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Thursday, March 7, 2013

EU fines Microsoft $733M for breaking browser pact

European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. The European Union Commission has fined Microsoft euro 561 million (US dollars 733 million) for breaking the terms of an earlier agreement to offer users a choice of internet browser. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, March 6, 2013. The European Union Commission has fined Microsoft euro 561 million (US dollars 733 million) for breaking the terms of an earlier agreement to offer users a choice of internet browser. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

A spokesman points to a journalist as European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia answers questions during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, March 6, 2013. The European Union Commission has fined Microsoft euro 561 million (US dollars 733 million) for breaking the terms of an earlier agreement to offer users a choice of internet browser. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia pauses before answering a question during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. The European Union Commission has fined Microsoft euro 561 million (US dollars 733 million) for breaking the terms of an earlier agreement to offer users a choice of internet browser. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

AMSTERDAM (AP) ? The European Union has fined Microsoft ?561 million ($733 million) for breaking a pledge to offer personal computer users a choice of Internet browsers when they install the company's flagship Windows operating system.

The penalty imposed by the EU's executive arm, the Commission, is a first for Brussels: no company has ever failed to keep its end of a bargain with EU authorities before.

In 2009, Microsoft Corp. struck a broad settlement with the Commission to resolve disputes over Microsoft's abuse of the dominance of Windows, which had spanned more than a decade.

The company agreed to pay ?860 million and promised to give Windows users the option of choosing another browser rather than having Microsoft's Internet Explorer automatically installed on their machines.

But Microsoft failed to stick to the deal for some 15 million installations of Windows 7 in Europe from May 2011 until July 2012. The company admitted the failure last year, adding that it was an oversight.

The Commission's top regulator, Joaquin Almunia, said at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, Wednesday that the fine reflected the size of the violation and the length of time it went on. It was also intended to make an example of Microsoft and deter other companies from doing same thing.

"A failure to comply is a very serious infringement that must be sanctioned accordingly," he said.

Almunia has advocated negotiated settlements since he took office in 2010, saying competition issues are best resolved quickly. He says slapping big fines on companies years after the fact does little to help consumers.

But he said the whole point of a settlement is undermined when companies then don't abide by its terms.

"They must do what they committed to do, or face the consequences," he said.

Almunia conceded that the Commission had been "naive" in appointing Microsoft itself to oversee compliance with the agreement, and said the Commission won't allow that in the future.

For its part, Microsoft was apologetic.

"We take full responsibility for the technical error that caused this problem and have apologized for it," the company said in a statement. "We provided the Commission with a complete and candid assessment of the situation, and we have taken steps ... to help avoid this mistake ? or anything similar ? in the future."

The company is required to offer consumers a choice of browsers through 2014.

In all, Microsoft has now paid a grand total of ?2.2 billion in fines to the Commission since 1998, when regulators opened their first investigation against the company. Some of those fines were for failing to obey the commission's orders, but this is the first time a company has admitted to breaking a promise made to the EU regulator.

The competitive landscape has changed greatly in recent years, however. Tech companies are now often more concerned about Google Inc.'s dominance in Internet search technology, Facebook's dominance in social networking, and Apple's dominance in mobile phones and software than Microsoft's Windows operating system, though it is still dominant on personal desktop computers.

Rival browsers such as Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have become popular, and software applications on mobile devices usually bypass browsers entirely.

In a sign of the times, Microsoft itself turned to the watchdog in 2012, asking it to investigate Google for anticompetitive practices.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-03-06-EU-Microsoft/id-a4ccdaa6743f4e25814cdf5f5b2898be

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'True grit' erodes assumptions about evolution

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Dining on field grasses would be ruinous to human teeth, but mammals such as horses, rhinos and gazelles evolved long, strong teeth that are up to the task.

New research led by the University of Washington challenges the 140-year-old assumption that finding fossilized remains of prehistoric animals with such teeth meant the animals were living in grasslands and savannas. Instead it appears certain South American mammals evolved the teeth in response to the gritty dust and volcanic ash they encountered while feeding in an ancient tropical forest.

The new work was conducted in Argentina where scientists had thought Earth's first grasslands emerged 38 million years ago, an assumption based on fossils of these specialized teeth. But the grasslands didn't exist. Instead there were tropical forests rich with palms, bamboos and gingers, according to Caroline Str?mberg, UW assistant professor of biology and lead author of an article in Nature Communications.

"The assumption about grasslands and the evolution of these teeth was based on animal fossils," Str?mberg said. "No one had looked in detail at evidence from the plant record before. Our findings show that you shouldn't assume adaptations always came about in the same way, that the trigger is the same environment every time."

To handle a lifetime of rough abrasion, the specialized teeth ? called high-crowned cheek teeth ? are especially long and mostly up in the animals' gums when they are young. As chewing surfaces of the teeth wear away, more of the tooth emerges from the gums until the crowns are used up. In each tooth, bone-like dentin and tough enamel are complexly folded and layered to create strong ridged surfaces for chewing. Human teeth have short crowns and enamel only on the outside of each tooth.

In Argentina, mammals apparently developed specialized teeth 20 million years or more before grasslands appeared, Str?mberg said. This was different from her previous work in North America and western Eurasia where she found the emergence of grasslands coincided with the early ancestors of horses and other animals evolving specialized teeth. The cause and effect, however, took 4 million years, considerably more lag time than previously thought.

The idea that specialized teeth could have evolved in response to eating dust and grit on plants and the ground is not new. In the case of Argentine mammals, Str?mberg and her co-authors hypothesize that the teeth adapted to handle volcanic ash because so much is present at the study site. For example, some layers of volcanic ash are as thick as 20 feet (six meters). In other layers, soils and roots were just starting to develop when they were smothered with more ash.

Chewing grasses is abrasive because grasses take up more silica from soils than most other plants. Silica forms minute particles inside many plants called phytoliths that, among other things, help some plants stand upright and form part of the protective coating on seeds.

Phytoliths vary in appearance under a microscope depending on the kind of plant. When plants die and decay, the phytoliths remain as part of the soil layer. In work funded by the National Science Foundation, Str?mberg and her colleagues collected samples from Argentina's Gran Barranca, literally "Great Cliff," that offers access to layers of soil, ash and sand going back millions of years.

The phytoliths they found in 38-million-year-old layers ? when ancient mammals in that part of the world developed specialized teeth ? were overwhelmingly from tropical forests, Str?mberg said.

"In modern grasslands and savannas you'd expect at least 35 to 40 percent ? more likely well over 50 percent ? of grass phytoliths. The fact we have so little evidence of grasses is very diagnostic of a forested habitat," she said.

The emergence of grasslands and the evolution of specialized teeth in mammals are regarded as a classic example of co-evolution, one that has occurred in various places around the world. However, as the new work shows, "caution is required when using this functional trait for habitat reconstruction," the co-authors write.

###

University of Washington: http://www.uwnews.org

Thanks to University of Washington for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127133/_True_grit__erodes_assumptions_about_evolution

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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Rock solid proof of Iowa meteorite crater

USGS

A three-dimensional view of Decorah, Iowa, and the Upper Iowa River with the location of the Decorah Impact Structure marked with the white dotted line. Scene is looking due north.

By Andrea Thompson
LiveScience

Buried beneath the rocks, dirt, buildings and roads of the city of Decorah, Iowa, lies a 470 million-year-old meteorite crater.

Unlike the craters on the pockmarked surfaces of the moon and Mars, this crater can't be seen by looking down at Earth's surface, at least not by the human eye.

But recent aerial surveys primarily aimed at getting a better picture of the minerals that underlie the region got a look at the crater structure using instruments that detect the variations in gravity of different types of rock, as well as their ability to conduct electricity.

"Capturing images of an ancient meteorite impactwas a huge bonus," Paul Bedrosian, a U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist in Denver who is leading the effort to model the data the surveys acquired, said in a statement.

The images provided corroborating evidence that the feature is in fact an impact crater. They are the "first images which really show the geometry," Bedrosian told OurAmazingPlanet.

USGS

Data from drill cores and an aerial electromagnetic survey show the Decorah Impact Structure.

Discovering a crater
The crater, known as the Decorah Impact Structure, was discovered during a 2008-2009 effort by scientists with the Iowa Geological and Water Survey to examine samples from drill cores (cylinders of sediment drilled out from the ground). In them, they found a unique unit of shale beneath and near Decorah.

The shale formed a "nice circular basin" about 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) wide, Robert McKay, a geologist at the Iowa Geological Survey, said in the USGS statement. That makes the Decorah crater about four to five times the size of Arizona's famed Meteor Crater, Bedrosian said. [Meteor Crater: Experience an Ancient Impact]

The thinking is that the shale was deposited by an ancient seaway that formed some time after the impact ?that created the crater. The identity of the basin as an impact site wasn't known for certain, and more evidence was needed to back up the hypothesis.

Some of that added evidence came from the identification of shocked quartz in a layer of breccia below the shale. Breccia is a type of rock made up of broken fragments of other rocks cemented together by a finer-grained medium. The shocked quartz found within this breccia is considered strong evidence of a meteorite impact, Bedrosian said.

Shale signature
When the recent surveys set out, they were aware that the crater was in the area, he said. "We weren't aware that we would be able to image it so cleanly," Bedrosian said.

The keys to the sharp imaging were the distinctive electric conductivity and gravity signals of the shale layer.

"The shale is an ideal target and provides the electrical contrast that allows us to clearly image the geometry and internal structure of the crater," Bedrosian said in the release.

In the new view obtained from the surveys, the impact crater appears as a circular structure that is distinct from the area around it. This imaging provides still further evidence that the structure is indeed a crater.

The researchers plan to use the data they've taken to learn more about the crater and the meteorite that created it. The nearly circular shape of the crater suggests that whatever space rock caused the impact came from directly overhead, and the width of the crater suggests that the rock was a couple hundred meters across, Bedrosian said. The modeling he and his team are doing could tell them more about the energy the impactor had as it hit.

The team is planning to publish findings from the survey in the next six months, Bedrosian said, which will be the "ultimate scientific confirmation" of the crater. The crater will truly become official when it is added to the Earth Impact Database, he added. The database is a list that contains fewer than 200 confirmed meteor impacts (though many more meteors have impacted the Earth throughout its history, their signatures have simply been wiped away by the planet's active plate tectonics).

"Hopefully ? we'll be adding one to the list," Bedrosian said.

Follow Andrea Thompson @AndreaTOAP, Pinterestand Google+. Follow OurAmazingPlanet?@OAPlanet, Facebook?and Google+.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17213253-rock-solid-evidence-of-a-meteorite-crater-under-iowa?lite

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Editorial: Countering ID theft requires better awareness campaigns

Evernote's massive password reset last week was the most recent demonstration of leaky security around consumer locks and keys. Dropbox, LinkedIn, Twitter and others preceded the Evernote action. These anxiety-producing consumer annoyances occur over a backdrop of increased cyber-attack news. Chinese hackers are spotlighted in many recent disruptions, substantiated by Akamai's report of originating-attack countries for Q3 2012, which shows China's percentage of worldwide cyber exploits doubling from the previous quarter.

Precautionary password resets, as in the Evernote case, are minor aggravations. But the larger danger of password insecurity and increased cyber-malice is the swift domino effect that can lead to identity theft of the Mat Honan variety. Absolute personal cyber-security is probably a mirage. But there is not enough public education from industry that might reduce millions of easy targets.

Filed under: Internet, Software

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/A-qOC4s3uY0/

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Evernote plans two-factor authentication following last week's hack

In a move that's often more reactive than proactive these days, Evernote has shared plans to add two-factor authentication to its login process. This latest announcement follows last week's hacking attack and subsequent site-wide password reset, and will be available to all of the site's 50 million users beginning later this year, according to an InformationWeek report. It's too early to say exactly how the Evernote team plans to implement the new security feature, whether through a dedicated app or text message password, but given the service's scale, we can likely count out a hardware fob option, at least. For now, your best course of action is to create a secure password, or, if you're especially paranoid, you may consider delaying your return until the security boost is in place.

Filed under: Software

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Source: InformationWeek

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/05/evernote-two-factor-authentication/

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Tuesday, March 5, 2013

There?s No Native Instagram App For BlackBerry 10, But This Ported Android Version Gets The Job Done

BlackBerry 10 may have launched with over 70,000 apps, but fans of taking pictures of their lunch were saddened to learn that Instagram wasn?t one of them. While there?s still no official version of Instagram for BlackBerry 10 devices, the folks at BerryThai obtained and released a repackaged version of the app ready to load onto a Z10 near you.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2DRM5cXLkR8/

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Friday, March 1, 2013

Former Temptations singer Richard Street dies: CNN

(Reuters) - Former Temptations singer Richard Street has died aged 70, his widow Cindy Street told CNN.

He died on Wednesday at St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Las Vegas after suffering a clot in a lung, the broadcaster reported.

Street was the second ex-member of the versatile Motown band to die this month after Otis "Damon" Harris passed away aged 62.

"He was really fighting for his life," Cindy told CNN. "He's a fighter. They're dancing up there in heaven, him and Damon," she added. "I'm in disbelief right now."

The Temptations was one of the leading male vocal groups of the 1960s and early 1970s, surviving several personnel changes to tackle a wide range of musical styles with tight harmonies and well choreographed dance routines.

Street was not in the original 1960s lineup but joined the band in the early 1970s and continued for more than 20 years before pursuing a solo career.

During his tenure, the Temptations released a string of hits including the 1972 chart-topping classic "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" and "Masterpiece" released the following year.

"He was part of black history. He was always proud of that. He sang on a lot of those classic songs," Cindy said.

According to online reports, Street is survived by his wife and four children.

(Writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/former-temptations-singer-richard-street-dies-cnn-124021170.html

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