Switching ISP leaves 1 in 7 offline for weeks

British Broadbands/
Consumers often save hundreds of pounds per year by switchingbroadband supplier, but the process of switching can be convoluted.

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of web news site thinkbroadband.com, who commissioned the survey, said “the current delays in migrating services are likely to put consumers off from switching providers. At the moment, the migration process varies depending on which combination of broadband and telephone service you’re changing and the matrix of possible options is simply too large.”
While six out of ten broadband migrations were carried out within the hour, many of the 800 customers surveyed were left in limbo while broadband providers tried to reconnect services from one provider to another.

Communications regulator Ofcom is planning to change the broadband service provider “migration rules” early next year. Its own research claims one in five routinely lose connectivity for a week. Over the last year, 130,000 households were also switched to the wrong phone line.
Ofcom Chief Executive, Ed Richards said: “Smooth switching processes are essential to ensure that consumers can change providers with confidence. Many people think that the current systems are too difficult and unreliable which is why we have made it one of our priorities to tackle this problem.
The problems of switching are likely to be made more conspicuous with the introduction of new advertising rules, tightening up what speeds ISPs can promise customers. The average speed achieved for UK broadband customers was 7.6Mbit/s, compared to routinely advertised figures of 20MB and 24MB. New rules mean that 10 per cent of customers much actually be able to receive advertised figures.

Fat tax to help

A fat tax could raise money and help get people eating more healthily, says a director at the University of Oxford.

Health promotion research group director Mike Rayner said at least a quarter of British adults are obese, and that is costing the health services billions of pounds of year every year.

He called for a 12p tax on soft drinks, even bigger than the 2 cents tax introduced in France, claiming it would prevent several thousand deaths a year as people switched to healthier drinks.


But Labour MP Angela Eagle and Liberal Democrat minister Steve Webb suggested better packaging and education were likely to be more practical options.

Mr Rayner said taxes were already used to discourage people from drinking or smoking and a fat tax plan would raise money for the Treasury and prevent people dying.

He said: "There's evidence to show that manipulating food prices can encourage healthy eating. So why are we so reluctant to change the way we tax food?

"We're in the grip of an obesity crisis. As a nation we're consuming too many calories and eating too much cheap, energy-dense food, like crisps, chocolate bars or fizzy drinks."

Chips or doughnuts
He explained how Denmark introduced a 'fat tax' on foods containing saturated fats, which raise cholesterol.

He said: "They've got the right idea, but a lot of the low-fat foods in Britain are high in salt, so we might be tackling one problem only to create another.

"Instead we need to rethink the way we apply VAT to food. At the moment we have a muddled system: you do pay tax on some relatively-healthy things like smoothies, but you don't pay it on a lot of junk food like chips or doughnuts.

"I don't care whether it's hot or cold, whether you got it from a takeaway or a shop - I'd like us to tax all unhealthy foods from butter to biscuits. And in doing so we can tackle a problem that will only keep expanding."

His film was shown to two MPs to gauge what support there might be from politicians.


Mr Webb, a Liberal Democrat pensions minister, called on manufacturers to put "put less junk into the food" and said of the fat tax: "It should certainly be looked at, but not as a tax-raising measure."

He added: "We should look at Denmark and other countries who have tried it and see what the evidence is, so we need to do it based on the evidence. But it is worth looking at, I agree."

Ms Eagle, the shadow leader of the House of Commons, called for better food labelling and education and said a fat tax was a "lot easier said than done".

She said: "My instinct is that VAT or tax may have a role to play but education, assistance, and regulation of some of the salt content in food

'Extreme Universe' puzzle deepens

Simulations have tried to determine how gamma
ray bursts form in dying stars 

The mystery surrounding the source of the highest-energy particles known in the Universe has grown deeper.

The particles, known as cosmic rays, can show up with energies a million times higher than the biggest particle accelerators on Earth can produce.

Astrophysicists believed that only two sources could make them: supermassive black holes in active galaxies, or so-called gamma ray bursts.

A study in Nature has now all but ruled out gamma ray bursts as the cause.

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest events we know of, though their sources remain a matter of some debate. They can release in hours more energy than our Sun will ever produce.

Computer models predict that GRBs could be the source of cosmic rays - mostly subatomic particles called protons, accelerated to incredibly high speeds.

But they were also predicted to produce a stream of neutrinos, the slippery subatomic particles recently brought to fame in claims of faster-than-light travel.

So researchers at the IceCube neutrino telescope went looking for evidence of neutrino arrival that coincided with measurements of gamma ray bursts detected by the Fermi and Swift space telescopes.

But it found none - suggesting that active galactic nuclei, where supermassive black holes reside, are likely to be the source.

'Huge breakthrough'

IceCube comprises 86 strings holding
5,160 highly sensitive light detectors 

Given that neutrinos have such a low probability of interacting with matter as we know it, IceCube is a neutrino detector of immense proportions.

Situated at the South Pole, it consists of more than 5,000 optical sensors buried across a cubic kilometre of glacial ice, each looking for the brief blue flash of light produced when a neutrino happens to bump into atomic nuclei in the ice.


Over the course of measurements taken between mid-2008 and mid-2010, some 300 GRBs were recorded - but IceCube scientists detected none of the eight or so neutrinos that they predicted would be associated with those events.

The models that lead to such predictions are making guesses about the most violent, highest-energy processes of which physics can conceive.

Because those models include a few educated guesses, GRBs are not completely out of the running as the source of the highest energy cosmic rays we see; perhaps neutrinos are not produced in the numbers that physicists expect.

Nevertheless, Julie McEnery, a project scientist on the Fermi space telescope who was not involved with the research, said it was a "huge breakthrough for IceCube to make an astrophysically meaningful measurement".

"This is the question," she told BBC News. "The origin of cosmic rays is in general one of the longest-standing questions in astrophysics, and the ultra-high-energy rays are particularly interesting.

"They're just completely cool however you think about them, but they're also pointing to something extraordinary that can happen in some astrophysical sources - and it's key to understanding not only where but how they are produced."
u

Handsfree Umbrella

GENEVA — A handsfree umbrella, parachutes for airplanes and other quirky inventions went on display Wednesday at the opening of the world's biggest fair for new gadgets.

Even the ribbon-cutting was done by a humanoid robot.

A thousand inventions all had their debut in Geneva, including a robotic claw hand, a high-tech screen to play simulated golf and a ball designed to protect its user from electromagnetic waves generated by WiFi and other household devices.

Television, radio and microwaves all use electromagnetic waves that vary according to wavelength, energy and frequency.

Jaques Surbeck of Geneva said the ball aims to improve health. "This one works in order to linearize the waves in order to allow them to be compatible with the biological experience," he said.

Officials said 789 exhibitors from 46 countries and 60,000 visitors are expected at the fair, which runs until April 22. "We can hardly believe this given the cost of the Swiss franc and the economic situation throughout the world," said the fair's president, Jean-Luc Vincent.

An international flavor and the draw of the unexpected appealed to visitors.

"There are many funny inventions, and I recognize that people from many different countries are here," said visitor Christine Epiney.

School boy amazed to receive answer from Education Secretary

UK : A five-year-old boy was amazed to receive a letter from Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, after a note he launched tied to a helium balloon landed outside the MP’s office.

Eddie Nicholls released his message from Halstow Primary School in Greenwich, south east London, last month telling the recipient about his interests and hobbies. But to his astonishment, he received a reply from Mr Gove yesterday saying it was a “delight to receive post in such an unusual way”.

The Tory MP for Surrey Heath also revealed that, like Eddie, he is a Star Wars fan, and that his children recently watched the animated comedy film Despicable Me. In his reply, dated March 30, Mr Gove, who has a son and a daughter, wrote: “Thank you for your letter, which landed right outside my office, the Department for Education, here in Westminster today.
“The balloon must have floated all the way here past the London Eye, over Parliament, and maybe by the Tower of London.

'Eggless' chick laid by hen in Sri Lanka

A Sri Lankan hen has given birth to a chick without an egg, in a new twist on the age-old question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

Instead of passing out of the hen's body and being incubated outside, the egg was incubated in the hen for 21 days and then hatched inside the hen.

The chick is fully formed and healthy, although the mother has died.

The government veterinary officer in the area said he had never seen anything like it before.

PR Yapa, the chief veterinary officer of Welimada, where it took place, examined the hen's carcass.

He found that the fertilised egg had developed within the hen's reproductive system, but stayed inside the hen's body until it hatched.

A post-mortem conducted on the hen's body concluded that it died of internal wounds.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the story has made headlines in Sri Lanka, with the Sri Lankan Daily Mirror's concluding: "The chicken came first; not the egg."

Drag Racer's escape from fireball

Charlotte, North Carolina: Drag racer Matt Hagan was incredibly able to walk away from the remains of his car after it exploded into flames during a qualifying race on Sunday.

Debris from the car's body was scattered across the track but far from appreciating his lucky escape, Hagan appeared angry at losing the race.
Picking up a piece of the wreckage the driver slammed it down in frustration as he exited the race track.

Facebook's listen button

The social network has launched a "listen" button on music artists' pages.

On the top right corner between the "like" and "message" buttons on musicians' fan pages, users can click "listen" and be guided to songs on any of the music streaming services the user has signed up for, such as Spotify and Rdio.

This is different than the "listen with" buttonsusers can click when they see what their friends are listening too; those buttons were created by streaming services for Open Graph's Timeline apps. Facebook's new "listen" button only appears on artists' pages and not on a centralized place on the site.
Over the past year, the social-networking giant has been rolling out new and different ways for users to listen to music, which seems like it will only maximize people's visits to the site and lengthen the amount of time they stay on it.

Headline April 20th, 2012 / The Five Shufflers!

"The Five Shufflers!"

Respectful dedication Kevin Slavin-Scientist Ata-ur-Rehman-Nancy Pelosi

Kevin Slavin

Scientist Ata-ur-Rehman-

Nancy Pelosi

Yuri Milner, a Russian entrepreneur has a startling insight and future vision: ''? The data equivalent to the total volume of information created from the beginning of human civiloiozation until now can be generated in the space of just two days.'' He anticipates that to handle this info overload, 'the emergence of a global brain, which will comsist of all the humans connected to each other and to their machines and interecting in a very unique and profound way, creating an intelligence that does not belong to any single human being or computer.'' 

This is very doable and this is the focus of all including Student Angel Mother. While Google also correctly views the future as a 'global brain that will do all the thinking for us.' So for the best price and value transactions, Amazon will be pondering this. And SAM will be pondering the best future values for the global students. 

On the other hand the best contrarian view so far expressed is on the global financial markets. One area of human activity that has to stay leading edge all the time because of the needs of computerization and automation. A brave new world of Robot trading is very much on the cards as computing power in parallel computing rises. 

And all students will be well advised to lookup the ''VIX'' index of volatility. Thats Wall Street's and now the world's ''nightmare gauge.'' Its spectrum swings are surely attributable to technology. Everything plunges and everything rallies back. Now if you all can imagine ''Integrated Planet Finance'' then do consider the volatility factor? Just as Greece Europe into a tail spin. The World needs a new ''Financial Architecture'' or Technology will wipe out the developing countries!!! 

American leaders and Global leaders must consider this fact with utmost sincerety and care! And to add to this, Consumers are getting more and more fickle. Technologies speed of adoption has its obverse in the speed of absolescence. And online electorates are violent. Yo yoing every hour. 

And it is being understood now, that floating voters are high frequency traders of the political market. So while the world is linkedin we are also stressed out. And that ''cloud'' you see on the horizon is likely to be a data deluge. Brace yourselves!!? 

If you can think above yourself, Student Angel Mother, with its humble origins, is the summing up of all other 'Four Shufflers!'' And many many times greater than its parts. If it originates from Pakistan, so what!!? Its final obode is a better world for future generations! Hey big brother, go take a siesta! Man, you need it!! 

Thanks !W O W!

Goodnight & God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless

The History of Earth Day at Penn State

On the first Earth Day in 1970, Frisbees hovered over the HUB lawn as students wearing bell-bottom pants and tie-dyed shirts gathered to celebrate nature. April 22 marks 42 years since the first Earth Day was observed; at Penn State, the Frisbees remain, but everything else has changed.

Penn State was a different place in 1970. The HUB was half the size it is today, student population was half what is is now, in fact just about everything at Penn State was half what it is today. There was no Bryce Jordan Center, no Eisenhower Auditorium, no Eastview Terrace, and no buildings west of North Atherton except for the Water Tunnel complex. The milky way could still be seen from the HUB lawn in the wee hours of a clear night and two observatories existed on the edge of campus where the Eisenhower Parking Deck now stands.

The first Earth day evolved from the student anti-war movement and the photographs of Earth as seen from lunar orbit by the crew of Apollo 8. As the fragility of our planet became widely understood, Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day to mobilize the nation in support of conservation and to fight air and water pollution.

Penn State members of Eco-Action organized the first campus Earth Day event in 1970 and led the University down the path toward current sustainability initiatives. The original Earth Day events were celebrations of alternative culture. There was as much poetry, dance and new-age philosophy as there was reverence for nature. That tradition continues today, but now there is more integration of science and engineering. In 1970, the greenhouse gas threat was known but the focus was on smog and air pollution, not carbon dioxide. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t exist and student activists were on the front lines. Earth Day helped prepare Penn State for the approaching gasoline and energy crisis.

In 1973 the first gasoline crisis struck the nation and Penn State swung into action. The Governor of Pennsylvania phoned then Penn State President John Oswald to plan our response. The first (and last) Penn State Energy Czar was appointed. Carroll Dean, Physical Plant (OPP) engineer, was given tremendous authority to start wide conservation measures across campus. Windows were sealed with plastic, large numbers of light bulbs were disconnected (the colored dots designating which bulbs would go can still be seen on overhead fixtures), and conservation overruled aesthetics in all cases. Due to the first energy crisis, Physical Plant engineers under Lloyd Niemann built the first Central Control System, which monitors and controls the energy use of most buildings on campus and still is in use today. Fifteen years ago, Office of Physical Plant engineer Doug Donovan and the Campus Energy Committee ran the first Earth Day energy contest and awarded $100 checks for the best conservation ideas presented to OPP.

Earth Day on the HUB Lawn always has been the rallying point for Penn State environmental awareness. Over the years Earth Day activities brought in outside speakers including David Orr from Oberlin College, and a host of Penn Staters including Chris Uhl, David Riley, Richard Alley, Andy Lau and many others. Just as Penn State recycling began with student activists and is now an institutional gem, Earth Day began as a student activity which has inspired hundreds of initiatives.

Physical Plant now operates dozens of conservation programs such as building commissioning, holiday shutdowns, water-saving initiatives, hydration stations and LEED certification for buildings , all of which are inspired by Earth Day. Academic initiatives such as the Green Destiny Council, the Indicators Report, and the Friday Night Lights Out program all can be linked to the philosophy of Earth Day. Penn State’s wide variety of environmental initiatives such as the Center for Sustainability, the Campus Sustainability Office, and Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment (PSIEE) might not exist today without the awareness of environmentalism started by Earth Day.

Forty-two years later, Eco-Action student activists now work closely with Erik Foley and Lydia Vandenbergh at the Campus Sustainability Office to improve and expand Penn State Earth Day offerings. The Office of Physical Plant continues to play a leading role in campus sustainability as Ford Stryker and Steve Maruszewski have directed the Finance and Business Environmental Strategy for the past decade. Their leadership has placed Penn State on the forefront of ethical and balanced sustainability.

Today the Universe still remains above the HUB lawn. The atmosphere fades off around 100 miles up, the planetary orbits cross the sky, and the galaxies float in space. It’s harder to see them now compared to 1970 due to increased light pollution, but the air is now cleaner. Penn State soon will heat campus buildings with clean natural gas, and massive environmental progress has been made. In 1970 there was minimal recycling on campus; now there are more than 5,000 bins to choose from.

As for the Frisbees hovering over the HUB lawn, well, they're still there to delight students. The difference is that in 1970 they were made of Marlex polyethylene, a lightweight form of crystalline polypropylene. Today Frisbees are made of 100-percent recycled materials consisting of 70-percent recycled plastics and 30-percent reclaimed wood. Now, that's progress! Penn State students now lead a more sustainable life due to Earth Day, but we have much more to do and the carbon clock is still ticking.

Original source here.

Charting their way to the top

CSB grads rank #3 nationally on 2011 CPA exams

It was an unusual sound coming from the halls of the Accounting and Finance Department at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University recently. The chair of the department was heard to say "whoohoo!" Why all the cheers and clapping?

The results had been announced for the 'Best-Performing Accounting Programs' of 2011 and CSB is ranked number three in the United States, according to the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). The NASBA annually reviews the results of all first-time Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exams taken.

"We have a history of out-performing — by a strong measure — national averages at CSB and SJU," said Mary Jepperson, chair of the CSB/SJU Accounting and Finance Department. "In the three years prior to 2011, our average pass rate for the two schools for all candidates (first-time and repeat) was about 60 percent. The national rankings are based on first-time candidates and the 2011 group performed exceptionally well."

In 2011, CSB had 14 first-time CPA test takes with a pass rate of 84.8 percent and an average score of 82.2. SJU test takers also performed well with 45 first-time candidates tallying a pass rate of 65.2 percent and an average score of 75.2.

"This is a strong affirmation that we have an excellent department and excellent faculty," said Rita Knuesel, provost at CSB and SJU. "I was absolutely thrilled to learn this excellent news. I am very proud of our students and the Accounting and Finance Department."

According to the report, the top five schools for first-time exam takers were:

• Wake Forest University with an 88.4 percent pass rate
• University of Pennsylvania with an 85.5 percent pass rate
• College of Saint Benedict with an 84.8 percent pass rate
• University of Virginia with an 84.7 percent pass rate
• Duke University with an 80.8 percent pass rate

"We have long believed that a strong accounting and finance program nestled in an amazing liberal arts education is the best possible preparation for the work world — wherever our students go. This ranking solidifies the fact that the liberal arts is a good home for pre-professional programs," Jepperson said.

A home that may need to get used to more "whoohoo's" from its chairperson in the future.

Original source here.

Two Juniors Win National Science Award

Junior Tyler L. Perfitt’s road to a Goldwater Scholarship wasn’t a direct route. The prestigious award is difficult to come by, even more so if you don’t think you want one, and flat-out impossible to win if you don’t know it exists.

Perfitt hadn’t even heard of the Goldwater until last year, when Catherine “Catie” M. Baker ’12, a fellow member of DePauw’s swimming and diving team, received one for her work in computer science. At the time, Perfitt, a biology and Spanish double major, wasn’t sure that a career in research was for him, but a summer internship researching brain cancer cells changed all that.

“It opened me up to the opportunities of neuroscience and what research was really like,” Perfitt says.

Perfitt returned to DePauw last fall with a new take on his future. He began an application for a Goldwater Scholarship, drawing on personal experience to make the case that he was a serious candidate for the award.

“My great-aunt suffered through Alzheimer’s disease until her death during my freshman year,” Perfitt, left, says. “Because of that, I already had a strong understanding of the disease and how it is currently being treated by delaying the onset of symptoms so that death occurs before dementia sets in.

“While the external symptoms of Alzheimer’s do not appear until later in life, cortical thinning of the brain occurs as early as age 30 for at-risk individuals. I decided that my proposed research should focus on observing changes in these at-risk individuals using MRI scanning, followed by postmortem tissue sampling and studying to pinpoint markers that could reveal when and where the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease begin.”

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman. The purpose of the foundation is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.

This spring, the Goldwater program awarded 282 scholarships for the 2012-13 academic year – which will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year – to college sophomores and juniors from the United States.

Read details here.

Student Finds Her Family During A Field Study To Cuba

In a tiny apartment at the intersection of 12th and 21st Streets in Havana, Cuba, Kiersten Miller ’12 flips through a stack of faded and frayed photographs while her great aunt Silvia chatters on in Spanish. It’s lucky she has brought her friend Alia El-Assar ’12, a fluent Spanish speaker, on this unscheduled side trip, otherwise Miller would barely understand a word from the Cuban relative she is meeting for the first time.

This is an unexpected experience that Miller hadn’t anticipated when she registered for this spring’s (Re)Discover Cubafield study. The granddaughter of a Cuban-born woman who moved to the U.S. in the 1950s, the marine biologist major wasn’t told a lot about her heritage growing up, only that she had a great aunt and a second cousin who still lived in Havana, and that perhaps she could seek them out during her trip.

One afternoon near the end of the trip, Miller and El-Assar set out to begin the search. “My father had given us directions to her apartment, but once we got to the intersection, we didn't know which building was Silvia's, so we started asking around. We saw an older woman leaning out of the window on the second floor and we asked her "Do you know a Silvia Acosta?" and she replied, "Yes! That's me!"

The woman invited them inside and the walk down memory lane began. “She had pictures of my sister and I when we were little, of my mom and dad at their wedding, some pictures of my cousins, and some of people whom I've never met,” Miller recalled. “It was a really amazing experience, because I had never really felt tied to Cuba up until this point in time. I knew vaguely that I was part Cuban, but my family didn't really talk about it. I always felt very separated from my Cuban roots. I definitely feel much more connected with my family after visiting Silvia and seeing the city where my grandmother grew up.”

While Miller’s story is exceptional, the experience inspires the hope that as diplomatic tensions and travel restrictions ease between Cuba and the United States, perhaps a new era of friendship is dawning for the two countries. For Visiting Instructor of Economics Robert Reinauer, the time seemed ripe for Rollins to rediscover the controversial island.

“The regulations changed in January of 2011, which allowed us to apply under a general license as registered students participating in a for-credit excursion,” said Reinauer, who co-lead the trip with Assistant Professor of Modern Languages Patricia Tomé. “Cuba is one of the most vibrant, culturally rich yet undiscovered countries and a fertile ground for studying things like economics, politics, and the arts. My aim is always to give students the opportunity to go somewhere really different and intriguing. A new Cuba is unfolding right before our eyes—it definitely falls in this category.”

On March 2, Tomé and Reinauer traveled with 17 students for the 11-day adventure that journeyed into Cuba's most important cultural and political sites, and included participation in academic conferences focused on political economy, music, dance, film, and architecture, among others, and numerous activities with Cuban college students.

The itinerary was packed with activities that even the most ardent of travelers wouldn’t get a chance to experience—dialogues with local musicians, visits with up-and-coming artists, discovering hidden gem restaurants—culminating in a trip of lifetime for students who won’t likely be able to travel to Cuba again easily, at least in the near future.

“Learning about any other country is important per se” Tomé said. “However, Cuba is unique in the sense that it is one of our closest neighbors and due to political disagreements on both ends, we, the citizens of both countries, have been constrained from sharing our experiences, culturally, socially, and educationally.”

It appears as though that constraint, at least for Miller and her great aunt Silvia, has ceased. “This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip,” said Miller, who has already started corresponding with Silvia via letters, translated by El-Assar. “My dad had always talked to me being Cuban, but I never really felt like it.” As a result of this field study, Miller walked away with the best souvenir a traveler can ask for: a connection to her past.

Original source here.

Trinity Researchers Show How Social Interaction and Teamwork Lead to Human Intelligence

Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant Professor Dr Andrew Jackson at the School of Natural Sciences in collaboration with Dr Sam Brown of the University of Edinburgh.

The researchers constructed computer models of artificial organisms, endowed with artificial brains, which played each other in classic games, such as the ‘Prisoner's Dilemma’, that encapsulate human social interaction. They used 50 simple brains, each with up to 10 internal processing and 10 associated memory nodes. The brains were pitted against each other in these classic games.

The game was treated as a competition, and just as real life favours successful individuals, so the best of these digital organisms which was defined as how high they scored in the games, less a penalty for the size of their brains were allowed to reproduce and populate the next generation of organisms.

By allowing the brains of these digital organisms to evolve freely in their model the researchers were able to show that the transition to cooperative society leads to the strongest selection for bigger brains. Bigger brains essentially did better as cooperation increased.

The social strategies that emerge spontaneously in these bigger, more intelligent brains show complex memory and decision making. Behaviours like forgiveness, patience, deceit and Machiavellian trickery all evolve within the game as individuals try to adapt to their social environment.

“The strongest selection for larger, more intelligent brains, occurred when the social groups were first beginning to start cooperating, which then kicked off an evolutionary Machiavellian arms race of one individual trying to outsmart the other by investing in a larger brain. Our digital organisms typically start to evolve more complex ‘brains’ when their societies first begin to develop cooperation.” explained Dr Andrew Jackson.

The idea that social interactions underlie the evolution of intelligence has been around since the mid-70s, but support for this hypothesis has come largely from correlative studies where large brains were observed in more social animals. The authors of the current research provide the first evidence that mechanistically links decision making in social interactions with the evolution of intelligence. This study highlights the utility of evolutionary models of artificial intelligence in answering fundamental biological questions about our own origins.

“Our model differs in that we exploit the use of theoretical experimental evolution combined with artificial neural networks to actually prove that yes, there is an actual cause-and-effect link between needing a large brain to compete against and cooperate with your social group mates."

"Our extraordinary level of intelligence defines mankind and sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. It has given us the arts, science and language, and above all else the ability to question our very existence and ponder the origins of what makes us unique both as individuals and as a species," concluded PhD student and lead author Luke McNally.

Original source here.

PlayStation 3D Display released in UK

Sony's latest PlayStation 3 peripheral is a 24-inch 1080p 3D display which lets two players see two fullscreen images at the same time using 3D glasses

The Sony PlayStation 3 3D Display is now available in the UK giving punters the opportunity to have not only 3D gaming but also the ability to see two different fullscreen images at the same time.

 

Using a tech which Sony is calling SimulView the 3D display splits up the 3D into two separate moving 2D feeds, these are split and sent to two sets of glasses allowing each player to see a different fullscreen image.

The 1080p 3D display looks like it was destined for the teen bedroom with the display being touted as both an excellent monitor and full HD 3D TV.

On the sides you'll find two powerful speakers while the 3D Display also features a subwoofer on the back giving you a powerful bass range not found in most TVs or monitors.

To get your hands on one of these you'll need to part with £449 from Amazon or Very and will reportedly be making its way to Toys R Us as well.

(T3)

Chinese PC Market Will Grow 12% In 2012

If you were wondering where all the PC growth was, look East, young person. IHS, formerly iSuppli, expects that desktop sales will rise 8% and Ultrabook sales will take up 15 to 20 percent of notebook shipments. Windows 8 and Intel’s Ivy Bridge are to be driving factors in PC growth this year.

In comparison, IDC found that 2011 PC shipments shrank in Europe and the United States by 9%.

Lenovo is still the number one PC maker in China, followed by Acer. HP has declined to fifth place with 5.3% market share.

IHS doesn’t really break out Apple sales vs. Windows but knowing the penchant for Made in Cupertino over there.

“And amid a period of slowing PC sales growth worldwide, China’s consumers and businesses continue to generate healthy increases,” said Elaine Zhi, IHS analyst.

Enterprise around the world still hasn’t hit the refresh button on their internal IT so it’s clear that things probably won’t change much until after Windows 8 launches. Considering most machines made in the last six years can run just about any heavy duty app thrown at them -- there’s little need to upgrade. That will change when Snow Lion obsoletes a number of Mac models while Windows 8 potentially forces a move toward touchscreen devices.

Source

Qualcomm warns of smartphone Snapdragon chip shortage

The world's best-selling mobile phone chipmaker has warned that it cannot meet demand for some of its processors.

Qualcomm said that the third-party factories to which it subcontracts the manufacture of the "28 nanometre" chips would not be able to create enough supply until the end of the year.

The news will impact Android and Windows-based phone makers who had planned to use the products.

The firm admits they may turn to rivals to power their mid-range handsets.

Details of the setback emerged during a conference call to investors after the US firm's latest results.

The company's chief operating officer, Steve Mollenkopf, confirmed that the problem was that Qualcomm had underestimated demand for it S4 Snapdragon chips, adding that the firm was trying to push some of its alternative products.

 

Alternative chipset

"In any constrained environment, people look for any alternative they can in order to solve the problem," he is quoted as saying in a transcript of the call by financial news site Seeking Alpha.

"We've been helping customers to see how they can swap in our Fusion 2 chipset... [but] we do expect to see some alternative non-Qualcomm chipsets used to solve that issue as well."

He added that the firm was acting to outsource production to other fabricators in addition to its key supplier, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

One analyst told the BBC that the news could have a limited effect on mobile phone supplies.

"Looking forward, this will impact shipments of mass-market smartphones as firms re-engineer their devices, but having said that, I think the industry should not take too long to catch up," said Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms.

"This isn't the first time we've seen this kind of problem when a chip designer upgrades to a new semiconductor design."

Qualcomm's shares fell over 7% in after-hours trading following the announcement before making a partial recovery.(BBC)

Another Siri-Like App, Voice Answer, Hits The App Store

Looks like Apple might be loosening its grip even more on voice recognition apps? Or, it simply just feels that the competition is not as good as its own native Siri. We’ve just gotten word from Netherlands-based developer Sparkling Apps that its voice-response app, Voice Answer -- rejected by Apple for nearly three months -- has been approved by Apple and is now live in the App Store, and usable on any iPhone, iPod or iPad running iOS 4.2 or later.

It took “almost three months of negotiating, tweaking and pushing,” developer Martijn van der Spek tells. Like Siri, the app is based on data from Wolfram Alpha, among other sources, and lets users ask questions by either speaking to the app or typing in a question. It’s priced at £2.49 ($3.99).

He says the company is now going “full speed ahead” implementing more features into the app. These include location-based place finding and email/SMS and more voice function commands. Additionally it’s adding in a bit of sci-fi kitsch: it’s planning to create an animated robot for the interface. You can see the video of how that will look below.

The news comes on the back of other voice recognition apps making a splash and then facing rejection issues with Apple, perhaps most notably Evi.

Sparkling Apps in March had a free voice recognition app, Talk to Eve, also rejected for being “too similar to Siri” that was subsequently approved in March.

With the voice-recognition space currently very active, the big question is whether any of these third-party developers will be able to gain traction against Apple, and what they will all do next to make themselves relevant and indispensable to users. Offering APIs to other app developers could be one lucrative route.

Source

First Intel-powered smartphone to be launched in India

Intel has confirmed details of the first smartphone to be powered by one of its processors.

The XOLO X900, made by the Indian manufacturer Lava, will go on sale on 23 April priced at about 22,000 rupees (£265).

Lava has teamed up with Indian retail chain Croma to distribute the device across the country.

The move follows Intel's previous failed attempt to break into the smartphone market.

A tie-up with manufacturer LG in 2010 fell flat, with no models going into production.

Meanwhile, chips designed by British-based ARM and the American firm Qualcomm now dominate the market.

Details of Intel-powered smartphones made by Motorola Mobility and Lenovo are expected soon.

Hyper threading

The chip maker announced the partnerships at the Consumer Electronics Show in Barcelona in January.

Intel's tie-up with Motorola Mobility is seen as most significant as the company is in the process of being purchased by Google.

The Atom-based chip promises more efficient battery consumption, as well as Intel's own "hyper threading technology" allowing for enhanced multi-tasking.

The XOLO X900 - which features an 8-megapixel camera - will run initially on Android Gingerbread, Google's smartphone operating system.

This will later be upgraded, Intel said, to the next incarnation of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.

Lava has emerged as one of India's fastest-growing companies since being founded two-and-a-half years ago.

"After our success in feature phones, with over 10 million happy customers in under three years, XOLO will be a differentiated player in the fast-growing smartphone segment," Lava's co-founder and director Vishal Sehgal said in a statement. (BBC)

Morocco hopeful tourism to resist EU crisis

RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco expects its 2012 tourism receipts to at least match last year's as it relies on a growing focus on eastern European and Middle Eastern markets to mitigate any decline in tourist arrivals from the euro zone, the tourism minister said.

Tourism has been the main pillar of economic growth plans for the past decade. It is now Morocco's biggest source of foreign currency -- key to keeping the country's fragile balance of payments afloat -- and at once the second-biggest employer and contributor to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

In an interview with Reuters, Lahcen Haddad said Morocco's tourism development ambitions would fly higher if its flag carrier strikes a partnership with a major airline, probably from the Gulf Arab region, although no deal is on the agenda.

The fortunes of the sector have taken centre-stage after bad weather hurt agriculture, the biggest sector in the economy, forcing the government to slash as low as 3 percent its growth projections for 2012, well below the 5.5 percent annual growth it says is needed to boost jobs.

While he did not dismiss the likelihood of a decline in tourist arrivals in 2012, Haddad said the impact will not be felt at the level of receipts.

"Last year, both tourist arrivals and the number of night stays declined (compared to 2010) yet receipts rose by about 4 percent. It measures the degree of receipts' resilience," Haddad said.

"2012 will be a tough year but there won't be a major drop in receipts. We may close 2012 (with receipts) at the same level we had in 2011 or with a minor increase," he said, noting that the state's 2012 budget was based on a 2-3 percent rise in receipts.

Receipts stood at 58.7 billion dirhams in 2011, a year that saw the country's current account deficit rise to 6.5 percent of the $97 billion gross domestic product (GDP). Tourism accounts for 10 percent of GDP and directly employs 400,000.

A third of tourists visiting Morocco come from France, followed by Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and Benelux countries.

"Seventy percent of tourist arrivals in Morocco travel independently and the majority of them stay at five-star hotels," Haddad said.

"I don't think receipts from the main European markets will decline (in 2012) because there is a segment of tourists who have not been affected by the crisis in the euro zone, the high-end market.

Morocco is focusing more of its tourism promotion on Russia, Poland, the Czech and Slovak republics, Haddad said.

"These are emerging markets where the purchase power is improving and where more and more citizens can afford to travel abroad," he said.

Since 2010, flag carrier Royal Air Maroc (RAM) has been adding more direct flights linking Morocco to Russia and Poland.

"We have to start charter flights from Bratislava, Prague, Warsaw and St Petersburg," said Haddad, without fixing a timeframe.

Rabat is also seeking more tourist arrivals from Scandinavian countries. "It used to be a big market for us, we are now trying to reconquer it".

Moroccan authorities are also in talks with Gulf Arab airlines establish direct flights to Moroccan airports other than Casablanca, such as Marrakesh and Agadir.

"We need an important fleet (of aircraft). RAM can't do it alone, so we will need to rely on other airlines," he said, referring to Morocco's aim to almost treble tourism receipts by 2020.

On Tuesday, a senior RAM official told Reuters it is seeking a larger strategic partner to regain profitability and stand up to increased competition from low-cost carriers.

"I don't think we should privatise RAM but we may always find ways to partner it with a major operator, maybe from the Gulf (Arab region)," said Haddad, who as tourism minister, is a member of RAM's board.

Yahoo

Nokia sees strong Lumia sales in U.S

Nokia, the once mighty Finnish mobile handset maker, is betting its future on the success of its new Windows Phone smartphones, but sales so far around the world have been mixed.

Nokia has announced four new Lumia smartphones in the market since October. Stephen Elop, Nokia's CEO, noted that the devices, which have been released ahead of schedule, have received high acclaim from reviewers and consumers, but sales have been mixed throughout different regions of the world.

For example, initial sales of the company's Lumia 710 at T-Mobile and the newly launched Lumia 900 on AT&T have been strong. The company said that more than 2 million Lumia 900 devices sold in the first few days and was a best seller on Amazon.com. But the company has had trouble in markets such as the U.K., where it initially launched the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710.

"We have launched four Lumia devices ahead of schedule to encouraging awards and popular acclaim," he said in a statement. "The actual sales results have been mixed. We exceeded expectations in markets including the United States, but establishing momentum in certain markets including the UK has been more challenging."

Nokia laid a big bet last year when it decided to abandon the Symbian operating system for Microsoft's Windows Phone platform. The company has worked quickly to introduce new products into the market using the new platform. It's first two products were announced in October with two more following early in 2012. The company now has a portfolio that spans the high-end to the low-end. While Elop said he is confident the company can make a successful transition to the Windows Phone platform, he also admitted the company is facing challenges at the lower end. And it's these challenges for which he blamed the company's earnings shortfall.

"We are navigating through a significant company transition in an industry environment that continues to evolve and shift quickly," he said in a statement. "Over the last year we have made progress on our new strategy, but we have faced greater than expected competitive challenges."

In the first quarter of 2012, Nokia reported an operating loss of $1.76 billion. Nokia warned last week that its earnings would fall short of expectations due to weaknesses in emerging markets. Nokia said that "competitive industry dynamics" in developing markets such as India, China, Africa and the Middle East led to a shortfall.

Source

Man uses Google Earth to find long-lost mother

Sometimes Google Earth can help you find your way home after decades of not knowing where home is.

That is what apparently happened for an Indian man who was separated from his family as a 5-year-old. Saroo Brierley tells BBC magazine that he was accompanying his older brother on a train trip in 1986 when he fell asleep and awoke 14 hours later in the notorious slum of Calcutta. Without his brother.

At first, he lived on the streets, joining legions of children begging for their livelihood. Brierley would eventually be taken in by an orphanage and adopted by a couple in Australia.

"I accepted that I was lost and that I could not find my way back home, so I thought it was great that I was going to Australia," he told the magazine.

But as he grew older, the desire to know where he came from also grew. With vivid memories of the town where he was born, but not its name, he started searching the Internet for clues. Brierley multiplied the 14 hours he knew he had been on the train by the average speed of trains in India to determine how far he traveled that night. He then drew a circle around Calcutta based on that radius and eventually determined that Khandwa was the town he was looking for.

"When I found it, I zoomed down and bang, it just came up," he said. "I navigated it all the way from the waterfall where I used to play."

He would eventually make his way to Khandwa and locate a familiar house. His family had moved but he remembered their names. With the help of passers-by, Brierley was taken to the house where is mother lived.

At first he did not recognize his mother, who was stunned into silence by his reappearance. She took him by the hand into her house.

"She had a bit of trouble grasping that her son, after 25 years, had just reappeared like a ghost."

His older brother was not as fortunate; his body was found on the railroad tracks a few months after Brierley disappeared.

Source

Kristen Stewart A 'Gung-Ho' Action Star In 'Snow White'

It's clear from all we've seen from the "Snow White and the Huntsman" trailers, photos and behind-the-scenes sneak peeks that this film is a stepping stone for Kristen Stewart in many ways.

When MTV News caught up with the film's director, Rupert Sanders, recently, he explained how everyone involved in the project stepped up their game for this modern take on a medieval story.

"Kristen is a very driven, visceral, intuitive actress. From a director's point of view, it's great to get into her headspace," he explained. "We did a lot of work together on the script and character, and she really helped inform me how that character was feeling, which really helped my process getting the character onscreen. Kristen was doing a lot of her stunt work, she was riding horses, she was jumping from high precipices into freezing cold water, she was fighting dwarves — she's gung-ho. 

Sanders said Stewart's co-star Charlize Theron was equally gung-ho with respect to the lengths she went to take her beauty into a dark and horrible place.

"[She] becomes fiendish," Sanders said. "She was willing to get in tubs of black oil, surrounded by dead ravens, and crawl her way out. For a director, what's great about these two actors is that they will go beyond what you ask of them, and I think it really shows in the performances they've given. They're both very unlike any performance I've seen either of them deliver."

The first-time feature director promised that fans will not be disappointed by what they'll see onscreen when the film opens June 1.

"What I'm most proud of is that it's not a popcorn movie in that respect. It's big and it's epic and there's lots of battle sequences, but it really hits you," he said. "There's not a lot of weeping, but it's a very intense ride. You're really at the edge of people's boundaries. There are new ways of seeing action, which I'm excited about. It's a very modern take on a medieval film but doesn't feel like we're trying to do anything trendy or of the minute. It still feels practical."

(Mtv)

Becks' dream burns on

The Olympic dream remains alive for former England skipper David Beckham after he survived the latest cut to Stuart Pearce's GB squad.

Pearce has slashed his 191-strong long-list to 80 players, who are now being contacted by the Football Association to confirm they remain in contention.

Beckham is the most notable figure and it remains highly likely the LA Galaxy star, 37 next month, will be one of three over-age players in Pearce's final 18-man squad when it is confirmed at the end of May.

Having played such a pivotal role in getting the Olympics to London in the first place, it would be a suitable reward, although others may argue it could weaken British hopes of a gold medal.

Representatives from all four Home Nations are in the latest squad, including Gareth Bale, Craig Bellamy, Steven Fletcher and Chris Brunt and the FA remains optimistic non-English players will accept a chance to play in a major tournament on home soil. (skysports.com)

No Champions Trophy after 2013

The 2013 ICC Champions Trophy, to be held in England, will be the last time the tournament is played as the ICC moves towards having one championship for each of the game's three formats from 2015. The tournament is part of the Future Tours Program in 2013 but does not appear after that, with the play-offs for the World Test Championship scheduled for June 2017.

"If you don't see it in the schedule, it means it is not planned for the future," Haroon Lorgat, the ICC's chief executive, said at a press conference following the executive board meeting on Monday. "We have said for a while that we would like one championship event for each format. We are including the Test championship in there. We have the World Cup to have the champion for 50-overs cricket. So we are not planning to hold Champions Trophy in the future."

The World Test Championship was initially scheduled for 2013, but had to be postponed due to the ICC's commitments to its broadcaster and sponsors. The ICC's broadcast partner is ESPN STAR Sports*, with whom they have a contract till 2015. The ICC had initially hoped to convince all interested parties to switch the Champions Trophy, the ICC's second-biggest 50-over tournament, to play-offs between the top four Test teams as per the ICC Test rankings.

However, after the ICC's executive board meeting in October, 2011, it released a statement saying there would be significant commercial challenges in replacing the Champions Trophy without the support and consent of the ICC's broadcast partner. Changing the tournament's format from ODIs to Test play-offs would have required a substantial cut in the broadcast rights fee, which would have repercussions on the Members.

Inaugurated as the ICC Knock Out tournament in 1998, the Champions Trophy was played every two years until 2009, switching to a round-robin format in 2002. Originally, all ten Full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) took part, together with (for the first four competitions) two Associate members. The 2013 event in England will feature the eight highest-ranked ODI teams calculated six months before the tournament. (espncricinfo.com)

Chelsea 1 - 0 Barcelona

Dieder Drogba and Juan Mata celebrate the goal

Dieder Drogba scored the only goal for Chelsea to earn blues a famous win against FC Barcelona, carrying a 1-0 lead into next Tuesday's UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg. 

The stats show that the visiting side had dominated, with 72% of possession and 24 efforts at goal to Chelsea's 5. But Di Matteo's side edged in the stat that matters, the scoreline.

Chelsea scored the goal in the last moments of the first half when Messi gave the ball away in midfield as Frank Lampard  released Ramires on the left and the Brazilian played a perfect pass across goal for Drogba on the far post where he shoot it, as the ball just about sneaked past Victor Valdes and Chelsea got an unlikely lead.

Barcelona threatened the English side throughout till the late drama as they got some big chances. Peter Cech made a super diving save when Carlos Puyol artfully headed the ball on Messi's freekick.

The last move of the game was Barcelona's best chance when John Terry's brilliant slide avoided a shot from Messi, after Busquets found the Argentinian in space with a lovely backheel, as the ball fell for Pedro who picked his spot and hit the post. Fortunately it rebound for Busquets but he skied it.

Didier Drogba was pleased with his team's performance.

"I think we’ve learnt and improved from three years ago. We are happy because the result is a good one. Now, we need to go there and score to qualify," he said.