It's just over a month since Apple threw its big iPhone 5s/5c event over in Cupertino, but the company's already back with more to discuss -- or "cover," as it were. New iPads? A refreshed Apple TV? More Maverick goodness? Your guess is as good as ours. Thankfully, we don't have to wait that much ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/h4R9-IOsINY/Apple Inc. unveiled a pair of new iPads and new MacBook Pro computers, among other products, at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday. Here are some product specifications:
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IPAD AIR
SIZE: 9.4 inches tall, 6.6 inches wide and 0.29 inch thick
WEIGHT: 1 pound
DISPLAY: 9.7 inches diagonally
RESOLUTION: 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 264 pixels per inch
CHIP: A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor
COLORS: Black with space gray, white with silver
PRICE: $499 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $599 for 32 GB, $699 for 64 GB and $799 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will still sell the 2011 model, iPad 2, for $399.
AVAILIBILITY: Nov. 1
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IPAD MINI
SIZE: 7.87 inches tall, 5.3 inches wide, 0.29 inch thick
WEIGHT: 0.73 pound
DISPLAY: 7.9 inches diagonally
RESOLUTION: 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels, at 326 pixels per inch
CHIP: A7 chip with 64-bit architecture and M7 motion coprocessor
COLORS: Black with space gray, white with silver
PRICE: $399 for a Wi-Fi-only 16 gigabyte model, $499 for 32 GB, $599 for 64 GB and $699 for 128 GB. Add $130 for models with 4G LTE cellular access. Apple will sell last year's model, without the sharper display, for $299, down from $329.
AVAILABILITY: November
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MACBOOK PRO - 13 INCH
SIZE: 0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 12.35 inches wide and 8.62 inches deep
WEIGHT: 3.46 pounds
DISPLAY: 13.3-inches diagonally
RESOLUTION: 2,560 pixels by 1,600 pixels, at 227 pixels per inch
CAMERA: 720p FaceTime HD Camera
BATTERY: Up to 9 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby
PRICE: Starts at $1,299 for model with 128 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5
AVAILIBILITY: Tuesday
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MACBOOK PRO - 15 INCH
SIZE: 0.71 inch thick, (when closed), 14.13 inches wide and 9.73 inches deep
WEIGHT: 4.46 pounds
DISPLAY: 15.4 inches diagonally
RESOLUTION: 2,880 pixels by 1,800 pixels, at 220 pixels per inch
CAMERA: 720p FaceTime HD Camera
BATTERY: Up to 8 hours wireless web, or 30 days standby
PRICE: Starts at $1,999 for model with 256 gigabytes of solid-state memory, 2.0 GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
AVAILIBILITY: Tuesday
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OTHER PRODUCTS:
— MAC PRO: A high-end desktop computer in a cylinder casing and assembled in Austin, Texas. Available in December for a starting price of $2,999.
— MAVERICKS. The latest version of the Mac operating system. Unlike previous updates, Apple is releasing it for free. It promises better battery life, improved file management and new apps such as a Mac version of Maps.
— IWORK. Apple is refreshing its suite of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. Apple is offering it for free with new Mac and iOS devices. Once you buy the new device, you can install the app in older devices you own. Each of the three apps normally costs $20 for the Mac and $10 for iPhones and iPads.
— ILIFE. Apple also is refreshing its iPhoto and iMovie editing software and the GarageBand app for creating music. New features are available for both Mac and iOS devices. It's also free with new Mac and iOS devices.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-22-Apple%20Event-Glance/id-876c5212195040a696a3cf2be012e695White House press secretary Jay Carney introduces Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman who spoke about the economy post government shutdown at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Furman said the addition of 148,000 jobs in September is a sign of "solid" growth but forecasts worsening in October because of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
White House press secretary Jay Carney introduces Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman who spoke about the economy post government shutdown at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Furman said the addition of 148,000 jobs in September is a sign of "solid" growth but forecasts worsening in October because of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama, standing with supporters of his health care law, speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Crammed into conference rooms with pizza for dinner, some programmers building the Obama administration's showcase health insurance website were growing increasingly stressed. Some worked past 10 p.m., energy drinks in hand. Others rewrote computer code over and over to meet what they considered last-minute requests for changes from the government or other contractors.
As questions mount over the website's failure, insider interviews and a review of technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.
Meanwhile, the White House said that President Barack Obama's longtime adviser Jeffrey Zients will provide management advice to help fix the system. White House press secretary Jay Carney says Zients will be on a short-term assignment at the Health and Human Services Department before he's due to take over as director of Obama's National Economic Council Jan. 1.
Carney cited Zients' expertise as a longtime management consultant and his "proven track record" since coming to the White House in 2009, both as interim budget director and as chief performance officer, when he headed an effort to streamline government and cut costs. "We're engaged in an all-out effort to improve the online experience," Carney said.
This is not the first time Obama has turned to Zients for help solving a major problem. In the 2009, after far more drivers than anticipated signed up for the Cash for Clunkers program that promised rebates to people who traded in their old cars for more fuel-efficient vehicles, Obama assigned Zients, his deputy budget director at the time, to help eliminate the backlog.
When the same thing happened with sign-ups for an updated version of the GI Bill, one designed to help the 9/11 generation of veterans get a college education, Obama again turned to Zients.
"He's not going to be looking under the hood and tell you 'I can fix the coding, I can fix it,'" Kenneth Baer, who was a senior adviser to Zients at the budget office, said of Zients' newest assignment. "His skill is going to be how to identify challenges, prioritize what solutions need to be done next, assessing what talent is already available and then how to motivate them to do that job as quickly and as ably as possible."
Aneesh Chopra, who was Obama's chief technology officer, said Zients is extremely skilled in figuring things out from a management perspective.
"If I was confident this issue would be resolved before his participation, I am doubly so now," said Chopra, who also worked with Zients at the Advisory Board Co., one of two business advisory firms where Zients held top posts. "Jeff's track record is really a relentless focus on execution."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a post on HealthCare.gov that her agency is also bringing in more experts and specialists from government and industry, including top Silicon Valley companies.
"This new infusion of talent will bring a powerful array of subject matter expertise and skills, including extensive experience scaling major IT systems," she said. "This effort is being marshaled as part of a cross-functional team that is working aggressively to diagnose parts of HealthCare.gov that are experiencing problems, learn from successful states, prioritize issues, and fix them."
Project developers for the health care website who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity — because they feared they would otherwise be fired — said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the system's complexity. Insurance applicants have a host of personal information verified, including income and immigration status. The system connects to other federal computer networks, including ones at the Social Security Administration, IRS, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.
Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as "kinks in the system." But in remarks at a Rose Garden event, Obama offered no explanation for the failure except to note that high traffic to the website caused some of the slowdowns. He said it had been visited nearly 20 million times — fewer monthly visits so far than many commercial websites, such as PayPal, AOL, Wikipedia or Pinterest.
"The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am."
The online system was envisioned as a simple way for people without health insurance to comparison-shop among competing plans offered in their state, pick their preferred level of coverage and cost and sign up. For many, it's not worked out that way so far.
Just weeks before the launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, one programmer said, colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch "bugs," or deficiencies in computer code. Unresolved problems led to visitors experiencing cryptic error messages or enduring long waits trying to sign up.
Congressional investigators have concluded that the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, not private software developers, tested the exchange's computer systems during the final weeks. That task, known as integration testing, is usually handled by software companies because it ferrets out problems before the public sees the final product.
The government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
CGI Federal said in a statement Monday it was working with the government and other contractors "around the clock" to improve the system, which it called "complex, ambitious and unprecedented."
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials designated a "data services hub" — a traffic cop for managing information — in lieu of a design that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information. On Sunday, the Health and Human Services Department said the data hub was working but not meeting public expectations: "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials so far have refused to say how many people actually have managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach projections from the Congressional Budget Office that 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Instead, officials have selectively cited figures that put the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The snags have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior administration officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.
Even as the president spoke at the Rose Garden, more problems were coming to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week. And the government tweaked the website's home page so visitors can now view phone numbers to apply the old-fashioned way or window-shop for insurance rates without registering first.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee was expected to conduct an oversight hearing Thursday, probably without Sebelius testifying. She could testify on Capitol Hill on the subject as early as next week.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty. The administration says it's working to address the timing issue to provide more flexibility.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., plans to introduce legislation to delay that requirement because: "It's not fair to punish people for not buying something that's not available," Rubio told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.
Citing the website problems, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., also urged the White House to extend the open enrollment period past March 31, 2014.
In a letter Tuesday to Obama, Shaheen suggested extending open enrollment to "provide greater flexibility for the American people seeking to access health insurance," according to an emailed statement from her office. Shaheen also asked the White House to clarify how the "individual responsibility penalty will be administered and enforced" in light of the website's difficulties.
On Monday, the White House advised people frustrated by the online tangle that they can enroll by calling 1-800-318-2596 in a process that should take 25 minutes for an individual or 45 minutes for a family. Assistance is also available in communities from helpers who can be found at LocalHelp.HealthCare.gov.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jackgillum or Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-22-Obama-Health%20Care/id-077414b1e5ec445bab6e6ce97a25d0f7![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sjj3JmTydTVrSPItO-pmUc9QkaLdS4N8qWyXxakc5qC7ZPJBWSA-NdEOwUlrgO1rakTkL-6k3PdvxrxvKLPvqFzVDVdbWLoolEeA1aCOY=s0-d){kind=small}
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
A month ago Hurricane Manuel caused landslides and extensive flooding along Mexico's Pacific Ocean coast. Recently formed Hurricane Raymond is expected to cause heavy rainfall in nearly the same area. NASA's TRMM satellite measured the rate of heavy rainfall that Raymond was generating over the Mexican coast.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew directly above hurricane Raymond on Oct. 21 at 0111 UTC/Oct. 20 at 6:11 p.m. PDT). TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data from that orbit shows that Hurricane Raymond contained towering thunderstorms on the western side of the eye wall that were reaching to heights above 15 km/~9.3 miles.
TRMM PR also recorded precipitation in Raymond's eye wall that was falling at a rate of over 153 mm/~5.6 inches per hour and returning radar reflectivity values greater than 53dBZ to the satellite. Rain was shown by TRMM to be falling at a rate of over 30 mm /~1.2 inches per hour along Mexico's coast.
On Oct. 22, the heavy rain continued along the southwestern coast of Mexico, and warnings were still in effect. The following warnings and watches were in effect on Oct. 22, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC): a Hurricane Warning is in effect for Tecpan de Galeana to Lazaro Cardenas; a Hurricane Watch is in effect for Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana; and a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana.
In short, what those warnings mean is hurricane-force and tropical-storm-force winds in the warning areas, accompanied by heavy rainfall, dangerous storm surges, riptides, heavy surf, and coastal flooding.
The heavy rainfall that TRMM observed is affecting the coast. The National Hurricane Center expects Raymond to generate between 4 and 8 inches with isolated totals up to 12 inches over the Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoachan. As with rainfall this heavy, flash flooding and mudslides can occur.
As of 8 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, a weather station near Acapulco, Mexico reported 7.63 inches/194 mm of rain in the previous 48 hours and it was still raining.
By 11 a.m. EDT, Raymond's maximum sustained winds were near 105 mph/165 kph. Raymond's center was located near latitude 16.5 north and longitude 101.9 west. That puts the center of the storm about 85 miles/135 km south-southwest of Zihuatanejo and 135 miles/220 km west-southwest of Acapulco. Raymond was stationary for hours during the morning of Oct. 22, and the storm is expected to move slowly and erratically, and possibly closer to the coast before moving west-southwest on Oct. 23.
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Text credit: Hal Pierce/Rob Gutro
SSAI/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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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.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Rob Gutro
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
A month ago Hurricane Manuel caused landslides and extensive flooding along Mexico's Pacific Ocean coast. Recently formed Hurricane Raymond is expected to cause heavy rainfall in nearly the same area. NASA's TRMM satellite measured the rate of heavy rainfall that Raymond was generating over the Mexican coast.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite flew directly above hurricane Raymond on Oct. 21 at 0111 UTC/Oct. 20 at 6:11 p.m. PDT). TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data from that orbit shows that Hurricane Raymond contained towering thunderstorms on the western side of the eye wall that were reaching to heights above 15 km/~9.3 miles.
TRMM PR also recorded precipitation in Raymond's eye wall that was falling at a rate of over 153 mm/~5.6 inches per hour and returning radar reflectivity values greater than 53dBZ to the satellite. Rain was shown by TRMM to be falling at a rate of over 30 mm /~1.2 inches per hour along Mexico's coast.
On Oct. 22, the heavy rain continued along the southwestern coast of Mexico, and warnings were still in effect. The following warnings and watches were in effect on Oct. 22, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC): a Hurricane Warning is in effect for Tecpan de Galeana to Lazaro Cardenas; a Hurricane Watch is in effect for Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana; and a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana.
In short, what those warnings mean is hurricane-force and tropical-storm-force winds in the warning areas, accompanied by heavy rainfall, dangerous storm surges, riptides, heavy surf, and coastal flooding.
The heavy rainfall that TRMM observed is affecting the coast. The National Hurricane Center expects Raymond to generate between 4 and 8 inches with isolated totals up to 12 inches over the Mexican states of Guerrero and Michoachan. As with rainfall this heavy, flash flooding and mudslides can occur.
As of 8 a.m. EDT on Oct. 22, a weather station near Acapulco, Mexico reported 7.63 inches/194 mm of rain in the previous 48 hours and it was still raining.
By 11 a.m. EDT, Raymond's maximum sustained winds were near 105 mph/165 kph. Raymond's center was located near latitude 16.5 north and longitude 101.9 west. That puts the center of the storm about 85 miles/135 km south-southwest of Zihuatanejo and 135 miles/220 km west-southwest of Acapulco. Raymond was stationary for hours during the morning of Oct. 22, and the storm is expected to move slowly and erratically, and possibly closer to the coast before moving west-southwest on Oct. 23.
###
Text credit: Hal Pierce/Rob Gutro
SSAI/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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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.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A year after Superstorm Sandy tore through New York and New Jersey, displacing tens of thousands of people and racking up billions in property damage, the Red Cross is still facing criticism for its relief efforts.
Many storm victims and their elected officials slammed the nation’s leading relief agency just after Sandy’s landfall last Oct. 29 for being too slow to get volunteers and supplies out to the hardest-hit areas. Now, nearly 200 Sandy survivors say the Red Cross is denying funds they were promised last year to help them fix their homes.
The 132-year-old agency had raised $308 million for Sandy relief as of last month, and a spokeswoman says it has spent 90 percent of it so far, most in direct donations to victims and community organizations. While that figure pales in comparison to the more than $60 billion in federal funds approved for Sandy relief, the Red Cross is by far the biggest nongovernment player in relief efforts and is where most people go to donate if they want to help after any disaster. Even President Barack Obama urged people to contribute to the Red Cross to help with Sandy recovery efforts, calling it the "best" option for those who want to help storm victims. Click image above for: Portraits of Hurricane Sandy slideshow. (Photos by Gordon Donovan/Yahoo News)
But many of those affected by the storm said the Red Cross took too long to get volunteers, staff and supplies to the hardest hit areas. James Molinaro, president of the Staten Island borough of New York City, flatly said people shouldn’t donate to the agency if they wanted to help survivors . The agency countered that it hadn’t been able to pre-position supplies and other assistance before the storm made landfall since that would have put staff in danger, and Molinaro later praised the Red Cross for their relief work on the island.
Last summer, a different set of complaints surfaced from a watchdog organization called the Disaster Accountability Project. The group filed a complaint in July signed by more than 150 Sandy survivors with the New York attorney general’s office over the Red Cross’s Move-In Assistance Program. The group claims victims were told by Red Cross caseworkers that they had qualified to receive up to $10,000 to repair their homes, only to find out later they no longer qualified. The mix-up led to crushing disappointment and added financial hardship for those attempting to put their lives back together, the complaint argues.
A total of 185 people had signed onto the petition as of mid-October, and Disaster Accountability Project founder Ben Smilowitz says he believes hundreds more were also denied the help after initially being told they qualified. Some who signed the petition, told by Red Cross representatives that a check was in the mail, hired contractors or made other financial decisions before the funding was revoked, Smilowitz said.
A spokeswoman for the attorney general, Melissa Grace, said the office would not comment on the Red Cross complaint, which is still pending. Meanwhile, the Red Cross says that it never changed its requirements for the program, but last summer said that some caseworkers had been misinformed and may have given out the wrong information to applicants.
One such applicant is Denise Rinzivillo, 44, who is currently living in her car after she lost a court case against her landlord, who evicted her from her Staten Island home last month. Rinzivillo was told in April by a Red Cross caseworker that she qualified for up to $10,000 in assistance because the house she was renting appeared infested with mold. Rinzivillo said she needed money for a deposit and first month’s rent to move into a new apartment.
Rinzivillo and her family had stayed in the rented house during Sandy, watching the water rise up to the stairs as if they were in a fishbowl. They continued to live in a few rooms upstairs for months after that, unable to leave and find a new place to rent because Rinzivillo’s husband, a butcher, had lost his job. Rental prices also went up on the island after the storm, making things more difficult still.
“The Red Cross came to my house and interviewed me, and wouldn’t come into the house because they smelled the mold from outside,” Rinzivillo said. “They handed me the paperwork right there and then. They told me I’m entitled to it.”
She filled out the paperwork, but learned later the criteria had changed for the rental assistance. She was told that she had to have stayed at a hotel funded by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to qualify. Rinzivillo said she felt punished for choosing to stay at her house rather than relying on government assistance.
“I mean it’s ridiculous that they make me go through all this paperwork, running around and getting all this stuff, just to deny me,” she said. “I can’t keep doing it.”
Rinzivillo stayed at a city-funded hotel after she was evicted, and then spent her remaining savings on the hotel room before she ran out of money and moved into her car. She had to send her three dogs to a shelter in Brooklyn, where she’s worried they will be euthanized.
“Thanks to the Red Cross, I’m homeless,” she said.
The agency says it reviewed Rinzivillo's case and let her and her case manager know that she was eligible for assistance if she provided documentation. "To our knowledge, to date, she has not provided that documentation," spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego said.
The Red Cross also insists the agency’s eligibility requirements for the Move-In Assistance Program have always been the same: that a person’s primary home had to have been destroyed, and that they had to have been living in a government-provided hotel or received the FEMA maximum grant for their home after the storm.
Borrego said that the program provided $16 million to 3,000 households affected by Sandy. They expect to give out another $5 million in move-in assistance before the program is over.
“We are reviewing the names of those who signed the petition,” Borrego said. “If there were errors made, we’re going to correct them.”
Borrego said that the program’s guidelines are important to prevent people who don’t actually need help from getting aid.
“When folks were texting $10 to Hurricane Sandy victims, they wanted to be sure we were going to spend those dollars wisely,” she said. “A vast majority of those who are applying to us are well-meaning, but we do occasionally find examples of fraud.”
Out of $308 million the Red Cross raised from donations, $280 million has been committed or spent already.
The organization says it learned important lessons from Sandy that it hopes to use to improve next time.
“Responding to disasters in large urban areas provides really unique challenges,” Borrego said. “We need to pre-position more supplies inside urban areas like New York City to ensure they’re more mobile.”
The group is now putting dozens of mobile trailers around the city with bulk relief supplies like blankets, chargers and flashlights so that if another huge storm strikes, those necessities will already be there.
Sandy also drove home to the Red Cross just how extreme certain weather events can be. “We can have a hurricane followed by a snowstorm in a week,” Borrego said. “This is actually something that can happen.”
Update: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that the Red Cross has informed Rinzivillo that she is eligible for assistance and that James Molinaro praised the agency for its relief efforts a year after his initial criticism.
Nokia's just announced a new camera app called Refocus Lens at Nokia World that brings a Lytro-like variable depth of field to Lumia cameras. Likely to be the fruits of that Scalado purchase from a while back, it'll let you change the focus of a snapshot using "clever algorithms" while adding ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/VShcnTkH3CA/PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Franziska Hornig
franziska.hornig@springer.com
49-622-148-78414
Springer
A new study set out to use numerical simulations to validate previous theoretical predictions describing materials exhibiting so-called antiferromagneting characteristics. A recently discovered theory shows that the ordering temperature depends on two factors -- namely the spin-wave velocity and the staggered magnetisation. The results, largely consistent with these theoretical predictions, have now been published in a paper in EPJ B by Ming-Tso Kao and Fu-Jiun Jiang from the National Taiwan Normal University, in Taipei.
In antiferromagnetic materials, the spins of electrons align in a regular pattern pointing in opposite directions to their neighbours. The materials' magnetic ordering conditions the temperature, referred to as the Nel temperature, above which the macroscopic magnetic ordering is no longer present.
The authors attempted to confirm a new universal law established between the thermal and quantum properties of these three-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets. Specifically, the law suggests that the Nel temperature can be related to the staggered magnetisation density near a quantum critical point (QCP). At that point, there is a special class of continuous magnetic phase transition taking place at the absolute zero of temperature, driven by quantum-level fluctuations.
In order to produce quantitative predictions, they simulated a specific three-dimensional relevant model using the first principles of approximation-free Monte Carlo calculations. The authors thus extracted the Nel temperature, the zero-temperature staggered magnetisation in the system and the spinwave velocity.
They found that the universal relation is valid to a great extent, while there is a discrepancy between the theoretical predictions and the simulation results. Further investigation, they believe, is required in order to better understand the discrepancy. For example, this could mean investigating whether the predicted universal relation is valid qualitatively or quantitatively for the same type and different type of quantum phase transitions occurring in other models than that considered here.
###
References:
M.-T. Kao, F.-J. Jiang (2013), Investigation of a universal behavior between Nel temperature and staggered magnetization density for a three-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet, European Physical Journal B, DOI 10.1140/epjb/e2013-40726-6
For more information visit: http://www.epj.org
The full-text article is available to journalists on request.
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.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Franziska Hornig
franziska.hornig@springer.com
49-622-148-78414
Springer
A new study set out to use numerical simulations to validate previous theoretical predictions describing materials exhibiting so-called antiferromagneting characteristics. A recently discovered theory shows that the ordering temperature depends on two factors -- namely the spin-wave velocity and the staggered magnetisation. The results, largely consistent with these theoretical predictions, have now been published in a paper in EPJ B by Ming-Tso Kao and Fu-Jiun Jiang from the National Taiwan Normal University, in Taipei.
In antiferromagnetic materials, the spins of electrons align in a regular pattern pointing in opposite directions to their neighbours. The materials' magnetic ordering conditions the temperature, referred to as the Nel temperature, above which the macroscopic magnetic ordering is no longer present.
The authors attempted to confirm a new universal law established between the thermal and quantum properties of these three-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets. Specifically, the law suggests that the Nel temperature can be related to the staggered magnetisation density near a quantum critical point (QCP). At that point, there is a special class of continuous magnetic phase transition taking place at the absolute zero of temperature, driven by quantum-level fluctuations.
In order to produce quantitative predictions, they simulated a specific three-dimensional relevant model using the first principles of approximation-free Monte Carlo calculations. The authors thus extracted the Nel temperature, the zero-temperature staggered magnetisation in the system and the spinwave velocity.
They found that the universal relation is valid to a great extent, while there is a discrepancy between the theoretical predictions and the simulation results. Further investigation, they believe, is required in order to better understand the discrepancy. For example, this could mean investigating whether the predicted universal relation is valid qualitatively or quantitatively for the same type and different type of quantum phase transitions occurring in other models than that considered here.
###
References:
M.-T. Kao, F.-J. Jiang (2013), Investigation of a universal behavior between Nel temperature and staggered magnetization density for a three-dimensional quantum antiferromagnet, European Physical Journal B, DOI 10.1140/epjb/e2013-40726-6
For more information visit: http://www.epj.org
The full-text article is available to journalists on request.
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Signed in 2010, Microsoft and Yahoo’s ten-year Search Alliance was supposed to lift Google’s stronghold on search advertising. But the deal has steadily eroded since then, with the latest sign coming from a court filing that says Yahoo tried to delay adopting Bing search in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
U.S. District judge Robert P. Patterson ruled on Monday that Yahoo must start using Microsoft’s search technology in those two markets under the terms of its agreement. The court filing show that Yahoo was reluctant to roll out Bing in Hong Kong and Taiwan because it wanted to see if Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s successor is equally committed to the deal. Yahoo was scheduled to start using Bing in those two countries this month, but told Microsoft on September 20 that it wanted to delay the launch until early 2014. Judge Patterson upheld an earlier ruling by an arbitrator that Yahoo’s “breach of the agreement ‘established irreparable harm to Microsoft.’”
Monday’s court ruling is the latest indication of how unhappy Yahoo is with the Search Alliance. In February 2013, Mayer said during a conference that the agreement was underperforming and had not delivered the market share gains or revenue boost that was expected. Google still retains the same two-third share of the U.S. search market that it had in 2010, compared to Microsoft’s 16.3% share and Yahoo’s 12.2%, according to comScore.
Both Yahoo and Microsoft have also gone significant strategic shifts since entering into the Search Alliance, which was signed two years before Mayer became CEO. Microsoft has yet to announce Ballmer’s successor yet, but it’s almost certain that the company’s next leader will lead the largest retooling of its hardware and software strategies since the 1990s.
Think you’re one of the best developers in all of Berlin? Here’s your chance to prove it — and maybe, just maybe, take home a nice stack of cash for your efforts.
This weekend, we’re bringing our TechCrunch Disrupt conference to Europe for the first time — and to kick it all off, we’re throwing one of our crazy, wonderfully-exhausting hackathons.
This’ll be the last batch of tickets we release before the event. Oh, as if the deal weren’t sweet enough: we’ve added a bunch of new prizes to the mix. Oh, and API workshops! Oh, oh, and a fantastic panel of judges!
Never been to one of our Hackathons? Here’s the gist of it: You enter. You find a team, or bring one with you (or, hell, hack alone!). We start the clock, you open your blank code editor, and you let loose every bit of skill you’ve got at your disposal to build something entirely from the ground up.
At the end of (just less than) 24 hours, you and your team have 60 seconds to wow the crowd —from your fellow hackers, to local VCs, to our panel of awesome judges.
Speaking of awesome judges: meet your judges!
Peter is the founder and head of Deutsche Telekom’s global incubator, hub:raum. hub:raum provides seed/early stage startup companies with funding, support and a pragmatic way to leverage the assets of a global corporation. Prior to that, he co-founded and managed an internal innovation accelerator for Deutsche Telekom (T-Innovations GmbH) as well as his own internet startup (Everseven).
For the past two years, Anika has been a Developer Platform Evangelist for Microsoft. Before this, she studied Media and Communication and Political Science at Free University of Berlin, and Corporate and Business Communications at the Berlin University of the Arts.
Alexander Grosse is VP of Engineering at SoundCloud. Before SoundCloud he worked as R&D Director at Nokia. Alexander has worked in a wide range of positions (Development, Consulting, CTO) in the software industry since 1996, including co-founding two startups. He holds a Masters in computer science from the University Of Oldenburg and an Executive MBA from FOM Berlin. Besides computer science, Alexander works(/worked) as a techno DJ in Berlin’s party scene.
Johannes is CEO and co-founder of GetYourGuide. He graduated with distinction from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology with a Master’s Degree in Biochemistry
Our very own Senior Editor Matt Burns is joining in on the fun this time. Headin’ to Berlin from way out in Flint, Michigan, Burnsy has been a writer for TechCrunch since mid-2008. Weird (but totally serious) fact: Matt can’t stand the word ‘lettuce’.
Also meet our lovely code auditor (the code for the Top 3 finalists is audited to help ensure the projects are, in fact, built at the Hackathon):
Falko is all about mobile, and has been developing applications for Android and iOS devices since 2009. He dreams that one day, we will need only our phone for all daily business. After years at SinnerSchrader Mobile and building up a mobile department at Berlin’s Quandoo, he is now a freelance developer and consultant.
Need some inspiration? Want to learn a thing or two before you leave? At each hackathon, we offer a series of awesome API workshops lead by some of the very people who help make those APIs a reality. Workshops occur on day one (Saturday, Oct 26th) at the following times:
Last but not least, the prizes!
Now, we’ve always had some pretty sweet prizes on the line. The top team of the day (as determined by our judges) takes home an easy $5,000, and the Top 3 teams all get to demonstrate their hacks a second time … in front of the entire audience at the main Disrupt Europe conference. Meanwhile, the top fifty teams will each take home 2 tickets to the entire Disrupt Europe conference, each valued at nearly $1,000.
But wait! That’s not all!
Our API sponsors have thrown another couple thousands of dollars worth of prizes into the mix. Here’s what else is up for grabs:
Sound like fun? It ought to! Because it’s going to be great.
As mentioned, we’re pretty much out of tickets. We scrounged together one last batch of tickets, which we’ve released down below. If you don’t get in this time, you’re probably out of luck.
To recap, here’s what you need to know.:
The Disrupt Europe 2013 Hackathon runs overnight, from Oct 26th-26th, and we’ve just released the very last batch of tickets. What are you waiting for?
(Want to just attend the Hackathon presentations on Sunday? We’re releasing tickets for that, as well. Make sure you get the right one.)
Our sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact our sponsorship team here sponsors@techcrunch.com.
Please note: There are two types of tickets here. Spectator tickets ONLY let you attend the Hackathon presentations on Sunday beginning at 11am AS A VIEWER. If you want to build/present in the Hackathon, you’ll need a Hacker ticket.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — It was when the tear gas canister rattled around at her feet and a masked young man picked it up and tossed it back at police that kindergarten teacher Andrea Coelho decided she was for him and his fellow Black Bloc anarchists.
Coelho was one of thousands of teachers marching through central Rio de Janeiro to demand better wages and school conditions when police decided to disperse the demonstration. A few nights before, striking teachers occupying the city council building were beaten and dragged out by officers.
"It was the Black Bloc that protected me in that protest," Coelho, 47, said at the beginning of a march last week that again descended into fighting between anarchists and police. "The police came in firing tear gas, hitting us with clubs. A young Black Bloc stepped right in between me and the police. If it weren't for them, the police would have destroyed us."
That sentiment has helped turn the anarchists in Brazil into a driving force behind protests in recent weeks. The demonstrations have lessened in size but not frequency since masses took to the streets in June, fed up with a litany of problems that mostly center on corruption, woeful public services, and big spending on the upcoming World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
More protests erupted Monday as demonstrators railed against a government auction of a big offshore oil field, which petroleum unions think should remain completely in Brazilian hands, and the anarchists rallied in Rio's historic center to support the strike of the teachers and oil workers.
Black Bloc is a violent form of protest and vandalism that emerged in the 1980s in West Germany and helped shut down the 1999 World Trade Summit in Seattle. It's clear that the masked, young Brazilians are following the main anti-capitalist tenets of earlier versions, smashing scores of banks and multinational businesses during demonstrations and directly confronting riot police.
The twist in Brazil, experts say, is that the tactics haven't been quickly rejected by more mainstream protesters as they have been in places like Mexico, Chile and Venezuela. That could allow the movement to grow significantly.
During a protest in Rio last week, one young anarchist sprinted through a haze of tear gas as his throat burned and ears rang from a series of stun grenades police unleashed moments before.
Taking cover behind a battered metal newsstand in Rio's historic Cinelandia district, the 25-year-old dread-locked man steadied himself, tightened the straps of goggles he was wearing, and yelled to a cluster of 30 black-clad demonstrators facing a line of riot police half a block away.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" he screamed amid one of Brazil's most violent protests since June. "It's all going down right now!"
The protesters hurled rocks at police. The officers responded with more stun grenades and tear gas, scattering the adherents of Black Bloc.
"People are fed up, and because of the police violence against peaceful protests, the Black Bloc returning that violence has become a way for people to express their indignation," the young man said at the end of the protest. Like seven other Black Bloc adherents interviewed, he wouldn't give his name, citing fears of arrest and the tactic's hallmark anonymity. "I don't expect a majority of people to support it, but I know they understand the anger."
Black Bloc jumped via social media from the developed world to places such as Egypt and Brazil, where experts say it's potentially more explosive because it feeds off deeper social unrest. It's almost certain to affect Brazil's World Cup and Olympics.
"The police, violence, poverty, hardship of life and economic inequality in Brazil can radicalize the situation to a greater degree," said Saul Newman, a professor at Goldsmiths College in London whose research has focused on anarchism. "It's hard to predict, but because of these conditions and because it's new in Brazil, it could grow."
In the interviews with Black Bloc adherents, all repeated what's been heard in the U.S. and Europe before: They have no leaders, they operate in anonymity; there are no lists of demands for the government to meet.
Wearing black and covering their faces to make it hard for police to identify them, they head to demonstrations armed with slingshots, Molotov cocktails and homemade wooden shields with "BB" printed in white. Many look to be in their mid-to-late teens.
Their aim is to use action like destroying the property of multinational companies and confronting riot police to disrupt a political system they say doesn't allow for their participation and only represents entrenched economic interests.
But as in Egypt and elsewhere, the Black Bloc in Brazil says it also exists to protect other protesters from heavy-handed police tactics.
Brazilians widely consider their police poorly trained and violent, a force that is infamous for extrajudicial killings. A 2008 United Nations report said Brazilian police were responsible for a significant portion of the country's 48,000 homicides the year before.
There have been no reliable public opinion polls on the Black Bloc in Brazil and it's difficult to gauge wider perceptions about it. Politicians and local media condemn the vandalism its adherents carry out, smashing up scores of banks and other businesses in major cities.
Yet the tactic is clearly growing in cities like Rio. Six weeks ago, perhaps 50 people clearly identifying with the Black Bloc appeared in protests. At the Oct. 15 march by teachers, about 400 black-clad demonstrators were in the streets. Facebook pages dedicated to the tactic are increasingly rallying adherents.
"The Black Bloc is important for me. It's shown me I can resist in alternative ways," said Gustavo, a 17-year-old anarchist at last week's protest who said he lived in a violent slum in western Rio. "I can't accept that I will live my entire life in a country that's so unjust. Until now, I've seen no other way to make real change and wake people up."
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Bradley Brooks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradleybrooks
Looks like Experian got punked. The credit bureau -- one of the three big ones in the United States -- appears to have sold troves of identity data from over half a million people to a site that turned around and resold the data on the black market.
Security researcher Brian Krebs has reported on his blog how the website Superget.info, a personal-data black market based in Vietnam which Krebs has reported on in the past, obtained personal data from Experian.
No, not by hacking them. By simply buying it from them.
Sometime in 2012, a man posing as a private investigator working in the United States set up an account with Experian and began using the service. The actual purchase itself, Krebs reported, was suspicious enough that it should have set off any number of red flags: for one, it was paid for by wire transfers sent from Singapore. But even if Experian didn't flag what was going on, the U.S. Secret Service did, which has since swooped in, made arrests, and given Experian a hard time.
The data trail that Krebs analyzed showed that much of the data harvested from Experian and sold on Superget.info was actually harvested from a company named U.S. Info Search. But U.S. Info Search itself didn't seem to be the source of the leak. Rather, it was due to a peering arrangement with yet another data provider, Court Ventures.
Court Ventures and U.S. Info Search set up an information-sharing agreement some years ago, with each allowed to access the other's databases. But in 2012, Experian purchased Court Ventures, apparently preserving the information-sharing agreement between the two companies. Thus, the fraudster who siphoned data out of Experian was able to also steal from U.S. Info Search by proxy.
Experian is not able to say much about the whole issue, given that it worked with the Secret Service to help track down the man believed responsible, a 24-year-old Vietnamese man named Hieu Minh Ngo. Heiu has recently been arrested and charged with multiple accounts of fraud. (It's striking that identity fraud only carries a statutory maximum penalty of five years.)
Cases like these highlight several of the major problems with data brokers. For one, the process by which they determine the validity of a given customer still seems terribly opaque. How is it that Hieu (or perhaps one of his confederates) was able to buy such massive quantities of personal data through such a flimsy ruse without setting off any alarms?
The other issue exposed by this case is the security implications inherent in having data brokers set up peering arrangements with each other. In such a case, the least secure link in the chain becomes an easy point of ingress, and it's frightening to think the weak link here was also the biggest one: Experian.
Krebs has noted that the FTC is increasingly concerned about data brokers who don't do due diligence to keep their product from falling into the wrong hands. It should be enlightening to see the report the FCC has planned for release, which was assembled after sending subpoenas to nine different data brokers and grilling them about their business practices.
This story, "Crooks 'stole' Experian data the old-fashioned way: They bought it," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
Long wait times and a complete lack of transparency -- no, this isn't a story about a typical call to Verizon customer support. It's what happened when a security researcher discovered a critical privacy vulnerability on Verizon's consumer site and tried, nearly in vain, to get it patched. Back in ...
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/92ZKAGwtk_I/
