Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/12/28/we-composer-talks-golden-globes-making-music-with-madonna/
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Saturday, December 31, 2011
'W.E' Composer Talks Golden Globes, Making Music With Madonna
In talking about mainstream award shows and the predictability of their annual nominees lists, the Golden Globes are often the hardest to predict in that their nominees always include a few unexpected surprises. This year, no one was perhaps more pleasantly surprised at hearing the 2012 nominations than composer Abel Korzeniowski, who scored a Best [...]
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Around the Web?
Happy Tuesday! Check out today’s afternoon reads: Chinese parents risk it all to have second child ? Associated Press Lego targets girls with new Friends collection ? iVillage.com The best bump-friendly dresses for New Year’s Eve ? lilSugar.com New study shows cold weather could be healthier for pregnant women ? Yahoo! Shine Australian woman gives [...]
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/0-FmiU_nDa4/
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Arab monitors head to Syria, opposition skeptical (AP)
BEIRUT ? The Arab League sent monitors to Syria Monday even though President Bashar Assad's regime has only intensified its crackdown on dissent in the week since agreeing to the Arab plan to stop the bloodshed.
Activists say government forces have killed several hundred civilians in the past week. At least 23 more deaths were reported Monday from intense shelling in the center of the country, just hours before the first 60 monitors were to arrive. The opposition says thousands of government troops have been besieging the Baba Amr district of in the central city of Homs for days and the government is preparing a massive assault on the area.
France expressed strong concerns about the continued deterioration of the situation in Homs. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero demanded Syrian authorities allow the Arab League observers immediate access to the city.
"The repression and unprecedented violence committed by the Damascus regime must cease and everything must be done to stop the drama going on behind closed doors in the city of Homs," the French statement said.
In Cairo, an Arab League official said this monitoring mission was the Syrian regime's "last chance" to reverse course.
"Will they facilitate the mission's work or try and curb its movements? Let's wait and see," the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
The Arab League plan agreed to by Assad last Monday requires the government to remove its security forces and heavy weapons from city streets, start talks with opposition leaders and allow human rights workers and journalists into the country. The monitors are supposed to ensure compliance, but so far there is no sign that Assad is implementing any of the terms, much less letting up on his brutal crackdown.
Although Syria shows no sign of altering its course, the Arab League was sticking to its plan. The team, including Iraqis, Tunisians and Algerians, left Cairo Monday evening headed to Damascus.
Opposition members say the regime's agreement to the Arab plan is a farce.
"I very much doubt the Syrian regime will allow the observers to do their work," said prominent opposition figure Waleed al-Bunni from Cairo. "I expect them to try and hinder their movements by claiming that some areas are not safe, intimidating them or sending them to places other than the ones they should go to."
Some anti-government protesters have even criticized the League's stance to the point of accusing it of complicity in the killings.
Activists said Syrian forces shelled the Baba Amr district of Homs with mortars and sprayed heavy machine gun fire in the most intense assault since the siege began Friday.
Baba Amr has been a center for anti-government protests and army defections and has seen repeated crackdowns by the Syrian regime in recent months. The Syrian conflict is becoming increasingly militarized with growing clashes between army defectors and troops.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, described the attacks in Homs as a kind of "hysteria" as government forces desperately try to get the situation there under control ahead of the monitors' arrival.
"The observers are sitting in their hotel in Damascus while people are dying in Homs," he said.
The Observatory called on the monitors "to head immediately to Baba Amr to be witnesses to the crimes against humanity that are being perpetrated by the Syrian regime."
In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby told reporters after meeting with the monitors that the mission will begin work on Tuesday. Up to 500 monitors are to be eventually deployed and Syria has only agreed for them to stay one month.
Anwar Malek, a member of the monitoring mission, insisted they will have absolute freedom of movement in Syria, adding that the team will travel to flashpoint cities including Homs, Daraa, Idlib and Hama. He and other observers refused to disclose the exact travel itinerary, saying they preferred to maintain some secrecy to ensure the mission's success.
The Arab League has suspended Syria's membership and imposed sanctions on Damascus but is deeply divided on how to respond to the crisis. Gulf countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia have taken a tougher line and are more inclined toward Security Council action on Syria. But other countries, wary of Syria's influence in the region, prefer an Arab solution to the crisis.
Activists say the regime has only stepped up its crackdown on anti-government protesters in the week since it agreed to the Arab plan. At least 275 civilians have been killed by government forces since then, and another 150 people died in clashes between army defectors and regime troops ? most of them defectors.
The stepped up crackdown, including what activists said was a "massacre" in one town where 110 people were mowed down in several hours last week, brought a new round of international condemnation of Syria. Neighboring Turkey said the violence flew in the face of the Arab League deal that Syria signed and raises doubts about the regime's true intentions.
Syria's top opposition leader Burhan Ghalioun, doubtful that the Arab League alone can budge Assad, called Sunday for the League to bring the U.N. Security Council into the effort. The U.N. says more than 5,000 people have been killed since March in the political violence.
Assad stalled for weeks on agreeing to the plan and signed only after the Arab League threatened to turn to the U.N. Security Council to help stop the violence. The opposition believes the authoritarian leader is only trying to buy time and forestall more international sanctions and condemnation.
The U.N.'s most powerful body remains deeply divided over Syria, which has led to its failure to adopt a resolution on and heightened tensions especially among major powers. Western nations and the U.S. are demanding a resolution threatening sanctions if the violence doesn't stop and condemning Assad's crackdown. But Russia and China, which have closer ties to Assad's regime, believe extremist opponents of the government are equally responsible for the bloodshed and oppose any mention of sanctions.
After months of largely peaceful protests that were met with brute force and bullets, some opposition figures have started calling for international military intervention, but that is all but out of the question in Syria, in part because of fears that the move could spread chaos across the Middle East. Syria is a close ally of Iran, borders Israel, and holds sway over the Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which now dominates Lebanon's government.
Amateur videos of the violence in Homs were posted by activists on the Internet Monday. The showed gruesome footage of at least four corpses lying in pools of blood in front of a house in Baba Amr, where they reportedly died from mortar shells that struck the neighborhood.
Men could be heard crying for help and women wailing in the video, which also showed several destroyed homes and cars. Other footage showed at least six bodies wrapped in white plastic bags in a home, relatives crying besides them.
A resident of a neighborhood next to Baba Amr said he heard "loud explosions" throughout the night and Monday morning.
"It doesn't stop," he told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisals.
The Local Coordination Committees activist network reported at least 23 deaths in intense shelling "targeting homes and anyone who moves" in Baba Amr.
Syrian officials did not comment on the violence in Baba Amr but said armed terrorist groups attacked civilians and security forces in villages in southern Syria. State-run news agency SANA said troops retaliated and killed a number of the gunmen.
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Ryan Seacrest's Hot Romance With Julianne Hough (omg!)
Ryan Seacrest might be the hardest working man in Hollywood, but he still makes time for love!
The American Idol host, who turns 37 on Saturday, began dating Julianne Hough in spring 2010.
CHECK OUT US' GALLERY OF RYAN AND JULIANNE'S CUTEST MOMENTS!
When they first met, Hough, 23, was a pro on ABC's Dancing with the Stars. "Dancing with the Stars and American Idol are literally right across the hall from each other [at the same television studio]," the Footloose actress said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "So we would be passing each other in the hallway -- I'd be in my skimpy little outfits and he'd be in his little tie."
PHOTOS: Julianne's red carpet evolution
"I was even on his radio show," she laughed. "I just knew he was poking, and I knew his intentions!"
Get more Us! Follow us on Twitter, Friend us on Facebook, Subscribe to Us Weekly
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
BFeldmanCBS: Would think in top 6-7 but curious what happens w NCAA mess. @james_russell22 would you have Oregon in there even if (with) LaMike leaving?
Would think in top 6-7 but curious what happens w NCAA mess. @ would you have Oregon in there even if (with) LaMike leaving? Source: http://twitter.com/BFeldmanCBS/statuses/150002072387993601
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
UK mulls changes to terrorism threat scale (AP)
LONDON ? Britain has announced in advance it will raise its terrorism threat level during the London Olympics next summer, but that could be the last time the five-point scale is used amid mounting evidence such systems are often misunderstood and do little to generate crucial tips about terror plots.
Data obtained by The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information request show terror tips from the public have consistently fallen when alerts are raised and risen when the scale is lowered, confounding expectations that boosting threat levels promotes greater vigilance.
Just as in the United States over recent months, British officials are agonizing over how to keep the public alert, but neither gripped by fear nor dismissive about supposed government scare tactics.
Mark Pritchard, a Conservative Party lawmaker and member of Britain's National Security Strategy Committee, said many legislators and security officials now agree the alert scale is flawed, reflecting new research over how people respond to the risk of terrorism.
"The system is too complex and misunderstood by many members of the public, who struggle to decipher between the various alert stages," said Pritchard.
Pritchard and others say that is a concern because of the importance of public tips in halting terrorist plots.
A 2010 study of 68 thwarted U.S. terror plots by North Carolina's Institute for Homeland Security Solutions showed the public provided initial clues in 29 percent of cases where attacks were halted between 1999 and 2009. That was more than the number uncovered by intelligence agencies, and only slightly less than the 30 percent detected by federal agents.
British police declined to provide details of the number of plots thwarted in the U.K. thanks to public calls.
An analysis of figures released to the AP under Britain's Freedom of Information law detailing phone calls to a police anti-terrorism hotline shows a baffling correlation between government warnings and the public response in the U.K.
Since 2006, public input has dropped off on all but one occasion when the threat level has been raised, even though tips are likely to be most important during times when the threat is unusually high.
Every time the threat level has been lowered over that period, the volume of calls has risen.
Even when Britain's threat level was raised in June 2007 to its highest setting of critical ? meaning an attack is deemed imminent ? the number of calls to the hotline fell. On both recent occasions when officials have lowered the threat level, first in September 2010, and again in July, the number of calls has increased.
Risk perception expert David Ropeik, who advised the Department of Homeland Security on changing the threat level system in the U.S., said the public's response to the terrorist threat was rarely logical.
By publicizing a decision to lower the threat level, governments may just remind people about the potential dangers ? generating more, not less, alarm. Equally, a decision to raise the alert status which includes little specific detail often fails to persuade people that they need to show extra caution.
How people perceive the threat from terrorism is "a combination of the few facts we may have, and how those facts feel," rather than an exercise in rational thinking, Ropeik said.
Concern over Britain's five-point system has been heightened after ministers announced in July that their planning for the Olympics assumed Britain's threat level will be raised to severe ? the second highest setting, indicating that an attack is considered highly likely.
If a change can be announced 12 months in advance, and based on assumptions rather than specific intelligence, some wonder if there is any value at all in the alert system.
Officials insist the announcement for the London games didn't indicate that they had gathered so-far-undisclosed intelligence about planned attacks, but reflects an expectation the event will be a major target. Security at the Olympics has often erred on the side of caution, particularly since the slaying of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich.
For most countries, alert scales were originally intended as a guide only for security specialists in specific industries, not for the public. The levels usually trigger official responses such as additional screening checks at airports, or restricting vehicle access to sensitive buildings, but don't require any action from ordinary citizens. Britain first issued a public threat scale in 2006.
Home Office minister James Brokenshire has acknowledged Britain's five-point alert scale is under review, but has not specified when it might be changed. Other government officials say an overhaul will begin soon after the Olympics.
To add to the current confusion, Britain no longer has a single overall threat level. It issues separate assessments of the threat from al-Qaida-related terrorism, and for risks linked to dissident Irish Republican Army members. In recent months, it has even published separate alert levels for the threat to mainland Britain, and to Northern Ireland.
Britain's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, based at the MI5 spy agency, also issues at least a dozen other secret threat levels ? which are not made public ? to security experts in aviation, finance, infrastructure and other sectors.
The most frequently cited public level, the risk of international terrorism to the U.K. mainland, is currently ranked as substantial ? the third highest setting, explained as meaning that an "attack is a strong possibility."
Authorities in the U.S. previously used a similar, color-coded five point scale, but in April overhauled the system, mindful that it offered little public reassurance. New alerts distinguish between imminent or elevated threats to specific locations or industries, offer guidance on how the public should respond and indicate when the increased threat is likely to pass.
"The government has a difficult dance to do balancing public safety and the terrorist risk," said Ropeik, author of "How Risky Is It, Really?"
"On one hand they do want us to be alert and vigilant. On the other hand, they do not want to be seen to be crying wolf, or cynically trying to manipulate our worries to advance their political agendas," he said.
Research conducted by Britain's interior ministry has found many British Muslims believe the government exaggerates the risk of terrorist attacks to justify "aggressive domestic policies against U.K Muslims," particularly searches by police, airport and customs staff.
Polling carried out in 2009 for Britain's government by IPSOS-Mori found almost half of those questioned believed ministers were not honest in communications about terrorism.
Gurdeep Kaur, a 36-year-old hospital worker, claimed many Britons simply aren't concerned by fluctuations in the country's alert scale.
"I feel safe regardless, I don't know how they evaluate it, but it doesn't affect day to day life," said Kaur.
Underlining the confusion which experts say shows the system should be overhauled, Kaur said she believed Britain's alert level had been raised in recent weeks ? when in fact it was downgraded in July.
___
Associated Press writer Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
NASA Backs Away from Imposing Controls on Commercial Crew Program (ContributorNetwork)
Alan Boyle of MSNBC reports that NASA has at the last minute revised its approach to the next phase of the commercial crew program, designed to develop private space craft to service the International Space Station through government subsidies.
NASA had planned, according to a proposed Commercial Crew Integrated Design Contract, to exert a great deal of control over the design of the commercial vehicles that would carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. However, thanks in large part due to lack of funding, the space agency will retain the relatively hands off approach it has employed for the cargo spacecraft being developed thus far.
How has NASA conducted the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program?
Under the COTS program, first initiated under President George W. Bush, NASA provided guidelines for the development of commercial cargo spacecraft. Certain milestones in the development and testing of these spacecraft were defined. Subsidy money was paid out once NASA had determined that each milestone was achieved. The advantage of this approach, which was stipulated as a Space Act Agreement, was that the commercial space companies retained flexibility over how they achieved each milestone, with NASA providing over all guidance.
How did NASA propose changing this arrangement for the crewed phase?
NASA proposed to exert a far greater control over the design and development of commercial spacecraft during the crewed phase. Designs would have to be approved by NASA. NASA would reserve to itself the ability to demand more testing at each milestone as it saw fit. To implement this new arrangement, hugely time consuming and expensive auditing requirements would be imposed. NASA would embed teams of its own employees to oversee the development of the crewed commercial spacecraft.
The commercial space companies and commercial space advocates chaffed at this proposed new arrangement. They maintained that it would result in unnecessary expense and would consume too much time. NASA responded that the new approach was necessary to ensure crew safety.
What changed?
Congress appropriated less than half of the Obama administration's request for commercial crew. NASA subsequently decided that it lacked the money to impose the arrangement dictated by the Commercial Crew Integrated Design Contract. The space agency has therefore chosen to retain the Space Act Agreement approach for the crewed phase. Currently, the first commercial crew flights to the ISS are scheduled for 2017.
What has been the political reaction to the revision?
Both Rep, Ralph Hall, the chairman of the House Science Committee, and the ranking member, Rep. Bernice Johnson, have expressed skepticism, citing concerns for crew safety. Both the Space Access Society and the Commercial Spaceflight Federation look upon the NASA decision with favor, however.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times and The Weekly Standard.
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Rocket Misfires ? Samwers Lose Key People Ahead Of Huge Fund Raising To Clone Globally
The three Samwer brothers (Oliver, Marc and Alexander) founders of the Rocket Internet incubator in Berlin, are the most successful Internet entrepreneurs in Germany and possibly Europe. After launching and exiting multiple businesses, many of them clones/copycats of US startups, they are multi-millionaires. Indeed, their Groupon clone CityDeal sold to to Groupon for an estimated ?750m in cash and shares. But much of that success looks threatened by the departure of at least 20 of its key staff in the last two weeks - including CTO- level people - and possibly as much as 40, according to multiple sources spoken to by TechCrunch Europe. While Rocket Internet has around 200 people on staff, losing key heads could be a severe blow to the renowned incubator. The timing could not be worse for the Samwers, who are understood to be in the middle of raising at least a billion dollar financing round designed to clone every successful US startup, to launch them outside the US much faster and become a larger global player than many of the Silicon Valley businesses they plan to copy.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Fa0YERar6yQ/
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011
NRC chief: Nuke industry must heed lesson of Japan (AP)
WASHINGTON ? The nation's nuclear safety chief said Tuesday he is worried that U.S. nuclear plant operators have become complacent, just nine months after the nuclear disaster in Japan.
Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said recent instances of human error and other problems have endangered workers and threatened safety at a handful of the 65 nuclear power plants in the United States.
Workers at nuclear plants in Ohio and Nebraska were exposed to higher than expected radiation levels, Jaczko said, while three other plants were shut down for months because of safety concerns ? the first time in more than decade that several plants have been shut down at the same time.
The Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida and Fort Calhoun in Nebraska remain shut down, while the earthquake-damaged North Anna plant in Virginia reopened last month after being shut down for three months.
Jaczko said he was not ready to declare a decline in safety performance at U.S. plants, but said problems were serious enough to indicate a "precursor" to a performance decline.
"We need to make sure that (nuclear) licensees continue to do the right thing for safety. That's the number one thing going forward," Jaczko said at a meeting with reporters at NRC headquarters. "There are some things we want to keep an eye on to make sure we are not seeing really true declines in performance."
Jaczko said incidents at Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska and Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio "almost led to workers getting very, very significant doses" of radiation. Jaczko blamed the incidents on human error and improper work plans. The incidents show the need to focus on more than plant construction and technical solutions that provide increased protection against earthquakes, flood and fires, Jaczko said.
"The softer side of the safety business can have a real impact," he said, referring to plant operations and worker performance.
In response to the Japan disaster, the NRC approved a number of steps to improve safety at the nation's 104 nuclear reactors. The changes are intended to make the plants better prepared for incidents they were not initially designed to handle, such as prolonged power blackouts or damage to multiple reactors at the same time.
"This has been a year driven by events in Japan," Jaczko said.
Even so, the year was remarkable for natural disasters at home.
The North Anna plant in Virginia shut down when an Aug. 23 earthquake caused peak ground movement about twice the level for which the plant was designed.
Other U.S. reactors were threatened by severe flooding in the Midwest and tornado damage in the Southeast.
The NRC has conducted a greater number of special inspections this year ? 20 so far ? than at any point in recent memory, Jaczko said. The inspections were all prompted by site-specific concerns, but could indicate broader problems, Jaczko said.
Two plants, Fort Calhoun and the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama, have been placed at the NRC's highest level of concern and are subject to additional inspections and public meetings, Jaczko said. Both have had repeated safety problems.
Two other plants, the Perry plant in Ohio and Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, are at the next-highest level of scrutiny. Ninety-one of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors were performing at the highest level and operating with the normal level of inspections.
On other issues, Jaczko said staffing limitations caused by a flat budget could delay license renewals for existing nuclear plants.
"There are resource limitations," he said. It "may take us a little bit longer to get through the reviews" for license renewals.
Jaczko also said he is "very comfortable" with the steps the agency took to close out its review of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
An inspector general's report released last June said Jaczko intimidated staff members who disagreed with him and withheld information from members of the commission to gain their support. Several high-ranking employees at the independent agency complained that Jaczko delayed and hindered their work on the Yucca project.
Jaczko said the actions he took were consistent with the law.
"Sometimes when you have difficult decisions, you have challenging conversations. I think in the end the agency did its job," he said.
Republicans have accused Jaczko, a Democrat and former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, of political bias in directing the NRC to stop work on its review of Yucca Mountain. Jaczko denies any wrongdoing.
___
Follow Matthew Daly at http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Payroll Tax Cut Plan Will Be Unveiled Monday, Democratic Senator Says
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will offer a new plan to extend the payroll tax breaks on Monday, after a previous bill to extend the tax cuts failed in the Senate last week.
"We understand it is going to take a change," Conrad said. "Majority Leader Harry Reid called me yesterday and said he will propose tomorrow a compromise plan to extend the payroll tax cut."
He declined to give details on how the bill will be paid for, although he said "it will be paid for in a way that's credible and serious." But Conrad emphasized that failing to extend the tax breaks, which save working class households about $1,000 per year, would be a mistake.
"We should not have a tax increase on the middle class," Conrad said. "That just makes no sense in this economy."
Republicans largely opposed the previous bill to extend the tax breaks, saying the bill would not strengthen the economy unless it was paid for by cuts from other areas. President Barack Obama urged voters Saturday to contact their representatives and say they want the tax cuts extended.
White House adviser David Axelrod criticized Republicans Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" for opposing the extension.
"It's unfathomable to me why they want to raise taxes on 160 million Americans," Axelrod said, adding later, "That is not a prescription for rebuilding middle class security."
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), also appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said Democrats were "playing a political gotcha game" with the tax cuts, particularly because a tax bill cannot originate in the Senate.
"The principle that you would in fact create a tax cut, and then say you're going to pay for it over the next 10 years is exactly why we're bankrupt as a nation," Coburn said. "Whether or not we continue a reduction in the amount of taxes that come to Social Security is one thing, paying for it -- we have so much waste in Washington, to take 10 years to pay for it is ridiculous."
Still, he acknowledged that the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits will likely be extended. But Coburn said the bills should be paid for "by decreasing spending now in other low-priority areas."
"The question the American people should ask is, 'Where is the backbone in Washington to actually pay for these extensions in the year in which the money is spent?'" he said.
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Monday, December 5, 2011
The Retro Charms Of This Tripod TV Will Cost You Thirty-Five Grand [Televisions]
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Saturday, December 3, 2011
Shape Shifting Robot Shows Some Spine [Video]
Extreme Tech |
Technology
Robots modeled after invertebrate squid, starfish and worms mimic natural movement without the need for complex and expensive mechanical components and assembly
?| November 30, 2011
DO THE WORM: The researchers had their invertebrate-inspired robot execute limbolike moves to navigate underneath a glass plate elevated two centimeters above the ground.
Image: Courtesy of Robert Shepherd
The notion that robots must be rigid metallic automatons made mobile by wheels, tracks or even legs has constrained the imagination of their designers. The weight of all those rods, gears and motors quickly adds up, and complex mechanical and electrical control systems are needed for robots to handle delicate objects or navigate across different types of terrain.
A team of researchers, including Harvard University chemist and materials scientist George Whitesides and Robert Shepherd, a postdoctoral fellow at Whitesides's lab, has eschewed this vertebrate-inspired approach in favor of a softer touch. Modeling their work on vastly more flexible, invertebrate squid, starfish and worms, Whitesides and his colleagues, earlier this week, reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that a combination of elastic polymers and pneumatic pumps has supplied the parts list for a simple robot capable of complex motion.
How complex? Their five-centimeter-thick quadruped was able to crawl and undulate its way through a space just two centimeters high. (The researchers actually executed limbolike moves to navigate their bot underneath a glass plate elevated two centimeters above the ground.) The robot, which looks like a pair of Ys joined at the stem, was made using soft lithography in two layers. Soft lithography is an approach to fabricating objects that uses a patterned elastomer as the stamp, mold or mask, as opposed to the more rigid materials used in photolithography.
The most significant breakthrough demonstrated by this flexible robot is that soft materials can provide a solution to natural movement without the need for complex mechanical components and assembly. It also demonstrates the value of considering simple animals when looking for inspiration for robots and machines, the researchers say.
The shape-shifting robot's upper, flexible layer comes embedded with a system of pneumatic channels through which air could pass. The lower one was made of a much more rigid polymer. The researchers placed the actuating layer onto the strain limiting/sealing layer? with a thin coating of silicone adhesive. Air pumped into different valves in the upper layer caused them to inflate and bend the robot into different positions. For example, the robot could lift any one of its four legs off the ground and leave the other three legs planted to provide stability, depending on which channels were inflated.
?
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The researchers are now exploring a variety of methods to design and make such robots autonomous. Onboard condensed-air cylinders and micro compressors are one route. "We will probably need to scale up the size of the robots a bit to support their load," says Whitesides, who is a member of Scientific American's board of advisors . "Additionally, our current tethered, soft robots can be coupled with hard robot systems to transport them to a location and support the load of the offboard cylinders and compressors."
In many applications, tethers are not a disadvantage, and in others, they are desirable or even required, the researchers say. "Remember, most robots?for example, those used in manufacturing?are fixed in place," Whitesides says, adding that autonomous movement is required for only certain tasks.
The researchers acknowledge that simple, inexpensive robots will probably not replace their more costly counterparts, but they could still have multiple uses. Robot-assisted mine rescues offer one possibility. In these, bots carrying cameras trek down narrow-diameter pipes hundreds of meters underground to search for survivors. Such robots are currently made mostly of metal and often become trapped in boreholes when cave-in aftershocks cause the ground to shift.
A potential disadvantage to these Gumbybots is that softer and more pliable material may rupture when moved across rough or sharp surfaces. Still, the researchers say that with the right mix of toughness and flexibility, they can develop robots that are cheaper to produce, lighter, able to be made big or small and much simpler to operate than their hard-metal brethren.
Advances in materials?polymers, in particular?will impact the development of soft robots by enabling them to operate in a higher pressure range, the researchers say. "We would also like elastomers that are tough, in the sense of being resistant to damage by cutting or puncture," Whitesides adds. "The area of soft robotics will provide many interesting problems for polymer scientists and materials scientists to work on."
Advances in artificial muscles would likewise assist in making these pliable robots more compact and provide more reproducible movement. "It would also allow us to mimic some of the very intricate designs to arms, tentacles or other structures directly," Whitesides says.
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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=af249639cde4723be886c4031e5a6e4a
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Multiple app markets crossing streams, causing problems for some
Now this is interesting. Seems that some of you who have purchased apps from the Amazon Appstore are starting to see conflicts with the Android Market. A couple scenarios appear to be playing out. In some instances, the Android Market sees an app that was purchased from the Amazon Appstore, knows an updated version is available, but then fails on updating because the app wasn't actually purchased from the Android Market. While we're not exactly sure what's going on, it may be an issue where some developers use the same signing key for applications in both the Android market and other app stores. This could cause your phone or tablet to see the applications as identical. That's just a hunch, and chances are google has a better grasp of the situation than we do.
Reversing things, as TWiT's Jason Howell points out, the Amazon Appstore app can see that you have an app installed and offer to unassociated it .. that other market ... so that you can get updates and such through its services instead. How handy. But it also smells of someone standing next to your car in a parking lot, pointing out a dent you know wasn't there when you left your car, and then recommending a friend who can fix it on the cheap. There's just something offputting about it.
This could end up being an interesting push and pull, but we've got a feeling Google's got the upper hand here, being able to more easily and quickly tweak code to keep things in line. And as violent23 points out in our forums, Google's already aware of this and is on the case. Should be interesting to see how it all works out.
Source: Android Forums; More: +Jason Howell
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/RoQY5ww9MI8/story01.htm
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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Nigeria Senate approves anti-gay marriage bill (AP)
LAGOS, Nigeria ? Nigeria's Senate voted Tuesday to criminalize gay marriage, gay advocacy groups and same-sex public displays of affection, the latest legislation targeting a minority already facing discrimination in Africa's most populous nation.
The bill, now much more wide-ranging than its initial draft, must be passed by Nigeria's House of Representatives and signed by President Goodluck Jonathan before becoming law. However, public opinion and lawmakers' calls Tuesday for even harsher penalties show the widespread support for the measure in the deeply religious nation.
"Such elements in society should be killed," said Sen. Baba-Ahmed Yusuf Datti of the opposition party Congress for Progressive Change, drawing some murmurs of support from the gallery.
Gay sex has been banned in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, since colonial rule by the British. Gays and lesbians face open discrimination and abuse in a country divided by Christians and Muslims who almost uniformly oppose homosexuality. In the areas in Nigeria's north where Islamic Shariah law has been enforced for about a decade, gays and lesbians can face death by stoning.
Under the proposed law, couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. That's an increase over the bill's initial penalties, which lawmakers proposed during a debate Tuesday televised live from the National Assembly in Nigeria's capital Abuja.
Other additions to the bill include making it illegal to register gay clubs or organizations, as well as criminalizing the "public show of same-sex amorous relationships directly or indirectly." Those who violate those laws would face 10-year imprisonment as well.
The increased penalties immediately drew criticism from human rights observers.
"The bill will expand Nigeria's already draconian punishments for consensual same-sex conduct and set a precedent that would threaten all Nigerians' rights to privacy, equality, free expression, association and to be free from discrimination," said Erwin van der Borght, the director of Amnesty International's Africa program.
Yet across the African continent, many countries already have made homosexuality punishable by jail sentences. Ugandan legislators introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty for some gays and lesbians, though it has not been passed into law two years later. Even in South Africa, the one country where gays can marry, lesbians have been brutally attacked and murdered.
Nigeria's proposed law has drawn the interest of European Union countries, some of which already offer Nigeria's sexual minorities asylum based on gender identity. The British government recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of gay and lesbian citizens. However, British aid remains quite small in oil-rich Nigeria, one of the top crude suppliers to the U.S.
A spokesman for the British High Commission in Nigeria declined to comment Tuesday, saying officials wanted to study the new version of the bill first.
The bill also could target human rights and HIV-prevention programs run by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Nigeria, which has the world's third-largest population of people living with HIV and AIDS. A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman declined to comment.
International opinion didn't seem to trouble lawmakers, who at times laughed at each other during the debate. One senator worried the bill would hinder the tradition of Nigeria's Igbo ethnic group in the southeast to have infertile wives "marry" other women to carry their husbands' children. Another said gays suffer from a "mental illness."
Senate President David Mark at one point started laughing when a senator proposed 40-year prison sentences for gay couples who marry.
"Forty years, that is just too much," he said. "He won't come out alive now."
Before the vote, Mark did acknowledge the nation likely would face criticism. However, the lawmaker said Nigeria would not bow to international pressure on any legislation.
"Anybody can write to us, but our values are our values," Mark said. "If there is any country that does not want to give us aid or assistance, just because we hold on very firmly to our values, that country can (keep) their assistance. No country has a right to interfere in the way we make our own laws."
___
Associated Press writer Yinka Ibukun in Lagos, Nigeria contributed to this report.
___
Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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Tuesday, November 29, 2011
AOL not chasing Yahoo, will stay independent: CEO (Reuters)
NEW YORK November28 (Reuters) ? AOL Inc does not plan to buy any of Yahoo's assets, AOL's chief executive said on Monday.
Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit, AOL's Tim Armstrong reiterated the company's strategy of staying independent and growing its ailing brand, known for its dial-up services, into a media powerhouse dependent on advertising revenue.
Since Armstrong took over as CEO of AOL in 2009, the company has made flashy acquisitions including political blog Huffington Post and the technology blog TechCrunch.
Armstrong said that TechCrunch's valuation has only gone up since AOL took it over more than a year ago for what a source said at the time was about $30 million.
(Reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke. Editing by Peter Lauria)
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