Thursday, October 31, 2013

Sebelius heads to Hill to defend health law, job

FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2013 file photo, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaks in Phoenix. As the public face of President Barack Obama’s signature health care program, Sebelius has become the target for attacks over its botched rollout. Republicans want her to resign and even some Democrats _ while not mentioning her name _ say someone needs to be fired. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)







FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2013 file photo, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaks in Phoenix. As the public face of President Barack Obama’s signature health care program, Sebelius has become the target for attacks over its botched rollout. Republicans want her to resign and even some Democrats _ while not mentioning her name _ say someone needs to be fired. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)







Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Stressing that improvements are happening daily, the senior Obama official closest to the administration's malfunctioning health care website apologized Tuesday for problems that have kept Americans from successfully signing up for coverage. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)







House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp , R-Mich., right, greets Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013, prior to Tavenner testifying before the committee's hearing on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Stressing that improvements are happening daily, the senior Obama official closest to the administration's malfunctioning health care website apologized Tuesday for problems that have kept Americans from successfully signing up for coverage. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)







(AP) — Eager to cast blame, lawmakers are preparing to grill President Barack Obama's top health official over problems with the rollout of the government's health care website.

A growing number of Republicans in Congress are calling for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to step down or be fired because of problems consumers are having signing up for insurance coverage on the government's new website.

On Wednesday, Sebelius heads to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, her first appearance before Congress since state-based health exchanges opened for business on Oct. 1.

Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, on Tuesday joined the list of GOP lawmakers calling for Sebelius to go.

"Taxpayers have spent $400 million to create exchanges that, after 3½ years, still don't work," Alexander said. "No private-sector chief executive officer would escape accountability after such a poor performance."

Sebelius is likely to face questions about problems with the website as well as a wave of cancellation notices hitting small businesses and individuals who buy their own insurance. Lawmakers also want to know how many people have enrolled in plans through the health exchanges, a number the Obama administration has so far refused to divulge.

On Tuesday, Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner was questioned for nearly three hours by members of the House Ways and Means Committee who wanted to know why so many of their constituents were getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.

"So what happened to the 'If you like your insurance, you can keep it' question?" asked Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Camp was referring to one of Obama's earliest promises about the health law: You can keep your plan if you like it. Obama's promise dates back to June 2009, when Congress was starting to grapple with overhauling the health care system to cover uninsured Americans.

As early as last spring, state insurance commissioners started giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for 2014, because the coverage required under Obama's law is significantly more robust. Some states directed insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected.

The law includes a complicated "grandfathering" system to try to make good on Obama's pledge. It shields plans from the law's requirements provided the plans themselves change very little. Insurers say it has proven impractical. The cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders.

Tavenner blamed insurance companies for cancelling the policies and said most people who lose coverage will be able to find better replacement plans in the health insurance exchanges, in some cases for less money. Change is a constant in the individual insurance market, she added, saying that about half of plans "churn" over in any given year.

Tavenner delivered the most direct mea culpa yet from the administration for the technical problems that have kept many Americans from signing up through HealthCare.gov. Consumers complain that the site is slow, locks up and often kicks them off before they can complete their application.

"I want to apologize to you that the website has not worked as well as it should," she told the Ways and Means Committee.

Tavenner said the website is improving and the problems should be resolved by the end of November, giving consumers time to get coverage by the March 31 deadline.

The first senior official to publicly answer questions from lawmakers, Tavenner was also pressed about the number of people who have so far enrolled in health plans through the exchanges. Committee members asked Tavenner at least 19 times about the number of people who have so far enrolled through the exchanges.

Each time, she gave a well-rehearsed answer: "We will not have those numbers available until mid-November."

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-30-Health%20Overhaul-Problems/id-7553c0995e3444c18638e61ad3c5a03a
Similar Articles: seahawks   red sox   Navy Yard shooting   nfl   Chelsea Manning  

Israel plans more than 1,500 new settlement homes


JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel announced plans Wednesday to build more than 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, dealing a setback to newly relaunched peace efforts hours after it had freed a group of long-serving Palestinian prisoners.

The construction plans drew angry condemnations from Palestinian officials, who accused Israel of undermining the U.S.-led talks by expanding settlements on the lands where they hope to establish an independent state. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the Israeli decision, and Washington said it would not create a "positive environment" for the negotiations.

Israel had freed the 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of a U.S.-brokered agreement to restart the talks. The construction was meant to blunt anger over the release of the prisoners, all of whom had been convicted of murder in the deaths of Israelis.

Israel's Interior Ministry said 1,500 apartments would be built in Ramat Shlomo, a large settlement in east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by the Palestinians as their capital. It also announced plans for archaeology and tourism projects near the Old City, home to Jerusalem's most sensitive holy sites.

Israel first announced the Ramat Shlomo plan in 2010 during a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, sparking a diplomatic rift with Washington that took months to mend. Wednesday's decision is the final approval needed, and construction can begin immediately, officials said.

Ofir Akunis, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, said construction also had been approved for several West Bank settlements.

"The building in Judea and Samaria will continue and be intensified," said Akunis, using the biblical term for the West Bank.

In addition, he told parliament that Netanyahu had given orders to "advance plans" for more than 2,000 homes in a longer list of settlements across the West Bank.

While these projects still need additional bureaucratic approvals, they are especially provocative because several of the settlements are deep inside the West Bank and almost certainly would have to be dismantled as part of a peace deal.

Israel captured east Jerusalem, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

The Palestinians, along with virtually all of the international community, consider the settlements to be illegal or illegitimate.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, condemned the settlement plans, saying they were "destructive to the peace efforts and will only lead to more tensions."

"It's a message to the international community that Israel is a state that doesn't abide by international law and continues to put obstacles in the way of peace," he said.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said, "We do not consider continued settlement activity or East Jerusalem construction to be steps that create a positive environment for the negotiations."

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said the secretary-general "deplores" the Israeli announcement.

"Settlement activity is contrary to international law and constitutes an obstacle to peace," Nesirky said. "Any measures that prejudge final status issues will not be recognized by the international community."

The previous round of peace talks broke down in late 2008 and remained frozen for nearly five years, in large part because of Palestinian objections to settlement construction.

The Palestinians say continued expansion of settlements, now home to more than 500,000 Israelis, makes it increasingly difficult to divide the land between Israel and a Palestinian state.

Under heavy U.S. pressure, the Palestinians dropped a longstanding demand for a settlement freeze over the summer and agreed to resume negotiations with the understanding that Israel would slow construction.

As part of that arrangement, Israel agreed to release 104 of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, most of whom had committed their crimes before a landmark interim peace deal was reached in 1993. Wednesday's release was the second of four groups in the coming months.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been meeting secretly since late July. Under orders from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to keep quiet, they have said little about the discussions, although Palestinian officials say all core issues are being discussed.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of Kerry's orders, said the talks are currently focusing on Israeli security demands and the contours of future borders.

The future of the settlements would fit heavily into those discussions. It remains difficult to see how the U.S. can bridge the wide gaps between the sides.

Netanyahu opposes a full withdrawal from the West Bank, saying Israel would need to keep significant portions of the territory for security needs.

He also has vowed never to divide Jerusalem. Israel has built a series of settlements around east Jerusalem, including Ramat Shlomo, to solidify its control.

Israel considers east Jerusalem settlements to be "neighborhoods" of its capital, but Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem is not internationally recognized

Danny Danon, a hard-line member of Netanyahu's party, said the U.S. should focus its energies on stopping Iran's suspected nuclear program instead of trying to broker a peace deal by next May.

"To finish the conflict with the Palestinians by May 2014 is wishful thinking," he told foreign journalists in Jerusalem. "I would say let's finish with the threat coming from Iran by May 2014 and then go to the negotiation table and speak with the Palestinians."

Israel has a long history of lopsided prisoner exchanges with its Arab adversaries. But this week's release appeared especially charged because Israel appeared to be receiving little in return except for the opportunity to conduct negotiations that few people believe will succeed.

In the West Bank and Gaza, thousands celebrated long into the night as they welcomed the released prisoners. Abbas greeted them at his West Bank headquarters early Wednesday.

While Israel views the prisoners as terrorists, the Palestinians seem them as heroes in a struggle against Israeli occupation.

"There will be no final agreement without the release of all the prisoners," Abbas told the raucous crowd.

___

Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed reporting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/israel-plans-more-1-500-settlement-homes-190030172.html
Similar Articles: charlie hunnam   Costa Concordia   Insidious 2   kobe bryant   Jared Remy  

Live Chat: Michael Chandler vs. Eddie Alvarez 2 preview, Bellator 106 talk, UFC headlines


It's very rare that I lead chat discussion with Bellator news and notes, but this week is one such time where that makes sense. MMA's number two organization does their best to recover from their abrupt albeit temporary pivot away from pay-per-view after the cancellation of Tito Ortiz vs. Quinton Jackson.


The reality, despite the hemming and hawing from some fans and media online, is a great card. I don't know if it was ever pay-per-view ready, but it's more than a fine fit for Spike TV.


The questions I have are: will Tito Ortiz finally go away? Who is next for Rampage? Why is Bellator rushing to pay-per-view? And perhaps most importantly, why does everyone seem to not understand a thing about Bellator?


We'll, of course, get to all UFC news and notes.


There's a lot going on, so join me today to discuss all of this and more. In terms of today's chat, anything is up for discussion, but I will lead with this and it all kicks off at 1 p.m. ET.


As is customary, I'll post the video window here as the event draws near and I'll answer any questions you may have if you post them in the comments section below. Be sure that you click the 'rec' button for those comments/questions you believe most deserve a response.


Be sure to link this page and use the hashtag #chatwrappers on Twitter or even Facebook when you're watching this to let everyone know you're taking part is this activity of ours.


Talk with you all at 1 p.m. ET.


Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/30/5046244/live-chat-michael-chandler-vs-eddie-alvarez-2-preview-bellator-106
Similar Articles: Case Keenum   columbus day   National Dog Day   Miley Cyrus VMA   Disney Infinity  

A Chair That Turns Into a Brain-Protecting Helmet During Earthquakes

A Chair That Turns Into a Brain-Protecting Helmet During Earthquakes

When an earthquake hits, most of us know to run for a doorframe or duck next to a desk. Protecting your noggin should be the priority, and the Mamoris chair wants to help: This clever chair quickly disassembles into a brain-and-neck-protecting helmet.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/u82KM8GObDM/a-chair-that-turns-into-a-brain-protecting-helmet-durin-1455100850
Category: Tom Foley   Naya Rivera   Scott Eastwood   denver post   USA vs Costa Rica  

Qatar benches World Cup 'headbutt' statue


DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The future hosts of the World Cup in Qatar have decided a statue depicting one of the tournament's most talked-about moments is not worthy of public display.

Officials in Doha ordered the removal of a five-meter (16-foot) bronze statue of French footballer Zinedine Zidane's infamous headbutt of Italy's Marco Materazzi in the 2006 World Cup.

So, cranes were brought in this week and on Thursday, the statue's site along Doha's waterfront was empty.

Officials have not commented on the reason for its removal, but the artwork had stirred complaints from Muslim conservatives saying it promoted idolatry. Others argued it's wrong to honor Zidane's unsportsmanlike act in striking Materazzi after an insult from the Italian.

The statue, created by Algerian-born French artist Adel Abdessemed, was unveiled in Doha in early October.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/qatar-benches-world-cup-headbutt-statue-084516716--spt.html
Related Topics: jay cutler   Texas A&m   Robinson Cano   apple event   ben affleck  

Sprint's Dan Hesse confirms unlimited data isn't going anywhere after Spark rollout


Sprint's Dan Hesse confirms unlimited data isn't going anywhere after Sparks rollout


Of the four major national networks in the US, Sprint has been the most faithful in its commitment to offer unlimited data plans without restrictions. After this morning's announcement that the operator would be rolling out Spark, which promises 50-60Mbps peak speeds (with faster networks on the horizon as part of its Vision) to its users, it left us wondering if this rollout would come with any trade-offs. While he didn't speak to specifics on plans and pricing, CEO Dan Hesse reaffirmed his company's commitment to unlimited data, explaining that he wouldn't have offered Unlimited for Life to customers this summer if he didn't intend to keep the plans around for the foreseeable future. This will be great for the limited number of markets that can take advantage of the blazing speeds right away, but anxious folks in other parts of the country can at least take comfort in knowing that the plans won't have gone anywhere when Spark finally shows up in their hometown.


Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/30/sprints-dan-hesse-confirms-unlimited-data-isnt-going-anywhere/?ncid=rss_truncated
Category: Mary McCormack   red sox   Agents of SHIELD   monday night football   made in america  

10 Things to Know for Thursday


Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Thursday:

1. OBAMA VOWS TO CURE HEALTH CARE WEBSITE

"There's no excuse" for the dysfunctional rollout, he declares. "And I take full responsibility for making sure it gets fixed ASAP."

2. NSA REPORTEDLY ACCESSES YAHOO, GOOGLE DATA CENTERS

The latest revelations trigger legal questions, including whether the agency may be violating federal wiretap laws.

3. WHAT HASN'T HAPPENED SINCE 1918

The Boston Red Sox claimed their third World Series title in 10 years with a 6-1 win over St. Louis, clinching the title at Fenway Park for the first time since 1918.

4. AFTER PUSHING OUT US MILITARY, IRAQ BACKTRACKS

American weapons, training and manpower are needed to help fight a bloody resurgence of al-Qaida, a top official says.

5. WHAT'S STAYING THE SAME AT THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The Fed — while seeming to signal that the economy is improving — will continue to buy $85 billion a month in bonds.

6. JEWISH BOOKS, PAPERS FOUND IN IRAQ RAISE OWNERSHIP QUESTIONS

A sample of the trove will be displayed this fall in Washington. But plans to return the material to Iraq are meeting opposition.

7. STUDY: GETTING YOUR BELL RUNG SHOULD MEAN A TIME OUT

A report reveals gaps in what is known about the risk of concussions in youth sports, but urges athletes to stay on the sidelines whenever they suffer one.

8. HOW DO YOU 'LIKE' ME NOW?

Mobile advertising spurs a 60 percent quarterly revenue increase for Facebook, beating Wall Street's expectations.

9. SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM — AND YOU'RE 21

The New York City Council votes to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21, higher than all but a few places in the U.S.

10. WHO STOLE THE SHOW AT THE VATICAN

As the pope delivers a homily, a little boy climbs onto the papal chair — and at one point even clings to the pontiff's legs.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-things-know-thursday-104756375.html
Similar Articles: Kellen Clemens   lsu football   Polina Polonsky   Ryne Sandberg   Pga Leaderboard  

Around the Web…

Wednesday’s riveting reads are just waiting for a click: Hilaria Baldwin: Alec and I dated for six weeks before our first kiss — Beach Six secrets to your child’s Halloween happiness — Just the Facts, Baby Swaddling babies could cause hip problems, says orthopedic surgeon — BBC How to throw a cute and creative candy […]Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/0xgyXHU6JnQ/
Tags: columbus day   Monika Jakisic   Rashad Johnson   marshawn lynch   us open tennis  

Cloudera positions Hadoop as an enterprise data hub


Taking note of how customers have been working with its Hadoop distribution, Cloudera has expanded the scope of its software so that it can serve as a hub for all of an organization's data, not just data undergoing Hadoop MapReduce analysis.


Some of Cloudera's enterprise customers have "started to use our platform in a new way, as the center of their data centers," said Mike Olson, Cloudera's chairman and chief strategy officer.


[ Also on InfoWorld: Hadoop is not enough for big data, says Facebook analytics chief. | Harness the power of Hadoop with InfoWorld's 7 top tools for taming big data. | Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]


"We think this is a very big deal. It will change the way the industry thinks about data," Olson said.


Cloudera has released a new beta of its commercial distribution, Cloudera Enterprise, that provides tools for managing an organization's data, as well as tools from Cloudera and third parties for data analysis.


Olson announced the beta of Cloudera Enterprise 5 at the O'Reilly Strata-Hadoop World conference, being held this week in New York. 


"It used to be that an organization had lots of balkanized data silos," Olson said. "The stuff that you used to run on a data warehouse because you had no choice, now you can run on the hub."


Putting the data in a Hadoop-based storage repository has many advantages, Olson argued. You can run different types of analytical workloads against the data in the hub. It can easily feed data to other systems, such as content management systems. It can work as an archiving system. 


An enterprise data hub, Olson said, can store data as it is generated, even if the organization isn't sure how the data will be needed. Such data may be valuable later for machine learning analysis or other uses not considered.


An enterprise hub also puts security and governance mechanisms in place to safeguard the data. Cloudera has been working on these tools for several releases, Olson said.


 "Our ambition is to draw more workloads in and make the hub more valuable over time," he said. 


Part of Hadoop's newfound ability to act as a data hub comes from software additions in the latest version of the open-source software, Apache Hadoop 2, on which Cloudera Enterprise is built.


The inclusion of YARN (Yet Another Resource Manager), for instance, allows Hadoop to handle multiple analysis applications, not just those that run on the batch process-oriented MapReduce.


To facilitate the hub, Cloudera has also set up a management framework that third-party analysis applications can plug into. SAS, Revolution Analytics, Syncsort and other organizations have ported some of their software to the platform. Porting analysis software requires that the operations be executed in parallel, as data in Hadoop is typically distributed across multiple nodes, Olson said. 


Cloudera Enterprise 5 also adds the ability to cache HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) contents in the working memory of a server, which can boost query response and data processing times.


The company's Navigator auditor tool now allows analysts and data modelers to search, explore, define and tag datasets. Users can add customized queries to Cloudera's Impala SQL engine. And Cloudera Enterprise 5 can work with the NFS (Network File System) nodes, which should make the process of injecting data into HDFS much easier, Olson said.  


The software also now can take snapshots of the data, providing a backup if the original data is lost or destroyed. 


Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com.


Source: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/business-intelligence/cloudera-positions-hadoop-enterprise-data-hub-229785?source=rss_business_intelligence
Similar Articles: Jeff Daniels   Sons Of Anarchy Season 6   cbs sports   us open tennis   true blood  

Twitter gets more visual with photo, video previews


October 29, 2013




By Zach Miners | IDG News Service




Twitter became an Internet phenom as a tool for posting short text messages, but now it also wants to feature multimedia content more prominently.


[ Get your websites up to speed with HTML5 today using the techniques in InfoWorld's HTML5 Deep Dive PDF how-to report. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]


Previews of photos and videos will now appear on users' timeline streams, whereas before people had to click on links to see them. The new feature is available on Twitter's iOS and Android apps, as well as on its Web version.


The changes apply only to photos uploaded using Twitter, and to videos created with Twitter's Vine app. People still have to navigate to an outside page to see photos or videos from third-party services.


Users can expand the photos or watch the videos by tapping them on mobile and clicking on them on the desktop.


With this feature, Twitter wants to provide a more media-rich experience for users and to better compete against big rivals like Instagram and Snapchat. "These rich tweets can bring your followers closer to what's happening," the company said in its announcement.


But the changes also come as Twitter faces pressure to build out its advertising business, as its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange looms.


Video ads constitute a major element of Twitter's advertising business, which generated 85 percent of the company's revenue last year, the company said on its IPO documents. Placing more video and photo content front and center in users' feeds, therefore, could give marketers an added incentive to advertise with Twitter.


Twitter has already partnered with more than a dozen broadcasters and media networks through its Amplify program, which places promotional video content in users' feeds. Some of those partners include Bloomberg TV, A&E, and BBC America.


Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com



Source: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/applications/twitter-gets-more-visual-photo-video-previews-229781?source=rss_applications
Tags: Prince George christening   MacBook Pro   TLC Movie   big brother   Into the Wild  

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

For Obama, risks and rewards in knowing too much


WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with missteps in his own administration, President Barack Obama has frequently pleaded ignorance — suggesting he could not be at fault about things he did not know.

It's an argument with clear benefits but also inherent risks for the White House. Used too often, the tactic emboldens critics who claim the president is incompetent, detached and not fully in control.

Eager to protect Obama's time and concentration, his aides deliberate intensively about what to tell the president, current and former White House officials said. His advisers act as a triage team for an endless flood of information coming into the White House, continually making decisions about which snippets of data Obama might need.

What makes the cut: Information that's likely to require a presidential decision, come up during a public appearance or inform Obama's longer-term thinking, as well as major developments relating to national security or Obama's domestic priorities.

Everything else, including most of the myriad details of how policies and laws are carried out, remains with staff and agencies. If and when things go wrong, as they invariably do in the sprawling federal government, the White House can seek to sidestep uncomfortable questions by saying the issue never rose to the presidential level.

Month after month, for a full year before healthcare.gov website went live, Obama posed the same questions in regular meetings with his advisers and top health officials: "How's the website? Will it work," according to one official present for the meetings.

But nobody ever signaled to the president that deep-seated problems with the site would lead to a near-meltdown immediately after its debut, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal meetings.

"I told the president that we were ready to go. Clearly I was wrong. We were wrong," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress on Wednesday, shifting the blame from the president to herself.

A similar logic played out this week as a U.S. official said the president didn't learn until recently — five years into Obama's presidency — that the National Security Agency had been secretly monitoring the German chancellor's cellphone for a decade. And the White House said earlier this year that Obama was unaware of an investigation into whether IRS agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny, even though top White House aides knew.

Yet, White House officials said Obama has created a culture wherein aides are expected to err on the side of providing more information, and frequently sends staffers away from meetings with "homework assignments" when all of his questions haven't been answered.

And as the full extent of the healthcare.gov problems became clear, Obama told aides he wished they would have told him more — a directive that's not uncommon from Obama when he's caught off-guard by pitfalls, said Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's senior adviser.

"The things that come back to bite you are the things you didn't know to tell him about," Pfeiffer said. "The last thing you want to do is not tell him something that's bad news that you think he doesn't want to hear."

"That will get you in trouble the fastest," Pfeiffer added.

Ari Fleischer, former President George W. Bush's press secretary, said after Bush was burned by bad information about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush stopped blindly accepting what he was told and began demanding that the CIA and other agencies walk through their logic in front of him.

"You want everybody to be looking over their shoulders, saying 'the boss is watching,'" Fleischer said.

Republicans have pounced on Obama's assertion to claim a failure of leadership when it comes to implementing the health care law, his signature legislative achievement. Said the Republican National Committee: "Will he ever take responsibility for — let alone become aware of — how he's running his government?"

In other cases, such as revelations the Justice Department secretly subpoenaed phone records for Associated Press journalists, the White House has insisted it would be inappropriate for Obama to be informed about law enforcement operations that are supposed to be carried out without political interference.

But officials who have served in Democratic and Republican administrations said it's reasonable Obama wouldn't know that the NSA was listening in on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone.

Obama's prime method for digesting intelligence information is the highly classified daily briefing he receives each morning. But the sources for the data points in that report are scrubbed well before it reaches the president, said James Andrew Lewis, a former State Department official and national security expert.

"It doesn't say, 'Oh, by the way, this came from Angela Merkel's cellphone,'" Lewis said. "It's like he doesn't ask the cook, 'Where did you buy the chicken this week?'"

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

___

Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-risks-rewards-knowing-too-much-215414336--politics.html
Tags: The Blacklist   nfl scores   2020 Olympics   ny times   Ichiro Suzuki  

Feds proving Internet-adept and inept at same time


WASHINGTON (AP) — When it comes to computers, the Obama administration appears simultaneously to be a bungling amateur and a stealthy wizard. The same government that reportedly intercepted the communications of America's leading consumer technology firms, Google and Yahoo, without leaving a trace is scorned because it can't build a working federal website for health insurance.

In a single day in the nation's capital, extremes of the impressive successes and stunning failures of the Internet age were on full display.

Computer professionals said the government can be both adept and inept at the same time because the tasks are so different and for reasons involving who is doing it, for how much money, how long it takes and how publicly it is done.

Under a classified project called MUSCULAR, the National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Google and Yahoo data centers around the world, The Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing documents obtained from former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden. In the past 30 days, the NSA swept up and processed more than 180 million new records, including metadata indicating who sent and received emails and when it happened, the Post reported.

Across town, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was apologizing to Congress over the bungled healthcare.gov website. New documents obtained by The Associated Press showed that officials had worried that a lack of website testing posed a potentially high security risk. In yet another conflict-riddled Capitol Hill hearing, a congressman told Sebelius that she had put Americans' personal financial information at risk.

The difference? National priorities, including big differences in how much the government spends, plus the talent and expertise of the people the government hires.

The NSA's annual budget was just over $7 billion in fiscal 2013, according to budget documents leaked by Snowden. The budget for the entire Health and Human Services Department was less than $1 trillion, and it spent $118 million on the website plus about $56 million on other IT to support the website, Sebelius said Wednesday.

The NSA is famous for employing small focused teams of highly talented, highly recruited experts with special skills, said Chris Wysopal, a former hacker who is chief technology officer for Veracode in Burlington, Mass. But the Health and Human Services Department's website designers? "They are sort of your average developers," he said.

Ex-hacker Marc Maiffret, who once wore his hair green in spikes and is the chief technology officer at BeyondTrust of San Diego, said Beltway contractors who work on civilian technology projects usually are over-budget and under-performing. Teams putting together large IT systems are complex and must coordinate across different government agencies, insurance companies, states and contractors.

"They may have underestimated the complexity when they started on it, which is again not surprising," said Purdue University computer science professor Gene Spafford.

Motivation is important too. Patriotic hacking on behalf of the NSA is exciting, especially among the mostly young and mostly male demographic.

"Breaking in, it feels like special ops," Wysopal said. "Building something feels probably like you're in the Corps of Engineers. You're just moving a lot of dirt around."

It's also widely understood to be easier to break something down than to build it. Siphoning the Google and Yahoo data is simpler to do than building a secure website for millions of people to get health care, Wysopal and Maiffret said.

Besides, if the NSA had failed to collect all the data it wanted during a classified mission, few people would learn about it — unlike what happened almost immediately when the health care website was launched and immediately experienced problems, said Matt Green, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

"If the NSA doesn't do something, you and I don't hear about it," Green said.

The government generally spends more money researching how to attack, not defend, computers, said Spafford, director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue.

The apparent contradiction between health care and the NSA, Spafford said, "is what makes computers magical."

___

Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security: http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/about

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/feds-proving-internet-adept-inept-same-time-211932192--politics.html
Category: Case Keenum   paulina gretzky  

UN: US says it doesn't, and won't, spy on UN


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Wednesday it has received assurances from the U.S. government that U.N. communications networks "are not and will not be monitored" by American intelligence agencies. But chief U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky would not comment on whether the world body had been monitored in the past, as reported recently by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Nesirky said the United Nations had been in contact with Washington about the reports that surfaced two months ago and has received a U.S. guarantee of no current or future eavesdropping.

"Back in August when these reports first surfaced, we said we would be in touch with the relevant authorities," he said. "And I can tell you that we were indeed in touch with the U.S. authorities. I understand that the U.S. authorities have given assurance that the United Nations communications are not and will not be monitored."

Nesirky would not elaborate on whether spying had taken place and declined to answer related questions. For emphasis, he held up a piece of paper that said: "No comment."

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that "The United States is not conducting electronic surveillance targeting the United Nations headquarters in New York." The official, who was not authorized to be named, spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not clear whether foreign U.N. missions in New York could be monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who held the post at the United Nations from 2005-2006, would not comment on "what may or may not have gone on in the past" because he's no longer in government.

"That said, it seems to me that the United Nations and everybody walking through the U.N. building are perfectly legitimate intelligence targets, and I think any decision by any president to say we are not going to eavesdrop on U.N. headquarters is a mistake," he told the AP.

"There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says you may not eavesdrop on the U.N.," Bolton said. "Silence and a deeply emphasized 'No comment' is how you should deal with all these intelligence questions."

Der Spiegel reported that documents it obtained from U.S. leaker Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.'s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year.

Der Spiegel quoted an NSA document as saying that within three weeks, the number of decoded communications had increased from 12 to 458. Der Spiegel also reported that the NSA installed bugs in the European Union's office building in Washington and infiltrated the EU's computer network.

The United Nations lodged objections. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in August that international treaties protect U.N. offices and all diplomatic missions from interference, spying and eavesdropping.

"The inviolability of diplomatic missions, including the United Nations, has been well-established in international law, and therefore all states are expected to act accordingly," Nesirky said Wednesday.

The 1961 Vienna Convention regulates diplomatic issues and status among nations and international organizations. Among other things, it says a host country cannot search diplomatic premises or seize its documents or property. It also says the host government must permit and protect free communication between the diplomats of the mission and their home country.

However, wiretapping and eavesdropping have been used for decades, most dramatically between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-us-says-doesnt-wont-spy-un-173715063.html
Category: bitcoin   reggie wayne   Dancing With the Stars 2013   iOS 7   beyonce  

EU spying backlash threatens billions in US trade


BRUSSELS (AP) — The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year — and negotiations on another pact worth many times more.

A growing number of European officials are calling for the suspension of the "Safe Harbor" agreement that lets U.S. companies process commercial and personal data — sales, emails, photos — from customers in Europe. This little-known but vital deal allows more than 4,200 American companies to do business in Europe, including Internet giants like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on its European allies is also threatening to undermine one of President Barack Obama's top trans-Atlantic goals: a sweeping free-trade agreement that would add an estimated $138 billion (100 billion euros) a year to each economy's gross domestic product.

Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.

"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.

At the very least, the Europeans are expected to demand that the U.S. significantly strengthen its privacy laws to give consumers much more control over how companies use their personal data — and extend those rights to European citizens, maybe even giving them the right to sue American companies in U.S. courts.

The Europeans had long been pressing these issues with the Americans. But since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began to leak surprising details on the extent of U.S. surveillance in Europe, the European demands have grown teeth.

"I don't think the U.S. government can be convinced by arguments or outrage alone, but by making it clear that American interests will suffer if this global surveillance is simply continued," said Peter Schaar, the head of Germany's data protection watchdog.

One sanction the European Union could slap on the U.S. would be to suspend the Safe Harbor deal, which allows American businesses to store and process their data where they want. It aims to ensure that European customers' data are just as safe as in Europe when handled in the U.S.

By signing up for the self-reporting scheme supervised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. companies gain the right to move data about their business and consumers back and forth between the EU and the U.S. as needed.

Without it, U.S. firms would face either a lengthy and complicated case-by-case approval procedure by European data protection authorities, or a technological nightmare of having to ensure that European data is stored and processed only on servers within the 28-nation bloc. That would be costly and in some cases impossible — and could force U.S. businesses to stop servicing European customers.

"There is really no viable alternative in the near-term," said Chris Babel, chief executive of San Francisco-based TRUSTe, which helps American firms get Safe Harbor certification from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He estimates that U.S. companies would face tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs to redesign their technological infrastructure.

Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on what a suspension of Safe Harbor would mean. Spokespeople for Google, Apple and Amazon could not immediately be reached.

Of course, any suspension would hurt Europe as well, just as the 28-nation bloc is emerging from a recession. Consumers and businesses would find themselves without U.S.-based services from flight-booking websites to email providers.

Options available to the EU include suspending or ending the agreement, or demanding that the United States enact more powerful data protection laws that include substantial fines for companies that don't keep data safe.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said Wednesday that it wants to see changes in Safe Harbor.

"We share the opinion that the Safe Harbor agreement needs significant improvements," Interior Ministry spokesman Philipp Spauschus said.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission chief Edith Ramirez said Safe Harbor has nothing to do with the surveillance scandal, and urged Europeans not to damage what she called a commercial agreement that works well.

"It cannot be right ... to conflate the distinct issues raised by the use of personal data to advance private commercial interests and to protect national security," she said Monday in Brussels.

But the EU's Reding made clear that the status quo is not an option.

"The existing scheme has been criticized by European industry and questioned by European citizens: They say it is little more than a patch providing a veil of legitimacy for the U.S. firms using it," she said Tuesday in Washington.

Her agency is reviewing Safe Harbor and will present its results by the end of the year. The EU Commission could suspend the agreement or seek amendments to it rather easily, without the usual lengthy procedures of having to seek approval from all EU member states or the European Parliament.

An even bigger battle looms over already contentious free-trade talks between the world's two biggest economies. Trade volume between the United States and the European Union totaled 800 billion euros last year.

Reding warned this week that the lack of data privacy safeguards in the U.S. could "easily derail" the talks, which resume in December and are expected to be concluded within a year.

It appears certain that as part of the negotiations the EU will insist on tougher U.S. data protection in line with new European laws.

That legislation lets users instruct companies to fully erase their personal data — the so-called right to be forgotten — as well as limiting user profiling, requiring greater transparency from companies and mandating prior consent. Plus they contain stiff fines for violations.

"Otherwise, the European Parliament may decide to reject" the EU-U.S. free trade deal, Reding said.

The most significant action taken in Brussels so far has been a vote by the European Parliament urging Europe to stop sharing bank transfer data with U.S. law enforcement in terror investigations.

But that resolution would need approval from the European Commission — and from all 28 national governments, a long and uncertain process.

___

Frank Jordans and Geir Moulson contributed reporting from Berlin.

___

Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-spying-backlash-threatens-billions-us-trade-175714115--finance.html
Similar Articles: Manny Machado   made in america  

Let Them Eat Candy!

Children go trick-or-treating for Halloween in Santa Monica, California, October 31, 2012.
A girl trick-or-treats in Santa Monica, Calif., on Oct. 31, 2012.

Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters








As a parent, I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween. I love seeing my son dress up—this year he’ll be a most adorable green dinosaur—and I enjoy watching my community come together to celebrate with its kids. But I hate that this holiday drowns kids in candy. We’re desperately trying to teach our children healthy eating habits and the importance of consuming food in moderation, and then, once a year, we’re like, Hey, honey, want to go out and collect ungodly amounts of sweets so you can devour them in 48 hours? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.














Sure, there are clever ways around the candy problem. You can have your kids swap treats for toys with the tooth fairy, for instance. Or you can use the candy to do cool science experiments—did you know that when you drop a Skittle in water, the S floats to the top? Some parents go so far as to buy the candy from their kids, although that approach could backfire (more on that later).










But what if your kids don’t want to barter with the tooth fairy or set off controlled Kit-Kat explosions or sell you their Butterfingers? What if they really, really want to eat 8 pounds of candy? Right now I bet some of you are thinking—commenting, probably—What’s the big deal, lady? Chill out and let your kid eat some candy. (I know former Slate contributor KJ Dell’Antonia would agree.) And you know what? Research suggests that you might be right. As much as I’m going to hate watching my kid swallow eight Snickers bars in 90 seconds, letting go of my controlling tendencies may be the best thing for my son’s long-term well-being. That’s because when parents try to restrict their otherwise healthy children from certain foods, or when we actively pressure or coerce them to eat what we want, kids retaliate. Worse, our well-meaning interventions may cause our kids to develop abnormal relationships with food, increasing their risk for emotional eating and eating disorders.












First, let’s talk about what happens when your kid eats eight Snickers bars in 90 seconds. Assuming he’s otherwise healthy, he’ll survive (and hopefully, so will you). Table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are comprised of two sugar molecules in similar quantities: glucose and the much sweeter fructose. In response to the cornucopia of glucose, your kid’s pancreas will release the hormone insulin, which will sweep the glucose out of his bloodstream and shuttle it into cells, where it will be stored for future energy needs. Some glucose may also get turned into triglycerides (fat blobs) and returned to the bloodstream. Ultimately, the insulin spike and blood sugar drop may leave your child’s blood sugar lower than it was before, so he may get grumpy, but what did you expect? As for the fructose—the other sugar molecule—it will go straight to the liver, which will turn much of the sugar into fat. Some will get stored in the liver, and some will be sent back into the bloodstream. The fructose may also blunt his body’s release of appetite-controlling hormones called leptin and ghrelin, making him feel peckish despite the 1,800 calories he just ate. As for the fat from the candy, his body will convert it into fatty acids and cholesterol and then store it as fat inside fat cells. The three processes I described—the blood sugar spike and drop as a result of the glucose, the fructose being turned into fat and pumped into the bloodstream, and the fats being stored inside fat cells—are not particularly good for your child, for sure, but they only truly become dangerous when they happen over and over again. If your kid doesn’t have the opportunity to scarf down insane amounts of sugar and fat very often and doesn’t have other health concerns, there’s no reason to be worried about a once-a-year Halloween binge.










Plus, letting your kids eat crazy amounts of candy on Halloween may make them want less of it the next day. That’s not just because of they’ll associate Reese’s Pieces with stomachaches—it’s because kids can get obsessed with foods that they’re not allowed to eat and conversely crave foods less that they’re allowed. “When kids know they will be able to have unrestricted access to candy from time to time, it will greatly reduce the lure,” explains Natalia Stasenko, a pediatric nutritionist with Tribeca Nutrition in Manhattan.










This idea isn’t just based on speculation. In a 1999 study, Penn State researchers identified three types of snacks—wheat crackers, cheese fish-shaped crackers, and pretzel fish-shaped crackers—that a group of 4- to 6-year-olds found equally tasty. Then they split the kids into groups and seated them around tables. They allowed all of the kids as many wheat crackers as they wanted but put either the cheese fish-shaped crackers or pretzel fish-shaped crackers in a clear container in the middle of the table and told the kids they couldn’t have them. After several minutes, a bell rang and the groups were each allowed to eat as many of the formerly banned crackers as they wanted in addition to the wheat crackers. The researchers found that the kids talked positively about, asked for, and ate whichever type of cracker they had been denied—far more than the always available wheat crackers. Interestingly, the kids who became most preoccupied with the forbidden crackers were those who had parents who restricted certain foods at home.










What about when kids don’t even love the restricted food—like if you take away your daughter’s candy corn when she likes chocolate better anyway? Doing so could make her heart swell for candy corn. In 2008, Dutch researchers put kids into private rooms and placed bowls of fruit and sweets in front of each of them. They told one-third of the kids to eat whatever they wanted from the bowls, told another one-third to only eat the fruit, and told the last third to only eat the sweets. Five minutes later, they lifted the restrictions and told all the kids to eat whatever they wanted. The kids who had been told they couldn’t eat the fruit then ate 60 percent more fruit than sweets, even though these same kids, before the experiment, said they didn’t like fruit as much as sweets. Most importantly, the kids who had not been given any restrictions ate less food overall than did the kids who had been restricted from either food.


















Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/10/halloween_candy_let_your_kids_eat_it.html
Tags: pauly d   Federal government shutdown   Justin Timberlake Vma   Duck Dynasty   hell on wheels  

More study urged on concussions in young athletes

FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows new football helmets that were given to a group of youth football players from the Akron Parents Pee Wee Football League, in Akron, Ohio. It's not just football. A new report says too little is known about concussion risks for young athletes, and it's not clear whether better headgear is an answer. The panel stresses wearing proper safety equipment. But it finds little evidence that current helmet designs, face masks and other gear really prevent concussions, as ads often claim. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)







FILE - This Aug. 4, 2012 file photo shows new football helmets that were given to a group of youth football players from the Akron Parents Pee Wee Football League, in Akron, Ohio. It's not just football. A new report says too little is known about concussion risks for young athletes, and it's not clear whether better headgear is an answer. The panel stresses wearing proper safety equipment. But it finds little evidence that current helmet designs, face masks and other gear really prevent concussions, as ads often claim. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)







(AP) — It's not just a risk in football.

No one knows how often the youngest athletes suffer concussions, and it's not clear whether better headgear is going to be the answer.

A new report reveals big gaps in what is known about the risk of concussion in youth sports, especially for athletes who suit up before high school.

It's time to create a national system to track sports-related concussions and start answering those questions, the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council concluded Wednesday.

Despite a decade of increasing awareness of the seriousness of concussions, the panel found that young athletes still face a "culture of resistance" to reporting the injury and staying on the sidelines until healed.

"Concussion is an injury that needs to be taken seriously. If an athlete has a torn ACL on the field, you don't expect him to tape it up and play," said IOM committee chairman Dr. Robert Graham, who directs the Aligning Forces for Quality national program office at George Washington University.

"We're moving in the right direction," Graham added.

But the panel found evidence, including testimony from a player accused by teammates of wimping out, that athletic programs' attention to concussions varies.

Reports of sports concussions are on the rise, amid increasing scrutiny in recent years and headlines about former professional players who suffered long-term impairment after repeated blows.

New guidelines make clear that no matter the athlete's age, anyone suspected of having a concussion needs to be taken out of play immediately and not allowed back until cleared by a medical professional.

Although millions of U.S. children and teenagers play either school or community sports, it's not clear exactly how many suffer concussions, in part because many go undiagnosed.

But Wednesday's report said among people 19 and younger, 250,000 reported treatment for concussions and other sports- or recreation-related brain injuries in 2009, up from 150,000 in 2001.

Rates vary by sport.

For male athletes in high school and college, concussion rates are highest for football, ice hockey, lacrosse and wrestling. For females, soccer, lacrosse and basketball head the list. Women's ice hockey has one of the highest reported concussion rates at the college level.

College and high school sports injuries are tracked fairly well, but there's no similar data to know how often younger children get concussions, whether on school teams or community leagues, the IOM panel said.

Could safety gear prevent kids' concussions?

Some equipment ads make that claim. But there's little scientific evidence that current sports helmet designs or other gear, such as face masks or headbands for soccer, really reduce the risk, the panel cautioned.

Still, it stressed that youngsters should wear helmets and other sport-appropriate safety gear, because they guard against other injuries, including skull fractures and face injuries.

"Parents deserve to know how safe their children's safety equipment really is," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who is pushing legislation to curb false advertising and encourage improvements to sports equipment standards. "While we can't reduce every risk, we should do everything we can to stop misleading advertising that gives parents a false sense of security."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-30-US-MED-Youth-Concussions/id-25edc982fede49848ba1d9fbc53400f9
Tags: janelle monae   Million Muslim March   Pain and Gain   us open   Miley Cyrus Vma 2013  

Lenovo claims battery life crown with new Yoga tablets


Lenovo is claiming that its new Yoga tablets will offer 18 hours of battery life when browsing the web, which would be the longest when compared to other tablets.


The company's new Yoga tablets, which will come in 8-inch and 10.1-inch versions, will provide 12 to 14 hours when watching high-definition video, said Stephen Miller, Lenovo ambassador. The tablets were announced at a launch event in New York.


[ Also on InfoWorld: Tablets shipments to mushroom by 53 percent in 2013. | Understand how to both manage and benefit from the consumerization of IT with InfoWorld's "Consumerization Digital Spotlight" PDF special report. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]


The battery life can be even longer if the tablets are set to low screen brightness, Miller said.


If Lenovo's claims of battery life hold up, the Yoga tablets will beat competition handily. Tablets today are at best able to squeeze up to 11 hours of battery life. The Yoga tablets have high-capacity cylindrical batteries similar to ones used in laptops, which helps prolong battery life.


The 8-inch tablet, which is priced at $249, weighs 400 grams. The 10.1-inch tablet is at $299 and weighs 603 grams. The tablets will run Android 4.2 and be available in the U.S. on Wednesday. The company did not comment on worldwide availability.


The battery is housed in the tablet's circular base, which makes it easier to grip the device. A kick-stand allows the tablet to sit firmly on the table.


With a circular base, the Yoga tablets bears a resemblance to Notion Ink's now-defunct Adam tablet, which was one of the first Android tablets to ship when it became available in late 2010.


The Yoga tablets run on MediaTek quad-core processors with a clock speed of 1.2GHz. Both of the tablets display images at a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels.


Other features include a 1.6-megapixel front camera, a 5-megapixel back camera, up to 32GB of internal storage, and micro-SD card slot for expandable storage.


Lenovo has introduced a range of tablets, PCs, and hybrids in the last few years. The new products are important as buyers move away from PCs to mobile products.


"We shipped more smartphones and tablets than PCs," during the third quarter, Miller said.


Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com.


Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/lenovo-claims-battery-life-crown-new-yoga-tablets-229820?source=rss_mobile_technology
Category: What Is Labor Day   Justin Morneau   Dufnering   oprah winfrey   leah remini  

Google Play TV shows now available in Japan

Android Central

TV shows from Google expands to only the third global location with Japanese availability

The slow, slow rollout of Google Play TV Shows continues, with the addition of Japan as just the third country in which the content is available. Having been a U.S. exclusive for so long, British customers were able to buy TV Shows as of August this year, and now the goodness expands over to Japan. Shows can be watched on the web, or via the Play Movies and TV app on your Android device. 

Beyond the kind of content we'd expect to see in the west, the Japanese Play Store also seems to be offering a host of local content as well. If you're over in Japan, hit up the Play Store now and take a look. 

Source: Google Play regional availability; via Android Police


    






Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/QSEatRNQ-O8/story01.htm
Related Topics: Grambling State University   brandon marshall   Dusty Baker   Sleepy Hollow   apple stock  

Strokes' Moretti engages in interactive art


NEW YORK (AP) — People listen — sometimes really carefully — to music, and Fabrizio Moretti, drummer of rock band The Strokes, certainly appreciates that. But, he says, it's a one-way conversation.

Moretti yearned to have more of an artistic dialogue with the public, so he started one outside the Rag & Bone retail store in Soho, where he's staged a sort of interactive pop-up art installation.

He put up a large display of removable half-religious saint-half-astronaut statuettes on a wall resembling a shrine and invited passers-by to take them. Some did, some didn't. It was his version of a social experiment, he explained.

"I thought it was an interesting thing to see this struggle inside the viewer: Should they do something that's — in a sense — wrong, but if they chose to do it, they'd be involved in this dialogue and exchange with me, and they could do it," he said.

Sculpture isn't new for Moretti, 33, who studied the subject at the State University of New York at New Paltz before he started touring. "I went to school for this," he said, "but I'm new at sharing it with the public."

The statues have been taken more quickly than he expected. He displayed them in a group of 24, and the plan was to keep the installation filled until Friday.

Demand has surpassed output.

"Everything else has all come to a halt during this. You should see my apartment now," he said. "I'm making them at home, and it's an absolute mess."

There's still music to be made, and Moretti says he and his bandmates, who released the album "Comedown Machine" earlier this year, are working on new material. He says, though, that he may become one of those hyphenated types — an artist-slash-musician.

"I hate to sound jaded, but everything else has become routine and a business — that's what the music industry has become to me — and I have to remind myself that creating is a privilege. Art has fueled creativity with a newfound fervor," he said.

But his perch in front of Rag & Bone isn't a sign that he's taking on fashion, too. Designers Marcus Wainwright and David Neville have no competition to fear, Moretti said with a laugh. "They're cool, rad. But fashion design? I think I'd be terrible at that."

___

Follow Samantha Critchell and AP Fashion fashion coverage on Twitter at @AP_Fashion or @Sam_Critchell

___

Online:

http://www.thestrokes.com/us

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/strokes-moretti-engages-interactive-art-142633464.html
Tags: Talk Like a Pirate Day   Humble Bundle  

Lenovo claims battery life crown with new Yoga tablets


Lenovo is claiming that its new Yoga tablets will offer 18 hours of battery life when browsing the web, which would be the longest when compared to other tablets.


The company's new Yoga tablets, which will come in 8-inch and 10.1-inch versions, will provide 12 to 14 hours when watching high-definition video, said Stephen Miller, Lenovo ambassador. The tablets were announced at a launch event in New York.


[ Also on InfoWorld: Tablets shipments to mushroom by 53 percent in 2013. | Understand how to both manage and benefit from the consumerization of IT with InfoWorld's "Consumerization Digital Spotlight" PDF special report. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]


The battery life can be even longer if the tablets are set to low screen brightness, Miller said.


If Lenovo's claims of battery life hold up, the Yoga tablets will beat competition handily. Tablets today are at best able to squeeze up to 11 hours of battery life. The Yoga tablets have high-capacity cylindrical batteries similar to ones used in laptops, which helps prolong battery life.


The 8-inch tablet, which is priced at $249, weighs 400 grams. The 10.1-inch tablet is at $299 and weighs 603 grams. The tablets will run Android 4.2 and be available in the U.S. on Wednesday. The company did not comment on worldwide availability.


The battery is housed in the tablet's circular base, which makes it easier to grip the device. A kick-stand allows the tablet to sit firmly on the table.


With a circular base, the Yoga tablets bears a resemblance to Notion Ink's now-defunct Adam tablet, which was one of the first Android tablets to ship when it became available in late 2010.


The Yoga tablets run on MediaTek quad-core processors with a clock speed of 1.2GHz. Both of the tablets display images at a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels.


Other features include a 1.6-megapixel front camera, a 5-megapixel back camera, up to 32GB of internal storage, and micro-SD card slot for expandable storage.


Lenovo has introduced a range of tablets, PCs, and hybrids in the last few years. The new products are important as buyers move away from PCs to mobile products.


"We shipped more smartphones and tablets than PCs," during the third quarter, Miller said.


Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com.


Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/lenovo-claims-battery-life-crown-new-yoga-tablets-229820
Tags: adrian peterson   Dreamchasers 3   savannah brinson   Galaxy Note 3   Riley Cooper Racial Slur Video