IBM has informed its customers that it will be phasing out its SmartCloud Enterprise cloud computing platform and is offering free migration of workloads to SoftLayer's cloud, which IBM recently purchased.
Two analysts who track the cloud computing industry first broke the news late Wednesday evening that IBM had informed its customers that SmartCloud Enterprise (SCE) is shutting down by Jan. 31, 2014. Cloud consultancy CohensiveFT posted on its blog a letter that appears to be from IBM to customers.
An IBM spokesperson confirmed the news Thursday and said that it has been part of the plan since IBM acquired SoftLayer to migrate customers over to that platform. But today is the first time IBM has acknowledged that publicly.
IBM's SCE service has been met with lackluster reviews. In Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant report for IaaS, authored by Lydia Leong, IBM placed in the least favorable position out of more than a dozen companies analyzed. In that report, Leong noted that SCE features lagged "significantly behind" its competitors, that it has weak security capabilities that make it difficult for customers to meet regulatory compliances, and that its service-level agreement (SLA) did not cover basic provisions such as when the service was unavailable for maintenance.
IBM added a company with a good reputation in the cloud industry when it closed its acquisition of SoftLayer in July. SoftLayer offers traditional pay-per-use virtual machines and storage, but also an array of bare-metal servers for rent as well. Those non-virtualized machines can provide higher compute performance for workloads that need it. SoftLayer has been focused on servicing the small and midsized business market and has based its platform on open source CloudStack. After being acquired by IBM, the company has been serving large enterprise customers more, and has begun exploring how it can integrate OpenStack into its offering. IBM has made public commitments to use OpenStack.
In a letter posted by CohesiveFT, IBM offers to migrate customers from SCE to SoftLayer for free, which it says should happen before Jan. 31 of next year, "at which time access to SmartCloud Enterprise will no longer be available." IBM says that SmartCloud Enterprise+, which is another product in IBM's cloud portfolio, is unaffected by this news.
Just a few weeks ago the cloud market reacted to the news of another cloud platform shuttering: Cloud storage provider Nirvanix announced it would be going out of business.
Check back to Network World later today for more information on the IBM news.
Senior Writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing for Network World and NetworkWorld.com. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW. Read his Cloud Chronicles here.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — After two years of review, Montana and federal officials notified Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday that they intend to seek damages for injuries to birds, fish and other natural resources from a major crude oil spill into the Yellowstone River.
The Texas company's 12-inch Silvertip pipeline broke near Laurel during flooding in July 2011, releasing 63,000 gallons of oil that washed up along an 85-mile stretch of the scenic river.
The move puts Exxon on notice that Montana and the Department of Interior expect the company to make up for harm done to wildlife and their habitat. The company also is being asked to pay for long-term environmental studies and for lost opportunities for fishing and recreation during and since the cleanup.
Separate fines totaling $3.4 million for safety and water pollution violations already have been resolved or are pending before state and federal agencies.
Exxon has told regulators it spent $135 million on the cleanup and related repair work intended to prevent a repeat of the spill, which came on a line installed just a few feet beneath the riverbed.
State officials said some of the damage is ongoing and will take years to fully understand and quantify.
That includes harm done to the river and its banks during the cleanup itself, when Exxon brought in 1,000 workers who removed hundreds of oil-stained wood piles along the river.
"You picked up the oil, but you picked up the stuff that makes the habitat work, as well," said Bob Gibson, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "We know there's damage out there that has not been mitigated, cleaned up or compensated for. We need to decide what further can be done."
Representatives of Exxon said they were preparing a response to Thursday's notice.
The break spurred Congress to demand a Department of Transportation review of oil and other hazardous liquid pipelines that cross beneath major rivers and other waterways across the U.S. The agency last year said there were more than 2,800 such locations.
The Transportation Department recently revised its estimate to 18,136 hazardous pipeline crossings, including 5,110 locations where the body of water has a width of 100 feet or greater.
Federal officials have said they will return to Congress in early 2014 with a determination on whether rules such as a 4-foot depth requirement for pipeline crossings are sufficient.
The Yellowstone spill also prompted oil companies including Exxon to rebury pipelines at other water crossings where the lines were considered at risk of failure due to erosion. In the case of Silvertip, the company installed new sections of line dozens of feet beneath the surface at the Laurel site and two other crossings.
Negotiations with Exxon are ongoing but no agreement has been reached, said Robert Collins, the state's lead attorney in the case.
If the company resists paying for the upcoming studies or for compensation, Collins said the state and federal government could take legal action. It's uncertain how long it will take to gauge the extent of damages. For other spills the process has taken many years.
"We're anticipating we could go to court, but we want to give (negotiations) a try before we take that step because that would string things out even further," Collins said.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A 6.6-magnitude earthquake rocked central Chile on Thursday, causing buildings to sway in the capital and nervous people to run out into the streets.
But Chile's emergency services office said no damages to infrastructure were immediately reported and discarded the possibility of a tsunami.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicenter was located about 65 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of the city of Coquimbo. Its depth was 10 kilometers (6 miles).
Chile is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake and the tsunami it unleashed in 2010 killed more than 500 people, destroyed 220,000 homes, and washed away docks, riverfronts and seaside resorts.
FILE - This July 28, 2013 file photo shows singer Katy Perry at the world premiere of "The Smurfs 2" in Los Angeles. Perry says though she’s “older and wiser,” she still plans to have fun on her new album. During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Mick Jagger’s 2004 song, “Old Habits Die Hard.” Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that “he hit on me when I was 18.” In a statement Thursday, Oct. 31, a representative for Jagger says he “categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry.” (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — In her teenage dream? Mick Jagger says he never hit on Katy Perry when she was 18.
During an interview with an Australian radio show this week, the pop star said she sang backing vocals for Jagger's 2004 song "Old Habits Die Hard." Perry said she had dinner with the veteran rocker and that "he hit on me when I was 18."
In a statement Thursday, a representative for Jagger says he "categorically denies that he has ever made a pass at Katy Perry." The rep adds: "Perhaps she is confusing him with someone else."
Perry was one of the singers to make a guest appearance on the Rolling Stones' tour this year. The 29-year-old singer also said in the interview that the 70-year-old Jagger has been "very kind" to her.
Gaming technology unravels 1 of the most complex entities in nature
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rob Dawson rob.dawson@bbsrc.ac.uk 01-793-413-204 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Computational research unveils secrets in the human carbohydrate bar-code
BBSRC-funded researchers at the University of Manchester's Institute of Biotechnology have used the power of off-the-shelf computer gaming technology to capture previously unobservable atomic movements. The research is helping to chart one of nature's most complex entities known as "glycomes" - the entire complement of carbohydrates within a cell.
This novel solution provides a new understanding of these vital biomolecules which play a role in everything from neuronal development, inflammation and cell structure, to disease pathology and blood clotting.
Understanding the shapes of major biological molecules has revolutionised areas like drug development and medical diagnostics, but the shape of complex carbohydrates has been largely ignored.
The research, reported in a series of six peer-reviewed scientific publications (see notes) with the most recent (published today) appearing in Carbohydrate Research, provides a new view of these biochemical barcodes and present new opportunities in the science of carbohydrates, such as designing drugs or biomaterials that mimic carbohydrate shape and interpreting burgeoning functional glycomics data.
Dr Ben Sattelle from the Faculty of Life Sciences said: "Carbohydrate activity stems from 3D-shape, but the link between carbohydrate sequence and function remains unclear. Sequence-function relationships are rapidly being deciphered and it is now essential to be able to interpret these data in terms of molecular 3D-structure, as has been the case for proteins and the DNA double-helix.
"By using technology designed for computer games, we have been able to investigate the previously unseen movements of carbohydrates at an atomic scale and over longer timescales than before. The insights relate carbohydrate sequence to molecular shape and provide information that will be vital for many industries.
"Carbohydrates remain extremely difficult to characterise in 3D using experiments and advances in computer technology, which exploit computer-gaming technology, have enabled us to use and develop methods that can routinely provide accurate 3D-data for this important class of biomolecules. The ability to model atomic motions in large carbohydrate polymers promises to transform our understanding of fundamentally important biological processes. For example, our approach has potential applications in the design of carbohydrate-based biomaterials, pharmaceuticals and foods."
Modelling carbohydrate motions in water is computationally demanding, meaning that simulations have been limited to short nanosecond timescales using conventional software and central processing unit (CPU) based computers. The team from Manchester achieved simulations ranging from one microsecond (the time it takes for a strobe light to flash) to twenty-five microseconds by exploiting the extra computational power of graphics processing units (GPUs) that are commonly used in game-play to produce moving images. Compared to CPU-based computers, or even supercomputing clusters of them, GPU technology allows many more simultaneous calculations to be performed.
The researchers produced the first predictions of microsecond molecular motions in glycomic building blocks and oligosaccharides. Previously unobservable atomic movements were predicted and found to be sensitive to the carbohydrate sequence. Building on these new insights, the researchers developed a new physics-based model and GPU software that allows far more realistic simulations of long carbohydrate sequences (polymers) - on microsecond and micrometer scales. Using heparan sulphate chains (Figure 1, see notes) the researchers showed that including both flexible degrees of freedom in their model, polymer linkage and ring motions, is crucial to reproduce experimental shape data and ring dynamics were implicated in sequence-dependent biological activity.
The research has culminated in a computational GPU-based method and protocol that can now be used by other researchers to explore the 3D-landscape of largely unchartered organismal glycomes in unprecedented detail.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Gaming technology unravels 1 of the most complex entities in nature
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Rob Dawson rob.dawson@bbsrc.ac.uk 01-793-413-204 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council
Computational research unveils secrets in the human carbohydrate bar-code
BBSRC-funded researchers at the University of Manchester's Institute of Biotechnology have used the power of off-the-shelf computer gaming technology to capture previously unobservable atomic movements. The research is helping to chart one of nature's most complex entities known as "glycomes" - the entire complement of carbohydrates within a cell.
This novel solution provides a new understanding of these vital biomolecules which play a role in everything from neuronal development, inflammation and cell structure, to disease pathology and blood clotting.
Understanding the shapes of major biological molecules has revolutionised areas like drug development and medical diagnostics, but the shape of complex carbohydrates has been largely ignored.
The research, reported in a series of six peer-reviewed scientific publications (see notes) with the most recent (published today) appearing in Carbohydrate Research, provides a new view of these biochemical barcodes and present new opportunities in the science of carbohydrates, such as designing drugs or biomaterials that mimic carbohydrate shape and interpreting burgeoning functional glycomics data.
Dr Ben Sattelle from the Faculty of Life Sciences said: "Carbohydrate activity stems from 3D-shape, but the link between carbohydrate sequence and function remains unclear. Sequence-function relationships are rapidly being deciphered and it is now essential to be able to interpret these data in terms of molecular 3D-structure, as has been the case for proteins and the DNA double-helix.
"By using technology designed for computer games, we have been able to investigate the previously unseen movements of carbohydrates at an atomic scale and over longer timescales than before. The insights relate carbohydrate sequence to molecular shape and provide information that will be vital for many industries.
"Carbohydrates remain extremely difficult to characterise in 3D using experiments and advances in computer technology, which exploit computer-gaming technology, have enabled us to use and develop methods that can routinely provide accurate 3D-data for this important class of biomolecules. The ability to model atomic motions in large carbohydrate polymers promises to transform our understanding of fundamentally important biological processes. For example, our approach has potential applications in the design of carbohydrate-based biomaterials, pharmaceuticals and foods."
Modelling carbohydrate motions in water is computationally demanding, meaning that simulations have been limited to short nanosecond timescales using conventional software and central processing unit (CPU) based computers. The team from Manchester achieved simulations ranging from one microsecond (the time it takes for a strobe light to flash) to twenty-five microseconds by exploiting the extra computational power of graphics processing units (GPUs) that are commonly used in game-play to produce moving images. Compared to CPU-based computers, or even supercomputing clusters of them, GPU technology allows many more simultaneous calculations to be performed.
The researchers produced the first predictions of microsecond molecular motions in glycomic building blocks and oligosaccharides. Previously unobservable atomic movements were predicted and found to be sensitive to the carbohydrate sequence. Building on these new insights, the researchers developed a new physics-based model and GPU software that allows far more realistic simulations of long carbohydrate sequences (polymers) - on microsecond and micrometer scales. Using heparan sulphate chains (Figure 1, see notes) the researchers showed that including both flexible degrees of freedom in their model, polymer linkage and ring motions, is crucial to reproduce experimental shape data and ring dynamics were implicated in sequence-dependent biological activity.
The research has culminated in a computational GPU-based method and protocol that can now be used by other researchers to explore the 3D-landscape of largely unchartered organismal glycomes in unprecedented detail.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Southern California woman cited for wearing Internet-connected eyeglasses while driving says she expects to contest the citation.
Cecilia Abadie was pulled over for speeding Tuesday evening in San Diego, when a California Highway Patrol officer noticed she was wearing Google Glass and tacked on a citation usually given to drivers who may be distracted by a video or TV screen.
Abadie tells The Associated Press that she was not using her Google Glass when she was pulled over.
She says she is surprised that wearing the glasses would be illegal and that she's "pretty sure" she will fight the ticket.
Legislators in several states have introduced bills that would specifically ban driving with the glasses, which are still not widely available to the public.
When I was 7 years old, I was Chewbacca for Halloween.
The body of the costume was made out of a sheet of plastic, the kind that went “whoosh, whoosh” when you walked. It looked like a garbage bag. On it was a picture of Chewie’s head with “Star Wars” emblazoned above it, in case you didn’t recognize the Wookiee and what movie he was from. The mask—a thin, brittle piece of plastic—had two eyehole cutouts, two small nose-holes and a slight mouth slit for easy breathing. Only, it wasn’t easy to breathe when wearing that mask. And I had a hard time fitting it over my thick, plastic-framed glasses because the thin white elastic that held it in place would break every other time I put it on. And once I did, my glasses would steam up from the massive amount of sweat my body was producing from the costume. And don’t get me started about the lack of sleeves. Chewbacca didn’t have to wear a flannel shirt to keep his arms warm in cold weather. But I did.
I hated that costume. But it was a cheap and easy way for me to become my favorite Wookiee. It was a Ben Cooper.
Ben Cooper, the son of a restaurant owner who became a costume impresario, didn’t invent the Halloween costume. But he and his company awakened generations of kids to the potential of what Halloween could be. No longer were we limited to the question, “So, are you going to be a ghost, a goblin, or a witch?” The question became, “So, what are you going to be for Halloween?” Thanks in large part to Ben Cooper, costume choices became unlimited—and Hollywood-inflected—helping Halloween become the pop culture phenomenon it is today.
Ben Cooper wasn’t the first company to manufacture Halloween costumes, nor was it the first to license Hollywood creations for the costume-buying public. Collegeville Flag and Manufacturing Company, one of Ben Cooper’s chief competitors, had been doing it since the early 1920s, and H. Halpern Company, otherwise known as Halco, was manufacturing Popeye, Olive Oil and Wimpy costumes during the same period. But Ben Cooper had an advantage: The company excelled at getting licenses to characters before they became popular and, in a lot of cases, before anyone else. Consider one of its first purchases, in 1937: Snow White, from a little company called Walt Disney.
It wasn’t until after World War II, however, that Halloween costume manufacturing became big business. With the rise of television in the 1950s and the popularity of TV shows such as The Adventures of Superman, Zorro, and Davy Crockett, Ben Cooper obtained the licenses to many of these live-action shows and began mass producing inexpensive representations of them in costume form for less than $3 each, which amounts to about 12 bucks these days. The company distinguished itself with speed: It would rapidly buy rights, produce costumes and get them onto store shelves, which opened a whole new world of costuming to children.
By 1979, Ben Cooper was the largest Halloween costume company in the United States. Above, some of the masks they sold.
Photo courtesy Devlin Thompson/Flickr via Creative Commons
By the 1960s, Ben Cooper owned between 70 and 80 percent of the Halloween costume market, offering pretty much any pop culture reference in costume form. There were Frankenstein costumes. Dennis the Menace costumes. Beatles costumes. Even Magilla Gorilla costumes.
Ben Cooper also found fodder in comic books. In 1963, Spider-Man was a relatively unknown character. The company had been selling a costume called “Spiderman” in the 1950s that had nothing to do with the comic book hero, but when Marvel Comics introduced Spidey in Amazing Fantasy No. 15 in 1962, it trademarked the name. Ben Cooper then licensed the Marvel character, remodeled its old costume and helped make Peter Parker’s superhero identity a household name. It was Marvel’s first merchandising deal.
In the 1970s and early ’80s, Ben Cooper sold costumes based on shows such as Joanie Loves Chachi, Welcome Back, Kotter, andLaverne &Shirley, which seems odd, since those shows weren’t targeted to kids. But it’s a clear example of the company’s mission to touch all aspects of pop culture. Nothing was off limits as far as costumes went.Not even the Fonz. Not even the Rubik’s Cube or Flipper. And remember those Richard Nixon masks long favored by cinematic bank robbers? Ben Cooper made those, too.
By 1979, Ben Cooper was the largest Halloween costume company in the United States, despite the rise of other businesses in the market. And though companies like Collegeville (still in business) won licenses to films like Jaws and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Ben Cooper won the most lucrative license of all: Star Wars. But controversy brewed among concerned parents when the company issued the first costume based on an R-rated movie, the creature from Alien.
Ben Cooper’s heyday didn’t last forever. The company filed for bankruptcy twice due to lagging sales, relocation expenses, and the early 1990s recession. But it was new rivals that probably did the most damage to Ben Cooper ’s business, selling high-quality latex masks and more realistic costumes. One of those competitors was Rubie’s Costume Company, which eventually bought Ben Cooper and dissolved it.
Ben Cooper’s business model of making cheap, affordable costumes quickly, based on almost any pop culture character a child could imagine, was wildly successful. But it also proved to be the company’s downfall. Quality eventually won over quantity. Looking back on those costumes now, it’s easy to see why; case in point, my old Chewbacca outfit. Still, if you Google “Miley Cyrus Halloween costume,” you’ll find plenty of options, ranging in price from $39.99 to $185. For that, we have Ben Cooper to thank.
My wife and I recently bought our 3-year-old son a Spider-Man costume. It has foamy, built-in muscles, a form-fitting suit and a mask that fits completely over his head. And it has sleeves. Sleeves! There’s no mistaking he’s Spider-Man. And to say he’s excited for Halloween is an understatement. Of course, it’s completely my fault. Halloween is my favorite holiday. And it always has been. No matter how much I hated that Chewbacca costume, I have happy memories of trick-or-treating because of it.
Correction, Oct. 31, 2013: This article originally misspelled Wookiee, the species of the Star Wars character Chewbacca.
Who's the handsome man on Jennifer Connelly's arm? Her 16-year-old son! The 42-year-old actress brought her eldest son, Kai, as her date to the 19th annual Artwalk in New York City on Tuesday, Oct. 29.
The mother and son posed for a photo together, and Connelly looked noticeably shorter than her teenage son -- even in heels. The Dilemma actress looked like a proud mother as she held Kai's arm, and showed off her classy little black dress and short new hairdo. Kai looked handsome in a black suit and tie while giving a big smile to photographers.
Kai is Connelly's only child from a previous relationship with photographer David Dugan. The New Yorker is also mom to son Stellan, 10, and daughter Agnes, 2, with husband Paul Bettany, whom she wed in 2003.
In a recent interview with Redbook, the Oscar winner and busy mom of three said she doesn't think about aging too much. "When I do, it's to wonder what we [as a family] want out of life," she shared. "Are we doing the things that we enjoy? I don't want to put happiness off to the future, because you never know what life will bring. As I get older, I have a clearer sense of what's important to me."
Google+ isn't trying to compete with Facebook, and that could be making it a lot better in some ways. "Google+ doesn't need to make a sudden change that is going to bring in advertisers quickly but upset users, or report every user that comes and goes in a quarter, for example," noted tech analyst Trip Chowdhry. Google can invest in changes that "will make it fantastic for a core group of users."
Google has introduced a slew of changes that will make it easier to enhance and share digital media on Google+.
It unveiled the new features at a Tuesday event in San Francisco, where it also revealed that Google+ now has 540 million active monthly users who upload 1.5 billion photos each week.
Several of the Google+ updates are aimed toward helping users work with those photos, which range from grainy cellphone shots to professionally produced images.
Users can enhance them with several new filters, or digitally edit them with Snapseed and an HDR Scape filter. Unlike Instagram's tools, the new Google+ editing features won't force cropping or condensing of images.
The new Auto Awesome feature has several components designed to better capture action. Users can turn a series of action photos, such as a person skateboarding, into a strobe-effect image that pieces together all the captured elements. Users can also put those shots into a reel-style movie, adding effects like a soundtrack and transitions.
The updates make it easier for users to search their photos using keywords such as "beach" or "concert."
Easier Chats
Google has also updated Hangouts, the video chat application on Google+, adding automatic lighting adjustments and the ability to share locations via Google Maps.
SMS messaging is now integrated into Hangouts.
Users can schedule Hangouts On Air, which are broadcast publicly, and use a watch screen to promote the conversation.
"The improvements to Google+ Hangouts are cool, especially the dedicated watch page for Hangouts," Internet marketing expert Brian Carter told TechNewsWorld. "From a business perspective, the ability to use Hangouts instead of other webinar or screen-sharing apps is disruptive for the companies that charge for this. Hangouts haven't had all the components they need, though, and the watch page helps."
Targeting a Smaller Crowd
This product refresh isn't going to suddenly make Google+ the new Facebook or Twitter -- but that's not what Google is aiming to do with its social space, said Carter. The company knows it has a smaller core group of users, and is rolling out incremental updates that cater to them.
"There are definitely a lot of people who want Google+ to succeed," he noted. "These improvements are a way for the Google and Android folks to stay on par with what the Apple folks have. But the Auto Awesome Movie and other photo enhancement techniques are more than that -- they're not imitations -- so it's nice to see that the Google and Android product and programming teams are thinking ahead about making the user experience more awesome."
Google+ is in a unique position in that it has the freedom to go after that smaller crowd and invest more in user experience, said Trip Chowdhry, senior analyst for Global Equities Research. Facebook has to prove to investors that its site is the preferred social network for consumers, shareholders and advertisers, but Google's social platform is only a small portion of its overall business.
"Google+ doesn't need to make a sudden change that is going to bring in advertisers quickly but upset users, or report every user that comes and goes in a quarter, for example," Chowdhry told TechNewsWorld. "Google has the cash to take a bold, long look at Google+, look into what certain consumers really want that is a little different from what they're getting somewhere else, and invest in changes that might not get it to a billion users worldwide, but will make it fantastic for a core group of users."
The number of media discovery apps keeps getting bigger by the day, and the latest to join the frenzy is MTV. Simply dubbed MTV Artists, the newly announced iPhone application is loaded with a vast amount of music-focused features, including detailed artists pages and the ability to search for ...
NEW YORK (AP) — Smoking may be a bad habit — but New York City lawmakers want their residents to be older and wiser before deciding to take it up.
The New York City Council voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to raise the age for purchasing cigarettes from 18 to 21, a move that would make the nation's most populous city among only a handful in the United States to target young smokers by barring them from buying smokes. It also approved a bill that sets a minimum $10.50-a-pack price for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales.
"This will literally save many, many lives," said an emotional City Councilman James Gennaro, the bill's sponsor, whose mother and father died from tobacco-related illnesses. "I've lived with it, I've seen it ... but I feel good today."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is a strong supporter of the tough smoking restrictions, has 30 days to sign the bills into law. The minimum age bill will take effect 180 days after enactment.
"We know that tobacco dependence can begin very soon after a young person first tries smoking so it's critical that we stop young people from smoking before they ever start," Bloomberg said in a statement.
With Wednesday's vote, New York is by far the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds. Similar legislation is expected to come to a vote in Hawaii this December. The tobacco-buying age is 21 in Needham, Mass., and is poised to rise to 21 in January in nearby Canton, Mass. The state of New Jersey is also considering a similar proposal.
Lawmakers who pushed for the change cite city statistics that show youth smoking rates have plateaued at 8.5 percent since 2007.
"We have to do more and that's what we're doing today," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "We have a real chance of leading the country and the world."
The city's current age limit is 18, a federal minimum that's standard in many places. Smoking in city parks and beaches is already prohibited as it is in restaurants.
Advocates say higher age limits help prevent, or at least delay, young people from taking up a habit that remains the leading cause of preventable deaths nationwide.
Smoker Stephen McGorry, 25, agreed with that view as he took a drag outside a midtown Manhattan bar.
"It just makes it harder for young people to smoke," said McGorry, who started lighting up at 19. He added that had the age been 21 when he took up the habit, "I guarantee I wouldn't be smoking today."
But cigarette manufacturers have suggested young adult smokers may just turn to black-market merchants. And some smokers say it's unfair and patronizing to tell people considered mature enough to vote and serve in the military that they're not old enough to decide whether to smoke.
"New York City already has the highest cigarette tax rate and the highest cigarette smuggling rate in the country," said Bryan D. Hatchell , a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which makes Camel and other brands. "Those go hand in hand and this new law will only make the problem worse."
A coalition of bodegas and tobacco store owners funded by tobacco-manufactures also slammed the council's vote Wednesday, particularly the bill that sets the minimum prices and bans tobacco product discounts and coupons.
Ramon Murphy, president of the Bodega Association of the U.S., said the new rules will drive people to illegal sellers who do not care about the age of their buyers.
Another anti-smoking initiative pushed by the Bloomberg administration was previously shelved ahead of Wednesday's vote.
The mayor proposed in March a bill modeled on laws in Iceland, Canada, England and Ireland to require shops to keep tobacco products in cabinets, drawers, under the counter, behind a curtain or in other concealed spots until a customer asked for them. He said the displays "invite young people to experiment with tobacco."
But a similar measure had been rescinded in suburban Haverstraw, N.Y., after cigarette manufacturers sued. They said it violated their companies' free speech rights to communicate with consumers about their products' availability and prices.
The city Health Department said in a statement that the measure was taken off the table because "with the arrival of e-cigarettes, more time is needed to determine how best to address this problem."
E-cigarette makers say their products are healthier than tobacco, and a trade association leader bristled at the city's proposal to prevent people under 21 from buying them.
"Is 21 the right number? People can join the Army at 18," said Ray Story, founder of the Atlanta-based Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association.
Newsstand clerk Ali Hassen, who sells cigarettes daily to a steady stream of customers from nearby office buildings, said he didn't know if the new age restrictions would do any good.
While he wouldn't stop vigilantly checking identification to verify customers' age, Hassen doubted the new rules would thwart determined smokers.
"If somebody wants to smoke, they're going to smoke," he said.
Several months ago, Jeffrey Katzenberg reached out to Hillary Clinton to assure her that if she runs for president in 2016, he will support her.
Katzenberg is one of Hollywood's premier political kingmakers and one of the Democratic Party's top national fundraisers, so the call had to be a welcome one. For Clinton, who failed to secure his support for her unsuccessful run at the Democratic nomination in 2008, it also was crucial.
Eight years ago, the bitter struggle between Clinton loyalists and Barack Obama disciples riveted Hollywood. It divided families, neighbors, business partners and friends. Nicole Avant, later President Obama's ambassador to the Bahamas, split with her father, music executive Clarence; her brother Alex; and her godfather, Quincy Jones, all of whom went with Clinton (as did her future husband, Netflix's Ted Sarandos). Next-door neighbors Irena and Mike Medavoy (Obama) and Haim and Cheryl Saban (Clinton) found themselves on opposite sides of the fence. Clinton supporter Rob Reiner broke with his "second father," Norman Lear, an early Obama fan.
Even the DreamWorks troika split apart, with David Geffen and Katzenberg — a once-close supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton — siding with Obama, and Steven Spielberg straddling the fence, raising money for both.
This time, of course, is different. For most Democrats (and not just in Hollywood), Hillary 2016 is the only viable prospect in an increasingly contentious political climate where both parties likely benefit from the strongest brand name it can put forth. And Clinton, who has not yet announced whether she will run in 2016, will need Hollywood's deep pockets to help her amass the kind of war chest necessary to survive the Republican Party onslaught, where names from Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are being floated as contenders.
In other words, Hollywood and Hillary need each other.
Katzenberg already is conveying the message both publicly and privately that he's committed to her. "She did an amazing job as secretary of state," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "She has really shown herself to be a great statesman. The four years of seasoning has really made her the best-qualified candidate out there today, and I'm happy to support her."
Katzenberg, according to a source close to him, was "favorably impressed" by Clinton during her phone call with him. As one of the biggest financial backers of the super PAC Priorities USA Action, which raised a war chest of $79 million and supported Obama in 2012, the DreamWorks Animation CEO is crucial not only for his money but also for his ability to mobilize others.
"The center of power in the Democratic Party in terms of money really has moved to Katzenberg," says one top national Democratic strategist. "The most important person you should get is Jeffrey. He should be her No. 1 priority."
A close No. 2? Geffen. His brutal 2007 assessment of the Clintons to Maureen Dowd in The New York Times now is infamous; in Dowd's column, he called Hillary "incredibly polarizing" and cited the "ease" with which they lie. Fast-forward, however, to July, when the now-reclusive mogul told Fortune that he would "absolutely" support Clinton for president. (Geffen did not respond to THR's request for further comment.)
Top music manager Irving Azoff (a self-described "Hillary loyalist from the start") sees a Hollywood pragmatism at work. "A lot of people in Hollywood are not 100 percent thrilled with Obama and think we need a more centrist Democrat," he says. "The Clinton brand of the Democratic Party has been the most successful in what? Fifty years? Why wouldn't people return to that?"
And they are. In droves. Clues to the will-she-or-won't-she question might begin to be revealed Oct. 30, when Hillary is scheduled to attend a luncheon fundraiser at billionaire Haim Saban's Beverly Hills home for Virginia gubernatorial candidate and longtime Clinton loyalist Terry McAuliffe. Tickets to the event cost $15,000 a person or $25,000 a couple. Later that evening, Clinton is expected to headline a gala at the Beverly Wilshire hotel for Oceana, a key cause for Ted Danson, a longtime supporter.
She'll be back in early November to be honored by the Mexican American Leadership Initiative at a USC gathering. Meanwhile, on Nov. 11 in New York, Clinton will be honored by Malaria No More, a group co-founded by media mogul and longtime Clinton supporter Peter Chernin.
For now, the town's Democratic fundraisers are not taking meetings with any other presidential hopeful as they wait for Clinton's decision, says UTA managing director Jay Sures, another early Obama supporter. "Hollywood in general likes to place their money on the winner," says Sures, "and when there is a clear-cut leader, people will think twice about making donations to candidates they don't think have a shot."
And in this reconciliation, both sides potentially will end up winning.
In 2012, Hollywood donated $6.5 million directly to Obama's re-election campaign, plus millions more to Democratic Party committees and super PACs. "There's going to be so much money amassed against her, she's going to have to take the funds wherever she can get them," says longtime Clinton friend and Designing Women producer Harry Thomason. That's inescapable, he adds, even though getting cash from the entertainment industry sometimes can be a mixed blessing. In Clinton's case, opponents could actually exploit the attacks of those who had previously turned on her — notably Geffen. "It's sort of a two-for-one," Thomason says. "You get to punish the candidate and you get to punish Hollywood."
Clinton's resurgent influence recently was seen when Academy Award-winning documentary director Charles Ferguson dropped plans for a Hillary Clinton film after her friends and associates made it clear they would never speak to him because the Clintons didn't want them to. A planned NBC miniseries was canceled after protests from the GOP, though it is very likely the Clintons opposed it, too, for the possible salacious content.
Brain connectivity can predict epilepsy surgery outcomes
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Jessica Studeny Jessica.studeny@case.edu 216-368-4692 Case Western Reserve University
Discovery from Case Western Reserve, Cleveland Clinic researchers may spare patients from disappointing results
A discovery from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic researchers could provide epilepsy patients invaluable advance guidance about their chances to improve symptoms through surgery.
Assistant Professor of Neurosciences Roberto Fernndez Galn, PhD, and his collaborators have identified a new, far more accurate way to determine precisely what portions of the brain suffer from the disease. This information can give patients and physicians better information regarding whether temporal lobe surgery will provide the results they seek.
"Our analysis of neuronal activity in the temporal lobe allows us to determine whether it is diseased, and therefore, whether removing it with surgery will be beneficial for the patient," Galn said, the paper's senior author. "In terms of accuracy and efficiency, our analysis method is a significant improvement relative to current approaches."
The findings appear in research published October 30 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
About one-third of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy do not respond to medical treatment and opt to do lobectomies to alleviate their symptoms. Yet the surgery's success rate is only 60 to 70 percent because of the difficulties in identifying the diseased brain tissue prior to the procedures.
Galn and investigators from Cleveland Clinic determined that using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) to measure patients' functional neural connectivity that is, the communication from one brain region to another - identified the epileptic lobe with 87 percent accuracy. An iEEG records electrical activity with electrodes implanted in the brain. Key indicators of a diseased lobe are weak and similar connections.
In the retrospective study, Galn and Arun Antony, MD, formerly a senior clinical fellow in the Epilepsy Center at Cleveland Clinic and now an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined data from 23 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy who had all or part of their temporal lobes removed after iEEG evaluations performed at Cleveland Clinic. The researchers examined the results of patients' preoperative iEEG to determine the degree of functional connectivity that was associated with successful surgical outcomes.
"The concept of functional connectivity has been extensively studied by basic science researchers, but has not found a way into the realm of clinical epilepsy treatment yet," Antony said, the paper's first author. "Our discovery is another step towards the use of measures of functional connectivity in making clinical decisions in the treatment of epilepsy."
As a standard preoperative test for lobectomy surgery, physicians analyze iEEG traces looking for simultaneous discharges of neurons that appear as spikes in the recordings, which indicate epileptic activity. This PLOS ONE discovery evaluates the data differently by examining normal brain activity in the absence of spikes and inferring connectivity.
###
Other Cleveland Clinic collaborators on this research included Andreas V. Alexopoulos, MD, MPH, Jorge A. Gonzlez-Martnez, MD, PhD, John C. Mosher, PhD, Lara Jehi, MD, Richard C. Burgess, MD, PhD, and Norman K. So, MD.
Dr. Galn is a scholar of The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and former fellow of The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the School of Medicine.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report's "Guide to Graduate Education."
The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Brain connectivity can predict epilepsy surgery outcomes
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Jessica Studeny Jessica.studeny@case.edu 216-368-4692 Case Western Reserve University
Discovery from Case Western Reserve, Cleveland Clinic researchers may spare patients from disappointing results
A discovery from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic researchers could provide epilepsy patients invaluable advance guidance about their chances to improve symptoms through surgery.
Assistant Professor of Neurosciences Roberto Fernndez Galn, PhD, and his collaborators have identified a new, far more accurate way to determine precisely what portions of the brain suffer from the disease. This information can give patients and physicians better information regarding whether temporal lobe surgery will provide the results they seek.
"Our analysis of neuronal activity in the temporal lobe allows us to determine whether it is diseased, and therefore, whether removing it with surgery will be beneficial for the patient," Galn said, the paper's senior author. "In terms of accuracy and efficiency, our analysis method is a significant improvement relative to current approaches."
The findings appear in research published October 30 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.
About one-third of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy do not respond to medical treatment and opt to do lobectomies to alleviate their symptoms. Yet the surgery's success rate is only 60 to 70 percent because of the difficulties in identifying the diseased brain tissue prior to the procedures.
Galn and investigators from Cleveland Clinic determined that using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) to measure patients' functional neural connectivity that is, the communication from one brain region to another - identified the epileptic lobe with 87 percent accuracy. An iEEG records electrical activity with electrodes implanted in the brain. Key indicators of a diseased lobe are weak and similar connections.
In the retrospective study, Galn and Arun Antony, MD, formerly a senior clinical fellow in the Epilepsy Center at Cleveland Clinic and now an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined data from 23 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy who had all or part of their temporal lobes removed after iEEG evaluations performed at Cleveland Clinic. The researchers examined the results of patients' preoperative iEEG to determine the degree of functional connectivity that was associated with successful surgical outcomes.
"The concept of functional connectivity has been extensively studied by basic science researchers, but has not found a way into the realm of clinical epilepsy treatment yet," Antony said, the paper's first author. "Our discovery is another step towards the use of measures of functional connectivity in making clinical decisions in the treatment of epilepsy."
As a standard preoperative test for lobectomy surgery, physicians analyze iEEG traces looking for simultaneous discharges of neurons that appear as spikes in the recordings, which indicate epileptic activity. This PLOS ONE discovery evaluates the data differently by examining normal brain activity in the absence of spikes and inferring connectivity.
###
Other Cleveland Clinic collaborators on this research included Andreas V. Alexopoulos, MD, MPH, Jorge A. Gonzlez-Martnez, MD, PhD, John C. Mosher, PhD, Lara Jehi, MD, Richard C. Burgess, MD, PhD, and Norman K. So, MD.
Dr. Galn is a scholar of The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and former fellow of The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
About Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Founded in 1843, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine is the largest medical research institution in Ohio and is among the nation's top medical schools for research funding from the National Institutes of Health. The School of Medicine is recognized throughout the international medical community for outstanding achievements in teaching. The School's innovative and pioneering Western Reserve2 curriculum interweaves four themes--research and scholarship, clinical mastery, leadership, and civic professionalism--to prepare students for the practice of evidence-based medicine in the rapidly changing health care environment of the 21st century. Nine Nobel Laureates have been affiliated with the School of Medicine.
Annually, the School of Medicine trains more than 800 MD and MD/PhD students and ranks in the top 25 among U.S. research-oriented medical schools as designated by U.S. News & World Report's "Guide to Graduate Education."
The School of Medicine's primary affiliate is University Hospitals Case Medical Center and is additionally affiliated with MetroHealth Medical Center, the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and the Cleveland Clinic, with which it established the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University in 2002. http://casemed.case.edu
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Jerry Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys. Can we all agree that we know this now, and don't need to be reminded of it over and over?
Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images
Late in the third quarter of October’s Broncos-Cowboys game, Peyton Manning underthrew Eric Decker on a midrange pass, leaving the ball hanging in the air for an easy interception. With 20 touchdowns and no picks to that point, Manning had seemed infallible, but now he had somehow faltered. While viewers waited to get another look, CBS cut from the Cowboys defensive backs celebrating, to Manning looking incredulous, back to the defensive backs, and then to—ugh—Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, pumping his fists. Could there be a more banal conclusion to this incredible turn of events? Why do we have to see the man who cuts the checks whenever something exciting happens on the field?
The TV networks show Jones more than most owners. He’s made a name for himself by being awful, and broadcasters think this means we want to see him constantly. He’s also the team’s general manager, meaning he could potentially cut a guy right after the game if he missed a key tackle. So he’s important, but that doesn’t make him interesting; you certainly didn’t need to see him six times during that Dallas-Denver contest. NFL.com even put him in the highlight package. And it’s not just the Cowboys honcho who gets a lot of screen time. Robert Kraft, Jeffrey Lurie, Arthur Blank, Jim Irsay—if you’re a football fan, you know their names and faces. And that’s a shame.
No one needs another boss in his life, nor another intrusion of the market. It’s bad enough that sports are cluttered up with a relentless accretion of commercials and logos, but at least there’s a clear purpose behind those things. Shots of the owners don’t contribute to anyone’s bank account. So why am I watching some suit in a luxury box gently fist-bump some other suit before looking up at a screen so he can catch himself in seven-second-delayed action? There is no one in that stadium whose reaction I am less interested in seeing. Or at least no one outside of that booth because, oh God, I’m pretty sure that’s Rush Limbaugh sitting next to Bob Kraft.
Show me any player, any assistant strength coach, any sideline neurologist. Much better, show me any fan, somebody who made the dubious decision to fork over a lot of cash to be in the stands and is now being rewarded with his team’s success and feeling giddy over it. Just as good: showing that same fan as his team makes a mockery of his faith.
The fact that Jones and company are wearing suits at a football game tells us they aren’t part of our community. When I jump off my couch in excitement at home, it is for a completely selfless and silly reason: The Bears just did good, and this is important to me because of an unthinking commitment I made to them decades ago. The average fan has invested only time and sympathy. Well, perhaps he has money riding on it, but even that’s not the same sort of financial relationship as an owner, since owners don’t really have much at stake with these games. If they didn’t inherit the team, they entered the fray as rich men looking for a rich hobby. Seeing them celebrate is like watching someone gloat over their fantasy team. Yes, it’s that bad. That touchdown is a private benefit and yet not a particular one. These just happen to be the players they were able to acquire. They might well own different ones another season.
It’s even worse when the announcers feel compelled to glorify them. After CBS showed a Kraft high-five and then a replay of that high-five during a Patriots game earlier this year, John Lynch delivered a version of the speech you hear about Kraft pretty much every week: “I gotta tell ya, this is one of the class people in football, and there’s an old saying: It starts at the top. And I truly believe that, here in New England, it’s not a coincidence that their success has really taken off since Robert Kraft and the Kraft family have taken it over. Tremendous business minds that know how to win. They’re great for the community and great people, on top of it.” That’s a good piece of fawnin’ right there!
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We're taking over the Jacob K. Javits' Convention ...
>> APPLE SCORES AGAIN: The iPad Air review, by Anand Lal Shimpi: "A significant re-imagining of the original 9.7-inch iPad, the Air breathes new life into the platform... I don't know that it will curb enthusiasm over the iPad mini, particularly now that the new mini shares the same hardware platform (including display), but it levels the playing field between the two models... it's smaller, lighter and faster with absolutely no tradeoffs made in the process. The iPad Air feels like a true successor to the iPad 2." AnandTech >>>> The iPad Air: "In exactly three years, Apple has produced an iPad that outperforms a then-brand-new MacBook." Daring Fireball >>>> What the reviews say about the iPad Air: "If you were on the fence about buying Apple's latest large screen tablet before, you won't be after reading the reviews, which are unanimous in their praise." GigaOM >>>> Mossberg: "It is the best tablet I've ever reviewed" AllThingsD
>> ANDROID FIGHTS BACK: Lenovo Yoga tablets hands-on: 3 modes, 18-hour battery, from $249, by Daniel P Howley: "The Surface isn't the only tablet with a built-in stand. Say hello to Lenovo's new Android-powered Yoga Tablets. On sale Oct. 30, these tablets come in an 8-inch version ($249 at Best Buy) and a 10-inch flavor ($299 at most major retailers). While these slates sport mid-range specs-quad-core MediaTek CPUs, 1GB RAM, 1280 x 800 displays-they literally stand out with built-in kickstands that support three use modes and a rated 18 hours of battery life." Laptop Mag >>>> Lenovo claims battery life crown with new Yoga tabletsInfoWorld >>>> Hands on with the Lenovo Yoga Tablet: lopsided design and 18 hour runtimeArs Technica
>> WASHINGTON WIRE: Senate confirms Wheeler to lead FCC, by Brendan Sasso: "The Senate unanimously confirmed Tom Wheeler, an investor and former industry lobbyist, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday. The vote was delayed for two weeks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who expressed concern about Wheeler's views on political disclosure rules. Cruz lifted his objection after Wheeler assured him in a private meeting Tuesday that tougher disclosure requirements for the donors behind political TV ads are 'not a priority' for him." The Hill
>> CALLING OFF THE DOGS: Obama orders curbs on NSA spying on U.N. headquarters, by Mark Hosenball: "Obama recently ordered the National Security Agency to curtail eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of a review of U.S. electronic surveillance" Reuters >>>> Lawmakers propose USA Freedom Act to curb NSA's powersThe Hill >>>> Legislation unveiled to bar NSA's bulk phone metadata collectionWired
>> MONEY SHOT: Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886K, by Samuel Gibbs: "Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currencyin April 2013 jogged his memory.... Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be, Koch got a pleasant surprise: "It said I had 5,000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK." The Guardian
>> ATTACK O' THE DAY: MongoDB support firm says intruders may have accessed databases, by Jeremy Kirk: "MongoHQ, which provides hosting and support for the open-source Mongo database, said attackers may have accessed several of its customers' databases earlier this week... contains connection information for customer MongoDB instances, along with lists of databases, email addresses, and user credentials hashed with bcrypt... The company invalidated credentials such as IAM keys it stored for customers using Amazon Web Services for backups. MongoHQ has notified AWS of the accounts that may have been affected, and AWS is offering Premium Support for organizations that need new credentials" PCWorld
>> LOCAL BIG DATA: Cloudera positions Hadoop as an enterprise data hub, by Joab Jackson: "Cloudera has expanded the scope of its software so that it can serve as a hub for all of an organization's data, not just data undergoing Hadoop MapReduce analysis. Some of Cloudera's enterprise customers have 'started to use our platform in a new way, as the center of their data centers,' said Mike Olson, Cloudera's chairman and chief strategy officer. 'We think this is a very big deal. It will change the way the industry thinks about data,' " InfoWorld
>> FRENEMIES: Exclusive: Intel opens fabs to ARM chips, by Jean-Baptiste: "At the ARM developers' conference today, Intel partner Altera announced that the world's largest semiconductor company will fabricate its ARM's 64-bit chips starting next year... Intel will build Apple's A7, Qualcomm's Snapdragon or the Nvidia Tegra for the right price." [These are the chips used by most smartphones and tablets.] Forbes >>>> The chip times are a-changin': "Mark LaPedus at Chip Design reported on the agreement with Intel back in February" InfoWorld
>> RICKROLL: Top reviewers on Amazon get tons of free stuff, by Lisa Chow: "You're on Amazon.com. You're buying, say, a toaster, and you're checking out the customer reviews. You assume the people writing these reviews are people like you -- people who wanted a toaster, went online and bought one. As it turns out, a lot of reviews on Amazon are written by people who are nothing like you. They're written by elite reviewers who are sent free merchandise to review products. In other words, it's possible that the guy reviewing that toaster you're looking at wasn't in the market for a toaster to begin with and didn't pay a cent for it." NPR Planet Money
>> Apple claim that iCloud can store passwords 'only locally' seems to be falseArs Technica
>> Twitter rolls out expanded previews for photos and Vines on the Web, Android and iOSTNW
>> Microsoft partners with Corona Labs to attract more Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 appsZDNet
>> Oculus Rift will make virtual reality goggles for Android phonesGizmodo
>> Barnes & Noble's Nook GlowLight is lighter, brighter, whiter, with less Simple Touch for $119Engadget
>> Mozilla releases 10 patches, five critical, for FirefoxPCWorld
>> Google+ brings massive upgrades for its most loyal users: photographersVentureBeat
>> The ultimate guide to preventing DNS-based DDoS attacksInfoWorld
>> SAP draws fire from noisy neighbor IFS over HANA: "We can beat SAP in a straight fight for business" says IFS Computerworld UK
>> Australia's National Broadband Network posts loss of nearly $1B in past yearARN
>> AWS updates big data analytics platform with new support for Hadoop and its ecosystemTechCrunch
>> Python is the only programming language in LinkedIn's 2013 Most Demanded SkillsLinkedIn (t/h Hacker News)
>> Google shows off second gen Google Glass w/ mono earbud coming later this year 9to5Google
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Self-destructing food packaging. Reaction yields in 3 formats: 1) Flower seeds 2) Vapor that smells like chocolate 3) A rainbow." @BoredElonMusk
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The number of media discovery apps keeps getting bigger by the day, and the latest to join the frenzy is MTV. Simply dubbed MTV Artists, the newly announced iPhone application is loaded with a vast amount of music-focused features, including detailed artists pages and the ability to search for ...
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