Category: News

Media outlets operating in China face an unpleasant dilemma: self-censor or else lose access to millions of readers and a valuable market. Both the New York Times and Bloomberg News chose the second option, and don’t regret the decision.

Last summer, the news organizations published stories that described the billions in wealth held by the family of the Chinese premier. In response, China shut down the Times’ Mandarin news service and blocked Bloomberg entirely — a block that remains in place today.

Speaking at the Google Big Tent event in Washington on Friday, Bloomberg’s Chief Content Officer, Norman Pearlstine, explained the decision to publish.”We would lose our credibility [if we didn’t],” said Pearlstine. He added that, in China, “information is perceived as belonging to the state” and said he doesn’t anticipate this view changing in the near future.

Bill Keller, a former editor-in-chief and current columnist for the New York Times, echoed Pearlstine’s views that news publishers can’t rationalize censorship by saying they would lose money and influence in China. ”They can make life miserable for you,” Keller said of the Chinese government, adding that “this will cost money.”

There may, however, be a bright side to being shut out of China. According to Keller, many Chinese are aware that the Times and Bloomberg deliberately took a financial hit to preserve their brands — and in the long run, this will earn them loyalty and trust.

Keller and Pearlstine spoke on a panel with media executive Mark Whitaker and Google’s Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, at a Google “Big Tent” event about security and free speech in the digital age.

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New research from the Yale School of Medicine shows that autism could be predicted by abnormalities in birth placenta.

The study, published this week in the journal Biological Psychiatry found that placental “folds” and trophoblast inclusions – abnormal cell growths – can be used to predict whether babies are at risk for autism.

Researchers looked at 117 placentas from infants who already had risk factors for autism, comparing them to 100 placentas from infants not known to be at risk for autism. The placentas from at-risk infants were found to have as many as 15 trophoblast inclusions. The most any placentas from non-at-risk infants had was two. The Yale researchers stated that placenta with four or more trophoblast inclusions “conservatively” predicts a 96.7% chance of the infant being at risk for autism.

The new findings are important, researchers say, because current diagnoses of autism typically happen at age 3 or older, while effective treatment for autism should start well before the child reaches that age.

“Regrettably couples without known genetic susceptibility must rely on identification of early signs or indicators that may not overtly manifest until the child’s second or third year of life,” said Dr. Harvey Kliman, senior author of the study and a research scientist in the OB/GYN department at Yale.

“I hope that diagnosing the risk of developing autism by examining the placenta at birth will become routine, and that the children who are shown to have increased numbers of trophoblast inclusions will have early interventions and an improved quality of life as a result of this test.”

(Image courtesy Patrick Lynch/Yale University)

Unless the bidding cools down fast, someone is going to pay millions of dollars for a half-an-hour coffee date with Apple CEO Tim Cook.

We first told you about the charity auction earlier this week. Tim Cook is auctioning off a coffee date at Apple HQ in Cupertino for one lucky bidder and a friend. All of the money will benefit the RFK Center for Justice and Human Rights.

When we first told you about it on Wednesday, the current bid was $36,999. Charitybuzz, the site that’s hosting the auction, put an estimated price of $50,000 on the prize. At that point, with 20 days left to go on the bidding, we assumed that it would eventually hit that $50,000 mark.

But this is just bananas. As of the writing of this article, the top bid sits at $580,000. And there’s still 18 days left to go in the auction. The top bid was just over $300,000 this morning. Unless something happens and the bidding just dies, it looks like someone is seriously going to pay millions of dollars for a 30-minute to an hour meeting with Cook.

Just think about it this way: Back in 2011, the top bid for such a prize on Charitybuzz went for face time with former President Bill Clinton. In the end, the top bid was $255,000.

As the bidding goes higher, it’s likely that a companies will be the ones battling it out. Back when the bidding was lower, say a few thousand dollars, individuals were in the mix. Now, the last dozen or so bids have been dominated by companies. For instance, Drbluetooth.com is the current highest bid holder.

We’ll keep our eye on this, but we fully expect the total to be absolutely insane by the time May 14th rolls around.

Months after it was introduced, HP’s Slate 7 is available in the U.S. for $169.99. That’s not a bad price for a 7-inch Android tablet with a 1.6 GHz dual-core processor, but to keep costs down HP had to cut a corner here and there. And that makes it a difficult choice to choose the Slate 7 over Google’s own Nexus 7, even though the latter costs $30 more.

HP is shipping the Slate 7 with Android 4.1. That’s close to current, but of course Google’s own product ships with the latest version: Android 4.2. It’s also very likely to get software updates faster. Both tablets include 1 GB of memory. HP’s Slate 7 has 8 GB of internal storage capacity with support for an additional 32 GB of micro SD expansion. The Nexus 7 with 16 GB of storage doesn’t have a micro SD card slot.

Both tablets have front-facing video cameras for chatting, but here the Slate 7 one-ups the Nexus: HP added a 3 megapixel camera to the rear of the tablet. HP also included support for Beats Audio sound.  There’s not much difference in the size and weight of the two tablets, which is not surprising given that both have 7-inch screens. The Nexus 7 wins out here, however, using a 1280 x 800 display. HP opted for a 1024 x 600 screen, which is the same low resolution on the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab I bought in 2010.

Unless you really need a rear camera or micro SD card slot on your 7-inch tablet — or just have to have Beats Audio support — I’d probably spend the extra $30 on the Nexus 7 if you can swing the money. And if you’re in the market for a small slate right now, I’d even consider waiting a few short weeks. Google’s I/O Developer event takes place in mid-May and it was at last year’s event that Google introduced its Nexus 7. A refresh could be in the works, meaning either more tablet for your dollar or last year’s model at a lower price could be coming.

It’s certainly good to see HP get into the mobile market with a new tablet, especially since the HP TouchPad was a billion-dollar bust. The company needs to step it up though when it comes to hardware. It’s 2013, not 2010 and people are starting to expect higher-resolution displays in their laptops and their tablets to help improve the experience.

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Without proper care batteries can wither and die like a delicate tulip roasting in the bright sun from an unseasonably warm spring day — a fact made exponentially worse when the battery in your $60k vehicle no longer functions properly.

With that in mind, Tesla just unveiled an impressive new warranty for the Model S battery pack. With the notable exception of a vehicle accident or a curious owner opening the battery pack, under this new plan, Tesla will replace the battery pack for any reason including user error and improper maintenance.

Best of all, users do not have to worry about servicing the vehicle on a regular basis. Annual checkups are now completely optional, meaning the warranty will still be valid if the owner never takes the vehicle in for service.

Tesla states in a blog post today that the company took great pains in developing a proper battery and therefore if something goes wrong, it’s on them, not the owner.

If needed, the battery will be replaced with a factory reconditioned unit with an energy capacity equal to or better than the original pack before the failure occurred.

Sounds like a fair deal for the pricey Model S.

Better yet, Tesla also announced a service loaner program in which if an owner’s Model S needs to go in for service, the company will deliver a fully decked out Model S as a loaner until the original is repaired. Take a shine to the fancy loaner? No worries, Tesla will let you keep the loaner and pay a price that is lower by 1% per month of age and $1 per mile. As Tesla notes in the announcement, this practice will ensure the loaner fleet is constantly refreshed with new vehicles rather than becoming the equivalent of a rental car fleet.

If nothing else, Tesla and its billionaire founder are becoming very good at playing the media game. This announcement comes just weeks after the company rolled out a new payment plan (complete with a very shady marketing plan) to make the Model S more affordable. And let’s not forget Musk just not-so-quietly put up $50k of his own cash to speed up construction on LA’s 405 freeway. Why pay for press when you can get it for free?

Samsung introduced the Story Album feature with the Galaxy S 4, which lets you select photos from a particular event and a “Story Album” will automatically be created. You can still customize the photos and even select themes. When you’re happy with your album, you can print it out or order a professionally printed version for yourself or to give as a gift. You can even save copies to your dropbox account. Skip on past the break for a video showing you how to create and share your Story Album. If you need help with anything else regarding your Galaxy S 4, be sure to check out our other GS4 guides.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Come comment on this article: How to create and share a Story Album on the Galaxy S 4

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Watching stellar impacts as they occur is a rare treat for astronomers. The famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter (which left water in the planet’s atmosphere), which happened only 20 years ago, was the first directly-seen extraterrestrial collision in the solar system.

This week, NASA revealed that Saturn has now been added to the short list of places in the Solar System where astronomers have been able to observe collisions occurring as they happen (Earth, the moon, and Jupiter are the others).

NASA’s Cassini probe has captured images of meteoroids hitting the debris that makes up Saturn’s rings. Researchers believe that studying the impact rate on Saturn can help them determine more precisely how the planets in the Solar System formed.

“These new results imply the current-day impact rates for small particles at Saturn are about the same as those at Earth – two very different neighborhoods in our solar system – and this is exciting to see,” said Linda Spilker, a Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “It took Saturn’s rings acting like a giant meteoroid detector – 100 times the surface area of the Earth – and Cassini’s long-term tour of the Saturn system to address this question.”

Cassini scientists studied data for years to find evidence of the tracks the small meteorites left behind. The research has been published in the latest issue of the journal Science.

“We knew these little impacts were constantly occurring, but we didn’t know how big or how frequent they might be, and we didn’t necessarily expect them to take the form of spectacular shearing clouds,” said Matt Tiscareno, lead author of the paper and a Cassini participating scientist at Cornell University. “The sunlight shining edge-on to the rings at the Saturnian equinox acted like an anti-cloaking device, so these usually invisible features became plain to see.”

(Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell)

Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Girls Like Robots ($2.99, Universal) is a puzzle game where the pieces of the puzzle each have their own likes and dislikes. In this game, the nerds like robots too, but that is not the problem. The problem is that the girls do not like the nerds.

Oddly enough, the nerds don’t like other nerds either. About the only puzzle piece that can tolerate a nerd is a robot. It is these very basic social rules that lay the foundation of the game. The playing board is laid out in a grid of squares, with each piece occupying a square on the grid.  Each puzzle piece can be happy, mad or indifferent.  The score you earn is based on how many puzzle pieces on the board you make happy. When every piece on the board is happy you earn the maximum points allowed for that board.

From these simple beginnings a truly complex series of challenges await. Of course the size and dimensions of each board can change. But with certain levels there are already immovable pieces placed on the board that you have to contend with. Once a piece is played you cannot move it. There is an undo that allows you to keep undoing your previous moves one at a time. Or if you prefer, you can reset the entire board and start all over again.

As the levels progress, additional player pieces are introduced. Each new piece has its own set of likes and dislikes. There are even girls who like bugs in this game. What makes the game interesting is that each player piece has a personality, and a part to play in the storyline.  If you ever forget who likes who, you can always tap and hold on each player piece to see a cheat sheet outlining its interests. There is also a heart on the screen that you can press to see how the pieces you have already played on the board like each other. Green indicates a positive relationship and red a negative one.

Some levels play out like a game of solitaire where you decide which piece is played where and when. In the earlier levels you can even see the count of pieces you have remaining. And, a s things progress, some levels present you with the exact order the pieces must be played in what can best be described as a sort of Tetris-style of gameplay. On these levels, you only know what piece is coming next.  There are levels where the pieces are moving, and you must box in these pieces in order to keep them from moving about.  These variations are what make each new level a challenge to complete.

There are three different acts to play out as well as a series of bonus levels. Each act is unlocked as you complete earlier acts. Within the acts there are over 100 levels with their own  unique story to tell, which helps explain the rules for completing that level. For instance, you may be responsible for keeping a space next to June in the cafeteria so that Ben can sit next to her.  Ben wants to ask June to go with him to the upcoming school dance.  Or you may need to situate a robot between Ben and the other girls, as Ben has become quite excited to get to the dance.

With each level played, there is a thermometer that rates the total happiness of all of the pieces on the board. The more pieces that are happy, the higher the thermometer rises. Once all of the pieces are played, a final score is tallied and you are awarded from one to three happiness points. These points are collected in your Bag of Happiness.  The bonus levels — or challenges as they are called — are unlocked when you earn enough happiness points in your Bag of Happiness.

As you get familiar with each of the characters in the game, you begin to look forward to learning what comes next in the story.  As challenging as the puzzles can become, the story continues to string them all together into the three acts of a play.  Each obstacle, additional character or new aspect to the game can be associated directly with a twist in the main plot of the story.

So this weekend you should set aside time to come to understand exactly why Girls Like Robots better than Nerds.

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In September 2009, the President announced that—for the first time in history—White House visitor records would be made available to the public on an ongoing basis. Today’s release includes visitor records generated during the month of January 2013. This release brings the total number of records made public by this White House to nearly 3.2 million—all of which can be viewed in our Disclosures section.

Ed. note: For more information, check out Ethics.gov.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg said that Google and Facebook weren’t talking much. The two seem to be getting closer thanks to Android, though, and that catalyst will be bringing Facebook to Google I/O in May.

Facebook announced this week that its Facebook Developers group will be setting up shop at Google I/O. The team obviously won’t have any official presence at the show itself, but it will be hosting a Google I/O kick off party on the day before the conference. The team will also be on the conference floor during the week to talk with developers about app discovery on Facebook:

“…members of the Facebook team will also be there to help you learn how Facebook can drive app discovery in a crowded marketplace, and keep people interested and coming back to your app.”

If you can’t make it out to Google I/O, developers will have another chance to pick the minds of Facebook team members at AnDevCon Boston on May 28. The Facebook team will be hosting a number of talks covering topics like Home, Facebook’s Android app and the Android SDK:

Join Facebook Home engineers Will Bailey and Luke St. Clair for a keynote on Tuesday evening about our new user experience on Android. We’ll talk about why we built Home, how we designed its UI, and how we optimized battery and data usage. We’ll have a few technical deep dives, and will share some insights about how we built the product to be centered around people.

Our first class session, by Android team engineers Frank Qixing Du and Mark Peng, covers the native rewrite of Facebook for Android and the major performance challenges the team faced. They’ll talk about app design, GC and memory optimization, view optimization, and what techniques and tools you can use to make your Android app more performant.

For those of you building apps that use Facebook, we’ll have two workshops about the basics of our Android SDK, and advanced tips to make your apps and the stories people publish from them sticky. We’ll be around throughout the conference to chat and answer any questions you have about your integration.

It’s nice to see Facebook embracing Android, but I personally can’t wait to see what it does with Google Glass. Google will probably showcase some Google+ stuff on Glass at Google I/O, but we might get a sneak peek at Facebook on Google Glass at AnDevCon.

If you’re a Tumblr user, you can now follow the White House. Today they announced their latest foray into the social web.

The White House currently has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, YouTube, Soundcloud, Google+. And the President and First Lady also have their own accounts on many of those same networks. Although you’ll probably see a lot of cross-over between the White House and First family accounts, considering they’re basically run by the same people.

Either way, this is pretty socially connected White House.

“We see some great things here at the White House every day, and sharing that stuff with you is one of the best parts of our jobs. That’s why we’re launching a Tumblr. We’ll post things like the best quotes from President Obama, or video of young scientists visiting the White House for the science fair, or photos of adorable moments with Bo. We’ve got some wonky charts, too. Because to us, those are actually kind of exciting. But this is also about you. President Obama is committed to making this the most open and accessible administration in history, and our Tumblr is no exception,” says the White House.

The White House says that we can expect to see behind-the-scenes photos of life from the White House, quotes from the President, and infographics about “important issues.” They also promise GIFs. So, you know:

Can Ernie Moniz help the Department of Energy (DOE) to pick winning technologies? The agency has not fared well during the Obama Administration in dishing out loans and loan guarantees, losing taxpayer money not only to solar manufacturing companies like …

President Barack Obama delivers remarks at the 2013 Planned Parenthood National Conference at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., April 26, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Today, President Obama spoke at the Planned Parenthood Conference in Washington, DC, reaffirming the core principle that has guided the organization for nearly a century: that women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health.

President Obama thanked the doctors, nurses, advocates and staff who work tirelessly to keep the doors open for the millions of women who depend on the health services Planned Parenthood offers.

Somewhere there’s a woman who just received a new lease on life because of a screening that you provided that helped catch her cancer in time.  Somewhere there’s a woman who’s breathing easier today because of the support and counseling she got at her local Planned Parenthood health clinic.  Somewhere there’s a young woman starting a career who, because of you, is able to decide for herself when she wants to start a family. 

“One in five women in this country has turned to Planned Parenthood for health care,” he said. “And for many, Planned Parenthood is their primary source of health care  — not just for contraceptive care, but for lifesaving preventive care, like cancer screenings and health counseling.” 

read more

While the U.S. braces for the imminent launch of the Galaxy S4, Samsung has also quietly been selling its laptops. The Korean electronics manufacturer this week announced that it has rebranded its entire Windows PC lineup to fit under the ATIV brand.

The move is meant to make it easier for customers to tell Samsung‘s laptops apart, but it could ultimately end up being just as confusing. While the renaming of the ATIV Smart PC and the ATIV Smart PC Pro to the ATIV Tab 5 and the ATIV Tab 7, respectively, isn’t too much to think about, The Series 5 510 and the Series 3 370 will both now share the name ATIV Book 4. And while Samsung’s all-in-one laptops will be rebranded as ATIV One laptops, devices that weren’t previously branded Smart PC or all-in-one PC are now branded ATIV Book devices with a corresponding number.

The confusion continues ast the numbers will be shifting from previous brand names. For example, the Series 7 Chronos will now be the ATIV Book 8, the Series 3 300 will be the ATIV Book 2, and the Series 5 Chronos will – you know what? Just have a look below at the renaming chart Samsung has provided. And make sure to keep it handy in case you find yourself in the market for a Samsung laptop.

“Samsung has been the fastest growing PC brand for the past three years, in part because of our commitment to developing solutions that meet and exceed the ever-evolving needs of our customers,” said Mike Abary, SVP of product marketing at Samsung Electronics America. “Our expanded ATIV brand and the introduction of solutions like SideSync create the necessary synergy between our mobile and PC lines to create real ease of use for consumers. These synergies enable us to maintain our momentum and continue to offer our customers innovations that enhance the way they live and work.”

Hey, if you need something to do Sunday night while you DVR Game of Thrones, Vampire Weekend is performing at Tribeca, Steve Buscemi is directing it, and YouTube is streaming it.

This concert marks the 12th in the American Express Unstaged series, and partnership with AMEX, YouTube, and VEVO.

“On Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, Vampire Weekend will perform a concert directed by none other than award-winning actor, director and producer Steve Buscemi to close out this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. And the best news of all is that you won’t need tickets to the Roseland Ballroom to take in the show. You can experience the entire event from the comfort of your couch via YouTube.”

If it seems odd that Steve Buscemi would be directing a Vampire Weekend concert, well, it’s not. First off, this kind of thing has happened before (famous Hollywood figures directing YouTube concerts) and second, this:

EXCITING NEWS – Chris Baio has been working on a family tree for months and just discovered he is a distant cousin of actor Steve Buscemi

— Vampire Weekend (@vampireweekend) March 29, 2013

Makes more sense now, huh?

Vampire Weekend’s new album, Modern Vampires in the City, will be released on May 6th (U.K) and May 7th (U.S.). You can check out Vampire Weekend’s YouTube channel here, which is also where you’ll find the concert at 9 pm Sunday.