U.S. Cellular's lineup of Windows Phone devices has been fairly lean to date, with the carrier offering just a single handset to fans of Microsoft's mobile platform. That's changed now, though, as U.S. Cellular has added a second Windows Phone product to its roster. The ZTE Render is now available from U.S. Cellular for $79.99 with a two-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate. When it comes to specs, the Render's packing a 4-inch WVGA display and 5-megapixel camera on the outside as well as a 1GHz processor, 4GB storage, 512MB RAM and a 1,600mAh battery stuffed into its body. The OS that customers can expect to find on-board is Windows Phone 7.5 (Tango 2).
If you're feeling a bit of d?j? vu right now, it may be due to the fact that we've already seen the Render once before. The device is actually a U.S. Cellular-friendly version of the ZTE Orbit, which was announced way back in late February at Mobile World Congress. While the ZTE Render is unlikely to appeal to the hardcore Windows Phone enthusiasts that are waiting for the arrival of Windows Phone 8 later this year, it's still good to see USCC expanding its Windows Phone lineup. Here's to hoping that the flow of new Windows Phone handsets hitting U.S. Cellular will pick up once Windows Phone 8 lands.
Campbell River has been very good to my girlfriend (now wife) Faron and myself.
We spent three great summers working at Painters Lodge and getting a good dose of the fish stories that define Campbell River?s sport fishing community.
Joe Watson introduced us to the Tyee Club and the character building experience of rowing in the Tyee Pool with its complexities of time, tide and history.
We have yet to achieve membership, although Faron has come close. I have managed to row one member into the club, probably my proudest fishing achievement, on the rod or off.
When we finally decided to tie the knot, Campbell River was the natural venue, and September was the natural season.
The Tyee Club property, with its spectacular garden, views, and Chinook rolling just off the beach, seemed the perfect spot for the ceremony. We barely mustered the courage to ask, thinking that the hallowed grounds of the club would unlikely be available for a wedding, particularly at the peak of the season.
However, we were welcomed with open arms by the club, who went out of their way to be supportive. We were even treated to some excellent pro bono marital advice from veteran members.
The ceremony was a great success, with the bride arriving in a row boat borrowed from club members Jim and Judy Spiers.
We would like to thank the Tyee Club members for their welcome; as soon as life allows we hope to move to Campbell River and become fixtures in the Tyee Pool, although in more practical clothes.
Most speaker docks, and by most I mean pretty much all, are designed for iOS devices. They integrate the familiar, though soon-to-be-obsolete, 30-pin connector, while Android devices have to connect around back with a 3.5mm cable, if that option is even offered. iLuv offers an Android-friendly alternative in the MobiAir iMM377, a Bluetooth speaker with an adjustable microUSB jack to hold and charge your Android smartphone or small tablet. Audio quality is unimpressive, but at?$119.99 (direct) it's inexpensive, and it is?a rare breed of speaker dock built specifically for Android devices.?
Design The 4.7-by-9.8-by-2.0-inch (HWD) black, oblong speaker dock looks sparse and simple. The front holds the dock assembly, which includes a microUSB jack on a sliding arm, a rectangular plastic backplate with a springy rubber section, and a fixed rubber pad to keep your Android device steady. Two stiff arms that rotate out to accommodate any size smartphone and many smaller Android tablets. It handled the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD easily, but couldn't accommodate a 10-inch tablet. Two rows of four buttons line the top panel, including Power, Bluetooth, Volume Up/Down, Play/Pause, Call/Hang Up, Track Back, and Track Forward. The back of the dock houses the power port and a 3.5mm audio input, which you need to connect any non-Bluetooth device like the original Kindle Fire.?
The microUSB jack is purely for charging the phone and keeping it in place, and since the dock doesn't need to be powered on to charge your phone, it will deliver juice as long as it's plugged in. The iMM377 doesn't have a battery, and while it uses Bluetooth, it's not particularly portable because of its power needs and design. Unlike mobile Bluetooth speakers like the Jawbone Jambox?, Jabra Solemate, or our Editors' Choice, the Logitech UE Mobile Boombox?, the iMM377 doesn't feel like it could withstand much of a drop or splash. This is strictly a desktop/tabletop speaker.
Performance The iMM377 doesn't sound amazing, but for its price, it's not bad. In my tests, deep sub-bass notes in The Knife's "Silent Shout" distorted terribly, and the kick drums in Oingo Boingo's "Dead Man's Party" crunched slightly. Midrange notes sounded warm and clear, like the vocals in Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains," but higher ranges like the horns in "Dead Man's Party" sounded a bit soft and flat. Bass response is disappointing, even for a speaker this size.
As a speakerphone, the iMM377 fares about as well as any speaker its size and price. When I made calls, voices sounded slightly distorted and staticky on the other end, and my voice was described similarly. I've yet to see any Bluetooth speaker or small speaker dock perform well at this task, though, and even with the quality complaints it fared better than the Jabra Solemate and only a little worse than the Logitech UE Mobile Boombox.
For a combination Bluetooth speaker and Android smartphone charger, you could do worse than the iLuv MobiAir iMM377. It fits most phones and small tablets, it sounds decent, and it's a functional speakerphone. It's not portable, though, and the sound quality won't blow you away. If you want better audio quality and complete wireless convenience, pick up our Editors' Choice Bluetooth speaker, the Logitech UE Mobile Boombox, instead. It costs less, can run on battery power all day, and you can use the included microUSB cable to charge your phone (but not through the speaker itself).
More Speaker Reviews: ??? iLuv iSP245 Mo'Beats Speaker Stand ??? iLuv MobiAir iMM377 ??? Bose SoundLink Air ??? Logitech UE Boombox ??? SuperTooth Disco 2 ?? more
Gainesville, FL - On Sept. 25, over a dozen Gainesville and Tallahassee activists packed the room during a University of Florida (UF) Student Senate meeting. The Dream Defenders were there to support a non-binding referendum calling for a name change of the Reitz Student Union. Students will have a chance to reject the current building?s name, which commemorates known racist and homophobe John Wayne Reitz, in favor of one that commemorates Virgil Hawkins. Hawkins was a Black civil rights leader who gained renown for his successful desegregation campaigns at Florida university campuses.
During the 1950s and 1960s, former University of Florida President John Wayne Reitz gained notoriety for his administration's purges of gay and leftist employees and students. He also resisted racial integration and the admission of African-American students. His administration turned away as many as 85 African-American students. Among them was Virgil Hawkins, who fought to desegregate the University of Florida and finally succeeded in 1964.
In celebration of Virgil Hawkins' achievements, University of Florida students obtained the necessary 500 signatures to put a non-binding referendum to rename the student union on this semester's ballot. In a blocking motion, white members of Greek fraternities and sororities in the UF student government deemed the petition unconstitutional because it was proposed by one of its own student senators. The student senator proposing the referendum is African-American. The UF campus Supreme Court overturned the student government decision and the referendum is now going forward.
Gainesville Dream Defender Nailah Summers gave this sobering explanation for student government's efforts to block the referendum: "The Reitz family is still donating huge amounts of money to the university, so they are pressuring student government to block the name change referendum. The student government doesn't care about justice, racism or the time that Reitz said that 'homosexuals are an aberration.' They are elected because of their money, to protect their money, and to protect UF administrators' money, no matter who pays the price."
During the Sept. 25 Senate meeting, activists from the Tallahassee Dream Defenders and the newly formed Gainesville Dream Defenders held up signs that voiced the anger and outrage felt by thousands of African-American, Latino and LGBTQ University of Florida students. "The Reitz Union does not represent us," one sign read, while another declared, "If Reitz were still around, he wouldn't want us here!"
This student government controversy occurs in the wake of a hate crime performed on Sept. 11, when the word "faggot" was keyed into the car of an openly gay UF professor. The LGBTQ community at UF, represented by Pride Student Union and Queer People of Color, held a rally Sept. 20 in order to protest the resounding lack of investigation. The concern of students feeling unsafe on their own campus came up repeatedly in speeches made by the Dream Defenders during public debate.
The Dream Defenders packing the meeting room demanded that senators vote for the name change to honor Virgil Hawkins. The Dream Defenders campaign against racism and national oppression on campus and in U.S. society. They demand an end to mass incarcerations, the growing number of deportations and the rigged education system that favors culturally white private schools.
"There are civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Virgil Hawkins who fought for our freedoms," said Michael Sampson from the Tallahassee Dream Defender chapter, "and they deserve the honor of having UF's most important building named after them, instead of a rich man who fought to keep members of the black, brown and LGBTQ communities in America's underclass. If we would still rather celebrate racists instead of leaders of the Black Power movement, then we as a nation have not changed."
Campaigners in Maryland before a state vote on marriage (Photo: PA)
Reading posts in response to Herald blogs on the subject of changing the law on marriage so that it is no longer defined as being between a man and a woman ? as David Cameron has pledged to do by 2015 ? I have been struck by the way supporters of this change brush aside the fears of those who oppose altering the law. The latter fear that if, in the future, they defend traditional marriage in public ? in classrooms, meetings and so on ? they will be in breach of the law. As the law has not ? yet ? changed we cannot know for certain if these fears are mere hysteria or legitimate, but there are precedents for anxiety over the matter.
Christian Voice has drawn my attention to a story told by journalist Mark Steyn, about the absurd situations that can arise in ?hate crime? legislation. Steyn writes, ??the very same words can be proof of two entirely different hate crimes. Iqbal Sacranie is a Muslim of such exemplary ?moderation? he?s been knighted by the Queen. The head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal was interviewed by the BBC and expressed the view that homosexuality was ?immoral?, was ?not acceptable?, ?spreads disease? and ?damaged the very foundations of society?. A gay group complained and Sir Iqbal was investigated by Scotland Yard?s ?community safety unit? for ?hate crimes? and ?homophobia?.
?Independently but simultaneously, the magazine of GALHA (the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association) called Islam a ?barmy doctrine? growing ?like a canker? and deeply ?homophobic?. In return, the London Race Hate Crime Forum asked Scotland Yard to investigate GAHLA for ?Islamophobia?. Got that? If a Muslim says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for homophobia; but if a gay says that Islam is opposed to homosexuality, Scotland Yard will investigate him for Islamophobia. Two men say exactly the same thing and they?re investigated for different hate crimes.?
This would be laughable if it were not so serious. Christian Voice adds other examples of heavy-handed and inappropriate state interference, such as that involving a 14-year-old girl, Codie Stott, who ?asked her teacher at Harrop Fold High School whether she could sit with another group to do her science project as in hers the other five pupils spoke Urdu and she didn?t understand what they were saying. The teacher called the police, who took her to the station, photographed her, fingerprinted her, took DNA samples, removed her jewellery and shoelaces, put her in a cell for three and a half hours, and questioned her on suspicion of committing a Section Five ?racial public-order offence?. ?An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark,? declared the headmaster, Antony Edkins. The school would ?not stand for racism in any form?. In a statement, Greater Manchester Police said they took ?hate crime? very seriously and their treatment of Miss Stott was in line with ?normal procedure?.
MercatorNet draws attention to another potential minefield: mothers and fathers will officially cease to exist in France if draft gay marriage legislation promoted by the new socialist government goes ahead. Instead, all references to ?mothers and fathers? in the nation?s civil code will be exchanged for the non-gender-specific ?parents?. The draft law, due to go before President Hollande?s cabinet for approval on October 31, states that ?marriage is a union of two people, of different or the same gender?.
The problem is that trying to promote a false equality does not lead to peaceful coexistence or greater tolerance but to their opposite. Progressives who want to change the nature of the marriage laws in order to give same-sex unions the status of marriage are very intolerant of those they see as deeply prejudiced for wanting to retain the status quo; those seeking to keep the status quo are intolerant of what they see as misguided and illiberal attempts to undermine the foundations of a healthily functioning society. Accusations of ?hate crimes? will abound and increase; the stage is set for a long war of attrition.
LONDON (Reuters) - The Financial Services Authority (FSA) delivered a 10-point plan to overhaul Libor on Friday but stopped short of scrapping the benchmark interest rate discredited by a rigging scandal.
The Financial Services Authority's plan marks the first concrete step by regulators to repair a system of interest rates that underpins more than $300 trillion (185.8 trillion pounds) of contracts and loans from U.S. mortgages to Japanese interest-rate swaps.
Faith in the system plummeted after Barclays was fined in June for rigging Libor. Other banks are under investigation.
"The system is broken and needs a complete overhaul," said Martin Wheatley, head of the FSA.
But there are no better alternatives now and any transition to a new benchmark would be difficult because Libor is so deeply embedded in the financial system, Wheatley said, adding that it made sense to look at other possible benchmarks long term.
Britain's government sees the reform of Libor as critical to restoring global confidence in London as a financial centre.
"The longer the situation prevails that trust has been eroded, the more difficult it is to restore," Britain's financial services minister Greg Clark told Reuters.
The FSA plan includes oversight by a new panel from 2013. Until now, Libor rates have been set daily by the British Bankers Association (BBA) industry body on the basis of estimates submitted by global banks.
"Bringing Libor under an independent regulator will take away the notion that this was a system run by banks for the benefit of banks," said Matthew Fell, director for competitive markets at the Confederation of British Industry lobby group.
Short sterling futures jumped in London as some in the market had expected Wheatley's reforms to be tougher, with the result that Libor rates would be higher than in the past.
CHARGES OF MANIPULATION
Most responses to the plan were supportive, but Stephen Gilchrist, head of regulatory law at Saunders Law, said regulation of individuals as proposed by Wheatley had not stopped abuses in other financial markets.
"The FSA only authorise persons in the financial services sector who pass a ?fit and proper' test, which goes to probity and integrity. Where has that got us in the recent past?" Gilchrist said in an email.
Multiple banks have been accused of trying to manipulate Libor. Barclays Plc agreed to pay over $450 million to U.S. and British authorities in June to settle allegations it tried to move Libor to help its trading positions.
Wheatley's programme for reform includes auditing banks that contribute data used to calculate the rates. The number of rates calculated will be cut from 150 to 20, with more banks required to contribute to the remaining ones.
Libor, which is meant to reflect the rates at which banks borrow from one another, will also include actual borrowing transactions. Previously, banks could estimate where they think they would borrow, which left room for manipulation.
Bank employees making Libor submissions will have to be approved by the FSA. Wheatley is looking for authorisation to criminally sanction anyone who attempts to rig the rate.
Reuters parent company Thomson Reuters Corp collects information from banks and uses it to calculate Libor rates according to specifications drawn up by the BBA.
Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg LP, which compete in providing news and data to markets, both said they were working with the financial industry in response to the Libor review.
David Craig, president of Financial & Risk at Thomson Reuters, said the company was considering whether to tender for the new administrator role. Dan Doctoroff, President and CEO of Bloomberg said it was consulting on developing an index to meet the needs raised by Wheatley.
A major remaining problem is that in financial crises, such as the one in 2008, banks cease lending to one another, effectively removing data needed to calculate Libor.
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, said: "Over the medium to long term, further thinking will be needed to meet the challenge of benchmarks based on thinly traded markets, especially when they are quote-based."
The reforms come amid more crackdowns on the banks that submitted rates used to calculate Libor. Royal Bank of Scotland is expected to be next to settle Libor charges.
Britain's government commissioned Wheatley to report on reforming Libor and is expected to back the findings in full. Legislative changes will be inserted into a financial services bill now being approved by parliament.
(Additional reporting by Olesya Dmitracova in London, Rick Rothacker in Charlotte, North Carolina and Carrick Mollenkamp and Jennifer Saba in New York; Writing by Dan Wilchins and Steve Slater; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
**Welcome to Self-Improvement Month here on the Credit Karma Blog! Today?s guest post is contributed by Jeffrey.**
Do you think willpower is what determines whether or not you accomplish your goals? No?! I?ve never been a big believer myself. Sure, having a concrete goal is crucial, but why stop there when you can use tricks that will be much more effective in ensuring success?
After trying out lots of different strategies for achieving goals, here are my three easiest steps to help you accomplish yours.
1. Decide Why Your Goal Is Important
I can?t tell you how many times I?ve set goals, financial or otherwise, and have failed miserably. For example, I?ve attempted to learn a new language several times. I?ve even gone as far as to spend hundreds of dollars on Rosetta Stone. But just deciding (and spending the money) wasn?t enough, and I?ve never achieved the results I wanted.
Why? I didn?t have a powerful enough reason to want to learn the language. I treated my lessons like a hobby that I?d get to whenever I?d have time since I didn?t make learning Spanish a priority. I just felt like learning a new language, even though I didn?t have a real reason to do so, and this ended up being a barrier to accomplishing my goal. I knew the ?what? but not the ?why? of what I wanted to do.
When I decided I wanted to quit my job, I approached the situation in a completely different way. I thought long and hard about my decision, and I knew exactly why I wanted to go for it ? so I could have more freedom to live and travel wherever I wanted. To me, that?s a very powerful and motivating goal, and this made the ?how do I get there?? much easier to solve.
When you?re setting your goals, don?t make the mistake that I did with languages. Think about or write down why this goal is so important to you that you won?t allow yourself to fail. Make sure your ?why? is extremely compelling, or you?ll risk failure.
2. Create an Automatic System
Once you have your goal, I strongly recommend doing everything you can to guarantee you won?t deviate from your plan. For me, the best way is to automate your goals in every way possible.
Why automate? First off, it works better when you don?t leave success up to your memory or daily decision-making. Once you have a system set up, there?s no further action necessary, and it?s much hard to rethink and reconsider your decisions.
Once you put your system in place, you?re less likely to undo your decisions, too. If it?s an automatic payment towards a bill, there?s no turning back once it?s applied to your account. If you?re moving money into savings, you?ll have to manually go in to your account and transfer it out. I don?t know about you, but it?s extremely hard for me to hit the ?Accept? button on any financial transaction that I know is going directly against the goals that mean the most to me. Oftentimes I?ll scrap plans to take money back out of savings because it just pains me too much to let myself down like that.
The best part is automation works for a wide range of financial goals: savings, investing, paying down credit card or student loan debt. Virtually any action that involves moving money around can be automated.
For your goals, ask yourself how you can make success more automatic and leave less up to chance, memory, and your own discretion.
3. Make Your Goal Known, and Make it Painful to Fail
To me, the only thing worse than failure is being seen as a failure by others. That said, to keep myself from failing, I like to make my goals as public as possible. I?ve posted what I want to accomplish my blog, my Facebook page, and in emails to my support group of friends. After doing that, I feel accountable to dozens of people and more driven to succeed. But if I was the only one who knew my goals, it would be much easier to brush off failure and forget about it.
Do you want to fully fund a Roth IRA this year? Or maybe you want to finally save for a trip to Barcelona. No matter what it is, tell someone your exact goal. Better yet, ask them to check in on you and hold you accountable every week or two, and I?m sure you?ll feel more pressure to not let them down.
If humiliation isn?t enough for failing your goals, set up a financial penalty if you don?t make it. I recently decided to donate to the campaign of the presidential campaign I?m NOT supporting if I fail daily or weekly goals. Giving money to this candidate is one of the worst things I can imagine, so I?m very motivated to work harder on my goals and stay on track with my budgeting and retirement milestones, too.
If you want increased ?refereeing? for your particular situation, check out StickK, where you can make a commitment contract, find someone to hold you accountable, and get support, too.
You don?t have to copy my example, but you could instead cancel plans to eat out or upgrade your smartphone unless you accomplish your goals. For your money goals, maybe you?ve committed to not buying lunch on workdays or staying within spending limits each month for. Whatever motivates you to do (or to not do) something, use it to your advantage, and I guarantee you?ll instantly be more focused and likely to stay on track.
Jeffrey Trull is a freelance writer and blogger at Money Spruce, where he helps others spend money doing the things they love most. You can find his work around the web on his writer website.
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Paper: Federal law needed to safeguard 'digital afterlives'Public release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Ciciora pciciora@illinois.edu 217-333-2177 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Federal law ought to play a stronger role in regulating social networking sites by allowing users to determine what happens to their "digital afterlives," says a recently published paper by a University of Illinois expert in intellectual property law.
Allowing social networking sites to set their own policies regarding the content associated with the accounts of deceased users does not adequately protect individual and collective interests, especially with people spending an increasing part of their lives online using social networking sites, says Jason Mazzone, a professor of law.
"Virtually no law regulates what happens to a person's online existence after his or her death," he said. "This is true even though individuals have privacy and copyright interests in materials they post to social networking sites."
Mazzone (pronounced "Maht-ZONE-A") says in the absence of legal regulation, social networking sites are unlikely to adopt user-friendly policies for the disposition of copyright materials from the accounts of the deceased.
"The current situation is that there's very little law involved," said Mazzone, the Lynn H. Murray Faculty Scholar at Illinois. "Social networking sites determine on their own what, if anything, to do with a deceased user's account and the materials the user posted to the site. And their policies are not likely to reflect the collective interests that exist with respect to copyright law. It's a little bit like letting the bank decide what to do with your money after you die."
According to the paper, a federal statute could impose some requirements upon social networking sites to give users a degree of control over what happens to their accounts.
"You only want the federal government involved if there's some failure on the part of the states," Mazzone said. "But it would be very difficult for any particular state to set up a legal regime that would adequately regulate Facebook, which not only operates all across the U.S. but also all over the world. Some states have enacted legislation in an effort to protect their own citizens, but it's not at all clear how it would affect Facebook as a whole.
"In order for this type of law to be effective, we have to turn to the federal government."
There are also broader societal interests for preserving content for historical purposes, said Mazzone, the author of "Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law," published by Stanford University Press in 2011.
"It's becoming increasingly common for people to have digital assets, and some of them do actually have value," he said. "Not only are such sites repositories of intellectual property, they also are important to family members and friends. Historians of the future will likely depend upon digital archives to reconstruct the past, which creates a real problem, particularly in an age when we don't leave diaries, and, increasingly, people don't write books."
According to Mazzone, Facebook's current policy is to "memorialize" the account of the deceased, meaning all uploaded content status updates, photos, videos disappears but the wall remains intact for current friends to express condolences.
"The content is no longer visible but it's all still on Facebook's servers," he said. "It's just that no one can actually see it."
So why is Facebook hoarding all of this content?
"Well, I suspect that Facebook thinks that there's going to be some future value to having all of that content locked away," Mazzone said. "Either because it will have historical significance, or because Facebook thinks there will be something they are going to do with that content down the road. There are already pretty crude avatars being built based on their email exchanges and Facebook posts, so it's conceivable that there could be things like holograms that are developed 100 years from now thanks to the mining of all of this data. But Facebook doesn't know that for sure, and that's why they see the value in holding on to all of this."
But ultimately the content is not Facebook's to keep, Mazzone says.
"Whoever uploaded the content has a property right that is protected it's not extinguished by anything that Facebook does," he said. "The trouble, though, is how you or your heirs get your hands on that content. The person who has inherited the copyright, who has the ability to control the uses of the work, can't take advantage of it because it's locked away in Facebook's digital vault. That's why we need to get to a place where we can require an entity like Facebook to give individual users at least some possibility of deciding while they're still alive what's going to happen to their content after they die."
Mazzone says there are plenty of different ways to produce that result, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act providing a good example of how to protect privacy interests while allowing users to "exercise affirmative control."
"HIPAA allows patients to specify who is going to get access to health records, and you have to affirmatively opt-in to that system," he said. "It's another area of federal law where you have information that's important and there are privacy interests involved. So I think that sort of model has some potential."
According to Mazzone, it's something of a sore spot for Facebook users.
"It's really pretty astonishing that there is no way for individual users to say, 'When I die, this is what happens to my account,' " he said. "Instead, it comes under the control of Facebook. I know many users have complained about the lack of just such an option. I also think it's the way Facebook users would think that things ought to work, and many users would be surprised to learn that there is no such option. I do think that it's pretty essential that that be available given the sorts of intellectual property and privacy interests that are at stake."
###
The paper, "Facebook's Afterlife," was published in the North Carolina Law Review.
Editor's note: To contact Jason Mazzone, call 217-300-0385; email mazzonej@illinois.edu.
The article is available online.
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Paper: Federal law needed to safeguard 'digital afterlives'Public release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Phil Ciciora pciciora@illinois.edu 217-333-2177 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Federal law ought to play a stronger role in regulating social networking sites by allowing users to determine what happens to their "digital afterlives," says a recently published paper by a University of Illinois expert in intellectual property law.
Allowing social networking sites to set their own policies regarding the content associated with the accounts of deceased users does not adequately protect individual and collective interests, especially with people spending an increasing part of their lives online using social networking sites, says Jason Mazzone, a professor of law.
"Virtually no law regulates what happens to a person's online existence after his or her death," he said. "This is true even though individuals have privacy and copyright interests in materials they post to social networking sites."
Mazzone (pronounced "Maht-ZONE-A") says in the absence of legal regulation, social networking sites are unlikely to adopt user-friendly policies for the disposition of copyright materials from the accounts of the deceased.
"The current situation is that there's very little law involved," said Mazzone, the Lynn H. Murray Faculty Scholar at Illinois. "Social networking sites determine on their own what, if anything, to do with a deceased user's account and the materials the user posted to the site. And their policies are not likely to reflect the collective interests that exist with respect to copyright law. It's a little bit like letting the bank decide what to do with your money after you die."
According to the paper, a federal statute could impose some requirements upon social networking sites to give users a degree of control over what happens to their accounts.
"You only want the federal government involved if there's some failure on the part of the states," Mazzone said. "But it would be very difficult for any particular state to set up a legal regime that would adequately regulate Facebook, which not only operates all across the U.S. but also all over the world. Some states have enacted legislation in an effort to protect their own citizens, but it's not at all clear how it would affect Facebook as a whole.
"In order for this type of law to be effective, we have to turn to the federal government."
There are also broader societal interests for preserving content for historical purposes, said Mazzone, the author of "Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law," published by Stanford University Press in 2011.
"It's becoming increasingly common for people to have digital assets, and some of them do actually have value," he said. "Not only are such sites repositories of intellectual property, they also are important to family members and friends. Historians of the future will likely depend upon digital archives to reconstruct the past, which creates a real problem, particularly in an age when we don't leave diaries, and, increasingly, people don't write books."
According to Mazzone, Facebook's current policy is to "memorialize" the account of the deceased, meaning all uploaded content status updates, photos, videos disappears but the wall remains intact for current friends to express condolences.
"The content is no longer visible but it's all still on Facebook's servers," he said. "It's just that no one can actually see it."
So why is Facebook hoarding all of this content?
"Well, I suspect that Facebook thinks that there's going to be some future value to having all of that content locked away," Mazzone said. "Either because it will have historical significance, or because Facebook thinks there will be something they are going to do with that content down the road. There are already pretty crude avatars being built based on their email exchanges and Facebook posts, so it's conceivable that there could be things like holograms that are developed 100 years from now thanks to the mining of all of this data. But Facebook doesn't know that for sure, and that's why they see the value in holding on to all of this."
But ultimately the content is not Facebook's to keep, Mazzone says.
"Whoever uploaded the content has a property right that is protected it's not extinguished by anything that Facebook does," he said. "The trouble, though, is how you or your heirs get your hands on that content. The person who has inherited the copyright, who has the ability to control the uses of the work, can't take advantage of it because it's locked away in Facebook's digital vault. That's why we need to get to a place where we can require an entity like Facebook to give individual users at least some possibility of deciding while they're still alive what's going to happen to their content after they die."
Mazzone says there are plenty of different ways to produce that result, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act providing a good example of how to protect privacy interests while allowing users to "exercise affirmative control."
"HIPAA allows patients to specify who is going to get access to health records, and you have to affirmatively opt-in to that system," he said. "It's another area of federal law where you have information that's important and there are privacy interests involved. So I think that sort of model has some potential."
According to Mazzone, it's something of a sore spot for Facebook users.
"It's really pretty astonishing that there is no way for individual users to say, 'When I die, this is what happens to my account,' " he said. "Instead, it comes under the control of Facebook. I know many users have complained about the lack of just such an option. I also think it's the way Facebook users would think that things ought to work, and many users would be surprised to learn that there is no such option. I do think that it's pretty essential that that be available given the sorts of intellectual property and privacy interests that are at stake."
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The paper, "Facebook's Afterlife," was published in the North Carolina Law Review.
Editor's note: To contact Jason Mazzone, call 217-300-0385; email mazzonej@illinois.edu.
The article is available online.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
When you're rooting for your team, one screen is never enough. Sky Sports knows this, and knows it quite well it seems. Hence why the UK Satellite giant is rolling out more of it via its iPad app. Now, as promised, the UEFA Champions League and 2012 Ryder Cup get in on the action. As you would imagine, the update lets users dive into a bunch of stats, game info, live tweets and even allows watching multiple games split-screen stylee. The updated app is available now, in plenty of time for the build up, leaving you free to stock up on snacks and refreshments.
GW receives record 5-year, $134 million grant to study type 2 diabetes medicationsPublic release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Latarsha Gatlin lgatlin@gwu.edu 202-994-5631 George Washington University
Effectiveness of glucose-lowering drugs is the focus of the multi-year research project
WASHINGTON - John Lachin, professor of biostatistics, epidemiology and statistics at the George Washington University, has been awarded a five-year, $134 million grant from the National Institute of Health's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to conduct a clinical trial examining the long-term effectiveness of several glucose-lowering medications for treatment of people with type 2 diabetes. The grant sets a record as the largest sum award GW has ever received.
Dr. Lachin, interim director of GW's Biostatistics Center in Rockville, Md., is principal investigator for the grant along with David M. Nathan, M.D., director of the Diabetes Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. The pair, working jointly with investigators at GW and Massachusetts General Hospital, recruited a network of more than 40 clinical centers nationwide to participate in the study.
"This funding is tremendously important to healthcare as it could result in more effective treatment of diabetes," said Leo Chalupa, vice president of research at GW. "The award of this grant signifies that the Biostatistics Center is a premier facility of its type and that Dr. Lachin and the project team deserve tremendous credit for putting together this successful investigator-initiated grant application. An award of this magnitude will increase the future ranking of GW among the country's research universities and bring us closer to the goal set by President Knapp of becoming a top tier research institution."
Titled Glycemia Reduction Approaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Effectiveness (GRADE) Study (grant # 1 U01 DK-098246), the clinical trial will directly compare the most commonly used medications to treat type 2 diabetes.
"Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic that threatens to become the century's major public health problem and poses enormous human and economic challenges in the U.S. and worldwide," said Dr. Nathan.
Dr. Nathan is the senior medical and scientific investigator for the project and chairs the GRADE Research Group. The director of the Coordinating Center, Dr. Lachin, is the senior biostatistician for the project and is responsible for the coordination of all study research activities. Together they will provide the scientific leadership for the project and oversee all study activities.
The study will address the challenges of type 2 diabetes in a randomized, clinical trial of 6,000 patients with recent onset of type 2 diabetes. The GRADE study will compare the effects of four glucose-lowering medications - the sulfonylurea glimepiride, DPP-4 inhibitor sitagliptin GLP-1 agonist liraglutide and basal insulin glargine, added to metformin over about four years and track their success in combating the disease. Each of the drugs will be used in combination with metformin, the widely accepted first line medication for treatment of type 2 diabetes.
"For people with type 2 diabetes, this is a compelling need because numerous competing treatments are available," said Dr. Lachin. "While each agent was found to safely and effectively reduce blood glucose for relatively short periods such as six months to a year, type 2 diabetes will usually require continued treatment over a lifetime. GRADE'S primary objective is a direct comparison of the commonly used drugs over a more realistic period of time with regard to glucose-lowering, side-effects, tolerability, other effects and costs."
Glucose management is important in diabetes patients because sustained elevated levels of blood glucose can lead to extensive damage to the circulatory system which then can lead to a host of diabetic complications. Damage to the nerves can lead to amputations of the extremities, particularly feet; damage to the kidneys can lead to end stage renal disease requiring dialysis or transplantation; and damage to the eyes can lead to impaired vision or blindness.
"The goal of therapy should be to maintain a blood glucose level as close to the non-diabetes range as possible to prevent or slow the progression of these complications," said Dr. Lachin. "The principal study objective is to determine which of these therapies most effectively and safely reaches and maintains such near normal levels of blood glucose."
More than 40 participating clinical centers each plan to recruit at least 150 eligible patients who have consented to be randomly assigned to one of the four therapies under study. Funds from the grant to GW will be dispersed to these centers to support their activities in the GRADE study.
GW's Biostatistics Center will coordinate all research and operational activities at all sites for the study.
The initial steps of the project are to begin Oct. 1. The present grant supports the first five years of the project, with the opportunity for renewal for an additional three years. The total project duration is scheduled to be eight years.
###
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
In the heart of the nation's capital with additional programs in Virginia, the George Washington University was created by an Act of Congress in 1821. Today, GW is the largest institution of higher education in the District of Columbia. The university offers comprehensive programs of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts study, as well as degree programs in medicine, public health, law, engineering, education, business and international affairs. Each year, GW enrolls a diverse population of undergraduate, graduate and professional students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 130 countries.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
GW receives record 5-year, $134 million grant to study type 2 diabetes medicationsPublic release date: 26-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Latarsha Gatlin lgatlin@gwu.edu 202-994-5631 George Washington University
Effectiveness of glucose-lowering drugs is the focus of the multi-year research project
WASHINGTON - John Lachin, professor of biostatistics, epidemiology and statistics at the George Washington University, has been awarded a five-year, $134 million grant from the National Institute of Health's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases to conduct a clinical trial examining the long-term effectiveness of several glucose-lowering medications for treatment of people with type 2 diabetes. The grant sets a record as the largest sum award GW has ever received.
Dr. Lachin, interim director of GW's Biostatistics Center in Rockville, Md., is principal investigator for the grant along with David M. Nathan, M.D., director of the Diabetes Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, both in Boston. The pair, working jointly with investigators at GW and Massachusetts General Hospital, recruited a network of more than 40 clinical centers nationwide to participate in the study.
"This funding is tremendously important to healthcare as it could result in more effective treatment of diabetes," said Leo Chalupa, vice president of research at GW. "The award of this grant signifies that the Biostatistics Center is a premier facility of its type and that Dr. Lachin and the project team deserve tremendous credit for putting together this successful investigator-initiated grant application. An award of this magnitude will increase the future ranking of GW among the country's research universities and bring us closer to the goal set by President Knapp of becoming a top tier research institution."
Titled Glycemia Reduction Approaches in Diabetes: A Comparative Effectiveness (GRADE) Study (grant # 1 U01 DK-098246), the clinical trial will directly compare the most commonly used medications to treat type 2 diabetes.
"Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic that threatens to become the century's major public health problem and poses enormous human and economic challenges in the U.S. and worldwide," said Dr. Nathan.
Dr. Nathan is the senior medical and scientific investigator for the project and chairs the GRADE Research Group. The director of the Coordinating Center, Dr. Lachin, is the senior biostatistician for the project and is responsible for the coordination of all study research activities. Together they will provide the scientific leadership for the project and oversee all study activities.
The study will address the challenges of type 2 diabetes in a randomized, clinical trial of 6,000 patients with recent onset of type 2 diabetes. The GRADE study will compare the effects of four glucose-lowering medications - the sulfonylurea glimepiride, DPP-4 inhibitor sitagliptin GLP-1 agonist liraglutide and basal insulin glargine, added to metformin over about four years and track their success in combating the disease. Each of the drugs will be used in combination with metformin, the widely accepted first line medication for treatment of type 2 diabetes.
"For people with type 2 diabetes, this is a compelling need because numerous competing treatments are available," said Dr. Lachin. "While each agent was found to safely and effectively reduce blood glucose for relatively short periods such as six months to a year, type 2 diabetes will usually require continued treatment over a lifetime. GRADE'S primary objective is a direct comparison of the commonly used drugs over a more realistic period of time with regard to glucose-lowering, side-effects, tolerability, other effects and costs."
Glucose management is important in diabetes patients because sustained elevated levels of blood glucose can lead to extensive damage to the circulatory system which then can lead to a host of diabetic complications. Damage to the nerves can lead to amputations of the extremities, particularly feet; damage to the kidneys can lead to end stage renal disease requiring dialysis or transplantation; and damage to the eyes can lead to impaired vision or blindness.
"The goal of therapy should be to maintain a blood glucose level as close to the non-diabetes range as possible to prevent or slow the progression of these complications," said Dr. Lachin. "The principal study objective is to determine which of these therapies most effectively and safely reaches and maintains such near normal levels of blood glucose."
More than 40 participating clinical centers each plan to recruit at least 150 eligible patients who have consented to be randomly assigned to one of the four therapies under study. Funds from the grant to GW will be dispersed to these centers to support their activities in the GRADE study.
GW's Biostatistics Center will coordinate all research and operational activities at all sites for the study.
The initial steps of the project are to begin Oct. 1. The present grant supports the first five years of the project, with the opportunity for renewal for an additional three years. The total project duration is scheduled to be eight years.
###
THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
In the heart of the nation's capital with additional programs in Virginia, the George Washington University was created by an Act of Congress in 1821. Today, GW is the largest institution of higher education in the District of Columbia. The university offers comprehensive programs of undergraduate and graduate liberal arts study, as well as degree programs in medicine, public health, law, engineering, education, business and international affairs. Each year, GW enrolls a diverse population of undergraduate, graduate and professional students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and more than 130 countries.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
An in-home robot for the masses that can fetch objects from the floor and high shelves and?connect you with family and friends via a tablet computer, is being shown off this week at a trade?show in Japan.
The lightweight, cylindrical Human Support Robot (HSR) responds to voice commands as well as a graphic interface on a tablet computer. Its key feature is a folding arm with a two-finger gripper that can pick up stuff from the ground, open curtains, reach high shelves, and other tasks, according to Toyota.?
The arm is about?2.5-feet long and can lift objects weighing up to 2.7 pounds and 5.1 inches wide, which is sufficient to pick up a dropped remote control or fetch an ice cold beer from the fridge.
The 70 pound machine was designed to assist independent home living for people with limited arm or leg mobility. Top speed is only 1.8 miles per hour and the arm moves with insufficient force to cause much trouble, making it safe for indoor, at home use, according to Toyota.?
The robot "can also wear a tablet computer atop its head, which would allow caregivers and family members to communicate with the robot's owner over Skype or other services,"?Gizmag noted?in a story about the robot.
While a price isn?t set for the HSR, it could sell well among Japan?s aging population where insurance will pick up 70 percent of associated costs thanks to a recently passed law to encourage robot technology for elder care.
HSR is just one of many robots?under development that are being designed to work with humans in all kinds of situations from the factory floor to the surface of?Mars.
? via?The?Verge, Gizmag
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
?A work of ebullient imagination, zest, and wit, Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony explores the double life of heritage in the making of modern political identities.? ? Jean Comaroff, Harvard University
This week our featured book is Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony by Daniel Herwitz.
To enter our book giveaway, simply e-mail pl2164@columbia.edu with your name and address. We will randomly select one winner on Friday at 1:00 pm. Good luck and spread the word!
Throughout the week we will highlight aspects of Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony and we are offering a FREE copy of the book to one winner.
Bringing the eye of a philosopher, the pen of an essayist, and the experience of a public intellectual to the study of heritage, Daniel Herwitz reveals the febrile pitch at which heritage is staked. He travels to South Africa and unpacks its controversial and robust confrontations with the colonial and apartheid past. He visits India and reads in its modern art the gesture of a newly minted heritage idealizing the precolonial world as the source of Indian modernity. He traverses the United States and finds in its heritage of incessant invention, small town exceptionalism, and settler destiny a key to contemporary American media-driven politics. Showing how destabilizing, ambivalent, and potentially dangerous heritage is as a producer of contemporary social, aesthetic, and political realities, Herwitz captures its perfect embodiment of the struggle to seize culture and society at moments of profound social change.
Posted by Columbia University Press in Book Giveaway, Book of the Week, Cultural Studies, Philosophy
The CleanIT project was funded by the European Commission?s Home Affairs Directorate in order to reduce the impact of the terrorist use of internet, but a leaked document has shown that the? initiative is not what it seems to be.
The main idea of the programme, in which participates among others the Dutch National Coordinator for Terrorism and Security, Spain, UK, Belgium and Europol, is to fight terrorism through voluntary self-regulatory measures under the law. However?the document?shows how they rapidly forgot about European democracy and legislation.
Who needs a color scheme? Black, white, and gray can do the trick when you're organized and neat. Simple choices, only necessary items, and a fun set of icons make this workspace clean and attractive.
Sometimes we have a tendency to over-think our workspaces. They end up over-designed, cluttered, cable managed to the point of inflexibility, and doing far more than we require. Today's featured workspace serves as a good reminder that the minimum you need to get things done is a solid goal to have when putting together your home office. You can always add more later as required.
If you have a workspace of your own to show off, throw the pictures on your Flickr account and add it to the Lifehacker Workspace Show and Tell Pool. Include some details about your setup and why it works for you, and you just might see it featured on the front page of Lifehacker.
Construction of the Devil?s Slide tunnel bypass started the week of Sept. 21, 2007, 10 years after San Mateo County residents voted in favor of building the tunnel as a safe way around treacherous Highway 1.
Shore residents should have lower bridge-tunnel tolls
As you all know, before you go on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel there is a toll of each way or if you cross within 24 hours. The toll is a burden to the residents on the Shore as well as commuters.
Barton Springs Pool To Close For Repair
Barton Springs Pool in South Austin will close its shallow end starting Oct. 1 for repair work, with the rest of the pool closing a month later. Workers will repair a bypass tunnel located on the north side of the pool that allows for the normal flow of water in Barton springs to pass, and small floods to bypass the swimming area, helping to maintain the quality of water. ...
Schiff sends MTA a letter slamming the 710 tunnel
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) sent a letter to regional transportation officials on Thursday, Sept. 20, 2012, opposing the proposal to build a 4.5-mile tunnel connecting the Long Beach (710) Freeway in Alhambra to the Foothill (210) Freeway in Pasadena.
Tired Ontario Liberals guilty of having tunnel vision
McGuinty?s sole focus on public-sector salaries has sapped the party?s will to even attempt any positive changes in other policy areas
710 tunnel could be health hazard
But specialist tells meeting that scrubbers will cleanse emissions. Transportation officials are considering a 4.5-mile tunnel connecting the 710 to the Foothill (210) Freeway in Pasadena is one of five alternatives to ease traffic in the region.
Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]
Tunnel Vision: Subterranean Park to Stay Sunny with Fiber-Optic Skylights [Slide Show]
Tunnel project could push rats, roaches into Seattle buildings
Seattle's Alaskan Way viaduct tunnel project threatens to create an unpleasant spillover effect, and one that just might make your skin crawl.
Health hotline: Doctors to answer questions on hand, wrist and elbow conditions and injuries
Contrary to popular belief, spending too much time at a computer keyboard doesn't necessarily lead to carpal tunnel syndrome.
NSW opposition backs tunnel air monitoring
Calls from health lobby groups for increased air pollution monitoring in Sydney's M5 tunnel have been backed by the NSW opposition.
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) ? Prosecutors have charged Amanda Bynes with knowingly driving on a suspended license. It's the third court case the actress has racked up in recent months.
Bynes was charged Friday in Burbank, Calif., with two counts of driving on a suspended license. The charges stem from an incident Sunday that led to her car being impounded.
Bynes faces two other cases ? a drunken driving case and a hit-and-run case involving two accidents. Bynes' driver's license was revoked in August, and a judge last week ordered her to stop driving.
The 26-year-old starred in the Nickelodeon series "All That" and the 2010 film "Easy A." She has pleaded not guilty in the DUI case.
Her attorney Richard Hutton was not available for comment.
The new charges were first reported by celebrity website TMZ.
NEW YORK (AP) ? U.S. stocks traded higher Friday, with investors latching on to a few mildly hopeful signs about the economy.
Shortly after noon Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 43 points at 13,640. The Standard & Poor's 500 was up six to 1,466. The Nasdaq composite index was up 16 to 3,192.
Homebuilder KB Home swung to a quarterly profit by selling pricier homes. The stock popped $1.46, or more than 11 percent, to $14.57.
Darden Restaurants, parent of Olive Garden and Red Lobster, also reported a higher profit in its latest quarter. The stock rose $2.47, or more than 4 percent, to $57.19.
Apple, propelled by the frenzy around the release of the iPhone 5, rose $6.12, or just less than 1 percent, to $704.82.
And in Europe, Italy's premier and Greece's prime minister met and repeated their conviction for "the absolute need to safeguard the integrity of the eurozone," according to a statement from the Italian leader's office. Spain appeared near to working out terms for requesting a bailout from Europe.
Both developments points to a Europe that, while still grappling with a heavy debt crisis, is committed to finding a solution.
Still, the market's rise Friday and in recent weeks seems like a paradox against a backdrop of high unemployment, unimpressive economic growth and a looming fiscal cliff, when spending cuts and higher taxes could kick in this year.
That's because the rise has been more about the old adage to not "fight the Fed" rather than hope that the economy is proving.
This week, the Bank of Japan agreed to a new program where it would buy assets to try to prop up the country's market. Last week the Federal Reserve made a similar comment, and before that the European Central Bank did.
But the actions don't mean the economy is improving. In fact, they mean quite the opposite: that the central banks think the economy is bad enough that it can't survive on its own.
Timothy Leach, wealth management chief investment officer for U.S. Bank in San Francisco, described the central banks' actions as positive, but said they're buying time more than fixing underlying fiscal problems.
"But at least they're taking some of the pressure off," Leach said, "allowing policymakers some additional time to try to achieve those real solutions."
Signs of the underlying trouble were abundant.
The Labor Department reported Friday that unemployment rose in 26 states last month. The World Trade Organization cuts its estimates for growth in global trade this year and next.
Darden, despite its higher profits, noted it has to rework the menu to attract customers wary about spending.
Greece still hasn't agreed to a detailed plan to cut spending, which it must do to get the bailout money from Europe. Germany's finance minister argued that Spain doesn't need a second aid program, considering how it already got a bailout for its banks.
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Public release date: 26-Sep-2012
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Who needs a color scheme? Black, white, and gray can do the trick when you're organized and neat. Simple choices, only necessary items, and a fun set of icons make this workspace clean and attractive.