BBC must reform or face uncertain future, says chairman

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's BBC must undergo a radical overhaul in the wake of "shoddy" journalism which led to the resignation of its chief or its future will be in doubt, the head of the state-funded broadcaster's governing body said on Sunday.

Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said opponents of the BBC, especially Rupert Murdoch's media empire, would take advantage of the turmoil to up the pressure on its long-term rival.

"If you're saying, does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul, then absolutely it does and that is what we will have to do," Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC TV.

BBC Director General George Entwistle resigned late on Saturday just two months into the job, after the corporation's flagship news programme aired mistaken allegations of child sex abuse against a former leading politician.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter had been a paedophile, Entwistle quit saying the unacceptable standards of the Newsnight report had damaged the public's confidence in the 90-year-old BBC.

"As the director general of the BBC, I am ultimately responsible for all content as the editor-in-chief, and I have therefore decided that the honourable thing for me to do is to step down," he said.

Patten joined critics who said a complex hierarchical management structure at the BBC was partly to blame. One of the BBC's most prominent journalists Jeremy Paxman, a Newsnight presenter, said in recent years, management had become bloated while cash was cut from programme budgets.

"He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents," Paxman said in a statement.

Patten, in charge of finding a successor to sort out the turmoil at an institution affectionately known as "Auntie", said changes needed to be made after describing the Newsnight journalism as "shoddy".

CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY

"One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn't all that funny, when I came to the BBC ... was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese communist party," Patten said.

Entwistle only succeeded Mark Thompson, set to take over as chief executive of the New York Times Co, in September and almost immediately faced one of the biggest crises in the history of the BBC, funded by a licence fee paid by TV viewers.

This was the revelation by rival broadcaster ITV that the late Jimmy Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, had sexually abused young girls, some on BBC premises.

Suggestions then surfaced of a paedophile ring inside the BBC at the time, and a cover-up. Police have launched an inquiry and detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Entwistle was condemned for the BBC's slow response to the Savile furore and then lambasted after it emerged that Newsnight had axed a planned expose into Savile shortly after his death and that the broadcaster had gone ahead with tributes instead.

His appearance before a parliamentary committee provoked mockery, with one lawmaker saying he had shown a "lamentable lack of knowledge" of what was going on at his own organisation.

Thompson has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

The knives were out for Entwistle on Friday after the BBC apologised for the mistaken allegation that an ex-politician, later identified on the Internet as a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, had abused children, and had not asked him for a comment before broadcast.

The last straw came when Entwistle was forced to admit on BBC radio that he had not been told about the Newsnight report before it aired nor known - or asked - who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

FIASCO

Asked if the Newsnight fiasco was just an embarrassing episode or something more fundamental, Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May said: "I think it's between the two.

"There is an issue about the quality of journalism which is what the BBC has been renowned for over the years, so that strikes at the heart of the BBC."

While respected around the world, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue the licence fee gives it an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch's Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle's departure with the headline "Bye Bye Chump" and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under painful, intense scrutiny.

"You've only got to watch television in America or France or Italy to know how good the BBC is. The basis for the licence fee, the basis for the BBC's position in this country, is the trust that people have in it," he said

"If the BBC loses that, it's over. There are one or two newspapers, Mr Murdoch's papers, who would love that but I think the great British public doesn't want to see that happen."

Murdoch himself was watching from afar. "BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile," he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Jason Webb)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bbc-chief-quits-shoddy-journalism-failures-002050657.html

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Need Some Extra Business Tools? Get Them Now!

If you?ve ever wanted to stock up on some MannaBearsTM Sampling Cards, 4Free Tearsheets, or those cool purple LIFTTM?mirrors, now?s the time during our Business Tools Final Inventory Sale that will continue until the end of BP 13, December 21, 2012.

Business tools like these are crucial when you?re meeting with customers?they can really enhance your sale. Use them to accent your presentation and then leave them behind for prospects to read about the products and programs you?ve discussed. The value they add it significant!

Just go to www.mannatech.com, sign in, then go to Business Tools and grab them now while supplies last!

Source: http://www.allaboutmannatech.com/archives/need-some-extra-business-tools-get-them-now

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Maya Angelou speaks at Auburn University - WSFA.com: News ...

AUBURN, AL (WTVM) -

One of the nation's foremost poet laureates visited Auburn University Thursday night.

The legendary Dr. Maya Angelou was the Woman's Leadership Institute's guest for the extraordinary women lecture tonight at the AU Hotel and Conference Center.

The room was packed: more than 700 tickets were given out and 300 more people showed up early to hopefully catch a glance and hear one of the most renowned and influential voices of our time.

Maya Angelou is an 84-year-old writer with many accomplishments under her belt, including being awarded the President's Medal of Freedom in 2011. Today her aim was to inspire young people to find courage in themselves through writing.

"Writing, going back to that kind of communication, it's so important," said Cary Bayless, AU Liberal Arts Ambassador. "So I am really hoping that she will get that message out to everyone and we can just light Auburn on Fire."

Angelou also pressed the whole notion of coming together as one, healing our nation and respecting other's humanity and individualism.

One other thing Dr. Angelou said was the poetry puts starch in you backbone and gives you the courage to think that you can become more than you can be.

All around, it was a truly inspirational evening.

Copyright 2012 WTVM. All rights reserved.

?

Source: http://www.wsfa.com/story/20049427/maya-angelou-speaks-at-auburn-university

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Iran report hints US drone was in Iranian airspace

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? An Iranian news agency is indicating a U.S. drone violated Iran's airspace a week ago, when the Pentagon says it was fired on.

The semiofficial FARS agency on Friday carries quotes from a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as saying that following the Pentagon claim, Iran would confront any "flying object" that entered its air space.

Gen. Masoud Jazayeri said Iranian forces would respond strongly to any ground, sea or air "invasion."

On Thursday the Pentagon said an Iranian military plane fired on, but did not hit, an unarmed U.S. drone aircraft a week ago. A Pentagon spokesman said the drone was in international airspace over the Persian Gulf.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been high over Iran's suspect nuclear program.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-report-hints-us-drone-iranian-airspace-104449380.html

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Interplanetary Internet: Small Step for Lego Robot, Giant Leap for Space Exploration

NASA and the European Space Agency have tested a prototype system that could truly give new meaning to long-distance calling. It could help enable Internet-like communications between Earth and other planets. To demonstrate very long-distance remote control, ISS Commander Sunita Williams last month conducted an experiment that used NASA's DTN protocol to drive a Lego robot located on Earth.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/256e58a1/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C765920Bhtml/story01.htm

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Cops in massage parlors: A good career move?

When was the last time you were in a massage parlor ? not to raid the place, but to actually get massage therapy?

If you?re like most cops, the answer is somewhere between ?forever? and ?never.?

Problem is, if you?re like most cops, you also have some sort of chronic soreness (lower back is most common, but shoulders, neck, and quads are frequent problems) as well as exercise-induced muscle injury. Massage is a proven remedy for many of those ailments, and some believe that it can add years to your life ? and to your career.?

Two Kinds of Work
I realize this column could quickly degenerate into a hilarious exchange of jokes and one-liners which you ? and I, for that matter ? can?t wait to blurt out, but let?s be serious for just a moment and talk about work.?

For the purposes of this discussion, we?re talking about the biomechanical work ? the physical exertion of muscle groups within and around your skeletal structure ? and how massage therapy can help alleviate something called muscle imbalance.

When it comes to your muscles, there are two kinds of work ? active work and passive work. No matter what activity you?re engaged in, you?re almost certainly doing both kinds of work, but you?re probably only consciously aware of one.?

I?m presently sitting at my computer, typing out this column. The active work is taking place in my fingers and wrists (typing), while the passive work is in my shoulders and arms (holding my hands at a certain place to reach the keyboard) as well as my lower back (holding the abovementioned shoulders in position), a whole host of leg muscles keeping me vaguely balanced in my chair.

If I wasn?t doing all that passive work, the active work couldn?t get done.

See?? Typing is a lot of work!?

This constant exertion (passive work) of muscles and muscle groups causes the abovementioned muscle imbalance. Muscle imbalance is not only unhealthy, it?s uncomfortable. ?

Cumulative Damage
Here?s the thing. The pervasive opinion among kinesiologists is that it can take your muscles up to seven times (7X!) longer to recover from ?passive? work than from ?active? work.?Worse, muscle imbalance can be cumulative.?

My fingers and wrists will feel fine by suppertime, but my shoulders and lower back will ache for hours and hours thereafter ? probably right up to the time I go to bed, and maybe even when I wake up tomorrow.?

Sound familiar?

On patrol, you hold your arm a certain way to key information into the MDT. You sit a certain way to alleviate the irritation of some piece of duty gear from sticking you in the kidney. There are dozens of other ways in which you are continually putting your muscles into prolonged, repeated, passive work, and over time you begin to do some real damage ? damage that massage therapy can help to fix.

If you?ve accumulated lots of damage passive work is doing to your system, it could take several serious sessions at a professional massage therapist?s office to get back to baseline. Many years of damage can take years of repair work.?

Muscle recovery from passive work is unbearably slow, unless you actively ? uh, work, I guess ? to help that recovery process along.?The good news is that you pretty much just have to lie there ? feeling awkward and self-conscious ? and let someone else do the actual work (yes, I can already hear your jokes and one-liners building into a critical mass of hilarity). ?

A Reluctant Advocate
Until recently, I never believed in the restorative capabilities of a professional massage. The mere presence of New Age music, scented candles, and mystic crystals in any room ? let alone one in which I?m supposed to take off my pants ? generally has me running for the door.

But the fact is, the back and shoulder pains I had come to simply accept as part of being awake are significantly diminished ? and the only new variable is the occasional application of a decent professional massage.

Professional athletes regularly receive massage treatment as part of their daily regimen, and may folks in the civilian world get a couple dozen massage treatments per year.

Why not cops?

Just be sure to choose wisely when deciding on your massage therapist... I don?t want you to get caught up in a sting operation!

Source: http://www.policeone.com/health-fitness/articles/6030561-Cops-in-massage-parlors-A-good-career-move/

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More Local Developers And Institutional Investors Are Focusing ...

In the residential market, developing and selling property at the unit level has been the key strategy for most local developers in China; only very few of them have used leasing as a long-term strategy in the past two decades. However, with home purchase restrictions firmly in place since early 2011, I have received an increasing number of requests for studies on the dynamics of the Beijing serviced apartment market, especially over the second half of 2012.

Throughout my more than a decade of work experience in real estate, I have witnessed remarkable price growth in the Beijing residential market, with capital values of high-end apartments tripling since end-2001. Rental growth has been more moderate but average rents of Beijing serviced apartments increased by 30% over the last 24 months to record a historic high of RMB 205 per sqm pm in 3Q12. As there were few new serviced apartments launched to the market after the 2008 Olympic Games, most owners have been benefiting from continuing rental increases and occupancy rates.

Strong demand for Beijing?s for high-end serviced apartments is partly due to the expanding presence of MNCs in China, evidenced by more foreign senior managers and expatriates who were sent to Beijing to oversee new project development and business cooperation with local partners over the past four years. Moreover, demand has been further bolstered by rising corporate housing needs from local companies, especially in areas where tenancies are dominated by employees of SOEs, including the East Second Ring Road and Finance Street submarkets.

The stock of Beijing serviced apartments for rental has been relatively stable in the last few years, as many developers preferred to sell their projects strata-title. More recently, however, some developers are starting to consider investing as a long-term strategy, as evidenced by two new projects being launched to the market in the third quarter this year, and another one to be completed in the first quarter of 2013. In addition to projects by more prestigious operators that target expatriates, some middle-end projects are targeting white collar workers that come to work in Beijing from other provinces, a trend which has been emerging in recent quarters.

Investors and developers are expected to expand their leasing business across the city in the next two years, especially as the government?s sale restrictions are likely to remain in place at least until 2014. As China?s economic growth is expected to pick up from next year, Beijing should attract more workers both from overseas and other provinces, which will provide solid demand for the residential leasing market. Thus, the investment prospects of single ownership serviced apartments should remain promising from a landlord?s perspective.

About the author

Meggie Qin is the Head of Research for Jones Lang LaSalle in Beijing.

Source: http://www.joneslanglasalleblog.com/APResearch/residential-research/more-local-developers-and-institutional-investors-are-focusing-their-attention-on

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iHacked.ca | Internet access here 'terrible,' conference told

?Canada?s independent Internet providers shouldn?t wait for the federal government or the CRTC to clear the way to next-generation broadband networks, a conference has been told. Instead they should start doing it themselves.

Elliot Noss, CEO of Toronto-based Internet registrar and Tucows Inc., told the Canadian ISP Summit on Monday that Canadians need access to faster networks than facilities-based incumbent carriers like Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus Corp. are providing.

So ISPs should get into the infrastructure business themselves, he said, starting with building fibre optic networks in small communities or neighbourhoods.

Usually ISPs buy Internet access wholesale from incumbent carriers, who bear the expense of building cable, copper or fibre networks. But Noss (pictured) said Canadian ISPs should follow the lead of small American providers, who are taking advantage of federal money and help from municipalities who want to more Internet competition and faster speeds.

?If you?re the first [in an area] you?ll learn how to do it,? he said. Then ISPs will be able to take that knowledge to other markets.

During the speech he also lashed out at the Canadian and U.S. governments for policies that encourage incumbent carriers to invest as little money as they can get away with in their networks, resulting in relatively slow Internet speeds compared to other countries.

?Canada has no glimmers of hope going forward,? he added, because unlike most countries we don?t have a ?grand national broadband plan.?

(The strategy has been long promised by Industry Ministers Tony Clement and Christian Paradis.)

As a result, Noss said, ?Internet access in Canada is in terrible shape.?

Things aren?t much better in the U.S., he said, but there a fledgling municipal broadband industry is shaking things up.

He noted that the city of Chattanooga, Tenn., with the help of municipal financing, offers residents service with download speeds of up to 1 Gbps.

Canadian ISPs have tried going it alone. Vianet Internet Solutions, based in Sudbury, Ont., is just finishing a fibre optic network in the town of Chapleau, some 350 km. away, after buying the local cable company.

Now it offers 30 Mbps Internet, plus TV and local phone service for $99.99 a month. ?We look for a municipal government and a local utility that wants to co-operate,? Brian McCullagh, Vianet?s director of business development said in an interview during the conference.

But two national ISPs cast doubt on the idea. Melvin Cohen, president of Distributel, which offers cable or DSL service in a number of provinces, said in an interview that building fibre networks ?is a very different kind of business? than the one he?s built.

Article source: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/internet-access-here-terrible-conference-told/146353

Tags: incumbent carriers, Vianet Internet Solutions, Internet, Elliot Noss

Source: http://ihacked.ca/internet-access-here-terrible-conference-told/

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Microsoft, Apple tablets have most profit margins

(AP) ? Microsoft and Apple are garnering the highest profit margins for their tablets, followed by Google and then Amazon, according to research firm IHS.

Microsoft Corp.'s first self-made tablet, the Surface, costs about $267 in parts and labor when excluding its optional keyboard cover. It went on sale Oct. 26 priced at $499, for a profit margin of around 46 percent. Surface comes with a 10.6-inch screen measured diagonally, and can access the Internet only through Wi-Fi. The price is for its base model with 32 gigabytes of memory.

With a similar configuration, the Surface bakes in slightly more profit for Microsoft than Apple Inc. did when it released its third-generation iPad in March.

Apple's third-generation Wi-Fi-only iPad with 32GB of memory and a 9.7-inch screen cost an estimated $333 and retailed for $599, for a 44 percent profit margin. The 16GB base model cost $316 and was priced at $499, for a profit margin of 37 percent.

A preliminary analysis of the fourth-generation iPad, which comes with a faster processor and went on sale Friday, costs about $305 in parts and labor for the 32GB Wi-Fi-only model, for a 49 percent margin, estimates IHS analyst Andrew Rassweiler. The 16GB base model costs about $295 and sells for $499, he says.

IHS' analysis excludes costs for marketing, sales or operating system-software, which Microsoft has been touting with its device. The research firm obtains the devices independently and breaks them apart to estimate the cost of the components.

The analysis suggests Microsoft is imputing a cost for its latest operating system, the slimmed-down Windows RT, which debuted last month. It also needs to price its flagship tablet high enough so that manufacturing partners like Dell and Lenovo can compete even after paying Microsoft for the operating system.

Apple is maintaining premium pricing as the market leader.

Among smaller-sized tablets, the iPad Mini that went on sale on Friday boasts a 7.9-inch screen measured diagonally and costs $198 for parts and labor. This 16GB model has a retail price tag of $329, for a profit margin of 40 percent.

The 7-inch offering from Google Inc., the Nexus 7, costs $159 for its 8GB model and sells for $199, according to IHS. That's a profit margin of 20 percent. Google makes a little more on its 16GB model, which costs about $167 to make but sells for $249, for a 33 percent margin.

Amazon.com Inc. spends about $174 to make its 7-inch Kindle Fire HD with 16GB of memory and sells it for $199, for a profit margin of 13 percent. That's better than the original Kindle Fire, a money-loser that, on launch, cost Amazon about $202 for every $199 it collected on a sale.

Google is aiming to both make a profit and broaden the reach of its Android operating system, while Amazon is looking to make up the profit gap when customers buy movies, books and magazines from its store.

"Amazon and Google want to put tablets in consumers' hands ? even if it means doing so at a minimal hardware profit," Rassweiler said in a statement.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-11-05-Tablet-Teardown/id-322a3126b2e0430da3ab02ae169807ad

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Self-imagination can enhance memory in healthy and memory-impaired individuals

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2012) ? There's no question that our ability to remember informs our sense of self. Now research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, provides new evidence that the relationship may also work the other way around: Invoking our sense of self can influence what we are able to remember.

Research has shown that self-imagination -- imagining something from a personal perspective -- can be an effective strategy for helping us to recognize something we've seen before or retrieve specific information on cue. And these beneficial effects have been demonstrated for both healthy adults and for individuals who suffer memory impairments as a result of brain injury.

These findings suggest that self-imagination is a promising strategy for memory rehabilitation. But no study has investigated the effect of self-imagination on what is perhaps the most difficult, and most relevant, type of memory: free recall.

Psychological scientists Matthew Grilli and Elizabeth Glisky of the University of Arizona decided to put self-imagination to the test. They wanted to compare self-imagination to more traditional strategies that involve sense of self in order to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms that might be at work.

The researchers recruited 15 patients with acquired brain injury who had impaired memory and 15 healthy participants with normal memory to take part in the study. Over the course of the study, the participants were asked to memorize five lists of 24 adjectives that described personality traits. As they were presented with each personality trait, the participants were instructed to employ one of five strategies: think of a word that rhymes with the trait (baseline), think of a definition for the trait (semantic elaboration), think about how the trait describes them (semantic self-referential processing), think of a time when they acted out the trait (episodic self-referential processing), or imagine acting out the trait (self-imagining).

For all participants, healthy and memory-impaired, self-imagination boosted free recall of the personality traits more than any of the other strategies did.

Comparing the more traditional self-referential strategies, Grilli and Glisky found that the participants with memory impairments were better able to remember a word if they were asked to think about how well it described them (semantic) than if they were asked to think about a time when they acted out the personality trait (episodic).

This result falls in line with previous findings that knowledge about specific events from the past is often impaired in patients with brain injury. It also lends support to the researchers' hypothesis that the benefit of self-imagination for memory-impaired patients might be related to their ability to retrieve knowledge regarding their own personality traits, identity roles, and lifetime periods.

The researchers believe that their findings could have important applications for memory rehabilitation.

"Based on the results of our laboratory research," Grilli said, "it might be possible to adapt self-imagination to help patients with memory problems remember information encountered in everyday life, such as what they read in a book or heard on the news."

Self-imagination could also help clinicians in teaching memory-impaired individuals how to use memory aides that can enhance their independence. For example, this approach could help improve their ability to remember to program and consistently use smartphones to manage everyday errands, such as taking medication, purchasing items at a grocery store, or attending social events. Self-imagination could also be used to help individuals suffering from brain injury learn complex skills in order to return to the workplace.

"An important future step will be to investigate how to most effectively apply self-imagination in a rehabilitation program to make a meaningful impact on the lives of people with memory impairment," Grilli said.

Grilli and Glisky conclude that the possible applications of their findings are quite broad since episodic memory deficits are linked with various conditions, including autism, depression, and normal aging.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Association for Psychological Science.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. M. D. Grilli, E. L. Glisky. Imagining a Better Memory: Self-Imagination in Memory-Impaired Patients. Clinical Psychological Science, 2012; DOI: 10.1177/2167702612456464

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/6HTqhEnTw1E/121107145922.htm

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