Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/307503867?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Thursday, May 23, 2013
'Voice' singer: Adam, Usher swayed opinions
TV 
3 hours ago
Trae Patton/NBC
"Voice" coaches Adam Levine, Shakira and Usher trade words over Kris Thomas' performance.
Team Shakira?s Kris Thomas was the unintentional center of attention during Monday night?s episode of "The Voice," when his coach delivered a spirited defense of his performance that left Adam Levine and Usher hiding behind their chairs.
Yet after he was dismissed from the NBC singing competition on Tuesday, Thomas wondered if Levine and Usher?s comments about his rendition of Miguel?s ?Adorn? -- that Thomas seemed to be thinking about it too much -- might have influenced America?s opinion.
?I saw (the coaches? disagreement) and I was kind of a little bit in disbelief like ?Is this really happening??? Thomas told TODAY.com. ?But I'm so glad that Shakira backed (Adam and Usher) off of me like that.
?I kind of feel like those were strategic critiques,? he continued. ?They were trying to sway people's opinions. It's a game, and they played it.?
Regardless of the end result, Thomas said that he ?wouldn?t change a thing? about his "Voice"tenure, including the performance that sent him home.
?It was a risky song choice. It's a current song that's big in R&B, but I don't know about overall, and we did completely remix it,? he explained. ?Honestly, I'm glad we did it because it stood out and it got people talking and it got people's attention. It is what it is, but I'm proud of it.?
Also leaving ?The Voice? on Tuesday was Team Usher?s Josiah Hawley, whose rendition of Coldplay?s ?Clocks? likewise met with mixed reviews.
?I did my best,? he told TODAY.com after the show. ?I feel like it was a good song (and) I feel like I did a good job.?
Once chastised by his coach for not taking the competition seriously enough, Hawley said he?s learned the value of hard work from the show. ?I'm taking away just how hard you have to work to get to the level you want to be at,? he reflected. ?That's an amazing thing to know and to realize, and Usher's a great example of that. He puts amazing people around him, then he works really hard.?
He may possibly reunite with his coach in the future, telling us, ?Afterwards, Usher's like 'Hey, man. Let's keep in touch. We're gonna work,? and I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm down for that.??
The exits of Thomas and Hawley mean that each of ?The Voice?s? newest coaches are down to just one artist on each of their teams: Shakira has only Sasha Allen, and Usher?s hopes rest with Michelle Chamuel.
?Poor Michelle,? Hawley quipped, before assuring TODAY.com, ?She?ll be just fine.?
?The Voice? continues through the upcoming holiday, with the Top 8 performance show airing on Memorial Day Monday at 8 p.m.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Thailand urged to explore edible insect market
BANGKOK (AP) ? Researchers say Thailand is showing the world how to respond to the global food crisis: by raising bugs for eating.
The United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization released a study and handbook Tuesday on what they call 'six-legged livestock' ? edible bugs and worms that can help meet global food demand that is expected to grow 60 percent by 2050. The agency says they provide a rich source of protein, vitamins and minerals.
The study was conducted in Thailand, where insects including crickets, grasshoppers and bamboo worms have long been a part of diets, especially in rural areas.
Entomologist Yupa Hanboonsong says about 200 insect species are eaten in Thailand. Cricket farming alone is already a $30 million industry there, but only a few other species have been commercially marketed.
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Footwear's (carbon) footprint: Bulk of shoes' carbon footprint comes from manufacturing processes
May 22, 2013 ? A typical pair of running shoes generates 30 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to keeping a 100-watt light bulb on for one week, according to a new MIT-led lifecycle assessment.
But what's surprising to researchers isn't the size of a shoe's carbon footprint, but where the majority of that footprint comes from.
The researchers found that more than two-thirds of a running shoe's carbon impact can come from manufacturing processes, with a smaller percentage arising from acquiring or extracting raw materials. This breakdown is expected for more complex products such as electronics, where the energy that goes into manufacturing fine, integrated circuits can outweigh the energy expended in processing raw materials. But for "less-advanced" products -- particularly those that don't require electronic components -- the opposite is often the case.
So why does a pair of sneakers, which may seem like a relatively simple product, emit so much more carbon dioxide in its manufacturing phase?
A team led by Randolph Kirchain, principal research scientist in MIT's Materials Systems Laboratory, and research scientist Elsa Olivetti broke down the various steps involved in both materials extraction and manufacturing of one pair of running shoes to identify hotspots of greenhouse-gas emissions. The group found that much of the carbon impact came from powering manufacturing plants: A significant portion of the world's shoe manufacturers are located in China, where coal is the dominant source of electricity. Coal is also typically used to generate steam or run other processes in the plant itself.
A typical pair of running shoes comprises 65 discrete parts requiring more than 360 processing steps to assemble, from sewing and cutting to injection molding, foaming and heating. Olivetti, Kirchain and their colleagues found that for these small, light components such processes are energy-intensive -- and therefore, carbon-intensive -- compared with the energy that goes into making shoe materials, such as polyester and polyurethane.
The group's results, Kirchain says, will help shoe designers identify ways to improve designs and reduce shoes' carbon footprint. He adds that the findings may also help industries assess the carbon impact of similar consumer products more efficiently.
"Understanding environmental footprint is resource intensive. The key is, you need to put your analytical effort into the areas that matter," Kirchain says. "In general, we found that if you have a product that has a relatively high number of parts and process steps, and that is relatively light [weight], then you want to make sure you don't overlook manufacturing."
Kirchain and his colleagues have published their results in the Journal of Cleaner Production.
The sum of a shoe's parts
In 2010, nearly 25 billion shoes were purchased around the world, the majority of them manufactured in China and other developing countries. As Kirchain and his co-authors write in their paper, "An industry of that scale and geographic footprint has come under great pressure regarding its social and environmental impact."
In response, companies have started to take account of their products' greenhouse-gas contributions, in part by measuring the amount of carbon dioxide associated with every process throughout a product's lifecycle. One such company, ASICS, an athletic equipment company based in Japan, approached Kirchain to perform a lifecycle assessment for a running shoe manufactured in China.
The team took a "cradle-to-grave" approach, breaking down every possible greenhouse gas-emitting step: from the point at which the shoes' raw materials are extracted to the shoes' demise, whether burned, landfilled or recycled.
The researchers divided the shoes' lifecycle into five major stages: materials, manufacturing, usage, transportation and end-of-life. These last three stages, they found, contributed very little to the product's carbon footprint. For example, running shoes, unlike electronics, require very little energy to use, aside from the energy needed to infrequently wash the shoes.
The bulk of emissions, they found, came from manufacturing. While part of the manufacturing footprint is attributable to a facility's energy source, other emissions came from processes such as foaming and injection molding of parts of a sneaker's sole, which expend large amounts of energy in the manufacture of small, lightweight parts. As Kirchain explains it, "You have a lot of effort going into the molding of the material, but you're only getting a very small part out of that process."
"What stood out was this manufacturing burden being on par with materials, which we hadn't seen in similar products," Olivetti adds. "Part of that is because it's a synthetic product. If we were looking at a leather shoe, it would be much more materials-driven because of the carbon intensity of leather production."
An improved design
In tallying the carbon emissions from every part of a running shoe's lifecycle, the researchers were also able to spot places where reductions might be made. For example, they observed that manufacturing facilities tend to throw out unused material. Instead, Kirchain and his colleagues suggest recycling these scraps, as well as combining certain parts of the shoe to eliminate cutting and welding steps. Printing certain features onto a shoe, instead of affixing them as separate fabrics, would also streamline the assembly process.
Kirchain and Olivetti view their results as a guide for companies looking to evaluate the impact of similar products.
"When people are trying for streamlined approaches to [lifecycle assessments], often they put emphasis on the materials impact, which makes a lot of sense," Olivetti says. "But we tried to identify a set of characteristics that would point you to making sure you were also looking at the manufacturing side -- when it matters."
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/TYIM0605Efg/130522123147.htm
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Watch the Xbox reveal live stream along with us
We're all in tenterhooks over here at Engadget HQ waiting for the imminent arrival of the next Xbox. As we wait for the event to start though, Microsoft has unveiled a live stream where you can see the revealing for yourself. So once you've schooled yourself on all the rumors, come back at 1pm ET to watch the embedded stream below and keep an eye on our liveblog to see if any of them are proven right.
Filed under: Microsoft
Source: Xbox Reveal
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Google Chrome app launcher making its way to the Mac
Anyone who has ever played around with Google Chrome OS will be familiar with the app launcher. Chrome runs nothing but web apps, but the app launcher provides the impression of a more regular OS, as you don't have to open a browser window to launch anything. Work has already begun on porting the app launcher to the Chrome browser for Windows, and now it seems, the Mac as well. Francois Beaufort of the Chromium team at Google has shared the news with us on his Google+ page.
So, we can try it out right now, but it's not something that any old average user can turn on. You need to download the latest Chromium build, and you need to be comfortable in using switches. Once you're past all that, you should have a functional app launcher to play around with.
It's a neat little addition to Chrome, though how useful it is will ultimately depend on how much you live inside the browser. If you decide to give this a shot though, drop into the comments and give us your thoughts.
Source: +Francois Beaufort
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/TOG8kgDed9k/story01.htm
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Jordan: Arab Spring clears way for press freedoms
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? The Arab Spring uprisings that toppled four Arab leaders have forced Mideast governments to allow more freedom of expression and of the press, Jordan's prime minister said Monday, but critics charged that Jordan itself is not doing enough.
Abdullah Ensour told a meeting of the Vienna-based International Press Institute, "The past few years have been very crucial to our region, because the Arab Spring has opened new horizons and created more demands" for wider freedoms of expression and the press.
Ensour said Jordan has "come a long way" in improving legislation governing press freedoms after many years of strict state censorship of media outlets.
"Obviously, we're not yet where we want to be, but we are determined to continue," he said.
Jordanian participants at the conference complained that the country's media law, significantly restricting press freedoms by imposing harsh penalties on violators, forces journalists to practice self-censorship.
Nidal Mansour, head of the Amman-based Center for Defending Freedom of Journalists ? IPI's hosting partner ? said that the press law updated last year was designed to muzzle press freedom.
"The Press and Publication Law has been and continues to be a sword on the necks of all journalists in Jordan," he said. The law has been amended at least seven times in 10 years.
The latest legislation requires websites dealing with vaguely defined "press materials" to register with the Department of Press and Publication, once officially called the Censorship Department, and pay a fee of $1,400 (1,000 Jordanian dinars). Websites are also required to appoint a Jordanian chief editor who would be held accountable for all online content, including comments posted by readers.
Under the law, the director of the Department of Press and Publication has the authority to block websites, including those originating from abroad, if they are deemed in violation of the law.
Since the Arab Spring uprisings, Jordan's government has appeared to ease restrictions on freedom of expression, opinion and assembly. It has allowed protests to take place without seeking prior permission from the government. However, other constraints remain, including a ban on criticizing the king in public, punishable by up to three years in jail. King Abdullah II holds final authority in most matters.
While the government approved a code of conduct several years ago with the intention of fostering a "free and independent media," journalists are still closely watched by intelligence agencies and often report harassment and threats.?Bloggers have been arrested by Jordanian authorities, and as a result, many practice self-censorship.?Last year, a private satellite TV station was closed after airing views critical of members of the royal family.
Ensour pledged more liberalization, noting that there are about 500 local news services online. He said two-thirds of the percent of the population can access the Internet, and local firms translate Web content into Arabic for the local audience.
He said Jordan ranks third in the Arab world in active users of social media networks. For example, two out of five Jordanians use Facebook, he said.
IPI's two-day annual World Congress meeting, which opened in Jordan on Monday, is discussing media freedom in the region following the Arab Spring, challenges covering the Syria civil war, reporting on religion, the role of women in the media, criminal defamation, Internet regulation and how media and governments can work together to fight corruption.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/jordan-arab-spring-clears-way-press-freedoms-165112379.html
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