California Parent Trigger Law: Adelanto School Board Blocks Takeover Bid

A group of activist parents in this impoverished community were thwarted again in their bid to become the first in the nation to seize control of a public school under a controversial "parent trigger" law designed to shake up chronically failing schools.

Capping an emotional four-hour meeting, the board of the Adelanto School District in California's Mojave Desert voted 5-0 on Wednesday night to reject a petition invoking a 2010 state law that permits parents to effectively seize control of low-performing schools.

But supporters of the petition vowed to challenge the board's action in court.

The trigger effort, backed by a well-funded activist group, Parent Revolution, but opposed by the teacher's union, has been closely watched as a key battleground in an intensifying fight over the nation's $500 billion-a-year investment in public education.

The Florida legislature narrowly defeated a parent trigger bill earlier this month, after a fierce debate, and several other states, including New York, Michigan and Louisiana, may consider similar bills this year.

"The nation is watching this evening. California is watching," said former California state Senator Gloria Romero, who co-sponsored the legislation.

The outcome of Wednesday's meeting marked the second time the Adelanto board has denied a petition submitted by families seeking a takeover, finding they fell short in collecting valid signatures from parents representing at least half of the 642 students at Desert Trails Elementary.

The petition drive has been fraught with acrimony as the two sides accused each other of fraud and forgery in trying to meet the 50-percent threshold or in presenting rescission affidavits from parents who claimed they were misled into initially giving their support.

"I could care less if I don't get elected to office again, but today I stand for all of Adelanto in saying we will not be duped by anybody," school board member Jermaine Wright said in explaining her vote against the petition.

Even after a second rejection, it appeared the debate in Adelanto, a community of about 31,000 people made up predominantly of low-income minorities, was far from over.

Patrick DeTemple, the organizing director of Parent Revolution, said the group planned to challenge the board in court, insisting supporters had collected valid signatures from "a solid 70 percent of the parents."

At its core, the dispute has pitted parents ready to take drastic action to reshape management of their school against parents concerned that sweeping, untested changes promised under the "trigger" measure would worsen the situation.

"Our children are much too precious to turn them over to groups that have no track record of proven success," said Lanita Dominque, a teacher and president of the Adelanto District Teachers Association.

Petition supporters cited years of chronically poor academic performance at the school, where more than half of the students fail standardized state tests in math or reading.

Takeover advocates have called for converting Desert Trails into a charter school in the fall, allowing them to hire non-union teachers or renegotiate the union contract. They have said they would like the charter to be run by a coalition of parents, teachers and district administrators, rather than by a private charter school management company. (Reuters)

Picture captures a billion stars

Earth sits just in the galactic plane which appears as a very dense but very long
strip of stars arcing across the sky. The galactic centre and the surrounding
bulge of stars is here pulled out to show moredetail

Scientists have produced a colossal picture of our Milky Way Galaxy, to reveal the detail of a billion stars.

It is built from thousands of individual images acquired by two UK-developed telescopes operating in Hawaii and in Chile.

Archived data from the project, known as the Vista Data Flow System, will be mined by astronomers to make new discoveries about the local cosmos.

But more simply, it represents a fabulous portrait of the night sky.

"There are about one billion stars in there - this is more than has been in any other image produced by surveys," said Dr Nick Cross from the University of Edinburgh.

"When it was first produced, I played with it for hours; it's just stunning," he told BBC News.

Dr Cross has been presenting the new work to the UK National Astronomy Meeting (NAM) here in Manchester.


The image concentrates on the dense plane of the galaxy, which means it renders as a very long, very thin strip.

That makes it is virtually impossible to show in a meaningful way on this page.

Dr Cross and colleagues have though produced an online interactive tool that allows the user to zoom in to particular areas. Even then, these smaller fragments of sky will contain thousands of stars.

Zooming into particular regions reveals the detail
of thousands of stars 

The project has been 10 years in the making. It combines data from the UKIDSS/GPS sky survey acquired by the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii with the VVV survey data acquired by the Vista telescope in Chile.

These astronomical facilities view the sky at infrared wavelengths, enabling them to see past the dust in the Milky Way that would ordinarily obscure observations made at optical, or visible, wavelengths.

UKIRT is responsible for the right end of the image; Vista produced the left, including the more extensive block of coverage which traces the centre of the galaxy and its surrounding bulge of stars. (Black squares in the image are data gaps that are in the process of being filled).

Researchers at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge processed and archived all the data that underpins the big picture, and have made it available to astronomers around the world for future study.

"There are many uses for this picture," said Dr Cross. "It will help us really understand the true nature of our galaxy, to see where everything is.

"Some researchers will use it to find star forming regions; there'll be lots of these along the plane of the galaxy.

"Finding globular clusters will be another use. These are groups of very old stars that formed right at the beginning of the galaxy. We can study their distribution in this image and that tells us something about how the Milky Way started off.

"And it will be particularly useful to study anything that is extended. Here you can look at things on the large scale, to understand how they are related to each other; to look at things that might be across multiple images in a catalogue.

"These are the big objects like clusters, and nebulae - the gas clouds where stars are forming." (BBC)

Cancer 'encyclopedia' published

Cells from a cancer line known as HeLa

The first volume of a "book of cancer knowledge" has been published, which scientists say will speed up the search for new cancer drugs.

The "encyclopaedia" details how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents.

UK, US and European researchers say the data, published in Nature, is a step towards tailoring cancer medicine to a patient's genetic profile.

A cancer charity said the work would help in testing new cancer drugs.

Cancer cells grown in the laboratory are an essential tool in cancer research.

Hundreds of different cell lines exist, allowing scientists to study the effect of new cancer drugs on the human body.

Now, a team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge and various cancer institutes around the world have released two papers cataloguing data on hundreds of cancer cell lines.

The UK team, working with colleagues in the US, Paris and Switzerland, screened more than 600 cancer cell lines with 130 drugs, identifying genetic signatures linked with drug sensitivity.

Already clues are emerging that could be of benefit to patients, including the discovery that a rare bone cancer in children (Ewing's sarcoma) appears to be vulnerable to certain drugs.

Personalised medicine
Dr Mathew Garnett of the Sanger Institute is lead researcher on one of the two papers published in the journal Nature.

He told the BBC: "It's bringing together two very large and very powerful data sets and asking which cell line is the most sensitive and what is behind that sensitivity.

"This is the largest study of its kind linking drug response with genetic markers. You need these very large studies to identify small subsets of cells that are sensitive to drugs."

Dr Levi Garraway of The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, US, is a senior member of the research team behind the second paper, which profiled 24 drugs across nearly 500 cell lines.

He told the BBC: "Developing this large cell-line resource with all the associated genetic details is another piece in the pie to get us to our goal of personalised cancer medicine.

"We're trying to get smarter about understanding what the right drug is using the genetic information in each tumour. This is a stepping stone along the way."

The next step is use the information to help decide on tailored treatments for cancer patients.

This would involve getting a genetic "fingerprint" of their tumour, which could be matched to information in the database.

Some cancer drugs are already available for individuals with a certain genetic makeup.

The best known is Herceptin, a breast cancer drug that works in patients with an overactive HER2 gene.

Professor Charles Swanton, based at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, said the papers were "an invaluable resource" that provided "extremely useful intelligence" for cancer researchers.

He added: "This new resource will help speed up cancer research and may well begin to guide further developments in personalised cancer medicine." (BBC)

Conservatives losing trust in science

(LiveScience)Politically conservative Americans have lost trust in science over the last 40 years while moderates and liberals have remained constant in the stock they put in the scientific community, a new study finds.

The most educated conservatives have slipped the most, according to the research set to appear in the April issue of the journal American Sociological Review. The change in conservative attitudes likely has to do both with changes in the conservative movement and with changes in science's role in society, said study author Gordon Gaulet, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

"There's been this need to cultivate conservative ideas in reaction to what is perceived as mainstream culture, which a lot of conservatives would suggest is biased toward secular liberalism," Gaulet told LiveScience. "Part of what being a conservative means is looking for alternatives for mainstream ideas and bases of knowledge, and science and the media are those."

The New Wind Map for US

Wind Map, which has been developed by Google computer scientists shows streams of wind moving across the US and where they are at their strongest.

Updated ever hour from the National Weather Service's forecast database, the map charts streams of wind as they make their way across the whole country.
Users can watch gusts gather on the Sierras and Rockies mountain ranges, then swoosh across the Great Plains towards New York and Canada.
Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, the co-leaders of Google's "Big Picture" visualisation research group in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"An invisible, ancient source of energy surrounds us – energy that powered the first explorations of the world, and that may be a key to the future," a statement on the website says.
"This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the US right now."
The two men behind the project have said they want to expand it to the entire planet – and are looking for any source of global wind information, tech news site Mashable reported.

Strategy of Japanese honebees

When the natural enemy of Japanese honeybee, hornet enters their colony, upto 500 bees quickly form a 'hot defensive bee ball,' trapping the hornet inside and heating it up to 46 degrees C (115F) with their collective body heat. They generate the heat by vibrating at once.

Researchers say that the neural activity in bees taking part in the attack picks up. The high temperature phase lasts about 20 minutes, it often takes up to an hour before the hornet dies inside the ball. There's an astounding fact that the collective heat generated by the group, while fatal for the hornet, leaves the bees unaffected.

Mobile firms bleed billions to fraud and bill errors

Mobile phone firms are losing $58bn (£36bn) a year worldwide to billing errors and fraud, a report says.

Juniper Research found operators were "leaking" revenue because the complexity of networks made fraud and errors harder to spot.

The problem is worst in Africa and the Middle East, where 15% of revenue is lost annually, compared with 1% in Europe and about 2.8% in North America.

The mobile industry is estimated to have generated $920bn in 2011.

"The developing markets lose the highest proportion of their revenue because they have a greater number of pre-paid customers and it is easier to control what happens on the network when there is a contract in place," said Juniper research director Windsor Holden.

"Also, developing nations have put their efforts into building subscriber bases rapidly and less thought has been given to how to deal with leakages."

Card theft

While billing errors - customers incorrectly charged - may be recoverable for mobile firms, fraud often is not.

There is a "pretty diverse" amount of that going on, according to Mr Holden.

The report identifies 12 different types of mobile fraud, including so-called interconnect bypass, where users pass off a fixed to mobile international call as a local mobile conversation.

Mobile firm NTN Ghana estimates that, over a six-month period, it lost $9m to this problem.

Subscription fraud is regarded as the biggest threat, because it is often the springboard for other types of fraudulent behaviour. It sees fraudsters activating accounts either using false details or stolen IDs.

SIM card cloning is also a big problem, and in South Africa there have even been cases of people stealing SIM cards from smart traffic lights.

Getting worse

In the days of voice-only network, frauds such as these were easier to spot, said Mr Holden.

"What is making operators' tasks more difficult is that in the post-iPhone world that is lots more data. We aren't just talking about traffic on handsets. Now we have connected cars, connected homes," he said.

"The problem will only get worse. Operators need systems that are intuitive and able to learn so that they can analyse data and look for patterns in the behaviour of traffic."

This view was borne out in a similar survey conducted by advisory firm KPMG.

Ninety-four percent of the telecom operators that it interviewed said they expected the threat of revenue leakage to increase, and almost half of them (49%) believed that the increase would be significant.

The report found that only 40% of respondents managed to retrieve more than half of their losses. Companies from Europe and the Americas had the highest recovery rates (55%) while those from Africa and the Middle East were the least effective, with four out of 10 (39%) recovering less than 10% of their reported leakages.

Google's first special hub for startup businesses in Tech City

The building, on Bonhill Street near London’s Old Street roundabout, will house 100 young businesses and will be administered by organisations such as Seedcamp and Techhub.

The Chancellor said the building, called ‘Campus’, was the result of “two years of collaboration between Google and the British Government”. He added “we salute the leadership, the creativity and the energy of everyone at Google for making this happen”.

Google’s European managing director, Matt Brittin, said the ten year lease and refurbishment on the building was “a gift from Google”, and that 800 companies had applied for a desk in the building. He added that the successful applicants were now finding it easier to grow because the project created a community and other companies wanted to see the new Google facility.

Although the seven-storey office is not on the scale of Google’s three facilities across London, it does include a series of typical Google features, including a garden with plants that tweet their water requirements and a digital plaque to celebrate its opening, which the Chancellor unveiled.

Mr Osborne said that the Government did not believe it could “flick a switch” to create a UK rival to Silicon Valley, and that the aim was to work with companies to “shine a light” on existing innovation. Tech City has grown, he said, from 200 companies to 700 in just 18 months.

The area, focused on Shoreditch and Old Street, is now home to offices funded in part by Google, Intel, Cisco, Vodafone and many smaller companies such as Airbnb as well as a Government Data Institute headed by web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

In the recent Budget, Mr Osborne introduced tax breaks for video games and confirmed investment in superfast broadband across ten major cities. He said “Google Campus will play a key role in driving this innovation – we want the UK to become a hub for technology in Europe”.

Mr Brittin said that the UK’s internet economy is growing even faster than China’s and said he hoped Campus would encourage them to aim for global success rather than merely for UK growth. He added, however, that the new office was not a vehicle for Google to add to its existing programme of acquisitions. A quarter of Google’s London employees have volunteered to mentor companies in Campus.

Headline March 29,2012 / The New 'Great' Generation

THE NEW 'GREAT' GENERATION

Cartography photo with Dee of Senegal Students

Respectful Dedication PM of Senegal, Susan Buffet , Czech Novelist Josef Skvorecky

And now this is a beautiful photograph. If you look closely, you can see and feel that they want to be heard. Now, they will be!! Social justice is the need of the entire world. No politics or a political group gave birth to the SAM and Samurai; rather students organised themselves by finding an International center of gravity and thus zooming, invincible.

It maybe somewhat early, but by this year 2012, the Senegalese Super Students are a community that the world generally forgot. Student Angel Mother embraced them, and , so , here they are in the headline symbol post returning the honour with "SAM PLAYCARDS". We thank them on behalf of the World, the World students, and SAM founders AND assure them of every trust, faith and cooperation! We expect and hope that they will share SAM forward with their whole country and student groups and that they will join up on !WOW! To build a better world by spreading goodness around!

The great news for them and the global students is that the world famous TV programme - "Sesame Street" will now focus on Science, Engineering, Maths, a part of an effort to encourage young children to study the subjects! All thanks to !WOW! That will be imparting this at advance level. While this post is dedicated to 3 very great humans, we feel we most definitely wish to illuminate 2 of these. Susan Buffet was a great giver of all times and Skvoresky wrote this rare masterpiece "The Engineer of Human Souls"

The World Students should never miss this magnum opus. One of the very beautiful things that Skvoresky said was what is presently the common emotional thread between global student and that no government can ever surpass: "Circumstances may change, but there is a core of human experience that remains essentially the same."

We say the same to all our fellow students from Senegal and to all the students of the world. God bless and Goodnight from all of us!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless.

Chemistry Graduate Honored as a ‘Rising Star’

2001 Southwestern University graduate Megan Bourg Sassin has been selected to receive one of the first Rising Star Awards from the Women Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Sassin will receive the award March 26 at the 243rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. The meeting will include a symposium featuring the work of the award winners.

Sassin was selected to receive the award for her work as a research chemist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. The laboratory is the corporate research laboratory for the Navy and Marine Corps and conducts a broad program of scientific research. Sassin began working at the laboratory in 2008 as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow after receiving her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California – Irvine. She has been a staff scientist in the NRL’s Surface Chemistry Branch since December 2010.

Sassin’s research at the NRL focuses on the design, fabrication and characterization of 3D nanostructured electrode architectures that improve the performance of electrochemical capacitors, lithium-ion batteries, metal–air batteries and fuel cells. This work has applications in a wide variety of areas, including consumer electronics, transportation, and energy generation and distribution.

Sassin’s research been published in journals such as the Journal of Physical Chemistry, Energy and Environmental Science, ACS Nano, Accounts of Chemical Research, and the Bulletin of the Materials Research Society. Sassin was nominated for the Rising Star Award by her section head at the Naval Research Laboratory, Dr. Debra Rolison. Rolison is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and received the organizations’s 2011 Award in the Chemistry of Materials.

The Rising Star awards were created in 2012 to recognize exceptional mid-career women chemists across all areas of chemistry on a national level. They also are intended to help promote retention of women in science. Sassin said she would not have been able to achieve what she has without the chemistry professors at Southwestern.

“The chemistry professors at Southwestern provided me with the knowledge, practical lab skills and communication skills that have enabled me to accomplish my goal of becoming a research chemist,” she said. “Their support while at Southwestern and throughout my graduate school experience was so valuable − it kept me going when times got rough.”

Read article at the original source here.

Brown University To Host Advanced Materials Conference

Brown University has organized a conference to explore the frontier of advanced materials. The all-day “Materials by Design” gathering on Thursday, March 29, 2012, features talks and discussions by leading innovators and scientists in industry, academia, and the federal government. The meeting stems from a call by President Obama for American companies to develop advanced materials at twice the speed as currently possible and at a fraction of the cost.

Last June, President Obama announced the Materials Genome Initiative, an ambitious effort to assist American companies to develop advanced materials at twice the speed as currently possible and at a fraction of the cost. The proposal stems in part from the startling losses in employment and technology that have beset the U.S. manufacturing sector and is intended to reposition America as a leader in producing advanced materials from safer, lighter vehicles to solar cells as cheap as paint. In a new funding request for next fiscal year, Obama seeks more than $100 million to continue the initiative.

Hoping to capitalize on the momentum, Brown University has organized a conference on March 29, 2012, to explore synergies and research opportunities in advanced materials. The all-day gathering, called “Materials by Design,” features talks and discussions by leading innovators and scientists in industry, academia, and the federal government.

Read details here.

UC Davis: Chemist, Mathematician Win Sloan Fellowships

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded research fellowships to two assistant professors at the University of California, Davis, one a chemist attempting to mimic how plants turn sunlight into fuel and the other a mathematician studying wave reflections from complex objects.

The fellowships, worth $50,000 over two years, are given to early career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars of the next generation of scientific leaders.

Chemist Louise Berben and mathematician James Bremer came to UC Davis as a result of recent campus hiring initiatives in energy and fundamental physics, said Winston Ko, dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in the College of Letters and Science. "Their Sloan fellowships confirm the increasing excellence of the faculty we are building," Ko said.

Berben is using metal catalysts to turn carbon dioxide into organic molecules, such as formate, formaldehyde and methanol, which can be used as fuels. Her ultimate aim is to use electrons from photovoltaic cells to convert carbon dioxide to liquid fuel.

Her research focuses on new complexes and clusters based on elements such as iron and aluminum that are abundant in the earth and cheap. She studies how these materials can act as catalysts to convert carbon dioxide into more complex molecules, and can act on organic molecules called alkanes, a group which includes methane, propane and butane.

Berben earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2000 and her doctorate from UC Berkeley in 2005. She joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009 after postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also holds a diploma in piano performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Bremer's research interests are in computational mathematics, numerical science and computational harmonic analysis. More simply, he is interested in what happens when waves reflect from complex surfaces.

Radar and sonar work by bouncing radio or sound waves off objects and listening to the return signals. For simplicity, engineers usually consider waves bouncing off simple, smooth objects and surfaces. But real objects like jumbo jets and submarines have curves, corners and antenna, Bremer said. His work explores what the return echoes from geometrically complicated objects should look like.

Bremer earned joint bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2001, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 2007. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 2007.

Berben and Bremer are among 126 U.S. and Canadian researchers to be awarded Sloan Research Fellowships this year.

Read article at the original source here.

Light Works: Dan Flavin and Robert Irwin

Stanford University



Beginning in the 1920s, with the work of the Constructivists, electric light became a medium for art. With the advent of Minimalism in the late 1960s, artists found that using light as a medium could challenge perception and be impersonal as well as emotionally engaging. This installation features two large pieces.

One by Dan Flavin is an example of the artist’s use of mass-produced fluorescent light. The second work, an untitled disc by Robert Irwin, typifies the interest in light and space that occupied a number of artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s. These two works complement Sculptures from the Fisher Family Collection and provide another look at the diverse artistic approaches in the 1960s.

Read details here.

On The Road To Reclamation

Kris Foster


A few years ago, U of S Civil Engineer Lee Barbour took his wife Twila to the Mildred Lake oil sands mine site operated by Syncrude, just north of Fort McMurray. Barbour had been working with Syncrude on reclamation research projects since 1998 and wanted to show his wife his work.

“Driving towards Fort McMurray, along the Athabasca River in the middle of boreal forest, is just beautiful,” said Barbour. “After a short drive along the beautiful Athabasca River valley we came up over a small rise and suddenly in front of us was this panoramic view of the highway, passing like a long causeway between two gaping open pits steaming with newly placed tailings­­­­—the dark shadow and flares of the refinery at the end of the causeway. For a moment we felt like a couple of hobbits on a quest towards Mordor,” a reference to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

Barbour recalled looking at his wife and seeing a tear in her eye as she asked, “What are they doing?” However, when he took Twila to a reclaimed overburden at the same mine site later that day, “I noticed how her face lightened as we came across a beautiful wetland, surrounded by trees and grasses, birds flying overhead.” The site was called Bill’s Lake, named after a colleague who started reclamation research at Syncrude with Barbour many years ago. Barbour added that Bill’s Lake is much closer to the Shire than Mordor.

Barbour’s Tolkein analogy is quite apt for his research. “The discussion around oil sands mining is becoming increasingly polarized in our society. Some see only Mordor while others wistfully dream of the Shire. There are lots of good reasons to believe that there is a path between Mordor and the Shire but it is a path that will be mapped out through sound research partnerships.”

Barbour will now have more support than ever in his quest to find that path—he was recently awarded a five-year Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Hydrogeological Characterization of Oil Sands Mine Closure Landforms, funded with $2.6 million contributed equally by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Syncrude. Syncrude and the U of S will provide an additional $1 million of in-kind support.

“The key questions revolve around what it will take to restore these mine sites back to naturally performing landscapes with an equivalent capability to that which existed prior to mining. The industry works to establish uplands with water and nutrient balances, which are similar to natural sites. They then try to understand the key processes that are operative as they monitor the evolution of these landforms towards fully functioning natural systems.”

It is easy to blame corporations, explained Barbour, but they are working within the rules and regulations government and society have put in place. “We all want to crucify big business, but these companies have agreements with the government. Part of that agreement is to restore the environment to an equivalent capability to that present before their temporary use of the land for mining. The research helps to guide the industry efforts in reaching their reclamation goals.”

Barbour’s new research will examine the movement of water and chemical species of interest within the large upland structures built during mining. “We want to help develop strategies to ensure that water released after mine closures doesn’t have a detrimental impact on the environment. The methods developed in this research will be applicable not only at oil sands mines but at other mine sites as well.”

He noted that it is a daunting project, and yet just a small component of the much larger research program funded by Syncrude that includes support for 10 other NSERC-IRCs.

In carrying out his work, Barbour will call on the expertise of many colleagues in many different units—including geology and soil science—across campus. “I often remind young engineers that their career success will depend on their ability to cultivate strong relationships. This type of research would not be possible without strong, relationship-based, multidisciplinary, collaborative research.”

The chair appointment will allow Barbour to train two postdocs, two PhDs, six masters’ students and two undergraduate students. He and his team will also have the opportunity to work with Syncrude’s scientists and engineers. “It is in large measure the energy and passion that these researchers bring to this journey that gives me the encouragement I need to take this on.”

Read article at the original source here.

Siri smacked with another lawsuit over 'false' advertising

A lawsuit was filed by plaintiff David Jones on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, arguing that the advertising surrounding Apple's virtual personal assistant does not match the service's actual functionality.

"Through its nationwide multimedia marketing campaign, Apple disseminates false and deceptive representations regarding the functionality of the Siri feature," Jones charges, according to the Los Angeles Times, which obtained a copy of the suit. "For example, in many of Apple's television commercials, consumers are shown using Siri to make appointments, find restaurants, and even to learn the guitar chords to classic rock songs. In its advertisements, Apple depicts these tasks as easily accomplished 'just by asking' Siri."

According to the Times, Jones went on to say that Siri often misunderstood what he asked or delivered the wrong answer. "Promptly after the purchase of his iPhone 4S, [Fazio] realized that Siri was not performing as advertised," his complaint reads. "For instance, when [Fazio] asked Siri for directions to a certain place, or to locate a store, Siri either did not understand what Plaintiff was asking, or after a very long wait time, responded with the wrong answer."Jones' lawsuit follows a similar one brought against Apple and Siri in California earlier this month. In that case, an iPhone 4S owner, Frank Fazio, argued that Apple's Siri does not perform the way Apple claims it will in its ads.

Apple launched its Siri virtual personal assistant in October with the iPhone 4S. The software is capable of searching the Web, setting reminders, and performing other basic tasks in response to voice commands. Siri is currently in beta, which could be used as part of a defense if Apple is ever brought to court over these latest lawsuits. After all, by Apple's own admission, Siri is a work in progress.

Source

Photoshop CS6 beta downloads surpass a half million

Apparently a lot of people are interested in the new beta of Photoshop CS6: the software has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, Adobe said.

That's a big number for a premium software product. But of course, the beta is free, and the final version won't be, so it's hard to guess what the conversion rate will be from beta downloads to actual purchases.

Still, as a marketing stunt alone, it has to be useful for Adobe. Photoshop's price -- $699 for the full standard version and $999 for Extended -- is a big deterrent for people thinking about trying it. Getting it into people's hands could help convince them that it's worth paying for -- and perhaps that other software from the company's Creative Suite also is. It also could help encourage upgrades from people who skip alternate releases to save money.

Adobe hasn't had a public Photoshop beta since CS3.

New features in Photoshop CS6 include some areas of hardware acceleration, the arrival of video editing in the standard version, content-aware moving and patching that lets the software better fill in holes left by editing, better vector editing, new raw-image editing controls, selective blurring tools, an updated system for automatic image adjustments, an adaptive wide-angle tool to fiddle with perspective, and more.

The final version of Photoshop CS6 is due in the first half of the year.

Source

Dell Gives Up On Selling Smartphones In the U.S

It should come as no surprise then that Dell, who entered the smartphone market less than two years ago, has announced that they have ceased sales of their last remaining smartphone lines: the Android-powered Venue and the Venue Pro Windows Phone. With those product lines getting the axe, Dell has (for now) put an end to their struggling smartphone business here in the States.

None of Dell’s smartphones managed to gain critical mass in the U.S. market, thanks in part to hardware and software issues that plagued the likes of the Streak 5 and the Venue Pro. They haven’t given up the smartphone ghost completely though, as they’ll continue to sell their devices outside of the United States. Their focus now, according to PC World, has shifted toward “emerging markets and higher-margin products.”

The smartphone game can be a very tough one to crack -- consumers, fans, zealots, and certainly us tech writers, demand continuous improvement from the companies that make our hardware. Make them bigger, thinner, faster, better looking, and do it several times a year. Those are tall orders even for entrenched players like HTC and Motorola, so for a company like Dell whose primary focus remains in PC hardware and software solutions the odds of building and maintaining a considerable stake in the smartphone market were against them from the beginning.

HP has learned that lesson all too well -- after having spent an inordinate sum of money to throw their hat into the smartphone and tablet ring with webOS, they pulled the plug in what seems like record time. It takes more than cash and manpower to produce a hit, and in the end neither HP or Dell hit upon that crucial formula.

Right now though, Dell’s future in mobile remains hazy. A Dell spokesperson confirmed that the company has plans to push out new mobile products later this year, though he refused to comment on what exactly those devices are. It’s very possible that Dell intends to dust themselves off and jump back into the ring, but they’ll need a brand new strategy if they want to start playing with the big boys any time soon


Source

Personalized New App Zite Comes to Android

Co-founder Mike Klaas demonstrated the app for me earlier this week. The interface and features should be pretty familiar to anyone using the previous versions. You enter your Facebook or Twitter information, then Zite brings up a stream of stories that are likely to interest you. You can improve the app’s understanding of your tastes by hitting the thumbs up or down button for each article. And you can import your account if you’ve already set one up on a different device. (Klaas says there’s a fair amount of overlap between iPhone and iPad users, but he’s not sure whether that’ll be the same with Android — “The question is, what tablet do Android users use?”)

The new app integrates with Android’s sharing features, making it possible to hit one button and share via pretty much any method or social network you want.

For a relatively small company, Zite has been moving pretty quickly onto new devices. It launched on the iPad, then released its iPhone app in December of last year. Flipboard, on the other hand, has a larger team (Klaas says Zite runs as a largely independent unit inside CNN and currently has 11.5 full-time employees) and is currently available only for the iPad and iPhone.

Klaas says that one of Zite’s advantages is that “although we try to have a really good, clean UI, that’s not the value proposition.” Instead, Zite’s focus is on searching far and wide across the Web for news stories, and delivering genuinely personalized content — technology that carries over onto any platform.

Source

Panasonic DMP-BDT320 review

 

Full Review

The Panasonic DMP-BDT320 is a net-connected 3D Blu-ray player offering several improvements over last year’s DMP-BDT310, including a boost to audio fidelity and greater video clarity

Panasonic DMP-BDT320 review

Love

• Peerless HD video playback
• Advanced audio processing
• Solid choice in Catch-up TV

Hate

• Tricky touchpad remote control
• Complex network file set-up
• 
  

The Panasonic DMP-BDT320 is the brand's top of the line high-street disc spinner. You’ll find it parked just ahead of the economy 7 Panasonic DMP-BDT220, but behind the brand’s gleaming audiophile DMP-BDT500. It’s stupidly slim, but packed with clever tech.

The model is aimed squarely at the hi-tech Sony BDP-S590 and makes the likes of the £500 Onkyo BD-SP809 look like a relic from the Stone Age.

Panasonic DMP-BDT320: Features

Obviously networkable, this player has access to copious catch-up TV and VoD from Panasonic’s VIERA Connect portal. BBC iPlayer, Netflix, YouTube, Dailymotion and Acetrax are the big names on offer, but there’s plenty of other content available. Social media apps for Facebook, Twitter and Picasa are also provided, as is Skype (optional HD camera required).

Multimedia playback from USB is similarly impressive. MKV and FLAC both fly, as does regular fare such as AVI, MOV, MP3 and WAV. However, if you store your content on a NAS, you’ll need to manually enter the IP address and shared folder name of your device in order to stream your files.

If your eyes have already glazed over at the prospect, best forget about LAN streaming altogether and invest in some big thumbdrives.

Panasonic DMP-BDT320: Connectivity

It may be a mere 27mm tall, but this deck accommodates HDMI, phono AV and optical digital audio connections. There’s also a back-panel USB input for a Skype cam. On the front fascia is a flap concealing a secondary USB for media playback, plus an SD card reader. Wi-Fi is integrated.

Panasonic DMP-BDT320: Usability

The BDT320 uses a slot loader rather than a tray, augmented by a sensor which illuminates ingress when your hand closes in. Disc loading times are fast, with Java heavy discs delivered onscreen in around 50s.

We’re less keen on the new zapper. While superficially funky, it proves a chore to use. Navigation is via a series of coded strokes. There’s a single tap to Enter, while a downward brush takes you, well, downwards. But the remote often seems unable to distinguish between them, leading to a chorus of Simpsonesque D’Ohs from the user.

Panasonic DMP-BDT320: Performance

Not only does this deck offer sublime HD video playback, it’s also great with audio. Panasonic has introduced an ingenious two-step Super High Clarity mode designed to improve the player’s sonic performance over HDMI.

Step one shuts down the video DAC within the deck’s UniPhier chip (where all the real work is done) to reduce electrical noise. Step 2 blanks out the HDMI video output entirely, for even greater audio purity. Such engineering finesse is unheard of at this price point.

Panasonic DMP-BDT320: Verdict

If you’re looking for a Blu-ray deck that delivers not only from disc, but media files and IPTV, then the BDT320 won’t disappoint. Watch out for that touchpad controller though, it’s not an easy beast to live with.

Source: T3 

Windows PCs to decline as Android, Apple devices rise

 Windows is going to be eclipsed by Android in 2016, according to market researcher IDC. Expect Apple's iOS to see an uptick too.

The venerable Windows-Intel PC will see a sharp decline by 2016 while devices running Android and Apple's iOS are on the rise, market researcher IDC said today.

There will be a "dramatic shift" between 2011 and 2016, with the "once-dominant" Windows-Intel (aka, x86) PCs dropping from a market-dominating 35.9 percent share in 2011 to 25.1 percent in 2016," IDC said.

Mobile devices like Android phones and tablets and Apple iPhones and iPads will step into the void and begin to dominate. Android devices (using ARM chips) will grow from 29.4 percent share in 2011 to a leading 31.1 percent share in 2016. And Apple's iOS-based devices will grow from a 14.6 percent share in 2011 to 17.3 percent in 2016. 

 

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The once-dominant Windows-x86 PCs will drop from a market leading 35.9 percent share in 2011 to 25.1 percent in 2016, IDC said. Android and iOS market share will continue to rise, eventually eclipsing Windows.

(Credit: IDC)

 

"Smart, connected, compute-capable [phones and tablets] are playing an increasingly important role in nearly every individual's life," Bob O'Donnell, vice president of clients and displays at IDC, said in a statement.

This year, unit shipments for smart connected devices should top 1.1 billion worldwide, IDC said. By 2016, IDC predicts shipments will jump to 1.84 billion units, more than double the 2011 figure.

This works out to a compound annual growth rate of 15.4 percent for the five-year forecast period, IDC said.

Android: But it's not all good news for all players in the Android market. "Android's growth is tied directly to the propagation of lower-priced devices," Tom Mainelli, research director of mobile connected devices at IDC, said in a statement. "So, while we expect dozens of hardware vendors to own some share in the Android market, many will find profitability difficult to sustain."

iOS: And IDC expects a large percentage of application developers to focus their efforts on iOS because iOS users are willing to pay for high-quality apps. 

Source: cnet

Mardan Palace leads the way with unique spa offering

Antalya (Turkey): The $1.4bn Mardan Palace, which opened its doors in Antalya in 2009, recently picked up two major awards for World’s Leading Spa Hotel and World’s Leading Luxury Resort at the World Travel Awards.

Built by Azerbaijan billionaire Telman Ismailov as an opulent palace for elite travellers, the stunning property is leading the way with its combined holistic and medical based spa treatments and is soon set to unveil a brand new Jack Nicklaus golf course.

Hailing a return to the opulent, golden age of the Ottoman Empire, the property is the vision of Telman Ismailov, chairman of Russia’s biggest property developers AST, who fell in love with the region.

Surrounded by the dramatic Taurus Mountain range, the 546 room-property, which includes two Royal Suites with private pools, was designed with Turkish heritage in mind.

Each guestroom at this family friendly property is tastefully decorated and comes with all the mod coms you would expect from a high end hotel, not to mention an optional 24 hour butler service.

The architecture reflects distinctive landmarks of Istanbul - including ‘The Dolmabahce Palace’ and the ‘Da Vinci Bridge’.

Some of the innovative and quirky features at the glittering property include gondolas that sail guests around an enormous swimming pool (the largest in Europe), an underwater fish restaurant with aquariums for walls and a dramatic amphitheatre which seats up to 900 guests and attracts performances from international stars such as the Enbe Band as well as spectacular laser shows.

Internationally acclaimed chefs have created over ten restaurants including French, Japanese, Russian, Thai and traditional Turkish. Guests can dine a la carte under a replica of Istanbul’s famed Maiden’s Tower.

There are also 14 bars and cafes as well as a two-story jungle themed nightclub.

Spa holidays

One of the highlights of this spectacular property is the award winning 7500 sq metre spa and wellness centre that provides all the necessities for serious relaxation.

As one of the largest spas in Europe, it is set apart by the fact that treatments available are both holistic and medical in their orientation.

Features include a vitamin and champagne bath, an oriental steam bath, snow caves, a hamman and a thalasso pool. Internationally inspired treatments include hot stone therapy, Thai, Balinese, Shiatsu massages and Hydrotherapy.

There are over 30 treatment rooms with all the latest hi-tech equipment.

On being named World’s Leading Spa Hotel and World’s Leading Luxury Resort at the World Travel Awards, Cumhur Ozen, General Manager, Mardan Palace, explained:

“This is the second time in a row that we have been named World’s Leading Spa Hotel. We opened in 2009 and are leading with our spa all around the world. It is a unique spa as it is the first time medical treatment and normal treatments are available under one roof.”

Most recently, the Mardan spa introduced the Oberon Dienal diagnostic scannng system.

The Oberon system, which is performed by a trained doctor, assesses fluctuating wave characteristics of body tissue, individual cells and chromosomes.

The client is scanned by the Oberon using a pair of headphones which emit a range of frequencies of magnetic fields. The results of the Oberon scan are then compared to the resonant frequencies of all normal organs and common disease tissues in various stages of progression.

At the end of the scanning process, which is entirely painless, recommendation such as diet, herbal therapy, acupuncture, ozone therapy and / or massage are made for the client.

Other treatments at the Mardan spa include acupuncture, which is administered by a specialist doctor. Recommended for pain treatment and stress management, treatments last approximately 30 minutes.

The Ozone Sauna is a detox method which ensures the neutralisation of the toxins accumulated under the skin. Blood circulation is accelerated under the skin and between the muscles with ozone sauna, thus a rapid muscle relaxation ensures.

Meanwhile there is also a chiropractor on hand to help guests with conditions such as spinal-cervical disc herniation, spinal orthosis and muscle spasm. Colon Hydrotherapy is an alternative therapy used to maintain and restore optimum health by dislodging toxic substances taken from the intestinal walls.

This treatment is recommended for individuals with allergies or weakened immune systems and functional intestinal diseases.

The Beauty Centre at the Mardan Palace combines luxury pampering and cutting-edge, results-focused, facial skin care and body treatments. Brand partners include Comfort Zone, Thali’sens, Carita, Algotherm and Dr. Murad.

A staff of professional estheticians is on hand to advise guests on the treatments best suited to their individual needs, accompanied by innovative products to take home and continue treatment.

Men’s skin care for all skin types and conditions is also offered with professional beauty therapist on hand to analyse the skin condition and determine which treatment is most appropriate.

The Mardan Fitness Centre offers personal instruction and guidance from a fitness expert who will recommend a wellness programme and offer solutions for detox, stress and burnout, fitness and weight control.

Also available at the Mardan Palace is an exhilarating selection of water sports, including yachts available to be charterd, tennis courts, bowling alleys, basketball, volleyball and squash.

A Jack Nicklaus 18 – hole golf course is set to open over the next few months for golfing enthusiasts, meanwhile there is talk of a marina being developed next to the property.

Antalya is one of the tourism success stories of the millenium, attracting nine million tourists every year.

The region is also forging a reputation as a hub for meetings, with its congress centre able to accommodate more than 50,000 delegates.

In recent years, the international airport has expanded its facilities and this combined with the jewel that is the Mardan Palace, means the future looks bright for this popular destination.

Source: breakingtravelnews

LADY GAGA CELEBRATED HER 26TH BIRTHDAY

Lady Gaga celebrated her 26th birthday on Wednesday, prompting many of her fans to take to Twitter with birthday wishes.

The "Mother Monster," who affectionately refers to her fans as "Little Monsters" commented on how it felt to be 26, posting a photo on Twitter a few hours before midnight, which depicted a crumbling chocolate cake slice with a lone candle a top of it.

However the sappy looking cake doesn't appear to represent Lady Gaga's career in the least. Since Gaga released her debut album "The Fame" in 2008, she has become a worldwide success. Gaga released her second album, "Born This Way" in 2011 that sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. in one week. Gaga now has plans to begin a worldwide "Born This Way" tour this coming April.

Gaga has also started her own foundation called "Born This Way" in an effort to promote acceptance of everyone and combat bullying.

While Gaga has not announced any official plans for her 26th birthday, when asked on Twitter what she was going to do she responded "Quinceanera." While the Mother Monster has earned a substantial social presence on Facebook and Twitter, with over 21,725,000 followers, she has also started her own business venture.

Lady Gaga now has her own social networking site titled "Little Monsters." The site is used to encourage others to express themselves in an open community.

"Be brave. Dare to create and share your art with the world. Be kind. Encourage and support your fellow monsters. Be tolerant. Never make anyone feel unwelcome or judged, treat everyone with respect, love and acceptance," is part of the Monster code.

Happy Birthday Lady Gaga was a top trending topic on Twitter Wednesday morning with many users sending the star happy wishes. "Remember to smile at 9:53 am EST time. Why? Because that was the exact time @ladygaga was born. Happy Birthday Lady Gaga."

"Today, 26 years ago, born the woman that changed millions of lives, and made them free + brave..Happy Birthday Lady Gaga! PAWS UP FOREVER," Rinaa's Morpiness added.

Source: Mtv