LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. producer will.i.am’s collaboration with Britney Spears topped the British pop charts on Sunday as David Bowie notched up his first top 10 single in two decades with his surprise new release.
Launched without warning on Bowie’s 66th birthday, the single “Where Are We Now?” caused widespread media interest, and charted in sixth place despite only having been available for five days.
It was his first new song in almost a decade and produced his best chart performance since 1986, when he reached number two with “Absolute Beginners”, the Official Charts Company said.
Topping the chart was “Scream and Shout” by will.i.am, featuring Britney Spears, giving her a first British number one since 2004.
U.S. country-pop star Taylor Swift‘s “I Knew You Were Trouble” moved up to second, with James Arthur, winner of the British version of the “X Factor” TV talent show last year, dropping from first to third with “Impossible”.
In the album chart, singer Emeli Sandé returned to number one with “Our Version of Events”, which has now spent 48 consecutive weeks in the Top 10.
Last week’s chart-topper “18 Months” by Scottish producer and singer Calvin Harris dropped to second place, and English singer Jake Bugg rose a place to third with his eponymous album.
R&B star Rihanna climbed three to fourth with “Unapologetic”. The only new entry in the top 10 was the soundtrack from the Oscar-nominated film musical “Les Miserables”, which debuted in fifth.
(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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Thirty-five percent of American adults said they have used the Internet to diagnose a medical condition for themselves or someone else, according to a new Pew Research Center study. Women are more likely than men to turn to the Internet for diagnoses. Other groups more likely to do so are younger people, white adults, people with college degrees and those who live in households with income above $75,000.
The study, released by Pew’s Internet and American Life Project on Tuesday, points out that Americans have always tried to answer their health questions at home, but that the Internet has expanded the options for research. Previous surveys have asked questions about online diagnoses, but the Pew study was the first to focus on the topic with a nationally representative sample, said Susannah Fox, an associate director at Pew Internet. Surveyors interviewed 3,014 American adults by telephone, from August to September 2012.
Of the one in three Americans who used the Internet for a diagnosis, about a third said they did not go to a doctor to get a professional medical opinion, while 41 percent said a doctor confirmed their diagnosis. Eighteen percent said a doctor did not agree with their diagnosis. As far as where people start when researching health conditions online, 77 percent said they started at a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo, while 13 percent said they began at a site that specializes in health information.
You can use the rear of the YotaPhone as a clock, or to display wallpapers.
Click here to view this gallery.
[More from Mashable: Hands On With Pebble, the Internet’s Favorite Smart Watch]
LAS VEGAS — What if your phone had two displays? Announced in mid-December, YotaPhone aims to change how people use their smartphones by bringing together a full-color LCD display on one side of the phone and an e-ink display on the other.
I caught up with Yota Device’s Vladislav Martynov at CES to give the phone a closer look.
[More from Mashable: 5 Chinese Tech Brands You’ll Be Hearing From in 2013]
In essence, the two displays on the handset each have their own unique purpose. The front display is used just as you might your traditional smartphone screen to run apps, browse the web or watch videos.
The rear display on the YotaPhone is what makes it stand out. An electronic paper display, it shows content you push to it from the front of the device. Less for interacting with and more for reference information, you can use the display for a map to your next destination, a clock, or a place to keep the boarding pass for your flight handy.
Martynov showed me a few applications designed specifically to use with the screen as well, including an app that shows low long you’ve kept a particular goal, such as not smoking. The company plans to release an API for other developers to make applications that take advantage of the dual-screen functionality as well.
Running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, Martynov says that he plans to keep Android as vanilla as possible, something he feels is very important. He also wants to make sure that the phone is on-par with high-end Android smartphones, spec-wise. The current iteration uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8960 platform, and Corning’s 3D Gorilla Glass. It’s also a multi-band LTE handset that can run on LTE networks anywhere in the world.
YotaPhone is expected to go one sale during the second half of 2013.
What uses do you see for an e-ink second screen? Let us know your thoughts in the comment.
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Sony Chairman Amy Pascal refuted criticism of “Zero Dark Thirty” by a member of the Oscar voting academy on Friday, saying her studio’s movie “does not advocate torture.”
“‘Zero Dark Thirty’ does not advocate torture,” she said. “To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie.”
David Clennon, an Emmy Award-winning actor, wrote an op-ed column for Truthout this week, explaining that he would not be voting for “Zero Dark Thirty” in any categories because it portrays torture as being an effective tool in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.
“Torture is an appalling crime under any circumstances,” Clennon wrote.” “‘Zero’ never acknowledges that torture is immoral and criminal. It does portray torture as getting results.”
At a media event on Friday in downtown Los Angeles at the federal building, protesting the Guantanamo Bay detention center, Clennon repeated the criticism, noting:
“I’m a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Motion Picture Academy clearly warns its members not to disclose their votes for Academy Awards. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that the film ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ promotes the acceptance of the crime of torture, as a legitimate weapon in America’s so-called War on Terror. In that belief, following my conscience, I will not vote for ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ in any category… I cannot vote for a film that makes heroes of Americans who commit the crime of torture.”
“Zero Dark Thirty” has come under fire by some for its depiction of torture in the quest to kill Bin Laden. Last month, three senators – John McCain, Dianne Feinstein and Carl Levin — wrote a letter to Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama, claiming that the film suggests that torture led investigators the terrorist leader.
The movie, which has already picked up several awards, on Thursday received five Oscar nominations, including a nod for Best Picture, but Bigelow was snubbed in the Best Director category.
Pascal issued a statement Friday that read in full:
“Zero Dark Thirty does not advocate torture. To not include that part of history would have been irresponsible and inaccurate. We fully support Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal and stand behind this extraordinary movie.
“We are outraged that any responsible member of the Academy would use their voting status in AMPAS as a platform to advance their own political agenda. This film should be judged free of partisanship. To punish an Artist’s right of expression is abhorrent. This community, more than any other, should know how reprehensible that is. While we fully respect everyone’s right to express their opinion, this activity is really an affront to the Academy and artistic creative freedom.
While we fully respect everyone’s right to express their opinion, this activity is really an affront to the Academy and artistic creative freedom. This attempt to censure one of the great films of our time should be opposed. As Kathryn Bigelow so appropriately said earlier this week, ‘depiction is not endorsement, and if it was, no artist could ever portray inhumane practices; no author could ever write about them; and no filmmaker could ever delve into the knotty subjects of our time.’”
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Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a psychologist and writer whose work helped explain why women are twice as prone to depression as men and why such low moods can be so hard to shake, died on Jan. 2 in New Haven. She was 53.
Susan Nolen-Hoeksema at the University of Michigan in 2003. Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema's research showed that women were more prone to ruminate, or dwell on the sources of problems rather than solutions, more than men.
Her death followed heart surgery to correct a congenitally weak valve, said her husband, Richard Nolen-Hoeksema.
Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema, a professor at Yale University, began studying depression in the 1980s, a time of great excitement in psychiatry and psychology. New drugs like Prozac were entering the market; novel talking therapies were proving effective, too, particularly cognitive behavior therapy, in which people learn to defuse upsetting thoughts by questioning their basis.
Her studies, first in children and later in adults, exposed one of the most deceptively upsetting of these patterns: rumination, the natural instinct to dwell on the sources of problems rather than their possible solutions. Women were more prone to ruminate than men, the studies found, and in a landmark 1987 paper she argued that this difference accounted for the two-to-one ratio of depressed women to depressed men.
She later linked rumination to a variety of mood and behavior problems, including anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse.
“The way I think she’d put it is that, when bad things happen, women brood — they’re cerebral, which can feed into the depression,” said Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, who oversaw her doctoral work. “Men are more inclined to act, to do something, plan, beat someone up, play basketball.”
Dr. Seligman added, “She was the leading figure in sex differences in depression of her generation.”
Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema wrote several books about her research for general readers, including “Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life.” These books described why rumination could be so corrosive — it is deeply distracting; it tends to highlight negative memories — and how such thoughts could be alleviated.
Susan Kay Nolen was born on May 22, 1959, in Springfield, Ill., to John and Catherine Nolen. Her father ran a construction business, where her mother was the office manager; Susan was the eldest of three children.
She entered Illinois State University before transferring to Yale. She graduated summa cum laude in 1982 with a degree in psychology.
After earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the faculty at Stanford. She later moved to the University of Michigan, before returning to Yale in 2004.
Along the way she published scores of studies and a popular textbook. In 2003 she became the editor of the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, an influential journal.
Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema moved smoothly between academic work and articles and books for the general reader.
“I think part of what allowed her to move so easily between those two worlds was that she was an extremely clear thinker, and an extremely clear writer,” said Marcia K. Johnson, a psychology professor and colleague at Yale.
Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema lived in Bethany, Conn. In addition to her husband, a science writer, she is survived by a son, Michael; her brothers, Jeff and Steve; and her father, John.
“Over the past four decades women have experienced unprecedented growth in independence and opportunities,” Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema wrote in 2003, adding, “We have many reasons to be happy and confident.”
“Yet when there is any pause in our daily activities,” she continued, “many of us are flooded with worries, thoughts and emotions that swirl out of control, sucking our emotions and energy down, down, down. We are suffering from an epidemic of overthinking.”
BALDWIN, Ill. ——
Nowhere is coal's effect more visible than here at Illinois' largest coal-fired power plant, where the train cars are flipped upside down, tracks and all, to feed boilers the size of skyscrapers.
Once reviled as one of the dirtiest coal plants in the U.S., today the Baldwin plant is a different kind of poster child.
Last month, Houston-based Dynegy Inc. completed $1 billion in environmental upgrades at Baldwin and its three sister Illinois plants, a calculated bet that it will emerge as one of the coal plant operators left standing as rivals are clobbered by a depressed electricity market that leaves little money to add federally mandated pollution controls.
Dynegy's move, together with the closures of several coal-fired plants in and around Chicago, should add up to cleaner air for Cook County, which has consistently failed to meet federal health standards for air quality.
The pollution spewing from three massive smokestacks at Baldwin, about a five-hour drive southwest of Chicago, had plagued the city and other downwind communities for decades, contributing to the smog and soot that trigger asthma and other ailments.
"Hundreds of people in the state have died in recent years and thousands have been sickened simply because they had no choice but to breathe the pollution being pumped out by huge coal power plants. What we are starting to see now are the real health benefits of legal enforcement actions taken years ago," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.
The closures of the coal-burning Crawford and Fisk power plants in Chicago and the State Line plant just across the border in Indiana mirror a story playing out across the country. The abundance of natural gas, a cheaper fuel than coal, has cut into profits of coal plant operators just as states and the federal government have pressed for expensive pollution upgrades.
The Brattle Group, a financial consulting firm, predicts that one-fourth of the nation's coal-fired electricity will be wiped off the map by 2016; more than 100 coal-fired generating units have been mothballed since 2009. The state's other two major coal plant owners — Ameren Corp.'s generating arm and Edison International's Midwest Generation — largely have been cast off by their parent companies because of poor financial performance. And they have pleaded with regulators for more time to meet pollution standards.
As a result of upgrades, it is more costly to operate Baldwin and Dynegy's other Illinois coal plants in Wood River, Havana and Hennepin than those of competitors. But Dynegy doesn't expect that to be a burden long term. Fewer players making electricity means surviving power plant operators will receive higher payments from grid operators that pay reservation fees for power.
"There's short-term pain until you flush the noncompliers out of the game," said Robert Flexon, Dynegy's president and chief executive.
Longer term, if coal-fired plants keep closing as Dynegy anticipates, it expects to earn $100 million more per year beginning in 2016 in so-called capacity payments from grid operators.
Cleaning up
Dynegy's decision to upgrade its plants was not altogether altruistic. The improvements stem from a 2005 settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice that set deadlines for the company to clean up its plants or close them.
The Baldwin plant, an hour's drive from St. Louis, is massive; its white smokestack plumes can be seen for miles in this flat farming area. Its fuel comes in by rail.
The cars, brimming with 120 tons of coal every 2 1/2 minutes, are flipped over, rails and all, only to return full in an eight-day loop that begins in Wyoming. The amount of coal burned every two months is enough to fill Willis Tower.
It is just the start of a laborious process that strips the coal of toxic pollutants. Truckloads of lime are shipped to the plant each day to supply the sulfur dioxide scrubbers. After the coal is burned, the resulting coal gas is piped to the building-size scrubbers, each containing 20 nozzles that spray a mixture of limestone and ash to chemically remove the sulfur dioxide.
The pollutants bind to the slurry mixture, drop to the bottom and are recycled, while the coal gas pushes through to two smaller buildings called "bag houses," essentially giant filters that catch tiny particles that would otherwise enter the air.
To avoid nitrogen oxide emissions, the coal is burned at a lower temperature.
All told, improvements since 1998 have reduced 93 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 85 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions and 88 percent of particulate matter emissions, according to Dynegy.
"All that's really coming out that stack now is carbon dioxide and water vapor," Dave Glosecki, Baldwin's maintenance director, told a group during a recent plant tour.
With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.
There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.
“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.
Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.
While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.
On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.
There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.
In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.
“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”
There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.
In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.
As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.
According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.
Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.
Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.
The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.
A 14-year-old boy was shot and killed outside his home in the Humboldt Park neighborhood Friday night.
Two male shooters opened fire about 11:50 p.m. in the 2400 block of West Augusta Boulevard, striking the boy multiple times as he stood on his porch, Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said.
Immediately following the shooting, a car sped down the street in reverse and took off, a neighbor said.
Paramedics found the boy unresponsive and bleeding from several bullet wounds in his chest, police said. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
Police found blood on the front steps and more than half a dozen shell casings on the sidewalk.
The high school freshman had been talking on a cellphone in front of his home just moments before shots rang out, his stepmother said.
The shooting may have been gang-related, police sources said. Family and friends on the scene, however, said the victim avoided gangs and spent his free time listening to music and riding his bicycle.
The boy would have turned 15 on Tuesday, said his stepmother, whose name - like that of her stepson - the Tribune is withholding pending notification of additional family members.
"Now he's not even going to see his 15th birthday," his tearful stepmother said.
On the sidwalk near the crime scene, the father of one of the boy's friends sobbed as he paced near a group of somber teenagers.
asege@tribune.com
TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Softbank Corp is in final talks to sell its stake in eAccess Ltd, representing around 67 percent of voting rights, to Samsung Electronics Co and 10 others, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The sale would ease concerns that Softbank could hold a monopoly on spectrum allocation designated by Japan’s Communications Ministry, the source said.
Softbank, which is awaiting regulatory approval to buy a 70 percent stake in No. 3 U.S. mobile carrier Sprint Nextel Corp , bought Japanese rival eAccess last October as it stepped up competition with its nearest competitor KDDI Corp .
Softbank turned eAccess into a wholly owned subsidiary on January 1 after a share exchange, using 220 billion yen ($ 2.47 billion) worth of its own shares.
After dividing eAccess shares into voting and non-voting shares, Softbank is considering reducing its ownership of eAccess voting rights to less than one-third, the source said.
Non-voting shares make up around 1 percent of overall shares. The sale of eAccess’ voting rights would total several billion yen.
Other than Samsung, likely buyers include Sweden’s LM Ericsson , Orix Corp , the source said, adding that the eAccess voting shares would be divided between companies into hundreds of millions of yen each.
Softbank said on Saturday the news was not announced by the company and that it continued to mull options regarding its share holdings.
The Nikkei business newspaper reported earlier on Saturday that Softbank was also considering selling the eAccess stake to Finland’s Nokia Siemens Networks and five Japanese leasing companies.
Softbank cutting its eAccess stake would allow the company to work around the Communications Ministry’s policy on spectrum allocation to telecom service providers and avoid suggestions of any monopoly, but still allow Softbank or eAccess to seek spectrum.
Under the policy, either a parent company, or one of its units in which it owns more than 33 percent, can apply for an allocation of spectrum.
Softbank will remain the top shareholder in eAccess but lose veto power after the sale, which is expected to close by end January and raise several billion yen, the Nikkei daily said.
(Additional reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore, Writing by Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Perry)
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