You Know You've Played Too Many Games When?

You Know You've Played Too Many Games When?

Posted on 23rd Dec 2010 at 11:41 by Joe Martin with 55 comments

You know you?ve played too many games when you deliberately get up early on a Saturday morning, just so you can explore the new Minecraft update in peace for a few hours.

?when you hum the Monkey Island theme tune to yourself when you?re tense, and it actually makes you feel better.

?when you catch yourself thinking, ?Oh, quicksave!? when you cross the road.

?when you have recurring dreams about writing the perfect walkthrough for Baldur?s Gate 2.

?when you?re celebrating your anniversary with your girlfriend at a 1950s party on a vintage steamboat and, rather than dancing, you spend your whole time being reminded of a level in Hitman: Blood Money.

?when you?re approaching one of the aforementioned vintage steamboats and, as you outpace the others on the jetty, you're tempted to yell, ?The rescue boat is here!?

?when the doodles you draw while you're on the phone aren?t little stick men, but old Quake levels redrawn from memory.

?when you bump into things all the time and blame it on the clipping.

?when you don?t read instructions for the new microwave because you?re pretty sure all you need to do is ?Press interact?.

?when you seriously believe the only use for graph paper is to make it easier to design Minecraft levels.

?when you don?t just talk in your sleep, but actually mime killing Kleers from Serious Sam.

?when you look at the clock everyday at thirty-seven minutes paste one and think, ?Yes, I am.?

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CES 2011: Love to run? Check out Nike Plus? new GPS powered watch.

CES 2011: Love to run? Check out Nike Plus? new GPS powered watch.

Last night at the Popular Mechanics CES Editor?s Choice awards, Nike took home a trophy for its new Sportwatch with TomTom?s GPS technology. ?This is a gadget for people who are competitive runners and truly data obsessed,? said Jim Meigs, PM?s Editor-in-Chief.

Nike?s ?running technology? has come a long way since their iPod savvy sneakers featured embedded pedometer-like accelerometers in 2006. Thanks to a partnership with GPS technology company TomTom, Nike?s new Sportwatch includes built-in GPS and a USB port so you can download all of your running information with a simple plug-in. The screen features a backlit LED screen with large, easy-to-read numbers.

So now you can wear whatever shoes you want! Doh! The watch debuts April 1 and will cost from $199 to $299.

About the Author

Courtney Boyd Myers is the East Coast editor of TNW, based in NYC. She began her career writing about robots @ Forbes and has also written for PCMag, PSFK, IEEE Spectrum, the Huffington Post + Pocket-Lint. She loves magnets + reading on her Kindle. You can follow her on Twitter or e-mail her at Courtney@TheNextWeb.com.

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Spinning Nano Yarns

Many important technologies?from battery electrodes and superconducting wires to the catalysts in fuel cells?rely on materials containing powdered particles, which can be tricky to manage. Now, in a feat that could simplify the production of many such technologies and might point the way toward some radical new ones, researchers at the University of Texas have demonstrated a way to spin yarn out of nanotubes infused with useful powdered materials.

The researchers have used the method to make strips of yarn that function as a battery electrode, others with superconducting properties, and self-cleaning yarns.

"Powders are very important functional materials because they have very high surface area," says Ray Baughman, who directs the MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute at the University of Texas in Dallas. "The problem is that powders without form are difficult to use."

Lithium-ion battery electrodes, for example, take advantage of the high surface area of powders to achieve greater storage density. But typically either powders must be held together by binders that add weight and solidity, or they must be sintered together into solid structures, the processes for which are complicated.

Baughman says the technology developed by his group should make it easier to work with a wide range of powdered materials. "You can take almost any powder and make a sewable, knittable, knotable, braidable yarn," he says.

The researchers start by growing a forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes in a chemical reactor. Then they drag a roller over the nanotubes, which separate from the surface and get tangled up in a long, stretchy ribbon?a so-called nanotube web. These webs, Baughman's team has discovered, can act as a host for nanoparticles and powders. The researchers spray the surface of the web with the powder and then twist it into a yarn. The powder is confined inside the spirals of the nanotube web. "When you wash it, almost all the powder is retained," he says. The resulting yarns can be 95 to 99 percent powder by weight.

Baughman's group used a mixture of powdered boron and magnesium to make superconducting yarns by a simple process. The conventional process for making superconducting wires involves packing the powders in copper tubes and heating and drawing them tens of times to stretch them into wires. But the superconducting yarns are heated just once to anneal the powders and form a superconducting thread.

The powders retain the properties that make them so useful, says Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University, who was not involved with the work. Baughman's method is essentially "turning particles into fibers," he says. Chemicals can readily move in and out of the sparse nanotubes and interact with the surface of the particles trapped inside.

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Business Background Defines Chief of Staff

And now William M. Daley, the son and brother of Chicago mayors and a behind-the-scenes political player himself, will hold one of the most powerful jobs in Washington: chief of staff in the White House, where he will help decide who gets into the Oval Office and what President Obama?s Capitol Hill agenda should be.

Mr. Daley?s recruitment to Pennsylvania Avenue from the corporate boardroom is seen as a smart step by some in Washington, who argue that Mr. Obama has long needed a White House confidant who has the ear of the business community and a record of bipartisanship that might help the president negotiate with Republicans in Congress.

?I think it?s a very, very strong choice,? said Thomas J. Donohue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been a harsh critic of the Obama administration and provided financial support that helped Republicans take control of the House in the November elections. ?Daley is a business person who understands politics.?

Mr. Daley, or the corporations he has served in recent years, have worked aggressively behind the scenes to water down or defeat central elements of Mr. Obama?s agenda, opposing the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and elements of the health care bill.

That record is among the reasons his appointment, announced by Mr. Obama on Thursday afternoon, has alarmed some of the president?s liberal supporters, who say that bringing Mr. Daley into the White House violates a commitment to curtail the sway of special interests.

?As the chief of staff, he is the gatekeeper, and that means real power in Washington,? said Ellen S. Miller, co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation, which celebrated the move by Mr. Obama early in his presidency to release detailed logs of White House visitors and to impose restrictions on hiring lobbyists as aides. ?Just about any way you look at it, it creates a huge potential for a conflict of interest.?

The chief of staff job has sometimes been filled by corporate types, like Donald T. Regan, a top Wall Street executive and former Treasury secretary, who held the job in the Reagan administration. But more often, it goes to a political insider whose primary allegiance is to the president.

Mr. Daley, 62, who is not close to Mr. Obama even though both consider Chicago their base, has a well-rounded résumé. He has been a lawyer in private practice, a bank president, a telecommunications company executive, a political strategist, a fund-raiser and campaign chief, a lobbyist for foreign corporations (he advocated on tax matters for Nestlé and a Canadian petroleum company) and the commerce secretary in the Clinton administration for three years. His brother, Richard M. Daley, is departing after six terms as mayor of Chicago, where his family has an almost royal status.

Mr. Obama, during a ceremony in the East Room on Thursday, cited that long list of jobs as part of the reason he picked Mr. Daley.

?Few Americans can boast the breadth of experience that Bill brings to this job,? the president said, adding that he was ?convinced that he?ll help us in our mission of growing our economy and moving America forward.?

JPMorgan Chase has been Mr. Daley?s primary corporate home since 2004. He was hired, company officials said, as something of consolation prize to Chicago when Chase, which has its headquarters in New York, was taking over Bank One, which was based in Chicago. Chase executives, including Jamie Dimon, its chairman, wanted to bring in someone with Chicago connections who could smooth over relations with wealthy clients and corporations there.

One Chase official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter, recalled, ?A few bankers said we should hire a Bill Daley,? meaning someone with Chicago political connections and clout who could serve as a new public face for Chase.

Mr. Dimon?s response was simple: ?How about Bill Daley??

Mr. Daley started as chairman of Chase?s Midwest operations, but by 2007 he had expanded his portfolio, joining the bank?s senior leadership team as chief of its new Office of Corporate Social Responsibility, whose most important function was to oversee the company?s global lobbying efforts.

At the time, Chase was trying to raise its profile in Washington. Senior company executives, including Mr. Dimon, began taking more trips to the capital to try to influence the terms of the TARP bailout ? they pushed to make it easier for banks to repay the money ? in 2008. Last year, Chase officials fought aspects of the historic revision of the nation?s financial regulations, including the creation of the consumer protection bureau.

Mr. Daley was never registered as a lobbyist for Chase, but he played a role in hiring and was the direct supervisor of Peter L. Scher, another former Clinton administration official, who runs the bank?s lobbying shop in Washington. Mr. Daley also served as the bank?s chief liaison with the White House, frequently consulting with Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, and Rahm Emanuel, whom he is replacing.

Mr. Daley?s salary is not public, but one person with knowledge of Chase?s executive compensation said that he has made $3 million to $5 million a year. He will be taking a considerable pay cut in accepting the $170,000-a-year White House post.

Boeing, which is also based in Chicago, named Mr. Daley to its board in 2006, saying that his appointment would enhance its lobbying efforts and help promote international sales of its commercial planes and military equipment. In 2009, he earned $230,000 from Boeing in compensation and stock awards and $220,867 from Abbott Laboratories.

Abbott Labs, like Boeing and Chase, has a long list of regulatory and legislative matters in play in Washington, like a tax in the health care bill that could cost medical-device makers like Abbott $20 billion over the next decade. A White House chief of staff is likely to be involved in discussions about repealing the legislation, as House Republicans have proposed, or aspects of it.

Critics of Mr. Daley?s appointment said his corporate work would cause problems. They argue that he will have to recuse himself from matters relating to Chase, Abbott and Boeing or bow out of discussions involving financial regulations, health care and major Defense Department acquisitions, like the contract for a giant Air Force refueling tanker for which Boeing is competing.

?These are all issues that come across the chief of staff?s desk,? said James A. Thurber, an American University professor and specialist on ethics and lobbying in Washington. ?Is he going to stand outside of the flow as each of them heads to the president? I don?t see that, and if he doesn?t, there will the perception, and maybe the reality, of a conflict of interest.?

Others dismiss such concerns as unfounded, saying that Mr. Daley, who is to start his new job as early as next week, would not make decisions on policy and would hardly have sole power over who sees the president.

Supporters of the appointment say Mr. Daley?s diversity of experience is exactly what Mr. Obama needs ? an experienced manager who can serve as an intermediary for the White House with various constituencies whose support is critical to the president. David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president who is leaving the White House soon, said Mr. Obama thought hard before naming his new top aide.

?The chief is the only one in the administration who has as broad a responsibility as the president, and he?s the one who?s ultimately accountable to the president,? Mr. Axelrod said in an interview. ?It is a very, very serious and consequential decision.?

Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington, and Eric Dash from New York. Barclay Walsh contributed research.

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Video - Spinning Nano Yarns

Spinning Nano Yarns

Researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas make high-tech yarns from nanotubes and powders. The yarns could be woven into battery electrodes, superconfucting fabrics, and wearable electronics.

01.07.2011
Video by Science/AAAS, edited by Brittany Sauser - Read the Article

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Republicans Are Given a Price Tag for Health Law Repeal, but Reject It

The new House speaker, John A. Boehner, flatly rejected the report, saying it was based largely on chicanery by Democrats.

Mr. Boehner?s dismissal of the report by the Congressional Budget Office, at his first formal news conference as speaker, was the latest salvo in the battle over the health care law. White House officials on Thursday said they were stepping up efforts to defend the law, with a new rapid-response operation to rebut Republican claims and to deploy supporters to talk about the benefits of the law.

But Mr. Boehner?s remarks held wider implications, effectively putting him on a war footing with the independent analysts whose calculations generally guide discussions about the projected cost or savings of any legislation.

?I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit,? he said.

?C.B.O. is entitled to their opinion,? he said, but he said Democrats had manipulated the rules established for determining the cost of a program under the 1974 Budget Act.

?C.B.O. can only provide a score based on the assumptions that are given to them,? Mr. Boehner said. ?And if you go back and look at the health care bill and the assumptions that were given to them, you see all of the double-counting that went on.?

But the analysis released by the budget office on Thursday was based on the health care repeal bill that House Republicans introduced on Wednesday. And it highlighted the difficult position that Republicans are in as they try to address what they insist are the top two priorities of voters who elected them in November: cutting the deficit and undoing the health care law.

According to the budget office, those goals are contradictory.

The budget office estimated that the health care law, including education provisions, would reduce deficits over 10 years by $143 billion. Tax increases and cuts in projected Medicare spending would more than offset the cost of extending health insurance to millions of Americans. The budget office projected that the law would result in even bigger savings beyond 2019.

Republicans have said they do not believe that many of the Medicare cuts will ever take hold. They say that government subsidies to help people buy health insurance will prove far costlier than the budget office has predicted, and that the Democrats wrote the law to mask the steep future costs of some provisions, like a new long-term-care insurance program.

The budget office did not comment on Mr. Boehner?s remarks. Douglas W. Elmendorf, its director, has frequently said his office applies the longstanding budget rules. He says it uses its own professional expertise, as well as consulting with outside experts, to derive its projections, which represent the ?middle of the distribution of likely outcomes.?

Mr. Elmendorf has warned that Congress may find it difficult to follow through with parts of the health care law, particularly the cuts to Medicare. The law?s cost would rise if the cuts were not enacted.

In the report on Thursday, Mr. Elmendorf, a former Clinton administration official appointed in 2008 when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress, said that a preliminary analysis showed that repealing the law would increase federal budget deficits by a total of $145 billion from 2012 to 2019 and by $230 billion between 2012 and 2021.

Moreover, he said, if the law is repealed, 32 million fewer people will have health insurance in 2019, compared with estimates of coverage under the existing law. As a result, he said, the number of uninsured would be 54 million, rather than 23 million, in 2019.

At Mr. Boehner?s news conference, reporters peppered him with questions about repealing the law ? including the cost analysis and a plan by Republicans not to allow amendments on the repeal measure even though the party had promised to maintain a more open legislative process.

?Well, listen, I promised a more open process,? Mr. Boehner said. ?I didn?t promise that every single bill was going to be an open bill.?

Mr. Boehner grew testy when a reporter noted that Democrats who controlled the Senate were unlikely to bring up the repeal measure, let alone support it, and that Mr. Obama could veto it.

?Don?t you think it?s a waste of time?? Mr. Boehner was asked.

?No, I do not,? he said, raising his voice. ?I believe it?s our responsibility to do what we said we were going to do. And I think it?s pretty clear to the American people that the best health care system in the world is going to go down the drain if we don?t act.?

In their own report on Thursday, intended to illustrate how the law would lead to job losses, Republican leaders put the cost of the health care law ?when fully implemented? at $2.6 trillion and said it would ?add $701 billion to the deficit in its first 10 years.?

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.

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6 Mac App Store Bargains

6 Mac App Store Bargains

Following on from our roundup of 10 Mac App Store downloads to try first , here are some apps that are real bargains on the store. They may be a little more expensive than you?re used to paying in an app store, but these are full-fat desktop applications and you can save money downloading at the App Store.

Although UK prices are listed here, the savings are available internationally in your own currency too.

Aperture 3 ? £44.99 (Saving £128)

App Store link ? If you?re a serious photographer, Aperture is an invaluable tool for organising and optimisation your pictures. There are pro-level tools for touching up photos plus preset options if you?re feeling lazy.

Aperture also features great library tools for keeping track of your work, including face recognition and geotagging, and the ability to create multimedia slideshows to show off your work.

Why is Apple selling it for such a low price as a download? We don?t know, but one thing?s for sure ? it?s a darned sight cheaper that Adobe?s competing Lightroom, which costs £237 to download and isn?t in the App Store,

Individual Apple iLife apps ? £8.99 each (saving varies)

iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand ? If you don?t have the latest version of Apple?s iLife suite, you?re missing out on upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.

You may have been put off by the fact that Apple has until now forced you to upgrade the whole suite in one go. Now with the Mac App Store, the individual apps can be upgraded for a mere £8.99 each compared to £45 to buy the full package. If you only use, say, iMovie, and want to get the latest version, that?s a great offer.

Remote Desktop ? £44.99 (saving £204)

App Store link ? Remote Desktop is Apple?s solution for people wanting to manage a number of Macs on the same network. This could be useful if you?re the ?IT specialist? in your house and there are several Macs being used by different members of the family.

Features include being able to search all the machines on the network, transfer files and data quickly between computers remotely install software, check detailed specs for each machine, plus remote administration which allows you to do things like lock screens and shut down machines.

It?s not for everyone, but if you?ve always fancied trying it, now?s the time. The Mac App Store is offering it for a pretty amazing £204 saving over its boxed alternative.

SketchBook Pro ? £17.99 (saving £52)

App store link ? At this special introductory price, Autodesk SketchBook Pro is well worth buying even if you have just a passing interest in creating artwork on your computer. This painting and drawing app offers high quality tools that make it leagues above the kind of scrappy painting abilities of Microsoft Paint and its ilk.

Even new users with no experience can create good quality results quickly and if you?re an aspiring graphic designer or digital artist this is a must-buy at the current price.

MacFamilyTree ? £14.99  (saving £15)

App store link ? Genealogy is big business and there are plenty of tools out there, both online and as downloadable apps, that let you trace your ancestry. MacFamilyTree is offered at a 50% discount until 13 January 2011 and provides rich tools for building your family tree.

In addition to plotting out a tree,you can store photos of your ancestors, store videos and audio, keep birth certificates, marriage certificates and other documents in digital form and use integrated search links to online ancestry resources. Once you?re done, you can publish your tree on a website from within the app.

Salling Media Sync ? £5.99 (saving £9)

App Store link ? If you have a mobile phone that isn?t an iPhone, you may have looked longingly at the ease with which iTunes syncs audio and video to Apple?s handset. Salling Media Sync opens up that ease to many more handsets, including many HTC, Samsung, RIM, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson models.

Syncing both media and iTunes playlists, Salling?s solution is quick and painless, making iTunes all that more useful to those without an iPhone. One caveat ? any protected content downloaded from the iTunes Store won?t sync over, as that requires playing on an Apple device. There?s not a lot Salling can do about that though, os we?ll let them off. The current introductory price is available until 1 February.

Spotted any more bargains in the Mac App Store? Please do let us know by leaving a comment.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/01/07/6-mac-app-store-bargains/

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Give Me Back My Water Wings

Sprinting, shooting, jumping, punching. Name any human action verb, and you'll probably find it simulated reasonably well in a game somewhere. Unless, of course, it's swimming.

Despite all the water-levels inflicted on us, games have never quite managed swimming. In fact, Grand Theft Auto III famously featured a main character so downright terrified of the wet stuff that he?d curl up and die as soon as he got a splash on his little toe. I used to regularly bemoan the fact that I could lose all my best weapons merely by getting a dunking.

Thankfully, this is no longer common in these modern days of expansive gameplay, multimillion dollar budgets and huge areas to explore, but that doesn't mean matters have improved. Instead, we?re been handed some of the most dull swimming experiences we?ve ever had the misfortune to experience.

Take, for example, Grand Theft Auto IV. Nico?s an accomplished swimmer, and he?s happy to take a dip whenever he feels the urge. As such, when the temptation appears, usually at about the time his Wanted level hits the four-star mark, he?ll rush off to the nearest patch of water and paddle off into the middle of nowhere.

The police, being happy to stick to dry land unless you?ve committed mass-genocide, will soon give up and trot off back to their coffee and donuts. However, in all the excitement, Nico will by then have drifted out to sea. This means that you're now stuck with a good ten-minute button-prod-a-thon until you get back to dry land.


What's more, when you get there, unless it?s one of the handy, easy-to-grip areas, Nico isn?t going to play ball. Instead, you?re left slowly paddling along the coastline for a good 15 minutes, cursing your refusal to give yourself up to the cops. Woe betide you if you happen to be near the airport at this point; you might as well reload an old save game and rescue yourself from the sheer boredom of getting back to solid ground.

Swimming, it seems, simply isn?t fun. Nearly everyone?s gaming lives have been affected by the frustrating inclusion of water-based torment. Who hasn?t suffered a multitude of deaths in the guise of Lara Croft, as she twists and contorts in oxygen-free agony? Surely no-one can claim that Mario?s swimming levels even hit the heady heights of the poorest quality of those that take place on dry land?


The problem is that land offers freedom and quick manoeuvring; water doesn't, at least not to anything like the same degree. Ezio Auditore in Assassin?s Creed 2 may be able to hop from rooftop to rooftop like an agile moggy, but stick him in the water and he paddles along like an asthmatic donkey. It?s simply not fun going for a lengthy and tedious swim before you can find a bit of soil low enough to grab onto.

The solution? Unless you can make a swimming section somehow as action-packed as the rest of the game, make a dip in the ocean impossible. I?d much rather be annoyed by the inability to hop into the sea, than drop in and find I?ve got a 15-minute paddle to dry land ahead of me.

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Obama Turning to Experienced Hands as He Remakes Staff

William M. Daley, who was commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, visited the West Wing to meet with the president and other advisers for a final series of discussions about serving as chief of staff. He has told associates he would accept the job if an offer was extended, and officials said Mr. Obama was favoring him.

Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, was expected to be named on Friday as the director of the National Economic Council, the top economic policy job inside the White House. Mr. Sperling also held the position in the Clinton administration.

The moves would signal an effort by the White House to bring on experienced Washington hands with records of bipartisan deal making as it faces the realities of a Republican-controlled House, a slimmer Democratic majority in the Senate and a resurgent grass-roots conservative movement.

The White House also announced Wednesday that Robert Gibbs, the press secretary and a close confidant to Mr. Obama, was stepping down to become an outside political adviser to the president and his re-election campaign.

Mr. Daley, currently a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, has close ties to business and comes out of the Democratic Party?s centrist movement. Mr. Sperling was among the architects of the tax deal that Mr. Obama reached last month with Senate Republicans, and played a big role in the bipartisan deficit-reduction deal President Bill Clinton negotiated in 1997.

The arrival of Mr. Daley at the White House on Wednesday underscored how close the president was to reaching a decision on selecting a chief of staff, the linchpin of a broad reorganization under way in the West Wing.

Mr. Obama had narrowed his choice for chief of staff to Mr. Daley and Pete Rouse, who has been serving in the post on an interim basis since Rahm Emanuel resigned last fall to run for mayor of Chicago. Mr. Rouse, who is said by colleagues not to have wanted the chief of staff job in the first place, drafted the reorganization plan, which ultimately led to the suggestion that Mr. Daley be considered for the post. Should Mr. Daley for some reason not get the job, officials said, Mr. Rouse would stay on.

The president, in a brief telephone interview on Wednesday, said he was eager to put the reorganization into place and make changes after two years on the job. He said he planned to have the personnel realignments finished in the coming days.

?The American people are expecting us to hit the ground running and start working with this new Congress to promote job growth and keep the recovery going,? Mr. Obama said. ?We?re not going to be dilly-dallying along when it comes to making sure that we?re executing on behalf of the American people.?

As Mr. Obama enters a new phase of his presidency, there are signs that he intends to operate differently. The White House said the president would speak on Feb. 7 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a group that spent millions trying to defeat Democratic candidates and the policies of his administration.

While Mr. Daley and Mr. Sperling are perceived as centrists and could leave liberals further concerned about the administration?s commitment to its views, the real evidence of where the president is heading will not come until the State of the Union address later this month and the unveiling of the president?s budget in February.

The first in a series of staff changes began on Wednesday as Mr. Gibbs, the press secretary, announced that he was stepping down. He said he would leave in early February. His successor has not yet been chosen.

The departures of David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, and Jim Messina, a deputy chief of staff, both of whom are moving to Chicago to establish the president?s re-election campaign, have been further impetus to the realignment among political and policy advisers alike. Several of the positions are interwoven, which has created an unusual air of uncertainty for a White House that has enjoyed considerable continuity.

?You?ll be seeing announcements in due course,? Mr. Obama said in the interview, in which he praised Mr. Gibbs, who has worked for him since April 2004, well before Mr. Obama?s political star had risen. ?Obviously, we?ve got a lot of work to do.?

While Mr. Obama has worked closely with Mr. Sperling, he is far less familiar with Mr. Daley, even though they are both from Chicago. The men had their first serious conversation in two years last month, associates said, when the president first approached Mr. Daley about the position. He was invited to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to spend more time with Mr. Obama.

The president is scheduled to announce on Friday a new team of economic advisers during a visit to a window manufacturing company in Landover, Md., just outside Washington. Mr. Sperling would replace Lawrence H. Summers, who has returned to Harvard University.

Mr. Sperling, much like Mr. Obama, is a liberal but with a pragmatic bent. Some liberal activists have opposed his becoming the director because of his openness to compromise with Republicans, and because he once was a well-paid consultant to Goldman Sachs, managing a charitable program to teach skills to poor women in Africa and elsewhere.

Mr. Obama initially had expressed a preference for enlisting someone with business experience, as part of his broader outreach to the corporate community, alienated by his policies overhauling the health care and financial regulatory systems. The other leading candidates were Roger C. Altman, an investment banker and former deputy Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, and Richard Levin, an economist and longtime president of Yale University.

Ultimately, however, he decided the nature of the director?s job and the demands of forging fiscal policy at a time of divided government argued for someone of Mr. Sperling?s policy-making experience. As deputy director and then director of the National Economic Council under Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sperling worked on budget, tax and trade policies when Republicans controlled the House and Senate.

Administration officials say Mr. Sperling?s chances for the job were all but sealed last month, when he played a lead role in the tax cuts compromise that Mr. Obama reached with Republicans in Congress?s lame-duck session. Before that, he was an architect of legislation creating tax incentives and a lending facility for small businesses.

Mr. Obama is also expected to name a deputy to his budget director, Jacob J. Lew, and to move Ron Bloom, a Treasury adviser who oversaw the administration?s bailout and restructuring of the auto industry, into the White House to continue advising him on manufacturing policy.

Mr. Bloom, whose career has included stints as both an investment banker and a top official at the steelworkers union, enjoys ties with both organized labor and business leaders.

?Every president, after a couple of years, is going to go through some sort of transition,? Mr. Obama said, ?partly prompted by the fact that people are working so darn hard.?

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Video - Spinning Nano Yarns

Spinning Nano Yarns

Researchers at the University of Texas in Dallas make high-tech yarns from nanotubes and powders. The yarns could be woven into battery electrodes, superconfucting fabrics, and wearable electronics.

01.07.2011
Video by Science/AAAS, edited by Brittany Sauser - Read the Article

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=e05931c78f438c713e03bb40858795b3

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