BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee?s second annual Healthy Church Challenge 100-day weight loss competition for churches in West Tennessee is set to get under way on Saturday, Feb. 2.
This year?s challenge is anticipated to include more than 50 local churches that will get the chance to compete for cash prizes to benefit their churches and health ministries.
?The idea for the Healthy Church Challenge came about from our foundation and company goal of impacting the health of the population in Tennessee,? said Calvin Anderson, senior vice president and chief of staff at BlueCross. ?Obesity is a lead driver of diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.?
This year?s grand prize will be a $5,000 certificate for fitness equipment and nutritional counseling, and there also will be an individual prize awarded to the person who loses the most weight overall. Last year, 458 men, women and children lost a total of 2,821 pounds. Fullview Missionary Baptist Church in Bartlett won first place, which included a $5,000 gift certificate to the Sports Authority and nutritional counseling from Baptist Memorial Health Care.
The 2013 Healthy Church Challenge is part of a city- and state-wide effort for citizens to reduce weight and live healthier. Memphis and Shelby County rank in the bottom 10 percent of some studies as it relates to health, healthy eating, exercise, healthy living, life-altering disease management and prevention. The 100-day Healthy Church Challenge is designed to address the problems through area faith-based organizations and create a healthier place to live, work and play in Memphis, Shelby County and West Tennessee.
?Memphis is the focus city in the state for 2012 and 2013; however, we are looking to expand to additional cities after we analyze the findings and results of this initiative,? Anderson said.
Tennessee also ranks sixth in the nation for childhood obesity and receives an ?F? on the national ?Report Card: State Efforts to Control Childhood Obesity.? Roughly one-third of all school children in the Mid-South are overweight or obese, and as many as two-thirds of adult Tennesseans are considered obese or overweight.
Earlier this month the Tennessee Commissioner of Health Dr. John Dreyzehner and his health policy team visited Memphis and talked to a group at the University of Memphis about the overall lack of physical activity in the state and how sedentary lifestyles can negatively impact health.
?If you look at the rankings, it is the area that we are currently as a state, relative to other states, doing the worst. We are ranked 48th,? Dreyzehner said.
Anderson expects the 2013 Healthy Church Challenge to grow this year, with participation expected from an estimated 50 churches following 36 last year. The event is open to all churches in West Tennessee and limited to 100 participants per church.
A mandatory weigh-in will take place at the Family Life Center at 70 N. Bellevue Blvd. starting at 10 a.m. and will run until 4 p.m. Alternate weigh-ins will take place Feb. 4 through Feb. 8, and then there will be a variety of ongoing activities including regular workout sessions and weigh-ins until late May. The challenge will culminate with an Obesity Summit and awards presentation on June 1. The full schedule, as well as daily tips for healthier living, can be found on the Healthy Church Challenge Facebook page.
At Saturday?s opening event, a workout session will be led by Yusuf Boyd, founder of Memphis-based BIOMechaniks, a boutique health/wellness studio, athletic performance, and injury prevention/rehabilitation service in Germantown. A nutritionist from The Regional Medical Center at Memphis also will teach participants the basics for healthy eating.
There will also be giveaways and vendors to disseminate health care information and products.
Entertainment is scheduled to include national gospel recording artist Darrel Petties, pastor of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Memphis.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama's nominee for defense secretary on Thursday defended his views of the military and global threats, pushing back against criticism that has focused on his past statements on Israel, Iran and nuclear weapons. Chuck Hagel told senators that America "must engage ? not retreat ? in the world," and insisted that his record is consistent on that point.
At his confirmation hearing, the former Republican two-term senator from Nebraska sought to diffuse the barrage of criticism about his past remarks that GOP critics say showed a lack of support for a Middle East ally. Hagel sought to build support for his nomination to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
"No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record," Hagel told the Senate Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony. "My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world; that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together; and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests."
Hagel, 66, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, would be the first enlisted man to become defense secretary, a point that Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., highlighted.
"It would be a positive message for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in harm's way around the world to know that one of their own holds the highest office in the Department of Defense and that he has their backs," Levin said.
Hagel was the lone witness in a jam-packed hearing room at a session that could be crucial in determining whether he will win Senate confirmation and join Obama's second-term national security team. Two former committee chairmen ? Democrat Sam Nunn and Republican John Warner ? introduced the nominee.
"War for Chuck Hagel is not an abstraction," Nunn said.
Hagel has the announced backing of about a dozen Democrats and the tacit support of dozens more who are unlikely to embarrass the president by defeating his Cabinet pick. One Republican ? Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi ? has said he will vote for his former colleague.
Six Republicans, including four members of the Armed Services panel, have said they will oppose Hagel's nomination. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top GOP lawmaker on the committee and an opponent of Hagel, almost immediately complained that Hagel had not provided to the committee all of his speeches over the last five years, as requested.
Inhofe said Hagel's record "is deeply troubling and out of mainstream views."
Hagel would be the lone Republican in the Obama Cabinet if the Senate confirms him, but the prospect has failed to placate GOP senators in a post-election atmosphere that remains as politically divisive as the fierce 2012 campaign.
Once the hearing was under way, the Republican National Committee put out a news release titled, "Chuck Hagel is the Wrong Choice for Secretary of Defense," and contending that he would weaken the nation's military.
Responding specifically to attacks from outside GOP-leaning groups, Hagel said he was committed to Obama's goal of ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon, and insisted that all options, including military force, are on the table.
"My policy is one of prevention, and not one of containment ? and the president has made clear that is the policy of our government," Hagel said.
Under questioning, Hagel said he always supported multilateral sanctions against Iran, but acknowledged that he cast votes against unilateral sanctions on a case-by-case basis. He argued that in some cases, such as votes in 2001-2002, he was taking into account the concerns of Republican President George W. Bush.
He also countered with votes and letters against Iran and Hezbollah.
"There's a more complete record than just one or two or three or four" votes, Hagel said, insisting that he has been on the record many times saying Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations and Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.
He also expressed support for maintaining a strong, modern nuclear arsenal, a position that has been challenged because of his support for the Global Zero organization's recommendation of nuclear cuts.
"We are not going to unilaterally disarm," Hagel said.
Crucial for Hagel will be the questioning by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Hagel and McCain are fellow Vietnam veterans who once had a close relationship during their years in the Senate, but politics and Hagel's opposition to increased troop numbers in Iraq divided the two men.
McCain has praised Hagel's military service but said he had serious concerns about positions the nominee has taken on various issues. He said he is reserving judgment until after the hearing. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., earlier this month described Obama's selection as an "in-your-face" pick but was a bit less critical this week.
"Who are we getting ? the guy today or the guy who said things before?" Graham said Tuesday after a 20-minute meeting with Hagel. Graham said he doesn't doubt Hagel's "personal integrity, but I do have real concerns about his policy positions."
The hearing will be the first time Hagel publicly addresses the criticism that he is not sufficiently pro-Israel or tough enough on Iran. In the past, Hagel has questioned the efficacy of unilateral sanctions on Iran, arguing that penalties in conjunction with international partners made more sense. He has also been criticized for his comments about the influence of a "Jewish lobby" and his past view of gay rights.
He addressed several of the issues in a 112-page questionnaire to the committee in which he said his wartime experience would shape his decisions about using military force.
"I understand what it is like to be a soldier in war," wrote Hagel. "I also understand what happens when there is poor morale and discipline among the troops and a lack of clear objectives, intelligence and command and control from Washington. I believe that experience will help me as secretary of defense to ensure we maintain the best fighting force in the world, protect our men and women in uniform and ensure that we are cautious and certain when contemplating the use of force."
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NUJ members are being asked to support the ICTU day of protest on Saturday 9 February. Barry McCall, NUJ president, and Gerry Curran,Cathaoirleach of the Irish Executive Council, have called on members to support the rallies throughout the country under the Congress banner.
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Six demonstrations (see details below) are being organised on that day by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, to call for the ?64 billion of private banking debt to be lifted from those living and working in the Republic of Ireland.
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Barry McCall, said: "This huge private banking debt was transformed into a sovereign debt. Now everybody in the Republic of Ireland is paying the massive bill, which was run up by private investors and speculators. It is astonishing that we are being penalised because the European Central Bank refused to allow senior bond holders to be burned.
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"This cannot be allowed to continue. People living and working in the Republic are suffering bitterly under the austerity measures being forced on them as a result. There is no chance of economic growth or revival while this continues. The message must go out loud and clear to those bodies that are demanding repayment of this private banking deb ? 'lift the burden now'.
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These six demonstrations give every NUJ member the opportunity to add their voice to the huge number of people who want the debt to be lifted from our backs."
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Gerry Curran said:"The Republic of Ireland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union. This gives us the opportunity to get our message across loudly and clearly on an international, as well as a national, scale. That message is simple ? what we need are jobs, not debt.
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"I would encourage NUJ members to attend the rallies in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford.?
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"Every day our members use a variety of media to communicate with the general public to let them know what is going on in the world. Now, as trade union members, it's our chance to be part of the story by getting out on the streets and having our voices heard as citizens."
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Assembly Points at 1.30pm
DUBLIN: Cook Street (near Civic Offices, Wood Quay);
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Just over a month ago, Boeing was flying high.
Its airplane factories were humming and speeding up production. Its defense business had just been restructured to deal with dwindling budgets in the United States and Europe. The company was confident enough to increase its dividend and resume buying back shares.
Perhaps best of all, Boeing was shortly to reclaim the title of world's biggest plane maker, snatching back an honor that its arch rival Airbus had held for a decade.
But with its new 787 Dreamliner still grounded by two battery failures on the eve of its 2012 earnings release, the Chicago-based aerospace and defense giant is in no position to rest on laurels.
Analysts and investors are likely to grill Chief Executive Jim McNerney about the costs of fixing the 787 when the company reports earnings on Wednesday.
Those costs are unknown but mounting daily as airlines are barred from using the high-tech plane. Boeing is still building five Dreamliners a month but isn't delivering them to customers. With each of them carrying a list price of $207 million, they quickly become an expensive pile of jets outside Boeing's factories in Everett, Washington and North Charleston, South Carolina.
That is why Wall Street is looking for guidance from McNerney about how painful the grounding is getting.
"For now, we know there have been costs," said Howard Rubel, an analyst at Jefferies Group. "While the cause of the event is still not clear, a host of possible items have been eliminated." Those include excessive voltage reaching the batter and obvious anomalies in the battery construction.
A one-month delay in 787 deliveries could cost $1.2 billion in revenue this year, said Zafar Khan, an analyst at Society Generale. He has a "sell" rating on the stock.
OTHER CHALLENGES
Analysts say that most of Boeing's businesses remain unaffected by the 787 problems. It is still producing huge numbers of planes, will enjoy strong cash flow this year as it delivers those jets, and has orders to last another seven years at current production rates.
But a strike by Boeing's engineers' union - the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) - remains a risk in February and could halt the company's FAA review since engineers are crucial to understanding the plane's intricacies.
A strike by engineers also could severely slow or halt deliveries. During a 40-day SPEEA strike in 2000, the company delivered just 19 planes.
Contract talks now hinge on Boeing's efforts to eliminate a defined benefit pension plan for new hires, an attempt to reduce pension expense that Boeing said would reach $2.5 billion in 2012 and that analysts' estimate will total $1.8 billion in 2013.
The pension cost is affected by interest rate assumptions and market dynamics, things Boeing can't control. So some on Wall Street focus on the company's operating earnings, which largely factor out pension costs.
Analysts have trimming their estimates for Boeing's fourth-quarter earnings to $1.19 a share on revenue of $22.35 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Perhaps more telling: some analysts say their estimates for 2013 have dimmed and at least three have cut their ratings on the stock; the shares have lagged broader indexes this year.
On the upside, Boeing is targeting more defense sales to Asia, as other defense companies are doing, to stabilize the 40 percent of revenue coming from that side of the company and stave off the effects of U.S. budget sequestration.
"We expect flat-to-declining revenues" for Boeing's defense and space business in the medium term, Khan at Society Generale wrote in a note to clients.
Some analysts say the 787 problems appear to be relatively easy to fix, perhaps by swapping in a different battery type.
But even so, Boeing still faces a longer-term review of its design, manufacturing and assembly processes by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA has not set a time frame for its wide-ranging investigation, which is aimed at dealing with an assortment of problems with the new jet. An electrical fault caused an emergency landing by a United Airlines plane on December 4, the same day that the FAA ordered inspections of fuel lines because of leaks.
A few weeks later, a 787 in Boston spilled about 40 gallons of fuel on the tarmac as it taxied for take-off. Then a plane in Japan had fuel leaks. Another had brake problems and a third had a cracked cockpit windscreen.
Such events are usually considered ordinary, but coming in quick succession, they cast a pall over the Dreamliner.
(Reporting by Alwyn Scott; Editing by Ed Tobin and Steve Orlofsky.)
BlackBerry (formerly RIM) has just unveiled the BlackBerry 10 device that, let's face it, many of the faithful really want: the keyboard-equipped Q10. It mates the QWERTY hardware input that BlackBerry fans have known and loved while including a 3.1-inch touchscreen. Yes, it will have LTE, and there's already confirmed plans from Sprint, Verizon and Canadian providers to carry it -- although we've yet to learn pricing or a ship date. Check our hands-on with the Q10 for early impressions.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian internet company Yandex has put an experimental application that allows users to search social networking sites from mobile devices on hold after it was blocked by Facebook.
Facebook, which launched its own search tool earlier this month, blocked the Wonder app three hours after its launch on January 24 for U.S. users.
The application allows users to look for recommendations on, for example, music or restaurants based on information from their friends on social network sites.
Facebook believes Wonder violates its policies, which state that no data obtained from Facebook can be used in any search engine without the company's written permission, Yandex said on Wednesday, adding access to Facebook would not be restored.
"Since this access was revoked, we decided to put our application on hold for the time being," the Russian firm said, adding it would consider partnership with other social networks and services.
Existing Wonder users are still able to search in Instagram, Foursquare and Twitter, a Yandex spokeswoman said, but marketing and further development of the application is on hold.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by Mark Potter)
Web hosting rises as Android, IPhone ?app fatigue? and facebook, twitter social media confusion flatter to deceive
By ECM Plus
ECM Plus ? Freelancer.co.uk has just released the Fast 50 report for Q4 2012, tracking trends in the online jobs market.
?The Freelancer Fast 50 report is a fairly unique leading indicator of the online economy?, said Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.co.uk. ?As the largest outsourcing marketplace in the world with almost 7 million users and over 4 million jobs posted to date, the Freelancer Fast 50 report is uniquely placed to provide insights into ups and downs in the demand for skills, technologies, products and performance of companies through analysis of over one hundred thousand jobs per quarter being posted online? he added.
Top trends from Q4 2012:
-? Website Hosting jobs skyrocketed over 3300% (to 4,059 jobs) as more and more businesses move into the cloud, with most of these jobs involving moving established sites to the cloud, or sending new cloud-hosted sites live.
The standout performer was Amazon Web Services, which saw an increase of an incredible 466% this quarter (to 1,895 jobs) as the online retail juggernaut continues to dominate with it?s EC2 platform, expanding rapidly into new regions and deploying faster, new generation servers with improved storage capabilities.
- Microsoft desktop apps take off after the release of Windows 8: Demand for Windows Desktop apps shot up 305% this quarter as Microsoft unveiled its new operating system (to 1,923 jobs), although volumes are still low compared to other architectures. MS Word and Powerpoint saw growth spurts of 211% (to 4578 jobs) and 309% (to 1,253 jobs) respectively.
-?Are we seeing Apple AppFatigue? With a crowded marketplace of over 1 million apps now in the Apple App Store, developers for Apple mobile platforms are showing signs of app-fatigue. In Q4 Apple iOS jobs dropped for the first time since the Fast 50 report started being published; iPhone jobs dropped 3.8% (to 5,298 jobs) and those for the iPad fell 14% (to 2,036 jobs). This was reflected in Apple?s share price, which plummeted 20% over the quarter. Android on the other hand gained 7% (to 4,282 jobs) as shipments for the open platform well overtake those of Apple. ?This is a huge platform change,? Google?s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, says of Android?s widening lead over iOS. ?This is of the scale of 20 years ago ? Microsoft versus Apple. We?re winning that pretty clearly now.?
- Software and Website QA jobs soar as eCommerce sites rushed to fortify themselves for holiday season traffic: Q4 saw a spike in Software and Website Testing jobs as online retail rushed to get their sites ready and bug free for the peak selling season. Software Testing jumped 2500% (to 5,200 jobs) while Website Testing saw an equally astounding 2055% increase (to 3,923 jobs).
-?eBay jobs rise as the online marketplace reinvents itself. After 17 years in the online auction business the company rolled out a number of dramatic changes to its website and mobile application, including new branding. These changes, in combination with a pivot to a mobile-centric and small-business friendly focus, resulted in eBay jobs gaining 22% (to 1,790 jobs) for the quarter as it diversifies its auction house into an eCommerce marketplace and goes head-to-head with tech retail giant Amazon.
-? Social media and Internet Marketing jobs continue to fall out of favour in the wake of constant platform and search index changes: Despite the boom in Internet traffic, continual changes and negative reports have left advertisers confused whether using social networks as an advertising platform will pay off in the end. According to the New York times, only 14% of digital advertising budgets are currently allocated to social networking. That doubt was reflected in the online jobs market, where Social Networking projects declined 5.1% (to 5,820 jobs). Both Facebook (down 8.4% to 7,186 jobs) and Twitter (down 6.4% to 2,240 jobs) also felt the pinch. Internet Marketing in general was flat (down 1.4% to 15,244 jobs), while SEO is still reeling from the after effects of Google?s Panda changes (down 3.3% to 10,159 jobs). Some marketers fell back to Email Marketing (up 186% to 1,003 jobs).
TABLE: Top categories ? Q4 2012
Rank
Job Category
Q4
Q3
Increase
1
Web Hosting
4059
118
3340%
2
Software Testing
5200
196
2554%
3
Website Testing
3923
182
2055%
4
Website Management
4073
551
639%
5
Engineering
2477
408
507%
6
Amazon Web Services
1895
335
466%
7
Powerpoint
1253
306
309%
8
Windows Desktop
1923
475
305%
9
Word
4578
1474
211%
10
Email Marketing
1003
351
186%
11
Icon Design
1007
429
135%
12
Book Writing
1300
623
109%
13
Software Architecture
12127
5897
106%
14
Copy Typing
12897
6917
86%
15
PDF
2444
1375
78%
16
XML
1479
858
72%
17
Technical Writing
3495
2092
67%
18
Translation
3297
2100
57%
19
Linux
2185
1412
55%
20
Academic Writing
5403
3506
54%
21
SQL
1810
1308
38%
22
Accounting
1035
757
37%
23
Script Install
1947
1450
34%
24
C# Programming
2750
2103
31%
25
User Interface / IA
2777
2155
29%
26
Java
3277
2560
28%
27
MySQL
14024
11002
27%
28
CSS
9015
7098
27%
29
Web Scraping
3189
2511
27%
30
Research
2669
2111
26%
31
ASP
1500
1187
26%
32
HTML5
3827
3038
26%
33
3D Animation
1655
1328
25%
34
3D Modelling
1466
1187
24%
35
eBay
1790
1469
22%
36
Illustration
1555
1290
21%
37
Visual Basic
1630
1372
19%
38
jQuery / Prototype
3527
2972
19%
39
Android
4282
4002
7%
40
Internet Marketing
15244
15458
-1.4%
41
eCommerce
3862
3931
-1.8%
42
Link Building
6844
7066
-3.1%
43
SEO
10159
10505
-3.3%
44
Shopping Carts
2944
3059
-3.8%
45
iPhone
5298
5508
-3.8%
46
Social Networking
5820
6131
-5.1%
47
Twitter
2240
2392
-6.4%
48
Facebook
6581
7186
-8.4%
49
iPad
2036
2376
-14%
50
BPO
2946
4493
-34%
Source:
This data was extracted from 261,003 jobs posted on Freelancer.co.uk in Q3 2012, up from 230,614 in Q2. The Freelancer.co.uk Fast 50 is the leading gauge of online hiring trends.
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2008, file photo, the logo on a BlackBerry smartphone is shows in Bochum, Germany. The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is promising a speedy browser, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone, the fruit of a crucial, long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company. (AP Photo/dapd, Volker Hartmann)
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2008, file photo, the logo on a BlackBerry smartphone is shows in Bochum, Germany. The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone is promising a speedy browser, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone, the fruit of a crucial, long-overdue makeover for the Canadian company. (AP Photo/dapd, Volker Hartmann)
TORONTO (AP) ? BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. will kick off a critical, long-overdue makeover when chief executive Thorsten Heins shows off the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday.
Repeated delays have left the once-pioneering BlackBerry an afterthought in the shadow of Apple's trend-setting iPhone and Google's Android-driven devices. There has even been talk that the fate of the company that created the BlackBerry in 1999 is no longer certain.
Now, there's some optimism. Previews of the BlackBerry 10 software have gotten favorable reviews on blogs. Financial analysts are starting to see some slight room for a comeback. RIM's stock has more than doubled to $15.66 from a nine-year low in September, though it's still nearly 90 percent below its 2008 peak of $147.
RIM redesigned the system to embrace the multimedia, apps and touch-screen experience prevalent today. The company is promising a speedier device, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone.
Most analysts consider a BlackBerry 10 success to be crucial for the company's long-term viability. Doubts remain about the ability of BlackBerry 10 to rescue RIM.
"We'll see if they can reclaim their glory. My sense is that it will be a phone that everyone says good things about but not as many people buy," BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek called it a "great device" and said RIM does have some momentum just months after the Canadian company was written off for dead.
"Six months ago we talked to developers and carriers, and everybody was just basically saying 'We're just waiting for this to go bust,'" Misek said. "It was bad."
The BlackBerry has been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and crossed over to consumers. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, it showed that phones can do much more than email and phone calls. Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient. In the U.S., according to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the market in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012.
RIM promised a new system to catch up, using technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. RIM initially said BlackBerry 10 would come by early 2012, but then the company changed that to late 2012. A few months later, that date was pushed further, to early 2013, missing the lucrative holiday season. The holdup helped wipe out more than $70 billion in shareholder wealth and 5,000 jobs.
Although executives have been providing a glimpse at some of BlackBerry 10's new features for months, Heins will finally showcase a complete system at Wednesday's event. Devices will go on sale soon after that. The exact date and prices are expected Wednesday.
Regardless of BlackBerry 10's advances, though, the new system will face a key shortcoming: It won't have as many apps written by outside companies and individuals as the iPhone and Android. RIM has said it plans to launch BlackBerry 10 with more than 70,000 apps, including those developed for RIM's PlayBook tablet, first released in 2011. Even so, that's just a tenth of what the iPhone and Android offer. Popular service such as Instagram and Netflix won't have apps on BlackBerry 10.
Gillis said he'll be looking to see when RIM releases a keyboard version of the new phone. The first BlackBerry 10 phone will have only a touch screen. RIM has said a physical keyboard version will be released soon after. He said a delay could alienate RIM's 79 million subscribers.
"The No. 1 feature that they like is the physical keyboard," Gillis said.
Business nowadays is doing different kinds of austerity measures when it comes to advertising their products and services. This is because of high rates of placing ads on print and on television. But there is a fast growing approach that businessmen can utilize to bring their services closer to the people and that is through Internet Marketing.
One tool that is causing internet marketing popularity is PPC advertising. This is a technique used in search engine marketing that requires one to pay a fee every time someone clicks an ad on your website. Usually this placement is done through a bidding process. If you are a top bidder for your keywords/phrases, you are sure to be on the number one spot on all search engines. Just be sure of the effectiveness of your ad copy to get the most number of clicks you need for your business.
Here are the benefits of PPC advertising are:
1.You need not be a genius in computer and technology to be able to run this ad campaign. 2.Immediate results are seen after a few days. 3.No need to make a website conform to the SEO rules. 4.Nothing to lose even if you do not top the pages of different search engines. You can still always choose PPC advertising. 5.You can make use any search engine available. 6.You can type in any keyword you like.
Cons of PPC advertising includes:
1.Fixed payments every month to the search engine you choose. 2.Pay
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ZAATARI, Jordan (AP) ? A wave of 21,000 Syrian refugees in the past week, moving into northern Jordan at about five times the usual daily rate, has overwhelmed this crowded camp that's already struggling with flooding, short supplies and tent fires.
As newly arrived refugees unpacked on Monday, one family's tent went up in flames after kerosene spewed onto a nearby heater. Black smoke poured into the sky. The family's meager possessions were incinerated. In a sign of frustration, some refugees pelted a fire truck with stones, cracking its windshield, saying the firefighters were slow to respond.
"Almost every day, one or two tents catch fire," said 22-year-old Abu Anis, who like most refugees interviewed at the camp asked to be identified by his nickname because they feared retaliation against relatives still living in Syria. "Thank God, other people haven't been hurt because the tents are so close together."
The United Nations says the huge influx of Syrian refugees crossing into neighboring Jordan during the past week was larger than anticipated and left its agencies, already suffering from a funding shortfall, reeling under the influx. U.N. officials are crying out for more funding as they rush to build showers, toilets and a school for the newcomers.
The UNICEF representative to Jordan, Dominque Hyde, said more than 21,000 Syrian refugees arrived at Jordan's sole refugee camp just in the past week.
"We were expecting larger numbers in the new year, but not the 3,000 a day that have been coming across to Zaatari camp," she said.
New arrivals ? most of them coming from southern Syria where fighting has been intense ? were crossing into Jordan at about five times the rate anticipated, according to Andrew Harper of the U.N. refugee agency in Jordan. Until recently, an average of 700 refugees arrived at the desert facility each day.
International donors have pledged less than 3 percent to a $1 billion U.N. appeal made last month to aid the more than 670,000 Syrian refugees estimated to have fled to surrounding countries during the 22-month uprising to topple President Bashar Assad. The U.N. says it hopes a donor conference for Syrian refugees Wednesday in Kuwait will rectify the dire funding situation.
Harper said the Jordanian government has done what it can to provide protection to the 320,000 Syrian refugees it now hosts, but it cannot continue to bear the strain. The U.N. refugee agency said Syrian refugees in Jordan required about $500,000 in assistance. About one-fifth the refugees live in the camp, while the rest shelter in mainly northern communities.
Crossing into Jordan was frightening for Abu Nidal, a 50-year-old farmer from near the Golan Heights. He and 180 others, including women and children, were forced to row across territory flooded by waters from the Yarmouk River.
"The women and children were so afraid because the small boats were rickety and the water (was) deep," he said. "It took eight hours, but we finally arrived safely with the help of the young men and the Jordanian army."
Hyde said the influx to the camp means more showers, toilets, shelters, and schools need to be built. And more refugees also means a rising demand for water in Jordan, already the fourth most water scarce country in the world. She described the sharp increase in refugees as "daunting."
"You can see that many children at Zaatari ? called the 'kids' camp' because they make up the greatest numbers here ? don't have socks or even shoes in the dead of winter," she said as children played on swings and slides nearby.
Hyde said 24,000 Syrian refugee children entered Jordan in the past month alone ? the highest number ever.
"This means that we need to be building a new school immediately," she said, expressing hope that a new one could be constructed by mid-February.
Classes are to resume at the existing school on Feb. 5, but desperate refugees moved in earlier this month because howling winter winds blew their tents down and others were flooded. They say they are still awaiting alternative accommodations. Other camp residents have started jokingly describing the school as "occupied territory."
"We've had officials come and visit ? even the Bahraini government who built the school ? and still no one has responded to our needs for new housing," said Abu Mohamed, a 35-year-old businessman who is staying in the school where about two dozen people share a single classroom partitioned by rows of desks.
"They haven't given us heaters, tents or trailers," said the man who fled fighting in the Syrian capital, Damascus, with his family of four. "Rain is forecast again. Doctors tell us at the camp hospital that our children are sick from the cold."
Anne Richard, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, says that as more Syrians pour out of their homeland, more countries are needed to contribute assistance.
Last year, the U.S. contributed $220 million to assist Syrian refugees. Speaking Monday in the Jordanian capital, Richard said the U.S. would announce additional funding for Syria at the conference in Kuwait, but declined to provide details.
Another Abu Walid, 46, from the southern Syrian town of Dara'a, said that as much as he and the other refugees need the aid, what they really want is an end to nightmarish killing, rape and shelling back home. His 16-year-old son was killed in Syria by shrapnel from artillery tank fire as he walked home from work.
"We want this awful crisis to end and to return home," said the slender man, a wool scarf tied around his neck to ward off the cold.
"The world is sleeping. It's failing us. ... How can it continue to turn its back on us every day as more and more are killed inside Syria?"
We've?talked before?about using a longer passcode on your iPhone instead of a 4-digit pin, but as the tech blog Digital Inspiration points out, adding in accented characters adds yet another level of security.
The idea is that most people aren't going to bother dealing with accented characters (if you hold down on a letter, the available accented characters show up) when they're trying to guess your password. To use these, you first have to turn on the alphanumeric passcode. Just head into Settings > General > Passcode Lock, and turn off Simple Passcode. You'll be asked to enter in a new password, so throw in a few accented characters. It might make it a bit of a pain to enter in your passcode, but at least it's more secure.
Virginia Tech expands sports concussion-risk studies to include hockey and baseballPublic release date: 29-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Mackay 540-231-4787 Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/) is expanding its ground-breaking research of testing football helmets to reduce the number of concussions to now include hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse.
The five-year plan will see the Virginia Tech research center, headed by Stefan Duma (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/duma.php), rate helmets worn by hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse athletes in their ability to lessen the likelihood of a concussion resulting from a violent head impact.
Ratings on hockey helmets are expected in fall 2013, followed by youth football in 2015, and then baseball, softball, and lacrosse in 2016. During that time, all ratings for adult and youth football helmets will continually be updated and released to the public.
The expansion into helmeted sports other than football comes on the heels of new research that allows for better prediction of sports-related concussions resulting from linear and rotational head accelerations. These accelerations result from head impacts that cause the head to translate and twist about the neck. The new research is published this month in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (http://www.editorialmanager.com/abme/).
The new research is being funded by Virginia Tech, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (http://www.ictas.vt.edu/) at Virginia Tech.
New ratings for football helmets will include data for linear and rotational accelerations starting in 2015, said Duma, professor of biomedical engineering and department head of the Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Serving as lead author on the research paper is Steven Rowson (http://www.cib.vt.edu/people/bios/faculty_bios/bio_rowson.html), assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech.
All head impacts result in both linear and rotational accelerations, and this publication provides the foundation for our research to address both accelerations relative to reducing the risk of concussion, said Duma. Our goal with the five-year plan is to provide manufacturers with a schedule detailing when we will release helmet ratings for each sport.
The helmet rating system is based on more than a decade of data collection by Duma and his research staff, and utilizes the STAR, or Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk, formula that assesses the ability of football helmets to reduce concussion risk. Sport-specific testing methodologies will be added to the website that lists the rated helmets prior to the initial release of each sports helmets ratings.
Using data collected from more than 63,000 head impacts during a period of 10 years, Duma and Rowson related linear and rotational head acceleration to the probability of sustaining a concussion in the form of an injury risk function.
This new analysis utilizes data measured from 62 concussions sustained by high school, college, and professional football players, said Rowson. We use these data to determine the best method to predict concussions when we test helmets in our laboratory.
In their research paper, the researchers write, With as many as 3.8 million sports-related concussions occurring annually in the United States and research suggesting possible long term neurodegenerative processes resulting from repetitive concussions, reducing the incidence of concussion in sports has become a public health priority.
Indeed, long-term, repetitive injuries that can cripple or eventually kill years after play have prompted dozens of headlines in major media outlets and several national studies, and even President Obama to recently weigh in on the subject. Dozens of former NFL players are suing the league over injuries sustained during years of play, and headlines were made this summer when former football great Alex Karras died at age 77 from various ailments, several allegedly said to be caused by years of hard hits.
In studying football-related injuries during the past decade, Duma and his research team have used on-field real-time sensors installed in the helmets of hundreds of adult and youth football players to study injuries, as well as a mechanical lab-tested 5-star rating system to track and grade commercially sold helmets.
The former can help indicate head injuries that require immediate attention while on the field of play. The latter has provided the only independent biomechanical data for consumers to make helmet purchasing decisions, Duma said.
Dumas goal is not to end the sport of football, but make it safer while still keep the same expected adrenaline rush and action for players, and viewers.
It is important to note that no helmet can prevent all concussions. The most effective strategies to reduce concussions in sports involve modifying league rules and player technique to limit exposure to head impacts, Duma said.
Beyond this, head impacts are a given in sport. Our research focuses on identifying helmets that reduce concussion risk so that athletes can make informed decisions based on independent data when purchasing equipment, which in turn, incentivizes helmet manufacturers to design helmets that better reduce head acceleration.
###
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Virginia Tech expands sports concussion-risk studies to include hockey and baseballPublic release date: 29-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Mackay 540-231-4787 Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/) is expanding its ground-breaking research of testing football helmets to reduce the number of concussions to now include hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse.
The five-year plan will see the Virginia Tech research center, headed by Stefan Duma (http://www.sbes.vt.edu/duma.php), rate helmets worn by hockey, baseball, softball, and lacrosse athletes in their ability to lessen the likelihood of a concussion resulting from a violent head impact.
Ratings on hockey helmets are expected in fall 2013, followed by youth football in 2015, and then baseball, softball, and lacrosse in 2016. During that time, all ratings for adult and youth football helmets will continually be updated and released to the public.
The expansion into helmeted sports other than football comes on the heels of new research that allows for better prediction of sports-related concussions resulting from linear and rotational head accelerations. These accelerations result from head impacts that cause the head to translate and twist about the neck. The new research is published this month in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (http://www.editorialmanager.com/abme/).
The new research is being funded by Virginia Tech, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (http://www.ictas.vt.edu/) at Virginia Tech.
New ratings for football helmets will include data for linear and rotational accelerations starting in 2015, said Duma, professor of biomedical engineering and department head of the Virginia Tech Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. Serving as lead author on the research paper is Steven Rowson (http://www.cib.vt.edu/people/bios/faculty_bios/bio_rowson.html), assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech.
All head impacts result in both linear and rotational accelerations, and this publication provides the foundation for our research to address both accelerations relative to reducing the risk of concussion, said Duma. Our goal with the five-year plan is to provide manufacturers with a schedule detailing when we will release helmet ratings for each sport.
The helmet rating system is based on more than a decade of data collection by Duma and his research staff, and utilizes the STAR, or Summation of Tests for the Analysis of Risk, formula that assesses the ability of football helmets to reduce concussion risk. Sport-specific testing methodologies will be added to the website that lists the rated helmets prior to the initial release of each sports helmets ratings.
Using data collected from more than 63,000 head impacts during a period of 10 years, Duma and Rowson related linear and rotational head acceleration to the probability of sustaining a concussion in the form of an injury risk function.
This new analysis utilizes data measured from 62 concussions sustained by high school, college, and professional football players, said Rowson. We use these data to determine the best method to predict concussions when we test helmets in our laboratory.
In their research paper, the researchers write, With as many as 3.8 million sports-related concussions occurring annually in the United States and research suggesting possible long term neurodegenerative processes resulting from repetitive concussions, reducing the incidence of concussion in sports has become a public health priority.
Indeed, long-term, repetitive injuries that can cripple or eventually kill years after play have prompted dozens of headlines in major media outlets and several national studies, and even President Obama to recently weigh in on the subject. Dozens of former NFL players are suing the league over injuries sustained during years of play, and headlines were made this summer when former football great Alex Karras died at age 77 from various ailments, several allegedly said to be caused by years of hard hits.
In studying football-related injuries during the past decade, Duma and his research team have used on-field real-time sensors installed in the helmets of hundreds of adult and youth football players to study injuries, as well as a mechanical lab-tested 5-star rating system to track and grade commercially sold helmets.
The former can help indicate head injuries that require immediate attention while on the field of play. The latter has provided the only independent biomechanical data for consumers to make helmet purchasing decisions, Duma said.
Dumas goal is not to end the sport of football, but make it safer while still keep the same expected adrenaline rush and action for players, and viewers.
It is important to note that no helmet can prevent all concussions. The most effective strategies to reduce concussions in sports involve modifying league rules and player technique to limit exposure to head impacts, Duma said.
Beyond this, head impacts are a given in sport. Our research focuses on identifying helmets that reduce concussion risk so that athletes can make informed decisions based on independent data when purchasing equipment, which in turn, incentivizes helmet manufacturers to design helmets that better reduce head acceleration.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
SKYE Condominiums inUptown Charlotte?s Second Ward is the up-and-coming, hippest mixed-use development to hit the city!? Formerly The Park Condos, SKYE is located at the corner of S. Caldwell and E. 3rd Streets and features 67 luxury residential condominiums on floors 14-21with 2 penthouse suites, atop a 172-room Hyatt Place hotel and ground-floor retail space.
The cherry on top of this glass, brick, granite, stucco and metal exterior hip, new complex is going to be a fabulous rooftop restaurant and bar featuring 360? panoramic views of Charlotte?s gorgeous skyline.
Uptown Charlotte is the premier live/work (and play!) community in the area. ?Such convenience to arts, sporting events, concerts, fine dining, shopping?simply?everything Charlotte!
A rooftop pool
Sun deck
7,800 square feet of green, landscaped gardens
Conversation areas
Theatre room
Game room
Party room/kitchen
Fitness center
Valet services
Controlled-access parking
24-hour concierge services
5 elevator banks
24-hour security
172-room limited-service hotel
Valet parking service
5-story parking garage
Rooftop restaurant and bar
Valet laundry service
Bicycle storage
Private mail room
Limited number of private storage units available
?
What more could you ask for in luxury and convenience in Uptown Charlotte?!
About that fabulous first-in-Charlotte roof-top bar and restaurant.? The 20th floor will serve as home to an 8,000 square-foot open-air rooftop restaurant that will seat 260, with both indoor and outdoor seating, a private dining area and a fabulous bar with 360? view of Charlotte and beyond.
The first model 2-bedroom unit will open in March.? You may not want to wait though, pre-sales are doing quite well in the new Skye Condominiums!? Reserve yours today!
?Debe Maxwell | [email?protected] |?SKYE Condominiums in Uptown Charlotte ? Hip, New and Happening!
Debe
I am a full-time REALTOR? personally specializing in historic homes and luxury home sales in the Charlotte NC real estate market. My team specializes in a variety of areas including first time home buyers, condos and townhomes as well as single family home sales and marketing. ? Follow me on Google+
Stanford has grabbed the supercomputer crown with Sequoia, a million-core computer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories that is being used to simulate jet turbulence in real time. This isn't the fastest supercomputer per se, but it is the first to use one million cores simultaneously which is an amazing feat for big iron.
PHOENIX (AP) ? Jodi Arias was adamant at first. She said she knew nothing about her lover's death, didn't slit his throat, stab him nearly 30 times or put a bullet in his forehead.
Then she offered a different story: Masked intruders killed Travis Alexander and she escaped.
Arias finally settled on a third version: She had slain her abusive, on-again, off-again boyfriend in self-defense. It was kill or be killed, her attorneys told jurors during their opening statement at her ongoing trial.
However, her different stories will pose a formidable obstacle as those attorneys present their case beginning Tuesday in a Phoenix courtroom in the trial that has become a cable TV news sensation. A number of legal experts agree the primary goal for the defense will be to spare Arias the death penalty.
Brief questions posed by jurors through a judge to the lead detective as he testified could offer Arias some hope ? maybe not for acquittal but possibly to avoid becoming just the fourth woman on Arizona's death row.
Did authorities check the alibis of Alexander's roommates? Yes. Were any knives missing from sets inside his home? No. Did police find Arias in possession of the gun used in the killing? No, none of the weapons have been recovered.
The questions were previously answered during the trial but might suggest jurors aren't so sure about the prosecution's case and the theory that it was a premeditated killing ? a requirement for the death penalty.
All the defense has to do now is "feed the doubt," California jury consultant Howard Varinsky said.
The trial began in early January with all the elements needed for big play in the tabloids. Prosecutors presented pictures of the 32-year-old defendant and the victim taken on the day of the killing ? Arias nude on his bed, Alexander in the shower, then dead on the bathroom floor.
The couple's stormy courtship was replayed in court. They met in 2007 in Las Vegas. Alexander was a 30-year-old Mormon, motivational speaker and successful businessman, Arias an aspiring photographer. They dated for about five months. Arias lived in Southern California and would visit Alexander at his Mesa home.
His friends say Arias practically lived with Alexander, and that he became bothered by her possessiveness. When he broke it off, she stalked him for months, according to testimony.
She claims she ended the relationship after catching Alexander in too many lies. Still, she said she moved to Mesa at his urging after the breakup as the pair continued to have sex while he dated other women.
Arias told police that on the day of the killing, June 4, 2008, Alexander invited her to his home for sex then became enraged when she dropped his new camera while snapping photos of him. She claims she had to fight for her life.
The defense has yet to explain, however, why she put his camera and bedding in a washing machine, why she didn't call authorities; why she changed her story; and what happened to the weapons.
Alexander was shot in the head with a .25-caliber gun, the same caliber weapon that Arias' grandparents reported stolen from their California home about a week before the killing. Arias had been staying with them when the weapon was taken, authorities said.
Prosecutors say she stabbed and slashed Alexander 27 times, slit his throat, then shot him in the head in a final salvo of rage. The sheer brutality of the attack contradicts her claim of self-defense, they contend.
Defense attorneys concede that she shot Alexander and say he kept fighting, forcing her to fend him off with a knife.
In an early police interrogation of Arias, she insisted she didn't kill Alexander.
"Jodi, tell me the truth, please," Mesa police detective Esteban Flores said in the videotaped interrogation played for jurors. He noted her bloody palm print and hair were found at the scene along with the photographs that prove she was there.
"I did not kill Travis," Arias replied.
However, she said if she were to have killed him, stabbing would have been too cruel.
"I don't think I could stab him. I think I would have to shoot him until he was dead if that were my intentions," Arias told the detective. "If I had it in me to kill him, the least I could have done was make it as humane as possible."
Now that defense attorneys have said Arias did shoot Alexander, the only question is which account jurors believe.
"The truth can always be somewhere in between," said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a former federal prosecutor.
Levenson said the defense will attempt to explain away everything.
In one scenario, Levenson said, defense lawyers could say Arias brought the gun from her grandparents' house but only for protection if Alexander got abusive, not to kill him. They could say she changed her stories out of fear, thinking no one would believe her, and that she was in shock after the killing so she didn't call police.
"She just needs one, just one juror to have reasonable doubt," Levenson said. "For the defense, it's going to be a victory if she doesn't end up with the death penalty."
Shoudl I retire MisfitGeek.com and start a new blog?
I?ve blogged at MisfitGeek.com for a decade and I created the MisfitGeek persona becuase Microsoft (where I worked at the time) wasn?t known for straight talking technical folks who would give developers the best advice even if the best answers we?re made by Microsoft. MisfitGeek was intentionally irreverent and intended to speak to a rogue audience.
Years ago I secured the domain name SoftStrategy.com which I always thought would be a great blog identity. I choose not to use my name (JoeStagner.com) because I prefer to keep my personal (social / political) writing and my technical writing separate.
Since I?ll be blogging about HTML5, Android, iOS, Linux, DataBase, WIndows, general software development, and patterns and practices ? in addition to PHP, Zend Server and Zend Studio ? it?s seems like SoftStrategy.com would be a good choice.
I would keep MisfitGeek.com on line for archive use and also continue to tweet as @MisfitGeek and I would swap my feedburner links so no change to your readers would be necessary.
So you tell me ???..
1) Make the switch and start fresh at SoftStrategy.com
A gunman who tried to rob a bookmaker in England has died after he was tackled by unarmed customers, police said.
Broadcaster ITV News reported that the man, in his 50s, went into a branch of bookmaker Ladbrokes just before 7 p.m. local time (2 p.m. ET) in Plymouth, England.
Customers disarmed him and held him on the floor, police told the station, and he was unconscious when officers arrived. He was declared dead shortly after.
In a statement, a spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police told ITV News that ?it quickly became clear the man was unresponsive and an ambulance was immediately requested by police who carried out CPR until they arrived.?
?A few minutes later, three paramedics arrived at the scene and continued to carry out further CPR. Around 20 minutes later the man was declared dead at the scene by the paramedics,? the statement added.
Duke University engineers are layering atom-thick lattices of carbon with polymers to create unique materials with a broad range of applications, including artificial muscles.
The lattice, known as graphene, is made of pure carbon and appears under magnification like chicken wire. Because of its unique optical, electrical and mechanical properties, graphene is used in electronics, energy storage, composite materials and biomedicine.
However, graphene is extremely difficult to handle in that it easily "crumples." Unfortunately, scientists have been unable to control the crumpling and unfolding of large-area graphene to take advantage of its properties.
Duke engineer Xuanhe Zhao, assistant professor in Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, likens the challenge of controlling graphene to the difference between unfolding paper and wet tissue.
"If you crumpled up normal paper, you can pretty easily flatten it out," Zhao said. "However, graphene is more like wet tissuepaper. It is extremely thin and sticky and difficult to unfold once crumpled. We have developed a method to solve this problem and control the crumpling and unfolding of large-area graphene films."
The Duke engineers attached the graphene to a rubber film that had been pre-stretched to many times its original size. Once the rubber film was relaxed, parts of the graphene detached from the rubber while other parts kept adhering to it, forming an attached-detached pattern with a feature size of a few nanometers. As the rubber relaxed, the detached graphene was compressed to crumple. But as the rubber film was stretched back, the adhered spots of graphene pulled on the crumpled areas to unfold the sheet.
"In this way, the crumpling and unfolding of large-area, atomic-thick graphene can be controlled by simply stretching and relaxing a rubber film, even by hands," Zhao said.
The results were published online in the journalNature Materials.
"Our approach has opened avenues to exploit unprecedented properties and functions of graphene," said Jianfeng Zang, a postdoctoral fellow in Zhao's group and the first author of the paper. "For example, we can tune the graphene from being transparent to opaque by crumpling it, and tune it back by unfolding it."
In addition, the Duke engineers layered the graphene with different polymer films to make a "soft" material that can act like muscle tissues by contracting and expanding on demand. When electricity is applied to the graphene, the artificial muscle expands in area; when the electricity is cut off, it relaxes. Varying the voltage controls the degree of contraction and relaxation.
"The crumpling and unfolding of graphene allows large deformation of the artificial muscle," Zang said.
"New artificial muscles are enabling diverse technologies ranging from robotics and drug delivery to energy harvesting and storage," Zhao said. "In particular, they promise to greatly improve the quality of life for millions of disabled people by providing affordable devices such as lightweight prostheses and full-page Braille displays."
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Duke University: http://www.duke.edu
Thanks to Duke University for this article.
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It's been a long, long while since we last heard about RAmos 'round here, but that doesn't mean the Chinese company isn't trying to remain relevant in the electronics game. As such, we're more than happy to tell you about the outfit's newest Android slate, the 9.4-inch RAmos W42, which is powered by a wallop of Ice Cream Sandwich, Mali-400 GPU and a Samsung-made quad-core processor -- more specifically, it's the Exynos 4412. Other tablet specs include a not-too-shabby 1,280 x 800 IPS display, 1GB RAM, 16GB of built-in storage (expandable by way of microSD) and the now-accustomed front and rear cameras. The W42 appears to be up for grabs at e-tailers like the one linked below for about 200 bucks -- now, with some great options around that same price, only time will tell whether or not folks are tempted by this very one.
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Public release date: 29-Jan-2013
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Stanford has grabbed the supercomputer crown with Sequoia, a million-core computer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories that is being used to simulate jet turbulence in real time. This isn't the fastest supercomputer per se, but it is the first to use one million cores simultaneously which is an amazing feat for big iron.
