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Friday, December 14, 2012
The Brightest Distro Stars of 2012
Well the year is rapidly drawing to a close, so naturally it's time for the requisite stream of "looking back at 2012" and "looking ahead at 2013" story headlines on the news wires. The Linux blogosphere, needless to say, is no exception. Case in point: "Best Distro 2012" was the topic of a TuxRadar poll under way earlier this month, and now the results are in.
Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera
Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can't make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera -- handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That's basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it's a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.
When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $499 on AT&T's network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon's network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a "promotional price" for the monthly charge: Only $5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $10 tablet rate.
A 4G digital camera
While it's capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera's 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.
Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera's.
Not as good of a deal as it sounds
Dropbox is offering two years' worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)
The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera's 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $15 per GB overage fee (plus the $50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.
On top of that, the Galaxy Camera's photos are basically on par with a $199 digital camera's -- you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.
It does run Android, though, right?
The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung's custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.
Some apps don't work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they're camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/verizon-offering-5-shared-4g-plan-samsung-galaxy-163500605.html
wlbt breaking news: Eye Tests Made Simple ? Health and Fitness
When is the most suitable time to have your glasses or lenses modified? We often never focus on our curative glasses or lenses we are wearing. Actually we want to check our eyes frequently every year or at the very least as soon as we feel inconvenient with our contemporary glasses or contact lenses.
Eye Vision Testcan be done by your physician or optometrist to determine whether you want a less or more correcting glasses or lenses. New prescribed glasses or lenses will be made according to your test result.
Generally the doctor will do easy test to examine your eyes as follow:
1. Retinoscopy. It is usually the first eye exam that doctor will give you to make approximation of your prescription.
2. Refraction. In this test, doctor will be in a position to identify your precise prescription by using phoropter in front of your eyes and shows you series of lenses decisions. Here you will find the right combination of lenses which may make you see clearly.
3. Autorefractors and aberrometers. With this test, your doctor can instantly define your prescription. Your chin need to rest stable on both devises while you look at an identify of light or other image.
4. Cover test. This is the most straightforward and the most common test among the others to establish how your eyes work together.
5. Slit-lamp examination. It's also called a biomicroscope which will grant the doctor to gain magnified picture of the structures of the eyes so as to totally evaluates them for the sign of disease of infection,
6. Glaucoma test.
7. Visual field testing.
8. Dilation.
Eye Vision Testcan essentially be simple to do as everything you need is generally available on the internet at this time. There are many sorts of eye tests which can on occasion be found online since they are basically have been introduced long time ago. You must pick one of them which is suitable according to your eyes problem. Here are some of the tests:
- Eye test chart ? This is a very simple optometrist?s chart you'll be able to find online. Any difference in the vision of both of your eyes can be examined by using this test.
- Eye vision test
- Snellen eye test
- Alzheimer?s eye test
Snellen and Alzheimer?s eye tests are conducted to diagnose if there is specific problem related to your visual acuity. Eyes are crucial for humans, that is why you have got to look after them properly. After you feel something weird to your vision, take a quick eye test either online or by making appointment with your optometrist. With the advance technology there's nothing not possible to get a solution.
If you're troubled at all then contact your local optician in Leeds.
Julian Berson Opticians provide their patients with elevated levels of buyer care and service that is simply not found in the high st today, offering designer yet reasonable prescription glasses in an immaculate practice in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire.
For more information about our services, please drop by our site with this link:
Eye test Leeds
Tags: eye test, eye tests, sigh test, sight tests
Source: http://healthandfitness.russiacourse.com/uncategorized/eye-tests-made-simple/
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Source: http://wlbt-breaking-news.blogspot.com/2012/12/eye-tests-made-simple-health-and-fitness.html
Obama, Boehner hold "frank" meeting amid "fiscal cliff" frustration
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" face-to-face meeting on Thursday in an effort to break an impasse in talks to avert the "fiscal cliff" of steep tax increases and spending cuts.
With an end-of-year deadline looming, the two leaders talked at the White House as frustration mounted over the recent lack of progress in negotiations that had become bogged down in a daily round of finger-pointing.
Aides on both sides used similar language to describe the 50-minute meeting, calling it "frank" and repeating that lines of communication remained open.
The meeting, also attended by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was announced after frustration broke out on both sides at a lack of progress and U.S. stocks turned negative due to fears the economy could dip into recession again if politicians fail to break the gridlock in Washington.
At times raising his voice, Boehner criticized Obama earlier in the day for putting jobs and the economic recovery at risk by insisting on raising tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent.
White House spokesman Jay Carney responded by reaffirming Obama's commitment to raising the top rates and complaining there had been no movement from Republicans on that crucial topic.
"What we have not seen from the Republicans is any movement at all on the fundamental issue," Carney told reporters. "Republicans need to accept the fact that rates will go up on the top 2 percent."
In an interview with a Minnesota CBS television affiliate, Obama said he was hopeful of getting a deal and willing to make more spending cuts as long as revenue from higher tax rates for the rich was part of the deal.
"I'm willing to do a lot more cuts in spending. We also need to pair it up with a little more revenue," he told WCCO television.
At a meeting earlier on Thursday, Obama's top economic adviser, Gene Sperling, delivered a downbeat message to Democratic senators about the status of the fiscal cliff talks.
A Democratic aide described the presentation as "bleak," saying Sperling told the group of senators that "we don't have anywhere to go until Republicans move on (income tax) rates."
Republicans offered similar gloom. "Based on the White House's current approach, it looks like we're in for a protracted conflict until the snow melts," Illinois Representative Peter Roskam said in an interview. "They (the White House) are pushing us over the cliff," said Roskam, a member of Boehner's leadership team.
RECESSION FEARS
Economists say failure to reach an agreement before January 1 could push the country back into recession. The main hurdle is the expiring tax cuts, which Obama wants extended for all but the rich and Boehner wants extended for everyone.
But with positions seeming to harden, both sides also emphasized their differences on Obama's request for permanent authority to increase U.S. borrowing as part of a fiscal-cliff agreement and on Republican calls for an increase in the eligibility age for recipients of the Medicare healthcare program.
At a news conference, Boehner occasionally raised his voice in criticism of Obama's bottom-line insistence on raising tax rates on the rich.
"Raising tax rates will hurt small businesses at a time when we're expecting small businesses to be the engine of job creation in America," said Boehner, who used a chart to illustrate his point that curbing spending increases was the key to deficit reduction.
If Obama persisted on a path of higher spending and higher taxes, he said, "this chart is going to look a lot worse."
Afterward, his spokesman said Boehner would return to his home state of Ohio on Friday for the weekend, but was available if there were more talks. "Ohio has both cell phone service and airports," spokesman Michael Steel said. "It won't be a problem."
A seven-day rally in world shares came to a halt and commodity prices slipped on Thursday after negotiations over the fiscal cliff appeared to stall.
Today there's a certain sense that both sides are still apart," said Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, describing trading as "tweaking" while investors watch Washington's back-and-forth drama.
While Republicans fumed, Obama planned to continue his public-relations offensive with a round of interviews with anchors from local television stations. He was interviewed by ABC's Barbara Walters two days ago.
A flurry of new polls showed strong support for Obama's position. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey, three-quarters of Americans said they would accept raising taxes on the wealthy to avoid the cliff. Even among Republicans, some 61 percent said they would accept tax increases on high earners.
'REALITY SHOULD SET IN'
A Pew Research Center poll showed Obama's approval rating rising and 55 percent saying he was making a serious effort to engage in the fiscal talks, while just 32 percent said Republicans were serious about a deal.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, citing the polls, said Boehner "can't ignore the people forever" on the tax issue. "At some point, reality should set in," he told reporters.
The polls have put Republicans in a difficult negotiating position, and pressure has grown on Boehner in recent weeks from the right and left. Some Republicans have expressed a willingness to give in on higher tax rates in exchange for deeper spending cuts, while conservatives have demanded that Boehner stand firm.
"I'm not concerned about my job as speaker," Boehner, who faces re-election to the leadership post in January, told reporters.
Boehner also dismissed any notion that Republicans would agree to giving Obama more authority on the debt ceiling.
"Congress is never going to give up our ability to control the purse," Boehner said. "The debt limit ought to be used to bring fiscal sanity to Washington."
A group of 72 House Democrats urged Obama to reject Republican calls to raise the Medicare eligibility age.
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, told reporters he was told by the White House that raising the eligibility age for qualifying for Medicare benefits was not in the mix anymore.
He said that raising the eligibility age "creates some serious issues for a lot of people who may be caught in the gap between retirement and eligibility. Where are they going to get health insurance? Many of them are sick people."
(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon and Rachelle Younglai; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-boehner-hold-frank-meeting-amid-fiscal-cliff-003405700--business.html
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Was life inevitable? Piecing together metabolism's beginnings
Dec. 12, 2012 ? Describing how living organisms emerged from Earth's abiotic chemistry has remained a conundrum for scientists, in part because any credible explanation for such a complex process must draw from fields spanning the reaches of science.
A new synthesis by two Santa Fe Institute researchers offers a coherent picture of how metabolism, and thus all life, arose. The study, published December 12, 2012, in the journal Physical Biology, offers new insights into how the complex chemistry of metabolism cobbled itself together, the likelihood of life emerging and evolving as it did on Earth, and the chances of finding life elsewhere.
"We're trying to bring knowledge across disciplines into a unified whole that fits the essentials of metabolism development," says co-author Eric Smith, a Santa Fe Institute External Professor.
Creating life from scratch requires two abilities: fixing carbon and making more of yourself. The first, essentially hitching carbon atoms together to make living matter, is a remarkably difficult feat. Carbon dioxide (CO2), of which Earth has plenty, is a stable molecule; the bonds are tough to break, and a chemical system can only turn carbon into biologically useful compounds by way of some wildly unstable in-between stages.
As hard as it is to do, fixing carbon is necessary for life. A carbon molecule's ability to bond stably with up to four atoms makes it phenomenally versatile, and its abundance makes it suitable as a backbone for trillions of compounds. Once an organized chemical system can harness and manipulate carbon, it can expand and innovate in countless ways.
In other words, carbon fixation is the centerpiece of metabolism -- the basic process by which cells take in chemicals from their environments and build them into products they need to live. It's also the link between the geochemistry of Earth and the biochemistry of life.
In a paper earlier this year, Smith and Santa Fe Institute Omidyar Fellow Rogier Braakman mapped the most primitive forms of carbon fixation onto major, early branching points in the tree of life (PLoS Computational Biology, April 18, 2012). Now, the two researchers have drawn from geochemistry, biochemistry, evolution, and ecology to detail the likeliest means by which molecules lurched their way from rocks to cells.
Their 62-page "Logic of Metabolism" paper presents a new, coherent picture of how this complex system fits together.
What started as wonky geochemical mechanisms were sequentially replaced and fortified by biological ones, the authors believe. "Think of life like an onion emerging in layers, where each layer functions as a feedback mechanism that stabilizes and improves the ability to fix carbon," says Braakman.
Carbon fixing and other chemical sub-processes that together constitute metabolism each comprise dozens of steps; some are quick and easy turnkey reactions with simple molecules, others require highly specific chemical helpers, or catalysts.
The parts of metabolism that guide carbon fixation through its unstable intermediate stages fall into the latter category, requiring help. But these seemingly unlikely reactions are remarkably consistent across all living systems. In fact, says Braakman, their ubiquity and the difficulty with which they are forged make them the chemical constraints within which all living systems operate -- in a sense, the scaffolding for the tree of life.
It's these dependable regularities of hierarchy and modularity, amid the panoply of reactions comprising metabolism, that stabilize the system and enable its complexity.
Braakman and Smith describe specific features of metabolism and sub-divide helper metabolites by their functions. For example, vitamin B9, a complex molecule in the 'cofactor' class, facilitates the (otherwise unstable) incorporation of one-carbon compounds into metabolism.
In mapping the chemical pathways to life's emergence, the researchers touch on a more existential question: How likely was it for life to have developed at all? Extraordinarily so, says Braakman. "Metabolism appears to be an 'attractor state' within organic chemistry, where it was likely to be selected regardless of earlier stages of chemical evolution" in the chaotic, high-energy conditions of prebiotic Earth, he says.
Can it happen elsewhere? Possibly, even probably, he says. Rocky planets usually have cores chemically similar to ours, so if a planet is volcanically (and perhaps tectonically) active and has an ocean, it will probably have hydrothermal vents that spew chemicals, creating the potential conditions for life, Braakman says. In fact, the physics of star and planet formation make the chances of such conditions pretty reasonable.
Smith cautions, however, that we still have much to learn about the chemical and physical conditions that might lead to life-like organization, but he hopes their paper will at least "lead to experimental questions that focus more directly on the key functions that link metabolism to geochemistry."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Santa Fe Institute.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal References:
- Rogier Braakman, Eric Smith. The compositional and evolutionary logic of metabolism. Physical Biology, 2013; 10 (1): 011001 DOI: 10.1088/1478-3975/10/1/011001
- Rogier Braakman, Eric Smith. The Emergence and Early Evolution of Biological Carbon-Fixation. PLoS Computational Biology, 2012; 8 (4): e1002455 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002455
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/T2qcl1klVX4/121212130709.htm
Thursday, December 13, 2012
U.N. launches review of Congo force with battered reputation
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Thursday it had launched a comprehensive review of its Congo peacekeeping mission, which suffered a severe blow to its image last month after it stood aside and let rebels seize control of a major eastern city.
But U.N. Security Council diplomats and officials said any changes in the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping force would matter little if authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo did not improve their own army, and neighboring Rwanda and Uganda continued to finance, equip and train rebel groups in mineral-rich eastern Congo.
U.N. officials have defended the U.N. Congo force, MONUSCO, for not preventing the well-equipped M23 rebels from taking the eastern city of Goma last month.
They said any attempt to have done so would have put Goma's civilian population at risk. But they are painfully aware of the damage to the image of the mission, which U.N. officials say has been quite effective over the years, in Congo and across Africa.
"MONUSCO's reputation has been severely damaged in the DRC and the region," a U.N. diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The U.N. is looking closely at MONUSCO now to consider whether there can be changes."
U.N. peacekeeping spokesman Kieran Dwyer said the United Nations was launching a comprehensive assessment of MONUSCO, and diplomats said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would present the results to the Security Council early next year.
"The United Nations is starting a strategic review of the organization's engagement in the DRC, including MONUSCO's configuration," Dwyer said. "Our objective is to determine how we can better assist the Congolese people to avoid the recurring cycles of violence in the East."
He said that the United Nations would be looking at the idea of an "international neutral force" to be deployed along the border with Rwanda. That proposal has been discussed within the African Union and regional African organizations.
Diplomats said that if the Security Council backed Ban's recommendations for changes in the structure and mandate of the more than 20,000-strong MONUSCO force, the 15-nation council might travel to the region to marshal support for the proposals.
One idea U.N. officials are considering is the creation of an "enforcement wing" of MONUSCO, that would take a more robust approach to dealing with insurgents in eastern Congo, U.N. diplomats and officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
"The idea would be to create a wing of MONUSCO that would do more than simply support the FARDC (Congolese army) but could take on more difficult battlefield tasks," an envoy said.
Details are sketchy, since the review has just begun. But the idea is that the enforcement wing and the international neutral force could deploy along the Rwandan border, possibly with a separate, beefed-up mandate from the rest of MONUSCO, though they would all be part of the same overall mission.
Diplomats said the idea would have to be approved by troop-contributing countries and the Security Council.
'LET DOWN BY MONUSCO'
A U.N. panel of experts has said M23 rebels are getting money, sophisticated equipment, training and reinforcements from Rwanda, as well as some additional support from Uganda. Analysts, diplomats and U.N. officials say Rwanda and Uganda have been interfering in eastern Congo for many years.
Rwanda and Uganda deny the charges.
Local residents were deeply disappointed when MONUSCO did nothing to stop M23 rebels led by Bosco Ntaganda, a renegade general known as the "terminator" who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, from seizing Goma. Amid international outrage, the rebels left Goma after 11 days.
"We feel so let down by MONUSCO," Constant, an unemployed electrician in Goma, told Reuters. "When MONUSCO says they are capable of protecting the people, it is false. They protect their own interests. They are not capable of guaranteeing our security."
"When M23 entered Goma they just stood by," he added. "Many here in this town oppose MONUSCO's presence."
Tariq Riebl, Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in Congo, said "MONUSCO's performance has fallen way short of what anyone would expect, particularly over the past few months."
"Their presence is not preventing militias from operating in eastern Congo, and they don't seem able to protect civilians from daily atrocities taking place across eastern DRC. In a recent Oxfam survey in three provinces, some people told us MONUSCO had a lower approval rating than the government army."
It is not the first time Goma residents have felt let down by blue-helmeted U.N. troops. In 2008, the Security Council increased the size the peacekeeping force by 3,000 troops to help Congo's weak army confront Tutsi rebels in eastern Congo.
At that time, angry displaced people and residents rioted and hurled stones at the peacekeepers, accusing them of failing to protect them from raping and pillaging Tutsi rebels led by renegade General Laurent Nkunda.
Despite recent setbacks sparked by the M23 rebellion and political instability in Congo, U.N. officials and diplomats say MONUSCO has done much good in Congo, which has seen five different peacekeeping forces over the last five decades.
John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project anti-genocide group and the Satellite Sentinel Project, told Reuters that MONUSCO was now "largely irrelevant," but could focus more attention on non-military problems.
"Its civilian component ... could be beefed up significantly," Prendergast said. "MONUSCO could do much more in exposing human rights abuses, mediating localized conflicts, supporting conflict-free mine sites, and pressing for the holding of local elections."
One problem in eastern Congo is that the army itself is in shambles. Not only is it widely seen as incapable of providing security in the region, it routinely faces accusations of rape and other atrocities.
Another problem is the weakness of President Joseph Kabila's government, which has virtually no control over eastern Congo, an area the size of France. U.N. officials have spoken of Rwanda's de facto annexation of Congo's eastern provinces.
"Kabila might want to blame all his problems on MONUSCO, but at the end of the day, it's Congo that has to accept responsibility and solve the problem," a Western diplomat said.
Another envoy echoed that view, saying it was time to "end the illusion that MONUSCO is there to prop up the government."
(Additional reporting By Richard Lough in Goma; Editing by David Brunnstrom)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-launches-review-congo-force-battered-reputation-195715244.html
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