AT&T now has the Nokia Lumia 1020 available for preorder. The new phone
Source: http://gizmodo.com/at-t-now-has-the-nokia-lumia-1020-available-for-preorde-799175546
বৃহস্পতিবার, ১৮ জুলাই, ২০১৩
AT&T now has the Nokia Lumia 1020 available for preorder.
বুধবার, ১৭ জুলাই, ২০১৩
4 Critical Lessons Comcast Learned From Taking Their Sales Mobile
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Comcast Business's sales managers and executives were already using Salesforce.com to view sales analytics and reports, prior to SMB 360. Now all the data captured in the app can easily be sent to the same cloud, via ...
Tracking Endangered Species by Sound
The coqu? llanero frog is a yellowish, peanut-sized creature that lives only in a single Puerto Rican wetland. It has a squeaky call that lies near the upper range of human hearing?ko-kee, ko-kee, which gives it its name?and as it squeaks, its jowl inflates like a balloon.
The frog was discovered in 2005. By 2012, it was already designated an endangered species. For the past five years, biologists at the University of Puerto Rico looking to track and protect the frog have been taking advantage of its unique call to monitor its status by sound. Using solar-powered iPods installed out in the Puerto Rican wetland, the scientists recorded the soundscape for 1 minute of every 10, 24 hours a day, and uploaded the data to their website, called the Automated Remote Biodiversity Monitoring Network (ARBIMON). They then used computer models to analyze the data and pick out the frog?s call.
It?s an unusual way to track the health of species, but one that could help researchers track other creatures in the wild: The approach could be used to observe any species that makes detectable noise. Furthermore, the website is not just for University of Puerto Rico researchers. Their system, which they report on in a study in the journal PeerJ, is open to everyone.
One Million Recordings
Chirp. Cheep. Buzz. Howl. Many animals reveal their presence by making noise, and recording the sounds of an environment creates an audio snapshot of many of the animals present. Recorders, like this team?s solar-powered iPods, can gather data from many places at once?much more data than even the most tireless field biologist could. Yet without systems to analyze the recordings, all this data would overwhelm researchers. That?s where ARBIMON comes in, says Gon?alo Ferraz, a biologist in Brazil whose lab uses the system to study the distributions of birds in the Amazon rainforest over time.
"Without ARBIMON, we would have to listen to thousands of hours of recordings in order to find where are the species that we want to locate," he says. Ferraz estimates that he has uploaded 5000 hours of recordings from 100 sites spread over nearly 200 square miles. "No one can sit through 5000 hours to look for a bird," says Ferraz. "With ARBIMON, we can have a computer do that searching for us very quickly."
Using a freely available application on the ARBIMON website, scientists can train the computer to recognize particular sounds from their data by uploading their recordings to the site and picking out several examples of the call for the computer to recognize. They can test the model on calls identified by human experts before moving on to the unknowns. "Once they get to a level where they feel confident that the model works well," says T. Mitchell Aide, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico and lead author on the study, "they can run that model over hundreds of thousands of recordings in just a few hours."
ARBIMON also lets users share their data. Once a user has made a model to identify the call of a particular species, other users can then apply it to their data. "There are other software packages that can help you locate sounds in a recording. The new thing, and the really special thing about ARBIMON, is the ability to do that with a very large number of recordings at once and with many users," Ferraz says.
The site currently has 1.3 million 1-minute recordings. Over the past five years, researchers at the University of Puerto Rico have used the system to monitor the growth and decline of nine different species, including a poison dart frog, a howler monkey, a toucan, and the coqu? llanero. In their paper, the researchers report that the accuracy of ARBIMON?s models ranged from 79 to 99 percent. They found that the coqu? llanero populations seemed to decline from 2008 to 2012 but then rebounded last year.
Soundscape Library
Bioacoustics research?using sound analysis to study biology?is growing in popularity. For example, at the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, scientists record sounds from whales, birds, and even elephants to learn about their diversity and communication. In the case of right whales, recording devices in shipping lanes off the Massachusetts coast allow Cornell to warn ships, lest they hit the endangered marine mammals. Cornell has also developed open-source software for analyzing animal sounds.
For the ARBIMON team, it?s about big data. It might not seem like a big deal to use these recordings to capture small fluctuations in the population of a frog, but the value of the data may change as time passes. Just as people see different things in a photograph, different scientists may reexamine old soundscapes and find different species. This is just the beginning of what Aide and colleagues hope will be a long-term record of biodiversity changes over time.
"We know that climate change and land-use change are changing the distribution and abundance of species, but we really don?t have good long-term measurements to say how they?re changing them," says Aide. "It would be really nice if we had 10 or 20 years of data that we could correlate with those changes in climate or deforestation to be able to show how the species are responding."
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মঙ্গলবার, ১৬ জুলাই, ২০১৩
Cancer researchers discover how BRCA mutation starts breast, ovarian cancers
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Scientists have solved a key piece in the puzzle of how BRCA1 gene mutations specifically predispose women to breast and ovarian cancers.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/lTax9haiRik/130715105118.htm
HBT: News and notes from NL player availability
We?re in the middle of the NL player availabilities right now. The AL players will be made available in a few minutes. Somewhere right now there is a press conference about the Home Run Derby about to start. I?m not going to it because no one will be honest and say ?Well, I?m just gonna try to hit the ball really far and see what happens.? Who needs it?
These events are really for the folks who live on player quotes. We, obviously, don?t live on player quotes here at HBT. Unless they?re funny or controversial, of course. Then we go to town. But hearing and repeating that it?s an honor to be selected to the All-Star game and that they?re soaking it all in and they?d like to thank the fans who voted for them, well, that doesn?t do a ton for us. And I?ve never been the fan of ?ask the ballplayer the off-the-wall question!? school of journalism. Let?s leave that to gimmicky NFL people on the Super Bowl media day. Baseball and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog don?t mix that well.
Still, I went down and talked to some NL players and will talk to some AL players later because, heck, maybe someone would say something funny or controversial.?No one did to me (we?ll have to wait for stories from other reporters before we know for sure). I talked to Craig Kimbrel, Freddie Freeman and Andrew McCutchen. I was in a giant scrum around David Wright. I listened in on about a dozen other players being interviewed by other reporters. Among the highlights:
- Jim Leyland had said earlier that, no surprise, Mariano Rivera will close the game out if necessary for the AL. I asked Kimbrel if Bruce Bochy had given any indication of the closer pecking order for the NL. I told him that he can answer quietly so Jason Grilli, sitting nearby, wouldn?t hear. Kimbrel said that he had no idea as he landed in New York about ten minutes ago and that I was like the fourth person he saw. When asked (by someone else) what his favorite park to pitch in was, he said ?the big ones.?
- Freeman is disappointed by the fact that a day or two after he won the Final Vote thing he got hurt and now isn?t able to play. I almost think winning the vote for him was the most fun part about it, though. He figured he?d get killed by Puig in the voting and thinks his family back in Orange County stuffed the ballot box like crazy. I told him 19 million people voted for him. He laughed and said ?well, they helped.?
- Jason Grilli is honored to be here. He also is unaware of any closer pecking order for the NL. Nor does he know if he?s the pitcher that Bruce Bochy has chosen to hold out of the game in case it goes 16 innings or something. I said that that?d probably be a starter. He said ?yeah.?
- Unsurprisingly, Andrew McCutchen does not think the Pirates are going to collapse this year. I asked him if that question bugs him. He added that it?s way better to be asked about a team collapsing than never having the team be good enough to inspire that question in the first place. He didn?t put it quite like that ? he sort of got to that point after many words ? but that was the idea. I feel like it was one of those things that, back in the day before tape recorders and media scrums, one single sports writer ? a Damon Runyon type ? would craft it into a more pointed and witty quote and attribute it to McCutchen all the same.
Sometimes I?m kinda sad we don?t live in those days, actually. I like to think of ballplayers as witty raconteur-types. But they aren?t. They?re ballplayers and they?re paid to crush baseballs, not say witty things to sweaty reporters. And therein lies my basic issue with the game of player quotes.
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রবিবার, ১৪ জুলাই, ২০১৩
What does college basketball NCAA stand for or mean?
What does wrecked mean mean?
The slang term "wrecked mean" can refer to wrecking something in a cool manner, or getting really...
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Gender: Boy, Origin: Hebrew, Meaning: God is gracious.
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The word 'this' is used to indicate a person, thing, idea, state, event, time, remark, etc., as...
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A as a root word can mean not, without as in abyss ??? without bottom; achromatic ??? without...
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Showing Emotions In Text Chat :3 means tongue tied. ChaCha!
Source: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-does-college-basketball-ncaa-stand-for-or-mean
মঙ্গলবার, ২ জুলাই, ২০১৩
Challenge to stop resumption of same-sex marriages in California
Gay marriages resume in California with a flurry
Same-sex marriages that were outlawed in California 4 1/2 years ago resumed in a rush after a federal appeals court took the "unusual, but not unprecedented," step of freeing couples to obtain marriage licenses, before the U.S. Supreme Court had issued its final judgment in a challenge of the state's voter-approved gay marriage ban.
newsday.com (1 day ago)
Same-sex marriages resume in state
SAN FRANCISCO - Same-sex marriages in California resumed Friday when a federal appeals court lifted a hold on a 2010 injunction, sparking jubilation among gays and accusations of lawlessness from the supporters of Proposition 8. In a surprise...
appeal-democrat.com (1 day ago)
More Home news ?
New treatment for schizophrenia?
July 1, 2013 ? A research group led by professor Jesper Ekelund showed that by giving a very large dose of famotidine (200 mg daily), sufficient amounts of the drug are able to penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier to affect the histamine system in the brain.
Famotidine has been used for the treatment of heartburn since the 1980s, but at regular dosing, famotidine almost does not enter the brain at all, since the brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier. By increasing the dosage five-fold the drug is able to enter the brain and affect the histamine system.
"Already after one week the symptoms of persons suffering from schizophrenia started to decrease and after four weeks of treatment the symptoms had decreased statistically significantly. The patients that participated in the study were also positively disposed towards the treatment," says Ekelund.
Thirty persons suffering from schizophrenia participated in the study. The patients had been on sickness pension for at least five years and were randomly divided into two groups, one which received famotidine and one which received placebo. All of the patients who took famotidine responded positively to the treatment while the symptoms of those who were on a placebo did not change.
Schizophrenia is the most common and severe psychotic disorder, and is the cause of at least half of all psychiatric hospital treatment days. No randomized, controlled trials in humans that test the effect of H2 blockade in schizophrenia have been published so far.
Innovation in psychiatric medication urgently needed
Since 1963, when the subsequent Nobel prize winner Arvid Carlsson showed that dopamine has a central role in psychosis, the so called dopamine-hypothesis has been central in psychosis. All presently available medications for psychosis are based around this principle. Since treatment response is all too often incomplete and side effects common, there is still a great, unmet medical need for medications with other mechanisms of action. Many other signaling substances have been the focus of attention, but so far, the brain histamine system has most widely been regarded as important only with regard to side effects of many psychosis medications.
"Famotidine shouldn't be used directly as treatment for schizophrenia until long-term use of a dose of this size has been proved safe. However, our study shows that the histamine system in the brain offers a novel approach to treating psychosis. This should lead to increased efforts by the pharmaceutical industry to develop medications based on this histamine-based mechanism," says Ekelund.
Famotidine works by blocking the histamine H2 receptor. There are important neurons in the brain that use histamine as their primary signaling substance. These neurons have an important role as regulators of other signaling substances. From animal research, it is known that by affecting the histamine system, one can also affect other signaling substances that are known to be involved in schizophrenia.
The project has already received international recognition. Katarina Meskanen, one of the members of Ekelunds research group, was awarded the Young Scientist Award of the SCNP (Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology) and the project has been awarded substantial funding (306,000 USD) from the Stanley foundation for follow-up studies.
The research group will replicate the finding through a larger, multinational study in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, where the study is coordinated by professor Jari Tiihonen.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/5ynH-ojEZuA/130701080938.htm
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শনিবার, ২৯ জুন, ২০১৩
junkyard charterer: Menopause: What It Is and Ways to Manage It ...
What is menopause? Menopause is the cessation of a woman?s monthly blood flow. If a woman has not experienced menstrual flow for 12 consecutive months, she is menopausal.
Except in the case of surgery, chemotherapy or specific medical conditions that interfere with regular hormonal functions, menopause occurs at the end of a process, which may last from months to years. During the process, periods may become irregular but not stop and a woman may intermittently experience other symptoms of menopause. When a woman is experiencing symptoms but has not yet been without periods for 12 consecutive months, she is peri-menopausal. A woman may become peri-menopausal as early as her thirties or as late as her fifties.
What are symptoms of menopause? Symptoms of menopause fall into five broad categories:
1) Changes in blood vessel dilation and constriction. This blood vessel activity causes hot ?flashes? and sleep irregularities. Hot flashes are not related to the internal temperature of the body but rather to the temperature of the skin. There are various theories about why, during menopause, women?s skin temperatures may rise periodically as much as 7 degrees. One of the most intriguing theories is that women who experience hot flashes have a very narrow comfort zone ? that zone where they are neither sweating nor chilled. Estrogen seems to widen that zone; conversely lower estrogen narrows the zone. (Studies conducted by Dr. Robert R. Freedman and colleagues, Wayne State Univ., Detroit). Hot flashes contribute to sleep irregularities.
2) Urinary/genital tract changes. Women may experience thinning, drying, itching and bleeding in the vaginal area sometimes associated with pain on intercourse. Another issue may be urinary frequency, urgency or incontinence.
3) Bone changes. Changes in the bones may result in osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis), osteoporosis, joint and muscle pain or back pain.
4) Skin and soft tissue changes. Skin may thin as part of menopause or lose elasticity and breasts may become smaller. These changes are associated with the loss in estrogen that accompanies menopause.
5) Psychological/mood changes. Changes in mood may include irritability and depression or be accompanied by fatigue and memory loss.
How can menopausal discomforts be moderated? Not all women experience menopausal discomfort at a level that it requires therapy. How women experience menopause, a natural stage in the lifecycle of a woman, is in part a matter of genetics, in part a matter of general health and nutrition and in part a matter of culture. There has been great interest lately in the fact that Asian women typically do not engage in hormone replacement therapy or consume dairy products and yet have virtually no osteoporosis as they age and progress through menopause.
1) Self-care. Ideally a self-care program begins well in advance of menopause. Preferably it is a lifelong project. It is never too late to begin, however. Self-care includes good nutrition, effective and regular exercise and mood maintenance.
Good nutrition means the appropriate balance of carbohydrate, protein and fats. Carbohydrates and fats should be of the types that promote health, that is, complex carbohydrates low on the glycemic index and mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats with the correct balance of omega 3s and omega 6s. For vitamins and minerals, eat a wide range of vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains and beans daily. Maintain the proper Ph balance in the body by limiting dairy products except for probiotics like yogurt. Eliminate simple sugars from the diet as much as possible and focus on getting adequate fiber in the diet.
Establish a daily exercise routine that includes weight bearing exercise, stretching and low-impact aerobic activity. Maintain a healthy weight. Maintain mood with proven techniques like focused breathing, meditation, a gratitude journal, meaningful activity and significant, satisfying relationships.
2) Nutritional approaches. There is a wide range of nutritional alternatives to HRT, often combined with a program of supplementation and /or herbal therapies as well as with the self-care techniques mentioned above. While some sources indicate these alternatives are not clinically proven, they have nonetheless been effective for many women.
Nutritional approaches may include plant estrogens, such as those found in soy products as well as oats, cashews, almonds, alfalfa, apples and flaxseeds. Magnesium can also help to reduce hot flashes. Magnesium is found in soy products and in whole grains and beans. Sufficient dietary fiber can help to reduce irritability. Essential fatty acids can alleviate symptoms of aging, including a reduction in skin elasticity and they can help with dryness in the vaginal region. They also act as natural hormone supplements. Multivitamin/mineral supplements should be chosen with particular attention to their magnesium content. In addition, vitamin E can have a significant impact on vaginal dryness and hot flashes. A variety of herbs have been used, among them, wild yam (for hot flashes), alfalfa, sarsaparilla, motherwort (vaginal dryness), valerian root (promotes sleep), ginseng and black cohosh. Dong quai has been used for centuries in China to provide relief for menopausal symptoms.
3) Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT has been the most common therapy for the symptoms of menopause in the United States. It is particularly effective for hot flashes, virtually eliminating them shortly after therapy is begun. It has long been considered effective in protecting against osteoporosis because of the effect of estrogen in strengthening bone and enhancing calcification.
Following the Women?s Health Initiative Study (WHI) of the National Institutes of Health, halted in July 2002, HRT has become controversial, however. Although hormone replacement has been proved to offer many benefits, including reduced osteoporosis, there are also greater risks associated with it, including breast cancer. Patients and physicians must make the decision about HRT together, based on individual medical situations. Not only is there a decision about whether or not to use HRT but what kind of HRT: unopposed estrogen (estrogen alone), estrogen and progestin, or one or both of those hormones administered along with testosterone. Among the other things a physician will consider with his/her patient is genetic history and age. There are also differences between women with an intact uterus and women without a uterus. While breast cancer is a greater risk for the first, osteoporosis may be a greater risk for the latter. Recent reports suggest that extended use of unopposed estrogen in women who have had a hysterectomy may even reduce breast cancer, although it poses unacceptably high cancer risks to women who have not had a hysterectomy. In the latter case if used, estrogen will probably be accompanied by progestin. There has been recent interest in bioidentical hormone replacement therapies, that is, estrogen and progestin that duplicate the hormones in a woman?s body (as opposed to equine hormonal products). Studies are promising but not yet advanced enough for certainty.
Special issues. Among particular issues that may confront women in relation to the significant physical change that menopause represents are fibroids and osteoporosis. Fibroids are primarily associated with peri-menopause, that is, the time before menopause, which is marked by twelve consecutive months in which there is no menstruation. While osteopenia may begin during the peri-menopausal time, osteoporosis is associated more strongly with menopause and aging.
1) Fibroids. Fibroids are (usually benign) tumors, generally located in the uterus or uterine wall. They may range in size from less than an inch to larger than a grapefruit. Size is often explained by relating it to pregnancy, i.e., eight weeks or twelve weeks. No one is certain exactly what causes fibroids, although generally they shrink after menopause, so estrogen levels may be a factor.
Women are most likely to have fibroids if they are of childbearing age, are African-American, are obese and / or have not had children. Fibroids have been linked to an under active thyroid, so thyroid testing, treatment and monitoring should certainly be part of a preventive reproductive health program. Most women do not experience symptoms. If there are symptoms, they are most likely to include heavy bleeding or painful periods, bleeding between periods, frequent urination, pain during sex, lower back pain, reproductive problems, or a feeling of fullness or swelling in the lower abdomen. Treatments include drugs (pain relievers or medications to reduce the size of the fibroids), surgery (myomectomy, hysterectomy, endometrial ablation, myolisis); and uterine fibroid embolization (UFE). Myomectomy removes the fibroid but leaves the healthy uterine tissue. Hysterectomy removes the entire uterus. Endometrial ablation removes the endometrial lining of the uterus, which relieves heavy bleeding. In myolisis, an electrical needle is inserted into the uterus through a small incision in the abdomen to destroy the blood vessels feeding the fibroid. UFE is a treatment that cuts off the blood supply to the uterus and the fibroids so they shrink. It is becoming an alternative to hysterectomy and myomectomy. Which of these treatments is used must be determined in consultation with a physician. The clinical evidence supporting natural treatments for fibroids is scarce. For the most part, natural treatments are preventive or treat the symptoms but do not address the fibroids themselves once they are in place.
There are some reports that eating less red meat and pork reduces fibroids and some women have reported success with becoming vegetarian. Include raw nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables in the diet as well as foods high in germanium, that is, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and onions that help improve tissue oxygenation. Avoid caffeine, which has been implicated in fibrocystitis. Recommended nutritional supplements include vitamins A, B-complex, C, K and bioflavonoids. Recommended botanical herbs include chaste tree, ginger, cranesbill, shepherd?s purse, ragwort, blue cohosh and false unicorn as well as ginseng, rhubarb, cinnamon and sargassum seaweed in various combinations. These treatments and appropriate combinations must be discussed with a naturopath.
2) Osteopenia, Osteoporosis. Bone constantly reforms throughout our lives. Cells called osteoclasts reabsorb bone material while cells called osteoblasts generate new bone material. As people age, the process of reabsorbing bone material outstrips the process of generating new bone material.
Osteopenia and the more advanced osteoporosis represent an imbalance in reabsorbtion / bone generation in which osteoclasts are more active than osteoblasts, a situation caused by a reduction in estrogen. Estrogen has an important role in the strengthening and calcification of bone. A drop in estrogen at the time of menopause may also be associated with a decreased ability of the body to absorb calcium efficiently. One of the problems in how the news of the Women?s Health Initiative was brought to the public was that the increased risk of breast cancer demonstrated in some segments of the study were highlighted and other aspects of the health risks associated with aging and with menopause obscured. There is a feeling among some specialists that as a result, women are being advised to abandon HRT, at great risk to their future health. There are reports indicating that the greater danger is osteoporotic fracture and consequent disability and confinement to nursing homes at a much younger age than might otherwise be required.
Source: http://obesitysurgery.allabout101.com/menopause-what-it-is-and-ways-to-manage-it/
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Source: http://perkinsjacob8.typepad.com/blog/2013/06/menopause-what-it-is-and-ways-to-manage-it-about-obesity-surgery.html
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Source: http://junkyard-charterer.blogspot.com/2013/06/menopause-what-it-is-and-ways-to-manage.html
Propellant-free briquettes burn hotter and cleaner than normal charcoal
If you like cooking outdoors on a grill but don’t like the chemical aftertaste in your food, you’ll be interested in the Afire Koko Coconut Charcoal from Williams-Sonoma. ?Afire makes this charcoal from renewable coconut shells (left overs from other coconut uses) with no added propellants or other?chemicals, fillers, glues, or nitrates. ?The hole in [...]
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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৭ জুন, ২০১৩
Dish withdraws its offer to buy Clearwire
And with that, Dish is (seemingly) out of the running: following a decision to back away from buying Sprint, the satellite TV giant has also withdrawn its bid for Clearwire. The company is bowing out due to a "change in recommendation" at Clearwire -- in other words, shareholders now prefer Sprint's recently sweetened offer. Between that and Sprint's lawsuit, we're not expecting Dish to make another acquisition attempt, especially when Softbank's acquisition of Sprint (and thus Clearwire) could close in a matter of weeks.
Filed under: Wireless, Mobile, Sprint
Source: Dish
Qatar to change premier, foreign minister under new emir
By Regan Doherty
DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's prime minister, for two decades the driving force behind the Gulf country's rise to global prominence, will quit his posts of premier and foreign minister in an imminent cabinet reshuffle, al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.
Diplomats said earlier this month that Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, popularly known as HBJ, was likely to step down after Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani handed power to his son - a move announced on Tuesday.
Qatari-owned al Jazeera said the current minister of state for interior affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Naser al-Thani, had been chosen as the next prime minister.
It also named Khalid bin Atiyah, the current state minister for foreign affairs and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim's close lieutenant, as the new foreign minister.
In Sheikh Hamad's time as foreign minister, Qatar began hosting the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East but also cozied up to America's foes Iran, Syria and Hamas in pursuit of leverage. The Afghan Taliban opened an office in Doha last week.
Named prime minister in 2007, he played a personal role in facilitating Qatar's numerous efforts to resolve violent tensions, brokering talks in conflicts ranging from Lebanon to Yemen and from Darfur to the Palestinian territories.
What perhaps brought Sheikh Hamad most fame was his country's public and robust support of the Arab Spring revolts.
Qatar lent significant support to rebels fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi by supplying them with weapons and fuel.
The state has also been Egypt's top financial backer, signaling an intention to play a leading role in rebuilding the economy of the most populous Arab country after its 2011 uprising.
Qatar has been an early and ardent supporter of Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was named emir following the abdication of his father on Tuesday in a transition rare in Gulf Arab countries, where heads of state normally rule for life.
Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and key financier of Arab Spring uprisings.
There was no reference to Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim during Tuesday's ceremonies and he was not seen in television coverage of the thousands who came to pledge allegiance to the new ruler.
Sheikh Tamim was due to deliver his first address to Qatari citizens on Wednesday evening at 11:00 a.m. EDT.
(Reporting by Sami Aboudi and Yara Bayoumy, Editing by William Maclean and Mike Collett-White)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/qatar-change-premier-foreign-minister-under-emir-125607917.html
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বুধবার, ২৬ জুন, ২০১৩
Immigration bill clears Senate test
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Historic immigration legislation cleared a key Senate hurdle with votes to spare on Monday, pointing the way to near-certain passage within days for $38 billion worth of new security measures along the border with Mexico and an unprecedented chance at citizenship for millions living in the country illegally.
The vote was 67-27, seven more than the 60 needed, with 15 Republicans agreeing to advance legislation at the top of President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda.
The vote came as Obama campaigned from the White House for the bill, saying, "now is the time" to overhaul an immigration system that even critics of the legislation agree needs reform.
Last-minute frustration was evident among opponents. In an unusual slap at members of his own party as well as Democrats, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said it appeared that lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle "very much want a fig leaf" on border security to justify a vote for immigration.
Senate passage on Thursday or Friday would send the issue to the House, where conservative Republicans in the majority oppose citizenship for anyone living in the country illegally.
Some GOP lawmakers have appealed to Speaker John Boehner not to permit any immigration legislation to come to a vote for fear that whatever its contents, it would open the door to an unpalatable compromise with the Senate. At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee is in the midst of approving a handful of measures related to immigration, action that ordinarily is a prelude to votes in the full House.
"Now is the time to do it," Obama said at the White House before meeting with nine business executives who support a change in immigration laws. He added, "I hope that we can get the strongest possible vote out of the Senate so that we can then move to the House and get this done before the summer break" beginning in early August.
He said the measure would be good for the economy, for business and for workers who are "oftentimes exploited at low wages."
As for the overall economy, he said, "I think every business leader here feels confident that they'll be in a stronger position to continue to innovate, to continue to invest, to continue to create jobs and ensure that this continues to be the land of opportunity for generations to come."
Opponents saw it otherwise. "It will encourage more illegal immigration and must be stopped," Cruz exhorted supporters via email, urging them to contact their own senators with a plea to defeat the measure.
Leaving little to chance, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced it was launching a new seven-figure ad buy Monday in support of the bill. "Call Congress. End de facto amnesty. Create jobs and economic growth by supporting conservative immigration reforms," the ad said.
Senate officials said some changes were still possible to the bill before it leaves the Senate - alterations that would swell the vote total.
At the same time, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., who voted to advance the measure during the day, said he may yet end up opposing it unless he wins a pair of changes he is seeking.
Senate Democrats were unified on the vote.
Republicans were anything but on a bill that some party leaders say offers the GOP a chance to show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters, yet tea party-aligned lawmakers assail as amnesty for those who have violated the law.
The party's two top Senate leaders, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and John Cornyn of Texas, voted against advancing the measure. Both are seeking new terms next year.
Among potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill, while Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky were opposed.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated the legislation will reduce the deficit and increase economic growth in each of the next two decades. It is also predicting unemployment will rise slightly through 2020, and that average wages will move lower over a decade.
At its core, the legislation in the Senate would create a 13-year pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the United States. It also calls for billions of dollars to be spent on manpower and technology to secure the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, including a doubling of the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents.
The measure also would create a new program for temporary farm laborers to come into the country, and another for lower-skilled workers to emigrate permanently. At the same time, it calls for an expansion of an existing visa program for highly-skilled workers, a gesture to high tech companies that rely heavily on foreigners.
In addition to border security, the measure phases in a mandatory program for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers, and separate effort to track the comings and goings of foreigners at some of the nation's airports.
The legislation was originally drafted by a bipartisan Gang of 8, four senators from each party who negotiated a series of political trade-offs over several months.
The addition of the tougher border security provisions came after CBO informed lawmakers that they could potentially spend tens of billions of dollars to sweeten the bill without fearing higher deficits.
The result was a series of changes negotiated between the Gang of 8 and Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. Different, lesser-noticed provisions helped other lawmakers swing behind the measure.
In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, likened some of them to "earmarks," the now-banned practice of directing federal funds to the pet projects of individual lawmakers.
He cited a provision creating a $1.5 billion jobs fund for low-income youth and pair of changes to benefit the seafood processing industry in Alaska. Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., issued a statement on Friday trumpeting the benefits of the first; Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat, took credit for the two others.
Grassley also raised questions about the origin of a detailed list of planes, sensors, cameras and other equipment to be placed along the southern border.
"Who provided the amendment sponsors with this list?" asked Grassley, who is a member of the Judiciary Committee that approved an earlier version of the bill. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano "did not provide the committee with any list. Did Sikorsky, Cessna and Northrup Grumann send up a wish list to certain members of the Senate?"
Randy Belote, a spokesman for Northrup Grumann, said in an email the firm has "not had the opportunity to review the comments nor... provided the committee a 'wish list' of its systems to consider."
Officials at the other two companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
___
Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigration-bill-clears-senate-test-225923799.html
Russia spies may be chatting with 'tasty morsel' Snowden
By Lidia Kelly
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Edward Snowden's disappearance from view has heightened speculation that the former U.S. spy agency contractor may be talking to Russian secret services, which see him as a "tasty morsel" that is too good to miss.
Even a flat denial by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday is unlikely to end whispers that Snowden may have been interviewed by intelligence officers anxious to get their hands on whatever information he has not yet leaked.
Some experts say Russia might even try to hand him over to the United States in a Cold War-style exchange, although this seemed less likely after Putin ruled out his extradition to face espionage charges back home.
"He is a tasty morsel for any, any secret service, including ours. Any secret service would love to talk to him," said a Russian security source.
Snowden, charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, left Hong Kong for Moscow on Sunday and the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group said he was heading for Ecuador, where he wants political asylum.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters. But a former officer of its Soviet predecessor, the KGB, said Russia was unlikely to miss out, assuming Snowden is willing to cooperate.
"It would be silly to pass on such an opportunity to get information that is very difficult, impossible or expensive to get in any other way," said the ex-officer, Lev Korolkov.
U.S. Senator John McCain, a Republican opponent of President Barack Obama, said Putin - also a former Soviet agent - would grab the chance. "He is ... an old KGB colonel apparatchik that has disdain for democracy and the things we stand for and believe in," McCain said on CNN on Tuesday. "If he sees a situation he'll take advantage of it."
Speculation about an FSB role in Snowden's arrival from Hong Kong began with the plane's touchdown on Sunday, when about two dozen plain-clothed security agents were spotted monitoring the transit zone, at times accompanied by uniformed policemen.
Ecuador's ambassador to Russia, Patricio Alberto Chavez Zavala, got to the transit zone soon after Snowden landed. Then the agents and police blocked the entrance to one of the lounges. Some remained all night and into the next day,
But there was no sign of Snowden, who Putin said on Tuesday was still in the transit area at Sheremetyevo airport.
Snowden has said he accepted a job as a systems administrator at contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked for about three months, to gain access to details of the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance programs.
U.S. officials said intelligence agencies were concerned they did not know how much sensitive material Snowden had, and that he may have taken more documents than initially estimated which could get into the hands of foreign intelligence agencies.
ASSESSING SNOWDEN'S VALUE
Russian political analyst Pavel Salin suggested the Kremlin's near silence on Snowden for more than 36 hours after he arrived was a stalling tactic. "Now they are assessing how useful he may be. His value depends on the information he has," he said.
Korolkov said that is unclear. "We don't know what really is in his possession and how much of an interest he is. All that he can say could already be known," he said. "But he is of interest (to Russia) for a number of other reasons."
Analysts said Snowden could be useful for a Cold War-style spy swap or as a propaganda tool for Russia, which frequently accuses the United States of violating the principles of freedom and democracy that it tries to press on others.
Putin, asked on Tuesday about the U.S. request to hand Snowden over, questioned whether the American and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is also a fugitive from justice, should be treated as criminals and jailed.
Deputy parliament speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky has proposed Snowden be exchanged for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer whose jailing in the United States angered Moscow. The United States has refused Russian requests for his repatriation.
Korolkov, and the security service source who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Russia would follow a common international practice in using Snowden in negotiations over Bout. "This is how it is done in the world. It would be in the government's advantage not to give Snowden back," Korolkov said.
The source said: "Russia has some negotiating advantage here."
But there are risks for both countries in taking the dispute over Snowden too far.
"It's a very, very important moment for the entire U.S.-Russia relationship: We are really at a point that will define the relationship for the foreseeable future," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank.
Korolkov predicted the Kremlin will tread carefully. "Russia is not at all interested in entering into a conflict with such a geopolitical opponent and political partner as the United States," he said.
(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, Thomas Grove and Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Steve Gutterman and David Stamp)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-spies-may-chatting-tasty-morsel-snowden-202755572.html
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সোমবার, ১৭ জুন, ২০১৩
Doing Mobile Monetization The Right Way | TechCrunch
Editor?s note:?Chris?Moore is a partner at Redpoint Ventures?where he focuses on making investments in?consumer Internet, online marketing and SaaS companies. Follow him on his blog and Twitter @Moorski.
This year alone, there is an $11.4 billion mobile advertising opportunity, which?means there is tremendous upside for nimble and innovative startups with disruptive mobile-first models. As we saw from Facebook last year, the company was able to turn around and actually make something of its mobile business ? a business that didn?t exist at the time of IPO.?However, despite the potential of the market, and Facebook?s early success, we?re still a long way from realizing the promise of the mobile medium.
When looking at the opportunity, it?s clear there are a few core challenges that need to be addressed quickly in this nascent market. The startups that address these challenges first will be the companies to watch.
The Problems That Need Solutions
In many ways, we?re at the same juncture with mobile advertising as we were with the desktop web circa 1996-97. At that time we were limited by basic ad-serving capabilities, browser cookies to track visits and boring, static display ads. Search keyword advertising, the most compelling ad format and targeting method the web has seen, was only in its infancy (at Goto.com, which eventually became Overture) at the time.
Right now, the two most obvious hurdles to overcome are what smart companies are focusing on: developing a reliable and privacy-safe method for user targeting across apps, and developing smartphone native ad formats.
Cross-App User Targeting. On the traditional desktop web, browser cookies became a reasonably reliable and standardized method for recognizing and storing attributes of any given user in between visits to a site. Today roughly 80 percent of online ads leverage cookies or some other form of a user-targeting mechanism.
In the mobile app world, an analogous, reliable and standardized mechanism has not yet emerged across either iOS or Android, and until it does, relevance-based targeting will be less effective in the mobile environment and remain a giant missed opportunity for advertisers. Currently there isn?t a robust way to track users across applications after Apple deprecated UDID as a targeting mechanism. In order for cross-app user targeting to be fully realized, the tracking of users in a privacy-focused environment must be solved.
Smartphone Native Ad Formats.?The first ad formats utilized on smartphones were borrowed from the web. As a result, users are inadvertently clicking on too-small-to-read banner ads, thus ensuring annoyed users. Instead of a fluid and seamless experience, users are pulled out of their task at hand and brought to un-optimized web landing pages in the mobile browser.
The only way mobile ad monetization will flourish is when smartphone native ad formats that enhance the immediate app experience are developed. The good news is that we?re starting to see a few promising native smartphone format candidates with notifications and Facebook?s Sponsored Stories. There is still plenty of room for innovation, as these formats aren?t 100 percent where they need to be. Users and marketers alike can?t wait for some savvy startup to develop innovative and reliable ad formats that fit within the app experience and engage the user without disrupting the task at hand.
The Winner?s Circle
Once the dilemmas of cross app user targeting and smartphone native ad formats are solved, there are some very promising areas within the mobile environment that are poised for the taking:
Online-to-Online Ad Tech Providers.?The ad-tech player who can get the ambient context digital wallet and in-app context right for the Walmarts and Coca-Colas of the world will be a really big deal. There will be several winners in this area, each focused on a particular vertical of offline-to-online.
Cost-Per-Lead Advertising.?Yes, cost-per-lead advertising. The web performance stepchild to cost-per-click could emerge as a first-call citizen in the smartphone medium. Why? Well, the medium happens to be attached to a phone, and guess what leads perform the best: phone calls. The smartphone promises to connect this intent to buy to a live person more seamlessly than any other medium to date. This will lead to higher conversion rates and thus higher monetization rates. Inadco, a Redpoint portfolio company that started in the web CPL space, is one startup helping these advertisers take advantage of the mobile phone.
Ambient Context and User Analytics Providers.?The fundamental problem of user targeting and analytics within the mobile world must be solved. This solution will come from a clever startup, not the underlying platform players Apple and Google. Just as Omniture emerged to be an important platform company in web analytics, there will also be similar companies built within the smartphone medium. Native mobile app analytics companies like Flurry are promising, as are the emerging players in audience targeting like BlueKai (a Redpoint portfolio company).
While we are a far way from identifying the smartphone equivalent of paid search, it will absolutely exist (it has to) and it will leverage ambient targeting, the digital wallet and smartphone native formats that interrupt but don?t disrupt the user from the task at hand.
The market is big and the current players are just starting to crop up, which means the challenge is for the taking. The next two years will undoubtedly be exciting years to see it all unfold ? not only to see who the winners will be, but also to see the innovations that make it happen.
Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/15/doing-mobile-monetization-the-right-way/
রবিবার, ১৬ জুন, ২০১৩
Obama trade dilemma: Scant support from Democrats
WASHINGTON (AP) -- As President Barack Obama pushes an ambitious agenda to liberalize global trading, political trade wars already are forming, and they're with fellow Democrats rather than with Republicans, his usual antagonists.
Obama is promoting free-trade proposals with Europe and Asia that could affect up to two-thirds of all global trade.
The ambitious deals would reduce or eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers. But there's trouble ahead for both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ? at the negotiating table and from Congress.
The deal with Europe will be a top item this coming week in Northern Ireland at the Group of Eight summit of major industrial democracies. But French and other objections have recently surfaced which could delay the planned launch of the negotiations.
The Asia pact was brought up pointedly by the new Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in his California meetings with Obama last weekend.
Republicans historically have supported free-trade agreements far more than have Democrats, and a politically weakened Obama may not have enough second-term clout to successfully twist the arms of enough Democratic lawmakers.
Some Republicans who usually vote for easing trade barriers may vote "no" just because the agreements will bear Obama's signature.
Both deals generally have the support of U.S. businesses. But labor unions and human rights and environmental groups ? core Democratic constituencies ? have so far viewed them cynically.
These organizations, and Democrats in general, say that free-trade deals can cost American jobs and lead to environmental and workplace abuses that would not be tolerated in the U.S.
"We certainly have concerns," said Celeste Drake, a trade and policy specialist at the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor federation. "I think Obama realizes this problem about Republicans always being the big supporters (on trade liberalization) and he would like to have our support. But overall we're skeptical. We wish we'd see more."
It's not a new problem.
President Bill Clinton powered the U.S.-Mexico-Canada North American Free Trade Agreement through Congress in 1993 only by heavily courting Republicans and overcoming stiff Democratic opposition, including from House Democratic leaders and unions.
As he campaigned for president in 2008, Obama courted blue-collar votes by criticizing NAFTA. Since then, he's changed his tune.
Obama worked to overcome Democratic resistance to win passage in 2011 of trade pacts with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, completing negotiations begun by his Republican predecessor, President George W. Bush.
The talks for a new Asia-Pacific free-trade zone came up in the Obama-Xi meetings last weekend.
At first, the deliberations involved the United States and 10 Pacific Rim nations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. More recently, Japan has sought to join the talks, drawing the keen interest of the Chinese leader. Until now, China hasn't been included in the process.
"We have a half-a-trillion-dollar-a-year trade relationship with China," said Tom Donilon, Obama's national security adviser. "President Xi's point ... was that the Chinese would like to be kept informed and have some transparency into the process."
But the possible inclusion of Japan, the third-largest economy, after the U.S. and China, generated heat from auto-state lawmakers, who criticized Japan's efforts to restrict auto imports.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., pledged to fight ratification if Japan won't "stop blocking American companies from its markets."
Michael Froman, a White House international economics adviser nominated to be the next U.S. trade representative, said the auto industry concerns are "well-founded" and he suggested they would be addressed.
Backers of a sweeping U.S. trade deal with the 27 European Union countries hoped to get an enthusiastic sendoff from the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, the host, has made trade liberalization a priority, and many European nations are hoping the promise of expanded trade will help reverse Europe's spreading recessions.
"An EU-US trade deal could add tens of billions to our economies," Cameron told reporters. "Everything is on the table, with no exception."
But there already are serious divisions in Europe.
Despite Cameron's and Obama's assertions that everything should be on the table, the European Union Parliament bowed to strong French concerns and recently voted to exclude TV, movies and other cultural "audiovisual services" from the trade talks even before formal negotiations begin next month.
France stuck to this "cultural exception" at a meeting of the EU members in Luxembourg on Friday.
Also, some members of the European Parliament are urging that data protection provisions be made a key part of the negotiations ? in response to recent disclosures of widespread snooping by the U.S. intelligence community on telephone and Internet communications at home and abroad.
Other potential roadblocks include longstanding arguments over genetically engineered food and other agricultural issues, as well as "Buy American" provisions in recent U.S. legislation, climate change and a squabble over government subsidies involving plane makers Boeing in the U.S. and Airbus in Europe.
"Both sides know that they need to work very hard," said Philipp Rosler, vice chancellor of Germany and minister of economics and technology.
"And only if the people understand that, and only if we don't end up just having discussions on tiny details ? like chickens ? only then will we have the opportunity of not only negotiating, but also of concluding a good agreement," Rosler told a conference at the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think tank.
Obama, with the backing of Michigan Rep. Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is also pushing for renewal of an expired law that allowed the White House to submit trade deals to Congress for a straight yes-or-no vote without amendments.
"This is a Congress that's pro-trade. But it's also highly polarized," said James Thurber, a political science professor at American University. "Business has been pushing these trade deals for a long time. Labor has not. So that splits things in a difficult manner for Obama."
"He's got people who don't want him to win on anything. And then he's got some people from labor who are skeptical about expansionistic trade policies and their effect on the workforce here," Thurber said. "So it will be tough."
___
Follow Tom Raum on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-trade-dilemma-scant-support-075447164.html
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বুধবার, ১০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Google Unveils Redesigned Play Store Android App, Rollout To Phones And Tablets Starts Today
Remember that hefty leak from a few weeks back that pointed to a dramatic redesign for Google's Play Store Android app? Well, in case you were still unconvinced, Google has confirmed that just such a facelift has been in the works, and that the new 4.0 version of the Play Store app will start rolling out to devices running Android 2.2 and newer some time today.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9GYlg8r_4x4/
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Domain name group plans satellite office in China
NEW YORK (AP) ? The agency that oversees Internet domain names says it will open a satellite office in China, home of the world's largest Internet population.
Monday's announcement comes as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers holds its spring meeting in Beijing this week. ICANN bills the office as an "engagement center," a way to stay in closer contact with Internet users and policy makers.
ICANN has its headquarters in Los Angeles and plans hubs in Singapore and Istanbul by mid-2013 to cover the world's time zones. The Beijing center would report to the hubs. No date was given for its completion.
ICANN is in the midst of increasing the number of domain name suffixes to rival ".com" and others. It has tentatively approved nearly 100, including several using Chinese characters.
Associated PressShedding light on a gene mutation that causes signs of premature aging
Apr. 8, 2013 ? Research from Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute sheds new light on a gene called ATRX and its function in the brain and pituitary. Children born with ATRX syndrome have cognitive defects and developmental abnormalities. ATRX mutations have also been linked to brain tumors. Dr. Nathalie B?rub?, PhD, and her colleagues found mice developed without the ATRX gene had problems in in the forebrain, the part of the brain associated with learning and memory, and in the anterior pituitary which has a direct effect on body growth and metabolism. The mice, unexpectedly, also displayed shortened lifespan, cataracts, heart enlargement, reduced bone density, hypoglycemia; in short, many of the symptoms associated with aging.
The research is published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Ashley Watson, a PhD candidate working in the B?rub? lab and the first author on the paper, discovered the loss of ATRX caused DNA damage especially at the ends of chromosomes which are called telomeres. She investigated further and discovered the damage is due to problems during DNA replication, which is required before the onset of cell division. Basically, the ATRX protein was needed to help replicate the telomere.
Working with Frank Beier of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, the researchers made another discovery. "Mice that developed without ATRX were small at birth and failed to thrive, and when we looked at the skeleton of these mice, we found very low bone mineralization. This is another feature found in mouse models of premature aging," says B?rub?, an associate professor in the Departments of Biochemistry and Paediatrics at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, and a scientist in the Molecular Genetics Program at the Children's Health Research Institute within Lawson. "We found the loss of ATRX increases DNA damage locally in the forebrain and anterior pituitary, resulting in systemic defects similar to those seen in aging."
The researchers say the lack of ATRX in the anterior pituitary caused problems with the thyroid, resulting in low levels of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor-one (IGF-1) in the blood. There are theories that low IGF-1 can deplete stores of stem cells in the body, and B?rub? says that's one of the explanations for the premature aging. This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/mKf-5SRk__w/130408123458.htm
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মঙ্গলবার, ৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Hands-on with Freefly's shockingly awesome $15,000 Movi camera gimbal
One of the hottest gadgets at NAB isn't quite what you'd expect. Freefly, the company behind a series of professional-grade cinema hexacopters, is demoing its new Movi three-axis stabilized camera gimbal. We heard some rumblings about such a device last week, but the $15,000 price tag is quite a turnoff -- until you see it in action. We dropped by the company's booth at the Las Vegas Convention Center to check it out with an attached Canon EOS-1D C. Movi weighs in at just 3.5 pounds, jumping to 10 pounds once you mount the Canon camera and lens.
It's a very robust system, despite the weight and footprint, letting you pull off shots that otherwise may require hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, and a substantial crew. In other words, you can capture incredibly compelling motion scenes with just a single camera operator. Don't take our word for it, though -- join us past the break to see Movi in action, along with a glowing testimonial from director Vincent Laforet, who Freefly tapped to shoot the gimbal's very first sample reel.
Source: Vincent Laforet
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/freefly-movi-gimbal-hands-on/
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Swanky beach enclave seeks relief from bird stench
SAN DIEGO (AP) ? La Jolla's jagged coastline is strictly protected by environmental laws to ensure the San Diego community remains the kind of seaside jewel that has attracted swanky restaurants, top-flight hotels and some of the nation's rich and famous, including billionaire businessman Irwin Jacobs and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Tourists flock to the place. So do birds. Lots of birds. And with those birds comes lots of poop.
So rather than gasping in amazement at the beautiful views, some are holding their noses from the stench coming from the droppings that cake coastal rocks and outcroppings near its business district.
"We've had to relocate tables inside because when people go out to the patio, some are like 'Oh my God. I can't handle the smell,'" said Christina Collignon, a hostess at Eddie V's, a steak and seafood restaurant perched on a cliff straight up from the guano-coated rocks.
On a recent afternoon, tourists on spring break walked along the sea wall. Some scrunched up their faces in disgust.
"It smells like something dead," said Meghan Brummett as she looked at the birds with her husband and children. The family was visiting from Brawley, a farming town two hours east of San Diego.
Biologists say the odor is the smell of success: Environmental protections put in place over the past few decades have brought back endangered species.
Cormorants and brown pelicans nearly became extinct in the 1970s because of the pesticide DDT. The brown pelican was taken off the federal endangered species list in 2010, and its population, including the Caribbean and Latin America, is estimated at more than 650,000. The total U.S. cormorant population is about 2 million.
La Jolla is a state-designated area of "special biological significance." That means California strictly regulates its waters to protect its abundant marine life, which also attracts birds.
"We're kind of a victim of our own success," said Robert Pitman, a marine biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla. "We've provided a lot of bird protections so now we're getting a lot of birds. I think we're going to be seeing more of these conflicts come about, and I think we'll have to deal with them on a case-by-case basis. I think there'll have to be compromises all around."
In Canada, guano from cormorants has been blamed for the destruction of native vegetation, while in Mississippi, catfish farmers loathe the sleek, black birds because their keen fishing skills cost them millions every year.
In La Jolla, the birds took over the rocks after the city prohibited people from walking there years ago for safety reasons. There has been little rain to wash away the feces.
George Hauer, who owns the gourmet restaurant George's At The Cove, launched an online petition that has garnered more than 1500 signatures. It states: "The cormorant colony at the La Jolla cove has reached critical mass with their excrement. The smell is overtaking the entire village. The result is a loss of business and a potential public health disaster."
Any cleaning method will require a permit, city officials say. The area is regulated by several government agencies. Washing it with a non-toxic solution would cause concern because of the run off into the ocean, state officials say. Even using just water could cause problems since guano discharged into the ocean in high concentrations would be considered a pollutant.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner ? lauded by animal lovers for placing a security camera at a nearby beach to catch anyone harassing seals there ? has promised to find a fix. He wants something a solution before summer arrives and tourism peaks. He's suggesting the rocks be "vacuumed," but hasn't supplied details.
Pitman said vacuuming would not work. He personally recommends something simpler: Sounding a horn over a period of weeks to scare off the birds.
Jessica Manns said it would be a shame to see the birds relocate.
"I think they are a tourist attraction and this is a tourist area so it probably wouldn't be a good idea to try to get rid of them," said Manns, a waitress who often hears complaints about the stench wafting by the seaside tables at the Goldfish Point Cafe.
On a recent afternoon, nearby tourists snapped photos of the cormorants and pelicans standing stoically on their droppings next to seals, basking in the sun.
"I guess it's the price you have to pay for having a locale this close to paradise," said waiter Anton Marek. "I wish there was something we could do about it honestly, but it's also a part of nature. People come here because they want to see nature."
He added with a shrug: "Poop is a part of nature."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/swanky-beach-enclave-seeks-relief-bird-stench-081236289.html
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সোমবার, ৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩
Sony announces $699 FMP-X1 4K media player and distribution service
Along with its new smaller (and cheaper) 4K TVs, Sony has announced its FMP-X1 4K media player and 4K video distribution service. Plans for both were first revealed at CES, however the official press release (included after the break) provides the full details, that it will be $699 and arrive preloaded with 10 4K films and shorts when it ships this summer. Starting in the fall, the video service will launch, with "fee-based" access to Sony's library of movies. Sony also revealed that it has started adding to the 4K movie collections for the buyers of its $25k 84-inch Ultra HDTV, delivering Lawrence of Arabia. Those buyers will be able to swap their current player for the FMP-X1 when the 4K distribution network launches in the fall. The "mastered in 4K" (but delivered in 1080p) Blu-ray discs are still part of the plan as well, and buyers of the new TVs can expect Spiderman, Ghostbusters and Angels & Demons as pack-ins.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Source: Sony, Sony Store
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/07/sony-announces-fmp-x1-4k-media-player-and-distribution-service/
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Microsoft agrees to sell Mediaroom to Ericsson, goes all-in on Xbox
A fortnight after rumors surfaced hinting that Ericsson was lobbying to buy Microsoft's Mediaroom IPTV unit, both companies have announced that a deal has been signed. Microsoft VP Yusuf Medhi blogged that as the Xbox has become the heart of Redmond's home entertainment strategy, Mediaroom has become a resource-hogging distraction. The Mountain View-based IPTV outfit powers AT&T's U-Verse as well as similar VOD services from companies like Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica, and will be folded into Ericsson's Business Support Solutions outfit. The deal's expected to close in the second half of the year, with neither company talking about how much the sale cost.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/gnhu2VRDuAw/
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