Chinese activist who fled house arrest heads to US

Posted by on May 20, 2012. No comments.

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, in a wheelchair, is helped to head to a commercial flight Saturday, May 19, 2012 at Beijing International Airport in Beijing. Chen was hurriedly taken from a hospital Saturday and boarded a plane that took off for the United States, closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations. (AP Photo/Kyodo News) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT, NO LICENSING IN CHINA, HONG KONG, JAPAN, SOUTH KOREA AND FRANCE

This video image taken from AP video shows blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, second right, is pushed in a wheelchair on the tarmac to an elevator at Beijing International airport Saturday May 19, 2012. A blind Chinese activist was hurriedly taken from a hospital Saturday and boarded a plane that took off for the United States, closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations. Chen Guangcheng, his wife and their two children were on United Airlines Flight 88, which took off late Saturday afternoon from the Beijing airport. (AP Photo via AP video)

This video image taken from AP video shows blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng, left, pushed in a wheelchair from an elevator to a sky bridge that is connected to a plane at Beijing International airport Saturday May 19, 2012. A blind Chinese activist was hurriedly taken from a hospital Saturday and boarded a plane that took off for the United States, closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations. Chen Guangcheng, his wife and their two children were on United Airlines Flight 88, which took off late Saturday afternoon from the Beijing airport. (AP Photo via AP video)

FILE – In this file photo taken Wednesday, May 2, 2012. and released by the U.S. Embassy Beijing Press Office, blind activist Chen Guangcheng, center, holds hands with U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, at a hospital in Beijing. The activist who was at the center of a diplomatic tussle between Beijing and Washington said Thursday, May 17, 2012 Chinese officials have told him the passports that he and his family just applied for should be ready within two weeks. (AP Photo/U.S. Embassy Beijing Press Office, File)

BEIJING (AP) ? A blind Chinese legal activist was hurriedly taken from a hospital and put on a plane for the United States on Saturday, closing a nearly monthlong diplomatic tussle that had tested U.S.-China relations.

Chen Guangcheng, sitting in a wheelchair and accompanied by his wife and two children, boarded United Airlines Flight 88 for the 12-hour flight to Newark, outside New York City, a few hours after Chinese authorities suddenly told him to pack and prepare to leave.

“Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind,” Chen said at the airport. His concerns, he said, included whether authorities would retaliate for his negotiated departure by punishing his relatives left behind. It also is unclear whether the government will allow him to return.

A self-taught legal activist, Chen asked his supporters and others in the activist community for their understanding of his desire to leave the front lines of the rights struggle in China.

“I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand,” he said.

The Chens’ departure to the United States marks the conclusion of nearly a month of uncertainty and years of mistreatment by local authorities for the activist.

After seven years of prison and house arrest, Chen made a daring escape from his rural village in late April and was given sanctuary inside the U.S. Embassy, triggering a diplomatic standoff over his fate. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Beijing for annual high-level discussions, officials struck a deal that let Chen walk free, only to see him have second thoughts, forcing new negotiations that led to an agreement to send him to the U.S. to study law ? a goal of his ? at New York University.

Moments after his departure from Beijing, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that Chen was en route to the U.S. and praised the quiet negotiations that freed him.

“We are looking forward to his arrival in the United States later today,” Nuland said in a statement. “We also express our appreciation for the manner in which we were able to resolve this matter and to support Mr. Chen’s desire to study in the U.S. and pursue his goals.”

The White House also said it was pleased with the outcome of negotiations between the Chinese government and the State Department that allowed Chen to leave China with his family.

“We are pleased at this development,” said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, who spoke with reporters at Camp David, the presidential retreat where President Barack Obama is hosting the Group of Eight summit.

China’s Foreign Ministry said it had no comment. The government’s news agency, Xinhua, issued a brief report saying that Chen “has applied for study in the United States via normal channels in line with the law.”

Chen’s supporters welcomed his departure. “I think this is great progress,” said U.S.-based rights activist Bob Fu. “It’s a victory for freedom fighters.”

The 40-year-old Chen is emblematic of a new breed of activists that the Communist Party finds threatening. Often from rural and working-class families, these “rights defenders,” as they are called, are unlike the students and intellectuals from the elite academies and major cities of previous democracy movements and thus could potentially appeal to ordinary Chinese.

Chen gained recognition for crusading for the disabled and for farmers’ rights and fighting against forced abortions in his rural community. That angered local officials, who seemed to wage a personal vendetta against him, convicting him in 2006 on what his supporters say were fabricated charges and then holding him for the past 20 months in illegal house arrest.

Even with the backstage negotiations, Chen’s departure came hastily. Chen spent the last two and a half weeks in a hospital being given medical treatment for the foot he broke escaping house arrest. Only on Wednesday did Chinese authorities help him complete the paperwork needed for his passport.

Chen said by telephone Saturday that he was informed at the hospital just before noon to pack his bags to leave. Officials did not give him and his family passports or inform them of their flight details until after they got to the airport.

Seeming ambivalent, Chen said that he was “not happy” about leaving and that he had a lot on his mind, including worries about retaliation against his extended family back home. His nephew, Chen Kegui, is accused of attempted murder after he allegedly used a kitchen knife to attack officials who stormed his house after discovering Chen Guangcheng was missing.

“I hope that the government will fulfill the promises it made to me, all of its promises,” Chen said. Such promises included launching an investigation into abuses against him and his family in Shandong province, he said before the phone call was cut off.

Chen’s expected attendance at New York University comes from his association with Jerome Cohen, a law professor at the university who advised Chen while he was in the U.S. Embassy. The two met when the activist went to the United States on a State Department program in 2003, and Cohen has been staunch advocate for him ever since.

“I’m very happy at the news that he’s on his way and I look forward to welcoming him and his family tonight and to working with him on his course of study,” Cohen said.

Much as Chen has said he wants return to China, it remains uncertain whether the Chinese government would bar him, as they have done with many exiled activists.

“Chen’s departure for the U.S. does not and should not in any way mark a ‘mission accomplished’ moment for the U.S. government,” said Phelim Kine, a senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The harder, longer term part is ensuring his right under international law to return to China when he sees fit.”

Wu’er Kaixi, an exiled dissident who is on China’s list of most wanted student leaders for the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, made a third unsuccessful attempt Saturday to turn himself in at a Chinese Embassy, this time in Washington, D.C.

However, Chen’s friends and supporters cheered Chen’s departure. Teng Biao, who had urged Chen after he left the U.S. Embassy to leave China for his personal safety, welcomed the family’s departure.

“I feel happy that he and his family can have a normal, free life in the United States with their safety ensured,” Teng said.

Nanjing activist blogger He Peirong, who picked Chen up outside his rural village after his escape and spirited him to Beijing, said, “I hope that this will be a good beginning.”

___

Associated Press videojournalist Annie Ho and reporter Charles Hutzler contributed to this report.

___

Follow Didi Tang on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tangdidi and Gillian Wong at http://twitter.com/gillianwong

Associated Press

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Historic Facebook IPO marred by trading glitches

Posted by on May 20, 2012. No comments.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – For a company that is dramatically upending business strategies and social relationships around the world, Facebook Inc made a surprisingly modest debut on the Nasdaq on Friday as a sky-high valuation and trading glitches capped the stock’s rise.

In late trading, Facebook shares were only a few cents above the company’s initial public offering price of $38, after opening 11 percent higher, rapidly heading south to touch their initial price and then rebounding by several dollars.

Facebook had priced its IPO at the top end of its target range and increased the size of the offering, becoming the first U.S. company to go public with a valuation greater than $100 billion.

Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, 28, who retains voting control of the company and whose personal net worth is now about $20 billion, marked the moment at the company’s Silicon Valley campus by symbolically ringing the opening bell for stock trading on Friday morning.

Wearing his trademark black hoodie, Zuckerberg hugged and high-fived Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, who is credited with bringing crucial business discipline to a company founded in a Harvard dorm room eight years ago.

The area outside Facebook’s offices was packed with throngs of photographers, more than a dozen television trucks, and a TV news helicopter hovering overhead.

Outside of Nasdaq headquarters in New York, crowds also gathered, even as exchange officials struggled to sort out technical problems related to the huge volume of orders, which delayed the start of trading in the stock by 45 minutes and left investors guessing for more than two hours about whether their buy and sell orders had actually been executed.

Facebook set a new trading volume record for U.S. market debuts, with over 515 million shares changing hands.

Assuming the underwriters exercise a greenshoe option as expected, Facebook’s IPO is set to raise $18 billion, the second-largest amount in U.S. history, and by far the largest ever for a U.S. Internet company.

The shares attracted interest from investors of all stripes, reflecting the social network’s extraordinary growth and deep store of information about its 900 million users.

The IPO minted thousands of new paper millionaires among Facebook’s 3,500 employees — and a handful of billionaires among its founders and early investors.

But the stock debut took place in a weak market, and traders said the smaller-than-expected first-day pop reflected the very aggressive pricing of the offering and a last-minute, near 25 percent increase in the number of shares being sold. Analyst predictions of first-day gains had ranged from 10 percent to 50 percent.

“The increase in size was a big negative factor for us,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management, who said he canceled some orders for the shares.

The IPO price was equivalent to more than 100 times historical earnings, compared with Apple Inc’s 14 times and Google Inc’s 19 times. For many investors that makes it a risky bet.

“We have got some unhappy guys out there,” said Wayne Kaufman, chief market strategist at John Thomas Financial, a retail broker on Wall Street. “They were hoping for Facebook to be considerably better. I bet there are a lot of disappointed people in the market.”

Market participants said that in the final run-up to the IPO, much of the demand was from retail investors rather than institutions. When the stock fell to $38 on Friday morning, traders say the IPO’s lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stepped in to prevent the price from slipping below the IPO level.

From Facebook’s perspective, a small increase in the stock shows it was priced perfectly for Zuckerberg and early investors, who pocketed maximum gains and left little of the easy money on the table.

“You want to price the offering correctly. Institutional buyers get a little bump and the company raises the right amount of money,” said Kevin Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite, an online ticketing startup that is integrated with Facebook’s platform. “If the stock has a massive bump on day one that means you misread market demand and company does not raise the right amount of money.”

BATTLE OF THE GIANTS

Facebook faces many challenges as it takes its place beside Google, Apple and Amazon.com Inc as one of the giant public companies defining the next-generation Internet economy. Google in particular views Facebook as a mortal threat and is moving aggressively to integrate social networking features across its products.

At the same time, scores of young companies are building new products and services, in some cases on top of the Facebook platform and in some cases in competition with it, and attracting huge amounts of investment capital.

A handful of such so-called Web 2.0 companies, including Zynga Inc, LinkedIn Corp, Yelp Inc and Groupon Inc, have already gone public, and others have been acquired by the industry giants.

In a sign of the volatile nature of highly valued Internet stocks, all these shares fell on Friday in sympathy with Facebook’s weaker-than-expected debut. In particular, social gaming company Zynga, which relies on heavily on Facebook and also provides more than 10 percent of Facebook’s revenues, fell by more than 14 percent.

In an indication of the land grab now under way in the Internet world, Facebook in April acquired Instagram, a tiny photo-sharing company with lots of users but no revenue, for $1 billion. A Facebook rival, social scrap-booking site Pinterest, raised money earlier this week at a valuation of $1.5 billion in a sign that venture capitalists and other private investors still see enormous potential in Web 2.0 companies.

Facebook’s formidable assets include 900 million users around the world, many of whom spend hours a day on the site and share enormous amounts of personal information. That in turn enables Facebook to target its advertising to peoples’ specific interests, and many analysts believe the huge store of personal information gives Facebook an advantage that Google and other cannot match.

“Literally everything you see on the internet, you could see inside Facebook — but done with much more of the social graph built into it,” said Siva Kumar, CEO of e-commerce company TheFind. “In a way they operate the mall, and everybody in the mall will pay some way or the other to Facebook.”

Facebook posted $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011 and $1 billion in profit. Analysts say the company has untapped opportunities in mobile computing, and potentially other Internet services such as email and search. Zuckerberg, though unproven as a public company CEO, is widely admired as a product visionary who has done a masterful job in continually improving the Facebook experience.

Skeptics, though, note that only a small percentage of Facebook users respond to advertising on the site. Google retains a big advantage in that regard, because advertising related to specific Internet searches is by nature far more relevant and thus more valuable.

In a sign of the challenges ahead for Facebook, the nation’s third-largest advertiser, General Motors Co, said last week that it was canceling its paid advertising on the site.

Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry said the stock debut was “lackluster” because Facebook’s growth prospects do not justify a high stock valuation. “They have serious technology and business model problems. Facebook is overhyped and drinking its own Kool-Aid,” he said. “They are only getting $4.39 per user per year. Google gets almost $30 per user.”

In Silicon Valley, though, the conventional wisdom is that Facebook and its social media brethren will be an increasingly important force in the business world for many years to come.

Already, the influx of wealth arising from Facebook’s extraordinary growth has helped drive a mini-boom in San Francisco Bay Area real estate, and income tax revenues related to the IPO will cut the state of California’s budget deficit by an estimated $2 billion.

(Additional reporting by Edwin Chan in San Francisco, Yinka Adegoke, Ed Krudy and Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Steve Orlofsky and Tiffany Wu)

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Victoria Advocate | Developer: Pols can't keep approving new casinos

Posted by on May 19, 2012. No comments.

WAYNE PARRY/Associated Press
Originally published May 17, 2012 at 12:56 p.m., updated May 17, 2012 at 2 p.m.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) – Casinos are not like Starbucks stores: You really can’t have one on every corner.

That’s the word from David Cordish, whose company is opening a huge new casino next month in Maryland.

Yet Cordish warns that the expansion of casino gambling can’t go on unchecked forever. A big problem is the attitude of politicians nationwide who view casinos as free money.

“I don’t know how we can control the politicians; they certainly don’t understand the word ‘oversaturation,’” Cordish said Thursday. “They think you can have casinos like Starbucks.”

If that attitude continues, Cordish said, “it’s going to implode on them.”

That sentiment was voiced repeatedly at The East Coast Gaming Congress, a major annual casino industry conference, held this year in the newly opened Revel casino resort in Atlantic City. The $2.4 billion Revel is being counted on to help turn around Atlantic City’s five-year slump. But several experts at the forum said the solution to Atlantic City’s woes is the closure of one or more of its 12 casinos.

“Here in Atlantic City, we have assets for sale that literally nobody wants to buy,” said Gary Loveman, president of Caesars Entertainment, which counts four Atlantic City gambling halls among its 56 casinos. “There is simply too much supply in Atlantic City. The supply doesn’t go away. That’s a very bad thing. The problem here? Nobody ever closes.”

During a panel of Wall Street experts, Andrew Zarnett, managing director of Deutsche Bank Securities, said Revel might hurt, rather than help, Atlantic City’s overall casino market.

“Everybody’s a loser; when you add supply to a market that’s not growing very much, everybody gets cannibalized,” he said. “We need some of this capacity to close and go away. I would have thought that would have happened two years ago, but the properties are still here.”

Zarnett said he doubts any Atlantic City casino will close until they see whether New Jersey will approve Internet gambling and throw the struggling properties a lifeline. He also predicted that New York will approve a casino in Manhattan within five years.

Not all the news from Atlantic City was bad, though: Figures released Thursday by state regulators showed the casinos saw a 17 percent increase in gross operating profit for the first quarter of this year, following a 26 percent increase in the fourth quarter of last year.

The expansion of casino gambling has continued rapidly over the last several years, nowhere more fiercely than in the Northeast. There is serious disagreement within the industry as to whether the market is oversaturated or whether there is room for further growth. But most agree it is tougher to do business in the Northeast casino market than it ever has been before.

The Cordish Co.’s Maryland Live!, opening on June 6, will have 4,750 slot machines and cost $500 million.

“Thanks, David, for bringing 4,700 new slots to this market,” joked Don Marrandino, eastern division president of Caesars Entertainment. “That’s great news for us.”

Cordish said the casino market needs the stability of knowing how many operators there are going to be, particularly with the 67 percent tax Maryland imposes on its casinos.

He said the state will have four casinos with more slot machines “than anything in Las Vegas. It’s an experiment that nobody knows how it’s going to turn out. A contest I don’t want to win is Maryland will probably be the king of the oversaturated market with the highest tax rate. It’s a real problem.

“What happens when you put mega-casinos close together is they generally not only oversaturate the market, they don’t work,” Cordish said. In the Washington, D.C., region soon, he added, “you’ll have four of the largest casinos in the country operating within a short drive of one another.”

But new casinos keep coming. Timothy Wilmott, president of Penn National Gaming, which has 26 casinos nationwide, said the company is interested in new markets in Massachusetts and Texas and is opening new casinos in Ohio soon.

And Virginia McDowell, CEO of St. Louis-based Isle of Capri Casinos, which owns 15 casinos in six states, said there are excellent new markets that don’t yet have casino gambling. The company plans two more, including one in Pittsburgh. She listed Massachusetts, Texas and Florida as prime spots for new casinos and said even traditionally hostile states such as Georgia, the Carolinas and Kentucky are considering legalizing them.

“Frankly, some of these opportunities are the best untapped gambling markets in the United States,” she said. But, McDowell said, “the industry lets its best growth opportunities die on the vine, choosing instead to fight each other.”

Mitchell Etess, CEO of Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, said the state’s two Native American-run casinos once had few competitors, but the Northeast casino market is becoming more crowded.

And part of that will be due to Mohegan Sun, which is also seeking a casino license in Massachusetts.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.

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J&J drug shows promise in high-risk prostate cancer | AAJ News

Posted by on May 19, 2012. No comments.

Adding Johnson & Johnson?s advanced?prostate cancerdrug,?Zytiga, to?hormone therapy?before surgery has been shown for the first time to eradicate tumors in some men with high-risk forms of the disease.

The mid-stage trial found that six months of treatment with the combination therapy completely or nearly eliminated the?cancer?in a third of patients, all of whom had localized,?aggressive cancer.

?These results are very impressive, especially given these high-risk patients,? Dr Mary-Ellen Taplin, associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the study?s lead author, said at a news conference.

Zytiga is already approved to treat advanced prostate cancer in patients who previously received chemotherapy. J&J expects to file in the second half of this year for U.S. regulatory approval of the drug as a treatment for men with?metastatic prostate cancer?who have not yet received chemotherapy.

Zytiga, also known as abiraterone, costs about $5,000 a month. It is a member of a new drug class designed to work inside?cancer cells?to block production of testosterone, the male hormone that fuels prostate cancer cell growth.

Localized high-risk disease is defined as prostate cancer in men with high levels of prostate-specific antigen and aggressive disease that has spread throughout the prostate.

Men with this stage of disease tend to have a poor prognosis, and the cancer often spreads to other parts of the body despite?aggressive treatment?with available therapies, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which featured the Zytiga data ahead of its annual meeting in Chicago, June 1-5.

?Theoretically ? when you get a complete disappearance of the primary cancer, patient outcomes are much better,? said oncologist Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang, chair of ASCO?s cancer communications committee, who was not involved in the research. He noted that such pre-surgery treatment has become standard care for other types of cancer.

The Phase 2 trial looked at the effect of adding Zytiga to Lupron, a drug designed to trick the testicles into ceasing production of testosterone.

Of the 29 men who received the drugs for six months before having?prostate surgery, the prostates of three had no evidence of cancer and seven had nearly complete elimination of the disease. In the group of men treated for three months before their surgery, 15 percent had little to no detectable cancer in the prostate.

Researchers said the therapy was well-tolerated by both groups. They reported five cases of elevated liver enzymes and three patients with lower-than-normal levels of potassium.

?Our findings suggest that this combination therapy approach could improve outcomes for a substantial number of men,? Taplin said. ?This is a 58-patient trial with a very, very expensive drug, so I don?t think anybody is going to be encouraging this type of treatment without more data.?

She said other trials are under way, including a similar trial combining Zytiga with experimental drug ARN-509, which is being developed by Aragon Pharmaceuticals. REUTERS

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How To Find The Best Real Estate When Relocating To … – ZapDUDE!

Posted by on May 18, 2012. No comments.

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Relocating to a new state also creates lot of questions. There are so many things to learn about real estate in different parts of the state, which schools are the best, which towns offer the best commute, and other such questions.

If you are relocating to Louisiana, you are moving to a state rich in culture, tradition, and history. But you still may have many questions about where to find the best real estate. Here is some information to help you along in your search.

What Type of City Do You Prefer?

If you are relocating for a job you may not be able to move just anywhere in the state; you may have to choose a city fairly close to your new workplace. If you like big towns, the three largest in Louisiana are New Orleans on the southeast shore of the state, Baton Rouge, the capital just northeast of New Orleans, and Shreveport, way up in the northeast corner of the state.

None of these are truly huge cities, as they do not even make the list of the top 30 biggest U.S. cities. Still if you like the hustle and bustle of city life, these areas are where you are most likely to find it. There are plenty of more rural and suburban areas if that is more your style.

What Type of Real Estate Do You Want?

The general rule about housing is that it gets older the closer inside the city limits you get. Much of the area around the Gulf Coast was settled way back in the 1700s and has been well filled-in since that time. Especially in New Orleans, most of the real estate close to the city will be roughly 40 to 50 years old.

If you are looking for a condo or townhouse though, you may be able to find many brand new ones. This is because the major cities are converting many of their old factories and warehouses in chic, new condos for the avant-garde element of the areas. If you move farther out to the suburbs you are likely to find lots of newer real estate, but it may also be more expensive, depending on the neighborhood.

Are You Buying for a Primary Residence or Investment Property?

If you are looking for a solid investment property you would probably do better to buy real estate in or very close to one of Louisiana’s major cities. These areas are more highly populated and the rental space is more in demand.

This is especially true of the areas along the coast that house the oil and gas industries. One really nice thing about Louisiana is that the unemployment rate has stayed fairly stable in recent history providing a good supply of workers and renters.

If you are looking to buy your own primary residence in Louisiana, there are a host of other questions that you will need to answer. If you have children, you will certainly want to check out which districts in the state are well-rated.

You may also be interested in being close to a major airport for easy travel convenience. These are located in New Orleans and Shreveport. Finding a good real estate agent can help you to find all the answers to these questions and more, making your relocation to Louisiana a smooth and comfortable process.

Louisiana real estate agents bring considerable expertise to the process of buying or selling your home. To contact the right real estate agent who can provide more information about a particular area of the state, visit www.realestatelouisiana.com.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2012 at 9:42 am and is filed under Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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A way to let soldiers scale a wall like Spider-Man

Posted by on May 17, 2012. No comments.

17 hrs.

John Roach

When soldiers next need to scale a concrete wall, they should leave the gecko tape at home and opt for vacuum suction pads instead.

Such a set-up, illustrated in the video below, took first place among university entries in a recent design competition sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory.?

The goal was to design a system that would allow a four-member team of Special Operations forces to scale buildings or mountains in a variety of conditions.?

The Personal Vacuum Assisted Climber was created by mechanical engineering students at Utah State University. Gizmag has the technical details:?

?At the heart of the two PVAC units were two back-mounted carpet extractor motors. These each created suction with a three-stage impeller, were powered by seven lithium-polymer batteries, and created a seal against the wall using connected handheld pads lined with closed-cell foam. A pressure release lever on each pad allowed it to be secured against the wall when being used by the climber to pull themselves up, then released so it could be lifted higher.?

The competition was held at an abandoned cement silo near Wright State University in Ohio. Two team members scaled the wall with the PVAC units. Once on top, they dropped a rope for the other team members to ascend with a powered winch.

The competition also pitted the three United States service academies against each other ? Air Force, Naval, and West Point.?

The Air Force Academy took top prize with a gun-launched device that would reach the top of the climbing surface and explosively set a concrete anchor for the lead rope.?

The team also developed a carbon fiber ladder, which could be used in leap-frog fashion with periodically placed wall anchors to allow a climber to scale the wall.

In the future, humans may gain for even more Spiderman-like abilities, such as climbers inspired by beetles and geckos.?For now, though, we have vacuum cleaners.

–Via Gizmag?

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website and follow him on Twitter. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

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Schwarzenegger and Stallone plot escape in “The Tomb”

Posted by on May 16, 2012. No comments.

[ [ [['A picture is worth a thousand words', 5]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/why-facebook-bought-instagram-4-theories-160400376.html’, ‘[Related: Why Facebook bought Instagram: 4 theories]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 9]], ‘http://contributor.yahoo.com/join/yahoonews_virginiabeach’, ‘[Did you witness the jet crash? Share your story with Yahoo! News]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], ‘http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj’, ‘[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['Dick Clark', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dick-clark-dies-at-82-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/c/21/c217c61aa2d5872244c08caa13c16ec5.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘Reuters’, ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/’, ‘ ‘, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg’, ’550′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ] ]

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RTG Joins Alliance for Broadband Competition | Rural …

Posted by on May 15, 2012. No comments.

RTG Joins Alliance for Broadband Competition

Seek DOJ/FCC Scrutiny of Verizon/Cable Pact

The Rural Telecommunications Group, together with numerous wireless and wireline service providers and consumer advocacy groups, have announced the formation of the Alliance for Broadband Competition (?Alliance?). The formation of the Alliance is a direct response to the multi-faceted (and up until now relatively unknown) ventures entered into between Verizon Wireless, and some of the nation?s largest cable companies including Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Bright House Networks. Verizon and the participating cable companies have entered into a myriad of transactions that, if consummated, will forever change the competitive landscape of the broadband services marketplace and radically reduce consumer choice in the process.

Not only are the cable companies selling prized mobile wireless spectrum to Verizon ? spectrum that will give Verizon control of at least 1/3 of all comparable spectrum in this country ? but they are also entering into reseller, agency and joint-venture relationships that will impact how all Americans access broadband. To this point, the Alliance has prepared summaries of how the Verizon-cable transactions will hinder competition and debilitate consumers with respect to wireless access, wireline access, and WiFi, as well as the threats posed by excessive spectrum concentration, the creation of patents pertaining to broadband access, and the manner in which Internet and Video content can be viewed, if at all, by American consumers.

RTG and the Alliance have recognized the threat posed by Verizon and the Cable Companies and together they have educated the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission on the dangers inherent in a pact of this size. But the real impact will be felt by the everyday consumer, including those living and traveling to rural America ? so RTG implores all Americans who value choice to contact their elected representatives in Congress and call on them for immediate hearings on these transactions.

?Verizon and the cable companies are truly creating an Axis of Broadband Power that threatens competition and consumer choice to their very core,? said Carri Bennet, RTG?s General Counsel. ?Very quietly, this Axis has entered into complex transactions that will forever change how consumers access voice, Internet and video service, which companies these consumers will purchase those services from, and at the end of the day, what those services will cost. Tens of millions of Americans, including those in rural America, are now in the cross-hairs and the Alliance is ringing the warning bell calling for a stop to the onslaught before it is too late.?

About RTG ? Headquartered in Washington, DC, the Rural Telecommunications Group, Inc. (RTG) is a trade association representing rural wireless carriers who each serve less than 100,000 subscribers. RTG?s members have joined together to speed delivery of new, efficient and innovative telecommunications technologies to remote and underserved communities. ruraltelecomgroup.org @RTGwireless

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Justin Bieber Finds Lonely Island’s ‘SNL’ Skit ‘Disgusting’

Posted by on May 15, 2012. No comments.

Pop star is featured in the trio’s 100th digital short alongside Usher, Natalie Portman, Justin Timberlake.
By Jocelyn Vena

While <a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/timberlake_justin/artist.jhtml">Justin Timberlake</a> has always been cool about putting his junk in a box, another Justin, with the last name <a href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/bieber_justin/artist.jhtml">Bieber</a>, was less comfortable singing about his own stuff in a "Saturday Night Live" digital short.Playing the part of Lonely Islander Akiva Schaffer, alongside Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg, the teen pop superstar helped the comedy trio celebrate their 100th digital short. The skit opens with the three guys, including Bieber, who confuses the name Akiva for the sound of a sneeze, introducing their A-lister-filled skit, complete with appearances from Timberlake, Michael Bolton, Usher, Jon Hamm, Will Ferrell and Natalie Portman, as well as character cameos from Shy Ronnie, Jack Sparrow and Sergio the Sax Man, to name a few.<object width="415" height="233"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/dVuPd2wHJSbw-xJffoy_pw"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/dVuPd2wHJSbw-xJffoy_pw" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="415" height="233" allowFullScreen="true"></embed></object>In tuxes, the three Lonely Island guys (with Akiva as imagined by Bieber) dance around congratulating themselves on the achievement, listing off all the ways they will celebrate (pilates included!). But, as it turns out, Bieber will do anything but he won't do that. And, what exactly is that? Well, you see the guys want to "suck our own d—s."Bieber's response? "That's disgusting."While Bieber stands as a highlight, so do the Timberlake and Portman cameos in the sketch. Timberlake was back, d—s in boxes and all. Meanwhile, Portman, holding a doll baby, got her gangster rapper on again, proclaiming, "Yeah I had a baby, but I'm still crazy."As the short nears its wacky end, Bieber shares, "I was tricked into doing this. I don't endorse this song. No, no, no, no." Of course as he says this, Hamm as Sergio air humps around him.In the end, all of the characters get in a room and the guys (with Akiva now in for Akiva) once again share that they will celebrate the way they always intended: by sucking whatever it is they want to, 100 times.<a href="/news/articles/1685002/usher-saturday-night-live.jhtml">Saturday night's episode</a> was hosted by former "SNL" star Will Ferrell with musical guest (and Bieber's mentor) Usher on hand. The <a href="/news/articles/1684412/snl-cast-changes.jhtml">finale airs</a> this week with Rolling Stones leading man Mick Jagger hosting.What's your favorite Lonely Island digital short? Leave your comment below!

Must See HDTV (May 14th – 20th)

Posted by on May 15, 2012. No comments.

This week we’re completely overrun by season finales — if there’s a winter show that you watch that is still airing, it’s a safe bet that it will be wrapping up its run this week. Check after the break break for the dates and times on those as well as NBA and NHL playoffs action plus Blu-ray and videogame releases (we couldn’t ignore Diablo 3), but there’s just one finale we’re highlighting this week.

Community
Even with the good news that NBC has ordered up (at least) 13 more episodes for next season, we’ll be sad to see Greendale’s study group leave for the summer. Season three wraps up Thursday night with an oddly disjointed three episode finale broken up by 30 Rock in the middle. While the only thing we know for sure is that they’re never doing paintball again, it seems certain the finale will include healthy amounts of Officer Chang, a doppleDeaner, the appearance of Evil Troy, Jeff and Abed, and possibly a return trip to the Dreamatorium.
(May 17th, 8, 9 & 9:30PM, NBC)

Continue reading Must See HDTV (May 14th – 20th)

Must See HDTV (May 14th – 20th) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 18:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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