Saturday, December 31, 2011

Apple applies for facial recognition patent, wants to let iDevices get to know you better

Your momma always said your handsome mug would take you places. Now it might allow you to access your iPad. An Apple patent application released today describes a facial recognition system that requires minimal computing power, and works whether you're indoors or out -- we don't use our tablets and phones in a photo booth, after all. The technology works by comparing a current image of your mug to a reference model user profile made using "high information" portions of the human face, like eyes and mouths. Translation: it'll take a picture, compare it against the pictures associated with various user accounts on the device and decide if the two images are similar enough to grant you access. Because this is just an application, it's safe to say we won't be seeing this kind of facial recognition in iOS anytime soon, but let's hope it works better than the ICS version if it does.

Update: An important thing to note is that Apple applied for this patent long before Android's Face Unlock debuted a few months back. The paperwork was first submitted on June 29th, 2010 -- it's just now being disclosed to the public.

Apple applies for facial recognition patent, wants to let iDevices get to know you better originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Apple Patent Blog  |  sourceUSPTO  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/wcA4-BN6OL8/

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Try out The Sun's iPad app for FREE

Our Page 360 feature - which appears in the app every Monday and online at Page3.com - has interactive animations which bring to life the nation's favourite models before your eyes.

Touch the screen and our girls - like gorgeous Chloe, right - will pirouette through 360-degrees.

It's been a huge hit since we updated our app - and for a limited period we've made the app FREE for 30 days.

Page 360 is one of several great improvements to The Sun for iPad.

There's an interactive News Ticker to keep you up to date with breaking headlines during the day - simply touch on a ticker item to call up a story.

The app also features better connectivity and enhanced page-turning.

You can download the app from Apple's App Store for a free 30-day trial.

You'll get the full "printed" edition of The Sun in PDF-style format each day of publication, plus there's an iEdition for extra images.

When your 30 days expires you can choose to renew your access within the app for ?4.99 for another 30 days - which works out at roughly ?1.25 a week.

For that you get the full contents of the paper, including every columnist, many of whom are currently not published online.

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Source: http://nla.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4025265/Try-out-The-Suns-iPad-app-for-FREE.html

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Friday, December 30, 2011

Wall Street wary ahead of the new year

By Reuters

U.S. stocks may open slightly higher Wednesday in what looks to be another low-volume session, with investors waiting for the start of 2012 before betting on risky assets.

Equities ended mostly unchanged on Tuesday on about half of the year's daily average volume as investors paused following a 5 percent gain in the previous week. Markets may continue to struggle for direction, with no major economic indicators on tap or S&P 500 companies scheduled to report quarterly results until January.

European shares were modestly higher on light volume, rising 0.5 percent after short-term Italian debt costs were cut in half at an auction, which improved confidence about demand for Thursday's Italian long-term bond sale.

"This portends good news and is a positive as the European Union tries to become more stable," said Tim Speiss, head of personal wealth advisors at EisnerAmper in New York. "However, with the limited participation, I still expect today to be fairly quiet and flat."

Wall Street movements have been closely correlated to European markets in recent weeks as the region deals with a debt crisis, but the problems have receded into the background with the lack of new developments. Still, any sign of improving conditions could spur further gains, with the light volume amplifying any moves.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 22 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures put on 5 points.

For the year, the Dow is up 6.2 percent, while the S&P is up 0.6 percent, and the Nasdaq is down 1 percent.

Energy shares may be in focus after Iran's navy chief said it would be "easier than drinking a glass of water" for Iran to close off the Strait of Hormuz, and choke off oil supplies, if foreign sanctions are tightened.

"While OPEC has already offered to step in and make up for any shortfall, meaning we may not see an impact in prices for a while, this brings up the issue of stability in the Middle East, so it could be very significant," Speiss said. "A disruption of oil shipments globally could have a significant impact on prices."

U.S. crude futures fell 0.6 percent, while Brent crude was off 1 percent.

U.S. stocks ended flat on Tuesday after fluctuating between small gains and losses in light volume as investors took a breather following last week's rally. A stronger-than-expected reading on consumer confidence added credence to the idea that the economy was growing faster than previously thought.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/28/9765894-wall-street-wary-ahead-of-the-new-year

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Baylor vs. Washington LIVE UPDATES: Robert Griffin III Highlights Alamo Bowl

He is asked. "I have no idea," he responds. And he calls the ESPN interrogator "sir" before excusing himself.

He falls to the ground and lays down, face down. But then he pops up and is articulate and confident and just all-around awesome.

Presumably coming from the Baylor band, the Superman theme music can be heard from the Alamodme. One more knee... and...

Griffin takes a knee. One more of those coming.

The clock is ticking under two minutes. Washington is out of timeouts.

Squib kick and big No. 71 comes rushing in to grab football. He fights for extra yards and pops out of pile to keep rumbling ahead. And then he FUMBLES! Baylor recovers. OK. maybe this will do it.

Ganaway breaks through the middle. Again. TOUCHDOWN BAYLOR. Again. Again. Again.

Ganaway runs right, picking up eight. Washington uses second timeout to stop clock. 2:36 remaining.

He skitters through and goes down in bounds. Clock stopped to move chains but starts up. Baylor lets it tick.

Price hit from his right as he set to throw, ball sails out of bounds to far side. Turnover on downs. 1st and 10 and Baylor is back on the ball. 3:20 remaining.

Time: 3:25 remaining Down: 4th Distance: 8

Yard Line: Baylor 39

Washington 56

Baylor 60

Washington calls a timeout.

Confusion over whether Price had a forward or backward pass as it bounces. Whistle dead although players were going for it.

Seems odd. But it leaves Washington facing a 3rd and 8.

After play fake, Price throws low for Aguilar, who dives but can't get a hold on it. 2nd and 10.

Jenkins jumps over defender and reaches out to pull in ball and wrestle it away. 1st at BAY 41.

While he's likely a gregarious fellow, he's shy of first down here. 3rd and 1.

Callier is stonewalled at line. 2nd and 10. Clock down to 5:47. Washington keeping ball on ground, keeping clock moving.

Rush to line out of huddle and Polk runs off right tackle and gets it. 1st and 10.

Speilman has been talking about it being four-down territory even though Wash is deep in their half. Seems a bit much with 6:35 remaning in a four-point game.

Baylor defense makes first contact early but pushes forward. 3rd and 2.

Washington starting at their own 22 with a delayed handoff. Short gain. 2nd and 8.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/29/baylor-vs-washington-robert-griffin-iii-live_n_1175428.html

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Romney, sensing opening, makes big push in Iowa (AP)

CLINTON, Iowa ? Mitt Romney has stepped into the center of a perfect storm in Iowa ? and he's going all in.

Sensing an opening to win next Tuesday's caucuses, an ever-more confident Romney is campaigning hard in a region of the state where he performed well in his failed 2008 race, with a bus tour and new crush of advertising intended to bolster his closing argument: that he's the most electable candidate against President Barack Obama.

It's thanks to a combination of luck and planning that Romney now finds himself in strong contention for an Iowa caucus victory that would give him a boost heading into the next contest, in New Hampshire, where the former Massachusetts governor's standing is strong.

Not that he's publicly entertaining the notion of back-to-back victories.

"I can't possibly allow myself to think in such optimistic terms. I just have to put my head down and battle as best I can," Romney said Wednesday. "But I can tell you: If the people here in Clinton are any example, or any indication, of what's going to happen in the process, I feel pretty good."

In a sign of his growing confidence, Romney hasn't announced where he'll be on caucus night and has left open the possibility that he may stay in Iowa if victory is at hand. Advisers are redoubling efforts to try to capitalize on the slide in support for Newt Gingrich and skepticism of Ron Paul by making a concerted effort to increase turnout in areas where Romney did well four years ago. His campaign also added at least $100,000 in additional advertising for the final days ? and bought broadcast advertising for the first time in the Quad Cities market in eastern Iowa.

And, while Romney is largely shying away from criticizing his rivals, he jabbed at Paul, who has emerged as his chief rival in Iowa, on Wednesday ? another indication of Romney's efforts to triumph here.

"One of the people running for president thinks it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon," Romney said in Muscatine in response to a question from the audience. "I don't."

This is a far more aggressive strategy than the one Romney has employed all year after pouring $10 million into the state in 2008 only to lose it in a defeat that crippled his entire campaign. He couldn't allay concerns about his Mormon faith or his reversals on some social issues in a state where evangelical Republicans and other social conservatives dominate.

Romney approached Iowa more cautiously for this race, so much so that until recently aides worked out of an attic in Des Moines on a shoestring budget. He also had spent less than $200,000 on the state before the campaign started buying TV ads in December.

But even as advisers worked to play down expectations, they quietly stayed in contact with backers from his first campaign ? and Romney stood at the ready to try to take advantage of an opportunity in the race, should one present itself.

It looks like it has.

Social conservatives that united behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2008 remain splintered among a handful of candidates that include Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Gingrich, the former House speaker, was Romney's latest threat but he's taken a significant beating from an onslaught of advertisements by a super PAC run by Romney's allies. Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican, is a serious contender in Iowa but he has foreign policy views so outside the Republican mainstream that most Republicans believe he has little chance to win the GOP nomination.

On Wednesday, a new CNN/TIME poll in Iowa showed Romney leading with 25 percent support. Paul had 22 percent and Santorum drew 16 percent while Gingrich had fallen to 14 percent.

So Romney is trying to seize the moment. And it may be working.

Overflow crowds have been greeting Romney at every stop of his three-day, seven-city tour on a bus plastered with his campaign logo and "Conservative, Businessman, Leader" slogan on the side.

So many people showed up at a deli in Clinton that Romney's staff also sent the candidate to visit the restaurant across the street. Before sunrise, the line to see Romney at Elly's Coffee and Tea in Muscatine stretched out the door and down the block.

On Tuesday night, the campaign said that only 150 people had RSVPed to attend Romney's speech in Davenport. But more than 500 people showed up, shutting at least 200 people out of the Blackhawk Hotel ballroom. Many area voters were notified only that morning of Romney's visit.

People seem to like what they hear.

"He's probably the best chance to beat Obama," said Carol Hetzler, a medical secretary who backed Sen. John McCain's in 2008. She had also considered voting for Gingrich.

And Tim McCleary, who was waiting in line at Elly's before 7 a.m. to see Romney, said: "The only reason I'm supporting Romney is because he can win the election."

As Romney visits small towns in eastern Iowa, he's also doing countless interviews with the local media. He spent most of Wednesday morning talking to radio stations and small Iowa newspapers.

He's also relying on friends to help him make the sale.

Romney was dispatching surrogates from nearby states, including South Dakota Sen. John Thune, former Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Jim Talent of Missouri, to campaign in Iowa. Former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole was dialing influential activists Tuesday, including former state GOP chairman Steve Grubbs, who is a well-connected campaign operative in Davenport in the heart of Romney's eastern Iowa base.

"He made the argument that the candidate who has shown the ability to win by the effectiveness of the campaign he's run is Mitt Romney," said Grubbs, who worked on Dole's 1996 campaign. "At the end of the day, he was selling electability."

It's the case Romney will try to make in North Liberty, Waterloo and Ames on Thursday and in Des Moines on Friday.

Mindful not to ignore New Hampshire altogether, Romney planned events there Friday and Saturday. Four of his five sons will campaign in the state Thursday before heading to Iowa this weekend. His wife, Ann, will remain in Iowa all weekend, campaigning in the western part of the state. Romney returns to Iowa later Saturday.

__

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111228/ap_on_el_pr/us_romney

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The top 11 scientific twists from 2011

Fabrice Coffrini / AFP - Getty Images

Visitors watch an on-screen presentation at the "Universe of Particles" exhibition at CERN, where physicists are trying to track down the Higgs boson as well as faster-than-light neutrinos.

By Alan Boyle

The past year brought us the supercomputer that trounced?flesh-and-blood champions on the "Jeopardy" TV show ... genetic discoveries that showed us the tangles in humanity's family tree ... a tsunami that shouldn't have been as catastrophic as it was ... and neutrinos that shouldn't be going as fast as they seem to. Which scientific twist of 2011 do you find most intriguing? Now's the time to cast your vote for the top science story of 2011.

This year's crop of top stories is trickier than usual because they cross so many lines. I've pared them down to a list of 11, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because of the way the lines are being drawn. I've already touched on two of the biggest science stories of 2011 in our "Year in Space" roundup: the end of the space shuttle era and the avalanche of extrasolar planets.?Our "Ancient Mysteries" roundup casts a spotlight on the big stories in archaeology, anthropology and paleontology.?I'm also leaving out?some big?stories with technology angles, such as the Arab?Spring protests?and the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

So what's left? In this list, I'm stressing the twists in science and technology that go against expectations ? or set up great expectations for the year ahead. I'm also including some personal favorites that you can feel free to quibble over. Check out this chronological?list, review the details by clicking on the links, then cast your vote for the year's top science story:


Japan hit by quake, tsunami, nuclear crisis: The magnitude-8.9 quake that hit Japan in March qualifies as a top story on any scale, but the safety gaps at the Fukushima nuclear facility showed scientifically how nature can confound engineers' best-laid plans. It was just this month that Japan's prime minister announced the facility was in a stable state of "cold shutdown."?Fukushima may be an albatross around the neck of the nuclear power industry for years to come.?Or maybe not. Check out "After the Wave," msnbc.com's special report about the?earthquake's aftermath.?

Live Poll

What's the top twist of 2011?

  • 171741

    Japan's nuclear crisis.

    13%

  • 171742

    AIDS virus on the run.

    9%

  • 171743

    Climate highs and lows.

    5%

  • 171744

    Quest for the Higgs boson.

    8%

  • 171745

    Faster-than-light neutrinos.

    38%

  • 171746

    Watson wins on 'Jeopardy.'

    4%

  • 171747

    Protein puzzlies untangled.

    6%

  • 171748

    Our tangled genetic tree.

    6%

  • 171749

    Personalized medicine works

    6%

  • 171750

    Heaviest antimatter created.

    2%

  • 171751

    Prehistoric fingerpainting.

    1%

  • 171752

    None of the above.

    3%

VoteTotal Votes: 2863

AIDS virus on the run? An international study finds that people who take antiretroviral drugs ? medicine that weakens the HIV virus that causes?AIDS ? not only benefit from treatment but are far less likely to?infect their sexual partners. The finding?was so remarkable that the results were made public four years early, and last week the editors of the journal Science hailed it as the year's top breakthrough.

Climate highs and lows:?This month, a U.N. climate conference?reached agreement on a new plan to control greenhouse-gas emissions, but it's not clear whether the plan will pay off. Meanwhile, a former climate skeptic says he no longer doubts the reality of global warming, the climate issue creates a controversy on the GOP campaign trail, "Climategate 2.0" fails to gain traction, and Arctic sea ice is?close to?record lows.??

Goodbye, Tevatron ... hello, Higgs boson? After 28 years of service, the Tevatron collider was shut down in Illinois in September, leaving the Large Hadron Collider as the only experiment hunting for the elusive Higgs boson. Discovery of that particle could show scientists how mass arose in the universe. Researchers at the LHC suspect that they've got the?subatomic bugger cornered, but the actual discovery (or determination that it doesn't exist after all) will have to wait until next year.

Faster-than-light neutrinos? Physicists at CERN and Italy's Gran Sasso laboratory say they've clocked bunches of neutrinos traveling between the two labs at a speed that's just a bit faster than the speed of light ? something that relativity theory contends should be impossible. Most observers are confident that the claim will be proven wrong in 2012, due to some sort of experimental error. But a rerun of the test in November, under somewhat different conditions, came up with the same result. Stay tuned...

Watson wins on 'Jeopardy': IBM programmed a supercomputer named Watson?to dominate the "Jeopardy" TV trivia game, and dominate it did. The point of the exercise wasn't to win the $1 million prize, which was donated to charity; rather, the technology behind Watson is being applied to medical diagnoses and other applications. We puny humans can take heart in the fact that Watson is not infallible. After all, it thought Toronto was a U.S. city, and it actually lost a game to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (although, come to think of it, that might have been a political move on Watson's part).

Gamers untangle protein puzzles: Game-playing humans struck back this year by figuring out the molecular structure of a key enzyme in an AIDS-like virus that afflicts rhesus monkeys. The protein-folding?achievement, accomplished by the players of an online game called Foldit,?served as further evidence that non-scientists can help conduct valuable scientific research through collaborative software. Foldit's game-playing teams even came up with new mathematical algorithms for solving?biochemical puzzles more efficiently.

Genetic family tree gets tangled: Late last year, researchers announced that they found genetic twists in our DNA that pointed to a previously unknown branch of our ancient family tree. Some of our ancestors interbred?with?creatures in Siberia that were not like modern humans or Neanderthals, but were of a distinct strain now known as the Denisovans. This year, geneticists reported that interbreeding with Denisovans and Neanderthals gave a big boost to our ancestors' immune systems. There's also evidence that our ancestors swapped genes with other now-extinct populations even before they left Africa. "Everywhere you look now, we find a little bit of interbreeding," said University of Arizona geneticist Michael Hammer.

Personalized medicine really works: Scientists have been saying for years that someday we'll all have our entire genomes sequenced, and that genomic analysis will open up a brave new world of personalized medicine. This year, it really happened. Physicians found a flaw in a California teen's genetic code that guided them to prescribe new medication for her bouts of sudden breathlessness. The success story serves as "the leading edge of what will become, pretty soon, a deluge of such reports," said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

Heaviest antimatter created: Researchers at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reported seeing traces of antihelium-4 nuclei, made up of two antiprotons and two antineutrons. These are the heaviest bits of antimatter ever detected on Earth, and that record's likely to stand for a long, long time. Sorry, Dan Brown: The antimatter bomb you wrote about in "Angels?& Demons" will have to remain firmly in the realm of fiction.

Fingerpainting at prehistoric preschool: Here's something completely different: Researchers measured the widths of finger marks? to figure out that kids as young as?2 years old?exercised their artistry?on prehistoric cave walls, with an occasional boost from the grown-ups. It's amazing how archaeology can bring a 13,000-year-old culture to life.

So what am I forgetting? Space-time cloaking devices? New York's new bee species? Remember that I have a whole 'nother list of top stories?for space exploration as well as for ancient mysteries, and that I'm putting the Arab?Spring and Steve Jobs' death in a different category.?Let me know what else is?missing by leaving a comment below, and get ready to take a walk on the wild side later this week when it's time to judge the 2012 Weird Science Awards.

More year-end reviews:


Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/27/9748604-11-scientific-twists-from-2011

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Pakistani president warns top court in scandal

Pakistani president warns top court in scandal

ASIF SHAHZAD
Associated Press
Image
A Pakistan Air Force cadet is silhouetted while he stands guard during a change of guard ceremony to mark the 135th anniversary of the birth of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, at the Jinnah mausoleum in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

ISLAMABAD ? Pakistan's president on Tuesday warned the Supreme Court not to take action in violation of the constitution, referring to a judicial hearing into a secret memo seeking to rein in the powerful military, a scandal that threatens the Pakistani leader.

The political crisis revolves around a memo that was allegedly sent to Washington with President Asif Ali Zardari's support in May asking for help in stopping a supposed army coup following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Zardari has denied any connection to the memo.

Also Tuesday, gunmen killed a senior official from the government's Intelligence Bureau in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said police officer Imtiaz Khan.

No group has claimed responsibility, but the Pakistani Taliban have killed many government officials and security personnel in the last few years.

There is long-standing tension between Pakistan's civilian government and the army because the military has staged a series of coups and ruled the country for much of its 64-year history.

The government has opposed the Supreme Court's decision to open a hearing into the scandal about a week ago, saying a judicial investigation was unnecessary because parliament was already looking into the matter. The powerful army, which has denied it intended to carry out a coup and was enraged by the memo, supports the investigation.

The Supreme Court opened its hearing after receiving a petition to do so from a handful of opposition politicians ? a common practice in Pakistan.

Zardari warned Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to respect the constitution, an indication he may be worried the judge will team up with the president's opponents to topple the government. Zardari has clashed with both Chaudhry and the army since he was elected in 2008.

"Anyone casting a bad eye intending to break up my federation, I will not let it break," Zardari told thousands of flag-waving supporters in southern Pakistan in a speech marking the fourth anniversary of the assassination of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Zardari did not say exactly what he meant by the Supreme Court respecting the constitution, or what he fears might be the result of the inquiry. Many analysts agree the president enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office

Zardari said earlier in the day that Pakistanis should pay tribute to his slain wife by guarding against anti-democratic conspiracies, an apparent reference to tensions over the memo scandal. He said his wife's death was also a conspiracy against Pakistani democracy.

"I therefore urge all the democratic forces and the patriotic Pakistanis to foil all conspiracies against democracy and democratic institutions," said Zardari in a statement sent to reporters.

The army-backed Supreme Court hearing sparked Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to say last week that a conspiracy was under way to topple the government. He did not specifically point to the military, but said the army must be answerable to the parliament and could not act as a "state within a state."

Gilani eventually backed away from his comments after army chief Gen. Pervez Ashfaq Kayani denied any intention to stage a coup and promised to support democracy. The prime minister on Monday denied reports he would replace Kayani or the army's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Shuja Pasha, to neutralize the threat to his government.

Former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, allegedly crafted the memo sent to Washington, which promised to replace Pakistan's national security hierarchy with people favorable to the U.S. in exchange for help in reining in the military. Haqqani has denied any connection to the memo but resigned in the wake of the scandal.

The bin Laden operation angered Pakistani officials because they weren't told about it beforehand and humiliated the army because it was not able to stop the nighttime raid near Pakistan's equivalent of West Point.

The political crisis comes at a time when Pakistan is struggling with a violent Taliban insurgency, a stuttering economy and troubled relations with its most important ally, the United States.

????

Associated Press writers Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad and Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

?

Source: http://ap.brainerddispatch.com/pstories/world/20111227/933785553.shtml

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

German Court Rules Muslim Student Disturbed the Peace by Praying (Time.com)

This post is in partnership with Worldcrunch, a new global-news site that translates stories of note in foreign languages into English. The article below was originally published in S?ddeutsche Zeitung.

(MUNICH) -- Yunus M., an 18-year-old Muslim high school student at Diesterweg Gymnasium in Berlin, Germany, has failed in his fight for the right to pray in the public corridors at school. The latest decision concerns this individual case only, judges at the Federal Administrative Court emphasized. But should the plaintiff, who is near graduation, opt to pursue the matter, the only further legal recourse open to him is the Federal Constitutional Court.

The question that the case raises, however, remains: should Muslim students be able to pray openly at school?

Four years ago, Yunus M. and seven friends gathered in the school corridor to bow in the direction of Mecca. The school's director forbid them to do it again, and the case went through a local court, then a court of appeal, before being heard at the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. (See photos of Ramadan in the year of the Arab Spring.)

According to chief justice Werner Neumann, students have a fundamental right to pray at school. He said, however, that religious freedom has its limits if it threatens to cause social friction within the school, as was the case here. The court agreed with the position of the school, whose director stated that there had been repeated religious conflicts at the school, and that at an establishment where 90% of the students were not German it was impossible for them all to claim a right to pray there publically. In addition, the director stated, Yunus M. had been offered a space where he could pray privately.

A case-by-case issue?

The case had previously resulted in contradictory court decisions. In September 2009, the Berlin Administrative Court decided in favor of Yunus M., a ruling which the Administrative Appeals Tribunal overturned six months later.

The Berlin Administrative court called in jurist Matthias Rohe, an expert on Islam, who said that the Muslim boy's stance was a "plausible opinion in the spectrum of religious freedom" and that Yunus M. was not an extremist. The Appeals Tribunal called in a colleague of Rohe's, Tilman Nagel, who stated that even the prophet Mohammed had put off praying to make community life simpler.

Yunus M.'s case underscores a basic tension: Do state institutions have to accept strict, conservative, even fundamentalist practices when other interpretations are possible? (See the top 10 world stories of 2011.)

The Leipzig court avoided this debate by stressing the individual nature of its decision. For this the court earned praise from some Christian churches. Spokespersons for the Berlin-Brandenburg Evangelical Church and the Archdiocese of Berlin said the court's decision aligned with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Yunus M.'s lawyer said they were waiting for the written decision before deciding whether or not to go to the Supreme Court, a move he described, nevertheless, as unlikely.

Also from Worldcrunch:

As Cuba Opens Slowly, a Spanish University Aims to Train Its Future Business Leaders
-- Am?rica Economia

What the World Owes Greece: A Different Look at the Financial Crisis
-- Die Welt

EU to Restrict Sale of Lethal Injection Drug to U.S.
-- S?ddeutsche Zeitung

See TIME's special report "The Middle East in Revolt."

See TIME's 140 Best Twitter Feeds.

View this article on Time.com

Most Popular on Time.com:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111227/wl_time/08599210227700

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Monday, December 26, 2011

Thousands attend funerals for Syrian bomb victims

Thousands of mourners carrying Syrian flags and pictures of the dead took part in a mass funeral Saturday for 44 people killed in twin suicide bombings that targeted intelligence agency compounds in Damascus.

The government of President Bashar Assad said a preliminary investigation pointed to al-Qaida and that the bloodshed and destruction in the capital bolstered its argument that terrorists, rather than true reform-seekers, were behind the anti-government revolt.

The opposition, meanwhile, grew fearful that the regime was taking advantage of the distraction caused by the bombings to move in military reinforcements and prepare for a massive assault on key activist areas in central Syria. Shelling in the city of Homs on Saturday killed at least three people in the Baba Amr district and set several homes and shops ablaze, activists said.

"We believe this is in preparation for a large-scale attack," said Bassam Ishak, secretary-general of the Syrian National Council opposition group.

In Damascus, mourners carried coffins draped in the red, white and black Syrian flags into the eighth-century Omayyad Mosque, where they were placed on the ground for prayers.

"Martyr after martyr, we want nobody but Assad," they shouted in support of the embattled Syrian president.

The government linked Friday's bombings to the uprising against Assad's autocratic rule. They were the first suicide bombings since the unrest began in mid-March, adding new and ominous dimensions to a conflict that has already brought the country to the brink of civil war.

Striking just moments apart, the attackers used powerful car bombs to target the heavily guarded compounds. The explosions shook the capital, which has been relatively untouched by the uprising, and left mutilated and torn bodies amid rubble, twisted debris and burned cars.

Besides the dead, 166 people were wounded.

The opposition has questioned the government's account and hinted the regime itself could have been behind the attacks, noting they came a day after the arrival of an advance team of Arab League observers investigating Assad's bloody crackdown of the popular revolt.

Ishak said he feared the bombings "were orchestrated to distract attention from a massive assault today in Homs."

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He said his group reported the information they got from Homs to the Arab League and urged the monitors to head to Homs. "The regime is keeping them in their hotels and delaying their departure for Homs," he told The Associated Press on the phone from Amman, Jordan.

An Arab League statement from its Cairo headquarters on Saturday said Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby condemned the attacks in Damascus but also expressed particular concern for Homs.

"The secretary-general expresses concern over reports that violent acts are on the rise in Homs city and calls for an immediate cessation of such acts," the statement said, warning that the violence will affect the success of the fuller observer mission set to arrive in Damascus Monday.

The government has long contended that the turmoil in Syria this year is not an uprising by reform-seekers but the work of terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs.

Sheik Said al-Bouti, a prominent pro-Assad clergyman in Damascus, blamed the opposition squarely for the attacks.

"This gift has been sent to us by Burhan Ghalioun and his friends," he said in his funeral sermon Saturday, referring to the head of the Paris-based Syrian National Council.

Women dressed in black wailed Saturday during the funeral procession, which was aired by state-run Syrian TV. Some blamed the emir of Qatar, seen by supporters of Assad as leading the campaign against the regime.

"Those terrorists are funded by the emir of Qatar to kill innocent people, but they won't succeed," cried Fawakeh Shaqiri, 56, who was dressed in black and carrying a Syrian flag.

All the coffins Saturday held the names of the bombing victims, except for six coffins carrying the remains of people who had not been identified.

Syrian officials said a suicide attacker detonated his explosives-laden car as he waited behind a vehicle driven by a retired general who was trying to enter a military intelligence building in Damascus' upscale Kfar Sousa district Friday morning. About a minute later, a second attacker blew up his SUV at the gate of the General Intelligence Agency, the officials said.

Government officials took the Arab League observers to the scene of the explosions and said it supported their accounts of who was behind the violence.

"I wonder, have the covers been removed from the eyes of the Arab League representatives so that they can see who is the real killer and who is the victim?" al-Bouti asked.

The United Nations says more than 5,000 people have been killed since March, when the uprising began and the regime responded by deploying tanks and troops to crush protests across Syria.

In addition to the deaths in Baba Amr Saturday, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the bodies of four people were found dumped on the streets in Houla, also in Homs province. They showed signs of torture on their bodies, it said.

A fifth person was still alive but in critical condition, according to the group.

They had been detained a day earlier by security forces and pro-government thugs.

"The Observatory calls on the Arab League observers to go immediately to the city of Houla to document this flagrant violation of human rights," the group said in a statement.

___

Karam reported from Beirut. AP writer Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45782216/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

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LibertyHill: 2012?s Rose Parade features the first HIV/AIDS awareness float ever. Sponsored by AHF and dedicated to Elizabeth Taylor....

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Fighting Stereotypes in the U.K. (Powerlineblog)

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Give troops a pass on airport security lines

--?

With the holiday season upon us, many Americans are traveling through crowded airports. For our servicemen and women who are deployed overseas, reuniting with loved ones for the holidays likely has been their first thought each morning and the last thought each night. Many of these troops are traveling to or from multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As I travel back and forth from Texas to Washington, I have seen our military men and women in uniform waiting patiently in long airport security lines, watching as they must remove their combat boots, worn on the front lines of Afghanistan.

I think the vast majority of Americans would agree that our military men and women make sacrifices for our nation every day. The least we can do is make their lives - and the lives of their family members - easier when they travel on official orders around the country they defend. Our nation's military have earned the right from a grateful nation to go to the front of the line.

That's why I introduced The Trust Our Troops Act, a bill that requires the Transportation Security Administration to work with the Department of Defense to develop a program to expedite security screening procedures for our military personnel and their families who accompany them.

After I spoke on the floor of the Senate about this legislation, I was stopped in the hall by a young man who just happened to be in the Senate Gallery that evening during my remarks. As an Army Special Forces sergeant, he told me about his own experience at airport screening while in uniform carrying a military radio as part of official courier duty between bases. TSA agents took his radio apart to test for explosives. Such examples occur every day to our men and women in uniform at airports across our nation. That's what drove me to introduce this legislation.

The Trust Our Troops Act has bipartisan support and is co-sponsored by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Richard Burr, R-N.C. It passed the Senate unanimously. The House of Representatives is expected to pass our legislation soon.

And although the bill will not affect this year's holiday travel season, it will require the TSA and Defense Department to work together to implement a more common-sense process for military personnel's travel.

Members of our military and their families, traveling on orders and in uniform, will benefit from these new rules. It will also expedite the process for all air travelers.

In a time of increasing fiscal constraints, the establishment of procedures to expedite the screening of a pool of travelers who are certainly our most "trusted travelers" will better allow TSA to focus its attention on areas of real threat.

More than 1.4 million brave men and women comprise our nation's armed forces. While many of these servicemen and women will be traveling through our airports over the next few weeks for long-awaited reunions with their families, still many others will be deployed in harm's way during the holidays. We are grateful to each of them as we enjoy our time with our loved ones at this special time of year.

Source: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/12/19/3608382/give-troops-a-pass-on-airport.html

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Kim Jong-un Hailed as Supreme Commander of North Korea?s Military

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Source: www.nytimes.com --- Saturday, December 24, 2011
State-run media called the country?s new young leader, Kim Jong-un, ?supreme commander? in a commentary, which also urged him to continue the Military-first revolution. ...

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GTA III goes on sale for the holidays, brings violence and cheer to Galaxy Nexus owners

GTA3 on Galaxy Nexus
A classic title like Grand Theft Auto III isn't exactly at hard sell at $5 on your smartphone or tablet -- at $3 you're almost a fool not to snatch it up. Perhaps more importantly though, Rockstar has expanded support for the crime adventure to a trio of Android handsets -- the Droid Bionic, Galaxy S II and, the phone of the moment, the Galaxy Nexus. While the white list only gains three new devices right now, there's potential to add more handsets down the line. The game is finally optimized for use with PowerVR GPUs, which are found in any phone running an OMAP or Exynos processor. So, what are you waiting for? Hit up the market now to get your dose of violence, mayhem and hall of fame gaming.

GTA III goes on sale for the holidays, brings violence and cheer to Galaxy Nexus owners originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/22/gta-iii-goes-on-sale-for-the-holidays-brings-violence-and-cheer/

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Friday, December 23, 2011

New tour offers glimpse of New Orleans movie sites

Sitting near the New Orleans streetcar line aboard a van equipped with video screens and a speaker system, tourists watch actress Vivien Leigh ride the city's vintage electric rail vehicles in a scene from the 1951 film "A Streetcar Named Desire."

In the French Quarter, passengers look on as Bruce Willis escapes attackers outside a praline shop in the 2010 film "Red." They also watch a young Kirsten Dunst bite into a woman's neck in Jackson Square in one of her early roles as a bloodthirsty child vampire in 1994's "Interview With a Vampire."

A new multimedia tour being offered in New Orleans takes passengers to locations where famous movie scenes were filmed and shows them a clip from the film on site. The tour also includes peeks at the New Orleans homes of actors Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and John Goodman.

"It really is a different way to see the city," said Debbie Carroll, a self-proclaimed movie buff from Springfield, Mo., who took the tour earlier this month. "I love movies, so I was excited to take this tour, but I also like that I got to see parts of the city I had never seen before."

Besides the tourist-heavy French Quarter, New Orleans Movie Tours includes stops in lesser-known neighborhoods such as Treme and the Faubourg Marigny. Clips from those neighborhoods include an action-packed fight sequence with Jean-Claude Van Damme in 1993's "Hard Target" and scenes from 2004's "Ray" about the life of singer Ray Charles, which landed Jamie Foxx an Academy Award.

The HBO television series "Treme," which frequently films in both the Treme and Faubourg Marigny neighborhoods and is currently filming its third season in New Orleans, is also in the tour.

The tour is approximately two hours long, includes popcorn, and is packed with location stops and clips from roughly 30 films shot in New Orleans, among them 2008's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" starring Pitt; 1965's "The Cincinnati Kid" with Steve McQueen and Ann-Margret; 1969's "Easy Rider" with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, and 1958's "King Creole" starring Elvis Presley.

New Orleans Movie Tours was launched this past summer by the husband-wife team of Jonathan and Michelle Ray, movie lovers from Willington, Conn., who moved to New Orleans roughly 10 years ago.

"We fell in love with the culture, the music, the people, the food, basically everything that we didn't have in Connecticut," Jonathan Ray said.

The couple followed the growing film culture in the city, he said.

Since Louisiana film tax credits were introduced in 2002, movie production hubs have popped up in cities across the state, including Shreveport, Lafayette and Baton Rouge. But New Orleans continues to see most of the activity. This year alone, roughly 45 projects ? almost half of all those filmed in the state ? were shot in the New Orleans area.

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"If there's something filming, we try to include it on the tour, so the tour can change slightly from day to day," Jonathan Ray said.

During the hot summer months, the temperature-controlled van is a comfortable alternative to the walking tours the city offers, he said.

The movie tour appears to be a growing draw for tourists and locals alike, said Jennifer Day, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau and former director of the New Orleans film office. Day said the movie tour fills a void that's existed for some time.

"When I worked at the film office, we got calls all the time from movie buffs wanting information on where movies were filmed and from visitors in the city who wanted to keep an eye out for the movie they saw filming," she said.

The tour appears to be one of only a handful like it in the U.S.

"You have to be at a site where a lot of movies have been filmed for it to work," said Doug Lumsden, owner of Monterey Movie Tours in Monterey, Calif., one of fewer than a dozen multimedia movie tours in the United States. Besides New Orleans, such tours are also offered in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Savannah, Ga., Lumsden said.

One of the first movie tours opened on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1995. That tour, Hawaii Movie Tours, includes more than a dozen stops at such locations as Wailua Falls, where the TV show "Fantasy Island" was made, and Kapaa Town, where the 1993 Steven Spielberg-directed blockbuster "Jurassic Park" was filmed.

Lumsden said his tour takes movie lovers through Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Pebble Beach. Among the highlights is The Lodge at Pebble Beach, where Doris Day ran through the entry in the suspense drama, "Julie."

Lumsden said the Rays visited California and took his tour before launching their own venture in New Orleans.

"They are really good," he said. "They did their homework, and they really know their stuff."

___

If You Go...

NEW ORLEANS MOVIE TOURS: Daily, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.

RESERVE ONLINE: http://www.nolamovies.com or call 800-979-3370

PRICE: Adult tickets are $39, children ages 4-12 are $29

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45749489/ns/travel-destination_travel/

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Japan releases 40-year nuke plant cleanup plan

(AP) ? Japan's government said Wednesday that it will take as many as 40 years to clean up and fully decommission a nuclear plant that went into meltdown after it was struck by a huge tsunami.

Nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono acknowledged that decommissioning three wrecked reactors plus spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was an "unprecedented project," and that the process was not "totally foreseeable."

"But we must do it even though we may face difficulties along the way," Hosono said at the release of a lengthy roadmap on the process.

Trade Minister Yukio Edano promised that authorities would move through the process "firmly while ensuring safety at the plant."

He also vowed to pay attention to the concerns of tens of thousands of residents displaced when the plant was knocked out by Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami, spawning the world's worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

Under the plan, approved earlier Wednesday following consultation with experts and nuclear regulators, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start removing spent fuel rods within two years from their pools located on the top floor of each of their reactor buildings.

After that is completed, TEPCO will start removing the melted fuel, most of which is believed to have fallen to the bottom of the core or even down to the bottom of the larger, beaker-shaped containment vessel, a process that is expected to be completed 25 years from now. The location and conditions of the melted fuel is not exactly known.

Completely decommissioning the plant would require five to 10 more years after the fuel debris removal, making the entire process up to 40 years, according to the roadmap.

The process still requires development of robots and technology that can do much of the work remotely because of extremely high radiation levels inside the reactor buildings. Officials say they are aiming to have such robots by 2013 and start decontaminating the reactor buildings in 2014.

They also have to figure out ways to access each containment vessel and assess the extent of damage, as well as locate holes and cracks through which cooling water is leaking and flooding the area.

The decades-long process also would place an enormous financial burden on TEPCO. The ministers said that the total cost estimate cannot be provided immediately, but promised that there will be no delay because of financial reasons.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced last Friday that the plant has achieved "cold shutdown conditions," meaning the plant had been brought to stability in the nine months since the accident.

The announcement officially paves the way for a new phase that will eventually allow some evacuees back to less-contaminated areas currently off limits.

Experts say the plant 140 miles (230 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo is running with makeshift equipment and remains vulnerable to cold weather and earthquakes.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-12-21-AS-Japan-Nuclear-Crisis/id-8d9d9d511e1b4076bbce3555f7d77c72

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Nintendo completes 3DS Ambassador program, delivers 10 GBA games to early adopters

If you've still got the 3DS price drop blues, perhaps a fresh (and final) infusion of free games will help. Early adopters that signed into the Nintendo eShop before August 11th will find ten GameBoy Advance games tacked on to their handheld's purchase history, retrievable via the same clunky redownload system that delivered the 3DS Ambassador program's NES titles. Thankfully, the unintuitive process is relatively simple -- just hop into the eShop's menu, scroll down to "Settings / Other", and select "Your Downloads," to claim your (potentially-exclusive) games. Short of having a 3DS guide us through the Louvre, we can't think of a better use for Nintendo's fledgling handheld.

Nintendo completes 3DS Ambassador program, delivers 10 GBA games to early adopters originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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