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TEFAF Maastricht 2018
A day in the life of… a Tefaf vetter
Maastricht is famous for its tough vetting procedures, but what is it really like to be on the fair's expert team?
Jane Morris
Vetters assess a work at Tefaf. Their exhaustive work is made easier by the high quality of works at the fair. Harry Heuts Photography
The art historian and broadcaster Bendor Grosvenor calls vetting for Tefaf, Maastricht "the toughest in the world". This month, 189 of the world's leading specialists in fine and decorative art—from Old Master paintings to 20th-century design—will gather to work their way through the objects in the fair. They are the final line of defence, after the dealers and the Art Loss Register have done their work, on authenticity, provenance and condition.
"We're judging 'beef on the hoof'," says Edgar Peters Bowron, the head of the 23 experts on the French, Italian, Spanish and British Old Master paintings committee. He is typical of the calibre: formerly the curator of European paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, his CV includes leading roles at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and Harvard Art Museums in Massachusetts. "You have to have the experience of looking at and handling paintings over and over, through the years. You need a kind of sixth sense and the confidence to know what questions to ask," he says.
We're judging 'beef on the hoof'
Edgar Peters Bowron
The dealers have just three days—from the Saturday to the Monday before the fair's Thursday opening—to get their stands ready. The event's high profile, the value of the works involved, the cost of attending and the tight turnaround means that tensions can run high. To make sure that they do not influence the vetting, dealers leave their stands before the process begins.
The vetters start first thing on Tuesday. "There were around 200 people, and I didn't know a single person on my committee," says Emily Stoehrer, the curator of jewellery at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, remembering her first Tefaf vetting experience. "The director gives a statement, and then it's a 'go', almost like a race. It was pretty overwhelming."
An expert examining a piece of jewellery
The vetters divide into specialist groups and, armed with Tefaf's guidelines for each field, work systematically through the fair. "We get the objects list and the keys to the cases. We are checking labelling and authenticity, and we spend a lot of time cross-checking marks," Stoehrer says. "And we are careful about the integrity of pieces: jewellery can be broken apart and made into something else. Tefaf doesn't want that kind of thing in the fair."
Sealed notes are left for dealers asking for further information, requesting that pieces are relabelled or, in extreme cases, rejecting a work of art from the fair. It is "intense", Stoehrer says. The vetters are spread across two hotels, and have breakfast, lunch and dinner together for the best part of two days. "Being immersed with your colleagues like this is a dream, but it's also an immense responsibility," she says.
Most of the specialists come from museums, but in some fields, the experts are in the trade. Simon Andrews is a specialist at Christie's and the head of the committee of six applied-arts and design vetters. He trained as a furniture restorer, so he has hands-on experience of construction, materials and techniques. He says that understanding the market is also essential.
"One of the reliable indicators of impropriety in the art market is the appearance of similar objects at the same time," he says. "Our job is a lot easier at Tefaf because the people we are dealing with are at the top of their fields. Smaller fairs can be more challenging because you are exposed to objects from a myriad of sources, and not at the benchmarks for importance that we would see at a fair like this."
By 3pm on Wednesday, the main vetting is over and the appeals process begins. Andrews says that this is a civilised affair. "Diplomacy is key," he says. "We keep our thoughts between us [the committee, the fair and the dealer]; there's no banter, no idle chat. We respect the commitment of the dealers by handling this with discretion."
But things can, and do, get fraught. "I've stepped into restaurants with [Old Master] dealers after vetting, and the temperature has gone down a few degrees," says Peters Bowron—perhaps unsurprising in a field where a slight change in attribution can mean a price difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars. "But at the end of the day, we are doing our best to act on behalf of visitors and buyers at the fair, so they can really look at pictures with confidence."
A box in the shape of a hippopotamus's head (around 1896), at Tefaf with A La Vieille Russie Fabergé workmaster Michael Perchin
TEFAF BY NUMBERS
Around six weeks before the fair, galleries start to submit details of objects to the Art Loss Register (ALR), which checks each one against its databases of lost and stolen art. The ALR flags up objects that need further provenance research—for example, for the period 1933 to 1945—and it is also present throughout the 11-day run of the fair, checking objects that were not pre-submitted and providing certificates for buyers who want more extensive information. Expert vetters, including conservators armed with scientific instruments including X-ray machines, check the authenticity and condition of all items on show at the fair.
Number of galleries in 2018: 287
Number of specialist fields in 2018: 29
Number of objects (source: Tefaf): 12,000 to 30,000 (average 20,000)
Number of objects checked by the ALR in 2017: 12,000
ALR checks before the fair in 2017: 8,000
ALR checks at the fair in 2017: 4,000
Objects flagged by the ALR for further checking in 2017: 600
Number of vetters in 2018: 189
Number of hours spent vetting: more than 3,000
Number of appeals and rejections: undisclosed
TEFAF Maastricht 2018TEFAF MaastrichtVettingConservation & Preservation


Born on a beautiful warm day, May 12, 1978.
on July 29, 2014, at the age of 36.
and Danny Carl William Feir of M'Chigeeng.
Partner of Greg Hoffman of Hamilton.
Auntie of Nicholas and Elias.
Loved Goddaughter of Darlene Wells.
Dear friend of K'Chitwa Cada, Rose & Kym.
Predeceased by grandparents James & Lillian Debassige and Richard Moore & Eleanor Bradley and Aunt Grace Soucy.
Forever remembered by the St. Charles family Auntie Edna & family, Uncle Jim Dumont, Auntie's Liza & Linda Manitowabi and family, Uncle Don Cada, Auntie Marjorie Trudeau and many cousins, aunties, uncles, dear friends.
Her boys were her everything, Wasse was a loving mother.
A social person who loved her friends, she was thoughtful, kind and put others before herself. She was talented and an expert at beadwork. Her twinkly eyes lit up a room, and her laughter spread like waves.
Deepest sympathies to family, friends and loved ones. Our thoughts and our prayers are with all of you. May God give you strength and peace.
Your loss is also ours. Deepest sympathy, sorrowful blessings.
I am so sorry to hear of Charity's death.
A child isn't supposed to die first, it just isn't the way things are supposed to happen. I hope the prayers and thoughts of good friends and family will help to ease the pain somewhat.
I will be thinking of you and I will be with you in spirit if not in person.
We are very sorry about the loss of your daughter. Our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. I really don't know what else to say since I can not relate to your pain. All I can tell you, I feel bad for you. Losing my parents and my brother was hard, I can not imagine the pain of losing a child.
May God give you strength and stability to go through this day and to move on from this day forwards.
Dear Charity, I remember your pretty eyes, and laugh like a wind chime.
You had deep wisdom and you quiet strength. Even though we were the same age, you seemed to have a lifetime of wisdom and savvy over me. So enjoyed our talks very much.
Like all who loved you, I was shocked. You had much more to share, but that is how life is sometimes.
To All your loved one and family and children and friends, I feel for you.
Well its been 10 months since the most precious of women was taken from the world. The services at the funeral home, the church, and the cemetary were extremely well put together. I thank everyone in your community for helping me cope and get through the worst days of my life. The love and compassion and empathy was what carried me. I could not have functioned on my own. Wasse I miss your laugh and smile. There wasn't a day we were together that we didn't make each other laugh and smile. No matter how hard life got we had everything we needed to be happy. Love. My life is void of that love. The person you helped me become is dying. Everything looks bleak without that smile to guide my way. I will be with you again my love. I still reach out for you at night. Sometimes I swear you are right there laying with your head on my chest telling me everything will be alright, and for that moment everything is alright. Then I open my eyes and find myself in hell again. Your family really welcomed me and helped. My first visit to your home was not a happy one but you were right I did love it.
Island Funeral Home staff. Please know how much I appreciate all you have done while my daughter needed you. Thank you for picking her in Hamilton and bringing her home to us. Not a day passes by that she is not taking up space in my mind and heart. So grateful I can come to this page and just ponder. Today, I realized I am still grieving and hope one day the pain in my heart lessens. I will take care of your resting place and do visit you often. Just needing a headstone for you my girl.


ORGANIC BERGAMOT ESSENTIAL OIL PRODUCT DESCRIPTION This Italian perfumy wonder has been an aromatherapy favorite for ages. Its citrusy, delicate fragrance holds the ability to uplift your mood! When added to a diffuser it acts as an antidepressant. It gives you an energy boost and creates a welcoming ambiance. When used as a massage oil it improves blood circulation. When used as a bath oil it raises your spirit and leaves you feeling fresh and energized. This essential oil can also take care of your oral hygiene when added to your toothpaste. It kills germs and provides freshness. INGREDIENTS Bergamot oil Bergamot essential oil is extracted by cold compression from the fruit peel. It has a citrusy, delicate scent that is light and refreshing. All our ingredients come straight out of our farm or are extracted from other sustainable farms. Hence, they are pure and therapeutic grade. BENEFITS Bergamot essential oil uses are a multitude: SKIN AND HAIR BENEFITS · It would be unfair if this oil is not used as a perfume! You can dilute it using a carrier to make your own bergamot perfume! Apply it to your neck, wrists and other key areas for a long-lasting fragrance. · Bergamot oil is considered a cicatrizant, which can reduce scars and other blemishes on the skin. You can add it to water and use it as a face wash for oily skin. Its antimicrobial action will help prevent acne. · Bergamot oil has antibiotic and antifungal properties which are excellent for hair care. This essential oil reduces itching, dandruff and scalp infections. You can add 2-3 drops of this oil to your regular shampoo to take advantage of its antimicrobial action. It will eliminate all the problems and leave your hair feeling smooth and shiny. NOTE: For using bergamot essential oil for skin and hair, dilute it by using a carrier oil (cold pressed almond oil, jojoba oil, grape seed oil). A few drops will be sufficient to massage it into your skin. Whereas for hair, use it as per the need or requirement. HEALTH BENEFITS · Bergamot oil has a long history of being used as an antidepressant, thanks to its ability to uplift moods and give an energy boost. Diffuse it at home for a happy, sunny mood! · The relaxing, soothing aroma of Bergamot Essential Oil acts as a sedative and assists you with sleep disorders like insomnia by putting you into a restful state. · When added to bath water, it relieves cracks in the skin and heels while protecting skin against infections. · When used in massages it can help relieve anxiety, headaches and increases metabolism and blood circulation. · Bergamot oil is a disinfectant and is used to treat minor cuts and scrapes. · When applied topically it can relieve you of different types of painful conditions, from acute headaches to chronic arthritic pain. · Its anti-congestive and expectorant properties clear nasal passages and promote easier breathing when diffused. HOUSEHOLD BENEFITS · Bergamot oil can be used as a mouthwash to prevent bad breath. Its antimicrobial action keeps germ populations under control, while the pleasant, citrus smell provides freshness. Mix one or two drops of bergamot oil with your toothpaste or mix 2-3 drops in a cup of warm water and gargle. · The pleasant, citrusy smell of bergamot oil makes it an excellent room freshener. It can mask other musty and moldy smells in the room and create a welcoming ambiance. · When diffused in bathrooms it can kill the germs, thanks it to its antiseptic properties. · It can be added to floor cleaners, too!


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articles Women In Film
Why it's time we started seeing more women making 'male' movies
Directors like Susanna White should be helming major franchises.
Katy Vans
The biggest divide between the sexes in what films they prefer to watch is most marked between romance/drama (female) and action/adventure (male). But with women being the biggest cinemagoers overall, does it still make sense to have these films predominantly targeted at and directed by men?
With the recent release of the John le Carré adaptation Our Kind of Traitor, directed by Susanna White, I found myself thinking of other spy/war films made by women. Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty sprang to mind; the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker is so often the first female name mentioned in relation to this male dominated genre. As I struggled to come up with any others, I wondered why more women aren't directing films for male audiences.
There's an argument that these films aren't as popular among female audiences, which means that women are naturally less inclined to direct them. This theory falls flat when you consider that male directors cover the whole genre spectrum, and that women also want to broaden their skill sets and take on new challenges. Then there is the wider issue of industry prejudice against women filmmakers to take into account. A recent Directors UK report on women working in the industry found that female directors are disproportionately underrepresented within certain genres, particularly action, crime, horror and sci-fi.
That these films are considered gender specific in terms of audience is reflected by the characters on screen. Typically most of the protagonists in spy/war films are men, and the female characters in long-established franchises like James Bond are often underdeveloped. Casting Judi Dench in the role of M doesn't make up for the paucity of dialogue (or clothing) for the women represented in this series. Similarly you don't see many female characters in war movies; they mostly exist in supporting roles, victims, wives and mothers waiting for their sons and husbands to come home.
Considering women have been serving on the front lines for a number of years now one wonders where their stories are. Talya Lavie's Zero Motivation from 2014 is a notable exception, a comedy-drama about a group of Israeli women undertaking mandatory service in the army – although it can't be considered a traditional war film.
The recent TV miniseries, and another le Carré adaptation, The Night Manager, did well in the ratings charts and was directed by Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier. Our Kind of Traitor's Susanna White has a similarly respectable list of credits to her name, although mostly in TV. Is it the case that only the most experienced female directors are considered capable of handling the requirements of this genre? Hopefully the work of Bier and White will not go unnoticed and more women will be given the chance to tell these types of stories.
Elsewhere, Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk about Kevin) will be hoping to blaze a new trail her upcoming adaptation of Jonathan Ames book' 'You Were Never Really Here'. The film, which has just been acquired for release in the US by Amazon Studios, will tell the story of a war veteran who rescues women who have been trafficked into the sex trade. With Ramsay on board, you can bet this won't end up being just another Taken rip-off. Until then, let's watch this space for more 'male' genre films directed by women. It's long overdue.
Tags: Kathryn Bigelow Susanna White Susanne Bier
Meet the cinematographer who lensed The Hurt Locker
By Little White Lies
British DoP Barry Ackroyd shares his most trusted tools of his trade.
articles Video
100 great movies by female directors – part 1
Read part one of our countdown celebrating the greatest female artists in the film industry.
How female directors are staking their claim in horror
By Katy Vans
Karyn Kusama and St Vincent's Annie Clark are among those contributing to an all-female anthology film.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The number and complexity of Information Technologies (IT) networks have exponentially grown, and so have the number and complexity of attacks against these networks. In response, network specialists have been developing sophisticated techniques to analyse and improve the security and resilience of IT networks, such as network hardening, automated vulnerability discovery, dynamic reconfiguration, redundancy.
In parallel, infrastructure networks, which are pivotal for connecting cities and communities, are under an increasing pressure due to natural hazards, such as flooding, whose frequency is increasing with climate change, and man-made hazards. Traditional engineering techniques are currently used to improve the resistance of the infrastructure, but they do not always capture the interdependency of the network. For instance, bridges ensure transport and connections, while also carrying pipes, cable and other utilities.
This raises an exciting research question: "Is it possible to improve urban resilience by transferring security and resilience techniques developed for IT networks to urban networks?" The aim of this PhD project is to investigate this research question, and to apply IT security concepts to urban resilience in the context of environmental pressures. These pressures include extreme hazard events as well as cascading effects that propagate thought the infrastructure systems on which a city rely on.
The intended outcome of this project is a parameterized executable model, which can be instantiated for a given urban infrastructure, and analysed to suggest modifications based on IT security and resilience techniques. This project is fundamentally inter-disciplinary, as it will integrate a range of disciplines such as computer science, engineering, IT security, transferring computing methods of security in computer and communications systems to engineering assets and structure.
We particularly welcome applicants with either a good background in computing and security, or in infrastructure and urban engineering; female candidates will be particularly encouraged to apply. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the project, it is not expected for applicants to be proficient in all aspects, and the supervision team will design a training plan as needed with respect to the Vitae Framework. Applicants with no specific background in security can already look at the Cyber Security MOOC.


These are easy-rolling casters. Cold formed for extra strength and rigidity. Rugged king pin construction. Zinc electro-galvanized finish assures a bright appearance and rust prevention. These economy casters serve a multitude of applications where smooth, quiet and mobile operation is essential. They move easily over door sills, ramps and other floor obstructions. The popular answer for economical light/medium load moving. Top plate size: 2 5/8"x3 3/4". Bolt hole spacing: 1 3/4"x2 7/8" to 3".


Greenslate Community Farm was established by volunteers in 2012 to provide the community with locally and sustainably grown, highly quality food, and to raise awareness about the environmental impact of food production. Our café offers simple, home cooked food using high welfare produce and, wherever possible, our own, organically produced vegetables. We aim to increase awareness of and appreciation for seasonality and ethically produced food.
We are looking for an experienced cook to join our small kitchen team, creating exciting and healthy dishes which maximise the use of our own, farm grown produce.
The successful candidate will have experience working in café or restaurant kitchens, including baking and cooking for special diets. The role will entail catering for day to day customers as well as parties and evening events. They will mostly work as part of a small team but will also be confident managing the kitchen without supervision.
The farm provides opportunities for people with special needs to gain work experience, and the position will entail working alongside students in the kitchen. As this is a small café with a limited staff, all staff are required to undertake all aspects of the kitchen operation including pot-washing, cleaning, and cleaning the café.
A good understanding of environmental health requirements is essential.
If successful at interview the candidate will be required to attend a trial shift in the kitchen. Depending on the candidates we may offer one full time or two part time roles.


Join us tonight as we look back 2 months after his passing at the life, and times of the King of Pop, and celebrate his birthday. The man might be gone but his memory, music, and love lives on. He will never be forgotten, and will be missed by all. But tonight we are here to talk about his life, and to play his music! So join the show, and listen in as we celebrate the late King of POP!


The upwallet is perfect with all Ethereum base tokens (ERC 20 tokens).
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Upwallet has extraordinary help progressively two hundred Etheruem token that are trusted and solid .
Upwallet from late investigations have ended up being the best strategy for advanced resource exchange as a result of the QR code that accompanies the wallet.


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Parliament-GOI
Halabousi discusses with the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers transfer of powers to the
by rocky Tue 28 May 2019, 2:39 am
[size=32]Halabousi discusses with the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers transfer of powers to the provinces[/size]
[rtl]42 views[/rtl]
[rtl]Baghdad[/rtl]
[rtl]Speaker of the House of Representatives Mohamed Halabousi discussed on Monday with the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers Hamid al-Ghazi the transfer of powers to the provinces.[/rtl]
[rtl]The office of Halaboussi said in a statement received by "Trend Press" a copy of it, the latter "received the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, in the presence of First Deputy Hassan al-Kaabi, and discussed during the meeting coordination between the House of Representatives and the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers in follow-up issues of common interest, From the Council ".[/rtl]
[rtl]The statement added that "the meeting discussed the issue of disengagement from a number of service departments from the federal ministries to the local government, and the need to accelerate the transfer of powers to the health and education and other services to promote the reality of projects and services provided to citizens.[/rtl]
[rtl]He pointed out that "the meeting touched on coordination between the committees formed in the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers with the Standing Committees in the House of Representatives; to follow up issues of interest to citizens in all governorates and liberated areas, most notably the file of compensation."[/rtl]
[rtl]The statement pointed out that "the meeting comes within a series of meetings with the executive authority to follow up the public files of interest to citizens and overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of implementation, and praised the role of the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers in the follow-up and rapid response to a number of issues."[/rtl]
[rtl]KKK[/rtl]
» Nineveh Council discusses the transfer of the powers of ministers from his swing
» Halabousi orders the presence of the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers and members of Ab
» The Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers discusses with the German ambassador the internati
» Abdul Mahdi discusses with Blackshart the transfer of powers to the Prime Minister-designate
» Governor of Anbar discusses with the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers the file of activ
Kurdistan airways 16 Minister Republic rate Baghdad Parliamentary 2 5 Bank region President FEDERAL 9 69 Iraq Central exchange Government budget dollar Committee announces solutions boeing


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iPhone, iPad & Android App Developers UK with offices in London, Manchester and Birmingham.
Experiential & Tourism
DigitalWorkshed » Technology News » Mobile Technology News, February 27, 2014
Mobile Technology News, February 27, 2014
As developers for tablets and smartphones we like to keep abreast of the latest mobile technology developments . This is a daily digest of mobile development and related technology news gathered from the BBC, the New York Times, New Scientist and the Globe and Mail to name a few. We scour the web for articles concerning, iPhone, iPad and android development, iOS and android operating systems as well as general articles on advances in mobile technology. We hope you find this useful and that it helps to keep you up to date with the latest technology developments.
Briefly: Apple updates iOS deployment tools, details Touch ID tech
Ahead of the release of iOS 7.1, expected in the middle of next month, Apple has proceeded with an overhaul of its existing Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms for educational, enterprise and institutional clients. It launched a new Volume Services web site earlier this month, and has now activated a number of features on that site, kicking off a big push for large-scale iOS deployments.
VIDEO: Our early impressions of the web
On 12 March 2014 the world wide web turns 25, and the Pew Research Center has collected data on how Americans have reacted to it through its brief history.
'Gigafactory' Will Allow Tesla To Provide Batteries For 500,000 Vehicles By 2020
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Electric car maker Tesla Motors said Wednesday it's considering sites in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for a massive battery factory that would employ around 6,500 people.
The company didn't immediately name the locations it's considering in those states. Tesla plans to start construction this year and complete the factory — which it dubs its "Gigafactory" — in 2017. Tesla's share rose nearly 3 percent to $259.90 in after-hours trading.
The factory would supply lithium-ion batteries to Tesla's Fremont, Calif., assembly plant.
Palo Alto-based Tesla says it will invest $2 billion in the 10 million square foot factory, which will cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. Its partners will invest the rest. The company didn't identify those partners Wednesday, but its current battery supplier, Japan's Panasonic Corp., is expected to be among the investors.
Panasonic signed a deal last fall to supply Tesla with 2 billion battery cells over the next four years. But Tesla has fretted that current battery supplies won't meet its future demands.
The new factory will provide enough batteries to supply 500,000 vehicles by 2020, Tesla said. Tesla expects to produce 35,000 vehicles this year.
Tesla currently sells just one vehicle, the Model S sedan, which starts around $70,000. But it plans to begin making a crossover, the Model X, later this year, and wants to bring a lower cost, mass market vehicle to market in 2017. Tesla said the factory would help lower its battery costs by around 30 percent.
Tesla also announced Wednesday it plans to raise $1.6 billion in a debt offering. The proceeds would help finance the new factory and the lower cost vehicle.
Korean FTC ignores Apple complaint, says Samsung can litigate SEPs
In a judgement that has bewildered international patent and legal analysts, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has rejected Apple's complaint against Samsung that the latter was using FRAND-pledged standards-essential patents (SEPs) for bargaining leverage and as threat of litigation in order to strike unjust licensing deals. The Korean FTC has essentially said that suing or seeking product injunctions over SEPs is perfectly okay — if your company is based in South Korea.
Why Facebook Is Here to Stay
Facebook has dominated the headlines in the past week due to its bold $16 billion acquisition of WhatsApp. This news buried another conversation that had previously been getting a moderate amount of attention: Some were beginning to question whether Facebook has a place in the world 10 or 20 years from now — or even fewer, as a post titled "Facebook will disappear in the next 5 years" indicates.
One of the early instigators of the conversation, back in April 2012, was Geoffrey James of Inc. magazine, who made the basic and pretty unfounded argument that Facebook is no longer "cool," whatever the term may mean to you. Further, James claimed that Facebook is "a company trying to be all things to all people." Setting aside that Facebook's user base is, in fact, growing, and that it is the largest social media site in the world, this seems to be a very superficial analysis of Facebook's strategy.
Facebook isn't trying to do everything — it is constantly experimenting by doing. The social media giant recently launched a division called Creative Labs, solely dedicated to building new ways of being social online. This new venture produced Paper, an app that integrates Facebook with the information graph by making it part of a wider stream fed by news outlets and blogs. This is just one of many signs of Facebook's commitment to continuously building and experimenting with new features and apps. Facebook makes $2.6 billion per quarter. It seems only logical that, like Google and Apple, a large part of this cash goes back into developing its core product, as well as exploring new avenues for growth in the world of social.
James goes as far as to say that Facebook's buying Instagram "smacks of desperation." I understand the need to dish out solid punch lines, but a 10-year-old company making more than $10 billion a year is not desperate, it's 10 steps ahead.
An unlikely influencer, 13-year-old Ruby Karp from New York, reignited the conversation in August 2013. She eloquently explained her and her peers' dislike of Facebook, explaining that "teens are followers" and voicing the same privacy concerns that many other Facebook users have: "If my mom saw I was at a party with drinking, even if I wasn't participating, I'd be dead."
Although I agree with everything Ruby says, we must remember that Facebook wasn't created for 13-year-olds. Ruby is not the core Facebook consumer. Facebook was created with college kids in mind, who have a completely different social structure than 13-year-olds, one that is more suitable to the site. Think Greek life and club sports. How many Rubys need to organize a party? Thirteen-year-olds aren't trying to get tactical about their social networking.
Facebook was able to win over college students when it had no money and was called Thefacebook (yes, all one word). I am confident it will keep doing so in the future.
Following Ruby's op-ed, Adam Wexler, on the Huffington Post, wrote about "Why Twitter and LinkedIn will outlast Facebook," calling out a specific line of Ruby's piece: "Facebook was just this thing all our parents seemed to have." True, the Facebook population is aging, as a natural result of early adopters getting older. However, while at 13 everyone above 18 feels like an alien, once you've reached college, that barrier to entry is far less relevant. Furthermore, a 20-year-old is more likely to be able to navigate the, I will admit, annoyingly nuanced privacy settings on Facebook and make sure Mom is not privy to incriminating content.
Facebook is here to stay, and here is why: It is a great platform for anyone 18 and older to stay in contact with peers, near and far, and build and manage friend groups. Facebook isn't out to win you over when you are 13.
Further, it has an enormous amount of cash to spend on R & D, meaning that no one, probably not even founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has any idea where Facebook is going to be in 10 years. This is the core power of its founder. Zuckerberg is both a visionary and a maker, and that combo is unbeatable
Google, Microsoft agree: Cloud is now safe enough to use
The two Internet powerhouses agree that it's time to stop fearing cloud security and embrace the future at the annual RSA Conference.
Energy firm cyber-defence 'too weak'
Power companies are being refused insurance cover for cyber-attacks due to inadequate defences, the BBC learns.
Report: iOS 7.0.6 hits 26 percent penetration in first four days [U]
[Updated with more recent statistics from Chitika] One of Apple's biggest advantages over other mobile platforms is its ability to update its OS quickly, and more crucially — particularly in the case of the rare security issue — to deploy the update across all compatible devices rapidly, rather than have to wait weeks or months for carriers and partners to incorporate their own apps and other processes and "skins" into the fix. Updted stats from mobile ad analysts Chitika show that more than 25.9 percent of all North American iDevices were already running the latest version within four days
Future Mobile Wonders Not All at Mobile World Congress
As a result of series of unfortunate events and poor timing, I'm home instead of engorging myself in the sites and sounds of Mobile World Congress, the world's largest mobile technology exhibition, currently crowding Barcelona.
But based on news reports from the show, other than not spending some time in such an exotic locale with my wife who is working the show for IBM, it doesn't appear I missed much.
The usual superphone suspects did introduce some new geegaws:
Samsung's Galaxy S5 adds a fingerprint scanner, faster camera autofocus, heart rate monitor and actually useful water/dust resistance,
Samsung moved the camera, speaker and microphone on its MWC unboxed Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smart watches from the band to the display bezel, but they still aren't compatible with non-Samsung Galaxy devices,
LG presented its new G Pro 2, which now includes a 4K video recorder, and a mini version of its excellent G2 smartphone,
HTC unveiled its oxymoronic "flagship midrange" HTC Desire 816, adding higher-end features to a supposedly mid-priced device (no pricing was announced),
Nokia bowed its first Android phones, the X, XL and X+ — because there aren't enough Android phones to choose from,
Just weeks after the also-waterproof Sony Xperia Z1S, with its 20.7 MP camera, went on sale in the U.S., the company announced the similar Z2 (also adding 4K video recording) and a confusing identical-alphanumerically-named tablet, heralded as the world's lightest and thinnest.
Here's a great round-up of all the major MWC introductions.
But collectively, to me, these new devices feel incremental rather than breakthrough. We've seen fingerprint scanners, waterproofing and 20-plus MP cameras before. And we now have smartphones at nearly every incremental screen size between 3.5 and 7 inches.
MWC isn't alone in its dearth of mobile hardware excitement. There weren't many smartphone breakthroughs at CES, either. In fact, even with its fingerprint-scanning home button, last fall's Apple iPhone 5S was only slight more cool than the 5.
So, has the smartphone reached the end of its wonder years?
It's the infrastructure, stupid
Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to imply that smartphone technology has stagnated. Batteries will continue to supply more juice, there'll be more waterproofing/resistance, cameras will continue to improve (and not just more megapixels but better focusing, optical zooming and better low-light results), etc.
But in just seven short years, since the original iPhone went on sale in June 2007, the mobile phone has achieved shocking technological and mainstream maturity. In 2013, revenues from smartphone and tablet sales totaled more than all other consumer electronics combined, and according to Cisco, there are now more mobile devices then there are people in the world.
But instead of mobile devices, future mobile wonders will come instead from largely unfamiliar supporting technologies and applications.
For instance, for me, the biggest news out of MWC was made by Boingo, which announced the availability of Passpoint Wi-Fi in 21 U.S. airports.
What's Passpoint? Passpoint is automatic and secure Wi-Fi connectivity. Passpoint will make connecting to speedy Wi-Fi as brainlessly easy — you'll need to do nothing, just like connecting to cellular. Your phone will simply connect to Wi-Fi all by itself. You can read my more expansive Passpoint explanation here.
With these 21 airports as a starting point, I can only hope Boingo spreads Passpoint (and hopefully so-called gigabit 802.11ac Wi-Fi, with its 1.3 gigabit per second speeds) to its other 700,000 global hotspots more rapidly than the rest of the industry plans.
Then there's the IBM's Watson Mobile Developers Challenge, just announced by IBM CEO Ginni Rommety in her MWC keynote. Full disclosure: my wife is the lead PR contact for the challenge. But Watson, which trounced two human Jeopardy! champions a couple of years ago, is arguably the world's most intuitive computer (although Amazon's system gives Watson a run for its petaflops).
Drawing on Watson's cloud-based cognitive computing capabilties, future mobile apps could prove as wondrous as any piece of hardware, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Other wireless wonders
Three other wireless technologies will radically change how we interact with the world through our mobile device:
LTE Advanced, the next generation of cellular connectivity that promises data download speeds of 150 megabits per second (Mbps), more than 10 times faster than current 4G LTE connections,
Smart Bluetooth, the wireless connection standard that enables all those smart watches, fitness bands and health/bio monitors as well as Apple's location-centric iBeacon standard,
Near Field Communication (NFC), which creates touch-to-pay and touch-to-enter functions.
Here's my more expansive examination of the impact and implications of these and other wireless and infrastructure technologies that promise to change our mobile lives far more radically than any shiny MWC hardware.
Now how much would you pay?
Perhaps the source for the most mobile future wonder will come not from technology at all, but how much we pay for mobile technology and service.
Over the last year or so, T-Mobile, led by peripatetic CEO John Legere, has unleashed a staggered, multi-step "un-carrier" campaign. This un-carrier campaign includes the end of contracts, more simplified plans, no data capping, fewer limitations for hardware upgrades, drastically reduced international roaming fees and re-imbursement of early termination fees (ETF).
T-Mobile's in-your-face efforts to re-make the cellphone business have forced its competitors to try and keep up, sometimes comically reversing course or resorting to out-right bribery.
As T-Mobile builds out is speedy LTE network and attracts more switchers, I suspect Verizon, AT&T and Sprint to defensively counter (it's kind of fun to watch these behemoths awkwardly react to T-Mobile's shenanigans), resulting in ever-lower cellular service pricing — which may be the most wondrous mobile development yet.
The Dalai Lama On How Technology Influences Our Daily Lives (VIDEO)
With more than 8 million Twitter followers, the outside observer may assume that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama knows a thing or two about (mindfully) employing technology. But even though he called the existence of digital devices "wonderful," he warned that they can also stand in our way — if we let them.
"I think technology really increases human ability. It [made] a lot of things much easier," he told HuffPost Live host Willow Bay. "But technology cannot produce compassion."
The Dalai Lama also explained that even though our phones and computers are so integrated into our lives, it's important not to let them control how we're living.
"After all, we are the controllers of the technology and if we become slaves of technology, that's not good," he said.
Check out the clip above for more on the usefulness of our digital devices and watch the full interview with the Dalai Lama over on HuffPost Live.
For more on the Third Metric, click here.
Arianna Huffington and Mika Brzezinski are taking The Third Metric on a 3-city tour: NY, DC & LA. Tickets are on sale now at thirdmetric.com.
Sony to shutter 20 stores in US, implement staff cuts
Sony is shutting down US stores and going ahead with staff cuts, in the wake of the expected sale of its PC business.
New Livescribe 3 Makes Apple Devices More Delicious
Odds and ends — you know, everything we commonly refer to as "stuff" because we aren't sure how to classify them. We've been receiving many items recently that fall into that category, or into categories we've covered so recently that it's not time for them to be reviewed. So, with that in mind, here's one of our favorite items that has crept to the top of our "stuff" pile.
The folks at Livescribe hope to win over iPad and iPhone users with the Livescribe 3 smartpen ($149 and $199 depending on which model you want).
We've been Livescribe fans for a long time and were anxious to put this new pen through its paces, but, truthfully, were a bit annoyed when we discovered it will only work with Apple devices. After contacting the company's marketing people, we were assured that an Android version was "in the works" and should hit the market sometime this year.
Apparently there's a compatibility problem with the version of Bluetooth (Bluetooth Smart 4.0) used by the pen that wasn't resolved until the recent Android upgrade to version 4.3.
Also missing is the recording capability we've become addicted to that was included with older versions of the Livescribe pens. But there's a good reason for this: The Livescribe 3 uses the recording capabilities built into the Apple devices. So it's not "gone," just replaced.
On the plus side, this new smartpen is sleeker and more stylish than its predecessors. Plus the power button is gone. Instead there's a metal ring in the middle of the pen that turns it on or off and an LED light that tells you it's on.
Aside from that, the pen does a great job of performing all of the functions we've come to expect from a Livescribe product:
It has a high-speed infrared camera that records every keystroke made with the pen.
The ability to work with any of the Livescribe paper products.
The ability to share files with Evernote.
New features include:
It connects to the iPhone 4S and newer, third generation iPads and newer, and the fifth generation iPod Touch and newer.
You don't need USB cables (except to charge the pen) or a WiFi connection.
Up to 14 hours of use on one charge of the battery.
2GB of internal memory.
The Livescribe+ Mobile App converts everything from the pen to the device. It's no longer compatible with Livescribe Desktop.
The Livescribe Starter Notebook and Livescribe Journal contain new paper controls that allow you to tag your notes while you write.
Attention Facebook users: Check out Michael Berman's Jocgeek fan page at www.facebook.com/jocgeek, or follow him on Twitter @jocgeek. You can also contact him via email at jocgeek@earthlink.net or through his website at www.jocgeek.com.
Disclaimer: I have no financial ties to this company.
The Ongoing Battle Against Breaches
I've seen some interesting security trends develop over the course of 2013 and in to 2014 — BYOD security management and the increased scrutiny on cloud security to name a couple.
One of the trends that I have found most interesting is the practice of businesses monitoring for employee and customer login credentials, and company devices that have already been compromised. On the surface, this may seem a bit bizarre, but when you look at some recent statistics, the practice begins to make sense. Think about this:
In a survey CSID conducted in late 2012, we found that 61 percent of customers repeat passwords across multiple websites
A 2012 poll conducted by Panda Labs found one in three machines worldwide carries a variant of malware
300,000 new computer viruses are discovered every day according to malware expert David Perry, of Comodo
When someone uses the same login credentials across multiple websites, an email or password compromised from one company's data breach can open up vulnerabilities on a multitude of completely unrelated websites. Or consider malware. Antivirus programs are important, but they can't keep up with the rate that malware is evolving (see the 300,000 viruses per day stat, above). We've seen the emergence among businesses of two practices that focus on searching for compromised credentials and devices: monitoring the black market and finding compromised IP addresses.
Monitoring The Identity Black Market:
When a breach occurs, the stolen information is often posted on a site, like PasteBin, that is considered public domain. Some businesses are monitoring these sites for employee and customer credentials. When a compromised credential is found, the business then asks the customer or employee to update his/her password. After the news of Adobe's November breach broke, I received an email request from Eventbrite asking me to change my password.
Proactive monitoring is done in real-time, which means a business can learn that an employee email address or password has been compromised the instant it is posted on a chat room, website or message board. This gives businesses the opportunity to react to the compromised information and subsequently mitigate the impact and risk of that stolen credential. However, the problem extends a bit further if the device the customer or employee is using has, in fact, been compromised. Changing account details and passwords for that matter will not fix the problem, allowing fraudsters to simply re-steal the updated credential.
Identifying Compromised IP Addresses:
In order to adapt to the ever-changing fraud market, the second and newer trend I've seen with business security is identifying company devices with compromised IP addresses. Most compromised credentials are stolen via malware, which is growing at an alarming rate. Most malware does two things: collects information from the compromised device and sends out spam to infect additional computers. Businesses can track and collect different malware strains. Once these malware strains have been collected, they are scanned and analyzed to identify any locations they are communicating with, either sending stolen data back to or receiving additional instructions. In order to identify compromised devices and types of data extracted from those devices, businesses can match up the IP address communicating with the databases the malware is sending stolen information to. It sounds complicated, but it is an automated process that can quickly tell a business if a computer has been infected by malware.
Our software identifies an average of eight million compromised IP addresses every 14 days. The increase of these infected devices has led to the rising availability of malicious underground services. These services, in particular, target legitimate organizations of all sizes in order to disrupt or disable their direct competitors. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, spam campaigns and other underground acts are now more affordable than ever, which poses an even greater risk to businesses and their employees.
I expect to see these two monitoring trends become more prevalent in 2014. Businesses, no mater how large or how much money they invest in system security, cannot keep up with the rate malware is evolving or contend with consumers' bad password habits. Monitoring for compromised credentials and IP addresses are an easy way to identify a potential breach point before extensive damage can be done.
Kate Mara Hasn't Finished Watching 'House Of Cards'
You may have spent all of Valentine's Day binge-watching Season 2 of "House Of Cards," but almost two weeks later Kate Mara hasn't even finished it.
"I'm not done yet. I haven't seen the whole season," Mara told In Touch. "I thought I was going to binge on the first two days, but on Valentine's Day, I was so tired I only got to Episode 5, so now I'm on Episode 7."
WARNING: Major Season 2 spoilers ahead!
Mara went on to say that the show is hard to watch because her character, Zoe Barnes, was pushed in front of a train in the season's first episode. In an interview on "LIVE with Kelly and Michael," Mara said keeping such a big secret was tough, especially because she knew about it for two years.
"My family members didn't even know," she said. "I just had to be really creative with people asking how things are going on the show."
Check out her full "LIVE" interview below:
Season 2 of "House Of Cards" hits Netflix on February 14.
The 1 Email Successful People Never Send
Want to get ahead? Emulate the super-successful and never send a long email.
Steve Jobs was a well-known sender of short emails. The Apple co-founder's email address was public for much of his time as Apple's CEO, and he often responded to emails from customers. He was always blunt.
Story continues after these wonderful examples.
Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos is known at his company for sending unnervingly short emails. Bezos's email address is public, and he receives many emails from customers, which he forwards to the relevant people with one single addition: a question mark. "When Amazon employees get a Bezos question mark e-mail, they react as though they've discovered a ticking bomb," Brad Stone writes in his biography of Bezos.
"For various reasons, short emails are more associated with people at the top of the food chain. If you also send short emails it puts you in the company of the decision-makers," said Will Schwalbe, co-author with David Shipley of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better. Short emails, he said, are "much more respectful of everyone's time."
Plus, the way we've dealt with emails has changed, so the style in which we write them should, too. "We started using email entirely on desktop computers, and we now use emails mainly on handheld," Schwalbe says. "A long email is harder to read on handheld, because it involves endless scrolling."
There's even a movement to limit emails to five sentences or fewer. "Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response," says the Five Sentences website. "Since it's too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead." If you're interested in joining the Five Sentences movement you're encouraged to include the following in your email signature: "Q: Why is this email five sentences or less? A: http://five.sentenc.es." For the bold, there are also movements that encourage you to keep emails to four sentences, three sentences or (gulp) two sentences.
"A few years ago I found myself getting very far behind on email, and I began to look at the reasons why," designer Mike Davidson, founder of the Five Sentences movement, told HuffPost. "The one thing I discovered about email is that there is an uneven amount of email required." It only takes someone a second to compose an email asking an open-ended question, but that question often requires a much longer, more complicated response. Phone conversations, text messages and even Twitter require equal amounts of participation from all parties.
Davidson wanted to keep his email interactions short, but didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. "If you just have a universal policy, then there's nothing to get offended by," he says. Then he set up the website. The site, which Davidson started in 2007, still gets 15,000 to 20,000 unique visits a month, and Davidson estimates that "at least tens of thousands of people" subscribe to the Five Sentences rule and have it in their email signature. Davidson even gets emails from people he doesn't know, who don't realize he created the Five Sentences rule, with the Five Sentences email signature.
"If your email is longer than a paragraph or two, people will often put off reading it and it will probably take you longer to get a response," online-learning expert Mattan Griffel writes in his post explaining how to get busy people to read your emails. "Nothing drives people crazier than an email where someone sends over a lot of information but doesn't say what they'd like you to do."
So, to close out this long article about a short topic: Get to the point.
Here are a few tips:
1. People don't need as much background information as you think they do. It might seem essential to you, but it actually seems superfluous to the email recipient. They'd rather you get to the information and request more quickly, and then they can ask you to fill in any holes in their knowledge later.
2. Don't waste your subject line. In many email services, including Gmail, just the subject line and first line or two is visible in the recipient's inbox. Why make the subject "Hi" when it could be "Dinner on Thursday?" Give the recipient an idea of what the email contains and a good reason to click on it.
3. Just because your email is short, that doesn't mean it has to be rude. "No matter how short your emails, there is a way to inject a friendly, cheery note, and don't forget to do that. Short doesn't mean that it's okay to go around barking orders," Schwalbe says.
The ability to write a short email is a skill in itself. "If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea," director David Belasco is credited as saying. Writing short emails shows confidence in what you have to say.
One Nation Under Surveillance. 5 Ways You Give The Government Control
It's been 12 years since the horrifying tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001, and Americans are just now learning the extent to which our government has tightened its grip on our privacy and communications.
With the recent disclosure of wide-sweeping domestic surveillance programs, such as Prism and XKeyscore, and the most recent revelations about the NSA's practice of analyzing the telephone and Internet communications of millions of Americans, it's become increasingly clear that innocent citizens are becoming ensnared in the search for international terrorists. To some, this is a necessary evil; to others, it's a gross invasion of civil liberties.
No matter what a person's standpoint is on these matters, it's no longer possible to deny that U.S. intelligence agencies are monitoring the populace in huge numbers — and it's becoming increasingly difficult to get out from beneath their lens.
We're All Bugging Ourselves
Today, most people in the United States carry a mobile phone that accompanies them wherever they go. We use them for everything: to make phone calls, send emails, take photos, get directions, store information, surf the Web, and play games. This essentially makes them perfect tracking and bugging devices. We now know that the NSA and other government agencies are obtaining data pertaining to Americans' communications and activities from wireless providers, and they're doing so under the legal umbrella of the Patriot and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Acts.
Not only do intelligence agencies gather information via mobile companies, but there are reports that your phone can be hacked using spyware. Even if your phone is turned off, it can be remotely accessed to record conversations and take photographs — and the information is available to any government agency trolling for information. With the increasing public interest in wearable technology, such as smartwatches, vital statistics will be the next thing available for collection.
Essentially, there are five primary sources that intelligence agencies use to gather information on American citizens:
• GPS: Whether you're using a GPS-enabled smartphone or have it built into your car, GPS is a governmentally funded project that can provide real-time tracking of your movements.
• Public cameras: As the years go by, more and more cameras are popping up in cities, in neighborhoods, and along highways. This is another measure that we're told has been implemented for our safety, but we don't know if they're actually effective to that end.
• Phones: As we've already noted, your phone is essentially a comprehensive personal information-gathering device. Through interviews with governmental sources conducted by CNET security reporter Declan McCullagh, we've learned that the FBI is putting pressure on companies like AT&T and Verizon to equip their customers' phones with "port reader" software that would provide intelligence agencies with the ability to intercept communication in real time. While the companies are reportedly resistant, the FBI is claiming the legality of the project under the Patriot Act.
• The Internet: Today, people share pretty much everything about their personal lives online. From emails to social media, there's a lot of information available on the Internet about an individual's day-to-day life. And what better organization to understand the intricacies of the Internet than the original developer of the wired network than the government, as it was originally launched as a military communication network called ARPANET.
• Mail: Most people wouldn't consider it in the Digital Age, but old-fashioned snail mail provides intelligence agencies with a "treasure trove of information," according to a former member of the FBI's Mail Isolation Control and Tracking system.
Getting Off the Grid
When it comes down to it, completely escaping potential surveillance and reclaiming total privacy is practically impossible. You would have to completely stop using any form of electronic device, and in effect, withdraw from society.
There are, nevertheless, a variety of encryption and cryptology services that can increase a person's privacy. For example, AT&T offers encrypted mobile voice for a monthly fee of $24.99. Other companies provide encrypted email services, which are popular among activists, journalists, and diplomats. However, such companies are under threat as of late, with services such as Silent Circle and Lavabit (which has become famous for attempting to protect the privacy of its most notorious customer, whistleblower Edward Snowden) terminating their services, rather than succumbing to government pressure to provide data on their users.
Realistically, achieving total communication encryption or wiping oneself off the grid is not something with which the majority of Americans should be worried. Unless a person is attempting to communicate highly sensitive material, the concern over an individual's right to privacy from his government is more of a moral issue. Let's face it — most of us aren't up to anything the various intelligence agencies are interested in.
But while questions involving governmental communications monitoring may seem a bit academic, these issues potentially have significance when it comes to the future of our civil liberties. The real question we need to be asking is: If we've allowed our right to privacy to be encroached upon as far as we already have, how much further are we willing to let it go in exchange for security?
Kenneth Coats is the founder of eKnowID, a new consumer background-checking solution, and CEO of KENTECH Consulting, Inc., a global background check technology and private detective agency that caters to both private and public organizations across the United States.
NASA Could Have Prevented Near-Drowning Of Astronaut Luca Parmitano, Panel Says
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA could have prevented last summer's near-drowning of a spacewalking astronaut at the International Space Station, an investigation panel concluded Wednesday.
Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet filled with water during his second spacewalk on July 16. He barely made it back inside alive. But according to the panel's report, his helmet also had leaked one week earlier at the end of his first spacewalk. The panel said the space station team misdiagnosed the first failure and should have delayed the second spacewalk until the problem was understood.
"This event was not properly investigated," said Chris Hansen, NASA's chief space station engineer and chairman of the investigation board created by the space agency after the close call.
"There was a lack of understanding in the severity of the event," Hansen said during a news conference.
Space station officials presumed the leak was from a water drink bag in the suit when, in fact, that was not the culprit, he noted.
Investigators said Parmitano's "calm demeanor" during the incident quite possibly saved his life. Now 37, Parmitano is a former test pilot and an officer in the Italian Air Force who was making his first space mission. He returned to Earth in November.
The precise cause of the water leakage is still under review.
Contamination clogged several small holes in a pump mechanism inside Parmitano's spacesuit, part of its cooling system, and water ended up in the helmet, Hansen noted. Engineers do not yet know the source of the aluminum silicate contamination.
NASA almost ended up with another disaster following Parmitano's close call. The day after his near drowning, the astronauts used a vacuum cleaner to dry the spacesuit and accidentally sucked oxygen out of a tank. "The hazardous mix of electricity and pure O2" could have sparked a fire, the report stated.
Mission Control had aborted the spacewalk once the water began to rise to alarming levels in Parmitano's helmet; the spacewalk by Parmitano and American astronaut Chris Cassidy lasted 1½ hours, versus the anticipated six hours.
So much water filled Parmitano's helmet — an estimated 1½ liters — that he could barely see and could not hear or speak. He said he made his way back into the space station by relying on the position of his safety tether.
NASA was contrite following the release of the report, saying it could and would do better.
"We're taking it very seriously," said space station program manager Mike Suffredini.
He said he hopes the engineering investigation wraps up by year's end.
Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA's human exploration and operations mission, said the spacewalk probably should have ended quicker on July 16.
"We can all improve and do better," Gerstenmaier said.
U.S. spacewalks were put on hold after the incident. An exception was made right before Christmas so two U.S. astronauts could repair a crippled cooling system at the orbiting outpost. As a precaution, they had snorkels in their suits and water-absorbent pads in their helmets, but there were no problems.
Six men currently reside on the space station: three Russians, two Americans and one Japanese.
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Mobile Health Tools Make Big Impact
On both sides of the Atlantic this week, two events are taking place that are shining a dazzlingly bright light on the direction we are headed as global, mobile consumers. The keynote speeches, panel discussions, and hallway conversations unmistakably indicate how growing reliance on mobile connectivity is driving innovation in ways that are shifting paradigms.
In Barcelona, the 2014 Mobile World Congress is well underway. "Creating What's Next" is the theme this year and with it comes an enthusiastic focus on the ways mobile innovators are stepping outside the box to connect all manner of devices to the wireless Internet. Across the pond, another passionate group of game changers is assembled in Orlando at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Annual Conference to discuss mobile health solutions, an energetic driver of growth in medical IT.
Not surprisingly, the melodies at HIMSS are harmonizing with those at Barcelona: wireless is a game-changer that is transforming our mobile future – how we work, live and play. And nowhere is mobile innovation more evident than in the rapid adoption of wireless technologies designed to improve health outcomes. Mobile Future and Infield Health's new infographic "Mobile Health Tools, Just What the Doctor Ordered" visually captures just how profound an impact the adoption of wireless medical technologies is having on health and wellness.
Health care providers are adopting wirelessly connected devices and applications in record numbers – from the first interaction with a patient, to administering treatment with tools tapped into wireless networks, to managing follow up care remotely. And those mobile health tools are having big impacts. When mobile health solutions send text messages to patients released from hospitals, for example, medication adherence is up 10%. Those same reminders more than double the quit rate for smokers and save $812 per diabetes patient.
The breathtaking growth and innovative uses of mobile digital health technology is astounding:
247 million Americans have downloaded a health app
In 2013, 95 million Americans are using mobile phones as health tools
77% of U.S. seniors own a cell phone and their smartphone ownership has increased 55% in the past year
42% of U.S. hospitals are using digital health technology to treat patients
Mobile remote patient monitoring will save the U.S. $36 billion in health care costs by 2018
Wireless pill bottles helped increase medication compliance to over 95%
Mobile health is a $1.3 billion industry and by 2018 is expected to reach $20 billion
I wrote last month, recapping CES, that wearable devices are just the beginning when it comes to mobile medical tools. The cutting edge of digital health includes wireless sensors we implant and insulin monitors that report back to our doctors wirelessly. These innovative technologies, talking to each other over wireless and forming an "Internet of You," are making substantial and meaningful impacts on the mobile future of medicine.
Mobile Future Chair Jonathan Spalter, a technology executive and former senior federal government national security official, leads a coalition of technology companies/stakeholders dedicated to increasing investment and innovation in the burgeoning U.S. wireless sector.
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope Finds Hundreds Of New Exoplanets
A huge new haul of planets has joined the tally of alien worlds discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope, scientists announced today. All of the new planets are members of multiplanet systems—stars with more than one orbiting satellite. Researchers used a new method for weeding out false signals from among the candidate planets found by Kepler, allowing them to add hundreds of "validated" planets to the count of Kepler's finds. "We studied just over 1,200 systems, and from there we were able to validate 719 planets," says Jason Rowe of NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., who led the research. "This is the biggest haul ever."
Kepler launched in 2009 and stopped taking data last year after two of its stabilizing reaction wheels failed. Its relatively short lifetime, however, has already offered up a wealth of discovery, including more than 3,500 planetary candidates as well as 246 worlds confirmed by follow-up observations. The new harvest brings its tally of true planets to over 1,000.
Kepler searches for planets by measuring stellar brightness dips caused when a planet passes in front of a star, briefly dimming the star's light. This technique, called the transiting method, is more than 90 percent accurate, but sometimes a nonplanet can fool the telescope. One of the most common reasons for a "false positive" is an eclipsing binary—a pair of orbiting stars that sometimes cross in front of one another from our perspective—lying along the same line of sight as the foreground star Kepler is studying. Eclipsing binaries dim when one star passes in front of the other, mimicking the dimming effect a planet would have.
Stars with a single planet can be hard to distinguish from eclipsing binaries. But multiplanet systems are far less likely to be frauds. "It happens, but it's unlikely that you have two eclipsing binaries in the background of the same star," says Francois Fressin of the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Mass., who was not involved in the study. "That simple fact tremendously increases the odds that they are bona fide planets." It is also possible to have an eclipsing binary and a star with a planet lying right on top of one another, albeit extremely unlikely. "Based on that argument we started to get into the statistics to see if we can quantify that and see how many we can pull out and say with very good confidence they are validated planets," Rowe says.
About 20 percent of the candidate planets Kepler finds inhabit systems with multiple worlds. Among this group, Rowe and his colleagues tried to weed out the small number that were likely to be false signals by examining the light signature of the candidate planets. The light from a single planetary system would be centered on one point, the parent star. An eclipsing binary in the background, however, would probably not lie exactly behind the main star, but would be offset by a small distance. When this binary blinks out as one star crosses the other, the center of the light in the field of view should shift over to the side, creating a signature called a moving centroid. "The moving centroids are the ones where we're fairly sure they are false positives, and then we have a subset, the majority of them, that we are very confident are planetary systems and show no sign of blends," Rowe says.
The idea that multiplanet systems are easier to validate is not new, and researchers have previously studied how to winnow out the small number of false positives. "I made this argument [in 2011] but now it has been worked out in careful detail," says David Latham of the CfA. "Jason has done a really nice job."
The new cache of planets is extremely unlikely to harbor imposters, but they are not "confirmed planets," in the traditional sense. That requires measuring the parent star's motion to determine how much the planets' gravitational tugging causes it to wobble, revealing the planets' mass. "Even though we can be very confident that these objects are real planets, the only information we have right now on their physical properties is their size (radius) and expected equilibrium temperature (which depends on the distance to their parent star, which is known)," says Guillermo Torres of the CfA.
Among the new trove of planets: a small, potentially rocky world; an odd binary star system where each star has planets of its own; and cramped systems where the multiple planets are each gravitationally tugging one another around. "Of course we have every type of planetary system in our validated set that people can think of, except the perfect Earth analogue," Rowe says. For now, that remains Kepler's holy grail.
Thanks for reading our digest. Opinions in the articles above are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Digital Workshed ltd.
Mobile Technology News, February 7, 2014
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This rare African Acanthus from Ethiopia has attention-getting spikes of bright orange-red exotic flowers in fall. Spreading 3 to 5 foot shrub with attractive holly-like silver veined dark green leaves armed with vicious spines (be careful). The tops are frost hardy to the mid 20's, dying back and resprouting in the spring. Mulch in colder climates. Drought tolerant when established. Needs part to full sun and good drainage. USDA zones 8b - 11.


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The Junta Nacional de Homologación de Trofeos de Caza (JNHTC, ) is the governing body for the control and assessment of trophy hunting in Spain, a branch of the Ministry of Agriculture. It was founded in 1950 and first presided by Eduardo de Figueroa, 8th Count of Yebes. Since 1999, the President is Alonso Álvarez de Toledo, 12th Marquess of Valdueza, who has also served as vice-president of the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation and was the head of the Spanish delegation.

The origins of the Junta can be found in 1950, when a group of Spanish noblemen, namely the Marquess of Valdueza and the counts of Yebes, Villada and Seefried designed formulas to establish a valuation of big game trophies by points.

The success of the 1950 Trophy Exhibition held in Madrid encouraged the Administration to officially recognise those who had carried out the technical work, thus establishing the Junta Nacional de Homologación de Trofeos de Caza y Estadística Cinegética, which was assigned to the Superior Council of Continental Fishing, Hunting and National Parks.

Since its creation, the Junta has published catalogues every quinquennium listing every measured medal trophy of the more than a dozen big game species that can be hunted in Spain (it has recently included the Balearean boc and excluded the Iberian lynx and the Cantabrian brown bear since 1973). These include the Spanish wolf, wild boar, Iberian red deer, fallow, roe, sarrio, rebeco, Iberian ibex, mouflon, arruí and Balearean boc. As of April 2019, more than 80,000 trophies had been registered by the Junta as having been awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal.

Functions

The Junta is the body in charge of the control, measurement and assessment of hunting trophies in Spain. It is an organism with deep institutional roots, with more than 50 years of existence at the service of hunting activity, in the classification and homologation of the biometric characteristics of the different species.

Hunting, like all forest harvesting, is an inherent part of the economic activity of the forestry sector under the jurisdiction of the Ministry de Agriculture, Fishing, Nutrition and Environment, due to its link to both rural development and nature conservation policies.

It defines the valuation formulas corresponding to each species, adjusting as far as possible those adopted by the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC), and establishes the minimum scores required for the different categories (Gold, Silver and Bronze).

It has the following functions:

Cooperate for the correct application of said formulas, promoting the unification of interpretation criteria among the approval committees of the different Autonomous Communities, preferably attending to the criteria defined by the CIC.
Define the procedures for the homologation of trophies to access the lists of the National Archive of Hunting Trophies, while defining the concepts of National Record of each species, absolute historical record or any other that the Board may consider appropriate to stimulate the management of hunting wealth based on a sustainable use of hunting resources.
Define the trophy cataloging systems and promote and promote the coordination of these systems between the different approval committees of the Autonomous Communities in order to consolidate the cataloging in the National Archive of Hunting Trophies.
Facilitate the exchange of information and records of the National Archive of Hunting Trophies with each of the homologation commissions of the Autonomous Communities when required.
Maintain close collaboration with international organizations responsible for tasks similar to those of the Board.
Act as an advisory body in the field of hunting, hunting management and conservation of ecosystems for the General State Administration and for the different Autonomous Communities.
Inform the General Directorate of Rural Development and Forest Policy regarding matters related to big game that could affect more than one Autonomous Community, either at its request or on its own initiative, and propose the measures it deems appropriate.
Propose to the General Directorate for Rural Development and Forest Policy the renewal, increase or decrease of its members when circumstances require it, as well as the appointment of collaborating advisers.
Measure and approve all kinds of Spanish hunting trophies, both in official competitions and exhibitions and at the request of the owners, and issue the supporting documents for the approvals carried out, without prejudice to the powers of the autonomous communities.
Prepare the catalogs of hunting trophies, in which the homologated trophies will be collected and as many data as necessary in order to highlight the evolution and development of the different species.
Ensure the protection of the biological diversity of the Spanish hunting fauna and, in particular, for its genetic purity.
Value the hunting resources existing in Spain and making these values transcend the existing international organizations in the matter.

Measurable species

The following is a list of all the big-game species in Spain that are currently or have in the past been measured. The Junta has excluded the Cantabrian brown bear and the Iberian lynx since 1973 (due to their hunting prohibition). Below is the official benchmark of points to assess whether the hunted animal in question qualifies as gold, silver or bronze medal. Only a small percentage of hunted animals in Spain is worthy of a medal, which the Junta measures in accordance to the CIC.

If a trophy is awarded any of the three available medals, it will be published in the Junta catalogues that are produced every five-year periods, with relation to the species, the hunter and the finca or national park it was harvested in. For instance, the Duke of Württemberg harvested a 223,35 point (silver medal) Iberian ibex in Gredos National Park in 1977, which at the time placed him 204th on the national ranking.

To date, only four people have hunted all big-game species in the fauna of Spain: the marquesses of Villaviciosa de Asturias and Valdueza, Carlos Rein and Infanta Alicia of Spain, as a privilege of a time when no species were protected.

Iberian wolf

Gold medal: 41
Silver medal: 39 - 40,99
Bronze medal: 37 - 38,99

Wild boar

Gold medal: 110
Silver medal: 105 - 109,99
Bronze medal: 100 - 104,99

Fallow deer

Gold medal: 180
Silver medal: 170 - 170,99
Bronze medal: 160 - 169,99

Iberian red deer

Gold medal: 181
Silver medal: 173 - 180,99
Bronze medal: 165 - 172,99

Roe deer

Gold medal: 130
Silver medal: 115 - 129,99
Bronze medal: 105 - 114,99

Sarrio

Male
Gold medal: 97
Silver medal: 92 - 96,99
Bronze medal: 87 - 91,99

Female
Gold medal: 93
Silver medal: 88 - 92,99
Bronze medal: 83 - 87,99

Rebeco

Male
Gold medal: 85
Silver medal: 81,5 - 84,99
Bronze medal: 78 - 81,49

Female
Gold medal: 81
Silver medal: 77,5 - 84,99
Bronze medal: 74 - 77,49

Iberian ibex

North zone

For those harvested in the provinces of Ávila, Burgos, León, Salamanca, Segovia, Zamora, Cáceres (north of River Tagus), Madrid, Lugo, Ourense, Asturias, Tarragona, Barcelona, Castellón and Teruel.

Gold medal: 230
Silver medal: 220 - 229,99
Bronze medal: 205 - 219,99

Mid zone

For those harvested in the provinces of Valencia, Alicante, Murcia, Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Toledo, Cáceres (south of River Tagus) and Zaragoza.

Gold medal: 225
Silver medal: 215 - 224,99
Bronze medal: 205 - 214,99

South zone

For those harvested in the provinces of Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Jaén, Málaga y Seville.

Gold medal: 220
Silver medal: 210 - 219,99
Bronze medal: 195 - 209,99

Mouflon

Gold medal: 205
Silver medal: 195 - 204,99
Bronze medal: 185 - 194,99

Arruí

Gold medal: 350
Silver medal: 330 - 349,99
Bronze medal: 310 - 329,99

Balearean boc

Gold medal: 310,00
Silver medal: 290,00 - 309,99
Bronze medal: 270,00 - 289,99

Cantabrian brown bear

Gold medal: 51,01
Silver medal: 47,01 - 51,00
Bronze medal: 42,01 - 47,00

Iberian lynx

Gold medal: 23,01
Silver medal: 21,51 - 23,00
Bronze medal: 19,01 - 21,50

Governing body

President
The Marquess of Valdueza

Vice-president
Valentín Almansa de Lara

Spokesmen
The Viscount of Salinas
Cástor Cañedo Angoso
Juan Luis Oliva de Suelves Cazurro
Juan del Yerro San Román
José Luis López-Schümmer Treviño
Francisco Landaluce Domínguez
Jorge Bernad Danzberger
The Duke of Algeciras
Juan José Viola Cardoso
Luis de la Peña Fernández-Nespral
Jose Ignacio Crespo Fernández
Jose Manuel Jaquotot Sáenz de Miera
Jose Hernández Fernández
Adolfo Díaz-Ambrona Medrano
Ángel Fernández Díaz
Guillermo Ceballos Watling
Roberto González Hernando

Secretary
Carlos Guillén del Rey

Timeline of presidents

 1950 – 1979 The Count of Yebes
 1979 – 1982 Adolfo Domínguez Merelles
 1982 – 1992 The Marquess of Laula
 1992 – 1999 Juan Luis Oliva de Suelves
 1999 –          The Marquess of Valdueza

Territorial delegations

See also
Montería (hunt)

References

Bibliography

External links

Official Site of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Nutrition
Official website of the CIC

International environmental organizations
Wildlife conservation organizations
Organisations based in Madrid
Organizations established in 1950

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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