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Istanbul, Turkey will reportedly be home to the world’s largest auto dealership, called Autopia Europia. The space is so big it’s probably more convenient to think of it as an industrial complex, rather than an auto dealer: more than two million square feet, each of the five floors almost 20 feet high, 200 auto sales outlets hawking new and used metal, shot through with 56 eateries, 48 repair shops, 24 banks and 42 insurance companies. And that’s just a taste of the options.

Perhaps the most unusual feature of Autopia Europia is the test-drive track on the roof of the building. The building’s developers expect six million visitors per year, and we can only imagine they’re including a lot of foot traffic in that estimate. With a 900-car parking garage, even with three people in every car, it would take nearly seven years to accommodate that many guests. Construction has just begun so they’ve probably got a couple of years to crunch those numbers again.

You can have a look at it in the gallery of high-res renderings below, or in the video after the jump. Hat tip to Brian!

[Source: GAD Architecture via dvice]

Continue reading Istanbul’s gigantic Autopia Europia to have track on the roof [w/video]

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Luke Timmerman wrote:

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said today it has received two grants worth a total of $10.1 million to set up a high-performance computing cluster and center to safeguard research data. The money comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka “the stimulus,” via the National Institutes of Health. The plan is to create an energy efficient facility that will safely store “irreplaceable research data,” and to buy high-powered instruments, the center said in an e-mailed statement.

Probablemente hay pocas alianzas menos “sexys”, pero tampoco las hay con mejores cifras de usuarios sobre la mesa. Hablo del acuerdo entre Yahoo y Nokia: el primero se lleva a la web al segundo como porveedor de mapas, mientras que en los móviles Nokia estará el servicio de correo y de chat de Yahoo. Adicionalmente “federarán sus usuarios”, cruzando servicios de identificación.

Hay varias lecturas, una es el posicionamiento de cara a los mercados emergentes donde la posición de Nokia es muy dominante en telefonía móvil. Luego tenemos la necesidad de Nokia de crecer en Estados Unidos y el empujón que supone la marca Yahoo en este país. Pero para mí lo más interesante es la necesidad de ambos de ofrecer una experiencia completa de la pila de servicios en el móvil. Yahoo se ha quedado fuera de las principales plataformas (Google, Android, RIM) en smartphones y no controla ninguna de ellas; Nokia por su parte sí que tiene su propia plataforma y además es fabricante, pero en servicios necesita empujar OVI y ahí es donde entra el valor de esta alianza para ellos.

En cualquier caso, Symbian 3 y el Nokia N8 son la prueba de fuego para Nokia este año.

The trendy philosophy for today’s web entrepreneurs is the idea of the “lean startup,” where young companies make use of readily available tools and quick iteration to figure out their business without spending much money. That idea, popularized by entrepreneurs Eric Ries and Steve Blank and endorsed by VC Fred Wilson, also has its detractors, such as VC Ben Horowitz, who argue that startups should best position themselves to win without running out of money.  So today at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York City, Wilson and Horowitz debated each other.

“Building a company is really hard so you might as well build something important,” said Horowitz, of the new and influential firm Andreessen Horowitz. He said he’s disappointed to see smart entrepreneurs pitching him on small ideas like ad targeting optimization and avoiding expensive things like hiring a sales force, all because they’re holding themselves to bare minimum expenses.

But Wilson argued that the best outcomes for both entrepreneurs and investors result from investing small amounts of money in risky ideas, and increasing the commitment as risk decreases. This ensures that founders are minimally diluted, as they can hold onto their significant stakes in the company if they don’t get desperate for funding because they’re running out of money. Even Zynga, which has raised something like $220 million in funding, isn’t exactly a fat startup, contended Wilson, as it hasn’t lost money following CEO Mark Pincus’ initial investment. Rather, those hundreds of millions have been the “insurance money” to allow Pincus and Zynga to make large risky bets without putting the company on the line.

Horowitz, besotted with the promise of dreaming big, responded by saying: “I have to pause because Fred has removed all the joy out of being an entrepreneur.” He pointed to big-thinking companies such as the electric car maker Tesla, which has raised hundreds of millions in private and government funding. “As an entrepreneur you really don’t have a choice. Often the idea and the market dictate the amount of money you need to build.” Wilson never really countered this point.

After Horowitz shot down Wilson’s self-described “fairly rigorous mathematical analysis” because it ignores the serendipity of startup opportunities, Wilson pointed out that Horowitz’ examples weren’t web companies. Sure, markets like automobiles and chips and biotech might need lots of money, but “in this sector, the web sector, I would argue there are very few ideas where the fat startup model makes sense.” This was his most salient point. Wilson also noted that managing large-scale companies takes experience, saying the first-time entrepreneurs he funded at Etsy, Twitter and Tumblr just weren’t ready. “I would not advise anybody to go fat startup if they don’t have that experience and that capability at day one.”

Asked by moderator Erick Schonfeld who made a more cogent argument, the crowd sided with Wilson. I found it surprising that the cite-the-spreadsheet argument was more compelling than advice to think big — but this was an audience of web startups, after all, where lean is the new black.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Why Startups Aren’t Changing the World

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Despite the concerns about Europe, global trade continues to show signs of a continued rebound. For example, average freight rates and volume reported by the container shipping company NOL (a leading player) have both continued to rise thanks to strength between North America and Asia.

Moreover, ship owners are bringing vessels back into action based on demand growth expectations.

Fearnly Fonds:

The idle container fleet fell to 4.1% or 549,000 TEUs (263 ships) from 5.3% or 306 ships two weeks ago…The rapid depletion of idle tonnage over the past six months has been due to two primary drivers, the large scale adoption of Extra Slow Steaming (ESS) on long haul routes and increased demand for vessels.

(Via Fearnly Fonds, Shipping Morning Report)

Join the conversation about this story »

Ninety-nine seniors from the Class of 2010 were recently elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), Alpha Iota of Massachusetts, in the senior final election on May 11. Other members of the graduating class were inducted in two previous elections.

The following seniors, including their Houses and concentrations, were inducted:

Adams House

Joseph Jiazong Lee, applied mathematics
Tracey Chen Shi, economics
James MacLeod Sterne, history

Cabot House

Max Joseph Kornblith, social studies
Veronica Rey Koven-Matasy, classics
Joshua James Nuni, social studies
Hann-Shuin Yew, molecular and cellular biology

Currier House

Sara Avery Bartolino, government
Christopher Tsung-jer Chen, molecular and cellular biology
Victoria Jeannette Crutchfield, literature
Jiashuo Feng, applied mathematics
Jonathan Shulman Greenstein, economics
Karen Aline McKinnon, Earth and planetary sciences
Anjali Motgi, social studies
Bradley Edward Oppenheimer, history and literature

Dunster House

Marino Felipe Auffant, history
Allison Sarah Brandt, anthropology
Alyce Michelle DeCarteret, anthropology
Hannah Elyse Hausauer, psychology
Joseph Matthew Stujenske, neurobiology

Eliot House

Samuel James Bjork, chemistry
Kelly Ngoc-Nhu Diep, history of science
Jessica Lindsay Fleischer, history and literature
Jonathan Sidney Gould, social studies
Laurence Henry Moses Holland, philosophy
Natasa Kovacevic, economics
Sondra Hope Lavigne, organismic and evolutionary biology
Tracy Lingchen Meng, economics
Sarah Wang, economics
Elizabeth Jianing Zhang, neurobiology

Kirkland House

Kiran Narayan Bhat, government
Matthew Hagop Ghazarian, government
Amrita Goyal, organismic and evolutionary biology
Shaun Patrick Hughes, German
Robert Cameron Parker, economics
Laura Paul Starkston, mathematics
Hannah Sarina Yohalem, history of art and architecture

Leverett House

Caroline Anne Bleeke, English
Samuel Keller Bonsey, history and literature
Warakorn Kulalert, molecular and cellular biology
Joseph John Michalakes, social studies
Sarah Nazpari Schwartz Moshary, economics
Grace Kathryn Ryan, anthropology
Charlotte Allen Seid, chemical and physical biology
Anna Shabalov, history
Nafees Asiya Syed, government
George Jing Xu, engineering sciences
Chen Yan, chemical and physical biology
Linda Yao, applied mathematics
Anna Yuan-Yuan Zhang, economics
Yifang Zhang, East Asian studies

Lowell House

Sophie Margaret Alexander, literature
Maria Igorevna Baryakhtar, physics
Philip Jad Daniel, economics
Susan E. DeWolf, neurobiology
Caitlin Leigh Lewarch, human evolutionary biology
Linda Yang Liu, English
Jessica Marie Luna, sociology
Stephanie Nicole Miller, sociology
Manisha Pandita, economics
Rachel Sophie Storch, folklore and mythology
Yongtian Tan, molecular and cellular biology
Hannah Rose Trachtman, economics
Jenny Yuan-Xing Wang, chemistry and physics

Mather House

Ekaterina Botchkina, philosophy
David Tomas Escamilla, economics
Liza Danielle Cork Flum, English
Dan Ang Gong, neurobiology
Men Young Lee, physics
Caitriona Loretta Jennings McGovern, special concentrations
Johanna Sarah Rodda, English
Aliza Laura Stone, visual and environmental studies
Christopher Tsong-Kai Wu, economics

Pforzheimer House

Michael James Buckley, applied mathematics
Kledin Dobi, mathematics
Robert Vincent Fitzsimmons, history of science
Katherine Clark Harris, history
John Samuel Riley, history
Katherine Christine Wilson, history of science
Sarah Yun, government

Quincy House

Melissa Rose Alpert, government
Melissa Suzel Deas, sociology
Daniel William Deighton, Romance languages and literatures
Lillian Meili Fang, visual and environmental studies
Jane Su Jiang, English
Matthew Daniel Klayman, history
Elijah Forrest O’Connor, special concentrations
Charles Emerson Riggs, history
William Marc Ruben, economics
Meicheng Shi, economics
Molly Riordan Siegel, history of science
Benjamin James Tuyp, engineering sciences

Winthrop House

Elena Decatur Butler, applied mathematics
Lee Hilton Dietterich, organismic and evolutionary biology
Samantha Tsai-Wei Fang, economics
William Veta Leiter, social studies
Jennifer Alys Lo, molecular and cellular biology
Kevin Zhou, government
Olga Igorevna Zverovich, mathematics

I think these are great, but to be honest I kind of question their practicality. I mean, they’re big — and that’s the point — but I think the novelty would wear off after a bit. 256 grams isn’t really that much, but it’s a hell of a lot more grams than one of these things. I like that they’re stackable, though.

[via HardOCP]

Released at CES 2009, the Palm Pre (and Pre Plus, for that matter) are a bit long in the tooth.  What’s more, the Pre and Pixi have a notorious reputation for being somewhat slow.  I love webOS, but am concerned that if they don’t get their act together, it’s going to become obsolete.

Apparently, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang believes the same.  In an interview with Laptop Magazine, he went to bat for webOS:

“But it sure would be an honor to work on webOS. It’s a great operating system. If you look at the first generation of webOS phones, the Palm Pre, the UI is just brilliant. It’s just too slow. So it needs a faster processor. Otherwise, it’s a great operating system.”

A fast processor, combined with a great operating system?  Sounds good to me.  Come up with a revised form factor, and I’m all ears.

Via PreCentral

Via Prison Planet.com » World News

PA
May 25, 2010

A dramatic bill to roll back the power of the State and abolish unnecessary laws was at the centre of the Government’s legislative programme today.

 The Freedom (Great Repeal) Bill sets out ambitious plans to restore freedoms and civil liberties lost in recent years.

The coalition administration has DNA retention, identity cards, anti-terror laws, databases and the use of CCTV in its sights.

 Many critics accused New Labour of excessive legislation and eroding civil liberties during its 13 years in power.

 At its heart are pledges by senior ministers to “reduce the weight of government imposition” on citizens through laws and Whitehall policy.

Full article here

Shell executives sent a 12-page letter to the MMS assuring that planned operations in Alaska would be vastly more safe than the BP’s Deepwater Horizon.

Greenpeace seized on the letter and released a point-by-point rebuttal.

Greenpeace cites past documents from Shell that discount the possibility of a faulty blowout preventer. Also, Shell’s Frontier Discoverer is 44 years old:

Shell is scrambling to show that its plans are nothing like BP’s, but it cannot paper over the information contained in its 2010 Exploration Plan for the Chukchi Sea, which states, “a large oil spill, such as a crude oil release from a blowout, is extremely rare and not considered a reasonably foreseeable impact.” Shell dismissed the risk of a blowout, just as BP’s 2009 Exploration Plan downplayed the possibility of a catastrophic accident with the Deepwater Horizon, suggesting that it was unlikely, or virtually impossible, for an accident to occur. Shell claims that a Deepwater Horizon-type blowout would not occur in the Arctic Ocean because the exploration wells will be drilled in shallow water. However, on May 11 the former head of regulatory affairs at the U.S. Minerals Management Service – the agency with oversight for offshore drilling—testified before the U.S. Senate on blowout occurrence rates and causes, saying that “well control performance for deepwater drilling was significantly better than for shallow water operations.” Despite what Shell says, the risk of a blowout is higher in the shallow waters of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was built in 2001, was state-of the-art and heralded as ushering in a new era of exploratory drilling. In contrast, Shell will use the drillship Frontier Discoverer for exploratory drilling in Alaska this summer. The ship was built in 1966, when Lyndon Johnson was President.

In case you forgot, Alaska drilling is the real long-standing energy controversy.

The Frontier Discoverer was cleared to drilling as soon as July, before Ken Salazar suspended all drilling for a month.

Don’t Miss: Pictures Of A Louisiana Town Covered In Oil

Disclosure: The author owns shares in BP and Transocean.

Join the conversation about this story »

In case you don’t have the time or desire to read or watch full-length reviews, I’ve summarized my take on the recent wave of smartphones for you. 

 

Click here for the index of my latest smartphone Quick Takes.

 

HTC Evo 4G (Sprint) – $199, June 4 

So long as you don’t find it too large or too heavy, which some of you will, Evo 4G is the best smartphone on the market right now. Android 2.1 and HTC Sense are smooth as butter on Evo, and the massive 4.3″ display looks great and makes for the roomiest virtual QWERTY board imaginable. Sprint’s $10/month “Premium Data” surcharge is incredibly annoying, though, considering that 4G isn’t yet available in most of the country.

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The National League of Cities, a nonprofit that represents 19,000 towns and cities with a combined population of 220 million, released a report indicating devastating local-government job and service cuts. In the 2010 State of America’s Cities survey, 63 percent of city officials say poverty has worsened in the past year — the highest proportion since 1992. Additionally, 75 percent of officials think overall conditions have gotten worse, 84 percent say unemployment has gotten worse and 90 percent cite joblessness as a problem.

Seven in ten respondents are cutting staff and delaying projects, and more than half say that service levels will decrease in 2011 if tax revenue does not go up. But tax revenue is not going up, the report notes:

Despite a broad range of sentiments about the future of the country, local officials agree that the state of America’s cities continues to worsen, threatening long term national economic recovery. City budget shortfalls will become more severe over the next two years as tax collections catch up with economic conditions. These will inevitably result in new rounds of layoffs, service cuts, and cancelled projects and contracts. With local and state sectors comprising about one-eighth of GDP, and cities making up a significant portion of this sector, the services and employment offered by local governments are critical to the health of local and regional economies that drive national economic performance.

Local governments directly employ more than 14 million people and indirectly many more than that — slight, but across-the-board, budget and staff cutting could mean hundreds of thousands of jobs lost.

Rep. George Miller’s (D-Calif.) Local Jobs for America Act, currently in committee, would provide $75 billion to local governments to keep employees on the payroll and is the measure the National League of Cities is pushing for. But any deficit-spending programs — even to keep people employed — will have a lot of trouble passing a very debt-conscious Congress.

Take, for instance, Sen. Tom Harkin’s (D-Iowa) proposal to grant $23 billion to keep public-school teachers in their classrooms, the Keep Our Educators Working Act, which is supported by Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the White House. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader, responded:

“The American people recognize that Washington’s out-of-control spending is hurting our economy and stifling job creation, and they’re asking their elected leaders to make tough choices on fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, the administration’s call for another $23 billion to pad the education bureaucracy will only make state governments more dependent on the federal government and more vulnerable when the federal funding explosion disappears. This latest state bailout proposal promotes the same flawed logic as the failed ‘stimulus’ bill that has contributed to a record $1.5 trillion deficit and left one in every 10 Americans from our workforce out of work.”

Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech

Joe Pompeo
Business Insider
May 25, 2010

Rupert Murdoch appears to be finally putting his money where his mouth is with respect to Google News.

When Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London and Sunday Times switch to paid web sites sometime in the next month, only their homepages, not individual articles, will appear in search engines, reports paidContent’s Robert Andrews, who got a preview of the new sites on Monday night.

Andrews writes:

It’s all a more conservative strategy than News Corp (NYSE: NWS) stablemate WSJ.com, but: “When we showed it to people, that was the model they preferred,” said Times executive editor Danny Finkelstein. “We’re completely unashamed about this. We’re trying to get people to pay for the journalism and we wanted to do it in a very simple way.”

Assistant editor Tom Whitwell added on the search issue: “The clarity is something that was very important. If you’re asking someone to pay for something, it has to be very clear what they’re paying for.”

And only last week it seemed like Murdoch and Google were starting to get along!

You can check out what the new sites look like here.

Via Prison Planet.com » Prison Planet

Bonnie Malkin
London Telegraph
May 25, 2010

The Australian communications minister has labelled internet search giant Google “creepy” and said that the company’s collection of wireless network data through its Street View service was the single biggest breach of privacy in history.

Full article here

Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

Nine Network
May 25, 2010

“That’s a good question!”

Not quite sure the stock Android 2.2 keyboard is going to take over the top spot from some of our favorites, but it’s definitely getting better. Used to be to type a number or symbol, you’d have to hit the button at the lower left, then hit the key you want. Let’s just say I was not a fan.

Now to get a number or symbol, all you have to do is swipe your finger toward to top of the screen from the qwerty row of the keyboard, and you get ’em. It’s a small improvement, but definitely a welcome one.

But, wait, there’s more. Hold down the ?123 key to bring up the option (OK, that’s not new, but it’s still good to know). Even better, though, is if you have more than one language installed. If that’s the case, you can easily switch from an English QWERTY keyboard to the German QWERTZ keyboard by swiping left and right on the space bar. Huzzah!

(Thanks, Ceasar! Find a cool new feature in Froyo and want to tell the world about it? E-mail us here and we’ll make you famous!)

This is a post by Android Central. It is sponsored by the Android Central Accessories Store

You know what’s coming up in just a few days? Apples Worldwide Developer Conference. With WWDC comes new iPhones.. and with new iPhones, comes the death of an old one. Apple may very well still offer the 3GS after the fourth-generation iPhone is on the shelves — but offering the fourth-gen iPhone, the 3GS, and the 3G? Probably not going to happen.

The first herald of the iPhone 3G’s impending death has come.

Sometime early this morning, Apple pulled the “Select” button off of the iPhone purchasing page. If you want an iPhone from Apple’s online store right this second, you’re buying a 3GS — or, you know, waiting a few weeks and getting the new toy, or at least getting the 3GS a few bills less after the inevitable price drop.

[Via Engadget]

xScope = web & files browser + tasks killer. Green, Clean, & Ads free. Features: Tabbed browsing, Download (YouTube) vids, Multi-touch, Paid version: more favorites, open/send file, user agent per domain, Zip folder, Share url/screenshot/file.

Price: Free. $2.99 (Added Features)

AndroidTapp.com Android App Review:

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Feature loaded mobile web browser for Android
• Features files browser and task management
• Tabbed browsing
• Multi-touch Pinch Zoom (Android 2+ phones)
• Save YouTube videos
• Toggle user agent
• Take and share screenshots requires xScope Browser (Web File Task)
• Supports Themes

Cons

• Many versions of the app in the Market, confusing selection

Features:

xScope Browser Android App is a mobile web browser, a file browser, and task management app for Android phones. The app is like the web browser merged with Linda File Manager and Advanced Task Killer. It packs everything and more from your standard web browser like Search, Bookmarks, Sharing options, multi-touch Pinch Zoom; plus other advanced features ability to change user agent to view a website in mobile or desktop version, take and share screenshots of a webpage, full screen browsing, browse in Multiple Tabs, supports Themes, download and save YouTube videos (although I’m not sure how long this will last as Google requested this feature be removed from Dolphin Browser) and much more.

Gripe Alert: There are many versions of the app in the Market aimed at various versions of Android which can be confusing.

Usefulness:

xScope Browser offers more choice in mobile web browsers for Android, plus convenience as it merges the function of a few other popular and useful apps.

Ease of Use & Interface:

The app the straight-forward, by default launches in full screen for browsing. Discover other features by pressing the Menu button or the Android icon in the top left corner.

Frequently Used:

If set as default web browser, this app would be used every time you browsed the Internet.

No. But regulators looking at pornography, doing illegal drugs and other bad behavior explains part of the reason why the government failed to do its part to prevent the disaster. A new report (.pdf) from the Interior Department’s Inspector General details how the Minerals Management Service (MMS) employees who were supposed to be watching over the Louisiana region acted more like criminals than public servants. The report has some pretty awful findings.

Conflicts of interest existed between many MMS employees and the industry they regulated. The companies sponsored MMS sporting events, provided employees meals, and gave them lavish gifts, according to the report. It says was widespread throughout the culture of the office. Some examples of the gifts include: a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl college football tournament, skeet-shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, golf tournaments, crawfish boils, etc.

What did they get for these gifts? MMS inspectors allowed oil and gas production company personnel to fill out their own inspection forms, says the report. It’s pretty easy to pass an inspection when you do it yourself.

And that’s not all. Two employees admitted using illegal drugs — crystal meth and cocaine.

Then, there’s the porn. The report says:

We reviewed the e-mail accounts of MMS employees at the Lake Charles and New Orleans offices from 2005 to 2009. We found numerous instances of pornography and other inappropriate material on the e-mail accounts of 13 employees, six of whom have resigned. We specifically discovered 314 instances where the seven remaining employees received or forwarded pornographic images and links to Internet websites containing pornographic videos to other federal employees and individuals outside of the office using their government e-mail accounts.

What is it with bureaucrats and pornography? Last month, we learned that some SEC employees were busy surfing porn when they should have been discovering fraud or preventing the financial crisis. When will the government put some filters on its computers?

Of course, the real question here is why government regulators don’t just fail to do their jobs, but strive to fail so spectacularly? The report blames nepotism. It says most of the problem employees were hired more due to connections than actual knowledge or experience in the industry.

(h/t: Business Insider)

The Korean peninsula is on “edge” again, as a new war of words is breaking out between North and South Korea.  Veteran Korea watchers tell Fox News they are concerned.

“This is pretty drastic,” Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group told Fox News from Seoul, “everybody is on alert.”

John Swenson-Wright, Korea expert at London’s Chatham House, called the developments a “serious situation.”

After South Korea formally accused the North of torpedoing its ship the Cheonan, killing 46, and described the North as its principal enemy, Pyongyang has retaliated…with rhetoric.

The North Korea state news agency said Tuesday Pyongyang would “sever ties” with the South.

More significant, according to experts, is word from a dissident group that the North’s National Defense Commission has put North Koreans on “full combat alert.”

While the order has not been confirmed, ICG’s Pinkston calls the report “credible.”

And Chatham House’s Swenson-Wright, described the announcement as “significant.”

“A lot is riding on the next few days,” he added.

As expert Swenson-Wright noted, there remain  “…a lot of questions.”

One question is why the North would possibly want to trigger a new conflict.

Most point to a possible succession crisis with an ailing Kim Jong-Il apparently looking to pass his post to his son. The military moves, according to Swenson-Wright could be used for “domestic consumption” to bolster the stature of the regime.

The other question is whether these new words could turn into new actions.

So far, according to Seoul-based Pinkston there have no “unusual movements” of North Korean military personnel and  no signs of actual mobilization.

However, what Pinkston does note is that in tense situations like this, the risk of “miscalculation” by either side, is very real.

Which is why the region remains tense.