Today Sony launched three new pocket cams, despite the decreasing interest in this sector. Next-generation digital cameras (Micro four thirds and other non-traditional interchangeable lens system devices) coupled with the effects of full-frame DSLRs and smartphones have eroded the entry-level point-and-shoot market significantly.
And Sony addressed that. The manufacturer is aware that this segment is struggling and has more to compete with than ever before: consumers are getting better and better with cameras and want more and more out of them. Even still, the point-and-shoot gets replaced on a fairly consistent basis, and the remaining buyers who want these devices are willing to pay for them.
To this end, Sony is doing a few things to squeeze what it can out of the pocket cam market while it can. Three new cameras that Sony has announced pack in the megapixels and improved sensors, without skyrocketing the prices.
In a product call Sony acknowledged that the megapixel war has been waged, and at the end of it we all have begun to accept that more megapixels doesn?t always mean better. But it?s something that consumers still look for in a camera that can sway a decision, so it?s been something Sony outfitted its new releases with. Bright LCDs, decreased noise, and improved sensor type mean you?re not just buying a megapixel number attached to a below-average device. And that?s what Sony will leverage against the onslaught of the camera phone. A few specs on the new releases:
Cyber-shot TX200V
18.2-megapixel CMOS sensor
Fast AF ? approximately 0.13 in daylight, 0.25 in low light
3.3-inch OLED wide touchscreen
Waterproof, dustproof, freeze-proof
Dual record feature (take 13-megapixel stills while shooting full HD 1080p video)
Nine creative filters
$500; available in March
Cyber-shot WX70
16.2-megapixel CMOS sensor
3-inch LCD touch screen
5x optical zoom
Dual record feature
Nine creative filters
$230; available in March
Cyber-shot WX50
16.2-megapixel CMOS sensor
2.7-inch LCD screen
5x optical zoom
Dual record feature
Nine creative filters
$200; available in March
You?ll notice a few things about the new lineup. The sub $200 point-and-shoot market, while it still exists, is becoming less and less of a priority. And in our opinion, that?s a good thing: your smartphone can accomplish enough that an often-replaced, easily damaged or broken camera with a disappointing battery life will quickly become a nuisance you barely use.
We?d rather see camera-makers offering fewer, more capable cameras instead of making sure they run the price-point gamut. Sony?s clearly taking a page from this book. The new Cyber-shot models do things smartphones cannot do (yet) without completely isolating buyers still stuck on point-and-shoots. It might be a dying device, but there?s some life there yet.?
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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Whoa, some major shakeups going on over at FOX’s X-Factor. We first heard this evening that judge Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones would not be returning for a second season of X-Factor, and yet another one bites the dust – none other than Paula Abdul. According to “The Hollywood Reporter”, she reportedly was told tonight that her services were no longer needed in Season 2 either. Looks like Simon Cowell and L.A. Reid are the only two remaining. Err, hopefully L.A. doesn’t get the boot too! Let’s be honest here. I’m not surprised by this shake up, are you? Simon Cowell, who created the show, apparently felt the need to do an overhaul, and I couldn’t agree more with his decision to relieve Jones of his duties as the host. He did nothing for the show, and I was thoroughly unimpressed. I wanted to give him a chance, but as the weeks went on, meh, he seemed to get worse. He looked awkward on stage and Ryan Seacrest he is NOT. There are some conflicting reports regarding what happened with Nicole. Some suggest that she wanted out of the judging gig so that she could concentrate on her music, [...]
We've seen all kinds of medical implants over the years, but none that had a musical preference -- until now. Researchers at Purdue University have created a pressure sensitive microelectromechanical system (MEMS) that uses sound waves as an energy source. The proof-of-concept has a vibrating cantilever that's receptive to sound -- or music -- in the 200 - 500Hz frequency spectrum, which is towards the bottom end of the audible range. The subcutaneous implant converts the low-frequency vibrations into energy, and then stores it in a capacitor. Once the cantilever stops vibrating, it sends an electrical charge to a sensor and takes a pressure reading, the result is then transmitted out via radio waves for monitoring purposes. The immediate real world applications include diagnosing and treating incontinence, but we're already wondering if that self-powering mp3 player implant could finally become a reality?
GIGLIO, Italy ? Rough seas off Italy's Tuscan coast forced a delay in the planned Saturday start of the operation to remove a half-million gallons of fuel from the grounded Costa Concordia, and officials said pumping may now not begin until midweek.
Recovery operations continued, however, and on Saturday yielded a 17th body: The woman who wasn't wearing a life jacket was found by divers on the submerged sixth floor deck, civil protection officials said.
The Concordia ran aground on Jan. 13 off the port of the island of Giglio port after the captain deviated from his planned route and gashed the hull of the ship on a reef. Some 4,200 passengers and crew endured a panicked evacuation after the abandon ship alarm didn't sound until the ship had capsized so much that some life boats couldn't be lowered.
Some 16 people remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.
On Saturday, the body found on the ship's deck on Jan. 28 was identified as Erika Soria Molina, 25, of Peru by Doris Sotomayor, Peru's consul general in Florence.
Sotomayor told The Associated Press that the body was found in a submerged part of the deck. Soria, who was wearing a service uniform, studied tourism in Peru and was born in the Andean city of Cuzco, southeast of Lima.
The removal of the fuel aboard the Concordia is a key concern since the seas around Giglio form part of a protected marine sanctuary and are a favorite destination for scuba divers. So far, no leakage has been detected.
Dutch shipwreck salvage firm Smit has been contracted by the Concordia's owner Costa Crociere SpA, a unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp., to remove the fuel. Smit's divers have made the necessary preparations to begin pumping out fuel from six outer tanks that hold more than half of the 500,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) of heavy fuel oil that are aboard the ship.
The rest of the fuel is contained in inner tanks that are harder to access.
So far, divers have drilled into four of the six outer tanks and fixed valves on them: one on top, one on bottom. Hoses will then be attached to the valves and as the oil ? which must be warmed to make it less gooey ? is sucked out of the upper hose, sea water is pumped in to fill the vacuum via the lower hose.
Smit spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer told reporters Saturday that the pumping operation may not begin now until midweek since the poor weather is forecast at least through Tuesday. Officials don't want to risk the possibility that a battering of the hoses caused by rough seas might lead to leakage.
On Saturday, the choppy waters partially dislodged Smit's barge that was hitched to the Concordia's hull and had served as a staging platform for the fuel removal operation. Smit brought it back into port, where it will stay until the weather improves, Schuttevaer said.
The Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, remains under house arrest, accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before its passengers had evacuated. He has admitted he took the ship on "tourist navigation" to bring it close to Giglio but said the reef he hit wasn't marked on his nautical charts.
___
Winfield reported from Rome. Franklin Briceno contributed in Lima, Peru.
I?m safely back from my honeymoon, and I was catching up on the Scientific American articles when I found one that quite disturbed me. I don?t usually use this blog as a forum for thoughts about things that aren?t bacteria, but this is something I found important, particularly as I?ve spent most of the holiday reading Mary?Midgely books.
The article is by Michael Shermer, and you can read it here. It?s about human deception and deception-deception (the process by which we?deceive?ourselves into believing our deceptions). Called ?the lies we tell ourselves? I?ll do a quick summary here:
It starts off the main argument with the quote: ?A selfish gene model of evolution dictates that we should maximise our reproductive success through cunning and deceit?. It then points out that due to game theory we are aware that everyone else is also using cunning and deceit, which means the best way to go is to ?feign transparency and honesty and lure them into complacency before ?you defect and grab the spoils?. He finishes off with the idea that this is where morality comes from: ?It is not enough to fake being a good person ? you actually have to be a good person by believing it yourself and acting accordingly.?
So that is how human?behaviour?works. If you?re a cunning, sneaky, nasty person it?s because that?s how your genes tell you to be. If you?re a good, honest and truthful person it?s because you?ve successfully managed to buy your ?own con.
Is this way of thinking justified?
No.
Starting at the beginning then with that wonderful ?selfish-gene model of evolution?. The ?selfish gene? was a?metaphor?used by Dawkins to explain gene-based evolution. Genes are not literally selfish any more than rocks are. And selfish was just one word, ?opportunistic? might have been a better one, because genes don?t work alone. Many of them need other genes, or entire gene clusters in order to function. They need proteins, and the study of protein evolution and epigenetics is an exciting subject in its own right. There?s been some interesting work as well into lipid evolution and how the composition of the cell membrane when cells divide can determine their fate. No gene is an island.
And even if ?selfish? is a useful metaphor to explain genetic behavour, why on earth is it a sensible idea to abstract that up to human behaviour? Sure our genes help to determine our behavour, but so do our proteins, our neurons, our cells, our social surroundings and a whole host of other factors. Individual cells in the human body are not selfish, they are in fact highly cooperative and communist. Each cell must obey orders exactly, and if it doesn?t it must commit suicide instantly. There are some cells that break away into an individualist life of freedom but these are cancer cells.
Why must the selfish-gene model predict human behavour, why not the communist-cell one?
In fact, why not go further down? Why not look at the way atoms, or quarks behave, and then say that humans must behave like that!
Two glances around in any human society will tell you that humans are manifestly not selfish individuals all waiting for a change to ?defect and grab the spoils?. Human society doesn?t work like that. If you break down society, people don?t just scatter to the selfish winds, they form new little societies to survive within. Look at the internet ? a great anarchic gathering of people from all societies, with no rules thrust upon them, and what are the most popular sites (disregarding pornography)? Social networks, social forums and online communities. People like being social, they like being with others. Sure they exhibit selfish?behaviour?within those societies, but they also show?behaviour?which is loving, altruistic, angry, excited, and a whole range of emotions that the ?selfish-gene? model does not abstract too. There is no reason to?arbitrarily?decide that any?conventionally??Good? emotion is a deception-deception.
Human societies evolve by human cooperation. By the sharing of knowledge and resources, by the protecting of those more vulnerable, and the slow and shaky development of general morals. These morals are decisions made by the society (or occasionally by the one tyrant in charge of the society, but nothing is perfect) about what?behaviours?are?acceptable. Looking at society this way isn?t it just as justifiable that cooperation and sharing are the ?natural? human?behaviours? That people who cheat are somehow?deceiving?themselves into believing that they don?t need society, and have?deceived?themselves so well that they believe it?
These ?aren?t identical to the way our genes behave because people are not genes.?Behaviours?are?emergent?properties of humanity, not dictated attributes of our component parts. People are largely made up of water, yet no-one suggests that lying down and sort of sloshing around is natural human?behaviour.
If you want to study human morality, you really need to start asking philosophers. That?s what they?re there for. Historians, anthropologists, even literature students and?theologians?are?equipped?with the understanding and the tools used to discuss human society, emotions and?behaviour. This is an area that scientists can find interesting, and even contribute too, but in studies of?behaviour?and morality science is simply not the major player.
I?m sure there are great ways to build a secular civil society. But basing your foundations on the unjustified abstraction of a dodgy metaphor is not a good way to go about it.
ATHENS, Greece ? Greek authorities say an earthquake with preliminary 4.9-magnitude has shaken the country's southern Aegean islands, including Crete. No injuries or damage were immediately reported in the quake, which was the third in three days in the area.
The Athens Geodynamic Institute says the undersea earthquake occurred at 12:50 p.m. (1050 GMT) Saturday about 243 kilometers from the Greek capital, Athens, between the islands of Santorini and Crete. It says the earthquake occurred at a depth of 31 kilometers.
Earthquakes of magnitude 5.3 and 5.2 occurred in the same area on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
Greece is in one of the world's seismically active areas, with hundreds of quakes occurring each year.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) ? A jury has convicted a New York prison inmate of falsely filing tax returns seeking $890 million in refunds.
Prosecutors say the man filed the bogus returns from 2006 to 2010 while at various state prisons. They say he even was issued a refund for $327,000 ? but prison officials intercepted the check and returned it to the Internal Revenue Service, which led the investigation.
The man was convicted Thursday of 11 counts of filing false claims and one count of helping another inmate file bogus returns.
He was serving two to four years for possession of stolen property when he was charged last February. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count when he's sentenced in May.
It's no secret that certain countries have different views over freedom of expression on the internet, but this hasn't stopped Twitter's attempt to keep its service running in as many places as possible. In its latest blog post, the microblogging service announced that it'll begin "to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country" when required, in order to keep said content available to all users elsewhere (as opposed to blocking it globally). The withheld tweets will be marked accordingly while their authors get notified with reasons where possible, and internet legal rights monitor Chilling Effects will also post the relevant take-down notices on a dedicated page.
This may seem like some form of censorship taking over Twitter, but the company only mentioned those of "historical or cultural reasons" like the ban of pro-Nazi content in France and Germany; so it's not clear whether Twitter will also handle similarly with tweets that potentially lead to events such as the UK riots last year. Even though Twitter didn't elaborate further for Reuters, there is one reassuring line in the post:
"Some [countries] differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there."
One such country is most likely China, and back at AsiaD in October, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told us that there's simply no way for his company to work with the Chinese government (you can watch him answering us at 38:17 in the video -- courtesy of All Things D -- after the break):
"The unfortunate fact is we're just not allowed to compete in this market, and that's not up to us to change. The person to ask is trade experts between both governments, but at the end of the day we can't compete. They (Chinese microblogging platforms) can compete in our markets, and we're certainly interested in what that means for us... We would love to have a strong Twitter in China, but we'd need to be allowed to do that."
There are obviously many factors that add up to this sour relationship, but the contradiction between China's strict internet monitoring policy and Twitter's core values is the most likely the biggest obstacle. And of course, the Chinese government would favor its home-grown tech properties, anyway. That said, several months ago, one of the country's largest microblogging services Sina Weibo was criticized by the authorities for not censoring fast enough, so it's obvious that it'd be even trickier to work with a foreign company that sees things differently. Things are unlikely to change any time soon, or ever, unless China relaxes its policy.
The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards are upon us, and there?s one unexpected nominee among the usual list of Hollywood studios, crew and actors ? an iPad developer.
That developer is Moonbot, as TechCrunch reports, the maker of an iPad app called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. The app is a combination children?s book, short film and iPad app, similar to what other developers have created by making e-book apps for Apple?s devices. In fact, The Fantastic Flying Books was originally conceived as a children?s book itself, but that?s not what earned it an Oscar nod.
Moonbot co-founder William Joyce is a children?s book author, and so when he originally came up with the concept for The Fantastic Flying Books, he planned to make it a children?s book. Not long after, he formed Moonbot with Brandon Oldenburg in 2009, and the pair decided to turn the idea into a short film. It?s that film that earned the developer its Oscar nomination, and combining the film and the storybook with the interactive capabilities of the iPad resulted in Moonbot?s app.
Joyce has credits as a writer on a number of big-name animated films, including Pixar movies A Bug?s Life and Toy Story. He told TechCrunch that working on the three Fantastic Flying Books projects simultaneously was part of what made Moonbot viable, and since it released its first app, it has also dropped another interactive children?s book in the iTunes App Store since then, called Numberlys.
As TechCrunch reports, Moonbot?s next project is a puppet show, which speaks to the company?s tendency to make all kinds of things beyond just books, films and apps. With two apps down, though, it seems Moonbot is establishing a pretty decent niche of interactive storybook experiences that mix media into something new. The iPad and other tablets make that kind of storytelling experience possible in ways that couldn?t have necessarily happened before they existed, thanks to the creativity of developers like Moonbot.
Foot and ankle structure differs between sprinters and non-sprintersPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sara LaJeunesse SDL13@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
The skeletal structure of the foot and ankle differs significantly between human sprinters and non-sprinters, according to Penn State researchers. Their findings not only help explain why some people are faster runners than others, but also may be useful in helping people who have difficulty walking, such as older adults and children with cerebral palsy.
According to Stephen Piazza, associate professor of kinesiology, the research is the first to use magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that sprinters have significantly longer bones in their forefeet than non-sprinters and reduced leverage in their Achilles tendons than non-sprinters.
"We made the most direct measurement possible of leverage in the Achilles tendon and found that sprinters' tendons had shorter lever arms -- or reduced leverage for pushing their bodies off of the ground -- compared to non-sprinters," said Piazza.
Piazza explained that there may be a trade-off between leverage and tendon force when rapid muscle contraction is required.
"Imagine a wheelbarrow with 30-foot handles. Such long handles would provide you with great mechanical advantage compared to what you would get from a wheelbarrow with three-foot handles, but rapidly producing the same rotation of this wheelbarrow would be more difficult because you'd have to move the ends of the handles really fast. It is easier for your hands to generate these lifting forces when they move a few inches rather than a few feet in the same amount of time," said Piazza. "The Achilles tendons are like your hands; they are better able to lift your body (the wheelbarrow) when the handles are long enough to provide sufficient leverage without being so long that they prevent rapid force generation by the calf muscles."
According to Josh Baxter, graduate student, shorter Achilles tendon lever arms and longer toe bones permit sprinters to generate greater contact force between the foot and the ground and to maintain that force for a longer time, thus providing advantages to people with sprinter-like feet.
To conduct their research, the scientists studied two groups of eight males, for a total of 16 people. The first group was composed of sprinters who were involved in regular sprint training and competition. The second group consisted of height-matched individuals who never had trained or competed in sprinting. To be included in the sprinter group, individuals were required to currently be engaged in competitive sprinting and have at least three years of continuous sprint training. Of the eight sprinters, six competed in the 100-meter dash, with personal-best times ranging from 10.5 to 11.1 seconds. The other two men reported 200-meter personal best times of 21.4 and 24.1 seconds.
The researchers took MRI images of the right foot and ankle of each of the subjects. They then used specialized software to analyze the images. The scientists found that the Achilles tendon lever arms of sprinters were 12 percent shorter than those of non-sprinters. They also found that the combined length of the bones in the big toes of sprinters was on average 6.2 percent longer than that of non-sprinters, while the length of another foot bone, the first metatarsal, was 4.3 percent longer for sprinters than for non-sprinters. Their results are reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In addition to imaging the feet and ankles of sprinters and non-sprinters, the scientists also developed a simple computer model to investigate the influence of foot and ankle dimensions on muscle contributions to forward propulsion at various speeds. They found that longer forefeet and smaller Achilles tendon lever arms allowed the calf muscles to do more work, which is the goal during the acceleration phase that occurs at the start of a sprint race.
Baxter said that although the results might lead to tests that tell whether a person has the potential to be a sprinter, other factors such as body type, the dimensions of the limbs and the presence of fast-twitch muscle fibers also are important in determining if competitive sprinting is within the realm of possibility for an individual.
"In addition it is unclear whether the differences in foot and ankle skeletal structure are adaptations to sprint training or are hereditary," said Baxter. "There is evidence that human skeletal strength and form are altered by certain types of athletic training."
Piazza added that the results have implications beyond just understanding what makes sprinters run so fast.
"Our results may be useful in helping people who have difficulty walking, such as older adults and children with cerebral palsy," he said. "If we can better understand how the shapes of bones influence not only muscle leverage but also the ability to move, it may be possible to surgically alter the foot bones of people who lack mobility to help them move better. The results even might lead to screening tools for the general population as well; an MRI could determine if you are at greater risk for loss of mobility. If so, you might be more motivated to maintain your ankle strength with a strength-training program."
The MRI measurements made in the study were carried out at the Penn State Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (SLEIC). Others involved with the research include Penn State undergraduate student Thomas Novack, graduate student Herman van Werkhoven and SLEIC staff member David Pennell.
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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.
Foot and ankle structure differs between sprinters and non-sprintersPublic release date: 24-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sara LaJeunesse SDL13@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
The skeletal structure of the foot and ankle differs significantly between human sprinters and non-sprinters, according to Penn State researchers. Their findings not only help explain why some people are faster runners than others, but also may be useful in helping people who have difficulty walking, such as older adults and children with cerebral palsy.
According to Stephen Piazza, associate professor of kinesiology, the research is the first to use magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate that sprinters have significantly longer bones in their forefeet than non-sprinters and reduced leverage in their Achilles tendons than non-sprinters.
"We made the most direct measurement possible of leverage in the Achilles tendon and found that sprinters' tendons had shorter lever arms -- or reduced leverage for pushing their bodies off of the ground -- compared to non-sprinters," said Piazza.
Piazza explained that there may be a trade-off between leverage and tendon force when rapid muscle contraction is required.
"Imagine a wheelbarrow with 30-foot handles. Such long handles would provide you with great mechanical advantage compared to what you would get from a wheelbarrow with three-foot handles, but rapidly producing the same rotation of this wheelbarrow would be more difficult because you'd have to move the ends of the handles really fast. It is easier for your hands to generate these lifting forces when they move a few inches rather than a few feet in the same amount of time," said Piazza. "The Achilles tendons are like your hands; they are better able to lift your body (the wheelbarrow) when the handles are long enough to provide sufficient leverage without being so long that they prevent rapid force generation by the calf muscles."
According to Josh Baxter, graduate student, shorter Achilles tendon lever arms and longer toe bones permit sprinters to generate greater contact force between the foot and the ground and to maintain that force for a longer time, thus providing advantages to people with sprinter-like feet.
To conduct their research, the scientists studied two groups of eight males, for a total of 16 people. The first group was composed of sprinters who were involved in regular sprint training and competition. The second group consisted of height-matched individuals who never had trained or competed in sprinting. To be included in the sprinter group, individuals were required to currently be engaged in competitive sprinting and have at least three years of continuous sprint training. Of the eight sprinters, six competed in the 100-meter dash, with personal-best times ranging from 10.5 to 11.1 seconds. The other two men reported 200-meter personal best times of 21.4 and 24.1 seconds.
The researchers took MRI images of the right foot and ankle of each of the subjects. They then used specialized software to analyze the images. The scientists found that the Achilles tendon lever arms of sprinters were 12 percent shorter than those of non-sprinters. They also found that the combined length of the bones in the big toes of sprinters was on average 6.2 percent longer than that of non-sprinters, while the length of another foot bone, the first metatarsal, was 4.3 percent longer for sprinters than for non-sprinters. Their results are reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
In addition to imaging the feet and ankles of sprinters and non-sprinters, the scientists also developed a simple computer model to investigate the influence of foot and ankle dimensions on muscle contributions to forward propulsion at various speeds. They found that longer forefeet and smaller Achilles tendon lever arms allowed the calf muscles to do more work, which is the goal during the acceleration phase that occurs at the start of a sprint race.
Baxter said that although the results might lead to tests that tell whether a person has the potential to be a sprinter, other factors such as body type, the dimensions of the limbs and the presence of fast-twitch muscle fibers also are important in determining if competitive sprinting is within the realm of possibility for an individual.
"In addition it is unclear whether the differences in foot and ankle skeletal structure are adaptations to sprint training or are hereditary," said Baxter. "There is evidence that human skeletal strength and form are altered by certain types of athletic training."
Piazza added that the results have implications beyond just understanding what makes sprinters run so fast.
"Our results may be useful in helping people who have difficulty walking, such as older adults and children with cerebral palsy," he said. "If we can better understand how the shapes of bones influence not only muscle leverage but also the ability to move, it may be possible to surgically alter the foot bones of people who lack mobility to help them move better. The results even might lead to screening tools for the general population as well; an MRI could determine if you are at greater risk for loss of mobility. If so, you might be more motivated to maintain your ankle strength with a strength-training program."
The MRI measurements made in the study were carried out at the Penn State Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center (SLEIC). Others involved with the research include Penn State undergraduate student Thomas Novack, graduate student Herman van Werkhoven and SLEIC staff member David Pennell.
###
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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.
RIM has replaced its co-CEOs, Jim Balsillie and Mike?Lazaridis, with?Thorsten Heins, the current chief operating officer. What's next for RIM and the BlackBerry line??
Last year was not a very good one for RIM, maker of the BlackBerry smartphone line and the BlackBerry PlayBook?tablet.
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Sales were down across the board, stock shares plummeted, and the BlackBerry steadily lost market share to Android and Apple. (Not to mention that whole three day outage thing.) Now comes news that?Jim Balsillie and Mike?Lazaridis, the current co-CEOs of RIM will step down, handing over the reins to Thorstein Heins, the current RIM chief operating officer.?
In a joint statement,?Jim Balsillie said he would remain a member of the RIM board, while Lazaridis said he would become the board's vice chair. Lazaridis pledged to focus on "the great company we have built, its iconic products, global brand and its talented employees."?
So does Heins have what it takes to reverse the RIM slide? Maybe, Larry Dignan writes over at ZDNet, but it's more likely that Heins ascension will just lead to more of the same.?"[T]he removal of Balsillie and Lazaridis looks like a move to appease shareholders for a bit without changing the strategy overall," Dignan notes. Moreover, what RIM needs now is a couple blockbuster products, and it's far from clear that anything close to blockbuster is in the works.?
"The problem: RIM?s booth didn?t do all that hot at CES based on anecdotal reports. In fact, RIM had nothing to show. RIM touted its new PlayBook OS, but all that does is add the stuff?email and calendar?that should have been in the company?s first tablet," Dignan writes. Late last year, RIM wrote off the value of hundreds of millions of dollars in PlayBook stock, essentially an admission that the device was a market stinker.?
Speaking to Bloomberg,?Ehud Gelblum, an analyst for Morgan Stanley, agreed that the slope would be steep for Heins.?"Heins is a product execution guy, he?s not a visionary.?Heins has to give people a reason why they need a BlackBerry. It?s going to be very difficult for him," Gelblum said.?
For more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut. And don?t forget to sign up for the weekly?BizTech newsletter.
"He made a mistake, but I think Joe Paterno still lived an incredibly positive life. He goes down in my book as an incredible human being,'' former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said about Joe Paterno after the former Penn State coach's death on Sunday. Amid the outpouring of emotion that's followed has been this message that Paterno was not a god and just a human being who made some mistakes. The tributes have largely focused on the good that Paterno did in his life. "Joe Paterno will be remembered in different ways," says Matt Murschel at College Insider. "For being a husband, a father, a grandfather, a coach, a mentor, an icon, a pariah, and most of all a human being." Here's what others are saying about Paterno's life, legacy, and humanity:
Philadelphia Inquirer editorial: Now that Paterno is gone, perhaps his career can be put in its proper perspective. He was human. He made mistakes. But none that are known relate to what he accomplished as a coach. In acknowledgment of that, the Big Ten Conference should restore his name to its football championship trophy.
Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "We fail to remember that they are just men, only human, imperfect despite all of their achievements and best intentions. Their statues are sturdy and permanent and designed to last forever, but the bronze can't conceal the flaws."
Bruce Arthur, National Post: "Joe Paterno was not a monster, precisely, and he was not pure. He was human, and he faltered, and it ruined what was left of his life, and what was left of a lot of other people's lives, too. Tragedy, all around."
Mark Bradley, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A year ago we'd have said he did it the right way and left it at that. Today we must rewrite that line to reflect the complexity that enfolded this life the same way complexity enfolds all human life. Today we must say of Joe Paterno: 'He did it the right way -- except for the one time he didn't.'"
Bob Wojnowski, Detroit News: "Ultimately, you focus on the sum of the man, a coach like no other and a human being like most. He did plenty of good things, and also had flaws. It ended with his own haunting words -- 'I wish I had done more.'"
Deron Snyder, The Washington Times: "In the end, Paterno's biggest mistake was hanging on too long. It demonstrated everything that made him a great coach and a flawed human being: dedication and stubbornness; commitment and selfishness; perseverance and obtuseness."
Ron Chimelis, MassLive.com: "Paterno's entire life, spanning his great success and also his breathtaking fall, screams out one message. Coaches are human beings. They do great things. They also make mistakes, sometimes monumental ones."
Jon Solomon, The Birmingham News: "In the end, Joe Paterno was human, not a god. Never did Paterno appear more human than in the final 11 weeks of his 85-year-old life. Long placed on a pedestal as all that's right about college sports, Paterno's image became that of a man who failed 10 years ago when faced with his biggest moral test."
Dave D'Alessandro, Star-Ledger: "Nobody wanted it to end like this, of course -- not this soon, not with the memory of an abject human failure, of an apparent moral cowardice, still so fresh... But they also need to recognize that he became so enamored of his own mythology that he somehow failed a basic test of human decency."
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Follow Danny Groner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DannyGroner
SANTA CLARA, Calif. ? Matthew Dellavedova had 26 points and seven assists, Rob Jones added 14 points and 15 rebounds and No. 24 Saint Mary's held off Santa Clara 93-77 on Saturday night.
The Gaels were outhustled and outshot for most of the game and trailed midway through the second half before going on a 15-2 run to pull away for their ninth consecutive win. Saint Mary's (19-2, 9-0 West Coast Conference) is off to its best start under 11th-year coach Randy Bennett.
Jorden Page scored a career-high 19 points and Brad Waldow had 14 points and a career-best 16 rebounds for Saint Mary's, which has won six straight in the series.
Niyi Harrison had 23 points and nine rebounds for Santa Clara (8-10, 0-5). Kevin Foster added 22 but the Broncos couldn't sustain their early momentum and lost their sixth straight.
Saint Mary's won despite going 26 of 45 from the free throw line and 5 for 16 on 3-pointers.
Playing in front of the first sellout crowd at the Leavey Center in nearly two years seemed to give Santa Clara a spark. So did Foster.
The Broncos' junior had eight points in the first 5 minutes and later made his third 3-pointer to put Santa Clara up 29-23 midway through the first half. Santa Clara ran into some foul trouble, which allowed Saint Mary's to make a brief run and take a 44-42 lead before Foster hit another 3.
Robert Garrett then blocked a shot by the Gaels' Tim Williams under the basket. Brandon Clark grabbed the rebound and threw a long pass to Evan Roquemore, who raced down the court for the easy layup to make it 47-44.
Jones, who nearly had a double-double before halftime with 11 points and eight rebounds, then scored on a layup to pull Saint Mary's within one at the break.
Santa Clara opened the second half as well as it ended the first, getting six points from Harrison.
Harrison, knocked out of the game earlier after crashing to the floor going for a rebound, came back and gave the Broncos a 56-52 lead with his second dunk over a 57-second span.
Bennett called a timeout to try to calm his team but it took some time for the Gaels to recover. They missed seven of 11 free throw attempts after the timeout and trailed 64-63 before going on the 15-2 run.
Broncos coach Kerry Keating, frustrated at seeing his team's shot at an upset slip away, was called for a technical foul with 4:47 left and the Gaels up 79-68.
Saint Mary's continued to pull away and went up by 14 following Stephen Holt's driving layup with just over 2 minutes remaining.
Foster, who finished 6 of 16, moved into fourth place on the Broncos career scoring list. He passed Dennis Awtry and Steve Nash, now an NBA star with the Phoenix Suns.
GILBERT, S.C. ? Working to fend off a surging Newt Gingrich in what's become an unexpectedly tight race in South Carolina, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Friday he expects he will lose some state contests to Gingrich during a prolonged fight for the GOP nomination.
"I expect that Newt will win some primaries and contests and I expect I will as well," Romney said on the Laura Ingraham radio show a day before voting begins in the critical South Carolina primary. "I'm not expecting to win them all."
Romney didn't directly say he expects to lose in South Carolina, and in a separate appearance Friday described the contest as "neck-and-neck." But senior aides acknowledged they wouldn't be surprised if he lost the primary.
Romney's comments were his most blunt acknowledgement yet of the trouble his campaign faced amid a reality much changed from 10 days ago when he won the New Hampshire primary in a landslide. They also recognized the possibility that Gingrich could take a South Carolina victory on to other states and win again.
Romney's campaign appeared visibly rattled the day before voting began. His standing in polls had tumbled after a week of constant attack ads and self-made problems. Senior advisers and campaign hands were preparing for a long fight.
"He will win. It's a question of when," said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who campaigned with Romney on Friday.
Romney came to South Carolina after twin victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, only to see his Iowa victory thrown into question because of problems with the count. He then spent a week trying to answer questions about his personal wealth and when he will release his tax returns.
Romney tried to change the subject from his unreleased tax returns to the ethics investigation Gingrich faced 15 years ago.
Gingrich's House reprimand in 1997 presented an opportunity to talk about something else. When asked if Gingrich should release the Ethics Committee report that resulted in the first such action against a House speaker, Romney replied, "Of course he should."
"Nancy Pelosi has the full record of that ethics investigation," he said. "You know it's going to get out ahead of the general election."
In fact, the 1,280-page committee report on Gingrich is already public. Campaign officials said Romney was referring to other documents that Gingrich has referenced and that Pelosi has also mentioned.
"Given Speaker Gingrich's newfound interest in disclosure and transparency, and his concern about an `October surprise,' he should authorize the release of the complete record of the ethics proceedings against him," Romney spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.
Romney's campaign was calling South Carolina voters with a recording attacking Gingrich's ethics record and calling on him to release any documents related to the inquiry.
In December, Pelosi told Talking Points Memo that she had served on the committee that conducted the investigation and implied that more information about the investigation could come to light. At the time Gingrich said the House should retaliate against Pelosi if she released any additional information.
"We turned over 1 million pages of material," Gingrich said then. "We had a huge report."
Gingrich's campaign said Romney's criticism represented a "panic attack" on the part of his campaign.
Romney on Friday said again that he wouldn't release his tax returns until April, which would probably be after Republicans choose their nominee.
"I realize that I had a lot of ground to make up and Speaker Gingrich is from a neighboring state, well-known, popular in the state," Romney said as he campaigned in Gilbert. "Frankly, to be in a neck-and-neck race at this last moment is kind of exciting."
Romney's campaign has rolled out endorsement after endorsement this week as he has tried to build a case that he is the most electable nominee. Ohio Sen. Rob Portman joined him on Thursday and McDonnell was with Romney on Friday.
McDonnell said he had been in touch with Romney's campaign for several weeks as they discussed the timing for the endorsement and decided it was most needed now, even as Romney looks ahead to a long campaign.
"It's the first Southern primary. I'm a Southern governor. I thought I could help," McDonnell said.
The campaign's attack message jumped from rival to rival and topic to topic as Romney fought to stay afloat here.
At the beginning of the week, Romney attacked rival Rick Santorum over voting rights for felons. Then he went after Gingrich's claims that he created jobs under President Ronald Reagan, saying Gingrich was living in "fantasyland." Meanwhile, his surrogates held a series of conference calls attacking his rivals, first calling Gingrich an unreliable leader and then pivoting to attack his ethics record.
In Thursday night's GOP debate, Romney continued his string of off-message remarks about his wealth, saying he has lived "in the real streets of America." A multimillionaire, he has three homes, one each in Massachusetts, California and New Hampshire.
Romney held three campaign events Friday in his last-ditch push to stem Gingrich's momentum. After stopping in Gilbert, he held a rally in North Charleston and flew to Greenville in the conservative upstate for a nighttime rally and a stop at his campaign headquarters before an evening event in Columbia, the state capital.
On a plane between events Friday night, Romney was outwardly cheerful in spite of a difficult day ahead, gamely bantering with reporters as he served pastries from Panera Bread.
"Pain au chocolat, smart move!" he said to one, proferring the box and a pair of tongs to take the desserts.
As he moved farther back into the plane, though, he dispensed with the tongs.
"Just use your fingers," he said. "To heck with it!"
In this Wednesday Nov. 16, 2011 photo provided by SpaceX, the SpaceX Dragon Capsule is mated with its trunk inside the company's launch processing hangar in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The first commercial cargo run to the International Space Station has been put off until spring. SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 7, 2012, but the company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon. On Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, officials confirmed the launch would not occur until late March. NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July. (AP Photo/SpaceX, Michael R. Brown)
In this Wednesday Nov. 16, 2011 photo provided by SpaceX, the SpaceX Dragon Capsule is mated with its trunk inside the company's launch processing hangar in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The first commercial cargo run to the International Space Station has been put off until spring. SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 7, 2012, but the company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon. On Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, officials confirmed the launch would not occur until late March. NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July. (AP Photo/SpaceX, Michael R. Brown)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? The first commercial cargo run to the International Space Station is off until spring.
SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 7. But the company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon. And on Friday, officials confirmed the launch would not occur until late March.
Space station commander Daniel Burbank said as much as he'd like to take part in the historic event, it's important that SpaceX fly when it's ready. Burbank will return to Earth in mid-March.
"If that's not to be during our mission, then that's OK," Burbank said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "We've got plenty of other things to occupy us ... but they'll fly when they're ready and they'll fly when they need to."
Just over a year ago, the California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched a test version of the capsule, becoming the first private business to send a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely. NASA is counting on companies like SpaceX to keep the station stocked, now that the shuttles are retired.
Until then, the Russian, European and Japanese space agencies ? all government entities ? are picking up the slack as best they can, sending up regular shipments to the orbiting outpost.
SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Grantham pointed out that this is a developmental program for her company, and everyone wants it to be a complete success.
"It may take a little more time, but when it happens, it's going to be amazing," she said.
This first Dragon capsule to visit the space station will carry several hundred pounds of astronaut provisions ? nothing crucial, in case of a failure.
Astronauts aboard the space station will use a huge robot arm to grab and berth the Dragon.
"This will be one step in the long road to human expansion off of the planet into low-Earth orbit and beyond," space station astronaut Donald Pettit said Friday. He is barely one month into a five-month mission.
The beauty of the Dragon is that it will be able to return scientific samples to Earth, Burbank noted. None of the other countries' supply ships can do that; they burn up on re-entry.
Americans Burbank and Pettit, three Russians and a Dutchman make up the six-man crew.
NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July.
"There have been some impacts ... the shuttle did all the heavy lifting" for space station, Burbank said. There's excess equipment and trash on board, especially given the loss of a Russian supply ship in a launch accident last year. Those cargo carriers are filled with garbage before being jettisoned.
"I think we're getting by OK," Burbank said, "but we need to have as much up-mass and down-mass capability as we can to support space station operations at the level we need it."
SpaceX ? run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk ? is one of several companies vying for space station visiting privileges. Its long-term goal is to modify its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to the station.
In the meantime, Americans are buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The United States Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane has been circling Earth for more than 10 months, and there's no telling when it might come down.
As of Friday (Jan. 20), the mysterious robotic X-37B spacecraft has been aloft for 321 days, significantly outlasting its stated mission design lifetime of 270 days. But it may stay up for even longer yet, experts say, particularly if the military views this space mission ? the second ever for the hush-hush vehicle ? as something of an endurance test.
"Because it is an experimental vehicle, they kind of want to see what its limits are," said Brian Weeden, a technical adviser with the Secure World Foundation and a former orbital analyst with the Air Force.
A long mystery mission
The Air Force launched the X-37B in March 2011, sending the reusable space plane design on its second space mission. The X-37B now zipping around our planet is known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2.
Another X-37B vehicle, the OTV-1, launched in April 2010 and landed in December of that year, staying on orbit for 225 days ? well under the unmanned spacecraft's supposed 270-day limit. But OTV-2 has already exceeded that limit by more than seven weeks, and the calendar keeps turning over. [Photos of the 2nd Secret X-37B Mission]
Racking up a lot of time in space might be a key part of the current mission, according to Weeden.
"I think they didn't want to push it, just because it was the first of its kind," he told SPACE.com, referring to OTV-1's flight. "But I think that they are looking to push the second one."
Statements from Air Force officials appear to support Weeden's supposition.
"This successful flight is important in the progression of the X-37B program, moving us forward in our effort to prove the utility and cost-effectiveness of an unmanned, long-duration, reusable spacecraft," Air Force Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37 systems program director, told SPACE.com in late November, when OTV-2 hit the 270-day milestone.
"We look forward to trying to expand the platform's envelope by extending the mission further," McIntyre added.
Testing new technologies?
The X-37B looks a lot like NASA's now-retired space shuttle, only much smaller. The unmanned vehicle is about 29 feet long by 15 feet wide (8.8 by 4.5 meters), with a payload bay the size of a pickup truck bed. For comparison, two entire X-37Bs could fit inside the payload bay of a space shuttle.
Just what the X-37B does for so long while circling our planet remains a mystery, because the space plane's payloads and missions are classified.
Partly as a result of the secrecy, some concern has been raised ? particularly by Russia and China ? that the X-37B might be a space weapon of some sort. But the Air Force has repeatedly denied that charge, claiming that the vehicle's chief task is testing out new technologies for future satellites.
That's likely to be the case, said Weeden, who published a report in 2010 that investigated the X-37B and its likely missions.
The Air Force doesn?t disclose the X-37B's orbital parameters, but amateur observers have tracked the movements of both OTV-1 and OTV-2. They've found that OTV-2 is not looping around Earth in a polar orbit, which enables a good look at every spot on the globe.
Rather, the spacecraft is flying repeatedly over the stretch of Earth from 43 degrees north latitude to 43 degrees south latitude. Weeden thinks the space plane may be observing the Middle East and Afghanistan with some brand-new spy gear, perhaps instruments optimized to observe in wavelengths beyond the visible-light spectrum.
Earlier this month, an article in Spaceflight Magazine, a British publication, speculated that OTV-2 might be spying on Tiangong 1, China's recently launched prototype space module. But the orbits of the two robotic vehicles are quite different, making this scenario highly unlikely, Weeden and other experts have stressed.
You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
HAVANA ? A huge drilling rig arrived Thursday in the warm Gulf waters north of Havana, where it will sink an exploratory well deep into the seabed, launching Cuba's dreams of striking it rich with offshore oil.
The Scarabeo-9 platform was visible from Havana's sea wall far off on the hazy horizon as it chugged westward toward its final drill site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, and 60 miles (90 kilometers) south of Key West.
Spanish oil company Repsol RPF, which is leasing the rig for about a half-million dollars a day, said it expects to begin drilling within days to find out whether the reserves are as rich as predicted.
"The geologists have done their work. If they've done it well, then we'll have a good chance of success," Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said by phone from Madrid. "It's been a long process, but now we're at the point where we discover whether our geologists have got it right. It's a happy day."
It's been a long, strange journey for the Scarabeo-9, Repsol and Cuba, a process shadowed at every step by warnings of a possible environmental debacle and decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.
The U.S. trade embargo essentially bars U.S. companies from doing oil business with Cuba and threatens sanctions against foreign companies if they don't follow its restrictions, making it far more complicated to line up equipment and resources for the project.
To avoid sanctions, Repsol chose the Scarabeo-9, a 380-foot-long (115-meter), self-propelled, semisubmersible behemoth capable of housing 200 workers. The rig qualifies for the Cuba project because it was built with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts, no small feat considering America's dominance in the industry.
While comparable platforms sat idle in the Gulf of Mexico, the Scarabeo-9 spent months navigating through three oceans and around the Cape of Good Hope to arrive in the Caribbean at tremendous expense.
Even after the rig is in place, the embargo continues to affect just about every aspect.
The Scarabeo-9's blowout preventer, a key piece of machinery that failed in the 2010 Macondo-Deepwater Horizon disaster, is state of the art. But its U.S. manufacturer is not licensed to work with Cuba so replacement parts must come through secondary sources.
It's also more complicated to do things like the maintenance necessary to keep things running smoothly and decrease the chances of something going wrong.
If it does, Cuba would be hard-pressed to respond to a major spill on its own, and getting help isn't as simple as making a phone call to Washington. The embargo would require licenses to be issued for all manner of equipment and services for an emergency response.
Few U.S. companies so far have gotten permission to work with the Cubans in the event of a spill ? representing just 5 percent of all the resources thrown at the Macondo blowout, according to an estimate by Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.
Two U.S. companies have received licenses to export capping stacks, crucial pieces of equipment for stopping gushing wells, but related services like personnel and transportation have not been green-lighted, Hunt said.
"So what you have is a great big intelligent piece of iron without a crew," he said. "You can't just drop it on the hole and hope (the spill) will stop. It's not a cork."
Even Tyvek suits worn by cleanup crews cannot currently be exported to Cuba because potentially they could be used for the construction of bacteriological or chemical weapons, Hunt added.
Meanwhile cooperation between the two governments, which often struggle to see eye-to-eye on things as basic as delivering each other's mail, has been only bare-bones.
"With any other country ? Mexico, Canada or Russia ? we would already have in place agreements between the coast guards of the two countries," said Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund. "There would be contingency plans written and publicly available. There already would have been drills, a comprehensive action plan for responding to a spill."
"We don't have that yet."
There has been some movement.
U.S. inspectors examined the rig last week in Trinidad and gave it a clean bill of health, though notably said that did not constitute any certification. And American representatives at a regional oil meeting last month in the Bahamas were left impressed by their Cuban counterparts' openness and willingness to share information.
But the countries' proximity has increased fears of a disastrous spill with the potential to foul not only Cuba's reefs and gleaming, white-sand beaches, but also, swept up by the Gulf Stream, the coast of Florida and the Atlantic Seaboard up to North Carolina.
Curiously, those fears have been cited by people on both sides of the embargo issue: Some say the prospect of environmental disaster shows the U.S. needs to lift the embargo and work with the Cubans in the interest of safety; others say the fact that the trade ban failed to prevent Cuba from drilling shows it needs to be made even tougher.
Some of the harshest criticism has come from Cuban-American members of Congress such as House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently accused the Obama administration of dropping the ball on Cuban drilling.
"Oil exploration 90 miles off the Florida coast by this corrupt, unaccountable dictatorship could result in horrific environmental and economic damage to our Gulf Coast communities, in addition to enriching the Castro tyranny," Ros-Lehtinen said.
The exact size of Cuba's offshore reserves, estimated at 5 billion to 9 billion barrels, is still unknown. And production would not come online for years, so any windfall is still on the horizon. But island officials are hopeful of a big strike that could inject much-needed cash into their struggling economy, and they're not asking anyone for permission.
"Cuba is going through its own change regardless of American foreign policy," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate who met with Cuban officials in Havana this week on oil and other matters.
"This discovery, or potential discovery, of significant amounts of oil could dramatically change the economy of Cuba, and change the relationship with the United States in small ways and large," Durbin said while visiting Haiti on Thursday.
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Associated Press videojournalist Pierre-Richard Luxama in Haiti contributed to this report.
Today Sony launched three new pocket cams, despite the decreasing interest in this sector. Next-generation digital cameras (Micro four thirds and other non-traditional interchangeable lens system devices) coupled with the effects of full-frame DSLRs and smartphones have eroded the entry-level point-and-shoot market significantly.
The nominations for the 84th Academy Awards are upon us, and there?s one unexpected nominee among the usual list of Hollywood studios, crew and actors ? an iPad developer.![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 24-Jan-2012
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