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The U.S. military in Afghanistan is launching a Facebook page, a YouTube site and feeds on Twitter as part of a new communications effort to reach readers who get their information on the Internet rather than in newspapers, officials said Monday.

The effort, which officials described as a way to counter Taliban propaganda, represents a sea change in how the military can communicate its message to foreign and American audiences.

"There's an entire audience segment that seeks its news from alternative means outside traditional news sources, and we want to make sure we're engaging them as well," said Col. Greg Julian, the top U.S. spokesman in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials here have long said that the military is losing the information war to the Taliban, which routinely publicizes false claims about how many U.S. soldiers its forces have killed or how many civilians might have died in an airstrike. Spokesmen send text messages to reporters and Taliban militants post claims on Web sites, many of which have chat groups dedicated to sympathizers and the merely curious.

The military on Monday announced the death of U.S. service member the previous day from non-combat-related injuries in southern Afghanistan by posting the news on Twitter hours before announcing it in a more formal press statement.

The military is also encouraging troops to post stories and photos on Web sites in an effort to portray daily life in Afghanistan, including stories about development projects that may not make the news.

Many military commands and individual troops have long used social networking sites. The Air Force and Army have Facebook pages, as does Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq. But the new effort in Afghanistan is the first in an active war zone to attempt to harness the power of social networking sites as a primary tool to release information.

So far the military's Facebook and Twitter sites in Afghanistan have been in a testing phase only. Officials hope to attract thousands more users after a formal launch this week.

source: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AheadoftheCurve/wireStory?id=7726502

Surface also features the capability to recognize physical objects that have identification tags similar to bar codes, i.e. imagine a customer simply sets a wine glass on the surface of a table, a restaurant could provide them with information about the wine they’re ordering, pictures of the vineyard it came from and suggested food pairings modified to that evening’s menu. The experience could become completely immersive, allowing the users to access information on the wine-growing region and even look at suggested hotels and plan a trip without leaving the table.

Surface computing at Microsoft is a result of a shared effort between the Microsoft Hardware and Microsoft Research teams, which were struck by the opportunity to create technology that would bridge the physical and virtual worlds.

Four features key attributes are listed below:

•Direct interaction: Users can actually “capture” digital information directly with hands, interacting with content by touch and sign, without the use of a mouse or keyboard.

•Multi-touch: Surface computing recognizes many points of contact all together, not just from one finger like a usual touch-screen, but dozens of items at once.

•Multi-user: The horizontal form factor makes it simple for several people to gather around surface computers together, providing a collaborative, face-to-face computing experience.

•Object recognition: Users can place physical objects on the surface to activate different types of digital responses, including the move of digital content.

The $278-million Orbiting Carbon Observatory was designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions. It plunges into the ocean near Antarctica after a mechanical problem.

A NASA satellite designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions and pinpoint global warming dangers crashed Tuesday after a protective covering failed to separate from the craft shortly after launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The loss of the $278-million satellite came as a severe blow to NASA's climate monitoring efforts, as well as the builder of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.

"Our whole team, at a very personal level, is disappointed," Orbital Science's John Brunschwyler said at an early-morning briefing just hours after the satellite plunged into the ocean near Antarctica.

Launch director Chuck Dovale said the failure was a reminder that "even when you do your best, you can still fail."

NASA and Orbital Sciences began an immediate investigation. Early indications pointed to a problem with the faring, the clamshell device that shields the satellite during liftoff from the high heat caused by air friction.

The faring is designed to fall away about three minutes into the flight, when the rocket reaches an altitude where the air is too thin to harm the satellite.

Evidence from telemetry received by ground operators suggests the faring never separated. With the extra weight, the satellite could not reach orbit, the science team said.

The first sign that something was wrong came shortly after the 1:55 a.m. launch, when ground controllers noticed there was no jump in acceleration in the two-stage Taurus XL rocket that would have been expected when the heavy faring was shed.

The 966-pound satellite was to be placed in an orbit 400 miles above Earth to spend two years measuring carbon dioxide emissions, the principal gas blamed in global warming.

Using a set of spectrometers, the satellite was also to identify the places where carbon is neutralized, or removed from the atmosphere by natural processes. These places, mainly forests and the seas, are known as carbon sinks.

Despite convincing evidence global warming is occurring, scientists are not certain how these carbon sinks work, and whether it might be possible to use them more efficiently to combat global warming.

Climate scientists were hoping the Orbiting Carbon Observatory could tell them whether current voluntary worldwide efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions were beginning to work.

Brunschwyler said that before Tuesday's failure, Orbital Sciences had 56 successful launches in 57 attempts.

Never before had they had a problem with a faring, he said.

The lone previous failure occurred in 2001, when an ozone-monitoring satellite and a cargo of human ashes plunged into the Indian Ocean after launch.

In January, Japan launched a satellite called GOSAT that will make many of the same measurements that the NASA satellite was designed to perform.

With Tuesday's failure, NASA managers said they would study the situation before deciding whether to build another carbon observatory.

"We are going to look at how best to advance" global warming research, said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth sciences division at NASA headquarters in Washington. Whether that would be a duplicate of the lost craft or something different, he did not say.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory was managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge. The Taurus XL rocket carried hydrazine fuel, a hazardous material. But launch officials said they believed the fuel was burned away during the launch.

source:http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-na-satellite-lost25-2009feb25,0,4639339.story

Yahoo's BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) will have a variety of commercial models including revenue sharing on advertising and co-branding of sites, apart from a fee-based model that the company announced last week.

"We will look at a variety of options," said David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo in an interview on Sunday. Filo was in Bangalore for Yahoo's Open Hack Day, a developer event with about 360 participants.

For example, advertisers on Yahoo Search will be given the option to also advertise on Web sites of Yahoo's BOSS partners, Filo said. If developers are not interested in revenue-sharing on advertising, then they can opt for a traffic fee to use the Yahoo platform, he added.

Yahoo announced the BOSS program last year, which lets developers use Yahoo's search infrastructure and algorithms and create their own customized search services.

Yahoo plans to charge a fee late in the second half of this year for use of the service above a set daily limit of search queries. Filo said the infrastructure and engineering costs for search are expensive. The search market is dominated by Google and Yahoo, and as a result of that dominance, fewer new ideas are introduced, he added.

BOSS is intended to throw open Yahoo's infrastructure and engineering and encourage new ideas from students, developers and start-ups, Filo said.

Yahoo has hundreds of engineers working on search, but the company wants thousands of other developers outside the company to start innovating on top of Yahoo Search.

It will take between six months to a year for new services on the BOSS platform to gain traction. When that happens, Yahoo will be open to new business relationships with BOSS partners, Filo said.

Building a relationship with developers through advertising, or licensing of their technology, or co-branding will be easier if they are using Yahoo's platform, Filo said.

Earlier this month, Yahoo began to test Search Pad, an online notepad for users of its search engine, that allows them to save links, type notes, and copy and paste content from Web sites. Users of Search Pad can now share information from the notepad through e-mail or print it out.

Yahoo will work on a number of other options for users to share information from Search Pad, including posting information from the notepad on social networking sites like Facebook, Filo said. The kind of information typically stored on Search Pad may not be the kind that would be shared on instant messaging programs or Twitter, but Yahoo will consider adding these options if users want it, he added.

Yahoo is also focusing its resources and will drop some products and projects this year, according to Filo.

The company said in January that it is closing down its Briefcase online storage service by March 30 because users are increasingly using e-mail for storage. Briefcase is an example of a product that wasn't critical to users, Filo said.

source:http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/159590/yahoo_search_service_will_have_variety_of_commercial_models.html

Pacific Grove: A consortium of researchers led by Stanford University Professor Barbara Block collaborated with Google for more than a year, providing animal tracking data for the new Google Earth release, which features a three-dimensional, interactive ocean.

In the animal tracking layer, called GTOPP (Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators), users can explore the large-scale migrations of tunas, sharks, whales, seals, sea turtles and seabirds – seeing where they go through time, and even swimming along with them in special "fly-through" animations, which provide an "animal's eye view" of the open ocean seascape, says a press release by EurekAlert.

The collaboration between GTOPP and Google has been a long-term goal for Block and her colleagues.

"Google Earth provides a powerful, intuitive interface for exploring the kinds of data these animals produce from electronic tags "says Block. "This allows users – from scientists to school kids – to quickly view and interact with animal tracks. And ultimately, they'll be able to use this interface to access related data such as oceanographic data or diving data from that same location at the same time. Its an important evolution in being able to "see" the largest portion of our planet."

The ability to simultaneously tag and track large numbers of open ocean animals, representing a variety of different species, has been pioneered over more than a decade by Block and her colleagues Drs. Daniel Costa from UC Santa Cruz, Stephen Bograd from NOAA and Randy Kochevar, also of Stanford University. In a program called, "Tagging of Pacific Predators" (TOPP), which is one of the field programs of the global Census of Marine Life, these four principal investigators led a team of over 100 scientists from seven different countries. In the first eight years of the program they tagged over 4,000 individual animals, representing 23 different species, and collected over 1,000,000 days of data. Block also leads a program in the Atlantic Ocean called TAG-A-Giant that has placed over 1000 electronic tags in Atlantic bluefin tuna.

In October, 2008 Block with the support of the Sloan Foundation brought together a broad consortium of researchers for the "Biologging III" conference to explore how the researchers could combine forces to put animal tracking data into one portal. This has given rise the Global Tagging of Pelagic Predators. The data to be featured upon release of the new Google software in the GTOPP layer is a small sample of data from a variety of projects, all of which utilize electronic tags to follow animals over months and years, and across vast distances.

Block explains, "The idea of GTOPP is to create a Web-based portal where researchers around the globe can submit tracking data, that represents live uplinks or positions from a wide variety of animals. The goal is to combine the data with other oceanographic datasets. By viewing tracking data from multiple species simultaneously, in the context of ocean conditions, it is possible to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of how the open ocean ecosystems work. We can begin to see ocean hotspots – those critical habitat regions where animals spend a great deal of time – as well as the ocean highways that link them together."

The open ocean is experiencing significant impacts of human overexploitation. Large marine fish such as Giant bluefin in the Atlantic ocean, leatherback sea turtles, albatross and sharks are all experiencing steep declines in their populations.

After 19-year break, Redoubt could roar back to life in days, scientists say

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A volcano just 100 miles from Alaska's largest city has stirred back to life after nearly 20 years of tranquility, sparking a round-the-clock eruption watch, seismologists said Thursday.

The fresh wave of seismic activity at Mount Redoubt suggests that the eruption could occur within days or weeks, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported.

Redoubt's renewed tremors sparked worries about potential ashfall in Anchorage, where city officials advised residents to stock up on supplies ranging from extra food and water to respirators, plastic bags and windshield washer fluid.

Volcanic ash and mudflows spewed from Redoubt during its last eruptive episode — a five-month stretch that began in December 1989. Those eruptions created health hazards and cleanup headaches for surrounding communities. The mudflows caused partial flooding at an oil terminal facility, and the ash plumes disrupted international air traffic.

The long hiatus at the 10,197-foot peak came to an end last fall, when seismic instruments registered an increase in activity. On Jan. 23, the levels increased markedly, leading the observatory to raise the alert level for aircraft and emergency officials.

On Thursday, the observatory reported that the activity was "largely unchanged with several volcanic earthquakes occurring every hour."

The observatory's seismologists said the most probable outcome would be an eruption "similar to or smaller than the one that occurred in 1989-90 ... within days or weeks." A more explosive eruption could send threatening mudflows or landslides down the Drift River and other drainages, but that scenario was "much less likely," the observatory said.

Observatory staff members are checking instrument readings and satellite images around the clock to watch for temperature changes, said volcanologist Dave Schneider. A Webcam was installed about 7.5 miles from the summit, and additional seismic equipment will be installed at the volcano as weather permits.

Observers will also look to weather radar scanners near the Kenai airport for help. Those scanners send data in six-minute intervals. These scanners will be able to detect an ash plume should one appear, Schneider said.

sources:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28914322/

Gottschalks Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, saying it will use the Chapter 11 law to stay open while it seeks a buyer.

But the horrendous business climate, coupled with a squeeze on credit, will make potential buyers less likely to step forward in time. The Central Valley department store chain has a March 24 deadline to get a deal done.

"Even the buyers who want to buy can't buy," said New York retail consultant Burt Flickinger III. "Doing an auction in the depths of this retail recession is going to have a higher degree of difficulty."

The recession just claimed Mervyns and could soon force Circuit City Stores Inc., which is in Chapter 11, out of business as well. Goody's, a clothing chain in the Southeast that already said it would liquidate, filed for bankruptcy protection Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said U.S. retail sales fell 9.8 percent in December, compared with a year earlier, and were down 2.7 percent from the previous month.

The Gottschalks bankruptcy filing capped a three-month struggle for the 104-year-old Fresno retailer, a mid-priced department store that serves many Central Valley towns. The company has lost money the past two years and warned in November that it could run out of cash by late January. Last month, a bailout plan collapsed.

"A bad day in Fresno," said Gottschalks board member Joseph Penbera. "A sad day for a lot of communities, if we don't save this."

But he dismissed the idea that Gottschalks can't survive. "Somebody could pick this company up relatively cheaply and have $600 million in (annual) sales," he said. "We feel there is real value in Gottschalks going forward."

The company, which employs 5,200 workers, obtained new financing and said it will operate business as usual. But under the terms of its new loan, it must have a sale completed by March 24, according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

"We just have a very short window in which to work," Penbera said.

Penbera acknowledged that a buyer would likely close some of Gottschalks' existing 59 stores. The company also has three specialty stores called Village East. In court papers, Gottschalks said its debts total $197.1 million.

"Whoever buys them is going to shrink it down," said Jeff Green, a consultant in Mill Valley. "I question if they'll even be able to make a deal."

The company operates four stores in greater Sacramento, and things were quiet Wednesday morning at the store at Country Club Plaza. Promotional signs announced post-holiday markdowns of up to 80 percent off. Shoppers struggled with the news.

"We're some of their biggest customers," said Gloria Walloupe of Sacramento, who's shopped Gottschalks in Fresno and Sacramento for 30 years. "We hope it stays open. I can always find something."

Gottschalks' troubles, along with store closures recently announced by Macy's (none in Sacramento), were too much for Bonnie Riley of Sacramento.

"It's scary," she said. "It's scaring me to death."

The bankruptcy protection filing sent Gottschalks' stock down 3 cents a share, to 15 cents, on the electronic "pink sheets" market.

Although it went public in 1986, Gottschalks has retained a family, community-oriented culture, especially in its Fresno hometown. Joe Levy, the grand-nephew of founder Emil Gottschalk, remains a board member.

"The hope is that it's a reorganization and they haven't closed the doors," said Al Smith, president of the Fresno Chamber of Commerce. "Mervyns went away, and that's a shame, but there isn't the emotional attachment in this community. … A lot of people in this community were raised going to Gottschalks."

Traditional department stores have been hammered in recent years by competition from discounters and high-end retailers. Gottschalks also may have been stretched thin by the distribution costs associated with its extended footprint, with stores as far away as the Palm Springs area and Fairbanks, Alaska.

Although it was profitable through 2006, revenues have suffered in recent years. In the fiscal year that ends Jan. 31, Gottschalks expects to lose $12 million on a cash-flow basis, according to court papers. Revenue is expected to drop 11 percent, to $557 million.

sources:http://www.sacbee.com/288/story/1543493.html

NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- One of the pirates who held a Saudi-owned oil supertanker off the coast of Somalia before releasing it for ransom over the weekend told CNN how five in his group drowned in an operation gone wrong.
A small aircraft drops a ransom payment during a flight over the Sirius Star on Friday.

Pirates seized the Sirius on November 15. A $3.5 million ransom payment -- down from the initial demand of $25 million -- was dropped by parachute onto the ship Friday, but the pirates delayed the vessel's release after the drownings.

"Other pirates on the shore wanted a tip from the pirates on the Sirius Star, so they started to fire in the air as our people approached the land," Libaan Jaama told CNN. "When our pirates heard the shots, they thought they would be robbed, so they tried to return to the tanker. In that quick turn the boat capsized."

Jaama said he was mourning his friends, who, along with other pirates on board, took 23 crew members hostage. The Kenya Seafarers Association said the crew -- which included citizens of Croatia, Great Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia -- was in "good health and high spirits" when the vessel was released Saturday.

The supertanker, owned by Vela International Marine Ltd., a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian-based Saudi Aramco, was the largest ship ever hijacked by pirates. The ship is a VLCC, or "very large crude carrier," and more than three times the tonnage of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the U.S. 5th Fleet said.

The tanker's capture in November sparked fears for its enormous cargo. The Liberian-flagged tanker was carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil worth about $100 million when it was captured.

Andrew Mwangura of the Kenya Seafarers Association said it would have been a "disaster" if the pirates had fired guns aboard the ship, harming the cargo or igniting a fire.

Hijackings off East Africa are a cause of growing international concern, spurring a number of international navies to patrol the pirate-wracked Gulf of Aden.

Pirates attacked nearly 100 vessels and hijacked as many as 40 in the waters off the coast of Somalia in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. See how pirate attacks peaked in 2008
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The Gulf of Aden links the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. About 20,000 oil tankers, freighters and merchant vessels pass along the crucial shipping route near the largely lawless Somalia each year.

The financial and human costs of piracy are extensive. Ships ranging from luxury yachts to the Saudi supertanker have been held for ransom. At least one major company pulled its ships from the Gulf of Aden region in 2008, meaning cargo bound for Europe had to round the African continent rather than use the Suez Canal.

The pirates are based in Somalia -- a land racked by poverty and conflict -- and say hijacking ships is all about the money and the lifestyle.

"We have the best way of life," Jaama said. "We drive in white SUVs, we enjoy driving them and there is absolutely no difficulty in our life."

Jaama warned the flotilla of coalition warships in the region ready and authorized to strike at Somali pirates to back off.

"Those foreign forces are making a mistake targeting pirates because we only hunt in our waters," he said. "If they come to our borders, we will think of steps to take against them."

sources:http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/01/12/somalia.pirates/

A scary movie in every way except the ones that matter, "The Unborn" draws a dismaying line from the ghettos of the Holocaust to the Hollywood horror ghetto

"It has fallen on you to finish what started in Auschwitz," intones Sophie, the World War II survivor Jane Alexander plays, clutching a Star of David and a soupy German accent, and speaking the sort of dialogue that sounds like an opening line from a Judeo-digital video-game - "The Legend of Zelda Rubinstein."

In a movie bloated with Jewish kitsch, Rubinstein, that diminutive medium from those "Poltergeist" movies ("Carol Ann? Carol Ann?"), is conspicuous by her absence. Zelda, Casey Beldon needs you. Sophie explains that Casey and her friends (Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet) have been ensnared by a story of Nazi genetic experimentation and supernatural bunk that involves the dead twin brother Casey knew nothing about. Until just now. Is it him she's seeing all over her Chicago suburb or a long-lost concentration camp relative?

For almost 45 minutes, Odette Yustman, the woman playing young, dull Casey, cuts a gawkable figure for the camera. She can pivot in her panties, cock her head to one side, and yank open a medicine cabinet door like no one before her. And yet she seems less than human.

"Some people are doorways," Casey observes, in the midst of a metaphysical revelation. And where Yustman's acting is concerned, some people are doors.

The movie has what it thinks is a provocative idea: a Jewish "Beloved," perhaps. But it also has a heroine who appears to be getting in touch with her Judaic self in the least flattering ways. She learns of dybbuks and becomes the object of the rare kosher exorcism. The movie's writer and director, David S. Goyer (he wrote the "Blade" movies and "Batman Begins"), has spent most of his career with his head in the science-fiction, horror-thriller, comic-book clouds. Here he combines his interests into one gruesome exercise.

What begins as a disposable teen spookfest (Girl, don't go in there) ends in a nutty, barely Semitic bloodbath (Dude, don't go there). For good measure, Gary Oldman - as Rabbi Joseph Sendak - blows a shofar, and Idris Elba casts out demons before becoming one himself.

"The Unborn" joins a growing glut of Holocaust- and Nazi-themed material -- "Valkyrie," "Defiance" - that are long on posturing, suppositions, and righteousness, yet short on moral complexity. Nazism and its crimes have lately inspired theme parks more than actual movies. Too many rides on that roller coaster and I feel sick.

source:http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2009/01/10/nazi_demons_haunt_the_unborn/

The crowd was expectant, the media throng hurtled into the hall at the Moscone Centre and fought for the best camera position, and the audience gave the speaker the usual warm welcome accorded to the keynote presenter at Macworld.

So why did an hour and a half spent listening to details of Apple's shiny new products leave me just slightly underwhelmed - at least until the last five minutes? I don't think it was entirely the fault of Steve Jobs' less than charismatic stand-in Phil Schiller. Sure, he didn't pepper his keynote with as many "awesomes" and "really cools" as his boss. But then he didn't have anything really awesome to unveil.

When he started with a slide promising Three New Things, I was mildly excited. An iPhone nano? A tiny notebook computer? A big price cut? Err, no.

First, we had nearly an hour on an upgrade to the iLife suite of software. Sure, the upgrades to iMovie and iPhoto looked great. Facial recognition and geo-tagging is a clever way or organising your photos, and iMovie's latest incarnation seriously impressed my cameraman who uses far more expensive professional video editing software. But, hey, we get an upgrade to iLife every year, don't we? Hardly really new, and we didn't need all the wearisome details.

Then another twenty minutes on an upgrade to iWork, Apple's productivity software. But does anyone really use this rival to Microsoft Office, apart from hardcore Mac devotees who wouldn't sully their hands with anything emanating from Redmond? Ah, but here was something really revolutionary - iwork.com. So Apple will now allow you to put your documents online in the "cloud" so that they can be accessed anywhere by anyone. But even though it will start off as a free beta, it will eventually become a paid-for service. Just a minute - Google offers something similar , if less sophisticated, for nothing. So is this really going to change the world.

The final "new" thing was a 17" Macbook Pro. So does an extra two inches really count as novel? Phil Schiller made great play of a battery life of up to eight hours. That sounds great - but it's achieved by embedding the battery in the laptop. So in the unlikely event that the power supply fails, you will end up being without your computer for days while it is repaired.

That was the point I got up and headed for the exit to tell my bosses in London that Macworld had produced nothing new. But luckily there was One More Thing - and it was pretty good.

The deal with the big four record labels to make every track on iTunes DRM-free may well be the day that marks the demise of the copy-protection software for music. It's also an important moment in the fractious relationship between Apple and the music industry. Each side has got a bit of what it wanted - Apple has the DRM-free music Steve Jobs called for nearly two years ago, while the labels have got some wriggle room on pricing, with three different prices for tracks.

So we were relieved to emerge at last with a story. But for me the highlight was the show's finale, Tony Bennett singing "The Best is Yet To Come." The only problem was that the Apple faithful emerged from the Moscone Centre wondering whether that was really true.

source:http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/macworld_whats_new.html

General insurance includes

• motor insurance;
• household insurance;
• some travel insurance (see below for travel insurance we do not regulate);
• health cover; and
• pet insurance.