers, then Meaning Tool might prove you wrong. Through Popego, the semantic search engine allows you to add your online profile and interests such as "gadgets" or any particles left in an unfiltered Lifehacker HQ Los Angeles is "current news". From here, oil (as many of the best are) will using Stevens' book to braise a M e a n i n g T o o l s e r v e s y o u burn and deteriorate when tasty holiday meal, but the book entertaining content from across social graph. heated, and thus add bitterness to is full of other useful tips along y o u r your recipes. Save these for these lines in the An Opinionated ReadWriteWeb took a look at drizzling over a plate of sliced Pantry chapter—definitely worth how the tool works and how it summer tomatoes... or a hunk of checking out if you're into food. j u s t m i g h t b r i d g e t h e g a p rustic bread.

All About Braising: The Art of between scholars and social I n s h o r t : G o w i t h t h e U n c o m p l i c a t e d media junkies. inexpensive EVOO for cooking. C o o k i n g [ A m a z o n ] Sponsor Meaningtool - Demo from Popego on Vimeo.

Meaning Tool is a semantic engine that offers users a chance to extract concepts from text using specific semantic trees. As rumors. after all the legal proceedings mentioned, you define your "It's not a project," Dr. Murray's were complete. That could take categories of interest by creating search parameters and training r e p t e l l s E T . " A B r i t i s h years." documentary crew from a The rep also tells ET that them with related websites or production company asked to Murray will be spending his RSS feeds. Similar to Open follow him around on his first holidays with his family and Calais, the service appears to use the linked data standard to day back. Dr. Murray liked the treating patients. retrieve data via dereferenceable idea and agreed to do it as long as URIs on the web. From there you the footage wasn't broadcast until can search text in any romantic

Is Michael Jackson's Former Doctor Heading to TV? (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:25:00 AM

ET has the latest...

With the rumors swirling that Dr. Conrad Murray, who was the late Michael Jackson's physician before his death, is filming a documentary, ET clears up the

language to produce relevant words and categories. Categories such as "technology" and "security" are then shown in a pie chart to represent the percentage of relevancy the text has to these key categories. The system also offers a tag cloud of relevant keywords and key concepts. And finally, Meaning Tool extracts entities such as mentioned companies, people and places.

Unlike many other semantic search services, your satisfaction with results as a researcher, marketer or general consumer weigh heavily on how you train the system. To find out more about the semantic web, check out For more info on the semantic web, check out our article on semantic search's myths and realities. To add some of your own interests to Meaining Tool visit meaningtool.com. Discuss

38

Tech Tips/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Stretch Too-Tight Shoes to Fit with a Twitter Acquires Geolocation Service Mixer Labs: Plans to Hair Dryer [MacGyver Tip] Enhance Its Geotagging API

By Lisa Hoover (Lifehacker)

By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:00:00 PM

If you drag out your party shoes only to discover they're a tad too small, don't suffer in silence all night. Stretch them out a smidge with a few pairs of socks and a hair dryer.

While the end result of larger shoes is worth it, you'll need to put up with a few minutes of pinched toes to get the results you want. The Observer's Sian Berry suggests you don a few pair of socks, stuff your feet in the shoes, and aim a hairdryer at the tight areas. For maximum benefit, flex and stretch your feet as you blast them with hot air.

Keep the shoes on while they cool, then try walking in them without socks to check the fit. If they're comfy, you're done; if they're still snug, whip out the

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:50:24 PM

socks and hair dryer again until the shoes are stretched enough to get you through the evening.

To keep your shoes from shrinking in the first place, avoid getting them wet. Berry says: Also, remember that water will make leather brittle so wet shoes should be dried gently, not placed in front of the fire or on

Twitter just announced that it has acquired Mixer Labs, the company behind GeoAPI.com.

GeoAPI is a service that allows developers to easily add geolocation data to their apps.

Twitter just launched its own geotagging API a few weeks ago.

Even though a number of mobile top of a radiator. You can speed and desktop Twitter apps like up the drying and help wet shoes Seesmic Web and Birdfeed and boots keep their shape by support Twitter's geotagging stuffing them with newspaper. API, only a very small number of How do you keep your shoes users is currently making use of ship-shape? Let us know in the this feature. comments. How To Stretch Tight Sponsor According to Twitter founder Ev Shoes[Guardian] Williams, the company "will be looking at how to integrate the work Mixer Labs has done with the Twitter API in useful ways that give developers behind geoenabled apps like Birdfeed,

A New Holiday Tradition: Track Santa Online

By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

Now, working together with Google, NORAD continues to offer the same service online Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:33:33 AM during the holidays. Starting at 2 S i n c e 1 9 5 5 , w h e n S e a r s p.m. ET (GMT -5) on Christmas mistakenly printed NORAD' s Eve, the newly enhanced Santa phone number in its catalog Tracker will go live. instead of the number of its Santa Sponsor hotline, NORAD has offered This year, Google will use the Santa-realted services by phone. Google Earth plugin to power

noradsanta.org. According to Google, over eight million people used the site to track Santa in 2008.

In addition, Google also now offers a mobile site (

m.noradsanta.org). In keeping with the times, NORAD also offers a Twitter account this year where "you can keep up with news about Santa's flight."

Discuss

Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro and other powerful new possibilities."

It's important to note that the Mixer Labs GeoAPI is not tied to Twitter. GeoAPI offers tools like a reverse geocoder that can take GPS coordinates and turn them into human readable information and a service that can find media files and status updates related to a specific place on Flickr, Twitter or YouTube. Mixer Labs also offers an iPhone SDK. Judging from Twitter's announcement, the GeoAPI will continue to work while Twitter figures out how to best integrate its current geotagging API with Mixer Labs' GeoAPI. Discuss

Tech News/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

39

Insurgents Intercepting Predator Video? No Problem

By Bruce Schneier (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:34:00 PM

Sometimes mediocre encryption is better than strong encryption, and sometimes no encryption is better still.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Iraqi, and possibly also Afghan, militants are using commercial software to eavesdrop on U.S. Predators, other unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and even piloted planes. The systems weren't "hacked" -- the insurgents can’t control them -- but because the downlink is unencrypted, they can watch the same video stream as the coalition troops on the ground.

The naive reaction is to ridicule the military. Encryption is so easy that HDTVs do it -- just a software routine and you're done -- and the Pentagon has known about this flaw since Bosnia in the 1990s. But encrypting the data is the easiest part; key management is the hard part.

Each UAV needs to share a key with the ground station. These keys have to be produced, guarded, transported, used and then destroyed. And the equipment, both the Predators and the ground terminals, needs

to be classified and controlled, and all the users need security clearance.

The command and control channel is, and always has been, encrypted -- because that's both more important and easier to manage. UAVs are flown by airmen sitting at comfortable desks on U.S. military bases, where key management is simpler. But the video feed is different. It needs to be available to all sorts of people, of varying nationalities and security clearances, on a variety of field terminals, in a variety of geographical areas, in all sorts of conditions -- with everything constantly changing. Key management in this environment would be a nightmare.

Additionally, how valuable is this video downlink is to the enemy? The primary fear seems to be that the militants watch the video, notice their compound being surveilled and flee before the missiles hit. Or notice a bunch of Marines walking through a recognizable area and attack them. This might make a great movie scene, but it's not very realistic. Without context, and just by peeking at random video streams, the risk caused by eavesdropping is low.

Contrast this with the additional

risks if you encrypt: A soldier in the field doesn't have access to the real-time video because of a key management failure; a UAV can't be quickly deployed to a new area because the keys aren't in place; we can't share the video information with our allies because we can't give them the keys; most soldiers can't use this technology because they don't have the right clearances. Given this risk analysis, not encrypting the video is almost certainly the right decision.

There is another option, though.

During the Cold War, the NSA's primary adversary was Soviet intelligence, and it developed its crypto solutions accordingly.

Even though that level of security makes no sense in Bosnia, and certainly not in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is what the NSA had to offer. If you encrypt, they said, you have to do it " right."

The problem is, the world has changed. Today's insurgent adversaries don't have KGB-level intelligence gathering or cryptanalytic capabilities. At the same time, computer and network data gathering has become much cheaper and easier, so they have technical capabilities the Soviets could only dream of. Defending against these sorts of adversaries doesn't

require military-grade encryption only where it counts; it requires commercial-grade encryption everywhere possible.

This sort of solution would require the NSA to develop a whole new level of lightweight commercial-grade security systems for military applications — not just office-data "Sensitive but Unclassified" or "For Official Use Only" classifications. It would require the NSA to allow keys to be handed to uncleared UAV operators, and perhaps read over insecure phone lines and stored in people's back pockets.

It would require the sort of ad hoc key management systems you find in internet protocols, or in DRM systems. It wouldn't be anywhere near perfect, but it would be more commensurate with the actual threats.

And it would help defend against a completely different threat facing the Pentagon: The PR threat. Regardless of whether the people responsible made the right security decision when they rushed the Predator into production, or when they convinced themselves that local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, or when they forgot to update their Bosnia-era threat analysis to account for advances in technology, the story is now

Winter rally keeps 2009 peaks in view (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:23:59 PM

Winter rally keeps 2009 peaks in view ByJamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator

Published: December 23 2009 Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: 07:03 | Last updated: December PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, 23 2009 22:23 Term Extraction.

Five Filters featured article:

being played out in the press. The Pentagon is getting beaten up because it's not protecting against the threat — because it's easy to make a sound bite where the threat sounds really dire. And now it has to defend against the perceived threat to the troops, regardless of whether the defense actually protects the troops or not. Reminds me of the TSA, actually.

So the military is now committed to encrypting the video... eventually. The next generation Predators, called Reapers -- Who names this stuff?

Second-grade boys? -- will have the same weakness. Maybe we’ll have encrypted video by 2010, or 2014, but I don't think that's even remotely possible unless the NSA relaxes its key management and classification requirements and embraces a lightweight, less secure encryption solution for these sorts of situations. The real failure here is the failure of the Cold War security model to deal with today's threats.

--Bruce Schneier is chief security technology officer of BT. His new book is Schneier on Security.

40

Tech News/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

Yahoo! Will Kill MyBlogLog Next Month [Update]

By Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb)

of recent blog visitors, MyBlogLog also offered programatic access to activity Submitted at 12/22/2009 6:41:41 PM streams from social networks that Five years to the month after it users associated with their was founded, cross-blog social MyBlogLog accounts. For networking widget MyBlogLog example, Yahoo's Kent Brewster, will be closed down by Yahoo! n o w a t N e t f l i x , b u i l t a in January, we're hearing from bookmarklet that would display sources close to the project. t h e r e c e n t b o o k m a r k s o n MyBlogLog is a service that Delicious, photos on Flickr and shows blog writers and readers job titles from LinkedIn of the the faces and profile information latest MyBlogLog users to visit of other MyBlogLog users that any given blog. visit their sites.

Yahoo! has let the service MyBlogLog was a wildly atrophy for years and will now innovative service that grew fast put it to rest. To think that this after launching and was acquired service offered publishers and in January 2007 by Yahoo! for developers access to personal, $10 million. It made a deal with demographic, taste and activity users: Give us your personal data of a website's readers - and information and we'll show you yet that offering has in the end the faces of people who read your gone no where - that's downright blog. That was a compelling crazy. offer and the resulting data Here at ReadWriteWeb we amassed could have proven s c r a p e d a f e e d f r o m o u r invaluable, had Yahoo! chosen to MyBlogLog page of the new cultivate it and a developer u s e r s j u s t a d d e d t o o u r ecosystem around it. That community, then reached out to potential was so great, in fact, thank them for their support and that sunset for MyBlogLog is welcome them personally. That downright tragic. It's also likely was just the beginning of what to anger bloggers all around the could have been a very valuable web. source of data. Imagine getting a Sponsor feed of the LinkedIn job titles of In addition to showing the faces all your recent readers and

promotes it internally. Shortly after we were acquired we were transfered away from our champion and under someone presenting that to a blog's who didn't feel the same way advertisers. Both analytically about MyBlogLog. In those and financially, there was so circumstances, things simply much potential in MyBlogLog. slow down.

S e e o u r 2 0 0 8 p o s t T h e "For any startup that has earn Significance of the MyBlogLog outs, and this didn't affect us, API if you're a social web geek you've got to keep in mind that in and want to have your heart 3 m o n t h s y o u c o u l d b e broken. reorganized and the new guy Looking at the ecosystems could shut you down. The b e g i n n i n g t o f o r m a r o u n d picture that gets painted early on Twitter, Facebook and other user when you have your product data - MyBlogLog may just have champions can change in a been ahead of its time. The heartbeat and it's important for s e r v i c e i s n ' t a l o n e a m o n g entreprenuers to consider that potentially world-changing when looking at the deal terms." technologies acquired and then R.I.P. MyBlogLog. starved of support at Yahoo! Update: Chris Yeh, head of the W e ' v e a s k e d Y a h o o ! f o r Yahoo! Developer Network, has comment and will update this responded over at the YDN blog: post if we receive any.

"Frankly, it's no secret within Image via CrunchBase We Yahoo! that we're actively called co-founder Eric discussing the future of Marcoulier for comment and he MyBlogLog. However, it's also o f f e r e d t h e f o l l o w i n g true that we have not made any perspective: "So much of your final decisions at this point. Is a company's long term sucess shutdown on the table? Sure, when it's acquired is based on the that's an option. But there are amount of executive juice it has. other options as well." Discuss The only way it survives and flourishes is if you have an executive champion who

With or Without Simon, FOX Looks To Order More Seasons of American Idol

By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:42:09 PM

FOX and Simon Cowell negotiating in public is not any more surprising (even less surprising perhaps) than FOX and Time Warner Cable negotiating in public.

But James Hibberd has the O M G S H O C K I N G EXCLUSIVE (sarcasm alert, for anyone with faulty detectors!) that FOX wants to order 3 more seasons of American Idol whether Simon is on the show or not.

Perhaps FOX felt like it needed to get a leg up in the public posturing after the OMG SHOCKING STUDY that revealed nearly half of the people surveyed said they’d watch American Idol less frequently without Simon.

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

Tech News/ Apple/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

2009 Year in Review

By Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:35:20 AM

The year is fast winding down and everyone is no doubt looking forward to a break over Christmas. If you want some reading and pondering material over the holidays, during December we've been publishing a series of annual review posts.

We've picked our best products of the year in 10 categories, analyzed the top companies and made our predictions for 2010.

Click on the links below for more details.

Today at 12 p.m. PT (GMT -8) we have a special podcast show, in which some of the RWW team discuss 2009 and look forward to 2010. We hope you'll join us on the call.

Sponsor For our Best BigCo of 2009, we selected Google - due to its continued innovation throughout the year. For our Best LittleCo of 2009, we chose a startup that exemplifies the Real-Time Web. For Most Promising for 2010, we

selected a company that aims to change the way we search.

In late December the ReadWriteWeb team made a set of predictions for 2010, which we encourage you to comment on and add to over the holidays. It's always fun to look back on the previous year to see how well you did! ReadWriteWeb Readers Pick The Top 10 Products of 2009 As voted by our readers in December, these were the ten best products of the year: 1. Twitter 2. Google Chrome 3. Google Maps 4. Facebook

5. WordPress 6. iPhone platform 7. Google Apps 8. Adobe AIR 9. Hulu 10. TweetDeck The top 10 was voted on by our readers, based on the following lists of products: • Top 10 Mobile Web Products • Top 10 Consumer Web Apps • Top 10 Semantic Web Products • Top 10 International Web Products • Top 10 RSS & Syndication Technologies • Top 10 Enterprise Products • Top 10 Internet of Things Products • Top 10 Real-Time Technologies • Top 10 Startup Products • Top 10 Web Platforms

(Financial Times - US homepage)

declared on Wednesday in setting out a record haul for the centreright government.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:48:32 AM “I want my money back,” Mr Italy’s amnesty for tax evaders Tremonti said, breaking into holding funds outside the country English at his year-end news has been successful in attracting conference, recalling what he had more than €80bn so far, Giulio recently told Hans-Rudolph Tremonti, the finance minister, Merz, his Swiss counterpart, to

Rumor Has It: 4th-Gen iPhone to Have 5Megapixel Camera

By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM

Evidence has emerged to back up the theory that Apple’s next iPhone iteration will have a 5megapixel camera. It comes by way of DigiTimes, which reports that supplier OmniVision has received a sizable order for the parts necessary for the improvement.

The current model only sports a 3-megapixel sensor, which is on par with a lot of devices, but many direct iPhone competitors have begun offering better resolution hardware. Five megapixels isn’t a lot compared Happy holidays to all of our to most point-and-shoot cameras readers and supporters! Don't on the market right now, but it’s forget to tune into our podcast likely enough for most people’s show today if you're still around standard usage, and should help and not on family time. Discuss the iPhone become even more popular than it already is on sites like Flickr.

DigiTimes is quoting unnamed sources as saying that OmniVision, the company which the anger of Swiss banks, which currently supplies the CMOS hold the majority of Italian funds sensor for the iPhone 3GS, has and have accused Rome of received a large order for 5intimidating their clients. megapixel versions of the core Five Filters featured article: camera component, which should Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: help it increase its output to PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, between 40-45 million units in Term Extraction.

2010, up from 20-21 million in

Italy tax amnesty yields record €80bn

41

2009.

The order is set to start being manufactured sometime in the first quarter of 2010, which is in keeping with the expected June/July launch of the next-gen iPhone at WWDC. Expect video quality to improve as a result. A move to HD video in the iPhone would definitely help the device’s chances in the mobile video market, and could even spell the end for standalone low-cost devices like the Flip HD and Sony’s recently launched competitor, the Webbie HD. Here’s hoping the next iteration of the iPhone’s camera also handles things like night and low -light shooting better, too. Many competitors now have built-in flashes, but I don’t see Apple marring its minimalist industrial design with an additional break in the back casing of the iPhone.

42

Tech News/ TV/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

U.S. Internet Users Spend 13 Hours a Rick Sanchez gets new Week Online CNN show, Rick's List

By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

week - sadly, Harris Interactive doesn't tell us how many of these users actually spend every minute Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:21:01 AM of the week online. Online In 2009, the average U.S. Shopping Internet user spent 13 hours per With regards to online shopping, week online. This number is 98% of All Computer Users in Harris found that 50% of adults down slightly from last year. the U.S. are Online bought something online in the Thanks to the large interest in the The number of adults who are last month. Not surprisingly, 30presidential election and the online has not changed since to 39-year-olds are the most financial crisis, the average 2007. In total, 184 million adults active online shoppers. How Internet user was online for regularly surf the Internet at High Will These Numbers Go? roughly 14 hours per week in work, home or school. While the Given how popular online video 2008. According to a new poll number of adults who are online and social networks have become from Harris Interactive, users has not changed, the number of over the last few years, chances between the ages of 30 to 39 are adults who access the Internet at are that the average number of the most active Internet users. On home has increased from 66% in hours spend online will continue average, this group is online for 2005 to 76% in 2009. Ten years to grow slowly over the next few 18 hours per week. ago, only 56% of all adults years. U.S. Internet users who Sponsor accessed the Internet from home. watch TV online watch close to Overall, the average time online In total, 98% of all computer 18 hours of online video per for U.S. Internet users has gone users are now online. week already. In the U.K., the up from seven hours in 1999 to While users between 30 and 39 average Facebook user spends close to nine hours in 2003 and are the most active Internet users, close to three full days per year up to 11 hours in 2007. We those between 25 and 29 are the on the site. Without doubt, should note that these numbers most likely to spend more than however, there will be a natural only include adults. According to 24 hours per week online. 25% of limit to how much time per week Nielsen, which looked at all U.S. 25- to 29-year-olds surf the Net people will spend online. Discuss Internet users, the average usage between 24 and 162 hours per per week is closer to 17 hours.

By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM

Rick Sanchez is one of those CNN personalities -- it's hard to call him a news reporter -- who doesn't really fit the mold. He never fit the mold as a local guy down here in South Florida either. However, CNN seems to believe that Rick has an appeal.

That said, CNN will give Rick Sanchez a new show in just a few weeks. Commencing January 18, 2010, Rick's List will be a daily two-hour installment of Rich Sanchez. The timing is interesting because they're cutting an hour into Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room.

This actually makes sense. The Situation Room is very political and during the campaign and the election, the ratings were high.

We're in a post-election period now and will be for a while.

The CNN idea is to fill the afternoon with more fluff and general interest news, the kind of stuff Rick Sanchez is better suited to handle. He can talk about lists for hours, taking calls,

reading Tweets and vamping.

The man enjoys the sound of his own voice.

Continue reading Rick Sanchez gets new CNN show, Rick's List Filed under: News, Programming, OpEd, Daytime, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

The Truth Behind the Jennifer Hudson Pregnancy Rumors (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:37:00 AM

ET has the latest...

ET gets to the bottom of the

Jennifer Hudson pregnancy rumors.

A rep for the Oscar winner tells ET: "Contrary to what has been

falsely reported, Jennifer Hudson is not pregnant. Jennifer leaves in April for South Africa where she will portray Winnie Mandela in the feature film, 'Winnie'. It is

a commitment she is excited looking forward to in 2010." about and takes very seriously.

Jennifer is currently in the studio recording her second album and this is the only delivery she is

E-reader News Edition

Apple/ Entertainment/

43

Rumour Has It: Tablet Announcement as Early as January

By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

to read between the lines.

Either way, the WSJ and the FT are in competition with one Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:00:15 AM another. One mustn’t be outdone Source: Piper Jaffray by the other — even if that Whaddya mean, you’re skeptical means reporting “old” news that about reports regarding an isn’t really news at all. It’s upcoming Tablet announcement? conjecture from a man who When did you last hear a major close to Apple told us…” or “An the same predictions for a first- doesn’t claim to have inside publisher report exciting Tablet executive familiar with the matter quarter 2010 Tablet launch; knowledge, but just looked into news from unnamed sources? revealed…” Occasionally, some Reiner…revealed his latest tablet Apple’s “supply chain” and Oh, wait. enterprising analyst stares at a news in a note to investors issued offered some best guesses. That Earlier in the week the Wall spreadsheet for a while and Wednesday morning. is, after all, what analysts do.

Street Journal reported on the makes up some bold predictions “Our checks into Apple’s supply You can do the same thing, by rumors of Apple’s forays into — and then they get named as chain indicate the manufacturing the way, just by gathering television content subscription. It s o u r c e s , t h e i r p r o p h e c i e s cogs for the tablet are creaking together a half dozen industry also made a passing reference to presented almost as iron-clad into action and should begin to trade-press magazines. the tablet coming “by the end of statements of previously super- hit a mass market stride in Mind you, that line which begins March.” And we’d have left it at occluded fact.

“Apple is preparing February,” the note said. that, except that yesterday the Even worse, it’s not hard to Reiner said Apple would likely an announcement next month…”

Financial Times also chimed in imagine that sometimes ( just need at least five or six weeks of is pretty specific, isn’t it? with a little more on the same occasionally) those same analysts inventory built up before it can Specific without actually telling theme: b e c o m e t h e m y s t e r i o u s , release the product, positioning a us anything, but then, that’s what A p p l e i s p r e p a r i n g a n unidentified sources of privileged likely launch in March or April. the rumor mill is all about these announcement next month that insider information, referred to Now, I don’t know about you, days, right? many anticipate will be the almost casually as “sources with but when I read that an analyst Frankly, I’m growing tired of all official unveiling of its tablet, but intimate knowledge of Apple.” has revealed his “latest” news these rumors — Apple can’t the company has so far declined While that’s not technically about Apple’s super-duper-secret release this thing soon enough, as to confirm the existence of the i n c o r r e c t , i t ’ s s t i l l w i l d l y -history-making-miracle-tablet, I far as I’m concerned, if only so device. Wall Street analysts misleading. And unethical, too. gotta assume that doesn’t mean we can finally put all this frothy expect mass production of an Of course, I’m not suggesting his latest morsels of juicy, prognostication behind us!

Apple tablet to begin as early as venerable publishers such as the h i t h e r t o - u n k n o w n i n s i d e r UPDATE: Boy Genius Report is February.

Wall Street Journal or the information, but rather, his “latest now reporting that its own inside Of course, when it comes to Financial Times get up to these roundup of most reasonable source is reporting a 7-inch reporting about Apple’s fabled shenanigans. However, it’s at rumors and assumptions gathered Apple tablet launch in January is Tablet device, no one ever least interesting to note that from around the Internet.” I a 100 percent certainty. Looks properly cites their sources. earlier this month, and reported guess it depends on your level of like we may not have to wait Instead, we get fleeting, nebulous by AppleInsider, Oppenheimer cynicism, how badly you want much longer to put the rumors to references to shady characters analyst Yair Reiner offered much the Tablet, and how you choose rest. and nameless insiders: “Sources

Scientologists: You Can Never Escape Them [I See You]

By Ravi Somaiya (Gawker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:56:28 PM

A tipster in Texas flirted briefly with Scientology when collegeage. Then, sensibly, she ran the hell away. Now people she's never met are sending her creepy hand-written notes trying to get her back into the cult.

The envelope was also handwritten, for the 'we're watching you' personal touch, and contained this note: It also contained a lengthy personality test to try and lure her back in by helping her to "discover the factors about yourself that cause you stress.

She responds: What causes me stress is the fact that nearly 20 years after the fact, I can't seem to get these jagweeds to stop sending me their trash mail.

Here's the survey. Feel free to take it, but beware in case you fall into their trap and join the crusade.

44

Apple/ TV/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

Ford Wants its Cars to Talk With Your iPhone

By Lisa Hoover (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:00:49 AM

Autoblog picked up on an interesting story about Ford Motor Company’s efforts to create middleware that will let future cars interact with mobile devices, including iPhones. Sync, developed in conjunction with Microsoft, aims to not only give you access to your phone book and playlists, but also wants to allow you to use all those thirdparty apps you’ve downloaded.

Think about it: hands-free access to iPhone Apps as you drive.

Sign us up.

One of the biggest hurdles creating an interface like this is getting developers to start working on apps that mobile device owners would want to use in their vehicles. “So Ford has to reach out to people eager to develop apps for cars, and make the process fun for the developers. Long approval periods and heavy layers of

corporate interference will just turn would-be Sync app writers off,” says Autoblog’s Jonny Lieberman.

Sync’s open API allows developers to create apps for virtually any type of phone, but Ford selected iPhones as its research model because of its popularity. Sync developers met with a group of computer science students from the University of Michigan and asked them to build a couple of iPhone Apps so researchers could test their viability as a truly mobile app.

The first, FollowMe, lets users track each other’s locations so no one gets lost traveling caravanstyle from place to place.

SyncCast, the other app the students came up with, allows users to play any radio station in the U.S through the car stereo via their iPhone. It only took the students three months to develop the apps and, by all accounts, working with the Sync API was a piece of cake. Ironically, it was the iPhone’s Apple-specific toolkit that gave developers the most grief.

There’s no word when this technology will be ready for the open market but when it is, will you want it on it? Would the ability to interact hands free with your iPhone influence your carbuying decisions? Let us know in the comments.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:01:19 PM

Analysts’ earnings forecasts have a negligible effect on a company’s share price, according to new research that will raise

By Mike Moody (TV Squad)

of six notable series finales for 2009. Feel free to share your thoughts about the finales in the I don't think anyone cried over comments, and don't forget to tell the cancellation of According to us about your favorites that didn't Jim, which managed to stay on make the list. (And needless to the air seemingly due to some say, there be spoilers below!) kind of deal with the devil, for Continue reading Top TV eight cruel seasons. But 2009 Stories of 2009: Series finales also saw the end of some of our Filed under: Other Drama favorite shows here at TV Squad. Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Some of these series finales left Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, us in tears, some of them sparked Battlestar Galactica, TV Squad debate, and a few even left us Lists, Reality-Free further doubts over stock- investors that trade -frequently. wondering, "what did I just Permalink| Email this| | pickers’ ability to move markets. Five Filters featured article: watch?"

Comments The study will fuel the debate Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: After the jump you'll find a list over the usefulness of analysts’ PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, predictions for hedge funds, Term Extraction. which want research that affects share prices, at a time when banks are seeking to attract

Investors ignore analyst forecasts, study says (Financial Times - US homepage)

Top TV Stories of 2009: Series finales Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:03:00 PM

Apple/ TV/ Entertainment/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

45

NES Makes Short-Lived Appearance Cowell out: Judge on the App Store leaving American Idol next year?

By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 4:00:19 PM

I’m not unfamiliar with video game emulators. I’m not endorsing them, mind you, but I’m not unfamiliar. So my curiosity was piqued when I heard tell of a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator for the iPhone, one that had managed to gain official sanction and was being sold in the App Store.

I didn’t get to it fast enough.

Nescaline, as the app was called, not only allowed you to play some built-in homebrew games, which probably would’ve been fine all on its own, but provided a way to download additional ROMs remotely. In effect, you could import any copyrightviolating old-school NES ROM that you could find on the web.

Such an ability was bound to get the app pulled, and pulled it has

been.

While it lasted, it sold for $6.99 and boasted many features like “multitouch” control, full-screen mode, tap-to-shoot light gun emulation, save-state writing and retrieval — even support for Game Genie codes.

While the feature list may sound fairly impressive, user reviews from people who did manage to get their hands on the game were less than stellar, though not entirely negative. Commenter TokyoDisco at Pocket Gamer had this to say:

I spent far too long trying to add my own roms though. I know where to get them and everything, but I’m obviously entering the URL in wrong.

The five included roms are a bit rubbish to tell you the truth. The controls can be pretty unresponsive and the audio is jerky. Portrait and landscape modes are a nice touch.

If you’re still interested in Nescaline, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a reprieve from the App Store reviewers, like the one recently given to a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone platform. In fact, it was probably just the fault of someone asleep at the switch that it managed to make it in to begin with at all. Shouldn’t be too hard to get it up and running on a jailbroken device, though, or to use one of the other emulators available for those devices.

'Balloon Boy' Dad Sentenced for Pulling Hoax (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:17:00 AM

Richard Heene, the man who caused a national uproar when he called in a hoax saying his young son was trapped in an

experimental flying device, has been sentenced to jail.

The judge handed out the maximum sentence of 90 days in jail, including 60 days work release.

The prosecutor urged the judge

to hand out the maximum sentence, saying Richard Heene "wasted a lot of manpower and a lot of money in wanting to get himself some publicity."

By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:26:00 PM

If you hate Simon Cowell, you'll only have one year left to coat your TV with a fine layer of anger spittle during American Idol.

The judge's brother, Tony Cowell, leaked the news on his podcast that Cowell's people are preparing a press release announcing that 2010 will be the final year Cowell sits in the judging seat on AI. But don't celebrate the death of the lumbering reality TV giant yet, all you AI lovers and haters.

Cowell is stepping away from AI to focus on the importing an American version of The X Factor. So who should AI

replacing the acerbic judge or would a rabid monkey that uses sign language suffice?

Filed under: American Idol, Celebrities, Judges Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Record fees for debt issues offset dip (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:15:45 PM

Record fees from debt issuance and a big jump in capital raisings this year have offset plunging deal revenues, annual figures show.

Investment banks earned $18bn

from debt capital markets in 2009 as companies tapped bond markets heavily to shore up balance sheets, according to Dealogic.

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

46

Apple/ Entertainment/

Apple iPhone Tops Mobile Phone Industry in the U.S.

By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

and a cumulative market share of 6.4 percent.

As to web activity on cell Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:00:55 AM phones, Google topped the list of If you live in the U.S. and own a sites accessed via a mobile mobile phone, it’s most likely an device, and competitor Yahoo iPhone, according to a new study came in second with its Yahoo conducted by Nielsen. From Mail site. Gmail came in third, January through October of this and YouTube won out in terms year, Apple’s little wonder of destinations for mobile video, device was the most popular making it a very solid year for phone in the country.

Google in terms of the mobile It beat the BlackBerry 8300 web.

(Curve), which came in at No. 2.

Notably, no Android devices BlackBerry’s cumulative share considerable age and lack of while the Curve had 3.7 percent. made the top 10 list of popular The gap was wider between the devices, but Motorola’s Droid still exceeds the iPhone’s, smartphone features. however, as the touchscreen By the numbers, the iPhone 3G second- and third-place finishers, arrived late to the game. Expect Storm and entry-level Pearl also took 4 percent of cell-phone with the RAZR taking only 2.3 to see it, or possibly the Nexus placed quite high on the list. ownership in the U.S. (it’s percent. Meanwhile LG had a One, somewhere on this list in C o m i n g i n a t N o . 3 w a s unclear how previous models and s t r o n g s h o w i n g , w i t h f o u r 2010.

Motorola’s RAZR V3, despite its the 3GS fit into this breakdown), handsets appearing in the top 10,

E-reader News Edition

Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston Golden Globes News (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:52:00 AM

ET has the latest...

A-listers Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston are heading to the Golden Globes!

Roberts and Aniston have just been announced as presenters for the star-studded ceremony, for which Roberts is also a nominee (for her role in the comedy 'Duplicity').

The pretty pair is joining a presenters list that already includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke.

Gawker.TV: The Five Best Videos Ever of the Day [Clipjob]

By Whitney Jefferson (Gawker)

nether-regions, but somehow we're still scarred.

The Most Painful Figure Skating Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:00:00 PM Falls Today at Gawker.TV, Whoopi Tis the season when girls in Goldberg loves her weed, Kathy sparkly miniskirts—who are Griffin shows us her lady-parts, o f a d i s c u s s i o n a b o u t t h e morning? No worries, just watch Ms. Harvey Levin, of course. better athletes than you'll ever Harvey Levin's craptastic TMZ correlation between arrests for an episode of Teen Mom and you Here's a peek inside last night's be—venture out onto the cold, show, Teen Mom will scare your marijuana possession and race. will never forget to strap on that show. unforgiving ice and perform Kathy Griffin Spreds 'Em for the christmas miracles. Or fall on teenager out of ever having sex, Once Joy calls Whoopi out on rubber again.

TMZ TV: A Staff Meeting, Camera on The Late, Late Show their face. Enjoy this brutal and the most brutal figure skating her use of street slang, the slip-up was impossible to ignore.

Broadcast Our eyes! Last night, Kathy compilation of figure skater falls. falls we've seen.

Whoops! Whoopi Goldberg Teen Mom Is Televised Birth Did you know that TMZ has its Griffin visited Craig Ferguson's own TV show? Well, it does! s h o w a n d g a v e u s a l l a n C a l l e d O u t o n H e r W e e d - Control Pesky condoms making you lose Seriously. And the best part undesirable holiday treat: her Smoking Ways Today's uncomfortable clip from sensation? Hard to remember to about TMZ TV? It's basically a crotch, sans panties. CBS made The View happens in the midst take your birth control pill every glorified staff meeting-starring sure to censor the crap out of her

Tech Blog/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

How I develop formats and protocols (Scripting News)

conversing this way, I start to make the conversation meaningful. I take my time, I don't think I've ever written a really slow down and think, try blog post that explains how I out lots of approaches. I also do a develop formats and protocols, lot of prior art searches to see if I probably because I was afraid of can pick up ideas from people getting flamed. Nowadays I'm who came before. In this case, I not so afraid, so here's how I do looked at FriendFeed's realtime it.

API, but I came up with 1. First, I have to understand the something that's a bit simpler. It problem. That might take a could be that the previous month or more of walking around protocol can do more than mine, Berkeley or New York listening but I just wanted to flow updates to music and podcasts. When I across firewalls and NATs. (Even finally feel I grok it enough to so, my protocol has a lot of room begin coding, I need to have at for growth.) least two apps. One that produces 4. Once I've settled on the the format and one that consumes format, and this could take a few it. So I start by writing very days, I then split the apps simple versions of those apps and between a real server and client usually run them on the same and start to test it doing the work machine to make debugging it was intended to do. Since I easier. haven't done that yet, I can't tell 2. I connect them with a protocol you how it will go. I might loop that I know won't be the one I back to step 3 and change the will use, but models it in some format based on what I've fashion. In the app I'm working learned. I will certainly add on now, I had the server wait a logging features and metadata to random amount of time before the payload to enable debugging returning the name of one of the and performance monitoring.

50 states chosen at random. On 5. Once I'm satisfied that it the client side, I have it open a works, I write an informal connection to the server and wait document for discussion and until it gets an answer, which it review. I don't sneak a look to just records in the database. friends or people I like. If I did, 3. Once I have the two apps that would violate the very Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:07:34 AM

have a chance to spot problems in my proposed formats and protocols, there really isn't much room to argue over the minute details. There are always two or more ways to do something.

Instead of calling a packet a I could call it a but what difference would that make?

I have participated in the working group style of format definition, what I called the "deliberative approach" in yesterday's piece. But I don't like the results that come from that. I believe in designing these bits of tech as much as Jonathan Ive would design a new iPod or BMW would design a driving machine. To me this is an art, and in art there are always choices, important principle of keeping and someone has to make them. the playing field level. Instead I'll The deliberative process is all post the document publicly and a b o u t n o t m a k i n g c h o i c e s , post pointers in various places, putting all the possible ways of on the rssCloud mail list, on doing something in the spec. This Twitter, probably on the Frontier- gives an ego boost to the people Kernel list since I'm trying to on the working group, and a lot reactivate that community after a of grief to the engineers who long period of staying out of it. have to deploy. In the end you Now some people say this isn't have multiple profiles and lots of a n o p e n p r o c e s s , b u t i n missed opportunities for interop. developing technology there has H a v i n g o n e p e r s o n a c t a s to be a time for thinking. We designer may hurt some egos, but can't mind-meld like Vulcans. I the format works better in the require solitary thinking time to real world. figure stuff out. So while people

47

Los Angeles Lakers' Pau Gasol signs $64M extension, according to report

By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:10:47 PM

Gasol EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Pau Gasol has agreed to a three-year contract extension with the Los Angeles Lakers, and he's hoping Kobe Bryant follows his lead.

Gasol's deal extends through the 2013-14 season, and could be worth more than $60 million depending on future salary caps.

The Spanish power forward has been to two NBA finals since joining the Lakers on Feb. 1, 2008, propelling the franchise back into the league's elite. A dependable No. 2 scoring option alongside Bryant, Gasol averaged 18.9 points and 9.6 rebounds last season while Los Angeles won its 15th NBA title.

Gasol says he believes Bryant intends to finalize his own extension soon, keeping together the Lakers' championship core for several more years.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

48

TV/ Fashion/

E-reader News Edition

Cable News Ratings for Tuesday, December 22, 2009

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers)

HLN – 180,000 viewers 35-64 Prime Time FNC –974,000 viewers Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:01:22 PM CNN – 230,000 viewers Live + Same Day Cable News MSNBC –336,000 viewers Daily Ratings for December 22, CNBC – 91,000 viewers 2009 HLN –253,000 viewers P2+ Total Day Morning programs (6:00AMFNC – 1,124,000 viewers 9:00AM) P2+ (25-54) (35-64) CNN – 437,000 viewers FOX & Friends- 942,000 MSNBC –313,000 viewers viewers (319,000) (558,000) CNBC – 196,000 viewers American Morning- 348,000 HLN –341,000 viewers viewers (135,000) (182,000) P2+ Prime Time Morning Joe- 300,000 viewers FNC – 2,049,000 viewers (65,000) (162,000) CNN – 619,000 viewers Squawk Box- 171,000 viewers MSNBC –654,000 viewers (9,000) (100,000) CNBC – 186,000 viewers Morning Express w/ MeadeHLN –587,000 viewers 281,000 viewers (160,000) 25-54 Total Day (203,000) FNC –305,000 viewers 5PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) CNN –121,000 viewers Glenn Beck – 1,660,000 viewers MSNBC –72,000 viewers (419,000) (813,000) CNBC – 54,000 viewers Situation Room—562,000 HLN- 143,000 viewers viewers (137,000) (194,000) 25-54 Prime Time Hardball w/ Chris FNC – 553,000 viewers Matthews—487,000 viewers CNN – 149,000 viewers (58,000) (233,000) MSNBC –169,000 viewers Fast Money—276,000 viewers CNBC – 78,000 viewers (62,000) (119,000) HLN – 159,000 viewers Prime News —232,000 viewers 35-64 Total Day (127,000) (156,000) FNC – 554,000 viewers 6PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) CNN – 191,000 viewers Special Report with Bret Baier – MSNBC – 163,000 viewers 1,982,000 viewers (395,000) CNBC – 97,000 viewers (868,000)

Situation Room—437,000 viewers (123,000) (187,000) Ed Show—440,000 viewers (75,000) (237,000) Mad Money —201,000 viewers (64,000) (107,000) Prime News – 280,000 viewers (117,000) (192,000) 7PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The Fox Report – 1,808,000 viewers (428,000) (761,000) CNN Tonight – 589,000 (106,000) (219,000) Hardball w/ Chris Matthews – 485,000 (80,000) (250,000) Kudlow Report — 156,000 viewers (a scratch w/ 35,000) (69,000) Issues– 467,000 viewers (150,000) (256,000) 8PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The O’Reilly Factor – 2,497,000 viewers (626,000) (1,134,000) Campbell Brown – 461,000 viewers (124,000) (163,000) Countdown w/ K. Olbermann – 785,000 viewers (187,000) (381,000) Big Mac: Inside McDonalds – 172,000 viewers (85,000) (72,000) Nancy Grace – 782,000 viewers (221,000) (358,000) 9 PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) Hannity – 1,834,000 viewers (496,000) (879,000)

Larry King Live —790,000 viewers (169,000) (283,000) Rachel Maddow Show —750,000 viewers (185,000) (392,000) BIO: Dave Thomas— 259,000 viewers (113,000) (141,000) Joy Behar- 580,000 viewers (120,000) (232,000) 10 PM P2+ (25-54) (35-64) On The Record w/ Greta —1,814,000 viewers (535,000) (907,000) Anderson Cooper 360 — 606,000 viewers (154,000) (244,000) Countdown w/ K. Olbermann – 426,000 (134,000) (235,000) NewBos: Black Overclass — 129,000 viewers (a scratch w/ 37,000) (59,000) Nancy Grace –440,000 viewers (151,000) (194,000) 11 PM P2+ (25-54) (35-64) The O’Reilly Factor —1,150,000 viewers (399,000) (682,000) Anderson Cooper 360 — 358,000 viewers (124,000) (186,000) Rachel Maddow Show —356,000 viewers (117,000) (234,000) Mad Money – a scratch w/ 46,000 viewers (a scratch w/ 20,000) (a scratch w/ 31,000)

Celebrity Second Coming

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:59:30 PM

It’s often said that Debra

Messing is this generation’s Lucille Ball. Which titian-tressed comedienne makes you laugh more? Cast your vote here!

—Erin Clements

Photos: Retna Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan! ]

Showbiz Tonight– 387,000 viewers (185,000) (218,000) For other days cable news ratings click here.

P2+ = viewers over the age of 2 (25-54) = Adults 25-54 viewing (35-64) = Adults 35-64 viewing Prime Time = 8-11pm LIVE+SD: The number that watched a program either while it was broadcast OR watched via DVR on the same day [through 3AM the next day] the program was broadcast. For more information see Numbers 101.

Scratch = when a show’s audience fails to meet minimum Nielsen reporting levels. For more information go here.

Nielsen Cable Network Coverage Estimates(as of September, 2009) CNN/HLN: 99.098 million HHs CNBC: 96.78 million HHs FNC: 96.26 million HHs MSNBC: 92.64 million HHs Nielsen TV Ratings Data: ©2009 The Nielsen Company.

All Rights Reserved.

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

TV/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

49

Oxygen’s “Bad Girls Club” Delivers Most Watched Telecast Ever

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:57:23 PM

via press release: OXYGEN’S “BAD GIRLS CLUB” DELIVERS MOST WATCHED TELECAST EVER OXYGEN’S “BAD GIRLS CLUB” DELIVERS MOST WATCHED TELECAST EVER IN NETWORK HISTORY www.Oxygen.com, “Bad Girls Club” Show Site and Live Two Screen Experience @ www.OxygenLive.com Logged Their Best Premiere Day This Season NEW YORK, December 23, 2009 -Last night’s fourth episode of Oxygen’s “Bad Girls Club” season four delivered an early Christmas present to the network by becoming the series’ and the network’s most watched telecast ever among A18-49 (1,112,000), W18-34 (572,000), A18-34 (800,000), and total viewers (1,677,000), according to Fast Nationals provided by Nielsen Media Research.

Compared to last week’s episode (12/15/09), last night’s episode was up +8% among A18-49 (1,112,000 vs. 1,025,000), +1%, among W 18-49 (749,000 vs.

744,000), +9% among W18-34

(572,000 vs. 527,000) and +18% among total viewers (1,677,000 vs. 1,421,000). The episode was the 26th telecast to deliver over 1MM viewers for Oxygen in 2009 and the first episode to ever deliver over 1.5 MM total viewers.

The night also marked recordbreaking participation on the show’s site and on www.OxygenLive.com, a firstever live two screen experience for Oxygen’s fans. Oxygen.com delivered 1.8MM pageviews and 83,000 video streams, with OxygenLive increasing uniques by +77% and pageviews by 70%.

“Bad Girls Club” also took over four of the top ten trending topics on Twitter last night between 1011pm. At one point during the telecast, “Bad Girls Club,” “Natalie” and “Portia” were #1, #2 and #3 respectively. Also notable, “Bad Girls Club” show site was among the biggest shows sites on the web in the week ending 12/19/09, ranking #5 among adult cable networks.

The”Bad Girls Club” season four premiere (12/1/09) was series’ most watched season premiere ever among A18-49 (611,000), W18-49 (431,000), and total viewers (874,000). The

fourth episode improved +36% among W18-49 (1,112,000 vs.

817,000), +23% W18-49 (749,000 vs. 607,000), +26% among W18-34 (572,000 vs.

453,000), and +47% for total viewers (1,677,000 vs.

1,143,000) over the prior season average.

This season of “Bad Girls Club” closes out 2009 with a bang, keeping the network on pace for its highest year ever among key demos. Oxygen is pacing to have 6 consecutive years of growth among A18-49, W18-49, and total viewers.

“Bad Girls Club” drama returns with all new episodes beginning Tuesday, January 5 at 10pm ET/PT on Oxygen.

Season four brings seven new self-proclaimed “bad girls” together in a beautiful mansion in Los Angeles. These women recognize that their outrageous behavior has hindered their relationships, careers and lives.

They have issues with anger, trust and control. In a house full of women with similarly explosive personalities, clashes erupt between roommates and housemates over everything from who’s on cleaning duty to where they should go out at night. Will

these bad girls, faced with the mirrored image of their own behavior, learn to moderate and control their bad girl energy or will they spin out of control and flee this opportunity for change?

“Bad Girls Club” is produced by Bunim-Murray Productions.

About Oxygen Media Oxygen Media is a multiplatform lifestyle brand that delivers relevant and entertaining content to young women, wherever they are. Oxygen is rewriting the rulebook for women’s media, with a vast array of unconventional and original content including “Bad Girls Club,” “Dance Your Ass Off” and “Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood.” Popular features online include shopOholic, makeOvermatic, tweetOverse and hormoneOscope. Available in 75 million homes, online at www.oxygen.com, or on mobile devices at wap.oxygen.com, Oxygen Media is a service of NBC Universal.

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

NBA Power Rankings: Lakers Back on Top, Just in Time for Christmas

By Brett Pollakoff (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Cavaliers, Celtics, Hawks, Lakers, Magic, Mavericks, Nuggets, Rockets, Suns, Trail Blazers, NBA Power Rankings The Lakers and the Cavaliers will highlight the NBA's Christmas Day schedule, but at least at this point in the season, they are not the undisputed top two teams in the league. The Celtics are in that conversation somewhere, and seeing how they fare against the Magic as part of the league's five-game holiday lineup should give us some idea of where, exactly, that may be.

There was plenty of movement beyond the big three in this week's Rankings, so read on to find out where your team landed this week.

50

TV/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

A&E Posts Best Year in Network History

By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:48:42 PM

via press release: A&E is wrapping up the best year in the network’s history among all key demographics, including adults 18-49, 25-54 and total viewers. This achievement will mark an astonishing sixth straight year of growth among the key adults 18-49 and 25-54 demographics for the twenty-five year-old network.

Among all entertainment cable networks in 2009, A&E ranks number 4 in adults 25-54, number 5 in adults 18-49 and number 5 in total viewers (up from number 6 in 2008). With just a week left in the year, A&E is averaging 1.4 million total viewers in prime, up 8% over 2008. A&E has also outdelivered 2008 impressions among adults 25-54 (703,000) and 18-49 (671,000), in 2009.

“2009 was marked by the strong performance of A&E’s unparalleled slate of original programming,” said Bob DeBitetto, President and General Manager of A&E and BIO. “It has truly been an outstanding year for the network with strong growth in a very competitive

The Era of the 40Year-Old Goaltender Continues

By Christopher Botta (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 AM

landscape. Our exceptional performance in 2009 was fueled by the introduction of new hit series ‘Hoarders’ and ‘Steven Seagal Lawman,’ as well as the strength of our established franchises such as ‘Intervention,’ ‘Gene Simmons Family Jewels,’ ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ and ‘The First 48,’ giving us great momentum heading into 2010.”

In just five short years, A&E has risen 6 spots in adults 25-54 (from #10 to #4), 7 spots among total viewers (from #12 to #5) and an amazing 10 notches in

adults 18-49 (from #15 to #5).

Among the target demo of adults 25-54, A&E has finished among cable’s top ten networks for 41 consecutive months.

For the month of December 2009, A&E is up 36% among total viewers (1.9 million), 31% among adults 25-54 (926,000) and 29% among adults 18-49 (874,000), versus December 2008, marking the best month ever in the network’s history.

A&E is also poised for the best quarter in network history among total viewers (1.6 million) and

adults 25-54 (753,000), for the fourth quarter of 2009.

In 2009 A&E was again recognized for its excellence in programming, this time receiving the Emmy® Award for Outstanding Reality Program for the hit series “Intervention.”

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

Filed under: Islanders Major League Baseball witnessed the renaissance of the 40-year-old pitcher over the last decade. In hockey, we may be entering the era of the 40-year-old goaltender.

Prior to the lockout, the last goalie over the age of 40 to play in the NHL was Tony Esposito (h/t, Elias Sports Bureau). The Hall of Famer with the Chicago Blackhawks played 18 games as a 40-year-old in his final season in 1983-84. Net-minding legends Glenn Hall and Terry Sawchuk played until they were 40, Jacques Plante to the age of 43, but Tony Espo was it for a long time.

E-reader News Edition

Entertainment/

51

Please Talk Among Yourselves on #crosstalk While We Gorge on Eggnog [Forums]

By Gabriel Snyder (Gawker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:03:24 PM

Your Gawker editorial team has largely vamoosed (though there'll be some posting over the next two days) but that doesn't mean there's nothing going on here.

We're creating the tagpage#crosstalk where you can spend the whole weekend chatting.

If you haven't played with them, our new anarchic tag pages allow you to post your thoughts, questions, rants, videos, images or whatever else on the site without waiting for the editors to get around to posting something about it. We already have a couple, like#tips where we solicit your ideas for posts, and#stalker, where we'd like your sightings of celebrities. And now we have#crosstalk, which is dedicated solely to you and your chattiness. So please, go give it a whirl.

As for the holiday schedule, here's what you can expect: Brian and Ravi are around for another couple hours and Adrian will be posting tonight. Tomorrow and Friday (yes, Christmas) you'll see a few posts by Ravi and then Foster's doing his weekend thing.

Things kinda go back to normal on Monday.

One more thing: Kaila HaleStern, who's in charge over overseeing the commentariat for

thread has gone off-topic and should be moved to another forum.

Many readers have already discovered how to make their voices stand out via our#tips pages. Here you can share breaking news, leaked info, links of interest and timely video. Give us some substantive lines on why we should follow up, and your post may be promoted or featured on the blog. The#tips page is also an excellent space to audition as a first-time commenter with a juicy tidbit or to show off your investigative instincts.

Self-promoters and spammers will be summarily banned, but quality contributors have the spotlight.

In addition, there is now an Gawker Media, drafted up this Gawker Media blogs are known uninitiated. memo on what makes a good for their savvy commentary. We We like to see good spelling and informal commenter forum, commenter (and hints at how you strive to grammar, because we're nerdy where the conversation is yours to guide. might get a star) and has been let in a smart and plugged-in like T his is the place to add after me to post it for a while. So, c o m m u n i t y , a n d w e w a n t that. Capitalization and b e f o r e y o u g o o v e r comments that punctuation are important, too. c o m m e n t s , liveblogs, pictures, video, and to#crosstalk(hint hint), please serve as first-rate contributions These basic links that are relevant to your give it a read. to the post at hand. We love new requirements go a long way In the spirit of holiday house- insight and inside information. towards making us all look community. It's also easy to jump over here if you find cleaning, it's time for a crash We value informed response and better. Staying course welcome on-topic in a thread is essential yourself veering in comments etiquette. What can spirited debate. Above all, — but now you can also take a off-topic and want to take others with you. y o u d o ? W h a t s h o u l d y o u comments should always further topic definitely the to your own generated#hashtag So: thumbs up to attention to never do? What, in effect, do we discussion."Lifehacker's Guide page, then direct others there. detail, thoughtful typing and w a n t f r o m y o u , C i t i z e n To Weblog Comments" is a great Editors PLEASE page 53 Commenter? jumping-off point for the may sometimes caution that a

52

Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Amy Winehouse Likes Heckling, Will Kick Ass of Anyone Who Tries To Stop Her [No You Shut Up]

By Ravi Somaiya (Gawker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:39:50 PM

Winehouse went to a play for children in a crappy small English town. Though police haven't released details, it seems she (allegedly) started profanely heckling the performers and then assaulted a member of staff who tried to stop her.

She was charged with assault today, for the incident which happened on Saturday. The 26year-old gave her married name, Amy Civil, when she presented herself at the police station. I am writing this in my capacity as temporary London correspondent. Using my expert knowledge of England, I can tell you that the town it happened in, Milton Keynes, is shitty beyond belief (it's famous for roundabouts) and that the real scandal is that Amy Winehouse is attending performances in the equivalent of, say, Sacramento.

The play she was seeing was a pantomime. Forgive me if you know this, but a pantomime is a British play for children that tends to be based on a fairytale.

There's a tradition whereby they crowd join in with performers. In

Jersey Shore Investigation Has Nothing to Do with Violence, Steroids [Shore Thing]

By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:39:03 PM

one common scene the good guy (Cinderella in this case) is hiding from the bad guy (the ugly sisters, one presumes) and asks the audience whether they can see said bad guy. The villain is lurking behind them. The crowd then shout out "he's behind you!"

Look: it's rainy over here, and times are tough and we have to make our own fun, OK? Winehouse put her own spin on the call-and-response tradition.

The Daily Mail reported the

incident thus: At the performance the singer was said to have shocked children and parents by shouting 'He's f ****** behind you' and yelling out 'F*** Cinders, Prince Charming, marry me". Refusing to sit down, she also branded the Ugly Sisters 'b******".

A member of staff tried to stop her, and the rest writes itself.

Allegedly.

The first investigation into the show is about taxes. How boring!

New Jersey State Senator Joseph Vitale doesn't like the way the show depicts Italian-Americans and launched an investigation into the show's wages and hiring practices. Leave Jersey Shore alone!

Vitale launched all his venom at our favorite program through NBC New York, "Saying that the young people on Jersey Shore represent all young Italian Americans is like saying The Jerry Springer Show represents responsible journalism."

Along with asking MTV and

parent company Viacom to cancel the show and advertisers to boycott it, he got the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to open an investigation into the employment status and wages paid to the cast members on the show as well as the tax status of the Shore Store, the emporium of awesome that hired the kids as "Shore Store Whores" during their stay last summer. If Bossman Danny goes to jail over this, we are going to be seriously pissed. And if this investigation keeps us from getting a second season, that will suck more than Snooki with a fresh jar of Vlasics.

Entertainment/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

PLEASE continued from page 51

prodigious use of the 'Shift' key. Personal attacks, inappropriate behavior and off-topic rants in comments are subject to bans, disemvowelling and deletion. Starred commenters should be aware that their privileges are not guaranteed, and should be careful in the comments they approve and promote. Commenters can be demoted for unruly or obscene

posting.

Baiting trolls helps no one, and we want the level of dialogue maintained to be high. But editors and moderators are equally on the lookout for our best contributors, too, to promote and star for brilliant efforts of the commenting kind, so let's see what you've got.

53

Sources: Brett FavreBrad Childress friction centers around control of Minnesota Vikings offense

By Ed Werder (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:22:46 PM

Favre, Childress Met To Resolve Issues Favre, Childress Met To Resolve Issues VIDEO PLAYLIST • Favre, Childress Met To SOURCES: page 54

Way to Break up and Not A Lesson in Cleaning Glass, by Tell Anyone, Tim Robbins David Lee eight games, allowing just 91.8 and Susan Sarandon [Splits] ByMain)Tom Lorenzo (Fanhouse points per. I'd go on record and

By Brian Moylan (Gawker)

film darlings have been together so long they were one of those Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:43:09 PM couples you took for granted and They must be deeply, deeply thought would never break up. ashamed of their split, since it Now that their sons, Jack and happened this summer and they Miles, are 20 and 17, it seems decided to announce it today, on like there is no reason to stay the wasteland that is Christmas together for the kids' sake. We're Eve Eve. Who is going to know actually a little bit sad about this. now?

We guess this leaves even more The couple's rep tells People, time for Sarandon to focus on "Actress Susan Sarandon and her SPiN, the Manhattan ping-pong partner of 23 years, actor Tim lounge she opened this fall.

Robbins have announced that Sounds like it would be a great they separated over the summer. place to meet her next pretty No further comments will be young thing. made." [ Image via Getty] Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!

These liberal mouthpieces and

say that it's time to knock the Knicks off the shortlist of very Filed under: NBA Last Night, favorable matchups, but you have Fantasy Basketball Home to first look at who their past Delivery is your morning eight opponents were -- Bulls roundup of last night's action in (2x), Bobcats(2x), Nets, Hornets, the NBA from a fantasy Clippers and Trail Blazers. In perspective. case you're wondering, Chicago, Possibly inspired by Charlotte and New Jersey are the Sacramento's performance on three worst scoring teams in the Monday night, the Bulls cut a 22- a woeful 2-of-13 from the floor, league, while the Clippers (25th), point second-half deficit down to but hit clutch free throws at the Blazers (24th) and Hornets (19th) one. However, it was David Lee end of the game, grabbed seven aren't far behind. Give the Knicks and his 18 points on 8-of-13 rebounds and blocked three credit, however, as they've been shooting, 21 rebounds and five shots. playing some inspired basketball assists who sealed the deal with The Knicks held the Bulls to 81 and are for the first time in recent an 8-foot jumper with 5.5 points on 40-percent shooting m e m o r y a t o u g h f a n t a s y seconds remaining to give the from the floor. How 'bout them matchup. At least for the time Knicks their sixth straight home Knicks! They haven't given up being. victory and eighth overall in their 100 points in any of their last last eleven. Danilo Gallinari shot Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:00:00 PM

54

E-reader News Edition

SOURCES: continued from page 53

Resolve Issues Favre, Childress Met To Resolve Issues • Can Vikings Get Past Their Differences? Can Vikings Get Past Their Differences?

MINNEAPOLIS -- The tension between Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre and coach Brad Childress is the result of disagreement over how much influence each should expect to have in running the offense during games, according to multiple team sources.

NFC North blog ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert writes about all things NFC North in his division blog. • Blog network: NFL Nation Childress has a reputation for limiting the number of audibles he allows his quarterbacks to call at the line of scrimmage. Favre apparently believes his knowledge of the offensive system and 19 years of NFL experience qualify him to make changes based on his extensive film study of opponents.

Although the two have discussed their recent disagreement -which became public when Favre resisted Childress' attempts to pull him from Sunday night's loss in Carolina -- it is unclear whether they have resolved the fundamental issue: Is Childress and his coaching staff going to control the game from the sideline, or will Favre be permitted the autonomy he feels is necessary to control it at the

line of scrimmage?

At news conferences on Wednesday, Childress and Favre said they had spoken and resolved to move forward.

Childress said they had a "good talk" on Monday and Wednesday about their disagreement "He and I talked, as we have all year," Favre said, adding that given the team's recent slump, "the frustration is gonna show."

"It's gotten blown way out of proportion," he said.

With the NFC North-leading Vikings (11-3) mired in an offensive slump that has seen them lose two of their last three games, Favre has indicated to teammates he is moving forward and is focused on Monday night's game against the Chicago Bears, the Vikings' first cold-weather game of the season.

What happened in Carolina and in several other games this season in which Childress considered removing Favre for too often changing running plays into pass attempts has nothing to do with Childress attempting to protect his 40-year-old quarterback from punishment or wanting to replace Favre with a quarterback who offers a different style, sources said.

According to sources, Favre dislikes that Childress seldom discusses the game plan with him during the week, and does not encourage the quarterback to offer suggestions as to which plays he feels most comfortable calling in certain situations.

When Favre changes the play at the line of scrimmage -- using his film study and experience -Childress bristles, even when the audible Favre calls works perfectly.

According to sources, Favre dislikes that Childress seldom discusses the game plan with him during the week, and does not encourage the quarterback to offer suggestions as to which plays he feels most comfortable calling in certain situations.

When Favre changes the play at the line of scrimmage -- using his film study and experience -Childress bristles, even when the audible Favre calls works perfectly.

Wednesday, Favre addressed that report, saying he has not demanded more freedom to call his own shots.

"I think there are times I see things that maybe I feel like we could get to or a change that maybe at the line of scrimmage I could get to. As I've told [offensive coordinator] Darrell [Bevell] and I've told [Childress] and anyone who has ever played the game - we all think we know it all at some point. I know that's not the case," Favre said.

"I know our offense starts with Adrian Peterson and that's where it ends and we have to get that back on track," he said, according to the newspaper. "However, we do that we have to get it back on track and we're working towards it. I'm not going up there and saying, 'Hey, you have to give

me more freedom,' because we've been good this year. We've sputtered the last couple of weeks but it can be fixed. I don't think anything major has to happen other than we have to play better."

Favre's experience in the offense -- which, before he signed, he said he knew better than the coaches -- and his leadership were among the qualities he thought the Vikings valued most in pursuing him. Teammates and coaches have lauded the endless hours Favre dedicates to studying tape of opponents, one coach saying Favre knows the names of the janitors at the team complex because he keeps such late hours.

Teammates have apparently supported Favre's refusal to leave the field against Carolina when he had what the quarterback later terms as a "heated discussion" with Childress.

LeRoy Butler, Favre's former teammate in Green Bay, said he was not surprised by the incident, explaining that he beleives "Everybody in Minnesota knows that Brett Favre is running that organization," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Butler, who earlier this season was critical of his former Packer teammate for signing with the archrival Vikings, said Favre should not have questioned Childress when he was asked to come out of the game at Carolina, according to the report.

"So you knew Brett was a diva, you knew Brett wanted it his own

way, you knew this all along. It was just a matter of time before it happened," Butler said, according to the report. "If I'm Percy Harvin, and I have a question on a route or a play, I'm going right to Brett Favre. If I'm Adrian Peterson and I'm not getting the carries I want, I don't go to Childress or Bevell, I go to Brett Favre. He's running the team. All this falls on Brett."

But despite his frustration with Childress, Favre appears determined not to let his problems with Childress interfere with his efforts to fulfill the goal that he says prompted him to sign with the Vikings -- winning the Super Bowl.

Vikings players elected Favre one of the team's captains after his speech to them just before the season opener in which he assured he was not returning to bolster his stats, make money or contend for MVP awards, and he specifically mentioned his willingness to play a secondary role to running back Adrian Peterson in the offense.

Ed Werder is an NFL reporter for ESPN. 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.

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

55

Don’t Sleep on Big 12 Hoops (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

career,” Gary Parrish writes at CBS Sports. “He wanted to leave after his freshman season (like The Big 12 rarely seems to Durant). And after his sophomore receive the heaping spoonful of season (like D.J. Augustin). And hype ladeled onto the Atlantic after his junior season, too. But Coast Conference or Big East circumstances kept James in basketball. But early in this school for three years, then hoops season, no one has looked forced him back for a fourth and stronger at the top than the sons final year, which is shaping up to of the Big Eight and Southwest be his best year by far.” conferences. Getty Images If At Yahoo Sports, Jason King you’re Damion James, doesn’t calls the Longhorns the true No. averaging a double-double for the 1 team. nation’s No. 2 in Austin sound In the Lawrence Journal-World, more fun than back-to-back road Tom Keegan lauds the improved g a m e s a t t h e P a c e r s a n d play of KU sophomore guard Grizzlies?

Tyshawn Taylor.

Kansas and Texas are the NBCSports.com’s Ken Davis country’s top two teams, both 11- p r e d i c t s w h i c h D i v i s i o n I 0. Each won Tuesday, with p r o g r a m w i l l b e t h e l a s t K a n s a s o u t l a s t i n g a g a m e undefeated team and predicts it California, 84-69 and Texas won’t be Kentucky.* * * defeating No. 9 Michigan State, Pitcher Javier Vazquez is back in 79-68. College hoops fans have New York, giving the Yankees already circled the Feb. 8 their fourth A-list starter in their showdown in Austin between the quest to defend their recent Jayhawks and Longhorns.

World Series title. The Yankees The Longhorns rode the solid acquired Vazquez, a righthander, shooting of Damion James, who and Boone Logan, a lefthander, scored 23 points and snared 13 in a five-player trade with r e b o u n d s , g i v i n g T e x a s Atlanta. The New York Post’s consecutive wins over the teams Joel Sherman says the Yankees that played for last year’s NCAA believe bringing back Vazquez is title. (Texas beat North Carolina a worthwhile risk. by 13 on Saturday.)

At MLB.com, Alden Gonzalez James, a senior forward, entered analyzes the various moves the the NBA draft in June, then Boston Red Sox could make to withdrew because of a lack of fortify their roster beyond their interest. Staying in school might recent addition of John Lackey. have been his best career move. In the New York Daily News, “Stuck in college? Sure, that’s a John Harper wonders why the fair way to describe James’ Mets haven’t done any creative Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:36:06 AM

wheeling and dealing.

The Journal-Constitution’s Mark Bradley says the Yankee trade, which sends outfielder Melky Cabrera and two others to Atlanta, proves the Braves aren’t serious about winning.* * * The Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight that boxing fans are pining for might be derailed. The March 13 clash in Las Vegas could be cancelled if Pacquiao doesn’t agree to random, Olympic-style drug testing that Mayweather wants, Yahoo’s Kevin Iole writes.

In an earlier piece for Yahoo, Iole lauds the growing reputation of Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer. “Roachs impact doesnt just begin and end with Pacquiao,” Iole writes. “Like [legendary trainer Eddie] Futch, who trained Roach during his

boxing career, Roach has trained a wide variety of fighters with different styles and abilities. The vast majority of them made the most improvement and fought better when they worked with Roach than they did with anyone else.”* * * Interest in Formula 1 racing barely registers in the U.S. compared with its popularity overseas. Fans’ passion for F1 is as rabid, if not crazier, in Europe as North American fans’ zeal for Nascar. This year has been especially challenging for F1, which has had to confront issues including a sex scandal involving the president of F1’s governing body, several long-running teams suspending operations, and what looked like a serious schism back in June.

Things have settled down since then, and the return from retirement of iconic racer Michael Schumacher is good news for a sport that desperately needs it. Schumacher announced this morning that he will race for Mercedes in 2010. In the Journal, Jonathan Clegg argues that Schumacher’s return is not without peril. “There is a degree of irony in the fact that Formula 1 is now pinning hopes of a revival on Mr. Schumacher,” Clegg writes. “In 2002, his complete domination of the championship he won 11 of the 17 races that year was said to be driving fans away from the sport.

Seven years on, his return is

being hailed as a triumph.”* * * Sean Schultz had a profound impact on the Little League baseball team he coached in Charlotte, teaching and inspiring his players on a team called “Bad News.” For him, sports was all about having fun, and he exhibited patience with everyone, gently encouraging them to become better players. Schultz’s life ended in September when he had a massive heart attack while pitching batting practice, but as Scott Fowler writes in the Charlotte Observer, Schultz’s coaching style lives on.* * * It looked like a scene out of the classic hockey movie “ Slap Shot“: players jumping into the stands and beating the living daylights out of the fans. Except that 30 years ago today, Boston Bruins players climbed over the glass at Madison Square Garden and fought with New York Ranger fans after an NHL game.

In the New York Times, Dave Seminara recounts“one of the most memorable fan-athlete confrontations in sports.”

– Tip of the Fix cap to reader Fred Sternburg and Fixer emeritus Carl Bialik.

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

56

Sports/ Game/

E-reader News Edition

TCU Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson wins AP College Football Coach of the Year

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

three votes and Boise State's Chris Petersen and Texas' Mack Brown each got one vote.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:38:08 AM Patterson's ninth season with the NEW YORK -- Gary Patterson Horned Frogs has been his best, guided TCU to its best season in but TCU's success this season is 70 years on the way to becoming no great surprise. The Frogs have the first Associated Press Coach consistently been a threat to bust of the Year from outside the six the BCS under Patterson, who conferences with automatic BCS was promoted from defensive bids. coordinator after Dennis Patterson led the Horned Frogs Franchione left Fort Worth for to a perfect regular season, their Alabama in 2000. first Mountain West Conference Patterson is 85-27 at TCU and title, their first BCS appearance has led the Horned Frogs to five and even had them vying for a seasons of at least 11 wins the spot in the national championship past seven years. This season, the game.

Horned Frogs went 12-0 for their "I'm really kind of humbled by first undefeated regular season the whole thing," Patterson said since 1938, when TCU won its in a telephone interview. "The only AP national championship. best way I know how to deal with Patterson said he's become a it is to put my nose down and more well-rounded coach during keep getting ready for Boise." his time at TCU. No. 3 TCU plays No. 6 Boise "I had to change my personality.

State(13-0) in the Fiesta Bowl on I'm a passionate guy on game Jan. 4. day. I'm all over the place," he I n a c l o s e v o t e r e l e a s e d said. "I'm better at helping kids Wednesday, Patterson received with their lives. When you first 21 votes from the AP college become an assistant you're all football poll panel to edge Brian about Xs and Os but I tried to Kelly. The former Cincinnati b e c o m e b e t t e r a t [ h e l p i n g coach, now with Notre Dame, p l a y e r s ] a f t e r p r a c t i c e . " received 19 votes and Alabama's The Horned Frogs came into this Nick Saban, who won the award season ranked No. 17 in the last season, got 14 votes. country, but Patterson needed to Chip Kelly of Oregon received replace seven starters on a

defense that was one of the best in the nation in 2008.

"We were not happy with the way we played defense in the spring," Patterson said.

He and his staff quickly rebuilt another fast, swarming defense around All-American pass rusher Jerry Hughes. The Horned Frogs ranked No. 1 in the country in yards allowed and sixth in points allowed.

Hughes is the perfect example of TCU's ability to spot and develop talent.

He was a 210-pound running in high school, but Patterson switched him to defensive end where Hughes has blossomed into a future NFL draft pick.

"We want to be known as the best developmental program in Texas," Patterson said.

This season's TCU team has developed into a dominant one.

The Frogs have blown out most of their opposition -- nine victories by at least 25 points -and come up big on the road.

TCU has won at Virginia, Clemson and Utah.

"It's a very strong underneath current of confidence and that's the reason they have played on the road so well," Patterson said of his team's personality. "Not a high emotion group, not a bunch

of yellers and screamers."

TCU's success has turned the 49year-old Patterson into a rising star in coaching, a guy who's name frequently comes up when another job opens up. Last year, there was speculation he'd end up at his alma mater, Kansas State.

This season, when Notre Dame was looking for a coach, Patterson was mentioned as a possible candidate.

But he agreed to a new contract earlier this month intended to keep him at TCU through 2016.

Patterson said TCU has everything he needs and he doesn't think reaching the BCS means the job is done in Fort Worth.

"For us it's been a dream come true, but we understand there's a fine line between penthouse and outhouse," he said. "People my thing we reached the pinnacle.

No, we haven't. We want to play for the national championship.

We want to be the USC of Texas.

The private school that competes for championships."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Toys R Us Sale: buy 1, get 1 'half off' after Xmas

By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:00:00 PM

Toys R Us will feature a "buy one, get one half off" game sale on all console and some Nintendo DS software starting the day after Christmas (that's December 26) through January 2, 2010. The sale covers all Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, and PS2 titles, along with Nintendo DS games that are $20 or less.

Remember that TRU now accepts game trade-ins, although dealing with the customer service desk the day after Christmas will likely be a nightmare-- just imagine all those parents trying to return the white Zhu Zhu Pet because their kids wanted the brown one. Stores open at 8:00AM on December 26 for those who want first dibs on the discounted games.

Toys R Us Sale: buy 1, get 1 'half off' after Xmas originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Philadelphia Eagles' Brian Westbrook cleared to play against Denver Broncos

Celtics' Paul Pierce out after arthroscopic work on knee

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

By Chris Forsberg (ESPN.com)

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:04:28 PM

PHILADELPHIA -- Just in time for the playoffs, Brian Westbrook is returning to make the Philadelphia Eagles even more dangerous.

Westbrook was cleared to play after recovering from two concussions and is expected to return Sunday against the Denver Broncos.

The former All-Pro running back has played in just six games this season.

Coach Andy Reid said Wednesday that Westbrook did "perfect" on his testing and is "ready to roll" for the NFC Eastleading Eagles (10-4).

"Unless there's a setback, I think that's what he's counting on, the doctors and everybody else," Reid said.

NFC East blog ESPN.com's Matt Mosley writes about all things NFC East in his division blog. • Blog network: NFL Nation Westbrook missed the past five

games after suffering his second concussion in three weeks on Nov. 15 against San Diego.

His first career concussion came against Washington on Oct. 26.

Westbrook sat out two games before returning prematurely against the Chargers.

Westbrook likely will have a limited role in the offense, sharing plays with halfback LeSean McCoy and fullback Leonard Weaver.

"I don't think it's fair to him to throw him in every snap," Reid said. "I'm just concerned about him not having played in games, getting up on game speed."

Westbrook, once the key weapon in Philadelphia's offense, has just 225 yards rushing and 156 yards receiving in six games.

The Eagles are just 3-3 when Westbrook has played.

"He's a great player," Reid said.

"He's one of the smartest players I've ever coached. He brings leadership out there."

Even without Westbrook, the Eagles have been prolific at times on offense. They're second in the NFL behind New Orleans in

scoring, averaging 28.5 points per game.

Quarterback Donovan McNabb is having an outstanding season and dynamic wide receiver DeSean Jackson has replaced Westbrook as the top playmaker.

Jackson has 11 touchdowns this season, including eight that were 50-plus yards.

Adding Westbrook gives Philadelphia another option and forces defenses to be aware of another threat. The 30-year-old Westbrook is the franchise's career leader in yards from scrimmage.

"It's great timing for us because he'll be able to get two games to get his legs under him," McNabb said. "Just his presence back there and the things he's capable of doing will help us."

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

57

definitely miss the four games on the road."

Pierce is averaging 18.2 points, Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:41:47 PM 4.6 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per Celtics captain Paul Pierce game this season. He scored 16 underwent arthroscopic irrigation of his 21 points in the fourth on his right knee Wednesday and quarter of Tuesday's come-fromis expected to miss the next two behind triumph over the Pacers. weeks, according to the team.

Pierce appeared at his usual After a knee infection was postgame press conference and discovered following Tuesday's a g a i n i n t h e l o c k e r r o o m win over the Indiana Pacers, following the game, and did not Pierce underwent the procedure appear to be any worse for the at New England Baptist Hospital wear at that point.

Wednesday morning under the Pierce appeared to be struggling direction of team physician Dr. over the first eight games in Brian McKeon.

December, scoring more than 20 Pierce will not travel with the points in just one of those team on its four-game road trip contests. t h a t s t a r t s F r i d a y w i t h a Pierce, a 6-foot-7 forward, has Christmas Day showdown in played in every game this season Orlando and continues with a for the Celtics and is averaging a three-game trip out West. team-high 18.2 points. He is More on the Celtics currently shooting a career-high Chris Forsberg has the Celtics 47.3 percent from 3-point land covered for ESPNBoston.com. and is ranked fifth in the NBA. Check in for updates throughout The Kansas product netted a the day. Blog season-high 33 points against the "He had the knee rinsed and Knicks on Nov. 22. irrigated, and it will require some Chris Forsberg covers the antibiotics," team owner Wyc Celtics for ESPNBoston.com.

G r o u s b e c k t o l d C o m c a s t Five Filters featured article: SportsNet, the television home of Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: the Celtics. "It's nothing major at PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, all, but it will take some time to Term Extraction. come back from. He'll be out for a week, maybe two, and will

58

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

The Count: Defensive Rebounds Are Nets’ Brooklyn Arena Overrated Appears Inevitable With Financing Deal (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

on the court, would a lineup of all five collect 125% of all rebounds? Well, of course not.

Some hoops analysts would like But how much do the returns to see a number retired: diminish as you add players who rebounding margin. Many shine in a certain stat? The basketball broadcasts emphasize returns for defensive rebounds the stat, but as John Gasaway diminish much faster than for noted on Basketball Prospectus offensive rebounds, suggesting last week, there are many ways to that the defensive rebound your outrebound opponents, and not player just grabbed probably all of them are good. Consider would have been retrieved by a Tulsa, the Division I leader in the teammate if he hadn’t gotten to stat. The Golden Hurricane’s it. That’s why certain player defensive rebounding has been stats, such as the one championed impressive, but one reason for

by ESPN’s John Hollinger, the sheer large number of boards discount defensive rebounds. is that Tulsa’s defense forces (The same effect doesn’t prevail turnovers. Fewer turnovers for shooting accuracy.)

Magic player? means more shots and therefore W h e n a s s e s s i n g p l a y e r s , Those are leaguewide averages, more missed shots and more defensive rebounds are also not though. Some players really do chances to rebound. Conversely, terribly useful. Jon Nichols seem to add to team rebounding a team that turns the ball over illustrated why recently on totals. At Basketball Prospectus, frequently on offense will have Basketball Geek by considering Kevin Pelton writes that Gerald fewer missed shots and therefore whether certain stats are additive, Wallace’s extraordinary rebound provide fewer opportunities for or whether there are diminishing totals with Charlotte this season opponents to collect defensive returns. In other words, if a team — perhaps the most aberrant stat rebounds. Associated Press If has five players who each, on in the NBA — appear to be Dwight Howard hadn’t grabbed average, collect 25% of available coming without any cost to this rebound, would it have gone defensive rebounds when they’re teammates’ results. to Carlos Boozer or to a different Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:15:13 AM

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:31:25 AM

As expected, the New Jersey Nets today closed the deal on some $511 million public financing for their new arena in Brooklyn, allowing developer and team owner Bruce Ratner to embark on a project more than six years in the making. Todays closing represents a vital step forward for New York City, one that is all the more important because of the economic challenges our city faces, Mr. Ratner said in a statement.

Bloomberg An architectural rendering shows the latest design for the Barclays Center arena at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

The Nets hope to move into the arena in 2012. Opponents of the project are continuing to pursue litigation to stop the project, and while their efforts have caused significant delays and financial losses for Mr. Ratner, they have not be an able to stop what now appears inevitable. While Nets officials have privously declared final victory only to be delayed by additional litigation or governement reviews, Mr. Ratner

has never had the combination of secured long-term financing to pursue construction and the blessing of the states highest court to seize all the property he needs to build the arena.

The arrival of the Nets would make Brooklyn home to a major sports franchise for the first time since 1957 when the Dodgers left for Los Angeles.

So far, 56% of the structures on the arena site have been demolished and construction of the temporary rail yard has been completed. Removal of the Vanderbilt Yard tracks and critical upgrades to the sewer and water infrastructure in the area are underway.

Forest City Enterprise shares were up 2 cents to $12.65.

Joan E. Solsman of Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report.

Sports/ Media/

E-reader News Edition

Stinkface Chronicles: Stocking Stuffers

By Rob Peterson (Fanhouse Main)

World Champ Michael Schumacher Returns to Formula One

By Holly Cain (Fanhouse Main)

principle Ross Brawn, who served as technical director on all seven of Schumacher's world Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:31:00 AM titles (two with Benetton and five Seven-time world champion with Ferrari).

M i c h a e l S c h u m a c h e r , t h e And judging by the comments winningest driver in the history from the racing world, few would of Formula One, has officially be surprised if Schumacher announced his return to the sport comes out of retirement to -- ending a three-year retirement immediately contend for an with a newly signed three-year u n t h i n k a b l e e i g h t h F 1 contract to drive for Mercedes championship. At the least, he that will reportedly pay the will be a well-needed adrenalin German $10 million in 2010. shot for the sport.

"Apart from (his experience),'' "Age will not be a factor in Mercedes chief executive Nick Michael's story,'' 1992 world Fry told the BBC, "we believe champion Nigel Mansell told a he's still got massive skill. ... we British newspaper. "It wouldn't really think Michael will take us s u r p r i s e m e i f M i c h a e l to the next step.'' challenged for another world The deal reunites Schumacher, championship.''

40, with Mercedes GP Petronas

MediaDailyNews: Obama Names Schmidt Corporate Cyber Security Chief (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:10:39 AM

Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:15:00 AM

Filed under: Celtics, Timberwolves, NBA Videos It's rare that we have such a quick about-Stinkface in the Chronicles (considering the Chronicles started just this year, every post will have a rarity), but Minnesota's Corey Brewer has become our first posterizer to become posterized.

Brewer, as you remember from Stinkface VIII, asked Derek Fisher to check out the arthroscopy on his right knee last week. Pardon me, but "ask" may be too polite. Brewer demanded Fisher take a gander because the Wolves forward shoved it right

59

into the veteran's chest en route to the hoop.

This week, however, thanks to hustle and hubris, Brewer ended up on the wrong side of Tony Allen's boot -- the underside.

Your stocking stuffer after the jump.

The White House has tapped a corporate cyber security expert and former Bush administration official to strengthen the country's computer networks and better coordinate with companies that operate 80% of those critical systems, reports AP. Howard A. Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, will become the government's cyber security coordinator and have regular access to President Obama.

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

Brian Westbrook Cleared for Week 16

By Chris Burke (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:00:00 AM

Filed under: Eagles, NFL Injuries The NFC East-leading Eagles, winners of five straight, are expecting to get a boost on offense Sunday when Denver visits. Philadelphia coach Andy Reid said at his Wednesday press conference that running back Brian Westbrook has been cleared to return after missing

five games due to postconcussion symptoms.

"Unless there's a setback, I think that's what he's counting on, the

doctors and everybody else," said Reid, who added that Westbrook did "perfect" on medical tests this week.

Westbrook suffered a concussion in Week 7 at Washington, missed two games, then returned in Week 10 and suffered a second concussion against the Chagers. He has not played since.

60

Game/

E-reader News Edition

Joyswag: 1 year of Xbox Live Gold & a pile of XBLA games

By Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)

platforms -- you hope to buy with the cash and credit your receive over the holidays Buying games is always fun -- • You must be 18 years or older and we've made it easy with our and a resident of the US or Holiday Buyer's Guides-- but it's Canada (excluding Quebec) even better to receive them ... in • Limit 1 entry per person one gigantic stack!

• This entry period ends at In that spirit, Microsoft has 12:00PM ET on Thursday, generously donated download December 24 codes for many of the Xbox Live • We'll randomly select one Arcade games featured in our winner at that time to receive Marketplace Buyer's Guide, redemption codes for Bionic including'Splosion Man, Bionic C o m m a n d o : R e a r m e d , Commando Rearmed, Castle Carcassonne, Geometry Wars 2, Crashers, N+, Geometry Wars 2 Castle Crashers, N+, 'Splosion and many, many more. Plus, Man, Puzzle Quest, Super Puzzle we're tossing in a one-year Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, subscription code for Xbox Live Alien Hominid HD, Mega Man Gold!

9, Ikaruga, Galaga Legions, PacTo enter for your chance to win: Man Championship Edition, UNO Rush, A Kingdom for • Leave a comment on this post Keflings, Rez HD, Assault telling us which downloadable Heroes 2, TMNT 1989 and g a m e s - - f o r a n y a n d a l l Bomberman Live for Xbox Live Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:30:00 PM

iPhone It In: A Christmas Santa

Arcade [Total ARV: $190] and a redemption code for a 1-year Xbox Live Gold subscription [ARV: $50] -- please check your emails!

By Justin McElroy (Joystiq) • For a list of complete rules, Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:30:00 PM click here.

You're going to think I'm Happy holidays and best of luck! messing with you, that this is What is Joyswag? Since we some sort of holiday gag, but I d o n ' t k e e p t h e g a m e s a n d assure you that it is not: I can not merchandise we receive for remember ever being as addicted review or promotional purposes, t o a g a m e a s I w a s t o A it becomes"Joyswag," which is Christmas Santa. For a full passed along to our readers. For calendar day it absolutely ruled more info on our policy, click my life, and then, just as quickly here. as it appeared, it was gone.

Joyswag: 1 year of Xbox Live You think it's easy to type these Gold & a pile of XBLA games words and admit that as you sit originally appeared on Joystiq on there all smug and judgmental?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:30:00 Well, it's not. But give me a EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

chance to explain myself and I'm hopeful that you'll walk away -if not convinced, perhaps just a bit more tolerant.

Gallery: A Christmas Santa (iPhone) Continue reading iPhone It In: A Christmas Santa iPhone It In: A Christmas Santa originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Game/

E-reader News Edition

61

Buyer's Guide: DSiWare

By David Hinkle (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:30:00 PM

TimeGate sues SouthPeak for alleged breaches in publishing agreement

By Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:30:00 PM

Chalk up another frustrated party accusing SouthPeak of wrongdoing. The company has been sued by Section 8 developer TimeGate, which alleges that the publisher has withheld royalty payments and entered into a PS3 licensing deal on the game with Russian company IC, an arrangement that TimeGate claims SouthPeak had no right to make.

In legal documents obtained by Joystiq, TimeGate also alleges that this SouthPeak T-shirt promotion was unauthorized, that

the publisher had mislead TimeGate about sales figures and that the publisher has stated it should not have to adhere to TimeGate's original agreement, as it had been made with Gamecock, which SouthPeak purchased in late 2008. We've reached out to SouthPeak for comment.

If you prefer your language far more formal, the lawsuit puts it like this: "[SouthPeak] failed to provide a sufficient sales report, withheld royalty payments and did not adhere to the obligation to act in good faith and fair dealing when they established the sham transaction in order to deprive

TimeGate of royalties despite the special relationship between the parties and being in a position of trust."

No specific amount is mentioned in the suit, with TimeGate asking only for "compensatory damages in an amount to be determined" following an independent audit of Section 8's sales.

TimeGate sues SouthPeak for alleged breaches in publishing agreement originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

The Nintendo DS remains an ever-popular holiday gift. The newest model, the DSi, features a virtual storefront, accessible directly from the device, with numerous downloadable games and apps. With a Nintendo Points card, you can sweeten your DSi gift or brighten an existing DSi owner's holiday. Here are our suggestions for how to spend

your DSiWare points: The Casual Gamer| The Kids Corner| The Parent Trap Continue reading Buyer's Guide: DSiWare Buyer's Guide: DSiWare originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

62

Game/

E-reader News Edition

'All decent people should denounce' Modern Warfare 2, Maine Christian group says

By Christopher Grant (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:30:00 PM

Here, on the eve of the eve of Video Game Gift Giving and Receiving Day (known in some cultures as "Christmas" or "Festivus") comes a heartfelt plea by the fine men and women of the Christian Civic League of Maine, who join us under a common banner of misusing semicolons to bring us this message; "All decent people should denounce the video

game'Modern Warfare 2;' and join in opposing the sale and use of such games."

Yes, Modern Warfare 2's controversial "No Russian" mission -- erroneously titled the "Massacre Level" here -- has once again brought the full weight of the nation's outrage (represented here by the Christian Civic League of Maine). The group reminds us of the "wellestablished cause and effect relationship between video games and school shootings" and

cautions that "the ready availability of drugs, violent video games, and outrageous rock music is a witch's brew

which will eventually lead to tragedy here in Maine." Speaking of witches, GamePolitics points out that the group has outed the

owner of a local book store as a witch (and a Democrat!) and claims she " cast a spell" on the Administrator of the League.

Merry Christmas!

[Via GamePolitics] 'All decent people should denounce' Modern Warfare 2, Maine Christian group says originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

The Emotiv Epoc brain controller is supposedly out now ... did you get one?

By Christopher Grant (Joystiq)

debut at the 2008 Game Developers Conference where it Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:00:00 PM failed to sway a skeptical live P r o j e c t N a t a l a i m s t o audience ( including us!) -- the revolutionize video games by company later pinned the blame d o i n g o n e s i m p l e t h i n g : directly on interference from the removing the controller from the sound crew's fancy wireless v i d e o g a m e e q u a t i o n . T h e headsets.

E m o t i v E p o c a i m s t o Now, a year-and-a-half later, revolutionize video games even Emotiv is finally shipping the harder by removing the entire $299 device this week, which human body from the video game means, if you pre-ordered the equation ... well, except the brain. device (alas, that first shipment is The would-be mind-control all sold out) it should be in your device made an inauspicious hands (and on your head) this

week. We're not sure what to make of the lack of press outreach, but we'll be at CES in January and hope to give the

you've got one already and want to share some pictures and feedback, you know where to find us.

Gallery: Emotiv Brain Computer Interface The Emotiv Epoc brain controller is supposedly out now ... did you get one? originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Epoc another trial. In the interim, Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please if you want to drop $299 on the see our terms for use of feeds. thing, "orders placed will be Read| Permalink| Email this| shipped within 2 weeks." If Comments

Fashion/ Popular News/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

63

Texas mayor wasn't target of driveby in Mexico (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Outside, they found a couple dozen police officers and learned a woman had been shot in front McALLEN, Texas – A Texas of the restaurant in a drive-by, border mayor said Wednesday he Foster said. doesn't think he or the Mexican The Coahuila state attorney officials he was with Tuesday general's office released a were the targets of a drive-by statement Wednesday identifying shooting that killed a woman in the victim as 40-year-old Sonia front of a popular restaurant in Elizabeth Sanchez Muzquiz of Piedras Negras, Mexico.

Piedras Negras and calling the Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster shooting a "cowardly murder." said he was in the smoking Sanchez had just left the section at the back of the restaurant with others when she Charcoal Grill with the outgoing was shot, the statement said. She m a y o r o f P i e d r a s N e g r a s , was taken to a hospital, where Coahuila state Attorney General she died hours later.

Jesus Torres and other Mexican Sanchez was the daughter-in-law officials Tuesday afternoon when of incoming city council member Torres' security officers told Rafael Guillermo Garcia Leos, them all to get on the floor. who was dining at the restaurant Patrons from the front of the with his family, separate from the restaurant were herded into the other officials, city spokesman kitchen. Within minutes they Alejandro Osorno said. were given the all clear.

Witnesses reported a Piedras "Nobody ever came into the Negras municipal police vehicle restaurant," Foster said. "We was passing when the shots rang never heard a shot." out, the state attorney general's The public officials had just statement said. Tests were run on c o m e f r o m a s w e a r i n g - i n 23 local police officers who were ceremony for the new mayor who on duty and the 11 vehicles they will take office in Piedras Negras were using to see if any of them in January, Foster said. had fired a weapon. All the tests Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:18:53 PM

Street Chic: Paris

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/23/2009 4:00:00 AM

Strong solid colors offset stonewashed jeans.

Photo: Anne Ziegler

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

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

came back negative, the statement said.

The Charcoal Grill sits on a busy avenue across the street from a Holiday Inn. There's a landmark restaurant by the same name in Eagle Pass.

"I never felt threatened," said Foster, who visits Eagle Pass' sister city across the Rio Grande daily. "Nobody's after me."

As head of the Texas Border Coalition, a group of political and business leaders from the Texas border region, Foster has been an outspoken opponent of the border fence.

Foster said he would attend another swearing in ceremony in a nearby Mexican municipality Saturday.

Piedras Negras has seen increasing drug gang violence. In April, gunmen killed its new police chief, a retired army officer sent in to clean up the department.

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

Glencore takes step closer to flotation (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:49:16 AM

Glencore, the world’s dominant

commodity trader, has taken its first step towards becoming a public company by issuing up to $2.2bn in convertible bonds to strategic investors in the US,

Singapore and China.

The issue, which values the publicity shy, Switzerland-based company at $35bn, has been taken up by First Reserve, the US

-based private equity group which focuses on natural resources, GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund; US-based BlackRock; and Zijin Mining

Group, the Chinese miner.

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

64

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Aide: Brazilian family giving up fight for US boy (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:18:16 PM

RIO DE JANEIRO – David Goldman's bitter five-year battle to regain custody of his son neared conclusion Wednesday, when the child's Brazilian family halted its legal efforts as a courtordered deadline for delivering the boy loomed.

Goldman has said repeatedly that until he is on a plane heading to the U.S. with 9-year-old Sean at his side, he would not feel relief. But with a court ordering the boy's handover Thursday morning at the U.S. Consulate, the end appeared to be in sight.

Goldman's fight against a powerful family of Rio de Janeiro lawyers— a David vs.

Goliath matchup in a nation where the wealthy are used to coming out on top — shifted in recent months, legally and among ordinary Brazilians.

The case was once largely viewed through a nationalistic lens. But with Goldman's persistent fighting it has come to be seen on talk shows and in neighborhood bars as a dad simply trying to be with his son.

Which is how Goldman has always framed it.

"Sean is my family, Sean is my son. It is our right to be together, not just a rule of law, not just a treaty, not he's Brazilian, not he's American, not he's from anywhere. He's my son and I

should be able to raise my son and he should know his dad," Goldman said this week.

Goldman, of Tinton Falls, N.J., won a big legal victory late Tuesday when Brazil's chief justice upheld a lower court's ruling that ordered Sean returned to him. Sean has lived in Brazil since Goldman's ex-wife, Bruna Bianchi, took him to her native country for what was supposed to be a two-week vacation in 2004.

Last year she died in childbirth.

Sean's stepfather, Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, has continued the fight, winning temporary custody in Brazil of the boy. He looked prepared to keep him in the family's massive compound with multiple buildings surrounded by tropical trees, a large wall and gate where expensive SUVs pass through and security guards keep 24-hour watch.

Lins e Silva, a prominent divorce attorney in his father's family law firm, used all legal means available to keep the boy in Brazil. Despite numerous court rulings in favor of Goldman, Lins e Silva continuously found an appeal route that delayed a handover.

But those court battles are now over.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who has strongly supported Goldman for a year and is in Brazil with him, said Goldman's lawyers believe Brazil's federal

police are authorized to remove the child from the family if the court deadline is not met. He also said the international police agency Interpol has been notified to make sure Sean is not spirited out of the country by his Brazilian relatives.

Goldman declined to comment Wednesday, as did the Brazilian family's attorney, Sergio Tostes, who referred all questions to his office.

An aide for Tostes said the legal fight was over.

"It is certain the family will not pursue any more legal channels," the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Despite that and a federal court order that the boy be handed over by 9 a.m. (6 a.m. EST; 1100 GMT) Thursday, Smith said Goldman remains cautious.

"David is very guarded in his emotions because he had so many disappointments in his past, but he does believe that the 9 a.m. deadline is relatively firm," Smith said. "He's optimistic. He can't wait to see his son and to be together for the rest of their lives."

Goldman has seen his son only twice in the five years since his then-wife took the child to visit her family in Brazil, then informed him she wanted a divorce. After a Brazilian court granted the divorce, a New Jersey

court awarded Goldman custody of his son.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said a U.S. passport had been issued for Sean and delivered to his father in Brazil.

"Many people have been up through the night to provide support for the Goldman family, to maintain contact with the Brazilian government as we hopefully come to the end of this process," Crowley told reporters.

"We look forward to the reuniting of Sean Goldman with his father, David."

Silvana Bianchi, Sean's maternal grandmother, blamed international pressure — in particular, the U.S. Senate's delay in renewing a trade bill worth $2.75 billion a year to Brazil — for losing her grandson.

She lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court last week, petitioning that the boy's own testimony about where he wanted to live be heard. That was denied Tuesday by Brazil's chief justice Gilmar Mendes.

"He is really sad, he doesn't want to go," she told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper. "Gilmar Mendes stripped him of his right to expression, to open his mouth and say he doesn't want to go. In his own country, he's not respected. Here, he's under a gag rule."

Goldman has contended, however, that his son wants to

return with him and that he has been under undue pressure from his Brazilian family for the past five years.

Christopher Schmidt, a St. Louis -based attorney with Bryan Cave LLP, said the slow-moving Brazil court system is what failed in this case.

"The critical lesson from this tragic story is to not permit these child abduction cases to spiral into protracted custody disputes, as happened in Brazil," he said.

"While Brazil finally made the right decision, Brazil breached its fundamental obligation to decide the abduction case expeditiously."

For Smith, the time had simply come for Goldman and his son to go home.

"David and his team are encouraged that the nightmare is coming to an end," Smith said.

"No more delays. It's time to do this." ___ Associated Press Writers Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel, N.J.; Tales Azzoni in Sao Paulo; and AP Television News producer Flora Charner and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

65

Balloon boy parents are sent to jail for hoax (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:18:09 PM

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – The parents who pulled the balloon boy hoax in hopes of landing a reality TV show were sentenced to jail Wednesday — 90 days for him, 20 days for her — and barred from profiting from their newfound celebrity status for the next four years.

Choking back tears, Richard Heene apologized in court for the frenzy he caused when he claimed his 6-year-old son Falcon had floated away in a giant helium balloon shaped like a flying saucer.

"I'm very, very sorry. And I want to apologize to all the rescue workers out there, and the people that got involved in the community," said the 48-year-old Heene, a UFO-obsessed backyard scientist who turned to storm-chasing and reality TV after his Hollywood acting career bombed.

The sentencing was the culmination of a saga that transfixed the nation in October with the sight of the silvery balloon hurtling through the sky on live television. In the end, it was all a publicity stunt by a family broke and desperate for attention and money after networks kept rejecting their reality TV show pitches.

The case — along with the White House party-crashing by a

Virginia couple last month — illustrated vividly the lengths people are willing to go to to become TV stars in this 15minutes-of-fame world.

"What this case is about is deception, exploitation — exploitation of the children of the Heenes, exploitation of the media and exploitation of people's emotions — and money," District Judge Stephen Schapanski said.

Heene's 90-day sentence includes 60 days of work release that will let him pursue his job as a construction contractor during the day as long as he reports back to jail at night. The Heenes were also put on four years' probation, during which they cannot earn any money related to the stunt.

That means any book, movie or reality TV deals are off limits.

Richard Heene's wife, Mayumi Heene, 45, looked sullen and did not speak during the sentencing.

Afterward, the Heenes walked past a crowd of reporters without comment.

Prosecutors asked for the 90-day maximum for the husband, saying that a stern message needs to be sent to people who stage hoaxes for the publicity.

Prosecutor Andrew Lewis also asked that the Heenes be forced to reimburse authorities for the full cost of chasing the balloon and investigating the hoax — an amount that could exceed $50,000. The exact sum will be determined later.

"People around the world were watching this unfold," Lewis said. "Mr. Heene wasted a lot of manpower and a lot of money in wanting to get himself some publicity."

He added, "Jay Leno said it best when he said, 'This is a copycat game.' And people will copycat this event." The Heenes "need to go to jail so people don't do that."

The judge gave Richard Heene until Jan. 11 to report to jail so that he could spend the holidays with his family. His wife will serve her 20 days behind bars after her husband completes his sentence. Her time served will be flexible — she can report to jail on 10 weekends, for example — so that the couple's three children are cared for, the judge said.

At the sentencing, the prosecutor provided a more detailed timeline of the hoax.

He said Richard Heene was working with a collaborator throughout the year to pitch a reality series about madcap experiments and inventions. By late September, it became clear that the networks weren't biting.

At the same time, the Heenes' finances were collapsing — they weren't paying bills, checks were bouncing, and banks were threatening to close accounts, Lewis said.

The Heenes set in motion the balloon hoax in early October as a way to jump-start the reality TV effort and get some attention.

Heene began seeking money to buy helium tanks and studying weather patterns to find the right day for the launch. He eventually settled on Oct. 15; the weather was right, and his kids were home from school with parentteacher conferences.

The balloon floated away that afternoon with Falcon thought to be aboard. The Heenes first called the Federal Aviation Administration, then a TV station and finally 911.

Authorities launched a desperate search for little Falcon, using military helicopters and a mounted posse, before the boy turned up at home hours later.

The Heenes said they realized he had been hiding all along in the rafters after his father had yelled at him for fooling around with the balloon.

But the story soon began falling apart, especially after Falcon blurted out to his father during a CNN interview that evening: "You had said we did this for a show."

The parents were brought in for questioning, with Richard Heene feigning sleep during his liedetector test and claiming his drowsiness was a diabetic reaction, Lewis said.

They were ultimately arrested and pleaded guilty in November under deals with prosecutors that called for up to 90 days behind bars for the husband and 60 days for the wife, a Japanese citizen

who could have been deported if convicted of more serious charges.

She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of knowingly filing a false report with emergency services, while her husband pleaded to a felony count of falsely influencing authorities.

David Lane, Richard Heene's attorney, pleaded for leniency and said the couple "learned a lesson they will never forget for the rest of their lives." He also said that if someone has to go to jail, it should be Richard Heene and not his wife.

Afterward, Lane called the judge's sentence for his client "a measured response" — but said he was surprised Mayumi Heene got jail time.

"This is payback," he said of her sentence.

Lane said the FAA also plans to fine the Heenes $11,000 for disrupting flights. FAA spokesman Les Dorr said he could not confirm that.

Asked by reporters if his client was done with reality TV, Lane joked: "I don't know if they're done with reality television. Is reality television done with them?"

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

66

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Winter storm starts to spread across Midwest (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Department of Transportation warned that travel would be almost impossible in northeast OMAHA, Neb. – Holiday Kansas by Thursday afternoon. travelers battled slick, icy roads "It's kind of hard to stay on the and scattered flight cancellations roads. You've got to go slow," and delays on Wednesday as a said Jason Juhan, a clerk at the major winter storm began to Love's truck stop in Goodland, spread across much of the Kan. "People are just trying to nation's midsection — and the get through and get to where they worst of the weather was still need to as fast as they can." expected to come.

Still, he saw an upside to the The storm was likely to intensify weather: "It's been a few years

by Thursday, bringing heavy since we've actually had a white snow, sleet and rain to a large Christmas out this way." swath of the Plains and the Parts of Nebraska were coated Midwest. A foot or two of snow with ice that was up to 1/4-inch was possible in some areas by thick and a number of churches Christmas Day. were already canceling Christmas "It's an usually large storm, even Eve services in anticipation of for the Plains," said Scott more ice and snow. But residents Whitmore, a National Weather were still waiting for a blizzard.

Service meteorologist in Topeka, "It isn't nearly as bad as they said Kan. it would be," said jewelry-store In northwest Kansas, snow owner Stan Soper of Ord, a town started falling before sunrise of about 2,300 in north-central Wednesday, after freezing rain Nebraska. had already iced up roads. Part of Slippery roads were blamed for Gove County saw 8 inches of at least five deaths — three in snow, though it was far lighter accidents on Interstate 80 in elsewhere, said Albert Pietrycha, Nebraska and two in a crash on a National Weather Service Interstate 70 in Kansas. meteorologist in Goodland.

In Chicago, more than 200 A stretch of Interstate 70 in flights at O'Hare International western Kansas was snowpacked Airport were canceled, along by mid-afternoon, although it with about 60 flights out of wasn't closed — yet. The state Midway International Airport, Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:18:09 PM

the city's Aviation Department said.

Mollie Sheridan, a 30-year-old artist from Philadelphia, had planned to fly to Ohio to be with her family for Christmas. Instead she was trying to sleep on a row of seats at Midway after Southwest Airlines canceled dozens of flights, including hers.

She said her father was driving five hours to Chicago to pick her up.

"I'm not that frustrated," Sheridan said. "I have a dad who loves me who's coming to get me. It hasn't spoiled my Christmas."

The storm forced the closure of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls warned of treacherous travel conditions from Wednesday through Friday night, calling the storm "life threatening."

In Arizona, blizzard-like conditions shutting down roads and causing a pileup involving 20 vehicles Tuesday. South of Phoenix, a dust storm set off a series of collisions that killed at least three people.

On Wednesday, winter storm warnings stretched from Colorado through the Dakotas and into Minnesota. They also

were issued for parts of the Four Corners region.

A tropical jet stream pumping in moisture from the storm's south was likely to cause plenty of snow throughout the Plains and the Midwest, with the biggest accumulations expected from eastern Nebraska to the Upper Mississippi Valley. Freezing rain was possible across parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana.

Travelers scrambled to adjust their plans before the worst of the storm hit.

"I was going to wait a little longer, but when I woke up this morning I heard on the news that it was only going to get worse and worse, so I hit the road earlier than planned," said Rachel Ahrens, of Papillion, Neb., who stopped for gas Wednesday off Interstate 80 in Des Moines, Iowa, on her way to Ames, Iowa.

Jeff Cox, manager of Southtown Liquors in Albert Lea in southern Minnesota, near the Iowa border, said the store had seen a steady stream of customers amid snow and freezing rain.

"They don't want to be stuck home with nothing," Cox said.

The winter blast follow a weekend storm that dropped record snowfall and interrupted

holiday shopping and travel on the East Coast. Tens of thousands of customers in West Virginia and Virginia remained without power Wednesday.

Holidays travelers and commuters alike were stranded in the Northeast on Wednesday after an electrical problem forced Amtrak to halt trains in and out of New York's Penn Station. The outage affected service as far south as Washington and as far north as Boston.

Power was restored after about three hours. ___ Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., Nate Jenkins in Lincoln, Neb., Eric Olson in Omaha, Neb., Dirk Lammers in Sioux Falls, S.D., Michael J. Crumb in Des Moines, Iowa, Caryn Rousseau and Michael Tarm in Chicago, and Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis contributed to this report. ___ On the Net: National Weather Service: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Storm Promises to Deliver White Christmas West, Midwest (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:56:43 AM

DENVER A major winter storm is promising to bring a white Christmas to parts of the West and Midwest, though countless holidays travelers faced tough driving conditions and scattered flight delays Wednesday that only looked to get worse.

The storm was expected to dump more than a foot of snow on parts of Colorado and southern Utah by midday, and blow east into the Plains states through Christmas Day. Blizzard warnings were likely on Christmas Eve in Kansas.

"Pretty much the entire central and southern Rockies are going to get snow, and then it's going east and will drop more snow," said Stan Rose, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pueblo, Colo.

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds declared a state of emergency Tuesday. The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls warned of treacherous travel conditions from Wednesday through Friday night, calling the storm "life threatening."

The Nebraska State Patrol urged drivers to use extreme caution Wednesday morning when venturing out on the roads across the central third of the state

because the roads are slick as freezing rain and snow had started to fall.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported numerous crashes in the western part of the state, including a double fatality collision in Thomas County near Colby. The patrol said an eastbound car on icy Interstate 70 spun out of control Tuesday night, crossed the median and was struck by a westbound tractor-trailer, killing both people in the car.

A Colorado woman was killed Tuesday when her SUV apparently hit black ice and slid across a median in western Nebraska.

In Nevada, multiple wrecks were reported in and around Reno as snow blanketed the area Tuesday evening. No serious injuries were reported, the Reno GazetteJournal reported.

Blustery weather already had snarled traffic in Arizona, with blizzard-like conditions shutting down roads and causing a pileup involving 20 vehicles Tuesday.

South of Phoenix, a dust storm set off a series of collisions that killed at least three people.

A tropical jet stream pumping in moisture from the storm's south was likely to cause plenty of snow as the storm headed into the Plains states.

Winter storm warnings stretched from Colorado through the

Dakotas and into Minnesota.

They also were issued for parts of the Four Corners region. By Tuesday afternoon, light snow was falling in Salt Lake City.

Travelers were warned to check with their airlines before arriving for flights. Chicago's O'Hare International Airport was reporting that flights were delayed an average of 2 1/2 hours Wednesday morning. Shorter delays were reported in New York, Baltimore, Washington and Houston.

Travelers scrambled to adjust their plans on Tuesday before the snowstorm hit.

Sarah McAnarney and her husband, Jeff, planned to leave Denver on Wednesday to visit family in Ozark, Mo., with their springer spaniel, Olive. But the forecast caused them to skip a day of skiing in the Rockies and start driving a day early.

McAnarney said she was caught in a blizzard two weeks ago in the Rockies and needed four hours to drive 100 miles from Vail to Denver. She said she didn't want to repeat the experience.

"I was driving through a whiteout," she said Tuesday at a truck stop east of Topeka, Kan. "You couldn't see over your headlights."

Craig Rueschhoff, 35, and his girlfriend, Brenna Larson, in Des Moines, Iowa said they had

planned to drive 210-miles to Columbus, Neb., to visit his parents, then on to visit Larson's family in western Iowa, but were thinking of canceling the annual trip.

"We've had both my mom and her mom encourage us not to come if the weather is too bad," he said. "They wouldn't feel bad if we didn't come. We've gotten their blessing."

The winter blast follow a weekend storm that dropped record snowfall and interrupted holiday shopping and travel on the East Coast. Delays from that storm sparked an unruly crowd that included passengers still on standby Tuesday at the Delta Air Lines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.

Police were called to help with crowd control.

Rose said holiday revelers in the West and Midwest should worry about the cold as well as the snow. Temperatures across Colorado on Christmas were not expected to get out of the 20s, with single-digits expected in the mountains.

"It's going to be cold to begin with, and then it's going to get even colder," Rose said.

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

67

Runaway Christian Convert Not Required to Meet With Parents (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 5:56:58 AM

COLUMBUS, Ohio A judge has ruled that a runaway Christian convert is not required to attend face-to-face meetings with her Muslim parents as part of a possible reconciliation plan.

Magistrate Mary Goodrich of Franklin County Juvenile Court on Tuesday denied the request of Mohamed and Aysha Bary to undergo mediation with their 17year-old daughter Rifqa.

A case-management plan filed last month says the girl and her parents must listen to each other's views about religion if they are to reunite.

But the plan, which is not a binding document, also notes the girl continues to refuse any contact with her parents or siblings.

SLIDESHOW: Christian Convert Fears Family Rifqa Bary ran away to Florida last summer saying she fears her father would harm or kill her for leaving Islam.

Her father has denied the claim and a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threats to the girl.

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

68

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

'Balloon Boy' Parents Get Jail Time, 4 Years Probation (FOXNews.com)

has to wait until Richard Heened has completed his jail time.

Her time served is flexible — A Colorado judge sentenced she can report to jail on 10 'Balloon Boy' father Richard weekends, for example — so the Heene to 90 days in jail and four children are cared for, the judge years probation Wednesday. said.

Larimer County District Judge Richard Heene choked back Stephen Schapanski prohibited tears as he said he was sorry, Richard Heene from receiving especially to the rescue workers any form of financial benefit, who chased down false reports whether through the media, a that his 6-year-old son had book, or articles he might write floated away in a balloon on Oct. steming from the balloon hoax. 15. It was a stunt designed to The judge also required him to generate attention for a reality t u r n o v e r q u a r t e r l y b a n k TV show. statements to make sure he's not "I do want to reiterate that I'm making money off this incident. very, very sorry. And I want to Richard Heene will serve the apologize to all the rescue first 30 days of his sentence in workers out there, and the people jail and then the last 60 days he t h a t g o t i n v o l v e d i n t h e will spend weekends and nights community. That's it," said in jail so that he will be able to Richard Heene. His wife did not work during the day. The judge speak at the hearing. ordered him to begin his 30-day The Heenes' probation will be jail term on January 11, delaying revoked if they are found to be the start of the sentence for two profiting from any book, TV, weeks so he can spend the movie or other deals related to holidays with his family. the stunt.

SLIDESHOW: 'Balloon Boy' "This, in simple terms, was an Hoax Case elaborate hoax that was devised The judge sentenced 'Balloon by Mr. and Mrs. Heene," the Boy' mother Mayumi Heene to judge said.

20 days in jail and four years The Heenes pleaded guilty to probation. She must start her jail charges that they carried out the time no later than May 11, and balloon hoax, with deals that Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:52:33 PM

called for up to 90 days in jail for the husband and 60 days for his wife.

Prosecutors asked for the maximum sentence for the husband, saying that a message needs to be sent to promoters who attempt to carry out hoaxes to generate publicity. Chief Deputy District Attorney Andrew Lewis also asked for full restitution to reimburse authorities for the cost of investigating the hoax — an amount that could exceed $50,000.

"People around the world were watching this unfold," he said.

"Mr. Heene wasted a lot of manpower and a lot of money in wanting to get himself some publicity."

He added, "Jay Leno said it best when he said, 'This is copycat game.' And people will copycat this event. (The Heenes) need to go to jail so people don't do that."

He portrayed the Heenes as growing increasingly desperate as their pitches for a reality TV show kept getting turned down by networks — and the family fell deeper into a financial hole.

Lewis said the Heenes set in motion the balloon hoax in early October as a way to jumpstart the

effort and get some attention.

They chose Oct. 15 because the weather was cooperating and the kids were home for school with parent-teacher conferences, allowing the Heenes to report that 6-year-old Falcon had floated away, Lewis said.

Once the parents were brought in for questioning, Richard Heene feigned sleep during the liedetector test, claiming it was some sort of diabetic episode, Lewis said.

David Lane, Richard Heene's attorney, pleaded for leniency with the judge and said that the couple "have learned a lesson they will never forget for the rest of their lives." He also said that if someone has to go to jail, let it be Richard Heene and not his wife.

"That is his plea. That would be something of a Christmas miracle if that can occur," he said.

Click here for more from KDVR.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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

Madoff moved to prison hospital (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:01:55 PM

Disgraced Wall Street financier Bernie Madoff has been moved to the medical centre within the prison where he is serving 150 years for fraud.

He was transferred on 18 December, a spokeswoman for the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in the US state of North Carolina confirmed.

However, she declined to provide further details.

Madoff, 71, is serving the prison term after pleading guilty to a $65bn (£41bn) fraud.

He admitted defrauding thousands of investors through a Ponzi scheme, which pays out using investors' money, rather than from any actual profits.

He said the scheme had been running since the early 1990s.

It unravelled when Madoff's investors, hit by the economic downturn, tried to withdraw about $7bn, but he could not produce the money.

The list of his victims included film director Steven Spielberg's charitable foundation.

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

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

69

Abducted Colombian governor killed (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:14:00 AM

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

The vehicle that police suspect was used to transport the kidnapped governor The governor of the southern Colombian province of Caqueta has been found dead less than a day after he was kidnapped by suspected rebels, authorities say.

President Alvaro Uribe said the kidnappers had cut Luis Francisco Cuellar's throat as they were being chased by security forces.

Mr Cuellar was seized from his house on Monday in the provincial capital.

Officials are blaming the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrillas for his killing.

Mr Cuellar was the most highprofile politician abducted since Mr Uribe came to power in 2002.

"The terrorists burned the vehicle in which they kidnapped the governor, further ahead they killed him, they slit his throat, they killed him miserably," said President Uribe, in a nationally televised address.

"They slit his throat to avoid making noise because they knew that the armed forces were in the surrounding area.

"In the midst of pain we reiterate

today all our determination to defeat these terrorists."

Earlier, Mr Uribe, whose father was killed in 1983 during a botched kidnapping by rebels, had said Colombia could not be "held captive by the whim of terrorists, terrorists who bathe the country in blood and who trick us every day".

Ransom offered Mr Cuellar was taken from his home by about 10 gunmen, who lobbed grenades at the building.

One policeman was killed in the attack and two more were wounded.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

More than 2,000 military personnel had been deployed in the search for the kidnappers.

The authorities had also offered 1bn pesos ($500,000; ÂŁ312,000) to anyone giving information leading to Mr Cuellar's safe return.

But his body was found hours later, close to a burnt-out vehicle on a road about 15km (9 miles) outside Florencia.

He had been bound and gagged and had several bullet wounds in his body. Explosives had been placed around him.

It remains unclear whether the kidnappers initially intended to kill Mr Cuellar, says the BBC's

Jeremy McDermott in Colombia.

In the past, high-profile figures have been kidnapped to try to force the government to make prisoner exchanges.

Mr Cuellar had previously been kidnapped four times in the past 23 years, but for ransom, his wife told the Associated Press news agency.

New leadership Caqueta has been a stronghold of the Farc - Colombia's oldest and largest left-wing rebel group - for many years.

It was where French-Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt was kidnapped in 2002.

The Farc has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Mr Cuellar, but is widely thought to have been behind it.

The acting governor of Caqueta, Patricia Vega, told local media she had no doubt that the Farc was responsible.

The guerrillas, who finance their operations through drugs trafficking, were thought to number some 16,000 fighters, but analysts suggest their ranks have fallen to about 9,000.

They suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the security forces in 2008, but the rebels appear to have rallied under new leadership and to be seeking to regain the initiative in the country's 45-year civil conflict, our correspondent says.

Attacks and kidnappings have lessened, but the guerrillas are still holding more than 20 police officers and soldiers, often referred to as high-profile hostages, who were seized more than a decade ago.

It is also believed to have kidnapped hundreds of other people, mainly for ransom, over the years.

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

70

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

5 held hostage at rural Virginia post office (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

office.

"The officer told us the man had enough explosives to take out the WYTHEVILLE, Va. – An whole block," Holman told the armed man in a wheelchair took Enterprise. five hostages Wednesday at a Mayor Trent Crewe told The post office in western Virginia, Associated Press five hostages forcing officials to cordon off were in the building, including three blocks of a downtown filled t h r e e e m p l o y e e s a n d t w o with holiday shoppers. customers.

Shots were fired, but there were Carlton Austin said his daughter, no reports of injuries. The man postal worker Margie Austin, made no demands other than to was among the hostages. She ask for a pizza, said Pete managed to call a family friend Rendina, spokesman for the U.S. around 4:30 p.m. and said she Postal Inspection Service. was fine. Later, her father said, Virginia State Police sent in a family members were waiting to S W A T t e a m a n d a b o m b hear more. technician, and police at the "That's all we can do," he said. s c e n e t o l d t h e W y t h e v i l l e Postal worker Walt Korndoerfer Enterprise the man had five said he was in the post office pounds of a common plastic when he heard shots and a coexplosive strapped to his chest. worker ran past. He called police S t a t e p o l i c e s p o k e s w o m a n and then ran himself.

C o r i n n e G e l l e r w o u l d n o t His wife, Christine Korndoerfer, confirm that. said he called around 3:30 p.m.

Susan Holman, manager of a to tell her he had gotten out store across the street, said safely. officers told employees to leave "My husband is not one to get the building because there was a upset," she said. "When he man with explosives in the post called, I don't think I've ever Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:31:11 PM

heard him so upset."

Town manager Wayne Sutherland, speaking from his office four blocks from the scene, said dozens of officers had circled the freestanding, brick post office.

"It's completely surrounded by police in every direction," Sutherland said. "All I can see is blue lights."

Rendina said the man was in a wheelchair and missing part of his leg, but he had no other information. Postal inspectors from Roanoke and Charleston, W.Va., were at the scene.

Sutherland said the streets of the town of 8,500 were filled with holiday shoppers.

"It's Christmas and all the stores are busy," he said.

Wytheville is the county seat of Wythe County, in southwest Virginia.

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

Police: 5 People Held Hostage Inside Virginia Post Office (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/23/2009 3:06:11 AM

WYTHEVILLE, Va. An armed man in a wheelchair took five people hostage Wednesday at a post office in a small, rural town, forcing officials to cordon off a three-block area of a downtown filled with holiday shoppers.

Shots were fired, but there were no reports of injuries. The man made no demands other than to ask for a pizza, said Pete Rendina, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Rendina said the man was in a wheelchair and missing part of his leg, but he had no other information. Postal inspectors from Roanoke and Charleston, West Virginia, were at the scene.

Virginia State Police sent in a special weapons and tactics team and a bomb technician. Police at the scene told the Wytheville Enterprise the man had five pounds of a common plastic explosive strapped to his chest.

State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller would not confirm that.

Susan Holman, manager of a store across the street, said officers told employees to leave the building because there was a man with explosives in the post

office.

"The officer told us the man had enough explosives to take out the whole block," Holman told the Enterprise.

Mayor Trent Crewe told The Associated Press five hostages were in the building, including three employees and two customers.

Postal worker Walt Korndoerfer said he was in the post office when he heard shots and a coworker ran past. He called police and then ran himself.

"You hear a shot, you get out," Korndoerfer told The Roanoke Times.

Town Manager Wayne Sutherland, speaking from his office four blocks from the scene, said dozens of officers had circled the freestanding, brick post office.

"It's completely surrounded by police in every direction," Sutherland said. "All I can see is blue lights."

Sutherland said the streets of the town of 8,500 were filled with holiday shoppers.

"It's Christmas and all the stores are busy," he said.

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

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Balloon boy hoax parents jailed (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Gunman Kills Two People Inside Louisiana Office

Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:54:17 AM

(FOXNews.com)

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

Richard Heene apologises in court A US man who triggered a major alert by falsely claiming his son was adrift in a helium balloon has been sentenced to 90 days in jail - and his wife to 20.

Richard Heene, 48, and his 45year-old wife Mayumi said in October their son had been carried off by the balloon.

Six-year-old Falcon Heene was finally found hiding at home.

In court in Colorado, Heene appeared to fight back tears as he apologised to rescue workers and the community, saying he was "very, very sorry".

The judge also ordered four years of supervised probation for the couple and banned them from receiving any form of financial benefit from the case.

Heene and his wife Mayumi had pleaded guilty to charges that they carried out the balloon stunt to promote a reality TV show.

'Wasted money' The prosecutor had argued the couple should face time in jail to act as a deterrent to others who may be considering mounting similar stunts for financial gain

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:54:59 AM

and publicity.

He said Heene had "wasted a lot of man power and a lot of money in wanting to get himself some publicity".

He argued that the couple had acted not on the behest of any TV companies, but that "they came up with it all on their own, not necessarily just to get a TV show but at least to put their name out there again and maybe in hopes that somebody would pick them up".

"For that," he said, "they do need to be punished".

Richard Heene will be allowed

to serve 60 days of his 90-day sentence on release, allowing him to work as a construction contractor during the day, while spending the night in jail.

He will start his sentence on 11 January 2010.

Mayumi Heene will begin her sentence after her husband's to ensure their children are still cared for.

She will be allowed to report to jail on two days a week, return home at night, and serve the sentence through jail-supervised community service.

The judge also ruled that her

71

BATON ROUGE, La. Authorities have arrested a gunman who allegedly shot and killed two people and wounded a third at a construction company's office in Baton Rouge.

A spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office says the suspect in Wednesday's shooting is believed to be a former employee of Grady Crawford Construction Co. and the victims are all company employees.

The sheriff's spokeswoman, Casey Rayborn Hicks, says a husband must serve 100 hours of foreman at the office tackled and community service and write a disarmed the suspect as he left l e t t e r o f a p o l o g y t o t h e the building. community and public service Hicks says two of the victims agencies which helped search for were pronounced dead at the scene, while the third had injuries his son.

The couple have already been t h a t w e r e c o n s i d e r e d l i f e ordered to pay $42,000 (ÂŁ26,000) t h r e a t e n i n g . S h e w o u l d n ' t in restitution for the emergency identify the suspect and said the victims' identities were being services' rescue efforts. withheld pending notification of Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: relatives.

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

Term Extraction.

72

Popular News/ Media/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

'Hostages held' in US post office (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Local businesswoman Susan Holman told the Wytheville Enterprise newspaper police had Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:59:47 PM warned the man had "enough Up to five people have been explosives to take out the whole taken hostage in a post office in a block". small town in the US state of Police have cordoned off the Virginia, say police reports. scene and advised people to Local media reports said the evacuate homes and businesses in alleged hostage taker was in a the immediate area. wheelchair and claimed to be "It's completely surrounded by carrying explosives. police in every direction," said There were also reports that t o w n m a n a g e r W a y n e grenades were found in his Sutherland, speaking from his vehicle nearby. office nearby.

The town mayor of Wytheville, "All I can see is blue lights," he Trent Crewe, told the Associated told AP. Press news agency shots had A police hostage negotiator was been fired from the building but reported to have been speaking to no injuries were reported. the man.

AP said a team of special police Pete Rendina, spokesman for the and an explosives expert were at US Postal Inspection Service, the scene. said the man, who was missing

part of his leg, had made no demands other than a request for a pizza.

Three employees and two members of the public were believed to be inside the post office.

Are you in the area? Have you been affected by this incident, or have you seen or heard anything?

Send your comments or pictures using the form below.

The BBC may edit your comments and cannot guarantee that all emails will be published.

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

MediaDailyNews: Comic Gervais Lands HBO Animated Series (MediaPost | Media News)

Voices will include Gervais, longtime collaborator Stephen Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:14:32 AM Merchant, who starred in "The HBO says Ricky Gervais, who Office." Gervais also won an c r e a t e d " T h e O f f i c e " a n d Emmy for the HBO series "Extras" will be a star voice in a "Extras."

13-episode animated comedy Five Filters featured article: series debuting Feb. 19. "The Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Ricky Gervais Show" will be PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, based on his popular podcasts. Term Extraction.

Europe.view: A supermarket in Estonia (The Economist: Daily columns)

Air Comet 'hunger strike' threat (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

payments, according to AFP. Air Comet says it is seeking to lay off all of its nearly 700 Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:08:25 AM employees.

Some passengers stranded at The Madrid-based company airports in Spain and Latin which specialises in cheap flights America are threatening to go on to Latin America - also says it hunger strike after Spain's Air has filed for bankruptcy.

Comet suspended all its flights. 'Thieves' A b o u t 7 , 0 0 0 p e o p l e a r e Many of Air Comet's passengers reportedly affected after the have been stranded for the past airline's fleet was grounded this two days after Spain's authorities week by Spain's officials over its revoked the company's licence. failure to pay debts.

"No-one has given us any The low-cost Spanish carrier information. Nothing has been owes 17m euros (£15m) to said to us. We paid for our tickets Germany's Nord Bank in lease and we are waiting without any

information," one woman at Madrid's Barajas airport was quoted as saying by Euronews.

Dozens of angry Air Comet customers blocked the entrance to Barajas's Terminal 1.

They described the company's management as "thieves", according to the AFP news agency.

About half a dozen passengers from Colombia and Ecuador are reported to have already begun a hunger strike, according to Euronews.

Spanish officials say they are trying to arrange alternative

Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:43:36 PM

transportation plans for the affected passengers.

Air Comet is owned by Spain's Grupo Marsans.

The parent company said this week that a London court had constrained Air Comet from using any of its air planes and ordered the company not to sell tickets.

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

Europe.view Dec 23rd 2009 From Economist.com The best sort of eastward expansion FOOD in Europe’s excommunist countries has an undeservedly bad reputation: stodgy peasant fare ruined by the culinary commissars of the planned economy. Your columnist has long disagreed, but proof is needed. So, on a recent visit to a supermarket in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, he set out to construct a winter picnic entirely from local ingredients.

EUROPE.VIEW: page 73

Picture/ E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

EUROPE.VIEW: continued from page 72

The basis was easy: black bread, pungent and tasty. It makes loaves from the west and south of Europe seem bland and boring.

So into the shopping basket went four or five different varieties, with different features: seeds, rye, crunchy and chewy by turns.

The mainstay of the picnic was pricey at €15 ($22), but succulent—a smoked salami from Lithuania. Accompanying it in the shopping basket were a gourmet smoked cheese from Estonia, a tin of smoked sprats (Latvia), Polish pickled mushrooms, plus Czech horseradish and Hungarian hot peppers. Who says eastern Europe is a vitamin-free zone?

For dessert, Polish “chocolate plums” from the Solidarno confectionery works are a fine offering. So were crispy, crunchy gingerbread biscuits (Estonian) and a packet of dried apple rings (Polish).

The shopper wanting alcoholic drinks is spoiled for choice.

Estonia is the country that pioneered the vodka box—a fivelitre freezer-filler much favoured

by Finnish tourists dodging their own country’s punitive duties on alcohol. Your columnist is partial to ubrówka, which should have a stem of bison grass in every bottle and gives the whiff of a summer meadow even in the depths of winter. Poland is the main source, though you can also find it in Belarus and Ukraine.

But drinking vodka at a picnic is not to everyone’s taste. Wine works better. Your columnist always tries to use his budget to punish protectionism and support freedom-lovers, which can lead to some conflict with wine snobs.

The supermarket had a range of cut-price offerings from the Balkans, including Macedonia and Moldova. But the intelligent consumer should encourage those who are trying to move upmarket, as opposed to those competing at the bottom end.

Pricey bottles from Ukraine and Russia were on offer too, but only sweet wines: a big headache in every bottle, at least in your columnist’s experience.

A good range of Georgian wine was more tempting: the basket

was soon laden by a promisinglooking upmarket Saperavi, for the equivalent of €12. But Georgian wine can be a bit inconsistent. For safety, a few beers never go amiss, especially if a sauna is in the offing.

Estonia’s Saku and Le Coq are both good lagers, but the final choice was a brace of real Czech Budweiser (so much better than the fizzy, insipid American version) and some Polish ywiec.

For a post-prandial snifter, Armenian brandy was a strong contender. But throwing caution to the winds, your columnist plumped for a bottle of Estonian dessert wine. Grapes do grow even in northerly Estonia, and wine-growers have been known to make something drinkable from them. But this bottle was from the Põltsamaa winery, which uses apples and berries.

Soft drinks are more distinctive.

Western-style juices and fizzy drinks are ubiquitous, but more interesting local concoctions are on the shelves too. A carton of Ukrainian birch sap was irresistible, along with one of the

greatest treats in the northern part of eastern Europe: seabuckthornberry juice. This is bright orange, more like a puree than a juice, and has an incomparable astringent and invigorating kick.

The taste requires some acquiring; your columnist drinks it neat, but it also makes a useful ingredient for other cocktails—mixed with birch sap, for example. The toast at the picnic was to free trade in food: who needs protectionism when you have stuff that consumers really want?

Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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

73

Goodbye Kindle, Hello E-Readers! (FOX 11 News Los Angeles) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:11:34 PM

Updated: Tuesday, 22 Dec 2009, 11:10 PM PST Published : Tuesday, 22 Dec 2009, 11:10 PM PST • Reporter: Susan Hirasuna Posted by: Tony Spearman Canoga Park - The Kindle was just the beginning... We're talking about maybe the biggest revolution in reading since the printed page.

This holiday season there's been an explosion of "E-Readers" on the market and the experts say "you ain't seen nuthin yet!"

Susan Hirasuna was in Canoga Park to sort them all out.

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

Light Painting

By Zack Sheppard (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 4:52:37 PM

Below is an image and video from{ tcb }. He’s posting light paintings along with ‘making of’

videos. If you want to see how light paintings are made, check out his set.

If you’d like to see more, check out the Light Painting – The Real Deal group.

Photos and video from Dennis

BURBLUE, BlaisOne, and{ tcb }.

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

Join in the game!

At FlickrHQ, addicted to JOIN we’re page 74 Noticings, a game from Tom

74

E-reader News/ Media/

E-reader News Edition

JOIN continued from page 73

Taylor and Tom Armitage. It’s a game you play with your photos, Flickr account, tags and geotags.

Noticings is a game of noticing things around you. Things that you stumble across when out and about, that are interesting or out of the ordinary. You earn different points for the types of things you notice, like the first noticing in a neighborhood or a typo on a sign.

Here’s a view of the Financial District noticings in San Francisco. Hmmmm, looks like Kevin’s been busy down here!

He’s noticing things around him by photographing them, uploading the photos to Flickr, tagging them with the tag noticings and geo-tagging the

location. Then, once a day every day at 15:00 GMT, the previous day’s noticings are pulled into their site and points are awarded. yay! The dashboard tallies the noticings and even has a nifty timer to let you know when the next import happens.

Be sure to check all the rules when you sign up by authorizing your Flickr account. People aren’t noticings (I had to be reminded of that); sometimes different things are highlighted for more points (red was big for a while). Don’t be a spoilsport and just notice up your ‘explored’ images (boo!), it’s not so much about self-promotion as it is playing a fun game with other Flickr folks by noticing the small

and large things in the world around you.

What makes the game fun is everyone’s different take on what a noticing is – be creative! Have fun! Hey, there is also an unofficial group on Flickr, too. yay!

Find more games to play in the App Garden.

Noticings is an application from TomT. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TV Board: Media Insights QandA with Richard Vogt (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:15:50 AM

Richard Vogt is vice president at Ipsos Mendelsoh, working on the company's well-known and respected Mendelsohn Affluent survey. His extensive background includes work in network TV (CBS, ABC), as a station rep (MMT, Seltel), in syndication (LBS, CarseyWerner), ad agencies (McCannErickson, Bates Worldwide) and the early multiplatform innovator

Kindle DRM Protection Hack Discovered (Coated) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:16:58 AM

DRM protection technology does have its places, and we’ve already lived with the fact that we can’t really share our MP3’s among all the devices we want to. But DRM on e-readers such as Kindle has always boggled us — why can’t we buy e-books and read them on other devices?

About a year ago, some hackers cracked the Kindle and allowed

the exporting of purchased ebooks into PDF format, which allows them to be viewed in any device that supports it.

Apparently Amazon has yet to address the security hole, and it’s taken so much time to do so that Israeli hacker Labba and some other hackers found yet another workaround just recently.

Labba originally posted a challenge in a forum and, aided with other hackers, broke the should Amazon decide to release Kindle’s DRM protection yet a security patch to address this again. Labba mentions that hack, they are confident that

they’ll still be able to crack it again — pretty much like how Apple’s iPhone gets jailbroken after every single update patch.

But if you’d like to avoid all that hassle, you can just buy real books…

Via: Boy Genius Report Tagged as: Amazon, hack, Kindle Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TV Guide, where he worked on the magazine, cable network, Web site, and "new media" interactive program guide. In this interview Richard discusses many aspects of the upscale marketplace as well as changes in the media landscape and some future predictions.

Direct links to the full interview videos can be found at http://weislermedia.blogspot.com /search?q=vogt Here is an BOARD: page 75

MediaDailyNews: Rentrak On Roll: Adds Sinclair TV, Pushes Granular Data For Ad Dollars (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 12/23/2009 2:09:54 PM

The big TV station company Sinclair Broadcast Group has signed up with Rentrek's Corp.'s StationView Essentials local TV measuring service -- its second station group deal in recent days.

Sinclair's agreement covers its stations in four markets: WSYX (ABC) and WTTE (FOX) in Columbus, Ohio; WCGV (MNT) and WVTV (CW) in Milwaukee, MEDIADAILYNEWS: page 75

E-reader News Edition

75

MEDIADAILYNEWS

BOARD:

continued from page 74

Wisconsin; KABB (FOX) and KMYS (MNT) in San Antonio, Texas; and KDNL (ABC) in St. Louis, Missouri.

StationView Essentials data comes from some 15 million settop boxes from Dish Network, delivering households viewing data, engagement scores and some syndicated segmentation data for TV stations. However, demographic breakdowns are not included.

"Long-term age sex demographics will be integrated," says Bill Livek, chief executive officer of Rentrak. StationView Essentials TV viewing data delivered anywhere from 36 to 48 hours after airing.

Steve Marks, Sinclair's chief operating officer of its Television Group, stated: "Rentrak's ability to measure highly granular viewing patterns, capture information and mold it into actionable knowledge made it an easy decision to team up to be a part of the trial."

Sinclair Broadcast Group owns

continued from page 74

and operates or provides sales services to 58 television stations in 35 U.S. markets.

Rentrak recently signed up Wichita, Kansas-based Sunflower Broadcasting with StationView Essentials; it's not a test, but a replacement for Nielsen, for three of its stations.

Livek says other deals are on the way: "We have number of discussions and test initiatives we have not announced."

With the deeper access of many set-top boxes, Rentrak says it offers better viewing information for stations. "It's more granular data for stations; they can see what's going on," says Livek.

Rentrak can marry viewing data with retail information from restaurants like Pizza Hut, retailers like Best Buy, or from local auto dealers, adds Livek.

He says Rentrak's ultimate goal is to help local TV businesses tap into grabbing ad dollars from the multi-billion-industry of direct marketing.

TV Essentials is Rentrak's

national TV product, a service that has signed on small-tomedium cable networks such as Bloomberg Television, HSN, Jewelry Television, WealthTV, Inspiration Network, HDNet, Sprout and the Outdoor Channel.

Some of these networks aren't yet rated by Nielsen. Livek says this product helps them in more advanced ways, especially when it comes to smaller-rated TV programs.

"They don't have a robust system to look at these tiny-rated programs. But they are valuable.

You have a highly targeted audience," he says. "It becomes a currency in our complex media world. It pretty much levels the playing field."

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

excerpt from the interview: CW: Richard, where would you say the most dramatic change has been in the industry in the past five years?

RV: I guess I would say that research has gotten a bigger and better place at the table. In looking back at all the different places I've worked, it seems to show that research is getting more serious consideration from upper management.

CW: How is Ipsos Mendelsohn preparing for the future and perhaps incorporating some of the new data such as online or set top box data?

RV: Here at Ipsos Mendelsohn we have a lot of unique syndicated data that all of our subscribers use as they see fit. A lot of our internal mechanism has been generated through a portal for the first time. All of our data is available electronically, including something I think is very cool for a user. On the portal is an electronic questionnaire so you can search the entire questionnaire easily and electronically. If you want to know something about travel and it's in the "plan to" section as well as the expenditure section as well as the magazine section or the Travel Channel in the television section, you can collapse it all in one run.

So those are the kinds of innovations we're working on. In the bigger picture, I am hoping that there will be a return to optimization. You know, when I

was on the agency side several years ago optimizers were a brand new thing -- and I just don't read a lot about them today.

And yet, with all of this new data coming in. I am hopeful that we will return to those models and update them by getting that new data into usable forms.

CW: Richard, can you give me three predictions for the next five years?

RV: I think consolidation is upon us and it is going to continue. I think there will be fewer and fewer, and larger and larger, entities out there -- which is not necessarily a bad thing. I also think that monetization of the Web will become more prominent. I think that is definitely a trend.

I don't think there is any one "Web" but it seems like we've all been so well trained to accept online as a free pass. I think that obviously has to change.

A third prediction would be accountability. Again, with all this data, it requires a lot of processing and management.

What about the concept of ROI, which I call "research on involvement." Let's find ways to inform the client how to use this data to map consumer behavior.

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

76

Media/ PopSci/

E-reader News Edition

Microsoft's Mobicast Stitches TV Watch: Fourth And Goal for Time Warner And Fox: Kerry Comes Together Multiple Cell Phone Videos in Real Time In To Kick (MediaPost | Media News)

in the lurch should they not draw a line in the TV/video industry Submitted at 12/23/2009 12:00:30 PM sand right now. Paranoia runs Serving the public interest AND deep. News Corp. feels its TV making billions in profits? Are stations need a dual revenue t h e s e t w o a r e a s m u t u a l l y stream -- now -- just like cable e x c l u s i v e - - o r i n c l u s i v e ? networks, otherwise they can't News Corp. wants $1 per cable survive; Time Warner doesn't subscriber from Time Warner b e l i e v e p a y i n g m o r e f o r Cable-- otherwise it will pull its programming is necessarily what Fox TV stations as of Jan, 1. Sen. its consumers want.

John Kerry (D-Mass.) wants both Cable bills are notoriously high parties to kiss and make up, so these days. But I'm guessing everyone can have their New there are more pressing issues on Year's Day dose of football. the minds of U.S. viewers -FCC licenses give Fox the right maybe looking for a job; maybe t o m a k e m o n e y A N D t h e worrying about soaring health obligation to provide stuff in the care premiums. Those costs are " p u b l i c i n t e r e s t . " C a b l e much higher. companies will plead their In a letter to both companies, unalienable right to do business Kerry says the two parties "have with whom and how they want. neglected the core interests of the How did things get so messed millions of households that up? We are in a new digital age -- subscribe to Time Warner Cable but it isn't one with the big vision in affected markets." fulfilled, where every bit of video Core interests? I guess football is content is available on every right up there with news, public screen used by U.S. consumers. affairs, and access to emergency Time Warner and News Corp. community information. fear their businesses will be left A couple of years ago, Kerry

was helpful in persuading the NFL to expand a late-season game between the New England Patriots and New York Giants to its broadcast TV partners. The game -- which featured the Patriots pursuing an undefeated season -- was to be aired on the NFL's narrowly distributed cable channel, the NFL Network.

Now Kerry hopes to avoid multiple mishaps in many markets and many Bowl games -mistakes that will have U.S. consumers calling their own penalties.

Businesses shouldn't get away with under-delivering what is expected of them from their consumers. Still, there are other core issues for consumers -- of media and otherwise -- to consider.

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

By Clay Dillow (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 12/23/2009 8:35:18 AM

If TMZ.com and Kate Moss have taught us anything, it’s that there’s a lot of cell phone video footage out there. Unlike TMZ.com and Kate Moss, researchers at Microsoft’s Labs in Cairo, Egypt are doing something cool with all that content , combining feeds from multiple phones capturing the same scene into multi-angle, live online broadcasts.

Dubbed Mobicast, the system requires two sets of software, one for the phone and one for the server receiving the footage.

When two or more phones are in the same place capturing the same scene, the software synchronizes their clocks so the framing lines up correctly. Image recognition technology on the server then figures out how the footage should physically mesh, using features of the landscape or scene to recognize parts of the images that match. It then blends the images to create a wider, more detailed view of the scene,

sort of like PhotoSynth for video (but without the 3-D – for now).

Related Articles Microsoft Surface Finally Surfaces Microsoft 'Cool-Tether' Combines Multiple Smartphones into High-Speed Hotspot Microsoft Practices Sensor-ship Tags Gadgets, Clay Dillow, apps, cell phone video, cell phones, microsoft, video stitching, Web videos The coolest part, of course, is that Mobicast can do all this in real time, so an event can be captured and broadcast live to the Web by several cameras at once. Users also receive feedback to their phones showing stills of the stitched video with their contributions highlighted, helping them to see how they can better position themselves for the best contribution.

Before going public, there are some issues to sort out, like how to tell if several phones are in the same vicinity filming the same scene (GPS?). Until then, all we can do is keep on filming and dream of the day that celeb scandals break in full 360-degree 3-D. [ New Scientist]

E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

77

#%*@#! The top 10 tech 'fails' of 2009 (CNN) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers)

TwitterPeek fails to pique interest The reaction of many in the tech Submitted at 12/23/2009 6:27:34 AM community to the release of the (CNN)-- It was a big year for T w i t t e r P e e k d e v i c e w a s a t e c h n o l o g y : T w i t t e r a n d collective, "Huh?" Facebook's popularity exploded, Sure, there are some people who while new smartphones, e- don't have smartphones and don't readers and a host of other want to pay for expensive mobile gadgets cropped up to compete plans. But is there really a market for our plugged-in affection. for a $199 device that does But into each electronic life a nothing but let you manage your little digital rain must fall.

Twitter feed?

We polled a handful of the most "I already have a $200 device to tech-savvy folks we know for update Twitter," said one techie their thoughts on the worst we spoke to. "It's called my moments in technology from iPhone."

2009 -- the most epic "fails" of The folks at Peek, makers of the year.

TwitterPeek, had already made Your mileage may vary. If you the Pronto -- a device that think something doesn't deserve handled only texts and e-mails. to be here, or think we missed a Maybe a combination of the two noteworthy clunker, let us know gadgets is in the works. But even in the comments section. And then, would enough people be now, in no particular order, our interested? Probably not.

2009 Tech Fails ...

Facebook backtracks on owning Y2-what? Zune gets off to a bad your stuff start OK ... so every time Facebook Technically it was a New Year's makes even the most minute Eve surprise. But many owners changes, it sparks an outcry of Microsoft's Zune media player among its 350 million members, started 2009 with little more than not to mention (irony alert) a paperweight with LED lights. dozens of new Facebook groups At midnight on December 31, all geared at making the site change Zune's 30-GB MP3 players froze back. up. Microsoft explained the But a terms-of-service change in problem as a problem with the February went further, implying way the device's internal clock that Facebook owned the rights recognized (or didn't recognize) to anything users uploaded to the leap years. site. Another change suggested The glitch only lasted a day, but that Facebook held those rights didn't help a device that was forever, even if people quit the already failing to gain ground on site or took the material down.

Apple's iPod. Facebook responded that it

simply needed those rights to be able to post information to other users. But when the backlash continued, the site eventually switched the terms back to their former wording.

Sidekick punts user info In what one observer called "an almost incomprehensible data disaster," T-Mobile told users in October that a server error at a Microsoft subsidiary had lost users' personal data it had stored for the devices.

All of it.

Phone numbers, contact lists, calendars and other information was gone -- and even new data would disappear if users turned off or recharged the phone.

Users were offered free service and rebates in the wake of the mess, as T-Mobile scrambled to recover what little of the data it could. But that didn't stop the lawsuits, Internet griping and ill will generated by the snafu.

Hacking Twitter It started as a story about someone hacking the accounts of several Twitter employees. Then, after Twitter said the attack was limited to personal information, not sensitive, company-related stuff, the hacker behind the attack struck again -- in a different way.

He sent 310 documents to leading technology blog TechCrunch. The blog published a small portion of them and sent the documents to Twitter, which is when the company learned that they included financial projections and notes from high-

level executive meetings.

Twitter responded by reportedly closing the security holes that allowed the attack.

Enough with the updates, already!

This was the year that online social media exploded. That's good news for the future of Facebook, Twitter and the like.

But sometimes it just got to be a bit too much.

Members of Congress abandoned any pretense of paying attention to President Obama's State of the Union speech by updating their Twitter feeds as he was speaking.

There was the groom who updated his Facebook relationship status at the altar.

And the women who tweeted during childbirth. [In fairness, the most high-profile tweeting new mom was Sara Williams, wife of Twitter CEO Evan Williams].

And that's not even mentioning all those friend requests you got from your grade-school teachers and members of your mom's knitting circle.

Hyped-up Conficker fails This is a failure we're glad to report.

The Conficker worm was, by all accounts, a serious bit of malware that infected as many as 10 million computers worldwide.

Instead of attacking those computers, it was designed to control them, paving the way for later attacks.

When researchers spotted the date April 1 in the worm's

coding, speculation began mounting that a major April Fools' Day attack was on its way.

Instead, it was mostly quiet -- a false alarm of Y2K proportions.

"I think the joke's on us a little bit, which you would have expected, having an April 1 date," Holly Stewart, threat response manager for IBM's XForce, a computer security service, said at the time.

Attacks cripple Twitter, Facebook On August 6, the concept of computer addiction didn't seem so silly.

A massive denial-of-service attack hit Twitter, Facebook and the LiveJournal blogging site.

Twitter was by far the hardest hit, completely blacking out for several hours.

The attacks were believed to have targeted a blogger in the country of Georgia who had been critical of Russia. The attacks, the blogger said, coincided with the one-year anniversary of renewed violence between the two countries.

What was telling was how freaked out people became. Users described feeling naked, jittery and upset without the ability to post on Twitter. When the site came back up, the top topic of conversation was the hashtag for "When Twitter Was Down."

Gmail crashes We heard some different views on this year's string of outages or #%*@#! page 78

78

PopSci/ Gallup Poll/

E-reader News Edition

#%*@#! continued from page 77

slowdowns of Google's popular e -mail system.

Some thought coverage was overblown.

But as more computing power moves "into the cloud," people and businesses are relying on programs like Gmail not just for e-mails, but to archive documents, chat with friends or co-workers and store contact information.

Gmail went through several high -profile crashes in 2009, including one in February and two in September. While e-mail crashes are nothing new to any provider, 2009's were the first since Google begain offering offline support.

Response to the crashes simultaneously showed how many people depend on Gmail and how easy it is to make fun of those people. Social-networking

blog Mashable responded with a list of five things to do while Gmail is down (No. 1: "Immediately flood Twitter with tweets alternately proclaiming, 'Gmail is down!' and inquiring, 'Is Gmail down?' ") I got Google Wave -- now what?

OK, so it's a little early in the game to call this one a total fail.

But after the breathless anticipation that greeted Google Wave and the hot rush to get an invitation for its beta testing, lots of users found themselves asking, "OK ... now what?"

Google, for its part, released an 80-minute tutorial video -leading some observers to argue that if you need an hour and 20 minutes to explain what your product does, you might be in trouble.

It's designed as a platform to allow users to communicate and

collaborate in real time -- a tool some predict will be used effectively by developers in the future.

But for now, it's inspired the creation of a Web site -- Easier to Understand Than Wave -- on which users compare the online tool to other sometimes obtuse subjects (Both Ozzy Osbourne and the geopolitical climate of Southeast Asia are easier to understand than Wave, users voted, while Sarah Palin and Scientology are both more difficult).

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

The Decade in Review: Four Key Trends (All Gallup Headlines) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:00:00 PM

PRINCETON, NJ -- As 2009

draws down, Gallup reviews four of the key trends that reveal how DECADE page 79

Looking Back at the 100 Best Innovations of 2009 (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)

of What's New list and our look ahead to 2010 in science, all in one place for your holiday enjoyment.

Submitted at 12/23/2009 1:15:07 PM • Click here to launch our Best of If you're like me, the holiday What's New list gallery with all break is all about consuming 100 innovations, sorted by everyone's year-end recaps--and category. You may have already of course, looking ahead to the checked out our list on the Best year to come. We're taking a of What's New site; if not, it's a short break here on PopSci.com, great way to get familiar with the but we're not going to leave you best of the year in gadgets, hanging with nothing--here we've engineering, green tech and compiled both our year-end Best more. Be sure to use the links

within the gallery to check out more photos and video over on the Best of What's New site. • And click here to check out our

We'll be back in the new year ready to dive into the maelstrom that is the Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest electronics tradeshow in the world. The fun begins in Las Vegas on January 6.

Have a happy holidays and an excellent new year everyone, and as always, thanks for reading.

2010 preview from the January It's been a great year, and much issue to get a jump on the stories of the thanks for that is due to to follow in medicine, aviation, you! space, entertainment and more.

E-reader News Edition

79

DECADE continued from page 78

Americans reacted to the twists and turns experienced in public affairs and the economy over the past decade.

Satisfaction With the Way Things Are Going At the start of this decade, Americans' satisfaction with the direction of the country stood at 69%, near the record-high 71% established in early 1999 that was fueled by a booming economy.

Satisfaction levels quickly descended in 2001 as economic concerns mounted, and fell below 50% in mid-August of that year (48%). However, in the first few months after the 2001 terrorist attacks, public satisfaction quickly rebounded -- part of a broader "rally around the flag" effect triggered by 9/11 -reaching 70% in December.

The 9/11 effect on U.S. satisfaction dissipated in less than a year, with satisfaction returning to 49% by July 2002. Americans' satisfaction with the direction of the country generally remained between 40% and 50% in 2003 (averaging 46%), but fell to an average 43% in 2004, 38% in 2005, 31% in 2006, and 28% in 2007. Satisfaction sank further -along with a faltering U.S. stock market -- at the start of 2008, dropping well below 20% for the first time since 1992.

U.S. satisfaction nearly collapsed in late 2008, falling from 21% in September to 8% October in the midst of the emerging Wall Street financial crisis. Satisfaction recovered only slightly over the next few

months, then rose more sharply in April and May 2009 -- driven largely by increased satisfaction among Democrats under the new Obama administration.

Satisfaction in 2009 peaked at 36% in August. However in the last few months of the year, it settled back into the mid-20s, finishing the decade at 25% in December -- still below the decade average.

Most Important Problem As might be imagined, Americans have identified a wide variety of issues as being "the most important problem facing this country" when asked this question throughout the decade.

In Gallup's last reading of the decade -- in December 2009 -- 29 different problems were mentioned by at least 1% of Americans.

The accompanying graph tracks the decade-long trends in Americans' mentions of four of these problems: 1) the economy (a category that includes all mentions of economic issues); 2) terrorism; 3) wars (a category including either general mentions of wars or mentions of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan specifically); and 4) healthcare.

Two of these four issues -terrorism and wars -- were basically not on Americans' radar in the first year and a half of the decade. That changed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Mentions of terrorism as the nation's most important problem went from zero in early September 2001 to 46% in

October of that year. Concerns over terrorism began to decline from that point on, and by decade's end, only 1% to 2% of Americans were mentioning terrorism as the country's top problem."The lowest presidential job approval rating of the decade was 25%, and Bush reached it three times in the fall of 2008, including at the time of the 2008 election to choose his successor."

Americans' mentions of war as the nation's most important problem (including general mentions of war as well as specific mentions of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan) also increased after Sept. 11, and began to rise substantially in the final months of 2002 and into 2003 as the Bush administration made it clear that the U.S. was going to become militarily involved in Iraq. By May 2003, after Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, mentions of war as the nation's top problem fell and remained low through the summer of that year. Then, as it became evident that the Iraq war was by no means over -- and as U.S. casualties mounted, hitting 1,000 in September 2004 -mentions of Iraq as the nation's top problem began to increase, and basically stayed relatively high through the summer of 2008, before falling to the single digits as the decade ended.

Mentions of Afghanistan as the nation's top problem were at a low 4% at decade's end.

Americans' designation of economic-related issues as the nation's top problems waxed and waned during the decade. Over 20% of Americans were mentioning some aspect of the economy as the nation's top problem in early 2000. Those concerns rose to over 50% by May 2003, but fell into the teens by late 2006 and into 2007. Then, beginning in the late fall of 2007, Americans increasingly began to mention aspects of the economy as the top problem, with a sharp rise in concerns by the winter and spring of 2008. By the summer of 2008, 60% or more of Americans were mentioning some aspect of the economy as the nation's top problem. Concern spiked even higher in the fall of 2008 and winter of 2009, reaching the decade's highest point in February of this year, when 86% of Americans spontaneously mentioned economic issues as the nation's top problem. As the decade ended, economic concerns had abated somewhat, dropping to 55% in December 2009.

The perception that healthcare is the nation's top problem was fairly scarce during most of the decade, reaching a low point of 1% in October 2001 (as terrorism overrode other concerns). By the summer of 2009, as President Obama and congressional leaders began to focus intently on new healthcare reform legislation, the public's mentioning of healthcare as the country's top problem began to rise again, reaching 26%

by late August/early September.

At decade's end, concerns over healthcare had drifted back to 16%.

Presidential Job Approval The decade has spanned the administrations of three presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

Clinton's final year in office was fairly uneventful. Clinton had solid ratings in the high 50% and low 60% range for most of 2000, finishing his presidency on a high note with a 66% job approval rating.

Bush began his term in early 2001 with ratings also in the high 50% and low 60% range, but his job approval ratings began to settle down, and by Gallup's Sept. 7-10, 2001, survey, Bush's job approval was at 51%. Then, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush was the recipient of the largest rally effect in Gallup history, with his approval rating rising 39 percentage points to 90% in the space of two weeks.

The 90% rating is the highest in Gallup history. Bush's approval rating -- perhaps inevitably -generally sloped downward after that, but remained well above average in 2002 and for most of 2003. By the time he sought reelection in 2004, his approval rating hovered near 50%.

Bush's second term was characterized by below-average ratings, which sank to the 30% range in his final two years in office -- including frequent drops DECADE page 80

80

PopSci/

E-reader News Edition

DECADE continued from page 79

into the 20s in his last year. The lowest presidential job approval rating of the decade was 25%, and Bush reached it three times in the fall of 2008, including at the time of the 2008 election to choose his successor. Bush's last approval rating, just before he left office, was 34%.

Obama took office with job approval ratings in the 60% range, beginning the honeymoon phase of his presidency, which lasted well into the summer months. By late summer, however, his approval ratings were in the low 50% range; they dipped below the majority approval level in November, and have been at or near 50% in December.

Congressional Job Approval The decade of the 2000s saw both a new high and a new low in congressional job approval. The rally in support for government institutions after the 9/11 terror

attacks extended to Congress, as 84% of Americans in October 2001 said they approved of the job Congress was doing, shattering the previous high of 57% from February 1998.

But that era of goodwill did not last, as approval ratings of Congress gradually descended -following the same general pattern seen for George W. Bush's presidential job approval ratings. By October 2005, congressional job approval fell below 30%; it was 26% in the fall of 2006 when Americans transferred party control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats in that year's midterm elections.

The change in party control only had a very short-lived positive impact on Congress' ratings, which improved 16 points from December 2006 (21%) to February 2007 (37%) after the transfer of power. By August

2007, approval had dipped to a record-tying low of 18%, and the following year, Congress' ratings established a new historical low of 14%.

The new Obama administration helped to boost ratings of Congress again in 2009; congressional approval went from 19% in January to 39% in March. But again, those higher ratings did not persist, and at the end of the decade, Congress' job rating stands at 25%.

Sign up for Gallup e-mail alerts or RSS feeds Get Gallup news on Facebook and Twitter Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Photovoltaic Retinal Implants Are Powered

By The Images They See

By Clay Dillow (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)

the retina. To put it another way, the implant is flexible and extremely small.

A visually impaired person with the implant wears a set of Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:52:38 AM exterior glasses that hosts a video The idea of restoring sight to camera that delivers a feed to the p e o p l e w i t h d a m a g e d o r implant. A pocket PC then degenerating photoreceptors in translates the video into 900their eyes is simple enough in nanometer-wavelength light that concept -- place a photoreceptor delivers both the image data and implant in the eye and beam electricity to the implant. The video from a camera to the researchers chose an invisible, implant, bypassing the faulty near-infrared display for the p h o t o r e c e p t o r s . H o w e v e r , goggles because some people powering a device implanted in suffering from degenerating the back of a person's eye photoreceptors might still have indefinitely is a serious obstacle. some perception left, which But Stanford researchers have would register visible light and worked around the problem by interfere with the image being beaming images to the implant projected. by pulsing near-infrared light that The quality of vision that the rig delivers both data and power to provides is limited, but the fact the implanted chip. that researchers have found an The 3-millimeter-wide implant is innovative way to deliver both d e s i g n e d l i k e a n a r r a y o f power and images in the same miniature solar cells configured p a c k a g e i s a r e l a t i v e in three layers that are 30 breakthrough, as it should inform micrometers thick altogether. The other efforts at sight restoration array is essentially a collection of on a means to sustainably power pixels, each connected to the next remote implants deep in the eye. by 300-nanometer-thick silicon [ IEEE Spectrum] joints that allow the array to curve along the natural shape of

E-reader News Edition

PopSci/

81

Your Guide to the Year in Science: 2010 (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)

would hurt us all. Research by Frank Lichtenberg, a professor of business at Columbia University, has shown that the number of Submitted at 12/23/2009 11:01:30 AM new drugs available correlates A deeper look at polar ice. An with higher life expectancy. electric-car renaissance. The “[Drug-development choices] death and rebirth of major have long-term consequences,” scientific experiments. Read on says professor of strategic to discover what this year has in management Stuart Graham of store the Georgia Institute of Our annual sci-tech forecast Technology. “We’re making looks at what 2010 has in store investment decisions today about for medicine, space, aviation, the the effects of new kinds of drugs environment, technology and we’ll have in a decade.” entertainment. Medicine Big In anticipation of these changes, pharma teeters on the edge of the by 2011 drugmaker Eli Lilly patent cliff aims to reduce costs by $1 billion The end of patents on some of and cut 5,500 jobs. Other the biggest drugs means cheaper companies are rushing to scoop generics now but may mean up the few remaining promising fewer new drugs later drugs already in the pipeline; So long, Lipitor. See you later, Pfizer recently finalized its Advair. This year marks the purchase of Wyeth, and Roche beginning of the so-called patent merged with Genentech. cliff, when pharmaceutical Ultimately, though, the end of companies lose exclusive patent the blockbuster-drug era may rights to many of their top-selling mean fundamental changes in brand-name drugs. Companies how Big Pharma operates. Until could cede $140 billion in sales now, thve companies have by 2016 as cheap generic focused on developing relatively versions move onto the market. simple, profitable drugs such as “The good news is that, at least in statins and antidepressants. To terms of the next 10 years, stay profitable, companies may prescription-drug costs will have to concentrate on moreprobably decline or moderate for cholesterol drug Lipitor, which from an average of 35 approvals voluntarily pulled from shelves complex drugs for obesity, many consumers,” says Dan reaped $12.4 billion in sales in in 1996 through 2001, to only 22 in 2004 after studies showed that cancer, and immunological and Carpenter, the co-director of 2008 and remains one of the in 2002 through 2007. Some of up to 139,000 people taking the n e u r o l o g i c a l d i s e a s e s . F o r Harvard University’s Initiative most profitable drugs in history. this decline can be traced to drug had suffered heart attacks. e x a m p l e , P f i z e r r e c e n t l y on Medications and Society. But And there are no new blockbuster t i g h t e r s a f e t y r e g u l a t i o n s , Yet without that $12 billion announced a new drug for t h e s a v i n g s m a y l e a v e drugs poised to take its place. partially in response to problems coming from Lipitor and other osteoarthritis. For the millions of tomorrow’s medicine cabinets The number of drugs approved with Vioxx, a prescription pain brand-name pharmaceuticals, p e o p l e w h o s u f f e r f r o m bare. In November 2011, Pfizer annually by the U.S. Food and reliever that received FDA funds for the R&D of new ones YOUR page 82 will lose patent exclusivity on its Drug Administration has fallen a p p r o v a l a n d w a s t h e n could drop significantly. That

82

E-reader News Edition

YOUR continued from page 81

intractable diseases, the change can’t come soon enough.

—Corey Binns A 21STCENTURY MEDICINE CHEST Four Drugs Set to Hit Pharmacy Shelves This Year • All-in-One Heart Pill: POLYPILL Ferrer Laboratories brings out a pill that includes three drugs to protect against heart attacks and costs less to buy than the individual pills.

Combining aspirin and drugs to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, the pill could make patients more likely to take their medicine.

• Safer Blood Thinner: PRADAXA Boehringer Ingelheim’s Pradaxa slashes the risk of stroke as effectively as the 50-plus-year-old Coumadin (warfarin) but doesn’t require the same kind of constant monitoring for internal bleeding and is easier on the liver.

• Faster Weight Loss: QNEXA A widely prescribed obesity drug called phentermine, combined with a drug originally used for epilepsy, is California-based Vivus’s recipe for Qnexa, a capsule that leads to nearly twice the weight loss of phentermine alone: 15 percent of a patient’s body weight in 52 weeks.

• More diabetes relief: EXENATIDE ONCE WEEKLY Eli Lilly/Amylin worked with Alkermes to package the injectable drug exenatide into microspheres for slow release into the blood. It’s the first onceweekly drug for Type 2 diabetes.—Carina Storrs

Space and Aviation New Freighter Takes Flight Last call for Airbus’s new military cargo plane It’s four years late and an estimated $6 billion over budget, but Airbus’s ultra-light military cargo plane is finally poised to fly. When it does, the A400M will be the first craft that’s roomy enough to fit a modern military’s bulkiest tanks and choppers, light enough to land on just about any straight stretch of sand, mud, gravel or stone, and versatile enough to double as an in-flight refueling tanker, medevac, troop transport or surveillance plane.

By early summer, Airbus plans to have three test crafts aloft, each sporting four turboprop engines with counter-rotating propellers to reduce drag—an aviation first. Typically, propellers are fuel-efficient and great for low, slow-flying missions. With 44,000 horsepower, the A400M will have the ability to reach jetlike speed and altitude while hauling twice the cargo (almost 41 tons) over twice the distance (4,000 miles) as the aging turboprop plane it will replace. And because a third of the craft’s structure is made from carbon-fiber composite, the A400M can afford the extra weight to beef up its landing gear. Equipped with six pairs of titanium legs with lowpressure tires and hydraulic shock absorbers, the craft can land on soft or rough terrain, and do it so gently that A400Ms

could set down on the same makeshift airfield 40 times without chewing it up.

It has been a long, hard road for the A400M. Six months ago, news of a major software glitch on its prized new engines ignited talk of customers like the U.K. canceling orders. If this year’s flights are successful, the company will make its first deliveries to France by 2013.

With 192 planes on order from nine countries, the A400M could be the dominant hauler of the 21st century.

—Rena Marie Pacella On Thin Ice CryoSat-2 finally delivers the deepest look yet at polar ice In late February, the European Space Agency will get a second chance to launch a satellite designed to take the most sensitive measurements yet of sea ice and glaciers. In 2005, the launch rocket failed to separate and brought the original CryoSat satellite crashing into the Arctic Ocean. After a $207-million doover, CryoSat-2 should be releasing data by September, says Mark Drinkwater, head of the ESA Mission Science Division.

During its three and a half years in orbit, CryoSat-2 will amass data on the polar ice every 30 days from an altitude of 445 miles, recording centimeter-size changes in ice thickness by measuring the ice’s height with microwaves. Because microwaves penetrate clouds better than the infrared used on NASA’s ICESat, the satellite will

offer unprecedented tracking of cloud-covered regions like Greenland. “I think that the effects of climate change are felt most in terms of the changes in the polar ice masses,” Drinkwater says. Pinpointing their thickness will help climate scientists make better computer models to predict polar temperatures, ocean circulation and, perhaps most important for those of us on the rest of the planet, rising sea levels.

—C.S. Liftoff!

Who and What are Headed to Space • Mission: Solar Dynamics Observatory Who: U.S. Launch: February Three cameras onboard this minibus-size observatory will monitor solar activity to help scientists understand the mechanisms that underlie the sun’s behavior and the solar cycle.

• Mission: Prisma Who: Sweden Launch: February The two Prisma craft, Mango and Tango, will dance together in orbit, testing technology that could lead to autonomous spaceflight using a combination of GPS, satellitetracking cameras and radio signals.

• Mission: Kanopus-V/BelKa-2 Who: Russia/Belarus Launch: Spring This launch will send two satellites into orbit around Earth to collect data on both natural and man-made disasters, detect forest fires and pollution, and monitor natural resources.

• Mission: Planet-C Who: Japan Launch: TBD The Venus Climate

Orbiter, or Planet-C, will circle Venus, photographing its surface and measuring atmospheric winds, in an effort to gain information about the planet’s poorly understood atmosphere. It may also shed light on Earth’s climate evolution.

• Mission: Chasqui 1 Who: Peru Launch: November Peru’s first nanosatellite will snap photos with the eventual goal of finding remnants of ancient cities under the forest canopy.—Brooke Borel Life After Death?

Say goodbye to a number of space projects - for now Cassini Spacecraft: 1997–2010 Final act: Cassini finished its original mission of exploring Saturn and its moons in 2008. Its new Equinox mission to observe seasonal changes on Saturn extended its life to this year.

Second life? Likely to be extended again, Cassini will continue to send information and images until at least 2017. After that, researchers might crash it into Saturn to get more data about the planet, but only if they can find a way to get it through the rings intact.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: 2009–2010 Final act: Its successful primary l u n a r - e x p l o r a t i o n mission—searching for water and mapping suitable landing sites—ends this September.

YOUR page 83

E-reader News Edition

83

YOUR continued from page 82

Second life? Since it’s already up there, the orbiter’s instruments could be used for a longer, threeyear science mission to measure, for example, the radiation reflected from the lunar surface or to study the evolution of the moon’s crust.

Odyssey orbiter: 2001–2010 Final act: The solar-powered craft ended its original Mars exploration mission in 2004.

Odyssey will complete its third mission extension this year and is serving as the radio relay for NASA’s Mars rovers.

Second life? It will possibly make it to 2012 and beyond, where it could serve as a relay for NASA’s upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Deep Impact/EPOXI: 2005–2010 Final act: The spacecraft collected data from the comet Tempel I in 2005, showing that water ice exists on the surface of comets. The mission, renamed EPOXI in 2007, will study comet Hartley 2 late this year.

Second life? The craft could observe stars thought to have planets orbiting them, but no specific plans have been made for it.

—Sandeep Ravindran The Environment First-Ever Census of Marine Life Comprehensive data will aid in ocean conservation Scientists have identified nearly a quarter of a million marine species to date, and 1,400 more are discovered every year. A

decade ago, the world’s leading ichthyologists, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, embarked on a seemingly impossible task: to create a list of all known ocean species, showing where they live and how many of them exist. The Census of Marine Life (CoML) was born.

The project has swelled into a collaboration involving over 2,000 scientists from more than 80 nations that investigates marine inhabitants from the past, present and future, approximates how many of each species exist, where they live and the ocean’s overall biodiversity. CoML will come to fruition on October 4, when the results will be made public at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London.

CoML scientists have built computer models to predict the future of the oceans’ ecosystems, examining how biodiversity shrinks every year, when species will disappear if current rates of overfishing continue, and when coral reefs might die out as a result of ocean acidification and climate change. Much of the research is done using newer technologies, including powerful sonar that can detect shrimp nearly two miles underwater, satellite tags that show tuna crossing the Pacific Ocean three times in less than a year, and DNA analysis that can rapidly monitor changes in the ocean’s biodiversity.

Scientists will use the findings to guide conservation policy and to

help manage fisheries. Although CoML hasn’t sparked any bills in the U.S., it has influenced the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the only legal framework that aims to protect the open ocean and deep sea.

Before CoML, these laws were held back because of a lack of hard data, but now the information rolling in from the project is informing global legislative agendas. And it’s working. As a direct result of the census, vast areas of the world’s most vulnerable oceans have been closed to fishing.

—B.B. Johnny Law Goes Green New laws that will change our eco-habits Costly E-Waste Cleanup Indiana joins 18 other states that have approved e-waste laws putting the bill for the recycling of sometimes-toxic electronics on device manufacturers. Seven of the states start collection this year. Manufacturers will be required to cover the cost of recycling electronics, including TVs and almost anything with a screen that measures at least four inches diagonally. E-waste amounts to three million tons in the U.S. every year. Federal lawmakers won’t take action until the state programs prove how effective they are.

Biodiesel Gets Official Massachusetts and Pennsylvania will join three other states in requiring all diesel sold to include at least 2 percent biodiesel. Simultaneously, the Environmental Protection

Agency’s attempts to expand older laws, like the Renewable Fuel Standard Program, to prevent new cropland from being used for growing oil-producing soybeans (instead of food) is angering those in the biodiesel and ethanol sectors.

Cap and Trade, Finally! (Maybe) The long-discussed cap-andtrade bill would call for companies to function within set greenhouse-gas emissions limits, with the option of buying and selling rights to exceed those limits. Passed by the House of Representatives last July, the law could come before the Senate early this year but for one major obstruction: “Legislatures in general don’t like to do things that are controversial in election years,” says Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.—Amina Elahi Cleaning Up China Environmental activists bring green projects to life HARMLESS HYDROPOWER Hazard: Twelve new hydroelectric dams on the Yangtze River will disrupt the habitats of 188 fish species.

Cleanup Committee: The Nature Conservancy and Three Gorges Project Group Corporation will develop a restoration plan for affected wetlands and floodplains to maintain fish habitats.

Potential Stumbling Block: Lack of Chinese governmental approval; possible heavy flooding upstream.

GREEN BUILDING

Hazard: The nation’s nearly 21 billion square feet of buildings consume 25 percent of its total energy.

Cleanup Committee: Two buildings slated to open, Beijing Parkview Green and Venke Center, are the country’s first candidates for top LEED green and energy-efficient credentials.

The Natural Resources Defense Council helped develop China’s first energy-rating and -labeling standards for buildings.

Potential Stumbling Block: China’s government is reluctant to hire third-party building energy raters to inspect buildings, preferring to rely on government officials, who can be shorthanded and sometimes less capable.

SUSTAINABLE WOOD Hazard: China is the number-one maker of furniture in the world—it buys one of every two tropical logs felled elsewhere.

Cleanup Committee: The Rainforest Alliance is working with Ikea to determine where the wood for the company’s Chinese -made furniture originates and whether it comes from a legal, sustainable forest.

Potential Stumbling Block: Only a loose system for tracking logs exists within the country. A more effective one has to be built from scratch.

—C.B. Three Big Green Gambles Alternate-energy projects starting up this year YOUR page 84

84

E-reader News Edition

YOUR continued from page 83

Catching Solar Rays Who: Stirling Energy Systems and Tessera Solar Sixty SunCatcher concentrated solar dishes—the most efficient in the world at converting solar energy—will be installed in Arizona early this month, powering 202 homes annually.

Larger facilities are scheduled to break ground in California and Texas later in the year.

Trapping Exhaust Heat Who: BSST Devices made from thermoelectric materials installed in a car’s exhaust system capture waste heat and convert it to electricity, cutting fuel costs up to 8 percent by supplementing the electricity from the alternator.

BSST will test the system this year in a BMW 5-series and a Ford Focus.

Harvesting Algae with Fish Who: LiveFuels Six fish can filter the same amount of algae-filled water per minute as a $250,000 centrifuge.

Oil extraction is simple: Cook and press the fish to get algae oil for diesel fuel. Afterward, the fish can be fed to farm animals.

The herbivorous fish also take carbon from the atmosphere and can eat algae blooms. LiveFuels hopes to open its first pond-based proof-of-concept facility this year.

—B.B Entertainment TV on the Go Watch live TV on any screen, anywhere This year, you won’t need a

living room to have a Super Bowl party. You won’t even need a TV. For the first time, broadcasters in select cities will send the game live not just to big -screen TVs but also to cellphones, netbooks and other mobile devices.

Previously, the only way to access TV on a mobile screen was by paying a subscription service to send video over an unreliable 3G wireless broadband network, and the service didn’t deliver local channels. Today, after the death of analog TV freed up parts of the broadcast spectrum for use by cellular providers, television broadcasters for 30 stations in 17 major cities have spent up to $150,000 per tower to install transmitters that send free, live broadcasts directly to specially equipped mobile devices. It costs broadcasters less than a penny a minute to provide the service, compared with the $4 -per-minute price that cellular carriers pay. This new service, called Mobile Digital TV, allows any wireless device equipped with a tuner chip to receive signals directly from transmission towers.

Look for consumer products capable of receiving the signal to arrive in stores this year. This month, USB dongles that act like TV antennas for your laptop will go on sale nationwide. TV-ready cellphones, as well as add-on dongles for current phones, will be available by the second half of the year.

—C.B. Popcorn Fodder

2010's sci-fi blockbusters Iron Man 2 May 7 Robert Downey, Jr., returns to his double role as industrialist Tony Stark and crime fighter Iron Man. This time, he takes on Russian villain Whiplash and faces the Black Widow, along with industry rival Justin Hammer. It’s Iron Man, so you know what to expect: lots of tech, big explosions and droll commentary.

Tron Legacy December 17 Sam Flynn struggles in a fight for life or death in the cyberworld of programs and games where his father Kevin (the protagonist in the first Tron) has been lost for 25 years. This sequel to the 1982 CGI classic has the same producer as the original. We just can’t wait to see the revamped light cycles.

—A.E. Gaming in 2010 Two anticipated time sinks that will destroy our social lives Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Starcraft2.com; available by June Seven years—that’s how long it took for Blizzard to develop the follow-up to its 11-million-copies -sold real-time strategy game StarCraft. SCII features an automatchmaking system that will pit you against players of similar skill level. Bring on the Zerg!

Brink Xbox 360, PS3, PC; available in spring Save the floating city of Ark

with the help of SMART (Smooth Movement Across Random Terrain) in this firstperson shooter [below]. The SMART button sends your character where you want him to go with the fewest button pushes, so no more getting stuck on a table or behind a crate, a quirk of older first-person games.

—A.E. Technology Electric-Car Resurrection Carmakers launch their battery powered rides Nearly three years after General Motors announced a concept car called the Chevrolet Volt, setting off an avalanche of hype, skepticism and imitation from other automakers, the electric-car renaissance is here—almost. This is the year major automakers have said they would give us the electric cars we were promised.

Do we think they’ll deliver? Yes, we do.

Despite surviving the biggest bankruptcy in American history, GM is still scheduled to start building Volts this winter. A four -door hatchback, the Volt will run on a lithium-ion battery for 40 miles before switching over to a four-cylinder gasoline engine.

The Volt could cost as much as $40,000, although a $7,500 federal tax credit will bring that down. GM says some 50,000 customers have already lined up to buy the Volt, and for the company’s sake, it had better follow through. Throughout last year’s controversial restructuring, GM held up the Volt as a symbol

of its new direction; failing to deliver the car would be a major embarrassment.

A second electric-car debut will come late this year when Nissan starts shipping its Leaf, the first truly mass-market pure-electric car. A hatchback with room for five, the Leaf skips the Volt-style range-extending gas engine in favor of a bigger battery that gets it about 100 miles on a charge.

Recharging takes between 6 and 12 hours, depending on what kind of outlet you’re plugged into. The Leaf will be just as highway-worthy as any conventional car of its size, with a top speed of 87 mph. It’s expected to cost around $30,000, minus the tax credit. According to Nissan, some 22,000 customers have already signed up.

Finally, another indie electric arrives this year: the Fisker Karma. Provided the delivery date doesn’t slip again (it was scheduled to go on sale late last year), the boutique plug-in hybrid will arrive in driveways this summer. The $87,900 Karma—the primary rival to the all-electric Tesla Roadster, which is already on sale—has a powertrain similar to the Volt, in which battery power alone delivers the car up to 50 miles before a gasoline engine kicks in for backup.

Electric-car launches have a notorious history of delays and cancellations. This time, YOUR page 85

PopSci/

E-reader News Edition

85

YOUR continued from page 84

however, so many companies have put so much on the line that as long as GM, Nissan and Fisker hit their self-imposed deadlines, 2010 should be the year the electric car comes back to life.

—Seth Fletcher Going for Green The Progressive Automotive X Prize promises $10 million in prizes to the first cars that can maintain 100 mpg in a series of road races. Who will win? We’ve handicapped the field.

Mainstream-class: Must have at least four wheels and seat four adults Delta Motorsport | Britain: The all-electric E-4 coupe mounts an electric motor for each wheel on the chassis, netting it up to 95 percent drivetrain efficiency, 3.5 times that of the standard car.

Chance of victory: champagne GoMecsys | Netherlands: This team stuck with a gas engine but added an extra gear in the crankshaft that makes the power stroke last longer, yielding higher mileage, power and efficiency.

Chance of victory: sparkling wine Team ULV-3 | Minnesota: This hybrid’s computer shuts down one or more cylinders when engine load is light.

Aerodynamics and regenerative braking round out the package.

Chance of victory: sparkling wine Alternative-class: Must have a 100-mile range and seat two adults Western Washington University | Washington: This hybridelectric coupe weighs 1,400 pounds yet aims to meet federal safety specs, thanks to custom impact-absorbing carbon fiber.

Chance of victory: champagne.

—Mary M. Woodsen The Faces of 2010 Three people who could win or lose it all in the new year Craig Venter, Biologist Job: Build artificial life On the agenda: Venter says he’s in the final stage of creating the first synthetic biological organisms. Man-made organisms could churn out pharmaceuticals and carbon-neutral fuels.

ExxonMobil is working with Venter’s company, Synthetic Genomics, and, if all goes well, will invest up to $600 million in his synthetic-algae-based biofuels. If Venter can’t get results fast enough, it will be only a matter of time until one of his competitors succeeds and reaps the glory.

Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator Job: Keep human spaceflight alive On the agenda: The space shuttle is scheduled to retire in September, although a presidential committee predicts that it will fly into 2011. Either way, Garver is facing several years when NASA won’t be able to put humans into space by itself. This year, she must devise a plan for what the agency should do next. She plans to chart the course of human spaceflight and the life of the International Space Station beyond 2016 and assess the fate of the nascent Constellation Program, which is over budget and behind schedule and could be shelved by Congress at any time.

Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO Job: Keep Apple onboard On the agenda: With the exclusive arrangement between AT&T and Apple’s iPhone reported to expire this year, Stephenson has to somehow keep the smartphone on the roster.

AT&T earns twice as much from an iPhone user than from an average customer. At the same time, the mobile carrier spent up

to $18 billion on boosting its networks last year, including its 3G network in more than 350 markets to handle the bandwidthhogging ways of the iPhone.

Stephenson needs to hang on to iPhone exclusivity to recoup that investment.

—C.B. Births & Deaths What’s starting up or shutting down in the world of physics Death: Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory The Tevatron is the most powerful proton accelerator in operation. It was due to shut down a year after the start of the higher-energy Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European center for particle physics near Geneva, Switzerland.

Second life? Until the LHC is running smoothly, the Tevatron will most likely be extended until 2011. “If, God forbid, the LHC still struggles and is not getting data, and we see something in our detectors that is captivating, it might be prudent to keep running it beyond 2011,” says physicist Robert Roser, the spokesperson for the CDF experiment at Fermilab.

According to Roser, the Tevatron

“is running phenomenally well right now. It’s a shame to shut it off.”

Birth: National Ignition Facility This summer, NIF scientists in California will aim the world’s most energetic laser at a tiny fuel capsule to ignite a nuclear fusion reaction.

Death: Planck Orbiter Planck provides our earliest look at the universe by observing radiation left over from the big bang.

Second life? Though scheduled to end in the fall, it will probably continue being used for as long as its detectors are operational.

Birth: Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array This mega-telescope will consist of at least 66 high-precision antennas that work together to collect millimeter and submillimeter electro-magnetic radiation to observe some of the most distant objects in the universe.

—S.R.

unconventional way. Check out the photo gallery for a glimpse of what happens when you blow up a television.

[Note: No dynamite was used in this Dynamite Dissection. Do

not attempt to do anything like this on your own.]

Dynamite Dissection: Television

By Vin Marshall (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 12/23/2009 9:27:44 AM

Ever wonder what's inside your television? Lots of very small pieces, it turns out.

We decided to dissect a television for the edification of PopSci readers. Then we decided

to

do

it

in

a

slightly

86

PopSci/

E-reader News Edition

Immersive Multiplayer Gaming System Integrates Virtual and Physical Worlds

By Clay Dillow (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 12/23/2009 7:01:56 AM

Wii wand not cutting it for you anymore? A group of game designers at the National University of Singapore have developed a next-gen immersive gaming system that blends virtual reality and augmented reality with the physical environment.

Wearing head-mounted displays and using other peripherals, players use the open space around them to move, jump, crouch and aim within a game, collecting virtual objects and fighting opponents real and virtual along the way.

The group created a few variations of the same firstperson shooter (FPS), one of which works through virtual reality, another through augmented reality. In the virtual reality orientation, the players wear head-mounted displays and control either a sword or gun in the game using a peripheral wand. A system of sensors tracks the head display – which projects images of the in-game scenes in front of the players’ eyes – as well as the wand, giving players real time feedback on the virtual

One key innovation to make the systems work well allows for a split screen option that shows where the head and weapon are looking simultaneously. In cases where the head and weapon are pointing in different directions, a small window showing the weapon’s viewpoint opens at the bottom of a player’s view, allowing him or her to aim. The feature lets players to shoot one direction while looking another – because who doesn’t want to cap off a Killtacular with a showboating shot from behind the back?

In some preliminary tests, users seemed to prefer the virtual reality console to both AR and traditional keyboard and mouse controls, though objective results showed users made more bull’seye shots with the keyboard and mouse. The system, especially in environment. Players can move next level, letting gamers play in virtual reality configuration, very around the game by physically any open environment. In this a c c u r a t e l y m i m i c s b o d y moving about the room (which setup, players wear an augmented m o v e m e n t a s w e l l a s more or less needs to be obstacle reality headset with a camera aiming/shooting, so the systems free), picking up virtual objects looking forward that captures the could have important police and and engaging in virtual duels and users’ real-world views. The military training implication shootouts by actively aiming, game engine then syncs the real- aside from some pretty sick ducking and maneuvering. world environment with game potential for turning a living But while virtual reality is data, so players can run, jump room, a park, even a whole undeniably awesome next to the and hide within the real world neighborhood into an augmented usual keyboard or paddle- environment while shooting, gaming playground. controlled FPS, the augmented slashing and otherwise racking reality variation takes it to the up points.

Panasonic Will Market First Li-Ion Storage Battery for Home Use in 2011

By Clay Dillow (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 12/23/2009 10:54:50 AM

The battery could power zeroemissions homes Bringing power storage to the people, Panasonic will bring a home-use lithium-ion storage cell to market in fiscal 2011, making it possible for homes to store a week's worth of electricity for later use. Panasonic -- along with the recently acquired Sony -have already test-manufactured such a battery, which could allow for more widespread deployment of eco-friendly but inconsistent modes of power generation.

While generating wind and solar energy is obviously preferable to burning fossil fuels, the fact that they can't generate steadily and consistently throughout the day and night means that at best they can only supplement more consistent sources of power. But if households and businesses can PANASONIC page 87

E-reader News Edition

87

PANASONIC continued from page 86

store excess power when generation is peaking and use it during periods of low electricity output, we could make renewables a larger part of our energy diet.

Saying that the battery will last "for about one week," as Panasonic's president has, is pretty arbitrary it seems, as different households have vastly different energy needs. Even so,

batteries can be strung together into arrays, and something that could last the average homestead even a few days would open the door for more solar panels on roofs, and that can't be bad.