Shake on a plane? Dance craze brings FAA inquiry

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) ? The latest craze to sweep the Internet is bringing college students the wrong kind of attention ? from the Federal Aviation Administration.

During a flight from Colorado Springs to San Diego, a group of students started the Harlem Shake, a dance to a song of the same name.

In the suddenly popular YouTube videos, one person starts dancing, then the video cuts to a large group of people dancing, many in costume.

Matt Zelin, a sophomore, told the Colorado College newspaper, The Catalyst (http://bit.ly/13qgjK2 ), he asked a flight attendant for permission beforehand.

FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said Thursday they're looking at what phase the flight was in during the dance in the aisles.

Frontier Airlines says the seatbelt sign was off and safety measures were followed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-02-28-Harlem%20Shake%20on%20Plane/id-505dc0a3328c49ff88a338bbe3c3cc7f

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First lady announces effort to help kids exercise

First lady Michelle Obama greets educators and state and community officials at a "Let's Move!" program at the Eastside and Northside Elementary Schools in Clinton, Miss., Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. Obama and television chef/personality Rachel Ray visited with the children and conducted a cooking contest between the schools' chefs. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

First lady Michelle Obama greets educators and state and community officials at a "Let's Move!" program at the Eastside and Northside Elementary Schools in Clinton, Miss., Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. Obama and television chef/personality Rachel Ray visited with the children and conducted a cooking contest between the schools' chefs. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

CHICAGO (AP) ? Imagine students learning their ABCs while dancing, or memorizing multiplication tables while doing jumping jacks?

Some schools are using both methods of instruction and Michelle Obama would like to see more of them use other creative ways to help students get the recommended hour of daily exercise.

In Chicago on Thursday, the first lady was announcing a new partnership to help schools do just that. It starts with a website, www.letsmoveschools.org , where school officials and others can sign up to get started.

Mrs. Obama said too many penny-pinched schools have either cut spending on physical education or eliminated it outright to put the money toward classroom instruction. But the first lady who starts most days with a workout ? and other advocates of helping today's largely sedentary kids move their bodies ? say that's a false choice, since studies that show exercise helps youngsters focus and do well in school.

The effort is one of the newest parts of Mrs. Obama's 3-year-old campaign against childhood obesity, known as "Let's Move," which she has spent the week promoting.

"With each passing year, schools feel like it's just getting harder to find the time, the money and the will to help our kids be active. But just because it's hard doesn't mean we should stop trying," the first lady says in her prepared remarks. "It means we should try harder. It means that all of us - not just educators, but businesses and nonprofits and ordinary citizens - we all need to dig deeper and start getting even more creative."

She was being joined for the announcement at McCormick Place in her hometown by several Olympians, including gymnasts Dominique Dawes and Gabby Douglas, sprinter Allyson Felix, tennis player Serena Williams and decathlete Ashton Eaton, along with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and triathlete Sarah Reinertsen, whose left leg was amputated above the knee when she was a child.

Research shows that daily exercise has a positive influence on academic performance, but kids today spend too much time sitting, mostly in school but also outside the classroom while watching TV, playing video games or surfing the Internet. Federal guidelines recommend that children ages 6-17 get at least 60 minutes of exercise daily, which can be racked up through multiple spurts of activity throughout the day.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he's proof of the link between exercise and academic performance. As a boy, he said he had a hard time sitting still in class but that exercise helped him focus.

"What's true for me is true for many of our nation's children," he said in an interview.

Duncan, who played basketball professionally in Australia for several years, said the choice is not between physical activity or academics, especially with about one-third of U.S. kids either overweight or obese and at higher risk for life-threatening illnesses like heart disease or diabetes.

"It's got to be both," he said. Duncan cited the examples of students learning the alphabet while dancing or memorizing multiplication tables while doing jumping jacks.

Under the new "Let's Move" initiative, modest grants will be available from the Education Department to help some programs get started.

Mrs. Obama called on school staff, families and communities to help get 50,000 schools involved in the program over the next five years.

The President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation will oversee the program. Funding and other resources will come from Nike Inc., the GENYOUth Foundation, ChildObesity180, Kaiser Permanente and the General Mills Foundation.

Nike has committed $50 million to the effort over the next five years; the remaining groups together have pledged more than $20 million.

"All kids deserve a chance to realize their full potential and we believe creating active schools will help kids do better in school and most importantly in life," said Nike President and CEO Mark Parker.

___

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsuperville

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-28-Michelle%20Obama/id-f95e7916643c414fba6cc86edbf3adb6

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Video: Blood vessels 'sniff' gut microbes to regulate blood pressure

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Researchers at The Johns Hopkins University and Yale University have discovered that a specialized receptor, normally found in the nose, is also in blood vessels throughout the body, sensing small molecules created by microbes that line mammalian intestines, and responding to these molecules by increasing blood pressure. The finding suggests that gut bacteria are an integral part of the body's complex system for maintaining a stable blood pressure.

A description of the research, conducted in mice and test tubes, appeared online Feb. 11 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The contribution that gut microbes apparently make to blood pressure regulation and human health is a surprise," says Jennifer Pluznick, Ph.D., assistant professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "There is still much to learn about this mechanism, but we now know some of the players and how they interact," she adds.

Pluznick says that several years ago, thanks to a "happy coincidence," she found ? in the kidney ? some of the same odor-sensing proteins that give the nose its powers. Focusing on one of those proteins, olfactory receptor 78 (Olfr78), her team specifically located it in the major branches of the kidney's artery and in the smaller arterioles that lead into the kidney's filtering structures. Olfr78 also turned up in the walls of small blood vessels throughout the body, she says, particularly in the heart, diaphragm, skeletal muscle and skin.

To figure out which molecules bind and activate Olfr78, the scientists programmed cells to have Olfr78 protein receptors on their surface. They also gave these same cells the ability to start a light-producing chemical reaction whenever Olfr78 is activated. By adding different cocktails of molecules to the cells and measuring the light the cells produced, they homed in on a single mixture that activated Olfr78. They then tested each component in that mix and found that only acetic acid (a.k.a. vinegar) bound Olfr78 and caused the reaction.

Acetic acid and its alter ego, acetate, are part of a group of molecules known as short chain fatty acids (SCFAs). When the team tested other molecules in this group, they found that propionate, which is similar to acetate, also binds Olfr78. In the body of mammals, including humans, SCFAs are made when zillions of bacteria lining the gut digest starch and cellulose from plant-based foods. The SCFAs are absorbed by the intestines into the blood stream, where they can interact with Olfr78.

To pinpoint the effect of Olfr78, the scientists gave SCFAs to mice missing the Olfr78 gene and found that the rodents' blood pressure decreased, suggesting that SCFAs normally induce Olfr78 to elevate blood pressure. However, when they gave SCFAs to normal mice with intact Olfr78, they did not see the expected increase in blood pressure, but rather a decrease, though it was less pronounced than before.

To test the effect of reducing the SCFAs available to Olfr78, the team gave mice a three-week course of antibiotics to wipe out the gut microbes responsible for SCFA production. In this case, normal mice showed very little change in blood pressure, but mice without Olfr78 experienced an increase in blood pressure, suggesting that there were other factors involved in the Olfr78/SCFA/blood pressure relationship.

The mystery was solved, Pluznick says, when the team examined mice lacking Gpr41, a non-smell-related protein receptor located in blood vessel walls that also binds SCFAs. When SCFAs bind to Gpr41, blood pressure is decreased. The researchers eventually discovered that Olfr78 and Gpr41 both are activated by SCFAs, but with contradictory effects. The negative effect of Gpr41 is counterbalanced by the positive effect of Olfr78, but Gpr41's effect is stronger, so an increase in SCFAs produces an overall decrease in blood pressure.

"We don't have the full story yet," says Pluznick. "There are many players involved in the maintenance of stable levels of blood pressure, and these are just a few of them. We don't know why it would be beneficial for blood pressure to decrease after eating or why gut microbes would play a part in signaling that change. But our work opens the door for exploring the effects of antibiotic treatments, probiotics and other dietary changes on blood pressure levels in mice, and perhaps eventually people."

###

Link to article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1215927110

Johns Hopkins Medicine: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org

Thanks to Johns Hopkins Medicine for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127032/Video__Blood_vessels__sniff__gut_microbes_to_regulate_blood_pressure

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Jennifer Brozek - Writing Retreats

(Crossposted from Jennifer Brozek)

I?m about to run off to the Rainforest Village Writers Retreat this weekend (Twitter: #RWVR). I will be speaking on panels and writing like crazy the rest of the time. I have an ambitious list to get through. We will see how it goes.

I really enjoy writing retreats. Weirdly, they are a vacation from my fulltime freelance writer?s life. Yes, I?m doing the same thing I do most days but I?m doing it in a different environment without all of the demands of home ? husband, cats, chores, weekly obligations. Instead, I?m writing and hanging out with other writers; many of whom I usually don?t get to see.

There is something invigorating about all that.

In July, I?ll be speaking at the Cascade Writers Workshop. I?ll be doing a lot more talking and attending other panels than writing but, like Rainforest, I?ll still be around a whole lot of creative people in the publishing industry. It will be a working vacation but still invigorating. There?s just something about being with lots of like-minded people that makes me inspired and eager to write that much more.

A couple cool things about the Cascade Workshop:? There still openings and there are two scholarships available. You can be around your people in a more intimate setting, talk, be inspired, learn something new, and write. Also, you are not required to workshop a story if you don?t want to. You can go, attend the panels, pitch to an agent, and write.

Source: http://jennifer-brozek.livejournal.com/188837.html

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Democrats nominate Robin Kelly in Illinois special election (Washington Post)

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Alcatel's MWC wares: hands-on with One Touch Snap and Scribe Easy

Alongside the other Alcatel notables at this year's Mobile World Congress were the One Touch Scribe Easy and the Snap. The One Touch Scribe Easy is a 5-inch WVGA display, 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU, 5-megapixel shooter, a large 2500 mAh battery to power the whole thing and a clever magnetic cover called the MagicFlip. Connectivity options include quad-band GSM and HSPA+ in either 900 / 2100 or 850 / 1900 / 2100MHz. Attached to the MagicFlip is a small stylus that Alcatel demoed to us using Vision Object's very impressive Myscript Calculator. Scribble down a formula and the app converts your scribbles to numbers and fills in the blanks where your equal sign ends up. While the Scribe Easy's display isn't comparable to its twin the Scribe Easy HD, it's more than reasonable for what we'd expect is going to be an inexpensive handset when it launches in March this year.

Moving on is the One Touch Snap with a 4.5-inch QHD display, 8-megapixel camera, 4Mbps HSPA+ and quad-band GSM. Housing quality was very good here and at just 9mm thin it fits well in the pocket. The Snap will ship in silver, white, or cloudy white colors. Again, we don't have pricing or a firm release date but as Alcatel explained the price really can shift depending on market. Have a look at the gallery of these two just below.

Gallery: Alcatel's MWC wares: hands-on with One Touch Snap and Scibe Easy

Filed under: Cellphones

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/alcatels-mwc-wares-hands-on-with-one-touch-snap-and-scibe-easy/

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Mozilla CEO Kovacs Pleads For Fragmentation? Says Fate Of Our Mobile World Can?t Depend On Just Two Companies

Gary Kovacs, the CEO of Mozilla, today took aim at Apple and Google -- or possibly Apple and Samsung; you can take your pick about how you parse mobile dominance -- and made a impassioned call for the mobile world to remain competitive. At a keynote during the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, he said companies needed to resist consolidation when it comes to offering mobile services to the four billion consumers that are expected to be mobile users in the next several years.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9zRXPf94cNE/

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Mursi's opponents say will boycott Egypt elections

CAIRO (Reuters) - An alliance of Egyptian opposition parties decided on Tuesday to boycott parliamentary elections in protest at an election law they say favors the Muslim Brotherhood, increasing the chance that Islamists will sweep the vote.

The boycott by liberal and leftist parties opposed to President Mohamed Mursi aims to undermine the legitimacy of the vote and shows the polarization that has defined Egyptian politics since Hosni Mubarak was toppled two years ago.

It raises the prospect of an election fought mostly between Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and more hardline Islamist groups such as the Salafi Nour Party. The vote is to be held in four stages between late April and June.

The National Salvation Front (NSF) - an array of liberal and leftist parties struggling to compete with the Islamists - said there should be no elections for the lower house of parliament without a law guaranteeing fair polls.

The law was passed this month by the Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament, which has been exercising legislative power in the absence of a lower house. The Islamists deny opposition accusations that the law divides constituencies in a way that favors the Muslim Brotherhood.

"There can be no elections without a law that guarantees the fairness of the election process and a government that can implement such a law and be trusted by the people," said Sameh Ashour, a spokesman for the NSF, who also called for "real independence of the judiciary".

With deep grass roots networks, the Islamists have won all elections since Mubarak was swept from power in a popular uprising that for a while brought Egyptians together in a display of unity rarely seen since then.

Divisions between the Islamists and their opponents have widened since Mursi won last year's presidential election. Tensions spilt into lethal street violence late last year when the president was accused of staging a power grab - accusations the Islamists dismissed as propaganda.

Seeking to convince the opposition to take part, Mursi invited them to talks on Tuesday to address concerns about the vote, but the alliance declined to attend. "We tell President Mursi: talk with yourself and your party," Ashour said.

Mursi went ahead with the talks anyway. "I hope these elections will be fully fair," he told the televised meeting attended by Islamists, smaller parties and independents. "We all bear the responsibility and I bear the most responsibility."

Mursi said he hoped "our dear brothers who did not meet us today" would join the talks at a later date.

"OPPRESSIVE POLICIES"

If the past is anything to go by, Mursi and the Brotherhood will press on regardless. In December, he held a referendum on a constitution opposed by the opposition, securing its approval and signing it into law despite fierce protest.

"The call for boycott indicates the lack of trust the opposition has in the Brotherhood government and may also speak to their own capacities to effectively compete should they run," said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based political analyst.

The boycott means parties led by some of the most prominent non-Islamist politicians will sit out the vote.

These include the Popular Current led by Hamdeen Sabahy, a leftist who came third in the presidential election won by Mursi last June, and the Dustour Party led by Mohamed ElBaradei, a former U.N. nuclear agency chief.

"This is to protest against the elections law that we did not participate in drafting, and about which our opinion was not taken," said Heba Yassin, a spokeswoman for Popular Current. "We reject the continuation of Mursi's oppressive policies that have led to nothing but more bloodshed and political problems."

The lower house was dissolved last year after a court ruled that the previous election law used to elect it was illegal.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party won about 40 percent of seats in the old lower house, with the Nour Party in second place. The Nour Party announced this week that it would take part in the elections.

Hassan Nafaa, a political scientist and a critic of the Muslim Brotherhood, said the boycott would undermine the legitimacy of the election. But he also foresaw some parties eventually breaking the boycott.

"If one of the front parties decided to enter the elections at a later stage, this will be a major blow," he said.

Police arrested 55 people on Tuesday during a failed attempt to re-open Tahrir Square which has been occupied by anti-Mursi demonstrators since November, a security source said.

State media described the police operation as a "peaceful process" that prompted a violent reaction from street venders who threw petrol bombs. Police removed barbed wire barricades, briefly opening the square to traffic, but they were swiftly re-erected by the youths that man them, the source said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by David Stamp and Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/leading-egyptian-leftist-party-boycott-elections-121040373.html

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Chinese pro hackers don't work weekends

Christopher Bodeen , The Associated Press ? ? ? 3 hrs.

Beijing hotly denies accusations of official involvement in massive cyberattacks against foreign targets, insinuating such activity is the work of rogues. But at least one piece of evidence cited by experts points to professional cyberspies: China's hackers don't work weekends.

Accusations of state-sanctioned hacking took center stage this past week following a detailed report by a U.S.-based Internet security firm Mandiant. It added to growing suspicions that the Chinese military is not only stealing national defense secrets and harassing dissidents but also pilfering information from foreign companies that could be worth millions or even billions of dollars.

Experts say Chinese hacking attacks are characterized not only by their brazenness, but by their persistence.

"China conducts at least an order of magnitude more than the next country," said Martin Libicki, a specialist on cyber warfare at the Rand Corporation, based in Santa Monica, California. The fact that hackers take weekends off suggests they are paid, and that would belie "the notion that the hackers are private," he said.

Libicki and other cyber warfare experts have long noted a Monday-through-Friday pattern in the intensity of attacks believed to come from Chinese sources, though there has been little evidence released publicly directly linking the Chinese military to the attacks.

Mandiant went a step further in its report Tuesday saying that it had traced hacking activities against 141 foreign entities in the U.S. Canada, Britain and elsewhere to a group of operators known as the "Comment Crew" or "APT1," for "Advanced Persistent Threat 1," which it traced back to the People's Liberation Army Unit 61398. The unit is headquartered in a nondescript 12-story building inside a military compound in a crowded suburb of China's financial hub of Shanghai.

Attackers stole information about pricing, contract negotiations, manufacturing, product testing and corporate acquisitions, the company said.

Hacker teams regularly began work, for the most part, at 8 a.m. Beijing time. Usually they continued for a standard work day, but sometimes the hacking persisted until midnight. Occasionally, the attacks stopped for two-week periods, Mandiant said, though the reason was not clear.

China denies any official involvement, calling such accusations "groundless" and insisting that Beijing is itself a major victim of hacking attacks, the largest number of which originate in the U.S. While not denying hacking attacks originated in China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Thursday that it was flat out wrong to accuse the Chinese government or military of being behind them.

Mandiant and other experts believe Unit 61398 to be a branch of the PLA General Staff's Third Department responsible for collection and analysis of electronic signals such as e-mails and phone calls. It and the Fourth Department, responsible for electronic warfare, are believed to be the PLA units mainly responsible for infiltrating and manipulating computer networks.

China acknowledges pursuing these strategies as a key to delivering an initial blow to an opponent's communications and other infrastructure during wartime ? but the techniques are often the same as those used to steal information for commercial use.

Office hours
China has consistently denied state-sponsored hacking, but experts say the office hours that the cyberspies keep point to a professional army rather than mere hobbyists or so-called "hacktivists" inspired by patriotic passions.

Mandiant noticed that pattern while monitoring attacks on the New York Times last year blamed on another Chinese hacking group it labeled APT12. Hacker activity began at around 8:00 a.m. Beijing time and usually lasted through a standard workday.

The Rand Corporation's Libicki said he wasn't aware of any comprehensive studies, but that in such cases, most activity between malware embedded in a compromised system and the malware's controllers takes place during business hours in Beijing's time zone.

Richard Forno, director of the University of Maryland Baltimore County's graduate cybersecurity program, and David Clemente, a cybersecurity expert with independent analysis center Chatham House in London, said that observation has been widely noted among cybersecurity specialists.

"It would reflect the idea that this is becoming a more routine activity and that they are quite methodical," Clemente said.

The PLA's Third Department is brimming with resources, according to studies commissioned by the U.S. government, with 12 operation bureaus, three research institutes, and an estimated 13,000 linguists, technicians and researchers on staff. It's further reinforced by technical teams from China's seven military regions spread across the country, and by the military's vast academic resources, especially the PLA University of Information Engineering and the Academy of Military Sciences.

The PLA is believed to have made cyber warfare a key priority in its war-fighting capabilities more than a decade ago. Among the few public announcements of its development came in a May 25, 2011 news conference by Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng, in which he spoke of developing China's "online" army.

"Currently, China's network protection is comparatively weak," Geng told reporters, adding that enhancing information technology and "strengthening network security protection are important components of military training for an army."

Unit 61398 is considered just one of many such units under the Third Department responsible for hacking, according to experts.

Greg Walton, a cyber-security researcher who has tracked Chinese hacking campaigns, said he's observed the "Comment Crew" at work, but cites as equally active another Third Department unit operating out of the southwestern city of Chengdu. It is tasked with stealing secrets from Indian government security agencies and think tanks, together with the India-based Tibetan Government in Exile, Walton said.

Another hacking outfit believed by some to have PLA links, the "Elderwood Group," has targeted defense contractors, human rights groups, non-governmental organizations, and service providers, according to computer security company Symantec.

It's believed to have compromised Amnesty International's Hong Kong website in May 2012, although other attacks have gone after targets as diverse as the Council on Foreign Relations and Capstone Turbine Corporation, which makes gas microturbines for power plants.

Civilian departments believed to be involved in hacking include those under the Ministry of Public Security, which commands the police, and the Ministry of State Security, one of the leading clandestine intelligence agencies. The MSS is especially suspected in attacks on foreign academics studying Chinese social issues and unrest in the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

Below them on the hacking hierarchy are private actors, including civilian universities and research institutes, state industries in key sectors such as information technology and resources, and college students and other individuals acting alone or in groups, according to analysts, University of Maryland's Forno said.

China's government isn't alone in being accused of cyber espionage, but observers say it has outpaced its rivals in using military assets to steal commercial secrets.

"Stealing secrets is stealing secrets regardless of the medium," Forno said. "The key difference is that you can't easily arrest such electronic thieves since they're most likely not even in the country, which differs from how the game was played during the Cold War."

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/china-hackers-seen-increasingly-professional-dont-work-weekends-1C8543779

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Liquipel announces new turnkey retail solution, partnership with JayBird for moisture-resistant headphones

Earlier we told you how Liquipel was expanding their operations to serve more customers around the world, and now we have some more news from the company. Today they announced a new turn-key station that business can use to coat phones on the spot in any retail space. In addition, they have announced their partnership with JayBird to offer Bluetooth headphones coated with the water resistant technology.

The Liquipel Tower is a bit of machinery that retailers can purchase for their stores. Customers can come in and get their phone (many models are supported) treated with the nano-coating on the spot. Each tower is completely self-contained, and everything needed is in the unit. These Liquipel Towers will be available in the U.S. in Q2 2013.

JayBird already builds and sells premium headphones designed for the active crowd, and the announcement of a partnership with Liquipel allows them to offer a moisture-resistant Bluetooth option on top of their current line. The coating does not compromise the look or the operation of the headphones, and should be a compelling product for folks who need a set of headphones that can stand a bit of water torture. There was no mention of pricing or availability.  

We've got two press releases with all the details after the break,

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/vMMhhX4zswE/story01.htm

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Rampage IV Extreme Windows 8 Install

Hey everyone thought i would write this because the multiple times installing windows 8 a different problem every time.

When you Install windows 8 the drivers you need to include are:

1. Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility (WHQL)

2. Intel(R) Management Engine Interface

3. Realtek Audio Driver

4. Your video card driver (Nvidia or AMD)

5.Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Driver

6. Asus_USB_3_FW_Update_Tool - make sure to update the firmware for usb

7. Asmedia AHCI Driver

8. Bluetooth Driver

Drivers i had problems with are:

1. Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology enterprise Driver - Seems to name all the drives wrong in the device manager not sure if it cause a performance issue or not. I have not tried Intel RST.
I attached an image of my ssd showing up with a bad name.

If you have raid you should be able to install RST the drive names in the device manager should not matter.

2. ASUS AI Suite II - This caused serious performance issues when installed. I advise to not install it until its updated.

Optional:

1. ASUS ROG Theme -Just because its Awesome!

Source: http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?29591-Rampage-IV-Extreme-Windows-8-Install&goto=newpost

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Italians vote in polls seen key to finance crisis

A man casts his vote for the Italian Senate, in Piacenza, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Marco Vasini)

A man casts his vote for the Italian Senate, in Piacenza, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Marco Vasini)

Pier Luigi Bersani, right, leader of the Democratic Party, casts his ballot with his wife Daniela, in Piacenza, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Marco Vasini)

Outgoing Premier Mario Monti prepares to vote, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

A woman casts her ballot for the Italian Lower Chamber, in Piacenza, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Marco Vasini)

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano casts his ballot, in Rome, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Italy votes in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies. (AP Photo/Antonio Di Gennario, Italian Presidential press service, ho)

ROME (AP) ? Will Italy stay the course with painful economic reform? Or fall back into the old habit of profligacy and inertia? These are the stakes as Italians vote in a watershed parliamentary election Sunday and Monday that could shape the future of one of Europe's biggest economies.

Fellow European Union countries and investors are watching closely, as the decisions that Italy makes over the next several months promise to have a profound impact on whether Europe can decisively put out the flames of its financial crisis. Greece's troubles in recent years were enough to spark a series of market panics. With an economy almost 10 times the size of Greece's, Italy is simply too big a country for Europe, and the world, to see fail.

Leading the electoral pack is Pier Luigi Bersani, a former communist who has shown a pragmatic streak in supporting tough economic reforms spearheaded by incumbent Mario Monti. On Bersani's heels is Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul seeking an unlikely political comeback after being forced from the premiership by Italy's debt crisis. Monti, while widely credited with saving Italy from financial ruin, is trailing badly as he pays the price for the suffering caused by austerity measures.

Then there's the wild card: comic-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, whose protest movement against the entrenched political class has been drawing tens of thousands to rallies in piazzas across Italy. If his self-styled political "tsunami" sweeps into Parliament with a big chunk of seats, Italy could be in store for a prolonged period of political confusion that would spook the markets.

Voting was generally calm. But when Berlusconi showed up at a Milan polling place to cast his ballot, three women, shouting "Enough of Berlusconi," pulled off their sweaters to bare their chests, and display the slogan "Basta Silvio!" (Enough of Silvio) scrawled on their flesh. A cordon of police, already in place for security before the former premier's arrival, blocked Berlusconi's direct view of the topless women.

Police detained the women for questioning. Italian news reports said the three were members of the Femen protest group.

After voting, Berlusconi described the topless protesters as "an exaggeration. There are situations that are outside the bounds of reason, and we can't do anything about them," he said.

While a man of the left, Bersani has shown himself to have a surprising amount in common with the center-right Monti ? and the two have hinted at the possibility of teaming up in a coalition. Bersani was Monti's most loyal backer in Parliament during the respected economist's tenure at the head of a technocratic government. And in ministerial posts in previous center-left governments, Bersani fought hard to free up such areas of the economy as energy, insurance and banking services.

But it's uncertain that Monti will be able muster the votes needed to give Bersani's Democratic Party a stable majority in both houses of Parliament.

"Forming a government with a stable parliamentary alliance may prove tricky after elections," said Eoin Ryan, an analyst with IHS Global Insight. "A surge in support for anti-austerity parties is raising chances of an indecisive election result and post-vote political instability."

Another factor is turnout. Usually some 80 percent of the 50 million eligible voters go to the polls but experts are predicting many will stay away in anger, hurting mainstream parties.

Interior Ministry figures put turnout by 7 p.m. at 44 percent, 2.5 percentage points less than in the last national elections in 2008.

Italian elections are usually held in spring, and this balloting came amid bad weather in much of the country, including snow in the north. Rain was forecast for much of the country Monday.

Sunday's vote also coincided with balloting for governor and regional assemblies in three regions, including Italy's two most important areas ? the Lazio region including Rome, and Lombardy, whose capital is Milan, Italy's financial center.

Lombardy's results in the national vote are considered crucial in helping determine Parliament's makeup. Turnout was running higher than during the last regional vote in those two regions, officials said.

When Berlusconi stepped down in November 2011, newspapers were writing his political obituary. At 76, blamed for mismanaging the economy and disgraced by criminal allegations of sex with an underage prostitute, the billionaire media baron appeared finished as a political force.

But Berlusconi has proven time and again ? over 20 years at the center of Italian politics ? that he should never be counted out.

The campaign strategy that has allowed him to become a contender in these elections is a simple one: please the masses by throwing around cash.

Berlusconi has promised to give back an unpopular property tax imposed by Monti as part of austerity measures. Even his purchase of star striker Mario Balotelli for his AC Milan soccer team was widely seen as a ploy to buy votes. Berlusconi has also appealed to Italy's right-wing by praising Italy's former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini during a ceremony commemorating Holocaust victims.

The most recent polls show Bersani in the lead with 33 percent of the vote, against 28 percent for Berlusconi's coalition with the populist Northern League. Grillo's 5 Star movement was in a surprise third place, with 17 percent support, while Monti's centrist coalition was notching 13 percent. The COESIS poll of 6,212 respondents had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percent.

Pollster Renato Mannheimer said among his biggest clients heading into the elections were foreign banks seeking to gauge whether to hold or sell Italian bonds.

"They are worried mostly about the return of Berlusconi," Mannheimer said.

Uncertainty over the outcome of the vote has pushed the Milan stock exchange down in the days running up to the vote and bumped up borrowing costs, as investors express concern that Italy may back down from a reform course to pull the country out of recession.

Mannheimer said many undecided voters ? who comprise around one-third of the total electorate ? identify with the center-right, and that may help Berlusconi. He said that the undecided vote may also tilt heavily toward Grillo's protest movement.

The professorial Monti looked uncomfortable at first as a candidate but has recently warmed to the role. Like the others, he has not shied away from name calling, warning that Berlusconi is a "charlatan" and saying his return would be "horrific."

Bond analyst Nicholas Spiro said the election "will deliver the most important verdict on the eurozone's three-year-old austerity focused policies."

But he is betting on a period of political instability after the vote.

"An upset victory by Mr. Berlusconi may be markets' nightmare scenario," he said, "but the prospects for a stable and harmonious Bersani-Monti coalition government ? still the mostly likely outcome in our view ? are bleak."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-24-Italy-Elections/id-7712c8db8f4245bd8c032de09dfd9147

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Scientists find genes linked to human neurological disorders in sea lamprey genome

Feb. 24, 2013 ? Scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) have identified several genes linked to human neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury, in the sea lamprey, a vertebrate fish whose whole-genome sequence is reported this week in the journal Nature Genetics.

"This means that we can use the sea lamprey as a powerful model to drive forward our molecular understanding of human neurodegenerative disease and neurological disorders," says Jennifer Morgan of the MBL's Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering. The ultimate goals are to determine what goes wrong with neurons after injury and during disease, and to determine how to correct these deficits in order to restore normal nervous system functions.

Unlike humans, the lamprey has an extraordinary capacity to regenerate its nervous system. If a lamprey's spinal cord is severed, it can regenerate the damaged nerve cells and be swimming again in 10-12 weeks.

Morgan and her collaborators at MBL, Ona Bloom and Joseph Buxbaum, have been studying the lamprey's recovery from spinal cord injury since 2009. The lamprey has large, identified neurons in its brain and spinal cord, making it an excellent model to study regeneration at the single cell-level. Now, the lamprey's genomic information gives them a whole new "toolkit" for understanding its regenerative mechanisms, and for comparing aspects of its physiology, such as inflammation response, to that of humans.

The lamprey genome project was accomplished by a consortium of 59 researchers led by Weiming Li of Michigan State University and Jeramiah Smith of the University of Kentucky. The MBL scientists' contribution focused on neural aspects of the genome, including one of the project's most intriguing findings.

Lampreys, in contrast to humans, don't have myelin, an insulating sheath around neurons that allows faster conduction of nerve impulses. Yet the consortium found genes expressed in the lamprey that are normally expressed in myelin. In humans, myelin-associated molecules inhibit nerves from regenerating if damaged. "A lot of the focus of the spinal cord injury field is on neutralizing those inhibitory molecules," Morgan says.

"So there is an interesting conundrum," Morgan says. "What are these myelin-associated genes doing in an animal that doesn't have myelin, and yet is good at regeneration? It opens up a new and interesting set of questions, " she says. Addressing them could bring insight to why humans lost the capacity for neural regeneration long ago, and how this might be restored.

At present, Morgan and her collaborators are focused on analyzing which genes are expressed and when, after spinal cord injury and regeneration. The whole-genome sequence gives them an invaluable reference for their work.

Morgan, Bloom, and Buxbaum collaborate at the MBL through funding by the Charles Evans Foundation. Bloom is based at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research/Hofstra North Shore-Long Island Jewish in New York. Buxbaum is from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Marine Biological Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jeramiah J Smith, Shigehiro Kuraku, Carson Holt, Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Ning Jiang, Michael S Campbell, Mark D Yandell, Tereza Manousaki, Axel Meyer, Ona E Bloom, Jennifer R Morgan, Joseph D Buxbaum, Ravi Sachidanandam, Carrie Sims, Alexander S Garruss, Malcolm Cook, Robb Krumlauf, Leanne M Wiedemann, Stacia A Sower, Wayne A Decatur, Jeffrey A Hall, Chris T Amemiya, Nil R Saha, Katherine M Buckley, Jonathan P Rast, Sabyasachi Das, Masayuki Hirano, Nathanael McCurley, Peng Guo, Nicolas Rohner, Clifford J Tabin, Paul Piccinelli, Greg Elgar, Magali Ruffier, Bronwen L Aken, Stephen M J Searle, Matthieu Muffato, Miguel Pignatelli, Javier Herrero, Matthew Jones, C Titus Brown, Yu-Wen Chung-Davidson, Kaben G Nanlohy, Scot V Libants, Chu-Yin Yeh, David W McCauley, James A Langeland, Zeev Pancer, Bernd Fritzsch, Pieter J de Jong, Baoli Zhu, Lucinda L Fulton, Brenda Theising, Paul Flicek, Marianne E Bronner, Wesley C Warren, Sandra W Clifton, Richard K Wilson, Weiming Li. Sequencing of the sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) genome provides insights into vertebrate evolution. Nature Genetics, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/ng.2568

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/31_IzH_8VG8/130224142915.htm

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Huawei reveals 'fastest smartphone in the world'

This undated product image provided by Huawei, shows the Chinese company's new flagship model that it calls "the fastest smartphone in the world."The company said Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012, the device supports faster download speeds than other phones, but today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds. (AP Photo/Huawei)

This undated product image provided by Huawei, shows the Chinese company's new flagship model that it calls "the fastest smartphone in the world."The company said Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012, the device supports faster download speeds than other phones, but today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds. (AP Photo/Huawei)

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) ? Huawei, a Chinese company that recently became the world's third-largest maker of smartphones, calls its new flagship product "the fastest smartphone in the world" and wants to use it to expand global awareness of its brand.

Parts of the presentation of the phone at a press conference Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, suggest that the company has some way to go in polishing its pitch for a global audience.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei's consumer business group said the new phone can be programmed to display more than 100 different "themes," or looks. This is important because "ladies like flowers, colorful things," Yu said.

Yu also said Huawei is learning from Apple how to make Google's Android software easier to use, a lawsuit-friendly utterance considering that Apple is on a global campaign to sue makers of Android phones for copying from the iPhone.

The new phone, the Ascend P2, will have a 4.7 inch screen. Yu said it will be available in the April to June time frame for about $525 without a contract. It's the "fastest" because it supports faster download speeds than other phones. However, today's wireless networks aren't equipped to supply those speeds.

Huawei Technologies Ltd. was the world's third largest seller of smartphones, after Samsung and Apple, in the fourth quarter of last year, according to research firm IDC. That's despite selling very few phones in the U.S., where the big phone companies mostly ignore it. It has a much better position in Europe, where cellphone companies have embraced its network equipment, and France's Orange is committed to selling the phone.

In the U.S., a congressional panel recommended in October that phone carriers avoid doing business with Huawei or its smaller Chinese rival, ZTE Corp., for fear that its network equipment could contain "back doors" that enable access to communications from outside. The Chinese government rejected the report as false and an effort to block Chinese companies from the U.S. market.

Meanwhile, a report by a private U.S. cybersecurity firm concluded recently that a special unit of China's military is responsible for sustained cyberespionage against U.S. companies and government agencies. China has denied involvement in the attacks in which massive amounts of data and corporate trade secrets, likely worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were stolen.

"It has not been an easy journey for us," Huawei's global brand director, Amy Lou, said Sunday of the company's quest to become globally recognized and trusted. She called the company "a great consumer brand in the making."

The world's largest cellphone trade show, Mobile World Congress, opens Monday in Barcelona.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-24-EU-TEC-Wireless-Show-Huawei/id-f2f99fd9c2224e69a28030917ba5ca74

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Evan Gattis wanders his way back to baseball

Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis throws during a spring training baseball workout, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in Kissimmee, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis throws during a spring training baseball workout, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in Kissimmee, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis throws during a spring training baseball workout, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in Kissimmee, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Atlanta Braves catcher Evan Gattis waits for the start of a spring training baseball workout, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013, in Kissimmee, Fla. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) ? Spring training is all about those on the fringes.

The phenoms looking to make their mark. The geezers trying desperately to hang on. The never-heard-ofs attempting to pull off the camp of their lives. For some reason, that warm Florida sun (Arizona sun works, too) makes all things seem possible.

Then there's Evan Gattis, who is so compelling that everyone else pales in comparison.

"This is my story," the 26-year-old says nonchalantly, sitting at his locker in the Atlanta Braves clubhouse. "Hey, it's the only one I've got."

He walked away from the game not long after high school, absolutely terrified of being a failure and figuring there must be something better out there. There were bouts with depression and drugs, a series of menial jobs ranging from valet to janitor to cart boy at a golf course. He traveled throughout the West, seeking out wandering souls such as himself and spiritual advisers who could help make sense of it all.

Finally, something clicked.

Baseball, the sport he once fled from, was what he needed all along.

"I mean, this is a pastime," Gattis says, a sense of wonderment in his voice. "Honestly, what would you rather be doing right now than this? You know what I mean? I hate to say it like, 'Oh, there's nothing better to do.' But, really, there is nothing ... better ... to do," drawing out the words for effect.

In a way, he's come to the right place. The Braves conduct spring training on the sprawling grounds of Walt Disney World, just down the road from the Magic Kingdom, a place that turned make believe into a very profitable business.

Now we have a player who uses the ID tag from his days as a janitor as the avatar on his Twitter account trying to make it to the big leagues.

Sure, he's a longshot. But ol' Walt would've loved this tale.

"It's kind of a bummer that I never even gave myself a chance to fail before," Gattis says. "Now, I'm not really afraid to fail."

He pauses for a bit of a course correction, then carries on.

"Sure, everybody is afraid of failure a little bit. But I'm not going to let it keep me from success."

Gattis was initially offered a scholarship to play baseball at Texas A&M. He never made it.

"I was smoking a lot of pot," he recalls. "I knew I was talented. I knew a lot of people were rooting for me. I just didn't want people to think I was a mess-up, basically. I was scared. ... I was afraid of being looked at as a failure."

His mother checked him into rehab, where he tackled some of his demons but not his longing for the meaning of life. He gave baseball another try, attending a junior college in Oklahoma, but his heart wasn't in it. He hurt his knee and was redshirted, then left school midway through the next season.

It was time to go wandering.

He would drop everything and leave on a dime whenever he felt the urge. There was the visit to his sister in Colorado, where he found "the most intense peace I've ever felt in my life," then felt it slip away. There was the time he drove one of his spiritual advisers to the airport, told her that he wished he could jump on the plane, too, then did just that a couple of days later ? even though it was Christmastime.

"I was like, 'Sorry, folks, I've got to go.' I just had to go."

Some may view Gattis as selfish.

He sees it as something that was absolutely necessary to becoming a whole person.

Through a different prism, it even sounds courageous, the sort of self-discovery that most of us long for but never have the guts to actually follow through on.

"Some people find out that stuff when they're 50," he says. "Then they say, '... I forgot to live.' So at least I got that out of me when I was young. People say in meditation groups, 'You can find it out when you're 25 or you can find it out later in life.'"

He finally found what he was looking for in California, where yet another spiritual mentor cracked a code that is still hard to understand.

"He kind of cleared up anything I had going on," Gattis remembers. "I don't know how to put it in words. I was just done looking for whatever it was I was looking for. I was done with it. It cleared up in kind of a final way where, without a shadow of a doubt, I just knew I didn't have to do that anymore."

Even at an age when most people are done with college, Gattis learned he was still eligible to play ball. In 2010, he enrolled at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. After batting over .400, he was drafted by the Braves in the 23rd round.

An unorthodox prospect approaching his mid-20s, Gattis was hardly put on a fast-track to the majors, but he kept winning over the brass with his impressive hitting numbers. He batted .322 with 22 homers in the South Atlantic League. Last season, he split time between three minor-league teams and hit a cumulative .305 with 18 homers.

This year, he was invited to his first big-league camp ? albeit as a non-roster player. A catcher by trade, he's now getting work in left field, trying to improve his versatility and maybe earn a spot on the team that heads north.

"He's never been handed anything," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez says. "Sometimes ? myself included ? we give too much to our kids and they don't earn it. But this young man has earned everything he's gotten so far."

The Braves certainly aren't giving Gattis any special treatment. If anything, he's got to be even more impressive than those he's battling for a job, most of whom have played in the big leagues and have more gravitas with Gonzalez and the coaching staff.

"His story is nice. But that story isn't going to get him to the big leagues," the manager says. "Fifteen years from now, when he's an established major leaguer, that will be a nice book. But what's impressive about him now are his numbers."

If Gattis had chosen a more traditional course, he might already be an established big leaguer.

But he has absolutely no regrets about his journey and, really, that's what we all should be striving for.

"Did I miss out?" Gattis asks.

He knows the answer now.

"No, not at all."

___

Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-22-BBN-Paul-Newberry-022213/id-41ac5a8a06af4776a5847e69f26f8b13

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Style Your Windows With Venetian Blinds

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The use of Venetian blinds has been prevalent from very long time and as we all know, their main features are to secure us from sun light and inquisitive neighbors. However, there are other impressive Venetian Blinds available today like metal venetian blinds or wooden venetian blinds so this is a tale about different Venetian Blinds to make your windows fall in love with them.

Source: http://forum.affiliatebot.com/63840/style-your-windows-venetian-blinds/

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?War Correspondents? In Mexico Address Mainstream Media Shortcomings, Use Twitter To Spread Information

In Mexico?s drug-war-torn cities, a small number of Twitter users affected by narco violence are acting as war correspondents to the masses, providing a public-safety alert system of sorts, according to a recent research paper from Microsoft, called ?The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare.?

These ?curators,? tweeting with hashtags like #mtyfollow, #reynosafolllow, #saltillo and #verfollow, produce an inordinately high number of tweets compared to other users, informing people about recent violence, clashes and other news in regions where traditional news outlets have engaged in self-imposed blackouts to avoid narco violence.

?Twitter in particular and social media in general have become important elements of the information ecosystem. They have not replaced traditional news media, but they have certainly extended it in new ways,? Andr?s Monroy-Hern?ndez, one of the report researchers, tells TechCrunch. ?Social media is more participatory and democratic than the existing mainstream media, which is one of the reasons why it has emerged as a form of public sphere ? like a networked version of the public plazas.?

The report noted that of the 34 million people with Internet access in Mexico, 20 percent use Twitter. About 4.2 percent of Mexico?s online population has posted about the drug war on Twitter, according to the report. These users tend to use Twitter on desktop, and occasionally mobile, Monroy-Hern?ndez says.

Twitter?s adoption in the cities most affected by violence and studied in the report ? Monterrey, Reynosa, Saltillo and Veracruz ? paralleled the rise of violence there. And the volume of tweets in these cities continues to mirror violence-related events there, according to the report.

Because the use of Twitter in these cities revolves around the drug war, a big chunk of tweets are actually retweets, users notifying their networks about the danger. Hence, the importance of the core group of ?curators? who work independently, or with their own sources, to tweet out information to the masses. For example, in Monterrey one Twitter user was responsible for 3 percent of the city?s total tweets, two users responsible for 2 percent and seven users who were each responsible for 1 percent of the city?s tweets.

Yet, because of the nature of these tweets, curators are also anonymous, which at times means it is difficult to ascertain the veracity of the information in the tweets. This legitimacy issue is something Monroy-Hern?ndez sees as part of the evolution of social media in Mexico.

?I see an emerging trend of civic media technologies playing a central role in public life, especially those technologies that build on everyday social media practices,? he said. ?I expect this is going to become a very rich space ? not only in Mexico, but across the world.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/uUxBLhKbuuk/

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Morgan Stanley expects 6% dividend, cheaper 'iPhone mini' after meeting with Apple CFO

By Neil Hughes

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty recently met with Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer, and came away with the impression that Apple will likely increase cash return to shareholders, and potentially release a lower priced iPhone to maintain growth.


Huberty, in a note to investors on Friday, said that innovation remains a "top priority" at Apple. That's why she expects Apple to expand the iPhone lineup, and also to introduce new services that can "unlock significant value" and drive device sales.

She noted that demand for the iPhone 4, Apple's current low-end handset offering, was surprisingly strong during the December quarter. With a gross margin of 40 percent and a one-third cannibalization rate, she believes a so-called "iPhone mini" would drive incremental revenue and gross profit.

"The company's approach to product decisions and innovation has not changed in the past several years despite the CEO transition," Huberty wrote. "Making great products remains Apple's core strategy and the company is as confident as ever about the future pipeline of new products and services."

And with Apple's cash balance $40 billion higher than it was in March of 2012, Huberty believes the company will likely return more cash to shareholders. She believes the iPhone maker could match the S&P 500 IT sector's average free cash flow payout of 68 percent.

At that rate, Apple could return $28 billion to shareholders in fiscal year 2013, which would imply a 6 percent total yield on the company's dividend. That would be a major increase over Apple's current $2.65 quarterly dividend, which carries a 2.3 percent yield.

To pay out that higher dividend, Apple could borrow cash. She noted that the amount of Apple's cash overseas has limited the company's flexibility, but this could be addressed by raising low-interest debt.

Morgan Stanley has maintained its "overweight" rating for AAPL stock with a price target of $630.

Source: http://feeds.appleinsider.com/click.phdo?i=c54953c7cd4356eb5a9f68f4779056c1

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Peterson screams, then gets 38 years for murder

JOLIET, Ill. (AP) ? Drew Peterson ? the swaggering Chicago-area policeman who gained notoriety after his fourth wife vanished ? lost his characteristic cool in court Thursday, screaming out his innocence before a judge sentenced him to 38 years in prison for the murder of a previous wife.

"I did not kill Kathleen!" Peterson shouted, leaning into a courtroom microphone and emphasizing each of the five words.

Without missing a beat, his dead wife's sister, Susan Doman, shouted back, "Yes, you did! You liar!" before the judge ordered sheriff's deputies to remove her from the courtroom.

For years, Peterson had casually dismissed and even joked about suggestions he killed his third wife, Kathleen Savio, or that he was behind the disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

His sudden explosion of fury Thursday as he stepped up to address the judge who would sentence him for Savio's 2004 death left spectators gasping. Lead state prosecutor James Glasgow said it exposed the real Drew Peterson ? the one more than capable of murder.

"We all got an opportunity to see a psychopath reveal himself in open court," Glasgow told reporters shortly after Thursday's hearing. "That shrill ... screech. ... That's the guy that killed Kathy."

Illinois does not have the death penalty, and the 59-year-old Peterson had faced a maximum 60-year prison term. Judge Edward Burmila gave him four years' credit for time he has served since his 2009 arrest.

After starting his statement with the startling scream, Peterson went on for 30 more minutes, continuing in mostly hushed tones, crying and trying to regain his composure at times. His voice quivered and his hands were shaking as he reached for a glass of water.

"I loved Kathy. She was a good mom," he said, tearing up. "She did not deserve to die. But she died in an accident."

Savio's death was initially ruled an accident, after neighbors found the 40-year-old aspiring nurse's body in a dry bathtub at home. It was Stacy Peterson's 2007 disappearance that prompted authorities to take another look at Savio's death and eventually reclassify it as a homicide. Drew Peterson is also a suspect in the disappearance of Stacy Peterson ? who was 23-years-old when she vanished ? but he hasn't been charged in her case.

Fascination nationwide with Drew Peterson arose from speculation he sought to use his law enforcement expertise to get away with murder. Jurors convicted him of Savio's murder in September.

At times Thursday, Peterson seemed to wallow in self-pity, telling the judge, "I don't deserve this," and that "America should be outraged (by the injustice of his conviction), but nobody cares." Other times, he seethed, blaming prosecutors for what he called "the largest railroad job ever."

He told Glasgow that the prosecutor could now celebrate because he had destroyed Peterson's life. Minutes later, Peterson challenged Glasgow to look him in the eyes. Glasgow, who had been taking notes, laid down his pen, folded his arms and looked straight back at Peterson.

"Never forget what you've done here," Peterson said.

Glasgow later told reporters about that moment, "I was thinking, 'You're a cold-blooded murderer and I'll stare you down until I die.'"

Peterson had divorced Savio a year before her death. His motive for killing her, prosecutors said, was fear that a pending settlement would wipe him out financially.

Before Thursday, Peterson had never publicly showed concern about the serious charges and the possible sentence he faced. The glib, cocky former police officer seemed to taunt authorities before his 2009 arrest, suggesting a "Win a Date With Drew Contest" and then, after his arrest, "Win a Conjugal Visit With Drew Contest." More recently, his story inspired a TV movie starring Rob Lowe.

Savio's family members told the judge they hoped she was somehow watching Thursday's proceedings.

"I hope ... she is watching his descent into hell," said Henry Savio Jr., the victim's brother. And he added about Drew Peterson, "I hope she is haunting him in his dreams."

Sister Anna Doman said she couldn't help thinking about what her sister went through in the moments before she died: "The horror and the betrayal she felt when she realized that someone she had trusted and loved more than anything was killing her."

Prosecutors had no physical evidence tying Peterson to Savio's death and no witnesses placing him at the scene ? something Peterson alluded to in his statement. During last year's trial, they relied on typically barred hearsay ? statements Savio made to others before she died and that Stacy Peterson made before she vanished. Illinois passed a hearsay law in 2008 tailored to Drew Peterson's case, dubbed "Drew's Law," which assisted in making some of the evidence admissible.

The hearsay ? any information reported by a witness not based on the witness' direct knowledge ? included a friend testifying that Savio told her Peterson once put a knife to her throat and warned her, "I could kill you and make it look like an accident."

A turning point at the trial came when the defense called a divorce attorney who said he spoke to Stacy Peterson before she vanished. Rather than blunting her credibility, the witness stressed to jurors that Stacy Peterson seemed to truly believe her husband killed Savio.

Earlier Thursday, the judge denied a defense request to grant Drew Peterson a retrial. Peterson's current attorneys contended his former lead attorney, Joel Brodsky, botched the initial trial and had been the one to decide to call Smith to the stand. Brodsky stepped down from the defense team in November.

Prosecutors suspect Peterson killed his fourth wife because she could finger him for Savio's death. Peterson has maintained his fourth wife ran off with another man and is still alive.

Peterson's attorneys have said they might appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds Illinois' hearsay law is unconstitutional.

___

Follow Michael Tarm at www.twitter.com/mtarm

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/peterson-screams-then-gets-38-years-murder-012012133.html

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