80-yr-old man held after keeping wife's body in freezer for 10 years

TOKYO — An 80-year-old man was being questioned in Japan on Wednesday on suspicion of strangling his wife and keeping her body in the freezer for up to 10 years, police and media reports said.

Masaichi Yamada, who runs a fish-processing company, was arrested in the northern port of Kushiro early Tuesday when the frozen corpse—still fully clothed—was uncovered.

“The suspect maliciously strangled the victim with a string-like object at their home and abandoned her body in the freezer at his working place,” a spokesman for police in Hokkaido told AFP by telephone.

It was not immediately known when the murder took place, the official said, adding the woman would have been 71 years old if she was alive today.

Yamada reportedly confessed to the police he killed his wife during an argument at their home “sometime between 2002 and 2006” and carried the body by car to the factory.

Police searched the factory after the dead woman’s brother said he had not been able to contact his sister for several years.

© 2012 AFP

'We are not interested in Assange': US envoy

The US ambassador to Australia has dismissed suggestions Washington wants WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange extradited to America, as his mother on Thursday accused Canberra of failing to help her son.

Britain's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Assange, an Australian national, can be extradited to Sweden, although his deportation was put on hold to give his lawyers a final chance to reopen the case.

Assange is wanted by Stockholm over sex crime allegations but he fears
being sent to Sweden could pave the way for extradition to the US on possible
espionage or conspiracy charges.

But the US ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, said there was no plan to seek his extradition from Sweden.

"It's not something that the US cares about. It's not interested in it," he told state broadcaster ABC in comments aired Thursday.

"And frankly if he is in Sweden then there is a less robust extradition relationship than there is between the US and the UK.

"So I think it's one of those narratives that has been made up. There is nothing to it."

Close US ally Australia has come under pressure from Assange's supporters to provide him with more support after Prime Minister Julia Gillard previously slammed WikiLeaks as "grossly irresponsible".

His mother claimed Canberra had done the bare minimum.

"(They have been) absolutely useless, in fact contrary to help, they've done everything they can to smear Julian and hand him up to the US," she told the ABC from London after jetting out this week for the court verdict.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr rejected the criticism, saying Assange was receiving regular visits from Australian consular staff.

"He gets the full Australian consulate support available to any Australian caught up in the legal processes of another country," he said, adding that Australia's hands were tied.

"We can't interfere with the legal processes of another country," Carr said.

The former computer hacker has been fighting deportation since his arrest in London in December 2010 on the European arrest warrant issued by Sweden.

The 40-year-old does not deny having sex with two WikiLeaks volunteers in Sweden while attending a seminar, but insists it was consensual and argues there are political motives behind the attempts to extradite him.

Britain's Supreme Court is his final avenue of appeal under British law, after two lower courts ruled he should be sent to Sweden for questioning.

The court ruled on Wednesday that Assange can be extradited, but put his deportation on hold to give his lawyers a final 14 days to reopen the case. (AFP)

SpaceX cargo ship departs station for Pacific splashdown

Space station astronauts unbolted a commercial cargo ship early Thursday, used the lab's robot arm to pull it away and released it into open space to set the stage for re-entry and splashdown off the Baja California peninsula to close out a successful test flight and set the stage for the start of routine cargo delivery missions later this year.

With the space station's Canadian-built robot arm locked onto the Dragon cargo craft, four gangs of motorized bolts holding the capsule in place were driven out, releasing the spacecraft from Harmony's Earth-facing port at 4:07 a.m. EDT

Flight engineer Joseph Acaba, operating the robot arm from a computer work station inside the lab's multi-window cupola compartment, pulled the Dragon capsule away, moving it to a pre-determined release point well away from station structure.

One orbit later, Acaba and flight engineer Donald Pettit released the spacecraft, opening snares in the arm's latching end effector at 5:49 a.m. as the space station sailed 250 miles above the southern Indian Ocean. SpaceX flight controllers in Hawthorne, Calif., working in concert with NASA's flight control team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, then monitored three quick rocket firings to begin Dragon's departure and eventual descent to Earth.

Within 11 minutes or so, the capsule was outside a pre-defined safety zone around the space station and SpaceX assumed full responsibility for the remainder of the mission.

"The departure sequence is fairly quick, it's a three-burn series, two small burns then one big burn," said NASA Flight Director Holly Ridings. "The Dragon will head away from the space station outside the integrated space and that'll be the end of our integrated activity with the SpaceX/Dragon team. That process is 10 or 11 minutes after the release time."

"So again, very quick, very different from rendezvous day when we spent a lot of time in integrated space. The Dragon will head on out and be on its own in terms of the Dragon team controlling and managing the rest of the activities through the day."

Once outside the safety zone, the SpaceX team planned to close a protective door over navigation sensors and the grapple fixture used by the robot arm.

"We'll be closing that up, performing some checkouts and then performing our large re-entry burn, which till take about 10 minutes," said SpaceX mission director John Couluris. "And with that, about five-and-a-half hours after release from the arm, we should be in the water."

Headline June1,2012/Your World in 2020

YOUR WORLD IN 2020

Respectful dedication Dr Patrick Prendergast/Trinity College Dublin

So let me get to the hop, skip and jump mode: by 2020 ; in terms of living standards, it is likely that the real income per head will be slightly higher in Britain than in France, Germany and Italy. The trend towards the global market economy will continue for even the next quarter century.

By 2020, the responsibilities of the public sector would have shrunk. Possibly to the core role encompassing defense, criminal justice and some public safety services.

The State will continue to play a role in education, and health but vast tranches  will have been “de nationalized” or privatized. By 2020 there will be far more private security guards than regular policemen, private arbitration in civil cases will be common, the post office will either have been privatised or superseded by commercial courier services. And the transport infrastructure will include private toll motorways and commercial railways.

The US increasingly will show many features of a developing economy with pockets of third world poverty among areas that will continue to be among the riches on the globe. It is very probable that an American middle class family will only be slightly better off than in late 70s and , as whole, US families will be no richer than their Japanese counterparts, a situation that hasn’t existed for a hundred years. 

Corporate Foreign  Investment will continue to internationalise the economy, transferring capital and skills around the world. One projection suggests that overseas investments b companies maybe as high as $800 billion by 2020, a growth of over 400% from 1989 when it was estimated at 200 billion annually.

It is also my estimate that by 2020, the world will be divided into three strong economic regions. North America, Europe and East Asia. Latin America, Africa and Middle East, apart from the oil fields, and the Indian sub continent will remain economically well, marginal.

In most industrial countries the retirement age will have risen to 70 or even later. There will be more women working ; there will be more part time work, and there will be more retraining during a career to keep pace with technological changes. Well now you know the future so get armed!! Haha!

Thanks to !WOW!

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times the Voice of the Voiceless!

Eckerd College Graduate Alex Simpson '12 Receives ROTC Battalion's Highest Honor

Alex Simpson '12 of Lebanon, Tenn., is the first Eckerd graduate in several years to complete the Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program while enrolled at Eckerd College. Alex is the recent recipient of the American Legion Superior Cadet Award, the battalion's highest honor. The award is presented to one Senior Cadet who has ranked at the top of his Commissioning class, ranks within the top 3% of Cadets nationally and is in the top 10% of his academic class.

Each year, Army ROTC graduates 4,200 men and women from 273 host programs at colleges and universities across the nation. Locally, the University of South Florida Suncoast Battalion serves as a host program to Eckerd, one of 1,100 partnership and affiliate schools.

Shortly before graduating from Eckerd College on May 20, Alex Simpson was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

Read the interview here.

3 Percent of All Executions Since 1900 Were Botched, Amherst College Study Finds

AMHERST, Mass.—Since the beginning of the 20th century, an estimated 3 percent of all executions in the United States were “botched,” according to Amherst College Professor Austin Sarat and a team of undergraduate researchers. The group found that, of approximately 9,000 capital punishments that took place in the country from 1900 to 2011, 270 of them involved some problem in carrying out the death penalty.

“Given the gravity of the decision to put someone to death and the constitutional prohibition of cruel punishment,” said Sarat, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, “the fact that 3 out of every 100 executions are messed up should be a cause of serious concern to all Americans.”

By culling through detailed and often grisly newspaper accounts of capital punishments that occurred over the past 111 years, Sarat and his team created a database—the only one of its kind, said Sarat—of all of the mentions of what he describes as “departures from the protocol of killing someone sentenced to death.” He explained that such departures included, among other things, instances in which inmates caught fire while being electrocuted, were strangled during hangings (instead of having their necks broken) or were administered the wrong dosages of specific drugs for lethal injections.

“What was particularly interesting was the way the media represented these events in the early part of the 1900s,” said Sarat. He and his team published a paper about this aspect of their work—the cultural reception of botched executions from 1890 to 1920—in the current issue of the British Journal of American Legal Studies and also discussed it at the meeting of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities in Fort Worth, Texas, this past March. “In the vast majority of the stories about the botched executions, the narratives were both sensational and what we called ‘recuperative’—reporters consistently made the point that, despite the gruesomeness of the proceedings, the inmates didn’t suffer, that justice was done. There was very little criticism of the process or questioning of the death penalty itself. The stories were used to sell newspapers and nothing else.”

Sarat also noted that the group’s analysis revealed that while the American penal system has gotten better at administering the death penalty, modern society demands more of the process—that the killing not be more painful than necessary, in particular—so that the acceptable margin of error is smaller today than it ever has been. As a result, capital punishments gone wrong are as much an issue in the 21st century as they were in the 20th.

Sarat cited the case of Romell Broom in Ohio in September of 2009 as one recent example of a botched execution. Efforts to find a suitable vein through which prison officials could inject a lethal dose of drugs were terminated after more than two hours of trying. Broom repeatedly grimaced in pain throughout the excruciating process and even attempted, at points, to help his executioners find a vein. Finally, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland put a halt to the execution and ordered a one-week reprieve.

“In my view, no procedure like the one Romell Broom experienced can comport with our constitutional commitment to avoid cruelty in punishment,” said Sarat.

The idea for such an examination of botched executions was born in a small seminar class titled “America’s Death Penalty” (funded by a grant Amherst College received from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) that Sarat taught in the spring of 2011. Halfway through the semester, Sarat asked the six participating students if any were interested in staying on campus for the summer and conducting research with him on executions gone wrong. Five—Aubrey Jones ’13, Madeline Sprung-Keyser ’13, Heather Richard ’13, Kate Blumstein ’13 and Robert (Henry) Weaver ’13—signed on and spent hours finding, reading and categorizing newspaper accounts.

What struck Richard the most was the fact that, in the early 1900s, newspapers didn’t just publish articles about executions in vivid, morbid detail; they often made accounts more shocking by deliberately changing the facts. One Associated Press wire piece in 1922, for example, described the electrocution of James Wells on March 10 after 11 unsuccessful attempts. In the original story, Richard noted, the reporter wrote that “fully twenty minutes were consumed in putting him to death” and that the punishment was carried out by an “inexperienced executioner.” The Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner ran the piece but edited the first phrase to read “few minutes were consumed in putting him to death” and described the executioner as “experienced.” This was just one of many instances in which particular papers were loose with the facts, said Richard.

“We all found it fascinating that these editors and reporters took what is already an incredibly sensational event—a botched execution—and made it even more sensational by changing the details,” she said. “And on top of that, the institution of capital punishment was not really examined or critiqued. It certainly says something about the newspapers and their readers.”

Sarat agreed. “How a society punishes, and then talks about it, reveals its true character,“ he said. “Punishment tells us who we are. The way a society punishes demonstrates its commitment to standards of judgment and justice, its distinctive views of blame and responsibility, its understandings of mercy and forgiveness and its particular ways of responding to evil.”

“Sadly,” he said, “our attachment to the death penalty reveals an unpleasant, unseemly side of American character.”

Original source here.

Hendrix Village Hosts Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre Season Opener

CONWAY, Ark. (May 31, 2012) - Hendrix College will host the opening of the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre's 2012 season with a production of Twelfth Night directed by Rebekah Scallet beginning June 7 at 7:30 p.m. at The Village at Hendrix.

There will be five shows at The Village - June 7, 9, 10, 15, and 17.

Seating is available on a first come basis. People are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets to sit on. Families are welcome and there will be kids' activities before the show.

For more information, visit http://arkshakes.com/

Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. Hendrix was named the country's #1 "Up and Coming" liberal arts college for the third consecutive year by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2011 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country's best 376 colleges and is listed in the 2012 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges as one of 25 "Best Buy" private colleges included. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884.

For more information, visit here.

Student Rioter Allowed to Complete His Degree

Patrick Besiris, 21, was among 200 rioters who attacked police during a violent protest against a new supermarket in Bristol on the day of the Royal Wedding last year.

But despite being charged with violent disorder, he was allowed to complete his politics degree at the University of the West of England (UWE) and has since graduated with a First Class BA Honours.

Today he was sentenced to 14-months in prison for his “disgraceful” actions during the riot and may now have his degree withheld. Trouble flared in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol in April last year when supermarket giant Tesco opened a new store in the area, despite local opposition.

More than 200 people attended a planned protest and CCTV footage showed Besiris wearing a mask and throwing missiles towards the police.

During the investigation of riot, officers examined many hundreds of hours of CCTV footage and appealed for the public's help to identify suspects. Detective Chief Inspector Will White, who led the investigations, sent out the warning that anyone with plans to bring disorder to the city in the future can expect to be dealt with in the same fashion.

Benjamin Cyster, 18, from Bristol, was sentenced to seven and a half years having been convicted of grievous bodily harm with intent following an incident in which a concrete breeze block was dropped on a police officer from a building. Many others were also given prison sentences.

$100,000 BB&T gift enables two students to receive professional skills training

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Two Wofford students – one an Iraq War veteran and the other committed to working with the poor – have been selected to receive full scholarships for a summer program that teaches professional skills to college students.

Wofford’s Institute for Professional Development, a five-week program that begins July 9, is sponsored by a $100,000 gift from BB&T Bank made in 2011. This is the second year that two students have received full tuition support for the institute through that gift. A number of other students receive partial scholarships paid from the BB&T funds.

The 26 students in the program will live on campus while learning to navigate the working world waiting for them after graduation. “We teach them how to make an effective presentation, speak appropriately to their boss or senior executives, develop a project and utilize each team member’s strengths to get the work done, use technology to efficiently manage work, dress appropriately for whatever environment they’ll be going into, and how to understand and prepare for leadership,” says Scott Cochran, dean of the Mungo Center for Professional Excellence at Wofford, which oversees the institute.

For Jeremy Boeh, a 28-year-old junior majoring in history, the institute is an opportunity to catch up on some of the experiences he missed while doing two tours of duty as an infantry soldier in Iraq. He hopes to learn enough in five weeks to prepare for a job in marketing and advertising after leaving Wofford next year.

“I have Iraq real-world experience, but I need day-to-day business operations experience in the civilian world,” Boeh says. “I’m getting a little bit of a late start on such a drastic change from what I’ve done in the past or even what I’m majoring in. The opportunity to be immersed in as much as I can as quickly as possible can prep me for when I graduate.”

Ben Green, 20, also a junior and majoring in finance and Spanish, hopes learning professional skills will round out his education and help him speak effectively about his experiences traveling as a student in Peru, Chile and Argentina, as well as the two summers he spent working with Latino children in Dallas and with a mission organization in Iquitos, Peru. He hopes to put his finance degree to work in a non-profit or humanitarian aid organization.

“I see the institute as something that can help develop my professional side,” he says. “A big part of that is being able to take your experiences and talk about them and find a useful way to use those in the real world. I think it’s going to be a great step for me from working with people in the field. I’m going to have to be able to do both parts, the business side of it, once I’m ready for a career.”

Both men will receive full scholarships for the institute. The $3,900 tuition covers room and board, course materials, and outings.

Tom Eller, regional president for BB&T, says the bank “is a mission-driven organization with a clearly defined set of values. We expect our employees to have a strong sense of purpose, a high level of self-esteem, and the capacity to think clearly and logically. We know that values are standards that lead to excellence in thinking and action.

“BB&T believes that Wofford students enrolled in the Institute for Professional Development share many of the same values as BB&T employees,” Eller continues. “The institute creates a forum and environment where its students use independent thinking to make rational, fact based decisions. The students are trained to be producers and take the necessary actions to accomplish their goals. Because of all this, BB&T knows that the program prepares its students for long-term success in the business world. We are proud to be associated with Wofford’s Institute for Professional Development.”

Cochran points out that “through its internal leadership development program, BB&T has shown its understands the importance of helping employees grow into strong, effective leaders, which in turn makes BB&T a strong and effective company. Its $100,000 gift recognizes Wofford’s innovation in developing future leaders before they leave school. The gift will enable Jeremy and Ben to have that training, and future students, as well.”

Wofford’s Mungo Center for Professional Excellence was established in 2010 to train students in leadership, entrepreneurship, consulting, and project management, as well as to provide them with career search assistance. It is named for Steven and Stewart Mungo, principals in The Mungo Companies, named one of America’s Best Builders by Builder Magazine for 2012. The brothers are longtime supporters of the college through the Mungo Family Endowed Scholarship Fund, the Mungo Endowed Professorship, and the M. Stewart and Steven W. Mungo Endowed Scholarship Fund. Stewart Mungo is a 1975 graduate of the college and a member of Wofford’s Board of Trustees. Steven Mungo is a 1981 Wofford graduate and a member of the President’s Advisory Board.

University Press Release here.

Pietersen retires from one-day international cricket

England batsman Kevin Pietersen has retired from all forms of one-day international cricket with immediate effect, the England and Wales Cricket Board said on Thursday.

The 31-year-old, who will continue to play tests, cited the increasing demands of international cricket on his body for his decision to quit one-dayers.

"After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I am today announcing my retirement from international one-day cricket," Pietersen, who has played 127 ODI's, scoring 4,184 runs at an average of 41.84, said in a statement on the ECB website (www.ecb.co.uk).

"With the intensity of the international schedule and the increasing demands on my body, approaching 32, I think it is the right time to step aside and let the next generation of players come through to gain experience for the ICC World Cup in 2015.

"I am immensely proud of my achievements in the one-day game, but still wish to be considered for selection for England in test cricket.

Pietersen, who made his ODI debut in 2004, said he would still have been available for England's Twenty20 world title defence in Sri Lanka in September but ECB selection policy states that any player making himself unavailable for either of the one-day formats rules himself out of consideration for both.

Hugh Morris, managing director of England Cricket, said he was disappointed.

"The ECB is disappointed by the timing of Kevin's decision less than four months before we defend our ICC World Twenty20 title," Morris said.

"Kevin is a world-class player and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his efforts and we look forward to his continued contributions to the test match side."

Pietersen played 36 Twenty20 internationals, scoring 1,176 runs at an average of 37.93.  (Reuters)

Nadal powers into French Open third round

Holder Rafael Nadal continued his march towards a record-breaking seventh French Open title with a 6-2 6-2 6-0 demolition of Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin in the second round on Thursday.

The second-seeded Spaniard tormented his 43rd-ranked opponent with his mix of power and accuracy to seal victory in less than two hours on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

Nadal, bidding to surpass the mark of six Roland Garros title he jointly holds with Swede Bjorn Borg, prevailed on his first match point with his 19th forehand winner.

Nadal, who has only dropped nine games in his first two matches and lost only one match since his debut on the Paris clay in 2005, will next face German 32nd seed Florian Mayer or Argentine Eduardo Schwank. (Reuters)

Google wins YouTube copyright battle in French court

While German and U.S. courts say YouTube is responsible for pirated material, a French court backs Google saying, "It has no obligation to police the content."

Reversing the trend of recent court upsets for the Web giant, Google had a notable success in French Court today. Siding with Google in its battle against French broadcaster TF1, the court ruled that the Internet company is not liable for filtering out pirated content on YouTube, according to Reuters.

The French media company brought the case against Google alleging that copyrighted sports and movies were easily accessible on YouTube, according to Reuters.

In this case, TF1 sought more than $176 million (141 million euros) in damages, but the French court ended up ordering the broadcaster to instead pay Google's legal fees to the tune of more than $100,000 (80,000 euros).

"The defendant is not responsible in principle for the video content on its site; only the users of the site are," the decision reads, according to Reuters. "It has no obligation to police the content before it is put online as long as it informs users that posting television shows, music videos, concerts or advertisements without prior consent of the owner is not allowed."

This is a vastly different experience than Google has been having in other courts regarding the same matter. Since 2007 Google's YouTube has been battling Viacom in the U.S. in a copyright lawsuit. Just last month, the media company won an appeal against the video-sharing site and the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a lower court to determine whether YouTube purposely ignored infringing material posted to the site.

Then, just a couple weeks later, a German court ruled that YouTube is solely responsible for the content that users upload and post on the video-sharing site, a decision that could cost the Internet company a huge royalty bill.

The French decision, on the other hand, says that YouTube is not legally accountable if pirated material appears on the site as long as it's taken down when the rightful owner alerts Google it's there, according to Reuters.

"We continue to oppose any demands to systematically filter or pre-screen YouTube content and are confident that future court rulings will uphold the need to allow innovative Web services to flourish," Christophe Mueller, head of partnerships for YouTube in Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The case is still open for appeal.

Source

Was Russia's discovery of water on moon in 1976 ignored?

A Columbia University astrophysicist declares that the Luna 24 mission secured geological samples that had traces of water. The West, however, allegedly ignored the thought until 1994 when the Clementine mission produced similar results.

One day, when our children live on the Newt Gingrich Lunar subdivision, they will know just how watery the moon truly is.

As far as we in the West have been concerned, the first proof that there might be water up there came in 1994, when the Clementine mission returned results suggesting that there must at least be watery ice beneath the moon's surface.

However, a Columbia University astrophysicist, Arlin Crotts, has declared that the Russians had secured evidence of moon water as far back as 1976. This evidence was simply ignored by the high-fallutin' West.

A pulsating treatise offered by MIT's Technology Review claims that Russia's Luna 24 mission drilled 2 meters into the moon's surface, came back with 300 grammes (around 0.66lbs) of rock and found it to be 0.1 percent water.

You'd think, given such evidence, that the whole world would have already been preparing its escape to the moon. Alas, Crotts told Technology Review: "No other author has ever cited the Luna 24 work."

Why might that have been? Was there a lack of communication between the U.S. and the USSR back then? Well, perhaps a little.

But Crotts explained that the findings were published in a Russian journal called Geokhimiia, which no one in the West actually read.

Crofts has written three long pieces about the history of moon water. (They are available here,here and here.)

He describes, among other things, how one NASA project involved smashing an empty rocket stage into a moon crater to see what sort of substances would emerge. Water was, indeed, one. But so was carbon monoxide.

Now, he says, the belief is that the moon is significantly wet is generally accepted.

"As recently as 2006 the settled value for the lunar bulk water content was below 1 part per billion. Most values now discussed well exceed 1 part per million," he told Technology Review.

Yet this whole story seems terribly curious. If the Russians knew about water on the moon for 18 years, why did they not crow about it? Russians, like so many other nations, adore crowing about things -- more than they even enjoy throwing money at the poor.

Why didn't they press home their advantage, if it so obviously existed? And why didn't some spy whisper in the Americans' ears?

And why might the West have been less curious about Russian findings than it might?

Perhaps America's scientists were too consumed with sending the Viking 2 to Mars -- and with the launch that year of the marvelous Cray-1 supercomputer.

Perhaps the Brits were still enthralled by the launch of that wonderfully fast Concorde -- the passenger plane that went fast but didn't seem terribly practical.

The Canadians were possibly bathing in the glorious 1976 creation of the Toronto Blue Jays. The rest of the West was perhaps too busy welcoming the Seychelles to the United Nations.

No, I cannot find Crotts' explanation so easy to digest. It can't have been just a few Russian scientists who knew in 1976 that there was water on the moon. Can it?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57443940-71/was-russias-discovery-of-water-on-moon-in-1976-ignored/

Source

Archos unveils low-cost Android 4.0 tablet for kids

The Archos ChildPad doesn't come with chipmunks, but it does included exclusive "Alvin and the Chipmunks 3" content.

An "Alvin and the Chipmunks"-themed tablet just for kids? Sounds great, but the skeptic in me says it'll be underpowered and overpriced.

At $129.99, the Archos ChildPad definitely isn't overpriced, especially when you consider that "adult" tablets (like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet) start at around $200.

As for power, one could argue that younger kids don't need much. But the ChildPad has decent specs, including a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor, 7-inch screen, front-facing camera, and Android 4.0.

In other words, it's more than adequately equipped for the likes of Angry Birds, educational apps, music, movies, and other kid-oriented stuff. Plus, it's modeled in kid-friendly blue and white, and it comes with exclusive "Alvin and the Chipmunks 3" content (consisting of clips, pictures, wallpaper, and an online game).

Other noteworthy features include parental controls (via a six-month subscription to the Mobile Parental Filter app), a simplified interface with apps grouped into folders, drawing and coloring apps preinstalled, and a ChildPad-specific version of the AppsLib app store.

Unfortunately, it looks like there's no access to Google Play, meaning there's no store for buying or renting movies, nor any way to access your Google-housed music library.

Also, the ChildPad has just 4GB of onboard storage, though it does have a microSD slot for adding more. The screen resolution could be better, too; it tops out at 800x480 pixels. (Keep in mind, though, that kids' eyes aren't as discriminating as yours; they'll probably have no complaints.)

I like the idea of a kid-friendly tablet with a parent-friendly price, though I'll withhold final judgment until I can actually lay hands on one. The ChildPad is available now from Archos, and it's coming soon to various retailers.

Source

Brendan Rodgers is Liverpool's new manager

Brendan Rodgers will become Liverpool’s new manager after agreeing a three-year deal with the Merseyside club.

Rodgers’ departure from Swansea City was confirmed in a statement released by his chairman, Huw Jenkins, on Wednesday night. Negotiations regarding a £5 million compensation agreement will not be a stumbling block and the Welsh club have accepted Rodgers’ decision to leave.
The 39 year-old met Liverpool’s American owners, Fenway Sports Group, on Wednesday and received the reassurances he needed that he will have control over team affairs, and the style and philosophy he wants to impose on his side is entirely in keeping with what his new employers were looking for.
High on the criteria for a new manager was a young coach with a passion for fluid, attractive football. That is why Liverpool were prepared to wait patiently to meet Rodgers, despite his initial reticence to join the recruitment process.

RIM sinks, but patents, network have value

WATERLOO, Ontario (AP) — Research In Motion Ltd., the maker of the BlackBerry, is in steep decline. The company, once the crown jewel of the Canadian technology industry, is now worth 1 percent of Apple's market capitalization. One way for RIM to stop the downward tailspin: It could sell itself to a competitor or financial firm. But who would step up to buy RIM —and why?

Late Tuesday, the company said it expects to post an operating loss for the current quarter, a sign that BlackBerry sales are falling even faster than analysts expected. On Wednesday, the company's stock hit its lowest level since 2003, the year RIM went from making two-way e-mail pagers to smartphones.

The stock has fallen 93 percent since their peak in 2008. Since then, the BlackBerry's dominance as the smartphone for on-the-go business people has been eviscerated by Apple Inc.'s iPhone, and more recently, by phones running Google Inc.'s Android software. Research firm IDC says BlackBerrys now account for 6.4 percent of the global smartphone market, a third of what they had two years ago.

In that time, the company's financial performance has suffered. RIM reported a 25 percent revenue decline in the latest fiscal quarter, to $4.2 billion from $5.6 billion. For the full fiscal year that ended on March 3, it earned $1.2 billion, or $2.22 per share, on revenue of $18.4 billion. That's down from net income of $3.4 billion, or $6.34 a share, on revenue of $19.9 billion in fiscal 2011.

RIM issued the dire warning about its business Tuesday, adding that it will lay off a "significant" number of employees.

Still, the company is defiant. Chief executive, Thorsten Heins, says he can turn things around with the help of fresh smartphone software. Heins joined RIM four years ago and was most recently its chief operating officer. He replaced co-CEOs Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis in January after the company lost tens of billions in market value.

"My charter from the board of directors is very clear: long-term value creation with RIM," Heins told The Associated Press in an interview at the company's headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, earlier this month.

Analysts give RIM only a slight chance of coming out of the crisis. To hedge its bets, the company has hired bankers to look at its options. It's not actively looking to sell itself, Heins said, but it wants to be prepared.

"We are prudent because we know the situation is somewhat challenging," Heins said. "So we are just looking at everything that could be an option. That doesn't mean we are pulling on those options. But we need to understand ... what is our field of action that we could take in case we need to?"

As RIM's prospects worsened, last year marked a turning point in the way analysts assess RIMs value. Instead of treating it like a company with a future, they started looking at it as a collection of parts that could be split up and sold separately to the highest bidder.

Michael Walkley at Canaccord Genuity believes most of the company's value lies in the monthly fees it gets from phone companies in exchange for running the systems that deliver email and Web pages to BlackBerrys.

RIM has 78 million users connected to this system, but Walkley estimates that only 20 million are corporate and government users who are likely to stick around because of the communications security RIM provides. The rest are consumers who will jump to competing phones, he believes. That business is worth about $2.75 billion to a competitor, Walkley wrote in a research report Wednesday.

The other major component of RIM's value is its patent portfolio. The company had an early scare in U.S. patent courts in 2006, when it was forced to pay $612.5 million to a small company founded by an inventor who had patents on wireless e-mail delivery. Since then, it's filed for thousands of patents to use as a defense against future suits.

Patents on wireless technologies exploded in value last year, as Apple and Microsoft Corp. started suing makers of phones that run Google's Android software. Countersuits followed. A consortium that included Apple and RIM bought the patents of a defunct Canadian maker of telecommunications gear, Nortel, for $4.5 billion last year. That compares with the $1.13 billion Nortel's once-prominent wireless networks business fetched in 2009.

As a counter-move, Google bolstered its own patent portfolio by buying Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc., a U.S. phone maker with only slightly better prospects than RIM, for $12.5 billion.

Where does that leave RIM? Christopher Marlett, the CEO of MDB Capital, said RIM's patents are worth more than $1 billion, and could be worth as much as $4 billion if a bidding war develops between Apple, Google, Microsoft Corp. and perhaps Samsung Electronics Co.

"It's a question of how aggressive they get," Marlett said. His firm is an investment bank that focuses on intellectual property, including patents.

Walkley puts the value of RIM's portfolio at $2.5 billion, excluding the patents RIM bought from Nortel and shares with Apple, Microsoft and other buyers.

RIM has $2.1 billion in cash, but Walkley discounts this completely, since the phone business will likely start using up cash soon, and downsizing will require severance payments. That means the email network and the patents comprise RIM's entire value at $5.25 billion, by his estimate.

That's very close to RIM's current market capitalization, at $5.4 billion, though a buyer could be expected to pay a premium.

The cash cushion also means that RIM is in no imminent danger of going bankrupt. But as the shares decline, RIM is likely to face increasing pressure from shareholders to unlock the company's value through a sale, and to abandon the comeback plan.

A possible middle ground would be to sell the patent portfolio while keeping the rest of the company. Two months ago, AOL, once a pioneering Internet service provider, sold and licensed its patents —which are more modest than RIM's for $1 billion— to Microsoft.

Microsoft is one company that's been suggested as a potential RIM buyer. The software juggernaut is trying to get back into smartphone software, but its Windows Phones haven't been popular so far. Buying RIM could give it a chance to establish itself as a provider of trusted wireless email services, though moving subscribers from BlackBerry to Windows could be challenging.

Flame: Israel rejects link to malware cyber-attack

Israel has dismissed suggestions that it might be behind the Flame cyber-attack.

Several media reports linked comments made by the country's vice prime minister with the malware, which has infected more than 600 targets.

However, a spokesman for the Israeli government told the BBC that Moshe Ya'alon had been misrepresented.

Security experts said it was still too early to pinpoint the source of the attack.

Mr Ya'alon, who is also Israel's minister of strategic affairs, discussed the attacks on Israel's military radio station, Army Radio.

"There are quite a few governments in the west that have rich high-tech [capabilities] that view Iran, and particularly the Iranian nuclear threat, as a meaningful threat - and can possibly be involved with this field," he said.

"I would imagine that everyone who sees the Iranian nuclear threat as a significant one, and that is not only Israel, it is the entire Western world, headed by the United States of America, would likely take every single measure available, including these, to harm the Iranian nuclear project."

When asked to clarify Mr Ya'alon's comments by the BBC, a spokesman for the minister said: "There was no part of the interview where the minister has said anything to imply that Israel was responsible for the virus."

Retreating Flame

Other speculation has linked the US with the malware. An anonymous US official told NBC News the country was behind the attack - but conceded he had "no first-hand knowledge" of the matter. The US has also denied responsibility.

Many analysts said Stuxnet, a past high-profile attack which shares some similarities with Flame, could have been orchestrated by both countries.

Leading security expert Ralph Langner said in 2011 that Mossad - Israel's security agency - had collaborated in the attack with US intelligence. Both countries deny involvement.

Russian security firm Kaspersky Labs, which was among the first to reveal details of Flame, told the BBC that it could take months, or even years, to determine where it had originated.

However, its researchers have noted that whoever was behind the malware appeared to be retreating slowly.

"It's very tough to shut down 80+ command and control servers at the same time," explained Roel Schouwenberg, senior security researcher.

"Some of them are not active anymore. I think this is some sort of effort to buy themselves some time and change the game plan if the need would arise.

"We've seen it in the past, that after some period of silence, that the operation is rebooted."

The United Nations has described Flame as a significant espionage tool which could affect critical infrastructure - and issued its "most serious" cyber security warning to date.

However, others have suggested the threat had been overplayed.

"We seem to be getting to a point where every time new malware is discovered it's branded 'the worst ever'," said US security researcher Marcus Carey (BBC)

Intel-based smartphone unveiled by Orange for UK and France

Europe's first "Intel Inside" smartphone has been unveiled by the telecoms firm Everything Everywhere.

The handset is powered by Intel's single-core Atom Z2460 processor and runs Google's Android system.

It was manufactured by the Chinese firm Gigabyte, but will be marketed under EE's Orange brand.

The launch marks Intel's entry into a market dominated by chips based on designs by British firm Arm Holdings.

It will go on sale on 6 June in the UK - where it will be called San Diego - and will be released in France shortly after. There has been no announcement as yet for other markets.

Growth market

The handset is the third Intel-based smartphone, following the launch of Lava's XOLO X900 in India in April and the Lenovo LePhone K800 in China on Wednesday.

Intel has also partnered with Google's Motorola Mobility division with devices scheduled to launch in the second half of the year.

Sales of mobile devices are growing at a much faster rate than PCs and some analysts believe the dividing line between the two sectors will blur, so success could be critical for Intel's future.

"This is part of our strategy to grow into what we refer to as adjacent markets, whether that be premium high performance smartphone products in the mature markets or lower cost solutions in some of the emerging markets, and everything in between," Graham Palmer, Intel's country manager for the UK and Ireland told the BBC.

"This is absolutely a core part of Intel's strategy to allow us to take our technology into these new growth sectors."

He added that his firm had worked closely with Google and other developers to ensure apps designed for ARM-based phones would be compatible and run at desired speeds on the Atom chip.

"Our intent is that all applications will run seamlessly on the Intel-based phone," added Mr Palmer.

"A huge amount of effort has been put in already to make that completely transparent to consumers."

Mid-range model

Intel and EE are co-funding a multimillion pound marketing campaign - the first to promote an Orange's own-brand device on television.

Despite the big budget the handset is not targeting the top end of the market.

It has a 4.03 inch (10.2cm) screen - smaller than HTC and Samsung's top-end Android models - and runs the Gingerbread version of the system software, rather than the newer Ice Cream release.

Intel said the single core CPU (central processing unit) on its chip outperformed many dual core models on the market, but admitted it would be beaten by recently released handsets featuring quad core technologies.

However, it also sells for a cheaper price: £200 for the pay as you go option.

"It's not about going head-to-head with a [Samsung] Galaxy S3," said Paul Jevons, director of products and devices at Everything Everywhere.

"In targeting those customers who may be new to smartphones and are at a different point in the market we are able to meet an unsatisfied need."

One tech industry watcher expressed surprise at the move.

"In the PC world Intel's brand is associated with the high performance," said Malik Saadi, principal analyst with Informa Telecoms and Media.

"Yet San Diego is positioned as entry level. I don't understand why they have done that, it seems like the wrong decision."

Intel everywhere

Unlike most mobiles, the chip designer's branding features heavily.

An Intel Inside logo appears after Orange's when it starts up, and the US firm's insignia also features at the top of the device's screen, its rear and on a screensaver.

Although this might appear unusual, Mr Saadi said this could soon be the norm.

"At the moment there is a rush towards multiple core processors - consumers are aware that more cores means more power and are asking for that," said the analyst.

"Chipmakers have noticed this trend and are now becoming keen to promote their brands.

"Last year Qualcomm announced a branding strategy to promote its Snapdragon chips, and Intel obviously now wants to migrate its campaign from PCs to mobile devices. So expect chips as brands to become more important over the next few years."

Living in: Madrid

Madrid’s current economic woes and the eurozone crisis are keeping the city in the headlines, as it suffers from a second recession, record unemployment and the downgrade of some of its high street banks. The mortgage crisis hit the country hard and many bad loans are still not cleared. But life in the Spanish capital still moves gracefully along, with the tapas bars and outdoor terrazas (cafes) bursting on the weekend, full of madrileños nibbling and sipping their way to early morning.

What is it known for?
Madrid is the heart of classic Castilian Spain, where residents speak in an expressive burst of consonants and vowels. The city is home to the kings and queens of Spain, who commissioned the grand architecture of various royal palaces, avenues like the Gran Via, one of Europe’s great shopping streets, and plazas and parks such as Plaza Mayor and the central Parque del Buen Retiro. The “Golden Triangle” of the Prado, Reina Sofia Museum and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum make up one of the most important art experiences in the world, covering Spanish and European art from the 12th Century to the modern era.

The past decade has seen a high level of investment in city infrastructure, from skyscrapers to the AVE, a high-speed rail that links Madrid to other major Spanish cities such as Barcelona and Valencia in less than four hours. Until recently, the economy and high GDP drew more people than ever to live and work in Madrid, with top chefs opening restaurants and tapas bars, an exciting live music scene, and a tradition of mid-day siestas and Sunday closings adding to the quality of life. Many madrileños are not originally from Madrid, which makes the city open and welcoming to those who come here.

Where do you want to live?
Madrid’s central districts remain popular and upscale, such as Barrio de Salamanca and Retiro, where residents are close to stores, restaurants and parks. Other central areas such as Chueca, a predominantly gay area, Malasaña just to the west of Chueca, and Lavapies, a gentrifying neighbourhood that was once the ancient Jewish quarter, appeal to a hip population with rocking bars and clubs that stay open late into the night. “Madrid still preserves its village atmosphere,” said longtime resident Fernando Sevilla. “Perhaps we are not as sophisticated and refined as Londoners or Parisians, but Madrid is a safe city and the public transport is very good.”

Families might look farther out of town to the nearby suburbs, such as La Finca, a development northwest of the city, and La Moraleja, where many of Spain’s politicians and sports figures live. 

Side trips
Many madrileños go back to their home village, or pueblo, on the weekend, especially when there are so many four-day weekends due to various holidays falling on a Tuesday or Thursday. The peaks of the Sierra de Guadarrama are a choice destination for a day’s outing of hiking in the pine forests and fields. “Spanish people love to go to the countryside and to go out walking and have picnics,” Sevilla said. The ancient towns of Toledo, Cuenca and Segovia are popular weekend getaways, and in the hot summer months, many head south to the beaches of the Mediterranean.

Spain’s high-speed rail network connects Madrid to Barcelona in just two-and-a-half hours, meaning almost no one flies between the two cities anymore. But from the Madrid-Barajas Airport, low-cost airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair and big carriers such as Iberia and Lufthansa fly to many other European cities. Madrid is about an hour and a half flight from London and about seven hours to New York.

Practical info
The double recession and mortgage crisis has had a big effect on life in Madrid. “We compare prices when shopping and look for discounts,” Sevilla said. “Going out is cheaper now than it was three or four years ago and during the week the bars and restaurants can be mostly empty.”

In 2010, the average house price in Madrid was 3,290 euros per sqm, and in upscale Salamanca, it was 5,615 euros per sqm. But in the last quarter of 2011, housing prices in Madrid fell nearly 16% from the year before, and 32% of houses in all of Spain have been repossessed by the banks in the continuing fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis. The falling prices mean that it is a good time to buy, but with banks now acting as both lenders and estate agents, there are very few mortgages being given to Spanish citizens or foreign buyers. “Renting is a good option now, since you can bargain and get a good deal,” explained Sevilla. “But the Spanish mentality is it is always best to own a house.”

Michael Jackson's sleepless note pulled from auction

A note written by Michael Jackson in which he complains of being unable to sleep has been withdrawn from auction at the request of the late singer's ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley, the auction house said on Wednesday.
Jackson, who died in 2009 after asking his doctor to give him a powerful anesthetic to help him sleep, wrote the note to Presley sometime between 1993-1996, when they were close friends. The two later became husband and wife.
"Lisa I truly need this rest I haven't slept litterally (sic) in 4 days now. I need to be away from phones and business people. I must take care of my health first Im'(sic) crazy for you," reads the handwritten note, scrawled on yellow paper.
Julien's Auctions, which had listed the letter in an upcoming celebrity memorabilia sale, said on Wednesday it pulled the note from its Music Icons auction on June 23rd and 24th at Presley's request.
"I'm assuming that it's because the note is of a personal nature, and we want to honor the request and continue our good relationship with Ms. Presley," chief executive Darren Julien said.
The "Thriller" singer had struggled with insomnia for several years while alive. His personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, told police shortly after Jackson's death that the 50-year-old pop star pleaded for help sleeping during a long, restless night at his home on June 25, 2009, the day he died.
Murray was convicted last year of involuntary manslaughter after delivering a fatal dose of propofol - normally used to sedate patients for surgery - and a cocktail of sedatives to Jackson. (Reuters)