সোমবার, ২৮ অক্টোবর, ২০১৩

Right-Wing Populism Is Hobbling America


In the Federalist Papers, James Madison promised that a large republic with a representative government would avoid the “instability, injustice and confusion” that had plagued many nations in Europe. In a representative government, he reasoned, disruptive factions would be unable to gain sufficient power to dissolve the social contract. The people’s representatives would not necessarily be paragons of virtue, but they would be less likely to succumb to “local prejudices and schemes of injustice.” In the 225 intervening years, Madison has been proven correct, with two great exceptions. One was the Civil War. The other was the 16-day government shutdown of October 2013.






Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/28/right-wing_populism_is_hobbling_america_318731.html
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ARM servers with 64-bit Calxeda chips to ship next year





Low-power servers running on Calxeda's 64-bit ARM chip will be available a year from now, Calxeda said.


Samples of Calxeda's 64-bit chip will start shipping in the first half of next year, giving server makers a chance to test out the chips before building final systems, said Karl Freund, vice president of marketing at Calxeda. Servers will become available a few months after that.


"64-bit is coming, it will be an amazing change in the [server] industry," Freund said. "Our priority is to get them to market as fast as possible."


ARM processors, used in most smartphones and tablets, are increasingly being viewed as a power-efficient alternative to Intel's x86 chips, which dominate in data centers. Some believe ARM servers could be good for Web hosting and processing Web requests, which could help cut electric bills in data centers.


Hewlett-Packard is on tap to use Calxeda's ARM chips in its Moonshot dense server, which currently runs only on x86 processors. ARM 64-bit server processors will also be shipped next year by AppliedMicro and Advanced Micro Devices, which offers x86 chips but is betting its server future on ARM processors.


The company has two 64-bit ARM-based server system-on-chips code-named Lago and Sarita on tap, and Freund said more employees are being assigned to work on the products. The chips are based on ARM's ARMv8-A processor architecture, which was announced in 2011.


There has been a slight delay in the delivery of 64-bit ARM chips from many companies to server makers. The 64-bit ARM processor is also used in Apple's A7 mobile chip, but Freund said making server chips is more complex as networking, I/O and memory controllers need to built into a system-on-chip alongside CPUs.


"People set unrealistic expectations on 64-bit and were very aggressive in schedule. It takes time," Freund said.


Meanwhile, Calxeda will release its EnergyCore ECX-2000 chip, based on ARM's Cortex-A15 processor design, which could help speed applications in OpenStack distributed computing environments. The chip supports 32-bit addressing and will be found in "beta" servers by the end of this year, Freund said. The Calxeda chip supports virtualization and Xen hypervisor.


Most server applications today are 64-bit, but the ECX-2000 has found use in cloud servers and storage applications, Freund said.


Aeon will sell 1U servers by the end of this year, and a nonoperational sample of HP's Moonshot server with ECX-2000 chips will be shown at the Open Server Summit trade show this week. A release date for the ARM-based Moonshot hasn't been announced.


Servers from Boston Ltd. and Penguin Computing will be available with the ECX-2000 chips, Calxeda said.


The ECX-2000 has four Cortex-A15 cores running at 1.8GHz, and draws six watts of power. The chip is a self-contained server unit with 10-gigabit Ethernet networking, I/O and memory controllers.


Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com








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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058420/arm-servers-with-64bit-calxeda-chips-to-ship-next-year.html#tk.rss_all
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GOP set to question Sebelius on health law


WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans plan to seek answers from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on the Obama administration's troubled start for its health care website to buy insurance, and are raising concerns about the privacy of information that applicants submit under the new system.

GOP lawmakers said Sunday that the Obama administration will face intense scrutiny this week to be more forthcoming about how many people have actually succeeded in enrolling for coverage in the new insurance markets.

Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner is scheduled to appear during a House hearing on Tuesday, followed Wednesday by Sebelius before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The officials will also be grilled on how such crippling technical problems could have gone undetected prior to the Oct. 1 launch of that website, healthcare.gov.

"The incompetence in building this website is staggering," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., second- ranking Republican on the panel and an opponent of the law.

Democrats said the new system needs more time and it can be fixed to provide millions of people with affordable insurance. Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, said the system was "working in Kentucky."

But the federal online system experienced another problem on Sunday.

A component of that system that has been working relatively well experienced an outage. The federal data services hub, a conduit for verifying the personal information of people applying for benefits under the law, went down in a failure that was blamed on an outside contractor, Terremark.

"Today, Terremark had a network failure that is impacting a number of their clients, including healthcare.gov," HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said. "Secretary Sebelius spoke with the CEO of Verizon this afternoon to discuss the situation and they committed to fixing the problem as soon as possible."

Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Enterprise Solutions, of which Terremark is a part, said: "Our engineers have been working with HHS and other technology companies to identify and address the root cause of the issue. It will fixed as quickly as possible."

Blackburn said she wanted to know much has been spent on the website, how much more it will cost to fix the problems, when everything will be ready and what people should expect to see on the site. Blackburn and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., raised questions about whether the website could guard the privacy of applicants.

"They do not have an overarching, solid cybersecurity plan to prevent the loss of private information," said Rogers, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters said when consumers fill out their applications, "they can trust that the information they're providing is protected by stringent security standards and that the technology underlying the application process has been tested and is secure."

The botched rollout has led to calls on Capitol Hill for a delay of penalties for those remaining uninsured. The Obama administration has said it's willing to extend the grace period until Mar. 31, the end of open enrollment, providing an extra six weeks. The insurance industry says going beyond that risks undermining the new system by giving younger, healthier people a pass.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who has urged the Obama administration to postpone the March 31 deadline, said she is concerned applicants would not have a full six months to enroll. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who is seeking a yearlong delay to the penalty for noncompliance, said there is a need for a "transition period to work out the things."

The administration was under no legal requirement to launch the website Oct 1. Sebelius, who designated her department's Medicare agency to implement the health care law, had the discretion to set open enrollment dates. Officials could have postponed open enrollment by a month, or they could have phased in access to the website.

But all through last summer and into early fall, the administration insisted it was ready to go live in all 50 states on Oct. 1.

The online insurance markets are supposed to be the portal to coverage for people who do not have access to a health plan through their jobs. The health care law offers middle-class people a choice of private insurance plans, made more affordable through new tax credits. Low-income people will be steered to Medicaid in states that agree to expand that safety-net program.

An HHS memo prepared for Sebelius in September estimated that nearly 500,000 people would enroll for coverage in the marketplaces during October, their first month of operation. The actual number is likely to be only a fraction of that. The administration has said 700,000 people have completed applications.

Blackburn spoke on "Fox News Sunday," Beshear appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," Rogers was on CNN's "State of the Union," Manchin was interviewed on ABC's "This Week" and Shaheen made her comments on CBS' "Face the Nation."

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-set-sebelius-health-law-073925322--politics.html
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'Allegiant' Author Veronica Roth Tries Not To Imagine Shailene Woodley, Theo James Making Out


MTV News sits down for a spoiler-free chat with the 'Divergent' trilogy scribe, with a spoiler-filled segment coming Monday at 10 a.m. ET.


By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz








Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1716073/allegiant-divergent-veronica-roth.jhtml

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Arcade Fire In The Throes Of Transformation





Arcade Fire on Saturday night in Bushwick. Win Butler on the left, Richard Reed Parry on the right.



Courtesy of Sachyn Mital


Arcade Fire on Saturday night in Bushwick. Win Butler on the left, Richard Reed Parry on the right.


Courtesy of Sachyn Mital


Saturday's hottest ticket in New York City was to see a band nobody's heard of. The Reflektors burned through a fan-only presale, and tickets hit the secondary market at prices high as $5,000 — a hefty sum to see any band, much less a band yet to release its first album, in Bushwick's warehousiest corridors. That's like half a year's rent for that neighborhood. But the hype was real. Based only on the "Is-this-really-happening?" disbelief stretching the faces of all the superfans and industry types in the audience, you'd think they were about to see a band that would never play a skuzzy converted depot in east Brooklyn: U2 or Bruce Springsteen, or, I don't know, Arcade Fire.


The thing about the musicians on stage was that they looked a lot like Arcade Fire. Despite his Jack White-like red shirt and white tie, the bassist's flaming red hair drew Richard Reed Parry comparisons. And they sounded like Arcade Fire, too. They even covered "Sprawl II." And that's because — (no) surprise! — The Reflektors was Arcade Fire. That cat was never really in the bag. After a little tongue-in-cheek stage banter ("We started three years ago. We were nervous to play New York because we heard you're standoffish!"), a gold-suited Win Butler and his band ran through a set of mostly unheard tracks from their upcoming album Reflektor, masquerading as a brand new band riding the promotional cycle for its first album.


But the group that played at 299 Meserole this weekend, no matter what you called them, was clearly neither a set of wide-eyed naïfs dropping their first 12", nor the band that made sneaking out of your parents house feel like toppling the Berlin Wall. The musicians were belied by more than their popularity; never mind that most in attendance — who embraced the show's "formal" dress code with thrifted tuxes, reflective masks or fratty banana suits — only got access to buying these tickets after pre-ordering Reflektor. They're also darker, and maybe a more disillusioned, too. "We're so excited to play CMJ," Butler called out sarcastically. "Thank you so much to all the industry types who offered to sign our band!"


But the plucky effrontery that has underpinned all Arcade Fire's work to date is crumbling. The band has told stories about struggling under somebody's thumb since its 2003 debut album Funeral. Songs like "Wake Up" and "Crown of Love" captured an anthemic emotional power, half hope and half rebellion, unmatched by the group's successors and copycats. The songs bloomed around refrains that felt bigger than any stadium they eventually filled. But this is less so on Reflektor. The new songs Arcade Fire played Saturday were full of new (mostly rhythmic) ideas coming to the fore and many old (mostly romantic) identifiers fading away.


Some saw that change coming when Arcade Fire announced that James Murphy, the David Bowie-obsessed former face of LCD Soundsystem and head of disco-punk label DFA, was announced as Reflektor's producer. He introduced the band at the show. Others heard it in the album's dynamic, Bowie-featuring first single, which abandoned that operatic Springsteenian populism for pop reflective of the transformations undertaken by their arena-sized predecessors the Talking Heads and U2 (there's that similarity again).



That change got its first full public display in Bushwick. Take "We Exist," for one. Four years ago an Arcade Fire song with titles that way might've sounded like "Born to Run," but when that "Hang On To Your Love"/"Your Cover's Blown" bassline crept out beneath the venue's Murphy-esque disco balls and reflective hanging polygons, it left no ambiguities about the type of music Arcade Fire is now interested in making. Fans of the group should have been safe assuming they'd get the standard fare of marching violinists yowling to the rafters, but instead were blindsided by Sade. With strings marginalized and two miscellaneous percussionists in tow, this group looked and sounded more like Stop Making Sense than In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.


This departure is not a totally clean break from their last work, 2010's Grammy-winning, Twitter-enraging The Suburbs. There were of course the type of joyful moments Arcade Fire is known for (see the swelling "Supersymmetry"), and brand new sounds, like the Princely backup vocals of "It's Never Over (Orpheus)" and the murky rave-up "Here Comes the Night Time." But taking the stage in the throes of a transformation didn't always work in Arcade Fire's favor. The band sometimes sounded uninspired performing new songs they'd written in their old style (like the underwhelming "Joan of Arc") or those that didn't do Butler's heady aspiration to sound like "a mash up of Studio 54 and Hatian voodoo" real justice (the chopped reggaeton of "Flashbulb Eyes"). Some old favorites even looked limp in their new duds (like the beloved "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)"), while others ("Haiti") sound suddenly prophetic of where the band has touched down.


Gone is the jubilation of the Arcade Fire of days past. The crowd occasionally felt awkward inside the band's new big beat, and responded to Butler's post-encore announcement that there would be no more Reflektors, or Arcade Fire, tonight but rather a DJ set from James Murphy for those who wanted to "dance all night," with more than a smattering of boos. But the band itself is dancing toward something that'll lead it outside the sounds their old crowd formed around. Seeing that live was alone worth the price of admission.


Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/10/23/240251629/arcade-fire-in-the-throes-of-transformation?ft=1&f=1039
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iPad Air vs. Retina iPad mini vs. iPad 2 vs. iPad mini: Which iPad model should you get?

iPad Air vs. Retina iPad mini vs. iPad 2 vs. iPad mini: Which iPad model should you get?

2013 iPad buyers guide: How to choose the perfect new iPad Air or Retina iPad mini, or less expensive iPad 2 or iPad mini for you!

Once you're sure you're buying an iPad and now, the next step is to decide which iPad you're going to get. And this year, it's a tougher decision than ever. The new iPad Air and Retina iPad mini are identical in every way but screen size, 7.9- vs. 9.7-inches the only differentiator. If money is incredibly tight, though the old iPad 2 is a bit cheaper, and the old iPad mini, a cheaper still. No matter which one you choose, however, you'll be paying hundreds of dollars. Either a few, or a lot. So do you go with big or small, old or new? Which iPad should you get?

Current iPad models and price points

Current iPad models and price points

Apple's 2013 iPad lineup consists of 4 different models, the iPad Air, Retina iPad mini, iPad 2, and iPad mini. The iPad Air and Retina iPad mini have 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB storage options, in either Wi-Fi only, or Wi-Fi and cellular models. The iPad 2 and iPad mini come only with 16GB, but still have Wi-Fi only, or Wi-Fi + cellular models. That makes for a dizzying array of possibilities.

Yes, both the new Retina iPad mini and the old iPad 2 start at $399. Wacky.

Up-front vs. total cost of ownership

The original iPad mini starts at $299, making it the cheapest iPad ever. The iPad 2 starts at $399. Both cost less up-front than the new Retina iPad mini, which starts at $399, and the new iPad Air which starts at $499. That can be a considerable difference up front, $200 or $100 at the very least, depending on the exact model and options you choose. That's real money, in your pocket, for rent, for food, for car payments, for school, or for other important things in your life.

However, if you keep an iPad over the course of a year or two, $100 or $200 isn't that much spread over the course of that time. In some cases, it's less than $10 a month, for a much better screen, a much better processor, and more.

If you have absolutely no money to work with, the iPad mini is good tablet and the iPad 2 an okay one. I'd recommend the Retina iPad mini over the same priced iPad 2 every day of the week, but if you absolutely need the bigger screen and that's all the money you have, that's what you need and what you have.

If money isn't your biggest consideration, go for the iPad Air or Retina iPad mini.

Finite vs. future-proof

iPad Air and Retina iPad mini: Should you upgrade?

Apple is pretty good about supporting older devices. The 2011 iPad 2 is still be sold in stores, after all, and is compatible with iOS 7. However, compatibility comes with compromise. Older generation iPads have older generation hardware. They have lower screen density - standard instead of Retina - and outdated processors - Apple A5 instead of Apple A7. They also don't come with any storage options over 16GB - not 32GB, and certainly not 128GB.

So, while the iPad 2 and original iPad mini might have gotten iOS 7 this year, and be able to run iOS 7 apps, the odds of them being able to run iOS 8 or iOS 9 in a couple of years isn't great.

Alternatively, the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini, their awesome Retina displays, beefy 128GB storage options, and monstrous Apple A7 processors should last you for years to come.

Who should get an original iPad mini?

The iPad mini launched in October of 2012, and comes with a Lightning adapter. Aside from that, it's all old tech. Standard display instead of Retina, and Apple A5 processor instead of Apple A7. The current version does come with Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi + cellular options, but with only 16GB of storage, which isn't much these days.

If there's any way for you to save up an additional $100 for the Retina iPad mini, or better still, $200 for the 32GB Retina iPad mini, you'll have a much, much better experience. Otherwise, if you really want an iPad, and you've got $299 earmarked for it and not a penny more - or you're equipping a school or business by the score - get the iPad mini.

It's just not highly recommended, especially because of the limited storage.

Who should get an iPad 2?

The iPad 2 launched in April of 2011. It has no Lightning connector, a standard display instead of Retina, an Apple A5 processor instead of an Apple A7, and while it has Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi and cellular options, it maxes out at 16GB of storage, which can be hard to manage.

You might want to consider a Retina iPad mini for the same $399. If you can save up even $100 more, a 32GB Retina iPad mini is great, and a 16GB iPad Air is also go. For $200 more, you can get a state-of-the-art 32GB iPad Air. Otherwise, if you really want a full-sized iPad, and you've got $399 in your pocket and that's it - or you're equipping students or employees by the score - the iPad 2 is an option.

We just don't recommend it.

Who should get a Retina iPad mini?

The Retina iPad mini comes packed with 7.9-inches of 2048x1536 Retina display and a smoking fast Apple A7 processor. It's identical in every way but size, weight, and price to the iPad Air. That means choosing between them comes down to $100 and just about 2-inches.

If price is a consideration, the Retina iPad mini is a fantastic tablet, and starts at just $399. If size is a consideration, the Retina iPad mini is better if you want to travel with it, use it as a mobile hotspot, and otherwise value portability the most. (It'll fit in a back jeans pocket if it has to.) Likewise, if you already travel with a laptop, the Retina iPad mini is a great companion device.

Who should get an iPad Air?

The iPad Air is the current top-of-the-full-size-line iPad. It has a 9.7-inch, 2048x1536 Retina display and screamer of an Apple A7 processor. Aside from size, weight, and price, however, it's pretty much identical to the Retina iPad mini. So, your choice boils down to an extra $100 for an extra 2-inches.

If money is no object, the iPad Air starts at $499 and is the best big tablet on the market today. If size is something you're debating, the iPad Air is primed for people who use it around the house, office, or school, and otherwise put productively ahead of portability. (Those extra inches can come in handy.) Likewise, if you don't travel with a laptop, the the larger real-estate and keyboard size can make the iPad Air a much better replacement device. - iPad Air: Everything you need to know

Still undecided?

If you're still having trouble choosing between the iPad mini, iPad 2, Retina iPad mini, or iPad Air, jump into our iPad discussion forums and the best community in mobile will happily help you out.

Bottom line, don't spend money you don't have, but don't skimp if you don't have to. Your iPad will be one of the most often-used, most important possessions in your life for months and maybe years to come. Get as much iPad as you can reasonably afford, and then enjoy!


    






Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/olH17ku9qlg/story01.htm
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The Only Motion In This Music Video Is From Spinning CDs

Phenakistoscopes are old school machines that used illustrated discs to create animation. Kind of the round version of a flip book. And the Japanese band SOUR wanted those methods in their music video. The whole thing is pretty mesmerizing.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7KJOQdavqCQ/the-only-motion-in-this-music-video-is-from-spinning-cd-1453121236
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রবিবার, ২৭ অক্টোবর, ২০১৩

Exit polls in Georgia show big win for PM's choice


TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Exit polls in Georgia's presidential election indicated a big win on Sunday for the candidate backed by billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, cementing his control over the U.S.-aligned former Soviet republic.

Giorgi Margvelashvili, a former university rector with limited political experience, should get about 67 percent of the vote, the exit polls predicted.

He will succeed Mikhail Saakashvili, who during nearly a decade in power put Georgia on the path toward democracy, but deeply angered many Georgians with what they saw as the excesses and authoritarian turn of the later years of his presidency.

His party's candidate, former parliamentary speaker David Bakradze, was in second place with 20 percent. Bakradze, who now heads the opposition in parliament, quickly congratulated Margvelashvili and said he was ready to work together with the prime minister and president.

The exit polls were conducted by the market research organization GfK and commissioned by Georgian private television station Rustavi2.

Even with Margvelashvili's convincing victory, much remains uncertain.

Ivanishvili has promised to step down next month and nominate a new prime minister, who is almost certain to be approved by parliament. Under Georgia's new parliamentary system, the next prime minister will acquire many of the powers previously held by the president.

Ivanishvili has not yet named his choice to lead the country. And he says he intends to maintain influence over the government, although how is not entirely clear. But his fortune, estimated at $5.3 billion, gives him considerable leverage in this country of 4.5 million people with a gross domestic product of $16 billion.

Much uncertainty also hangs over Saakashvili's future. Since last year's election and what was in effect a transfer of power, dozens of people from Saakashvili's team, including several former government ministers, have been hit with criminal charges and some have been jailed, including the former prime minister.

Ivanishvili confirmed in an interview with The Associated Press that Saakashvili also is likely to be questioned by prosecutors once he leaves office next month.

Prosecutors have reopened a criminal inquiry into the 2005 death of Zurab Zhvania, who was Saakashvili's first prime minister. Zhvania's death was attributed to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty gas heater, but his brother has accused Saakashvili of hiding the truth.

Saakashvili also may face questioning over the 2008 war with Russia, which ended with Russian troops in full control of two breakaway Georgian republics. His opponents accuse him of needlessly antagonizing Russia and giving Moscow a pretext to invade.

Saakashvili repeated Sunday that he has no plans to flee the country. "No one can forbid me either to leave the country or to stay, but I do not intend to leave Georgia," he told television journalists while jogging along the Black Sea coast in western Georgia.

Bakradze's clear margin over the other 21 candidates should help Saakashvili's party maintain political influence.

He had faced the biggest challenge from Nino Burdzhanadze, a veteran politician who boasts of good relations with Moscow and has called for Saakashvili to be jailed. The exit polls showed her running a distant third with 7.5 percent.

While Ivanishvili made his money in Russia and has had some success in restoring trade ties with Georgia's hostile neighbor, he has maintained the pro-Western course set by Saakashvili.

"Nobody can change this. This is the will of the Georgian people, to see their country in the EU and in NATO," said Alexi Petriashvili, one of Ivanishvili's ministers. "The majority see the U.S. as Georgia's strongest strategic partner."

If not for Washington, Georgia most likely wouldn't have survived as an independent state, Petriashvili told the AP. He pointed to Washington's support for the closing of Russian military bases in Georgia in 2005.

The U.S. supports Georgia diplomatically and financially, with assistance in 2013 totaling about $70 million.

Ivanishvili's government has come under pressure from U.S. and EU officials to show that the justice system isn't being used to settle political scores and to refrain from jailing Saakashvili.

Despite the disillusionment with Saakashvili in recent years, the achievements of his presidency are difficult to deny. He brought the economy out of the shadow, restored electricity supplies, eradicated a corrupt traffic police force, and laid the foundation for a democratic state. Georgia's GDP has quadrupled since Saakashvili became president after leading the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution.

"Yes, everyone forgot how we sat in the darkness and what kind of roads we had," Marina Vezirishvili, 46, said after voting in Tbilisi. "But just so you know, I'm not a member of Misha's party and I didn't vote for their candidate."

Saakashvili, commonly known as Misha, has earned wide international respect for allowing the government to change through the ballot box rather than through revolution for the first time in Georgia's post-Soviet history.

"We have to recognize, whatever our position is inside Georgian political fights, that Georgia has been a great example," said Joao Soares, head of an election monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exit-polls-georgia-show-big-win-pms-choice-161520209.html
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Johnson-led Lions rally to beat Cowboys 31-30


DETROIT (AP) — Calvin Johnson thought Matthew Stafford was going to spike the ball for at least another snap.

The Dallas Cowboys did, too.

Stafford's 1-yard lunge over a pile of linemen with 12 seconds left and Johnson's 329 yards receiving lifted the Detroit Lions to a 31-30 win over Dallas on Sunday.

"I was yelling that I was going to spike the ball," Stafford recalled. "But their linebackers were just standing there."

The Cowboys weren't just standing around letting Johnson make catch after catch, but he made them look helpless.

Johnson almost broke an NFL record, and could celebrate the feat because of a comeback from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit that some people who entered Ford Field didn't see because they had left.

"Even our fans didn't think we could pull this one out," he said. "They were leaving, but we knew we could do it."

Johnson's total trails only the 336 yards receiving Flipper Anderson had for the Los Angeles Rams against New Orleans on Nov. 26, 1989 in a game that went into overtime. Anderson had 296 yards receiving in regulation.

The Cowboys dared Detroit to throw to Johnson with a lot of one-on-one coverage. They usually asked cornerback Brandon Carr to do the improbable by defending him by himself, and sometimes attempted to slow him down with a zone.

"He had his way," Carr said. "And, we couldn't find a way to keep him from rolling."

Johnson noticed.

"It was crazy," he said. "We had a lot of one-on-one coverage today, and we were able to take advantage and hit some deep balls. Matt made some great throws to me."

The Lions (5-3) overcame four turnovers without forcing a turnover, becoming the first team to do that and win since New England did against Miami in 2007, according to STATS.

On their last drive, Stafford threw a 22-yard pass to Johnson to set up the winning score. The quarterback caught at least some Cowboys by surprise, including linebacker Sean Lee, who appeared to expect him to spike the ball to stop the clock.

"He kind of caught us off-guard," defensive tackle Jason Hatcher acknowledged.

Dallas (4-4) seemed to set itself up to win three straight for the first time this year to build a bigger lead atop the NFC East when Tony Romo threw his second touchdown — and third of the game — to Dez Bryant with 6:45 left to take 27-17 lead.

The Cowboys, though, allowed Reggie Bush to cap an 80-yard drive with a 1-yard TD with 3:33 left. They also had to settle for Dan Bailey's third field goal with 1:02 left after Tyron Smith was flagged for holding on third down, a mistake that stopped the clock even though Detroit declined the penalty.

"If we don't get called for a penalty, I think they probably had 20 seconds or so left," Romo said.

With no timeouts, the Lions went from their 20 to the Cowboys end zone thanks in large part to a 17-yard pass to Johnson, a 40-yard connection with Kris Durham and Johnson's 14th reception that gave them the ball at the Dallas 1.

Instead of spiking the ball, Stafford took the snap and leaped with his arms extended to beat the team he rooted for growing up in Highland Park, Texas.

"I was just as fooled as the defense was," Lions offensive guard Larry Warford said.

Stafford was 33 of 48 for 488 yards —his second-highest total — with a 2-yard TD pass to Johnson in the first quarter and two interceptions. Reggie Bush had 92 yards rushing and a score.

Romo was 14 of 30, failing to complete half his passes for the first time since 2009, for 206 yards without a turnover.

Dallas began the game without two starters on both sides of the ball: DeMarco Murray and Miles Austin on offense and DeMarcus Ware and J.J. Wilcox on defense.

Late in the first half, Romo threw two straight passes to Bryant — after not making him the intended receiver once — and he caught the second one with his left hand, pinning it against his shoulder pad for a go-ahead, 5-yard TD with 46 seconds left in the first half.

Despite leading by six in the third quarter, Bryant didn't look happy. He flapped his arms and screamed at Romo on the sideline. After the loss, Bryant insisted his demonstrative actions were a result of his positive passion.

"People who have a problem with me are the people that don't understand what is going on," he said.

NOTES: Lions DE Ezekiel "Ziggy" Ansah (left ankle), WR Ryan Broyles (Achilles tendon) and CB Bill Bentley (knee) and Cowboys RG Brian Waters (triceps), CB Morris Claiborne (hamstring) and FS Barry Church (hamstring) were hurt during the game. ... The Lions have a bye next week while Dallas plays the Minnesota Vikings.

___

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org

___

Follow Larry Lage on Twitter: http://twitter.com/larrylage

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/johnson-led-lions-rally-beat-cowboys-31-30-204002410--spt.html
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'Bad Grandpa' sinks 'Gravity' to top box office

This photo released by Paramount Pictures shows Johnny Knoxville, left, as Irving Zisman and Jackson Nicoll as Billy in "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa," from Paramount Pictures and MTV Films. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Sean Cliver)







This photo released by Paramount Pictures shows Johnny Knoxville, left, as Irving Zisman and Jackson Nicoll as Billy in "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa," from Paramount Pictures and MTV Films. (AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Sean Cliver)







(AP) — Apparently astronauts are no match for Jackass.

According to studio estimates Sunday, Paramount's "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" tops the weekend box office with $32 million, sinking three-week champ "Gravity" to second place.

The Warner Bros. space drama starring Sandra Bullock added another $20.3 million to its haul, bringing its domestic ticket total to nearly $200 million.

Sony's high-seas thriller "Captain Phillips" held on to third place with $11.8 million.

Fox's "The Counselor," a gritty drama with an all-star cast that includes Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, debuted in fourth place with $8 million.

"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" rolled into fifth place in its fifth week of release with $6.1 million.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-27-US-Box%20Office/id-f9e8d302200140bba8a828490834782d
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Obama, Pakistani PM to meet amid easing tensions




In this Oct. 20, 2013, photo, Secretary of State John Kerry meets with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at the State Department in Washington. In the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, the mere fact that President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will sit down together at the White House on Wednesday, Oct. 23, is seen as a sign of progress. Few breakthroughs are expected on the numerous hot-button issues on their agenda Wednesday, including American drone strikes and Pakistan’s alleged support of the Taliban. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)





WASHINGTON (AP) — In the rocky relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan, the mere fact that President Barack Obama and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are sitting down together at the White House is seen as a sign of progress.

Few breakthroughs are expected on the numerous hot-button issues on their agenda Wednesday, including American drone strikes and Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban. But officials in both countries are hoping to scale back tensions that escalated after the 2011 U.S. strike within Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden and last year's accidental killing of two dozen Pakistani troops in an American airstrike along the Afghan border.

"We want to find ways for our countries to cooperate, even as we have differences on some issues, and we want to make sure that the trajectory of this relationship is a positive one," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Obama and Sharif talked on the phone earlier this year, but they have never met in person. Sharif, who served two earlier stints as Pakistan's prime minister, has held face-to-face talks with Secretary of State John Kerry and was scheduled to meet with other top U.S. officials while in Washington this week.

The prime minister's visit to the White House comes one day after Amnesty International released a report providing new details about the alleged victims of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan, one of them a 68-year-old grandmother hit while farming with her grandchildren. In Pakistan, there is widespread belief that American drone strikes kill large numbers of civilians and Sharif is expected to raise the issue with Obama.

The White House responded to the Amnesty report by defending the drone program, with Carney saying U.S. counterterrorism operations "are precise, they are lawful and they are effective."

Also on the agenda for Wednesday's meeting will be Obama's looming decision on whether to keep any American troops in Afghanistan after the war there formally concludes at the end of next year. Ahead of the U.S. withdrawal, the U.S. is seeking to push through a peace deal with the Taliban and Afghan government.

Pakistan is seen as key to this process because of its historical connection to the Taliban. It helped the group grab power in Afghanistan in 1996 and is widely believed to have maintained ties as a hedge against neighbor and nuclear rival India — an allegation denied by Islamabad.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pakistani-pm-meet-amid-easing-tensions-070348211.html
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Georgia votes for new president at watershed poll


Tbilisi (AFP) - Georgia voted in a presidential poll Sunday with a loyalist of billionaire Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili favourite to replace his larger-than-life nemesis Mikheil Saakashvili at the helm of the ex-Soviet state.

The vote heralds the end of pro-Western Saakashvili's second and last term and a year of his painful political cohabitation with bete noire Ivanishvili, who has promised to also step down in the coming weeks.

"Today we show that we are true Europeans," Ivanishvili told journalists as he voted. "People can truly exercise their right to make a free choice."

Stakes at the poll in the Western-backed Caucasus republic of some 4.5 million are lower this time round as consitutional changes will see the next president hand over many key powers to the prime minister after the vote.

Voting was slow at polling stations around capital Tbilisi and official turnout stood at under 18 percent as at mid-day local time (0800 GMT), according to the election commission.

Giorgi Margvelashvili -- a previously obscure university dean from Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition – was well ahead of former parliament speaker David Bakradze of Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) in pre-election opinion polls.

Margvelashvili, 44, has said he is so sure of claiming the 50 percent needed to win the first round -- in which 23 candidates are running -- that he would withdraw if the vote goes to a second round.

"We are confident that the country will make the right choice," Margvelashvili said as he voted with his student daughter.

But with a combative challenge from 49-year-old former parliament speaker Nino Burjanadze -- and up to 20 percent of voters undecided -- the poll could go to a second round.

'Completely different type of president'

At a polling station in a university in central Tbilisi, professor Serge Tsutskiridze said he voted for "reserved" Margvelashvili because he wanted to see a new style of leader after Saakashvili's divisive rule.

"I voted for him because he is a completely different type of person to Saakashvili. We don't need another emotional and headstrong president," said Tsutskiridze, 67.

Other voters said that they hoped to see Saakashvili's party remain a force in Georgian politics despite Saakashvili's exit.

"I voted for David Bakradze -- a moderate and experienced politician – because I don't want one-party rule in Georgia," said journalist Ketevan Kurdovanidze, 50.

Ivanishvili, 57, wrested power from Saakashvili's party in parliamentary polls last year, marking Georgia’s first orderly transition.

Observers from non-governmental organisation Transparency International said in a midday statement that the vote was being held in a "calm environment" but that the number of procedural violations was up on last year's vote.

Ivanishvili's coalition will remain in control of the government whatever the result of Sunday's vote, but the tycoon has promised to stick to a pledge to name a successor as premier and step down.

Georgia under Saakashvili has made joining NATO and the European Union a main priority, and Ivanishvili's coalition has pledged to press on with this drive.

They have also promised to try to mend ties with Moscow shattered by a brief 2008 war between the two that saw Georgia effectively lose two breakaway regions, where Russia has now stationed thousands of troops.

Western allies have expressed concern over perceived selective justice that has seen a string of Saakashvili's close allies arrested since his party lost power.

Saakashvili, 45, has said he wants to remain active in politics but Ivanishvili -- who denies that there has been a political witch-hunt -— has labelled him a "political corpse" and warned that he could face prosecution once his immunity ends when he leaves office.

During a tumultuous decade under Saakashvili -- who came to power after ousting Eduard Shevardnadze in the 2003 "Rose Revolution" -- Georgia cut corruption, built new infrastructure and revived the country's devastated economy.

However, Saakashvili's reforms angered many who felt left out by the rush to change and police brutality used in crushing opposition protests tarnished his image as a pioneering democrat.

Over 3.5 million people are eligible to vote in the election which is monitored by international observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Polls close at 1600 GMT and preliminary results are expected to begin coming out overnight.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/georgia-set-elect-president-watershed-poll-021712281.html
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LinkedIn Intro embeds professional profiles into Mail for iOS


The No. 1 activity people do with their smartphones is email -- LinkedIn says that up to 28 percent of a typical professional's day can be gobbled up by reading and responding to email on a mobile device.


And in LinkedIn's continued quest for world domination (the stated goal is to have no fewer than 3 billion professional profiles, one for every single member of the global workforce), the company wants to put its network where your eyeballs are: in the email app you're already using.


[ Also on InfoWorld: The 7 best new features in iOS 7. | Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]


LinkedIn's solution is Intro, which places a strip of LinkedIn profile information on every email you receive in the default Mail app for iOS. So if you get an email from someone you don't know, you can see at a glance their headshot, company, and title, with a handy button to let you add them to your LinkedIn network with one tap. Pull down on the strip to expand pretty much their whole LinkedIn profile, including the connections you share, their personal summary, work experience, education, you name it.


You can link Intro to your Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo Mail, AOL Mail, and iCloud -- no Exchange support at the moment. It adds a new account to your Mail settings, and instructs you to go turn off your older, non-Intro'ed account. You don't have to delete that account, only disable its Mail service, so it's easy to go back at any time. But if you leave both accounts on you'll see all those email messages twice in Mail's unified inbox).


LinkedIn Intro is built with technology from Rapportive, an email startup acquired by LinkedIn last year. Rapportive works as a browser plug-in that adds info about your messages' senders to the sidebar of Gmail, but this is the first time we've seen it in a mobile app -- let alone Mail, which is made by Apple, which is notorious for keeping tight control over every aspect of the user experience.


In our tests, Intro's usefulness is clear, although pretty contextual. If you get a business-related email from someone who's writing you from an email account associated with their LinkedIn profile, sure enough, there's a little strip of profile. So it's easy to see a little more about them than you'd get in a typical email signature, and you can take advantage of that info if and when you email them back.


And it's perfect if you want to add the contacts you correspond with to your LinkedIn network, since all it takes is a tap -- you're not redirected to the mobile LinkedIn app, or a website, or even the standalone LinkedIn Contacts app.


But if you don't care about making new LinkedIn connections, or you mostly correspond with people you already know, Intro doesn't add much. And since the profile only appears on received messages, when you go to reply, it vanishes from your view, so you have to either go back a screen or rely on your memory if you want to pepper your response with tidbits from their profile (say, if you went to the same school or have a mutual connection).


Intro also adds "a snippet of your LinkedIn profile" as a signature to your outgoing messages, although you can turn off that setting in the Intro settings app that's automatically installed when you add the service.


Source: http://images.infoworld.com/d/applications/linkedin-intro-embeds-professional-profiles-mail-ios-229460?source=rss_applications
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Nine out of 10 Macs are eligible for free Mavericks upgrade






OS X Mavericks, the Mac operating system Apple offered Tuesday as a free upgrade, could end up on more than 90 percent of Macs, according to statistics from a Web analytics company.


Net Applications’ latest data showed that 93 percent of current Macs run last year’s Mountain Lion, 2011’s Lion or 2009’s Snow Leopard, all eligible for the free upgrade to Mavericks.



Read Macworld's complete Mavericks installation guide



The California metrics firm measures operating system user share by tallying unique visitors to the tens of thousands of websites run by its customers.


But while some analysts have seen the free deal as a poke at rival Microsoft—which has charged fees for its Windows upgrades, if not for interim updates like the recent Windows 8.1—Apple may have had other reasons in mind.


Net ApplicationsAbout 93 percent of all Macs that went online in September are eligible for the free OS X Mavericks upgrade. (Click to enlarge.)


By pushing Mavericks, Apple can hope that a larger percentage of its customer base will upgrade, reducing OS fragmentation. As in iOS, whose users typically upgrade in droves to make the newest the default in weeks, a Mavericks strategy will give OS X developers a bigger target: The free upgrade means that developers can assume most Macs will be running Mavericks, and write for that edition to take advantage of new APIs (application programming interfaces) and features unique to OS X 10.9.


And if Mavericks is the standard, it also means developers will be more likely to abandon support for earlier editions. If they don’t have to provide backwards compatibility to Mountain Lion and its predecessors, the thinking goes, they can put their energies and resources behind new work, not spend it on support for older software.


As of Sept. 30, 49 percent of the Macs that went online worldwide were running OS X Mountain Lion. Lion and Snow Leopard were tied for second place, each with a user share of 22 percent.


The rise and fall of each new edition of the Mac’s operating system has been predictable, with both Lion and Mountain Lion reaching a 49 percent penetration by the time they were supplanted. Snow Leopard, which had two years at the top of the pile—versus the one year for Lion and Mountain Lion after Apple accelerated its release pace—reached 67 percent before ceding share to Lion.


That cyclical pattern has been upended by Apple’s decision to make Mavericks a free upgrade, and if history is any indication, the move will quickly draw down not only Mountain Lion’s share but also significantly reduce those of both Lion and Snow Leopard.


However, some will resist upgrading to Mavericks, take a pass on the deal and stick with what they’ve got.


From all accounts, the hardest edition to eliminate will be Snow Leopard, Apple’s Windows XP-esque OS that has been more resistant to suppression than the norm.


Many customers will stick with Snow Leopard because it was the last able to run applications designed for the Apple/IBM/Motorola-designed PowerPC processor.


Apple ditched the PowerPC processor in early 2006 when it shifted to the industry-standard Intel. Snow Leopard is the newest OS X that can use Rosetta, the translation utility that allows PowerPC software to run on Intel Macs. A year ago, when Computerworld published a story about Snow Leopard’s resistance to retirement, users who planned to stick with the edition because of the PowerPC issue came out of the woodwork.


“I would love to have some of the new enhancements in Mountain Lion, but I have lots of software that I still use, and want to continue to use, that is PowerPC only,” reader James Frederick said in a November 2012 email. “That will all die if I ‘upgrade.’ Because of this, I will not do so.”


Mavericks’ zero price may also get Apple out of a different jam.


Because of Snow Leopard users’ stubbornness, as well as its faster release cadence, Apple has supported OS X 10.6—Snow Leopard’s numerical designation—much longer than earlier editions. If a significant number of Snow Leopard users do upgrade to Mavericks, Apple could pull the security update plug.


Historically, Apple has patched only the OS X editions designated as “n” and “n-1”—where “n” is the newest available—and discarded support for “n-2” either before the launch of “n” or immediately after. Under that scheme, Apple should have stopped serving security updates to Snow Leopard (“n-2”) in mid-2012, when Mountain Lion (designated “n”) debuted.


Instead, the company continued to patch Snow Leopard; the latest security update shipped six weeks ago.


Apple may have now called it quits on Snow Leopard security updates: Although it cited 53 security vulnerabilities patched in Mavericks, it has not issued a corresponding update for Snow Leopard (or for Lion or Mountain Lion).


It’s conceivable that Apple will simply stop patching all versions of OS X prior to Mavericks, dispensing with its unwritten “n” and “n-1” support policy. If pressed, it could justify that decision by pointing to Mavericks and urge customers to upgrade to what would, in essence, be the only supported edition.


With those things in mind, it makes even more sense that Apple made Mavericks free. Internally, it likely argued that the move would not only be good public relations—as the media coverage attests—and indirectly contribute to more Mac sales, as analysts believed, but also would focus third-party developers and free its own engineers from pre-Mavericks support responsibilities.


“Free is good,” said Craig Federighi, who leads software engineering at Apple, as he announced on Tuesday that Mavericks would come without a sticker price.


Good for Apple, anyway.








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Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/2055459/nine-out-of-10-macs-are-eligible-for-free-mavericks-upgrade.html#tk.rss_all
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Microsoft ships Surface 2 tablets to lukewarm reviews


Microsoft officially launched its Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets on Tuesday morning, stealing a few hours of the spotlight before Apple is expected to announce refreshed versions of the iPad later on Tuesday.


Microsoft kicked off with midnight launch parties at several Microsoft Stores, where customers could win several "challenges" and win a chance to be flown to Florida for a special Pitbull concert. Photos from the Westchester, N.Y. launch and the Dadeland Mall in Miami indicate that at least a few people showed up.


[ iOS, Android, BlackBerry, or Windows Phone -- learn how to manage mobile devices in InfoWorld's 20-page BYOD and Mobile Management Deep Dive PDF special report. | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Consumerization of IT newsletter today. ]


The Microsoft Surface 2 costs $449, and will be available in 32GB and 64GB configurations. Surface Pro 2 will come in 64GB and 128GB configurations with 4GB of RAM as well as 256GB and 512GB configurations with 8GB of RAM, with prices starting at $899. Some of the orders for the higher-end Surface Pro 2 options have been pushed back until December, although Microsoft has said that it may have some in stock at physical stores.


The thinner, backlit Touch Cover will cost $120, while the new Type Cover will sell for $130.


Over time, Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 could end up being the face of modular computing, with a docking station and so-called Power Cover debuting next year. But Microsoft has had to weather the embarrassment of writing down its first-generation Surface tablets to the tune of over $900 million, as demand for the pricey tablets fizzled. Microsoft then instituted a series of discounts to try to move its inventory, with limited success.


Same song, different verse


Unfortunately, early reviews of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 were middling. As with the first generation, the Surface hardware was almost uniformly praised, with reviewers generally panning the lack of Windows RT/Surface 2 apps within the Microsoft Store. PCWorld conducted its own hands-on of the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablet. Look for our own review within the next few days.


Below is a sampling of the Web's Surface reviews:


Engadget:
Surface 2 review score: none. Engadget praised the tablet's battery life from going from "impressively long to ridiculously long" but noted the discrepancy between its emphasis on productivity and the lack of available apps. Although a "top-notch" product, "recommending the Surface becomes harder when there are other Windows tablets that cost less and run full Windows".


Surface Pro 2 review score: none. "When it came time to hand down a verdict on the first Surface Pro, we ultimately decided that, nice as it was, it felt compromised as both a laptop and a tablet," the site concluded. Buy a convertible ultrabook instead, the site recommended.


The Verge:
Surface 2 review score: 7.1 out of 10. The Verge concluded that the Surface 2 marginally improves on the existing hardware, but was unimpressed by the battery life and the lack of available applications.


Surface Pro 2 review score: 7.8 out of 10. Again, too much was left unchanged from the previous generation, The Verge found, with not enough redemption from within the upgraded hardware.


Source: http://akamai.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/microsoft-ships-surface-2-tablets-lukewarm-reviews-229255?source=rss_mobile_technology
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UK police seize parts from 3D-printed gun

Undated handout photo made available by Greater Manchester Police in northern England Friday Oct. 25, 2013 of a plastic gun trigger made with a 3D printer which was found by officers during a raid on suspected gang members in the Bagley area of Manchester. Police said Friday that if the gun were viable it would be the first such seizure in Britain. (AP Photo/Greater Manchester Police)







Undated handout photo made available by Greater Manchester Police in northern England Friday Oct. 25, 2013 of a plastic gun trigger made with a 3D printer which was found by officers during a raid on suspected gang members in the Bagley area of Manchester. Police said Friday that if the gun were viable it would be the first such seizure in Britain. (AP Photo/Greater Manchester Police)







Undated handout photo made available by Greater Manchester Police in northern England Friday Oct. 25, 2013 of a plastic gun clip made with a 3D printer which was found by officers during a raid on suspected gang members in the Bagley area of Manchester. Police said Friday that if the gun were viable it would be the first such seizure in Britain. (AP Photo/Greater Manchester Police)







Undated handout photo made available by Greater Manchester Police in northern England Friday Oct. 25, 2013 of a 3D printer used to make plastic gun components which was found by officers during a raid on suspected gang members in the Bagley area of Manchester. Police said Friday that if the gun were viable it would be the first such seizure in Britain. (AP Photo/Greater Manchester Police)







LONDON (AP) — British police said Friday they have seized components of a gun made from plastic on a 3-D printer and are testing to see whether it was a viable weapon.

The Greater Manchester Police force said officers found a plastic magazine and trigger, along with a 3-D printer, in a raid against suspected gang members.

Forensic specialists are examining the parts to see whether the gun would have worked.

Police said that if the gun were viable it would be the first such seizure in Britain.

Earlier this year a Texas company said it had successfully test-fired a handgun created with a 3-D printer, and posted blueprints for the weapon online. Such printers can be paired with a home computer to manufacture objects using layers of high-density plastic.

Authorities worry the technology could allow anyone to manufacture guns which would pass unnoticed through metal detectors.

"These could be the next generation of firearms and a lot more work needs to be done to understand the technology and the scale of the problem," said Detective Inspector Chris Mossop of the force's organized crime unit.

Police said one man was being questioned on suspicion of making gunpowder.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-25-EU-Britain-3D-Printer-Gun/id-c780d22703e1414f8fcb49944b05db25
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Indonesia to ban masked monkey shows in capital

In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, a street monkey wears a baby doll mask as it performs in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, a street monkey wears a baby doll mask as it performs in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, a street monkey wears a baby doll mask as it performs in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, a street monkey performs in a slum in Jakarta, Indonesia. Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







In this photo taken on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, a monkey follows as his handler, left, is caught by city security officers in Jakarta, Indonesia, Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







In this photo taken on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, a street monkey clings on the back of a busker who is caught by city security officers in Jakarta, Indonesia. Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances in a move aimed at improving public order and preventing diseases carried by the monkeys. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)







(AP) — Indonesia's capital is saying no to monkey business. Literally.

Security forces are fanning out across Jakarta conducting raids to rescue macaques used in popular street masked monkey performances.

The order came from Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo, better known as "Jokowi," who wants all roadside monkey performances — known here as topeng monyet — gone by next year.

He said that besides improving public order and stopping animal abuse, the move is aimed at preventing diseases carried by the monkeys.

The city government will buy back all monkeys used as street buskers for about $90 and shelter them at a 1-hectare (2.5-acre) preserve at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo. The handlers and caretakers will be provided vocational training to help find new jobs.

Animal rights groups have long campaigned for a ban on the shows, which often involve monkeys wearing plastic baby doll heads on their faces. They say the monkeys are hung from chains for long periods to train them to walk on their hind legs like humans. Their teeth are pulled so they can't bite, and they are tortured to remain obedient. The monkeys are often outfitted in dresses and cowboy hats and forced to carry parasols or ride tiny bikes.

Femke den Haas of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network welcomed the decision, saying at least 22 monkeys have been rescued since the sweep began last week and quarantined for health issues. She estimated about 350 animals work as street performers in Jakarta, adding they are no longer able to live with other primates in zoos and cannot defend themselves in the wild.

In 2011, backed by the city administration, the group rescued 40 monkeys used in shows, which are often performed when traffic is backed up at Jakarta's notoriously congested intersections. Many suffered illnesses, including tuberculosis and hepatitis.

Many of the macaques are trained at a slum area in eastern Jakarta, known locally as "monkey village." A trained macaque can be sold for up to $135.

Sarinah, 37, who owns 13 monkeys used in the daily street shows, said the ban has hurt her livelihood. Seven of her macaques have been confiscated in recent raids.

"Of course I'm disappointed ... but I cannot do anything!" said Sarinah, a mother of three who uses a single name like many Indonesians.

She said she takes good care of the animals and loves them like her own children.

"They are the source of our life, how could we be cruel to them? No way," she said, adding that she earns about $3 daily from each monkey rented out to handlers.

She said she will keep her remaining monkeys hidden while waiting for a new job.

The mayor of Bandung, the provincial capital of West Java, has announced plans to ban monkey shows there as well.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-27-Indonesia-Monkey%20Business/id-6f7b0b045ef749a7b4a5a8b2faaef461
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