Poetro's blog: November 2006

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Zune Grabs the Second Place in The MP3 Player Market

Microsoftâ€™s iPod killer, Zune, achieved after its first week of sale 9 percent of the U.S. digital music player market and outdid SanDisk Corp.'s Sansa, according to the market researcher NPD Group.

With these 9 percent, Microsoftâ€™s Zune is placed on the second position, behind Appleâ€™s iPod, which remained the market leader with 63 percent.

"Microsoft attracted early adopters in a successful launch week for Zune, eking out Sandisk as the No. 2 digital audio player vendor," said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis. "This was especially impressive given the Zune's single capacity configuration and relatively high price point."

The Zune represents the software giant's most ambitious attempt to date to challenge Apple's iPod. Microsoft is hoping to catch Apple with features not currently available on the iPod, including a slightly larger screen, an FM radio tuner and new technology that allows the device to locate other nearby Zunes and wirelessly exchange music and pictures with a few touches of the button.

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Zune Grabs the Second Place in The MP3 Player Market

Microsoftâ€™s iPod killer, Zune, achieved after its first week of sale 9 percent of the U.S. digital music player market and outdid SanDisk Corp.'s Sansa, according to the market researcher NPD Group.

With these 9 percent, Microsoftâ€™s Zune is placed on the second position, behind Appleâ€™s iPod, which remained the market leader with 63 percent.

"Microsoft attracted early adopters in a successful launch week for Zune, eking out Sandisk as the No. 2 digital audio player vendor," said Ross Rubin, NPD's director of industry analysis. "This was especially impressive given the Zune's single capacity configuration and relatively high price point."

The Zune represents the software giant's most ambitious attempt to date to challenge Apple's iPod. Microsoft is hoping to catch Apple with features not currently available on the iPod, including a slightly larger screen, an FM radio tuner and new technology that allows the device to locate other nearby Zunes and wirelessly exchange music and pictures with a few touches of the button.

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Test 2

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Tags: multiplicate | mathematics

Po-210 easy to produce, can be found in food - ex-nuclear minister, MOSCOW, November 30, (RIA Novosti)

[q url="http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061130/56244741.html"]MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - Polonium-210, a highly toxic radioactive isotope widely believed to have been used to poison former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, can be manufactured even by a layman, a Russian former nuclear minister said Thursday.

Litvinenko, a Russian intelligence defector and a close associate of fugitive Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died last Thursday in a London hospital. British health officials said Friday a large dose of Po-210 had been found in his body.

"Polonium is not actively used anywhere," Yevgeny Adamov said. "However, it is not difficult to manufacture. It can be done even by a layman without a chemical background."

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006

S. Koreat confirms 2nd highly pathogenic bird flu outbreak

[q url="http://english.people.com.cn/200611/28/eng20061128_326032.html"]The South Korean government said Tuesday that another outbreak of the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza (AI) was proved on a poultry farm in the Iksan city, 230 km south of Seoul.

The new outbreak of the bird flu is only 3 km away from the previous one, where the government had culled and buried all animals within a 500-m radius of a poultry farm since the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus was confirmed last Saturday.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said test results showed the newly reported cases was caused by highly pathogenic strain of bird flu virus.

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Anti-Aging Conference Offers New Ideas for Not Getting Old

[q url="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232011,00.html"]The Baby Boomer generation has been influencing American culture since they first began growing their hair and ripping their jeans.

Now, as these trend setters are approaching their 60s, they are reshaping the way America looks at aging.

In her article "What do boomers want in 2006?,"Joanna L. Krotz notes that every seven seconds for the next 18 years, someone in this country will turn 60. More than one million Americans are expected to be 100 or older by 2050.

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

'Everyone hated Kevin Federline'

Kevin Federline has been slammed by outspoken stars - Courtney Love and Jackass star Steve-O, for being an uncaring and irresponsible husband.

The actors claim that the wannabe rapper, whose estranged wife Britney Spears filed for divorce this month, is "hated by everyone" as he has been very insensitive to her needs. They also blame K-Fed for failing to support the pop star after she gave birth to second son Jayden James.

"Everybody hated him. I mean everyone! I feel bad for him. But he was bad for business," Hollywood Rag quoted Courtney, as telling In Touch Weekly magazine.

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In the Wii-PS3 Playoff, Nintendo Upsets Sony on the Fun Factor

[q url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/22/AR2006112201857.html"]There was a showdown between the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PlayStation 3 at The Post's game testing lab last weekend.

Here's how it went down: I invited a bunch of my friends, five guys and three gals, over to check out the new systems. Few of them play or care about video games, but they were all curious to see the PlayStation 3, the cutting-edge game console that sparked real-world mayhem on its release Friday.

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[q url="http://www.playfuls.com/news_05291_Nintendo_Wii_the_Surprise_Winner_of_the_Console_War.html"]Do you know what the first condition of a perfect console launch is? Releasing enough units so that everyone can get one! Well, if not everyone, at least as many as possible.

Of the three competitors on the console market, Nintendo seems to be the only one to have understood this necessity. Sony would have certainly liked to have millions of consoles available for sale, but problems determined by the incorporation of the BluRay unit didnâ€™t allow the Japanese company such a luxurious release of its product.

Microsoft released Xbox 360 a year ago, however, as it didnâ€™t respect this condition, the unit was sold out shortly after its launch. Lucky for the Redmond company that they had a whole year at their disposal in order to solve this problem â€“ now they can be proud of having sold 7 million consoles. Microsoft hopes to celebrate having delivered 10 million units to consumers by March 2007.source

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Quote Source testing

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Soldier gets 90 years in Iraq rape-killing

A U.S. soldier who confessed to the rape of a 14-year-old girl and the slayings of her and her family has been sentenced to 90 years in prison.

U.S. Army Spc. James Barker, who indicated that he will testify against other soldiers implicated in the case, struck a plea deal with prosecutors that kept the death penalty off the table and made him eligible for parole in 20 years, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The court-martial was conducted at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Baker, the 16th member of the U.S. military to receive prison time for the deaths of Iraqi civilians, was given the longest sentence thus far, more than three times the next-longest sentence of 25 years for an unrelated case.

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Apparently we can all get along

Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google have aligned on a new, standardized sitemap protocol that allows webmasters to give all three companies' search engine spiders a complete listing of their site's pages. The Live Search Blog (Microsoft), the Yahoo! Search Blog, and the Webmaster Central Blog (Google) have color-coordinated announcements and the companies have put up a site to explain it all. The protocol has been released under the Creative Commons license (Attribution - Share Alike) to promote use by other search engines.

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PS3 launched in US

AFTER THE pandemonium of the PS3 launch in Japan, similar fanfare, fights and tantrums were recorded across the US last night, as America braced for the impact of the Playstation 3.

Gizmodo have pics of a tractor trailer delivering PS3s accompanied by sirens, a police escort, and a jumbotron, to 4th street San Francisco - where lucky customers were the first to be able to purchase their consoles in the US.

This is accompanied by the sight of happy campers, who had been waiting in queues for the chance of purchasing a PS3 for sometime.

The lucky guy who came first in the queue, was then forced into about 50 interviews with the press, giving him little time to play with his new $599 console.

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo get ready to rumble

The $30 billion video game industry's own war of the titans reboots this week with the U.S. launch of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 on Friday and the debut of Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii on Sunday.

A limited supply, delayed debut and drop in the number of games built exclusively for the new PS3 could choke market leader Sony's quest for mainstream hearts and dollars until after the crucial holiday season, a far different scenario from the last console battle when Sony beat key rivals to market.

"It's a significantly more competitive market this time," said Yankee Group video game analyst Michael Goodman, adding that many parents are not brand loyal and will not let Christmas pass without a console for the gamer on their list.
Initial supplies of the PS3 are expected to quickly evaporate and Goodman and others expect Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) and its one-year-old Xbox 360 to be the main beneficiary of the resulting spill-over in demand.

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The Stupid, Idiotic and Annoying Things about the Zune-brick

I first started writing this article with a positive attitude concerning Microsoftâ€™s MP3 player. I ended up thinking Zune is a crap. So I changed the title.

First of all, as a Zune reviewer, you have to sign something thatâ€™s called â€œreviewers kit agreementâ€, probably one of the most stupid things ever to emanate from Redmond. As John C Dvorak said, they should really be ashamed of themselves for sending this piece of paper to intelligent people

According to the contract, you cannot take Zune it apart, you have no permission whatsoever to disassemble it (can you remove the battery?!) and you have to write in your review only terms imposed by the contract. We all know that it is of common sense for enthusiast sites to review a product by disassembling it and posting pictures of how it looks inside, just to give the potential customers the chance of knowing more about what theyâ€™ll buy.

One reason for Microsoftâ€™s secrecy (or stupidity, but that is just so common for Redmondâ€¦) is the fact that customers could actually find out before they buy what Zune is actually like: almost twice bigger than any regular iPod (and probably even bigger than iPodâ€™s manualâ€¦). So I say to my self: ok, it has these dimensions because it gives you a lot of new features and you canâ€™t pack those into something smaller. But then again: maybe theyâ€™ve included some big, old flash memory or some components from the â€™90 and they wouldnâ€™t want you to realize that beforeâ€¦

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Microsoft Counting on a Twist to Make Zune Shine in Shadow of iPod

The hoopla was still swelling around last Novemberâ€™s debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoftâ€™s latest entry in the game-console wars, when some on its development team began turning their attention to conceiving a new product.
Their discussions led to the rough outline of a device that might do
for portable music what the new Internet-enabled Xbox was poised to
deliver to gaming: connected entertainment.
Tomorrow, after committing hundreds of millions of dollars, Microsoft is scheduled to release that device, Zune.
It
was, its makers say, an idea brought to fruition by a 230-member team
in a creatively fervid overcrowded office space near the software
giantâ€™s sprawling campus in Redmond, Wash.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Microsoft says open to more Linux-type deals:report

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) is open to more deals like one it just agreed with Novell for open-source Linux software, but believes customers will continue to pay for software, its chief executive told an Indian newspaper.

"We will love to put that kind of agreement in place with anyone who distributes Linux software, Red Hat, whoever else," Steve Ballmer told India's Economic Times in an interview published on Thursday.
Last week, Microsoft and Novell (NOVL.O) entered a broad
set of business and technological agreements to make their
products work together to serve corporate customers using both
Linux and Windows computer servers.

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

UPDATE 2-Nvidia to buy PortalPlayer in mobile push

Nvidia Corp. [...] said on Monday it will buy audio chip maker PortalPlayer Inc. [...] for about $357 million as the graphics chip maker sets its sights on the fast-growing market for mobile devices.

Nvidia said it will pay $13.50 for each PortalPlayer share, a 1 percent premium to the company's closing price of $13.36 on Friday. The deal has a value of about $161 million net of cash on PortalPlayer's balance sheet.

PortalPlayer shares fell 0.6 percent to $13.28 while Nvidia's stock rose 1.8 percent to $33.18 in Nasdaq trading around midday.

The acquisition will expand Nvidia's line of chips used in hand-held devices such as digital media players and cell phones capable of playing music and video, an area where it lags its chief rival, ATI, now a part of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

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UPDATE 2-Nvidia to buy PortalPlayer in mobile push

Nvidia Corp. [...] said on Monday it will buy audio chip maker PortalPlayer Inc. [...] for about $357 million as the graphics chip maker sets its sights on the fast-growing market for mobile devices.

Nvidia said it will pay $13.50 for each PortalPlayer share, a 1 percent premium to the company's closing price of $13.36 on Friday. The deal has a value of about $161 million net of cash on PortalPlayer's balance sheet.

PortalPlayer shares fell 0.6 percent to $13.28 while Nvidia's stock rose 1.8 percent to $33.18 in Nasdaq trading around midday.

The acquisition will expand Nvidia's line of chips used in hand-held devices such as digital media players and cell phones capable of playing music and video, an area where it lags its chief rival, ATI, now a part of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

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Google to sell ads in newspapers

Google will start selling advertisements in major city newspapers this week, the company said today.

The Internet search giant will put ads up for sale on behalf of the publishers of the New York Times, the Washington Post, several Gannett and McClatchy newspapers, the Mercury News and others. More than 50 metropolitan daily newspapers and 100 advertisers, including online movie rental company Netflix and insurance provider eHealth, have signed up for the program, the company said.

Google's service, a three-month-long test, is the company's latest effort to expand the reach of its advertising business to offline media, including planned radio and television advertising programs.

``It's part of the general blurring we're experiencing between different types of media,'' said Colby Atwood, Seattle-based president of media research company Borrell and Associates. ``Everybody used to be in these constrained silos. Now you have newspapers doing TV newscasts on Web sites. You have TV stations offering directories on their Web sites. Everybody is getting into everybody else's business.''

For Google, the project could lead to a slice of the newspaper advertising industry's annual $49 billion in revenue. For newspapers, it means access to advertisers that have given up on print and migrated online, or to small businesses that have never advertised outside their local market.

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Barring the Door at the Four Seasons

The hotel chain's CEO wants to take the company private, with help from Bill Gates and a Saudi prince. And he's unwilling to consider competing offers.
It was an unusual statement by any chief executive, let alone one who is trying to persuade shareholders to accept his bid to buy full control of the company. Yet on Nov. 6, Isadore Sharp, chairman and chief executive of the Four Seasons (FS) hotel chain, told investors and analysts that he was not willing to consider any offer for the company other than the one he had helped put on the table. "This proposal achieves all my objectives for Four Seasons and my family, and is the only one that I am prepared to pursue," he said.

His bid has already benefited shareholders. After the hotel and resort chain publicly announced Sharp's offer, shares in Four Seasons soared 29%, to $82.50. Sharp and his family holding company, Triples Holdings, are making the bid with Kingdom Hotels International, a company backed by the Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Cascade Investment, an investment firm owned by Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates. The price offered for Four Seasons' stock is $82 in cash per share.

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Linux advocates wary of Novell-Microsoft tie

Novell investors may be cheering the Linux vendor's historic partnership with Microsoft, but Linux advocates had an entirely different reaction Thursday, expressing concerns that the deal may hint at future patent lawsuits and possibly even violate Linux' software licence.

"Excuse me while I go throw up," wrote Pamela Jones, the editor of the Groklaw.net blog, which tracks legal issues in the free software community.

"I gather Microsoft no longer thinks Linux is a cancer or communism. Now it just wants a patent royalty." Microsoft and Novell have agreed to work together on marketing and development of their respective products, and pledged to make it easier for Windows and Novell's SuSE Linux to co-exist in the data centre.

But, included in that announcement is a patent cross-licensing agreement that is raising concerns. As part of the agreement, Microsoft has said that it will not sue non-commercial Linux developers and users of SuSE Linux, but some worry that this move leaves the door open for the company to sue other Linux companies or even Linux users.

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Inspirational Kirstie Alley Shows Off Hot Bikini Body

Alley, best known worldwide for her role as Rebecca Howe on comedy classic "Cheers," made her comments on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on Nov. 6, after walking on stage in a bikini.

The 55-year-old has lost an amazing 34 kilograms and is living proof that you're never too old to get in shape.

Alley told Life magazine that before her weight loss she was trapped in a cycle of binge eating, consuming up to 8,000 calories a day. "I ate with wild abandon," she admitted.

Kirstie appeared in a bikini on Oprah's show after making a promise last year. On Nov. 7, 2005, she told Oprah.

"I'm thinking this would be a really good challenge. If I don't make it, I'm really sorry. You can all come over to my house and see me in a bikini."

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Tags: Kirstie Alley | stage | EATING | bikini | Oprah

Monday, November 06, 2006

Microsoft Releases Office 2007 To Manufacturing

Microsoft on Monday said that its upcoming 2007 version of Microsoft Office has gone "gold," a designation that marks the productivity software code's release to manufacturing (RTM).

After months of sliding deadlines and revised release dates, the completion of the Office code is a cause for merriment at Microsoft and perhaps to a fair number of customers -- Office is used by 450 million people worldwide and Office 2007 beta was downloaded 3.5 million times.

The company's plan to make its Office suite, Windows Vista operating system, and Exchange Server 2007 available to business customers on Nov. 30 appears to be on track.

General availability is scheduled for early 2007.

The next major milestone is the release to manufacturing of Windows Vista, which is likely occur in the next few days. Microsoft plans to mark the release of its long-awaited software with events around the globe, including one with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to be held in New York.

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Sony ready to release revolutionary, powerful PlayStation 3

Sony officials like to say the next generation of video gaming doesn't start until they say so.

After some fits and starts and mounting expectations, the world will finally be able to see how the No. 1 video game company intends to transform gaming with the Nov. 17 introduction of its PlayStation 3. The highly anticipated platform is packed with a supercomputer, 40 times more powerful than the PlayStation 2, and is supposed to remain state of the art for the next 10 years.

That's a good thing, because the battle ahead for Sony is shaping up as more challenging than ever for the company. And, even more than in the past, Sony has a tremendous amount riding on its gaming platform because it will be closely linked to its other endeavors in consumer electronics and entertainment content.

Its chief rival, Microsoft, released its next-generation platform, the Xbox 360, a year ago and has sold 6 million units worldwide. Microsoft, which came in a distant second in the last console war, is working on its second round of advanced game titles and expects to sell 10 million consoles by the end of this holiday season.

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Iraq helps election winds favor Democrats, analysts say

Democrats began the 2006 election cycle hoping to capitalize on Americans' discontent with the Iraq war. Heading into the closing hours before the midterm elections, the minority party continues to play on this dissatisfaction.

Many analysts predict Democrats will take back control of the House for the first time since the GOP charged into office following the 1994 Republican revolution. Across the Capitol, the GOP has better odds this year of retaining a majority in the Senate.

"There are no signs that the wave is ebbing," Amy Walter, senior editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said of the sweeping changes she predicts will occur in the House on Tuesday. "The reality is, the list of vulnerable Republican seats continues to grow."

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The Sweet Kiss of Death for the Penguin-Chameleon. From Microsoft

Microsoft and Novell signed a historical partnership, that could not have been possible a year ago. Is that the beginning of the end for Novell?

It seems the negotiations have begun more than six months ago, but have been kept secret until now due to the importance of this matter for both parties: the open source community on one hand and the proprietary software companies on the other.

First of all, the folklore mentions that â€œthe road to Hell is paved with good intentionsâ€. Donâ€™t be naÃ¯ve to think that the Novell-Microsoft alliance will produce something good. At least not for Novell or the Linux community in general.

When the joint announcement was made, MSâ€™s CEO Steve Ballmer spoke first, saying the companies were announcing "a set of agreements that will really help to bridge the divide between open source and proprietary software." Ballmer said that Microsoft and Novell will collaborate in three major areas: virtualization, management, and document compatibility. In addition to its collaboration efforts, Microsoft is slated to assist Novell in the marketing and distribution of SUSE Linux.

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Wikipedia link led to virus site

The free-for-all nature of Wikipedia has not only left it open to plagiarism; it's also made the encyclopaedia a vehicle for spreading malware.

Recently, hackers edited an article on the German edition of Wikipedia to include a link to malicious code, disguising it as a fix for a supposedly new version of the notorious Blaster worm.

This was coupled with a spam email sent out to German computer users, claiming to come from Wikipedia. It directed those who wanted to find out more information on the new virus to the bogus entry.

This questionable activity was soon picked up by Wikipedia administrators, who have since edited the offending story to remove the malware link. The page was also removed from Wikipedia's archive.

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E3 Resurrected as GamePro Expo

With the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) gone as the world knew it, left in its place was an enormous vacuum at the LA Convention Center just begging to be filled.

According to a memo sent out to LA Convention and Visitors Bureau members, magazine publisher and show organizer International Data Group (IDG) will be creating a new games show that should be similar to E3, except it will run in mid-October instead of mid-May.

"IDG has been secured to run the new GamePro Expo show, what we knew as E3," read the memo. Also written was that IDG will "use E3 as a guide" in designing and organizing the new trade show. GamePro magazine is an IDG property, which would explain the name tie-in.

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Suzuki unveils green wheelchair

Suzuki is famous for its cars and motorcycles, but it's also one of the world's biggest wheelchair manufacturers - and has just unveiled a new model that's more advanced than its automotive output.

The MIO wheelchair uses fuel cell technology to provide power and a far greater range of 25 miles than current electric chairs. A four-litre tank holds the methanol used to power the fuel cell, while a back-up battery provides electricity if the tank runs dry and can also be used to store surplus electricity from the fuel cell.

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Israeli air strike kills Gaza teenager - witnesses

An Israeli aircraft fired a missile into a town in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, killing a 16-year-old Palestinian boy and wounding four other people, witnesses and hospital officials said.

They said the missile landed near a school bus in Beit Lahiya. Among the wounded was a teacher, who was in a critical condition. The identities of the other casualties were not immediately known.

An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment.

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Sony PlayStation 3 gets rave reviews

The much-awaited video game console comes out Nov. 17 in the U.S., although getting one will be as challenging as finding parking at the mall after Thanksgiving.

Thousands of lucky gamers tested the PS3 over the weekend at the 2007 Sony Expo in Honolulu, two weeks before the debut.

Almost all were males -- from boys with braces and baggy jeans to gray-haired baby boomers. They crowded around two gaming booths with the sleek, lean, black machine behind a plastic case.

"The graphics are crazy, way better than the second one," said Doug Morrison, a 20-year-old University of Hawaii student. "It's more realistic. It's smoother. It doesn't have any glitches.

"I'm going to get one no matter what."

Forget Elmo, the third-generation PlayStation will top many wish lists to Santa this holiday season. And hopefully Santa saved because the PS3 isn't cheap.

The system starts at $500 for a 20 GB version. The price tag on the 60 GB model is $600.

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World Wide Web developer concerned Internet could be misused

"People with all kinds of skills and knowledge are going to need to work together in order to understand the Web and in order to build a Web which is going to be even better, " Sir Tim Berners-Lee said.

The British scientist who developed the World Wide Web said Thursday that he is concerned the Internet could be misused as it grows and he is advocating a research project to study its future.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist who is credited with creating the World Wide Web, said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that the way the Web is used should be examined by a broad spectrum of experts.

"We really must have a science of understanding this. We must be able to look at whether it's going to continue to serve us well, or whether we'll end up with some things which suddenly appear overnight and which in fact are very bad," Berners-Lee said.

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Tags: SCIENTIST | misused | developer | Web | internet

Google's Gmail Goes Mobile

Easing mobile access,, Google announced that its Gmail service will deliver quick e-mail access to cell phone owners whose handsets support java software. Separately, the leading supplier of ".mobi" domain names reported that it is registering users at a rapid pace.

Google said its mobile e-mail solution can be five times as fast as many existing mobile e-mail programs. Users of the Google product can synchronize it to operate with their PCs. Attachments can be read through Google Mobile.

Announcing the immediate availability of the Gmail product, cell phone provider Sprint Nextel noted that the Google service is available for Sprint data customers through a new Java application or from a WAP site. Sprint said the service is available now for its Java-enabled phones and the company promised the Google service will be available in coming weeks for phones that don't have Java technology.

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Microsoft plans to partner with rival Novell on Linux system

BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhuanet)-- Microsoft surprised the tech world, unveiling a plan to go into partnership with longtime rival Novell (NOVL), the world's leading maker of operating systems based on Linux.

The two companies shook hands on a tie-up to create interoperable software and to "build, market, and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft products work better together."

"We believe the investment we're making together will make our respective products attractive to customers," Microsoft's Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said at a news conference Thursday. "We're going to make it easier for customers to manage these mixed environments."

The two companies signed three agreements, with a technical cooperation pact covering virtualization, Web-services management, and document-format compatibility.

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World Split On Iraq Divided Over Death Sentence

WACO, Texas -- Saddam Hussein's death sentence is drawing mixed reactions around the world.
The range of reactions reflects new geopolitical fault lines drawn after the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.

The European Union welcomes the verdict. But the EU said Saddam should not be put to death. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict's top prelate for justice issues called the sentence a throwback to "eye for an eye" vengeance.

A respected Muslim cleric in Thailand calls the Saddam case "the problem of America and its domestic politics." He said "Maybe Bush will use this case to tell the voters that Saddam is dead and that the Americans are safe." But as he puts it, "actually the American people will be in more danger with the death of Saddam."

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Beatle buys Linda tapes

LONDON: Sir Paul McCartney has secretly paid almost $500,000 to secure audio tapes which reportedly contain explosive allegations about his marriage to first wife Linda.

The recordings, which second wife Heather Mills wants to use as part of her divorce claim that he was abusive towards her, were handed over to Sir Paul during an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger meeting in a Central London cafe.

Sir Paul bought the tapes from literary agent Peter Cox, who made them with Linda when he was co-authoring her 1989 book Linda McCartney's Home Cooking.

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Friday, November 03, 2006

Madonna is the wrong target for what ails Africa

CAN'T see the Kirsty and Madonna interview leading to a series, somehow. For one thing, there isn't enough gauze in the world. The set was drenched in the stuff. What with the candelabras and the flower petals strewn across faux antique tables, it looked as if the duchess of current affairs was interrogating the queen of pop in a bridal boutique.

After the pyjama party on Oprah, the Wark interview was meant to be a no-holds-barred examination of the star's decision to adopt a 13-month-old baby from Malawi. Hopes were high after reading the Newsnight presenter's blog. One thing she wanted to know was what Madonna would have done if David Banda had tested positive for HIV. A pertinent point given the 65,000 under-fives with the condition in Malawi.

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Water problems could get 'even worse'

AUSTRALIA'S water problems could become at least seven times worse unless climate change is tackled, according to the author of a major international report on global warming.

Former world bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern released his Review on the Economics of Climate Change this week, saying global warming risked forcing the world into another depression on the scale of that of the 1930s.

Sir Nicholas said if temperatures were allowed to continue rising at the current rate, Australia's water problems would become more severe and coastal cities would be threatened by large sea level rises.

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Divorce could ruin Reese's bank balance

Reese Witherspoon may pay dearly for her split from husband Ryan Phillippe as the couple allegedly have no prenuptial agreement.

The actress now earns $20 million a movie while her husband only commands $2.5-million, but under California law earnings during a marriage are split 50/50 if no prenup is in place.

In 2005 alone Reese earned $30 million dollars for her two films Just Like Heaven and her Oscar-winning role in Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line, while Ryan has only appeared in two hit films in the last six years - Gosford Park and Crash.

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

U.S. names kidnapped soldier

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Thursday identified the American soldier kidnapped in Baghdad as 41-year-old Ahmed Qusai al-Taai.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the soldier left the Green Zone on October 23 to visit his Iraqi wife, and then was handcuffed and taken away by gunmen. Al-Taai is an Iraqi-American translator.

Caldwell said along with significant military activity, there is a "tremendous amount of political activity" and "ongoing dialogue" to find al-Taai.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

NASA to repair Hubble despite potential risks

Undaunted by the dangers that almost led NASA to eliminate his mission, the space agency's most experienced visitor to the Hubble Space Telescope was named Tuesday to a new astronaut team for the final overhaul of the flying observatory.

"I feel like a mission to Hubble is worth risking my life for," said John Grunsfeld, an astrophysicist who is headed back to the Hubble as a spacewalking repairman for the third time. "This is really important for our country."

NASA chief Michael Griffin announced Tuesday as anticipated that the agency will go forward with the $900 million mission in 2008 after years of debate about the risks.

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Highway kidnappings: 40 Iraqi Shiites snatched

Police on Wednesday confirmed the kidnapping of more than 40 Shiites along a notoriously dangerous highway just north of Baghdad, as the death toll from a suicide bombing at a wedding party rose to 23, including nine children.

The abductions on Tuesday near the town of Tarmiyah marked a further outbreak of sectarian violence in a region where scores were killed last month in bloody attacks and reprisal killings among formerly friendly Shiite and Sunni neighbours in the city of Balad.

Unarmed men checked identification cards and seemed to be looking for familiar faces among travellers stopped in heavy traffic, said an eyewitness, who asked to be identified only by the pseudonym Abu Omar for fear of reprisals.

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A Stern warning about warming

This week comes news of a 700-page document delivered by Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank, to the British government on the costs of climate change. In a nutshell, he writes that if we donâ€™t forgo 1 percent of global income now in order to control pollution, future generations will lose 20 percent of global income.

Itâ€™s a serious alert from an acknowledged expert whoâ€™s not given to sensationalism. In a radio interview with the BBC, Stern explained a bit of his methodology. He used scientistsâ€™ predictions of the number of extra extreme weather events due to global warming, and also the general changes in temperature, and added up the known economic costs of those occurrences.

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Tags: Warming | Economist | Climate | alert | Stern

Apple makes it official: New iPod Shuffle on Friday

Apple Computer announced on Tuesday that the second generation of its iPod Shuffle will be available globally on Friday, Nov. 3. The 1-gigabyte screenless iPod, which retails for $79, has been the subject of much fan speculation because of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' claim that it's the world's smallest digital-audio player--it's half a cubic inch in volume.

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North Korea wants bank accounts unfrozen

North Korea said Wednesday it would return to nuclear disarmament talks in an effort to get access to frozen overseas bank accounts, a vital source of hard currency for the impoverished and isolated communist nation.

The North's Foreign Ministry make only indirect mention of its headline-grabbing atomic test last month, saying in a statement that it hoped to resolve U.S. financial restrictions by going back to six-nation arms talks that it has boycotted for a year.

Confirming U.S. and Chinese reports of the agreement Tuesday, the North's Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang decided to return to the arms talks "on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions will be discussed and settled between the (North) and the U.S. within the framework of the six-party talks."

Washington had banned transactions between American financial institutions and Banco Delta Asia SARL - a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau - saying it was being used by North Korea for money-laundering.

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Tags: nuclear disarmament | bank | U.S. | South Korea | North Korea

Top Gun to save Hubble

MIAMI: A former Top Gun stunt pilot is to lead a shuttle mission 515km above Earth to rescue the Hubble space telescope.

Reversing a previous ruling that such a voyage would be too dangerous and costly, NASA head Michael Griffin has announced that seven astronauts would be sent to repair the $US1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) telescope, which has been responsible for solving some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.

"While there is an inherent risk in all space-flight activities, the desire to preserve a truly international asset like the Hubble space telescope makes doing this mission the right course of action," he said.

Without new batteries and an instrument upgrade, the 16-year-old deep-space observatory will go into meltdown within two to three years, depriving scientists and spacewatchers of what is considered the finest eye in the sky since Galileo perfected the invention of the telescope 400 years ago.

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Top Gun to save Hubble

MIAMI: A former Top Gun stunt pilot is to lead a shuttle mission 515km above Earth to rescue the Hubble space telescope.

Reversing a previous ruling that such a voyage would be too dangerous and costly, NASA head Michael Griffin has announced that seven astronauts would be sent to repair the $US1.5 billion ($1.9 billion) telescope, which has been responsible for solving some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.

"While there is an inherent risk in all space-flight activities, the desire to preserve a truly international asset like the Hubble space telescope makes doing this mission the right course of action," he said.

Without new batteries and an instrument upgrade, the 16-year-old deep-space observatory will go into meltdown within two to three years, depriving scientists and spacewatchers of what is considered the finest eye in the sky since Galileo perfected the invention of the telescope 400 years ago.

source

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