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Sunrise At Gale Crater The sun rises over Gale Crater on Mars, the future home of the newest Mars rover, Curiosity. Rover scientists will upload commands overnight – Mars time – so the rover can start its day bright and early. NASA/JPLSynchronizing rov…

How Do You Tell Time On Mars?

When NASA's new Mars rover lands on the Red Planet this summer, it's safe to assume it'll be sometime in the morning or early afternoon at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, home of the rover science and engineering teams. So that means it'll be mid-afternoon on the East Coast, evening in Europe, and so on - pretty easy to figure out the time zones. But what time will it be on Mars? What time zone will Curiosity live in -- and how can you even tell?

Timekeeping on Mars is a bit like telling time on Earth, because the planets are similar in lots of ways. But there are just enough differences to drive a person slightly crazy. To start with, the Martian day, or sol, is 39 minutes and 35 seconds longer than a day on Earth. This isn't a lot, but it adds up quickly when you're living on Mars time--as the Curiosity team will. And a Martian year lasts 668.59 sols, about 1.88 times an Earth year. Seasons last much longer and are much more extreme, thanks in part to Mars' deeply eccentric orbit.

"It feels like you are perpetually flying east 40 minutes every day," said Deborah Bass, a scientist at JPL who worked on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and the Phoenix lander. "You're always jet-lagged. It's only a little bit, because an hour - who cares, that's not so bad. But it starts to take its toll."

Just as we mark our lives according to the passage of time, so too do space missions, for scientific reasons as well as landmarks. Most Mars missions have been solar-powered, meaning the spacecraft must do their work during daylight hours. Curiosity has a nuclear generator, but it will still be a solar craft in many ways - its cameras and other instruments need sunlight to see, and atmospheric phenomena, like the huge temperature shift between day and night on Mars, follows the movement of the sun. So engineers need a reliable method to keep track of time on the planet. Michael Allison, an emeritus professor at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has made a hobby of figuring it out. "I actually know Mars time, in a way, better than Earth time," he jokes.

First, he says, you determine local noon, the point when the sun crosses the meridian overhead. That's called Local True Solar Time. But Mars (and Earth) have eccentric orbits, moving closer and farther from the sun throughout the year, so local noon can be off by a few minutes as the elevation of the sun in the sky changes.So to be really accurate, astronomers use something called a "fictitious mean sun," which would move according to the mean position of the sun. This positioning -- given by a chart called an analemma -- gives you Local Mean Solar Time. That's what astronomers use to tell time on Mars.

So now you can figure out your local noon. You can also figure out local time relative to the mean solar time at a specific point, a prime meridian. On Earth, this used to be called Greenwich Mean Time, and now it's Coordinated Universal Time. U.S. Eastern time is UTC-5 hours, and so on. On Mars, it's called MTC.

The Martian prime meridian, as it happens, was chosen before Earth's was, Allison said. Astronomers picked it in 1840 so they could chart their observations, settling on a dark area that became known as Sinus Meridiani, or Meridian Bay. (The rover Opportunity landed in the western portion of this area, by the way.) Airy-0, a crater in this region, marks the true prime meridian. Astronomers chose it based on Mariner photographs in the 1960s. Airy is for the British astronomer George Airy, who built the Greenwich telescope that was eventually chosen for Earth's prime meridian, in 1884.

Martian months: January, February, Bradbury, Clarke and March.

Just as an aside, while we're talking about organization of time, you can forget about Mars months or a Gregorian calendar. The Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, careen around their planet so quickly that there's no point dividing up the calendar according to their phases. Instead, scientists mark the calendar using the longitude of the sun. The year begins when the sun stands directly above the Martian equator, moving north as viewed from Mars - the start of spring. Northern winter starts when the sun is at 90 degrees, and so on.

Allison has tackled this, too, creating a Mars calendar with 10 extra months. He wanted Mars months to follow Earth months in terms of things like equinoxes, so he stuck in extra months here and there. "I have January, February, Bradbury, Clarke and March," he said with a laugh. "You couldn't construct a practical reference to the orbits of the Mars moons for a convenient seasonal division. But if people go to Mars, they may have need for some monthly reckoning. That is a convenient organization of time for us."

Allison has spent most of his career in the outer solar system, as a project scientist on Cassini, Juno and other missions. Before he got involved in Mars time, astronomers would sit down and calculate analemmas and Mars time scales, based on the position of the planet, for a few years before and after the mission's planned lifetime. Allison decided to make a general Mars time calculator, calculating the planet's position for 126 Mars years.

"I thought it would be fun to define this in a more general way and be done once and for all," he said. He built an analemma tracking the average movement of the sun across the Martian sky. It looks like a teardrop. Allison plotted a Mars fictitious mean sun, and created a definition of Mean Solar Time based on this calculation. This required some high-level math, because Mars' orbit gets knocked around by Jupiter and other factors, but Allison says it was a fun summer project. NASA still uses his algorithm.

You can, too, by visiting the Goddard Institute's website and downloading a Mars clock that Allison's colleague, Rob Schmunk, built. Mars24 gives you a nice image of Mars and the locations of Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, Viking and other missions. When Curiosity lands, it'll get its own icon.

If you download Mars24, you'll notice there are no time zones. Each lander uses an estimate of local mean solar time as its frame of reference, just like cities did before standard time was created in 1884. But each lander has its own de facto time zone. Spirit and Opportunity live 12 hours apart, for instance.

At JPL, clocks on the walls keep track of these Mars times, Bass said. When a rover does something, it is cataloged as local rover time and JPL time. When the Spirit and Opportunity mission started, NASA even ordered custom Mars watches, and some team members had Mars alarm clocks.

"We have universal time, and then there is a spacecraft clock time. Then there is the local mean solar time, which is Mars time. Then we have Pacific standard time, Eastern standard time - the conversions between time systems is pretty amazing," Bass said. "Mars time is simply another time zone, in that respect."

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iPad 3 With LTE AppleThe iPad’s screen is amazing–but for lovers of magazines, photos, and videos, there may be some unexpected downsides
The newest iPad’s new Retina display is a marvel of engineering: a combination of exacting manufacturing, advanc…

The Mixed Blessings of the iPad’s Retina Display

The newest iPad's new Retina display is a marvel of engineering: a combination of exacting manufacturing, advancements in LCD technology (smaller transistors lead to smaller pixels, which equals higher pixel density at lower power), and possibly some gypsy magic paid for with Jonathan Ive's toenails. With four times the resolution to work with, apps are going to look almost painfully sharp. But it's not an immediate win/win: almost everything that currently looks crystal-clear on an iPad's screen will need a high-resolution overhaul to look equally good spread across 3.1 million pixels. And that comes with some drawbacks, both for app developers and consumers.

Every developer we've spoken to ultimately views the four-fold resolution increase on the new Retina display as a very good thing. But most now have their work cut out for them to fill all those pixels, which is not a trivial task.

For digital magazines and newspapers, the increased pixel density will bring the new iPad's screen close enough to the dots-per-inch of print that the distinction is basically unnoticeable, which will mean gorgeous visuals and razor-sharp text. Behind the scenes, it won't be tremendously difficult to update magazines (since publications that also exist in print are already dealing with high-resolution files), but it will take some time to adapt them to digital formats. All photos and videos have to be swapped, layouts will have to be adjusted, interfaces may have to be altered, and measures must be taken to ensure that the right version is delivered to the right customer (no sense sending the high resolution version to older iPads).

Then there's the problem of downloading. Many apps, after upgrading their interfaces and graphics to higher resolutions, are inevitably going to become larger downloads. Magazines will probably become much larger. A typical issue of a publication like The New Yorker weighs in at around 150MB. That's already large, especially for a weekly publication--and that's a mostly-text magazine. For many graphically-intensive magazines, like, say, Popular Science, issues can be twice that size.

The Retina display's resolution is four times bigger than before: twice as many pixels vertically, and twice as many horizontally. But thankfully, that doesn't mean an across-the-board four-fold increase in file sizes: Text, vector graphics and many interface structures will scale without much or any increase in file size. The largest increase will come from photos and videos, which need more resolution to scale up cleanly.

Huge download sizes are a problem. You won't be able to store as many back issues on your iPad. It's worth noting here that Apple hasn't upgraded the storage capacity of the iPad in this version.

Beyond magazine and newspaper apps, the issue of upscaling content will rear its head elsewhere, especially with videos. Any video you watch now on your iPad 2 (say, one that's 960 x 540 pixels on the web) will appear much smaller on the new iPad's Retina display. That's because 960 pixels fills almost all of the iPad 2's 1024 pixels of horizontal resolution, yet only about half of the new iPad's 2048-pixel horizontal span. To view the same video at the same size on the new iPad, it must either be stretched to fit (losing quality) or replaced with a higher resolution version (making it a much larger file).

For streamed videos from services like Netflix and Hulu, you'll get a helping hand from the 4G LTE antenna, but even the with a solid connection on 4G or even Wi-Fi, you'll be streaming at 1080p at best--which even then is a slightly lower resolution than the iPad's screen, meaning full-screen playback will be stretched. And with a less-than-ideal connection, quality will continue to drop.

Nimrod Gat, a developer who's worked on Boxee's iPad app, is mostly optimistic about the new hardware. He also noted that there's more pressure now to take advantage of that screen: "Users expect breathtaking experiences," he said, "so you should definitely consider than when trying to create a new app." More breathtaking apps is certainly a good thing. But he also pointed out that the decreased quality of standard-def video--which currently looks just fine on previous iPads--will be "very noticeable" on the new Retina display.

From a developer's side, he said that users won't really have to choose between an "iPad" version, for the iPads 1 and 2, and an "iPad HD" version for the new iPad. "You can supply different assets--images, icons--and they'll do the magic for you," he said. The proper version for your iPad will be automatically delivered no matter what, but both come in a single universal download. Meaning original iPad users will have to download all the high-resolution assets, even though they won't be used. Gat noted that many smaller apps would then break the 20MB limit for 3G. Tellingly, Apple just raised the limit to 50MB yesterday.

Photos will probably look incredible on the new iPad--if they're big enough. Our friends at Popular Photography delved into this more deeply, but the gist is, many photo services on the web deliver photos in sizes significantly smaller than the Retina display's native resolution. Flickr, for example, limits you to 1,000 pixels in height and width--about a quarter of the screen size of the new iPad. Even crazier, the new Photoshop Touch app, which is otherwise pretty cool, only allows you to work with photos that are 1,600 by 1,600 pixels--which can't even fill the whole screen.

Sending photos among friends will be tricky too--you're probably compressing just about every photo you send without realizing it. Facebook compresses photos. Twitpic too. So do services like Instagram and Picasa. We're definitely interested to see how images from these services look on the new screen; there's a fair chance that photos won't quite pop as much as you'd like them to--at least at full size.

In the end, more pixels on the screen and less space in between them is a very good thing for content creators. But don't be surprised if many of the services you enjoy now in crystal clarity on your iPad take a little while to start serving enough resolution to provide the same experience on a Retina display.

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How a quilter ended up in the pages of a particle physics publication
We first became aware of Kate Findlay’s work thanks to Symmetry Magazine, which publishes articles relating to particle physics. Kate isn’t a particle physicist; in fact, she’s not e…

PopSci Q&A: Kate Findlay Talks About the Confluence of Quilting and the Large Hadron Collider

We first became aware of Kate Findlay's work thanks to Symmetry Magazine, which publishes articles relating to particle physics. Kate isn't a particle physicist; in fact, she's not even a scientist. She works as an art teacher at a private elementary school in the U.K., and also makes these amazing quilts. Symmetry's interest (and ours, and yours, we think) comes from her inspiration for one particular line of quilts: the hardware of the Large Hadron Collider. We've put together a gallery of her work, and also did a little Q&A with her, below.


Click to launch the gallery of quilts.

PopSci: How long have you been making quilts? Do you work with other materials?

Kate Findlay: I have not been making quilts that long, really. My first one was in 2008, about six months before I started work on the Hadron Collider series. I have always been a painter in my spare time, mostly landscapes and still-lifes, but I work exclusively in fabric now, even when doing more pictorial pieces (like my Henley river series on my website).

PS: Where did the inspiration come from to look to the LHC?

KF: I was reading The Times in September 2008 and came across an illustrated article about the LHC. I knew about it anyway, but something just struck a chord with me and I immediately started researching online to find more images. I was very excited by what I found and knew without a shadow of doubt that this was something I wanted to develop into a body of work. (CERN gave me permission to use their photos.)

PS: What about the LHC spoke to you as regards quilt-making? Why that connection?

KF: The LHC is a remarkably beautiful machine. Its symmetry, the repeating motifs, [and] the colors were all things that I was drawn to--for any textile artist, pattern and color are top of the list and the LHC has all these! The other aspect I particularly liked was the idea of a regular circle within a square; I wanted to explore variations on this theme. Working in fabric is extremely slow and laborious, and there have been a number of occasions over the past three years when I wished I was just painting the subject. But fabric has an added dimension, its texture and sheen, which has really worked for me in making these pieces.

PS: How did you come across the LHC's work? Were you a fan of that branch of science beforehand?

KF: I did know about it, but in a pretty general way--just what had come up in the news and through people talking about it. I have always liked science, but certainly wasn't paying much attention to the physics of it all. That has changed with this work, and I have been reading up on the physics discoveries of the 20th century and what the current theories are, although I confess I don't understand much of it!

PS: What is it about the LHC that you're trying to capture in these quilts? How do you choose the colors, patterns, and techniques that go into them?

KF: When I started, I was just enjoying creating pieces that had a flavor of parts of the machine I had seen images of. As I read more, I have been trying to get some of the physics concepts into my work. One of the things that has struck me most is the aspect of scale--the huge Hadron Collider is trying to split infinitesimally small subatomic particles--to find out how our vast, vast universe is put together. So I have found aspects of astronomy creeping in to my work as well as studies of how atoms are formed and split.

The colors in my work have been very influenced by things I have seen in the CERN photos as well as using lots of metallic fabrics. More recently I have started to dye and screen print fabrics to get more subtle effects. The early pieces were mixed media: mostly fabric, but incorporating wire, card, beads, strange objects and anything else that achieved the right effect. The large quilts are more traditional in construction, being three layers, but without anything stuck on to the surface. I realized belatedly that I need to be able to roll them up to store them, as they take up a lot of room!

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Bottled Consciousness? Gaetan Lee via WikimediaA Russian mogul wants to make sure the answer is yes, and soon
When Steve Jobs passed away last year, a joke bounced around–not that there was anything particularly funny about it–that the man who had d…

Will People Alive Today Have the Opportunity to Upload Their Consciousness to a New Robotic Body?

When Steve Jobs passed away last year, a joke bounced around--not that there was anything particularly funny about it--that the man who had done so much to shape modern technology hadn't really died at all, but rather had figured out how to upload himself into the Mac OS so he could live on with us, and with his products, forever. The notion was ostensibly so far out as to be ridiculous. But not everyone sees it that way.

At the recent Global Future 2045 International Congress held in Moscow, 31-year-old media mogul Dmitry Itskov told attendees how he plans to create exactly that kind of immortality, first by creating a robot controlled by the human brain, then by actually transplanting a human brain into a humanoid robot, and then by replacing the surgical transplant with a method for simply uploading a person's consciousness into a surrogate ‘bot. He thinks he can get beyond the first phase--to transplanting a working brain into a robot--in just ten years, putting him on course to achieve his ultimate goal--human consciousness completely disembodied and placed within a holographic host--within 30 years time.

Pushing aside all the extremely difficult technological challenges for a moment, there are a couple of important to considerations tied up in Itskov's vision. First, while the later phases of his project are so far out as to seem ridiculous, phase one is totally feasible (in fact it's already being done). From there, the leap to phase two--human brainpower transplanted into a mechanical robot--is a quite a leap. But if we are willing to allow that it might be possible even within the next 30 years, then we have to consider a further possibility: that many people alive today--like the twenty-something author of this piece--could be confronted with this kind of technology in their lifetimes.

Which is terrifying and amazing and disconcerting all at the same time.

We've already started down the road toward shedding our corporeality.But is it even within the realm of possibility? Phase one--creating a robot controlled by a human brain--is already well within reach. In fact, DARPA is already working on it via a program called "Avatar" (which, incidentally, is also the name of Itskov's project) through which the Pentagon hopes to create a brain-machine interface that will allow soldiers to control bipedal human surrogate machines remotely with their minds.

And of course there are all the ongoing medical prosthesis projects (DARPA is involved in a few of these as well) that have shown that the human nervous system can interface with prosthetic enhancements, manipulating them via thought. Itskov draws a clear arc from what we have now to the consciousness-containing holograms that he envisions. All we have to do is attack the technological obstacles in between, one at a time, until we get there.

If only it were that easy. But Itskov also makes a valid point. In the past decade alone we've witnessed brain-machine interfaces emerge from the realm of nascent, futuristic ideas to mechanisms firmly rooted in reality. There's still so much we don't know about the brain, but better technology (and an abundance of funding in this field spurred by the horrific neurological and extremity injuries inflicted on American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan) is expanding the envelope of possibility every year.

What Itskov is really saying--though in a very ambitious way--is that we've already started down the road toward shedding our corporeality via prostheses that interface with our nervous centers. If you can interface a brain with a hand, and then a brain with an entire arm, why not a brain with two arms? With two legs? With everything else? The question now is figuring out where the limitations lay--just how far down that road we can go.

And what a hypothetical road it is. Theoretically, as long as one could keep his or her gray matter from decaying, he or she could continue to "live" indefinitely (at least if you buy into the idea that our consciousness lives in the wiring of our neurons). Phase three of Itskov's plan--dispensing with the physical brain and uploading consciousness directly to a computer or robot--does away with the organic matter entirely, making your consciousness as permanent as that CD-ROM version of Myst that still lingers in the bottom of one of your desk drawers. People as programs--paging Kevin Flynn.

Of course, there are myriad reasons why uploading human consciousness to some kind of computer won't work, not least of which being the fact that every attempt we've made at creating a computer that functions just like the brain has come up far short. And creating a hologram that also contains that consciousness? We're not seeing it--not in thirty years, not in this century. Still, progress is being made in neural networks, microchips modeled on living brains, and entire computers set up to mimic the brain's functionality. We've built synthetic analogs for all kinds of organs. The brain is the most complex of all, but following a certain line of reasoning--the line Itskov seems to be following--it's only a matter of time and determination before we deliver a neurological analog as well.

All that is to say that Itskov's vision, while overly-ambitious (and we like overly ambitious here), is not as completely far out as it sounds--at least not the earlier phases. People that are today firmly connected to their living bodies, consciousness all bound up in their craniums, may within their lifetimes be presented with a choice. Call it selective corporeality. In the future, questions about mechanical immortality--do we really want to live beyond our bodies as "conscious" machines? Is a robot or computer driven by a living brain a person, with all the rights and privileges inherent therein? Can i get jets implanted in my robo-hands and robo-feet so that I can fly like Iron Man?--could become, to some degree, actual questions that we have to consider, this time non-hypothetically.

It's more than my non-mechanically enhanced consciousness can even start to think about.

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Fiber Optic Cables rpongsaj (CC licensed)This week’s outage in Africa reminds us of the vulnerable physicality of the Internet
On Saturday, a ship waiting to enter the Kenyan port city of Mombasa wandered into a restricted area and dropped its anchor,…

Under the Sea: In the Age of Wireless, Can’t We Do Better than Intercontinental Fiber Optic Cables?

On Saturday, a ship waiting to enter the Kenyan port city of Mombasa wandered into a restricted area and dropped its anchor, inadvertently severing a major undersea Internet and phone link to East Africa. This kind of thing happens from time to time, but Saturday's incident represents a particular stroke of bad timing. The cable severed was already overworked, rerouting data from three other cables that were accidentally severed a week prior in the Red Sea. All said, these fiber-optic channels are the backbone of East Africa's telecommunications infrastructure. Now one single undersea fiber-optic link is left to carry the entire load for all of East Africa, slowing internet connections in Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Sudan by 20 percent until repairs are made, a process that could take weeks.

Before plugging into the high-capacity subsea fiber optic network three years ago, most Internet traffic in East Africa moved through expensive satellite connections or painfully slow telephone lines. Since then economies in the region have come to rely on their increased connectivity, so this weekend's incident comes dangerously close to spelling a small economic disaster. It also raises a larger question: Why, when global economies and day-to-day life are so reliant on access to the Internet, are we still relying on these seemingly vulnerable undersea cables, these accident-prone physical "tubes" connecting continents across the oceans? Why, in a world that's increasingly wireless, are we still so wired? Isn't there a better way to connect the globe?

The answer is: Not really. Fiber optic communication, for all of its shortcomings, is actually pretty amazing, and it's getting better by the year. Accidents do happen. In 2006 earthquakes in the Luzon Strait near Taiwan severed seven of nine cables and wrought havoc on communications networks for weeks, and twice in 2008 cables in the Mediterranean were damaged, disrupting communications in the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent (and that's just two recent examples--there are many, many more). But there's really no technology that can touch our current fiber optics technology. The solution to problems like those East Africa is currently experiencing is not less fiber optic cable, but more.

"It's amazing that we're reliant on these physical links, but the reason we are is because of the kind of quantum leaps that fiber optic technology offers," says Andrew Blum, author of the forthcoming book Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet. The physical cables running along (and sometimes under) the seabed carry huge volumes of data in the form of light, orders of magnitude more data than can be packed into radio signals that might be beamed wirelessly via satellites or antenna towers. The idea of replacing those cables with some kind of through-the-air technology is tempting, but for the foreseeable future we're stuck with fiber optics.

Fiber optic cables carry orders of magnitude more data than can be beamed wirelessly "The problem is that the volumes of data we're talking about require a very wide spectrum of frequencies," Marvin Sirbu, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, says. "And in order to get a wide spectrum of frequencies you need to get into very high-frequency electromagnetic waves. Light waves are very, very high-frequency. If you look at the frequencies we normally think of as radio waves, to find that much spectrum you'd have to be at frequencies so high that--like light--they fade in fog or in rain, and therefore can't really be used to go to a satellite and back, or even over long distances on the ground."

Instead, Sirbu says, we put those high-frequency signals into optical fiber in the form of light. The fiber is extremely transparent so the signal doesn't fade over distance. There's no fog or rain or other atmospheric moisture inside to interfere with the signal, so it maintains its integrity whether traveling across the room or across the Pacific. When you run out of capacity, you lay a new cable. Or, even better, you can dial up the capacity in the cables already laid.

This is where fiber optics creates those "quantum leaps" forward, says Blum. The standard operating unit for fiber optics right now is something like 10-gigabits per second. But new optical modules that are being swapped into common systems boost that capacity to 40 or even 100 gigabits per second. The same cables can then carry ten times more capacity, growing the system without laying a single new cable on the seafloor. Other tricks--involving everything from new ways of channeling signals to implementing lenses known as "time telescopes" to manipulate light pulses--could potentially keep that capacity growing at a rapid pace for the foreseeable future.

The key to averting disasters like the one East Africa is flirting with is redundancy, Sirbu says. "If you look at the U.S., we have cable landing sites at many different places, from Florida to Maine and all up and down the West Coast as well," Sirbu says. "Given the interconnection of networks around the world, if fiber going into one landing location is broken there is fiber landing at other locations that will still be operational. But Africa is probably the continent least densely served by fiber optics, especially when compared to Europe, North America, or East Asia. They're in a riskier position."

That's a problem for East Africa, particularly in a situation like this wherein two separate incidents have severed two of the three main fiber optic nerves feeding data into and out of the region. And while it seems that vulnerable undersea cables are the cause of the region's current connectivity woes, the key to ensuring that East Africa doesn't find its communications infrastructure hanging by a single fiber optic thread ever again--to ensure it doesn't end up temporarily back in the days of dial-up and satellite signals--is route diversity. In other words, the answer is more fiber optics cables, not fewer.

"These cuts are always exciting because these are the moments that remind everyone that the cables are there," Blum says. "This cut in particular is more exciting because it's the first time you really get to see what it means for East Africa to have fiber when three years ago it didn't. So I optimistically look at it upside down. Its only the incredible capacity of fiber optic technology that has allowed the Internet to progress across the world. You wouldn't have this global Internet without fiber optics--that's what's so amazing about it."

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A $23M salary? Look elsewhere

Editor's note: Ingo Walter is the Seymour Milstein professor of finance, corporate governance and ethics, and Jennifer Carpenter is an associate professor of finance in the Stern School of Business at New York University. (CNN) -- Here we go aga...

Obama. Hollywood. Still friends?

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Pioneer graves found at site of new Arizona sheriff’s office

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Fear fuelng GOP extremism

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Georgia student likely to lose fingers to flesh-eating infection

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San Antonio voters back big bond issue

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Trayvon Martin’s mother in Bloomberg gun control video

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Romney’s lame bullying response

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Seau hurt, didn’t know how to say it

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Tennessee kidnapping suspect dead, two girls alive: report

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This year, make it "No Mothers Day"

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What will Romney’s move be now?

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Obama on gay rights: What now?

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Obama says not surprised by would-be Yemen bomber

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Jury begins deliberations in Jennifer Hudson family killings

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Not a single fingerprint or scrap of DNA was found to prove who murdered three family members of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson in 2008, but prosecutors said there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence to convict her jealo...

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World

Blind Chinese activist Chen arrives in New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday and declared "equality and justice have no boundaries" after China let him leave a Beijing hospital to quell a sensitive diplomatic rift between the t...

Syria bomb kills 9, Damascus blames foreign plot

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb blew up at a Syrian military post in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Saturday, killing nine people, an attack that Syria said was the latest proof that an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad is a foreign plot. ...

Bomb at south Italy school kills one, injures six

ROME (Reuters) - A bomb exploded in front of a school in the southern Italian town of Brindisi on Saturday, killing one person and injuring at least six people, an official from the Civil Protection authority said. Few details were availa...

13 years old and taking care of mom

Boca Raton, Florida (CNN) -- At 13 years old, Nickolaus Dent is his mother's primary caregiver. He's responsible for the grocery shopping and cooking. He cleans the house. He does all the laundry. His mother, Janine Helms, has been battling HIV f...

Banks’ rising bad loans add to Spanish troubles

MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish banks' bad loans rose in March to their highest in 18 years, underscoring the problems facing the government as it drafts in independent auditors in an attempt to reassure investors it can clean up the sector. T...

Police disperse protesters at anti-Putin sit-in

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian riot police broke up an Occupy-style protest against President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, forcing dozens of people out of a central Moscow park where they had staged a sit-in round-the-clock for a week and detaining at leas...

Similarities may push Merkel, Hollande together

BERLIN/PARIS (Reuters) - Five years ago, Nicolas Sarkozy flew straight to Berlin after his inauguration and shocked his hosts with some blunt talk on planemaker Airbus, one of the most sensitive of Franco-German issues. That first visit s...

Greek leftists reject proposal for technocrat government

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's president will ask politicians on Tuesday to stand aside and let a government of technocrats steer the nation away from bankruptcy, but leftists have already rejected the proposal and look set to force a new election they re...

East Asian powers agree on trade pact talks

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged northeast Asian powers to cooperate more in the face of global economic headwinds, as China, Japan and South Korea agreed at a summit on Sunday to soon launch negotiations on a three-way free trade p...

Thousands march against economic gloom in Spain, UK

MADRID (Reuters) - Thousands of Spaniards fed up with economic misery and waving banners against bankers marched on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of the grassroots "Indignados" movement that has sparked similar protests around the world. ...

Greek Socialist fails to form government, vote beckons

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos on Saturday becomes the last political leader to throw in the towel after failing to cobble together a government, leaving the country's president with one final chance to avoid new election...

Swim lessons help kids break cycle

Toledo, Ohio (CNN) -- Wanda Butts dropped the phone and screamed when she heard the news that her son was dead. Josh had drowned while rafting on a lake with friends. The 16-year-old didn't know how to swim, and he wasn't wearing a life jacket. "...

Damascus blasts kill 40, injure 170: Syrian TV

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Two large explosions killed 40 people in Damascus on Thursday, state media said, destroying dozens of cars on a highway and damaging an intelligence complex involved in President Bashar al-Assad's crackdown on a 14-month-old uprising...

Wreckage of Russian Sukhoi plane strewn on Indonesian mountain

CIHIDEUNG, Indonesia (Reuters) - Wreckage of a Russian Sukhoi aircraft with about 50 people on board was found on Thursday strewn on a steep ridge on a mountain south of the Indonesian capital where it crashed during a demonstration flight. There was n...

Russian Sukhoi plane missing on test flight in Indonesia

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A Russian Sukhoi passenger plane with 50 people on board, including businessmen and Russian envoys, went missing during a demonstration flight near a volcano on Indonesia's Java island on Wednesday, officials said. Ind...

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Digital

Apple files to block Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in US

Apple may help achieve hat-trick of import bans On the heels of an appeals court win that suggested that Samsung should have been barred from selling its copycat Galaxy 10.1 from the get-go, Apple has now filed a mot...

Woman controls robot arm with only her thoughts

Robots are pretty cool, and for all our subconscious fears that they will one day rise up against us, th...

Apple Rebrands Itself as iRenewable with Green Data Centers

Some Apples will be green. Apple data centers, that is. The technology giant has announced that its new half-million-square-foot data center in Maiden, N.C., will only use electricity that has been generated by renewable energy. The company said that...

Comcast Suspends Xfinity Broadband Data Cap

Comcast has suspended its 250 GB monthly data usage threshold for its Xfinity broadband customers and plans to begin trials of new multi-tiered Xfinity data service featuring a minimum data allotment of 300 GB per month in selected U.S. markets. The n...

School Districts Adopt Brocade’s Stackable FCX Switches

Brocade is helping school districts in California, Missouri and South Carolina upgrade their IT networks to achieve substantial cost-savings by taking advantage of the latest technologies built into the company's entire range of FCX switches. The goa...

Steam gets remote download management through web browser and apps

The folks at Valve have announced a cool new feature for their Steam game distribution service. Starting...

Google’s Grand Plan for New Android Devices

Google is revising the way it rolls out new Android versions and devices, according to a new report. The move is intended to give the tech giant greater control over features and apps, and to reduce the influence of wireless carriers. According to a s...

Scytl to strengthen online voting on computer, mobile

Encryption start to finish, not just at one end Election software maker Scytl has announced the development of an improved online voting encryption technology. The Baltimore-based company claims the breakthrough guara...

Google expands partnerships for ‘portfolio’ of Nexus devices

Search giant attempts to downplay Motorola buyout Google is reportedly preparing to shift its Android strategy away from exclusive partnerships that have resulted in the existing Nexus-branded devices. The search gian...

Baidu releases low-cost smartphone

China's search giant rolls out first smartphone Chinese search giant Baidu has released its first smartphone, as it was rumored to be preparing to do last week. The Changhong H5018 is built by Foxconn and is powered b...

Netgear ships first 802.11ac router, intros USB adapter

Netgear announces new router and Wi-Fi adatpter using new standards Netgear has released its first 802.11ac router using the new Wi-Fi specification. The R6300 router, which is said to be capable of combined Wi-Fi sp...

Google reportedly expanding Nexus program, will sell direct to consumers

Google’s Nexus program has always produced some of the best devices running the Android mobile operati...

Windows 8 Family Safety features detailed by Microsoft

Windows 8 has plenty of cloud functionality built-in from the get-go, from letting you log in with your ...

Nvidia announces Kepler-based Tesla M10 GPGPU board

CHIP DESIGNER Nvidia has released the Kepler-based Tesla K10 GPGPU accelerator board. Nvidia's Kepler architecture has found its way into three consumer products, however the firm has finally slipped it into a...

Facebook Policy ‘Housecleaning’ Leads to Protests

All eyes are on all aspects of Facebook. As the social-media darling sets its sights on an historic initial public offering, though, it's doing a little housecleaning on the privacy front. And that housecleaning is making many angry. Erin Egan, Facebo...

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Business

Where’s the heat?

Is that your goal? To find the next hot thing? Do you want to buy it, sell it, use it, eat it? In every industry where there's fashion (which is every industry), people spend an enormous amount of time looking for heat. It defines the cut...

Three Things You Must Know Before Pitching Investors

First impressions are always important in business, especially when you're approaching investors to secure funding for your startup. Angel investors and venture capitalists have specific expectations surrounding "the pitch," t...

Not everyone

If you're marketing a bass guitar or an orchid or an electric SUV, why are you concerned with what everyone thinks about it? It seems to me that you should only care about the opinion of those that are actually open to buying one. Sh...

The SBA’s Karen G. Mills on the Small-Business Recovery (Video)

SBA Administrator Karen G. Mills travels the U.S. talking with business owners and bankers. She says she's hearing more talk of expansion compared with three years ago. Look for more coverage of Small Business Week 2012. Related: T...

The SBA’s Karen G. Mills Answers Her Agency’s Critics (Video)

Some critics have called for dismantling the U.S. Small Business Administration. SBA Chief Karen G. MIlls says demand for its services is only growing and its programs represent a good value to taxpayers. Look for more coverage of Small ...

Small Business and the President’s Cabinet (Video)

President Obama recently made the head of the SBA part of his presidential cabinet. We speak with SBA Administrator Karen G. MIlls about what it means for U.S. small businesses. One reason for the move is to bring together the host of re...

When Facebook’s ‘Like’ Pushes the Wrong Button with Employers

As a transitive verb, Merriam-Webster describes “like” as “feeling attraction toward or taking pleasure in.” To a 15-year-old girl, the word “like” is a filler used as often as three times in each spoken sentence. To most peo...

The quickest way to get things done and make change

Not the easiest, but the quickest: Don't demand authority. Eagerly take responsibility. Relentlessly give credit. Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin Wordpress | Android Forums | Wordpress Tutorials

Happy Small Business Week: Time to Shine in D.C.

Next week is National Small Business Week in Washington, D.C. It’s a big deal for small business. Why? The three-day conference, run by the Small Business Administration, is a chance to cast the spotlight on the importance ...

Digital analogs are no longer sufficient

The parking meter was rebooting. I guess we're supposed to walk to the other end of the garage and find one that's working. We're seeing digital awareness coming to just about everything. In this case, it was the parking meter near the li...

7 Ways Entrepreneurs Will Ride Crowdfunding’s Ripple Effect

The new crowdfunding law passed as part of the JOBS Act, which allows companies to sell pieces of their business for cash, won't be finalized until early next year. But many entrepreneurs are already champing at the bit to deliver ...

Worldliness

Intelligence is the combination of knowing a lot about a little while you also know a little about a lot. Deep domain understanding helps you create analyses. Your ability to understand how a particular system (no matter how small) works ...

Bargain Hunting: 7 to Follow

Everyone loves saving money, whether it's on a new pair of shoes or a fancy set of wheels. But sometimes uncovering deals can be more work than it's worth. But Twitter can help. Along with tracking useful hashtags such as #sale, #coupons a...

Naming things

"Over there, by the fire, is that a stick or a snake?" It turns out that humans have been naming things for a long time. If we know that this is a cheetah, or a grapefruit, we can make intelligent decisions on how to deal with it. La...

Shaping Crowdfunding 2.0

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has the delicate task of writing guidelines for the next generation of crowdfunding, so that investors are protected and yet preserving its benefits to companies seeking to raise money. Cr...

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SciTech

What Is Google’s Semantic Search?

Google Semantic Search Google's new Knowledge Graph dives into the semantics of your search, putting questions in context so you can find what you want. Andromeda the galaxy, or something else? GoogleYou searched "Kings." Do you mean the hockey team, b...

Buried Since the Jurassic Era, Ocean Microbes Are Still ‘Barely Alive’

Opening the Sediment Core Hans Røy opens a sediment core. The mud in the opening of this core is from the last ice age 10,000 years ago. The mud sampled from the Knorr was from the time when dinosaurs walked the earth. Bo Barker Jørgensen/© Scienc...

FDA Panel Endorses an Over-the-Counter HIV Test that Diagnoses in Just 20 Minutes

OraQuick HIV Test Already available for use inside doctor's offices, Pennsylvania-based Orasure's quick HIV test could soon be available to consumers for rapid testing in the home. The test could be approved for sale later this year It's no cure, but i...

NASA is Training Up an Astronaut Crew for a Potential Manned Asteroid Mission

We haven't heard much about if from NASA yet, but the Telegraph is reporting that the space agency will soon begin training up an international crew of astronauts for a potential manned mission to an asteroid slated for later in the next decade. Start...

New Light-Powered Eye Implants Use Infrared Pulses to Restore Sight

Close Eye saturn via Flickr A new generation of retinal implants could use light to provide power and data, potentially restoring vision in a less-invasive form than existing implants. Researchers at Stanford University previously described how such a...

This Week in the Future, May 7-11, 2012

This Week in the Future, May 7-11, 2012 Baarbarian This Baarbarian illustration is done in a particular paint-like style, but the prepared food? That is photo-realistic. Because it's disgusting. Want to win this automated Baarbarian illustration on a ...

Even the Maya Didn’t Think the World Would End in 2012

Mayan Cave Paintings Photograph by Tyrone Turner, National Geographic National Geographic has a new feature up today in which they discuss the new finding of a cave in the midst of an unexplored Mayan megacity--a cave with very particular glyphs on th...

The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, May 7-11, 2012

Hello Baby Elephant Sean Gallup/Getty Images This week, we have beautiful jewel caterpillars that look like they were sculpted out of slick crystal, a massive architectural concept inspired by Twitter, artist's concepts of super Earths and black holes...

Chinese Physicists Teleport Photons Over 100 Kilometers

Beam Us Up Teleportation doesn't work for humans - yet - but it works over long distances, a new study reports. Time Magazine Teleportation, sci-fi-y as it sounds, is actually not fictional or even new; two years ago, Chinese physicists broke the then-...

Video: The Energy Fixers

ecomagination VICE, in concert with GE, recently created a video called ecomagination - The Energy Fixers. The Energy Fixers focuses on eco-minded innovators working to change the energy game and re-envisioning our energy future. Hosted by Heather Kn...

Jeff Bezos’s "Blue Origin" Space Company Reveals Spacecraft Design

Blue Origin in a Wind Tunnel Blue Origin We've covered Blue Origin, the semi-mysterious space company founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, in the past, but we never knew all that much about what they were working on. But they recently showed off their new ...

Using the Microsoft Kinect to Detect Autism

Kids Playing Flickr user Michale There are five Microsoft Kinects set up all around the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development, but they're not for playing games (or any of the other stuff the Kinect can do with an Xbox). They're mon...

Video: Touch-Sensitive Doorknobs Could Lock or Unlock With the Curl of a Finger

Doorknob Touch Disney Labs Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research, which is the lab arm of the Disney Company that focuses on computer animation and interactivity, among other things, have worked out a new version of capacitiv...

This Week in the Future, April 31-May 4, 2012

This Week in the Future, April 31-May 4, 2012 Baarbarian Herb is a pretty good name for a robot butler. Let's all spend the rest of the weekend thinking of a backronym for Jeeves that would work if Jeeves was a robot. Jet-fueled Evolved Electronic...t...

The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, April 31-May 4, 2012

MonkeyDrink In this adorable picture, a monkey is given vitamins as part of research against the scourge of malaria on April 25th, the World Day for the fight against the disease. AFP/Getty Images This week's image roundup has a pink black hole, a monk...

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Environment

U.S.-Japan scientific cooperation strengthened with launch of new environmental monitoring satellite

U.S.-Japan scientific cooperation strengthened with launch of new environmental monitoring satellite May 17, 2012 NOAA scientists will...

Rick Knabb, Ph.D., selected to lead NOAA’s National Hurricane Center

Rick Knabb, Ph.D., selected to lead NOAA’s National Hurricane Center May 18, 2012 Rick Knabb, Ph.D., the new director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center. Download here. (Credit: ...

NOAA, National Safe Boating Council promote National Safe Boating Week

NOAA, National Safe Boating Council promote National Safe Boating Week Boating tragedy survivor Nick Schuyler warns of hypothermia danger May 18, 2012 ...

Can festivals ever be green?

Festivals are notorious bad for the environment. Thousands of revellers descending on a patch of grass for a high spirited weekend, with food, water and sanitary requirements all needing to be met from ...

NOAA, BOEM: Historic, 19th century shipwreck discovered in northern Gulf of Mexico

NOAA, BOEM: Historic, 19th century shipwreck discovered in northern Gulf of Mexico May 16, 2012 While most of the ship's wood has long since disintegr...

New analysis shows eight percent of U.S. marine waters protected

New analysis shows eight percent of U.S. marine waters protected Vast majority allows fishing, other activities May 16, 2012 New analyses of U.S. data s...

The Avon Lady Comes to Mozambique, Hawking Cookstoves

3p Editor Jen Boynton is in Mozambique this week along with TreeHugger’s Brian Merchant to get the full story on a remarkable triple-bottom-line business model. Read on… Sales rep Lonola Te...

Beyond Recycling: Alcoa Slashes CO2 Emissions and Water Consumption

Alcoa recycling plant in Tennessee Sustainability is a tall order for any company in the business of smelting and fabricating metal. Alcoa’s lucrative aluminum business, for example, certainl...

Siemens’s eHighway Pumps Up an Old Concept

The last time electric trolley cars hit the height of popularity was back in the Gay Nineties – not the 1990s, the 1890s – when webs of wire ruled the skies above city streets. Now the glob...

Competition: Win A Case of Local Sussex Beer by Langham and Two Weekend Tickets to Meadowlands Festival 2012

All you have to do is: 1. Complete the form to the right
*2. Answer the question correctly
3. Comply with the following terms and conditions** Langham Brewery is a local and independent brewery b...

Competition: Win one of six bottles of Juniper Green Gin

All you have to do is: 1. Complete the form to the right
*2. Answer the question correctly
3. Comply with the following terms and conditions** Juniper Green is the world’s first organic London d...

TAKE ACTION to start a British clean energy revolution

Research conducted by the polling company YouGov suggests 85 per cent of Britons want their energy companies to be forced to use UK base renewable energy sources rather than rely on foreign gas supplies...

Adidas Progress Report – Great Pass but No Slam Dunk

Adidas’s 2011 progress report left me with mixed feelings. There’s no doubt Adidas is an industry leader when it comes to sustainability. The list of examples proving it is almost endless, ...

The global cost of China’s destruction of the ‘roof of the world’

Much has been written about Tibet under Chinese rule: the religious persecution, the population transfer, the ongoing suffering of the Tibetan people, but I wish to draw attention to the environmental damage th...

CitiBank Shells Out $41M to Sponsor NYC’s Bike Share Program

[WizardRSS: unable to retrieve full-text content] This week New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that CitiBank would sponsor the city's new bike share program, Citi Bike, slated to roll out this summer. Powered By WizardRSS.com | F...

Blind Chinese activist Chen arrives in New York
Sunday, 20 May 2012 01:55

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States on Saturday and declared "equality and justice have no boundaries" after China let him leave a Beijing hospital to quell a sensitive diplomatic rift between the two countries.

Chen escaped from house arrest in northeastern China last month and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, embarrassing China and creating an uncomfortable backdrop for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to improve ties between the world's two biggest economies.

"I am very gratified to see that the Chinese government has been dealing with the situation with restraint and calm and I hope to see that they continue to open discourse and earn the respect and trust of the people," Chen, speaking through a translator, told reporters outside a New York University housing building in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

Chen, one of China's most prominent dissidents, is going to study as a fellow at the NYU School of Law. Leaning on a crutch because of an injury suffered during his escape, he smiled and waved to a cheering crowd before speaking to reporters.

"I'm very grateful for the assistance of the American Embassy and also (for) receiving a promise from the Chinese government for protection of my rights as a citizen over the long term," he said. "I believe that the promise from the central government is sincere and they are not lying to me."

"I believe that no matter how difficult the environment nothing is impossible as long as you put your heart to it ... I hope everybody works with me to promote justice and fairness in China," he said. "Equality and justice have no boundaries."

Chen, 40, who taught himself law, was a leading advocate of the rights defense movement in China. He gained prominence by campaigning for farmers and disabled citizens and exposing forced abortions.

He expressed concern on Saturday that "acts of retribution may not have abated" in his hometown of Shandong. The village of Dongshigu, where Chen's mother and other relatives remain, is still under lockdown.

"We hope to see in the future a thorough investigation into these events," Chen said.

Chen's nephew was denied his family's choice of lawyers on Friday to defend a charge of "intentional homicide", the latest in a series of moves to deny him legal representation, and underscores the hardline stance taken against the dissident's family.

STRAINED TIES

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration had feared a dispute over Chen's fate could sour already strained ties with China and generate criticism of Obama at home. Beijing has accused Washington of meddling in its affairs in the case.

Chen's abrupt departure from Beijing came nearly three weeks after he arrived at the Chaoyang Hospital from the U.S. Embassy, where he had taken refuge after an escape from 19 months of house arrest in his home village.

A United Airlines plane carrying Chen, his wife and two children, landed at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey shortly after 6 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Saturday and Chen was the first person taken off the plane. Some passengers said they had been prevented from taking photos during the flight.

Chen was accompanied on the flight by two Chinese-speaking officials from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and was met at the airport by State Department officials and Jerome Cohen, co-director of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University, a State Department official said.

A White House official, Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council, praised the diplomacy that led to Chen's release.

"We welcome this development and the fact that he will be able to pursue a course of study here in the United States upon his arrival," he said during the Group of Eight summit the United States is hosting at Camp David, Maryland.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said this month that Chen could apply to study abroad, a move seen as a way of easing Sino-U.S. tensions on rights.

Chen's friend, Jiang Tianyong, cited the activist as saying that he and his family obtained their passports at the airport in Beijing hours before he boarded the flight.

"I'm obviously very happy," Jiang said. "When he boards the plane, he can finally say: 'I'm free.' At the same time, I feel a sense of regret because such a large country like China can't even tolerate a citizen like him to exist here."

Chen was jailed for a little more than four years starting in 2006 on what he and his supporters say were trumped-up charges designed to end his rights advocacy.

Chen had accused Shandong province officials in 2005 of forcing women to have late-term abortions and sterilizations to comply with China's strict family planning policies. Authorities moved against him with charges of whipping up a crowd that disrupted traffic and damaged property.

Formally released in 2010, Chen remained under house arrest in his home village, which officials turned into a fortress of walls, security cameras and guards in plainclothes guards.

DISSIDENT FOLKLORE

Chen's confinement, his escape and the furor that ensued have made him part of China's dissident folklore: a blind prisoner outfoxing Communist Party controls in an echo of the man who stood down an army tank near Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The Chen case comes at a tricky time for China, which is engaged in a leadership change. The carefully choreographed transition already has been knocked out of step by the downfall of ambitious senior Communist Party official Bo Xilai in a scandal linked to the apparent murder of a British businessman.

On a number of occasions in recent years, authorities have relented to diplomatic pressure and allowed high-profile dissidents to leave China, knowing that its most vocal critics are effectively neutralized once they leave and are without support of friends.

At times, Beijing has appeared to use these deals as bargaining chips in broader diplomatic negotiations or to blunt criticism of its human rights record.

Human rights are a big factor in relations between China and the United States, even though Washington needs China's help on issues such as Iran, North Korea, Sudan and the global economy.

Chen's supporters, however, welcomed his departure, saying he had indicated that he would like to return to China.

Womens rights activist Reggie Littlejohn told reporters in New York that Chen's arrival was "a great day for freedom" because he could be more effective from the United States.

"In China they silenced him. Now that he's on U.S. soil he can speak truth to power," she said.

(Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee, Chris Buckley and Michael Martina in BEIJING, Arshad Mohammed in WASHINGTON, and Michelle Nichols in NEW YORK; Writing by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bill Trott and Doina Chiacu)

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Family and friends gather in NY for funeral of Mary Kennedy, estranged wife of RFK Jr.
Saturday, 19 May 2012 23:35

BEDFORD, N.Y. –  Family and friends gathered Saturday at a modest stone church in a hamlet north of New York City for the funeral of Mary Richardson Kennedy, the latest member of that charmed and cursed family to fall victim to tragedy and inner demons.

The service, held on a beautiful spring morning, was private, but the list of celebrities attending was a testament to both Kennedy star power, and Mary's knack for friendship.

The mourners included actors Susan Sarandon, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase and Edward James Olmos, tennis great John McEnroe and musician Paul Shaffer. Glenn Close sang and "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David spoke during the ceremony, according to a program left at the church.

Mary's estranged husband, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., delivered the eulogy.

Speaking to reporters outside the church before the service, Mary's sister-in-law and nearly lifelong friend, Kerry Kennedy, recalled her as "brilliant" and "beautiful."

"She cared so very, very deeply about everybody around her," she said.

But she added that Kennedy had fought a lifelong struggle against depression.

The 52-year-old architectural designer and environmentalist was found dead of an apparent suicide Wednesday at the family's estate in Bedford. Her death followed a difficult two years, during which her husband filed for divorce and she was charged twice with driving while intoxicated.

Still, Kerry Kennedy said, those troubles didn't stop her from developing "really deep, rich, rich friendships," with friends in every corner of the globe.

"She was an angel who was brought to us, to live with us here on earth, and I think that God just brought her back up to heaven, and said, 'You don't have to fight for me anymore,'" Kerry Kennedy said, her voice breaking.

The casket was carried into St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church by a group that included three of Mary Kennedy's older children, one of her sisters and the hotelier André Balazs.

A bell tolled at the end of the service. Robert Kennedy touched the hearse lightly as it departed with her body.

Mary Richardson married into the Kennedy family in 1994, but had been close to the clan since meeting Kerry at boarding school as a teenager. The pair wound up being roommates for 15 years, including their time together at Brown University.

She had four children with Robert, the son of assassinated U.S. senator and Attorney General Robert Kennedy, but the couple separated years ago. He filed for divorce in 2010. The case was pending when she died.

Shortly after the split, her internal struggles became public when she was arrested twice on charges of driving while intoxicated.

The domestic turmoil extended into preparations for her funeral. One of Mary's brothers went to court to request custody of her body, which could potentially have spoiled a Kennedy plan to bury her near the family's seaside compound in Hyannisport, Mass.

That interment was initially scheduled to take place later Saturday, although it was unclear whether the arrangement had been altered as a result of the court action.

Robert Kennedy and a lawyer for the Richardson family spent part of the day in court Friday arguing the case, before Mary's body was released to her husband just hours before her planned wake. Details of the case were sealed by a judge.

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Apple files to block Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in US
Saturday, 19 May 2012 22:30

Apple may help achieve hat-trick of import bans


On the heels of an appeals court win that suggested that Samsung should have been barred from selling its copycat Galaxy 10.1 from the get-go, Apple has now filed a motion for a new injunction against the tablet asking it to be pulled from US shelves. The two companies are scheduled to begin high-level settlement talks on Monday, but should they fail the new injunction request could be ruled on as early as June 7.

Apple won a similar ban in Germany on the original Galaxy Tab 10.1, forcing Samsung to make design changes that were judged sufficiently different to be able to avoid the injunction. That resulting product, the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, is not sold in the US and most other countries. There are already ITC US import bans in place against two of HTC's phones and some of Motorola's Android devices.

Apple won the reversal on Tuesday, which vacated Judge Lucy Koh's original ruling that there was no merit to Apple's copyright complaint regarding the iPad (the ruling on the iPhone portion of the case was left intact). Indeed, one of the three judges in the appeal, Circuit Judge Kathleen O'Malley, went so far as to issue a dissenting opinion from the other judges, saying that Apple should be granted an immediate injunction, and that Apple has been harmed by Samsung being allowed to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1, according to patent court observer Florian Mueller.

The other two judges said simply that the matter should go back to the original court for review, since Judge Koh had never ruled on the iPad design patent (since it had previously been deemed invalid). Judge Koh is currently overseeing the settlement talks between Apple and Samsung, and will not take action on the matter until those talks are completed. Should those talks fail to produce a settlement, Samsung has until May 25th to produce a response to the injunction request, and Judge Koh may schedule it for June 7, the same date a separate injunction request against the Galaxy Nexus is scheduled to be heard.

The rulings are not expected to have much impact on either Apple's or Samsung's overall sales, but do clarify Apple's design rights -- and so far, the iPad maker has been largely successful in putting pressure on Android firms to redesign their products to be distinct from Apple's. Regardless of how the rest of the case goes, a redesign of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to avoid Apple patents is likely. [via Florian Mueller]



iPad (top) vs. Galaxy Tab 10.1N (bottom)


By Electronista Staff

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