LNP Oct-27-09 Edition by Liberty Newspost

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The First Draft: Team Obama’s Full-Court Press on Climate By Deborah Zabarenko (Front Row Washington)

power, which are free of carbon emissions. It’s all meant to convince Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:29:16 AM international climate negotiators As a drippy day dawns in that Washington is serious about Washington, Team Obama is tackling climate change. A global suiting up for a full-court press on gathering set for Copenhagen in climate change. Three cabinet December aims to set up a system secretaries — from Energy, to curb climate-warming carbon Transportation and Interior e m i s s i o n s a f t e r t h e K y o t o departments — the head of the Protocol expires in 2012. For EPA and the chairman of the months, environmental activists F e d e r a l E n e r g y R e g u l a t o r y have looked to the Copenhagen Commission Five — are headed meeting as a deadline for action. for the Senate Environment and But now, the deadline is looking a Public Works Committee on the bit blurry. first of three full days of hearings. U.N. Secretary-General Ban KiAs those hearings go forward, moon appeared to acknowledge President Barack Obama is this when he told business leaders a n n o u n c i n g a $ 3 . 4 b i l l i o n in Seattle on Monday, “We will program to build a“smart” electric do our best and try to have a grid, which would among other s u b s t a n t i v e a g r e e m e n t ( i n things carry solar and wind C o p e n h a g e n ) … A f t e r

Copenhagen we may not expect … to agree on all elements. But we should have a broad agreement.”

Ban’s climate adviser made clear the secretary-general was planning for “post-Copenhagen” talks. The international environmental community has said repeatedly that the United States needs to take the lead in forging a global climate agreement. But what would show U.S. leadership? Does a climate change bill have to come to a vote in the Senate? Does it just have to get out to committee? Does it need to land on the president’s desk before the Copenhagen meeting? Is it enough that legislation seems to be moving forward? And an even more basic question: do you agree that the United States needs to lead on this? If so, would it make a difference if Obama attends the Copenhagen

meeting? (He’s going to be in the neighborhood anyway to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize.) Let us know what you think. For more Reuters political news, click here. Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed (President Barack Obama looks at a model of a wind turbine at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 23, 2009) REUTERS/Ray Stubblebine (University of Pittsburgh Panthers guard Antonio Graves fights a full -court press by Louisville Cardinals guard Andre McGee in Big East Tournament game in New York’s Madison Square Garden, March 8, 2006)

Gallup poll: conservatives outnumber moderates and liberals By Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 10/26/2009 10:43:12 AM

What’s in a political label? Well Gallup has found that more Americans identify themselves as conservatives than those who call

themselves moderate or liberal. On the question of political ideology, 40 percent of those surveyed said they were conservative, 36 percent were moderate, and 20 percent liberal. “This marks a shift from 2005 were tied with conservatives as through 2008, when moderates the most prevalent group,” Gallup

says. Wonder what this means for the 2010 midterm elections that everyone’s watching for signs of political shifts… Click here for more Reuters political coverage Photo credit: Reuters/Larry

Downing (Senator John McCain at an American Conservative Union conference in February 2008)

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Hey, even the FBI gets telemarketing Cramer on BloggingStocks: Obama has to see the light calls on nat gas

By Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row Washington)

By Jim Cramer (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:32:17 AM

Yep, it’s true. Even the G-men who are trying to track down criminals get calls from those pesky telemarketers. Buried in a 160-page report by the U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine was a little nugget that the Federal Bureau of Investigation apparently has been receiving calls from telemarketers on telephone lines set up for wiretaps. When the FBI gets a court order to tap a phone line, they set up telephone lines that deliver those calls to the authorities. However, it turns out that those phone lines are assigned actual numbers by the phone company. “It is not uncommon for these lines to ‘receive’ calls from telemarketers and others who use auto-dialers and other automated

Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:00:00 AM

call technology to place calls,” FBI Deputy Director John Pistole said in a letter to the inspector general. The issue came up when the inspector general expressed concern that an FBI field office had gone beyond the period in which a court ordered wiretap was authorized, known as an ‘overrun’, or had possibly

Filed under: Market matters, Chesapeake Energy (CHK), Commodities, Oil, Cramer on BloggingStocks TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says perhaps he can learn from Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, who has become a believer in the fuel. Maybe President Obama can make the transition to natural gas that Ed Rendell just did in collected material after a judge Pennsylvania. The transition is a had ordered the FBI to stop. simple one: Focus on jobs and As a public service, here’s the many things go well; don't focus l i n k t o t h e F e d e r a l T r a d e on jobs and you aren't focused on C o m m i s s i o n ’ s D o - N o t - C a l l anything. registry in case the FBI wants to When I first heard of the avoid getting those calls in the Marcellus Shale from Aubrey middle of dinner — or a stakeout. M c C l e n d o n o f - Photo credit: Reuters/Finbarr Chesapeake(NYSE: CHK) ( O ’ R e i l l y ( A c a l l c e n t e r i n Cramer's Take), I was pretty Senegal) much in disbelief. How could there be so much natural gas in some place in western Pennsylvania? Too good to be

true. Continue reading Cramer on BloggingStocks: Obama has to see the light on nat gas Cramer on BloggingStocks: Obama has to see the light on nat gas originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Housing market to dip again next year; Goldman says by 10% By Tom Johansmeyer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:20:00 AM

Filed under: Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Economic data, Housing If you've become comfortable

with the current state of the said, "The risk of renewed home housing market... don't. price declines remains Economists at Goldman significant." His "working Sachs(NYSE: GS) and Bank of assumption" is a drop of between America's Merrill Lynch (NYSE: 5% and 10% by the middle of BAC) say there's still plenty of next year. risk in the housing market. Continue reading Housing market Alec Phillips, the head of Goldman's Washington office, to dip again next year; Goldman

says by 10% Housing market to dip again next year; Goldman says by 10% originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Remains to be seen By Jon Henley (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Berlin, living with his parents. Because he worked in the west, Werner interested the East German security service, the Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:47:36 AM Stasi. Because he had a police It's 20 years since the Berlin Wall record, he was a cinch to recruit: was breached and few people then help us, and we'll wipe your slate thought of saving any of it for clean. So, since 1959 Werner had posterity. Jon Henley goes in been a Stasi informant, codename search of the last remnants Harry, providing a valued picture We are gathered here today to of the lowlife he supposedly remember Werner Probst. Not, frequented in the bars of west s o m e m i g h t s a y , t h e m o s t Berlin. innocent victim in this city's But what mattered most to Probst e v e n t f u l h i s t o r y , n o r t h e was the freedom to go where he wickedest; not by a long shot. But wanted, when he wanted, and like all of the 136 men and once the wall was up, in August women who fell as a consequence 1961, he no longer had that. First of that great grey slab of concrete he was arrested at Friedrichstrasse standing just outside, he did not station, drunk, trying to cross the deserve to die when he did, doing border. Then at 10.30pm on 14 what he was trying to do. October, he jumped into the river So here we are, then, 50 or so of Spree at the Schillingbrücke and us, well-upholstered, middle- started swimming. Wounded by aged tourists from Frankfurt and machine-gun fire on the way Cologne and Amsterdam and across, he was fatally shot in the Copenhagen, a retired couple back as he hauled himself out on from Cheshire, a shuffling bunch the other bank. of schoolchildren from Bielefeld. "One name stands for many," says We sit on wooden chairs in an the man in the felted cardigan, unadorned oval chapel, and an "and yet each name stands for avuncular man in one of those one." Two of the schoolgirls sniff; felted German cardigans takes a a couple of the boys take a sudden book lying on the altar and reads interest in their shoes. An elderly from it about Werner Probst. gentleman from Frankfurt blows He was born on 18 June 1936 in his nose. "He was the same age as the working-class district of my brother," he says, outside. Friedrichshain in what became "Would have been 73 this year. east Berlin. He left school early, I'm glad those kids are here." with no qualifications and barely There is a ceremony like this most able to write. He was in constant d a y s a t t h e C h a p e l o f trouble with the police for a string R e c o n c i l i a t i o n o n B e r l i n ' s of petty thefts. At the time of his Bernauer Strasse. Amid all the death, in October 1961, he was a perverse enormity of the Berlin driver for a truck firm in west Wall – the brutality, the ugliness,

the absurdity, the tainted lives, the weight of all that it represented ("The wall", as they're fond of saying in Berlin, "was a symbol not just for a divided city, but a divided country, a divided continent") – it is perhaps good to begin here, in a bare and chilly chapel with a bunch of strangers moved to tears by the story of a man none of us had heard of 15 minutes ago. Good also because, to be perfectly frank, if you're hoping for an idea of what the Berlin Wall was actually like, you are going to be disappointed. For something that loomed so large, physically and in the minds of a generation, there is amazingly little of it left. Along with the border "death strip" and the patrol paths, watchtowers, guard posts, signal fencing, telephone lines, spotlights, road blocks and all the rest of the sinister paraphernalia that went with it, the 184km of concrete wall – all 45,000, 3.6mhigh, 1.2m-wide, 2.75-tonne segments of it – and 154km of border fence have, basically, vanished. "You have to understand," says Pastor Manfred Fischer in his study across the road from the chapel, "the thought in everybody's mind was, let's get shot of it. Nobody wanted to see it any more, not the least trace of it. Nobody. Die Mauer muss weg– the wall must go: that was the cry before it came down, and for months afterwards too. We couldn't get rid of it fast enough." Within 12 months of that mad

night of 9 November 1989, the soon-to-be-disbanded National People's Army had dismantled pretty much the whole of the Berlin Wall, with much the same efficiency as they had erected, maintained, improved and defended it over the previous 28 years. Most of it went to resurface east German roads, although 360 particularly colourful segments were sold at auction in Berlin, Paris and Monte Carlo. In many places, too, Mauerspechte, or wallpeckers, got there before the soldiers, chipping away at the wall with hammers and chisels out of historical, ideological or plain commercial conviction. A canny West German entrepreneur, Volker Pawlowski, snapped some 300m and set himself up for life; he now supplies rather more than 90% of the booming wall memento market. A piece of genuine, authenticated cold war history the size of your fist, tastefully re-sprayed and fixed to an acrylic mount? Yours for a modest €12. A smaller fragment attached, for example, to a keyring, will set you back a mere €6. Slight, wiry and still alarmingly energetic, Pastor Fischer arrived on Bernauer Strasse, which separates the former West German district of Wedding to the north from the former East German district of Mitte to the south (confusing, I know, but with the wall no longer around it is often hard to tell what was where these days) in 1975. He was pastor of the Church of

Reconciliation, in the middle of the border strip, but never set foot in it because it was on the wrong side of the wall, and, anyway, in 1985 the East German authorities blew it up. Fischer was one of the few to fight, as early as 1990, for at least a small part of the wall to be preserved. "I'd go outside and beg them to stop destroying it," he says. "I knew we had to keep something, a small part of it. The wall was a crime, and we had to have the evidence. There had to be a mark: something that said this is where we've come from, that left no room for discussion. Because we are quite good at looking back on our past in a certain way. I know this; I used to have enormous rows with my own father when he'd say, 'Ach, Hitler wasn't that bad.' I was sure one day people would say, 'Ach, the GDR wasn't all that bad.'" He is right about that, of course. Ostalgie– nostalgia for life in the former East Germany – is now a widely documented phenomenon, particularly among the older citizens of the former German Democratic Republic, who miss the old certainties. Later in the day, on a bleak stretch of the former border guard patrol strip beside a railway line north of the city centre, I meet Katherina walking her two labradors. At 58, she fiercely resents having to pay for her dentures and her reading glasses, and gets cross at the choice she is confronted with at REMAINS page 7

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the baker's. "A loaf of bread," she says, "used to be a loaf of bread. It would cost the same, always, and it would be fine. Nowadays they'll sell you any rubbish, and you never know how much it will cost you." Katherina isn't, it seems, alone; a survey this summer for Stern magazine found 15% of Germans still pining for the two Germanies – easterners because unemployment rates are higher and incomes lower than west German levels, westerners because of €1.2trn they have paid in taxes to fund reunification. Another recent poll found 41% of east Germans denying the GDR was ever unjust. The wall may have fallen; the divide, while narrowing, remains. And that, 20 years after it fell, makes the question of how best to commemorate Berlin's nowabsent wall a delicate one. Pastor Fischer's determination to preserve some evidence did at least pay off. Opposite his parish office adjoining the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre stands a rebuilt 70m stretch of the wall, the only one left in the city to give at least some idea of the scale of the former fortifications. For the wall was, of course, actually two – the concrete slats of the Hinterland or rear wall facing eastwards; and, looking westward, the altogether more daunting bulk of the Vorderland or front wall, topped with that unclimbable concrete pipe. Between the two walls, East Germany's laughably named "anti -fascist rampart", was the sand-

covered strip (for footprints) complete with patrol path, alarm fences, spiked mats, floodlights, guard dogs and watchtowers. Today on Bernauer Strasse, you can climb the stairs of an observation tower and look down on a short stretch of the walls and strip, albeit shorn of their more chilling accessories. To the south, however, in what was east Berlin, rise sumptuous, immaculately restored pre-war apartment buildings that ooze Germanic solidity. To the north, in what was the west, are equally stylish big-windowed, ochrepainted modern blocks. And even with an imposing chunk of memorial masonry right there in front of you, in a pale late-autumn sunshine, surrounded by unimpressed teenagers, it is hard to grasp the monstrosity of the thing. "You just can't really see it as real, somehow," says Anna, 17, from Koblenz. "It's like a stage set, you know? Or a video game. Reunification was great, of course. It's good that we're all one Germany again. But what's here, I think, for us it's impossible to really make sense of it. It could be ancient history." So is there anywhere left in Berlin where you really can make sense of it? I set off to see. It's not an immediately enlightening journey. Just across town is Potsdamer Platz, once Europe's busiest square, teeming with traffic and heaving with hotels and stores and coffeeshops. It was wrecked by the second

world war, but is now a gleaming high-rise 21st-century vision: banks, management consultancies, a consumer electronics giant. Stranded incongruously in the middle are a few frankly risible segments of obviously relocated wall. A group of Dutch schoolchildren cycle up, dismount, stamp their frozen feet through the guide's inevitable "divided city, divided country" routine and, giggling, plaster a few more pieces of chewing gum on the already liberally spattered concrete. A double line of cobblestones traces the route of the Vorderland wall across the square and up Ebertstrasse towards the Brandenburg Gate. Even that slim reminder is easy to lose: Volkswagens and Mercedes roar ceaselessly over it, white road markings obscure it. Part of the problem, of course, is that there is just so much history i n B e r l i n . O n Niederkirchnerstrasse, by the Prussian parliament building and the Nazi aviation ministry, is the longest bit of wall left in the city centre – 160 metres of knackered grey, graffiti-strewn concrete, its steel reinforcement rods peering out like bones where the wallpeckers got busy. Across the road, a small portable building advertises 20-minute Trabi safaris in the authentic twostroke East German motor car. Round the corner, assuming you decline to join the Berliners drinking coffee in the cafes of uber-chic Friedrichstrasse, Checkpoint Charlie, a heavily

fortified and thoroughly terrifying 10-lane border crossing barely two decades ago, now offers a kind of cold war cabaret. Fast-food joints compete for custom with stalls flogging Russian Red Army fur hats (made in China) and a desk where you can get your passport stamped with an East German visa. For €1, you can be photographed with an actor in the uniform of an allied border guard, holding aloft a tricolore, Union flag or Stars and Stripes outside a replica wooden control hut. The museum at Checkpoint Charlie is, of course, part of cold war history itself, recounting spine-chilling tales of derring-do, displaying some of the cunningly modified cars, hot-air balloons, microlights and diving gear that helped carry thousands of desperate east Berliners westwards – and railing, with zero attempt at objectivity, against the manifold evils of communist dictatorships in general, and East Germany in particular. Checkpoint Charlie doesn't really do it for me; a number of German politicians have also denounced a "falsification of history". It is, if you have read Stasiland or seen The Lives of Others, all a bit tasteless. I take the U-bahn to Warschauer Strasse to see if the longest stretch of wall still standing is any better. There are 1.3km of the East Side Gallery, but in a way it too is fake: this was actually part of the rear wall, built to look like the front wall because it lay on the

route that carried VIP visitors into east Berlin from Schönefeld airport. The idea was to spare those sensitive Soviet and other eastern bloc diplomats a view of the real border strip. Fulvio Pinna, a pony-tailed Italian, is busy redoing the exuberant piece of art he (and more than 100 others from around the world) painted on the wall in 1990; the whole lot is due to be restored by early November. Pinna had been in Berlin a couple of years when the wall fell, he says: "It was a unique moment. The best, ever." Of course, the world has changed, and this stretch of wall is more museum than gallery, he reckons. Still, what artist isn't happy to see his work in a museum? An hour or so's hike north-west, in the Invaliden cemetery north of the central station and bordering the Spandauer ship canal, a few more fragments have been preserved. I arrive as daylight is fading, to find another bike group being lectured on the two men who died here: Günter Litfin, shot by border police on 24 August 1961, and Peter Göring, an East German border guard killed by the covering fire his counterparts in the west were giving to a 14year-old escapee. Just past the cemetery, surrounded by spanking new flats with sun-kissed balconies and canal views, a grey-haired man called Jürgen Litfin opens the door to the ugly concrete REMAINS page 8

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watchtower he maintains as partmuseum, part-shrine to his brother's memory. He is in between two tour groups, and not in the best of moods. "The wall?" he says. "Gah. I'm not going to talk to you about the wall. It cost my brother his life and I've talked about it enough to last two lifetimes." A strange thing happens, though, when you go looking for the Berlin Wall. You begin, eventually, to realise that because there is so very little of it left, and because those few remaining fragments can invariably be located by the presence in front of them of a guided bike group or a tour bus or six, it's when you stumble across some small, untrumpeted and all but unremembered trace of its former existence that you feel its weight most keenly. Along Bernauer Strasse, for example, a handful of scattered, unadvertised flagstones recall the fates of the half-dozen men and women – Ernst Mundt, Ida Siekmann, Olga Segler, Rudolf Urban, Bernd Lünser – who were shot or died jumping from the windows of now long-demolished apartment buildings here; the wall initially consisted simply of bricked-up facades. There's a plaque marking one of several tunnels dug beneath the street; this one, at Strelitzer Strasse 55, a remarkable 140m long – 57 people fled through it. Much else is hard, if not

impossible, to spot without a specialist guide (I recommend Klausmeier and Schmidt's Wall Remnants, Wall Traces). But beyond the confines of the centre – north, say, of Bornholmer Strasse, or south maybe of Sonnenallee – and along much of the recently laid-out Mauerweg (the Wall Path, a cycle and walking route that follows, approximately and with many deviations, the path of the former guard road), innumerable tiny traces of the border system remain. In their neglected banality, they become oddly moving. Here there is an outsize street lamp, there a rusting lightmast. Elsewhere a junction box, a length of railing, window grilles, a wire fence. Sometimes a painted marker post rears up through a patch of weeds. A few painted road markings persist, and some heavy concrete boxes that were once roadblocks and now serve as municipal flowerbeds. On street corners, even when buildings have been renovated, you can still see where and how the Hinterland wall was attached, sealing off all access. In plenty of spots in the suburbs, where it hasn't generally been built on, what was once the border death strip is now a pleasant enough path, a "green band" prized for the flora and fauna it has conserved and appreciated by local joggers, cyclists and walkers. I take a taxi to the end of the line:

the boundary between Brandenburg and the city of Berlin outside the small village of Lübars; the northernmost point of the Berlin Wall proper. It is cold and raining, heavily, and finding the wall's route is not easy; we eventually track it down where it c r o s s e s t h e Blankenfelderchaussee, at the site of an odd little memorial to the "courageous" firemen of Lübars who, in June 1990, got round to pulling down the wall and opening up the road. A wet ribbon of asphalt stretches into the distance on both sides, between green fields and allotments. This was the East German border guards' patrol path, in the middle of the border strip. Twenty years ago, a concrete wall and a tall wire fence ran parallel to it, rendering the Blankenfelderchaussee impassable. Today, the strip is empty save for the trees that have sprung unconcernedly up along it. Nobody, not even a dedicated Germanic jogger, is out. According to Klausmeier and Schmidt, there are traces of the foundations of a watchtower to be observed here, as well as a handful of metal posts designating the start of the restricted area, a bit of wire fencing and a few lamps. They don't really seem worth getting wet for. "Must be nice," says the taxi driver, who is Turkish, "in summer. I might bring the family. Very rural. Wouldn't think you were in

Berlin." We head back into town, the rain slowly easing. I walk along Norwegerstrasse and Schwedter Strasse, squeezed between railway tracks and yet-to-be-renovated buildings. The wall was once here, too. This whole zone – 28 big apartment blocks, 1,500 adult inhabitants – was considered especially sensitive and subject to special security measures: access by special pass only, regular police checks of cellars and attics, a quarter of the flats occupied by reliable Stasi or army officers and their families. "Yuppies fuck off" says the graffiti now, and "Abolish reality". And that's about it. Bar all those poignant but, for the non-expert, pretty much unrecognisable relics, the Berlin Wall is, truly, history. But wait – near Bernauer Strasse are the offices of the city's department for cultural affairs. Its spokesman, Torsten Wöhlert,explains the department's ambitious "Wall Concept", a plan already underway to unify Berlin's scattered and disparate cold war remnants into a somewhat more coherent memorial framework, giving visitors and future generations of Berliners alike a better feel for what the wall really meant. The Bernauer Strasse site is being substantially extended to become the "central commemorative landscape", Wöhlert declares; the visitor's experience there will be significantly broadened and

deepened. New exhibitions on the geopolitics of the period and the way the wall affected Berliners' lives are planned at Checkpoint Charlie and at Friedrichstrasse station. There is a basic introduction to the whole subject beneath the Brandenburg Gate, and an all-singing, all-dancing "virtual wall" on the internet. "It's true it is all a bit confused, a bit unfocused," Wöhlert admits. "People come, and they ask, 'Where's the wall?' Our teenagers ask the same thing. But I think it really needed a generation to pass before we could act. We got rid of the wall and that, for everyone, was what mattered. Now we have to find the right way to remember it when it's no longer there. We have to inform, document and remember; to summon up the emotion, but remain rooted in the facts. It's history. It's a delicate business." Werner Probst, one hopes, will approve. • Berlin Wall • Germany Jon Henley guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Somali pirates 'seized British yacht' By Sam Jones (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

said the captives were healthy and ransom demands would follow. A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the reports were being Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:58:51 AM investigated and that they were in Paul and Rachel Chandler touch with relatives of the disappeared while sailing near C h a n d l e r s , w h o a r e f r o m waters known to have been scene Tunbridge Wells, Kent. She said of pirate hijackings it was possible that the yacht had Rescuers were today searching simply strayed out of contact, and for a British couple feared to have said there was no indication of been kidnapped by pirates off the pirate involvement other than east coast of Africa. media reports. Paul and Rachel Chandler, who Combined taskforce 151, an were sailing from the Seychelles international naval response set up to Tanzania, have not been heard to combat Somali pirate attacks, is from since Friday, when the involved in the search along with emergency beacon on their yacht, Nato and European Union counter the Lynn Rival, was activated. -piracy teams. T h e B r i t i s h m a r i t i m e a n d A spokesman for the European coastguard agency confirmed the Union naval force said: "Our beacon had been activated at ships will be scouring the seas on 11pm on 23 October. Officials t h e i r n o r m a l p a s s a g e a n d said the Seychelles authorities monitoring the airwaves." He said were carrying out a search-and- the yacht had gone missing in rescue operation in the area where "fairly dangerous waters" but the boat was last known to have there had been no confirmation it been. It is understood that pirate had been hijacked by pirates. activity was reported in the region A Royal Navy spokesman said earlier that day. HMS Cumberland was one of the Reuters reported that the yacht ships involved in the piracy had been seized by pirates and c r a c k d o w n . " W e a r e d o i n g quoted one kidnapper, called everything we can to assist the Hassan, as saying: "The British Foreign Office in investigating couple are in our hands now. We this," he said. captured them as they were The couple's niece said that touring in the Indian Ocean." He although the family had been

alerted to the alarm signal on Friday, they had initially thought the situation was not serious. "We were just waiting for them to come into docks because it tended to be the case that out in the middle of the Indian Ocean it was quite difficult to get hold of them and it was expected that they would dock at a little island," Leah Mickleborough told BBC Radio 5 Live. "You never believe it's going to be one of those things that happens to your family," she said. "All of us as a family are extremely upset by what has happened. We are extremely distressed and it's such an emotional thing and such a horrible thing to be experiencing. I just hope they're OK. We all hope they are and that it can be resolved easily." Mickleborough said her uncle and aunt were passionate about sailing but were wise to its perils. "This is their life, really," she said. "They do sailing, they live for this. [But] they are not naive. They are very experienced in these things. They are not the sort of people who would put themselves deliberately in danger." A British coastguard spokesman said: "They had left the

Seychelles on 22 October and were going on a 150 nautical mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands, en route to Tanzania. It would appear from the activation of the emergency position indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) that something has happened. "We were aware that the EPIRB had gone off, talked to the Seychelles, asked if they were aware of it ... they were, and have been searching by air and sea." A spokesman for the Seychelles coastguard said they didn't have any information about the couple. "We did have a distress signal from them on 23 October. There have been reports that they were hijacked by pirates, but no one can prove that. We don't know what has happened and cannot speculate," he said. "Our ship is in the area, and we are still keeping a lookout. We don't know whether they were continuing with their route. They don't have a satellite phone, so we cannot get hold of them." The route would have taken the Chandlers, aged 58 and 55, near Somali waters notorious for pirate attacks on ships and smaller boats. The last message on the couple's travel blog was posted on Friday morning and read: "Please ring

Playlist: The Pixies, Bar Bingo, The Visual Miscellaneum By Wired Magazine (Wired Top Stories)

What's wired this month? A tricked-out atlas of world trivia, a generative art app for your

iPhone. a Pixies box set as monumental as the band's music and Bar Bingo.

Sarah." It is thought the message refers to Rachel's sister. Earlier, the Chandlers – who have been sailing around the world for several years after selling up in the UK – wrote of "the Somali pirate problem" that had delayed other voyages to Tanzania. Enthusiasts on a yachting forum questioned the wisdom of sailing in the area. One post said: "I hope the people in question are well. However, I do wonder why anyone would sail through these areas. The dangers are very well known and very well reported." There have been a series of pirate attacks off Somalia in the last few years, with vessels from supertankers to cruise ships being targeted. Towards the end of last year, the situation became so bad that Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, announced that its oil tankers would be rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope. • Piracy at sea • Somalia Sam Jones guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Al-Qaida claims responsibility for Baghdad suicide bombings By Haroon Siddique (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

The dead included two dozen children who had been leaving a daycare centre in a bus, according to an official at the hospital where Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:54:07 AM the bodies were brought. Terrorist group says it carried out The Islamic State of Iraq also double attack in which at least claimed responsibility for an 155 people died almost identical attack that The al-Qaida umbrella group in destroyed the finance and foreign Iraq has claimed responsibility for ministries, in roughly the same Sunday's double suicide bombing area of the capital, just over two in Baghdad, in which at least 155 months ago. That bombing killed people were killed. 132 people and injured just under In a statement posted on a 500. website often used by militants, The militant group had pledged the Islamic State of Iraq said to wreak further havoc in an "martyrs ... targeted the dens of attempt to destabilise Iraq's fragile infidelity". It said it wanted to government prior to a national punish the "pillars of the Safawi election planned for 16 January. and rejectionist state in the land of In an effort to ensure the crucial caliphate," referring to the Shia nationwide vote is held on time, government in Baghdad and its I r a q ' s s e n i o r l e a d e r s m a d e close ally Iran. progress today on a new election More than 700 people were law, working through the details injured in the attacks, which with the heads of the country's destroyed the justice ministry – political parties. They hope a deal r e f e r r e d t o i n t h e i n t e r n e t can ease political tensions and statement as the "Ministry of calm anger over Sunday's blasts, Injustice and Oppression" - and which saw public outrage at a severely damaged the Baghdad p e r c e i v e d f a i l u r e o f t h e governorate and a public works government to protect its people. building. Iraqi MPs have been wrangling The attack was Iraq's deadliest for weeks about the law, and attacks in two years, raising more observers, including the US, have fears about the country's ability to been worried that failure to agree protect itself as it prepares for the on the guidelines may delay the January parliamentary elections poll. and the US military withdrawal. Exposing the vulnerability of

institutions has been a stated goal of al-Qaida, which the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has insisted is backed by figures from the Saddam Hussein regime. Maliki inspected the scene of the attacks late on Sunday and vowed to find the conspirators, blaming Syrian leaders for harbouring Ba'athists whom he said were directing a subversive campaign. Iraq and Syria have been at loggerheads since August after Maliki partly blamed the Syrians for facilitating the summer attacks. The two countries recalled their ambassadors after the row, and Damascus denied playing any role in the attacks. In a speech at Baghdad University yesterday, Maliki said: "There is wicked political will behind these terrorists acts. We are facing big challenges in the reconstruction process, but while we are building, they are destroying." • Al-Qaida • Iraq • Global terrorism Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

TD Ameritrade earnings drop but tops expectations By Mark Fightmaster (BloggingStocks)

come in between $1.10 and $1.40 per share. The consensus estimate for fiscal 2010 is $1.05, so the Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:00:00 AM shares could see a bit of a boost Filed under: Earnings reports, TD on the forecast. AMTD's quarterly AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD) earnings fell 8.8% compared to a Earnings are rolling in on this fine year earlier, but the company did Tuesday morning, with many post new highs in average client companies reporting. One of those trades per day and new net assets. is TD Ameritrade(NASDAQ: Continue reading TD Ameritrade AMTD), which stepped into the e a r n i n g s d r o p b u t t o p s earnings spotlight and reported e x p e c t a t i o n s fourth-quarter earnings of 26 TD Ameritrade earnings drop but cents per share, topping the tops expectations originally consensus estimate by four cents appeared on BloggingStocks on per share. Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Quarterly revenue came in at Please see our terms for use of $657.9 million, which is 1.3% feeds. Permalink| Email this| better than a year ago. Looking Comments ahead, the online brokerage forecast full-year 2010 earnings to

RIAA: We Support Net Neutrality, Just As Long As It Includes The Ability For ISPs To Block File Sharing By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:01:42 AM

Because I know how much you've all been wanting to know what a bunch of dying record labels and their chief lobbyist thinks about net neutrality, the RIAA's president Cary Sherman put out a statement saying that they're happy with the new rules

because the FCC's Julius Genachowski has said it's okay for ISPs to ignore all those rules as long as they're going after "illegal conduct" online -- which of course the RIAA assumes must mean file sharing. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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David Mills loses 'Berlusconi bribe' appeal By John Hooper (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

a trifle strained. "But I am sure that, when the case gets to the supreme court in Rome in the new year, the supreme Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:15:33 AM court, which guards Italy's legal Judges turn down first of two reputation, will deliver a fair appeals permitted to husband of verdict." Olympics minister Tessa Jowell Today's ruling has important The possibility of David Mills, implications for Berlusconi, who Tessa Jowell's husband, going to i s a l r e a d y u n d e r p r e s s u r e prison in Italy moved a step closer following a string of sex scandals. today when judges turned down The only reason that he is no the first of the two appeals he is longer a defendant in the case is permitted under Italian law. that he provided himself with Earlier this year, Mills was given immunity from trial last year. a four and a half-year sentence for Earlier this month, his immunity allegedly accepting a bribe from was scrapped by the constitutional the Italian prime minister, Silvio court and he now faces a retrial. Berlusconi. Mills was formerly Berlusconi's T h e h u s b a n d o f B r i t a i n ' s offshore legal adviser, helping the Olympics minister was found TV magnate turned politician g u i l t y o f t a k i n g $ 6 0 0 , 0 0 0 construct a network of firms (£366,000) to alter his testimony through which he channelled in Berlusconi's favour in two trials sizeable volumes of cash. during the 1990s. Since the prosecution has been The case will now go to Italy's unable to prove that Berlusconi highest appeals court, which will was the source of the money Mills have until early next year to hear received in February 2000, its the second appeal. case rests largely, if not entirely, But unless the court moves on the British lawyer's admission swiftly, the case will be "timed to investigators that it was a out" by a statute of limitations. payment for his help in the two Reacting to the decision, Mills 1990s trials. told the Guardian: "My faith is the Mills made his statement after Italian justice system is becoming being presented with a letter he

had written to his accountant which said the cash was for keeping "Mr B out of a great deal of trouble he would have been in had I said all I knew". However, he later withdrew his admission and produced evidence which, his counsel says, proves the money came from a Neapolitan ship owner. Mills's lawyers have also argued that, even if the cash had come from Berlusconi, any offence would already be subject to a statute of limitations. The time limit for bribery is 10 years. Mills is alleged to have been promised the money by one of Berlusconi's executives in 1999 at the latest. Neither argument seems to have won favour with the appeal judges, but they are expected to provide a detailed written account of their reasoning within 15 days. • Silvio Berlusconi • Italy • Tessa Jowell

Baidu reports third quarter data: Buy stock on pull-back? By Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings reports, Internet, Google (GOOG), Technology Baidu(NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading search engine, sold off during Monday's afterhours session after the earnings report for the third quarter was issued. When you're a theoretical growth company like Baidu, missing estimates on the guidance side is never a good thing to do. Nevertheless, Baidu delivered in Q3 itself. Sales skyrocketed 39%. Net income per share exploded over 40% to the upside, coming in at $2.07 per share on a GAAP basis. Adjusting for items, the company earned $2.16 per share.

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

Taking Earth's Temperature With a 30-Mile Thermometer By Brandi Schlossberg (Wired Top Stories)

Technology originally created to monitor oil wells is now being used by scientists to study some

of Earth's most inaccessible places, from desert pools to Antarctic ice.

Earnings.com gives an expectation of $1.81 for per-share profit. Continue reading Baidu reports third quarter data: Buy stock on pull-back? Baidu reports third quarter data: Buy stock on pull-back? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Madoff inquiry stalls after pool death Nexen: A relatively undiscovered gem By Graeme Wearden (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Madoff Securities over three decades. Some ex-Madoff investors fear Picower's sudden demise will Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:21:36 AM further complicate their struggle • Coroner rules Jeffry Picower for compensation. died of natural causes "I do feel badly a man died," • Victims' representative says he Ronnie Sue Ambrosino, who lost will pursue the estate her life savings to Madoff, told The fight to compensate victims the Palm Beach Post. "But it's of Bernard Madoff's $65bn another clue we'll never have. (£40bn) Ponzi scheme has been Madoff pleaded guilty and didn't thrown into uncertainty following go to trial. And now Picower dies. t h e d e a t h o f t h e b i g g e s t It's a little ironic that we're never b e n e f i c i a r y o f t h e f r a u d . going to find out the truth." Jeffry Picower was found at the But John Coffee, law professor at bottom of his swimming pool on C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y , h a s Sunday. A Florida coroner ruled suggested Picower's family may last night that the billionaire be keen to agree a settlement with philanthropist died of natural Picard as they face the prospect of causes following a heart attack, paying estate and inheritance ending any suspicions of foul taxes. play. Investigators have questioned The 67-year old Picower was how the former accountant was worth around $1bn, making him able to benefit from Madoff's one of the 400 richest people in fraud when thousands of other America, and had invested with investors suffered huge losses. Madoff for more than 30 years. The alleged profits dwarf the Irving Picard, who represents $200m that Picard hopes to some of Madoff's victims, said he recover from the Madoff family. would continue his fight to Picard claimed recently that recover funds from the Picower Picower's accounts were riddled estate. Picard hopes to claw back with "blatant and obvious fraud". more than $7bn which he claims In response, Picower insisted he was withdrawn by Picower from was a victim of the Ponzi scheme,

and only discovered "the ugly truth" when Madoff was arrested last December. A spokesman for Picower's family said the billionaire had been in "poor health", and suffered from Parkinson's disease and "heart-related medical issues". His wife Barbara, who discovered her husband in the pool of their Palm Beach mansion, is also being investigated by Picard. In June, Madoff was jailed for 150 years for defrauding thousands of people. Some were wealthy acquaintances he met in New York and Palm Beach, but many others were smaller investors whose money ended up with Madoff via feeder funds. The disgraced businessman has insisted that he was solely responsible for the fraud. • Bernard Madoff • United States Graeme Wearden guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Stocks to Buy Oil and natural gas company Nexen Inc.'s(NYSE: NXY) has not progressed as much as expected when first recommended on July 26, 2009 at a price of $20.76, but given the company's business model and oil market conditions, investors should look on the NXY's relatively low price as an extended opportunity to accumulate shares, hence I'm reiterating my Buy rating. Nexen, an independent, Canadabased global energy company, explores, develops and produces crude oil, natural gas, and related

products in the U.K. North Sea, U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Western Canada, Yemen, Colombia, offshore West Africa and Norway. Continue reading Nexen: A relatively undiscovered gem Nexen: A relatively undiscovered gem originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

'Survivor' champ says he's victim of 'witch hunt' (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:03:39 AM

Jhon buzzed up: Home prices rise in most major cities in August (AP)

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Watch the Ares I-X Launch Live [Updating live] [Space] By Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:46:26 AM

All systems are go at Cape Canaveral. The new Arex IX—largest NASA's rocket since Saturn V—is now ready to launch

at Launch Pad 39B. Countdown is on hold. Launch now planned for 10:54 ET. [Updating live] After a slight delay this morning, countdown resumed on T minus 4 minutes at 9:46am Eastern Time. over the pad right now, so they There's a cloud formation flying

have frozen the countdown. Weather station will return an estimate in five minutes. Upper atmosphere weather is all good through the launch window, till noon today, so as soon as the clouds clear up, the countdown

will resume. T minus 4 minutes and holding. Launch is now planned for 10:54 ET. Go watch live it at [ NASA TV]

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Valuation 101: How Buffett Does It; How Brooksley Born Wanted It Done (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha)

valuation professionals in the world and is approved and recognized by every valuation Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:21:02 AM institute of any consequence in A while back I caught a clip of the world, including those in Warren Buffett being interviewed USA?” by a rather tiresome over-bubbly Like all 462 pages? television star who brightly asked If the answer you get is him a really-really profound “Uh...Duh”, which is what you question that the scriptwriter had will probably get 99% of the time, o b v i o u s l y s p e n t a l l n i g h t well you are on the right path to dreaming up: figuring out why there was a “So Mr. Buffett, how do you credit crunch. know if something’s a good International Valuation investment or not?” Standards: He replied somewhat testily, “I IVS are very different from the know how to do a valuation”. Voodoo Valuation Standards So that’s why he’s a billionaire (VVS) that are so beloved by then? Evidently he knows how to FASB, IAS, and the purveyors of do a valuation, he knows when the deliciously un-stressful Stress something is on sale for less than Tests; they recognise just two what it’s really worth, and he values (a) Market Value and (b) knows when to sell something Other Than Market Value. when that scenario starts to This is the thing, when you do a change. valuation in accordance with IVS Now try asking any investment (i.e. for example when someone guru, “Financial Stability Expert”, pays you money to do a valuation genius Nobel-prize-winning they can rely on, and when you economist, hot-shot Big Four hold Professional Indemnity auditor, ratings rubber-stamp- Insurance so that if you give them Rambo, or Wall Street hack, a totally misleading answer they whether they know how to do a can sue you and expect to get paid valuation. Most likely they will damages (what a notion)), you are tell you, “Sure I do”. supposed to start off asking the Try asking them this question, question. “ s o d i d y o u e v e r r e a d Q1: Is the market (for the thing or I n t e r n a t i o n a l V a l u a t i o n service you are valuing), in Standards”? disequilibrium or not? “You know the book on how to In other words, is the market do a valuation that was first s u f f e r i n g f r o m a b u s t o f published in 2000 and was written “illiquidity”? For example what over about ten years by the best happened to the market for toxic

assets in September last year, or is it suffering from a burst of “overliquidity”, which was what happened to the market for toxic assets (and housing that securitized those toxic assets), in the preceding years. If the answer to that question is “No”, then a valuation is easy. You just look up the price in the market, that’s called “mark-tomarket”, and the reason that approach is so beloved by the geniuses who created the credit crunch is that it’s easy and cheap to do and requires absolutely no intelligence at all. If the answer is “Yes” then according to IVS the person doing the valuation is supposed to do two things: 1: Flag that fact to the client. 2: Make an estimate of what the value would be (in their opinion), if the market was not in disequilibrium, and report that value, the Other than Market Value to the client. Example: In July 2006, any competent valuation professional would have seen that the housing market in the USA was in a state of disequilibrium due primarily to “over-liquidity”. That was not a secret; the IMF was saying that, Professor Shiller was saying that. The extent of the over-pricing could of course have been a matter of debate, although in my opinion (that’s what you pay for when you buy a valuation, an

opinion), a valuation done strictly in accordance with International Valuation Standards would have remarked that the market in general was 40% over-priced (as shown here). A second opinion might well have given a different result, two valuation professionals can always end up with a different answer. Then it’s up to the client to decide what to do, although that is made easier under IVS because you are supposed to: (a) Explain how you did the valuation in plain English (or Dutch, or Swahili, as appropriate (interestingly I recently reviewed a very competent valuation done by a firm in Kenya, lots of people know how to do a valuation properly, although evidently the news did not yet trickle down from River Road in Nairobi to Wall Street)). (b) The valuation is supposed to be based on “sufficient” marketderived (historical) data. (c) The data should be properly analysed. Personally, I have only been doing valuations for twenty years; perhaps I was wrong, (one’s standards do tend to get a bit “relaxed” sometimes when one is working pro-bono). Although, I have yet to see anyone else do a valuation of housing in the USA using IVS, and even though nearly 20,000 people read that article, no one has yet challenged my valuation approach.

In my defence, I do have a habit of getting it right(never got sued for professional incompetence yet – touch wood), for example “S&P 500 675” (that was a valuation). The other thing is that IVS is very prescriptive about how you do a valuation. I suspect that a second opinion would be in the same ball-park, if everything is out on the table, well it’s easy to do an audit. The point: · Until you do a valuation like that, you have no clue what’s going on. · Unless you ask for a valuation done according to IVS, well, you are not going to get one. · According to IVS the LTV of those 100% mortgages written at the peak were not that, they were 140%. Thus, if the valuations of housing done for the purposes of assessing the likely value of the collateral that had been put up (at the point in time that you might want to liquidate it), starting in 2000, well Alan Greenspan’s grand utopian dreams of destroying the fabric of the United States economy might well have been thwarted. Same thing for toxic assets and derivatives, the way you value those is exactly the same as how you value a second-hand bottling plant (at least according to IVS). The only problem right now is that it’s impossible to value those VALUATION page 16

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PNC Results Not as Rosy as They Seem (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:10:30 AM

PNC has reported strong accounting earnings for Q3-09 and lower charge-offs as well as lower 90 day lates. The press and the blogs were all over it as a news search in Google reveals: PNC Financial Services profit jumps 88%- MarketWatch PNC Financial Services Group (NYSE: PNC) said that its third-quarter net profit jumped to $467 million, or $1.00 a share,... The sell side jumps on the bandwagon as well... Wells Fargo Upgrades PNC Financial Services Group (PNC) to Outperform; Raises... StreetInsider.com (subscription) As a result their share jumped more than 10%. But, and there is always a but, if we look at the bigger picture things really don't look so rosy... As a matter of fact, if anyone really bothered to look at the numbers offered (not even the real 10Q numbers, but the numbers offered in the conference call), one would realize that there was no real improvement in asset quality, despite lower charge-offs. As a matter of fact, asset quality AND loan quality got worse, not better - both quarter over quarter and year over year!!! This was the crux of the share price collapse in PNC to begin with. What the hell is wrong with those charged with analyzing these companies? The BoomBustBlog PNC Financial Results Review - 3Q09

PNC Financial Services ( PNC) reported strong earnings growth in 3Q2009 primarily off lower loan provisioning for loan losses and lower non-interest expenses. Lower provision for losses despite a substantial rise in nonperforming assets, and contracting interest earning assets ( which declined 3.1% q-o-q in 3Q2009at the sharpest rate among all leading banks which have reported their 3Q2009 earnings till date) raise concerns over

sustainability of continuing growth in returns to shareholders in the near-to-medium term. PNC reported 3Q2009 net profit per diluted share of $1.0 compared with net profit per diluted share of $0.14 per share in 2Q09, well ahead of both our and consensus estimates.From an operational standpoint, they outperformed our estimates kudos to management! PNC's total net revenues increased 1.5% q-o-q to around

$4,048 million in 3Q09 compared with $3,987 million in 2Q09. Non -interest income increased 1.2% q -o-q to $1,826 million in 3Q09 primarily due to growth in asset management fees (up 16.3% q-o-q to $242 million) and other income (up 5.7% q-o-q to $314 million) partially offset by reduction in mortgage fees which decreased 15.5% q-o-q to $207 million off lower loan refinancing volumes. In 3Q09, non-interest revenues accounted for 45.1% of the total

net revenues against 45.3% and 39.5% in 2Q09 and 3Q08, respectively. Net interest income increased 1.8% q-o-q to $2,222 million in 3Q09 compared with $2,182 million in 2Q09 off higher net interest margin (NIM) which increased 16bps q-o-q to 3.76% in 3Q09 compared with 3.60% in 2Q09. The growth in NIM was primarily due to interest rate on PNC page 15

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PNC continued from page 14

deposit which declined from 1.25% in 2Q09 to 1.04% at the end of 3Q09. This positive impact was offset by decline in average earning assets, down a significant 3.1% q-o-q to $243.2 billion in 3Q09 compared with $235.7 billion in 2Q09. The management forecasts a flat net interest income for 4Q09 (compared with 3Q09) due to marginal improvement in NIM off benefit from re-pricing of its high interest rates on deposits. In 3Q-09 PNC's net charge-offs declined to $650 million (down 18.2% q-o-q) or 1.59% of average loans on an annualized basis compared with $795 million, or 1.89% of average loans in 2Q09. Nevertheless, nonperforming assets (NPAs) grew 19.1% q-o-q to $5.6 billion or 3.50% of total loans as of September 30, 2009 led by increase in nonperforming commercial loans (up 26.2% q-oq) and residential real estate loans (up 40.4% q-o-q) in 3Q09. Click to enlarge Non-interest expenses declined 10.5% q-o-q to $2,379 million in 3Q09 compared with $2,658 million in 2Q09 primarily due to lower acquisition and integration costs (non-recurring), reversal of $66 million of an indemnification charge related to Visa

litigation(non-recurring), and FDIC assessment of $133 million in the 2Q09(will probably recur over several quarters). PNC realized cost savings of around $200 million in 3Q09 off its acquisition of National City Corporation ( NCC), in line with the Company's two years goal of reducing annualized non-interest expenses by $1.2 billion. Consequently, the Bank's efficiency ratio improved considerably by 790 basis points q -o-q to 58.8% in 3Q09 as compared to 66.7% and 68.4% in 2Q09 and 3Q08, respectively. Net income available to common shareholders were $467 million in 3Q09 compared with meager $65 million in 2Q09. Asset Quality - No real improvement seen despite lower charge-offs PNC's credit losses shrunk in 3Q09, with gross charge-offs declining to $738 million (annualized charge-off rate of 1.8%) in 3Q09 from $881 million (annualized charge off rate of 2.1%) in 2Q09, while the provisions for loan losses totalled $914 million in 3Q09 (annualized rate of 2.3%) against $1,087 million (annualized rate of 2.6%) in 2Q09. However, nonperforming loans

increased significantly to $5,126 million (3.19% of total loans) at the end of 3Q09 from $4,156 million (2.52% of total loans) at the end of 2Q09 and remained comparatively high when compared with $841 million (1.12% of total loans) at the end of 3Q08. Total non-performing assets also increased to $5,644 million (3.51% of total loans) in 3Q09 compared with $4,656 million (2.82% of total loans) at the end of 2Q09. However, the 90 days past due loans declined to $875 million at the end of 3Q09 from $1,043 million at the end of 2Q09. The surge in tangible equity and contraction in 90 days past due loans led to moderate decline in Texas ratio to 50.0% in 3Q09 against 51.7% in 2Q09. This is, however, considerably higher compared to 19.9% in 3Q08. Loans and Deposits - continuing to contract in 3Q2009 In 3Q09, PNC's total loan portfolio declined to $162.0 billion at the end of 3Q09 from $168.9 billion in 2Q09. The decline in loans was driven by 8.0% decrease in commercial, 3.6% decline in commercial real estate, and a relatively modest decline in consumer loans, owing to tough lending and credit

environment. Further, the total deposits also declined to $183.8 billion in 3Q09 from $190.4 billion in 2Q09 primarily on the back of divestiture of its 61 branches (and $4.1 billion of deposits and $800 million of loans) in September 2009. Consequently, the loan-to-deposit ratio increased 73bps q-o-q to 87.4% at the end of 3Q09 compared with 86.6% in 2Q09. Tier 1 capital In 3Q09, tier 1 common ratio and tier 1 risk-based capital ratio improved 20bps and 30bps q-o-q to 5.5% and 10.8%, respectively, largely owing to the increase in retained earnings and decline in risk weighted assets. At this point, our forensic research on PNC still stands sans the surprisingly positive EPS performance from the quarter. Asset quality and the potential for significant future loan losses still loom ahead. Subscribers can download the following analysis history. There is a free public option at the bottom. I would also like to note that I have re=opened the monthly retail subscription option and will start allowing analysts to interact (on a limited basis) with professional subscribers in the discussion and comment forums.

PNC Report 050508 revised 2008 -08-30 06:38:42 711.95 Kb PNC Report_update final - Pro 2008-10-15 13:21:22 590.98 Kb PNC Report_update final - Retail 2008-10-15 13:21:38 337.21 Kb PNC SCAP Results recast using FDIC and NY Fed data - Pro 2009 -05-15 07:31:21 455.37 Kb PNC SCAP Results recast using FDIC and NY Fed data - Retail 2009-05-15 07:30:25 395.18 Kb PNC Simulated Government Stress Test 2009-05-01 13:09:19 664.87 Kb PNC Stress Test Pro 2009-04-13 02:10:17 3.11 Mb PNC Stress Test Retail 2009-0413 02:11:08 323.51 Kb PNC Stress Test update Professional 2009-04-21 15:55:56 3.00 Mb PNC Stress Test update - Retail 2009-04-21 15:53:52 777.50 Kb PNC stress test write up - public lite 2009-07-27 02:37:11 995.30 Kb Disclaimer: short PNC This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Agent Provocateur Signs on For Ten Years of Scent By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 12:23:51 PM

Agent Provocateur is no stranger

to creating winning scents. In 2001 the brand won a FiFI for Best New Fragrance with the scent that bears its name, and won another in 2007 for Agent

Provocateur Maitresse. Now, the company will continue on with its famous sex-in-a-bottle scents by signing a 10-year deal with UK perfume distributor

Designer Parfums. What will be next for the range of second-skin scentwear? A men's division, perhaps? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

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VALUATION continued from page 13

instruments at the moment, because there is not enough “market-derived-data” in the public domain or available to a potential buyer, to do that. I know, I tried, I told my client, “sorry, this is impossible”. That explains why the likes of Henry Paulson and Tim Geithner have been scratching their heads for over a year trying to figure out how much to pay for toxic assets, first under the TARP scheme and second under PPIP. The reason for that is thanks to the sterling efforts of Alan Greenspan, Bob Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner and others of the guilded “Working Group” that “Saved The World”, ten years ago, ten years before Gordon Brown even thought about that. It’s the same formula for growing mushrooms, “keep them in the dark and feed them on horse manure”. The Warning: There is a superb documentary doing the rounds these days about the geniuses to whom we owe the current catastrophe (with sterling walk-on performances by a very youthful looking Tim Geithner and a much slimmed-down Lawrence Summers). It’s called “ The Warning” . It documents how in 1997

Brooksley Born tried to put in place regulation of the Over The Counter (OTC) Derivatives, so that there would be transparency both for buyers, so that government regulators could understand whether there was systemic risk, and so that market participants could be protected from fraud. For example when counter-parties put up the same collateral to more than one creditor (like taking out a mortgage on your house with ten mortgage providers – so that when you run away there are ten people fighting over the same house – in most countries that’s called fraud, in the USA that’s called “free-markets”). She met with a storm of resistance from the Rubin/Greenspan mandarins, the “Working Group”, ably assisted by their lieutenants, (their apprentice sorcerers who are now trying to recreate the magic of their mentor and master-wizard), Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. They quickly mobilised Congress to shut down this “dangerous person” who might derail the bubble that they were cooking; and Congress was only too happy to oblige the “leader of the pack”, the man that President Bush called “one of the most admired

and influential economists in our nation's history”. In 1997 a Congressional Special Committee was convened to warn her off, in that hearing one interrogator asked, “What are you trying to protect”? Born: “We are trying to protect the money of the American People”. Can’t have that, someone who wants to protect the money of American people from fraud. Shortly after that there was the dress rehearsal of the Long Term Capital Management collapse, which started in 1998. But that was “only” $4.2 billion, and Wall Street was standing by to clean up the mess, so that was quietly brushed under the carpet. It was a “blip”, it wouldn’t happen again. And then just to be sure that it did, they shut her up and shut her down, they obtained from Congress an order telling her to desist, and she resigned. By 2008 the derivatives market exceeded $500 trillion. What did she want that was so dangerous? What she wanted was that market participants (and people who were directly and indirectly exposed financially to what Alan Greenspan called “the dumb mistakes” of the gamblers, for example the US taxpayers), to be

provided as a matter of law with sufficient information to be able to make rational investment decisions (i.e. so that they could hire a competent valuation expert to do a valuation). They succeeded, and their triumph is $11 trillion or so losses, one loses track of the estimates - a bit like the civilian casualties in Iraq, no one is counting. And guess what? Tim Geithner and Larry Summers are setting things up so that can happen again. Do the math, in 1998 LTCM lost $4.2 billion, in 2008 the shadow banks lost (themselves, we won’t talk about what the people who bought their melanin tainted milk lost), at least $4.2 trillion and counting. So what are the newly qualified “wizards” cooking up this time? That’s something to look forward to in 2018, like $4,200 trillion. Whoopee, I can hardly wait. Disclosure: no positions This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Spice By Kevin Collins (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 11:21:42 PM

The spice must flow.

Photos by matteo_dudek, Matthieu :: giik.net/blog, GavinBell, dachalan, Greg R o b b i n s , t u r b o t o d d i a n d Jungle_Boy.

This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Nintendo responses to large screen DSi report By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:30:24 AM

Let me catch you up. Late yesterday afternoon, a report surfaced that claimed Nintendo will launch a 4-inch DSi in Japan before the end of the year. Sounds good, right? Well, Nintendo has responded to the claims. From Famitsu.com, Our company isn’t doing any interviews [about this]. We think it’s a speculative article. Chances are that if Nintendo does have a new DSi planned, it will be launched within the coming weeks. Companies don’t tend to release hot products past the second half of November due to managing supply levels during the busy holiday season. So if this larger-screen DSi doesn’t see the light of day before Thanksgiving, it probably won’t be out this year; that is, of course, assuming it actually exists, which is something else entirely. [via Kotaku]

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Are PNC's Account Gimmicks Going Too Far? (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:12:53 AM

You know, I happen to really, really appreciate the blogoshpere. There are a select handful of blogs that offer unique, insightful and very difficult to come by expertise, opinion and commentary. Much more so than the mainstream media and even more so than the more specialized media. Despite this, there are certain components of the MSM and corporate America that still do not respect the blogs. Now, why is that? Well, I dare you - no, I double dare you - to find an MSM outlet that performs investigative analysis at the level of the top blogs. I'm not even going to bother to mention who those blogs are (hint, hint), but just want to throw the challenge out there as I show how PNC may have possibly pulled the wool over the collective media, sell side and market's eyes. Just a few hours ago, I posted my review of PNC's 3rd quarter earnings for 2009 (please look here to see the media, sell side brokerage and equity market's accolades for said results as well as my opinion). In that review, I actually gave management kudos what appeared to be operational excellence. While typing the review and pondering the data trends, that annoying thing called common sense kept nagging me. I

thought to myself, how can their 90 day late loans and charge offs trend downwards after just buying one of the largest junk loan manufacturers in the country amid near record (and rising) unemployment? Even more to the point, why the hell didn't anyone else press this point? Well, I asked my analytical team to dig in a little deeper, and it didn't take long to come up with an answer... First, look at the trend graphed below. You see non-performing loans and non-performing assets spiking sharply as of a year ago

with absolutely no respite, with net charge-offs and accruing 90 day lates following suit, and actually increasing at a faster rate two quarters later. Then, out of the blue, BAM! Late loans and charge-offs magically reverse as non-performing loans and assets keep flying through the roof. Click to expand Reason for decline in 90 days past due loans and charge-offs As per the company’s latest 3Q2009 results, the 90 days past due loans decreased from $1,030 million in 2Q2009 to $875 million

considered performing due to accretion of interest in purchase accounting under SOP -03-3. As a result, the 90 day past due loan amount for 2Q2009 (after restatement) includes only $0.8 million of loans of National City ( NCC), the subprime and option ARM loan specialist recently acquired by PNC (as per 3Q2009 filing) compared to $2.9 billion in last filing (2Q2009). The detailed information on reasons for above reclassification is not yet available and we may have to wait for 10Q release. However, it seems that the company has removed these loans (probably only a part of the pool – the other part may have been adjusted against ‘purchase price excess over fair value’ amount) from category of ‘loans 90 days past due’ due to accretion of interest as per under SOP 03-03. So long story short - did the in 3Q2009. If we look at 2Q209 credit loss trend in the bank's loan filing, the similar figure for portfolio actually improve, as the 2Q2009 was at considerably market, the sell side analysts and higher level of $4,939 million the media (all of whom fail to ask versus $3,949 million in 1Q2009. the basic, yet obvious questions) During the quarter 3Q2009, the seem to believe or did PNC bank has excluded loans acquired simply change the way they from National City (which were accounted for said credit losses. earlier included for 2Q2009 Inquiring minds want to know.... reported figures) from the figures Disclaimer: short PNC reported for “90 days past due This content has passed through loans” as they are being now fivefilters.org. considered performing loans. These loans were recorded at estimated fair value when acquired and are currently

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Bull markets in 'soft' Rumor: Apple has been talking to commodities to hike prices Australia about the tablet for coffee, orange juice By John Biggs (CrunchGear)

By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:40:00 AM

Filed under: India, Brazil, Commodities Last year's bull run in commodities was led mainly by oil, grains and gold. This year we've had spectacular bull runs in the "soft" commodities, which include mainly, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and orange juice. Tea is at an all-time high; cocoa is at a 30-year high; and sugar is at a 28.5-year high. Orange juice reached its highest price in 15 months. Tea prices for the best quality broken pekoe, or BP1, surged to a record $5.02 a kilogram, up 70% since January.

Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:53:36 AM

“Media insiders” in Australia are reporting that Apple has approached them to produce content for a device “larger than the iPhone.” The Sydney Morning Herald puts another shrimp on the barbie by saying: Apple has sent specifications of Continue reading Bull markets in the device to Australian media 'soft' commodities to hike prices companies in an effort to sound for coffee, orange juice out whether they would be B u l l m a r k e t s i n ' s o f t ' interested in delivering their commodities to hike prices for content to the tablet. None would coffee, orange juice originally speak about the device on the appeared on BloggingStocks on record. Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:40:00 EST. This follows Bill Keller’s Please see our terms for use of offhand remark that the paper was feeds. Read| Permalink| Email working for content on an “Apple this| Comments Slate.” I call bull. My thought is this: if Apple was going around looking for content for its “slate,” I doubt they’d be going to newspapers first. Newspapers are the low-hanging fruit of this equation – a text feed is all you need to churn out pages and pages of content. They’d

really be talking to app and game programmers and none of those folks have mentioned anything about anything. When you want to launch something super secret you don’t go to the people who will tell your secrets. Media partnerships are the least of Apple’s concern. Media needs Apple and I’m sure once the TabletPadiPad comes out they can just waltz in, lay down a contract, and Keller and everyone else will

sign all night long. These are the people who need the least lead time. The SMH also mentions a forthcoming new album format which has already been released in iTunes, a revelation that suggests the paper isn’t quite up to speed on what’s going down in the Interlands.

HTC HD2 fulfills its unboxing obligations on video By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:37:00 AM

You've already seen the HD2 that HTC would have you see, but now it's time to take the obligatory journey to the world of

unboxings. Seen here in "not-yetfinal" packaging, the WinMo 6.5packin' handset looks sexier than ever, even in that still-to-betweaked green box. Hop on past the break and mash play if you're looking to get all sorts of jealous

this morning.

Continue reading HTC HD2 fulfills its unboxing obligations on video Filed under: Cellphones HTC HD2 fulfills its unboxing obligations on video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27

Oct 2009 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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In case you missed it, DJ Hero is available today By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:30:00 AM

Yes, you can leave work early today. No need to ask your boss, he/she is okay with it. If you haven’t had your fill of music rhythm games by now or you watched with a furrowed brow as guitar-based game after guitar-based game flooded the market, your giant headphones covering only one of your ears and held in place by your own shoulder just like your favorite DJs, then you’ll want to scrounge up between $100 and $200 for Activision’s DJ Hero, depending on your console and whether or not you want the special “Renegade Edition.” Pricing is as follows: • DJ Hero with Turntable Controller for PS2: $100 • DJ Hero with Turntable Controller for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii: $120 • DJ Hero Renegade Edition for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii: $200 The “Renegade Edition” includes “premium Renegade turntable controller, case, stand and exclusive DJ Hero Renegade 2CD pack from Jay-Z and EMINEM.” Available today all over the place. Full press release below: DJ HERO™– THE MOSTANTICIPATED NEW MUSIC GAME OF THE YEAR – SPINS ONTO STORE SHELVES NATIONWIDE DJ Hero Renegade Edition Features

Premium Renegade Turntable Controller, Case, Stand and Exclusive DJ Hero Renegade 2CD pack from JAY-Z and EMINEM 93 Exclusive Original Mixes from World Renowned DJ’s Bring Unprecedented Variety of Music Spanning Hip Hop, Rock, Pop, Dance and R&B to the Music Game Genre SANTA MONICA, CA – October 27, 2009 /PRNewswire/ — The party has started with the most anticipated music game of

the year, as DJ Hero™ is now available at retail stores nationwide, Activision Publishing Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced. DJ Hero invites audiences of all kinds to the party, bringing living room legends to the main stage with the newest innovation in music gaming with an exclusive 93-mix track list, created by a host of legendary DJs uniquely blending almost every genre of music including hip hop, rock, pop, R&B and dance.

Featuring electrifying gameplay that incorporates the fundamentals of DJing in a fun and accessible format, and booming tracks from Rihanna to The Killers; Marvin Gaye to Daft Punk; Queen to the Black Eyed Peas, DJ Hero provides consumers an opportunity to interact and listen to music unlike ever before. Heightening the euphoric experience, the DJ Hero Renegade Edition delivers exclusive special edition hardware

and a limited edition CD collaboration between two cultural icons – JAY-Z, the most successful solo recording artist of all time and hip hop legend, EMINEM – introducing unreleased material from EMINEM and JAY-Z’s first ever “best of” compilation. The game has already received global accolades: “ DJ Hero is an impressive piece CASE page 21

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Roku releases $79 streamer, two new players By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:30:00 AM

Do you need a streamer in your life? An HD media player? MLB, Netflix, and Amazon content? You, sir or madam, are in luck. Roku has announced the Roku SD player for $79 and added the HD and HD-XR models for $99 and $129 respectively. The Roku SD player connects to the TV using the included and familiar Yellow-Red-White video/audio cable. In addition, the Roku SD player incorporates WiFi (802.11 b/g) and an Ethernet port for easy broadband connectivity. With the Roku SD player, customers can stream their favorite movies and TV shows to their TV at up to DVD quality. The Roku HD and HD-XR players feature High Definition streaming capability, connecting directly to any TV using HDMI or Component video (both products also include S-video or Composite video outputs as well). The Roku HD-XR adds the latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11n dual-band, giving customers who have adopted this router technology improved connectivity range and better overall wireless performance between the Roku HD-XR and the home network. The Roku HD-XR also works with legacy routers and can often boost Wi-Fi range inside the house. Finally, the Roku HD-XR includes a USB port for future use. I’ve been using the old streamer for a year now and I’m pleased

but I worry that this is a bit limited in scope for most users. $79 bucks for SD, though, isn’t too much to ask. Roku Introduces New $79 Instant Streaming Player Netflix customers can now stream direct to their TV instantly for the new low price of $79, free shipping included. Roku also introduces the $129 Roku HD-XR model. Saratoga, Calif. – October 27, 2009 – Roku, Inc., maker of the popular and award-winning Roku player, announced today for immediate availability two new models. The new Roku SD and Roku HD-XR expand the product lineup to three models. Now customers have a variety of features and price points ($79.99, $99.99, $129.99) to fit their needs. All players continue to deliver instant entertainment from Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX),

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) Video On Demand and MLB.TV. With today’s announcement, customers can now purchase a Roku player for as little as $79.99 at www.roku.com or www.amazon.com. For a limited time, customers purchasing through either Roku or Amazon will receive free shipping, making it even more affordable to get started with a Roku. “We’re introducing a breakthrough price point with the launch of our Roku SD player,” Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, Inc said. “Additionally the Roku HD-XR is the first Netflix-streaming device to embed next generation 802.11n dual-band wireless connectivity, making it easier and more reliable than ever to start enjoying movies, TV shows, sports and the best online content available, all on the living room TV.”

The Roku SD player connects to the TV using the included and familiar Yellow-Red-White video/audio cable. In addition, the Roku SD player incorporates WiFi (802.11 b/g) and an Ethernet port for easy broadband connectivity. With the Roku SD player, customers can stream their favorite movies and TV shows to their TV at up to DVD quality. The Roku HD and HD-XR players feature High Definition streaming capability, connecting directly to any TV using HDMI or Component video (both products also include S-video or Composite video outputs as well). The Roku HD-XR adds the latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11n dual-band, giving customers who have adopted this router technology improved connectivity range and better overall wireless performance between the Roku HD-XR and the home network.

The Roku HD-XR also works with legacy routers and can often boost Wi-Fi range inside the house. Finally, the Roku HD-XR includes a USB port for future use. First introduced in May 2008, the Roku player still provides the easiest, most affordable and reliable way for hundreds of thousands of Netflix customers to watch over 17,000 movies and TV shows instantly on their TV. Earlier this year Roku added Amazon Video On Demand, adding 45,000 titles to the Roku platform, including a thousand in HD. In the summer the company launched MLB.TV bringing live and on-demand baseball to the living room TV as well. All Roku customers received these automatic and free updates. Continuing its leadership role in ROKU page 23

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CASE continued from page 19

of work…” with “…infectiously inventive mash-ups.” – Entertainment Weekly “One of the best games I’ve played this year” with “the best soundtrack for any music game, ever” and “You’re going to want to have DJ Hero on hand for your next party.” – 9/10 – IGN.com Editors’ Choice Award. – IGN.com “The best music game of the year and a leap forward for the genre.” – 92/100 – GamesMaster Magazine “ DJ Hero allows a player to get lost in a DJ universe, creating a genuine experience,” said JAY-Z. “It’s a perfect way to expose hip hop as all encompassing of every musical genre and how the DJ combines everything to make great music.” “I think that the cool thing about DJ Hero is that the music is actually part of the gameplay,” said EMINEM. “You get a chance to experience what it’s like to be a DJ and scratch up different songs of mine in really great mixes.” “When artists with the global appeal and cultural significance like JAY-Z and EMINEM come together you know it’s something groundbreaking,” said Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Guitar Hero. “ DJ Hero pushes

the boundaries of music and gaming with original music mixes and innovative game play that put the power of the DJ and the artistry of hip hop music into the hands of consumers around the world.” Expanding upon the revolutionary easy to pick up/challenging to master gameplay mechanics developed and refined in Guitar Hero®, DJ Hero delivers an all-new interactive music experience that allows players to start the party and not only experience, but to hear music in an all-new way. Featuring mixes created by DJ AM, Cut Chemist, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Jazzy Jeff, J. Period, DJ Shadow, DJ Z-Trip and more, spinning over 100 individual songs, highlighted in 93 unique never-before-released mixes that blend genres of music, including hip-hop, pop, rock and dance, DJ Hero delivers the most diverse and international collection of music ever assembled in a music game by incorporating anthems from legendary artists. Created exclusively for DJ Hero, the turntable controller immerses fans into the DJ culture and a sea of music as they utilize and master various DJ techniques including scratching, crossfading and

sampling, while leaving room for creative expression with a variety of effects and player chosen samples and scratches, transforming a face in the crowd into the life of the party. The DJ Hero Renegade Edition includes a copy of the game, a premium Renegade turntable controller, hardshell turntable carrying case that converts to a performance-ready DJ stand, and an exclusive JAY-Z and EMINEM 2-CD pack featuring “best of” and new, unreleased material. Available now, DJ Hero was developed by FreeStyleGames for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from M i c r o s o f t , t h e PLAYSTATION®3 and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment systems and the Wii™ system from Nintendo. The game is rated “T” (Teen – Mild Suggestive Themes, Lyrics) by the ESRB. For more information about DJ Hero, please visit djhero.com, facebook.com/djhero and twitter.com/djhero.

QUE proReader hitting Barnes & Noble retail stores in 2010 By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:09:00 AM

In a rather odd unfolding of events, it seems as if Barnes & Noble is finally clearing up the mystery behind that Plastic Logic e-reader slated to hit its retail locations by Spring of 2010. After making said announcement, the book seller then went out and introduced an e-book reader of its very own in the Nook, and only now are we learning that the Plastic Logic-built QUE proReader will also be splashing down at the outfit sometime next year. In a brief release posted today, we're told that the recently teased big-screen reader (8.5- x 11 -inches) will be sold throughout B&N's retail footprint and on its website; makes sense given that B&N is powering the proReader's online e-book store, but the fact

that it'll be placed prominently near the outfit's own (somewhat competing) device is certainly interesting. We're expecting to see more come CES 2010, and seriously, with the rate at which these readers are hitting brick-and -mortar locations, Amazon might want to consider implementing some kind of physical trial in order to not go overlooked in its corner of the web. Continue reading QUE proReader hitting Barnes & Noble retail stores in 2010 Filed under: Displays, Handhelds QUE proReader hitting Barnes & Noble retail stores in 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Plastic Logic Que Is Going to Nuzzle Nook in Barnes & Noble Stores (And Why You Care) [Barnes & Noble] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:03:37 AM

I asked at the announcement if the Nook would get exclusive perks over other Barnes & Noble readers, like Plastic Logic's Que. Shelf space ain't one of them, since Que will cozy up with Nook in B&N stores next year. Barnes & Noble's going to display the Que and Nook together, with displays pointing customers to the one that's right for them—Que for dudes in pinstripe suits, Nook for people in jeans. Not only does it mean B&N is basically offering "pro" and "normal" options for an ereader, it shows how they think of the big

picture, if it wasn't already obvious: It's not about the hardware, it's about the content. That's Barnes & Noble (and Amazon) have apps to read their books on the iPhone and on the PC. And soon on the BlackBerry.

And eventually Android. The device you read on is irrelevant—it's about keeping you in their ecosystem, buying ebooks from them. In fact, the more deftly they're able keep you hooked in on any device, the

better, since dedicated ereaders are dead tech walking. The race is on now to build the most captive audience you can, while the market's still fresh, like spring dew or baby veal before its braised and delicious. And when Apple jumps into the game, it's going to get a lot more interesting, not simply because of the powers of the tablet, but because they have years of experience tying people to their store for content. Hopefully, for the Que's sake though, by the time it hits stores, it'll have a wider footprint than the Nook will when it launches. [ Plastic Logic]

Bridgestone announces flexible touchscreen color e-reader By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:54:00 AM

When we heard word of a "big announcement" back in July we imagined an e-reader of some sort, but what is it that we have here? Based on a technology Bridgestone calls Quick-response Liquid Powder, the company's allcolor touchscreen e-book reader is about 5.8mm thick, features a

13.1-inch touch-sensitive e-paper display (with 4,096 colors and a refresh rate of about 0.8 seconds), and some sort of unspecified mobile phone connectivity. Most exciting, of course, is that the entire package -- circuit board, touchscreen, and housing -- are designed to bend together. A neat trick, sure, but probably not too practical for jotting down notes Urban Banking Corp early next with your stylus. Still, we'd take year, but you can check it out two. Trials begin at the Kansai sooner at FPD International 2009

in Yokohama City, Japan, starting tomorrow. [Via Tech-On] Filed under: Displays, Handhelds Bridgestone announces flexible touchscreen color e-reader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

VMWare Fusion 3 Fuses Snow Leopard and Windows 7 With Full 64 -Bit Power [Snow Leopard] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:40:00 AM

VMWare's Fusion 3—with full support for Snow Leopard and Windows 7—is out today. Besides being natively 64-bit in Snow Leopard, it lets you migrate a PC to your virtual machine, launches Windows apps like native apps, and more. It now supports OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0, giving you some more graphics powah in Windows, so you can run Windows' Aero interface with Flip3D (and play games, if you're daring). The more integrated Windows apps respond to commands like cmd+q and yes, work with Dock Expose. It's $80 for a fresh copy or $40 for an upgrade. [ VMWare via AppleInsider]

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Toshiba launches 14.6 megapixel CMOS sensor with backside illumination for cellphones By Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:34:00 AM

Backside illumination may sound like something a proctologist would use in a poorly-lit examining room, but it's actually a re-imagining of the CMOS sensor that brings the photodiodes closer to the action, thus delivering brighter images from smaller packaging. OmniVision and Sony both have their takes on the tech and now Toshiba is putting it into a 14.6 megapixel sensor for cellphones and compact cameras. The company claims light absorption is boosted by

40%, resulting in bright pictures despite the high-density 1/2.3inch sensor. Early production will begin before the end of the year but manufacturing lines won't

start firing en masse until sometime next summer, meaning yet another dark and murky winter of dark and murky pictures. Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras Toshiba launches 14.6 megapixel CMOS sensor with backside illumination for cellphones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

ROKU continued from page 20

the over-the-top video space, Roku will launch the Roku Channel Store later this fall enabling customers to add new content channels to their Roku experience, further enhancing the value of the Roku player. The Roku Channel Store will be delivered to all Roku customers, new and existing, as an automatic and free update.

Pricing and availability All three Roku players are available immediately at www.roku.com and www.amazon.cm and include free shipping for a limited time. Product Page

Dyson DC25 Blueprint impressions: is the 'Ball' worth it? By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:16:00 AM

Dyson's DC25 Blueprint just started shipping en masse this month, and with an MSRP of $529.99, it's significantly more pricey that the "bargain-minded" DC23 Turbinehead that we had a

peek at last month. The company's range of 'Ball' vacuum cleaners have been around for years now, but this is the first chance we've had to roll one over our own carpet. With a striking white finish, impeccable build quality and a design to make any gadget nerd blush, there's quite a

bit here that you won't find on

your average vac, but is the sphere really enough to warrant the lofty sticker? Read on for our two pennies. Gallery: Dyson DC25 Blueprint Limited Edition Continue reading Dyson DC25 Blueprint impressions: is the 'Ball' worth it?

Filed under: Household Dyson DC25 Blueprint impressions: is the 'Ball' worth it? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Bill Cosby Awarded Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:15:00 AM

A portion of the Huxtable family reunited as Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm-Jamal Warner supported

"The Cosby Show" husband and father Monday night in Washington, D.C. Bill Cosby was presented with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center for the

Performing Arts. The funnyman was honored to be the recipient, saying Twain was "the quintessential American writer…because he held his language and his love for words in

perfect American form," according to the Associated Press. First Lady Michelle Obama and the vice President's wife, Jill Biden, watched on as Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock

introduced clips of some of Cosby's most iconic scenes and routines. Comedic actor Sinbad also attended the event to salute his role model, reported the AP.

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FAA Mildly Concerned About Flight Attendants Carrying Handheld Air Guitar Hero Lets Bombs [Planes] You Shred Sans Plastic Guitars [Gaming] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:20:35 AM

They're on pretty much every flight now: Handheld credit card readers to buy snackies and soda. None have exploded, yet, but the FAA just issued special advisories to airlines, since they're powered by explode-y lithium ion batteries. Now, the FAA says the airlines need approval from the FAA's hazardous materials division, and has asked them not to store spare lithium ion batteries for the readers on planes. A few airlines

went through some special training to get the okay, but at least Delta and JetBlue don't carry spares or charge the readers on board at all.

The current rate for gadgets exploding on planes is about one every four months, says a former NTSB dude. Which isn't so bad, considering there are millions of flights happening in that time period. Still, I have the feeling this xkcd comic is going to stay funny for the reasons it's funny now for like another year, max. [ NYT] http://xkcd.com/651/

By Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:48:29 AM

Now this is cool. Using a standard electromyograph attached to the forearm, the geeks at Microsoft's Muscle-Computer Interface group set up Guitar Hero to react to the position and pressure of all five fingers. How badass is this? In all

Nokia N97 firmware 2.0 hits the tubes, is ready for your attention By Darren Murph (Engadget)

handset with firmware 2.0, and if we're seeing this right, it's available now to download all Got an N97? Yeah? Reckoned over the world. We know, you that Nokia has forgotten about 5800 owners are clamoring for the your loyalty and moved all of its same type of TLC, but for now it focus onto the N900? Fret not, looks like the pricier sibling is dearest early adopter -- the getting its due. Hit the read link engineers in Espoo are making and get your download going, and good on a promise to clear out make sure to report back on your lots of bugs in the aforesaid kinetic scrolling experience, cool?

Nokia N97 firmware 2.0 hits the tubes, is ready for your attention originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:57:00 AM

[Thanks, Daniel] Filed under: Cellphones, Software

honesty, overpriced toy instruments cluttering up my living room is one of the big reasons I almost never play Rock Band or Guitar Hero games anymore. This looks to solve that problem while also bringing all of my air guitar fantasies to life. [ Procrastineering via Make]

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Retired Telco PR Exec Who Sent XYZ Corp. Letter To FCC Insists He Wrote It By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:00:06 AM

We've already written about how a former PR exec from what became AT&T has been outed as the guy who sent a letter to the FCC where he forgot to take out the boilerplate XYZ Organization that was almost certainly left there by the AT&T lobbyists who wrote the letter for him. However, one of our commenters noted that MediaPost spoke to the guy, Bob Sells, who insists that he wrote the letter with the XYZ part included: Sells, a 77-year-old retired public relations executive in Little Rock, tells MediaPost that he often writes letters with By Doug Aamoth Smash-Up for the Wii at $30, placeholders and fills in the (CrunchGear) down from $47. The deal is good correct text later, but overlooked today only. Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:00:00 AM the reference to XYZ in this case. You can participate in 16-player Really? I'm really trying to give If you’re into button-mashing online tournaments or “experience this guy the benefit of the doubt, melee games a la Super Smash an exciting original single-player but I can't come up with a single Brothers and whatnot, then s t o r y m o d e w r i t t e n i n explanation for why he would perhaps you’d enjoy a change of collaboration with TMNT co- write "XYZ Organization" when scenery and fighters with our old creator Peter Laird.” writing a letter himself from a friends the Teenage Mutant Ninja TMNT: Smash-Up[Amazon] group of people he supposedly Turtles. represents. If you're the one Amazon’s got a deal on TMNT: writing the letter, on behalf of your supposed organization, why would you include "XYZ Organization"? Permalink| Comments| Email Daily. This Story Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Build Your Own Life HUD CrunchDeals: Teenage With a Smartphone and Some Cardboard [How To] Mutant Ninja Turtles By John Herrman (Gizmodo)

thinking about it, this is pretty great: our host in the video doesn't Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:34:38 AM show off anything more than A cardboard box, sliced to pieces, Google Street View. But imagine taped together, fastened to a pair using this hobo helmet with of work goggles, and capped off camera-based apps like Wikitude with an HTC Magic: this is what or Layar, or replacing the Magic DIY augmented reality looks like, with an iPhone and loading up the right now. new version of Yelp? Excellent. [ Which isn't to say I won't totally Twitter via Slashgear] do this when I have a few spare minutes, because when you get to

Street Chic: Paris By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:00:00 AM

Bundle up for fall in cozy-chic

layers. Photo: Stylesight Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could

Smash-Up for $30 (Wii)

appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic

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Amazon's in-cloud database gets MySQL option (CNET News.com)

existing database to Amazon RDS without changing a line of code-just point your tools or Expanding its cloud-computing applications at your Amazon RDS storage services to a higher level, DB instance and you are ready to Amazon unveiled a new option go." called Amazon RDS for Amazon raised the issues of companies that want to store minimized hassle and increased information a database on the flexibility as a reason to use the other side of the Internet. service, which is in beta testing The suite of Amazon Web for now. Services (AWS) already included "Every hour that you don't spend a d a t a b a s e o p t i o n c a l l e d fiddling with hardware, tracing SimpleDB, a basic database with cables, installing operating its own interface standard for systems or managing databases is storing data and retrieving it. The an hour that you can spend on the Amazon Relational Database unique and value-added aspects of Service, in contrast, uses a more your application," the company's standard database interface, Web services evangelist Jeff Barr embodied in this case in an online said in a blog post. "I should point implementation of the open- out that RDS enables a lot of source MySQL software, the really enticing development and company said Monday. test scenarios. You can set up a "With Amazon RDS, you get full separate database instance for n a t i v e a c c e s s t o a M y S Q L each developer on a project database," specifically, version without making a big investment 5.1 of the Sun Microsystems in hardware." technology, the company said on With its years-long effort, the Net its Amazon RDS site. "This retailer has built Amazon Web means Amazon RDS works with S e r v i c e s i n t o a f o r m i d a b l e your existing tools, applications, presence in the information and drivers. You can port an technology world. Competitors Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:05:00 AM

include Google App Engine, a computing foundation that can run Java or Python programs on Google's own BigTable database technology, and Microsoft's Azure, which will offer access to Windows servers in the cloud when it formally launches in November. One potentially interesting rival is Oracle, already a giant in the database market and, if it can overcome European regulatory concerns, the future owner of MySQL assets. Because MySQL is open-source software, anyone may use and modify the software even without its copyright holders' permission, though. The biggest competitor, though, is doing things the old way with companies running their own computing infrastructure. Cloud computing poses security and trust issues for many companies considering whether to put their data and business applications on somebody else's computer systems. Gartner, an influential but not radical analyst firm, now recommends companies look seriously at cloud computing,

though. Amazon is working on greater robustness for Amazon RDS. It offers automated backup, and later will get a "high-availability" option at no extra charge with which customers can create a separate instance of a database in a different geographic region. As with all services on AWS, Amazon RDS costs on an as-used basis--with per-hour charges according to the server memory requirements of the database: 11 cents per hour for a small database of 1.7GB of RAM; 44 cents for large, or 7.5GB; 88 cents for extra-large, or 15GB; $1.55 for double extra-large, or 34GB; and $3.10 for quadruple extralarge, or 68GB. There also are charges for the size of data stored, the number of input-output requests, the amount of data written to the database, and the amount of data read from the database. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

'Biggest Loser''s Dina: My Team Chose Friendship Over Strength (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:01:00 AM

Despite the fact that her black team teammate Daniel Wright gained one pound at last Tuesday night's weigh-in, her team chose to send Dina Mercado home, despite a five-pound weight-loss. "I have to say I wasn't too surprised," Dina admits. "Ultimately, my team chose to stick with friendship rather than keeping the team strong. And that's pretty much all I can say about that." Part of Dina's problem was that she and her partner, Rudy Pauls, were split up when the "Losers" were divided into blue and black teams by Tracey Yukich, so she didn't have anyone to stand up for her during the vote.

Why Do Some Politicians Want To Ban You From Putting New Software On A Prepaid Mobile Phone? By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:38:00 PM

The EFF points out that some prepaid mobile providers have apparently convinced some

politicians to introduce a bill, The Wireless Prepaid Access Device Enforcement Act of 2009, that would ban buyers of prepaid mobile phones from installing their own software for the purpose

of working on another network. Basically, this is a bill specifically to protect the business model of Tracfone, which sells subsidized phones assuming that the buyers will keep buying prepaid minutes

from them. The problem is that Congress shouldn't be protecting this might just be a bad business anyone's business model. model -- and once someone has Permalink| Comments| Email bought a device, it should be This Story theirs, and they should be free to do with it what they want.

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Amazon's in-cloud database gets MySQL option By Stephen Shankland (Webware.com)

and drivers. You can port an existing database to Amazon RDS without changing a line of code-Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:05:00 AM just point your tools or Expanding its cloud-computing applications at your Amazon RDS storage services to a higher level, DB instance and you are ready to Amazon unveiled a new option go." called Amazon RDS for Amazon raised the issues of companies that want to store minimized hassle and increased information a database on the flexibility as a reason to use the other side of the Internet. service, which is in beta testing The suite of Amazon Web for now. Services (AWS) already included "Every hour that you don't spend a d a t a b a s e o p t i o n c a l l e d fiddling with hardware, tracing SimpleDB, a basic database with cables, installing operating its own interface standard for systems or managing databases is storing data and retrieving it. The an hour that you can spend on the Amazon Relational Database unique and value-added aspects of Service, in contrast, uses a more your application," the company's standard database interface, Web services evangelist Jeff Barr embodied in this case in an online said in a blog post. "I should point implementation of the open- out that RDS enables a lot of source MySQL software, the really enticing development and company said Monday. test scenarios. You can set up a "With Amazon RDS, you get full separate database instance for n a t i v e a c c e s s t o a M y S Q L each developer on a project database," specifically, version without making a big investment 5.1 of the Sun Microsystems in hardware." technology, the company said on With its years-long effort, the Net its Amazon RDS site. "This retailer has built Amazon Web means Amazon RDS works with S e r v i c e s i n t o a f o r m i d a b l e your existing tools, applications, presence in the information

technology world. Competitors include Google App Engine, a computing foundation that can run Java or Python programs on Google's own BigTable database technology, and Microsoft's Azure, which will offer access to Windows servers in the cloud when it formally launches in November. One potentially interesting rival is Oracle, already a giant in the database market and, if it can overcome European regulatory concerns, the future owner of MySQL assets. Because MySQL is open-source software, anyone may use and modify the software even without its copyright holders' permission, though. The biggest competitor, though, is doing things the old way with companies running their own computing infrastructure. Cloud computing poses security and trust issues for many companies considering whether to put their data and business applications on somebody else's computer systems. Gartner, an influential but not radical analyst firm, now recommends companies look

seriously at cloud computing, though. Amazon is working on greater robustness for Amazon RDS. It offers automated backup, and later will get a "high-availability" option at no extra charge with which customers can create a separate instance of a database in a different geographic region. As with all services on AWS, Amazon RDS costs on an as-used basis--with per-hour charges according to the server memory requirements of the database: 11 cents per hour for a small database of 1.7GB of RAM; 44 cents for large, or 7.5GB; 88 cents for extra-large, or 15GB; $1.55 for double extra-large, or 34GB; and $3.10 for quadruple extralarge, or 68GB. There also are charges for the size of data stored, the number of input-output requests, the amount of data written to the database, and the amount of data read from the database. Originally posted at Deep Tech

Fierce Fashions: The Skimpy & Sparkling Look of 'Dancing with the Stars' Season Nine! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:47:00 AM

Feathers and sequins and skin! Oh my! Take a look at this season's "Dancing with the Stars" contestants as they twirl their way into America's hearts with their glittering, over-the-top fashions and barely there ensembles! Check out the dazzling duds and spectacular steps on tonight's "Dancing with the Stars" on ABC.

IBM: You Can't Squeeze Knowledge From a Pixel By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:29:19 PM

IBM is developing analytics platforms to help companies better understand how multiple

pieces of information fit together to create rich forms of business intelligence. We sat down today at the IBM Information on Demand Conference with Jeff Jonas, one of IBM's chief scientists to get a

picture of the types of analysis they see emerging for users.

Sponsor Information On Demand You Can't Squeeze Knowledge C o n f e r e n c e . ] D i s c u s s From A Pixel from ReadWriteWeb on Vimeo. [Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the IBM

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Google refines Custom Search, delivers Wikipedia skin By Don Reisinger (Webware.com)

from Android phones, the iPhone, and Palm Pre. Google Custom now features 6 Submitted at 10/26/2009 3:30:00 PM themes.(Credit: Google) To commemorate last week's Google's Custom Search will be third anniversary of the launch of displayed inline on a Web page. Google's Custom Search tool, the A Google spokesman told me search giant has announced a slate Monday that when users search a of updates to its customizable site equipped with Custom search service. Search, the results will be Design options displayed above the page they're To kick things off, Google on. If they scroll down, they can announced the release of six new view the page's contents. Those themes for Google Custom site owners who prefer a separate Search. All six themes can be page to display results can still customized by changing "fonts, use that option, the company said. colors, backgrounds, promotion Structured Search settings, as well as interactive Google has also launched a new features such as tabbing and Custom Search feature called mouseovers," the company said. Structured Search. The new Users can also decide where the option will allow users to search search box and results should be for information by specific placed (in a contiguous layout or attributes, rather than use general in two columns). All the themes terms, the company said. will work with Google's Mobile If a Web publisher has provided C u s t o m S e a r c h , w h i c h t h e "author's name" as an attribute in company launched last week. the app's metadata, for example, That service allows users to users can search specifically for a access a site's Custom Search particular author and view only

the results matching that query, the company said. Google's intention is to make finding specific content easier, but only those "specific attributes that the page content has specified via metadata markup" can be used to tailor results, the company said. The company also announced that Web publishers can now place thumbnail images or publisher-provided links into the search results. For example, if a story from CNET.com includes an image, the new feature gives users the option to add that attribute to results. When Google displays that particular story, it will include a thumbnail of that image next to it (see the image below). Google's Structured Search in action.(Credit: Google) Wikipedia, anyone? Finally, Google announced that it has built a Custom Search skin for Wikipedia. Instead of relying upon Wikipedia's search, Wikipedia users can now log in to their accounts and edit their skin

to include Google's Custom Search feature. From then on, Wikipedia's search field will be replaced with Custom Search. Google's Custom Search is on display in Wikipedia.(Credit: Google) Instead of just delivering Wikipedia pages matching queries, Custom Search will display three tabs when a user searches the site from a Wikipedia page. The first tab will display relevant Wikipedia results. The second page will display relevant wikis that are linked to the Wikipedia page the user is already on. The final tab displays related third-party sites that are linked to in a particular Wikipedia page. All results will be displayed inline on the same page the user is on. Google's new Custom Search features are available now. If you want to learn more about the changes made to Custom Search, check out the site's blog here.

Afghan bombs kill eight US troops (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:40:26 AM

Eight US soldiers have been killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, say Nato-led forces. An Afghan civilian was also killed in the multiple attacks. The deaths make October the deadliest month for American forces in the eight-year war in Afghanistan, the Associated Press news agency says. On Monday 11 soldiers were among 14 Americans killed in multiple air crashes. In total this month 55 US troops are said to have died. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Gmail for iPhone gets 'never-ending' compose box By Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com) Submitted at 10/26/2009 1:42:00 PM

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET) Even with the most practiced digits, composing long e-mail on the iPhone's virtual keyboard is the slow, awkward pits compared

with typing on a desktop keyboard. However, Google released a small new feature on Monday just for long-winded iPhone e-mail authors that makes typing lengthy Gmail messages easier on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Before, the composition box was fixed. Starting today, verbose e-

mailers will see blank lines appear below the cursor as you reach the bottom of the window. If there's a limit to how many lines you can add in a Gmail message, we haven't found it yet. We went crazy with the carriage return and created an estimated extra 100 lines for text without trouble. To review your message, just swipe

up and down to scroll. At this point, Gmail's composition window won't contract when you delete lines; expansion alone is the name of the game. The expanding Gmail composition box is part of Google's iterative Web project for slowly introducing new features

to Gmail mobile one at a time. The composition feature is available to iPhone and iPod users who reach Gmail via Gmail.com from the Safari browser. Google's Gmail-for-mobile project began in April 2009. Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

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Most influential open-source gurus? Blinkx attempts to crash Votes are in the music video party (CNET News.com)

other small-scale, intimate events with open-source executives. He The full list is available here. is amazingly accessible, given Influence in open-source The common theme running that he has a fast-growing opendevelopment communities is through these top-five vote getters source company to run. It's earned through years of writing is how open they've been with unfortunate that Whitehurst is the and sharing great code. Perhaps their peers. Larry Augustin sits on only Red Hat executive to make not surprisingly, then, influence in several boards of open-source the list; Red Hat should follow his the business side of open source is companies, but he also frequently lead and be more permeable to its also gained through sharing speaks at industry events and has peers. Its influence would grow expertise, and not necessarily been involved in open source accordingly, just as Whitehurst's from making mountains of cash. from its inception. has. At least, that's the lesson I take Matt Asay, my friend and fellow Finally, there's Dries Buytaert, a w a y f r o m M i n d T o u c h ' s CNET blogger, sits on more than who blogs frequently on his inaugural survey of 50 open- 10 open-source advisory boards, project, Drupal, but also regularly source business executives. chairs the Open Source Business attends and speaks at industry MindTouch, an open-source Conference, hosts an informal get events. He has also been active collaboration company, has spent -together every year (called Open behind the scenes, working with the last few months surveying Source Goat Rodeo--don't ask other open-source companies to executives within the commercial why), blogs at an unhealthy rate share information on how to open-source community, asking for CNET on open source, and o p t i m i z e community them to name the most influential has actively helped a range of d e v e l o p m e n t . people within the commercial a s p i r i n g o p e n - s o u r c e Open-source code becomes open-source ecosystem. entrepreneurs understand the valuable when you give it away. The result is effectively an all- mechanics of running an open- The same holds true for openstar list of open-source business source business. source business expertise. There executives. The top five are as Mårten Mickos made the world are individuals who have made follows: safe for the $1 billion open-source more money than these with open • L a r r y A u g u s t i n , C E O , acquisition, but he has also -source software, but in terms of SugarCRM traveled the globe speaking at influence, the more you share, the • Matt Asay, vice president of open-source events and is very more influential you become. business development, Alfresco generous with his time, sharing What do you think? Who else (and fellow CNET blogger) know-how and best practices with should be on the list? Who • Mårten Mickos, entrepreneur-in other open-source executives. influences you? -residence, Benchmark Capital, Jim Whitehurst, breaking the This content has passed through and former CEO, MySQL typical Red Hat mold, has been fivefilters.org. • Jim Whitehurst, CEO, Red Hat active in industry events, has • Dries Buytaert, co-founder and hosted a range of dinners and Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:01:00 AM

CTO, Acquia

(CNET News.com)

links to streaming or download partners, from which it could potentially rake in revenues Video might've killed the radio shares. star, but the Web sure hasn't killed But this is a tight space, and music videos. Less than a week MySpace's music video portal after News Corp.-owned social won't be Blinkx Music's only site MySpace announced its competitor. Universal Music MySpace Music Videos portal, Group is still putting together video search engine Blinkx Vevo, a Hulu-like portal for music announced the debut Tuesday of videos that aims to bring artists "Blinkx Music," a search tool and labels the revenues they specifically designed to trawl m i g h t n o t b e g e t t i n g f r o m through YouTube (though the Google"There are hundreds of thousands o w n e d v i d e o p l a t f o r m i s of music videos available on the providing Vevo's technology). Web today which makes it nearly Also looming in the background impossible to navigate and find is Google's forthcoming music what you are looking for," Blinkx offering, which the company f o u n d e r a n d C E O S u r a n g a plans to formally unveil in a press Chandratillake explained in a event on Wednesday in Los release. "Based on the success of Angeles. This could instantly run blinkx Remote, our online TV away with a huge market share in guide, we recognized there was a m u s i c v i d e o ( a n d m u s i c need to help organize music d o w n l o a d ) s e a r c h . videos and make them easily Some background on Blinkx: we searchable on the Web. By haven't heard a lot about it leveraging our award-winning recently, but it's a publicly traded video search index, we built company based in the U.K. (the Blinkx Music to help our users public status was achieved in '07 find their favorite music videos when it merged with another quickly, easily and in one place." company called Autonomy), and Blinkx says that its search engine when rumors started to swirl last has thus far indexed more than year that Google and News Corp. 33,000 hours of music videos (which, coincidentally, owns from about 10,000 artists. While it MySpace) were interested in says that Blinkx Music will let acquiring it, shares of its stock users "post comments and interact soared. with other fans, and also offers This content has passed through background information about fivefilters.org. bands and their work," the release doesn't say whether it will provide Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:00 AM

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Qualcomm gets into open source, pigs begin to fly

Blinkx attempts to crash the music video party

(CNET News.com)

By Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com)

Innovation Center, Inc. works closely with the open source community to enable the faster Apparently, Qualcomm didn't get advancement of the wireless the memo. O p e n - s o u r c e industry as a whole. developers as a group tend to be It's a welcome sign, but as yet hostile to patents, believing that Qualcomm has demonstrated they're detrimental to technology negligible involvement with any innovation. open-source community One of But Qualcomm, a company the cardinal rules for engaging devoted more than most to with open-source development acquiring and prosecuting patents, communities is to, well, engage announced Monday the launch of with them. a wholly owned subsidiary called Typically, this means writing and t h e Q u a l c o m m I n n o v a t i o n contributing code. Code is the Center(QuIC) to focus on open- coin of the open-source realm, source development for mobile. a n d I ' m u n a w a r e o f m u c h The patent king seeks to become involvement from Qualcomm in the open-source king? this area. Maybe. Maybe not. The mission So let me offer a suggested of QuIC signals an intent to blend shortcut for Qualcomm: hire the best of mobile open source someone to educate you. Danese with the best of Qualcomm's Cooper, formerly of Intel and Sun proprietary technology: Microsystems and recently Open source and community- d e p a r t e d f r o m R e v o l u t i o n driven software development is Computing, could help to shake becoming increasingly important things up on Qualcomm's San t o t h e w i r e l e s s Diego campus. And there are industry....Qualcomm Innovation others. Center, Inc. is a wholly owned In whichever way Qualcomm subsidiary of Qualcomm that opts to do it, the company must brings together a dedicated group e n g a g e w i t h o p e n - s o u r c e of engineers focused on this area communities through free code of growing innovation. With the transfer in order to be taken goal of investing greater resources seriously and to have a chance of into enabling and optimizing open influencing such communities. source software with Qualcomm For example, as noted in t e c h n o l o g y , Q u a l c o m m GigaOM, Qualcomm intends for Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:58:00 AM

QuIC to help it optimize its technology for Android, Chrome, Moblin, and other mobile opensource projects. Yet given that the company doesn't even show up in the list of top Linux contributors, how can we expect to see Qualcomm play a meaningful role in distributions like Android? No one is going to give Qualcomm bonus points for creating a subsidiary to focus on open-source development, if little open-source code is actually contributed. In this Qualcomm could learn a lesson from Adobe Systems, which despite maintaining a healthy business in proprietary software, is learning to engage productively with open-source communities, as highlighted in The H Online. In sum, it is welcome that Qualcomm finally sees enlightened self-interest in leveraging open-source software for the good of its business. Now it just needs to learn to accelerate such benefits through real code contributions--and not simply nice -sounding business units. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

doesn't say whether it will provide links to streaming or download partners, from which it could Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:00 AM potentially rake in revenues Video might've killed the radio shares. star, but the Web sure hasn't killed But this is a tight space, and music videos. Less than a week MySpace's music video portal after News Corp.-owned social won't be Blinkx Music's only site MySpace announced its competitor. Universal Music MySpace Music Videos portal, Group is still putting together video search engine Blinkx Vevo, a Hulu-like portal for music announced the debut Tuesday of videos that aims to bring artists "Blinkx Music," a search tool and labels the revenues they specifically designed to trawl m i g h t n o t b e g e t t i n g f r o m through YouTube (though the Google"There are hundreds of thousands o w n e d v i d e o p l a t f o r m i s of music videos available on the providing Vevo's technology). Web today which makes it nearly Also looming in the background impossible to navigate and find is Google's forthcoming music what you are looking for," Blinkx offering, which the company f o u n d e r a n d C E O S u r a n g a plans to formally unveil in a press Chandratillake explained in a event on Wednesday in Los release. "Based on the success of Angeles. This could instantly run blinkx Remote, our online TV away with a huge market share in guide, we recognized there was a m u s i c v i d e o ( a n d m u s i c need to help organize music d o w n l o a d ) s e a r c h . videos and make them easily Some background on Blinkx: we searchable on the Web. By haven't heard a lot about it leveraging our award-winning recently, but it's a publicly traded video search index, we built company based in the U.K. (the Blinkx Music to help our users public status was achieved in '07 find their favorite music videos when it merged with another quickly, easily and in one place." company called Autonomy), and Blinkx says that its search engine when rumors started to swirl last has thus far indexed more than year that Google and News Corp. 33,000 hours of music videos (which, coincidentally, owns from about 10,000 artists. While it MySpace) were interested in says that Blinkx Music will let acquiring it, shares of its stock users "post comments and interact soared. with other fans, and also offers Originally posted at News background information about Digital Media bands and their work," the release

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Fashionistas: Be the Next Anna Wintour with Shmotter By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

potential in Shmotter, we’d love the site to add a few additional female-friendly features, such as Submitted at 10/26/2009 7:50:12 PM the ability to view item prices This post is part of Mashable’s before you save the finalized look, Spark of Genius series, which the option to save outfits as drafts, highlights a unique feature of and ways to filter items by color startups. If you would like to have or style. All in all though, your startup considered for Shmotter weaves together a inclusion, please see the details on the outfits that other wanna-be comfortable and eye-catching here. The series is made possible fashionistas have concocted. online experience perfect for by Microsoft BizSpark. Of course, the most appealing taking your fashion-forward Name: Shmotter.com part is actually creating a new vision from concept to reality. Quick Pitch: Shmotter.com look, as Shmotter allows you to Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark allows users to create, browse, select from all different categories BizSpark is a startup program rate and purchase outfits using of clothing and accessories — that gives you three-year access to clothing and accessories from a think tops, sweaters, jeans, the latest Microsoft development wide selection of retailers. dresses, scarves, shorts, rings, tools, as well as connecting you to Genius Idea: Men, you might not jackets, bags, and the list goes on a nationwide network of investors be able to identify with this, but — and drag and drop items on to and incubators. There are no we women need to visualize our the outfit palette, resize them as upfront costs, so if your business online clothing and accessory needed, and just as easily remove is privately owned, less than three purchases as part of a whole look. them. It’s fashion meets function years old, and generates less than In fact, one of our biggest fears is with a little community voting U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, buying something too trendy that thrown into mix. Add in the fact you can sign up today. we never wear because it doesn’t that it feels like you’re a nouveau Entrepreneurs can take advantage work with our wardrobe. We also fashion editor creating your own of the Azure Services platform for dream of being the next editor of spread for an online audience, and their website hosting and storage Vogue, pulling together looks that you have an experience that will n e e d s . M i c r o s o f t r e c e n t l y make women crave clothes. suck in women the world round. announced the“new CloudApp()” That’s why we have a sneaking The site also includes typical contest– use the Azure Services suspicion that fashion-conscious community features like the Platform for hosting your .NET or women will lose themselves in ability to save items as favorites, PHP app, and you could be the hours of wardrobe pairings on as well as the ability to buy lucky winner of a USD 5000* ( Shmotter. individual items online, vote on please see website for official Shmotter pulls together the latest the looks of your peers, and use rules and guidelines).” clothes, accessories, and shoes the Tweetmeme buttons to tweet Tags: bizspark, fashion, shmotter from popular brands and retailers your favorites. and gives women a place to build While we definitely see the their own looks or peruse and vote

Now Use Google Voice With Your Existing Phone Number By Barb Dybwad (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/26/2009 9:27:24 PM

One of the sticking points with the otherwise highly convenient Google Voice service has been that you had a choose a new number to use with the service. If you had an existing number that everyone already knew and wanted to switch over, you were pretty much out of luck. Luckily that changes today, with tonight’s Google announcement that you can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Also notably, you can now add Google voicemail service to any of the mobile numbers linked to your account. Think of it a bit like Gmail for voicemail. Now when you first sign up for Google Voice you can choose between using your own number or choosing a new Google number. You still get many of Google Voice’s features when using your own number, including the Google voicemail feature you can now add to linked phones. Unfortunately it’s not a full number port, and you won’t get all of the Google Voice features when using your own number — at least not yet. But especially if

you have an older phone that doesn’t already have a nice visual voicemail interface, the Google voicemail feature alone might be reason enough to switch. The company also says it plans to roll out a full service compatible with your existing number, including other great features of Voice like conference calling, call screening, and listening into calls before deciding to pick up. Check out the video about how Google voicemail works below. And if you’re still hunting for an invite to Google Voice, you can ask a friend for one. Do you use Google Voice? If not, will you consider using the service now that you can keep your existing number? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Google, Google Voice Tags: Google, Google Voice, Mobile 2.0, voicemail

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Google Voice now (kinda) works with your number

Tap Tap…Metallica!

By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:28:30 AM

Submitted at 10/26/2009 9:01:00 PM

Google on Monday will begin giving users a new way to use their existing mobile phone number with parts of its Google Voice service. No, it's not a full number port, which the company still says is coming and will eventually allow things like call screening, conference calling, or listening into a call before picking up--all with your existing number. Instead, Google is taking advantage of conditional call forwarding to let users send unanswered calls to Google's voice-mail service in place of the one provided by a user's carrier. Once sent to Google, those voice messages are transcribed, then made available for playback and review online, or as an SMS message. Users can also take advantage of Google Voice's customized greeting service to give callers a different voice-mail greeting depending on what number they're calling from. Google Voice users can now choose to use their own number,

or take one of Google's.(Credit: Google/CNET) In order to use the new service, a one-time setup is required, which has both new and existing Google Voice users walk through a wizard that asks for their mobile number and what carrier they're on. It then offers up the special numeric code they have to dial to enable conditional forwarding from their handset to Google Voice. For users who have a Google Voice number in the same account as their existing mobile phone number, it will be business as usual; Google Voice's voicemail section will denote which number it was from. Google Voice's senior product manager, Vincent Paquet, explained to me that this system has been designed so users don't have to make any tough choices about which number they want to use. It will also allow users to sign up to Google Voice without having to register a new number. Smartphone users with visual voice-mail services (such as the iPhone) may find that these extra features aren't enough to warrant making the switch. However,

users with older handsets are likely to find Google's offer enticing since it enables them to manage voice-mails both from their phone and on the Web. The deal is made even sweeter by the fact that all major U.S. carriers are on board, Paquet says. This may come as a surprise to some, considering that just last month, Google, Apple, and AT&T clashed quite publicly over the rejection of Google's Voice application from Apple's App Store in July. But with this new service, Google is merely playing by each carrier's rules, using a feature that's long been available as a way for users to pass on calls they cannot take. There's also some serious potential for carriers to generate extra income in SMS fees for transcribed voice-mail messages that users would have otherwise spent just a minute or so listening to from their phones. Google Voice remains in private beta, although earlier this month Google began putting invites into the in-boxes of its users, allowing them to invite their friends. Originally posted at Web Crawler

By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Are you metal? Do you like Tap Tap Revenge, the popular iPhone game similar to Dance Dance Revolution, created by Tapulous? If you answered both these questions with a loud, thundering “yes”, we have a treat for you: Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica. It’s a variant of the popular game with songs only by the legendary band(once upon a time we’d crack jokes about their stances on piracy, but enough time has gone by to leave all that aside), aimed – says the developer – at hardcore Metallica fans. As for the band themselves, drummer Lars Ulrich claims it’s not about the revenue, it’s about fun. “It’s one more thing that’ll keep me semi-cool in my kids’ eyes for another six months until the next thing comes out,” he said. Besides rocking out to Metallica tunes, users will also have access to a Metallica news feed with updates on the band, challenge updates and a public battle message board. As far as the included songs go, they represent a short, but pretty good overview

Soros to invest $50m in economic think-tank (Financial Times - US homepage)

think-tank with the mission of reconceiving the field of economics, which he describes as Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:20:36 AM “a dogma whose time has George Soros, the fund manager, p a s s e d ” . has pledged $50m to back a new The group, to be called the

Institute of New Economic Thinking, will gather luminaries in the field of economics to reflect on the ideas that allowed the latest economic crisis to transpire and to bring new ideas to a profession

that some argue has become too deeply entrenched in free-market ideology. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

of the band’s career: - Enter Sandman - Sad But True - King Nothing - All Nightmare Long - Some Kind of Monster - Master of Puppets - Seek & Destroy - Fuel - One - For Whom the Bell Tolls The app costs $4.99, but the folks at Tapulous, sly as they are, included a special enticement for fans: everyone who purchases the app will enter a contest to win two tickets to a December 5 concert in Las Vegas, plus transportation and the opportunity to meet the band. If you win, be sure to ask them how they feel about music piracy, we know they’ll appreciate it. Tags: metallica, tap tap revenge

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Dreamr app: a relaxing experience? By David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/26/2009 7:00:00 PM

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, App Review Dreamr[ iTunes Link] is an app for the iPhone or iPod touch running OS 3.1 or better that turns your device into a dreamachine. And what exactly is a dreamachine (also known as a dream machine)? A dreamachine is a strobing flicker device, invented by Brion Gysin and Ian Summerville, that pulses light in a frequency range relating to alpha waves present in the brain while relaxing. Originally created using a turntable, a bulb, and a cylinder, you close your eyes and and the pulsing of the lights as seen behind your eyelids is supposed to cause varying states of relaxation, sometimes creating colorful patterns of swirling lights. Pulses from 1-4 beats per second are supposed to cause deep relaxation, while pulses from 8-13 beats per second are said to cause a waking sleep often with accompanied by psychedelic shapes and trippy colors. Author William S. Burroughs, one of the first proponents of the dreamachine, wrote: "Subjects report dazzling lights of unearthly brilliance and color. ...Elaborate geometric constructions of incredible intricacy build up from multidimensional mosaic into

Monoprice iPhone/iPod Battery Backup: Such a deal By David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/26/2009 4:30:00 PM

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iPhone In a previous post about offshore iPhone chargers, a few astute TUAW readers mentioned Monoprice.com as a good source for chargers, connectors, and computer, TV and living fireballs like the mandalas after about 8 minutes but that audio cables. In searching their of Eastern mysticism or resolve could have been due the quality of site, I found a real deal. momentarily into apparently my recliner. Overall, I wasn't The Monoprice Backup battery individual images and powerfully affected. Your results, however, pack is the simplest of devices. dramatic scenes like brightly may vary. When your iPhone or iPod is colored dreams." The app comes with a warning running low on juice, just plug The Dreamr app tells you to turn that this should not be used by this battery pack into the 30 pin the brightness all the way up, small children, photosensitive connector. You can then either choose a number of beats per people, or those that react badly to keep running with a fairly large second and a color, and then to flashing lights. The price is dongle hanging off the bottom of hold the device's screen up to $US.99. your device, or wait and the your closed eyes and see what We'd be very curious to know of battery pack will charge your happens. The buttons to choose the experiences of anyone who device in 3.5 hours according to beats per second were quite small has used Dreamr, or in fact, any Monoprice (or about 2.5 hours and hard to consistently tap. dreamachine. And that, my according to my tests). I gave Dreamr two ten minute friends, is what the comments Yes, there are a lot of battery tests, both in a comfortable section is for. backups that do this, but how recliner with my iPhone resting TUAW Dreamr app: a relaxing many are sold at US$14.50? You on my eyes. At 13 beats per experience? originally appeared read that right, only US$14.50, second I found nothing at all, on The Unofficial Apple Weblog and for that you get pack with a outside of noting that the speed of (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 capacity of 2200 mAh. the flickering seeming to slow 19:00:00 EST. Please see our For comparison, the capacity of down and speed up after about 6 terms for use of feeds. the iPhone battery is 1150 mAh, minutes. At 4 beats per second I Read| Permalink| Email this| so this battery should be able to may have been a bit more relaxed Comments

charge your device twice. Due to my ignorance of the vagaries of electricity, mine winds up charging the iPhone about 1.75 times, which isn't bad at all. Continue reading Monoprice iPhone/iPod Battery Backup: Such a deal TUAW Monoprice iPhone/iPod Battery Backup: Such a deal originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Vocalia for iPhone lets you speak your bookmarks By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

the clear benefit here being for people who may be driving and who want to control their device Submitted at 10/26/2009 12:49:00 PM without fumbling through menus. Got an older iPhone or iPod It's also a bit more customizable touch model and been jealous of since you can go in and add the Voice Control feature your nicknames for people you want to antiquated hardware is incapable call, edit the phonetic spelling it's o f r u n n i n g ? C h e c k o u t given them by default, and change Vocalia(link opens in iTunes), a the spoken language to one of the voice-powered launcher that's five other options including quite fast, and accurate. Just like German, Spanish, and French. Voice Control, it can look up a As far as setup goes, Vocalia is contact by name then launch a able to slurp in your contacts and phone call, or do the same for a iPod library as soon as you launch song from your iPod's library. It i t f o r t h e f i r s t t i m e . T h e also goes a step further to let you bookmarks on the other hand, are launch your Safari bookmarks a little more complicated. The app simply by speaking their name. can't grab them from your device Vocalia lets you speak your due to a limitation in Apple's contacts, songs, and even Web SDK, which means you have to b o o k m a r k s t o l a u n c h download and launch a small them.(Credit: C N E T ) executable file from Vocalia's site Vocalia doesn't run at a system t h a t c a n s e n d y o u r level like Voice Control does, but Bookmarks.html file to the it's up and ready to receive a voice iPhone/iPod. The two devices also command in under 10 seconds-- have to be on the same Wi-Fi

network. Frankly, I don't think all that effort is worth it for syncing up your bookmarks; especially considering that you'll need to do that entire process over again if you've added new ones. In most cases it's also going to be faster just to launch Safari and find the bookmark yourself. Maybe a future version could make the whole thing a little simpler by tapping into an existing bookmark sharing service like Xmarks, or Delicious. Vocalia is $3.99 in the App Store and works on both the iPhone and the 2G iPod Touch. As mentioned before, you'll have to have a Mac or PC on the same Wi-Fi network as your device to make use of its bookmarks feature. See also: Midomi music search gets funding and opportunities Originally posted at Web Crawler

Facebook Password Reset Confirmation Email Contains Virus [ALERT] By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:57:51 AM

Another new virus is spreading through social networks, this time, via Facebook. This one – known as Bredolab – masks itself as a “Password Reset Confirmation Email,” appears to come from Facebook, and attaches a file that purports to contain a new password. That file is actually a trojan horse that will download a host of nasty files from the Web and infect your computer with them. Email security firm MX Lab explains further: “Bredolab is a trojan horse that downloads and executes files from the Internet, such as rogue anti-spyware. To bypass firewalls, it injects its own code into legitimate processes svchost.exe and explorer.exe. Bredolab contains anti-sandbox code (the trojan might quit itself when an

external program investigates its actions).” The way to avoid this one: if you didn’t request your password from Facebook, there’s no reason you should be getting a password reset confirmation email, so don’t open it. Further, even if you did, Facebook would not send your new password as an attachment. Finally, f you’re still not sure, take a look at the full details of the email – if the mail server’s don’t belong to Facebook, you know the message is not legit. Tags: facebook, security, social networking, virus

Get Quicksilver Working in Snow Leopard [Troubleshooting] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)

many users; here's how to fix it. Santana over at all-things-Apple Submitted at 10/26/2009 5:00:00 PM weblog AppleDoes details how he Quicksilver is easily one of our got Quicksilver back up and favorite tools ever, but since its running in Snow Leopard after future isn't all that bright, die-hard e n d u r i n g s e v e r a l b u g s a n d users cross our fingers every time crashes. The method requires you OS X updates. In Snow Leopard, to download two different builds Quicksilver stopped working for of Quicksilver, then do a little

selective editing, deleting, and merging between the two. It's not

an ideal situation, and with any luck some kind soul will someday pick up the Quicksilver torch and continue carrying it into the future (it is open source now), but for the time being this trick may help. If you've been having trouble with Quicksilver since upgrading to Snow Leopard and you give

this method a try, let's hear how it works for you in the comments. Quicksilver and Snow Leopard Finally work hand in hand![AppleDoes]

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OS Faceoff: Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard By Ben Parr (Mashable!)

(Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 votes) Week 2: Last Thursday, Microsoft - Tumblr vs. Posterous attempted to erase all of the bad - WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes memories left by Windows Vista (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 wit the launch of perhaps the most votes) anticipated operating system 10.6. One is the newest edition of Week 3: software yet: Windows 7. The the PC OS, while the other is the - Pandora vs. Last.fm new OS promises to be faster, standard bearer OS for all Apple - WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes sleeker, and more intuitive than its computers. Which one emerges (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 the victor…well, we’ll let you votes) predecessor. Microsoft’s computing and OS decide the outcome in the poll Week 4: rival didn’t take the Windows 7 below. - Twitter vs. Facebook hype sitting down, though. Apple Remember: you have until 12:00 - WINNER: Facebook, 2484 launched a new wave of Get a PM PT on Friday to cast your votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: Mac Ads painting Microsoft’s ballot. After that, we’ll tally up 588 votes) Windows flagship as an evolution the votes and declare a victor. Week 5: of problems not worth enduring. And as always, don’t forget to - Wordpress vs. Typepad Now with both sides at war once justify your vote in the comments. - WINNER: Wordpress, 2714 Who would win in a fight: (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: 121 again, we thought it was appropriate to dedicate this Microsoft Windows 7 or Mac OS v o t e s ) R e v i e w s : C h r o m e , week’s Web Faceoff to the long- X Snow Leopard?( survey) Facebook, Firefox, Google standing Microsoft vs. Apple Web Faceoff: Overall Results C h r o m e , M o z i l l a F i r e f o x , Week 1: battle. Pandora, Posterous, Tumblr, This week’s competitors are none - Mozilla Firefox vs. Google Twitter, TypePad, WordPress other than Microsoft Windows 7 Chrome Tags: apple, microsoft, Snow and Mac OS X Snow Leopard - WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes Leopard, web faceoff, Windows 7 Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:55:14 PM

Dear Aunt TUAW: Recovering iPhone data and media By Erica Sadun (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/26/2009 3:00:00 PM

Filed under: Ask TUAW, iPhone Dear Aunt TUAW, I'm from the Philippines and I would just like to ask for your help. I don't know if the news had reached you guys but there had been some massive flood lately in our country brought about by super typhoons storming over our land. Anyway, I own an iPhone and thank God I brought it with me when the flash flood came which sadly destroyed my PC and laptop. Now I have a new desktop which leads me to my problem. I'm afraid to install iTunes in it because if ever I'd sync my phone with the new desktop, I'm pretty sure all my iPod files will be gone. Are there any work around for it (so that I can still save my files on my phone)? Will jailbreaking help (as a last resort)? Thanks and more power! =) Best regards, Rand B. Read on for Auntie's answer...

UBS hires McCann to lead US wealth unit (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:49:45 AM

UBS said on Tuesday that Robert “Bob” McCann, the former head

of Merrill Lynch’s “thundering herd” of financial advisers, had joined as chief executive of its wealth management operations in the Americas. Mr McCann’s arrival follows

several months of courtship freedom to accept a new position. between him and Oswald Grübel, This content has passed through UBS’s chief executive, which fivefilters.org. began in July and was delayed by litigation between Mr McCann and his former employer over his

Continue reading Dear Aunt TUAW: Recovering iPhone data and media TUAW Dear Aunt TUAW: Recovering iPhone data and media originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Mac 101: Publish iWeb '09 sites to FTP

WOW: iPhone Reaches 100,000 Approved Apps

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

By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 10/26/2009 3:30:00 PM

Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:21:20 AM

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools,.Mac, Mac 101 More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Now that the winter holidays are almost upon us, we're thinking about sharing stories, photos, and movies with far-flung relatives and friends. There's a slew of ways to get this done, and this post focuses on creating a simple site in iWeb '09 and publishing it not to Mobile Me, but to your own host via FTP. If you're unfamiliar with iWeb '09, I'll say this: It does what it does well. If your goal is to share photos, movies and stories with minimal fuss and zero coding, iWeb will work. When I travel, I typically create an iWeb gallery and movie page. Yes, there are many other options, but this one works for me. If you'd rather not publish your iWeb site to MobileMe and have access to FTP, you're in luck. The setup is simple. First, create your

It hasn’t been publicly announced by Apple, who like pointing out milestones that make them look great, but if you look at the stats over at unofficial iPhone App directory App Shopper, there are site. Next, click the title of your then click Publish. Off it goes! If currently 101,751 approved apps site in the iWeb '09 sidebar (this you set it up correctly, your iWeb- available for the iPhone. doesn't work with previous powered site will be uploaded to In August, we reported that there versions of iWeb) to reveal the the proper place on your site. w e r e 6 5 , 0 0 0 i P h o n e a p p s publishing options. In the first Subsequent updates require re- available. It took about 2 and a drop-down menu, select "FTP publication, so just hit that half months for that number to Server." Give your site a name Publish button again when you're r e a c h 1 0 0 , 0 0 0 – t r u l y a remarkable feat. Have in mind and enter a contact email. done making changes Below that, enter your FTP That's it! Have fun sharing your t h a t t h i s i s t h e n u m b e r o f settings. You'll need your server holiday experiences with iWeb approved apps; the actual number of available applications is a bit address, username, and password. '09. Next, enter the path to the TUAW Mac 101: Publish iWeb lower; according to App Shopper, directory (http://mysite.com/paris, '09 sites to FTP originally it’s currently at 93,035. for example). Just make sure the appeared on The Unofficial Apple As far as the competition goes, directory already exists on your Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 26 Oct it’s hard not to rub it in. One server or you'll get an error. It 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see needs only a quick look at (for example) Palm’s App Catalog or won't hurt to test the connection at our terms for use of feeds. this point by clicking the button Read| Permalink| Email this| that's available for just that Comments purpose. Finally, enter your site's URL and

even the powerful Nokia’s Ovi Store to see where they stand compared to Apple’s numbers. Windows Mobile has been around for over six years, and its Windows Marketplace for Mobile opened up a couple of weeks ago with 246 apps. Apple will probably officially announce the news soon. As far as what it all means in real, hard cash, just think about the August estimates that the iPhone app economy is worth 2.4 billion dollars. Tags: app store, apple, iphone

Budget Bytes Shares Recipes with Per-Serving Costs [Blogs] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:30:00 AM

Ever had that moment in the grocery checkout line where you wonder if cooking homemade meals could ever be worth the

ingredient cost? The Budget Bytes blog wants to show you the exact cost of some great recipes. Beth M, a self-described "food lover and number cruncher," busts down the total ingredient cost of B e y o n d t h e n u m b e r s , B e t h each meal by serving and recipe. describes how she bought certain

items to steer you the right way in your own grocery store, and offers photo illustrations of the cooking process. The blog's been running since May, with occasional lulls in new content, but the backlog alone is worth running through to

pick up economical menu ideas. Budget Bytes[via Consumerist]

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Apple will spend $4 million to renovate Chicago's North/Halsted triangle By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

town I left only a month and a half or so ago. And there's good news for Chicagoans just south of that Clybourne Corridor Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:30:00 AM neighborhood. Apple will be Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, spending a cool $4 million to Retail, Odds and ends, Deals redevelop the entire triangle, Technically, I've now moved including that dirty old Red Line away from Chicago and am living station sitting there as well (you in Los Angeles, but that doesn't can't tell, but the pic above is the mean I'm not still following the old gas station that used to be brand new Apple store being built there, with the train station in the at the intersection of North and background. Halsted in Chicago -- not only is In exchange (c'mon, this is that my old stomping grounds (I Chicago, you didn't think they'd used to be a manager at that be doing it for free, did you?), Borders), but hearing about and Apple gets first naming rights for seeing the old place makes me a the station ("iStop" jumps to little nostalgic for that toddlin' mind), as well as the chance at

advertising in there for 10 years to come, with four more five-year options. But even with those conditions, this is actually great news for that whole area -- it's

new El stop certainly won't hurt. I'll have to make sure and take a trip back -- they're saying the triangular store could be open as soon as Fall 2010. There's an excellent Italian place just under the Brown line track across from the Steppenwolf just north on Halsted, too. Ah, memories. TUAW Apple will spend $4 million to renovate Chicago's North/Halsted triangle originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple been on the cusp of getting really Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 27 Oct busy (it's just a city block north of 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see the old derelict Cabrini Green our terms for use of feeds. neighborhood) for a while now, Read| Permalink| Email this| and an Apple store with a brand Comments

Plug-in maker Fisker to buy idled GM plant (CNET News.com) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:30:00 AM

Fisker's first car, the Karma, is set to be released next year. Its Delaware plant will make its next luxury car which will also be a plug-in hybrid.(Credit: Fisker Automotive) Upstart carmaker Fisker Automotive on Tuesday said it will purchase a plant in Wilmington, Delaware to make a plug-in hybrid sedan. The facility, which used to be a General Motors factory, will begin manufacturing a plug-in hybrid in late 2012 which the

company expects will cost almost $40,000 after federal tax credits. Vice president Joe Biden and Delaware governor Jack Markell are scheduled to speak at an announcement ceremony on Tuesday morning. Production of Fisker's "familyoriented" car, called Project Nina, will result in 2,000 factory jobs. The company anticipates making 75,000 to 100,000 cars per year by 2014. "Wilmington is perfect for high quality, low volume production," CEO Henrik Fisker said in a statement. The company's first car, called the Karma, is a high-end luxury

car priced at about $80,000. The Karma, which is will be manufactured in Europe, will be available in the middle of next year.

Fisker Automotive received $52.8.7 million from a Department of Enegy loan in September, which will fund the purchase of the factory from GM.

The company expects to buy the plant for $18 million and spend another $175 million to retool the factory over the next three years. The technology used by Fisker, called an extended-range electric vehicle or series hybrid, is similar to that used by General Motors' Chevy Volt. The Karma will go 50 miles on batteries and then a gasoline engine will run a generator for longer rides for a total range 300 miles. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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CSStringTokenizer, a Cocoa Touch front end for tokenizing strings By Joachim Bean (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

the tokenization once you break it down. This is something that's going to be useful for iPhone developers Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:30:00 AM who like to work with a Cocoa Filed under: Developer, iPhone, Touch interface to bring lowerSDK, iPod touch Have you ever level elements of the iPhone OS wanted to work with rather deep into their apps, and also to elements of Core Foundation in developers who work with natural the iPhone SDK with some sort of language strings. front end? August Joki has just To download this project, go over come up with a project that to the cocoa-stringtokenizer provides a Cocoa Touch wrapper project page on GitHub. for the CFStringTokenizer type in TUAW CSStringTokenizer, a the Core Foundation framework. Cocoa Touch front end for As you can see in the screen shot tokenizing strings originally at right, the demo provides appeared on The Unofficial Apple various aspects about the current I f y o u ' r e w o n d e r i n g w h a t Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 27 Oct string including the string in a CFStringTokenizer actually is, it's 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see l e t t e r , w o r d , o r u s i n g a useful for breaking a string into a our terms for use of feeds. WordBoundary. It works just like token, which can specified by Read| Permalink| Email this| CFStringTokenizer can, but can words, sentences, or paragraphs. Comments be accessed using this front-end. You're also able to further modify

Chamber Of Commerce Sues Yes Men; Someone Just Gave Protestors A Lot More Attention By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

infringement. Again, the trademark claim is probably stronger than the original While we weren't sure that the copyright claim, but this is a EFF was correct in suggesting the really dumb move. All the Yes Yes Men's fake U.S. Chamber of Men want is more attention in Commerce website was a parody, their campaign against the CoC's we did think that it was rather stance on climate change, and you short-sighted of the CoC to try to know what gets them a lot of takedown the site, since it would attention? Getting sued. Of only serve to give the Yes Men course, given how backwards the and their anti-CoC campaign Chamber's views on intellectual more attention. Apparently, the property are, perhaps it's no folks at the U.S. Chamber of surprise that they wouldn't realize Commerce still haven't quite how such a plan would backfire. figured this out. They've now Permalink| Comments| Email gone a step further and are suing This Story the Yes Men for trademark Submitted at 10/26/2009 10:30:00 PM

Netflix Claims Americans Don't Want Standalone Streaming Movie Service By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:43:20 AM

Netflix's streaming movie service has been pretty successful according to most of the analyses I've seen, but it's still tied to the DVD rental service. So it's a bit surprising to find out that, while Netflix is readying a streaming-

only service, it won't be available in the US because (according to CEO Reed Hastings):"the company hasn't seen much interest in something of that nature in the States." Karl Bode, over at Broadband Reports, has the appropriate response: Wait, What? 42% of Netflix users have streamed at least 15 minutes of

one TV show or movie during the last quarter, up from 22% just one year earlier. Personally, my DVD queue has sat unused for months, with the majority of my film and HDTV viewing now occurring via the far more efficient Xbox 360. The demand is certainly there, it's just not quite mainstream yet. So what's really going on? His

guess... and it's a good one, is that Hollywood isn't really thrilled with the situation, and is holding back the licensing that would enable such a service. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Italian Politician Tries To File Charges Against 4,609 YouTube Commenters By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:44:00 AM

Boing Boing points us to a story coming out of Italy, concerning what appears to be a former politician with a... colorful past, Salvatore Cuffaro(he was apparently found guilty of helping the Mafia), who is upset about the comments on a YouTube video that involves himself, but which is from the early 90s. So, he's"laid ITALIAN page 39

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charges" against all 4,609 commenters(since then, many more have commented). I'm not familiar enough with the legal system of Italy to quite understand what these charges mean, but the link above comes from an Italian political party, Italia dei Valori, which apparently is considered "anti-corruption." Apparently, that party is offering to cover the legal defense of any of the commenters who need the help. The translated text from Italia dei Valori isn't entirely clear -- and I'm not even sure what's

wrong with the video or the commenters, or what people are being charged with exactly -- so please help fill in the blanks in the comments. However, any time you have a politician even threatening to sue thousands of YouTube commenters, you know something has gone wrong. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

New Video: Mambo Number Survive (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:49:00 AM

"Dancing with the Stars" competitors took over the reigns of the ET microphone and took turns interviewing their respective partners. After each couple performed their waltz or jitterbug, all competitors flooded the dance floor to simultaneously perform a

mambo. Every several moments, the judges eliminated one of the couples, leaving Joanna Krupa and Derek Hough as the last ones standing. Joanna enjoyed freestyling it and not having to commit to a choreographed routine. Derek said, "Honestly, this is my fifth season on the show and that is definitely a huge highlight in my entire 'Dancing with the Stars' career."

IBM Makes Another Commitment To Mashups By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:43:07 AM

IBM has announced a mashup integration that fits Cognos Business Intelligence with a new version of the company's Mashup Center. The two services fit together to create an environment that leverages IBM's existing technology base with a service that's right out of a play book for social computing. It's a small move for IBM but demonstrates that the company is thinking strategically about how to leverage its strengths in business intelligence and analytics. At the same time it shows how IBM is adopting new ways for users to communicate more effectively with multiples sources of information. Sponsor IBM is leveraging it Cognos

Business Intelligence to give mashups more context for the user. Cognos 8 Mashup Service is an API . It exposes business intelligence information from the Cognos platform. The data is used as a web service in mashups as well as applications in the enterprise and business processes. The new Mashup Center provides connections with RESTful services that give it access to a variety of data sources. Additionally, SharePoint, WebSphere MQ and FileNet may be integrated into the mashups, allowing users to leverage their existing investments. Users have access to widgets that they may drag and drop into the mashup they are creating. It requires no IT intervention. The Mashup Center also includes: • A mashup builder for creating the web-based service. • A catalog that includes

templates of mashups users have made. • Feed generator that pulls REST services from other sources. • The ability to import RSS feeds. • Security, with permissions based on LDAP. In a demonstrations of the new Mashup Center at the Information on Demand Conference, IBM managers showed how Google Gadgets can be dragged right into the Mashup Center along with data from Cognos to make a case for sales projections. They focused on how a sales manager could use the Mashup Center to view recent changes to the mashup; ratings of mashups in the catalog; tags; the most discussed mashups and a wiki.

It was a surprising demonstration from a company we have become trained to believe is focused almost entirely on heavyweight business technologies. But perhaps the move is not entirely unexpected. IBM competes with companies like Oracle, IBM and increasingly Google. All these companies are moving into the social computing space. IBM's move into the mashup world may be limited but with its interests in cloud computing you have to wonder what kind of competitive marketplace we should expect to see develop in the year ahead. [Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the IBM Information On Demand Conference.] Discuss

Some of the celebs found all the action distracting. Mya said, "It felt like being at a carnival on one of those whiplash rides with lots of things going on around you." Louie Vito was "just so mesmerized" by his partner Chelsie Hightower. He aims to "get on her level...hopefully before the season ends."

US home prices rise 1.2% in August (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:33:22 AM

US home prices rose for the fourth month running in August, extending the housing market’s rebound after a historic collapse, but labour market fears have darkened the moods of consumers. House prices rose by 1.2 per cent from July to August, according to the closely watched S&P/CaseShiller index. The figures beat economists’ expectations, with 17 out of 20 cities reporting monthly gains. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Android Phones Get a Social Address Book By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:26:45 AM

Originally revealed at this spring's DEMO 09 conference, the Asurion Mobile address book stood out as one of the more memorable mobile products, if not one with the most memorable name. Still called simply " AddressBook," this social mediainfused contacts application is designed exclusively for Android handsets. From within the mobile application, you not only see the profile updates and details from your friends on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Amazon, you can also interact with some of the networks themselves, posting to walls, leaving comments, etc. However, if you would rather contact your friends through more traditional means, the app lets you phone them using its built-in dialer or text them via SMS. Sponsor Since being announced at DEMO, the company has been busy responding to its beta testers' requests for user interface tweaks and more Facebook integration. Where before, the app only displayed Facebook profile photos and status updates, the new application functions more like a mini-Facebook client with access to News Feeds, profile details, photos, links, and more. These extra additions have proven beneficial for increasing the app's usage too - the company found that their testers were spending an

average of 20 minutes a day in the application. Mix-ins Add Social Networking Sites and More to Your Contacts The AddressBook application isn't just one app - it's a combination of the core application and additional, optional apps called "mix-ins." Depending on your own personal preferences, you can download and install any of these mix-ins to integrate the social networking services of your choosing with the main AddressBook. After adding a mix-in, the app also helpfully auto-matches your phone's contacts to your friends on the social networking site you selected. The option to manually match your friends is available as well. For the most part, this feature worked as advertised, but with Twitter there were some issues. The mix-in didn't pull in my complete friends list and when viewing the mix-in itself, contacts were listed as "null" instead of by their Twitter username. It's hard to say if this was an issue with the AddressBook itself or something that was going on with Twitter at the time, but it could point to a few kinks that need to be worked out. Each social network has its own mix-in, but you can also find other mix-ins for social games like "AngelChess" for example. And because anyone can develop these mix-ins, the company hopes that developers will create even more to choose from in the future. In addition, updates from your

Another great feature in the AddressBook app are "Smart Contacts." These are locationbased business listings which provide quick access to maps, addresses, store hours, phone numbers, and more. With these unique contacts added to your address book, you're able to find that company's nearest location with just a few taps. This feature somewhat resembles the "RingPages" feature in the upcoming iPhone app CallSpark. Those, too, are location-aware business listings which can be added to the main contact application. Business Plan: App to be Free, Affiliate Model in the social networks will appear along Future w i t h y o u r o t h e r s t a n d a r d For now, the company isn't as notifications in Android like new focused on their business model voicemails, new emails, new text as they are on just increasing the messages, etc. You can finely adoption and the app's user base. control which networks and friend However, they do say that the groups you receive notifications AddressBook app will remain a f o r , t o o , s o y o u d o n ' t g e t free download and will never o v e r l o a d e d w i t h u p d a t e s . include in-app ads. Instead, the Similarities to Other Social company may eventually be able to generate revenue by sending Contacts Apps A t f i r s t t h e A d d r e s s B o o k traffic to the businesses included application may bring to mind in the Smart Contacts section. another mobile contacts app for Though the details of this affiliate iPhone - the newly launched Gist. model still need to be sketched However, although Gist's app also out, it's clear that the company's let you keep tabs on what your goals don't involve having app contacts are up to through social owners pay for its services. If you're an Android owner networking integrations, Asurion's app is more of a consumer looking to try the AddressBook offering. There's currently no beta, you can download it here. focus on integrating with CRM Discuss systems like Salesforce or even the business-focused social network LinkedIn.com.

Mad Men's Christina Hendricks is on Martha today, making cocktails By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:04:00 AM

I'll admit it: I like Martha(the show and the person). Unlike a lot of daytime shows that feature cooking and other how-to segments, it's not so heavily tilted towards women that men can't get into it. Unlike Rachael Ray, which has way too many segments on makeovers, relationships, and what shoes you should wear. Today she has Mad Men's Joan Holloway herself, Christina Hendricks. It says in the summary for the episode that Hendricks is going to mix Halloween cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. Whenever someone from Mad Men is on Martha they make cocktails. Last season Bryan Batt (Sal Romano) was on and made Manhattans and Rob Roys. Here's a sneak peek. It doesn't really show too much, except that most of the episode is all about spiders. I hate spiders. Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, Daytime, Celebrities, RealityFree, Mad Men Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Flock Releases Spanish Language Web Browser By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

Although social networking sites have released Spanish-language versions - for example, Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:59:28 AM latino.myspace.com- he notes that Flock, the "social web browser" there are "few if any social built on top of Mozilla's Firefox, enabling applications that have has remained somewhat of a niche made the investment to serve this product despite its integrations important market." The Hispanic with the most popular social audience also actively engages in networking sites on the web. social networking activities. More Although its features should have t h a n 4 0 % v i s i t s i t e s l i k e made it a top product in our Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter Facebook and Twitter-obsessed on a daily basis. Thanks to Flock's age, it has clearly remained on the b u i l t - i n s o c i a l n e t w o r k i n g sidelines of the web browser features, says Burkhart, that market. audience can now stay connected Today, Flock is trying a new to those sites and to popular strategy. The company plans to content from Univision.com. extend itself beyond the "social" In order to promote the product niche by trying to find a home in to the Hispanic web audience, the an entirely different one: the homepage of Univision.com will Hispanic web. To tap into this feature a large display ad touting new audience, Flock is releasing a the browser. In addition, there Spanish-language web browser in will be other display ads across p a r t n e r s h i p w i t h U n i v i s i o n the Univision network as well as Interactive Media, the top Spanish pre-roll trailers inserted into video -language media company in the content. Next year, the company U.S. will pursue other offline channels Sponsor to promote the Spanish version of Flock's Univision-Branded Flock, too. Browser As with the specialized versions According to Flock's VP of of Flock that have been released B u s i n e s s D e v e l o p m e n t a n d in the past, such as the green " Market, Dan Burkhart, there are Eco Edition" and the fashionable " now more than 22 million Gloss Edition," this new Hispanics online and the market's Univision-branded version will growth will continue to outpace offer favorite bookmarks, RSS that of the English-speaking web feeds, media streams of popular f o r t h e f o r e s e e a b l e f u t u r e . Univision links, videos, and

the same under the hood. Although it will feature Univision content, Spanish-language menus and soon, a full Spanish-language installer, it's not a new product. It's still the same Flock. And that photos and persistent links to was problem that most people had other areas of Univision.com. It with it in the first place. will also come with a default Earlier this year, when we asked homepage tab that takes you right the question: " why don't you love Flock?" we received over 100 to the Univision homepage. /p> However, the company is quick comments in response. For many to point out that this new version people the browser's interface was is different from the Eco and too busy and cluttered, making Gloss editions of the browser, t h e m f e e l o v e r l o a d e d w i t h both of which are no longer information. Others claimed that supported. While those versions Flock was a resource hog and were clever marketing gimmicks prone to bugs and crashes. And at the time - the Eco edition was still others preferred Webkit-built released on Earth Day, for browsers like Safari and Chrome, instance - neither were able to both of which are known for their attract a wide audience. That's speed. because they didn't have sizeable The question now is whether or d i s t r i b u t i o n p a r t n e r s , s a y s not these same complaints will Burkhart. "By partnering with put off the Hispanic audience, too, Univision, who has been the most or if they will overlook these visited Spanish language website issues because the browser so for many years running, we have uniquely caters to their needs. a dedicated partner who is Only time will tell how well committed to ensuring that the Univision's marketing push Univision Edition of Flock is succeeds, but ultimately, if Flock distributed aggressively." Will the can't address its shortcomings in Hispanic Web Market Help Flock some way, it won't work for any audience, no matter what Succeed? It will be interesting to see how l a n g u a g e t h e y s p e a k . Flock does among the Spanish- The Spanish version of Flock is speaking audience, especially available for download now at because the browser itself is still flock.univision.com. Discuss

'Dancing with the Stars'' Competitors Jump to the Jitterbug (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:20:00 AM

"Dancing with the Stars" competitors were jumping to the jitterbug and gliding to the graceful waltz on Monday night's competition show -- and each of the couples also took to the dance floor for a competition mambo! Click here to see the season nine "Dancing with the Stars" scoreboard. Singer Mya and Dmitry Chaplin boogied to the jitterbug. Head judge Len Goodman took them to task saying, "The last refuge of the untalented is gimmicks and props. You are such a good dancer, it was unnecessary to spend 20 seconds polishing my desk. What you did, you did well. I just wanted more of it." Bruno Tonioli joked, "Cleanliness is next to godliness. What you did was spot on. Your timing was incredible. You were so much in sync." Carrie Ann Inaba agreed with Len, saying, "The jitterbug is where you go wild and crazy. It was under what I expect from you." Mya and Dmitry scored 24 out of 30 points.

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Paul Graham: Priority Access to Twitter Is Practical Necessity By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

In the past, Y Combinator-funded real-time meta-search engine Scoopler worked closely with Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:30:00 PM Twitter. If hardcore hackers had any Said Graham, "Honestly, Twitter doubts whether the real-time web probably has a lot of filters on was a legitimate development those who access them. The only environment, Y Combinator cothing special about this is that we founder Paul Graham is dispelling formalized it with an RFS." them. In an interview with After taking a $2 million dollar Graham, ReadWriteWeb learned investment from Sequoia Capital that the entrepreneur-turnedin March, Y Combinator aims to investor issued a "Request for increase its portfolio companies Startups" (RFS) asking for ideas of the web's leading online video from 40 to roughly 60 per year. from companies utilizing Twitter d e s t i n a t i o n s . T h e T w i t t e r The "Request for Startups" offers and Justin.tv's live video API. partnership is a different story. companies direction in their Groups who are accepted to Y- While it's important that Y applications. Combinator and fall under these Combinator teams have Twitter's Graham notes that when categories will be given "priority support, the question on many i n d i v i d u a l s a p p l y f o r Y access" to Twitter and Justin.tv. people's minds is, "If Twitter is an Combinator, they are asked to Sponsor all-important protocol, then why specify if they are applying with Says Graham, "In the beginning should one group of investors get an RFS in mind. While he people believed Twitter was a fad privileged access to its data-rich estimates that only 10% of and they didn't realize this was a firehose?" applications are directly related to new protocol...In some ways According to Graham, "This is a the RFS, he believes that many Twitter is a replacement for email. practical matter. They need to be who might not apply are inspired We're not doing this to promote able to keep ahead of growth to do so after seeing their ideas Twitter, we genuinely believe it's technically... If thousands of highlighted. The incubator's first important." startups want to talk to you, then requests were issued in August It's obvious why Y Combinator you need to have filters. Even w i t h a c a l l f o r a l t e r n a t i v e companies are able to gain special before publishing this Request for journalism and online retail ideas. support from Justin.tv's founders. Startups, we had a dedicated guy Discuss The lifecasting site took on Y at Twitter who answered Y Combinator seed funding in 2007 Combinator questions." and has since developed into one

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Apprupt: Analytics & Marketing for iPhone App Performance By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/26/2009 11:20:31 PM

The App Store could be your goldmine or simply another dead end. Or the long tail could end up being where your mobile dev shop slowly turns a corner into profitability. But how do developers know where to turn for the fine-tuning that transforms sparse user interest into a robust business? Apprupt is a performance analytics shop focusing specifically on iPhone apps. They track the click-thrus and conversion rates for online and mobile links to iPhone applications, and they claim to help developers find the sweet spot where highly focused user targeting meets pure monetization. But how does the end-of-the-rainbow promise hold up? Sponsor Especially for independent and solo shops, narrowing and enhancing marketing efforts is a smart economic choice. Apprupt gives developers the option to add a single layer into their creations in order to deliver marketing data across multiple sessions.

Clicks, downloads, rates, and revenue are all available from the Apprupt dashboard: Developers can create links for separate campaigns. Each campaign is tracked individually, and the resulting data can be used - much like the feedback from other typical direct response campaigns - to ditch unsuccessful efforts, adjust budgets to support successful campaigns, and conduct testing on which methods will yield the best results. Apprupt analytics apply to such media buys as online or mobile media, be they links or banners, as well as social media promotion on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or blogs. Interestingly enough, app optimization data is offered from Apprupt absolutely free, although premium features may be introduced in the future. For the time being, Apprupt supports iPhone and iPod Touch apps only, but support for other mobile operating systems is in the works. Discuss

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Put Together a Winter Home Emergency Kit [Winter Upgrades] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:30:00 AM

You likely have all sorts of things in your home right now that would serve you well in an emergency, with a few additions and some organization, you'll have a functional kit and contingency plan. Photo by Clairity. Creating a home emergency kit can be a simple to enormous undertaking depending on the level of energy and preparation you want to invest into it. Most people are on the "Stay warm and fed until the power comes back on" camp, not the "Prepared for zombie apocalypse" camp, and though it never hurts to prepare for the worst we'll be focusing more on the former than the latter. Once you read over the following tips you can adopt them to fit your needs based on your locale and weather, size of your homef, and how much storage space you have available. Know The Lay of the Land: Before all else you want to know how to control your home in the event of an emergency. Do you know where the water shutoff valve is? The emergency shut off valve for the gas? Which circuit breakers go to which part of your home? Many home emergencies can be quickly neutralized by knowing how to shut down the infrastructure of the home. Make

sure the rest of the people in the house know how to do things like kill the water or electricity. It may not seem critical now, but if a pine tree comes crashing through your kitchen and water is spraying everywhere, knowing how to stop the geyser of water becomes quite important. Rotate Your Semi-Perishable Food: Canned goods and bottles of water keep well enough, but not forever. Arranging your pantry so that cans don't linger at the back ensures that when you're snowed in you'll be eating fresh canned fruits and vegetables instead of the dusty cans from three Thanksgivings ago. You can go all out and build a rotating

are less than ideal compared to the efficiency and safety of a central furnace but when operated properly can help keep you warm until power and order are restored. You absolutely need to make sure that whatever alternative source of heat you plan on using during an outage is clean, operational, and that everyone who will be using it understands how to use it safely. Clean out the chimney before you need it and give that kerosene heater a trial run when you're not under pressure. Unfortunately, unlike swapping candles for LED flashlights, there isn't an ultra modern replacement for ditching combustion-based heat for something fancy. Safety first! Tools and Materials for Emergency Repairs: You don't shelf to keep your canned goods Have Alternative Heat: If you're need to be ready for a full scale fresh, but for smaller scale storage preparing for a winter storm you remodeling project but you do a simple wire-frame can dispenser most likely live somewhere with need some basics. What if a tree will fit on most pantry shelves. icy winter conditions and deep b r a n c h f a l l s a n d b r e a k s a Keep Batteries and Flashlights on snow fall. When keeping warm window? In the middle of summer H a n d : Y o u ' l l a l w a y s w a n t during a winter storm there are it an annoyance, in the middle of a batteries on hand. When it comes two levels of warmth: safe and winter outage it's a giant icy hole to keeping the lights on when the comfortable. If you're wearing to the outside world that will drop power is out, flashlights are king. layered clothing and have lots of the temperature of your home Candles are a tragedy waiting to blankets, 40-50F in your house is below freezing in a matter of happen. Hundreds of house fires s a f e b u t n o t p a r t i c u l a r l y hours. Some heavy duty plastic are started every year during comfortable. Nobody will get sheeting and duct tape might not power outages as people light up frost bite and pipes won't freeze. have the insulation value of a candles en masse to brighten their C o m f o r t a b l e i s a p e r s o n a l triple-pane window but it will dark homes. It's 2009, you can thingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I'm comfy at 55F, most keep hot air from drafting right b u y u l t r a - e f f i c i e n t L E D people prefer at least in the upper out into your yard. flashlights for less than the cost of 60sâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and you'll need to plan Communicating from the Winter a DVD. Even with the power out accordingly for it. Fireplaces, Wonderland: Phone lines can be there's no excuse for lighting your kerosene space heaters, and other PUT page 44 home with fire. combustion-based sources of heat

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damaged by winds and ice, but it is very rare for a winter storm to wipe out the cellular network in an area. Keep your cellphone charged and make sure you have a car charger for it—if the power outage is extended you'll need to top it off at some point. If cellphone service is spotty, you may want to consider sending an SMS message to communicate with friends and family. Often times SMS messages go through just fine when trying to place and actual voice call is sketchy due to weak signal. If you live in the country side you might consider investing in a couple GMRS/FRS hand-held radios with some neighbors. You can pick up a modest but functional walkietalkie set for around $30. Stay Well Stocked: If you live in an area where weather can keep you holed up, you need to get into the practice of shopping ahead. When you're buying your regular groceries, purchase a few extra non-perishable things to stock in the pantry. Don't wait to do your

grocery shopping until it is critical that you get out that day to do so. The same principle applies to non -food items like batteries, salt and sand for your walk and driveway, and keeping your gas tank full in your car. Scaling Preparation for Your Situation and Budget: Finally, as we mentioned above, you'll need to scale your level of preparation to your budget and needs. If you can afford it and live in an area with frequent power outages, although a bit pricey, a home generator is a great investment. An apartment dweller that experiences extremely infrequent and brief outages could simply stockpile some batteries under the bed. The important part in preparing for inclement weather and power outages is to run through potential and reasonable scenarios and what you need to do in various situations that may arise. What if an ice-laden tree falls onto your house? What if the power is out for more than a day? How will I

heat food with no electricity? Does the heating system of your home require electricity? Have I told my roommate, spouse, or child what the plan is in the event of an emergency? Asking and answering questions like these well before you're under the stress of the actual situation helps you plan properly and keep stress to a minimum when that Douglas Fir actually does come through the picture window or the guy on the emergency weather radio says power won't be restored until next Tuesday. A small amount of planning now yields a lot of comfort later. Have some tips and tricks for winter-preparedness? Survived a week-long power outage in comfort and style? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Blake Griffin Could Miss Six Weeks By Matt Watson (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/27/2009 2:10:00 AM

by Matt Watson Filed under: Clippers, NBA Injuries On the eve of yet another rebuilding season, the Los Angeles Clippers revealed on Monday night that Blake Griffin's knee injury was far more serious than initially feared: he's been

diagnosed with a stress fracture in his left kneecap (the patella, to be precise) and could be sidelined up

to six weeks. He suffered the injury in the team's final preseason game. Blake Griffin Could Miss Six Weeks originally appeared on Fanhouse NBA Blog on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:10:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Google Voice Offers Voicemail Without a New Number [Google Voice] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

you'd like, and accessible from your Voice web page (or playable in Gmail). It's a similar offering to Want in on Google Voice's web- what services like YouMail have based, transcribed, custom- been offering for some time for greeted voicemail, but you're not phones of all kinds, but with quite ready to adopt a new seemingly unlimited transcription number? Starting tonight, Voice and storage space. You'll also be users can choose to keep their able to set up custom greetings for number and still get Google's each caller to your voicemail. upgraded voicemail features. Google touts those features, and You'll still need a Google Voice their concept of helping you keep invitation to get started, which y o u r v o i c e m a i l c o n s i s t e n t you can request for yourself or between carriers, in this justbeg a friend for. Once you're in, released video: you can choose to either pick up a Does voicemail alone and the new number for the full Voice promise of being able to keep s e r v i c e — v o i c e m a i l , S M S , your number tempt you toward selective call forwarding, and Google Voice—if you're able to more—or keep your number and track down an invite? Tell us what walk through Google's forwarding you think of Google's new pitch setup for your cellphone, in what for your phone traffic in the the search giant is branding as comments. Google Voice with "Google Voicemail." your existing number[Google Your voicemail will be routed to Voice Blog] Google's servers, transcribed and sent to you by SMS or email, if Submitted at 10/26/2009 9:01:00 PM

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Google Voice AIR App Keeps Voicemail and SMS on Your Desktop [Downloads] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:00:00 AM

GazoPa Finds Images Similar to Uploads, Links, or Drawings [Image Search] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

you're going for, but we don't have to worry about CyberNet Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:00:00 AM overtaking collective human Hitachi-powered image search intelligence just yet. site GazoPa (boy, they're really For images you're passing on a out of web names, no?) is a fairly URL or upload for, GazoPa seems robust engine for finding same or a lot more serious and useful. similar images. Its differentiation Hover over an image to get a comes in hunting similar videos, good deal of info, or to perform digging through Flickr, and letting another similar search for that you draw your search. picture. The Flickr integration is Yep, you can use GazoPa's very useful, allowing for Creative simple drawing tool to roughly Commons licensing filters, and outline the type of image you're video search worked for a quick looking for, and GazoPa will use Google demonstration frame I its search prowess to find, well, uploaded. something akin to what you GazoPa is free to use, no sign-up scribbled. As you can see from r e q u i r e d . G a z o P a [ v i a the test result below, it knows the T e c h C r u n c h ] basic shapes and color tones

Adobe AIR: If you'd like to keep quick access to your Google Voice voicemail and SMS messages handily in place on your dock or taskbar, a cross-platform app gives you exactly that by packaging up Google Voice's mobile site. Just like on a mobile browser, Voice's interface is surprisingly spry for such a pared-down site, but it's also lightning fast running on a desktop or laptop. The app

allows you to play and pause voicemail messages through your system's audio, set up calls with your hooked-up phones, and run

through your contacts and search your SMS and transcription history. With Google Voice no longer requiring a new number, this little app might a nice introduction to the service for those who don't want to commit to keeping a browser tab open all day. Google Voice Desktop is a free download, works on any system with Adobe AIR installed. Google V o i c e D e s k t o p Application[R.stoeber Group via jkOnTheRun]

Do more 3D movies mean 3D at home? By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:02:00 AM

All this talk of 3-D television has really puzzled me. It seems the companies are pushing more for the technology than the customers actually want it. It's the debut of the Toyota Prius all over again. Television manufacturers are hoping the onslaught of 3-D movies, such as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, will increase the whisper-level

the audience is forced to look at the screen, whereas TV is a completely voluntary viewing experience. If there is a way to utilize the technology to enhance the experience on more than just a visual level, like Comedy Central's first-person junk-jokefest Secret Girlfriend, then maybe you've got gold. clamors for 3-D televisions. The Filed under: Industry, HDTV, TVs should be in stores next year. Hardware, Reality-Free To me, the two experiences are Permalink| Email this| | almost completely different. 3-D C o m m e n t s films work in the theaters because

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Cult Hit Settlers of Catan Comes to the iPhone By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:59:30 AM

If you are or ever have been the board gaming type, you may have run across Settlers of Catan, or at least heard of it from a fanatic friend. The game, which is a bit like Risk but without the war (at least in its basic incarnation), is all about resource gathering, trading, and colonization. Fans of the series (and there are many) will be pleased to know that Settlers is now playable on your iPhone thanks to Catan ($4.99, iTunes link), an app that faithfully recreates the experience on your mobile device. If you aren’t yet a fan, Catan for your iPhone or iPod touch might just be the thing that converts you. Gameplay If you’ve played Settlers the board game, or if you’ve played it on your PC or Xbox 360, then you’ll already be familiar with the gameplay in the iPhone version, since it uses the standard rule set. Expansions are available for the board game which add more tiles or new gameplay elements, but for now, Catan on the iPhone doesn’t offer any of these additional modes of play. The board consists of 19

hexagonal tiles, themselves laid out in a hexagon pattern. Each tile represents one resource, either Sheep, Wheat, Ore, Lumber or Brick. Each player gets to place settlements at the corners of these tiles, and collect resources from them when the number on the tile is rolled. Each tile has a number from 1 to 12, and each player rolls two six-sided die at the beginning of their turn. Some tiles, like those with a 6 or an 8, come up more frequently, statistically speaking, and are strategically advantageous because of this. The goal in the game is to amass resources, which you can use to buy more settlements, roads, and other things to earn victory points. In traditional play, the first person with 10 victory points is the winner. Catan on the iPhone lets you play with between three and four players. You can either play against computer opponents, or play hot seat multiplayer mode, in which you pass the iPhone off to other players when it’s their turn. It’s not an ideal multiplayer situation, since you have to trust your partner not to glance at your resource distribution, but without a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth option, it at least works well enough to be

playable. Sights and Sounds Clearly, Catan wasn’t rushed out to the masses on the iPhone. Developer United Soft Media (USM) took its time in refining the look and feel of this cult sensation before its release, probably predicting correctly that fans of the game would be sticklers when it came this version’s faithfulness to the

original. The board is viewed from a topdown perspective, and you can zoom in or out using touch controls. Your resource count is displayed at the bottom of the screen in a convenient and nonobtrusive status bar. All of your controls are nested in a pop-out tab interface usually hidden at the right side of the screen behind an

expecting. It also said that third-quarter profit had fallen by half to just under $5bn, a much better

performance than analysts had expected. Shares in the group rose 4.2 per cent to 591p in lunchtime London trading, the biggest

arrow button. Sound is great, with a nice, fitting soundtrack running in the background, and appropriate sound effects for things like trades, resources, and standard button presses. In fact, I’d say it compares favorably even to the console version on the Xbox 360. Conclusion Whether you’ve heard of Settlers of Catan before or not, the iPhone port is an awesome time-waster. It’s engrossing, rich, and carefully tailored to the handheld touchcontrolled platform. I will say that I found the difficulty to be rather on the challenging side, even when playing against a stacked line up of all the weakest computer players. The Xbox version has both a universal difficulty switcher and different AIs, allowing for greater versatility, and I would recommend Catan for iPhone adopt that in future, too. Still, for $4.99, you couldn’t ask for a better or more challenging pocket strategy game. Growing mobile data use turned up heat on carriers in Q3. Read the, " Mobile Q3 Wrap-up."

BP lifts cost-cutting target by $1bn (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:57:38 AM

BP, Europe’s second-biggest oil

company, said on Tuesday that its cost-cutting programme would yield $1bn (£610m) more in savings this year than it had been

gainers on the FSE 100 index. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Mac OS X 10.6.2 Update Points to New MacBook Pros By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

equally hefty assortment of bugs and issues affecting Snow Leopard. Most notably, this Submitted at 10/26/2009 7:32:47 AM update is expected to fix a serious Two Spanish Apple sites are bug that can result in users losing reporting that the latest build of all their personal data. Apple’s upcoming update to its MacRumor’s Doctor Q lists other Mac OS X Snow Leopard fixes. software contains references to asThe seed is said to contain yet unreleased new models of dozens of minor bug fixes and MacBook Pro. performance improvements in Build 10C531 lists “MacBook these areas: Address Book, Pro 6,1” and “MacBook Pro 6,2”, AppleScript, AppleScriptObjC, an indication of major revisions of ATS, ColorSync, Component the MacBook Pro lineup. The Manager, Core Animation, Core current family of MacBook Pro’s Audio, Core Chinese Engine, range from 5,1 to 5,5. Core Data, Core Graphics, Core Last week’s introduction of Text, File Manager, Garbage refreshed iMacs brought Intel’s Collection, Graphic drivers, Help new Core i5 and i7 (Nehalem) Viewer, ImageKit, IOHIDFamily, processors to Apple’s most Networking, NS Image, OpenCL, popular desktop machines, but the OpenGL, OSA, QT Kit, Speech refreshed product lineup didn’t Recognition, Sync Services, and include any new MacBook Pros. Xtype. Applesana suggests that the new There is no indication yet as to MacBook Pro models will likely functionality. Nothing has been Apple’s developers have been when 10.6.2 will be released, feature quad core processors said about new features, however, working hard. For those keeping though the speed at which these b a s e d o n I n t e l ’ s A r r a n d a l e the user guide for Apple’s new count, this is 10.6.2’s fourth builds are being developed — and architecture which brings i5/i7 M a g i c M o u s e m a k e s t h e developer build in less than a the urgent need for that datatechnology to a more power- following reference to Mac OS X month. The first, 10C514f, was wiping bug fix — mean we efficient mobile chip. 10.6.2: seeded on Oct. 5. Only four days probably won’t be waiting much The last time Apple refreshed the To use your Apple Magic Mouse later, on Oct. 9, Apple produced longer. MacBook Pro line was in early and its full range of features, build 10C519f. Developers were As Q4 begins, online video is June at the Worldwide Developers update your Mac to Mac OS X treated to build 10C527f just one now mainstream. Read the, " Conference. Hefty Update version 10.5.8 or later and install week after that. And finally, Connected Consumer Q3 Wrap10.6.2 is a significant update to the Wireless Mouse Software 10C531 brings us to today. up." Snow Leopard, bringing a raft of Update 1.0; or update to Mac OS At nearly 500MB, 10.6.2 is a bug fixes and performance X version 10.6.2 or later. hefty update, addressing an improvements to existing

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Left 4 Dead 2 commercial hits a home run ... for GameStop By Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:00:00 AM

Okay, we won't deny it -- the first TV spot for Left 4 Dead 2 is pretty cool. After all, it's got the four survivor characters in a baseball stadium filled with the infected undead, one of which gets knocked into the bleachers (or at least a few feet through the air) by a baseball bat. But as much as it's an advertisement for the game, it's also one for GameStop, driving home the fact that the American baseball bat is available only through pre-order at the retailer. Good for them! It's a bit of a downer, though, for those who've reserved the game elsewhere. Or what about the people who just walk into a store on release day to snap up a copy? We've got it! The next ad should feature the survivors being ripped apart by zombies, with the tagline "Pre-order or Die!" We mean, a company's eventually going to go there someday, right? Left 4 Dead 2 commercial hits a home run ... for GameStop originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Rumor Has It: Apple Sharing Tablet Info With Australian Media?

Honda almost trebles profit forecast

By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

(Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:50:30 AM

The tablet rumor mill is heating up, which is in keeping with the early 2010 release date that’s been mentioned in earlier reports. The latest news to hit the web is that Apple has been talking to the Australian media about content provision for the fanboi device of legend. The news comes via Australian paper The Sydney Morning Herald, which reports that Apple is providing technical details about the tablet multimedia device (which remains unconfirmed, despite all the buzz surrounding it) to media providers in the hopes of sussing out how strong interest is. No one representing the Australian companies approached would actually go on record about the recent sales pitch by Apple, but presumably the Herald’s source is someone from one of them speaking off the record. The source clearly wasn’t privy to the specifications themselves, or I’m the sure the Herald would’ve

printed those, too. Instead, the paper just mentions existing rumors about the device’s size, touchscreen and purpose. Also mentioned is the Kindle, which had previously attempted to make the same kind of overtures in Australia that Apple is supposedly now making. The problem with the Kindle was that Amazon wanted a 70 percent cut of revenue from all media sold for its device, while Apple is said to be looking for the same 30 percent that it asks of developers

selling applications via the App Store. That’s one of the benefits of being a hardware company first and foremost, I suppose. The content will apparently be delivered via individually branded apps that will allow for in-app purchases and direct digital distribution — which reinforces rumors that the tablet will be based on iPhone OS, not on Mac’s desktop and notebook OS X. Personally, I’m finding it harder and harder to pinpoint exactly where this device will fit

in with current customer needs. It seems sort of like a Nokia Internet Tablet or Archos’ recent Androidbased media player. Earlier this week, it was reported that New York Times editor Bill Keller mentioned the “impending Apple slate” in an off-the-record meeting with newsroom staff, and many NYT executives and book publishers have made comments in the past year about Apple approaching to take the temperature for a tablet-type device. Long story short, the storm clouds are gathering, and now there’s little else we can do but watch and wait for the rain to start, unless Apple has found little reason to make it rain at all. All of these rumors talk about Apple gauging the interest of media companies in such a device, yet none talk about how the companies in question responded to said inquiries. If an acceptable level of interest wasn’t present, could Apple shelve this tablet before it ever sees the light of day?

costume? How about two, with one riding the other? Check out the photo bottom right for the Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:03:47 AM result. My favourite time of year. Photos from{SNS Photography}, What’s better than a dog in a EllenJo, serena.photography, j e f f d i l l o n p h o t o g r a p h y ,

Honda Motor on Tuesday trebled its net profit forecast for the year to Y155bn ($1.7bn), displaying resilience amid an industry crisis that has bankrupted two US competitors and dragged local rivals deep into the red. Japan’s second-biggest carmaker, which is alone among the top three Japanese producers in forecasting a profit for the year to next March, now expects to increase its earnings by 13 per cent compared with a year earlier. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

NYT Editor Hints at Upcoming Apple Slate

Dogs in costumes By Heather Champ (Flickr Blog)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:10:50 AM

nutmegknitter, and minicoopergirl06. Check out more fabulousness in the Dogs in Costumes group pool. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 7:27:32 AM

NYT page 49

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NYT continued from page 48

The new week begins with a new Tablet-related rumor that’s bouncing its way cheekily around the tubes. This one comes to us courtesy of New York Times executive editor Bill Keller. According to Nieman Journalism Lab, “…the digital staff gathered for an ‘all hands’ meeting at TheTimesCenter to hear updates on various initiatives in advertising, business development, and content.” Sounds riveting. Anyway, Keller delivered a lengthy monologue (you can watch the whole thing here) but, around eight minutes in, he says: “I’m hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate, or whatever comes after that.” Is that simply speculation on Keller’s part, or is he a man in possession of privileged information? As I mentioned last week, Apple is said to have recently been in secret talks with

publishers about content delivery via a new platform, and given Apple’s long relationship with the New York Times, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility Keller would be in on the inside track of those talks. Lingering a little longer on the “slate” moniker, Edible Apple reminds us of a series of tweets from Kevin Rose a few weeks ago, who, while enjoying a few recreational beverages at a bar, met an inebriated lady claiming to be an Apple employee: Omg just met a drunk girl from apple “no apple tablet coming… well, we wouldn’t call it a tablet” haha leak!! So, they wouldn’t call it a Tablet… but perhaps they’d call it a Slate, yes? Kevin Rose has been wrong oh-so-many times before. But sometimes he’s right. So these two threads of discourse may be contextually connected in just the right way to lead to conclusions (and the “jumping to” thereof)… or they’re really a big fat nothing. Whichever you choose, I still recommend the usual pinch of salt.

The speculation fun doesn’t end there. Engadget is reporting the availability(via wholesaler China Ontrade Limited) of the snappilytitled “Apple iTablet iPhone 4 Generation SIM Tray.” The product description for the diminutive plastic-and-metal widget reads: Original Apple iTablet iPhone 4 Generation (Probably iTablet) SIM Tray OEM This part came from Foxconn to our warehouse at 10.23.2009. China Ontrade’s website provides this visual comparison of the 4G tray with its 3G/3GS predecessor; So there you have it. A bit unusual to start the week with a Tablet rumor roundup, but hey, it’s better than reading another Windows 7 review. In Q3, Uncle Sam was the green By Jason Hughes (TV Squad) IT king maker. Read the, " Green Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:00:00 AM IT Q3 Wrap-up."

Review: Heroes Strange Attractors see. Summer Glau? Jennifer Aniston? Bill Cosby (he has the power of slow dancing)? (S04E07) We'll have to wait until They're keeping things pretty next week to see Hiro try to save simple now, not stretching us Charlie. This week, we stayed beyond three storylines per with Noah and Jeremy, checked e p i s o d e , a n d t h e s e n s e o f back in on Claire and Gretchen, excitement and wonder really is and saw how Matt was faring with back in a way I've not seen since his unwanted head-guest. And the first season. I'll not go so far things didn't really go well for any as to say this is the Heroes of old, of them. but it's a helluva lot better than the The series is really finding a nice Heroes of lately. stride, for those of us left to enjoy Continue reading Review: Heroes it. I'm racking my brain trying to - Strange Attractors think of ways to inject a sense of Filed under: OpEd, Heroes, excitement into the show to lure Episode Reviews, Reality-Free some of its wayward former Permalink| Email this| | viewers back. Who could they C o m m e n t s cast for an arc on Heroes that people would have to tune in to

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iPhone 3GS Bound for Orange on Nov. 10 By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 9:09:46 AM

UK folks interested in the iPhone 3GS only have mere weeks to wait before they can shop around and escape the tyranny of O2, according to a report from The Guardian this past weekend. In fact, in only two short weeks, Orange will begin offering the coveted Apple handheld, on Nov. 10. That’s the day following the end of O2’s exclusivity contract with Apple, so it literally couldn’t begin offering it any earlier. No word yet on when specifically Vodafone will begin offering the device, though it will eventually join its two rivals in selling the 3GS sometime in the new year. According to The Guardian, despite the iPhone’s strong performance to date, interest in the device in the UK isn’t showing signs of stopping anytime soon: Certainly interest in the iPhone among UK consumers shows no signs of abating. Already Orange has had over 200,000 customers register their interest in getting the

device, before the company has even said what it will charge for it. While the timing seems ideal in terms of sparking a holiday price war for Christmas consumer dollars, that scenario is actually fairly unlikely, since Orange UK has made statements to the contrary, claiming that instead of offering a lower price on the device than O2, it will try to attract customers with added value. That might take the form of accessories, temporary contract incentives, or pre-loaded applications, which is the mobile equivalent of bloatware, if you ask me. It’s a disheartening sign for those who were expecting a more open

field with regards to the sale of the iPhone to result in more affordable prices, but remember that this is only the beginning. Vodafone will enter the fray in 2010, as will the smallest UK carrier, 3, according to recent statements by the company’s CEO, Kevin Russell: I would expect the iPhone to be on the 3 network sometime during 2010. At the moment, we don’t have the iPhone. We don’t really have any smartphones, but if we improve our range of smartphones and introduce the iPhone then our data traffic will grow massively. If networks want to use the iPhone to do more than just retain existing subscribers, they’ll have to begin offering clearly defined advantages, and nothing attracts attention more than lower prices. Remember that the iPhone is already among the most heavily subsidized devices on the market, though, so it isn’t clear how much further providers can go without seriously affecting profitability. What was the big news that happened in your sector in Q3? Catch up with GigaOM Pro's, " Quarterly Wrap-ups."

Kristin Chenoweth to return to Glee By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)

so could this second visit be paving the way for a place in the Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:33:00 AM cast? Again, Murphy is keeping I didn't think we'd seen the last of mum, but what if it is true? Where boozy old gleester April Rhodes, would they put April Rhodes? Do and now it's official. Kristin you really want her to be a Chenoweth is reprising her role member of glee club? Would she on Glee for at least one more help Will coach? Will she form a episode, to air in early 2010. love square between Will, Terri Creator Ryan Murphy didn't and Emma? After all, he did have divulge any more info about her a monster crush on her in high role, so there's no telling if she'll school. spend her time getting Kurt drunk Continue reading Kristin again, or if she actually learned a Chenoweth to return to Glee lesson from her last visit and Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, found happiness in Branson. Casting, Reality-Free, Glee What's interesting is that Permalink| Email this| | Chenoweth has made no secret C o m m e n t s about her desire to return to Glee, perhaps in a permanent capacity,

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Random travel notes (Scripting News) Submitted at 10/26/2009 3:26:58 PM

I chose to travel with my newish 13 inch MacBook Pro instead of my newish Asus Eee PC. It's just a one-day trip to LA and I figured I wouldn't be needing the 8-hour battery, but there is a fundamental difference between the two computers. With the MacBook I'm always looking for a power outlet. With the Asus, you know you're going to make it all the way without a charge, so you can relax about power. Apple may think they have the battery issue licked, but they don't. And the fact that you can't carry a spare battery for this computer is a real step backward. The computer also likes to randomly reboot. It's happened four or five times so far. Just happened a few minutes ago. Luckily I didn't lose any work. Also the computer just disappears for a minute at random times. Computers have been doing this for 25 years. When will someone make an operating system that's always there for the user, no matter what crazy thing the OS has to do to keep itself running. All the michegas about Macs

working better, that's a half-truth and half-lie. Speaking of lies, the lies caused by the Suggested User List are approaching epicness. CNN ran a piece today that profiles five unknown superstars of Twitter, all with over a million followers. They only mentioned the SUL once, in passing, when they were describing Veronica Belmont. So the myth created by the SUL, that there are superstars and the rest of us, keeps growing. And then you have to wonder how much of a tool the SUL is for Twitter, to keep people in line. Pierre Omidyar is on the list now, and he wonders how many of his 99K followers have any idea who he is. He has Fuck You Money so there's no way he's controlled. But Anil Dash is now on the list too and has 99K followers, and he's a working man, and I'm sure he can be influenced. I unfollowed Anil when he made a joke about how it feels like being on the Yankees. Exactly. That's what I dislike intensely about the Yankees. Their sense of entitlement. Maybe not so much by the players, but by the fans. Twitter is like blogging, it's best when it's just people. The people with millions of unearned

followers must be uncomfortable, wondering when the millions are going to catch on. Is 20 people enough to get started with? That's what a new user gets by default. I seriously doubt it. My Berkeley page is just starting to get interesting, and it follows a list of 167 people. And they weren't chosen at random. They all have one thing in common, they're neighbors of mine. The other day I said I was starting a linkblog. It's now visible at protoblogger.com. I really like the way it feels. I'm using the LifeLiner tool so it's hooked into rssCloud and it publishes through wordpress.com and I can route a link to Twitter with a single click. The idea of restarting our blogs came up on today's Rebooting The News, with our guest this week, Jeff Jarvis. This is how I think we will restart them. By making websites that carry the kind of content we're flowing through Twitter. I was wrong the other day about what the BuddyPress theme is for. I'm still confused about the layers of WordPress. I'll figure it out.

So You Think You Can Dance dropouts and injury spoilers By Michael Pascua (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:31:00 AM

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I predicted that illness would fell more reality show competitors in last week's TV Squad APB podcast. It turns out that the first to be affected was Billy Bell. Fox's official website posted a message wishing Billy a speedy recovery. There were no details of his illness. It's a shame to see Billy go so soon. After seeing Monday's performance, which was pretaped, he showed power and technique. He hopes to try out for Season Seven. If you want to be spoiled on who replaced him, the replacement's partner and dance, and another injury continue reading. Continue reading So You Think

You Can Dance dropouts and injury spoilers Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, So You Think You Can Dance Read| Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Around the Net In Media: Malls Enjoy Big Boost in Drug, Insurance Ads (MediaPost | Media News)

in the second half of the year, per Eye Corp., which sells advertising in 250 malls nationwide. As holiday retail season nears, Pharmaceutical, insurance and advertisers are slowly returning to sports marketers spent four times the malls. Several categories have as much on mall advertising significantly increased spending b e t w e e n J u l y a n d O c t o b e r , Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:04:04 PM

compared to last year. Energy and fuel, fashion and communications categories have doubled spending. "We're not seeing growth limited to one or two areas. The ad dollars are coming in from virtually all

sectors," says David Gibbs, CEO about 5% in 2009. of Eye. This content has passed through But it's hard to gauge whether the fivefilters.org. spending boost will translate into growth for the mall segment. Most forecasts peg the total out-of -home medium will be down

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Bill Cosby awarded Mark Twain Prize

The Season Nine 'Dancing with the Stars' Scoreboard

By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:03:00 AM

One of America's greatest TV icons has been officially recognized as one of its greatest humorists. Yes, he's still one of the greatest TV icons, but giving him another honor for his work in TV is like giving Jay Leno a free car. Bill Cosby received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on Monday at the Kennedy Center. The event, set for broadcast on PBS on Nov. 4., featured presentations and words from comedy notables such as Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld. It also featured a Cosby Show reunion of sorts with Phylicia Rashad and

9 wk 10 wk11 Aaron Carter How did your faves rank on the 32 27 21 18 24 33* "Dancing with the Stars" ***--* Ashley Hamilton scoreboard tonight? 19****** Here's the "Dancing with the **** Chuck Liddell 22 19 17 Stars" scoreboard up to Oct. 26, 17*** 2009: **** Debi Mazar 22 21 --- wk 17**** 1 wk **** Donny Osmond 30 25 21 24 2 wk 29 31* 3 wk **** Joanna Krupa 34 20 23 26 4 wk 24 36* Malcolm-Jamal Warner. It's a 5 wk **** Kathy Ireland 20 18***** good thing Dr. Huxtable didn't 6 wk **** Kelly Osbourne 31 take his boy out of the world after 7 19 20 23 24 25* all. wk **** Louie Vito 27 19 20 16 22 Filed under: Celebrities, Awards, 8 wk 24* Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments Submitted at 10/26/2009 10:01:00 PM

**** Macy Gray 19****** **** Mark Dacascos 29 21 18 22 26 32* **** Melissa Joan Hart 24 19 19 28 23 24* **** Michael Irvin 19 20 14 16 21 22 * **** Mya 31 27 27 28 27 33 * **** Natalie Coughlin 27 21 26 24 22* * **** Tom DeLay 20 18 15**** ****- -

Selig's New Blunder: November Baseball By Jay Mariotti (FanHouse)

years to play the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:20:00 AM what should be a compelling by Jay Mariotti matchup of monstrous talent and Filed under: MLB NEW YORK - East Coast psychosis. - The lords of baseball don't The problem? Look at the realize it, probably because calendar, stupid. The Series is they're old and stubborn and semi- starting later than ever, on Oct. senile. But their showcase event, 28, and potentially could finish the World Series, never has with a Game 7 in what very s e e m e d m o r e i r r e l e v a n t i n possibly would be a frigid, American life. I say it even as the blustery Yankee Stadium on New York Yankees, a world- November the friggin' fi-fi-fi- which is not the smart way to famous brand name with gaudy fifth. That means the Boys of determine a champion in a game stars and Hollywood girlfriends, Summer are perilously close to of intellectual nuance and patient, return for the first time in six becoming the Icecubes of Winter,

incremental drama. Though so many of these postseason contests have been cool to watch, I've also found myself thinking at times, "Can we please finish all this?" instead of sitting back and enjoying the action. Selig's New Blunder: November Baseball originally appeared on Fanhouse - Jay Mariotti on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:20:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Yanks Are Four Wins From Ending World Series ‘Drought’ (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:46:51 AM

Let’s take a moment to think of the fans — waiting, worrying, wondering: when would it happen? Would it ever happen YANKS page 53

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again? It had been five long seasons since the New York Yankees last made the World Series, and fans had to be afraid that OK, sorry, I can’t do this. There is nothing surprising about the Yankees — stacked with future Hall of Famers, wellcompensated up and down the roster and seemingly inevitable since late July — making it to the World Series. Their 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday night made it official, setting up a Fall Classic matchup between the Bombers and the Philadelphia Phillies. Whether it was a victory for loosey-goosey shaving-cream-pie jollity or just another trip around the block for the $200-million-plus steamroller depends on your perspective. But it wasn’t surprising. Reuters Who says money can’t buy happiness? “Vestiges of the old Yankee attitude — that they’re better than everyone — still exist and probably always will,” Yahoo’s Jeff Passan writes. “It’s not bragging if it’s true, right? [CC] Sabathia signed here for a reason, and so did [Mark] Teixeira and [A.J.] Burnett and all of the others since 2004: To a baseball player, being a Yankee remains the ultimate. For the money and the prestige and the challenge. Nowhere else is greatness an obligation.” That obligation had seemed to weigh especially heavily on Alex Rodriguez, by dint of his actual postseason struggles and (more enduringly) the media narrative that he just couldn’t get it done in

the clutch. Note the past tense there. After two postseason rounds, Rodriguez owns a .438 batting average, .548 on-base percentage, five homers and 12 RBIs, and has seemingly wriggled free of what had proven to be a particularly weighty and illtempered monkey on his back. “Finally, A-Rod is going to the World Series, and going in a manner he probably never even allowed himself to dream after his past failures in October,” John Harper writes in the New York Daily News. “Finally he found a way to play through all the expectations, found a way to stop trying so hard that he got in the way of his own talent, and once again he said it all goes back to re -committing to baseball after his steroids admission in the spring and playing for the team after hip surgery.” While A-Rod’s offense was a big part of the win, it’s worth remembering the Angels for all they contributed to the Yankees’ trip to the Series. The top of the Angels’ order struggled terribly. Their pitchers issued 38 walks. Players made several painful baserunning miscues. And, after two more errors Sunday, the Angels finished the series with eight errors in six games after committing a club-record-low 85 in 162 regular season games. “At a very critical time they were just awful,” the Orange County Register’s Mark Whicker writes. “The 5-2 loss, and 4-2 series loss, was absorbed by the more tentative team.” In the Los

Angeles Times, Mike DiGiovanna outlines the Angels’ collapse. Elsewhere in the Times, Bill Dwyre bemoans the protracted, very un-baseball shape forced upon the postseason by Fox’s television scheduling demands.* * * I got many things wrong in last week’s Fix NFL Picks, but few of my predictions proved quite as resoundingly wrong as my halfjoking burial of the Cincinnati Bengals. It was something of a reflex, considering that the Bengals have had one winning season since 1990. But the Bengals thrashed the Chicago Bears 45-10 on Sunday and now share space with the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers atop the AFC Central. “They are Bungles no more,” Dennis Dillon writes in The Sporting News. “Let’s just say it: The Bengals are among the best teams in the league.” The Steelers kept pace with the Bengals by handing the Minnesota Vikings their first loss of the season in a 27-17 decision. It might’ve been closer had Brett Favre not tossed a late-game pick, with the Vikings in field-goal range that was returned 82 yards for a touchdown. At CBS Sports, Pete Prisco wonders whether Favre’s shaky showing signaled the start of a late-season slide for the second consecutive season for the 40-year-old gunslinger. The New England Patriots thrashed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as thoroughly as anticipated Sunday. The Pats’ 35-

7 win was more notable for its venue — London’s Wembley Stadium — than anything that happened in the game. Plenty of fans were on hand, but the Times of London’s Nick Szczepanik thinks the NFL still hasn’t demonstrated that American football will ever truly be at home in the U.K. “It was a great occasion if not a great game, and the NFL piled on the razzmatazz,” Szczepanik writes. “But it failed to prove its point. Of course NFL fans were going to flock to see the best team in the sport’s recent history. So what? The NFL may only know that they have reached the limits of Britain’s potential when it fails. If there is a full house to see the Carolina Panthers take on the Buffalo Bills, the NFL can take over the world, never mind Wembley.”* * * The teams at the very top of college football didn’t budge over the weekend, and likely won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. After a dramatic 15-13 win at Michigan State, though, the University of Iowa has forced the game’s biggest boys to make some extra room at the top. The Hawkeyes jumped to fourth in the BCS standings after the Michigan State win — sealed by a late touchdown pass from Ricky Stanzi to Marvin McNutt on a trick play — and are undefeated and seemingly cruising towards a Big Ten title. This is doubly impressive considering that Iowa has proven more proficient at piling up offfield infractions than wins in

recent years. At CBS Sports, Dennis Dodd marvels at the gutty, gritty team’s ability to just keep on winning. “Ferentz’s team is the sum of some very rusty and questionable parts,” Dodd writes. “Iowa has never started 8-0. Four of those victories have come by a total of eight points. The Hawkeyes are undefeated this deep in the season for the first time and are trying to figure out how.”* * * A great many people have lost a great many dollars over the last couple of years, and anyone who reads the business section of the newspaper (this paper has a decent one) should at least have some rough idea why. The fall from grace of former Boston Celtics star Antoine Walker, though, seems better suited for the gossip pages. His unpaid debts total some $4 million, despite career earnings of over $110 million during his 12-year NBA career. In a sobering Boston Globe feature that walks the line between well-reported exposé and shameless schadenfreude, Shira Springer reveals how the threetime All-Star lost so much. While ‘Toine is facing jail time for his debts, fellow former NBA star J.R. Rider is in a prison of his own devising. While Rider has spent some time in actual literal jail, he’s currently doing time with the North Texas Fresh of the (very) minor league American Basketball Association and staring at the end of what should YANKS page 56

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Can LeBron Plus Shaq Equal Title for Cleveland? (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:49:49 AM

It’s easy for NBA fans to feel optimistic on opening night. A retooled roster and a top-notch draft pick can transform a sorry team into a playoff contender, maybe even a champion. Well, maybe not Blake Griffin and the Los Angeles Clippers just yet. Associated Press LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal wonder whether James might run four lengths of the court in the time it takes O’Neal to run one. When commissioner David Stern crowns the new champion in June, however, don’t be surprised if the winner comes from a small, elite pool that includes the Boston Celtics, the 2008 champions, or last year’s champs, the Los Angeles Lakers. Two teams with less history on their side but high hopes are Cleveland and Portland. The Cavs hope that acquiring Shaquille O’Neal can bring LeBron James a championship before his possible departure after the season, while the Trail Blazers hope another year of experience pays off for Greg Oden. Four strong contenders are in action Tuesday night, including the Celtics and the Cavaliers in Cleveland. (League previews are available from Yahoo, Sports Illustrated and ESPN.) The Providence Journal’s Robert Lee writes that anything short of a championship would be considered a disappointment for the Celtics. In the Cleveland Plain Dealer,

Bill Livingston wonders whether O’Neal’s arrival will bring the Cavs their first NBA title. If history is a guide, perhaps so, the Plain Dealer’s Mary Schmitt Boyer writes. In the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers could be a good bet to repeat if they remains healthy this season, Mike Bresnahan writes in the Los Angeles Times. In Portland’s Oregonian, John Canzano says the Trail Blazers will be only as good as Oden plays. As for the sad-sack Clippers, Kevin Arnovitz writes on TrueHoop that Griffin, a rookie forward, won’t play until around Christmas after fracturing his left kneecap on a dunk in a preseason game. The Los Angeles Daily News’s Frank Burlison says that a healthy Griffin and three key acquisitions should make the Clippers a better team. Writing for the New York Times, Buzz Bissinger wants commissioner David Stern to scrap the age limit. Also off the court, the Journal’s David Biderman finds that NBA teams are tightening their belts in surprising ways in a tough economy.* * * The Washington Redskins’ many faults already are welldocumented. Their 27-17 loss to Philadelphia on Monday Night Football was bad, but their prognosis for the rest of the season looks worse, if that’s possible. At 2-5, the Redskins look done. A bye gives them an

extra week to mull over the stench of another brutal loss, one in which quarterback Jason Campbell was sacked six times, fumbled once and threw an interception. After the week off, Washington will face Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Philadelphia and New Orleans — winning teams, all of them -0 before playing a winnable game against Oakland. But even that isn’t a a sure win — Oakland did just beat the Eagles. “It’s one thing for the local franchise to get its comeuppance after living off of yellowed newspaper clippings for so long, to be chided for lousy management, to see some of their last-hope legions give away tickets,” Mike Wise writes in the Washington Post. “It’s quite another for the entire country to see this meltdown of monstrous proportion.” Unfortunately for Washington fans, those watching see no hope on the horizon. “There’s no easy fix, no ‘gotcha!’ answer,” Post colleague Michael Wilbon writes. “The owner isn’t going to solve this overnight. Neither will the executive vice president of football operations, the head coach, the Bingo-caller-turnedplay-caller, the screamers on sports talk radio nor the

columnists in this newspaper. An extra set of eyes isn’t going to immediately clean up this mess, nor is outside interference or an owner’s fat wallet.” In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Phil Sheridan says the hard work is just beginning for the Eagles. “Now comes the meat of the schedule: back-to-back home games against the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys, followed by road games in San Diego and Chicago. Down the line, there will be games against Atlanta and Denver, plus road games against the Giants and Cowboys,” Sheridan writes. “The Eagles needed to be 5-1 going into this. They are 4-2 because of that abomination in Oakland last weekend.” In the Philadelphia Daily News, Paul Domowitch cautions fans not to read too much into the Eagles’ win.* * * Kansas City is another NFL disaster zone. The 1-6 Chiefs are in the news because running back Larry Johnson tweeted some unfavorable comments about his coach, Todd Haley, after Sunday’s humiliating 37-7 loss to San Diego: “My father played for coach from ‘rememeber the titans’. Our coach played golf. My father played with redskins briefley. Our coach. Nuthn.” Other tweets and comments to reporters crossed the line into homophobia. Still, the Kansas City Star’s Jason Whitlock thinks Johnson is a necessary distraction for Haley and general manager Scott Pioli in what’s going to be

another long season. Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski disagrees, saying Johnson’s anger will bring his downfall.* * * Wednesday’s Daily Fix will be chock-full of links setting up the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. For today, the Fix will focus on the news that Mark McGwire will become batting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. You might remember McGwire, who battled allegations, never proven, that he used illegal performanceenhancing drugs to boost homerun numbers during what once looked like a Hall of Fame career. Then there was his embarrassing testimony on Capitol Hill, when he repeated the famous mantra, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” You might think there’s outrage over his hiring, but you won’t find it from the St. Louis PostDispatch’s Bernie Miklasz. The columnist does, however, have reservations. “If you want to disqualify McGwire from working at a batting cage because he almost certainly used steroids in a playing career that ended in 2001, or because he made a fool of himself in testimony before Congress, that’s fine,” Miklasz opines. “But if we outlaw McGwire, we’d better take a pen and cross out hundreds of names of players who competed during the Steroids Era. They can’t work, either.” CAN page 56

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Head coach Mike Singletary names Alex Smith new starting QB for San Francisco 49ers By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

kind of thing where, 'Let's see, this guy will be this week, this guy will be next week," Submitted at 10/26/2009 4:31:20 PM Singletary said. "I wanted to make 49ers Name Smith Starting QB the decision based upon who I 49ers Name Smith Starting QB feel gives us the best chance to SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Alex win." Smith is getting a big chance to Smith completed his first six resurrect his career. All but passes and finished 15 of 22 for forgotten, the former No. 1 206 yards and three touchdown overall pick is the San Francisco passes to tight end Vernon Davis. 49ers' new starting quarterback -- Davis is the first 49er since again. Terrell Owens in 2001 to have "I don't know if I'd say surprised. three TD catches in a game. I don't know if I was anticipating The 49ers play at Indianapolis on it, either," Smith said Monday Sunday, coincidentally the same after getting the news from coach team Smith debuted against in M i k e S i n g l e t a r y . " I t ' s t h e 2005. This will be his first start opportunity I've been waiting for; since Nov. 12, 2007. happy." "I think right now overall Alex S i n g l e t a r y m a d e t h e Smith really just kind of fit the announcement Monday after also bill in terms of doing the things sitting down with Shaun Hill, who that we need to get done," was benched after the first half of Singletary said. the Niners' 24-21 loss at Houston NFC West blog on Sunday. ESPN.com's Mike Sando writes Smith, who hadn't played in about all things NFC West in his nearly two years, came in and division blog. gave the offense a much-needed â&#x20AC;˘ Blog network: NFL Nation jolt of energy and efficiency, and Smith, the No. 1 draft pick out of he nearly led San Francisco (3-3) Utah in 2005, missed all of last back from a 21-0 deficit. season after reinjuring his "As far as will Shaun Hill be back surgically repaired throwing and all this other stuff, we're not shoulder three days before the going to be a flavor-of-the-month season opener. He was set to be

the backup to J.T. O'Sullivan. When this season began, Singletary decided Hill was the best man behind center for San Francisco, a franchise desperate to end a streak of six straight losing seasons. The 25-year-old Smith has shown signs in practice of being more than ready to handle this role. It was Smith who spent several days during the recent bye week working with receiver and top draft pick Michael Crabtree to get him up to speed on the offense before his debut against the Texans. Crabtree, who finally signed his six-year deal Oct. 7, had five catches in an impressive first game. Singletary, who insisted his decision wasn't "premeditated," sensed a positive vibe from everybody -- save maybe for Hill -- with Smith's calm, confidence presence on the field. Not that Singletary didn't have a feeling Smith could take charge of his unit and lead the team again after all he's been through. Singletary has seen Smith's strides in recent months. "Let him develop that hunger, let him get excited, 'Well if I get an opportunity again.' Let him

develop some confidence, 'I think I can do that,'" Singletary said of the time Smith needed to evolve. "Rather than just putting him in at the beginning of the season and if you don't have success right away, then it's, 'Same old Alex.' I don't think it's the same old Alex. I think Alex has matured, I think he's grown and I think he's ready to play. We're going to find out. We'll find out next week." Not that Smith needed any more motivation: He knew he'd better take advantage if he ever got another opportunity. He knows he's done more to earn his spot this time around than as a rookie. He doesn't plan to change now. And he no longer thinks about his shoulder. "I've been out for two years now. I don't know if I was getting any hungrier," Smith said. "I've kind of been waiting. It's been frustrating and I've got a chance to get back out there and make the most of it." Hill began the season as a starter for the first time in his eight-year NFL career and led the 49ers to a 3-1 start. He lost his job Monday a year to the day after Singletary benched O'Sullivan in favor of Hill during the coach's debut

against the Seahawks. Hill struggled in the first half Sunday, when San Francisco had only 50 total yards and he was 6 of 11 for 45 yards. "It's frustrating. It's upsetting," Hill said. "It's not going to keep me down. Nothing ever has, nothing ever will. It's the same thing he went through and it didn't hold him down, either." Texans defensive end Mario Williams said he didn't know who Smith was when the QB came out to start the second half. That's how far he had fallen off the NFL radar. "When I look at Alex, I really didn't know what we were going to get when he went in," Singletary said. "I was hoping we'd get what we've seen out here in practice, and that's what we got. I was excited to see that, the excitement and the enthusiasm on the sideline, the excitement and enthusiasm on the defensive side of the ball, the receivers, the running backs, everybody." Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams tells coach Jeff Fisher he wants Vince Young to start

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Miklasz’s Post-Dispatch colleague Bryan Burwell implores McGwire to discuss his past.* * * By ESPN.com news services reported. that has lost eight straight games put it for the most part, and we Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar were fixtures on the New York (ESPN.com) "I have been wanting [Fisher] to dating to last season, after just need to help him." Marathon winners’ podium in the play Vince Young more because Tennessee sprinted to a 10-0 start The Titans have been down this Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:45:21 AM Collins has been having his en route to the NFL's best mark at path before, as Young replaced l a t e 1 9 7 0 s a n d e a r l y ’ 8 0 s , NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Coach problems out there," Adams told 13-3. Collins during a winless start in inspiring thousands of people to Jeff Fisher has stayed away from the Tennessean last week. "I just "We've had a week to do some 2006. Young went on to win take up running. In the New York a quarterback controversy through think we need to find out how different things. And especially Offensive Rookie of the Year, Times, Liz Robbins recounts that the Tennessee Titans' dreadful well [Young] can do. considering the circumstances helping Tennessee finish 8-8 after era, a different, more innocent one for the race, which included start. "If you don't play the guy and lose we're in right now with the record, an 0-5 start. Now, team owner Bud Adams all your games, it is hard for you there's things that you need to do Collins was signed just before the children as young as eight running reportedly has inserted himself to see what he can do for you. differently," Fisher said. "Let's '06 season. He went 12-3 as the the course. into the scenario. Vince has won a lot of games for just say I'm not going to be as starter in 2008 and signed a two- – Tip of the Fix cap to reader Don Adams informed Fisher that he us.'' specific and [will be] open-ended year, $14 million deal this Hartline. Found a good column from the would like to see Vince Young On Monday, Fisher declined to from a competitive standpoint." offseason to return. start this weekend against the say whether Young or Kerry Collins has completed 108 of 197 Since injuring his knee in last world of sports? Don’t keep it to Jacksonville Jaguars, according to Collins would start against the passes with five touchdowns and y e a r ' s s e a s o n o p e n e r , y o u r s e l f — w r i t e t o u s a t The (Nashville) Tennessean. Jaguars, citing "competitive eight interceptions this season. accompanied by a bizarre incident dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll Adams apparently told Fisher his reasons." His receivers also have dropped a a day later in which police were consider your find for inclusion in preference after the Titans' 59-0 "Both quarterbacks had a good number of passes, stalling drives called to search for him, Young the Daily Fix. You can email demolition last week at the hands week, but [Collins] had an and contributing mightily to all of has not had any meaningful Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com. of the New England Patriots, especially good week last week," the losses. playing time for the Titans. His according to the report. Fisher said. "I'm not going to go "It's really no different than what only appearances this season AFC South blog into details about the lineup we've been saying since Week 1. came late in the last two blowout ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky changes. Those are competitive We have to improve around him. losses. writes about all things AFC South issues." We have to get open. We have to Information from The Associated in his division blog. The Titans (0-6) are one of three make the tight catch," Fisher said Press was used in this report. • Blog network: NFL Nation remaining winless teams in the of the team around Collins. "We This content has passed through But during the Titans' bye week, league -- St. Louis and Tampa have to run after the catch. We fivefilters.org. Adams was more insistent about Bay are both 0-7. Fisher does have to make more plays. He's starting Young, the Tennessean want to shake up things for a team putting the ball where he needs to

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have been a much better hoops career. The winner of the 1994 NBA slam dunk contest put up good numbers during his nine NBA seasons, but also earned a reputation as one of his era’s defining knuckleheads. (Imagine this piece, by the Marin

Independent Journal’s Dave Albee, written dozens of times with different datelines, infractions and courtrooms subbed in.) At Yahoo, Marc J. Spears finds Rider not exactly chastened, but not ready to quit, either.

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

David at droth11@gmail.com.

The Count: Mount Cody Stands Tall for a Day (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 10/26/2009 1:08:13 PM

In a home game a COUNT: page against 57

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conference rival, a senior defender blocked two place kicks, the second one a potential gamewinner in the final minute, to keep conference-title hopes alive. Getty Images Terrence Cody celebrates his second field-goal block of the fourth quarter — and of his collegiate career. Most college-football fans know that 350-pound Alabama nose guard Terrence Cody accomplished that feat on Saturday in a 12-10 win over Tennessee. Few probably realize that Barry Church, a 219-pound Toeldo safety, did the same thing in blocking an extra point and later a field goal to preserve a 2019 win over Northern Illinois the week before. And in addition to Cody, two other players this Saturday blocked two kicks. Nebraska’s Ndamukong Suh blocked an extra point and a field goal in a 9-7 loss to Iowa State, and Troy’s Daniel Sheffield blocked two North Texas extra point attempts. This cluster of individual success batting away kicks isn’t a sign of an epidemic of kick-blocking. Football Bowl Subdivision teams

average 0.18 blocks per game, down from 0.2 last season. Instead it shows how rare feats such as kick blocks can cluster around an individual player, particularly if they’re playing a team particularly vulnerable to the feat. College players have blocked two kicks in a game several other times in recent seasons. Earlier this month, Baylor’s Jason Lamb blocked two Kent State field goal attempts. And last year nine players blocked at least two kicks in a single game, including North Carolina’s Bruce Carter, who blocked three UConn punts in a 38-12 win last October. Here’s one indicator that such performances can be highly fluky. Of the 17 players who have blocked at least two kicks this season, only one had even a single block last season — Nebraska’s Suh, who had two in 2008 and one in 2007. Before Saturday, Cody had never blocked a kick in his career. He has just 41 tackles, 9.5 of them for a loss, in 20 career games, and his kick blocks hardly make him a top draft prospect, according to the blog Mocking the

Draft. It was Cody’s good fortune Saturday that Tennessee kicker Daniel Lincoln’s leg strength, diminished by a quadriceps injury, wasn’t enough for him to put much of an upward angle on two fourth-quarter attempts from 43 yards and 44 yards. (Auburn blocked a Lincoln extra point attempt earlier this month.) “He can’t kick the ball up high,” Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin said after the game. “If you kick the ball up high it’s never going to get there, so we can’t allow the penetration up front.” None of this will diminish Cody’s place in Alabama football lore, particularly if the win helps propel the Crimson Tide to a national championship. But it does mean no one should count on Cody blocking another collegiate kick, nor can we predict who the next kick-blocking star will be. Kick-blocking stats from cfbstats.com

World Series: Pedro Martinez to start Game 2 for Philadelphia Phillies By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

win in his only World Series start against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of Boston's 2004 World Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:45:24 AM Series sweep. Pedro Martinez will start Game 2 Manuel's other likely choice for of the World Series at Yankee Game 2 was left-hander Cole Stadium, Phillies manager Charlie Hamels, who is 1-1 with a 6.75 M a n u e l s a i d T u e s d a y o n ERA in three playoff starts after a Philadelphia radio station WPHT- dominating performance in the AM. Phillies' run to the World Series Martinez, who pitched seven title last season. shutout innings in a 2-1 loss at "He's been in the big moment, and Los Angeles in Game 2 of the NL I think that his performance the Championship Series, is no other day in Dodger Stadium, how stranger to taking the mound good he pitched, he deserves against the Yankees in big another chance to go back out moments. there," Manuel said of Pedro last Martinez, a three-time Cy Young week. "I think he's still got quite a Award winner, went 8-4 with a bit left. I was watching those 2.95 ERA in 16 regular-season playoff games that he pitched in starts at the old Yankee Stadium. [for the Red Sox]. I noticed his He is 0-1 with a 5.40 ERA in two velocity on his fastball was sitting postseason starts in the Bronx as a at like 87 to 91 mph. member of the Boston Red Sox. "He was even better than that over One of those was Game 7 of the there at Dodger Stadium. He 2003 ALCS, when manager knows how to pitch. He uses all of Grady Little left a tiring Martinez his pitches. His command is in to pitch the eighth inning with a absolutely outstanding. He doesn't 5-2 lead. Martinez gave up three rely on throwing the ball by runs and the Yankees won on people anymore. He's a pitcher." Aaron Boone's solo home run in Information from The Associated the 11th. Press was used in this report. Overall, Martinez is 6-2 with a This content has passed through 3 . 1 3 E R A i n 1 4 p l a y o f f fivefilters.org. appearances. He tossed seven shutout innings and earned the

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Los Angeles Clippers' Blake Griffin has broken kneecap, out weeks By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

kneecap during the Clippers' final exhibition game against New Orleans last Friday, perhaps after Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:39:56 AM a dunk that left the power forward Blake Griffin Has Broken wincing in pain. The team initially Kneecap Blake Griffin Has said Griffin only had a sore left Broken Kneecap knee, making him questionable L O S A N G E L E S - - B l a k e for the opener, before revealing Griffin's NBA debut has been the break. pushed back indefinitely after the Griffin was the consensus college Los Angeles Clippers revealed player of the year with 22.7 points late Monday night that their No. 1 and an NCAA-best 14.4 rebounds overall draft pick has a broken left per game last season for the kneecap. Sooners. The stress fracture could sideline Mike and Mike in the Morning the Oklahoma star for six weeks, ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler the team announced, promising previews the 2009 NBA season further information Tuesday. saying he doesn't expect too many Griffin, who averaged 13.7 points surprise teams to climb to the top, and 8.1 rebounds per game during as many of last year's top teams the preseason, won't be in the improved themselves greatly. Clippers' lineup when they face Plus, Legler says Blake Griffin the Lakers in their opener may miss more time than Tuesday night, and he could be e x p e c t e d . out much longer. The Clippers More Podcasts Âť play 20 games in their first six After the Clippers won the draft weeks of the regular season. lottery and selected him, Griffin Griffin apparently broke his strained his right shoulder during

a summer league game in July. The team brought him back cautiously, and Griffin said he was totally healthy in the preseason. His latest injury is a sadly unsurprising setback for the starcrossed Clippers, who won just 19 games last year in an injuryplagued season. Los Angeles has just two winning seasons in the past 30 years and just one playoff series victory since moving to town in 1984. Los Angeles was mostly healthy going into this fall, with point guard Baron Davis and center Chris Kaman both ready to play after missing chunks of last season. The Clippers actually have solid frontcourt talent with Marcus Camby, Al Thornton and Rasual Butler alongside Griffin. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Redskins' Effort a Troubling Sign By Chris Burke (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:40:00 AM

by Chris Burke Filed under: Redskins, NFL Analysis Compared to their losses to Detroit, Carolina and Kansas City, the Redskins' 27-17 defeat at the hands of the Eagles doesn't look half bad. It might wind up being the fiasco against

Philadelphia, though, that convinces Washington's higherups to make some changes. Monday night, in front of a national-TV audience, Washington simply went through the motions. Physical mistakes, lack of talent, bad breaks -- those are all forgivable. Half-hearted REDSKINS' page 59

Report: Rajon Rondo, Boston Celtics can't come to extension deal By ESPNBoston.com staff (ESPN.com)

on winning a championship." Duffy said he is looking for a deal that would make Rondo one Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:42:49 AM of the NBA's top five highest-paid The agent for Rajon Rondo said point guards. According to Duffy, late Monday that his client will the Celtics "feel differently," not sign a contract extension with Yahoo! Sports reported. the Celtics, meaning the 23-year- An unnamed source told Boston old point guard will become a sports radio station WEEI that the restricted free agent at the end of Celtics offered Rondo a five-year, t h e s e a s o n , Y a h o o ! S p o r t s $45 million extension (an average reported. of $9 million per year), but Rondo According to multiple reports, the is seeking a five-year deal worth C e l t i c s a n d R o n d o ' s between $55 million and $60 representatives met recently to try million (an average of $11 million to work out a deal but apparently to $12 million per year). are still far apart. Technically, the Should Rondo become a sides face a Friday deadline to restricted free agent, he could come to an agreement on an receive contract offers from other extension that would keep Rondo teams after the season. The off the free-agent market next Celtics would have the right to summer, but agent Bill Duffy match any offer he received. ruled it out. Rondo is making $2.3 million "We're not going to do an this season in the last year of his extension right now," Duffy told rookie contract. He averaged 11.9 Yahoo! Sports. "The conversation p o i n t s , 8 . 2 a s s i s t s a n d 5 . 2 has been cordial. We've been rebounds per game last season. talking the last couple of weeks. The Celtics open their season There is a difference between the T u e s d a y n i g h t a g a i n s t t h e perception of him in their eyes C a v a l i e r s i n C l e v e l a n d . and our eyes. With that being This content has passed through said, the focus is on Rajon to have fivefilters.org. a fantastic season and concentrate

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Mile High Poses Serious Chris Cooley Risk for Steelers' Ryan Reportedly Out for Clark Season

Around the Net In Media: Ad-Supported Wi-Fi Brings Live TV to Air Passengers

By JJ Cooper (FanHouse)

By Matt Snyder (FanHouse)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:47:00 AM

Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:40:00 AM

by JJ Cooper Filed under: Steelers, AFC North The last time Ryan Clark played football in Denver, it nearly killed him. Clark's sickle-cell disease meant that his blood attacked his gall bladder and spleen forcing Clark to have both removed and sidelining him for the remainder of the 2007 season. He lost more than 30 pounds and needed months to recover. So now he has to decide if he's willing to risk playing in the thin air of Denver two weeks from now. It's a big game for the Steelers, but Clark, understandably, is only going to play if doctors can give him a clean bill of health. Right now, it's hard to say which way Clark is going to decide. He's run as many tests as can be run. Doctors have poked and prodded him. But it appears that no one can tell him for sure that Clark won't have

by Matt Snyder Filed under: Redskins, NFC East, NFL Injuries After sustaining an ankle injury on the first play of the second quarter Monday night, Redskins tight end Chris Cooley will reportedly miss the remainder of 2009. The Pro Bowl tight end will finish his season with 29 catches (a career low), 332 yards and two touchdowns, as he hauled in a pair of passes for 21 yards before leaving with the injury Monday night in the Redskins' 2717 loss to the Eagles. Head coach Jim Zorn would not confirm that Cooley's year is over, but did note that Cooley will "be out for a while." ""He's got a break in his ankle," Zorn said. "It's on the inner side of his tibia. I haven't seen the Xrays yet, but we're quite certain it's broke or fractured in some way; we'll have a better diagnosis

A pair of companies is launching the first free, ad-supported, inflight wireless network. Dubbed SkyTown Center, the network lets airline travelers watch live television, play games and check out information about their destination city. It will be offered under a partnership between WiFi provider Row 44 and JiWire, an online media company. Under the plan, airline passengers will be able to log onto SkyTown free with their computers. If they want to navigate away from SkyTown to text, check e-mail or browse the Internet, they will probably have to pay a fee. Content partners on the network include the Home Shopping Network and SkyMall, the onboard retailer. Executives have yet to announce which airlines will offer SkyTown, which is expected to start Nov. 1. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

another bad reaction to the altitude. Mile High Poses Serious Risk for Steelers' Ryan Clark originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:47:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

tomorrow." Fantasy Football Spin: Five Replacements for Chris Cooley Chris Cooley Reportedly Out for Season originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:40:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

REDSKINS' continued from page 58

efforts aren't, especially when a team is playing for an embattled head coach. And the Redskins, now 2-5 on the season, are fooling themselves if they think they gave all they could against the Eagles. "You can say but so much," said

Albert Haynesworth, the team's $100 million offseason addition. "You've got to actually want to. So once we get to that point -where we want to do something -then we'll do something. But if we just keep going our separate ways,

then we'll just keep getting slaughtered like we have." Redskins' Effort a Troubling Sign originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:40:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/26/2009 8:03:45 PM

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Angelo Dundee: 'Ali, by All Means, Should Have Been Fighting' By Lem Satterfield (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:00:00 AM

by Lem Satterfield Filed under: WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, HBO, Showtime, FanHouse Exclusive, IBO Angelo Dundee has zero regrets. The 88-year-old, legendary former boxing trainer of Muhammad Ali, spoke to FanHouse on Monday on a variety of topics, including ESPN's upcoming documentary, Muhammad and Larry, which argues that the aging Ali's 1980 fight with a young Larry Holmes never should have happened. Dundee also addressed Ali's relationship with Joe Frazier, and his own feelings during Ali's condemnation of white people as a member of the Nation of Islam.

Check out the full Q&A after the jump. Angelo Dundee: 'Ali, by All Means, Should Have Been Fighting' originally appeared on Fanhouse Boxing Blog on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

First Assassin's Creed: Lineage episode is surprisingly great By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:27:00 AM

We weren't surprised when the first of three episodes in the Assassin's Creed: Lineage miniseries, created by Hybride Studios, exceeded our expectations. These folks did the effects for 300 and Sin City-- so of course we knew it would look great. Our surprise simply came from the fact that Lineage is a promotional, game-based short film; and nearly all of the words in that phrase seem contrary to high quality. Share in our surprise by watching the first Lineage installment after the jump. If you'd like a bit of behind-thescenes info into how the film was

Gamasutra breaks down console sales in light of price cuts By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:00:00 AM

Source: NPD Group; via Gamasutra If you're like us -- and, we figure c r e a t e d , c h e c k o u t t h i s after all these years we've been GamesIndustry.biz interview with secretly brainwashing you, you Ubisoft UK marketing director are-- then the recent console price Murray Pannel. He does a good cuts were met with your curiosity job of clearly explaining the game over how these discounts would and movie industry synergy -- you affect the vast gaming sales know, what James Cameron l a n d s c a p e . F o r t u n a t e l y , alluded to during his fateful, four- Gamasutra has posted a chart (using NPD figures) that measures week-long E3 2009 speech. Continue reading First Assassin's how the price cuts altered two C r e e d : L i n e a g e e p i s o d e i s factors: each console's average sale price during the month of surprisingly great First Assassin's Creed: Lineage September and its year-to-date episode is surprisingly great sales (through September). originally appeared on Joystiq on This first figure proves the most Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:27:00 EST. telling about how the market Please see our terms for use of reacted to the slashed prices. For instance, the average price at feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| which PS3s were purchased in September was a flat $300; Comments meaning an overwhelming majority of buyers responded favorably to the discount. Though the price of the Wii didn't get cut until the last week of September, the console's average price GAMASUTRA page 62

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Survey says Americans play more games than Europeans By Andrew Yoon (Joystiq)

France. Not only are more Americans playing, they're spending much more time with T o d a y ' s G a m e r s r e c e n t l y games: the average American conducted a survey of over 13,000 male spent 11.5 hours playing i n t e r n e t u s e r s f r o m t h e each week, versus 6.5 hours in the Netherlands, France, Germany, UK, 5.2 hours in Germany, and the United Kingdom, Belgium 7.1 hours in France. (Female and the United States to see respondents were less likely to gaming trends across the various game than males, but the ratios nations. According to their remain nearly identical.) findings, a larger percentage of According to the survey, MMO American respondents said they games are vastly more popular in played video games of any kind: the US than in Europe, with 21% 87% of American males said they of respondents saying they play play games, versus 74% in the games in virtual worlds. In most UK, 67% in Germany, and 66% in other surveyed European nations, Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:00:00 AM

that rate is halved, at 10 or 11% percent, depending on the country. While these numbers paint a very optimistic view of gaming as a

whole, these results should -- as with all surveys -- be taken with a grain of salt. Considering internet access is a prerequisite for taking the survey, it excludes people

most likely not to play video games. Regardless, the full report features a great deal of information ready for you graphlovers to peruse through. [Via IndustryGamers] Survey says Americans play more games than Europeans originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Banned PSN player appeals court decision, sues Sony again for $180k By Andrew Yoon (Joystiq)

determining the First Amendment did not apply to Estavillo's claim. Estavallo isn't going to be If at first you don't succeed, try, stopped by a mere district judge's try again. Erik Estavillo made ruling, though. In addition to h e a d l i n e s i n t h e g a m i n g filing an appeal, Estavillo is also blogosphere last summer for his filing another lawsuit against $55,000 lawsuit against Sony, Sony -- this time, a civil suit launched in retaliation for being seeking $180,000 in damages; Estavillo will once again opt out banned from the PlayStation more than three times the amount of using a lawyer, choosing to Network. As predicted, the judge of his original, dismissed suit. r e p r e s e n t h i m s e l f f o r b o t h d i s m i s s e d h i s c a s e a f t e r According to GamePolitics, Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:21:00 AM

upcoming cases. We wish Estavillo the best of luck.* *Ed.'s Note: While we'd normally

end on a punchline, our fear of irrational and baseless lawsuits prevents us from doing so. Banned PSN player appeals court decision, sues Sony again for $180k originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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dropped from $250 to $218 -- also indicative of a reactionary market surge. The average Xbox 360 purchased price, however, actually increased by a buck to $261. By Gamasutra's calculations, folks purchased three Elites ($300) for every Arcade model ($200) sold during the month. The PS3 was the top-selling console in September, which is the first time it's ever managed a first-place sales finish. It's still in last place in the 2009 year-to-date totals, though, and Sony's system would need to outsell Xbox 360 by about 35,000 units every week until the end of the year to break

even with its competitor. Passing up the Wii, however, would require an act of divine intervention -- Nintendo's console is currently sitting on YTD sales of 4 million, which is more than twice the total of PS3 sales. Gamasutra breaks down console sales in light of price cuts originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Rumor: Roger Daltrey reveals The Who joining together with Rock Band By JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:00:00 AM

If Roger Daltrey, lead singer of The Who, has his facts straight, we could all be windmilling and smashing plastic instruments in a Who-themed Rock Band. Daltrey told The Republican when The Beatles: Rock Band was brought up that "The game, yeah, yeah, they're going to be doing a Who one next year. There is one planned." Daltrey called music "our last true great freedom." As with Green Day, it could just be a Who pack for the existing games. Whatever it means, it involves playing the songs from one of the other most influential and rocking British bands ever in Rock Band, a prospect to which we can say only one thing: Yeaaaaaaaah!

Person-ELLE Style: The Denim Shirt By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) [Via RockBandAide; thanks, Sean!] Rumor: Roger Daltrey reveals The Who joining together with Rock Band originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 10/26/2009 10:45:54 AM

Last Monday, three co-workers, Erin Boyle, Annie Ladino, and Jennifer Gach, arrived at the ELLE offices wearing the exact same J. Crew denim button-down shirt. This could have been a total “Oh no you di’int” moment: PERSON-ELLE page 63

Speaking Easy at the Roger Room By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

On my recent trip to California for LA Fashion Week, I met some friends and colleagues for drinks Submitted at 10/26/2009 11:02:48 AM to check things out. It's very We New Yorkers have been unassuming, and I circled the privy to the speakeasy trend in block twice before finding it. In bars over the past year, and now it classic speakeasy style, there was seems Los Angeles is catching on. n o s i g n a g e t o i n d i c a t e i t s The newest addition is the Roger existence. As I walked in, I also which was refreshing (they can be Room on La Cienga Boulevard. noticed there was no doorman, so feisty!). Upon entering, I was

surrounded with raised mahogany, The Roger Room leather booths, rose lighting, and a 370 N. La Cienega Boulevard bartender wearing the classic vest Los Angeles, CA 90048 and bow tie. We sat and sipped (310) 854-1300 delicious mint juleps from silver — Jade Frampton, Market Editor straws into the early evening. Photo: iStock Word to the wise: go light. The Follow ELLE on Twitter. drinks are potent. One too many and you'll be speaking easy, real easy.

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Eres Opens Swimwear Boutique at Selfridges By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 12:32:03 PM

This summer, the trend towards more classic and one-piece swimwear looks is going to keep rolling out, so it couldn't be better timing for the reigning leader of impeccably fitting swimsuits to further sink its hooks into the London market. Eres, the fabulously chic French label which aims to give a woman a sophisticated silhouette even while lounging poolside, is taking residence in Selfridges with its first-ever UK boutique. Their swimsuits are simple, but it's the cut and construction which set them apart from the rest, with darts and seams created to suck in, push up, and keep tight everything in all the right places.

PERSON-ELLE

If that isn't enough, then check out Lara Stone as the spokesmodel for their Lingerie. That should definitely take your breath away. —Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin Photo: Getty Images Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Topshop Keeps on Topping Itself By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/26/2009 12:47:18 PM

Topshop just keeps on growing and growing. After practically sending New York into a state of anaphylactic shock over the opening of its shop in the Big Apple, the megabrand now plans to stake claim to Paris. Sir Philip Green, the mastermind behind Topshop, has been criticized for

Ohio peace museum angling for Obama's Nobel money (AP)

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Annie herself had a brush with fashion catastrophe during her first week at ELLE over two years ago when, after wearing the same dress as a senior editor, she was met with a sneer and had to make a mad dash to the fashion closet to change/de-match. But we, however, took it as an opportunity to celebrate personal style. Since we wore our denim shirts in such different ways, we didn’t feel awkward at all. Phew! Cat fight averted. Annie wore her denim shirt with high-waisted

but he continues on at any rate. Though who can argue with his vision: He has been on the ball so far and also managed, a few months back in a state of global crisis, to create a partnership with Simon Cowell making the two of them UK media moguls of unseen proportions. believing his high-street retailer —Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin will be able to enter and succeed Photo: Getty Images in the mainland European market, Follow ELLE on Twitter.

blue jeans for a head-to-toe denim look; Jen went preppy with a striped bandage skirt and oxfords; and Erin paired her shirt with (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) skinny black jeans and biker Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:22:44 AM boots. No sneers. Just cheers! — J e n n i f e r G a c h & A n n i e DAYTON, Ohio – A fledging museum devoted to the pursuit of Ladino, Assistant Editors peace is hoping its mission is just Follow ELLE on Twitter. what President Barack Obama is looking for when he decides what to do with the $1.4 million cash award that comes with his Nobel OHIO page 66

New Nasa rocket prepares to fly (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

just days before the scheduled launch. Although the panel supported the Submitted at 10/26/2009 7:51:45 PM Ares I-X test flight, it questioned A rocket designed to replace the the need to develop the Ares I aging space shuttle is set for its rocket, part of the Constellation first test-flight, despite questions programme commissioned by the over the future of the programme. previous administration and The 100m-long Ares I-X has a intended to return the US to the four-hour launch window for blast Moon by 2020. -off from Nasa's Kennedy Space In particular, the panel queried Center. the cost and design of the craft as The two-minute flight will allow well as its development time. Nasa to test technology crucial for "With time and sufficient funds, the development of the manned Nasa could develop, build and fly Ares I craft. the Ares I successfully," the A high-profile report has cast report said, "the question is, doubt on the future of the Ares should it?" rocket, which is intended to enter The $450m (300m euros; £275m) service in 2015. Ares I-X is what Nasa describes The Augustine panel, which had as a "pathfinder" vehicle. been asked to review the US "It is a chance for the agency to human spaceflight programme, NEW page 64 published its report last Thursday

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remind itself what it takes to build a vehicle," explained Robert Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. Nasa has not designed a new launch vehicle for more than three decades and has lost much of the expertise in the area, according to some critics. "Ares I-X is all about information; about gathering data," Mr Ess told BBC News. "We have a lot of computer models that we think show it all works. We're very confident we can do it but the proof is actually doing it for the first time." The Ares I-X is the longest, thinnest vehicle ever designed and built by the US space agency. Its shape has been determined by the design of its solid rocket booster - itself a modified version of the units used to lift the shuttle into orbit. "[We wanted] to use as much existing technology as possible," said Mr Ess. "Given that we have the space shuttle booster and given that it is 14-and-a-half-feet in diameter, we didn't want to change that. That architecture drives the length of it." The final Ares I design calls for the shuttle booster to be upgraded from four to five segments for the first stage of the rocket. The Ares I-X, though, will fly with just four segments and an additional unit that merely simulates an extra portion of booster. Engineers saw value in flying the more limited configuration to get

engineering flight data as soon as possible rather than wait the extra year or two before a five-segment booster became available. The I-X vehicle is 100m (320ft) tall and has been designed to be as close as possible to the eventual Ares I rocket. However, the top half of the launcher, like the fifth segment of the booster, is a dummy. What would be an upper-stage, with a crew capsule and its emergency escape mechanism, are mock-ups made to the correct shape and weight. "We have been building the simulators for over two years now. It has been a very long and very intense process," explained Jonathan Cruz, deputy project manager for the Ares I-X crew module and launch abort system. "[They] are incredibly accurate. One reason why it has been so difficult and taken so long to build this is because we are building this to exact tolerances." Shaky design The test launch - scheduled for Tuesday between 1200 and 1600 GMT (0800 and 1200 EDT) will take place from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If weather delays the flight, the team has a four-hour launch window each day until 29 October. When given the go-ahead, the rocket will blast off from pad 39B, a space shuttle launch site that has been modified to handle

the slender rocket. "It has a little higher thrust-toweight ratio than the space shuttle, so you'll see it come off the pad a little quicker than you're used to," explained Mr Ess. The flight will last for 120 seconds and will see the demonstrator climb to about 40km (25 miles). At that point, the lower and upper stages will separate. "After the separation we basically do a kick manoeuvre," Mr Ess told BBC News. Motors will be used to make the lower-stage spin, creating drag and helping the booster slow down enough to allow it to deploy its parachutes so that it can be recovered. "The front part of it just carries on going and splashes into the ocean." The vehicle has also been wired with sensors from top to bottom, allowing engineers to monitor all aspects of the flight, including pressures, accelerations and temperatures. The team is particularly interested to see how such a slender and flexible vehicle behaves during flight. "Our flight control team has spent a long time designing a flight control system that can handle it," said Mr Ess. "So being able to do a test flight and prove that a concept is going to work the way we think it is going to is a big one. That is our

primary objective." In addition, the team is keen to gather data on so-called "thrust oscillations". The solid rocket booster is known to shake towards the end of its burn, which might cause problems if the Ares ever becomes a manned space vehicle. "Getting some actual data on that phenomenon during Ares I-X is going to help those designers know how much of an attenuation system they are going to need for Ares I," said Mr Ess. Crucial test These oscillations are just one of the problems with Ares I and the I -X, highlighted by critics of the design. "I look at it as a suicide launch vehicle," said Charles Vick, an aerospace analyst, "I would not fly on that vehicle." He added: "The upper-stages and spacecraft are essentially alright but it's that first stage that bothers everybody - it's entirely too tall," he continued. Mr Vick said there were a number of options that could replace Ares I and provide a safer vehicle. These included designs using technology more heavily derived from the shuttle or the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo programme, he said. Other technology or vehicles could be adapted from the Delta IV rockets currently used to loft satellites into orbit, he argued. "The reality of it is that there are

many other alternatives," he claimed. The Augustine panel has examined many of these different approaches, including a design dubbed Ares V Lite. Under current plans, Ares I would be used to carry astronauts into orbit, whilst a heavy-lift Ares V rocket would loft hardware. The Ares V Lite would be a smaller version of the freight carrier, capable of carrying astronauts. Crucially, the design would use the solid rocket booster flown on the Ares I-X, meaning years of costly engineering and testing would not be wasted. However, the decision on the future of the Ares I and the rest of the Constellation programme now rests with President Barack Obama who is expected to give a response in the coming weeks. According to Mr Vick, the success, or otherwise, of the Ares I-X test flight could have a significant bearing on his decision and the future of the programme. "I really think everybody is waiting to see what happens with this flight - a lot is dependent on that flight," he said. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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New safety worry: Laptops, devices in the cockpit (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly W A S H I N G T O N – T w o flight crew scheduling. Northwest Airlines pilots who The incident last Wednesday f l e w 1 5 0 m i l e s p a s t t h e i r night comes only a month after destination because they were Transportation Secretary Ray focused on laptop computers L a H o o d h e l d a m e e t i n g i n instead of cockpit displays may Washington on distracted driving, have opened a new avenue of bringing together researchers, concern for safety regulators — regulators and safety advocates in distracting personal electronic response to vehicle and train devices on the flight deck. accidents involving texting and The pilots of Northwest flight cell phone use. 1 8 8 t o l d t h e N a t i o n a l While the Northwest pilots were Transportation Safety Board that able to turn their plane around and they were so engrossed in a land safely in Minneapolis, pilots complicated new crew-scheduling and aviation safety experts said program on their laptops — a the episode is likely to cause cockpit violation of airline policy NTSB and the Federal Aviation that could cost them their licenses Administration to take a hard look — that they lost track of time and at the use of laptops and other place for more than an hour until personal electronic devices in the they were brought back to cockpit. alertness by a flight attendant on There are no federal rules that an intercom. specifically ban pilots' use of By then, the Airbus A320 with its l a p t o p s o r o t h e r p e r s o n a l 144 passengers and five crew electronic devices as long as the members had cruised past its plane is flying above 10,000 feet, Minneapolis destination and was said Diane Spitaliere, a Federal over Wisconsin, at 37,000 feet. Aviation Administration The pilots — Richard Cole of s p o k e s w o m a n . Salem, Ore., the first officer, and "I think it depends upon how it's Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, being used," Spitaliere said. Wash., the captain — denied they Delta Air Lines Inc., which had fallen asleep as aviation acquired Northwest last year, said experts have suggested, the safety in a statement that using laptops b o a r d s a i d i n r e c o u n t i n g or engaging in activity unrelated investigators' interviews with the to the pilots' command of the men over the weekend. aircraft during flight is strictly Instead, Cole and Cheney said against the airline's flight deck they both had their laptops out p o l i c i e s . T h e a i r l i n e s a i d Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:31:08 AM

violations of that policy will result in termination. Several other airlines said they have similar policies. At Southwest Airlines, for example, "our pilots are not allowed to use any electronic device unless it's approved by the FAA and supplied by Southwest," said Brandy King, a spokeswoman for the airline. "That means no laptops, no cell phones, no PDAs." The reality, said pilots, is that it goes on quite a bit during the sometimes boring cruise phase of a flight, as happened with the Northwest pilots. "It's commonly done," said Jack Casey, a former commercial airline pilot for 34 years and now a safety consultant. Although, he said, it is unusual for both pilots to use their laptops at the same time. Typically, while one pilot flies the plane, the other pilot might use a laptop or some other device, he said. "I would be very surprised if the FAA doesn't decide to review what's going on in the cockpit in terms of the new electronic world that we live in," Casey said. "The conversations have only just begun on this thing." Indeed, the NTSB's release wasn't even cold when Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., called for a ban on the use of personal laptops in the cockpit. "We don't tolerate texting while driving and we're certainly not

standing for it while flying," Franken said in a statement. A number of aviation experts have suggested it was more plausible that the pilots had fallen asleep during the San Diego-toMinneapolis flight. However, NTSB said both pilots had a 19hour layover in San Diego just before the incident flight — more than twice the hours required by FAA for rest between work days. Air traffic controllers in Denver and Minneapolis repeatedly tried without success to raise the pilots by radio. Other pilots nearby tried reaching the plane on other radio frequencies. Their airline tried contacting them using a radio text message that chimes. Authorities became so alarmed that National Guard jets were readied for takeoff at two locations. The White House Situation Room alerted senior officials, who monitored the airliner as the Airbus A320 flew across a broad swath of the midcontinent out of contact with anyone on the ground. "It's inexcusable," former NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said. "I feel sorry for the individuals involved, but this was certainly not an innocuous event — this was a significant breach of aviation safety and aviation security." The Delta pilots union pointed out that at no time were the passengers, crew or aircraft in danger, and cautioned against a "rush to judgment."

"I strongly encourage all parties not to reach a hasty conclusion, " Capt. Lee Moak, chairman of Delta's pilots' union, said in the statement issued late Monday. Delta has suspended the two pilots pending an investigation into the incident. The FAA is also investigating and has warned Cheney and Cole their pilot licenses could be suspended or revoked. Cheney and Cole are both experienced pilots, according to the NTSB. Cheney, 53, was hired by Northwest in 1985 and has about 20,000 hours of flying time, about half of which was in the A320. Cole, 54, had about 11,000 hours of flight time, including 5,000 hours in the A320. "It is unsettling when you see experienced pilots who were not professional in flying this flight," said Kitty Higgins, a former NTSB board member. "This is clearly a wakeup call for everybody." ___ AP Airlines Writers Harry R. Weber in Atlanta and Dave Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report. ___ On the Net: National Transportation Safety Board: http://www.ntsb.gov This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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OHIO continued from page 63

Peace Prize. Volunteers and supporters of the Dayton International Peace Museum are writing letters to Obama in hopes of swaying him to make a donation. Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin says city leaders also will reach out to the president. The museum's founders are also urging state officials to make an appeal. Obama has said he will travel to Oslo, Norway, to accept the award in December, and plans to donate the cash to charity. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said this month that Obama has not decided who will get the money. Museum officials say they would use the prize money to expand their peacemaking and conflictresolution programs in elementary schools and among young firsttime offenders and at-risk youths. The beating death of a Chicago honor student last month attracted Obama's attention. The president sent Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to the city to meet with students, parents and administrators. Federal officials also promised support efforts to stop youth violence nationwide. The idea for the Dayton museum was born at a bus-station diner in 2003 when Christine Dull and her husband, Ralph Dull, longtime peace activists who live in the Dayton area, were on their way

home from New York City after visiting the United Nations. "All of a sudden I said, 'It's high time Dayton had a peace museum,'" Christine Dull recalled. She said the couple were inspired by the realization that there were thousands of war museums and memorials throughout the world, but few peace museums. The Dayton museum opened in 2005 in a stately 1877 Italianate mansion. The Dulls and several others used their own money to start it, along with a $10,000 grant from a local organization that supports grass-roots groups that promote social change. The museum is nonpartisan and not affiliated with any church or religion. The museum sends volunteers to schools to urge students to make nonviolent choices, sponsors a summer peace camp and puts on a peace festival. Its former director has visited Pakistan, India and Iran multiple times to meet with peace groups and schools. "I believe there is a critical mass for good in the world now. And we want to be part of that," Christine Dull said. Some peace organizations are flourishing. The United States Institute of Peace, a government-funded, independent group that works to prevent and resolve conflicts around the world, recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. It

has grown from three employees to around 250 and is building a new headquarters on the national mall in Washington near the Lincoln Memorial, giving it high visibility. "It's a symbol of our nation's commitment to peace-building," said spokeswoman Lauren Sucher. Richard Deats, former executive director of the U.S. branch of the Nyack, N.Y.-based Fellowship of Reconciliation, has followed, lectured and written about the peace movement for years. He said a peace museum is a physical sign of humanity's desire for peace and called the Dayton museum "significant." "It's very important as a cultural landmark where peace is being studied," Deats said. Photos and biographies of Mahatma Gandhi and Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr., hang on the Dayton museum's walls. Shelves are lined with books on peace. One room is devoted to the United Nations. Another resembles a school classroom with posters on how to deal with bullies. One exhibit includes photos from the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, and poems written by survivors. "There are a couple of generations

that have no idea what nuclear bombs can do, and we think they need to be educated on that," Christine Dull said. The Dulls have had a passion for peace nearly all of their adult lives. Ralph grew up in the Church of the Brethren, which historically has taken a strong stance for pacifism. He was a conscientious objector during the Korean War, working for two years in the slums of Baltimore instead of serving in the military. In 1983, the couple began traveling to the Soviet Union on friendship trips. In 1989, they lived in a collective farm village there while two Soviet farmers worked on their farm in Ohio. "We went for friendship purposes because we felt that no matter what our governments were doing, we thought that the people should get to know each other," Christine Dull said. Over the years, the Dulls have taken part in countless peace rallies and vigils. When peace talks between leaders of the war-torn Balkans were held at nearby WrightPatterson Air Force Base in 1995, Christine played her cello outside the base's fence line in tribute to Vedran Smailovic, the Sarajevo cellist who became a symbol of courage for playing in the city's bombarded streets during its siege.

Today, the Dulls are part of a museum that has 75 volunteers and counts former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, actor Martin Sheen and singer Willie Nelson as honorary trustees. The couple often is seen at community events riding in their PeaceMobile, a colorfully painted motor home with an exhibit inside. It is among several such vehicles around the country. Only rarely do the Dulls get a hostile reception, such as the time they asked for permission to join a parade in a local suburb. "The man yelled at me over the phone and he said, 'What's the matter with you, lady? PeaceMobile? Don't you know we have a war going on?'" Dull said, laughing. If the museum receives funds from Obama, it wouldn't be the first time it has gotten peace prize money. In 2005, Holbrooke donated $10,000 of his $25,000 Dayton Peace Award to the museum after he was honored for his role in forging the agreement reached at Wright-Patterson that ended fighting in the Balkans. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Soldiers accused in marriage scam for benefits (AP)

Families of US hikers held in Iran release video (AP)

(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:27:57 AM

WILMINGTON, N.C. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Sgt. Jason Hawk and his bride met for the first time when he picked her up at a bus stop near his Army base a day before their wedding. Prosecutors say the speedy romance was echoed by a fast honeymoon: Ayna Ivanova returned to New York soon after. Two other paratroopers who served with Hawk and three women now each face up to five years in federal prison when sentenced for their roles in what authorities say was a marriage scheme that garnered U.S. citizenship for Russian brides and coveted housing allowances for junior enlisted men. Prosecutors said the marriages cost the government at least $200,000 in wages and benefits. Attorneys for the former soldiers and the women either did not return calls or declined comment on the case, which prosecutors contend stems from the work of Pavel and Alexander Manin, two brothers from Kazakhstan who joined the U.S. military. Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, was part of the Soviet Union until independence in 1991 and still has a large Russian population.

Alexander Manin came to New York in 1998 to attend school. He joined the Marine Corps soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, served three years and received an honorable discharge. He then moved back to New York and opened an international car shipping business. His brother, Pavel, came to the United States in 2001 and joined the Army in March 2005. While in the Army, prosecutors say Pavel Manin recruited soldiers when he was stationed with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., to take part in the scheme. As junior enlisted soldiers, they couldn't live off post unless they were married or had a family. The Manins' scheme was simple, according to court documents. All the soldiers had to do was marry the women, who returned to New York City after the nuptials, and file immigration papers stating that they were married. In exchange, the soldiers would get more than $600 a month as a living allowance from the Army and permission to live off post. Back in New York, Alexander Manin allegedly recruited women seeking immigration status and solicited between $1,000 and

$5,000 per marriage from the women. Prosecutors allege the brothers took part in at least three other fraudulent marriages between the Manins and other women. Chris Grey, an Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman, said this type of fraud case happens "very infrequently" and housing fraud cases usually don't involve false marriages. Most deal with soldiers receiving benefits they're not entitled to for reasons such as not reporting they are divorced or saying their rent requires all of the money and doesn't. Besides Hawk, Sgt. Wesley Farris, 23, agreed to marry Svetlana Kaloshina and Sgt. Stephen Schneider, 23, married Tatyana Urazova in 2005, according to court documents. Like Hawk, Farris and Schneider filed immigration applications for the women and received a housing allowance, allowing them to move off post into a house. Federal agents were alerted to the alleged fraud in June 2008 by the Army Criminal Investigations Division. Army investigators contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. Hawk, prosecuted by military

authorities, was ordered to pay a fine of $20,000, imprisoned for 4 months, demoted from sergeant to private and discharged from the Army. He does not face federal charges. The Manin brothers are in custody in Edgecombe County, N.C., awaiting trial next year on charges of marriage and visa fraud, conspiracy and stealing public money. U.S. District Court Judge Louise Wood Flanagan deemed both brothers a flight risk. Pavel Manin had an airline ticket to Kazakhstan when he was arrested. Farris and Schneider pleaded guilty in October to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud. Both await sentencing next year. Details of Farris' and Schneider's plea agreements weren't immediately available, but court records indicate that coconspirators will testify against the Manin brothers. Urazova, Schneider's wife, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud as part of a plea agreement. Kaloshina also pleaded guilty in August and is awaiting sentencing. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:28:59 AM

BERKELEY, Calif. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; The families of three Americans being held in Iran plan to release video footage that they say proves the three were simply on vacation and had no underhand intentions when they strayed across the border. Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, have been detained since July 31. They apparently crossed into Iran by accident while hiking in a scenic area in northern Iraq. They have been visited by Swiss diplomats, who oversee U.S. interests in Iran, but have had no contact with their families. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that investigators are still questioning the three and that their fate rests with judicial authorities. Mottaki gave no other details on the case. But his comments suggested that formal charges could still be possible against the Americans, although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview with The Associated Press last month that he could ask the judiciary to "take a look at the case with maximum leniency." One of the videos, set for release on YouTube Tuesday, shows Fattal performing an impromptu FAMILIES page 68

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rap song — "Yo, it's hot/It's 'cos I'm in Iraq." — against a backdrop of the city of Irbil in Iraq. A second video shows Fattal, Bauer and Shourd dancing in an unfinished cinder block building. "These kids were on vacation. They were just traveling; they were having a good time," Nora Shourd, Shourd's mother, said in a phone interview Monday. "It's obvious they're on vacation. This makes it real clear that they were there having fun," said Bauer's mother, Cindy Hickey, who lives in eastern Minnesota. "This is a carefree attitude and not an attitude of someone that was meaning to do harm." Laura Fattal said the videos showed her son looking well and fit — "on top of his game." But it was hearing his voice that really affected her. "It took me aback," Fattal said. "I said, 'That's really Josh. And I really haven't heard from him.' When you hear a voice, that pulls at your heart strings." As for his rapping ability, Fattal said, "Of course I think he's adorable."

More importantly, she said, the two videos show "the harmless nature of all three of them." Fattal, who lives in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park, said she and the other two mothers traveled to the United Nations Iranian mission in New York on Oct. 15 to deliver a petition signed by more than 2,500 people asking that the hikers be released. Iranian authorities have had nearly three months to question the hikers, Fattal said, and "I can't imagine what else they're expecting to hear." The videos were made two days before the hikers were detained. They were shot by Shon Meckfessel, a fourth American on the trip who did not go hiking with the others because he was feeling ill. Shourd, Bauer and Fattal are friends who all graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. Bauer had been living in Damascus, Syria, with Shourd, his girlfriend. Fattal went to visit them after traveling overseas on a teaching fellowship with the

International Honors Program. Watching the videos has been bittersweet, Hickey said. "It was kind of fun to see that they were having fun and they were being kids. "But it also made me really wonder why they're still being held. It made me miss Shane even more." Nora Shourd, who lives in Oakland, said she's watched the videos "50 times already." "It's wonderful to see them. It's wonderful to see Sarah dancing and they're really having a good time," she said. "But then I feel the opposite, which is — Why in the world are they sitting in a jail in Iran?" ___ Associated Press Writer Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this story. ___ Family Web site, including link to videos: http://freethehikers.org/ This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

US diplomat quits over Afghan war (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:52:18 AM

A senior US diplomat in Afghanistan has become the first such person to resign in protest at the war against the Taliban, the Washington Post reported. State department employee

Matthew Hoh, posted to Zabul province, said he quit because he had doubts about why the US was fighting, the paper reported. His resignation letter, written last month, prompted officials to offer him alternative jobs, but he declined. President Barack Obama is considering future US strategy in

Afghanistan. In quotes published in the Washington Post, Mr Hoh wrote to the US state department personnel section: "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in DIPLOMAT page 69

Jury chosen for US polygamy trial (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:48:38 AM

The sexual assault trial of a member of a US polygamy sect is to continue with a second day of jury selection at a Texas court. Raymond Jessop, 38, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the charge related to his alleged marriage to an under-age girl. It is the first criminal case stemming from a raid on the sect's ranch last year. About 150 people, including members of the sect, were eligible for jury duty. The Yearning For Zion Ranch was raided in April, and hundreds of children removed after one girl complained of abuse. A total of 12 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been charged with crimes ranging from failure to report child abuse to sexual assault and bigamy. Court documents stated that Mr Jessop's alleged wife gave birth to a daughter at the ranch when she was 16. Prosecutors allege he has nine wives. His bigamy trial will be held later. The sexual assault trial was expected to last two weeks,

assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols was quoted by Associated Press as saying. Two of Mr Jessop's alleged under -age wives, as well as former sect members, are due to give evidence for the prosecution. In April 2008, US officials removed 416 children from the sect's ranch after receiving a report of sexual abuse. A Texas court later overturned the decision to remove the children. It said the state had overstepped its authority because of the lack of evidence about widespread sexual abuse. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a breakaway sect of Mormonism that supports polygamy. Their leader, Warren Jeffs, has already been imprisoned in Arizona for conspiracy to rape. He faces more charges in Texas. The 10,000-strong sect, which dominates the towns of Colorado City in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Castro's sister 'spied for CIA' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

the 1959 revolution brought Fidel Castro to power. She agreed to help because she Submitted at 10/26/2009 4:27:16 PM had become disenchanted when A sister of Cuba's former long- Fidel abandoned the nationalist time leader, Fidel Castro, has d e m o c r a t i c r e v o l u t i o n h e admitted spying for the CIA in the promised and instead imposed a 1960s. one-party Marxist state "simply Juanita Castro, who now lives in out of the need to hold power", Miami, said she had gathered she said. sensitive information for the US " D i d I f e e l r e m o r s e a b o u t for three years. betraying Fidel by agreeing to In her memoirs, she said she had meet with his enemies? No, for fallen out with Fidel and her other one simple reason: I didn't betray brother Raul - Cuba's current him. He betrayed me," she wrote. president - over the killing of their "He betrayed the thousands of us opponents. who suffered and fought for the Ms Castro, 76, said she had revolution that he had offered, one helped to warn and hide Cuban that was generous and just and dissidents before finally fleeing would bring peace and democracy the island in 1964. to Cuba, and which, as he himself There has been no immediate had promised, would be as 'Cuban reaction from the US or Cuban as palm trees'," she wrote. governments. Ms Castro said that at a meeting 'Donna' with a CIA officer called In her memoirs - Fidel and Raul, "Enrique" at a hotel in Mexico My Brothers, the Secret History - City in 1961, she was given the Ms Castro says she was recruited c o d e n a m e " D o n n a " a n d by the Central Intelligence codebooks so she could receive Agency in Havana two years after instructions.

She agreed on the condition that she received no money and was not asked to participate in any violent acts against the Cuban government. She would help people persecuted by the Cuban secret police escape capture, imprisonment and possible execution, often by sheltering them at the home of her mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez, she added. Ms Castro fled Cuba a year after her mother died, believing she would no longer be protected from the attention of the secret police, and settled in Miami, where she ran a pharmacy until 2007. Raul helped her get a visa to leave. Fidel relinquished power to Raul in February 2008. He has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Afghanistan. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end." White House 'ripples' Mr Hoh said he decided to speak out because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right'. " The Washington Post described the resignation as sending "ripples all the way to the White House". To prevent him leaving, officials offered Mr Hoh a job in the US embassy in Kabul. He was flown to Washington to meet the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, who initially persuaded him to remain to influence policy from within rather than outside government. However, Mr Hoh ultimately refused, and his resignation became final in October. He said that the insurgency in some parts of Afghanistan arrived only after the US troops did.

The White House has said a decision on a new strategy for Afghanistan, including troop numbers, will be made in the coming weeks, but critics say the process is taking too long. The top US military commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has asked for at least 40,000 more troops there. Mr Hoh advised cutting combat troops; more support for Pakistan; better US communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda; and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption, the Washington Post reported him as saying. "We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Mr Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve." Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Business.view: Cash for votes (The Economist: Daily columns)

corporate lobbying. On October 26th, however, came a glimmer of hope for those who Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:04:25 AM want shareholders to have a Business.view proper say on who sits on the Oct 27th 2009 boards of the firms they own. The From Economist.com A glimmer directors of HealthSouth, which of hope for corporate-governance runs a chain of hospitals and reform clinics, approved a change in its AMERICA’S system of elections bylaws that will oblige it to for the boards of companies has reimburse shareholders who long been a sort of Potemkin mount a proxy contest for the village: impressive, until you lean expense involved—provided that on it. Yes, there is one share, one their candidate achieves at least v o t e . B u t o n l y c a n d i d a t e s 40% of the vote. It is the first big proposed by the incumbent board American company to offer such make it on to the ballot that the reimbursement, and it has led firm sends to shareholders. Other some activist shareholders to candidates can seek votes only by declare the start of an important circulating “proxies” of their own new trend. Bob Monks, a veteran to shareholders, at the candidates’ c a m p a i g n e r o n c o r p o r a t e own expense. The cost of this is governance, says the move is very usually enough to deter them, important, not just because it allowing the official slate of reduces the financial risk for directors to retain their lucrative outsiders seeking election to b o a r d r o o m s i n e c u r e s boards but because, in uncontested—even if only a tiny acknowledging that companies p r o p o r t i o n o f s h a r e h o l d e r s have a responsibility to facilitate actually vote for them. open contests, it “establishes a Several efforts to make it easier principle barely dreamed of.” for shareholders to nominate It is hoped that this principle will directors have been frustrated by now be adopted widely. Having lobbying from corporate turkeys narrowly failed to secure similar keen to postpone Christmas for as bylaw changes this year at Dell long as they can. Earlier this and Office Depot, the American m o n t h t h e S e c u r i t i e s a n d Federation of State, County and Exchange Commission (SEC) Municipal Employees (a trade announced yet another year’s union and, through its pension delay before it again considers fund, an activist shareholder), proposals to ease outsiders’ access plans to bring similar votes at six to proxies. Earlier attempts to companies at least in 2010. bring reforms failed in 2003 and Yet there are reasons for 2007, again due to furious pessimism. HealthSouth is hardly

a representative firm, having been the centre of a notable corporate scandal a few years ago (under previous management). Cynical folk may suspect that HealthSouth’s new bylaw is partly intended to draw a line under the firm’s past scandals. They may also fear that it is not as reforming as it looks; and that its backers hope to discourage the SEC from reviving its plans to impose tougher reforms by giving the appearance that boards are reforming themselves. Having to get 40% of votes before being reimbursed is a high threshold. The result may be that outside candidates will seek election only if they are almost certain to win—in other words, that little will change. But those who hope it is the start of a positive trend can point to a recent change in corporate law in the state of Delaware, which took effect on August 1st, to make it easier to introduce such reimbursement bylaws. This is important because a large proportion of American firms are incorporated in Delaware. To some, this highlights the strength of America’s system of state (rather than federal) incorporation, in which states compete to attract companies to set up under their laws. The regulatory competition, they argue, ensures that the most efficient form of corporate governance triumphs. Critics, however, think that company

bosses are able to steer firms to incorporate in states that are friendly to management at the expense of shareholders. They see Delaware’s pre-eminence in company registrations as the outcome of a race to the regulatory bottom. Indeed, it can be argued that this was the cause of the weak corporate governance that contributed mightily to the spectacular business failures of recent years, both on Main Street and Wall Street. Larry Summers, Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser and a former treasury secretary, has said that one of the key principles of regulatory reform after the recent crisis is that no firm should be able to choose its own regulator. He gave no indication that this principle should apply to choosing which set of state laws a firm subjects itself to through its choice of incorporation. Yet maybe that should be a priority. Rather than hoping that barely adequate voluntary reforms at scandal-hit companies will start a trend, how about a federal law of incorporation which establishes a firm principle that outsiders must be given a fair shot at company boards? Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Green.view: Freaking out (The Economist: Daily columns) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:30:23 AM

Green.view Oct 27th 2009 From Economist.com The c o n t r o v e r s y o v e r SuperFreakonomics FOOLS rush in where climatologists fear to tread. That, at least, is what critics are saying about a book called “ SuperFreakonomics”, which was published on October 20th. Its authors are self-proclaimed “rogue economist” Steven Levitt, of the University of Chicago, and his swashbuckling sidekick Stephen Dubner, a journalist. The internet is now alight with controversy about a chapter in the book that examines climate change. The book is a sequel to “ Freakonomics”. This newspaper, among many others, gave that work a glowing review as an unconventional look into the hidden economic forces behind imponderables such as estate agents’ fees and cheating sumowrestlers. The book’s approach was, and is, compelling: applying the tool of economic analysis to unusual, everyday situations to provide an objective view of the self-interests of self-interested GREEN.VIEW: page 71

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American bank failures: An uncelebrated century (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 10/26/2009 3:38:49 AM

American bank failures Oct 26th 2009 From Economist.com Smaller American banks are now at the centre of the credit storm PARTNERS BANK of Naples, Florida, earned a dubious distinction on Friday October 23rd. It became the 100th American bank failure of the year. On the same day six other lenders—two more in Florida and banks in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Georgia—joined the rollcall of failure in the aftermath of the credit crisis. More banks have failed in other years. The post-war record was set in 1989 when 534 banks went under. That was at the peak of the savings-and-loan (S&L) crisis, which erupted in the late 1980s and continued in the early 1990s. This year has seen more failures than any since 1992, but another 75 banks must go under to overhaul that year’s total. Counting absolute numbers of failures, however, is not the best way to assess the extent of a financial crisis. The number of banks and thrifts has fallen dramatically since the S&L era, from some 16,000 lenders then to

around 8,000 now. According to CreditSights, a research firm, when the current cycle is over, the rate of bank failures may be double what it was during the S&L crisis. The total of failures also disguises the size of individual collapses. The demise of Washington Mutual, the biggest bank to fail in America so far in this crisis, means that banks accounting for more than 3% of the system’s total assets have fallen during the current cycle already, compared with 4.4% of assets over the entire S&L episode. Yet passing the hundred mark symbolises how the financial crisis has shifted its focus from large banks to small ones. America’s big banks may face regulatory uncertainty but they take the shelter of government support. Most have diversified businesses so they can offset credit losses with buoyant earnings from investment banking. The recent slew of thirdquarter results suggests that the number of non-performing loans is approaching a peak. Small banks have no such comfort. They are too small to pose a threat to the entire system and thus too small to require saving. And they are heavily

exposed to commercial property, an asset class that continues to go downhill fast. In the latest sign of distress, Capmark, one of America’s largest commercialproperty lenders, filed for bankruptcy on Sunday. These factors point to a sharp rise in bank failures. There are 416 institutions on the problem list of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). CreditSights estimates that more than 600 banks will fail if conditions stay as they are. If things get really sticky, more than 1,000 could go under (compared with over 1,800 in the S&L crisis). That means lots of buying opportunities for other banks and private-equity investors. But it spells trouble for the FDIC, which administers failed banks and estimates that it will incur total losses of $100 billion over the course of this credit cycle. This weekend’s tally of bank busts added another $357m to the bill. The FDIC has already proposed ways to bolster its depleted deposit-insurance fund by requiring banks to prepay some $45 billion of insurance premiums into the fund. But many think its estimates of losses are too low anyway, particularly since the minnows of American banking, unlike the big fish, do not have

the same buffers of equity investors and subordinated debtholders to help bear the costs of failure. The crisis among small banks may not threaten the system in the same way as big-bank failures. But for taxpayers, there is the prospect of further outlays. A cash -strapped FDIC may yet be forced to tap a $500 billion credit line with America’s Treasury. For big banks, there is the threat that the agency will levy an emergency round of premiums. As for borrowers, particularly small businesses that rely on local lenders, credit may be hard to come by. Barack Obama unveiled proposals on October 21st to increase the size of governmentguaranteed loans to small businesses, and to make it more attractive for small lenders to ask for capital from the Troubled Assets Relief Programme. The national picture may be brightening: the next phase of the financial crisis will be local. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

GREEN.VIEW: continued from page 70

parties. Readers felt they understood the world a little better as they learned why most drug dealers live at home, for example (the profits go to gang leaders). Crunch the numbers, the book insisted, and it all makes sense. In “Superfreakonomics” the ethos is largely unchanged—readers stand to learn, among other things, why a prostitute is like a department-store Santa (demand for prostitutes turns out to be surprisingly seasonal). But the final chapter tackles the climatechange debate, and its arguments had people up in arms even before the book was published. Climatechange commentators of both the professional and the armchair variety have taken exception to a number of the chapter’s opening assertions. A great deal of debate focuses on whether the authors misquoted the scientists they consulted. But what concerns your correspondent about this chapter is that it spends most of its time describing an apparently cheap, simple solution to climate change: a clever idea fermented in a small set of laboratories at Intellectual Ventures, a firm run by Nathan Myhrvold, who was once Microsoft’s chief technology officer. The scheme was originally the brainchild of a Russian climate scientist, Mikhail Budyko, in the 1970s. It involves pumping sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. There, it will form sulphates that reflect a GREEN.VIEW: page 72

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Baghdad bombs: Bloodbath in Baghdad (The Economist: News analysis)

perhaps 100 people. The new attack has heightened the sense of crisis in the Iraqi Submitted at 10/26/2009 12:39:00 AM capital. The past two years have Baghdad bombs seen fewer bombings and fewer Oct 26th 2009 | BAGHDAD people killed than in the years From Economist.com At least before. But insurgents are now 155 die in the worst bombings in focusing on spectacular assaults in Iraq of the past two years an effort to affect the political TWO car bombs turned Baghdad situation. Elections are due in into a killing field on Sunday January and security is a big October 25th, claiming the lives issue. As in Afghanistan, where of at least 155 people and injuring the Taliban stepped up attacks hundreds more. The main targets during the election campaign, were the ministry of justice and more bombings are likely in the public works and the office of the coming months. Iraq's prime governor of Baghdad province. minister, Nuri al-Maliki, had been A l m o s t s i m u l t a n e o u s l y t h e claiming credit for ending the explosions sent windows and their descent into civil war and is frames several hundred metres therefore vulnerable. Voters might along Haifa Street, near the also punish political parties with fortified Green Zone. Burst water their own militias, if they are seen mains flooded parts of the area, to be associating with terrorists. washing over charred bodies and The attack comes at a fragile time through burned cars. This was the in the pre-election timetable. second such attack in two months, Members of parliament last week but the bloodiest in two years. On failed to agree on a new election August 19th bombs destroyed law, raising the prospect of a several government buildings delay to the poll. If so, Mr Maliki including the ministries of finance would continue to rule but as a and foreign affairs, killing caretaker, but that would create

more uncertainty. At the same time, the American army is continuing with its plans to pull out. It is hoping to have withdrawn 70,000 soldiers by August 2010, leaving a residual force of 50,000 for another year. Barack Obama and other world leaders condemned Sunday's bombs. But violence in Iraq is increasingly a local affair. A small group of American forensics experts visited the sites of the latest attacks but to get there they rode in Iraqi army vehicles. The Iraqi government, and others, blame Sunni insurgent groups including al-Qaeda and members of Saddam Hussein's former regime for the attacks. But Iraqis are also pointing fingers at political parties. Insurgents, by hitting ministries and other government institutions, are trying to prevent a functioning state from emerging. Some ask darkly whether politicians have an interest in prolonged chaos, as some of them might lose powers of patronage if a modern bureaucracy were to emerge.

Iraqis know that political violence will be with them for a long time, even if full civil war can be avoided. The fortunes of insurgent groups wax and wane, their support base shrinking and expanding depending on how vulnerable sectarian groups feel. But an end to the bombings is not in sight. The locations of the latest attacks were symbolic. Haifa Street was in the hands of insurgents three years ago. American and Iraqi troops fought pitched battles to retake it in what turned out to be the start of the “surge” that eventually helped to improve security in much of Iraq. At the time, bodies were stacked up like bales of hay on Haifa Street. Since then, occupants had returned and a sense of normality had started to take hold. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

But the chapter marks a significant departure from the Freakonomists’ modus operandi: it contains little in the way of economics, other than a brief discussion of externalities and the observation that the hose system would be much cheaper than building an entirely new lowcarbon energy infrastructure for the world. The casual reader is

left pondering why it has not already been deployed. What is troublesome is not just that the idea, like other geoengineering schemes, is untested on any appreciable scale. Nor is it merely that temperature mitigation of this sort does nothing to deal with rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide that would also lead to acidification of

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Far more insidious than all these concerns is the implicit assertion that the authors have cracked the hidden economic forces at work in the climate-change debate, and the explicit suggestion that this one technological solution is the silver bullet that could solve the climate calamity. The Union of Concerned Scientists has already issued a statement debunking the book’s claims, and debate about the merits of this one idea among many will rage on in the blogosphere. With “Freakonomics”, the authors made pop economists of everyone, to the general good. To give the sequel’s readers this distorted lens through which to view climate change and its solution is to do readers a grave disservice. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. GREEN.VIEW: page 73

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fraction of the incident sunlight, resulting in a net reduction in global temperatures. Such deliberate efforts to modify the climate to reverse global warming are called “geoengineering”. The authors go to great lengths to describe how rogue thinkers at Intellectual Ventures hope to build a hose into the sky(suspended by large helium

balloons) that spews sulphur dioxide constantly into the atmosphere. They call it “fiendishly simple and startlingly cheap”. Dealing with climate change, they argue, might be much cheaper and simpler than everyone seems to think—the type of counter-intuitive conclusion for which they have become known in other fields.

the oceans and loss of biodiversity. It is not even that there are good reasons to believe that sulphur dioxide dispersed in the stratosphere could drastically disrupt rainfall patterns in ways that could no better be modelled with existing knowledge than next month’s cloud cover. GREEN.VIEW: page 72

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MediaDailyNews: Publicis Reports 'Most Terrible' Results, Claims It Is Becoming An 'All-Digital Agency'

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(MediaPost | Media News)

Research Brief: Almost As Good As A Sandwich Board (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:15:10 AM

According to a new survey commissioned by 1020 Placecast and conducted by Harris Interactive, American consumers are receptive to opt-in mobile marketing messages from brick-and-mortar businesses. 42% of 18 to 34 year old cell phone owners and 33% of 35 to 44 year olds are at least somewhat interested in receiving alerts about sales on their cell phones from their favorite establishments. Men are more interested than women: • 51% of men ages 18 to 34, and 34% of women of the same age range who own cell phones, are at least somewhat interested in receiving opt-in shopping alerts on their cell phones. Only 1% cell phone owners currently receive alerts about sales at their favorite establishments on their phones, yet 26% would be at least somewhat interested in receiving such alerts, assuming they were permission-based. Food, entertainment and

consumer products top the list of categories Of those interested in receiving alerts, 53% would be at least somewhat interested in being notified about restaurant specials around them.In addition, about 2in-5 of these adults would like to receive alerts about sales for: • Movie/event tickets (43%) • Weather information (39%) • Clearance or liquidation sales (37%) About another 3-in-10 of these adults would want to be alerted about: • Pizza (31%) Clothes (30%) • Fast food (27%) About one quarter would want to be notified about: • Electronics (25%) • Music (24%) • Happy hour specials or bar and night club offers (21%) The survey found that about 9-in10 U.S. adults have made an impulse purchase when they were out shopping in a store based on a sale or a special near where they were. • 22% of adults owning cell

Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:45:41 AM

Paris-based Publicis Groupe, which currently boasts that 25% of its revenues are derived from digital advertising and media phones make this type of impulse services, ultimately plans to purchase at least once per become an "all-digital agency," its week or more often Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy • Among women with cell said in an interview following the phones ages 18 to 44, 27% release of its third quarter r e p o r t m a k i n g a t l e a s t o n e earnings this morning. impulse purchase a week Addressing why Publicis appears • Among men 18 - 34, this to be out-performing the results of number rises to 31% the other major agency holding companies during the global Among cell phone owners in economic recession, Levy said, households with children under "Obviously we have invested a lot 18, 37% are at least somewhat in transforming Publicis into an interested in receiving opt-in all-digital agency and this is alerts on their mobile phones. starting to pay. We have very This number rises to 44% in good numbers for growth in households with children under digital. And this is something age 6. which is offsetting the decrease of According to Kathryn Koegel of some other activities." Primary Impact Research, "Many The statement follows Publicis' American consumers have their recent closing on its acquisition of mobile devices with them all day Razorfish from Microsoft, as well long, including when they are as organic growth in digital shopping... reaching a receptive advertising services from units a u d i e n c e . . . p r e s e n t s a b i g such as Digitas, VivaKi, Denuo, opportunity to influence impulse Starcom MediaVest Group, and purchases... " ZenithOptimedia Group, and For more information about 1020 while he said the organization Placecast and this study, please does not plan another big digital visit here. Or, to access the PDF advertising services acquisition, file, please go to Placecast here. Levy left that door open if the This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

right opportunity comes along: "We have no plans to make further large acquisitions. We have plenty of plans to make small acquisitions in two areas. One is everything which has to do with emerging markets. In emerging markets we are interested by agencies, advertising agencies, PR agencies, marketing services, digital - obviously - or media. And we are still interested across the board by digital operations. These acquisitions are very hard to find ; there are not many, and they are not very costly. We have liquidity of about €3.5 billion and this gives us ample room to make the acquisitions we expect to do, but normally we should be at a very low level of spending and I don't anticipate some major acquisition any time soon." For the third-quarter of 2009, Publicis said its organic revenues declined 7.4%, which is slightly better than the 8.6% decline it reported for the second-quarter, and Levy said the ad industry downturn appeared to have bottomed out in the summer, and he called June "the most terrible months we have ever seen." This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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MediaDailyNews: CIMM Goes Public, Sort Of: Inadvertently Posts Official RFPs (MediaPost | Media News)

According to the RFPs, CIMM is seeking proposals on two studies: one to evaluate how to take Following months of speculation advantage of set-top-box (STB) and the inadvertent circulation of data; and another to examine how d r a f t p r o p o s a l s , t h e m e d i a to best track viewing across research industry got its first m u l t i p l e s c r e e n s . R e s e a r c h genuine look at what the TV companies can bid on either the industry's new Coalition for STB or "Cross-Platform" study Innovative Media Measurement either in full or in part. r e a l l y h a s i n m i n d . A n d In the document, CIMM asks apparently, it wants researchers researchers to explain how their bidding for its proposals to, well, work will produce data that "does mind the store. "We want to be not replicate commonly used clear that we are not only looking buying and selling metrics." for better or more robust versions Looking beyond ratings, CIMM of current media metrics. We need says it is interested in audience a clear path toward the results- i n f o r m a t i o n t h a t i n c l u d e s based metrics that are clearly, and "purchase data, lifestyle data, rightfully, being demanded by psychographics and engagement advertisers," reads the official measures." It also cites "salesrequest-for-proposals (RFP)," based, behavior-shift and/or posted on the coalition's new Web attitude-shift data." site, which is labeled as still Research companies are asked to "under construction.-- not for submit their completed proposals public use, but which can be - with would-be costs -- to an found here here. NBC Universal executive by The full RFP, which is printed in email. its entirety at the bottom of this NBCU's research chief Alan story in the event that the link is Wurtzel has been acting as made private after its been CIMM's de facto managing published, goes on to say, "We director, while a search for a need metrics that reflect return-on permanent head continues. -investment (sales or other Also in the RFP, CIMM asks appropriate business metrics), and researchers if they can provide d o s o a c c u r a t e l y a n d o n a data on VOD (video-on-demand) sufficiently granular level to and DVR viewing for both follow the fragmented media national and local markets. CIMM vehicles that are now emerging. also wants details on how data ' O p p o r t u n i t y t o s e e ' i s a n about time-shifting behavior via important metric, but only the DVRs is collected. beginning." A sign of how long CIMM may Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:19:56 AM

have been prepping the RFPs: It asks whether researchers can track addressable advertising referencing a system linked with "Project Canoe." That organization is now known as Canoe Ventures and has put its targeted advertising initiative on hold until at least early next year. CIMM also asks researchers how they plan on interacting with the Media Rating Council (MRC) -the media industry's audience ratings watchdog. The inclusion of a reference to the MRC is telling, because CIMM so far has said it does not plan to compete with Nielsen or other media "ratings" providers, but is strictly focused on primary research initiatives. In August, MRC CEO George Ivie issued a statement saying the group would be interesting in liaising with CIMM. The RFP also asks what plans research bidders might have for integrating with the back office media processing systems such as Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank, which ad agencies utilize to plan and buy media, and to pay media vendors. CIMM is a gang of 14 that includes multiple owners of TV networks; several ad agencies including GroupM, Interpublic, Starcom MediaVest Group, and Omnicom Media Group; and three big advertisers: AT&T, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Each has committed to spending $200,000 over the next two years to seed

the two studies. Research companies that may bid for CIMM funding include Rentrak, TNS and TiVo, and maybe even Nielsen, which is concurrently funding new primary research studies that may run parallel to CIMM's via the Nielsen-backed Council for Research Excellence. Nielsen recently hinted it intends to join CIMM in supporting studies on how to advance media measurement, announcing last week it would contribute an additional $2.5 million to the CRE, bringing the total amount of Nielsen's funding to $10 million. Below is the text of the RFP document available Monday: Request for Proposal 1. Background The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) is a group of buyers and sellers formed to promote innovation and develop new industry standards for television, mobile and cross platform audience measurement in the United States. To facilitate this ongoing effort CIMM intends to shape, fund, and operate a small number of pilots with measurement companies and publish research findings. Members of CIMM include, GroupM, Interpublic, Starcom MediaVest Group, Omnicom M e d i a G r o u p , Disney/ABC/ESPN, CBS, NBCU, Fox, Discovery, VIACOM, Time Warner, P&G, Unilever, and

AT&T. 2. Prologue As buyers and sellers of advertising-supported media, we are deeply concerned that, despite the efforts of some research suppliers, media measure is not keeping pace with urgent business needs. The media landscape is changing dramatically, and the television marketplace is changing with it. We are shifting from a TV landscape to a multi platform video landscape with a currency system in place that is stretched to its limits that only measures television. Due to a variety of factors, efforts to upgrade that system and to grow it beyond the one screen are not moving. We want to be clear that we are not only looking for better or more robust versions of current media metrics. We need a clear path toward the results-based metrics that are clearly, and rightfully, being demanded by advertisers. We need metrics that reflect return-on-investment (sales or other appropriate business metrics), and do so accurately and on a sufficiently granular level to follow the fragmented media vehicles that are now emerging. "Opportunity to see" is an important metric, but only the beginning. Among our specific concerns two stand out. The promise of set-topMEDIADAILYNEWS: page 75

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box tuning data, offering very large samples (approaching census) that can deliver the combination of granularity and reliability we need at low cost, is obvious. However research suppliers have not begun to address STB methodological issues to our satisfaction. Moreover, actual STB data from the field has been limited and difficult to use. We are looking for a supplier or suppliers who can show us how STB data works today, and how in the near future it can be part of the results-based metrics the marketplace demands. A second concern is crossplatform measurement. We need reliable, granular, results-based metrics that can be applied consistently across all the major video platforms, to fuel the burgeoning interest in multiplatform video advertising plans. Such metrics do not now exist. Instead we have a patchwork of measures, each developed for its own video "silo," which makes cross-media planning and buying difficult if not impossible. We need the best minds in the media measurement field to develop ways in which the multiplicity of video media (including, as a start, TV, internet and mobile) can be reported both separately and on a unified basis. This is the time for leading buyers and sellers to work together with audience measurement providers to seek innovative solutions and understand the tradeoffs of innovative solutions to media

metrics. We are agnostic as to who will supply us with this data; the field is open, but we need these forward-looking metrics, adequate to the high standards of trading and post-evaluation, within the next 3-5 years. 3. Proposals Sought Two studies are initially contemplated, one to investigate the current and future potential of television measurement via set top box data, and the other video cross-platform measurement. Recipients are invited to bid on either or both of these studies, in whole or in part. While numerous questions to be addressed by each study will be presented here it is recognized that recipients may wish to address only those that are within their competencies. You are invited to contact CIMM c/o the name at the end of this document with any questions or comments. Set Top Box Data Study Deliverable: three to six months of actual STB data, to be used for evaluation (not sales) purposes; and responses or analyses that address the following questions. Responses may be framed in terms of what is available now or what you plan to provide in the future. If the latter, a timeline should be included. Cross-Platform Data Study Deliverable: a pilot study producing real cross-platform data that reflects exposure of specific video sources on television, the Internet and mobile media. Please include in your proposal a description of the video content

measured on or across the platforms that you think would be appropriate for a full understanding of cross platform measurement and reflects different types of content. If you require examples of content from CIMM members, specify what you need. Additional deliverables are responses or analyses that address the following questions. Responses may be framed in terms of what is available now or what you plan to provide in the future. If the latter, a timeline should be included. Questions Relating to Both the STB and Cross Platform Data Studies Metrics Do you report "traditional" metrics, those that are currently used in buying and selling? (e.g. reach, frequency, time spent, duplication, etc.) What new learning does your data provide that does not replicate commonly used buying and selling metrics? This could include (but is not limited to) purchase data, lifestyle data, psychographics, and engagement measures. How is this data calculated? What are the effects of various way of calculation? What metrics can you provide that relate specifically to media ROI accountability? Do you have sales-based, behavior-shift and/or attitude-shift data? Can you provide VOD, VCR, DVD, broadband and DVR data? On both a national and local

market basis? If you provide DVR data, what methods are used to account for time-shifted viewing? Does your DVR data reflect standalone units or only DVRs built in to a STB? How are HD networks reported? What kinds of devices or place based viewing is excluded (bars, hotels, small sets etc.) Methodology What methodological issues do you acknowledge with your data? What level of precision do you anticipate (seconds, minutes etc), commercials Can you dimensionalize the impact of these issues? How are you dealing with these issues? What methodological research have you conducted to validate your data? Do you include out-of-home TV exposure? Time-shifted viewing? Do you plan to partner with other suppliers for demographic or other data? Note: a hybrid service is acceptable. How do you determine what programs/commercials are being played or watched at any moment, for live, delayed and VOD viewing? Can you ingest precise network logs? How do you identify content that is not coded or for which logs are not provided. Can you categorize viewers by media behavior, e.g. non-adskippers? Do you employ a single-source sample, or fusion of different samples? If the latter, please describe in detail how this fusion

is implemented. Do you weight your data? If so please describe the process. What are your plans regarding engagement with the Media Ratings Council? Other Please describe your data delivery system. What are your plans for upgrades? Can a user overlay an advertising schedule on your data? Can you follow HH-targeted advertising, e.g. Project Canoe? Do you have software to analyze commercial vs. program data, including pod, pod position, etc., as well as all other data collected? Can your data interface with established 3rd party processors such as Donovan and MediaBank? Questions Specific to the STB Data Study We realize that no STB samples are as yet projectable. What is your plan for getting to national and local projectability? What is your estimate of subscriber cost increases as the sample expands? What are the skews of your current sample? Is your current sample drawn from a census or a sample in a specific geography? If sample is used please explain the process. Can you provide data that is based on multiple markets, to account for different market demographics and STB technologies? How do you calculate persons' MEDIADAILYNEWS: page 76

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viewing/demographics? Can you provide second by second data? If so, is this on a production basis or a specialanalysis basis? Describe your edit rules. This should include how you deal with the following: Box on/set off Faulting Dwell time How do you deal with non-STB sets in a home? How do you deal with non-STB homes in your sample area? Do you draw or plan to draw any other data from homes that provide you with STB data? For example HH demographics, shopping card data, modem data, etc.? Do you capture interactive (nontuning) data from boxes that support it (e.g. ad click-throughs, EPGs)? Have you conducted any parallel studies (e.g. telephone coincidentals) to validate your data, particularly data (such as

demographics) not drawn directly from your sample? What is the time lag between telecast and availability of data? Questions Specific to the Cross Platform Data Study Describe your edit rules. What metrics do you provide on (1) aggregate basis, and (2) on an individual medium basis. What demographics can you provide? What is the time lag between exposure (on all platforms) and availability of data? Regarding the internet component, how do you determine what is on the screen (video and non-video)? Does your internet component include wi-fi enabled laptops, wherever they may be used? How do you deal with respondents using headphones? What are compliance rates by medium? Can you track how consumers move across platforms? Can you provide insights on

differential impact by medium? Do you measure all types of video, e.g. shows, minisodes, clips, commercials? Note: all of these can contain commercials. Do you measure video starts and duration? Additional Information Proposal Format The proposal should contain the following components: Deliverables: specific data and analyses to be delivered. Timing: calculated from the time the contact is awarded. Cost: different options may be presented (e.g. months of data). Company profile: brief history, current syndicated and custom offerings, executives who would be responsible for this project. Other Terms Following the date at which the Coalition receives the Supplier's proposal and pricing, that proposal and pricing shall be binding on the Supplier in all respects for a period of 90 days. In submitting a proposal, the

Supplier understands that the Coalition will determine at its sole discretion which proposal, if any, is accepted. The Supplier waives any right to claim damages of any nature whatever. This RFP defines specific requirements only. It is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as, an offer to contract. The Coalition will consider each proposal, but is under no obligation to act on any proposal. All submitted proposals shall become the property of the Coalition. Each Supplier agrees that they shall absorb all costs incurred in the preparation, revision and presentation of any proposal. When applicable, authorized travel and lodging will be billed at cost. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.