Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/190077775?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Monday, January 23, 2012
How Flora Makes ?Wearable Computing? Fun and Fashion-Forward
While most tech startups are huddled in bunkers plotting funding and monetization strategies, members of the open hardware movement are free to play. It's this playful spirit that helps animate Flora, a new wearable electronics device and development platform launched by Adafruit Industries' Limor Fried.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/HNPGiYS6FBg/
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Saturday, January 21, 2012
Megaupload exec's homes raided, luxury cars seized
By msnbc.com staff and news services
Police in New Zealand on Friday raided several homes and businesses linked to the founder of Megaupload.com, a giant file-sharing site shut down by U.S. authorities, and seized guns, millions of dollars, and nearly $5 million in luxury cars, officials said.
Police arrested founder Kim Dotcom and three Megaupload employees Thursday on U.S. accusations that they facilitated millions of illegal downloads of films, music and other content, costing copyright holders at least $500 million in lost revenue. Extradition proceedings against them could last a year or more.
David Rowland / EPA
(L-R) Bram van der Kolk, Finn Batato, Mathias Ortmann and German national Kim Schmitz, also known as Kim Dotcom, are remanded in custody at the District Court on charges in a US copyright infringement investigation in Auckland, New Zealand, 20 January 2012.
With 150 million registered users, about 50 million hits daily and endorsements from music superstars, Megaupload.com was among the world's biggest file-sharing sites. According to a U.S. indictment, the site, which was shut down Thursday, earned Dotcom $42 million in 2010 alone.
Although the company is based in Hong Kong and Dotcom lives in New Zealand, some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia, and that was gave U.S. prosecutors jurisdiction to act.
New Zealand police served 10 search warrants at several businesses and homes around the city of Auckland.
Police spokesman Grant Ogilvie said the seized cars include a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe worth more than $400,000 as well as several Mercedes. Two short-barreled shotguns and a number of valuable artworks were also confiscated, he added.
Pictures posted on Flickr and technology news website Gizmodo showed the haul included a 2010 Maserati and a pink Cadillac. One Mercedes had the personalized license place "MAFIA,"while another had a plated that read "CEO."
A report by New Zealand news website stuff.co.nz said Detective Inspector Grant Wormald from the Organized and Financial Crime Agency NZ (OFCANZ) gave details of the extraordinary raid, which had been planned for several months.
"Police arrived in two marked police helicopters," said Wormald, according to the website. "Despite our staff clearly identifying themselves Mr. Dotcom retreated into the house and activated a number of electronic locking mechanisms. While police neutralized these locks he then further barricaded himself into a safe room within the house which officers had to cut their way into."
Once they gained entry into this room they found Dotcom near a firearm which had the appearance of a sawed-off shotgun, Wormald said.
"It was definitely not as simple as knocking at the front door," he added.
New Zealand's Fairfax Media reported that the four defendants stood together in an Auckland courtroom in the first step of the extradition proceedings.
'Nothing to hide'
Dotcom's lawyer raised objections to a media request to take photographs and video, but then Dotcom spoke, saying he didn't mind photos or video "because we have nothing to hide." The judge granted the media access, and ruled that the four would remain in custody until a second hearing Monday.
Dotcom, Megaupload's former CEO and current chief innovation officer, is a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand and a dual citizen of Finland and Germany who had his name legally changed. The 37-year-old was previously known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Vestor.
Two other German citizens and one Dutch citizen also were arrested and three other defendants ? another German, a Slovakian and an Estonian ? remain at large.
Megaupload has retained Washington, D.C. power attorney Bob Bennett in the case, according to a person inside the company. Bennett is best known for representing former President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The person within Megaupload spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the company's plans.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that the arrests set "a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?"
The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Wired shut down in protest of two U.S. proposals intended to make it easier for authorities to go after sites with pirated material, especially those with overseas headquarters and servers.
Before Megaupload was taken down, the company posted a statement saying allegations that it facilitated massive breaches of copyright laws were "grotesquely overblown."
"The fact is that the vast majority of Mega's Internet traffic is legitimate, and we are here to stay. If the content industry would like to take advantage of our popularity, we are happy to enter into a dialogue. We have some good ideas. Please get in touch," the statement said.
Several sister sites were also shut down, including one dedicated to sharing pornography files.
Retaliation
News of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department's and FBI websites. Federal officials confirmed the Justice Department site was down for hours Thursday evening, and that the disruption was being "treated as a malicious act."
A loose affiliation of hackers known as "Anonymous" claimed credit for the attacks. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America.
According to the indictment, Megaupload was estimated at one point to be the 13th most frequently visited website on the Internet. Current estimates by companies that monitor Web traffic place it in the top 100.
Megaupload is considered a "cyberlocker," in which users can upload and transfer files that are too large to send by email. Such sites can have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America, which has campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated that the vast majority of content being shared on Megaupload was in violation of copyright laws.
Elliot Kember / EPA
The New Zealand mansion rented by co-operator of the file-sharing platform Megaupload, Kim Schmitz, also known as Kim Dotcom.
The website allowed users to download some content for free, but made money by charging subscriptions to people who wanted access to faster download speeds or extra content. The website also sold advertising.
Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size and the volume of downloaded content, but also because it had high-profile support from celebrities, musicians and other content producers who are most often the victims of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the website was taken down, it contained endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.
The company listed Swizz Beatz, a musician who married Keys in 2010, as its CEO. He was not named in the indictment and, via a representative, declined to comment.
The five-count indictment, which alleges copyright infringement as well as conspiracy to commit money laundering and racketeering, described a site designed specifically to reward users who uploaded pirated content for sharing, and turned a blind eye to requests from copyright holders to remove copyright-protected files.
The Justice Department said it was illegal for anyone to download pirated content, but their investigation focused on the leaders of the company, not end users who may have downloaded a few movies for personal viewing.
A lawyer who represented the company in a lawsuit last year declined to comment Thursday. Efforts by the Associated Press to reach an attorney representing Dotcom were unsuccessful.
The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Battle for control of Asia's seas goes underwater (AP)
YOKOSUKA, Japan ? It's getting a bit more crowded under the sea in Asia, where Andrew Peterson commands one of the world's mightiest weapons: a $2 billion nuclear submarine with unrivaled stealth and missiles that can devastate targets hundreds of miles (kilometers) away.
Super high-tech submarines like Cmdr. Peterson's USS Oklahoma City have long been the envy of navies all over the globe ? and a key component of U.S. military strategy.
"We really have no peer," Peterson told The Associated Press during a recent port call in Japan.
But America's submarine dominance in the Pacific is facing its biggest challenge since the Cold War. Nearly every Asian country with a coastline is fortifying its submarine fleet amid territorial disputes stirred up by an increasingly assertive China and the promise of bountiful natural resources.
Submarines are difficult to find and hard to destroy. Even fairly crude submarine forces can attack surface ships or other targets with a great deal of stealth, making them perfect for countries with limited resources. The threat of such an attack is a powerful deterrent in Asia, where coastal defenses are vital.
"This is shaping up as an intense arms race," said Lyle Goldstein, an associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College. "This arms race is not simply China versus the rest ? though that explains much of it ? because there are other rivalries here as well."
China is pouring money into enlarging and modernizing its fleet, and India is planning to get a nuclear-powered attack submarine ? the INS Chakra ? on a 10-year lease from Russia as early as this month.
Australia is debating its most-expensive defense project ever ? a submarine upgrade that could cost more than 36 billion dollars.
Japan is adding another eight to its 16-boat fleet. South Korea is selling them to Indonesia. Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and even Bangladesh either now have or are planning to acquire subs.
North Korea, which has a large fleet of mini-subs, allegedly put them to deadly use in 2010 ? killing 46 South Korean sailors in the worst clash since their war ended in 1953.
The trend has a momentum of its own ? once one country gets submarines, its neighbors are under pressure to follow suit, lest they give up a strategic advantage. But the rush to build up submarine forces also underscores a growing awareness of the region's potential riches.
Roughly half of the goods transported between continents by ship go through the South China Sea, accounting for $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade annually. The area has vast, largely untapped natural resources ? including oil reserves of seven billion barrels and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
"The geostrategic significance of the South China Sea is difficult to overstate," said a report this month by the Center for a New American Security, a private think tank based in Washington DC. "To the extent that the world economy has a geographical center, it is in the South China Sea."
With the decline of Russia, the U.S. remains the top nation with a significant capability to operate submarines in the open seas ? a crucial advantage if Washington wants to maintain its role in keeping key sea lanes and chokepoints like the Malacca Strait, which connects the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, free for commercial trade.
The U.S. Navy's blue water superiority is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Peterson, the Oklahoma City skipper, said the Navy's workhorse Los Angeles-class subs remain a cut above the rest. "The beauty is that they are still the state of the art."
But, closer to shore, China is challenging the status quo.
"China has put a major emphasis on submarines, with the result that the PLA Navy submarine force is now, along with the Chinese missile forces, one of the sharpest arrows in China's quiver of military capabilities," Goldstein said.
China now has more than 60 subs in its navy, including nine that are nuclear-powered, according to the Pentagon's annual overview last year.
Its mainstay boats are diesel-powered Song-class vessels, but it also is developing more advanced nuclear-powered attack and ballistic submarines, including the Jin class that would carry missiles with a range of 4,600 miles (7,400 kilometers). Nuclear-powered subs can operate longer submerged than their diesel counterparts.
China has a long way to go to match the U.S. Navy ? the advanced Jin subs, for example, would have to be well into the Japan Sea for the continental United States to be within their range ? and Goldstein said that Beijing's threat has been overblown.
To keep its edge, however, the United States now has more submarines in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. With the military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan wrapping up, the Obama administration has also announced a "pivot to the Pacific" strategy that will likely further boost U.S. naval resources in the region.
Even so, China is just one player in an increasingly complicated game.
"Everybody's buying subs, but not for the same reasons," said Owen Cote, associate director of MIT's Security Studies Program.
The Pacific is dotted by scores of disputed islands, and who controls what part of the seas is a potentially explosive question. Japan has rival claims with China, South Korea and Russia. A half dozen countries claim rights to the remote Spratly Islands.
"Vietnam and the other states abutting the South China Sea want to have the option to contest a Chinese decision to resolve the various boundary issues that divide them by force," Cote said. "The Chinese have an interest in using submarines in preventing U.S. surface ships from intervening on behalf of one of these neighbors in such a conflict."
As regional navies get stronger, so does the potential for armed clashes.
"It poses the prospect of changing the balance of power across the Asia-Pacific ? in fact it already has," said Hugh White, Australian National University's professor of strategic and defense studies. "This is a very maritime part of the world. Anyone with a submarine has a clear capability of disrupting commercial shipping."
White said the development of submarine forces by multiple Asian nations is already inhibiting the ability of China and the United States to project their naval power, and posing new issues for smaller navies caught in the middle.
"There are questions about whether the U.S. will continue to assume its security role," he said. "This is a big debate in Australia right now. Do we aim to be able to act independently of the U.S.? To what extent do we want to be able to operate against a major player like China, or more locally against Indonesia?"
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Friday, January 20, 2012
RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: The Ides of March Has Arrived
Plus, a couple of the worst films of 2011 and a Luis Bunuel classic.
This week on home video, we've got an interesting mix of really good and really bad (oh, so bad). But before we get to those, let's mention some of the other items coming out this week that we won't be mentioning: The Robin Williams classic Good Morning, Vietnam is getting a 25th Anniversary Blu-ray, Criterion releases a new Blu-ray of Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, and the recent Journey to the Center of the Earth gets the hi-def 3D treatment... you know, for the kiddies. As far as new stuff, there's the George Clooney directed political drama starring Ryan Gosling, the new Christian film from the makers of Fireproof, two of the moldiest movies to come out in 2011, and a retro coming-of-age tale. Finally, Criterion is also introducing its new transfer of a Luis Bunuel classic featuring one of Catherine Deneuve's most iconic roles. See below for the full list!
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924330/news/1924330/
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Jennifer Hudson would gain weight for movie role (AP)
KENNESAW, Ga. ? Even though Jennifer Hudson has dropped more than 80 pounds, the singer and actress said she would have no problem gaining weight for Hollywood if the proper movie role comes her way.
"When I do films, it has to be led by something through me ? like my passion for it," Hudson said before a book signing in suburban Atlanta on Wednesday. "I just don't want to hop into anything. So if I commit myself to something, then it'll be worth it no matter what character it is."
Last week, Hudson released her book, "I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down." The book touches on how she dealt with her weight issues throughout her career before she lost the extra pounds.
In it, Hudson ? who is both a Grammy and Oscar winner ? also talked about how she turned down the lead role in the 2009 film "Precious." The role ended up going to Gabourey Sidibe, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing an obese 16-year-old girl who had an abusive mother, an incestuous father and faced extreme poverty.
"I felt it was too graphic for me at the time," she said Wednesday. "It's something I didn't want to do at the time, but I would gain weight in a heartbeat. I have no issues with that at all."
Hudson is a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers and wants to remain physically fit along with her fiance David Otunga, who has recently been wrestling for the World Wrestling Entertainment. They both want to set an early example of staying in shape for their 2-year-old son.
"We really didn't realize how important health was until we were adults," she said. "We wanted to make sure we set an example for our son. He's health conscious, and I am health conscious."
Hudson, who first earned fame as an "American Idol" finalist, won a Grammy for her self-titled album and a supporting actress Oscar for her role in "Dreamgirls."
___
Online:
http://www.jenniferhudson.com
___
Follow Jonathan Landrum Jr. on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mrlandrum31
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Thursday, January 19, 2012
Editor: Hacking might have occurred at 2nd tabloid (AP)
LONDON ? It's possible illegal phone hacking took place at Britain's Daily Mirror tabloid, which was edited for almost a decade by CNN celebrity interviewer Piers Morgan, the newspaper's current editor said Monday.
Richard Wallace told the country's media ethics inquiry that hacking "might well" have been going on at the Mirror in the early 2000s.
But he said he had no knowledge of it and insisted "ethical issues are embedded" within the culture of the paper's newsroom.
The judge-led inquiry into press standards was set up in the wake of revelations that Rupert Murdoch's now-shuttered News of the World had illegally eavesdropped on the voice mails of celebrities, politicians and even crime victims in its quest for scoops. Some alleged victims have accused other newspapers of wrongdoing, too.
Comments made by Morgan have raised suspicions that phone hacking may have been going on while he was in charge of the Daily Mirror.
Morgan told an earlier session of the inquiry that he didn't believe he ever listened to hacked voicemail messages while he was editor between 1995 and 2004.
Morgan told the committee his earlier comment that "loads of newspaper journalists were doing it" was based on rumor and hearsay.
But Morgan refused to explain how he had heard a voicemail message left by former Beatle Paul McCartney on the phone message system of his now ex-wife Heather Mills.
Morgan's description of the message in a 2006 article for the Daily Mail led some to wonder whether he'd obtained it through phone hacking. Mills has said there was no way Morgan could have obtained it honestly.
Wallace, who took over as editor after Morgan was fired in 2004 for running faked pictures of British soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqis, said he had never heard that message.
He acknowledged "it's possible" that phone hacking was the source of a 2002 story on the romantic life of Sven-Goran Eriksson, then England's national soccer coach.
Tina Weaver, editor of sister title the Sunday Mirror, was asked about a BBC report that claimed phone hacking had gone on "pretty much every day" for a period at the newspaper.
"I don't believe it to be true," she said, but admited the BBC's claim had never been internally investigated.
The still-unfolding hacking scandal has sparked the resignations of several of top Murdoch executives, senior police officers and Prime Minister David Cameron's spin doctor, a former News of the World editor.
The inquiry, led by judge Brian Leveson, is hearing this week from editors of daily newspapers and celebrity magazines including Hello! and OK!
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Online: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk
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