The notion of bring-your-own devices is common at most companies; according to research firm estimates, two-thirds to three-quarters of all companies now allow people to use their own mobile devices for work, meaning at least for email access. We should expect companies to allow the same for PCs, right?
Bring-your-own PCs have been around as long as there have been PCs -- aka the home computer. People have been taking work home with them (that's why all those lost USB sticks and CDs end up causing embarrassing breach notifications) and accessing email from home since the mid-1980s. That's BYOPC, even if it's been widely ignored in official IT circles.
But today's BYOPC means something else: employees buying their own PCs for use for work as well as for personal needs. Some organizations have been experimenting with that BYOPC notion for years, in fact. It's been driven mainly by executive-level employees who want to use a Mac, which few companies historically allowed outside of specific functions like marketing or development. Those initial exceptions sometimes translated into a more programmatic experiment.
Those experiments typically were about choosing your own PC from an approved list, as well as getting greater admin rights or flexibility, such as the ability to install your own software, often at the price of providing your own tech support. Many companies, especially tech firms like Cisco Systems, Intel, IBM, and BT, have adopted choose-your-own programs and provided flexibility in terms of personal software and usage for employees who travel a lot.
That approach to PC flexibility is likely to grow. But not strict BYOPC, says Chriz Hazelton, a mobile analyst at 451 Research. He notes several reasons why BYOPC is not a natural follow-on to BYOD.
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a Syrian refugee reaches for bread during the daily distribution at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. The camp’s five bread centers open at daybreak. About 500,000 pitas are handed out daily _ four per person. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a Syrian refugee reaches for bread during the daily distribution at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. The camp’s five bread centers open at daybreak. About 500,000 pitas are handed out daily _ four per person. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, photo, dozens of Syrian refugees watch a tent and a trailer on fire at the Zaatari Refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, photo, a Syrian girl stands near her family shelter at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
In this Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, photo, a coach's assistant does a handstand while Syrian children play soccer at the Zaatari refugee camp near the Syrian border in Jordan. With Syria’s civil war in its third year, more than 2 million Syrians have fled their country. About 100,000 live in this camp. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)
ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's Zaatari camp for Syrians fleeing their country's civil war is one of the largest refugee camps in the world.
Here's a look at the camp in numbers, provided by the U.N. refugee agency.
—Residents: About 100,000, or as many as in Flint, Michigan;
—Households: 13,500 (capacity 15,000);
—Area: 530 hectares (1,310 acres);
—Distance from the Syrian border: 12 kilometers (7.5 miles);
—Established: July 2012;
—Districts: 12;
—Trailers: 18,000;
—Tents: 10,000 (though only about 4,000 families live in tents);
—Shops: 2,500, of those 680 larger ones;
—Schools: 3, with more than 16,000 students enrolled;
—Boys moving goods in wheelbarrows for a small fee: More than 1,000;
—Residents earning income: About 65 percent;
—Daily cost of operating the camp: At least $500,000;
—Monthly electricity bill for the camp: $500,000;
—Daily pita bread distribution: 500,000 pieces;
—Daily number of water trucks: 350;
—Daily number of sewage trucks: 200;
—Daily water use per person: 45 liters;
—Hospitals: 3, including one for maternal delivery;
—Clinics at the camp : Over 10;
—Babies born every month at the camp: More than 200;
—Deaths: About 200 since the camp opened;
—Number of refugees who have passed through Zaatari: 350,000 to 360,000;
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And here are some other statistics on Syrian refugees:
—Syrians who have fled their country: 2.1 million;
—Syrian refugees living in Jordan: 550,000;
— Of those, refugees living in Jordan's urban areas: 423,000.
Spending their Halloween by doing some sight-seeing and sunbathing, Diane Kruger and Joshua Jackson stepped outside for some fun in Rio de Janeiro.
Each ready for adventure and outside entertainment, Diane wore a white tank with a scarf and denim shorts while the former "Mighty Duck" walked casually beside her in a black V-neck and dark shorts.
In related news, the 37-year-old beauty is currently working on an upcoming movie, set for release at the end of 2013. Originally titled "The Green Blade Rises," the biography-drama's new name is "The Better Angels."
Coming at us from "Making 'The New World" director A.J. Edwards, the new flick's sparse synopsis states that it characterizes "The U.S. President Abraham Lincoln's formative years."
Parents pack into a gym at Cahuilla Desert Academy, a middle school in the southern California city of Thermal. The near triple-digit daytime heat of the Coachella Valley, southeast of Palm Springs, has given way to a cool evening. It's iPad information night.
Before addressing the crowd, Principal Encarnacion Becerra talks up the district's ambitious new iPads-for-all initiative with the fervor of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
"It's truly a revolution, what's happening," he says. "Technology has finally caught up to where truly you hold the Internet in the palm of your hands. The power of the mobile devices that exist now — we have to have to leverage that capacity and to evolve as educators to address those needs."
Coachella Valley Unified — a predominantly low income, rural and Latino school district — is in the process of handing out iPads to every student, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Kids seventh grade and up get to take the device home evenings, weekends and breaks. Voters approved a bond issue to pay for it.
Administrators here paint it as a modern civil rights issue. Technology tools, they argue, will help boost achievement, prepare kids for today's workplace and narrow the digital divide between poor and wealthy areas.
A growing number of school districts across the U.S. are handing out tablet computers and integrating the devices into their curriculum. But the old issue of how much Web access kids should have on school-issued devices is growing more complicated as kids surf on multiple devices and access multiple networks at home, school, public hot spots and more.
iPad Security
Last month students at the Los Angeles Unified School District easily got around a security firewall on their district-issued iPads and could surf wherever they wanted. LA has now slowed down its iPad rollout amid growing concerns about LA's entire tablet project.
This worries Joey Acuna Jr., father of a student in Coachella Valley Unified.
"I have concerns after hearing what happened in LA Unified," Acuna says. "Kids are kids, and they're going to try to do what they think they can get away with. And not to be mean, but sadly ... some of our kids probably have better knowledge of these kind of electronic devices than some of our teachers."
LA is now exploring new security tools to block access to certain sites, including social media sites and YouTube. "All social media sites are blocked," says LA school district spokesman Thomas Waldman.
Parents here in Coachella want to know whether their district has learned from LA's missteps.
The Coachella Valley school district will block certain sites deemed harmful and install a tracking mechanism and other tools to monitor kids' use. Part of that falls under the Children's Internet Protection Act: Schools and libraries that accept certain federal funding for technology must install Web filters to shield kids from pornography and explicit content online.
But the district is taking a more nuanced approach than LA Unified to the access and use of social media sites. They're not blocked. The idea now is to educate kids and parents about appropriate use of the iPad — or what the district calls online ethics and digital citizenship.
Karen Cator, CEO of the nonprofit education group Digital Promise, says the issue of filtering is incredibly complicated because the Internet is continuously changing.
"I think it's futile to try to shut this down completely," she says. "And it's a missed opportunity, if we do that, to teach kids how to act appropriately in what will be their lifelong globally networked world."
Setting Up Rules
Eighth grade physical science teacher Tim Sharpe at Cahuilla Desert Academy has been using the iPad in a pilot program for more than a year. He says tablets are tailor-made for science learning: His students use them to take photos, write about labs and tap into the latest educational science apps.
Sharpe has already confronted the problem of renegade surfing on mobile phones. Students can get on YouTube with their smartphones, he says, but they know Sharpe might take their phone away for the day if they do.
What sites to block, beyond the ones legally required, should be a teacher-student classroom management issue, he says.
Sharpe devised a system that engages kids and rewards them: If they finish their iPad project on time, they can then play games or take pictures for fun with the devices.
"And there's ... a point system," he says. "So you just lay the rules down. And I find that the kids go with that."
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Dr. Conrad Murray listens to testimony seated near his attorney Nareg Gourjian, right, during Murray's trial in the death of pop star Michael Jackson, in Los Angeles. Murray, who was convicted in Jackson's death is suing the state of Texas for stripping his right to practice medicine, and his attorney said Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, that the cardiologist has former patients eager for him to work again.(AP Photo/Mario Anzuoni, Pool, File)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas doctor convicted in the death of pop superstar Michael Jackson is suing the state for stripping his right to practice medicine, and his attorney said Thursday that the cardiologist has former patients eager for him to work again.
Conrad Murray, who was released from a California jail this week after serving less than two years for involuntary manslaughter in Jackson's death, accuses the Texas Medical Board of prematurely revoking his license. Murray claims in his lawsuit filed in Austin that his 2011 conviction isn't final in California until his appeals are exhausted.
Murray states in an affidavit that he is more than $400,000 in debt and can't afford to pay court costs.
"Anybody who wants to work in this country ought to be able to have the right to do so. Dr. Murray is like everyone else, in that he needs to be able to do his line of work," said Charles Peckham, Murray's attorney.
Texas Medical Board spokesman Jarrett Schneider said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.
Murray was convicted of causing Jackson's death in June 2009 by providing him with the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid. Jackson was in the midst of preparations for a series of comeback concerts and Murray was serving as his physician.
Murray filed the lawsuit Friday, three days before he was freed after serving half of a maximum four-year sentence.
Murray previously maintained clinics in Houston and Las Vegas. His medical license is currently suspended in California.
In court papers filed in Texas, Murray expresses concern that the revocation of his Texas license could give California reason to take the same action.
"The Texas Medical Board, in taking my license puts me in imminent harm of irreparable injury," Murray said in court papers.
Brian Panish, an attorney for the Jackson family, has said Murray should not have "a chance to hurt anyone else" by practicing medicine.
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
Early last year, the "Rockstar" consortium backed by Apple, Microsoft, BlackBerry, Sony and Ericsson closed its purchase of thousands of patents previously owned by Nortel for $4.5 billion (around the same time Google, after failing to purchase the patents itself, closed a $12 billion deal for ...
FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2012 file photo Singer Kanye West and girlfriend Kim Kardashian attend Gabrielle's Angel Foundation 2012 Angel Ball cancer research benefit at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. Marriage is coming after the baby carriage for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. E! News reports West proposed to Kardashian Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on Kardashian's 33rd birthday, in front of family and friends at the AT&T Park. Kardashian gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter North West, in June. Representatives for 36-year-old West and Kardashian didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment about the engagement. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2012 file photo Singer Kanye West and girlfriend Kim Kardashian attend Gabrielle's Angel Foundation 2012 Angel Ball cancer research benefit at Cipriani Wall Street in New York. Marriage is coming after the baby carriage for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. E! News reports West proposed to Kardashian Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on Kardashian's 33rd birthday, in front of family and friends at the AT&T Park. Kardashian gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter North West, in June. Representatives for 36-year-old West and Kardashian didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment about the engagement. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kim Kardashian and Kanye West sued a co-founder of YouTube on Thursday claiming he violated a confidentiality agreement by posting a video of the couple's marriage proposal to his new video-sharing website.
The couple's lawsuit states Chad Hurley wasn't invited to the elaborate Oct. 21 proposal at San Francisco's AT&T Park, but was allowed to stay because he signed an agreement not to post any video or images from the event. West allowed other cameras to film the event for possible broadcast on E! Entertainment Television, home to his fiancee's show "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," according to the suit.
Hurley posted a fuzzy 2 ½ minute long video on his new website MixBit, that showed West proposing to Kardashian while an orchestra played. The video also showed the ensuing celebration with Kardashian's family and invited guests toasting the newly-engaged couple.
Kardashian and West are seeking unspecified damages from Hurley and his company, Avos Systems Inc.
"Exclusive rights, such as those sold by plaintiffs to publication of video of the event, are particularly valuable," the lawsuit states. "If people violate these rights ... they are of substantially diminished value."
A message sent through MixBit seeking comment from Hurley was not immediately returned.
West proposed to Kardashian on her 33rd birthday; the couple's first child North West was born in June.
The lawsuit was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.
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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP
Mayor Rob Ford walks past Halloween decorations on his way to talk to media at City Hall in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Ford says he has no reason to step down despite police confirmation that they have seized a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)
Mayor Rob Ford walks past Halloween decorations on his way to talk to media at City Hall in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Ford says he has no reason to step down despite police confirmation that they have seized a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)
Mayor Rob Ford talks to media at City Hall in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Ford that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford addresses media outside his office in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013. Ford says he has no reason to step down despite police confirmation that they have seized a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe.(AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)
These annotated video frame grab images provided by the Toronto Police Service on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, show Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, left, and his close friend, Alexander Lisi. Police say they rummaged through Ford's garbage and conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring him and Lisi following drug use allegations. The marks seen on the images were drawn by the police. (AP Photo/Toronto Police Service via The Canadian Press)
This annotated video frame grab image provided by the Toronto Police Service on Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, left, and his close friend, Alexander Lisi. Police say they rummaged through Ford's garbage and conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring him and Lisi following drug use allegations. The marks seen on the images were drawn by the police. (AP Photo/Toronto Police Service via The Canadian Press)
TORONTO (AP) — Calls for the resignation of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford intensified after police said they had obtained a video that appears to show him smoking a crack pipe, discovered in a massive surveillance operation of a friend who is suspected of supplying the mayor with drugs.
Police said they did not have enough evidence to file charges against the mayor, who had claimed the video didn't exist and vowed not to resign, repeating the pledge Thursday.
Voters could have the final word on the strange career of the populist mayor whose travails have captivated and embarrassed Canadians for months. Ford has promised to run for a second term next year.
"I have no reason to resign," Ford told reporters with a smile, as his office welcomed visitors to check out its Halloween decorations Thursday.
The embattled mayor, who has been the butt of jokes on U.S. late night television, said he couldn't defend himself because the affair is part of a criminal investigation involving an associate, adding: "That's all I can say right now."
Ford faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a glass crack pipe. Two reporters with the Toronto Star said they saw the video, but it has not been released publicly. Ford maintained he does not smoke crack and that the video did not exist.
Ford was elected mayor three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs. Since then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on conflict-of-interest charges and has appeared in the news for his increasingly odd behavior.
But the pressure ramped up on Thursday with all four major dailies in the city calling on Ford to resign.
Cheri DiNovo, a member of Ontario's parliament, tweeted: "Ford video nothing to celebrate Addiction is illness. Mayor please step down and get help?"
Police Chief Bill Blair said the video, recovered after being deleted from a computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges against Ford.
Blair said the video of the mayor "depicts images that are consistent with those previously reported in the press."
"As a citizen of Toronto I'm disappointed," Blair said. "This is a traumatic issue for citizens of this city and the reputation of this city."
Blair said the video will come out when Ford's associate and occasional driver, Alexander Lisi, goes to trial on drug charges. Lisi now also faces extortion charges for trying to retrieve the recording from an unidentified person. Blair did not say who owned the computer containing the video.
Blair said authorities believed the video is linked to a home in Toronto, referred to by a confidential informant as a "crack house" in court documents in Lisi's drug case.
The prosecutor in the Lisi case released documents Thursday showing they had rummaged through Ford's garbage in search of evidence of drug use. They show that they conducted a massive surveillance operation monitoring the mayor and Lisi following drug use allegations.
The documents show that friends and former staffers of Ford were concerned that Lisi was "fuelling" the Toronto mayor's alleged drug use.
The police documents, ordered released by a judge, show Ford receiving packages from Lisi on several occasions.
"Lisi approached the driver's side of the Mayor's vehicle with a small white gift bag in hand; he then walked around to the passenger side and got on board," reads one document dated July 30, 2013. "After a few minutes Lisi exited the Escalade empty handed and walked back to his Range Rover."
Another dated July 28 says Lisi "constantly used counter surveillance techniques" when he met with Ford that day.
On August 13 documents say Lisi and Ford met and "made their way into a secluded area of the adjacent woods where they were obscured from surveillance efforts and stayed for approximately one hour."
Ford recently vouched for Lisi in a separate criminal case, praising his leadership skills and hard work in a letter filed with the court. The letter was part of a report prepared by a probation officer after Lisi was convicted of threatening to kill a woman.
Ford said previously that he was shocked when Lisi was arrested earlier this month, calling him a "good guy" and saying he doesn't abandon his friends.
The documents also say that Ford met Lisi through Payman Aboodowleh, a volunteer football coach at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where Ford coached the team while also serving as mayor. He told police he was "mad at Lisi because he was fuelling the mayor's drug abuse," the document says.
Ford's controversies range from the trivial to the serious: Walking face-first into a TV camera. Falling down during a photo op while pretending to play football. Being asked to leave an event for wounded war vets because he appeared intoxicated, according to the Toronto Star. Being forced to admit he was busted for marijuana possession in Florida in 1999, after repeated denials. Making rude gestures at Torontonians from his car.
"The mayor has said there wasn't a video," Toronto councilor Paula Fletcher said. "He has said there is a conspiracy against him. With Chief's Blair's press conference I think that's put to rest."
Councilor Joe Mihevc said he continues to be shocked by the "depth and revelations that are coming out."
"The mayor has to come clean and do it as soon as possible," Mihevc said. "He needs to talk honestly about his use of illicit drugs."
Following a recent across the board price drop to $100, Amazon is taking another 40 dollars off the price of the Moto X for AT&T subscribers, and $50 off for Verizon users. This the best Android phone for most people, and even if you're enamored by today's reveal of the Nexus 5, this is quite a bit cheaper.
Someone should probably go make a Wikipedia page for the “Warby Parker model,” since it has rapidly become the go-to business strategy for online retail startups.
The latest addition to the genus Ecommerce Lowoverheadus is Greats, a men’s footwear brand that launched in August. The name derives from the ambition to put a fresh spin on the enduring designs in sneaker history. Although that might sound like copycat design, pretty much every shoe brand iterates on others’ designs; as with most menswear categories, the classics persist in one form or another.
Although their wares are manufactured in the same facilities as upscale lines like Lanvin and Balenciaga, the goal is to create high quality goods while keeping the price point low by cutting out retail overhead. The shoes are priced in the range of $39 to $190, and while early adopters will undoubtedly skew toward sneaker aficionados, the target audience is broad.
“We’re going to make shoes for men with feet,” co-founder Ryan Babenzien said.
Babenzien and his co-founder, Jon Buscemi, are career shoe guys. The former did branding and marketing at K-Swiss and Puma, while Buscemi already has founding another footwear brand, Gourmet Footwear, under his belt.
The company raised an angel round of $500,000 last April, at which point they hadn’t even opened a bank account, Babenzien said. They were pre-selling in beta until their launch on August 6 and only began shipping three weeks ago.
Like Warby, Greats got a lot of early attention from press, including the seal of cool-approval on GQ’s blog. Now the team is looking to raise its seed round.
More than anything, Greats is aiming to be a label, not a startup with a clever business model. When we spoke, Babenzien came back again and again to the idea of building a brand, and, more importantly, to making sure that the DNA of the product is readily recognizable to consumers from the get-go. (Lest we forget that, the site’s URL is greatsbrand.com.)
Greats launched with two styles in three colors each and will be rolling out six additional shoes over the course of the next year. Sneakers are a focus in the first batch, but they’ll also be adding styles like boots and boat shoes into the mix by the end of 2014.
At the moment, Greats’s profit margins are 60%, but the team thinks they can get them higher than that.
“I could have sold this for $120,” Babenzien said, gesturing at the $99 black leather sneakers he was wearing. “And nobody would have blinked. We wanted to make a real statement.”
Part of the team’s long-term roadmap is globalizing Greats. Babenzien said they have been seeing web traffic coming from France, England, Asia, Australia, and Canada.
“The culture of men’s sneakers and footwear is global… we’d like to get to $100 million in revenue in five years,” he said. “I think based on what we’ve seen, it’s well within reach.”
They’ll also be taking on auxiliary categories. Socks, for instance, are something they could get into in the near term. (“That’s more of a strategic category than anything else,” Babenzien said.) Bags and sweatshirts would naturally follow. Because sneakers are part of a youth culture, college age guys form a large portion of Greats’s potential market, and the brand has the opportunity to outfit them from the shoes up.
The company has been moving quickly since April, and they’re wasting no time in getting their products into the offline retail world, as well. On November 9, Greats is opening a hundred square foot shop in a small glass walled shopping complex on Williamsburg’s waterfront, which they’re calling the “Field House” in reference to the brand’s vintage athletic vibe. Customers can buy shoes in the shop, although Babenzien noted that it’s the only physical store in which people will be able to make purchases.
The store will only be open from noon to 7 pm on weekends, the point being to get consumers touching and test driving Greats shoes, rather than serving as a major retail location.
Although having an offline location was always in the team’s playbook, they didn’t expect to make the move so soon. But the Williamsburg space was cheap and didn’t have a lease, so they snatched it up.
Greats is also getting product into the real world with two displays at the upscale LA men’s store Union and at High Point, a sneaker Mecca in Phoenix. The shoes won’t be available for sale at either joint; it’s more about building the brand in the context of other sought-after designers.
The sneaker market for guys is big, and these shoes, with their buttery leather uppers, are sweet. (Unfortunately for the ladies, they’re not running unisex sizes just yet.) The tricky part about online native fashion startups is that the fashion part of the equation — finding the line’s voice and aesthetic point of view — so often loses out to a focus on being online native. Young, creative designers fail all the time out of a lack of business acumen, but a fashion label needs direction, achievable through tight branding and great product. The Greats guys get that.
In this 2012 image provided by the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, a dog, bottom right, watches a video of the silhouette of another dog wagging its tail to its left. At top right is an inset image of the dog's heart rate while the dog was watching the video. A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog. In the Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 issue of the journal Current Biology, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it’s reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. (AP Photo/Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari)
In this 2012 image provided by the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari, a dog, bottom right, watches a video of the silhouette of another dog wagging its tail to its left. At top right is an inset image of the dog's heart rate while the dog was watching the video. A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog. In the Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 issue of the journal Current Biology, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it’s reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. (AP Photo/Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Bari)
NEW YORK (AP) — The way Fido wags his tail might reveal more about him than you know. Just ask another dog.
A few years ago, researchers discovered a subtle difference in how dogs wag their tails. When a dog sees something positive, such as its owner, it tends to wags its tail more to its right. The wagging tends to go left when it sees something negative, like an unfamiliar dominant dog.
Now, the same Italian researchers report that other dogs pick up on that difference, and it's reflected in their behavior and even their heart rates. Experts say the tail-wagging difference appears to be one way that dogs gauge how other dogs will respond to them.
"It's just fascinating that dogs pick up on it," said Evan MacLean, co-director of Duke University's Canine Cognition Center. For humans, he said, "it's a difficult thing to see."
MacLean was not involved with the study, reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
Giorgio Vallortigara of the University of Trento in Italy, an author of the study, said Fido is not deliberately sending a message. Instead, the tail-wagging behavior stems from how different emotional cues activate different parts of the brain, he said in an email.
For the experiment, Vallortigara and co-authors used videos of a dog or its silhouette, wagging its tail mostly to one side or the other, or not wagging at all. They showed the videos to 43 dogs, including such breeds as Rottweilers, beagles, boxers, border collies and German shepherds as well as mongrels.
When the dog in the video wagged mostly to its left, the sign of a negative response, observer dogs tended to have faster heartbeats than when it wagged the other way or not at all. Their behavior also indicated a higher degree of stress.
Alexandra Horowitz, who studies mental abilities of dogs at Barnard College in New York, said that the wagging difference is probably not a primary signal between Fido and Rover in daily life, but it may play a minor role.
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Online:
Current Biology: http://www.cell.com/current-biology
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Malcolm Ritter can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/malcolmritter
New climate-studying imager makes first balloon flight
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Cynthia O'Carroll cynthia.m.ocarroll@nasa.gov 301-286-4787 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Understanding Earth's dynamic climate requires knowledge of more than just greenhouse gases. One of the key measurements scientists measure is reflected solar radiance, or the amount of outgoing sunlight energy scattered from Earth's surface and atmosphere. Watching solar radiances over time helps scientists gauge and better understand environmental changes like global warming.
Earth-observing satellites have provided measurements of solar radiances for many years, but recent technology advances could lead to new measurements with a higher level of accuracy from those currently available. The next generation, higher-accuracy data would enable climate predictions and trends that could be clearly seen using data sets that are much shorter in duration than the current data sets needed for these types of studies, thus enabling faster detection of climate trends and more timely results.
NASA's Earth Science Technology Office is supporting the development of a new generation of scientific instrument that may one day orbit Earth. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS), developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), is a testbed demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance studies.
HySICS made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. From this vantage point HySICS, aided by the pointing precision of NASA's Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), was able to make measurements of Earth, the sun and the moon during both daylight and night hours.
The hyperspectral imager, which spans a 10 kilometer field of view of Earth from the balloon's altitude, collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight and a half hour flight. The instrument periodically calibrated itself by performing highly accurate radiance scans of the sun and moon. This calibration ensures that the radiance measurements collected of Earth are able to reach the high-accuracy data needs of climate researchers.
After landing safely south of Wheeler, Texas, HySICS was recovered and returned to LASP. The data collected during the engineering flight will be used to improve the instrument over the next year and to further advance the science algorithms used to process the data.
HySICS images scenes onto a single focal plane array at wavelengths between 350 and 2,300 nanometers, covering the extremely important solar and near infrared spectrum containing most of the sun's emitted energy. Using only a single array allows HySICS to be smaller and lighter than many imagers, a feature necessary for cost-effective space-based Earth observing missions.
A second balloon flight is planned for September 2014. During that demonstration flight, HySICS should be able to reach its goal of collecting the most accurate solar radiance measurements (calibrated to the sun to better than 0.2 percent radiometric accuracy) that have ever been made of Earth. In addition, the HySICS lunar observations should provide the highest accuracy radiance measurements ever of the moon, having great value to lunar calibrations for other instruments.
The data HySICS collected on the engineering flight and will collect on the following demonstration flight help to refine the instrumentation needed for radiance and other hyperspectral studies. Not only is HySICS able to act as a space-based radiance testbed, but the measurements the instrument can make will be of great benefit to both the Earth and lunar science communities.
###
For more information on NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, visit:
http://esto.nasa.gov
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New climate-studying imager makes first balloon flight
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Cynthia O'Carroll cynthia.m.ocarroll@nasa.gov 301-286-4787 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Understanding Earth's dynamic climate requires knowledge of more than just greenhouse gases. One of the key measurements scientists measure is reflected solar radiance, or the amount of outgoing sunlight energy scattered from Earth's surface and atmosphere. Watching solar radiances over time helps scientists gauge and better understand environmental changes like global warming.
Earth-observing satellites have provided measurements of solar radiances for many years, but recent technology advances could lead to new measurements with a higher level of accuracy from those currently available. The next generation, higher-accuracy data would enable climate predictions and trends that could be clearly seen using data sets that are much shorter in duration than the current data sets needed for these types of studies, thus enabling faster detection of climate trends and more timely results.
NASA's Earth Science Technology Office is supporting the development of a new generation of scientific instrument that may one day orbit Earth. The HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS), developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), is a testbed demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance studies.
HySICS made its inaugural engineering balloon flight from Fort Sumner, N.M., the morning of Sept. 29. Balloon flights provide realistic, space-like conditions at a fraction of the cost of launching an instrument into space, so is an ideal means of testing new technologies. A 60-story tall balloon lifted HySICS to an altitude of nearly122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere, heights where the sky is nearly as black as in space. From this vantage point HySICS, aided by the pointing precision of NASA's Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), was able to make measurements of Earth, the sun and the moon during both daylight and night hours.
The hyperspectral imager, which spans a 10 kilometer field of view of Earth from the balloon's altitude, collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight and a half hour flight. The instrument periodically calibrated itself by performing highly accurate radiance scans of the sun and moon. This calibration ensures that the radiance measurements collected of Earth are able to reach the high-accuracy data needs of climate researchers.
After landing safely south of Wheeler, Texas, HySICS was recovered and returned to LASP. The data collected during the engineering flight will be used to improve the instrument over the next year and to further advance the science algorithms used to process the data.
HySICS images scenes onto a single focal plane array at wavelengths between 350 and 2,300 nanometers, covering the extremely important solar and near infrared spectrum containing most of the sun's emitted energy. Using only a single array allows HySICS to be smaller and lighter than many imagers, a feature necessary for cost-effective space-based Earth observing missions.
A second balloon flight is planned for September 2014. During that demonstration flight, HySICS should be able to reach its goal of collecting the most accurate solar radiance measurements (calibrated to the sun to better than 0.2 percent radiometric accuracy) that have ever been made of Earth. In addition, the HySICS lunar observations should provide the highest accuracy radiance measurements ever of the moon, having great value to lunar calibrations for other instruments.
The data HySICS collected on the engineering flight and will collect on the following demonstration flight help to refine the instrumentation needed for radiance and other hyperspectral studies. Not only is HySICS able to act as a space-based radiance testbed, but the measurements the instrument can make will be of great benefit to both the Earth and lunar science communities.
###
For more information on NASA's Earth Science Technology Office, visit:
http://esto.nasa.gov
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Automated system promises precise control of medically induced coma
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sue McGreevey smcgreevey@partners.org 617-724-2764 Massachusetts General Hospital
Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery
Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."
As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.
Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.
Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.
"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.
Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.
###
Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
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Automated system promises precise control of medically induced coma
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sue McGreevey smcgreevey@partners.org 617-724-2764 Massachusetts General Hospital
Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery
Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."
As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.
Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.
Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.
"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.
Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.
###
Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Nikon's finance department has been forced to revise its quarterly revenue forecast in a southerly direction due to the fact that entry-level DSLRs are selling for lower prices than it originally expected. One of the culprits is likely to be the D3200 shown above, which is currently going on Amazon ...
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Nikon's finance department has been forced to revise its quarterly revenue forecast in a southerly direction due to the fact that entry-level DSLRs are selling for lower prices than it originally expected. One of the culprits is likely to be the D3200 shown above, which is currently going on Amazon ...
