LEDs are more energy efficient and brighter, says Ed Crawford, Philips Consumer Lighting North America CEO, who says LED bulbs cost more up front but use less energy and saves consumers money over time because the light bulb has a life span of about 2...
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/45824451/
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Windows Phone Getting Backup/Restore Capability Says Job Posting: pocketnow.com/windows-phone/? 
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Source: http://twitter.com/pocketnowtweets/statuses/153049248626253824
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Jerusalem, Dec 30 (IANS) A nuclear Iran would not necessarily post an 'existential' threat to Israel, head of the Israeli spy agency Mossad, Tamir Pardo, has said.
Pardo was addressing a group of some 100 ambassadors and envoys at the foreign ministry in Jerusalem.
He said Israel has means to thwart Teheran's aspirations to fire up a nuclear reactor that many in the west believe is part of a clandestine bid to build atomic weapons.
Pardo, however, according to those present at the year-end event Tuesday, called into question the use of the term 'existential', according to the Ha'aretz daily Thursday.
'What is the significance of the term existential threat?' Pardo said, asking rhetorically, 'Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely.
'But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home.
'That's not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely,' he said.
Pardo's contention was, however, not shared by some other Israeli officials, notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who considers a nuclear-armed Iran a threat.
Addressing the same event, Netanyahu said that western nations were not going far enough in imposing 'crippling sanctions', to convince Iran to halt it's nuclear drive.
Meanwhile, Washington together with Israel is preparing so- called 'red lines' for determining when to strike militarily against Iran, according to a report in the online political magazine, The Daily Beast.
American officials said they hoped the co-planning would reassure Israel 'that the administration had its own 'red lines' that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally,' according to a Pentagon spokesman.
Source: http://www.sify.com/news/iran-no-threat-to-israel-mossad-chief-news-international-lm4hEebabad.html
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When asked to rate their own health, women, on average, consistently report being in worse health than men do, and a new study from researchers in Spain says this is because women have a higher rate of chronic diseases ? contradicting a previous theory that women's lower self-rated health is simply a reporting bias.
"In general practice, there has been this idea that women over-report health problems, or are more likely to say they are ill or pay attention to their symptoms than men," said first author of the study Davide Malmusi, of the Public Health Agency of Barcelona. "We wanted to test whether their differences in self-reported health could in fact be explained by the difference in the prevalence of chronic conditions."
The new findings were published Dec. 16 in the European Journal of Public Health.
Self-reporting health
Malmusi and colleagues across Spain gathered data from Spain's 2006 National Health Survey, which included data from face-to-face interviews with more than 29,000 people on their health. About half of the study participants were between the ages of 16 and 44; the other half was older.
The survey included the question, "Over the last 12 months, would you say your overall health has been very good, good, fair, poor, or very poor?" as well as a question on whether health problems had limited people's activities over the previous six months.
Of the women interviewed, 38.8 percent rated their health as poor or very poor, and 25.7 percent reported chronic limitation of activity. Of the men in the study, only 27 percent had poor self-rated health, and 19.3 percent reported chronic limitation of activity.
But when the researchers matched up the number of chronic conditions each person had with his or her health rating, the gender difference disappeared. Having a higher number of chronic conditions correlated with poorer self-rated health to the same degree in both genders.?
For men and women with the same conditions, or the same number of conditions, women were no more likely to claim poorer health.
"There's been a longstanding debate about whether women's self-reported health is a reporting bias or not," said sociologist Ellen Annandale of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was uninvolved in the new work. "Some researchers argue that women might over-report health problems, and men might under-report. This study supports wider research that women's poorer self-reported health reflects underlying chronic health problems."
The root of chronic health problems
What the new study doesn't answer, Annandale said, is why women have a higher rate of chronic health problems. The data did reveal that women's higher rate of chronic problems can be most strongly attributed to five chronic disorders: arthritis, mental disorders, neck pain, headaches and back pain. But further research will be needed to explain why.
Malmusi said it is likely a mix of biological and social factors.
"Gender influences that way that people are treated and diagnosed in health systems," Annandale said. "It influences the kind of health conditions that men and women suffer from, the way people relate to their own bodies, and what kind of access to health care they have."
Understanding gender differences in health can help scientists and doctors find ways to better treat patients, she said.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=7a237001a93d875d807f8c0216256373
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The ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day for Dec. 28 is the Mobi Products Skin Case for the HTC Rezound. Available in six colors -- black, blue, red, purple, pink or clear -- the case comprises a durable material that feels great in the hand thanks to its anti-slip properties, has an anti-dust coating and has cutouts for all the ports and buttons. And best of all, it's available today only for just $4.95 -- that's 75 percent off! Get yours while supplies last!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/6WtS_pRp4eA/story01.htm
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DES MOINES, Iowa ? Iowa's GOP presidential contest remains deeply unsettled, if not downright strange, five days before the Jan. 3 caucus.
Rep. Ron Paul, drawing big crowds, got a surprise endorsement Wednesday night from Rep. Michele Bachmann's now-former state chairman.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum, who has languished for months, suddenly seems to have momentum, just as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich may be losing his.
And Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who began the campaign by de-emphasizing Iowa, might be poised to finish on top, according to some new polls.
Romney now is making an unabashed push in Iowa. His rivals are scrambling to deny him huge momentum heading into the Jan. 10 primary in New Hampshire, his second home.
Paul, the 76-year-old libertarian-leaning Texan, drew about 500 people at the Iowa State fairgrounds in Ames late Wednesday. A group of Occupy activists tried to interrupt the rally, but that wasn't the main surprise.
State Sen. Kent Sorenson, who had campaigned a few hours earlier with Bachmann as a state chairman of her bid, announced he would support Paul instead.
Paul's anti-government appeal appears to tap into the desire of a frustrated electorate for profound change in an era of high unemployment and an economy that has only slowly recovered from the recession.
"In the last couple of weeks I fell into Ron Paul's camp," said Bob Colby of Newton, who spent 21 years in the military and is a former employee of a now-shuttered Maytag plant in town.
Paul, who is airing TV ads hitting Romney and Gingrich, planned a town hall meeting Thursday in Perry, Iowa, plus stops in Atlantic and Council Bluffs.
There were other odd campaign notes Wednesday.
Two politically active pastors in Iowa's robust evangelical conservative movement disclosed an effort to persuade either Santorum or Bachmann to quit the race and endorse the other. "Otherwise, like-minded people will be divided and water down their impact," said Rev. Cary Gordon, a Sioux City minister and a leader among Iowa's social conservatives.
Neither candidate appeared interested.
Meanwhile, an ever more confident Romney scheduled stops Thursday in Cedar Falls, Mason City and Ames. He has air support: TV ads say he has the best chance to beat President Barack Obama in November.
Asked Wednesday about the prospects for back-to-back victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney demurred. "I can't possibly allow myself to think in such optimistic terms," he said. "I just have to put my head down and battle as best I can."
Santorum seems to be gaining steam, according to a Time-CNN survey and some private polls. "We're very, very happy with the new numbers," he told reporters in Dubuque.
Acknowledging widespread voter anger in an age of high unemployment, Santorum told an audience Wednesday: "If you want to stick it to the man, don't vote for Ron Paul. That's not sticking it to anybody but the Republican Party."
Santorum, who planned events Thursday in the eastern Iowa towns of Coralville, Wilton, Muscatine and Davenport, says he believes his improved showing reflects voters belief that he "can be trusted" and that "we've got a record to back it up."
He said in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show Thursday that he's the only one in the Republican field who "has a track record" of winning elections in states, like Pennsylvania, where it was necessary for GOP candidates to attract independents and Democrats.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry adjusted his position on abortion for a second straight day, telling reporters he would allow abortion if a woman's life were at risk. On Tuesday, he had told a pastor that he had undergone a "transformation" on abortion rights and now opposed the procedure in cases of rape or incest after having recently met a woman who said she was conceived by a rape.
Asked if a mother's life was the only instance when he would allow abortion, he was concise as he boarded his bus Wednesday: "That's correct."
Perry planned Thursday events in Washington, Cedar Rapids and Marshalltown.
Gingrich, who has suffered a barrage of TV attack ads lately, also took aim at Paul. "I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that the commander in chief would think it was irrelevant to have an Iranian nuclear weapon," he said Wednesday.
Gingrich planned events Thursday in Sioux City, Storm Lake, Denison and Carroll.
Bachmann took aim Wednesday at her two rivals from Texas. She said Perry has spent "27 years as a political insider," and Paul would be "dangerous as president" because of his hands-off views on national security.
Bachmann scheduled events Thursday in Des Moines, Marshalltown and Nevada, Iowa.
___
Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont, Brian Bakst, David Espo, Philip Elliott, Beth Fouhy, Mike Glover, Kasie Hunt and Shannon McCaffrey contributed to this report.
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Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands during a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday Dec. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney shakes hands during a campaign stop in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday Dec. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachsetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds up two-month-old Anne Martin, of Portsmouth, N.H., during a campaign stop in Portsmouth, Tuesday Dec. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gestures during a campaign stop on a dock in Portsmouth, N.H., Tuesday Dec. 27, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
LONDONDERRY, N.H. (AP) ? Republicans have yet to cast a single vote but Mitt Romney is starting to sound like he's already won his party's presidential nomination.
The former Massachusetts governor largely ignored his GOP rivals while speaking to New Hampshire voters Tuesday. With Iowa Republicans set to begin voting in exactly one week, Romney focused instead on President Barack Obama.
And he sounded increasingly optimistic about his chances.
"I'm not exactly sure how all this is going to work, but I think I'm going to get the nomination if we do our job right," Romney said inside the packed dining room of the Coach Stop restaurant, hours before he was to arrive in Iowa to spend the next several days campaigning across that state by bus. "What this president is doing is trying to turn us into an entitlement nation. That's a deadening approach to a nation that has always been powered by the pursuit of happiness."
As he has done consistently, Romney played down his expectations for the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the first stop on the path to the GOP nomination.
"I'd like to win in every state, but I'm really not going to get into the expectations business," he said after a subsequent campaign stop. "What I know I have to do is get about 1,150 delegates and that's going to take time in a lot of states, and I hope to get off to a good start."
Romney dinged his chief rival, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, very briefly only when prompted by a reporter.
Republican Party officials in Virginia announced over the weekend that Gingrich had failed to submit enough signatures to get on the ballot for the state's March 6 primary. Campaign Manager Michael Krull compared the situation to the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
Asked about Gingrich's Virginia ballot problem, Romney referenced a famous "I Love Lucy" episode.
"I think he compared that to ... what was it, Pearl Harbor? I think it's more like Lucille Ball at the chocolate factory," Romney said, referring to the episode where Lucy is humorously overwhelmed by her job. "You've got to get it organized."
It was Romney's first direct criticism of Gingrich on a day when he otherwise ignored his Republican rivals.
Romney focused instead on broad issues likely to win over independents, a voting bloc that's expected to play a critical role in next fall's general election. He promised to reach across the aisle to Democrats if elected.
"I'm not going to spend my time bashing the Democrats and attacking them day in and day out, because that makes it impossible to sit down and work together," he said.
And in a nod toward the country's surging Latino population, Romney added that he's open to expanding legal immigration.
"It is a great source of vitality," he said. "And to protect legal immigration, and potentially make it larger, we want to stop illegal immigration."
Romney also teased a hypothetical general election sales pitch against Obama in which he'd ask voters, "Do you think you're better off than you were four years ago?"
"We know the answer to that one," he said with a smile.
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CHICAGO ? Bill Dunphy thought his colonoscopy would be free.
His insurance company told him it would be covered 100 percent, with no copayment from him and no charge against his deductible. The nation's 1-year-old health law requires most insurance plans to cover all costs for preventive care including colon cancer screening. So Dunphy had the procedure in April.
Then the bill arrived: $1,100.
Dunphy, a 61-year-old Phoenix small business owner, angrily paid it out of his own pocket because of what some prevention advocates call a loophole. His doctor removed two noncancerous polyps during the colonoscopy. So while Dunphy was sedated, his preventive screening turned into a diagnostic procedure. That allowed his insurance company to bill him.
Like many Americans, Dunphy has a high-deductible insurance plan. He hadn't spent his deductible yet. So, on top of his $400 monthly premium, he had to pay the bill.
"That's bait and switch," Dunphy said. "If it isn't fraud, it's immoral."
President Barack Obama's health overhaul encourages prevention by requiring most insurance plans to pay for preventive care. On the plus side, more than 22 million Medicare patients and many more Americans with private insurance have received one or more free covered preventive services this year. From cancer screenings to flu shots, many services no longer cost patients money.
But there are confusing exceptions. As Dunphy found out, colonoscopies can go from free to pricey while the patient is under anesthesia.
Breast cancer screenings can cause confusion too. In Florida, Tampa Bay-area small business owner Dawn Thomas, 50, went for a screening mammogram. But she was told by hospital staff that her mammogram would be a diagnostic test ? not preventive screening ? because a previous mammogram had found something suspicious. (It turned out to be nothing.)
Knowing that would cost her $700, and knowing her doctor had ordered a screening mammogram, Thomas stood her ground.
"Either I get a screening today or I'm putting my clothes back on and I'm leaving," she remembers telling the hospital staff. It worked. Her mammogram was counted as preventive and she got it for free.
"A lot of women ... are getting labeled with that diagnostic code and having to pay year after year for that," Thomas said. "It's a loophole so insurance companies don't have to pay for it."
For parents with several children, costs can pile up with unexpected copays for kids needing shots. Even when copays are inexpensive, they can blemish a patient-doctor relationship. Robin Brassner of Jersey City, N.J., expected her doctor visit to be free. All she wanted was a flu shot. But the doctor charged her a $20 copay.
"He said no one really comes in for just a flu shot. They inevitably mention another ailment, so he charges," Brassner said. As a new patient, she didn't want to start the relationship by complaining, but she left feeling irritated. "Next time, I'll be a little more assertive about it," she said.
How confused are doctors?
"Extremely," said Cheryl Gregg Fahrenholz, an Ohio consultant who works with physicians. It's common for doctors to deal with 200 different insurance plans. And some older plans are exempt.
Should insurance now pay for aspirin? Aspirin to prevent heart disease and stroke is one of the covered services for older patients. But it's unclear whether insurers are supposed to pay only for doctors to tell older patients about aspirin ? or whether they're supposed to pay for the aspirin itself, said Dr. Jason Spangler, chief medical officer for the nonpartisan Partnership for Prevention.
Stop-smoking interventions are also supposed to be free. "But what does that mean?" Spangler asked. "Does it mean counseling? Nicotine replacement therapy? What about drugs (that can help smokers quit) like Wellbutrin or Chantix? That hasn't been clearly laid out."
But the greatest source of confusion is colonoscopies, a test for the nation's second leading cancer killer. Doctors use a thin, flexible tube to scan the colon and they can remove precancerous growths called polyps at the same time. The test gets credit for lowering colorectal cancer rates. It's one of several colon cancer screening methods highly recommended for adults ages 50 to 75.
But when a doctor screens and treats at the same time, the patient could get a surprise bill.
"It erodes a trust relationship the patients may have had with their doctors," said Dr. Joel Brill of the American Gastroenterological Association. "We get blamed. And it's not our fault,"
Cindy Holtzman, an insurance agent in Marietta, Ga., is telling clients to check with their insurance plans before a colonoscopy so they know what to expect.
"You could wake up with a $2,000 bill because they find that little bitty polyp," Holtzman said.
Doctors and prevention advocates are asking Congress to revise the law to waive patient costs ? including Medicare copays, which can run up to $230 ? for a screening colonoscopy where polyps are removed. The American Gastroenterological Association and the American Cancer Society are pushing Congress fix the problem because of the confusion it's causing for patients and doctors.
At least one state is taking action. After complaints piled up in Oregon, insurance regulators now are working with doctors and insurers to make sure patients aren't getting surprise charges when polyps are removed.
Florida's consumer services office also reports complaints about colonoscopies and other preventive care. California insurance broker Bonnie Milani said she's lost count of the complaints she's had about bills clients have received for preventive services.
"`Confusion' is not the word I'd apply to the medical offices producing the bills," Milani said. "The word that comes to mind for me ain't nearly so nice."
When it's working as intended, the new health law encourages more patients to get preventive care. Dr. Yul Ejnes, a Rhode Island physician, said he's personally told patients with high deductible plans about the benefit. They weren't planning to schedule a colonoscopy until they heard it would be free, Ejnes said.
If too many patients get surprise bills, however, that advantage could be lost, said Stephen Finan of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. He said it will take federal or state legislation to fix the colonoscopy loophole.
Dunphy, the Phoenix businessman, recalled how he felt when he got his colonoscopy bill, like something "underhanded" was going on.
"It's the intent of the law is to cover this stuff," Dunphy said. "It really made me angry."
___
AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/CarlaKJohnson
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Other Day 2 PPM markets from Arbitron include Boston, Detroit (where all-Christmas WNIC doubles from 3.1 to 6.4), Miami, Seattle, Phoenix (all-holiday KESZ takes first, 3.9-8.8), Minneapolis, San Diego, Tampa, Denver, Baltimore and St. Louis. Check all 24 PPM markets released so far, for the measurement period from November 10-December 7, on the Ratings Page of Radio-Info.com, here.
Source: http://www.radio-info.com/news/even-washingtons-wtop-cant-fend-off-santa-in-the-december-ppms
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All apps ? News & Magazines ? Samsung Galaxy Note
100-500 downloads, 0 ratings (0.00 average), 1173 kb
Get the latest updates, news & rumors on your Samsung Galaxy Note: apps, games, ROM updates, tips & tricks, tech-support, accessories and more!Features:
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Latest version: 3.30 (for Android version 2.1 and higher)
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Source: http://www.appbrain.com/app/samsung-galaxy-note/drippler.samsung.galaxy.note
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NEW DELHI |
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda called for greater economic relations between two of Asia's largest economies on Tuesday, after India's trade minister said bilateral commerce was on track to reach a relatively low $25 billion by 2014.
India and Japan enjoy warm diplomatic ties, but at a paltry $15 billion, bilateral trade in 2010 was less than 5 percent of Japan's commerce with China.
"I believe that India's middle class will be the driving force if the manufacturing sector grows in India...we can achieve greater trade volumes," Noda said at a meeting with business leaders in Delhi.
"We can and should step up economic relations between the two countries," he said.
Noda was on a one-day trip to India to boost financial cooperation between Asia's second and third largest economies, which are also working more closely on security issues along with the United States.
Japan and India are in the final stages of deciding on a dollar swap agreement which may be announced during Noda's visit and would help defend the rupee, Asia's worst performing currency in 2011.
Japanese corporations see India as a major opportunity as Japan's population ages and the fast growth seen by main regional partner China in recent decades slows, said Rajiv Biswas, IHS Global Insight's chief Asia economist.
Indian Trade Minister Anand Sharma also said minimum investment in an industrial corridor being built by India with help from Japan between Delhi and Mumbai would be more than $100 billion.
(Reporting by Abhijit Neogy; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan and Richard Borsuk)
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(Reuters) ? U.S. consumers spent more than $35 billion online this holiday season, up 15 percent from the same period last year, comScore Inc (SCOR.O) estimated on Tuesday.
Online spending reached $35.27 billion from November 1 through December 26, versus $30.59 billion during the corresponding days of the 2010 holiday season, comScore reported.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)
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Whether you?re part of the 1% or the 99%, you should have your mind on your money and your money on your mind. Money management affects every aspect of your life, including your credit score and your quality of life. Smart financial planning will keep you comfortable long after you have a weekly paycheck coming in.Keeping an eye on your money lets you use it in a way that most beneficial to you and your loved ones. If you?re relying on a shoebox full of receipts or keeping a running tally in your head, you?re missing out. There are plenty of free or low cost tools to help you get organized. Here are three that you may not have heard of:
Mint is brought to you by the same company that provides some of the heavier duty financial tracking programs like Quickbooks. But, Mint is a simple, personal finance tracking software that automatically pulls your banking information into the program so you can keep an eye on what you?re doing. It has alerts for going over spending limits and really cool pie charts to give you a picture of your finances. It also has apps for IOS and Android devices so you can review your finances anywhere.ManillaYour Bank?s Tools
Most banks offer online banking, bill pay and financial review tools to their customers. The availability and features of these tools can vary depending on the bank. However, almost all allow you to review your account and pay bills online. Many banks, like Chase and Bank of America, also have mobile apps to go along with these online tools so you can access them even when you?re not a computer.
Source: http://madamenoire.com/121671/personal-finance-tracking-tools-to-help-you-see-the-big-picture/
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Source: www.pcauthority.com.au --- Monday, December 26, 2011
The Redmond giant says January isn't a good month for it to release products, so it won't play a major role at CES anymore. ...
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Dubai: In a ringing endorsement of the Mena Golf Tour, which ended here in October, the top three participants have been invited to compete in the final stages of the Asian Tour Qualifying School.
Presented by the Sports Authority of Thailand, the final stage will be held from January 18 to 21 at the Springfield Royal Country Club and Imperial Lakeview, where the top-40 and ties will earn playing rights for the 2012 Asian Tour season.
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Our tour has the potential to launch the careers of regional and international stars and with time it will contribute to enhancing the overall development of golf in the region. That's the ultimate aim
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MENA Golf Tour chairman Mohammad Juma Bu Amim
Jake Shepherd, Peter Richardson and Sean McNamara, who finished among the top three on the Order of Merit earlier this year, will receive exemptions into the final stage in recognition of their performance on the four-event MENA Golf Tour, which boasted a combined prize fund of $225,000.
Emerging talent
Article continues below
The three professionals, who have also been handed special invitations to play in the 2012 Omega Dubai Desert Classic in February, are excited at the prospects of competing alongside some of the world's best emerging talent in the final stage.
"It will be an honour to play on the Asian Tour and we are grateful to them for the first-stage exemption," said Shepherd, who topped the MENA Golf Tour Order of Merit with total earnings of $17,749 from three of the four events he played on the tour.
"Playing on the MENA Golf Tour has opened up a wide [range of] opportunities which we never dreamed of. The exposure to the final stage competition will also help us fine-tune our game ahead of the European Tour event in Dubai."
The Qualifying School will also enable upcoming players the opportunity to compete on the Asian Development Tour that has grown to eight tournaments since its inception in 2010.
Excitement
Mohammad Juma Bu Amim, chairman of the MENA Golf Tour, thanked the Asia Tour for their gesture, saying it would add more excitement to the tour and reflect the bond the two tours share.
"Our tour events are open to both professionals and amateurs and, therefore, have a unique appeal. Money is one thing. They offer an opportunity to play golf at the highest level (the Omega Dubai Desert Classic) and now this first stage exemption on the Asian Tour Q-School is an added bonus," he said.
"The players won't be short on incentives when they tee it up in the second edition of the MENA Golf Tour, which we are planning to launch some time in March or April next year.
"Our tour has the potential to launch the careers of regional and international stars and with time it will contribute to enhancing the overall development of golf in the region. That's the ultimate aim."
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Seoul - Senior South Korean and Chinese officials held talks on Tuesday to discuss the aftermath of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and its impact on regional security.
China is the sole major ally and economic prop of the impoverished but nuclear-armed North, and is seen as one of the few countries which can influence its behaviour.
South Korean vice foreign minister Park Suk-Hwan called the previously scheduled talks timely "when security conditions on the Korean peninsula have been in focus since the passing of Kim Jong-Il".
Maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula is in the interests of both South Korea and China, Park said in opening remarks.
World powers are watching the nuclear-armed North after longtime leader Kim died on December 17 and his son Kim Jong-Un was proclaimed as "great successor".
Beijing threw its backing behind Jong-Un hours after the announcement of Kim's death and pledged to work with the North to ensure peace and stability.
Park's counterpart Zhang Zhijun did not directly mention North Korea.
But according to translated comments, he called for closer communication with Seoul to address the "dynamics of the Asia-Pacific region" that were becoming "complicated and serious".
China chairs long-stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear disarmament which also involve the two Koreas, the United States, Russia and Japan.
Negotiations to revive the forum, which has been at a standstill since the last meeting in December 2008, appeared to be making progress before Kim's death.
Media reports said Pyongyang would agree to suspend its disputed uranium enrichment programme in return for food aid from Washington.
Source: http://www.news24.com/World/News/S-Korea-China-in-talks-after-Kims-death-20111227
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"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Bill Gates, Chairman and former CEO, Microsoft Source: http://twitter.com/dougjaeger/statuses/150778587606298625
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The University of California in Berkeley has posted a full breakdown of a recent decision to pick Google's Gmail and Google Apps over Microsoft's Office 365 in what represented a changing of the guard. Although not an unambiguous win, Google pulled ahead by being free, taking a fast six to ten weeks to implement, and popular. Using its system would require much less of an overhaul than Microsoft's, Berkeley said, and majority of the students and staff alike already knew the apps.
Microsoft's system, by contrast, would have needed a much larger reworking of the university's infrastructure. It also wouldn't have supported multiple mail accounts, UC Berkeley said. There was also no home-friendly equivalent to Office 365, which is primarily intended for enterprise users.
Microsoft's primary advantages were in calendars, where those with very deep calendars would have an edge, and in security. Even then, however, Microsoft's advantages were generally smaller than expected. Either service could sync with mobile devices, although Google's services understandably have stronger Android support in addition to iPhones and Windows Phone. Microsoft doesn't yet support its syncing with the BlackBerry.
The Google win hasn't sat well with Microsoft, the university's Shelton Waggener said. It has been asking for changes to the report that would more closely favor its own point of view. The requests, if granted, wouldn't change the ultimate verdict.
Running Berkeley's main messaging and calendars is both a major coup for Google, which is still fighting to establish a reputation in the workplace for its web apps, as well as a symbolic defeat for Microsoft. The Windows developer was once considered unassailable for business and institutional deals, but the rise of the web has reduced the dependency on the local software still at Microsoft's core. Microsoft typically loses hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter in its online initiatives where Google is one of the most profitable. [via Wired, image via brainchildvn on Flickr]
Source: http://feeds.macnn.com/click.phdo?i=6b3e5b53c1aad5317ea7d89135874550
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Long-ago Ron Paul?newsletters are getting attention for their inclusion of slurs against black?Americans. The Texas congressman is also taking fire for his foreign policy views.
The pattern isn't surprising: As his chances of showing significant?strength in early primaries have grown, Republican candidate Ron Paul?is facing closer scrutiny.
Skip to next paragraphThe press and his rivals for the GOP nomination aren't going to give?him a free pass in his bid for voter support.
What's suddenly big news is the racial content of Ron Paul?newsletters from prior decades, which are getting attention for slurs against black?Americans. But the so-called "racist newsletter" scandal is not the?only front on which the Texas congressman is taking fire.
Other candidates have blasted his foreign policy positions, which are?also the subject of a critical opinion column in Thursday's Wall Street?Journal.
To some degree, Mr. Paul is getting what he's given. In the?build-up to primary votes in Ohio and New Hampshire, he has served up?some strong criticism of other Republican candidates.
Whatever has prompted the current negative headlines about Paul?(whether it's partly his own negative ads about rivals or not), the?onus is now on him. After dishing it out, he needs to show he can take it?? and provide an adequate response.
Recent examples of Paul going negative on other candidates:
Perhaps this is just Paul being persistent in pointing out his?policy differences with other candidates, and in emphasizing?constistency as his strong suit. That has won him lots of fans,?especially among libertarian-leaning Republicans.
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Public release date: 23-Dec-2011
Share ] Contact: Diana Lutz
dlutz@wustl.edu
314-935-5272
Washington University in St. Louis
When an international collaboration of physicists came up with a result that punched a hole in Einstein's theory of special relativity and couldn't find any mistakes in their work, they asked the world to take a second look at their experiment.
Responding to the call was Ramanath Cowsik, PhD, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Online and in the December 24 issue of Physical Review Letters, Cowsik and his collaborators put their finger on what appears to be an insurmountable problem with the experiment.
The OPERA experiment, a collaboration between the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Gran Sasso, Italy, timed particles called neutrinos traveling through Earth from the physics laboratory CERN to a detector in an underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, a distance of some 730 kilometers, or about 450 miles.
OPERA reported online and in Physics Letters B in September that the neutrinos arrived at Gran Sasso some 60 nanoseconds sooner than they would have arrived if they were traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.
Neutrinos are thought to have a tiny, but nonzero, mass. According to the theory of special relativity, any particle that has mass may come close to but cannot quite reach the speed of light. So superluminal (faster than light) neutrinos should not exist.
The neutrinos in the experiment were created by slamming speeding protons into a stationary target, producing a pulse of pions unstable particles that were magnetically focused into a long tunnel where they decayed in flight into muons and neutrinos.
The muons were stopped at the end of the tunnel, but the neutrinos, which slip through matter like ghosts through walls, passed through the barrier and disappeared in the direction of Gran Sasso.
In their journal article, Cowsik and an international team of collaborators took a close look at the first step of this process. "We have investigated whether pion decays would produce superluminal neutrinos, assuming energy and momentum are conserved," he says.
The OPERA neutrinos had energies of about 17 gigaelectron volts. "They had a lot of energy but very little mass," Cowsik says, "so they should go very fast." The question is whether they went faster than the speed of light.
"We've shown in this paper that if the neutrino that comes out of a pion decay were going faster than the speed of light, the pion lifetime would get longer, and the neutrino would carry a smaller fraction of the energy shared by the neutrino and the muon," Cowsik says.
"What's more," he says, "these difficulties would only increase as the pion energy increases.
"So we are saying that in the present framework of physics, superluminal neutrinos would be difficult to produce," Cowsik explains.
In addition, he says, there's an experimental check on this theoretical conclusion. The creation of neutrinos at CERN is duplicated naturally when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere.
A neutrino observatory called IceCube detects these neutrinos when they collide with other particles generating muons that leave trails of light flashes as they plow into the thick, clear ice of Antarctica.
"IceCube has seen neutrinos with energies 10,000 times higher than those the OPERA experiment is creating," Cowsik says.."Thus, the energies of their parent pions should be correspondingly high. Simple calculations, based on the conservation of energy and momentum, dictate that the lifetimes of those pions should be too long for them ever to decay into superluminal neutrinos.
"But the observation of high-energy neutrinos by IceCube indicates that these high-energy pions do decay according to the standard ideas of physics, generating neutrinos whose speed approaches that of light but never exceeds it.
Cowsik's objection to the OPERA results isn't the only one that has been raised.
Physicists Andrew G. Cohen and Sheldon L. Glashow published a paper in Physical Review Letters in October showing that superluminal neutrinos would rapidly radiate energy in the form of electron-positron pairs.
"We are saying that, given physics as we know it today, it should be hard to produce any neutrinos with superluminal velocities, and Cohen and Glashow are saying that even if you did, they'd quickly radiate away their energy and slow down," Cowsik says.
"I have very high regard for the OPERA experimenters," Cowsik adds. "They got faster-than-light speeds when they analyzed their data in March, but they struggled for months to eliminate possible errors in their experiment before publishing it.
"Not finding any mistakes," Cowsik says, "they had an ethical obligation to publish so that the community could help resolve the difficulty. That's the demanding code physicists live by," he says.
###
[ | 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: 23-Dec-2011 Share ] Contact: Diana Lutz
dlutz@wustl.edu
314-935-5272
Washington University in St. Louis
When an international collaboration of physicists came up with a result that punched a hole in Einstein's theory of special relativity and couldn't find any mistakes in their work, they asked the world to take a second look at their experiment.
Responding to the call was Ramanath Cowsik, PhD, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences and director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Online and in the December 24 issue of Physical Review Letters, Cowsik and his collaborators put their finger on what appears to be an insurmountable problem with the experiment.
The OPERA experiment, a collaboration between the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Gran Sasso, Italy, timed particles called neutrinos traveling through Earth from the physics laboratory CERN to a detector in an underground laboratory in Gran Sasso, a distance of some 730 kilometers, or about 450 miles.
OPERA reported online and in Physics Letters B in September that the neutrinos arrived at Gran Sasso some 60 nanoseconds sooner than they would have arrived if they were traveling at the speed of light in a vacuum.
Neutrinos are thought to have a tiny, but nonzero, mass. According to the theory of special relativity, any particle that has mass may come close to but cannot quite reach the speed of light. So superluminal (faster than light) neutrinos should not exist.
The neutrinos in the experiment were created by slamming speeding protons into a stationary target, producing a pulse of pions unstable particles that were magnetically focused into a long tunnel where they decayed in flight into muons and neutrinos.
The muons were stopped at the end of the tunnel, but the neutrinos, which slip through matter like ghosts through walls, passed through the barrier and disappeared in the direction of Gran Sasso.
In their journal article, Cowsik and an international team of collaborators took a close look at the first step of this process. "We have investigated whether pion decays would produce superluminal neutrinos, assuming energy and momentum are conserved," he says.
The OPERA neutrinos had energies of about 17 gigaelectron volts. "They had a lot of energy but very little mass," Cowsik says, "so they should go very fast." The question is whether they went faster than the speed of light.
"We've shown in this paper that if the neutrino that comes out of a pion decay were going faster than the speed of light, the pion lifetime would get longer, and the neutrino would carry a smaller fraction of the energy shared by the neutrino and the muon," Cowsik says.
"What's more," he says, "these difficulties would only increase as the pion energy increases.
"So we are saying that in the present framework of physics, superluminal neutrinos would be difficult to produce," Cowsik explains.
In addition, he says, there's an experimental check on this theoretical conclusion. The creation of neutrinos at CERN is duplicated naturally when cosmic rays hit Earth's atmosphere.
A neutrino observatory called IceCube detects these neutrinos when they collide with other particles generating muons that leave trails of light flashes as they plow into the thick, clear ice of Antarctica.
"IceCube has seen neutrinos with energies 10,000 times higher than those the OPERA experiment is creating," Cowsik says.."Thus, the energies of their parent pions should be correspondingly high. Simple calculations, based on the conservation of energy and momentum, dictate that the lifetimes of those pions should be too long for them ever to decay into superluminal neutrinos.
"But the observation of high-energy neutrinos by IceCube indicates that these high-energy pions do decay according to the standard ideas of physics, generating neutrinos whose speed approaches that of light but never exceeds it.
Cowsik's objection to the OPERA results isn't the only one that has been raised.
Physicists Andrew G. Cohen and Sheldon L. Glashow published a paper in Physical Review Letters in October showing that superluminal neutrinos would rapidly radiate energy in the form of electron-positron pairs.
"We are saying that, given physics as we know it today, it should be hard to produce any neutrinos with superluminal velocities, and Cohen and Glashow are saying that even if you did, they'd quickly radiate away their energy and slow down," Cowsik says.
"I have very high regard for the OPERA experimenters," Cowsik adds. "They got faster-than-light speeds when they analyzed their data in March, but they struggled for months to eliminate possible errors in their experiment before publishing it.
"Not finding any mistakes," Cowsik says, "they had an ethical obligation to publish so that the community could help resolve the difficulty. That's the demanding code physicists live by," he says.
###
[ | 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/2011-12/wuis-pdw122311.php
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We interrupt this seamy, scandal-plagued, cash-grab-of-a-college-football season for the following public-service message:
Matt Barkley is staying in school.
The announcement Thursday that Barkley will return to Southern California for his senior season isn't really a tale about great sacrifice. He knows NFL-ready quarterback prospects almost always hold their value and he'll likely get his millions soon enough.
It isn't even the most uplifting story in the game this week. That would be Eric LeGrand's appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated commemorating the best sports moment of 2011, when he led his Rutgers teammates onto the field in a wheelchair for a home game in late October, little more than a year after he was paralyzed playing against Army.
Barkley's decision isn't the newsiest development this week, either, That would be the wrist slap the NCAA gave Ohio State, whose clueless president and shameless athletic director whined that the school had punished itself enough after learning that former coach Jim Tressel lied and cheated his way through the entire 2010 season.
But Barkley's story might be the most surprising, considering how rarely loyalty takes hold across the college football landscape, including the very spot on which he was standing.
Not quite two years ago, Pete Carroll, the coach who recruited Barkley, left for Seattle and the NFL rather than stick around and face the harsh penalties the NCAA was about to levy on Southern California for a host of violations on his watch. The coach Barkley played for the past two seasons, Lane Kiffin, didn't exactly cover himself in glory, either, for the way he departed Tennessee ? abruptly ? to take Carroll's place.
Barkley and his teammates bore the brunt of the postseason bans and all that upheaval and decided to come back anyway.
"I am staying so I can finish what I started," Barkley said to cheers inside USC's Heritage Hall.
More than a few pro scouts shook their heads at that moment, though, recalling how Matt Leinart made the same call to a similar round of cheers a handful of years earlier.
"It's another year with my pals, no matter how it turns out," Leinart said a few days after his decision. "But I'll tell you what: I didn't want to look back 10 or 20 years down the road and find out I passed on the chance to be a part of something really special."
He was coming off USC's back-to-back national championships and a Heisman Trophy-winning season. He didn't duplicate either achievement in the one that followed and his draft stock tumbled when Texas quarterback Vince Young, who outplayed Leinart in a thrilling Bowl Championship Series finale, declared himself eligible for the same 2006 draft. Leinart, a lock for the top spot a year earlier, tumbled to No. 10 and wound up costing himself millions.
If there's any consolation for Barkley in that example, it's that Leinart, despite proving himself a barely adequate backup in the pros, still made millions. Plus, like Leinart, Barkley will be returning to a Trojans squad with a very realistic chance to win a national championship next season and a strong enough supporting cast ? on offense, anyway ? to get him a Heisman Trophy.
USC finished 10-2 and climbed all the way to No. 5 before shutting things down for the season. While Barkley loses his best protector on the offensive line ? left tackle Matt Kalil already declared for the NFL draft, where he could go as high as No. 2 ? the quarterback will reunite with receivers Marqise Lee and Robert Woods, a tandem that might be the nation's best.
We won't know how things turn out, of course, for a while. But it's hardly the bad business decision those NFL scouts panned it as, if only because Stanford's Andrew Luck made the same one at the end of last season and cemented his place at the top of next spring's NFL draft.
And the quartet of quarterbacks who did the same dating back to Peyton Manning in 1997 ? Leinart, Tim Tebow (2009) and Jake Locker (2010) ? all were gone by the end of the first round the following year.
But minimizing the risk that Barkley is taking shouldn't stop us from marveling at the loyalty he showed to a school and a sport that always rewards coaches and administrators handsomely, but not always the kids who make it all possible.
The lessons the sport has been teaching the past few years ? from fleeing coaches to shady conference realignment schemes to university presidents only too willing to look the other way ? is that it's every man for himself. By returning to USC for one more year, Barkley signaled he was still about something else.
Bravo.
"That's not an easy decision," said Kiffin, who won't get a better present this Christmas. "Not many people would do what Matt has done."
___
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org. Follow him at http://Twitter.com/JimLitke.
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By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
PEABODY, Mass. -- An airport security officer confiscated a frosted cupcake amid fears its icing could be a security risk, according to reports.
Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas took her cupcake Wednesday. According to Hains,?he?told her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives.
"I just thought this was terrible logic," Hains said Friday.
Hains said the agent didn't seem concerned that the red velvet?cupcake, which was packaged in an 8-ounce?mason jar,?could actually be explosive, just that it fit some bureaucratic definition about what was prohibited.
"Once he had identified it as a security threat it was no longer mine and I couldn't have it back," Hains told NBC station WHDH.?
Hains, a 35-year-old communications professor at Salem State University, said she told the agent she had passed through security at Boston's Logan International Airport earlier in the week with two cupcakes packaged in jars, gifts from a student. But she said the agent told her that just meant TSA officials?in Boston didn't do its job.
"The TSA agent who saw them, picked them up and said, 'these look delicious,' and sent me on my way,"?Hains told WHDH.
'Civil liberties'
The TSA, which is entrusted with protecting the nation's transportation system, was reviewing the incident, agency spokesman Nico Melendez said. Passengers are allowed to take cakes and cupcakes through checkpoints, he said.
Hains, who lives in Peabody, just north of Boston, said the encounter highlighted the ludicrousness of TSA policies.
"It's not really about the cupcake; I can get another cupcake," she added. "It's about an encroachment on civil liberties. We're just building up a resistance and tolerance to all these things they're doing in the name of security, when it's really theater. It is not keeping us safe."
The Associated Press, NBC News station WHDH and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Directed by Angelina Jolie, 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' doesn't flinch from its harrowing portrayal of the Bosnian conflict as seen through the relationship of a Muslim woman and a Serb officer.
Angelina Jolie?s directorial debut, about the Bosnian conflict in the early 1990s, is not the vanity project many may have feared. For the most part it?s straightforward and hard-hitting and free of cant. It follows a Christian Serb, Danijel (Goran Kostic), and a Bosniak Muslim woman, Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), whose lives are ripped apart as the war ensues. A former cop, Danijel becomes a Serbian officer; Ajla, an artist, is rounded up and sent to a prison camp, where Danijel, with whom she shared a pre-war flirtation, rescues her from rape.?
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The tenuous, harrowing, erotic connection between Danijel and Ajla is the film?s centerpiece. He protects her by sequestering her in private quarters and makes her his mistress.
Jolie, who also wrote the film, doesn?t quite know how to plumb the deepest reaches of their relationship. Danijel, who cares for Ajla while at the same time carrying out his mission of ethnic cleansing, is the least fully explored character in the movie, which leaves a big blur at its core. Still, this is an impressive piece of work that doesn?t flinch from the atrocities that no doubt motivated Jolie to make the film in the first place. Grade:?B (Rated R for war violence and atrocities, including rape, sexuality, nudity, and language.)
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Angelina Jolie talks about her directorial debut:
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