Tsunami survivor gets ball back from US

(Telegraph) A teenage boy who lost all his belongings when his home was swept away in the Japanese tsunami in March 2011, has recovered his football from North America one year later.

The ball, which hung in a net on a wall in his bedroom had great sentimental value to Misaki Murakami, 16, as a memento of his old friends.
It was signed by his classmates and a teacher when he transferred schools at the end of his third year in elementary school.
He lost the ball along with all his personal belongings when his home in Rikuzentakata was washed out to sea on March 11, 2011, following the earthquake that shook Japan.
Mr Misaki escaped to a nearby evacuation centre before the tsunami hit his hometown.
But the ball made voyage of thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, washing up on Alaska's Middleton Island where it was discovered by David Baxter, a technician at a radar station in the Gulf of Alaska.

Last year’s tsunami disaster, which claimed around 19,000 lives, swept away vast swathes of communities, including personal belongings, entire homes, boats and cars.
Many of these items have formed giant floating islands of debris which are slowly crossing the Pacific Ocean and heading towards the west coast of the United States, with an array of items already being discovered.
Much of the debris is expected to hit Alaska, Canada, Washington and Oregon between 2013 and 2014, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the federal agency in the United States.
However, a number of items are arriving already, among them the Ryou-Un Maru, an abandoned fishing vessel which travelled more than 7,200km from Japan before it was found drifting off Alaska.

Fb buys AOL patents from Microsoft

Facebook is paying Microsoft $550 million in cash for a chunk of the patent portfolio that Microsoft recently acquired from AOL.

This is all part of Facebook's effort to fatten up its patent war chest as it prepares to go public next month and seeks to stave off potential litigation. It's currently embroiled in a big patent fight with Yahoo, and last month Facebook struck a deal with IBM to purchase some 750 of its patents, which cover "software and networking" technologies.

Earlier this month, Microsoft spent more than $1 billion to buy roughly 800 patents from AOL, and it's now selling the majority of them to Facebook. Facebook is buying about 650 AOL patents and patent applications, and also gain a license to the 275 other patents and patent applications that Microsoft will continue to own.

"Today's agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction," Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft said in a statement. "We had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio."

Headline April 24th, 2012 / The Caged Fear Of Mortality

Part 3
"The Caged Fear Of Mortality"

Respectful dedication To All Mortals

Thanks !W O W! So many kind and caring communications arrived on this post. One just so, stood out! It now adorns the headline. Sir,......thank you! Do post us forward, do share us with everyone, relentlessly!! May Almighty God grant you health and happiness!

And many esteeemed writers, loved my 'storied career'. Hahaha! I for sure am turning into a living shrine of Socratic equanimty and not some crusty old embittered coot, who is fed up with former students, even disciples, making pilgrimages to his house in the hope that I will be somewhat like Morrie: ''If you have come for inspiration, you're too late. If you have come for the funeral, you're too early.'' Haha! 

So, as if Morrie weren't paragon enough to put the rest of us shabby creatures to shame, then came Randy Pausch, whose humour, fortitude and courage in ''The Last Lecture'' set an even Higher bar for grace under pressure.

The critic Seymour Krim wondered, when contemplating the prospect of his own death, ''What shape will the swine take? How will i feel when i know it's on me if I'm given that last thin dime of consciousness?''
For Pausch this swine took the shape of cancerous liver, but he was never down to that thin dime. He had time and clarity enough to get his mind in order and to share its illumination.

Don't forget that Pausch was a Computer Science Professor at Carnegie Mellon whose curriculum Vitae included stints at Adobe, the Alice project, a 3-D programming environment intended to nurture creativity in novice animators, Electronic Arts, Google, and Walt Disney imagineering- learned just weeks before he was to deliver a topic idea for the university's ''LAST LECTURE'' series that his recent treatment for pancreatic cancer had failed, giving him only a few months to live.

And this diagnosis surfaced after Prof Pausch had had his gall bladder, a third of his pancrease and stomach, and stomach, and several feet of his small intestine surgically removed. Prof Pausch, ever a delightful prankster, managed to sneak a look at his chart in the onocologist's office, discovered that the cancer had metastasized to his liver, with tumours sprouting like multiple warheads.

Rather than cancel the lecture, Pausch decided to usethe occasion to deliver a personal statement. So dear mortals, don't miss morrow's post. And don't forget to share this post with all high and mighty! 

God bless and Goodnight.

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless

Part 1   -  Part 2

What are the health risks of running long distances?

Running a marathon puts immense strain on the body. But just how dangerous for your health can it be?

What are the main health risks?

Thankfully, most of the casualties that occur during a race concern minor injuries, like sprains and strains.

Dehydration is the biggest problem that marathon runners have to overcome. In a hard race on a hot and humid day, up to four litres of fluid can be lost through sweating and exhalation. It is important for runners to keep well hydrated.

And there are other things you can do to prepare for the race. Following a training plan in the months leading up to the race to get yourself in shape is advisable.

A great many injuries can be avoided by warming up and doing stretches immediately before the race.

During the 2012 London Marathon, 4,923 runners and members of the public needed assistance, but the bulk of these consultations were for minor concerns. In 2011, 6,000 needed help - many for heat exhaustion linked to the hot weather on the race day.

Evolution seen in 'synthetic DNA

Researchers have succeeded in mimicking the chemistry of life in synthetic versions of DNA and RNA molecules.

Molecules called polymerases help to faithfully copy the genetic
 information stored in single strands of DNA 

The work shows that DNA and its chemical cousin RNA are not unique in their abili
ty to encode information and to pass it on through heredity.

The work, reported in Science, is promising for future "synthetic biology" and biotechnology efforts.

It also hints at the idea that if life exists elsewhere, it could be bound by evolution but not by similar chemistry.

In fact, one reason to mimic the functions of DNA and RNA - which helps cells to manufacture proteins - is to determine how they came about at the dawn of life on Earth; many scientists believe that RNA arose first but was preceded by a simpler molecule that performed the same function.

However, it has remained unclear if any other molecule can participate in the same unzipping and copying processes that give DNA and RNA their ability to pass on the information they carry in the sequences of their nucleobases - the five chemical group "letters" from which the the two molecules' genetic information is composed.

'No Goldilocks'

There is nothing 'Goldilocks' about DNA and RNA - there is no overwhelming functional imperative for genetic systems or biology to be based on them”

Philipp Holliger
Medical Research Council
The classic double-helix structure of DNA is like a twisted ladder, where the steps are made from paired nucleobases (RNA is typically a single helix).

Philipp Holliger of the UK Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology and a team of colleagues created six different DNA- and RNA-like molecules - xeno-nucleic acids, or XNAs - by replacing not the nucleobases but the sugar groups that make up the sides of the ladder.

"There's a lot of chemisty that seeks to build alternative nucleic acids, and people have been modifying the bases, the sugars and the backbone, but what we were focusing on was the type of nucleic acid or polymers that would retain the ability to communicate with the natural DNA," Dr Holliger explained in an interview for the Science podcast.

Because the nucleobases themselves were the same as those of DNA and RNA, the resulting molecules were able to join with their natural counterparts.

The effect is similar to work recently published in Nature Chemistry, showing that another sugar-substituted DNA analogue could be made to pair up with DNA itself.

But the crucial point in creating a full "synthetic genetics" is a set of nucleic acids like DNA and RNA that can not only carry genetic information, but would also allow it to be changed and passed on - evolution and heredity.

That requires a set of helper molecules called polymerases, which, once DNA or RNA "unzip" and expose their genetic information, help create new DNA molecules from those instructions.

Dr Holliger and his colleagues have developed polymerases that efficiently transcribe the code of their synthetic DNA to natural DNA and then from that back to another synthetic DNA.

The process of evolution was encouraged in the lab; one of their DNA analogues was designed to cling to a particular protein or RNA target, those that failed to do so were washed away.

As successive copies of those that stuck were made, variations in the genetic code - and the resulting structure the molecules took on - led to ever more tightly attached XNAs.

"We've been able to show that both heredity - information storage and propagation - and evolution, which are really two hallmarks of life, can be reproduced and implemented in alternative polymers other than DNA and RNA," Dr Holliger explained.

"There is nothing 'Goldilocks' about DNA and RNA - there is no overwhelming functional imperative for genetic systems or biology to be based on these two nucleic acids."

In an accompanying article in Science, Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute wrote that "the work heralds the era of synthetic genetics, with implications for exobiology (life elsewhere in the Universe), biotechnology, and understanding of life itself".

But the work does not yet represent a full synthetic genetics platform, he pointed out. For that, a self-replicating system that does not require the DNA intermediary must be developed.

With that in hand, "construction of genetic systems based on alternative chemical platforms may ultimately lead to the synthesis of novel forms of life". (BBC.co.uk)

1,000mph car

A British team is developing a car that will capable of reaching 1,000mph (1,610km/h).
Powered by a rocket bolted to a Eurofighter-Typhoon jet engine, the Bloodhound SSC (SuperSonic Car) vehicle will mount an assault on the land speed record.


The thing about setting a Land Speed Record is that speeding up is only half of the problem.

Once you've gone flashing through the timing lights of the measured mile at over 1,000mph, you are faced with stopping a heavy, very high-speed vehicle in a limited distance.

Five-and-a-half miles sounds like a long way, but if you're doing a mile every 3.5 seconds, it doesn't seem that far at all!

Just to make it slightly harder, the vehicle you're in has (by design) as little aerodynamic drag as possible, so it will keep rolling for a long time…

Hence, stopping the car reliably is, perhaps, even harder than getting up to speed.

After all, if we have any problems (e.g. a hydraulic leak, electrical problem, computer glitch, etc) early in a run, I always have the option of slowing down ahead of schedule, but once we hit 1,000 mph, I must slow down in the distance remaining, regardless of any other problems.

With all of this in mind, we've got several ways to make sure that I don't end up going cross-country in Bloodhound SSC at the end of a high-speed run.

Stopping the car means increasing the drag, so we are fitting airbrakes and two drag chutes - three different ways of slowing the car.

Once the car is down to about 200mph (which will take about four miles), I can use wheel brakes to stop the car in about half a mile - leaving us with a safety margin of one mile… just in case!

'Smarter' immigrants coming to Sweden: study

Non-European immigrants are arriving in Sweden with increasingly higher levels of education, according to a new study, although fewer highly-educated immigrants are arriving from Europe and the Nordic countries.
While only 31 percent of immigrants who arrived in Sweden prior to 1991 had some form of post-secondary education, 44 percent of immigrants who moved to Sweden after 2002 have some form of higher education.

The figures come from a comprehensive survey of the level of education of people in Sweden carried out by Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån – SCB).

The study also found that roughly same same percentage of Swedes (39 percent) and those born abroad (38 percent) have some level of post-secondary education.

According to the survey, the level of education has increased most among immigrants from South America.

An increasing percentage of immigrants from Africa, Asia, North America, and Oceania who have arrived since 2002 also possess a higher level of education compared with those who arrived prior to 1991.

And while more immigrants from the rest of the world are coming to Sweden with higher levels of education, the same can't be said of immigrants from the European Union and the Nordic region, where the percentage of immigrants with post-secondary education has decreased somewhat in the last two decades.

The differences in level of education between immigrant groups also vary due to difference between countries of origin, their ages and reason for immigration.

The study also found that 20 percent of those born outside of Sweden possessed pre-secondary education, whereas the corresponding number among Swedes was 12 percent.

Immigrant women were more likely to have a low level of education, while the opposite went for Swedish women.

Sweden's large cities also appear to be be magnates for attracting educated people, whether born in Sweden or abroad, the survey found.

Miniature honeycomb 'grows nerve'

A "miniature honeycomb" - or scaffold - could one day be used to encourage damaged nerves to grow and recover, according to an international group of researchers.

The scaffold can channel clusters of nerves through its honeycomb of holes, eventually healing a severed nerve.

The findings of their study on mouse nerves are published in the journal Biofabrication.

Academics hope to one day treat spinal cord injuries with the scaffold.

When nerves are severed, such as in car accidents, it can result in a loss of feeling and movement.

Repairing this damage can be a challenge - but nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord can repair themselves, if only over short distances.

Tube links
One technique to improve this repair is to use tubes. Either end of the severed nerve is placed in a tube and the two ends of the nerve should grow and join in the middle.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield and Laser Zentrum Hannover, Germany, investigated using a honeycomb structure.

Dr Frederik Claeyssens, from the department of materials science and engineering at Sheffield, told the BBC: "That is much more like the structure of the nerve itself.

"The nerve has small regions of 'cable' that go through from one end to the other end, you have a whole bunch of little cables inside a larger cable, that's what we tried to reproduce with this type of scaffold."

The honeycomb is made from photopolymerizable polylactic acid, which biodegrades once the nerve has repaired.

The researchers showed nerve cells could grow on the scaffold and are now testing it in mice to see if it can fully repair the damage.

Dr Frederik Claeyssens said: "This technology could make a huge difference to patients suffering severe nerve damage."

Scaffold technology is used in a range of "regenerative medicines". Building a scaffold and then coating it with human cells has, for example, been used to give patients new windpipes and bladders. (BBC.co.uk)

Soccer ball lost in Japan's tsunami found on Alaska shores

A BATTERED soccer ball that was swept up on the shores of an Alaskan island may be the first piece of debris from the Japanese tsunami last March.

The soccer ball, which is covered in Japanese writing, was spotted on the coast of Middleton Island by radar technician David Baxter, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

He realised the significance of his find after his wife, who is originally from Hachioji, in western Tokyo, translated the writing and traced it to the name of a school.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration confirmed that the school named on the ball was in a tsunami-hit area.

The NOAA's Doug Helton said, "There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it."

According to The Japan Times, the ball belongs to Misaki Murakami, a 16-year-old high school student in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, who lost his home in the disaster.

Murakami said the ball, which is covered in messages of encouragement, was given to him by his third-grade classmates before he moved to a new school in March 2005.

"I have no doubt that it is mine," Murakami said. "To be honest, I'm surprised. I want to thank the person who found it, as none of my sentimental items have been found."

The Baxters hope to return the ball personally to Murakami this summer when they take a vacation in Japan, The Japan Times reported.

"We're very happy that the owner of the ball is safe. We want to return the ball as soon as possible," Baxter said.

"When I first saw the ball, I knew that it had a special meaning to its owner."

In Weak Job Market, One In Two College Graduates Are Jobless Or Underemployed

The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work. A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs – waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example – and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

An analysis of government data conducted for The Associated Press lays bare the highly uneven prospects for holders of bachelor's degrees. Opportunities for college graduates vary widely.

While there's strong demand in science, education and health fields, arts and humanities flounder. Median wages for those with bachelor's degrees are down from 2000, hit by technological changes that are eliminating midlevel jobs such as bank tellers. Most future job openings are projected to be in lower-skilled positions such as home health aides, who can provide personalized attention as the U.S. population ages.

Taking underemployment into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor's degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.

(One instance quoted on Huff Post is that of Kelman Edwards Jr., 24, of Murfreesboro.) The grad is waiting to see the returns on his college education.

After earning a biology degree last May, the only job he could find was as a construction worker for five months before he quit to focus on finding a job in his academic field. He applied for positions in laboratories but was told they were looking for people with specialized certifications.

"I thought that me having a biology degree was a gold ticket for me getting into places, but every other job wants you to have previous history in the field," he said. Edwards, who has about $5,500 in student debt, recently met with a career counselor at Middle Tennessee State University. The counselor's main advice: Pursue further education.

"Everyone is always telling you, `Go to college,'" Edwards said. "But when you graduate, it's kind of an empty cliff."

huffingtonpost.com

Staggering Student Debt Weighs Heavily On Americans

The cost of a US university degree has left people wide-eyed for decades but student debt has now mushroomed into a nightmare for Americans with potential to explode as the next major US financial crisis.

Students at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, for instance, can typically expect to borrow $23,445 to top off the total $31,812 they might need. And that's just for the first (or freshman) year of a four-year degree.

"You'll pay approximately $1,414 per month for 10 years to cover your total borrowing" once schooling is completed, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a federal agency, says on its website

"This equals 29 $50 textbooks every month."

It's relatively easier at Harvard (typical first-year borrowing stands at $16,459, because average grants and scholarships are higher) and the University of California in Los Angeles ($13,796 in borrowing), but the picture is clear.

Two years ago, for the first time, total outstanding student debt in the United States topped $1 trillion, according to the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys.

That's more than what Americans owe on their credit cards.

Read More

Robo Reader: Automated Essay Checking

Les Perelman, a director of writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says no. Mr. Perelman enjoys studying algorithms from E.T.S. research papers when he is not teaching undergraduates. This has taught him to think like e-Rater.

While his research is limited, because E.T.S. is the only organization that has permitted him to test its product, he says the automated reader can be easily gamed, is vulnerable to test prep, sets a very limited and rigid standard for what good writing is, and will pressure teachers to dumb down writing instruction.

The e-Rater’s biggest problem, he says, is that it can’t identify truth. He tells students not to waste time worrying about whether their facts are accurate, since pretty much any fact will do as long as it is incorporated into a well-structured sentence. “E-Rater doesn’t care if you say the War of 1812 started in 1945,” he said.

Mr. Perelman found that e-Rater prefers long essays. A 716-word essay he wrote that was padded with more than a dozen nonsensical sentences received a top score of 6; a well-argued, well-written essay of 567 words was scored a 5.

An automated reader can count, he said, so it can set parameters for the number of words in a good sentence and the number of sentences in a good paragraph. “Once you understand e-Rater’s biases,” he said, “it’s not hard to raise your test score.”

Mr. Perelman takes great pleasure in fooling e-Rater. He has written an essay, then randomly cut a sentence from the middle of each paragraph and has still gotten a 6.

Two former students who are computer science majors told him that they could design an Android app to generate essays that would receive 6’s from e-Rater. He says the nice thing about that is that smartphones would be able to submit essays directly to computer graders, and humans wouldn’t have to get involved.

Read Full Article in NYTIMES

The Preschool Race Is No Joke

WILDLY implausible faux news stories appear each April Fool’s Day, some of which are taken seriously. This year’s clear winner was the National Public Radio feature about a preschool’s new requirement that all applicants submit DNA profiles.

As the segment begins, the host Guy Raz is greeted by Rebecca Unsinn, described as headmaster at a school called the Porsafillo Preschool Academy, located in a striking I. M. Pei-designed building in a leafy enclave on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Dr. Unsinn walks Mr. Raz through gleaming computer labs where toddlers master C++. She proudly describes the school’s Mandarin Chinese immersion program.

We are also told that Dr. Unsinn, a pediatric neurologist, was recruited to oversee the school’s new genetic tests, designed to help winnow 12,000 applications for 32 available spots in next year’s class. As she explains, “We now know that simple DNA testing can determine whether a child will end up at Yale or at Yonkers Community College.”

Most societies take at least some steps to curb waste that results from arms races in education and other domains. Consider the practice of kindergarten redshirting — so called because of its resemblance to the practice whereby universities hold athletes out of competition during their freshman year so they’ll be bigger and stronger during their four remaining years of eligibility.

Ambitious parents might consider redshirting their kindergartners, because they would then be older, smarter and more emotionally mature than their classmates. And because school performance is graded on a curve, they would be more likely to win admission to an elite university. But the same option, of course, is available to other parents, and if all took it, no child would perform better in relative terms. We’d just end up with an older crop of kindergarteners.

That’s why parents have good reason to favor the laws in most jurisdictions that take the kindergarten start date out of their hands.

It would obviously be a much more radical step to impose limits on how much parents could spend on private schools. But what if we adopted the Buffett Rule, under which top earners’ tax rates would be no lower than those paid by middle-income families? That would reduce what top earners could bid for the scarce things they want. But because the allocation of elite preschool admissions, penthouses overlooking Central Park and other such prizes is settled by relative bidding, the question of who gets what would be unaffected. So with no real sacrifice, the rule would generate new revenue for reducing deficits and rebuilding tattered infrastructure.

Top earners, meanwhile, will continue to reap the bulk of all income growth, and the preschool admission battle will grow steadily more intense. The only reason that no elite preschool has adopted DNA tests is that no one has figured out how to use them to predict academic achievement. Yet.

Read Full News on NYTIMES

Jane Goodall's Message of Hope In Rollin's College

 

In the final event of the Winter Park Institute’s spring season, preeminent conservationist and primatologist Jane Goodall addressed nearly 4,000 audience members on Thursday, April 19, with her stories from the field, messages of peace and harmony, and calls to action to make the world a better place.

“Somewhere along the way, humankind lost its connection between heart and mind and began basing decisions on what is best for now, not what is best for our future,” Goodall said. “My greatest reason to have hope for our future is the indomitable spirit and energy of young people. When our backs are against the wall, we find a way to solve our greatest problems.”

“As a scientist, I find Jane Goodall’s achievement inspirational,” commented President Lewis Duncan in commemoration of her life’s work during a ceremonial stone installation in the Walk of Fame. The stone, which originated from the banks of Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve where Goodall began her field studies, celebrates her as a remarkable exemplar of Rollins’ mission. “Her quest for understanding beyond geographic boundaries embodies the Rollins commitment to students of life-long learning, responsible leadership, and global citizenship.”

Goodall’s visit to Rollins afforded her the opportunity to speak directly to students from the honors and environmental studies programs. Outspoken student activists Christian Kebbel '12, Bethany Eriksen ’15, and Colleen Wilkowski ’15 were given the honor to lead the student discussion with Goodall. “I never imagined I would get to meet a visionary like Jane Goodall my first year at Rollins,” Wilkowski said. “Meeting her is reaffirming my dream to devote my life to service and change the world like she has.”

“One thing I find when I speak to members of your generation,” Goodall told the students, “is that young people your age don’t seem to have much faith in our ability to sort out during their lifetime the damage that’s been done to the planet. But it’s not true that there’s nothing we can do about it. The key to success is to only get involved with a cause or pursue a career for which you are passionate. If you really want something, work hard, take advantage of opportunities and never, ever give up. You will find a way.”

“I absolutely loved what she said about following my passion and being inspired by those around me,” said Arianna Woicekowski ’15, an honors student in attendance who marveled at how approachable Goodall was. “I’m moved to reconsider how I will devote my talents and education to make an impact in the world.”

Goodall’s presentation paralleled that of the Animated Magazine, a tradition established 85 years ago by Rollins’ eighth president Hamilton Holt. In similar fashion to the thousands who gathered on Mills Lawn to hear the words of prominent thought-leaders, the significance, grandeur, and enthusiasm that surrounded Goodall’s visit to Rollins captured the attention and stimulated the minds of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and visitors from near and far.

“When young people understand the problems and challenges with which our planet is faced and are empowered to take action, they will follow their passions to make the world a better place,” she said. “Things may go wrong in life, but don’t give up. There’s always a way forward.”

Goodall was able to come to Rollins as part of the College’s weeklong Earth Day celebration during her promotion of the DisneyNature film Chimpanzee, which premiered in theaters on April 20. A video recording will soon be available for viewing on the Winter Park Institute website along with more information on the Institute’s fall season.

Original source here.

How Windows Phone can help your profile as a developer

If you're a developer looking to make a splash, Windows Phone is the place to do it.

Now, I know Windows Phone isn't exactly the most popular smartphone operating system out there. Apple's iOS remains the go-to platform for developers, and Android offers a massive potential customer base.

But in both cases, your app risks getting lost in the sea of other programs available on both platforms. You want to be noticed? Take a chance on Windows Phone, which has a fraction of the apps available on iOS and Android. There's a higher chance you'll be a big fish in a smaller pond, but it's a pond that's steadily getting bigger.

It's still a good time to jump on the bandwagon before it actually takes off. There's some buzz around the Lumia 900, with some AT&T stores selling out of the device, but Windows Phone isn't exactly a must-have platform yet.

The key word is yet. With Windows Phone 8 around the corner, and the eventual integration with Windows 8, there are more reasons to excited about the platform and establish a position there.

One such reason is the combined resources between Microsoft, Nokia, and AT&T, which have all pledged to take Windows Phone mainstream -- something the platform hasn't been able to do over the past year.

Even Verizon recognizes the value of having a third mobile ecosystem beyond Android and iOS, as Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said last week. You can expect Verizon to eventually throw its weight behind Windows Phone.

With all that support, it's hard to bet against Windows Phone. Either way, it would behoove developers to start taking a more serious look at the platform. Most of the up-and-coming apps I've seen all start at iOS, with a few at Android. A developer starting with Windows Phone first may win support from Microsoft, which has shown it isn't afraid to pay for good apps.

So how does a developer start? The first thing developers should do is register with Microsoft at the company's App Hub. The site has tools that are free to download, and can get you started on making apps for that platform.

Microsoft said developers should then contact their local Windows Phone "Dev Champ." You can find one through Twitter or the FindMyChamp app, which is available both on Windows Phone and PC (in case you haven't yet bought a Windows Phone device yourself). The Windows Phone Developers Blog is also another resource for tricks and tools for app development.

To be sure, Windows Phone still offers a tiny customer base -- an important factor for developers looking to reach as many people as possible. But a good app can generate buzz on any platform, and can probably do so a little easier on Windows Phone, where there are fewer quality apps. That goodwill could help a developer looking to port that app over to iOS and Android.

Microsoft and Nokia acknowledge they are still waiting for those killer apps to show up on Windows Phone. The companies are providing resources and support to help foster high-profile apps, with the hope that one will be a breakout hit.

If you're a developer with a good idea that's the next killer app, perhaps Windows Phone might be the place to foster it.

Source : cnet

Future Toyotas will sense your mood

Toyota is working on a mood-sensitive electronics system that's part safety net, part backseat driver. According to an article on Whatcar.com, the prototype system customizes the safety system's alert times based on the driver's mood. And how can it tell what mood you're in? Cameras mounted inside the cabin are focused on the driver's position and recognize emotions by interpreting 238 points on the face.

Sad or angry drivers may be distracted or have delayed reaction times, and they may not be able to avoid an accident. If your car thinks you've woken up on the wrong side of the bed, the electronics alert system will give you a little more of a heads up. On the other hand, if the system determines that your expression is neutral, the warning system will use standard alert times.

Toyota isn't the the only auto manufacturer using cameras inside vehicles to keep an eye on the driver in addition to the road. Audi is testing distracted-driver technology using in-cabin cameras that watch the driver's head position. If the system detects that the driver may not be paying attention based on the body and head position, Audi's crash-avoidance technology may engage earlier than normal.

A Cambridge University professor is developing a mood-sensitive navigation system that can give you directions based on natural-language conversation. In addition to giving better GPS guidance, the technology could be integrated with other vehicle electronics systems to block phone calls or limit speed if it senses that the driver is under stress.

But mood-sensitive alerts and navigation are still a few years away from becoming a reality. Toyota has been developing this technology since 2006, and Jonas Ambeck, senior manager of advance technology for the car maker, says the basic research should be complete within two to three years and could make it into vehicles as soon as six years from now.

 Source

Asus Transformer Pad TF300 review: A cheaper Prime?

The Asus Transformer Prime was the great silver hope for Android fans -- and by "silver" I mean "champagne gold" or "amethyst gray" or whatever awkward-sounding color combo Asus assigns to its tablet.

Arguably, the Prime marked the first time Android fans could hold up a tablet to their iPad-owning frenemies and say, "Now I own the most powerful -- on paper at least -- tablet in the universe!" Or something like that.

Aside from some GPS and Wi-Fi issues, the Prime was a robust and powerful tablet, but was
probably too expensive for most wallets. Enter: the Transformer Pad TF300.

The TF300 ditches the Prime's metal body for a plastic one; removes the LED flashlight from the back camera; and unfortunately loses access to the Prime's sometimes helpful Super IPS mode.

Starting at only $380 (for 16GB), though, those loses might not be such a bad trade-off. Check out the full review of the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 to find out if the TF300 is a worthy bearer of the Transformer name.

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Microsoft releases Skype 1.0 for Windows Phone

Version 1.0 of Skype for Windows Phone is now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace, as reported by WPCentral.com.

The 6 MB free Skype for Windows Phone app runs on Windows Phone 7.5 devices and higher. It works over Wi-Fi or 3G. Version 1.0 replaces the beta of the app which Microsoft rolled out at the end of February.

WPCentral notes that the 1.0 release3 adds the ability to search for and add new contacts and call landlines. However, it does not allow background calling, meaning the app will only allow someone to call if the user has Skype open and is in the app.

Microsoft is expected to more tightly integrate Skype with the Windows Phone 8 operating system release. However, according to early leaks, Skype will still remain a standalone app by the time Windows Phone 8 debuts, which is expected to be before the end of calendar 2012.

There are already Skype for iPhone, Skype for Android and Skype for Blackberry apps available.

WPCentral also noted today that the 2.0 version of Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud-storage app for Windows Phone also is now in the Windows Phone Marketplace, too. Microsoft's SkyDrive team recently added ODF document support and URL shortening, among a few other features, to SkyDrive.

Source

Iranian oil terminal 'offline' after 'malware attack'

Iran has been forced to disconnect key oil facilities after suffering a malware attack on Sunday, say reports.

The computer virus is believed to have hit the internal computer systems at Iran's oil ministry and its national oil company.

Equipment on the Kharg island and at other Iranian oil plants has been disconnected from the net as a precaution.

Oil production had not been affected by the attack, said the Mehr news agency.

However, the attack is believed to have been responsible for knocking offline the websites of the Iranian oil ministry and national oil company.

The Ministry website was back in action on Monday but the oil company site has remained unreachable.

An Iranian oil ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying that data about users of the sites had been stolen as a result of the attack. Core data about Iran's oil industry remained safe because it was on computer systems that remain separate from the net, they added.

The terminal on Kharg Island handles about 90% of Iran's oil exports.

Iran is reported to have mobilised a "cyber crisis committee" to handle the aftermath of the attack and bolster defences.

This committee was set up following attacks in 2010 by a virus known as Stuxnet that was aimed at the nation's nuclear programme.(BBC)

Wind turbine blimp aims to replace diesel generators

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird… it's a plane… it's a… wind turbine? Altaeros Energies, a Massachusetts-based company formed by MIT and Harvard grads, has aimed high — literally — in its quest to deliver power to remote, off-the-grid locations, creating a blimp that harnesses the power of the wind at 1,000 feet up.

The prototype, seen in this video, is a large helium-filled shell that looks almost like a jet engine (or, as we suspect more than a few people thought when it was tested in Maine earlier this year, a UFO). Attached to a trailer on the ground, it automatically deploys itself 1,000 feet in the air (350 feet for its inaugural test flight) where a fan at its center is turned by the wind. At this altitude, the wind is not only stronger than at ground level, but also much steadier, resulting in twice the energy production of a traditional, pole-mounted turbine.

The electricity generated by the turbine is sent down to the trailer via the tether cables, where it can be used to power remote villages, military outposts, or anywhere that would normally have to depend on polluting diesel generators. When it's not in use, it can be automatically reeled in.

Altaeros Energies says that while the power its blimp provides costs more than getting it from the grid, it's actually more affordable than from generators that require a constant supply of gasoline, not to mention greener. The company plans to develop a larger, sturdier version of the 35-foot dirigible for use offshore by utility companies. (Yahoo)

Spam: India leads world in junk emails

India has become the top spam-spewing nation on the planet, suggests a report.

Compiled by security firm Sophos, the report ranks nations by the amount of junk mail routed through computers in each country.         

         

                                                                                       Many spammers have shifted their focus 

                                                                                               from email to social networks

India has leapt to the top of the spam chart in less than a year, rapidly overtaking the US, said Sophos.

About 10% of all junk mail sent across the web came from or passed through computers in India, said the firm.

India's rapid rise up the chart of spam producers has been helped by the rapid growth of the web in the country, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

The inexperience of the many first-time net users in India had led many to fall victim to hi-tech criminals, he said.

"The latest stats show that, as more first-time internet users get online in growing economies, they are not taking measures to block the malware infections that turn their PCs into spam-spewing zombies," he added.

Social networks

About 80% of all junk email is thought to be routed through PCs hijacked by hi-tech criminals who use computer viruses to seize control of the machines. Once a machine is under their control they use them to send out mail on their behalf, typically relaying it from another nation.

Sophos estimates that about 9.3% of all junk mail travels through Indian computers. In second place is the US (8.3%) and South Korea (5.7%) is third.

India's rise up the rankings was also helped by the ongoing shift away from traditional email by spammers. More and more of them, said Sophos, were using social networks as the route to spread their junk messages.

Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest were all being hit with increasing regularity by spammers, said Sophos.(BBC)

The Hunger Games Fan Tours in Brevard

(Reuters) - Fans of "The Hunger Games" will soon have a chance to channel the survivalist spirit of the novel's heroine by zip-lining through a North Carolina forest and taking classes in camouflage, archery, making fire and shelter-building.

The woodsy, adrenalin-pumping experiences move beyond traditional tourism for fans of books and the movies they inspire, targeting enthusiasts whose passion wants another portal.

"We call this fandemonium," said Tammy Hopkins, co-founder of The Hunger Games Fan Tours in Brevard. "These are the super fans. They want to see the film locations, but they also want to experience what their favorite character experiences in the movie."

The touch of Hollywood-style adventure is the newest spin on a long tradition of literary tourism packages and events across the U.S. South, a region rich in an American literary legacy that includes William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.

In North Carolina, where the movie based on the popular young adult novel "The Hunger Games" was filmed, the state tourism division developed a travel itinerary of movie-related settings and activities from Charlotte to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The itinerary notes where actors ate in Asheville and suggests zip-lining through the canopy of Pisgah National Forest, for a closer, more thrilling glimpse of the film's setting. It has been viewed nearly 20,000 times since being posted online on March 5, said Margo Metzger, spokeswoman for the Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development.

Hopkins and business partner Leigh Trapp, who has led Harry Potter tours in the United Kingdom and "Twilight" tours in the Pacific Northwest, are selling day tours of DuPont State Recreational Forest and weekend packages at a mountain lodge that include a variety of adventure activities.

"Everybody I know has read the book," Hopkins said. "We're getting lots of calls from grandmas and grandpas whose grandkids turned them on to the book."
Fans of the Oscar-winning movie "The Help" and the novel it is based on have flocked to small-town Greenwood, Mississippi, whose neighborhoods and big houses appeared in the film.

"We have visitors from all 50 states," said Paige Hunt, executive director of the town's convention and visitors bureau.
"The author is from Jackson, and the book is set in 1963 Jackson. But Jackson doesn't look like 1963 anymore, and Greenwood does."


A LITERARY MECCA

Mississippi - home to Faulkner and Williams, as well as Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Willie Morris and Shelby Foote - has been called a literary mecca, said Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books in Oxford.

"Literary tourism's been going on in this town since before Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in 1950 because he created this mythical kingdom of Yoknapatawpha," Howorth said. "People were curious about it. They came from all over the world to see Faulkner's home."

Two longtime annual events, the Oxford Conference for the Book and the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference at the University of Mississippi, bring hundreds of bibliophiles and scholars to the town of about 20,000, Howorth said.
This year's Faulkner conference, which runs July 7-11, will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the author's death.

The town of Monroeville, Alabama, this summer marks the 50th anniversary of the release of "To Kill a Mockingbird," the film based on native daughter Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about race and redemption in the 1930s South.
Events in Monroeville on July 8-11 will include visits to the childhood neighborhood of Lee and her friend Truman Capote and games of hop-scotch and checkers. Townspeople in period dress will perform readings from the book.

A 2009 study for the National Trust for Historic Preservation found 78 percent of all U.S. leisure travelers participate in cultural or heritage activities while traveling. That translates to about 118 million adults, who spend an average of $994 per trip and contribute more than $192 billion annually to the U.S. economy.

Literary tourism, of course, is popular beyond the South.

But Southerners claim a distinct sense of place and storytelling art rooted in the often tragic history of a region where, as Faulkner famously wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past."

"It's the Civil War, it's the King James Bible, it's the front porch visiting, it's the oral traditions from Africa, from Ireland, from the roots of people around here," Howorth said. "There's this category of Southern literature that is not really akin to any other region of the country."

Victoria Beckham turns designer hand to cars

(Reuters) - British fashion designer Victoria Beckham had her soccer-superstar husband "David in mind" when helping create a new special edition of Range Rover's off-road vehicle, the "Evoque".

"I've stayed very true to myself. I've designed a car that I want to drive, a car that I think David wants to drive," the former Spice Girl told Reuters in an interview in Beijing, where she was promoting the vehicle, late on Sunday.

"I think that though women will drive this car, it has a masculine edge. I think it's very cool," she added.

Beckham, who admitted she had never done a project like this before, said she had learned "an enormous amount."

"And the bottom line is, would I drive this car, like when I'm designing a dress, would I wear this dress? I love what I do. I consider myself so blessed to do a job that I love and this has been a great experience for me," said Beckham, wearing a sleeveless striped dress from her own collection.

She said she searched for inspiration in many places.

"I did a lot of research and not just with cars, old and new, but boats, planes, movie stars, different locations," she said.

"It would be hard to pinpoint exactly where the inspiration came from. It's just what I like, that's the bottom line. I don't try to be too technical about it ... It's what feels real to me."

The special edition "Evoque" features exclusive, hand-finished matt paint, the first for a Land Rover-type vehicle.

The vehicle also has rose gold accents on the grille and gloss black forged alloy wheels. Inside, the four-seat coupe includes vintage-inspired leather seats, rose gold-plated accents and features trimmings of black lacquer, textured aluminum and mohair.

In addition, the vehicle has bespoke luxury accessories, such as a four-piece leather luggage set and a hand-sewn leather wallet for the owner's manual signed by (Victoria) Beckham.

The special edition "Evoque" costs 80,000 pounds ($129,000), twice the cost of a regular model. Only 200 will be made, the first of which will be rolled out in China as early as October.

Beckham has begun to make a name for herself as a designer, and in 2011 picked up a British Fashion Award.

Still, the singer-turned-designer said she "doesn't want to run, before she can walk" with her collection.

"I mean, each season, I add more retail partners to my list of retailers but because it's important for me, as a brand, to keep things quite small. I want my customer to feel quite special when she finds one of my dresses or handbags. I don't want it to get too big too quickly."

Rango (2011)

Rango is a 2011 computer-animated family film directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Graham King. Rango was a critical and commercial success, and won Best Animated Feature at the 84th Academy Awards.

In the film, a chameleon accidentally ends up in the town of Dirt, an outpost that is in desperate need of a new sheriff. It features the voices of actors Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant and Ned Beatty.

Plot: An unnamed pet chameleon (Johnny Depp) becomes stranded in the Mojave Desert after his terrarium falls from his owners' car by accident. He meets an armadillo named Roadkill (Alfred Molina), who is seeking the mystical Spirit of the West and directs the parched chameleon to find water at a town called Dirt. While wandering the desert, he narrowly avoids being eaten by a red-tailed hawk and has a surreal nightmare before meeting the desert iguana Beans (Isla Fisher), a rancher's daughter, who takes the chameleon to Dirt, an Old West town populated by desert animals.

Using bravado and improvisation to fit in, the chameleon presents himself to the townsfolk as a tough drifter named Rango. He quickly runs afoul of outlaw Bad Bill (Ray Winstone), but narrowly avoids a shootout when Bill is scared off by the hawk's return.

Ricochet by Sandra Brown

Book Description:
When Detective Sergeant Duncan Hatcher is summoned to the home of Judge Cato Laird in the middle of the night to investigate a fatal shooting, he knows that discretion and kid-glove treatment are the keys to staying in the judge's good graces and keeping his job.

At first glance, the case appears open-and-shut: Elise, the judge's trophy wife, interrupted a burglary in progress and killed the intruder in self-defense. But Duncan is immediately suspicious of Elise's innocent act. His gut feeling is that her account of the shooting is only partially true -- and it's the parts she's leaving out that bother him.

Determined to learn the dead man's connection to the Lairds and get at the truth, Duncan investigates further and quickly finds his career, as well as his integrity, in jeopardy -- because he can't deny his increasing attraction to Elise Laird, even if she is a married woman, a proven liar, and a murder suspect.

When Elise seeks Duncan out privately and makes an incredible allegation, he initially dismisses it as the manipulative lie of a guilty woman. But what if she's telling the truth? Then that single fatal gunshot at her home takes on even more sinister significance, possibly involving Duncan's nemesis, the brutal crime lord Robert Savich.

And then Elise goes missing . . .

Ricochet's plot twists -- as only Sandra Brown can write them -- and palpable suspense combine to create this gripping thriller, in which a decent cop's worst enemy may be his own conscience, and trusting the wrong person could mean the difference between life and death.

Chinese labels steal show at Shanghai Fashion Week

Fashion Week (http://www.shanghaifashionweek.com) drew to a close Tuesday after 40 shows, countless parties and a dazzling array of designs that showed off the country’s own emerging talents.

Here’s a look at the three local labels that set tongues wagging.

Insh (http://www.insh.com.cn): Local designer Helen Lee is the darling of the Shanghai fashionista set, and let loose her “Window” collection on the catwalks this year. Her label Insh, she says, combines the city’s “icons, people and ideas with bright colors, energetic shapes and cross-cultural themes to create an aesthetic that is true to Shanghai.”

Zuczug (http://www.zuczug.com): A label that first appeared on the scene in 2002 – and is driven by the vision of its acclaimed founder Wang Yiyang – Zuczug was all bright colors and vibrancy in Shanghai this year. The label has proved enormously popular among China’s rising middle class and while the world awaits, Wang has long proclaimed his designs are suited – specifically – for local tastes.

Zix Guan (http://www.zix-g.com): The Matrix was certainly an influence – but so was Angelina Jolie as the actress appeared in the likes of Mr and Mrs Smith and Salt. Guan said her show this year was again all about feminine empowerment and she provided a stunning opening to the Shanghai event – and reminder to the world at large that the Chinese fashion industry is now a force to be reckoned with.

Rafael Nadal beats Novak Djokovic to win eighth consecutive Monte Carlo Masters title

Rafael Nadal finally managed to beat Novak Djokovic in a final, thrashing the world No1 6-3, 6-1 on Sunday to win the Monte Carlo Masters for the eighth consecutive year and end a run of seven successive defeats by the Serb in title matches.

Nadal was hardly troubled by Djokovic and broke his serve five times in a one-sided contest.

He thrust his hands in the air after clinching victory in style, too, with an ace that flew past the beleaguered Djokovic, who beat Nadal in an epic Australian Open final this year.

"Congratulations, you deserved to win for how you played this week," Djokovic told Nadal on court after the match. "I'm happy to have reached the final for the second time."

Nadal had promised to be aggressive and after Djokovic held his opening service game to love, the Spaniard was relentless in harrying him all over the court. "It's my favourite tournament in the world," Nadal said on centre court after Monaco's Prince Albert handed him the trophy.

"You make me feel incredible feelings." It was Nadal's first title since the 2011 French Open and his 42nd successive win at the Monte Carlo Masters.

Djokovic, who has been playing through grief since the death of his grandfather on Thursday, struggled to find a rhythm, making 25 unforced errors to 11 winners. Nadal, however, timed most of his shots to perfection, and pushed Djokovic further and further back.

The breezy conditions seemed to bother Djokovic more than they did Nadal, although the swirling winds were not as intense as on Saturday. (Guardian.co.uk)

Manchester City back in title race

Sergio Aguero celebrates his goal

Manchester City defeated Wolvesverhampton 2-0 to reduce the leaders, Manchester United, lead to 3 points, who were held for a 4-4 draw by Everton earlier in the day.
Roberto Mancini’s side has a 6 goal difference advantage over their rivals and would go top if they win at the Etihad on 30th April and then beat both Newcastle United away and Queens Park Rangers at home to clinch the title.
City got ahead in 27 minutes with Sergio Aguero's goal while his side missed many chances as Mancini declared the performance “so-so”. Wolves pushed hard in the 2nd half until Samir Nasri's goal in the 74th minute, which was setup by the hard work of Carlos Tevez.
Everton's Nikica Jelavic scored a double to draw the match against Manchester United. Trailing 4-2 with seven minutes remaining, Everton scored 2 goals within 2 minutes to take a point and shred the nerves of United fans.