Screen Grabs: Palm Pre-iPhone hybrid appears on Grimm, doesn't look half bad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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CANBERRA, Australia ? Qantas Airways grounded all of its aircraft around the world indefinitely on Saturday due to ongoing strikes by its workers.
The Australian carrier's entire fleet of 108 aircraft will remain grounded until unions representing pilots, mechanics and other ground staff reach an agreement with the airline over pay and conditions, Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told a news conference in Sydney.
"We have decided to ground the Qantas international and domestic fleets immediately," Joyce said.
Flights already in the air when the announcement was made were to continue to their destinations.
Staff will not be required to show up at work and will not be paid starting Monday, Joyce said.
Joyce said he made the decision early Saturday and then gained the approval of the Qantas board.
The airline had been forced to reduce and reschedule flights for weeks because of a series of strikes and overtime work bans over staff concerns that their jobs are being moved overseas.
Joyce estimated the grounding will cost the airline $20 million a day.
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For decades the amyloid hypothesis has dominated the research field in Alzheimer's disease. The theory describes how an increase in secreted beta-amyloid peptides leads to the formation of plaques, toxic clusters of damaged proteins between cells, which eventually result in neurodegeneration. Scientists at Lund University, Sweden, have now presented a study that turns this premise on its head.
The research group's data offers an opposite hypothesis, suggesting that it is in fact the neurons' inability to secrete beta-amyloid that is at the heart of pathogenesis in Alzheimer's disease.
The study, published in the October issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, shows an increase in unwanted intracellular beta-amyloid occurring early on in Alzheimer's disease. The accumulation of beta-amyloid inside the neuron is here shown to be caused by the loss of normal function to secrete beta-amyloid.
Contrary to the dominant theory, where aggregated extracellular beta-amyloid is considered the main culprit, the study instead demonstrates that reduced secretion of beta-amyloid signals the beginning of the disease.
The damage to the neuron, created by the aggregated toxic beta-amyloid inside the cell, is believed to be a prior step to the formation of plaques, the long-time hallmark biomarker of the disease.
Professor Gunnar Gouras, the senior researcher of the study, hopes that the surprising new findings can help push the research field in a new direction.
"The many investigators and pharmaceutical companies screening for compounds that reduce secreted beta-amyloid have it the wrong way around. The problem is rather the opposite, that it is not getting secreted. To find the root of the disease, we now need to focus on this critical intracellular pool of beta-amyloid.
"We are showing here that the increase of intracellular beta-amyloid is one of the earliest events occurring in Alzheimer's disease, before the formation of plaques. Our experiments clearly show a decreased secretion of beta-amyloid in our primary neuron disease model. This is probably because the cell's metabolism and secretion pathways are disrupted in some way, leading beta-amyloid to be accumulated inside the cell instead of being secreted naturally", says Davide Tampellini, first author of the study.
The theory of early accumulation of beta-amyloid inside the cell offers an alternate explanation for the formation of plaques. When excess amounts of beta-amyloid start to build up inside the cell, it is also stored in synapses.
When the synapses can no longer hold the increasing amounts of the toxic peptide the membrane breaks, releasing the waste into the extracellular space. The toxins released now create the seed for other amyloids to gather and start forming the plaques.
###
Lund University: http://www.lu.se
Thanks to Lund University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/114731/New_findings_contradict_dominant_theory_in_Alzheimer_s_disease
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INDIANAPOLIS ? Cigna Corp. said Friday its third-quarter profit tumbled 35 percent due to a bigger hit from some businesses the managed care company discontinued years ago.
The Bloomfield, Conn., health insurer reported its net income fell to $200 million, or 74 cents per share, in the three months that ended Sept. 30, down from $307 million, or $1.13 per share, a year ago.
Adjusted income totaled $1.20 per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected, on average, earnings of $1.23 per share.
Revenue climbed nearly 7 percent to $5.61 billion from $5.27 billion a year ago. Analysts expected $5.45 billion in revenue.
Cigna said results included losses totaling $179 million, or 66 cents per share, from its guaranteed minimum income benefits and variable annuity death benefits businesses. The losses were mainly due to low interest rates and "sustained volatile equity market conditions." That compares to losses totaling $44 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier.
Cigna discontinued those businesses in 2000 and operates them in run-off mode, meaning it seeks no new business. But they still can hurt the company's performance when the market turns bad because Cigna's liabilities toward them increase.
The insurer said medical membership in its health care segment, its largest business, climbed slightly to about 11.5 million people.
Cigna is the fourth-largest commercial health insurer based on enrollment. It operates health care, group disability and life segments in the U.S. The insurer also has an international segment that sells individual insurance in several countries and operates an expatriate business that covers people living outside their home countries.
Cigna said earlier this week it expects 2011 adjusted earnings of $5.05 to $5.30 per share, which is up from its previous forecast of $4.95 to $5.25. Analysts expect annual earnings of $5.29 per share.
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There's no shortage of time tracking apps for Android, and they run the gamut from feature-rich to simplistic. We tested several, and found that Time Recording offers the best combination of easy time-entry with the most features to help you keep track of the time you spend on your projects and clients.
Time Recording is one of the most popular time tracking apps in the Android Market, and while it's not the most simplistic app for time management available, it's certainly one of the most robust. The app makes it remarkably easy to create projects and tasks and then assign the time you spend to those tasks by checking in when you start and checking out when you're complete. You won't waste time setting Time Recording up, and you'll find yourself quickly tracking your time, which is the real goal of the app. The addition to assign billing rates and overtime to your projects and tasks make it easy to see how much money you should bill your clients for, or how much money you're spending by working on something non-billable.
Also, even on a small screen, Time Recording's built-in reports make it easy to see how much work you've done on a project over the past day, week, or month, and how much money you've earned or spent in that time. Plus, the app allows you to export data quickly and easily for review on your computer. The pro version's features extend the app's functionality a great deal for a low price, and the integration with Dropbox, Tasker, and Locale simply can't be beat.
Unfortunately, even though Task Recording is a great app, it's not without limitations. The free version is ad-supported, and you'll have to upgrade to pro to remove the ads. The app only allows you to assign one overtime rate to yourself at the moment, and unlike other apps in the category, you can't track mileage, travel, or other non-time-related expenses in addition to your time on projects. The app could use a UI overhaul: it does a great job at displaying a great deal of data, and lets you get to the commands you need quickly, but all that text on a white background gets tiresome quickly. Plus, the fact that some of Time Recording's best features require the Pro upgrade lends credence to the argument that the free version is functional, but the real power is only available when you pay up for it.
Gleeo Time Recorder (Free) offers a much more attractive interface and a number of gorgeous views of your daily schedule, the time you've spent on different projects, and what you have coming up on your calendar. However, while the app makes it easy and attractive to set up tasks and check in and check out of those tasks, it doesn't allow you to track billing rates or costs, mileage, or expenses at all - it's strictly for time management, which may be a good thing for some users.
TimeClock ($3.99/Free) is another freemium app that offers easy setup and easy check-in/check-out. The app also allows you to add billing rates for your tasks, toggle billing on and off for clients at any time, and set flat fee tasks that you can check in to that cost the same no matter the time spent on them. The interface is great, and the data export tools are almost as strong as Time Recording, but the app doesn't offer mileage, overtime, or the ability to pause tasks without clocking out. TimeClock does offer a web service to sync with though, so you can trust your logs are backed up.
If you'd rather have simpler utilities that are more geared toward personal use, consider TimePunch ($2.01), gbaHours Time Tracking ($5.75/Free), Time Tracker ($2.99), or Timesheet (Free) as alternatives that take some of the emphasis off of reporting and data analysis and instead focus more on tracking your personal and professional activities to see where your time is going. Each of them also allows you to set a billable rate for yourself, but they're more geared to the individual user who doesn't need the bells and whistles of other, more complex utilities.
If you'd rather use your Android phone to sync with a more robust desktop or web service designed for time tracking, you may consider the RescueTime (Free), Harvest (Free), or YAST (Free) apps for Android if you're already familiar with one of those services.
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
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ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2011) ? Outbreaks of meningitis can quickly reach epidemic proportions across a number of African countries, afflicting tens of thousands of people. Now a new vaccine appears capable of completely eradicating the disease.
"The vaccine results are exceeding all our expectations," says Dominique Caugant, Chief Scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.
Dominique headed the Norwegian segment of the international Meningitis Vaccine Project, a partnership between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the international non-profit organisation PATH.
The project's objective was to eliminate the meningitis epidemics caused by serogroup-A meningococci bacteria in the high-risk meningitis belt: the African countries south of the Sahara Desert, from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.
The result is a new and improved vaccine, MenAfriVac, which costs no more than USD 0.50 per dose.
One in ten lives lost
PATH's Marc LaForce, Director of the vaccine project, presented its preliminary results together with Professor Caugant at the conference Contributions to Global Health Research, Capacity Building and Governance, held in Oslo in September.
"The official launch of the vaccine in December 2010 was a great day for all of us on the team," recalls Dr LaForce. "Most people who work in public health never get to experience taking part in the development phase and then actually seeing a product introduced on a nationwide scale."
Globally, the WHO calculates that roughly half a million cases of meningococcal disease occur annually. Roughly one in ten infected persons die from the disease; those who survive it are often left debilitated.
"Existing vaccines have not been good enough to prevent the occurrence of large-scale epidemics in Africa," explains Professor Caugant. "There are improved vaccines available but they are far too expensive for African countries."
Virtually no incidents
Burkina Faso was the first country to receive the new vaccine. In the course of a few weeks, everyone from the age of one to 29 was vaccinated -- nearly 12 million people.
The number of people who contract the serogroup-A meningococcal disease varies from year to year, but according to Professor Caugant, 1 000 cases in the course of a week is not unusual for Burkina Faso, and up to 8 000 cases have been reported in a single week.
"Six months after the successful introduction of the vaccine," she says, "only four cases of the serogroup-A meningococcal disease had been reported -- all of them unvaccinated individuals."
The primary funder of the vaccine project was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Research Council of Norway's Programme for Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC) provided funding for the project's Norwegian component.
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health contributed expertise in microbiology and serology in connection with the vaccine, and it is now hosting one of the studies evaluating the efficacy of the vaccine distributed in Burkina Faso.
The vaccine is also being used in mass vaccinations in Mali and Niger.
Transmitted by healthy carriers
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health is also carrying out a transmission study in Burkina Faso to determine whether mass vaccination with MenAfriVac also reduces the number of healthy carriers of serogroup-A meningococci bacteria.
At any given time, many people have meningococci in their throat without becoming ill; these healthy carriers are the main source of the spread of the bacteria.
A local team of roughly 50 workers has collected more than 40 000 throat swab samples in Burkina Faso. The first samples were taken before the mass vaccination, and the last ones will be collected in October/November 2011.
Samples are being taken from three different parts of the country and at various seasons of the year to account for natural variations.
Community immunity
"Positive samples are sent to the NIPH for further analysis," says Professor Caugant. "Preliminary results suggest that there have been substantially fewer serogroup-A carriers after the vaccination campaign, meaning the vaccine provides what is called herd immunity."
The concept of herd immunity is that the unvaccinated parts of a population are indirectly protected, since fewer carriers means reduced pressure of infection.
"This is extremely important information for other countries considering introducing the vaccine," adds Professor Caugant.
She is a proponent of establishing a child vaccination programme to ensure that the region's future young children also have immunity.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Research Council of Norway. The original article was written by Elin Fugelsnes/Else Lie. Translation: Darren McKellep/Carol B. Eckmann.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111028103215.htm
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After pythons eat a meal, their organs ? including their hearts ? nearly double in size within a day. Now, researchers have learned how the snakes are able to achieve this sort of growth without heart damage, a finding that could lead to new therapies for human heart disease.
After a meal, python blood is so full of triglycerides, a form of cholesterol, that it appears milky, said study researcher Leslie Leinwand, a biologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In humans, these fatty compounds would be deposited in heart muscle, but the snakes escape without damage.
"The python heart is able to burn these fats as fuel very, very efficiently, without any harm to it," Leinwand told LiveScience.
Growing healthy hearts
Years ago, Leinwand read an article about Burmese pythons and their amazing ability to fast for months, gorge on food and undergo massive organ growth with no apparent ill effects. Plenty of researchers have looked to the strengths of other organisms to see if there could be any benefits to humans; for example, a diabetes drug released in 2005, called Byetta, was developed from the saliva of the Gila monster.
Leinwand wanted to know if python physiology might be the key to human drug treatments. In humans, heart growth can be a sign of health or of disease: Athletes' hearts grow large with exercise, but the chambers of the heart that pump the blood stay large, too. That makes the heart more efficient overall. In people with heart disease or high blood pressure, the heart muscle often swells as it works harder to pump blood. But this type of heart growth takes up space in the heart chamber, meaning each beat of the heart pumps less blood.
Figuring out how to encourage healthy heart growth in humans could be a boon for heart disease patients, Leinwand said.
"It's very well known from decades of work that exercise is good for your heart," she said. "But a lot of times, people who have heart disease can't exercise enough to get that benefit."
The goal, Leinwand said, is to create a drug treatment that could nudge a diseased heart toward healthy growth.
The heart of a python
First, however, she had to learn how to take care of pythons and set up a python colony in her Boulder lab. That took some time, she said.
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Once the researchers figured out python husbandry, they set about figuring out the molecular secrets of python gorging and fasting. So they had pythons fast for 28 days (much less than they do in the wild, where they can go without food for almost a year), and then gorge on a mouse or rat weighing 25 percent of the snake's own body weight. Then the researchers analyzed blood from both the fasting python and the fed python to see what molecular changes occur.
Early on in this experiment, a postdoctoral researcher in Leinwand's lab, Cecilia Riquelme, came to Leinwand with a suggestion: They should test blood plasma of pythons that had been fed ? the part of blood that red blood cells float in ? on rat heart cells to see if molecules in the plasma would make mammal hearts grow as they did the reptile hearts.
"That's a huge leap," Leinwand said. "And in fact, I've laughed about this since, because I told her not to do it. I thought there was no chance it was going to work."
Riquelme didn't listen, and completed the rat heart-cell experiment anyway. It worked. The heart cells grew in a lab dish.
"That reinforced our desire to study the pythons," Leinwand said. "If we can understand this biology, it looks like we can use this in mammals."
Fatty acid protection
The researchers began to hunt for the specific molecules that signal the heart to grow within the pythons' blood plasma. They eventually discovered a particular batch of fatty acids that seem to trigger a flood of heart-protecting enzymes to keep damage at bay. Next, the researchers hooked up mice to miniature pumps that injected them with low doses of this fatty-acid mixture over the course of a week.
Just as the rat heart cells had grown in the dish, the living mouse hearts grew, too. And there was no sign of the muscle stiffening that accompanies heart growth in patients with heart disease, the researchers report in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Science.
The fatty-acid mixture is a long way from being used in human treatments, but the researchers are now testing it in mice with heart disease to see if they can halt or reverse the damage. Even if the treatment succeeds in mice, it may not work in humans. But other researchers say that the shared evolutionary history of all organisms offers some hope.
"It's a well-established pathway for discovery," said Tom Cech, a biochemist and Nobel laureate at UC Boulder who did not participate in Leinwand's study. "You look for an organism that exaggerates a particular phenomenon, and then you study it in that organism that exaggerates it. Because all of life is connected through evolution, very often results from other organisms are relevant to human biology."
You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.
? 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45067487/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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(Reuters) ? Chevron Corp and Total posted higher quarterly profits on Friday, the latest two major oil companies to reap the benefit of firm oil prices and rosier refinery conditions.
The third-quarter profits from Total and Chevron capped a week of earnings figures that saw gains at Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and BP Plc as benchmark Brent oil prices hover near $112 per barrel, nearly 50 percent higher than the year-earlier quarter.
Still, oil prices were slightly down from the second quarter of the year, which helped the companies' refineries to post higher margins and profits.
Chevron Corp, the second-largest U.S. oil company behind Exxon, said its profits more than doubled, helped by a gain of about $500 million from the sale of its Pembroke refinery to Valero Energy Corp.
Total's profits climbed a more modest 24 percent, but met market expectations, as its output fell by 1 percent because of disruptions in Libya.
Chevron also posted a decline in output to 2.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (bpd), down from 2.74 million a year ago.
It July, Chevron had said a slower Gulf of Mexico project ramp-up and a Thai pipeline problem would trim its 2011 production by about 30,000 bpd.
Like their peers, Chevron and Total have struggled to increase oil production in recent years.
Disappointment about the trend has hit oil stocks, and Total has been punished by investors more harshly than its rival -- until a rally that has lifted its stock 27 percent since September 26 when it raised its 2010-15 average output goal to 3 percent per year from 2 percent.
Total has made over $10 billion of acquisitions in the past 18 months, expanding its geographical footprint beyond its historical heartland of Africa to Australia, Canada and Russia.
Shares in Total fell about 2 percent in Friday trading, while Chevron shares climbed less than 1 percent.
(Reporting by Marie Maitre in Paris, Braden Reddall in San Francisco and Matt Daily in New York, editing by Dave Zimmerman)
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SMK's touchscreen registers your gloved swipes, won't acknowledge the bad touch originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Taking on the role of iconic superstar Marilyn Monroe is a hefty challenge -- but Michelle Williams is confident that her performance as would please the late actress.
The My Week with Marilyn star says she thinks Monroe would be proud of the movie because the deceased blond bombshell has apparently sent her approval from the beyond.
"While we were filming, something came out in the National Enquirer that a psychic had spoken to her and that she approved of what we were doing and she thought I was doing a really good job," Williams told E! News at the Hollywood Film Awards. "So maybe she likes it!"
The Academy Award nominee probably doesn't need a psychic to tell her whether her portrayal of the Hollywood icon is good, considering how fully she immersed herself in the role. Williams, 31, did extensive research on the actress' voice to get it pitch perfect.
"I studied tapes," Williams said. "There's really nothing that exists of her, that I could find anyway, that exists of her having a conversation with a friend...So there wasn't a template that existed for her everyday vocal pattern, so at a certain point you have to make it imaginatively."
And if photos and the trailer are any indication, Williams also clearly nailed Monroe's signature look. Perhaps there's some truth to the National Enquirer story after all!
Watch the trailer below:
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/michelle-williams-marilyn-monroe-approves-my-film/1-a-396635
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By Aaron Dorfman and Bob Edgar.
This week, a few hundred people who lead foundations will gather in Scottsdale, Arizona., for the annual meeting of Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization that promotes independent giving to solve America's challenges while encouraging laws and regulations that make it easy for wealthy people to engage in private philanthropy with little oversight.
At this meeting, the organization will pay homage to Charles Koch who, along with brother, David, is owner of Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in America. The firm runs oil refineries and owns consumer brands like Lycra fabric and Brawny paper towels. The brothers are the fourth- and fifth-richest men in America; each has a net worth of $25 billion.
According to Philanthropy Roundtable, the principles that govern Charles Koch's philanthropy are simple: "He wants to sustain and strengthen America as a land of freedom and prosperity. He wants to give others the same opportunity to succeed that he has had. Having benefited from the capitalist system, he wants others to prosper in the same way."
But closer examination suggests that Charles Koch's "philanthropy" is mostly about influencing our political systems to promote and strengthen domestic policies that favor Koch Industries, while at the same time, hurting the rest of us.
The Kochs and their corporations are players in an informal alliance of business executives and conservative theorists who promote an ambitious political agenda. The Kochs use their vast corporate resources to fund an entire political network that includes think tanks, elected officials and undisclosed front groups to advocate for public policies and the dismantling of regulations that help their bottom line, but are bad for the public. They favor dramatically lower personal and corporate income taxes, less government oversight of industry -- particularly environmental regulations that impact their businesses. They have spent millions to fight health care reform, energy independence and combating global warming,
The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation has made multimillion-dollar investments in the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), which Charles Koch chairs; the Mercatus Center; and George Mason University in Virginia, which houses both of these free market institutes. Koch gave $1.1 million in 2006 and $2.4 million in 2009 to IHS. The university received more than $2.8 million in 2008 and nearly $5 million in 2009.
The Wall Street Journal called the Mercatus Center "the most important think tank you've never heard of." The Journal reported that when George W. Bush first took office, his "hit list" of 23 regulations to be repealed or modified included 14 suggested by Mercatus, including EPA pollution regulations and energy efficiency standards. Koch gave $3.9 million in 2006, nearly $2.7 million in 2007 and $1.7 million in 2008 to the center.
Other notable grants in 2009 include $67,556 to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, started by his brother David and closely involved with the Tea Party movement; and $75,858 to the American Legislative Exchange Council, known for peddling industry-friendly "model" legislation to state legislatures.
Companies controlled by Koch Industries have rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada. Common Cause has highlighted the Kochs' ties to Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were "featured" guests at two political fundraising and strategy sessions sponsored by the company. Koch Industries was a major beneficiary of the court's decision in the landmark campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned longstanding regulations limiting corporate spending around elections. Both justices sided with the position benefiting the Kochs.
When a wealthy person like Charles Koch creates a private tax-exempt foundation, he or she is indirectly diverting a portion of tax revenue that goes to pay for things like supporting the military, building and maintaining roads and public transportation and public schools to projects of his or her liking.
When that happens, the rest of us -- especially the lower and middle-class -- who don't have foundations and fancy tax lawyers shoulder more of the cost of public services.
Philanthropy, at its best, involves selfless giving by individuals and foundations to advance equity and democracy and promote the common good. It reaches down to serve the poor and powerless, such as by assuaging homelessness, hunger and illiteracy and through advocacy for public policies aimed at solving those problems. Paying for policy reform that harms the public good and benefits one's own economic interests isn't consistent with the spirit and history of philanthropic giving in this nation.
Given his self-interested giving, Charles Koch seems an odd choice to become philanthropy's poster boy. It says a lot about the Philanthropy Roundtable that they chose Koch over the many other outstanding philanthropists in the country to receive this year's award.
Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. Bob Edgar is president and CEO of Common Cause in Washington, D.C.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-bob-edgar/koch-philanthropy-advances-business_b_1033558.html
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By Sara Miller Llana Sara Miller Llana ? Wed?Oct?26, 3:23?pm?ET Follow Yahoo! News on , become a fan on Facebook Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20111026/wl_csm/417481
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Regular guitars seem cool enough to us, but if you?re looking for something a little more?modern, we?ve got a Kickstarter project that you?ll probably want to pledge to right away. The iTar project?($200+) from the folks over at Starr Labs aims to create a guitar that you can plug your iPad into to start playing. The ?instrument? will start with a Starr Labs patented button-based guitar fretboard. The iPad will hook into the instrument via the 30-pin dock and users will then essentially have a whole band at their fingertips. Instead of just being able to strum a guitar, the touchscreen interface of the iPad will allow users to have control of everything from drums to maracas and more. Whether you?re a professional musician or just a hobby instrumentalist, this product would offer almost limitless uses for work or for play.
The iTar will come with its own application but the company is also urging developers to create other compatible applications. Pledge $200 to the yet unfunded (currently at $9,000 or $50,000 goal) project and you?ll get a first-generation iTar of your very own. Higher pledge amounts will get even more cool technology added to your new, modern instrument.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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KABUL, Afghanistan?? Tens of thousands of Afghan and NATO troops killed or captured 200 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan during two operations targeting the violent Haqqani network blamed for the majority of attacks in Kabul, the U.S.-led coalition said Monday.
At least 20 of the insurgents had ties to the Haqqani group, which is affiliated with al-Qaida and the Taliban, said German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a coalition spokesman in Afghanistan. The roughly 180 others were from the Taliban or other groups, though not all have been identified.
About half of the Haqqani fighters were identified as leaders and the other half were bomb makers or individuals who help militants in various ways, such as distributing weapons and supplies, running safe houses or preparing areas for attack.
"Removal of the midlevel cell leaders with their expertise and leadership has significantly disrupted insurgent operations and degrades the Haqqani network's ability to coordinate and execute future attacks against combined team forces and the people of Afghanistan," Jacobson said.
Afghan and coalition forces have made gains in southern Afghanistan in the past two years, routing insurgents from their strongholds. They are now trying to hold that territory in the south while shifting resources to deal with insurgent hotspots in the east.
The Haqqani network is based in Pakistan, but operates primarily in Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces along Afghanistan's eastern border. U.S. and Afghan officials have demanded that Pakistan do more to eliminate militant sanctuaries on its side of the border.
The Haqqanis aim to have maximum control over eastern Afghanistan and access to Kabul from the south, Jacobson said, adding they are "a family clan, a criminal patronage network and a terrorist organization."
"For work on the other side we need help from Pakistan."
Roughly 25,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen and 11,000 coalition troops were involved in the operations, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the coalition in Kabul. More than 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of explosives, weapons, munitions and computers were seized.
He said more than 400 hours of close-air support and thousands of hours of surveillance missions were flown in support of the operations, which began Oct. 12 and ended Oct. 20. The majority of the operations were conducted in Kabul province, Wardak, Logar and Ghazni provinces south and west of the capital and Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces along the border.
Although the two operations have ended, the coalition is continuing its fight against the Haqqani network. The coalition estimates fewer than 5,000 Haqqani militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a NATO intelligence analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the figure.
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On Sunday, NATO reported that a heavily armed group of Haqqani fighters was the target of an airstrike in Wuza Jadran district of Paktia province. The coalition said several insurgents were killed in the attack, but did not specify how many.
While NATO presses ahead with its campaigns, several hundred people including students demonstrated at Kabul University against a strategic security agreement being negotiated by U.S. and Afghan officials. Many Afghans think such an agreement would give American forces a long-term presence in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has said that it is not seeking permanent bases in Afghanistan is negotiating details of the plan, which would govern the American troop presence in the country after the international forces' combat mission ends in 2014.
The protest highlighted a growing frustration felt by many Afghans toward NATO forces who, they argue, have brought little in the way of security or development to the country since the start of the decade-long war that toppled the Taliban. Many of the protesters said the international community wants to exploit Afghanistan's mineral wealth and use the country as a springboard to intervention in other nations in the region.
"The fighting is not for bringing peace or stability or security," said 26-year-old university student Sayed Abdullah. "This is only to allow them (NATO forces) to place their feet firmer in our country and then, from here, (they) want to occupy all the central Asian Muslim nations."
The demonstrators, with about 200 to 300 Afghan police looking on warily, hoisted banners.
"We don't want international forces at all. To sit together is the only way to peace," read one. Another said: "Our unity is our strength."
Separately, the coalition reported that a NATO service member died Monday in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan. No other details were released.
So far this year, 478 coalition troops have died in Afghanistan.
___
Associated Press writers Tarek El-Tablawy, Amir Shah and Massieh Aryan in Kabul contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45011114/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
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If you're looking to buy an affordable entry-level desktop PC, the HP Pavilion p7-1110 ($529.99 list at Staples) packs a decent dual-core Intel Core i3 processor and large 1TB hard drive into an attractive (though rather generic) tower. The p7-1110 is a decent find, offering day-to-day computing power that rivals top budget systems?like the Editors' ChoiceLenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU ($599.99 list, 4 stars)?but does so for a more affordable price.
Design & Features
On the outside, the p7-1110 looks like the HP Pavilion p7-1154's ($519.99 list, 2.5 stars) twin: a standard mid-tower PC with a black boxy tower and a glossy black front panel highlighted with silver-grey plastic trim, and a white-blue LED power-indicator light at the top. There's a plastic sliding door that hides headphone and microphone jacks, and two USB 2.0 ports. There's a DVD burner that sits right underneath a handful of card reader slots at the top of the panel that will accommodate up to 15 different formats (including popular formats such as SD, xD, MS/Pro and Compact Flash).
On the back of the tower you'll find four USB 2.0 ports, DVI and VGA video connections, audio and microphone connections, and a Gigabit Ethernet port. Two of those USB ports will be occupied, however, by the wired keyboard and optical mouse included with the desktop.
Inside the tower, you'll find a 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive, offering plenty of space for all of your family photos, digital media collections, and plenty of programs. Additionally, you'll find a PCIe mini card offering 802.11n Wi-Fi, and 6GB of DDR3 RAM. If you're looking to make upgrades, there's a bit of room, with one empty drive bay, and several open PCIe slots (one PCIe x16, three PCIe x1, and one PCIe Mini Card slot). The two DIMM slots are full (6GB of RAM), but the memory can be bumped up to 8GB, and while there's room for a video card, you'll be limited by the 250 Watt power supply.
The HP Pavilion p7-1110 comes with a selection of software pre-installed on the system, (aka, bloatware), like Microsoft Office Starter 2010, a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security, a 30-day trial of Norton Online Backup, and a collection of sample games from Wild Tangent. The p7-1110 also comes with HP LinkUp, a program that lets you access other Windows 7 computers on the same local network. Even computers from other manufacturers can download the LinkUp software to share files.
Customers who buy this system from Staples can avail themselves of several services the retailer offers. This includes setting the new system up, data transfer from your old PC to your new one, software installation, and tech support and protection plans that range in price from $14.99 to $169.99.Performance
The p7-1110 is equipped with a 3.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i3-2120 processor, paired with 6GB of RAM. Thanks to Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, this dual-core CPU can run two logic threads per core, allowing performance that rivals other manufacturers' quad-core chips. In PCMark 7, our day-to-day performance test, the p7-1110 scored 2,621 points, putting it ahead of the Asus Essentio CM1730-05 ($569.99, 3 stars) (1,911) and AMD-equipped HP p7-1154 (1,986), and within striking distance of the Dell Inspiron i620-3708NBK ($649.99 list, 3.5 stars) (2,709). In Cinebench R11.5 speed tests, it scored 3.16 points, beating out the Editors' Choice Lenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU ($599.99 list, 4 stars) (2.98) and HP p7-1154 (2.61), but falling behind the Dell i620-3708NBK (4.78) and Asus CM1730-05 (5.19).
The p7-1110 is also fairly well equipped for multimedia tasks, cranking through Handbrake in 1 minute 36 seconds and completing Photoshop CS5 in a category-leading 3:34. That's good enough for the user who wants to clean up family photos or make minor edits to a YouTube video. The system with the closest scores was the Dell i620-3708NBK, which finished Handbrake in 1:22 and Photoshop in 3:35. Contrast this with the AMD-powered HP p7-1154 (Handbrake 2:49, Photoshop 7:13), and you can see the wide difference that can be found between similarly-priced systems.
The p7-1110 utilizes the Core i3's integrated graphics, which offers plenty of graphics processing for day-to-day use, but 3D gaming might be out of reach. Without DirectX 11 compatibility, the p7-1110 was unable to run either our 3DMark 11 graphics benchmark test or our Lost Planet 2 gaming test. However, in our DirectX 10 Crysis test (at Medium quality), the p7-1110 produced 13 frames per second. Though not quite playable?it looked like a fast flickering slideshow?it was still on a par with both the Editors' Choice Lenovo K330-11691AU (12 fps) and Dell i620-3708NBK (13 fps).
As entry-level systems go, the HP Pavilion p7-1110 is a compelling choice for anyone on a budget. The included Intel Core i3 processor and 1TB hard drive will easily keep you working and browsing the Web for the next five or six years, and does so for a little bit less than other comparable systems, including the Editors' Choice Lenovo K330-11691AU. It would take top honors, except that the Core i5-equipped HP Pavilion p7-1187c packs superior performance into the same chassis.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the HP Pavilion p7-1110 with several other desktops side by side.
More desktop reviews:
??? HP Pavilion p7-1110
??? HP Pavilion Elite h8-1124
??? Toshiba DX735-D3201
??? HP Pavilion p7-1154
??? Dell XPS 8300 (X8300-4004NBK)
?? more
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/_TdWXLepCLw/0,2817,2395136,00.asp
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Between Presidential hopeful Herman Cain?s 9-9-9 plan, Mitt Romney?s skinny jeans and Michelle Bachmann?s Christian ideology, it?s hard to get a grip on the Republican presidential primary. Add to it President Obama?s re-election bid and the mixed messages of Occupy Wall Street and it?s a wonder that anyone knows how they are going to vote come November 6, 2012.
The good news is that we all have a little bit of time to figure things out, and there are several clever iPhone apps on the market to make life easier. So take a look at the following. Whether you are learning right or left, or somewhere in between, they will serve you well.
Before delving into the nitty-gritty of 21st century American politics it might behoove you to brush up on its origins. The free Politics ? The Essential College app has the works of the most famous political writers of all times including Aristotle, John Locke, and Niccol? Machiavelli. If any of the candidates quote ?common sense? mid-debate, you will be able to keep pace no problem.
The C-SPAN Radio app (also free) might also make for a good investment for someone trying to make sense of what is happening in Washington, D.C. It includes live feeds for C-SPAN radio, C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2 and C-SPAN 3. But for non-insiders, we recommend the app?s podcasts, which are broken down into more manageable categories that can be searched by topic or person.
Unsure who represents you in U.S. Congress? The Congress app ($0.99) includes every member of the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as critical information such as their political party, contact information, margin of victory in the last election and a short personal bio. Another cool feature is that it includes links to campaign finance tracking websites. Money is a driving force in politics and it?s nice to see where it is coming from.
As anticipation for the 2012 election builds, you are going to want to chose your news sources carefully. We trust you know how to find the traditional newspapers, so we?ll suggest a few others. The free Politico app, like its namesake website, is full of insider news from Capitol Hill. With reporters hitting the campaign trail alongside candidates, it offers lots of smart analysis and commentary. Some of Politico?s best stuff is dissecting how the media itself is covering the race.
The Slate Magazine app (free) is another good alternative to The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc. The editors and writers always seem to find clever, creative angles to news stories that are beaten dry by other journalists. Currently, Slate has some great articles on Cain?s lighting-fast rise in the polls, and the long-term implications of Muammar Gaddafi?s death for political stability in the Middle East.
With all sorts of facts and figures flying around, it can be tough to decipher who is telling the truth and who is stretching it. The $1.99 Politifact Mobile app will help you do just that. The app does the leg work for you, fact checking all sorts of statements and soundbites made by the political contenders. The app also tracks the percentage of promises kept by political parties and individual leaders.
Related iPhone App List: 10 Must Have Apps for the Political News Junkie
Download the free Appolicious iPhone app
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The Feminist Legal Theory Collaborative Research Network (CRN) is a newly-constituted? group that seeks to bring together scholars across a range of fields who are interested in feminist legal theory. At our inaugural get-together at the Law and Society Association (LSA) meeting this past June, we decided to organize two events for the coming year. The first will be in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the AALS annual meeting in January 2012. The second, and the subject of this call for papers, will take place in Honolulu, Hawaii, in conjunction with the LSA annual meeting, June 5-8, 2012.
We hope to organize a number of panels for this year?s LSA meeting; we would like to invite you to submit paper proposals for these panels. There is no single topic or theme to which paper submissions must conform: they should simply relate to feminist legal theory in some shape or form. We particularly welcome proposals which would permit us to collaborate with other CRNs, which have organized around topics such as Critical Research on Race and the Law, or Gender, Sexuality and the Law. Also, because the LSA meeting attracts scholars from other disciplines, we welcome multidisciplinary proposals. Our goal in organizing these panels is to stimulate focused discussion on papers on which scholars are currently working. Thus, while proposals may reference work which is well on the way to publication, we are particularly eager to solicit proposals for works-in-progress which are at an earlier stage, and which will benefit from the discussion that the panels will provide.
Our panels will utilize the LSA format, which requires four papers; but we will continue the approach that worked so well last June, when each paper had an assigned commentator who had read the paper closely and began the discussion. A committee of the CRN will assign individual papers to panels based on subject and then will ask CRN members to volunteer to serve as chairs of each panel. The chair will develop a 100-250 word description for the session and submit the session proposal to LSA before the upcoming December 6 deadline, so that each panelist can submit his or her proposal, using the panel number assigned. Chairs will also be responsible for recruiting commentators but may wait to do so until panels have been scheduled later this winter, so as to minimize conflict with paper presentations that commentators themselves may be doing at the meeting.
If you would like to submit a paper for one of the CRN panels, please do so by using the Feminist Legal Theory CRN TWEN page. TWEN is an online resource administered by Westlaw. If you haven?t yet registered for the TWEN page, signing up is easy. Just sign onto Westlaw, hit the tab on the top for ?TWEN,? then click ?Add Course,? and choose the ?Feminist Legal Theory? CRN from the drop-down list of National TWEN Courses. Or, if you have a Westlaw OnePass as a faculty member, you can enter the Easy Course Access link below:
Easy Course Access Link:
http://lawschool.westlaw.com/shared/courselink.asp?course=113601&lID=4%3D2
If you enter through the Easy Course Access Link above, you will immediately see a link to the Feminist Legal Theory CRN TWEN page, and you should click on it.
If you aren?t enrolled on the TWEN page and you don?t have a Westlaw password, please email Kathy Abrams (krabrams@law.berkeley.edu) or Susan Appleton (appleton@wulaw.wustl.edu) and we?ll enroll you directly.
Once you arrive at the Feminist Legal Theory CRN TWEN page, by either of the above routes, look to the left hand margin for a tab to ?June 2012 Law and Society ? Sign-Ups and Paper Proposals.? When you click on it, you will see two threads under ?topics.? One thread will permit you to post a paper proposal; the other will permit you to sign up as a commentator or panel chair. Just click on the thread you want to post to; you will then get a new screen that locates you within that thread: hit ?reply? to post a reply to it. If you post a paper proposal, you should include your name, a title, and an abstract of 400-500 words.
Please submit all proposals for paper presentations by November 14, 2011. This will permit us to organize panels and submit them prior to the LSA?s deadline of December 6, 2011. We are aiming roughly for 6 to 8 sessions. If we receive too many proposals and cannot accept all for the CRN, we will notify you by November 28, 2011, so that you can submit an independent proposal to LSA. In addition, if you would like to serve as a chair or a commentator for one of our panels, or if you are already planning a LSA session with four panelists (and papers) that you would like to see included in the Feminist Legal Theory CRN, please let Kathy or Susan know.
In addition to these panels, we may try to utilize a more flexible format that the LSA also provides: the roundtable discussion. Roundtables are discussions that are not organized around papers, but rather invite several speakers to have an exchange focused on a specific topic of interest to the group (in this case, of interest to the CRN). If you have an idea relating to feminist legal theory that you think would work well in this format, please let Kathy or Susan know, as well.
Those of us who were present at last year?s meeting were delighted by the papers presented and the opportunity to connect with others in doing work on feminism and gender. We look forward to another terrific meeting in Hawaii.
Kathy Abrams
Susan Appleton
Beth Burkstrand-Reid
Donna Coker
Leigh Goodmark
Jennifer Koshan
Nancy Polikoff
?Jennifer Hendricks
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