Category: News

When the Psystar Rebel EFI software launched yesterday, the Internet collectively gasped at the wild claims but a few people in the Hackintosh community probably knew better. Sites were claiming that the Rebel EFI software would allow OS X to be installed on any computer, but that simply isn’t true as I’ve found out over the last 12 hours. In fact, it doesn’t seem to offer any more hardware support than the open source Chameleon bootloader.

Now, I found the Psystar software easier to use than Chameleon, but the same systems that previously rejected OS X using Chameleon, did the same with Psystar. One is an Core 2 Solo U3500 1.4GHz with a ATI Radeon HD 4330 GPU. This computer will not get past the gray screen with a spinning beach ball in the top left, which means the graphics card probably isn’t compatable according to the updated Rebel EFI FAQ page. The other is an Z520 Atom 1.33GHz netbook with an Intel GMA950 GPU. This guy won’t get past the Apple logo. I had the same results using Chameleon a few weeks ago.

John managed to install OS X using the Rebel EFI bootloader on an HP Touchsmart computer yesterday. I’ve not had any luck so far though. In fact, we got an email a few minutes ago stating that while someone managed to install OS X and purchase the software, the activation key will not work, rendering the machine almost useless. Psystar’s phone tech support just told him to email the company but so far nothing has been resolved.

The Psystar Rebel EFI might be a terrific piece of software, but it doesn’t seem ready for retail consumption yet. In the mean time, let me point you towards the rich development community behind the OSX86 project and Chameleon. Chances are that if they say your hardware isn’t compatible and their solutions won’t work, Psystar’s Rebel EFI installer probably won’t either.

Disney has been diligently working on a new technology, code-named Keychest, that would give users the ability to watch a movie from any device imaginable.

Does Disney’s Keychest sound interesting to you? Tell us.

A studio insider gave this scenario on how Keychest could possibly work…

"Dad has a Zune, Mom has an iPod, there’s a Mac and a PC at home and a Roku box; right now, those devices don’t talk to one another … We intend to blend those worlds."

It’s being rumored that Disney could begin testing the new technology in as little as two months, and it may be consumer ready by next year. Supposedly, Keychest will use cloud-computing coupled with a physical product (e.g. a DVD), that will only require the person to pay for the rights so that it could be watched on any device.

It’s no secret that companies have been looking for a distribution model, as some feel consumers are slowly buying less DVD’s. This is where the Keychest technology would step in.

Would you use Disney’s Keychest technology? Let us know.

Remember the Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) Elixirs announced back in Tokyo? As promised, they’re heading to retail in Japan come winter…

• First, the idea that the entire fee will be passed on to consumers is not credible – especially given the policy design. The policy assesses a flat amount per year, paid by companies based on their market share, beginning in 2010. The assumption that these companies will accumulate the amount of these fees and pass them along in a lump sum to enrollees later simply does not make sense.
   
• Second, these fees are intended to recapture part of the benefits these businesses will get from reform. No one disputes that newly insuring nearly 30 million more Americans will increase their access to needed services – translating into new business for insurers, drug companies and device makers and other providers. This new revenue would far exceed the amount of the new fees – so if you believe that they will pass along the new assessment, they will also pass along their new windfall to consumers. 
   
• Third, the fees help improve and expand coverage and thus reduce the $1,000 hidden tax tens of millions of Americans pay for the uncompensated care of the uninsured. Even if you believed that somehow companies would find a way to pass the fees along, they would be more than outweighed by the benefits middle-class families would get from not only hundreds of billions of dollars in health care tax credits but from reducing the hidden tax they currently pay for the uninsured.

Hablar del Sr. Frenkel, es mencionar a la Tabes Dorsal como patología de cabecera, entre otras tantas en dónde una de las principales afecciones es la vía sensitiva. A veces me pongo a pensar, no digo siempre, solo un par de ocasiones aisladas jaja de como estos grandes apellidos de la kinesiología como el Dr. Kabat, Lovett o el ya nombrado Frenkel, crearon estos ejercicios tan eficientes para el tratamiento de diferentes patologías, y sin debate interno de mis pensamientos, no me cabe duda que tuvieron aparte de un gran conocimiento, un factor en común que fue la “creatividad”.

Nuestra carrera a mi entender, pasa mucho por eso, ya que con simples útiles como una tabla de madera, una esfera, etc podemos crear un instrumento eficaz para algún ejercicio en particular proyectado a nuestro paciente. Bueno ya no los voy a aburrir más con estos pensamientos “made in locura” jaja, y paso a desarrollar Frenkel.

Consisten en una serie de ejercicios cuidadosamente planeados que pretende hacer emplear al paciente lo que se conserva de su sentido muscular con el objetivo de evitar su disminución progresiva e incluso conseguir una mejoría. Frenkel consideraba que, a pesar de estar afectada la vía sensitiva, el paciente tabético puede aprender a realizar completo de lo que persiste en su sentido muscular por medio de la repetición constante. En realidad, este principio se demuestra en los casos en que sobreviene precozmente la atrofia óptica, y en las cuales la ataxia se desarrolla en forma lenta e incompleta ya que el individuo ciego se ve obligado a depender de su sentido muscular y articular, y lo utiliza en su máxima capacidad. Sin embargo, si el sentido muscular es prácticamente inexistente en la época en que el paciente acude al tratamiento, el objeto de los ejercicios consiste en enseñarle a reemplazar su sentido perdido por el sentido de la visión. El tratamiento debe empezar lo más pronto posible. Si el paciente se halla en la fase preatáxica, debe realizar los movimientos más complejos posibles. En las fases tardías los ejercicios deben empezar con movimientos muy simples y deben progresar gradualmente hasta los más complicados. Sea cual fuese la fase en la que halla el paciente, deben observarse ciertas reglas.

Las reglas son las siguientes:

1. Instrucciones se realizan con voz monótona, ejercicios en forma numerada.
2. Cada ejercicio debe ser correctamente exhibido por nuestro paciente para poder pasar a otro de mayor dificultad.
3. La palabra progresión se refiere a la dificultad de los ejercicios y no a la potencia, por ende no llevar a cabo ejercicios de mucha potencia muscular.
4. Se empiezan con movimientos de amplitud completa, denominados fáciles a comparación de los denominados difíciles, corta amplitud.
5. Los movimientos se realizan en forma rápido al principio, para luego realizarlos en forma lenta, lo que conlleva mas dificultad porque se necesita una mayor precisión.
6. El paciente debe realizar los ejercicios con ojos abiertos, para luego hacerlos con ojo cerrado.
7. Tenemos que tener un seguimiento estricto sobre nuestro paciente debido a la peligrosidad de las caídas.
8. Es conveniente intercalar entre ejercicios, tiempos de reposo programados.
9. Hacer una excelente historia clínica, estado fisico, y anotar su progreso del día a día.

Los movimientos se realizan con variando posiciones, utilizando decúbito sentado, dorsal y bipedestación. Algunos de los mismos son los siguientes:

• Con ayuda del terapeuta flexionar y estirar miembros inferiores rozando la planta del pie en el plano de apoyo (camilla, o en lo q este acostado). Primero un miembro, luego el otro, alternadamente.
• Sin ayuda del terapeuta, flexionar y estirar miembros inferiores, rozando la planta del pie en el plano de apoyo. Primero un miembro, luego el otro, alternadamente.
• Sin ayuda del terapeuta, flexionar y estirar miembros inferiores rozando la planta del pie en el plano, combinar con apertura y cierre del miembro inferior. Primero un miembro, luego el otro, alternadamente.
• Sin ayuda del terapeuta, flexionar y estirar miembros inferiores alternadamente, sin rozar la planta con el plano de apoyo (5cm arriba), abriendo y cerrando.
• Pies sobre una alohada. Pedir al paciente que flexione, extienda, gire, lateralice, etc, el tobillo.

• Cruces en el piso. Indicar diciendo: adelante, atrás, a la derecha, a la izquierda, etc.. (dibujar como una estrella de puntos cardinales en el piso como referencia).
• Con la manos en la rodilla (para dar el impulso), el terapeuta le opone una pequeña resistencia en los hombros del paciente, pedir que se levante.
• Idem anterior, pero sin resistencia en los hombros.

• Caminando, en la barra. Volcar peso en una pierna, deslizar la otra, poner peso en esta ultima, deslizar la otra, y así sucesivamente.
• Para girar. Levanto la punta del pie, giro. Con el otro pie: levanto talón, giro, me desplazo.

Les dejo unos videos que hicimos el año pasado en clase, tratan sobre los ejercicios detallados anteriormente, disculpen la calidad tanto de audio como video, pero se pueden utilizar como guía.. Advertencia!!!: El video fue tomado de un celular, por gente inexperta en temas de video filmación (me incluyo) , por algo estudiamos kinesio no?..

Hey, lookin’ good there Mr. Man. I like your protective booties. They look like slippers!

Wal-Mart has contracted with service provider N.E.W. to offer tech support services, seemingly in an attempt to compete with Best Buy’s Geek Squad and similar outfits.

It’s probably not a bad idea, seeing as though Wal-Mart is making a bigger push into the consumer electronics retail void that’s been left open by the closing of stores like CompUSA and Circuit City.

Plans will apparently be offered on prepaid cards with pricing set at between $99 and $339 for services such as TV, home theater, and wireless network setups, to name a few. Service will be provided by third-party contractors, so it’s not quite the same as how Best Buy offers in-store Geek Squad stuff. This appears to be more in-home service only, not counter service inside actual Wal-Mart stores.

Service offerings are expected to roll out in all Wal-Mart locations by the holidays.

[via Reuters]

Sega may not be into making consoles anymore, but look! Zippo has gone and picked up the slack for them. Sort of. Check these out – Zippo has rolled…

The cold and the rain could not dampen the enthusiasm in Spc. Jason Schulz’s
heart…

One shot, one kill: It’s the creed of every sniper…

The capabilities of battlefield Airmen are considered just as lethal as any
advanced weapons system…

‘Falcon Air Meet 2009,’ a multi-national F-16 competition hosted by the Royal
Jordanian Air Force officially opened here Oct. 20…

Call it the military’s version of the ‘Iron Chef.’…

A bunch of folks have sent in different stories about Disney’s new “Keychest” technology offering, which would (in theory) allow users to purchase content that would be stored online, and which they could then access from any “participating service.”

With Keychest, when a consumer buys a movie from a participating store, his accounts with other participating services–such as a mobile-phone provider or a video-on-demand cable service–would be updated to show the title as available for viewing. The movies wouldn’t be downloaded; rather, they would reside with each particular delivery company, such as the Internet service provider, cable company or phone company.

The idea, supposedly is:

to address two of the biggest hurdles blocking widespread consumer adoption of movie downloads: the difficulty of playing a movie back on devices other than a PC or laptop, and limited storage space on those computers’ hard drives.

Now, while you must admit that allowing people to access the same content after a single purchase on multiple devices is definitely a step up from the “old” way of doing things, it does kind of ignore some important points: such as the fact that, for the most part, you could already do this on your own. As we know, it’s legal to rip your CD’s and then store that content on an iPod or on your computer and listen to the music how you want to do so. And, even though this is perfectly legitimate fair use of content for movies as well, Hollywood has used the worst provision in the DMCA — the anti-circumvention provision — to block people from doing what is accepted fair use with movie and television content.

So all Keychest really seems to be doing is giving you back your fair use rights on content — but also wrapping it in additional DRM, such that it only works on “participating services.” Oh, and it could include other limitations as well:

And Keychest would allow movie studios to dictate how many devices, connected to which distribution networks, a given title can be played on.

So, kudos to Disney for recognizing that people hate having to buy the same content over and over again and hate being limited on what devices they can view content on… but, creating a new, more permissive DRM solution, just to give back some of an individual’s fair use rights, isn’t really a huge win.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian drugmaker Movetis is considering an initial public offering (IPO) as one of several options to raise capital needed to market its leading product, its chairman said on Friday.

A stock market float by the gastrointestinal specialist, which was founded in 2006 as a spin-out from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), could signal an opening in the IPO window for European drug companies following a dearth of new issues.

Unlike riskier biotechnology groups, Movetis already has advanced products and has just obtained approval from the European Commission to sell its lead drug Resolor, also known as prucalopride, as a treatment for chronic constipation.

It plans to launch the drug in Germany and Britain in the first quarter of 2010, with other EU countries following later next year.

Resolor treats chronic constipation in women for whom existing laxatives fail to provide relief.

“We will need additional financing to launch this product … and we are examining different ways to obtain this financing. An IPO is one of them,” Movetis Chairman Staf Van Reet told Reuters.

Movetis was also considering a further private financing round, Van Reet said, adding that its stakeholders were prepared to continue to invest substantially in the company.

Belgian media have reported that the group plans to launch an IPO next month and could start trading in Euronext Brussels from December.

Besides Resolor, the group has two products in Phase II mid-stage clinical development. They will start clinical trials performed on a larger group of patients next year.

It also has two products in its pre-clinical pipeline.

Resolor will compete with a range of mostly over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, marketed mainly by small to medium-sized players.

“But it is not really a replacement for these products. It is aimed specifically at patients who cannot be helped adequately by existing products,” Van Reet said.

Movetis will conduct further clinical studies to determine the safety and efficacy of Resolor as a treatment for chronic constipation in men, and also intends to develop the product for the treatment of children.

Long termer, it is looking at interesting product opportunities to supplement its offering, Van Reet said, adding however that it had no immediate acquisition plans.

Movetis was spun off in November 2006 from Janssen Pharmaceutica, a unit of U.S. healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N).

It has the right to commercialise Resolor in the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, but Johnson & Johnson kept the rights for the rest of the world when the group was spun off.

The group is, however, entitled to royalties when Johnson & Johnson starts marketing Resolor in different parts of the world, Van Reet said.

Leading investors in Movetis include French venture capital group Sofinnova Partners and Life Sciences Partners of the Netherlands.

By Antonia van de Velde
(Editing by Ben Hirschler and Mike Nesbit)

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LONDON (Reuters) – Fund management firm Gartmore, which manages more than 17 billion pounds ($28 billion) of assets, is preparing an initial public offering as early as the end of the year, sources close to the matter said on Friday.

Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which holds a 50 percent stake in Gartmore, is looking to cut its stake by listing the fund manager’s shares in London, sources said.

The preparations reheat proposals from 2007 to float the company for up to 1.5 billion pounds. These plans were put on ice due to the financial crisis and company valuations have since dropped significantly.

In April, a senior Gartmore executive played down the likelihood of an IPO because of the state of the markets. [ID:nLS156350]

However, the recent surge in equity prices has reignited interest amongst private equity firms to list portfolio businesses.

“Hellman & Friedman is always looking at these opportunities; it wouldn’t be at all surprising if they would want to do something with Gartmore, which has some momentum behind it,” a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Hellman & Friedman and Gartmore both declined to comment.

Private equity firms are looking to realise some of their better-performing businesses in order to return money to investors, who have been starved of cash as company sales have been difficult to achieve.

There is a long list of IPO candidates from private equity firms — BC Partners’ [PCPRT.UL] Amadeus, Medica and Unity Media; Bridgepoint’s [BRDG.UL] Pets at Home, Blackstone’s Travelport and Permira’s [PERM.UL] New Look.

But Europe’s IPO market is still at a fragile stage, with investors demanding big discounts in valuations.

Hellman & Friedman’s stake dates from October 2006 when it backed a management buyout leaving senior management and the private equity firm with equal holdings in the company.

(Reporting by Daisy Ku, Raji Menon and Simon Meads; Editing by Tom Freke; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter) ($1 = 0.6006 pound)

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Oh, dear. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was on The Today Show (international viewers: The Today Show is a morning news and entertainment program that airs on NBC, a big TV network here) to unveil Windows 7. Call me crazy, but isn’t that a first-gen MacBook Pro in the background? Good job, NBC!

I’ve embedded the video from Hulu for our U.S. readers, and for international readers here’s a few screencaps:

Once again, bravo, NBC, for a job well done! (And people call us sloppy, with a budget one-zillionth that of The Today Show!)

The Kentucky Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday on whether the Common Wealth of Kentucky has the power to seize 141 domains belonging to online gambling sites.

Previously a Franklin Circuit Court Judge ruled for the state saying it was allowed to seize the domain names, but the Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Jon L. Fleischaker, attorney for the Interactive Media Entertainment &Gaming Association (iMEGA) called the efforts by Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear to block the state residents’ use of Internet gambling websites "intellectually dishonest."

"They made up a process that is totally lacking in due process," Fleischaker said during arguments before the Supreme Court.

Fleischaker, along with attorneys representing Sportsbook.com and the Interactive Gaming Council, asked the Supreme Court to uphold an earlier decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals, blocking the seizure of 141 domain names belonging to online gambling sites.

In a 2-to-1 decision, the Appeals Court in January rejected the governor’s claim that Kentucky players and the Internet gambling sites had violated state law. The decision also held that a lower court had erred when it applied the state’s "gambling devices" statute to justify the seizure of the Internet domain names.

"[I]t stretches credulity to conclude that a series of numbers, or Internet address, can be said to constitute a "machine or any mechanical or other devicedesigned and manufactured primarily for use in connection with gambling," Judge Michelle M. Keller wrote in her majority opinion.

A decision is not expected before the end of the year.
 

In Q3, NewNet focus turns to business models and search. Read the, “NewNet Q3 Wrap-up.”

As laser pointers go, you could do far worse than this little keychain Lightsaber. I mean think about it; if your job requires you to use a laser pointer, then you might as well have a cool one. And at $15, it’s not like this is a huge monetary investment. As an investment in your social standing amongst your peers, though, this thing ought to pay off in spades.

Choose from Darth Vader or Darth Maul versions, available at ThinkGeek.

Features include:

• Working red dot laser pointer
• The force
• Highly detailed scaled replicas
• Batteries included
• Pew pew pew!

Those are the actual features listed on the product page. Very nice.

Star Wars Lightsaber Laser Pointer [ThinkGeek]