When the Internet Goes 3D | CyberLightning

A look at the future of 3D Internet: expanding into education, business, medicine and beyond.

The Internet is having a mid-life crisis: Having just turned 40, it?s starting to go 3D. The transition is still in its early stages, but champions of the cause say it?s both natural and inevitable, with mass adoption expected within a few years. 3D will make the Web more social, they say, and it will introduce powerful new ways for people in education, business and medicine to interact with content and with each other.Jani Pirkola, an evangelist of the 3D Internet in the Finnish high-tech hotbed of Oulu, predicts it will take off in 2018, with younger users and educational institutions leading the way. And he expects it will catch on faster than the 2D Internet did.

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?Going from the Web to the 3D Internet is not as big a step as it was going from e-mail and telephones to the Web,? says Pirkola, who is co-founder of an open-source 3D platform called realXtend. ?People already grasp the idea of surfing around and doing things with computers.?

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What is the 3D Internet? Think of it as a set of interconnected virtual worlds that users can visit to consume services, ?teleporting? from one world to another. It uses many of the same basic technology components as the 2D Internet?a browser, search engine and servers, for example. But what sets it apart is the use of 3D computer graphics and, in many cases, avatars?which Pirkola says will make it more social than the 2D Web.

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?The 3D Internet is inherently social,? says Pirkola, who is also managing director of a 3D company called CyberLightning. ?If you?re reading a document, you can see other people reading the same document. You naturally connect with people who are interested in the same things and consume the same services.?

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Virtual Worlds Going Mainstream

Virtual worlds and the use of 3D online are nothing new, but their use so far has been mainly recreational. Avatars, teleporting and 3D environments are the stuff of numerous video games as well as online virtual worlds such as Second Life. Meanwhile, companies such as 3DInternet use 3D videos and simulations to create immersive training programs for electric utilities, the military and first responders, among other clients.

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But proponents say the 3D Internet will expand beyond these use cases into education, business, medicine and other areas?a prediction that?s supported by a recent report by tech research firm Gartner. According to the firm?s 2012 ?hype cycle? chart of emerging technologies, virtual worlds are five to 10 years from going mainstream?or reaching the ?Plateau of Productivity,? as Gartner terms it.

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?I think we?re going to see more use of virtual worlds as a new medium that can bring many of the communication technologies together,? says Juha Ala-Mursula, executive director of Oulu?s economic development agency, BusinessOulu, which last year rolled out a free prototype of realXtend to the city?s residents.

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A report on the virtual worlds market by consulting firm KZero finds that the total number of registered accounts for virtual worlds in 2011 was about 1.4 billion?over 400 million more than in 2010. The report illuminates another key trend: The vast majority of those accounts?97 percent?belong to users younger than 25, and 70 percent of them belong to users under the age of 15. That?s significant, Pirkola says, because 10 years from now the people in this demographic block will start to make business decisions, and will gravitate to the communications technologies they?re used to.

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?They know how to interact in 3D,? Pirkola says. ?It?s natural for them.?

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An Evolving User Experience

One caveat: If you expect surfing the 3D Internet to look like some endless video game with stunningly lifelike graphics, get ready to be disappointed. Pirkola points out that the virtual worlds in high-end video games are the work of dozens of artists backed by feature film-like budgets. By comparison, the 3D Internet may look utilitarian.

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?3D services may need to sacrifice some of the looks and speed,? Pirkola says. ?Games are always going to be top of the line.?

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Early examples of 3D Internet services?or at least, 3D-ready services that will be fully 3D when the technology matures?include a travel service by CyberLightning that enables potential tourists to virtually visit the city of Oulu, a nearby beach and a nearby skiing resort. Another example is a realXtend project that enabled users to visit virtualized art galleries at the Berlin Gallery Weekend 2012. While in some ways simple and cartoonish, both provide a sense of the potential for 3D services. Pirkola says the 3D Internet user experience will get better as computers? processing power increases and, in some cases, as avatars themselves evolve. Users will one day be able to use their webcam to capture facial expressions and hand movements and relay them to their avatar, making avatar interactions ?more like face-to-face communication than a video call can be,? he says.

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The 3D Internet Meets the Internet of Things

As for the range of services that can benefit from 3D, it includes everything from virtual meetings (think a next-generation telepresence), trainings, simulations and educational sessions to chat, support group meetings in the healthcare field, and even shopping for clothes, furniture and cars. Imagine being able to configure your new car?s upholstery and other settings before you buy it, and use your avatar to see how well you fit in it.

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Where the 3D Internet gets really interesting is in its intersection with the Internet of Things and augmented reality (AR), which opens up the possibility of controlling the real world from the virtual world. Potential use cases vary from a virtual visit to grandma to controlling elements like temperature, lighting, media and door locks in buildings. Virtual versions of large buildings or industrial plants, for example, can make it much easier and faster than current technologies to pinpoint the source of an alert and respond to it.

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A Thousand Flowers

Much of the early work on the 3D Internet is being done out of Oulu, about 375 miles north of Helsinki. For example, Intel and Nokia?s first collaborative research laboratory, the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center, is located in the Center for Internet Excellence (CIE)?a research and innovation unit at the University of Oulu. And both CyberLightning and realXtend are based in Oulu.

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As a result of the 3D work underway there and elsewhere, myriad virtual worlds have bloomed around the world, along with different flavors of 3D platforms, such as Open Wonderland, MeshMoon, OpenSim and Sirikata. Pirkola says realXtend aims to become the platform for the 3D Internet, but that there?s a lot of collaboration among platform developers because it?s an open source effort. The immediate challenge developers face is a need for common standards for avatars and virtual worlds to ensure interoperability.

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?The 2-D graphical user interface has reached its potential and it?s time to move on and conquer the 3-D world,? says Ala-Mursula.

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Will the 3D Internet replace the 2D Internet? Pirkola says not, and predicts people will use 2D and 3D apps side by side based on need.

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?We still have radio,? he notes. ?We?re going to have the Web forever.?

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Source: http://www.cyberlightning.com/news/when-internet-goes-3d

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Scientists describe a 'new' type of volcanic eruption

Jan. 21, 2013 ? Scientists based in the UK and New Zealand have described a "new" type of volcanic eruption.

Volcanic eruptions are commonly categorised as either explosive or effusive. But now, in research published this month in Nature Geoscience, researchers at Victoria University, Wellington and the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton have uncovered a previously undocumented type of eruption in underwater volcanoes -- by looking at tiny original bubble spaces trapped in volcanic rock.

Inside volcanoes, gases are dissolved in the molten magma as a function of the very high pressures and chemistry of the magma. In the same way that gases dissolved in carbonated drinks bubble up when you take the lid off, when magma is erupted as lava, the pressure is relieved and the gases exsolve to form small gas bubbles or so-called "vesicles." In explosive eruptions these vesicles expand so quickly they fragment the magma, violently ejecting lava, which cools and degasses to form solidified pumice that can be sufficiently light to float on water.

In air pumice is obviously associated with violent, explosive eruptions. Consequently underwater volcanoes flanked by highly vesicular pumice have, to date, also been interpreted as having erupted explosively.

But the results of this study indicate that there is a third eruptive style unique to underwater volcanoes, which is neither effusive nor explosive.

"By documenting the shape and density of bubbles in pumices generated by an underwater caldera volcano in the southwest Pacific Ocean -- the Macauley volcano -- we found large differences in the number and shape of "bubbles" in the same pebble-sized samples, different to anything previously documented," said Professor Ian Wright of the National Oceanography Centre, who co-authored the paper.

"This range of bubble densities distinct in these pumice samples indicates that the lava erupting from the caldera was neither vigorous enough for an explosive eruption, nor gentle enough for an effusive flow."

The study proposes that rather than exploding in the neck of the volcano, the formation and expansion of bubbles in the magma created a buoyant foam, which rose to the seafloor and then buoyantly detached from the volcano as molten pumice balloons but with chilled margins. During its ascent to the sea surface, the vesicles within the molten interior would have continued to expand as the pressure -- this time from the weight of the seawater -- reduced.

"These processes explain the unique bubble structure seen in the samples analysed, which could have only occurred with an intermediate eruption style and in an underwater setting," said Professor Wright.

"We conclude that the presence of widespread deposits of pumice on underwater volcanoes does not necessarily indicate large-scale explosive volcanism."

The authors proposed that this style of eruption be named Tangaroan, the Maori god of the sea, and name of the research vessel used to collect the samples.

The study was led by Melissa Rotella, Professor Colin Wilson and Simon Barker from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Oceanography Centre.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Melissa D. Rotella, Colin J. N. Wilson, Simon J. Barker, Ian C. Wright. Highly vesicular pumice generated by buoyant detachment of magma in subaqueous volcanism. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1709

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/CpNJfOcOm4g/130121083215.htm

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Here Is Richard Blanco's Beautiful Inaugural Poem

After President Obama's inaugural address, poet Richard Blanco delivered his original poem "One Today" before the Washington Mall. Although Eric Cantor was not a fan, it's a forceful work that deserves to be read. Here's the full video:

One Today

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,

peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces

of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth

across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.

One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story

told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

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My face, your face, millions of faces in morning?s mirrors,

each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:

pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,

fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows

begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper?

bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,

on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives?

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did

for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

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All of us as vital as the one light we move through,

the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:

equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,

the ?I have a dream? we keep dreaming,

or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won?t explain

the empty desks of twenty children marked absent

today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light

breathing color into stained glass windows,

life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth

onto the steps of our museums and park benches 2

as mothers watch children slide into the day.

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One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk

of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat

and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills

in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands

digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands

as worn as my father?s cutting sugarcane

so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

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The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains

mingled by one wind?our breath. Breathe. Hear it

through the day?s gorgeous din of honking cabs,

buses launching down avenues, the symphony

of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,

the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

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Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,

or whispers across caf? tables, Hear: the doors we open

for each other all day, saying: hello| shalom,

buon giorno howdy namaste or buenos d?as

in the language my mother taught me?in every language

spoken into one wind carrying our lives

without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

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One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed

their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked

their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:

weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report

for the boss on time, stitching another wound 3

or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,

or the last floor on the Freedom Tower

jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

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One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes

tired from work: some days guessing at the weather

of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love

that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother

who knew how to give, or forgiving a father

who couldn?t give what you wanted.

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We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight

of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always?home,

always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon

like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop

and every window, of one country?all of us?

facing the stars

hope?a new constellation

waiting for us to map it,

waiting for us to name it?together

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/richard-blancos-beautiful-inaugural-poem-180325184.html

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Developing microbial cell factories by employing synthetic small regulatory RNAs

Jan. 20, 2013 ? Biotechnologists have been working hard to address the climate change and limited fossil resource issues through the development of sustainable processes for the production of chemicals, fuels and materials from renewable non-food biomass. One promising sustainable technology is the use of microbial cell factories for the efficient production of desired chemicals and materials.

When microorganisms are isolated from nature, the performance in producing our desired product is rather poor. Metabolic engineering is performed to improve the metabolic and cellular characteristics to achieve enhanced production of desired product at high yield and productivity. Since the performance of microbial cell factory is very important in lowering the overall production cost of the bioprocess, many different strategies and tools have been developed for the metabolic engineering of microorganisms.

One of the big challenges in metabolic engineering is to find the best platform organism and to find those genes to be engineered so as to maximize the production efficiency of the desired chemical. Even Escherichia coli, the most widely utilized simple microorganism, has thousands of genes, the expression of which is highly regulated and interconnected to finely control cellular and metabolic activities. Thus, the complexity of cellular genetic interactions is beyond our intuition and thus it is very difficult to find effective target genes to engineer. Together with gene amplification strategy, gene knockout strategy has been an essential tool in metabolic engineering to redirect the pathway fluxes toward our desired product formation.

However, experiment to engineer many genes can be rather difficult due to the time and effort required; for example, gene deletion experiment can take a few weeks depending on the microorganisms. Furthermore, as certain genes are essential or play important roles for the survival of a microorganism, gene knockout experiments cannot be performed. Even worse, there are many different microbial strains one can employ. There are more than 50 different E. coli strains that metabolic engineer can consider to use. Since gene knockout experiment is hard-coded (that is, one should repeat the gene knockout experiments for each strain), the result cannot be easily transferred from one strain to another.

A paper published in Nature Biotechnology online January 20 addresses this issue and suggests a new strategy for identifying gene targets to be knocked out or knocked down through the use of synthetic small RNA. A Korean research team led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), reported that synthetic small RNA can be employed for finely controlling the expression levels of multiple genes at the translation level. Already well-known for their systems metabolic engineering strategies, Professor Lee's team added one more strategy to efficiently develop microbial cell factories for the production of chemicals and materials.

Gene expression works like this: the hard-coded blueprint (DNA) is transcribed into messenger RNA (mRNA), and the coding information in mRNA is read to produce protein by ribosomes. Conventional genetic engineering approaches have often targeted modification of the blueprint itself (DNA) to alter organism's physiological characteristics. Again, engineering the blueprint itself takes much time and effort, and in addition, the results obtained cannot be transferred to another organism without repeating the whole set of experiments. This is why Professor Lee and his colleagues aimed at controlling the gene expression level at the translation stage through the use of synthetic small RNA. They created novel RNAs that can regulate the translation of multiple messenger RNAs (mRNA), and consequently varying the expression levels of multiple genes at the same time. Briefly, synthetic regulatory RNAs interrupt gene expression process from DNA to protein by destroying the messenger RNAs to different yet controllable extents. The advantages of taking this strategy of employing synthetic small regulatory RNAs include simple, easy and high-throughput identification of gene knockout or knockdown targets, fine control of gene expression levels, transferability to many different host strains, and possibility of identifying those gene targets that are essential.

As proof-of-concept demonstration of the usefulness of this strategy, Professor Lee and his colleagues applied it to develop engineered E. coli strains capable of producing an aromatic amino acid tyrosine, which is used for stress symptom relief, food supplements, and precursor for many drugs. They examined a large number of genes in multiple E. coli strains, and developed a highly efficient tyrosine producer. Also, they were able to show that this strategy can be employed to an already metabolically engineered E. coli strain for further improvement by demonstrating the development of highly efficient producer of cadaverine, an important platform chemical for nylon in the chemical industry.

This new strategy, being simple yet very powerful for systems metabolic engineering, is thus expected to facilitate the efficient development of microbial cell factories capable of producing chemicals, fuels and materials from renewable biomass.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Dokyun Na, Seung Min Yoo, Hannah Chung, Hyegwon Park, Jin Hwan Park, Sang Yup Lee. Metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli using synthetic small regulatory RNAs. Nature Biotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2461

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/IMsZ6yw0e9U/130120150035.htm

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Video: Can Obama avoid ?second-term curse??

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Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/50525351/

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Canadian Press HeadLine Package

Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! homepage or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services.

Please try Yahoo Help Central if you need more assistance.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canadian-press-headline-package-064047025--spt.html

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India's Jurassic Park hopes 'princely lizards' will attract tourists

BALASINOR, INDIA // The prized possession of Aliya Sultana Babi, a member of the family that used to rule this former princely state in Gujarat, is a fossilised dinosaur egg. The egg, the size of a woman's hand, sits in a red velvet jewellery box, ensconced in a bed of white silk. Her brother found it more than a decade ago in a nearby village, where a woman was using it to grind spices.

Ms Babi says the homemaker was not alone in her ignorance of the fossil.

"I have heard that some of tribes who live in the interiors used to worship the eggs," she says.

The fossils, first discovered near the tiny village of Raioli by the Geological Survey of India in the early 1980s and now in museums across India, led to one of the world's largest finds. The site stretches from Gujarat for about 800km to Jabalpur in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh.

Sardar Singh Kalu Singh Chauhan, 75, who lives in Raioli, remembers when the paleontologists first arrived. "They used to come for the digs from Jaipur and we were not sure what they were looking for," he says. "They kept putting these large pieces of rocks in their cars and driving away. We used to have a good laugh about that."

When the villagers finally learnt these rocks were the fossilised remains of a gigantic extinct species, they were even more astounded. "These rocks were animals? That was our first reaction," says Magan Varam, 60.

One of those fossils, found to be 67 million years old, was a new species of dinosaur. Jeffrey Wilson, a paleontologist from the University of Michigan in the United States, was part of the team that discovered the Rajasaurus narmadensis, a Tyrannosaurus rex-like carnivore. The Rajasaurus, whose name means "princely lizard from the Narmada Valley," had an unusual hornlike growth above its nasal cavity.

Today, the rural landscape is dominated by a six-metre tall, life-size replica of a roaring Rajasaurus, made of metal and cement and mud with an exterior of brass paint. The former Balasinor royal family have become the unofficial protectors of the fossil fields and are eager to turn it into a tourist destination.

A museum is due to open next month, set up by the Gujarat government, and the villagers are excited about the prospect of jobs tourists will bring, as well as the bragging rights of living next to what they call, "mota prani", or "giant forms of life" in Gujarati.

Dr Wilson believes that dinosaurs in India followed a unique evolutionary trajectory, spending hundreds of millions of year isolated after the landmass that is now India separated from Australia and collided with Central Asia, creating the Himalayas. "The dinosaurs show us the last chapter of India's pre-Himalayan history," he says. Dr Wilson has been to Raioli five times in the past decade and describes a certain "magic" at the site.

"Raioli has fascinating fossils we don't see anywhere else. Some of the bones are jutting out of the rocks," he says.

Among paleontologists, the site is best known for a fossil of a snake curled around a clutch of dinosaur eggs.

Discovered in 2000 during one of Dr Wilson's visits to Balasinor, it appears to show a 3.5-metre-long prehistoric snake, called a Sanajeh, in the process of devouring one of the eggs.

The find led to two important discoveries for paleontologists: that non-dinosaurs preyed upon dinosaurs and that dinosaurs in India did not guard their eggs.

About 17 species of dinosaur have been identified in the so-called "Lameta Formation", the section of sedimentary rock in which the area's fossils are found. Of those, two are unique to the area: the Rajasaurus and the Jainosaurus, a Brontosaurus-like herbivore.

Uday Singh, 85, a former head of the area's villages, says that word had spread about the dinosaurs, including among his relatives.

"When they visit, they want to go visit the hills. We show them around, and we have learnt to identify a few," says Mr Singh, who is now nearly blind. "It makes me proud to know the world knows about us now.

"And all for this big animal that is embedded in stone."

sbhattacharya@thenational.ae

Source: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/indias-jurassic-park-hopes-princely-lizards-will-attract-tourists?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=News&utm_campaign=feed

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Israel's ultra-Orthodox ? an electorate divided

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Klezemer band members play music, Jerusalem, April 4, 2010
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Klezemer band members play music outside Jerusalem's old city walls during Passover celebrations on April 4, 2010. Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, traditionally votes as a bloc, but is increasingly looking across the spectrum to non-Orthodox parties. ? Menahem Kahana - AFP

Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, easily identified by their distinct black-and-white clothing, has traditionally voted as a bloc, but is increasingly looking across the spectrum to non-Orthodox parties.

Ahead of January 22 elections, its two main parties are campaigning hard, hoping to protect and maybe even increase the 15 seats they hold in the outgoing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Ten of those belong to the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which traditionally represents Sephardic Jews -- those of Middle Eastern origin -- and five belong to United Torah Judaism (UTJ), which represents Ashkenazi, or European ultra-Orthodox.

Topping the agenda is preventing the next government from passing legislation that would force the ultra-Orthodox to serve in the army.

The issue is a key priority for Avigdor Lieberman, the former foreign minister whose hardline secular nationalist Yisrael Beitenu is running on a joint list with Netanyahu's rightwing Likud.

The ultra-Orthodox are firmly opposed to mandatory service, with Shas's spiritual guide Rabbi Ovadia Yosef even threatening he would advise his flock to leave Israel if a law mandating military service was passed.

Until last year, a law was in force which allowed tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men to avoid being drafted by enrolling in religious seminaries called yeshivas.

Originally intended as a way to allow them to defer their time serving in the military or doing national service, the so-called Tal Law was struck down last year by the High Court, which said it had failed in its purpose.

The government has pledged to push through new legislation, prompting widespread concern among the ultra-Orthodox that they will be forced to enlist.

"Some people are reluctant to vote and they will be responsible for the war which will break out here when the secular authorities force yeshiva students to join the army," warned Yisrael Eichler, UTJ's number two.

The two parties also face other challenges.

A traditional defender of the poor, Shas was part of a government which failed to keep a lid on the price of basic goods, which have soared in recent years, contributing to social unrest.

That could send some of Shas's constituents into the arms of Labour, which has focused its platform on the economic discontent that spawned massive demonstrations in the summer of 2011.

Others could swing towards the hardline national religious Jewish Home, which combines religious values with a pledge to make Israeli society fairer for all.

The ultra-Orthodox number around 900,000, making up a sixth of Israel's population, but only around half of them are old enough to vote.

There are also thousands who boycott elections because their strict religious beliefs include opposition to Zionism and the state of Israel.

Meny Schwartz, who heads the ultra-Orthodox Kol Haredi radio station, says that many no longer feel constrained to vote for Shas and UTJ.

"A large part of the ultra-Orthodox population no longer vote for those parties, for a variety of reasons," he told AFP.

"Some believe it is forbidden to vote for anti-Zionist reasons; others who are disappointed by the leadership of the ultra-Orthodox parties, no longer vote, or vote for parties like Likud or parties further to the right," he said.

The ultra-Orthodox parties have in turn broadened their electoral campaigns, hoping to attract the secular working class by touting social justice.

UTJ leader and deputy health minister Yaakov Litzman can point to a policy extending free dental care to children under 12.

And Shas, which controls the housing ministry, is flagging up the thousands of houses built throughout the country in the last four years.

But their political future rests in the hands of Netanyahu, who is widely expected to lead the joint Likud-Beitenu list to a commanding victory.

He could choose to form a rightwing coalition with the ultra-Orthodox and Jewish Home, but could also join forces with centrist parties like HaTnuah and Yesh Atid.

? AFP 2013

Source: http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/news/israels-ultraorthodox-an-electorate-divided_12325

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Dell may leave the floor, as personal computers lose allure ? RT

Reuters / Brendan McDermid

Dell, once the world?s biggest producer of personal computers, is now about to stop trading its stock and go private. The company is looking for a new direction as tablets are replacing conventional PCs.

Dell Inc. is reportedly in talks with private ? equity firms Silver Lake Partners and TPG about the buyout, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).The have been going on for the last two or three months, and the talks could turn into a deal within the next 6 months, according to the media sources. Other investors including pension funds could also join the deal, with an exact list of the bidding group remaining unfinalized.

Dell's "valuation is off the charts low," WSJ quotes one industry executive.

The shares of the PCs producer lost above 30% during last year, as it?s suffering a painful shift in the industry.

In 2006 Dell lost its market championship, which was coupled with brand new gadgets such as smartphones and tablets grabbing consumer attention.

So?? called new era gadgets have never been the focus of Dell?s operations, as PC sales still produce more than a half of the company?s revenue at a time when conventional computers seem to be going into oblivion. PC shipments fell 4.9% year on year in 4Q 2012, with Dell?s alone suffering a 20.9% decline, according to research firm Gartner.

The drop ate the into Dell?s bottom line, as its profit fell 47% year on yearin the quarter ended November 2.

At a meantime, other technological companies like Apple and Samsung that have led the tablet and smartphone boom and are boasting record high financials.

Experts agree that tablets are now winning the market, with conventional PCs likely to be abandoned altogether.

"Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC," says Mikako Kitagawa, senior analyst at Gartner.

Investors were upbeat about Dell?s plans to go private, as its shares jumped on the news the company held talks of a buyout.

Source: http://rt.com/business/news/dell-personal-computer-tablets-019/

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Why Windows RT will die

It should be no surprise that Microsoft's Windows RT Surface tablet sold only a million units in the fourth quarter, about a half of what analysts expected. Windows RT is an operating system without a future. Here's why it will die.

UBS analyst Brent Thil said that a million Surface tablets sold That's about half of what he expected. Computerworld says that in a note to investors, he said that people were buying the iPad rather than the Surface.

Plenty of other reports have found that the Surface is selling poorly. Even Steve Ballmer admits that Surface sales have been modest.

You can attribute sluggish sales to plenty of factors, such as poor distribution. But there's a deeper reason: Windows RT has no future. It's an operating system so rife with problems, it's hard to imagine it succeeding.

One big issue is confusion about exactly what it is. It looks like a Windows 8 tablet, but it isn't. It can't run Windows 8 apps unless they've been specifically modified to run on Windows RT. It won't run the Desktop or Desktop apps.

Despite that, it sells for $500, as much as an iPad. Because of all this, Samsung has cancelled plans for selling an RT tablet in the U.S. Mike Abary, Samsung senior vice president in charge of the PC and tablet businesses in the United States, explained the decision this way to CNet:

"There wasn't really a very clear positioning of what Windows RT meant in the marketplace, what it stood for relative to Windows 8, that was being done in an effective manner to the consumer. When we did some tests and studies on how we could go to market with a Windows RT device, we determined there was a lot of heavy lifting we still needed to do to educate the customer on what Windows RT was. And that heavy lifting was going to require pretty heavy investment. When we added those two things up, the investments necessary to educate the consumer on the difference between RT and Windows 8, plus the modest feedback that we got regarding how successful could this be at retail from our retail partners, we decided maybe we ought to wait."

There's a more serious problems for RT than that, though. Starting later this month, full-blown Windows 8 tablets based on Atom chips will start to ship. As Kevin Tofel of GigaOm writes, Intel Atom-based Windows 8 tablets will cost about the same as RT tablets, run full-blown Windows 8, including the Desktop and Desktop apps, and be more powerful than RT tablets. Why pay the same for a less powerful tablet that does less?

It's not quite true that Atom-based tablets will cost the same as the Surface, at least not at first. The Atom-based Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 will sell for $649, and comes with 64GB of storage. That's almost $150 more than a Surface with 32GB, although it's cheaper than a 64GB Surface, which sells for $699. The least-expensive Dell Latitude 10 Atom-based tablet goes for $579, and it comes with 64GB of storage.

Given the generally equivalent pricing between RT tablets and full-blown Atom-based Windows 8 tablets, who will buy RT? Not many people. And that's why RT tablets will eventually go the way of other ill-fated Microsoft products, including the Kin phone, Clippy, and Microsoft Bob.

Source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/tablets/21642/why-windows-rt-will-die

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Gun groups predict assault weapons ban will fail in Congress

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gun rights groups on Sunday forecast that bids to ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips would fail in Congress, as Vice President Joe Biden prepares this week to give President Barack Obama proposals to curb gun violence.

Even some congressional Democrats indicated that a bill to revive the U.S. assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 would have a difficult time winning passage in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate.

"An assault weapons stand-alone ban - on just guns alone ... in the political reality that we have today, will not go anywhere," Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, himself a gun owner, told the CNN program "State of the Union."

National Rifle Association President David Keene signaled little appetite for compromise as the White House considers action on gun violence after the December 14 massacre of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

"What we put the brakes on is anything that simply takes away a person's Second Amendment right for no good reason," Keene told the CNN show, referring to the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of the right to bear arms.

"The likelihood is that they are not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress," Keene said. Asked about new limits on high-capacity ammunition clips, he added: "I don't think ultimately they are going to get that either."

Biden, who heads a task force on gun violence due to give Obama recommendations as early as Tuesday, has said he will recommend universal background checks for gun buyers and new limits on the capacity of magazines like those used by the Connecticut gunman.

Biden and three members of Obama's Cabinet are to meet with members of the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Monday as he prepared recommendations on how to curb gun violence in the United States.

The White House also has said it will try to revive the U.S. ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004 after being in effect for a decade. Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut are expected to introduce legislation on reviving the assault-weapons ban.

MISS AMERICA

The gun control debate has been heating up since the Connecticut massacre. The issue even came up during the Miss America pageant on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Miss New York, Mallory Hytes Hagan, the eventual winner, was asked during the competition whether armed guards should be put in schools.

"I don't think the proper way to fight violence is with violence," Hagan said, indicating that she opposes the idea championed by the NRA after the Newtown massacre.

The NRA has a long history of influence in Washington. It spends heavily on political races and says it has 4 million members. The group criticized the White House effort after meeting with Biden on Thursday.

Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Larry Pratt, executive director of another gun rights group, Gun Owners of America, said: "We don't think that there is much likelihood that the Congress is going to move on making gun-control laws worse than they are."

Pratt also touted a House Republican lawmaker's proposal to get rid of "gun-free zones" around schools, and asked: "Are we really better off when we say, 'No defense is a good defense?'"

Representative Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, was cautious about the chances for a revival of the assault weapons ban. He told CNN: "I think that we have a possibility. But I think it's going to be very difficult. I think the things that we do agree on, it seems, (are) the universal background checks and the (limits on) high-capacity magazines."

Biden has been meeting with people on various sides of the issue, including the NRA and gun owners' groups, representatives of the movie and video-game industries and law enforcement.

The background check requirement would extend to all gun purchasers. This would close the "gun-show loophole," in which vendors at open-air gun sales events can sell without a background check on the purchaser. It would also extend to private sales such as those conducted over the Internet.

(Reporting by Will Dunham, David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gun-groups-predict-assault-weapons-ban-fail-congress-024549380.html

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Iran confiscates over a ton of narcotics a day

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Iran's media are reporting that police confiscate over a ton of narcotics a day from smugglers.

Gen. Ali Moayedi, head of Iran's anti-narcotics police, is quoted by newspapers Sunday as saying that some 30 drug smugglers and addicts are identified and arrested every hour in Iran. He said over 200,000 were detained in the past nine months alone.

Iran lies on a major drug route between Afghanistan and Europe, as well as the Persian Gulf states.

Moayedi said that over 1,286 kg (2,835 pounds) are confiscated each day. This represents about a fifth of the total drugs that officials have previously said enter Iran --- of the rest, nearly 700 tons are consumed inside Iran and the remaining 1,300 tons are transited to Europe.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-13-ML-Iran-Narcotics/id-45f95886e72344288c1641b26abc3d01

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Rio slums: From no-go to must-buy

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Five years ago, Rio de Janeiro's "favela" hillside slums had such a bad rap that they were virtual no-go zones, where drug lords laid down the law and outsiders set foot at their peril.

But since 2011, police have seized control of dozens of favelas from drug gangs, and things have changed so dramatically that some of the slums are now seen as hot real estate investments ? so hot, in fact, that two Europeans recently locked horns in a legal battle over a battered favela house.

Rio's slum "pacification" program is part of a strategy to make the city safe ahead of the 2014 soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics. Murder rates are down, and SecoviRio, an organization representing Rio's real estate professionals, estimates that in the 72 hours after police took the first three favelas, property prices there jumped by 50 percent ? and are still climbing.

In the Vidigal slum, middle-class Brazilians and foreigners who can't afford chic Rio neighborhoods are snapping up properties wedged between tony beachfront areas like Copacabana and Ipanema.

"It used to be you'd say the word 'favela' and people would instantly think: drug trafficking, machine guns, grenades, kidnappings," said Anderson Ramos, a real estate agent with V.D.G. Imobiliaria, Vidigal's first real estate agency. "But now, you say 'favela' and they think pacification and good deals on houses."

"We're seeing upper-class people, millionaires, famous musicians practically queuing up."

Andreas Wielend, one of the two Europeans fighting over a Vidigal property, got a killer deal when he bought an abandoned cinderblock house from a German businessman in late 2009. The deal was so sweet the owner had seller's remorse. When Wielend was away on vacation last fall, the former owner took over the house and changed the locks.

"It was unbelievable," Wielend said. "This house was my baby, I worked so hard to renovate it, and then I'm kicked out on false pretenses. It was surreal."

The sparring foreigners are part of growing group of wealthy buyers keen on acquiring ocean-view properties in Vidigal that are seen as bargains in a city whose real estate prices are among the highest in the Americas.

"I hate to use the word fashion, but the favelas are in fashion, for the first time," said Leonardo Schneider, SecoviRio's vice president.

Built in the late 19th century by army veterans seeking affordable housing, the first favelas sprang up unplanned, and many still lack basic services like sewage connections and electricity. For generations, they were home to destitute migrants, and in the 1970s began falling under the control of ruthless drug gangs.

When Wielend bought his place, it had long been abandoned and lacked a bathroom, kitchen and even doors. But it had a breathtaking view over Rio's concrete jungle and the Atlantic Ocean. The German seller, who had snapped up dozens of properties in Vidigal, was asking for just 20,000 reals, or $10,000.

Still, with a gang capo and his heavily armed minions for neighbors, Wielend thought hard before buying.

"It was a bit like signing up to living in 'Robinson Crusoe,' on a remote island where everything's sort of makeshift," said the 35-year-old, a telecommunications engineer who first came to Brazil with Siemens, the German electronics giant. "I thought of the investment as a big gamble."

Then came the big change. Hundreds of police stormed into Vidigal, pushing out the drug gang and establishing a permanent presence. To date, 28 police pacification units have been established over dozens of favelas, with 12 more units expected this year.

Studies show homicides are down by double digits. A luxury boutique hotel with a rooftop pool is going up in Vidigal, and Italian tire-maker Pirelli shot part of its 2013 pinup calendar in Dona Marta, which in 2008 was the first favela to be pacified.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reckons that 15 percent of the 168 percent rise in Rio property prices between January 2008 and March 2012 was directly attributable to pacification and the resulting drop in crime.

Ramos, the agent, said he recently closed a slew of $25,000 deals on small cinderblock homes that wouldn't have fetched $5,000 a few years ago.

"People here have understood that favelas are a hot thing, and a lot of people are eager to cash in," said Ramos. "And for a guy here, who for the price of his tiny studio apartment in Vidigal he can buy a big, three-bedroom house with a garage and a patio in another area of Rio, it's like a dream come true."

Not everyone sees the situation in such a rosy light. Many voice worries that the poor could be priced out of the slums as their cost of living rises and developers pressure them to sell.

SecoviRio's Schneider acknowledged that the city's demographics may change. About a quarter of Rio's 6 million people live in the 1,071 favelas.

"In the coming 10-15 years, rich people are going to be buying houses and developers are going to be building condominiums in certain favelas that are well located, with views," said Schneider.?"Naturally, the poor people will move to another area and certain favelas, like Vidigal, are going to be transformed into luxury neighborhoods."

Wielend, meanwhile, won a court ruling ordering his property returned to him.? He said he plans to spruce the place up again and reopen the hostel and party space he was running there.

Or maybe he'll sell; he says he has been offered $300,000 ? 30 times what he paid ? but won't settle for less than $750,000.

"That might sound like a lot, but it might actually end up being a bargain," said Wielend, his green eyes twinkling as he gazed at the ocean from the cracked and graffiti-scrawled terrace. "Who knows, maybe in 10 years this will end up being the most valuable property in all of Rio de Janeiro."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rio-slums-no-must-buy-141759194.html

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Chinese Media Censorship

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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Sunday, January 13, 2013
The censor at the wheel. ...

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/opinion/global/heng-cartoon-chinese-media-censorship.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Obama's Ambitious Second-Term Agenda Could Backfire

The White House?s ambitious agenda on gun control, immigration reform, and, perhaps, even climate change is a sign that President Obama believes he locked up precious political capital with his reelection and intends to spend it quickly. But that isn?t welcome news to many of the Democrats who need him the most in the short term--the seven Democratic senators in conservative states facing tough reelection bids.

Just one week into the new year, Obama has already hit some unpleasant stumbling blocks with his own party. On gun control, the White House is now calculating that it will be ?exceedingly difficult? to pass broad measures, The New York Times reports, a sharp U-turn from its optimism heading into the new year. Senators from the president?s own party are the ones giving him trouble over his nominee for Defense secretary, former GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel, with one of the president?s most partisan backers privately expressing doubt about whether he?ll support his nomination.?

And on Friday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., announced his retirement, making it even more likely that a West Virginia Senate seat will turn Republican for the first time since 1959. Rockefeller?s decision to step down early may give him more flexibility to vote with the White House on its pet initiatives, but it creates major problems for the Democrats looking to succeed him. The White House?s planned agenda for the coming year is awfully inhospitable for a Democrat looking to keep his or her distance from the national party. (Notably, newly minted Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Michael Bennet, in a statement, said he is confident the party will elect an ?independent-minded Democrat? to a seat.)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. To maintain their Senate majority in 2014, Democrats need to hold onto seven seats being contested on inhospitable turf--Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, Montana, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Dakota. Obama holds solid approval ratings nationally but, given the state of affairs in our polarized country, is in much more tenuous shape down South. The strategic positioning of Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor or Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and Mark Begich of Alaska will be fascinating to watch over the next year. Immigration, for example, is probably a winning issue for the president overall, but it will be a much tougher sell with Democrats in conservative states and districts. Rockefeller took the easy way out in stepping down.

My National Journal colleagues Ron Fournier and Jill Lawrence have been engaging in a debate over whether Obama is merely a good president, or a potentially great one. I disagree with the premise. I?d argue that given Democratic congressional supermajorities in his first two years and the lingering unpopularity of the Republican Party, he held the potential to accomplish a lot more--and in a more bipartisan fashion, as well. Health care reform was a costly detour from promoting a jobs-centric agenda in the president?s first year. He?s spending significant political capital on Hagel, at a time when the White House desperately needs a united Democratic front on gun control and immigration.

Obama?s predecessor, George W. Bush, learned the hard way about bragging about his mandate, seeing his own ambitious Social Security reforms blow up in his face thanks to recalcitrant Republicans, and watching his approval ratings trend downward from there. Understanding the political limits, while also recognizing strategic opportunities, is an essential part of a president?s job responsibility.

One of the biggest differences between 2012 and 2014 for down-ballot Democrats is that the president doesn?t have the same political imperative to tack to the middle, free to pursue the issues deemed most important. That might be good for the president?s legacy, certainly if he accomplishes his agenda, but the politically at-risk members of his own party are probably having different thoughts.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-ambitious-second-term-agenda-could-backfire-114349419--politics.html

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How safe is commercial air travel in the US? - Travel Risk ...

Review of: Aviation Safety Monitoring: A Must for Business Travel Risk ManagementProduct by: Tony RidleyReviewed by: Travel Risk ManagementRating:5On October 4, 2012Last modified:October 8, 2012Summary:The risk of being fatally or seriously injured on a commercial, scheduled passenger flight is approximately 1 fatal accident in 2.4 million flights (1:2,400,000).More DetailsAviation safety monitoring A must for business [...]

Source: http://travelriskmanagementsolutions.com/travel-risk-assessments/how-safe-is-commercial-air-travel-in-the-us-infographic

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