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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Video: Elaborate farewell for Kim Jong Il
Wednesday's state funeral for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il capped more than a week of public mourning. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.
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Will There Be a Shortage of Small Business Tech Workers in 2012?
Does your small business rely on high-tech workers to compete? You?re not alone. Increasingly, being up to speed on technology is crucial to business success, which means you need a savvy tech team in-house. But hiring those tech workers might be getting harder?and the risks of making a bad hire might have greater ramifications?in 2012.
While national unemployment rates hover near 9 percent, CIO.com reports that as of November, the unemployment rate in the technology industry was just 2.7 percent. Also as of November, the number of job openings rose by 12 percent year-over-year, according to tech hiring site Dice.com. In particular, big cities like New York, Silicon Valley and DC are seeing shortages of qualified tech employees.
For 2012, it?s only going to get worse. CIO says a December survey by Dice.com found that 65 percent of IT hiring managers expect to hire in the first half of 2012, with more than one-fourth planning to increase their IT staff by over 20 percent. Those companies are looking for experienced workers, with the biggest demand being for workers with 6 to 10 years of tech experience and those who are skilled in mobile apps, cloud computing, virtualization, project management, business analytics and Java.
What does it mean to you? First, if you?re looking to hire tech employees, you?re going to face an increasingly competitive marketplace, which will make the ongoing challenge of matching big companies? perks and pay even tougher. Second, even if you?re not hiring, you?ve got reason to worry, as the demand for experienced techies means your key people could get poached.
To keep them happy, you?ll need to offer competitive pay (or better), challenging work and the chance for career growth.
If your key tech workers get lured away, it could put your business at risk in more ways than one. A separate survey from CareerBuilder?s site Sologig.com, reported in TechRepublic, found that a majority of companies had experienced hiring an IT person who wasn?t a good fit.
More than one-third said such bad hires cost them $50,000 or more. ?Rushing to hire was the top reason for bad choices, which resulted in everything from lost time and productivity to harmful effects on morale and even client relationships.
Will you be hiring tech workers in 2012? Or are you just hoping to keep the ones you?ve got? Either way, you?d better start strategizing to ensure you don?t end up short on talent and long on headaches.
Tech Engineer Photo via Shutterstock
About the Author
Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit her blog, SmallBizDaily. Visit her website SmallBizTrendCast to get the scoop on business trends and sign up for Rieva?s free TrendCast reports. Connect with Rieva Lesonsky:
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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/12/shortage-small-business-tech-workers-2012.html
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Trio M To Celebrate Its New Release With California Tour Dates ...
(December 29, 2011)
Photo: Cory Warner
This February, pianist Myra Melford, bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Matt Wilson will celebrate the release of The Guest House (Enja/Yellowbird), their second recording as Trio M, with California performances at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla (2/2), the Jazz Bakery Series at Musicians Institute in Los Angeles (2/3) and Yoshi?s in San Francisco (2/6).
The record, which officially hits the streets earlier that week, features compositions by all three musicians, including pieces inspired by such diverse muses as the poetry of Rumi and Al-Jawahiri, the prose of Yvonne Vera, the comedy of Don Knotts and the music of Albert Ayler. Also included are selections written for the band?s 2010 collaboration with chef Paul Canales and a benefit concert for The Relay For Life, which celebrates lives affected by cancer.
?This is not your average piano-trio by a long shot,? declares the San Diego Reader?s Robert Bush in his review of The Guest House. ?Together, the trio manages to nail the traditional expectations while shattering the boundaries of convention. Beginning with the Melford-penned title track, there is an instant surge of joy in this music. The Guest House is terrific stuff, and the production-values are top notch all the way, from the crystalline sound to the superior artwork and graphics.?
Founded in early 2006, Trio M brings together three of the most respected veteran musicians in jazz and improvised music. The New York City Jazz Record?s Laurence Donohue-Greene writes, ?The exploratory Trio M?continues to turn out one mesmerizing set after another, revealing their deep empathy while equally balancing composition with improvisation. Each member is readily equipped to do anything at any given moment, from soloing to laying out to changing tempo, the three moving as one, always.?
Critics have called the group ?always exploratory and collaborative? (Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen), ?one of those rare units that can be both wildly creative and surprisingly user-friendly? (Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight) and ?not only one of the most virtuosic playing today, but one of the most consistently engrossing? (Derk Richardson, The Absolute Sound). ?Melford, Dresser and Wilson know no bounds on their instruments and don?t give a hang about boundaries,? adds JazzTimes reviewer Carlo Wolff, ?theirs is improvisation so empathetic, they seem of one mind.?
Learn more about Trio M at http://myramarkmatt.tumblr.com
This entry was written by , posted on at 1:03 pm, filed under General, Myra Melford and tagged al-jawahiri, albert ayler, athenaeum, bakery, bay area, california, cd release, concert, dates, don knotts, enja, gig, improvisation, institute, jazz, la jolla, live, los angeles, m, mark dresser, matt wilson, music, musicians, myra melford, paul canales, relay for life, rumi, san francisco, the guest house, tour, trio, tumblr, yellowbird, yoshi's, yvonne vera. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Oracle dealt patent defeat in Google Android case (Digital Trends)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office dealt Oracle a bit of a setback in its high-stakes patent litigation against Google over Android. In a filing just before the Christmas holiday, the USPTO effectively threw out one of the seven patents Oracle is using against Google (full text available at Groklaw), rejecting some 17 of the 21 claims asserted in U.S. patent 6,192,476. Although only one of those claims was being leveraged against Google?claim 14?the rejection of so many claims basically means the entire patent has been invalidated.
Google requested the patent be re-examined by the USPTO, along with others Oracle is asserting against it in the case. The request for re-examination is common in patent litigation: defendants typically assert both that the aren???t infringing on a particular patent, and furthermore that the patent ought not to have been issued in the first place, and therefore is invalid and nobody could infringe on it even if they tried.
Oracle?s infringement case against Google hinges on the Java virtual machine included in Google?s Android operating system; Oracle claims the technology violates a number of Java patents it acquired along with Sun Microsystems in early 2010. Oracle initially asserted 132 infringement claims against seven patents; the list of claims was reduced to a list of 50 on the request of the judge handling the case; of those, only one (claim 14) was against patent 6,192,476. However, that means Oracle still has six patents in play in its case against Google. The judge has requested Oracle further limit the number of claims it brings to trail; Oracle had been hoping to bring 21 claims, but the judge had suggested Oracle focus on just three claims to streamline proceedings.
Generally speaking, Oracle would prefer to go to trail sooner than later. The case was originally supposed to go to trail in October, but a scheduling conflict lead to a delay. Oracle then asked for a January start date, but Google has dragged its feet, saying it can?t be ready for trail before July.
Oracle has until February 20 to request an appeal the preliminary ruling. Preliminary rulings against patents have been later been overturned upon full review, so Oracle may have a chance of hanging on to the patent after all. If Oracle does nothing, it will likely be stripped of the patent.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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San Francisco: 4-star Parc 55 Hotel in Union Square, $135+
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- $79: January 3-5
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- $111: February 12; April 1, 6-8, 15
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Exclusive: Afghanistan sets ground rules for Taliban talks (Reuters)
KABUL (Reuters) ? Afghanistan will accept a Taliban liaison office in Qatar to start peace talks but no foreign power can get involved in the process without its consent, the government's peace council said, as efforts gather pace to find a solution to the decade-long war.
Afghanistan's High Peace Council, in a note to foreign missions, has set out ground rules for engaging the Taliban after Kabul grew concerned that the United States and Qatar, helped by Germany, had secretly agreed with the Taliban to open an office in the Qatari capital, Doha.
U.S. officials have held about half a dozen meetings with their insurgent contacts, mostly in Germany and Doha with representatives of Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban's Quetta Shura, this year to prepare the way for face-to-face talks between the group and the Afghan government.
A representative office for the group is considered the starting point for such talks and Doha has in the past served as a meeting ground for initial contacts.
But the Afghan peace commission which has suffered a series of setbacks including the assassination of its head in September said that negotiations with the Taliban could only begin after they stopped violence against civilians, cut ties to al Qaeda, and accepted the Afghan constitution which guarantees civil rights and liberties, including rights for women.
The council, according to a copy of the 11-point note made available to Reuters, also said any peace process with the Taliban would have to have the support of Pakistan since members of the insurgent group were based there.
"The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is in agreement regarding the opening of an office for the armed opposition, but only to move forward the peace process and conduct negotiations," the council said.
The government would prefer such an office in either Saudi Arabia or Turkey, both of which it is close to, but was not averse to Doha as long as the authority of the Afghan state was not eroded and the office was only established for talks, officials said.
"We are saying Saudi or Turkey are preferable, we are not saying it has to be there only. The only condition is it should be in an Islamic country," said a government official.
President Hamid Karzai's administration recalled its ambassador from Doha last week, apparently angry that it had been kept in the dark about the latest round of contacts with the insurgent group.
Officials said Kabul was also deeply concerned about reports that the United States was considering the transfer of a small number of Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay military prison to Doha as a prelude to the talks.
"We are a sovereign country, we have laws. How can you transfer our prisoners from one country to another. Already it's a violation to have them in Guantanamo Bay," the official said.
The Afghan government wanted the prisoners to be returned to its custody, the official said.
Reuters reported this month that the United States was considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay into Afghan government custody as part of accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy.
"We have no problem with this. In fact we have been demanding this for a while. These are Afghan prisoners," said the official, who declined to be identified.
The tension between the Karzai administration and the United States over engaging the Taliban underscores the challenges of seeking a political settlement as the West prepares to withdraw most combat troops from the country by 2014.
Efforts to engage the insurgent group have faced a string of setbacks, the most recent being the assassination of the head of the peace council and former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September at the hands of a suicide bomber who pretended to be a Taliban emissary.
HARDENING OF POSITIONS
It led to a hardening of positions with Karzai saying the government could not talk to suicide bombers and that there should be an address for the Taliban so that negotiators know they are talking to the right representatives.
"We are committed to the reconciliation process, the experience of the last 10 years shows no military solution is possible. Talking to the armed opposition is the key in this regard," said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.
The peace council, laying down the markers for engagement with the Taliban, said well known figures from both the Taliban and the government had to be involved in talks.
It said that "before any negotiations can take place, violence against Afghan people must stop and that the armed opposition must cut ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups."
It also said that the Taliban must accept the constitution and honor the gains made in the last 10 years since they were ousted from power, conditions that the Taliban have shown no sign of accepting.
The Taliban do not accept the constitution and have vowed to carry on fighting until all foreign troops have left the country.
The peace council said Pakistani support was necessary for talks to take place, another condition that makes the task harder because of fraught ties between the United States and Pakistan which fears it is being shut out of the process.
Opening a Taliban office in a third country is seen as a way to create distance from Pakistan which has longstanding ties to the insurgent group.
But the government official said he did not think the peace council had laid down such tough conditions that the talks would fail even before they started.
"We don't think it's a deal breaker. We are quite optimistic," he said.
(Editing by Robert Birsel and Ed Lane)
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AM1150: Canada not about to let Finland take the lead away as they score their 2nd goal! 2-0 Canada!
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
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Monday, December 26, 2011
Police: Gunman in murder-suicide dressed as Santa
Grapevine police investigate the scene where they found seven people dead outside Dallas in Grapevine, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Grapevine police investigate the scene where they found seven people dead outside Dallas in Grapevine, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Police tape hangs in front of an apartment complex where 7 people were found dead, Sunday Dec. 25, 2010, in Grapevine, Texas. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Police tape stretches through a Grapevine, Texas, apartment complex where police found seven people dead in an apartment on Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011 in Grapevine, Texas. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)
Police line tape lines the scene where police found seven people dead in an apartment on Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011 in Grapevine, Texas. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Scott Goldstein) MANDATORY CREDIT; MAGS OUT; TV OUT; INTERNET OUT; AP MEMBERS ONLY
Grapevine police investigate the scene where they found seven people dead outside Dallas in Grapevine, Texas, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. Four women and three men who police believe to be related were found apparently shot to death, and authorities said they believe the shooter is among the dead (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Michael Ainsworth) MANDATORY CREDIT; MAGS OUT; TV OUT;
GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) ? Six members of a Texas family apparently opened Christmas presents just before a relative dressed as Santa Claus showed up, opened fire and killed them before killing himself, police said Monday.
Grapevine police spokesman Sgt. Robert Eberling said the shooter showed up in the Santa outfit shortly before gunfire erupted and was a member of the family. The identity of the shooter and the victims will be released after autopsies are conducted Monday, he said.
Police went to the apartment midday Sunday after dispatchers received a phone call in which no one was on the line. They found four women and three men, aged 18 to 60, dead. A motive for the shootings remains unclear.
Investigators worked overnight, meticulously searching the apartment, along with three vehicles parked outside.
"It appears they had just celebrated Christmas. They had opened their gifts," Grapevine Police Sgt. Robert Eberling said Sunday, adding that the apartment was decorated for the holiday, including a tree.
Two handguns were found near the bodies, and it appears all died of gunshot wounds, he said.
Grapevine Police Lt. Todd Dearing said investigators believe that the victims were related, though some were visiting and didn't live in the apartment. He said police are looking for other relatives to inform of the deaths.
"Seven people in one setting in Grapevine, that's never happened before. Ever," Dearing said.
Many of the nearby apartments are vacant, and police said no neighbors reported hearing anything on a quiet Christmas morning when many people were not around.
Jose Fernandez, a 35-year-old heavy equipment mechanic who moved to the complex with his family about six months ago, said he always felt safe in the area, but is now afraid to let his 10-year-old son play freely outside.
"This is really outrageous especially on Christmas," said Fernandez, who was visiting family for the holiday and returned to find several police cars parked outside his home.
"This has shocked everybody. It has scared everybody. I guess something like this can happen anywhere, but seven people dead. It's just very scary," he added.
___
Associated Press writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston contributed to this report.
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MustafaMir: RT @DeirQaddis: #ChristmasIsCancelled I told Santa that Israel wants Peace. He died laughing. #XmasInPalestine
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Chinese hackers target U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sensitive data stolen
According to sources close to The Wall Street Journal, Chinese hackers are at it again, this time hitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and capturing information from three million members. Those familiar with the matter told the WSJ that hackers stole around six weeks worth of emails regarding Asian policy, but may have had access to sensitive correspondences for as long as a year. The Chamber only learned it was under attack when the FBI sent an alert that servers in China were stealing information, although the exact amount of data stolen is unknown. After confirming the breach, the Chamber shut down and destroyed parts of its computer network, proceeding to revamp its security system over a 36-hour period. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the U.S. of A has fallen victim to Chinese hackers, as both Google and NASA have experienced breaches over the past few years. The Chamber is currently investigating the attack, hoping to find some digital clues that might reveal the details of who done it and why.
Chinese hackers target U.S. Chamber of Commerce, sensitive data stolen originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 24 Dec 2011 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
BSMotoring: Toyota to recall 41,000 Etios, Liva models in India Japanese car maker Toyota is recalling 41,000 units of its... http://t.co/mfi2bGf2
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
AMD Radeon HD 7970
The perpetual war for supremacy between AMD and Nvidia constantly leaves enthusiasts dodging shrapnel: When you want the best video card you can afford, why buy one now instead of waiting for the better one the competing chipset designer will undoubtedly release in a few months? This leaves reviewers in a tough spot, too, as we're constantly proclaiming that nearly every new card is the fastest ever. But because you can only live in the world you live in, we're obliged to go there. So, here goes once again: The just-released AMD Radeon HD 7970 ($549 list) is the latest fastest and most feature-rich single-GPU card ever, surpassing our previous Editors' Choice winner, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 580.
Though we have little doubt that Nvidia will yank back that title with its next generation of cards, the 7970 is an impressive achievement for the moment.? (It's?rumored to become widely available by early January of?2012.)? The inaugural member of the Southern Islands family, it utilizes a fresh architecture AMD refers to as "Graphics Core Next." Based on a new 28nm process technology and utilizing more than 4.3 billion transistors, Graphics Core Next uses a revised instruction set architecture, gives each compute unit the ability to simultaneously execute instructions from multiple kernels, and delivers an increased number of instructions per clock cycle per square millimeter of GPU space. The result, so AMD claims, is "designed for high utilization, high throughput, and multitasking."
We'll examine how well the 7970 achieves those goals in due time, but first we should look more deeply at what the card offers on a component level. The maxed-out new Southern Islands GPU (the 7900 series, code-named "Tahiti") can contain up to 32 compute units (CUs) supported by two geometry engines and rasterizers (one of each for every collection of 16 CUs), one L2 cache up to 768KB, four render back-ends (offering 32 color ROPs per clock and 128 Z/stencil ROPs per clock), and a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface with bandwidth up to 264GBps. Cards in the 7900 series can also make full use of the newest and speediest PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 x16 bus interface.
AMD didn't stop with just internal developments. The company promises that the Southern Islands cards will offer improved cooling and acoustics, by way of a new sixth-generation vapor chamber and a wider fan with new blades that are capable of wicking away more heat than before. Power issues have received plenty of attention as well, with PowerTune technology for intelligent monitoring of energy usage on an application-by-application basis when the proper electrical and thermal headroom are available.
Also new is ZeroCore Power Technology, which shuts down the GPU and turns off the fan during long idle states, for a reduction in idle power usage of up to 95 percent. According to AMD, this delivers additional benefits in CrossFireX configurations: Secondary GPUs are always in the ZeroCore Power state when they're not in use, with the primary GPU joining them during long idle periods, thus saving even more power in systems that traditionally suck it up with party-animal abandon.
Like all of the company's video cards, those in the 7900 series support?DirectX 11 (and it's posed for?DX11.1 when Windows 8?comes around)?the full range of AMD's proprietary technologies. Eyefinity is back, but with a twist: Though it still makes for an easy way to run multiple monitors, the 7970 is the first card capable of driving three stereoscopic 3D displays by itself using new monitors that support DisplayPort 3D; the 7900 series isn't even limited to a single audio stream, but can out multiple independent streams at once. Other new Eyefinity features introduced with the Catalyst 11.10 driver update include new monitor configurations (5-by-1 landscape and portrait), full support for setups using multiple 1,920-by-1,200 and 2,560-by-1,600 monitors, and flexible bezel compensation.
If the 7970 sounds beefy from a spec standpoint, it is indeed. The card's 250-watt TDP hasn't changed from the 6970, but almost everything else has been dialed up. The card is driven by an astonishing 2,048 stream processors and has a 925MHz engine clock; AMD estimates the card delivers 3.79 teraflops of compute performance. Thirty-two ROPs and 128 Z/stencils max out the GPU's capability. Memory has been packed on, too, with the 7970 housing a remarkable 3GB of GDDR5, twice what the GTX 580 carries; the bandwidth is the aforementioned 264GBps, the memory clock runs at 1,375MHz, and the overall data rate is 5.5Gbps. (The last two specs are not increases over those of AMD's last-generation top single-GPU card, the Radeon HD 6970, for what it's worth.)
Video outputs are a strong collection as well, with two Mini DisplayPort jacks (supporting the DisplayPort 1.2 standard), one HDMI 1.4a port, and one dual-link DVI port. The last is beginning to look mighty legacy, as both the Mini DisplayPort and HDMI ports are now capable of driving the 4K displays that are almost certainly coming in the next generation or so. (AMD touts its cards as being the first on the market to support this new hardware.) And there is again a switch that lets you return to the factory settings any time you want, so you can overclock to your heart's content safe in the knowledge it will be tough to do any permanent damage.
Positive as all this is, the typical downsides to such a powerful card are here as well.? You will need to run two additional cables from your power supply (one eight-pin, one six-pin), and the card's oversize fan?heat sink unit means it blocks an adjacent expansion slot. But because the card is of a reasonable length (11 inches), these are minor annoyances well in keeping with video cards this high up in the enthusiast spectrum.
What does all this mean in terms of gaming performance? A lot. In our testing (on a system set up using an Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard running the Intel Core i7-3960X CPU) we saw some significant jumps over both AMD's own 6970 and Nvidia's GTX 580. The 7970's overall 3DMark 11 score was 2,734, an 861-point increase over what we saw from the 6970 (1,873) and 619 points higher than what the GTX 580 earned (2,115). The 7970 triumphed in almost all of our gaming benchmarks, often by large degrees, at least at 1,920 by 1,200. When we tested Aliens vs. Predator at that resolution, for example, the 7970's result of 55.1 frames per second (fps) was well ahead of the 6970's 47.2fps and the GTX 580's 43.6fps. The 7970 barely eked out a playable 31fps against the GTX 580's 27.2fps in Total War: Shogun 2 at 1,920 by 1,200, though the GTX 580 couldn't even run the game's benchmark with all the details cranked.
The 7970, it should be noted, didn't ace every test. The GTX 580 did marginally better in DiRT 3 (69.5fps versus 66.9fps) and HAWX 2 (140 versus 130), both at 1,920 by 1200. And a lot of the 7970's impressive leads dropped at 2,560 by 1,600, with only about 7fps separating the cards at Aliens vs. Predator (34.7fps versus 27.5fps), 1fps at DiRT 3 (47.7fps versus 46.7fps, the 7970 winning the competition here it couldn't quite at 1,920 by 1,200), and 12fps in Just Cause 2 (40.6fps versus 28.6fps, as compared with the wider gap between 60fps and 36.8fps for that game we saw at 1,920 by 1,200). And looked at beside either AMD's or Nvidia's more expensive?dual-GPU gaming cards, the Radeon HD 6990 and the GeForce GTX 590 respectively, the 7970 looks like small performance potatoes. (Though, for the record, the GTX 590 couldn't run Total War: Shogun 2 at 2,560 by 1,600.)
Where the 7970 really distinguished itself was in terms of power usage. AMD's efforts in this regard really paid off, as our test bed was able to idle at an impressive minimum of 99.8 watts; that's less than we saw with either the 6970 (107.8) or the GTX 580 (117.3). But when running under full graphics load the 7970's full-system power draw rose to only 245.9 watts?again, this is below the results we got from both the 6970 (249.8 watts) and the GTX 580 (264.6 watts), and the 7970 gives you the most polygon-pushing power.
So, folks, it's that time again to declare a new Editors' Choice and a new "sensibly priced" (as opposed to the dual-GPU models, anyway) enthusiast video card. No matter what game you want to play or, within reason, what resolution you want to play it at, this is the one-GPU card that will excel most at the job best. Its price may still be steep, and you may be able to find GTX 580 cards on the market for less (around $500), but if full-tilt gaming without compromises?is what you crave, you won't be able?to do better than the AMD Radeon HD 7970. At least for a while.
More Graphics Card reviews:
??? AMD Radeon HD 7970
??? Nvidia Quadro 4000
??? Nvidia Quadro 5000
??? Nvidia Quadro 2000
??? AMD Radeon HD 6450
?? more
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Uncommon Dec. tornado hits La hospital; none hurt (AP)
DEQUINCY, La. ? An uncommon December tornado on Tuesday ripped off part of a hospital roof in a southwest Louisiana city, causing several patients to be evacuated, but no injuries.
The National Weather Service said the weak tornado touched down at 8:25 a.m., causing some property damage including at DeQuincy Memorial Hospital. Eight patients were transferred to hospitals in the nearby cities of Lake Charles and Kinder, but the emergency room remained open, administrative assistant Kashia Spears told the American Press (http://bit.ly/tDX2ws).
She said it's unclear when the hospital would be able to house people overnight again because the torn off portion of the roof covered a hallway of rooms for patients.
The weather service classified the storm as an EF-1 tornado, which can pack winds up to 110 mph, though an agency official said actual wind speeds were likely far lower. EF-1 tornadoes can have wind speeds as low as 86 mph.
The tornado was the first to strike anywhere in the U.S. this December, a month in which tornadoes are historically uncommon. Though last New Year's Eve, deadly twisters hit Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri. And wide swaths of Mississippi and Louisiana were under severe weather watches.
Weather service forecaster Todd Mogged said the DeQuincy tornado was likely on the ground for less than a minute. Though the weather service issued a tornado warning, Mogged said the fast-developing, short-lived twister probably touched down at about the same time as the alert.
Calcasieu Parish's emergency preparedness director Dick Gremillion said DeQuincy was fortunate.
"It's a miracle that there wasn't any more damage," Gremillion said. "It could have been a lot worse."
It was hospital nurse Alisha St. Germain's first encounter with a tornado. Her Chevrolet Tahoe sustained severe damage on its passenger side when roof fragments slammed into it.
"I just got out of my car about three minutes before it happened," said St. Germain, who bought the vehicle in September.
Beyond the hospital, damage was limited in the northern part of the city.
The tornado was part of a system bringing rain to several Southern states. Also, a different deadly storm that caused blizzard conditions in portions of the Great Plains weakened Tuesday as it headed east into Missouri and toward the Great Lakes.
In DeQuincy, Gremillion said recovery operations began minutes after the tornado passed, and by 1 p.m., workers at the hospital had begun installing a temporary roof in a bid to prevent further damage.
By nightfall, area utility companies said they had largely restored power after a day of widespread outages.
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Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
IDC: iPad maintains tablet dominance, HP's TouchPad fire sale burned brightly
While the Android tablets continue to roll in, Apple can still lay claim to the lion's share of the tablet market according to IDC's latest report. Its research suggests that the iPad holds onto 61.5 percent of the worldwide market share, down from 63.3 percent last quarter. Android devices in total also saw a slight contraction, down from 33.2 percent to 32.4 percent. This is partly explained by the HP TouchPad's final hurrah, which rocketed the ill-fated webOS tablet up to third place with a 5 percent of share of tablet sales and an estimated 903,354 devices sold. Samsung maintained its Honeycomb tablet crown, nabbing 5.6 percent of all tablet sales. The Korean manufacturer was closely tailed by Barnes and Noble's Nook Color with 4.5 percent and Asus, arriving at fifth place with a four percent share. Tablets in total sold less than the analysts had predicted, although E-readers outperformed estimates, with 6.5 million E-readers sold in the third quarter, up 165.9 percent from last year. IDC expects some disruptive new tablets will spice up the fourth quarter results and you can take a look at its findings and predictions at the full press release below.
Continue reading IDC: iPad maintains tablet dominance, HP's TouchPad fire sale burned brightly
IDC: iPad maintains tablet dominance, HP's TouchPad fire sale burned brightly originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 05:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Report says western states edging toward recovery (AP)
LAS VEGAS ? The West is recovering faster than the nation as a whole, but employment across the region remained far below pre-recession levels and the housing market showed few signs of improvement, according to an economic report released Thursday.
The report prepared by Brookings Mountain West researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas focused on economic growth in 10 metropolitan areas spread across Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Idaho.
Overall, the region saw a modest 0.3 percent growth in employment in the quarter ending in September, compared to the national rate of 0.1 percent, the study found. Utah, Colorado and New Mexico ? states that have built broad economic bases ? struggled the least, researchers said.
In Arizona and Nevada, the housing collapse continued to limit job growth.
"We don't have a robust, steady recovery yet," said Mark Muro, policy director for the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. "The real estate crack up continues to have a severe influence on the places that struggle with it."
In all, every metropolitan area lagged behind pre-recession employment levels, with Phoenix and Las Vegas experiencing the sharpest differences. Job levels languished 10.8 and 13.4 percent below their respective pre-recession peaks.
"The road to recovery remains long and uncertain," the report noted.
Still, there was enough employment growth in the past year to drive down the unemployment rate in every major metropolitan area singled out by the report. Utah and New Mexico had the lowest unemployment rates, while Las Vegas had the highest at 13.6 percent.
Leading the recovery were Utah's Ogden and Provo, Albuquerque in New Mexico, and Phoenix. Boise and Las Vegas showed modest signs, but Tucson, Ariz., and Colorado Springs were still struggling, according to the report. Ogden and Provo saw employment rise by 1.5 percent, and Idaho's Boise saw a 1 percent increase in jobs.
Employment grew by less than 1 percent in Phoenix, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City and Tucson.
Among the areas that faced a difficult quarter, such as Denver and Albuquerque, job growth in Las Vegas stagnated ? a sign of Nevada's highest-in-the-nation unemployment rate. In Albuquerque and Denver, job growth fell slightly.
Manufacturing gains drove the jobs numbers in Provo and Ogden, while government expansion helped Boise grow its work force. Conversely, government layoffs contributed to economic woes in Colorado Springs, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Denver. Production levels remained depressed in Tucson, Boise, Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The housing market offered few signs of recovery. Prices across the region remained significantly below last year's totals.
Still, the report highlighted some positive milestones. Prices remained stagnant or improved in eight of the metropolitan areas for the first time since the recession began in 2007. In Las Vegas and Tucson, home values continued to fall, but at a much slower rate than in previous quarters.
In the latest sign of hardship for Sin City, prices there saw the biggest drop from last year, at 19 percent. In all, Las Vegas home prices have dropped by nearly 65 percent since 2006. The steep fall means home prices are unlikely to recover in Las Vegas any time soon, according to the report.
Hard-hit Tucson, Boise and Phoenix will also not see improved home prices in the foreseeable future, the researchers concluded.
"They have high foreclosures, they had massive real estate and construction employment that crashed and that kind of crack up has proven to be toxic to places," Muro said.
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Lights on, for the moment (Powerlineblog)
Friday, December 16, 2011
Haiti prison guards await verdict in massacre case (AP)
LES CAYES, Haiti ? Lawyers for 13 police officers accused of killing inmates during a prison riot in southern Haiti contended Wednesday that the prisoners themselves fatally shot at each other.
With the trial nearing an end, the defense team of more than 20 attorneys said in closing arguments that officers who entered the prison in Les Cayes after Haiti's devastating 2010 earthquake did so only to bring order to an already bloody scene.
Lawyer Pierre Thomas St. Fort said the defendants are civil servants trying to do their job under difficult circumstances. He asked the officers to stand one by one before the court.
"Look at these men, these civil servants," he said. "They were acting on orders to enter the prison, and they did their job."
An additional 21 officers are being tried in absentia because they fled.
All are accused of killing at least 10 prisoners, although United Nations police believe more bodies may have been removed. Dozens of other inmates were wounded during the uprising, which began when some of the 400-plus prisoners tried to escape because they feared aftershocks in the overcrowded prison.
Lead prosecutor Jean-Marie Salomon said that holding the police responsible would be a boost for human rights in Haiti.
"This trial is historic," Salomon said. "This is the first time in Les Cayes we've held our own police officers accountable for their abuses. What is decided will be an example for those who come after us of how we respect our citizens."
Judge Ezekiel Vaval said he planned to leave for New York this weekend to write the verdict, which he expects to release in January.
He said he is leaving Haiti for his own safety following threatening phone calls that he and his family received when the trial began in late October.
"You know, in Haiti, anyone can pay a little money and have me killed," Vaval said in an interview with The Associated Press last week. "But I believe in God. I know that I must finish this trial and make a decision, and it is up to God what happens to me."
The defendants face up to life in prison if convicted.
The trial has drawn hundreds of people to the courtroom every day, including Kesnel Cange, a 51-year-old carpenter.
"I put this trial on my schedule every day," he said. "It's our entertainment here. It's like watching a TV show ? everyone has their favorite character. The people who love the prosecution cheer when they speak. When the defense says something, their fans cheer."
In a separate civil trial, a group of lawyers is seeking reparations for five families whose relatives died in the riot.
Although the trial is the first of its kind in Les Cayes, the prison riot was not the first that ended in bloodshed.
During a 2004 riot in the Port-Au-Prince penitentiary, police allegedly opened fire and killed at least 10 inmates. Although the U.N. produced a report, the Haitian government at the time objected to it being published and it was not released. No police officers ever stood trial.
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