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American carmaker Ford recently revealed that its 2010 Taurus is starring in a new online interactive game, White Collar: Chasing the Shadow, which  is the online extension to the USA NETWORK hit TV drama White Collar. The game follows a con artist and FBI agent who team up to catch bad guys.

The Taurus is featured in both the television series and in the new game that allows players – acting as FBI trainees – to drive the Taurus and use its features to catch a notorious villain dubbed The Wh… (read more)

Some thoughts here about the golden mean.  I suspect that his suggested linkage is actually a bit of a stretch but then why not?  The golden mean falls out of simple geometric manipulation rather too easily to take very seriously.  It is sort of like been overly excited about the circle without a background in geometry.

 

Any way it is easily constructed and thus a convenient way to pleasingly shape rectangular image frames from a chosen dimensionality.  It is thus no surprise it is commonly used.

 

For that reason it is suspect to read more into it than totally necessary.

 

The headline is a touch too ambitious, but the speculations are of some interest.

 

Researcher explains mystery of golden ratio

Fernando Alonso may have to wait until February 1st to drive Ferrari’s 2010 challenger in the testing session at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo Circuit, but that isn’t to mean the Spaniard will step at the wheel of a Ferrari for the first time.

According to the latest press photos released by Ferrari’s new sponsor Grupo Santander, the 2-time world champion drove the team’s 2009 car with the new livery for 2010 on the Paul Ricard circuit in France. Commonly used by the teams in the GP2 Series for te… (read more)

Tout va très vite depuis la fuite des premières photos de la nouvelle Mini SUV, la Countryman. Après la galerie complète de photos officielles hier, et les principales caractéristiques, voici déjà les videos.

–>Toute l’actualité de Mini en continu, c’est sur le Fil News BMW/Mini.

 –> Nous vous avons présenté hier en détail la nouvelle Mini Countryman, à lire ici. Voici maintenant deux videos du premier SUV de la marque; le teaser psychédélique d’avant-hier n’aura décidément pas servi à grand chose.

 

 

 

Et puisqu’on y est, la galerie complète des photos officielles:

Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site, pensez à vous abonner via Twitter. Chaque modification, nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube, fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat! 

Sony is at it again making new limited edition Sony Reader bundles. Now this time it’s for Valentine’s day. The latest one is being called the Reader Valentine’s Special Bundle or maybe it should have been called the book of love… This love bundle includes a red leather cover with light, a free eBook download, and the ebook “The Heart Speaks by Mimi Guarneri”. This special bundle is retailing for $329.99 and even if you don’t have a Valentine, you can buy it for yourself, read an eBook and feel loved.

When Tenzin Seldon ‘12 logged into her Gmail account from New York over winter break, she had no idea that someone else was also logged into her account — from China. Nor did she know that she had become part of Google’s investigation into a suspected widespread cyber-attack program potentially centralized across the Pacific.

Seldon, a regional coordinator of New York-based Students for a Free Tibet, is one of dozens of human rights activists whose Gmail account had been spied on by a third party in China, according to a Jan. 12 statement from Google. But only two Gmail accounts were accessed by hackers.

“If they’re willing to put so much of their resources into monitoring a 20-year-old like me from Stanford, who’s an activist, that means I’m really doing my job,” Seldon said. “I’m being an activist for those people who need their voices to be amplified.”

On Jan. 7, University officials contacted Seldon to inform her that her private Gmail account had been hacked, Seldon said. The official, whose confidentiality Seldon chose to protect, directed her to contact David Drummond, senior vice president and chief legal officer at Google.

“He immediately told me that my e-mail had been compromised,” Seldon said. “They knew for a fact that it was someone in China because they could trace the I.P. address.”

Martin Lev, Google’s director of security and safety, came to her dorm to pick up her laptop and test it for malware later that evening, she said. Two days later, Seldon was informed that her computer contained no malware or viruses, a surprising fact given that private information, like Seldon’s password, is usually accessed through spyware placed on the user computer.

“This meant that someone from China actually had access to my password,” Seldon said.

Online accounts are commonly compromised when users have an easily guessed password, use the same password on multiple computer accounts, or use a kiosk-style computer, according to Matthew Ricks, executive director of the division of IT services that includes Stanford’s e-mail services.

Seldon, however, has the caution of someone with years of experience as a Tibetan activist. She was born and raised in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government in exile is located. Her parents took asylum there after fleeing Tibet on foot, she said.

Seldon has been active in Students for a Free Tibet since high school. Over the years, she has seen the organization’s Web sites and blogs defaced with “F*** Tibet” by hackers. Seldon said she has even received death threats in the past.

During the March 2008 demonstrations in Tibet, pro-Tibet human rights organizations saw a “dramatic increase in cyber attacks,” according to Kate Woznow, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet. False e-mails were sent in the name of group members, and cell and office phones were jammed.

During the Olympics Games in Beijing later that year, cyber attacks continued. Tenzing Tethong, a visiting Tibetan scholar at Stanford, said that during that time his e-mail contacts were somehow accessed and his acquaintances received e-mails from an account in his name. Tethong also uses Gmail and to his knowledge, his e-mail has not been hacked.

Woznow recalls that an online security contractor told her they had never seen that number or type of attack before, adding that it clearly was an organized, concerted attempt to gather information and decrease the group’s efficiency.

The attack on Seldon’s Gmail account is different than previous cyber attacks, Woznow said.

“What’s really unique about Seldon’s case is that . . . they couldn’t find any malware, so this is a new level, a new wave of these kinds of cyber attacks,” she said. “And the fact that Google users were targeted makes this pretty unique because Google prides itself on security.”

A source from Google familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Seldon’s account. The Google source believed Seldon was a victim of a sophisticated malware that erases itself from the computer’s hard drive after accessing passwords and information. Google was not able to comment further on other victims of hacking due to the ongoing investigation.

Google announced on Jan. 12 that it was considering ending its business operations and filtering in China. According to Google, at least 20 other companies covering a wide range of businesses have also been targets of cyber attacks and surveillance. These other companies, including Yahoo! and Adobe, have not said they will end business relations with China.

“The environment in which we’re operating in terms of China is not getting better,” the Google source said. “So, we’re no longer comfortable filtering search results.”

President John Hennessy, who sits on Google’s board of directors, said in an e-mail to The Daily that “the Google decision was a difficult one for the company, but in the end, the company felt that staying in China could endanger its users and potentially its employees.”

Hennessy believes that e-mail infiltration is an obvious concern that students need to both understand and take steps to better protect themselves against.

Seldon, who in high school protested the launch of Google China, now applauds the corporation for taking a stand for what she called “freedom, equality and justice.”

“I feel like the fact that I am all the way here in America and I’m a U.S. citizen, and China can impede on my rights to personal freedom and my rights to know that I won’t be spied on, tells me something about the government,” she said.

No line of work has survived the recession unaffected, even the high-paying, once-booming legal industry. However, Stanford Law School (SLS) administrators remain confident in the employment prospects for their students — who are themselves generally positive about the job market.

“Law Shucks,” a blog that tracks the legal industry, estimates that major law firms laid off over 4,000 lawyers in 2009. But Law School Dean Larry Kramer said that while the job market is “tighter” now than it has been, new lawyers will still find it welcoming.

“The same bubble existed in the legal market as in the rest of the economy,” Kramer said. “Students graduating this year and maybe next year have to deal with the fallout from that. But I don’t foresee any long-term significant changes in professional prospects for being a lawyer.”

In terms of finding employment, new graduates from SLS have been insulated from the effects of the recession so far, according to statistics provided by the school.

The class of 2008 was the first class to experience the recession right out of law school. Nine months after graduating, only four members of the 176-person class were unemployed. Though that represents a drop from the 100 percent success rate of the classes of 2006 and 2007, the decline is miniscule.

The employment numbers for the most recent class, the class of 2009, will be compiled this February. Though the Law School expects most of that class to be employed, there may be fewer graduates than usual moving on to the largest law firms.

“Last year there were a lot of deferrals,” Kramer said, referring to the practice of firms offering jobs starting at a future date rather than immediate employment.

SLS is combating the economic downturn in several ways, including putting students in touch with more firms than during previous recruitment cycles. Students with deferred offers are being encouraged to explore internships and clerkships in between graduation and the start date at their future law firm.

The school is also tailoring its career services advice specifically to each class according to its vision of how the job market will recover.

“Our Office of Career Services staff is providing customized job search support for all three classes (2010, 2011, 2012),” SLS Associate Director of Media Relations Judith Romero wrote in an e-mail to The Daily. “That means, for example, meeting 1-[on]-1 with every student to develop a unique job search strategy.”

Current law students appear unruffled, if not particularly upbeat, about their job prospects.

“It’s not a great situation to be graduating into,” said third-year student Mike Scanlon. “But there’s nothing you can do about it so you just hope for the best.”

“I know our class will suffer a lot more than the year ahead [of us,]” said another third-year, Mike Powers. “There are a lot fewer offers. It appears though that some firms are pulling out and starting to open hiring again.”

“Of course, some firms are still laying off,” he added.

Kramer predicted a comprehensive economic recovery for the legal industry by next year and second-year students were more sanguine about their opportunities.

“People my year feel like we’ve been prepared from the beginning and we’ve been bracing ourselves,” said second-year student Jennifer Clark. “It might be tough but I’m glad I’m at Stanford. I can imagine that it’s been tougher for students from some other schools.”

To some new lawyers, the supposed hardships of a down job market and deferrals are even seen as blessings in disguise.

Allison Hunter ’04 graduated from the University of Chicago Law School last June. Her law firm offered her a deferral, which she accepted, and she is spending the year working with the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the San Francisco Bar Association. The program provides low-income individuals with legal and social services.

Hunter said the opportunity has made her deferral more than worth it.

“I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” Hunter said. “It was a chance to get more hands-on experience. It was a great opportunity to try different things that I couldn’t do at the law firm.”

Hunter said the effects of the recession may end up diverting the career paths of young lawyers away from the big law firms.

“It’ll be interesting to see what happens, because I think what may happen is that many attorneys will get a taste of the pro-bono career and decide to stay with it,” Hunter said.

Romero echoed that viewpoint. Though no one likes a recession, she said the decline in opportunities at big firms could encourage more creative and rewarding job choices.

“We’ve been encouraging students to think very broadly about their careers, especially about their first job out of law school,” she wrote. “Students should take the time to determine their true professional passion and follow a career path that most directly leads them to that goal.”

Regulation changes dominated Wednesday’s Graduate Student Council (GSC) meeting, with a heated debate prior to passage of a special fees bill — recently passed by the Undergraduate Senate — and a discussion about amending campaign rules.

Special Fees Stalemate

On Tuesday, the ASSU Senate approved a bill to end the practice that allowed student groups to automatically receive a 10 percent increase to their inflation-adjusted special fees funding.

The ongoing dispute over the legislation resulted in several students’ proposing an amendment to revise the bill. The amendment was rejected and the special fees bill was subsequently passed by the GSC by an overwhelming margin.

Still, the bill resulted in heated debate.

GSC members entertained ideas of changing the bylaw to include an annually adjusted amount, maintaining the automatic 10 percent increase, or voting down the proposals entirely.

Doctoral candidate in computer science Adam Beberg proposed an amendment that the automatic increase amount be determined each year by relevant legislative bodies. The bill in question proposed cutting automatic increases completely.

Chief Financial Officer and graduate student in chemical engineering Ryan Peacock emphasized the overall importance of accountability for student groups. “We need to keep in mind that it’s a privilege for groups to do special fees,” he said.

“I think we’re being too sympathetic to them, and I think that’s the problem,” Peacock added.

But Beberg commented that the extended process of petitions for any increase beyond inflation would cause groups to be discouraged to petition, thereby reducing programming.

GSC members decided to vote after examining pros and cons. Twelve members opposed and one abstained on Beberg’s proposed amendment.

The original bill, which strikes the 10 percent automatic increase clause completely, was approved with 10 members in favor, one opposed and two abstaining.

“The Undergraduate Senate needs to start saying no [to special fees increases],” said GSC Programming Coordinator and third-year student in electrical engineering Addy Satija. “This change will just keep them accountable.”

Campaign Fairness

Elections commissioner Quinn Slack ‘11 proposed two changes to election regulations. The first change concerned campaign flyers: Slack proposed to remove the stickers-regulated flyer limit and hand over the issue to environmental groups.

“Green student groups can make this into an environmental issue,” Slack said, “rather than a mundane enforcement issue.”

Co-chair Eric Osborne, a third-year law student, responded to the idea: “The green student groups can’t enforce like 50 students from going crazy with flyers,” he said.

Adamant about not allowing a change in the current sticker policy, ASSU President David Gobaud brought up issues of sustainability and equality. According to Gobaud, a co-terminal student in computer science, lifting the regulation will result in too many flyers and an unfair advantage for students with more money to spare.

“We need to level the playing field for those who don’t have a lot of money to spend on the election,” Gobaud said. “The election should not be determined by the ones who have the most money. Anyone should be able to enter the race and have a fair chance of winning regardless of their socioeconomic background.”

The second change concerned campaigning time limits. Currently, students are not allowed to continue campaigning while students are voting. The proposed change would lift the buffer time.

Secrecy and privacy also were brought up in the discussion. Determined not to allow this second change to happen, Gobaud insisted that capping campaigning during elections allows people to have a clearer mind.

“If you have someone going around campaigning during the election, then you’ll have certain situations that are going to be very uncomfortable,” he said. “There’s peer pressure. We should not open the elections to be controlled by peer pressure.”

Because of the controversy surrounding the issue, Osborne decided to hold a straw poll. The flyer enforcement change was determined to be unpopular, while the vote on letting candidates campaign until the day of voting split evenly.

Revision will not be made until further discussion.

Fundraising and Fund Approvals

Before discussion of special fees and campaigns, the meeting began with ASSU updates. After announcing that there will be a joint legislative meeting on Feb. 17 at 6 p.m., the executives went on to talk about their fundraising efforts in Haiti.

According to Gobaud, the campaign has generated $24,000 from the Stanford community in less than 72 hours and $150,000 from 17 partner schools in less than four days.

“It’s very powerful,” Gobaud said of the campus response. “All donations will be going to Partners in Health to help the earthquake victims.”

The upbeat sentiment contrasted with concerns raised Tuesday at the meeting of the Undergraduate Senate, where the focus was on increasing student donations believed to be anemic compared to other participating institutions.

The meeting continued with funding requests from five student groups. The GSC approved $1,974 for the Beyond Borders Beyond Identity event held by Southeast Asian student groups, $1,330 for the Chinese Women Collective, $820 for the Stanford India Association, $700 for the Coastal Society and $250 for the French Stanford Students Association.

Programming and operations followed funding requests. The masquerade ball ticket sales have steadily increased, with 898 people projected to come. Attendance for the ball will be capped at 1,100 people.

Members went on to discuss what to do with a ping-pong table purchased by the GSC approximately three years ago. After brief discussion, they voted to sell the table and direct the money back into the GSC programming funds account.

Elicia Blackford M.A. ‘10, a Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) student, was confirmed as the executive director of the student services division.

What can a scientist do with salad dressing apart from telling you that it increases the taste of salad manifold? But that’s the beauty of this profession. As Newton could give some theories when he saw an apple falling from a tree, salad dressing can inspire scientists towards a brand new type of solar […]
Posted in: Inventions, PhotoVoltaics, Solar Power

In the past week, “Text ‘Haiti’ to 90999” has become a ubiquitous phrase seen and heard throughout the U.S.–almost as ubiquitous as the news of the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake that struck the small island nation. Mass text messaging, coupled with Twitter and Facebook updates, have helped relief efforts by disseminating info about easy $5 and $10 donations to the Red Cross, Partners in Health and other organizations. Millions of dollars have been raised. Just as was the case of the Iranian election protests this past summer, the global exchange of digital information has connected the world with the plight of the Haitian people, allowing relief to flow more quickly and in greater quantity than ever before.

What perhaps is most surprising about the aid efforts is not the dollar amount that has been raised, but the social significance of these new media forms in starting and perpetuating the movement. Who would expect the United States would find, among the everyday minutiae of second by second tweets and status updates, a heart aching for the people of Haiti? As text messaging slowly erodes verbal communication from English to acronym and status updates elevate the trivial to earthshaking, the response to aid Haiti casts a refreshing light on our media obsession. While the Editorial Board still holds mixed feelings about the long-term social impact of digital media and networking, the disaster of the last week has proven how invaluable these resources may prove in a crisis situation.

Perhaps even more important than the ability to speed donations is the social media’s capacity to reunite the scattered survivors of this calamity; Facebook alone has allowed the Haitian people to locate or search for lost family members in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, to keep family members in other countries updated on their situations and to make the world vividly see the effects of the earthquake on real people. The democratization of media has only begun to become apparent. The summer protests in Iran were experienced by the larger world through the lens of the cell phone camera and Twitter feed. Haiti, in a similar way, has become an epicenter of life-changing use of media that has yet to be seen.

The threat of new media, however, is that these innovative uses of what we consider daily necessities will soon become too commonplace, thus losing their emotional effect and significance. What this tragedy has shown, however, is the power that our mere cell phones can wield when what truly matters–the human heart–is deeply engaged. As new channels of communication open in the future, we must consider the ramifications of our actions in media. Do not let the simplicity of donating or ease of learning the breaking news cause us to forget the human side of the story, or the value of reaching out to others in need. The real miracle that has come out of this tragedy does not lie in the design of a cell phone, but in the hearts of those who have reached out, and continue to reach out, to the people of Haiti.

BRAYNK! BRAYNK! BRAYNK! BRAYNK!

“Wake up! That’s the fire alarm!” yelled an R.A. from West Lag. “Everyone out!”

It was 5 a.m. on Tuesday.

“Is this a sick joke?” demanded a freshman from West Lag in his Simpson’s-themed pajamas, eyeing the rain outside.

Thankfully, the firemen eventually showed up and clarified the issue: “It was a false call apparently triggered by the power outage. Have a good day, everyone!”

West Lag may have suffered alone on Tuesday, but on Wednesday the whole campus was drenched.

In Wednesday’s 9 a.m. Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) lecture for “The Making of the Modern World” in Cubberley Auditorium, an eerie silence took over the class as Prof. David Como awaited the arrival of more students to fill the mostly empty lecture hall.

“I’m so wet!” burst out a girl in the back as she started taking off her soaked outer layers. Only a handful of guys snickered at the remark–obviously the mood was rotten in Cubberley.

On the other side of campus, students biking to their 9 a.m. Physics 41 lecture attested to the irony of the situation. The topic of the lecture: relative motion. In real world terms, that means that when you bike, the rain hits you in the face.

Even traditional gossip during lunch took a rain-related spin.

“I heard two girls crashed while biking by the Oval and, when they were getting up, the Marguerite came by and splashed them,” related a girl in Stern Dining.

“I saw facility workers shoveling water from White Plaza,” attested a freshman.

Another chipped in: “They even say there’s water in Lake Lag now.”

The students taking Social Dance at 12:50 p.m. knew too well how wet their fellow students were. The only person who didn’t seem wet in the class was the professor, Richard Powers, whose smooth swing moves must surely come in handy as he twists and turns to skip the puddles across campus.

On a positive note, however, Social Dance was slightly less awkward as the rain offered the perfect ice breaker.

“So, what’s up with all this rain, huh?” asked a large upperclassman whose wet socks left a mark on the floor. His partner politely laughed as they struggled with six-count swing.

“I wish the weather would make up its mind,” said a tall, skinny Asian freshman in a soaked dark blue windbreaker. “I’m fine with it just raining for a few days and stopping. But today, it’s rained for an hour, then stopped, then rained again, then stopped.”

In fact, the rain appeared to reach its climax for 10 minutes every hour and then stop.

Needless to say, those 10 minutes coincided with the breaks between classes. While most students complained of the rain, there are always a few rain lovers–everyone’s met them. They wait for any chance to convey how original they are by going against the trend.

“I love rain!” said an upperclassman as he sat comfortably in Tresidder Union, his umbrella–in the shape of a Jedi sword–close at hand.

In yesterday’s weather chaos, there seemed to be only two types of students: those with rain boots and those with wet feet.

And let’s not forget the clever few who, bundled in their covers, made the right choice and stayed in bed. There’s a reason they got into Stanford.

From her office on the third floor of Green Library, overlooking the sprawling campus, Aimee Morgan reviews t-shirts, dissertations, turtle shells, pocket watches and football programs.

Morgan — who received both a Masters of Science in Information Science and a Masters in History — previously worked as an archivist at Emory University in Atlanta.

As the Assistant University Archivist at Stanford, she is primarily responsible for selecting which documents from 2009 capture the essence of the University.

“What will be important 20, 30 and even 40 years from now?” said Morgan, explaining the criteria that she uses to select documents.

While every edition of the University’s major newspapers as well as research publications, Board of Trustee minutes and high-level policy decisions are stored in the archives, interesting trinkets also find a home there. Located in storage spaces around the campus like the Stanford Auxiliary Libraries, these items hold age-old University stories.

Most artifacts are stored in standard cardboard boxes that are one-and-a-half feet tall when turned on their sides. Morgan estimates that there are around 30,000 of these boxes and end-to-end, these boxes would circle Campus Loop roughly one and a half times. For extremely delicate or oversized items, custom boxes are constructed.

Within the vast assortment of memorabilia, Morgan noted one of her favorite items in the archives: a dried turtle shell.

Leland Stanford’s brother, Thomas Welton Stanford, was an active participant in the spiritualist movement during the Victorian era. He believed that he could make contact with people who had passed away and often held seances to communicate with them. Items from the seances found their way into the archives, including the turtle shell of a green-skinned intruder on one of these spiritual interactions.

Another item that Morgan recalled was a priceless piece of jewelry that once belonged to Jane Stanford. Following her husband’s death, Jane was the sole individual responsible for running the University and she was determined to keep it afloat. Rumor has it that she sold her jewel collection to buy coal to heat students’ dorm rooms and provide other residential necessities. To this day, a “jewel fund” still exists to purchase books for students.

In actuality, Jane Stanford did sell her jewels, but not during this financial crisis.

“Years later, the pocket watch from her collection was found on eBay,” she explained. “An incredibly generous donor then bid on it and gave it to the University archives.”

While no pieces from Jane Stanford’s jewelry collection made their way into the archives this year, other notable artifacts and events will be memorialized.

One major story that will definitely enter this year’s preservation stage was Stanford’s announcement of plans for a $100 million energy-research institute called the Precourt Institute for Energy. The announcement was particularly noteworthy because it was a collaborative effort across many fields on the Stanford campus, Morgan said. The notorious cancellation of Full Moon on the Quad will also be documented in the archives.

“People will wonder why an event that was so entrenched in tradition was cancelled,” Morgan said. “It was the first time it was cancelled since it was incorporated as an official University event.”

Public health scholars many years in the future may be interested to look back in the archives to learn about a little-known disease by the name of H1N1 that plagued the Stanford campus in 2009. And any person who stepped on campus during the fall could not have ignored the football team’s incredible season, led by Heisman runner-up Toby Gerhart.

“It was obviously a big year for us so we collected several memorabilia like football programs and other items to preserve those memories,” Morgan said.

Other major events to be documented include major construction projects on campus, with the completion of the Munger and Crothers residence units. Morgan also mentioned that the “unstuffing” of housing would go into the archives.

The Stanford News Report, before it became an online-only publication, sent all of its print publications to the archives. Scott Stocker, the Director of Web Communications, revealed the top five articles that will definitely be noted from the past year.

Topping the list was an article entitled “Open-source camera could revolutionize digital photography,” a story about new photo technology being worked on by Stanford scientists. The second story discussed Stanford research by Cliff Nass that found that media multitasking might actually impair one’s cognition.

The remaining three stories were about a free Stanford course on developing iPhone software, the University’s decision to raise tuition yet maintain its commitment to financial aid, and finally, Stanford researchers who created the world’s smallest writing.

While the Stanford News Report and other publications can choose which events were the “most popular” by checking objective facts, such as the number of page views on a certain article, archivist Morgan must factor in a variety of criteria. Space is always an issue, so she combs through hundreds of items to determine which ones are most worthy of entering the halls of archive fame.

“My favorite part of the job is that I get to help connect people at Stanford — and beyond — with the information and historical resources that they need,” Morgan said. “And you get to come across so many artifacts with such interesting histories.”

Pre-announcing things a bit, Garmin-Asus has told ZDNET that they expect to release 2-3 Windows Mobile handsets this year, including their first Windows Mobile 6.5.3 device, the Garmin Asus M10.

The M10 will feature a 3.5 inch WVGA resistive screen, 600 Mhz MSM7224 processor and 5 megapixel camera for around $400. Garmin-Asus will also be releasing Android units, but notes Windows Mobile still has a high acceptance factor, and that the latest iterations of Windows Mobile greatly improves finger friendliness.

Pictures are not yet available, but all should be revealed in less than 4 weeks at Mobile World Congress.

Read more at ZDNET here.

Via Engadget.com

The Alfa Giulietta could be the car that saves Alfa Romeo in the eyes of CEO Sergio Marchionne, unimpressed by the performance of the brand. And it’s nothing less than we’d expect from sensual Alfa design, and this fast cut video shows it from all angles. Try to ignore the subtitles, or you’ll miss the look of the car (fabulous in white).

Debuting at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, the Alfa Giulietta will have a turbocharged 1.4-litre petrol engine with 120 hp, though the more exciting 1.4 Multiair will also be available from the launch date, with 170 hp. There will be a 1.6-litre JTDM with 105 hp and a 2.0 JDTM with 170 hp. For those wanting the full Alfa power job, a Quadrifoglio Verde version should also be produced, with 235 hp.

Source | World Car Fans

Chon A. Noriega

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget plan has drawn attention to a shocking reversal in state spending priorities over the last generation. Three decades ago, 10.1 percent of the state’s general fund was allocated to higher education, 3.4 percent to prisons.

Today, prisons receive almost 11 percent of the budget, whereas higher education has dropped to 7.5 percent.

This reversal reflects a change in the state’s investment strategy, from educating the next generation of workers to locking them up.

Given the unlikelihood of legislators increasing taxes, we might consider how a solution might be found in the connection between higher education and the prison system. Simply put, admission to the former is perhaps the best deterrent for sentencing to the latter. It will also save lots of money.

The state currently spends $48,214 per prisoner, yet it only spends $7,463 per student in the UC and CSU systems. Imagine if the governor pardoned the state’s 168,000 prisoners and then enrolled them in a four-year college. There would be an immediate savings of $6.8 billion per year.

Clearly such a proposal is impractical. The UC and CSU are not equipped to bring on so many additional students. And, frankly, some prisoners are too dangerous to release into society, let alone higher education.

But let’s imagine that 10 percent of the prison population consists of nonviolent offenders who have an aptitude for higher education and could become contributing members of society. What if these prisoners were converted to college students? There would be an immediate annual savings of $536 million.

Assuming my plan were to be implemented, conversion from prisoner to college student should not be a free ride. These new students should be expected to maintain good grades and behavior, otherwise they would be returned to prison. And once they graduate and enter the work force, they should be required to pay back the public monies used for their education, like a student loan.

So, if the governor and legislature are serious about cutting costs (which seems to be their only tool for dealing with the budget crisis), then here is a simple method for reducing costs, supporting higher education, and lowering recidivism.

Let’s face it: Current expenditures do not add up to a good investment in terms of desired outcomes. California has by far the highest per-inmate incarceration costs, yet it also has the highest recidivism rate in the nation. Seven out of 10 parolees end up back in jail within three years. In this case, increased spending has not increased public safety, nor has it increased parolees’ successful return to society.

On the education front, California ranks 47th in terms of per-student spending, or about 20 percent below the national average. Not surprisingly, California also sends fewer high school graduates to college (about 6 percent below the national average), a fact that will result in a shortage of 1 million workers for California jobs requiring a college degree over the next 15 years. Here, less money equals fewer college graduates entering the work force.

We can, and must, do better on both fronts.

As UC President Mark Yudof has noted, “Having the best prison system in the world is not going to create jobs the way having the best university system will.” California does not have the best prison system in the world, let alone the nation, just the most expensive.

If California is going to reduce recidivism and increase the number of college graduates, it will need to look more closely at its spending priorities. What, exactly, do we want to invest in for the future? Ironically, my modest proposal would work, because higher education is a surefire investment in human potential, an investment that is repaid many times over by the contributions made by alumni. But California has been heading in the other direction: cutting higher education, increasing prison spending, and thereby condemning the next generation.

The fact that I can even make this proposal shows the degree to which our state’s spending priorities are out of whack. The state spends 6.5 times more on a prisoner than it does on a college student going to UCLA, one of the best universities in the world. Even when one adds all the expenses paid by the student and not the state – fees, room and board, books – the cost of prison is still almost 2.5 times more than being enrolled at UCLA.

Put another way, California could send every last prisoner to a UC campus, covering all expenses, and still save nearly $2.3 billion per year. That’s not right.

As the governor himself explained, “Spending 45 percent more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future. What does it say about a state that focuses more on prison uniforms than caps and gowns? It simply is not healthy.”

In the absence of exit polls, pundits are reading whatever they want in the Massachusetts Senate race.

But one thing is clear. The switch of a 47-year Democratic seat to Republican control will test the staying power of the now-slimmer governing party in Congress. It will also be a test of the resolve of President Obama, now starting his second year in office.

At stake is the health care reform package. Will the 59-member majority in the Senate and 256-member majority in the House backpedal on this core issue? Or will the majority renew its commitment and show that it can govern effectively by getting a bill to the president?

The 1930s Depression era provides some lessons. Franklin D. Roosevelt faced attacks in his first year in office from the left and right. He could have succumbed to the general spirit of discontent and limited his ambitions for taking on difficult problems. Instead, he embarked on a campaign of persuasion. Congress passed a bold program, including Social Security.

If Obama and the Democratic majority believe their own rhetoric that health care reform is right, they must show their mettle and approve the overhaul. Anything short of that will reveal a shameful lack of courage.

The Senate has passed an amended version of the House bill. The House could simply pass that Senate version and send it to the president to sign. This is where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the other California negotiators, George Miller and Henry Waxman, will have to persuade their members.

It is clear that this is a “now or never” time. No bill is perfect and this one could be improved. For example, Congress needs to get real about reimbursements to states and physicians for services to the elderly and poor.

Ironically, the winning candidate in Massachusetts praised that state’s health reform of 2006: “The plan is not perfect, and we need to get costs down, but we have already achieved near-universal coverage.” He opposed the national bill because he fears added costs for Massachusetts as other states expand coverage. Massachusetts residents will continue to debate whether that state would do better paying the full tab for its one-state reform or benefit from the federal bill.

In the coming California election, Sen. Barbara Boxer will have to defend her stand against whichever challenger emerges, as will every House member. That’s a good thing.

As Massachusetts has shown, state-by-state experimentation has its place. For California and other states, the issue is whether proposed national reforms would be better than the current system. For that, the answer remains “yes” – even after the Massachusetts election.

In massive news for neurology, The New England Journal of Medicine has published three important studies reporting that two new drugs for multiple sclerosis are more effective than existing treatments and can be taken in pill form.

Multiple sclerosis is a bitch. It’s a neurological disorder where the immune system starts attacking myelin – the protective covering of nerves in the brain and spinal cord – leading to unpredictable attacks that typically leave the person a little more disabled each time.

Problems can include movement difficulties, chronic pain, fatigue, cognitive problems, mood instability and impairments to the body’s automatic processes like digestion, bladder and bowel control.

One problem with the the current treatments that try and slow down the disease itself, rather than just manage the effects, is that they all require regular injections or infusions via a drip.

These new studies report on two drugs: one is cladribine which is already widely used in leukaemia, and the other is fingolimod, which is not yet available commercially. Crucially, both can be taken as pills without the need for injections.

The studies that investigated these drugs were very impressive. They had large numbers of patients in many countries; they were conducted with the co-operation of drug companies but were led by independent researchers; they continued for about two years; they were compared against placebo and, in the case of fingolimod, against the current best available treatment – beta interferon; and they looked at both chances of relapse and at changes in brain structure.

The studies did not include the most disabled people with MS are all were able to walk, although patients with mild and moderate disability were included.

The results suggest that the drugs are not only easier to take but are better than the current best available treatments and reduced the chances of the patient having a relapse of MS as well as the damage to the white matter in the brain.

The drugs work quite differently from current treatments – which largely reduce inflammation directly – by changing the balance of how the immune system releases T cells so more antiinflammatory ‘helper’ T cells are available.

Unfortunately, the drugs are not without side effects, and although these effects were rare, altering the immune system led to more herpes infections and an increase in the development of cancer.

Herpes infections can take the form of the annoying but relatively benign, like in local infections such as cold sores, shingles and genital herpes, but when it gets into the whole body or brain it can cause serious damage or even lead to death, which happen to two patients in the trial, although in this case it was out of more than 1,100 people in total. The people with cancer generally recovered well – there was one death but it isn’t entirely clear it was linked to the treatment.

Although these drugs are not cures, they only slow the disease down, this is still massive news and a major development in neurology.

One of the practical big issues will be how the drugs are priced by the pharmaceutical companies and you can be sure they’re not going to be cheap.

However, one small hope is that the two compounds are owned by rival companies and as they seem to have broadly equivalent effects it will be hoped that competition will drive the price down.

Link to good write-up from The Times.
Link to good technical summary in the NEJM, sadly paywalled.

I am a pretty active Digg user. I like to keep up to date on the latest and greatest, and I like to see some funny stuff too. Digg is a great place to keep up with current events and to get a good chuckle in. It is also a great place for traffic as everyone well knows. The key to getting traffic on Digg though is to make it to the front page. If you simply submit your story, 9 times out of ten it will never reach the front page. People try very, very hard to get to the front page, and never succeed. That’s a the cold hard truth.

There are some tools available on the internet though that can give you a little bit of an edge, and all of these are 100% kosher with Kevin Rose and his cronies. Here are my five favorite Digg tools:

1. BiggBoard – This one is really handy because it allows you to track your submitted stories on one page to see how it is going. The idea is to watch your story move from the left of the board all the way to the right through the various “Hot” categories until you reach the front page. Another cool feature is you can see if your story got buried if it doesn’t reach the front page.

   

2. Friend Statistics – This site will let you know who the deadbeats are. By that, I mean it will let you know who is digging your posts, and who isn’t so you can drop the dead weight. The only way to reach the front page is to have people Digg your stuff right? So this tool can help you figure out who is, so you can trim the fat in your friend’s list.

   

3. Digg Watcher – This tool is kind of cool to set alarms for your story submissions. You can configure it to notify you when it goes popular, when your story reaches a certain number of Diggs, when their is a comment, or when someone simply Diggs your article.

   

4. Digg Comments Viewer – By the same guys that gave us Digg Watcher above, we have a nice tool that lets us track our comments on Digg to see how our comments are doing. It shows you how many up votes you got and how many down votes you got, and will computer your average.

   

5. Sub Digger Plus – Finally we come to my new favorite. Since Digg got rid of their shout feature, I have found it rather difficult to see what my Digg friends are doing, and for them to see what I am submitting. This tool sort of works like Stumbleupon and takes you through all of your friend’s Digg submissions using the Digg toolbar at the top, and their toolbar at the bottom. It really makes digging your friend’s stuff easier, and lets them Digg yours in return. It also has a really cool list view that will show you all of your friends submissions in one spot so you can see what you have already read, and what you haven’t.

   

Of course all of these sites are just tools. A means to and end. The truth is that if whatever you are submitting doesn’t have good enough content it will never reach the front page. So don’t start using these tools, and think that this is all you need. Get your content in order, then start using these tools. That is how things work.

Know of any other cool Digg tools that I missed? What’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments.