The Caucus: Second Hat in the Ring for Republican Leader

In a video announcement to members of the national committee, Ms. Wagner said the party needed new leadership to prepare for the 2012 presidential campaign, as well as a renewed focus on fund-raising, transparency and accountability.

?We must be efficient, relevant, professional and credible,? Ms. Wagner said. ?We must start immediately to erase past debt and to restore the confidence of our donor base. We must have these resources in order to take back the White House and complete the job that was started this year.?

Ms. Wagner, a former national co-chairwoman of the committee who also served as an ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush, is the second person to formally announce intentions to run for the post. This month, a former Republican chairman from Michigan, Saul Anuzis, declared his intention to run.

Several other top Republican officials are considering making a bid, including Maria Cino, a longtime Republican leader with close ties to the Bush administration, and Gentry Collins, who recently left his position as political director for the national committee.

The current chairman, Michael Steele, whose term expires in January, has not said whether he intends to seek re-election. His stewardship of the party has been sharply criticized by many Republicans, especially his handling of fund-raising, even though the party scored sweeping victories in the midterm election and captured control of the House.

The 168 members of the Republican National Committee are scheduled to meet in Washington in January to elect a leader.

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Intel talks dedicated media accelerators in Sandy Bridge

With the launch of Intels Sandy Bridge processors drawing closer, were starting to see more and more bits of information make their way online. Yesterday we got a glimpse at four laptop models expected to feature the new silicon early January, and now CNet brings us some fresh information about the chips media playback abilities. Specifically, it confirmed Sandy Bridge would include dedicated media acceleration circuitry with support for DirectX 10.1 and OpenCL 1.1.

Speaking at a Wells Fargo Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference earlier this month, Intels vice president and director of PC Client operations and enabling at Intel, Stephen Smith, said pulling videos and photos from the web or your own devices as well as transforming them into different formats will be dramatically faster thanks to these media accelerators which is good news especially for systems relying solely on the built-in graphics.

On the other hand, graphics chips from AMD and Nvidia already support DirectX 11. Smith also pointed out that Sandy Bridge should enable slimmer designs that perform more like mainstream laptops, and reiterated that the company is on track to deliver 22-nanometer processors by the end of 2011 with Ivy Bridge. The latter will integrate a DirectX 11 compatible graphics chip and should bring quad-core designs to the entry-level segment.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41355-intel-talks-dedicated-media-accelerators-in-sandy-bridge.html

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Dell intros Vostro V130 with new Intel cooling technology

Dell has announced a new addition to its Vostro line of business laptops. The Vostro V130 keeps the same thin and light chassis of its V13 predecessor, adds a few ports, and is one of the first laptops to incorporate Intel's Hyperbaric cooling technology. This means than instead of using internal fans to push hot air out of the laptops chassis, air is drawn in through one side of the laptop and expelled out the other, allowing the fans to run at lower speeds and thus quieter.

In terms of specs, the Vostro V130 has a 13.3-inch High Definition WLED display, full-sized keyboard, and weighs 3.5 pounds (0.45 kilograms). Its powered by Intel Celeron or Core ULV processors and has a six-cell battery that offers around four hours of battery life. The system packs up to 4GB of RAM, up to a 640GB hard drive or 128GB SSD, and comes with plenty of connectivity options such as HDMI-out, 802.11n wireless, 5-in-1 media card reader, and a webcam. Theres no optical drive in order to maintain a slim profile but road warriors get WiMAX and a SIM card slot as options.


It also has a USB 2.0/eSATAcombo port but unfortunately the newer and faster USB 3.0 interface is still missing on the Vostro V130. Nevertheless, this small business machine starts a very competitive $429 and is available today.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41353-dell-intros-vostro-v130-with-new-intel-cooling-technology.html

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First look: Screach packs serious interactive potential for TV and beyond [TNW Apps]

ScreenReach Interactive, the startup which could potentially make every screen you encounter in your life (TV, cinema, sports stadium, you name it) more interactive, has just launched Screach ? the iPhone and Android app it hopes will make it all happen.

We?ve followed ScreenReach and its Screach platform since it emerged from The Difference Engine incubator scheme earlier this year and it?s packing some serious potential.

Imagine you?re watching a TV gameshow. The producers flash up a ?Screach code? on the screen which you then enter into the app. This then loads a customised ?experience? on your phone, allowing you to interact with the show. That could be voting on the show?s contestants, taking part in the show directly from home by answering quiz questions or anything else that the producers choose.

It?s not just TV either, developers can create Screach ?experiences? for any situation they choose ? a pub quiz, a sporting event, an airport departure lounge. What?s more, users can be rewarded in real time. Say you answer a question in a quiz correctly, your prize can be delivered immediately as a reward voucher directly to the Screach app.

First look at the Screach app

So, now that it?s on the iTunes App Store [iTunes link] and the Android Market (with more platforms to follow), does it match up to its potential? As yet, Screach is a bit of a blank canvas as there aren?t many ?Experiences? out there to try. However it?s easy to see how the app could work if the idea takes off.

Location awareness lets you browse experiences close by to you, while a numeric keypad allows you to manually dial into any experience that you have the code for. The only Experience we had access to shows how customisable Screach can be. Code ?8? takes you to an ?Unofficial X-Factor? experience. This is an app for voting on who you want to win the current series of the UK?s popstar talent show. Although this example is simple, you can see how broadcasters could create Experiences for almost any show that they wanted to add an interactive element to.

Screach is now looking for developers to create Experiences for the app. This can be done using ScreachXML code which is detailed here. The startup is in talks with broadcasters and other businesses about building commercial experiences.

Based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, ScreenReach Interactive was founded by CEO Paul Rawlings and now employs a team of ten. If they can get broadcasters and developers on-side, this will definitely be one startup to keep your eyes on in 2011.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/30/first-look-screach-packs-serious-interactive-potential-for-tv-and-beyond/

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Blog - Card Trick Leads to New Bound on Data Compression

Here's a card trick to impress your friends. Give a deck of cards to a pal and ask him or her to cut the deck, draw six cards and list their colours. You then immediately name the cards that have been drawn.

Magic? Not quite. Instead, it's the next best thing: mathematics. The key is to arrange the deck in advance so that the sequence of the card colours follows a specific pattern called a binary De Bruijn cycle. A De Bruijn sequence is a set from an alphabet in which every possible subsequence appears exactly once.

So when a deck of cards meets this criteria, it uniquely defines any sequences of six consecutive cards. All you have to do to perform the trick is memorise the sequences.

Usually these kinds of tricks come about as the result of some new development in mathematical thinking. Today, Travis Gagie from the University of Chile in Santiago turns the tables. He says that this trick has led him to a new mathematical bound on data compression

Gagie achieves this new bound by considering a related trick. Instead of pre-arranging the cards, you shuffle the pack and then ask your friend to draw seven cards. He or she then lists the cards' colours, replaces them in the pack and cuts the deck. You then examine the deck and say which cards were drawn.

This time you're relying on probability to get the right answer. "It is not hard to show that the probability of two septuples of cards having the same colours in the same order is at most 1/128," say Gagie.

He goes on to consider the probability of correctly predicting the sequence of cards pulled at random from a deck of a certain size and after a few extra steps, finds a lower bound on the probability of doing this correctly.

This turns out to be closely related to various problems of data compression and leads to a lower bound than has been found by any other means.

"We know of no previous lower bounds comparable to [this one]," he says.

That's impressive, a really neat trick in itself.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1011.4609: Bounds from a Card Trick

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In U.S. Sting Operations, Questions of Entrapment

Some defense lawyers and civil rights advocates said the government?s tactics, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, have raised questions about the possible entrapment of people who pose no real danger but are enticed into pretend plots at the government?s urging.

But law enforcement officials said on Monday that agents and prosecutors had carefully planned the tactics used in the undercover operation that led to the arrest of the Somali-born teenager, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, a naturalized United States citizen. They said that Mr. Mohamud was given several opportunities to vent his anger in ways that would not be deadly, but that he refused each time.

?I am confident that there is no entrapment here, and no entrapment claim will be found to be successful,? Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Monday. ?There were, as I said, a number of opportunities that the subject in this matter, the defendant in this matter, was given to retreat, to take a different path. He chose at every step to continue.?

Mr. Holder called the sting operation, in which Mr. Mohamud was under the scrutiny of federal agents for nearly six months, ?part of a forward-leaning way in which the Justice Department, the F.B.I., our law enforcement partners at the state and local level are trying to find people who are bound and determined to harm Americans and American interests around the world.?

A study this year by the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which tracks terrorism cases, found that of 156 prosecutions in what it identified as the most significant 50 cases since 2001, informers were relied on in 97 of them, or 62 percent. The entrapment defense has often been raised, but as of September, it had never been successful in producing an acquittal in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial, the study found.

The Portland case resembles several others in which American residents, inspired by militant Web sites, have tried to carry out attacks in the name of the militant Islamic movement only to be captured in a sting operation, with undercover F.B.I. agents or informers playing the role of terrorists and, as in this case, supplying a fake bomb.

In September 2009, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, a 19-year old Jordanian citizen, was arrested and charged with placing a fake bomb at a Dallas skyscraper. In October, Farooque Ahmed, a 34-year-old naturalized American citizen born in Pakistan, was arrested and charged with plotting to bomb the Washington Metro after meeting with undercover agents and discussing his plans and surveillance activities, the authorities said.

Some Muslim leaders in Oregon questioned how the sting operation there was carried out.

Imtiaz Khan, the president of the Islamic Center of Portland and Masjed As-Saber, a mosque where Mr. Mohamud worshiped, said several people at the mosque had questioned why law enforcement helped orchestrate such an elaborate plan for a terrorist act.

?They?re saying, ?Why allow it to get to this public stunt? To put the community on edge?? ? Mr. Khan said.

Mr. Khan said he and other Muslim leaders met regularly with the F.B.I. and other federal officials. In May, he was among a group of Muslim leaders in the Portland area who issued a statement condemning an attempted bombing in Times Square and thanking law enforcement for its ?outstanding work? in the case.

Jesse Day, a spokesman for the mosque and Islamic center, said the circumstances of Mr. Mohamud?s arrest had stirred ?some distrust, a little bit, in the tactics? of law enforcement.

The government?s 36-page affidavit filed in the Oregon case lays out a crucial conversation between Mr. Mohamud and an F.B.I. informer at their first meeting, on July 30, 2010. According to the affidavit, the informer suggested five ways that Mr. Mohamud could help the cause of Islam, some of which were peaceful, like proselytizing, and some of which were violent and illegal.

Mr. Mohamud, the affidavit said, immediately picked a violent crime: becoming ?operational,? by which he said he meant putting together a car bomb. The informer then offered to put Mr. Mohamud in touch with an explosives expert, setting off the chain of events that led to his eventual arrest.

William Yardley contributed reporting from Portland, Ore., and Scott Shane from Washington.

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Second Hat in the Ring for Republican Leader

In a video announcement to members of the national committee, Ms. Wagner said the party needed new leadership to prepare for the 2012 presidential campaign, as well as a renewed focus on fund-raising, transparency and accountability.

?We must be efficient, relevant, professional and credible,? Ms. Wagner said. ?We must start immediately to erase past debt and to restore the confidence of our donor base. We must have these resources in order to take back the White House and complete the job that was started this year.?

Ms. Wagner, a former national co-chairwoman of the committee who also served as an ambassador to Luxembourg under President George W. Bush, is the second person to formally announce intentions to run for the post. This month, a former Republican chairman from Michigan, Saul Anuzis, declared his intention to run.

Several other top Republican officials are considering making a bid, including Maria Cino, a longtime Republican leader with close ties to the Bush administration, and Gentry Collins, who recently left his position as political director for the national committee.

The current chairman, Michael Steele, whose term expires in January, has not said whether he intends to seek re-election. His stewardship of the party has been sharply criticized by many Republicans, especially his handling of fund-raising, even though the party scored sweeping victories in the midterm election and captured control of the House.

The 168 members of the Republican National Committee are scheduled to meet in Washington in January to elect a leader.

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Google Earth 6 released, with 3D trees!

Google has introduced Google Earth 6, adding a number of significant upgrades and improvements. Most importantly, Street View has been more deeply integrated into Google Earth and users can now fly from space to the street wherever Google has Street View imagery. To do so, pick up the little Pegman icon docked right alongside the navigation controls and drop him wherever you see a highlighted blue road.

Google has also added more historical imagery, which allows users to see earlier photography of the same location on a timeline (from 1945 to the present). Furthermore, it's now easier to spot said imagery: when you fly to an area where it is available, the date of the oldest imagery will appear in the status bar as a clickable option at the bottom of the screen.

Last but not least, Google Earth now has 3D trees to make its environments more realistic. Google says dozens of species of trees are represented in a number of 3D-modeled parks and public places. The search giant has planted more than 80 million virtual trees in places such as Athens, Berlin, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, and Tokyo, with more to come.

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Survey: Apple first in mobile OS brand loyalty, Microsoft last

Smartphone manufacturers are going to have to fight hard to keep their customers; 75 percent of smartphone owners surveyed by German marketing company GfK say they may switch to another operating system when they buy their next phone. The survey was conducted in October and November among 2,653 mobile phone users in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Britain, the US, and China. GfK also found that 37 percent of feature phone owners plan to upgrade to a smartphone when they buy their next phone.

"Loyalty with a handset is a lot more complicated these days in that people buy into experiences at the high-end level," Ryan Garner, an analyst with GfK, told Reuters. "If a phone doesn't do what it says it will do or what the owner hopes it will do, the maker will lose loyalty."

The iPhone had the highest loyalty, with 59 percent of respondents saying they were sticking with Apple's iOS. Research in Motion's BlackBerry was second at 35 percent, Google's Android was third at 28 percent, and Nokia's Symbian was fourth at 24 percent. Owners of smartphones running Microsoft software were the least loyal in GfK's survey, with only 21 percent saying they would stick to the platform. This is not too surprising given that Microsoft has only just reset its mobile OS platform from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/41346-survey-apple-first-in-mobile-os-brand-loyalty-microsoft-last.html

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Blog - Card Trick Leads to New Bound on Data Compression

Here's a card trick to impress your friends. Give a deck of cards to a pal and ask him or her to cut the deck, draw six cards and list their colours. You then immediately name the cards that have been drawn.

Magic? Not quite. Instead, it's the next best thing: mathematics. The key is to arrange the deck in advance so that the sequence of the card colours follows a specific pattern called a binary De Bruijn cycle. A De Bruijn sequence is a set from an alphabet in which every possible subsequence appears exactly once.

So when a deck of cards meets this criteria, it uniquely defines any sequences of six consecutive cards. All you have to do to perform the trick is memorise the sequences.

Usually these kinds of tricks come about as the result of some new development in mathematical thinking. Today, Travis Gagie from the University of Chile in Santiago turns the tables. He says that this trick has led him to a new mathematical bound on data compression

Gagie achieves this new bound by considering a related trick. Instead of pre-arranging the cards, you shuffle the pack and then ask your friend to draw seven cards. He or she then lists the cards' colours, replaces them in the pack and cuts the deck. You then examine the deck and say which cards were drawn.

This time you're relying on probability to get the right answer. "It is not hard to show that the probability of two septuples of cards having the same colours in the same order is at most 1/128," say Gagie.

He goes on to consider the probability of correctly predicting the sequence of cards pulled at random from a deck of a certain size and after a few extra steps, finds a lower bound on the probability of doing this correctly.

This turns out to be closely related to various problems of data compression and leads to a lower bound than has been found by any other means.

"We know of no previous lower bounds comparable to [this one]," he says.

That's impressive, a really neat trick in itself.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1011.4609: Bounds from a Card Trick

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