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Microsoft has invested in N-trig, a multi-touch technology solution provider from Israel. 

N-trig was founded in 1999 and develops and produces multi-touch systems that works with up to 4 fingers while also allowing the use of a pen at the same time.

Rick Seger, president of N-Trig, said he believed the combination of multi-touch and pen technology would be important, particularly in slate computers. Seger’s company’s DuoSense feature pen and multi-touch capabilities made it better suited for both business applications (including the normal multi-touch features like zooming, as well as signing documents) and education, where he said it was better for tasks such as note-taking.

In the past two years, N-trig has signed agreements with HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Lenovo. In addition, its technology is part of Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7.

Microsoft is also believed to be developing a tablet, the Microsoft Courier, which relies for a large part of its interface on the interaction between the use of pen and finger inputs.

Read more at Globes.co.il here.

Earlier this month, CNN asked readers to see how far they could stretch $10. A lot of people chose unusual purchases or silly things, but there were some good ideas for tightwads too.

A man in NYC recommends buying a day-long subway pass for $8.25 and then spending the day going to free tourist sites and pay-what-you-want museums and zoos. A couple in Wisconsin spent their $10 on spinach seeds and gardening supplies, which by their estimate will eventually produce the equivalent of $1700 worth of supermarket spinach.

I would have spent mine on as many bags of discounted Easter SweeTart candies as possible, which is why I don’t have $10 but I do have a year’s worth of malic acid in my stomach right now.

“Around the world, how far can you get with $10?” [CNN]

The very popular Seesmic Twitter application for Android got a major update today.  The standard bug squashing fixes were included of course, but they also threw in some nice and welcome new features. 

A widget
And it’s a very nice widget at that.  As you can see from the pic above, it blends in very well with Android 2.1’s style, and looks great with Sense UI as well.  Basically you’re getting a premium app style widget at the free app price.

Native Retweet
You now have the option to RT just as you would on the Twitter website.  Nice and unobtrusive, and another welcome change.

Geotagging
Three styles to pick from – your location, a human readable address, or a map link.  You can set this in the apps options to happen all the time, or choose to include it when you compose a new tweet.  Something Seesmic was missing, and they addressed it very well in my opinion.

Even with an "official Twitter app for Android" in the works Seesmic is a very viable solution for twittering away on your Android device.  This update makes it even more attractive.  Follow the break for some more screen grabs and download links.

read more

It’s here.

Less than one week after our lab coat-wearing brethren at Consumer Reports issued a “Don’t Buy” rating on the 2010 Lexus GX 460 SUV because of potential rollover issues, Toyota has announced a voluntary recall of approximately 9,400 GX 460s worldwide.

CR initially issued the “Don’t Buy: Safety Risk” designation after testing on the vehicle demonstrated a real possibility for a rollover incident. The recall will update the electronic stability control software on the vehicle.

Says a Lexus VP of some sort, “From the moment we heard about this issue, Lexus and our dealers acted quickly to resolve the situation. Our dealers will now personally reach out to customers to set up appointments to make this modification.”

The software update will be in the hands of the Lexus dealers by the end of April; GX owners will be notified by mail beginning early May. Toyota estimates that updating the software should only take about an hour.

In the interim, Lexus is offering a courtesy vehicle to concerned GX 460 owners.

For more information, owners can contact Lexus Customer Satisfaction at 1-800-255-3987.

Recall: Lexus to update 2010 GX 460 stability control software [Consumer Reports]

Why religion can lead to racism. I think the correlations are real, but am skeptical of the causation because I think think the correlation is cultural-specific. For example, my personal experience with Muslims is that those who espouse the most “Fundamentalist” world views are the least racist. The contrast with white American Protestants probably emerges from the fact that white American Protestants and Arab Muslims have had very different recent histories (if Arab Muslims want a racial ideology, they had a good candidate in secular Baathism. Some of the same applies to Turks and Persians, who got on the 20th century racial-nationalist bandwagon, as evident in the attempt by the Shah to emphasize Iran’s Aryan antecedents, while Ataturk funded research on the racial characteristics of the Turkish people which allowed them to be a conquering race).

Air Travel Crisis Deepens as Europe Fears Wider Impact. This shows the downside of a JIT world, where we squeeze efficiencies by pushing everything to the margin and assuming stable background conditions. I worry that as the world economy becomes more interdependent, and squeezes efficiencies out through complementation via comparative advantages, there emerge problems whenever we get buffeted by a big “exogenous shock.” I think there’s some evidence that we as a species have cognitive biases toward focus on near-term conditions and discounting volatility toward the tails of the distribution. Such is nature.

S.E. Cupp On Being An Atheist & A Conservative. Some of her arguments strike me as surprisingly superficial, and I think it’s likely that she’ll convert to Roman Catholicism at some point in the next 20 years. My minimal experience with atheists who want to be religious is that they generally get their wish if they don’t die too early. Also, apparently she’s getting her masters in Religious Studies, which is a field that is often suspicious of unvarnished naturalism in the study of religion. Warning: I suspect some readers of this weblog will find her responses & viewpoints somewhat cringe-worthy. A young Heather Mac Donald she’s not, take a look at this clip, who does she remind you of? Can’t wait until she’s firmly in the Christian column.

For Goldman, a Bet’s Stakes Keep Growing. Some people are saying that investors will now be cautious of making recourse to Goldman’s services for fear that they’ll be screwed. But remember that it is assumed that many of Bernie Madoff’s investors suspected that he was front running. In other words, as long as it’s someone else being screwed they should be fine with it. The people at Goldman are the best tools you have out there, but a tool is a tool and can be used for good or ill. In any case I thought Goldman was making most of its money by trading with its own capital, leveraging the ability to get cash cheaply via the Fed window and also taking advantage of the guaranteed implicit backing of the government. I do believe that capitalism needs virtue, but I also believe that the revolution of morals has to start up top. I’m not holding my breath. Cultures go through cycles, and we’re probably due for a “correction.”

Where Paris Chefs, Not Prices, Rise. If you’re going through Paris, worth a read.

Comparing taxes to GDP misleading

Using the measure of taxes as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) is certainly misleading [“Parsing the tea-party logic,” Danny Westneat column, NWSunday, April 18]. Could you honestly say you believe the federal government has been shrinking?

What has been happening is that the GDP has so greatly expanded over the past 50 years —partly due to periods of limited taxes —that even if taxes kept pace with growth, they would be greatly expanding also.

Did you know that the original tea party was fought over tea that would have been less expensive than what the colonists were then currently drinking? Why would they dump tea into Boston Harbor when it was destined to cost them less? The answer is principles.

Beyond that, the tea- party movement is energized by three things:

1. It witnessed the bare exercise of government power to get an ill-conceived and criminally executed health-care bill passed in opposition to the desires of the people.

2. It is concerned not just for its future, but that of the next generation or two that will face mountains of federal debt created by unnecessary government entitlement programs.

3. It is concerned about the federal government becoming too powerful and far-reaching. No sane person could deny this trend, so unless you are just a mindless drone, trusting the government to make your every decision, you should get government back in its place.

— William Schaefer, Renton

Tea-party members get the picture

The Times’ Danny Westneat recently visited a tea party and observed the folk “didn’t fit the crudest media stereotypes.” The people were “friendly” —finally an honest statement from the media, if condescending.

In his column, Westneat wrote he wondered if the tea-party folks were on this planet. No, the tea-party folks are in the United States, as confirmed by the election of Scott Brown to the Senate from blue Massachusetts. The tea-party principles elected the senator and elitists are in depraved denial.

Further, Westneat tried to educate the folks on “currently ‘low taxes.’.” Not mentioned were the recent, historically large Washington gas-tax increase, plans the Democrats have to rescind former President George Bush’s tax cuts, a proposed federal sales tax and much more.

The elites have bankrupted California and the rest of the nation is not far behind. The American people, via the tea party and like-minded people, will throw off the tyranny of the elites and their fanciful vision for the planet.

— Don Wilbur, University Place

by Dan Lashof

This Earth Day we need more than a celebration. We need a clean energy revolution that creates 2 million jobs, cuts 2 billion tons, and saves 2 trillion dollars.

On the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day there is much to celebrate: Our air is cleaner and our rivers no longer catch on fire. But we can’t rest on our laurels when millions of Americans still breathe unhealthy air and the concentration of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere continues to rise. The next step for our environment, our economy, and our security is a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that adds 2 million clean energy jobs, cuts pollution by 2 billion tons, and saves 2 trillion dollars worth of oil imports. That may sound like a tall order, but those benefits are within reach if Americans join together to demand action as they did on the first Earth Day.

Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman(I-Conn.) (KGL) have been working on a bipartisan proposal for months. They are now expected to unveil it on April 26.

Here is what this legislation could do for our country:

Add 2 million jobs. Comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation will create jobs for three reasons. First, enacting legislation will end more than a decade of uncertainty about the direction of U.S. policy, allowing both big energy companies and entrepreneurial start-ups to invest with confidence that the recent growth in the clean energy market will only accelerate. Second, clean energy sources generate over three times as many jobs per dollar spent than traditional fossil energy supplies. Third, building a robust domestic clean energy market will position U.S. firms to compete effectively in the rapidly expanding global clean tech arena. A University of California study found that the energy and climate bill which passed the House in June could create as many as 1.9 million jobs by 2020. The Senate only needs to do slightly better to hit the 2 million job target.

Cut 2 billion tons. That’s the scale of global warming pollution reductions we need by 2020 to get on track to avoid the worst dangers from global warming. The only way to achieve this target is to set effective limits on carbon pollution from all major sources and tighten those limits each year. Strong complementary policies are also needed to accelerate energy efficiency improvements and ease the transition to a renewable energy economy. And supplemental policies are needed to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Both the House bill and the climate bill reported by the Senate Environment Committee last fall meet this two billion ton test. How will KGL match up?

Save 2 trillion dollars. That’s the reduction in the amount of money we would send overseas to import oil over the next forty years if we enact an effective clean energy/climate bill according to NRDC’s analysis. A comprehensive bill would achieve this in three ways. First, setting an overall limit on oil pollution and requiring oil companies to obtain emission permits to cover the carbon content of their products would create an incentive to shift to cleaner fuels and more efficient ways to get around that gets stronger every year. Second, setting stronger standards to reduce vehicle tailpipe emissions would continue the historic progress codified in the clean car rules that were finalized on April 1. Third, carbon dioxide captured from power plants and industrial facilities due to the pollution limits placed on those sources would be available to enhance oil production from aging oil fields in the United States without drilling in pristine areas. The Senate appears to be even more focused on increasing our energy security than the House, so there is reason for optimism on this score.

How will we know if the KGL proposal stacks up against these benchmarks? Detailed model runs will take some time, but there are four key aspects of the legislation to focus on to make a preliminary assessment.

Are the emission limits effective and free of loopholes? KGL have indicated that their goal is to reduce emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, consistent with the commitments President Obama made in Copenhagen. The keys to actually achieving these targets are emission limits that comprehensively cover all major sources, strong quality controls for any offsets, and cost containment measures that maintain the effectiveness of the emission limits.

Does the new national emission reduction program build on existing state and federal efforts? During the eight long years of Bush administration inaction the States stepped into the void and have already begun implementing emission reduction programs. They also sued EPA, leading to the Supreme Court decisions declaring that the agency does indeed have authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act in its current form. EPA has issued vehicles standards and is steadily moving to exercise its authority to regulate stationary sources. While an effective new national program would become the primary driver of emission reductions it would be a mistake to eliminate the authority states and EPA currently have. As NRDC President Frances Beinecke asks in her recent post, would you fly in a plane that had no backup systems?

Does the bill include smart clean energy policies that will create jobs quickly and accelerate the transition to an efficient renewable energy economy? Energy efficiency is the fastest and cheapest way to reduce carbon pollution. And it creates jobs for Americans all across the country that can’t be outsourced. After all, a call center in India can’t put insulation in your attic, and it’s cheaper and faster to remanufacture old inefficient windows into superefficient ones on site (as Serious Materials is doing at the Empire State Building) than it is to import windows from China. Emission limits by themselves are not sufficient to overcome the barriers to energy efficiency and ensure a steadily expanding homegrown renewable energy market. The key here is complementary standards and incentives that help individuals and companies seize the wide array of available opportunities.

Would the bill create a foundation for an effective international agreement by demonstrating U.S. leadership, funding efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation, and helping the poorest countries adapt to impacts of global warming that can no longer be avoided? Efforts to forge an international agreement capable of preventing dangerous global warming are doomed without strong U.S. leadership, including a domestic law that reassures our partners that the president can deliver on his commitments and that the next administration can’t easily renege on them. Serious domestic emission reductions are critical, but adequate funding for international programs to curb deforestation and help poor countries deal with the consequences of global warming are also essential to seal the deal.

Can the Senate pass a bill that delivers 2 million jobs, 2 billion tons and $2 trillion? It won’t be pretty and it won’t be perfect, but if the public demands action there are good reasons for optimism. Now that the arduous battle for healthcare reform is over, President Obama is turning his attention to comprehensive energy reform. With his leadership, combined with the bipartisan efforts of Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman and the commitment of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a clean energy revolution is within grasp.

Join me for a live event with Lisa Jackson, Andy Revkin and others, April 20 at 7 p.m. Eastern to discuss what’s next for climate policy. For details and to submit a question, go to PlanetForward.org. Watch a live stream of the panel and conversation, join the chat and submit questions for the panel.

Related Links:

Come to the largest climate rally ever on the D.C. mall on April 25

Deep thoughts from founder Chip Giller

A Clean Energy Competitiveness Strategy for America

Quit being so cold, USA

Seeing the stories of all the people stranded at U.S. airports because of the volcano eruption and ash cloud in Europe [“Volcano has Europe at standstill,” page one, April 16] got me to thinking about Sept. 11, 2001, when the U.S. shut down its airspace.

Canadians opened up their homes, churches and community centers to house stranded Americans. Some even drove those stranded thousands of miles to get home. Obviously, we cannot drive people home to Europe, but what about the others? Where are the communities and people who could open up their homes and community centers to the travelers, help them get a hot shower and hot meal?

Where is the Red Cross? This a natural disaster.? The Red Cross could provide hotel vouchers or some other kind of assistance. I have seen a few stories of Americans who have opened their homes, but more needs to be done. We need to show the world that we care about them. We need to show ourselves as well. We need to stand up and lend a helping hand.

— Lori Gunby, Seattle

Nature’s pollutant

Name a polluting factory anywhere in the world that could have a greater impact on worldwide weather and ecology than the latest Icelandic volcano eruption.

When was the last time worldwide travel was interrupted by anything man-made? The next time politicians promote cap-and-trade to benefit mankind, tell them to put a cork in it first — the volcano, that is.

— Fred Strine, North Bend

Few people have been as prescient about investing over the past decade as Jeremy Gratham of GMO, the money management firm in Boston. Grantham warned early and often about both the dotcom bubble and the U.S. housing bubble.

In an interview with the Financial Times, he defines a bubble as an overvaluation so large that it would occur only once in 40 years. He and his research team found 34 cases of such overvaluations within the past few decades — and 32 have already moved back to their long-term trend. Only two remain outstanding: the UK and Australian housing markets.

Grantham is confident that UK and Australian home prices will eventually fall back to their long-term trend. That is likely to be painful. The one piece of good news for Canadian investors? At least our real estate market doesn’t appear out of whack by enough to make Grantham’s short list.

Freelance business journalist Ian McGugan blogs for the Financial Post.

Can’t afford to wait on immigrants

This is a response to “We can’t afford to wait on immigration reform” [Opinion, April 15].

Sure, special-interest groups want open borders that benefit them. All amnesty would do is encourage more people — millions — to come here knowing if they waited long enough, they too would automatically become citizens.

Group leaders say if granted amnesty, the offenders would go back home and apply for visas, pay back taxes and learn English. That will never happen; it is only a ploy to gain our trust.

How could you trust a person who sneaks into our country, takes services that are meant for the elderly, ill and handicapped and gets fraudulent documents to suddenly be honest?

These special-interest groups should put their time and money in protesting the quality of life in Mexico so its citizens would not have to come here and split up their families. They claim that if millions of illegals would returned to Mexico, it would bring America to its knees. I say go home and teach us all a lesson.

— Kathleen Bukoskey, Everett

Once legal, would undocumented immigrants continue current jobs?

Whenever I hear the argument that illegal immigrants should be given amnesty because they work the jobs that U.S. citizens refuse to do and that without them, the jobs would not get done, I shake my head.

When you give amnesty to illegal immigrants they are no longer illegal. Because they are no longer illegal, they will not do the work they did when they were illegals. So guess what? More illegal workers would cross our borders to do the work the former illegals would no longer do.

Could only simpletons like me see this?

— Bob McQuade, Kent

Wanted: citizenship for my husband

I am a U.S. citizen married to a man who entered this country 13 years ago to support his younger siblings after his father died.

My husband loves this country as well as the employers and friends he has made here. He has a diligent work ethic and a consistently positive attitude. He paid his taxes and rent, and bought groceries, cars and material goods here.

We have spent more than $10,000 on credit cards to pay for him to become a legal, permanent resident. The application was denied and work permit terminated because he committed a crime five years ago.

We have three children between us. He is the only father figure my daughter has in her life. He takes care of our toddler and has dinner ready when I get home from work. His firstborn son from a previous relationship is with us every weekend.

My husband is a dedicated father and spouse. We need immigration reform that allows families to stay together.

— Kezia Willingham. Seattle

FolderOrganizer (formerly abcOrganizer) is a nice simple tool that allows you to you group apps, bookmarks and contacts together in folders, offering quick access to them from a home screen shortcut. This is handy for grouping by task, e.g. a single place for work related apps, contacts and bookmarks.

The interface is simple enough to understand, but a little bit of exploring turns up some nice features. At launch, FolderOrganizer pulls in your installed apps, bookmarks and contacts. There’s a default set of labels or add can your own. Long pressing on a label lets you batch add items or go to one of the other tabs and assign labels to items individually.

Once you have labeled some items you can add a label shortcut on your home screen. This shortcut will bring up a folder containing all the items grouped under that label. How the folders display is also quite flexible as you can change the layouts, the sort order, or filter by items that you have starred.

Last month the ability to label items to appear in the notifications bar was added and in my opinion doubled the value of the app. Twitter, Buzz, Email, etc., all by pulling down the notification bar, without even needing to return to the home screen.

FolderOrganizer Lite is available free with a small, unintrusive request to purchase the full version. The full version will set you back €0.99 (US$1.35) and offers some enhancements such as stacking folders within folders to create a hierarchical menu structure (not something I use yet) and the ability to organize from the shortcut folder (surprisingly handy for small tweaks).

PROs

• Quick launch of apps which you can freely organize.
• Mixing apps, contacts and bookmark shortcuts together.
• Customize label or item name.
• Customize label or item icons with stock icons or icon packs from the Market.
• Starring of favorite apps/bookmarks/contacts.
• Add apps, bookmarks and contacts to the notification bar.
• Uninstall or launch apps from within FolderOrganizer.
• Export and Import your settings (useful for all you ROM junkies).

Ideas for Improvements

• Linking to more shortcuts such as settings, navigation destination, etc (anything that you can shortcut to from the home screen) would extend the possibilities.
  Note: The developer, Fabio Collini, let me know that he has just started work on this
• As with any organizing project, getting started is a bit of a chore (you should see my shed). The ability to pull the categories from the Market might be handy starting point.
• It’s simple but has great depth. I can’t shake the feeling that there are uses that I haven’t thought of yet. An online community forum to share hints and tips would be a bonus. Until then feel free to add comments here to share ideas.

Verdict
I found this app great for clearing up my home screen. While the apps I use regularly still need space on the central home screen, it’s the apps that would normally be 3 home screens over or buried in the app drawer that really benefit from the speed and flexibility of FolderOrganizer. If you’re limited to 3 home screens I would consider this application a must.

Version Tested: FolderOrganizer Full and Lite (version 1.6.5) reviewed on a HTC Magic running a Hero 2.1 ROM, but should work on all versions.

Note: This review was submitted by Tristan Rogers as part of our app review contest.

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Engineers from General Motors’ Dept. 180 are back once again and this week they are telling us how they put the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox through a parade of punishments including harsh weather, terrain and durability tests.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox.

Check out the latest Dept. 180 video after the jump.

Click here for our review of the 2010 Chevrolet Equinox.

Review: 2010 Chevrolet Equinox 1LT:

Review: 2010 Chevrolet Equinox 1LT:

– By: Kap Shah

In comparison to the X chromosome, says David Page, the Y chromosome is a “demure, rather shy little fellow” traditionally believed by scientists to be decaying or stagnating to the point where some researchers have predicted its eventual extinction.

“I have spent the better part of the last 25 years defending the honor of this small, downtrodden chromosome in the face of numerous insults to its character,” said Page, director of the Whitehead Institute and a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during a lively lecture Thursday (April 15) titled “The Evolutionary and Genetic Basis of Human Reproduction,” the final talk this semester in the “Evolution Matters” series sponsored by the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Talking as if he were teaching a class, Page dispensed with the traditional format of holding a question-and-answer session at the end of his lecture, and instead invited audience participation. He began with a “crash course” he called “Human Genome 101,” asking questions such as “How many cells do you have in your body?” (10 trillion); “How many genomes per cell?” (two, except for in gametes, which have one); and the trickier “How old is sex?” (that depends whether you’re talking about bacteria, yeast, turtles, or humans), before tackling gene recombination.

During recombination, he explained, genes usually work in pairs, swapping material to lead to DNA repair and more robust genetic diversity. Every cell in the human body contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, and 22 of those pairs are matched. The 23rd in about 50 percent of people (that is, men) are not a matched pair but an XY pair. The Y chromosome is passed from father to son and contains the genes necessary for forming testicles, and therefore making sperm. Until Page’s laboratory learned differently, scientists believed that the Y chromosome, which has about 80 genes compared with the X’s 1,000 or so, did not pair-swap genetic material, and therefore was a weakened player.

But Page and his colleagues discovered that the Y chromosome does swap genetic material. The twist is, it swaps with itself. The Y, Page’s lab learned, stores DNA as a palindrome that reads the same in either direction — like the name Otto, for example. “The palindromes on Y are spectacular,” Page said. “It has almost perfect left-arm-to-right-arm symmetry,” with only .06 percent divergence.

One thing scientists knew was true was genes on the Y did not come in pairs, which would mean that Y chromosomes are very young, evolutionarily speaking, only about half a million years old. “Now all of a sudden we realized genes on Y come in pairs, just not from Mom and Dad, but on the arms of the palindrome.” The arms of the palindrome engage in “nonreciprocal recombination,” folding over on themselves to “overwrite” faulty genetic material.

“This implies that the palindrome existed in the chimp/human ancestor 6 million years ago,” said Page, whose lab also sequenced the chimp Y chromosome and discovered that the Y has continued to evolve in the 6 million years since chimps and humans emerged from a common ancestor.

Page and his colleagues also discovered that the Y chromosome may be linked to Turner syndrome in women, which is characterized by the lack of one sex chromosome, and can cause short stature, heart defects, and infertility due to ovarian malfunction. The syndrome may be the result of Y chromosome recombination gone awry, Page speculates, when the chromosome inadvertently becomes a palindrome with no gap in the center.

Known as the centromere, the middle space between the two arms of the Y chromosome is key to its health. If two centromeres are inadvertently created, as they were on 18 of 60 patients studied who had low sperm production, there are anomalies of the Y chromosome, or discordance between chromosomal constitution and anatomy — that is, feminization. “It turns out these centromeres play a critical role in passing out one copy of each chromosome to each daughter cell,” said Page. “Ironically, the more Y you have, the more likely you’re a female.”

IRVING, Texas, April 19 /CHICAGOPRESSRELEASE.COM/ — Murray R. McClean, Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of Commercial Metals Company (NYSE: CMC) announced today the appointments of Joseph Alvarado as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of CMC and Tracy L. Porter as Vice President of CMC and President of the CMC Americas Division.

Alvarado will begin his new role with CMC on April 30, 2010.  In this capacity, he will be responsible for the direction and coordination of CMC’s two operational divisions, the CMC Americas Division and the CMC International Division.  During his career, Alvarado has held many leadership positions within the steel industry, including Ispat International N.V. (prior to its acquisition by Arcelor Mittal), Birmingham Steel and Inland Steel.  Most recently he served as President of U.S. Steel’s Tubular Products Division, and prior to that as President and Chief Operating Officer of Lone Star Technologies (prior to its acquisition by U.S. Steel).  Alvarado holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Notre Dame and a MBA from Cornell University.

McClean said, “With Joe’s extensive steel industry knowledge, both in the U.S. and internationally, he will make a tremendous contribution to CMC, and we are pleased to welcome him to CMC.”

Porter, who has been with CMC for nineteen years, has held numerous positions within the Company.  He began his career at the Seguin, Texas minimill, later became General Manager of the CMC Steel Arkansas/CMC Southern Post unit in Magnolia, Arkansas, and headed CMC’s Rebar Fabrication Division within the CMC Americas Division prior to his most recent role as Interim President of the Division.  Porter received his BBA in Accounting from Texas State University.  His appointment in this new capacity is effective April 19, 2010.

“Tracy has done an outstanding job as the Interim President of the CMC Americas Division over the past three months,” McClean said, “and he has proven he is the right person for this position. I am very confident that both Joe and Tracy will make major contributions to CMC’s short-term and longer-term business success and further strengthen our already strong leadership team.”

Commercial Metals Company and its subsidiaries manufacture, recycle and market steel and metal products, related materials and services through a network including steel minimills, steel fabrication and processing plants, construction-related product warehouses, a copper tube mill, metal recycling facilities and marketing and distribution offices in the United States and in strategic international markets.

SOURCE Commercial Metals Company

http://www.cmc.com

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Hot from today’s inbox, news from SETI that tremendously expands the brainpower brought to bear on its massive collection of radio telescope data.

The release:

SETI Institute Announces Public Availability of Radio Telescope Signal Data in Latest Milestone for Director Dr. Jill Tarter’s 2009 TED Prize Wish to Enlist all Earthlings in Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 19 /PRNewswire/ — SETI Institute, an interdisciplinary scientific organization that explores the nature of life throughout the universe, announced that starting today it will make large quantities of astronomical radio telescope data accessible to astronomers and other scientists as part of an effort to build a global community of searchers for evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Today’s announcement represents the latest milestone in SETI Institute’s mission to facilitate mass collaboration in the search for civilizations beyond earth.  The radio telescope data will be released by setiQuest, a program formed in 2009 after SETI Institute Director Dr. Jill Tarter was awarded the 2009 TED Prize, whose benefits included $100,000 and the assistance of the global TED community to help realize her “One Wish to Change the World.”  Accepting the prize, Dr. Tarter asked the TED community to “empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company.”

After months in development, the setiQuest program has reached the point where it is able to invite the global scientific community to access radio signal data collected by SETI Institute’s Allen Telescope Array (ATA).  Commissioned in 2007, the Allen array is operated jointly by SETI Institute and the University of California at Berkeley. It is a “Large Number of Small Dishes” (LNSD) telescope array designed to conduct surveys for both conventional radio astronomy by the university, as well as for SETI Institute’s research.

SETI Institute analyzes the ATA radio data in real time with special software to detect technological signals from a distant extra-terrestrial civilization.  The process is analogous to listening to one hundred million radios, each tuned to a different channel and attached to an antenna that is highly sensitive to just one millionth of the sky, to find faint signals.

To date, SETI Institute’s methods have focused on the search for what are called narrowband signals. One of the benefits of opening the ATA data to the global scientific community is to invite development of techniques to analyze broadband signals.

The radio telescope data will be made available through setiQuest’s website, www.setiquest.org, in the form of files containing streams of data samples from specific targets in space. Data can be accessed by registered participants in the setiQuest program.  SETI Institute hopes that by making the ATA data widely available, scientists around the world will develop new and innovative ways to process the massive quantities of radio signals streaming from space every second.

SETI Institute search programs have processed data in real time and discarded it shortly after the observation. They are capturing these new data sets to invite the public to expand the search. Now, setiQuest will provide a day’s worth of ATA data each week, and will leave the data on its website for up to six months.

While astronomers and specialists with experience in digital signal processing (DSP) may by the likely initial population of scientists and technologists with an interest in setiQuest, the program welcomes scientists and technologists of all disciplines.  Those interested in learning how they can be part of the setiQuest project can find more information at www.setiQuest.org.

For more details of the progress of Dr. Tarter’s TED Prize wish, visit http://www.tedprize.org/jill-tarter/.

About SETI Institute

The mission of SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe. At SETI Institute biologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, ecologists, planetary scientists, geologists, engineers, technologists, and educators join forces in the quest to find life elsewhere. This includes the search for potentially inhabited planets in our Solar System and beyond, laboratory and field investigations of the origins and early evolution of life, and studies of the potential of life to adapt to future challenges on Earth and in space. For more information about SETI, visit www.seti.org.  For information about setiQuest, visit www.setiquest.org.

Source: TED Conferences

Grist “Google climate change chief wants price on carbon” Google wants a price on carbon “for lofty reasons like combating global warming, but also because it could be good for business.”

Climate Progress Senate bipartisan climate bill to launch April 26th Senator Graham on why it is not being released on Earth Day – “We don’t want to mix messages here. I’m all for protecting the Earth but this is about energy independence.”

Washington Post “Congress worked out health care. Is climate change next?” Steven Pearlstein shares his balanced and thoughtful perspective on the state of the climate bill. He points out that "While there are still some details to be ironed about, there is a good chance that the bill will gain the support of oil giants BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips, along with major electric utilities and industrial corporations."

Mother Jones “Another Good Reason to Cut Oil Use” US military is "concerned that there simply won't be enough oil available in the near future, which could fuel conflict and instability around the world."

Some quickbreads are very moist and dense, while others are a little bit dry and very bread-like. This moist Apple Spice Bread falls into the former category. The bread is ultra-moist and is packed with two cups of shredded apple, from two whole apples! All that fruit makes it a little bit dense, but the bread is tender and flavorful, so that is not a bad thing in this case.

When you go to shred the apples for this bread, use a large grater that allows for wide shreds. If you use a very fine grater, you’re likely to end up with applesauce instead of shredded apple. I shred my apples whole, leaving all the peel on. As you shred, don’t worry if the apple discolors into a light brown color as it is exposed to air. While you can try and counteract this by adding lemon juice to the apple, the color actually contributes to the lovely color of the finished quickbread (plus it’s difficult to manage the color of so much shredded apple without using a whole lot of lemon juice and we don’t want to add any extra moisture to this bread!).

I included several spices in this loaf, as well as pecans for a nice crunch and a textural break from that moist, apply goodness. The spices I used are cinnamon, cardamom, allspice and cloves. I didn’t go overboard on the spicing so that you can really taste the apple in every bite, but feel free to spice it up and add more of your favorites for a spicier take on this bread, or if you’re looking to give it a more warming feel on a cold day. (more…)

By Tim Shoemaker

235 Years ago, on April 19, 1775, the Battle of Lexington & Concord ignited the revolution that would lead the colonies to declare their independence from Great Britain.  In the video below, Schoolhouse Rock provides us an amusing reminder of the significance of that important event.

To commemorate this event, you can help Campaign for Liberty fire our own “shot heard ’round the world” by contributing to our “Audit the Fed Banner Bomb” and helping us reach our goal by midnight!  This will give us the momentum we need to continue the r3VOLution to finally find out what secrets are hiding behind the closed books of the Federal Reserve.