Tuesday tech deals: Lord of the Rings Trilogy on Blu-ray $20

Lord of the Rings Trilogy on Blu-ray for $20 + $5 s&h

iNetVideo.com offers the Lord of the Rings Trilogy on Blu-ray for $19.99. With $4.95 for shipping, that's $5 under a deal from last week and the lowest total price we've seen. It's a current price low by $22. This 6-disc set includes The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Note that this is the original theatrical edition (558 min) on Blu-ray and not the extended edition (683 min), which isn't expected to launch until June 28, 2011.

Dell XPS Core i7 Quad 2GHz 16" Blu-ray Laptop for $989 + free shipping

Dell Home offers the Dell XPS 15 15.6" LED-backlit notebook in "Elemental Silver Aluminum" for $1,413.99. Apply coupon codes "Z1TSV$5ZCV8VMZ" and "932N$0ZCCHWZB9" to drop it to $988.99. Then, apply coupon code "HLSKSR06S9ZG0F" to give it free shipping. That's the lowest total price we've seen for the XPS 15 with a quad-core processor and Blu-ray player. Sales tax is added where applicable. Features include an a 15.6" 1366x768 LED-backlit LCD, Intel "Sandy Bridge" Core i7-2630QM 2GHz quad-core processor, Nvidia GeForce GT 525M 1GB, 6GB of RAM, 750GB 7200RPM hard drive, Blu-ray player / dual-layer DVD burner combo drive, 802.11n wireless, Gigabit Ethernet, webcam, McAfee security center, 6-cell battery, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Deal ends April 28.

Sharp 40" 120Hz 1080p LCD HDTV for $495 + free shipping

Today only, Dell Home offers the Sharp AQUOS 40" LCD HDTV, model no. LC-40D78UN, for $494.99 with free shipping. That's $5 under a deal from last week and the lowest total price we could find by $204. Sales tax is added where applicable. This HDTV features a native resolution of 1920x1080 (1080p), 120Hz refresh rate, 4ms response time, three HDMI inputs, and VGA, component, and other video inputs.

Sony Cyber-shot HX100V 16MP Digital Camera preorder for $400 + free shipping

Best Buy offers preorders of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX100V 16.2-Megapixel Digital Camera in Black, model no. DSCHX100V/B, for $399.99 wih free shipping. That's the lowest total price we could find by $50. Sales tax is added where applicable. It features a 3" LCD, Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonar T wide-angle 30x optical zoom lens with Optical SteadyShot image stabilization, 1080p HD video, SDXC/SDHC and Memory Stick PRO Duo slots, panorama mode, and USB 2.0 connectivity. This item is expected to ship in one to two weeks.

Logitech Squeezebox Wireless System for $120 + free shipping, more

Logitech offers its Logitech Squeezebox Radio Wireless Music System in Black (pictured), model no. 930-000101, for $179.99. Coupon code "logi_radio_41811" cuts it to $119.99. With free shipping, that's tied with a February deal and the lowest total price we could find by $21. Features include Ethernet connectivity, 802.11g wireless, 2.4" LCD, six station presets, remote control, and more.

Of note, Logitech also offers its Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP Webcam, model no. 997-000078, for $21.99. Coupon code "logi_qcmp_41811" cuts it to $12.99. With free shipping, that's $6 under our January mention and the lowest total price we could find by $21. It features a 1.3-megapixel sensor, built-in microphone, USB 2.0 connectivity, and more. Note that these are "dented box" items; although the boxes may be scratched or dented, the contents are new and supported by a full Logitech warranty.

Samsung HF1000 Bluetooth Speakerphone for $10 after rebate + $2 s&h

TigerDirect.com offers the Samsung HF1000 Hands-Free Bluetooth Speakerphone, model no. BHF1000JBECSTA, for $29.99. This $20 mail-in rebate drops it to $9.99. With $1.99 for shipping, that's $15 under our February mention and the lowest total price we could find by $24. It clips to your car's sun visor and connects your cell phone for hands-free calling. Rebate ends September 30.

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Sprint to pay $1 billion to use Clearwire's 4G network through 2012

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire today announced an amendment to their long-term agreement that establishes new wholesale pricing terms and provides Clearwire a minimum of $1.025 billion from Sprint to be paid during 2011 and 2012 for 4G wholesale services. The minimum usage commitments are as follows: $300 million in 2011, $550 million in 2012, and $175 million in pre-payments for 4G wholesale services to be used this year, next year, and beyond.

The companies also reached an agreement regarding wholesale pricing for Sprint devices that operate on both Sprint's 3G network and Clearwire's 4G network. The agreement includes usage based pricing and volume discounts as well as minimum payments per 4G device.

Clearwire and Sprint also plan further collaboration to expand Sprint's capability to offer customized solutions using 4G technology. This is expected to allow Sprint to better serve its target enterprise and government customers with mission critical wireless broadband solutions both for mobility and local area network applications and expand its Machine-to-Machine solutions for large and small businesses. Last but not least, the agreement also expands the mutual re-wholesaling rights whereby both companies can resell the other's respective 3G and 4G networks to other parties.

"We are pleased to reach this wholesale pricing agreement with Clearwire," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said in a statement. "We look forward to working with them under this new agreement to provide an expanded offering of 4G capabilities and solutions for Sprint customers."

Sprint really needs this deal given that last month AT&T announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire T-Mobile USA. Sprint is fighting that acquisition, but in case it loses, the company needs to be able to compete with the only other two much larger competitors: AT&T and Verizon.

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Foreign Money Fuels Faltering Bid to Push Online Poker

Former Senator Alfonse M. D?Amato, Republican of New York, has been the public face of the effort, which has included charity poker tournaments featuring members of Congress, as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to a disparate assortment of lawmakers, including Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader.

But late last week, the United States Justice Department delivered an unexpected thunderbolt to this huge lobbying campaign when it indicted top executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, accusing them of fraud and money laundering. In doing so the government has taken on a politically powerful industry that for a while seemed like it might transform gambling around the world.

As evidence of the industry?s shifting fortunes, major gambling operators like Wynn Resorts are already distancing themselves from the three Internet gambling companies, canceling planned business alliances. ESPN has removed poker-related content from its own Internet site.

This is exactly what the industry was trying to prevent when it set out to block enforcement of a law intended to ban Internet games or to get the law repealed. Interviews show that the companies named in the indictment, while foreign-based, have indirectly been paying more than half of the lobbying and operating bills for a nonprofit organization that is championing Internet gambling in the United States.

Mr. Frank, in an interview on Monday, said he had no plan to back down. ?It is a bad law,? he said. ?How is it possible that a United States attorney in New York does not have anything more to do than indict people for a full house? He should be indicting people for the empty houses we have around,? referring to the troubles in the mortgage industry.

Mr. Frank and Representative John Campbell, Republican of California, in March introduced yet another bill, backed by the Poker Players Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit group. Its budget is subsidized by a Canadian trade association whose members include the companies that run Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker.

As a senator, Mr. D?Amato played a regular poker game that featured lobbyists. On Friday, he said in a statement, ?Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such.?

An estimated 10 million online poker players in the United States have turned to these Internet sites, helping generate perhaps as much as $5 billion in annual revenues for the companies.

On Friday the Justice Department said the companies had illegally moved their earnings to corporate headquarters in spots like the Isle of Man in Great Britain and Costa Rica by conspiring with middlemen who disguised them as sales of items like flowers, pet supplies and golf clubs.

John Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, pointed out on Monday that the organization is made up of an estimated 1.2 million members in the United States, including both amateur and professional players, who want to be able to bet online. One of the executives indicted, Raymond Bitar, 39, of California and Ireland, is a contributor to the Players Alliance Political Action Committee, donating about $15,000 of the $200,000 the committee has given to members of Congress in the last four years, with Mr. Frank collecting the biggest amounts.

But most of the money the committee gives to politicians here comes from individuals not cited in the indictment. And Mr. Pappas said the power of his group came not from industry giants but from its members.

?It is the 1.2 million members who live and vote in Congressional districts across the country,? he said. He did confirm that more than half of his organization?s budget is supported by industry companies, including those indicted Friday.

But the push in Washington, and much of the fund-raising, is coordinated by Poker Players Alliance, which relies in large part on contributions from the Internet-based operators. The organization spent $1.6 million on lobbying last year, using nine lobbying firms, and lobbyists like former Representative Jon Porter, Republican of Nevada, and Mr. D?Amato.

The Poker Players Alliance is enlisting players around the nation to call or write lawmakers to protest the restrictions. It hosts an annual ?fly-in? day, when players fan out across Capitol Hill. And it sent representatives to ? and set up a poker tournament at ? the Conservative Political Action Conference this year, convinced it could find some recruits to its cause at the popular annual event.

In October 2009, 19 members of Congress signed a letter sent to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, urging them to impose a one-year delay on enforcing regulations intended to cut off payments to the Internet poker companies.

One of the lead signers of the letter was Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York; he calls Mr. D?Amato a friend and mentor, and Mr. D?Amato has served as one of his top fund-raisers. In total, 15 of the 19 signers of the letter received contributions from the Poker Player Alliance political action committee in the last election cycle.

Mr. Frank has been celebrated as one of the industry?s most important champions in Washington. He worked last year to push legislation through the Financial Services Committee, where he served as chairman until this year, that would legalize Internet poker, although the bill never got taken up by the Senate or the full House.

Mr. Frank, no poker player himself, has said he opposes the ban based on his distaste for government intervention into the private lives of citizens. His advocacy, he said, goes back to 2002, even before the Poker Players Alliance was set up.

Mr. Pappas, the executive director of the Poker Players Alliance, delivered $51,200 worth of bundled campaign contributions to Mr. Frank?s re-election campaign in late 2009, according to campaign finance reports. These contributions follow up on at least $30,000 more that Mr. Frank took in from the industry in the prior two years, including contributions from some of the industry?s most famous players, like Annie Duke (?The Duchess Of Poker?), Howard Lederer (?The Professor?) and Andy Bloch (?The Rock?).

For now, the companies that have been indicted ? and their Internet site addresses seized by the Justice Department ? have stopped taking bets from players in the United States, generating a wave of resentment from the millions of players who turned to the games, many several times a day.

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He?s Done Working for Obama. Now He May Challenge Him for the Presidency.

Mr. Huntsman, then serving his second term as governor of Utah and prospecting for his political future, worried aloud that Republicans were growing out of touch with a generation of Americans. If the party wanted to win national elections again, he argued, Republicans needed to broaden their appeal to young voters, Hispanics and independents.

He will put that argument to the test if he joins the 2012 Republican presidential race.

After spending nearly two years as America?s top diplomat in China, Mr. Huntsman returns to the United States next week. He has scheduled visits next month here in South Carolina and in New Hampshire, where the Tea Party and social conservatives hold significant sway and have changed the political landscape.

On paper, given his affiliation with Mr. Obama, Mr. Huntsman would seem to be facing a tough time in a primary where anti-Obama sentiment runs high. But in a crowded field, with many Republicans signaling dissatisfaction with the candidates, his supporters hope he could get beyond short-term challenges with a long-term pitch of electability.

?The stage is set for an attractive new player who can inspire Republicans,? said Richard Quinn, a Republican who attended the dinner with Mr. Huntsman here two years ago and intends to support him if he runs. ?By the time we get around to voting next year, the one thing that will pull Republicans together is beating Barack Obama.?

A candidacy by Mr. Huntsman would test just how frustrated voters are with the party?s lineup and would determine whether there is room in a Republican primary for a fiscal conservative and social moderate, who would present himself as a strong general election choice.

Mr. Huntsman has been coy about his intentions. A group of Republican aides, nearly all of whom are alumni of Senator John McCain?s presidential campaigns, have been working behind the scenes to promote a potential candidacy. They say they have not coordinated with him, which would be a violation of federal law because he is a government employee who cannot engage in elected politics.

In an interview last week in Beijing, Mr. Huntsman told a Salt Lake City television station: ?While in China, we serve our country. We don?t do politics.? Asked whether he planned to pursue the Republican presidential nomination, he declared, ?I don?t know the answer to that yet.?

Mr. Huntsman, 51, is a motorcycle-riding, keyboard-playing, Mandarin-speaking Mormon, who worked in the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush and George W. Bush. His family, which owns the Huntsman Corporation, a global chemical company, is one of the wealthiest in Utah, worth more than $1 billion, which has only fueled speculation that he could invest his own money into a campaign.

Other Republican candidates are closely watching Mr. Huntsman, particularly Mitt Romney. A simmering rivalry came into full view during the 2008 presidential race when Mr. Huntsman became a co-chairman of Mr. McCain?s campaign, instead of backing Mr. Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. (Jon Huntsman Sr., the family patriarch, supported Mr. Romney.)

The strategy for Mr. Huntsman, if he decides to run, would likely begin in New Hampshire. His supporters believe he should follow a path similar to that taken by Mr. McCain: ignore the Iowa caucuses, where social conservatives have a louder voice, and try to compete aggressively in South Carolina, where Mr. Romney has struggled to win over voters.

Mr. Huntsman would have several disadvantages, including low name recognition among Republicans. Party activists, in conversations at two Republican county conventions here in South Carolina over the weekend, knew little about him. He also has no established donor base and any campaign would start months behind those of rivals.

But some of the groundwork is being quietly done by operatives ? without his consent, they say ? who have visited donors and asked influential Republicans to sit patiently until he make his plans known.

?I?m just beating the drum and hoping that he runs this cycle and doesn?t wait,? said Fred Davis, a Republican advertising strategist who met with prospective donors last week in Florida. ? I?m trying to find someone who is different, who is going to stand out and register in someone?s heart.?

Mr. Huntsman?s résumé does stand out, in part because of his strong foreign policy credentials. In addition to serving as the ambassador to China, he was ambassador to Singapore for the first President Bush and a deputy trade ambassador for the second.

He opposes abortion rights and his record as a fiscal conservative is solid. But after winning a second term as governor in 2008, he praised the Obama administration?s economic stimulus program, advocated civil unions for gay couples and supported the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, all of which drew favorable attention among moderates but criticism from some strict conservatives.

It is unclear how voters will view his relationship with Mr. Obama. If some wonder why Mr. Huntsman accepted a position in a Democratic administration, others may ask why he is turning against the man who sent him to China. His challenge was underscored late last week, when a letter from the departing ambassador to the president was disclosed by the Daily Caller, a conservative Web site. ?You are a remarkable leader ? and it has been a great honor getting to know you,? Mr. Huntsman wrote.

John Weaver, a Republican strategist who is among those urging Mr. Huntsman to run, said his experience in China only enhanced his credentials. He has organized the Horizon political action committee, which is promoting Mr. Huntsman. ?If you?re asked by the president of the United States to serve your country in a foreign policy or national security role and you don?t do it,? Mr. Weaver said, ?that?s disqualifying.?

Mr. Huntsman, who recently bought a house in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, is scheduled to return to the United States shortly before his resignation takes effect April 30. The next day, he can start conducting political discussions. A campaign operation, complete with a team of fund-raisers, researchers and political strategists, is waiting to offer him guidance.

Interviews with nearly a dozen friends and former colleagues in Utah, disclosed that Mr. Huntsman is serious about testing a presidential bid over the next few months. They said they expected him to make a final decision by summer.

?He clearly would like to run at some point,? said former Senator Robert Bennett of Utah, who has known the Huntsman family for years but is supporting Mr. Romney. ?But he doesn?t have a natural constituency, so forming a political action committee and spreading money around in the 2012 election could be a very smart thing for a politician who wants to run in 2016.?

For his part, Mr. Obama has repeatedly mentioned Mr. Huntsman?s ties to him.

In a speech at the Gridiron Dinner last month in Washington, the president said he admired all of the potential Republican candidates, but added, ?I?m a little biased towards my dear, dear friend Jon Huntsman.?

?As his good friends in China might say, he is truly the yin to my yang,? Mr. Obama said with a smile. ?And I?m going to make sure that every primary voter knows it.?

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iPad Review: Sword and Sworcery EP

iPad Review: Sword and Sworcery EP

Posted on 11th Apr 2011 at 10:50 by David Hing with 12 comments

Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP for the iPad is like nothing else you have ever played. Described as ?a 21st century interpretation of the archetypical old school videogame adventure? it uses beautifully crafted pixel-scapes to do for video gaming what the impressionist painters did for art.

A collaborative project from indie studio Capybara, rock musicians and art from the Superbrothers themselves, Sword and Sworcery EP is a essentially a point and click adventure game that sees you cast as a warrior out to destroy an ancient evil. To do that you?ll need to solve puzzles, fight bears and collect an artefact called the Megatome ? so far, so adventure-game. What sets is apart from the likes of Kings Quest however are the lashings of surrealism, abstraction and poetry that somehow never slips into infuriating pretentiousness.


The real star isn?t the music or the mysticism, however, but the visual style. It?s absolutely perfect, causing us to frequently stop playing for a moment or two just to admire the scenery ? no mean feat considering the outstanding visual quality of most modern games. The landscapes are rich and detailed and invoke a near painterly quality. There?s a rare sense of artistry to Sword and Sworcery that we?ve not seen in a long, long time.

Sword and Sworcery?s music is still exemplary, however. The sound design has been meticulously crafted, fitting perfectly with the gameplay and creating an absorbing atmosphere that genuinely hooks you in to the moment. The sounds and music towards the end of our first session built a huge amount of tension and it was only after the threat ? which we won?t name to avoid spoiling it ? passed that we realised that our eyes were stinging due to lack of blinking.

A major drawback of most iPad and iPhone games is that they fail to make the most of the touchscreen interface or try to shoe horn in an ineffective d-pad. Point and click games seem like an assured win for touch-screens however, so Sword and Sworcery is a natural fit. It doesn?t limit itself to the conventions of the genre though, using screen-tilting mechanics regular switches from landscape to portrait to keep things interesting. In landscape mode you?re able to move around with your sword and shield equipped, while turning to portrait position opens your Megatome ? a combination spell book and help guide.


Sword and Sworcery isn?t all hard-core art-game, however ? there are points of genuine humour and awesome subtlety. At one point, for example, you have to travel into your dreams to find a lost key, which involves following a bear which dances like Ricky Gervais in the Office. It?s a moment which, like the game as a whole, feels beautifully surreal and yet oddly poignant.

Verdict: Sword and Sworcery could be a landmark in history of mobile gaming, proving to be the first title we?ve seen on the iPad platform which so wonderfully blurs the line between gaming and ambient art. Pensive, intelligent and wonderfully rich, you can feel the deep love and adoration for gaming that has gone into this project and it shines from its every pixel.

Superbrothers: Sword and Sorcery EP is developed by a whole host of talented artist and is available for the iPad via the AppStore.

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Another Dimension to Touch Screens

A British company called Peratech has announced a new technology for touch screens that registers pressure as well as the position of a finger. This could provide new ways of interacting with apps for touch screen mobile phones and tablets.

In addition to adding pressure sensitivity to screens, the company claims that the technology, called Quantum Tunneling Composite (QTC) Clear, could make touch screens thinner, more rugged, and more energy-efficient.

Peratech aims to bridge the gap between the two main touch-screen technologies: capacitive and resistive, says joint CEO Philip Taysom. Capacitive touch screens are found in mobile phones and tablets. They respond quickly to multiple fingers at a time, but rely on a grid of electrodes that constantly draw power when a screen is switched on; the bigger the screen, the more power the capacitive sensors gobble up.

Resistive touch screens were used in some early generation handheld devices, and are commonly found at ATMs and point-of-sale screens. They use less power, which makes them more appealing for larger displays, but they aren't as responsive or as durable as capacitive touch screens.

Resistive screens are built by sandwiching a thin layer of air between two sheets of relatively soft material. Applying pressure on the screen forces the layers into contact, closing a circuit and registering a touch. It's a simple approach, but it doesn't allow for high precision or multitouch. And because the screens are constantly deformed, longevity is an issue.

Taysom claims that QTC Clear has the benefits of both technologies while avoiding the downsides of either. A layer of composite material, composed of electrically conducting particles, is sandwiched between sheets of a rigid material like glass. When a finger or stylus presses the top sheet of glass, the particles in the composite conduct electricity proportional to the pressure applied. And, unlike capacitive screens, the system only draws power when touched.

A QTC Clear screen could be more durable than resistive touch screens. Instead of requiring an air gap of millimeters, as with resistive screens, the company uses a six-micron layer of composite material. "There's a lot less of a gap," says Taysom, "and that has a number of significant benefits."

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Meet Heather Poe


This is Heather Poe. She?s a young woman, living in Los Angeles and attending college there, though it isn?t her hometown. She?s kind, happy, eager to please and a little bit geeky. She?s also one of the best features of one of my favourite games, Troika?s Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

You find Heather in the hospital, where she?s been rushed into the emergency room for some strange neck wound. As a newly turned vampire yourself, you know that there?s more to this story than meets the eye, but your heightened senses also tell you that she?ll survive her undead encounter if she just gets some fresh haemoglobin. Unfortunately, there isn?t a doctor to hand and the hospital is criminally understaffed.

Earlier, a friend of yours told you that vampire blood has certain special characteristics when drunk by humans ? mainly as a healing elixir. You pause, then slit your wrist to save her young life before disappearing back into the night. You have errands to run, after all. Little do you know that this isn?t the last time you?ll be seeing Heather.

She shows up a few nights later, grabbing you on the street and desperate to thank you. She?s babbling and doe-eyed and she knows far too much about you and your kind ? you?ll suffer reprisals if you don?t take this matter in hand, but now is not the time. You send her back to your haven ? that grotty motel in Santa Monica ? and tell her to wait for you.

You have a choice now. Your blood is mixing with Heather?s and creating a potent, mind-altering brew. The more time she spends with you, the more she falls under your thrall, whether you want her to or not. You know you should send her away, break the bond and tell her to forget all this silliness about vampires. You know you should, but a lot of reasons run through you mind for why you shouldn?t ? a lot of excuses.

You?re little more than a servant for others at the moment, so the idea of cultivating your own slave does have a certain appeal. Letting her go may bring the wrath of your superiors if she exposes you. You wonder about the direction you could steer Heather, making her serve you in a way that seems repugnant in the daylight hours.

That?s what's great about being a vampire; not casting a reflection. You can avoid a lot of guilt and shame when you don?t have to meet your own gaze.


Over the next few days or weeks, Heather changes. Sometimes you're the one pushing, telling her how to dress or to surrender her life savings. At other times, it?s the blood that changes her. She was eager to please at the beginning, but now her devotion is fanatical. One day you find she?s bought you home some food - still alive and locked in the bathroom. The longer the ?relationship? lasts, the more you get the idea that it isn?t going to end well, but the harder it becomes to end it.

Heather?s fate ultimately lies in your hands. She?s a nice, likeable person and you want to do well by her. At the same time, though, the rest of LA is working to reshape you. You may have been just an average guy a few weeks ago, but now you?re a vampire; suffering and cruelty is your stock and trade.

As you acclimatise to this new existence, you start to adapt. You already don?t have to look at yourself in the mirror, but now you?re learning to hide the rest of yourself behind your new definition of what you are. You are a demon. Once you accept that, it becomes very easy to do very nasty things to a very nice person.

Then, when the game ends, you realise what?s happened and you learn something about yourself. That?s why Vampire: Bloodlines is one of my favourite games.

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Developing Cancer Drugs Based on Genomics

Blueprint Medicines, a startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, plans to use the growing amount of genomic information about cancer to create new drugs targeted at the mechanisms that drive specific subtypes of the disease. The company, which announced its creation last week with $40 million in funding from Third Rock Ventures, reflects a growing trend toward defining cancers not by their location in the body but by the particular collections of genetic mistakes that enable tumor cells to grow out of control.

"How the community, both academic and industry, understands cancer is really shifting from largely a pathology-centric viewpoint?classifying cancers based on what we can see in the microscope?to a molecular viewpoint," says Chris Varma, the company's president and cofounder. "What we find is that the mechanisms that are driving cancer come up again and again in different environments. The same mechanism responsible for some breast cancers could be driving a subset of brain cancer or melanoma."

The growing understanding of cancer genetics has enabled researchers to develop an increasing number of drugs designed to zero in on cancer cells. Varma says Blueprint will use genomics and novel chemistry to develop such drugs in a more systematic way, targeting a broader range of molecular mistakes.

In addition to Varma, cofounders include Nicholas Lydon and Brian Druker, who led the development of Gleevec, one of the first targeted cancer drugs; Scott Lowe, deputy director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center; and David Armistead, a biotech entrepreneur.

Genomic data on cancer has been pouring in to public databases over the last few years, thanks to projects such as the Cancer Genome Atlas, an NIH-funded effort to read the entire DNA sequence of various cancers. "There are now literally hundreds of genome efforts on various types of cancer," says Lowe, "and all of this data is in the public domain and can be readily accessed."

One of Blueprint's goals will be to use this information to identify new drug targets. "Right now, we have lot of experience in identifying these alterations; we can catalogue and sequence genomes and identify changes present in particular cancers," says Michael Hemann, a cancer researcher at MIT who isn't involved with Blueprint. "The problem is, what do we do with that information? Which of these changes are relevant, and what do we do about it? For example, cancer cells can accumulate many mutations, some that drive abnormal growth and some that have no effect. And scientists need to identify which is which."

Blueprint is building a platform that will initially use computational algorithms to analyze genomic data for potential molecular mistakes linked to cancer. For example, they would detect whether multiple data sets drawn from cancers of different types reflect mutations in the same enzymes. Researchers would then run tests on cells or animals to determine which of the mutations identified actually drive the growth of cancer cells and are thus the most promising targets for cancer drugs.

The company is also building a proprietary library of chemical compounds called kinase inhibitors?molecules that block activity of kinase enzymes, which have been linked with cancer. Armistead says the researchers will use computational modeling and x-ray crystallography to create a library of structures and then test the compounds' ability to inhibit different kinases. They plan to generate and screen the library within the next 12 to 18 months. "We also have a short list of targets we already have interest in, which we will begin working on immediately," says Armistead. 

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Samsung Vows To Fight Apple Patent Suit, Considers Counterclaim

Just hours after it emerged Apple had filed a patent suit against its smartphone rival Samsung, the Korean electronics giant has said that it will fight the Cupertino-based company, possibly filing a counterclaim itself.

Apple is suing Samsung, stating that Samsung has willfully violated patents, committed trademark infringement and exercised unfair competition with its Galaxy line of phones and tablets.

Speaking to Yonhap News, Samsung spokesman Chung Jae-woong responded to Apple?s complaints:

?We think Apple has violated our patents in communications standards. We are considering a counterclaim.?

A spokesman for Apple had said that Samsung?s latest products were incredibly similar to the iPhone and iPad, from shape of the hardware to the user interface, moving to note that Samsung had even copied how Apple packaged its products. Apple believes Samsung?s ?blantant copying is wrong? and it needs to ?protect [its] intellectual property when companies steal [its] ideas?.

Mr Chung declined to comment on which products allegedly violated Samsung?s wireless technology patents but said the company would proceed with a lawsuit after a ?careful review?.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/04/19/samsung-vows-to-fight-apple-patent-suit-considers-counterclaim/

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Samsung Vows To Fight Apple Patent Suit, Considers Counterclaim

Just hours after it emerged Apple had filed a patent suit against its smartphone rival Samsung, the Korean electronics giant has said that it will fight the Cupertino-based company, possibly filing a counterclaim itself.

Apple is suing Samsung, stating that Samsung has willfully violated patents, committed trademark infringement and exercised unfair competition with its Galaxy line of phones and tablets.

Speaking to Yonhap News, Samsung spokesman Chung Jae-woong responded to Apple?s complaints:

?We think Apple has violated our patents in communications standards. We are considering a counterclaim.?

A spokesman for Apple had said that Samsung?s latest products were incredibly similar to the iPhone and iPad, from shape of the hardware to the user interface, moving to note that Samsung had even copied how Apple packaged its products. Apple believes Samsung?s ?blantant copying is wrong? and it needs to ?protect [its] intellectual property when companies steal [its] ideas?.

Mr Chung declined to comment on which products allegedly violated Samsung?s wireless technology patents but said the company would proceed with a lawsuit after a ?careful review?.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text Feed | Amazon AffiliateHud Settlement Statement

Source: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/04/19/samsung-vows-to-fight-apple-patent-suit-considers-counterclaim/

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