'GTA: Chinatown Wars' - Lots of Power, Nice Lines, Lousy Handling

"Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" was designed for portable platforms like the Nintendo DS, so it doesn't lose much in the jump to iPhone and iPod touch. It has the action, grittiness and humor of the "GTA" series, along with a suitably complex story of underworld crime, but play control during the driving sequences -- which make up no small part of the game -- contribute to a high frustration factor.

As gaming devices, the iPhone and the Nintendo Wii both face a similar problem. Game publishers often seem to believe that a game that's popular on the Xbox, PlayStation or PC should also be made to fit on the iPhone or Wii, even though you're really dealing with two very different kinds of platforms.

Game makers can and have created games that fit small touchscreens and motion-controlled devices perfectly. But when they take a game that was designed for use with a stationary controller that has more buttons than the average human has fingers, then try to shoehorn it into something with a totally different control design, the results can be a little off-putting. Sometimes that's due to unrealistic expectations; other times it's because the end result is just plain frustrating to play.

Granted, "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" isn't exactly an Xbox game retrofitted for a portable device. This edition in the "GTA" series was designed from the get-go for the hand-held screen, though it was originally released on Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. That's made its transition to iPhone/iPod touch very smooth in some ways, less so in others.


Welcome to Liberty City, Now Get Busy Stealing

Our protagonist in "GTA: CTW" is Huang Lee, a spoiled young man from a family of oddball gangsters, to put it nicely. He arrives in Liberty City acting as a courier, delivering a family heirloom to his uncle. Of course, nobody visiting Liberty City can avoid falling in with organized crime within a few short minutes, and Lee is soon rolled into his uncle's underworld dealings, despite his apparently sheltered upbringing and a total lack of training in the field of professional gangsterism.

Perhaps the first thing that those familiar with the "GTA" series will notice is the player's perspective. It's still a third-person view, but instead of a camera that stays on the character's back at all times, you're given a rotating camera pointing down on you at what I'm guessing is about 45 degrees. It's sort of a cross between the original "GTA's" top-down perspective and the design in "GTA III" and onward. It's not as engaging as standing directly over the shoulder of your character, and I found myself much less inclined to cause random mayhem when not at street level. It's also not always convenient when you're navigating through alleyways between tall buildings, but a double-tap on the control pad will at least put the camera behind you for a clearer view.

I was impressed with how smooth loading and graphics were on my 3G iPhone. Nothing felt jerky; in fact, the only time I noticed lag was when the music would start to get choppy in the middle of some very crazy driving, and I'd rather that happen than sacrifice play control. Cut scenes use still illustrations rather than animated characters, but Rockstar's typical "GTA" sense of humor shines through in the dialog.

You're given a fairly massive amount of Liberty City to explore, and your missions will take you all over the place. The mission and communication systems rely on the old PDA standby, and it's relatively easy to pick up quickly. The GPS that guides you through town is well-integrated into mission assignments, or you can use it to guide you anywhere you'd like to explore.

In short, rather than feeling like a game that developers had to hack away at in order to fit it into a mobile box, "GTA: CTW" feels well-suited for a pocket device. It's not too bloated with unnecessary or weird design afterthoughts, but the parts that make it interesting -- lots of missions, lots of territory, an actual plot -- are present.

However, when it comes time to actually drive, play control issues get in the way of the fun.

Hurts to Drive

Ever since "GTA III," the games in this series have seemed to strive toward a fairly realistic portrayal of automotive physics. You can't stop on a dime, most of the vehicles you steal do not accelerate like turbocharged sports cars, and your turning radius is generally pretty sad. This seems to work fine on a regular console, where you can feel the buttons under your fingers and see what's happening on a big TV screen. It's not exactly like driving a real car, but having real buttons and knobs under your fingertips eases the transition.

Trying to roll around Libery City in "GTA: CTW" on iPhone is like driving without your glasses while your hands are shot full of Novocaine. Since the iPhone has no physical buttons (except for that one that'll just exit the application for you), you rely on a set of virtual left/right buttons and accelerator/brake buttons, none of which you can feel. Worse, they put the brake button above the accelerator, rather than to the left. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like a left=brake, right=gas placement is more intuitive, if only because that's the way it is in real cars.

Instead, the "fire weapon" button is to the left of the accelerator. Many innocent pedestrians on Liberty City's streets paid a tragic price for that awkward control arrangement, and I think someone owes their families an apology.

Add in the fact that you're controlling a tiny car on a small screen, all the while being followed by an angled camera that doesn't always show the angle you want to see, and frustration levels rise even further. I just wonder whether Rockstar could have compromised a little on the physical realism of driving, considering this platform's no-buttons limitation.

"GTA: CTW" for iPhone also falls prey to a common video game sin: the pointless minigame. "Fallout 3" does it when you have to pick a lock or hack a computer; "Call of Duty 3" for Wii does it when you have to set a charge. In "GTA: CTW," the madness starts when you have to hotwire your first car -- you have to spin your little screwdriver this way and that to get the ignition going. That's the easy way. Later, you'll have to turn four screws individually to remove a dashboard panel, separate two ignition wires, splice them together and twist. It's just as tedious to do as that last sentence was to read.

Bottom Line

"GTA: CTW" benefits from not being a retrofit -- it was born for the small screen, and it uses its limited resources well. It's also pure "GTA"; the story, hijinks and mayhem are exactly what fans of the series should expect.

But when it comes to actually driving, the play control seems capable of aggravating even a patient player. No doubt you'll get the hang of it after a while, but the frustration factor may be considerable, especially since driving a car is one of the main things you're doing in this game.
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'Wet' computing systems to boost processing power

A new kind of information processing technology inspired by chemical processes in living systems is being developed by researchers at the University of Southampton, UK.

Dr Maurits de Planque and Dr Klaus-Peter Zauner at the University’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) are working on a project which has just received €1.8 million from the European Union’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Proactive Initiatives, which recognises ground-breaking work which has already demonstrated important potential.

The researchers, Dr de Planque, a biochemist, and Dr Zauner, a computer scientist, will adapt brain processes to a 'wet' information processing scenario by setting up chemicals in a tube which behave like the transistors in a computer chip

“What we are developing here is a very crude, minimal liquid brain and the final computer will be ‘wet’ just like our brain,” said Dr Zauner. “People realise now that the best information processes we have are in our heads and as we are increasingly finding that silicon has its limitations in terms of information processing, we need to explore other approaches, which is exactly what we are doing here.”

The project, entitled Artificial Wet Neuronal Networks from Compartmentalised Excitable Chemical Material, which is being co-ordinated by Friedrich Schiller University Jena with other project partners, the University of the West of England, Bristol and the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, will run for three years and involves three complementary objectives.

The first is to engineer lipid-coated water droplets, inspired by biological cells, containing an excitable chemical medium and then to connect the droplets into networks in which they can communicate through chemical signals. The second objective is to design information-processing architectures based on the droplets and to demonstrate purposeful information processing in droplet architectures. The third objective is to establish and explore the potential and limitations of droplet architectures.

“Our system will copy some key features of neuronal pathways in the brain and will be capable of excitation, self-repair and self-assembly,” said Dr de Planque.

from http://www.physorg.com
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'FarmVille' Provides a Sugar-Coated Taste of the Ag Biz

Zynga's "FarmVille" has reached hit status on Facebook. In the game, players manage a cartoon-esque patch of land to grow crops and livestock, interacting with other players in a world where the weather's always just right and crop disease is unknown. Even real farmers have gotten into it, though they hope the game doesn't spread the notion that running an actual farm is simple or easy.

Even while calling Chicago home, Laura Hawkins Grimes is a country bumpkin. Her scenic rural spread has three dairy farms, two ponds and a log cabin, all skirted by a white picket fence as scarecrows stand sentry over her blackberries.

The best part is the 40-year-old sex therapist never has to leave her computer to tend to it all.

She's one of tens of millions of occupants of "FarmVille," a near-utopian, wildly popular online fantasy game where folks rush to another neighbor's aid, ribbons readily come as rewards, plants don't get diseased and there's never a calamitous frost, flood or drought.

Since its launch last summer, the cartoonish simulation game seeming to meld "Leave It to Beaver" and "Green Acres" has become a Facebook phenomenon, luring in everyone from urbanites like Grimes to actual farmers while gently nudging people to think more about where their food comes from.

"It's kind of what you don't see every day," Grimes said of "FarmVille" by Zynga, a San Francisco-based developer of games widely played at online hangouts such as Facebook. "I have to say, living in Chicago, what appeals to me about 'FarmVille' is it's not urban."

Pimp My Combine

"FarmVille" -- with more than 72 million monthly users worldwide, the most talked-about application in Facebook status updates -- heads a growing stable of simulated agriculture that also includes SlashKey's "Farm Town" on Facebook and PlayMesh's recently launched "iFarm" for the iPhone.

Purposely simplistic, "FarmVille" lets players build and trick out their farms, starting with a tiny parcel they till and seed with a range of crops including berries, eggplant, wheat, soybeans, artichokes and pumpkins. Players can add pigs, cows and chickens and accouterments such as barns, chicken coops, windmills and greenhouses.

As on real farms, attentiveness in "FarmVille" is vital. Players who diligently tend to their crops see their farms flourish and their bank balances balloon. Those late with their harvests may see their crops -- and their investment -- shrivel and die.

Neighbors get rewarded with points and gold for scaring away pests, fertilizing or feeding chickens on another player's spread.

"One thing we feel we got right is it has extremely broad appeal," said Bill Mooney, Zynga's vice president and general manager. "Everybody likes farming, whether you're a gardener, whether you grew up on a farm or your grandparents did. It's literally something everyone can relate with."

With "FarmVille," "there's an appeal that's just cute, with the amazing ways people take the farms and develop them out as their own."

In the end, he hopes, "people will see this as a fun little escape."

A Farm of Their Own

Grimes sure has. The transplanted Oklahoman who detests video games and has no farm background razzed her "FarmVille"-loving friends before her sister successfully prodded her to join.

Now, she admits, "I'm a total 'FarmVille' freak."

A mother of a 3-year-old daughter and the wife of a paramedic, Grimes squeezes in simulated farming between appointments and parenting. She devotes less than an hour each day "in little bitty spurts" to eventually max out her "FarmVille" spread to resemble a whimsical menagerie -- black sheep, pink calves, penguins, reindeer with flashing Christmas lights in their antlers.

"It was completely mindless and just mine," she said. "I could decide where everything went, I could decide when it happened. I got to move things around. I got to make it look nice."

She loves getting rewards at every turn, often for helping a neighbor. She credits "FarmVille" with hastening her reconnection with old friends, including a fourth-grade schoolmate who's now living next door to her in this online agricultural experience.

"I don't know anything about her life except she's a really nice neighbor -- she leaves me little posts, she sends me nice gifts, harvests my crops. And it makes me feel better about people in my life," Grimes said. "What's so nice about this is it's really about camaraderie, like you depend on people to do things for you.

"I really would have never thought this would have been something I do," she said.

Reality Bites

Even actual farmers are digging it. In his central Illinois farmhouse near Windsor, 31-year-old bachelor Darin Doehring started playing months ago with the game he credits with helping him wait out sogginess that hampered harvesting of his 2,000 acres of real corn and soybeans.

"There were more times this past fall I was doing my crops more on there ('FarmVille') than I was in the field because of the rain and mud outside. I enjoy it," Doehring said, noting that he wished the fantasy game posed more challenges mimicking real-life ones farmers face, including weather events.

Mooney of Zynga says that isn't likely: "We don't want it to be a punishing experience. We want this to be a positive."

To John Reifsteck, a corn-and-soybean grower in Champaign County, Ill., there are parallels between virtual and actual farming. "Success at 'FarmVille' requires foresight, persistence and a willingness to help others -- just like farming in the real world," he wrote in an online column last month.

While he doesn't play "FarmVille" -- "I work in the fields for a living" -- he understands those who do and welcomes "FarmVille's" popularity.

"It's a healthy sign for agriculture -- but only if players don't come to think that running a farm is as easy as 'FarmVille' makes it seem," he wrote. "If 'FarmVille' was as difficult and complicated as actual farming, probably no one would play it."
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Security chip that does encryption in PCs hacked

(AP) -- Deep inside millions of computers is a digital Fort Knox, a special chip with the locks to highly guarded secrets, including classified government reports and confidential business plans. Now a former U.S. Army computer-security specialist has devised a way to break those locks.

The attack can force heavily secured computers to spill documents that likely were presumed to be safe. This discovery shows one way that spies and other richly financed attackers can acquire military and trade secrets, and comes as worries about state-sponsored computer espionage intensify, underscored by recent hacking attacks on Google Inc.

The new attack discovered by Christopher Tarnovsky is difficult to pull off, partly because it requires physical access to a computer. But laptops and smart phones get lost and stolen all the time. And the data that the most dangerous computer criminals would seek likely would be worth the expense of an elaborate espionage operation.

Jeff Moss, founder of the Black Hat security conference and a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's advisory council, called Tarnovsky's finding "amazing."

"It's sort of doing the impossible," Moss said. "This is a lock on Pandora's box. And now that he's pried open the lock, it's like, ooh, where does it lead you?"

Tarnovsky figured out a way to break chips that carry a "Trusted Platform Module," or TPM, designation by essentially spying on them like a phone conversation. Such chips are billed as the industry's most secure and are estimated to be in as many as 100 million personal computers and servers, according to market research firm IDC.

When activated, the chips provide an additional layer of security by encrypting, or scrambling, data to prevent outsiders from viewing information on the machines. An extra password or identification such as a fingerprint is needed when the machine is turned on.

Many computers sold to businesses and consumers have such chips, though users might not turn them on. Users are typically given the choice to turn on a TPM chip when they first use a computer with it. If they ignore the offer, it's easy to forget the feature exists. However, computers needing the most security typically have TPM chips activated.

"You've trusted this chip to hold your secrets, but your secrets aren't that safe," said Tarnovsky, 38, who runs the Flylogic security consultancy in Vista, Calif., and demonstrated his hack last week at the Black Hat security conference in Arlington, Va.

The chip Tarnovsky hacked is a flagship model from Infineon Technologies AG, the top maker of TPM chips. And Tarnovsky says the technique would work on the entire family of Infineon chips based on the same design. That includes non-TPM chips used in satellite TV equipment, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 game console and smart phones.

That means his attack could be used to pirate satellite TV signals or make Xbox peripherals, such as handheld controllers, without paying Microsoft a licensing fee, Tarnovsky said. Microsoft confirmed its Xbox 360 uses Infineon chips, but would only say that "unauthorized accessories that circumvent security protocols are not certified to meet our safety and compliance standards."

The technique can also be used to tap text messages and e-mail belonging to the user of a lost or stolen phone. Tarnovsky said he can't be sure, however, whether his attack would work on TPM chips made by companies other than Infineon.

Infineon said it knew this type of attack was possible when it was testing its chips. But the company said independent tests determined that the hack would require such a high skill level that there was a limited chance of it affecting many users.

"The risk is manageable, and you are just attacking one computer," said Joerg Borchert, vice president of Infineon's chip card and security division. "Yes, this can be very valuable. It depends on the information that is stored. But that's not our task to manage. This gives a certain strength, and it's better than an unprotected computer without encryption."

The Trusted Computing Group, which sets standards on TPM chips, called the attack "exceedingly difficult to replicate in a real-world environment." It added that the group has "never claimed that a physical attack - given enough time, specialized equipment, know-how and money - was impossible. No form of security can ever be held to that standard."

It stood by TPM chips as the most cost-effective way to secure a PC.

It's possible for computer users to scramble data in other ways, beyond what the TPM chip does. Tarnovsky's attack would do nothing to unlock those methods. But many computer owners don't bother, figuring the TPM security already protects them.

Tarnovsky needed six months to figure out his attack, which requires skill in modifying the tiny parts of the chip without destroying it.

Using off-the-shelf chemicals, Tarnovsky soaked chips in acid to dissolve their hard outer shells. Then he applied rust remover to help take off layers of mesh wiring, to expose the chips' cores. From there, he had to find the right communication channels to tap into using a very small needle.

The needle allowed him to set up a wiretap and eavesdrop on all the programming instructions as they are sent back and forth between the chip and the computer's memory. Those instructions hold the secrets to the computer's encryption, and he didn't find them encrypted because he was physically inside the chip.

Even once he had done all that, he said he still had to crack the "huge problem" of figuring out how to avoid traps programmed into the chip's software as an extra layer of defense.

"This chip is mean, man - it's like a ticking time bomb if you don't do something right," Tarnovsky said.

Joe Grand, a hardware hacker and president of product- and security-research firm Grand Idea Studio Inc., saw Tarnovsky's presentation and said it represented a huge advancement that chip companies should take seriously, because it shows that presumptions about security ought to be reconsidered.

"His work is the next generation of hardware hacking," Grand said.

from http://www.physorg.com/
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Opera's Bid to Become an iPhone Browser

The Norwegian software maker will soon press Apple to allow a competing Web browser, Opera Mini for iPhone, on the iPhone and iPod touch

By Douglas MacMillan
Technology

Apple's willingness to let competing Web browsers onto the iPhone will soon be put to the test. Norwegian software maker Opera (OPERA:NO) said on Feb. 10 that it has created a version of its mobile browser that works with Apple handsets and that it would soon try to get a green light from Apple to put the browser on the iPhone and iPod touch.

Apple's response will be closely watched by customers and competitors. A "yes" from Cupertino (Calif.)-based Apple (AAPL) would open the door for other software makers to try to get their browsers on the popular smartphone, which now features only versions of Apple's Safari. Some rivals might view rejection as an attempt to squelch competition. "One way to look at the decision is: Are they offering people a miniature computer or a few features on a device?" says Wendy Seltzer, a fellow with the Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology & Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado. "Will they be opening up all of the possibilities that users can imagine for it or locking a subset of functionalities and limiting what people can do with it?"

Executives at Opera will demonstrate their product, Opera Mini for iPhone, at a mobile industry conference in Barcelona beginning on Feb. 15. They say they've taken steps to ensure that the application meets App Store standards on quality, safety, looks, and other criteria. Yet Apple may have grounds for rejecting the app because it replicates or otherwise competes with Safari, already on the iPhone. "It's a coin flip whether the company accepts or rejects it," says Charlie Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Company.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment on Opera's browser, which has yet to be submitted for approval. The company allows other browsers, such as Bolt, into the App Store if they adhere to a software code called WebKit, which also underlies Safari. That requirement has kept browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox off the device.
App Store Inaction over Google Voice

Developers have been turned down for other applications, including a book-reading app that Apple said contained "inappropriate sexual content" from the Kama Sutra; an app that lists telephone numbers for members of Congress because it contained "offensive" caricatures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and others; and a podcast-managing app, which broke rules against downloading podcast files to phones.

Apple has refrained from approving Google Voice, an application that lets users be reached on multiple calling devices with a single number, because it might interfere with, or replace, certain features on the iPhone. The Federal Communications Commission opened an inquiry into the matter in July. Critics have said that Apple dawdled because it doesn't want a competing voice-calling service on the iPhone. The application is still unavailable on the iPhone, although a version can be accessed through the iPhone's browser.

Browsers serve as the main gateway from a computing device onto the Web. In the 1990s, Microsoft (MSFT) was accused of anticompetitive behavior by the U.S. Justice Dept., which said Microsoft harmed rivals such as Netscape by bundling its Internet Explorer browser with the Windows operating system.

In 2007, Opera complained to European regulators about Microsoft's bundling efforts. After Opera's complaint received support from Mozilla and Google (GOOG)—which makes the Chrome browser—EU regulators began an investigation and urged compromise. Microsoft has since agreed to include a so-called ballot screen that gives users a choice among browsers.

Opera: No. 2 mobile browser, at 25.5%

The antitrust implications if Apple were to reject Opera's application are less clear. Regulators at the Justice Dept. or Federal Trade Commission may ask about the reasoning behind such a decision, says David Balto, a former policy director for the FTC and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. "It would be the kind of thing the Justice Dept. and the FTC would want to look at," Balto says. FTC spokesman Mitchell Katz declined to comment, as did Justice Dept. spokeswoman Laura Sweeney.

Building an anticompetitive case wouldn't be easy, legal experts say. Regulators would have to prove that Apple has a monopoly in a market and that it's using that position to thwart competition. There's a slew of competition in smartphones and the iPhone isn't considered its own market. Customers with a strong preference for Opera's browser could find a version of it on other handsets; the company counts more than 50 million users of its mobile browsers and serves 25.5% of the mobile-browser market, according to data tracker StatCounter. Apple's browser leads the pack with 34.4% of the market. Nokia browsers make up 11.7%, while Research In Motion's BlackBerry has 10.1%.

Mobile devices also aren't held to the same legal standards as computers because they have more limited capabilities, says Michael Gartenberg, vice-president of strategy and analysis at tech research firm Interpret. "Phones are not desktops and I don't think you're going to see the same issues regarding browser choice on phones," he says.

Opera expects its application to get approved and hasn't made contingency plans in the event of rejection, says Opera spokesman Ted Miller. "There's really not much we can do," he says. "There's obviously a chance some regulatory bodies may get involved."

Google and Microsoft: disinterested?

Other browser makers may be encouraged by an acceptance. "As we've seen with Web browsers on the PC, choice leads to competition and innovation, and that's good for everybody," says Jay Sullivan, vice-president of mobile at Mozilla. Mozilla has not developed Firefox for Apple's handsets because "of constraints with the [operating system] environment and distribution," Sullivan says. The company is giving the iPhone some thought, Sullivan says.

Google spokesman Eitan Bencuya says of his company's Chrome browser: "We're really focused on the desktop." Sarah Keeling, a spokeswoman for Microsoft at Waggener Edstrom says Microsoft has no plans to create an Internet Explorer application for the iPhone.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Opera will use an unofficial, or "jailbroken" iPhone, to try to convince show-goers that its Opera Mini browser runs faster than Safari because it load Web pages with computing power from remote servers, rather than a phone's hardware. New features such as "speed dial"—a way to navigate quickly between favorite Web sites—will help Opera stand out to people who are accustomed to Apple's Safari, says Christen Krogh, Opera's chief development officer. "We are really genuine about this," Krogh says. "We are in the business of giving people access to the Web."
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Rethinking networking

Today, data traveling over the Internet are much like crates of oranges traveling the interstates in the back of a truck. The data are loaded in at one end, unloaded at the other, and nothing much happens to them in between.

About 10 years ago, electrical engineers suggested that bundles of data could be transmitted over a network more efficiently if, instead of passing unaltered from one end to the other, they were scrambled together along the way and unscrambled at the end. In 2003, MIT electrical engineering professor Muriel Médard and her colleagues proved the counterintuitive result that, in many cases, the best way to scramble data together was to do it randomly.

Last year, the paper in which the researchers presented their findings received an award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which recognized its seminal contributions to the field that’s come to be known as “network coding.” But the same year, the IEEE honored another network-coding paper, in which MIT researchers played the leading role: the paper that, in 2006, presented the first practical implementation of network coding.

The first article in this two-part series presented a simple example of how network coding increases efficiency. Suppose that two laptops are trying to send each other messages simultaneously over the Wi-Fi network in a coffee shop. Ordinarily, the first laptop would send its message to the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi router, which would forward it to the second laptop. The second laptop would send its message to the router, which would forward it to the first laptop. That’s four total transmissions.

But with network coding, the router would instead combine the two laptops’ messages into a hybrid message, which it would broadcast to both laptops, reducing the total number of transmissions to just three. Each laptop would then subtract the message it had sent from the hybrid to recover the message intended for it.

Stingy senders

Dina Katabi, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science; Médard; MIT grad students Sachin Katti and Hariharan Rahul (Katti now teaches at Stanford; Rahul still works with Katabi at MIT); and Cambridge University’s Jon Crowcroft and Wenjun Hu generalized this approach to a network with many different transmitters and receivers.

The researchers blanketed two floors of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab with wireless routers programmed to execute their network coding scheme. They then used wireless devices to exchange test data over the network. Like all information sent over modern networks, the test data were broken up into smaller “packets” of information for transmission. And as is typical with most wireless networks, electromagnetic interference, physical obstacles, and sheer distance from the wireless devices meant that no one router received all the packets. Unlike conventional routers, however, the ones in the MIT network mixed the packets’ content before forwarding them; they even mixed bytes in packets that belonged to different communication streams.

In the MIT network, routers told their neighbor routers which packets they had heard over the wireless medium. A router would use that information when preparing mixed (or coded) packets to send to its neighbors. Consider a router that has four packets in its memory, A, B, C and D. It knows that one of its neighbors also has A and C; another neighbor has A and D; and a third neighbor has C and D. So it creates a single mixed packet that combines packets A, C and D. The first neighbor uses that packet to recover D; the second neighbor uses it to recover C; and the third neighbor uses it to recover A. A single packet thus conveys three times as much information as it would have in an ordinary wireless network. Interestingly, such mixed packets, which combine information about multiple original packets, have the same size as the original packets, and hence can be transmitted over the wireless medium using the same resources as if they were normal unmixed packets.

In experiments, the coding scheme significantly increased the amount of data that the network could carry without requiring any more bandwidth. Although the precise figure varied according to the number of wireless devices accessing the network, which of them were sending information to which others, and the amount of interference they encountered, “in general,” Katabi says, “you can see, let’s say, threefold improvements.”

Chris Ramming, who as a program manager for the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded several projects that investigated network coding, says that the two papers honored by the IEEE “are two very seminal papers, for completely different reasons.” According to Ramming, who’s now director of the Corporate External Research Office for chip manufacturer Intel, Katabi and Médard’s paper “was a practical result. It took a completely different kind of network coding and showed in a real wireless network on the MIT campus that it can make an important difference.”

Short gestation

Both Katabi and Médard have continued to work on network coding, sometimes apart, but frequently as collaborators. “We exactly complement each other,” says Katabi. “Muriel has the theoretical foundation, while I come to it from, ‘Let’s make it work, let’s make it practical. How can we actually make it work over an actual wireless channel?’ ”

Indeed, Katabi has found a way to make networks even more efficient by exploiting the physical characteristics of actual wireless channels. In the network described in the award-winning paper, wireless routers received electromagnetic signals, translated them into bits, mixed the bits together, and then translated the bits back into electromagnetic signals. But signals sent from different transmitters naturally blend together physically. That blending is usually a nuisance: the signals have to be separated before data can be extracted from them. But Katabi built another experimental wireless network in which routers don’t disentangle blended signals; they just amplify and forward them. It turns out that the network coding techniques that work at the level of the bit can be extended to reconstruct the original signals, without lots of intermediate translations.

Médard, too, has been concerned with the practical implementation of network coding, if at a higher level of abstraction. The Internet is designed so that a computer or phone receiving information will generally acknowledge the arrival of data packets. If an acknowledgment fails, the sender knows that it has to resend the missing packet. But if, as with network coding, all the packets are mixed together, which packet does the receiver acknowledge? Médard and her colleagues have found a practical way to answer that question, a system wherein each hybrid packet identifies the source packets it combines. The receiver then keeps the sender apprised of the source packets represented in the hybrids it’s received.

Médard and her colleagues are also working on applications of network coding in streaming video, where different means of combining data can be tailored to the different image resolutions of receiving devices. And they’re considering cases where network coding can be applied to several different networks at once. If, for instance, your phone can connect to both Wi-Fi networks and the cellular network, then for large files, you might want to download data over both networks at once. But the cellular network could be significantly more expensive to use than a local Wi-Fi network, so you would want to minimize the amount of data transmitted over it. Network coding can help coordinate transmissions over the two networks, to maximize efficiency while minimizing cost.

Although a young field, network coding has already sparked corporate interest. Defense contractor BAE built the equipment for the DARPA projects that Ramming funded, and Microsoft used network coding in a file-sharing program called Avalanche. Médard says that she is currently working with France Telecom, the French technology company Technicolor (formerly Thomson SA) and the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei on network coding applications. Katabi adds that Cisco, a maker of networking equipment, and South Korean conglomerate Samsung have also expressed interest in the MIT researchers’ work. “Network coding is a very cool idea,” says Katabi. “There are so many things you can do with it.”

from http://www.physorg.com/
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US toys in 2010 are 'green,' high-tech... and cheap

US toy makers are coming out of a long recession tunnel this year, hoping to ride the recovery wave with new lines of classic, "green" and high-tech toys, and a sales pitch centered on affordability.

The American International Toy Fair 2010, underway in New York until Wednesday, is sounding out market tendencies after a disastrous 2008 and an encouraging upswing in 2009 that promises further improvements this year in a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Toy manufacturers have hit the fair with exhibits ranging from classic erector sets by Lego and Playmobil to spanking new offers like a Twitter collar for pets and the perennial doll favorite Barbie, who this year is decked out as a television anchorwoman.

Santa Claus will have toys for all tastes next Christmas, but above all he will be concerned with keeping the price tag down, even at the expense of quality.

Labeled toy of the year by the Toy Industry Association (TIA), the cuddly Zhu Zhu pet hamster robots from Cepia are still top of the list for young kids -- and parents -- for under 10 dollars.

"The trend this year is affordability. You will see a lot of green products under 25 dollars, also active games for the body or the minds, and affordable high tech," TIA spokeswoman Reyne Rice told AFP.

"Parents are looking for toys or games they can play with their children, and not necessarily with too much technology," said Playmobil USA Marketing Manager Michelle Winfrey.

The toy industry is worth 75 billion dollars in annual sales worldwide, with more than one-quarter, or 21 billion, in the United States alone, according to TIA figures.

This year's environmentally friendly exhibits include toys made of wood and innovative offers like a 20-dollar caterpillar farm that, with all the supplied proper care, turns into a butterfly factory in only three weeks.

Giant toy maker Mattel is hitting the high-tech market in mid-2010 with "Puppy Tweet," a Twitter-enabled dog collar for around 30 dollars that broadcasts your pet's actions on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Another wallet-friendly smart toy starting at 10 dollars is "Hexbug," micro-robotic creatures resembling cockroaches, spiders or crabs that respond to touch, sound and even light and are capable of navigating mazes or their own nano habitat set.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Rubik's Cube, Techno Source offers "Rubik's Touch" for easy solving of the puzzle with just a swipe of the finger, and "Rubik's Slide" -- coming out in the third quarter of this year -- with light-and-sound effects for 18 dollars.

"It is easy to understand, it has a physical aspect and it is addictive," said Techno Source assistant marketing manager Amy Bogin.

Barbie 2010 has also gone high-tech with its 50-dollar "Video Girl," sporting a small video camera that can send everything the blond doll sees onto a computer screen.

Toy giant Mattel surveyed its Barbie followers to determine what the doll's 125th profession should be. By majority consent, Barbie this year is a reporter and star news anchorwoman on television.

And steering away from her traditional pink outfits, the new Barbie comes with a choice of 12 predominantly black wardrobes.

The toy fair has some 100,000 products on show for its 32,000 visitors at the Javits convention center. The list, of course, also includes sophisticated and expensive toys.

"Beamz," is a laser beam musical instrument for 200 dollars apt for children of all ages, including dad.

A notch above is "Bioloid," a 1,200-dollar robot from South Korea's Robotis that is billed as the first educational robot kit based around "smart serially controlled servos." It can be programmed and made to move in astonishingly realistic fashion.

From http://www.physorg.com/
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Google Adds a Little Sparkle to Chrome for Linux

By Katherine Noyes
LinuxInsider
Part of the ECT News Network
02/16/10 5:00 AM PT

The Linux version of Google's Chrome browser has received a tuneup. Updates fix a handful of bugs; they also bring in better support for custom fonts and improvements in GTK theme mode. The Linux and Mac versions of Chrome still trail the Windows version in terms of development, though it's interesting that some Chrome features are appearing in Linux before they show up in Mac.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has updated the beta version of its Chrome for Linux with a variety of fixes designed to make the browser more reliable, the company announced Thursday.

Version 5.0.307.7 of Chrome for Linux addresses several bugs that were problematic in the previous version. One fix, for example, changes an out of memory (OOM) killer mechanism so that it terminates runaway tabs before it closes the browser when memory is low.

The upgrade was released in tandem with a similar update to the Mac version that adds extensions, bookmark sync and other features that had previously been absent on that platform.

Better Support for Complex Text

"We've been adding many of the features that were missing on the Mac, and working hard on making Google Chrome on both platforms more reliable," wrote the Chrome team's Mark Larson in the announcement. "We've spent a lot of time making plug-ins like Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Flash Player more reliable."

The Chrome for Linux beta supports Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. It was first released in December along with the Mac version, both trailing the Windows version by more than a year.

Also added to the Mac version are a bookmark manager, a task manager and a cookie manager. Fixes in the Mac version add support for pinch-to-zoom capabilities, for example.

Other enhancements in the latest upgrade to the Linux version, meanwhile, include improved performance on Web sites that use custom fonts and better support for complex text such as in Hebrew, Arabic and Hindi. Improvements in GTK theme mode, on the other hand, mean that it now uses system colors in more places, such as highlights and scroll bars.

GTK, or GIMP Toolkit, is a cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces.

'Welcome' Improvements

Though the improvements included are "actually relatively minor," they're still "welcome because the reliability of the browser on the Linux platform has been down of late," RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady told LinuxInsider.

What's particularly interesting about the announcement, however, "is the fact that features such as extensions are appearing in Linux before they do on the Mac," O'Grady added.

In fact, Chrome on Linux "seems to be accelerating," he asserted. "It still lags Windows, but is ahead of the Mac as mentioned above, and it's really not too far behind."

'The Timing Is Indicative'

When Chrome originally came out, 451 Group analyst Jay Lyman wrote a blog post on why it didn't seem to make sense that the browser was only for Windows.

"I guess I figured a company such as Google that is heavily using Linux and employs large numbers of Linux developers should be able to come up with a Linux version alongside the Windows release," Lyman told LinuxInsider.

Of course, "the timing is also indicative of how the Chrome browser is intended to compete primarily with Internet Explorer on the many Windows PCs out there," he added.

'Continued Traction for Chrome'

Now that improved versions of Chrome for Mac and Linux are beginning to appear, "it will be interesting to see the impact on Safari and Firefox," Lyman said.

Indeed, in a year-end report released last month, market researcher Net Applications found that Chrome had already edged past Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) Safari to take third place in the browser market.

Chrome now accounts for 4.63 percent of the market, Net Applications found, while Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Internet Explorer holds 62.69 percent, Mozilla Firefox claims 24.61 percent and Safari accounts for 4.46 percent.

"I expect we'll see some movement and continued traction for Chrome," Lyman predicted, "but also response from the other browser developers and communities."

from http://www.technewsworld.com/
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China Unicom Group Bids $2.5 Billion for Nitel

By Paul Okolo and Mark Lee

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. and its bidding partners may buy 75 percent of Nigerian Telecommunications Ltd. for $2.5 billion to enter the fastest- growing phone market in Africa.

New Generation Telecom Ltd., the group made up of Unicom, Minerva Group and GiCell Wireless Ltd., was selected as the preferred bidder for the state-owned phone company, Taiwo Osipitan, an official at the National Council on Privatization, told reporters in Abuja yesterday. Unicom, based in Beijing, is China’s second-biggest mobile phone company.

Unicom’s group outbid a $956 million offer from Omen International Ltd. and four shortlisted suitors including MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest phone company. The market in the continent’s most populous nation has room to grow as more than half of Nigerians still don’t have mobile phones. India’s Bharti Airtel Ltd. is bidding for African wireless assets including in Nigeria as mounting competition at home pressures profit.

“It’s a good price for Nigeria,” Titi Ommo-Ettu, chief executive officer of Telecom Answers Associates, a Lagos-based research company, said in a phone interview.

Nigeria’s fixed-line and mobile-phone customers increased to 67.9 million in June from 65.5 million in January 2009, according to the Abuja-based Nigerian Communications Commissio

Financial Partners

“We have strong financial partners ready to fund” the business, Usman Gumi, an official from the New Generation group, said in an interview, without giving other details. Sophia Tso, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Unicom, said she couldn’t immediately comment on the deal.

Nitel, as the company is known, has lost market share to private operators licensed since 2000, including MTN Nigeria Ltd., and its employees are currently owed 17 months of wages, according to the Bureau of Public Enterprises. A previous attempt to sell the company was annulled after Transnational Corp., a Lagos-based investment company, failed to comply with sale conditions.

Unicom shares rose 1.6 percent to HK$9.04 as of the 12:30 p.m. trading break in Hong Kong, compared with a 1.8 percent gain by the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index.

Bharti, South Asia’s biggest mobile-phone company, this week offered $10.7 billion to buy most of Kuwait-based Zain’s African assets, a deal that would create one of the largest emerging-markets wireless carriers.

African Subscribers

The proposal, which doesn’t include Zain’s Morocco or Sudan businesses, would give New Delhi-based Bharti access to an estimated 42 million customers across 15 African countries from Nigeria to Uganda. The Indian company’s plan can’t include Zain’s Celtel Nigeria B.V. unit until an ownership dispute with Econet Wireless Holdings Ltd. on that business is resolved, Econet Chief Executive Officer Strive Masiyiwa said on Feb. 15.

New Generation beat five other bids for Nitel. On Feb. 8, the government announced that South Africa’s MTN, Globacom Ltd., Nigeria’s second-largest mobile operator, Brymedia (WA) Ltd., Spectrum Group and Omen International were short-listed as preferred bidders.

Bids unsealed yesterday were for 75 percent of Nitel and its mobile unit, known as M-Tel, according to a BPE statement. Omen’s $956 million was the next-highest after that of New Generation, it said.

New Generation must pay 30 percent of the purchase price 10 days after the winner is approved by the National Council on Privatization, headed by acting President Goodluck Jonathan, according to the BPE. The remainder must be paid 60 days after Jonathan’s approval.

The government plans to warehouse Nitel’s debt and settle it later using the proceeds from the sale of the company, Christopher Anyanwu, director-general of BPE, told reporters in Abuja yesterday.

From http://www.businessweek.com/
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Microsoft Builds Zune, Xbox Into New Windows Phone Platform

By Richard Adhikari
TechNewsWorld
02/16/10 10:48 AM PT

Microsoft showed off its upcoming mobile platform at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, but it's not calling the OS "Windows Mobile 7." Instead, it's breaking away from the WinMo moniker and dubbing the new product "Windows Phone 7 Series." The interface appears to be completely revamped, and it's tied in Zune and Xbox Live functionalities.
With the demonstration of its newest mobile platform Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) vastly extended its mobile platform and at the same took it in a new direction, at least from a naming and branding perspective. It's dubbed the new platform "Windows Phone 7 Series."

For the new platform, Redmond is bringing together Xbox Live games, the Zune music and video experience, social networking, mobile apps, access to Microsoft Office and photographs.

It has already lined up several partners worldwide, and the first smartphones with Windows Phone 7 Series will be available in time for the holiday buying season, Microsoft announced.

What's Inside?

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's introduction of Windows Phone 7 Series seemed to echo what HTC, Samsung and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) have said recently when introducing their new phone families -- the platform "marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences," he stated.

The "Start" screens of Windows Phone 7 Series devices will have dynamically updated "live tiles" that show real-time content updates. When a user creates a tile of a friend, up-to-date info, such as that friend's latest pictures and posts online, will show up on the screen.

Windows Phone hubs will bring together related content from the Web, applications and services into a single view to simplify common tasks. There are six such hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace and Office.

All Windows Phone 7 Series phones will have a dedicated hardware button for Bing, and a special implementation of Bing Search will provide the most relevant Web or local results as required.

The People hub includes live feeds from social networks and photo sites; the Pictures hub lets users share pictures and videos on social networks; and the Games hub offers Xbox Live games on a phone.

Music + Video brings Zune functionality -- including content from users' PCs, online music services and a built-in FM radio -- into one location. Marketplace lets users discover and load the phone with certified mobile apps and games, and the Office hub gives users access to Microsoft Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace.

Breaking Down the Phone 7 Series

That hardware button for Bing may restrict users' choice to a certain degree. It's doubtful that upcoming Windows phones would outright forbid access to other search engines, but it's possible that only Bing will enjoy one-button access.

Also, instant linking to social networks raises questions about privacy. Google has already been burned on its Buzz project by critical privacy advocates, and Microsoft could run into similar problems if it builds in too many automated processes.

As for mobile apps, Microsoft's decision to build Xbox Live and Zune capabilities into Windows Phone 7 Series may be an attempt to catch up with the popularity of functions available through competitors like Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) App Store. Microsoft has long allowed third-party developers to create applications for Windows Mobile, but Apple was able to generate significant new consumer interest by building a central mobile app storefront inside its already popular iTunes platform. Other smartphone software makers, including Microsoft, have since also built centralized application stores.

Still, incorporating games and other hubs into Windows Phone 7 Series may be more than just a defensive move; it might let Microsoft leverage existing products to maximize potential returns. "This is Microsoft saying 'We have all these other services -- Xbox, Zune, the marketplace -- and we want to integrate that with our smartphone," Chris Hazelton, a research director at The 451 Group, told TechNewsWorld.

Redmond has lined up partners worldwide to support the Windows Phone 7 Series platform. They include mobile operators AT&T (NYSE: T), Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) and its American child T-Mobile USA, Orange, Sprint (NYSE: S), Telecom Italia, Verizon Wireless and its European parent Vodafone (NYSE: VOD).

Manufacturers include Dell (Nasdaq: DELL), HTC; HP (NYSE: HPQ), LG, Samsung, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERICY), Toshiba and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM).

Sidestepping the WinMo Curse?

Since Windows Phone 7 Series is the latest version of Microsoft's mobile phone platform, why not call it "Windows Mobile 7" to maintain continuity?

That's possibly because Microsoft wanted to avoid the bad connotations of the WinMo name, Carl Howe, director, anywhere research at the Yankee Group, pointed out. "The name change is an admission that Windows Mobile wasn't successful," he told TechNewsWorld. "If you have a product that's a break from the past, you don't want to burden it with a brand that has a checkered past."

Windows Mobile's past wasn't just checkered; it was cross-hatched and polka-dotted. Smartphone consumers and even some manufacturers turned their backs on the Windows Mobile 6 series of updates, yet many held out hope for WinMo 7. However, the next version of Microsoft's mobile OS been delayed several times since 2008, and up until Monday, there was speculation that it might be put off yet again until 2011.

Nokia, Intel Unveil MeeGo

Not to be outdone by Microsoft, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), whose Symbian Foundation recently transitioned the Symbian platform to open source, jointly unveiled a new, open source platform with Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) on Monday.

Meego, as the new platform will be called, is a combination of Nokia's Maemo and Intel's Moblin platforms. It is being hosted and administered by the Linux Foundation.

MeeGo will support multiple hardware architectures across a broad range of mobile devices, from pocketable mobile computers to netbooks to tablets to mediaphones to connected television sets to in-vehicle infotainment systems.

It offers the Qt application development environment. This is a cross-platform application and user interface framework that lets developers write an app once and deploy it across multiple platforms without having to rewrite the source code. Qt is used in Google Earth, KDE, Opera, Skype and VirtualBox. It was created by Trolltech, which Nokia acquired in 2008.

Apps developed with Qt will be marketed through Nokia's Ovi Store and Intel's AppUpSM Center. The first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of this year, and devices running the platform are scheduled for launch later in the year.

Living Together in Harmony?

Right now, MeeGo and Windows Phone 7 Series are not exactly competing with each other head-on. "MeeGo is really meant for a wide variety of devices, and Windows Phone 7 Series is targeted at consumer smartphones," Hazelton said.

Also, MeeGo may not get off the ground unless Intel and Nokia put some elbow grease into the project. "I don't see MeeGo getting any traction yet; it depends a lot on what Nokia and Intel do with it," the Yankee Group's Howe said. "Making something open source isn't enough to guarantee its success Download Free eBook - The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales; you also have to market it with real products."

Windows Phone 7 Series is a good effort, Howe said, but it also needs a lot of work. "Microsoft gets a lot of credit for dumping Windows Mobile's legacy feature and starting over to build a good consumer-centric experience," he said. "But we won't know if they're successful until we see actual devices."

Whether or not those devices make any headway depends on how they'll measure up against the iPhone. "They'll be competing with the iPhone [version] 4," Howe pointed out. "Still, I have to give Microsoft an A for ambition. Let's hope they extend that A to execution as well -- demos are easy, but shipping products is hard."

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History of Batik

Evidence of early examples of batik have been found in the Far East, Middle East, Central Asia and India from over 2000 years ago. It is conceivable that these areas developed independently, without the influence from trade or cultural exchanges. However, it is more likely that the craft spread from Asia to the islands of the Malay Archipelago and west to the Middle East through the caravan route. Batik was practised in China as early as the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618). These were silk batiks and these have also been discovered in Nara, Japan in the form of screens and ascribed to the Nara period (AD 710-794). It is probable that these were made by Chinese artists. They are decorated with trees, animals, flute players, hunting scenes and stylised mountains.

No evidence of very old cotton batiks have been found in India but frescoes in the Ajunta caves depict head wraps and garments which could well have been batiks. In Java and Bali temple ruins contain figures whose garments are patterned in a manner suggestive of batik. By 1677 there is evidence of a considerable export trade, mostly on silk from China to Java, Sumatra, Persia and Hindustan. In Egypt linen and occasionally woollen fabrics have been excavated bearing white patterns on a blue ground and are the oldest known and date from the 5th century A.D. They were made in Egypt, possibly Syria. In central Africa resist dyeing using cassava and rice paste has existed for centuries in the Yoruba tribe of Southern Nigeria and Senegal.

Indonesia, most particularly the island of Java, is the area where batik has reached the greatest peak of accomplishment. The Dutch brought Indonesian craftsmen to teach the craft to Dutch warders in several factories in Holland from 1835. The Swiss produced imitation batik in the early 1940s. A wax block form of printing was developed in Java using a cap.

By the early 1900s the Germans had developed mass production of batiks. There are many examples of this form of batik as well as hand-produced work in many parts of the world today. Computerisation of batik techniques is a very recent development.
Reproduced from The Art of Batik,
written and published by The Batik Guild, 1999

From http://www.batikguild.org.uk/history.asp


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Balinese Culture

Balinese culture is a unique combination of spirituality, religion, tradition and art. Religion is considered to be art and it seems that almost every Balinese is a devoted artist, spending 'free time' applying skills and images which have been passed down from generation to generation and grasped from a very young age. Expressed through beautiful and intricate paintings, extraordinary carvings, superb weaving, and even in rice decorations that cover the myriad shrines found in public areas, in paddy fields or in homes, the island is alive with art and religious homage.

Sekala and Niskala

Balinese culture is a complex event characterised by diversity and adaptability. A central dictum in Balinese thinking is the concept of Desa - Kala - Patra, (time, place and situation), a dynamic notion holding that traditional thinking will blend in harmony with the new. The Balinese distinguish between Sekala, the material, and Niskala the eternal. Reality is a coincidence of the material and the eternal realms. One does not exist without the other. The world, therefore, is the product of the interaction of Sekala and Niskala.


Temple Festivals

Temple festivals are commonplace. Each village will hold some sort of colourful ceremony for each one of its own temples a couple of times a year. Add to this the rituals and celebrations for each persons' passage from birth, puberty, marriage, childbirth to death and the after-world, and include the major island-wide celebrations like Galungan, Kuningan and Nyepi; the day of silence when the whole island closes down in fear of evil spirits flying in from the sea, and you can begin to understand how important religion in Bali is.

Hindu Dharma

Art, culture and day to day activities for most Balinese are strongly bonded to a unique form of Hinduism called Hindu Dharma, which is widely thought to be the closest example to the religion and social framework that existed in Java during the zenith of its power and is now found nowhere else. Classical dance dramas based on the old Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabarata which arrived from Java, are like everywhere else in Indonesia, mixed with pre-Hindu animist belief and peculiar local folklore. Not all Balinese adopted the new Hindu religion though. The Bali Aga who now live in isolated groups in the mountains at Trunyan and Tenganan, for example, preferred their ancient animist beliefs, which are still practiced and remain largely intact today.

Balinese belief systems

The very soul of Bali and Balinese belief systems is rooted in religion and is expressed in art forms and skills that have been passionately preserved over the centuries. During the mid sixteenth century Bali reached a cultural climax, which encouraged and developed elaborate arts and customs, which are the foundations of what is practiced today. In a sense they have changed very little since that time, but as has been the case throughout much of the Indonesian archipelago, adaptation of new environments is absolutely essential for survival. It was at this time that the Javanese Hindu and the Balinese calendars were combined and a complex schedule of rituals and ceremonies was defined. Nine great temples, the Pura Agung, were also built, linking the structure of the new calendar with that of the gods. The most sacred being the Mother Temple, Pura Besakih, built high on the slopes of Bali 's most sacred mountain, Gunung Agung.
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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Biography : 16th American President 1861-1865
Famous for : Leading the USA through the American Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation (helping to stop slavery), and for being assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth.
Lincoln details : Born - Hardin County, Kentucky, USA, February 12, 1809 / Died - Washington, D.C., April 15, 1865 United States of America
Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the United States and served as president from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He is best known for his determination and his leadership during the American Civil War and the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that helped free the slaves of the South. His Gettysburg Address speech is one of the most famous speeches in American History.

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in a log cabin in Kentucky. He spent his childhood working on the family farm and walking two miles to school when time permitted. Although he learned the basics of reading, writing, and mathematics in the schoolhouse, he later credited most of his knowledge to borrowed books.

The Lincoln family moved from Kentucky to Indiana where his mother fell ill and died from disease soon thereafter. A year later Lincoln's father returned to Kentucky and brought back a widow by the name of Sarah Bush Johnson who Lincoln would later refer to as "my angel mother". As Lincoln grew, he began working for nearby neighbors, eventually landing a job with the local general store. It was while working for the store that Lincoln was able to travel down river with a flatboat and saw his first glimpse of a city: New Orleans.

Soon after, Lincoln's father moved the family to Illinois where young Lincoln was once again put to work building fences for both his family and others. Shortly after establishing their property, sickness spread in the region and the Lincoln family moved again. This time Lincoln stayed in Illinois and eventually landed a job for a man named Denton Offutt. It was with him that Lincoln was given the opportunity to prove his skills as not only a manager but as a businessman. Impressed with Lincoln's skills, Offutt put Lincoln in charge of a boat of produce headed to New Orleans and eventually placed him in charge of his store and mill in the southern city. Supposedly it was during his time in New Orleans that Lincoln first became aware of the seriousness of the slave trade.

One year later Abraham Lincoln moved back up to Illinois. As a result of his social connections and work, decided to run for the Illinois General Assembly. He lost the election but won leadership over an Illinois militia. Although he never saw combat, he enjoyed the position all the same.

Two years later, in 1834, Lincoln ran for and won a seat on the Illinois state legislature. At the same time Lincoln began teaching himself law and was admitted to the bar in 1837. That same year he moved to Springfield Illinois and started practicing law with a man named John T. Stuart. His power in the courtroom boosted his growing reputation as a community leader and dedicated defender of justice.

In 1842 Licoln married a woman from a prominent Kentucky family. Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln married on November 4, 1842 and eventually had four sons, only one of which survived to adulthood.

Lincoln served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and became leader of the Whig party in Illinois in 1837. He ran for and won a seat on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846, beginning his political career in the federal government. Two years later he clashed heads with prominent leaders in government and he declined to run again. Instead, Lincoln decided to focus on his law career back in Illinois.

It wasn't until 1854 that Abraham Lincoln joined the fledgling political movement called the Republican Party and in 1858 accepted the Republican nomination for a seat in the Senate. Although he lost the race, his speeches and eloquence earned him a following. As a result of his popularity, Lincoln was chosen as an underdog candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. Through strategic campaigning by party leaders (very little was done by Lincoln himself) and focused energy in the North, Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election to become the 16th President of the United States. The win made Lincoln the first Republican president.

Lincoln's run for president created controversy in the South where his opponents threatened that their states would leave the Union should Lincoln win. The secession of seven southern states, led by South Carolina, happened before Lincoln took office. They declared themselves the Confederate States of America and established themselves as a government before Lincoln's inauguration.

Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office in March of 1861. One month later, in April 1861, the Union of the northern states was attacked by the Confederates, thus beginning the fight that would lead to the American Civil War. Tensions rose and fighting continued, mostly over Lincoln's pursuit to abolish slavery in the South. In July of 1862 Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act which, in conjunction with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, helped to support Lincoln's fight against slavery. Lincoln later passed the Thirteenth Amendment that permanently abolished slavery.

According to Abe Lincoln, the Civil War was more about protecting the Union than it was about slavery, but Lincoln quickly became known for his cause to free the Southern slaves. Fighting escalated and Lincoln took as much control as he could over the defense of the Union and the reclamation of the South. After the Battle of Gettysburg, Lincoln proved his eloquence once again with his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, in dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.

On April 9, 1865 the Civil War ended with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Only a few days later on April 14, 1865, while watching a play at Ford's Theatre with his wife, Lincoln was assassinated. John Wilkes Booth jumped onto the balcony in which the President was seated and shot him in the head. Lincoln was pronounced dead nine hours later after laying in a coma across the street.

Abraham Lincoln was memorialized through monuments and names. Everything from cars to companies have taken the name Lincoln to honor the president and many cities across the US have also taken on his name. His face appears on the $5 USD bill and the penny. Memorials dot the nation and range from his face engraved at Mt. Rushmore to a National Monument in Washington D.C.



This Abraham Lincoln biography may not be reproduced online.
Copyright © Woopidoo.com (ek)
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Bill Clinton Biography (William Jefferson Clinton)

42nd President of the United States of America
Famous for : Popular American President (42nd), Served two terms as president and was impeached (Monica Lewinski scandal).
Clinton details : Born - August 19, 1946 Arkansas, United States / Lives - USA
Bill Clinton served as the 42nd President of the United States of America. Before becoming president he served 5 terms as the governor of Arkansas. Clinton was a member of the Democratic Party and was a very popular president, with advances in the areas of education, jobs, and the environment domestically while encouraging peace talks internationally with the Northern Island and Palestinian conflicts. President Clinton's achievements were overshadowed by the Monica Lewinski scandal where he had sexual relations with a White House intern and was impeached, yet later acquitted by the Senate. Clinton's popularity remained high even after the Lewinsky controversy and was one of the most popular American presidents upon leaving office.

President Clinton was born as William Jefferson Blythe III on the 19th of August, 1946 in Hope, Arkansas. His father (William Jefferson Blythe, Jr) was a traveling salesman that was killed in a vehicle accident before he was born.

Clinton's grandfather James Elridge Cassidy was a major influence on the young future president. Whilst living with his grandparents, Bill would go to work with his Papaw at his two jobs, which included a nighttime security position at a local sawmill and the running of a small grocery store. During these times his grandfather would share his life experience with young Billy.

In the south of the United States there were major problems with racism and segregation was used to keep blacks away from whites. With a regular stream of black customers to his grandfather's grocery store, Clinton saw that his grandfather treated them the same as he treated his white customers. Both his grandfather and grandmother (Edith Grisham Cassidy) were against the unfair segregation laws and the rampant racism that was an accepted part of life at the time. Bill Clinton saw the respect that his grandparents gave to African Americans as a normal way to treat all people, even though it was a very unusual way of thinking. Clinton was one of the few white boys of his small town that would play with black children. These early experiences must have played a part in his later thinking, where he was called the first black American president (because of his empathy towards all people, regardless of skin color).

This Bill Clinton biography may not be reproduced online.
Copyright © Woopidoo.com


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Bill Gates Biography (William Henry Gates III)

Bill Gates is one of the most influential people in the world. He is cofounder of one of the most recognized brands in the computer industry with nearly every desk top computer using at least one software program from Microsoft. According to the Forbes magazine, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and has held the number one position for many years.

Gates was born and grew up in Seattle, Washington USA. His father, William H. Gates II was a Seattle attorney and his mother, Mary Maxwell Gates was a school teacher and chairperson of the United Way charity. Gates and his two sisters had a comfortable upbringing, with Gates being able to attend the exclusive secondary "Lakeside School".

Bill Gates started studying at Harvard University in 1973 where he spent time with Paul Allen. Gates and Allen worked on a version of the programming language BASIC, that was the basis for the MITS Altair (the first microcomputer available). He did not go on to graduate from Harvard University as he left in his junior year to start what was to become the largest computer software company in the world; Microsoft Corporation.

Bill Gates and the Microsoft Corporation
"To enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential." Microsoft Mission Statement
After dropping out of Harvard Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen set about revolutionizing the computer industry. Gates believed there should be a computer on every office desk and in every home.

In 1975 the company Micro-soft was formed, which was an abbreviation of microcomputer software. It soon became simply "Microsoft"® and went on to completely change the way people use computers.

Microsoft helped to make the computer easier to use with its developed and purchased software, and made it a commercial success. The success of Microsoft began with the MS-DOS computer operating system that Gates licensed to IBM. Gates also set about protecting the royalties that he could acquire from computer software by aggressively fighting against all forms of software piracy, effectively creating the retail software market that now exists today. This move was quite controversial at the time as it was the freedom of sharing that produced much innovation and advances in the newly forming software industry. But it was this stand against software piracy, that was to be central in the great commercial success that Microsoft went on to achieve.

Bill Gates retired as Microsoft CEO in 2008.

Bill Gates Criticism
With his great success in the computer software industry also came many criticisms. With his ambitious and aggressive business philosophy, Gates or his Microsoft lawyers have been in and out of courtrooms fighting legal battles almost since Microsoft began.

The Microsoft monopoly sets about completely dominating every market it enters through either acquisition, aggressive business tactics or a combination of them. Many of the largest technology companies have fought legally against the actions of Microsoft, including Apple Computer, Netscape, Opera, WordPerfect, and sun Microsystems.

Bill Gates Net Worth
With an estimated wealth of $53 billion in 2006, Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and he should be starting to get used to the number spot as he has been there from the mid-ninties up until now. The famous investor Warren Buffett is gaining on Gates though with an estimated $46 billion in 2006.

Microsoft hasn't just made Bill Gates very wealthy though. According to the Forbes business magazine in 2004 Paul Allen, Microsoft cofounder was the 5th richest man in the world with an estimated $21 billion. While Bill Gates' long time friend and Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer was the 19th richest man in the world at $12.4 billion.

See more information the Bill Gates Net Worth page.

Bill Gates Philanthropy
Being the richest man in the world has also enabled Gates to create one of the world's largest charitable foundations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of more than $28 billion, with donations totaling more than $1 billion every year. The foundation was formed in 2000 after merging the "Gates Learning Foundation" and "William H. Gates Foundation". Their aim is to "bring innovations in health and learning to the global community".

Bill Gates continues to play a very active role in the workings of the Microsoft Company, but has handed the position of CEO over to Steve Ballmer. Gates now holds the positions of "Chairman" and "Chief Software Architect". He has started that he plans to take on fewer responsibilities at Microsoft and will eventually devote all his time to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In 2006, the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett pledged to give much of his vast fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates Receives a KBE
In March 2005 William H. Gates received an "honorary" knighthood from the queen of England. Gates was bestowed with the KBE Order (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for his services in reducing poverty and improving health in the developing countries of the world.
After the privately held ceremony in Buckingham Palace with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Gates commented on the recognition..
"I am humbled and delighted. I am particularly pleased that this honor helps recognize the real heroes our foundation (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) supports to improve health in poor countries. Their incredible work is helping ensure that one day all people, no matter where they are born, will have the same opportunity for a healthy life, and I'm grateful to share this honor with them."

The KBE Order of the British Empire is the second highest Order given out, but it is only an honorary knighthood as only citizens that are British or a part of the Commonwealth receive the full Order. This means that Gates does not become Sir Bill Gates.

Bill Gates lives near Lake Washington with his wife Melinda French Gates and their three children. Interests of Gates include reading, golf and playing bridge.



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University of Kentucky Expands Ban on Smoking

The University of Kentucky has officially placed an expanded ban on smoking and tobacco across its entire campus, stating that a smoke-free policy has various health benefits and should be implemented and followed especially in places where there are all types of people, at any given time.

The newly expanded ban includes outdoor areas and applies to, in addition to cigarette smoking, chewing of tobacco, pipes, cigars and snuff. The new development has come as a shock to many residents of a place which leads the country in production of burley tobacco and records some of the highest smoking rates across the nation.

"Going tobacco-free may not be the easiest thing to do, it may not be the most politically popular thing to do, but in my mind it's the right thing to do for this campus", saidUniversity of Kentucky President Lee Todd. The goal of the ban is to make the entire university smoke free within the next year.

UK is not the only campus in the nation which is looking at making smoking a thing of the past, University of Louisville also placed restrictions on smoking starting Thursday, and only few areas of the campus are now open to smokers. Pikeville College is also aiming at making its campus smoke free by fall, as was confirmed on Thursday.

(Via TopNews United States)


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13 New Cases of Dengue: Over 1,000 Affected In National Capital

The number of people affected by the mosquito-borne disease reached 1,054 with the addition of 13 new dengue cases in the national capital.

Mr. Debashish Bhattacharya, state nodal health officer for dengue cases, said, "There were 13 new confirmed cases in the last 24 hours. The cumulative total of dengue affected people is 1,054."

Out of the total 1,954 dengue cases, 1,041 cases have been reported from Delhi, while 13 were from outside the city.

Delhi has reported more than 400 dengue cases during the last two weeks, but the number of cases per day has been falling over the last few days.

According to the health department, the city has recorded two confirmed and one suspected dengue fatalities thus far.

The dengue cases were negligible between June to Sep 2009, but the number climbed up significantly since mid-October.

Health representative said this was owing to the late onset of monsoon in the city.

The cases of dengue are likely to go down with the beginning of winter since the yellow-fever mosquitoes cannot breed under 15 degrees Celsius.

"The cases are expected to go down gradually," Mr. Bhattacharya said.

from http://www.topnews.in/


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Haiti quake more destructive than 2004 tsunami: study

by M.J. Smith M.j. Smith

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – The scale of devastation in Haiti is far worse than in Asia after the 2004 tsunami, a study has said, estimating the cost of last month's earthquake at up to 14 billion dollars.

The report released Tuesday from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) raised the possibility that the quake could be the most destructive disaster in modern history.

Its stark assessment comes with Port-au-Prince still lying in ruins more than one month on, while the bodies of more than 200,000 dead pile up in mass graves outside the capital.

The study's release coincided with what would normally be Haiti's annual carnival, an explosion of pulsing music and colorful parades. But this year, the events have been cancelled as no one is in the mood to party.

The preliminary IDB report estimated the damage at between eight and 14 billion dollars in what was already the poorest country in the Americas before the catastrophe.

Factoring in Haiti's population and economic output, the upper estimate would make it the most destructive natural disaster in modern history, the bank said. Related article: Haiti gang turf wars

"Indeed, in this respect the Haiti earthquake was vastly more destructive than the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 and the cyclone that hit Myanmar in 2008," an IDB statement said.

"It caused five times more deaths per million inhabitants than the second-ranking natural killer, the 1972 earthquake in Nicaragua."

Haiti officials say more than 217,000 people were killed in the quake, or about 2.4 percent of the country's population of nine million.

The 14-billion-dollar figure is the Washington-based bank's upper estimate for the cost of reconstructing homes, schools, streets and other infrastructure in Haiti following the January 12 quake.

The IDB said a more detailed accounting of the situation would come in the following months but that its preliminary study showed that the reconstruction cost was likely to be far higher than anticipated.

Meanwhile, Haiti's carnival celebrations, usually the culmination of weeks of parties, were replaced by mourning.

"Everybody's sad," said Nanotte Verly, a 48-year-old mother of nine who lost her home in the quake and sells jewelry and wooden plaques praising Jesus on a roadside. "All the buildings are still collapsed on the ground."

More than a million Haitians are still homeless following the earthquake, living in squalid camps in and around the capital.

Related article: Haiti's raucous carnival replaced by mourning

The traditional center of carnival celebrations, the Champ de Mars park across from the collapsed National Palace, is now a sprawling homeless camp housing some 16,000 people in a maze of tents made of scrap wood and sheets.

Lemaire Sicard, 37, lives at the site and spoke of how the Champ de Mars would be filled with revelers and partying in years past.

"But now there's nothing," he said. "It's not possible. There are people from this area who were hurt -- deaths also."

While aid workers rush to distribute tarpaulins before the rainy season starts, the United Nations says only about 272,000 people have been provided with shelter materials so far.

On his second day in Haiti to give a boost to the relief effort, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited Canadian troops in Leogane, a town largely wiped out by the quake where the soldiers are helping set up a hospital.

Harper had earlier said Canada would set up a semi-permanent, 11-million-dollar headquarters for the Haitian government, which currently operates out of a police building because the palace and many government ministries were destroyed in the quake.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to arrive here on Wednesday.

In a positive sign for the quake-torn country, American Airlines said it would resume the first commercial flights to Haiti on Friday.

from http://news.yahoo.com/
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