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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Prince delivers funk-filled finale at SXSW

FILE - In this Oct. 14, 2010 file photo, musician Prince holds a news conference at The Apollo Theater announcing his "Welcome 2 America" tour in New York. Prince turns off the lights at South by Southwest on Saturday night, Match 16, 2013, with an unexpected and intimate showcase that ranks among the biggest surprises in years at the star-studded music festival and conference. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, File)

This Fall 2012 publicity photo provided by Rogers and Cowan shows musician Prince performing in concert in Chicago. Prince turns off the lights at South by Southwest on Saturday, March 16, 2013, with an unexpected and intimate showcase that ranks among the biggest surprises in years at the star-studded music festival and conference. (AP Photo/Rogers and Cowan)

This Fall 2012 photo provided by Rogers and Cowan shows musician Prince performing at a concert in Chicago. Prince turns off the lights at South by Southwest on Saturday, March 16, 2013, with an unexpected and intimate showcase that ranks among the biggest surprises in years at the star-studded music festival and conference. (AP Photo/Rogers and Cowan)

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? How else would Prince shut down the South by Southwest Music Festival that is basically a weeklong showcase of rock n' roll?

By throwing a totally different kind party: a grooving, brass band-backed funkfest that stretched to 3 a.m. and outlasted many fans lucky to get inside in the first place.

As Justin Timberlake and the Smashing Pumpkins headlined other SXSW wrap-ups nearby, Prince prevailed as the toughest ticket Saturday night by performing for only 300 people in his first appearance at the annual music smorgasboard that featured 2,200 bands and artists this year.

Prince towered over them all ? but his concert at the tiny La Zona Rosa club that sits on the fringe of the SXSW mayhem was no grandiose spectacle. He performed on a spartan stage behind a giant video board, and contentedly played bandleader instead of superstar for this funk-filled SXSW finale.

"They called our people and said they wanted some funk in Austin," said Prince, before belting out the last bars of a gentle rendition of "Purple Rain."

A 12-piece brass band joined the latest incarnation of Prince's New Power Generation for a run of hits like "1999" and "Cool" that jammed a groove twist. The show began with the band making a Mardi Gras-style march onto the stage, which was quickly drowned out by shrieks upon the sight of Prince emerging in a magneta, high-collared shirt and snug black blazer.

Few fans, however, came away with photographed keepsakes. Prince is notoriously rigid about controlling his music and image, and organizers warned the crowd three times before the show that taking pictures was forbidden. Fans who flaunted the rule were scolded by security or told to scram.

Even simply using a cell phone was banned? a biting irony, given that the concert was thrown by Samsung Galaxy and promoters worked the crowd beforehand offering customers fresh phone batteries or device test-drives.

Prince never played guitar during the set. Nor did he perform his new single "Screwdriver" that debuted earlier this year, opting instead for funk covers: Curtis Mayfield's "We're a Winner" and Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Until You Get Enough" among them as the night dragged on and weary fans made their way to the exits early.

"Don't make me hurt you. You know how many hits I got?" Prince said during the first of several pseudo-set closers, before launching into yet another encore.

Green Day, Dave Grohl, Vampire Weekend, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks also starred at SXSW this week.

____

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-17-Music-SXSW-Prince/id-dd3f3279837246fa94eacbb8ef723c52

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Saturday, March 16, 2013

US stocks close lower, ending Dow's 10-day rally

U.S. stock markets fell Friday, ending the longest winning streak for the Dow Jones industrial average in nearly 17 years.

The Dow dropped 25.03 points, or 0.2 percent, to 14,514.11 The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.5 points, or 0.2 percent, to 1,560.70, just shy of an all-time high from October 2007. The Nasdaq composite index dropped nine points, or 0.3 percent, to 3,249.

The Dow had notched a 10-day winning streak through Thursday, its longest since November 1996. The string of wins pushed the blue-chip index up 484 points, or 3.4 percent, to a Thursday close of 14,539.14. The index's closing price on Feb. 28, just before the rally began, was 14,054.49.

Trading Friday was tentative because investors feared that rising inflation could cause the Federal Reserve to retreat from policies aimed at boosting markets. The government said that consumer prices increased in February at the fastest pace in more than three years.

The increase was driven by a spike in gas prices; the core index, which excludes the volatile energy and food categories, increased more modestly. But both figures rose 2 percent compared with a year earlier, enough to get investors' attention, said Peter Tchir, who runs the hedge fund TF Market Advisors.

"It's real and it's a drag, and I think people are growing concerned that it can get out of control quickly," Tchir said. He said signs of economic improvement and inflation "make them wonder if there will be continued market pressure on the Fed" to end its bond-buying programs.

The market's recent rally to multiyear highs was fueled in part by the Fed's efforts to keep interest rates low and encourage investment.

The Dow's win streak matched a 10-day run that ended on Nov. 15, 1996. To find a longer uninterrupted series of gains, you would have to go back to Jan. 3, 1992, when the Dow rose for 11 consecutive days.

The index's longest winning streak was 14 days, ending June 14, 1897.

Stocks opened lower and extended their losses at 10 a.m. after a closely-watched index of consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level since the end of 2011. The University of Michigan's preliminary consumer sentiment index dropped 5.8 points to 71.8, according JPMorgan analyst Daniel Silver said in a note to clients.

Stocks reversed the losses briefly at midday, then drifted back down in the afternoon.

Traders are processing big banks' scores on "stress tests" administered by the Fed. The Fed said late Thursday that JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs both need better plans to cope with a severe recession. It gave them until September to revise their plans.

Still, the Fed allowed both banks to increase their dividends and buy back their stock, signaling that regulators believe the banks are fundamentally sound.

The stock of JPMorgan fell 98 cents, or 1.9 percent, to $50.02. Goldman's stock rose 82 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $154.84.

The S&P 500 closed just five points from its all-time closing high of 1,565, reached in October 2007.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.99 percent from 2.06 percent early Thursday, as demand increased for ultra-safe investments.

Among the other companies making big moves:

? Cruise ship operator Carnival Corp. fell 78 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $34.95. The company said passengers have been booking vacations at a slower pace after a series of high-profile mishaps.

? Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. plunged after saying its fiscal fourth-quarter net income dropped sharply and fell short of expectations. The stock fell 41 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $14.54.

? Teen apparel chain Aeropostale Inc. fell 76 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $13.75, after posting a loss in its fiscal fourth quarter and saying it expects another one in the current quarter.

___

Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports .

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-stocks-close-lower-ending-dows-10-day-205230408--finance.html

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Predicting hotspots for future flu outbreaks

Friday, March 15, 2013

This year's unusually long and rocky flu season would be nothing compared to the pandemic that could occur if bird flu became highly contagious among humans, which is why UCLA researchers and their colleagues are creating new ways to predict where an outbreak could emerge.

"Using surveillance of influenza cases in humans and birds, we've come up with a technique to predict sites where these viruses could mix and generate a future pandemic," said lead author Trevon Fuller, a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center for Tropical Research.

The researchers' models revealed that coastal and central China and Egypt's Nile Delta are danger zones where bird flu could combine with human flu to create a virulent kind of super-flu. Governments can prioritize these zones ? and use the researchers' models to identify other hotspots ? for increased monitoring of flu in humans, livestock, poultry and wild birds. That could help detect a novel flu virus before it spreads worldwide, the researchers said.

The research paper, "Predicting Hotspots for Influenza Virus Reassortment," was published March 13 in the peer-reviewed public health journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Previous pandemics, such as the 1957 and 1968 influenzas that each killed more than a million people or the 2009 H1N1 swine flu outbreak that killed 280,000 worldwide, developed when viruses from humans and animals exchanged genes to create a new virus in a process called reassortment. Recent research using mice confirms that genes from bird flu and human flu can combine to create dangerous new flu strains. Swine, which are susceptible to both bird and human flu, could serve as a mixing vessel for reassortment between the two viruses.

"The mixing of genetic material between the seasonal human flu virus and bird flu can create novel virus strains that are more lethal than either of the original viruses," said senior author Thomas Smith, director of the Center for Tropical Research and a professor at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

"These findings predicting potential outbreak sites can help decision-makers prioritize the most important areas where people, poultry and livestock should be vaccinated and animals should be monitored for novel viruses, which could help predict and prevent the next pandemic," he said.

The researchers looked for locations where bird flu outbreaks, human flu outbreaks and swine populations overlapped to predict hotspots where reassortment is more likely, using a $1.3 million grant from the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health.

The research focused on two flu strains that studies in mice have shown can combine with lethal results: the seasonal H3N2 human flu, and the H5N1 strain of bird flu that has occasionally crossed over into humans. Currently, H5N1 has a 60 percent mortality rate in humans but is not known to spread between humans frequently.

While the World Health Organization has identified six countries as hosts to ongoing, widespread bird flu infections in poultry in 2011 ? China, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh ? the UCLA researchers and their colleagues had limited data to work with. Not all flu outbreaks, whether bird or human, are tracked. The scientists had to identify indicators of flu outbreaks, such as dense poultry populations, or rain and temperatures that encourage flu transmission.

"For each type of flu, we identified variables that were predictive of the various virus strains," Fuller said. "We wanted a map of predictions continuously across the whole country, including locations where we didn't have data on flu outbreaks."

Although the researchers had bird flu data for parts of both China and Egypt, other countries, such as Indonesia, don't have full reporting systems in place. Even in China and Egypt, accurate reporting is hampered by farmers who may conceal flu outbreaks in order to sell their livestock.

"If we provide incentives for better reporting, we could more precisely predict future outbreaks," Fuller said.

###

University of California - Los Angeles: http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu

Thanks to University of California - Los Angeles 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/127319/Predicting_hotspots_for_future_flu_outbreaks

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At 'Minority Outreach' Panel, CPAC Participant Defends Slavery (Little green footballs)

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Friday, March 15, 2013

Redbox Instant Streaming Is Now Open For Business - GeekSugar

The movie rental company Redbox teamed up with Verizon last year to launch the invite-only beta of Redbox Instant, which is now opening its virtual scarlet-hued doors to all US subscribers. Redbox may be in for a tough fight against the likes of Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, and Hulu Plus, but the movie streaming service has a little somethin' that gives it a small edge over its competitors.

After a free one-month trial period, Redbox Instant costs $8 a month, which is the same subscription price as Netflix and Hulu Plus (Amazon's $79 per year fee is slightly cheaper). In addition to instant unlimited access to streaming movies, Redbox is offering four DVD credits at its kiosks, found at grocery stores and big box retailers nationwide. But it's important to remember that Redbox is missing a major component: TV shows.

The credits for physical DVDs are most likely offered to compensate for Redbox Instant's small library of movies online. Yet, despite the lack of older films, Redbox Instant has an impressive amount of some of the year's most popular blockbusters, like Argo, The Hunger Games, Brave, and The Dark Knight Rises.

In terms of how you can stream, Redbox offers an app for iOS and Android, plus Mac, PC, or Xbox 360.

We have more choices than ever when it comes to streaming movies online ? will you choose Redbox Instant now that it's open for business?

Source: http://www.geeksugar.com/Redbox-Instant-28580802

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Iditarod is won but Alaska town greets each musher

Four-time Iditarod champion Jeff King pats a dog after he finished third at Nome, Alaska, in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Wednesday morning, March 13, 2013. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth)

Volunteers hang a banner above the burled arch, which serves as the finish line for the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska, on Monday, March 11, 2013. The race began March 3 in Willow, Alaska, and some race watchers predict a Tuesday finish. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Musher Michelle Phillips of Tagish, Yukon Territory, Canada, makes the final push on the Bering Sea ice for the finish line a few miles outside Nome, Alaska, on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. She finished in 24th place. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

Mitch Seavey became the oldest winner and a two-time Iditarod champion when he drove his dog team under the burled arch in Nome on Tuesday evening, March 12, 2013. He sits with his two lead dogs, Tanner, left and Taurus, right. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth) LOCAL TV OUT (KTUU-TV, KTVA-TV) LOCAL PRINT OUT (THE ANCHORAGE PRESS, THE ALASKA DISPATCH)

Aliy Zirkle finished second in the Iditarod for the second consecutive year when her dog team crossed under the burled arch in Nome on Tuesday evening, March 12, 2013. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth) LOCAL TV OUT (KTUU-TV, KTVA-TV) LOCAL PRINT OUT (THE ANCHORAGE PRESS, THE ALASKA DISPATCH)

NOME, Alaska (AP) ? The winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has come under the burled arch in this western Alaska outpost, but that's just the beginning for this community, where every musher to finish the race gets a hero's welcome.

The town's sirens blare when each of the more than four dozen competitors is about a mile out, and the mushers are all treated like royalty as they cross the finish line under the famed arch on Front Street, and have their pictures taken with fans.

"People come running out of their homes, pouring out of the bars on Front Street, to all run down to the chute and welcome the next team in," said Laura Samuelson, director of the city's Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum and former official finish-line checker. "It's very exciting."

For more than three decades, residents of this old gold-rush town have greeted mushers at all hours of the day and night as they completed the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which spans two mountain ranges, dangerous Alaska wilderness and the wind-whipped Bering Sea coast.

Mitch Seavey won this year's race Tuesday evening, edging second place musher Aliy Zirkle by 24 minutes. But the reveling will continue as the rest of the remaining mushers ? 11 had scratched and one had withdrawn as of Thursday morning ? trickle into town over the next few days.

"The tradition of welcoming mushers into Nome is very important because you figure anyone who comes this far on a team of dogs, from Anchorage to Nome, and takes 10 days to get here, or three weeks to get here, they all deserve the same recognition and the same appreciation for making it this far," Samuelson said.

This year's Iditarod began with 66 teams March 2 at a ceremonial start in Anchorage. The official 1,000-mile race for mushers and their teams of dogs started the next day about 50 miles north of Anchorage.

The grueling trek ends in Nome, where Old West lawman Wyatt Earp once owned a bar.

The mushers, heck, even cruise ship passengers and other visitors, are always "heartily welcomed in Nome because this really is the edge of the earth, and it really is the end of the trail," Samuelson said.

Nome and dog mushing are part history lesson, part love affair.

The city ? now with a population of about 3,500 ? exists because of gold, and dog teams helped gold miners get to their stakes in the decades before snowmobiles. It also was the foremost mode of transportation for generations of Alaska Natives.

"The Iditarod, more so than anything I know, for me, is among the quintessential Alaska," said Richard Beneville, a tour company operator, school office and chamber of commerce officer.

"It's dogs, which are a tradition in the Native culture as well as the non-Native culture, it's the transportation, the communication, the social aspects of it," Beneville said. "And to see these men and women coming across the finish line ? a 1,049 miles ? to me is stunning."

The welcome process begins on a gravel road four miles outside town, where a spotter for the local radio station, KNOM, waits for each musher to hit Farley's Camp, a collection of cabins along the Bering Sea coast. The spotter alerts the station that a musher in on the way, then will broadcast live as they shadow the musher past the Nome River and into town.

When the musher is about a mile and a half out, the town's siren blows, letting everyone know the musher is on his way.

Once the musher comes off the sea ice onto Front Street a few blocks from the finish, a police car with its lights flashing takes over as the official escort. The weary musher then guides the dog team down the city's business district, sometimes slapping high-fives with fans lining the street.

The celebratory atmosphere is like "Mardi Gras with dogs," Beneville said.

Greg Bill is at the finish line this week like he has been for the past 40 years, and said it's an important tradition for the mushers.

"It's really heartwarming because they just traveled a thousand miles," said Bill, the race's development director. "Some of them have family here to greet them. Others don't."

Howard Farley, 80, is one of the founders of the Iditarod, first run in 1973. He helped organize the Nome finish, and placed in the second-to-last paying position in the first race ? back when the finish line consisted of Kool-Aid sprinkled over the snow.

"We're not going across town. We're not going across the street. We're not going in a circle," Farley said. "We're racing a thousand miles over treacherous Alaska wilderness."

A former town official said at the very first musher's banquet that everyone who finishes the race is a hero.

"And I knew that," Farley said. "I was in the back, and I got a hero's welcome."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-14-US-Iditarod/id-ca91b996e1534b7ea020d933fa83c3e9

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Samsung Galaxy S 4 launching on 327 carriers in 155 countries, starting at the end of April

Samsung has announced some of its launch partners for the Galaxy S 4 which will include some 327 carriers in 155 countries. According to JK Shin, it will include global LTE roaming, with 3G and LTE models in multiple bands (up to hexa band, according to the slide). Samsung's PR reveals it will be on all four major US carriers, plus US Cellular and Cricket, while European carriers include Deutsche Telecom, EE, H3G, Orange, Telenor, Telia Sonera, Telefonica, and Vodafone.

Update: AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have all issued official statements to along with the launch which are included after the break. Look below for links to early registration for launch details from Samsung and the various carriers.

Update 2: Mobile Syrup has obtained a list of confirmed Canadian carriers which includes Bell, Eastlink, Fido, Koodo, Mobilicity, Rogers, SaskTel, TELUS, Videotron, Virgin Mobile and Wind Mobile.

Check out our event hub for all the action from Samsung's Galaxy S 4 event.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile