2005 Miscellany News Archive

MISCELLANY NEWS ARCHIVE 2005 ARCHIVES
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20051230
Intel - Computer - Marketing - History - Consumer - Entertainment - CA- NV - "Intel Drops Logo After 37 Years; Seeks to Take Image Beyond PCs." ... "Intel Corp., whose marketing made its computer chips a household name, is changing its logo for the first time in 37 years." ... "The dropped ``e'' in Intel will be shed in favor of a swoop around the company's name with the tag line ``Leap Ahead.'' The ``Intel Inside'' phrase, a fixture since 1991, will be dropped, Santa Clara, California-based Intel said yesterday." ... "Intel's image change, to coincide with next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas [Nevada], is part of an effort by new Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini to push Intel into home entertainment. The company, whose processors run more than 80 percent of personal computers, is trying to gain a foothold in the consumer market to counter slowing growth in PC chips." -By Ian King -Bloomberg
20051229
Russia - Political - Business - "Russia threatens to cut off Ukraine's gas." ... "Ukraine's natural gas company declared Thursday that it has enough gas in storage to see the country through the winter if Russia halts shipments in a standoff over prices." ... "Russia's state-run natural gas monopoly, Gazprom, which provides about a third of the gas used in Ukraine, says it will stop selling gas to the country on Jan. 1 unless it agrees to a fourfold price increase." ... "Ukraine currently pays $50 (U.S.) per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. Gazprom is demanding that the price in 2006 rise to $220 to $230, saying that is more in line with world markets." -By Henry Meyer -AP via -GlobeAndMail
Russia - Business - "Russia to significantly up gas imports." ... "Russia on Thursday agreed to significantly increase its imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan in 2006, buying 30 billion cubic meters at US$65 (euro52) per 1,000 cubic meters, the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom said in a statement." -AP via -BusinessWeek
Military - Auto - Airplane - "Corps pays $100K for retooled jeep." ... "The Marine Corps is paying $100,000 apiece for a revamped Vietnam-era jeep as part of its program to outfit the hybrid airplane-helicopter V-22 Osprey, Pentagon records show." ... "That's seven times what a deluxe commercial version of the vehicle costs. It's also three times what U.S. Export-Import Bank records show the Dominican Republic paid four years ago for a military version of the vehicle, called the Growler, a recycled version of the M151 jeep." -By Steven Komarow -USATODAY
20051228
Massachusetts - Computer - "Massachusetts CIO quits amid OpenDocument furore." ... "The man responsible for bringing OpenDocument to Massachusetts has resigned following controversy and personal attacks over the initiative." ... "Peter Quinn has resigned from his post as chief information officer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to avoid further mudslinging over the state's controversial move to OpenDocument." -By Ingrid Marson -ZDNet.co.uk
NY - Internet - Messaging - Telecommunications - Patent - Search Engine - Business - "Google Talk faces patent lawsuit." ... "A New York company [Rates Technology (RTI)] is suing Google for patent infringement over the voice-over-Internet portion of its Google Talk instant messaging and voice chat program." ... "It alleges infringement on two of its patents for minimizing the cost of long-distance calls using the Internet."" ... "RTI President Jerry Weinberger returned a call seeking comment on Thursday and said his firm also has sued Vonage and Cablevision over patent infringement." ... ""When a VOIP call can be transferred to the regular PSTN (telephone network), the switching of that call infringes our patents," Weinberger said." -By Elinor Mills -CNET /News
Language - Computer - Internet - Radio - Media - "`Podcast' is lexicon's Word of the Year." ... "The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have validated the sudden spread of podcasting by naming "podcast" the Word of the Year for 2005." ... ""Podcast," defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," will be added to the next edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary." ... "The word originated as a play on the word "broadcast" using the name of Apple's popular handheld digital music player, the iPod." -By Nathan Bierma -ChicagoTribune
20051227
Russia - Economics - "Outspoken Putin aide set to quit: An outspoken aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his resignation in protest against what he called the end of political freedom." ... "Economic adviser Andrei Illarionov said Russia was no longer politically free but run by state corporations acting in their own interests." ... ""It is one thing to work in a country that is partly free. It is another thing when the political system has changed, and the country has stopped being free and democratic," Mr Illarionov told reporters in Moscow."-BBC /News
UK - EMail - Business - EU - Privacy - Telecommunications - "Businessman wins e-mail spam case." ... "A businessman has won what is believed to be the first victory of its kind by claiming damages from a company which sent him e-mail spam." ... "Three years ago the EU passed an anti-spam law, the directive on privacy and telecommunications, which gave individuals the right to fight the growing tide of unwanted e-mail by allowing them to claim damages."-BBC /News
Japan - Business - Employment - Politics - "Japan backs gender equality plan." ... "Japanese Prime Minister Junichuro Koizumi's cabinet has approved a gender equality plan that aims to put more women in leadership positions." ... "It gave the green light to a series of measures to improve employment conditions for women and encourage their return to work after maternity." ... "The changes, known as the female re-challenge plan, have been pushed through by the prime minister himself." ... "They come in response to Japan's plunging birth rate." -By Leo Lewis-BBC /News
20051226
Turkey - Journalist - Censorship - Free Speech - EU - "Turkey opens new case against journalist." ... "A Turkish prosecutor has opened a new case against one of the country's leading Turkish-Armenians for comments he made about an earlier prosecution." ... "Hrant Dink, editor of the bilingual Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, was convicted in October of "insulting Turkishness" and received a six-month suspended sentence. The case became one of several prominent prosecutions over speech that prompted questions about Turkey's dedication to democracy from officials of the European Union, which Turkey is trying to join." -AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource
20051224
Christmas - Consumer - "Last-minute shoppers flock to stores on Christmas Eve." ... "Shoppers — some holding out for the best deals, others just not inspired to shop earlier — headed for the nation's malls and stores for last-minute gifts and gift cards on Saturday, the day before Christmas." ... "With shoppers delaying their holiday shopping even longer than last year, merchants are depending even more on the final hours before Christmas and post-holiday business to salvage the season. The exceptions have been online shopping, sellers of consumer electronics, and luxury stores, which have continued to generate strong gains." ... "The good news this year, analysts said, is that many retailers haven't reacted with a frenzy of bargains beyond what was in their strategy, recognizing that there is a second shopping season after Dec. 25." -By Anne D'Innocenzio with contributions by Brian Witte -AP via -StarTribune
Consumer - Food - Health - "Labels on food to list allergens more plainly: New federal law intended to help consumers find ingredients that could sicken them." ... "A federal law effective Jan. 1 requires food labels to list ingredients made from proteins derived from any of the eight major allergenic foods: milk, eggs, fish, crustaceans, wheat, tree nuts, soybeans and peanuts. The Food and Drug Administration says they account for 90 percent of all food allergies." -AP via -HoustonChronicle.com
Palestine - Israel - Religion - Christmas - "Christmas Spirit Returns to Bethlehem." ... "Holiday spirit returned to Bethlehem [West Bank] on Saturday for the first time in six years as hundreds of pilgrims from around the world packed the town of Jesus' birth for Christmas Eve celebrations." ... "More than 30,000 people were expected to flock to Bethlehem in what would be the largest turnout since fighting erupted in September 2000." ... "Israel's summer withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a sharp drop in violence this year contributed to the joyful atmosphere, which buoyed the spirits of Bethlehem residents and tourists visiting the festively decorated town." (1, 2) -By Sarah El Deeb -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
20051223
Washington - Microsoft - TV - Web - Business - "NBC Universal Buys Control of MSNBC From Microsoft (Update3)." ... "NBC Universal bought a controlling interest in the MSNBC cable news television channel it created with Microsoft Corp. in 1996, with an option of getting full ownership in two years." ... "NBC Universal increased its stake in MSNBC to 82 percent from 50 percent in a cash transaction, Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn said today, declining to comment further. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft and General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal will continue to own equal parts in the MSNBC.com Web site." -By Alex Armitage -Bloomberg
Palestine - Israel - Religion - Christmas - "Isolated Bethlehem struggles for its survival." ... "In a street below the Church of the Nativity this week, three Palestinians were wrestling with a gigantic blow-up Santa Claus as they attempted to add a touch of seasonal cheer to a town that feels itself increasingly cut off from the outside world." ... "Since Christmas 2004, Israel has completed an eight-metre high concrete separation barrier between Bethlehem and neighbouring Jerusalem and recently opened a $7.5m crossing point that resembles an international frontier." ... "Most residents of Bethlehem, which is just inside the West Bank, are no longer allowed to travel to Jerusalem, although the army is making an exception this Christmas for Christian Palestinians wishing to visit relatives in Israel." -By Harvey Morris -FT.com
South Korea - Stem Cell - Cloning - Animals - "S.Korean panel says stem-cell result fabricated." ... "South Korea's most famous scientist quit under a cloud on Friday and could face prosecution after investigators said results in a landmark 2005 paper on producing tailored embryonic stem cells were intentionally fabricated." ... "A panel from Seoul National University has been examining the work of Hwang Woo-suk, hitherto regarded in South Korea as a hero for bringing the country to the forefront of stem-cell and cloning studies -- and the world the first cloned dog." ... "Roe [Jung-hye, Seoul National University's research office chief,] said the panel would now also investigate the dog cloning and a 2004 academic paper on cloning the first human embryos for research that has also fallen under suspicion." (1, 2) -By Jon Herskovitz and Kim Yeon-hee -Reuters
South Korea - Stem Cells - Cloning - Genetics - Health - US - "S. Korean's Stem Cell Data Fake, Panel Says." ... "A panel investigating the work of South Korean cloning pioneer Hwang Woo Suk has concluded that he deliberately fabricated key data in a landmark paper this year, offering the first evidence of what is potentially one of the greatest frauds in modern science." ... "The expert panel at Seoul National University, where Hwang conducted his research, found that nine of 11 stem cell lines he claimed to have created did not exist." ... "Hwang's paper, published in May by the U.S. journal Science, purported to describe the creation of 11 human embryo clones using DNA from patients suffering from spinal cord injuries and genetic diseases. No other research group has succeeded in cloning human embryos, though many have been trying." ... "Hwang's team claimed it used the embryos to create individualized lines of stem cells that were perfect genetic matches to the 11 patients. The achievement, known as therapeutic cloning, was believed to be the first step toward creating personalized stem cell therapies for patients." (1, 2) -By Barbara Demick and Karen Kaplan with contribution by Jinna Park and -AP -LAtimes
South Korea - People - Labor - Business - "Cloning allegations put spotlight on S. Korea's competitive culture." ... "Six-day work weeks from morning until night. Companies trumpeting bigger and bigger flat-screen TVs. A government that proclaims it wants to be a ''hub" for everything from finance to robots. South Korea is fiercely committed to being No. 1, and doing it yesterday." ... "As South Korea's top scientist Hwang Woo-suk falls from his lofty perch amid a wave of allegations questioning his research, the country's competitive culture of always hurrying -- coupled with a healthy sense of national pride and craving for international recognition -- could be partly to blame." ... "The dynamic culture has its upside, helping South Koreans build their country from the ruins of the Korean War into the world's 11th largest economy." -By Burt Herman -AP via -BostonGlobe
20051222
Russia - China - Environment - Health - "Toxic leak reaches Russian city: A slick of chemicals from a toxic river spill in China has reached the Russian city of Khabarovsk after weeks of anxious waiting for residents." ... "Officials say the levels of the deadly benzene toxins were at acceptable levels and water supplies, which are being filtered, will not be cut." ... "The benzene spill into the Amur river was caused by an explosion at a Chinese chemical factory last month." ... "The explosion occurred higher up the Songhua river, in Jilin. The Songhua flows into the Amur river on the Russian border."-BBC /News
Religion - Christmas - History - "Christmas and Hanukkah have fallen on the same day only 4 times in the past 100 years." ... "When traditions overlap Interfaith families face the dilemma of how to celebrate with respect, understanding." ... "For this first time since 1959, Christmas and the first night of Hanukkah fall on the same day." ... "The number of families trying to respect two religions is growing. According to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, 47 percent of Jews who wed since 1996 have married people of other faiths." -By Barbara Karkabi -HoustonChronicle.com
Oregon - Kansas - Religious - Science - Education - [satire alert!-] "Passion of the Spaghetti Monster." ... "Bobby Henderson is holed up in the boonies -- Corvallis, Oregon -- hard at work on his next entry into the fray over just what students should learn about the origin of species." ... "When the Kansas Board of Education proposed balancing evolution instruction by teaching intelligent design, said to be a scientific theory that supports an "intelligent creator" of all life, the decision outraged many, including 38 Nobel laureates (.pdf)." ... "Henderson responded with a satirical letter to the Kansas board demanding equal time for a different, "equally scientific" theory of intelligent design, in which a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world." -By Kathleen Craig -Wired
Science - California - Los Angeles - Hawaii - "Man-Made "Star" Illuminates Milky Way's Mysterious Center." ... "[...] even on the clearest night, the earth's atmosphere obscures the true brilliance of our galaxy and astronomers have long struggled with images blurred by its mix of gases and turbulence. Now researchers have used a new laser-generated star to obtain the clearest pictures yet of the Milky Way's center. " ... "Astronomer Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues used the 10-meter Keck 2 telescope in Hawaii, which has a laser attached to it, to observe our galaxy. The skywatchers employed the 14-watt laser to generate a fake star. By continuously imaging this false star along with the real ones, they could correct any fuzziness or other distortions introduced by the earth's atmosphere." -By David Biello -ScientificAmerican
People - Psychology - New Jersey - "Dancing advertises sexual quality: Study of Jamaicans shows symmetrical dancers shake it better." ... "Researchers led by William Brown of Rutgers University in New Jersey filmed more than 180 teenagers shaking it down, and converted the films into computer-animated, androgynous dancing figures. When shown the animated dancers, viewers gave higher ratings to dances performed by people who in reality had more symmetrical bodies and were generally more attractive." ... "The effect was stronger for women watching male dances than for men watching women. And the dances performed by men scored more highly overall than those by women, Brown and his colleagues report in Nature." -By Michael Hopkin -Nature
20051221
Florida - Business - Disaster - Water - Divers - "Chalk's grounds fleet for inspection after fatal crash off Miami Beach." ... "An airline voluntarily grounded its fleet Wednesday for inspection after investigators said cracks in the support beam of a wing apparently caused it to fall off a seaplane that then crashed, killing all 20 people aboard." ... "Chalk's Ocean Airways operates four other seaplanes, all the same model that crashed. The grounding came the same day federal investigators said they were trying to determine why the airline had apparently not discovered the cracks." ... "Salvage crews and divers worked for a second day Wednesday to haul up the plane's wreckage from about 35 feet of water in a channel off the southern tip of Miami Beach [Florida], where it went down Monday." -By Curt Anderson -Sun-Sentinel via -Newsday.com
Vietnam - Drugs - "Bird flu victims die after drug resistance." ... "In a development health experts are calling alarming, two bird flu patients in Vietnam died after developing resistance to Tamiflu, the key drug that governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak." ... "The experts said the deaths were disturbing because the two girls had received early and aggressive treatment with Tamiflu and had gotten the recommended doses." ... "The new report suggests that the doses doctors now consider ideal may be too little." -By Alicia Chang -AP via-Miami/Herald
20051220
Government - Telecommunications - EMail - Intelligence - Law - West-Virginia - Cheney, Dick - "Democrats: Briefings weren't approvals for wiretapping." ... "Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings." ... ""I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. "As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney."" ... "Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaeda." -AP via -USATODAY
Pennsylvania - Religious - Science - Education - "'Breathtaking Inanity': How Intelligent Design Flunked Its Test Case: A federal judge minces no words as he comes down against evolution's rival." ... "Intelligent design is a religious idea and a Pennsylvania school board may not introduce it into the classroom, a federal judge ruled today. Judge John E. Jones III ruled that the Dover Area School Board improperly introduced religion into the classroom when it required science teachers to read a brief statement during the 9th grade biology class telling students that evolution was “Just a theory” and inviting them to consider alternatives. The only alternative specifically mentioned was “intelligent design,” the notion that life is so complex that it could not possibly have been the work of natural selection alone and must have been the work of an unspecified creative intelligence. “We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom,” Jones wrote." (1, 2) -By Sean Scully -TIME.com
Environment - Animals - Terrorism - Civil Righs - Law - Politics - Indiana - "F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show." ... "Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show." ... "But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest." ... "One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis [Indiana] planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals." (1, 2) -By Eric Lichtblau -NYTimes
20051219
Government - Military - Intelligence - Privacy - Law - Politics - "Bush's Snoopgate: The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times' eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper's editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn't just out of concern about national security." ... "The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists-in fact, all American Muslims, period-have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that "the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy." But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a "shameful act," it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab." ... "No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story-which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year-because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker." -By Jonathan Alter -MSNBC/Newsweek
Iran - Entertainment - TV - Radio - Music - Religious - Law - History - "Iran's president bans all Western music." ... "Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned all Western music from Iran's state radio and TV stations — an eerie reminder of the 1979 Islamic revolution when popular music was outlawed as "un-Islamic" under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini." ... "But as revolutionary fervor started to fade, some light classical music was allowed on Iranian radio and television; some public concerts reappeared in the late 1980s." ... "In the 1990s, particularly during the presidency of reformist Mohammad Khatami starting in 1997, authorities began relaxing restrictions further." ... "Ahmadinejad's order means the state broadcasting authority must execute the decree and prepare a report on its implementation within six months, according to the IRAN Persian daily." -AP via -USATODAY
20051218
Entertainment - People - Secrets - "At Inland Base, Scientologists Trained Top Gun: Tom Cruise studied intensively at the remote compound near Hemet while becoming a passionate messenger for the church." ... "In his own spiritual life, Cruise has continued to climb the "Bridge to Total Freedom," Scientology's path to enlightenment. International Scientology News, a church magazine, reported last year that the actor had embarked on one of the highest levels of training, "OT VII" — for Operating Thetan VII." ... "At these higher levels — and at a potential cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars — Scientologists learn Hubbard's secret theory of human suffering, which he traces to a galactic battle waged 75 million years ago by an evil tyrant named Xenu." ... "According to court documents made public by The Times in the 1980s, Hubbard espoused the belief that Xenu captured the souls, or thetans, of enemies and electronically implanted false concepts in them to keep them confused about his dirty work. The goal of these advanced courses is to become aware of the trauma and free of its effects." (1, 2, 3) -By Claire Hoffman and Kim Christensen -LAtimes
20051216
UK - Gay - Law - Religion - "UK Weddings: Straights Can Wait." ... "At last. Only 40 odd years since homosexuality was decriminalized here in England, same sex couples will shortly be able to join together in civil (if not holy) matrimony." ... "From Wednesday, gay couples can legally combine their financial affairs, have next-of-kin rights at hospital and share in that once exclusively heterosexual activity – divorce. It doesn’t sound like the law is giving them much, but more than 12 hundred same sex couples have already registered their intent to ‘marry’." ... "Now, I am told that these will not be marriages in the eyes of God – because apparently he would be absolutely furious with the idea of two people who love each other making a life-long commitment to each other and forsaking all others ‘til death do they part."-CBSNews
Turkey - Law - Author -EU - "EU watches as trial of Turkish author adjourned." ... "The trial of best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was adjourned on Friday in a case that has raised concern in the European Union over freedom of expression in Turkey and its bid for EU membership." ... "Istanbul Judge Metin Aydin said the trial would restart on February 7, 2006, to give the Justice Ministry time to decide whether the case was in line with judicial procedures at the request of the state prosecutor." -By Ercan Ersoy with contributions by Daren Butler -Reuters
US -Mexico - US Immigration - Drugs - Law - California - New Mexico - Texas - Arizona - "House Votes for 698 Miles of Fences on Mexico Border." ... "House Republicans voted on Thursday night to toughen a border security bill by requiring the Department of Homeland Security to build five fences along 698 miles of the United States border with Mexico to block the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into this country." ... "The amendment to the bill would require the construction of the fences along stretches of land in California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona that have been deemed among the most porous corridors of the border." ... "The vote on the amendment was a victory for conservatives who had long sought to build such a fences along the Mexican border. But the vote was sharply assailed by Democrats, who compared the fences to the Berlin Wall in Germany. Twelve Republicans also voted against the amendment." -By Rachel L. Swarns -NYTimes
US - World - Government -Secret - Telecommunications - Intelligence - Privacy - Terrorism - Law - "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." ... "Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials." ... "Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications." ... "The previously undisclosed decision to permit some eavesdropping inside the country without court approval was a major shift in American intelligence-gathering practices, particularly for the National Security Agency, whose mission is to spy on communications abroad. As a result, some officials familiar with the continuing operation have questioned whether the surveillance has stretched, if not crossed, constitutional limits on legal searches." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By James Risen and Eric Lichtblau with contributions by Barclay Walsh -NYTimes
20051215
IP - Microsoft - Wireless - EMail - Computer - Net - Business - Texas - "Microsoft Sued Over Mobile E-Mail Patents: Mobile E-mail vendor Visto has sued Microsoft, claiming Windows Mobile violates its patents. Visto also teamed with NTL, which sued RIM." ... "Mobile e-mail technology vendor Visto Thursday claimed that Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 platform violates its patents and has signed a licensing agreement with NTP, which has sued Research In Motion for alleged patent violations." ... "In addition, NTP has acquired an equity stake in Visto, the company said in a statement." ... "Visto said in a statement that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft in U.S. District Court in Texas that covers three specific patents owned by Visto. The complaint asks the court to prohibit Microsoft from improperly using Visto's intellectual property and asks for compensation." -MobilePipeline.com via -InformationWeek
Books - Library - Languages - "Study: 1 In 20 Can't Read English." ... "An estimated in one in 20 U.S. adults is not literate in English, which means 11 million people lack the skills to perform everyday tasks, a federal study shows." ... "The 11 million adults who are not literate in English include people who may be fluent in another language, such as Spanish, but are unable to comprehend text in English." -AP via -CBSNews
National Assessment of Adult Literacy - http://nces.ed.gov/naal
20051214
Iraq - TV - "Iraqis Grasp the Art of TV Debate, With Gloves On: The airwaves are rife with candidate forums featuring polite speech in a nation torn by war." ... "For the first time, the televised campaign debate has come to Iraq, and it has brought with it a level of civility and political discourse far different from that found on the nation's often bloody streets." ... "Across Iraq, politicians of all stripes moved with fear as they campaigned for Thursday's parliamentary election. On Tuesday, a Sunni Arab candidate was slain in Ramadi, the fourth office-seeker to be assassinated in recent weeks." ... "But in Iraqi TV studios, it's a different story." ... "Politicians are now free to use the medium of televised debates to expose voters to their styles, images and rhetorical flourishes. And here, the tone has been polite." (1, 2) -By Louise Roug with contributions by Shamil Aziz, Saif Rasheed and Asmaa Waguih -LAtimes
20051213
Washington - Animals - Water - Science - "Efforts to protect orcas may have wide impact: Public urged to comment on the conservation plan." ... "Early next year comes the first step in determining how much punch the "endangered" label will carry for the oft-ogled orcas [in Washington state's Puget Sound]. Federal officials are asking the public to speak up in the next few weeks." ... "But the agency isn't likely to do anything soon about an expanding whale-watching fleet, and what orca advocates call a growing underwater cacophony of boat noise hobbling the whales' ability to find prey and communicate." ... "Orca advocates want all that dealt with under the new endangered designation, but that's unlikely, according to Fisheries Service spokesman Brian Gorman." ... "Environmentalists, who had to sue the Fisheries Services to force the endangered species listing, say that's exactly what they're afraid of." -By Robert McClure -SeattlePI.NWsource
"Proposed Conservation Plan for Southern Resident Killer Whales (Orcinus orca)." -nwr.noaa.gov/Marine-Mammals/Whales-Dolphins-Porpoise/ Killer-Whales/Conservation-Planning/upload/SRKW-propConsPlan.pdf
Water -US - Turkey - Police - Connecticut - "Congress turns attention to cruise safety." ... "George Allen Smith IV vanished from a Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ship in the Mediterranean 10 days after his wedding last summer. His family says he was a victim of foul play covered up by the cruise ship line to avoid bad publicity." ... "Smith's wife, Jennifer Hagel Smith, says ship officials forced her from the vessel after her husband's disappearance and abandoned her in Turkey, where she ended up at a police station and later a hospital with no food, money, clothing or ticket home." -AP via -USATODAY
California - Los Angeles - History - Politics - "Stanley Tookie Williams executed: Crips gang co-founder put to death for 4 murders." ... "Stanley Tookie Williams -- the cofounder of the violent Crips street gang who became an anti-gang crusader while on death-row -- died by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 killings of four people in two Los Angles [California] robberies." ... "Williams' case set off intense debates over the death penalty and redemption, with celebrities, activists and anti-death penalty advocates saying his initiatives and anti-gang message from behind bars had proven his life was worth saving. He had even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature by an array of college professors, a Swiss lawmaker and others." ... "Before Williams went to the execution chamber, the stepmother of one of the men Williams was convicted of killing said she felt "justice is going to be done tonight."" ... "[...] Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and a prominent death penalty opponent, compared the death penalty to "gang justice."" ... ""Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you -- and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do," she said. "You kill, and we kill you. And that's what the United States of America is doing with this."" -With contributions by Ted Rowlands, Kareen Wynter, and Bill Mears -CNN
Microsoft - IM-Messaging - Telecom - Computer - Business - "Microsoft, MCI team on Net phone service: Initial offering to allow only outbound calls from PC." ... "The agreement, announced late Monday, gives the Redmond [Washington] company a bigger stake in the consumer segment of the burgeoning online phone business. But for now, at least, Microsoft says it will offer only outbound calls from PCs to regular phones -- unlike some rivals that will offer the ability to receive calls on a PC from a phone, as well." ... "The decision to partner with a telecom company could give Microsoft an important ally as it moves further into the online voice market. The company sees the service as a "natural extension" of the free PC-to-PC voice and video features already offered as part of its instant-messaging program, said Brian Arbogast, an MSN corporate vice president." -By Todd Bishop -SeattlePI.NWsource
Web - Business - Microsoft - "Adobe merger may help it fend off Microsoft." ... "Adobe Systems and Macromedia spent more than a decade as fierce rivals in the software market. Now they are hoping that by banding together they can be better positioned to face increasingly aggressive competition from Microsoft." ... "Early this month, Adobe completed its $3.4 billion acquisition of Macromedia, giving it control of Flash, Macromedia's crown jewel, a software tool for developing multimedia applications for the Web. The move cements Adobe's dominant position in the market for electronic document management and helps round out its collection of software for art directors, Web designers and video producers." -By Laurie J. Flynn -NYTimes via -SeattlePI.NWsource
20051212
Telecommunications - Computer - Business - "Companies Embracing Skype—With Reservations." ... "With more than 13 million users worldwide [other sources cite 54 million users], Skype has quickly become the Internet's favorite free peer-to-peer voice-over-IP application." ... "Like most grass-roots Internet technologies, Skype (developed by Skype Technologies S.A., in Luxembourg), started as a hobbyist tool that soon began to take root in the business market. The company says that almost half of its customers are now using Skype for business communications." ... "Currently, PC-to-PC calls, aka Skype-to-Skype calls, are free. Skype calls that cross the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) to reach a land-line or mobile phone must use the SkypeOut service. The company charges for SkypeOut: a few cents per minute in addition to the cost of terminating the call—a cost that can increase dramatically if the receiving party is international, on a mobile phone or both." (1, 2) -By David Spark -eWEEK
US -Iraq - World - Intelligence - Politics - "Peace-making a core mission in new Pentagon policy." ... "After years of internal debate, the Pentagon has embraced a fundamental change in policy which calls for the U.S. armed forces to be equally adept at waging war and making peace." ... "The new course, announced in a Pentagon directive, follows widespread criticism of the conduct of the war in Iraq, where U.S. forces scored a swift, decisive victory over conventional opponents but found themselves ill-equipped to deal with post-combat chaos and an increasingly effective insurgency." ... "The directive says that establishing order and security, restoring essential services and meeting the humanitarian needs of the population of a vanquished country were a "core U.S. military mission.""" ... "The directive specifies the need for better language skills, more regional expertise, better intelligence and counterintelligence, more emphasis on studying foreign cultures and more coordination with foreign governments, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations." (1, 2) -By Bernd Debusmannn -Reuters
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html/300005.htm
Animals - Plants - Science - "Extinction alert for 800 species." ... "Researchers have compiled a global map of sites where animals and plants face imminent extinction." ... "The list, drawn up by a coalition of conservation groups, covers almost 800 species which they say will disappear soon unless urgent measures are taken." ... "Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers say protecting some of these sites would cost under $1,000 per year." ... "They come together under the umbrella of a relatively new organisation, the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), whose aim is exactly what the name implies." -By Richard Black -BBC /News

ZeroExtinction.org
Animals -