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As the U.S. gets closer to a debt default, lawmakers in both the House and Senate were in session on Monday's Columbus Day holiday to continue negotiations to find an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. Both the House and the Senate were in session today as the country closes in on the debt ceiling deadline. If Congress doesn't raise the debt limit before Thursday, the White House says the country will likely begin defaulting on its obligations. President Obama postponed a meeting with congressional leaders this afternoon.
A White House statement says that allows Senate leaders more time to continue making important progress toward a solution that raises the debt limit and reopens the government. Joining us now is NPR's congressional reporter Ailsa Chang and Ailsa, the spin from that statement from the White House seems to indicate that this indicates progress, that this is a good thing that the meeting was postponed.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: It probably is a good sign. I mean, it feels like over the last day maybe day and a half a glimmer of light is finally peeking through. Earlier today, the president expressed his optimism, at least on the Senate side of things. He was making sandwiches at a nonprofit called Martha's Table when he said he's seen real progress on the Senate Republican side, that there seems to be a real understanding default is just not an option.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There's been some progress in recognizing that we're not going to be able to completely bridge the differences between the parties all at once and so it doesn't make sense in the meantime to try to use a shutdown or the threat of default as leverage in negotiations.
BLOCK: Well, Ailsa, as these negotiations continue on the Senate side, what's the word? Have there been any breakthroughs?
CHANG: Not quite yet, but both Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell say an agreement between them will materialize within days. The two men actually have had a chilly relationship lately. It's been months since they've tried to sit down face to face and work out a deal so it was a promising sign when they started talking on Saturday. Here's how Reid summed up the tenor of those talks on the floor today.
SENATOR HARRY REID: I'm very optimistic and we will reach an agreement that's reasonable in nature this week to reopen the government, pay the nation's bill and begin long-term negotiations to put our country on sound fiscal footing. I deeply appreciate my friend, the Minority Leader, for his diligent efforts to come to an agreement.
CHANG: And McConnell reciprocated that goodwill, saying he, too, was confident a deal would be reached.
SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: We've had an opportunity over the last couple of days to have some very constructive exchanges of views about how to move forward. And those discussions continue and I share his optimism that we're going to get a result that will be acceptable to both sides.
BLOCK: And I'm trying to read between the lines there, Ailsa, but in the middle of that optimism, what are the sticking points between these two leaders in the Senate?
CHANG: Well, neither leader is commenting specifically on any aspect of the deal as it's taking shape right now. McConnell's office tells me the details are constantly changing, but the talks do seem to be focusing on reopening the government through the end of the year and raising the debt ceiling into 2014.
Now, for how long will the debt ceiling be raised, it's still not clear right now. There also may be some concessions to Republicans on the Affordable Care Act. One thing that's been considered is a delay of the tax on medical devices, which helps fund the healthcare law and it's likely that any such deal would also set up a framework for a larger negotiation on other budget issues like cutting entitlement spending.
But whatever agreements Senate leaders come to would still, of course, need to get through the House.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Ailsa Chang. Ailsa, thanks so much.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble. The change announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 affects Facebook users who list their ages as being from 13 to 17. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble. The change announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 affects Facebook users who list their ages as being from 13 to 17. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble.
The change announced Wednesday affects Facebook users who list their ages as 13 to 17.
Until now, Facebook users falling within that age group had been limited to sharing information and photos only with their own friends or friends of those friends.
The new policy will give teens the choice of switching their settings so their posts can be accessible to the general public. That option already has been available to adults, including users who are 18 or 19.
As a protective measure, Facebook will warn minors opting to be more open that they are exposing themselves to a broader audience. The caution will repeat before every post, as long as the settings remain on "public."
The initial privacy settings of teens under 18 will automatically be set so posts are seen only by friends. That's more restrictive than the previous default setting that allowed teens to distribute their posts to friends of their friends in the network.
In a blog post, Facebook said it decided to revise its privacy rules to make its service more enjoyable for teens and to provide them with a more powerful megaphone when they believe they have an important point to make or a cause to support.
"Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard," Facebook wrote.
The question remains whether teens understand how sharing their thoughts or pictures of their activities can come back to haunt them, said Kathryn Montgomery, an American University professor of communications who has written a book about how the Internet affects children.
"On the one hand, you want to encourage kids to participate in the digital world, but they are not always very wise about how they do it," she said. "Teens tend to take more risks and don't always understand the consequences of their behavior."
The relaxed standards also may spur teens to spend more time on Facebook instead of other services, such as Snapchat, that are becoming more popular hangouts among younger people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, says that the company's internal data shows its social network remains a magnet for teens.
Giving people more reasons to habitually visit its social network is important to Facebook because a larger audience helps sell more of the ads that generate most of the Menlo Park, Calif., company's revenue.
"What this is really about is maximizing the kind of sharing at the heart of Facebook's business model," Montgomery said. She worries that unleashing teens to share more about themselves to a general audience will enable advertisers to collect more personal data about minors "who aren't aware that their movements and interests are under a digital microscope."
Facebook hasn't disclosed how many of its nearly 1.2 billon users are teens. The social network was initially limited to college students when Zuckerberg started it in 2004, but he opened the service to a broader audience within a few years.
The teen audience is large enough to give Facebook periodic headaches. As its social network has steadily expanded, Facebook has had to combat sexual predators and bullies who prey upon children.
Facebook doesn't allow children under 13 to set up accounts on its service but doesn't have a reliable way to verify users' ages.
The company is decorating the windows of San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center to match the design on press invites sent out for an event on October 22.
Here's a sight that's become familiar for Apple events of late: colors.
Apple is decorating the windows of the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco ahead of a special media event it has planned for next Tuesday. The design, revealed in images sent to blog site MacRumors, is a deluge of autumn leaves amidst a single Apple logo. It matches the pattern on invitations the company sent out to media outlets this week.
The October 22 event is expected to bring a variety of announcements, including new models of the iPad and iPad Mini, updates on Macs, and a price and release date for OS X Mavericks.
The facade of Apple's Cupertino, Calif., headquarters was similarly as bright last month when the company invited press and guests in to announce its two new iPhones, the 5S and the 5C -- the latter of which comes in a slew of colors.
Be sure to catch CNET's coverage of next week's event.
3D images generated from PET/CT scans help surgeons envision tumors
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Edyta Zielinska edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu 215-955-5291 Thomas Jefferson University
(PHILADELPHIA) Researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia have developed a hologram-like display of a patient's organs that surgeons can use to plan surgery. This approach uses molecular PET/CT images of a patient to rapidly create a 3D image of that patient, so that surgeons can see the detailed anatomical structure, peel away layers of tissue, and move around in space to see all sides of a tumor, before entering the operating room to excise it.
"Our technology presents PET/CT data in an intuitive manner to help physicians make critical decisions during surgical planning," said first author Matthew Wampole, Ph.D., from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Jefferson. The researchers produced a surgical simulation of human pancreatic cancer reconstructed from a patient's PET scans and contrast-enhanced CT scans. Six Jefferson surgeons evaluated the 3D model for accuracy, usefulness, and applicability of the model to actual surgical experience.
The surgeons reported that the 3D imaging technique would help in planning an operation. Furthermore, the surgeons indicated that the 3D image would be most useful if it were accessible in the operating room during surgery. The 3D image is designed to speed the excision of malignant tissue, avoiding bleeding from unusually placed arteries or veins, according to the report published September 24th in PLOS ONE.
Surgery depends on palpating and manipulating tissues in the operating room environment. Currently, surgeons only use flat CT images and their imagination to envision the anatomy surrounding the lesion to be excised, with the help of their individual experience and judgment. The 3D image promises to eliminate complications frequently presented during surgery due to unexpected anatomical complexity.
A sense of touch and feel will be added with haptic manipulators to the 3D visual image during the next step of development. That will provide a realistic environment to clearly understand an individual patient's anatomy and pathology, and to accurately plan and rehearse that patient's operation.
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The Jefferson research team included lead author, Dr. Matthew Wampole (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology), with guidance from Eric Wickstrom, Ph.D. (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology), Mathew L. Thakur, Ph.D. (Radiology), John C. Kairys, M.D. (Surgery), Edith P. Mitchell M.D. (Medical Oncology), and Ms. Martha Ankeny (Director of Learning Resources).
For more information, contact Edyta Zielinska, (215) 955-5291, edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu
Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), the largest freestanding academic medical center in Philadelphia, is nationally renowned for medical and health sciences education and innovative research. Founded in 1824, TJU includes Jefferson Medical College (JMC), one of the largest private medical schools in the country and ranked among the nation's best medical schools by U.S. News & World Report, and the Jefferson Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Population Health and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Jefferson University
Article Reference: PLOS One 8 (24 September 2013) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075237
EZ 10/17/13
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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.
3D images generated from PET/CT scans help surgeons envision tumors
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Edyta Zielinska edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu 215-955-5291 Thomas Jefferson University
(PHILADELPHIA) Researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia have developed a hologram-like display of a patient's organs that surgeons can use to plan surgery. This approach uses molecular PET/CT images of a patient to rapidly create a 3D image of that patient, so that surgeons can see the detailed anatomical structure, peel away layers of tissue, and move around in space to see all sides of a tumor, before entering the operating room to excise it.
"Our technology presents PET/CT data in an intuitive manner to help physicians make critical decisions during surgical planning," said first author Matthew Wampole, Ph.D., from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Jefferson. The researchers produced a surgical simulation of human pancreatic cancer reconstructed from a patient's PET scans and contrast-enhanced CT scans. Six Jefferson surgeons evaluated the 3D model for accuracy, usefulness, and applicability of the model to actual surgical experience.
The surgeons reported that the 3D imaging technique would help in planning an operation. Furthermore, the surgeons indicated that the 3D image would be most useful if it were accessible in the operating room during surgery. The 3D image is designed to speed the excision of malignant tissue, avoiding bleeding from unusually placed arteries or veins, according to the report published September 24th in PLOS ONE.
Surgery depends on palpating and manipulating tissues in the operating room environment. Currently, surgeons only use flat CT images and their imagination to envision the anatomy surrounding the lesion to be excised, with the help of their individual experience and judgment. The 3D image promises to eliminate complications frequently presented during surgery due to unexpected anatomical complexity.
A sense of touch and feel will be added with haptic manipulators to the 3D visual image during the next step of development. That will provide a realistic environment to clearly understand an individual patient's anatomy and pathology, and to accurately plan and rehearse that patient's operation.
###
The Jefferson research team included lead author, Dr. Matthew Wampole (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology), with guidance from Eric Wickstrom, Ph.D. (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology), Mathew L. Thakur, Ph.D. (Radiology), John C. Kairys, M.D. (Surgery), Edith P. Mitchell M.D. (Medical Oncology), and Ms. Martha Ankeny (Director of Learning Resources).
For more information, contact Edyta Zielinska, (215) 955-5291, edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu
Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), the largest freestanding academic medical center in Philadelphia, is nationally renowned for medical and health sciences education and innovative research. Founded in 1824, TJU includes Jefferson Medical College (JMC), one of the largest private medical schools in the country and ranked among the nation's best medical schools by U.S. News & World Report, and the Jefferson Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Population Health and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Jefferson University
Article Reference: PLOS One 8 (24 September 2013) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075237
EZ 10/17/13
[
| 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.
The first time you see this latest picture of Saturn, you'll probably think it's fake. The rings are too perfectly round. The swirling surface of the planet is too smooth. The shadows are too sharp. But it's all real, thanks to the Cassini spacecraft and a Croatian software developer with too much time on his hands.
The image you see below is a brilliant, high definition composite of images that Cassini took when it flew by Saturn on October 10. The 36 shots amounted to 12 taken with a green filter, 12 with blue and 12 with red to approximate true color. It does better than approximate. In the days that followed, Gordan Ugarkovic, the aforementioned Croation software developer, pieced the 36 images into one massive 4000 x 3200 pixel mosaic, and since he's tinkered with space images before, Ugarkovic does a great job smoothing out the seams:
S
As Slate's Phil Plait points out, the extraordinary detail affords unique looks at the blue-tinged hexagonal polar vortex as well as a white band in the northern hemisphere that appears to be the remnants of a massive storm that rocked the planet last year. The rings are also profoundly well defined from the dark A ring on the outside to the faint C ring in the very middle. The B ring looks like the grooves of a tan-colored record. You can even see how light from the rings is reflected onto the planet's dark side.
Turns out 2013 has been a pretty good year for photographing Saturn. On July 19, Cassini captured this dramatic shot of Saturn and a few of its moons. (Fun fact: Saturn has at least 62 moons in total.) It almost feels like abstract art. [Discover, Slate]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Furloughed U.S. government workers returned to their jobs on Thursday, greeted with doughnuts, coffee, pep talks from Obama administration bosses and anxiety over whether they will face another shutdown threat in the new year.
"I'm glad this whole thing is behind us and to be able to go back to work," Mike McParland, who works for USAID's Food for Peace program, said en route to his office. "I just hope they find a way forward before January so we don't have to go through this again."
Washington's renewed morning rush hour, the first after 16 days of government shutdown, came less than 12 hours after President Barack Obama signed a last-minute bill to fund the government through January 15 and extend its borrowing authority through February 7.
Vice President Joe Biden brought trans fat-free muffins to federal workers entering the Environmental Protection Agency, where about 94 percent of staff had been furloughed.
"These guys not only took a hit and ... (had) the anxiety of knowing whether they'd get back or paid," Biden said. "But now they're back, and they've got all that work piled up so they've got a lot to do so I'm not going to hold them up very long."
At the Agriculture Department, Secretary Tom Vilsack offered coffee and encouragement to returning employees, directing them to free doughnuts available inside the agency's massive building on Independence Avenue.
Most of the Pentagon's civilian employees returned to work, and heard from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in a statement.
"To those returning from furlough: know that the work you perform is incredibly valued by your military teammates and by me," Hagel wrote. "I appreciate your professionalism and your patience during this difficult period of time."
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew offered workers a similar message: "I know how difficult this was for staff who worked tirelessly during the shutdown ... (and) for everyone who wanted to be here to continue performing their duties with exceptional skill and dedication."
ANOTHER SHUTDOWN IN JANUARY? 'I HOPE NOT'
The U.S. World War II Memorial on Washington's central Mall, a flashpoint for anger over the forced closure of national monuments and parks, opened early on Thursday, as a park employee in hip boots waded into the fountain to clean it.
Robert Marimon, a 91-year-old retired electrical engineer and World War Two veteran from Avon Lake, Ohio, said this was his planned first stop on a U.S. capital visit, and he would have been disappointed if it had been closed.
"If it was closed, I was planning to try to get over the barriers one way or another," he said.
"I think it was pretty bad," Marimon said of the shutdown. "Personally, I think both parties, everybody, should have been able to get together way before this."
Asked about a possible repetition in January, he replied, "It sounds like it, but I hope not."
The U.S. Senate's 200-year-old Ohio Clock started ticking again on Thursday, wound for the first time since the shutdown began on October 1. It froze in place at 12:14 p.m. on October 9 because the specialists who normally wind it were among the 800,000 federal employees sent home.
Most of the Smithsonian Institution's museums and other facilities re-opened on Thursday, including the National Zoo's popular online Panda Cam, though traffic was so heavy that it took some doing to see it at http://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/webcams/giant-panda.cfm
. The zoo itself re-opens on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Amanda Becker and Timothy Reid; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Mohammad Zargham)
Israel is keeping a close eye on the Geneva talks on Iran's nuclear program. Israel is not party to the negotiations but its leaders say they have a big stake in the outcome. A cabinet statement Tuesday warned of "cosmetic [Iranian] concessions that could be reversed in weeks. In exchange, Iran demands an easing of the sanctions, which have taken years to put in place."
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
In Geneva today, Iran made a proposal to end the standoff over its nuclear program. Western diplomats involved in the talks called the offer useful. While the details have not been made public, two things are clear: Iran hopes a deal will bring relief from crippling economic sanctions, and Israel - which is not a party to the negotiations, but insists it has big stake in the outcome - remains skeptical of Iranian diplomacy.
From Jerusalem, NPR's Emily Harris reports.
EMILY HARRIS, BYLINE: For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the international community to keep economic sanctions in place until Iran proves it's not pursuing a bomb. This week, as world powers gathered in Geneva to negotiate with Iran, Netanyahu pressed his message again.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Through translator) It would be an historic mistake to relax the pressure on Iran now, a moment before the sanctions achieve their goal. There can be no giving in at this time and the pressure must be continued.
HARRIS: That was yesterday in a speech to the Israeli Parliament. Netanyahu went on to reiterate that a nuclear Iran should worry the world, not just Israel alone.
NETANYAHU: (Through translator) Iran is continuing unhindered to develop inter-continental missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. These missiles can reach all parts of the Middle East, Europe and the U.S., and other parts of the world as well.
HARRIS: Analyst Max Singer, with Israel's BESA Institute, believes a deal may come out of Geneva that would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium, under the guise of a civilian energy program, but forbid it from designing or building bomb components.
MAX SINGER: The thing about a nuclear bomb is the most important part and the most expensive part, is this uranium or plutonium. But it doesn't work by itself. You have to have a very complicated, advanced mechanism. And those have to be designed and built and maybe tested. And that work of designing and building it, that's done on a very small scale and it's relatively easy to keep secret.
HARRIS: Secret enough, he says, that there would be no way to verify whether Iran has the components to quickly put together a bomb.
SINGER: So from that point of view, Israel would say: They have the bomb. United States and everybody else would look at the question: Do they have any actual physical bombs they could put on an airplane? The answer is no, as far as we know. So therefore they don't have the bomb. That will be the dynamic and I think Israel is stuck.
HARRIS: Israel says it is not opposed to Iran pursuing a civilian nuclear program to produce electricity if that is verifiable by the international community. Israeli Intelligence Minster Yuval Steinitz says if that's really what Iran wants, there's an easy solution.
YUVAL STEINITZ: Iran wants civilian nuclear energy, OK. The world want to be totally confident that Iran is not producing nuclear weapons, or even getting closer to the capacity of producing nuclear weapons. You can combine those two demands very easily. Let Iran produce nuclear electricity but buy the nuclear fuel from other countries.
HARRIS: Iran has said it will not allow any of its enriched uranium to be taken out of the country. Today, Israel's Security Cabinet insisted in a public statement that economic sanctions against Iran must stay in place, until specific steps are taken to dismantle elements of its nuclear program that point to weapons development. The talks in Geneva continue tomorrow.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
Your liver could be "eating" your brain, new research suggests.
People with extra abdominal fat are three times more likely than lean individuals to develop memory loss and dementia later in life, and now scientists say they may know why.
It seems that the liver and the hippocampus (the memory center in the brain), share a craving for a certain protein called PPARalpha. The liver uses PPARalpha to burn belly fat; the hippocampus uses PPARalpha to process memory.
In people with a large amount of belly fat, the liver needs to work overtime to metabolize the fat, and uses up all the PPARalpha — first depleting local stores and then raiding the rest of the body, including the brain, according to the new study. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]
The process essentially starves the hippocampus of PPARalpha, thus hindering memory and learning, researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago wrote in the study, published in the current edition of the journal Cell Reports.
Other news reports were incorrect in stating that the researchers established that obese individuals were 3.6 times more likely than lean individuals to develop dementia. That finding dates back to a 2008 study by researchers at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.
In another study, described in a 2010 article in the Annals of Neurology, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine found that the greater the amount of belly fat, the greater the brain shrinkage in old age.
The surprising discovery in the new study is that the hippocampus uses PPARalpha to process memory and learning, and that this is a possible reason for the connection between belly fat and dementia and/or memory loss.
Rush University researchers, led by neurological sciences professor Kalipada Pahan, raised mice that were deficient in PPARalpha. Some mice had normal PPARalpha in the liver but depleted PPARalpha in the brain, and had poor memory and learning abilities. Others had normal PPARalpha in the brain but not the liver, and showed normal memory, as expected.
When the researchers injected PPARalpha into the hippocampus of PPARalpha-deficient mice, their learning and memory improved, Pahan said.
"Further research must be conducted to see how we could potentially maintain normal PPARalpha in the [human] brain in order to be resistant to memory loss," Pahan told LiveScience.
PPARalpha thus provides a new avenue to explore in searching for a treatment or cure for Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and related memory-loss and cognition problems, Pahan said.
Losing your belly fat won't hurt, either.
Follow Christopher Wanjek @wanjek for daily tweets on health and science with a humorous edge. Wanjek is the author of "Food at Work" and "Bad Medicine." His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on LiveScience.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In relationships, two areas that often cause friction are money and poor communication. So when a divorced couple needs to communicate with each other over child support payments, arguments can easily ensue.
Support Pay, from Santa Clara-based Ittavi, is an online service that allows divorced parents to organize, track and pay bills associated with bringing up their children. It was born from the personal experience of Sheri Atwood, CEO of Ittavi, who went through her own divorce several years ago.
A parent can upload a bill -- or snap a picture of it with a mobile device -- and have it appear immediately in the Support Pay interface. The other parent can see the bill and then pay it or dispute it. It also makes it easy to split bills, so each parent pays their respective slice.
"The biggest complaints we hear from divorced parents are 'My ex-partner has no idea how much it costs to bring up a child' or 'I just want to know my payments are going to my child,'" said Atwood.
She hopes Support Pay will make the process transparent, so when divorced parents meet they won't be arguing over money.
There's a free version with limited features and a full version for US$19.99 per month. Google is on the cusp of approving an Android app, according to Atwood, and she expects the iOS app to be available in November.
Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com
Martyn Williams, IDG News Service , IDG News Service
Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. More by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
In the last couple of years, there's been a surge of what you might call "cool PBS," by which I just mean social-media-friendly stuff like Sherlock and Downton Abbey that sort of expands people's ideas of what public television is and especially what its relationship to pop culture is.
But that's not a reason to overlook classic, documentary-making, nature-liking, animal-hugging PBS, which brings us to tonight's return of Nature, produced by WNET in New York, which debuts its new season Wednesday night with "Saving Otter 501." (8:00 pm in many places, but check your local listings, as always.)
This is the story of how the Monterey Bay Aquarium makes its 501st attempt to save an orphaned otter and release her back into the wild. They feed her, they teach her, they even place her with a surrogate mother. (The whole thing is narrated by Daniel Stern, which, for children of the '80s, gives it a whole nostalgic Wonder Otter Years quality that's downright diabolical.) While the special contains more adorable, awesome otter footage than you can shake a ... flipper? ... at, it doesn't take a monster to ask the question: Is this worth it, for one baby otter?
Well, as it turns out, California's wild otter population is pretty tiny and heavily concentrated, and there's that funny thing about ecosystems: otters are one of the few predators that urchins have, and urchins eat kelp, so if you follow the math, otters are necessary to protect kelp from being overrun in the creation of — no kidding — "urchin barrens." Yikes.
There's a nice line-straddling here between "Look at nature; nature is cool!" and "Look how much we're having to do just to keep from wiping out this entire animal, like, as a thing that exists." The scientists are careful to stress that this is only worth doing if it ultimately benefits the wild population, not if it results in a bunch of hand-raised otters being released into Monterey Bay to take food out of the mouths of the wild otters that remain.
They've been making Nature for 30 years; long enough that I remember griping about my parents using our first VCR to tape it when I undoubtedly was desperate to tape something else (probably something terrible). It might not be slick, but it's entertaining and informative, and if you're wildlife-minded, it's worth remembering that it's still there, as lovely as ever.
Sky Cable Corporation and RTL CBS Asia Entertainment Network have signed a deal to bring the recently launched RTL CBS Entertainment HD channel to the Philippines.
The channel features a wide range of content, including shows The X Factor USA, America’s Got Talent, Entertainment Tonight, along with popular U.S. drama series, such as Elementary and the upcoming Under the Dome.
Sky Cable is the largest digital cable TV provider in the Philippines. RTL CBS Entertainment HD will be available as an a-la-carte option or as part of the company’s various packages.
"The addition of RTL-CBS Entertainment HD to Sky Cable's widest and still-growing channel lineup goes hand in hand with our mission to provide every Filipino family with quality entertainment. We are excited and honored to be the first cable TV provider in the country to offer this world-class channel," said Ray Montinola, COO of Sky Cable, in a statement.
The Philippines is the fourth market to launch the channel -- following Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore -- since it began broadcasting in September.
“RTL CBS Entertainment HD has received an extremely enthusiastic reception from all operators across the region and initial audience feedback has been very encouraging,” said Jonas Engwall, CEO of RTL CBS Asia Entertainment Network. “We are delighted to bring the channel to Filipino viewers through our partner Sky Cable. The Philippines is a significant market where viewers of all ages value high quality content.”
RTL CBS Asia Entertainment Network was formed in August, bringing together Europe's RTL Group and CBS Studios International. The venture plans to distribute its two new channels -- RTL CBS Entertainment HD and RTL CBS Extreme HD -- in more than 20 Asian markets.
EE may have rethought its contract plans, but it's also added a new option for those who don't want to commit to two years of bills. On top of the SIM-only pay-as-you-go options already available, the traditional PAYG handset model is launching on the network October 30th. All the LTE-friendly ...
Star Trek has long been a part of the Mimobot pantheon of flash drives, with drives modelled after Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Captain Picard and Data. Now we have the Mimobot Mr. Sulu USB 3.0 (32GB). The latest drive resembling a pop culture icon adds not only a beloved Star Trek character, but throws in USB 3.0 as well. The Mr. Sulu Mimobot flash drive offers a faster drive with higher capacity that we've seen on past Mimobot drives, and throws in a bunch of Sulu-centric extras for you or the Trekkie in your life.
Design and Features
The Mr. Sulu Mimobot flash drive uses the basic Mimobot designa big, elongated head, which doubles as the USB plug cap, and a small body at one end. In this case, that head vaguely resembles George Takei circa-1968 (though, thanks to the cartoony art, you can imagine it's John Cho just as easily). Sulu is decked out in the gold shirt befitting a command officer, complete with a lieutenant's stripe at the wrist. While most Mimobot figures are depicted with their hands at their sides, Mr. Sulu breaks the mold by brandishing a phaser, though it's only printed onto the drive.
Remove the top of Mr. Sulu's head, and you'll uncap a USB 3.0 connector, easily identified by the light blue plug. On the back of the drive is a small LED indicator, which glows when the drive is plugged into a port. While the Mr. Sulu design comes in 8, 16, 32, and 64GB capacities, only the 32GB model offers USB 3.0.
Mimobot likes to include some extras for fans, and the Sulu-drive comes with plenty. A collection of wallpapers let you put some Star Trek-flavored wallpapers on your PC, tablet, or phone, and a half-dozen custom file icons and avatars let you decorate your data with Starfleet insignias, images of the Sulu drive, and even a cartoony rendering of a swashbuckling Sulu, rapier in hand. The drive also comes equipped with MimoByte sound software, which lets you set any number of Star Trek sounds and clips of Sulu dialogue when connecting or disconnecting the drive.
The 32GB Mr. Sulu Mimobot drive has a list price of $49.95, which works out to $1.56 per GB. For a USB 3.0 drive, this isn't half bad; the Editors' Choice SanDisk Extreme 3.0 (64GB) has a list price of $149.99, or $2.34 per GB. It's also a pretty good price for a novelty drive. The assorted Mimobot USB 2.0 drives we reviewed a few months back offered slower speeds and only 8GB of storage for a list price of $24.95, which works out to roughly $3.11 per GB, and the 4GB Dane-Elec Marvel Universe USB Drives drives sell for a similar $3.37 per GB.
Performance
The Mr. Sulu Mimobot flash drive is formatted in FAT32, so the drive can be used with any major operating systemWindows, Mac, and Linux are all support. The extra content, with the Sulu-themed icons and sounds, however, is Windows and Mac only. Mimobot covers the Mr. Sulu drive with a one-year warranty, which is a bit short for portable storagemany competitors offer three- or five-year warranties.
When tested, the Mr. Sulu drive offered the best performance we've seen of any novelty drive, due entirely to the availability of USB 3.0. In our timed data transfer test, the Mr. Sulu drive offered performance of 81 MBps (read) and 17 MBps (write) using USB 3.0. Compared to our leading USB 3.0 drive, the Editors' Choice SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 was faster with USB 3.0 speeds of 105 MBps (read) and 110 MBps (write). While the Mr. Sulu drive shouldn't be purchased solely on its performance, it is significantly faster than the USB 2.0 alternatives.
Under USB 2.0 Mr. Sulu actually led the pack, with 31 MBps (read) and 12 MBps (write). By comparison, the assorted My Little Pony, Elvis Presley and Abraham Lincoln drives were even slower, with speeds of 27 MBps (Read) and 5 MBps (Write), and the Marvel Universe drives weren't any better at 30MBps (read) and 4MBps (write). All of these drives are passable given that they are generally cheaply sourced flash modules dressed up in goofy plastic enclosures, sold for fan-appeal rather than the merits of the hardware.
While most novelty flash drives offer little more than a nifty design showcasing a fan-favorite character, the Mr. Sulu Mimobot flash drive rises to new heights by offering a drive that has sizable storage and (relatively) strong performance. While George Takei's cartoon likeness won't appeal to everyone, the Mr. Sulu Mimobot is one geek-friendly drive that does more than just show off your favorite sci-fi franchise, it's also a pretty good drive on its own merits. For optimum performance, stick to our Editors' Choice SanDisk Extreme 3.0 (64GB), but for any fan of classic Star Trek, the Sulu drive is the way to go.
Will fans be disappointed once again? The search is back on for the role of Christian Grey in the much-anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation, following the Saturday, Oct. 12 announcement that Charlie Hunnam would be dropping out. When the Sons of Anarchy actor, 33, was initially cast on Sept. 2, fans created an online petition demanding he be replaced by actor Matt Bomer, but it looks like other actors may be in the running instead.
Citing sources, The Hollywood Reporter claims Irish actor Jamie Dornan is on the list of possible replacements. Dornan, 31, plays Paul Spector in the U.K. TV series The Fall, and starred as Sheriff Graham/The Huntsman on ABC's Once Upon a Time.
In addition to Dornan, a much more well-known hunk is reportedly under consideration: True Blood actor Alexander Skarsgard, 37. THR also reveals that actors Theo James and Christian Cooke are also in contention. James, 28, is a British actor who played David in Underworld: Awakening, and fellow Brit Cooke, 26, currently stars as Mercutio in the new Carlo Carlei-directed Romeo and Juliet film alongside Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth.
Though Universal Pictures and Focus Features said in a statement that Hunnam left the film due to his "immersive TV schedule," a source explained to Us Weekly "the project wasn't appearing to shape up as expected," and that Hunnam was "not happy" with the script. Dakota Johnson, meanwhile, is still committed to the role of Anastasia Steele in the erotic film.
Though Fifty Shades of Grey fans initially created the petition on Change.org to recast both Hunnam with Bomer and Johnson with actress Alexis Bledel, they are now redoubling their efforts on the 36-year-old White Collar actor. "PLZ NOW MORE THAN EVER WE MUST JOIN FORCES UNTIL ARRIVE 100 K SIGNATURES," the creator wrote on Oct. 12. "WE WILL DO ALL THE POSSIBLE TO SEE MATT LIKE GREY DONT GIVE UPPPPPP XXXXX." So far, the petition has nearly 88,000 supporters.
October 15, 2013 – The REAL Trends Housing Market Report for October 2013 shows that the rate of housing sales increased strongly in September 2013 growing 20.9 percent from September 2012, a continuation of the powerful surge in housing sales that started in October 2011. The annual rate of new and existing home sales for September 2013 was 6.228 million up from 5.153 million recorded in September 2012 but down slightly from the rate in August 2013.
The average price of homes sold increased by 5.5 percent in September 2013 compared to September 2012.
Housing unit sales for September 2013 were up 24.4 percent in the Midwest, the strongest showing in the country. The next highest region was in the South region at 23.3 percent, the Northeast region was up 21.5 percent and the West was up 14.2 percent.
The average price of homes sold in September 2013 increased 5.5 percent across the country, down measurably from the results in August 2013. The West had the best results with the average price of homes sold increasing 10.2 percent followed by the South region at 7.3 percent and the Midwest at 7.0 percent. The Northeast region saw prices move downward by 0.3 percent.
“September 2013 sales of new and existing homes were surprisingly strong, especially in view of the rise of mortgage rates over the past few months,” said Steve Murray, editor of the REAL Trends Housing Market Report. “Historically when a recovery starts to drive rates up buyers increase their buying activity to beat the rise in rates and we saw that in the July 2013 results. September results showed a small decrease in the annualized rate of homes sales from the prior month which was also expected. Inventories continue to constrain sales as well and although homes available for sale have increased they remain below historical levels of balanced housing markets.”
REAL Trends Housing Market Report September 2013 August 2013
Viewer votes count on "Dancing With the Stars" — but the question is who do they count for?
After Monday night's show, some voters may have inadvertently thrown their support behind couples that aren’t their favorites due to an error.
“There were technical difficulties with posting the voting numbers during the East Coast broadcast; we are reviewing the data and will determine the best course of action,” ABC said in a statement following the East Coast and Central time zone broadcast. “The errors were fixed for both Mountain and West Coast broadcasts.”
So, how did the error play out on the show?
“Somebody came up to us and said there was a system error, and Bill (Engvall's) number got switched (on the screen) with Elizabeth Berkley’s,” Engvall's partner, Emma Slater, told TODAY after the show. “So the East Coast got the two numbers wrong. I don’t know how that happened.”
“I’m not going to worry about,” Engvall told us. “After you call, there’s a recorded message that says, ‘Hey, thanks for voting for (the name of your couple),' so they’ll know (something’s amiss) after they make their first call.
“Emma and I have gone so much further than I thought we’d go,” the standup comedian offered. “Each week, we’re living on gravy.”
Corbin Bleu and pro Karina Smirnoff embraced the snafu with a bit of humor when they learned their voting number had been switched with the one for former "Jersey Shore" star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and her partner Sasha Farber.
“Hey, I used to live in New Jersey,” Smirnoff said. “I love New Jersey!”
“You can’t control it,” Bleu philosophized. “Fans have the numbers. It’s one of those scary things. If something goes on with either of us (as a result of the snafu) you have to roll with the punches and let God take you were you gotta go!”
“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Engvall added. “You hope that people who’ve been voting for you for five weeks (will use the same, correct numbers). We’re going to tweet out the right numbers.”
After the shocking elimination of Christina Milian and Mark Ballas on Monday night, Bleu emphasized how important voting for favorites really is.
“To have Christina and Mark get the first 10 of the season and be the top-scoring couple of the night and still be sent home shows us that no one is safe,” he said.
At Microsoft's huge Xbox reveal last spring, the company made a big hubub about the 300,000 cloud servers it would be adding to help speed up GPU and CPU heavy tasks. But in an interview with Gizmodo, Xbox Live Lead Programmer John Bruno detailed how it could change the way we think about gaming in the future.
Powerful cloud computing lets developers offload tasks like graphics processing and AI computation from Xbox One's local resources. "There is s thrust to turn more things server-side," Says Bruno. "Looking for ways to expand the power of the box." As we've noted before, this lets game developers build games bigger than what the hardware can support on its own. But it could be so much more.
Dedicated servers for all
In large measure, Xbox Live is about multiplayer gaming, and in effort to make its offering competitive, Microsoft is offering the benefits of its scalable dedicated server resources to all developers for free. This sounds like a lot of techno-babble, but it's a big deal. "We want Xbox Live to be the best place to play multiplayer games," says Bruno.
How does the Xbox Live cloud help? As the developer of Tinfallexplained back in June, scalable, dedicated server resources vastly improve gaming experiences. They make multiplayer more reliable by preventing disconnects, and they also make sessions fair by eliminating any advantages a player hosting a game might have.
Big game studios can pay for their own server resources that are allocated regionally depending on who is logging on to play games where. Microsoft's offer of free cloud computing allows all developers to take advantage of big-ticket resources, even if they're not that big.
Games that evolve
The lofty potential of Xbox Live's Cloud Computing is that it allows developers to evolve games and experiences over time. In a commonly cited example, Forza studies your driving style over time to evolve its AI.
But according to Bruno, this is just the tip of the iceberg. "It could change the way developers think about their franchises and their intellectual property." What if a game purchase was a constantly evolving experience that grew over time—more like what we're used to from software these days. We're talking about more than just patches and stability improvements. Bruno declined to comment on the future of business models, but he did note that it would be interesting to see developers grow their games over time. Imagine a world without expansion packs.
Where does that leave us?
Bruno is obviously touting all of the benefits of Xbox Live's cloud in an effort to lure in both developers and customers. It remains to be seen how many people will actually take advantage of the possibilities on Xbox One. What' pretty certain, is that there's an opportunity, and that's always a good thing.
If you were planning to use a PlayStation Pulse headset with your PS4 at launch, Sony has some bad news. Until there's a system update "in the future" (still time to fix it before November, guys!) you won't be able to use any of the firm's USB headsets with the PlayStation 4, the company told Game Informer. However, any headset that uses a TOSlink cable to feed audio data -- meaning, most cans over $100 -- will still work. You won't be able to use said headphones or Bluetooth to chat, although Astro said it will patch the former in later. Apparently, if you want the PS4 experience to be as or more talkative than the PS3's, you'll have to resort to the pack-in earbud kit.
Jon Bon Jovi is not only talented but seems to be a really nice guy! The singer made one fan a very happy bride when he walked her down the aisle over the weekend in Las Vegas! Australian bride Branka Delic began an online campaign on Facebook to have Bon Jovi walk her down the ...
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Business users who spend eight or more hours a day staring into a computer screen know the value of a desktop monitor that can cleanly display small text while offering a variety of viewing positions. The HP EliteDisplay 271i does both and more. This reasonably priced 27-inch IPS monitor delivers accurate colors out of the box and does a good job of displaying light and dark shades of gray. It also maintains a bright, colorful picture at any angle and has a built-in
USB hub. It's missing an HDMI port, however, and the USB hub doesn't support the newer (and faster) USB 3.0 technology.
Design and Features
There's nothing fancy about the 271i, but like most business monitors it was designed with productivity in mind. The 1,920-by-1,080 IPS panel has a non-reflective anti-glare coating and is housed in a 10.8-pound business black cabinet with 0.75-inch black bezels. A small round HP logo is affixed to the bottom bezel, and five buttons are positioned off to the right.
The cabinet is supported by a black hinged stand that provides a little over 5 inches of height adjustment and 35 degrees of tilt adjustment. It also allows you to rotate the panel 90 degrees in either direction for portrait mode viewing but it doesn't automatically rotate the image. You'll have to use your graphics card's control panel to flip the image. A small round pad on the base lets you swivel the entire monitor (including the base) 360 degrees, but the base is a bit too large and heavy, and the movement is awkward at best. The stand can be removed if you prefer to mount the monitor on a wall using the four VESA compliant mounting holes.
There are two downstream USB ports on the left side of the monitor and one upstream port around back. All USB ports use the older (and slower) USB 2.0 protocol rather than the newer (and faster) USB 3.0 protocol found on monitors like the Acer B296CL and the Dell P2314T. Also at the rear of the cabinet are VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort 1.2 video inputs. You don't get an HDMI port or speakers on this monitor, omissions that would be more glaring if the 271i was geared towards consumers rather than business users.
The 271i has limited picture adjustments. In addition to brightness, contrast, and color temperature you can adjust sharpness, enable video overdrive (to reduce blurring) and dynamic contrast ratio, and set black stretch (black level). Power management consists of a sleep timer and a power saver mode that shuts down the backlight when the monitor detects the absence of a video signal.
HP protects the 271i with a three-year warranty. Inside the box are VGA, DisplayPort, and USB cables as well as a resource CD containing drivers, a user guide, and HP's Display Assistant software. Display Assistant lets you change picture setting using a keyboard and mouse and includes a Desktop Partition utility that lets you manage window partitions. It contains a set of predefined window regions and allows you to create your own custom regions. There's also a Power Saving feature that lets you schedule when the monitor will go into Stand-by mode or Power off mode.
Performance
The 271i's 27-inch IPS panel performed admirably. It displayed all shades of gray from DisplayMate's 64-Step Grayscale test and showed no evidence of tinting or color tracking errors. Viewing angles were wide with no appreciable color shifting or loss of luminance.
Colors looked sharp against the panel's dark black background and were reasonably accurate out of the box. On the chart below each box represents the ideal coordinates for each color, as determined by the CIE (International Committee on Illumination). The colored dots represent the actual measured coordinates taken in our lab. As you can see, red and green are very close to their ideal zone while blue is spot-on. While displaying scenes from the BBC production of Planet Earth on Blu-ray, colors appeared well saturated and skin tones looked natural.
The 271i did a fantastic job of displaying small text on the Scaled Fonts test. Size 7 Arial fonts set to 5.3 points (the smallest font on the test) were crisp and well defined, a big plus for those who wish to view multiple pages on a single screen.
The 271i used 26 watts of power during testing, which is exactly what the 27-inch Viewsonic VG2732m-LED used and a bit more efficient than the HP Envy 27 and the AOC i2757fh, both of which used 30 watts.
The HP EliteDisplay 271i is a good choice for business users who want to move up to a big screen monitor but need to stay within budget. Its ergonomic stand allows you to adjust the screen for the most comfortable viewing position and can rotate the panel 90-degrees. Moreover, its IPS panel displays rich, accurate colors and good grayscale reproduction. Additionally, users who work with multi-page documents will appreciate how the 271i handles small text. For businesses that require more connectivity options and more IT-friendly features, our Editors' Choice for big-screen business monitors, the NEC MultiSync EA273WM, delivers the goods but it's more expensive.