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Apple Unveils Thinner, Faster iPad 2

2011-03-03T01:05:00.000-08:00

Apple on Wednesday finally unveiled its next-generation tablet, dubbed the iPad 2. The device is 33 percent thinner, runs a new A5 chip, and will come in white, Apple said.

The iPad 2 will start shipping on March 11 in the U.S., and on March 25 in 26 additional countries. Like the original iPad, pricing will start at $499 for the Wi-Fi-only 16GB. The 32GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 will be $599, and the 64GB will be $699. For Wi-Fi+3G, the 16GB will be $629, the 32GB will be $729, and the 64GB will be $829.

Despite taking a medical leave of absense earlier this year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was on hand in San Francisco to unveil the new device, receiving a standing ovation from the crowd. "We've been working on this product for awhile and I didn't want to miss today," Jobs said.

As expected, the iPad 2 will include a front- and rear-facing camera, and a built-in gyroscope from the iPod touch and iPhone. The rear camera supports HD up to 720p at 30 frames per second; the still camera has 5x digital zoom. The front camera is VGA.

The new device is thinner, going from 13.4 mm to 8.8mm thick. It's thinner than the iPhone 4, Jobs said. It is 9.5 inches tall and 7.31 inches wide, and weight 1.33 pounds. Jobs said that despite the smaller size, battery life will remain at 10 hours.

The iPad 2 will include a new, faster 1-GHz A5 chip from the Apple "chip wizards." The dual-core processor boasts up to 2x faster CPU performance, 9x faster graphics, and low-power consumption. "This will be the first dual-core tablet to ship in volume," Jobs siad.

Jobs also promised that the iPad 2 will ship in black and white from day one. It will also be available on both Verizon and AT&T.

On the accessory front, a $39 HDMI video-out accessory cable delivers mirrored video output up to 1080p, which works with all apps. Anything you see on an iPad screen you can see on the TV, Jobs said. There's no setup or configuration and you can charge your iPad while using it.

Jobs also unveiled a Smart Cover, which will better showcase the iPad 2. Jobs said he didn't like the original iPad cover because it covered up his pretty product and made it bulkier. The Smart Cover bends and folds around to double as a stand. It instantly wakes up the iPad when you open it and puts it to sleep when it's closed. Smart Cover magnetically grasps the screen and auto-aligns perfectly, Jobs said.

Smart Case comes in five poly colors, all $39, and five leather colors, which will retail for $69.

Apple also showed off iOS 4.3, the next version of its mobile operating system.

Jobs ribbed his competitors during the presentation, dubbing 2011 the year of the copycats. People laughed at Apple for calling the iPad "magical" and said the price was unreasonable, he said, but ask those competitors now if the price is reasonable. Apple sold 15 million iPads in 2010, bringing in $9.5 billion in revenue. That left competitors "flummoxed," Jobs said.

The App Store now has 65,000 iPad-focused apps. Competitors, meanwhile, launch with "at most," 100 apps, "and I think we are being a little generous here," Jobs said.

Jobs also confirmed that Random House books are now available via iBooks.

The announcement caps off months of speculation - from when the fabled tablet would actually appear to what new features it might contain. Most were in agreement that the device would include a front-facing camera, particularly since that feature is now available on competing devices like the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Motorola Xoom. Others also thought a slimmer and lighter form factor was in the works. Talk about a white iPad was also in the mix.

Stay tuned for more details from today's event and some hands-on impressions from PCMag analysts. For more, see PCMag's live blog and check out 11 Killer Features That Could Take the iPad to the Next Level and What the Apple iPad 2 Can Teach Google.

[Sources : PCmag]

Fossil DNA Could Save Species

2011-03-02T06:17:00.000-08:00

For Mike Bunce, the skin, bones and dung of ancient Australian native animals are much more than the sum of their parts -- they are a time machine to the past.

Bunce, who heads the ancient DNA lab at Murdoch University in Western Australia, searches the remnants of long-dead animals and plants for clues about how to conserve their modern-day descendants.

Known as "conservation paleobiology," this emerging field of science relies heavily on fossil and ancient pollen analysis together with carbon dating and, importantly, ancient DNA analysis to answer vital questions about the history of endangered species like discovering where an endangered species lived hundreds of years ago, to how it coped with massive changes in the environment.

As Bunce explains, the field has only recently gained momentum thanks to our growing knowledge about the genetic make-up of modern species, currently available genetic tools and the falling cost of DNA analysis.

"There are a variety of genetic tools now at the disposal of scientists, and these tools have had meaningful impacts in managing modern populations," he says. "It is only natural that this is now spilling over into the past to help us better understand things like biodiversity loss."

And analyzing ancient DNA isn't just a fancy form of fossil analysis.

While the fossil record might show a particular species living in one place for tens of thousands of years, the genetics of those fossils might reveal "entire genetic types disappearing and new populations invading" says Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide.

"It puts a whole new perspective on the fossil record," he added.

Knowing where a species lived in the past can help with decisions about reintroduction to a new area and interbreeding animals from different modern populations.

"If we're looking at re-establishing an ecosystem to what it formally looked like it's important that we know what used to live there not hundreds of years ago but thousands of years ago," Bunce says.

For example, Bunce's team has found that the woylie, a small marsupial whose numbers have declined rapidly, particularly in the past decade, used to live over the entire south-west of Western Australia.

"We can tell that genetic signatures used to move around the entire south-west area," says Bunce.

There are now only a few isolated woylie populations left. "So we can't really get too precious about interbreeding these populations now because in the past they were definitely connected."

The research also found that the woylie has lost around 90 per cent of its genetic diversity since Europeans arrived with feral animals 200 years ago. But all is not lost.

"Genetic diversity take times to build. You can also use modern genetic tools to make decisions to breed certain animals to facilitate gene flow," says Bunce.

But not all modern populations of animals can be interbred.

Jeremy Austin, deputy director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, was recently involved in research using museum specimens thousands of years old to determine the past geographical range of modern day Victorian and NSW rock wallabies.

Because the two belong to distinct genetic lineages, interbreeding can lead to 'nasty genetic effects', says Austin, so mapping their old ranges means that conservationists now know which type of animal to reintroduce to particular areas.

One of Australia's most beloved animals, the Tasmanian devil, is also in need of a helping hand from ancient DNA.

More than 70 percent of devils have been infected with facial tumor disease, a contagious cancer that can spread between devils because of a lack of genetic diversity.

Recently, scientists have suggested that a population of devils in the northwest of Tasmania may be resistant to the disease because they have a different variant of the "major histocompatibility complex" (MHC) gene family.

The MHC genes code for proteins that ensure the body launches an immune response against foreign tissue. If two animals have the same MHC genes, cancerous tissue passed from one to another won't be rejected, allowing the cancer to take hold.

Austin and his team are using DNA from museum specimens to find out when devils may have lost genetic diversity in their MHC genes and the genetic impact of the disease in the past.

"The important question is have devils had this disease for thousands of years and been surviving until they lost diversity when Europeans arrived? Or is it just an accident that the disease has turned up and taken advantage of the low diversity?" says Austin.

And if devils survive the disease it will be important to know how much of past genetic diversity remains, to assess how much they will be able to adapt to changes in the environment or new diseases, says Austin.

Ancient DNA can also tell us how species could respond to climate change, says Cooper.

Scientists are busy modeling how the climate will change as average temperatures increase, but the impact this will have on animals and plants has received less attention because it's much more difficult to predict how complex ecosystems will respond, he says.

"That's where conservation paleobiology comes into its own," he says. "You're taking information from the past, during, for example, periods of rapid climate change, to look at consequences that you can't gain from looking at the last few hundred years."

Looking at DNA from animals that lived between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago (from just after the last glacial period to the beginning of the Holocene period) allows us to observe a huge 'experiment' as the Earth warmed, he says.

"The most surprising stuff ... is the incredible dynamism of the response of populations to climate: how violent it is; there are extinctions and migrations and replacements -- huge see-sawing of populations. That's the kind of thing we absolutely need to know about if we're trying to predict what are the consequences of temperature change."

But however good researchers become at inferring the future from the past, and however sophisticated technologies become, they will always be constrained by the lottery of past conditions.

Australia is a challenging place to work with ancient DNA, says Bunce. The hot climate means it rarely remains intact.

"Antarctic environments allow for conditions that preserve DNA for up to one million years but the oldest DNA we've managed to get from Australian conditions is about 20,000 years old," says Bunce.

Bunce's team often take sediments from cave sites, such as Western Australia's South-West Caves, for analysis because they tend to be protected from the wildest swings in temperature.

Scientists are always going to be working with tiny fragments of DNA, adds Cooper, and are always going to need specimens to have that unique set of circumstances for the DNA to be preserved.

"That's always going to give you a limited pool of samples to work from," he says.

But the work is essential, says Austin.

Australia has the highest rate of terrestrial vertebrate extinction in the last 200 years and many species on the endangered list.

"For all the wrong reasons we should be at the forefront of using ancient DNA to try and save what's left," he says.

[Sources : discovery]

Rare, Apocalyptic Supernova Ocurred 160 Million Years Ago

2011-03-02T06:13:00.000-08:00

New developments in the observation of supernovae are providing increasing evidence that the explosion of a star can result in a strongly deformed fireball. The image above shows a Ib supernova 2010O is thought to be an explosion in a Wolf-Rayet X-ray binary.

A few, rare supernovae arise as a result of the interaction of white dwarfs with other stars placed very close to them -the so-called thermonuclear supernovae. Other explosions, core-collapse or gravitational supernovae, happen when very massive stars die (like the Wolf-Rayet Star remnants above). These stars have consumed the fuel that makes them shine, the energy source that supports their internal structure against the tendency to shrink and collapse due to the pull of gravity. They suffer an energy crisis that leads to an extremely violent collapse and, after that, to an explosion of awesome, apocalyptic finality.

Type IIn gravitational supernovae are the rarest of all, with only three of this type ever observed; in all three cases astronomers found strong evidence of an asymmetric fireball .

The most recent of these studies was conducted by an international team of astronomers lead by F. Patat (ESO, Garching, Germany), who observed supernova 2010jl in November 2010 using Calar Alto telescopes and a technique called spectropolarimetry, which allows to infer information on the shape of an object, even though the object itself appears as a simple, tiny point at the telescope.

Supernova 2010jl was observed in the constellation Leo some 160 million light-years away during the first days of November 2010. Its host galaxy was UGC 5189A, a strangely shaped specimen, an example of a galaxy in strong tidal interaction with some neighbouring galaxies. Such interaction usually leads to an intense formation of new stars, the more massive of which later will appear as gravitational supernova.

In the case of SN 2010jl, it has been estimated that the parent star had a mass at least around thirty times that of the Sun. Such heavy massive stars drive consume their resources rapidly and shine only for a few million years The intense energy output tears material out from the stellar surface. So, the star is continuously emitting not only energy, but also some amount of matter, atomic and subatomic particles that constitute the stellar wind and form an envelope around the star. When the final moment comes and the star explodes as a gravitational supernova, the expanding fireball collides with this envelope, and emits light due to processes that happen both inside the hot gas and at the contact surface between the hot gas and the envelope.

In SN 2010jl the asymmetry caused by an intrinsically non-spherical explosion, or a more symmetrical fireball interacting with an elongated envelope-the team is not sure. In either case, both the explosion and the envelope come from the same almost spherical star. Rotation and magnetic fields are no doubt involved in the generation of the asymmetry, but further studies are needed to clarify this point.

The Daily Galaxy via Calar Alto Observatory-CAHA and physorg.com

Image credit" NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STSd/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans; Inset: NASA, ESA and H. Bond

[Sources : DailyGalaxy]

Ancient dominatrix mites found trapped in amber while mating

2011-03-02T05:58:00.000-08:00

40-million-year-old extinct mites were trapped while displaying unusual mating behavior in which the female dominates.

Researchers studying ancient amber deposits have discovered the closest thing in nature to a scandalous mite sex tape. Two members of an extinct, 40-million-year-old species of mite were found trapped in the amber while displaying unusual sexual behavior in which the female dominates the male, according to PhysOrg.com.

In most species of modern mite, it's the male that is in control of copulation. Aside from harassing reluctant females by guarding them from engaging with other males, male mites of some species have evolved specialized clinging organs that grapple the females and force them into sex.

As the act frozen in amber now suggests, however, mite sex roles weren't always this way. In fact, sex roles appear to have been reversed for the ancient species.

"In this species, it is the female who has partial or complete control of mating," said Pavel Klimov, an associate research scientist at the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. "This is in contrast to the present-day reproductive behavior of many mite species where almost all aspects of copulation are controlled by males."

In fact, it's the females from the extinct mite species (Glaesacarus rhombeus) that harbor the specialized, pad-like, clinging sex organs. Klimov even describes some types of these female clinging structures as "copulatory tubes that function like a penis."

So what happened to these dominatrix mites? Why did they go extinct? Scientists suggest that a biological battle of the sexes has been raging throughout evolutionary history. Both genders struggle to gain the upper hand in controlling how their genes get passed on to the next generation. It's an evolutionary cycle that occasionally gets played out in extremes, such as with these mites.

Scientists have long suspected that sex role reversals have occurred throughout mite evolution, but it wasn't until this discovery that they could confirm it. Finding a fossil is one thing; finding perfectly preserved animal behavior is something rare.

Who knows what others kinds of oddball behavior, scandalous or otherwise, scientists may find as they continue to mine these amazing amber deposits for more rare snapshots of biological history?

Giant Underground Chamber Discovered On the Moon

2011-03-02T05:42:00.000-08:00

Back in 2009, the Japanese Space Agency JAXA announced moon hole deep enough to contain a small human base. Now, the Indian Space Research Organization has discovered a "giant underground chamber" near the Moon's equator, in the Oceanus Procellarum area.

The huge cave— discovered by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft—is more than one mile long (1.7 kilometers) and 393 feet wide (120 meters). By comparison, the vertical hole that Jaxa discovered was only 213 feet (65 meters across) and 289 feet deep (88 meters). This new chamber is big enough to contain a small lunar city or a secret Nazi base with a few thousand UFOs.

The Indian researchers have published a paper detailing their findings and talking about the possibility of making this giant underground vault as a future human base. The settlement would be protected from radiation, micro-meteor impacts, dust and extreme temperature changes by the lava structure:

Lava provides a natural environmental control with a nearly constant temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit), unlike that of the lunar surface showing extreme variation, maximum of 130 degrees Celsius (266 degrees Fahrenheit) to a minimum of minus 180 degrees Celsius (-292 degrees Fahrenheit) in its diurnal (day-night) cycle.

Giant Underground Chamber Discovered On the Moon They also point out that explorers would only need minimal construction, without the added cost of having to use expensive shields against the hazardous lunar environment.

If humans ever colonize this chamber, I hope they call the city Attilan. [Silicon India]

[Sources : gizmodo]

BTDigg, The First ‘Trackerless’ Torrent Search Engine

2011-03-01T23:24:00.000-08:00

The Internet is filled with thousands of BitTorrent sites which all search through databases containing millions of torrent files. Today these sites are joined by a new one – BTDigg. However, unlike more traditional torrent search engines, BTDigg searches through files that are found on BitTorrent’s DHT network, which is rather unique. According to the site’s founders this is a much needed step to further decentralize BitTorrent.

btdiggTo fully grasp the novelty of the newly launched DHT search engine BTDigg, one needs to have some basic knowledge of how regular BitTorrent search engines work.

In short, all search engines search through a database of .torrent files, either uploaded by users of their own site, or pulled from other places on the web. These torrent files are stored online and if a person creates a new torrent file he or she has to upload it somewhere for it to be picked up by torrent search engines.

BTDigg does things differently. Instead of relying on .torrent files this search engine uses BitTorrent’s DHT to discover new files.

DHT enables so-called “trackerless torrents”, a feature supported by all major BitTorrent clients. DHT’s function is to find peers who are downloading the same files, but without communicating with a central BitTorrent tracker. This is useful in the event that a central tracker goes down.

DHT is enabled by default in clients such as uTorrent and Vuze and millions of people are already using it without knowing. Unlike conventional torrent search engines, BTDigg’s servers are now using information from BitTorrent’s DHT network to find and index torrents.

Although we can’t really say that this is better or more efficient than the traditional search engine approach, it’s certainly a fresh perspective.

Another benefit is that people can theoretically share something without using a tracker, and without having to upload it to a torrent site. If DHT is enabled the file will be eventually picked up by BTDigg. In theory, this is another step towards a truly decentralized BitTorrent ecosystem.

This was also one of the main reasons why BTDigg was launched, the site’s founder told us. “We think that the Internet’s moving towards to decentralized and distributed systems and would like to contribute to it by creating BTDigg,” he said.

Contrary to the progressive concept, the design of BTDigg is rather retro. All users get to see is a search box, and the search results are presented in a l33t user interface. The search results show users detailed information on the various files, including the title, file size and a download link.

“We use information about the count of peers and the time of the last access to present users with the most relevant results,” the site’s founder further explained.

The downloads on BTDigg go through magnet links instead of the more traditional torrents. Since BTDigg uses the DHT network to find files there are no torrents involved at all, even though the files all come from other BitTorrent users.

BTDigg’s founder told TorrentFreak that they will keep improving the site in the weeks to come, and we were ensured that a redesign is also in the planning. It will be interesting to see where this goes, and for traditional search engines DHT might be another interesting (but resource consuming) source of content.

[Sources : torrentfreak]

Laguna Beach Purposing A Ban On Skateboarding

2011-03-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

It seems as though many Laguna Beach residents are fed up with one of the teenagers favorite activities, skateboarding. Laguna’s hilly streets make it the perfect place for skateboarders to go downhill on their boards at fast speeds. For those living there, it isn’t as fun as it sounds. Many residents get a scare when pulling out of their driveway and seeing a skateboarder fly down a hill at 25miles an hour.”When you have a close call with a kid, it’s seared into your memory,” said Sue Kemf, one of Laguna Beach residents, “I just don’t want to be responsible for hitting a kid.” Other Laguna residents feel the same and are trying to ban skateboarding from steeper streets in the city.

Obviously, many skateboarding teenagers argue the want for this ban, but with no avail. They insist that skateboarding keeps them fit and that they wear all the necessary protective gear. “I don’t think there are better hills,” said Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman. “If I were a kid and had no fear of death, I’d say Laguna is heaven.” And the teens couldn’t agree more.

However, the Police received over 400 complaints, in the last 3 years, regarding this matter and reports of 11 collisions. In January a 17 year old boy, in Los Angeles, died after falling while skateboarding down a hill without a helmet. Earlier this month, a city council meeting was held to initially purpose the ban of skateboarding in Laguna Beach. It was agreed by the Council Members that skateboarding is no longer allowed in 4 of the city’s streets and according to City Manager John Pietig, additional regulations will be considered during a meeting in March.

[Sources : skateboardingmagazine.com]

How Did the Mouse Get Its Color?

2011-03-01T23:13:00.000-08:00

Scientists finally have the answer to this question. A team of researchers at Harvard University say a gene named Agouti is responsible for the color patterns in deer mice and possibly all vertebrates. The research appears this week in the journal Science.

"Taking advantage of the simple color pattern of deer mice -- which have a dark back and a light belly -- we showed that small changes in the activity of a single pigmentation gene in embryos generate big differences in adult color pattern,” says Marie Manceau, a research associate in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

Small changes in Agouti gene expression could literally change the pattern of a leopard’s spots. In deer mice, natural selection determines the amount of Agouti expression, thus determining the color patterns that help them and other animals camouflage and hide from predators.

[Sources : Animal Descovery]

Regulators Reject Proposal That Would Bring Fox-Style News to Canada

2011-03-01T23:06:00.000-08:00

As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.

Canada's Radio Act requires that "a licenser may not broadcast....any false or misleading news." The provision has kept Fox News and right wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the U.S. airwaves. When Stephen Harper moved to abolish anti-lying provision of the Radio Act, Canadians rose up to oppose him fearing that their tradition of honest non partisan news would be replaced by the toxic, overtly partisan, biased and dishonest news coverage familiar to American citizens who listen to Fox News and talk radio. Harper's proposal was timed to facilitate the launch of a new right wing network, "Sun TV News" which Canadians call "Fox News North."

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public. In the Unites States, Fox News and talk radio, the sock puppets of billionaires and corporate robber barons have become the masters of propaganda and distortion on the public airwaves. Fox News's notoriously biased and dishonest coverage of the Wisconsin's protests is a prime example of the brand of news coverage Canada has smartly avoided.

[Sources : The Huffingstone Post]

Anti-Decadence Pastor Accused Of Public Masturbation

2011-03-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

METAIRIE, La. -- Grant Storms, a conservative pastor who has staged protests against New Orleans' Southern Decadence Festival, was arrested Friday on accusations of masturbating in a public park.

Update: Pastor Offers Tearful Apology

Storms, 53, was charged with obscenity after two witnesses told deputies they saw him touching himself while watching children on the playground at Lafreniere Park in Metairie, according to the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.

Storms told deputies he was just having lunch at the park when he had to go to the bathroom, so he relieved himself in a bottle.

But two women said they saw Storms masturbating, and they notified sheriff's deputies. Officials said Storms later admitted to inappropriate conduct.

Storms is known for staging protests against Decadence, an annual gay celebration in the French Quarter. In 2003, he organized a march in opposition of the event, calling it "nasty" and "depraved."

Relatives who spoke with WDSU Monday evening said Storms had been on a downward spiral of late.

"My feelings would be... yes, I saw it coming," said Kim Lafferty, Storms' sister-in-law.

[Sources : WDSU]

PS3 banned in Europe after LG gets temp injunction vs. Sony

2011-03-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Sony encountered a major setback on Monday after LG landed a preliminary injunction banning the PlayStation 3 from sales in Europe. A civil court in The Hague ruled that any PS3s imported into the continent have to be confiscated by government officials for at least the next 10 days. The Guardian claimed that the Netherlands, often a point of import for all of Europe, had already taken "tens of thousands" of PS3s and that Sony stood to see hundreds of thousands of the consoles blocked from reaching shelves.

LG is embroiled in a patent dispute over Blu-ray that has extended worldwide, including Europe and the US, and has used the PS3 as a leverage tactic to push for a settlement. The complaint itself was a response to Sony suing LG over phone patents.

A quick settlement may be essential for Sony to avoid a crisis. Although its claim is unconfirmed, the newspaper had heard that Sony might have just two to three weeks of PS3s in stock in Europe before it runs dry. If it couldn't lift the injunction, it could see the Wii and Xbox 360 take a commanding lead in European gaming once customers have no choice but to buy from Microsoft or Nintendo to get a modern console.

Sony wouldn't officially comment beyond saying it was investigating the causes beyond the ban.

[Sources : Electronista]

Independent Study Confirms GOP Budget Cuts Would Kill 700,000 Jobs

2011-03-01T22:53:00.001-08:00

The GOP is totally screwed on employment: they've been foaming at the mouth talking about job creation, but spent the entirety of their time in Congress thus far attacking women and social programs. And we already knew their budget plan was problematic, but the writing's fully on the wall: the Plum Line reports that the second independent study thus far has confirmed that their proposed budget plan would not create jobs, but would in face decimate 700,000 of them. In a new report echoing a confidential Goldman Sachs missive to its clients, Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi warns that the GOP numbers will undermine stimulus and even further weaken the economy. Greg Sargent:

Now, Zandi will of course be dismissed in some quarters because he has aggressively defended the stimulus. But this is the second outside analysis to reach this conclusion. Last week Goldman Sachs, in a confidential report to clients, concluded that House GOP budget cuts would be a drag on the economy and cut economic growth by rougly two percent of GDP.

Reacting to the Goldman Sachs report, Senator Chuck Schumer remarked that it "puts a dagger through the heart" of the GOP's "cut and grow fantasy." Expect more along these lines today.

Even if you disagree with these analyses, you'd think the fact that there are now two of them reaching similar conclusions would newsworthy enough to break through the din of Beltway deficit-reduction fetishizing. The argument about budet cuts is too often framed solely as an argument between so-called deficit "hawks" and "doves," as a dispute between those who say steep cuts are necessary and those who say they're cruel and extreme. The fact that outside analysts think that budget cuts could actively hamper the recovery deserves to be part of the discussion.

[Sources : AltarNet]

Analysis: U.S. immigration probe fears weigh on Chipotle

2011-03-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

(Reuters) - An investigation by U.S. immigration officials into illegal unemployment at Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc (CMG.N) is making some investors nervous and could have implications for the fast-food industry as a whole.

Chipotle, based in Denver, is one of the highest-profile employers to come under the scrutiny of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent years. And the investigation into its hiring practices has served as a wake-up call for the nation's nearly 580,000 restaurants.

The rapidly expanding burrito chain -- famous for keeping a tight grip on labor costs and coming off a two-year stock gain of 350 percent -- far exceeded Wall Street's profit expectations when it reported quarterly results on February 10.

But the shares have since fallen 4.5 percent. A handful of analysts have downgraded Chipotle shares due in part to uncertainty about the liabilities and costs related to immigration audits, which have expanded from about 50 restaurants in Minnesota to Chipotle's 60 restaurants in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Some industry watchers downplay the risk because the audits are not happening in the usual hot spots such as California, New York or Chipotle's home state of Colorado. But others are not so quick to dismiss the extent to which labor costs may rise if Chipotle were forced to replace illegal workers.

"My gut tells me this is a real issue, especially for fast-food restaurant chains leveraging cheap labor in high immigration states," said Richard Fearon, founder and chief investment officer at Accretive Capital, a hedge fund based in Madison, Connecticut.

"There is a large, vote-yielding bull's-eye painted on its back and sitting in the cross-hairs of the politicians," said Fearon, who invests in restaurant operators, but does not hold Chipotle shares.

Chipotle fired 450 people, or nearly 40 percent of its workers in Minnesota, following the ICE probe.

So far, the affected restaurants represent just a fraction of the 1,084 Chipotle locations nationwide, but analysts and fund managers that follow the stock market darling are now asking how many other states and how many of its roughly 25,000 employees could be ensnared.

Probes in additional markets "would create downward pressure for the stock. I think it's a risk," said Miller Tabak analyst Stephen Anderson, who downgraded Chipotle last month to "hold" from "buy."

Anderson told Reuters that a federal immigration probe in California -- home to 165, or about 15 percent, of the company's total restaurants -- would be "very significant" in terms of incremental costs for Chipotle, which owns and operates its restaurants, if it resulted in mass firings.

Investors also are worried about the impact on the $300 billion U.S. restaurant industry, which historically is heavily dependent on immigrant labor and is now getting squeezed by higher costs for everything from beef to produce.

While some experts estimate that legal and illegal immigrant workers account for around one-fourth of the restaurant industry work force, 40 percent of workers surveyed by Restaurant Opportunities Center for a 2005 report said they did not have legal status to work in the United States.

WORKING ON TIPS

ICE fines are not the primary worry because they totaled a paltry $7 million last year.

[sources : Lisa Baertlein and Mary Milliken]

70% of the Public Finds Piracy Socially Acceptable

2011-03-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

A recent study on moral standards and whether some law breaking is socially acceptable has revealed an interesting stance on file-sharing among the public. Of those questioned in the study, 70% said that downloading illicit material from the Internet is acceptable. Three out four, however, felt it was completely unacceptable to then sell that product for profit.

During the last decade the entertainment industries have tried numerous strategies to thwart Internet piracy. One of the most common, especially with the music industry, was to sue some file-sharers into submission thereby creating a climate of fear designed to deter others. Needless to say, that didn’t work particularly well.

The movie industry has largely concentrated their legal efforts largely on taking sites down but have also been active in trying to educate Internet users through various schemes that piracy is ‘wrong’ and causes real damage. On the whole, that hasn’t worked either, and a new study just released appears to back up the assertion.

The study, published by the Rockwool Foundation Research Unit, questioned participants on morals and ethics, and included discussion on which laws they believe are socially acceptable to break.

The Danish study, which ultimately concluded that moral standards are just as high as they were 10 years ago, covered issues such as tax evasion, insurance fraud, the morality gap between men and women and, to the interest of TorrentFreak readers, piracy.

In the piracy section respondents were asked to rate, on a scale from 1 to 10, whether they thought unauthorized downloading for personal use is a socially acceptable act. The researchers found that 7 out of 10 of those questioned felt, to a greater or lesser degree, that it is socially acceptable. 15-20% of the total group believed that piracy is totally acceptable.

A minority of just over 30% of the respondents voted at the very bottom of the response scale, an indication that they feel piracy is completely unacceptable.

Interestingly, despite the never-ending anti-piracy campaigns of the last decade, the attitudes of the public don’t seem to have changed much. When questioned for a 1997 study on whether it was acceptable to use pirate software, the same proportion – 3 out of 10 – said the activity was unacceptable.

However, in the new 2010 study, there is an interesting common moral denominator among respondents. When questioned on whether it is acceptable to download something and then sell it to a friend for profit, 3 out of 4 said that would be completely unacceptable.

The results of the study show that it is nearly impossible for copyright holders and anti-piracy groups to change the attitudes of the public in their favor. If they want piracy to decrease, their best bet is probably to focus on lowering the incentives for people to pirate, there seems to be more opportunities in that area.

[source : torrentfreak]

The Top Five Most Expensive Beatles Collectibles

2011-03-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

A new site launched recently called wikicollecting.org, and it's aim is to hip you to how much your memorabilia is worth. It also is a clearinghouse for things like the most expensive Beatles collectibles.

Luxist has a rundown of the top five, and it'll make you feel poor: The most expensive was John Lennon's Rolls Royce, which sold for $2.23 million in 1985, which means it's probably way more expensive today. Also on the list are handwritten lyrics, drum heads and a guitar.

Top Five Most Expensive Beatles Collectibles

John Lennon's Rolls-Royce Phantom V – $2.23 million
The piano John Lennon used to write Imagine - $2.1 million
John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to "A Day in the life" - $1,202,500
The drum skin which appears on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - £541,250 ($1,071,133)
George Harrison's Gibson SG guitar - $567,500

[Source: Luxist]

Why the Facebook Like Button Change is a 'Bait and Switch'

2011-03-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Facebook rolled out a change in the functionality of the Facebook “Like” button on websites across the Internet, essentially giving it the same basic functionality as the “Share” button. The only difference is that pushing the Like button doesn’t open up a new window or give you any way to edit what you’re posting to your wall.

It just posts it. All of it.

One click and the details are posted on your wall as well as into the streams of your friends. You cannot edit the message. Whatever the website you’re Liking has in their meta tags, that’s the message you’re posting. The end result is similar to that of the Share button, but the process removes a person’s ability to edit or personalize what they want posted to their wall.

Facebook knows exactly what they’re doing. This is a classic “bait ‘n switch” move that was well planned and executed perfectly all the way down to the exact day that it was launched.

Here are some reasons why this stinks:

No Control

The Share functionality on websites is very simple. You push the Share button. A window pops up that allows you to personalize the sharing with a comment or question, or you can leave it blank just have the title of the page you’re sharing be the top message on your post.

The Like functionality is even more simple. You push a button. No pop up. No dialogue box. No indication that anything has happened on your Facebook wall. What’s worse is that you cannot edit it at any point, neither from the page you’re liking nor on your Facebook profile itself (except in the case of the “Like with Comment” button which we cover below). Whatever message the website wants to send, you’re sending that message by liking it.

To Facebook’s credit, if you unlike the page from the source, it removes it from your wall. The reverse is also possible – deleting it from your wall gives you the ability to unlike it at the source as well.

This comes down to simplicity winning over functionality. By making it a one-click process, more pages will be shared on Facebook (in theory). There is also a one-way interaction between Like and Share buttons on the same page – Liking something counts as a Share, but Sharing something does not count as a Like.

Here’s where the functionality gets weird and a potential fix comes into play…

Some Like widgets have an option to add a comment. While it doesn’t allow full control over what is posted, it at least allows you to post a comment with your Like. The problem is that once you post that comment, it’s no longer a Like. Instead, it acts like a Share and no longer says you Liked a link. If you don’t post a comment with the same button, it shows it as a Like.

If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is.

The potential fix (and where Facebook will likely go with this) is to consolidate the process. Eliminate the Share functionality altogether by sending an update that makes the functionality the same across the board. Then, make the Like button open the comment dialogue as well as an option to “edit before posting.”

At the very least, Facebook needs to give users the option of editing the Like from their Facebook page to add a message and change the content posted from the website meta tags. Currently, you have to comment on your own post to be able to say anything.

They have an opportunity to improve this and take away the “stink factor” that will make users upset. The lack of a warning, on the other hand…

No Warning

Facebook and Google are very different from Apple and Microsoft. Apple and Microsoft normally talk about changes, additions, and products before rolling them out. Facebook and Google roll them out and then may or may not say anything about them.

This roll out is something that (from a user’s perspective) should have been announced ahead of time. There should be a message posted on Facebook once a user logs in. There should be posts about it (and no, leaking it to Mashable doesn’t count). Instead, they just made the change.

There’s a reason for this. When you want things to get attention, you roll it out Monday or Tuesday. When you want news buried, you release it late on Friday. When you want something to make an impact but without people noticing, you roll it out on Oscar Sunday, which brings us to…

The Motives

Facebook wants to be important to everyone. They have the users. Businesses are paying attention. Websites are integrating. This move works towards helping 2 of the 3. The users, who this change doesn’t help, will be told that this switch is to make things easier for them. One-click sharing is nice.

Despite what they say, this isn’t to benefit the users. Sharing was something that people consciously did when they wanted to, well, share. Liking had a nice but less prominent functionality and that was just fine for most. The challenge that Facebook faces is that Liking didn’t do much and Sharing wasn’t being used enough.

This move is all about the page views. It allows more exposure for websites, boosting the importance of Facebook integration across the board. As traffic sent to websites goes up as a result of this change, more prominence and attention will be given to Facebook as a necessary tool for exposure, promotions, and marketing.

Even the roll out day was perfect. It’s a double-dipped ice cream cone for Facebook. More sharing was likely done during the Academy Awards than on just about any day other than the Super Bowl. More importantly, people will be talking about the Oscars tomorrow and not about a minor change they barely noticed on Facebook.

The longer that people are unaware that Liking posts directly to their wall, the better from Facebook’s perspective. They don’t want people to be selective with their Likes the way they are with their Shares. The more content that is posted to walls and news feeds, the better off Facebook will be.

Overall, this was a good move from a purely strategy perspective. It’s devious and may backfire, but chances are it will succeed to some extent in every aspect. The first day of buzz has been relatively light (just as they expected). If they can make it through the week with very few people noticing, they will probably come out of this with a significant increase in traffic sent as well as overall activity on their site itself.

From

The Most Iconic Fictional Vehicle: The Death Star [Infographic]

2011-03-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Galactic Empire was an authoritarian government that used fear to rule the galaxy. To maintain order and control, the Empire built a series of Death Stars, moon-sized battle stations with lasers that could destroy planets. What better for the Car Insurance Guide, in partnership with Geeks are Sexy, to chronicle than the Death Star? Throughout the Star Wars films, two Death Stars are built, the first is completed and later destroyed and the second is under construction when it’s blown up.