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Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Apple's October 22 iPad And Mac Event Now Official As Press Receive Invites
Apple has announced a special event to be held next week on October 22, after that date was leaked first by AllThingsD and then later confirmed by The Loop's Jim Dalrymple. If rumors prove correct, the event will most likely feature the reveal of a fifth generation iPad, a Retina iPad mini, new Haswell-powered Retina MacBook Pros with better battery life, and potentially a ship date for the already-announced new Mac Pro.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/SgL5zFQtgyo/Similar Articles: nfl scores Jane Addams Nokia Dustin Keller Erwin Schrödinger
Pledge Of Allegiance Past Its Prime?
Millions of American school children begin the day with the pledge of allegiance. But do they, or their teachers, really understand what it means? Host Michel Martin discusses the issue with journalist Mary Plummer, of KPCC, and Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
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Mo Farah 'proud' to run for England
London (AFP) - Double Olympic and world distance-running champion Mo Farah hit back Monday at Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere's comment that only English people should play football for England.
The 5,000 metres and 10,000m champion, who was born in Somalia, told ITV's The Agenda programme that he was "very proud" to run for England and Britain, having arrived in the country as a schoolboy.
Farah, 30, moved to Hounslow, west London, when he was eight, as Somalia was struck by civil war ,and is a longstanding fan of north London football club Arsenal.
"It's where I grew up, it's where I went to school," Farah said. "I don't know nothing but England. This is it. And when I run for my country I'm very proud, and as long as you do that and make your country proud that's what really matters."
Rising Manchester United star Adnan Januzaj could play for England from 2018 under the five-year residency rule of football world governing body FIFA, although the 18-year-old, who is eligible for Belgium, Serbia, Albania and Turkey, has yet declare where his allegiance lies.
Earlier this month Wilshere, the 21-year-old Arsenal and England midfielder said: "If you live in England for five years it doesn't make you English.
"We have to remember what we are. We are English. We tackle hard, are tough on the pitch and are hard to beat.
"We have great characters. You think of Spain and you think technical but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard. We have to remember that.
"The only people who should play for England are English people. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I'm not going to play for Spain."
Wilshere has since insisted he was not referring specifically to Januzaj.
Wilshere's remarks sparked a Twitter exchange between himself and Kevin Pietersen, the South Africa-born batsman who is set to play his 100th Test for England in next month's Ashes opener in Australia.
Pietersen pointing to his own case and that of several other South Africa-born England cricketers, as well as Farah, said: "Jack Wilshere -- interested to know how you define foreigner...?
"Would that include me, (Andrew) Strauss (the ex-England cricket captain), (Jonathan) Trott (England batsman), (Matt) Prior (England wicketkeeper), Justin Rose (South Africa-born golfer), (Chris) Froome (Kenya-born Tour de France champion), Mo Farah?"
Wilshere clarified his remarks by saying: "To be clear, never said 'born in England' -- I said English people should play for England.
"Great respect for people like KP (Pietersen), Mo Farah... -- they make the country proud."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mo-farah-proud-run-england-231533250--sow.html
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Monday, October 14, 2013
Hajj pilgrims set for Eid al-Adha feast
Muzdalifah (Saudi Arabia) (AFP) - Throngs of Muslim pilgrims converged Monday on Muzdalifah to prepare for Eid al-Adha feast after a day of prayer on Mount Arafat for an end to disputes and bloodshed.
The faithful will spend the night in Muzdalifah to collect stones which they will use a symbolic ritual of stoning the devil in nearby Mina on Tuesday, the first day of the feast of sacrifice.
Most of the pilgrims taking part in the annual hajj to Islam's holiest sites in Saudi Arabia travelled from Arafat to Muzdalifah on foot, while others took buses and trains, some riding on the roofs.
Thousands of security men were deployed to organise the traffic flowing into Muzdalifah, which only comes to life during the five days of the hajj.
Earlier in the day men, women and children from across the Muslim world flooded the roads to Arafat chanting "Labaik Allahum Labaik" (I am responding to your call, God), as they observed the peak of the hajj.
Helicopters hovered overhead and thousands of Saudi troops stood guard.
Many pilgrims camped in small colourful tents or took shelter under trees to escape temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). Special sprinklers were set up to ward off the heat.
In his annual sermon, top Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh urged Muslims to avoid divisions, chaos and sectarianism, without explicitly speaking of the turmoil unleashed by the Arab Spring.
"Your nation is a trust with you. You must safeguard its security, stability and resources," he said.
"You should know that you are targeted by your enemy... who wants to spread chaos among you... It's time to confront this."
The cleric did not speak specifically of the deadly war wracking Syria, where Sunni-led rebels backed by Saudi Arabia are at war with a regime led by Alawites -- an offshoot of Shiite Islam -- and closely allied with Shiite Iran and Hezbollah.
The cleric insisted that Islam prohibits killing and aggression and said there is "no salvation or happiness for the Muslim nation without adhering to the teachings of the religion."
Attendance is sharply down from last year, due to fears of the MERS virus which has killed 60 people worldwide, including 51 in Saudi Arabia, and to expansion work at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the governor of Mecca province who heads the central hajj committee, said 1.38 million pilgrims had come from outside the kingdom while 117,000 permits were issued for locals.
This puts the total number of pilgrims at almost 1.5 million, less than half of last year's 3.2 million, after Riyadh slashed hajj quotas.
Prince Khaled said authorities had turned back 70,000 nationals and expatriates for not carrying legal permits and had arrested 38,000 others for performing the hajj without a permit.
Authorities have also seized as many as 138,000 vehicles for violating the hajj rules, and owners would be penalised, he said.
Saudi health authorities have stressed that no cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus have been detected so far this pilgrimage.
Prayers for peace in troubled times
Many pilgrims said they were praying for peace in Muslim nations mired in sectarian and political strife.
"I will pray the whole day for God to improve the situation for Muslims worldwide and for an end to disputes and bloodshed in Arab countries," said 61-year-old Algerian pensioner Saeed Dherari.
"I hope that God will grace all Muslims with security and stability," said 75-year-old Ahmad Khader, who hails from the southern Syrian province of Daraa, where the country's uprising began.
"The regime is tyrannical and I pray for God to help the oppressed people," he said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's embattled government.
Egyptian Ahmad Ali, who is performing hajj for the first time, prayed for peace in his country where hundreds have been killed in fighting between security forces and Islamist supporters of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
"I pray for Egypt to enjoy security and stability and for the people to reach understanding and reconciliation," Ali said.
The hajj, which officially ends on Friday, is one of the five pillars of Islam that every capable Muslim must perform at least once.
The pilgrims started the hajj journey on Sunday, moving out of the holy city of Mecca to nearby Mina, where most of them spent the night following the traditions of the Prophet Mohammed, who performed the rituals 14 centuries ago.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/muslim-pilgrims-throng-mount-arafat-hajj-climax-065848537.html
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
Dual crises: Shutdown, debt limit could merge
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats and Republicans regularly warn about the dire consequences of legislation they don't like. Often it's gloom-and-doom partisan hype.
This time, though, people already are feeling the fallout as twin tempests — the partial government shutdown and a potential default on the country's debts — threaten to form a single economic-policy superstorm.
The shutdown began Oct. 1 because a divided Congress couldn't agree on a budget. Thousands of federal workers are furloughed, national parks are closed and many nonessential governmental services are dialed back or put on hold.
The shutdown doesn't directly threaten Social Security, other mandatory benefits or U.S. interest payments on the national debt.
Breaching the debt limit would.
Unless Congress raises that limit soon, the government will run out of the authority to borrow and pay its bills on Thursday, the Treasury Department says.
A default would challenge the U.S. dollar's status as the world's "reserve" currency. More than 60 percent of all foreign country reserves are in U.S. dollars, the prime currency in international trade.
"Without enough money to pay its bills, any of its payments are at risk — including all government spending, mandatory payments, interest on our debts, and payments to U.S. bondholders," the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in a recent report.
A look at what you need to know about the two fiscal matters:
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The debt ceiling is the legal limit to all federal borrowing, an absolute ceiling on the national debt that cannot be breached.
It can be raised.
Since Congress first established a limit in 1917, it has been raised roughly 100 times. Raising the statutory limit does not authorize borrowing for new spending. It only allows the government to keep borrowing to pay existing bills.
The government borrows money mostly by selling Treasury bills, notes and other securities, including U.S. savings bonds. Individuals, mutual funds, corporations and governments worldwide buy the bonds.
Paying interest on these bonds is one of the government's largest single expenses.
In the budget year that ended Sept. 30, the government made $396 billion in interest payments, including payments on bonds held in some government accounts such as the Social Security Trust Fund.
The national debt is the accumulation of annual budget deficits. It first crossed the $1 trillion mark early in the administration of President Ronald Reagan.
It stood at $10.6 trillion when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009 and is $16.7 trillion today — bumping up against the debt limit, which is also $16.7 trillion rounded off.
Recently, the Treasury Department has used complicated accounting maneuvers to keep from technically exceeding the limit. But it's running out of such tricks.
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There are a couple Hail Mary plays the government could try if the deadlock persists: selling gold from U.S. reserves, selling or leasing government buildings or national parklands and minting special large-denomination coins.
The Obama administration has shown little interest in such steps.
One possibility was suggested in 2011 by former President Bill Clinton and more recently by House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California: have Obama raise the ceiling on his own, citing the part of the 14th Amendment that says "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned."
Obama was asked at a Twitter town hall forum in July whether he would use that amendment as the basis to raise the debt ceiling. "I don't think we should get to the constitutional issue," he tweeted. "Congress has a responsibility to make sure we pay our bills. We've always paid them in the past."
His spokesman Jay Carney has said the administration doesn't believe the amendment gives the president the authority to ignore the debt ceiling.
___
While budget deficits are coming down, the government continues to add to the national debt.
The deficit represents the annual difference between the government's spending and the tax revenues it takes in. Each deficit contributes to the national debt. The last time the government ran an annual surplus was in 2001.
The annual deficit declined to roughly $642 billion for the just-ended budget year, the first time in five years it has dropped below $1 trillion. It was $1.4 trillion when Obama took office in 2009.
Still, the government must borrow 19 cents for every dollar it spends, pushing up the nation's overall debt level.
One reason that keeps increasing: the army of retiring baby boomers leaving the workforce and beginning to collect Medicare and Social Security benefits.
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Obama and Democratic leaders denounce as a form of blackmail GOP efforts to use the shutdown and debt limit debate to delay or defund Obama's health care law.
Efforts by opposition parties to try to put strings on a president's debt-limit increases have been pretty standard going back at least to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s.
"Congress consistently brings the government to the edge of default before facing its responsibility. This brinkmanship threatens the holders of government bonds and those who rely on Social Security and veterans' benefits," Reagan said in a 1987 radio address. He was scolding the Democratic-controlled Congress for seeking to modify or defeat his proposal to raise the debt limit.
He raised the debt ceiling 18 times.
As a senator representing Illinois, Obama voted against President George W. Bush's 2006 increase in the debt limit, calling it a "leadership failure" and "sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills."
Bush won that battle.
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Follow Tom Raum on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tomraum
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dual-crises-shutdown-debt-limit-could-merge-080514569.html
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Thursday, October 10, 2013
Why is Apple the only one capable of making iPhone-class devices?
I've said numerous times over the last year or so that only Apple could have made the iPhone 5 (from which both the current iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are derived). That's earned me my fair share of raised eyebrows and heckles, largely because I've never taken the time to explain what I mean by that. Here's the explanation: No other company on earth right now could, nor likely would if they could, make a device that packs as much technology into as relatively small a frame, at such high a quality, as Apple did with the iPhone 5. And that statement can be true whether you think positioning themselves to be able to make an iPhone 5 was brilliant, or stupid. Here's why:
How many other manufacturers are capable of spinning their own, custom silicone like the Apple A6 and Apple A7? Most just throw whatever Qualcomm's making into their phones. Yet the A6 and A7 let Apple tune power and performance explicitly for iOS 7, create the image signal processor (ISP) that lets the iSight camera outshoot rivals with much better optics, and provide the secure enclave for Touch ID.
How many other manufacturers are capable of shrinking down a camera to fit into the ludicrously thin chassis of the iPhone 5 series? Some add unsightly camera bulges, others ship crappy cameras. Yet Apple shaved off a significant amount of the z-index from the iSight camera and actually managed to improve on the quality of images it produced.
How many other manufacturers are capable of producing displays as advanced as the in-cell Retina? Some go OLED and even PenTile to save battery life and improve yield rates at the expense of image and color fidelity. Apple fused the touch layer with the screen to create a single component that not only kept the quality possible from LED backlit LCD with in-plane switching (IPS) but reduced glare and improved overall fidelity.
How many other manufacturers are capable of producing aluminium unibody chassises? Or more pointedly, of producing the machines that manufacture aluminium unibody chassises to the level of precision, at the level of volume, required to perfectly match hundreds of millions of units? Apple is using cameras to best match RF windows into frames, and diamonds to polish chamfers.
How many other manufacturers are capable of engineering 10 hours of battery life on a phone that small? Other manufacturers can't make the "mini" versions of their phones anywhere nearly as small as the iPhone 5 platform, never mind their flagship phones. Yet Apple, who - until next year - believes small, one-handed phones are of primary importance, who can't hide giant batteries beneath big displays, who won't switch to OLED but will stick to a single radio process, who won't include "sleep time" in their "full day battery" estimates, gets 10 hours out of their tiny package.
Those are just the most obvious example of how strongly held beliefs, combined with the willingness to invest early and do hard things, positioned Apple to be able to make the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s. Those phones are the result of a lot of very complicated moving pieces put into motion over a long period of time. Those phones are non-trivial.
It's brought Apple problems, of course. Antennagate. The chipping and scratching on the slate anodization. It took a generation to fix those and other things.
And other companies do great things as well. Nokia's build quality is amazing. But they don't make their own chips. Samsung's processors are impressive. But their build quality still tends towards the creaky. HTC's panels and speakers are fantastic. But they don't make their own operating system. They each have priorities and areas of excellence. But none of then, so far, have seen the value in doing all of the pieces Apple's done, including design from the chipset on up, manufacturing from the machinery on down, and experience from the atoms to the bits. Maybe that's changing. Maybe Google buying Motorola and Microsoft buying Nokia are signs that's changing.
Integration alone isn't the same, however. Palm was integrated. BlackBerry is integrated. Both floundered. Samsung isn't, and they're doing incredibly well, at least in market share if not in overall product quality (TouchWiz is painful).
Maybe that makes everyone else smarter than Apple, better able to see what they really need to own and what they can farm out, what they need to engineer and what they can work around, what should involve effort and what shouldn't. But as it stands today, no one, not Samsung, not Nokia, not HTC, not Motorola, not BlackBerry, not anyone else in the world could have manufactured an iPhone-class device. None of them invested in as much, early enough, to have all the elements in-house and able to execute at scale, and profitably so. That last one is the kicker. Apple's doing all of the above, and still making tons of money doing it, in an industry where almost no one else is making any.
Maybe that doesn't matter. If you think the iPhone is small or otherwise sucks, it obviously doesn't matter to you. If you like the iPhone, however, you're probably pretty happy Apple went to all the trouble to make it.
iPhone 5s
Apple's current flagship iPhone with a 4-inch in-cell display, LTE 4G, and BT 4.0 LE. New features include:
Released
September, 2013
Alternatives
iPhone 5c, iPhone 4s
Replacements
iPhone 6 (rumored)
Fall, 2014
Resources
Buyers guide
Help forum
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