Maths Journals Open Up

Cambridge University Press launched this month the online Forum of Mathematics journals and will bankroll them by waiving charges to authors for three years.

FIELDS Medal winner Terry Tao will serve as an editor for a new set of open access journals in mathematics. An expatriate Australian based at the University of California Los Angeles, he is joined on the board by fellow Fields medallist Tim Gowers, whose blog post led to the "Cost of Knowledge'' boycott of commercial publisher Elsevier. The board embraces academics from well-known universities as well as mathematician Henry Kohn from Microsoft's Research New England lab.

CUP said the new journals would follow "the same high levels of peer review process as traditional subscription journals''. Articles would be available free of charge online. The publication cost to authors would be in the order of £500-£700 pounds, modest by current standards. CUP is expected to seek philanthropic support to keep charges low.

Costs will be contained by offering print-on-demand only.

Forum of Mathematics, Pi, would be a generalist journal, while Forum of Mathematics, Sigma, would be specialist, and papers in various fields of mathematics would be organised in clusters. The journals open for submissions on October 1.

UK -- Grammar tests are attack on teachers, says Union

A teaching union has condemned plans that will see all 11-year-olds tested on the proper use of apostrophes and the difference between nouns, verbs and adjectives, saying the proposals amount to an attack on teachers.

Up to 600,000 pupils a year will sit a rigorous new writing exam as part of a Coalition drive to ensure children master the basics before starting secondary education.

Plans published by the Department for Education show that children’s grasp of vocabulary, spelling, grammar and punctuation will be covered by the test.

However Chris Keates, the General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union, said the plans were part of an "entirely unjustifiable campaign to denigrate the commitment and professionalism of teachers".

"Imposing a wholly unnecessary additional high-stress test on schools has nothing to do with ensuring that teachers can support all pupils to reach their full potential as writers," he said.

"It is, instead, a means by which ministers can continue their ill-founded and entirely unjustifiable campaign to denigrate the commitment and professionalism of teachers and the progress and achievements of pupils.

"This is yet another example of the deprofessionalisation of teachers from a government that said it was going to reinvigorate the status of teachers in the classroom."

He said there had been "significant improvements" in pupils' results in written tests over the past decade and more 11-year-olds than ever before are meeting targets.

Concerns have been expressed that the fundamental rules of English were neglected under the last government, meaning that many pupils are now struggling to structure essays and other written work correctly.

Business leaders have complained that they are forced to provide school leavers with remedial tuition in the three-Rs.

Under the new exams, which will form part of Sats tests, pupils will be expected to recognise the difference between formal and non-standard English, in response to concerns that too many youngsters rely on so-called “text speak” in their written work.

The exam will also focus on the grammatical functions of words, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions.

Officials say that children should be “taught to proofread” their work for spelling and punctuation errors, omissions and repetition.

Pupils will also be expected to use “fluent, joined and legible” handwriting and will be taught to use punctuation marks correctly, with a focus on full stops, question marks, commas, inverted commas and apostrophes.

Teaching unions have already threatened to boycott the exam - which will be introduced in all state schools next year – over concerns that it risks narrowing the curriculum and promoting a culture of “teaching to the test”.

The National Association of Head Teachers warned that it would pile “increased misery” on 10 and 11 year-olds who were already drilled to pass separate exams in maths and reading at the end of primary school.

Yesterday, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, issued a savage attack on “partisan, political union leaders” who “care far more about wranglings between adults than about improvements for children”. Addressing a conference staged by head teachers of independent academy schools, he said: “I believe that we can only overcome the corrosive culture of low expectations which still persists in too many of our schools by setting a higher bar, with harder exams for all students. It is only when we have a system where we expect for all children what we would expect for our own that we have a dynamic which drives up attainment for the very poorest.”

He also criticised “bizarre” members of the National Union of Teachers for “embracing Trotskyism when even the Communist Party of Vietnam operates a market economy”.

Mr Gove rounded on “teaching union leaders who deny there is any such thing as a bad teacher who needs to go – and so hold back freedom and recognition for those good teachers who deserve our praise and promotion”.

Previously, children in England took “Sats” tests in reading, writing and mathematics.

But the Government scrapped the exam in writing composition last year because of concerns over inconsistent marking and fears young children struggled to come up with creative prose under formal test conditions.

In its place, ministers are proposing to introduce a more focused test covering grammar, punctuation and spelling.

A specification document drawn up by the Standards and Testing Agency, the department’s new examinations quango, says pupils will be assessed using a series of “short-answer questions”. This will cover the different grammatical functions of words and the use of complex sentences, including clauses, phrases and connectives.

Sample questions include asking pupils to pick out the adverbs from the sentence: “Open the drawers carefully and quietly when using the filing cabinet.” It will also include a spelling test assessing about 20 words. This will include words such as accommodate, analyse, deceive, embarrass, hindrance, lightning, mischievous, pronunciation, rhythm, tremendous, volcano and yacht.

The agency is considering a number of methods to assess handwriting and will make a decision later this year. But the document suggests that pupils will be expected to “write legibly in both joined and printed styles with increasing fluency and speed” and use different forms of writing including print-style words for labelling diagrams and clear, neat, joined-up writing for presenting work.

One test will be sat by the majority of pupils, but the brightest 11 year-olds will be expected to take an advanced exam featuring topics normally taught in the first three years of secondary school. A spokesman for the department said: “Too little attention has been given to spelling, punctuation and grammar in exams over the past decade.

“All children should be able to communicate and write effectively which is why we will assess their progress in these areas.”

The Government is also introducing a basic reading test for all six year-olds.

Read original source here

England's schools 'letting future maths stars down'

England is neglecting its brightest children, leaving them lagging far behind their peers overseas in top level maths scores, a report says.

The Sutton Trust study shows teenagers in England are half as likely as those in the average developed nation to reach higher levels in maths.

Brighter pupils are more likely to go to private or grammar schools rather than other state schools, it adds.

The government said it wanted to "restore academic rigour" to schools.

Researchers at the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University examined the proportions of pupils achieving the highest levels in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tests.

'Deeply troubling'

The PISA tests (Programme for International Student Assessment) compare the performance of pupils in different countries in subjects such as reading and maths. The latest results date back to 2009.

The report found that just 1.7% of England's 15-year-olds reached the highest level, Level 6, in maths, compared with an OECD average of 3.1%.

In Switzerland and Korea, 7.8% of pupils reached this level.

Overall, England ranked 26th out of 34 OECD countries for the proportion of pupils reaching the top level in maths, behind other nations like Slovenia (3.9%), the Slovak Republic (3.6%) France (3.3%) and the Czech Republic (3.2%), which were among those scoring around the OECD average.

These figures show that few bright non-privileged students reach their academic potential - which is unfair and a tragedy ”Sir Peter LamplSutton Trust

The report adds that the situation looks worse for England when a wider global comparison is used.

Singapore, which is not part of the OECD table analysed, saw 15.6% of its students score the top level, while in Hong Kong and Shanghai, which were also not part of the OECD table, 10.8% and 26.6% respectively got the top level.

Sutton Trust chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: "This is a deeply troubling picture for any us who care about our brightest pupils from non-privileged backgrounds."

The study also suggests that comparing the maths results of 18-year-olds would be even more stark because 90% of English pupils drop the subject after GCSE.

Whereas in many other countries, maths is compulsory up to the age of 18.

The report argues that England is falling down international tables because of successive failures to help the most able pupils.

It calls for bright children to be identified at the end of primary school, with their achievements and progress tracked from then on.

'Profound concerns'

It says there should also be tougher questions in exams to allow bright youngsters to stretch themselves and show their abilities.

Sir Peter said: "These are shocking findings that raise profound concerns about how well we support our most academically-able pupils, from non-privileged backgrounds.

"Excellence in maths is crucial in so many areas such as science, engineering, IT, economics and finance. These figures show that few bright non-privileged students reach their academic potential - which is unfair and a tragedy for them and the country as a whole."

Report author Prof Alan Smithers said recent education policy for the brightest had been a mess.

"The government should signal to schools the importance of educating the brightest through how it holds the schools to account.

"At present the accountability measures are pitched at the weakest and middling performers," he added.

Education Secretary Michael Gove added: "We already knew that under Labour we plummeted down the international league tables in maths.

"Now we see further evidence that they betrayed bright children from poor backgrounds and - worst of all - that their policies drove talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds away from the subjects that employers and universities value most."

Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg said: "Results for all pupils, including the brightest, improved under Labour.

"While there are always improvements that could be made, gifted and talented pupils were stretched through a National Academy, targeted scholarships and a new A* grade at A-level.

"While we want to see bright pupils stretched, this can't be at the expense of leaving some behind. Michael Gove's plans will create a two tier exam system, which will do nothing to help all pupils make the most of their potential."

Nasuwt teaching union head Chris Keates said the tests used to draw the comparisons, and the way children prepare for them, differed between countries.

"Their conclusions raise more questions than they answer. They are not comparing like with like.

"The education systems are different. The pupils taking the tests are selected differently. Some countries do nothing but prepare for the tests for months. Some, like Shanghai may not enter a pupil sample generally reflective of the student population and use crammer sessions to prepare."

Original source here

No Child Left Behind Waivers Granted To More Than Half Of U.S. States

The states of Washington and Wisconsin will be allowed to wiggle out of No Child Left Behind's rigorous test requirements, joining two dozen other U.S. states that have already agreed to waivers that require them to adopt the Obama administration's education agenda instead, the U.S. Education Department will announce today.

The new waivers mean more than half the states have now won exemptions from the 2002 law, a signature initiative of George W. Bush's presidency that required standardized testing of students and a system of punishments based on the test scores.

While advocates credit the law for exposing test score gaps between different groups of students, even the law's original cheerleaders acknowledge its "failing" schools label is too broad, the tutoring remedies it mandates rarely boost student achievement, and the 2014 goal that 100 percent of U.S. students be deemed "proficient" in science and math is unrealistic.

The law expired in 2007. Despite a few attempts, Congress has failed to rewrite it. After Congress missed President Barack Obama's fall deadline for overhauling the law, the administration began offering states relief waivers from the law's toughest parts. In exchange for the waivers, states had to agree to parts of the Obama education agenda, which includes a "college- and career-ready" standards and grading teachers, in part, in accordance with students' standardized test scores. And instead of subjecting all schools to potential punishments, only 15 percent of each state's lowest-performing schools would be affected.

The waiver process has resulted in a flurry of criticism from Republicans, who say the administration is abusing its power and exerting too strong a federal role in education.

More recently, though, a survey by consulting firm Whiteboard Advisors revealed that the controversy surrounding the process is broader. Late last month, the "education influentials" who responded to Whiteboard's survey -- questions answered anonymously by White House, Education Department and congressional staffers -- showed limited confidence in the waiver process. "The waivers are a complete disaster, and will weaken accountability in ways that will be felt for years, if not decades," one respondent complained. "The Washington ed policy world has completely looked the other way while all this has happened -- largely because they are mostly Democrats who could not bring themselves to oppose Obama/[U.S. Secretary of Education Arne] Duncan."

Minnesota is already transitioning to new school accountability systems. When Minnesota uploaded its new education database last month, the number of schools identified as needing improvement dropped suddenly to 127 from 1,056 the previous year, wrote Charlie Weaver, executive director of the Minnesota Business Partnership, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune last month. "Either a thousand elementary, middle and high schools suddenly and collectively erased stubborn achievement gaps and radically upped test scores in the last 12 months, or someone is getting cute with the numbers," Weaver wrote. The new system grades schools for students' improvement, not competence -- a switch advocates say is fairer to teachers. But Weaver asserted that the new method "makes it appear that Minnesota schools are doing better than they actually are."

Still, Duncan lauded the addition of Wisconsin and Washington. “It is a remarkable milestone that in only five months, more than half of the states in the country have adopted state-developed, next-generation education reforms to improve student learning and classroom instruction, while ensuring that resources are targeted to the students that need them most,” Duncan said in a statement.

Washington's waiver is conditioned on the state finalizing its teacher and principal evaluations, in addition to crafting its school accountability system. Before the state can fully get out of the law, the U.S. Education Department will have to approve those two facets. Until then, the state will revise its performance targets, and instead of looking to hit absolute targets, will seek to halve the percentage of students who aren't proficient within six years.

The 26 states that have now received permission to work around No Child Left Behind include Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. In addition, six states that did not complete the entire waiver process -- and one whose application was rejected -- got a one-year freeze on the rising targets for standardized test scores: Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine and West Virginia. The applications of 10 states and Washington, D.C., are still being reviewed.

Original source here

You shouldn't need a first-class degree to succeed

Employers are missing talent when they only consider graduates with first class degrees, writes Charlotte Esler.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine announced that he was going to drop out of his degree, just weeks before his finals. Why? Because he didn’t want to get a “Desmond”. The thought of graduating with a “Desmond Tutu”, or 2:2 grade, he felt, would have been of even less benefit to him than not graduating at all. At least the second option meant he got a head start in the job hunt.

Following the latest report from the Association of Graduate Recruiters, I can see where he was coming from. The report suggests that the labour market has become so saturated by graduates that the easiest way for employers to sift through them is to ignore those who fail to obtain first-class honours in their degree. A further study by High Fliers Research noted that 70 percent of employers have 2:1 as their minimum requirement.

The problem is a multidimensional one. Take the unprecedented number of graduates, coupled with the fact that many top companies stopped running their official grad schemes during the financial crisis. Add to this the fact the number of graduates with first-class honours has more than doubled in the past 10 years, and the problems faced by all but the most gifted candidates becomes clear. The numbers are so skewed that there are now over 70 applicants for every graduate job, and that number doubles in sectors such as investment banking and retail.

But all this raises the question as to what exactly a first can guarantee for an employer. When many graduates, particularly from the arts and social sciences, go into employment not directly related to their degree course, the only thing that top honours can guarantee graduate recruiters is academic ability. This is an achievement in itself, but by no means the unambiguous promise of a successful career.

It might not only be recent graduates who are missing out then, but employers too. Such a heavy focus on academic attainment seems to ignore other important credentials, so-called “soft skills”, such as willingness to learn, leadership ability, interpersonal skills and creativity.

Top graduate employers of course also test for these things by means of detailed online application forms, psychometric testing, individual interviews and group problem-solving scenarios, in order to gauge applicant competency in other fields. But as long as the majority of employers request a 2:1 as the absolute minimum at degree level, the business acumen and creativity of graduates with 2:2 or below, nearly 40 per cent of graduates, will remain ignored and they will be left at the first hurdle.

Original source here

Sarah Chasins '12 Tops International Computing Research Competition

Recent highest honors graduate Sarah Chasins '12 has received a prestigious award from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) through its 2012 Student Research Competition. Arguably the most influential professional organization in computer science, ACM placed Chasins first in an international undergraduate research competition at the ACM Awards Banquet, held in San Francisco this summer.

Before entering the ACM research competition, undergraduate computer science students first enter research competitions at regional conferences sponsored by ACM. Chasins was First Place Winner of the ACM Undergraduate Student Research Competition at the Systems, Programming, Languages, and Applications (SPLASH): Software for Humanity Conference held in Portland, Oregon last fall. Chasins' placing qualified her to compete against other regional winners, with her receiving the top prize.

Chasins conducted her research, "Efficient Implementation of the Plaid Language," with Jonathan Aldrich of Carnegie Mellon during a summer research experience. Plaid is a new programming language developed by Aldrich and his research students and, as part of her research, Chasins built a JavaScript-based code generator that is 47 times faster in producing code compared to a previous Java-based implementation. In addition, she measured the performance of her design empirically against a set of standard benchmarks.

"Sarah did absolutely first-class technical work, but it was also paired with great delivery of her results in the form of her paper, poster, and oral presentation at SPLASH," Aldrich says. "It takes both to go the distance in a setting like the ACM research competition."

Chasins based her senior thesis on the findings from her noteworthy research and graduated with an honors major in computer science, a course major in behavioral economics, and an honors minor in psychology. Presently, she is pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science at UC-Berkeley.

During her time at Swarthmore, Chasins stood out in the Computer Science Department. "She consistently performed at the top of the class," says associate professor Tia Newhall. "That she has done some amazing independent project work in our courses is an excellent predictor of a students' research abilities and aptitude for graduate study in CS."

Original source here

Facebook Study Explains Why We Still Spend So Many Hours Stalking Each Other

As Posted on HuffingtonPOst:

Americans spend eight hours a month on Facebook. And now, thanks to research by a team of university professors, we know better than ever why we just can't quit the habit.

A new study suggests we use the social media site to cure a simple ailment: boredom. In addition to satisfying our "entertainment" needs, Facebook also attracts us by providing an outlet for "interpersonal communication" and "self-expression," according to the researchers' report.

The study, published in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, suggests that personality type determines how an individual uses social media and that the reason for engaging with Facebook can fluctuate over time.

ReadWriteWeb writes in its summary of the Facebook study:

Researchers have long known that five broad categories drive online activity: information seeking, interpersonal communication, self-expression, passing time and entertainment. In the study led by Hunt, the goal was to see if the same measures drove people to spend time on Facebook. The study confirmed that, with the exception of information seeking, all of the other behavioral factors that drive online activity hold true for Facebook, with entertainment and time passing being two of the biggest drivers of Facebook activity.

Researchers Daniel Hunt, Archana Krishnan, and David Atkin found that, “The entertainment motive was shown to be the most powerful predictor of how much time participants spent on Facebook,” per WebProNews. In basic terms, this means that during the study, Facebook was most often used when subjects were bored, opposed to connecting with individuals to cultivate relationships.

The study was completed by surveying 417 undergraduate students and was first published this June.

Research was based in uses and gratification theory, which argues that the audience (or Facebook user) is not passive but instead "using" media for their specific needs. In other words, if we're bored, we use the media to be entertained and if we are looking for information, we interact with the media to find what we need.

But what if we grow too accustomed to constantly being connected, filling our minds with entertaining or pointless facts? Do we really need to stalk our latest crush for 26 minutes via Facebook when bored?

Another well-known communications theory explored by educator Neil Postman suggests that an increase in technology has caused us to perpetually be "amusing ourselves to death." Postman hints at our need for entertainment by examining the information we typically absorb.

"[M]ost of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action," he says in his book"Amusing Ourselves to Death," arguing that "what we desire will ruin us."

Melodramatic as this may sound, his study took place in 1985, before the rise of Facebook, Twitter, or the smartphone.

While the focus of Hunt's study was more qualitative, he too wonders how digital behaviors will affect society.

"We imagine that young people today are media and technologically literate because they have grown up in a computer-mediated world but, anecdotally, many educators would say that this is not the case," he said in an email to The Huffington Post.

Will Facebook turn us into a "Brave New World" society? Hunt et al.'s study might suggest we linger online to be continuously entertained, other social media mavenshope to alter this habit. Waywire, a new video-sharing site expected to be launched in late summer, will have a focus on "social do-gooders from the millennial generation" to promote change in society (and fight against Postman's bleak predictions).

Other users say they aren't just bored when they access Facebook; they are bored with Facebook itself. In fact, Bianca Bosker reported for The Huffingon Post in June that there has been a recent drop in the time spent on the social media site.

Amazon Phone, Potential iPhone Rival, Could Be In The Works

As Posted on HuffingtonPost

With its $199 Kindle Fire, released in November, Amazon has already taken a hefty chunk of tablet sales away from Apple. Could Amazon be planning the same undercutting strategy against the iPhone?

According to a fresh and lively report from Bloomberg, Amazon is "developing a smartphone that would vie with [Apple]'s iPhone" (and other smartphones too, presumably) and is currently loading up on the requisite patents necessary to enter the smartphone business. Amazon's iPhone (aPhone?) could be ready by the end of 2012, or about a year after its disruptive Kindle Fire hit the market, per a report from Citigroup's Mark Mahaney from November of last year.

Though Amazon does not release firm numbers, most analysts estimate it sold about 6 million Kindle Fires in the first quarter after the device's release, which would make the Kindle Fire the second best-selling tablet ever, behind Apple's iPad. The Kindle Fire was inexpensive ($199, compared to $499 for the cheapest iPad) and easy to use, two attributes that could define the success of any smartphone entry from Amazon.

Details of the supposed Amazon phone are scant, though presumably it would easily connect with the Amazon.com storefront and Amazon App Store. Amazon also recently acquired UpNext, a 3D mapping service it could use on the Kindle Fire or its new smartphone.

But how will Amazon attract phone buyers? With the Kindle Fire, Amazon seemed to be selling to those who had never owned an iPad, or could not afford one; but the tablet market was far more untapped than the current smartphone market. How does Amazon entice Android, Windows Phone or iPhone owners away from their current mobile devices of choice?

Like the Kindle Fire, expect an Amazon phone to be cheap. Amazon already has a wireless section on its website, where it sells several popular Android and Windows Phone devices at steep discounts. And we're already seeing a trend of flagship smartphones selling for less than the customary $199 with two-year contracts, with the Nokia Lumia 900 and Sony Xperia Ion starting at $99. Sprint also recently announced that it would offer the white-hot Samsung Galaxy S III for $149 after rebate. Any Amazon phone would likely continue that trend.

What else Amazon can do to seduce smartphone buyers is a mystery. A February survey from Baird Equity Research found that just over 40 percent of consumers would be interested in an Amazon smartphone, should Amazon make one (compare that to 12 percent for a Facebook phone), so the brand image is already there, to some extent. And now we play the waiting game, to see if Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and company do indeed attack Apple on the smartphone front.

The Whys, Wherefores and Whens of an iPad Mini

The only barrier to Apple introducing a smaller version of the iPad in the near future appears to be the objections of its deceased cofounder Steve Jobs.

That seems to be the gathering consensus of opinion on the Net, as what was once an airy rumor has now become a virtual inevitability in the opinions of several market analysts.

Apple's supply chain, which in recent times has become as leaky as a tissue tanker, has confirmed to news outlets like The Wall Street Journal and to stock analysts that components are being stockpiled for a smaller iPad to be shipped in time for the 2012 holiday season.

"From what I've gathered from a number of folks in the supply chain and a number of analysts I know who track those things, Apple is serious about coming to market with the product," Ben Bajarin, a principal with Creative Strategies, told MacNewsWorld.

"It's difficult to hide what's happening on the supply chain side," he added, "and the amount of information coming from the supply chain guys are pointing in that direction."


Bob O'Donnell, IDC's research vice president for clients and displays, also believes an iPad Mini is in the works. "The whole Asian supply chain is already working away on that product, " he told MacNewsWorld. "It seems to be well on its way."

In some regions in the world, like Asia, he explained smaller tablets are more popular. "If you're on a Tokyo subway, a 10-inch iPad is too big," he said. "So a seven-inch product makes a lot more sense."

A smaller iPad also makes sense as a market strategy, he aded. "This will allow Apple to hit a lower price point and extend the range of people who can afford an iPad," he explained.

"There's a tremendous opportunity for Apple to extend its reach, to extend its presence, to extend its domination in the tablet market by offering a seven-inch product," he noted.

While pricing would still be above competing seven-inch tablets -- perhaps US$249 versus $199 for a Google Nexus 7 or Amazon Kindle Fire -- the iPad Mini would have premium features its competitors don't have, the analysts maintained.

"An iPad Mini would have the incredible ecosystem that the full-sized iPad has, which the other seven-inch tablets don't have," O'Donnell observed.

In addition, the Mini would likely have a Retina display. "That's one of those things that lets you get away with pricing it higher than the Kindle Fire or the Nexus 7," added Bajarin of Creative Strategies.

However, the Mini will have more in common with those slates than it will with its big brother, Bajarin contended. "A seven-inch iPad is not going to be an 'iPad' even if they call it that," he declared.

"A 10-inch tablet is a general-purpose tablet -- you can do a lot things with it," he continued, "whereas a 7-inch tablet is really much more focused on pure media entertainment.


A Mini, he maintained, would actually represent the evolution of the iPod. "If that's the thinking, it makes sense to price it at a little more than the iPod now but below the iPad," he said.

If Apple introduces a Mini, it will cannibalize some of the market for the full-sized tablet, Brian White an analyst with Topeka Capital Markets, maintained in a research note released Thursday.

"We would expect the cannibalization of the current iPad by the 'iPad Mini' to be relatively minor and potentially in a range of just 10-20 percent," he wrote, "while the market opportunity could eventually be larger for the 'iPad Mini' given the growth trends in developing countries.

"Although we would expect the 'iPad Mini' to have a lower margin profile versus the current iPad, the magnitude of the difference will largely depend on what features are left out of the smaller iPad, and thus the gap could be relatively minor," he added.

After shrinking the iPad, Apple may think about shrinking the iPhone, maintained Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdry. "Small is the new big," he told MacNewsWorld. "I would not be surprised to see in addition to an iPad Mini, an iPhone Mini."

Original source here.

Gap between Mac and PC sales the smallest in 15 years

Apple has been on one hell of a tear lately. The company's signature iPhone dominates the smartphone market. Apple's new iPad is, by far, the best selling tablet being sold today. There's only one market where Apple is still playing catch up: Computer sales, an arena where PCs still dominate. But even there, Apple can find a silver lining: CNN is reporting that the gap between Mac sales and PC sales is the smallest its been since the 1990s.

Currently, PCs are outselling Macs by a ratio of about 20 to 1. That's a huge lead, but Apple has been steadily closed the gap over the last decade from its 2004 low of 55 to 1. When you factor in mobile devices such as phones and tablet computers, the PC vs. Mac gap closes to a mere 2 to 1, with Apple likely to draw even within the next year or two.

According to tech analyst Horace Dediu of Asymco, the secret to Apple's recent success is the MacBook. "The MacBook became easily differentiable as a 'better' laptop. It was not faster, did not have more storage or any key metrics being used to sell PCs. It was just better as an integrated product." And given the splash that the new MacBook Pro with Retina display is making in tech circles, Apple may wind up seeing yet another strong boost in their market share.

Original source here.

Move over Google: Apple granted patent for Google Glass-like tech

One of the most anticipated pieces of tech of next year would almost certainly have to be Google Glass, the tech giant's risky gamble in the yet-to-be-proven augmented reality space. But Google is far from the only tech giant eyeing the tech: Computer company Apple is also getting into augmented reality, if their recently approved patent for "peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays" is any indication.

To be sure, the patent (#8212859) isn't specifically about creating a competing product to the wildly hyped Google Glass, it's about creating a new method of image projection. That said, the patent application cites augmented reality as a real possibility for its new tech, saying it could "be used to view a see-through image imposed upon a real world view."

Just because Apple took out a patent for augmented reality glasses doesn't necessarily mean Apple will make a competitor to Google Glass. Still, it's a good signal that if Google Glasses are indeed the future, then Apple will be right there alongside Google, slugging it out on the retail shelves.

Original source here.

Internet Will Not be Overloaded During Olympics Says Government

The government says it now believes that the country's internet infrastructure will be able to cope with demand during the Olympic Games. The Cabinet Office had previously told businesses to prepare counter measures in case internet service providers (ISPs) introduced download limits or even experienced failures.

However, it said it now believes efforts to address extra demand has offset these risks. Business groups have welcomed the news.

The Cabinet Office's Preparing Your Business For The Games report, issued in February said: "In very severe cases there may be drop-outs due to an increased number of people accessing the internet. In addition, ISPs may introduce data caps during peak times to try and spread the loading and give a more equal service to their entire customer base."

It promised at the time to provide an update before the opening ceremony on 27 July. A spokesman told the BBC that officials now believed steps by broadband and mobile network operators to increase capacity had eased fears.

"The situation has moved on considerably since the advice for businesses was published," he said. "We do not now believe there is likely to be any impact on the UK internet infrastructure during the Olympic Games.

"We are still advising companies to speak to their internet service providers about the internet capacity within their buildings. "If a significant number of employees were to watch the live streaming of an event, it could significantly slow a company's network speed if there is not enough network capacity available."Investment

Telecoms group BT noted the work it had done with other ISPs to prepare for the event. "We have done a huge amount of capacity planning work, which has included reviewing and learning from events like the World Cup, royal wedding and America's Super Bowl," said a spokesman.

"As a result we've built a capacity model for our core broadband networks and we've brought forward investment and capacity increases to meet the anticipated extra demand.

"On top of the extra planning and investment, we've also installed more than 475,000 wi-fi hotspots in Greater London." The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed the Cabinet Office's update, but called for further action.

"For a small firm dependent on the internet for running their business, download limits or failures during the Games would have been disastrous," said the FSB's national chairman John Walker. "However, a recent survey of more than 3,000 members shows that 48% of businesses in urban areas are dissatisfied with their broadband speed, rising to 63% for those in the countryside.

"So whilst a problem regarding the Olympics may have been dealt with, for an effective economic recovery we still need to see faster roll-out of superfast broadband throughout the country - especially in rural areas."

Original source here.

Headline July 7th, 2012 / ''The World's Richest Poor Country''

"The World's Richest Poor Country"

Angola is an extraordinarily rich country, populated mainly by poor people for all of whom, life simply and plainly consists of eking out a miserable existence, working on construction sites, if you are lucky, or hawking anything you can find. Life expectancy is 42. Yes, 42. Angola has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world. 

Three quarters of the population earn less than dollar a day--the UN Definition of absolute poverty. Some 64% of the people have no access to clean water; over 32% of children under 14 are forced to work. Child Labour in its purest form. In one gracious sweep, you will find, in the heart of the city stands Roque Santerio, renowned as the largest market on the African continent!! 

The potholes seem to get bigger, the stench stronger, as you clover leaf a approach. The condongueiros, blue and white Toyota minibuses always packed to overflowing sardines, vie with container trucks on their way down the hill, each throwing up red dust as they scrape past each other. And, and the market is built on a rubbish tip overlooking the container harbour, and it is said that you can find anything here. 

During the civil war, as the folklore goes, you could find a rocket grenade launcher or a human head. In peacetime, it is reliably learnt that there is still no shortage of guns, or drugs to be found, alongside the more prosaic car tyres, electronic goods and all manners of fake labels displayed on the street. 

So were you to get philosophic and begin to contrast the glam and the being with the squalor of the shanties, your first instinct is to conclude rightly that Angola provides a typically very very depressing example of Sub Saharan Africa. So many countries have been blighted by this horrid curse of oil, by these multinational companies ripping off a pound of flesh -and paying off- right under these huge God forsaken tables, local governments, then repatriating all the wealth, and leaving the people worse off than before, that you urgently assume why Angola could be any different. 

This all is right up to 2009. But in many ways this is a different, different story, at least this is what the representative of the World Bank wants you to think. So allow yourself a large doze of caution! 

You surely may have seen conspicuous consumption in London, Moscow, Paris and New York, but never in a contrast such as in Angola. For Angola is one of the most bizarre nations on earth, where the money is flowing in faster than anyone can spend it, and yet where the vast majority of people are struggling just to keep body and soul together!! 

With many thanks to !WOW! Join up morrow as we take you forward on this amazing read.

Good Night & God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice Of The Voiceless

Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6) by Chloe Neill

Turned into a vampire against her will, twenty-eight-year-old Merit found her way into the dark circle of Chicago’s vampire underground, where she learned there was more to supernaturals than met the eye—and more supernaturals than the public ever imagined. And not all the secrets she learned were for sharing—among humans or inhumans.

Now Merit is on the hunt, charging across the stark American Midwest, tailing a rogue supernatural intent on stealing an ancient artifact that could unleash catastrophic evil on the world. But Merit is also the prey. An enemy of Chicagoland is hunting her, and he’ll stop at nothing to get the book for himself. No mercy allowed. No rules apply. No lives spared. The race is on.

China Heavyweight (2012)

China Heavyweight is a 2012 documentary film by the Chinese-Canadian documentary film director Yung Chang and released by EyeSteelFilm. It is Yung Chang's second long feature documentary film after Up the Yangtze from 2007.

Synopsis: In 1959, Mao Zedong had imposed a ban on the sport of boxing in China considering it "too Western and brutal". The ban was lifted in 1987 and boxing began being taught in schools.

The film is about Qi Moxiang, a boxing coach who, alongside Zhao Zhong, the boxing program director, goes to rural China to recruit from ordinary peasant hopefuls to be trained for a possible sporting and Olympic career. The documentary shows his visit to Huili County in the southwestern Sichuan province, and documents the young athletes chosen there.

The film concentrates on two of the boys: Miao Yunfei and He Zhongli whom coach Qi has brought to the Chinese provincial finals. In addition, to provide a role model for his students, Qi decides to fight professionally again against a much younger rival from Japan.

Actor Alec Baldwin weds Hilaria Thomas in NY

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Alec Baldwin, star of TV show "30 Rock," married his fiancée, Hilaria Thomas, on Saturday in New York City, then posted a picture showing off his new wedding ring on Twitter.

Baldwin, 54, and yoga instructor Thomas, 28, announced their engagement back in April. The couple have been dating for over a year and have appeared together at numerous events.

"Hilaria Thomas and Alec Baldwin were married this evening at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral in New York City, sharing the occasion with family and friends inside the Cathedral and Alec warmly receiving congratulations from well-wishing fans on his way into the service," Baldwin's friend and spokesman, Matthew Hiltzik, said in a statement.

Award-winning actor Baldwin, who plays egotistical television executive Jack Donaghy on popular sitcom "30 Rock," wore a Tom Ford suit while Thomas walked down the aisle in a dress by Amsale.

The actor was previously married to actress Kim Basinger for eight years, but their union ended in a bitter divorce in 2002. Their daughter, Ireland, was at her father's wedding on Saturday.

China will Remodel Tibet for the Sake of Tourism

Xinhua News Agency released news that China wants to expand the Tibetan economy by attracting more tourists. The Chinese government will allocate £40 million in building 22 model villages in Tibet which is expected to be the future tourist destination. Villages will be put up in Nyingchi Country situated 200 miles southeast of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. China is hoping that after construction, this would be an international tourist destination. Furthermore, residents will be able to generate income by providing accommodation services and more.

However, to every great plan is a possible hindrance. Tibetans might oppose the idea because they believe that the Chinese government forgets about religious and cultural practices they have had for years for the sake of the economy.

This announcement came just weeks after the decision to prohibit any foreigner from visiting Tibet which followed countless protests at Chinese rule.

Last May 2012, 2 Tibetans set themselves on fire outside the famous Jokhang temple in Lhasa, a Buddhist shrine that a definite tourist vacation. A lot of protests were done before but this was the first time someone has ever hurt himself. China has already prohibited tourists from being in the vicinity most especially during religious festivals.

During the times when foreigners are allowed into Tibet, everything is closely monitored. In fact, tourists without a special vista will not be able to tour. Along side them, as well, will be people from the government that were tasked to be foreigner’s tourists guides. All tours meant for foreigners must make arrangements with Chinese tourists firms prior to the tourists entering the country.

The ban is expected to last until November this year and because of this, British holiday makers have no choice but to cancel planned trips to the region. In fact, one firm namely Wendy Wu Tours has put on hold any holidays to the region until 2013.

Overall, the ban had little impact on the actual number of visitors entering Tibet because the fact that it is a popular tourist destination is inevitable. Xinhua News Agency, only 2 per cent of the 1.45 million visitors to Tibet for the first 5 months of 2012 were foreigners.

Talent spotter Burberry presents rising music star for Fall/Winter 2012

Burberry has a knack for spotting rising talent, and for its Fall/Winter 2012 campaign it presents British singer-songwriter Roo Panes with the video "Greenwich by night."

The social media-savvy label unveiled the ad via platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest July 4, with soundtrack "Indigo Blue" penned exclusively for Burberry by Panes available to buy on iTunes.
Panes models Burberry's Fall/Winter 2012 collection in the video, also starring rising actress Gabriella Wilde -- set to star in the 2013 remake of classic horror film Carrie.
Previous talents promoted by Burberry include up-and-coming British musical acts Marika Hackman, One Night Only, Life in Film and The Daydream Club. These each recorded tracks exclusively for Burberry, with accompanying music videos filmed in London as part of the label's Spring/Summer 2012 eyewear campaign.
Other luxury labels to have teamed up with musicians for exclusive videos include Cartier, which commissioned the electro group's clip "How Far Would You Go For Love" as part of its True Love Has a Colour and a Name campaign last November.
Shot by Mario Testino in the Old Royal Naval College in London's Greenwich, the Burberry/Roo Panes video can be seen here: http://youtu.be/hmA6vYZdf5A

Chanel's Newly Minted Vintage

By Saeeda Zaib
Trends Correspondent, SAM Daily Times

Karl Lagerfeld went back to the past in the latest Chanel haute couture show, entitling it New Vintage, even as he radically improved all the original ideas in this charmingly real yet faux old fashion revival.

Staged in a never-before-used-for-fashion giant hall hidden remarkably in the back of the Grand Palais, guests watched this show on Tuesday, July 3, seated on wicker chairs, as if in a very posh salon. In its now legendary determination to express Lagerfeld's every aesthetic desires, Chanel had the entire ceiling - about six tennis courts worth - repainted in a neo classical trompe l'oeil glory.

"It is what it was not, and it could be what it has never been before," punned fashion's greatest talker Lagerfeld, about a fall 2012 collection that referenced vintage in every look even as it took that idea somewhere far more newly refined.

This spring, the house acquired two vintage garments by Chanel from the '30s and '50s - a coat and a dress, and they ignited the couturier's imagination.

His smartest play was coaxing a brilliant display from the famed Chanel atelier, creating a whole series of coats that were completely made of embroidery - one demanding 3,000 hours of needlework.

"Nowadays, one can find quite well-made clothes in Zara and other chains, so for our couture clients it's essential to create clothes that are unique. That can never be reproduced en masse," Lagerfeld said.

Harlequin patterned coats, finished in combinations of cashmere, organza and silver ribbon where particularly impressive, as were miniature check pattern suits, their edges finished with hand shredded chiffon. And, just when everyone had caught up with the huge wave of adornment that Lagerfeld had ignited at Chanel with his mega-metallic camellia-driven, Paris-Bombay multiplied Zen for multiple accessories and costume jewelry, he walks away from that whole trend in this show. Gone were the brooches, multi strands of pearls and chain belts. Their heads covered in mesh snoods with tiny crystals, their feet anchored with tough chic metal cup heeled shoes, the models strode by in a certain faded gentility.

Shredded chiffon ran through the whole collection, a reference to Lagerfeld's new best friend, his kitten Choupette, whose white fur inspired the ravishing white crinoline wedding dress of the finale.

"Choupette has her own two maids and eats very well. Not my food of course, but her own menu. She's a very well kept woman and why not? They are my kinda' girl," said the designer, as over a score of camera crews waited to interview him post show.

Goal-line technology given green light

The Premier League is preparing to introduce goal-line technology next season after football’s law-makers, the International FA Board, made the historic decision to sanctions its use.

Two systems, Hawk-Eye and GoalRef, were approved by Ifab after months of testing and can now be used in competitions across the world. The Premier League will hold talks with each company and its 20 clubs could install the technology during this coming season.
The installation cost would be around £150,000 per stadium. Fifa’s general secretary, Jerome Valcke, confirmed that they will use goal-line technology for the Club World Cup in Japan in December and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.



“We believe that it is a great day for football,” said Alex Horne, the FA’s general secretary. “From an English perspective it is a hugely important day, it is a cause we have had on our agenda for a number of years.”
Ifab stressed that the introduction of goal-line technology did not mean that they would use replays for other contentious incidents. It was also stressed that the referee’s decision would remain final.



While the FA, Fifa and the Premier League are keen to use goal-line technology as quickly as possible, Uefa president Michel Platini has indicated that he would prefer the continued use of additional assistant referees. Their use was also approved by Ifab yesterday, with individual competitions now free to decide whether they use any of the new innovations.
Hawk-Eye, which is a British company, uses six cameras on each goal to track the ball and can send a signal to the referee’s watch within one second of an incident.
GoalRef, developed in Germany, uses a microchip implanted in the ball and the use of low magnetic waves around the goal to also provide a signal to the referee within one second.

Arsenal's shareholder blames Arsenal board for Van Persie exit

The splits at the top of Arsenal deepened after Alisher Usmanov, the second largest shareholder, joined captain Robin van Persie in launching a public attack on the club’s strategy.


In a wide-ranging and scathing five-page letter, Usmanov accused Arsenal's board, which is led by majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, of selling the club’s best players and replacing them with cheaper alternatives. He also expressed his “deep reservations” about their policies, which he claimed were causing players to question their futures and the club’s ambitions.

The timing of the letter, less than 24 hours after Van Persie’s announcement that he would not sign a new contract, could hardly have been worse for Arsenal. The club, however, maintain that they are fully committed to a self-funding approach which, they argue, will secure both their long-term future and ultimately also offer the best chance of success.

This view is evidently not shared by Usmanov or Van Persie, who admitted publicly on Wednesday that he disagreed with Arsène Wenger and chief executive Ivan Gazidis “on many aspects” of how the club should move forward.

Wenger will now seek urgent talks with Van Persie to determine whether the situation is retrievable. Arsenal’s official stance is that they are “confident” Van Persie will see out a contract which does not expire until next year but his release of such a provocative statement, without warning, clearly makes this very difficult.

Although no club can match Manchester City’s financial firepower, it is understood that Van Persie is also attracted by interest from both Juventus and Manchester United. There is pressure to resolve the situation quickly, with Van Persie scheduled to lead Arsenal on their pre-season tour of Asia, beginning on July 21.  (telegraph.co.uk)

Usain Bolt pulls out of Diamond League meet in Monaco

After losing twice to training partner Yohan Blake at the weekend, Usain Bolt’s chances of defending his Olympic 100 and 200 metres crowns appear to have receded further after his coach, Glen Mills, admitted on Thursday that the sprinter had suffered an injury setback.


Mills, who also coaches Blake at the Racers Track Club in Kingston, described it as a “slight problem” without elaborating further, though it was sufficiently serious for him to pull Bolt out of the Diamond League meeting in Monaco in two weeks’ time, where he had been due to contest the 200 metres in his final race before the London Olympics.
Bolt’s withdrawal means his next race will be in the first-round heats of the 100 metres in the Olympic Stadium on Aug 4.
In a statement, Mills said: “After careful assessment, I have had to withdraw him from the Samsung Diamond League Meeting in Monaco on July 20 to give him sufficient time for treatment and time to train and prepare for the Olympic Games in London.”
In the same statement, Bolt insisted that he would be on the start-line in London but did not provide any details about the nature of his latest setback.
“I am happy to have earned my spot on the Jamaican Olympic team despite the challenge,” Bolt said.


“I will be in London to defend my titles in the 100, 200 and 4 x 100 metres.
“I want to congratulate my fellow Racers Track Club Members along with the other athletes who made the team. I thank everyone for their support.”    (Telegraph.co.uk)

New fossil suggests dinosaurs may have all been hairy

A fantastically preserved, bushy-tailed dinosaur fossil may mean the ancient creatures were not lizard-skinned.
The skeleton of a bushy-tailed baby dinosaur that roamed Earth 135 million years ago has been found in Europe. The creature had little 'fuzzy' feathers, almost like hairs. Named Sciurumimus after the tree squirrel species Sciurus, it is the best preserved dinosaur remains ever discovered in Europe.

At just 72 cms long, the fanged predator looks like a tiny T-Rex. It is believed to have been a year-old hatchling and had a large skull, short hind limbs and smooth skin.Its vivid compression with mouth wide open also bears the outline of sharp, serrated little teeth and primitive fuzzy feathers that are more akin to hair.

These were over its front, below the belly, and back as well as the tail, suggesting the animal's whole body could have been covered in feathers.

It is impossible to say exactly what killed the animal, but it has been speculated that it may have drowned.

Taiwan man convicted with Google map help

A Taiwanese judge has used a Google map showing an unleashed dog to hold a man responsible for his neighbor's bicycle accident.

A defendant surnamed Lee denied being the dog's owner and causing injury through negligence.

The victim surnamed Peng testified that he became scared after the dog began pursuing him while he was riding his bicycle last July. He said he fell off the bike and injured his forehead.

Judge Song Kuo-chen said Thursday that a two-year-old Google Street View picture showed the dog standing in Lee's yard which meant that Lee was its owner. Police had earlier said there were no other dogs in the rural neighborhood in Miaoli County south of Taipei where Lee and the victim live.

The judge fined Lee 59,000 Taiwan dollars ($2,000).

Dark matter space superstructures observed for first time

Photo by Jörg Dietrich, University of Michigan/University
 Observatory Munich

Scientists have for the first time directly observed dark matter, which forms the greatest part of a galactic filament, the largest-known structure in the universe.

On the largest scale the universe looks like an intricate web. Clusters of galaxies, which form its strands, are connected by much slimmer bridges, or filaments, with huge voids in between.

The shape of these structures is determined by distribution of dark matter, which cannot absorb or emit electromagnetic radiation and thus cannot be seen in a conventional way. But dark matter is estimated to be almost five times as common in the universe as regular matter, and its gravitational pull has clumped galaxies into what they are today.

Detecting dark matter is possible thanks to gravitational lensing – the bending of light from distant galaxies as it travels through and next to it due to the wrap of space caused by gravity. That is relatively simple to do with the dark matter in the nodes of the space web, but the filaments are too narrow cosmically speaking.

Now an international team of astrophysicists has discovered a dark matter filament, which stretches in a very convenient way for observation. It connects the galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223. The filament is oriented in a way that most of its mass lies along the line of sight to earth. So the lensing effect it produces on the light we can observe is greatly enhanced, the group reported online on Wednesday in the Nature journal. It is still too weak to be seen by eye, but could be determined statistically.

"The standard wisdom is that the gravitational lensing of filaments is too weak to be detected with current telescopes," Jörg Dietrich, a cosmologist at the University Observatory Munich in Germanyt who co-authored the study, told space.com. "Only when we realized this system has such a peculiar geometry did we realize we have a chance."

The scientists studied distortion of more than 40,000 background galaxies and calculated the mass and shape of the filament, a feat no astronomers had previously managed to pull off.

Researchers used data from the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the XMM-Newton space telescope. They also used a model to subtract out the masses of the galaxy clusters. The remaining mass is attributed to the filament.  (rt.com)

Sluice gates opened to discharge flood water at Three Gorges Dam

By Saimah Hanif

Heavy rains across southern China are pushing water levels at the Three Gorges Dam past the flood level limit. Right now sluice gates have been opened to discharge flood water.

The upper reaches of the Yangtze River has been rising at speeds approaching 40 thousand cubic meters per second. On Monday, the water lever in the Three Gorges Dam rose to over 146 meters, which is one meter higher than the maximum flood limit level. The flood speed is expected to peak at 42 thousand cubic meters per second.

Accordingly flood prevention measures have been fully taken by the local government and all the related departments are on the alert. Due to the influence of the estimated floods, the Gezhou Dam's No.1 navigation lock is required to halt shipping service. Some low-wattage ships are restricted to travel between the Gezhou Dam and Three Gorges Dam during the peak time of the floods.

DNA test identifies descendant of world’s first woman

A DNA test on a Scottish man revealed that he is directly related to the world’s first woman, British media reported Saturday.

A 72-year-old retired lecturer, Ian Kinnaird, carries a genetic marker L1B1 that links him directly to “Eve,” the first-ever woman who is assumed to have lived in Africa about 190,000 years ago.

Scientists believe that Kinnaird has maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA which is only two mutations removed from Eve, who was nicknamed after the first woman created by God in the Christianity.

According to researchers, most men have genes that underwent around 200 mutations from the earliest humans.

Kinnaird said he was shocked to find that he is effectively the “grandfather of everyone in Britain.”

“This is a real gobsmacker. I seem to carry a gene from West Africa that arrived through the slave trade,” he said, adding that his life had been “unremarkable” up to this point.

Alistair Moffat, one of the researchers that carried out the tests, said the result means that he “could have been in the Garden of Eden” and is proof that even white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are descended from a black Eve.

Thousands could lose internet access July 9 due to virus

On July 9, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide could be without access to the internet after the FBI shuts down temporary DNS servers used to assist victims of a massive internet fraud ring.

All computers that still use these servers will meet a virtual brick wall on July 9 and be unable to connect to the internet until their computers are cleared of the associated 'DNSChanger' virus.

The shutdown of the temporary DNS servers by U.S. authorities is the last stage in Operation Ghost Click, a two-year international investigation that officially ended in November 2011.

The FBI, in association with international law enforcement, managed to track and apprehend six Estonians using an ostensibly legitimate front company who had organized a sophisticated system of false DNS servers.

These servers rerouted the web browsers of infected computers to sites of the hackers' own choosing, some of which were fraudulent in nature.

Computers were forced to connect to the internet through these servers by a customized virus called DNSChanger that was distributed along conventional channels, such as infected emails, bad websites, and malware scripts.

When it broke up the hacking group in 2011, the FBI established temporary 'clean' servers in place of the bad ones so that computers infected with DNSChanger wouldn't suddenly be cut off from the internet.

However, the contract to maintain these servers will end July 9, resulting in their shutdown.

"An extension has not been requested," says Jenny Shearer, a spokesperson for the FBI's National Press Office.

Lifeguard Tomas Lopez Fired After Helping Rescue Swimmer Outside Beach Zone

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. -- Lifeguard Tomas Lopez helped save a drowning man and got fired for it.

The reason: He left the section of a south Florida beach his company is paid to patrol. The Orlando-based company, Jeff Ellis and Associates, says Lopez broke a company rule and could have put beachgoers in his section in jeopardy.

By the time Lopez arrived, witnesses had pulled the drowning man out of the water. Lopez and an off-duty nurse helped him until paramedics arrived. The victim survived and was hospitalized.

Afterward, Lopez was fired.

Two other lifeguards have quit in protest.

Fake cigarette caused M6 alert

FALSE alarm: British police say reports of suspicious activity on a bus, which set off a massive emergency response and forced the closure of a section of a major highway in central England, were unfounded.

The culprit? An electronic cigarette.

Armed police evacuated passengers from the bus and bomb disposal units, ambulances and fire engines descended on the Weeford toll plaza of the M6 highway in the West Midlands, 187km north of London, after the initial reports on Thursday.

The sweeping emergency response came just weeks before the Olympic Games are due to be held in the British capital.

Aerial footage showed what appeared to be passengers sitting on the ground in a marked-off square, spaced apart from each other.

Dog handlers roamed about, and someone in a hazardous materials suit was seen entering the bus and searching around the seats with a flashlight.

But several hours later, Staffordshire police said the scene was safe and no suspects were in custody.

The force said it had received a "genuine report" from a member of the public about vapour escaping from a bag on the bus, which upon investigation turned out to be an electronic cigarette - a device that aims to help smokers quit.

It apologised for any inconvenience caused by the security response, saying it hopes people understand its duty to ensure public safety.


Megabus, the company that operates the bus, confirmed it was helping police with regard to "an allegation made against a passenger " on one of its buses en route from Preston to London. It said the bus had 48 passengers booked for travel and was headed to London's Victoria Station.

The BBC, citing unidentified sources, had reported that the incident involved a passenger who poured a substance into a box, causing fumes.