geothermal estele: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Celebs Show Off Their Skills at the 2013 Charades Gala in NYC

Getting ready to enjoy a night full of fun and laughter, celebs of all kinds gathered together to attend the Celebrity Charades 2013 Benefit Gala in New York City on Monday (October 28).

Stopping to pose for photos before taking his shot on the stage was "Accepted" actor Justin Long, who was accompanied by his stunning girlfriend Amanda Seyfried.

Also on hand to participate in one of the four teams going head to head was "Top Chef" hosting hottie, Pasdma Lakshmi, who worked the Labyrinth Theater red carpet with brunette beauty Rose Byrne before heading inside.

According to the Theater's website, this year's contestants will battle it out in a fearsome and hilarious Disco-fever themed speed charades competition.

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/charity/celebs-show-their-skills-2013-charades-gala-nyc-951241
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ASUS and Samsung gain wide swaths of tablet market share in Q3

IDC has posted third quarter market share estimates which show that Android tablet makers had an exceptional summer. Samsung jumped more than two points over its Q2 results, claiming 20.4 percent of shipments; ASUS also thrived during the period, moving up from just 4.5 points in the second quarter ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/HJ2riNZqIUg/
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'Blurred Lines' Lawsuit: Marvin Gaye Family Now Claims Robin Thicke Stole Two Songs (Exclusive)

Marvin Gaye's family is responding in a major way to Robin Thicke's lawsuit claiming that "Blurred Lines" wasn't stolen from Gaye's "Got to Give It Up."

On Wednesday, the family went nuclear with counterclaims that allege that Thicke stole the summer mega-hit and also committed copyright infringement on Gaye's "After the Dance" to create his song, "Love After War." What's more, the new legal papers obtained by The Hollywood Reporter suggest that Thicke's "Marvin Gaye fixation" extends further to more songs in the Thicke repertoire.

Perhaps even more consequential, Gaye's family also has set its sights on EMI April, the song publisher now owned by Sony/ATV that has business relationships with both sides. According to the counterclaims, EMI has breached a contract and its fiduciary duty by failing to protect Gaye's songs, attempting to intimidate the family against filing any legal action, failing to remain neutral when faced with a conflict of interest and attempting to turn public opinion against the family. The penalty for those acts, says the Gaye family, should be that EMI loses all profits on "Blurred Lines" as well as rights to administer the song catalog of Gaye, known as the "Prince of Soul."

EARLIER: Robin Thicke Sues to Protect 'Blurred Lines' from Marvin Gaye's Family

This court battle was triggered in August when Thicke and his producers Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris Jr. went to a California federal court with the aim of preemptively protecting "Blurred Lines" from allegations that it was illegally derived from Gaye's song as well as Funkadelic's "Sexy Ways." Requesting declaratory relief, the plaintiffs stated that "being reminiscent of a 'sound' is not copyright infringement."

In the latest court papers, Frankie Gaye and Nona Gaye say that not only does the lawsuit concern "blatant copying of a constellation of distinctive and significant compositional elements of Marvin Gaye's classic #1 song," but that Thicke himself candidly admitted as much.

The Gayes point to pre-litigation interviews given by Thicke to GQ and Billboard. To the first publication, Thicke said:

"Pharrell and I were in the studio and I told him that one of my favorite songs of all time was Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to Give it Up.’ I was like, ‘Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove.’ Then he started playing a little something and we literally wrote the song in about a half hour and recorded it."

But Thicke's tune supposedly changed after the lawsuit was filed. Here is a TMZ interview with the singer, quoted in the latest legal papers:

"Q: So, so, when you, when you wrote ["Blurred Lines"], do you like think of Marvin Gaye like when you write the music?

A: No."

The Gaye family quotes music critics at The New York Times, Vice, Rolling Stone and Bloomberg Business Week who have remarked about the Marvin Gaye resemblance in "Blurred Lines." The countersuit also presents an expert report by musicologist Judith Finell detailing "at least eight substantially similar compositional features" with Gaye's original. The similarities are said to encompass the signature phrase, vocal hook, backup vocal hook, their variations, and the keyboard and bass lines -- "far surpassing the similarities that might result from attempts to evoke an 'era' of music or a shared genre," according to the court papers.

While the countersuit makes the case that the public has detected Gaye in Thicke's other songs -- "including the similar bridge and identical lyrics from Marvin Gaye’s 'I Want You' in Thicke’s similarly-themed work, 'Make U Love Me'" -- it brings a second copyright infringement claim only over Thicke's "Love After War." That song is said to share a similar chorus, hook melody and more with Gaye's "After the Dance." (Listen below.)

If the countersuit against various parties including Universal Music and Geffen Records stopped there, it would be a noteworthy example of the legal issues that arise in copyright law in controversies over songcraft. But the Gaye family, represented by attorneys Richard Busch and Paul Duvall at King & Ballow, add more. In fact, what makes the case possibly precedent-setting is the allegations lodged against EMI.

EMI is the co-publisher of producing superstar Williams and is said to co-own and control "Blurred Lines." The Gaye family owns rights to "Got to Give It Up" and "After the Dance," but says it has assigned the rights to administer and protect those copyrights to EMI. Hence, a claimed conflict of interest.

According to the countersuit, EMI's "misconduct" includes failing to identify and raise claims based on entrusted Marvin Gaye copyrights, and after allegedly admitting that a claim was viable, "subsequently instructing its litigation attorney to intimidate the Gaye Family from filing an action by antagonistically warning that any lawsuit would be frivolous."

The Gaye family asserts that not only did EMI refuse to bring counterclaims after seeing a "renowned musicologist's report," but that it gave "strong biased support to the Blurred Writers."

To support the claim that EMI has breached its legal, contractual and ethical obligations, the Gaye family says that the chairman of EMI contacted its legal representative and accused the family of "ruining an incredible song," "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" and being responsible for "Blurred Lines" not receiving an MTV Video Music Award. He also allegedly complained that the lawsuit might kill any chances that Thicke would win a Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

The Gaye family also accuses EMI and representatives of Williams and Thicke of "the planting of a knowingly false story in the press that the Gaye Family supposedly turned down a “six figure settlement,” (no such offer was made) in order to make them appear unreasonable."

This is intolerable, say the counter-claimants.

"Not only did EMI fail to bring this action, which is necessary to carry out EMI’s duties to protect the Gaye Family’s copyrights," says the countersuit, "EMI attempted to dissuade the Gaye Family from pursuing this action by repeated threats and tactics to intimidate the Gaye Family and its representatives."

Now a contractual rescission is demanded in light of EMI's alleged decision to take no action on the "golden goose" that is Robin Thicke's hit. (Sony/ATV is one of the counter-defendants.)

"The EMI Defendants control approximately thirty percent (30%) of the music publishing market throughout the world," says the family's court papers. "Accordingly, there is a strong likelihood that conflicts of interest, such as the one in the present case, will arise again between the EMI Defendants and the Gaye Family. Based upon the blatant and egregious breach of the EMI Defendants’ fiduciary duty and their covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the EMI Defendants have proven that they cannot be trusted to remain neutral and impartial, and that they are unworthy of the level of trust and professional conduct which is required of a copyright administrator charged with protecting the Gaye Family’s important interests in copyrighted works created by Marvin Gaye."

The countersuit adds, "The Gaye Family should not be compelled to remain in this contractual relationship."

We'll add responses by the Thicke camp and EMI as they come.

Twitter: @eriqgardner

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/e0R-RY29_wM/blurred-lines-lawsuit-marvin-gaye-651427
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Rare rhino hunt prize of Texas safari club auction

In this Jan. 5, 2003, photo released by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a black rhino male and calf in Mkuze, South Africa. The organizer of a Texas hunting club’s planned auction of a permit that will allow a hunter to bag an endangered black rhino in Africa is hoping it raises up to $1 million for rhino preservation. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Karl Stromayer)

HOUSTON (AP) — Plans to auction a rare permit that will allow a hunter to take down an endangered black rhino are drawing criticism from some conservationists, but the organizer says the fundraiser could bring in more than $1 million, which will go toward protecting the species.

John J. Jackson III belongs to the Dallas Safari Club, which earlier this month announced it would auction the permit — one of only five offered annually by Namibia, the southwestern African nation. The permit is also the first to be made available for purchase outside of that country.

"This is advanced, state-of-the-art wildlife conservation and management techniques," Jackson, a Metairie, La.-based international wildlife attorney, said Wednesday. "It's not something the layman understands, but they should.

"This is the most sophisticated management strategy devised," he said. "The conservation hunt is a hero in the hunting community."

Some animal preservation groups are bashing the idea.

"More than ridiculous," Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said Wednesday.

"At a time when the global community is rallying to protect the elephant and rhino from the onslaught of people with high-powered weapons, this action sends exactly the wrong signal. It's absurd. You're going to help an endangered animal by killing an endangered member of that population?"

An estimated 4,000 black rhinos remain in the wild, down from 70,000 in the 1960s. Nearly 1,800 are in Namibia, according to the safari club.

Poachers long have targeted all species of rhino, primarily for its horn, which is valuable on the international black market. Made of the protein keratin, the chief component in fingernails and hooves, the horn has been used in carvings and for medicinal purposes, mostly in Asia. The near extinction of the species also has been attributed to habitat loss.

The auction is scheduled for the Dallas Safari Club's annual convention in January.

According to Jackson, who said he's been working on the auction project with federal wildlife officials, the hunt will involve one of five black rhinos selected by a committee and approved by the Namibian government. The five are to be older males, incapable of reproducing and likely "troublemakers ... bad guys that are killing other rhinos," he said.

"You end up eliminating that rhino and you actually increase the reproduction of the population."

Jackson said 100 percent of the auction proceeds would go to a trust fund, be held there until the permit is approved and then forwarded to the government of Namibia for the limited purpose of rhino conservation.

"It's going to generate a sum of money large enough to be enormously meaningful in Namibia's fight to ensure the future of its black rhino populations," Ben Carter, the club's executive director, said in a statement.

Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director of the Massachusetts-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, disagreed, describing the club's argument as "perverse, to say the least."

"And drumming up a bidding frenzy to get to the opportunity to shoot one of the last of a species is just irresponsible," Flocken said. "This is just an attempt to manipulate a horrific situation where rhino poaching is out of control, and fuel excitement around being able to kill an animal whose future existence is already hanging in the balance."

Rick Barongi, director of the Houston Zoo and vice president of the International Rhino Foundation, said the hunt was not illegal but remained a complex idea that "sends a mixed message in a way."

On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was providing "guidance" to the safari club on whether it would agree to a permit, required under federal law, to allow the winning bidder to bring the trophy rhino to the United States.

"An import permit will be issued if, and only if, we determine that the sport-hunted trophy is taken as part of a well-managed conservation program that enhances the long-term survival of the species," the agency said.

Earlier this year, the service granted such a permit for a sport-hunted black rhino taken in Namibia in 2009.

Pacelle said the Humane Society would work to oppose the permit.

An administrator at the Namibian Embassy in Washington referred questions about the hunt and auction to the government's tourism office in Windhoek, the nation's capital. There was no immediate response to an email Wednesday from The Associated Press.

"The two hot issues here are the fact it's an endangered species, and the second thing is it's a trophy," Barongi, the zoo director, said. "It's one individual that can save hundreds of individuals, and if that's the case, and it's the best option you have ... then you go with your best option.

"Because the alternative is you can lose them all," he said.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-10-31-Rhino%20Hunt-Auction/id-9710f5c8a39e4670ba5840fb99e86684
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School to unveil writer's 'Death Collection'

This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows an actual child's coffin filled with candy at the McCormick Library of Special Collections. The coffin is one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows Scott Krafft, curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, holding a daguerreotype of a dead child from the mid-1800s. The daguerreotype is just one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

In this Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., Scott Krafft, left, curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, and manuscript librarian Benn Joseph display a painting of a dead Spanish boy from the 1,600s. The portrait is one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection”- an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that have been purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

This Oct. 29, 2013 photo, shows a copy of a photograph taken at the hanging of the co-conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination in Washington, DC. The image is part of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections display of artifacts from the “Death Collection." The collections is an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that was purchased by Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows sheet music written for funerals of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections. The scores are but a few of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Acclaimed horror writer Michael McDowell couldn't get enough of death.

He collected photographs of people after their demise, whether from natural causes or after crossing paths with someone with a noose, knife or a gun. He gathered ads for burial gowns and pins containing locks of dead people's hair. He even used a coffin housing a skeleton as his coffee table.

Now Northwestern University, which months ago purchased the "Death Collection" McDowell amassed in three decades before his own death in 1999, is preparing to open the vault.

Researchers studying the history of death, its mourning rituals and businesses that profit from it soon will be able to browse artifacts amassed by an enthusiast author Stephen King once heralded as "a writer for the ages."

McDowell's long career included penning more than two dozen novels, screenplays for King's novel "Thinner" and director Tim Burton's movies "Beetlejuice" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." He also wrote episodes for such macabre television shows as "Tales from the Darkside" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."

"We are very removed from death today, and a lot of this stuff we see in this collection gives us a snapshot in how people have dealt with death generations ago in ways very different from today," said Benn Joseph, a manuscript librarian at the school. "We look at it nowadays and think this is inappropriate or gory ... but when it was done, it was very much acceptable."

Joseph and others spent months getting the 76-box collection — one containing a child's coffin — ready to be studied. The archive, which officials said ultimately will go on public display, includes at least one artifact dating to the 16th century: a Spanish painting of a dead boy, his eyes closed, wearing a cloak with a ruffled collar.

The school bought the collection from McDowell's partner for an undisclosed price.

McDowell's younger brother, James, said he didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the extent of the collection.

"He always had kind of a gothic horror side to him," James McDowell said in a telephone interview.

There are photographs and postcards from around the world. One, taken in 1899 in Cuba, shows a pile of skulls and bones. In another, a soldier in the Philippines poses with a man's severed head.

There also are reminders of the infamous. Photographs show the people convicted of conspiracy for Abraham Lincoln's assassination being hanged, with dozens of soldiers looking on and the U.S. Capitol looming in the background.

Some pictures are gruesome, including one of a man whose legs are on one side of the train tracks and the rest of him in the middle. But much of the collection is devoted to the deaths of regular Americans and how they were memorialized in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

There are, for example, dozens of photographs that families had made into postcards of their dead children. Dressed in their finest clothes, many appear to be sleeping, absent any hint of the pain some undoubtedly experienced in their last days. Some have their eyes open, serious looks on their faces.

There's one of a small boy, standing up, with his hands resting on a small stack of books. Joseph said it could be a bit of photographic sleight of hand and that the boy may actually be lying down but made to look like he is standing.

"With the advent of photography, regular folks could have access to that sort of thing (and) families either took the kid's body to the studio or they arranged for a visit from the photographer," said Scott Krafft, the library curator who purchased the collection for Northwestern. "And they may have been the only photograph of the child that existed."

The collection also offers a glimpse into what families did after their loved ones died, at a time when they were preparing their homes to display the remains and getting ready to bring them to the cemetery.

After choosing a burial gown — worn in ads by living models — many families then looked for a headstone. Traveling headstone salesmen in the early 20th century often carried around design samples in a box about the size of one that holds chocolates.

Those paying their respects in the 19th and early 20th centuries frequently selected a tribute song for the dead to play inside the family homes, Joseph said. There were some 100 popular pieces of topical sheet music, with such titles as "She Died On Her Wedding Day."

Weirder still, at least by today's standards, is McDowell's collection of what were called "spirit" photographs that include both the living and a ghostly image purportedly of a dead person hovering nearby.

In one photograph, Georgiana Houghton, a prominent 19th century medium, shakes hands with an apparition of her dead sister. She explains the photograph "is the first manifestation of inner spiritual life."

"I'm sure Michael, when he came across this, was totally excited," Krafft said.

While the collection isn't yet on display, members of the public can see one piece when they enter the library reading room where it is housed. That children's coffin that once belonged to McDowell now holds Halloween candy.

"I don't think it was ever used," Krafft said.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-31-Death%20Collectibles/id-d3d59451861045438a8995603232d999
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Tesla's West Coast Supercharger Corridor now open, charging the Model S from San Diego to Vancouver

Tesla Motors' Supercharger Corridor, which runs from San Diego to Vancouver, is now open for business. It enables the Model S to quickly recharge for free at a variety of locations along the West Coast of North America. At least six of those locations are already installed, and Tesla says "more than ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/2AeHiIz7Y_Q/
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Jessica Simpson Reveals Four Life Lessons for Her Children

Opening up about how her public pregnancies and her fame affect her parenting, pop superstar Jessica Simpson revealed four tips she wants her children to know on a guest blog post for "Parent."

She began simply, by writing, “My pregnancy with Maxwell, specifically because she is a girl, made me realize that I wouldn’t be able to protect her from everything I had been through as a woman."

She also opened up about her documented pregnancies, saying, "my struggles with my weight and body image have played out in front of the world. As hard as that has been, the hardest part is to realize that with all the hurtful and harsh criticism from others, I have been the hardest on myself.”

“Raising Maxwell makes me realize that I don’t want her to see me beat myself up for things like food choices or numbers on a scale,” writes Simpson. “I don’t want her to learn anything like that from me.”

She continued, stating, “I want her to know her value, rather than spending her energy fighting negative voices from within, I want to teach her to figure out what is truly right for her rather than worrying about what anyone else thinks.”

As for the four pieces of advice she presented to daughter Maxwell and son Ace, she wrote:

"Build a great support system. A strong family and wonderful friends keep me headed in the right direction every day!"

"Learn to accept compliments as graciously as you give them. Don’t dismiss them – soak up the positivity and give it back as often as you can!"

"Find a partner who really supports and listens to you in the good times and the bad."

"Be original. The world will try to fit you into a mold, but carve your own path."

Source: http://celebrity-gossip.net/jessica-simpson/jessica-simpson-reveals-four-life-lessons-her-children-952605
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EU spying backlash threatens billions in US trade

BRUSSELS (AP) — The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year — and negotiations on another pact worth many times more.

A growing number of European officials are calling for the suspension of the "Safe Harbor" agreement that lets U.S. companies process commercial and personal data — sales, emails, photos — from customers in Europe. This little-known but vital deal allows more than 4,200 American companies to do business in Europe, including Internet giants like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on its European allies is also threatening to undermine one of President Barack Obama's top trans-Atlantic goals: a sweeping free-trade agreement that would add an estimated $138 billion (100 billion euros) a year to each economy's gross domestic product.

Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.

"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.

At the very least, the Europeans are expected to demand that the U.S. significantly strengthen its privacy laws to give consumers much more control over how companies use their personal data — and extend those rights to European citizens, maybe even giving them the right to sue American companies in U.S. courts.

The Europeans had long been pressing these issues with the Americans. But since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began to leak surprising details on the extent of U.S. surveillance in Europe, the European demands have grown teeth.

"I don't think the U.S. government can be convinced by arguments or outrage alone, but by making it clear that American interests will suffer if this global surveillance is simply continued," said Peter Schaar, the head of Germany's data protection watchdog.

One sanction the European Union could slap on the U.S. would be to suspend the Safe Harbor deal, which allows American businesses to store and process their data where they want. It aims to ensure that European customers' data are just as safe as in Europe when handled in the U.S.

By signing up for the self-reporting scheme supervised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. companies gain the right to move data about their business and consumers back and forth between the EU and the U.S. as needed.

Without it, U.S. firms would face either a lengthy and complicated case-by-case approval procedure by European data protection authorities, or a technological nightmare of having to ensure that European data is stored and processed only on servers within the 28-nation bloc. That would be costly and in some cases impossible — and could force U.S. businesses to stop servicing European customers.

"There is really no viable alternative in the near-term," said Chris Babel, chief executive of San Francisco-based TRUSTe, which helps American firms get Safe Harbor certification from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He estimates that U.S. companies would face tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs to redesign their technological infrastructure.

Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on what a suspension of Safe Harbor would mean. Spokespeople for Google, Apple and Amazon could not immediately be reached.

Of course, any suspension would hurt Europe as well, just as the 28-nation bloc is emerging from a recession. Consumers and businesses would find themselves without U.S.-based services from flight-booking websites to email providers.

Options available to the EU include suspending or ending the agreement, or demanding that the United States enact more powerful data protection laws that include substantial fines for companies that don't keep data safe.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said Wednesday that it wants to see changes in Safe Harbor.

"We share the opinion that the Safe Harbor agreement needs significant improvements," Interior Ministry spokesman Philipp Spauschus said.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission chief Edith Ramirez said Safe Harbor has nothing to do with the surveillance scandal, and urged Europeans not to damage what she called a commercial agreement that works well.

"It cannot be right ... to conflate the distinct issues raised by the use of personal data to advance private commercial interests and to protect national security," she said Monday in Brussels.

But the EU's Reding made clear that the status quo is not an option.

"The existing scheme has been criticized by European industry and questioned by European citizens: They say it is little more than a patch providing a veil of legitimacy for the U.S. firms using it," she said Tuesday in Washington.

Her agency is reviewing Safe Harbor and will present its results by the end of the year. The EU Commission could suspend the agreement or seek amendments to it rather easily, without the usual lengthy procedures of having to seek approval from all EU member states or the European Parliament.

An even bigger battle looms over already contentious free-trade talks between the world's two biggest economies. Trade volume between the United States and the European Union totaled 800 billion euros last year.

Reding warned this week that the lack of data privacy safeguards in the U.S. could "easily derail" the talks, which resume in December and are expected to be concluded within a year.

It appears certain that as part of the negotiations the EU will insist on tougher U.S. data protection in line with new European laws.

That legislation lets users instruct companies to fully erase their personal data — the so-called right to be forgotten — as well as limiting user profiling, requiring greater transparency from companies and mandating prior consent. Plus they contain stiff fines for violations.

"Otherwise, the European Parliament may decide to reject" the EU-U.S. free trade deal, Reding said.

The most significant action taken in Brussels so far has been a vote by the European Parliament urging Europe to stop sharing bank transfer data with U.S. law enforcement in terror investigations.

But that resolution would need approval from the European Commission — and from all 28 national governments, a long and uncertain process.

___

Frank Jordans and Geir Moulson contributed reporting from Berlin.

___

Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-spying-backlash-threatens-billions-us-trade-175714115--finance.html
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Official PlayStation 4 FAQ explains what the system can (and can't) do

Sony has built a reputation of releasing numerous updates to its PlayStation platform, and apparently that has carried over to PS4 news ahead of launch. If last week's updates weren't enough, the company posted a massive FAQ (yes, we read all 30 pages, including the list of launch titles) to the ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/dSp8dVA6jXM/
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iOS apps vulnerable to Wi-Fi hijacking bug

Researchers from device security firm Skycure have unearthed an unnerving vulnerability in iOS that can be used to hijack a number of apps when used on an insecure Wi-Fi network. And it might not just be an iOS issue, either.

Skycure calls the problem "HTTP Request Hijacking," or HRH for short, and it exploits the way many iOS applications deal with receiving an HTTP 301 status code ("Moved Permanently") from a server.

"Most mobile apps do not visually indicate the server they connect to," says Skycure, "making HRH attacks seamless, with very low probability of being identified by the victims."

At its core, the attack is essentially a variant on a standard man-in-the-middle attack. If an app is used on an insecure Wi-Fi network, an attacker can intercept requests sent by the app, reply to the requests with a 301, and trick the app into being redirected to a hostile server.

This is bad enough, but iOS apps have a behavior quirk that makes them particularly vulnerable to the attack: Whenever they receive a 301 redirection request, that request is cached indefinitely. In other words, once an attacker uses a request hijack on an iOS app, its requests are redirected continuously to the hostile server until the cache is cleared ... and the user may never know about it.

HRH attacks do require a few conditions to be met before they can be pulled off successfully. Most crucially, they need to be "physically near the victim for the initial poisoning," meaning that the attacker has to know where the user is connecting via Wi-Fi and hijack that specific connection.

Skycure has declined to name specific apps that are affected by this bug, as part of its responsible disclosure policy. Instead, the company has created a sample application that demonstrates the problem in action, along with a short video demonstrating the hijack. Most importantly, Skycure has published code in its article that allows concerned iOS developers to fix the problem quickly.

The New York Times Bits Blog was one of the first third-party sources to spread the word, noting that the same researchers also found another iOS-related security issue, back in 2012, in which LinkedIn's iOS app turned out to be leaking sensitive information when it collected meeting details from users' iOS calendars. LinkedIn has long since fixed that problem, but more recently it's come under fire yet again for another iOS app, LinkedIn Intro.

In a final note to its post, Skycure adds that "HRH isn’t necessarily a problem of iOS applications alone; it may apply to mobile applications of other operating systems too." In the abstract, the mechanism of an HRH attack isn't specific to iOS. If another platform -- Android, for instance -- behaves the same way in caching 301 requests, the same attack could conceivably be performed there as well.

Let's hope that's not the case -- but better yet, let's find out if it is true and do something about it.

This story, "iOS apps vulnerable to Wi-Fi hijacking bug," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Source: http://images.infoworld.com/t/wireless-security/ios-apps-vulnerable-wi-fi-hijacking-bug-229811?source=rss_mobile_technology
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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

2011: Business as usual (even as Strikefarce restores itself as Strikeforce)

On a single night in 2011, the best fights of the year took place. Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua nearly killed each other for five rounds at UFC 139 in San Jose. That fight was a tale of halves -- Hendo early, Shogun late.

Happening on the other coast, Michael Chandler and Eddie Alvarez struck a match to the barn using skill, guts and -- in a strict manner of speaking -- idiocy. No two men with any sense of preservation can be expected to fight the way they did in Hollywood, Florida. No sane men with careers still to go.

Defiantly, though, they did.

The moon wasn’t full that night. It was a standard waning crescent. But somehow the Fight Gods were in an uproar. Even fight game atheists found themselves overwhelmed by the products of Nov. 19, even if it was more chaotic coincidence than anything celestial.

Yet, both those monuments of 2011 came in under the radar because everyone was still sweeping up the confetti from the week prior.

On Nov. 12, the UFC and FOX put on its first broadcast show framed around a single fight, Cain Velasquez versus Junior dos Santos, not out of contractual obligation (that didn’t kick in until 2012), but out of the something like the goodness of giving. Historically, this was the first ever fight night bonus awarded to fans. Dana White and FOX president Eric Shanks were like kids who couldn’t wait until Christmas morning for us to open their gift. This undertaking was so crazy that Clay Guida (at the time unhindered by strategy) and Benson Henderson (pre-Toothpickgate) battled on Facebook, and this didn’t feel entirely like buzzkill.

You might remember the set up. Velasquez had played matador against Brock Lesnar a year earlier at he very same venue in Anaheim, and dos Santos had just smoked Shane Carwin at UFC 131 in Vancouver. It was two bounding momentums colliding on free TV. (Did they mention it was free? This is a gift you ingrates! Gratis!). And what a broadening it was with so much going on. Protective diehard fans were getting territorial by the forced sharing of their sacred product with something as amorphous as "mainstream" and "casual" people (both synonyms for "despicables"). These feelings were roiling underneath all the hoopla whether anyone was admitting it or not.

The fight itself lasted a very ho-hum 64 seconds. Dos Santos hit Velasquez with an end-game right and flew off to Brazil with the belt. It played out as something less than the CliffNotes to the vast and varied sport of mixed martial arts for those getting their introductions. It was more like a pull quote from War and Peace.

And still, none of these were the actual story of 2011.

The real story was Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce back in early spring. Strikeforce had burst the seams of its regional presence in San Jose, and was now a clear second to the UFC. When Strikeforce, with all its intriguing parts -- Nick Diaz, Dan Henderson, Gilbert Melendez, Luke Rockhold, Ronaldo Souza, Gegard Mousasi, the great Fedor, et al -- began shopping itself, Zuffa did what it does at the end of the day and when it is what it is.

It purchased the competition. The partition was about to come down to create a million new previously only dreamed of fights. Was Gilbert Melendez really a top two or three (or one) lightweight? Heaven forefend, we’d be finding out.

Only, you know, we didn’t. Not right away. Showtime was still the hub of Strikeforce, and Dana White and Showtime officials have never been what you might consider BFF. It was a relationship that from the beginning was frigid, before it thawed, before it became glacial.

"At the time [Zuffa purchased Strikeforce], it was exciting," says Strikeforce’s middleweight champion Luke Rockhold. "You thought about the crossover fights, and you thought about all the possibilities. It was really interesting at first."

And then it became something else. It became uncertainty. The partition stayed up. Strikeforce was Zuffa’s property, but Dana White was flinging around this cryptic double-speak that sounded something like "business as usual." Scott Coker, who was the soft-spoken ringleader of Strikeforce, kept saying that they’d have more details in a couple of weeks. The fights went on stoically, but the "it’s a matter of time" mantra caught fire. Strikeforce with no independent future hobbled along for another 18 months, while certain pieces began migrating to the UFC, and others found themselves on the dreaded "black list." The "black list" was created to protect Showtime/Strikeforce fauna from poaching, which felt like imprisonment to the lingering stars who were forced to ride out the duration.

"Once it started settling in, that some people were stuck and there was no crossing over and none of that was going on, it was kind of disappointing," Rockhold says. "I felt kind of trapped for a while, so it was a lot of mixed emotions.

"It was sad, too, because we had the PPV opportunity and a lot of things going for Strikeforce. I wanted to see Strikeforce survive and live on. I immediately thought it was going to die. But as a fighter, you always kind of wanted to be in the UFC. That’s my mentality -- just being able to prove yourself against the best in the world, and fight those best guys. That was an exciting factor and it definitely played in. I think there were more positives than negatives coming out of it."

Rockhold won the Strikeforce belt in 2011 in a crazy fight with Ronaldo Souza (who hasn’t lost since). The rematch became the elephant in the room in a division that just didn’t have much depth otherwise.

"That was a tough time," he says. "You’re waiting around. I had to fight Keith Jardine in my first title defense, and I was pretty upset about that. He’d never fought at 185 and was coming off a draw at 205.

"It was just a matter of when it’s going to happen. You hear all these guys like Daniel Cormier getting merged in and getting the opportunity to make the bonuses and all the little things that come with the UFC. Those guys were rubbing it in with me. The sponsors, and everything was better at the time in the UFC. It was really hard to get sponsors in Strikeforce because everyone knew it was going to die and they didn’t want to break into Strikeforce and pay the tuition and all that when there’s no security in their money."

Rockhold would end up defending his title twice in 2012, against Jardine and then against Tim Kennedy. Mercifully, at the end of 2012, the partition really did come down. Most Strikeforce fighters were fully integrated into the UFC roster. It was a matchmaker’s paradise. The most notable who didn’t crossover was Fedor Emelianenko, whom Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta have a story about from the time they journeyed to faroff Russia in hopes of coaxing his cathedral calm into the Octagon.

What happened on that fabled visit to Stary Oskol remains a fight game mystery, one that will surely reveal itself, in pieces, throughout future scrums.

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/30/5046890/2011-business-as-usual-even-as-strikefarce-restores-itself-as
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Joe Sexton Full Part: Videograss "The Last Ones"

Posted by: Evan Litsios / added: 10.29.2013 / Back to What Up

Check out Joe Sexton's part from Videograss' "The Last Ones." Joe's been pushing the street game since his prolonged days as an Am for Stepchild. Now he's one of the leaders in street progression, and there's no wonder why. He has an unmistakable style, bringing simplicity to incredibly technical tricks. Note the switch nosepress bs 180 at 2:26. That, folks, is how it's done.

Joe Sexton: The Last Ones from VIDEOGRASS on Vimeo.

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Source: http://www.frqncy.com/news/2013/10/29/joe-sexton-full-part-videograss-the-last-ones?utm_campaign=blog_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feed_reader
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(Don't) Pardon Me: One Man's Fight Against Distracted Walking

These days, pedestrians tapping away while walking are hard to miss.

Andreas Tittelbach/iStockphoto

These days, pedestrians tapping away while walking are hard to miss.

Andreas Tittelbach/iStockphoto

We've all grumbled about the growing ranks of phone-gazing zombies, drifting along the sidewalk or holding up the checkout line. Texting while walking, distracted walking, the smartphone sidewalk scourge — whatever you call it, this phenomenon has rapidly become a nearly inescapable frustration of modern life.

Oliver Burkeman over at The Guardian has had enough. He missed a subway train on Friday, he writes, when the woman in front of him on the stairs "drifted placidly to a standstill ... distracted by something on her smartphone."

As Burkeman notes (as have our friends over at Shots), these head-down meanderers aren't just annoying. They're also at risk of hurting themselves by walking into crosswalks without looking both ways and lingering as they cross — never mind stumbling off curbs, running into parking meters and knocking into other pedestrians.

To that last point, Burkeman laments what he (and surely many of us) have observed as a shift in sidewalk etiquette: Whether consciously or not, distracted walkers now assume that it's the responsibility of other pedestrians to make way for them, not the other way around.

And to nip this development in the bud, he proposes a "simple, legal, non-aggressive act of resistance," namely, refusing to play along.

"Next time you're implicitly required to alter your path to avoid colliding with an oblivious phone user ... just don't, and see what happens ...

"And just to be clear, you must still dodge people if you get within a few feet: we're trying to prevent accidents here, not cause them (or start fights). But based on my experiments so far, you'll never get that close. Distracted walkers aren't completely unaware of their surroundings, after all. It's just that their range of awareness is smaller. Once you finally impinge upon it, they'll look up, steer around you, and walk on, ever so slightly conditioned to pay more attention next time."

I'm not entirely innocent here, myself. And plenty of you may be guilty, too. Perhaps, at a time when almost 60 percent of American adults own a smartphone, Burkeman is fighting a losing battle.

But tell us what you think — for the distracted walkers among you, would a few near-collisions convince you to put down your phone? For the rest of you, would you dare try it? Or will this approach just tick up sidewalk frustration for everyone? Let us know in the comments.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/29/241662286/-dont-pardon-me-one-mans-fight-against-distracted-walking?ft=1&f=1019
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Eucalyptus eases way to bring Amazon cloud deployments in-house

October 30, 2013

By Joab Jackson | IDG News Service

Eucalyptus has updated its namesake software to make it easier for organizations to set up their own, in-house versions of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud, letting users run Amazon workloads in private cloud deployments.

Eucalyptus 3.4, available now, also comes with a number of new tools to ease system administration management in the enterprise.

[ Stay on top of the cloud with the "Cloud Computing Deep Dive" special report. Download it today! | From Amazon to Windows Azure, see how the elite 8 public clouds compare in InfoWorld's review. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. ]

The open source Eucalyptus platform allows an organization to set up cloud services that duplicate all of the AWS application programming interfaces (APIs), guaranteeing that any workload running on AWS can also run on a Eucalyptus platform. The point is that users who like using AWS but who are afraid of getting locked into the service can deploy Eucalyptus as an in-house alternative

The new version of the software provides greater compatibility with AWS. Eucalyptus has been revamped to make it easier to convert Amazon Machine Images to Eucalyptus Machine Images. A new user console provides administrators with the ability to manage internal Eucalyptus instances and those VMs running on AWS from the same location.

Administration has been made easier in other ways as well. Eucalyptus now can be upgraded without shutting down the software first. It also now supports AWS' Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles, providing a way to ensure that only those people with appropriate work credentials can access Eucalyptus workloads.

Joab Jackson covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Joab on Twitter at @Joab_Jackson. Joab's e-mail address is Joab_Jackson@idg.com.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/eucalyptus-eases-way-bring-amazon-cloud-deployments-in-house-229848
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O2 vs Vodafone vs Three vs EE: Which UK iPad Air or iPad mini carrier should you choose?

2013 iPad guide: How to choose between O2, Vodafone, Three and EE, and a popular MVNO alternative.

If you're in the UK with eyes on a new cellular iPad Air or Retina iPad mini, the decision on which carrier to go with is more difficult than ever. This time around 4G LTE is a factor, with three of the four big carriers having recently flipped the switch, with one more to come before the end of the year. As such, getting the most bang for your buck while accessing this superfast mobile data on your new iPad is likely top of the agenda. But it doesn't end there.

Let's take a look at what's on offer from the big four.

O2 vs EE vs Vodafone vs Three - The big four

As with the recent iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c launch, 4G LTE is the hot property in deciding where to go with your devices. If you want LTE out of the box, then Three can be discounted immediately. Three will be getting it, but not until December when the rollout will finally begin. That said, Three is notorious for offering great value for money on data allowances, and the HSPA+ offered currently will in places match the LTE offered by rival carriers for download speed.

O2 and Vodafone are still in the early stages of their respective rollouts, so for anyone serious about 4G right now, EE is the best looking option. Of the big four carriers, only O2 at the moment seems to have no plans to offer the iPad Air at launch. No pricing for subsidized models is available at the time of writing, but we'll update as and when that information becomes available.

The MVNO way

Perhaps not something that immediately springs to mind, but beyond the main four carriers there is still chance to get some data for your new iPad Air. Probably the most popular – and worth considering – is GiffGaff. And, while the selection of plans is limited, there's still a chance to get a decent bucket of data for not a lot of money. And, since it runs on the O2 network, the signal should be pretty good.

The best option for prospective iPad Air buyers is the £12.50 per month 'Gigabag,' which offers 3GB of mobile data. There are options at 500MB and 1GB for £5 and £7.50 per month respectively, but for not a lot more cash you get a decent extra chunk of data. If you're buying your new iPad from Apple, this option is absolutely worth considering.

The only real drawback; in the event of issues, you won't have as easy access to customer service as you would with the major carriers. GiffGaff has a big community focus, but the lack of high street stores could deter many.

Network availability

Beyond just thinking about the financial side, there's coverage to take into account. After all, there's little point paying out if you're not going to be getting what you're paying for. Generally the big four all have excellent coverage nationwide, with the usual blackspots to be expected. The best thing to do is to check out the coverage maps at the links below for each of them.

Who should get their iPad on Three?

If you don't mind waiting for LTE, Three is well worth a look. The HSPA+ offered by Three is more than competitive in terms of download speeds when compared to LTE enabled competitors, and is definitely to be considered by the data hungry iPad owner.

Three iPad plans

Who should get their iPad on EE?

Anyone who wants LTE, in more locations, now. EE has more coverage than the other LTE enabled carriers by far, and has even started rolling out double-speed data in certain locations such as London and Birmingham. The network that came together as a combined effort of Orange and T-Mobile has solid signal over most of the UK, and also has a decent reputation for working indoors.

EE iPad plans

Who should get their iPad on Vodafone?

At this point, the strongest argument is that if the signal in your area is strongest on Vodafone, then go with them. Their LTE offering is still in its infancy, and Vodafone traditionally hasn't been as price competitive as some of the other carriers. Long serving customers and folks who enjoy the best signal are best suited to Vodafone.

Vodafone iPad plans

Who should get their iPad on O2?

As with Vodafone, O2 has a 4G LTE network currently in its infancy. The good news is that the spectrum used for it will work better indoors, so as it rolls out that might be something to consider. The main issue currently is that O2 has no apparent plans to sell subsidized iPads, so this one is strictly for those buying from Apple. For now.

O2 iPad plans

Still undecided?

If you're still not sure about which UK carrier to get for your iPad Air or iPad mini jump into our iPad discussion forums and the best community in mobile will happily help you out, or hey, maybe Wi-Fi-only is good enough for you. Let know in the comments - which one did you go with and why?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/PY8qSk3WWZA/story01.htm
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Ashton Kutcher is Lenovo's latest 'product engineer'

Ashton Kutcher

Much in the same way that I'm a famous Hollywood actor, I'm sure.

Anyway, this is all in conjunction with those new Lenovo tablets — which look far more interesting than another celebrity "executive."

Here's how Lenovo put it:

In his new role as a Lenovo product engineer, Kutcher will work with the company’s engineering teams around the world to develop and market the Yoga line of tablets by providing input and decision-making into design, specifications, software and usage scenarios.

Regardless, it's a fine excuse for us to run a nice little gallery of ol' @aplusk.