Quotes from the Screen Actors Guild Awards (AP)

Quotes from the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

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"There's no need to be delicate. I grew up in the Bible Belt. I realized that even though I had never really experienced bigotry, to be silent is to be passive." ? Best supporting actress winner Octavia Spencer speaking to reporters after accepting her award for "The Help."

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"This nomination belongs to four of us. Please, please know that I'm dealing them right in with this. I'm not going to let them keep this, but I'll let them see it." ? Betty White, saying during her acceptance speech that her three "Hot in Cleveland" co-stars should share in her best actress in a comedy series award.

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"I am still playing `Words With Friends,' but on Virgin Atlantic." ? Alec Baldwin, making light backstage of his being kicked off an American Airlines flight for refusing to shut off his cellphone while he was playing the game before takeoff.

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"I'm still scared to speak out. I want us to come back very badly next year for another season. When you do speak out, it does cost you." Baldwin, speaking to reporters after winning the best comedy actor award for his role on "30 Rock."

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"I was a very bad student. I didn't listen in class. I was always dreaming. My teachers called me "Jean of the Moon" and I realize now that I never stopped dreaming. Thank you very much. Thank you for this dream." ? Best actor winner Jean Dujardin, accepting his award for his role in "The Artist."

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"Not only did this cast do it, but several of the other movies did the same thing. I am hoping that the industry begins to recognize us as the artists that we are rather than the females that we are." ? "The Help" actress Cicely Tyson on her hope that Hollywood executives realize female-driven films can be successful.

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"A few more people checked my name in the box for whatever reason. This time I kind of fooled them." ? Best actress winner Viola Davis speaking to reporters after her win for "The Help."

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"I just can't tell you what fun I've had being a member of the world's second oldest profession." ? Christopher Plummer, accepting his award for best supporting actor for his role in "Beginners."

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"Actors are gregarious and wacky, are they not, and I love them dearly. But when they honor you, it's like being lit by the Holy Grail. Thank you, thank you, thank you." Plummer.

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"If more women ate, they'd be a lot happier. I'm real grumpy when I don't eat." ? Spencer, speaking with reporters after winning best supporting actress for her role in "The Help."

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"Thank you to the unions for making sure we're properly fed, have all (our) shots, cleaned and are put in our pens each night by sundown." ? Nolan Gould, accepting the best comedy television ensemble award with his "Modern Family" co-stars, many of whom are child actors.

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Associated Press Writers Anthony McCartney and Beth Harris contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_en_ce/us_sag_awards_quotes

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Koss revamps Porta Pro headphones with iPhone remote, intros 'interlocking' earbuds

We're baffled that we missed this gem of news during the bustle of CES, but it turns out that Koss has recently announced a new version of its iconic Porta Pro headphones. The Porta Pro KTC (Koss Touch Control), as it's dubbed, is essentially the same piece of retro kit that's been delighting ears and keeping wallets chubby for nearly three decades. The KTC bit in its name refers to the inclusion of an iDevice-certified inline remote / mic, aimed at keeping on-the-go users in sync with their playlists and phone calls. If you prefer earbuds, but hate tangled cords, then the company's interlocking intra-aurals might be to your liking. This lineup features in-ears which snap into each other for easier storage. You'll have a choice between the IL-100 and 200, the latter of which distinguishes itself with the mere addition of an inline remote for iPhones. While there's no word on pricing just yet for any of the aforementioned units, Koss aims to begin shipping the new audio-wares once spring is in full bloom. For now, you'll find the press releases and a render of the 'buds after the break.

Continue reading Koss revamps Porta Pro headphones with iPhone remote, intros 'interlocking' earbuds

Koss revamps Porta Pro headphones with iPhone remote, intros 'interlocking' earbuds originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/30/koss-revamps-portapro-headphones-with-iphone-remote-intros-int/

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Factbox: Winners at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival (omg!)

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) - Following is a list of winners at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, the top gathering for independent movies made outside of Hollywood's major studios.

Winners are grouped in categories for drama films and documentaries and in sections for U.S. films and world cinema.

U.S. DRAMA FILMS

Best Film, Jury Prize - "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Best Film, Audience Award - "The Surrogate"

Directing - Ava DuVernay, "Middle of Nowhere"

Screenwriting - Derek Connolly, "Safety Not Guaranteed"

Cinematography - Ben Richardson, "Beasts of the Southern Wild"

Special Jury Prize, ensemble acting - "The Surrogate"

Special Jury Prize, producing - Jonathan Schwartz, Andrea Sperling, "Smashed"

U.S. DOCUMENTARY FILMS

Best Documentary, Jury Prize - "The House I Live In"

Best Documentary, Audience Award - "The Invisible War"

Directing - Lauren Greenfield, "The Queen of Versailles"

Editing - Enat Sidi, "Detropia"

Cinematography - Jeff Orlowski, "Chasing Ice"

Special Jury Prize - "Love Free Or Die" (Tied)

"Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" (Tied)

WORLD CINEMA, DRAMA

Best Film, Jury Prize - "Violeta Went To Heaven"

Best Film, Audience Award - "Valley of Saints"

Directing - Mads Matthiesen, "Teddy Bear"

Screenwriting - Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutierrez, Pedro Peirano, Sebastian Sepulveda , "Young & Wild"

Cinematography - David Raedeker, "My Brother the Devil"

Special Jury Prize, artistic vision - "Can"

WORLD CINEMA, DOCUMENTARY

Best Film, Jury Prize - "The Law In These Parts"

Best Film, Audience Award - "Searching for Sugar Man"

Directing - Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi, "5 Broken Cameras"

Editing - Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky , "Indie Game: The Movie"

Cinematography - Lars Skree, "Putin's Kiss"

Special Jury Prize, film - "Searching For Sugar Man"

OTHER AWARDS

U.S. Short Film - "The Black Balloon"

World Short Film - "The Return"

Shorts, Jury Prize - "Fishing Without Nets"

Shorts, Audience Award - "The Debutante Hunters"

(Reporting By Christine Kearney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_factbox_winners2012_sundance_film_festival_044758223/44342650/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/factbox-winners-2012-sundance-film-festival-044758223.html

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The Emergence Of The Content Creation Class

The content creation class shall inherit the Internet. Richard Florida coined the expression the Creative Class, his belief being that these 30 to 40 million would be the driving force for economic development in a postindustrial world. Instead of driving the macro economy the Content Creation Class refers to the group of people who drive content on the internet those that write blogs, those that upload video to YouTube, and those that upload pictures to share with the world.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/n4sjVohgzUc/

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Tiebreaker game would decide divisions

By RONALD BLUM

updated 7:47 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2012

NEW YORK - A little more than two months before opening day, Major League Baseball still doesn't know whether there will be eight playoff teams this year or 10.

Add a bat or an arm to compete for that extra wild card? No telling whether that makes any sense.

"That's the last thing on my mind," Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta said. "I'm trying to win my division and I can't be concerned about that stuff. But the more the merrier.

"It gives us and everybody else a better chance to make the playoffs. But it's not on my mind because you don't build a system or build a team counting on the commissioner is going to change the playoff format," he said.

While MLB and the players' association still are discussing whether the expanded playoffs will start in 2012 or 2013, they've reached a consensus that ties for division titles will be broken on the field under the new playoff format, a person familiar with the talks told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because a deal hadn't been finalized.

Since 1995, head-to-head record has been used to determine first place if both teams are going to the postseason. But with the start of a one-game, winner-take-all wild-card round, the sides agreed that the difference between first place and a wild-card berth is too important to decide with a formula and a tiebreaker game would be played.

Negotiators plan to talk again next week and decide by March 1 on whether the extra round will begin this year.

"I think most clubs at this point no matter who you are are focused on trying to win a division," Detroit Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said. "If that doesn't work, then you make your adjustments."

Under the new format, whenever it begins, the non-division winners in each league with the two-best records will be the wild-cards, meaning a third-place team could for the first time win the World Series.

Being able to finish third and still go to the postseason could create more of an opportunity in the AL East for teams other than the rich New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, or in the AL West, where the two-time champion Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels have spent big bucks to improve.

In the AL Central, Kansas City general manager Dayton Moore watched Dombrowski add Prince Fielder to his already formidable batting order this week.

"We're focused on putting the best team on the field we can to compete to win the Central. That's the first goal," Moore said. "If that appears to be unattainable, we'll evaluate what we need to do to improve the team to continue to strive for that goal. If it becomes apparent that's not going to happen, you begin to focus on the wild card. You want to get in the playoffs any way you can and take your chances there."

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AP Sports Writer Tom Withers contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Not quite ready for spring

DeMarco: Just because Prince? Fielder finally signed, that doesn't mean the offseason is out of storylines. Here's what has to be sorted out before spring training starts in three weeks.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46168556/ns/sports-baseball/

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Socks Sent By Balloons To North Korea By South Korean Activists

PAJU, South Korea -- South Korean activists have floated giant balloons carrying boxes of socks into North Korea.

The activists hoped Saturday that North Koreans could wear the socks or trade them for food during the harsh winter. Associated Press video showed five helium-filled balloons rising into the air at an observation post in the South Korean border city of Paju.

South Korean activists have used balloons in the past to send anti-North Korean leaflets across the heavily guarded border.

North Korea strongly denounces the leaflets but hasn't mentioned past efforts to send daily necessities.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/socks-sent-by-balloons-to_n_1238961.html

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What we worry about when we worry about Greek debt (AP)

NEW YORK ? Remember Greece?

It's been two years since a financial crisis erupted in the birthplace of drama, and the final act is still unfinished. A second week of talks in Athens ended Friday with no deal between the country, the European Union and private holders of Greek bonds.

Remarkably, even after the crisis became such an international worry last year that the leaders of France and Germany were actually referred to as "Merkozy," the European debt bomb could still explode, with Greece as the fuse.

Economists and investors see a Greek default as the biggest test of the world financial system since the crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment house in 2008.

It is also the biggest threat to what has been a successful start to the year in the U.S. stock market. The Standard & Poor's 500 index has gained 4.7 percent, roughly half its average for a full year, in just four weeks.

"If talks break down next week and it looks like they can't reach a deal, it raises all sorts of risks," says Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial. "The stock market could probably lose half its gains for the year."

On paper, it's hard to see how Greece could take down financial markets in the U.S., the world's biggest economy, with $15.2 trillion in goods and services churned out every year.

Consider:

? Greece's economy weighs in at euro220 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund's estimates. That translates to $285 billion, which puts Greece's economy on par with Maryland's. The U.S. sells about $1.6 billion in weapons, medicine and other products to Greece each year, a minuscule 0.07 percent of exports.

? U.S. banks say Greece on its own poses no danger to them. Unlike European banks, they're not major lenders to Greek businesses and aren't saddled with Greek government debt. In its most recent report, JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., said it had just $4.5 billion at risk in Greece, Ireland and Portugal combined. That's about what the bank makes in revenue in two and a half weeks.

? Many worry that U.S. banks would struggle to cover the insurance contracts they sold on Greece's euro350 billion, or about $460 billion, in government debt. But the amount of insurance taken out on that debt totals $68 billion, according to the clearinghouse for the contracts. That's hardly enough to pull down the banking system. And the banks have offset all but $3.2 billion of those contracts with other contracts. In other words, pocket change.

"The direct impact of a Greek default is almost zero," Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told CNBC on Thursday.

So what's everybody ? well, everybody but Jamie Dimon ? worried about?

A breakdown in talks could trigger steep losses in stock markets in Europe and the U.S. Just as in 2008, banks could stop lending to each other, and the credit freeze could cause a market panic.

More importantly overseas, it could cause borrowing rates for Portugal and Italy to jump, pushing those much larger countries closer to defaults of their own.

That's only the beginning. A Greek default could unleash a host of larger problems. Some are already anticipated while others are likely to blindside even the closest observers, says Nick Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group. "In any complex system, you're going to have unintended consequences," he says.

He compares it to the collapse of Lehman Brothers: Analysts saw it coming, but the fallout in still caught them by surprise. A money market mutual fund found that it couldn't redeem its customers' money. Money market funds, which many considered as safe as savings accounts, suddenly looked suspect until the Federal Reserve backed them up.

At a conference on sovereign debt this week in New York, Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, predicted that even commodity prices would plunge in response to a messy Greek default.

If Greece goes under, traders seeking safety would immediately sell euros and buy dollars, Hanke said. The dollar would soar and prices for commodities like oil and wheat, which are bought and sold in dollars around the world, would collapse. A single dollar would buy much more oil or wheat.

"If the bomb is set off by Greece, commodity prices will collapse," Hanke said.

Hanke, who has advised governments around the world on managing their currencies, argued that Greece appears bound to collapse under its debts as its economy shrinks. "Greece is doomed," he said.

So investors will be watching what happens this week in Athens. At the sovereign debt conference, Hans Humes, president of Greylock Capital Management, said this week could bring "the precedent-setting moment." He warned that if the banks and investment funds that hold Greek bonds take steep losses, then Portugal, Italy and other countries shouldering heavy debt burdens can be expected to follow Greece's lead.

It's comparable to a messy default. Traders will respond by immediately selling government bonds from those countries, Humes said. Borrowing costs will rise, and Europe's debt crisis will turn much worse.

Humes has been involved in the negotiations on the side of creditors holding Greek bonds so he has a stake in the game. But it's a scenario other money managers often cite.

"There's a fear that other countries won't negotiate at all. They'll just say, `We'll pay you back at 50 percent or maybe less," Kleintop says.

To Colas, the deepest concern isn't how the S&P 500 reacts or whether the dollar rises if Greece drops the European currency. It's the possibility for panic, especially a run on European banks.

What if people across France and Germany crowd into banks to pull their deposits? Banks, after all, are some of the largest buyers of government debt.

"Human emotions can drive things off the rails," Colas says.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_bi_co_ne/us_wall_street_week_ahead

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Nokia loss tempered by Windows phone launch

HELSINKI (AP) ? Mobile phone maker Nokia Corp. on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of ?1.07 billion ($1.38 billion) as sales slumped 21 percent even as the company's first Windows smartphones hit markets in Europe and Asia.

The loss, widened by a ?1 billion loss booked on Nokia's navigation systems unit, compares with a profit of ?745 million in the same period a year earlier.

Nokia said net revenue ? including both its mobile phones and its network divisions ? fell from ?12.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010 to ?10 billion, with smartphone sales plunging 23 percent.

Nokia has lost its once-dominant position in the global cell phone market, with Android phones and iPhones overtaking it in the growing smartphone segment.

The Finnish company is attempting a comeback with smartphones using Microsoft's Windows software, a struggle that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop characterized as a "war of ecosystems."

He said Nokia has sold "well over" 1 million such devices since the launch of the Lumia line in the fourth quarter, in line with company expectations.

Including other models, Nokia sold 19.6 million smartphones in the quarter. By comparison, Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the same period.

The Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 hit stores in Europe and Asia in November while T-Mobile started offering the 710 in the U.S. in January. Nokia hopes to boost its poor presence in the U.S. with the higher-end Lumia 900, which AT&T will offer later this year.

"From this beachhead of more than 1 million Lumia devices, you will see us push forward with the sales, marketing and successive product introductions necessary to be successful," Elop said in a statement. "We also plan to bring the Lumia series to additional markets including China and Latin America in the first half of 2012."

In a conference call, he said Nokia would launch the Lumia 710 and 800 in Canada in February.

Nokia shares rose more than 2 percent to ?4.15 ($5.37) in afternoon trading in Helsinki.

Michael Schroeder, analyst at FIM bank in Helsinki, said markets had welcomed Elop's comments on sales of Lumia.

"It definitely alleviated concerns about a horror scenario, expected by some. Although a million is not a lot in the market, it was better than expected," Schroeder said.

The company said it would not provide annual targets for 2012 as it was in a "year of transition" but added that it expects operating margins in the first quarter of this year to be "about break-even, ranging either above or below by approximately 2 percentage points."

It repeated the target of cutting costs by more than ?1 billion by 2013.

Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics in London said Nokia "was not out of the woods yet," but its quarterly result was in line with expectations.

"Nokia is not necessarily dead in the water. Profit margins were a bit higher than expected and Nokia has not lost its third position in smartphones although it is suffering in North America and western Europe," Mawston said.

Nokia proposed a dividend of ?0.20 per share for 2011 and said that chairman and former CEO Jorma Ollila will step down at the annual meeting in May. A nomination committee proposed board member Risto Siilasmaa as the new chairman.

The average selling price of a Nokia handset rose by ?2 from the previous quarter to ?53 but was down by ?16 from a year earlier, reflecting a higher proportion of cheaper mobile phones in Nokia's product mix.

The company also reported a 4 percent drop in sales for Nokia Siemens Networks, its joint network equipment unit with Siemens AG of Germany.

After selling four in 10 cell phones worldwide in 2010, Nokia has steadily lost market share to competitors including Apple and Samsung. It didn't give any market share estimates in the report Thursday, but said its net revenue fell 9 percent to ?38.6 billion in the full year 2011, with smartphone sales plunging 27 percent and sales of lower-end mobile phones down 18 percent.

___

Ritter reported from Stockholm.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-26-Finland-Earns-Nokia/id-e36908c0c8f549ab9b3413cb7ae996ef

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Nintendo chief promises to do Wii U launch right (AP)

TOKYO ? Nintendo's chief is determined to get right the launch of its next game machine, Wii U, set for this year's holiday shopping season, and acknowledged Friday some mistakes with selling its 3DS handheld.

But Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata warned earnings for the fiscal year set to begin April will be the toughest ever for the Japanese manufacturer behind the Super Mario and Pokemon games.

Iwata's remarks come a day after it lowered its annual earnings forecast to a 65 billion yen ($844 million) loss, much larger than the 20 billion yen ($260 million) loss projected earlier. It posted a 77.62 billion yen profit the previous fiscal year.

Iwata blamed the strong yen, which erases overseas earnings, as well as the arrival of smartphones and other devices that offer gaming.

The higher yen slashed nearly 54 billion yen ($701 million) from the company's operating profit for the April-December period.

"I can see how the red ink may be perceived as abnormal," Iwata told analysts and reporters at a Tokyo hotel. "The environment has changed."

The failure of the 3DS handheld, which offers three-dimensional imagery, to take off with enough momentum during the last quarter of 2011 was one of the main reasons for the dismal results, according to Iwata.

The 3DS has gradually started to sell better, but it took a price cut in August. It still lacks a strong lineup of attractive software games, a key factor for a machine to succeed in a big way.

Iwata vowed the company will be better prepared when it introduces the Wii U home console during the 2012 year-end shopping season for a strong comeback.

He declined to give details such as pricing or what the software games available at that time might be.

But he said the Wii U will come with a strong game lineup at the launch as well as secure and safe Internet services that will offer players individual accounts.

The Wii U will come with new ways of playing that will almost make the term "home console" obsolete, Iwata said. It will also offer mobile gaming. The machine has a touch-panel controller.

Nintendo has long competed against rival game makers, such as Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. These days, all face the threat from hit devices like the iPad and iPhone from Apple Inc. that also offer games.

Iwata's comments also showed Nintendo is growing less cautious about the Internet, which in the past it had brushed off as mainly for hard-core gamers.

Kyoto-based Nintendo has built its reputation on making games fun to play for casual and newcomer players.

"We are going to put to use our bitter experience with the 3DS," said Iwata.

___

Follow Yuri Kageyama at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_on_hi_te/as_japan_nintendo

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Daniel A. Bell: Memo from Davos: Down with Democracy!

We are familiar with the truism that multinational corporations are too large and powerful and cannot adequately be controlled by democratically elected politicians. MNCs constantly complain about rigid labor regulations; they want the right to fire workers at will, because otherwise they won't survive in a ruthlessly competitive market. Moreover, the pace of technological change has increased exponentially the last few years, and the need for labor flexibility has become ever more pressing. If rigid labor regulations hold up the need for innovation, the MNC will pack up its bags and move to a country that is more "welcoming" to big business. From a democratic perspective, the problem is clear. The ultimately controlling power should lie in the hands of the people and their elected representatives. But here it seems the MNCs have more power; the laws of the country must conform to the dictates of MNCs, rather than to the people's will. In his State of the Union address yesterday, President Obama tried to reassert the people's authority: he said he would change the tax code to punish companies that move jobs overseas, and reward companies that return jobs to the United States.

But what makes sense from a democratic perspective may not make sense from a moral point of view. Or so it was suggested earlier today at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos. In two sessions (open to the reporting press) with CEOs of major MNCs, it was surprising (to me) the extent to which the CEOs appealed to moral (rather than strictly economic) arguments to justify their ways. John T. Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, argued that the best performing companies also tend to engage in substantial corporate philanthropy. His own company gave away $299 million last year. He didn't explain the connection between profit-making and philanthropy, but perhaps the point is that being known as a "good" company increases the motivation of employees to be productive; and perhaps the regulatory authorities are more likely to be supportive of "good" companies.

The issue of job creation seemed even more fundamental to the moral outlook of the CEOs. Several CEOs emphasized that they create jobs and they should be given the conditions to do so. But job creation also involves destruction, or, as they put it, disruption. Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE Euronext, pointed out that restructuring of his company required 20,000 job cuts. But he added that such restructuring was done with a vision of more growth, particularly in emerging markets. Put in moral terms, the loss of some jobs is justified because it allows for the creation of more jobs. The problem, from a democratic perspective, is that the jobs are often created in other countries.

But what if the total number of jobs is greater than the number of jobs lost, isn't that a good result? As Patricia A. Woertz, CEO of the agricultural conglemerate Archer Daniels Midland put it, economic growth that adds jobs wherever they happen is a positive. And governments that try to prevent that process -- like President Obama in the name of protecting jobs at home -- should presumably be condemned from a moral point of view. That is, they should be condemned from the point of view of theories of universal moral reasoning that value human well-being regardless of national boundaries (assuming that they create more jobs than they destroy, globally speaking). Democrats who value nation-based collective self-determination may side with President Obama. But the clash may not be between good guys and bad guys, but rather between competing systems of morality.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-a-bell/memo-from-davos_b_1232758.html

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Oscars voting to go electronic

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak is seen before the start of the Academy nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 84th Annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak is seen before the start of the Academy nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 84th Annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Producer Brian Grazer is seen after the nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 84th Annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Jennifer Lawrence and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announce the Adapted Screenplay nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 84th Annual Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, Feb. 26 at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Potential Oscar winners will now be a click away from winning a trophy.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it has partnered with a company to develop an electronic voting system for next year's 85th annual Academy Awards.

The motion picture academy says it entered into an agreement with Everyone Counts Inc. to exclusively to work with longtime accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers to create the new system.

Oscar voting in the past has been compiled through paper ballots sent through the mail.

Ric Robertson, the Academy's chief operating officer, said in a statement that it's the first step the Academy is taking "toward developing a secure and convenient electronic voting system."

The 84th annual Academy Awards are set for Feb. 26.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2012-01-25-Oscars-Voting/id-5292f7ea38d9475ea0e87e80f783ba36

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Robotic Rat to the Rescue

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Who Needs Gas When You Can Run Your Car On Seaweed? [Science]

Some folks bang on about biofuels being the future of car fuels. In reality, though, they're expensive, and that's largely because they're a pain in the ass to make. The solution might be seaweed. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/uzxAa4hVIRU/who-needs-gas-when-you-can-run-your-car-on-seaweed

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Toddlers to tweens: relearning how to play

Children's play is threatened, say experts who advise that kids ? from toddlers to tweens ? should be relearning how to play. Roughhousing and fantasy feed development.

Havely Taylor knows that her two children do not play the way she did when she was growing up.

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When Ms. Taylor was a girl, in a leafy suburb of Birmingham, Ala., she climbed trees, played imaginary games with her friends, and transformed a hammock into a storm-tossed sea vessel. She even whittled bows and arrows from downed branches around the yard and had "wars" with friends ? something she admits she'd probably freak out about if her children did it today.

"I mean, you could put an eye out like that," she says with a laugh.

Her children ? Ava, age 12, and Henry, 8 ? have had a different experience. They live in Baltimore, where Taylor works as an art teacher. Between school, homework, violin lessons, ice-skating, theater, and play dates, there is little time for the sort of freestyle play Taylor remembers. Besides, Taylor says, they live in the city, with a postage stamp of a backyard and the ever-present threat of urban danger.

"I was kind of afraid to let them go out unsupervised in Baltimore...," she says, of how she started down this path with the kids. "I'm really a protective mom. There wasn't much playing outside."

This difference has always bothered her, she says, because she believes that play is critical for children's developing emotions, creativity, and intelligence. But when she learned that her daughter's middle school had done away with recess, and even free time after lunch, she decided to start fighting for play.

"It seemed almost cruel," she says. "Play is important for children ? it's something so obvious it's almost hard to articulate. How can you talk about childhood without talking about play? It's almost as if they are trying to get rid of childhood."

Taylor joined a group of parents pressuring the principal to let their children have a recess, citing experts such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommends that all students have at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day. They issued petitions and held meetings. And although the school has not yet agreed to change its curriculum, Taylor says she feels their message is getting more recognition.

She is not alone in her concerns. In recent years, child development experts, parents, and scientists have been sounding an increasingly urgent alarm about the decreasing amount of time that children ? and adults, for that matter ? spend playing. A combination of social forces, from a No Child Left Behind focus on test scores to the push for children to get ahead with programmed extracurricular activities, leaves less time for the roughhousing, fantasizing, and pretend worlds advocates say are crucial for development.

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/gL7HViEocwc/Toddlers-to-tweens-relearning-how-to-play

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Shuriken Sticky Notes Make For Stealthy Office Reminders [Office]

I love everything about these ninja-inspired throwing star sticky notes from ThinkGeek. Everything except the fact they're made from black paper, making them next to impossible to write on with anything other than a special marker. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/D5DPIUASW9k/shuriken-sticky-notes-make-for-stealthy-office-reminders

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14 Steps To Successful SEO For Startups

This is a guest post by Ryan Spoon (@ryanspoon), a principal at?Polaris Ventures. Read more about Ryan on his blog at?ryanspoon.com. For startups, it is dangerous to entirely separate product and marketing ? both strategically and organizationally. A great product isn?t overly useful without an audience. And a great marketing strategy can?t save a poor product. Product and marketing have to coexist.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/TtB5PD58b6s/

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For Lightning-Fast Drones, Add a Bird's Intuition (LiveScience.com)

How are you able to move through a dense forest or crowd, maximizing your speed while avoiding a collision? Intuition ? something not easily computer-programmed.

Lacking this trait, robots cannot navigate obstacle-riddled environments nearly as fast as living things can, nor as fast as roboticists or the military would like. As it stands, the simplest way to maximize the speed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, is to have them go as fast as possible while still being able to stop within the length of their field of view. For example, if their sensors can detect obstacles up to 100 meters ahead, then they must be capable of decelerating to zero within 100 meters.

But living things can do much better. For this reason, roboticists and aeronautics engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have teamed up with biologists at Harvard University to model the behavior of one of nature's best forest flyers, a bird called the northern goshawk. With the reflexes of a spring trap, this raptor zips through forests at breakneck speeds, continuously adjusting its flight path to avoid collisions with trees and, through superior flight skills, catching the birds and small mammals on which it preys.

The team has calculated the theoretical speed limit the goshawk must observe in any given environment to avoid a crash. They hope this will enable them to engineer birdlike UAVs that can streak through forests and urban canyons at much faster speeds than they're currently capable of.

Emilio Frazzoli, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT who is involved in the new research, said the northern goshawk does not set its speed based on what it can immediately see. Rather, the bird gauges the density of trees in its vicinity to intuit how fast it can fly, given that forest density, such that it will always be able to find an opening through the trees. [How Birds Navigate]

Humans do the same when downhill skiing, Frazzoli pointed out. "When you go skiing off the path, you don?t ski in a way that you can always stop before the first tree you see. You ski and you see an opening, and then you trust that once you go there, you'll be able to see another opening and keep going," he said in a press release.

To determine the relationship between the goshawk's flightspeed and the density of the surrounding forest, the researchers created a mathematical equation to represent the bird's position and speed. They then worked out a model of the statistical distribution of trees in a forest, allowing the size, shape and spacing of individual trees to vary while keeping the overall density the same.

Using this model, Frazzoli and his colleagues were able to calculate the probability that a bird would collide with a tree while flying at various speeds. The team found that, for any given forest density, there exists a critical speed above which the bird is sure to eventually crash. Below that speed, the bird has an "infinite collision-free trajectory" ? it could, in theory, fly without incident forever.

To see if the theoretical speed limits they calculated actually bear out in nature, the MIT engineers are collaborating with biologists at Harvard, who are observing birds as they fly through cluttered environments. So far, preliminary comparisons between theory and experiment in the case of pigeons are "very encouraging," Frazzoli said.

If confirmed in other birds, the same algorithm could be used to program flying robots to improve their maneuverability, Frazzoli said. Given some general information about the density of obstacles in a given environment, an unmanned aerial drone could automatically determine the maximum speed below which it can safely fly.

The results up to this point will be detailed in a paper at the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation. Next, the researchers plan to see how close humans can come to the theoretical speed limits. Frazzoli and his colleagues are developing a first-person flying game to test how well people can navigate through a simulated forest at high speeds.

"What we want to do is have people play, and we'll just collect statistics," Frazzoli said. "And the question is, how close to the theoretical limit can we get?"

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover. Follow Life's Little Mysteries on Twitter @llmysteries, then join us on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20120120/sc_livescience/forlightningfastdronesaddabirdsintuition

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Nike Officially Announces The Nike+ FuelBand

Exercise gadgetry seems to be all the rage this season, with products like the Jawbone UP and MotoACTV entering the marketplace. Nike of all companies will certainly not be left behind, and has today announced a new wristband called the FuelBand. Not unlike its competitors, the FuelBand measures time, steps and calories during your fitness routine.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wOI70h9hq-8/

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Costa CEO says captain misled company, crew

Divers had to stay out of the water, at risk of getting injured by the beached ship. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

By msnbc.com news services

Updated 7:30 p.m. ET

The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said Friday as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers.

CEO Pierluigi Foschi told Italian state TV that the company spoke to the captain at 10:05 p.m. , some 20 minutes after the ship ran aground on Jan. 13, but could not offer proper assistance because the captain's description "did not correspond to the truth," Reuters reported.?

Capt. Francesco Schettino said only that he had "problems" on board but did not mention hitting rocks.

Likewise, Foschi said crew members were not informed of the gravity of the situation.

Passenger video shown on Italian TV indicates crew members telling passengers to go to their cabins as late as 10:25 p.m. (2125 GMT; 4:25 p.m. EST). The abandon ship alarm sounded just before 11 p.m. (2200 GMT; 5:25 p.m. EST).

"That's because they also did not receive correct information on the gravity of the situation," Foschi said.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-charted rocks off the island of Giglio a week ago. Eleven people have been confirmed dead.

Rescue crews working on the cruise ship that capsized off the coast of Italy are running out of time to find any possible survivors. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.

Updated at 2:25 p.m. ET

Rescuers have resumed the search for 21 missing people from the Costa Concordia that ran aground off the Tuscan coast a week ago. Rescue work is taking place at surface level, but not underwater.

Coast guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro said authorities will determine in the morning whether to send divers back to search sections of the partially submerged vessel that are now under water.?

Sensors installed Thursday show constant vibrations in the ship structure, NBC News has learned. The ship is resting on two points underwater, keeping it from sinking. The remainder of the vessel is hanging and moves. Officials are worried the Concordia will sink further or suffer a sudden drop.

The search was suspended earlier in the day after the luxury cruise liner shifted.

Updated at 12:55 p.m. ET

GIGLIO, Italy -- The cruise ship grounded off Tuscany shifted again on its rocky perch, forcing the suspension Friday of search and rescue operations for the 21 people still missing.

Firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari said rescue squads would be discussing the next step after the movement made conditions unsafe for divers already hampered by poor visibility, floating objects and underwater debris.

Seven days after the ship ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan coast, hopes of finding anyone alive have all but disappeared and the cold waters around the ship have become rougher, with worse weather expected at the weekend.

"The ship is not in safe enough conditions for rescue operations to continue," Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro told The Associated Press.

Attention is now turning to how to remove more than 2,300 tons of fuel aboard the vessel, which lies on its side on a rock shelf in about 20 meters of water off the little island of Giglio and which could slide off its resting place.

Salvage crews are waiting until the search for survivors and bodies is called off before they can begin pumping the half-million gallons of fuel out of the wreck, a process expected to take at least two weeks.

Worries in paradise
The fuel is in danger of leaking out and polluting some of the Mediterranean's most unspoiled sea, where dolphins are known to chase playfully after sailboats and fishermen's catches are so prized that wholesalers come from across Italy to scoop up cod, lobsters, scampi, swordfish and other delicacies.

Concordia lies dangerously close to a drop-off point on the sea bottom. Should strong waves nudge the vessel from its precarious perch, it could plunge some 20-30 meters (65-90 feet), further complicating the pumping operation and possibly rupturing fuel tanks. Italy's environment minister has warned that if those tanks break, globs of fuel would block sunlight vital for marine life at the seabed.?

A week after the Concordia struck a reef off the fishing and tourism island of Giglio, flipping on its side, its crippled 114,000-ton hull rests on seabed rich with an underwater prairie of sea grass vital to the ecosystem. The dead weight has likely already damaged a variety of marine life, including endangered sea sponges, and crustaceans and mollusks, even before a drop of any fuel leaks, environmentalists contend.?

"The longer it stays there, the longer it impedes light from reaching the vegetation," said Francesco Cinelli, an ecology professor at the University of Pisa, in Tuscany. And the sheer weight of the Concordia will also crush sea life, he said.?

The seabed where the Concordia lies is a flourishing home to Poseidon sea grass native to the Mediterranean, Cinelli told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.?

"Sea grass ... is to the sea what forests are to terra firma," Cinelli said: They produce oxygen and serve as a refuge for organisms to reproduce or hide from predators.?

The Tuscan archipelago's seven islands are at the heart of Europe's largest marine park, extending over some 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of sea.?

DigitalGlobe

The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.

They include Elba, where Napoleon lived in exile, and the legendary island of Montecristo, a setting for Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" ? where rare Mediterranean monk seals have been spotted near the coast.?

Montecristo has a two-year waiting list of people hoping to be among the 1,000 people annually escorted ashore by forest rangers to admire the uninhabited island. Navigation, bathing and fishing are strictly prohibited up to 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from Montecristo's rocky, cove-dotted coast. A monastery, established on Montecristo in the 7th century, was abandoned nine centuries later after repeated pirate raids.?

Come spring, Porto Ercole's slips will be full, with yachts dropping anchor just outside the port. It lies at the bottom of a steep hill, whose summit gives a panoramic view of a sprawling seaside villa, once a holiday retreat of Dutch royals, and of the crescent-shaped island of Giannutri, with its ancient Roman ruins.?

Alberto Teodori, 49, who said he has been hired as a skipper for the yachts of Rome's VIPs for 30 years, noted that the area thrives on tourism in the spring and summer and survives on fishing in the offseason.

If the Concordia's fuel, "thick as tar," should pollute the sea, "Giglio will be dead for 10, 15 years," Teodori fretted, as workers nearby shellacked the hull of an aging fishing boat.

Questions about safety
Late Thursday, Costa-owner Carnival Corp. announced it was conducting a comprehensive audit of all 10 of its cruise lines to review safety and emergency response procedures in the wake of the Costa disaster. The evacuation was chaotic and the alarm to abandon the ship was sounded after the Concordia had capsized too much to get many life boats down.

The owners of the doomed Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia were not aware of unsafe practices involving ships coming close to shore to give tourists a better view, Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi told a newspaper on Friday.

Investigators say Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia, steered the ship too close to the Tuscan island of Giglio, where the 114,500 ton vessel ran aground and capsized last week, apparently while performing a maneuver known as a "salute" which took it within 150 metres of the shore.

Foschi told the Corriere della Sera that ships sometimes passed near to shore during what he termed "tourist navigation" but he said this was always performed safely and he denied that the company knew the Concordia would be going so close.

He said the Concordia's onboard newspaper had announced that the ship would pass five miles from Giglio.

"I can't rule out that individual captains, without informing us, may have set a course closer to land. However I can rule out ever having known that they may have done it unsafely," he said.

Doubts have already been expressed about whether Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator, can have been unaware of the practice of ships "saluting."

The company had approved a similar maneuver in August and Lloyd's List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, says its tracking showed that the ship's August route actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused the grounding last week.

The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into well-marked rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio. The ship then keeled over on its side and is still half-submerged nearly a week later.

'He saved over 3,000 lives'
Meanwhile,?a young Moldovan woman who translated evacuation instructions from the bridge after the Costa Concordia ran into a reef emerged as a potential new witness in the investigation into the captain's actions on that fateful night.

REUTERS/Zhurnal Tv via Reuters TV

Costa Concordia crew member Dominica Cemortan gestures in this still image from a Jan. 17 television interview. Cemortan defended the captain's actions, saying he helped to save the lives of passengers.

Italian media have said prosecutors want to interview 25-year-old Dominica Cermotan, who had worked for Costa as a hostess fluent in several languages but was not on duty when she boarded the ship Jan. 13 in the Italian port of Civitavecchia.

In interviews with Moldovan media and on her own Facebook page, Cermotan said she was called up to the bridge of the Concordia after it struck the reef to translate evacuation instructions for Russian passengers. She defended Schettino, who has been vilified in the Italian media for leaving his ship before everyone was evacuated safely.

"He did a great thing, he saved over 3,000 lives," she told Moldova's Jurnal TV.

Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship, is under house arrest, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

Costa is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10196829-costa-ceo-says-captain-misled-company-and-crews

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Germany lowers 2012 growth forecast (AP)

BERLIN ? Germany's government cut the country's 2012 growth forecast Wednesday due to a faltering global economy and Europe's debt crisis, sparking fears that the region's largest economy could tip into recession.

Following what is believed to have been a contraction in economic activity in the fourth quarter of 2011, Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said the government had reduced Germany's growth forecast for this year from 1 percent to 0.7 percent ? its second reduction in three months. As recently as October, the prediction was 1.8 percent.

Germany's economy, the world's fourth-largest, is thought to have contracted by up to 0.3 percent in last year's fourth quarter compared with the previous three-month period, though final numbers aren't due until next month.

Roesler said he expected growth of 0.1 percent in the current quarter ? meaning that the German economy would hardly grow at all ? but would avoid slipping into a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

However, other forecasters have painted a bleaker picture, with many ? such as Commerzbank last week ? predicting that Germany will fall into a modest recession in the first quarter before returning to growth.

Over 2011 as a whole, Germany grew by 3 percent ? following a growth spurt of 3.7 percent in 2010 after a deep recession the previous year.

That contrasted with the performance of many of its partners in the eurozone, which have seen their economies barely grow or shrink amid debt troubles and tough austerity measures.

Roesler said "a temporary dent in growth can be expected for the coming months" but predicted that "the economy will gradually liven up over the course of 2012." Growth next year is expected to speed up to 1.6 percent, he said.

Roesler conceded there were risks regarding the forecasts, primarily from financial market turbulence and the debt crisis in the 17-country eurozone.

"Germany remains on the course of growth ? assuming that there is no new sudden crisis on the financial markets, and the uncertainty in the eurozone above all gradually abates," said Roesler, who is also Germany's vice-chancellor.

The German government figures come after the World Bank forecast that the eurozone economy as a whole will contract by 0.3 percent this year. It sees the United States growing by 2.2 percent, Japan by 1.9 percent and China by 8.4 percent.

Exports have been the bedrock of Germany's growth over recent years, but Roesler said this year's expansion will stem from stronger domestic demand. His ministry forecast that export growth will slow to 2 percent from 8.2 percent last year.

It also expects a further improvement in Germany's already-bright labor market picture, with the average unemployment rate this year projected to fall from last year's 7.1 percent ? already a two-decade low ? to 6.8 percent.

Germany has insisted on debt-cutting and austerity as the main medicine to cure Europe's debt woes. It is the prime mover behind a planned new budget-discipline pact.

Last week, Standard & Poor's upheld Germany's AAA credit rating while nine eurozone countries were downgraded ? including France, Berlin's co-pilot in the eurozone rescue effort, which lost its top rating.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday brushed aside a reporter's question as to whether Germany would now need to do more to show solidarity with other countries.

"I'm still searching for what more exactly we are supposed to do," she said. "When I've found it out, I will answer you."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/eurobiz/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_germany_economy

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US says al-Qaida magazine got into Guantanamo cell (AP)

FORT MEADE, Md. ? A copy of a magazine published by an arm of al-Qaida made its way to a terror suspect at the Guantanamo Bay prison, leading to an inspection of cells and a contentious new policy requiring special review teams to examine correspondence between prisoners and attorneys, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday.

Navy Cmdr. Andrea Lockhart told a military judge during a pre-trial hearing that a copy of Inspire magazine got into a cell. She provided no details on who received the magazine or how. But she said the breach showed that prior rules at the base governing mail review were not adequate. Yemen's al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula launched the online, English-language magazine in 2010. An early issue contained tips to would-be militants about how to kill U.S. citizens.

Lockhart is part of the U.S. team prosecuting the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national charged with orchestrating the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. Al-Nashiri, 47, is considered one of the most senior al-Qaida leaders. He has been held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006 after spending several years held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons.

How mail between Guantanamo prisoners and their attorneys should be handled consumed several hours of the al-Nashiri's pre-trial session on Tuesday and Wednesday. At issue is whether even a cursory examination of the legal correspondence violates the attorney-client privilege.

The dispute reflects the untested nature of this latest attempt to resume the military tribunals at Guantanamo. The prosecution of al-Nashiri is already underway and the U.S. is preparing to prosecute five other prisoners accused in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet defense lawyers and government prosecutors are still fighting to establish basic legal ground rules.

The military commission system has been revised by the Obama administration and Congress, which has refused to allow the administration to move prisoners from the American base in Cuba. The trial system is still sharply criticized by civil and human rights groups and defense lawyers who say the procedures favor the prosecution. Rick Kammen, a civilian attorney for al-Nashiri, called the military commissions a "second-class system of justice."

"Just because you see people in suits and a judge doesn't mean it's a real trial," Kammen told reporters after Tuesday's session.

Al-Nashiri's defense team, as well as the lawyers for other Guantanamo prisoners and the chief defense counsel for the military commissions, are opposed to the security review of legal mail, which was put in place last month by Navy Rear Adm. David Woods, the prison commander.

Army Col. James Pohl, the judge in al-Nashiri's case, ordered the detention center in November to stop Guantanamo guards from reading mail between the prisoner and his lawyers. The judge's order came after Woods authorized an inspection of detainee cells in October that included reading mail between prisoners and their attorneys.

In late December, Woods issued a new directive requiring legal mail to undergo a security review to ensure prisoners were not receiving prohibited materials, such as top-secret information or objects that might be fashioned into weapons.

The December order from Woods created a "privilege review team" independent of the prison staff that would include attorneys, law enforcement and intelligence experts who would examine legal communications between lawyers and their clients. The goal of the order, prison officials said, was to ensure safety and security on the base while preserving attorney-client privilege by having a group not under the prison's command perform the mail review.

Wood testified on Tuesday that the privilege team is made up of contractors hired by the Pentagon's intelligence directorate.

Al-Nashiri's mail has not yet been examined by the team. Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, the chief defense counsel for the Guantanamo Bay tribunals, instructed attorneys not to follow Woods' order. Colwell said last week that the rule does not adequately protect attorney-client privilege and violates codes of professional conduct.

But Woods testified that his order doesn't allow team members to read mail. Their role, he said, is to perform a "plain sight review" of correspondence between attorneys and their clients to ensure the documents are marked with the proper stamps to ensure it is actually privileged information. If the material is not marked properly or there are obvious signs of a security risk or contraband, the mail is forwarded to higher authorities for review.

Al-Nashiri's attorneys peppered Woods with questions about how team members could do their jobs without actually reading the information. The order creates situations in which the privilege team has no choice but to dig deeper into a document to understand what is in it, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Stephen Reyes said. Reyes also asked Woods why translators were needed on the team if no reading was required.

Woods deflected many of Reyes' questions by saying that he does not have control over the privilege team contract. He also testified that he does not know who monitors the day-to-day activities of the team. "They do not work for me," he said.

On Wednesday, Pohl directed the prosecution and defense to provide him with their proposals for reviewing mail in the Al-Nashiri case. A decision from Pohl is not expected for at least two weeks, however.

The Associated Press and other news organizations viewed the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay on a closed circuit telecast shown in a small theater at Fort Meade, a military base located between Washington and Baltimore.

Al-Nashiri has attended the proceedings on both days, but could be seen only intermittently due to the angle of the camera in the courtroom at Guantanamo. He wore a white prison uniform and sat next to his defense team. Defense officials said Al-Nashiri was not shackled during his hearing.

__

Associated Press writer Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_guantanamo_war_crimes

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Ex-Miss USA appears in Mich. court on DUI charge

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih leaves 30th District Court after being ordered to stand trial on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih leaves 30th District Court after being ordered to stand trial on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih appears before Judge Brigette Officer during a hearing and ordered to stand trial on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge at 30th District Court in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih appears before Judge Brigette Officer during a hearing and ordered to stand trial on a misdemeanor drunken driving charge at 30th District Court in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih appears with her attorney William Culpepper before Judge Brigette Officer during a hearing on a drunken driving charge at 30th District Court in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

Former Miss USA Rima Fakih appears with her attorney William Culpepper before Judge Brigette Officer during a hearing on a drunken driving charge at 30th District Court in Highland Park, Mich. Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012. The judge set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to resolve the case sooner. (AP Photo/Gary Malerba)

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) ? Former Miss USA Rima Fakih on Wednesday made an initial appearance in a Detroit-area courtroom in a drunken driving case that lawyers said could be resolved with a plea deal.

Judge Brigette Officer set a March 14 trial date, but lawyers on both sides said they planned to talk in an attempt to end the case sooner.

Fakih, 26, declined to answer reporters' questions after the hearing, which was held in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park.

"I apologize. My lawyer doesn't want me to talk."

Defense lawyer W. Otis Culpepper said he will prepare for a trial, but knows a plea bargain is possible. He said he anticipates that a "proper conclusion" will be reached.

"Of course she's remorseful," Culpepper said. "She's a model for young women. ... She's a woman of substantial character."

Before the hearing, assistant city attorney Mohammed A. Nasser told The Associated Press that he hadn't spoken to Culpepper about how they might resolve the case, and he told the judge a plea deal hadn't been offered.

Police said Fakih was driving 60 mph and weaving in and out of traffic without signaling when they pulled her over Dec. 3. Officers reported finding an open bottle of champagne on the floor behind the driver's seat of her 2011 Jaguar.

Fakih denied that she had been drinking, but one breath test put her blood alcohol content to be 0.20 percent and another put it slightly lower, but still above the state's legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Fakih was born in Lebanon and moved to the U.S. in 1993 with her family. After settling in New York, the family moved to Michigan in 2003. She won the Miss USA Pageant in May 2010, and her reign ended last June. She was the first Miss Michigan to win the title since 1993 and the first Arab-American winner ever.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-18-Miss%20USA-Drunken%20Driving/id-619206fe7aed46f6a32a4a53360efaf3

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