Monday, January 30, 2006

Google May Be Close To Developing iTunes Competitor

Peter Kang, of Forbes.com writes here on 01.26.06, 1:41 PM ET, two excerpts :

Bear Stearns maintained an "outperform" rating on Google and said the Internet search giant may be looking to expand into the MP3 downloading business.
"We believe that Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) is in the midst of creating its own iTunes competitor, which we've dubbed 'Google Tunes'," the analyst wrote in a client note issued today. "We think this is a logical step, now that the nascent Google Video product has been introduced."......

China's Migrant Workers's Return

Peter S. Goodman of Washington Post Foreign Service writes Lunar New Year Allows Migrant Workers to Leave Jobs in Cities for Rural Homes, a report about China's migrant workers's CNY experience. Selected Excerpts are:

On almost every other day, Cai Weilan wakes up hundreds of miles away in a cramped factory dormitory, facing another long shift making sweaters for strangers across the ocean.

On this day, she wakes up at home. She jostles the coals to life on the concrete floor of her otherwise unheated house, then lifts a pair of knitting needles and a ball of green wool to begin making a single sweater for her 2-year-old daughter, still asleep beside her. For one brief stretch -- this week's Chinese Lunar New Year festival -- mother and daughter are reunited.

"Of course I miss her," says Cai, 23, who has been gone for a full year, leaving her daughter behind in the care of her mother-in-law while she endures the factory life for $80 a month. "At home, there is nothing for me to do. My family needs this money."

Trapped Canada miners brought out

Rescuers in Canada are beginning to bring to the surface 70 miners who were forced to take refuge in safety rooms after a fire broke out at their mine.

The fire had been extinguished earlier, but the rescuers had to wait until the tunnels were cleared of toxic fumes to go in.

So far, 32 miners have been rescued - the rest are said to be safe.

The accident happened at 0300 (0900 GMT) on Sunday in Esterhazy, in Saskatchewan province.

A representative for Mosaic Co, which operates the mine, had said the miners had food and water for up to 36 hours.

"We have had fires underground but none that we can remember that have been this tricky," Marshall Hamilton, head of human resources at the potash mine, told reporters.

BBC reported here

Google Releases Upgraded Toolbar

Chris Sherman, Associate Editor of Search Engine Watch writes here:

Google has enhanced its toolbar for Internet Explorer, introducing several new features that will appeal to regular users of the program.

The new features include enhanced "suggestions" that appear on the fly as you type a query, the ability to add custom buttons to search your favorite sites, the ability to create and save online bookmarks and to share web pages with others.


" Global warming at a rate that is unsustainable"

Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts than previously believed, a major scientific report has said.

The report, published by the UK government, says there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below "dangerous" levels.

In the report's foreword, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair writes that "it is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases... is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable."

Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said the report's conclusions would be a shock to many people.

BBC News reported detailly here.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Abhishek Rai's joke?

A post in Abhishek Rai's blog named "Thank you for flying Lufthansa!!!" I don't know if this is a true story?


Lufthansa Passengers on a Lufthansa flight heard this announcement from the captain: "Ladies and Gentlemen,I am sorry to inform you that we have lost power to all of our engines and will shortly crash into the ocean" The passengers were obviously very worried about this situation but were somewhat comforted by the captain's next announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we at Lufthansa have prepared for such an emergency and we would now like you to rearrange your seating so that all the non-swimmers are on the left side of the plane and all the swimmers are on the right side of the plane" After this announcement all the pasengers rearranged their seating to comply with the captain's request.Two minutes later the captain made a belly landing in the ocean. The captain once again made an annoucement: "Ladies and Gentlemen we have crashed into the ocean.All of the swimmers on the right side of the plane, open your emergency exits and quickly swim away from the plane. For all of the non-swimmers on the left side of plane...
THANK YOU FOR FLYING LUFTHANSA

Video game maker sued over sex scenes

· Los Angeles wants firm to surrender profits
· City acts over explicit content buried in code


The city of Los Angeles is suing the makers of the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for hiding sex scenes in its computer code.

The game, released in 2004, is one of a series in which the player takes the role of a criminal who commits murder, deals in drugs and pimps prostitutes in a virtual Los Angeles. However, the makers, Take-Two Interactive Software, may have stepped over the line by embedding a game within a game called Hot Coffee in which the characters have explicit sex under the control of the player, who can alter position and viewpoint with a keyboard or joystick.

The Los Angeles city attorney's office has taken Take-Two to court for deceptive business practices and making false statements in marketing the game, for its failure to reveal the extent of its sexual content.

After complaints from politicians including Senator Hillary Clinton last year, the company initially said the sex game had been added by hackers, but later admitted it was written in the original code. Hackers found the code and the hidden scenes last year, broadcasting the discovery on the internet.

The US gaming industry has since changed the game's rating from "Mature 17+" to "Adults Only 18+" and several supermarkets have removed it from their shelves. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been re-released without the explicit sex, but the Los Angeles authorities want the company to surrender the profits from an estimated 200,000 copies of the game sold under the old, less restrictive rating, and is also demanding a $2,500 fine for any false statements made by company officials about the game in the past.

More than 35 million copies of Grand Theft Auto have been sold, with global sales approaching $2bn. However, stock in Take-Two has fallen from $30 a share before the discovery of the Hot Coffee sex scenes to less than half that by the end of last week. The company has admitted the discovery of "material weaknesses" in its financial accounting and has asked for more time to file an annual report.

The company has not issued a statement since the Los Angeles city attorney took his case to court on Thursday.

Julian Borger in Washington
Monday January 30, 2006
The Guardian

Apple's Switch to Intel Could Allow OS X Exploits

By Paul F. Roberts Pcmag.com

The recent move by Apple Computer to begin shipping Macintosh computers that use microprocessors from Intel could open the door to more attacks against computers running the company's OS X operating system, security experts warn.

The shift to Intel processors from the Motorola Power PC processors will make it easier to create software exploits for Macintosh systems, and could result in a steady stream of Mac exploits in years to come.

The change could put more pressure on Apple to build security features into OS X, according to interviews conducted by eWEEK.

Apple declined requests for interviews. In an e-mail statement, the company said that the security technologies and processes that have made Mac OS X secure for PowerPC remain the same for Intel-based Macs.

Apple first announced its intention to deliver Macs that use Intel processors in June and said it plans to transition all of its Macs to Intel by the end of 2007.

The company's CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the first Intel-based systems using Intel's dual-core Duo chip earlier this month at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.

The move to Intel will end a 10-year relationship with Motorola, which produced the PowerPC microprocessors used in Macs, and is expected to bring immediate improvements in both processing power and efficiency to Apple.

However, experts cite a number of ways in which the shift to Intel will spell trouble for engineers at Apple and for Mac users:

Read the rest of this eWEEK story: "Apple's Switch to Intel Could Allow OS X Exploits"

oh, Dr. Mahatir Sued finally

Just read a notice saying Dr. Mahatir was sued finally by Anwar, ex-deputy PM of Malaysia. The whole contents originally displaying here is shown below :
"The law suit of the new year is coming up between Anwar and Tun M-over the controversial but slightly tired issue of Anwar's alleged homosexuality. Anwar is in for a non-win position : win, he is no better than before when he was discharged by the court over the same issue; lose -he lose everything! For Tun M he rest on the judge's statement that the court discharged Anwar on alleged `technical' issue -and did not positively rule out Anwar's homosexuality. Win, he can go on to stop Anwar in the tract; Lose -he lose some millions he can well afford -but not much more standing than what he lost when the case was disposed by the court before. Anwar was definitely hesitant to go to court for the above reasons-so it seems; but with Anwar fighting a battle to return to Malaysia's political center stage the issue take on a different value -it will become a tool where he can vault himself over the public's and the media's wilful avoidance of him. Preferably the case get drag on forever ie till Anwar achieve his ambition to become the PM, so he will be kept in the media's eyes again -and so the suit is a suitable price ! And Tun M similarly need the issue to keep himself on a platform...."

Man Bites Robotic Dog

Not really man bites robotic, just a report on Sony's Aibo project.

Leah Hoffmann, 01.27.06, 5:00 PM ET Forbes Online


NEW YORK - It sang. It danced. It fetched. It never made a mess, though once--we swear--it lifted its leg as though marking its territory near a Majesty Palm in our office.

Yet Sony's cute robotic dog, Aibo will soon be put to sleep. In its third-quarter financial report, released yesterday, the company announced that research and development for Aibo has been halted, and that production of the $2,000 robot would stop the end of March.

Given its high price, Aibo was never a serious mass-market contender. Still, Sony sold more than 150,000 of the dogs since their 1999 debut, and many Japanese business executives were said to have an Aibo wandering around their offices. Over time, Aibo grew more technologically sophisticated--the latest model could play MP3s, connect to your wireless network and take pictures with a camera in its mouth.

Spam

Sure the following message received is a spam, nowadays it seems alot of such kind of cheating emails derived from Afican!!!

From: TANKO IBRAHIM Mailed-By: msn.com
Date: Jan 28, 2006 2:21 PM
Subject: Urgent Attn:

Engr.Tanko Abubaka
Director, Project
Implementation
Office Complex,
Falomo, Abuja

ATTN:
Dear Sir,

It is my great pleasure in writing this letter on behalf of my colleagues
and myself. Your particulars
was given to me by a member of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council
[N.E.P.C.] who was among the Federal Government Delegation to your country
during a trade exhibition. I have decided to seek a confidential cooperation
with you in the execution of the deal described hereunder for the benefit of
all parties and hope you will keep it as top secret because of the nature of
this business, since we are still in active service.

Within the Ministry of Petroleum Resources where I work as a Director,
Project Implementation and with the cooperation of four other top officials,
we have in our possession as overdue payment bills totaling Sixteen
million, five hundred thousand dollars,[$16,500,000,000]which we want to
transfer to abroad with assistance and cooperation of a foreign company
and/or individual to receive the said fund on our behalf or a reliable
foreign non-company account to receive such fund.

The amount represented some percentage of the total contract value executed
on behalf of my Ministry by a foreign firm, which we the officials over
invoiced. Though, the actual contract cost have been paid to the original
contractor leaving the balance in the tune of the said amount which we have
in principles gotten the approval to remit by Telegraph Transfer [T.T.] to
any foreign bank account you will provide.

Since the present day Democratically elected Civilian Government of Nigeria
is determined to pay
every foreign Contractor all debts owed by the former Military Government so
as to maintain a good
relationship with Foreign Government and non Government Financial Agencies,
we have decided to
include our bills for approvals with the cooperation of some top officials
of the Federal Ministry of
Finance [F.M.F] and the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN]. We are seeking your
assistance in providing a good company's account or any other offshore bank
account into which we can remit this money by acting as our main partner and
trustee or acting as the original contractor.

This we can do by swapping of account and changing of beneficiary and other
forms of documentation upon application for claim to reflect the payment and
approvals to be secured on behalf of our company. This process is an
internal arrangement with the departments concerned.

I have the authority of my partners involved to propose that should you be
willing to assist us in
the transaction your share of the money will be 30%, 60% will be for us, and
10% for taxation and
miscellaneous expenses. The business itself is 100% risk free, provided you
treat it with utmost secrecy and confidentiality, also your area as
specialization is not a hindrance to the successful execution of this
transaction, have repose my confidence on you and hope that you will not
disappoint us, Please is important to reply me through this E-mail Address
at (nnpc_contractors@myway.com).

Thanks for your co-operation,
Yours faithfully,
Engr. Tanko Abubaka
Director, Project
Implementation.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Microsoft Mulling Possible iPod Alternative

Microsoft planned their own iPod equivalent. Report hints:

Tired of being an also-ran in the digital music arena, software giant Microsoft is reportedly considering offering its own device.

The company ignited the discussion with its December shift of its digital media software division and the MSN Music service to the Entertainment & Devices division, which experts agree is the likely umbrella group to make a push against the iPod.


Online Gaming

A newly released report from market research firm In-Stat indicates that console and handheld online gaming is "overshadowing the PC."


Google's China Setbacks

Google itself acknowledged some problems in China and affirmed to get better there. BBC also held a webpage collectively published responses from China and Hong Kong bloggers. Below are some citations:
Chinese bloggers debate Google

Google's decision to launch a censored version of its search engine in China has drawn opprobrium from many bloggers around the world.

The BBC News website spoke to bloggers in China and Hong Kong to get their perspective.

Yan Sham-Shackleton, Hong Kong, Glutter

Chinese Loafer, Beijing, Busted in Beijing

Roland Soong, Hong Kong, EastSouthWestNorth

Kevin Wen, Beijing, Kevin Wen's Web

Bird Flu Solution-- Immunize the Chickens

If it succeeds, definitely a wise solution to overcome birdflu!

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 27 - As avian flu spreads west into Europe and fears of a new human pandemic rise, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh may have come up with a simple solution: immunize the chickens.

They’ve developed a vaccine that completely protects chickens from the H5N1 avian flu virus and, they believe, it might be an “economically advantageous” way to stop the spread of the disease, the researchers reported online in the Journal of Virology.

And if the avian flu developed into a pandemic human strain -- as many experts fear it may -- the vaccine might complement traditional vaccines and be used to protect people, according to Andrea Gambotto, M.D., and assistant professor of surgery, molecular genetics, and biochemistry........ By , MedPage Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Chavez Says He Will Jail U.S. Spies

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened Friday to arrest American officials if they are caught gathering intelligence about the Venezuela's military.

Chavez's warning came hours after his vice president, Jose Vicente Rangel, claimed that officials at the U.S. Embassy were involved in a spying case involving the arrest of several Venezuelan military officers, allegedly for passing sensitive information to the Pentagon.

"We've just discovered a case, one more espionage case," Chavez said, for the first time speaking about the accusations.

"I warn the U.S. government: the next time we detect a soldier or civilian official - but above all American soldiers - trying to obtain information about our armed forces, we're going to put them in prison.".......

By IAN JAMES , 01.27.2006, 09:37 PM Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

New earthquake in Indonesia

Earthquake in Indonesia again!

JAKARTA, Jan 28 (snips from Reuters) - A strong earthquake struck in the Banda Sea in eastern Indonesia early on Saturday, but there were no reports of casualties or major damage, and local fears of a tsunami proved unfounded.

A tsunami caused by an Indian ocean quake in December 2004 devastated Indonesia's Aceh province on the northern tip of Sumatra, leaving some 170,000 people dead or missing.

Saturday's quake struck on the other side of the country at 1.58 a.m. local time (1658 GMT Friday) with a strong magnitude of 7.7, but at a depth of 212 miles (342 km) which blunted its impact on the earth's surface.

Earthquakes are frequent in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country. Its 17,000 islands sprawl along a belt of intense volcanic and seismic activity, part of what is called the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Thoroughbred Scholarship

A piece of notice as to Thoroughbred Scholarship on February 28, 2006 from http://www.racingforeducation.org/

Description
The Thoroughbred Scholarship is available to students who are studying veterinary medicine, agricultural science, racetrack management, or equine business management. To be eligible, you must be 25 years old or younger, have a minimum "C" average, and demonstrate financial need. Students with financial need are those whose annual household income is less than $60,000 or those who are financially independent of their parents.

Veterinary Medicine, Equine Science, Racetrack Management, or Equine Business Management

Additional Information
Please visit the sponsor's Web site for additional information.
Applicable Majors

Good seafood

If you don't what's Black cod and Barramundi, then Seatletimes provided you a chance:

Expect to see more black cod and barramundi at restaurants this year, predicts Stephanie Crane Faison of the Seafood Choices Alliance.

Seafood Choices Alliance, a trade association advocating for eco-friendly seafood, organized the fifth annual Seafood Summit, which will be held Sunday-Tuesday in Seattle.

The conference, covering everything from seafood sustainability to organic labeling to environmentally sound aquaculture, is closed to registration. But Faison, who will join a panel discussion on seafood trends, shared what's hot with chefs in 2006.

Black cod (also known as sablefish) and barramundi are great substitutes for the overfished Chilean sea bass, Faison said. Black cod comes from Alaska, and barramundi is an Australian fish now being farmed in the United States, she noted.(link)

Canada Confirms 4th case of BSE; Japan 22nd Case

The Canadian government has confirmed BSE in a Holstein/Hereford cross brood cow born and bred on an Alberta dairy farm. The animal is approximately six years old, born April 15, 2000, three years after the1997 BSE feed rule instituted by the Canadian government. No part of the animal entered the food or feed systems, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). This is the fourth case of BSE confirmed in Canada.

Japan announced today its 22nd BSE case in a 64-month old cow that died last week in northern Japan. The government said the infected Holstein cow would be destroyed and would not enter the food or feed chain. In a related move, Japan has stopped importation of U.S. beef after finding prohibited spinal material in a shipment of veal. Resumption of trade will not resume, according to the Japanese government, until an adequate explanation of this incident is provided.

In Canada, the CFIA is conducting an extensive epidemiological investigation of the farm and its animals, including the source and production of the animal’s feed, storage of feed and the feeding regime, as well as other animals exposed to the feed. Under international standards, CFIA will identify animals born 12 months prior and 12 months after the affected animal, as well as offspring born to the BSE animal over the last two years.

USDA took no immediate action on current live cattle and beef product imports from Canada.

"USDA remains confident in the animal and public health measures that Canada has in place to prevent BSE, combined with existing U.S. domestic safeguards and additional safeguards...recognizing Canada as a Minimal-Risk Region for BSE," USDA said in prepared statements from Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns and USDA Chief Veterinary Officer Dr. John Clifford. Clifford reiterated it is under the Minimal-Risk Region rule that USDA allows import of live cattle under 30 months of age for feeding and immediate slaughter, as well as import of beef and other products from animals younger than 30 months old.

CFIA said discovery of the animal "is not unexpected" given the enhanced surveillance system Canada has had in place since 2003, and does not indicate an increased risk of BSE in Canada. Further, the Canadian government said based on OIE guidelines and certification recommendations, the discovery of this case "should not affect Canada’s ability to export live animals, beef and beef products."

The owner of the 400-animal operation called in his veterinarian after the affected animal showed progressive signs of illness. The vet called CFIA since the animal’s symptoms were consistent with high-risk categories of animals targeted under the Canadian BSE surveillance system. As to the exact location of the farm, all CFIA would say is the location is consistent with the three previous Canadian BSE cases, i.e. they were clustered in an area of Alberta.

CFIA said changes to the Canadian ruminant feeding rule will be recommended to the incoming government following yesterday’s Canadian federal election. Those changes will be based upon a proposal published by CFIA in 2004.

It is unclear at this time what effect this BSE case in Canada will have on the rulemaking process in the U.S. FDA is still reviewing the nearly 900 comments received from its proposed rule to amend the BSE feed rule. The comment period for the proposed rule closed on December 20, 2005. FDA has no time requirement to publish a final rule.

by Suzi Fraser
01/24/2006

[Source:American Feed Industry Association AFIA]

FBI Common Knowledge Challenge

Provided by: Common Knowledge Scholarship Foundation
Deadline: Varies
Award Amount
$1000
Awards Available
4
Type of Award
Academic Contest
Website
Description
The FBI Common Knowledge Challenge is available to current high school and college students. The intent of the scholarship is to assist the student in understanding what it means to work for the FBI as an agency and as a career path. You will participate in a quiz at the CKSF web site each week during the month of February. Quiz questions will come from information found on the FBI web site.

Additional Information
Complete rules and regulations are found on the sponsor's Web site.

Applicable Majors
All Fields of Study

Christa McAuliffe Remembered

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger is seen in this 1986 file photo released by NASA. From left to right: Ellison Onizuka, Mike Smith, Christa McAuliffe, Dick Scobee, Greg Jarvis, Ron McNair and Judy Resnick. The space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center Jan. 28, 1986. All seven crew members died in the explosion, which was blamed on faulty O-rings in the shuttle's booster rockets. The disaster shattered NASA's image and the belief that flying on a spacecraft could become as routine as flying on an airplane. The 20th anniversary of the disaster is Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/NASA, FILE)

20 Years Later, Teacher's Life Remembered Concord Remembers Teacher's Life, Not the Disaster That Took It 20 Years Ago

CONCORD, N.H. - It was just as Christa McAuliffe would have wanted. The Concord High School teacher and her six crewmates on the space shuttle Challenger appear chronologically, with no special billing, in a school lesson on space travel.

It was just as she once taught, that ordinary people make history. Except this time, she was the ordinary person and the history was a disaster 20 years ago Saturday that wounded the school and city so deeply that the slightest touch still can bring tears.

This week, as he has done for 19 previous anniversaries, biology teacher Philip Browne taught his students about space travel, from the Mercury missions to the space station. As McAuliffe did in her social studies classes, Browne kept it simple.

He demonstrated the size of the shuttle's cargo bay with an illustration of it holding a Trailways bus; he showed how the parts of its solid rocket booster were stacked together like round Lego blocks, sealed with huge rubber washers called O-rings.

And he explained what could happen if those O-rings got cold and brittle, as they did on Jan. 28, 1986, allowing flames to escape and hit the shuttle's huge fuel tank.

"A rubber O-ring failed, the flames leaked out, burned through the orange (fuel) tank, exploded the oxygen and hydrogen, and the shuttle never made it into orbit," said Browne, 57, who was one of four other New Hampshire finalists in the national competition that eventually selected McAuliffe to be the first teacher in space.

Around each anniversary, he takes his classes to McAuliffe's grave and the nearby planetarium built in her honor. In class, Browne calmly and expertly explains the science, but in an interview afterward, a single word, a question about the cemetery sojourn, brings him to tears: "Why?"

Taking a deep breath to fight sobs, he responds: "I don't want anybody to forget ... their bravery, their dedication. They were people who loved life. They wanted something better for the world."

The school is exhibiting material from McAuliffe's odyssey and offering students a new documentary about the teacher-astronaut's life. No special ceremonies are planned by the city.

Assistant Principal Bill Haubrich said the anniversary presents an annual dilemma.

"There is a legacy here. How do we promote the legacy, and not promote that particular day that was the most painful day in our school's history?" he said.

McAuliffe's husband, Steven, and children Scott and Caroline disappeared from public view after the explosion. In a rare comment, McAuliffe, now remarried and a federal judge, said he is grateful to the community.

"Our children have been taken in and protected by everyone, and so were allowed to grow up normally and without undue focus or attention, in the best of American small towns," he wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "I suspect there are not many places where that could have happened, and I know Christa would want me to express her appreciation as well for that priceless gift."

Son Scott, 29, is married and pursuing a career in marine resource management, McAuliffe wrote. Daughter Caroline is 26, an educator like her mother.

"They both are healthy, happy, great kids, and first-rate people," their father said.

Twenty years ago, the city buzzed with excitement over Christa McAuliffe, who was 37. Scott's third-grade class even went to Florida for the launch.

Ben Provencal, 28, was one of the third-graders shivering in the VIP bleachers when Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff.

A full-page photo in Newsweek later showed Provencal, looking tiny in his oversized baseball cap, his hands pulled into his sleeves against the cold. His teary eyes stared at white smoke and zigzag rocket contrails the explosion painted on the brilliant, blue sky.

Provencal said he and his classmates understood before their parents that the Challenger had exploded.

"We had been studying the space shuttle at school. We knew every second of that launch sequence and what was supposed to happen," he said.

He remembers the emptiness and the reluctance long afterward for teachers and friends to talk about space travel, especially when Scott was around. Now he focuses on other aspects of the trip, and on McAuliffe's goal.

He does it as "Mr. P.," special education assistant and coach at Concord's Rundlett Middle School.

"I used to say,`I want to be an astronaut too,'" Provencal said, "but now I'm so proud that I teach kids and work with kids and I can follow in the footsteps of people who were as incredible as Christa was."

Former classmate Zach Fried shared binoculars with his dad to gaze at the rising shuttle. He said the tragedy prompted questions about trust.

"I think all of us ended up with perhaps a different take on institutional confidence in what the government and what adults could tell us and promise us at the time," said Fried, 29, a graduate student at the University of Michigan.

Many assumed, he added, "that maybe we'd all be traumatized to a degree, and I think that, happily, that hasn't happened. ... Perhaps it made us into more thoughtful people, more thoughtful citizens."

As McAuliffe prepared for astronaut training, she realized she was caught up in her own lesson plan that ordinary people make history. In an interview in August 1985, she said her students were part of it, too.

"I might be a name that is chosen to be put in the history book because I'm the first of a program, but what I try to tell my students is that 20 years from now, people are going to be looking back at 1985 and wondering what teenagers were like because they are a big part of the population."

Provencal recognized the connection.

"It's so true," he said. "That's exactly what she did. She made all of us part of history."


By DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI Associated Press Writer Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Inhaled Form of Insulin Approved

FDA approves inhaled form of insulin

Decision affecting millions offers biggest change in diabetes treatment in decades

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved an inhaled form of insulin, the first new way to get that hormone into the body since it was discovered in 1921 -- and a new treatment option for many of the 21 million Americans with diabetes.

The approval fulfills an arduous scientific quest that spanned most of the 20th century and spilled over to the 21st. And it marks the biggest change in diabetes treatment in decades, one that doctors hope will lure a fair slice of the American population into their offices to talk about controlling blood sugar. The product poses long-term safety questions, though, and it's not clear yet whether it will be more expensive than standard insulin.

Millions of Americans need treatment with insulin but don't get it because it involves frequent, painful needle sticks and injections. About 5 million take the hormone, but a high proportion inject themselves too few times during the day because it's so inconvenient. Doctors hope inhaled insulin will overcome some of that resistance, helping diabetics ward off a slew of medical problems that afflict those who don't control their disease.

Studies show the new product, to be sold by Pfizer Inc. under the brand name Exubera, works and appears to be safe with short-term use. Patients who have used inhalers told researchers they prefer them to needles by a wide margin, according to studies sponsored by Pfizer. "I'm just flabbergasted at the number of people who really do seem to want this, and want it substantially," said Jay Skyler, a University of Miami doctor and one of the nation's leading diabetes experts.

However, inhaled insulin causes minor declines in how much air the lungs can hold. Scientists consider that a signal that long-term use could pose risks, though that could take years to sort out. The FDA recommended that smokers and people with some types of lung disease, including asthma, avoid using the product. Exubera is approved only for people 18 or older, though studies in children are under way.

Pfizer said the product wouldn't be available in most pharmacies until June or July. Exact prices haven't been set, but Vanessa Aristide, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said the product would be "priced competitively" with injected insulin. Pfizer is first to market with such a product, but others are under development.

Friday's decision confronts millions of Americans -- diabetics make up 7 percent of the population -- with a complicated new strategic problem, requiring them to figure out how much long-range risk they're willing to incur for the convenience, and possibly greater disease control, of using inhaled insulin.

"The issue comes down to: How do we all deal with uncertainty?" said Robert Rizza, a diabetes specialist at the Mayo Clinic and president of the American Diabetes Association. "We just don't know what the long-run safety record will be. Each person will now need to think very carefully about the potential benefits and the risks for them."

Paul Matelis, 56, a comptroller for a real estate title company in Miami, wasn't getting adequate control of his blood sugar seven years ago when he heard about inhaled insulin.

"I really didn't think it was going to work," he recalled. "I said, 'How can this stuff come through my lungs?' "

But he took the plunge, becoming one of the first people to enroll in human tests. The first morning, he ate a huge breakfast -- "steak, eggs, jelly, waffles" -- and showed up at the doctor's office with sky-high blood sugar. He took a puff of insulin powder into his lungs, then watched in amazement as his blood sugar fell. He has been on the product continuously for seven years without a problem, he said.

"The flexibility that I have is incredible," he said. "It's just so easy to pull it out and take a puff. I've done it at the University of Miami games, sitting in a seat at the Orange Bowl."

The human body burns a simple sugar, glucose, in much the way a car burns gasoline. But the level of this essential fuel in the blood must be tightly controlled, because too much can wreck tiny blood vessels and cause other problems. The pancreas monitors glucose levels and releases a hormone, insulin, that signals cells to absorb the sugar.

Diabetes is a pervasive group of diseases in which this fundamental life process has gone awry. Some people's bodies don't make insulin at all, and they must take it as a medicine or die. But the vast majority of diabetics have a milder form of the disease in which their bodies make too little insulin, resist its effects or both.

Diabetes can be controlled in both groups, but it isn't easy. Diet and exercise are important. Pills help some people, but many others need supplemental insulin, which cannot be given as a pill. They have to prick their fingers to test blood-sugar levels and inject themselves repeatedly throughout the day with insulin, or wear pager-sized insulin pumps that deliver the hormone through tiny needles.

The sheer tedium of the task gets diabetics down, and overall, they do poorly at it. A third of Americans with diabetes don't even know they have the disease, the government estimates, and many others fail to achieve adequate control of their blood sugar. The long-term result is a litany of severe medical problems: blindness, impotence, limb amputation, kidney failure, heart attack. The government pegs costs at more than $100 billion a year.

Almost as soon as insulin was discovered in 1921, doctors began hunting for better ways to get it into the body, with German researchers testing inhalation in 1924. Decades of failure followed, with the required insulin doses always too high and the resultant blood levels of insulin too low.

But in the 1980s, scientists realized they might be able to solve the problems using new technology to turn insulin into a concentrated powder with particles ideally sized for inhalation. Nektar Therapeutics of San Carlos, Calif., developed most of the technology in the Pfizer product, and Alkermes Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., developed an inhaler that it licensed to Eli Lilly and Co. Human tests began in the late 1990s.

Mohamed Shakir, head of endocrinology at Howard University Hospital, said the new product could be particularly important in a city like Washington. There's a big racial disparity in diabetes, with blacks, Hispanics and native Americans more likely to contract the disease and less likely to receive adequate care. And Shakir said people lower on the income scale aren't as willing to read up on the disease and take control of their illness.

He said he hopes Pfizer will price Exubera fairly, and he looks forward to offering it to newly diagnosed diabetics.

"The fear of the needles -- we are going to eliminate it," Shakir said. "That will be a big plus."

by Justin Gillis / The Washington Post

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Say Bye for Badwares!

Google's Ways on Badwares!Hope this project is going to kill any kinds of malicious online downloadable softwares which potentially damage or scoop net-surfer's computer.

NBA Game on G-Video

If you once missed a live broadcasting and yet very wonderfull NBA match, like this one--Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to a 122-104 victory over Toronto on 21 Jan, with an awesome score --81 points, a second ever highest score in NBA history, never mind! you can turn to Google video, as blogged. Go and sure you can find a lot of fun!

"Can Bryant score 100 in a game this season?" FOXSports speculated but not bet.

SouthAsia Pepsi?

I can't discern if these pictures derived from a cybermail tracked back earliest by yee(dot)hong(hot)lim[at]citigroup(dot)com are geniue or faked to blackmail Pepsi. Anyway, some concerned authorities have to reinforce the inspection and protect International Brands and also its consumers! Click to view the enlarged pictures



Skype's Drawbacks

How bad is the Skype botnet threat?

Skype's sneakiness leads to a security risk.

By Peter Judge. Techworld

The revelation that VoIP traffic can be used as a covert control channel for a botnet is just one more security worry for Skype. It will add to opposition to Skype traffic from IT managers that don't want it on their networks.

In the botnet threat, Skype is not the threat itself, but a tool others might use. In a "botnet" a set of PCs are infected with Trojan software; they can then be controlled remotely and used to launch a denial of service attack on any victim. Skype is therefore being hijacked as the channel though which these bots can be given instructions.

Botnets are usually tracked down by the commands used to control them - usually an IM or IRC stream. "VoIP offers a lot more scope for hiding informaiton in the traffic," says Ian Brown, who leads the Internet security group at the Communications Research Network, which has publicised the threat. "There is a lot more traffic coming through, and audio traffic is a lot of random looking bits. If you can't see the botnet messages, you can't dismantle the botnet."

How dangerous is it?
We don't know how dangerous the threat could be: it's not been seen in the wild, but John Crowcroft, Marconi professor of communication systems at Cambridge, says it's "unfortunately very easy" to set up.

We don't even know how big a problem "regular" DoS attacks are, since they are not reported or logged anywhere. Although IT managers users might fear it would damage their company's image, the CRN recommends this should change, and has suggested an anonymous reporting service, which might help to bring out patterns in DoS attacks.

“Criminal activity on the internet should be a notifiable event, with registration on a central database,” says CRN Chairman, David Cleevely. “It's important to remember that there are more of us good guys than there are bad guys. The more we share information between us, the more we stay ahead of the game.”

Skype is stealthySkype disputes that its traffic is any more dangerous than other traffic, but the application has gained a reputation for stealthiness, both in the way it gets onto systems, and in the way it guards the internals of its working.

Skype is designed to be easy for inexperienced end users to install, without the benefit of support from their ISPs or IT managers. It has to work unaided - and that means it has to be good at getting past firewalls and other security measures.

This can be a benefit, but for business, it means an unmanaged hole in a firewall, and an unaudited channel of communications - which in many industries may be against business regulations. Skype clients also act as servers, using bandwidth to handle other people's calls.

Lots of IT managers simply want to shut Skype down. "I wouldn't go so far as to say all companies should block Skype," says Brown, "but it's something they should be aware of."

Skype denies that it's unpopular with IT. "I speak frequently to enterprise IT departments and CIOs about trying to integrate Skype into their architectures," says Kurt Sauer, director of security operations at Skype.

But, even before the botnet threat emerged, the UK's university networks blocked Skype, says Crowcroft: "It's not to stop people getting free voice calls, but because the uncontrolled extra traffic gives us a large bill - and is against our acceptable use policy." When it lost the UK's university students, Skype lost two million paying customers, who would have bought credit for SkypeOut, says Crowcroft.

Blocking Skype is not easy, though, because Skype wants its software to be used. "There's an arms race between firewall manfucturers and applications like Skype," says Brown. IT managers block Skype as much as they can, but it often finds a way through.

It's down to open routing!
CRN announced the threat in an attempt to persuade Skype and others to be better citizens on corporate networks. If Skype's routing specifications were published, says Crowcroft, then IT managers could allow it on corporate networks, and be able to spot the patterns of traffic which means it is being used maliciously, says the CRN.

"Customers should demand standards compliance from Skype," says Brown. Crowcroft reckons it's now in Skype's interest anyway: it could reach a bigger market by interworking with instant messenger tools that now offer voice. It would also be good for ISPs - if they knew the routing specifications, they could apply traffic engineering and deliver a better quality of service to VoIP users.

Skype doesn't see it that way: "It's what Gartner wants and its what our competitors want," said Sauer. But he thinks the time to go standard is not yet. "VoIP itself is not through its innovation cycle. It's not a commodity. If people say we should standardise on a protocol, it would diminish our ability to innovate" (read our review of Skype 2.0, for a view on Skype's innovation).

Since Skype's user base is consumers, not the enterprise, it can afford to ignore calls to standardise - at least in theory. Which may be why the CRN chose to make the announcement the way it did.

CRN has taken a message about standards, and encapsulated it in the form of a security warning. In that sense, it's possible the real Trojan horse here is CRN.

Spacecraft disasters continue to haunt NASA, cloud future

Since the first accident 39 years ago, critics doubt program's value, direction, saying it hasn't recovered.

by John Noble Wilford / New York Times

Anniversaries of the three most somber milestones in the American program of human spaceflight are clustered in the days ahead. Each in its own tragic way represents a pivotal moment in space exploration. The two most recent disasters continue to haunt the program with lost momentum and persistent doubts about its value and future direction.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Drunken Picture Found On Sergey Brin's Birthday


August 22 is Google co-founder Sergey Brin's 33-year-old birthday, some bloggers found an ugly photo for him as a kiss-ass gift. It is said that this photo was taken at the time when Brin was still a Standford University's student after a party and later put on his own website. Though Brin's site is not available any longer, but Archive.org archived the homepage together with this somewhat undecent picture.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Only Health Lets You Own More Wealth

What did a company staff docotor recommend? "Let's all be visionaries not just about our work, but about our own bodies and souls". Yupe, if you don't even have a health body, how can you make more wealth? So please do heed to change some aspects of your lifestyles if you have CAD such as:
  • Diet change
  • Smoking cessation
  • ACE inhibitors (for blood pressure)
  • More physical activity
  • Beta blockers (for blood pressure)
  • Statins (for cholesterol)
  • Aspirin
  • Moderate alcohol
Click here to found more from Dr. Iestra's scienctific research

This function worthy of consideration also?

According to a blog, now Gmail directly use "delete" button to delete unwanted emails in Gmail account. To my personal viewpoint, I am thrilled about this function added because it will denefitely faciliate to manage g-mails. However, is such a function that the undesired title (sometimes no title) of received mails in Gmail needs to be changed is worthy of a consideration? One mail service has done this long before.

A doom day for Google

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc.'s stock price plunged below $400 Friday for the first time in two months as a brewing battle with the Bush administration compounded investor worries about the online search engine leader's upcoming fourth quarter earnings report.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's shares dropped $36.99, or 8.5 percent, to close at $399.46 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. That marked Google's lowest closing price since Nov. 16 and capped the stock's worst week since its ballyhooed initial public offering 17 months ago.

Google's market value has plummeted by 14 percent during the last week, wiping out $20 billion in shareholder wealth.

The selloff began Wednesday after Google's biggest rival, Yahoo Inc., released fourth-quarter earnings that fell below analysts' estimates.

Yahoo's shortfall raised concerns that Google's earnings report, due out Jan. 31, won't be as rosy as Wall Street anticipated earlier this month, when the company's shares surged as high as $475.11.

Wall Street's jitters intensified Friday as the market mulled the possible fallout from Google's rebuff of a Justice Department subpoena seeking a list of its users' search requests for a one-week period. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales filed a motion in San Jose federal court earlier this week seeking to force Google to hand over the requested information.

"Investors never like to see a company's name mentioned along side the term 'subpoena,'" UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter said.

Google is the only major search engine so far to challenge the Bush administration. Yahoo, Microsoft's MSN and American Online have all said they complied with the government's subpoena without providing personal information about their users.

The Justice Department issued the subpoenas last summer as part of its effort to restore an online child pornography law that has been blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Although investors have initially punished Google's stock for taking on the government, Schachter and other analysts believe it could be a smart public relations move for the company.

If Google's refusal to hand over user information fosters even more loyalty on the Web and increase its market share, the company will have more opportunities to distribute its moneymaking ads.


By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Business Writer on Google's Stock Sinks on Worries About 4Q

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Google No to Spy Policy

Google set a good example among those IT companies to anti-the US Goverment's Spy Policy. Excerpts from Google Rebuffs Feds on Search Requests

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google Inc. is rebuffing the Bush administration's demand for a peek at what millions of people have been looking up on the Internet's leading search engine - a request that underscores the potential for online databases to become tools for government surveillance.

Mountain View-based Google has refused to comply with a White House subpoena first issued last summer, prompting U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to ask a federal judge in San Jose for an order to hand over the requested records.

The government wants a list all requests entered into Google's search engine during an unspecified single week - a breakdown that could conceivably span tens of millions of queries. In addition, it seeks 1 million randomly selected Web addresses from various Google databases.

In court papers that the San Jose Mercury News reported on after seeing them Wednesday, the Bush administration depicts the information as vital in its effort to restore online child protection laws that have been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yahoo Inc., which runs the Internet's second-most used search engine behind Google, confirmed Thursday that it had complied with a similar government subpoena.

---

On the Web:

http://www.worldprivacyforum.org

Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org



Imaginative or Philistine?

As claimed early, I used my this blog instead of a bulk email to forward these cybered mail. Posted are a couple's wedding photos, imaginative or philistine? Pictures copyright reserved for its taker. If interested, welcome to use the maillink below to forward it!


Speechless picture


Using the grapic software, someone can do however creative pics, like this one posted here on a Chinese website.

It's without question that these years Koizumi is always the controversial character with respect to his visit to the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, and then resulting in so infrustrated response from China and Koreas!

a Mum's Plead

Mary Beth Carroll, the mum of abducted journalist Jill Carroll of The Christian Science Monitor, urged her daughter's captor to released her, as she "has always shown the highest respect for the Iraqi people, " CNN reported. A footage aired by Arab's CNN--Al-Jazeera Tuesday, showed Jill Carroll appeared in a video, she was threatened to be executed by her kidnappers unless the United States releases all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours. I do understand a mum's anxieties, but who will now comfort her? Maybe no answer.

"If they're looking for somebody who is an enemy of Iraq, Jill is just the opposite!" , "Jill has always shown the highest respect for the Iraqi people and their customs. We hope that her captors will show Jill the same respect in return!" The mother said.

Huge Jellyfish Plagued Japan's fisheries!

Before I read such an article, I don't have any idea of the size Jellyfish can reach. The AP photo here , one can easily sense what is a huge jellyfish, it dwarfs a diver. Now this kind of behemoths is plaguing Japan's fisheries. Every year on holidays, there are some people who are attacked by other jellyfish when swimming in the sea of the Penang's beachs. A little bit dangerous!

Nepal-Chinese Male Nurse

The first ever foreign "Male Nurse" emerged in a kindergarten of Shandong Province, China, CRIENGLISH reported!Fantastic!A male teacher at Hongqi (red flag) Kindergarten in Shandong's Weifang City plays games with children on January 17th. According to the kindergarten's Principal Tan, the foreign male teacher was introduced to create a fun environment for kids to learn natural English. A foreign male teacher may also serve to bring a masculine sensibility to the children. The 28-year-old teacher from Nepal is currently a sophomore at Weifang Medical University. Photo: cnsphoto


Homemake Guiness Ice Cream?

Do you want to make a Guinness Ice Cream? Sure to have a trial! With vanilla bean, split lengthwise, whole milk, heavy cream, molasses, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla extract and follow the steps provided by the Boston Globe, you will can make a dilicious icecream.

Konica Minolta to Halt Camera Business

2006-1-19 16:50:58 CRIENGLISH.com

(A Konica Minolta employee shows off one of the company's digital cameras. The Japanese firm, one of the world's leading photographic equipment makers, said it would stop making all cameras because the market had become too competitive. Photo: AFP/File)

Japan's Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. said on Thursday it would withdraw from the camera and photo business and transfer a portion of its digital single lens reflex camera assets to Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news).

Konica Minolta plans to withdraw from the camera business as of the end of March this year, while ceasing film and color paper production by March 2007.

Konica Minolta is the world's third-largest maker of photographic film after Eastman Kodak and Fuji Photo Film Co. and a relatively small player in the digital camera market.

The company said in November it expected to post a group net loss of 47 billion yen ($407.9 million) in the business year to March, reflecting 90 billion yen in restructuring charges to rationalize production sites, write down assets and cut jobs.

Iwai said in November that the restructuring would accelerate a shift of resources to more promising areas such as color office copiers and liquid crystal display materials, and away from the deteriorating market for analog film.

Sony and Konica Minolta said in July they would jointly develop digital SLR cameras, marking the Sony's entry into the fastest-growing segment of the camera market.

The Tokyo-based company also said Vice President Yoshikatsu Ota would take the helm on April 1, replacing current President Fumio Iwai, who is set to become chairman.

Prior to the announcement, shares in Konica Minolta closed up 3.1 percent at 1,278 yen, while Sony rose 0.8 percent to 4,900 yen. The Nikkei average was up 2.3 percent.

(Source: Reuters)

NO. 2 Not Hampered Yet

Just read a surprising news!

Al-Qaida's No. 2 Leader Alive: Afghan Newspaper

2006-1-19 16:42:07 CRIENGLISH.com

The second-in-command of the al-Qaida network, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, has escaped the recent missile attack and alive, a Kabul-based English newspaper reported Thursday.

"Shikh Zawahiri is alive. Rumors about his death is baseless," daily Outlook quoted an al-Qaida operative Ahmad Suliman as saying.

Reports emanated from Pakistan and the United States last week claimed the killing of Al-Zawahiri in missile attacks last week in Pakistan's Bajuwar agency tribal area.

The missile attack, reportedly conducted by a U.S. army drone, left 18 people including women and children dead, according to Pakistani sources. It has prompted Islamabad to lodge a protest with Washington.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Tuesday that Pakistan cannot accept actions like an air strike on a village that killed 18 people, adding he would bring it up when he visits Washington this week.

Both Al-Zawahiri, his chief Osama Bin Laden and their host, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, who are wanted by Washington, are reported to have been moving in the mountainous tribal-belt areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(Source: Xinhua)

My Clarification!

Recent two days, to my surperise, my weblog got a lot of clicks! When I check up with my live blog statistics, one excellent service from Blogexplosion, I find there is one article in a popular online computer news/information website which built a link (see picutre) to my blog post. I am sorry, the sentense cited is not originally derived from me, as said in my blog's header "Wonderful things Attracted My Interests and Curiosities on Cyberwebs", I posted the entired story directly on here, with the author and source explicitly labelling out and corresponding links builted-in. I have no any intention to infringe the trademarks, copyright and maybe much more concerning with my cited materials of their respective holder. So I just make this clarification! Thank You All!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

iTunes renovated to V 6.0.2


Here a report reviewed Apple's iTunes improvement.

Apple's right move

When iTunes 6.0.2 came out during Expo last week, a new feature was quietly introduced—the MiniStore. This is a small version of the iTunes Music Store that lives at the bottom of the iTunes window. As you select (via click or double-click) songs in your Library or playlists, the MiniStore’s content changes to recommend purchases based on your current selection. In order to do this, clearly some information was being sent to Apple.

Many Mac users, including myself, were concerned about this, given that Apple hadn’t made any statements concerning whether or not this collected data was kept—and if it was kept, under what situations could it be shared with third parties?

Shortly after posting my original Weblog entry, I was contacted by a senior Apple official who indicated that, as I had theorized in the post, no data was being retained. I updated the story and thought “that’s that,” and got back to work on other projects. However, the discussion over this feature continued unabated—as 163 (and counting) comments to the blog entry will attest, it’s a touchy subject with many people. Today, however, Apple quietly took a step that should allay any remaining concerns.

Starting today, the first time you activate the MiniStore, you’ll see this warning before it activates:

This will hopefully (finally!) put this issue to rest, and we can all get back to simply enjoying our music. If you’d like more details on this new feature, Peter Cohen has created a nice writeup for Playlist.

I can only hope that Apple has learned what it should have known in the first place—if you’re going to transmit some information from my computer, please let me know that you will be doing so, and what your plans are for the collected data. Had this screen existed in the first release of the MiniStore, then this whole topic would have been a non-issue.

New Hope for the HIV-infected

Congratulations!

An international team of AIDS researchers has found that a once-daily combination of three antiretroviral drugs works better as an initial treatment for HIV infection than another widely-accepted three-drug combination, according to a new study.


Reporting in the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers showed that after one year of treatment, a regimen of antiretroviral pills, called tenofovir DF (Viread) and emtricitabine (Emtriva), plus efavirenz (Sustiva), led to 14 percent more patients being able to suppress levels of the virus.

At the same time, they encountered fewer problems of anemia, fatigue and nausea compared to use of another widely used combination of antiretrovirals, zidovudine and lamivudine (AZT and 3TC, or Combivir), plus efavirenz.

(Source: AFP)

EMI, Shanda Cooperate to Offer Digital Music Service

2006-1-19 2:03:00 CRIENGLISH.com

A leading interactive entertainment media company in China, Shanda announced Wednesday it has reached an agreement with EMI Music to cooperate on digital music service.

Under the agreement, Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, which is based in Shanghai and listed in Nasdaq, will offer its users music content of EMI, a leading music company in the world, through home digital entertainment devices and online portal.

"With EMI's leading music content, we believe Shanda will be able to deliver a more compelling music service to our users," said Shanda President Tang Jun.

Michael Hwang, president of EMI Music China, said that EMI is very optimistic about the future of the digital home and wireless service market in China, as consumers are more likely to enjoy music on mobile and personal entertainment devices in an era when music consumption becomes more digitized.

(Source: Xinhua)

Disney Looks Beyond iTunes for on-demand Ventures

2006-01-19 14:13:59 CRIENGLISH.com

The Walt Disney Co. has sold 1.5 million digital downloads of such TV titles as "Lost," "Desperate Housewives" and "Kim Possible" through Apple's iTunes store, and is seeking iTunes competitors to further such distribution, an executive said Wednesday.

"Other companies with on-demand products will feature some of our content in the near future," chief financial officer Tom Staggs said at an investor event hosted by Atlantic Equities.

While the iTunes initiative "has not been a giant mover in terms of the bottom line," Staggs said, it is "an important catalyst for where the business is going."

He said that Disney will remain "platform agnostic," demanding only that potential partners provide a "quality consumer experience and requisite intellectual property protection."

Staggs added that Disney-owned TV shows -- "Lost" and "Housewives" in particular -- would add $1 billion to the company's operating profit during the next five years via syndication.

Staggs also confirmed that more movies from the C.S. Lewis "Narnia" series are probably in store, though he did not specify titles. With global ticket sales of more than $580 million to date, he called "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe" a smash, adding that it "looks to be the beginning of a franchise for us similar to what 'Pirates of the Caribbean' has shaped up into."

He said that, minus the distribution fee that Disney takes, it splits the revenue generated from "Narnia" and all subsequent films form the series 50-50 with the film's producer Walden Media, which is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, adding, "We may do more with Walden in the future."

The "Narnia" DVD comes out in the spring. "It could be one of those must-own videos," Staggs said.

(Source: Reuters/Hollywood Reporter)

Chinese, N. Korean Leaders Discuss Nuclear Talks

(In this photo released by China's Xinhua new agency, Chinese President Hu Jintao, right, shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, left, at Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Tuesday January 17, 2006. Photo: Xinhua)

Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il have exchanged views on the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue during Kim's visit to China.

At the invitation of Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, Kim paid an unofficial visit to China from Jan. 10 to 18.

The two leaders conferred on international and regional issues of common concern.

Describing the six-party talks as an efficient mechanism to solve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue appropriately, Hu reiterated China's principled stance, noting that it is a correct choice to properly settle the relevant problems by peaceful means through dialogues.

China is ready to unswervingly make joint efforts with relevant parties including North Korea to promote the six-party talks process, he said.

Kim, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and chairman of the National Defense Commission of North Korea, said his country will stick to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and fulfill the joint statement issued in the fourth round of six-party talks. North Korea stance on promoting the six-party talks process remains unchanged.

He said North Korea is willing to join hands with China to overcome the difficulties in the six-party talks.

(Source: Xinhua via CRIENGLISH.com)

Dog Stamps Issued in China

2006-1-18 21:47:39 CRIENGLISH.com


China on Wednesday issued a set of dog stamps to mark the approach of the "Year of the Dog" which is one of the 12 symbolic animals representing a circle of 12 years.

The coming Lunar New Year, the most important traditional festival for Chinese people, falls on Jan. 29.

The stamp issuing ceremony was held in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. The stamps show 16 real living dogs, of which 12 reside in Liaoning Province and four others live in Beijing, said Xu He, director of the Shenyang pet business association, adding that all 16 dogs figure in the world-famous category.

The dogs' images, names and a brief introduction appear on the stamps."It is the first time China has issued stamps with dogs' names; previously, only mammals had that honor," Xu said.

The dog stamp set includes "Year of the Dog" postcards and stamps issued by China Post. A total of 1,000 such stamp sets are available at price of 110 yuan (13.75 U.S. dollars).

(Source: Xinhua)

Miraculous Survivor!

In a 2003 photo provided by the family, Randal McCloy holds his son, Randal.

CNN reported Randal McCloy the only survivor from a recent mine explosion in West Virginia's Sago Mine is awakening from his coma, his neurosurgeon said on Wednesday. Miraculous Survivor! Pray for you! Wish you all the best in your following lifes!

Google stock rise again

Though a recent article in BW, warned not to be too optimistic on share value of Google's stocks. It seems nobody would follow that sentiments, Google stocks jumped 86 cents again as the news reported by AP it to be bound to buy a radio Advertisement company.

"
Google Inc. is continuing to expand its advertising capabilities beyond the online world, agreeing to buy a company that automatically connects advertisers with radio stations. The price could top $1.2 billion.

The company, dMarc Broadcasting Inc. of Newport Beach, Calif., creates an automated platform that lets advertisers more easily schedule and deliver ads over radio and keep track of when they air. On the broadcaster side, the dMarc technology automatically schedules and places such advertising, helping stations minimize costs.

Under the deal, announced Tuesday, Google would pay dMarc at least $102 million in cash. If performance targets are met, Google would make additional payments of up to $1.14 billion over three years.

The up-front cash payment will make only a small dent in Google's reserves. Through September, Google had $7.6 billion in cash and marketable securities, though it has since committed to making a $1 billion investment in Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit.

Google said it plans to integrate the dMarc technology with its highly successful Google AdWords platform, in which third-party Web sites share revenues with Google for carrying the Mountain View., Calif., company's highly profitable search ads.

"Google is committed to exploring new ways to extend targeted, measurable advertising to other forms of media," said Tim Armstrong, Google's vice president for advertising sales.

Already, Google has bought advertising in print publications such as tech magazines and resold chunks of the space to its online advertisers.

Google shares rose 86 cents to close at $467.11 Tuesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market."


Google Battles Baidu in China

Baidu, Google's counterpart in China, dominates Chinese search market, challenged strongly by Google's presentence. A report from AP shows now Google is developing quite healthy and may some day later overturn Baidu's leading position. Excerpts are:

"A survey of Chinese Web surfers found U.S.-based search giant Google in an unexpectedly strong position to challenge domestic rival Baidu.com, according to results released Wednesday.

Google came in first in 11 of 13 categories in the survey of 1,200 Internet users, said Keynote Systems Inc., a San Mateo, California-based firm that studies consumer data for online firms.

That was despite Baidu's widespread popularity in its Chinese home market, where it is the preferred search engine for 48 percent of users, according to Chinese government data cited by Keynote.

"It was interesting that Google came out on top," said Jeff Kraatz, Keynote's Asia Pacific vice president.

Google is a latecomer to China, the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States, with more than 111 million people online as of the end of 2005."

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

AdSense Publisher Support help you

For most of the huge amounts of netizens (maybe billions), they maybe still don't know Google Adsense (GA). For those knowing what is GA, they show their great enthusiasts in this project via construct a website with vast information. I just belong to the latter group not long ago, so I need to learn a lot either from veterans or its adsense blogs. I submit GA blog via RSS so that I wouldn't miss any updated information from Google. Today I got to know through here that other than documentary GA Help, the engineers affiliated with AdSense Publisher Support would answer your questions or clarify your confusement. What a caring manner they have!

A Letter from a Raped Victim 's friend

This letter was forward to my mailbox, composed by the most recent raped victim's alumni. The case can seen my previous post (cited from here). Ai, really sympathy with the girl and DAMN those raptists! As the author's will that let as many people as possible to read his message, I post it here so that whoever navigated my blog can know his war against raptists!

"
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:53:57 +0000 (GMT)


lately my friend's course mate was rape-murdered.. if u have read the newspaper, i think u know who i am talking about.. the victim lived in sungai petani. sometimes, i really don't understand this world.. how can a human being do such thing to others.. even a dog won't do such thing.. even the animal know that sex cann't be force.. is this mean that the rapist is even worse that a dog???

if they really can't suppress their desire, y don't they just DIY? or they can even go to the prostitutes.. nowadays the prostitutes r everywhere.. so cheap.. y they want to hurt someone just for their desire? did they ever think of the victim's feeling? what if their love ones being raped? i am a man too, but i never thought of harming anyone.. i also have desire, every men have desire of sex.. just imagine, if all men r like the rapists, then what will happen to this world? what will happen to all the women and young girls?? what will happen to you and your love ones? there is no excuse for raping.. ALL THE RAPISTS SHOULD BE SENTENCED TO DEATH!!!

what have the government done to decrease such case? what have they done to prevent it? for me, i don't see any of their action.. they always talking about doing this and that, but at the end, nothing being done…they will always act after the case happened.. they government personnel will always be the first one to stand up and show their face in the newspaper when a case happen.. but why don't they do something before such case happen?? if they just wanna show their face in the newspaper, they better go else where.. all the politicians, always said that they wanna work for the citizens and help out the citizens but if they only help out after things happened, then how??

i am not saying that the government isn't doing their job, but what i mean is they should do it better.. prevention is better than cure.. they can act before the flu come, they can even reduce the denggi.. but why can't they at least reduce the raping case..everyday, there will be a girl being raped.... but did anyone ever thought of ways to reduce it?? do u wanna live in a world that r full with rapists? do u wanna go out with a weapon in hand? do you wanna go out with all the bodyguards at side? do u want family members and love one to worry about safety when u r out alone?? do u wanna worry about love ones when they r out alone??

if u think that u cann't do anything about this then u r wrong..at least u can forwards this message to all friends and let this message spread throught out the nation.. ur can even add ur opinion in this message before sending out.. at least sooner or later, someone out there maybe can help out once they receive this message…this is not a simple message but the start of a war against all the rapists..


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