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Feast for the senses: Cook up a master dish
Label: WorldVivian Balakrishnan attends state funeral of former Gerakan president
Label: Technology
SINGAPORE : Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday to attend the state funeral of former Gerakan president, Lim Keng Yaik.
Dr Balakrishnan conveyed condolences on behalf of the Singapore Government.
He was accompanied by Singapore's High Commissioner in Kuala Lumpur Ong Keng Yong.
Dr Lim, who served as Malaysia's Energy, Water and Communications Minister from 2004 until 2008, died on Saturday.
He was 73.
- CNA/ms
Amazon: The five biggest stories of 2012
Label: Lifestyle
8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD
(Credit:
Amazon)
Amazon spent another year invading everyone's territory and pushing the limits of its business strategy.
The e-commerce company continued to dabble in book publishing and Web site hosting and tried its hand at video-gaming development. Anything slightly related to its business -- Amazon jumped on it.
That's not surprising given Amazon's history with identifying and mimicking both services and products to strengthen its bottom line. Here are the five biggest Amazon stories of 2012:
1. Go big on hardware or go home
Amazon beefed up its hardware selection this year, releasing three new devices to add to its previous line of e-book readers and its tablet. The new devices, the
Kindle Paperwhite, the
Kindle Fire HD, and the updated
Kindle Fire, are part of the company's strategy to make money off content. Amazon actually loses money on the sale of the devices, but that doesn't matter to the retail giant. It wants people to buy into its ecosystem of apps, books, movies, and music. The Kindle Fire HD, which comes in both 7- and 8.9-inch models with modest prices, also happens to compete with Apple's iPad for tablet dollars.
2. A push for original content
The company backed the creation of more original content this year, invading the space of various forms of media. In addition to helping authors self-publish their writing and produce movies, the company bought a book publishing company and opened up its own social gaming studio to develop and publish titles. The studio, Amazon Game Studios, launched in August with a desktop game and quickly followed suit with a mobile game.
Amazon does it because it can. If its already-loyal customers -- and there are many of them -- buy into its all-in-one digital spread, Amazon can control how and what they consume.
3. More sales tax drama
Ah, the ongoing sales tax battle. This dates back years -- and continued to be an issue for Amazon in 2012. As part of Amazon's quest for faster, cheaper shipping, the company started building fulfillment centers in additional states, forcing sellers to start collecting sales tax in several states this year, including California, Texas, and Pennsylvania. These centers store and ship the goods that independent retailers sell to consumers -- the more fulfillment centers, the faster Amazon can ship. Customers in more states, like Massachusetts and New Jersey, will start paying taxes in 2013.
The ability to ship quickly to customers is clearly important to Amazon. The company also shelled out $775 million to buy a company that runs logistics for fulfillment systems.
4. Continually shaking up traditional book selling
This goes to the core of Amazon's "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" motto from the 1990s. Amazon certainly disrupted the book selling industry when it first came on the scene. And it continued to enter skirmishes with book publishers and competing book brokers in 2012. Tensions between Amazon and Barnes & Nobles, the world's biggest brick-and-mortar bookseller, have always been high. But this year the companies used tablets to fight their battles. Amazon also found itself at odds with Apple. The iPad maker accused Amazon of being the "driving force" behind federal prosecution that ended in several publishers settling with the government. Prosecutors accused the publishers of colluding with Apple to fix the price of e-books in an alleged affront to Amazon.
In an attempt to soothe its disgruntled competitors, Amazon's publishing arm signed a deal that allowed competitors to sell Amazon's titles.
5. Battles with Netflix
Amazon bulked up its video streaming offerings throughout the year, signing deals with studios and TV service Epix in order to get enough films to compete with Netflix. On top of bundling its video streaming service with its premium shipping account, Amazon also began offering its $7.99-per-month streaming plan this year, directly challenging Netflix's $7.99 plan.
All of this has left some bad blood between the companies, with Netflix CEO Redd Hastings publicly dumping on Amazon.
Adding fuel to that fire, the year ended on a downbeat for both companies. On Christmas Eve, Netflix's video streaming service suffered a widespread, hours-long outage across the Americas. The culprit was Amazon Web Services, which Netflix uses for video streaming.
Photos: Humboldt Squid Have a Bad Day at the Beach
Label: HealthPhotograph by Chris Elmenhurst, Surf the Spot Photography
“Strandings have been taking place with increased frequency along the west coast over the past ten years,” noted NOAA’s Field, “as this population of squid seems to be expanding its range—likely a consequence of climate change—and can be very abundant at times.” (Learn about other jumbo squid strandings.)
Humboldt squid are typically found in warmer waters farther south in theGulf of California (map) and off the coast ofPeru. “[But] we find them up north here during warmer water time periods,” said ocean sciences researcherKenneth Bruland with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
Coastal upwelling—when winds blowing south drive ocean circulation to bring cold, nutrient-rich waters up from the deep—ceases during the fall and winter and warmer water is found closer to shore. Bruland noted that climate change, and the resulting areas of low oxygen, “could be a major factor” in drawing jumbo squid north.
Published December 24, 2012
Storms Spawn 34 Tornado Reports Across South
Label: Business
Severe Christmas day weather tore across the deep South, spinning off 34 possible tornadoes and killing at least three people in its path, while extreme weather is forecast throughout today for parts of the East Coast.
The storm first pounded Texas, then touched down in Louisiana and blasted through homes in Mississippi. In Mobile, Ala., a wide funnel cloud was barreled across the city as lightning flashed inside like giant Christmas ornaments.
Bill Bunting with the National Weather Service's Severe Storms Prediction Center said that the damage may not yet be done.
"Conditions don't look quite as volatile over a large area as we saw on Christmas day but there will be a risk of tornadoes, some of them could be rather strong, across eastern portions of North Carolina and the northeastern part of South Carolina," he said.
Across the Gulf region, from Texas to Florida, over 280,000 customers are still without power, with 100,000 without power in Little Rock, Ark. alone.
The punishing winds mangled Mobile's graceful ante-bellum homes, and today, dazed residents are picking through debris while rescue crews search for people trapped in the rubble.
"We've got a lot of damage, we've got people hurt," one Mobile resident told ABC News. "We've had homes that are 90 percent destroyed."
Melinda Martinez/The Daily Town Talk/AP Photo
Winter Weather Causes Holiday Travel Problems Watch Video
In the Houston area a tree fell onto a pickup truck, killing the driver, ABC affiliate WTRK reported. In Louisiana, a 53-year-old man died when a tree fell on his house, and a 28-year-old woman was killed in a crash on a snowy highway near Fairview, Okla., according to the Associated Press.
At least eight states issued blizzard warnings Tuesday, as the storms made highways dangerously slick heading into one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Tuesday's extreme weather caused an 8-foot deep sinkhole in Vicksburg, Miss. Alma Jackson told ABC News that a concrete tank that was in her backyard fell into the sinkhole.
"It's really very disturbing," she said. "Because it's on Christmas day, and then to see this big hole in the ground and not have any explanation, and not be able to cover it. And the rain is pouring down."
Teresa Mason told ABC News that she and her boyfriend panicked when they saw the tornado heading toward them in Stone County, in southern Mississippi, but she says they were actually saved when a tree fell onto the truck.
"[We] got in the truck and made it out there to the road. And that's when the tornado was over us. And it started jerking us and spinning us, "she said."This tree got us in the truck and kept us from being sucked up into the tornado."
The last time a number of tornadoes hit the Gulf Coast area around Christmas Day was in 2009, when 22 tornadoes struck on Christmas Eve morning, National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro told ABC News in an email.
The deadliest Christmastime tornado outbreak on record was Dec. 24 to 26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.
The last killer tornado around Christmas, Vaccaro said, was a Christmas Eve EF4 in Tennessee in 1988, which killed one person and injured seven. EF4 tornadoes can produce winds up to 200 mph.
ABC News' Matt Gutman, Max Golembo and ABC News Radio contributed to this report.
New Scientist 2012 holiday quiz
Label: WorldContinue reading page
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THIS was the year we held our breath in almost unbearable anticipation while we waited to see whether physicists at the Large Hadron Collider would finally get a clear view of the Higgs boson, so tantalisingly hinted at last December. Going a bit blue, we held on through March when one of the LHC's detectors seemed to lose sight of the thing, before exhaling in a puff of almost-resolution in July, when researchers announced that the data added up to a fairly confident pretty-much-actual-discovery of the particle.
Early indications were that it might be a weird and wonderful variety of the Higgs, prompting a collective gasp of excitement. That was followed by a synchronised sigh of mild disappointment when later data implied that it was probably the most boring possible version after all, and not a strange entity pointing the way to new dimensions and the true nature of dark matter. Prepare yourself for another puff or two as the big story moves on next year.
This respirational rollercoaster might be running a bit too slowly to supply enough oxygen to the brain of a New Scientist reader, so we have taken care to provide more frequent oohs and aahs using less momentous revelations. See how many of the following unfundamental discoveries you can distinguish from the truth-free mimics that crowd parasitically around them.
1. Which of these anatomical incongruities of the animal kingdom did we describe on 14 July?
- a) A fish, found in a canal in Vietnam, that wears its genitals under its mouth
- b) A frog, found in a puddle in Peru, that has no spleen
- c) A lizard, found in a cave in Indonesia, that has four left feet
- d) A cat, found in a tree in northern England, that has eight extra teeth
2. "A sprout by any other name would taste as foul." So wrote William Shakespeare in his diary on 25 December 1598, setting off the centuries of slightly unjust ridicule experienced by this routinely over-cooked vegetable. But which forbiddingly named veg did we report on 7 July as having more health-giving power than the sprout, its active ingredient being trialled as a treatment for prostate cancer?
- a) Poison celery
- b) Murder beans
- c) Inconvenience potatoes
- d) Death carrots
3. Scientists often like to say they are opening a new window on things. Usually that is a metaphor, but on 10 November we reported on a more literal innovation in the fenestral realm. It was:
- a) A perspex peephole set in the nest of the fearsome Japanese giant hornet, to reveal its domestic habits
- b) A glass porthole implanted in the abdomen of a mouse, to reveal the process of tumour metastasis
- c) A crystal portal in the inner vessel of an experimental thorium reactor, to reveal its nuclear fires to the naked eye
- d) A small window high on the wall of a basement office in the Princeton physics department, to reveal a small patch of sky to postgraduate students who have not been outside for seven years
4. On 10 March we described a new material for violin strings, said to produce a brilliant and complex sound richer than that of catgut. What makes up these super strings?
- a) Mousegut
- b) Spider silk
- c) Braided carbon nanotubes
- d) An alloy of yttrium and ytterbium
5. While the peril of climate change looms inexorably larger, in this festive-for-some season we might take a minute to look on the bright side. On 17 March we reported on one benefit of global warming, which might make life better for some people for a while. It was:
- a) Receding Arctic sea ice will make it easier to lay undersea cables to boost internet speeds
- b) Increasing temperatures mean that Greenlanders can soon start making their own wine
- c) Rising sea levels could allow a string of new beach resorts to open in the impoverished country of Chad
- d) More acidic seawater will add a pleasant tang to the salt water taffy sweets made in Atlantic City
6. In Alaska's Glacier Bay national park, the brown bear in the photo (above, right) is doing something never before witnessed among bearkind, as we revealed on 10 March. Is it:
- a) Making a phonecall?
- b) Gnawing at a piece of whalebone to dislodge a rotten tooth?
- c) Scratching itself with a barnacle-covered stone tool?
- d) Cracking oysters on its jaw?
7. Men have much in common with fruit flies, as we revealed on 24 March. When the sexual advances of a male fruit fly are rejected, he may respond by:
- a) Whining
- b) Hitting the booze
- c) Jumping off a tall building
- d) Hovering around the choosy female long after all hope is lost
8. While great Higgsian things were happening at the LHC, scientists puzzled over a newly urgent question: what should we call the boson? Peter Higgs wasn't the only physicist to predict its existence, and some have suggested that the particle's name should also include those other theorists or perhaps reflect some other aspect of the particle. Which of the following is a real suggestion that we reported on 24 March?
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More parents sending children for ECA during school holidays
Label: Technology
SINGAPORE: More parents are sending their children for extra-curricular activities during the school holidays.
Parents say this allows the kids to spend time in a fun and meaningful way.
Singing along to a "pizza song", these children pick up pizza-making skills from a restaurant chef.
The lyrics have been modified to help them remember the steps.
Some parents also joined in the sessions to bond with their children.
The chef says enrolment goes up by some 30 per cent during the school holidays.
And this year, he conducted five more classes to cater to the demand.
Those who prefer more active options enlisted into sports camps.
One training camp by the Singapore Table Tennis Association teaches children the basics of the game.
Through special exercises, the children - aged between seven and 10 - build up their stamina and increase their flexibility.
There are 20 to 30 children in each session.
- CNA/de
LG's 2013 home theater line doubles down on sound bars, Bluetooth speakers
Label: Lifestyle
CES 2013 is still weeks away, but LG is getting a jump on the show by announcing its full line of home theater products on Christmas Day.
Its home audio offerings are anchored by four new sound bar models, with all but the entry-level NB2030A featuring built-in Bluetooth and a wireless subwoofer. The top two models come in a new, larger size, designed to match 47-inch TVs, which reflects the rising popularity of larger screen HDTVs.
The strangest model may be the NB3730A, which includes built-in Wi-Fi and a basic streaming-media suite including including Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Vudu, and Pandora. Paying extra for streaming-media in a sound bar seems like a hard sell -- especially with the superior Roku LT available for just $50 -- so I'd be surprised if many people opted for the NB3730A over less expensive models. Full breakdown of sound bar features below:
Click to enlarge.
(Credit:
LG)
options, and these models don't offer anything that changes my mind.
For Blu-ray, LG is slimming its line down to just three models: BP330, BP530 and BP730. At first glance, the entry-level BP330 looks most attractive, with built-in Wi-Fi and the same stripped-down collection of streaming services included on the NB3730A sound bar.
The most interesting step-up feature on the BP530 and BDP730 is "private sound mode", which lets you listen to the audio of your Blu-ray player via an app on your smartphone -- essentially a DIY wireless headphones solution. That's probably not enough incentive to pay extra over the BP330, but it's a feature that's likely to appeal to more buyers than 3D, 4K upscaling, or a Web browser. A full breakdown of the features is below:
Click to enlarge.
(Credit:
LG)
Like seemingly every manufacturer, LG is also expanding its selection of Bluetooth/AirPlay and docking speakers. There's not much to differentiate these kinds of speakers without listening to them, although the NP6630 and ND8630 interestingly include AirPlay, Bluetooth, DLNA, and NFC, with the latter also including a dual-dock that can accommodate iPhones, iPads, and some
Android devices.
While none of these products screams "break-out hit", there look to be many solid, workaday products in the new line for buyers looking to pickup a Blu-ray player, Bluetooth speaker, or sound bar, although we'll have a better idea after LG announces pricing.
Photos: Humboldt Squid Have a Bad Day at the Beach
Label: HealthPhotograph by Chris Elmenhurst, Surf the Spot Photography
“Strandings have been taking place with increased frequency along the west coast over the past ten years,” noted NOAA’s Field, “as this population of squid seems to be expanding its range—likely a consequence of climate change—and can be very abundant at times.” (Learn about other jumbo squid strandings.)
Humboldt squid are typically found in warmer waters farther south in theGulf of California (map) and off the coast ofPeru. “[But] we find them up north here during warmer water time periods,” said ocean sciences researcherKenneth Bruland with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
Coastal upwelling—when winds blowing south drive ocean circulation to bring cold, nutrient-rich waters up from the deep—ceases during the fall and winter and warmer water is found closer to shore. Bruland noted that climate change, and the resulting areas of low oxygen, “could be a major factor” in drawing jumbo squid north.
Published December 24, 2012
Newtown Christmas: 'We Know They'll Feel Loved'
Label: Business
As residents prepared to observe Christmas less than two weeks after a gunman killed 20 children and six educators at an elementary school, people sharing in the town's mourning brought offerings of cards, handmade snowflakes and sympathy.
Tiny empty Christmas stockings with the victims' names on them hung from trees in the neighborhood where the children were shot. On Christmas Eve, residents said they would light luminaries outside their homes in memory of the victims.
"We know that they'll feel loved. They'll feel that somebody actually cares," said Treyvon Smalls, a 15-year-old from a few towns away who arrived at town hall with hundreds of cards and paper snowflakes collected from around the state.
At the Trinity Episcopal Church, less than 2 miles from the school, an overflow crowd of several hundred people attended Christmas Eve services. They were greeted by the sounds of a children's choir echoing throughout a sanctuary hall that had its walls decorated with green wreaths adorned with red bows.
The church program said flowers were donated in honor of Sandy Hook shooting victims, identified by name or as the "school angels" and "Sandy Hook families."
Julio Cortez, File/AP Photo
U.S. Sends Christmas Wishes to Newtown, Conn. Watch Video
Season of Giving: Newtown Tragedy Inspires Country to Spread Kindness Watch Video
Gun Violence Victims, Survivors Share Thoughts After Newtown Massacre Watch Video
The service, which generally took on a celebratory tone, made only a few vague references to the shooting. Pastor Kathie Adams-Shepherd led the congregation in praying "that the joy and consolation of the wonderful counselor might enliven all who are touched by illness, danger, or grief, especially all those families affected by the shootings in Sandy Hook."
Police say the gunman, Adam Lanza, killed his mother in her bed before his Dec. 14 rampage and committed suicide as he heard officers arriving. Authorities have yet to give a theory about his motive.
While the grief is still fresh, some residents are urging political activism in the wake of the tragedy. A grassroots group called Newtown United has been meeting at the library to talk about issues ranging from gun control, to increasing mental health services to the types of memorials that could be erected for the victims. Some clergy members have said they also intend to push for change.
"We seek not to be the town of tragedy," said Rabbi Shaul Praver of Congregation Adath Israel. "But, we seek to be the town where all the great changes started."
Since the shooting, messages similar to the ones delivered Monday have arrived from around the world. People have donated toys, books, money and more. A United Way fund, one of many, has collected $3 million. People have given nearly $500,000 to a memorial scholarship fund at the University of Connecticut. On Christmas Day, police from other towns have agreed to work so Newtown officers can have the time off.
At Washington's National Cathedral, the 20 children who were killed also were remembered. Angels made of paper doilies were used to adorn the altar in the children's chapel. They'll be displayed there through Jan. 6.
In the center of Newtown's Sandy Hook section Monday, a steady stream of residents and out-of-towners snapped pictures, lit candles and dropped off children's gifts at an expansive memorial filled with stuffed animals, poems, flowers, posters and cards.
"All the families who lost those little kids, Christmas will never be the same," said Philippe Poncet, a Newtown resident originally from France. "Everybody across the world is trying to share the tragedy with our community here."
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