Zoom Raises $6M Series A, Launches Version 1.0 Of Its Radically Different Virtual Conferencing Tool

Zoom, a startup founded by WebEx and Cisco veterans that wanted to make high quality video conferencing and virtual meetings accessible to everyone, instead of just those with the budgets to invest in expensive hardware and even more expensive software, today announced a new $6 million Series A round of funding, supplied by Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, WebEx founder Subrah Iyar and former Cisco SVP and General Counsel Dan Scheinman.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/-4QZq-2uNrM/

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2-D electronic devices, may be possible: Fine patterns made with single-atom-thick graphene and boron nitride

Jan. 27, 2013 ? Rice University scientists have taken an important step toward the creation of two-dimensional electronics with a process to make patterns in atom-thick layers that combine a conductor and an insulator.

The materials at play -- graphene and hexagonal boron nitride -- have been merged into sheets and built into a variety of patterns at nanoscale dimensions.

Rice introduced a technique to stitch the identically structured materials together nearly three years ago. Since then, the idea has received a lot of attention from researchers interested in the prospect of building 2-D, atomic-layer circuits, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan. He is one of the authors of the new work that appears this week in Nature Nanotechnology. In particular, Ajayan noted that Cornell University scientists reported an advance late last year on the art of making atomic-layer heterostructures through sequential growth schemes.

This week's contribution by Rice offers manufacturers the possibility of shrinking electronic devices into even smaller packages. While Rice's technical capabilities limited features to a resolution of about 100 nanometers, the only real limits are those defined by modern lithographic techniques, according to the researchers. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.)

"It should be possible to make fully functional devices with circuits 30, even 20 nanometers wide, all in two dimensions," said Rice researcher Jun Lou, a co-author of the new paper. That would make circuits on about the same scale as in current semiconductor fabrication, he said.

Graphene has been touted as a wonder material since its discovery in the last decade. Even at one atom thick, the hexagonal array of carbon atoms has proven its potential as a fascinating electronic material. But to build a working device, conductors alone will not do. Graphene-based electronics require similar, compatible 2-D materials for other components, and researchers have found hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) works nicely as an insulator.

H-BN looks like graphene, with the same chicken-wire atomic array. The earlier work at Rice showed that merging graphene and h-BN via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) created sheets with pools of the two that afforded some control of the material's electronic properties. Ajayan said at the time that the creation offered "a great playground for materials scientists."

He has since concluded that the area of two-dimensional materials beyond graphene "has grown significantly and will play out as one of the key exciting materials in the near future."

His prediction bears fruit in the new work, in which finely detailed patterns of graphene are laced into gaps created in sheets of h-BN. Combs, bars, concentric rings and even microscopic Rice Owls were laid down through a lithographic process. The interface between elements, seen clearly in scanning transmission electron microscope images taken at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, shows a razor-sharp transition from graphene to h-BN along a subnanometer line.

"This is not a simple quilt," Lou said. "It's very precisely engineered. We can control the domain sizes and the domain shapes, both of which are necessary to make electronic devices."

The new technique also began with CVD. Lead author Zheng Liu, a Rice research scientist, and his colleagues first laid down a sheet of h-BN. Laser-cut photoresistant masks were placed over the h-BN, and exposed material was etched away with argon gas. (A focused ion beam system was later used to create even finer patterns, down to 100-nanometer resolution, without masks.) After the masks were washed away, graphene was grown via CVD in the open spaces, where it bonded edge-to-edge with the h-BN. The hybrid layer could then be picked up and placed on any substrate.

While there's much work ahead to characterize the atomic bonds where graphene and h-BN domains meet and to analyze potential defects along the boundaries, Liu's electrical measurements proved the components' qualities remain intact.

"One important thing Zheng showed is that even by doing all kinds of growth, then etching, then regrowth, the intrinsic properties of these two materials are not affected," Lou said. "Insulators stay insulators; they're not doped by the carbon. And the graphene still looks very good. That's important, because we want to be sure what we're growing is exactly what we want."

Liu said the next step is to place a third element, a semiconductor, into the 2-D fabric. "We're trying very hard to integrate this into the platform," he said. "If we can do that, we can build truly integrated in-plane devices." That would give new options to manufacturers toying with the idea of flexible electronics, he said.

"The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate the general process," Lou added. "It's robust, it's repeatable and it creates materials with very nice properties and with dimensions that are at the limit of what is possible."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Rice University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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

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Journal Reference:

1. C. Drexler, S. A. Tarasenko, P. Olbrich, J. Karch, M. Hirmer, F. M?ller, M. Gmitra, J. Fabian, R. Yakimova, S. Lara-Avila, S. Kubatkin, M. Wang, R. Vajtai, P. M. Ajayan, J. Kono, S. D. Ganichev. Magnetic quantum ratchet effect in graphene. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2012.231

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/Z5aTSo83LOQ/130127134208.htm

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Apple steps up labor audits, finds underage workers

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc stepped up audits of working conditions at major suppliers last year, discovering multiple cases of underage workers, discrimination and wage problems.

The iPhone and iPad maker, which relies heavily on Asian-based partners like Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group to assemble the vast majority of its iPhones and iPads, said on Thursday it conducted 393 audits, up 72 percent from 2011, reviewing sites where over 1.5 million workers make its gadgets.

Apple in recent years has faced accusations of building its profits on the backs of poorly treated and severely underpaid workers in China.

That criticism came to the fore around 2010, after reports of suicides at Foxconn drew attention to the long hours that migrant laborers frequently endure, often for a pittance in wages and in severely cramped living conditions.

Foxconn is the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry and employs 1.2 million workers across China.

Under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, Apple has taken new steps to improve its record and boost transparency, including the extensive audits of its sprawling supply chain. Last year, it agreed to separate audits by the independent Fair Labor Association.

In an interview on Thursday, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams said the company has increased its efforts to solve two of the most challenging issues - ensuring there are no under aged workers in its supply chain and limiting working hours to 60 hours a week.

While child labor reflected a small percentage of the workforce, Apple is now investigating its smaller suppliers - which typically supply parts to larger suppliers and hence face less oversight on such issues - to bring them into compliance, sometimes even firing them.

"We go deep in the supply chain to find it," Williams said. "And when we do find it, we ensure that the underage workers are taken care of, the suppliers are dealt with."

In one case, Apple said it terminated its relationship with a component maker Guangdong Real Faith Pingzhou Electronics Co Ltd after discovering 74 cases of underage workers.

Officials at Pingzhou Electronics could not be reached despite three telephone calls from Reuters.

Apple also discovered an employment agency that was forging documents to allow children to illegally work at the supplier.

Apple reported both the supplier and the employment agency to local authorities, the company said in its latest annual report on the conditions in its supply chain.

Apple has audited both small and ancillary suppliers, as well as large ones such as Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, for working conditions. It found 95 percent of sites audited complied with avoiding underage labor.

Child labor is an issue that is part of the larger supply industry as the component maker that Apple found violated child labor laws supplied parts to more than a hundred different companies, including automotive companies, Williams said, vowing to eradicate under aged labor from the industry.

"I don't know how long it will take to get there but that's our goal," said Williams, who has spent a significant amount of his 14 years at Apple in Asia managing the supply chain.

FOCUS ON STUDENT INTERNS

For 2013, Williams said a key focus for Apple will be student interns and ensuring that suppliers do not abuse the internship system, especially in China where many colleges require students to complete internships as part of their curriculum.

Some companies in China are solving labor shortages by employing students. Last September, city officials of the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Yantai ordered vocational high schools to send students to a large plant run by Foxconn - a key contract manufacture for Apple and other large electronics companies like Hewlett Packard - to overcome a shortage of workers.

Another focus areas has been "bonded labor", where agencies who help immigrant workers find jobs take a substantial portion of the worker's pay.

Apple said in the report that it asked suppliers to reimburse $6.4 million in excess foreign contract worker fees in 2012, according to the report.

The company said it achieved 92 percent compliance with a maximum 60-hour work week in its supply chain. Where violations were discovered, Apple took action, it said in its report.

Apple also found and stopped discriminatory practices against women workers in 34 supplier facilities that required pregnancy testing and 25 facilities that tested employees for certain medical conditions, the report said.

(Additional reporting by Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/apple-steps-labor-audits-finds-underage-workers-063934909--finance.html

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depict cadillac: Education & Reference 2020: The K-12 Implosion ...

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On The News : Bishops must shoulder their responsibility in the pro ...

By Phil Lawler (bio - articles - send a comment) | January 25, 2013 8:46 AM

Cardinal Sean O?Malley is certainly right to call for fasting and prayer this week, as we sadly observe the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The abortion issue?the ongoing slaughter of countless millions of innocent children?is not just another ordinary political question like the ?fiscal cliff? debate. This is not merely a political contest but a spiritual battle.

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12)

Pro-lifers have been fighting the political battle against abortion for 40 years, and still the bloodshed continues. Perhaps it is time to recognize that the culture of death is one of those evils that ?cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.?

Yes, certainly we should fast and pray. It?s appropriate to use spiritual weapons in spiritual combat. For that matter, in a struggle of this importance we should use every means at our disposal, every tool in our drawers. All the different forms of pro-life work?the lobbying and educational campaigns, the pregnancy-help centers, the fundraising, the speeches and demonstrations?have their place in a coordinated strategy. We should all be doing everything in our power, in the natural order as well as the supernatural, to end the abomination of legal abortion on demand.

But there is one powerful tool that has not yet been put to use in the pro-life struggle, and one group of people who have not yet done what they can do for the cause. I refer to the American Catholic bishops, and the use of ecclesiastical discipline.

Forty years after Roe there remain dozens of prominent politicians who identify themselves as Catholics, but actively promote the culture of death. These ?pro-choice Catholics? are a source of confusion to the public and scandal to the Church.

The US Catholic bishops have issued many fine statements on the evils of abortion and the dignity of human life. But statements are one thing, actions another; and when one?s actions do not match one?s public pronouncements, those statements lose value. The bishops have warned that Catholic politicians who promote abortion are separating themselves from the communion of the Church. But they have not followed up, as necessary, by taking disciplinary action against those politicians who have not heeded their warning.

If a Catholic in his diocese is promoting abortion, a Catholic bishop has a solemn obligation to take three steps:

First, admonition. The bishop should call the erring politician to a private meeting, rebuke him, and warn him that he is putting his soul in jeopardy.

Second, denunciation. If the politician remains obstinate, the bishop should make his rebuke public, letting the world know that the Church views the politician?s actions as gravely wrong. A specific public statement, naming names, is necessary to address a public scandal, and to counteract the widespread impression that abortion is only one of many issues in which the Church takes an interest.

Third, exclusion from Communion. The Code of Canon Law (#915) instructs clerics to protect the Eucharist from scandal, by refusing to administer the sacrament to those who ?obstinately persist in manifest grave sin.? The enforcement of Canon 915 is not optional; it is a moral obligation. Yet the American bishops have chosen to ignore that obligation.

As long as our bishops are not doing all that they can do (and only they can do), the American pro-life movement is not doing its utmost to fight for an end to abortion. Yes, we should fast and pray. Yes, we should engage in practical pro-life activism. But we should also beg our bishops to shoulder their own responsibility in this battle. Prayer and fasting can work wonders. However, as we pray, we must also do whatever we can, on the natural order.

Imagine that your doctor tells you that you must lose weight quickly or your life will be in danger. You pray that you will meet your weight-loss goals, and ask your friends to join with you in those prayers. Good. But if you continue routinely to tuck into second helpings of dessert, can you really expect those prayers to be answered?

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New Twitter app lets you add videos to your tweets

They say a photo is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a lot more. By that math, six seconds of video should be worth a whole lot more than 140 characters of text or a Tweet. And that seems to be the point of Vine, an app launched by Twitter today that allows you to add short video clips to your tweets.

The app, which as of now is available only for the iPhone, is really simple to use and works a lot like Instagram. (Many have been calling it the Instagram of video.) Sign in with your Twitter account or via email, hit the video camera button and press down on the viewfinder to record video. Release your finger and the recording stops, so you can easily move to record something else, but you only have six seconds of space (or tape). Watch your video and then share it with others on the service. There are options to then share it on Twitter and Facebook too.

MORE: Take That, Instagram: Twitter Adds Own Photo Filters

The Twitter tie-in is the big one though. When you tweet from Vine it embeds your looped video - or what looks like an animated GIF - right in your tweet. You can see some of the ones we made below. In December, Instagram, now owned by Facebook, stopped allowing its photos to be embedded right in tweets. You now have to click off of Twitter.com to see the photos.

Twitter bought Vine, a video-sharing start-up, last year, and this is the first public release of the service. According to AllThingD's Peter Kafka, the start-up still operates on its own; it is a "Twitter-owned video service" not "Twitter's video service."

"We're also happy to share the news that Vine has been acquired by Twitter. Our companies share similar values and goals; like Twitter, we want to make it easier for people to come together to share and discover what's happening in the world. We also believe constraint inspires creativity, whether it's through an 140-character tweet or a six-second video," Dom Hoffmann, Vine's co-founder and general manager, said on Vine's blog.

What about an Android version? Twitter's VP of product, Michael Sippey, said on the company's blog that "We're working now to bring it to other platforms, so stay tuned for that."

Is Vine the next big app? We saw some bugs in the app, including issues tweeting videos, but as you can tell from our Vines, it didn't stop us from having fun with it. Try it for yourself and let us know.

Is this thing on?! #vine vine.co/v/b5H62QZJaT2

? Joanna Stern (@JoannaStern) January 24, 2013

Dear timehop Dan one year from now? Did Vine take off or what? vine.co/v/b5wB5OhjP77

? Dan Milano (@DanMilanoABC) January 24, 2013

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/vine-twitters-app-adding-six-second-videos-tweets-184916584--abc-news-tech.html

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An All-Wool Beanie Makes Single-Digit Temps Almost Bearable

It's so cold you have to duck when you walk down the street to block the wind from freezing your face. Oh wait, then your head's iced over. You know what'll keep it warm? This all merino wool knit cap from Best Made. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/el-yoYFye3M/an-all+wool-beanie-makes-single+digit-temps-almost-bearable

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HTC One SV (Cricket Wireless)

Cricket's 4G LTE network is finally here, and not a moment too soon. Without speedy LTE, Cricket smartphones were stuck in the slow lane. But now that it's in 18 Cricket markets (and more coming), you should be picking up an LTE smartphone if you're interested in Web browsing or streaming on the go.

The HTC One SV is the middle entry in Cricket's current lineup of three LTE phones. On top, there's the uncompromising Samsung Galaxy S III ($479.99). Below, there's the LG Optimus Regard ($229.99), which MetroPCS sells as the LG Motion 4G. The One SV looks like a happy medium to me: a well-built, lively phone with competitive performance that fits well in a range of hand sizes.

Physical Design and Call Quality
HTC makes really nice phones. The company's materials design is the best in the business; it's better than Samsung. The One SV is no exception. The phone has a black front with red touch buttons, and the back is a great-looking red-orange polycarbonate. The edges are slightly slanted, giving the phone a little bit more personality than more generic smartphones. At 5 x 2.6 x 0.36 inches (HWD) and 4.3 ounces, it's the right size and shape for most hands.

The phone has a 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 Super LCD2 screen that really pops. I've seen higher resolutions on high-end phones (such as the HTC 8X's 4.3-inch, 720p panel) but the screen quality and viewing angle are both very good here. The screen size and resolution fit neatly between the Galaxy S III's 4.8-inch, 720p panel and the Optimus Regard's little 3.5-inch, 480-by-320 display.

Call quality is good but not great, as the earpiece can be a bit quiet for noisy locations. There's no in-ear feedback of your own voice. Transmissions sound very good on the other end, with solid noise cancellation and well-tuned voices. The back-ported speakerphone is of decent volume, if a bit tinny. I had no trouble connecting the One SV to a Bluetooth headset and using it with the standard Android 4.0 voice dialing. Battery life, at 9 hours, 4 minutes of talk time, was solid.

Internet Access, Browsing, and Apps
Cricket's new LTE service is available in 18 metro areas including Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Philadelphia. The carrier aims to bring LTE to the rest of its coverage area this year, but for now, other Cricket users are still plugging along on 3G.

The LTE network uses narrow channel sizes, so it won't show the spectacular peak speeds we've seen with AT&T and Verizon. But in tests in Las Vegas in January, it zipped along with download speeds between 5-8Mbps and uploads between 2-5Mbps.

Cricket's 3G speeds elsewhere are similar to Sprint's; where it doesn't have coverage itself, it uses Sprint's network. Here in Manhattan, I got a pleasantly surprising 800-900kbps down, which is better than I've seen recently on Sprint's network on other devices.

The phone also has both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi. I had some problems with the phone occasionally dropping Wi-Fi connections, though I couldn't reproduce the effect reliably.

The One SV runs Android 4.0.4 "Ice Cream Sandwich" with HTC's Sense overlay. There's no word on any 4.1 "Jelly Bean" updates, so don't count on them. ICS is the most popular version of Android at the moment, so the One SV should run everything in the Android Market. Cricket adds a few bloatware apps; there's nothing obnoxious, and Cricket's $5/month Cricket Navigator driving app could actually prove useful.

(Next page: Multimedia and Conclusions)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/x5lueMPOxms/0,2817,2414452,00.asp

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Buyers Want Bigger Homes Again, Survey Says | Real Estate ...

Downsizing is a hard sell. The notion that a retiree should trade in a three- or four-bedroom family-sized home for something cheaper and easier to manage seems like a no-brainer. But lots of people just don't want to do it.

In fact, predictions during the financial crisis that Americans would shun McMansions in favor of smaller homes seem to have been off the mark. Yes, new homes did get a tad smaller toward the end of the '00s, but now that the economy and housing market are getting stronger, consumers say they want their next home to be as big as or bigger than their current one.

That's the finding in a recent consumer survey by PulteGroup (NYSE:PHM), the national homebuilder.

"It was interesting to see that 84% of homeowners ages 18-59 don't have plans to downsize their next home, even among baby boomers," Deborah Meyer, PulteGroup's chief marketing officer, said of the survey findings. PulteGroup's researcher polled 503 homeowners aged 18 to 59 in November.

Citing Census Bureau data, PulteGroup said the average size of a newly built home grew by 3.7% between 2010 and 2011, to 2,480 square feet. That was the first size increase since 2007.

Not surprisingly, younger homeowners said they wanted bigger homes to accommodate growing families. But the survey found that even homeowners nearing retirement and presumably done with child-rearing soundly rejected downsizing. Only 28% of those 55 to 59 said they wanted their next home to be smaller.

While the survey didn't probe the reasons, there are several possible explanations. A big home is a status symbol; many people want extra bedrooms to lure grown children and grandchildren to visit; and many view the home as an investment and thus favor bigger over smaller.

The survey did uncover some changes in consumer preferences. Even though homeowners don't want to go smaller, they want a more practical use of the space they have.

Many of the McMansions built in the '90s and '00s had formal dining rooms and living rooms in addition to great rooms or family rooms open to the kitchen. The survey found that these vestigial living and dining rooms may become expendable for more homeowners.

"According to the survey, 21% of homeowners ages 18-59 rarely use their formal dining room, while 17% said they rarely use their formal living room," PulteGroup said.

Many homeowners said they could do without formal living and dining rooms, and they expressed a preference for larger rooms overall, master bedroom suites, more storage space, outdoor living space such as patios, and greater energy efficiency.

Source: http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/real-estate/articles/thestreet-homeowners-home-survey-dining-rooms/1/22/2013/id/47556

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'First' prototype hardware built for broadband over IEEE's white space standard

If you hadn't realized already, spectrum is quite the hot commodity, and any unused slice is a potential data highway just begging to be cruised. One mostly vacant stretch is the eerie white space -- megahertz left empty when TV broadcasts move from analog to digital frequencies. The IEEE published its 802.22 standard for white space broadband 18 months ago, and now a group comprising the NICT, ISB Corp and Hitachi Kokusai Electric (not to be confused with the other Hitachi) have built the "first" prototype hardware to make use of it. White space spectrum in the 470 to 710MHz range is expected to provide wireless internet to "underserved areas" and act as an emergency backup for downed systems, when infrastructure is finally up and running. Given we're only at the prototype stage following the inception of the 802.22 standard in 2011, out-of-towners will probably be waiting a while longer before having the option to stream entertainment over those dead TV airwaves. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

Show full PR text

World's First TV White Space Prototype Based on IEEE 802.22 for Wireless Regional Area Network

TOKYO, Jan. 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation have developed the world's first prototypes of base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) based on the IEEE 802.22 standard operating in TV White Spaces (TVWS) (470 MHz - 710 MHz). The developed prototypes will provide broadband wireless access to underserved and unserved regional areas around the world as well as bringing reliable backup broadband communications in emergency, which will follow the worldwide trend of promoting the TVWS for wireless communication systems.

Background
From replacing the current analog television (TV) technology with digital television technology, some of the spectrum previously used by analog television become vacant referred to as TV White Space (TVWS). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the United States, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) in the UK, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan have initiated opening up the TVWS to wireless communication systems for efficient reuse of the unused TV spectrum, which is based on non-interfering with broadcast incumbents' operation. The IEEE 802.22 Working Group has published the IEEE 802.22-2011 standard for TVWS broadband wireless access to regional areas where it is most needed and where the TV spectrum is least used. In particular, the IEEE 802.22 systems offer around 10 times the coverage of Wi-Fi as well as enable to provide reliable backup broadband communications in emergency. However, there is no TVWS systems based on the IEEE 802.22-2011 satisfying the FCC spectrum requirements.

Achievements
The NICT and Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. have developed the world's first prototype devices of base station (BS) and consumer premise equipment (CPE) verifying the physical layer (PHY) and the medium access control (MAC) layer design based on the IEEE 802.22 standard in the TVWS (470 MHz - 710 MHz). The PHY part developed by Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. (Note 1) allows the devices to use vacant TV bands over the frequency range from 470-710MHz, the MAC layer part developed by NICT provides a medium access method based on point-to-multipoint access with supporting the different QoS levels, and supports cognitive capabilities of interference estimation, geo-location and white space data base (WSDB) access over the IP. The WSDB (Note 2) (http://whitespacetech.isbcorp.com/) provided by ISB Corporation avoids interference to incumbents of TV broadcasters from automatically selecting the non-interfering TV band.

Future prospects
The NICT, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation in the future will develop the enhanced technologies based on the IEEE 802.22 standard and also work closely with WhiteSpace Alliance (WSA) (Note 3) (www.whitespacealliance.org) to provide products for worldwide markets. The NICT, Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc. and ISB Corporation will demonstrate the developed prototype devices at the Super WiFi Summit (Note 4) (www.superwifisummit.com) in Miami, Florida, from January 30 to February 1, 2013.

Filed under: Wireless, Internet

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/23/white-space-broadband-prototype-hardware/

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Apple Sold More iPhones and iPads Than It Ever Has, And Somehow That's a Disappointment

Apple's first quarter earnings are in. According to Bloomberg News, Apple made $13.1 billion in profit on $54.1 billion in revenue. It sold an absurd 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads—both records. Somehow, this is a disappointment. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/IyXhyCIlzug/apple-made-131-billion-this-quarter-and-somehow-thats-a-disappointment

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Midwest's Largest Squash Tournament Returns to Birmingham ...

Love the thrill and excitement of competitive squash? You're in luck as some of the world's best squash players will again descend on the Bloomfield area this month for the 14th annual Motor City Open.

The tournament ? running Jan. 24-29 at the Birmingham Athletic Club (BAC) ? features 26 of the world's top-ranked players in the sport, including two former players ranked No. 1 in the world. The event is the fourth-largest professional squash tournament in the country.

In total, four the world's top 10 professional squash players and 12 of the top 25 players will compete in the five-day tournament, which will award the winner with a $70,000 purse, a Rolex watch from Birmingham's Greenstone and a spot on the Motor City Open trophy.

According to the Birmingham Athletic Club's Robert Moll and the BAC's squash director, Julien Wellings, the Motor City Open is the second-longest professional squash tournament in the US and the largest in the midwest.

Nearly 25 million play squash all over the globe in 185 countries, with an estimated 1.2 million players in the United States.

"(Squash) requires more movement and offers less time for the player to react," Wellings told Patch in 2011. "And it requires a lot more running because of that. It requires fast hands and is very challenging."

Squash is a racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow, rubber ball. Points are earned after each rally. The first player to earn 11 points (or win by two points after reaching an 10-all score) wins. A player must win three of five games to win a match.

Many of those new squash players, in fact, are being trained right here in Birmingham, Wellings said. The BAC has the midwest's largest junior squash program with several BAC junior players nationally ranked.

In November 2011, Birmingham's Caroline Claar and Bloomfield Village's Tatayanna Dadabbo took home first place wins their respective divisions at the DeRoy Junior Open at the BAC while several young BAC squash players took home big wins at the same tournament in 2010.

"I guess you could say we've been the state's slice of squash for some time," the BAC's chair of its squash program, Mike Bearuregard, told Patch.

To cater to the younger squash crowd, this year's Motor City Open will also feature the annual Junior Clinic, sponsored by the DeRoy Testamentary Foundation. During the clinic, professionals from the tournament will coach junior squash players from Detroit, Windsor as well as junior players enrolled in Racquet up Detroit.

Also this year, the tournament will include a silent auction benefiting the Karmanos Cancer Institute and Racquet Up Detroit. During its 14-year history, the Motor City Open has raised more than $120,000 for local charities.

If you go, the first round of qualifications begin at 4 p.m. Jan. 24. The finals will be held from 6:30-9 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 29.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or by contacting Wellings at jwellings@bacmi.net. The Birmingham Athletic Club is located at 4033 W. Maple Rd. in Bloomfield Hills.

Source: http://bloomfield-mi.patch.com/articles/midwests-largest-squash-tournament-returns-to-birmingham-athletic-club

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Tech Support Scam Affecting Hundreds | Call 12 For Action | WPRI ...

(WPRI) -- A new technical support scam is knocking out computers all over the country.

It's one of those scams that you'd think you'd never fall for, but the hundreds who have already fallen victim to it most likely thought the same exact thing.

Crooks are calling people claiming to be technical support, usually for a well-known company. The caller will then say your computer is sending error messages and they've detected a virus on it. They'll mention that only tech support is able to remove the virus, and you'll need to give them remote access to your computer.

The scammers will then offer to remove the virus for a fee, and will ask for your credit card information. Although, those who gave the caller access to their computers, whether they paid for the virus to be removed or not, have reported difficulties with their computer afterwards. Some said they had trouble accessing certain files, while others reported not being able to turn on their computers at all.

According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, some victims have taken their computers to get repaired, and the technicians confirmed that rogue software had been installed.

If you receive one of those phony tech support calls:

• Never give control of your computer to a third party, unless you can confirm that it's a legitimate support team that you've already been in business with.
• Never give out your credit card information to someone claiming to be from tech support.
• Know that most of the callers reported the scammers had strong accents, but used common names.

If you've allowed a caller to access your computer, immediately change the passwords to everything on your machine. Also, be sure to run a virus scan and contact your anti-virus software company to alert them of the scam.

For more information, visit Call 12 For Action's Consumer Guide.

Source: http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/scitech/technology/call-12-for-action-tech-support-scam-affecting-hundreds-susan-hogan

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New 2-D material for next generation high-speed electronics

Jan. 21, 2013 ? Scientists at CSIRO and RMIT University have produced a new two-dimensional material that could revolutionise the electronics market, making "nano" more than just a marketing term.

The material -- made up of layers of crystal known as molybdenum oxides -- has unique properties that encourage the free flow of electrons at ultra-high speeds.

In a paper published in the January issue of materials science journal Advanced Materials, the researchers explain how they adapted a revolutionary material known as graphene to create a new conductive nano-material.

Graphene was created in 2004 by scientists in the UK and won its inventors a Nobel Prize in 2010. While graphene supports high speed electrons, its physical properties prevent it from being used for high-speed electronics.

The CSIRO's Dr Serge Zhuiykov said the new nano-material was made up of layered sheets -- similar to graphite layers that make up a pencil's core.

"Within these layers, electrons are able to zip through at high speeds with minimal scattering," Dr Zhuiykov said.

"The importance of our breakthrough is how quickly and fluently electrons -- which conduct electricity -- are able to flow through the new material."

RMIT's Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh said the researchers were able to remove "road blocks" that could obstruct the electrons, an essential step for the development of high-speed electronics.

"Instead of scattering when they hit road blocks, as they would in conventional materials, they can simply pass through this new material and get through the structure faster," Professor Kalantar-zadeh said.

"Quite simply, if electrons can pass through a structure quicker, we can build devices that are smaller and transfer data at much higher speeds.

"While more work needs to be done before we can develop actual gadgets using this new 2D nano-material, this breakthrough lays the foundation for a new electronics revolution and we look forward to exploring its potential."

In the paper titled 'Enhanced Charge Carrier Mobility in Two-Dimensional High Dielectric Molybdenum Oxide,' the researchers describe how they used a process known as "exfoliation" to create layers of the material ~11 nm thick.

The material was manipulated to convert it into a semiconductor and nanoscale transistors were then created using molybdenum oxide.

The result was electron mobility values of >1,100 cm2/Vs -- exceeding the current industry standard for low dimensional silicon.

The work, with RMIT doctoral researcher Sivacarendran Balendhran as the lead author, was supported by the CSIRO Sensors and Sensor Networks Transformational Capability Platform and the CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering Division.

It was also a result of collaboration between researchers from Monash University, University of California -- Los Angeles (UCLA), CSIRO, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and RMIT.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by CSIRO Australia.

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

---

Journal Reference:

1. Sivacarendran Balendhran, Junkai Deng, Jian Zhen Ou, Sumeet Walia, James Scott, Jianshi Tang, Kang L. Wang, Matthew R. Field, Salvy Russo, Serge Zhuiykov, Michael S. Strano, Nikhil Medhekar, Sharath Sriram, Madhu Bhaskaran, Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh. Enhanced Charge Carrier Mobility in Two-Dimensional High Dielectric Molybdenum Oxide. Advanced Materials, 2013; 25 (1): 109 DOI: 10.1002/adma.201203346

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

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/iVeA9nSoozs/130122122442.htm

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Mega 101: Everything You Need to Know

An Internet entrepreneur in a legal battle with the U.S. Department of Justice over his file-sharing and cloud storage site is at it again, and this time he says his new website is legal.

Kim Dotcom, the man behind the file-sharing site Megaupload, launched a new site called Mega (mega.co.nz), Sunday in New Zealand, which allows users to upload up to 50 gigabytes worth of files and store them, and share them ? in a limited way ? with other users. The amount of storage space increases if users sign up for a premium account.

The twist is that this time the company doesn't know what's in the files, because they are encrypted. The encryption keys are in the hands of the user only.

It is possible to share the files by providing a URL with the password embedded in it, but in this case as well, only the person accessing the file can see the data.

For users, it could be a great way to store confidential files, and it's a larger space initially than Dropbox, which starts its free service at 2GB, or Google Drive at 5GB. That said, there are some caveats.

First is the encryption. If you lose the password, you won't be able to recover it ? period.

Then there is the question of the site's legality. Kim Dotcom has told the BBC that "This startup is probably the most scrutinized by lawyers in Internet history."

That gets into Kim Dotcom's legal problems with the U.S. government. Dotcom funded Megaupload in 2005 as a place for people to store files on the Internet. The big difference between it and other file storage services was the amount of space offered ? 200 gigabytes. Users could share files with each other or with the general public.

The Motion Picture Association of America and the Department of Justice saw a massive copyright abuse system. The DoJ said in its indictment that Megaupload's business model, which rewarded popular downloads with cash payments, encouraged people to upload copyrighted content.

Dotcom and Megaupload argued that they complied with takedown notices. Either way, in January of last year, police raided Dotcom's New Zealand home, arrested him, and shut down Megaupload. The U.S. government then requested he be extradited. A hearing to determine whether that happens is due in March.

In the wake of the arrest, hacktivist group Anonymous staged a series of distributed denial of service attacks.

Because the new site is encrypted ?Mega says it doesn?t even have the key, because the key is the password to the site known only to the user? ? Dotcom can legitimately say he has no idea what is being uploaded. Generally, copyright violations apply to people who know that their site is being used to pirate content and don't make a good faith effort to remove it in the wake of takedown requests (which fall under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA).

A big part of the legal argument between Dotcom and the DoJ is whether he made that effort and whether he deliberately encouraged thesharing of copyrighted content. The DoJ says the company didn't because the files were still on their servers and if there were multiple copies, the links all had to be taken down individually.

It's still possible that the DoJ will go after Dotcom?s new website Mega, though, because by setting the site up so that he can't know what users are doing, he also leaves himself open to the charge that he's offering a safe haven for copyrighted works. On top of that, one of the terms of Dotcom?s bail in New Zealand is that he cannot start any new businesses until the criminal copyright case in the U.S. is resolved, according to the Economist.

So if you're thinking that you might want to use the new Mega site, be aware that it could be forced to shut down if Dotcom's lawyers haven't covered all the angles.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, sister site to LiveScience.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mega-101-everything-know-212603971.html

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At least 13 suspected al-Qaida men killed in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen (AP) ? A Yemen security official says an explosion in the province of Bayda has killed at least 13 suspected al-Qaida militants.

The official in Bayda's capital city of Radda says the explosion went off in a house owned by a known al-Qaida operative, Ahmed Abdullah Deif-Allah Al-Zahab. It appeared to be an accident.

Residents were barred Sunday from approaching the scene of the incident by militants with links to al-Qaida, the official said.

Early last year Al-Qaida's Yemen-based branch briefly seized the town of Radda, an outpost 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the capital.

The group is active in southern Yemen and has launched deadly attacks against the military since it lost control of key southern cities it overran in 2011.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/least-13-suspected-al-qaida-men-killed-yemen-211309910.html

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Power outage hits Damascus, southern Syria

A Free Syrian Army fighter holds his weapon during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

A Free Syrian Army fighter holds his weapon during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

Free Syrian Army fighters fire their weapons during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

Free Syrian Army fighters hold their weapons during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

A Free Syrian Army fighter runs for cover, as another fires his weapon during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

Free Syrian Army fighters hold their weapons during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. The revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate. (AP Photo/Andoni Lubaki)

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) ? The Syrian government on Monday blamed a rebel attack on a key power line for a blackout that hit Damascus and much of the country's south overnight, leaving residents cold and in the dark amid a fuel crisis that has stranded many at home.

Meanwhile, Syria's main opposition postponed the selection of a prime minister and the formation of a transitional government to run the country should the regime of President Bashar Assad fall, highlighting the continued failure of Assad's opponents to unite behind a shared leader or vision nearly two years into the country's crisis.

While Damascus's 2.5 million residents have grown used to frequent power cuts as the country's conflict has damaged infrastructure and sapped the government's finances, they said Monday that the overnight outage was the first to darken the entire capital since the conflict began.

The blackout hit residents especially hard because of rampant fuel shortages and the winter cold that pushed temperatures below freezing overnight. Getting gas requires waiting in hours-long lines at stations, and cooking fuel and diesel for portable heaters has grown scarce and expensive ? forcing people to find other ways to keep warm.

"We covered ourselves from the cold in blankets because there was no diesel or electricity for the heaters," said retired teacher Mariam Ghassan, 60. "We changed our whole lives to get organized for power cuts, but now we have no idea when the power will come or go."

At its height, the outage engulfed all of Damascus and extended to an area at least 50 kilometers (31 miles) north to the town of Zabadani and across the southern provinces of Daraa and Sweida that abut the Jordanian border.

By midday Monday, power had returned to more than half of the capital, and Electricity Minister Imad Khamis said authorities were working to restore it in other areas.

Syria's state news agency quoted him as saying that the outages were caused by "an armed terrorist attack on the main feed line." The regime refers to those fighting to topple Assad as "terrorists."

Dozens of rebel groups operate in the Damascus area, and the government did not name a specific group or give any information on where the alleged attack took place. No rebel groups claimed responsibility.

Other than a rebel incursion in July that the government quickly quashed, Damascus has yet to see the large clashes between Assad's forces and opposition fighters that have destroyed entire neighborhoods in other Syrian cities.

The government still controls the capital with a network of checkpoints, but has faced mounting difficulty in providing basic services as the civil war drags on and sanctions imposed by the U.S., the European Union and other countries take their toll.

For most Damascenes, the power cuts and fuel shortages are the most frequent reminder of the war that has engulfed much of the rest of their country.

The government has fixed gasoline prices at about 75 cents per liter, but shortages mean residents must wait up to six hours in lines to fill up.

"There is almost no diesel in the city," said a taxi driver named Wael, who gave only his first name for fear of government reprisals.

To fuel his car, he gets to the gas station first thing in the morning and often waits until noon to fill up. Even then, the gas is rationed by the government to no more than 20 liters per person ? meaning he'll have to wait in line again the next day.

"I hate my job," he said. "I've been trying to find a new one but I can't. How am I supposed to feed my kids?"

Cooking gas, too, has become a precious commodity, and people must wait more than two weeks to replace an empty bottle at the government rate of about $7 or pay as much as four times that on the black market.

The situation is markedly worse in the suburbs ringing the capital, some of which are controlled by the opposition and are frequent sites of clashes between rebels and the army as well as frequent targets of government airstrikes. Some of these areas have had no electricity for months and have only black-market gas driven in from elsewhere.

In the southwestern suburb of Daraya, where rebels have been locked in heated battles with the army for months, activist Amr Abdel-Haq said there had been no electricity for two months and that flour and cooking gas were nearly nonexistent.

He blamed the government for Daraya's lack of electricity, saying the regime is punishing the suburb "because it is resisting and the regime forces have not been able to enter the city or take it over."

"Daraya has become a city of ghosts, and only the rebels live in it," he said.

It was not possible to verify the government's claims that a rebel attack was responsible for Monday's blackout. Both sides of Syria's bloody conflict, which the U.N. says has killed more than 60,000 people since March 2011, frequently blame each other when things go wrong.

After a nationwide Internet outage in November, for example, the regime blamed rebels for the cut, while the rebels and international experts said the government pulled the plug.

On Monday, a resident of the affluent Mezzeh 86 neighborhood said he doubted that rebels had attacked the power lines.

"The problem could be that the government doesn't have the fuel and is suffering from an economic crisis," he said. "But it's easier to blame it on the rebels."

Also Monday, Syria's main opposition coalition said it had failed to select a prime minister or form a transitional government during a weekend meeting in Istanbul.

The group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, said in a statement that it had formed a committee to "complete the election of a prime minister" within the next 10 days. It also formed seven committees to deal with issues like diplomatic relations and aid to refugees until a transitional government can be formed.

The group's failure to select a prime minister is likely to disappoint the United States and its other backers who pressed for its formation, hoping it would provide more cohesive leadership to those seeking to topple Assad.

___

Hubbard reported from Beirut. A journalist contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-21-ML-Syria/id-aed10e81859b4bf29eaf6e5f25de858b

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94% The Sessions

All Critics (174) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (165) | Rotten (10) | DVD (1)

Thanks to Lewin's light but assured touch, The Sessions never wears its theological preoccupations heavily, instead allowing transcendence to creep up on the audience quietly.

A very different kind of love story, breaking taboos lightly, with sensitivity and humor.

Achieves its sunny disposition by pulling punches.

A funny, tender and mostly unsentimentalized movie about physical and emotional triumph.

Forced to do all his acting with his face, Hawkes displays the kind of camera-arresting capability that has earned others Oscar nominations.

This funny, moving, beautifully acted movie avoids numerous pitfalls.

Satisfaction guaranteed? Pretty much.

It's Hawkes's portrayal, in all its wit, intelligence and childlike naivety, that really captures the heart.

By taking a sensitive, honest approach to this true story, breakthrough filmmaker Lewin both avoids sentimentality and keeps the focus on the inner lives of the central characters.

It's a brave performance from Hunt, who spends much of the film entirely naked. Both her and Hawkes are brilliant in a movie that is a massively uplifting experience.

The movie becomes a touching, often funny portrayal of sex as a form of kindness and human contact.

Hunt is a prodigy. No other actress could have brought such easeful transparency, such a glow of givingness, such heedlessness of glamour each time she strips naked.

Not only does it deal with sex in a straightforward manner, but it also deals with the equally sensitive themes of disability and religion, all of which writer/director Ben Lewin pulls off skilfully.

The Sessions can be sugary, but it's likable.

You could maybe see it working as a play, though the tactile detail of these scenes needs close-ups on the actors' faces to communicate what the transaction means to them both.

It's tender, humane and funny and superbly acted; a simple but affecting parable about experiencing life to the fullest.

Three days after viewing, the film's questioning generosity and sense of perspective will still be knocking around your head.

The Sessions finally proves that Hollywood can take physical incapacity and/or sex far more seriously than it does the potential side effects of shooting so many people on screen so often.

A touching gem of a movie largely thanks to subtly dynamic performances from Helen Hunt and John Hawkes.

Hugely enjoyable, warm-hearted and frequently laugh-out-loud funny disability drama with a superb script and a pair of terrific performances from John Hawkes and Helen Hunt.

Lewin, who has fought his own lifelong polio battle, handles tricky material with a gentle, empathetic touch.

Formulaic but uplifting, positive and accessible.

In its barest form this is a traditional rites-of-passage yarn, dealing in first love and lost innocence, and even with a candid discussion of sex, it's mostly sweetness and light.

Few movies are so frank about the sexual mechanics of the disabled ...

All thinking viewers will come away with a better understanding as to how the seemingly different amongst us are really just the one-in-the-same when getting up close and personal.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_sessions/

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California Megaflood: Lessons from A Forgotten Catastrophe

See Inside

A 43-day storm that began in December 1861 put central and southern California underwater for up to six months, and it could happen again

By B. Lynn Ingram

Image: USGS.gov

Geologic evidence shows that truly massive floods, caused by rainfall alone, have occurred in California every 100 to 200 years. Such floods are likely caused by atmospheric rivers: narrow bands of water vapor about a mile above the ocean that extend for thousands of kilometers.

The atmospheric river storms featured in a January 2013 article in Scientific American that I co-wrote with Michael Dettinger, The Coming Megafloods, are responsible for most of the largest historical floods in many western states. The only megaflood to strike the American West in recent history occurred during the winter of 1861-62. California bore the brunt of the damage. This disaster turned enormous regions of the state into inland seas for months, and took thousands of human lives. The costs were devastating: one quarter of California?s economy was destroyed, forcing the state into bankruptcy.

Today, the same regions that were submerged in 1861-62 are home to California?s fastest-growing cities. Although this flood is all but forgotten, important lessons from this catastrophe can be learned. Much of the insight can be gleaned from harrowing accounts in diary entries, letters and newspaper articles, as well as the book Up and Down California in 1860-1864, written by William Brewer, who surveyed the new state?s natural resources with state geologist Josiah Whitney.

In 1861, farmers and ranchers were praying for rain after two exceptionally dry decades. In December their prayers were answered with a vengeance, as a series of monstrous Pacific storms slammed?one after another?into the West coast of North America, from Mexico to Canada. The storms produced the most violent flooding residents had ever seen, before or since.

Sixty-six inches of rain fell in Los Angeles that year, more than four times the normal annual amount, causing rivers to surge over their banks, spreading muddy water for miles across the arid landscape. Large brown lakes formed on the normally dry plains between Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, even covering vast areas of the Mojave Desert. In and around Anaheim, , flooding of the Santa Ana River created an inland sea four feet deep, stretching up to four miles from the river and lasting four weeks.

Residents in northern California, where most of the state?s 500,000 people lived, were contending with devastation and suffering of their own. In early December, the Sierra Nevada experienced a series of cold arctic storms that dumped 10 to 15 feet of snow, and these were soon followed by warm atmospheric rivers storms. The series of warm storms swelled the rivers in the Sierra Nevada range so that they became raging torrents, sweeping away entire communities and mining settlements in the foothills?California?s famous ?Gold Country.? A January 15, 1862, report from the Nelson Point Correspondence described the scene: ?On Friday last, we were visited by the most destructive and devastating flood that has ever been the lot of ?white? men to see in this part of the country. Feather River reached the height of 9 feet more than was ever known by the ?oldest inhabitant,? carrying away bridges, camps, stores, saloon, restaurant, and much real-estate.? Drowning deaths occurred every day on the Feather, Yuba and American rivers. In one tragic account, an entire settlement of Chinese miners was drowned by floods on the Yuba River.

This enormous pulse of water from the rain flowed down the slopes and across the landscape, overwhelming streams and rivers, creating a huge inland sea in California?s enormous Central Valley?a region at least 300 miles long and 20 miles wide. Water covered farmlands and towns, drowning people, horses and cattle, and washing away houses, buildings, barns, fences and bridges. The water reached depths up to 30 feet, completely submerging telegraph poles that had just been installed between San Francisco and New York, causing transportation and communications to completely break down over much of the state for a month. William Brewer wrote a series of letters to his brother on the east coast describing the surreal scenes of tragedy that he witnessed during his travels in the region that winter and spring. In a description dated January 31, 1862, Brewer wrote:

Thousands of farms are entirely under water?cattle starving and drowning. All the roads in the middle of the state are impassable; so all mails are cut off. The telegraph also does not work clear through. In the Sacramento Valley for some distance the tops of the poles are under water. The entire valley was a lake extending from the mountains on one side to the coast range hills on the other. Steamers ran back over the ranches fourteen miles from the river, carrying stock, etc, to the hills. Nearly every house and farm over this immense region is gone. America has never before seen such desolation by flood as this has been, and seldom has the Old World seen the like.

Brewer describes a great sheet of brown rippling water extending from the Coast Range to the Sierra Nevada. One-quarter of the state?s estimated 800,000 cattle drowned in the flood, marking the beginning of the end of the cattle-based ranchero society in California. One-third of the state?s property was destroyed, and one home in eight was destroyed completely or carried away by the floodwaters.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=8138dcaab81eb829aa701ffda8254555

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Copyright ? 2012 Salon Media Group, Inc. Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited.

SALON ? is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon Media Group Inc.

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

Source: http://feeds.salon.com/salon/index

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Cleric leaps into center of Pakistan's political maelstrom

W. Khan / EPA

Tahir-ul Qadri, with white cap, greets Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of coaltion party Pakistan Muslim League Quaid on Thursday after successfully negotiating an end to the four-day Islamabad protest he ignited.

By Amna NawazPakistan Bureau Chief, NBC News

Seemingly overnight, the moderate Islamic cleric and Canadian ?migr? Tahir-ul Qadri, whose massive protest forced Pakistan?s government to agree to major concessions on Thursday, has risen from obscurity to become a force to be reckoned with in Pakistani politics.

Until this week, local TV anchors and headlines did not scream his name, as they do now. His face was not plastered on rickshaws and lampposts, nor on signs carried by the 50,000 people who followed him to a sit-in, camp-out, anti-government protest in the cold and rainy streets of Islamabad, where they remain, celebrating his negotiated agreement with government representatives.

But the 62-year-old Qadri landed squarely at the center of Pakistan's latest political crisis, which saw a population desperate for change and frustrated by leaders long-accused of corruption and ineptitude seize upon his message of free, fair elections and accountability at the highest levels.

---

Qadri, who only returned to his homeland in late 2012, had demanded the immediate dissolution of the current government and sweeping reforms to guarantee free and fair national elections, which are expected to be held this spring. He agreed to something less in Thursday's declaration, signed after hours-long, closed-door discussions with government representatives. The deal calls for the dissolution of the current government before March 16, with elections can take place within 90 days, and a pledge to enforce Pakistan's Constitution regarding the eligibility of political candidates.?

Despite denying having any political ambitions, Qadri made himself a part of the political process by stipulating in the declaration that meetings to discuss Pakistan's Election Commission make-up would be held at his office's headquarters and that his own political party -- the Pakistan Awami Tehreek -- would help select a caretaker prime minister.?

Lahore-based defense analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said that Qadri fell short of his aims.

"His assessment was that as he raises populist demands, other groups and parties will fall in line and he will become the undisputed and popular leader of Pakistan. This did not happen," Rizvi said. "However, the federal government in Islamabad has become hostage, because he has brought huge number of his followers to Islamabad, making it impossible for the government to take any action against him."

Tahir-ul Qadri, a moderate Islamic cleric who led a protest in Islamabad that forced the government to make major concessions on Thursday, tells NBC News that his movement is aimed at implementing 'transparency' into Pakistan's government.

Still, for a country built on a feudal mentality, where political loyalties are handed down over generations like family heirlooms, Qadri?s accomplishments are no small feat.

So how did he do it? One former government official, who attended a Qadri rally this week, heard him address the crowd, and spoke to those in attendance, called that "the million dollar question."

"This chap .. he comes here and he holds a huge public meeting in Lahore, which is very well organized and very well-attended, and then this enormous march to Islamabad?" wondered the official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. "How did this happen? Who's supporting him? It's a mystery to me."?

Professor C. Christine Fair, who teaches at Georgetown University and studies Pakistan, calls Qadri's sudden emergence on the national stage "theater,? and suspects the country?s powerful military helped to engineer the cleric?s return and organize his massive protest.

"If this came out of civil society, he'd be universally lauded,? she said. ?The reason he's not is that a lot of people think he's got an invisible hand behind him. This isn't Pakistani civil society saying enough is enough. It's something else."

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For the last seven years, Qadri has by all accounts led a quiet life in Toronto, where he'd emigrated with his wife and children. But he'd made a name for himself in certain Pakistani circles much earlier.?

In the mid-1980s, early in the presidential tenure of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, the young Qadri was already a known quantity in the corridors of power.

According to a former government official, Qadri was one of a handful of Islamic scholars called in to present his views on how a proper Islamic state should function to Zia -- who came to power in 1977 in a military coup and launched the Islamization of Pakistan -- and his cabinet. Whether or not his input was used is unclear, but he left an impression -- that of a confident, moderate, articulate young scholar who was incredibly knowledgeable on Islam.?

His early political career in Pakistan, however, was brief and largely forgettable. He founded the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) political party in 1989, listing education as its top priority and promising to revive "the faith of the masses in politics, elections and the government." Qadri briefly held office as a member of parliament during the military dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, from 2002 until he resigned in protest in 2004. One local report at the time quoted him as saying that Musharraf had reduced parliament's power to "a rubber stamp."?

"I don't feel that I should sit in such a powerless parliament which can be suspended with a single stroke of a general's pen," he told Pakistan's Daily Times at the time.?

But after leaving the political arena, Qadri succeeded in developing an international network and loyal following in religious and social circles. In 1981, he established an organization called Minaj-ul-Quran International (MQI), founded to promote "true Islamic teachings and philosophy" for those "dissatisfied with the existing religious institutions and organizations and their narrow-minded approach," according to the group's website.?

The MQI manifesto espouses, "Love, peace, harmony, universal brotherhood, justice, equity and prosperity," and boasts a registered membership of 280,000 worldwide. The organization claims to be operating in more than 90 countries, including operating 69 educational and cultural centers in Pakistan, and 600 schools educating 170,000 students across the country. A social welfare and disaster relief sister organization was added in 1989, which the website says has delivered aid to victims of "the Tsunami affecting Indonesia; the Bam earthquake, Iran; the South Asian earthquake in Pakistan, as well as various developments and educational projects in Pakistan and other underprivileged countries."

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After founding MQI, Qadri appears to have spent years trying to be heard and cultivating his public image. He wrote books (1,000 of them, according to his website, of which 43 have been published), delivered lectures (5,000 total, 1,500 of which are available for purchase on CD or DVD at MQI sale centers "around the world"). His message and achievements are cross-published and highlighted on multiple websites, including those of his Islamic organization, his political party and his personal site.?

But it wasn't until March 2010 that he strode onto the international stage. Qadri wrote and published a 500-page ?fatwa,? or Islamic decree, "to place the Islamic stance on terrorism precisely in its proper perspective before the Western and Islamic worlds." The document, which is available for download in four different languages, lays out Quranic laws prohibiting terrorism and the killing of others in the name of Islam. At the time, nine years into the West's "War on Terror," his unequivocal language condemning terrorist acts set him apart from most Muslim scholars, and the world took note. His fatwa won praise from the U.S. State Department, drew international news coverage and made Qadri a sought-after speaker on the international circuit.?

In November 2010, he came to Washington, D.C., and delivered a lecture at Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He spoke at the United States Institute of Peace that same month about the struggle against radicalism in Islam. He traveled to England and Australia to discuss terrorism and integration. But back in Pakistan -- where gas prices ballooned, power shortages proliferated and terrorism intensified -- Qadri remained a non-player.?

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But while he enjoyed success in his adopted country, Qadri's home country was in precipitous decline.?

The International Monetary Fund last year issued a dismal report on Pakistan's deteriorating economy, citing "deep seated and structural problems and weak macroeconomic policies" that have led to low GDP growth and a drain of foreign exchange reserves. Terrorist attacks have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis and left the country teetering on the precipice of security chaos. A 2012 Gallup survey revealed President Asif Ali Zardari's performance ratings had plummeted and that 87 percent of Pakistanis believed the country was headed in the wrong direction. Power struggles between the military, judiciary and ruling government persisted, preventing legislators hell bent on maintaining their posts from turning their full attention to the nation's needs.?

Many thought the answer to the country's ills lay with former cricketer-turned-presidential-candidate Imran Khan. His self-proclaimed "tsunami" of supporters, inspired by his reputation as an outsider determined to change the system, set attendance records at his rallies, and gave Pakistan's notoriously rough-and-tumble journalists someone to cast as the political dark horse. But the candidate of change lost some of his shine in the Fall of 2012, when he began to cherry-picking senior members of the same political parties he was criticizing for his leadership team. One senior adviser, Shireen Mazari, resigned from his party in protest in September. In her resignation letter, she accused Khan of trading his original ideals for ?traditional ?electables.??

For a country seeking salvation, Qadri, free from the confines of political process, checks the boxes that others in the current cast of characters in Pakistani politics cannot.?

Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

Supporters of Pakistani Muslim cleric Tahir-ul Qadri flash victory signs in Islamabad Thursday as they celebrate government concessions on upcoming elections.

"Who are the other people to be supported?" asked one former government official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are maybe not as incompetent and corrupt (as the current government leaders), but they are very good runners-up."

Qadri's message, on the other hand, has been simple and consistent.?

He has demanded free, fair and transparent elections in a country where political patronage is often bought. He's demanded that political candidates meet the constitutional requirements for candidacy, such as paying their taxes. A recent investigation by Pakistani journalist Umar Cheema found that fewer than one-third of Pakistan's members of parliament file annual tax returns, including president Zardari.?

Rizvi says Qadri's support is borne of "widespread alienation" in Pakistan, and is in reaction to the poor performance by the federal and provincial governments.?

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But professor Fair believes Qadri's quick rise has all the hallmarks of Pakistan's powerful military, which has historically?worked to influence policy and force political turnover -- both behind the scenes and through direct intervention. Though the military leadership has publicly taken a backseat during power struggles playing out before national elections, she believes it is privately pulling strings to prevent the same government officials from winning a majority, and to keep its hand in the game.

"They know that Pakistanis will not tolerate a direct military intervention. And this is (going to be) the second peaceful transition where parliament serves out its full term in Pakistan," Fair said of the military leaders. "Every time it happens, it makes it more difficult for the army to intervene. I don't think the intention is to overthrow the government -- it's to weaken the PPP (ruling party) before elections."

In an interview this week with NBC News, Qadri lambasted the current government as a "total failure," but insisted his goal was to reform, not topple it.

"We want to eradicate our political process and electoral process from might, money and manipulation," he said. "We want true democracy in place.?

He vehemently denied any support from Pakistan's military, or from external forces, as has been speculated in the local press, calling it "a false accusation," and "disinformation."

Now that he has the ear of the country and its leaders, it's unclear what Qadri will do next.?

Under the agreement signed Thursday, he has a role to play in the lead-up to elections. And while he insists he holds no political ambitions, that doesn't stop him from comparing himself to the elected-leader of the United States when asked what he stands for.

"I would say my slogan is like the slogan of Obama in America," he said. "He stood for change. If Americans accepted the slogan of change and voted for him, why not the same change? Democratically formed, the change in the corrupt system, why not the same change, democratically, peacefully should come in Pakistan???

NBC's Wajahat S. Khan and Fakhar Rehman in Islamabad, and Mushtaq Yousafzai in Peshawar, contributed to this report.

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Source: http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/18/16572814-cleric-leaps-from-low-profile-life-in-canada-to-center-of-pakistans-political-maelstrom?lite

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