Matthew Broderick Reprises His ?Ferris Bueller? Role 26 Years Later (VIDEO)

Matthew Broderick Reprises His “Ferris Bueller” Role 26 Years Later (VIDEO)

Actor Matthew Broderick, who 26 years ago played the adorable Ferris in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, has now returned to this role for a Super [...]

Matthew Broderick Reprises His “Ferris Bueller” Role 26 Years Later (VIDEO) Stupid Celebrities Gossip Stupid Celebrities Gossip News

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Obama uses tax proposals for his political message

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2011, file photo, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaks to reporters as Republican Senators emerge from a closed-door negotiation on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures, at the Capitol in Washington. Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama?s re-election campaign, but it?s a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress. "He?s got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - In this Dec. 16, 2011, file photo, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, speaks to reporters as Republican Senators emerge from a closed-door negotiation on the payroll tax cut extension and other measures, at the Capitol in Washington. Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama?s re-election campaign, but it?s a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress. "He?s got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Aiming tax increases at millionaires and companies that ship jobs abroad may help frame the fairness theme of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, but it's a plan that stands virtually no chance of passing Congress.

Republicans have enough votes in the GOP-run House, and almost certainly in the Democratic-controlled Senate, to kill Obama's proposals. They say his ideas would discourage investment and job creation and further hurt an already ailing economy.

"He's got to know that none of those things he proposed really have much of a chance of going through both houses of Congress," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

"I don't think he's intending on passing any laws this year," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. "He's in a campaign. That was his re-election speech."

The GOP's dismissiveness hardly matters to Obama and his Democratic allies.

After last year's hyper-partisanship bogged down routine business like financing the government and paying its debts, few expect much to move through Congress before November's election anyway ? especially not tax hikes that Republicans solidly reject.

"Even if there is little prospect of getting Republicans to agree with these proposals, they're important reference points for the public in identifying Obama as someone who's on their side," said Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin.

Obama offered his plans, with scant detail, in Tuesday's State of the Union address. He used the word "fair" seven times to describe tax increases aimed at groups the Occupy movement has branded as the "one percent" of Americans who are doing extremely well while the rest of society struggles.

The president proposed ending tax breaks for U.S. companies moving jobs or profits to foreign countries and creating a minimum tax on their overseas profits. He also suggested new tax breaks for businesses that move jobs back to the U.S., for domestic manufacturing and for companies that invest in towns that have suffered major job losses.

Getting most attention was his plan to tax incomes above $1 million annually at a rate of at least 30 percent. That's a sharp and convenient contrast with the 15 percent tax rate enjoyed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination, who earned about $21 million each of the past two years.

The proposals quickly became fodder for the GOP presidential contenders. Romney said the next day on CNBC's "Kudlow Report" that Obama's plan was "designed to come at me if I'm the nominee," and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said during last Thursday's presidential debate, "His proposal on taxes would make the economy worse."

Democrats immediately made clear that there will be Senate votes this year on the subject.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer, part of the Senate Democratic leadership, said he was relishing a push on "some kind of Romney rule, I mean Buffett rule." Obama has embraced a Buffett rule, named for billionaire Warren Buffett, who has cited the inequity of laws that let him pay a lower tax rate than his secretary.

Such proposals, along with any efforts to deny tax breaks to U.S. companies that outsource jobs and profits, would never get the 60 votes they would need to prevail in the Senate this year, let alone win approval from the GOP-run House.

"If the president has proposals that will help create jobs, we'll take a look," said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. "But tax hikes on small businesses will make it even harder for them to invest and grow."

Republicans say boosting taxes on millionaires would hurt many of the people who run small businesses and create jobs, a claim Democrats call exaggerated. The GOP and business groups also marshal their own fairness argument, calling it unjust and impractical to raise taxes on companies that set up operations overseas.

"They locate their facilities to be close to the customer," said Dorothy Coleman, vice president for tax policy for the National Association of Manufacturers. "That's a big concern for us, targeting multinational companies as if there is something wrong with doing business overseas."

Democrats challenge that argument as well, saying many pharmaceutical and high technology companies that set up shop abroad are drawn by lower labor costs and taxes and still sell the bulk of their products in the U.S.

Those disputes underscore a political climate so difficult that neither the House nor Senate seem likely to even try advancing pre-election legislation that each party calls their top tax priority: overhauling and simplifying the tax code.

Even so, Obama's tax proposals can also be read as an opening gambit in what looms as a titanic partisan struggle to be waged after the November elections, perhaps in a lame duck session of Congress in December.

Next January, broad tax cuts will expire that were enacted under President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003 and were temporarily renewed by Obama and Congress in 2010. At the same time, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts will kick in unless lawmakers vote otherwise.

Congress will also need to renew the government's authority to borrow money. And action will be needed on a package of expiring smaller tax cuts, mostly for businesses, and on preventing the alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at the wealthy, from trapping middle- and upper-middle-income families as well.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-30-Congress-Taxes/id-1f3612a7d1c74cbd934c3f0aaa3ef7e2

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At least?10 killed,?20 hurt?in Fla. highway pile-ups

GAINESVILLE, Fla.?? At least 10 people died in crashes overnight apparently caused by smoke from a fire along Interstate 75 in north Florida, authorities said Sunday.

Nine people were confirmed dead at the scene, and a 10th fatality was later reported. A local hospital was treating 20 people for injuries. Their conditions were unclear.

At least four to five large commercial vehicles and 10 passenger vehicles were involved. Many were badly mangled.

Reporters who were allowed to view the site saw one tractor-trailer that was burned down to its skeleton, charred pages of books and magazines in its cargo area. Bodies were still visible inside a burned-out Grand Prix. The rubber on the tires of every vehicle had burned away, leaving only steel belts.

State police estimated that wreckage was strewn for nearly a mile in both directions.

Steven Camps, 23, of Gainesville, said he and a friend had stopped due to the smoke and began talking to a man in the car stopped next to them, when another vehicle hit the man's car.

Camps said the man's vehicle was crushed under a semi-truck stopped in front of them. Camps said his car was hit twice, but he and his friend were able to jump out. They took cover in the grass on the shoulder of the road.

"You could hear cars hitting each other. People were crying. People were screaming. It was crazy," he said. "If I could give you an idea of what it looked like, I would say it looked like the end of world."

He said cars and trucks were on fire and they could hear explosions as the vehicles burned.

"It was happening on both sides of the road, so there was nowhere to go. It blew my mind," he said. "It was like a war zone. It literally looked like someone was picking up cars and throwing them."

"That's a very scary thing when you can't see anything and hear the squealing of tires and don't know if 2,000 pounds of metal is coming at you," The Gainesville Sun quoted Alachua County Sheriff's Sgt. Todd Kelly as saying.

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"We just hit it, and you couldn't see anything," added Donna Henry, who was driving with friends when her car hit a guardrail and ended up sideways.

From the side of the road she heard more crashes. "Like 15 times somebody hit, from this side and that, north and south. It was bad."

In one crash, a pickup truck was left sitting atop a passenger car and both were up against the rear end of a FedEx tractor-trailer. All vehicles were burned out.

The pile-ups, on both north- and southbound lanes, happened around 3:45 a.m. Sunday on both sides of I-75 south of Gainesville.

All lanes of the interstate remained closed as investigators began their work examining the vehicles, many of them just burned shells.

The Florida Highway Patrol had closed the highway briefly earlier overnight because of a mixture of fog and smoke from a marsh fire in the Paynes Prairie area south of Gainesville.

The agency had several troopers driving along the stretch of I-75 to access the situation early Sunday.

"When the visibility cleared, we reopened the road," said Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Patrick Riordan.

The fire was manmade and started on Saturday, police said. It was not known if it was accidentally or deliberately set.

Heavy fog and smoke were blamed for a deadly string of accidents four years ago. In January 2008, four people were killed and 38 injured similar crashes on Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa, about 125 miles south of Sunday's crash. More than 70 vehicles were involved in those crashes caused by fog and smoke, including one pile-up that involved 40 vehicles.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46181122/ns/us_news-life/

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Auschwitz survivor dies in Oswiecim on anniversary (AP)

WARSAW, Poland ? Kazimierz Smolen, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor who after World War II became director of the memorial site, died Friday on the 67th anniversary of its liberation.

Smolen died in a hospital in Oswiecim, the southern Polish town where Nazi Germany operated Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II, said Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum.

Friday is the anniversary of the camp's 1945 liberation by Soviet troops. Jan. 27 was designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations in 2005, and was marked with ceremonies across Europe.

Two years after the war ended, Auschwitz-Birkenau became a museum ? and Smolen himself served as its director from 1955-1990. He continued to live in the town after his retirement, often attending the memorial ceremonies marking the camp's liberation.

Sawicki said soon after Smolen's death the news was announced to Holocaust survivors commemorating the anniversary in Oswiecim. They fell silent for a minute in his honor.

Smolen was born on April 19, 1920, in the southern Polish town of Chorzow Stary. He was a Polish Catholic involved in the anti-Nazi resistance who was arrested by the Germans in April 1941 and taken to Auschwitz in one of the early shipments of prisoners there. He left the camp on the last transport of prisoners evacuated by the Germans on Jan. 18, 1945, nine days before its liberation. He later attributed his survival to good health and extreme luck.

He once explained his decision to return to the camp to manage it as a way of honoring those who were killed there.

"Sometimes when I think about it, I feel it may be some kind of sacrifice, some kind of obligation I have for having survived," he said.

In other gestures of remembrance, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg apologized for his nation's role in arresting and deporting Jews after it was invaded by Nazi Germany. During the war, 772 Norwegian Jews and Jewish refugees were deported to Germany. Only 34 survived.

He said it's time the nation acknowledges that politicians and other Norwegians took part and expressed "our deep regrets that this could have happened on Norwegian soil." He spoke at a ceremony in Oslo attended by the last surviving Jew in a group of 532 deported from Norway in 1942.

In Turkey, state television on Thursday broadcast the epic French documentary "Shoah," about the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime. It was the first time the film has been aired on public television in a predominantly Muslim country.

"It is a historical event," filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, 87, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home in Paris. "It is extremely important that it is being shown in a Muslim country."

Germany's Parliament also gathered Friday for a special sitting to remember the Holocaust.

Prominent survivor and literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki recalled how the Nazi SS informed members of the Warsaw ghetto's Jewish council in July 1942 of plans for the inhabitants' "resettlement" to the east.

Reich-Ranicki, 91, recounted how a "deathly silence" was followed by uproar. He said those present "seemed to sense what had happened: that the sentence had been pronounced for the biggest Jewish city in Europe. The death sentence."

The Nazis set up the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, cramming hundreds of thousands of Jews into inhuman conditions. Most who survived disease and starvation in the ghetto were transported to death camps.

___

Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_re_eu/eu_holocaust_remembrance_day

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Why Sports is Good Training for Entrepreneurs

By Cynthia Kocialski

I noticed that many successful entrepreneurs played sports. Does sports training matter to budding entrepreneurs? What skills do athletes learn that would benefit a new business owner and entrepreneur?

The Intent to Win

In sports, the link between progressing in a sport is directly related to your track record of winning. Athletes know that when they step on the playing field, they must have the intent to win and must live in the moment ? for the next few minutes or hours their world is only the game and what must be done to win it.

I see many young entrepreneurs that want to start the next Google or Amazon. They are very talented people, but they don?t have the intent to win. Many entrepreneurs believe it?s about effort. If they try hard and long enough then they will eventually succeed at their business. But that?s not true. Who hires an attorney who loses all his cases, but tried his best? Who engages a physician that never cures their patients of their ills? Find me an investor who will back an entrepreneur whose previous companies have all failed? Athletes understand the importance of a consistent level of excellence and winning.

Performance Under Pressure

Athletes learn to perform under pressure. While there is the pressure to get good grades in school, it?s not as intense as athletics. If you don?t do well in math, you may get a B or C for a grade, but you will still move to the next level. If you don?t do so well in a season you may never have the opportunity to play the sport again.

Even in practice, athletes are under pressure to perform. They have to jump so high or spin so fast by a certain date, or their lack of progress becomes detrimental. If a sports coach knows an athlete is capable of doing something, but just can?t get it, there will be no sympathy from the coach. The coach will push the athlete to perform.

In order for a company to grow, it must bring in sales so it can pay the staff and reinvest for the future. Without that external pressure to perform, companies remain marginal.? In sports, there?s the coach. In a business, it?s the mentors, advisors, businesses coaches, and shareholders that can provide the accountability necessary to push the company to succeed.

Every Sport Is a Team Sport

Your team matters. Even for individual athletes like Apolo Ono, Michelle Kwan, or Shaun White, it?s still about the team hidden behind the curtain. Athletes learn to build the team that can get them the best overall performance.

I see this with new start-up companies. More often than not, the team is a random collection of individuals. Or the team is lopsided with half the functional areas empty and the other half overstaffed. Seriously, what would happen if the offensive team on a football team fielded 5 quarterbacks on the field but no wide receivers? Learning how to evaluate who you need on your team and how to build an effective team is imperative for a business because no company has reached great heights without a team of employees.

This is important for those solo entrepreneurs or fledgling businesses to learn because it?s easy to become overwhelmed and distracted with mundane work that?s necessary, but doesn?t help reach the end objective.? They shouldn?t spend their time on the most impactful tasks and leave the rest for a new employee or outsource the work.

Knowing and Learning from the Competition

Athletes are more than just aware of their competitors. They study and analyze them. They learn from them. Athletes know their competitors? strengths and weakness. Athletes also know how their abilities compare to their competitors.

Entrepreneurs perform a competitive analysis of their industry or market. They focus on what their competitors? weaknesses are. However, the usually neglect to study their competitors? strengths as thoroughly. And rarely do start-ups look at themselves through the eyes of their competitors. If they were sitting in a competitive analysis meeting held in their competitors? offices, what would the competitors be saying about their start-up?

Performance Reviews

One comment I hear from athletes is how American corporations manage to compete with their performance review systems is mystifying. In athletics, the athlete gets daily feedback from their coaches on how they are doing and what they need to improve. This allows the athlete to improve faster. In corporations, employees are given annual or semi-annual performance reviews.? How far would our athletes go if their coaches only told them how they were doing every six or twelve months? Not far, I bet.

Finding the Right Goal

There have been many athletes that started in one sport, only to abandon it and reach great success in another. Most athletes are physically adept; they can play or do most sports well. Succeeding is more than just ?doing well?. It?s though the act of competing and allowing themselves to be compared to others ? both good and bad ? that stops them from blindly pursing a goal without it necessarily being the right goal.

Here?s a way this gets translated in entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur starts a company with a product concept. First misstep is when the entrepreneur squirrels the team away, develops the product in isolation, and launches the product, only to find out that 7 billion people in the world don?t care at all. The start-up waited too long before ?competing? for the customers? attention and budget.

The second problem is when the start-up pursues the product concept and business model to the bitter end, never changing what they are doing. They are doing something well, but not well enough to thrive and succeed. Studies show successful start-ups change course 1 to 2 times before finding the right product and business model. In this case, the entrepreneur doggedly pursues the original goal, assuming the goal is correct.

Investors talk about their portfolio companies and they will say, ?It?s not going well. The team is not bold enough or aggressive enough to win in the marketplace.? You must know how to think, not just what to think. Competitive environments aren?t stable, they?re dynamic and you have to be able to function and adapt in ambiguous situations, and do so by a deadline.

Sports Psychology

Athletes are trained to visual the goal. There are no obstacles between them and their objective. They are also trained to look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and ask, ?What am I going to accomplish today?? It?s not a matter of they ?want? or ?can? do something. It?s a much stronger thought psychologically; it?s they ?will? do something.

Cynthia Kocialski is the founder of three tech start-ups companies. In the past 15 years, she has been involved in dozens of start-ups. Cynthia writes the Start-up Entrepreneurs? Blog www.cynthiakocialski.com. Cynthia has written the book, ?Out of the Classroom Lessons in Success: How to Prosper Without Being at the Top of the Class.? The book serves up tips, insight, and wisdom to enable young adults and parents of kids to know what it will take to forge a successful career, no matter what their academic achievement.

Tags: Business, Cynthia Kocialski, Entrepreneurs, Sports Training, Success, The Work at Home Woman

Source: http://www.theworkathomewoman.com/sports-good-training-entrepreneurs/

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Senegal's president cleared to run for 3rd term (AP)

DAKAR, Senegal ? Senegal's highest court ruled Friday the country's increasingly frail, 85-year-old president could run for a third term in next month's election, a deep blow to the country's opposition, which has vowed to take to the streets if the aging leader does not step aside.

Minutes after the court's verdict, police opened fire with tear gas to disperse hundreds of young men who had gathered at a downtown roundabout. Protesters hid in side streets and in groups of five and six ran back out to lob rocks at the security forces.

The protests spread throughout the capital as demonstrators dragged wooden market tables into intersections and set them on fire. In the provincial capital of Kaolack, a mob set fire to the ruling party's headquarters, and in Thies, angry youths blocked the national highway, according to a private radio station.

The legality of President Abdoulaye Wade's candidacy is bitterly disputed because the constitution was revised soon after he assumed office in 2000 to impose a two-term limit. Wade argues the new law should not apply to him since he was elected before it took effect.

The court deliberated behind closed doors for hours before emerging and issuing a list of 14 approved candidates, including Wade. Senegalese pop star Youssou Ndour, arguably Africa's most famous musician, was not on the list ? another blow to the opposition, which had hoped that Ndour's candidacy would shine an international spotlight on the race.

"The fact that my candidacy was deemed unacceptable is a political matter. Those in power are afraid of me," said the Grammy-winning Ndour on the private TV station he owns. "I will not let go of this because when I decide to do something I do it all the way. This Saturday, I will draft an appeal."

Since early afternoon, hundreds of youths carrying cardboard signs calling for Wade's departure milled around a downtown square, where they vowed to spend the night in protest if the court approved the leader's candidacy.

Police wearing fiberglass helmets took up positions at strategic intersections in the capital. Businesses sent their employees home. Schools sent notes to parents asking them to pick up their children early.

A lawyer by training with multiple degrees from universities in France, Wade spent 25 years as the country's opposition leader. He ran and lost in four elections before his victory 11 years ago in an election hailed as a breakthrough for democracy on a continent better known for strongman rule. Former President Abdou Diouf stunned the world by calling Wade to concede defeat, a gesture unheard of in the region. Now many are wondering if Wade himself will step aside gracefully.

Since taking office, he has come under mounting criticism, first for delegating an increasing share of power to his son, as well as for the corruption scandals that have overshadowed his administration's achievements, including the building of numerous roads and bridges.

After winning a second term in 2007, Wade told reporters he would not seek a third term. He then reversed course, arguing that the term limits were imposed after he was elected, and that no law can be applied retroactively.

"I'm a lawyer too. And the constitution, it's me that revised it. All by myself. ... No one can interpret it better than me," Wade told the news portal Dakaractu.Com in an interview this week. "I was elected in 2000 on the basis of a law dating from 1963. After I was elected, I saw to it that a new constitution was adopted. Everyone knows that a law dictates the present and the future, but it cannot be retroactive."

Hours after the court's ruling, Wade addressed the nation. "Let us stop with this display of bad temper which leads to nothing," he said according to the state-owned news agency. "I did not ask for anything except the law. And the law is what was expressed."

Senegal is considered one of the most mature democracies in Africa, and unlike many of its neighbors, its democratic tradition dates to even before independence from France 51 years ago. Starting in the mid-1800s, France allowed its colony to elect a deputy who served in the French parliament.

And in his official biography, Wade traces his roots to the Cayor kingdom located in Senegal's central plains, where kings were elected by a committee of elders rather than through a hereditary system common in many other parts of Africa.

"What shocks people is that he would try to run for a third term," said the country's leading investigative journalist Abdou Latif Coulibaly, the editor-in-chief of The Gazette magazine who voted for Wade in 2000 but who is now supporting the opposition. "It's the problem of his age. It's the problem of the constitution. And to be frank, people are very scared that he will try to hand power to his son ? which is something that the population does not want at all."

Hours before the court was due to release its verdict, Pape Sy circled the city looking for an open gas station. For three days, a fuel strike had closed down gas stations, adding yet another point of applied pressure. Finally in the Medina neighborhood of the capital, he pulled in behind the 13 other cars lined up head-to-toe at a Total station, which had just reopened. His gasoline gauge had already dipped below 0.

"Things don't smell good," he said, summing up the mood in the capital. "There are economic problems, and these other issues are attaching themselves onto that like pieces of Scotch tape. People want change. ... To me this really feels like the end of a reign."

Unlike nearly all its neighbors, Senegal does not have history of violent demonstrations, or of military intervention in state affairs. The country was shaken, however, by the riots that shut down the capital last summer when Wade's party attempted to rush a law through parliament that would have created the post of vice president, a move that critics said was an attempt to create a mechanism of succession through which Wade could pass power to his son.

At Place de l'Obelisque, hundreds of youths gathered to protest before the court's decision, saying they planned to turn it into the equivalent of Egypt's Tahrir Square if the five judges presiding over the constitutional court validate Wade's candidacy.

"Everyone knows that Wade's candidacy is anti-constitutional. The court must play the role of referee," said 34-year-old Ibrahima Diop, who like many in the square is unemployed. "We placed a lot of hope in Abdoulaye Wade. He let us down. We deserve better."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120128/ap_on_re_af/af_senegal_election

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'Invisibility cloak' breakthrough

25 January 2012 Last updated at 22:25 ET By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Researchers have "cloaked" a three-dimensional object, making it invisible from all angles, for the first time.

However, the demonstration works only for waves in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

It uses a shell of what are known as plasmonic materials; they present a "photo negative" of the object being cloaked, effectively cancelling it out.

The idea, outlined in New Journal of Physics, could find first application in high-resolution microscopes.

Most of the high-profile invisibility cloaking efforts have focused on the engineering of "metamaterials" - modifying materials to have properties that cannot be found in nature.

The modifications allow metamaterials to guide and channel light in unusual ways - specifically, to make the light rays arrive as if they had not passed over or been reflected by a cloaked object.

Previous efforts that have made 3-D objects disappear have relied upon a "carpet cloak" idea, in which the object to be cloaked is overlaid with a "carpet" of metamaterial that bends light so as to make the object invisible.

Now, Andrea Alu and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have pulled off the trick in "free space", making an 18cm-long cylinder invisible to incoming microwave light.

Negative effects

Light of all types can be described in terms of electric and magnetic fields, and what gives an object its appearance is the way its constituent atoms absorb, transmit or reflect those fields.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

If I had to bet in five years what kind of cloaking technique might be used for applications, then I would say plasmonic cloaking?

End Quote Andrea Alu University of Texas at Austin

Prior metamaterial approaches sidestep these effects simply by channelling light around an object, using carefully designed structures that bounce light in prescribed way, like a pinball machine.

By contrast, plasmonic materials can be designed to have effects on the fields that are precisely opposed to those of the object.

"What we do is different; we realise a shell that scatters [light] by itself, but the interesting point is that if you combine the shell with the object inside, the two counter out and the object becomes completely invisible," Prof Alu told BBC News.

The plasmonic material shell is, in essence, a photo-negative of the object being cloaked.

As a result, the cloak has to be tailored to work for a given object. If one were to swap different objects within the same cloak, they would not be as effectively hidden.

But the success with the cylinder suggests further work with different wavelengths of light is worth pursuing: "It's a real object standing in our lab, and it basically disappears," Prof Alu said.

However, the idea is unlikely to work at the visible light part of the spectrum.

Prof Alu explained that the approach could be applied to the tips of scanning microscopes - the most high-resolution microscopes science has - to yield an improved view of even smaller wavelengths of light.

Ortwin Hess, professor of metamaterials at Imperial College London, said the work was a "very nice verification that this approach works".

"There are some limits on where these things can be applied, but nevertheless it's really, really interesting and fundamental indeed," he told BBC News.

Prof Hess explained that for future applications, plasmonic materials could be combined with the structured metamaterials idea already in development elsewhere. Light can be channelled where it needs to go, or its effects undone, as need be.

Cloaking in visible light, hiding more complex shapes and materials - that is, a cloak of Harry Potter qualities - remains distant, but Prof Alu pointed out that the steps in the meantime will be put to use.

"There is still a lot of work to do," he said. "Our goal was just to show this plasmonic technique can reduce scattering from an object in free space.

"But if I had to bet in five years what kind of cloaking technique might be used for applications, for practical purposes, then I would say plasmonic cloaking is a good bet."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-16726609

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Russia to keep blocking UN sanctions on Syria (AP)

MOSCOW ? Russia will stonewall any U.N. sanctions on Syria and will push for a quick start of talks between the Syrian government and the country's opposition, the Russian foreign minister said Wednesday.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would block any attempts to get the U.N. approval for sanctions against Syria that have been imposed by other nations, saying that such a move would be "unfair and counterproductive."

The U.S., the European Union, the Arab League and Turkey all have introduced sanctions against Damascus in response to Syrian President Bashar Assad's violent crackdown on opponents. The uprising has left more than 5,400 people dead, according to the U.N. estimates.

The U.N. Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution since the violence began in March because of a strong opposition from Russia and China.

Lavrov said Russia's own draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution on the violence in Syria, which circulated earlier this month, remains on the table, and that Moscow was open for any "constructive proposals." Western diplomats said the Russian proposal fell short of their demand for a strong condemnation of the Syrian regime's crackdown on civilians.

But Lavrov reaffirmed that any U.N. resolution must say clearly it "couldn't be interpreted to justify any foreign military interference in the Syrian crisis."

"We believe that our approach is fair and well-balanced, unlike the attempts to pass one-sided resolutions that would condemn only one party and, by doing so, encourage another one to build up confrontation and take an uncompromising stance," Lavrov said after the talks in Moscow with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "We have seen that in Libya, and we will not allow the repetition of the Libyan scenario."

Russia abstained in the U.N. vote authorizing military intervention in Libya, but harshly criticized NATO for what it saw as an excessive use of force and civilian casualties during the NATO bombing campaign against strongman Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

Rebels in Libya eventually succeeded in overthrowing Gadhafi but they had enormous military support from the security alliance. NATO jets flew 26,000 sorties, including 9,600 strike missions, against Libya in 2011, destroying about 5,900 Libyan government military targets in a nine-month campaign.

Russian officials have strongly warned the West against emulating the Libyan experience in Syria.

Lavrov called for a quick start of talks between the Syrian government and the opposition, suggesting they could be hosted by Egypt, the Arab League, Turkey or Russia.

Asked about the Arab League's call Sunday for a unity government in Syria in two months, Lavrov said Russia believes that the talks between the Syrian government and the opposition should start without any preconditions.

"We proceed from the assumption that all participants in such dialogue would seek to reach accord and show responsibility for the fate of the country and its people," he said.

Russia has been a strong ally of Syria since Soviet times, when Syria was led by the president's father, Hafez Assad. It has supplied Syria with aircraft, missiles, tanks and other heavy weapons. The 27-nation EU, in contrast, has imposed an arms embargo against Syria.

In December, a Russian ship allegedly carrying tons of weapons made a dash for Syria after telling Cypriot officials it was heading to Turkey. Turkish officials said the ship went instead to the Syrian port of Tartus, which Russian warships use as a resupply stop.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_syria

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AT&T's proposed spectrum transfer mapped out in T-Mobile magenta

Wondering what AT&T's proposed spectrum transfer would mean for T-Mobile? Check out the above graphic, from GigaOM. Created by a reader named Andrew Shepherd, this map displays which regional coverage T-Mobile will gain from the transfer, which was submitted to the FCC this week following the companies' failed merger. As you can see, AT&T is poised to sacrifice some of its AWS spectrum in some key markets, including Boston, Seattle and the Bay Area. According to Shepherd, however, the carrier only gave up enough AWS spectrum in areas where it had enough 700MHz capacity to fill the gap, without posing too great a risk to its LTE expansion. For a closer look, check out the source link below.

AT&T's proposed spectrum transfer mapped out in T-Mobile magenta originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/uoZfbdNWqOQ/

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Sony reminds Japan that Walkmans still exist, new E series packs built-in noise cancellation

The latest addition Walkman series continues the petite styling we've seen over the years, and Sony's cheerleading that it's both thinner (9.1mm) and lighter (37g) than its predecessor. The E-series includes a 1.4-inch colour LCD display, while we're promised at around 30 hours of music playback per charge. Alongside the standard NW-E060 model (9,000 yen, $116) the NW-E060K (11,000 yen, $142) throws in a plug-in speaker. Both models offer noise-cancelling features and promise to cut surrounding noise by around 98 percent, with train, flight and indoor modes hopefully able to absorb most audio irritations.

The new music players are joined by a pair of new docks. The RDP-NWG400B (13,000 yen, $181) can connect to devices through Bluetooth, while the RDP-NWM7 (8,000 yen, $140) wants to take your music outside, bigging up the built-in handle for that very reason. Both are available now in white and black. No news on whether the player refreshes and docks will travel beyond the Land of the Rising Sun, but we'd imagine it's pretty likely. Check out the docks after the break and get the whole (Google-translated) picture at the source below.

Continue reading Sony reminds Japan that Walkmans still exist, new E series packs built-in noise cancellation

Sony reminds Japan that Walkmans still exist, new E series packs built-in noise cancellation originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/24/sony-reminds-japan-that-walkmans-still-exists-new-e-series-pack/

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Public memorial set for Joe Paterno at Penn State

The flag in front of Old Main on the Penn State University campus is lowered to half-staff on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa., in honor of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

The flag in front of Old Main on the Penn State University campus is lowered to half-staff on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa., in honor of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A mural is shown on the side of a student bookstore with a likeness of legendary Penn State coach Joe Paterno on it wearing a halo that was added, Monday, Jan 23, 2012 in State College, Pa.. Paterno, a sainted figure at Penn State for almost half a century but scarred forever by the scandal involving his one-time heir apparent, died Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 in State College. He was 85. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

A newspaper with the headline re-written, is left in remembrance around a statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Margaret Bigham, left, and Jake Bigham, from near Charleston, S.C., pause ion remembrance around a statue of Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, outside Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Samantha Maceil of Pittsburgh, places a Bear Bryant style hat on a statue of legendary former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday at age 85, less than three months after being diagnosed with lung cancer. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? Joe Paterno's family said Monday the legendary football coach will get a two-day viewing and a public memorial this week on the Penn State campus, two months after the university summarily fired him over the phone.

The family gave no details on who might be invited or asked to speak at the memorial Thursday at the basketball arena, which can hold 16,000 people. Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said the specifics were still being worked out with the Paternos.

But many alumni and students say Paterno was treated shabbily by the Board of Trustees in November, and trustees and other members of the administration might not be made to feel welcome at the memorial for the 85-year-old coach, who died Sunday of lung cancer.

"I don't think it's going to be heavily laden with administration and trustees," said trustee Linda Strumpf, who lives in New York and will not attend. "This is something the family is putting together and not the university. I don't think the university wants to be in a position to tell them what a memorial service looks like."

But trustee Al Clemens said he will be there to honor a man he described as a good friend.

"This is really a family thing, and so we're just going to go as individuals," Clemens said. "Joe's a great guy. No matter was the situation was in the last two months, it doesn't take away from what he's done through history for so many people. He's just been tremendous."

The viewing will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at a campus spiritual center, followed by a private funeral Wednesday afternoon. The public memorial will be at the Jordan Center and is expected to draw thousands.

Michael Day, a 1973 Penn State graduate from Hagerstown, Md., whose father taught there and whose four children all have Penn State degrees, said the trustees were wrong to fire Paterno and he believes they will ultimately be replaced. He said he hopes they don't attend.

"I think the Penn State community is separate from the Penn State Board of Trustees," he said. "The Board of Trustees has separated itself from the Penn State community, and the Penn State community loves Joe Paterno and always will. So it's appropriate for the Penn State community to honor Joe Paterno in this service."

Paterno was fired Nov. 9 after he was criticized over his handling of child sex-abuse allegations leveled against former assistant Jerry Sandusky in 2002. Pennsylvania's state police commissioner said that in not going to the police, Paterno may have met his legal duty but not his moral one.

Bitterness over Paterno's removal has turned up in many forms, from online postings to a note placed next to Paterno's statue at the football stadium blaming the trustees for his death. A newspaper headline that read "FIRED" was crossed out and made to read, "Killed by Trustees." Lanny Davis, lawyer for the board, said threats have been made against the trustees.

Janice Hume, a journalism professor at the University of Georgia, said that staging an appropriate memorial creates a dilemma similar to the one faced by Paterno's obituary writers: how to address the scandal without letting it negate his entire career.

"I think it's probably very difficult to strike the right balance," she said.

Clemens said the board will later consider more lasting tributes to Paterno, including scholarships in his name. Because of his generosity to the school, his family name is already on the library and a spiritual center.

There has also been a movement over the past few years to change the name of Beaver Stadium, the football team's home field, to Joe Paterno Field at Beaver Stadium, and on Monday the man behind it, Warren W. Armstrong, a 1960 graduate and retired Allentown advertising executive, said he would renew his efforts. Some are suggesting renaming the street leading to the stadium Paterno Way.

A family spokesman said the Paternos' focus this week is on the viewing and funeral plans and they do want to weigh in on any ideas for a permanent memorial right now. But "I would say the family would welcome a conversation on that," Dan McGinn said.

___

AP writers Kathy Matheson and Patrick Mairs in Philadelphia and Michael Rubinkam in Allentown contributed to this story.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-23-FBC-Paterno-Services/id-45aa65fe12764046a04fbf98b0cb76d8

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Hat trick

/

updated 2:17 p.m. ET Jan. 21, 2012

LONDON - Clint Dempsey became the first American to score a hat trick in England's Premier League, helping Fulham rally from a halftime deficit to rout Newcastle 5-2 Saturday.

Dempsey put Fulham ahead 2-1 in the 59th minute with his 50th goal for the Cottagers, bundling in from 3 yards after Bobby Zamora's shot rebounded off goalkeeper Tim Krul.

He got his second in the 65th, slotting in a right-footed from 10 yards from Zamora's pass on a counterattack. Dempsey completed the scoring from Zamora's looping through pass in the 89th, splitting two defenders, heading the ball down to himself and taking two touches before a right-footed shot from 12 yards.

"We never found our rhythm in the first half but we began to get into their penalty area in the second half," Dempsey said. "Luckily the ball kept going in. We never took our foot off the gas and we took our chances."

Dempsey, a 28-year-old from Nacogdoches, Texas, has a career-best 15 goals this season, including nine in the Premier League. He had scored his first hat trick in England on Jan. 7 against Charlton in the third round of the FA Cup.

Fulham acquired him from Major League Soccer's New England Revolution in January 2007. On Friday, he was voted the U.S. Soccer Federation's male athlete for 2011, the second time he won the honor.

"Clint Dempsey is our top scorer," Fulham manager Martin Jol said. "He is doing what he does best. Clint scores goals."

Danny Murphy and Zamora converted penalty kicks for Fulham. Danny Guthrie put Newcastle ahead in the first half, and Hatem Ben Arfa cut the deficit to 4-2 in the 85th.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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??Manchester City scored a dramatic 3-2 victory over Tottenham on Sunday, leaving Manchester United its only likely rival for the Premier League title.

Mike Hewitt / Getty Images

Hat trick

Clint Dempsey became the first American to score a hat trick in England's Premier League, helping Fulham rally from a halftime deficit to rout Newcastle 5-2 Saturday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46083051/ns/sports-soccer/

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Pew: Tablet, e-reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season

The number crunchers over at the Pew Research Center have released another batch of market statistics today, this time, with a focus on tablets. According to the Center's latest survey, 19 percent of all adult Americans now own some form of tablet, marking a nearly twofold increase over figures from a poll conducted in mid-December. E-reader ownership, meanwhile, increased by exactly the same margin over this period, jumping from 10 percent to 19 percent. These numbers also signal a healthy acceleration from the middle of this year, when the slate and reader markets apparently stagnated, ahead of the holiday shopping rush. Overall, about 28 percent of US adults own either a tablet or an e-reader, up from 19 percent last month. You can find more stats and breakdowns at the source link below.

Pew: Tablet, e-reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/23/pew-tablet-e-reader-ownership-nearly-doubled-over-the-holiday/

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Greek debt restructuring nearly finished. Again. (Americablog)

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Beijing caves to public, releases pollution data

BEIJING?? Caving to public pressure, Beijing environmental authorities started releasing more detailed air quality data Saturday that may better reflect how bad the Chinese capital's air pollution is.

The initial measurements were low on a day where you could see blue sky. After a week of smothering smog, the skies over the city were being cleared by a north wind.

The readings of PM2.5 ? particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size or about 1/30th the average width of a human hair ? were being posted on Beijing's environmental monitoring center's website. Such small particulates can penetrate deep into the lungs, so measuring them is considered a more accurate reflection of air quality than other methods.

It is the first time Beijing has publicly revealed PM2.5 data and follows a clamor of calls by citizens on social networking sites tired of breathing in gray and yellow air. The U.S. Embassy measures PM2.5 from a device on its rooftop and releases the results, and some residents have even tested the air around their neighborhoods and posted the results online.

Beijing is releasing hourly readings of PM2.5 that are taken from one monitoring site about 4 miles west of Tiananmen Square, the monitoring center's website said Saturday. It said the data was for research purposes and the public should only use it as a reference.

The reading at noon Saturday was 0.015 mg/m3, which would be classed as "good" for a 24-hour exposure at that level, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. The U.S. Embassy reading taken from its site on the eastern edge of downtown Beijing said its noon reading was "moderate."

The U.S. Embassy began publishing its hourly readings on Twitter in 2008.

'Already a bit suspicious'
Steven Andrews, an environmental consultant who has studied Beijing's pollution data since 2006, said he was "already a bit suspicious" of Beijing's PM2.5 data. Within the 24-hour period to noon Saturday, Beijing reported seven hourly figures "at the very low level" of 0.003 milligrams per cubic meter.

"In all of 2010 and 2011, the U.S. Embassy reported values at or below that level only 18 times out of over 15,000 hourly values or about 0.1 percent of the time," said Andrews. "PM2.5 concentrations vary by area so a direct comparison between sites isn't possible, but the numbers being reported during some hours seem surpisingly low."

The Beijing center had promised to release PM2.5 data by the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year on Monday. It has six sites that can test for PM2.5 and 27 that can test for the larger, coarser PM10 particles that are considered less hazardous. The center is expected to buy equipment and build more monitoring sites to enable PM2.5 testing.

Beijing wasn't expected to include PM2.5 in its daily roundups of the air quality anytime soon. Those disclosures, for example "light" or "serious," are based on the amount of PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air.

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Video: Persistent smog blankets China (on this page)

Beijing interprets air quality using less stringent standards than the U.S. Embassy, so often when the government says pollution is "light," the embassy terms it "hazardous."

"There has been tremendous amounts of attention in the Chinese media ? whichever newspaper you pick up, whichever radio station you listen to, channel you watch ? they are all talking about PM2.5 and how levels are so high," said Andrews.

"What has been so powerful is that people are skeptical, and I think rightly skeptical," about the government's descriptions of data, he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46080896/ns/world_news-asia_pacific/

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Sony Ericsson takes a loss in Q4 2011 results

Sony Ericsson's financials for Q4 2011 were announced today, and they look pretty rough. They lost 207 million Euros in the quarter (roughly $270 million), and 247 million Euros for the full year. They attribute the loss to "intense competition, price erosion and restructuring charges," or in other words, moving everything into Sony's offices as part of the acquisition. Apparently a natural disaster in Thailand also screwed up their manufacturing processes last quarter. On the plus side, SE's shift from feature phones to smartphones has yielded a 65 percent increase in Xperia sales since last year. Of course, since they're only doing smartphones now, they've shipped 20 percent fewer phones overall since last year.

Sony Ericsson had some nice gear to show off at CES, and with Sony controlling everything from here on in, maybe the production process will be a bit more streamlined. The original Xperia X10 was a bit of a bumpy start for Sony Ericsson's Android foray, and since then they've been slightly behind the curve on specs, but I've been a big fan of most of their software customizations, and some of their hardware has some really distinctive style in a sea of samey smartphones. Here's hoping Sony can hold onto that and make the Xperia family properly competitive. 

Source: Sony Ericsson

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/l_7KMr5fOfE/story01.htm

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