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Thursday, February 28, 2013

Swiss Guards in central role in papal retirement

A Vatican Swiss guard stands in front of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. Pope Benedict XVI is preparing for his final general audience, the weekly appointment he kept with the faithful and tourists to teach them about the Catholic faith. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? In their plumed helmets and striped uniforms, the Swiss Guards are one of the most beloved traditions of the Vatican ? and on Thursday take a central role in the pope's historic resignation. The bodyguards will stand at attention as the pope arrives by helicopter at his summer retreat in his last hours as pontiff. When they walk off duty, it will be one of the few visible signs that Benedict XVI is no longer pope. A look at the Swiss guards and their colorful history.

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ORIGINS:

The corps, which some historians consider the oldest standing army in the world, was founded in 1506 by Pope Giulio II. Tradition has it that he was so impressed by the bravery of Swiss mercenaries that he asked them to defend the Vatican. Ever since, for more than 500 years, Switzerland has been supplying soldiers to the Vatican. The Swiss Guards swear an oath to give up their lives to protect the pope ? and in centuries past, they have. In 1527, 147 of them died protecting Pope Clement VII as he fled to safety when the troops of Emperor Charles V sacked Rome.

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THE GUARDS AND BENEDICT:

The Swiss Guards will be center stage when Benedict, following a carefully choreographed plan, becomes the first pope in 600 years to resign. Benedict meets Thursday morning with cardinals, then flies by helicopter to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome. There, at 8 p.m. sharp, the doors of the palazzo close and the Swiss Guards walk off duty, their job protecting the leader of the Catholic Church over ? at least until the election of a new pope. Benedict's protection will immediately become the responsibility of Vatican police.

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RECRUITMENT:

Recruits must be Catholic males between 19 and 30 who have completed their mandatory Swiss military service; they sign up for a minimum of two years. The force at the moment numbers 110 men. Recruits join the ranks in an elaborate swearing-in ceremony in the Vatican's apostolic palace. Each new guard grasps the corps' flag, raising three fingers in a symbol of the Holy Trinity and swears to uphold the Swiss Guard oath to protect the pope and his successors. The ceremony is held each May 6 to commemorate the Sack of Rome.

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DUTIES:

The force provides ceremonial duty, assists at Vatican functions ? and has a real function of actually protecting the pope. The guards, armed with halberds, are ubiquitous around the Vatican and are among the favorite targets of photo-snapping tourists. They have not been called to military duty in recent centuries. But several Swiss Guards in plainclothes are aboard the pope's plane during his worldwide travels to provide security. After the 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, the Vatican beefed up bodyguard training for the guards ? including instruction in unarmed combat and small arms.

___

COLORFUL COSTUME

The current Renaissance-style uniform of blue, red, orange and yellow stripes was designed in the early 1900s by Commandant Jules Repond, who drew inspiration for the colors from Raphael's frescoes. Headgear for ordinary duties is a black beret, while the crimson-plumed helmets are reserved for special occasions like official visits, swearing-in ceremonies ? and, of course, papal retirement.

___

SCANDAL:

The legend of the corps was stained in 1998 by the slayings in a Vatican City apartment of the guard commander and his wife. The Vatican blamed the killings on a disgruntled guardsman who, the Vatican says, then shot himself dead. They were the first killings in the Vatican in 150 years.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-28-EU-Vatican-Swiss-Guards/id-ece9f1cd62f04eac8f017bd79ad9a78d

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Video: Santelli's Midday Bond Report

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50992825/

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Video: Keith Morrison previews Pistorius trial

Dateline NBC

'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3032600/vp/50994656#50994656

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Sanctions relief offered in Iranian nuclear talks

ALMATY, Kazakhstan (AP) ? World powers, fearful of scuttling negotiations beginning this week with Iran, are offering the Islamic republic some small new sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program. But officials warned Monday that it's unlikely that any compromise will be reached soon.

Negotiators set low expectations for the latest round of high-level diplomatic talks to begin Tuesday in Kazakhstan's largest city ? the first since last June's meeting in Moscow that threatened to derail delicate efforts to convince Iran to stop enriching uranium to a level close to that used for nuclear warheads.

The stakes couldn't be higher: the Obama administration is pushing for diplomacy to solve the impasse but has not ruled out the possibility of military intervention in Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And Israel has threatened it will use all means to stop Iran from being able to build a bomb, potentially as soon as this summer, raising the specter of a possible Mideast war.

Tehran maintains it is enriching uranium only to make reactor fuel and medical isotopes, and insists it has a right to do so under international law. It has signaled it does not intend to stop, despite harsh international sanctions on its oil and financial sectors, and U.N. nuclear inspectors last week confirmed Iran has begun a major upgrade of its program at the country's main uranium enrichment site.

The clerical regime's refusal frustrates the international community, which has responded by slapping Iran with a host of economic sanctions that U.S. officials said have, among other things, cut the nation's daily oil output by 1 million barrels and slashed its employment rate. But, in a twist, negotiators now hope that easing some of the sanctions will make Tehran more agreeable to halting production of 20 percent enriched uranium ? the highest grade of enrichment that Iran has acknowledged and one that experts say could be turned into warhead grade in a matter of months.

Negotiators from the six world powers ? United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany ? also want Iran to suspend enrichment in its underground Fordo nuclear facility, and to ship its stockpile of high-grade uranium out of the country.

"We are pleased that they have come together for talks because it's been eight months since Moscow. We wanted to come together for talks earlier than this," said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is leading the negotiations. "What's important to us is that they engage in these negotiations and take seriously what we've put on the table.

"No one is expecting everyone to walk out of here with a deal, but if we can have some forward momentum and they can show a willingness to take a confidence-building step, that's very important," Mann told reporters on Monday. He described the world powers' newest gambit as "a good offer" but declined to say what it would include.

A senior U.S. official at the talks said some sanctions relief would be part of the offer to Iran but also refused to detail it. The new relief is part of a package that the U.S. official said included "substantive changes ? whether you'd call them super-substantial, I'll leave to history." The official acknowledged reports earlier this month that sanctions would be eased to allow Iran's gold trade to progress, but would neither confirm nor deny they are included in the new relief offer, and spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomatic talks more candidly.

The senior U.S. official also noted the possibility that Iran would face new pressures if it fails to comply with international concerns. That could include toughening the impact of the sanctions already in place by enforcing them more strictly, or imposing new sanctions altogether as Iran moves forward with its program.

Western powers have hoped that the Iranian public would suffer under sanctions so badly that the government would feel a moral obligation to slow its nuclear program. The U.S. official attributed the decline in Iranian currency, the rial, and the decrease in oil production to Western sanctions.

Iran has been unimpressed with earlier offers by the powers to provide it with medical isotopes and lift sanctions on spare parts for civilian airliners, and new bargaining chips that Tehran sees as minor are likely to be snubbed as well. Iran insists, as a starting point, that world powers must recognize the republic's right to enrich uranium.

In a sign that Tehran is in no hurry to reach a compromise, Iran's foreign minister has no plans to meet with officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency Tuesday when he visits Vienna to attend an unrelated conference. Diplomats in Vienna suggested the decision by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi reflects a deadlock on the agency's attempts to probe Tehran's atomic work. IAEA officials recently suggested related talks needed to pause after dragging on without results. The diplomats demanded anonymity because their information was confidential.

Still, last week, Salehi spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the Almaty talks could provide an important opportunity so long as the two sides were dealing with each other as equals and making offers of "same level, same weight."

"We will offer ways for removing possible concerns and ambiguities to show our goodwill, if Western countries, especially the U.S., fully recognize the nuclear rights of countries, which shows their goodwill," Mehmanparast told reporters in Tehran.

In London, Secretary of State John Kerry said an Iran with nuclear weapons was "simply unacceptable" and warned the time limit for a diplomatic solution was running out.

"As we have repeatedly made clear, the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot remain open forever," said Kerry, on his first international tour as America's top diplomat. "But it is open today. It is open now and there is still time, but there is only time if Iran makes the decision to come to the table and to negotiate in good faith. We are prepared to negotiate in good faith, in mutual respect, in an effort to avoid whatever terrible consequences could follow failure and so the choice really is in the hands of the Iranians. And we hope they will make the right choice."

An analysis released Monday by the International Crisis Group concluded that the web of international sanctions have become so entrenched in Iran's political and economic systems that they cannot be easily lifted piece-by-piece. It found that Tehran's clerical regime has begun adapting its policy to the sanctions, despite their crippling effect on the Iranian public. Doing so, the analysis concluded, has divided the public's anger "between a regime viewed as incompetent and an outside world seen as uncaring."

"As far as Iran is concerned, it is too late to reverse course. The massive sanctions regime is in place, warts and all, and not about to be removed," the analysis concluded. It recommended that the world powers "devise a package of incentives, including some less than complete degree of relief, that is politically as well as legally achievable and that genuinely addresses Iranian concerns."

Several diplomats in Almaty said any major breakthrough in the negotiations likely won't come until after Iran's presidential elections in June ? especially if the world powers refuse to offer anything that Tehran can use to show as some kind of major concession by the West.

Associated Press Writers Peter Leonard, George Jahn in Vienna and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this report. Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/larajakesAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sanctions-relief-offered-iranian-nuclear-talks-195942311--politics.html

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Stretchable batteries are here! Power to the bendy electronics

John Roach , NBC News ? ? ? 14 hrs.

The next frontier in electronics are the flexible, stretchable kind. Yes, that means a rubber, bouncy smartphone (eventually), but it also means heart monitors threaded into cardiac tissue. For devices like that to work, they require flexible, stretchable batteries. And such batteries are here, according to researchers who just published their work.

Yonggang Huang, an engineer at Northwestern University, created the battery with materials wizard John Rogers at the University of Illinois, who received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2011 for his work on flexible electronics designed for integration with the human body.

How much give and take does the invention allow? ?We can stretch the device a great deal ? up to about 300 percent ? and still have a working battery,? Huang noted. (Please don't try that with your smartphone's battery.)

?Such stretchable batteries enable true integration with stretchable electronics in a small package,? Huang told NBC News in an email.

The background of the research team means that medical applications will be primarily targeted, but there are other applications for bendy batteries such as wearable solar cells and electric-eye cameras that make studio-quality photographs.

The flexible lithium-ion battery reported today in the journal Nature Communications completes the flexible electronics package with a cordless power source. When the battery runs out of juice after about eight hours, it is recharged wirelessly.

To make the battery, the researchers start with tiny, individual, rigid battery storage components arranged next to each other. The bendy and stretchy characteristics stem from tightly packed, wavy wires that connect these components.

?When we stretch the battery, the wavy interconnects unravels, much like yarn unspooling, while the storage components almost keep undeformed, because of their much larger rigidity than the interconnects? Huang explained.

The breakthrough was demonstrated with a light emitting diode that continues to work when stretched, folded and twisted on a human elbow. It continued to work well through 20 recharge cycles.

John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/stretchable-batteries-are-here-power-bendy-electronics-1C8546821

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Linpus Gesture2Launch brings neat, customizable touch control to Windows 8 (hands-on)

You might remember Linpus from its various Linux projects, but these days the outfit is getting into apps in a big way. We've just been hands-on with its latest offering, Gesture2Launch, a straightforward concept that could prove seriously useful to those with Windows 8 touch-enabled devices. The current app has default gestures that can be assigned to an array of functions -- both to launch applications and to trigger system actions. Most of the gestures are based on letters, so to launch the calculator you'd just bring up the charms bar (which primes the system for your input) and then draw the letter 'C'. An upside-down 'U' would bring up the lock screen.

The version we played with, however, takes things a step further. It lets you create your own gestures, which ought to make them a tad easier to remember. This feature should be added soon, but for now you can see how we fared with the app in the video after the break (demoed on a rather nice Acer Aspire S7) and then it try out free-of-charge via the link below. It leaves us wondering why Microsoft didn't implement something like this out of the box.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Software

Comments

Source: Linpus

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/26/linpus-gesture2launch-hands-on/

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

For Natural And Safe Beauty Solutions | Jackie's Women's Interest ...

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All women regardless of their natural beauty love make up in some form or another. Accordingly, there are so many different companies that manufacture beauty products and related cosmetics. Women differ in their views of beauty.

Source:For Natural And Safe Beauty Solutions

Foreigners To North Korea To Get Uncensored 3G

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Foreign visitors going to North Korea will be able to receive uncensored 3G data, starting Mar 1. Koryolink, a joint venture between Egyptian company Orascom Telecom Holding and North Korean state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC), has set up a 3G service for visitors into the country. The service, which is not available to locals, won?t come cheap. A $100 Wi-Fi hotspot and $200 SIM card will be needed, after which 2 Gb of data will cost $300, and 10 Gb for $525. Phone calls abroad will cost $0.50 a minute to European countries like Switzerland and France, and $7 a minute to the US. Calls to South Korea, however, are blocked. According to the AP, services typically banned like Twitter and Skype will be available on Koryolink?s network. North Koreans are blocked from the global Web, and only allowed some 3G services such as MMS messaging and subscriptions to the state-run paper, Rodong Sinmun. Calls to foreign numbers are also blocked. This news comes just after the country started to allow foreigners to bring their own phones into the country to use with Koryolink SIM cards. It?s not clear if the new uncensored service will be extended to SIM cards that are available to visitors, so you can skip on buying the hotspot. Koryolink is 75 percent owned by Orascom. Orascom has a 3G license in North Korea that was awarded in 2008. Its censored service to the locals had about 1 million subscribers as of February 2012. The country?s capital of Pyongyang has a population of about 2 million.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/umYf-_iE9EE/

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Farrakhan focuses on economics in Chicago speech

CHICAGO (AP) ? Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday called on blacks nationwide to curb economic disparities by cutting back on excessive spending, pooling resources and investing in land ? an action plan he laid out during a three-hour speech at the movement's annual Saviours' Day convention.

The 79-year-old leader has often used the annual keynote address ? part sermon, part lecture ? to discuss current events and politics on a national platform, particularly after the election of the nation's first black president. But Farrakhan focused most of his new message on the Nation of Islam followers in the audience.

Saviours' Day commemorates the founding of the Nation of Islam, which has espoused black nationalism and self-reliance since the 1930s. When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the resounding tone of the convention was jubilant, but Obama's re-election took a back seat Sunday as Farrakhan said blacks still had to rely on themselves, and not leaders, to improve their situation.

"Even though one of our own has reached the highest pinnacle of the American political system, his presence has not, cannot and will not solve our problems," Farrakhan told the crowd of men wearing navy uniforms and women dressed in white shirt suits and matching hijabs.

Roughly 10,000 people attended the convention at the University of Illinois at Chicago, an event that drew followers from around the globe and capped off three days of workshops.

Farrakhan touched briefly on other topics ? Israel, Obama's cabinet and healthier food consumption ? but mostly reiterated teachings from the Chicago-based movement on a plan for blacks' economic recovery and said the biggest priority should be the purchase of land.

The Nation of Islam has more than 1,500 acres of farmland in Georgia. Ishmael Muhammad, the religion's national assistant minister, told The Associated Press that the group is looking to buy thousands more acres in the Midwest.

Noticeably absent from Farrakhan's remarks were any major mentions of violence in Chicago and the organization's renewed and more public efforts to combat it. Chicago had an uptick of violence last year with more than 500 murders and last July, Farrakhan dispatched the organization's military-style members to march city streets in an attempt to reach out to community members and those in gangs.

And in a rare move, the minister himself marched in the streets alongside Nation of Islam members.

Muhammad said members of the movement continue to do similar work in the neighborhoods of Chicago, New York and other cities but on a more low-key basis. He said the group would ramp up again in the summer in Chicago and that the organization also is developing anti-violence programs.

Chicago area ministers and anti-violence advocates from CeaseFire confirmed the Nation of Islam has become more active in combating violence in recent months, volunteering security services at a peace summit and workshops, among other things.

"The effort is to promote peace in the streets. Our first effort is to introduce ourselves to the community," Muhammad said. "So many feel neglected and abandoned."

In his speech Sunday, Farrakhan only addressed violence in terms of guns, saying illegal weapons are the problem.

"The Second Amendment has no relevance to the black community in this sense," he said. "All your weapons are illegal and you're using them like a savage people."

___

Sophia Tareen can be reached at http://twitter.com/sophiatareen .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/farrakhan-focuses-economics-chicago-speech-014155504.html

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'Why would anyone harm him?' 79-year-old shot dead

By Gus Rosendale, NBCNewYork.com

NEW YORK -- A 79-year-old man was shot and killed in Brooklyn early Sunday morning, police said.

Police responded to a call of an unconscious man inside his apartment on Gates Avenue in Bushwick at around 2:30 a.m. and discovered James Jackson with a gunshot wound to the neck.

Police sources say Jackson's wife, who is blind, realized he was unresponsive and called 911.

Jackson was taken to Woodhull Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

There were no signs that someone broke into the apartment, so police are considering the possibility that Jackson was the victim of a stray bullet.

More news from NBCNewYork.com

Shocked residents of the building where Jackson lived said they didn't believe he had any enemies.

"Why would anyone harm him? It would take him 20 minutes to walk down the block," said Jackson's neighbor, Vaughn Grandy.

No arrests have been made and an investigation is ongoing.

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17083262-why-would-anyone-harm-him-79-year-old-shot-dead-in-brooklyn?lite

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Monday, February 25, 2013

News Analysis: Proposed Brain Mapping Project Faces Significant Hurdles

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The Obama administration has set an ambitious goal to map the 85 to 100 billion neurons in the human brain, but scientists say they are long way from developing the necessary tools.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/science/proposed-brain-mapping-project-faces-significant-hurdles.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Pixar's 'Brave' wins Oscar for best animated film

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Pixar's Scottish adventure "Brave" has won the Academy Award for best animated feature film.

The win extends Pixar's domination of the category, marking its seventh win since the award was first handed out in 2002. "Brave," Pixar's first film with a female protagonist, didn't garner the kind of critical or popular support that movies like "WALL-E" and "Up" did.

But "Brave" still managed to win over Walt Disney's arcade game fantasy "Wreck-It Ralph," which many expected to take the award. Either way was a victory for Disney, which bought Pixar in 2006.

The other nominees Sunday night were Tim Burton's Mary Shelley homage "Frankenweenie," the stop-motion ghost story "ParaNorman," and the stop-motion sea voyage "The Pirates! Band of Misfits."

The 85th Academy Awards are airing live from the Dolby Theatre.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pixars-brave-wins-oscar-best-animated-film-020232680.html

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Radioactive waste leaking from tanks at Washington state nuclear site

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Six underground storage tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River in Washington state were recently found to be leaking radioactive waste, but there is no immediate risk to human health, state and federal officials said on Friday.

The seeping waste adds to decades of soil contamination caused by leaking storage tanks at Hanford in the past and threatens to further taint groundwater below the site but poses no near-term danger of polluting the Columbia River, officials said.

The newly discovered leaks were revealed by Governor Jay Inslee a week after the U.S. Energy Department disclosed that radioactive waste was found to be escaping from one tank at Hanford.

Inslee said he was informed on Friday by outgoing U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu that a total of six of the aging, single-walled tanks were leaking radioactive waste.

"There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than 5 miles from the Columbia River," Inslee said in a statement released by his office. "But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians."

The governor said Chu told him that his department initially missed the other five leaking tanks because staff there did not adequately analyze data.

"This certainly raises serious questions about the integrity of all 149 single-shell tanks with radioactive liquid and sludge at Hanford," he said.

The Energy Department issued a brief statement acknowledging that six waste tanks were found to be leaking and adding that there was "no immediate public health risk."

Four of the tanks in question, including the two biggest of the group, are known to have leaked waste in the past as well, Suzanne Dahl, the tank waste treatment manager for the state Department of Ecology, told Reuters.

"It points to the age of the tanks and how there's going to be an increased probability of this happening in the future," she said. "When waste is in the tanks, it's manageable. Once it's out of the tanks and in the soil, it's much harder to manage it, remove it, and down the road you're adding to contamination in the groundwater that already exists."

DECLINING LIQUID LEVELS

The Energy Department said a week ago that declining liquid levels in one tank at Hanford showed it was leaking at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons (568 to 1,136 liters) per year.

It subsequently informed state officials that a second, larger tank was leaking at about the same rate, while the four smaller tanks were leaking at a rate of about 15 gallons per year, Dahl said.

The Department of Energy said last week that monitoring wells have identified no significant changes in concentrations of chemicals or radionuclides in the soil.

The two biggest tanks at issue have capacities of about 750,000 gallons and 500,000 gallons, while the four others are designed to hold up to 55,000 gallons, Dahl said. All were constructed many decades ago.

The 586-square-mile (1,518-square-km) Hanford Nuclear Reservation was established near the town of Hanford in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. government program that developed the first atomic bombs.

Production of plutonium materials at the site continued through the Cold War and ended there in 1989 as work shifted to cleanup of nuclear and chemical waste at Hanford, considered one of the largest and most complex such projects in the country.

Weapons production at the site resulted in more than 43 million cubic yards of radioactive waste and 130 million cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which says that approximately 475 billion gallons of contaminated water have been discharged into the soil.

As part of the cleanup, as much remaining liquid waste as possible was pumped out of the older single-shell tanks into sturdier double-walled tanks in a process completed in 2005, Dahl said.

But sludge, mud-like waste and pockets of liquid remained behind in the older tanks, and it is that material that was found to be seeping in the soil again from six tanks, she said. According to the DOE, one of those tanks currently holds about 447,000 gallons of radioactive sludge.

Under the multibillion-dollar cleanup plan, the waste from the storage tanks will eventually be processed in a special treatment plant that will immobilize the waste in a glass-like material that can be safely disposed of underground in stainless steel canisters.

But Dahl said construction of the waste treatment plant was still years away.

(Reporting by Eric Johnson, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb and Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Cynthia Johnston, Andre Grenon, Lisa Shumaker and Paul Simao)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/radioactive-waste-leaking-six-tanks-washington-state-nuclear-034828611.html

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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Takes on iPad Mini

The 10.1-inch Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet too big? The 5.5-inch Galaxy Note 2 too small to be your tablet but too big to be your phone?

The Galaxy Note 8.0 might be just right. Or at least that's what Samsung is hoping. The company has announced its new 8-inch, Android tablet today at Mobile World Congress, a large mobile tradeshow in Barcelona, and it hopes its new software features and the portable size will make it standout, especially against Apple's iPad Mini.

A Notebook Size
The tablet is slightly wider than the 7-inch tablets on the market, including Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7, and is meant to be easier to operate in one hand.

"We have seen through consumer research people like the one-handed experience," Shoneel Kolhatkar, Samsung's director of Product Planning, told ABC News. "The Note 10.1 is more of a lean back experience and this is really about the lean forward, you are actively engaged with your notepad and the content you are editing."

Samsung's first Android tablet introduced in 2010 -- the Galaxy Tab -- had a 7-inch display and the company has since made tablets with various different screen sizes. Apple introduced a smaller, 7.9-inch version of the iPad -- the iPad Mini -- in late 2012. Shoneel and other Samsung executives stressed to ABC News that it had smaller tablets long before Apple came out with the Mini.

RELATED: Samsung Galaxy S4 Is Coming

Powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, the Galaxy Note 8.0 features a 1280 x 800-resolution WXGA screen and a 5-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front. Samsung says it was designed to be like a personal notebook or diary and that it is the perfect size for you to take anywhere.

Improved S-Pen Software
But key to the hardware is Samsung's S-Pen, the same stylus or digital pen that it began shipping with its other Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Note 2 products. The pen, Samsung says, provides a natural mode of interaction for users who prefer to write, and has been successful for the company so far.

"The Note category was really really successful, frankly it took many of us by surprise," Kolhatkar said. "As consumers started using the Note devices, they used so many ways of personalizing notes and writing on their photographs. We want to bring the best size form factor into this category of device."

With the Galaxy Note 8.0 Samsung has enhanced the pen software experience, too. The Air View feature lets you hover the pen over specific Samsung apps so you can see previews of videos, emails or photos without actually launching the apps. The pen also now allows you to control the menu and back buttons on the device.

While Samsung is using Google's Android 4.2.1 (or Jelly Bean), it's also built some added multitasking features on top. The multi-window option allow you to put apps side by side. For instance, you can have a website or book on the left side of the screen and then take notes in the S Note application on the right. Other software features include Smart Stay, which will keep the screen on automatically when you are looking at it and a Reader's Mode, which alters the screen brightness for reading.

Smarter Remote
But while Samsung wants the Galaxy Note 8.0 to be your notebook, it also wants it to be your remote control. The tablet has an IR blaster and the company's new Smart Remote app, which allows the tablet to function as a universal remote control. A graphical, TV Guide-like interface allows you tap on images to change the channel. It also includes a new smart search, which lets you search for shows or movies across lots of different services.

The Note 8.0 will be out in the second quarter of 2013. Samsung is not detailing the exact pricing and availability in the U.S., but Kolhatkar did say that the Note would be the best "combination of size and price." Its current Galaxy Note 10.1 sells for $499 and its Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 for $199. As Kolhtkar said, "Samsung is always going to provide choice."

Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/click.phdo?i=e2138521493298653e64571136cfdd79

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WTOL11 Your Community seeking Community Bloggers

WTOL11 Your? Community is currently seeking community members who want to get involved in? their community sites.?

You don?t have to be an accomplished journalist or popular blogger to contribute; you just have to know of something happening in your area.

Here are some examples of what community bloggers could write:

Review a local eatery ? Whether it's your favorite caf? or a restaurant you've never tried before, people love to read about places to eat and drink.? Snap some cell phone pictures and write about what the eatery has to offer.?

Cover an event ? Local charity events, farmers markets, festivals, or anything going on in the community make for great stories.? Try writing a preview of the event beforehand, then write about what happened at the event after word.

Write about what you know ? Writing about something you're passionate about is a great way to produce interesting content.? For example, if you play golf regularly, you could highlight local golf courses.?

Cover a local sporting event ? Head out to a high school sporting event, take a few pictures, and write up the highlights.? You could event conduct an interview with a player or coach an include quotes in the story.

Post some photos ? Not all blog posts have to be news articles.? Take some interesting photos of something going on in your neighborhood and include a few sentences about it.?

Visit an area attraction ? Check out something in your area, and tell people what they can expect to find there. ?It could be a museum, historical site, park, or any other public place people might be interested in visiting.

Of course, these are just a few ideas.? We are open to any story in our communities.? For information on how to become a Community Blogger and publish stories to WTOL 11 Your Community, email Communities@wtol.com.

Source: http://fremont.toledonewsnow.com/news/news/108371-wtol11-your-community-seeking-community-bloggers

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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Report: Flaws in EPA drilling pollution data

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Limited data and unreliable estimates on air pollution from oil and natural gas production is hindering the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to police the drilling boom, the agency's internal watchdog said in a report released Thursday.

Inspector General Arthur Elkins Jr. said the EPA has failed to directly measure emissions from some pieces of equipment and processes, and some estimates it does have are of "questionable quality."

"With limited data, human health risks are uncertain, states may design incorrect or ineffective emission control strategies, and EPA's decisions about regulating industry may be misinformed," Elkins said.

The EPA, under President Barack Obama, has stepped up regulation of natural gas drilling, which has been booming thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. About 25,000 wells a year are being fracked, a process in which water, chemicals and sand are injected at high pressure underground to release trapped natural gas.

Obama also wants to expand natural gas production, as long as it doesn't damage the environment.

Oil and gas production, from the well site to processing plants to storage tanks and transmission lines, releases toxic and cancer-causing air pollutants, smog-forming gases and methane, a potent greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

The oil and gas industry has said the EPA has overestimated emissions of methane and argued that they already were working to reduce pollution, without the agency's intervention.

The EPA last year issued the first-ever standards to control smog- and soot-forming gases from gas wells site, and updated existing rules to reduce cancer-causing pollution, such as benzene, from other equipment.

The agency, in response to the report, agreed to develop a comprehensive strategy to improve its pollution figures.

An industry association, America's Natural Gas Alliance, had not seen the report and had no comment late Thursday.

___

Online:

Inspector general's report: http://1.usa.gov/XPdsCr

___

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/report-flaws-epa-drilling-pollution-data-023038345--politics.html

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Asian shares recover from steep loss, growth worry caps

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares recouped some of the previous session's steep falls as investors reassessed fears of the Federal Reserve ending its ultra-soft monetary policy earlier than expected, but weak U.S. and European data capped Friday's recovery.

European markets are seen rebounding, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open up as much as 0.6 percent. U.S. stock futures were up 0.3 percent to suggest a solid Wall Street start.

The dollar lost 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies, pulling away from a 5-1/2-month high hit on Thursday, as data showing weak business conditions in parts of the United States and across Europe pushed out expectations of any policy tightening.

"It's unlikely that the Fed would begin to wind down its QE (quantitative easing) programme until the U.S. economic growth is improving at a faster rate than currently," said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Global Markets in Sydney.

Most risk assets had slid to their lows for 2013 on Thursday, in part because of worries the Fed could prematurely paring back its bond buying programme. But the weak data in the United States and Europe saw that view quickly reconsidered.

Gold rose 0.5 percent to $1,582.96 an ounce after having hit a seven-month high on Thursday.

Tokyo's Nikkei stock average closed up 0.7 percent, reclaiming about half of Thursday's drop.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.2 percent. However, that was only a fraction of its 1.5 percent tumble on Thursday, and the index was set for a weekly loss of 0.8 percent.

Upbeat comments from the central bank governor helped Australian shares jump 0.8 percent, with investors buying back after stocks slumped 2.3 percent on Thursday.

Hong Kong shares bucked the regional trend and fell 0.3 percent while Shanghai shares inched up 0.1 percent.

"In America they're kind of revealing that actually the next thing we need to do is start tightening, and that's why global stocks are very volatile at the moment and we're going to be caught up in that," said Damien Boey, equity strategist at Credit Suisse.

The euro rose from multi-week lows hit on Thursday, gaining 0.4 percent to 123.22 yen. The dollar inched up 0.2 percent against the yen to 93.26.

London copper climbed 0.9 percent to $7,934 a tonne, after posting its biggest single-day slide this year on Thursday.

Crude oil futures also recovered from Thursday's sell-off, with U.S. crude up 0.3 percent to $93.11 a barrel and Brent rising 0.5 percent to $114.05.

"After the Fed, people seemed to have a little less conviction that we are going to see indefinite low dollar rates, which have attracted a lot of interest in commodities, especially precious metals. But the macro picture hasn't changed tremendously and the underlying demand is still strong," a Hong Kong trader said.

U.S. 10-year Treasury yields were a tad higher in Asia, having eased in the previous session.

The German Ifo business sentiment index at 0900 GMT should offer more clues on the health of European economy, but overall sentiment is expected to remain cautious ahead of elections in Italy over the weekend.

Most investors expect a centre-left government to win and continue with reforms to tackle Italy's debt problems. But a resurgence of former leader Silvio Berlusconi has raised new worries.

(Additional reporting by Thuy Ong in Sydney and Florence Tan and Rujun Shen in Singapore; Editing by John Mair)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-recover-steep-loss-growth-worry-caps-001804785--finance.html

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What Is a Digital Resume?and Do You Need One? - Simply Hired ...

A statistic came out a few years ago about how the first thing 70 percent of people do when looking for local businesses is fire up their browsers and head online to do a search. Pretty amazing, right? Not too long ago, Googling something was called ?using the Yellow pages,? but now you?re lucky if you can find someone under 30 who knows what the Yellow Pages are.

How does this relate to you, your job search, and digital resumes? It?s pretty simple, really: every single day, more and more of the world is online, and as that trend continues the internet is becoming our de facto first choice of where to go to find things, whether that means the closest deli to our apartment, a quality used car, or someone to fill the position that just opened up at our company.

If you want to make sure that companies can find you quickly and easily, it?s vital that you create a digital resume for yourself. But what does ?digital resume? mean, exactly? Here?s where it gets interesting.

The Digital Resume

Because it?s a relatively new creation, there are few strict definitions of what a digital resume has to be. Some people make talking head videos of themselves and post this as their ?resume? on YouTube. Others create ambitious, fully-featured websites where they post their work and include gorgeous designs and animations. When it comes to creating a digital resume, the only real limits are your imagination and skillset.

But don?t lose heart if those descriptions make you feel inadequate and unprepared. All ?digital resume? really means is that your resume is available online. Employers want to see that you?re web savvy enough to at least put your resume on the internet, because using a computer is pretty much essential in most companies these days. Here are several simple ways to set yourself up with a digital resume just in case a prospective employer asks to see it.

Use LinkedIn. Probably the easiest way to get your resume online if you?re not particularly comfortable messing around on the internet, LinkedIn doesn?t require and special knowledge of things like graphic design or web design. It?s also a good choice because LinkedIn is well-respected within the business community, and it allows you to network with past and current colleagues. Their straightforward system provides a form where you can input all of the information that you would use on a traditional resume, including education, work history, and other important facts. The downside is that a lot of people use LinkedIn as their online resume home, so you?re not going to stand out as much.
Try an online resume builder. A great way to stand out more without putting in a lot of extra work is to use a free online resume builder, like Career Igniter or Resume Builder Online, that allows you to host your resume on their site. These sites are not only incredibly easy to use, with dropdown menus leading you through each step of the resume-creation process and making sure you don?t forget any important information, they often help with the design of your resume by outputting it to a variety of templates and letting you choose the one you like best. And, of course, when it?s done, most let you both download a copy of your resume and host a copy of it on your own private resume web page. All you have to do is give companies a link and you?re set.
Put it on your site. If you already have your own website, hosting it there is a great way to go because employers will automatically see you as someone who knows what they are doing on the web. Meanwhile, all that you really have to do is take five minutes to create the new page and copy or upload your already-finished resume file to it. Just make sure to do a quick test before sending the link out to any potential employers, because you don?t want to direct them to a link that doesn?t work or a resume where the formatting got screwed up. For most people, this is only worth it if you already have a site; there?s no point in spending a ridiculous amount of time building yourself a webpage just to get a receptionist gig.

Ultimately, the main reason that digital resumes are valuable is because companies want you to have one, but they can be helpful in other ways as well. Unlike paper resumes and even digital files, once a resume is online, there?s no real way for you to, um, misplace it, and having one can be quite helpful in a pinch if you have to provide someone with your resume quickly or lose out on a job.

Josh Weiss-Roessler is a professional resume writer and also co-owner of Weiss-Roessler Writing, which helps individuals and small businesses market their products and services online through blogs, website copy, social media, search engine optimization, and other content marketing strategies.

Source: http://blog.simplyhired.com/2013/02/what-is-a-digital-resumeand-do-you-need-one-.html

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See the Best Hair and Makeup Looks From London Fashion Week

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Posted on February 21, 2013 3:58PM by Jessica Cruel ?

At London fashion week, the hair and makeup sent down the runway is typically much different than that featured at New York fashion week. Although the cities are only separated by the Atlantic, British designers opt for more inventive makeup shades and intricate hair designs. See what beautiful (and sometimes bizarre) things the runways had to offer from London fashion week Fall 2013.

?Additional reporting by Kaitlyn Dreyling
? Back to Story
Source: http://www.bellasugar.com.au/Pictures-From-Winter-2013-London-Fashion-Week-28192912
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House GOP blocks vote on tax cut, rejects Dem plan

by Associated Press

WHAS11.com

Posted on February 21, 2013 at 9:02 PM

Updated today at 9:02 PM

?? INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- House Republicans are blocking a vote on Gov. Mike Pence's tax cut with a promise to take up the issue in April.
?
?? Republicans voted along party lines to keep House Democrats from forcing a vote on the tax cut Thursday. The effort came as lawmakers advanced a $30 billion biennial budget that swaps the cut for more spending on schools and roads.
?
?? Democratic House Minority Leader Scott Pelath said Pence deserves an up-or-down vote on his top priority. But Republican Rep. Jerry Torr argued that any vote should wait until after lawmakers see an updated economic forecast in April.
?
?? The House also rejected Democrats' efforts Thursday to reshape the budget to spend more on schools and offer a progressive tax cut.
?
?? Republicans hold a supermajority in the chamber of 69-31.
?

Local News Video

Friday, February 22, 2013

2013 NFL Scouting Combine running updates

Joe Robbins / Getty Images

We're following the latest news out of?the 2013 NFL Scouting Combine at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

NBCSports.com

updated 10:27 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2013

ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio and Darin Gantt, along with CSN's NFL insiders, are in Indianapolis this week for the 2013 NFL Scouting Combine. Follow their up-to-the-second updates on how the top 2013 NFL Draft prospects are faring in Indy:

Rotoworld NFL draft guru Josh Norris previews what's on-tap at the 2013 NFL Scouting Combine. He also ranks his top-40 draft prospects heading into the Combine and offers his latest mock draft. And don't forget to follow Rotoworld's NFL Draft player news for updates on player measurables, workouts, interviews and more.

PFT's Darin Gantt says that while media interviews and the 40-yard dash are in the spotlight, it's the medical tests that teams value most at the Combine.

Inside the Irish blogger Keith Arnold says all eyes will be on Manti Te'o this week as the Notre Dame linebacker tries to rehab his image in the minds of NFL talent evaluators.

Te'o isn't the only Irish standout with something to prove at the Combine. Notre Dame RB Cierre Wood has a lot riding on his performance in Indy.

CSN Chicago's John Mullin talks about how the evolution of the Combine over the years has changed the way NFL draft prospects are evaluated.

CSN Philly's Ray Didinger pontificates on what the Wonderlic test means for players' draft hopes.

Alabama tackle D.J. Fluker, one of the fast risers among draft prognosticators, is rapidly losing weight, down from 355 pounds at the Senior Bowl to 339 at the Combine.

Dee Milliner, the draft's top CB prospect, will require surgery on his lingering shoulder injury.

Heisman finalist Collin Klein, hoping for a shot to play QB in the NFL, will work out at the Combine. Purdue DT Kawann Short, however, will not.

Cal WR Keenan Allen, one of the draft's top-rated WRs, will not work out, claiming to be only 70 percent recovered from a torn PCL in his left knee.

Speaking at the Combine, Cardinals coach Bruce Arians says he won't be focused on scouting read-options QBs.

It's been a few years since Tim Tebow worked out at the Combine. But Tebow's future could be decided there this week.

Speaking at the Combine, 49ers GM Trent Baalke says all options are still on the table regarding QB Alex Smith.

? 2013 NBC Sports.com? Reprints

More newsJoe Robbins / Getty Images

All about medical tests

PFT: For the teams that come to the NFL Combine to scout, the priority isn?t anything that happens on the field, but rather behind the scenes at the hospital.

PFT: 49ers GM: All option on table for Alex Smith

When 49ers general manager Trent Baalke was asked about the future of his former starting quarterback, he said he recently had dinner with Alex Smith, and told him all options were on the table for the team.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50888469/ns/sports-nfl/

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Kris Jenner to Daughters: Make Me Rich!

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/02/kris-jenner-to-daughters-make-me-rich/

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Ex-New Mexico Senator Domenici says he had son out of wedlock

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SANTA FE, N.M. - Former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici said on Wednesday he fathered a child out of wedlock more than 30 years ago with the daughter of one of his former colleagues in the senate.

Domenici acknowledged the extramarital affair in a statement published in New Mexico?s Albuquerque Journal, saying he worried the information was about to be made public by someone else.

?These circumstances now compel me to reveal this situation,? Domenici said.

The 80-year-old Republican and former Senate Budget Committee chairman told the Journal he had an affair with Washington lobbyist Michelle Laxalt, the daughter of Paul Laxalt, a former U.S. senator and Nevada governor.

?I deeply regret this and am very sorry for my behaviour. I hope New Mexicans will view that my accomplishments for my beloved state outweigh my personal transgression,? Domenici said.

Domenici served in the senate for six consecutive terms from 1973 to 2009 and was the longest serving senator from New Mexico. He retired because of a degenerative brain disease.

He currently is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington D.C.

Domenici and his wife Nancy have eight children.

Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/20/ex-new-mexico-senator-domenici-says-he-had-son-out-of-wedlock

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Juggling priorities, Pentagon tries to protect war funding, troops

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force Space Command cautioned recently that if new budget cuts take effect, some of its round-the-clock missile-warning operations would begin working bankers' hours - raising concerns about detecting missiles targeting America.

But when questioned about these dire predictions by a concerned lawmaker last week, General Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, explained that flexibility in the system would let Space Command focus the cuts that take effect on March 1 on redundant, backup radar systems.

"What our Air Force space commander has decided to do is to try and concentrate the ? cut ? so that we are not at risk of not having warning of an incoming missile," Welsh told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.

Across the military services, officials are sounding similar warnings about the $46 billion in budget cuts beginning March 1 that will slash nearly every military program or activity by a flat percentage.

But even as they raise the alarm about everything from layoffs to reduced flying hours, defense officials are trying to assess how much flexibility they have to protect their most vital missions from the worst effects of the cuts.

Concern about the level of flexibility seems to depend upon where you sit. Military and civilian defense officials say they are facing a trio of converging constraints that give them little leeway to protect the most vital programs and projects.

But some outside analysts say the Pentagon is exaggerating the likely damage to pressure Congress to avert looming cuts.

"What ? the service chiefs have been plugging is a classic cherry-picking of some of the most horrendous things you could imagine ? won't deploy a carrier, pull equipment out of maintenance, shut down training exercises, reduce readiness rates," said Gordon Adams, a professor of national security policy at American University.

Adams, who worked on defense budgets at the White House in the Clinton Administration, said the warnings were a classic Washington Monument strategy, named after an Interior Department decision in the 1960s to respond to budget cuts by shuttering the iconic Washington Monument and other national parks.

TRIPLE THREAT

Pentagon officials say the threats from the budget cuts are real, caused by a what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has called a "perfect storm of budget uncertainty."

President Barack Obama signed the Budget Control Act in 2011 requiring $487 billion in defense spending cuts over a decade. The law also put in place another $500 billion in mandatory, across-the-board Pentagon cuts under a mechanism known as sequestration.

Sequestration was never meant to go into effect, but was intended to coerce Congress and the White House into agreeing on more selective budget reductions. That deal never happened.

Compounding the Pentagon's financial quandary, Congress failed to appropriate defense funding for the 2013 fiscal year that began October 1.

Instead, it kept the government running through March 27 using a continuing resolution. Although spending levels for 2013 are comparable to 2012, budget priorities differ significantly, with much more funding allocated to military operations and maintenance in 2013 than in 2012.

The Defense Department "is starting off with the wrong amount of funding in many of these accounts," said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "Programs that were planning to spend more in FY13 are short funding, and programs planning to spend less have excess funding."

Because sequestration was not due to kick in until January 2 and Congress was expected to resolve the issue by then, the Pentagon spent its funds in the first quarter of the 2013 fiscal year - October through December - as if the budget cuts were not going to happen.

With sequestration now due to begin on March 1, the Pentagon will be five months into the fiscal year when it has to cut spending, meaning the trims will have to come from seven months of spending rather than a full year, increasing the impact.

FLEXIBILITY

Pentagon officials have begun searching for ways to preserve funding for critical programs and activities.

Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has directed the military services to prioritize funding for the Afghanistan war, training for troops headed to the war zone, treatment of the wounded and preservation of family programs. He also asked them, where possible, to protect funding for the new U.S. military strategy, which calls for greater focus on the Asia-Pacific.

How much space the services have to protect those priorities is unclear. Under sequestration, the Pentagon is required to reduce spending by $46 billion in the final seven months of fiscal year 2013 by cutting an equal percentage from most programs and activities.

Obama exempted military personnel from the cuts, as permitted under the Budget Control Act. But that decision increases the percentage that must be cut from the other accounts. Officials estimate the cut will be about 9 percent.

The Pentagon has some flexibility on Afghanistan war funding as well. In practice, money for the war is treated as part of the department's operations and maintenance account. Officials have said they will offset cuts to war spending by delaying less-pressing maintenance and other activity funded from the account.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimated earlier this month that funding for Afghanistan and general operations and maintenance would be about $263 billion. The cut from the two accounts required by sequester would be about $22.4 billion.

Since the Pentagon has already spent part of its funding for the year and has decided to protect war funding, it only has about $128 billion remaining from which to cut the $22.4 billion, CRS estimated. That amounts to a 17.5 percent cut.

Those figures are what have prompted the Pentagon to sound the alarm over sequestration, warning of an axe that will fall on training and maintenance, leading to a crisis in readiness.

"There are two problems here," Carter told lawmakers last week. "One is the continuing resolution. We very much need and would like to have an appropriations bill ? That will relieve a lot of pressure."

"With respect to sequester, we only have a few months left and we have to absorb $46 billion. What that means is you kind of have to go wherever you can get the money in that period of time. And so while additional flexibility is always helpful, at this point it doesn't help that much," he added.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/juggling-priorities-pentagon-tries-protect-war-funding-troops-060949552--business.html

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