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Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Internet Marketing, The Best ?At Home Business? | Simple Call ...
An ?At Home Business? is exactly what you might expect ? a small venture that you can run out of the comfort of your own home. This is attractive to people for many obvious reasons. From more time for your family to just having the luxury of turning off the alarm clock, working from home has a lot of advantages.
There are many versions of home businesses that have nothing to do with the internet. For instance, MLM or multi level marketing is a popular strategy used by some people to supplement their income. But over the last 10 years many people have found that making money online via internet marketing is the best home business they can run.
Why?
Well, for starters it doesn?t take much to get up and running with an internet business. All you need is an internet connection and a home computer, both of which are ubiquitous these days.
Beyond that, the internet gives you many different ways by which to make money. For instance, you could be a freelance editor or writer and charge for your services on the many different internet forums around. If you have any special skills such as website creation or online graphic design, you could provide those services and charge for them too.
Two common ways to make money online are to sell your own product (or someone else?s product as an affiliate) or to build a website where you publish content that attracts visitors consistently.
The advantage of selling a product, preferably a digital product like an eBook, is that with little to no costs related to distribution or shipping you can pocket almost the entire amount that the customer pays.
Building a website such as a blog, which attracts people to visit on a regular basis is extremely attractive to advertisers because you would have a captive audience that they can reach. The advantage of this approach is that you could take an hobby, interest or passion ? say fitness, sport or politics ? and turn it into a source of income just by creating a blog to provide your thoughts on the subject!
Now, none of this is to suggest that internet marketing is a get-rich-quick scheme. While the internet provides plenty of opportunities, it also takes a lot of disciplined hard work to build traffic and a customer base over time that buys from you consistently.
So if you?re willing to invest a little time on a regular basis and practice a few regular disciplines to generate traffic, you might find that internet marketing is truly the best ?At Home Business? option for you
Source: http://simplecallsolutions.com/internet-marketing-the-best-at-home-business/
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Five days of fear: What happened in Boston
FILE - This Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from right, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from right, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard, File)
FILE - This Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo provided by Bob Leonard shows second from right, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 1 and third from right, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 in the Boston Marathon bombings by law enforcement. This image was taken approximately 10-20 minutes before the blast. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard, File)
FILE - In this Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo, an emergency responder and volunteers, including Carlos Arredondo, in the cowboy hat, push Jeff Bauman in a wheelchair after he was injured in one of two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
FILE - In this Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo provided by Ben Thorndike, people react to an explosion at the 2013 Boston Marathon in Boston. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/Ben Thorndike, File)
FILE - In this Monday, April 15, 2013 file photo, Bill Iffrig, 78, lies on the ground as police officers react to a second explosion at the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston. Iffrig, of Lake Stevens, Wash., was running his third Boston Marathon and near the finish line when he was knocked down by one of the two bomb blasts. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/The Boston Globe, John Tlumacki, File) MANDATORY CREDIT: THE BOSTON GLOBE, JOHN TLUMACKI
FILE - In this Tuesday, April 16, 2013 file photo, Tammy Lynch, right, comforts her daughter Kaytlyn, 8, after leaving flowers and some balloons at the Richard home in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Kaytlyn was paying her respects to her friend, 8-year old Martin Richard who was killed in Monday's bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Since Monday, Boston has experienced five days of fear, beginning with the marathon bombing attack, an intense manhunt and much uncertainty ending in the death of one suspect and the capture of the other. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)
BOSTON (AP) ? In the tight rows of chairs stretched across the Commonwealth Ballroom, the nervousness ? already dialed high by two bombs, three deaths and more than 72 hours without answers ? ratcheted even higher.
The minutes ticked by as investigators stepped out to delay the news conference once, then again. Finally, at 5:10 p.m. Thursday, a pair of FBI agents carried two large easels to the front of the Boston hotel conference chamber and saddled them with display boards. They turned the boards backward so as not to divulge the results of their sleuthing until, it had been decided, they could not afford to wait any longer.
Now the time had come to take that critical, but perilous step: introducing Boston to the two men believed responsible for an entire city's terror.
"Somebody out there knows these individuals as friends, neighbors, co-workers or family members of the suspects," said Richard DesLauriers, the FBI agent in charge in Boston. As he spoke, investigators flipped the boards around to reveal grainy surveillance-camera images of the men whose only identity was conferred by the black ball cap and sunglasses on one, the white ball cap worn backward on the other.
"Though it may be difficult, the nation is counting on those with information to come forward and provide it to us."
Photographers and TV cameras pushed forward, intent on capturing the images, even as people in the lobby stared into computers and smart phones, straining to recognize the faces. In living rooms and bars and offices across the city, and across the country, so many people looked up and logged on to examine the faces of the men deemed responsible for the bombing attack of the Boston Marathon, that the FBI servers were instantly overwhelmed.
At the least, Bostonians told each other, the photos proved that the monsters the city had imagined were responsible for maiming more than 170 were nothing more than ordinary men. But even as that relief sank in, the dread that had gripped the city since Monday at 2:50 p.m. was renewed.
If everyone had seen these photos, then that had to mean the suspects had seen them, too.
What desperation might they resort to, marathoner Meredith Saillant asked herself, once they were confronted with the certainty that their hours of anonymity were running out?
On the morning after the marathon, Saillant had fled the city for the mountains of Vermont with three friends and their children, trying to escape nightmares of the bombs that had detonated on the sidewalk just below the room where they'd been celebrating her 3:38 finish. Now, she put aside her glass of wine, reaching for the smart phone her friend offered and scrutinized the photos of the men who had defeated her city on what was supposed to be its day of camaraderie and strength.
"I expected that I would feel relief, 'OK, now I can put a face to it,' and start some closure," Saillant says. "But I think I felt more doom. I felt, I don't know, chilled. Knowing where we are and the era in which we live, I knew that as soon as those pictures went up that it was over, that something was going to happen ... like it was the beginning of the end."
There was no way she or the people of Boston could know, though, just when that end would come ? or how.
___
Marathon Monday dawned with the kind of April chill that makes spectators shiver and runners smile ? the ideal temperature for keeping a body cool during 26.2 miles of pounding over hills and around curves. By the four-hour mark, more than 2/3 of the field's 23,000 runners had crossed the finish line, and the crowds of onlookers were beginning to thin a little. But the growing warmth made it an afternoon to relish.
Passing the 25-mile mark, Diane Jones-Bolton, 51, of Nashville, Tenn., picked up the pace, relishing the effort and the sense of accomplishment of her 195th marathon.
Near the finish line, Brighid Wall of Duxbury, Mass., stood to watch the race with her husband and children, cheering on the competitors laboring through the race's final demanding steps.
In the post-race chute Tracy Eaves, a 43-year-old controller from Niles, Mich., proudly claimed her medal and a Mylar blanket, and took a big swig from a bottle of Gatorade.
And at the corner of Newbury Street and Gloucester, cab driver Lahcene Belhoucet pulled over, relishing the overabundance of paying passengers on an afternoon that traditionally gives almost as much of a boost to Boston's economy as it does to the city's spirits.
But the blast ? so loud it recalled the cannon fire heard on summer nights when the Boston Pops plays the 1812 Overture ? brought the celebration crashing down.
"Everyone sort of froze, the runners froze, and then they kept going because you weren't sure what it was," Wall said. "The first explosion was far enough away that we only saw smoke." Then the second bomb exploded, this time just 10 feet away.
"My husband threw our kids to the ground and lay on top of them," Wall said. "A man lay on top of us and said, 'Don't get up! Don't get up!' "
From her spot beyond the finish, a "huge shaking boom" washed over Eaves.
"I turned around and saw this monstrous smoke," she said. She thought it might be part of the festivities, until the second blast and volunteers began rushing the runners from the scene.
"Then you start to panic," she said.
Back in the field, Jones-Bolton noticed runners turning around and coming back at her. Then she realized most were wearing the blankets given to those who'd already completed the race. Suddenly the race came to halt, but nobody could say why. When word began to spread, Jones-Bolton panicked at the thought of her husband standing at the finish line, but was reassured by other runners.
At the finish, Wall, her husband and children raised their heads after a minute or two of silence. Beside them, a man was kneeling, looking dazed, blood dripping from his head. A body lay on the ground nearby, not moving at all. But in a landscape of blood and glass and twisted metal, they were far from alone.
"We grabbed each other and we ran but we didn't know where to run to because windows were blown out so another man helped me pick up my daughter," and they ran into a coffee shop, out the back door into an alley and kept going.
Meanwhile, the instincts of Dr. Martin Levine, a Bayonne, N.J., physician who has long volunteered to attend to elite runners at the finish line, told him to do just the opposite. Looking up at the plume of smoke, he estimated it was about two storefronts wide and quickly calculated how many spectators might be located in such an area.
"Make room for casualties ? about 40!," he yelled into the runners' relief tent. "Get the runners out if they can!" And he took off. Just then the second bomb went off. He reached the site to find a landscape resembling a battlefield, littered with severed limbs.
"The people were still smoking, their skin and their clothes were burning," he said. "There were lower extremity body parts all over the place ... and all of the wounds were extreme gaping holes, with the flesh hanging from the bones ? if there was any bone left."
Back in his cab, Belhoucet said he mistook the first blast for an earthquake. Fearing that a building might collapse, he considered running. But then people came pouring down the street and he beckoned a family into the car. He grabbed the wheel, then turned momentarily to ask where they wanted to go.
Only then did he notice the man's face, dripping with blood.
___
Now, three days after the bombing, investigators had made significant headway in deciphering the method behind the terror.
Armies of white-suited agents had spent many hours sifting through the evidence littering Boylston Street, climbing to nearby rooftops to make sure no clue would go overlooked. Their efforts revealed that the bombers had constructed crudely assembled weapons, using plans easily found on the Internet, from pressure cookers, wires and batteries popular at hobby shops. But investigators still did not know why. And, more importantly, they had only the haziest idea of whom to hold responsible.
It all came down to the photos, culled after a painstaking search of hundreds of hours of videotape and photographs gathered from surveillance cameras and spectators. But if they were unable to identify the men, that left the investigators with a difficult choice: They could keep them to law enforcement officers who so far had had no luck, prolonging the search and risking letting the men slip away or attack again. Or they could ask the public for help. But then, the suspects would know the net was closing in.
When they decided to release them, it would only put Bostonians further on edge.
"There was this kind of strange tension," said Brian Walker of Boston. "You walk by people and you just kind of look at them out of the corner of your eye and check them out. I was conscious that I didn't feel comfortable walking around with a backpack. It was like I just want to be safe here and everybody is kind of jumpy."
But as investigators pored over tips in the hours before the photos were made public, the city, at least, was struggling to right itself.
On Monday, the bombs had exploded just a half-block before Brian Ladley crossed the Marathon finish line. But, feeling lucky to be alive, he was out at 7 a.m. Thursday to join the line at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, hoping to hear President Barack Obama speak at an interfaith service to honor the victims. The event was still hours away, but when tickets ran out, authorities spotted his marathon jacket and plucked him and some other runners out of line to watch the service in a nearby school auditorium.
"If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us ... it should be pretty clear right now that they picked the wrong city to do it," Obama told the crowd of more than 2,000 inside the church. "We may be momentarily knocked off our feet. But we'll pick ourselves up. We'll keep going. We will finish the race."
After it ended, Ladley found himself shaking hands with the president, too awestruck to remember their conversation. But what meant the most was the camaraderie of the crowd.
"It was wonderful to have a moment with other runners and be able to share our stories," he said.
Less than a mile away, 85-year-old Mary O'Kane strained at the bell ropes in the steeple of historic Arlington Street Church, imagining the sounds spreading a healing across her city ? and the land. Sprinkled amid hymns like "Amazing Grace" and "A Mighty Fortress," patriotic tunes like "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America" wafted down from the 199-foot steeple and over Boston Common across the street.
"I feel joyful. I feel worshipful. I feel glad to be alive," she said. The city's response to the bombing had revealed its strength and brotherhood, attributes she was certain would carry it through. But her belief in Boston was tinged with sadness. Now she understood a little bit about how New Yorkers who experienced 9/11 must feel.
"I mean, it happened ? it finally happened," O'Kane said. "We were feeling sort of immune. Now we're just a part of everybody...The same expectations and fears."
___
In the hours after investigators released the photos of the men known only as Suspect No. 1 and Suspect No. 2, the city went on about the business of a Thursday night, a semblance of normality restored except for the area immediately surrounding the blast site. Restaurants that had closed in the nights just after the bombing reopened for business. At Howl at the Moon, a bar on High Street downtown, the dueling pianists took the stage at 6 p.m., almost as if nothing had changed.
But across the Charles River in Cambridge, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, were arming up.
Later, friends and relatives would recall both as seemingly incapable of terrorism. The brothers were part of an ethnic Chechen family that came to the U.S, in 2002, after fleeing troubles in Kyrgyzstan and then Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus. They settled in a working-class part of Cambridge, where the father, Anzor Tsarnaev, opened an auto shop.
Dzhokhar did well enough in his studies at prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin to merit a $2,500 city scholarship for college.
Tamerlan, though, could be argumentative and sullen. "I don't have a single American friend," he said in an interview for a photo essay on boxing. He was clearly the dominant of the two brothers, a former accounting student with a wife and daughter, who explained his decision to drop out of school by telling a relative, "I'm in God's business."
It's not that Tamerlan Tsarnaev didn't have options. For several years he'd impressed coaches and others as a particularly talented amateur boxer.
"He moved like a gazelle. He could punch like a mule," said Tom Lee, president of the South Boston Boxing Club, where Tsarnaev began training in 2010."I would describe him as a very ordinary person who didn't really stand out until you saw him fight."
But away from the gym, Tamerlan swaggered around his parents' home like he owned it, those who knew him said. And he began declaring an allegiance to Islam, joined with increasingly inflammatory views.
One of the brothers' neighbors, Albrecht Ammon, recalled an encounter in which the older brother argued with him about U.S. foreign policy, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and religion. The Bible, Tamerlan told him, was a "cheap copy" of the Quran, used to justify wars with other countries. "He had nothing against the American people," Ammon said. "He had something against the American government."
Dzhokhar, on the other hand, was "real cool," Ammon said. "A chill guy."
Since the bombing, the younger brother had maintained much of that sense of cool, returning to classes at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and attending student parties.
On the day of the bombing, he wrote on Twitter: "There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don't hear them cuz they're the minority."
But by Tuesday, when he stopped by a Cambridge auto garage, the mechanic, accustomed to long talks with Dzhokhar about cars and soccer, noticed the normally relaxed 19-year-old was biting his nails and trembling.
The mechanic, Gilberto Junior, told Tsarnaev he hadn't had a chance to work on a car he'd dropped off for bumper work. "I don't care. I don't care. I need the car right now," Junior says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told him.
Now, with the photos out, it was time to move. Already, one of Dzhokhar's college classmates had taken to studying the photo of Suspect No. 2 ? nearly certain it was his friend, although others were skeptical. It wouldn't take long for others to notice.
___
The call to the police dispatcher came in at 10:20 p.m. Thursday: shots fired on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge. Ten minutes later, when police arrived to investigate, they found one of their own, university officer Sean Collier, shot multiple times inside his cruiser. He had been monitoring traffic near a campus entrance, said Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas.
The baby-faced 26-year-old Collier, in just a year on patrol, had impressed both his supervisors and the students as particularly dedicated to his work. A few days earlier, he'd asked Chief John DiFava for approval to join the board at a homeless shelter, in a bid to steer people away from problems before they developed. Now he was being pronounced dead at the hospital.
Witnesses reported seeing two men. Fifteen minutes later, another call came in of an armed carjacking by two men. That was on Brighton Avenue, Haas said. For the next half-hour, the carjacking victim was kept in his car, had his bank card used to pocket $800 from an ATM and was told by his captors that they'd just killed a police officer and were responsible for the bombing, Watertown Police Chief Edward Deveau said. Haas said the man escaped from the car when his captors went into a Cambridge gas station, and he called police.
Investigators had their break.
Although police had previously said the carjacking victim had left his cellphone in the Mercedes SUV, enabling police to track its location via GPS, Haas said Sunday the phone was found on Memorial Drive near the gas station. It was past 11 p.m. now, and as the Mercedes sped west into Watertown, one of Deveau's officers spotted it and gave chase, realizing too late he was alone against the brothers driving two separate cars. When both vehicles came to a halt, Deveau said, the men stepped out and opened fire. Three more officers arrived, then two who were off-duty, fending off a barrage. When a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer, Richard Donohue, pulled up behind them, a bullet to the groin severed an artery and he went down.
"We're in a gunfight, a serious gunfight," Deveau said. "Rounds are going and then all of the sudden they see something being thrown at them and there's a huge explosion. I'm told it's exactly the same type of explosive that we'd seen that happened at the Boston Marathon. The pressure cooker lid was found embedded in a car down the street."
In the normally quiet streets of Watertown, residents rushed to their windows.
"Now I know what it must be like to be in a war zone, like Iraq or Afghanistan," said Anna Lanzo, a 70-year-old retired medical secretary whose house was rocked by the explosion.
As the firefight continued, Tamerlan Tsarnaev moved closer and closer to the officers, until less than 10 feet separated them, continuing to shoot even as he was hit by police gunfire, until finally he ran out of ammunition and officers tackled him, Deveau said. But as they struggled to cuff the older brother, he said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev jumped back in the second vehicle.
"All of the sudden somebody yelled 'Get out of the way!' and they (the officers) look up and here comes the black SUV that's been hijacked right at them. They dove out of the way at the last second and he ran over his brother, dragged him down the street and then fled," he said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
A few blocks over, Samantha England, was heading to bed when she heard what sounded like fireworks. When she called 911, the dispatcher told her to stay inside, lock the doors and get down on the floor. She reached for the TV, trying to figure out what was going on.
"As soon as they said it on the news, that's when we started to freak out and realize they were here," England said.
But after all the gunfire, the younger Tsarnaev had vanished. Officers, their guns drawn, moved through the neighborhood of wood-frame homes and cordoned off the area as daylight approached.
At Kayla DiPaolo's house on Oak Street, she scrambled to find shelter in the door frame of her bedroom as a bullet came through the side paneling on her front door. At 8:30 a.m., Jonathan Peck heard helicopters circling above his house on Cypress Street and looked outside to see about 50 armed men.
"It seemed like Special Forces teams were searching every nook and cranny of my yard," he said.
Unable to find Tsarnaev, authorities announced they were shutting down not just Watertown, but all of Boston and many of its suburbs, affecting more than 1 million people. Train service was cancelled. Taxis were ordered off the streets. Filming of a Hollywood movie called "American Hustle" ? the tale of an FBI sting operation ? was called off. In central Boston, streets normally packed with office workers turned eerily silent.
"It feels like we're living in a movie. I feel like the whole city is in a standstill right now and everyone is just glued to the news," Rebecca Rowe of Boston said.
But as the hours went by, and the house-to-house search continued, investigators found no sign of their quarry. Finally, at about 6:30 p.m., they announced the shutdown had been lifted.
At the Islamic Society of Boston, Belhoucet, the cab driver who'd fled the bombing scene, arrived for evening prayer only to find it shuttered. But he told himself the city's paralysis could not continue much longer. "Because there is no place to hide," Belhoucet said. "His picture is all over the world now."
Across Watertown, people ventured out for the first time in hours to enjoy the day's unusually warm air. They included a man who took a few steps into his Franklin Street backyard, then noticed the tarp on his boat was askew. He lifted it, looked inside and saw a man covered in blood.
He rushed back in to call police. And again, the neighborhood was awash in officers in fatigues and armed with machine guns. The man hunkered down inside the boat, later identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, traded fire with police for more than an hour, until at last, they were able to subdue him.
Around 8:45 p.m., police scanners crackled:
"Suspect in custody."
On the Twitter account of the Boston police department, the news was trumpeted to a city that had been holding its collective breath over five days of fear: "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won."
With that, Boston poured into the streets. In Watertown, officers lowered their guns and grasped hands in congratulation. Bostonians applauded police officers and cheered as the ambulance carrying Tsarnaev passed. Under the flashing lights from Kenmore Square's iconic Citgo sign, Boston University sophomore Will Livingston shouted up to people hanging out of open windows: "USA! USA! Get hyped, people!"
But on Boylston Street, where the bombing site remained cordoned off, there was silence even as the crowd swelled, and tears were shed.
"I think it's a mixture of happiness and relief," said Matt Taylor, 39, of Boston, a nurse who drove to Boylston Street as soon as he heard of the arrest.
Nearby, Aaron Wengertsman, 19, a Boston University student, who was on the marathon route a mile from the finish line when the bombs exploded, stood wrapped in an American flag. "I'm glad they caught him alive," Wengertsman said. "It's humbling to see all these people paying their respects."
They included 25-year-old attorney Beth Lloyd-Jones, who was 25 blocks from the bombings and considers them deeply personal, a violation of her city. She is planning her wedding inside the Boston Public Library, adjacent to where the bombs exploded.
"Now I feel a little safer," she said. But she couldn't help but think of the victims who suffered in the explosions that started it all: "That could have been any one of us."
___
EDITOR'S NOTE ? This reconstruction of events is based on reporting and interviews by Associated Press journalists across Boston and elsewhere from Monday through Saturday. AP writers Bridget Murphy, Michael Hill, Allen G. Breed, Denise Lavoie, Jeff Donn, Meghan Barr, Jay Lindsay, Katie Zezima, Pat Eaton-Robb, Rodrique Ngowi, Bob Salsberg, Marilynn Marchione and Geoff Mulvihill in Boston; Michelle Smith in Providence, R.I., Michael Rubinkam in Scranton, Pa.; and Trenton Daniel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report. Follow Adam Geller on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AdGeller
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Girl Scouts chapter to add video game patch
As recent campaigns across social media have shown, the game industry has slowly begun to own up to its troublesome legacy of sexism ? expanding roles for women in the business while updating representations of them in the games.
The Girl Scouts of America has introduced a unique approach to addressing the gender imbalance: Show girls the merit of game design from a young age. In partnership with Women In Games International (WIGI), the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles recently introduced a new patch to award work in game design.
While the new patch is being introduced a little over a month after the Boy Scouts made a Game Design merit badge of their own, a representative from the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles told NBC News that the organization has been working with Women In Games International for more than a year to introduce a new game design merit system for members of the local California chapter.
Sheri Rubin, president and CEO of Design, Direct, Deliver and a member of WIGI's steering committee, told NBC News that while the timing of the patch's announcement might resonate with other recent events, its introduction fits with both organizations' overall mission. "Social media campaigns like #1reasonwhy and #1reasontobe show just how important it is to reach girls at a young age and introduce them to video game development career choices."
There are a few key differences between the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts when it comes to their respective gaming achievements. For one, the Girl Scouts merit award is a patch, rather than a badge, which means that it isn't nationally recognized yet.
"Fostering interest in technology and video game development in females of all ages ... is the main inspiration for working towards a national badge," Rubin said in an email.
The program will also require Girl Scout members to actually learn how to program for games, rather than just design them. The GSGLA will use a custom version of Gamestar Mechanic, a video game published by partner organization E-Line that teaches children how to design their own video games, to track Girl Scout members' progress and they start to build their own games.
For the moment, it is only being introduced in Los Angeles, but both Rubin and the GSGLA said that they hope to bring it to other local chapters across the United States.
"Our plan is to start by working with the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles to introduce a local patch and once successful open it up to other councils where game developers are prevalent," Rubin added. "We hope this can be accomplished over the next couple years."
"Once our patch has been proven effective we will work to create what is necessary to get a nationally recognized badge in place for all Girl Scouts starting with those in 4th through 6th grade and eventually expanding through all levels encompassing 7th through 12th grade," Rubin said.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Panasonic prices and ships its first media streamers, newest Blu-ray ...
PANASONIC ANNOUNCES PRICING & AVAILABILITY FOR ITS 2013 BLU-RAY DISC? PLAYER LINEUP
Panasonic Introduces Two New 3D-Capable Players Featuring Wireless Capabilities for Added Content Viewing
SECAUCUS, NJ (April 9, 2013) ? Panasonic, a major developer and contributor to the success of the Blu-ray format, announced today pricing and availability of it 2013 Blu-ray Disc Player lineup which was unveiled last month at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show. The line-up features two new Full HD 3D models (DMP-BDT330 and DMP-BDT230) and two 2D Blu-ray Disc Players (DMP-BD89 and DMP-BD79) as well as continuations of two successful Full HD 3D 2012 models (DMP-BDT500 and DMP-BBT01).
All four of Panasonic's 3D-capable Blu-ray Disc models include Panasonic's proprietary IPTV platform, VIERA Connect1, while the 2D models feature IP VOD - a service that offers access to a limited, though targeted, selection of popular sites including Netflix, HuluPlus, Vudu, CinemaNow and YouTube. They also feature a Web Browser with pointer cursor for easy maneuvering, while all models in the 2013 lineup also feature external HDD Playback and personalized menu options on the Blu-ray lineup.
The Panasonic BDT330 model also offers Miracast ? a new display mirroring feature which enables users to transfer and display photos, videos, movies, music, and video games from their Smartphone and Tablet devices (Android 4.2 operating system or higher) to their HDTV screen with the swipe of a finger.
All 2013 Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Players include built-in Wi-Fi (with the exception of the BD79 which is wireless-ready), enabling users to access additional content and services through the internet without the need to tether your device. Panasonic's 2013 Blu-ray Disc Players also feature high-quality network audio (DLNA compatible) as well as 192kHz/32bit Audio DAC on select 3D-capable models (BDT500) and built-in 4K up-scaling (BDT330).
Additionally the Panasonic BDT230 and BDT330, BDT500, and BBT01 models feature 2D-3D conversion for any content and the BDT330 and BDT500 models also include twin HDMI ports.
For more information on Panasonic's line of 2013 Blu-ray Disc Players, visit www.panasonic.com.
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PANASONIC ANNOUNCES PRICING & AVAILABILITY FOR ITS INAUGURAL LINE OF STREAMING MEDIA PLAYERS
Sleek and Slim Media Players Feature Built in Wi-Fi for Easy and Versatile Video Viewing
SECAUCUS, NJ (April 9, 2013) ? Panasonic, an industry leader and pioneer in the development of emerging video technology, announced today pricing and availability of its first-ever line of Streaming Media Players which were unveiled last month at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show. The line-up features two models -- the DMP-MST60 and the DMP-MS10 featuring VIERA Connect and IP VOD respectively.
Panasonic's 3D-capable streaming media player, the MST60, features Panasonic's proprietary connected TV platform, VIERA ConnectTM, which enables1 owners of VIERA Connect-enabled Blu-ray Disc Players, Streaming Media Players and Home Theater Systems to turn any TV into a Smart TV with access to a wide range of internet-based video-on-demand content and applications covering everything from news and fitness, social networking, music and online shopping and gaming. The MST60 also includes a Web browser with cursor for easy maneuvering.
The Panasonic MS10 includes built-in Wi-Fi and contains access to IP VOD, giving users the ability to stream many of their favorite TV shows, movies and music from a variety of popular applications including Netflix, Hulu? Plus, CinemaNow, Vudu, and YouTube?.
Both of Panasonic's streaming media players also include external HDD Playback and the MST60 also features a 2D-3D conversion function and Miracast -- a new display mirroring feature which enables users to transfer and display photos, videos, movies, music, and video games from their Smartphone and Tablet devices (Android 4.2 operating system or higher) to their HDTV screen with the swipe of a finger.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/09/panasonic-pricing-ship-date-media-streamers-blu-ray/
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Sunday, April 7, 2013
This week's iMore show (ironically) not live from New York
We're doing the iMore show from New York City today. Ironically however, we're not doing it live. We will be recording it and posting it as soon as possible, but we don't have the usual live broadcast stuff with us, so it'll be live-to-tape.
I'll be joined by Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry and Daniel Rubino of Windows Phone Central, and given the way those guys have been going at each other lately, it should be a slobberknocker of a show.
Look for it soon!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Jw3NZLXpLsE/story01.htm
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FINALS WATCH: Clean game, Advantage Michigan
ATLANTA (AP) ? Around the Final Four and its host city with journalists from The Associated Press bringing the flavor and details of everything surrounding the games.
___
CLEAN GAME
If it seems like this game is going faster than the first semifinal that's because there is more of a flow to it. It probably won't turn into the foul-fest that slowed down the Louisville-Wichita State matchup.
Michigan doesn't foul much, and the Wolverines don't draw very many fouls either. At the end of the first half with Michigan leading 36-25 only eight fouls have been called.
Louisville and Wichita State combined for a total of 43 fouls.
On offense, Michigan is getting contributions from its bench. Caris LeVert ? who at one point looked like he might redshirt the season ? has made a couple 3-pointers. He had 11 3-pointers all season before the national semifinal.
Spike Albrecht has also hit one from beyond the arc.
? Noah Trister ? http://twitter.com/@noahtrister
___
MICHIGAN TIMEOUT
A reminder of an infamous moment in Michigan basketball history can be seen near the court.
There's a sign that says "TIME OUTS LEFT" with the No. 5 on it. Hard to tell if the tone is a mocking one or if it's just a Michigan fan trying to be helpful. There is a block "M'' on the message.
Former Michigan star Chris Webber called a timeout in the last seconds of the 1993 championship game against North Carolina ? but the Wolverines didn't have any left. The play resulted in technical fouls against Michigan and the Tar Heels went on to win 77-71.
? Noah Trister
___
ADVANTAGE MICHIGAN?
Michigan fans are making their presence felt, but it isn't helping the Wolverines find their shooting touch.
This is a road game for Syracuse. The Orange are well-represented but they're outnumbered by Michigan fans. And the Wolverines faithful are loud.
Michigan seems to want to shoot over the top of the Syracuse zone. After five minutes, the Wolverines started just 1 of 6 shooting from behind the arc.
? John Affleck ? http://twitter.com/@affleckap
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SYRACUSE vs. MICHIGAN
Louisville's got next.
Now, Syracuse and Michigan are playing to see which other team gets to stay on the court.
The Wolverines and Orange have tipped off the second half of the Final Four doubleheader at the Georgia Dome.
The winner between the No. 4 seeds will play Louisville, which rallied from a 12-point deficit to defeat Wichita State 72-68.
?Eddie Pells ? http://twitter.com/@epells
___
AIRCRAFT CARRIER vs. GEORGIA DOME
Syracuse forward James Southerland downplays the difficulties of shooting at the Georgia Dome.
"It can't be worse than a ship," Southerland said after practicing at the dome in preparation for the Final Four.
The Orange play their home games in the smaller Carrier Dome but opened the season against San Diego State in a game played on an aircraft carrier.
Mr. Southerland is about to find out which is tougher.
? Eddie Pells
___
MICHAEL JORDAN
The Final Four isn't the first time the Georgia Dome has held a massive crowd by basketball standards.
On March 27, 1998, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls played the Atlanta Hawks in the Georgia Dome as the Hawks' new Philips Arena was being built. The allure of seeing Jordan's last visit to Atlanta with the Bulls attracted a crowd of 62,046 ? the largest in NBA history.
Jordan, now owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, came back to Atlanta in his two seasons with the Washington Wizards.
? Charles Odum ? http://twitter.com/@CharlesOdum
___
LOUISVILLE ADVANCES
Louisville is moving on to the national championship game.
Barely.
Russ Smith scored 21 points, Luke Hancock added 20 off the bench and the Cardinals rallied from a 12-point deficit in the second half to beat Wichita State 72-68.
The Cardinals move on to face either Michigan or Syracuse in Monday night's title game. Those teams will tip off in about a half hour at the Georgia Dome.
For the Shockers, a surprising run through the NCAA tournament is over.
Injured Louisville guard watched the game from the bench, his broken leg propped in a chair. He couldn't even watch in the closing seconds, covering his eyes with his No. 5 jersey. But he was celebrating at the buzzer.
? Paul Newberry ? http://twitter.com/@pnewberry1963
___
HANCOCK SHINES
Luke Hancock led Louisville to the brink of a spot in the national championship game.
Hancock came off the bench to score 20 points, pushing the Cardinals to a 72-68 lead win over Wichita State.
? Paul Newberry
___
WARE FACTOR
Can the Louisville story get any better?
Walk-on has swished back-to-back 3-pointers to pull the Cardinals within 47-41 of Wichita State in the Final Four.
Henderson is getting more playing time because of the gruesome injury to Kevin Ware.
Now, the fill-in is coming up big for the Cardinals, who have battled back and lead 60-58 with 3:50 to play.
? Paul Newberry
___
FRESHMAN SHINES
Freshman Ron Baker is coming up big in the Final Four.
The Wichita State guard leads the Shockers with 11 points and five rebounds, a big reason the ninth-seeded team from Kansas has a 38-31 lead with just under 16 minutes remaining.
Baker has already made three shots from beyond the arc, and he's helping the Shockers cope with Louisville's suffocating press.
Louisville star Russ Smith leads all scorers with 12 points.
? Paul Newberry
___
HOLDING ONTO THE BALL
Louisville has forced at least 11 turnovers in every game this season. So far, the Cardinals have forced just four against Wichita State.
The Shockers have not been too rattled by the press and have stayed out of trouble in the halfcourt. They also have seven offensive rebounds.
Usually it's Louisville that creates all those extra opportunities. Not yet.
? Noah Trister
___
NOT INTIMIDATED
Say this about the Shockers: They aren't intimidated by mighty Louisville.
No. 9 seed Wichita State, trying to become the lowest-seeded team to win a national title, is holding its own against the top overall seed in the first game of the Final Four.
The Shockers lead the Cardinals 26-25 despite shooting just 30 percent from the field. Wichita State is putting its experience to good use against Louisville's touted press. The Shockers have only four turnovers, compared to seven for the Cardinals.
? Paul Newberry
___
THE BIG SLOW DOWN
Wichita State wanted to make the Final Four a knock-down, drag-out fight, and so far it's working. The blue-collar team has done a fairly good job the first half of breaking Louisville's press, and that's turned the game into a half-court blood-and-guts tussle.
Literally, in the case of Carl Hall.
The Shockers' high-energy forward spent an entire timeout with a wad of cotton stuck up his nostril after getting a bloody nose during one flurry under the basket.
? Dave Skretta ? http://twitter.com/@APdaveskretta
___
SHOCKING START
Top overall seed Louisville began like it was trying a little too hard to win one for Kevin Ware.
With the injured guard watching from the bench, the Cardinals got off to a dreadful start at the Final Four. They trailed Wichita State 8-0 at the first television timeout, turning it over twice and going 0-for-4 at the foul line.
? Paul Newberry
___
'GREAT TO BE HOME'
A broken leg couldn't keep Kevin Ware from sharing the Final Four experience with his Louisville teammates.
There was a loud cheer Saturday when Ware, wearing his No. 5 jersey and supported by crutches, followed his teammates onto the floor before the NCAA semifinal against Wichita State. Ware sat in a chair by the Louisville bench and propped up his surgically repaired right leg on a stack of towels situated on another chair.
Ware's right tibia snapped and broke through his skin in Sunday's Midwest Regional win over Duke. He had surgery Sunday night, was released two days later and on Wednesday flew with the team to Atlanta.
Ware said before the game he feels "great" and added "Obviously, it's great to be home."
Ware signed with Louisville from Rockdale County High School, about 30 miles east of Atlanta.
Louisville players paid tribute to Ware, No. 5, as they wore T-shirts over their jerseys in pregame warmups with the words "''Ri5e to the Occasion."
? Charles Odum ? http://twitter.com/@CharlesOdum
___
FIRST OUT
Wichita State was the first team to hit the floor at the Final Four on Saturday.
The Shockers slowly walked onto the elevated court of the Georgia Dome more than 60 minutes before their scheduled tip-off against Louisville in the first national semifinal.
Even though they'd had a couple practices in the cavernous football stadium, they still spent a minute staring up at the ceiling, the row upon row of seats and the video screens at each end, almost as if the No. 9 seed was seeing everything for the first time.
Once the balls were finally released by the NCAA, they began their warm-ups in earnest.
Louisville, which played in the Superdome in New Orleans in last year's Final Four, came out about 20 minutes later. The Cardinals wore their suddenly familiar "Ri5e" shirts meant to honor teammate Kevin Ware, who broke his leg in the regional finals against Duke.
? Dave Skretta
___
SHOCKER TRIFECTA
When top-seeded Gonzaga played Wichita State during the first week in Salt Lake City, the game plan revolved around stopping Malcolm Armstead and the Bulldogs succeeded. Armstead scored only eight points. Only problem: Ron Baker and Clhcombined for eight 3-pointers and 32 points. Coach Gregg Marshall said even he wasn't expecting that good a shooting night from his team.
Message to Louisville: There's more than one player to stop on the Shockers.
Message to Shockers: To pull another one, against a team like this, might be best if all those guys ? Armstead, Baker and Early ? are having good nights.
? Eddie Pells
___
THINGS TO KEEP AN EYE ON
The Final Four tips off Saturday night and Steve Kerr has a few ideas on how to improve college basketball games.
"I could go on for a while," said Kerr, who played 15 seasons in the NBA and was the general manager of the Phoenix Suns from 2007-10. He went to the Final Four with Arizona in 1988 and is working his third straight national semifinals as an analyst for Turner/CBS.
A few of his ideas to watch during the Final Four:
? Eliminate timeouts after made shots. "It just makes the game so choppy."
? Cut out the mandatory media timeouts ? under 16, 12, 8 and 4 minutes on the game clock? if a team calls one just before the scheduled timeout." I understand that you've got to sell advertising, but there's plenty of time for advertising because there's enough timeouts already."
? Don't restart the 10-second backcourt count just because a team called a timeout.
? Change the interpretation of the charge/block so it's geared toward the offensive player. "We've got to make the game more pleasing to watch and more fluid."
? John Marshall ? http://twitter.com/@ jmarshallap
___
WARE 'EM OUT
There continues to be major focus on injured Louisville guard Kevin Ware.
Spotted at an apparel tent outside the Georgia Dome: A red T-shirt saying "WARE 'em out for Kevin."
Ware's compound leg fracture in last Sunday's regional final was probably the tournament's most gruesome moment, but the Cardinals have rallied around him at the Final Four. Louisville faces underdog Wichita State in Saturday night's semifinals.
? Noah Trister ? http://twitter.com/@noahtrister
___
FINAL FOUR FEVER
Spring weather arrived Saturday before Louisville and Wichita State tipped off the Final Four inside the Georgia Dome.
And some 100,000 fans descended on downtown Atlanta in the sunny, 70-degree weather? an estimated 20,000 packed Olympic Centennial Park to enjoy the free festivities and about 70,000 inside the arena.
? Charles Odum
___
NCAA Finals Watch follows the Final Four games and all the activities surrounding the event as seen by journalists from The Associated Press from across Atlanta. It will be updated throughout the day with breaking news and other items of interest. Follow AP reporters on Twitter where available.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/finals-watch-clean-game-advantage-michigan-021839301--spt.html
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California court: Hands on the wheel, not on your maps app
Drivers who use mapping software on their phones to find out where they're going may not be paying enough heed to where they're going.
At least that's one way of characterizing a recent ruling by a California court.
Issued late last month and made more widely known by a tweet today from law professor Orin Kerr, the ruling says handling a cell phone while driving, even if "solely for its map application," is every bit as illegal in the Golden State as holding the phone to your ear while talking, or using your thumb (or other digits) to text.
A man cited under Section 23123 of the California Vehicle Code had argued on appeal that the section's language implied its application was limited to drivers who hold a cell phone while using it to converse. And since the defendant wasn't conversing, but was simply using mapping software, he shouldn't have been subject to a ticket.
Section 23123 says, "a person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving."
But Judge W. Kent Hamlin of the Superior Court of California, County of Fresno, wrote in his ruling that:
Our review of the statute's plain language leads us to conclude that the primary evil sought to be avoided is the distraction the driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the phone. That distraction would be present whether the wireless telephone was being used as a telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock, or a device for sending and receiving text messages and e-mails.
Further, Hamlin said the court had, as was its right, reviewed prior versions of the statute to clarify the law's intent, and he quoted State Assembly analysis of the legislation when he wrote that the law is aimed at distractions:
...specifically including "the physical distraction a motorist encounters when either picking up the phone, punching the number keypad, holding the phone up to his or her ear to converse, or pushing a button to end a call." That distraction would be present whether the phone is used for carrying on a conversation or for some other purpose.
The defendant also argued that a later update to the vehicle code, Section 23123.5, geared toward texting on an "electronic wireless communications device," also suggested that the earlier section was limited to cell phone conversations -- otherwise why add a statute about texting? The court ruled, however, that the later statute was meant to expand the regulations to rope in more-recent devices -- smartphones and the like -- and that the original statute had still been "designed to prohibit the 'hands-on' use of the phone while driving, without limitation."
Some, of course, have argued that electronic devices are no more distracting while driving than a truckload of other things. (CNET's Maggie Reardon made this point way back in 2007 -- referencing, among other things, screaming babies and dropped pacifiers). The ruling acknowledges this position but adds that it's a matter for lawmakers and not the courts:
It may be argued that the Legislature acted arbitrarily when it outlawed all "hands-on" use of a wireless telephone while driving, even though the legal use of one's hands to operate myriad other devices poses just as great a risk to the safety of other motorists. It may also be argued that prohibiting driving while using "electronic wireless communications devices" for texting and e-mailing, while acknowledging and failing to prohibit perhaps even more distracting uses of the same devices, is equally illogical and arbitrary. Both arguments should be addressed to the Legislature in support of additional legislation barring any use of those other devices in other than a hands-free manner, or in support of a repeal or amendment of section 23123 to allow the "hands-on" use of wireless telephones for other purposes while driving.
The bottom line for now? If you're driving in California, watch where you -- and your hands -- are going.
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Friday, April 5, 2013
Nokia Music for WP8 now keeps track of listening history, adds Live Tile feature
Human beings living their mobile life under Microsoft's OS have been enjoying the Nokia Music service for awhile now, but for the Windows Phone 8 folk in particular, the groovy app just got a little better. Earlier today, Nokia released an updated version of its jam-packed application, giving users, among other things, a Live Tile option that displays various info about the music currently being played -- you know, simple (but useful) stuff like artist and song names. What's more, Nokia Music now also boasts a history feature which takes virtual note of the most recently played tracks, as well as bringing improvements to the download section of the app's mix radio stations. If all that jazz sounds great to you, dear reader, then pay the source link below a quick visit, where you'll easily find a direct download of the goods.
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Software, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia
Source: Windows Phone
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/03/nokia-music-windows-phone-update/
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Sweeping gun limits now law in CT
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who four months ago broke the news to shocked parents that their children had been slaughtered in a Connecticut elementary school, signed into law Thursday sweeping new restrictions on weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines similar to the ones used by the man who gunned down 20 child and six educators in the massacre.
Alongside family members of some of the victims of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Malloy signed the bill hours after the General Assembly approved the measure to give the state some of the toughest gun laws in the country.
"This is a profoundly emotional day for everyone in this room," Malloy said. "We have come together in a way that few places in the nation have demonstrated the ability to do."
In the hours after the shooting Dec. 14, as anxious family members gathered inside a firehouse and waited for news, Malloy told them their loved ones were not coming home. He said later that he didn't think it was right for the families to wait for the victims to be formally identified.
Now, Connecticut joins states including California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts in having the country's strongest gun control laws, said Brian Malte, director of mobilization for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in Washington.
"This would put Connecticut right at the top or near the top of the states with the strongest gun laws," Malte said.
The legislation adds more than 100 firearms to the state's assault weapons ban and creates what officials have called the nation's first dangerous weapon offender registry as well as eligibility rules for buying ammunition. Some parts of the bill would take effect immediately after Malloy's signature, including background checks for all firearms sales.
Following a total of more than 13 hours of respectful and at times somber debate, the House of Representatives and the Senate voted in favor of the 139-page bill crafted by leaders from both major parties in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Both were bipartisan votes.
"I pray today's bill ? the most far-reaching gun safety legislation in the country ? will prevent other families from ever experiencing the dreadful loss that the 26 Sandy Hook families have felt," said House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz.
Colorado and New York also passed new gun control requirements in the wake of the Newtown shooting, in which a 20-year-old gunman used a military-style semi-automatic rifle.
Compared with Connecticut's legislation, which, for example, bans the sale or purchase of ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds, New York restricted magazines to seven bullets and gave owners of higher-capacity magazines a year to sell them elsewhere. Colorado banned ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
But some lawmakers said they felt the legislation did not do enough to address mental health issues.
Rep. Mitch Bolinsky, a freshman Republican lawmaker from Newtown, acknowledged the legislation "is not perfect" and he hoped would be "a beginning in addressing critical mental health needs."
Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, whose district includes Newtown, said he felt he was representing the interests of the Sandy Hook victims as he cast his vote.
"I stand here as their voice, as their elected representative," he said, reciting the names of the 26 victims.
Lawmakers appeared to still be stunned by the enormity of the massacre.
"When a child is sent to school, their parents expect them to be safe. The Sandy Hook shooting rampage was a parent's, a school system's, a community's and the nation's worst nightmare," said Republican state Sen. Toni Boucher of Wilton.
Gun rights advocates who greatly outnumbered gun control supporters in demonstrations held earlier in the day at the Capitol railed against the proposals as misguided and unconstitutional, occasionally chanting "No! No! No!" and "Read the bill!"
"We want them to write laws that are sensible," said Ron Pariseau, of Pomfret, who was angry he'll be made a felon if he doesn't register his weapons that will no longer be sold in Connecticut. "What they're proposing will not stop anything."
By the time the Senate voted around 6:30 p.m., many of the gun rights advocates had gone home, leaving behind proponents of the bill who applauded when the tally in the Senate was read. The halls were mostly empty by the time the House voted at about 2:30 a.m. Thursday.
In the legislature, leaders waited to unveil gun legislation until they struck a bipartisan deal that they say shows how the parties can work together in Connecticut and elsewhere. They touted the package as a comprehensive response to Newtown that also addresses mental health and school security measures, including the creation of a new council to establish school safety standards and the expansion of circumstances when someone's mental history disqualifies him or her from obtaining a gun permit or other gun credentials.
"We did our job. We did it together," said House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr. "We did the best we could and I think we did a good thing."
Among the gun control advocates who turned out to witness the vote were Dan and Lauren Garrett, of Hamden, wearing green shirts in honor of the Sandy Hook victims. The Garretts traveled to Hartford with their 10-month-old son, Robert, to watch the bill's passage. They said they hope lawmakers will build on the proposal.
"It's just the beginning of this bill. In six months from now, it's going to get stronger and stronger," Dan Garrett said. "I think they're watching us all over the country."
___
Associated Press writers Stephen Kalin and Michael Melia in Hartford and John Christoffersen in New Haven contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/conn-governor-signs-sweeping-gun-limits-law-162156652.html
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School bus overturns in northern Illinois
WADSWORTH, Ill. (AP) ? Authorities say a school bus carrying more than two dozen elementary school children has overturned in northern Illinois.
Television footage from the scene near the village of Wadsworth shows the bus on its side, with two mangled cars nearby. Debris was scattered in an adjacent farm field.
Lake County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Sgt. Sara Balmes (bahl-MEHS') told The Associated Press that there was no immediate word on injuries, although scores of emergency vehicles surrounded the wreck.
The bus was taking 25 children to Newport Elementary School, which is about 45 miles north of Chicago.
The accident happened around 8 a.m. about a mile from the school, which has some 400 students in kindergarten through 5th grade.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/school-bus-overturns-northern-illinois-142722815.html
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Thursday, April 4, 2013
Brain cell signal network genes linked to schizophrenia risk in families
Apr. 3, 2013 ? New genetic factors that predispose to schizophrenia have been uncovered in five families with several affected relatives. The psychiatric disorder can disrupt thinking, feeling, and acting, and blur the border between reality and imagination.
Dr. Debby W. Tsuang, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and Dr. Marshall S. Horwitz, professor of pathology, both at the University of Washington in Seattle, led the multi-institutional study. Tsuang is also a staff physician at the Puget Sound Veterans Administration Health Care System.
The results are published in the April 3 online edition of the JAMA Psychiatry.
Loss of brain nerve cell integrity occurs in schizophrenia, but scientists have not worked out the details of when and how this happens. In all five families in the present study, the researchers found rare variants in genes tied to the networking of certain signal receptors on nerve cells distributed throughout the brain. These N-methyl-D-aspartate, or NMDA, receptors are widespread molecular control towers in the brain. They regulate the release of chemical messages that influence the strength of brain cell connections and the ongoing remodeling of the networks.
These receptors respond to glutamate, one of the most common nerve-signaling chemicals in the brain, and they are also found on brain circuits that manage dopamine release. Dopamine is a nerve signal associated with reward-seeking, movement and emotions. Deficits in glutamate and dopamine function have both been implicated in schizophrenia but most of the medications that have been developed to treat schizophrenia have targeted dopamine receptors.
Tsuang and her groups' discovery of gene variations that disturb N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor networking functions supports the hypothesis that decreased NMDA receptor-mediated nerve-signal transmissions contributes to some cases of schizophrenia.
Tsuang pointed out that several hallucinogenic drugs, such as ketamine and phencyclidine (PCP, or angel dust), block N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors and can produce symptoms similar to schizophrenia. These are the strongest evidence implicating these receptors in schizophrenia. The drugs sometimes induce psychosis and terrifying sensory detachment. Reports of such effects in recreational drug users fingered faulty NMDA receptor networks as suspects in schizophrenia.
In all five of their study families, Tsuang's team detected rare protein-altering variants in one of three genes involved with the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor network. One of the genes, GRM5, is directly linked with glutamate signaling. In the other two genes, the links are indirect and connected through other proteins synthesized in brain cells. One of these proteins, PPEF2, appears to affect the levels of certain brain nerve-cell signaling mediators, and the other altered protein, LRP1B, may compete with a normal protein for a binding spot on a subunit of the NMDA receptor.
These discoveries provide additional clues to the molecular disarray that might occur in the brain nerve cells of some patients with schizophrenia, and suggest new targets for therapy for certain patients. In a disease occurring in about 1 percent of the population, the picture of how and why schizophrenia arises in all these people is far from complete.
"Disorders like schizophrenia are likely to have many underlying causes," Tsuang noted. She added that it might eventually make sense to divide schizophrenia into categories based, for example, on which biochemical pathways in the brain are disrupted. Treatments might be developed to correct the exact malfunctioning mechanisms underlying various forms of the disease.
Tsuang gave an example: Agents that stimulate N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor-mediated nerve-signal transmissions include glycine-site blockers and glycine-transport inhibitors have shown some encouraging results in pre-clinical drug trials, but mostly in adjunctive treatment in addition to standard antipsychotic therapy.
"But perhaps the data we have generated will help pharmaceutical companies target specific subunits of the NMDA receptors and pathways," Tsuang said. She added, however, that effective treatments may lag by many years after these kinds of discoveries. Someday it may make sense to initiate such treatments in people at high genetic risk when early symptoms, such as apathy and lack of motivation, appear, and before brain dysfunction is severe.
Also, possessing the newly discovered gene mutations does not always mean that a person will become schizophrenic. In the recent family study, three of the five families had relatives with the protein-altering variants who did not have schizophrenia.
"This isn't surprising," Tsuang observed, "Given that schizophrenia is such a complex disorder, we would expect that not everyone who carries the variants would develop the disease." In the future, researchers will be seeking what triggers the gene variants into causing problems, other mutations within affected individuals' genetic profile that might promote or protect against disease, as well as non-genetic factors in the onset of the illness in genetically susceptible people.
The researchers also utilized a strategy and selected more distant relatives of affected individuals for genetic sequencing. Distant kin share, a smaller proportion of genes compared to closely related family members. For example,siblings typically on the average share about 50 percent of their genes whereas cousins on the average share 12.5 percent of their genes. The researhers also hypothesized that the causative mutation within each family would be the same variant.
This strategy helped the researchers decrease the number of genetic variants that were detected by sequencing and thereby concentrate only on the remaining strongest candidates. The researchers also filtered their results against the many publicly available sequencing databases. This allowed them to pick out genetic variants not seen in individuals without psychiatric illness.
According to Tsuang, the research team was excited by recent advances in technology enabled them to uncover unknown, rare genetic variants not previously found in large populations without psychiatric condition. The ability to rapidly sequence only those portions of the genome that code for proteins made this experiment possible.
The next step for the researchers will be to screen for the newly discovered genetic variants in a large sample of unrelated cases of schizophrenia compared to controls. They want to determine if the variants are statistically associated with the disease.
The study was funded by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Independent Investigator Award, National Institute of Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs.
In addition to Tsuang and Horwitz, the first author on this publication is Andrew Timms, postdoctoral fellow in Horwitz' laboratory and second author is Michael O. Dorschner of the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Puget Sound Veterans Administration Health Care System.
Other scientists on the study were Jeremy Wechsler and Robert Kirkwood, of the UW Department of Pathology; Carl Baker and Evan Eichler of the UW Department of Genome Sciences; and Olena Korvatska of the UW Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Genetics; Kyu Yeong Choi and Katherine W. Roche, of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health; Santhosh Girirajan of the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Washington. The original article was written by Leila Gray.
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- Timms AE, Dorschner MO, Wechsler J, et al. Support for the N -Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Hypofunction Hypothesis of Schizophrenia From Exome Sequencing in Multiplex Families. JAMA Psychiatry, 2013; DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.1195
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Fresh Healthy Vending Expands to Northern ... - Franchising.com
Social Entrepreneurs Danny and Lori Wade Latest Healthy Vending Franchisees from Dallas
(PRWEB) April 03, 2013
Watch the Wade's Testimonial video: ??https://www.youtube.com/tv?vq=medium#/watch?v=tfACeyI-aAM&mode=transport
Danny and Lori Wade; from Plano, Texas; looked for a more flexible lifestyle while generating income on a monthly basis. Owning a Fresh Healthy Vending and Organic Caf? vending machine franchise became a great opportunity and fit to help the Northern Texas community in providing healthier options while owning a business.
Danny and Lori Wade attended an in-depth two-day ?Healthy Vending? training work shop held monthly in San Diego at the Fresh Healthy Vending Headquarters; in San Diego, CA; along side of 15 other Fresh Healthy Vending franchisees. In the above video Danny and Lori Wade discuss the importance in the support received from the Fresh Healthy Vending team in not only the technical aspects, but in securing locations as well. The Wade?s discuss long term plans to continuously grow with the company and place more machines within the next nine months.
Please take the time to watch the latest Franchisee discuss Fresh, its mission, its approach and support.
There has never been a better time to buy a business that makes a positive impact on the health of our community and allows for amazing profit potential. Contact Fresh Healthy Vending today.
For more information on becoming a Fresh Healthy Vending franchisee in your area, please visit our website athttp://www.freshvending.com or call 888-902-7558.
And if you?re interested in bringing a Fresh Healthy Vending Snack/Drink or Gourmet Coffee Caf? machine to your community, visit us at http://www.freshandhealthy.org.
Contact:
Alexander Capio
Fresh Healthy Vending
www.freshvending.com
888-902-7558 132
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Source: http://www.franchising.com/news/20130403_fresh_healthy_vending_expands_to_northern_texas_ar.html
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