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Friday, August 24, 2012
Audyssey?s Bluetooth Wireless Speakers Bring The Ruckus In A Tiny Package
The market for high quality wireless speakers is relatively small. Consider the fact that Sonos and Jawbone have grabbed most of the headlines and buzz over the last few years with creative and attractive hardware design. Relative newcomer Audyssey has made waves since last year with a uniquely designed set of speakers and an AirPlay dock. Their latest, simply dubbed Wireless Speakers house Bluetooth connectivity and redesigned components for a thumping set of uniquely designed speaker boxes. But do you really need a set of $299 (they will likely sell for $250 when they hit the street on 8/29) Bluetooth speakers?Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/EQ0xcBUNVIE/
AP NewsBreak: Nuke agency forms special Iran team
FILE - In this May 14, 2012 file photo Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh waves as he arrives for talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, at the permanent mission of Iran in Vienna, Austria. The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add teeth to a long-stalled probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press in a series of interviews reaching into Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)
FILE - In this May 14, 2012 file photo Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh waves as he arrives for talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, at the permanent mission of Iran in Vienna, Austria. The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add teeth to a long-stalled probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press in a series of interviews reaching into Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)
FILE - In this March 5, 2012 file photo Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh smiles as he arrives for the IAEA board of governors meeting at the International Center, in Vienna, Austria. The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add teeth to a long-stalled probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press in a series of interviews reaching into Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)
The U.N. nuclear agency is forming a special Iran team, drawing together sleuths in weapons technology, intelligence analysis, radiation and other fields of expertise as it seeks to add muscle to a probe of suspicions that Tehran worked secretly on atomic arms, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
Creating a unit focused on only one country is an unusual move for the International Atomic Energy Agency, reflecting the priority the U.N. nuclear watchdog is attaching to Iran amid fears that it is moving closer to the ability to make nuclear weapons. It also indicates frustration by top agency officials over Iran's refusal to cooperate with IAEA experts who are trying to follow up on suspicions that Tehran was ? or is ? secretly working on an arms program.
Iran says such allegations are based on evidence fabricated by the United States and Israel and insists its nuclear program is meant only for making reactor fuel, medical isotopes and peaceful research. But it refuses to give up uranium enrichment, which can produce both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear warheads, despite offers of fuel from abroad. And its stonewalling of the IAEA probe has increased concerns that it has something to hide.
The agency's move comes at a crucial time. With both the agency and international diplomatic efforts stalemated in attempts to engage the Islamic Republic on its nuclear program, fears are growing that tensions could spill over into armed conflict.
Israeli leaders have been loudly expressing impatience over Western diplomatic and economic moves to deter Iran and increasingly talk of attacking its nuclear facilities, though some analysts believe the saber-rattling is a bluff to increase pressure on Tehran. Iranian leaders have rejected Israel's warnings, threatening punishing retaliation.
The four diplomats, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the restructuring plans, spoke ahead of a renewed attempt Friday by the agency to breach Iranian resistance to its requests for access to sites, documents and people linked to the suspected secret weapons-related work.
One of diplomats likened the restructuring plan to the agency's Iraq "Action Team" ? the squad of experts who uncovered components of Saddam Hussein's fledgling nuclear-weapons program in the 1990s.
That unit, however, had broad on-the-ground access under U.N-mandated inspections. That's lacking in the case of Iran, which allows agency inspectors access only to its known nuclear activities and has for years blocked its attempts to probe alleged evidence of secret nuclear weapons research and development.
Asked for reaction on the IAEA plans, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the IAEA, said: "I have not heard of such a thing, and I cannot comment." IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor said the agency had no immediate comment.
Danny Danon, deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, told the AP in a phone interview Thursday that Israel was "preparing for all scenarios." He also was dismissive of the agency's new Iran squad.
"We are getting close to the point where the window of opportunity will be closed to us, and that's why you hear all those voices," he said when asked about the war rhetoric. "We have seen too many teams, too many summits, too much talk. It is about time to take action."
Instead of focusing only one country, agency experts up to now have been tasked with following dozens of nations as they look for signs indicating secret attempts to make nuclear weapons.
Some IAEA officials feel that means that they often spend an inordinate amount of time monitoring countries that are unlikely to engage in such activities ? Western European nations for instance ? meaning that not enough attention is paid to potential proliferators.
Under the planned reorganization, said one of the diplomats, a "dedicated team" of about 20 experts will be drawn from the main IAEA pool to focus solely on the agency's Iran investigation.
The United States and other nations on the IAEA's 35-nation board that are suspicious of Tehran's nuclear activity are expected to welcome the move.
But two of the diplomats spoke of opposition by board member Russia, which has supported diplomatic efforts to nudge Iran toward a nuclear compromise while strongly opposing harsh sanctions as a means of achieving that goal.
They said senior agency officials had met recently with ranking Russian representatives in efforts to dispel Moscow's fears that the reorganization would place too much weight on intelligence gathering ? an agency function viewed with suspicion by the Russians.
At the Friday meeting, senior IAEA officials are expected to press Iranian representatives for access to a site at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran that they suspect was used for nuclear-weapons-linked experiments.
Tehran says a visit is possible only after extensive planning and a detailed outline of procedures. IAEA officials in turn privately describe that caveat as a stalling tactic, citing satellite photos apparently showing a major clean-up effort at the site.
Iran has repeatedly turned down IAEA requests for access and agency chief Yukiya Amano was downbeat ahead of Friday's talks.
"I cannot say that I am optimistic about the outcome of the coming meeting," he told reporters in Helsinki, Finland, on Wednesday. "I cannot say when we can reach agreement."
____
George Jahn can be reached at http://twitter.com/georgejahn
____
Associated Press writer Matti Huuhtanen contributed from Helsinki, Finland.
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Photos of naked prince raise security questions
FILE - This is a Saturday March 10, 2012 file photo of Britain's Prince Harry, smiles after playing rugby at Flamengo's beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photographs of a naked Prince Harry in a Las Vegas hotel room have popped up online. A celebrity gossip site published two pictures of the 27-year-old royal cavorting with what they called a mystery woman in a VIP suite. Prince Harry's office confirmed Wednesday Aug. 22. 2012 that the photos were of the prince but declined to make any further comment. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - This is a Saturday March 10, 2012 file photo of Britain's Prince Harry, smiles after playing rugby at Flamengo's beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photographs of a naked Prince Harry in a Las Vegas hotel room have popped up online. A celebrity gossip site published two pictures of the 27-year-old royal cavorting with what they called a mystery woman in a VIP suite. Prince Harry's office confirmed Wednesday Aug. 22. 2012 that the photos were of the prince but declined to make any further comment. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
LONDON (AP) ? They were embarrassing, silly, and raunchy. But were they a security breach?
A day after nude photographs of Prince Harry ricocheted across the Internet, security experts were wondering whether the Scotland Yard officers assigned to keep the 27-year-old royal safe from harm might have done a better job of keeping him out of trouble.
"The Yard is going to get some flack over this, and rightly so," said Ken Wharfe, a former bodyguard to Princess Diana and her sons William and Harry.
Security costs for the royal family aren't made public, but security experts estimate that British taxpayers spends between 30 million and 100 million pounds ($48 million and $159 million) a year keeping the royals safe.
Dai Davies, a former head of the force's royal protection branch, said that at that price, the public had a right to expect Harry's bodyguards to keep a close eye on the prince ? and for the prince himself not to take any unnecessary risks.
"He's a single man (but) there has to be a degree of responsibility and caution," Davies said. "Surely we have to learn from history. The press love this."
As Davies suggested, the media has been responsible for a string of high-profile ? and occasionally troubling ? intrusions into royals' lives. Photographers' long lenses have repeatedly snapped embarrassing pictures of family members in various states of undress, while tabloid staffers infamously eavesdropped on mobile phone voicemail messages belonging to members of the royal household, touching off a scandal which is still reverberating in Britain and beyond.
One reporter from the Daily Mirror even managed to get hired as a palace staffer, filing dispatches about the queen's breakfasting habits and photos of the royal cornflakes. There have been more criminal intrusions too: In 1982, a burglar broke into Buckingham and spent 10 minutes talking to the queen in her bedroom. He was arrested after she summoned a footman.
What precisely Harry did in Las Vegas last Friday still isn't clear. Celebrity gossip site TMZ, which published the nude pictures on Tuesday, said Harry was playing strip billiards with party-goers at the tail end of a wild Las Vegas visit which also reportedly involved a raucous swimming race with U.S. Olympian Ryan Lochte.
The blurry, low-resolution photos show Harry cavorting with an unidentified young woman and with his back turned to the camera, suggesting that the photos might have been taken surreptitiously, perhaps with a smartphone.
Wharfe wondered whether police should have screened Harry's guests, or perhaps asked them to check their phones at the door.
"If it were me, I'd say, 'Sir, I don't mind you having your fun but whoever comes in that door I need to know who it is, where they are from and if they have any mobile phones they have to leave them at the door,'" he said.
Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe, speaking Wednesday, said royal bodyguards were there to protect Harry, not "to regulate his life."
Davies acknowledged that Harry may have put his protection officers in a difficult position by inviting guests back to his hotel room, but said everyone needed to be on the lookout for a threat.
"One has to be aware in the 21st century attacks can come from all quarters . and although someone looks attractive, doesn't mean they have the same intentions than you do," he said. "Certainly getting your pants down is not preparing yourself. Well, not for a threat anyways."
He said he didn't agree with Hogan-Howe's comments.
"The role of protection officer is to protect the principal," he said. "Protect the principal from himself, on occasion."
___
Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Associated PressThursday, August 23, 2012
Native landscaping in urban areas can help native birds
ScienceDaily (Aug. 22, 2012) ? A recent study of residential landscape types and native bird communities in Phoenix, Ariz., led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst urban ecologist suggests that yards mimicking native vegetation and wildlands offer birds "mini refuges," helping to offset the loss of biodiversity in cities and supporting birds better than traditional grass lawns and non-native plantings.
The study, led by Susannah Lerman with her advisor Paige Warren at UMass Amherst, and Hilary Gan and Eyal Shochat at Arizona State University, is one of the first to use quantitative measures and a systematic approach, with 24-hour video monitoring, to assess and compare foraging behavior of common backyard birds in yards in Phoenix, at the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert. It appears in the current issue of PLOS ONE.
It is also one of the first to conduct experiments to compare different types of a single urban landscape form (residential yards), Lerman says. Overall, the study found that desert-like, "xeric" yards had a more even bird community and superior habitat compared to moist, or "mesic," grass lawns in the Phoenix area.
She explains, "We already know that bird communities differ and there are more desert birds found in the desert-type yard. With this study, we're starting to look at how different yards function, whether birds behave differently by yard type. We do that using behavioral indicators, specifically foraging, as a way to assess the bird's perception of habitat quality between the two yard designs."
Lerman and colleagues conducted the experiment in 20 residential yards at least 1.8 miles (3 km) apart, making it unlikely that the same birds would visit more than one study yard. Half of the yards were xeric, or desert-like, while the other 10 were mesic, with exotic green lawns. Homeowners removed bird feeders before and during the 24-hour experimental data collection period during February and April 2010.
The researchers set up feeding stations (seed trays) in each yard to simulate resource patches like those used by wild birds. Plastic trays had 0.70 ounce (20 g.) of millet seed mixed into six lbs. (3 kg) of sand, and were left out on a low stool for 24 hours. Later, Lerman and colleagues removed the trays, sifted out and weighed uneaten seed to the nearest 0.01 gram. This represents the giving-up densities (GUD) or amount of seed remaining, which quantifies the foraging decision and quitting point for the last species visiting a seed tray. Trays were videotaped for the entire 24-hour experiment.
This experiment assumes that an animal behaving optimally will quit foraging a seed tray when its energy gains equal the "costs" of foraging, Lerman explains. Costs include predation risk, cost of digestion and missed opportunities to find food elsewhere. As time spent foraging a seed tray increases, so do costs associated with foraging. When a bird first arrives at the tray, seeds are easy to find, but this gets harder as it is depleted. Each bird makes a decision about whether to spend time searching in the tray or to move on to a new patch in the yard. The "giving up" point will be different for different species and in different environmental conditions. Birds visiting seed trays in yards with more natural food available will quit a tray sooner compared to birds in resource-poor yards.
Since the method only measures the foraging decisions for the last species visiting the seed tray, the researchers devised a mathematical model for estimating the foraging decisions for all visiting species. Using the videotapes, they counted every peck by every bird for each tray to calculate the relationship between the number of pecks and grams of seed consumed (the GUD) for each seed tray. This was the GUD-peck ratio for the last species visiting the seed tray.
They then estimated the seed consumption (GUD) for all other species visiting the seed tray based on the number of pecks per tray when each species quit. "We know how many pecks each species had and can put that number into the model and calculate the number of grams at that point," Lerman explains. This greatly enhances the GUD method by expanding the ability to assess foraging decisions for all species visiting trays.
In all, 14 species visited the trays, 11 of which visited both yard types. Abert's towhee, curve-billed thrasher (species unique to the Sonoran desert), house finch and house sparrow were the most widespread tray visitors.
In this study, the researchers found that birds foraging in mesic yards depleted the seed trays to a lower level (had lower GUDs) compared to birds foraging in xeric yards. Further, species that visited trays in both yard designs consumed more seed from trays placed in mesic yards, indicating lower habitat quality compared to the xeric yards. Similarly, foragers in the desert-like yards quit the seed trays earlier due to greater abundance of alternative food resources in those yards, spending more time foraging in the natural yard and less at the seed tray.
Lerman says that by videotaping the trays, counting pecks and measuring giving-up points by species, this work also advanced the GUD method, allowing researchers to disentangle some of the effects of bird community composition and density of competitors, and how these factors affect foraging decisions between two different landscape designs. Results continue to build evidence that native landscaping can help to mitigate the impacts of urbanization on common songbirds, she says.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Massachusetts at Amherst, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Susannah B. Lerman, Paige S. Warren, Hilary Gan, Eyal Shochat. Linking Foraging Decisions to Residential Yard Bird Composition. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (8): e43497 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0043497
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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United Church of Canada Clarifies its Boycott of Israeli Settlements
After months of controversy and negative media attention, the United Church of Canada, the country's largest Protestant denomination, finally made it official. The church's General Council voted today to call on its members to avoid buying products coming from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Presbyterian and Methodist churches in the United States have made similar calls.
Despite the tameness of such proposals, we may expect a continuation of the widespread and exaggerated complaints that have saturated the Canadian press for the last few months. In the interests of honesty and clarity, I would like to address three common distortions.
Distortion #1: Why Israel? The world is full of tyranny and injustice. Of all the places and issues, why focus just on boycotting the Middle East's only democracy?
Three assumptions are packed into this distortion: that the United Church is boycotting Israel, that Israel's critics routinely let others off the hook, and that Israel is a democracy. All three assumptions are false.
First, while it may be true that the United Church never previously boycotted any country other than apartheid South Africa, it is not boycotting Israel either. Its economic action is restricted only to Israeli settlements, not the country as a whole. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the settlements are illegal. To quote the Convention's text : "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." If international law means anything to us, then what else are we going to do? As far as proposals to pressure Israel go, the Church's action is limited, moderate, and entirely non-violent.
Second, I am not sure who is responsible for the myth that the Palestinian solidarity movement is fine with atrocities not committed by Israel, but it has proven to be very persistent. Contrary to common right-wing talking points, the movement was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the Arab Spring revolutionaries trying to topple their authoritarian leaders, while the Israeli government has been consistently hostile to democratization in the region. The Canadian contingent of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza even named its ship the Tahrir.
As for the United Church itself, its General Council passed resolutions on numerous issues ranging from the Northern Gateway Pipeline to aboriginal rights. And within the last month alone, the Church condemned recent acts of violence around the world committed against other Christians, Sikhs, and yes, even Israelis.
Third, Israel is many things, but a democracy is not one of them. There are currently 10 to 11 million people living under its sovereignty, and 3 to 4 million of them (Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) do not have the right to vote in Israeli elections. It may seem ridiculous to have to explain this, but a country without universal suffrage is not a democracy. If Israel wishes to gain this status, it must either give the vote to Palestinians under occupation or relinquish all control over Palestinian land, airspace, and coastal waters so that Palestinians may form a state of their own.
Distortion #2: Why not Palestine? Isn't it unbalanced to concentrate blame solely on one side in this longstanding conflict?
I wonder where the people making this objection were when Canada put Hamas on its list of terrorist groups and applied sanctions to the elected government that it led. Could it be that balance is not the priority after all?
I won't discuss the merits of pro-Israel one-sidedness in its many unquestioned manifestations. The topic at hand is the United Church proposal on Israeli settlements. Is it true that the resolution (notwithstanding the explicit demand that both sides abandon violence) asks more of Israelis than of Palestinians? To some extent, yes. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and forced notions of neutrality (that are never applied consistently anyway) ought not to enter into the equation. Israeli settlements contravene international law and sabotage any reasonable shot at ending the conflict. Whoever defends them in the name of even-handedness clearly does not take such concerns seriously.
Distortion #3: In passing a resolution that singles out Israel for condemnation, the United Church is jeopardizing its ties to Canada's Jewish community.
Most people are not slaves to their ethnic or religious affiliations, and Canada's Jews are no exception. Despite attempts to sway us with infuriatingly inappropriate Nazi analogies, the caricature of Jews as monolithically supportive of Israeli military policy is false. Many of us are perfectly capable of thinking for ourselves without being blinded by oversimplified tribal loyalties. To claim otherwise is akin to labelling all criticism of Iran as Islamophobic, or all protest against China's occupation of Tibet as anti-Chinese. Surely we must be beyond that.
And what of the clause in the United Church resolution expressing regret for a previous demand that Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state? Here we must try to imagine the points of view of Arab Israelis. In Israel (not including the Occupied Territories), 20 to 25 percent of the population is non-Jewish. How must it feel to members of this large minority, knowing that the state in which they live is not meant for them -- that they are somehow lesser citizens than the Jewish majority? This would be like Canada officially identifying itself as a "Christian" or "European" or "white" state.
The real question is this: should Israel be held to the same standards as the rest of the world or not? Its backers claim that Israel is held to unrealistically high standards -- that it is unfairly singled out for blame -- and I do not want to see that any more than they do. But is equality really enough for them? Or do they want Israel to escape critical attention altogether -- deserved or otherwise?
In passing a resolution calling on its members to boycott Israeli settlements today, the United Church is refusing to play this disingenuous game. And for that, in my opinion, they are to be commended.
David Taub Bancroft is a writer and blogger. Having studied political science and philosophy, he lives in Vancouver, and is currently working very, very slowly on his first novel. Writing is hard. You can find his work in backofthebook.ca, The Montreal Review, and Zouch Magazine & Miscellany. You can read his writing on his blog, Song of the Watermelon.
Cell Phone Look Up By Name ? Track Someone's Phone Number ...
There are times when we really need the aid of a cell phone look up using the phone owner's name. One of the best scenarios when we need a lookup is when someone is stalking us. Yes, there are times when someone calls us and the only thing that we hear when we say hello is someone who is breathing deeply in the other line. It might be scary since we do not know who exactly is calling us so in order to find out the true identity of the stalker we can actually use a look up. Since the lookup is based on name we can just tell them their name once they called us again. This will definitely give them the fright.
The reason why checking a cell phone number is effective is because people are registered through various phone service providers and most providers allow network to network connection as well as lookup. Of course, in some cases the cell phone lookup is not only based on the name of the person but also the address and the present location of the caller. Most tracers are designed to give out all the details that we need as fast as possible.
When we try to perform a cell phone look up by the owner's name we can actually rely on our mobile phone or through the internet. Most trace based companies allow mobile messages and service control through phones. This means that we can actually use their software and their trace through phone. There is also a lookup through online wherein we can actually find the person who called us through a 3D mapping flash template. The current location of the person will be displayed online and we will be able to check it anytime.
Another scenario when we need to perform a cell phone look up using the owner's name is when we are expecting an important call. For instance, most of the jobs that we apply to are not registered to our phone list. Hence, when we miss their call we might miss the job of a lifetime. The only way to know the ones that had miscalled us is through a lookup. Yes, we can actually rely on a trace in order to know the companies that called us and to know the people who tried to contact us. So in essence, using a cell phone look up is truly effective and it can be used to solve a number of problems.
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