Ask A VC: AngelPad’s Thomas Korte On NYC Expansion, The Incubator’s New $7M Funding Round And More
In this week’s special episode of Ask A VC from Disrupt Europe in Berlin, Germany, AngelPad founder and former Googler Thomas Korte talked to TechCrunch about his incubator’s strategy, expansion and more.
Korte, who launched AngelPad in 2010 with six other ex-Google employees, explained why he’s kept the incubator small, with only around 10-12 startups per session (with two sessions per year). Korte also told us that AngelPad is heading east for its next session, debuting a new session in New York City (interested founders can apply here, and the deadline is Sunday).
While AngelPad was bootstrapped for the past three years with the backing of its founders, Korte also revealed that AngelPad just raised $7 million in outside investment from undisclosed LPs.
As of January of this year, AngelPad had seen 62 companies participate in five sessions. In 2012 alone, AngelPad’s 62 total companies raised $56 million, which is on top of the $25 million they had raised in 2011. The incubator has also seen some impressive exits from portfolio startups, including Twitter’s recent $350 million acquisition of MoPub.
Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) keeps Vitor Belfort from fighting in Las Vegas, Nev., but that could change though.
Coming off two "Knockout of the Night" finishes over top-ranked middleweights Michael Bisping and Luke Rockhold, "The Phenom" returns to the light heavyweight division to rematch former Pride champion Dan Henderson on Nov. 9 in Goiania, Brazil.
His decision to decline a bout against Tim Kennedy and move up to fight Henderson at 205 was made after he realized he had done enough to earn another title shot in the middleweight division. The only chance he returns to the Octagon at 185 pounds would be in a championship fight.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission won’t allow Belfort to use TRT in Las Vegas, once he tested positive in the state back in 2006 for an illegal substance, 4-hydroxytestosterone, in his first fight with Henderson. That’s one of the reasons why he hasn’t fought there since his first-round knockout loss to Anderson Silva.
However, Belfort revealed in an interview toUOLthat he was already on the testosterone replacement therapy when he fought Silva, back in 2011.
"I’ve (been doing this) for three years," Belfort said. "I did some exams and they saw I had low testosterone levels. The doctor said ‘Vitor, we need to do something. I don’t know if you agree with this, but it’s important that you do it.’ And it was done."
"If you has something, if you need something, do it the right way. That’s what I do. I do blood tests all the time… It’s a process that you have to do."
Belfort wants to fight the winner or Chris Weidman vs. Anderson Silva, who meet at UFC 168, and he would accept to stop using TRT if that’s one of the conditions on him earning the shot at the gold.
"I’ve already said that, if they agree with it, I would (stop doing TRT)," he said. "No problem at all. If they want me to get there in a disadvantage, that’s ok.
"But they already told me that’s not the problem," he continued. "UFC told me ‘you can’t get in there in disadvantage.’ The thing is, I’m in normal testosterone levels with TRT. That’s the treatment. People don’t seem to understand that I’m the only guy that does blood tests. Many fighters don’t do this, many use illegal stuff and are not tested like I am. I’m tested all the time. Week after week, month after month. I have to keep the levels normal to make it fair."
A passenger check her cell phone before a flight, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Boston. The Federal Aviation Administration issued new guidelines Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, under which passengers will be able to use devices to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music, from the time they board to the time they leave the plane. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
A passenger check her cell phone before a flight, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Boston. The Federal Aviation Administration issued new guidelines Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, under which passengers will be able to use devices to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music, from the time they board to the time they leave the plane. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
A passenger check his cell phone while boarding a flight, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, in Boston. The Federal Aviation Administration issued new guidelines Thursday, under which passengers will be able to use devices to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music, from the time they board to the time they leave the plane. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta announces that government safety rules are changing to let airline passengers use most electronic devices from gate-to-gate during a news conference, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport. The change will let passengers read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music _ but not make cellphone calls. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Airline passengers won't have to "turn off all electronic devices" anymore — they'll be able to read, work, play games, watch movies and listen to music from gate to gate under new guidelines from the Federal Aviation Administration. But they still can't talk on their cellphones through the flight.
Don't expect the changes to happen immediately, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said Thursday at a news conference announcing new rules. How fast will vary by airline.
Delta and JetBlue said they would quickly submit plans to implement the new policy. Airlines will have to show the FAA that their airplanes meet the new guidelines and that they've updated their flight-crew training manuals, safety announcements and rules for stowing devices to reflect the new guidelines.
It sounded like good news to passengers heading out from Reagan National Airport on Thursday.
Ketan Patel, 24, said he's happy that regulators have debunked the idea that the devices pose a safety problem. "If it isn't a problem, it should be allowed," he said as he stepped into a security line, a smartphone in his hand.
Monica Lexie, 50, entering the same line, said the change will enable her to use her Kindle to read longer. But then she was never bothered by the restrictions.
"You just shut it off and wait for the little light to go on," she said. "Our safety takes precedence."
Currently, passengers are required to turn off their smartphones, tablets and other devices once a plane's door closes. They're not supposed to restart them until the planes reach 10,000 feet and the captain gives the go-ahead. Passengers are supposed to turn their devices off again as the plane descends to land and not restart them until it is on the ground.
Under the new guidelines, airlines whose planes are properly protected from electronic interference may allow passengers to use the devices during takeoffs, landings and taxiing, the FAA said. Most new airliners and other planes that have been modified so that passengers can use Wi-Fi at higher altitudes are expected to meet the criteria.
Passengers will also be able to connect to the Internet to surf, exchange emails, or download data below 10,000 feet if the plane has an installed Wi-Fi system, but not through cellular networks. Passengers will be told to switch their devices to airplane mode. Heavier devices such as laptops will continue to have to be stowed away because of concern they might injure someone if they go flying around the cabin.
The guidelines reflect the evolution in types and prevalence of devices used by passengers over the past decade. In 2003, 70 percent of passengers carried electronic devices with them on planes, and the most common device was a cellphone that wasn't capable of connecting to the Internet, followed by a calculator, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association. A follow-up survey by the association this year found that 99 percent of passengers carry some device with them, with smartphones the most common followed by notebook or laptop computers.
In-flight cellphone calls will continue to be prohibited. Regulatory authority over phone calls belongs to the Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA. The commission prohibits the calls because of concern that phones on planes flying at hundreds of miles per hour could strain the ability of cellular networks to keep up as the devices keep trying to connect with cellphone towers, interfering with service to users on the ground.
The changes announced Thursday apply to both domestic and international flights by U.S. carriers, but the rules get a little tricky for international flights. On takeoff from the United States and during landing back in the U.S., passengers would be allowed to use electronics. However, when arriving or departing a foreign country, passengers would have to comply with local laws. Currently, most counties have their own prohibitions on electronic device use. However, they tend to follow the FAA's lead and likely could relax their own rules in the near future.
An industry advisory committee created by the FAA to examine the issue recommended last month that the government permit greater use of personal electronic devices.
Pressure has been building on the FAA to ease restrictions on their use. Critics of the restraints such as Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., say there is no valid safety reason for the prohibitions. Restrictions have also become more difficult to enforce as use of the devices has become ubiquitous. Some studies indicate as many as a third of passengers forget or ignore directions to turn off their devices.
The FAA began restricting passengers' use of electronic devices in 1966 in response to reports of interference with navigation and communications equipment when passengers began carrying FM radios, the high-tech gadgets of their day.
A lot has changed since then. New airliners are far more reliant on electrical systems than previous generations of aircraft, but they are also designed and approved by the FAA to be resistant to electronic interference. Airlines are already offering Wi-Fi use at cruising altitudes on planes modified to be more resistant to interference.
The vast majority of airliners should qualify for greater electronic device use under the new guidelines, Huerta said. In rare instances of landings during severe weather with low visibility, pilots may still order passengers to turn off devices because there is some evidence of potential interference with the use of instrument landing systems under those conditions, he said.
Today's electronic devices generally emit much lower power radio transmissions than previous generations of devices. E-readers, for example, emit only minimal transmissions when turning a page. But transmissions are stronger when devices are downloading or sending data.
Among those pressing for a relaxation of restrictions on passengers' use of the devices has been Amazon.com. In 2011, company officials loaded an airliner full of their Kindle e-readers and flew it around to test for problems but found none.
A travel industry group welcomed the changes, calling them common-sense accommodations for a traveling public now bristling with technology. "We're pleased the FAA recognizes that an enjoyable passenger experience is not incompatible with safety and security," said Roger Dow, CEO of the U.S. Travel Association.
___
AP Airlines Writer Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy
Geoengineering the climate could reduce vital rains
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Simone Tilmes
tilmes@ucar.edu
303-497-1445
NCAR
John Fasullo
fasullo@ucar.edu
303-497-1712
NCAR
BOULDERAlthough a significant build-up in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would alter worldwide precipitation patterns, a widely discussed technological approach to reduce future global warming would also interfere with rainfall and snowfall, new research shows.
The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), finds that global warming caused by a massive increase in greenhouse gases would spur a nearly 7 percent average increase in precipitation compared to preindustrial conditions.
But trying to resolve the problem through "geoengineering" could result in monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia, and other regions dropping by 5-7 percent compared to preindustrial conditions. Globally, average precipitation could decrease by about 4.5 percent.
"Geoengineering the planet doesn't cure the problem," says NCAR scientist Simone Tilmes, lead author of the new study. "Even if one of these techniques could keep global temperatures approximately balanced, precipitation would not return to preindustrial conditions."
As concerns have mounted about climate change, scientists have studied geoengineering approaches to reduce future warming. Some of these would capture carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere. Others would attempt to essentially shade the atmosphere by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere or launching mirrors into orbit with the goal of reducing global surface temperatures.
The new study focuses on the second set of approaches, those that would shade the planet. The authors warn, however, that Earth's climate would not return to its preindustrial state even if the warming itself were successfully mitigated.
"It's very much a pick-your-poison type of problem," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo, a co-author. "If you don't like warming, you can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface and cool the climate. But if you do that, large reductions in rainfall are unavoidable. There's no win-win option here."
The study appears in an online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, published this week by the American Geophysical Union. An international team of scientists from NCAR and 14 other organizations wrote the study, which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor. The team used, among other tools, the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, which is funded by NSF and the Department of Energy.
Future carbon dioxide, with or without geoengineering
The research team turned to 12 of the world's leading climate models to simulate global precipitation patterns if the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, reached four times the level of the preindustrial era. They then simulated the effect of reduced incoming solar radiation on the global precipitation patterns.
The scientists chose the artificial scenario of a quadrupling of carbon dioxide levels, which is on the high side of projections for the end of this century, in order to clearly draw out the potential impacts of geoengineering.
In line with other research, they found that an increase in carbon dioxide levels would significantly increase global average precipitation, although there would likely be significant regional variations and even prolonged droughts in some areas.
Much of the reason for the increased rainfall and snowfall has to do with greater evaporation, which would pump more moisture into the atmosphere as a result of more heat being trapped near the surface.
The team then took the research one step further, examining what would happen if a geoengineering approach partially reflected incoming solar radiation high in the atmosphere.
The researchers found that precipitation amounts and frequency, especially for heavy rain events, would decrease significantly. The effects were greater over land than over the ocean, and particularly pronounced during months of heavy, monsoonal rains. Monsoonal rains in the model simulations dropped by an average of 7 percent in North America, 6 percent in East Asia and South America, and 5 percent in South Africa. In India, however, the decrease was just 2 percent. Heavy precipitation further dropped in Western Europe and North America in summer.
A drier atmosphere
The researchers found two primary reasons for the reduced precipitation.
One reason has to do with evaporation. As Earth is shaded and less solar heat reaches the surface, less water vapor is pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation.
The other reason has to do with plants. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants partially close their stomata, the openings that allow them to take in carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen and water into the atmosphere. Partially shut stomata release less water, so the cooled atmosphere would also become even drier over land.
Tilmes stresses that the authors did not address such questions as how certain crops would respond to a combination of higher carbon dioxide and reduced rainfall.
"More research could show both the positive and negative consequences for society of such changes in the environment," she says. "What we do know is that our climate system is very complex, that human activity is making Earth warmer, and that any technological fix we might try to shade the planet could have unforeseen consequences."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article
Title: The hydrological impact of geoengineering in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
Authors: Simone Tilmes, John Fasullo, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Daniel R. Marsh, Michael Mills, Kari Alterskjr, Helene Muri, Jn E. Kristjnsson, Olivier Boucher, Michael Schulz, Jason N. S. Cole, Charles L. Curry, Andy Jones, Jim Haywood, Peter J. Irvine, Duoying Ji, John C. Moore, Diana B. Karam, Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch, Balwinder Singh, Jin-Ho Yoon, Ulrike Niemeier, Hauke Schmidt, Alan Robock, Shuting Yang, and Shingo Watanabe
Publication:Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
On the Web
For news releases, images, and more:
http://www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Geoengineering the climate could reduce vital rains
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: David Hosansky
hosansky@ucar.edu
303-497-8611
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Simone Tilmes
tilmes@ucar.edu
303-497-1445
NCAR
John Fasullo
fasullo@ucar.edu
303-497-1712
NCAR
BOULDERAlthough a significant build-up in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would alter worldwide precipitation patterns, a widely discussed technological approach to reduce future global warming would also interfere with rainfall and snowfall, new research shows.
The international study, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), finds that global warming caused by a massive increase in greenhouse gases would spur a nearly 7 percent average increase in precipitation compared to preindustrial conditions.
But trying to resolve the problem through "geoengineering" could result in monsoonal rains in North America, East Asia, and other regions dropping by 5-7 percent compared to preindustrial conditions. Globally, average precipitation could decrease by about 4.5 percent.
"Geoengineering the planet doesn't cure the problem," says NCAR scientist Simone Tilmes, lead author of the new study. "Even if one of these techniques could keep global temperatures approximately balanced, precipitation would not return to preindustrial conditions."
As concerns have mounted about climate change, scientists have studied geoengineering approaches to reduce future warming. Some of these would capture carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere. Others would attempt to essentially shade the atmosphere by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere or launching mirrors into orbit with the goal of reducing global surface temperatures.
The new study focuses on the second set of approaches, those that would shade the planet. The authors warn, however, that Earth's climate would not return to its preindustrial state even if the warming itself were successfully mitigated.
"It's very much a pick-your-poison type of problem," says NCAR scientist John Fasullo, a co-author. "If you don't like warming, you can reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the surface and cool the climate. But if you do that, large reductions in rainfall are unavoidable. There's no win-win option here."
The study appears in an online issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, published this week by the American Geophysical Union. An international team of scientists from NCAR and 14 other organizations wrote the study, which was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor. The team used, among other tools, the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model, which is funded by NSF and the Department of Energy.
Future carbon dioxide, with or without geoengineering
The research team turned to 12 of the world's leading climate models to simulate global precipitation patterns if the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, reached four times the level of the preindustrial era. They then simulated the effect of reduced incoming solar radiation on the global precipitation patterns.
The scientists chose the artificial scenario of a quadrupling of carbon dioxide levels, which is on the high side of projections for the end of this century, in order to clearly draw out the potential impacts of geoengineering.
In line with other research, they found that an increase in carbon dioxide levels would significantly increase global average precipitation, although there would likely be significant regional variations and even prolonged droughts in some areas.
Much of the reason for the increased rainfall and snowfall has to do with greater evaporation, which would pump more moisture into the atmosphere as a result of more heat being trapped near the surface.
The team then took the research one step further, examining what would happen if a geoengineering approach partially reflected incoming solar radiation high in the atmosphere.
The researchers found that precipitation amounts and frequency, especially for heavy rain events, would decrease significantly. The effects were greater over land than over the ocean, and particularly pronounced during months of heavy, monsoonal rains. Monsoonal rains in the model simulations dropped by an average of 7 percent in North America, 6 percent in East Asia and South America, and 5 percent in South Africa. In India, however, the decrease was just 2 percent. Heavy precipitation further dropped in Western Europe and North America in summer.
A drier atmosphere
The researchers found two primary reasons for the reduced precipitation.
One reason has to do with evaporation. As Earth is shaded and less solar heat reaches the surface, less water vapor is pumped into the atmosphere through evaporation.
The other reason has to do with plants. With more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, plants partially close their stomata, the openings that allow them to take in carbon dioxide while releasing oxygen and water into the atmosphere. Partially shut stomata release less water, so the cooled atmosphere would also become even drier over land.
Tilmes stresses that the authors did not address such questions as how certain crops would respond to a combination of higher carbon dioxide and reduced rainfall.
"More research could show both the positive and negative consequences for society of such changes in the environment," she says. "What we do know is that our climate system is very complex, that human activity is making Earth warmer, and that any technological fix we might try to shade the planet could have unforeseen consequences."
###
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article
Title: The hydrological impact of geoengineering in the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project
Authors: Simone Tilmes, John Fasullo, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Daniel R. Marsh, Michael Mills, Kari Alterskjr, Helene Muri, Jn E. Kristjnsson, Olivier Boucher, Michael Schulz, Jason N. S. Cole, Charles L. Curry, Andy Jones, Jim Haywood, Peter J. Irvine, Duoying Ji, John C. Moore, Diana B. Karam, Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch, Balwinder Singh, Jin-Ho Yoon, Ulrike Niemeier, Hauke Schmidt, Alan Robock, Shuting Yang, and Shingo Watanabe
Publication:Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
On the Web
For news releases, images, and more:
http://www.ucar.edu/atmosnews
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Thousands of protesters clogged the Greek capital's streets Thursday to demonstrate against a new property tax. The anger was registered across society, with retirees, disabled groups, shipyard workers and high school teachers among those taking part in demonstrations.
Parliament is due to vote next week on proposals to replace an emergency property tax included on electricity bills with a permanent levy, breaking a pledge made last year by the conservative-led coalition government to abolish the tax. More than 50 conservative lawmakers are demanding changes to proposals, arguing they unfairly burden their rural constituents.
The government is also planning new cuts to state benefits and the public workforce, triggering another general strike planned by unions for Nov. 6.
Outside the Labor Ministry, more than a thousand disabled demonstrators who traveled from around Greece blocked traffic outside the building, before filing through the city center in wheelchairs, on crutches and using white canes for the blind.
Deaf protesters responded to speeches by shaking both hands in the air, sign language for applause.
Yannis Vardakastanis, a blind Greek who heads the European Disability Forum, said the protest was called after disabled people were denied an exemption from the new property tax.
"We are the poorest of the poor but we must not let them turn us into victims," he said. "The financial crisis is turning into a humanitarian crisis for us."
Michalis Kouklos, a 35-year-old blind and unemployed man, took a six-hour bus ride from the northern city of Thessaloniki to attend the demonstration.
"We're here to defend the obvious things that everyone needs to live in dignity," he told the AP.
"People with serious illnesses are losing their health insurance and have to go from hospital to hospital to try and get treated. I wish there had been more of us here today because things are getting really bad."
The government has promised a six-year recession will end in 2014, but unemployment has continued to rise. By the latest measure, it was near 28 percent, with 31 percent of the country living in poverty or at risk of poverty, according to the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.
I knew the NSA drawing was real from the smiley-face. Only an eager and myopic software engineer—seeing the interception of Google and Yahoo’s data as a challenge and game rather than as a security and political matter—would make such a light-hearted and self-satisfied gesture at the prospect of hacking into Google’s internal servers.
Google knows it’s real as well. “Two engineers with close ties to Google exploded in profanity when they saw the drawing,” writes the Washington Post, which broke the story yesterday (with some help from Edward Snowden). Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond issued the fighting words of someone who knows they’re winning: "We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform." Google, clearly fed up, has been rushing to encrypt as much of their traffic as possible. (Full disclosure: I used to work for Google, and my wife still does, though she is refusing to tell me anything she may or may not know—even though it seems unfair that the NSA knows and I don’t.)
The NSA’s spying system is called MUSCULAR, which, according to the Post, can copy “entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.” Even the name MUSCULAR smacks of the brutish attitude that compels the NSA to sweep up petabytes of data without being able to process most of it. Call it Broveillance, or Brotal Information Awareness. The unnamed author of the NSA slides provided to the Post is basically begging the agency to stop collecting so much useless garbage. The slides complain of the data’s “relatively small intelligence value” given that the MUSCULAR data makes up one-quarter of all information acquisition.
Just to be clear, that means that one-quarter of the NSA’s surveillance data comes from Google and Yahoo alone. The NSA intercepted the largest sewer pipes of information on the entire Internet and diverted them to dump into their data centers, so that they could search for pearls.
Combine that with the knowledge that NSA chief Keith Alexander is a macho nerd who had his command center built to look like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise (complete with doors that go whoosh), and we have a nice picture of a group of spooks that fancy themselves as James Bond’s Q but are actually closer to Inspector Gadget.
We now have a nice picture of a group of spooks that fancy themselves as James Bond’s Q but are actually closer to Inspector Gadget.
Although the diagram refers to Google, the leaked presentation only briefly refers to “defeating” Gmail. They also refer to “FB buddylist sampling since last year”—i.e., spying on your Facebook friends list—but mostly the slides talk about Yahoo.
The key passage is this one: “Yahoo has been transferring entire email accounts using the Narchive data format (a proprietary format) ... Narchive traffic is collected and forwarded to NSA for memorialization.” “Narchive” is evidently Yahoo’s archival format that can contain the entire contents of a Yahoo user’s mailbox. The Narchive format is internal to Yahoo—that is, no computer outside of Yahoo ever sees it or should even be aware of its existence. (I can’t even find any references to it on the Web.) So there’s your evidence that the NSA was monitoring Yahoo’s internal operations.
Yahoo uses the Narchive format when transferring mail accounts across data centers. Your email account is located within a single one of Yahoo’s datacenters. If they decide, for one reason or another, that your mailbox should be located on a data center in Australia instead of the United States (say, because you live in Australia and so it’ll be much faster for you there), they package all of your data up into the Narchive format and send it from their United States data center to the Australia data center, where they unpack it and set it up.
This is where the NSA comes in. At least according to the slides, they are unable to monitor email accounts that reside within a data center. Instead, they catch them in the process of being transferred along the intercontinental fiber pipes via “secret access to a cable or switch” offered by “an unnamed telecommunications provider,” according to the Post. This means that the NSA can’t do ongoing monitoring of a particular email account, but they can just happen to catch whichever accounts are being transferred—at which point they just snag the whole thing. Since only a small subset of accounts are transferred intercontinentally, they are effectively capturing snapshots of a random subset of accounts at arbitrary points in time. (The slides point out that over one-half of the mail is more than three months old, and one-quarter of it is more than a year old.)
This is the very opposite of targeted collection, and of course it gives lie to any statement about how the NSA was only collecting metadata and not collecting on Americans. The NSA has no idea which of these accounts belong to Americans and which to foreigners. How would they? They admit they don’t even know what they’re sweeping up.
The slides note that “FISA restrospective [sic] collection” would be just as effective and far more efficient than the sewer pipe approach of MUSCULAR. The slides don’t mention that FISA collection would also have the happy side effect of being legal, but I suppose that issue wasn’t on the NSA’s radar. MUSCULAR: inconvenient, useless, and illegal. The perfect encapsulation of the Broveillance attitude.
Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will say various things in response, in line with the nondenial denial already issued by the NSA, which puts so many conditionals on what it claims not to do that it might as well be a confession. Clapper and Alexander have already both lied to Congress, so there is little reason to listen to them. Alexander is on his way out, and Clapper needs to go too. Nothing short of an agency overhaul will reestablish trust.
If the definition of going mad with power is pissing off people who can cause you real trouble—like Angela Merkel and Larry Page—Alexander went mad with power the day he took the job. He has lied, broken the law, violated trusts, wasted billions of dollars, and damaged the security of the U.S. far more than anyone he has criticized. He will be seen in retrospect as the perfect illustration of a period when a modicum of technical knowledge was enough to create the illusion of competence in the eyes of the establishment.
Obama may accept the mere appearance of NSA reform in the coming months. But the pressure is mounting: When you’ve lost NSA water-carrier Dianne Feinstein, you are indeed “really screwed.” Despite Obama’s evident unwillingness to buck the system on whistleblower persecution, illegal detention, black sites, and drone strikes, he may be forced to do the right thing here and rein in this rogue agency.
Ratings wars are fierce between network morning shows, and the “Today” hosts pulled out all the stops with their Halloween costume selections.
Matt Lauer donned a red swimsuit for his Pamela Anderson “Baywatch” impersonation with Carmen Electra and a David Hasselhoff-dressed Willie Geist, while Carson Daly teamed up with legendary actor Erik Estrada for some “Chips” action.
Always a ham, Al Roker got out his gold chains and cut-off camo top to play Mr. T, and Savannah Guthrie and Natalie Morales dressed as Laverne and Shirley.
And never ones to be left out of the fun, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford also partnered for their costumes, playing Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble.
(As UFC turns 20, we revisit each year from 2013 to 1993 with 20 articles in 20 days)
Since the advent of mustached strongmen, the circus has traveled around on the rails and pitched multicolored tents. Part of the attraction was that the attraction came to you. And part of the UFC’s model is similar -- the idea is to travel around to whatever sector of the globe is ready to embrace it. Instead of a tent, they pitch an Octagon. And unless you live in the Falklands or in upstate New York, chances are the UFC will end up in your general area sooner or later.
When the UFC decided to go to Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi in April of 2010, this felt by far like the craziest thing the promotion had attempted. It wasn’t that they sold off a minority portion of the company to Sheikh Tahnoon, or that it was headed to the Middle East, or that the event would be held alfresco under the wheeling constellations just like Tunney-Dempsey back in 1927 at Soldier Field…it was that there wasn’t a freaking venue in place.
It was that they were going to build a temporary arena to house UFC 112, and then tear it down a week later.
Therefore, "Concert Arena" was erected as nothing more than ephemera, just a glamorized squat house for the UFC’s visit. If that weren’t enough, it was built within something called "Ferrari World." You could practically see the Sheikh using $100 bills as kindling for his fireplace while swirling a glass of Henry IV cognac. Laughing. Laughing. (With the flames dancing in his eyes.)
The event in Abu Dhabi was a catalyst for a lot of things. It told everyone that the UFC meant business in taking the Octagon all over the world, not just ports in Europe and Canada. That night on April 10, 2010, the UFC rolled out two title fights like a lush red carpet, and yet neither of them came off even remotely close to what might be considered "reasonable expectation."
Frankie Edgar fought B.J. Penn in the co-main event, and Anderson Silva -- who was originally supposed to fight Vitor Belfort -- took on Demian Maia for the middleweight crown. Maia and Edgar were of course the sacrifices. I remember beforehand a very well known MMA journalist telling me, while emboldened by his Guinness, "Edgar might be the first fatality in the cage." He was of course exaggerating, but the sentiment was there; Edgar didn’t stand a chance.
Turns out Edgar did stand a chance, and in fact fairly dominated the scorecards en-route to taking Penn’s belt. That was the first "say what?" moment in a night full of eye rubbing. The Silva-Maia nightcap was one of the most bizarre main events to ever have pay-per-view customers screaming for rebates. In it Anderson Silva sort of flew off the handle. He mocked and preened and went into theatrics for much of the five rounds he wasn’t even supposed to need in putting Maia away. The performance was so remarkable for all the wrong reasons that Dana White put out a piece of caution on the Jim Rome Show afterwards that said this: He’d cut Anderson Silva if it happened again. Even the greatest living mixed martial artist in the world wouldn’t be suffered such shenanigans.
(This was the context for Silva and his rivalry with Chael Sonnen, who came along at just the right moment right after. Sonnen breathed life back into Silva, just like Silva became a sort of world stage for Sonnen to reinvent himself).
Zuffa owned the WEC, but at this point had kept the two organizations separate. The WEC had the smaller weight classes. The UFC had everything else. By October of 2010, with the UFC growing and holding more events and needing more star power to carry them, Dana White announced that the promotions would be merging. This was significant for two reasons. One, it meant existing undersized UFC lightweights could fight at 145 pounds without leaving the UFC. And two, it meant people like Cruz, Pettis, Demetrious Johnson, Benson Henderson, Benavidez, Mendes, Lamas and poster boy Urijah Faber would finally showcase their wares for those who avoided eye contact with the WEC’s blue cage.
The WEC would bring over a world of talent to the UFC.
"That was the goal -- it was always to find the best fighters," says Reed Harris, who was the general manager and face of the WEC. "We worked very hard at that. When I came into the office, I never would hear people say, ‘hey the lighting on that show was fantastic.’ Inherently I knew it was all about the fights, and that it’s all about the fighters. So we spent a lot of time looking at them, and went down to Brazil to find Jose Aldo. We did a lot of things that a lot of people didn’t do in trying to find the best people."
Jose Aldo. The man who made Americans figure out the correct order of the vowels in Nova Uniao.
"The first time I saw Jose, he jumped out of the cage, and I took him in back with his manager Andre Pederneiras -- and I’m a guy who rarely raises his voice, because that’s just not who I am -- but I was yelling at him," Harris says. "I read him the Riot Act. Little did I know he didn’t have any idea what I was saying, but he knew I was mad.
"The next show, I was in the cage after he won, and he looked at me, ran towards the door, stopped and then sat down," Harris says. "He looked up at me and smiled, kind of like a f--- you, and ever since then I’ve liked him. Now we’re very close. We spent a lot of time together."
Harris is now the Vice President of Community Relations with the UFC. Aldo is the long-tenured featherweight champion who is hovering the top three space of most pound-for-pound lists. At UFC 142, after Aldo knocked out Chad Mendes, Aldo disappeared into a sea of his countrymen once again. And once again, Harris was right there tapping his foot with his arms crossed.
"I yelled at him to get back in the cage," he says. "That’s his place, right? I wasn’t mad at him for doing it. It was crazy. I actually got punched in the crowd. Not on purpose. The guy who punched me looked at me like he was in shock because he was trying to grab Jose. It was just very chaotic, and I yelled at him to get back in for safety reasons."
That Harris is now scolding Aldo outside of the UFC Octagon instead of outside the WEC blue cage marks the evolution of the times. At some point along the way, Harris knew that the bantamweights and featherweights he’d helped along, not to mention his crop of high-powered lightweights, would all be migrating to the UFC. The thing was inevitable.
"I think at some point it was just decided, look, the UFC is going to be the dominant brand in this sport forever," he says. "Especially when all of us were watching these lighter-weight fights including Dana and Lorenzo and Frank [Fertitta], and they were seeing that they were entertaining and that people were interested. So why not add to the brand? Why not make the brand even stronger?"
On Feb. 1, 2014, at UFC 169 in Newark during Super Bowl weekend, the WEC’s elite will be on display. Renan Barao and Dominick Cruz will unify the bantamweight belts, and Aldo will defend his title against Ricardo Lamas.
If you're reading this late in the day, pause to consider your eyes. Can you feel that familiar sting that comes from looking at a glaring LCD for too many hours? That's only the most noticeable symptom of what happens to our bodies when we spend hours staring into what's essentially a big, bright, lamp. F.lux is a simple and free app that helps fix this.
f.lux knows what time the sun sets wherever you are.
Turning down your monitor's brightness may help, but brightness isn't really the main issue: Color temperature is, and that can be trickier to adjust. Most computer screens emit bluish light that looks good in daytime, but becomes uncomfortable to look at in a dark room. It can also affect your sleep: Research suggests that reading on a tablet for two hours before bedtime can delay your sleep by about an hour.
F.lux helps by asking you where you're located in the world, then figuring out the approximate sunset time for your location. Come sunset, your screen will mimic nature, gradually warming up the colors and blending in much better with the surrounding light. You basically get your own private mini-sunset, ending up with a screen that's nice to look at.
f.lux now lets you adjust your monitor's brightness with keyboard shortcuts.
This basic functionality—tuning your screen's color temperature according to time of day—has been part of f.lux for years now. A recent version adds some new bells and whistles: You can now change your screen's brightness using Alt+PgUp and Alt+PgDn. This isn't exciting if you use a laptop, but for a desktop user like me, it's a great feature.
Another new feature is the so-called Darkroom Mode. Whereas the normal f.lux effect just warms up your colors, Darkroom Mode completely takes over your display, shading everything in dark, reddish hues. This makes videos unwatchable, but also means you can probably use your computer at 3am without losing your night vision.
You can dial in your own nighttime color temperature to suit your environment.
Since we don't all work with the same ambient lighting, f.lux lets you dial in a color temperature for nighttime. It uses Kelvin notations (commonly used for color temperatures), but also offers human-readable explanations ranging from "Ember" (1200k) to "Sunlight" (5000k).
All of these color changes are great, unless you happen to be trying to watch a movie. That's where Movie Mode comes in: This mode tones down the color effects for 2.5 hours, to let you watch a movie without having everything tinged red. You can also completely disable f.lux for one hour (for doing color-sensitive work such as photo editing), or until the next morning.
F.lux was a very good app to begin with, and this release only makes it better. If you're not using it yet, but do use your computer at night, you really should try it out today.
Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.
Tom Donahue's documentary Casting By, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2012, uses the careers of casting directors such as Marion Dougherty, Lynn Stalmaster and Juliet Taylor -- between them responsible for the ensembles of such films as Midnight Cowboy, Manhattan, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate -- to lament that casting is the only "single-card" opening credit that isn't recognized by the Academy Awards. With Casting By opening in New York on Nov. 1 and a week later in Los Angeles, Woody Allen wrote to THR to support the recognition of casting directors by championing his own:
In my case certainly, the casting director plays a vital part in the making of the movie. My history shows that my films are full of wonderful performances by actors and actresses I had never heard of and were not only introduced to me by my casting director, Juliet Taylor, but, in any number of cases, pushed on me against my own resistance. People like Jeff Daniels, Mary Beth Hurt, Patricia Clarkson and others who are people I was unfamiliar with. A number of discoveries and careers have been launched by the energies and resourcefulness of my casting director. Not only did I use Meryl Streep for a small part in Manhattan when she was a relative unknown, but at the best my casting director helped start the film career of Mariel Hemingway and Dianne Wiest, a stage actress completely unknown to me but known by Juliet Taylor. I’m particularly difficult in the casting area because the whole process bores and embarrasses me. If it were up to me we would use the same half dozen people in all my pictures, whether they fit or not. Despite my recalcitrance, Juliet has forced me to meet and to watch the work of many new people and to hire people on nothing more then her strong recommendation. Because my films are not special effects films and are about human beings, proper casting is absolutely essential. I owe a big part of the success of my films to this scrupulous casting process which I must say if left to my own devices would never have happened. I might add also, anecdotally, that despite my firm conviction that I could never persuade luminaries like Saul Bellow, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag, Mayor Koch and others to work in my films, the confidence and insistence of my casting director proved more accurate and I wound up getting these unlikely notables.
For years now, most of us have been quietly not turning off our phones and devices at landing and take off, and merely putting the screens to sleep and stuffing them in seat pockets instead. Now, we’ll be able to do that officially and more, according to the FAA. The American government organization overseeing air travel today announced that travelers won’t face regulations that are quite as strict when it comes to electronics on planes.
Don’t start celebrating just yet – this doesn’t mean you can continue playing Candy Crush while waiting for your massive, heavy hunk of metal to defy physics and launch itself into the air as of this very moment. The changes will differ depending on each airline, the FAA says, since there are differences between types of planes and how things are run at each different carrier, but the FAA anticipates that most will allow passengers to use their gadgets “in airplane mode, gate-to-gate, by the end of the year.”
Passengers can use e-book readers, play games and watch videos on devices, and can hold gadgets during both take-off and landing, or else stow them in the seatback pocket. These gadgets need to be in Airplane Mode or have cell service turned off during both landing and taxi/take-off, but you can actually use Wi-Fi during your flight and continue to use Bluetooth accessories connected to your phone.
There are still some things the FAA says travelers need to be aware of regarding these rules, to make sure they’re still in compliance with guidelines. Here’s a full list of those points flagged by the regulatory organization:
1. Make safety your first priority.
2. Changes to PED policies will not happen immediately and will vary by airline. Check with your airline to see if and when you can use your PED.
3. Current PED policies remain in effect until an airline completes a safety assessment, gets FAA approval, and changes its PED policy.
4. Cell phones may not be used for voice communications.
5. Devices must be used in airplane mode or with the cellular connection disabled. You may use the WiFi connection on your device if the plane has an installed WiFi system and the airline allows its use. You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards.
6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident.
7. During the safety briefing, put down electronic devices, books and newspapers and listen to the crewmember’s instructions.
8. It only takes a few minutes to secure items according to the crew’s instructions during takeoff and landing.
9. In some instances of low visibility – about one percent of flights – some landing systems may not be proved PED tolerant, so you may be asked to turn off your device.
10. Always follow crew instructions and immediately turn off your device if asked.
Earlier this year, the FAA seemed ready to relax the rules around personal electronics use in-flight, but they quickly noted that this didn’t mean we’d see blanket bans lifted immediately. Now, the FAA is taking pains to roll this out more quickly, and is “streamlining” approval of the new rules via clear instructions and guidelines for airlines about implementation of device use. Delta has announced that it’s the first to submit its plan to comply with the new regulations, and that it will do so by November 1, it hopes.
With any luck, some passengers might be able to watch Home Alone 2 on their new iPad Air while winging their way home to enjoy a family Christmas dinner. It’s about time.
Two passengers on a bus talk about the suicide car crash near Tiananmen Gate as the bus drives past the spot where, on Monday, a sport utility vehicle crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
Two passengers on a bus talk about the suicide car crash near Tiananmen Gate as the bus drives past the spot where, on Monday, a sport utility vehicle crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
A tourist takes photos near a partially damaged stone bridge, surrounded by potted plants, in front of Tiananmen Gate, where, on Monday, a sport utility vehicle crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
Paramilitary policemen, back, guard a street as people wait at a bus stop near Tiananmen Gate, where a sport utility vehicle veered into a crowd and then crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
Two policewomen, right, a traffic police, in yellow vest, and members of a SWAT team guard a street corner, where, on Monday, a sport utility vehicle veered into a crowd near Tiananmen Gate, where the car crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
Policemen, in uniforms and plainclothes, and paramilitary policemen check a bus after petitioners on the bus tried to throw leaflets through the bus window near Tiananmen Gate, where, on Monday, a sport utility vehicle crashed and caught fire, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013. Chinese police are circulating a list of eight suspects wanted in connection with the apparent suicide car crash near Tiananmen Square in Beijing that killed five people and injured dozens, a hotel manager said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)
BEIJING (AP) — In a dusty outdoor curio market in China's capital, traders from the minority Uighur community gathered Wednesday to swap stories about the omnipresent harassment they say they suffer at the hands of the police. That scrutiny has only intensified after this week's deadly vehicle attack at Tiananmen Square in which the Uighurs are the prime suspects.
Before the day ended, five of the suspects had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in Monday's attack, which a police statement described as carefully planned terrorism. Police also said knives, iron rods, gasoline and a flag with religious slogans were found in the vehicle used in the suicide attack.
"They (police) come to search us every day. We don't know why. Our IDs are checked every day, and we don't know what is happening," said Ali Rozi, 28, a Uighur trader at the sprawling Panijayuan market.
"We have trouble every day, but we haven't done anything," said Rozi, who is from Kashghar, the capital of Xinjiang province where most Uighurs live.
Militants from the Muslim Uighur community have been fighting a low-intensity insurgency against Chinese rule in Xinjiang, for years. Recent clashes, including an attack on a police station, have left at least 56 people dead this year. The government typically calls the incidents terrorist attacks.
The police scrutiny of the Uighurs in Beijing highlights the years of discrimination that has fueled Uighur demands for independence for their northwestern homeland of Xinjiang. Many Uighurs say they face routine discrimination, irksome restrictions on their culture and Muslim religion, and economic disenfranchisement that has left them largely poor even as China's economy booms.
Monday's incident, in which a sports utility vehicle barreled through crowds and burst into flames near the portrait of Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate. Three of the car's occupants and two bystanders were killed, and dozens injured in a strike at the capital's political heart, where China's Communist Party leaders live and work.
A list of as many as 10 suspects — all but one of them believed to be Uighur — was distributed to hotels in a bid for information.
If the Tiananmen Square incident proves to be the handiwork of Uighurs, it would be the first such attack outside the region in recent history, and among the most ambitious given the high-profile target.
"I am also upset. They crashed a car, and we end up being harassed by police every day now, saying that we Xinjiang people are like that," said Rozi Ura Imu, a 48-year-old trader in jade and other precious stones from the ancient Silk Road city of Kashghar.
The Panijayuan market has thousands of stalls featuring crafts from regions throughout China: rows of statues and furniture, bins of beads and trinkets, cases of books and scrolls.
Uighurs are a Turkic Central Asian people related to Uzbeks, Khazaks and other groups. With their slightly European features and heavy accents, most are immediately recognizable as distinct from China's ethnic Han majority.
Many complain of strict government controls not seen in other parts of China, including a ban on religious observance by minors and injunctions against traditional male cultural gatherings called meshreps. Recent moves to mainly use Chinese in Xinjiang schools have raised fears of the further erosion of Uighur language and culture, as well as job losses for Uighur teachers.
Uighurs also say they've seen little benefit from the exploitation of Xinjiang's natural resources while good jobs tend to flow to migrants from China's ethnic Han majority.
Uighurs frequently say they're made to feel like second-class citizens, facing difficulties obtaining passports or even traveling outside Xinjiang. Hotels and airlines are reported to have floating unofficial bans on catering to Uighurs, and many employers refuse to hire them.
"Hotels won't take us and you can't rent if your ID shows a Xinjiang residence. People look at us with a lot of prejudice," said Yusuf Mahmati, 33, a fur trader plying his wares on a busy sidewalk opposite the Panijayuan market, a gathering place for traders from several regional ethnic groups.
Uighur activists say they fear Uighurs could face even more discrimination following this week's attack and urged the government to conduct a transparent investigation.
The overseas advocacy group World Uyghur Congress on Tuesday urged caution and expressed concerns that Beijing could use the incident to demonize Uighurs as a group.
Beijing-based Uighur economist Ilham Tohti urged the government to make public its findings if it indeed has evidence that Uighurs were involved in a terrorist attack.
"I wish they will promptly announce the identities of the deceased, and all relevant information. If the government has concluded this is a terrorist attack, then please tell us what is the plot behind it," Tohti said.
Tohti has faced frequent police harassment for his activism. He was placed under house arrest numerous times in the wake of deadly ethnic rioting in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi, in 2009 that sparked a nationwide crackdown on Uighur activists.
The Urumqi violence that left nearly 200 dead, most of them Han, had strong ethnic overtones, beginning with a protest over the killing of Uighur workers at a south China toy factory over false rumors of sexual assaults on Chinese women. China termed the bloodshed a terrorist attack planned by overseas-based Uighur rights advocates and heavily stepped up its security presence in Xinjiang.
Chinese authorities rarely provide direct evidence to back up terrorism claims, and critics say ordinary crimes or cases of civil unrest are often labeled as organized acts of terror.
However, Xinjiang borders Afghanistan and unstable Central Asian states with militant Islamic groups, and Uighurs are believed to be among militants sheltering in Pakistan's lawless northwestern region.
Police haven't commented on the investigation into Monday's incident, and state media reports spoke only of the condition of the injured, including three Filipino citizens and one Japanese man. A Filipino woman and Chinese man were among the five killed, along with the three people in the vehicle.
China has largely been successful at limiting both the volume and effectiveness of domestic terrorist attacks, while containing them mainly to Xinjiang, said Philip Potter, an expert on Xinjiang and security at the University of Michigan.
However, the Chinese government has warned that radicals were planning attacks outside of Xinjiang.
Should they become capable of attacking in China's eastern population centers "they would have easy access to soft, high-profile targets as well as an information and media environment that is increasingly ripe for terrorist exploitation," Potter said.
Eva Hu-Stiles virtually interacts with her grandmother. iPad assist by Elise Hu-Stiles.
John W. Poole/NPR
Eva Hu-Stiles virtually interacts with her grandmother. iPad assist by Elise Hu-Stiles.
John W. Poole/NPR
This week, we're exploring the tech frontier through the eyes of our children. So we're starting with the littlest ones — babies. Can certain kinds of screen time help babies learn?
To find some answers, I employed the help of my one-year-old daughter, Eva. She's still a wobbly walker and the sum total of her speaking skills sound like gibberish. But she has no problem activating Siri, the virtual assistant on my iPhone. Her 16-month-old friend, Lily, is even savvier with the gadgets.
"She knows how to turn the iPad on, she knows how to slide her finger across," says her mom, Kim Trainor.
Which gets to the technology tension in modern parenting: You want your kids to be technologically adept — but without giving them so much screen time that it's not healthy for development.
"If I think about my childhood, a lot of these things didn't exist. And obviously my parents didn't have to think about what the exposure might do to us," Trainor says. The tech frontier for our kids is changing so fast that the guidelines are barely keeping up with it.
Case in point: Just two years ago, when San Francisco-based nonprofit Common Sense Media surveyed families with children eight and under, just 8 percent owned tablets like iPads. That's now jumped five-fold — to 40 percent. And the percent of children with access to some sort of smartphones and tablets has jumped from half of those surveyed to 75 percent. (Read the full report.)
Pediatricians discourage passive screen time for children two and under.
Baby Lily's mom says she follows her pediatrician's guideline to discourage screen time until after her daughter turns two. But the doctor behind the American Academy of Pediatrics 2011 policy guideline discouraging screen time for kids under two says it specifically concerns passive screen viewing. That is, plopping the baby in front of a TV or film, or having media on in the background.
"The concern for risk is that some kids who watch a lot of media actually have poor language skills, so there's a deficit in their language development. We also have concerns about other developmental issues because they're basically missing out on other developmentally appropriate activities," says Dr. Ari Brown, the lead author on the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement discouraging screen time for babies under two.
On Monday, the pediatrics group released updated media guidelines for children and adolescents. While still discouraging screen time for children under two, the policy recommends a balanced approach to media in the homes instead of blanket bans. We've laid out some of the latest thinking on screen time for babies and toddlers, below.
There's a key difference between passive screen time and active screen time.
When it comes to interacting with screens — activities like Skyping or FaceTime — in which the baby communicates with a live human on the screen, research indicates that can actually help babies learn.
"[Lily] watched her little message from her dad who had bought her a ball and said, 'This is a ball.' " Trainor says that when Lily called her father on Skype a few days later, she associated him with the ball. "She went 'ball, ball, ball,' " Trainor says.
Vanderbilt University developmental psychologist Georgene Troseth conducts some of the country's leading research on children and screens. She says Skyping isn't like watching TV, because it's a social interaction.
"We're finding pretty consistently — in fact, two recent studies with actual Skype [calls] — that children do seem to learn better when there is social interaction from a person on video. So it's kind of encouraging with FaceTime or Skype for parents and grandparents to know that [with] that interaction, the children might actually be willing to learn from a person on a screen because of the social interaction showing them what's on the screen is connected to their lives," Troseth says.
The research ontouch-screenapps is unclear. Apps and games labeled "educational" may not necessarily help your child learn.
Touch screens are taking over and babies seem especially great at working with them. Lily, the 16-month-old, showed me how she shuffles through photos on her mom's phone.
Parents, meanwhile, keep hearing about "educational" apps. The developmental psychologist, Troseth, says be wary, for now.
"There's nothing wrong with a toy being fun, engaging a child for an amount of time. But to promote it as being educational we really need to do research to find out, is having it be interacting, doing anything to make it easier to learn from?" she asks.
Aim for a balanced approach — for you and your baby.
Since the research on touch screens isn't clear yet, Dr. Brown offers some advice in the meantime.
"We still have questions. If you're planning on using interactive media with your child, use it with your child, sit down with your child and engage with them because that's going to be more valuable than anything," Brown says.
It's valuable time with her 14-month-old daughter that taught another mom — Jennifer Grover — about her own relationship with screens.
"It's just amazing how good they are at mimicking what they see. So I've definitely had to learn to kind of reign in my attention to the laptop, or my attention to my phone in front of her, because whatever I'm doing that's what she wants to be doing," Grover says.
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f.lux knows what time the sun sets wherever you are.
f.lux now lets you adjust your monitor's brightness with keyboard shortcuts.
You can dial in your own nighttime color temperature to suit your environment.