Friday, April 26, 2013

Boston Marathon bombing suspect out of hospital

FILE - This Dec. 5, 2011 file photo shows the Devens Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Devens, Mass. The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday, April 26, 2013, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged in the Boston Marathon bombing April 15, 2013, had been moved from a Boston hospital to the federal medical center at Devens, about 40 miles west of the city. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - This Dec. 5, 2011 file photo shows the Devens Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Devens, Mass. The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday, April 26, 2013, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged in the Boston Marathon bombing April 15, 2013, had been moved from a Boston hospital to the federal medical center at Devens, about 40 miles west of the city. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 5, 2011 file photo, two guards are stationed outside the Devens Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Devens, Mass. The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday, April 26, 2013, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, charged in the Boston Marathon bombing April 15, 2013, had been moved from a Boston hospital to the federal medical center at Devens, about 40 miles west of the city. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

BOSTON (AP) ? The surviving Boston Marathon bombings suspect has been released from a civilian hospital and transferred to a federal medical detention center in central Massachusetts.

The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center overnight and was taken to the Federal Medical Center Devens about 40 miles west of Boston.

The facility, on the decommissioned Fort Devens U.S. Army base, treats federal prisoners and detainees who require specialized long-term medical or mental health care.

The 19-year-old Tsarnaev is recovering from a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway.

The Massachusetts college student was charged with setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 260 at the marathon finish line April 15.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-26-US-Boston-Marathon-Suspect/id-2d3883a0c50047c28305c5c243c8ff78

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Fish win fights on strength of personality

Fish win fights on strength of personality [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
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Contact: Jo Bowler
j.bowler@exeter.ac.uk
44-013-927-22062
University of Exeter

When predicting the outcome of a fight, the big guy doesn't always win suggests new research on fish

When predicting the outcome of a fight, the big guy doesn't always win suggests new research on fish. Scientists at the University of Exeter and Texas A&M University found that when fish fight over food, it is personality, rather than size, that determines whether they will be victorious. The findings suggest that when resources are in short supply personality traits such as aggression could be more important than strength when it comes to survival.

The study, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, found that small fish were able to do well in contests for food against larger fish provided they were aggressive. Regardless of their initial size, it was the fish that tended to have consistently aggressive behaviour - or personalities - that repeatedly won food and as a result put on weight.

Dr Alastair Wilson from Biosciences at the University of Exeter said: "We wondered if we were witnessing a form of Napoleon, or small man, syndrome. Certainly our study indicates that small fish with an aggressive personality are capable of defeating their larger, more passive counterparts when it comes to fights over food. The research suggests that personality can have far reaching implications for life and survival."

The sheepshead swordtail fish (Xiphophorus birchmanni) fish were placed in pairs in a fish tank, food was added and their behaviour was captured on film. The feeding contest trials were carried out with both male and female fish. The researchers found that while males regularly attacked their opponent to win the food, females were much less aggressive and rarely attacked.

In animals, personality is considered to be behaviour that is repeatedly observed under certain conditions. Major aspects of personality such as shyness or aggressiveness have previously been characterised and are thought to have important ecological significance. There is also evidence to suggest that certain aspects of personality can be inherited. Further work on whether winning food through aggression could ultimately improve reproductive success will shed light on the heritability of personality traits.

###

This work was funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) David Phillips Fellowship. No fish were distressed or received physical injury during these experiments.

About the University of Exeter

The Sunday Times University of the Year 2012-13, the University of Exeter is a Russell Group university and in the top one percent of institutions globally. It combines world-class research with very high levels of student satisfaction. Exeter has over 18,000 students and is ranked 7th in The Sunday Times University Guide, 10th in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2012 and 10th in the Guardian University Guide. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 90% of the University's research was rated as being at internationally recognised levels and 16 of its 31 subjects are ranked in the top 10, with 27 subjects ranked in the top 20.

The University has invested strategically to deliver more than 350 million worth of new facilities across its campuses for 2012, including landmark new student services centres - the Forum in Exeter and The Exchange in Cornwall - and world-class new facilities for Biosciences, the Business School and the Environment and Sustainability Institute.

http://www.exeter.ac.uk

For further information:

Dr Jo Bowler
University of Exeter Press Office
Office: +44 (0)1392 722062
Mobile: +44(0)7827 309 332
j.bowler@exeter.ac.uk
Twitter: @UoE_ScienceNews


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Fish win fights on strength of personality [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 26-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Jo Bowler
j.bowler@exeter.ac.uk
44-013-927-22062
University of Exeter

When predicting the outcome of a fight, the big guy doesn't always win suggests new research on fish

When predicting the outcome of a fight, the big guy doesn't always win suggests new research on fish. Scientists at the University of Exeter and Texas A&M University found that when fish fight over food, it is personality, rather than size, that determines whether they will be victorious. The findings suggest that when resources are in short supply personality traits such as aggression could be more important than strength when it comes to survival.

The study, published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, found that small fish were able to do well in contests for food against larger fish provided they were aggressive. Regardless of their initial size, it was the fish that tended to have consistently aggressive behaviour - or personalities - that repeatedly won food and as a result put on weight.

Dr Alastair Wilson from Biosciences at the University of Exeter said: "We wondered if we were witnessing a form of Napoleon, or small man, syndrome. Certainly our study indicates that small fish with an aggressive personality are capable of defeating their larger, more passive counterparts when it comes to fights over food. The research suggests that personality can have far reaching implications for life and survival."

The sheepshead swordtail fish (Xiphophorus birchmanni) fish were placed in pairs in a fish tank, food was added and their behaviour was captured on film. The feeding contest trials were carried out with both male and female fish. The researchers found that while males regularly attacked their opponent to win the food, females were much less aggressive and rarely attacked.

In animals, personality is considered to be behaviour that is repeatedly observed under certain conditions. Major aspects of personality such as shyness or aggressiveness have previously been characterised and are thought to have important ecological significance. There is also evidence to suggest that certain aspects of personality can be inherited. Further work on whether winning food through aggression could ultimately improve reproductive success will shed light on the heritability of personality traits.

###

This work was funded by a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) David Phillips Fellowship. No fish were distressed or received physical injury during these experiments.

About the University of Exeter

The Sunday Times University of the Year 2012-13, the University of Exeter is a Russell Group university and in the top one percent of institutions globally. It combines world-class research with very high levels of student satisfaction. Exeter has over 18,000 students and is ranked 7th in The Sunday Times University Guide, 10th in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2012 and 10th in the Guardian University Guide. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 90% of the University's research was rated as being at internationally recognised levels and 16 of its 31 subjects are ranked in the top 10, with 27 subjects ranked in the top 20.

The University has invested strategically to deliver more than 350 million worth of new facilities across its campuses for 2012, including landmark new student services centres - the Forum in Exeter and The Exchange in Cornwall - and world-class new facilities for Biosciences, the Business School and the Environment and Sustainability Institute.

http://www.exeter.ac.uk

For further information:

Dr Jo Bowler
University of Exeter Press Office
Office: +44 (0)1392 722062
Mobile: +44(0)7827 309 332
j.bowler@exeter.ac.uk
Twitter: @UoE_ScienceNews


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/uoe-fwf042613.php

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Bush family at odds over possible Jeb Bush presidential run

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush family, which has already produced two U.S. presidents, is at odds over whether there should be a third - former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Former first lady Barbara Bush, says son Jeb is the most qualified Republican to run in 2016 but told NBC's "Today" show, "We've had enough Bushes."

Former President George W. Bush takes the other side in the intra-family debate.

"He would be a marvelous candidate if he chooses to do so," he told ABC News. "He doesn't need my counsel because he knows what it is, which is: 'run.' But whether he does or not is a very personal decision."

Barbara Bush, known for her blunt talk, said of her second-born son, "There are other people out there that are very qualified ... He's the most qualified but I don't think he'll run."

The conflicting messages come as the 43rd president, who held office from 2001 to 2009, prepared to unveil his presidential library in Dallas, accompanied by all the living U.S. presidents, including his father, George H.W. Bush, who occupied the White House from 1989 through 1992.

The library opening will highlight George W. Bush's two stormy terms, which included the September 11, 2001, attacks, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2008 financial crisis.

The event also puts the Bush family back in the spotlight at a time their Republican Party is re-assessing following losses in the 2012 presidential campaign and is struggling to redefine itself.

Bush and his father have represented a more traditional side of the Republican Party, which now faces challenges from its more strident Tea Party wing.

Polls have shown Jeb Bush trailing other Republicans such as Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, both favorites of the Tea Party movement.

A Public Policy Polling survey earlier this month found 12 percent of potential voters said they would most like to see Jeb Bush as the Republican candidate in 2016, while Rubio topped out with 21 percent, followed by Paul with 17 percent.

John Adams (1797-1801) and John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) are the only other father and son to serve as U.S. presidents.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Dallas; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bush-family-odds-over-possible-jeb-bush-presidential-144926225.html

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

AT&T Q1 2013 earnings: $3.7 billion income on revenue of $31.4 billion

AT&T Q1 2013 earnings $37 billion income on revenue of $314 billion

AT&T just posted its earnings for the first quarter of 2013, and the market couldn't help but ding the company, which is now trading down in after hours markets. The business as a whole posted a net income of $3.7 billion, which is slightly up from $3.6 billion one year ago. Meanwhile, company revenues took a slight hit, which sit at $31.4 billion -- down 1.4 percent from the previous year. In terms of the company's wireless business, though, there's plenty of reason for optimism. The company was able to snag an additional 296,000 postpaid subscribers and put a solid 1.2 million people on smartphone plans during the quarter. For those keeping track, smartphone sales now account for 88 percent of AT&T's postpaid handsets. Unsurprisingly, the company is making more money than ever off of its data plans, which account for $5.1 billion of the company's business. As for the wireless segment as a whole, income is up 21 percent and AT&T is pulling in revenues of $16.6 billion with a 28 percent profit margin.

Encouraging signs were also revealed for U-verse, as the company's broadband service netted an additional 731,000 internet subscribers and 232,000 television subscribers during the quarter -- its best performance in two years -- for a grand total of 8.7 million subscribers.

Developing...

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Source: AT&T

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/23/att-q1-2013-earnings/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Iron in primeval seas rusted by bacteria

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Researchers from the University of T?bingen have been able to show for the first time how microorganisms contributed to the formation of the world's biggest iron ore deposits. The biggest known deposits -- in South Africa and Australia -- are geological formations billions of years old. They are mainly composed of iron oxides -- minerals we know from the rusting process. These iron ores not only make up most of the world demand for iron -- the formations also help us to better understand the evolution of the atmosphere and climate, and provide important information on the activity of microorganisms in the early history of life on Earth.

The extent to which microbes in the Earth's ancient oceans contributed to the formation of iron deposits was previously unknown. Now an international team of researchers from the US, Canada and Germany has published new findings in the journal Nature Communications. Led by University of T?bingen geomicrobiologist Professor Andreas Kappler of the Center for Applied Geoscience, they found evidence of which microbes contributed to the formation of the iron ores, and were able to show how different metabolic processes can be distinguished in the rock formations today.

The iron in the Earth's ancient oceans was spat out of hot springs on the seafloor as dissolved, reduced ferrous [Fe(II)] iron. But most of today's iron ore is oxidized, ferric [Fe(III)] iron in the form of "rust minerals" -- indicating that the Fe(II) was oxidized as it was deposited. The classic model for the formation of iron deposits suggested that the Fe(II) from the Earth's core was oxidized by the oxygen produced by cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). This process can happen either chemically (as in the formation of rust) or by the action of microaerophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria.

But scientists are still debating at what point the Earth's atmosphere contained enough oxygen (produced by cyanobacteria) to allow the formation of big iron deposits. The oldest known iron ores were deposited in the Precambrian period and are up to four billion years old (the Earth itself is estimated to be about 4.6 billion years old). At this very early stage in geological history, there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere. So the very oldest banded iron formations cannot be the result of O2-dependent oxidation.

In 1993, bacteria were discovered which do not need oxygen but can oxidize Fe(II) by using energy from light (anoxygenic phototrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria). Studies by Professor Kappler's team in 2005 and 2010 showed that these bacteria transform dissolved ferric iron into iron oxide (rust) -- like the material in the early iron ores. Now, the geomicrobiologists from T?bingen have been able to demonstrate that, by examining the identity and structural properties of the iron minerals, it is possible to tell that the minerals were deposited by iron-oxidizing microbes and not by oxygen made available by the action of cyanobacteria. To do this, the researchers placed different amounts of organic material together with iron minerals into gold capsules and increased the pressure and temperature to simulate the transformation of the minerals over geological time. They ended up with structures of iron carbonate minerals (siderite, FeCO3), just as they occur in geological iron formations. In particular, they were able to distinguish iron carbonate structures which had been formed in the presence of a rather small amount of organic compounds (microbial biomass) from those formed in the presence of a larger amount.

This research not only provides the first clear evidence that microorganisms were directly involved in the deposition of Earth's oldest iron formations; it also indicates that large populations of oxygen-producing cyanobacteria were at work in the shallow areas of the ancient oceans, while deeper water still reached by the light (the photic zone) tended to be populated by anoxyenic or micro-aerophilic iron-oxidizing bacteria which formed the iron deposits.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universitaet T?bingen.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Inga K?hler, Kurt O Konhauser, Dominic Papineau, Andrey Bekker, Andreas Kappler. Biological carbon precursor to diagenetic siderite with spherical structures in iron formations. Nature Communications, 2013; 4: 1741 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2770

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/Zix1TcAv23I/130423110750.htm

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Cause of LED efficiency droop finally revealed

Apr. 23, 2013 ? Researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara, in collaboration with colleagues at the ?cole Polytechnique in France, have conclusively identified Auger recombination as the mechanism that causes light emitting diodes (LEDs) to be less efficient at high drive currents.

Until now, scientists had only theorized the cause behind the phenomenon known as LED "droop" -- a mysterious drop in the light produced when a higher current is applied. The cost per lumen of LEDs has held the technology back as a viable replacement for incandescent bulbs for all-purpose commercial and residential lighting.

This could all change now that the cause of LED efficiency droop has been explained, according to researchers James Speck and Claude Weisbuch of the Center for Energy Efficient Materials at UCSB, an Energy Frontier Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Knowledge gained from this study is expected to result in new ways to design LEDs that will have significantly higher light emission efficiencies. LEDs have enormous potential for providing long-lived high quality efficient sources of lighting for residential and commercial applications. The U.S. Department of Energy recently estimated that the widespread replacement of incandescent and fluorescent lights by LEDs in the U.S. could save electricity equal to the total output of fifty 1GW power plants.

"Rising to this potential has been contingent upon solving the puzzle of LED efficiency droop," commented Speck, professor of Materials and the Seoul Optodevice Chair in Solid State Lighting at UCSB. "These findings will enable us to design LEDs that minimize the non-radiative recombination and produce higher light output."

"This was a very complex experiment -- one that illustrates the benefits of teamwork through both an international collaboration and a DOE Energy Frontier Research Center," commented Weisbuch, distinguished professor of Materials at UCSB. Weisbuch, who is also a faculty member at the ?cole Polytechnique in Paris, enlisted the support of his colleagues Lucio Martinelli and Jacques Peretti. UCSB graduate student Justin Iveland was a key member of the team working both at UCSB and ?cole Polytechnique.

In 2011, UCSB professor Chris van de Walle and colleagues theorized that a complex non-radiative process known as Auger recombination was behind nitride semiconductor LED droop, whereby injected electrons lose energy to heat by collisions with other electrons rather than emitting light.

A definitive measurement of Auger recombination in LEDs has now been accomplished by Speck, Weisbuch, and their research team.

The experiment used an LED with a specially prepared surface that permitted the researchers to directly measure the energy spectrum of electrons emitted from the LED. The results unambiguously showed a signature of energetic electrons produced by the Auger process.

The results of their work are to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

This work was funded by the UCSB Center for Energy Efficient Materials, an Energy Frontier Research Center of the US Department of Energy, Office of Science. Additional support for the work at ?cole Polytechnique was provided by the French government.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Justin Iveland, Lucio Martinelli, Jacques Peretti, James S. Speck, Claude Weisbuch. Direct Measurement of Auger Electrons Emitted from a Semiconductor Light-Emitting Diode under Electrical Injection: Identification of the Dominant Mechanism for Efficiency Droop. Physical Review Letters, 2013 [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/sYjYfxnSmi4/130423102328.htm

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Slow is scary if France quits nuclear : state institute

By Marion Douet

TOURNEMIRE, France (Reuters) - A long slow retreat from nuclear power in France or indecision over policy could be very risky as skilled staff retire and young people reject careers with an uncertain future, the state-funded atomic safety research institute said.

If France does decide to pull out of atomic energy it should follow Germany's example and do it quickly, or face operating with inadequate personnel, said Jacques Repussard, who heads the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN).

"You can't spread the exit of nuclear over half a century. It's very dangerous," he said, adding that this consideration partly explained Germany's decision to opt for a fast exit to avoid a loss of skills.

France's state-owned utility EDF, which operates its 58 nuclear reactors, faces a wave of retirements and will have to replace half its nuclear staff by 2017-18.

While Socialist President Francois Hollande has undertaken to cut the country's reliance on atomic energy to 50 percent of electricity consumption by 2025, from 75 percent now, he has not made clear what would happen after that date.

"If, in the next 10 years, there is no clarity on what the future of nuclear energy will be, we will inevitably see a trend in our universities of young people saying: 'I don't want to do that line of work'," Repussard told Reuters in an interview at one of its research centers in the south of France.

As part of the reduction drive in France, the world's most nuclear-reliant country, the government has announced that Fessenheim in the east, its oldest nuclear plant, will shut by the end of 2016.

While the government has allowed EDF to pursue building its first next-generation nuclear reactor in Flamanville in northwestern France, it abandoned the previous government's project to build another reactor at Penly in Normandy.

Germany decided to shut all its nuclear reactors by 2022, in a policy reversal drafted in a rush after Japan's Fukushima disaster in March 2011.

CONSIDERABLE RISKS

"It was criticized and we asked ourselves how they would do it... But it's wise because doing it slowly means taking considerable risks with the last operating reactors, as finding skilled subcontractors and companies manufacturing certain parts (could become problematic)," Repussard said.

But he admitted that France, where nuclear reactors are on average 26 years old, would never consider a fast exit even though this would be the safest approach if it decided to stop building new reactors or conducting research.

Another issue for the government to consider, he said, was that generic defects would probably appear in several reactors at around the same time, leading them to stop working abruptly.

This echoed comments earlier this month by Pierre-Franck Chevet, the head of France's nuclear safety agency, who said the country needed to ensure there was enough available electricity generation capacity to cope with the sudden outage of 5 to 10 nuclear reactors.

"One day we will see wear and tear appear in the steel of core tanks... and when we see it in one, we will probably see it in all the reactors of the same generation in a short space of time," Repussard said.

Electrabel, the Belgian subsidiary of GDF Suez, has had to close two reactors in Belgium after finding possible cracks in the core tanks that house them.

"To be 80 percent reliant on nuclear energy exposes us to that kind of situation," he added.

(Writing by Muriel Boselli; Editing by Anthony Barker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/slow-scary-france-quits-nuclear-state-institute-154437859--finance.html

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S.Africa's central bank sentiment indicator rises in February

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The South African Reserve Bank's monthly leading business cycle indicator increased 0.1 percent in February from January, as the number of residential building plans approved went up, the bank said on Tuesday.

The indicator collates data such as vehicle sales, job advertisements, business confidence and money supply to gauge the economic outlook.

Indices: 2000 = 100 Feb Jan Dec

Leading Indicator 133.3 132.2 131.8

12-mth percentage change 1.0 1.9 1.2

Coincident Indicator 166.0 166.1

12-mth percentage change 6.7 7.0

Lagging Indicator 106.7 105.9

12-mth percentage change 0.2 0.6

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/africas-central-bank-sentiment-indicator-rises-february-072012609--business.html

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Nokia aims to take the drudgery out of concalls with its Conference app

Nokia's Conference app for Lumia phones tries to take drudgery out of concalls

Is your organization still on the fence about BB10 and casting around for alternatives? Then here's a little first-party business app for Nokia Windows Phones that might be worthy of some evidence-based evaluation. It's called Conference and it's only at the beta stage, but it's already able to serve its primary purpose: namely, letting you join a conference call on your Lumia without needing to grab details out of your calendar and key them in. The app receives the invite, with the necessary ID/PIN details supplied by the sender, and then lets you join a call with a single tap -- or a voice instruction if you're on a WP8 handset. It also integrates with Lync and vibrates whenever someone uses corporatese in lieu of gravitas.

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Source: Nokia Beta Labs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/22/nokias-conference-app/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Monday, April 22, 2013

Award-winning children's author Konigsburg dies

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) ? E.L. Konigsburg, an author who twice won one of the top honors for children's literature, has died. She was 83.

Her son Paul Konigsburg says the longtime Florida resident died Friday at a hospital in Falls Church, Va., where she'd been living for the past few years with another son. She had suffered a stroke a week before she died.

She won the John Newbery Medal in 1997 for her book "The View from Saturday" and in 1968 for "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." The Newbery is one of the top honors for children's literature. Her family says she wrote 16 children's novels and illustrated 3 picture books.

In 1997, the Newbery committee called her story of a sixth grade Academic Bowl team and their coach "a unique, jubilant tour de force characterized by good humor, positive relationships, distinctive personalities and brilliant story telling."

Konigsburg said in an interview with The Associated Press at the time: "The award represents a kind of validation that I find just most gratifying."

Ingrid Bergman starred as Mrs. Frankweiler in a 1973 film adaptation of Konigsburg's book called "The Hideaways."

Konigsburg grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in chemistry. She married David Konigsburg in 1952, and the couple lived in several cities before settling in the Jacksonville, Fla., area.

Konigsburg, who had three sons, a daughter and a half-dozen grandchildren, started writing and illustrating children's books when her youngest child began kindergarten. Her husband died in 2001.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/award-winning-childrens-author-konigsburg-dies-011057403.html

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Google Now Could Arrive On The Web, Making The Timely Assistant Truly Cross-Platform

Google Now - Travel Cards Update3Google Now is one of the best things to happen to Android in a while, and now new code discovered in a sample page taken from Google itself suggests it could arrive on the desktop, not just via Chrome but through the Google homepage itself. Code snippets include provisions for letting auser set their home and work location, "Discover Google now" and change their current location, all in support of the Now service.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/EAZw0zzqMv4/

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Conservatives gear up for immigration fight

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As a bipartisan Senate group worked over the past few months to assemble broad legislation to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, conservative critics of the effort kept a fairly low profile. That's about to change.

Critics of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" immigration bill are gearing up for an intense fight to defeat the bill and they plan to put the economy at the center of their strategy.

The debate on Capitol Hill over the bill will kick off Friday with a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Conservatives held back until details of the legislation emerged and now intend to stir grassroots opposition through social media and talk radio among other lobbying efforts.

"Everything in this bill says we have a labor shortage. It's proposing adding millions more foreign workers over the next decade alone," said Roy Beck, head of NumbersUSA, a group that favors low immigration levels. "We have 20 million Americans who can't find a full-time job. It's as if the Gang of Eight lives in alternate universe."

Beck took aim at a provision that would allow many of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants to obtain provisional visas, giving them the right to live and work in the country for 13 years before becoming eligible for citizenship.

Many foes of the immigration bill view their most effective line of attack to be warnings about the costs of the legislation and its impact on an already weak U.S. labor market.

Some activists and lawmakers have derided the bill as an amnesty for lawbreakers but by emphasizing the law enforcement argument, conservatives risk fueling a perception that they are anti-immigrant.

Republicans are also mindful of their party's low standing with Hispanic Americans and wary of stirring backlash with these voters.

The bill would establish new guest worker programs of low-skilled workers in farming, construction and other trades and increase the number of skilled workers who can obtain visas.

Former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who now heads the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, attacked the bill as "amnesty," adding that it would incur "significant costs" to taxpayers.

"At a time of trillion-dollar deficits and $17 trillion in debt, the cost of implementing amnesty and the strain it will add to already fragile entitlement and welfare programs should be of serious concern for everyone," DeMint said in a blog post on the Heritage Foundation web site.

The four Democrats and four Republicans who sponsored the bill formally began their effort to sell it at a news conference Thursday.

Under the Gang of Eight proposal, those who obtain provisional visas would not be eligible for most federal benefit programs, including welfare and assistance purchasing health insurance under the 2010 health reform law, until they receive green cards or citizenship.

But those given provisional legal status would eventually be allowed to draw benefits once they receive green cards or citizenship.

FISCAL IMPACT DEBATED

Heritage, which helped defeat the last major effort at comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, plans to issue a study in coming weeks analyzing the fiscal impact of the Gang of Eight's proposal in a report likely to become fodder for the debate on Capitol Hill.

Within conservative circles, the politics of the immigration issue are complicated. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, is one of the lead sponsors of the Senate immigration bill.

Rubio, a Florida Republican and potential presidential candidate in 2016, and some other Republicans are embracing immigration reform in the aftermath of a presidential election in which Republican Mitt Romney lost to Democratic President Barack Obama, hurt in part by Obama's huge advantage with Latino voters.

Romney's stance on immigration during the campaign, including suggesting that illegal immigrants "self-deport," helped to cost him votes with Hispanic Americans.

Some prominent economic conservatives, including anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, support the immigration reform bill, arguing that it will boost growth by making labor markets more fluid and giving technology companies and other business greater leeway to hire the skilled workers they need to stay competitive.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former aide to President George W. Bush who also advised McCain's failed 2008 presidential bid, has estimated that immigration reform could boost U.S. gross domestic product by a nearly a percentage point.

Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum, a conservative policy institute, also said overhauling immigration laws could reduce cumulative federal budget deficits by $2.5 billion when taking into account the fact that faster economic growth leads to higher tax collections and reduces costs for unemployment insurance and other safety net programs.

But there are plenty of Republican skeptics of the immigration bill on Capitol Hill and it faces a particularly tough road in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

In the Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Democrats, Republican Jeff Sessions is expected to lead the effort to defeat the immigration bill. Like DeMint, Sessions said the bill would put a huge strain on federal entitlement programs. He also warned it would exacerbate a scarcity of jobs for Americans already grappling with a 7.6 percent unemployment rate.

"This proposal would economically devastate low-income American citizens and current legal immigrants," the Alabama Republican senator said. "It will pull down their wages and reduce their job prospects. Including those legalized, this bill would result in at least 30 million new foreign workers over a 10-year period ? more than the entire population of the state of Texas."

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/conservatives-aim-defeat-immigration-bill-stressing-economy-160432309.html

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Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf meets journalists after attending the...

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Attorney: Miss. man denies mailing suspected ricin

This undated photo obtained from the facebook page of Paul Kevin Curtis, shows, according to neighbors, Paul Kevin Curtis, 45. Curtis was arrested Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line. He is accused of mailing letters with suspected ricin to to national leaders. (AP Photo)

This undated photo obtained from the facebook page of Paul Kevin Curtis, shows, according to neighbors, Paul Kevin Curtis, 45. Curtis was arrested Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line. He is accused of mailing letters with suspected ricin to to national leaders. (AP Photo)

A Prince George's County, Md. firefighter, left, gets dressed in a protective suit before going into a government mail screening facility in Hyattsville, Md., Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Police swept across the U.S. Capitol complex to chase a flurry of reports of suspicious packages and envelopes Wednesday after preliminary tests indicated poisonous ricin in two letters sent to President Barack Obama and a Mississippi senator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A Prince George's County, Md. firefighter dressed in a protective suit walks into a government mail screening facility in Hyattsville, Md., Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Police swept across the U.S. Capitol complex to chase a flurry of reports of suspicious packages and envelopes Wednesday after preliminary tests indicated poisonous ricin in two letters sent to President Barack Obama and a Mississippi senator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A Capitol Police Hazardous Materials Response Team truck is parked at the Russell Senate Office building on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, after reports of suspicious packages discovered on Capitol Hill. U.S. Capitol police are investigating the discovery of at least two suspicious envelopes in Senate office buildings across the street from the Capitol. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

A Prince George's County, Md. firefighter dressed in a protective suit walks out of a government mail screening facility in Hyattsville, Md., Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Police swept across the U.S. Capitol complex to chase a flurry of reports of suspicious packages and envelopes Wednesday after preliminary tests indicated poisonous ricin in two letters sent to President Barack Obama and a Mississippi senator. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

(AP) ? A Mississippi man charged with mailing letters with suspected ricin to national leaders believed he had uncovered a conspiracy to sell human body parts on the black market, and on Thursday his attorney said he was surprised by his arrest and maintains he is innocent.

Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, wore shackles and a Johnny Cash T-shirt Thursday in a federal courtroom. His handcuffs were taken off for the brief hearing, and he said little. He faces two charges on accusations of threatening President Barack Obama and others. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.

He did not enter a plea on the two charges. The judge said a preliminary hearing and a detention hearing are scheduled for 3 p.m. Friday.

Attorney Christi R. McCoy said Curtis "maintains 100 percent that he did not do this."

"I know Kevin, I know his family," she said. "This is a huge shock."

McCoy said she has not yet decided whether to seek a hearing to determine whether Curtis is mentally competent to stand trial.

Curtis, who was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line, was being held in the Lafayette County jail in Oxford, Miss.

An FBI affidavit says Curtis sent three letters with suspected ricin to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge. The letters read:

"No one wanted to listen to me before. There are still 'Missing Pieces.' Maybe I have your attention now even if that means someone must die. This must stop. To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance. I am KC and I approve this message."

The affidavit says Curtis had sent letters to Wicker's office several times before with the message, "this is Kevin Curtis and I approve this message."

In several letters to Wicker and other officials, Curtis said he was writing a novel about black market body parts called "Missing Pieces."

Curtis also had posted language similar to the letters on his Facebook page, the affidavit says.

The documents indicate Curtis had been distrustful of the government for years. In 2007, Curtis' ex-wife called police in Booneville, Miss., to report that her husband was extremely delusional, anti-government and felt the government was spying on him with drones.

Curtis was arrested Wednesday at his home in Corinth, near the Tennessee state line. He was being held in the Lafayette County jail in Oxford, Miss.

Curtis had been living in Corinth, a city of about 14,000 in extreme northeastern Mississippi, since December, but local police had not had any contact with him before his arrest, Corinth Police Department Capt. Ralph Dance told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Ricky Curtis, who said he was Kevin Curtis' cousin, described his cousin as a "super entertainer" who impersonated Elvis and numerous other singers.

Wicker said Thursday in Washington that he had met Curtis when he was working as Elvis at a party Wicker and his wife helped throw for an engaged couple.

Wicker called him "quite entertaining" but said: "My impression is that since that time he's had mental issues and perhaps is not as stable as he was back then."

Wicker's spokesman, Ryan Annison, said the party occurred about 10 years ago.

Police maintained a perimeter Thursday around Curtis' home. Four men who appeared to be investigators were in the neighborhood to speak to neighbors. There didn't appear to be any hazardous-material crews, and no neighbors were evacuated.

The material discovered in a letter to Wicker has been confirmed through field testing and laboratory testing to contain ricin, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer said Thursday. The FBI has not yet reported the results of its own testing of materials sent to Wicker and to President Barack Obama.

"Our field tests indicate it was ricin. Our lab tests confirm it was ricin. So I don't get why others are continuing to use equivocal words about this," Gainer said.

Preliminary field tests can often show false positives for ricin. Ricin is derived from the castor plant that makes castor oil. There is no antidote, and it's deadliest when inhaled. The material sent to Wicker was not weaponized, Gainer said.

An FBI intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press said the two letters were postmarked Memphis, Tenn.

A Mississippi state lawmaker, Democratic Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, said his 80-year-old mother, Lee County Justice Court Judge Sadie Holland, received a threatening letter April 10 with a substance that has been sent to a lab for testing. He said this letter was also signed "K.C."

"Like any country woman, she did a smell test," Steve Holland said. "She said, 'It sort of burned my nose a little bit.'"

He said once she read the letter, she immediately called the local sheriff.

Sadie Holland has been "sequestered by the FBI" and told not to talk to anybody for now, and is undergoing medical tests, her son said.

Ricky Curtis said his family was shocked by news of the arrest. He said his cousin had written about problems he had with a cleaning business and that he felt the government had not treated him well, but he said nobody in the family would have expected this. He said the writings were titled, "Missing Pieces."

"I don't think anybody had a clue that this kind of stuff was weighing on his mind," Ricky Curtis said in a telephone interview.

A MySpace page for a cleaning company called The Cleaning Crew confirms that they "do windows" and a has profile photo of "Kevin Curtis, Master of Impressions." A YouTube channel under the name of Kevin Curtis has dozens of videos of him performing as different famous musicians, including Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Kid Rock.

Multiple online posts on various websites under the name Kevin Curtis refer to the conspiracy he claimed to uncover when working at a local hospital from 1998 to 2000.

The author wrote that the conspiracy began when he "discovered a refrigerator full of dismembered body parts & organs wrapped in plastic in the morgue of the largest non-metropolitan health care organization in the United States of America."

Curtis wrote that he was trying to "expose various parties within the government, FBI, police departments" for what he believed was "a conspiracy to ruin my reputation in the community as well as an ongoing effort to break down the foundation I worked more than 20 years to build in the country music scene."

In one post, Curtis said he sent letters to Wicker and other politicians.

"I never heard a word from anyone. I even ran into Roger Wicker several different times while performing at special banquets and fundraisers in northeast, Mississippi but he seemed very nervous while speaking with me and would make a fast exit to the door when I engaged in conversation..."

Jim Waide, an attorney in Tupelo, Miss., said he was working with Curtis' family Thursday to put together a statement about the man. Waide said the family told him Curtis has been diagnosed as bipolar and was put on medication about three years ago. "It's been a real problem to keep him on his medication," Waide said in a phone interview from Tupelo.

"He has a long history of mental illness," Waide said. "When he is on his medication, he is terrific, he's nice, he's functional. When he's off his medication, that's when there's a problem."

Waide represented Curtis in a federal lawsuit he filed in August 2000 against North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo. Curtis claimed employment discrimination. A judge dismissed the case in July 2001. Records show it was "dismissed for failure to prosecute."

Court records show Waide got a judge's permission to withdraw as Curtis' attorney in January 2001. Waide said he withdrew from the case because Curtis didn't trust him.

"He thought I was conspiring against him," Waide said. "He thinks everybody is out to get him."

The FBI said there was no indication of a connection between the letters and the Monday bombing in Boston that killed three people and injured more than 170. The letters to Obama and Wicker were postmarked April 8, before the marathon.

___

Associated Press writers contributing to this report from Washington were: Eileen Sullivan, Laurie Kellman, Donna Cassata, Henry Jackson and Eric Tucker. AP news researcher Monika Mathur contributed from New York. AP writer Emily Wagster Pettus contributed from Jackson, Miss.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-18-Suspicious%20Letters/id-f2c130bc9b00498780d8a8981f8ed74d

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Tablets being purchased as additional device, not PC replacement ...

More ammunition for the ?PC survives? side of the ?PC, dead or not?? debate, as a report from market research firm The NPD Group indicates tablets are supplementing, not replacing, traditional laptop and desktop computers.

The study, ?Understanding the Canadian PC and Tablet Buyer,? found that tablets are becoming an impulse buy, with one in three tablet purchases being unplanned, as opposed to one in four for desktops and one in five for laptops.

?Unlike buyers of desktops and notebooks, we?re seeing more spontaneous tablet purchases,? said Darrel Ryce, director of technology and entertainment at NPD, in a statement. ?Shoppers are impressed not only by the technology, but also by the ease and mobility of these devices. Combine this with competitive pricing and it?s easy to understand why tablets are putting the pressure on the desktop and notebook segments.?

Of those who do plan their purchases, 53 per cent said they plan to buy a tablet within two years, while 43 per cent will buy a desktop and 35 per cent a laptop over the next four years.

?Tablets are being purchased as an additional device, not replacing the primary desktop or notebook, so they are bought more frequently,? said Ryce. ?In particular, the desktop PC repurchase cycle is being extended. With an average of three computers in the home, Canadians are opting to wait longer to buy a new desktop now that they have multiple ? and often more convenient ? technology to work with.?

This explains the slumping numbers seen for traditional PC shipments, which NPD confirmed, reporting a 12 per cent drop for desktops and 19 per cent for notebook sales in 2012, compared to 2011.

According to NPD, the average Canadian buyer spends $627 on tablets annually, including accessories. Purchasers spend $927 on notebooks and $1127 on desktops.

The study also found that Apple buyers care much more about brand than PC buyers (45 per cent versus 11 per cent, and are more selective about where they buy. PC buyers tend to pick their retailer based on price, while Apple buyers focus on knowledgeable retail staff.

Source: http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/tablets-being-purchased-as-additional-device-not-pc-replacement-npd/32678

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Watch this incredible wingsuit flight through a tiny cave opening (VIDEO)

Alexander Polli is a professional BASE-jump athlete. But his latest video showcases a critically dangerous stunt, as Polli flies his wingsuit through a tiny opening in a steep mountainside.

The opening itself is barely wide enough for Polli to walk through, let alone attempt a life-threatening aerial maneuver at 150 mph.

But he wouldn?t be a famous BASE jumper if he wasn?t willing to try something extreme. Besides, Polli said the Roca Foradada Mountains in Montserrat, Spain, have inspired him throughout his life.

To prepare for the flight, Polli performed two test jumps in which he flew through a banner marked ?2013.? In the first test, he hit the side of the banner. It was an impressive display of accuracy, but had it been the actual cave, it almost certainly would have been a fatal error.

In the second jump, he ripped perfectly through the center.

With a successful test flight completed, Polli stepped up for the real thing, launching from a helicopter with a camera mounted on top of his helmet to give viewers a first-person perspective as part of a project for EPIC TV.

And in a thrilling video clip, Polli in fact successfully navigates through the opening, as multiple cameras capture his accomplishment from different angles.

More than two million people have already watched the flight in less than 48 hours since it was posted to Polli?s YouTube account.

Still, that hasn?t stopped several commenters from accusing Polli of orchestrating a hoax.

"It honestly makes me verrry happy when people think it's fake," Polli wrote on his Twitter account.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/watch-incredible-wingsuit-flight-tiny-cave-opening-video-224421087.html

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

motor yacht charter | eCommerce Investments

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Funny Or Die's Steve Jobs Biopic 'iSteve' Now Online

Move over "jOBS" and Aaron Sorkin's upcoming Steve Jobs movie, because Funny or Die is getting its Jobs biopic out first. The comedy website created its first feature film in just five days, and now it's releasing the Justin Long-starring movie, "iSteve," out online first. "iSteve," which runs almost 80 minutes in length, debuted on [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2013/04/17/isteve-funny-or-die/

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