Sunday, September 23, 2012

Lovingly Lingerie at Versace

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Sony patents player recognition on sci-fi scale

A patent Sony filed in May 2012 was recently uncovered, indicating the company has interest in knowing exactly who the users of its products are. The patent, titled "Process and Apparatus for Automatically Identifying User of Consumer Electronics," describes the inclusion of fingerprint sensors that would read biometric data of its users on products such as phones, keyboards and gaming controllers.

The patent's abstract reads, "A user of a device may be uniquely identified using a metric that is contingent upon the user using the device for its intended purpose without the user having to perform a separate step, function or operation for the express purpose of identifying the user." The document continues to elaborate on context-sensitive content that would be automatically generated for users upon identification.

Biometric data has mingled with gaming before, most notably when Nintendo introduced (but did not release) the Vitality Sensor device.

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/23/sony-patents-player-recognition-on-sci-fi-scale/

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3 Easy Methods to Generate High quality Web Visitors For Any ...

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The first driving drive for running a successful Internet enterprise funnels via Internet traffic. This traffic comes in all types, shapes and forms. The concept is to generate probably the most focused traffic possible. The important thing here is traffic ?specificity.? If you are currently driving traffic to your website however your traffic isn?t converting to leads and gross sales then, assuming your website presents itself effectively, your traffic isn?t particular sufficient to your merchandise and services.

Once you own and run your personal internet-based mostly enterprise, your website turns into the first ?searching window? for your shoppers. For sure, these buyers are the idea for your revenue. However as a substitute of buyers gazing in your store window on a cobblestone road, they?re as a substitute glued to their monitor in hopes they discover one thing compelling and particular about your website. But if your prospects were searching for ?golf shoes? for instance and your website solely sells ?kids bowling shoes? then each you and the patron have missed your marks.

There are three very simple and simple ways to make sure your website is ?talking? to the fitting people.

One: Analyze your webpages! There are lots of tools out there that will help you analyze your website to determine the frequency of certain phrases that appear to look on your website more typically than others. As soon as the analysis is accomplished, it is best to have access to an in depth record of key phrases and their relevancy to your website in the order of significance and/or frequency. In different phrases, with the click of a few buttons on your pc, you?ll be able to have your total website evaluated with an in depth printed record of probably the most incessantly used keywords.

Google presents a free internet-based mostly website analysis device that will help you carry out this analysis.

After getting determined your record of key phrases, the thought is to make use of as many of these key phrases in your advertising. These key phrases should be used in the titles and headlines of your articles, the headlines of your ppc advertisements and anyplace else you select to advertise your business. These key phrases should be used in all advertising whether it is on-line or off line.

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The rationale why is because as people surf the Internet and encounter web sites they take pleasure in, they usually bookmark them and are available back time and again again. This process creates trust and builds relationships between the web site proprietor and the web site visitor. Should you?re commercial is featured somewhere on my website, then by default the visitor will assume, typically, they?ll trust the particular person behind that commercial as well. Google ppc does not provide this. Fb advertising, although much better (and cheaper) than Google ppc, does not provide this either.

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For instance in case your website supplied ?free website evaluations,? then everybody who stuffed out the shape to obtain a free website analysis turns into a part of your database. If somebody then contacts you and asks you to offer their internet design companies to your record in return for a part of the commissions based mostly on your mailing efforts, this may be an incredible joint venture.

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Source: http://daveinchina.com/3-easy-methods-to-generate-high-quality-web-visitors-for-any-business

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Saturday, September 22, 2012

Obama out to squash GOP hopes for Wisconsin pickup

President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md., en route to Wisconsin to campaign. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md., en route to Wisconsin to campaign. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

U.S. Secret Service agents hold open the door as Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gets out of his vehicle before he boards his campaign plane in San Francisco, Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama waves to White House visitors as leaves for a campaign trip to Milwaukee, Wis., Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012 in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney boards his campaign plane in San Francisco ,Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

(AP) ? President Barack Obama worked to squash GOP aspirations for a resurgence of support in pivotal Wisconsin on Saturday as campaign rival Mitt Romney pinned his hopes of making inroads there on an argument that hard-pressed middle-class voters would do better with a Republican in the White House.

With just six weekends left before Election Day, both men also were devoting considerable time to raising campaign cash to bankroll the deluge of ads already saturating hotly contested states. Baseball great Hank Aaron was supplying the star power at two Obama fundraisers in Milwaukee while Romney headed to San Diego and Los Angeles to tap into West Coast cash, if not votes.

With running mates Joe Biden and Paul Ryan campaigning in New England and Florida, respectively, the presidential campaign was spread far and wide ? both geographically and strategically. Biden revved up union activists poised to canvass for votes in New Hampshire while Ryan appealed to Hispanic voters in Miami and prepared to talk space policy in Orlando.

It was Obama's first visit to Wisconsin since February, and the president was intent on shoring up support in Ryan's home state. Obama won Wisconsin easily in 2008 and recent polls have him ahead by single digits, but Ryan is popular.

"We've always thought that Wisconsin would be harder for us this year than it was four years ago," said Obama campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki.

In advance of Obama's visit, Romney's campaign made the argument that Obama's failure to turn around the economy had Wisconsin voters looking for a different path. Republican Gov. Scott Walker said the president had a "Wisconsin problem." The state's 7.5 percent unemployment rate is below the national average, but its manufacturing industry has been hit hard in recent years.

The Republican National Committee released a web video, "Since You've Been Gone," highlighting recent GOP organizing efforts in the state and Walker's success in fending off a recall election there.

Ryan, campaigning in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, reinforced Romney's argument that Obama hasn't been able to make needed changes in Washington, poking at the president's recent comment that it's hard to change Washington from the inside without mobilizing public pressure on Congress from the outside.

"Why do we send presidents to the White House in the first place?" Ryan asked. "We send presidents to change and fix the mess in Washington, and if this president has admitted that he can't change Washington, then you know what? We need to change presidents."

He also faulted Obama for a "policy of appeasement" toward the Castro regime in Cuba, saying all the president had done was "reward more despotism."

Obama has eased restrictions to allow Americans to travel to Cuba and to let Cuban-Americans to send money to family on the island. But the president has stopped well-short of discussing lifting the 50-year-old economic embargo, which is widely viewed in Latin America as a failure and has complicated U.S. relationships in the region.

Psaki said the president had supported democracy movements on the island and worked to give people there more say in their futures.

Underscoring the importance of grass-roots efforts in the campaign's final days, Biden rallied union workers at a Teamsters union hall in Manchester, N.H., saying their organizing work would be the "antidote" to millions spent on advertising by Republican-leaning super PACs.

Biden said it was because of unions that the U.S. has a strong middle class, and he accused Romney and Ryan of having "a completely different value set, a completely different vision."

"They're doubling down on everything that caused the economic crisis in the first place," he said.

Romney is dedicating most of this weekend to courting donors in California ? a state that he's not trying to win. He attended a private fundraiser in suburban San Francisco Friday night and planned to attend at least two more on Saturday in San Diego and Los Angeles.

The GOP nominee is feeling fundraising pressure: Last month, for the first time, Obama and the Democratic Party raised more than Romney and the Republican Party, $114 million to $111.6 million.

Romney's schedule ? particularly his focus on fundraising over traditional campaigning with voters ? has caught the attention of conservative opinion leaders.

"The logic of Romney's fundraising has seemed, for some time, slightly crazy," conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote recently. "He's raising money so he can pile it in at the end, with ads. But at the end will they make much difference?"

Facing such criticism, the Romney campaign added a stop in Colorado late Sunday and will launch a three-day bus tour through Ohio on Monday. Over the past week, the Republican nominee attended just three public rallies, one televised forum and delivered a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

As Romney was preparing to board his flight from San Francisco to San Diego, a reporter asked whether he was going to begin campaigning more aggressively. Romney smiled, said nothing, and walked away.

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Kay in Miami, Steve Peoples in San Francisco and Holly Ramer in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-09-22-Presidential%20Campaign/id-a6648fb62b764628ad6f5ab4264b0419

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Libyans storm militia in backlash of attack on US

Libyan civilians watch fires in Ansar al-Shariah Brigades compound, after hundreds of Libyans, Libyan Military, and Police raided the Brigades base, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The recent attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to. (AP photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Libyan civilians watch fires in Ansar al-Shariah Brigades compound, after hundreds of Libyans, Libyan Military, and Police raided the Brigades base, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The recent attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to. (AP photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Libyan Military raid Ansar al-Shariah Brigades Compound, after the people of Benghazi attacked the Brigades base, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The recent attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

A Libyan civilian watches one of Ansar al-Shariah Brigades cars on fire, after hundreds of Libyans, Libyan Military, and Police raided the Brigades base, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The recent attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Libyan women protest against Ansar al-Shariah Brigades and other Islamic militias in front of the Tebesty Hotel, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to.(AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

Libyan men protest against Ansar al-Shariah Brigades and other Islamic militias in front Tebesty Hotel, in Benghazi, Libya, Friday, Sept. 21, 2012. The attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans has sparked a backlash among frustrated Libyans against the heavily armed gunmen, including Islamic extremists, who run rampant in their cities. More than 10,000 people poured into a main boulevard of Benghazi, demanding that militias disband as the public tries to do what Libya's weak central government has been unable to.(AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)

(AP) ? Hundreds of protesters stormed the compound of one of Libya's strongest armed Islamic extremist groups Friday, evicting militiamen and setting fire to their building as the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans sparked a public backlash against armed groups that run rampant in the country and defy the country's new, post-Moammar Gadhafi leadership.

Armed men at the administrative center for the Ansar al-Shariah militia, suspected to have led the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Benghazi consulate, first fired in the air to disperse the crowd, but eventually withdrew from the site with their weapons and vehicles after it was surrounded by waves of protesters shouting "No to militias."

"I don't want to see armed men wearing Afghani-style clothes stopping me in the street to give me orders, I only want to see people in uniform," said Omar Mohammed, a university student who took part in the takeover, which protesters said was done in support of the army and police.

No deaths were reported in the incident, which came after tens of thousands marched in Benghazi in a rally against armed militias. A vehicle was also burned at the compound, which was taken over by Libyan security forces after its occupants fled.

For many Libyans, last week's attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi was the last straw with one of the biggest problems Libya has faced since Gadhafi's ouster and death around a year ago ? the multiple mini-armies that with their arsenals of machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades are stronger than the regular armed forces and police.

The militias, a legacy of the rag-tag popular forces that fought Gadhafi's regime, tout themselves as protectors of Libya's revolution, providing security where police cannot. But many say they act like gangs, detaining and intimidating rivals and carrying out killings. Militias made up of Islamic radicals are notorious for attacks on Muslims who don't abide by their hardline ideology. Officials and witnesses say fighters from Ansar al-Shariah led the attack on the U.S. consulate.

Some 30,000 people filled a broad boulevard as they marched along a lake in central Benghazi on Friday to the gates of the headquarters of Ansar al-Shariah.

"No, no, to militias," the crowd chanted, filling a broad boulevard. They carried banners and signs demanding that militias disband and that the government build up police to take their place in keeping security. "Benghazi is in a trap," signs read. "Where is the army, where is the police?"

Other signs mourned the killing of U.S. Amb. Chris Stevens, reading, "The ambassador was Libya's friend" and "Libya lost a friend." Military helicopters and fighter jets flew overhead, and police mingled in the crowd, buoyed by the support of the protesters.

Several thousand Ansar al-Shariah supporters lined up in front of their headquarters in the face of the crowd, waving black and white banners. There were some small scuffles, but mostly the two sides mingled and held discussions in the square.

The march was the biggest seen in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city and home to 1 million people, since the fall of Gadhafi in August 2011. The unprecedented public backlash comes in part in frustration with the interim government, which has been unable to rein in the armed factions. Many say that officials' attempts to co-opt fighters by paying them have only fueled the growth of militias without bringing them under state control or integrating them into the regular forces.

Residents of another main eastern city, Darna, have also begun to stand up against Ansar al-Shariah and other militias.

The anti-militia fervor in Darna is notable because the city, in the mountains along the Mediterranean coast north of Benghazi, has long had a reputation as a stronghold for Islamic extremists. During the Gadhafi era, it was the hotbed of a deadly Islamist insurgency against his regime. A significant number of the Libyan jihadists who travelled to Afghanistan and Iraq during recent wars came from Darna. During the revolt against him last year, Gadhafi's regime warned that Darna would declare itself an Islamic Emirate and ally itself with al-Qaida.

But now, the residents are lashing out against Ansar al-Shariah, the main Islamic extremist group in the city.

"The killing of the ambassador blew up the situation. It was disastrous," said Ayoub al-Shedwi, a young bearded Muslim preacher in Darna who says he has received multiple death threats because has spoken out against militias on a radio show he hosts. "We felt that the revolution is going in vain."

Al-Shedwi said some were afraid that if they don't act to rein them in, the U.S. will strike against the militias, pushing people to support the gunmen.

Leaders of tribes, which are the strongest social force in eastern Libya, have come forward to demand that the militias disband. Tribal leaders in Benghazi and Darna announced this week that members of their tribes who are militiamen will no longer have their protection in the face of anti-militia protests. That means the tribe will not avenge them if they are killed.

Activists and residents have held a sit-in for the past eight days outside Darna's Sahaba Mosque, calling on tribes to put an end to the "state of terrorism" created by the militias. At the city's main hotel, The Jewel of Darna, tribal figures, activists, local officials and lawmakers have been meeting in recent days to come up with a plan.

"Until when the tribes will remain silent," cried a bearded young man standing on a podium at one such meeting Thursday. "The militias don't recognize the state. The state is pampering them but this is not working anymore. You must act right now." Elders in traditional Libyan white robes stood up and shouted in support.

Militiamen have been blamed for a range of violence in Darna. On the same day Stevens killed in Benghazi, a number of elderly Catholic nuns and a priest who have lived in Darna for decades providing free medical services, were attacked, reportedly beaten or stabbed. There have been 32 killings over the past few months, including the city security chief and assassinations of former officers from Gadhafi's military.

Darna's residents are conservative, but they largely don't fit the city's reputation as extremists. Women wear headscarves, but not the more conservative black garb and veil that covers the entire body and face. In the ancient city's narrow alleys, shops display sleeveless women dresses and the young men racing by in cars blare Western songs.

And many are impatient with Ansar al-Shariah's talk of imposing its strict version of Islamic law. The group's name means "Supporters of Shariah Law."

"We are not infidels for God sake. We have no bars, no discos, we are not practicing vice in the street," said Wassam ben Madin, a leading activist in the city who lost his right eye in clashes with security forces on the first day of the uprising against Gadhafi. "This is not the time for talk about Shariah. Have a state first then talk to me about Shariah."

"If they are the 'supporters of Shariah' then who are we?" he said. "We don't want the flag of al-Qaida raised over heads," he added, referring to Ansar al-Shariah's black banner.

One elder resident at the Sahaba Mosque sit-in, Ramadan Youssef, said, "We will talk to them peacefully. We will tell them you are from us and you fought for us" during the civil war against Gadahfi. But "if you say no (to integrating into the) police and army, we will storm your place. It's over."

Officials in the interim government and security forces say they are not strong enough to crack down on the militias. The armed factions have refused government calls for them to join the regular army and police.

So the government has created a "High Security Committee" aimed at grouping the armed factions as a first step to integration. Authorities pay fighters a salary of as much as 1,000 dinars, around $900, to join ? compared to the average police monthly salary of around $200. However, the militias that join still do not abide by government authority, and critics say the lure of salaries has only prompted more militias to form.

Officials and former rebel commanders estimate the number of rebels that actually fought in the 8-month civil war against Gadhafi at around 30,000. But those now listed on the High Security Committee payroll have reached several hundred thousand.

"All these militia and entities are fake ones but it is mushrooming," said Khaled Hadar, a Benghazi-based lawyer. "The government is only making temporarily solutions, but you are creating a disaster."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-21-ML-Libya-Militia-Backlash/id-8e13a9764d0f403da7a5249e4661eeee

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Friday, September 21, 2012

How video game assists the visually impaired

14 hrs.

There are two things?that make optometrist and neuroscientist Lotfi Merabet's new computer game unusual: The various rooms and corridors in the game exactly mirror a real place, and players aren't able to navigate by looking at graphics on-screen. Instead, players must rely entirely on different sounds that tell them where doors, walls, jewels and monsters lay in wait.

Merabet and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School and the University of Chile designed the game for ? and tested the game with ? visually impaired people.?

And they found something interesting about their players when they later took the gamers to the real building on which the game was based. Although the researchers hadn't told the study participants to remember the game's layout, they found that those who played the game excelled at independently navigating the real building.

The researchers' study shows the promise of audio maps helping to solve a real problem for the blind, said Gordon Legge, who directs the Laboratory for Low-Vision Research at the University of Minnesota, is visually impaired, and was not involved in Merabet's study.?

"People who are visually impaired are often anxious about going to new places. That's a big issue," Legge said. "If there were software methods to explore and learn a place before they go, it could be quite advantageous." [10 Profound Innovations Ahead]

The study also hints at the possibilities of using audio games to teach visually impaired people in a way that sticks better than other methods, including a guided tour of the computer game's layout, which Merabet also studied.

"Gaming sort of gives you a problem-solving sense that you don't have through directed navigation," said Merabet, who runs studies and sees patients at Harvard's Massachusetts Ear and Eye Infirmary.

Although there are still important software problems to resolve, in the future, major buildings might be able to offer audio maps or games to help visually impaired visitors prepare before they get there.

From game to real life
Starting last year, Merabet began testing his game on people aged 15 to 45 who had been blind since birth. Players wore headphones while they played the game and navigated by pressing keys on a keyboard. Whenever their avatars touched walls or doors, they heard characteristic sounds. A knock in the left ear meant a door to the left; a knock on the right, a door to the right. Knocking in both ears indicated a door in front. "The best way for you to get a sense of that room is by feeling around," Merabet said. [Video Game Improves Vision for Adults Born with Cataracts]

He told his study participants they were supposed to collect jewels hidden in the game's rooms, while avoiding monsters that would steal the jewels. Both the gems and monsters emitted sounds that increased in volume as the game players approached them ? or as they approached the players. He didn't say anything about remembering the map, nor did he mention that the rooms' layout was exactly the same as the two-story, 23-room Carroll Center for the Blind, a school in Newton, Mass.

Yet when he took the game-players to the Carroll Center afterward, he found they could?apply what they'd learned from the game?to navigating the real building. When researchers told gamers to go from one specific room to another, the gamers could finish navigating the real-life building in about a minute and 15 seconds. When taken to a random room and told to find the nearest exit, the gamers could do so in a minute and one second.

In fact, the players performed better at the exit-finding task than visually impaired study volunteers who had taken a strict guided audio tour of the computer game's layout, sans monsters and jewels. (The gamers and the guided tour-takers performed equally well at walking from room to room.) Tour-takers generally chose longer routes than gamers did, the researchers found.

"Both groups can learn the layout of the building whether you teach them explicitly or whether they learn it implicitly through the game," Merabet told TechNewsDaily. But gamers, he said, "have a better sense of how the rooms are connected with each other."

Does it have to be a game?
Merabet's game wrapped up many characteristics that help with learning in one package: It forced people to explore independently and learn the hard way, by bumping into things. People enjoyed playing it and felt motivated to collect lots of jewels. ("I can tell you, at least anecdotally, it's remarkable how much people liked the game," Merabet said.) And the game may have forced people to walk certain paths that are important to learning a building's layout.

More experiments are needed if researchers want to pinpoint which characteristics are important to better learning from audio games and other audio maps, Legge said. It would be especially helpful to know if independent exploration by itself is enough, so that people could use software to wander through buildings virtually without having to contend with monsters every time, Legge thinks. "From a practical point of view, I'm not sure people would want to play a game every time they wanted to learn a new building," he said.

Merabet is now working to expand on his computer game research in several ways. One way is improving his software so that any building's blueprint can get automatically rendered into an audio map. Another is a brain-scan study that examines what parts of blind people's brains are activated when they play the game. He has finished the study, he said, but didn't want to reveal the results until they're published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Getting the software to work for all buildings is technologically challenging, Merabet said. Right now, his software works well for one-story buildings with straight corridors. For more complicated buildings, however, it's difficult for the computer program to remember to play sounds in the right place while users continually walk and change their position.

If Merabet is able to make an audio map generator, it could become exactly the tool Legge said would be so advantageous to those with vision impairments. Merabet compared the potential maps he could make to flight simulation software for pilots. Both would mentally prepare people for challenging tasks. "The idea of mental rehearsal is a very, very powerful one," he said.

Merabet?published the results?of his game navigation study Sept. 19 in the journal PLOS ONE.

You can follow TechNewsDaily staff writer Francie Diep on Twitter @franciediep.

Copyright 2012 InnovationNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/ingame/how-video-game-assists-visually-impaired-1B6013891

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Sprint marks one million LTE devices sold

Image

LTE handsets? Sprint's got 'em. And while the carrier's network deployment may be, well, a bit lacking at present, plenty of Now Network subscribers have been happy to pick up devices boasting the speedy technology. Speaking at a conference in New York, CEO Dan Hesse noted that Sprint has moved some one million LTE devices -- a number that's likely to keep growing, as the carrier continues to roll out coverage.

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Sprint marks one million LTE devices sold originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Sep 2012 11:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/20/sprint-marks-one-million-lte-devices-sold/

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A Ray of Hope

Every day until the election, Slate will offer up one reason to be optimistic for your candidate.

Today?s Good News for Obama: My morning and early afternoon were absorbed in the Obama campaign bubble, as the president dropped into Woodbridge, Va.?literally, in a helicopter and everything. (It did land before he got out.) Doors opened at 8 a.m., for the people with coveted red passes. The stands of a baseball diamond?which sat 6,000?were full by 10:30 or so, two hours before the president was to arrive. When Obama spoke, his volume was challenged by a woman named Kim McAlister, who cheered and atta-boyed literally everything the president said, occasionally alternating into cries of ?I love you Barack!? But what struck me was just how many non-white voters were packed into the venue. Woodbridge is a largely non-white city, in an exurban county that Democrats carry when they win the state. Republicans have tried to convince these voters that Obama failed them. If they don?t buy it, and they volunteer and vote again, Obama wins this state and closes off one of Romney?s paths.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=9ef6d942a1728303b8cf3542009dc1d9

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Thursday, September 20, 2012

King says euro zone threatens slow UK recovery

LONDON (Reuters) - Bank of England Governor Mervyn King gave his trademark downbeat assessment of the British and world economy on Thursday in his first live television interview after nearly 10 years in office, and warned the euro zone could yet fall apart.

Four years after the start of the financial crisis, King said it would be a long while before the economy returned to normal - and the most important task for Britain was now to reform bank regulation to reduce the chances of a future crisis.

"We're beginning to see a few signs now of a slow recovery, but it will be a slow recovery. After a banking crisis one can't expect to get back to normal and I fear it will take a long time," he told Channel 4 News.

Given this situation, it might now be "acceptable" for the government to miss a key debt-cutting goal, he added.

The economy entered its second recession since the crisis late last year, and although King and most private sector economists expect it to grow during the current quarter, King said prospects beyond that hinged on overseas factors.

"What it will depend on critically, I think, is what happens in the euro area and also the rest of the world," he said.

"(Policymakers) have persisted with trying to keep all the countries in the euro zone ... and tried very hard to keep the show on the road. But I don't think there's any guarantee that they will be able to do that."

King's language echoed that of his last news conference in August, when the central bank slashed growth forecasts for this year, and he warned again that a "black cloud of uncertainty" was depressing British and U.S. business confidence.

The Bank is midway through a four-month programme of 50 billion pounds of gilt purchases to boost demand in Britain's recession-hit economy, and most economists expect the Bank to approve a further 50 billion pounds in November, which would take total asset purchases to 425 billion pounds.

King did not directly address November's decision, but insisted the asset purchase programme was still effective and that the Bank was also committed to keeping down inflation, which has been above its 2 percent target since December 2009.

DEBT TARGET SLIPPAGE

Weak growth has also bedevilled the government's flagship policy of eliminating the country's structural budget deficit within five years, and is making a secondary goal of putting total debt-to-GDP ration on a downward path by 2015 look increasingly unobtainable.

King - who has backed the policy in the past - said it might be "acceptable" for this debt target now to be missed.

Asked whether he was more relaxed now than before about Britain missing debt targets, he said: "If it's because the world economy has grown slowly and so we, in turn, have grown slowly then it would be acceptable to be in that position, yes."

"The plan did allow for the fact that if the economy were to grow slowly, then taxes would not rise as quickly and spending would be higher - so the deficit would be bigger," he added.

On financial regulation, King reiterated that he preferred the stricter rules proposed last year in an original government commission into banking to the laxer regulations now being considered, but that rapid implementation was his top priority.

On the Libor interest-rate fixing scandal that brought down the head of Barclays, Bob Diamond, King said several other banks had been involved too.

"The regulators will issue their reports in due course, and prosecutions may well emerge and I'm sure that large fines on banks will emerge. All this is deeply unsatisfactory," he said.

(Reporting by David Milliken and Matt Falloon; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/king-says-euro-zone-threatens-slow-uk-recovery-184148868.html

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Weight gain worry for stressed black girls: Stress and weight more strongly linked in black girls than white counterparts

ScienceDaily (Sep. 19, 2012) ? Could the impact of chronic stress explain why American black girls are more likely to be overweight than white girls? According to Dr. Tomiyama of the University of California, Los Angeles in the U.S., and her colleagues, higher levels of stress over 10 years predict greater increases in body weight over time in both black and white girls. However, the experience of chronic stress appears to have a greater negative effect on black girls' weight, which may explain racial disparities in obesity levels.

The work is published online in Springer's journal, Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

In the United States, the prevalence of obesity in black populations is 50 percent higher than in whites. This difference is apparent even in childhood, and particularly in female adolescents. In addition, ethnic minorities tend to experience greater psychological stress than whites due, in part, to perceived racial discrimination.

Tomiyama and team looked at whether the experience of chronic stress in young girls over a 10-year period might have an effect on Body Mass Index (BMI), a measure of obesity. They were also interested in whether this effect might be different in white and black teenage girls.

Using data from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's (NHLBI) Growth and Health Study, the researchers assessed the prevalence of obesity in 2,379 black and white girls beginning at age 10 and followed up for 10 years. They also looked at their experience of psychological stress over that time.

Over 10 years, more black girls were overweight or obese than white girls, who reported more stress than black girls. In addition, levels of chronic stress predicted greater weight in both groups. Even though black girls reported less stress overall, the effect of chronic stress on weight was stronger for these girls with one unit increase in stress leading to 0.8 BMI unit increase every two years. Comparatively, one unit of stress led to 0.55 BMI unit increase in white girls.

The authors conclude: "Our study documents a relationship between chronic perceived stress and BMI over a decade of growth in black and white girls. However, the relationship between perceived stress and BMI is stronger in black girls. Psychological stress may lead to weight gain through behavioral pathways, such as increased food consumption and sedentary lifestyles, but also directly through prolonged exposure to biological stress mediators such as cortisol."

Given how ubiquitous stress is, these findings raise the flag that stress may be playing a major role in the obesity epidemic as well as contributing to racial disparities.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Springer Science+Business Media.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. A. Janet Tomiyama, Eli Puterman, Elissa S. Epel, David H. Rehkopf, Barbara A. Laraia. Chronic Psychological Stress and Racial Disparities in Body Mass Index Change Between Black and White Girls Aged 10?19. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 2012; DOI: 10.1007/s12160-012-9398-x

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/mind_brain/mental_health/~3/ECX83vf5riE/120919125734.htm

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Romney Campaign Borrowed $20 Million

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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Difficult Relationships ? The Managers Hub

Nothing new here: managing involves handling some difficult relationships. Communicating effectively and balancing between reaching the other person and staying in your power is key. Often, difficult relationships have less to do with the content of a situation and more to do with personalities and emotions. Your communication strategy then, must reflect this.

Identify now a difficult relationship you have at work. What is your communication strategy with this person? It would behoove you to look beyond the work related aspects of the relationship (their position in the organization relative to yours, their responsibilities in your organization) to personal and emotional aspects of the relationship (the emotions they show at work that make the relationship difficult, the emotions you have about them, how you react to your interactions with them, the differences and similarities of your personalities). Get a fuller picture of what you are dealing with.

Once you have that picture, let your communication strategy reflect it, at the same time maintaining your own integrity and power in the relationship.

?

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This entry was posted in Communicating and tagged communication, difficult relationships, emotions, managing, personality.

Source: http://movingforward.net/blog/2012/09/difficult-relationships/

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Grow Your Own Mushroom Garden at Home ? Kam Family Blog

Posted: September 19, 2012 by Nathan Kam in Home Garden
Tags: back to the roots, Home gardening, mushrooms

20120919-062542.jpg

When my colleague offered me the chance to receive a free Back to the Roots mushroom kit, I couldn?t pass up the opportunity to grow some fungus at home. Now that the kit has arrived, we?re anxious to see how this thing works.

Over the next few weeks, stay tuned as we track the progress right here. The product claims to produce up to ?1.5 pounds of gourmet, tasty oyster mushrooms per box?harvest your first crop in as little as 10 days!?

Sounds good to me!

As we get this project started, it reminds me of a joke my buddy Regan used to tell. It was about his desire to open a venue in Honolulu called ?Club Mushroom.? You know, where the ladies can meet all the ?fungis? (fun guys) in town.

Okay, lame I admit, but oh so relevant for this post.

Stay tuned for updates as things progress.

-NGK

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Source: http://kamfamily.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/grow-your-own-mushroom-garden-at-home/

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Education Week: Urban Ed. Group Offers Management Tool

The Council of the Great City Schools, which represents 67 of the nation's urban school districts, is launching its first commercial venture by selling a management tool that allows district financial and information officers to track key performance indicators...

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Source: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/09/19/04brief-7.h32.html

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The New Meaning of ROI | Social Commerce Blog

ROI has a meaning in today?s market, it doesn?t only stand for return on investment for monetary tracking, but it also stands for return on impression. It has two principles that it goes by: a hard metric and a soft metric. These two values together are very powerful than just calculating marketing performance and this new ROI provides insight on engagement, objectives, and opportunity something the old ROI lacked.

The newest (soft) metric you can track is the impressions that are returned that people see your marketing material that you?ve launched. This type of advertising can be tracked by the number of times a person is displayed campaign material. If you?re running a type of campaign particularly PPC (Pay per Click Ads) this would be one of the easier ways to track that type of campaign.

Another soft metric that is new to ROI is a focal point on perceptions on branding. This type of metric measures the type of way how consumers look and perceive the brand. Some examples of this include talking to the brand, how consumers connect with the brand, and how consumers talk about the brand to other people. This kind of metric is vital with social networks being one of the vital ways to connect to consumers and develop a brand.

Another type of metric is that evaluated through ROI is called Return on Opportunity (ROO) which is measuring an opportunity through the evaluated time and money it presents. It basically means the return on the opportunity makes you evaluate the potential of your investments indirectly. This type of metric can be specifically being beneficial when marketing takes off on the web. This kind of opportunity may not be beneficial right now but the rewards later can be rewarding. It could lead to people sharing your content on the web or even by word of mouth (offline).

A different type of metric that is discussed within the new type of ROI is Return on Engagement (ROE) that uses the social web which measures your performance and shows how you are doing in building relationships, let it be sustaining them or creating them, with consumers. ROE can either make or break a brand with all the social engagements that are going on. A brand can be powerful by really sustaining and creating relationships with consumers. The soft metrics of ROE can be show why and how people are engaged with your brand.

Return on Objectives makes you accept that not all goals are calculated by data. For example some marketing efforts sometimes are just a way for a business to move in that right direction. When a business develops a plan for social media outlets let it be content over some time it should be moving closer to its goals. Remember return of objective and return of opportunity work well together.

Together all these metrics give you a better understanding on how marketing performance drive are carrying out rather than just investment offers alone.

Source: http://socialcommerceblog.socialannex.com/2012/09/17/the-new-meaning-of-roi/

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Space station crew lands safely after shortened mission

An American and two Russian astronauts landed safely in Kazakhstan after 123 days aboard the International Space Station. Is the Russian space program back on track?

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya,?Reuters / September 17, 2012

Ground personnel carry International Space Station (ISS) crew member U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba shortly after landing near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan Sept. 17, 2012. Acaba is one of three astronauts who returned to Earth.

(AP Photo/Shamil Zhumatov, pool)

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A Russian Soyuz capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe on Monday, delivering a trio of astronauts from a four-month stint on the International Space Station.

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The capsule, carrying U.S. astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, parachuted through a blue sky and touched down in a cloud of dust as its soft landing engines ignited at 8:53 local time (0253 GMT).

"Bull's eye landing," a NASA TV commentator said as the capsule lay on its side in the Kazakh steppe circled overhead by approaching search-and-recovery helicopters.

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Veteran mission commander Padalka, who has logged 711 days in orbit to make him the world's fourth most experienced astronaut, was the first out of the cramped descent capsule.

"I feel great," said Padalka, wrapped in a blue blanket, sipping hot tea and smiling, enjoying the balmy steppe air under the early morning sunlight as medical personnel wiped sweat from his brow.
"This was my fourth flight, and so it is nothing of the extraordinary already," he said, looking relaxed.

During his stay at the orbital station, Padalka conducted a six-hour spacewalk on Aug. 20 to relocate a crane, launch a small science satellite and install micrometeoroid shields on the space station's Zvezda command module.

He and fellow crew members Acaba and Revin were carried over to autograph the Soyuz, scorched black by re-entry, to be displayed in a Russian provincial museum.

The crew returned after spending 123 days in orbit aboard the International Space Station, a $100 billion research complex involving 15 countries and orbiting 240 miles (385 km) above Earth.

The mission was shorter than the usual six months after launch delays in order to ready a new spaceship to replace the initial Soyuz craft, which was cracked during pressure tests.

Moscow hopes Monday's smooth landing will help to ease concerns over relying solely on Russia to service the ISS following a string of recent mishaps in its space programme.

"Everything is to cheer today," Russian space agency chief Vladimir Popovkin told reporters at Mission Control in Moscow.
"Padalka, Revin and Acaba are feeling well, and they will all go home today."

Three other International Space Station crew members - veteran Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide - remain in orbit.

They are scheduled to be joined by another trio - Kevin Ford, Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin - due to blast off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next month.

That mission was scheduled to launch on October 15 but will be delayed by about a week due to a technical glitch with equipment aboard the Soyuz, Popovkin said.

"We've had a worry over one of the devices. We decided to change it, test it again and so the launch has been put off by one week," Popovkin said.

The Soviet Union put the first satellite and the first man in space, but Russia's space programme has suffered a series of humiliating set-backs in recent months that industry veterans blame on a decade of crimped budgets and a brain drain.

While none of the mishaps have threatened crews, they have raised worries over Russia's reliability, cost billions in satellite losses and dashed Moscow's dreams to end a more than two-decade absence from deep-space exploration.

Since the retirement of the U.S. space shuttles last year, the United States is dependent on Russia to fly astronauts at a costs to the nation of $60 million per person.

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(Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Robin Paxton, Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/aWda1VfFqXg/Space-station-crew-lands-safely-after-shortened-mission

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