LNP Oct-28-09 Edition by Liberty Newspost

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27/10/09 - 28/10/09

LibertyNewsprint.com U.S. Edition

Kirk follows in Kennedy’s footsteps on healthcare, without the roar By Thomas Ferraro (Front Row Washington)

within reach,” said Kirk, who was appointed by the Massachusetts governor to fill Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:20:42 PM Kennedy’s seat until a successor If Ted Kennedy were alive, he can be elected in a special would have been proud. election in January. Kennedy He also would have likely been died of brain cancer in August. counting votes. During nearly a half century in And even raising his thunderous the Senate, Kennedy was known voice. as the “Liberal Lion” who roared On Capitol Hill on Tuesday, in pushing legislation to help the K e n n e d y ’ s t e m p o r a r y needy. replacement in the U.S. Senate Kirk, a former chairman of the echoed the fallen lawmaker’s call Democratic party, did not roar. for Democrats and Republicans Instead, he spoke softly, almost to work together and finally in a monotone. But like Kennedy, overhaul the U.S. healthcare he made his case. system. “At this moment — when In his first Senate speech since America’s families are imperiled being sworn in last month, Paul by economic hardship and Kirk said: “Of all the issues on uncertainty, it provides them no which he led the Senate and our comfort to see the United States nation, the one Ted Kennedy Senate so politically polarized called the cause of his life was over an issue that should be the battle for affordable, quality bringing us together on their health care.” behalf,” Kirk said. “These crises “After decades of falling short of should not be dividing this the mark … (it) is at long last chamber, they should be uniting

us.” Kirk was quickly seated to replace Kennedy so Democrats, if they stick together, would retain the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate to clear Republican procedural hurdles. But Kirk said, “This debate

should not be about one party reaching 60 votes; it should be about 100 Senators reaching out to each other to reform a health care system so that it better reflects the true values and character of our nation.” Despite the Kennedyesque call

for bipartisanship, there’s no sign of it in sweeping Democratic healthcare legislation that includes a government-run public option to compete with private insurers. If no Republican backs it, Senate Democrats will all have to help clear the way for it to become law. At this point, Democrats figure they are a few votes short of 60, but are hopeful of hitting it once the vote is taken. Kennedy’s name is certain to again be invoked before the roll call begins, likely next month. Click here for more Reuters political coverage Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Senator Kennedy at National Press Club in 2007), Reuters/Molly Riley (Senator Paul Kirk listens to testimony at hearing in September)

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Poll: Support up for troop increase in Visa charges through Afghanistan Q4 estimates, but future cash flow is the story By JoAnne Allen (Front Row Washington)

By Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:54:43 PM

Public support for sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is on the rise, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday. The poll finds 47 percent of Americans favor boosting the troop level in Afghanistan, compared to 43 percent who are opposed to the idea. An NBC/WSJ poll in September found 51 percent opposed to a troop increase, while 44 percent supported it. Other recent opinion polls have shown lagging public support for the war and members of President Barack Obama’s own Democratic Party are divided over whether to send more troops. Right now, there are 65,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan as part of a 100,000 strong NATOled force. The size of the U.S. contingent is expected to reach 68,000 later this year. Obama is considering whether to send up to 40,000 more troops. His decision is expected any day

Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:30:00 AM

now. Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other critics say he’s taking too long to reach a decision. Cheney accused Obama of“dithering” over a strategy review and said he needed to send more troops right away. If the poll is accurate, a majority of Americans don’t mind the time Obama is taking to review the U.S. strategy in the eight-year -old war. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 58 percent of respondents support delaying a decision until after Afghanistan’s runoff presidential election on

Nov. 7, when U.S. officials may have a better handle on Kabul’s political situation. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,009 adults was conducted Oct. 22-25 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Click here for more Reuters political news. Photo Credit: Reuters/ Omar Sobhani (U.S. troops on patrol in Kandahar city 10/26/09)

Tool: Hot Shot Thermal Imager for Law Enforcement By Bob Parks (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:00 PM

Police can spot a person in TacSight handheld camera. complete darkness and find hidden objects in the light of day, thanks to the sensor on the

Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V) Visa(NYSE: V) is one of my favorite businesses on Wall Street. It should be an excellent long-term investment. People will always use branded credit cards, and Visa doesn't take a lot of risk. It simply collects a little of the spoils on each transaction. What a model! According to TheStreet.com, Visa increased top-line sales by 10% in the fourth quarter, and expanded per-share profit by 28% to 74 cents, excluding

certain items. Forecasts were for 72 cents per share. Continue reading Visa charges through Q4 estimates, but future cash flow is the story Visa charges through Q4 estimates, but future cash flow is the story originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Silicon Valley Oct. 28, 1793: Conference About Whitney's Cotton Gin Patent Not Worth Much Failing Is A Big Success By Randy Alfred (Wired Top Stories)

By Ryan Singel (Wired Top Stories)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:00 PM

Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:22:00 AM

A young inventor sets out to mechanize cotton production and get rich. He gets it half right.

In Silicon Valley, failure isn’t an option. It’s mandatory.

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UN workers die in Kabul attack By Jon Boone (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

on an exclusive hotel favoured by foreigners sent guests fleeing into secure underground bunkers. Large sections of Kabul were Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:05:38 AM closed off to traffic by police as Taliban militants storm Kabul security forces warned that the guesthouse, killing 12 people threat to the capital remained including six UN workers high. The Taliban today brought their Reports indicated that militants, insurgency to the heart of the some of them dressed in police Afghan capital, Kabul, storming uniforms, remained at large. a g u e s t h o u s e u s e d b y U N Kai Eide, the head of the UN employees and killing 12 people, mission in Kabul, described the including six UN workers, in a attack as "a very dark day for the two-hour fight with security UN in Afghanistan". forces. The assault on the UN-approved Terrified guests were seen guesthouse, in one of Kabul's r u n n i n g f r o m t h e B e k h t a r most expensive neighbourhoods, guesthouse during the early began in the early hours of the morning attack, some screaming morning when gunmen shot and for help and others jumping from killed the Afghan guards on the upper floors as flames engulfed front gate. part of the three-storey building. By 9am local time, fire crews The US embassy in Kabul were trying to deal with a blaze confirmed that at least one of the that sent black smoke billowing dead was an American. A UN over central Kabul. spokesman said six employees Security guards from a nearby had been killed and about nine office block said the attackers other people injured. were dressed in police uniforms The Taliban claimed the assault and were dropped off at their was part of a strategy to disrupt destination in an official green the re-run of the presidential Afghan national police truck. election. A spokesman said "We saw four guys with AK-47s militants had taken UN staff attack the front gate," one said. hostage, a claim denied by "When they were inside we heard Afghan police. grenade explosions and fighting At the same time, a rocket attack that lasted for about two hours."

They confirmed the accounts of other witnesses who saw some of the guesthouse residents climb over the rooftops of the building to escape. Some jumped down from high ledges and one woman was heard screaming in pain after apparently breaking her leg in a fall. Helicopters hovered overhead during the attack as the neighbourhood, home to foreigners, diplomats and senior members of the Afghan establishment, filled with counter -terrorism police and emergency workers. The interior ministry said Afghan police had killed three of the gunmen. Several unconfirmed reports suggested suicide bombers were involved, with one detonating his explosives inside the compound and another shot by security forces. Such so-called "swarm attacks" are becoming a favoured tactic with militants in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The UN refused to give details of the nationalities of those involved or confirm claims that some of the guesthouse residents worked for UNDP Elect, the agency supporting the

presidential elections, which are due to go into a second round on 7 November. Such a clear attack on UN staff in Kabul is unprecedented and has long been the nightmare scenario for the organisation, which has thousands of staff in the city. A western diplomat said the UN and many foreign aid charities would have to reassess how many staff they would continue to keep there. "[The Taliban] have always kept this card in reserve and the fact that they have now chosen to play it is very worrying," he said. "The question will be whether this is a pinpoint attack to make a political point or the start of a campaign." The UN implemented its "white city" lockdown, which confines all its staff to their guesthouses and bans any movement around the city until further notice. Several UN agencies told staff to have on hand their emergency travel suitcases in case of a general evacuation. UN workers are expected to have a suitcase ready at all times. While the UN decides whether to keep staff in Kabl, some aid workers due to fly in from Dubai were told to stay put until the

situation became clearer. Yesterday, Kabul was hit by at least two rocket attacks, with loud explosions audible across the city. One rocket landed inside the five -star Serena Hotel founded by the Aga Khan, although it was not clear whether it was the intended target for what are inaccurate weapons. The hotel was the scene of one of the worst attacks on a foreign target in January 2008 when suicide bombers broke into the compound and killed six people. Another rocket landed in a park close to the hotel, which is near the presidential palace and several other government buildings. The palace denied reports that a third rocket had come down inside the compound in which Hamid Karzai has his home and office. • Afghanistan • United Nations • Taliban • Global terrorism Jon Boone guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

'This Is It': The Ultimate Michael Jackson Photo Gallery (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:00:00 AM

On Thursday, June 25, music

legend Michael Jackson, 50, passed away in Los Angeles. The King of Pop will be forever immortalized for his world-

famous, trademark dance moves and chart-topping success. Fans can catch a glimpse of Jackson's last rehearsals in the

documentary 'This Is It,' now in IMAX and conventional theaters everywhere. Take a look at decades of

pictures of Michael Jackson, a man who revolutionized music throughout the years.

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Move to break deadlock on Israeli settlements By Rory McCarthy (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

even to explore if the Palestinians might one day compromise over them in peace talks. But there is little appetite in Submitted at 10/28/2009 2:46:10 AM Salfit for any such concession. One Voice hopes to open debate M u n i r A b b u s h i , t h e l o c a l among Palestinians about land governor, told an audience of his exchange, but finds resistance at town's residents that he was West Bank meeting strongly opposed to settlements. There are few more pressing "Talking about peace while we issues for the Palestinians of have settlements is impossible," Salfit, living deep in the rocky he said. hills of the occupied West Bank, "Our choice is peace and a twothan the remarkable expansion of state solution. We don't have any the Israeli settlements around ambitions to take all of historic them. Palestine, we just want the West Sitting along a broad hilltop Bank and Gaza and to live range above them is Ariel, one of peacefully." the largest and oldest settlements He said a "small state" of in the West Bank, and one that "limited zones" surrounded by Israel is intent on retaining in any Israeli settlements, which in the future peace agreement with the West Bank increasingly feels like Palestinians. Dotted on the a very real possibility, was nearby hills are more settlements unacceptable. There were already carving a deep swath through the 17 separate settlements in his area that reaches nearly 15 miles governorate, he said. into the territory. Isam Baker, a Palestinian At a time when Middle East settlement expert, told the peace seems ever more distant, audience he too opposed all with Israeli and Palestinian settlements, which he argued leaders still far from engaging in were an Israeli policy to control d i r e c t t a l k s , a g r a s s r o o t s as much land as possible. "It is organisation called One Voice time for a political decision and a came to Salfit hoping to start a national strategy. We have to constructive debate about the stop all negotiations with Israel impact of the settlements, and completely until the settlements

are stopped," he said. One Voice had hoped to use the meeting to open a debate among Palestinians. It followed another meeting in the Israeli town of Sderot, near Gaza, in which Palestinian rocket fire was discussed, and came before a meeting in Jerusalem today, to debate the future of the city. "What we are really trying to do is create a debate so people have choices to take to any future agreement," John Lyndon, an Irishman who heads One Voice Europe, said. "If you continue to negotiate along a completely separate track to what people are debating, then it's all for nothing because people aren't prepared to accept it." Hanging on the wall in a conference room in the governor's headquarters, was an apparently innocuous sign in Arabic with the title of the talk: "A debate on the final status issues of settlements and land swaps." The idea of land swaps, in which Israel would retain some settlements and in exchange give up unoccupied land inside Israel to the Palestinians, has been discussed in negotiations and by peace industry thinktanks for

many years. It lies at the heart of the Geneva Initiative, a prominent, informal peace plan drawn up by Israelis and Palestinians. But on the ground in towns like Salfit, even talk of the idea of land swaps is anathema. It reveals how vast the gap is between the top Palestinian negotiators and the people on whose behalf they are negotiating. The first member of the audience to speak, Khamis Hamad, a retired teacher, earned applause when he dismissed the sign as "criminal" and "forbidden". "We all know that the people of Salfit are being prevented from living on their land. We don't need speeches or conferences. We need a solution," he said. "Settlements have to disappear. We should not exchange land." Fathi Bouzayeh, 50, a former mayor of the nearby town of Kifl Haris, called for non-violent demonstrations against the settlements and the settler-only roads that crisscross the surrounding land. "This is my grandfather's land. I cannot give it to Israel. We should say to the Ariel settlers: 'This is my land and you can't use it.'"

Many others spoke, but none among them said land swaps might ever be successful. Samer Makhlouf, the head of One Voice Palestine, tried to assuage the crowd. "We are just giving you the terms that are used and then you choose whatever you want," he said. "These terms have been put on the table in negotiations by our Palestinian Authority." He said polling conducted by One Voice suggested most Israelis and Palestinians wanted a two-state solution and that nearly half the Palestinian population would accept some kind of land swap as a border adjustment, in which some settlements would remain under Israeli control. "We don't give you solutions. It is for you to discuss everything," he said. • Palestinian territories • Israel • Middle East Rory McCarthy guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Opera 10.01 Update Adds Security and Stability [Updates] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:10:00 AM

Windows/Mac/Linux: Opera's released a 10.01 update for its

speedy little browser, fixing a bunch of little niggling problems, boosting its security, and otherwise improving the redhued app.

Like Firefox, Opera has already

released a beta of Opera 10.1, what's changed in the changelog, with the Unite media server and grab a copy at the link below. installed, but 10. 0 1 is a fixed Opera Web Browser release for the main, stable branch of Opera. You can see

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UN to condemn US embargo on Cuba By Rory Carroll (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

more, needs to be done," said Sarah Stephens, director of the Centre for Democracy in the Americas. "Not because the UN Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:41:55 AM says so, but because our country General assembly expected to needs to embrace the world not push Obama to build on recent as we found it in 1959 – or in thaw in US-Cuba relations 2008 – but as it exists today." The UN general assembly is In the name of squeezing expected to overwhelmingly Havana's communist authorities, condemn the US economic the embargo bans Cuban imports, embargo against Cuba today, greatly restricts US exports and adding pressure on the Obama deters foreign firms from doing administration to abandon its 47- business with the island. Cuba, year-old policy. 90 miles off Florida, says the The majority of the assembly is measures amount to a blockade due to approve a resolution and economic warfare. d e m a n d i n g a n e n d t o t h e As a senator, Obama opposed embargo. The annual diplomatic the embargo but hardened his ritual has extra resonance this position when running for year because of Washington's president, not least because he slight thaw with Havana. needed the votes of anti-Castro Last year 185 members voted to Cuban exiles in Florida. In office end the embargo, with only Israel he has let Congress take the lead and Palau siding with the US. in easing restrictions while Micronesia and the Marshall saying the embargo will remain Islands abstained. until Havana releases political The White House has made prisoners and improves human c a u t i o u s o p e n i n g s t o R a u l rights. Castro's government – such as " T h e U S r e a l i s e s t h a t t h e easing travel restrictions for embargo is an outmoded policy Cuban Americans – but has but Obama is not ready to do the maintained crippling trade and hard work required to remove it financial controls first imposed entirely, which means that US by the Kennedy administration in policy will continue to consist of 1962. piecemeal changes," said Dan Mainstream US thinktanks say Erikson, author of The Cuba Obama's reforms are timid and Wars and an analyst at the Interfail to reset a relationship that American Dialogue thinktank. soured soon after Fidel Castro's The UN general assembly's revolutionaries overthrew the US opposition to the embargo has -backed dictator Fulgencio risen steadily since 1992, when Batista 50 years ago. 59 countries voted in favour of "This is a start, but more, much the resolution. The figure was

179 in 2004, 182 in 2005 and 184 in 2007. Even US allies such as Britain, Australia and Colombia side against the superpower, saying its Cuba policy is a cold war anachronism given US trade with undemocratic states such as China and Vietnam. One European ambassador called the embargo "demented". Havana is poised to claim a propaganda windfall from today's vote. Rogelio Polanco, its ambassador to Venezuela, told a seminar in Caracas that international solidarity was needed to rein in a global bully. "The US's economic and military power, even if diminished, remains hegemonic," he said. Fidel Castro has long blamed the embargo for the island's impoverishment but since his brother Raul took over the presidency last year there has been greater official recognition of the shortcomings of socialist central planning. The infrastructure creaks, the average monthly wage hovers under $20 and there are chronic shortages of basic goods such as fruit, vegetables, meat, soap, shampoo and toilet paper. Agriculture is a disaster – staterun collectives barely function, meaning most food is imported – and industry fares little better. The island's trade deficit jumped to $11.4bn last year, up 65%, forcing debt rescheduling and talk of default. In a recent speech Raul Castro

suggested the embargo was not the main culprit. "It is not a question of yelling 'fatherland or death, down with imperialism, the blockade is hurting us', but working hard and overcoming poor organisation." No country could indefinitely spend more than it earned, he said. "Within the conditions of our imperfect socialism, due to our own shortcomings, two plus two often adds up to three." The government has loosened controls over farming and abolished near-universal subsidies such as free lunches. The next to go may be the monthly ration book, the libretto, which gives everyone a basket of rice, beans and some chicken. Volker Skierka, a Fidel biographer, said there may be marginal improvements but that the former president was holding back further change. "These steps are not radical and fundamental. The danger is that minor success will be overwhelmed by the failure of reforms," he said. • Cuba • United Nations • US foreign policy • Fidel Castro • Barack Obama • United States Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

MyCE launches community-driven gadgets review and news site By Robin Wauters (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:14:59 AM

Launching in beta today is MyCE, a community-driven network that aims to cross swords with the CNETs and GDGTs of this world when it comes to building places on the Web people gather to share news, reviews and knowledge about consumer electronics and gadgets. The site is a new venture from Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based RankOne Media. Actually, it's not entirely new. MyCE is in fact the rebranded version of CDFreaks.com, an online community founded in 2007 focused solely on optical storage devices. The existing community, which the company claims currently amounts to about 3.5 million unique monthly visitors, will be integrated and rolled over to the new platform it is debuting today.

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Family of missing yacht Britons 'keeping fingers crossed' By Sam Jones, Caroline Davies (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

pilots had seen a yacht towing a skiff – a small open boat – 200 miles south-east of the Somalian port of Harardhere, which is a known pirate haven. Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:30:36 AM Despite the reports, the Paul and Rachel Chandler feared Chandlers' family said they were kidnapped by pirates as they trying to remain optimistic. sailed from the Seychelles to "We haven't heard anything since Tanzania last night," said Rachel The family of the British couple Chandler's brother Stephen feared to have been kidnapped by Collett. "There's no evidence that pirates off the coast of Somalia it [the yacht seen towing the have said they are "keeping their skiff] is the vessel. We're just fingers crossed" and are not keeping our fingers crossed. "grossly over-worried". "It may still be that they're sailing There has been no word from across the Indian Ocean. We're Paul and Rachel Chandler since not grossly over-worried at the Friday when coastguards picked moment." up a distress signal from their A spokeswoman for the yacht, the Lynn Rival. Seychelles coastguard said there The couple, aged 58 and 55 from had been no developments in the Tunbridge Wells in Kent, were search overnight. sailing from the Seychelles The last message on the towards Tanzania when contact Chandlers' travel blog was posted was lost. on Friday morning and read: Their route would have taken "Please ring Sarah." It is thought them through Somali waters that the message was to Rachel are notorious for pirate attacks on Chandler's sister. ships and, more recently, yachts. The Foreign and Commonwealth A man has since called the Office said it was continuing Reuters news agency claiming "urgent" investigations into his group captured the Chandlers. reports that the Chandlers had The EU naval force in Somalian been kidnapped but was unable waters reported that helicopter to say for sure whether this was

the case. "We remain extremely concerned for their safety," a spokeswoman said. "We have passed details of their yacht to all international partners in the region, including the EU and Nato operations commanded by the UK. "They have begun searching for the yacht with the assets they have available in the area." The spokeswoman said Seychelles coastguard officials were continuing a search and rescue mission. On Wednesday of last week the Chandlers wrote that they were leaving the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean, and heading for Tanzania, more than 500 miles away. "We probably won't have satellite phone coverage until we're fairly close to the African coast, so we may be out of touch for some time." The EU Somalia naval force said seven suspected pirates had been detained in the Indian Ocean in an operation unrelated to the Chandlers' disappearance. He said the arrests were made after a French fishing vessel was attacked 350 nautical miles east of Mogadishu.

Paul Chandler's sister, Jill Marshment, from Gloucestershire, told BBC Radio Kent that the couple had been living on the boat "on and off" for the last three years. "Every holiday they'd go on the boat, they lived on it," she said. "They called it home when they rented out their house. "They are experienced sailors. They are very strong people – I'm sure they are going to be able to cope. They are resourceful as well, they will put on a brave face. It [abduction by pirates] is not 100% confirmed, but I think we all know that's what has happened." Asked whether the Chandlers had any money for a ransom, she said: "All their money is literally sunk in that boat as far as I know ... they haven't got wealth, they are just an ordinary couple enjoying early retirement." • Piracy at sea • Somalia

Draft law would extend Fed Aline van Duyn and Francesco powers Guerrera in New York B y T o m B r a i t h w a i t e i n Published: October 28 2009 Washington and Saskia Scholtes, 00:00 | Last updated: October 28

2009 00:00 This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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

Draft law would extend Fed powers (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:08 PM

Samsung's 30-inch AMOLED TV: 3D Without the Dizziness (Still Needs Silly Glasses) [Oled] By Danny Allen (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:24:38 AM

Another of the treats on show at FPD 2009 is Samsung's AMOLED 3D TV prototype. The 240Hz panel is just 2.5-mm thick, has a million-to-1 contrast, and Samsung claims its latest shutter-glasses technology reduces the dizziness often associated with 3D. No word on when it'll become a real product, but it's bound to be pricey. A reminder, too, that of all the 3D TV systems we've tested so far, Panasonic's active shutter-glasses and 103-inch 3D Plasma concept produced less flickering than 3D systems from Sony and JVC. Oh, and here's what Panasonic's final glasses design looks like. Yep, until we see 3D TVs that don't need glasses, we're all gonna look like dorks. At least it'll be in the comfort of our own lounge rooms. [ Samsung Korea]

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Dozens killed in Pakistan explosion By Declan Walsh (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:45:15 AM

Dozens killed as terrorist strike in Peshawar coincides with visit to Islamabad by US secretary of state The deadliest Taliban bombing in two years ripped through a women's market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar today, killing almost 90 people. The attack happened as the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, began a three-day visit to Pakistan. The blast ripped through cosmetics stalls and clothes shops in Peshawar's old city, filling the narrow streets with burning debris and trapping dozens of victims under wreckage and charred roof beams. A two-storey building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water. Television footage showed wounded people sitting amid debris as others attempted to rescue survivors and get them to hospital. A spokesman for the Lady

Reading hospital said it had received the bodies of 87 victims, many of them women and children. Provincial officials said over 200 people were injured. The city commissioner, Azam Khan, said the explosion was caused by a car bomb. "It's a very cowardly act," he added. In Islamabad, two hours to the south, Clinton told Pakistanis that the US stood "shoulder to shoulder" with them - rhetoric that echoed Tony Blair's words after the 11 September 2001 attacks. "This fight is not Pakistan's alone ... this is our struggle as well," Clinton told a press conference. Standing beside her, Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said the fight against militancy had entered a "critical phase". There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Peshawar blast, but the most likely culprits were Taliban militants reacting to a major army assault on their South Waziristan stronghold. Almost 300 Pakistanis have been killed in an unprecedented spree of militant violence over the past

three weeks, including bombings, gun attacks and targeted assassinations in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore. The army said a further 200 people, mostly militants, had been killed in heavy fighting in the mountains of South Waziristan. Peshawar has borne the brunt of the violence. A suicide attack on another marketplace on 9 October killed at least 53 people, while an attack on a police station a week later killed another 13. Clinton flew into Islamabad for a visit intended to repair battered relations between the two countries. Anti-Americanism in Pakistan is at a new high, even among the educated elite. Earlier this month, the army vigorously objected to a $7.5bn (£4.6bn) package that it described as a tool of interference in the country's affairs. Clinton said the US was turning a "new page" in the decades-old relationship to include more than just security-related issues. "Our relationship goes far

beyond security... the terrorists can destroy but they cannot build. That is where we have an advantage," she said, pledging funds to rebuild the dilapidated electricity infrastructure that has led to large-scale power rationing in recent years. The US has for years pressed Pakistan to hunt al-Qaida militants hiding in its tribal belt. Earlier, Clinton admitted relations between the two countries had developed a lot of "scar tissue" and said: "We also recognise that it's imperative that we broaden our engagement with Pakistan." • Pakistan • Taliban • Global terrorism • US foreign policy • United States Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0 By Michael Arrington (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:12:47 AM

If you weren’t sure about switching to an Android phone in the near future, this might put you over the edge. Google Maps Navigation is an absolutely killer app. And it is only available for Android 2.0 phones. Today is Droid day, and for the most part Google is taking a backseat and letting their partners get most of the attention. But Droid is the first Android phone to run Android 2.0, and Google Maps Navigation is clearly the early trophy app for those devices. Features, video and image gallery below:

Olympus China confirms the E-P2 Micro Four Thirds camera By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:00:36 AM

There was a rumor a few weeks ago that Olympus was going to launch another Micro Four Thirds camera before the end of

the year dubbed the E-P2. This guy was suppose to have a rangefinder and hopefully be done up in the same retro fashion as the E-P1. Well, it looks like the camera will indeed be announced soon according to this

somewhat official leak.

Photorumors found that Olympus China’s website has the model number listed there for the whole world to see, which seems to confirm that the event Olympus had scheduled for October 31 will probably be the

E-P2 announcement. Let’s just hope this guy has the same goods as the original model but a slightly lower price.

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Sarkozy spends £250,000 of EU budget on shower

Gingrich Says It's a 'Purge,' Malkin Says 'Stone the Left Wing Saboteurs!'

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

(Little Green Footballs)

Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:31:53 AM

Audit slams 'opaque' accounting as French EU presidency found to have spent £160m on events and refurbishment French financial watchdogs slammed Nicolas Sarkozy for spending £160m during his country's six-month stint in charge of the EU – including £250,000 on a personal presidential shower that he never used. The vast expense is set out in a report blaming poor management and a lack of transparency by the president's staff. Costs soared because so many of the EU-related events were organised at the last minute, said the report. On one occasion Sarkozy triggered the cancellation of an entire EU event he was due to host in Evian, because he wanted to sleep in his own bed at the Élysée palace. By then, hundreds

of journalists, EU officials and national delegations had either already arrived in Evian or were on their way. A flood of complaints prompted compensation payments – adding more to the eventual presidential bill. The total for Sarkozy's time at the helm of the EU is set out in figures published by the French national audit office. Every government likes to showcase its country when holding the EU presidency, which at present rotates from country to country every six months. National funds are topped up with EU budget support to organise summits, informal ministerial meetings and EU-related promotional events, conferences and policy programmes. Funding is shared between national and regional authorities and the EU budget. For one three-day event alone, Sarkozy sanctioned an elaborate upgrade of the Grand Palace in Paris for an EU-Mediterranean summit – one of his pet

initiatives to mark his turn at the EU helm. The event was one of his final EU presidency flourishes last July, and involved hundreds of workmen and millions of pounds. "The Grand Palace had to be completely refitted for the occasion. Five hundred technicians were mobilised every day, including 300 at night," said the report. Spending included nearly £1m for one dinner for more than 40 government leaders and heads of state who attended the event. Nearly £300,000 was spent building a conference podium, nearly £200,000 upgrading the gardens and grounds, and a total bill for the Sarkozy shower of almost £250,000. The audit report said the cost soared because of the complications of installing a state -of-the-art shower to the president's specifications in a listed building. The president never used it – instead going back to the Élysée palace during the three-day

summit to freshen up. The shower has since been dismantled. Other spending on the summit included £90,000 for a carpet. In all there were about 500 presidency-related events during the six months, but Jean Arthuis, the head of the French senate finance committee, said not all of them were essential, and not all contributed to French success in its EU presidency. He described French EU presidential accounting as "opaque", saying it was hard to establish who paid for what. Figures show that previous French EU presidencies were much cheaper – £12m in 1995, and £54m in 2000. • Nicolas Sarkozy • European Union • France guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:30:08 PM

Newt Gingrich says conservatives and right wingers are engaged in a “ purge.” “This idea that we’re suddenly going to establish litmus tests and all across the country we’re going to purge the party of anybody who doesn’t agree with us 100 percent; that guarantees Obama’s reelection, that guarantees Pelosi as Speaker-forlife,” he told Fox News last night. Gingrich called Scozzafava a “liberal Republican” for her support of gay marriage and abortion rights. But he defended those positions as in-step with her district and her predecessor, former Rep. John McHugh (RN.Y.), who was tapped to be President Barack Obama’s Army Secretary. Michelle Malkin gets right to the point, and replies, Yes, Newt, the GOP should be “purged” of leftwing saboteurs.

Sears Black Friday Ad Leaks: Boatloads of Cheap HDTVs [Black Friday] By Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:28:44 AM

The Sears Black Friday ad has

just leaked, and man do they have a lot of HDTVs on sale, including a 40-inch 1080p Samsung for $599 and a similar Sony model for $664. And about

a dozen more. Here are the first few pages with all of the TVs and other electronics doorbusters. Follow

this link for the full shebang: [ Black Friday 2009]

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Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: ADM, CIEN, INTC, MOT, TGT, TXN ...

Why another GMAC bailout is (especially) bad for America By Zac Bissonnette (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:10:00 AM

Filed under: Scandals The Wall Street Journal reports By Trey Thoelcke • AK Steel(NYSE: AKS) was share gains. Target was raised to (subscription required) that (BloggingStocks) upgraded to Buy from Hold at $29 from $27. GMAC Financial Services Citigroup as it believes the • B a r r e t t B u s i n e s s Inc.(NYSE: GKM) is seeking a Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:30:00 AM company's Q3 results were solid Services(NASDAQ: BBSI) was third round of bailout funds from Filed under: Analyst upgrades and the China steel market is upgraded to Buy from Hold at the Treasury Department ranging and downgrades, Intel (INTC), stabilizing. The firm raised its Roth Capital as the firm thinks from $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion. Target Corp. (TGT), Archer- target to $21 from $17. the company will benefit from a This is, the WSJ writes, "a stark D a n i e l s - M i d l a n d ( A D M ) , • Ceradyne(NASDAQ: CRDN) labor market recovery next year. reminder of how some battered Analyst initiations was upgraded at Wells Fargo to Roth notes that the stock's financial firms remain dependent Analyst upgrades: M a r k e t P e r f o r m f r o m valuation has lagged behind most on government lifelines." • Target(NYSE: TGT) was Underperform. The firm thinks of its peers in recent months and Here's what is so incredibly so upgraded two ratings to Buy that earnings expectations for the it set an $18 target. screwd up about this: GMAC from Sell at Citigroup, and it company have now reached more provides financing for car buyers. raised its price estimate on shares reasonable levels, limiting risk. Continue reading Analyst Any personal finance expert will to $61 from $44. The firm sees • F o r m F a c t o r ( N A S D A Q : u p g r a d e s , d o w n g r a d e s a n d tell you that borrowing money to significant earnings upside as the F O R M ) w a s u p g r a d e d t o initiations: ADM, CIEN, INTC, buy a car is one of the dumbest company's same-store sales O u t p e r f o r m f r o m M a r k e t MOT, TGT, TXN ... improve and finds the valuation Perform at FBR Capital ahead of Analyst upgrades, downgrades attractive at current levels. the company's Q3 results due to and initiations: ADM, CIEN, • Motorola(NYSE: MOT) was v a l u a t i o n a s i t v i e w s t h e INTC, MOT, TGT, TXN ... upgraded to Outperform from risk/reward on shares compelling. o r i g i n a l l y a p p e a r e d o n Sector Perform at RBC Capital The firm raised its price target to BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Oct citing valuation, new product $25 from $19. 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see (ETonline - Breaking News) launches, and expectations that • Texas Instruments(NYSE: our terms for use of feeds. the Mobile Devices division will TXN) was upgraded at Goldman Permalink| Email this| Comments Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:18:00 AM be profitable. The price target is to Buy from Neutral, citing 2H10 Rumors are circulating that the $11. margin expansion and analog Jonas Brothers are breaking up. Real or rumor? ET knows! The bros spoke out to their fans in a blog posted Wednesday

things that you can possibly do. Continue reading Why another GMAC bailout is (especially) bad for America Why another GMAC bailout is (especially) bad for America originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Real or Rumor: Jonas Brothers Breakup? saying that while it's true Nick Jonas is working on a side project, their family trio is not going separate ways. "We plan to make music together for as long as we can," the brothers write.

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Microsoft's Windows 7 will help popularize the JVC joins the sub-$200 PC touchscreen Blu-ray player game with ultrathin XV-BP11 By Brian White (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Products and services, Launches, Microsoft (MSFT) Microsoft Corp.'s(NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows 7 operating system was released last week to great reviews -- unlike the company's previous effort, Vista. But what most analysts may not realize is that this is not just another "point and click" effort for Microsoft -the company wants computer users to get used to touchscreens instead of keyboards and mice. Windows 7 was built with this in mind, although most don't realize it. Continue reading Microsoft's

By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:59:00 AM

Windows 7 will help popularize the PC touchscreen Microsoft's Windows 7 will help popularize the PC touchscreen originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sub-$200 Blu-ray players certainly aren't new-- heck, some guys have been doing it since the year 2008-- but you'll never catch us kvetching about a little more competition. JVC has today introduced (in the briefest way possible, might we add) its newest Blu-ray player just ten months after deciding to play the BD game here in the States. The ultrathin (and "now available") XV-BP11 should slide into just about any AV rack, bringing Bluray / DVD playback, AVCHD support, HDMI 1.3, a USB socket and compatibility with a slew of audio formats. Curiously

Here's Fred Flintstone, like you've never seen him before By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:30:00 AM

This is a rather interesting video. It's a stop-motion depiction of The Flintstones, from the 2001 Cartoon Network movie Flintstones on the Rocks. Specifically, it's a dream enough, the outfit doesn't bother sequence that features Fred to mention if this thing is Profile Flintstone bowling and saving 2.0, but we're guessing (read: another woman (not Wilma). All hoping) that it wouldn't do the Flintstones sounds are here, something as ludicrous as charge all made to look like one of those two bills for a Profile 1.1 deck in holiday specials we see every late 2009. Then again, we've seen year. Love the music too. zanier things go down... [via Boing Boing] Continue reading JVC joins the Filed under: Video, Animation, sub-$200 Blu-ray player game Web, Reality-Free with ultrathin XV-BP11 Permalink| Email this| | F i l e d u n d e r : H o m e Comments Entertainment JVC joins the sub-$200 Blu-ray player game with ultrathin XVBP11 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Microsoft temporarily suspends Sky Player for Xbox 360 By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:52:00 AM

"Very fast," "a dream," "fantastic." It looks like you can add "on hiatus" to the list of superlatives -- at least for the time being. That boffo Sky

Player that Microsoft debuted for the Xbox 360? "Suspended." Why, you ask? "Due to an unforeseen technical issue." Luckily for Britons and ex-pats, the ÂŁ15 monthly service should resume tomorrow, barring any further technical issues. In the avatar above will be stuck meantime, it looks like the poor watching Benny Hill on Netflix

like the rest of us. Statement after the break. Continue reading Microsoft temporarily suspends Sky Player for Xbox 360 Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment Microsoft temporarily suspends Sky Player for Xbox 360

originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Motorola Droid Hits Verizon on November 6th for $200 [Motorola] By John Herrman (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:50:57 AM

It'd have been difficult to leak Motorola's new Android piece any harder—we've already seen the hardware, the software, and even a review—but now we know for sure sure: It's coming to Verizon on the 6th, for $200. First off, Verizon's just confirmed that Droid is a family of phones, and that while this phone is the cornerstone, we should expect more. ( AHEM). This is the only one they're announcing now, so anyway: $200 is iPhone 3GS money, so it's good to hear that the specs are top-notch. It's got a 3.7inch screen at 480x854 pixels, a Cortex A8 processor, a 16GB SD card included, Bluetooth, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera and of course, the slide-out keyboard with d-pad. Right, we mostly knew this, so what's new? Well, there's a dock! Ok! But the software's the real story here, and it's even better than we expected. With a new contacts app, multi-resolution support, a better camera app, and SMS searching , Android 2.0 is front and center, and the Droid will wear it proudly; this is a "Google Experience" device, so don't expect Motoblur here—which given the social networking integration in 2.0, and the refreshed interface, is probably

for the best. Verizon wouldn't say whether or not the Android 2.0 would be a Droid exclusive, refusing to confirm that it is, but also refusing to confirm that it isn't. Given that the marketing push for this phone is apparently the biggest in Verizon history, and how weirdly opaque Google's 2.0 release has been so far, I wouldn't doubt that former,

at least for a few months. And remember that Google turnby-turn nav app rumor? It's totally true. The voice-activated navigation feature will be free, which means if its any good at all, it could conceivably vaporize the entire nav app industry in a matter of months. Google Maps will also have a few new layers on Droid, with Wikipedia, transit

and traffic overlays. Google Maps With Navigation will replace the trenchant VZ Navigation, which won't get an Android port. Verizon Visual Voicemail and MyVerizon services will hit Android eventually, but they're gonna take a little time. Preorders are open now at Verizon's website, but just so you

know—Verizon's $200 price is after a mail-in rebate, and a particularly weird one: Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. Seriously, guys, stop. Verizon Wireless DROID By Motorola: World's First Smartphone with Android™ 2.0 BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Highspeed Web browsing, voiceactivated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets and the best 3G mobile network in the country: DROID by Motorola arrives on Nov. 6. Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation's largest wireless 3G broadband network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a pioneer in the mobile industry, today unveiled DROID by Motorola, the first smartphone powered by Android™ 2.0. DROID by Motorola features the brainpower and breakneck speed of a modern smartphone, designed to outperform where other smartphones fall short. "We're proud to work with Verizon Wireless and Google™ on the first smartphone to feature Android 2.0," said Sanjay Jha, co MOTOROLA page 18

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Droid drops November 6 for $199 with contract By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:04:31 AM

Verizon just confirmed that the Moto Droid will arrive next week for $199 with a new, 2-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate. Customers will need a voice plan starting at $39 and a web and email plan for $29 per month. See our full Droid coverage here and look for a full hands-on later today. HELLO HUMANS: DROID BY MOTOROLA ARRIVES NEXT WEEK Verizon Wireless DROID By Motorola: World’s First Smartphone with Android™ 2.0 BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Highspeed Web browsing, voiceactivated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets and the best 3G mobile network in the country: DROID by Motorola arrives on Nov. 6. Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation’s largest wireless 3G broadband network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a pioneer in the mobile industry, today unveiled DROID by Motorola, the first smartphone powered by Android™ 2.0. DROID by Motorola features the brainpower and breakneck speed of a modern smartphone, designed to outperform where other smartphones fall short. “We’re proud to work with Verizon Wireless and Google™

on the first smartphone to feature Android 2.0,” said Sanjay Jha, co -chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices. “DROID by Motorola delivers a rich consumer experience with warp-speed Web browsing, a mammoth screen, and Motorola’s expertise in design and voice quality. Combined with Android’s open, flexible graphical user interface and the power of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network, DROID is a smartphone that simply doesn’t compromise.” “This is an exciting announcement for Verizon Wireless, as the DROID by Motorola is the first device that we are bringing to market under our ground-breaking strategic partnership with Google,” said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “DROID by Motorola gives customers a lifestyle device with access to more than 12,000 applications that will help them stay in touch, up to date and entertained, using the best 3G network in the country.” DROID by Motorola has a solid exterior, intelligent interior and is one of the thinnest fullQWERTY slider phones available. It is a no-fuss, hightech, location-aware, voicerecognizing, over-the-air updating, multi-tasking machine – and it is available just in time for holiday wish lists.

available on Android Market™. Toggle back and forth between up to six applications at a time to juggle the universe and your apps. · Perform Google Search™ at the speed of sound: Simply tell DROID what you’re looking for using voice-activated search, and it will serve up Google search results based on your location. If you want more, simply type what you’re looking for into the search bar on the home screen and DROID will also search content on your phone, such as apps and contacts, and the Web. · Capture moments: Snap digital camera-quality photos With DROID by Motorola, you with a 5 megapixel camera loaded with the works, such as a can: · Zip through the Web: dual-LED flash, AutoFocus and Access the Internet at 3G speeds image stabilization, or capture via the nation’s largest and most your friend’s antics in 16 million reliable 3G network or from any colors with DVD-quality video Wi-Fi hotspot. The multi- capture and playback. Store it all window HTML browser with a on the included 16 GB memory massive processor delivers the card, so you always have it on hand. Web the way you expect. Multi-task like a master: · See it all in cinema-style: · View the Web, e-mail, Google Keep tabs on all your messages Maps™, videos and more in with integrated Gmail™ and widescreen on a brilliant 3.7” Exchange e-mail pushed directly high-resolution screen. Boasting to you, but don’t let them get in a width of 854 pixels to reduce your way. With the handy the need for side-to-side panning Android notification panel, go and more than 400,000 pixels straight to the message or simply total, DROID has more than ignore it, and get back to the task t w i c e t h a t o f t h e l e a d i n g at hand. And, a smart dictionary learns as you type and competitor. · Run multiple applications automatically includes your at once: Customize your DROID contacts. Get where you need to go with thousands of applications · a n d h u n d r e d s o f w i d g e t s with Google Maps Navigation

(Beta): DROID is the first device with Google Maps Navigation, providing turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps. It’s powered by Google and connected to the Internet. Use voice shortcuts and simply say “Navigate to [your destination],” and you’ll be on your way. See live traffic, use Street View or satellite imagery to view your route, and get access to the most recent maps and business information from Google Maps without ever needing to update your device. Pre-loaded Applications and Enhancements to Google Mobile Services: · Google Maps: With layers in Google Maps, view geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia, and transit lines, right on the map. · Gmail: Multiple accounts support and undo for common operations. · YouTube™: One-touch recording and playback from homescreen widget or app, onetouch sharing with friends, and the ability to view your own uploaded videos and highresolution videos. · Google Talk™: Easily switch between chats, search your chat history, and preview pictures and videos sent by links. · Android Market: Browse and download applications created by third-party developers. · Calendar: Ability to see DROID page 19

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Sears Black Friday ad By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:30:00 AM

We have another early entry into the wonderful world of leaked Black Friday ads with Sears opening at 4:00 AM on Friday morning and offering a pretty enticing list of door busters (available until noon) and other sale items to satisfy the rabid consumer in everyone. Products include the following (door busters are marked with an asterisk): Digital Cameras Canon 980IS 12.1MP Digital Camera – $279.99 Canon Powershot SD780 IS 12.1MP Digital Camera – $179.99 Canon Rebelx XS Digital SLR Camera & Canon EF 75-300MM Telephoto Zoom Lens – $669.98 Disney Pix Micro Digital Cameras Designed For Just For Kids – $9.99 * Fuji J29 10MP 3X Zoom 2.7 LCD Digital Camera Bundle – $89.99 * GE A1250 Digital Camera #0387779 – $69.99 * Hi Pro Camera Kits #0354381/80 – 50% Off * Jazz T20 4X Digtal Zoom 1.5 L C D C a m c o r d e r #0339539/39540 – $19.99 * Jazz T55 Camcorder #0339538 – $49.99 * Kodak CD80 10.2MP, #x Zoom Digital Camera 2.4 LCD 2GB Card And Case – $79.99 * Kodak M1063 10.3MP Digital

Camera – $89.99 Nikon Coolpix 12MP Digital Camera – $149.99 Nikon COOLPIX L20 Digital Camera – $99.99 * Olmpus FE-4000 12MP Digital Camera – $99.99 Samsung C10 SD 1200 Digital Zoom 10X Optical Zoom 2.7 LCD Camcorder – $149.99 * Samsung Compact Full HD Camcorder – $399.99 Samsung SL40 12.2MP Digital Camera – $79.99 Sony 4GB Camcorder – $249.99 Sony 60GB Hard Disk Drive Camcorder – $299.99 Sony Cyber-Shot 10.1MP Digital Camera – $99.99 Sony Cyper-Shot 10.1MP Digital Camera – $249.99

Digital Media Cards Sandisk 2GB SD Card – $5.99 SanDisk 4GB Memory Cards Or Flash Drive – $8.99 * Sandisk 8GB SDHC Card – $14.99 Sony 2GB Memory Stick PRO Due – $12.99 DVD Players Curtis DVD Player AR – $17.99 * GPX 8 Portabe DVD Player PD808BU – $79.99 GPX DVD/CD Boom Box 7 LCD Display #5710084/BD707B – $99.99 * Magnavox DVD Player With VCR #5757168/DV225MG9 AR – $49.99 * Samsung Blu-ray Disc Player BD-P1600-A – $149.99

Sony Blu-ray Disc Player BDPS360 – $149.99 Sony DVD Player DVP-SR200P – $34.99 Sylvania 7 Portable DVD Player #5757149/SDVD7015-BLUE AR – $49.99 * Electronics AT&T DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone System w/4 Handsets – $59.99 Coby 7 Digital Photo Frame – $29.99 * Coby 8 Digital Frame – $49.99 iHome Portable iPod/MP3 Speaker System – $9.99 Karaoke CP398 – $29.99 Kodak 7 Digital Frame – $49.99 Pandigital 10 Digital Photo Frame – $69.99 * Sony E10 Ear Buds Headphones

– $4.99 Sony Wireless Headphones – $29.99 GPS Systems Garmin Nuvi 205 GPS – $89.99 * Magellan RoadMate 1220 GPS – $89.99 Magellan RoadMate 1440 GPS – $119.99 * TomTom One 130 GPS – $79.99 TomTom XL325S – $99.99 Home Theater Panasonic Blu-Ray Home Theater System #5798529/SCBT200 – $399.99 * RCA 5.1 Channel 250 Watt Home Theater System RTD317 – SEARS page 19

Tech Tips/

Internet News Record

MOTOROLA continued from page 15

-chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices. "DROID by Motorola delivers a rich consumer experience with warp-speed Web browsing, a mammoth screen, and Motorola's expertise in design and voice quality. Combined with Android's open, flexible graphical user interface and the power of Verizon Wireless' 3G network, DROID is a smartphone that simply doesn't compromise." "This is an exciting announcement for Verizon Wireless, as the DROID by Motorola is the first device that we are bringing to market under our ground-breaking strategic partnership with Google," said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. "DROID by Motorola gives customers a lifestyle device with access to more than 12,000 applications that will help them stay in touch, up to date and entertained, using the best 3G network in the country." DROID by Motorola has a solid exterior, intelligent interior and is one of the thinnest fullQWERTY slider phones

available. It is a no-fuss, hightech, location-aware, voicerecognizing, over-the-air updating, multi-tasking machine – and it is available just in time for holiday wish lists. With DROID by Motorola, you can: · Zip through the Web: Access the Internet at 3G speeds via the nation's largest and most reliable 3G network or from any Wi-Fi hotspot. The multi-window HTML browser with a massive processor delivers the Web the way you expect. · See it all in cinema-style: View the Web, e-mail, Google Maps™, videos and more in widescreen on a brilliant 3.7" high-resolution screen. Boasting a width of 854 pixels to reduce the need for side-to-side panning and more than 400,000 pixels total, DROID has more than twice that of the leading competitor. · Run multiple applications at once: Customize your DROID with thousands of applications and hundreds of widgets available on Android Market™. Toggle back and forth between up to six applications at a time to juggle the universe and your apps.

· Perform Google Search™ at the speed of sound: Simply tell DROID what you're looking for using voice-activated search, and it will serve up Google search results based on your location. If you want more, simply type what you're looking for into the search bar on the home screen and DROID will also search content on your phone, such as apps and contacts, and the Web. · Capture moments: Snap digital camera-quality photos with a 5 megapixel camera loaded with the works, such as a dual-LED flash, AutoFocus and image stabilization, or capture your friend's antics in 16 million colors with DVD-quality video capture and playback. Store it all on the included 16 GB memory card, so you always have it on hand. · Multi-task like a master: Keep tabs on all your messages with integrated Gmail™ and Exchange e-mail pushed directly to you, but don't let them get in your way. With the handy Android notification panel, go straight to the message or simply ignore it, and get back to the task at hand. And, a smart dictionary learns as you type and automatically includes your

contacts. · Get where you need to go with Google Maps Navigation (Beta): DROID is the first device with Google Maps Navigation, providing turn-by-turn voice guidance as a free feature of Google Maps. It's powered by Google and connected to the Internet. Use voice shortcuts and simply say "Navigate to [your destination]," and you'll be on your way. See live traffic, use Street View or satellite imagery to view your route, and get access to the most recent maps and business information from Google Maps without ever needing to update your device. Pre-loaded Applications and Enhancements to Google Mobile Services: · Google Maps: With layers in Google Maps, view geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia, and transit lines, right on the map. · Gmail: Multiple accounts support and undo for common operations. · YouTube™: One-touch recording and playback from homescreen widget or app, onetouch sharing with friends, and the ability to view your own uploaded videos and high-

resolution videos. · Google Talk™: Easily switch between chats, search your chat history, and preview pictures and videos sent by links. · Android Market: Browse and download applications created by third-party developers. · Calendar: Ability to see who has R.S.V.P.'d to your meeting invitations. · Amazon MP3 Store: Download the latest tracks over the air. · Verizon Wireless Visual Voice Mail: Delete, reply and forward voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions. Pricing and Availability: · DROID by Motorola will be available in the United States exclusively at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online on Friday, Nov. 6, for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.

How Do You Like Windows 7 So Far? [Snap Judgment] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:00:00 PM

By now, a good portion of you planning to upgrade to Windows

7 have probably made the upgrade, so after a few days of dedicated use, we're wondering: How do you like it so far? How Do You Like Windows 7 So Far?( polling)

Still don't feel like you're enough up to speed to make the call? Take a stroll through our complete guide to Windows 7 to catch up. As for your Windows 7

feelings so far, give us the details in the comments.

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SEARS continued from page 17

$99.99 Samsung 5.1 Channel 1000 Watt Single Disc DVD Home Theater System #5798659/HT-Z320 – $197.99 * Samsung Blu-ray Home Theater System HT-BD1250 – $397.99 Sony Bravia 5.1 Channel 1000 Watt Integrated Home Theater System DAV-HDX589 – $329.99 MP3 Players GPX 4GB MP3/4 Player – $32.99 iH4 iHome Alarm Clock For iPod #5792408/18 – $29.99 * Mach Speed MP3 Player #5782229 – $24.99 * RCA 1GB Sport MP3 Player #5731060 – $13.99 * Televisions AOC 32 Full HD LDC TV – $379.99 Audiovox Under Cabinet Kitchen 7 LCD DVD Clock Radio – $179.99 Eviant 7 Hand Held TV – $89.99 LG 55 LCD HDTV 55LH40 – $1499.99 Panasonic 42 Class Plasma

HDTV #5775529/TC-P42S1 – $649.99 * Panasonic 54 Plasma HDTV TC -P54G10 – $1499.99 Proscan 40 Class LCD HDTV #5771379/40LC45Q – $539.99 * Samsung 22 Class LCD HDTV #5772015/LN22B350 – $249.99 * Samsung 40 Class 1080p LCD HDTV #5771409/LN40B500 – $599.99 * Samsung 40 LED HDTV UN40B6000 – $1399.99 Samsung 42 Plasma HDTV PN42B400 – $549.99 Samsung 46 1080P Class LCD HDTV #5771419/LN46B500 – $899.99 * Samsung 46 Class LCD HDTV #5771079/LN46B650 – $1309.99 * Samsung 46 LED HDTV UN46B6000 – $1599.99 Samsung 50 Class Plasma HDTV #5775129/PN50B430 – $699.99 * Samsung 50 Plasma HDTV PN50B530 – $899.99 Samsung 55 LED HDTV UN55B6000 – $2469.99

Sharp 19 Class LCD HDTV #5772149/LC19SB27UT – $179.99 * Sony 32 Class LCD HDTV #5771459/KDL-32L504 – $379.99 * Sony 40 Class LCD HDTV #5771439/KDL40S504 – $664.99 * Sony 46 Class LCD HDTV #5771449/KDL-46S504 – $854.99 * Sony 46 LCD HDTV KDL46V5100 – $1239.99 Sony 52 LCD HDTV KDL52V5100 – $1599.99 Toshiba 40 1080P Class LCD HDTV #5771438/40RV525U/R – $589.99 * VIZIO 32 ECO HDTV VO320E – $349.99 Zenith 42 Class Plasma HDTV #5775849/Z42PO2 – $499.99 * Video Games 2-Pack Wii or DS Games – $14.99 * 2-Pack Xbox-360 Games or PS3 Games – $24.99 * 3-Pack PS2 Games – $9.99 * Biggest Loser (Wii) – $29.99 Facebreak (Xbox 360) – $14.99

Guitar Hero World Tour For PS2, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 – $49.99 * Halo ODST (Xbox 360) – $39.99 Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360) – $39.99 Nerf Racing Wheel Wii – $9.99 Nintendo DS Games – $19.99 * Nintendo DS Games – $29.99 * Nintendo Wii w/Nerf Racing Wheel – $199.99 Playstation 3 120GB – $299.99 PS3 Blu-Ray Remote – $24.99 TNA Impact (PS3) – $14.99 Various Video Games – $14.99 or Under Xbox 360 Elite Bundle – $299.99 Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Card – $49.99 Check out the entire list and ad scan over at BlackFriday.info. More Black Friday deals…

Pricing and Availability: · DROID by Motorola will be available in the United States exclusively at Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online on Friday, Nov. 6, for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a

debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. · Experience the all-new DROID by Motorola at www.droiddoes.com. · To get the most from DROID by Motorola smartphone, customers will need

to subscribe to a Nationwide voice plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide voice plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access for 450 minutes and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan is $29.99 for monthly access. · For additional information on Verizon Wireless products

'Survivor''s Galu Tribe Reels From the Loss of Its Leader (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:30:00 AM

With the loss of Russell Swan to a medical emergency on "Survivor: Samoa," Galu struggles to elect a new leader to replace him. "The events of today have only intensified the rivalry between the two tribes," Jeff Probst said at the last Tribal Council. "Foa Foa believes it had a moral victory and can turn this game around. Galu believes that even though they lost Russell, they can continue to dominate." The men of Galu also hatch a plan to keep them in the game. They bring Shambo into their confidence in a plan to put a puppet regime in power, hoping to forestall a blossoming female alliance.

DROID continued from page 16

who has R.S.V.P.’d to your meeting invitations. · Amazon MP3 Store: Download the latest tracks over the air. · Verizon Wireless Visual Voice Mail: Delete, reply and forward voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions.

and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.

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Google Maps Navigation: A Free, Ass-Kicking, Turn-by-Turn Mobile App [Apps] By Brian Lam (Gizmodo)

services like the Bay Area's Caltrans department's highway cameras, but also data from Google's free turn-by-turn cellphones using Google Maps. navigation for Maps is the news • It's free, and there are no ads. this morning and even in Beta, There's nothing like it in the App they got a lot right. It has Google store that's less than $50 bucks a Maps tech, like street and year. satellite view and search-driven • M a p s c a c h e a l o n g y o u r voice controls. Here's what you intended route, so even if your need to know. connection dies along the way • It's android OS 2.0 only for the route will still show you what now. And will be available when you need to see, and voice devices like that ship. (Google synthesis of street names still demo'd the app to us on a Droid, works, too. FWIW.) Other platform support • Like most cloud map services, will be announced "by carriers you'll never need to update your and phone makers" when they're map data. ready, but Google implied they • It has satellite view, which is are working closely with Apple super cool for context on the now on it. street, but also, it has streetview. • Addresses are input by both text Streetview images come up, and voice (using the same tech as overlayed with arrows, when in the iPhone's Google mobile you're supposed to turn. Or at app). But the app can take things your final destination. Since l i k e b u s i n e s s n a m e s a n d streetview images have metadata restaurant types as well as soft on direction faced and position, queries like "that museum that G o o g l e M a p s N a v i g a t i o n has the king tut exhibit" and intelligently draws the arrows r e t u r n a l i s t o f s u g g e s t e d where you're supposed to go. locations Sort of. • The traffic data, as on Google • Traffic icon is simple — green, Maps, is driven by multiple yellow and red according to flow sources. Typically, this means of traffic, with time to arrival data from local road authority numbers next to the symbol. If Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:00:01 AM

disappear. It's not for us to worry about until there's no more GPS competition except Google, and we're dependent on their pace of progress, but no competition is a bad thing. And it's a little strange that Google's search money is going to pay for a free map app that is competitive with stuff that costs $100 a year from full time GPS makers like TomTom. Unfair is the word that comes to mind. But I can't say I don't want this App. • The data on the map, like traffic, satellite view and points of interest, are called layers. Google said it would be easy for them to add more layer, so its ostensibly possible to add things like Google Latitude support, and other neat tricks. Maybe they'll open up an API for it. • There's a landscape and portrait mode, as well as a big-icon UI for dashboard usage. A visual tour of Google Maps Navigation:

you click on the traffic icon, the map zooms out to show congestion points along your route. • There's no multiple route selection to help you plan a day's drive of many locations. But you can search for locations (gas, eateries) along your route, and those results will show up on the map as long as they're within a

radius that moves long your path. • You can go to a navigation point by simply holding onto a point on the map. • You can bookmark locations as icons on your Android phone's home page. • If Google sells this in the app store for zero dollars, those millions of bucks Apple makes off of GPS app sales will likely

for existing and foreclosed houses. Separately on Wednesday, new orders for durable goods

rebounded in September after in the US. s l u m p i n g t h e p r i o r m o n t h , This content has passed through o f f e r i n g a n o t h e r s i g n t h a t fivefilters.org. manufacturing activity is stirring

New US home sales fall 3.6% (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:52:14 AM

Sales of new homes in the US unexpectedly fell in September for the first time in half a year, as buyers were tempted by bargains

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Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0 (video) By Ross Miller (Engadget) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:00:00 AM

Those nat service providers' fears were actually quite justified. Google today unveiled Maps Navigation (beta, of course), an extremely upgraded version of its current Maps software that'll be free and, from what we understand, available by default on all Android 2.0 devices. All the usual Maps features are present, including the ability to search by name of business and have it suggest the closest matches, both semantically and geographically, and traffic data. We're also now looking at turn-by-turn navigation, female robotic voice and all, and integration with satellite and street view, the latter of which will be able to show you what lane you need to be in when exiting the highway, for example. Instead of just searching nearby, it'll also now search along the route for when

you're looking for upcoming gas stations or fast food joints that won't take you too far off your beaten path. Select addresses can be added to the Android home screen as their own icons, and given the limits of living in the cloud, trips and their respective visual feeds will be cached just in case you hit dead spots along the way. Still no multitouch, but as

VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra noted at a press conference, there's nothing stopping a company like HTC from adding that feature Ă la Sense UI. In addition to demonstrating the basic navigational functions, Gundotra also showcased a new user interface that appears when the device hooked up into a car dock, one that is intended for use

"at an arm's length away." Essentially, it means much larger iconography and a convenient "voice search" option front and center. We later got confirmation from a Google product manager that car dock detection was definitively a hardware-based feature, which we take to mean Android devices currently on the market won't necessarily have the

same convenience. If Android 2.0 takes off how Google (and Verizon!) hope it does, companies like TomTom and Garmin are going to seriously need to worry about their bottom line. Watch Gundotra demonstrate the app after the break. Gallery: Google Maps Navigation beta press shots Gallery: Google Maps Navigation beta / car dock presentation Continue reading Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0 (video) Filed under: Cellphones, GPS Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Losing Net Neutrality: The Worst Case Scenario [Net Neutrality] By John Herrman (Gizmodo)

explaining why the IT dude at the office wears that " All Packets are Created Equal" shirt to work It's alarmist, over-the-top pro- every Thursday: because tiered net-neutrality propaganda, sure, ISPs are scary. but this chart goes a long way to And before you dismiss the chart Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:13:59 AM

outright, check out your cable

company's channel packages. so crazy, does it? Click here for Replace content provider fees the full version. [ Reddit via with new network backbone Crunchgear] charges, and cable packages with traffic or website packages, and hey, look, shitâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;this doesn't seem

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Motorola DROID official on Verizon: $199 on contract, coming November 6th (video) By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:23:00 AM

We knew good and well this thing was coming sometime in November, and now Verizon Wireless has made it official: the Motorola DROID will hit Big Red on November 6th for $199 on contract (after a $100 mail-in rebate). Naturally, the DROID itself is just the first of what could be many Android-laced phones coming to the carrier, and Verizon Wireless CMO John

Stratton even stated that the phone "is wide open" -- pretty big words from a company like VZW. Android 2.0 will be front and center, along with Visual Voicemail, a 3.7-inch display (854 x 480 resolution), 5 megapixel camera (with dualLED flash), a bundled 16GB memory card and a beta version of Google Maps Navigation(!). For those wondering, yeah -- the DROID is the first phone to offer that, which transforms Google Maps into a turn-by-turn routing

system that'll have your dedicated TomTom / Garmin trembling in fear. There's also a slide-out QWERTY keyboard,

3G, WiFi, voice-activated search and over-the-air Amazon MP3 downloads. With all that, who needs the iPhone, right Ivan?

Gallery: Verizon Wireless' DROID by Motorola Continue reading Motorola DROID official on Verizon: $199 on contract, coming November 6th (video) Filed under: Cellphones Motorola DROID official on Verizon: $199 on contract, coming November 6th (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

MSI's Wind Top AE2220 all-in-one PC brings 21.6-inch multitouch panel, Win7

New Pics: Tyra Transforms the 'America's Next Top Model' Hopefuls

By Darren Murph (Engadget)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:18:00 AM

MSI's Wind Top line seems to be expanding at a breakneck pace, and the latest entry is actually worth bending over backwards to get a look at. Boasting a 21.6-inch multitouch display (1,920 x 1,080 native resolution), the all-in-one desktop also features Windows 7 Home Premium, 4GB of DDR2 memory, a 640GB hard drive, NVIDIA's GeForce 9300

integrated graphics set (or Ion, if you please), an HDMI output, a bundled wireless keyboard / mouse and your choice of a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo T6600 or

order right now at Amazon, with the cheapest pegged at $659.99 and the most pricey at $899.99. [Via Engadget Korea] Read- MSI's announcement Read- Amazon pre-order page Filed under: Desktops MSI's Wind Top AE2220 all-inone PC brings 21.6-inch multitouch panel, Win7 2 . 1 G H z P e n t i u m T 4 3 0 0 originally appeared on Engadget processor. You'll also get eSATA on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:18:00 support, WiFi, a 1.3-megapixel EST. Please see our terms for camera and a 6-in-1 card reader. use of feeds. Permalink| Email Three versions are up for pre- this| Comments

Brussels backs Rock restructuring (Financial Times - US homepage)

Brussels backs Rock restructuring By Sharlene Goff, Retail

Banking Correspondent Published: October 28 2009 11:46 | Last updated: October 28

2009 14:20 This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Submitted at 10/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

Tyra Banks flies the six remaining "America's Next Top Model" competitors -- Jennifer An, Nicole Fox, Laura Kirkpatrick, Sundai Love, Brittany Markert and Erin Wagner-- to Maui, where she surprises them by transforming them into bi-racial models. "America's Next Top Model" airs tonight at 8 p.m. on The CW.

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Songs Used In Promotions Get A Ton Of Sales... So Why Does The Music Industry Try To Make It Harder? By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:40:00 PM

Symbian Horizon app store launched, dev program detailed By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:36:00 AM

Mobile World Congress came and went all those months ago without an app store for Symbian freaks, but you know what? That's OK -- Rome wasn't built in a day, y'know. Besides, all that is changing now that the Symbian Foundation has announced that Horizon, the publishing program / mobile marketplace, is up and running as we speak. Currently the home of fifty award winning downloads (including Bubblewrap!) users can look forward to "thousands of applications in 2010." What are

you waiting for? Hit that read link to get started -- but not before you peep the PR to see how you too can begin developing for the platform. It's after the break. [Via TrustedReviews] Continue reading Symbian Horizon app store launched, dev program detailed Filed under: Cellphones Symbian Horizon app store launched, dev program detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Amazon Chops Garmin Nuvifone G60 Price By Two Thirds In the First Month [Garmin] By John Herrman (Gizmodo)

works, there's a $5/month charge for basic services like weather, Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:43:19 AM traffic and local events, the Our recommended price for the battery life is horrendous, and the N u v i f o n e G 6 0 w a s d e a t h , OS acts like a navigation unit payable by the handset, not the f i r m w a r e w i t h t u m o r o u s prospective buyer. Until that can telecommunications outgrowth. be arranged, though, Amazon's And oh god, that price: $300 with plunging$200 discount(on a $300 an AT&T contract, which is phone!) will have to do. about how much it'd cost you to To recap the only review we've b u y o n e i P h o n e 3 G w i t h ever written that didn't even have TomTom and Navigon apps. a "Good" section, the Nuvifone So yeah, a price drop was all but was a failure in about every way inevitable, but it's heartening to t h a t t h e o n c e - h o t h a n d s e t see it happen this soon, even if could've been: It's crashy, it's got not by Garmin's hand. Next stop: a clunky resistive screen, the 0. [ Amazon via Engadget] browser is really, really tough to use, and camera sometimes

Ethorad was the first of a few to write in pointing to an article over at the BBC, highlighting how old songs are finding new life and new sales after showing up in a commercial -- or being used on TV during a popular event. In other words, getting your music more widely heard leads to more ways to make money. That, of course, should be obvious. And yet, why is it that so many in the industry are trying to make it so much harder to get music heard by putting up tollbooths at every stop? You have the RIAA/Soundexchange working overtime to put an additional tax on radio play and you have ASCAP/BMI trying to get fees for everything, from the 30 second previews online to ringtones. Of course, the more you put a toll on such things, the less the songs are used, the less they're promoted and the less opportunity there is to increase sales. It's really amazing sometimes that these big organizations don't seem to comprehend the basic idea of a "promotion" and how that helps sales. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Hands-on: Google Voice's new voice mail service By Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:03:32 PM

Setting up Google Voice voice mail online.(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET) On Tuesday, Google took another step toward bringing Google Voice to the masses, fulfilling the wishes of those who are curious enough to try Google's brand of visual voice mail, but either too jealous of their mobile number to give it up for a Google Voice number, or too weary to go through the hassle of training family and friends on a new number. Google now lets you access some key features in the Google Voice service using the number you've always had, and no longer forces you to sign up for a new Google Voice phone number. How? Google Voice can now take advantage of what's called conditional call forwarding. I tried out the new feature today with success, and have some tips to share. With Google Voice in charge of your missed calls, callers are directed to your Google Voice inbox instead of to the voice mail box that your carrier operates. There, friends can leave a message after hearing the greeting you recorded online.

You, for your part, can listen to messages online or from your phone--in any order you'd like. As promised, set-up was easy for this existing Google Voice user. In the Settings menu, under the Phone tab, click "Activate Google voice mail for this phone" next to any phone that you've associated with your account. Then, select your carrier (US-only for now) and dial the string of numbers and symbols you see into your phone. Then dial the number. This sets up call forwarding. While many highend feature phones and smartphones do have separate menu settings for call forwarding, Google's method of entering the forwarding code is faster and removes the guesswork. New users have slightly more set -up involved. You'll first choose if you want to use your own number or sign up for a new Google Voice account. Then you'll need to enter your Google Account credentials or register an account before setting up your phone. Using the conditional forwarding service is brainless-whomever calls you hears your Google Voice recording, which you can set up online. You may want to tinker in the settings to forward calls straight to voice

mail, or else you could annoy callers with a full ring-through to your mobile voice mail and another ring through to the recorded number. However, leave the setting in its default mode and friends may be able to track you down on other numbers associated with your Google Voice number--if you use Google's number and not your own mobile number. Forwarding options can cut the time it takes for a caller to get to voice mail, or maybe track you down.(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET) To send a call straight to voice mail, go to the Phone tab in the Settings menu of your online Google Voice account. Click Edit, then click to see advanced settings. At the bottom is a call forwarding option that you can switch to send straight to your recording. Using Google's call forwarding is an obvious draw for new users, but existing Google Voice users can also benefit. Turning on voice mail for associated phone joins voice messages left on your cell phone to the Google Voice messages in your in-box online if a friend slips up and calls the old number instead of the new Google Voice number. New users opting to keep their number should know that they'll

lose access to some key Google Voice features--including call forwarding to multiple cell phones and landlines, call screening, call recording, call blocking, and conference calling. Google doesn't allowing upgrading from an account that uses your own phone to a Google voice number yet, but being able to make the switch is in Google's plans. So is the ability to one day port over your own mobile number to Google Voice's fullfledged service. There are two other points new users should know. First, Google isn't the only service offering free visual voice mail with custom recordings and online management. You Mail has been doing this for some time, and it also has native in-box applications for smartphones like BlackBerry and iPhone. Plus, it's already generally available, whereas Google Voice is inviteonly. Google will undoubtedly get native management apps for mobile phones in the future, and will scale its service for the giddy multitudes, but if you're not ready to take the plunge with a Google Voice number now, you can still shop around. Google Voice's machine transcription is inconsistent at best.(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Second, Google Voice for both types of users employs machine transcription to turn your voice messages into text. The upside is that machine transcription is free. The downside is that it is inconsistent at best and useless at worst. It has typically misrecognized most names (including mine), slang, or fastpaced speech. Read-outs are often nonsensical. While Google acknowledges the imperfections, the company also maintains that in most cases you can make out a message's gist. My experience has been opposite. Users who want more reliable human transcription can subscribe to a premium service like the one YouMail has. Voiceto-text transcription is a premium service that Google will also likely incorporate once Google Voice is truly off the ground, but for now the machine transcription remains for me an amusement rather than a help. Having said that, poor voice-to-text is not at all a dealbreaker for using Google Voice as a whole. Google Voice is currently available in the US to closed beta users, and to those who receive invites from friends already using the service. Originally posted at The Download Blog

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Stalqer mobile social app finds friends in new ways By Rafe Needleman (Webware.com)

Internet gateway data, which can be used to locate the phone. It only works when the phone is Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:00:00 PM connected via Wi-Fi, not GSM. It Stalqer locates even friends who also doesn't get data from the don't use the service.(Credit: phone's GPS sensor, but it's a Stalqer) clever hack on the way to the The developers of the iPhone creation of more robust location app GasBag, which helps iPhone reporting features. users find the cheapest gas for Competing mobile social apps their cars, are working on a new require the app (Foursquare, mobile friend locator service, Loopt) or site (Latitude) to be Stalqer. This clever and aptly open for the user's location to be n a m e d s e r v i c e h a s t w o reported. Or they require a phone technologies that are unique, as t h a t s u p p o r t s b a c k g r o u n d far as I know, to help it get processing, like an Android around two of the big problems device. found in other friend locators like CEO Mick Johnson told me Foursquare, Loopt, and Google's there is another company that has Latitude. this idea, but nobody has yet Problem 1: On the mobile released a product based on it. platform that matters, the iPhone, Problem 2: Your friends aren't there's no way to do real-time on your friend-location service. l o c a t i o n r e p o r t i n g w i t h o u t The existing friend-finder apps running an app all the time, and are lonely places. So you can go t h e i P h o n e d o e s n ' t a l l o w to a big event, look your buddies background processes. And even in the eye, look down at your if it did, it would draw down the phone, and not see them. Stalqer battery. The Stalqer solution is to takes data from your friends' create a dummy e-mail account F a c e b o o k l o c a t i o n s i n that pings the Stalqer servers combination with the live data whenever the phone polls for from other Stalqer subscribers to mail, which is, by default, every give you a pretty comprehensive 15 minutes. map of everyone you know. When the phone hits the Stalqer You can configure the app to tell e-mail servers, it sends along you when a friend comes to

town.(Credit: Stalqer) Unfortunately, Facebook data is often wrong, and Stalqer doesn't yet divine location data from content posted in wall messages or on Twitter. Johnson says it will do that eventually. He says that the data is about 70 percent accurate at the moment but that "I think it will be enough. As long as it's interesting it's all that matters." Accuracy will go up as people join the service. But the point is to have the app report on locations of people who aren't using it. Creepy, yes, but as Johnson described it, Stalqer doesn't actually break privacy settings or report data that isn't otherwise available to its users. Stalqer mashes up what you can see with your Facebook login with your phone's contact list to see if you have permission to contact someone. It assumes that if you have the person's e-mail address on your phone they're a bonafide contact of yours and it lets you track and contact them from within Staqler. This is how this app creates a "good viral chain," as Johnson puts it, and how it could spread. Staqler won't work if it freaks users out, so managing privacy well is clearly a big part of the

app. Johnson said clarity and transparency are critical for the app, which is why it's called Stalqer. "We want people to know what it is," he said. "The key to privacy is telling people what you're doing and letting them control it." Users running the reporting app can turn it on or off, control the granularity of its reports, and report different levels of data to different groups. Close friends might be able to see what street address you're at, for example, but family members only which city. (Johnson said he studied FireEagle). Staqler admits that there will be problems--as I told him, while people will do doubt appreciate the capability to turn off location reporting before they walk into the strip club, chances are they'll already be drunk and will forget. Domestic hilarity will ensue. Johnson said all social networks will become mobile social networks and that location reporting must be a big part of their feature sets. He said Facebook is perhaps too big to innovate in this area--not too big to be creative, but too big to handle the user firestorm that would erupt if it started to

experiment with location reporting. Thus, he thinks, the company is leaving clever location-based mobile apps to small start-ups like his. Taking a page from Twitter and perhaps Tim Berners-Lee, Johnson dismisses talk of monetizing the service at this early stage. "We want to build an Internet treasure," he says. He has ideas for revenues but wants to focus on growth. He says he's built a successful business based on free apps before, and he can do it again. When it's available, I'll try this app but mostly only to see where my friends and contacts are and to report where I am when I'm on business trips or at conferences. I think I'm too old to be comfortable having my iPhone tell everyone I know where I am all the time. Johnson, at 29, doesn't feel the way I do. We'll see what real consumers feel. Certainly Stalqer solves some of the most interesting problems in mobile social networking, and I'm eager to see it released. Originally posted at Rafe's Radar

Joe Jackson Star Unveiled at Screening of 'This is It' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 1:18:00 AM

Joe Jackson received a Brenden Celebrity Star on Tuesday night

prior to screening Michael Jackson's 'This is It' at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. He told ET, "I think it's a fantastic thing to be able to

accept a star. I accept it because of my son." Joe's star, engraved with "Joseph Jackson & Family," will be placed next to Michael's star. The

Jackson father said this arrangement is "a very special privilege." He thinks Michael would "be proud" of his father's accomplishment.

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Google Maps Navigation takes a mobile turn By Tom Krazit (Webware.com)

Navigation view.(Credit: Google) Companies in the cell phone Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:00:00 AM navigation industry have seen Don't try this on game day, but this day coming for quite some the new Google Maps Navigation t i m e . R i g h t n o w , t h e b e t a application will show you how to application only works on phones take a spin past Boston's Fenway that will use the Android 2.0 Park.(Credit: Google) software, which is scheduled to You can almost hear the portable be available very soon with the navigation industry swearing expected arrival of Motorola's already. Droid phone on Verizon's Google is announcing plans n e t w o r k . Wednesday to release a new Google's Vic Gundotra appeared Android application called to demonstrate the application on Google Maps Navigation. When the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, combined with a GPS-equipped but it was a shiny black Android mobile phone running Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn network and bearing Motorola's directions powered by Google stamp, so we're probably not Maps and a slick user interface going too far out on a limb here. ( that combines features such as Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says voice recognition and Google Google's Wednesday morning Street View. Google Maps press release: "The first phone to Navigation, like seemingly have Google Maps Navigation everything that emerges from and Android 2.0 is the Droid Google, will be free. from Verizon.") "Mobile platforms--Android and However, Google is working others--are so powerful now that with Apple on bringing it to the you can build client apps that can iPhone, and it's not ruling out do magical things connected to licensing the software to makers the cloud," said Google CEO of portable navigation devices Eric Schmidt in a briefing for used in cars throughout the r e p o r t e r s a t G o o g l e ' s world, said Gundotra, vice h e a d q u a r t e r s o n T u e s d a y . president of engineering at The standard Google Maps G o o g l e f o r m o b i l e a n d

developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said. The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey. As with other navigation applications, users can search for gas stations or restaurants along the way, and get real-time traffic information. Google also developed a unique "armslength" user interface that automatically pops up when the software detects that it has been placed into a dashboard holder, with bigger buttons and links to voice controls front and center. Obviously, Google is not the first to offer a combination of turn-by-turn maps and Web services. Many different

smartphone applications provide this type of navigation service, and companies like Garmin and TomTom are also working to embed Web-delivered data into their on-dash and built-in navigation systems. But the price for Google Maps Navigation--free--will be tough to beat. Expect to see ads pop up at a later date, although they won't be present at launch. Google doesn't plan to opensource the application but does plan to make it free on Android 2.0 phones, and implied that the application would be free for other partners as they cut deals to use the application. That could dramatically reduce the cost of developing navigation services, undercutting the established industry with a product that consumers already know very well: there are 50 million active users of Google Mobile Maps, Gundotra said. Google is not sure whether Google Maps Navigation will work on older Android phones that will get upgraded to Android 2.0. That depends on the carrier and phone maker, Gundotra said. Originally posted at Relevant Results

Street Chic: New York By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:00:00 AM

Cory Kennedy puts a sexy urban

spin on saddle shoes and a jumper. Photo: Stylesight Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could

Chic Daily. Follow ELLE on Twitter. appear in ELLE.com's Street

Japanese Prosecutors Still Want To Blame Developer Of File Sharing Program For Copyright Infringement By Users By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:40:23 AM

We were happy earlier this month to learn that the Osaka High Court had overturned a lower court ruling, against the creator of the popular Japanese file sharing service, Winny. The lower court had found the guy guilty of copyright infringement, despite having just developed the software, not having used it to infringe on copyrights. The higher court got it right, recognizing that just because the software could be used for copyright infringement does not mean that the developer is automatically guilty of copyright infringement. Unfortunately, Japanese prosecutors didn't recognize the common sense and basic logic of such a ruling and are now appealing the case to the Supreme Court in Japan. Hopefully, the Supreme Court agrees with the Osaka high court, but either way, this seems like a massive waste of time and resources. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Google Maps Navigation takes a mobile turn (CNET News.com) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:00:00 AM

Don't try this on game day, but the new Google Maps Navigation application will show you how to take a spin past Boston's Fenway Park.(Credit: Google) You can almost hear the portable navigation industry swearing already. Google is announcing plans Wednesday to release a new Android application called Google Maps Navigation. When combined with a GPS-equipped mobile phone running Android 2.0, it provides turn-by-turn directions powered by Google Maps and a slick user interface that combines features such as voice recognition and Google Street View. Google Maps Navigation, like seemingly everything that emerges from Google, will be free. "Mobile platforms--Android and others--are so powerful now that you can build client apps that can do magical things connected to the cloud," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a briefing for reporters at Google's headquarters on Tuesday. The standard Google Maps Navigation view.(Credit: Google) Companies in the cell phone navigation industry have seen this day coming for quite some time. Right now, the beta application only works on phones that will use the Android 2.0 software, which is scheduled to be available very soon with the

expected arrival of Motorola's Droid phone on Verizon's network. Google's Vic Gundotra appeared to demonstrate the application on the Droid: he wouldn't confirm it, but it was a shiny black Android 2.0 phone running on Verizon's network and bearing Motorola's stamp, so we're probably not going too far out on a limb here. ( Update, 7:24 a.m. PDT: Says Google's Wednesday morning press release: "The first phone to have Google Maps Navigation and Android 2.0 is the Droid

from Verizon.") However, Google is working with Apple on bringing it to the iPhone, and it's not ruling out licensing the software to makers of portable navigation devices used in cars throughout the world, said Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google for mobile and developers. The process involving Apple is slightly different from the usual App Store submission process, because Maps is a built-in iPhone application, he said.

The application works like any navigation system that you may have used, but it combines Google Search and Google Maps functions that are normally only available on the desktop and brings them to the smartphone. Perhaps the most interesting and useful feature comes from Google Street View, allowing Google to provide a Street View image at every turn that the application suggests during your journey. As with other navigation applications, users can search for

gas stations or restaurants along the way, and get real-time traffic information. Google also developed a unique "armslength" user interface that automatically pops up when the software detects that it has been placed into a dashboard holder, with bigger buttons and links to voice controls front and center. Obviously, Google is not the first to offer a combination of turn-by-turn maps and Web services. Many different GOOGLE page 31

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App store or app sore? (CNET News.com) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:30:00 AM

One App Store to rule them all?(Credit: Apple) Apple has an app store, of course. So does Microsoft. Google has two, one for Android and now one for Wave. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who doesn't have an app store these days. We're swimming in app stores. Or drowning. I'm serious. At the Symbian conference in London on Tuesday, I attended a panel that was overrun with app stores. Nokia, Symbian, GetJar, Sony Ericsson, Handmark, and Handango were all promoting their respective app stores, each talking about how great theirs is. They're probably right. They probably are all great. But how am I, as a lay consumer, going to figure out which one to use? More particularly, how will developers decide which platforms to target? After all, everyone wants to be a platform these days. Does that mean that no one is? Developers may be spoiled for choice, but "choice" in this case may not be what they want. Developers need to feed their families and will follow the money. Money is more easily made when choice is manageable

(which is a euphemism for "limited"). This means we'll see plenty of application developers remain with Apple (though it's debatable whether the iPhone is the land of milk and honey for anyone but Apple), but we'll also continue to see a stampede to Google Android. At present, every other mobile platform is playing for third place, but this could change: Symbian, as a foundation, is in a good position to launch an effective challenge to both Apple and Google if it can get its marketing and execution right. Outside of mobile, it's unclear what role app stores will play. It's nice that Google Wave is getting an app store, but it's just one more "forge" among many. Every vendor (my employer, included) seems to feel an irresistible urge to create a forge/app store where third-party developers can "add value" to

their "platforms." Do we really need these? Or do we need more general repositories like Google Code and SourceForge? I wish I had a definitive answer. I'm just not sure that these competing app stores do anything more than appeal to vendor vanity, and they could end up causing customer confusion. As a consumer, I don't want to have to think about sorting among competing app stores. I just want applications. Presumably, if I use a Sony Ericsson phone, I'll automatically find myself within its app store (unless my wireless provider doesn't slot me into its app store first, that is). But if that's the case, what's the point of making a big deal over a glorified catalog of applications that work with my given device/software/etc.? It strikes me that app stores, like the cloud, are simply a way to dress up old ideas. If they help to organize potential buyers and sellers of software, great. But I still think I'd prefer metarepositories of applications, similar to SourceForge, than individual application repositories for every single device or piece of software that I happen to buy. How about you? This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Mozilla releases SeaMonkey 2.0 (CNET News.com)

to subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds the browser discovers on Web pages. P i n e f o r t h e N e t s c a p e The browser is faster at running Communicator days with unified Web-based JavaScript programs browser and e-mail software but and supports a variety of modern want something more current? Firefox features coming with the Mozilla on Tuesday released HTML5 standard. SeaMonkey 2.0, which combines Browser tabs can be reopened Firefox and Thunderbird. after being closed, and tabs are The new version is rebuilt with reloaded if the browser crashes. Firefox 3.5.4 and is more closely The user interface for handling aligned with the standalone add-ons, passwords, forms, browser. "SeaMonkey is now cookies, and downloads have much closer to Firefox as far as been overhauled. user profiles, add-ons, and The Mac OS X theme fits in functionality of user interface better with the look of Leopard e l e m e n t s a r e c o n c e r n e d , " and Snow Leopard, the previous according to the release notes. and current versions of the Apple Among other changes: operating system. Retrieving e-mail using the Several older operating systems IMAP (Internet Message Access a r e n o l o n g e r s u p p o r t e d : Protocol) protocol is faster, and Windows 95, 98, Me, and NT 4 for new IMAP accounts, mail is as well as Mac OS X 10.2 synchronized by default with the (Jaguar) and 10.3 (Panther). local computer. The software is available as a The Mozilla Lightning calendar d o w n l o a d f o r M a c O S X , plug-in for Thunderbird can be Windows, and Linux in 18 used. languages. E-mail accounts, folders, and This content has passed through messages can be viewed in tabs. fivefilters.org. People can use the mail module Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:37:30 AM

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Appboy: Social Network for Mobile Mozilla releases App Lovers SeaMonkey 2.0 By Christina Warren (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:40:41 PM

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Appboy Quick Pitch: Social network for mobile app developers and users. Personal appstore. Add, share, comment, vote, socialize, submit app ideas, and get discovered. Genius Idea: Appboy bills itself as a social network for mobile app developers and users. It lists apps for various mobile platforms (iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Palm Pre) and users can comment and rate apps and create their own custom app stores. Developer can add their own apps to the store for additional promotion and users can submit ideas for future applications. Users can create their own custom app stores that contain apps they like and earn a 5% commission based on app sales

that originate from their stores. For developers, Appboy offers another avenue of promoting your product and gaining more attention. The app-idea feature is pretty intriguing. The idea is that users submit app ideas and the community votes on what ideas it likes. The best ideas will be made into actual apps (though it isn’t clear who will take on the development task or how that task will be funded) and will win $250. It’s sort of like Threadless for mobile apps. Having another avenue to find and rate mobile applications is always helpful — especially as app stores become larger and harder to navigate. Appboy’s focus on multiple platforms and the way it tries to encourage interaction from both users and developers shows the promise of a cool mobile app community.

Where do you go to find out about the latest mobile apps? What do you think of the concept of custom app stores? Let us know! Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the“new CloudApp()” contest– use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* ( please see website for official rules and guidelines).” Reviews: Android, PHP Tags: android, app stores, appboy, blackberry, iphone

By Stephen Shankland (Webware.com)

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, arrived in Islamabad. Government officials said the explosion, which occured in a

crowded market in the troubled border city, may have been a suicide attack. This content has passed through

People can use the mail module to subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds the browser discovers on Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:37:30 AM Web pages. P i n e f o r t h e N e t s c a p e The browser is faster at running Communicator days with unified Web-based JavaScript programs browser and e-mail software but and supports a variety of modern want something more current? Firefox features coming with the Mozilla on Tuesday released HTML5 standard. SeaMonkey 2.0, which combines Browser tabs can be reopened Firefox and Thunderbird. after being closed, and tabs are The new version is rebuilt with reloaded if the browser crashes. Firefox 3.5.4 and is more closely The user interface for handling aligned with the standalone add-ons, passwords, forms, browser. "SeaMonkey is now cookies, and downloads have much closer to Firefox as far as been overhauled. user profiles, add-ons, and The Mac OS X theme fits in functionality of user interface better with the look of Leopard e l e m e n t s a r e c o n c e r n e d , " and Snow Leopard, the previous according to the release notes. and current versions of the Apple Among other changes: operating system. Retrieving e-mail using the Several older operating systems IMAP (Internet Message Access a r e n o l o n g e r s u p p o r t e d : Protocol) protocol is faster, and Windows 95, 98, Me, and NT 4 for new IMAP accounts, mail is as well as Mac OS X 10.2 synchronized by default with the (Jaguar) and 10.3 (Panther). local computer. The software is available as a The Mozilla Lightning calendar d o w n l o a d f o r M a c O S X , plug-in for Thunderbird can be Windows, and Linux in 18 used. languages. E-mail accounts, folders, and Originally posted at Deep Tech messages can be viewed in tabs.

Pakistan bomb kills more than 90 people (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/28/2009 2:53:17 AM

More than 90 people were killed in a bombing in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Wednesday, as

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Get your social notifications on the cheap with Boxcar By Brett Kelly (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, App Review Since the arrival of the Push Notifications feature in iPhone OS 3.0, all manner of apps have added support for it. Games, task management applications, you name it -they're all more than happy to make your phone beep at you in the middle of the night and prompt your spouse to kindly insist that you silence that infernal device. Or so I've heard. It seems like a no-brainer to me that this type of functionality would exist among the throngs of social networking applications. If the game where you flick the thing while the music is playing can tell me when I've got a new challenger from the Far East, why can't my favorite Twitter client let me know when I've got a new direct message? Sadly, most of the apps in the store (as far as I know) haven't implemented this functionality yet. I realize that it has some sporadic adoption, but certainly not the universal support that I personally expected.

Enter Boxcar[ iTunes Link]. This little free app has existed in the store for months now and has received some very nice reviews, and for good reason. I've been a faithful user of this app for many moons and I find it pretty indispensable. Here's how it works: When you install the app (which is free at the time of this writing), you can choose to enable a single service for notification -- Twitter, Facebook or an email account. It will poll the selected service at a short interval and send you a

standard push notification message if there are any updates. In the case of Twitter, you can configure it to open one of several supported Twitter client apps. If you want to enable additional services, you can do so through the in-app purchase mechanism, and most options cost $.99US. I'm a big fan of Boxcar and use it for Twitter and Facebook. It's one of those free applications that's actually worth more than what you're paying for it -- a quality that's becoming increasingly rare among free iPhone apps these days! Version 2.1 was just released a few days ago and includes several new features like support for Facebook Mail and better accessibility. Pick up Boxcar now for free from the App Store. TUAW Get your social notifications on the cheap with Boxcar originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

That's Rich: China Accuses Google Of Censorship By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

violate Chinese authors' copyrights. Of course, that claim is a bit amusing as well, given China, of course, is famous for China's general attitude towards m a s s i v e c e n s o r s h i p o f t h e copyright over the last couple of internet. Google, on the other decades... but that's another story. hand, is well known for fighting Google claims that it did no censorship in many cases. Even censorship at all, and that there in China, where it was required was an automated block put on to block some searches, Google the site via its StopBadware tried to take as permissive an service, which makes sense. approach as possible, even letting G o o g l e h a s l o n g u s e d users know when a site was StopBadware to try to protect being blocked (yes, this was users from malware sites, and the quite controversial, but the service does sometimes make company did more than many errors. While it seems unlikely other search engines). So, it does that Google would purposely seem a bit surprising to see a block the report, that doesn't headline claiming that China is make it any less strange for a accusing Google of censorship. Chinese government publication Isn't that backwards? to accuse Google of censorship. It isn't "China" so much as it's Given the government's happy the Chinese Communist Party's embrace of censorship, how does main newspaper (so, basically, it have any sort of moral claim the paper of record from the here? g o v e r n m e n t ) c l a i m i n g t h a t Permalink| Comments| Email Google is not finding a report it This Story put out suggesting that Google's book searching project might Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:31:00 AM

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SAP earnings rise as sales sink (CNET News.com)

chief financial officer, said in a statement. Revenues did decline, dropping SAP saw a 12 percent gain in to 2.5 billion euros from 2.8 earnings for its third quarter but a billion euros in the third quarter 9 percent drop in sales, the of 2008. Software sales took the company reported Wednesday. largest hit, sinking 31 percent to The software maker also expects 525 million euros from 763 a larger sales decline for the full m i l l i o n e u r o s a y e a r a g o . year, news that sent its shares Revenue from SAP services fell tumbling more than 7 percent in 3 percent. morning trading. The outlook for the full year has For the quarter ended September also gone sour. The company 30, SAP earned 435 million now expects 2009 sales for both euros ($643 million) versus 389 software and services to drop by million euros in 2008's third between 6 percent and 8 percent, quarter. The company attributed larger than the 4 percent to 6 the earnings gain to better profit percent forecast earlier this year. margins due to cost cuts and a Like many of its competitors, more favorite tax rate (21 percent SAP is experiencing sluggish versus 31.9 percent a year ago) demand globally for software and from acquisition-related items. services. "We are pleased to report another "While we are seeing signs of quarter of increasing margins stabilization in the general despite a decline in revenues. environment, the market remains This demonstrates our continued difficult. Third-quarter software success in maintaining tight cost and software-related service controls," Werner Brandt, SAP's revenues came in lower than we Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:54:56 AM

expected mainly because of a particularly challenging environment in the emerging markets and Japan," said Brandt. To stem the tide, SAP is now focusing on making deals that are smaller and longer term. "Despite the continued tough spending environment, we are pleased to see further progress in the evolution of our volume business as a result of smaller deals," said SAP CEO Leo Apotheker in a statement. "In addition, we are driving more multiyear agreements, where customers buy and consume software over many periods, which we believe is a positive transition for both SAP and our customers." In January, SAP had predicted that 2009 would be a challenging year, forcing it to further cut costs and trim jobs. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Surprise: Sequoia To Open Source Evoting Code By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

surprised a lot of people by announcing plans for a new evoting system which will have Sequoia Voting Systems had open source e-voting software been one of the "big three" e- included. The code will be voting providers, along with released to the public next month. Diebold (Premiere) and ES&S. This is definitely a big (and A l l t h r e e c o m p a n i e s w e r e surprising) step forward. The notorious for massive amounts of W i r e d l i n k a b o v e t r i e s t o secrecy and many, many, many speculate why -- but I'd argue the reports of faulty machines with m o s t o b v i o u s r e a s o n ( n o t weak security. Sequoia's biggest mentioned in that article) is that problem -- which showed up in S e q u o i a ' s t w o l a r g e s t election after election after c o m p e t i t o r s , E S & S a n d election after election-- was that Diebold/Premiere merged last it seemed to count the votes month, suddenly making Sequoia differently every time. That a much smaller player in the seems like a rather big flaw. The space (I believe it was already the c o m p a n y a l s o t h r e a t e n e d number three player...). Going computer security expert Ed open source isn't just a way to Felten after the State of New improve its code and improve Jersey asked him to look at trust in the machines, but also a Sequoia's code. way to stand out against a much Just last week there were reports larger competitor. that Sequoia had accidentally Permalink| Comments| Email revealed some of its source code This Story -- but this week Sequoia has Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:50:00 AM

GOOGLE continued from page 27

Navigation--free--will be tough to beat. Expect to see ads pop up at a later date, although they won't be present at launch. Google doesn't plan to opensource the application but does plan to make it free on Android 2.0 phones, and implied that the

application would be free for other partners as they cut deals to use the application. That could dramatically reduce the cost of developing navigation services, undercutting the established industry with a product that consumers already know very

well: there are 50 million active and phone maker, Gundotra said. users of Google Mobile Maps, This content has passed through Gundotra said. fivefilters.org. Google is not sure whether Google Maps Navigation will work on older Android phones that will get upgraded to Android 2.0. That depends on the carrier

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Making The 'Significant Objects' Project... Even More Significant By Michael Ho (Techdirt)

proceeds from its eBay auction-which has a current bid (and profit) of about $20. Back in July, we commented on This contest is brilliant in that it the Significant Objects project not only highlights the concept where 100 authors are writing up that every product is a bundle of 100 stories involving 100 various scarce and infinite goods, but it trinkets -- and then selling those also demonstrates that content stories along with the associated can be used to engage with an items on eBay for a tidy profit. a u d i e n c e a s a f o r m o f (The project originally struck me entertaining advertising. For the as an experiment to see if the one price of a bauble and some red paperclip stunt could be mass editorial judging, Slate connected produced in some way as a with its fans and gathered a bit of sustainable publishing business.) demographic information on its Now, just a few months later, readers who sent in a story Slate has teamed up with the ( s u b m i s s i o n s h a d t o b e Significant Objects folks with a accompanied by an email address contest for Slate readers to and location). Imagine if Slate submit their own 500-word had instead put a banner ad on its stories about a cheap tchotchke -- website with a form to fill out for a BBQ sauce jar bought at a thrift p e r s o n a l i n f o r m a t i o n , t h e store for $0.75. The contest response rate for that would attracted over 600 stories to be likely be much much lower. But j u d g e d b y S l a t e a n d t h e with this contest, the cost of the Significant Objects founders, and BBQ jar was negligible, and the winner gets the honor of Slate editors spent their time being picked as well as the reading stories and got a peek Submitted at 10/27/2009 11:32:00 PM

into the creative minds of its readership. Okay, the drawback is that the submission judging process is actually not a trivial task, especially when there are more than a handful of entries (and more than a couple judges). Even Google hasn't exactly figured out how to judge its own Project 10 100 contest. However, the search giant opened up the judging to let anyone vote on winners to help narrow down the selection. (And there are other examples of crowdsourced judging processes like Threadless's tshirt designs.) So I envision the next generation of advertising contests reaching out to audiences, calling upon more volunteers, and trying more and more creative campaigns to produce scarce goods out of thin air. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Google makes Similar Images part of image search By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET) Google continues to host a Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:27:00 PM dedicated Similar Images search Google on Tuesday announced page that provides identical that its similar-images feature is results to what's now found in the now a standard part of the standard version of Google c o m p a n y ' s i m a g e s e a r c h Images search. This is likely to technology. remain, as has been the case for The feature was originally sites of other Google Labs launched in late April, alongside graduates, such as Google the visual-news timeline, as a Transit(now a part of Maps) and way for users to find images that Google Suggest. share certain visual similarities Google has also created a with those in Google Images standalone Google Product Ideas search results. This means that page to grab user feedback for you could do a search for "ice other features or changes to the cube" and very quickly fork out image search service. This Google's results between images operates the same way as other of the frozen chunks of water and product idea pages by letting the popular West Coast rapper, users suggest new ideas to all without having to change your Google's engineers, as well as original search term. giving others the chance to vote Which 'ice cube' did you mean? ideas up or down. Google's image search can now Originally posted at Web offer suggestions for images that Crawler may be similar.(Credit:

Watch NASA’s Second Attempt to Launch Ares I-X Rocket Live By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:28:55 AM

Yesterday, NASA was supposed to launch their $445 million

rocket prototype, Ares I-X, but the launch was delayed due to bad weather conditions. Today, NASA is poised for a second attempt, with the launch window being 8 a.m. to noon

EDT. Just like yesterday, the

weather isn’t cooperating, but the follow the latest developments launch might still happen if regarding the mission on the NASA’s experts conclude that official NASA page. the conditions are safe enough. Tags: Ares, launch, NASA You can watch the launch attempt over at NASA TV and

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Virtual goods resellers on the rise (CNET News.com)

of three sellers sold in-game currency in the last 12 months, earning a median of $22. Gamers are not just making P l a y S p a n , a p r o v i d e r o f purchases to enhance their m o n e t i z a t i o n a n d p a y m e n t gaming experience but also solutions for games and virtual selling virtual assets to other worlds and sponsor of the p l a y e r s , a c c o r d i n g t o n e w research, considers that to be research from video game market good news as its platform enables research firm VGMarket. game developers to provide Sales of virtual goods are player to player marketplaces for expected to reach $1 billion this their players. In addition, the year and already generate near $4 PlaySpan Marketplace currently billion annually in China. But provides a secondary market for there are some challenges, IMVU players to buy and sell primarily the fact that once you goods as well. convert your real money to One out of two sellers made a virtual cash you can't readily get sale in a social network game the dough back out. over the last 12 months and The research revealed that in- earned a median of $50, while game currency is the most one out of four sellers made a frequently sold digital good from sale in a free-to-play game over player to player and that two out the last 12 months, with their Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:01:00 AM

median earning being $98, or nearly double that on social networks. Eric Hartness, chief marketing officer at PlaySpan, told me that the secondary market is a boon for games, adding value, real and

perceived, to all players by associating a real world dollar value on their playing time, game accounts, and digital items. Hartness believes that the secondary market increases primary market sales because it

provides a means for all players to generate money. He also said that more players would buy and sell digital items if they were confident it was safe and within the game's terms of service. Virtual good resellers(Credit: PlaySpan/VGMarket) I'm not terribly surprised that people who purchase in-game currency in free-to-play games end up looking for a way to cashout of the game at some point-even at pennies on the dollar, provided they are real pennies and not metaphysical manifestations. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Metallica Revenge: Tapulous takes revenge to the next level By Josh Carr (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

semi-cool in my kids' eyes for another six months until the next thing comes out." Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:00:00 PM But we think that this is a little Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, b i t m o r e t h a n j u s t a c o o l App Review, Music The Tap Tap marketing scheme... it actually Revenge empire just became has some brand new features more credible... at least to the never before seen in a Tap Tap M e t a l l i c a f a n s o u t t h e r e . Revenge game. It's the first game Metallica Revenge[iTunes Link] in the archive to include a sells for $4.99, but it is not out to Bluetooth Battle mode. In this make lots of money -- not mode, two devices connect over according to the Associated Press Bluetooth to play note for note interview with the band's against each other while drummer, Lars Ulrich. Ulrich obtaining power ups that you can explains that the application itself toss at your opponent to distract is really just for fun and that "it's them and move ahead in points. one more thing that'll keep me Tapulous touts this game as the

most difficult Tap Tap Revenge yet. It has a Hard mode with four rails in landscape and an Extreme

mode with five rails in landscape. There has never been a Tap Tap Revenge game with five rails. I'm scared to even try it. The band has also created a contest for those of us who purchase this application. You can win everything from cool Metallica gear to the grand prize of a trip to meet and greet Metallica at a show in Vegas on December 5th. Here's the track list: • For Whom the Bell Tolls • Fuel • King Nothing • Sad But True • Some Kind of Monster

• • • • •

Enter Sandman One Seek & Destroy All Nightmare Long Master of Puppets

TUAW Metallica Revenge: Tapulous takes revenge to the next level originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Facebook’s ‘Reconnect’ Strategy is Brilliant By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:02:54 AM

Recently, in addition to giving you suggestions to which friends you might add to your profile, Facebook also started enticing users to reconnect and engage less active users. The campaign has partly backfired, as some of the recommendations were dead people and ex-lovers, but I still think it’s brilliant, and a good sign that Facebook has a clear strategy laid out for the future. Facebook currently has a problem that plagues only the biggest online services out there, but a serious one nevertheless: it’s getting too big. Its growth hasn’t been spectacular in the last couple of months like it once was, but one has to wonder if it’s simply nearing the natural limit for that type of service. Once you’ve conquered a huge portion of domestic (US) users, and international users, where do you

Embracing Traffic From Those Darn Aggregators By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

the NYTimes digital boss Martin Nisenholtz complaining about this activity just last week. W i t h t h e n e w e f f o r t b y But, of course, all this sort of turn to? this latest strategy is also newspaper folks who are unable activity does is bring in tons of Existing users. Facebook’s working well on my end. I see to come up with a business traffic. The Huffington Post gets algorithms, while still not suggestions for friends I already model to blame news aggregators an awful lot of traffic and a link perfectly tuned, recognize that have; I’m interested in why with big time executives from from the site drives traffic. s o m e u s e r s a r e n ’ t u s i n g Facebook’s suggesting them; I go media companies insisting that Marshall Kirkpatrick, from Facebook regularly, and entice check out why they haven’t been aggregators "steal" from them by RWW, noted that the single their friends to reconnect with active; in the end, I really did sending them traffic, it's time to HuffPo link drove 10,000 page them; write on their wall, send reconnect with some of them. brush away that myth. Take, for views in just four hours, and them photos, and the like. It’s the So, instead of simply waiting for example, the excellent tech/social b a s i c a l l y b e g g e d H u f f P o perfect campaign. If a company someone to utter that dreadful media blog ReadWriteWeb, who to"steal" more content like that. sends you an email that says sentence: “ Facebook has a lot of recently had an article about Eric Indeed, it's still really difficult to “hey, you’ve been inactive, but users, but how many are active?,” Schmidt's predictions for what understand why mainstream why not give our service another F a c e b o o k i s w o r k i n g o n the web will look like in five publications are so up in arms go,” you’ll probably disregard it. reengaging their inactive users, years. Soon afterwards, the over other sites helping to But if a friend posts a photo of recognizing that they’re just as Huffington Post "aggregated" promote their articles and send you or some of your friends, and valuable as new users. Smart that story and posted the opening them traffic -- even to the point the only place you can get it is thinking. If they manage to tweak on its own site with a link to the of looking to pass laws to stop Facebook, you’re far more likely their algorithms and stop gross full article. For over a year now, such activity. to log in – and get hooked – once errors from happening, that is. we've been hearing mainstream Permalink| Comments| Email again. Reviews: Facebook publications complain about this This Story I’m an active Facebook user, and Tags: facebook, reconnect sort of thing by the HuffPo, with Submitted at 10/28/2009 1:22:29 AM

Asked about selling search, Barry Diller says yes By Tom Krazit (Webware.com)

Ask.com could be on the block, judging by the comments of the CEO of its parent company. Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:36:00 PM Reuters reported on IAC's thirdAsk.com could soon be up for quarter earnings conference call sale, judging by the comments of Tuesday, where CEO Barry IAC CEO Barry Diller.(Credit: Diller all but opened the bidding S c r e e n s h o t b y T o m for the struggling search engine. Krazit/CNET) Despite a novel promotional deal

with Nascar, Ask.com has failed to make much headway against the great powers of search in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. "We've been asked a lot whether we're open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes," Diller was quoted by Reuters as saying.

"And, it is unlikely that we would be the consolidator." Search consolidation is already in full swing in 2009, with the government reviewing a pending deal between Microsoft and Yahoo that would see Microsoft installed as the exclusive provider of search technology on

Yahoo's Web sites. That government scrutiny could make it more difficult for IAC to sell Ask.com to Google or Microsoft, assuming they would be interested. Originally posted at Relevant Results

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San Francisco Bay Bridge App Store Stories: One man's app. Three corporations. Lyrics 2 against Shut Down, TwitPic Captures Accident the world. By Erica Sadun (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:56:40 PM

Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:00:00 AM

San Francisco’s famous Bay Bridge is being shut down by the Filed under: Features, Apple, California Highway Patrol in App Store, App Review both directions. According to the When Joris Kluivers(@kluivers San Francisco Chronicle, “pieces on Twitter) set out to write his of the cantilever section section Lyrics app for iPhone, he never fell during the late-afternoon intended to personally take on commute.” Apple, Sony, and Gracenote. Interestingly enough, Twitter Kluivers, a student at the Vrije was first on the scene, as the Universiteit in Amsterdam, was commuter Joe Marshall (@larfo) just trying to get his foot in the snapped this Twitpic of the Bay App Store door, not go toe-to-toe Bridge debris. The image, taken with three media behemoths. The about two hours ago, clearly story of how he ended up depicts the San Francisco Bay navigating through the corporate Bridge with what appears to be bulwarks to eventually cables down and bridge mass successfully publish his latest spewed everywhere. weeks after. Stories: One man's app. Three release, Lyrics 2 ( iTunes Link), The Chronicle reports: with the blessings of all three Kluivers built the application corporations. Lyrics 2 against the “A chunk of steel lay in the around the LyricsWiki database. world. companies, no less, makes quite Featuring over 700,000 songs, TUAW App Store Stories: One middle of the far left lane of the the App Store saga. upper deck and an object that The initial version of Lyrics was the wiki provided easy access to man's app. Three corporations. appeared to be a cable was on a a much-desired resource. It was Lyrics 2 against the world. simple. Kluivers collaborated Ryder truck dangling from the with Moop.me, a programming exactly that access to a vast originally appeared on The library of songs that caused the U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g cooperative, to build his application. Published this past first of Kluiver's corporate (TUAW) on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 M a y , L y r i c s w a s t h e f i r s t challenges. Apple insisted on 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. application on the App Store to censoring his lyrics. Read on to learn more about Read| Permalink| Email this| allow users to find and display Comments song lyrics. Several other similar what happened... applications followed in the Continue reading App Store

side of the span. Authorities have not said how long the closure will last.” While this is certainly not the first time that a Twitter user tweeted breaking news before mainstream media outlets — there’s plenty of incidents like the Jakarta bombings and Hudson plane crash to reference — it certainly serves as another telling example of the power of Twitter as a communication platform. Image from wallyg on Flickr Reviews: Flickr, Twitter Tags: bay bridge, San FranciscoSan Jose, twitpic

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The App Store City of Los Angeles unofficially breaks Goes Google for $7.2 100,000 approved apps Million By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:00:00 PM

Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:21:55 PM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Software, App Store It's another milestone (unofficially) met, as Apple has passed the 100,000 threshold of approved apps in the App Store, according to App Shopper. If you're unfamiliar with App Shopper, they list all of the apps that are in the store, tracking updates and price changes. As of this writing, they're listing 101,847 apps approved for sale and 93,118 actually available. We imagine Apple will make an announcement when the latter number officially hits 100,000. Just last month, Apple announced that there were upwards of 85,000 apps available for purchase with sales figures in the billions -- 2 billion apps sold in fact, though there's no word on the mix of paid vs. free.

It looks like those Going Google billboards are actually good for something, as the Los Angelesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; city council has just unanimously approved a Google Apps deal worth $7.2 million. According to CNET, LA would become one of the largest Despite the (often significant) government agencies, outside the bumps in the road, the App Store District of Columbia, to make the c o n t i n u e s t o g r o w a t a n switch to using hosted Google email and application services. incredible pace. T U A W T h e A p p S t o r e However, security concerns over unofficially breaks 100,000 storing information in the cloud a p p r o v e d a p p s o r i g i n a l l y did factor into the process and appeared on The Unofficial have yet to be 100% aleviated. Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, Apparently the deal hinges 27 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. a r o u n d a n a g r e e m e n t w i t h Please see our terms for use of Computer Sciences Corp, a contractor who would need to feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| agree to pay a penalty should Comments

By Joachim Bean (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:00:00 AM

there be a security breach. If the deal does go through it would be quite the coup for Google and their Going Google campaign. With both the US Government supporting the initiative and the city of Los Angeles joining the Google team, Google is building up an arsenal of large and impressive customers that should make it easier to attract more top dollar enterprise clients. Image from Peter Kaminski on Flickr Reviews: Flickr, Google Tags: going google, Los Angeles

Hollywood A-Listers 'Remember the Time' at Michael Jackson's 'This is It' Premiere in LA (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:45:00 AM

Stars celebrated the life and

music of Michael Jackson at the Los Angeles premiere of his film 'This is It.' The movie features rehearsals for his anticipated

concert that was to take place this summer. 'This is It' is not in both conventional movie theaters, as well as IMAX.

Apple posts Wireless Mouse Update for the Magic Mouse

Filed under: Peripherals, Software Update If you just happen to have a Magic Mouse, and are wanting to use its Multi-Touch features, there's now a Wireless Mouse Update available from Apple that lets you do so in Mac OS X. You still probably can't find a Magic Mouse around unless you buy an iMac, but if you happen to have one or want to prepare for when you get one, you can go ahead and download this update before you get it. This Update is available for Snow Leopard or Leopard, and can be downloaded from the Apple Support Downloads page. TUAW Apple posts Wireless Mouse Update for the Magic Mouse originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Apple posts DIY info for new iMac memory installation

Michael Jackson’s This Is It Dominates Online Ticket Sales

By Ken Ray (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Barb Dybwad (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:01:30 PM

Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:00:00 PM

Filed under: iMac If you're looking to do a DIY memory upgrade on your brand-spanking new iMac, Apple's more than happy to tell you how. The Cupertino company has posted info in the Support section of its website telling people who aren't afraid to pop the hood on the new 21.5" and 27" iMacs what kind of memory modules the new machines use and how to install or replace memory modules themselves. While it's not the public's first look inside the machines, Apple lets the world know that the iMac (Late 2009) has four SDRAM slots, where to find them, and what types of modules will and won't fit happily inside.

Would-be do it yourselfers can search Apple's site for support document HT3918. Godspeed and Godcaution - to you. [via Softpedia] TUAW Apple posts DIY info for new iMac memory installation originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

This week marks the premiere of Michael Jackson’s This Is It, a documentary about the late singer’s final months. If you’re one of the fans getting your ticket early online, you’re not alone: according to Deadline Hollywood, This Is It has accounted for a whopping 61% of all online ticket sales this week. Of those buying, almost half reported developing a renewed interest in the artist’s work after his death in June. On the other hand, it opens this week without too much blockbuster release competition. But with Where the Wild Things

Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:34:43 PM

Associated Press writer H. Josef Hebert has an interesting piece about the importance of nuclear power in the debate over global warming, not just as a technical means to generate power without CO2 emissions, but as a political

bargaining chip. The industry’s long-standing campaign to rebrand itself as green is gaining footing as part of the effort to curtail greenhouse gases. Nuclear power still faces daunting challenges, including the fate of highly radioactive reactor waste. Reactors remain a

Connecting Cognos and Lotus With Data, Mashups and Social Interaction Are still fresh and a few other well-performing films in theaters now, commanding 3/5 of online ticket sales is definitely pretty impressive. What are your plans to watch This Is It, if any? Let us know in the comments. [ Image courtesy of Kadix on Flickr.] Reviews: Flickr Tags: Film, michael jackson, Movies, This Is It

By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/27/2009 11:35:36 PM

At the IBM Information on Demand conference, we asked Robert Ashe to sketch how he sees integration between the company's business intelligence and collaboration technologies. What he shows is how business intelligence applications and Lotus products could connect business users through mashups and social interactions. Ashe is a general manager at IBM who leads the company's Business Intelligence and Performance Management efforts. He was CEO at Cognos before the company was acquired tempting target for terrorists, It’s something the nuclear by IBM in 2007. requiring ever vigilant security industry has hammered away at Sponsor measures. in advertising and in lobbying on [Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane But 104 power reactors in 31 Capitol Hill for nearly a decade. ticket and hotel room for Alex states provide one-fifth of the Only recently, however, has the Williams to attend the IBM nation’s electricity. They also are message begun to resonate I n f o r m a t i o n O n D e m a n d p r o d u c i n g 7 0 p e r c e n t o f among both industry supporters C o n f e r e n c e . ] D i s c u s s essentially carbon-free power and and skeptics. are devoid of greenhouse gas emissions.

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Hot Air Comments of the Day (Little Green Footballs)

[…] “Are there anymore options out there to fix this mess?” All I can say is, “Yikes.” It’s Think George Washington. Yes, secession and revolution time there are options. (not necessarily in that order) in […] the Hot Air commentspace Yup, Texas secession — the tonight, in a thread about Harry ultimate opt-out. Reid’s push for the “public […] option:” “Are there anymore options out Texas can opt out by seceding. there to fix this mess?” […] Not really. And the rest of the sane states – The SCOTUS should rule it un[…] Constitutional, which it clearly is, If they do, I’m so there. but they won’t. […] – The Precedent could be found That’s the only move left. This ineligible, thrown out of office, feral government will not be and have everything he signed domesticated, again. It has rendered null and void (though reverted to an utterly savage state I’m not sure about that last part) of nature and will never return. … but it won’t (see above) […] – Secession I am SO ready for secession. No That’s really about it. Sad. But taxation without representation, these are the sorts of situations and they don’t represent us at all that a feral government produces. anymore. Other than the above, the […] American creed will die, with In the new United Maoist States only American conservatives left of America, Texas will be our to carry it as a belief that they, Taiwan. alone in the world, espouse, Long live the Republic. without a land in which to […] practice it and without the ability Secession. Now, that’s a public to live by the framework set option I’m hoping Texas soon down by the founding documents will decide to take. and the traditions established by Think of it as the ultimate opt- American culture. out. […] […] It does seem like our options are So builds this historical flash getting fewer. After the last point. election I don’t really have that […] much faith in the election Maybe it is time the non Marxist process, and the communists in states considered “opting out” of t h e W h i t e H o u s e w i l l d o the “union”. everything they can to rig Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:47:10 PM

elections. It’s quite obvious what the majority of people in this country want … and “health care” isn’t one of them. Washington isn’t listening, Washington doesn’t want to listen. They just want us to shut up and keep giving them our money. Washington fears the left. They will never listen to us until they fear us more. […] If you have to over come a veto as well, you will need 72-75 Republican seats. That’s never going to happen. This thing has to be defeated before it goes in. Failing that, the only remaining option will be secession. […] for this little weasel to attach his name to the Public Option is the final nail in his coffin…. Of course, it is the final nail in the coffin of this country if this load of crap passes too…. […] And if this thing passes, it’s on Mr. Rightisleft. Millions feel just like me, and I’d sooner die a patriot, than a slave. And even if every one of us is killed… I will have considered it an honor to be dead amongst other like minded heros. Secession and civil war are alternatives to this, and by god if those are the only options left… so be it, the democrats forced our hand. […] Check that… the lefteists have

forced our hand. The Democrats by no means have a monopoly on useless subhuman garbage leftsts. […] No he won’t learn. But that’s fine. He can die a slave on his knees. I am willing to die on my feet as a patriot so that his kids, who I think more of than he does, can possibly enjoy freedom from the oppressive nanny state. […] The American creed will not die – it cannot – but it seems that it might not be in the US that it will continue. If these bills don’t get killed … […] The parasitic blue states will elect the public option and the red states will opt out. The left has now achieved exactly what it set out to do. They will reward their nanny state Marxist/leftist constituents and the parasitic underclass for faithfully voting for Democrats. We should take it one step further and completely redistribute the land mass and other resources so the two different and irreconcilable ideologies can go their separate ways never again to meet. The left can then build their ideal Marxist state and the rest of us can rebuild the greatest democracy and free market system ever known … and the sooner the better. I repeat, “Yikes.”

Plex Updates with Apple Remote Fix for Snow Leopard [Updates] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:30:00 AM

Ask anyone who runs the eyecatching Plex media center on their Mac about Snow Leopard, and you might see them wince. A new update fixes that painful Apple Remote incompatibility, and also improves audio for those without 5.1 sound systems. The most important fix in Plex 0.8.3 is the successful integration of a Candelair driver to prevent the Apple Remote from launching iTunes, FrontRow, and other apps while a user's simply trying to navigate their Plex media center. Also worth noting, thought, is a "Mixdown Volume Boost" that makes dialogue and other audio more audible in films with 5.1 sound playing over standard stereo speakers. There's a few other goodies included in Plex's latest release, including a sophisticated sleep/shutdown timer, that media center fans should check out. Plex is a free download for Mac OS X systems only. Plex 0.8.3: Let it Snow (Leopard)![Plex via PC World]

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Anti-Abortion Activists Sell Extremist Items to Defend Scott Roeder (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:18:18 AM

abortion foes plan to auction on eBay and other Web sites in a fundraiser for Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man charged with killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller. “This is unique,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City antiabortion activist who will sign the bullhorn. “Nobody’s ever done this before. The goal is that everybody makes money for Scott Roeder’s defense.” … Among items that will go on the auction block, Dinwiddie said, are three drawings she received in the mail Wednesday from

Roeder. Two drawings were done by another inmate at his direction, but Roeder autographed all of them. “They’re wonderful pencil art drawings,” she said. “They were done in jail.” One is a sketch of David and Goliath. “It has David with a slingshot in one hand and the head of Goliath in his other hand and the name ‘Tiller’ on Goliath’s forehead,” she said. “On the corpse on the ground, it says ‘child-murdering industry.’ ”

Intel Helps Joyent Become the First Cloud Cloud Computing Service to Launch in China By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:31:00 AM

With some help from Intel, Joyent is announcing it is the first cloud computing service to launch in mainland China. Joyent is working with Intel and the Qinhuangdao Economic and Technology Development Zone (QETDZ) to bring its infrastructure cloud computing service to the Chinese market. The Joyent service is already being promoted with a localized version of its web site. Sponsor Joyent is a San Francisco based cloud computing service that launched in 2004. They are one of the pioneers of the cloud computing world. They were one of the first to offer Infrastructureas-a-Service(IaaS) offerings. (Little Green Footballs) white supremacist weirdo with n o d e s o f c o n s e r v a t i v e They now offer all three layers of connections to various neo-Nazi commentary that have either the Cloud Stack - IaaS, Platform Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:11:03 AM movements and a penchant for defended McCain and attacked a s a S e r v i c e ( P A A S ) a n d White supremacist blogger flamboyant metaphors – you his detractors or provided him Software as a Service(SaaS). Robert Stacy McCain’s neo- fellows have some powerful new with an outlet for his relatively The China deal is a major coup Confederate friends ride to his allies! well-written bullshit. for Joyent, which competes with defense: League of the South The folks at League of the South Barrett Brown links to a post last giants like Amazon Web Denounces Myself, Charles – the nation’s most prominent night at the League of the South’s Services. Joyent prides itself on Johnson for Picking on Racist. consortium of degenerate, pro- blog (called, oddly enough, being a self-funded company. There’s a bit of good news for Confederacy, anti-American “Rebellion”), in which I’m It is interesting that QETDZ those various conservative traitors – have just now thrown in identified as a dangerous Neocon commentators who’ve been their hoods with the good people pro-war left-globalist secular defending Robert Stacy McCain at American Spectator, Hot Air, revolutionary manipulator. i n t h e w a k e o f m o u n t i n g Protein Wisdom, The Pirate’s evidence that he’s a degenerate Cove, and all of those other The more extreme anti-choice activists give themselves permission to do almost anything in the name of God. The latest example — an eBay auction of memorabilia from the violent fringe: Online auction to raise funds in Scott Roeder case. An Army of God manual. A prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons. An autographed bullhorn. These are among the items that

Neo-Confederates Ride to Blogger Robert Stacy McCain's Rescue

officials decided to embrace a cloud computing service. We are seeing a whole new level of innovation in application development that stems from the availability of cloud computing services. Companies are embracing cloud computing services in North America and elsewhere for its simplicity, scaling and elasticity. With a cloud computing infrastructure, China will be well-positioned to experience significant innovation in its technology development In today's announcement, Intel cited Joyent's infrastructure as a measure for its support. Joyent's infrastructure is based on the Intel Xeon processor. The QETDZ is one of China's first state-level economic and technological development zones. It is heavily focused on technology development. They have coined the name of the region as "Data Valley." Joyent is immediately launching its base public cloud product. It plans to expand its product line in China over the next two quarters. Discuss

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Facebook U.S. Visits Increase 194% Over Past Year; Tagged is Beating Twitter? By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

you the impression that Twitter's popularity is through the roof. After all, they posted an increase Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:53:23 AM of over 1000 percentage points. N e w d a t a r e l e a s e d f r o m But the truth is, their percentage Experian Hitwise reconfirms of visits still remains relatively what we've known for some time: low. Only 1.84% of visits to Facebook is killing the other s o c i a l n e t w o r k i n g s i t e s i n social networks. Nowhere is that September were to Twitter, more true than here in the U.S. bringing them in at #4 on the where they found that the visits chart. What? Tagged Beats to the site have increased 194% Twitter? from September of last year to Facebook and MySpace beat September 2009. However, it's Twitter out for the top two spots, Twitter that's seen the largest but you may be surprised to see year-over-year increase in visits - who came in at #3: Tagged. Yes, during that same time period, Tagged, the social networking they're up 1170%. But one of the site that's best known for getting oddest findings being reported is busted in an email invite scam is how the social network known as beating out Twitter. Tagged is beating out Twitter for Although we like to think that the number three spot in terms of spammy marketing tactics don't visits. pay off, it seems that for Tagged Sponsor they have. Their aggressive MySpace Declines, Facebook methods in the past involved and Twitter Grow having new registrants add their According to Experian, nearly contact lists to the service which 59% of all the social networking Tagged then used to send out visits were visits to Facebook "invites" to everyone in the user's w h i l e o n l y 3 0 % w e r e t o address book. The worst part is MySpace - a 55% decrease in that the invites looked as if they market share over the past year in came from the individual users terms of visits for the one-time w h e n r e a l l y , m o s t w e r e king of social networks. completely unaware anything had Looking at just the year-over- been sent out. Tagged has also year percent change may give been known to send out emails

last year and 1.84% this past month. Even worse, when calculating the time spent on the social that force users to sign up for networking sites, Tagged has accounts in order to see shared shown an increase there as well. photos from other users, even They're up from 23 minutes in going so far as to guilt-trip September of 2008 to 25 minutes recipients into signing up with in September 2009. Meanwhile, messages that read:"If you don't Twitter is showing a decrease click, [the person] may think you from 36 minutes to just under 16 minutes year-over-year, a loss of said no :(". As despicable as these tactics 56%. are, they've helped Tagged grow Although Hitwise focuses on and remain profitable. ComScore U.S. traffic only, these findings reported the site had 32 million go against everything we've visitors in April of this year, up heard about Twitter and its from 14 million the prior year. popularity - in fact, they seem to And once there, the visitors are confirm that there may be more staying engaged, generating over media hype surrounding the 5 billion pageviews during that microblogging network than there is actual engagement month. Believe it or not, the company is among its users. It would be interesting to still growing according to the Hitwise data, albeit at a slower compare the number of users rate than it did a couple of years each network has with the visits, ago when it was adding more but that would be hard to do users per day than MySpace. In since Twitter refuses to release September of 2008, the site t h o s e s o r t s o f s t a t i s t i c s . r e c e i v e d 1 . 6 2 % o f s o c i a l Meanwhile, we're left wondering networking visits and this if Hitwise has had some sort of September, they received 2.38%. massive system glitch in their Although those numbers are system or if we've just seen proof small, they're still larger than of how Twitter's supposed Twitter's who came in at 0.15% popularity is just all talk. Discuss

Google Images Adds Similar Search Function [Image Search] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:00:00 AM

The same day that GazoPa's similar image search graduates from beta, Google upgrades its own Google Labs similar search experiment to a full-fledged Google Images feature. A "Find similar images" link under certain pictures pulls off the trick. From a cursory few searches, Google's own similar image search seems to perform a bit a bit more accurately when it comes to hunting down real-life images that look like other captured images. You can't upload or draw your image basis, as with GazoPa, but then you get greater results filtering with Google as wellâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;exact dimensions, color saturation, file type, and more. Both sites are worth keeping bookmarked if you're often digging around for something just a little different than what you're working with. Similar Images graduates from Google Labs[Official Google Blog via SearchEngineWatch.com]

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Salmon Protocol for Distributed, Real-Time Content Expands with Open-Source Project By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

Web Summit, we had a session about Salmon, a protocol for reaggregated distributed Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:23:27 PM conversations around web The Internet is a mess these content. I was hoping for some days. feedback and to generate some Conversations are distributed interest, and I was overwhelmed and fragmented; a blog post's by the positive reactions." comments will almost surely After the Summit, Panzer chose appear on a number of sites other to expand Salmon's presence to t h a n t h e a u t h o r ' s b l o g . include an open-source project C o n s i d e r i n g f a c t o r s f r o m and a Google groups-powered Facebook shares, likes, and posts mailing list. to comments on Google Reader In order to increase the visibility or even content curators such as o f a g g r e g a t e d c o n t e n t a n d Hacker News, site owners have interactions to the original source found it increasingly difficult of web content, content creators over the past year or so to can include a Salmon link in RSS efficiently and effectively collect or Atom feeds. Readers or a l l t h e s e n t i m e n t s , m e d i a , aggregators then realize the feed entities, and data associated with i s S a l m o n - e n a b l e d a n d any given piece of content. remembers the URL. When a S a l m o n i s a p r o t o c o l t h a t user comments to the feed item, addresses this specific issue, and the aggregator then posts a engineer John Panzer has begun version of the comment to the an open-source project to help endpoint. Panzer and others cite unify the conversations of the real-time notification protocol synaptic web. PubSubHubbub as the ideal push Sponsor mechanism for this process. Wrote Panzer on his blog, "A According to the protocol few days ago at the Real Time summary, "The usual result is for

new comments, it would send the new comments to the site which is lacking the full conversation. If multiple downstream destinations are designated, the Salmon Protocol will also populate these multiple sites." In this way, Salmon reflects the the salmon to be published along a i m s o f s u c h c o m m e n t i n g with other comments on the services as Disqus and JS-Kit's source's web page. Note that Echo, both of which attempt to sources are not obligated to gather and push distributed data actually publish the salmon - they around blog content. Right now, the project site may moderate them, spam block them, aggregate, or analyze them contains the Python/Google instead. However, if the source AppEngine source code for the does publish the salmon in a Salmon demo. Writes Panzer, "I comment feed, it has to maintain also intend to host the actual spec certain fields to make the text there for the moment, along the reference protocol work end-to-end." w i t h In an influential blog post, Louis i m p l e m e n t a t i o n c o d e , a n d Gray writes, "PubSubHubbub develop both in parallel based on essentially works as a middle- discussions on the mailing list." Interested developers are man conduit, taking information from a data's source passing encouraged to join the mailing a l o n g c h a n g e d d a t a t o list and contribute to the downstream destination sites. c o n v e r s a t i o n . D i s c u s s The proposed Salmon Protocol would similarly watch both source and destination sites for comments, and upon discovering

Lakers get rings, raise banner, defeat Clippers By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:39:00 AM

Fast Fact • Los Angeles became the ninth defending champion in the last

11 seasons to win its season opener. • The Lakers beat the Clippers for the 9th straight time. • The Lakers have also won nine of their last 11 season openers. • Kobe Bryant led all scorers

with 33 points, the third time he has scored 30 or more in an opener. • Andrew Bynum added 26 points and 13 rebounds, joining Lamar Odom (2006), Shaquille O'Neal (1999, 2001) and A.C.

Green (1991) as the only Lakers to reach those numbers in a season opener since 1986-87. -- ESPN Stats & Information This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

ISO Downloads and Fixes for Windows 7 Student Download [Windows 7] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:30:00 AM

A friend of mine, and many commenters here and elsewhere, had issues receiving, downloading, or simply executing the$30 "student" Windows 7 upgrade. Microsoft has admitted some issues, and now offers tools for getting your upgrade done. Assuming you've picked up your license from a valid .edu address, you can burn the ISO image below to disk and execute the upgrade on an XP or Vista system. The executable file linked below that can convert the previous installation program you've received into a bootable DVD or USB image. And Microsoft and its Digital River partner offer full instructions on pulling off both such procedures at the top link. Upgrade Instructions[Microsoft/Digital River] ISO file[Direct ISO link] Bootable DVD/USB creator[Direct .exe link]

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How to Capitalize and Profit from Systemic Failure By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

idea aggregator for businesses. Says Becker, "There's value to perpetuating failure. As Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:45:00 PM entrepreneurs need to believe that Fear of failure rarely keeps serial our successes will be at the end entrepreneurs down. In fact, said of this trajectory of failures, and Marc Pincus, CEO of Zynga at we're not the only ones today's FailCon event, "As capitalizing on it" entrepreneurs and programmers Becker went on to argue that we're used to failing aren't we? If bloggers and entrepreneurs were you look at it as A/B testing until just as tied to the cycle of failure you get the perfect product, then as Get Satisfaction. it's not an issue. It's important to direction. When the bubble burst, "Entrepreneurs need us to fail, l e a r n f r o m i t . . . O t h e r w i s e , Muller was free to start Get otherwise there'd be no new honestly, why change a f@#king Satisfaction with co-founder companies to fund. Bloggers thing if you're not going to Lane Becker. Although you need us to fail. They need it to wouldn't normally relate their write at least two blog posts - one measure the impact?" company with failure, Get when we start and one when we Sponsor While Pincus is doing well with Satisfaction offers startups an finish." Zynga, he first saw failure with opportunity to fail publicly via a While Get Satisfaction's Tribe. Despite the fact that Tribe Q&A-style platform. presentation put failure into a is still considered one of the first Says Muller, "Companies used new context, the message was an social networking sites, the to get away with failing quietly. upbeat one. The systemic failure founder has since learned that if Now it's amplified, it's even that happens due to poor market you're going to fail, "fail fast" SEOed. Good companies know conditions, poor social sentiment and do it with clear success that one of the best ways to or new technologies displacing c o n v e r t p e o p l e i n t o l o y a l old ones is a necessity. Without a metrics in place. A n o t h e r s t a r t u p t h a t h a s customers is to make amends for willingness to take risks and fail, managed to leverage failure for a failure." experimentation and new success is customer service In March, ReadWriteWeb found innovations would cease to exist. platform Get Satisfaction. On a that after customers complained For most of us, that's the reason personal front, co-founder Thor a b o u t a c o m p a n y o n G e t we're in the technology industry Muller failed in raising too much S a t i s f a c t i o n , t h e y o f t e n to begin with. money at a time when his then immediately offered solutions to Photo Credits: Rebecca Reeve c o m p a n y T r a p e z o l a c k e d fix it. We named it the leading and Firefly the Great Discuss

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Health and Sex Education: HealthCentral and 5min Video Partnership By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:01:00 PM

Some conversations are best illustrated by educated strangers. Instead of listening to my mother drone on awkwardly about oral contraceptives, breast examinations and what she deemed "special lady time", I wish I could have saved us both the embarrassment and consulted a health-related video site. Instructional video platform 5min is teaming up with HealthCentral to create just that. HealthCentral's vast network of sites like Foodfit, MyBreastCancerNetwork.com and WellSphere will gain new video content via 5min's matching system. Sponsor Earlier this month ReadWriteWeb covered 5min's partnership with major lifestyle TV network Scripps. 5min is sharing Scripps content from sites like HGTV, the Food Network and the DIY Network and matching it to relevant 5min

network partners. As of this evening HealthCentral will become a network partner with access to the content matching technology, content from 5min's health category and streaming video advertising. HealthCentral plans on exclusively selling video ad space to pharmaceutical and over -the-counter drug companies. In March, Nielsen released a reported that drug-related ad spending had been cut back by almost $1 billion dollars since 2007. While it's tough to say if spending has decreased due to a shift from TV to more affordable web-based placements, 5min and HealthCentral are about to find out. Discuss

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VMware Fusion 3 for Mac Now Available By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

machines is also greatly reduced, so in general, you should experience much snappier Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:27:39 AM performance. VMware Fusion 3 for Mac is Finally, a lot of improvements now available. That’s right, new have been made to VMware virtualization software for your Fusion’s Mac Unity mode, which Mac, conveniently timed for the makes the virtualization release of Windows 7. Actually, experience much more integrated it’s very likely the release of than it is in its default, windowed VMware’s latest iteration of its with some of your gaming needs, configuration. The list of new OS virtualization software, especially if you’re into older features is long, but some Fusion 3, got its release date MMOs that don’t have a native highlights include the ability to precisely because of Microsoft’s Mac client. search for Windows apps like VMware’s sales tactics for Mac ones, assigning the new street date for its latest operating system, because Fusion 3 is Fusion 3 also focus on recent always-on Applications menu to specially designed to support switchers who are having trouble a hotkey of your choosing, adjusting to their new and a c c e s s i n g r e c e n t l y o p e n e d By Jason Fitzpatrick even assign information to parties Windows 7. (Lifehacker) involved like the license plate Fusion 3 comes just over a year unfamiliar environment on a documents using Windows apps, numbers of the cars in the after VMware released Fusion 2, Mac. For example, the improved full Exposé and Dock Exposé Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:30:00 AM in September 2008. A year is a Migration Assistant helps you support for all Windows apps, accident. Accidents happen to even the Once you create a diagram you long time in the life cycle of a copy your entire PC onto a and 3D gaming/1080p video most cautious drivers. If you find can also generate a text-based piece of software, and in the case virtual machine on your new Mac playback while in Unity mode. yourself in one, AccidentSketch report to fill in details that can't of Fusion, the lapsed time hardware quickly and easily Fusion 3 retails for $79.99, but if is a simple web-based tool that be easily conveyed by the between versions shows in the using an Ethernet connection. you’re upgrading from Fusion 1 can help you draw up a picture picture. When you're done you've numerous improvements made to VMware goes as far as to say it or 2, you qualify for a special and generate a report to give to got a tidy accident sketch and the program that allows you to works “just like” Apple’s own price of $39.99, or $59.99 with a your insurance company. report to submit to the interested run another OS on a virtualized Migration Assistant for setting up subscription that includes major o r r e s t o r i n g a M a c - b a s e d version upgrades for the next 12 AccidentSketch uses a simple parties. The service is free and machine inside of OS X. As mentioned above, Fusion 3 c o m p u t e r . months. Judging by the last template system. Cars, road requires no registration. T h e r e ’ s a l s o a l o t o f upgrade schedule which saw segments, signs, pedestrians, and Have a handy tool and tidbit for goes out of its way to make sure more all snap to the grid and in d e a l i n g w i t h i n s u r a n c e your Windows 7 virtualization improvements under the hood, Fusion 3’s release falling one the case of small objects like companies and life after a fender- experience is as seamless as including a new 64-bit native month outside that bubble, that signs can be moved from there. bender? Let's hear about them it possible. That includes things core engine for Macs that can subscription option isn’t looking You can change the colors of i n the c o m m e n t s . like support for Windows Aero, handle it. That means that Snow all that appealing. If you’re things, zoom in and out to get as AccidentSketch[via MakeUseOf] Flip 3D and Windows Aero Peek Leopard users will be getting the picking it up, let us know how visualization effects, and the most bang for their buck with the you find it. close or wide as you need, and ability to run OpenGL 2.1 and latest version. Memory usage on DirectX 9.0c, which should help a l l V i s t a a n d W i n d o w s 7

AccidentSketch Helps You Create Detailed Accident Reports [Driving]

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Complete Guide to Apple Certification and Training By Dave Greenbaum (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:30:53 AM

Although I’ve been supporting Macs since they came out in 1984 (when I was in high school), I haven’t received any “formal” training. It has mostly been learning by doing, reading the occasional book and now of course, TheAppleBlog. Does formal certification really make a difference as a technician? You tell me. Recently I got into an argument with a vendor that somehow thought a technician who first started repairing Macs sixth months ago trumped my 25 years experience. Did certification make this person a better technician? Having done quite a bit of hiring myself, I’ve too often found that certification only verifies your ability to take a test and may not have bearing in the real world. Now that the market has changed and everyone seems to be competing for scarce resources, perhaps a certification would be an additional edge? What’s the business strategy for independent Mac technicians wanting more? The answer took a lot of research — even Apple wasn’t able to answer my questions — so learn from my journey. Credit goes to both Brian Best of BestMacs and Doug Hanley of MacTEK Training, because without them I wouldn’t

understand the alphabet soup of ACSP, ACMT, ACTC, ACSA, AASP, ACN and more. Didn’t we all become Mac users to avoid mysterious terms? As many of you know, the ease of the Apple user interface is equalled only by the frustration of trying to understand Apple’s certifications programs. Figuring out this path was much harder than any video game I’ve ever played, but a “game” may be the best metaphor to describe the process. The Game You begin the “game” as a general Mac user. The three worlds you’ll generally see in the game are IT, Pro Apps, and Sales. As an IT person maybe you have skills, maybe you don’t. Nothing stops you from simply repairing Macs on your own, unless you do things that specifically void the warranty and you get caught doing so. You do not need permission per se from Apple to work on Macs. Many folks are happy at this level collecting coins one by one, but you can’t proceed any further unless you get a certification — the key that unlocks the next level in the game. The first certification most go for is Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) which used to be known as an Apple Certified Help Desk Specialist (ACHDS). This certifies your ability to understand the operating system and is earned based on the OS version. Therefore, you are an Apple

source says not all certifications are valid, so beware). Keeping with the video game analogy, the ACN is like an entire new area of the video game you want to explore, but the boss that must be defeated first is Apple, and your weapon is a certification! After getting a certification you can then apply to join the ACN. The application fee is $60 and the actual fee to join is $395 as a sole proprietor. The full requirements are here. You’ll get lots of benefits such as product Certified Support Professional in discounts as well as the ability to 10.5 (or soon 10.6). Each OS network with other Macintosh requires certification, but your consultants. As an ACN, Apple certification does not expire. store employees may hand out Therefore, if you are a ACHDS your card to customers in the in 10.3, you can call yourself store. Now your business can certified without understanding really expand as every Apple 10.5 at all. Your can take the test store customer is a potential without training (many do), self- customer for you. s t u d y v i a m a t e r i a l s f r o m ACN membership is great and Peachpit, or attend an instructor- many stay at this level of the lead course at an Apple “game” using the ACN Authorized Training Center membership as a multiplier for (AATC). MacTek is one of those their income. However, you still centers. You’ll take the test at a can’t do hardware repairs under Prometric testing center and pay warranty nor order Apple parts. around $200. The test takes about As with the video game, you’re 90 minutes or so and you get the stuck at this level unless you results immediately. Apple explore further and try to defeat Consultants Network the next boss. Apple always While certification is the means, controls the rules. Accept it as the end you may be reaching for part of the game. Fail to accept it is the ability to join the Apple and you’ll get slapped back to the Consultants Network(ACN). beginning of the game quicker Joining the ACN requires any than you can click the home Apple certification, such as the button. Server Administration ACSP discussed above, or any Certification number of other certifications From this point, you have a (described below, though one couple directions you can go.

You can focus on repair and service, or you can focus on server or advanced software administration (many folks will do both). I will discuss the server administration certifications and the hardware services certifications. You can think of each of these as two separate worlds in the game. You can choose one or the other, or explore them both. The first level server administration certification is another 4-letter acronym: ACTC: Apple Certified Technical Coordinator. In addition to passing the test for ACSP, you’ll face the Server Essentials test. This extends your workstation abilities to servers. An even higher level of certification within the server realm is an ACSA — Apple Certified Systems Administrator. For the ACSA, you’ll need to pass four tests: Server Essentials, Directory Services, Deployment, and Mobility and Security for 10.6 (or Advanced System Administration for 10.5). Apple also offers the ACMA (Apple Certified Media Administrator) which includes Server Essentials, Xsan, Final Cut Server and as an option, Support Essentials, Deployment, Directory Services, or Final Cut Level 1. Other certifications are not necessarily IT related and are software-focused. That’s a realm I’m not exploring as we chose COMPLETE page 45

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COMPLETE continued from page 44

the IT track at the beginning of the game. Hardware Repair Certification Moving on from server administration to actual Apple hardware repair, the primary certification you will earn is the Apple Certified Macintosh Technician (ACMT), formerly the Apple Certified Portable Technician (ACPT) and Apple Certified Desktop Technician (ACDT). This certification means you are theoretically qualified to do warranty repairs on Apple Macintosh equipment. The skills required for ACMT are those of hardware repair and software troubleshooting. You don’t need an ACSP to be an ACMT, but many people earn both. The educational process for hardware repair is more intense and it’s less likely you’ll pass the test without some training. At this level, you can also go to an AATC and pay about $4,800 for both the hardware and software aspects of the course, or your can purchase self-study materials from Apple called “ Apple Care Technician Training” for $299. Apple Authorized Service Provider Similar to how passing the ACSP allows you to join the Apple Consultants Network,

passing the ACMT allows you to enter the realm of an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP). You may not automatically become one though, and only AASP’s get reimbursement from Apple for warranty work. However, being an ACMT is very helpful if you want to get a job as an AASP. You may also apply to do warranty repairs for your larger organization of over 50 Macs via the Self-Service program. If you want to advance to being able to do warranty repairs for anyone, you’ll face that same boss again, Apple. Note that becoming an ACMT will not necessarily earn you any more money than an ACSA or ACTC. Facing the next boss may be too expensive and too restricting, but if you do want the next level, read on. Getting to that AASP level is really the final level of the game. You’ll need to have an ACMT on staff and follow stricter requirements than joining the Apple Consultants Network. Generally you’ll need a real store front and not be a one-person operation. Apple grants exceptions (doesn’t every game have cheat codes?), but don’t count on it. Once you have your AASP you can be listed with

Apple as a service provider and get reimbursed for warranty repairs. So I’ve loaded the game and pressed Start. Is certification worth it? What about ACN or AASP? Which training should I go for? Is instructor lead training worth it? Any training vendors willing to sponsor me? What about the self-study programs? Share with me your experiences in the game and let’s develop a definitive guide including “cheat codes.” Apple-authorized Organizations ACN (Apple Consultants Network) What it is: Network on Apple professionals, receives discounts and assistance from Apple, and can be referred from Apple retail stores. Requirements: Any certification. AASP (Apple Authorized Service Provider) What is it: Business that is permitted to do Apple warranty repairs for reimbursement and order parts from Apple. Requirements: Have an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician on staff, among other requirements. Certifications Apple Certified Support Professional: Basic understanding of the client Mac

operating system and troubleshooting. Apple Certified Technical Coordinator: Deeper understanding of the Mac OS, including the Mac OS X Server and Server Essentials. Apple Certified Systems Administrator: Even greater technical understanding of the Mac OS X Server, including passing tests on Server Essentials, Directory Services, Deployment, and Mobility and Security. Apple Certified Media Administrator: This is a sister track of the “Apple Certified Systems Administrator” with a focus on the needs of media management, and includes training in XSan or Final Cut. Apple Certified Macintosh Technician: You can do Apple hardware repairs, both in and out of warranty. Required to start (or get a job with) an Apple Authorized Service Provider, or self-service your large organization.

Lucky's back ... Jonathan Jackson's terrific return to General Hospital By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:03:00 AM

Tuesday was Jonathan Jackson's first day back on General Hospital in the role of Lucky Spencer. It's a role he originated (as a youngster), coming onto the show in 1993 when Luke and Laura -- Anthony Geary and Genie Francis -- made their much -heralded return. Jonathan stayed on General Hospital till 1999, winning three Daytime Emmys in his tenure, and basically stamped the character as his own. That's why when he decided to return now, it's been a big deal. Continue reading Lucky's back ... Jonathan Jackson's terrific return to General Hospital Filed under: OpEd, Daytime, Casting, Emmys, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Celtics open season with win vs. new-look Cavs By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:29:28 PM

Fast Fact

• The Celtics won on opening night for the third straight year and for the second straight season against the Cavaliers. • The victory snapped Boston's

eight-game losing streak at Cleveland. • The Cavs were defeated in their first home game this season. Cleveland's first home loss last

season came in its 24th home game (Feb. 8 vs. Lakers). • LeBron James set a career high for points scored on opening night with 38.

• The Celtics' bench outscored the Cavs' bench 26-10. -- ESPN Stats & Information This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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5 More Ways to Become a Mac Minimalist By David Klein (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:24:13 AM

My first post on becoming a minimalist with your Mac had great feedback, so I’m back with another round of tips to keep your digital workspace as simple as possible. Reduce Finder Window Clutter Right click on the top of any finder window and select “Customize Toolbar…” Drag out any items you don’t need. For example, I have no idea what to do with that Action menu. Another thing to try is to rightclick on the top of the window again and select “Text Only.” This should simplify all of your Finder windows. Browsers Safari Hide Tab bar. Hide Bookmarks bar. Customize your toolbar and remove all unnecessary buttons. Firefox Turn off “Always show the tab bar.” Hide Bookmarks bar. Customize your toolbar by only showing text. Stainless Stainless is an extremely simple to use web browser. Some might view its limitations as disappointing whereas I see them

as a means to provide a nondistracting browsing experience. Tabs and a tiny bookmarking sidebar. That’s it. The company maintains a Twitter account to discuss development progress. Give it a download and let me know what you think. By the way, the above screenshot is the default appearance. Really Clean Out Your Dock Why do you still have such a full dock when all of your applications are only a few keystrokes away? Applications like Google Quick Search Box, Launchbar, Quicksilver and even Spotlight are available to help relieve your dock and still increase your productivity. I know some of you have tried these tools and just forgot to use them. That happened to me as well. It takes time to create the habit. Need to open Photoshop? Command + Space, “pho”, Enter. Now that I’m hooked on Quicksilver I can’t remember what it was like before. Helvetica Takeover Looking for a way to refresh your online applications? Do you like Helvetica? Even if you are

unsure, you should check out the following Helvetica tweaks to your favorite online tools. Detailed installation instructions are available at each of the websites. G M a i l : http://www.josefrichter.com/helv etimail Google Reader: http://helvetireader.com Google Calendar: http://www.iamadtaylor.com/helv etical T w i t t e r : http://www.josefrichter.com/helv etwitter Full disclosure In my first round of minimalism tips there was one part lacking further explanation. I had Tweetie open but there was no Tweetie window. Why? I use a Mimo Monitor. It is somewhat contradictory to recommend purchasing hardware and adding something to your work environment in a minimalism discussion. However, for $129 it is a simple way to move your task list, Twitter app, buddy list, or Adobe windows off screen. Below you can see a Mimo Monitor next to my 24 iMac. What are some of the ways you keep your Mac minimal?

Barry Levinson urges TV to take back Saturday night By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:00:00 AM

For the longest time, I've kvetched about the fact that the television industry has stopped programming for Saturday night. For years, Saturday was a great night of television. I remember M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, not to mention guilty pleasures like The Facts of Life and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Even NBC's thrillogy, The Pretender and Profiler were fun. All those shows were Saturday night hits (some bigger than others). Well, I'm not alone in missing Saturday TV; Oscar-winner Barry Levinson feels the same. Levinson is also a TV producer -he did Homicide: Life on the Street and The Philanthropist-and he thinks the networks are making a big mistake by not seizing on Saturday primetime. He knows the business pretty well and he's confused by the

networks' strategy. "I don't think the answer is to retreat," he told the New York Daily News. "When you give up Saturday night, you open the door for people to go somewhere else. Basically, they're shrinking their own audience." Continue reading Barry Levinson urges TV to take back Saturday night Filed under: Industry, Programming, OpEd, RealityFree Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Kindle Software Coming to the Mac By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:18:57 PM

The competition is really heating up in the e-reader market. Hot on the heels of Barnes & Noble’s newly-released Nook reader, Amazon last week announced its Kindle branded e-book reader software for the PC. With it, users will be able to read their electronic books on their Kindle and on their desktop PC, too. And, before we started feeling like we’d been left out of the party, an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the company is also developing a version of the software for the Mac. Actually, a beta version of the PC software is already available, but the Mac version is still very much under wraps. Writing in the Fast Company blog, Chris Dannen reports, “An Amazon spokesperson told me late Thursday: ‘Yes, we are working on a Kindle app for Mac.’” The software will work in a similar fashion to the existing Kindle iPhone app (which is currently available only in America). A Kindle owner will be able to read and automatically sync their books across devices. So for example, a user can read a few chapters on their computer screen before heading out of the

house. In their doctor’s waiting room they reach for their Kindle, the Whispersync network would have automatically synced the Kindle with their desktop computer, allowing them to pick up reading right where they left off that morning. Will customers be excited about reading on their desktop? I don’t think so. The form factor of most desktop machines doesn’t make for a very comfortable bookreading experience. But the upcoming touch-enabled netbooks that take advantage of the touch functionality in Windows 7 offer a far more compelling form factor. A Maccompatible version of the software is more exciting, however, if we imagine it running on Apple’s impending Tablet. The tablet will most likely offer e-books and other “print” content via the iTunes store, but it’s also just as likely Apple’s e-books won’t use the same file format as Amazon’s proprietary AZW, which is the default format used by the Kindle today. Being able

to run the Kindle software on the tablet means Kindle customers will potentially enjoy the best of both worlds on a single device. And even if they ultimately stop using their Kindle and the Kindle online store, their investment in Amazon’s platform will not be wasted… that’s assuming Apple will allow the Kindle software to be installed on its Tablet. Sure, a Kindle reader app is already available on the iPhone, complete with the ability to purchase new titles. But the iPhone (well, more specifically, iTunes) doesn’t yet offer a serious selection of e-books and electronic publications like magazines, periodicals or comic books. But once Apple has taken its first significant steps in the ebook market, will it forbid thirdparty apps from offering similar functionality on the same device? I’d like to say Apple wouldn’t be so silly or shortsighted. But then I think about the high drama surrounding the ill-fated Google Voice app for the iPhone …and suddenly I’m a lot less certain.

TV Squad Ten: TV's biggest rule breakers By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

California Bureau of Investigation -- Patrick Jane would be compelled to uphold Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:56:00 AM the rules and regulations of the Rules are meant to be broken... department. However, Jane is a especially for these ten television free spirit when it comes to office characters. For them, the rest of protocol. He does his own thing. the world has one standard to live For instance, bugging the office by and they have another. It of a CBI higher-up is definitely makes them interesting and fun not kosher. Jane doesn't care; he to watch... you just wouldn't did it anyway and will probably necessarily want to be the person get away with it. having to deal with them because Continue reading TV Squad t h e y c o u l d d r i v e y o u t o Ten: TV's biggest rule breakers distraction. Here's my ten pack of Filed under: OpEd, House, How characters who live in a world of I Met Your Mother, The Office, their own, according to no rules 30 Rock, Dexter, Reality-Free, except their own. From the not- Mad Men, The Mentalist, TV too-bad to the really bad. Squad Ten, Glee 10. Patrick Jane, The Mentalist Permalink| Email this| | You would think that as a C o m m e n t s consultant to the CBI --

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Apple Issues Magic Mouse Update, But Where Are the Mice Themselves? By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

them for sale when you ask. As I mentioned above, the Toronto Eaton Centre Apple store Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:42:24 AM employee seemed to think it had Last week, Apple announced the to do with Apple getting the Magic Mouse, which is its new necessary software out so that it standard pointing device, wasn’t selling unsupported complete with Bluetooth hardware, but they hadn’t even connectivity and multitouch received a shipment yet — they gesture support. I promptly called weren’t just holding off on actual my local Apple store, and a staff sales. member told me they weren’t in Is it just me, or is this the most stock and to try back again later what other special features could poorly executed product launch in the week. I did, and again, no they be talking about? The Snow Apple’s had since the iPhone 3G luck. It’s now been over a week, Leopard driver is nearly double a n d i P h o n e O S 2 . 0 w e r e and no stores seem to have the size of the Leopard one, at introduced? It seems like the 64MB vs. 36MB. Both have to Magic Mouse was rushed out to stocked them yet. One staff member at the flagship be downloaded from Apple’s meet a deadline that centered Toronto store said that the delay support site, and won’t show up a r o u n d t h e i M a c a n d n e w w a s d u e t o s o f t w a r e in your update menu unless you u n i b o d y p l a s t i c M a c B o o k , incompatibility, and that the mice actually have the Magic Mouse despite the fact that the software would be available following an already. backend wasn’t actually ready for update release from Apple. Late Which brings me to my second release. yesterday, we received said point: Does anyone actually have The resulting delay could affect update, which makes the Magic the Magic Mouse already? I sales. I know my initial fervor Mouse compatible with Mac OS m e a n , b e s i d e s t h o s e e a r l y about the Magic Mouse has been X Leopard, includes a driver for adopters of the new iMac model, tempered now that I’ve been able 10.6.1. OS X 10.6.2, which is with which it ships. I know for a to think about it. My current coming soon, and is said to fact us TAB staffers are finding it pointing device needs are more hard to get our hands on one than met, and unlike with the support it out of the box. Both the 10.5.8 and 10.6.1 (short of trying out the store iPhone, delayed availability is update descriptions say nothing display models), both through weakening my desire to own a beyond that they allow you to Apple’s brick-and-mortar retail M a g i c M o u s e , r a t h e r t h a n “take advantage of your Magic stores and its online counterpart. s t r e n g t h e n i n g i t . Mouse special features.” They All Apple stores seem to have d o n ’ t e v e n e x p l i c i t l y s a y them on display, but I’ve yet to anything about multitouch, but run across one that actually has

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HGTV Delivers Highest October Prime Time Ratings Ever By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers)

25% over October 2008 for prime time and household impressions increased by 16% Submitted at 10/27/2009 11:59:38 PM over October 2008. Among key via press release: demos, P25-54 and W25-54 HGTV Delivers Highest October impressions each saw a 12% gain Prime Time Ratings Ever over October 2008 levels. KNOXVILLE, Tenn. [For About HGTV Immediate Release – October 27, HGTV, America’s leader in 2009] HGTV continued its strong home and lifestyle programming, s h o w i n g i n O c t o b e r 2 0 0 9 , is distributed to more than 98 delivering the highest ever million U.S. households and is October prime time rating (M-Su o n e o f c a b l e ’ s t o p - r a t e d 8P-11P) among households with networks. HGTV’s website, a 1.0 according to Nielsen Media HGTV.com, is the nation’s Research. HGTV also delivered leading online home-and-garden its highest ever October prime destination, which attracts an time rating among P18-49 with a average of more than 4 million 0.4 and M25-49 with a 0.3. unique visitors per month. During the month of October This content has passed through 2 0 0 9 ( 9 / 2 8 / 0 9 - 1 0 / 2 5 / 0 9 ) , fivefilters.org. household ratings improved by

Spotted: Chic LeopardPrint Pieces By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:38:10 AM

The fall runways were filled with animal-print everything—from bodysuits and $155. bags to shoes and coats. Here, —Violet Moon Gaynor Joe Zee selects his favorite Follow ELLE on Twitter. spotted styles, starting at just

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Apple Says “The Holiday Lineup is Set,” Nothing More, Nothing less By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:31:18 PM

Sometimes, like today for instance, I think Apple’s PR department is given only one mandate: to confuse and titillate. Why today especially? They just contacted Gizmodo to notify them that while Gizmodo has Phil Schiller saying there won’t be any new Apple products this year…the actual quote is “the holiday lineup is set.” So Apple seems to have gone out of its way to make sure that Giz doesn’t go around paraphrasing execs when the blog should be reporting exact quotes, even though Jesus Diaz, who penned the article, never claimed it was a direct quote in the first place. Weird? Yes. Cause for speculation? Yes. The trouble started with a media briefing between Apple and Gizmodo Editorial Director Brian Lam about the recent introduction of the redesigned iMac, MacBook, and Magic Mouse. Jesus Diaz today posted an article on Giz in which he attempted to quell further product speculation about the holiday season by paraphrasing Schiller’s assertion that what we see now is

what we get in terms of holiday offerings from Cupertino. Following the article’s publication, Apple contacted Giz directly and gave them the text of the actual quote as “The holiday lineup is set.” The difference between the two statements appears to be minimal, unless you consider that announcing new products and offering them for sale are two different things entirely. While Apple isn’t generally the type of company that tells everyone about something new long before they can get their hands on it, it does occasionally make an exception to take

advantage of consumer anticipation and to give developers a head start. The iPhone is a case in point. It would make sense that an Apple tablet, which is rumored to have more in common with the iPhone than with a Mac, would get similar treatment. Of course, Cupertino is and always has been a master of media manipulation, so the possibility also exists that this was just a well-placed PR stunt to convince people to keep the rumor mill going until the new year. Despite all of its secrecy, Apple is very much aware that much of its success depends on public perception, and on the effect of tech and mainstream media on that perception. Clarifying the quote costs Apple nothing, stirs up the pot that had threatened to rest quietly until the new year, and takes attention away from Windows 7. Apple may yet reveal a new wonder device before the New Year, but I’m guessing the PR department actually just didn’t want there to be a definitive “final word” out there on product announcements losing them at least two months of valuable time in the spotlight.

Review: Sons of Anarchy - Potlatch By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad)

not a badly written Schwarzenegger movie with a thrown together twist ending Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:28:00 AM (cough, Total Recall, cough). "Pull the trigger man. That's the Jax is more of an enemy of only way this leather is coming himself. He might have good off my back." - Jax to Alvarez, intentions at heart, but his moves the head of the Mayans who are nowhere near his brain. orders him to give up his club Maybe his loyalty to his family jacket runs deeper than he ever Jax is supposed to be the hero of imagined. Logic and family t h i s l i t t l e m o d e r n d a y hardly make a decent cocktail. Shakesperian epic, but he's Anyone with a brother-in-law can starting to look more and more tell you that. like the enemy in each episode. Continue reading Review: Sons I don't mean that he'll be the one of Anarchy - Potlatch i n t h e e n d w h o h a s b e e n Filed under: Episode Reviews, scheming the whole time behind Reality-Free, Sons of Anarchy SAMCRO's back with the white Permalink| Email this| | power. This is a well-crafted, C o m m e n t s slow paced, high caliber drama,

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Sons of Anarchy creator likes Chuck, Glee and Jay Leno; explains why most scripted network dramas suck By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers)

For the most part, you have a collection of young, half-bright development executives who Submitted at 10/28/2009 2:22:00 AM wouldn’t know a good story idea Anyone who is a fan of Sons of if it set itself on fire and fucked Anarch y will not be at all their mothers while singing surprised to find that creator and “ C h e y e n n e A n t h e m ” f r o m executive produce Kurt Sutter Leftoverture. So they do what can write a little bit. He’s a great most chimpanzees do — they ape blogger, too. Even if you’re not and throw shit. Developing a fan of SOA, if you’re a fan of shows based on what they think TV you will find some of his people want to see. Churning out posts very interesting. clones of semi-successful shows. Last week when the media Looking for a “hook” to market. focused on Sons of Anarchy It’s never about the story or beating The Jay Leno Show with characters. That would demand adults 18-49, I was a little irked. I talent, patience and an open understand why that was the mind. Commodities that have story, but it bothered me because long up and deserted ABC, NBC, rather than it being a story about CBS, FOX and the CW. the success of SOA, it was a (There are some exceptions. story about the failure of Jay Chuck and Glee are all I can Leno and NBC. think of right now. In fact, that The coverage got Sutter a bit might be it… oh, and Lost, I love fired up and led to a couple of Lost) blog posts. The first one was on Gone are the days of the TV the topic of why most scripted visionary. Bochco, Kelley, network shows suck(if you’re Fontana, Sorkin, Milch, Wells, easily offended by colorful Wolf. These guys had fucking language, leave now!): balls. They stood up to network It’s not an issue of scripted show fears and contradicting marketing vs. non-scripted shows. It’s a strategies and pushed their vision question of process. The reason forward. The result was great most network scripted dramas TV. It was great because the suck is because of the process. networks were smarter, they let

the creatives DO THEIR FUCKING JOB. All those savvy executives have been replaced with accounting personnel. And when a network is inspired enough to hire a creative leader — Reilly, Ligori — they never give them a chance to flourish. It’s a fucked up system that has created hours upon hours of dreck. I’m sure that will strike a chord with almost everyone who reads this blog (except perhaps for the suits and the one guy who chronically complains about Glee). A few days later, Sutter wrote a more thoughtful post about his feelings on Jay Leno in a post titled “ It Ain’t Jay’s Fault“: But my beef — and I think this is true for a good chunk of the creative community — was never with Jay. Leno’s an artist looking for a good gig like the rest of us. The truth is, NBC should have NEVER bumped him out of the 11:30 spot. No one bumped out Carson. Why Jay? His ratings were solid, he had a loyal following and he was constantly doing what he could to keep his show fresh — dude is one of the hardest working cats

in town. And it’s obvious Conan’s “younger” humor works way better in the later hour. The bigger concern is the potential dangerous trend that NBC is setting by putting Jay in the 10 pm spot. As Peter Tolan said, “…NBC is raising the white flag”, essentially giving up on scripted dramas. And why is that? For all the reason I’ve mentioned in the previous blog — to succeed in dramas you need employees who are intelligent, patient and creatively nurturing. Instead of fixing their system, NBC is creating a new one. An easier one. A cheaper one. One that doesn’t demand talent. One that can be run by suit-monkeys and accountants. That’s the core fear we are all experiencing. We realize that public consumption is changing. We are the ones who created Jon and Kate, TMZ and the gangsta paparazzi. We are the ones veraciously consuming rag-mags and reality TV. Losing five hours of episodic television is the result of that trend. And we all know it ain’t going away. It’s growing. At the end of the day, NBC’s new system may work and the once last-place buffoons could

become the simpleton champions of prime-time. And then we’ll all be pitching gameshow ideas to Lord Zucker and the suitmonkeys of the dark empire. But until then, let’s back off Jay and beat the right piñata. I won’t say who that is, but I guarantee you, when he splits open, they’ll be gold bullion and Universal stock options pouring out of his ass. Particularly the bit about “we are the ones who created…” rings true for me, and he’s right, it is a trend that isn’t going away. It’s all part of the exact same trend that caused the media coverage to focus on the failure of The Jay Leno Show rather than the success of Sons of Anarchy. That’s because in the attention economy “Jay Leno: Loser!” will attract far more eyeballs than “Awww shucks, look how well Sons of Anarchy is doing!” Though I included some choice excerpts, I couldn’t capture all the goodness without copying the entire posts. For those too lazy to scroll back up for the links: Why Most Network Scripted Dramas Suck and It Ain’t Jay’s Fault. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Yankees-Phillies World Series: How High Will The Ratings Go? By Bill Gorman (TVbytheNumbers)

Bedeviled by rain delays (and the Tampa Bay Rays), the 2008 World Series had the lowest Submitted at 10/28/2009 12:51:10 AM average viewership ever (13.6 There hasn’t been a seven game million). Barring a 4 game sweep World Series since 2002, the p l u s s o m e t h i n g e l s e longest drought in at least the last extraordinary, the 2009 World 40 years. A seven game series Series featuring the New York involving the New York Yankees Yankees and the Philadelphia would be great news for FOX. Phillies should easily beat those At this point FOX would ratings. The last time the probably gladly settle for a six Yankees were in the World game series. There hasn’t been a S e r i e s ( 2 0 0 3 ) t h e a v e r a g e series even that long since 2003, viewership topped 20 million. I the last time the Yankees were in think a seven game series this the World Series. year could test the 20 million

level. Anything shorter than seven games and I think that 17 million average looks like a reasonable target. In this century, for World Series

average viewership to break 20 million, it requires the Yankees or the Red Sox. Although in 2000, even the Yankees couldn’t pull an all NY matchup above 20

million. Full World Series Ratings Data, 1968-2008: *While there were six telecasts for the 2008 series, there were only five games. The sixth telecast was the completion of game five which was suspended due to rain. Copyright © 2009 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Cable Ratings: Syfy top 10 – Stargate Universe still on par with Stargate Atlantis ratings By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers)

January. Here’s last week’s top ten (in terms of viewers) shows for Submitted at 10/27/2009 9:52:25 PM Syfy: Alright all you Stargate Universe I know what you’re thinking as bashers (I caught up yesterday, you slap your foreheads: “I can’t it’s growing on me…kinda) and believe I missed “Flu Bird alienated Stargate Atlantis fans Horror” and “Timber Falls!” who are rooting for Stargate What does the future hold for Universe to fail: it’s doing just as SGU? Time will tell. well as SGA did last year One thing we don’t have to (actually better). Though this guess at is this: Ghost Hunters episode was down, it was the isn’t going anywhere. It was the same as the Live+SD ratings for only show on Syfy to rank in the the series finale of SGA in top 50 of ad-supported cable

shows with adults 18-49 last week. It was #15 out of all adsupported cable shows with 1.813 million (for the Wednesday

9pm episode on 10/21). It’s not as popular with adults 18-34, but it still made the top 50 (again the only Syfy show to do so) at #33

with 813,000 adults 18-34. But Stargate Universe DID rank with Adults 25-54 It was #41 with 1.224 million adults 25-54. That was still behind the 9pm Ghost Hunters(#16, 1.896 million), Destination Truth(#32, 1.267 million) and even the 8pm Ghost Hunters(#39, 1.241 million). Sanctuary did not rank in any of the top 50 age demographic rankings we saw. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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'Without Bias': Basketball Career Cut Short Still Resonates Today By Michael David Smith (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:00:00 AM

Hopeful Smallville producers plan for a The League -- An early season, not series finale look By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers)

By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:01:00 AM

Fantasy football is a tricky thing. You either love it or you hate it and that largely depends on whether you're good or bad at it. For the most part, the same can be said about FX's newest comedy The League. When it's good, it is good, but when it's bad... well, you get the picture. The show, which premieres tomorrow night, Thursday 10/29, at 10:30 p.m. after It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, is FX's first solid attempt to produce a lasting companion piece to

season finale and not a series finale. We have our fingers crossed. The fans have just been Sunny and, given some of its Submitted at 10/27/2009 8:32:52 PM amazing. Nobody knew what was predecessors (like Starved or Testees), it'd be easy to write The TVGuide.com’s Natalie Abrams going to happen when we moved League off. But, like a two- has been stringing Smallville fans to Friday night and the fact that minute drill that gradually picks on Twitter along so long now fans showed up and have been up steam, The League might that it seemed like she’d been enjoying the show, it’s meant actually go... all... the... way. doing it since season five! But, everything to us and I know it’s O K - - n o m o r e f o o t b a l l finally she posted her Q&A with meant a lot to the studio and the Smallville executive producer network. I think that’s given us a metaphors. Continue reading The League -- Kelly Souders and thankfully she much better chance of coming did sneak in a question about the back for Season 10. We’re An early look hopeful. Filed under: Other Comedy prospects for a tenth season: Shows, Sports, OpEd, It's Always TVGuide.com: What are the read the whole interview Sunny in Philadelphia, Early prospects of a 10th season right This content has passed through fivefilters.org. Looks, Episode Reviews, Reality now? Souders: We’re just going gung-Free P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | ho. We are planning to break a Comments

by Michael David Smith Filed under: ESPN Len Bias has now been dead longer than he was alive, and yet his life and death don't feel like an old story in Without Bias, the documentary that will debut on ESPN on Tuesday. Instead, the story of Bias, who died of a cocaine overdose at age 22 less than 48 hours after being drafted by the Boston Celtics, feels like something that is still unfolding. More Reviews: Muhammad and Larry| Trump Killed USFL? Baltimore Marching Band| The Gretzky Trade 'Without Bias': Basketball Career Cut Short Still Resonates Today originally appeared on Fanhouse Backporch on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

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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 remain 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 — 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 CAN page 55

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A World Series Battle Between the Haves and Have-Mores (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

Cleveland Indians should be pitching for the Cleveland Indians, not for teams better able It’s definitely not small-market to compensate them,” Sheridan teams taking the field Wednesday writes. “The Yankees have night for Game 1 of the World always had the advantage. When Series. Nor is it the Freeway they win, as they did in the Series or the nostalgic Yankees- 1990s, the temptation is to throw Dodgers series many fans had up your hands at the unfairness rooted for. European Pressphoto of it all. When they fail to win Agency The Phillies’ Pedro Feliz the title, as they’ve done for tries in vain to keep his bat warm much of this decade, it’s fun to and dry during his team’s mock them for trying to buy a workout at Yankees Stadium on championship.” Tuesday. This series is more than about Which doesn’t mean Phillies- pitching. Much of the focus will Y a n k e e s c a n ’ t b e l o n g o r be on the Yanks’ Alex Rodriguez compelling, pitting the upper- and the Phillies’ Ryan Howard, class Phillies with their$111 two stars posting lofty postseason million payroll and the tycoon- numbers. “It’s a dream scenario class Yankees and their$208 for MLB, not only because of the million roster. Philadelphia’s two players’ name recognition, mission: defeat the favorites and but because neither one seems to repeat as champions, becoming be close to cooling off at the the first National League team to plate,” Christian Red writes in do so since the Cincinnati Reds the New York Daily News. in 1976. The bulky, powerful Howard The series opens with a great wasn’t keen on becoming a onepitching matchup: the Phillies’ dimensional player later in his Cliff Lee and the Yankees’ CC career, so he began altering his Sabathia, former Cleveland diet in the past year, Yahoo teammates having outstanding Sports’s Jeff Passan writes, with postseasons with minuscule solid results. ERAs. If the series goes the limit, All eyes will be on Rodriguez, Lee and Sabathia could get three who hopes to earn his first World starts apiece. Series title. “Rodriguez is no That’s fine for Phillie and different than the Jeters or the Yankee fans, but the Philadelphia Posadas on this team, since no Inquirer’s Phil Sheridan says the one who plays this game on the payroll disparity between the highest level hasnt pushed haves and the have-nots is themselves to reach this stage,” hurting baseball. “Two men who the Star-Ledger’s Steve Politi won Cy Young awards for the writes. “He is in the World Series Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:38:54 AM

now, and of course, he will be one of the biggest storylines when the games begin. Will he continue his torrid streak and lift this team to a championship against the Phillies? Or will he struggle at the plate as the Yankees again fail to win their 27th title?” The spotlight will also shine on managers Joe Girardi and Charlie Manuel. In the Chicago Tribune, Phil Rogers and Dan McGrath write about how the Yanks’ Girardi honed his work ethic over the years. In the Boston Globe, Peter Abraham describes how Manuel has fit in perfectly with the Phillies. A few other worthy clicks: In the Los Angeles Times, Bill Shaikin argues for expanded replay; the New York Times’s Dave Anderson remembers the Yanks’ sweep of Philadelphia in 1950; the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Bill Lyon talks to a Whiz Kid from that ‘50 Phillies team; and the Orlando Sentinel’s George Diaz says Tampa Bay’s trip to the World Series last year defied economics of modern baseball. Finally, Yahoo’s Tim Brown has a position-by-position breakdown

of the World Series. Be sure to come back here Wednesday evening, as Jonah Keri and Matthew Futterman live blog Game 1. You can also see all of the Journal’s coverage of the Yankees, Phillies and World Series at our new topics pages.* ** After the Los Angeles Lakers celebrated their 2009 NBA championship with another banner at Staples Center and shiny, diamond-studded rings Tuesday night, they began the new season with a 99-92 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 33 points. In the Los Angeles Daily News, Ramona Shelburne notes the team is focused on repeating, hoping their only offseason acquisition, Ron Artest, plays a big role. In Cleveland, Shaquille O’Neal faces enormous pressure to bring the Cavaliers their first championship. O’Neal scored just 10 in his debut, a 95-89 loss to Boston, but the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto advises fans that it’s only one game and not worth panicking over.* * * David Booth of the Florida Panthers becomes the latest NHL player sidelined by a vicious hit to the head. On Saturday, Philadelphia’s Mike Richards steamrolled Booth just after Booth made a pass in the offensive zone. Booth had to be removed on a stretcher. Debate

has raged over whether the hit was clean or dirty. At the New York Times’s Slap Shot hockey blog (video included), Stu Hackel wonders why the NHL doesn’t mete out more severe punishment for dangerous hits to the head.* * * Vikings quarterback Brett Favre returns to Green Bay on Sunday to face the Packers, the team he led for 16 seasons, including the 1997 Super Bowl title. The hype surrounding the game may reach levels slightly above-average. In the teams’ first meeting in Minnesota in Week 4, Favre’s Vikings scored a 30-23 victory. At CityPages, Judd Spicer says not to expect Packer fans to cheer Favre. “For Lambeau to embrace their folk hero Favre — Packer fans would only look like suckers,” Spicer writes. Still with the NFL, too many lousy teams are costing sports book millions of dollars thanks to blowout after blowout this season, Dan Wetzel writes at Yahoo Sports. – Tip of the Fix cap to reader Don Hartline. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to us at dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com.

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Man charged in murder of UConn Huskies' Jasper Howard By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/27/2009 4:11:31 PM

Arrests Made In Jasper Howard Murder Arrests Made In Jasper Howard Murder STORRS, Conn. -- Police on Tuesday announced a man has been charged with murder in the stabbing death of a Connecticut football player outside a schoolsanctioned dance, but his defense attorney says he was just trying to break up a fight. John William Lomax III, 21, is scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit assault in the Oct. 18 death of Jasper Howard, police said. His bond was set at $2 million. Police also arrested two other people in connection with the fight that led to Howard's death. Hakim Muhammad, 20, was charged with conspiracy to commit assault and Jamal Todd, 21, faces a felony charge of falsely reporting an incident and a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment for pulling a fire alarm that emptied the dance early that Sunday morning. Lomax III None of those arrested is a UConn student. Lomax and Muhammad live in Bloomfield, about 30 miles from campus. Todd lives in Hartford. Police have said that Howard

was stabbed once in the abdomen during an altercation that erupted after the dance was evacuated. Several other football players were with him, but none has been charged and coach Randy Edsall said he hasn't heard that any football player was involved in anything other than "verbal jostling." Muhammad Lomax wasn't present when the argument started and doesn't know what it was about, but tried to break up the fight and didn't stab anyone, said his attorney, Deron Freeman. "He was just partying," Freeman said. "Often people from out of town go to the UConn campus to party." Lomax, a Bloomfield High School graduate who works in information technology, goes by the nickname "Pooda." He last logged into his MySpace page in March, when he listed his occupation as "taking care of my daughter." Todd On his Facebook page, Lomax's friends include Muhammad and 21-year-old Johnny Hood of Hartford, who was arrested shortly after the stabbing and faces charges of breach of peace and interfering with police. He was pointed out to police by Brian Parker, another UConn football player who suffered minor injuries in the attack.

Police would not discuss evidence or a motive during a news conference Tuesday. More than 40 investigators conducted more than 200 interviews and "have not stopped working," UConn police chief Robert Hudd said. State police, who searched storm drains and a local pond over the weekend, said dog teams, a dive team and forensics experts contributed to the investigation. “ It is a little closure, but the reality is my teammate's still not here with us.”-- UConn running back Jordan Todman Freeman said he was first told that Lomax would be charged in connection with the fight, but not with murder. "I'm surprised," Freeman said. "I'm curious to find out what evidence they had to secure an arrest warrant for murder. ... From all the evidence I've heard, he was not involved in the stabbing." UConn president Michael Hogan said in a message to students and staff: "Nothing can replace the void in our hearts left by his death. Yet, I know that many of you will feel reassured by today's news." Howard, a starting cornerback whose nickname was Jazz, died hours after helping his team to a homecoming game win over Louisville.

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2001, or because he made a fool of himself in testimony before Congress, that’s fine,” Miklasz The entire UConn team attended opines. “But if we outlaw his funeral Monday in Miami, McGwire, we’d better take a pen where Howard was eulogized by and cross out hundreds of names coach Randy Edsall as "the of players who competed during ultimate son, he was the ultimate the Steroids Era. They can’t brother. He was the ultimate work, either.” Miklasz’s Post-Dispatch teammate. He was the ultimate friend. They didn't come any c o l l e a g u e B r y a n B u r w e l l implores McGwire to discuss his better than Jazz." UConn football players said they past.* * * were happy that an arrest was Bill Rodgers and Alberto Salazar made, but that it was of little were fixtures on the New York Marathon winners’ podium in the comfort. "It is a little closure, but the late 1970s and early ’80s, reality is my teammate's still not inspiring thousands of people to here with us," said running back take up running. In the New York Times, Liz Robbins recounts that Jordan Todman. Several players said Tuesday era, a different, more innocent they had never heard of Lomax, one for the race, which included and don't know how Lomax and children as young as eight running the course. Howard crossed paths. "I know that his mother is very – Tip of the Fix cap to reader excited that someone is being Don Hartline. charged with this crime. That's Found a good column from the all I've been really thinking world of sports? Don’t keep it to about, just how his family is yourself — write to us at doing," said defensive tackle dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion Kendall Reyes. Greg Lloyd, a junior linebacker, in the Daily Fix. You can email said they are relieved that Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com. someone is being held accountable for Howard's death. "I wish only that it didn't happen at all so at least I can have my teammate back," he said. "It's unreal grief for the family, unreal grief for his friends -- it's just a shame." This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The Count: Postseason Rivera Even Better Than Regular-Season Version (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage don’t differ much from his impressive regular When the World Series begins - s e a s o n n u m b e r s i n t h o s e on Wednesday, three New York categories — an accomplishment, Yankees who have been with the given the higher level of playoff club since it won four out of five pitching, but not a huge one. titles from 1996 to 2000 will Similarly, Jeter’s longtime have a chance to add to their teammate Jorge Posada ranks in postseason records. But only one the top 10 in many categories has truly lifted his game to even though his playoff numbers outstanding levels in the playoffs. have been much worse than his Reuters Mariano Rivera has r e g u l a r - s e a s o n o n e s . ( A n d raised his game again this erstwhile playoff “ choker” Alex postseason, delivering an MVP- Rodriguez has, with two monster worthy performance in the playoff series this fall, lifted his ALCS. career postseason rate stats in Derek Jeter holds the postseason line with his regular-season records for runs, hits, singles and ones.) total bases and ranks third in Similarly, among pitchers, Andy home runs, fourth in runs batted Pettitte’s lead in wins and No. 3 in, and sixth in walks and stolen r a n k i n g i n s t r i k e o u t s i s a b a s e s . B u t t h a t ’ s m o r e a reflection of his longevity. He reflection of his tremendous also leads in hits, home runs and number of opportunities, thanks earned runs allowed. to holding down the starting But closer Mariano Rivera’s lead shortstop job, and a spot near the in saves isn’t illusory. Rivera also top of the lineup, for a team that leads the all-time standings with will play in its 28th postseason a 0.77 ERA, which is barely oneseries since 1996, an era with third of his stellar regular-season m o r e p l a y o f f r o u n d s a n d average, despite facing tougher therefore more opportunities. lineups in the postseason. He’s Jeter, not an unusually strikeout- also yielded the second fewest prone batter, also holds the walks plus hits per nine innings. record for postseason strikeouts. Rivera has made at least two And his career postseason batting appearances in 26 different Submitted at 10/27/2009 2:43:40 PM

playoff series; in 14 of them, he didn’t yield a single earned run. In just six of his 84 postseason appearances has he had a net negative win probability added, which in plainer terms means that in 78 of his 84 appearances he’s increased the Yankees’ chance of winning the game. Rivera truly ups his game in the playoffs, giving the Yankees a big bullpen edge over their opponent, the Philadelphia Phillies. A note on win probability added: It tends to reward relief pitchers, particularly those who pitch in the most crucial moments of the game. The measure is based on calculating the probability of a team winning a game in every situation — for instance, the home team leads by one run at the start of the ninth inning — by computing how many times home teams in that situation have gone on to win in history (or estimating the probability based on outcomes from similar, more

common situations). If Rivera enters in that situation and gets three outs and the save, then he gets credit for the difference between one — since the probability of a win is one once the team has won — and the winning probability when he entered. Since he tends to pitch at the end of games, when one run or one out has a bigger effect on win probability, an effective performance counts more for him per inning than for, say, a starting pitcher. That’s reflected in the numbers for the ALCS. Rivera appeared in five games, yielding one run in seven innings while preventing all five baserunners he inherited from scoring. That contributed a total of 0.88 win to the team, including 0.71 in Games 2 and 3 alone. (The Yankees lost Game 3, but that wasn’t Rivera’s fault.) CC Sabathia, who was named MVP of the ALCS for his winning starts in Games 1 and 4, contributed just 0.66 win in those games. And Rodriguez, also touted as a candidate, contributed just 0.53 win.

Shop Naeem Khan at Home By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:40:00 AM

Get a head-start on holiday dressing courtesy of Naeem Kahn. Starting today, the designer of high-glamour gowns and separates will launch his first -ever line for HSN. What to expect: party-perfect sequinencrusted dresses, jackets, and skirts, along with sleek black trousers and tops. The entire collection is available in size 224, and will range in price from $59 to $499 —Violet Moon Gaynor Follow ELLE on Twitter.

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Brett Favre's 1996 Green Bay Four Scouting Keys to Packers teammates: 2009 Minnesota World Series Vikings not better than us By Frankie Piliere (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/28/2009 12:45:00 AM

By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

Packers teammates acknowledge the Vikings' strengths, they believe their team was better. Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:32:10 AM "To say that the team he's on Earlier this season, Brett Favre now, after seven games, is better s a i d t h i s o f o f t h e 2 0 0 9 than the '96 team -- that's just Minnesota Vikings: "Physically, preposterous. Not only did we and from a talent level, this is the have the No. 1 defense in 1996, best team I've ever been on." but we had No. 1 special teams," Favre's teammates from the 1996 former safety LeRoy Butler said, Green Bay Packers team that according to the report. "I bleed won the Super Bowl would beg green and gold so much. I don't to differ. want somebody to beat my As Favre prepares to return to team." Lambeau Field for the first time Mark Chmura, a tight end on the as the member of the rival '96 team, said he went through Vikings, members of the 1996 the rosters position by position Packers told the Milwaukee and could not find an advantage Journal Sentinel that as good as for the Vikings. "And it all starts the Vikings are, they don't stack with Brett -- Brett's not as good up to a team that featured a as he was," he said, according to dominant Reggie White on the report. defense and the league MVP at "I mean, you're talking about the quarterback -- Brett Favre. No. 1 defense in the league at NFC North blog that time, maybe one of the best ESPN.com's Kevin Seifert writes defenses ever to play the game," about all things NFC North in his Chmura added, according to the division blog. report. "Don't get me wrong. â&#x20AC;˘ Blog network: Favre is still a good quarterback, NFL Nation but he was unbelievable in the Favre did say later that he wasn't day. When we played back then, trying to slight the '96 Packers teams feared us. I don't know if with his comment about the teams fear the Minnesota Vikings Vikings. Still, while his ex- today. We knew no one could

beat us at home, absolutely nobody." And former Packers left tackle Ken Ruettgers said the '96 Packers were so good that he knew as early as spring workouts that he was playing on a team with the potential to be special, according to the report. "No doubt there was great talent on that 1996 team," Ruettgers said, according to the report. "In the spring, during workouts, I came home and told my wife: 'This team is going to the Super Bowl.' It's just that feeling you get when you're around guys who are all putting their own egos on the backburner and coming together for what's best for the team. We had some teams that were talented in the past, but there was no team where it was like, 'Wow, we're going this year.' " The 1996 Packers went 13-3 in the regular season and beat the New England Patriots 35-12 in Super Bowl XXXI, earning the team's third Super Bowl title. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

by Frankie Piliere Filed under: Phillies, Yankees, MLB Playoffs, World Series, Scout's Eye View In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective. Unless you are a fan with a rooting interest in this World Series, it's nearly impossible to not appreciate how good of a matchup this World Series is. Both the Phillies and Yankees have dominant aces they can rely on, sluggers that pound the ball with the best of them, and tenacious hitters who seem to make every at-bat an epic battle. In such an even matchup, it's difficult to find glaring edges for either club, and that is where advanced scouting can come into play. Knowing how to pitch a certain dangerous hitter in order to neutralize him or what to look for against a particular pitcher could be what wins or loses a potentially tight series such as

this. So, where are those holes each team can exploit and what will it take for them to come out on top? More: FanHouse Predictions| Schedule| Full Coverage Four Scouting Keys to World Series originally appeared on Fanhouse MLB Blog on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:45:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

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Jamie McCourt to demand Dodger CEO job back

Agassi's Admission Falls in Gray Zone

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

By Greg Couch (FanHouse)

Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:50:43 AM

LOS ANGELES -- Jamie McCourt will head to court Wednesday to ask a judge to reinstate her as the Dodgers' chief executive, a week after her teamowner husband fired her. Jamie McCourt on Tuesday filed for divorce from Frank McCourt after 30 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences, but Wednesday's hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court will center on her bid to get back her $2 million-a-year job. Frank McCourt fired his wife as the team's chief executive last week after the Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs by the Philadelphia Phillies. In a declaration, Jamie McCourt claims her husband plotted to boot her from the team's front office as a way to "humiliate and ostracize" her. She said she was excluded from management

decisions and had lodged a workplace harassment complaint with team attorneys. "Frank has no right to purport to terminate me. We are co-owners of the Dodgers," she said. "Not only has Frank publicly held us out as co-owners of the franchise, he has also admitted this fact in front of our estate planning counsel." Frank McCourt's attorney Marshall Grossman said he plans on filing documents Wednesday that spell out why Jamie McCourt was fired. Among them -- an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate, failure to abide by corporate policy and insubordination. Grossman refused to elaborate. Jamie McCourt's lawyer Bert Fields declined to comment about the relationship. Jamie McCourt's filing states she is seeking reinstatement as the team's CEO as well as access to perks including travel by private jet, stays at five-star resorts and

use of the Dodgers owners' suite. She wants $321,000 a month in spousal support if reinstated to her former position. If not, she believes she should be paid nearly $488,000 per month. The dispute comes as the Dodgers enter a busy offseason and could be a distraction when spring training arrives in February. The team has the most potential players eligible for free agency with 16, including Manny Ramirez, who must decide if he will exercise his $20 million option for next season and return. Manager Joe Torre is headed into the final season of his three-year contract and Ned Colletti was recently given a long-term contract extension as general manager. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Submitted at 10/28/2009 12:20:00 AM

by Greg Couch Filed under: Media Watch Image is everything. That what's Andre Agassi told us from the start. It has been the headline to his career, his life. He went from the punk kid, all image and no substance, to the grown man philanthropist, creating, running and also raising funds for a charter school for disadvantaged kids. He grew up so well, cleaned up so nicely, and won a humanitarian award in September at the U.S. Open. Now he comes back with this: Agassi writes in his autobiography that he regularly used crystal meth on tour in 1997 when he was 27 years old. He failed the tennis tour's drug test, and then lied his way out of it by saying he had accidentally taken a drink from a glass of his assistant who, he said, used to spike his own drinks with the

drug. Why, Andre? Why did you do it? Why did you feel the need to say it? What happens to your image now? Agassi's Admission Falls in Gray Zone originally appeared on Fanhouse Tennis on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:20:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Erdem and Smythson Join Forces By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:25:54 PM

Who doesn't love a good collaboration? This time it's between Erdem, hot-London label of the moment, and

Smythson, the classic English luxury leather and stationary brand. Erdem Moralioglu has taken his florals and handsketches to Smythson stationary and the result is a line of limitededition notebooks and datebooks that are leather-bound and lined

with silk. He used the fabric from his

resort 2010 collection for the lining, which was influenced by Japan, but the designer hadn't actually visited the country. "I was channeling what I dreamed it would be like," he said. The collection is available online and in stores. How quickly can

you say "stocking-stuffer?" â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin Follow ELLE on Twitter.

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Zebra Report: Simmer, 'Stealer' Haters By Matt Snyder (FanHouse)

MediaDailyNews: Gotham, Ad Council Push New Heart PSA (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:16:06 AM

Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:00:00 AM

by Matt Snyder Filed under: Steelers, Vikings, NFL Referees Zebra Report is FanHouse's analysis of actual NFL rules and how they are to be applied ... because most fans think they could do a better job than the NFL officials, yet definitely could not. Click here for an introduction as to how we do things. Of all the complaints about officiating, I think the most By Brett Pollakoff (FanHouse) there, as the quality of the maddening is how people who opening night opponent (or lack hate the Pittsburgh Steelers-- so, Submitted at 10/28/2009 1:23:00 AM thereof) made it easy on the a really, really large contingent -by Brett Pollakoff defending champs and a yawner like to label them the "Stealers" Filed under: Clippers, Lakers for those in attendance. The and proclaim they always get the LOS ANGELES -- An excited, r e s u l t w a s a l a c k l u s t e r , calls. This past weekend was a c a p a c i t y c r o w d a n x i o u s l y comfortable 99-92 win for the awaited the final chance to Lakers in their first game of the celebrate last season's NBA 2009-10 NBA season. Championship with its beloved Lakers Pick Up Their Rings -Lakers. The team held a ring And a Win originally appeared ceremony, before unveiling their on Fanhouse NBA Blog on Wed, 15th championship banner, 28 Oct 2009 01:23:00 EST . (FOXNews.com) which was hanging behind a Please see our terms for use of Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:21:34 AM black curtain high on the back feeds. GEORGETOWN, Calif. wall of the Staples Center. Permalink| Email this| Linking Authorities say they are It was an exciting start to the Blogs| Comments searching for a family of four night, but the excitement ended who have been missing for more than a week. The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office says Sarah Jean Smith and her boyfriend Jason James McClellan were last seen Oct. 20

Lakers Pick Up Their Rings -- And a Win

Gotham,a unit of IPG, and the Ad Council have launched a wide scale PSA campaign on behalf of the American Heart Association. The "Hands-Only CPR" campaign promotes a more updated method of CPR, vs traditional mouth to mouth. The great example, as the Steelers campaign tagline is: "Hands Can took down the Vikings fair-and- Do Incredible Things," backed by s i t e a t square, but some people just can't a www.handsonlyCPR.org. seem to grasp the concept. Zebra Report: Simmer, 'Stealer' Gotham created the PSA TV Haters originally appeared on spot, Web/viral, print, radio and Fanhouse NFL Blog on Wed, 28 outdoor. All work goes live this Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST . Please week; a Web video component will kick off next week. see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking This content has passed through fivefilters.org. Blogs| Comments

California Authorities Hunt for Missing Family with 7-year-old Joshua Bargus and 1-year-old Kylie Jean Jus. The sheriff's office says the couple had gone to pick up the boy with the 1-year-old in the car, and they haven't been heard from since. A relative reported them missing three days later. They were in a 2004 silver Honda civic. The relative told authorities that the family did not

have plans for a trip. Smith is 28 years old and McClellan is 40. The family is from the Georgetown area, northeast of Sacramento. Authorities say there are no signs that foul play was involved but the family could be at risk. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Redskins Ban Signs From FedEx Field For Safety Reasons By Ryan Wilson (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:00:00 AM

by Ryan Wilson Filed under: NFL I'm beginning to think that Redskins owner Dan Snyder might be making things worse between the fans and the team. Throwing millions at overthe-hill players is one thing, but putting unreasonable in-stadium restrictions on the tens of thousands of supporters who battle beltway traffic to endure three hours of what now passes for football ... well, let's just say the persecuted are mobilizing. In the wake of the team's latest loss -- a 27-17 Monday night matchup with the Eagles that the 'Skins never had a chance of winning -- comes reports that a

few fans were ejected from FedEx Field for wielding antiSnyder signs. Redskins Ban Signs From FedEx Field For Safety Reasons originally appeared on Fanhouse Backporch on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Of Wolf and Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica on iPhone By David Hinkle (Joystiq)

The new edition also sports some added functionality over its Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:00:00 AM regular ol' boring Tap Tap T a p u l o u s , a c o m p a n y Revenge counterparts: Aside specializing in games for the from the usual career mode, iPhone, has added another to its there's now a more fast-paced r a n k s : T a p T a p R e v e n g e : arcade mode where players are Metallica. The game is available "challenged with bombs and right now in the App Store and other special objects" and a new f u s e s t h e b a n d w i t h t h e Bluetooth battle mode that lets established Tap Tap Revenge players challenge others -experience, allowing gamers to g r a n t e d y o u ' r e w i t h i n t h e poke their iPhone through some appropriate distance of each other of the band's most famous ditties -- to see who's the better iPhones u c h a s " O n e " a n d " E n t e r screen-poker. Sandman" -- with ten total tracks For those diehard Metallica fans available. who aren't satisfied with an entire

game themed around the band, the title also has other features that allow one to stalk be more in tune (sorry!) with the band's current activities -- including a news ticker and a live message board. Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica($4.99) Of Wolf and Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica on iPhone originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Ex-AMD head drawn into Galleon probe (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/27/2009 11:29:21 PM

Hector Ruiz, former chief

executive officer of chipmaker AMD, has become the most senior technology industry executive to be drawn into the insider-trading scandal that has

engulfed US hedge fund Galleon. A complaint filed by the US attorney in Manhattan earlier this month alleged that an unnamed AMD executive had passed

inside information about the company to Danielle Chiesi, a former analyst at another hedge fund, New Castle Partners. Ms Chiesi was charged with trading

on non-public information but, through her lawyer, has denied acting illegally. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Uruguay coalition back in power (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 5:35:53 PM

Netflix details PS3 disc distribution for November, 'confident' it'll have ample supply By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

sometime in November announcing that the discs have shipped. Customers should Submitted at 10/28/2009 9:30:00 AM receive the red envelope in about Netflix is confident that it will the same time it usually takes for have ample supply in November a Netflix shipment to reach them. for every PS3 user who requests He expressed that "there's no VIP a disc for its recently announced list or special circumstance list," streaming service. Speaking with so everyone should be receiving Joystiq, Netflix Vice President of it around the same time. Corporate Communications Steve Continue reading Netflix details Swasey wouldn't disclose the P S 3 d i s c d i s t r i b u t i o n f o r number of reservations the November, 'confident' it'll have company has received for the ample supply free PS3 Netflix disc since the Netflix details PS3 disc company announced the program distribution for November, on Monday, but did emphasize, 'confident' it'll have ample supply "We're confident we've produced originally appeared on Joystiq on enough discs." Distribution Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:30:00 EST. centers apparently already have Please see our terms for use of the units. feeds. Swasey told us that the company Permalink| Email this| is still hammering out the C o m m e n t s distribution details, but the plan is to send out a press release

The governing left-wing coalition in Uruguay has won a parliamentary majority for a second mandate after a general election on Sunday. Preliminary results indicate that the Frente Amplio (Broad Front) coalition got 16 senators out of a total of 30 in the higher chamber of parliament. It also obtained 50 deputies of the 99 in the lower house. Apple model (cheap, easy to use The Electoral Commission is and easier to purchase content still counting postal votes but t h a n i t i s t o p i r a t e ) a n d analysts say they will not affect Revolution's ability to exploit its the final result. own games "in a way that you Final results will be logged on could never do at a mainstream Saturday. publisher." He also says that The Broad Front failed to get a daily sacrifices to the almighty clear majority for its presidential Lord Kromdor certainly didn't candidate in elections also held hurt.* on Sunday. *Yes, we made up that last one, Jose Mujica won 47.5% of the s i l l y . R e v o l u t i o n w o r s h i p s votes, and will face a run-off on Cthulhu, duh! 29 November against the Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered conservative former President, nears 20K sold; Revolution Luis Lacalle. expects 100K lifetime sales Print Sponsor originally appeared on Joystiq on This content has passed through Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:00:00 EST. fivefilters.org. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered nears 20K sold; Revolution expects 100K lifetime sales By David Hinkle (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:00:00 AM

The modern jazzification ( totally not a made-up word) of retro adventure title Beneath a Steel Sky has been a fairly lucrative move on Revolution Software's part, as managing director Charles Cecil says (via GI.biz) iPhone remake Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered is on track to sell 20,000 copies in its first month -- and that's not including the first week of the month, as it wasn't available in the App store until October 8. But it's just a stepping stone to greater financial success, Cecil says. He anticipates the game will sell around 70,000 copies in its first year of release, eventually peaking at 100,000 copies sold in its lifetime. Cecil credits the

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Dogs in costumes Science makes Air Guitar Hero a reality By JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

It's not specifically a game controller, and Activision won't be shipping electrodes to stores University of Washington Ph.D. a n y t i m e s o o n . T h i s i s a s t u d e n t S c o t t S a p o n a s presentation for the Association demonstrated his muscle- for Computer Machinery's movement interface for computer Symposium on User Interface systems, by using it to control a Software and Technology-- the familiar application: Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero thing just makes for The system appears to guess an impressive show. finger movements by reading the [Via Kotaku] signals from muscles in the Continue reading Science makes forearm. The result: a true air Air Guitar Hero a reality guitar experience. In the custom Science makes Air Guitar Hero a Guitar Hero setup, the player can reality originally appeared on hold frets simply by touching a Joystiq on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 finger with his thumb, and strum 10:00:00 EST. Please see our by, well, strumming the air. See terms for use of feeds. it in action after the break! Read| Permalink| Email this| This is just a demonstration of Comments some experimental technology. Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:00:00 AM

By Heather Champ (Flickr Blog)

Use a real guitar to play Rock Band 2 AND get punched while doing so! By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:00:00 AM

Normally when people mod real instruments for use in musicrhythm games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, they don't intentionally include the ability for someone else to play along by punching them. For Norway's Morten Skogly, that choice seemed only natural. On his website, you can see a shot-byshot breakdown of the process necessary to transform something that creates music into something that plays along with music. In fairness, the entire (ridiculously intricate) process leads to the hilarious video you'll

Submitted at 10/27/2009 7:03:47 AM

My favourite time of year. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s better than a dog in a costume? How about two, with one riding the other? Check out the photo bottom right for the result. find after the break. You see, Photos from{SNS rather than strum on the strings P h o t o g r a p h y } , E l l e n J o , of his guitar, the punching gloves s e r e n a . p h o t o g r a p h y , (punching him, mind you) j e f f d i l l o n p h o t o g r a p h y , approximate a strum for him. n u t m e g k n i t t e r , and That means that every time he minicoopergirl06. Check out pushes a note, he gets punched. more fabulousness in the Dogs in It's like penance! Costumes group pool. [ Image credit] This content has passed through Continue reading Use a real fivefilters.org. guitar to play Rock Band 2 AND get punched while doing so! Use a real guitar to play Rock Band 2 AND get punched while doing so! originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Stella McCartney and Her Illusion Lace Ladies By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

God of War III demo included on District 9 Blu-ray By JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

3 are united in that they're both things that people presumably want to see, it strikes us as odd If you're interested in checking that this rather random collection out God of War 3 early, but don't is the first Blu-ray/game demo want to play the first two God of p a i r i n g f o r S C E A . T h e Wars again, Sony corporate Watchmen movie and game synergy has a solution for you! actually related to one another in The Blu-Ray release of District 9, some way, and they came on due December 29 (a bit later than separate discs. the God of War Collection), will God of War III demo included include a playable demo of God on District 9 Blu-ray originally of War 3. Once you've played appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 through the demo, a making-of Oct 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please featurette will be unlocked (for see our terms for use of feeds. the game, not the movie). Permalink| Email this| While District 9 and God of War C o m m e n t s Submitted at 10/28/2009 10:30:00 AM

genie-pant jumpsuit that was a variation on Kate Bosworth’s Submitted at 10/27/2009 1:34:36 PM column gown that was a variation As has long been the case with on look 35, which featured in its red carpet regulars like Versace, skirt the illusion lace panels seen Dior, and Armani, as soon as in the top half of Olivia Wilde’s S t e l l a M c C a r t n e y ’ s F W 0 9 dress. collection hit the runway last No wonder Stella has such a March, you just knew you’d be l o y a l f o l l o w i n g — w h a t h e r seeing them again soon on the friends and clients want, she backs of many a slim, eco- seems to give them. And with dazzling results. conscious actress. What’s interesting, though, is Illusion lace takes over (left to how nearly all of Stella’s designs right): Kate Bosworth in May, from this particular collection Liv Tyler in May, Jennifer have made their public debut not Morrison in September, Naomi in their original runway form but Watts in September, and Olivia in heavily tweaked variations Wilde this past Saturday. thereof. Take Naomi Watts’ Photos: WireImage

Fans hail Jackson concert movie (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:42:57 AM

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Fans in London give their reaction to the film FANS page 64

Vionnet Calls it a Comeback By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 10/27/2009 12:39:11 PM

As of late, and almost out of nowhere it seems, stars have been spotted wearing the wares of the fabled house of Vionnet. A few years ago, Barneys hosted a giant event during Fashion Week celebrating the comeback of the brand and its then-designer Sophia Kokosalaki, and people waited with bated breath to see the resurrection of such an historic fashion house. There was all of this excitement and hoopla, and then there was practically

silence. Now, all of sudden, Hillary Swank was spotted at the premiere of Amelia in Vionnet and British starlet Carey

Mulligan was seen in a piece by the house at the premiere of An Education. And both women looked stunning, with a capital S, clad in the draped bias-cut gowns. Much more in line with the original aesthetic of the house, think layers of draping on the bias, and this collection so far has been shown so much love, that giant retailers like Selfridges and Harrods are stocking the line. —Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin Photo: Getty Images Follow ELLE on Twitter.

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FANS continued from page 63

Michael Jackson's concert documentary, This Is It, has been warmly received by the late singer's fans after its worldwide premiere. The movie was pieced together from 100 hours of footage shot at rehearsals for the star's ill-fated comeback shows. Fan Darryn Wade, in Los Angeles, said: "Judging by that film, it would have been the best show of all time." But Kasian Daley, 17, at the London premiere, said: "It's an easy way for them to make money off his name." And Mustapha Duggash, 18, from Nigeria, also at the London screening, said: "I believe it's a nice tribute but the main motivation is the money." Jackson's brothers attended the screening in Los Angeles and simultaneous premieres were held in 18 other cities. At that premiere, fan Ed Rahmen said the movie proved the concerts at London's O2 Arena would have been "the best thing he had ever done". "It was like a film on stage. It was better than any of his early stuff. It was Jackson brought to this time and age." Neda Allin added: "You can see he was a bit ill, or he didn't look right, but the movie was

brilliant." David Montalvo, who saw the film in New York, said: "I loved seeing him in action again. It's like you were able to see Michael again for the last time, so it was a good chance to say goodbye to him." Marilyn Morrison, also in New York, said the footage was "excellent". She added: "Just seeing all the moves, his original moves, just seeing him doing them again. Just wonderful." 'Very positive' The Los Angeles premiere took place across the road from the Staples Center, the site of Jackson's rehearsals and, later, his public memorial service. The Jackson brothers were joined at the screening by stars including Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton, Katy Perry, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. Jermaine Jackson said he thought the film was "very positive, very entertaining" and it had made him feel "really, really proud". Jackie Jackson, meanwhile, said: "It's amazing to see him up there doing his thing. "To see him up there doing his performance like that has brought

a lot of tears to my eyes, sitting there watching him. Because I love him so much." And Marlon Jackson said seeing the film had given him "closure". He added: "It was a moment where I just felt his spirit inside of me. And that made me feel good." Speaking on website Twitter, Jackson's close friend Elizabeth Taylor called it "the single most brilliant piece of filmmaking I have ever seen". "I wept from pure joy at his Godgiven gift. There will never, ever be the likes of him again. "We have this piece of film to remind us forever and ever that once there was such a man. God kissed him." Fan protests In London, stars including Peter Andre, Spice Girl Mel B and boy band JLS attended the screening at Leicester Square. Rapper Chipmunk said the film was "absolutely amazing". He added: "It's given me the package of what his tour could have been if he was still alive." Some fans protested outside the screenings, saying the film covers up Jackson's declining health. The dedicated fans, who have set up a campaign called This Is Not It, are accusing concert promoter

AEG Live of putting too much pressure on the star during the build up to his 50-date run at London's O2 Arena. A spokesman for AEG declined to comment. Jackson, who died on June 25 aged 50, had spent the previous four months rehearsing in Los Angeles. More than 800,000 tickets had been sold for the concerts, with organisers promising one of the "most expensive and technically advanced" live shows ever. He was just two weeks away from the opening night at the time of his death, which authorities in Los Angeles ruled a homicide. This Is It has now been released to cinemas for a limited twoweek run. The first public screening in London began at 0400GMT, with fans queuing through the night to see it. By the weekend, it will be shown in 110 countries, with distributor Sony putting 15,000 prints into circulation. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Around the Net In Media: Barbara Cipolla Joins OMD as CMO (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/27/2009 10:51:55 PM

Barbara Cipolla, former U.S. president at MediaCom, has joined OMD Worldwide in the new post of chief marketing officer. Cipolla left MediaCom in July after a two-year stint at the shop. She will report to OMD Worldwide CEO Mainardo de Nardis, whom she has known since they both worked at Mediaedge:cia from 2000-06. At MEC, Cipolla was credited with helping the agency win key accounts such as Cingular, Energizer and Paramount. Cipolla is one of several senior GroupM media agency veterans to join Omnicom media shops this year. Earlier this month, Steve Piluso, managing director of Mindshare Entertainment, joined OMD sibling shop PHD as managing partner, East. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Lawyers want admitted al-Qaida member released (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

United States and their ability to inflict mass casualties. He agreed Submitted at 10/28/2009 1:27:20 AM to the mission knowing that it Defense attorneys for an al- would be in furtherance of that Qaida sleeper agent plan to argue agenda." at his sentencing this week that Al-Marri's attorneys say the his five years spent locked up judge who will preside over without charge was enough Wednesday and Thursday's punishment and he should be s e n t e n c i n g h e a r i n g s h o u l d immediately released. consider the years al-Marri spent Former Bradley University locked up without charge, much student Ali al-Marri, a 44-year- of it in a U.S. Navy brig in South old native of Qatar, pleaded Carolina. Those years and cruel guilty in May to one count of treatment — including sensory conspiring to provide material d e p r i v a t i o n , l e n g t h y support or resources to a foreign interrogations and threats to harm terrorist organization. He will be his family — amount to a sentenced this week in a federal sentence "beyond what our court in Peoria, Ill. nation stands for and tolerates as Prosecutors have recommended a matter of respect for the law," the maximum 15 years behind they said in court documents. bars, and the judge's decision "We're arguing that, that warrants could have far-reaching effects. a lower sentence," attorney The United States still holds Lawrence Lustberg said in an more than 200 people without interview Monday. "The best charge at Guantanamo Bay. If possible outcome would be that convicted, those detainees also the court would conclude that no could argue that their time in additional term is necessary." custody should be considered at Judge Michael Mihm can't sentencing. directly credit al-Marri for time Prosecutors have declined to spent locked up before he was comment before the sentencing. charged, but he can give him a But in court documents, they light sentence, Lustberg said, wrote that al-Marri "was fully even as little as the months he aware of the nature of al Qaeda's has spent behind bars since he violent philosophy against the was charged.

Al-Marri has admitted that he trained in al-Qaida camps and stayed in al-Qaida safe houses in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001, learning how to handle weapons and communicate by phone and e -mail using code. He also acknowledged having regular contact with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who the government said was the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and with Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who allegedly helped the Sept. 11 hijackers with money and Western-style clothing. In 2003, President Bush declared al-Marri an enemy combatant, one of three held on U.S. soil since the 2001 attacks. After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in December 2008 to consider al-Marri's challenge of his enemy combatant status, President Barack Obama ordered him surrendered to civilian authorities in Peoria, where Bradley University is located and where al-Marri was indicted. University of Illinois law professor Steven Beckett believes that Lustberg has a tough case to make. He said judges in Illinois' Central District usually follow federal sentencing guidelines and

whatever decision Mihm makes is likely to be appealed because of the affect it could have on future cases. Stephen Ellmann, a dean at the New York Law School and critic of military trials held at Guantanamo, said al-Marri's admission that he was an alQaida member gives prosecutors a basis for seeking the maximum sentence. "The underlying rationale for military detention remains, even if military detention wasn't appropriate or constitutional, that he might return to the battlefield or the terrorist struggle," Ellmann wrote in an e-mail. "And that's a reason to seek the maximum possible sentence." But one of al-Marri's brothers said this week that al-Marri's relatives — who live in Saudi Arabia — are optimistic that they'll see him soon. "What he has been in for is more than enough," Mohammed alMarri said in a telephone interview. "They are waiting for this moment, for him to be released." This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Families of Americans Held in Iran: Videos Prove Innocence (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 10/27/2009 2:20:26 AM

The families of three Americans detained in Iran say newly released videos prove their loved ones were on vacation and had no hidden motives when they crossed into the country from Iraq. Shane Bauer, 27, Sarah Shourd, 31, and Josh Fattal, 27, have been detained in Iran since July 31. Their families say they entered the Islamic Republic accidentally while hiking in a scenic area of northern Iraq. The families, who have had no contact with the detainees, released videos shot of them dancing and singing before they were captured by Iranian authorities. "These kids were on vacation. They were just traveling; they were having a good time," Shourd's mother, Nora Shourd, said in a phone interview Monday. SLIDESHOW: American Hikers Detained in Iran Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that investigators are still questioning the three and that their fate rests with judicial authorities. Bauer, Shourd and Fattal have been visited by Swiss diplomats, who oversee U.S. interests in Iran. FAMILIES page 70

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Man charged with killing UConn football player (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 4:33:19 AM

STORRS, Conn. – The lawyer for a 21-year-old man charged with killing University of Connecticut football player Jasper Howard says his client was trying to break up a fight and was not involved in the stabbing that took the starting cornerback's life. John William Lomax III is charged with murder and conspiracy to commit assault in connection with Howard's death outside a school-sanctioned dance on Oct. 18. He is being held in lieu of $2 million bond. Lomax's lawyer, Deron Freeman, said he was first told Lomax would be charged in connection with the fight during which Howard was stabbed, but not with murder. "I'm surprised," Freeman said. "I'm curious to find out what evidence they had to secure an arrest warrant for murder. ... From all the evidence I've heard, he was not involved in the stabbing." Lomax wasn't present when the argument started and doesn't know what it was about, but tried

to break up the fight and didn't stab anyone, Freeman said. Another man, Hakim Muhammad, 20, was charged with conspiracy to commit assault. Both live in Bloomfield, around 30 miles from the UConn campus, and are scheduled to make their first court appearances Wednesday morning. Neither suspect is expected to enter a plea, and both cases are expected to be transferred to a court that handles serious crimes. A third man, Jamal Todd, 21, of Hartford, was arrested Tuesday on a felony charge of falsely reporting an incident and misdemeanor reckless endangerment for allegedly pulling a fire alarm that emptied the dance early that Sunday morning. He is free after posting a $5,000 bond and is due in court next month. None of those arrested is a UConn student. Police have said Howard was stabbed during a fight that started after the dance was evacuated. Several other football players were with him, but none have been charged. UConn football coach Randy Edsall said he hasn't heard that any player was

involved in anything other than "verbal jostling." The case files have been sealed because the investigation is continuing, and police have not provided any details about the fight. Lomax, a Bloomfield High School graduate who works in information technology, goes by the nickname Pooda. He last logged into his MySpace page in March, when he listed his occupation as "taking care of my daughter." On his Facebook page, Lomax's friends include Muhammad and 21-year-old Johnny Hood of Hartford, who was arrested last week and faces charges of breach of peace and interfering with police. Police would not discuss evidence or a motive during a news conference Tuesday. Investigators conducted more than 200 interviews and "have not stopped working," UConn police chief Robert Hudd said. Howard, whose nickname was Jazz, died hours after helping his team to a homecoming game win over Louisville. He was 20. The entire UConn football team attended his funeral Monday in

Miami. Players said they were happy that an arrest was made, but that it was of little comfort. "It is a little closure, but the reality is my teammate's still not here with us," said running back Jordan Todman. Several players said Tuesday that they had never heard of Lomax and don't know how he and Howard crossed paths. "I know that his mother is very excited that someone is being charged with this crime. That's all I've been really thinking about, just how his family is doing," said defensive tackle Kendall Reyes. Greg Lloyd, a junior linebacker, said the team is relieved that someone is being held accountable for Howard's death. "I wish only that it didn't happen at all so at least I can have my teammate back," he said. "It's unreal grief for the family, unreal grief for his friends — it's just a shame." ___ Associated Press writer Dave Collins contributed to this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Ill. man in alleged terror plot to appear in court (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 5:35:32 AM

CHICAGO – One of two Chicago men accused of plotting terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper that caused widespread protests by printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, helped arrange David Coleman Headley's travel to Denmark in January and July to conduct surveillance on possible targets, including the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the JyllandsPosten newspaper, prosecutors said in criminal complaints filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The newspaper published twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. One cartoon showed Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Any depiction of the prophet, even a favorable one, is forbidden by Islamic law as likely to lead to idolatry. Headley described his plans for the attacks to contacts in Pakistan as "the Mickey Mouse project," according to the FBI. Rana was scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan for a bond hearing Wednesday morning. Headley's bond hearing is set for Dec. 4 ILL. page 71

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Wayward Northwest Pilots Grounded After Losing Licenses (FOXNews.com)

of time and place last Wednesday night. Flight 188 was out of WASHINGTON The two communication for more than an Northwest Airlines pilots who hour during the incident despite overshot their Minneapolis repeated attempts by air traffic destination by 150 miles are controllers in two states to reach grounded indefinitely unless the the airliner, the FAA said in a National Transportation Safety s t a t e m e n t . N o r t h w e s t ' s Board grants them a reprieve. dispatchers also tried eight times T h e F e d e r a l A v i a t i o n to contact the pilots, without Administration said Tuesday that response, the agency said. it had revoked the licenses of the The pilots violated numerous pilots of Northwest flight 188 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; federal regulations, including Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, failing to comply with air traffic Wash., the captain, and Richard c o n t r o l i n s t r u c t i o n s a n d Cole of Salem, Ore., the first clearances and operating their officer. aircraft carelessly and recklessly, The pilots have 10 days to the agency said. appeal to the three-member "You engaged in conduct that put National Transportation Safety your passengers and your crew in Board, the same agency that serious jeopardy," FAA regional investigates air crashes and counsel Eddie Thomas wrote makes safety recommendations. Cheney in a letter accompanying If an appeal fails, they can apply the revocation order. "NW188 for a new license after one year. was without communication with S L I D E S H O W : N o r t h w e s t any air traffic control facility and Airlines Plane Mystery with its company dispatcher for a The pilots told investigators they period of 91 minutes (over 1.5 were working on their personal hours) while you were on a frolic laptop computers and lost track of your own. Failing to comply Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:23:07 AM

with ATC clearances or instructions while engaged in air carrier operations is extremely reckless." A similar letter was sent to Cole. The pilots said they realized they had overshot their destination when a flight attendant contacted them on the aircraft's intercom. By then, they were over Wisconsin at 37,000 feet. They turned the Airbus A320 with its 144 passengers around and landed safely in Minneapolis. The pilots union at Delta Air Lines, which acquired Northwest last year, declined to comment. Earlier, the union had cautioned against a rush to judgment. The pilots told investigators who interviewed them on Sunday that they had no previous accidents or safety incidents. Delta spokesman Anthony Black said in a statement late Tuesday: "The pilots in command of Northwest Flight 188 remain suspended until the conclusion of the investigations into this incident." Phone messages left at the

homes of the pilots were not immediately returned Tuesday night. One passenger, Lonnie Heidtke of Chippewa Falls, Wis., said he thought it was a stiff penalty for the pilots. "I feel that the FAA pulling their license seems a little severe, I guess. But at the same time, I think they should not be flying airplanes at least for a while so they have an opportunity to think about this." Cole and Cheney said they both had their laptops out while the first officer, who had more experience with scheduling, instructed the captain on monthly flight crew scheduling. They said they weren't listening to the radio or watching cockpit flight displays during that period. The plane's radio was also still tuned to the frequency used by Denver controllers after the San Diego-to -Minneapolis flight had flown beyond their reach. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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S.F. Bay Bridge Shut Down After Rod Collapse (FOXNews.com)

Rapid Transit District, meanwhile, said extra trains would run during the morning SAN FRANCISCO The San commute. Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge The rod that fell Tuesday was has been closed indefinitely after erected last month during an a rod installed during last month's emergency repair job. It was emergency repairs snapped, holding in place a saddle-like cap causing a traffic nightmare for that had been installed over a the 26,000 motorists who cross cracked link discovered over the the landmark span every day. Labor Day weekend. Engineers on Wednesday will When the rod apparently evaluate the damage caused when snapped at about 5:30 p.m., it the rod and metal brace fell into brought down with it a steel t h e 7 3 - y e a r - o l d b r i d g e ' s patch roughly 3 feet long, westbound lanes during Tuesday authorities said. evening's rush hour. "If you look at the totality of the At least two vehicles — a car circumstances — you've got the and a small truck — either were 5:30 commute, you have a 5,000struck by or ran into the fallen pound piece of steel falling out of rod, said California Highway the sky. We are so fortunate that P a t r o l O f f i c e r P e t e r V a n no one was injured or killed," Eckhardt, but no injuries were CHP Sgt. Trent Cross told reported. KTVU-TV. The California Department of Officers managed to clear the Transportation said Tuesday that Oakland-bound traffic from the it will remain closed indefinitely. lower deck of the bridge by 8 More from KTVU Fox 2 Bay p.m. but were still clearing cars Area from the few remaining open A spokesman for the Bay Area lanes of the upper deck an hour Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:02:27 AM

later, he said. The bridge was closed last month over the holiday weekend while long-planned earthquake safety upgrades were being made to the bridge. When the crack was discovered, state transportation officials initially feared it would prevent them from reopening the span in time for the start of the work week. But the unexpected work only ended up taking a few extra hours. California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, officials had nothing to say Tuesday about what might have caused the repair job to fail. The department issued a brief statement saying only that "structural engineers and inspectors are onsite to assess the damage and will make a determination as to how long repairs will take. "At this time, the bridge is closed until further notice," the statement said. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a civil

engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley who has spent 20 years studying the Bay Bridge, called the initial crack a "warning sign" of potentially bigger safety issues with the bridge. "The repair they were doing was really a Band-Aid," said AstanehAsl, who criticized Caltrans at the time for rushing to reopen the bridge. "The Band-Aid broke, in essence." Astaneh-Asl said the failure of the repair job demonstrates the need for a longer-term solution. The bridge's age and design make it susceptible to collapse, especially if commercial tractortrailers are allowed to continue using it, he said. "I think Caltrans is putting public relations ahead of public safety," he said. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Tough commute likely after Bay Bridge rod snaps (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:43:10 AM

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has been closed indefinitely after a rod installed during last month's emergency repairs snapped, causing a traffic nightmare for the 280,000 motorists who cross the landmark span every day. Engineers on Wednesday will evaluate the damage caused when the rod and metal brace fell into the 73-year-old bridge's westbound lanes during Tuesday evening's rush hour. At least two vehicles — a car and a small truck — either were struck by or ran into the fallen rod, said California Highway Patrol Officer Peter Van Eckhardt. No injuries were reported. The California Department of Transportation said Tuesday that TOUGH page 72

Afghan bombs kill eight US troops (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 11:49:54 AM

Eight US soldiers have been killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, say Natoled forces. An Afghan civilian was also killed in what were called "multiple complex IED attacks" -

or improvised bombs. The deaths make October the deadliest month for American forces in the eight-year war in Afghanistan. On Monday, 11 soldiers were among 14 Americans killed in multiple air crashes. In total, 55 US troops have died in October, the Pentagon says. Americans are still waiting to

hear whether the president is planning to increase troop levels. And this incident will contribute to the perception that the situation there is deteriorating, not improving. The use of improvised explosive devices in these attacks seems to be part of a trend towards fewer conventional direct-fire engagements and more guerrilla-

style attacks. It looks like these tactics are migrating from Iraq to Afghanistan, where we are seeing the Taliban increasingly using roadside bombs to attack coalition forces. Like many deaths in Afghanistan, Tuesday's bloodshed was blamed on the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that pose the biggest

threat to foreign forces operating in the country. "Additionally, several service members were wounded in these incidents and were transported to a regional medical facility for treatment," said a statement from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). AFGHAN page 71

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5 in Custody in Girl's Homecoming Dance Gang Rape (FOXNews.com)

the presence of others. People came by, saw what was happening and failed to report it." Five suspects were in custody More coverage at KTVU.com. early Wednesday in northern The Tuesday night arrests California in the gang rape, include a teenager from San robbery and beating of a 15-year- Pablo; a 21-year-old Richmond old girl outside her high school man identified as Salvadore homecoming dance, KTVU.com Rodriguez and a teenager from reported. Pinole who surrendered to police Authorities in Richmond, Calif., after they went to his home with said they arrested two adults and a search warrant earlier in the t h r e e j u v e n i l e s a n d w e r e day, KTVU.com said. searching for others believed to Two others were arrested be involved in the alcohol-fueled Monday: 19-year-old Richmond attack Friday night in a secluded High School dropout Manuel courtyard on the grounds of Ortega, who was booked on Richmond High School. $800,000 bail, and a 15-year-old Evidence suggests there may male freshman. have been up to 10 assailants, The victim, who police say has Richmond Police Lt. Mark been helping in the investigation, Gagan told KTVU.com, and the left the high school homecoming assault was likely witnessed by dance about 9:30 p.m. Friday and as many as a dozen people — was heading to meet her father some of whom laughed and for a ride home when a classmate snapped photos of the rape on invited her to join a group cell phone cameras but did drinking in the courtyard. nothing to stop it. Shortly afterward, the girl was "She was raped, beaten, robbed allegedly robbed, beaten and and dehumanized by several gang-raped for more than two suspects who were obviously OK hours before police intervened. enough with it to behave that way Investigators believe the attack in each other's presence," Gagan not only was watched by up to 12 said earlier this week. "What o t h e r s b u t m a y h a v e b e e n makes it even more disturbing is videotaped and photographed Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:24:55 AM

with cell phone cameras, according to KTVU.com. The victim had consumed a large amount of alcohol by the time the assault began, police said. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the girl semi-conscious near a picnic table. She is hospitalized with non-lifethreatening injuries. Authorities stepped up their investigation Tuesday night, sending a SWAT team out with arrest warrants. More arrests are coming, Gagan said. "That list will increase, I expect, as we get people in custody, as they tell us what other people did and what they saw," he told KTVU.com. The victim had been verbally abused by her classmates in the past, a student told the station. “They used to make fun of her because she had a crush on a boy in class,” said Richmond High senior Susan Meas. “And they used to make fun of her because of the jeans she wore and stuff. She had to barge out of class crying one day." The Associated Press contributed to this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Testimony in Anna Nicole Smith hearing to resume (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

to keep a lid on it with methadone," Gagne said. When Smith fell and fractured LOS ANGELES – Testimony is two ribs, "Dr. Kapoor prescribed scheduled to resume Wednesday large amounts of Dilaudid, the in the hearing to determine strongest opiate available," said whether Anna Nicole Smith's Gagne. doctors and boyfriend should Smith had requested Dilaudid stand trial on charges they before and failed to get it, Gagne illegally funneled drugs to the said. Playboy model. By the end of September, Testimony Tuesday focused on Kapoor wrote that he was Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, who is "tapering off" Smith's Dilaudid, charged along with psychiatrist but the dosages he prescribed Kristine Eroshevich and Smith's a c t u a l l y i n c r e a s e d , G a g n e boyfriend-lawyer Howard K. t e s t i f i e d . Stern. Kapoor eventually had a 45All have pleaded not guilty. minute meeting with Smith and Smith died of an accidental Stern and tried to refer her to an o v e r d o s e o f a t l e a s t n i n e addiction specialist, but she medications at a Florida hotel in refused, Gagne said. February 2007. In 2005, Gagne said, Kapoor Pain management doctor James prescribed numerous sedatives Gagne said Kapoor was feeding for Smith in substantial amounts. Smith's addiction to prescription She was under his care when she medications by excessively checked into a hospital to prescribing opiates, including withdraw from the sedatives methadone and Dilaudid, which during her pregnancy in 2006. is nicknamed "hospital heroin," However, the day she was a n d s e d a t i v e s k n o w n a s released, Kapoor began writing benzodiazopines. her prescriptions again for Gagne said Kapoor began sedatives, Gagne said. treating Smith when he took over "They're excessive. They're the practice of another doctor in without medical basis, and they April 2004. Kapoor took up the fly in the face of treatments" same regimen as his predecessor, received at the hospital, he said. who was treating Smith for pain This content has passed through but felt she "had a predominantly fivefilters.org. psychiatric illness and was trying Submitted at 10/28/2009 1:20:42 AM

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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, posted on YouTube Tuesday, shows Fattal performing an impromptu rap song — "Yo, it's hot/It's 'cos I'm in Iraq." — against a backdrop of the Iraqi city of Irbil. A second video shows Fattal, Bauer and Shourd dancing in an unfinished cinder block building. Click here to see the video of Fattal rapping. Click here to see video of the three American prisoners dancing days before their arrest. "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 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 heartstrings." 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 Elkins Park, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, said she and the other two mothers traveled to the Iranian mission to the U.N. 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. "I can't imagine what else they're expecting to hear," she said. 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," she said. "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?" The Associated Press contributed to this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

US warned on deadly drone attacks (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

carried out through the use of these weapons." Increased use Submitted at 10/28/2009 3:20:04 AM Mr Alston raised the issue in a The US has been warned that its r e p o r t t o t h e U N G e n e r a l use of drones to target suspected A s s e m b l y ' s h u m a n r i g h t s terrorists in Afghanistan and c o m m i t t e e o n T u e s d a y . Pakistan may violate At a news conference international law. afterwards, he said he had UN human rights investigator become increasingly concerned Philip Alston said the US should at the increase in their use since explain the legal basis for June, particularly in Afghanistan attacking individuals with the and Pakistan. remote-controlled aircraft. The US told the UN in June that He said the CIA had to show it has a legal framework to accountability to international respond to unlawful killings. It l a w s w h i c h b a n a r b i t r a r y also said the UN Human Rights executions. Council and the General Drones have killed about 600 Assembly have no role in relation people in north-west Pakistan to killings during an armed since August 2008. conflict. Mr Alston, the UN Special But Mr Alston described that Rapporteur on Extrajudicial response as "simply untenable". Executions, told the BBC: "My Mr Alston's warning came as US concern is that these drones, President Barack Obama reviews t h e s e P r e d a t o r s , a r e b e i n g US strategy in the Afghan operated in a framework which campaign. may well violate international The senior US military h u m a n i t a r i a n l a w a n d commander in Afghanistan, Gen international human rights law. Stanley McChrystal, has asked "The onus is really on the for at least 40,000 more troops government of the United States there. to reveal more about the ways in Print Sponsor which it makes sure that arbitrary This content has passed through e x e c u t i o n s , e x t r a j u d i c i a l fivefilters.org. executions, are not in fact being

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before U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys. Both men were in custody. Danish authorities said there could be more arrests. Headley and Rana attended school together in Pakistan, the FBI said in court papers. According to U.S. prosecutors, Headley visited the newspaper's Copenhagen offices in January and told employees he represented Rana's business, First World Immigration Services, and that the business was considering opening offices in Denmark and might buy advertising. While in Denmark, Headley asked Rana to watch for a followup e-mail from an advertising representative from the paper and to ask First World's Toronto and New York offices to "remember" him in case the newspaper called, prosecutors said. They said Rana corresponded with a newspaper representative and posed as Headley. Prosecutors said Headley told FBI agents after his Oct. 3 arrest at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport that the initial plan called

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for attacks on the newspaper's offices, but that he later proposed just killing the paper's former cultural editor and the cartoonist behind the drawings, which caused outrage throughout the Muslim world. Headley, a U.S. citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the United States. He could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted. He was arrested as he boarded a flight to Philadelphia, the first leg of a trip to Pakistan. Headley and Rana are both charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorism conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Rana, who is a Canadian citizen, was arrested Oct. 18 in his home. Rana's attorney, Patrick Blegen, said that his client "is a well respected businessman in the Chicagoland community." "He adamantly denies the charges and eagerly awaits his

opportunity to contest them in court and to clear his and his family's name," Blegen said. "We would ask that the community respect the fact that these are merely allegations and not proof." Headley's attorney, John Theis, said he had no comment. Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET, called the alleged plot "serious" but said investigators didn't believe an attack was imminent. He said the alleged plotters considered various options, including using handguns and explosives, and that investigators seized footage of sites around Denmark ranging from the newspaper's offices to Copenhagen's main train station. ___ Associated Press Writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Military spokesmen said there had been two attacks on patrolling vehicles in the volatile south of the country - one which killed seven soldiers and the Afghan civilian, and a second attack that killed one soldier. But few other details were given, pending the notification of the soldiers' next-of-kin. Also on Tuesday, the remains of three US crew were recovered from a US reconnaissance plane that disappeared on 13 October in Nuristan province in mountainous north-eastern Afghanistan. Nato said the incident remained under investigation, but hostile action was not believed to be the cause of the crash. Troops pressure On Tuesday, the Washington Post newspaper reported that a senior US diplomat in Afghanistan had resigned, saying he had "lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan". State department employee Matthew Hoh, who was posted to Zabul province, said that the insurgency in some parts of Afghanistan arrived only after the

US troops did. US President Barack Obama is currently undertaking a review of American strategy in Afghanistan. He is under pressure to reinforce the US military presence by tens of thousands of US troops - but many Americans are likely to oppose such a course in light of October's succession of deadly incidents, says the BBC's Andrew North in Afghanistan. Mr Obama vowed on Monday that he would not rush the "solemn decision" to send more troops into battle, amid accusations by critics that he is dithering. Tuesday's attacks also come amid heightened tension in Afghanistan in the run-up to the second round of a presidential election marred by widespread fraud in favour of incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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it will remain closed indefinitely. A spokesman for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, meanwhile, said extra trains would run during the morning commute. The rod that fell Tuesday was erected last month during an emergency repair job. It was holding in place a saddle-like cap that had been installed over a cracked link discovered over the Labor Day weekend. When the rod apparently snapped at about 5:30 p.m., it brought down with it a steel patch roughly 3 feet long, authorities said. "If you look at the totality of the circumstances â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you've got the 5:30 commute, you have a 5,000pound piece of steel falling out of the sky. We are so fortunate that no one was injured or killed," CHP Sgt. Trent Cross told KTVU-TV. Officers managed to clear the Oakland-bound traffic from the lower deck of the bridge by 8 p.m. but were still clearing cars from the few remaining open

lanes of the upper deck an hour later, he said. The bridge was closed last month over the holiday weekend for long-planned earthquake safety upgrades. When the crack was discovered, state transportation officials initially feared it would prevent them from reopening the span in time for the start of the work week. But the unexpected work only ended up taking a few extra hours. California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, officials had nothing to say Tuesday about what might have caused the failure. The department issued a brief statement saying only that " structural engineers and inspectors are onsite to assess the damage and will make a determination as to how long repairs will take. "At this time, the bridge is closed until further notice," the statement said. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a civil engineering professor at the

University of California, Berkeley, who has spent 20 years studying the Bay Bridge, called the initial crack a "warning sign" of potentially bigger safety issues with the bridge. "The repair they were doing was really a Band-Aid," said AstanehAsl, who criticized Caltrans at the time for rushing to reopen the bridge. Astaneh-Asl said the failure of the repair job demonstrates the need for a longer-term solution. The bridge's age and design make it susceptible to collapse, especially if commercial tractortrailers are allowed to continue using it, he said. "I think Caltrans is putting public relations ahead of public safety," he said. (This version CORRECTS the number of motorists who cross the bridge each day.) This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

US urges China military dialogue (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/27/2009 6:14:12 PM

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has called for a lasting dialogue with China's military after meeting a top Chinese general at the Pentagon. A Pentagon spokesman said Mr Gates told China's Gen Xu Caihou the two sides should "break the on-again, off-again cycle" in their military relationship. The talks marked the highest bilateral military contact since 2006. Last year, Beijing halted military dialogue with Washington to protest against US arms sales to Taiwan. China has also criticised US surveillance of waters off the Chinese coast. 'Obstacles' "There is a need to break the onagain-off-again cycle of our military-to-military relationship," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, briefing reporters on Mr Gates' talks with Gen Xu, vice-

chairman of the People's Liberation Army Central Military Commission. In the past, there had been progress "and then there will be a hiccup that will cause there to be a suspension" in military cooperation, Mr Morell said. The spokesman described the talks as "productive", adding that Mr Gates accepted Gen Xu's invitation to visit China. Meanwhile, US officials - who were speaking on the condition of anonymity - said Gen Xu was open to boosting military cooperation, but reiterated "obstacles" to deepening ties, such as the presence of US surveillance ships off China's coast. Speaking earlier this week, Gen Xu said that China did not want "hegemony" or an arms race. Washington has repeatedly urged China to be more open about its rapidly rising military spending. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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

furious 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. From Economist.com A glimmer The directors of HealthSouth, of hope for corporate-governance which runs a chain of hospitals reform and clinics, approved a change in A M E R I C A ’ S s y s t e m o f its bylaws that will oblige it to elections for the boards of reimburse shareholders who companies has long been a sort mount a proxy contest for the of Potemkin village: impressive, expense involved—provided that until you lean on it. Yes, there is their candidate achieves at least one share, one vote. But only 40% of the vote. It is the first big candidates proposed by the American company to offer such incumbent board make it on to reimbursement, and it has led the ballot that the firm sends to some activist shareholders to shareholders. Other candidates declare the start of an important c a n s e e k v o t e s o n l y b y new trend. Bob Monks, a veteran circulating “proxies” of their own c a m p a i g n e r o n c o r p o r a t e t o s h a r e h o l d e r s , a t t h e governance, says the move is candidates’ own expense. The very important, not just because cost of this is usually enough to it reduces the financial risk for deter them, allowing the official outsiders seeking election to slate of directors to retain their b o a r d s b u t b e c a u s e , i n lucrative boardroom sinecures acknowledging that companies uncontested—even if only a tiny have a responsibility to facilitate proportion of shareholders open contests, it “establishes a actually vote for them. principle barely dreamed of.” Several efforts to make it easier It is hoped that this principle will for shareholders to nominate now be adopted widely. Having directors have been frustrated by narrowly failed to secure similar lobbying from corporate turkeys bylaw changes this year at Dell keen to postpone Christmas for and Office Depot, the American as long as they can. Earlier this Federation of State, County and m o n t h t h e S e c u r i t i e s a n d Municipal Employees (a trade Exchange Commission(SEC) union and, through its pension announced yet another year’s fund, an activist shareholder), delay before it again considers plans to bring similar votes at six proposals to ease outsiders’ companies at least in 2010. access to proxies. Earlier Yet there are reasons for attempts to bring reforms failed pessimism. HealthSouth is hardly in 2003 and 2007, again due to 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 controversy over 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 GREEN.VIEW: page 75

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Restructuring ING: Breaking up (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 10/27/2009 3:36:09 AM

Restructuring ING Oct 27th 2009 From Economist.com A dramatic restructuring for ING. Which big European bank is next? IF ICELAND is the place that has suffered most from the banking crisis, the Benelux countries can make a justifiable claim to second place. After the calamitous sale of ABN AMRO and the subsequent dismemberment of Fortis, ING, the biggest bank in the Netherlands, announced on Monday October 26th that it was splitting itself up. The bank will sell its insurance businesses, divest the American arm of its ING Direct online-banking unit and carve out some bits of its Dutch retail activities. By the time the restructuring is done, in 2013, the bank’s balance sheet will be 45% smaller than it was in September 2008. That isn’t all. The bank also announced plans for a €7.5 billion ($11.2 billion) rights issue to help repay half the money that the Dutch government injected into ING in October last year. Investors reacted with dismay to the prospect of dilution and the

uncertainty of the planned restructuring, sending the bank’s shares down sharply on Monday. Other equity investors were spooked, too, as they digested the wider implications of the announcement. For shareholders in other banks that have received state aid, the biggest concerns surrounded the European Commission’s role in ING’s break-up. The Dutch bank has its own reasons to act. The rights issue can largely be explained by ING’s desire to start escaping government investment. The break-up is consistent with a “back to basics” plan announced in April by Jan Hommen, ING’s chief executive, that promised to simplify and shrink the institution. Splitting banking and insurance should rid ING of a conglomerate discount. Its shares have historically traded at a 30% discount to bank and insurance indices. Even so, the plan signals that the Commission’s competition watchdogs, with which ING worked closely to develop its restructuring proposal, are taking a heavily interventionist approach to banks that got state aid. The scale of the break-up went further than many expected. The Commission also levied an additional fee on ING for its participation in a risk-transfer

scheme with the Dutch government, to be paid out of the proceeds from the rights issue. ING promised not to make any acquisitions that would slow down the repayment of government capital. And it also pledged not to take price-leading positions in retail and commercial banking. Markets are betting that institutions such as Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland in Britain, and KBC of Belgium, will be forced into punitive restructuring agreements: shares in all three slid sharply after the announcement. Aside from the muscularity of the Commission, there are two other trends that ING’s announcement highlights. The first is that the “bancassurance” model of combining banking and insurance in a single institution is now squarely out of fashion. To underline the point, Standard Life, an insurer, announced the sale of its banking arm to Barclays, on the same day. A focus by investors and regulators on the simplicity and size of institutions is one explanation. Another is the realisation that the diversification benefits afforded by having insurance and banking businesses can be more apparent than real. A more robust approach to consumer protection

may also make it harder to crosssell insurance products to banking customers. ING’s break-up also reinforces a tendency among many retail institutions to focus more on their core markets. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, Spain’s Santander notable among them. But by the time ING’s restructuring is complete it will have gone back from being an aspiring global player to a European bank with a strong core in Belgium and the Netherlands. That retrenchment reflects structural pressures as well as the decisions of competition officials in Brussels. These are the need to have strong market shares to achieve cost savings in an environment of more subdued growth, the increased emphasis on deposits as a funding source and continuing uncertainty over the regulatory infrastructure for cross-border banks. ING is being forced down a road it may well have travelled anyway. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Terror in Afghanistan: Murder in Kabul (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 10/28/2009 2:03:04 AM

Terror in Afghanistan Oct 28th 2009 From Economist.com The Taliban kill several UN staff in Afghanistan, ahead of a presidential election THE murder of at least six foreign, civilian, UN staff in a private guest house in Kabul, and a near-simultaneous rocket attack on the city’s most prestigious hotel, on Wednesday October 28th, are reminders of the apparently expanding reach of Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. At least three suicide attackers, wearing explosives and carrying grenades and automatic weapons, made their way into the Bekhtar guest house, reportedly by posing as policemen. Frequented by foreigners, the guest house is in a central area of Kabul that had previously been considered relatively secure. Guards and the intruders exchanged gunfire, guests were killed (and nine more were injured), as well as four Afghans. Three attackers were eventually shot dead. A Taliban spokesman promptly claimed responsibility for the murders, saying that they were “just a start” of an assault on TERROR page 76

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self-interests of self-interested 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 departmentstore 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. Climate-change 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 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. 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 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. 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.

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“anyone engaged” in the process of preparing for a run-off presidential election that is scheduled for November 7th. The head of the UN mission, Kai Eide, responded to the worst single attack on his staff in the country by vowing to remain “committed to Afghanistan”. But the Taliban may hope that a bloody enough assault on UN workers might yet provoke the organisation either to reduce its activities in the country or to consider withdrawal, as happened in Iraq in 2003 after 22 staff were killed by bombers at its headquarters in Baghdad. After a deeply fraudulent firstround presidential election in August, and amid rising casualty figures for western armies engaged in Afghanistan, foreign governments are increasingly hesitant about committing to prolong and expand military engagement in the country. Barack Obama is reviewing military strategy and considering whether to deploy as many as 40,000 extra soldiers to fight a war that is becoming more unpopular in America (and elsewhere). October has proved

to be the bloodiest month so far for American soldiers in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001, with 53 soldiers killed by October 27th. Mr Obama is unlikely to announce a decision on strategy until after the election. By then, it is hoped, Hamid Karzai, the president and likely winner, can be more credibly presented as a legitimate partner for outsiders. Stark evidence of ballot stuffing and other manipulation in Mr Karzai’s favour during the presidential election in August, suggest that many—perhaps most—Afghans do not see him as a credible leader. Nor was Mr Karzai’s position bolstered by a claim this week, by the New York Times, suggesting that the president’s brother, who is suspected of involvement in the country’s opium trade, has also been getting regular payments from the CIA. Ahmed Wali Karzai reportedly denied the allegations. The Taliban are most likely to attempt more attacks in the coming ten days in an effort to encourage outsiders to waver further. By attacking the UN (and

if the assailants indeed posed as policemen, by the method employed) the Afghan Taliban have followed an approach taken by Pakistani militants across the border, who assaulted an office of the World Food Programme earlier this month, killing five UN workers. Also on Wednesday Pakistan’s Taliban detonated a car bomb in a packed market in the north-western city of Peshawar, killing at least 87 civilians and injuring at least 200. That assault appears timed to coincide with the arrival in Pakistan of America’s secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, although it may equally be seen as a response to the Pakistani army’s offensive in South Waziristan, a Pakistani-Taliban heartland. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

MediaDailyNews: Interpublic Reports Organic Slide: Advertiser Sentiment Has 'Stabilized," But Remains 'Cautious' (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/28/2009 7:00:21 AM

Interpublic, the parent of Mediabrands, and media shops such as Initiative and Universal McCann, this morning reported one of the worst results for the third quarter of any of the major agency holding companies. Citing the continuing impact of the global economic recession, Interpublic said its organic revenues fell 14.2% during the third-quarter of 2009, contributing an 11.8% decrease for the first nine months of 2009. Interpublic did not offer any guidance on when its results might improve, but ChairmanCEO Michael Roth said, "Client sentiment has stabilized, but remains cautious, which makes it difficult to predict what growth will look like in 2010. As a result, we are aligning our cost base against conservative top line assumptions and are positioned to deliver significantly improved profitability next year. This will allow us to fully capitalize on an advertising recovery and to see Interpublic achieve long-term

success." Interpublic's results follow those of other major agency holding companies, which also reported their worst results so far this year for the third quarter, though Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy earlier this week said it appeared that the ad economy had bottomed out this summer, and that the rate of erosion is subsiding for the industry. In anticipation of Interpublic's relatively weak results, the equities research team at Deutsch Bank nonetheless issued a report Monday reaffirming its "buy" recommendation for Interpublic stock, citing, "exceptional revenue recovery/margin upside opportunity for patient investors. "While near-term data points are not good and Interpublic is no quick fix, we think business momentum is improving along with the economic outlook, which positions that company to bridge the margin gap with the peers as the ad market recovers," the analysts wrote. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Research Brief: Probing GenY'ers (MediaPost | Media News)

premium ice cream chain Cold Stone Creamery. Among retailers and quickThe J.D. Power and Associates service restaurants, the brands 2009 Teens and Early Careerist that receive the greatest volumes r e p o r t s a y s t h a t o n l i n e of online discussion among early conversation analysis of two careerists, relative to volumes subsets of Millenials finds that among social media users in they are concerned about the other age groups, are as follows. current economic environment, Social Media Top Brand and are becoming particularly Discussion Activity Among value-conscious and focused on Careerists finding employers that offer Rank stability and long term growth Retailers opportunities. Quick-Service Restaurants These two important subsets of 1 Generation Y (born during the Anthropologie 1980s and early 1990s): teens Arby's ages 14 to 18, and early careerists 2 ages 22 to 29, display markedly Bath & Body Works different views, opinions and Cold Stone Creamery behaviors from the other, and 3 have the potential to attain the Old Navy greatest spending power of any Subway previous generation. 4 The brands that generate the Victoria's Secret h i g h e s t v o l u m e s o f o n l i n e Taco Bell discussion among early 5 careerists, relative to other age Forever21 groups, indicate the increasing Panera Bread popularity of value brands, which 6 are competing with trendy brands Urban Outfitters for share of mind. For example, Dunkin' Donuts among retailers, value brand Old 7 Navy closely follows trendy H&M brands Anthropologie and Bath Wendy's & Body Works in terms of 8 positive discussion volumes Gap among early careerists. Among Starbucks quick-service restaurants, fast 9 food chains Arby's and Subway American Apparel receive particularly high volumes White Castle of positive discussion, along with 10 Submitted at 10/28/2009 6:15:37 AM

Best Buy Burger King Source: JD Power & Associates, October 2009 Overall, the brands that generate the greatest volumes of discussion among early careerists relative to other age groups are American Idol, Google, Twitter, Yahoo! and YouTube. Compared with social media users overall, early careerists are much more concerned about the state of the economy, influencing online conversations that indicate a strong degree of disillusionment among the group. And, the finds that although early careerists consider job-hopping a necessity for moving forward in a career, they strongly desire longterm stability and security within their chosen professions. Chance Parker, vice president and general manager of the Web Intelligence Division at J.D. Power and Associates, calls this a "quarter-life crisis." He says "... many are in the process of reevaluating their educational, career and lifestyle choices." When it comes to purchasing environmentally friendly products, the two poles of Gen Y exhibit considerably different attitudes. While teens indicate that they will not pay more for green products, but they are considerably less likely to consider products that they do not perceive as green. Early careerists know they should care about the environment, but like

most consumers in other demographic groups, will make environmentally friendly choices only if brands and companies make it convenient for them to do so. The Participatory Marketing Network, almost concurrently, looked at the communications channels most influential on the GenY/Millenial group. This GenY behavior study, with the Pace University's Lubin School of Business' IDM Lab, looked at time spent and preference for visiting social networks, reading/writing email, texting, talking on the phone, watching TV, reading magazines and surfing the web (non social media sites). While Gen Y do indeed spend considerable time on social networks, when asked what they would least like to give up for one week, only nine percent said social networks while 26% said email and 26% said texting. Michael Della Penna, PMN cofounder and Executive Chairman, says "... as long as email remains the collection point for social networking updates, including alerts around new followers, discussion updates and friend requests, it will remain a powerful force in marketing and our lives." Activities least likely to be "given up for a week:" • Email (26%) • Text messaging (26%) • TV (15%)

• Talking on phone (11%) • Visiting social networks (9%) • Reading magazines (7%) • Visiting non social network sites (6%) Additional findings from the behavioral study include: • Average time spent on social networks per month is 33 hours, compared to 31 hours for email, dispite the disparate media coverage given to Facebook and other social networks • Texting remains an important communications tool for Gen Y with the average number of text messages per month exceeding 740 • Gen Y spend more time emailing, texting and social networking online than talking on the phone, watching TV or reading magazines • Interest in mobile marketing remains low among Gen Y, with only one in five now receiving targeted promotional messages and only 4% planning to do so in the future For more information about the careerist report, please visit JDPower here, and for more information about the Generation Y and Social Networks study, please go here.. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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MediaDailyNews: Comcast Lets 'Yellow Pages TV' Do The Clicking (MediaPost | Media News)

in. The FourthWall system is propelled by the EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format) An arm of the Comcast Media platform that enables set-top Center has begun pitching a boxes to serve a range of iTV "Yellow Pages on TV" functions, including advertising. application to cable operators to "Yellow Pages on TV" has offer on their local systems. The Internet-like functionality; it interactive-TV system allows offers advertisers an opportunity one's fingers to do the walking -to track effectiveness with data with a remote control. on the number of click-throughs The function, among other their listings receive. capabilities, allows a viewer to FourthWall Media, formerly scroll through lists of business they have been in the Yellow pay for a banner ad to appear on Biap, develops iTV applications, types or search by company Pages for years and could be the screen whenever search including eBay on TV and a name -- then access contact info. attracted to a local-search-on-TV results for vehicle dealers come fantasy football offering known up. Or it could offer viewers a as TV Widgets. It also offers an A viewer can also click a "call opportunity. me" button initiating a call to a "In a mid-size market, there are library of videos of every model e x t e n s i v e i T V a d v e r t i s i n g business, which immediately tens of thousands of Yellow it sells. support system tabbed as Ad Pages advertisers and hundreds C o m p a n i e s c a n p a y f o r Widgets. calls back. A business, too, looking for of TV advertisers, so it creates placement, so their listing comes Peters said the company could more attention could post a video t h i s o p p o r t u n i t y f o r up in a more prominent spot. A have labeled its system "Local nontraditional advertisers," said florist might pony up to appear Search," hut opted to employ the about its services. The group within the CMC Patrick Peters, executive vice on the "first screen" that appears. Yellow Pages moniker because behind the HITS AxIS service is president at FourthWall Media, "Yellow Pages on TV" has had of its resonance. looking to encourage operators in which developed "Yellow Pages limited availability on cable "When you say 'Yellow Pages on mid-size markets to offer the on TV" and has turned to systems so far. A SureWest TV,' everybody knows what that platform, billing it as a way to C o m c a s t t o h e l p b o o s t system in Kansas City offers it; means," he said. "It really OneLink does so in San Juan; leverages the 100-plus year-old expand an advertiser base. That's d e p l o y m e n t . A listing can cost as little as $8 a and Time Warner Cable has it in habit that has been created." a potential benefit as the cable month. Or, there might be a so- several DMAs. spot business suffers. This content has passed through For example, plumbers and lawn called Cadillac option at up to CMC has relationships with a fivefilters.org. services may not run TV ads, but $5,000. Here, a car dealer might slew of operators that may buy Submitted at 10/28/2009 8:16:48 AM

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