 |  |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/32jHFNUwxX8/story01.htm
target walmart jcpenney loft old navy cyber monday best deals cyber monday best deals
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Case-Mate POP! Case with Stand for iPad 2 review [Giveaway]
“If you want your iPad 2 to finally be able to stand on its own, then the Case-Mate Pop! Case is for you. “ The Case-Mate Pop! Case with Stand
Madonna feels kinship with vilified Wallis Simpson (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Madonna says it's pretty obvious why she was drawn to the story of Wallis Simpson -- the American divorcee who was vilified for persuading a British king to give up his throne in order to marry her.
The sometimes prickly pop superstar said she had been fascinated for years by Simpson before deciding to write and direct her second film, "W.E", which opens widely in U.S. movie theaters on Friday.
The movie chronicles the romance and 1930s marriage of King Edward VIII and Simpson, who were shunned by British society after Edward renounced the throne to be with her.
"I could understand a lot of aspects of Wallis Simpson's life, having people ... view you from the outside, make judgments about you, have opinions about you, write things about you that are untrue - and not feel like you are able to defend yourself, that sometimes kind of makes you feel helpless," Madonna, 53, told Reuters Television in an interview.
"She didn't commit a crime, she fell in love ... She says in the film, 'If you do this, if we get married, I will be the most hated woman in the world,' and she was .... Obviously I can relate to her life on certain levels. I think that a lot of people who are public figures have the same experience," Madonna said.
Madonna, who moved to England during her second marriage, to British director Guy Ritchie, said she too has made sacrifices for love.
"Whether you move to another country and you give up your roots, or when you have children -- you love your children, but you have to give up say your free time, your sleep. So I think we are in the process of making those sacrifices for love on a daily basis if we're in relationships or if we have children," she said.
"W.E" stars Abbie Cornish as a New Yorker in the 1990s who becomes infatuated with the marriage between Edward and Simpson who is played by Andrea Riseborough.
The film has been characterized by movie critics as visually stunning but lacking in focus. But Madonna won the best original movie song Golden Globe in January for "Masterpiece" from the "W.E" soundtrack.
The first song from her new album "MDNA," which marks her return to music after focusing on the movie, is set to be released on Friday. Called "Give Me All Your Luvin," it features Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.
Madonna will be also performing on Sunday in the half-time show at the National Football League Super Bowl -- the biggest television and sporting event of the year in the United States.
(Reporting by Alicia Powell; Writing by Jill Serjeant)
hp ceo r e m gurney gurney clemency us supreme court cameron todd willingham
Monday, January 30, 2012
Plan would help military families take leave (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration is proposing new rules to help military families care for service members when they are called to active duty or become injured.
First lady Michelle Obama was set to join Labor Secretary Hilda Solis on Monday to announce the plan that updates the Family and Medical Leave Act.
The proposal would let family members take up to 12 weeks of leave from work to help a service member deployed on short notice. Family caregivers could attend military functions, deal with child care issues, or update financial affairs without fear of losing their jobs.
It would also give family members up to 26 weeks of leave to care for a service member with a serious injury or illness.
Officials also are announcing other efforts to support military families.
justin bieber baby credit unions tower heist reviews recursion amy schumer amy schumer ascii art
Sunday, January 29, 2012
OSF Finance Request4Funds Forms Nov-Dec2011 (LINKS ...
Below you will find the LINKS to ALL the Request4Funds(R4Fs) Forms OSF Finance has in their possession.
I digitized the actual paper forms that have been submitted and created PDFs (4 of them)to comply with the upload file size limit WordPress stipulates. From these forms & through dialogue during our Finance meetings, a list of CommonlyApprovedRequests (CARs) is being compiled. That list should be ready for publication sometime next week.
Thanks for your patience.
OSF Finance
R4Fs #6-28
R4Fs #29-62
R4Fs #63-103
R4fs #103a-112
Source: http://occupysf.org/2012/01/28/osf-finance-request4funds-forms-nov-dec2011-links/
listeria symptoms listeria symptoms lsat bluegrass festival cochlear implant navy football navy football
AP Interview: Roubini warns of tough times ahead (AP)
DAVOS, Switzerland ? Economist Nouriel Roubini, nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for his gloomy predictions in the run-up to the financial meltdown four years ago, says the fallout from that crisis could last the rest of this decade.
Roubini, widely acknowledged to have predicted the crash of 2008, sees tough times ahead for the global economy and is warning that without major policy changes things can still get much worse.
Until Europe radically reforms itself and the U.S. gets serious about its own debt mountain, he said, the world economy will continue to stumble along to the detriment of large chunks of the world's population who will continue to see their living standards under pressure, even if they have a job.
Roubini, a professor of economics and international business at New York University, spoke in an interview this week with The Associated Press at a dinner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, where he is one of the hotly pursued stars.
Looking at economic prospects this year, he agreed with the International Monetary Fund's latest forecast that the global economy is weakening and said he might be "even slightly more bearish" on its prediction of 3.3 percent growth in 2012.
He painted a grim picture of the eurozone in recession and key emerging markets in China, India, Brazil and South Africa slowing down, partly related to weakness in the eurozone. He predicted that the U.S. economy, the world's largest, will grow by just 1.7-1.8 percent this year, with unemployment remaining high. The government, he added, was "kicking the can down the road" and not taking measures to increase productivity and competitiveness.
"We live in a world where there is still a huge amount of economic and financial fragility," he said. "There is a huge amount of uncertainty ? macro, financial, fiscal, sovereign, banking, regulatory, taxation ? and there is also geopolitical and political and policy uncertainty."
"There are lots of sources of uncertainty from the eurozone, from the Middle East, from the fact that the U.S. is not tackling its own fiscal problem, from the fact that Chinese growth is unbalanced and unsustainable, relying too much on exports and fixed investments and high savings, and not enough on consumption. So it's a very delicate global economy," Roubini said.
He said the biggest uncertainty is the possibility of a conflict with Iran over its nuclear program that involves Israel, the United States, or both. That could lead oil prices now hovering around $100 a barrel to spike to $150 per barrel, he said, and lead to a global recession.
Unemployment and economic insecurity have become big issues from the Mideast to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S., and protests from Israel and India to Chile and Russia ? and at the same time there is rising inequality between rich and poor.
"All these things lead to political and social instability," he said. "So we have to reduce inequality. We have to give growth to jobs, skills, education, and increase human capital so workers can compete."
Roubini called for a major change in policy priorities.
"We have to shift our investment from things that are less productive like the financial sector and housing and real estate to things that are more productive like our people, our human capital, our structure, our technology, our innovation," he said.
Roubini said slow growth in advanced economies will likely lead to "a U-shaped recovery rather than a typical V," and it may last for another three to five years because of high debt.
"Once you have too much debt in the public and private sector, the painful process could last up to a decade, where economic growth remains weak and anemic and sub-par until we have cleaned up the balance sheet and invested in the things that make us more productive for the future," he said.
apple news apple iphone apple iphone chris christie cnet tampa bay rays netanyahu
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Tight-fisted mortgage lenders pressure home sales
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer
Home prices have fallen by a third since 2006, creating tremendous bargains for home buyers. Mortgage rates are at rock-bottom lows, making houses more affordable than they have been in decades. Yet home sales last year fell to the lowest levels since the government began keeping records in 1963.
One big reason is that mortgage bankers have gotten a lot choosier about who they?ll approve for a loan, according to a report by Goldman Sachs economists Hui Shan and Jari Stehn. By some measures, they're pickier than they were before the housing boom took off.?
With anecdotal evidence showing that home mortgages are harder to get, the economists crunched Federal Reserve data to show just how much tighter lending standards have become. Using the results of the Fed's survey of loan officers, the report found that lending standards rose sharply after the mortgage market collapsed and the financial system imploded in 2008. Since the recession ended in 2009, lenders haven?t eased their tight grip on mortgage money.
Part of the reason is that there?s less money available to lend. During the housing boom, as brokers produced a flood of new mortgages, Wall Street bankers churned out a torrent of mortgage-backed bonds for investors waiting to snap them up. That market has all but vanished; 90 percent of new mortgages written today are backed by the government. ??
The new mortgage pipeline also has slowed because it is clogged with paperwork. These days, you?ll have to fill out many more forms and produce a lot more documentation, on average, just to get your loan considered.
The percent of loans that required ?full documentation? declined steadily from 2000 through 2006, hitting a low of less than 60 percent. Those ?no-doc? loans were a big part of the reason mortgage bankers made the bad underwriting decisions that created the mortgage mess. Today, nearly 90 percent of mortgage applications require full documentation. That?s much higher than the pre-bubble level.
You?ll also have to show a much higher credit score than you did in the go-go days of the housing boom. In a separate report, Mortgage Marvel, an online mortgage-shopping website, analyzed data from more than 700,000 mortgage applications filed last year and found that the average FICO score was 730. That?s a significant jump from the days when borrowers with scores in the high 500s were routinely steered to high-cost subprime loans.
Applications with highest credit scores concentrated in California, Oregon, Wisconsin, District of Columbia and Hawaii, the company said. The states with the lowest credit scores were Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana? and Oklahoma.
Have you had trouble getting a mortgage approved?
Join the discussion on Facebook
payroll tax aisha khan alanis morissette r kelly vanessa bryant vanessa bryant kurt busch
Ubuntu moves beyond the desktop with new TV interface, menu-killing navigation system (Digital Trends)
Late last year, Ubuntu announced it would bring the open source operating system to mobile devices. Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said Ubuntu will soon be found on ?tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud.?
Much debate has followed Ubunto?s mobile strategy, the general consensus being that its loyal followers and fans of Linux everywhere are the least interested in testing this technology. Still, doubt over how well it would compete against that other open source, Linux-based option (a little something called Android) remains.
Since the announcement, Ubuntu has been relatively quiet about its mobile and smart device progress, until very recently.
Ubuntu TV: Coming soon? maybe
At CES earlier this month, Canonical introduced the Ubuntu smart TV interface. ?Ubuntu TV is a vision of how TV will work in the future. With no cables, no boxes and no hassles, the goal is to uncomplicated television for the average viewer while delivering to him or her all the services and options that they are becoming used to,? the company said. The system allows you not only to watch broadcast or streaming content, but also to access your own media files as well, via the cloud. It?s built into your TV, not available from a box-top or separate device. Also, there is no browser option, something Ubuntu doesn?t believe belongs in the television. 
But like every other company trying to break into the connected TV segment, there are some very big barriers. And like its competitors, Ubuntu is going to have a hard time breaking them down. Content rights holders have become notoriously difficult to strike deals with, and manufacturing partners can be tricky to nail down.
Working in its favor is the fact that Ubuntu wants nothing more than to be the operating system for your TV. It has no plans to get into content production (like Google has done with YouTube), or develop its own app or other content distribution platform (which comes tied to Apple products). Ubuntu?s service steps on fewer toes than some of its major competitors do.
?From a cost perspective as well as a ?make the life of the manufacturer? easy perspective, Ubuntu will be a solid contender,? Ubuntu expert and author of Ubuntu Unleashed?2012 Edition: Covering 11.10 and 12.04 (7th edition)?Matthew Helmke tells us. ?Companies like Vizio, that make smart TVs with pretty cool software and interfaces, could be able to offload some of their development expenses and in-house programming burden.?
Still, Ubuntu TV, for the moment, largely remains conceptual. There isn?t so much of a hint as to a shipping date, and if there are any manufacturing partners, both parties are keeping quiet about it. But in true Ubuntu form, there are instructions on how you can make your own Ubuntu-supported smart TV.
New interface design
While the announcement of Ubuntu TV definitely has a certain flash appeal to it, a new display interface deserves just as much attention. Canonical?s Mark Shuttleworth recently blogged about the change, called the Head-up Display (or HUD) that does away with the menu and tries to better reflect how the human brain works.?We noticed that [new as well as established] users spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, navigating the menus of their applications, either to learn about the capabilities of the app, or to take a specific action,? he says. ?We were also conscious of the broader theme in Unity design of leading from user intent. And that set us on a course which lead to today?s first public milestone on what we expect will be a long, fruitful and exciting journey.?
In order to execute commands, the HUD interface eliminates the need to scroll through menus, instead giving users immediate control over the applications they are using. Watch the video demo below to get a look at HUD in action.
Now HUD is definitely meant for the desktop in many respects ? Shuttleworth specifically mentions that, saying, ?The desktop remains central to our everyday work and play, despite all the excitement around tablets, TVs and phones.? However, there?s great potential for how this fast and accessible system could translate to Ubuntu for mobile devices. Helmke agrees: ?I think HUD will be wonderful on mobile. It is faster than using menus, which are terrible for mobile devices anyway.?
And the innovation that Ubuntu has planned for mobile will interact seamlessly with this new approach. ?Once the promised voice interface is completely, HUD will be hard to beat.?
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
More from Digital Trends
Ubuntu?s going mobile: Will it survive?
MeeGo killed in favor of Tizen, a new OS backed by Samsung and Intel
Microsoft previews Windows 8 at BUILD
Television and social integration: What exactly do consumers want?
kelly cutrone bill buckner dancing with the stars 2011 christmas island antonio gates antonio gates challah
Friday, January 27, 2012
Adaptive Vehicle Make: DARPA's Plan to Revolutionize Auto Manufacturing
The defense research group DARPA wants better vehicles, and it wants them faster and cheaper. To make it happen, the Pentagon's mad scientists are taking a cue from computer-circuit builders.
Mike Jackson, director of North American vehicle production and forecasting at analyst firm IHS, says that the current automotive supply chain is a mess. Numerous component suppliers work in a constant and time-consuming give-and-take with manufacturers, and regulations?which require lengthy and expensive testing to meet fuel-economy, environmental, and other government standards?are major hurdles to overcome.
If DARPA and its performers can pull off this experiment in crowd-sourced car building, it could revolutionize not only the automotive industry. "In itself, it sounds great because typically design and development is the greatest cost of a vehicle," Jackson says.
During the 1980s, the integrated-circuit-manufacturing industry began a sea change away from the traditional manufacturing model: Design was separated from manufacturing as a stand-alone function, with designers outsourcing manufacturing to dedicated fabrication plants, or fabs. The result has been an industry more responsive to the rapid pace of innovation that we all know and love today.
DARPA helped bring about that computing revolution and now aims to do the same thing to vehicle design. Announced last year, DARPA's Adaptive Vehicle Make program, or AVM, is a suite of interlocking programs that are "trying to enhance the adaptability of our military forces by compressing the development timelines for complex defense systems by at least five times," program manager Paul Eremenko says. To DARPA, the way to build the vehicles of the future is to reinvent the way vehicles today are designed and built.
AVM includes: META, for designing and testing the integration of vehicle parts using software alone; iFAB, for building the newly designed vehicles created with META in a factory that can quickly be adapted to new vehicle designs; and FANG, a challenge for crowd-sourcing a prototype military ground vehicle?a vehicle whose design and manufacture will put the whole system to the test.
In late 2015, if all goes well, says Theodore Bapty, electrical engineering professor at Vanderbilt University, where META is coming together, the finished vehicle "goes to the Marines and then they beat the hell out of it. They drive it out in the ocean at Camp Pendleton in San Diego."
How It Works
Mike Jackson, director of North American vehicle production and forecasting at analyst firm IHS, says that the current automotive supply chain is a mess. Numerous component suppliers work in a constant and time-consuming give-and-take with manufacturers, and regulations?which require lengthy and expensive testing to meet fuel-economy, environmental, and other government standards?are major hurdles to overcome.
The first step in DARPA's plan to do away with that madness is to digitize design. And so Bapty and his colleagues at Vanderbilt and elsewhere have to create computational models of vehicle components?models that currently exist only in incomplete form. CAD models are typically used in the design of new parts. But those models don't include all the other data that will be required to test their integration and interaction with other parts in virtual environments prior to manufacture.
Army Lt. Col. Nathan Wiedenman, DARPA deputy program manager for AVM, explains: "We are building libraries of component, context, and manufacturing process models." The models, he says, "might be of an engine or a generator or even a piston ring."
Whether a given part is to be purchased off the shelf, milled, or 3D-printed in iFAB, the digital model of it needs to be so detailed that during META testing it will accurately depict how the real-world part will interact with all the other components. "The ultimate objective," Eremenko says, "is that the vehicle that is built in iFAB is fully functional?avoiding the traditional design-build-test-redesign iteration that occurs with traditional prototyping."
If it works, the system will enable designers to put together a vehicle in META, test it within the system, and then output the design directly to iFAB (which will be built in Rock Island, Ill.), with no intervening steps. It's a process that might amount to something like word processing for the manufacture of complex machinery, in this case, vehicles.
For FANG, the final part of the AVM program, members of the public will be invited to contribute to the design of the eventual vehicle, "a heavy and potentially amphibious infantry fighting vehicle," according the program's website [http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Adaptive_Vehicle_Make_(AVM).aspx].
The contest will be broken down into three consecutive challenges: The first, to be launched by the end of 2012, for a drivetrain suitable for building and separate testing; the second, launched in 2013, for an armored chassis; and the final challenge for the completed vehicle to be launched in 2014. Winners of the first two challenges stand to win $1 million each, while the winner of the final challenge could take home $2 million.
Will It Work?
If DARPA and its performers can pull off this experiment in crowd-sourced car building, it could revolutionize not only the automotive industry. "In itself, it sounds great because typically design and development is the greatest cost of a vehicle," Jackson says.
But can it be done? Jay Rogers thinks so. He's a former Marine and the CEO of Local Motors, which hosted DARPA's XC2V program for a crowd-sourced military vehicle last year. "We don't really have a choice," he says. "If we don't do it, it's going to be so expensive to build vehicles and they're going to go so slowly that, competitively, in the world, every terrorist organization will put us out of business." That's because traditional contractors, with their snail's-pace development cycles, can't adapt to changing military requirements quickly and affordably enough.
Millitary requirements are, of course, different from the desires of consumers driving the commercial vehicle market, but the same principles apply, Rogers says. He says smaller, faster, cheaper manufacturers will be able to get to market with the latest and greatest tech much more quickly than mainline traditional automakers. The big guys will have to change their way of doing business to survive.
Eremenko says the open-source model of design has advantages that outweigh any potential security risks. "Security concerns are foremost," he says, and while "there will certainly be portions of the vehicle that are off-limits to crowd sourcing, several decades of experience with open-source software development suggest that open-source projects tend to yield products that are actually more reliable than closed developments." Open-source tech breaks less often, Eremenko says, because there are potentially thousands of developers going over it with fine-toothed combs for bugs, as opposed to just the few that even the largest companies can afford to have working on closed projects. DARPA says it and its AVM contractors will also research new security protocols that are better suited to crowd-sourced projects than the more conventional security clearances in use for traditional military manufacturing.
The public face of the project will come together in a website to be hosted at vehicleforge.mil and launched this summer in preparation for the start of the first FANG challenge, which is slated to begin this fall or early winter.
Gentlemen, start your computers.
Michael Belfiore is the author of The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs and is a frequent PM contributor.
cliff harris cliff harris josh turner bishop eddie long barnaby barnaby giuliana rancic
Video: Rep. Giffords says farewell to the House
Mystery disease Morgellons: No clear cause
A strange disease in which sufferers say they find fibers, fuzz and other debris sprouting from sores on their skin is not contagious and has no clear cause, the largest-ever study of the condition called Morgellons has found.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/46138701#46138701
walmart black friday raiders vincent jackson veterans day oakland raiders carson palmer al davis
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Dotcom: 'Come for coffee, don't forget the cocaine.'
COATESVILLE, New Zealand?? Kim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload.com who faces a lengthy jail term in the United States if convicted of racketeering, money laundering and Internet piracy, seems to have a mischievous sense of humor.
Shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 2010 and moving into a sprawling luxury estate near Auckland, Dotcom emailed a neighbor who had raised questions about his character, having previously been convicted as a hacker in Germany.
The email was addressed to the local Neighborhood Watch, a community group aimed at stopping crime in the Coatesville area, a nouveau riche community of hobby farms and wealthy city workers.
"First of all, let me assure you that having a criminal neighbor like me comes with benefits," Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz, wrote in the email, which was sent to Reuters by neighbor France Komoroske.
"1. Our newly opened local money laundering facility can help you with your tax fraud optimization. 2. Our network of international insiders can provide you with valuable stock tips. 3. My close personal relations with other (far worse) criminals can help you whenever you have to deal with a nasty neighbor," Dotcom quipped in the email, which Reuters has not been able to corroborate.
Komoroske said the email startled her family.
But Dotcom did try to allay his neighbor's concerns.
"In all seriousness: My wife, two kids and myself love New Zealand and 'We come in peace'," he wrote.
"Fifteen years ago I was a hacker and 10 years ago I was convicted for insider trading. Hardly the kind of crimes you need to start a witch hunt for.
"Since then I have been a good boy, my criminal records have been cleared, and I created a successful Internet company that employs 100+ people," he added.
Dotcom then asked his neighbor to choose.
"Now you can make a choice: 1: Call Interpol, the CIA, and the Queen of England and try to get me on the next plane out of New Zealand. 2: Sit back, relax and give me a chance to do good for New Zealand and possibly the neighborhood."
Doctom then invited his neighbor over for coffee, adding "... and don't forget to bring the cocaine (joke). All the best, Kim."
Komoroske said she replied to Dotcom, saying, "We'd love to come over for coffee. How's tomorrow?"
But the invitation was never taken up, after Dotcom demanded Komoroske bring another neighbor, calling the two of them "leaders of the Coatesville Inquisition movement."
Reuters was unable to contact Dotcom, who is in custody, and an email to his lawyer was not answered.
Other neighbors spoken to by Reuters said Doctom lived almost a reclusive life in his rented 30-acre estate, occasionally seen driving on the local winding roads, but getting his entourage to organize any jobs on the property.
A New Zealand judge on Wednesday ordered Dotcom ? who stands 6-feeet, 6-inches tall and weighs more than 285 lbs ? to be held in custody for another month, saying the suspected Internet pirate posed a significant flight risk.
Dotcom, a German national also known as Kim Tim Jim Vestor, faces a February 22 hearing of an extradition application by the United States.
Prosecutors say Dotcom was the ringleader of a group that netted $175 million by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.
His lawyers say his company, megaupload.com, simply offered online storage, and that he will fight extradition.
Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46129325/ns/technology_and_science-security/
jane goodall 49ers game joe paterno died ravens ray lewis baltimore ravens steven tyler national anthem
HBT: Oswalt to pick between Cards and Rangers?
Peter Gammons knows people in high places. Three of them are GMs with whom he spoke about Roy Oswalt, and two of them think Oswalt will sign with the Rangers. The third thinks it?s the Cardinals.
All of those have been discussed before either due to previous interest in Oswalt or what we think we know of Oswalt?s geographic preferences. ?But the thing is, each of those teams have fairly set rotations, do they not? ?Especially the Rangers. Is Roy Oswalt really the Rangers? or Cardinals? biggest need?
Interesting, I guess. But then I remember back to this time yesterday and recall that everyone thought Prince Fielder was going to the Nationals. So what I?m saying is, I?m gonna go get a sandwich or something and try not to think too hard about it.
holly marie combs unc basketball college basketball gunsmoke papelbon papelbon anita hill
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Make Siri's Voice Control Completely Hands-Free [IPhone Downloads]
iPhone (Jailbroken) Using Siri to control your phone is super handy, but having to activate the feature every time you want to issue a new command is annoying, especially when driving. There's a way (albeit battery-intensive) to have Siri respond to voice commands all the time.
First, you'll have to jailbreak your device. Once you do that, head to Cydia and purchase "Hands-Free Control" for $2.99. Once that's installed, head to the regular Settings app and customize what you want Siri to respond to, how sensitive it is, and even whether you want it on all the time.
To use it, just say the keyword?the default is just "Siri" but you can change it to "Computer", "Hal" or whatever you want?and the standard Siri interface will pop up. This is extremely useful when you're driving or somewhere where you don't want to constantly hit the Siri button. Is it worth $3? That's kind of up to how often you use it, but because Apple's unlikely to make this a feature by default because of how much more battery you churn through because your phone's listening all the time, this is the only way to get always-on voice recognition.
Hands-Free Control for Siri on the iPhone 4S | Blackpool Creative
heavy d taser gun patriots vs jets adventureland sean hannity kroy biermann nene leakes
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The price of your soul: How the brain decides whether to 'sell out'
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Beverly Clark
beverly.clark@emory.edu
404-712-8780
Emory University
Emory University neuroscience study finds that decision-making over 'sacred values' prompts a distinct cognitive process
An Emory University neuro-imaging study shows that personal values that people refuse to disavow, even when offered cash to do so, are processed differently in the brain than those values that are willingly sold.
"Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred whether it's a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics is a distinct cognitive process," says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study. The results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study showed, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits.
Berns headed a team that included economists and information scientists from Emory University, a psychologist from the New School for Social Research and anthropologists from the Institute Jean Nicod in Paris, France. The research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.
"We've come up with a method to start answering scientific questions about how people make decisions involving sacred values, and that has major implications if you want to better understand what influences human behavior across countries and cultures," Berns says. "We are seeing how fundamental cultural values are represented in the brain."
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain responses of 32 U.S. adults during key phases of an experiment. In the first phase, participants were shown statements ranging from the mundane, such as "You are a tea drinker," to hot-button issues such "You support gay marriage" and "You are Pro-Life." Each of the 62 statements had a contradictory pair, such as "You are Pro-Choice," and the participants had to choose one of each pair.
At the end of the experiment, participants were given the option of auctioning their personal statements: Disavowing their previous choices for actual money. The participants could earn as much as $100 per statement by simply agreeing to sign a document stating the opposite of what they believed. They could choose to opt out of the auction for statements they valued highly.
"We used the auction as a measure of integrity for specific statements," Berns explains. "If a person refused to take money to change a statement, then we considered that value to be personally sacred to them. But if they took money, then we considered that they had low integrity for that statement and that it wasn't sacred."
The brain imaging data showed a strong correlation between sacred values and activation of the neural systems associated with evaluating rights and wrongs (the left temporoparietal junction) and semantic rule retrieval (the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), but not with systems associated with reward.
"Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives," Berns says. "Our findings indicate that it's unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people's behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives."
Research participants who reported more active affiliations with organizations, such as churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs, had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values. "Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms," Berns says.
The experiment also found activation in the amygdala region, a brain region associated with emotional reactions, but only in cases where participants refused to take cash to state the opposite of what they believe. "Those statements represent the most repugnant items to the individual," Berns says, "and would be expected to provoke the most arousal, which is consistent with the idea that when sacred values are violated, that induces moral outrage."
The study is part of a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, titled "The Biology of Cultural Conflict." Berns edited the special issue, which brings together a dozen articles on the culture of neuroscience, including differences in the neural processing of people on the opposing sides of conflict, from U.S. Democrats and Republicans to Arabs and Israelis.
"As culture changes, it affects our brains, and as our brains change, that affects our culture. You can't separate the two," Berns says. "We now have the means to start understanding this relationship, and that's putting the relatively new field of cultural neuroscience onto the global stage."
Future conflicts over politics and religion will likely play out biologically, Berns says. Some cultures will choose to change their biology, and in the process, change their culture, he notes. He cites the battles over women's reproductive rights and gay marriage as ongoing examples.
###
For more info: http://www.emory.edu/esciencecommons
Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate experience, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. Emory encompasses nine academic divisions as well as the Carlos Museum, The Carter Center, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, Georgia's largest and most comprehensive health care system.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Beverly Clark
beverly.clark@emory.edu
404-712-8780
Emory University
Emory University neuroscience study finds that decision-making over 'sacred values' prompts a distinct cognitive process
An Emory University neuro-imaging study shows that personal values that people refuse to disavow, even when offered cash to do so, are processed differently in the brain than those values that are willingly sold.
"Our experiment found that the realm of the sacred whether it's a strong religious belief, a national identity or a code of ethics is a distinct cognitive process," says Gregory Berns, director of the Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University and lead author of the study. The results were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Sacred values prompt greater activation of an area of the brain associated with rules-based, right-or-wrong thought processes, the study showed, as opposed to the regions linked to processing of costs-versus-benefits.
Berns headed a team that included economists and information scientists from Emory University, a psychologist from the New School for Social Research and anthropologists from the Institute Jean Nicod in Paris, France. The research was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the National Science Foundation.
"We've come up with a method to start answering scientific questions about how people make decisions involving sacred values, and that has major implications if you want to better understand what influences human behavior across countries and cultures," Berns says. "We are seeing how fundamental cultural values are represented in the brain."
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record the brain responses of 32 U.S. adults during key phases of an experiment. In the first phase, participants were shown statements ranging from the mundane, such as "You are a tea drinker," to hot-button issues such "You support gay marriage" and "You are Pro-Life." Each of the 62 statements had a contradictory pair, such as "You are Pro-Choice," and the participants had to choose one of each pair.
At the end of the experiment, participants were given the option of auctioning their personal statements: Disavowing their previous choices for actual money. The participants could earn as much as $100 per statement by simply agreeing to sign a document stating the opposite of what they believed. They could choose to opt out of the auction for statements they valued highly.
"We used the auction as a measure of integrity for specific statements," Berns explains. "If a person refused to take money to change a statement, then we considered that value to be personally sacred to them. But if they took money, then we considered that they had low integrity for that statement and that it wasn't sacred."
The brain imaging data showed a strong correlation between sacred values and activation of the neural systems associated with evaluating rights and wrongs (the left temporoparietal junction) and semantic rule retrieval (the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), but not with systems associated with reward.
"Most public policy is based on offering people incentives and disincentives," Berns says. "Our findings indicate that it's unreasonable to think that a policy based on costs-and-benefits analysis will influence people's behavior when it comes to their sacred personal values, because they are processed in an entirely different brain system than incentives."
Research participants who reported more active affiliations with organizations, such as churches, sports teams, musical groups and environmental clubs, had stronger brain activity in the same brain regions that correlated to sacred values. "Organized groups may instill values more strongly through the use of rules and social norms," Berns says.
The experiment also found activation in the amygdala region, a brain region associated with emotional reactions, but only in cases where participants refused to take cash to state the opposite of what they believe. "Those statements represent the most repugnant items to the individual," Berns says, "and would be expected to provoke the most arousal, which is consistent with the idea that when sacred values are violated, that induces moral outrage."
The study is part of a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, titled "The Biology of Cultural Conflict." Berns edited the special issue, which brings together a dozen articles on the culture of neuroscience, including differences in the neural processing of people on the opposing sides of conflict, from U.S. Democrats and Republicans to Arabs and Israelis.
"As culture changes, it affects our brains, and as our brains change, that affects our culture. You can't separate the two," Berns says. "We now have the means to start understanding this relationship, and that's putting the relatively new field of cultural neuroscience onto the global stage."
Future conflicts over politics and religion will likely play out biologically, Berns says. Some cultures will choose to change their biology, and in the process, change their culture, he notes. He cites the battles over women's reproductive rights and gay marriage as ongoing examples.
###
For more info: http://www.emory.edu/esciencecommons
Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate experience, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. Emory encompasses nine academic divisions as well as the Carlos Museum, The Carter Center, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, Georgia's largest and most comprehensive health care system.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/eu-tpo011912.php
national defense authorization act national defense authorization act seven days in utopia seven days in utopia big 10 championship game big 10 championship game state of play
Science to help rice growers affected by Japan's tsunami
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Zoe Dunford
zoe.dunford@nbi.ac.uk
44-016-032-51490
Norwich BioScience Institutes
Under a year since a huge tsunami inundated paddy fields in Japan with salty sludge, scientists are near to developing locally-adapted, salt-tolerant rice.
Following a Japan-UK research collaboration, a new method for marker assisted breeding is being used to slash the time it takes to isolate new traits such as salt tolerance. Details of the new method, called MutMap, will be published in Nature Biotechnology on Sunday so they can be used by scientists and breeders worldwide to dramatically accelerate crop breeding.
"The beauty of the new method is its simplicity," said Professor Sophien Kamoun, co-author on the paper and Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory on Norwich Research Park.
"By working with cultivars favoured by farmers and already adapted to local conditions, the MutMap method will enable plant scientists and breeders to develop new crop varieties in nearer a year rather than five to ten years."
The new technique also takes advantage of the speed at which sequencing can now be done to screen plant mutants for valuable traits.
"Until now, plant breeding has not been able to take advantage of the genomics revolution," said lead author Professor Ryohei Terauchi from Japan's Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre.
"MutMap overcomes one of the greatest limitations, which has been the time it takes to identify genetic markers for desirable traits."
Important traits such as drought and salt tolerance, semidwarfism, plant height and yield are often controlled by many genes each having a subtle effect. It is therefore difficult to identify the complete genetic basis for them.
Such traits are often bred in from wild relatives and without genetic engineering many years of back-crossing are required to breed out all the characteristics of the wild plant except the quality desired.
In the new method, scientists work with an elite rice cultivar and create mutants that harbour different traits. One mutant is identified with the desired trait and this is crossed with the original cultivar and grown in the field. The difference between the progeny of this cross and the elite cultivar can then be identified.
"The differences can be unequivocally observed even if they are small," said Professor Kamoun.
The changes detected are called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) and insertion-deletions (indels) tiny genetic improvements that can be observed using genome sequencing.
In the study to be published on Sunday, the scientists focused on plant height because of its crucial role in yield. The introduction of this trait fuelled the Green Revolution in wheat, rice and other cereals from the 1960s, but has not been thoroughly exploited. The gene for semidwarfism was first identified in the model plant Arabidopsis at the John Innes Centre, and only discovered in rice in 2002.
For the current study, they also measured six other traits of agricultural importance. Terauchi and his team have since established a mutant collection for salt tolerance which they are screening for markers. Once these have been identified, they will be used to develop rice cultivars that can be grown in paddy fields flooded by the tsunami last March.
The method will not work for all important traits, and further research is needed to establish how it can be applied to crops with larger genomes such as wheat, barley and maize.
###
The research collaboration grew out of the TSL approach to train biologists in bioinformatics, enabling them to take full advantage of it as an experimental science. Dr Kentaro Yoshida from Terauchi's group was funded by a Daiwa Adrian prize to receive training at The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2010.
Further funding was provided by research agencies in Japan and TSL's core funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 22-Jan-2012[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Zoe Dunford
zoe.dunford@nbi.ac.uk
44-016-032-51490
Norwich BioScience Institutes
Under a year since a huge tsunami inundated paddy fields in Japan with salty sludge, scientists are near to developing locally-adapted, salt-tolerant rice.
Following a Japan-UK research collaboration, a new method for marker assisted breeding is being used to slash the time it takes to isolate new traits such as salt tolerance. Details of the new method, called MutMap, will be published in Nature Biotechnology on Sunday so they can be used by scientists and breeders worldwide to dramatically accelerate crop breeding.
"The beauty of the new method is its simplicity," said Professor Sophien Kamoun, co-author on the paper and Head of The Sainsbury Laboratory on Norwich Research Park.
"By working with cultivars favoured by farmers and already adapted to local conditions, the MutMap method will enable plant scientists and breeders to develop new crop varieties in nearer a year rather than five to ten years."
The new technique also takes advantage of the speed at which sequencing can now be done to screen plant mutants for valuable traits.
"Until now, plant breeding has not been able to take advantage of the genomics revolution," said lead author Professor Ryohei Terauchi from Japan's Iwate Biotechnology Research Centre.
"MutMap overcomes one of the greatest limitations, which has been the time it takes to identify genetic markers for desirable traits."
Important traits such as drought and salt tolerance, semidwarfism, plant height and yield are often controlled by many genes each having a subtle effect. It is therefore difficult to identify the complete genetic basis for them.
Such traits are often bred in from wild relatives and without genetic engineering many years of back-crossing are required to breed out all the characteristics of the wild plant except the quality desired.
In the new method, scientists work with an elite rice cultivar and create mutants that harbour different traits. One mutant is identified with the desired trait and this is crossed with the original cultivar and grown in the field. The difference between the progeny of this cross and the elite cultivar can then be identified.
"The differences can be unequivocally observed even if they are small," said Professor Kamoun.
The changes detected are called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPS) and insertion-deletions (indels) tiny genetic improvements that can be observed using genome sequencing.
In the study to be published on Sunday, the scientists focused on plant height because of its crucial role in yield. The introduction of this trait fuelled the Green Revolution in wheat, rice and other cereals from the 1960s, but has not been thoroughly exploited. The gene for semidwarfism was first identified in the model plant Arabidopsis at the John Innes Centre, and only discovered in rice in 2002.
For the current study, they also measured six other traits of agricultural importance. Terauchi and his team have since established a mutant collection for salt tolerance which they are screening for markers. Once these have been identified, they will be used to develop rice cultivars that can be grown in paddy fields flooded by the tsunami last March.
The method will not work for all important traits, and further research is needed to establish how it can be applied to crops with larger genomes such as wheat, barley and maize.
###
The research collaboration grew out of the TSL approach to train biologists in bioinformatics, enabling them to take full advantage of it as an experimental science. Dr Kentaro Yoshida from Terauchi's group was funded by a Daiwa Adrian prize to receive training at The Sainsbury Laboratory in 2010.
Further funding was provided by research agencies in Japan and TSL's core funding from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/nbi-sth011812.php
leap pad lauren alaina lowes best buy black friday frys ad a very gaga thanksgiving black friday walmart 2011
Monday, January 23, 2012
What if there were another advanced species?
What if Neanderthals, who bit the dust just 28,000 years ago, had instead wised up and were now living next door? Or what if, during all these millennia that humans have been evolving, some unrelated creature had evolved cognitive and technological prowess in keeping with our own? Another scenario: what if humans had split into two separate species ? the original gangsters, and a successful evolutionary offshoot?
These are all perfectly reasonable histories of the world that would have resulted in two advanced species of Earthlings living side-by-side today. They're just not the histories that happen to have happened.
But what if they had? Would we break bread with our brainy cohabitants or be locked in a constant battle for supremacy?
-
More science news from msnbc.com
-
Stephen Hawking's cosmic curios explained
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: The cosmic curios of the world's best-known physicist go on display at a science museum, chronicling the amazing 70 years of Stephen Hawking's life.
- Monkey long believed extinct found in Indonesia
- Evidence found for oldest popcorn in South America
- Leap second lives on after tiff over time
-
Stephen Hawking's cosmic curios explained
Oh, them ? just ignore them
In this hypothetical world, there would be three possible relationships between humans and "others," said William Harcourt-Smith, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History. The most likely one is that competition for resources would cause us to fight, constantly.
"Given knowledge of how humans behave within their species ? the endless intertribal conflicts and wars that have sadly gone on for many thousands of years ? I think that whenever resources become an issue, or competing ideologies become an issue, you get conflict," Harcourt-Smith said. If one of the species was slightly cleverer or stronger or developed better technology than the other, the former would eventually decimate the latter, reminiscent of Humans vs. Neanderthals.
Alternatively: If, after tens of thousands of years of clashes between Humans and Others, no one had come out on top, the two species might have gradually drifted toward equilibrium, either by populating geographically separate regions of the globe or by adapting to require different resources, Harcourt-Smith said. Others might have developed an appetite solely for fish, for instance, while Humans might have specialized in animal husbandry, and come to find fish disgusting.
In either of those cases ? if we lived in different regions or utilized different resources ? Humans and Others would have developed cultural systems in which we were taught to avoid one another. That's what other species do under the same circumstances. "As long as there isn't competition, species just ignore each other," he said. "Two monkeys living in the same tree, for example ? if they're not going after the same resources, they don't interact." [ Why Haven't All Primates Evolved into Humans? ]
Hand-tongues
But what might our imaginary friends/enemies be like? Granted, they could look like anything ? could have evolved from apes, elephants, dolphins or some other creatures ? but Harcourt-Smith believes there are three traits the Others would definitely need in order to be technologically advanced.
"First, you need cognitive abilities that allow you to construct things, to conceive of abstract ideas or conceive of an object with many moving parts, each of which has a function. You must have forward planning and be able to think outside space and time in an abstract sense, in order to create that object," he said.
Second, they must have a way of manipulating objects, both with great strength and with great finesse. We manage this with our hands ? amazing structures that can grip objects very powerfully but can also perform tasks that require great delicacy and dexterity, such as sewing with needle and thread. "Imagine that, in another creature, their feet develop these incredible abilities, or their tongues," he said.
Lastly, cultural transmission is essential. It's uncommonly rare to find a single human who knows how to build a computer from scratch, starting with mining the raw materials. Or, for that matter, someone who knows how to build an irrigation system, or a gun. Rather than reinventing the wheel over and over, humans pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. We also have job specialization within our societies to make them function more efficiently. For a nonhuman society to achieve similar technological progress, they too would need some sophisticated form of communication.
Humans 2.0
There's one more scenario that must be considered: Could another group of highly intelligent Earthlings someday arise?
According to Harcourt-Smith, in the long term (millions or billions of years out), all bets are off. "We don't know what the future holds ? how other species of advanced mammals might evolve," he said. For that to happen, some cataclysmic event would have to cause the human population to plummet in order to clear the way for a competitor.
Alternatively, he said, a group of pioneering humans could venture into space and settle somewhere else. The new environment would cause them to undergo rapid evolution and then, some 100,000 years later, they would have become a distinct species that might still interact with the same old humans back on Earth.
"The other possibility is through our own making ? genetic engineering and such. Putting human genes into animals and goodness knows what. But you never know. It's certainly possible."
Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @ nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @ llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.
? 2012 LifesLittleMysteries.com. All rights reserved. More from LifesLittleMysteries.com.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46076176/ns/technology_and_science-science/
occupy wallstreet tony bennett pumpkins pumpkins occupy wall st occupy wall st the graduate
Yogi's Den: Pets Forever - Hogging the Heat
Ah, that looks so comfy. Chrissy is a smart cat!
awww your comfort zone!
Woof woof
from Bozo
Pets forever
That Chrissy knows where to spend a winter day/night!! I wish we had a fireplace!!!
Sam and Sylvia
She enjoys the best seat in the house.
Very smart staying by the warm fire. Our cats both lay right up against the heater hogging all the heat. When I want to warm up my hands, I just pet my cat. I'm surprised that cat weighs so much!
Maine Coons are big cats, and SO beautiful. Chrissy is lovely.
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie?s Guide to Adventurous Travel
Seems to me she has the right idea!
One can never be too warm you know :)
Enjoy the cold, it has been years since I have seen a 'proper' winter.
She seems to like the luxury. 20 pounds is very heavy.
Greetings,
Filip
Wonderful to see..
What a comfy spot. This evening our yellow dog and granddaughter were sharing the small area between the coffee table and the fireplace. Very cute to see.
I think you better turn the heat up and keep that poor kitty warm!
Source: http://www.yogis-den.com/2012/01/pets-forever-hogging-heat.html
when is daylight savings 2011 what time is it cain gingrich debate andy rooney dies andy rooney dies bank transfer day daylight savings 2011
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Dawn of Social Lobbying
The word ?lobbyist? surely doesn?t have the best connotation in the world. Depending on your reading of the definition, it generally signifies an attempt to influence government decisions, traditionally by targeting legislators or regulators. What isn?t often taken into consideration, however, is that while there are lobbyists in dark suits roaming the halls of Congress funded by entities such as big oil and pharmaceutical companies, ?lobbying? is also conducted by nonprofit groups funded by different kinds of special interests. We think of efforts, however, as ?activism,? but at the end of the day, they're just another form of lobbying. Now, a new form of ?lobbying? has emerged, but instead corporate checks or individuals donations, the currency has shifted from cash to social connections, where financial power will be trumped by network power: ?social lobbying.?Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/q_Q-1uKocWY/
new ipod touch new ipod touch dwts results vanessa paradis vanessa paradis when will ios 5 be released when will ios 5 be released
After protest, Congress puts off movie piracy bill
Megaupload.com employees Bram van der Kolk, also known as Bramos, left, Finn Batato,second from left, Mathias Ortmann and founder, former CEO and current chief innovation officer of Megaupload.com Kim Dotcom (also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor), right, appear in North Shore District Court in Auckland, New Zealand, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. The four appeared in court in relation to arrests made to Megaupload.com, which is linked to a U.S. investigation into international copyright infringement and money laundering. (AP Photo/Greg Bowker, New Zealand Herald) NEW ZEALAND OUT, AUSTRALIA OUT
Megaupload.com employees Bram van der Kolk, also known as Bramos, left, Finn Batato,second from left, Mathias Ortmann and founder, former CEO and current chief innovation officer of Megaupload.com Kim Dotcom (also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor), right, appear in North Shore District Court in Auckland, New Zealand, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. The four appeared in court in relation to arrests made to Megaupload.com, which is linked to a U.S. investigation into international copyright infringement and money laundering. (AP Photo/Greg Bowker, New Zealand Herald) NEW ZEALAND OUT, AUSTRALIA OUT
This undated image obtained by The Associated Press shows the homepage of the website Megaupload.com. Federal prosecutors in Virginia have shut down one of the world's largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Caving to a massive campaign by Internet services and their millions of users, Congress indefinitely postponed legislation Friday to stop online piracy of movies and music costing U.S. companies billions of dollars every year. Critics said the bills would result in censorship and stifle Internet innovation.
The demise, at least for the time being, of the anti-piracy bills was a clear victory for Silicon Valley over Hollywood, which has campaigned for a tougher response to online piracy. The legislation also would cover the counterfeiting of drugs and car parts.
Congress' qualms underscored how Internet users can use their collective might to block those who want to change the system.
The battle over the future of the Internet also played out on a different front Thursday when a loose affiliation of hackers known as "Anonymous" shut down Justice Department websites for several hours and hacked the site of the Motion Picture Association of America after federal officials issued an indictment against Megaupload.com, one of the world's biggest file-sharing sites.
The site of the Hong Kong-based company was shut down, and the founder and three employees were arrested in New Zealand on U.S. accusations that they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. New Zealand police raided homes and businesses linked to the founder, Kim Dotcom, on Friday and seized guns, millions of dollars and nearly $5 million in luxury cars, officials there said.
In the U.S., momentum against the Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act and the House's Stop Online Piracy Act, known popularly as PIPA and SOPA, grew quickly on Wednesday when the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and other Web giants staged a one-day blackout and Google organized a petition drive that attracted more than 7 million participants.
That day alone, at least six senators who had co-sponsored the Senate legislation reversed their positions. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in statements at the time and again on Friday, stressed that more consensus-building was needed before the legislation would be ready for a vote.
On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday "in light of recent events." House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, followed suit, saying consideration of a similar House bill would be postponed "until there is wider agreement on a solution."
With opposition mounting, it was unlikely that Reid would have received the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation to the Senate floor.
The two bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. The legislation would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. They also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.
The chief Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., cited estimates that copyright piracy costs the American economy more than $50 billion annually and that global sales of counterfeit goods via the Internet reached $135 billion in 2010. He and Smith insist that their bills target only foreign criminals and that there is nothing in them to require websites, Internet service providers, search engines or others to monitor their networks.
That didn't satisfy critics who said the legislation could force Internet companies to pre-screen user comments or videos, burden new and smaller websites with huge litigation costs and impede new investments.
The White House, while not taking a specific stand on the bills, last week said it would "not support any legislation that reduces freedom of expression ... or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet." On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said online piracy is an issue that has to be addressed, "but everybody has to be in on it for it to work and get through Congress."
The scuttling, for now, of PIPA and SOPA frustrates what might have been one of the few opportunities to move significant legislation in an election year where the two parties have little motivation to cooperate.
Until recently "you would have thought this bill was teed up," with backing from key Senate leaders and support from powerful interest groups, said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who cosponsored the original bill but quickly dropped his backing on the grounds the bill could undermine innovation and Internet freedom.
Moran said the "uprising" of so many people with similar concerns was a "major turnaround, and in my experience it is something that has happened very rarely."
Moran said PIPA and SOPA now have "such a black eye" that it will be difficult to amend them. Reid, however, said that there had been progress in recent talks among the various stakeholders and "there is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved."
Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer protection and privacy advocacy group, said Google and Facebook and their supporters "have delivered a powerful blow to the Hollywood lobby." He predicted a compromise that doesn't include what many see as overreaching provisions in the current legislation.
"It's been framed as an Internet freedom issue, but at the end of the day it will be decided on the narrow interests of the old and new media companies," he said. The big questions involve who should or shouldn't pay ? or be paid ? for Internet content.
Leahy said he respected Reid's decision to postpone the vote but lamented the Senate's unwillingness to debate his bill.
"The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," Leahy said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries "who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided" it was not worth taking up the bill, he said.
In the House, Smith said he had "heard from the critics" and resolved that it was "clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products." Smith had planned on holding further committee votes on his bill next month.
The bill's opponents were relieved it was put on hold.
Markham Erickson, executive director of NetCoalition, commended Congress for "recognizing the serious collateral damage this bill could inflict on the Internet."
The group represents Internet and technology companies including Google, Yahoo and Amazon.com. Erickson said they would work with Congress "to address the problem of piracy without compromising innovation and free expression."
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who has joined Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Moran in proposing an alternative anti-piracy bill, credited opponents with forcing lawmakers "to back away from an effort to ram through controversial legislation."
But the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, former Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, warned, "As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves." The MPAA, which represents such companies as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., is a leading advocate for the anti-piracy legislation.
Associated Pressmatt nathanson matt nathanson rick perry oops rick perry oops tom bradley penn state tom bradley penn state grace potter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)