What if the first Google hit for your last name called you a prostitute, an incestuous creep, a danger to children, or a diseased lesbian? And what if, despite a federal court injunction, you couldn’t get the postings removed?
Welcome to one Chicago family’s Internet nightmare. Is it “safe harbor” run amok, or just an unfortunate and rare side effect of an otherwise well-crafted statute?
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About that Google shopping spree, which has seen the company buy six companies since August. It’s actually only four so far.
That’s because Google’s plans to buy video compression outfit On2 have been held up by disgruntled shareholders. And the company’s plans to spend $750 million on AdMob, the mobile ad startup, can’t go through until Federal regulators sign off on the deal.
And that may take a little longer than Google (GOOG) would like. The company announced today that the FTC has asked for more information — formally, a “second request” as part of its review. From a post on Google’s Public Policy Blog:
…we know that closer scrutiny has been one consequence of Google’s success, and we’ve been talking to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the past few weeks. This week we received what’s called a “second request,” which means that the FTC is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal.
While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. And we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.
Google was well aware that it was going to face regulatory scrutiny on this deal — in fact, CEO Eric Schmidt say the company assumes regulators will now look at every big deal it makes, simply because it’s Google.
And also because Google’s competitors are doing their best to make sure there is regulatory scrutiny. Microsoft (MSFT), which knows a thing or two about regulatory headaches, helped slow down Google’s $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick for a very long time. And it’s quite clear that Redmond intends holler loudly in Washington about other deals. Googlers tell me that they also believe AT&T (T) agitates against them as well.
I’ve tried getting Googlers to guess at how long they think the AdMob will take to clear, but they’ve been pretty reluctant to do so. “I thought DoubleClick would take a few months, and it took more than a year,” one would-be bettor told me recently. “I’m not making that mistake again.”
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With each new year comes new generations of cars being introduced throughout the industry. The 2010 model year has certainly given us some exciting and inventive cars from revivals chock-full of retro styling, to redesigned and new models. As the car industry is always a year a head of the rest of the not-as-interesting world, msnbc.com put together a slideshow of some great 2011 models we can look forward to in 2010.
Included on the list are five American cars, including the new Ford S-Max, the popular European offering of Ford’s that addresses the many concerns of the more utility-conscious Europeans, and appeals to the gradually increasing American counterparts of those Europeans.
The Chevy Volt and Cruz are also on the list, as well as the Ford Fiesta, Buick Regal, Hyundai Sonata, Toyota Sienna, Nissan Leaf, Mazda’s subcompact offering, the Mazda2, and the Honda CR-Z.
Drop a line and let us know what cars you are looking forward to next year.
– By: Stephen Calogera
Source: MSNBC
Pursuant to a bill recently passed by Congress, Chrysler Group has sent letters to 789 dealerships who had their franchise agreements pulled, notifying them of the new arbitration process that could potentially restore many of the dealerships. Dealers have until the 25th of January to notify Chrysler if they do in fact intend to seek arbitration.
The brass at Chrysler is none-too-pleased about the legislation, as CEO Sergio Marchionne said that the restoration of franchises could at the very least, cause much unrest in the organization.
The letters sent out did not outline the criteria used for the termination decisions; that information will be sent out by way of a mailed letter to each dealer before January 16.
– By: Stephen Calogera
Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)
FDA Needs To Restructure Its Staff In Order To Better Monitor Emerging Drug Safety Issues
(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)
In mid-December 2009 the Government Accounting Agency (GAO) — often referred to as the federal government’s watchdog agency — issued a report which was critical of the slow rate of change at the FDA as regards better monitoring of drug safety issues.
In preparing his December 9, 2009 article, “GAO: FDA yet to make safety changes post-Vioxx”, Associated Press (AP) reporter Matthew Perrone reviewed a copy of this December 2009 GAO report.
From the December 9 AP article, here are this reporter’s observations about some points raised in the GAO’s December 2009 FDA report:
As pointed out by Perrone in his article, drug safety experts outside of the FDA contend that emerging drug safety issues should not be handled by the same FDA scientists who were involved with reviewing new drug applications — that is, those who work in the FDA’s Office of New Drugs.
Returning to the December 9 AP article:
“There’s this desire on the part of the people who first approved the drug to say, ‘We predicted everything and it’s fine,’” said Dr. Diana Zuckerman of the National Research Center for Women and Families in Washington.
Zuckerman and others say such decisions should be made with equal input from the FDA’s office for monitoring reports of side effects collected from across the country.
The GAO, the Institute of Medicine and other experts have long recommended that the so-called Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology be given equal authority on drug safety with the agency’s Office of New Drugs. But GAO investigators report that FDA leaders still have not transferred key responsibilities to surveillance officials.
Hopefully, the FDA will adopt this drug safety-related recommendation from the GAO and others as its New Year’s resolution for 2010.
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DrugInjuryLaw.com: Legal Information And News About Prescription Drug Side Effects
Citing advance planning, Microsoft says it will have modified versions of Office 2007 available for sale before the court-ordered deadline next month to remove a disputed feature. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the software giant violated the patent of Toronto-based i4i when it included custom XML technology in the 2003 and 2007 versions of Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Office, of which 2007 is the most recent version, is estimated to be worth some $3 billion in annual global sales for the company founded by Chairman Bill Gates. In addition to Word, it includes Excel, PowerPoint and Groove, a collaboration program.
“We have been preparing for this possibility since the district court issued its injunction,” last May, Microsoft spokesperson Kevin Kutz said. “Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007 with this feature removed available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date.”
That date is Jan. 11.
Kutz also said beta versions of Word 2010 already available for download do not include custom XML.
Patch Download
The custom XML feature enables Word to manipulate format and content separately, which can be used by some companies to incorporate company data and templates into documents.
In response to the ruling, Microsoft has made available on its OEM Partner Center a 12.9-megabyte Office OPK Master Download Kit patch, noting that it is now required for companies using the product in the United States, and optional for other customers.
It’s unclear who, if anyone, will enforce compliance with the court order among end users of the software.
But Microsoft said the patch will not affect most users.
“After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM or XML files,” reads a Microsoft announcement on the Partner Center page….
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Filed under: Software, Cool tools
In Mac OS X (and back into OS 9 history), a creator code is a hidden value attached to a document and bound to a preferred application, allowing the OS to know which application to use for opening that file. This is particularly helpful for filetypes that have multiple valid ‘target’ apps (JPEG, PDF, etc.); the creator code lets Preview ‘own’ its PDF or image files, TextEdit automatically open its text files, and so on.
Those who are familiar with the process are already (painfully) aware that Snow Leopard ditched this system a while back (some great details at Ars Technica). For many users — especially Windows switchers — the new method is an improvement, allowing a more standardized response to double-clicking a document file that’s driven by the file name extension (.doc, .html, and the like). If you’re in the former group, though, and missing your creator codes, the developer behind PageHand has a treat for you: LaunchCodes.
LaunchCodes is an extremely simple utility which restores the creator code functionality to Snow Leopard. The creator codes never went anywhere; they’re still in the metadata. LaunchCodes just tells the system what to do with a filetype. Setup is fast and easy, just enter the extension for the file and assign an application to it (similar to “Always open with”). It runs quietly in your menubar and directs OS X to open the application you prefer for any given type of file.
LaunchCodes is $4.95US and is available as a free trial at the PageHand website.
TUAWCreator codes make a comeback in Snow Leopard with LaunchCodes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google’s acquisition of AdMob will not close right away because the FTC has issued what is called a “second request,” which means that the regulatory body believes it is necessary to have more information to review the $750 million deal.
In a blog post, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) wrote: “As we said when we announced the deal, we don’t see any regulatory issues with this deal, because the rapidly growing mobile advertising space is highly competitive with more than a dozen mobile ad networks…That said, we know that closer scrutiny has been one consequence of Google’s success.”
In an informational brochure on the FTC website, it says that if either the FTC or the DOJ determines that further inquiry is necessary, it can request additional documents under the the Clayton Act. In this scenario, it said it typically extends the waiting period for 30 days after all parties have complied with the information request. Depending on how long Google takes to provide the appropriate documentation to the FTC, we are assuming the deal won’t close until around February now. “While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. And we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review,” Google wrote.
Initially, when the deal was first announced on Nov. 7, Google said its “hopeful that it will be wrapped up in the next several months.”
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I’m surprised that the FDA is considering approving the use of statins for people without high cholesterol. They’re taking a look at an advisory panel’s recommendation to approve the use of statins for people with normal cholesterol, but with other risk factors like high levels of C-reactive protein, believed to be a marker of inflammation.
The advisory panel recommended extended statin usage primarily based upon results from the Jupiter trial, which was funded by AstraZeneca — the people who make Crestor. Am I the only one who feels statins are so poplar mainly because there’s money to be made? Yes, I know that drug companies don’t have the same funding issues as other sources of research funding. And I’m aware of the research supporting statin usage to prevent heart attacks and strokes, but I’m not convinced the benefits outweigh the risks for everyone.
The potential price of taking statins
Most people who have considered the idea of taking a statin for high cholesterol know that the drugs aren’t risk free. They may lower cholesterol, but sometimes at the cost of some serious side effects. And now people with normal cholesterol might take statins too? I’m not a scientist, but it seems like we all need to take a deep breath and get a little less excited about these drugs. They aren’t vitamins, after all.
Some statin side effects impact quality of life. According to Mayo Clinic, muscle pain is the most common side effect reported. It can be tough to put up with muscle pain for the sake of lowering cholesterol if you’re otherwise heart healthy. Some people taking statins may also experience digestive issues. I tried a 40 mg Zocor generic and could barely move from the stomach cramps. Days later, I still felt like my stomach had been used as a punching bag.
In addition to the merely annoying side effects, statins can actually kill you. Rarely, muscle pain can signal a very serious and sometimes deadly side effect of statin use: rhabdomyolysis, muscle damage which may lead to kidney failure and liver damage. It’s this rare, but life-threatening side effect that makes me scratch my head at the thought of taking this serious drug if you don’t have to.
According to Mayo Clinic, you’re at greater risk of experiencing side effects from statin usage if you’re female, have a small body frame, suffer from type 1 ot type 2 diabetes, take multiple cholesterol-lowering medications, or if you’re age 65 or older.
Read more about this issue at CNN: FDA considers statin use for those with normal cholesterol.
Do you think the FDA should approve the use of statins for people without high cholesterol?
(Image via stock.xchng)
Post from: Blisstree
Evidence has emerged to back up the theory that Apple’s next iPhone iteration will have a 5-megapixel camera. It comes by way of DigiTimes, which reports that supplier OmniVision has received a sizable order for the parts necessary for the improvement.
The current model only sports a 3-megapixel sensor, which is on par with a lot of devices, but many direct iPhone competitors have begun offering better resolution hardware. Five megapixels isn’t a lot compared to most point-and-shoot cameras on the market right now, but it’s likely enough for most people’s standard usage, and should help the iPhone become even more popular than it already is on sites like Flickr.
DigiTimes is quoting unnamed sources as saying that OmniVision, the company which currently supplies the CMOS sensor for the iPhone 3GS, has received a large order for 5-megapixel versions of the core camera component, which should help it increase its output to between 40-45 million units in 2010, up from 20-21 million in 2009.
The order is set to start being manufactured sometime in the first quarter of 2010, which is in keeping with the expected June/July launch of the next-gen iPhone at WWDC.
Expect video quality to improve as a result. A move to HD video in the iPhone would definitely help the device’s chances in the mobile video market, and could even spell the end for standalone low-cost devices like the Flip HD and Sony’s recently launched competitor, the Webbie HD.
Here’s hoping the next iteration of the iPhone’s camera also handles things like night and low-light shooting better, too. Many competitors now have built-in flashes, but I don’t see Apple marring its minimalist industrial design with an additional break in the back casing of the iPhone.
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If 2008 was a year that markets vastly underestimated risk, then 2009 was surely one when markets overestimated it big time.
Shown below is the ‘Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index’. aka the VIX. It’s a measure of the implied stock volatility (ie. risk) priced into the options market for S&P500 stocks.
In 2008, options traders progressively (and at times violently) realized they had priced far too little risk into options prices, as shown by the rising VIX in blue.
In 2009, the exact opposite happened, shown by the falling red line. Risk was consistently overestimated, and stocks rallied at the same time. Thus given the market’s track record, 2010 could deliver more volatility than traders are ready for.
You can get this dropped in your inbox every afternoon as The Chart Of The Day. It’s simple. It’s convenient. It’s free. All we need is your email address (though we’d love your name and state, too, if you’re willing to share it). Sign up below!
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At the 2010 Dubai International Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz showed a one-off 2011 SLS AMG in a gold paint finish known as “AMG Desert Gold.” Mercedes-benz said that the color could be offered as an individual optional extra from the AMG PERFORMANCE STUDIO, given sufficient demand. We now have a video of the 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Desert Gold in action.
Click here for more news on the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.
Refresher: Power comes from a 6.2L V8 making 563-hp with a maximum torque of 479 lb-ft of torque. Mated to an E-SELECT system that controls the AMG SPEEDSHIFT DCT 7-speed sports transmission, the SLS AMG can go from 0 to 62 mph in just 3.7 seconds (with the Race Start launch control system) with a top speed of 196 mph.
Make the jump for the video.
2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (AMG Desert Gold):
2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (AMG Desert Gold):
– By: Omar Rana
As some-one who foolishly bought a carrier-provided HTC HD2 and therefore do not have access directly to HTC’s latest ROMs, some welcome news has just been tweeted.
According to XDA-Dev user SatScan a Hard-SPL is set to be released soon for the HTC HD2, which should allow the loading of custom ROMs, meaning anyone can have access to HTC’s latest greatest software.
Read more at HDblog.it here.
One of the most serious types of accidents are the ones that include a sharp object slicing through a vehicle. That is what happened to this Audi R8 in Athens Greece.
According to WreckedExotics.com:
Details are sketchy, but the driver may have fallen asleep when the car veered off the road into the guardrail. It punctured through the side of the engine compartment, pierced through the steering column, and exited through the rear windshield. The driver sustained serious injury to both his legs but miraculously survived.
– By: Kap Shah
Source: WreckedExotics
When we announced our HP Envy 13 giveaway, we knew you guys would show up with some videos showing what it was that you wanted the Envy 13 to do for you (or in some cases, someone else, holiday season and all.) In all, 57 of you guys hit us with video responses on YouTube to enter. We figured it would mostly consist of people talking into a webcam (we were right,) which was fine with us. The winner was chosen by random, so there wasn’t really any reason to go all out anyway.
Imagine our surprise when we went in today and chose a random winner (hat tip to Random.org,) and it turned out to be a music video! We then started peeking around at some of the other entries, and there was definitely some creativity going on. The video at the top is done by YouTube user TheSumbiProject, and he is our random winner. We will reach out to him as soon as we hit publish on this post. That said, we wanted to share some of the other interesting entries we received, so you’ll find those after the break.
Continue reading Winner of our HP Envy 13 notebook
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This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com.
Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.
Over the last couple years there’s been growing chatter about the rise of “high frequency trading,” which is the increasingly sophisticated algorithmically-driven way of financial trading, where it has little to do with how smart your investment philosophy is, but how fast your hardware and algorithms run. As a principle, there’s nothing wrong with the concept of high frequency trading. And, as many defenders of the concept point out, such systems, in theory, provide more liquidity to many markets, and basically skim pennies off the top in return for that liquidity. The potential problem, however comes in when such operations take over the market. The latest estimates put high frequency trading at 61% of the market — up from 30% just five years ago.
That should be a warning sign. It’s typical, but you can see it in plenty of previous Wall Street meltdowns as well. After someone figures out a “system” for making lots of money (say, mortgage-backed securities a few years back), everyone starts piling in. Then, the “innovation” occurs. Now, much of it is well-meaning, and even useful. With mortgage-backed securities, things like credit default swaps actually were a very useful insurance tool originally. But at some point, they basically flipped from insurance to gambling. People weren’t using them to back up an investment, but as the investment itself — so you’d actually have what was, in effect, thousands of people all buying an insurance policy that one house wouldn’t burn down. If that house burned down… the insurance company (hi, AIG) defaulted, and everything comes crashing down. The problem is that these systems become so complicated that it’s actually pretty difficult to figure out what the “trigger” is and how the disaster will spread. No one accurately predicted how the last Wall Street meltdown would occur (though some certainly predicted a meltdown), and the fear with the rise of high frequency trading is that the situation is even more opaque. What’s happening is built into the algorithms, and with more and more companies piling in, it’s inevitable that some of those algorithms are going to have a bug (or, not even a bug, but basically programming to do something that has serious unintended consequences).
Again, I doubt there’s anything nefarious in most of this (unless you consider making money nefarious — which I don’t). But, at some point things get overwhelming, and many are beginning to wonder when we reach that point. I’m all for financial innovation and technology innovation — but I have to admit to a bit of worry when the tech innovation seems to be taking over to such a level that there’s little rationale for the financial side. It’s about who has the better techies and hardware, rather than who has the better financial thesis, and that leads to dangerous results, because the purpose of the market is separated from the mechanisms that make the market run. When you get that kind of separation between form and purpose, bad things happen.
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Wow. Just… wow. It’s putting this article under the heading of “SCIENCE” that really does it for me.
Also, if you combine the ad on the left with the article on the right, I think you have the origins of a truly disgusting fetish.
LATEX BALLOONS MAY SOLVE PROBLEM OF PACKING QUICK-FROZEN MEATS
One of the liveliest and most promising young industries in America is the quick-frozen-foods business which, in five years, has increased its sales from 10,000,000 lb. of meat, vegetables, fruit and fish to more than 150,000,000 lb. Still in the throes of experiment, frozen-foods companies are seriously concerned with the problem of packing meat and poultry. Because these products come in irregular sizes, they (Cannot be put into orthodox square packages before being frozen. When exposed unwrapped to low freezing temperatures, they sometimes dry out, suffer unsightly “freezer burns.”
One way of solving this problem is the Cryovac process, owned by Dewey & Almy Chemical Co. of Cambridge, Mass., now being used experimentally. Cryovac means “cold and empty.” Meat or poultry to be frozen is wrapped tight in a latex balloon which keeps it from drying out, makes an attractive wrapping. The commercial use of Cryovac is shown on page 52. To demonstrate this scientific accomplishment the makers of Cryovac can seal a pretty girl in one of their containers, as shown here.
The Dewey & Almy Chemical Co. have two main lines of business. One is making the compound which canners use to seal tops to cans. The other is making latex meteorological balloons for weather observations. In Cryovac, Dewey & Almy neatly combine their packing and their balloon interests.
Washington Family Will Tour Nation in Hollow Log Placed on Wheels
CYRUS T. GATES of Deming, Washington, has just completed a novel home on wheels in which he and his family plan to tour the nation. This motor home consists of a large spruce log, hollowed out and mounted on the chassis of a large Chevrolet truck. The log, which is fourteen feet long and eight feet across at the butt end, was hollowed out almost entirely by hand. An electric drill was used at both ends to start the hole, and then a small electric band saw was used to saw out small sections which were split out with iron bars flattened and sharpened at one end. The sides and ceiling were cut round, with a flat section left for the floor.
Two bands of steel are fastened around the log to prevent cracking as it dries out. Bunks that will fold into the wall have been added, while a complete kitchen is installed at the rear.
… this thing called ULTRA-VIOLET
In 1801 Johann Wilhelm Ritter, a German physicist, made a most interesting discovery. While exploring the theories of Sir Isaac Newton and others —that light was a series of waves (similar to waves upon the water) in the ether, and that color was caused by a difference in the lengths of these waves—Ritter found waves even shorter than the visible violet. Invisible waves so short that it would take 70,000 of them to make an inch. And thus he laid the foundation for the mighty development which scientific research has since weaned from the rainbow-hued sun in the interests of better living . . . this thing called Ultra-Violet radiation.
Like visible light waves, and the infrared and wireless waves, Ultra-Violet waves also have their function in the scheme of things. Apparently that function, in human beings, is to stir up the skin until it becomes a living laboratory, producing substances that go through the body, building up bone and flesh and keeping the system tuned-up.
Today modern science, measuring these Ultra-Violet waves with the Spectroscope, has divided them, according to length, into three classes: Near Ultra-Violet, Middle Ultra-Violet, and Far Ultra-Violet. Near Ultra-Violet rays— those waves closest to the visible—have some biological value. Far Ultra-Violet, on the contrary, is, in nature, carefully screened out by the atmosphere and never reaches us. (These powerful rays, studied by science through artificial Ultra-Violet sources, are dangerous unless prescribed by a physician and supplied under his supervision.) According to present knowledge the Middle Ultra-Violet contributes most to better living. This is the Ultra-Violet which tans our skins—which is the dominating factor in producing Vitamin D. This “sunshine vitamin” promotes proper bone growth and blood content, resistance to disease and general well-being . . . And yet the power of ultraviolet penetration, as far as the human skin is concerned, is, at maximum, only about the thickness of this sheet of paper.
Now the scientists of General Electric Company, after years of research, have made these beneficial Middle Ultra-Violet rays available to the general public in the new G.E. Sunlight (Type S-i) Lamp. At a distance of three feet, this source, in a proper reflector, provides the same Ultra-Violet effectiveness as mid-day midsummer sunlight.
The Type S-i Lamp is the first generator of Ultra-Violet to be offered to all, which embodies (with an adequate supply of Ultra-Violet radiation) the safety, the simplicity and the economy of the modern Mazda lamp. Although it resembles a regular Mazda lamp, the G. E. Sunlight (Type S-i) Lamp will not fit or operate in an ordinary lamp socket. It must be used in a special fixture such as the General Electric Sunlamp or the equipment made by other manufacturers.
This new G. E. Sunlight (Type S-i) Lamp is safe, because the bulb of special glass filters out the shorter wave lengths which are dangerous. It is simple, because it operates without fuss, noise or mechanism, at the touch of your fingers to the switch of the special unit. It is economical, because lamp and transformer (the transformer is part of the necessary special unit) consume only four hundred watts of electricity, and cost, on an average, only three cents per hour to operate.
In presenting, for home use, a safe, convenient way to get all the benefits of Ultra-Violet radiation found in midsummer sunlight, the scientists of General Electric Company have not attempted to provide a cure-all or a substitute, under any circumstances whatsoever, for the services of a physician in case of illness or disease. Used in the proper unit, the General Electric Sunlight (Type S-i) Lamp is for well people—that they may remain well—and retain the vigor, vitality, mental alertness and resistance to disease which Ultra-Violet provides. In buying a sunlamp of any kind for the dark days of winter ahead, insist that the equipment you select contains the G. E. Sunlight (Type S-i) Lamp. It is the heart of modern man-made sunshine, and is sold in accordance with the requirements of the Council of Physical Therapy of the American Medical Association.
The Incandescent Lamp Department of General Electric Company
Nela Park, Cleveland, Ohio
GENERAL ELECTRIC
SUNLIGHT (TYPE S-i) LAMP
Just saying… [
