Video: Cain: I would work for President Gingrich

>> you so much. herman cain who bowed out of the race in december endorsed mr. gingrich over the weekend. good to have you here.

>> delighted to be here.

>> earlier this month you stopped short of endorsing candidate. you said you endorse the people.

>> yes.

>> what made you change your mind to endorse newt gingrich now?

>> when i endorsed we the people i was trying to send a message to the people, don't be distracted by the negativity and the attacks. you've got to stay engaged and inspired all the way through the process even though it's gotten ugly and bitter. then as i talked with speaker gingrich , compared where he stood on many of the issues, he believes we should replace the tax code , so do i. he believes in energy independence with a better regulatory environment. so do i. he believes in sound money . when i saw how close his tax plan came to my 9-9-9 plan we talked and i decided to endorse it.

>> he didn't promise you anything. did he lobby you.

>> no.

>> he offered you a job. he said he'd make you chair on jobs, economic growth and taxes.

>> he offered me that. i call it a job when you get paid. he asked me to be a voice.

>> would you take that?

>> i would. the reason is his tax proposal. remember, my number one issue was this economy which is why i put the bold 9-9-9 plan on the table. his comes closer than any other candidate. he just doesn't have the third component. he said he would seriously consider moving more toward mine.

>> endorsing one candidate, you are not endorsing another. so the question is why don't you want mitt romney to be president?

>> well, that's not completely accurate. i have said whoever gets the nomination i will support. the process is what it is. yes, there's going to be competition amongst the candidates all the way up. i am committed to support whoever gets the nomination.

>> are you comfortable with mitt romney securing the nomination?

>> i could be very comfortable with mitt romney . if uh you look at mitt romney and newt gingrich both, one has negatives that will be attacked. the other has negatives. the difference is what negatives will be attacked by the obama administration.

>> in terms of the negatives in the gop race, you have criticized gingrich for attacking romney 's bain years calling them irrelevant and poor strategy. as a former ceo, as a man who understands business, why support a candidate who has really taken on free enterprise by attacking romney in this way?

>> you have to make a decision. if you take both candidates, you've got things you may not like. i didn't get involved with speaker gingrich 's tack tickets and i haven't been involved in governor romney 's tactics. you have to say what do i agree with the candidate on versus how much i disagree with the tactic or political strategy.

>> did you feel this was all political strategy or did gingrich betray the business world?

>> i don't believe he betrayed the business world. i have known him since the 19 # 0s. i know from my own personal experience with speaker gingrich when i worked on the economic growth and tax reform commission with jack kemp , we were appointed to the commission. i know he is business friendly. i know he's pro growth and i do believe he will be bold in making the necessary tax changes in order to boost this economy.

>> do you have any regrets about running for president of the united states ?

>> no, i do not.

>> not a single one?

>> here's why. one of the things that has come out of me running is elevating the discourse and keeping the public's attention on the most critical --

>> what about the personal cost to you?

>> yes. there were things i i expected but there were things i didn't expect. i didn't expect the gutter politics would get as bad as it did. i made a decision -- family first. that's why i bowed out, but i will still stay involved in helping make the major changes.

>> do you think you will run again?

>> i don't think so. my biological clock is ticking. i don't want to spend more of my biological clock being beat up.

>> maybe it is like giving birth. biological clock and all that entails.

>> absolutely.

>> thank you.

Source: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46201575/

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Quotes from the Screen Actors Guild Awards (AP)

Quotes from the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

___

"There's no need to be delicate. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I realized that even though I had never really experienced bigotry, to be silent is to be passive." ? Best supporting actress winner Octavia Spencer speaking to reporters after accepting her award for "The Help."

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"This nomination belongs to four of us. Please, please know that I'm dealing them right in with this. I'm not going to let them keep this, but I'll let them see it." ? Betty White, saying during her acceptance speech that her three "Hot in Cleveland" co-stars should share in her best actress in a comedy series award.

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"I am still playing `Words With Friends,' but on Virgin Atlantic." ? Alec Baldwin, making light backstage of his being kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to shut off his cellphone while he was playing the game before takeoff.

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"I'm still scared to speak out. I want us to come back very badly next year for another season. When you do speak out, it does cost you." Baldwin, speaking to reporters after winning the best comedy actor award for his role on "30 Rock."

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"I was a very bad student. I didn't listen in class. I was always dreaming. My teachers called me "Jean of the Moon" and I realize now that I never stopped dreaming. Thank you very much. Thank you for this dream." ? Best actor winner Jean Dujardin, accepting his award for his role in "The Artist."

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"Not only did this cast do it, but several of the other movies did the same thing. I am hoping that the industry begins to recognize us as the artists that we are rather than the females that we are." ? "The Help" actress Cicely Tyson on her hope that Hollywood executives realize female-driven films can be successful.

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"A few more people checked my name in the box for whatever reason. This time I kind of fooled them." ? Best actress winner Viola Davis speaking to reporters after her win for "The Help."

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"I just can't tell you what fun I've had being a member of the world's second oldest profession." ? Christopher Plummer, accepting his award for best supporting actor for his role in "Beginners."

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"Actors are gregarious and wacky, are they not, and I love them dearly. But when they honor you, it's like being lit by the Holy Grail. Thank you, thank you, thank you." Plummer.

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"If more women ate, they'd be a lot happier. I'm real grumpy when I don't eat." ? Spencer, speaking with reporters after winning best supporting actress for her role in "The Help."

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"Thank you to the unions for making sure we're properly fed, have all (our) shots, cleaned and are put in our pens each night by sundown." ? Nolan Gould, accepting the best comedy television ensemble award with his "Modern Family" co-stars, many of whom are child actors.

___

Associated Press Writers Anthony McCartney and Beth Harris contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_en_ot/us_sag_awards_quotes

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China to make Shanghai global yuan hub by 2015 (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China intends to establish Shanghai as the global centre for yuan trading, clearing and pricing over the next three years as part of broader plans to make the commercial hub an international financial centre by 2020.

The plan for Shanghai's financial innovations through 2015, published jointly by the country's economic planning agency and the Shanghai government on Monday, set goals on a wide range of areas aimed at further developing Shanghai, though some analysts said many of them appeared ambitious.

"This anticipated pace of development looks a bit quick to me," said Frances Cheung, a strategist at Credit Agricole in Hong Kong.

China wants to transform Shanghai into an international financial centre on par with the likes of New York and London by 2020. That goal was set in 2009 by the State Council and analysts have taken it as a broad deadline for liberalizing the currency.

The state economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, outlined a series of goals under the 2015 yuan plan.

These included making the daily yuan mid-point published by the central bank in the onshore yuan market serve as the benchmark for both domestic and foreign yuan trading markets.

Currency traders interpreted the statement partly as a message from Beijing that the yuan's movements, which have increasingly been influenced by the offshore market over the past few months, should be decided by the government.

"There have been recent developments that have put Hong Kong's offshore market in the spotlight from time to time, such as its pricing of the yuan quite differently from the onshore market," said a trader at a European bank in Shanghai.

"In this sense, the NDRC statement is published at a sensitive time and means the government once again wants to emphasize that it has the final say in the value of the yuan."

The plan also aims to make the government-backed Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (Shibor) the benchmark for yuan credit everywhere and targeting to more than double the annual non-forex financial market trading volume to 1,000 trillion yuan by 2015.

While the plan lacked details on how China would achieve these targets, analysts were skeptical on the feasibility of some of the planks in the platform.

"Shibor is not even a very well established benchmark onshore," Cheung said. Markets currently use the government's seven-day repurchase rate as the lending benchmark.

Analysts said the NDRC's plan gave no fresh insight into how quickly China would liberalize its capital account, a crucial step in Shanghai's attempt to become a global money hub.

China has taken a series of measures over the past two years to invigorate the offshore yuan market in Hong Kong as part of a longer-term plan to promote the use of the yuan overseas and make it a fully-convertible and international reserve currency along with the U.S. dollar.

Earlier this month, Britain said it was teaming up with its former colony to secure London a top spot as an offshore trading centre for the yuan.

The NDRC's plan would not threaten Hong Kong's current position as the main offshore yuan centre, analysts said.

"Promoting Shanghai as an onshore yuan centre complements Hong Kong's growing role as an offshore yuan center, and should help to strengthen the circle of onshore-offshore yuan flows underpinning the yuan trade settlement process," said Donna H J Kwok, economist at HSBC in Hong Kong.

China will also encourage overseas companies to sell yuan-denominated shares in its domestic stock markets, but the plan did not give a detailed timetable.

Authorities have been discussing launching a so-called "international board" on the Shanghai stock exchange for listing foreign companies' shares, seen as a centerpiece for the 2020 goal, but the city's mayor said this month that the time was not currently right for its launch.

Shanghai will explore M&A opportunities involving overseas stock exchanges to increase its global clout, the NDRC's plan said without elaborating.

(Additional reporting by Zhou Xin in Beijing, Saikat Chatterjee in Hong Kong and Lu Jianxin in Shanghai; Editing by Jason Subler)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120130/ts_nm/us_china_economy_shanghai

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Watch the First 10 Minutes of Grey's Anatomy's Alt-Reality Episode (omg!)

Ever wonder what a "bright and shiny" Meredith would look like?

The Thursday, Feb. 2 episode of Grey's Anatomy will feature an alternate reality where Ellis Grey (Kate Burton) was never stricken with Alzheimer's, leading to a very different upbringing for Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). The once dark and twisty doc is now happily... engaged to Alex Karev (Justin Chambers)?! The bad news? Derek (Patrick Dempsey) and Addison (Kate Walsh) are also still married... and she's pregnant! (Get even more scoop on the alt-episode here.)

First Look at Grey's Anatomy's alt-reality: Who has kids? Who's dating who?

Those are just a few of the shockers in store. Watch the first 10 minutes of the episode below to find out which Seattle Grace doc has changed the most:

Related Articles on TVGuide.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_watch_first10_minutes_greys_anatomys_alt_reality_220500424/44340785/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/watch-first-10-minutes-greys-anatomys-alt-reality-220500424.html

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Santorum cancels morning events to be with child

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum canceled his Sunday morning campaign events and planned to spend time with his hospitalized daughter.

"Rick and his wife Karen are admitting their daughter Bella to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia this evening," spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement Saturday night, adding "Rick intends to return to Florida and resume the campaign schedule as soon as is possible."

Santorum had been scheduled to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" and attend church in Miami. Officials did not cancel Sunday's afternoon events in Sarasota and Punta Gorda.

Isabella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. When asked about her, Santorum says his daughter was not expected to survive until her first birthday and often has to catch himself to stop from tears.

"I have a little girl who's 3 ? years old," he told Christian conservatives in Iowa before winning that lead-off contest.

"I don't know whether her life is going to be measured ? it's always been measured ? in days and weeks. Yet here I am. ... because I feel like I wouldn't be a good dad if I wasn't out here fighting for a country that would see the dignity in her and every other child."

When voters ask him about her, he calls the decision to campaign "gut-retching" but says he goes forward for all special needs families.

"You think she's fine, and then one cold and she's this close to dying," he told The Washington Post last year in an interview.

In October, he missed one of Bella's surgeries to participate in a debate and told the audience that he planned to take an all-night flight home from Las Vegas to be with her.

"I look at the simplicity and love she emits," Santorum said in a web video his campaign released after his scheduling drew questions, "and it's clear to me we're the disabled ones."

Santorum largely has kept his daughter off the campaign schedules, preferring her to stay home with her mother. But Bella did join Santorum for a few days around Iowa's straw poll in August, and she joined her family in Charleston, S.C., the day of its primary.

She didn't join her six siblings for the public speech. She stayed backstage.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-28-Santorum-Daughter/id-1dac6b225d9b40af8efed4d704505567

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Funny How That Works (Theagitator)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192758790?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Gillmor Gang 01.28.12 (TCTV)

The Gillmor Gang ? Doc Searls, Danny Sullivan, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor ? debut the latest Google catchphrase to replace Do No Evil: We Really Don't Care! @stevegillmor, @dsearls, @dannysullivan, @jtaschek, @kevinmarks, @tinagillmor

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/HwOo54sfw9s/

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Grape seed extract kills head and neck cancer cells, leaves healthy cells unharmed

ScienceDaily (Jan. 27, 2012) ? Nearly 12,000 people will die of head and neck cancer in the United States this year and worldwide cases will exceed half a million.

A study published this week in the journal Carcinogenesis shows that in both cell lines and mouse models, grape seed extract (GSE) kills head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells, while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

"It's a rather dramatic effect," says Rajesh Agarwal, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and professor at the Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

It depends in large part, says Agarwal, on a healthy cell's ability to wait out damage.

"Cancer cells are fast-growing cells," Agarwal says. "Not only that, but they are necessarily fast growing. When conditions exist in which they can't grow, they die."

Grape seed extract creates these conditions that are unfavorable to growth. Specifically, the paper shows that grape seed extract both damages cancer cells' DNA (via increased reactive oxygen species) and stops the pathways that allow repair (as seen by decreased levels of the DNA repair molecules Brca1 and Rad51 and DNA repair foci).

"Yet we saw absolutely no toxicity to the mice, themselves," Agarwal says.

Again, the grape seed extract killed the cancer cells but not the healthy cells.

"I think the whole point is that cancer cells have a lot of defective pathways and they are very vulnerable if you target those pathways. The same is not true of healthy cells," Agarwal says.

The Agarwal Lab hopes to move in the direction of clinical trials of grape seed extract, potentially as an addition to second-line therapies that target head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that has failed a first treatment.?

This work was supported by the R01 grants AT003623 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and CA91883 from the National Cancer Institute, NIH.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Colorado Denver.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. S. Shrotriya, G. Deep, M. Gu, M. Kaur, A. K. Jain, S. Inturi, R. Agarwal, C. Agarwal. Generation of reactive oxygen species by grape seed extract causes irreparable DNA damage leading to G2/M arrest and apoptosis selectively in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma cells. Carcinogenesis, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/carcin/bgs019

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/qmbsH53jgaM/120127140939.htm

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Robert Hegyes, played Epstein on 'Kotter,' dies (AP)

METUCHEN, N.J. ? Robert Hegyes, the actor best known for playing Jewish Puerto Rican student Juan Epstein on the 1970s TV show "Welcome Back Kotter" has died. He was 60.

The Flynn & Son Funeral Home in Fords, N.J., said it was informed of Hegyes' death Thursday by the actor's family.

A spokesman at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J., told the Star-Ledger newspaper that Hegyes, of Metuchen, arrived at the hospital Thursday morning in full cardiac arrest and died.

Hegyes was appearing on Broadway in 1975 when he auditioned for "Kotter," a TV series about a teacher who returns to the inner-city New York school of his youth to teach a group of irreverent remedial students nicknamed the "Sweathogs." They included the character Vinnie Barbarino, played by John Travolta.

The show's theme song, performed by John Sebastian, became a pop hit.

Hegyes also appeared on many other TV series, including "Cagney & Lacey."

He was born in Perth Amboy and grew up in Metuchen, the eldest child of a Hungarian father and Italian mother.

He attended Rowan University, formerly Glassboro State College, in southern New Jersey, before heading to New York City after graduation. He returned to Rowan on several occasions to teach master classes in acting, a university spokesman said Thursday.

"He was a good friend to the university," spokesman Joe Cardona said.

Hegyes continued to act after "Kotter" and was a regular on "Cagney & Lacey." He also guest-starred in shows including "Diagnosis Murder" and "The Drew Carey Show."

On his website, Hegyes wrote that he was inspired by Chico Marx, whom he had played in a touring production of a show about the Marx Bros. He also recalled how his mother encouraged him to get involved in theater as a teen.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_en_tv/us_obit_robert_hegyes

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State of the Union: What can Obama do about college tuition?

President Obama hit hard on college tuition costs in his State of the Union speech, calling on Congress to extend the tuition tax credit and to stop student loan interest from doubling in July.

President Obama hit hard on issues of college affordability in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, and continued to emphasize the importance of excellent teaching in K-12 education.

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He called on states to raise the compulsory age of education to 18; called on Congress to extend the tuition tax credit, to stop the interest on student loans from doubling in July, and to pass the DREAM Act; and issued a threat to higher education institutions who fail to keep costs in check and keep tuition down.

?Let me put colleges and universities on notice: If you can?t stop tuition from going up, the funding you get from taxpayers will go down,? Obama said. ?Higher education can?t be a luxury ? it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.?

It was unclear, however, from Obama?s speech ? and in the blueprint that his administration sent out afterward ? exactly how he plans to carry out this threat.

?Unlike K-12 where lots of money pours into programs, there?s much less [Federal] money pouring into higher-education programs,? says Rita Kirshstein, director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs, Productivity, and Accountability. Most of the money that does go to schools is in the form of research funds, she says, along with Pell Grants and subsidized loans for students.

While Ms. Kirshstein says withholding student grant and loan money could be disastrous for some students, she believes withholding research dollars might cause faculty to put pressure on administrators to look hard at their costs. Kirshstein?hopes the plan would be placed in a broader context, looking at how much various states have cut back their higher-ed funding, for instance.

?The devil is in the details if it?s going to be done effectively,? she says.

As for Obama?s other proposals, Kirshstein says she was glad to see him sound the dual themes of states making higher ed a higher priority in their budgets, and colleges and universities doing more with less.

These aren?t new themes for the administration, which has worked to improve student aid by increasing the maximum Pell Grant size last year and moving to a system of direct government loans, and which hosted a summit on higher education productivity and cost in December. But the ideas seem to be getting increased attention now.

?Those of us in higher education are always happy when higher ed issues are recognized because so much of the attention typically goes to K-12,? says Kirshstein. Obama, she believes, ?is indeed serious about this issue.?

Not that he neglected K-12 topics in his speech.

Some themes that he has hit before, like calling on Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (sometimes better known in its current incarnation as No Child Left Behind), were notably absent ? perhaps a reflection of the impossibility of getting such a bill passed in an election year.

But in his speech Obama continued to preach the importance of teaching and accountability. His education agenda so far has defied typical partisan lines: Some of its most frequent critics are loyal Democrats, including the teachers? unions, while some Republicans have praised it.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/iPum6PhwKeU/State-of-the-Union-What-can-Obama-do-about-college-tuition

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The Wii U officially arriving by this Christmas

Nintendo of America

By Matthew Hawkins

Nintendo, which fired the first official shot of the upcoming console war at E3 last summer, just let loose another bombshell.

Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo, has announced that their follow-up to the Wii, the Wii U, will be available in the United States by the oh-so-important year-end holiday shopping season.?Reuters also reports that other key markets will get the new home system around the same time as well, including Europe, Australia and Japan.

No exact date has been specified, but if Nintendo follows the same pattern that has been established by their previous hardware's debut (the GameCube, the original DS, the Wii, the DSi), it should arrive just a few days or week before Black Friday 2012. Parents, you've been warned.

Thus far, not much else is known, including a final retail price, let alone Nintendo's selection of launch titles. But the fact that it's definitely coming out by year's end is a lot more to chew on when compared to the other guys.

Details regarding Microsoft and Sony's upcoming systems are still virtually nonexistent, at least officially so. Rumor mills for both camps, on the other hand, have been busy; the most interesting recent tidbit regarding the "Xbox 720," as it has been dubbed, is courtesy of Kotaku.

First off, it may adopt Blu-ray discs, which is a format that's proprietary to Sony (and their current console, the PlayStation 3 to be exact), and also have some kind of built-in scheme that prevents the operation of used games. Both sound fairly outlandish and flat-out crazy, for entirely different reasons.

But stranger things are happened, and as with everything, rumors are a sign of the times. Which in Microsoft's case is how DVDs will no longer be a viable option for delivering physical games (it's barely cutting it as is, in some instances), plus how a purely digital distribution platform may not be entirely in the cards as of yet.

Along with the fear of used game sales, and how it has affected everyone's bottom lines, not just Microsoft's. As for the PS4, nothing notable has been said as of late. Though it's a safe bet either one of the two, or perhaps both, will be officially unveiled at this year's E3, partially as a response to the pending arrival of the Wii U.

Related stories:

?

Matthew Hawkins is a NYC based game journalist who has also written for EGM, GameSetWatch, Gamasutra, Giant Robot, and numerous others. He also self-publishes his own game culture zine, is part of Attract Mode, and co-hosts of The Fangamer Podcast. You can keep tabs on him via?Twitter,?or his personal home-base,?FORT90.com.

Source: http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/26/10243780-the-wii-u-officially-arriving-by-christmas-of-this-year

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Obama and GOP candidates offer a campaign preview (AP)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. ? On a day that combined two campaigns into one, President Barack Obama on Wednesday challenged Republicans to raise taxes on the rich as GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich swiped at him on the economy and criticized each other over immigration.

With a week to go before the Jan. 31 Florida Republican presidential primary, the polls suggested a tight race, although Romney and his allies seized a staggering advantage in the television ad wars. They have reported spending $14 million combined on commercials, many of them critical of Gingrich, and a total at least seven times bigger that the investment made by the former House speaker and an organization supporting him.

Obama's political timeline was a different one, Election Day on Nov. 6. In a campaign-style appearance in Iowa, he demanded Congress approve a tax increase for anyone like Romney whose income exceeds $1 million a year.

"If you make more than a million dollars a year, you should pay a tax rate of at least 30 percent. If, on the other hand, you make less than $250,000, which includes 98 percent of you, your taxes shouldn't go up," he said after touring a manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids and in a state that he won in 2008 that was expected to be a battleground in the fall.

"This is not class warfare," he said. "That's common sense."

As Obama surely knew, it was an offer Gingrich, Romney and the anti-tax Republicans in Congress are likely to find easy to refuse.

Referring to Obama's call in the speech for Congress to end tax breaks that encourage companies to ship jobs overseas, Romney said he didn't know of any.

Instead, he said the president presides over "the most anti-business, anti-investment, anti-job creator administration I've ever seen, and so, what I'll do ? I'll get America to work again. I spent 25 years in business."

Gingrich was far harsher at an appearance in Miami.

"If he actually meant what he said it would be a disaster of the first order," Gingrich said of the president's call for higher taxes on millionaires.

The former House speaker said the president's proposal would double the capital gains tax and "lead to a dramatic decline in the stock market, which would affect every pension fund in the United States."

"It would affect every person who has a 401(k). It would attack the creation of jobs and drive capital outside of the United States. It would force people to invest overseas. It would be the most anti-jobs single step he could take," he said.

Under current law, investment income is taxed as the rate of 15 percent, a fact that has come to the fore of the campaign in recent days with the release of Romney's income tax return.

Wages, by contrast, are taxed at rates that can exceed 30 percent.

Electability is the top concern for GOP primary voters, according to polls taken in the early primary and caucus states, so both Republicans were eager to paint a contrast with the president.

But Romney and Gingrich also focused on the Florida primary now seven days distant.

Romney has long led in the state's polls, but Gingrich's upset victory last Saturday in the first-in-the-South primary in South Carolina revitalized his candidacy and raised questions about the former Massachusetts governor's staying power.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is also on the ballot, as is Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

But Santorum has been sinking in the polls as Gingrich rises, and Paul has indicated he intends to bypass the state to concentrate on caucuses to be held elsewhere.

That gives Florida the feel of a two-man race, and Romney and Gingrich are treating it that way. The two men sparred heatedly Monday night in a debate that virtually relegated Santorum and Paul to supporting roles.

A second debate is set for Thursday in Jacksonville. And if their separate appearances during the day on the Spanish-language television network Univision is a guide, it will be as feisty as the first.

Gingrich referred acidly to Romney describing a policy of "self-deportation" as a way of having illegal immigrants leave the country without a massive roundup.

"You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatically $20 million income for no work to have some fantasy this far from reality," he said, referring to some of the details disclosed this week when the former Massachusetts governor released his tax returns.

"For Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off that she is going to self-deport, I mean, this is an Obama-level fantasy."

Romney's campaign swiftly produced evidence that aides to Gingrich had used the term "self-deport" approvingly, and the former governor attacked.

"I recognize that it's very tempting to come out to an audience like this and pander to the audience," Romney said. "I think that was a mistake on his (Gingrich's) part."

Gingrich also ran into trouble over a radio ad his campaign was airing that called Romney "anti-immigrant." Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is neutral in the presidential race, criticized the commercial, and Romney said the term "anti-immigrant" was an epithet. The campaign took the ad off the air.

Gingrich made a stop in Cocoa, center of the state's now-withered space industry, and he cheered his audience by envisioning construction of the first permanent base on the moon. He also promised a "robust industry" of "commercial near-earth activities" to include science, tourism and manufacturing.

He said he hopes to stimulate investment by having the government offer prizes to private companies, but he did not elaborate. For Obama, Iowa was the first of five stops in three days following a State of the Union speech in which he stressed the theme of income equality that is expected to be one of the cornerstones of his re-election campaign. He also wove in proposals to help restore the U.S. manufacturing base that has withered in the course of the recession that began in 2008.

"Our economy is getting stronger, and we've come too far to turn back now," he told workers and guests at a conveyor manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids. Speaking of Republicans, he said, "Their philosophy is simple: We're better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules."

It's a message that may be received differently depending on the local economy.

Iowa's unemployment was most recently measured at 5.6 percent, well below the national average. In Arizona, which has its primary in four weeks, joblessness is 8.7 percent, while Nevada's at 12.6, the highest in the country. Its caucuses are Feb. 4.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Bakst, Kasie Hunt and Steve Peoples in Florida contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_el_pr/us_campaign_rdp

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LA mayor signs law requiring condoms in porn films (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Actors in adult movies filmed in Los Angeles will be required to use condoms under an ordinance signed into law by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and porn industry leaders say the regulation could lead them to abandon the nation's porn capital.

The law, signed Monday, will take effect 41 days after it is posted by the city clerk, something that could happen as early as this week.

Officials with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which lobbied for years for such a law, expressed jubilation Tuesday and said they would now turn their attention to getting a similar condom requirement adopted elsewhere.

"The city of Los Angeles has done the right thing. They've done the right thing for the performers," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which had pushed the measure for six years.

He said its adoption is crucial in protecting adult film actors from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Weinstein said his group's next move will be to get Los Angeles County to adopt a similar measure for its unincorporated areas.

The group is in the midst of a petition drive to put the issue on the ballot, but Weinstein said he hopes the county's Board of Supervisors will react as the Los Angeles City Council did and pass such an ordinance itself. The council gave its final approval last week.

Industry officials estimate as many as 90 percent of the porn films produced in the United States are made in Los Angeles. Most are filmed quietly in the city's suburban San Fernando Valley.

After the council's action, several of the industry's biggest filmmakers said they might consider moving just outside the county. That prompted Simi Valley Mayor Bob Huber to announce last week that he would ask the city attorney for his community, located just across the county line from the San Fernando Valley, to write a similar ordinance.

Weinstein said Tuesday his group would also be vigilant in keeping track of where porn producers might go.

Exactly how the law will be enforced is still to be determined.

It calls for makers of porn films to pay a fee, the amount still to be determined, that would be used to pay for spot checks at filming locations.

The City Council is creating a committee to determine the amount of the fee and who would make the spot checks.

Weinstein said he envisions enforcement would fall on nurses or other public health providers.

"It is not anticipated, based on what we desire or what has been discussed, that it would be uniformed police officers," he said.

Weinstein said he would be open to working with industry leaders to enforce the law.

He noted the ordinance does not require condoms when oral sex is involved because his group, which originally crafted it, agreed with the filmmakers that infection through oral sex was not as great as through other sex acts.

The industry already requires that actors be tested for HIV every 30 days, and filmmakers say they believe that is sufficient.

"It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And believe it or not, we have the same ambition," Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions, said last week after the council's vote.

"We just don't believe their way is the best way," added Mann, who is also on the board of directors of the industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_he_me/us_porn_condoms

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GOP race turns to new terrain in Florida

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, greets supporters at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla. Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, greets supporters at a campaign rally in Coral Springs, Fla. Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Steve Mitchell)

Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, right, is joined by wife Ann, following his speech during the South Carolina Primary night rally Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is greeted by supporters after Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) ? Now it's Florida's turn.

And Republican presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have just 10 days to navigate a state unlike any they've competed in so far. Florida is six times larger than New Hampshire, has almost five times more Hispanics than Iowa, and, with numerous media markets, is much more expensive for candidates than South Carolina. That's where Gingrich trounced Romney on Saturday night, suddenly scrambling the GOP presidential race ahead of Florida's Jan. 31 primary.

"It's been fascinating spectator sport so far," Beth Schiller, 48, said inside Buddy Brew Coffee shop the next morning. "But it's coming here now. They're all coming."

Indeed, the remaining candidates in a shrunken field ? Romney, Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul ? planned to be in the state Monday for the first of two presidential debates this week.

All eyes were certain to be on what's essentially a two-man race.

After a crushing South Carolina defeat, Romney no longer faces the prospect of wrapping up the nomination quickly and now is forced to regroup. He has spent months planning for the Florida campaign, essentially building a firewall in the state. He has the largest organization of any candidate. And he and his allies combined have had the TV airwaves all to themselves for weeks, already spending roughly $6 million combined. The former Massachusetts governor's areas of strength in the diverse state may be with the transplanted Northeasterners and snowbirds along the Gold Coast.

But now there are doubts about whether he can knit together the broad cross-section of Republican voters he'd need to win in this state, much less the nomination.

"I'm looking forward to a long campaign," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday," an acknowledgment that he wouldn't sew up the nomination with a Florida victory as aides once had hoped.

Gingrich, for his part, will work to keep his momentum going despite continued division among tea party and religious activists who, to a certain degree, continue to divide their support between him and Santorum. The state's conservative panhandle may be fertile ground for the former Georgia lawmaker who talks of his Southern roots often. His team also is working hard to court evangelicals, who vote in droves in the state's GOP primaries and who tend to look skeptically on Romney.

He dramatically trails Romney in fundraising and organization in the state, underscored by his launching of an online "money bomb" Saturday night to try to raise $1 million to help fund his efforts in Florida.

"My job in Florida is to convince people that I am the one candidate who can clearly defeat Obama in a series of debates and the one candidate who has big enough solutions that they would really get America back on track," Gingrich told CNN's "State of the Union."

His South Carolina victory is certain to change the dynamics in a state where Romney has led in polls for weeks.

"People want to get behind a winner," said Tom Gaitens, co-founder of the Tampa Tea Party and state director for the conservative organization FreedomWorks. "People will be drawn to Newt like a magnet."

Florida's size and diversity creates challenges for all the candidates. And the issues may be far different than those in the previous states.

There are 10 distinct media markets in Florida, which helps explain the tremendous cost of running a statewide campaign here.

And the voters are anything but homogenous.

Northern Florida along the panhandle is as close to the South as the state offers. It's the least populated and considered the most culturally conservative. Southeastern Florida, including the Miami area, is traditionally not as conservative as the rest of the state, offering a large Latino population and many Northeastern transplants and Jewish voters. The bulk of the state's Republicans, including a significant collection of evangelicals, live along central Florida's Interstate 4 corridor, including Tampa and Orlando.

Exit polling from the 2008 GOP primary shows that approximately 39 percent of voters identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians. That's a significant voting bloc Gingrich has been targeting. He won evangelicals soundly in South Carolina, where they constituted roughly 65 percent of the electorate.

Hispanics are also key.

Romney is already on television running an advertisement in Spanish. Gingrich plans to do the same. The Gingrich team is based in the Miami area, the epicenter of the state's considerable Cuban population. Cubans make up roughly a third of the state's Hispanic population and figure to play prominently.

Romney's team is based in Tampa, and it has spent weeks working to woo the 200,000 people who already have cast ballots through absentee and early voting.

Like everywhere else, the economy is certain to dominate the race in Florida. The unemployment rate here is 10 percent, much higher than the national 8.5 percent jobless figure. And more than 2 percent of all Florida housing units were involved in foreclosure last year, according to the RealtyTrac foreclosure listing service. Florida also is third in the number of homes with "upside down" mortgages, at 44 percent of all mortgaged properties, according to the CoreLogic real estate data firm.

But other topics also will dominate.

Florida is a retirement mecca, so expect discussion about Social Security. It's also home to a number of environmentalists working to protect the coastline and fight drilling, so those topics are all but certain to be touched on. And with a heavy influx of Hispanics, immigration is certain to be raised.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-22-GOP%20Campaign-Florida's%20Turn/id-d50956d6d09e4f479637d05692211fda

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Lawyer says ousted Egypt leader still president

In this Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 photo, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is wheeled into a court house in Cairo, Egypt. Hosni Mubarak's lawyer concluded his defense Sunday Jan. 22 2012, arguing that the ousted leader should be acquitted of criminal charges because he is technically still the president of Egypt. Mubarak, who stepped down nearly a year ago, is charged along with his security chief and four police commanders of complicity in the killing of protesters during an 18-day uprising in January and February. They could face the death penalty if convicted. (AP Photo/Mohammed al-Law)

In this Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012 photo, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is wheeled into a court house in Cairo, Egypt. Hosni Mubarak's lawyer concluded his defense Sunday Jan. 22 2012, arguing that the ousted leader should be acquitted of criminal charges because he is technically still the president of Egypt. Mubarak, who stepped down nearly a year ago, is charged along with his security chief and four police commanders of complicity in the killing of protesters during an 18-day uprising in January and February. They could face the death penalty if convicted. (AP Photo/Mohammed al-Law)

CAIRO (AP) ? Hosni Mubarak's lawyer concluded his defense on Sunday, arguing that the ousted leader should be acquitted of criminal charges because he is technically still the president of Egypt.

Mubarak, who stepped down nearly a year ago, is charged along with his security chief and four police commanders of complicity in the killing of protesters during an 18-day uprising in January and February. They could face the death penalty if convicted. Mubarak and his two sons are facing separate charges of corruption in the same case.

Farid el-Deeb, Mubarak's chief defense lawyer, said during the closure of arguments that spanned five court sessions that Mubarak did not formally resign and should enjoy immunity from prosecution.

He said Mubarak gave verbal instructions to his vice president Omar Suleiman to announce that he was delegating the armed forces to "run the affairs of the nation," something that he said did not amount to a resignation.

"This court is not qualified to try him and he must be acquitted," said el-Deeb, a suave celebrity lawyer.

El-Deeb received a round of applause from other defense lawyers when he finished his statements. Lawyers for the victims responded with chants of, "Execution, execution," and, "Down, down with Mubarak."

Addressing Mubarak, a former air force chief and a decorated war hero who ruled Egypt for 29 years, el-Deeb said: "You, Mubarak, are a wounded eagle in the sky. Don't be sad, be tough, for you are not any better than the Prophet."

He was alluding to the persecution endured by Islam's seventh-century Prophet Muhammad during the early days of his prophecy in what is now Saudi Arabia.

El-Deeb has argued in previous hearings that a 1979 law issued by Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat gave the ousted leader immunity from being tried before a civilian court as a hero of the nation's 1973 war against Israel.

Mubarak and his two sons, wealthy businessman Alaa and one-time heir apparent Gamal, were arrested in April following mass protests calling on the generals who took control of Egypt to detain them and try them. The trial began on Aug. 3.

Nearly 40 stalwarts of the Mubarak regime, including two former prime ministers and several key cabinet ministers and regime-linked businessmen, are currently held in a prison south of Cairo. Some of them have been convicted and are serving jail terms, while others are awaiting trial.

However, activists behind the uprising that toppled Mubarak's regime say the ruling generals, led by the ousted leader's defense minister of 20 years, are not serious about dismantling the former regime.

They say the generals remained beholden to Mubarak, whose consent was essential to their rise through the ranks.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-22-ML-Egypt-Mubarak-Trial/id-f82a854ed3a049158f0be69905b67441

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Romney to release taxes, Gingrich ready for Obama (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Stung by a South Carolina setback that capped a bad week, Mitt Romney said he would release his tax returns Tuesday in hopes of ending a campaign distraction while revived rival Newt Gingrich said he was the strongest Republican to go "toe to toe" with President Barack Obama.

Rick Santorum, third in the South Carolina vote, maintained he was the lone "consistent conservative" left in the race and pledged to keep campaigning in Florida, next on the calendar with its Jan. 31 primary, and beyond.

The newly scrambled presidential contest shifted to Florida after Gingrich stopped Romney's sprint to the nomination with a convincing victory in the first-in-the South primary. For now, that removed the air of inevitability that surrounded Romney's candidacy. But Florida is larger, more diverse and more expensive, and brings new challenges for Gingrich. Once again, he must show he can overcome financial and organizational disadvantages, as he did in South Carolina.

"One of the reasons I think people in South Carolina voted for me was a belief that I could debate Obama head to head, that I could convey conservative values," said Gingrich as the candidates made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows.

"I think we had better be prepared for a tough campaign, whoever we nominate," the former House speaker said. He added, "I can go toe to toe with President Obama on big things. ... I think you can draw a very strong case that in the end the dynamics of a Gingrich/Obama fight are much better for Republicans than the dynamics of a Romney/Obama fight."

Romney said it was "not a good week for me" and cited all the time he had spent talking about his tax returns as his rivals pressed him to make them public before his promised date in April.

After months of resistance, Romney had said last week that he would release tax information for 2011, but not until close to the tax filing deadline. That also was seen as a time, before the South Carolina race rattled his front-runner status, when the GOP nomination might have been decided.

"I think we just made a mistake in holding off as long as we did. It just was a distraction. We want to get back to the real issues of the campaign: leadership, character, a vision for America, how to get jobs again in America and how to rein in the excessive scale of the federal government," said Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist.

Romney disclosed last week that, despite his wealth of hundreds of millions of dollars, he has been paying in the neighborhood of 15 percent, far below the top maximum income tax rate of 35 percent, because his income "comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past."

"Given all the attention that's been focused on tax returns, given the distraction that I think they became in these last couple of weeks," Romney said Sunday he would release his 2010 returns and estimates for his 2011 returns at the same time "so there's not a second release down the road."

"We'll be putting our returns on the Internet, people can look through them," Romney said. "It will provide, I think, plenty of information for people to understand that the sources of my income are exactly as described in the financial disclosure statements we put out a couple of months ago.

During 2010 and the first nine months of 2011, the Romney family had at least $9.6 million in income, according to a financial disclosure form submitted in August.

Further focusing attention on his wealth was Romney's offhand remark to reporters that his income from paid speeches amounted to "not very much" money. In the August disclosure statement, he reported being paid $373,327.62 for such appearances for the 12 months ending last February. That sum alone would him in the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers.

In addition, Romney owns investments worth between $7 million and $32 million in offshore-based holdings, which are often used legitimately by private equity firms to attract foreign investors. Such offshore accounts also can enable wealthy investors to defer paying U.S. taxes on some assets, according to tax experts.

"I know people will try and find something," Romney said, adding, "We pay full, fair taxes, and you'll see it's a pretty substantial amount."

Santorum, who beat Romney and Gingrich in leadoff Iowa, scoffed at the suggestion he might leave the race so conservatives could rally behind Gingrich against Romney.

"The idea that conservatives have to coalesce in order to beat Mitt Romney, well, that's just not true anymore. Conservatives actually can have a choice. We don't have to rush to judgment,' he said.

"The longer this campaign goes on," Santorum said, "the better it is for conservatives, the better it is for our party."

Santorum's continued presence ensures at least some division among Florida's tea party activists and evangelicals, a division that could help Romney help erase questions about his candidacy.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul likely will not be a factor in Florida. He already had said he was bypassing the state in favor of smaller subsequent contests.

As the first Southern primary, South Carolina has been a proving ground for Republican presidential hopefuls in recent years. Since Ronald Reagan in 1980, every Republican contender who won the primary has gone on to capture the party's nomination.

Returns from 95 percent of the state's precincts showed Gingrich with 41 percent of the vote to 27 percent for Romney. Santorum was winning 17 percent, Paul 13 percent.

Already, Romney and a group that supports him were on the air in Florida with a significant television ad campaign, more than $7 million combined to date.

Gingrich appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union." Romney was on "Fox News Sunday," while Santorum was on ABC's "This Week" and CNN.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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Sony's new cameraphone CMOS jams bigger gear into the same space (video)

Sony's done gone and developed a new back-illuminated CMOS designed to improve the state of your casual camerawork. Traditional units mount a merged pixel-sensor and circuit on a supporting substrate -- the innovation here is to produce the two separately and layer them without any additional material. This makes manufacturing easier and without a mount, you're able to lever-in bigger kit into the same space. It's also packing HDR Movie, which like the still-image version, will produce better moving pictures in tricky light. An eight-megapixel version will ship to cellphone producers in March, with a 13-megapixel edition following in June and if Sony's really successful, it might earn enough to buy a copy of Photoshop rather than producing release images in MS Paint.

Continue reading Sony's new cameraphone CMOS jams bigger gear into the same space (video)

Sony's new cameraphone CMOS jams bigger gear into the same space (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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University of Vienna researchers quantum leap into the cloud, ensure privacy for distributed computing

Afraid of the cloud? You're not alone, as rising concerns surrounding the security of distributed computing have led University of Vienna researchers to seek out quantum mechanics as a privacy fix. The team's findings, soon to be published in the journal Science, prove that an end user's data can remain encrypted throughout its journey to and from remote servers, essentially rendering the quantum computer's calculations as "blind." So, how exactly does this evasive entanglement work? Qubits (or quantum bits) containing the pertinent information are transmitted to a central facility where they're processed according to a specific set of measurements, leaving the resultant computations readable only by the original user. Not obtuse enough for you? Then check out the source below for a more detailed walkthrough.

University of Vienna researchers quantum leap into the cloud, ensure privacy for distributed computing originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Innovative Projects Tap Renewable Energy Sources

Two projects aim to harness renewable energy using cutting-edge technology and engineering. AltaRock's Susan Petty discusses plans to turn hot rocks at a dormant volcano into a source of power. University of Maine's Habib Dagher talks about the potential of deepwater floating wind turbines.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/20/145525010/innovative-projects-tap-renewable-energy-sources?ft=1&f=1007

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Digital lockers a growing piracy concern (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Digital storage services like Megaupload, which was accused of criminal copyright violations on Thursday, play a small but growing role in a broader piracy problem that continues to evolve and dog the entertainment industry.

Some 3 million Americans every month used Megaupload, which is among the largest digital lockers, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said. Other entertainment executives said that number surged when other sites popular with digital pirates, such as LimeWire, were taken down.

"When we look at piracy behavior and uncompensated theft of music, a significant portion of consumer behavior migrates toward these locker sites" after shutdowns, said Victoria Bassetti, a music industry consultant and former anti-piracy chief at record label EMI.

"Anecdotally, when we have pre-release leaks, the first week there is a massive amount of consumer trade that goes directly to Megaupload's door."

Peer-to-peer systems like BitTorrent, which have little central coordination and are harder to stop, still have about three times as much usage among consumers as digital lockers, said NPD market researcher Russ Crupnick.

Only about 3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience relied on digital storage for legitimate purposes or piracy in the third quarter, he said.

Megaupload and its ilk may be a bigger factor in video piracy because movies take much longer to download via peer-to-peer networks, Crupnick said. Digital lockers allow anyone to upload, store and distribute links to most forms of electronic content.

The U.S. Justice Department released an indictment Thursday accusing Megaupload's founders and other officers of criminal conspiracy, arguing that they encouraged copyright violations and in some cases copied protected content themselves. Four people involved with the site were arrested in New Zealand.

The indictment cited internal emails referring to piracy and Megaupload's policy of rewarding users whose content was downloaded most often, which prosecutors said encouraged the distribution of prime Hollywood fare.

An attorney for the company said Friday that the site merely allowed users to upload material and that it would fight the charges.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said that lockers were "generally the fastest growing form of Internet piracy."

Like other shutdowns, the interruption of Megaupload will send some pirates to rivals but should encourage others to buy or rent content legally, Lamy said.

"The realistic objective is not to eliminate piracy but to make it as inconvenient as possible," he said. "Some of the users you peel off."

The takedown enraged some Internet activists, who launched denial-of-service attacks that temporarily rendered websites of the Justice Department, FBI and big entertainment companies unreachable.

Some of them argued that the arrests showed that there was no need for laws like those that were withdrawn from consideration in Congress this week that would have made it much easier to block access to sites accused of fostering piracy.

But entertainment executives said that they would try again to pass such bills because they are aimed more at attacking demand rather than supply. In addition, many file-sharing sites do not have Megaupload's ties to the United States or allied countries.

"It is not hard necessarily to do something in New Zealand, but it is hard to get people in Russia and China," Bassetti said.

(Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Gary Hill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120121/film_nm/us_digital_piracy

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Unemployment claims at 352,000, fewest since 2008 (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The number of people seeking unemployment benefits plummeted last week to 352,000, the fewest since April 2008. The decline added to evidence that the job market is strengthening.

Applications fell 50,000, the biggest drop in the seasonally adjusted figure in more than six years, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths out fluctuations, dropped to 379,000. That's the second-lowest such figure in more than three years.

A department spokesman cautioned that volatility at this time of year is common. Applications had jumped two weeks ago, largely because companies laid off thousands of temporary workers hired for the holidays.

Still, when weekly applications fall consistently below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring is strong enough to push down the unemployment rate.

"This continues a clear downshift in claims," said Ian Shepherdson, an economist at High Frequency Economics.

Shepherdson suggested that stronger hiring should follow.

Hiring improved in the second half of 2011. In December, employers added 200,000 jobs. That marked the sixth straight month in which the economy added at least 100,000 jobs. And the unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent, a three-year low.

For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs. That was up sharply from 940,000 in 2010. Economists say they expect roughly 1.9 million more jobs to be added this year, according to a survey by The Associated Press.

Still, the job market has a long way to go before it fully recovers from the damage of the Great Recession, which wiped out 8.7 million jobs. More than 13 million people remain unemployed. Millions more have given up looking for work and so are no longer counted as unemployed.

The overall number of people receiving benefits, which isn't seasonally adjusted, rose. More than 7.8 million people received benefits in the final week of last year. They include about 3.6 million people covered by extended-benefit programs begun during the recession.

The manufacturing sector remains a bright spot. Factory output jumped 0.9 percent in December, the Federal Reserve said this week. That was the sharpest monthly gain in a year. Manufacturing gained 225,000 jobs last year, the most since 1997.

The pickup in hiring reflects stronger economic growth. The economy likely grew at an annual rate of about 3 percent in the final three months of last year, economists estimate.

That would be a sharp improvement over the 1.8 percent annual growth rate in the July-September quarter. Rising consumer spending is thought to be fueling much of the gain in the current quarter.

Even so, economists worry that growth could slow in the first half of 2012. Europe is almost certain to fall into recession because of its financial troubles.

And wages aren't keeping up with inflation. The department said in a separate report that average inflation-adjusted hourly earnings dropped 0.9 percent last year.

Without more jobs and higher pay, consumers might have to cut back on spending. That would weigh down growth next year. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_unemployment_benefits

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