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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Classic Koss Headphones Finally Get an iPhone Remote [Audio]
PHOTOS: Boy Bands: Then and Now!
In honor of Justin Timberlake's 31st birthday on Jan. 31, see what he and his fellow teen heartthrobs are up to these days
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Monday, January 30, 2012
Man charged in slayings of SC officer, Ga. woman (AP)
AIKEN, S.C. ? A 26-year-old man was arrested Saturday and charged with murder in two states after police say he killed his girlfriend in Georgia, and then fatally shot a South Carolina police officer responding to a report of suspicious activity, authorities said.
Police in South Carolina said Joshua Tremaine Jones was charged with murder Saturday in the death of Aiken police Master Cpl. Sandra Rogers.
The Aiken Department of Public Safety said officers were responding Saturday morning to a report of suspicious activity involving two cars, and that Rogers was shot after stopping one of the vehicles.
Jones was arrested hours later at a residence in Batesburg.
Saturday evening, a visibly moved Aiken Public Safety director Charles Barranco announced that Rogers had died at an area hospital. The Aiken native had spent a nearly 28-year career with the department; she was 49.
With police officials standing behind him, Barranco told reporters that Jones faces charges of murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
In neighboring Georgia, The Augusta Chronicle reported that Jones also faces murder charges in the death of his girlfriend, 21-year-old Cayce Vice. Police found her body in her apartment Saturday morning after she didn't show up for work; she had been shot in the head.
Richmond County sheriff's Capt. Scott Peebles told the newspaper that the agency had obtained warrants for murder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
A phone message left late Saturday for the Richmond County Sheriff's Office was not immediately returned.
The Aiken public safety department issued a statement Saturday evening praising Rogers as "an invaluable street cop who exemplified the model of a Public Safety Officer," according to WLTX-TV in Columbia, S.C.
"Master Corporal Rogers was a highly skilled investigator and senior patrol officer on her shift," the statement said. "Please keep the Rogers family and Aiken Public Safety in your prayers as once again we deal with this tragic loss."
Another Aiken police officer, Scotty Richardson, was shot and killed on Dec. 20.
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TiVo Premiere Elite
The TiVo Premiere Elite ($499.99 list) is the souped-up version of the TiVo Premiere DVR ($299.99, 3.5 stars), with a 300-hour HD video capacity and two more TV tuners for the ability to record four simultaneous programs. Like the TiVo Premiere XL, the Premiere Elite is THX certified and comes with an upgraded remote (but not the slide-out QWERTY model). It?s a definite upgrade for current TiVo users, but is it compelling enough to bring more TiVo users into the fold? The outlook isn't so good, compared to DVRs from cable companies, which continue to improve over time.
Design and Features
The TiVo Premiere Elite looks almost identical to the previous TiVo Premiere, built into the same style chassis as the previous model. There are a few differences from the previous version, though. There are four lights, which glow red to show that each of the four tuners are recording a program. You can record up to four programs simultaneously, which are decoded by the mutli-stream CableCARD the TiVo Premiere Elite now requires. Previous models allowed you to record over the air HDTV broadcasts in addition to digital cable, but the Premiere Elite is a strictly digital cable-only model; TiVo has removed the RF tuner and its connector to make room for the added digital tuners. Over-the-air HDTV viewers will want the regular Premiere or Premiere XL.
The TiVo Premiere Elite comes with a 2TB hard drive, which is good for up to 300 hours of HD video, which is an increase from 45 hours for the TiVo Premiere, and 150 hours for the TiVo Premiere XL. Like the TiVo Premiere XL, the Premiere Elite comes with the TiVo Glo remote, not the keyboard-equipped TiVo Slide ($60). The TiVo Slide is a better fit for the DVR junkie who needs to search for programming with the on-screen interface. Truly hardcore TiVo users can download the free TiVo app for their handheld device like an iPad, iPhone, or Android phone: The app replicates the search and remote functions on your handheld, including managing the recorded programs list on your TiVo Premiere Elite. The touch-screen keyboard on your iPhone or Samsung Galaxy S II will be handier than using the on-screen keyboard and TiVo Glo remote on your HDTV. However, you can?t view live TV or the recordings from your TiVo on your iPad/iPhone/Android device. You?ll still need to use a separate place-shifting device for remote viewing over WiFi or 3G.
Competitors From the Cable Company and Elsewhere
The cable companies have caught up to and some cases surpassed TiVo. TiVo?s interface now mostly takes advantage of the extra real estate and resolution of a HDTV screen, though there are still elements in standard definition. The user interface screens on digital cable DVRs like those from Verizon FIOS are fully HD optimized.
More pressing are features like FIOS? DVR apps and Cablevision/Time Warner?s viewing apps on devices like the iPad and Android smartphones. On the FIOS side, the DVR Manager app gives you listings of what?s scheduled and already recorded on your home DVRs, regardless if you?re home or on a 3G network. Need more room to record the next American Idol on your home DVR, but you?re in Des Moines? No problem with FIOS or the other cable companies, just delete those old episodes of Pan Am. In the TiVo app, you have to be physically in range of your home Wi-Fi network to see the recorded list and manage recordings, which means you can only schedule future recordings remotely, not delete existing programs. On the Time Warner and Cablevision side, things are even better when you consider that the TWC app and Optimum app allow you to view live TV as well as on-demand videos on your iPad on your home network. TiVo users need a place-shifting device like a Slingbox to do the same thing, even in your own home. Multi-room viewing was once unique to TiVo, but Cable DVRs now support multi-room viewing, letting you view programs recorded in the living room while you?re in the bedroom.? And with TiVo, there are issues with multi-room viewing and copy-protected content, which could apply to many of the programs you're recording.
Last I checked, most cable companies even let you exchange a broken DVR for free even if the DVR itself is 5 years old. Unfortunately, the TiVo DVR warranty only lasts one year for parts, 90 days for labor, with an option for 2-years parts/labor for $30 and 3 years for $40.? Last, but not least, you?ll still need to subscribe to TiVo, which added to the monthly rental for the CableCARD, equals or surpasses the monthly rental fee for a cable company DVR. TiVo curently charges $19.95 a month, so if you add the $2-5 monthly rate for the CabelCARD, you may pay less in fees on a cable company DVR. Sure, you can purchase a lifetime subscription for $499.99, but that's per TiVo DVR, and is subject to the continued good health of TiVo Inc. If you want Netflix or You Tube on your HDTV as well and your HDTV doesn't already support it, check if there?s a free HDMI port on your TV, then get an Apple TV or Roku; it?s less than $100, and you won?t need to pay a monthly fee to Apple.
The TiVo Premiere Elite is an improved device for an ultimately shrinking market: the hardcore TiVo user. It will give the TiVo fan a lot to crow about while recording 300 hours of HD on four channels simultaneously, but the DVR is unlikely to add brand new customers to the TiVo fold. It's so tied to digital cable that it is unlikely to sway the non-TiVo user from renting a much more convenient and similar HD DVR for much less money. Why buy a TiVo DVR when the cable company DVR is the same amount of money or less, and lets you better manage it with your smartphone or tablet? Five years ago, TiVo had a perceptibly insurmountable lead on the competition. Now that gap is bridgeable by a toddler in brand new shoes.
More Digital Video Recorder reviews:
??? TiVo Premiere Elite
??? TiVo (for iPad)
??? Monsoon Multimedia Vulkano
??? Dish Network ViP922 SlingLoaded DVR
??? TiVo Premiere
?? more
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/g2xpcMjtWhg/0,2817,2399349,00.asp
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Sunday, January 29, 2012
Herman Cain and Sarah Palin: Do they still have political clout?
Sarah Palin is defending Newt Gingrich from establishment Republican attacks, and Herman Cain has given Gingrich his full endorsement. But will support from these tea party superstars make any difference?
When the political history of this era is written, two of the most colorful figures are likely to be Sarah Palin and Herman Cain.
Skip to next paragraphThe once-obscure former governor of Alaska, picked as John McCain?s running mate in 2008, went on to create a Palin-centric industry as public speaker, author, reality TV star, Fox News commentator, and potential presidential candidate who made tons of money while tantalizing millions of tea party supporters around the country with suggestions that she might run this year. She was (still is) catnip to the media.
Herman Cain, the businessman who?d never held elective office, similarly dazzled the tea party with his conservative policy positions, his self-confident and humorous manner, and an ability to hold his own in those early crowded debates with career politicians. That he?s African American seemed to dispel the charge that the tea party movement was tinged with racism. For a while, he was winning straw polls, but he had to ?suspend? his presidential campaign when a series of women made allegations of sexual misconduct.
How well do you know Sarah Palin? A quiz.
As the Republican nominating campaign has been whittled down to a four-man race, becoming a gloves-off rhetorical fight ? mainly between alternating front-runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich ? do Herman Cain and Sarah Palin have any remaining political clout?
At this point, it?s hard to imagine either one of them playing a prominent role at the GOP?s convention in Tampa, Fla., in August. For the most part, Republican presidential politics has moved beyond them. Despite their ability to rouse a tea party gathering, each carries certain baggage the Republican Party would just as soon not remind voters of that close to the November election.
But this past week both Palin and Cain weighed in on behalf of Gingrich ? Palin with a spirited defense of the former House Speaker, Cain with an official endorsement.
Gingrich in recent days has had to endure not only relentless attacks from the Romney campaign and the independent super PAC supporting the former Massachusetts governor ? the rhetoric could be measured in megatonnage ? but a series of biting sniper assaults from establishment Republicans like former Sen. Bob Dole and such conservative commentators as Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter.
?If Gingrich is the nominee, it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices,? said Dole in a letter released Thursday. ?Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him, and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway.?
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Saturday, January 28, 2012
Sect kills police officer at station in N. Nigeria (AP)
KANO, Nigeria ? Police say gunmen from a radical Islamist sect have attacked another police station, killing one officer in a north Nigeria city where they killed 185 people last week.
Kano state police spokesman Magaji Musa Majiya said the shooting happened Friday in the capital Kano, a city of more than 9 million people already under siege by the sect known as Boko Haram. He said officers killed three sect members in the attack, but others dragged the bodies away.
The spokesman blamed the attack on Boko Haram, which carried out an attack Jan. 20 in Kano that saw police stations, immigration offices and the local headquarters of the secret police attacked. Boko Haram is carrying out increasingly bloody attacks against Nigeria's weak central government.
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Friday, January 27, 2012
For the birds
Friday, January 27, 2012
Location matters for birds on the hunt for caterpillars, according to researchers at UC Irvine and Wesleyan University. Findings suggest that chickadees and others zero in on the type of tree as much as the characteristics of their wriggly prey.
Unfortunately for caterpillars, munching on tree leaves that are healthy and tasty can dramatically boost their own risk of becoming food. Study results, published online this week in The American Naturalist, show that dining on the trees that are most nutritious for caterpillars ? such as the black cherry ? can increase by 90 percent their chances of being devoured by a discerning bird.
"The jump in risk is surprising," said co-author Kailen Mooney, assistant professor of ecology & evolutionary biology at UCI. "It shows that for caterpillars, moving from one tree to the next can mean the difference between getting eaten and surviving."
The findings indicate a "neat potential pest control system," because the healthiest tree species harbor the greatest number of caterpillars, thereby offering the easiest pickings for winged predators, said lead author Michael Singer of Wesleyan. "Our study addresses basic theoretical questions in ecology, but we also want forest managers and conservation biologists to take away practical knowledge."
Mooney, who specializes in the ecology of predatory birds, said tree identification is probably learned by birds, not genetic. He added that Southern California bird species probably do the same with coastal sage scrub, determining which types of bushes afford a better chance of tasty insect treats.
With help from a small army of students, the scientists conducted a two-year experiment in Connecticut forests involving hundreds of tree branches either covered with bird-proof netting or left bare.
Mooney noted that the results illustrate a stark choice between gaining strength through a good diet but being more vulnerable to predators and remaining weaker and hungrier but more safe.
"If a caterpillar could feed on nutritious, high-quality tree species and be left alone, this would be the best of all worlds," he said. "Instead, it's faced with a trade-off. Overall, it appears that it's better to feed on poor-quality tree species and have fewer caterpillars around you than to be on a nutritious plant with many others."
###
University of California - Irvine: http://www.uci.edu
Thanks to University of California - Irvine for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/117121/For_the_birds
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Time Warner Is Delusional: Its TV Business Has Entered Its Death ...
Time Warner Cable's Q4 2011 earnings contain a shocking harbinger of doom for the broadcast and cable TV industry: It lost 129,000 TV subscribers last quarter alone.
Sure, that's not a large number on its own?TWC still has 11.9 million residential subscribers. But put that next to the recent Credit Suisse report that estimated 200,000 fewer homes would subscribe to pay TV in 2012.
Looks like that 200,000 nationwide estimate may be way too low.
TWC's business TV subscriptions were no help?they're flat.
TWC did see growth in its various internet and data services. Unsurprisingly, TWC also saw lower usage of video-on-demand.
It all suggests that America is unsubscribing from TV in droves and watching shows and movies for free on the web. In other words, the web is about to do to TV what it already did to newspapers.
The only people who don't understand this tectonic shift in media habits, however, are the management of Time Warner Cable. Here's what they had to say about the viewer defections, per Ad Age:
Time Warner Cable said today that web-based video still isn't having a huge impact on its video subscribers, saying those services are "not a substitute at this point."
Here's the chart:
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Thursday, January 26, 2012
Yahoo delivers another listless performance in 4Q
In this Jan. 4, 2012 photo, the Yahoo company logo is displayed at their headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Yahoo Inc., reports quarterly financial earnings Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, after the market close.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
In this Jan. 4, 2012 photo, the Yahoo company logo is displayed at their headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Yahoo Inc., reports quarterly financial earnings Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, after the market close.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Yahoo slipped further behind in the online advertising race during the fourth quarter as the Internet company entered the fourth year of a revenue slump.
The results announced Tuesday marked the latest in a succession of disappointing performances. The persisting malaise led to the firing of Carol Bartz as CEO four months ago.
Yahoo Inc. recently replaced Bartz with PayPal executive Scott Thompson, anointing him as the fourth CEO in less than five years to try to snap the company out of a funk that has depressed its stock. Thompson, who was hired just three weeks ago, promised to move quickly to fix the problems.
"There is no question we need to do better and we will," Thompson assured analysts in a Tuesday conference call.
The company earned $296 million, or 24 cents per share, in the October-to-December period. That is down 5 percent from $312 million, or 24 cents per share, a year earlier.
The earnings matched analysts' estimates, but the company missed Wall Street's revenue target.
Fourth-quarter revenue dropped 13 percent from the previous year to $1.32 billion. After subtracting advertising commissions, Yahoo's revenue totaled $1.17 billion, or $20 million below analyst projections. It's the 13th straight quarter that Yahoo's net revenue has declined from the prior year.
Although Thompson said it was still too early to share precise details about his turnaround strategy, he said he will close some Yahoo services. That could mean layoffs. Yahoo added 400 employees in the fourth quarter to end the year with 14,100 workers. It lost one of its co-founders last week when Jerry Yang resigned from the company's board and gave up his role as "Chief Yahoo."
Bartz had also closed or sold some of Yahoo's less popular services while jettisoning jobs to cut costs and sharpen the company's focus. Those moves, though, didn't increase Yahoo's revenue or stock price, leading the company's board to fire her in September with more than 15 months remaining on her contract.
"This company has been through such a rotating cast of characters that it's reached the point where it needs action, not words," BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.
Besides closing services, Thompson said Yahoo will expand into some fields where he sees opportunities to make money. He didn't elaborate on that or on which services to close.
Thompson also pledged to develop more innovative products to keep Yahoo's audience of 700 million users on its websites for longer periods. Accomplishing that could make Yahoo more attractive to online advertisers. Thompson said he hopes to harness the data that Yahoo collects about its audience to help advertisers do a better job of putting their marketing messages in front of the people most likely to buy their products.
"I'll always ask a lot of questions and I'll immerse myself in the details but when it comes to making decisions, I make them quickly and then push to move fast, fast, fast," Thompson said.
But Yahoo isn't promising a quick start under Thompson's leadership. Yahoo predicted its net revenue in the current quarter will range from $1.02 billion to $1.1 billion. The mid-point of that target works out to $1.06 billion, unchanged from last year's first quarter.
Investors appear to be taking a wait-and-see attitude with Thompson. Yahoo's stock shed 14 cents to $15.55 in extended trading after the report came out. The stock price has fallen by about 40 percent from five years ago.
Yahoo's downturn in revenue has occurred as advertisers are shifting more of their budgets to the Internet as people spend more of their time on the Web. The biggest beneficiaries of this boom so far have been Internet search leader Google Inc. and Facebook, the owner of the largest online social network.
While Yahoo continued to struggle during the final three months of last year, Google's revenue rose 25 percent from the same period in 2010. As a privately held company, Facebook doesn't disclose its financial results, but data compiled by independent research firms show that its website has been luring advertisers away from Yahoo.
Google has become so dominant in Internet search that Yahoo teamed up with another rival, Microsoft Corp., in an effort to become more competitive and save money. Yahoo's search engine now relies on Microsoft's technology to handle most requests. The alliance, forged in mid-2009, hasn't generated as much revenue so far as Yahoo had hoped, although there were signs of progress in the fourth quarter.
Net revenue from search totaled $376 million in the fourth quarter, a 3 percent decrease from a year earlier. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., had been suffering year-over-year declines of more than 10 percent in previous quarters.
As it tries to boost its revenue and lift its stock price, Yahoo is considering selling its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo is pursuing those negotiations with "great enthusiasm," according to Tim Morse, the company's chief financial officer. Neither Morse nor Thompson elaborated on when a deal might be reached.
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10,000 Paterno memorial tickets go in 7 minutes
The tickets were distributed free through the athletic department website with a limit of two tickets per person.
Penn State officials say no more free tickets are available for a memorial service for the late Joe?Paterno?after the public claimed more than 10,000 in about seven minutes.
Skip to next paragraphThe service will be held Thursday at Penn State's 16,000-seat basketball arena.
The tickets were distributed free through the athletic department website with a limit of two tickets per person.
Demand was so great that some tickets were posted for sale on eBay. But the online auction site pulled down those ads because it does not allow the sale of tickets for free events.
Paterno?died Sunday as the winningest coach in major college football. That was just over two months after he was fired amid a child sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant coach.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Qb9H_DUX-eU/10-000-Paterno-memorial-tickets-go-in-7-minutes
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Former Astronaut Mark Kelly Attends Obama's State of the Union Address (SPACE.com)
Retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and his wife, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, were among the high profile attendees at U.S. President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday (Jan. 24) in Washington, D.C.
Kelly, who commanded NASA's second-to-last space shuttle mission last year, sat with First Lady Michelle Obama during the president's speech. He watched from the First Lady's box as Giffords received a standing ovation, a stirring show of support from her colleagues, when she arrived.?
Giffords suffered a gunshot wound to the head on Jan. 8, 2011 during an assassination attempt in Tucson, just months before Kelly's spaceflight.?She announced her plan to retire from Congress earlier this week.?
As President Obama approached the podium to deliver tonight's State of the Union address, he stopped to give Giffords a warm welcome. The two were all smiles as they embraced and rocked back and forth amid more applause. [Photos: Astronaut Mark Kelly & Gabrielle Giffords]
"Thankful to be watching tonight's #SOTU address next to @MichelleObama. Gabby's attendance will be a proud moment for all of us," Kelly write in a Twitter post.?"Wonderful to see my wife Gabby w/her colleagues at the #SOTU?I continued to be amazed by her. #Strong."
Giffords made a miraculous recovery and was even able to attend her husband's launch, on NASA's 134th space shuttle flight aboard the shuttle Endeavour, in May 2011.It was the final flight of the space shuttle Endeavour.?
Kelly?officially retired from NASA?and the U.S. Navy in June 2011. Vice President Joe Biden attended Kelly's retirement ceremony in Washington. Giffords announced on Jan. 22 that she will step down from office to focus on her health and rehabilitation.
"I have more work to do on my recovery, so to do what is best for Arizona I will?step down this week," Giffords said in a video message posted on her Facebook website. "Arizona is my home, always will be. A lot has happened over the past year; we cannot change that. But I know, on the issues we fought for, we can change things for the better: jobs, border security, veterans. We can do so much more by working together."
During his State of the Union address, Obama did not mention NASA or his vision for deep space exploration of asteroids and Mars, but he did emphasize the need for innovation to remain competitive in the fields of science and technology.
Obama's speech came one day after?Republican presidential debates?took place in Florida, where candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich made statements that called for a leaner NASA and more support for private space industry initiatives.
You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter?@denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.
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Discovery Communications to Report Fourth Quarter and Full Year ...
(Silver Spring, Md.) Discovery Communications (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) will report fourth quarter and full year 2011 results on Thursday, February 16, 2012, at 7:00 a.m. EST. The company will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. EST to discuss the results. To access the conference call in the U.S.?
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Tuesday, January 24, 2012
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Monday, January 23, 2012
HRW calls on West to accept Islamist rise to power
Protesters chant slogans at a rally honoring those killed in clashes with security forces in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, nearly a year after the 18-day uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Activists are now trying to energize the public to demand that the ruling military step down. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Protesters chant slogans at a rally honoring those killed in clashes with security forces in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, nearly a year after the 18-day uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Activists are now trying to energize the public to demand that the ruling military step down. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Protesters seen through the Syrian national flag chant slogans during an anti-regime protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman, Jordan, Friday, Jan. 20, 2012. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)
CAIRO (AP) ? The United States and other Western governments must accept the new reality that Islamists have emerged to fill the power vacuum in the Arab world after a wave of popular uprisings, Human Rights Watch said in its annual report Sunday.
The New York-based group also urged Islamist parties, which have emerged as the biggest winners in recent elections in Tunisia and Egypt and are expected to fare well in Libya, to respect the rights of women and religious minorities, saying they cannot "pick and choose" when it comes to human rights.
Islamist parties are "genuinely popular" in the Arab world, said HRW's executive director, Kenneth Roth, warning that "ignoring that popularity would violate democratic principles."
"Being a political Islamic government should not be a reason to turn a government into a pariah," Roth told reporters in Cairo, where the group released its annual report.
The Arab Spring revolts began in Tunisia in late 2010 and quickly spread to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, deposing or challenging authoritarian rulers as citizens who long seemed incapable or unwilling to rise against decades of repression took to the streets in a stunning awakening.
Since the collapse of the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia a year ago, Islamist groups once largely confined to the political sidelines, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, have formed parties and contested parliamentary polls, winning the greatest share of seats.
Even the ultraconservative Salafis, who abstained from politics under Egypt's ousted President Hosni Mubarak, have fared well, winning more than 20 percent of the vote in the country's first post-uprising ballot.
Roth was cautious when asked about concerns about potential human rights violations under Islamist rule. He said that so far, Islamists have said "a lot of right things," but said the true test will be how they deal with the full sweep of human rights once in power.
"These are the big questions," he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, has been most interested in political freedoms, but Roth noted that "it is very difficult to secure political freedom if you are not respecting religious and women rights."
In some ways, the unexpected Arab uprisings have amounted to a slap to the United States and other Western governments, which had supported autocratic regimes that served as bulwarks against Islamists hostile to the West and appeared to offer stability in a volatile region.
"The West backed an array of autocrats as long as they, in turn, supported Western interests," Roth said. "The West is still adjusting to this historic transformation."
He added that the wave of uprisings "show that the forced silence of people living under autocrats should never have been mistaken for popular complacency."
Roth acknowledged Western governments were re-evaluating their policies as new governments emerge in the region.
Western nations have been accused of being selective in supporting the protesters, with NATO airstrikes proving key to the ouster of slain Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. Meanwhile, the West has stood largely on the sidelines amid continued crackdowns in Bahrain, Yemen and Syria.
"The people driving the Arab Spring deserve strong international support to realize their rights and to build genuine democracies," Roth said in the group's annual report, which covers some 90 countries. He added that the Arab world is in a "transformative moment," and it will not be an easy one.
Human Rights Watch pointed to five main issues that dominated the relationship between Western governments and their Arab autocratic friends: the threat of political Islam, the fight against terrorism, support for Israel, protection of the oil flow and cooperation in stemming immigration.
Even after the leaders of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia were toppled, Western governments remained hesitant to lean too hard on other shaky authoritarian leaders, the group said. China and Russia acted "obstructionist," using their veto power at the U.N. security council to halt pressure on Syria to stop killings of protesters.
The popular uprisings also have alarmed other repressive regimes such as China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Ethiopia, Vietnam, and Uzbekistan, where rulers were worried about facing similar fates.
"The worst response to the Arab Spring is the dictatorial world who are living in fear of the precedents set in this region," Roth said. "China greatly deepened its repression in an effort to avoid jasmine rallies."
Saudi Arabia also continues to discriminate against its citizens and workers, according to HRW, which said 9 million women, 8 million foreign workers and 2 million Shiite citizens are either suppressed or lacking rights in the country.
The report called on Morocco to change repressive laws, end police violence and reform its judiciary. The chapter on Morocco focused on police harassment of pro-democracy demonstrators, lack of judicial independence and repression of separatist tendencies in the Western Sahara ? a disputed territory held by the North African kingdom.
Outside the Arab world, the last year did not witness significant progress in countries with poor human rights records, including China and North Korea, according to the report.
Corruption, poverty and repression still prevail in Equatorial Guinea, the tiny, oil-rich nation off the western coast of Africa, which has been ruled by Africa's longest-serving ruler, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the group said.
Eritrea continues to be governed by "one of the world's most repressive governments," and its citizens are subjected to torture, detentions and restrictions on freedom of speech, HRW said.
It also cited Colombia, saying armed conflict in the South American country has displaced millions while paramilitary groups with ties to the security apparatus are on the rise.
Cuba, HRW said, remains "the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent."
The group also claimed that even member states of the European Union have violated human rights through restrictive asylum and migration policies.
___
Additional reporting by Paul Schemm in Rabat, Morocco.
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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Cheerleader Fails (VIDEO)
Don't let the short skirts and the wide smiles fool you, cheerleading is serious business. Between the more acrobatic elements of the sport and the proximity to high-speed action on the playing field, there are plenty of ways that even the best laid routines can go awry.
From innocent foul ups to potentially dangerous drops, here are some remarkable cheerleader fails.
WATCH ABOVE
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James' passion, great range remembered (omg!)
NEW YORK (AP) ? On her last album "The Dreamer," released just three months before her death, Etta James sings a mix of covers, from the R&B classic "Misty Blue" to the Ray Charles song "In the Evening." But perhaps the most curious tune included on the disc may be the Guns N' Roses staple "Welcome to the Jungle."
That a 73-year-old icon of R&B would tackle the frenetic rock song ? albeit in a pace more fitting her blues roots ? might seem odd. But the song may be the best representation of James as both a singer and a person ? rambunctious in spirit, with the ability to sing whatever was thrown at her, whether it was jazz, blues, pining R&B or a song from one of the rowdiest bands in rock.
"She was able to dig so deep in kind of such a raw and unguarded place when she sang, and that's the power of gospel and blues and rhythm and blues. She brought that to all those beautiful standards and rocks songs that she did. All the number of vast albums she recorded, she covered such a wide variety of material that brought such unique phrasing and emotional depth," said Bonnie Raitt, a close friend, in an interview on Friday afternoon after James' death.
"I think that's what appealed to people, aside from the fact that her personality on and off the stage was so huge and irrepressible. She was ribald and raunchy and dignified, classy and strong and vulnerable all at the same time, which is what us as women really relate to."
James, whose signature song was the sweeping, jazz-tinged torch song "At Last," died in Riverside, Calif., from complications of leukemia. Her death came after she struggled with dementia and other health problems, health issues that kept her from performing for the last two or so years of her life.
It was a life full of struggles. Her mother was immersed in a criminal life and left her to be raised by friends, she never knew her true father (though she believed it was billiards great Minnesota Fats), and she had her own troubles, which included a decades-long addiction to drugs, turbulent relationships, brushes with the law, and other tribulations.
One might think all of those problems would have weighted down James' spirit, and her voice, layering it with sadness, or despair. While she certainly could channel depression, anger, and sorrow in song, her voice was defined by its fiery passion: Far from beaten down, James embodied the fight of a woman who managed to claw her way back from the brink, again and again.
It's an attitude that influenced her look as well. Despite the conservative era, she dyed her hair platinum blonde, sending out the signal that she was far from demure, and owning a brassy, sassy attitude. She relished her role as saucy singer, a persona that she celebrated in her private life as well.
"In terms of 1950s rhythm and blues stars, she had kind of a gutsy attitude and she went out there and did what she did, and she was kind of bold ... and it had a huge influence," said David Ritz, the co-author of her autobiography "Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story." ''I think her gutsiness and her lack of fear and just her courage (made her special). ... I believe that made her important and memorable."
Beyonce, who played James in the movie "Cadillac Records" about Chess Records, also spoke about her influence on other singers.
"I feel like Etta James, first of all, was the first black woman I saw with platinum, blonde hair. She wore her leopard and she wore her sexy silhouette and she didn't care. She was strong and confident and always Etta James," said Beyonce in a 2008 interview.
James could often be irascible. Ritz remembers when he was working with her on her autobiography, touring with her around the country, that one time he approached her with his tape recorder and she barked: "If see that tape recorder again I'm going to cram it up your (expletive)."
But at other times, she'd be effusive and warm and anxious to talk.
"Once she did talk, she was always candid and unguarded. She was a free spirit," Ritz said.
While Ritz put her in the category of other greats like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, she never enjoyed their mainstream success. Though "At Last" has become an enduring classic, there were times when James had to scrounge for work, and while she won Grammys and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, she did not have the riches, the multitude of platinum records or the hits that some of her peers enjoyed.
"She at least enjoyed a great resurgence like John Lee Hooker did and B.B. King, (and) has had some great decades of appreciation from new generations around the world," said Raitt. "There's no one like her. No one will ever replace Etta."
And Ritz said the lack of commercial success does nothing to diminish her greatness, or her legacy.
"Marvin certain knew it and Ray knew it ... the people who know that she was in that category," he said. "Whatever the marketplace did or didn't do or whether her lack of career management didn't do, it has nothing to do with her talent."
And on Friday, the Queen of Soul was among those who paid tribute to James greatness, calling her "one of the great soul singers of our generation. An American original!
"I loved 'Pushover,' 'At Last' and almost any and everything she recorded! When Etta SUNG, you heard it!"
___
AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.
___
Nekesa Mumbi Moody is the AP's music editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Seaweed study fuels bioenergy enthusiasm
Engineered E. coli can convert cell wall component into ethanol
Web edition : Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Seaweed has long made biofuel prospectors drool, but they hadn?t figured out how to efficiently chew through the stuff ? until now. Researchers have engineered a bacterium that can break down and digest seaweed?s gummy cell walls to yield ethanol and other useful compounds. If scientists can make the process work at larger scales, seaweed could soon be a serious contender as a source of renewable fuel.
The new research ?makes a pretty large leap forward,? says metabolic engineer Hal Alper of the University of Texas at Austin. Unlike corn and many other biofuel feedstocks, seaweed doesn?t need arable land, fertilizer or freshwater. If seaweed can be efficiently munched into ethanol, it broadens the biofuel horizon, says Alper, who was not involved in the research. Seaweed, he says, may be ?that new source for unconventional carbon that everyone?s been looking for.?
Scientists from Bio Architecture Lab, a biofuel and renewable chemicals company headquartered in Berkeley, Calif., were interested in creating a biofuel bacterium that is a one-stop shop: They wanted a microbe that could efficiently digest the seaweed cellular building block alginate without pretreatment with chemicals or heat. Alginate is commonly used in ice creams and some textiles, but has proved difficult to break down and metabolize into fuel.
So, led by synthetic biologist Yasuo Yoshikuni, the team took the workhorse bacterium E. coli and within it, patched together the genes and other parts needed for superior seaweed-to-fuel conversion. From the marine bacterium Pseudoalteromonas, the scientists used genes for an enzyme that cuts alginate into smaller molecular bits. The researchers rigged these genes to a cellular transport system already found in E. coli, so the bacterium would secrete the alginate-slicing enzyme into its environment.
Then the team scoured scientific literature and databases for a microbe with serious alginate-digesting machinery. They hit upon the marine microbe Vibrio splendidus, and took a hefty chunk of the Vibrio DNA for use in the E. coli. When the team fed alginate to their engineered E. coli, the microbes pumped out ethanol, the researchers report in the Jan. 20 Science. The system yields 80 percent of the theoretical maximum amount of ethanol for a given amount of biomass, the scientists noted, and with further tweaking will probably be even more efficient.
Part of the beauty of the system is its flexibility, says Yoshikuni. Because the alginate-degrading enzyme is released into the environment, initial breakdown products can easily be harvested for creating useful compounds such as precursors to nylon or plastics. And when E. coli consume the broken-down alginate the bacteria generate a lot of pyruvate, a chemical intermediate useful for making fuels such as butanol or biodiesel.?
Seaweed is already harvested at commercial scale in several countries for other uses, and Bio Architecture Lab is working on a pilot plant in Chile to convert seaweed into fuel, says company CEO Daniel Trunfio. Also, any seaweed will do, he notes. ?We like to say we?re seaweed agnostic ? we can process any brown algae.?
Found in: Chemistry, Molecules and Science & Society
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/337755/title/Seaweed_study_fuels_bioenergy_enthusiasm
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U.S. Strategic Command Mysteriously Deletes Russian Mars Spacecraft's Tracking Data After Sabotage Accusations [Space]
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Friday, January 20, 2012
Wikipedia editors question site's planned blackout
FILE - In this Nov. 1, 2011 file photo, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia speaks during the opening session at the London Cyberspace Conference in London. Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, the foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said in a statement Monday night. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, file pool)
FILE - In this Nov. 1, 2011 file photo, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia speaks during the opening session at the London Cyberspace Conference in London. Wikipedia will black out the English language version of its website Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012, to protest anti-piracy legislation under consideration in Congress, the foundation behind the popular community-based online encyclopedia said in a statement Monday night. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, file pool)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Can the world live without Wikipedia for a day? The shutdown of one of the Internet's most-visited sites is not sitting well with some of its volunteer editors, who say the protest of anti-piracy legislation could threaten the credibility of their work.
"My main concern is that it puts the organization in the role of advocacy, and that's a slippery slope," said editor Robert Lawton, a Michigan computer consultant who would prefer that the encyclopedia stick to being a neutral repository of knowledge. "Before we know it, we're blacked out because we want to save the whales."
Wikipedia's English-language site shut down at midnight Eastern Standard Time Tuesday and the organization said it would stay down for 24 hours.
Instead of encyclopedia articles, visitors to the site saw a stark black-and-white page with the message: "Imagine a world without free knowledge." It carried a link to information about the two congressional bills and details about how to reach lawmakers.
It is the first time the English site has been blacked out. Wikipedia's Italian site came down once briefly in protest to an Internet censorship bill put forward by the Berlusconi government. The bill did not advance.
The shutdown adds to a growing body of critics who are speaking out against the legislation. But some editors are so uneasy with the move that they have blacked out their own user profile pages or resigned their administrative rights on the site to protest. Some likened the site's decision to fighting censorship with censorship.
One of the site's own "five pillars" of conduct says that Wikipedia "is written from a neutral point of view." The site strives to "avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them."
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that the site can maintain neutrality in content even as it takes public positions on issues.
"The encyclopedia will always be neutral. The community need not be, not when the encyclopedia is threatened," he tweeted.
The Wikimedia Foundation, which administers the site, announced the blackout late Monday, after polling its community of volunteer contributors and editors and getting responses from 1,800 of them. The protest is aimed at the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act under consideration in the Senate.
"If passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and bring about new tools for censorship of international websites inside the United States," the foundation said.
Both bills are designed to crack down on sales of pirated American products overseas, and they have the support of the film and music industry. Among the opponents are many Internet companies such as Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and AOL. They say the bills would hurt the industry and infringe on free-speech rights.
Social news website Reddit.com is shutting down for 12 hours on Wednesday, but most companies are staying up. Google Inc.'s home page linked to a petition urging Congress: "Don't censor the Web."
Dick Costollo, CEO of Twitter, said he opposes the legislation as well, but shutting down the service was out of the question.
"Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish," Costollo tweeted.
Since Wikimedia depends on a small army of volunteers who create and update articles, it's particularly concerned about a lack of exemptions in the bills for sites where users might contribute copyrighted content. Today, it has no obligation under U.S. law except removing that content if a copyright holder complains. But under the House version of the bill, it could be shut down unless it polices its own pages.
The plans for the protest were moving forward even though the bill's prospects appeared to be dimming. On Saturday, Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said the bill would not move to the House floor for a vote unless consensus is reached. However, Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said work on the bill would resume next month.
The White House raised concerns over the weekend, pledging to work with Congress to battle piracy and counterfeiting while defending free expression, privacy and innovation in the Internet. The administration signaled it might use its veto power, if necessary.
That the bill seems unlikely to pass is another reason Lawton opposes the blackout.
"I think there are far more important things for the organization to focus aside from legislation that isn't likely to pass anyway," he said. He's been contributing to Wikipedia for eight years.
Danny Chia, another contributor to the site, said he had mixed feelings about the blackout. The neutrality applies to the content, but a lot of people interpret it as being about the site as a whole, said the Los Altos, Calif., software engineer.
In an online discussion, others raised the same point about the blackout: Appearances matter, and if the audience sees Wikipedia taking a stand, it might not believe the articles are objective, either.
Wikipedia has seen a small decline in participation, from a peak of 100,000 active editors a year ago to about 90,000 now. Wikimedia Foundation blames this mainly on outdated editing tools, and believes it can get the number growing again with software upgrades.
___
AP Technology Writer Mike Liedtke contributed to this report.
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Experimental Drug Might Help Some a Bit With Colon Cancer (HealthDay)
TUESDAY, Jan. 17 (HealthDay News) -- The experimental cancer drug regorafenib appears to extend survival slightly in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, a new trial indicates.
Regorafenib is a so-called multikinase inhibitor, which targets several of the ways cancer develops and grows, researchers said.
"The drug was tested on patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who had progressed after standard therapies, meaning they had no treatment options available," lead researcher Dr. Axel Grothey, a professor of oncology at the Mayo Clinic, said during a noon press conference at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco on Tuesday.
The drug is designed to stop tumor progression, both by preventing cancer cells from growing and by preventing these cells from developing the blood vessels needed to keep them alive, the researchers explained.
In the trial, more than 700 patients with metastatic colon cancer were randomly selected to receive regorafenib or placebo.
In addition, all patients received care to treat symptoms, but not to change the course of the disease, the researchers noted.
Treatment included antibiotics to fight infections, painkillers and corticosteroids.
The investigators found that patients taking regorafenib survived an average of 6.4 months, compared with five months for those receiving a placebo -- an increase in survival of 29 percent.
In addition, 44 percent of the patients taking regorafenib responded to the drug or had their cancer slowed, compared with 15 percent of the patients receiving placebo, they reported.
Based on these findings, the trial was stopped in October so that all patients could be offered the drug.
The trial was funded by the maker of regorafenib, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals.
"The drug helped patients live longer," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society. "But you have to keep in mind that these patients had advanced disease."
And, the gains were modest, he added. "Patients who got the drug lived about one month longer. Unfortunately, the difference between the groups in the time it took for the disease to get worse was small -- about six days," he said.
Lichtenfeld thinks that using the drug earlier in treatment might have more impact. "But not every drug, when moved earlier in the course of the disease, is necessarily proven to be effective," he cautioned.
Grothey noted regorafenib is being tested in a phase 2 trial in patients with earlier stage colorectal cancer, in hopes that the results will be even more dramatic.
Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
More information
For more on colon cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.
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