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NEW YORK (AP) ? A self-described anarchist and "hacktivist" from Chicago pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he illegally accessed computer systems of law enforcement agencies and government contractors.
"As part of each of these hacks, I took and decimated confidential information stored on computer systems websites used by each of the entities," Jeremy Hammond told a judge in federal court in Manhattan. "For each of these hacks, I knew what I was doing was against the law."
Prosecutors had alleged the cyber-attacks were carried out by Anonymous, the loosely organized worldwide hacking group that stole confidential information, defaced websites and temporarily put some victims out of business. Hammond was caught last year with the help of Hector Xavier Monsegur, a famous hacker known as Sabu who later helped law enforcement infiltrate Anonymous.
A criminal complaint had accused Hammond of pilfering information of more than 850,000 people via his attack on Austin, Texas-based Strategic Forecasting Inc., a publisher of geopolitical information also known as Stratfor. He also was accused of using the credit card numbers of Stratfor clients to make charges of at least $700,000. He allegedly bragged he even snared the personal data of a former U.S. vice president and one-time CIA director.
During his guilty plea, Hammond admitted he "took confidential information" from law enforcement agencies and contractors in several states.
Hammond, 28, once rallied against plans to hold the 2016 Olympics in Chicago because he felt it would hurt low-income people; another time, he protested against neo-Nazi groups.
In a 2005 feature article about Hammond's hacking skills, he told the Chicago Reader he could program video games before he was 10. He told the newspaper he was a "hacktivist" who sought to promote causes but never for profit.
A website for supporters, freehammond.com, has described Hammond as "one of the few true electronic Robin Hoods."
But prosecutors called him a menace: In one online chat, regarding Stratfor, Hammond allegedly wrote, "Time to feast upon their (email databases)."
Hammond, who used online aliases such as "crediblethreat" and "yohoho," once described himself as "an anarchist communist," the complaint says.
He has been previously been arrested for marijuana possession and involvement in a protest where an Olympic banner was torn down, according to court papers.
Hammond faces up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing on Sept. 6.
"Jeremy has taken responsibility for what he's done, but he should not face such a harsh sentence for an act of protest from which he did not personally benefit," the defendant's brother, Jason Hammond, said in a statement. "I'm glad he's moved one step closer to freedom, but today I'm asking for the judge to consider a sentence appropriate to what is nothing other than a nonviolent political protest."
Secret-spilling group WikiLeaks published much of the material Hammond is accused of having stolen. Wikileaks chief Julian Assange responded to the guilty plea Tuesday with a statement saying, "The Obama administration's treatment of Jeremy Hammond is a disgrace."
Your email is likely in the cloud. Your photos and music may be there, too. So is it time to back up all the files and data from your computer to the Internet? Some storage experts and a growing number of consumers say yes. Online backup services have become more practical in recent years, offering consumers protection if their computers are lost or destroyed in a disaster. And in some cases, cloud backup costs far less in the short term than buying an external hard drive.
"We see more and more user interest in adopting the cloud," said Pushan Rinnen, research director for storage and backup at Gartner, a tech consulting firm. "When you put content into the cloud, even if your house burned down ... you have a copy somewhere else."
Online backup services have been around for years. They differ from online storage services such as Dropbox in that they typically offer more storage space and were generally designed just to archive files and data, not to provide access to that data from multiple locations.
Backup services usually include a program that runs in the background on your computer, uploading new files to the Internet. Consumers usually can choose which folders they want to back up or have the software copy their entire hard drive. In case of disaster, they can simply download their files or, in many cases, have the service send them a physical drive with their files stored on it.
The services typically encrypt data stored on their servers. And most require little management by consumers after they install the backup program.
"Most of these are set and forget," said Dave Simpson, a senior storage analyst at The 451 Group, a technology research firm.
In recent years the backup services have begun offering additional features that make them useful in more than just emergency situations.
Many services now offer mobile applications that allow users to view backed up files on their smartphones or tablets. And some, including Carbonite and Mozy, now offer a file-syncing feature that acts much like Dropbox or Google Drive. Users can access files stored in a synced folder on multiple computers. Any changes they make to particular files are reflected in the versions stored in all linked computers.
The biggest shortcoming with online backup services has been the length of time it can take to transfer files to the remote servers. Depending on the amount of data users are trying to save and the speed of their Internet connection, an initial backup can take weeks or even months, even if the program runs continuously.
And even after that, the service can be slow. Don Hoekwater, 49, is an amateur photographer who backs up his pictures to Carbonite. The large files he works with often take days to transfer to the backup service.
"It's excruciatingly slow, he said.
But there are ways around that problem. Faster broadband speeds are decreasing the time needed to transfer data. Some service providers, including CrashPlan, offer users the ability to speed up their first backup by saving it to a hard drive that they mail to the company.
Bitcasa, a startup in Mountain View, Calif., has developed technology that hastens backups by looking for duplicate data already stored by other users; the service only uploads data that's not already there. Company CEO Tony Gauda likens the service to a dictionary compiled of words from numerous books; a word in the dictionary only needs to be recorded once, no matter how many sentences or books it's used in.
"We don't save the books, we save the words," Gauda said, adding that initial uploads get "faster as we add more users." On average, he said, the company's users are already able to backup their data in a week or less.
Consumers face a bewildering array of options, with dozens of different providers. And there's a wide range of prices. Consumers can find plans that offer unlimited storage for less than $4 a month or plans that charge twice that for only 125 gigabytes of space.
And while the backup services offer broadly similar services, many have unique features. CrashPlan's software, for example, can back up data not only to the company's servers, but also to an external hard drive and even to friends' computers over the Internet.
At the same time, many services have particular limitations. Carbonite, for one, will slow down uploads if users are transferring more than 200 gigabytes of data at a time.
Many providers offer free trial periods, noted Donna Tapellini, a senior editor at Consumer Reports.
"I would try it out," she said. "You want something that's easy to get your stuff up and get your stuff back."
Some consumers who have already tested the services are believers. Doug Edwards, 54, a former brand manager at Google, signed up for CrashPlan last year after having some external hard drives fail. Edwards has lots of photos and music files and wanted to make sure they weren't lost if something happened to his house.
"Once you experience loss of data, you don't want to go there again," Edwards said.
ONLINE BACKUP TIPS:
If you're shopping for an online backup service, you'll find numerous options. Here are some ways to compare them.
-Storage capacity: You'll find plans that offer as little at 2 gigabytes of space to ones from providers such as Backblaze that offer an unlimited amount of storage. In general, the more storage you need, the more you'll pay.
-Number of computers: Many services require users to have a separate plan for each computer they want to back up. But some providers, including Mozy, offer plans that allow users to back up two or more computers.
-Hard-drive seeding: The initial transfer of data to a backup provider can take weeks or even months. Some providers, including CrashPlan, allow users to speed this process by "seeding" their archives. For an extra fee, the providers send out a blank hard drive to users to save their backup. Users then send the hard drive back to the provider, who uploads it to their account.
-File syncing: Some online backup services, such as Carbonite, have taken a page from storage services such as Dropbox. Instead of just allowing users to store their data in the cloud, those services will also allow them to sync particular files and folders with multiple computers and devices.
-File sizes: In some cases, providers limit the size of files they will sync or force users to sync such files manually. Other providers will automatically back up all files, no matter how large.
-Price: Some providers, including IDrive, offer plans with a small amount of storage-usually less than 10 gigabytes, for free. But you can also pay $20 a month or more for plans that have a limited amount of storage. Unlimited plans from providers, including Carbonite and CrashPlan, tend to cost about $4 to $6 a month.
Explore further: Review: Backing up may be hard to do, but I'm giving it another try
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During the UFC 160 weigh-ins, Khabib Nurmagomedov blew weight, wore a wig, started a fight and made Mike Tyson laugh. He had a full day.
Nurmagomedov weighed in at 158.5 for his lightweight bout with Abel Trujilo. He will forfeit 20 percent of his purse, so maybe that's why he was angry when he faced off with Trujilo. He got in his opponent's face, first bumping Trujilo's head and then pushing him back. He was quickly escorted off stage by the UFC's Burt Watson.
The best part of the scuffle? Mike Tyson was on stage and loved every minute of it. Look in the upper right-hand corner of the video to see his reaction.
May 23, 2013 ? A new tension gauge tether (TGT) laboratory method developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has broad applications for research into stem cells, cancer, infectious disease, and immunology.
Cells in the human body do not function in isolation. Living cells rely on communication with their environment -- neighboring cells and the surrounding matrix -- to activate a wide range of cellular functions, including reproduction of new cells, differentiation of stem cells into distinct cell types, cell adhesion, and migration of white blood cells to fight bodily infections. This cellular communication occurs on the molecular level and it is reciprocal: a cell receives cues from and also transmits function-activating cues to its neighbors.
The mechanics of this type of cellular interaction have been studied extensively: receptors extending through the cell membrane are activated when they form a bond to specific molecules. Now for the first time, University of Illinois biophysicists at the Center for the Physics of Living Cells and the Institute for Genomic Biology have measured the molecular force required to mechanically transmit function-regulating signals within a cell.
The new laboratory method, named the tension gauge tether (TGT) approach, developed by Taekjip Ha with postdoctoral researcher Xuefeng Wang, and reported in the May 24, 2013, issue of the journal Science, has made it possible to detect and measure the mechanics of the single-molecule interaction by which human cell receptors are activated. The researchers used integrin, a cell membrane receptor protein that is activated when it bonds to a ligand molecule.
In the TGT approach, Ha and Wang repurposed DNA strands, using them as tethers for ligand molecules, to test the tension required to activate cell adhesion through integrin. The integrin bonds to the tethered ligand, and adhesion is activated only if the DNA tether does not rupture.
Taking advantage of the geometric characteristics of DNA's double helix form, the researchers were able to tune the strands to rupture at discrete tension levels: by varying the attachment points along the DNA strands, the force required for rupture was either low (unzipping the helix), high (shearing the strands), or intermediary (combination of unzipping and shearing).
"If you went fishing and a fish broke your 30-lb fishing line but not the 40-lb one, you would know that its strength was in the range of 30?-40 pounds," explained Wang. "Here we applied the same strategy to measure the molecular tension applied by cells (the fish). Mammalian cells apply a force to activate cell membrane proteins called integrins which mediate cell adhesion. We immobilized ligand molecules (the bait) on a surface through molecular tethers (the fishing line) with defined tension tolerances, tunable from 10 pico Newton (pN) to 60 pN). After integrin-ligand binding, cells apply a force on the bonds, and we compare this force to the molecular tether strength by observing cell adhesion status."
Since single-molecule interactions are difficult to monitor, the researchers observed the receptor-regulated cellular function, to gauge whether the integrin was activated. Ha and Wang discovered that integrin experiences a well-defined "quantum of force," about 40 pico-Newton (pN), to activate cell's adhesion to a surface.
"We observed that mammalian cells adhere on the culture surface with 43 pN tension tolerance of ligands, but not on 33 pN surface. Therefore we deduced that single molecular tension is around 40 pN on integrin cell-membrane receptors during cell adhesion," Wang added.
"This is a very exciting result," commented Ha, an Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Endowed Professor at Illinois. "With the ability to define the single molecular forces required to make living cells behave as desired, we may be one step closer to a remedy for certain hard-to-cure diseases. We know that the behavior of cancer cells and stem cells can be controlled by how stiff or soft their environments are. Understanding and manipulating molecular conversation through defined forces has huge implications for the development of future medical interventions. We expect the TGT approach will have broad applications in laboratory studies of cell differentiation, cancer metastasis, as well as immunology and infectious disease."
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Physics Frontiers Center Program (0822613). In addition to his appointment at the University of Illinois, Taekjip Ha is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Governor Chris Christie and President Barack Obama (Credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) ? CBS 2 has learned that President Barack Obama will visit the Jersey Shore on Tuesday with Gov. Chris Christie. It will be his first time on the shore since he visited right after Hurricane Sandy hit on Oct. 29.
A White House advisory said Obama would view the ongoing recovery efforts from Sandy and talk about ?expanding economic opportunity for families hit by the storm.?
In the days after Sandy roared ashore, President Obama surveyed the damage with Christie. The subsequent images of the Democratic president and Republican governor and their apparent mutual respect for each other turned the political world on its ear.
?I cannot thank the president enough,? Christie said back on Oct. 31.
GALLERY: Jersey Shore Gets Ready For Summer Season
Then on April 29, Christie continued to praise President Obama for being ?a man of his word? when it came to his swift response to the storm.
?I don?t have any regrets because anyone who?s had the job that I have knows that your first job is to get the job done for the people who elected you and not to worry about politics, whether it?s presidential politics or any other type of politics,? Christie told WCBS 880?s Steve Scott.
Christie Gives Obama 'High Marks' For Response To Superstorm Sandy
WCBS 880's Steve Scott Speaks...
?Secondly, I?d give the President high marks. Everything that we asked of him to do he?s done, his administration has done. And while there were some blips in terms of the national flood insurance program that angered people, rightfully, the administration has worked on fixing that. So while I have broad areas of disagreement with the President on other issues, I cannot say anything other than the truth which is the President?s been a man of his word on this and his administration has followed through,? said Christie.
As a result of the governor?s buddy-buddy meeting with the president, Christie made the ?do not invite list? for the Conservative Political Action Conference, a major event for GOP big wigs.
Many Jersey Shore business have reopened and boardwalks and beaches were expected to be open in time for Memorial Day weekend.
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CTIA 2013 seems to be dedicated to some of the lesser-known names in the US wireless industry, so it's fit that Chinese manufacturer Coolpad should take advantage of the situation to steal the show. Indeed, we were able to take a look at the phone maker's upcoming stateside model, the lower-end Quattro II 4G. In the past year, its predecessor cranked out roughly a million units on MetroPCS, and Coolpad is hoping to build upon that success to get a foothold in the US. This sequel, which offers stock Android 4.1.2 with a 4.5-inch qHD TFT display, 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8930 chip, 5MP rear camera and VGA front-facing cam, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage and a 1,800mAh battery, isn't going to satisfy the tastebuds of power users or high-end flagship seekers, but it's a quality option for those who aren't planning to spend a ton of money on a decent handset. Given the intended audience, the device is perfectly solid with reasonable performance; we appreciated the company's use of a textured back cover. One nitpick: despite our best efforts to get rid of fingerprints, smudges remained with no hope of removal in sight.
Coolpad wasn't able to give many details on pricing or availability, but reps confirmed that it should arrive on C Spire in late June / early July, with it likely hitting other regional prepaid carriers after. Given the original Quattro's $80 price point on MetroPCS last year, we wouldn't be surprised to see the next-gen version offered for around the same cost. The company's still working to expand its presence on some of the larger networks, but it hopes to make its debut in the postpaid world early next year.
Nymphomaniac, a movie directed by Lars von Trier (he did Melancholia), will use a groundbreaking digital editing technique to show graphic sex scenes on the screen. For the non-explicit portions of the sex scenes, you'll see celebrities and actors you recognize. For the penetrative portion, you'll see the body doubles doing it. The difference is you won't know the difference because the film will digitally stitch the two together.
Can you feel the wedded bliss? Neither Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) nor Sansa (Sophie Turner) are exactly excited to be married to each other.
"You married who?!?!?" The refrain is often heard when a beloved family member marries someone who is ... not exactly the perfect match.
Fans of "Game of Thrones" who hadn't read the novels probably felt the same way when last week's sudden betrothal turned into a legally binding union Sunday night as Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister tied the knot. (When papa lion Tywin Lannister wants something, he gets it!) After all, there couldn't be a more mismatched pair.
And that got us thinking: The beauty and the beloved imp certainly aren't the only married couple who don't fit together all that well. (At least they have the excuse that it was an arranged marriage.) Here are a few others who probably shouldn't have tied the knot:
Don and anyone on 'Mad Men' None of Don's (so far) three wives on the show have had an exactly wonderful marriage with the handsome ad man. First wife Anna was actually married to the real Don Draper, who died in the Korean War and had his identity stolen by the guy viewers now know and love as Don. As for second and third wives Betty and Megan, Don just couldn't be faithful to or honest with either.
Bates and Vera on 'Downton Abbey' Oh, what a miserable marriage! When Bates tried to divorce Vera and marry Anna, the jilted ex (if you can call her that; they had been separated for years, after all) went to extreme lengths to keep the lovers from their happily ever after. First, she took all of his money, then blackmailed him. When none of that worked, she committed suicide and pinned her "murder" on him. (Honorable mention: Susan and Shrimpy, who don't yet have death to separate them.)
Alex and Izzie on 'Grey's Anatomy' After ghost sex with Dead Denny and BFF sex with George, it seemed like Alex Karev would be a good match for Izzie. Both young doctors had overcome great obstacles in their pasts to succeed in their fields, and with Alex's inherent attraction to the slightly unstable and his need to take care of those he loves, it seemed like the pair could work. That is, until Izzie gets fired, blames Alex, leaves him and sticks him with her ginormous hospital bill from her cancer treatments. Nice.
Rick and Lori on 'The Walking Dead' All was good with this couple ... until zombies took over the planet. She hooked up with his BFF, Shane, while Rick lay in a coma in a hospital (granted, they thought he was dead). But that was far from the worst of it. After her husband defied all odds and reunited with her and son Carl, she manipulated both Shane and Rick, which eventually led Rick to kill Shane after being provoked. Then she gets upset with him for killing the guy, whom she wanted dead anyway! As if that weren't enough, after her death, poor, exhausted, grieving Rick was tortured by visions of his dearly beloved.
President Fitz and Mellie on 'Scandal' Oof. What a tough marriage to be in. First lady Mellie gave up her own career as a lawyer so hubby Fitz could pursue politics. And how does he repay her? By having an affair and falling in love with crisis manager Olivia. Not that Mellie made things easy for Fitz in season two by doing whatever she could to maintain her status as first lady, despite the president's admission that he wants a divorce.
Which married TV couples do you think need to split? Tell us in the comments!
Did you know you can get a free organizing printable set just by subscribing to the blog via e-mail? Get the details here.
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I know that the trendy thing these days is for everything to eclectic, collected looking, and not really matching. However, that?s one trend I just can?t accept. I jumped whole heartedly onto the gray band wagon. Most of my house is grey. The same goes for chevron and geometric patterns. I?ll be hanging my chevron print curtains this week. I even accepted the stainless steel appliance thing, but I still love everything to be neat and matching.
I have collected quite a few plastic organizing bins over the years, and seems that many of them are completely different colors. The store seems to put out new colors about every season and I can no longer my original colors. I have some bright green, some grey and purple, some black, some red, etc. I thought I?d try spray painting one to see what happened. To my surprise, it actually worked like a charm!
I turned a bright green plastic bin into a beautiful red one. Oh, the possibilities! I can now cheaply turn any plastic I have into any color I want! I think you could even unify the look of various styles of plastic bins by making them all the same color.
There?s not a lot to say about the process. I used spray paint for plastic. I covered my garage floor and put the bin on an upside down box, and then I sprayed it. I first placed the bin upside down on the box, and sprayed the bottom and outsides. I used several thin coats, drying for about 15 minutes between each coat. Then I flipped the bin over and did the same to the top and insides. There was a little dripping on the inside, but I didn?t really mind.
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2013 file photo, Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim speaks during news conference at the Soumaya museum in Mexico City. Slim recently bought part of two of Mexico's first division soccer teams, setting up another showdown with television giants Televisa and TV Azteca, major players in the soccer field that are in turn trying to push their way into Slim?s telecommunications and Internet markets. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)
FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2013 file photo, Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim speaks during news conference at the Soumaya museum in Mexico City. Slim recently bought part of two of Mexico's first division soccer teams, setting up another showdown with television giants Televisa and TV Azteca, major players in the soccer field that are in turn trying to push their way into Slim?s telecommunications and Internet markets. (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)
MEXICO CITY (AP) ? Mexicans often feel that billionaire Carlos Slim owns everything in their country, from telephone and Internet companies to banks and chain stores, but his latest acquisitive foray is meeting resistance after touching a national passion: soccer.
Slim recently bought part of two of Mexico's first division soccer teams, setting up another showdown with television giants Televisa and TV Azteca, major players in the soccer field that are in turn trying to push their way into Slim's telecommunications and Internet markets.
The owners of the 18 Mexican first division clubs are scheduled to meet Monday to decide whether one person or one company can own more than one first-division soccer team, and many see Slim as the target.
Each team has one vote in decisions by the Mexican Football Federation, so purchasing more teams would give Slim more power in the federation. Recently, there have been rumors in sporting circles and on social networks that Slim also plans to buy or acquire the broadcast rights for Chivas, one of Mexico's two most popular teams, along with Televisa's America. The billionaire's spokesmen have denied that.
"What is evident in their business decisions is that Televisa is interested in entering Slim's mobile and broadband fields and Slim is interested in entering the soccer field, which has been under the monopoly of the two television networks," said telecommunications analyst Gabriel Sosa Plata, referring to the fact that the networks long had exclusive broadcast rights to the games of all 18 teams.
Slim ventured into soccer in September, when he bought 30 percent of the shares in the Leon and Pachuca teams through his telecommunications company America Movil. In December, he bought all the shares of the second division team Estudiantes Tecos.
Following the acquisitions, team owners in February decided to discuss the issue of multi-ownership.
The decision raised some eyebrows since TV Azteca currently owns two teams, the Jaguares and Morelia, and Televisa once owned three first division teams, America, Necaxa and San Luis, without notable complaints within the federation about the issue of multi-team ownership. The world football authority, FIFA, however, has expressed concern about conflict of interest questions raised by the issue.
Pachuca's owner, Jesus Martinez, said he was shocked that the subject of multi-ownership has come up since Slim ventured into soccer.
"It's laughable because that (multi-ownership) has been going on for more than 25 years," Martinez said.
But Televisa currently owns just one team, America, and TV Azteca is reportedly thinking of selling the Jaguares to a business group that would relocate it from Chiapas state to Queretaro. A Jaguares' spokesman wouldn't comment on the report but if the purchase takes place, Slim would be the only businessman with multiple teams in the first division.
Neither Televisa, the world's largest producer of Spanish-language TV programs, nor TV Azteca immediately responded to interview requests by The Associated Press.
Decio de Maria, president of the Mexican Soccer League, said that if there is a vote against a single person or company owning several teams, Slim wouldn't be obligated to sell one of his teams but he would be prevented from buying more first division teams.
"In the next owners assembly, they will discuss whether there are differences between multi-ownership now and what has been happening in the past and if there are then we will take the necessary measures," said Slim's spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub.
So the upcoming vote on the subject seems geared to preventing Slim from buying more teams, not forcing him to shed one he already has.
Slim's foray into the world of soccer is also threatening the two TV networks in an area they hold dear: broadcast rights to games.
Slim's America Movil is a leading provider of cable and satellite television in Latin America but he has not been able to launch a network of his own in Mexico, something that could change after a recent approval of a reform that allows for more competition in the telecommunications sector.
Lacking his own station, after acquiring part of Leon, Slim began marketing the rights to broadcast its games, ending the duopoly held by Televisa and TV Azteca.
"Soccer is important for non-paid television because it is part of Mexico's most watched programming and for Televisa and TV Azteca it was an area they completely dominated," Sosa Plata said. "Slim's entry into soccer is reorganizing the field and giving a new perspective to a business that seemed stagnant."
The billionaire sold the broadcast rights for the Leon games to Telemundo in the United States, and the cable channel Fox Sports in Mexico and the rest of Latin America and to the website mediotiempo.com, which belongs to CNN/Expansion. The games are also sown on the Internet through UNO TV owned by Slim's business group.
Pachuca's broadcast rights belong to TV Azteca but that contract expires in December and Martinez has said he will negotiate with the highest bidder, which suggests that his partner Slim won't be excluded from the possibility of buying the rights.
Slim "is a very important partner in our group, he's helping soccer to grow, which is what really matters," Martinez said.
Slim is also moving into broadcasting sports outside Mexico.
In March, America Movil trumped its rivals by announcing it had acquired the broadcast rights across all media platforms for the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi 2014 and Brazil 2016 for Latin America, except Brazil.
May 17, 2013 ? Students at the University of Essex have taken their lectures to a whole new level -- 18 metres under the sea in remote Indonesia to be precise.
The ground-breaking underwater marine biology lectures were the first of their kind, adding to the teaching, educational and learning experience during dives on tropical coral reef systems.
The lectures were held during the annual field trip to the Wakatobi Marine National Park in Indonesia, organised by the University's School of Biological Sciences for its students.
The serious challenges threatening the future of the world's coral reefs are the backbone of major research being carried out by the University's internationally-recognised Coral Reef Research Unit (CRRU). Its on-going research, focused in this area of Indonesia, looks at the impact of climate change on coral reefs and how to work with nature to find a solution. More than half a billion people depend on coral reefs for food and income.
For the underwater lectures, Professor David Smith used specialised audio equipment so he could talk to students underwater, explaining exactly what they were seeing as they were seeing it. This was a world away from usual underwater communication involving basic slates to write on and hand signals.
"It was a fantastic experience as I was able to use the power of observation like never before," explained Professor Smith. "I have been on thousands of dives over the years but this was a totally new experience as I was able to explain to students exactly what they were seeing and inject more passion and feeling into the whole lecture. It was very special and transformed the whole experience both for me and our students."
Using a University of Essex special teaching grant, Professor Smith was able to buy an audio system which, to date, has never been used for formal lecturing and is only used by TV presenters and some professional divers. Professor Smith wore a full face mask which included a microphone and the students wore headsets so they could hear him talk. A hydrophone -- an underwater microphone ? was then positioned in the water which was linked to a control box and recorder on a boat.
With over 1,000 videos taken during the underwater lectures, adding up to 15 hours of footage, these will prove to be a valuable virtual field course resource for students who are not able to travel to Indonesia but can still get an insight into the experience whilst also providing a great "listen again" opportunity for participating students.
Second-year marine and freshwater biology student Tilly James said: "The underwater lectures were an invaluable part of the course as they enabled us to get a much better understanding of how all the components of the reef system were interacting with each other.
"It was an experience you simply cannot get with traditional lectures. Professor Smith was able to ask us questions throughout the dives, encouraging us as students to apply our theoretical knowledge in a much more practical setting."
May 15 (Reuters) - Post positions for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico on Saturday (Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds) 1. Orb, Joel Rosario, Shug McGaughey, even 2. Goldencents, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill, 8-1 3. Titletown Five, Julien Leparoux, D. Wayne Lukas, 30-1 4. Departing, Brian Hernandez, Al Stall, 6-1 5. Mylute, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss, 5-1 6. Oxbow, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas, 15-1 7. Will Take Charge, Mike Smith, D. Wayne Lukas, 12-1 8. Govenor Charlie, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 12-1 9. ...
May 15 (Reuters) - Post positions for the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes, to be run at Pimlico on Saturday (Post Position, Horse, Jockey, Trainer, Odds) 1. Orb, Joel Rosario, Shug McGaughey, even 2. Goldencents, Kevin Krigger, Doug O'Neill, 8-1 3. Titletown Five, Julien Leparoux, D. Wayne Lukas, 30-1 4. Departing, Brian Hernandez, Al Stall, 6-1 5. Mylute, Rosie Napravnik, Tom Amoss, 5-1 6. Oxbow, Gary Stevens, D. Wayne Lukas, 15-1 7. Will Take Charge, Mike Smith, D. Wayne Lukas, 12-1 8. Govenor Charlie, Martin Garcia, Bob Baffert, 12-1 9. ...
At the Google I/O after party the other night, there was one bartender in particular that stood out. It wasn't the drink he made, or the friendly chatter. It was more than he weighed several tons and could break you with the flick of the wrist. Meet the Makr Shakr.
It's Friday afternoon, you've made it through the long week, and it's time for Happy Hour, Gizmodo's weekly booze column. A cocktail shaker full of innovation, science, and alcohol. Do Androids dream of the perfect Manhattan?
Makr Shakr was designed MIT Senseable City Lab and produced and implemented by Carlo Ratti Associati in Italy, where it was built. Incredibly, this massive project went from concept to full implementation in roughly three months. The full rig weighs between five and six metric tons and made the voyage across the sea in a rather densely packed shipping container. It is simply the most advanced robot bartender we've ever seen.
Users download an app (at I/O they had a tablet with a scaled-back version of the app pre-loaded) and log in. From there, they can either take a drink template that already exists, or they can start from scratch. Makr Shakr partnered with Bacardi and Coca-cola, so there are roughly two dozen spirits and liqueurs, and over a hundred non-alcoholic mixers to choose from. You pick your ingredients and the quantity of each that you want in it. You an also add solid ingredients such as a salt and pepper mix, granulated sugar, lemon slices, or even mint leaves. Your total drink will be 200ml (roughly 6.8 fluid ounces), when all is said and done.
Then you choose how the drink should be prepared, name the drink, and submit it. Then the magic starts.
How It Works
Once you submit your drink order, that information is sent to a web server, which sends it back down to a local server on the Makr Shakr. That information is then split into two parts. One is the visualization system, which, along with the app, was made with partners from Pentegram and super ?ber. On the large screen behind the robotic arms you can see exactly what's going into your drink when and what's being done to it. You can also see how many people are ahead of you and what the wait will be like. The other half of the data goes into the robotics systems.
The first thing that catches your eye are the three robotic arms. These are Kuka KR 16 robots, a pretty iconic symbol of the industrial revolution. You typically see these puppies in paint factories. They can lift 16 kilograms, they are unnervingly quick and incredibly precise (accuracy down to 1/10th of a millimeter). The two robots on the outside have cocktail shakers for hands (with lids that can close), while the one in the middle has a hand that holds and delivers the cups.
Behind the arms are a large network of taps, each of which are automated. Each spirit is housed in its own nitrogen-pressurized tank. Once the shaker is placed under the tab, an actuator opens the valve, and a pre-determined amount is dispensed. The Coca-Cola products are distributed in basically the same way. Ice, and other dry ingredients all drop in as they should. Behind the screen are two blades which hold and cut lemons into uniformly thick slices, and then drop it into your drink. It's incredibly sophisticated. There is also an immersion blender and muddler, for making drinks like pi?a coladas or mojitos.
Once all of the ingredients are in, the robot closes the lid on the shaker and either shakes it vigorously (and with a pretty good approximation of a human arm movement), or swirls it gently to give it a stirred effect. They then pour the drink into the cup the middle robot is holding. That robot adds garnish as necessary, and then places the finished drink onto one of five conveyor belts, which delivers the drink to the awaiting imbiber. The shaker is then rinsed off with a blast of water, and the process begins again.
There are some interesting things the software could do, too. "We want to make sure people use the Makr Shakr to drink responsibly," says Alessandro Incisa, Project Manager from Carlo Ratti Associati, who managed implementation. "It keeps track of the alcohol by volume of each drink it serves you. It could limited the number of alcoholic drinks each person has in a night." But because it's keeping track of percentages, it would be a dynamic number. For example you might be allowed 5 drinks that were 12 percent ABV over a given period of time, but only two drinks that were 40 percent. If people punched in some vital statistics, the Makr Shakr could even estimate your blood-alcohol content (BAC).
At Google there was a limited subset of features, just because I/O was such a huge event and they wanted everyone to get a taste. In its full implementation you can filter by elements of the drink. This not only helps you discover a drink you might like, but it gives you a genealogy of that drink's creation. So say, you're looking for a drink with whiskey, and you discover my drink. You can see not only how mine was made, but you can see the previous interations of it and read my notes, ?I liked it, but I think I made it a little too sweet.? You can adjust it to further refine it. When you do, I'll get a notifications that the drink I've been working on has had another iteration. Maybe I want to try it. I go to the back and further refine it. Even if we never actually meet at the bar, and we don't know each others' names, we've created something together. It's about a participatory, decomrotized design.
Why It Matters
The Makr Shakr is not, as one might suspect, trying to replace bartenders. The drinks I sampled were, in general, decent. Or as decent as the person that created them envisioned them. But bartending is more art than science, and crafting flavors is still best done with a human touch. The MIT guys know that, and they don't want to change that. They aren't trying to make a better drink. Instead, the Makr Shakr is meant as an example?a microcosm, really?of some of the principals of the Third Industrial Revolution.
Industrial technology has progressed to incredible places, obviously, but according to Yaniv Jacob Turgeman, the project leader from the MIT side, we've been somewhat alienated from it. With Makr Shakr, they are using these incredible robotics?symbols of the industrial revolution, but they are made accessible. "Part of the idea is that anyone can control this powerful technology with something in their pocket," said Turgeman.
Carlo Ratti, the father of Makr Shakr who runs the MIT Senseability Lab, agreed. This is intended to be an example of the new way things are designed, made, and then enjoyed. They chose drinks because within just a few minutes, people can go through the whole cycle. It's a fast and clean example, but of course that's just a small example. "
?It could be designing a sandwich," said Ratti in our phone interview. "Or it could be designing a city or desiging a building." He thinks that's a day we will see in our lifetimes. Something like a public square would be especially ripe for this philosophy, since so many people use it, it would make sense that more people could design together. That's exemplified in the Makr Shakr, too. Part of it is about social creation and consumption.
It means more to us when we participate in the creative process. It makes our drink (or house, or public square) not just more personalized to our tastes, but it there's a sense that it belongs to us, because it's something that we created. When you apply thies philosophies to production, suddenly it's a world that becomes human again, because we can see ourselves in it.
Or maybe they'll just enslave us all using alcoholism.
Huge thanks to Carlo Ratti, Alessandro Incisa, and Yaniv Jacob Turgeman for their time.
Makr Shakr: Project concept and design by MIT Senseable City Lab; Implementation by carlorattiassociati | walter nicolino & carlo ratti; Main partners - Coca-Cola and Barcardi. Technical partners - Kuka, Pentagram, SuperUber; Media partners - Domus, Wired; Top video by Brent Rose/Michael Hession; YouTube by MyBossWas; Event in collaboration with Meet the Media Guru, and endorsed by: Comune di Milano, World Expo Milano 2015 ? Energy for Life. Feeding the Planet. Full credits available at www.makrshakr.com
A man stands on a skateboard outside a Wal-Mart store in Williston, N.D., March 13, 2013.
Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
No company likes to admit problems, but yesterday?s quarterly earnings report from Wal-Mart featured a remarkable amount of excuse-making, even by corporate standards. The company surprised analysts by reporting a 1.4 percent quarterly decline in comparable-store sales across the United States. In other words, Wal-Mart?s American stores sold less stuff this past quarter than the quarter before. Wal-Mart blamed this drop on essentially everything under the sun except people not wanting to shop at their stores: ?A delay in income tax refund checks, challenging weather conditions, less grocery inflation than expected, and the payroll tax increase? were all said to have created ?considerable headwinds? for America?s No. 1 retailer. And perhaps they did, but companies all across the land dealt with the same issues and most of them did better than Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is such a mainstay of the American economy that the company stumbling as consumers go elsewhere is almost impossible to imagine. Whole books have been written about how the company?s success reflects underlying structural flaws in neoclassical economic theory, and how it?s transforming the entire American economy. In this paradigm, Wal-Mart cannot fail. It can only be crushed by concerted political action or praised as a beneficent bringer of low prices.
That?s why when Wal-Mart reported ?a total disaster? in weekly sales back in February it sparked a minor media panic.
The store, conceiving of itself as a force of nature, pointed the finger at the expiration of the payroll tax holiday. And the press, doing the same, took the claim much more seriously than it would similar blame-evasion from almost any other firm. If Wal-Mart was sinking, surely the whole economy was drowning.
Except when February retail sales numbers came out, they were fine. There was a dip in March and then a renewed increase in April. Overall GDP grew at an unspectacular but totally fine 2.5 percent inflation-adjusted rate in the first quarter. Overall personal consumption expenditures grew even faster than that, at a 3.2 percent rate.
In other words, it?s not as if the overall American economy went into some kind of tailspin. In fact, another corporate earnings story offers a telling counterpoint to Wal-Mart?s tale of woe. Whole Foods announced 8.5 percent identical-store sales growth the past quarter, paired with 13.6 percent overall growth, and most astoundingly of all an increase in gross profit margins. Whole Foods had warned investors to expect at least a modest decline in margins as the company deliberately sought to stock some cheaper items to appeal to more value-oriented customers. But the strategy worked better than the company dared to predict and higher traffic to the store led to an increase in margins.
Whole Foods has a different customer profile than Wal-Mart, of course. But there?s just as much weather in Whole Foods? parking lots. Its customers pay taxes, too. And it?s not just that they didn?t scale back their purchases, there appear to be more of them than ever before. By the same token, restaurant sales have been surging ever since the broader economy bottomed out in 2010.
The real story is that Americans simply don?t seem to like Wal-Mart?s grocery options as much as they used to. Wal-Mart dominates the low end, but middle and higher income consumers are buying food at restaurants and higher-end retailers.
But of course Wal-Mart is much more than a grocery store. And the good news about its non-grocery business is that e-commerce sales rose a dramatic 30 percent year-over-year. On the other hand, Amazon?s sales rose 22 percent from a much larger base. In dollar terms, in other words, the gap is likely growing rather than shrinking. And the risk is that like Borders, Circuit City, and J.C. Penney before it, Wal-Mart will experience a decline of its brick-and-mortar business that?s faster than the rise of its Internet sales. Wal-Mart is known first and foremost for its low prices and great bargains, but it?s hard to operate as a low-cost entrant into a market where the established incumbent has no profit margins. Wall Street is willing to let Amazon lose money in pursuit of growth, while Wal-Mart?s shares plummeted on falling sales even in the context of continued profits.
If anything, Wal-Mart?s best hope might be for the economic climate to get worse. It sounds bad to blame prosperity for your problems, but it looks more plausible that Wal-Mart?s grocery business has been hurt more by the recovery than by the payroll tax hike. More prosperous consumers benefiting from lower commodity prices are voting with their feet for more upscale options. A return to a bleaker economic outlook is exactly what Wal-Mart needs to get people back in stores while it solves the tough problem of competing with Amazon online.
Explore further: Review: Backing up may be hard to do, but I'm giving it another try 
A man stands on a skateboard outside a Wal-Mart store in Williston, N.D., March 13, 2013.