Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/cher-on-tom-cruise-as-a-lover-in-my-top-5/
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Sunday, June 30, 2013
Yahoo Mail adds simple Flickr photo sharing
Many criticized a pre-Marissa Mayer Yahoo for doing little to integrate acquisitions with its core services, even when they were popular services like Del.icio.us. We can't accuse the company of negligence today, as it just added simple Flickr photo sharing to Yahoo Mail. Those drafting messages just have to tap an arrow to attach files from their photo streams, and they can sign up for Flickr on the spot. While there's only so many of us who could use Flickr sharing right now, Yahoo teases that there are more Mail upgrades in the pipeline -- it's not done fighting Gmail and Outlook just yet.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Yahoo (Tumblr)
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PC Game Controller - Microsoft SideWinder Freestyle Pro (Still in the box)- $5
The Freestyle Pro, released in 1998, was a rather novel gamepad, as the up-down-left-right directions in analogue mode were controlled by the movement of the controller, more precisely by the absolute pitch and roll position of the pad. This reaction on movement is quite similar to some of the features of the Sony PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS.
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Saturday, June 29, 2013
Mark Kirk Survived a Stroke--Now He's Picking Fights in Congress
After suffering a massive ischemic stroke in January 2012, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., was unsure if he would ever return to full form. For days, Kirk lingered in the intensive care unit, floating in and out of consciousness. At one point, Kirk recalls, he saw angels with New York accents talking to him, urging him to come with them, as in all those near-death, white-light stories you hear.
But against the long odds, the freshman Republican senator has not only managed to recover enough to perform his busy day job, he's placed himself in the middle of the most heated Washington fights. Kirk slammed Attorney General Eric Holder at a recent Appropriations Committee hearing, probing to see if the National Security Agency was listening in on Congress and livid about Holder's seemingly evasive answer. Kirk's threat not to support immigration reform unless border security was strengthened surprised many of his colleagues and endangered Republican support for the bill. He got in a fight with Rep. Bobby Rush, the Chicago Democrat, who chided Kirk for his plan to "crush" Chicago's gangs, saying it was an "upper-middle-class, elitist white boy's solution."
And Kirk says he's already planning to run for a second term in 2016, despite the rigor it will take to defend a seat in one of the most Democratic states in the country.
Kirk's recovery has been remarkable by the standards of a stroke patient, even as it's still left him without his pre-injury vigor or ability to hustle the way politicians must to win reelection in competitive seats. He walks slowly. His voice is weakened. He's not all he was. But his comeback has been inspiring.
"If people knew how catastrophic this stroke was, they'd be blown away by his recovery," says Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who was the first member of the state's House delegation to visit Kirk in the hospital in 2012. Asked if he ever had any doubts that Kirk would want back in politics, he recalls the senator, even though he was in rehab, staying up late to watch the HBO film Game Change. "That was the signal to me that he was coming back."
Kirk's stroke largely spared his cognitive function but has left him disabled, dependent on the kind of four-legged cane you usually see on the elderly, and a wheelchair for longer hikes. "The Senate is appropriately designed for older men," he jokes. He was just 52 when the stroke hit.
When he walked up the Capitol stairs in January to the bipartisan applause of his colleagues-including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, his fellow Illinois senator with whom he has a close relationship--it was an emotional moment that left many believing the stroke had in some ways made him a more important force--less an object of sympathy than an inspiring example of perseverance.
To understand Kirk, you have to know that he's a creature of the Chicago suburbs and a creature of Congress. He loves both. Raised outside Chicago, the son of a telephone company executive, he graduated from Cornell University and worked for Rep. John Porter while he was at law school at Georgetown, later becoming the congressman's top aide. Porter represented Chicago's North Shore, the lakefront district that includes the leafy suburbs glorified in John Hughes movies and Kirk's hometown of Kenilworth. When Porter retired, Kirk won the seat and carried on Porter's moderate GOP politics as Illinois became more and more blue. When the U.S. Senate seat opened up in 2010, Kirk went for it and beat an Obama ally, then-state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a hoops buddy of the president, in the wave of discontent.
Kirk was no tea partier, but he wasn't a bland moderate, either. He'd been a critic of the stimulus that other Republican moderates had backed and he loathed "Obamacare." "I'm a fiscal conservative, a social moderate, and a national security hawk," Kirk says, using a mantra he repeats frequently.
Just a year into his term, in January 2012, Kirk, a slim, former intelligence officer in the Naval Reserves, began to feel dizzy while back home. Aides rushed him to Lake Forest Hospital and then transferred him to the Northwestern University Medical Center when it became apparent that he'd had a massive ischemic stroke. The attack put his left carotid artery out of business and his life in danger. He had to undergo three operations, two of which were craniectomies, to remove portions of his skull to allow the brain to expand. "There was a remarkable amount of swelling," notes Richard Fessler, a professor of neurosurgery who operated on Kirk. "The surgeries were life-saving, but he's doing great."
Kirk had the kind of emotional reckoning that comes with a near-death episode. He decided to spend more time with his sister, for instance. But he never doubted he wanted to return to the Senate. He told his speech therapists that he wanted his public-speaking voice back. And he told those who worked on his physical therapy at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) that he wanted to be able to climb the Capitol steps when he returned. Mike Klonowski worked with Kirk--putting him in a harness so he could move on a treadmill, putting him through the paces of a research study that pushed Kirk to do more intense physical training than the typical patient.
"There was initial shock when I found out I was going to be working with him," Klonowski remembers about the prospect of putting a U.S. Senator through the paces. "But he responded to very specific goals and wanted to make sure that we were focused on his return back to the Senate."
Now he's back and working on his recovery--and working to help other patients. This coming week he'll be in Chicago, where he'll join Durbin and Mayor Rahm Emanuel to celebrate the $550 million expansion of the RIC. "My concern is what happens if you have a stroke and you're not in the U.S. Senate, and you have no insurance and no income," Kirk says. "That's the question I have been asking, and the reality is that if you're on Illinois Medicaid and are a stroke survivor, you will get just five visits to the rehab specialist." When I ask Kirk where the money might come from for more extensive benefits, he notes that he's working with Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., on a "stroke agenda" (Johnson himself suffered a stroke).
Since his return, Kirk has cut an interesting path, weaving left and right in ways that aren't predictable. When Iran elected its new president whom many hailed as a moderate, Kirk denounced him as more of the same. He stuck with moderates on gun control, earning him an attaboy tweet from Obama consiglieri David Axelrod. But he also took a hawkish line on immigration that surprised many before he relented and supported the bill. By contrast, Kirk was full of kind words for Rahm Emanuel when I saw him. "He's doing a very, very good job," says Kirk, who served with Hizzoner when they were in the House. The two graduated in 1977 from New Trier High School in Winnetka but didn't know each other. (Donald Rumsfeld went there, too, 27 years earlier.)
With his military-intelligence background, Kirk has emerged as a compelling voice on the NSA mess, leaning closer to the privacy advocates than the voices in both parties who say everything's fine with the way we collect intelligence. "It's bad intelligence work to be focusing on 121 million Americans who aren't doing anything particularly terrorist-related," he says. Kirk notes that in the post-9/11 world, with government efforts to limit stove-piping of intelligence, low-level operatives in the field like Bradley Manning in Iraq or Edward Snowden in Honolulu have dangerous access. "We have a classified Internet on the backside of the intelligence community, and if you're on that system then a Bradley Manning can download the presidential book of secrets like in the movie [National Treasure]."
Kirk says he's interested in running again in 2016, and Republicans expect he will. In a state as Democratic as Illinois, he likely to have a serious race. He rejects the idea that Republican moderates are an endangered species, but he sounds the refrain that his party has been myopic. "What often happens is that people or politicians get out of date, and that's my worry about the Republican Party. It apparently doesn't understand how multicolored and how multicultural our country has become." Kirk was the second GOP senator, after Rob Portman and before Lisa Murkowski, to support same-sex marriage--putting him ahead of Illinois, which has yet to grant it. Divorced, with a girlfriend and no kids, and having remained unmarried until 41, Kirk gets modern families in a way that many Republicans don't. Whether that'll make him an outlier or a lodestar in the GOP remains to be seen.
For now, Kirk has bigger tasks. He regularly hauls himself up to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he gets physical therapy in the Traumatic Brain Injury clinic, along with young vets who are often missing limbs in addition to their head injuries.
"You're having a tough day, and you look over at a soldier who might be missing a leg or two arms and he is doing great," Kirk says. "And you think to yourself, 'There is nothing challenging me like what is challenging him.' "
Recalling that, Kirk tells an aide that he wants the Walter Reed therapists to push him harder--just like the ones back in Chicago.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mark-kirk-survived-stroke-now-hes-picking-fights-060021154.html
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It's Almost Worth Breaking Your Arm for this Crazy 3D-Printed Cast
Plaster casts are bulky, obnoxious, heavy, inevitably sweaty, occasionally pink. In short, they are no fun. But this 3D-printed "Cortex" cast could change all that. Sure, it looks a little like a fishnet stocking, but have you seen a old-fashioned cast lately?
A conceptual project designed by a Victoria University of Wellington graduate with the suspiciously awesome name Jake Evill, the Cortex cast is lightweight, ventilated, washable and thin thanks to its polyamide skeleton. But the bonuses aren't all for the wearer; the material of Cortex casts could be reused, unlike plaster.
It's just a concept and prototype for now, but ideally, computer software would be fed x-rays of the break and 3D scans of the limb, and design an appropriate cast shape for fixing it up, with the cast's densest parts concentrated around the actual break. The cast could then be printed out in pieces and assembled around the break with permanent fasteners. When all is said and done, it'd still have to be sawed off as usual.
Then there's the matter of time. Evill explains it this way:
At the moment, 3D printing of the cast takes around three hours whereas a plaster cast is three to nine minutes, but requires 24-72 hours to be fully set. With the improvement of 3D printing, we could see a big reduction in the time it takes to print in the future.
It sounds pretty good, but I'm seeing just one problem. How are you supposed write hideous signatures in Sharpie on surfaces that skinny? [Jake Evill via Dezeen]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/its-almost-worth-breaking-your-arm-for-this-crazy-3d-618059549
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Student debt stalemate will hammer millions of undergrads
Your money 
3 hours ago
Chitose Suzuki / AP file
Boston College students walk across the college campus in Boston, March 29, 2005.
Time is running out for Congress to act. And low-income college students will pay a high price if a deal can't be reached by Monday's deadline.
Interest rates on many new subsidized Stafford loans will skyrocket?from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent?on Monday, unless the Senate reaches a compromise.
The likelihood of that happening dimmed Friday as Congress recessed for the Independence Day holiday week.
Read More: Senate Can't Save Student Loan Rates
Most in Congress agree loan rates should to stay lower than 6.8 percent, at least for the subsidized Stafford loans used by the country's lowest-income students. But they're stuck on how to get there.
Republicans want to let the rates fluctuate with the markets every year and use the proceeds for deficit reduction. Democrats say that's unreasonable and want to cap how fast rates can rise.
Existing loan rates will not change and rates on new unsubsidized Stafford and PLUS loans also will remain the same.
Congress could come to an agreement later this summer to lower rates, but that may be unlikely.
"It is possible for them to make a retroactive change, but only if the loans have not yet been disbursed," says Mark Kantrowitz, senior vice president and publisher of Edvisors.com. "So they could make a retroactive change if the US Department of Education delays the disbursement. But I doubt Congress will reach an agreement after July 1, as they are still too far apart."
More than 7 million undergraduates receive subsidized Stafford loans, for which the federal government pays the interest while the students are enrolled in school.
But the nation's student debt crisis affects so many more.
More than 38 million Americans have student loan debt, totaling nearly $1 trillion, a staggering number that has quadrupled in 10 years and keeps rising. Student loan debt now surpasses credit card and auto loan debt in this country?and it's only expected to get worse before it gets better.
"I see the debate about interest rates as a distraction from the real problem, which is the amount of debt," said Kantrowitz, who is also founder of FinAid.org, a leading website on financial aid for college and graduate students and their families.
"Each year the average cost of graduation goes up by about $1,000 or more. And having less expensive debt is going not going to make much of a difference if the total amount owed keeps on going up."
A study done this spring by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that the share of 25-year-olds with student debt has increased from just 25 percent in 2003 to 43 percent in 2012. The average student loan balance among those 25-year-olds with student debt grew by 91 percent over that time, from $10,649 in 2003 to $20,326 in 2012.
The amount of debt has risen as tuition, room, board, fees and other college expenses have soared. The cost of attending college has risen about 4 percent in the past year alone?and has far outpaced the rate of inflation in recent years.
Total charges for a full-time undergraduate at an in-state public college rose from $17,136 in 2011-2012 to $17,860 in 2012-2013, according to the College Board. Private college costs for one year totaled $39,518 in the past year, up from $37,971 the previous academic year.
"Grants are not keeping pace with the increases in college costs," Kantrowitz said. "When grants are relatively stagnant or even going down that causes students to borrow more."
But many families don't plan or try to calculate the total cost of attendance for a student's college and graduate studies?and that may be at the crux of the student debt crisis.
Sallie Mae CEO Jack Remondi said poor planning exacerbates a borrower's burden, regardless of the rate on the loan. Sallie Mae is the largest provider of private student loans.
"If you overborrow, whether the rate is 4 percent or 7 percent, you're still going to encounter difficulties," Remondi said. "A plan that takes into consideration what your income potential is going to be when you graduate and what that debt burden is going to be is critical."
Unfortunately, many students and parents have failed College Planning 101.
Less than a third of low-income parents said they knew how they would pay for their child's college education before they enrolled, according to a Sallie Mae study. Only 37 percent of middle-income families had a plan. Among high-income families, only slightly more than half said they had a plan to pay for college before their children enrolled.
Yet this critical lesson can significantly cut borrowing costs: As long as your total student debt at graduation is less than your annual income, you should be able to pay back your student loans in 10 years or less, Kantrowitz said.
Keeping that formula in mind when choosing a college, graduate school and course of study can help students significantly cut borrowing costs.
?By CNBC's Sharon Epperson. Follow her on Twitter @sharon_epperson.
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Tanker cars removed from broken bridge in Canada
CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? Six tanker cars that teetered on a partially collapsed railway bridge over Calgary's swollen Bow River were successfully removed Friday.
Calgary's Acting Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc said the rail cars were stabilized before locomotives pulled them safely off the bridge early Friday morning. He said no one was injured during the incident.The partially collapsed bridge gave way Thursday morning after most of the train had crossed.
Five of the derailed cars had been carrying a product used to dilute raw oils ands bitumen, but workers earlier removed it to new cars on an adjacent stable bridge. Uzeloc said no product was released into the Bow River.
The bridge, southeast of downtown Calgary, typically sits about 25 feet (7.6 meters) above water level, though water levels remain high after last week's flooding.Hunter Harrison, the CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway, called the incident an "extraordinary" event. He said bridge piers at the bottom of the river failed, and that engineers blamed the failure on fast water scouring away gravel under the support.
Uzeloc said there were concerns that things could have ended much worse.
"You had five rail cars full of flammable liquid that if they had ruptured or opened up could have leaked into the river," he said.
"You also had rail cars, if they had gone into the river, would have floated down a significant portion of the river, then could have run into other bridge abutments or caused damage further down."
Canadian Pacific said the bridge was inspected by a qualified inspector on Saturday and the track was inspected on Monday.
Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi questioned the timing of the last bridge inspection when water on the river was still at record levels.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tanker-cars-removed-from-broken-bridge-in-canada-193856655.html
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Friday, June 28, 2013
Iraq War vet pleads guilty in wife's death
MILWAUKEE (AP) ? An Iraq War veteran who initially pleaded insanity in the fatal shooting of his wife, a Milwaukee-area police officer, instead changed his plea to guilty Wednesday after two doctors concluded that his mental-health issues weren't severe enough to justify an insanity plea.
Benjamin G. Sebena, 30, was accused of ambushing his wife, 30-year-old Jennifer Sebena, on Christmas Eve as the Wauwatosa police officer conducted a solo pre-dawn patrol. He told investigators he was a jealous husband and had been stalking her.
Ben Sebena, charged with first-degree intentional homicide, initially pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. But two separate doctors said that while the former Marine suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues, he wasn't insane at the time of the crime.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors have agreed to recommend that Sebena be eligible for parole in 50 to 60 years. A conviction of first-degree intentional homicide carries a mandatory life sentence but a judge could allow for parole after 20 years.
Defense attorney Michael Steinle said it was Sebena's idea to plead guilty, and that he'd been considering doing so for the last month or more.
"Quite honestly, he wants to get the decision done as quickly as possible," Steinle said.
As with every court appearance he has made, Sebena was brought into court in a wheelchair and wearing a padded suicide-prevention vest. He was silent except when entering his plea and responding to Judge David Borowski's questions.
The judge asked whether Sebena understood that his guilty plea meant he was acknowledging that he killed his wife, and that he meant to do so.
"Yes, sir," Sebena replied in a clear unwavering voice.
Steinle left court without talking to reporters. Sebena's family also declined to speak to reporters.
Sebena was due to face trial next month, at which point prosecutors would certainly have introduced incriminating statements Sebena made to police.
He had acknowledged lying in wait for his wife outside the fire department where officers often take their breaks. He said he saw her and opened fire, and when she reached for her weapon he grabbed it from her holster and used it to shoot her in the face three or four times. He told investigators he wanted to make sure she was dead so she wouldn't suffer.
Jennifer Sebena had told a colleague a few weeks before her death that her husband had acted violently toward her and put a gun to her head, prosecutors said. Detectives who searched the couple's home found a gun with ammunition matching the bullet casings found at the scene. They also found Jennifer Sebena's service weapon stashed in the attic.
Ben Sebena's defense attorney, Michael Steinle, tried to have some of Sebena's comments to police thrown out because officers hadn't immediately informed him he had the rights to remain silent and have an attorney present. But Judge David Borowski ruled last week that police didn't need to read him his Miranda rights immediately because he didn't become a suspect until later.
Ben Sebena served two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Marine Corps. He was honorably discharged in 2005 after suffering severe arm and leg injuries in a mortar attack.
He will be sentenced Aug. 9.
___
Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde@ap.org.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-war-vet-pleads-guilty-wifes-death-184745987.html
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Banking with your mobile? There will be a fee for that...
12 hours ago
As more and more customers are using their mobile devices to make deposits or pay bills, the banks are looking for ways to charge them for the service.
While fees for using mobile apps may be inevitable, the banks differ only over how to levy that charge.
Some banks believe it should be a fixed cost per transaction, others believe fees should only come on products that present risks to the bank and provide unique services to the customer, such as Regions Financial for immediate funds, and Wells Fargo for emergency bill pay.
Still others ? who asked not to be identified because the strategy hasn't been announced ? have lobbied for a model resembling "Amazon Prime," where customers pay a flat fee for unlimited transactions.
Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial rolled out its mobile banking app this spring with a tiered fee structure, based on when the customer needed access to funds deposited digitally. For immediate availability, which is a risk to the bank because it then doesn't have time to verify the fees, customers must pay $5, or a percentage of the deposit?whichever is higher. For access two days later, once the funds are verified, the fee is 50 cents?the same fee Minneapolis-based US Bank introduced for all mobile deposits in 2010. It was the first bank to initiate such fees.
"This is just the beginning of the creative ways banks will try to compensate in a low-rate, low-growth environment," said Todd Hagerman, senior research analyst at Sterne Agee. "They have to look for alternative ways to improve their fee income stream."
Customers like Al Falussy, a sales executive on Long Island, NY, are not happy. He is a frequent user of his mobile banking app to get balance alerts, send money to employees and family, and deposit money from places where no branches are nearby.
But if Falussy's bank of choice?JP Morgan Chase?started charging to use the app? He'd switch banks.
"They're making money on my money," Falussy said of the deposits he keeps with the bank. "So for them to actually go there would be kind of petty."
Falussy and other consumers might not like it, but fees for mobile banking are set to become the norm. Slowly but surely, banks are experimenting with ways to build charges into the apps' features and as apps get higher-tech, too, a simple convenience could become costly.
(Read More: Banks Still Raising Fees?and Hiding Them: Study)
Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association, said banks can't afford to give customers all services free of charge, especially because of increased regulatory and legislative pressure. For one example, "checking accounts were often provided at no cost to the customer, but there is a cost to the bank providing them." Innovation on mobile, Hunt said, will fall into that category.
(Read More: Overdraft Protection Will Cost You, But How Much?)
Dave Kaminsky, a senior analyst at Mercator Advisory Group, a research firm focused on the payments industry, explained that users perceive mobile banking's offerings as worth the cost. "Customers tend to look at remote deposit capture or expedited processing as an additional value, so they're willing to pay for it?at least for now."
Customers seem to be embracing mobile banking fees so far. US Bank, a source said, hasn't experienced many customer defections since the fee was introduced in 2010. And even though Regions has the steepest fees yet, CEO Grayson Hall said on the company's last earnings call that mobile "continues to be a rapid growth channel." Perhaps one reason is that mobile, as a platform, is still surging in growth: The number of web-savvy consumers who bank only on their app jumped 55 percent in the last year, according to digital measurement outfit comScore.
Still, customer sensitivity to fees looms large as many big banks are hesitant to be the "first mover" in the space?and potentially lose customers to their competitors. JPMorgan Chase currently offers all its mobile features for free and will continue to do so, according to a person familiar with the matter.
"Deposits will eventually move from ATMs entirely to mobile," said an executive familiar with the strategy. "You want to capture that business, not turn it away." No direct fees are levied for ATM deposits.
Wells Fargo has been the only major bank to experiment with fees thus far. The bank refuses to charge for remote check deposit, which totaled 1.4 million checks in May alone, because it considers the service basic. Instead, it has chosen to charge for what it considers to be premium mobile services, like bank-to-bank transfers and emergency bill pay.
Features like emergency bill pay and immediate availability of funds are risky for banks, since it takes time to verify that the funds exist on the end of the check writer. Because banks must pay for insurance in case the money isn't there, a fee to have the money available immediately would simply cover that insurance. For that reason, at least three big banks have lobbied regulators like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, according to people familiar with the talks, to discuss options to verify funds without having to charge customers.
At a time when consumers feel buried in fees by their banks, one more charge tacked on to services could prompt more consumers to follow Falussy's game plan to hang up on their bank.
? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved
SKorean president in Beijing for summit with Xi
BEIJING (AP) ? The Chinese and South Korean presidents called Thursday for a swift resumption of six-nation North Korean nuclear disarmament talks after a summit that brought together Pyongyang's archrival and its biggest ally.
President Park Geun-hye's four-day visit marks her first formal discussions with the new Chinese administration led by President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Talks will also focus on booming economic ties between the two countries, highlighted by the unusually large, high-powered trade delegation traveling with Park.
The meetings are seen as piling further pressure on the North to rejoin the talks, and Xi said improving conditions on the peninsula boded well for new discussions.
"We hope all sides can seize this opportunity to work to return to the six-party talks as soon as possible," Xi told reporters after his talks with Park at the Great Hall of the People, the seat of the legislature in the heart of Beijing.
Park said the sides agreed on the need to prevent North Korea having nuclear weapons "under any circumstances" and to "preserve the peace and stability of Korean Peninsula."
The two also witnessed the signing of agreements on energy cooperation, trade and other areas.
Park, a self-taught Mandarin speaker, has said she is keen to enlist China's leaders in the drive for new North Korean denuclearization discussions that would also include the U.S., Russia, and Japan.
The China-hosted talks with Pyongyang have been stalled since 2009 over the question of how to verify that North Korea is fulfilling its commitments to dismantle its nuclear facilities.
Park was scheduled to meet Li on Friday.
The calls for new talks follow China's frustration with its neighbor and longstanding communist ally for having ramped up tensions with last year's long-range missile launch and February's third nuclear weapon test.
Beijing showed its displeasure by supporting tightened U.N. sanctions and cracking down on North Korean banking activity.
While China is North Korea's biggest source of diplomatic and economic support, China's trade and other interactions with the South are far larger and more diverse. Ordinary Chinese are also big fans of South Korean pop culture and high-tech wares, and there is a growing sentiment among urban intellectuals that China should not sacrifice international credibility for the sake of coddling Pyongyang.
Despite the pressure to rejoin talks, Kim Jong Un's mercurial North Korean regime appears to remain wary.
Park has said that any resumption of talks must be preceded by signs that the North is serious about following through on its disarmament commitments, echoing the position of the U.S. Washington does not want to be drawn into talks that serve only to relieve pressure on Pyongyang, provide it a platform to seek much-needed aid, and buy it more time to further its nuclear weapons program.
Yet, after top North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan visited Beijing earlier this month for talks, Chinese analysts said Pyongyang seemed more interested in improving its damaged ties with China than in swiftly moving toward new six-nation talks.
While Beijing has remained neutral over recent developments, Chinese scholars say Xi's government will seek an intermediary role to create conditions for a restoration of talks. They warn, however, that Beijing would oppose harsher sanctions or other measures that could spark a backlash from Pyongyang or further destabilize the regime of the young and inexperienced Kim, who took over following his father's death 18 months ago.
"It's very hard to say whether the meeting will produce any new proposals, but, following the third nuclear test, I think China and every other country involved realizes the seriousness of the need to get North Korea back into talks," said Zhang Liangui, a researcher with the ruling Communist Party's main research and training institute in Beijing.
Park's visit should also help smooth over strains in ties between China and South Korea over China's refusal to criticize Pyongyang following the sinking of a South Korean navy ship in early 2010 and shelling of one of its islands by a North Korean artillery unit later that year.
Park's appreciation for Chinese culture should also help foster positive relations. The Beijing stage of her trip, which includes meetings with business groups and a speech to university students, is to be followed by a stop at the ancient capital of Xi'an, a cultural hub that is a favorite destination for South Korean investors.
Park is traveling with a record 71-strong business delegation, highlighting the close economic ties that have lifted China above the U.S. as South Korea's top trading partner. Two-way trade hit $215 billion last year, with South Korea's exports of semiconductors, mobile phones, cars and industrial products giving it a trade surplus of more than $50 billion.
Business delegates include leaders of South Korean industry, including the chairmen of Hyundai Motor Group and LG Group.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/skorean-president-beijing-summit-xi-045156659.html
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Thursday, June 27, 2013
Freedom to Speak: An Interview with Sampsonia Way's Silvia Duarte ...
In her essay ?Forbidden,? this week?s guest writer, Katie Booth, writes about her experience teaching writing at a university in Guangzhou, China. As an American, she struggled to find texts that wouldn?t be seen as subversive in the eyes of the Chinese government. In the classroom, she skirted around words, unsure of what was acceptable or if she was making a reference to a political event that she shouldn?t have been speaking about. She even took a class trip to Beijing?s Tiananmen Square with her students, and not once did anybody reference the 1989 massacre. She wasn?t even sure if they knew about the events, or if the censorship in China was so effective that it had wiped it from the population?s general knowledge.
While in China, Booth sometimes fantasized about shouting censored words like ?Tiananmen Square? out into the open; she fantasized about ?liberating? her students in the classroom ?through knowledge? via ?small, sly gestures.? But these fantasies were quickly replaced by paranoid visions of being monitored by officials and caught. Even through the vague haze of not really knowing the consequences, Booth knew that there were consequences, had been consequences.
And so, for the most part, Booth comes to understand her role as an American in China:
?I was to keep my first amendment mouth shut.?
Booth?s essay on censorship and freedom of speech couldn?t be more timely. ?As the United States National Security Agency?s surveillance scandal broke news earlier this month, some politicians, like Michigan?s Democratic Representative John Coyners, claims that the US may be ?on the verge of becoming a surveillance state.? In the US, we?re quick to think of these issues as common in countries like China, or in the Middle East, but we haven?t always been so quick to recognize these issues as common in our own country.
Silvia Duarte, editor of the freedom of speech magazine Sampsonia Way, put it this way:
?In the United States, we look at how dirty our neighbor?s house is, but we don?t look to see if our own house is clean.?
I had a chance to speak with Duarte recently in order to shed light on issues regarding censorship and freedom of speech and how these affect the lives and safety of writers and journalists. I was curious to know what the consequences that Booth hints at might be?especially for writers who are from and still living in oppressive countries. What are some of the most repressive countries, and how do writers proceed fearlessly, even when their lives might be at stake?
The magazine Sampsonia Way began in September of 2009, five years after the organization City of Asylum set up roots in Pittsburgh?s Northside neighborhood. City of Asylum?s main mission is to provide sanctuary to persecuted writers from around the world. The writers live in houses that City of Asylum provides on a street in the Northside called Sampsonia Way, City of Asylum providing stipends and the housing for these writers for two years. Sampsonia Way magazine follows City of Asylum?s mission by providing virtual sanctuary to persecuted writers.
The magazine hosts a column called Fearless, Ink., in which nine writers from various countries participate, and it also publishes in-depth articles, interviews, and excerpts of literary work by persecuted writers.
Duarte, who is Guatemalan, worked as a journalist and an editor in her home country before coming to the United States. She has always been a proponent of freedom of speech, and feels lucky to be able to put her knowledge to work as editor of Sampsonia Way.
Next month, the magazine, a non-profit organization, will launch a Kickstarter campaign. Duarte encourages readers to subscribe or to become a fan on Sampsonia Way?s Facebook page, or to participate on their freedom of speech wall. These are all ways to help, she says.
So, as Booth struggled to find a way to keep her ?first amendment mouth shut,? Duarte brings us news of what happens when writers?particularly those still living in repressive countries?don?t.
?There?s nothing worse to persecutors from a really oppressive government,? she says, ?than saying you are not afraid of them.?
?Amanda
*
What are some of the top reasons, currently, that writers are persecuted?
Well, from working at the magazine, I have come to understand that it is so difficult to name the reason without identifying the country. I?m a little afraid of generalizations. The reasons are really different depending on the country you are talking about. So in China, for example, writers go to jail when the government sees these writers writing about democracy. But the topics that put some Chinese writers in jail are really varied. So it can be from denouncing corruption to talking about the Tiananmen Square massacres, or criticizing governmental measures of the one-child policy, or the labor reform. So, the reasons in China are all different.
In some other countries, criticizing religious issues or religious icons can put you in jail. We just published an article about a month ago by a cartoonist from Bangladesh. His name is Arifur Rahman. He drew a cartoon about a young boy introducing his cat as Mohammed Cat. And this cartoon was published during the Ramadan holiday, and this brought protests across Bangladesh in 2007. So, society was protesting this guy and the government put him in jail. Now he is out of prison, but he is not able to publish his work inside Bangladesh. For religious issues. Censorship from religion is growing now. The government in Turkey for example?and this is a secular country, according to its constitution?is trying to transform Turkey into a Muslim state. Writers who criticize that measure are persecuted. And Tar?k G?nersel, one of our columnists in Fearless, Ink., has written about that change in Turkey.
But, we have to also remember that to write about corruption in Russia, or some country in Latin America or Africa, will bring you problems with criminal groups that can kill you at any moment. Drug trafficking cartels can be your worst enemy if you are a Colombian, Mexican, or Guatemalan journalist.
I saw that cartoon issue, and it was really surprising because I hadn?t thought of it?asylum for cartoonists in the same sort of way as for journalists. But it seems like political cartoonists are always satirizing somebody or some government, so I could see how they could be persecuted.
Some people wonder why we include cartoonists. Well, they are fighting with words, right? Sometimes, with just a few words, they are saying more than anybody else. And they also have more exposure than other writers, because more people are looking at the cartoons.
But back to the reasons of why writers are persecuted. Many governments from Ethiopia to the United States?of course on different levels?are using the threat of terrorism and the need for national security to justify surveillance and persecutions. In Ethiopia, many independent journalists had to go into asylum after the government accused them of being terrorists. And here in the United States, when President Obama was asking where his justice department went too far in grabbing phone records of AP journalists?he answered that he couldn?t comment on a ?pending case,? but he could speak ?broadly about the balance we have to strike between press freedoms and national security. But as a citizen or resident in the United States, you really want to know what the limits of that balance are.
What are some of the top countries experiencing literary/artistic/free speech repression?
Reporters Without Borders has an annual Press Freedom Index. I am mentioning Reporters Without Borders even though they just concentrate on journalists, because you have to remember that journalists are the most persecuted writers because they have the most exposure.
The countries that are the most dangerous (the ones at the bottom of the index) in 2013 are Eritrea, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Syria, Somalia, Iran, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. But, of course, there are other countries that are close to these ones, like Pakistan, Turkey, Ethiopia, Egypt. And something that is interesting in this index is that the United States is number 32. It rose fifteen places from 2012. So in 2012 it was number 47. And you wonder: Why was it in that place? It was because of the crackdown on journalists during the Occupy movement. And my guess is that in 2014 we are going to see another drop-off of the United States (meaning it will get worse), because of the AP and the Fox scandals. Both accused the government of surveillance of journalists.
According to this index, the safest places for journalists are Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, and Andorra.
Do you think it?s surprising for people to think of the US as high as it is on that list?
As high as it is? Well, it?s not that high if you remember how proud the country is of its first amendment. Of course, it?s still in a good situation if you compare it with the last countries on the list. But I think some people are going to be surprised, those who think it could be in a better place. But depends on how much you read. People who are reading newspapers every day won?t be surprised.
The writers you work with, and the writers at Sampsonia Way, how do they go about seeking asylum? I imagine it?s different for every writer, and I imagine it?s different for every country.
Yeah, because you have to think that when writers have to leave their country because they are persecuted, it?s not like there?s a form they can just fill out. They are running away because they are trying to save their lives. Sometimes they can contact an organization or another government. Or sometimes they can just contact a friend. But there are organizations that deal with these issues. Many organizations. Two that I would like to mention are ICORN?International Cities of Refuge Network, which works in Europe. They also offer a stipend and a house for writers around the world in different cities of Europe. And the second organization is City of Asylum in the United States.
And the City of Asylum, is it just a network of people in various countries?
City of Asylum is inside the United States. There are programs in Las Vegas, Ithaca, Miami, too?but City of Asylum [in Pittsburgh] is a grassroots organization, whereas the others work more closely with universities.
You?re not connected with a university?
No, it?s more of a grassroots organization. Pittsburgh, and specifically the Northside neighborhood, have been really central. City of Asylum provides the sanctuary to persecuted writers, but without the help of the Northside community that wouldn?t be possible.
What do they do specifically to make it a community for these writers?
Well, some of them are volunteers or attend City of Asylum events, and all of them are neighbors to the writers, and they have been really open to them.
Can you speak at all to the psychological repercussions of exile? I?m just wondering how many of these writers that you see coming to City of Asylum, and that you meet through Sampsonia Way?how many of them get to go home? And if they cannot, what is the sort of psychological way they cope this? Is writing, do you think, a part of that?
Well, I think that from the writers? perspective, there are specific issues they deal with that are different than other asylum seekers? experiences. Sometimes they?ve lost the possibility of publishing in their country. In some ways, they?ve also lost their connection with their former network of readers. Sometimes they haven?t been translated into the language of the country where they are in exile?in this case English. And this creates an additional kind of anxiety for them as opposed to a regular exiled person. City of Asylum tries to help as much as it can. And like you mentioned in your question, some of these are psychological and depend on each writer. Huang Xiang, from China, and Horacio Castellanos, from El Salvador, have gone back to their countries. But how they cope with that depends on each writer. Some of them don?t really want to go back, whereas some of them are just really waiting for the moment they can go back.
How many writers do you have who are living in a repressive country who manage to contribute to the magazine, and how do they do that under the radar?
We have interviewed and written about many writers who are still living in those countries and still publishing there, or at least trying to write in these countries. But as for regular contributors, we have four, from Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, and Cuba. We have come in contact with these writers in many different ways. Some through City of Asylum, but most of them have been previous sources before.
For example, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo is from Cuba. I contacted him at first for an interview. He was kidnapped with Yoani Sanchez, who is another well-known blogger from Cuba. I was trying to write an article on them, and I contacted him, because he was my source for an in-depth article. I invited him to be a columnist, and he accepted. Orlando has been in jail three times. And still he is writing about what he considers to be crucial for a democratic future in Cuba.
Each time he was arrested was for something he wrote?
Yes. Or for something they were afraid that he was going to write. But, yes.
So sometimes he didn?t even publish something but they were afraid?
The thing is that now with Internet, even though just a few people in Cuba have access to the Internet, the Internet access has grown a bit. You don?t have to wait to publish in an official press. So they can write more, and the government, depending on the situation, might have more to fear.
So, the writers who are regular contributors writing from inside their countries?they are really, really brave. And we always say to them that if they want to publish anonymously, they can do that. It?s not going to be a problem for us. But actually, they want to publish with their names. Depending on what the country?s going through, they might practice a little bit of self-censorship, because there might be something that they can?t let you know. But normally, these are people to whom their society is more important than themselves. So they decide to write even though they know they could be at risk.? Like I was saying about our columnist from Cuba?who, by the way, is now in the United States, just for a period of time?he?s been in jail three times and he doesn?t stop writing on the issues he considers crucial for a Cuban democratic future.
When facing censorship in his/her country, what choices does a writer have? Is it always a risky choice, or are there more subversive ways a writer can go about getting her message out?for example, underground publications, etc.?
The choices that they have? The choices that they have are either to remain silent or speak their truth. And luckily, we work with writers who are masters at speaking their minds.
I love that the column is titled ?Fearless, Ink.?
I will say that it?s a provocative name. There?s nothing worse to persecutors from a really oppressive government than saying you are not afraid of them. But of course, some of these writers still experience fear. The difference is that they overcome their fear with bravery.
What do you think it takes to do that?
What it takes is to live in border situations?these writers live on the edge. If they don?t do something, if they don?t speak out, if they don?t create awareness in an international way, if they don?t move themselves to provoke changes, well, their lives can be miserable.
By that point prison doesn?t mean very much if you?re living in a society?
?where that society or its government is a prison.
Right. Exactly.
But, you know what? That?s to put words in the writers? mouths. I will say that they?re not going to answer in the same way. Sometimes it?s really difficult to understand if you aren?t in this situation.
Do you have any specific stories you?d like to share where Sampsonia Way had a direct change?whether politically, culturally, or sociologically?
We have a columnist from Ethiopia and one from Egypt. If you go to our Facebook page, you can see that many of our fans are from Ethiopia and Egypt. This is a good example of how sites like Sampsonia Way help democracy. In the Ethiopia case, they don?t have an independent press, so a lot of the readers from inside of Ethiopia are coming to the magazine to see what is happening there. And creating this network, this readership, is crucial for a democratic movement or a democratic future in any country. Sampsonia Way is growing in numbers, and as a result we have 40,000 page views per month. Our work has been shared and translated by many other publications.
Overall, I think that the Burmese poet Khin Lun is a good example of the effect that the magazine has had. Khin Lun was living in a Thai refugee camp when we interviewed him via Skype three years ago. And after that publication, an Australian minister became interested in his case. And so Khin Lun was given the chance to go to Australia as an exiled writer. This kind of thing happens.
So readers are finding out about their own countries via Sampsonia Way?
Yes, especially with Ethiopia.
We also have a writer from Pakistan?and like the other columnists, she publishes bi-monthly. If you go to her column, you can see a bunch of posts that have generated a good debate. So the magazine is also a forum, and that is also essential for democracy.
Just having that space where people can talk about these issues.
Yeah, you can see these conversations, and sometimes you can really learn about the issues from these debates. People are fighting about one issue?or just giving good reasons, not just complaining?but it gives you first hand knowledge of the issue. Something that is really important to emphasize about the magazine is that normally we read about these countries through mainstream media. Typically what happens is that they [journalists] go there and they write about what they see. But here we have people who are from there, writing about their own countries. So that is really important.
Any other things that you would like a general US audience to know about exile, censorship, or freedom of speech?
What is really important is that we are always informed, that we are always reading newspapers and that we are seeing what is happening in the world. I think some people think that social media can be worthless or not useful, but it?s a way to create awareness. If you use social media, why not use it to share this kind of information? It really helps?little by little.
But another thing that I would say for an audience in the United States, we look at how dirty our neighbor?s house is, but we don?t look to see if our own house is clean. It?s really important that we see other countries and try to support them, but it is also really important that we see what is happening in the United States, that we don?t believe everything is going great just because we are not ranked so low in the indexes. Sometimes we think we are better than other countries. Sometimes you risk losing the values you already have, and freedom of speech is an important value here, and I think as a society we have to defend that.
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Source: http://velamag.com/blog/interviews/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=interviews
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Friday, June 21, 2013
Transistor made from just one molecular monolayer made to work on computer chip
June 20, 2013 ? Electronic components built from single molecules using chemical synthesis could pave the way for smaller, faster and more green and sustainable electronic devices. Now for the first time, a transistor made from just one molecular monolayer has been made to work where it really counts. On a computer chip.
The molecular integrated circuit was created by a group of chemists and physicists from the Department of Chemistry Nano-Science Center at the University of Copenhagen and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing. Their discovery has just been published online in the periodical Advanced Materials. The breakthrough was made possible through an innovative use of the two dimensional carbon material graphene.
First step towards integrated molecular circuit
Kasper N?rgaard is an associate professor in chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. He believes that the first advantage of the newly developed graphene chip will be to ease the testing of coming molecular electronic components. But he is also confident, that it represents a first step towards proper integrated molecular circuits.
"Graphene has some very interesting properties, which cannot be matched by any other material.
What we have shown for the first time is that it's possible to integrate a functional component on a graphene chip. I honestly feel this is front page news," says N?rgaard.
See through sandwich central to function
The molecular computer chip is a sandwich built with one layer of gold, one of molecular components and one of the extremely thin carbon material graphene. The molecular transistor in the sandwich is switched on and of using a light impulse so one of the peculiar properties of graphene is highly useful. Even though graphene is made of carbon, it's almost completely translucent.
Environmentally important. Strategically vital
The hunt for transistors, wires, contacts and other electronic components made from single molecules has had researchers working night and day. Unlike traditional components they are expected to require no heavy metals and rare earth elements. So they should be cheaper as well as less harmful to earth, water and animals. Unfortunately it has been fiendishly difficult to test how well these functional molecules work. Until now.
The luck of the draw
Previously the testing of the microscopic components had researchers resort to a method best compared to a lottery. In order to check whether or not a newly minted molecule would conduct or break a current, they had to practically dump a beakerfull of molecules between two live wires, hoping that at least one molecule had landed so that it closed the circuit.
Lottery method supplanted by precision placement
Using the new graphene chip researchers can now place their molecules with great precision. This makes it faster and easier to test the functionality of molecular wires, contacts and diodes so that chemists will know in no time whether they need to get back to their beakers to develop new functional molecules, explains N?rgaard.
"We've made a design, that'll hold many different types of molecule" he says and goes on: "Because the graphene scaffold is closer to real chipdesign it does make it easier to test components, but of course it's also a step on the road to making a real integrated circuit using molecular components. And we must not lose sight of the fact that molecular components do have to end up in an integrated circuit, if they are going to be any use at all in real life."
The work has been supported by Danish Chinese Center for Molecular Nano-Electronics and financed by the Danish National Research Foundation, the European Union 7th framework for research (FP7) and by The Lundbeck Foundation.
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Thursday, June 20, 2013
Obama job approval unchanged, views of economy improve
Obama's job approval was 51 percent in May, Pew said. And the proportion of Americans disapproving of the job he's doing stayed steady at 43 percent in both May and June.
While just 11 percent of Americans in 2012 said the economy was in excellent or good shape, that number has surged to 23 percent?the highest level since January 2008, Pew found. Thirty-five percent say the economy will get better one year from now, against 19 percent who say things will be worse. In March, more respondents said it would be worse (32 percent) than better (25 percent).
Still, 64 percent of respondents said jobs are difficult to find in their communities, against 29 percent who said there were plenty of opportunities.
Obama's handling of the economy was still underwater: 44 percent approved, against 50 disapproving. Americans are split 35 percent-35 percent on whether his policies have made things better, while 27 percent say they've had no effect.
Pew has kept track of one-word descriptions for the president. In April 2009, the top five were, in descending order: "Intelligent," "good," "socialist," "liberal," "great." In September 2012, they were "good/good man," "trying/tried/tries," "president," "failed/failure" and "incompetent," with "socialist" in the 11th slot. In June 2013, the top terms were "good/good man," "incompetent," "honest," "liar" and "excellent," with "socialist" in the 8th slot. No word on what percentage accurately recall the definition of "socialist."
Obama's approval ratings on his handling of terrorism and his approach to civil liberties capture the American public's own mixed message on government surveillance. Fifty-six percent approve of his handling of terrorism, against 35 percent disapproving. When it comes to civil liberties, though, 42 percent approve while 51 percent disapprove.
Overall, the poll had an error margin of 2.9 percentage points.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-job-approval-unchanged-views-economy-improve-200917651.html
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Editorial: What internet radio needs to disrupt actual radio - Engadget
"Internet radio" is usually a misnomer, as well as an indicator of its ambition. The term "radio" is misapplied to internet services like AOL Radio, Rhapsody Radio, the upcoming iTunes Radio and their ilk. All these mediums are unrelated to radio technology. But for most people, "radio" simply means something you turn on and listen to. As a marketing term, "radio" seeks to accustom users to new technology by connecting it with familiar technology. Pandora describes itself as "free, personalized radio."
The business intent in all cases is more ambitious -- to wean people from the terrestrial radio habit and migrate them to online services. Will it work?
It's not working in a big way yet. According to the Pew Research Center, American use of local AM/FM radio hardly budged between 2001 and 2011 -- a period during which online services graduated from web 1.0 to web 2.0, and moved assertively into the mobile space. Of note, 93 percent of American teenagers and adults used traditional radio in 2011, nearly the percentage of television use (98 percent). During that 10-year span, broadband internet adoption rose from 20 percent to 70 percent, and use of "online radio" (including terrestrial webcasts) rose from 28 percent to 56 percent. So it's evident that people are dipping their toes into various forms of internet radio without abandoning their terrestrial stations.
By not separating All Access from Google Play ... Google is merely adding a feature rather than trying to start a movement.
Michael Robertson, CEO of DAR.fm and founder of the original MP3.com, recently expressed confidence in the long-awaited migration from passive over-the-air listening to more configurable music streams offered by web / mobile services. "There's no question that it will change from 10 / 90 (digital / analog) to 90 / 10 because FM cannot compete with the benefits of internet-delivered music."
Robertson feels that Apple's recently announced iTunes Radio service, coming this fall to its mobile devices in the iOS 7 upgrade, will accelerate consumer adoption of internet radio. That might be true. When Apple announced and described the service in its WWDC keynote, I tweeted, "As expected, iRadio appears (from the demo) to be completely pedestrian, usual feature set that other services have had for years." A friend tweeted in response: "and it will eat their lunch."
That might be true, too. You cannot overestimate the power and adoption clout of a native app on one of the world's most-used mobile platforms. Google is missing the boat in this regard, with its Play Music All Access service. By not separating All Access from Google Play, not placing it on the mobile start screen and not giving it a coherent name, Google is merely adding a feature rather than trying to start a movement. Apple's gambit is also a feature add-on to a wide array of ecosystem attractions, but it's setting it up for success as a killer app, despite its unoriginal functions.
Apple's mobile footprint will probably introduce new users to the pleasures of listening to highly personalized music streams. But for the big migration to occur, ease of use is the mountain that internet radio must climb.
Not many entertainment habits are easier or more ingrained than turning on a radio -- especially in the car. Pandora's attainment of 200 million users was assisted by its increased presence in autos. When it comes to radio, mobile means driving. When Pandora struck a deal with Pioneer Corp. to bundle the internet radio service into dashboard navigation systems (this was in 2010), Pandora's co-founder Tim Westergren was quoted as saying, "Maybe a year ago people would have said Pandora is a computer thing. They're beginning to realize that internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing."
Apple appears to be thinking along the same lines. The single remarkable point in the iTunes Radio announcement was the pending development deals with 12 car companies. There's no information yet on what the integration might look like, but the few seconds in which Apple's slide appeared signaled a clear intent to tie general mobility (iOS devices) to radio mobility (the car).
Pre-cable television was considerably easier to operate, and free. Now the set is tethered to the wall, operated by a hostile hand-held device bristling with inexplicable controls, and the programs cost a fortune.
Media and tech companies can wrench users from one platform to another even when the experience is burdened with some degree of complication, hassle and expense. Pre-cable television was considerably easier to operate, and free. Now the set is tethered to the wall, operated by a hostile hand-held device bristling with inexplicable controls, and the programs cost a fortune. On the plus side, the picture is gorgeous, the channel variety is stunning and all that money sloshing around produces movie-quality shows.
Internet radio has advantages, too, that balance its complications. Subscription tiers eliminate advertising, the noisy bane of commercial AM/FM radio. Personalization features differentiate effectively from the expertly curated genre stations of SiriusXM -- the chief in-car challenger to AM/FM.
Competing on the basis of accessibility is fine, and internet radio needs to get easier in both car and home. It also needs star power and blockbuster announcement material. SiriusXM enjoyed immense publicity when Howard Stern moved to that platform from terrestrial radio. Jerry Seinfeld is producing his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee for Crackle, bestowing interest and recognition on that "internet television" service. And look at Netflix, which shifted from its original mission as an innovative DVD-rental outlet to a streaming service, and from there to a content producer. After making waves with its House of Cards online-only, binge-watching series, this week, Netflix signed a long-term content-development deal with DreamWorks.
Internet radio lacks all these shades of glamour. Even with its rising popularity, internet radio is geeky. Its image is tethered to computers and smartphones. That is a status quo in which the usage numbers of terrestrial radio remain fairly safe. It is up to Apple, or Google, or Rhapsody, or Spotify, or Pandora, or Amazon, or another internet player to break down the perceptual walls within which internet radio is trapped, developing content or importing stars that will compel users to commit more of their attention to the platform. Technology alone might not be enough to disrupt the nearly 100-year-old technology of terrestrial radio. But technology plus killer content can do it.
Brad Hill is a former Vice President at AOL, and the former Director and General Manager of Weblogs, Inc. He streams internet radio from his phone into his car's sound system, and listens to NPR at home.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/18/what-internet-radio-needs-to-disrupt-actual-radio/
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lern2play Resources and Information. This website is for sale!
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HTC Butterfly s revealed: 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor, UltraPixel camera sensor (video)
HTC's just pulled back the proverbial curtains on the Butterfly s at its Taiwan launch event. It'll arrive boasting a familiar-sounding 5-inch 1080p display, front-facing BoomSound stereo speakers and Sense 5 as expected. When it comes to internals, the Butterfly s runs Android Jelly Bean on a quad-core 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 (faster than the HTC One), an impressive 3,200mAh battery, quad-band HSPA/WCDMA radio, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of built-in storage, expandable once again through microSD. As for imaging, alongside that primary UltraPixel camera and Zoe software features, there's a 2.1-megapixel wide-angle shooter on the front. It's currently scheduled for a release in July in Taiwan, accompanied by a NT $22,900 (roughly $766) price tag, but no word when (or even if) it'll reach foreign shores.
Update: Our Chinese sister site just spent some hands-on time with the device. Check out their first impressions right here. We've also added an official video right after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC
Source: Engadget Chinese
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
an area wanted to buy solar energy systems but they
Apologies for spam; we've changed our policy by requiring approval for accounts, and deleted all existing spam and user - thanks for your help flagging content.
We continue to test our forums and Vanilla software, aiming for release early in 2013. If you need to give us feedback outside the forum, contact us via http://createdigitalmusic.com/contact/ or on Facebook
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an area wanted to buy solar energy systems but they
Source: http://createdigitalnoise.com/discussion/4862/an-area-wanted-to-buy-solar-energy-systems-but-they
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Spain's Mango Takes on Retail Fashion Rivals Inditex and H&M ...
BARCELONA, Spain ??Shoppers in the 109 countries where Spanish fashion chain Mango has stores recognise its celebrity faces well, but few know much about the company behind the clothes modelled by Kate Moss, Gerard Pique and Scarlett Johansson.
?Mango is from Spain, part of the Inditex group, isn?t it?? said Maria Lekae, 29, a Russian shopper browsing in the branch on Barcelona?s smart street Passeig de Gracia.
Her misconception that Mango is one of Zara owner Inditex?s cluster of brands is common. In fact, the 30-year-old Barcelona-based company is private and unrelated to the world?s largest retailer, based in Galicia, northern Spain.
That could change if Mango successfully implements a 10-year plan to break out from under the shadow of its larger Spanish competitor and equal Zara?s current level of sales, which topped 10.5 billion euros last year compared with Mango?s 1.7 billion.
?We began later than them, that?s why you need to give us 10 years to catch up!? Managing Director Enric Casi told Reuters in an interview at Mango?s headquarters and design centre on an industrial estate 30 km from downtown Barcelona.
Mango has pushed out to even more markets than its larger listed peer, which opened its first store about 40 years ago. It aims to continue expansion at the rate of more than four new stores a week, entering four new countries this year.
It also said a new strategy to reduce production costs and prices of its clothes had halted a two-year profit fall, increasing net profit for 2012 by 82 percent to 113 million euros ($150.00 million).
Casi described how the firm recaptured European customers battling austerity, with designers creating less expensive clothes, less evening wear and more casual garments.
?In 2010, 2009, we made markdowns, but in 2011 we did so many we ate up half the profit,? he said.
?We now start with a lower price but without discounts or markdowns later.?
THE DANGEROUS MID-MARKET
Mango put prices alongside outfits in catalogues and advertising last year, in a similar way to H&M.
Budget retailers such as Primark, owned by Associated Foods , have thrived during the economic slowdown as consumers buy cheaper clothes. Some luxury brands have also held up.
But the mid-market is suffering. Mango makes 16 percent of sales and has 326 outlets in Spain, which is racked by high unemployment and recession. Even veteran department store El Corte Ingles is suffering.
The market repositioning is paying off, with 2012 global sales up 20 percent and the firm back in profit after dropping 32 percent in 2010 and 38 percent in 2011.
Cheap labour in China, source of 42 percent of Mango clothes, and countries including Turkey, South Korea, Morocco and Bangladesh will remain a central strategy for the company, Casi said.
The collapse of a building in Bangladesh, killing 1,129 people has raised questions about conditions in producing countries. Forms for a Mango sample order were found in April in the rubble of Rana Plaza.
?Today, if you want to produce textiles, apart from the cloth, you know the countries of the world where you must buy and if you buy in other places you go wrong and you fail,? he said. ?In China, they sew better than in Europe nowadays.?
Mango?s founders, the Andic brothers, Isak and Nahman, opened their first store at 65 Passeig de Gracia in 1984, when Casi worked as a consultant for them.
?It was an old fur shop and I remember we opened up so quickly we still had the name of the fur shop there and Mango?s sign in red letters,? he said.
NEW VENTURES
Since then, Mango has notched up about 2,600 stores. By comparison, H&M has over 2,900, while Inditex has more than 6,000, of which over 1,700 are Zara.
The retail empire has made Mango President Isak Andic and his family the fourth richest in Spain, according to Forbes. Andic, who loves yachts and art, resists giving interviews.
?We?re now in another market, we?re competing with Inditex, with H&M, and we?re very satisfied,? said Casi.
Key to Mango?s 10-year strategy lies in developing a group of brands for men, children and older women, building on its Mango Touch accessories line started in 2011 and H.E. by Mango.
?It seems they want to use an umbrella brand and the doubt is whether they?ll have the ability to not only grow but also adapt their structure to this new strategy,? said Gerard Costa, marketing professor at Barcelona-based ESADE business school.
In Mango?s 12,000-square-metre design centre El Hangar is a pilot shop where the display of the new formats is worked out.
Samples for the line Mango Kids, launching this summer, include gold hotpants costing 27.99 euros.
Mango also launches its Sport&Intimates underwear line this summer; next year, it plans to bring in lines targeting teens and mature women.
It aims for group sales of 1.98 billion euros by year end.
Additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm; Editing by Fiona Ortiz and Pravin Char
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