Hot Health and fitness Ideas You Can Now Do Correct | Articles Squad

It can be difficult at times to know the guidelines on how to get into condition. There is a lot of real information about getting into condition that is becomes complex to figure out there. The guidelines outlined on this page gives you how to be great shape.

Placing desired goals and due dates to your work out program may serve as a strong type of enthusiasm. This stimulates you to target conquering tough things as opposed to obsessing more than them. Setting targets helps keep you avoid stopping given that you have something concrete to function in the direction of.

This idea can assist you are playing your sports activity. Pick up your remaining foot and contact it making use of your right-hand, then gradually reduced it. Raise the proper foot, then get to downward and grab it with your opposite hands, then reduce it. Touch your right hand with your remaining meals, then perform repeatedly with the left-hand. Try this for approximately twenty moments really quick, relax, if at all possible 3 to 5.

Donkey leg raises is a great way to build up leg muscle groups. These calf increases are an effective method to successfully increase your calves. You require a good friend ready to sleep face up and all sorts of one does is increase your calves upwards.

Carry out the workout routines that you just don?t like go on. The reason is that folks tend to steer clear of the workouts which can be weakest at. Put this exercising in your regular program and conquer them.

Begin with more compact equipment when you are in the preliminary stages of your exercise. Tiny muscles wear out just before the major types, and that?s why it?s smart to commence raising barbells or hand weights prior to treating the larger devices.

Jogging outside environment is better for you when compared to a fitness treadmill machine. Running on the pavement is better in the winter compared to a fitness treadmill.

Do you want to make performing chin-ups? Changing your mindset about chin-ups can help you much more determination although performing them. Envision you?re yanking straight down instead of yanking your chin-ups. This amount of mental sleight-of-hand can make performing chin-ups truly feel less challenging and enable you to do much more.

Creating much stronger ab muscles is an excellent method to improve your exercise ranges. Stay-ups or crunches certainly are a well-liked strategy to strengthen your ab muscles.

Location instruction to improve physique will not be an effective for those who are really overweight.

Flex the wrists whenever you job them out more challenging. Extend your wrists in the in reverse way and do your bicep workout while you usually would. It may feel uncomfortable at the beginning, however it won?t be very long till your utilized to it.

Lifestyle sensibly and adopting health and fitness is just not one thing that should be straightforward, but it may be exciting, gratifying and challenging at the same time. Use a number of these tips with your daily life and watch the weight slip off. Take into consideration getting into good shape as something that will need work each day. The greater often you workout, the higher the improvement in the direction of your fitness goals.

There is more information available about tricep exercises read Eugena Z. Bursley?s site there?s loads of information not detailed in this article, go to Author?s site to uncover extra information.

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'Fitness for All' is an exercise in inclusion

BERKELEY ?

Students Judith Lung, Alec Sundly and Erik Elvebak take their positions on the hardwood court as the referee shouts, ?Eyeshades down! Quiet, please! Center! Play!?

A shrill whistle pierces the air and the three teammates ? a blind undergrad who ?never did exercise? as a kid, a 6-foot?varsity soccer player and a 43-year-old who lost most of his vision while playing ice hockey ? begin an intense match.

The sport is goalball. Every Friday for the past semester, a dozen or so people have come to the Recreational Sports Facility to learn and practice the game.

A team sport similar to soccer and originally created for blind war veterans, its ball is equipped with bells, while blindfolds level the playing field for sighted and sight-impaired players.? Without vision to rely on, players must tap into other senses to locate the ball and position themselves in space.

?The sighted have to come into the blind world,? says disability health and fitness analyst Matt Grigorieff, a 2011 Berkeley grad and the driving force behind a new campus program called Fitness for All, of which the goalball class is one part.

There, blind players get a rare opportunity to learn a demanding sport and enhance their health, both physical and mental ? the latter being one of the biggest benefits of exercise, in Grigorieff?s view. ?The brain can recall facts faster if you?re working out. The data is overwhelming,? he says.

Grigorieff has long been keenly interested in health and fitness for people with disabilities, having a chronic hip condition himself. In community college he helped build an inclusive fitness program, to give students and community members with disabilities an affordable means to stay active.

Golf Fore Veterans

Spring semester saw the launch of Golf Fore Veterans, a program for student veterans with disabilities. Undergrad Jessica Adams joined with a number of campus and community partners ? among them Fitness for All, the National Alliance for Accessible Golf,? the U.S. Golf Association and Cal Athletics? women?s golf team ? to create the class, held weekly on the Tilden Golf Course.

In that peaceful environment, 18 young veterans are learning the game, along with stress-reduction techniques. The goal is to help them better cope with disabilities stemming from military service, both the physical variety one can often see and hidden disabilities like post-traumatic stress.

After transferring to Berkeley in 2009, he was surprised to discover that many students with disabilities were seeing their health decline, because they didn?t have access to fitness resources that met their special needs. Eventually, after writing a number of research papers on disability and fitness, he won a Haas Scholars grant, which allowed him to survey fitness offerings on campuses across California.

Today, in his newly created staff position, Grigorieff is using all he?s learned, in and out of class, to work for change at Berkeley. He dreams big ? of everything from new disability-studies courses to universal-access fitness equipment in the Recreational Sports Facility (a dozen such machines were recently installed) and trained professionals to help people with disabilities exercise safely. At RSF, he?d also like to see a small cadre of students with disabilities get jobs (to influence the culture), as well as awareness training for everyone on staff.

The list of campus entities he?s working with is long:?It includes, among others, the RSF, the Disabled Students Program and the Division of Equity and Inclusion.??

?We want to be the leader in the UC system, to really build these types of programs? at Berkeley, he says.

Goalball instruction at RSF?s? ?blue gym? is an optional supplement to Derek Van Rheenen?s academic course ?Education, Sports and Culture,? which looks at sport as a cultural practice that influences how we think about the world. The two-unit goalball class was developed in collaboration with the campus?s American Cultures Engaged Scholarship program and the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program, which provides coaching and referees.

Matt Grigorieff, disability health and fitness advocate

Van Rheenen, who directs the campus?s Athletic Study Center, has taught the course for 15 years, but this is the first time he?s included ?the continuum and distinctions around ability and disability within physical education and sports,? he says. Examining ?body privilege? has been both educational and deeply rewarding, he says. ?I don?t think I could ever go back. It?s been a void in my syllabus up to now.?

This semester, for example, his students discussed ?the very intentional and controversial classification system around disability? used in the Paralympic Games. Later in the week, many of them regrouped in the blue gym for coaching, hard play and informal discussion of how theories covered in class relate to their experience playing goalball and navigating the world.

For the sighted, especially, learnings have been impressive. Intercollegiate football, soccer and water polo players, for instance, described a new appreciation for their own position as sighted and exceptionally able-bodied people, as well as the skills needed to navigate without vision. Communication with teammates is ?huge? in goalball, Sundly noted one Friday as the group debriefed between games. ?I?m starting to bring what I?m learning here onto the soccer field,? he said.

The speed with which friendships developed, through goalball, came as a surprise, even to Grigorieff. ?It?s great to see people with different physical abilities and disabilities all getting lunch ? lowering those assumptions and barriers that often surround people with disabilities,? he said. ?With goalball, you?re all equals.?

Related information:
?? With a foothold a Berkeley, ?engaged scholarship? goes where it?s needed (NewsCenter, 2012)

Source: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/04/24/fitness-for-all-is-an-exercise-in-inclusion/

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Boston to Russia: Looking for answers

WASHINGTON (AP) ? New information emerged Wednesday from U.S. officials that the name of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects had been added to a U.S. government terrorist database long before the explosions. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more than 4,000 mourners paid tribute to a campus police officer who authorities say was gunned down by the suspects.

Among the speakers at the memorial service in Cambridge, just outside Boston, was Vice President Joe Biden, who condemned the bombing suspects as "two twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis."

In a striking new development, U.S. officials said the name of the dead suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was added by the CIA to a terrorist database 18 months ago. The officials spoke to The Associated press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case.

The disclosure was significant because officials have been saying the U.S. intelligence community had no relevant information leading up to the April 15 bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Inclusion of one of the bomb suspects' name in a database for 18 months before the attack could prompt congressional inquiries about whether the U.S. government adequately investigated tips from Russia that Tsarnaev posed a security threat.

Tsarnaev's younger brother, surviving suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was listed in fair condition as he recovered from wounds suffered during a getaway attempt. He could get the death penalty if convicted of plotting with his older brother to set off the pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon's finish line. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a shootout with police.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's father has called him a "true angel," and an aunt has insisted he's not guilty. His public defender didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

The bombs were triggered by a remote detonator of the kind used in remote-control toys, U.S. officials said Wednesday. They said investigators found pieces of the remote-control equipment among the debris and were analyzing them.

Both U.S. officials are close to the ongoing investigation but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. One official described the detonator as "close-controlled," meaning it had to be triggered within several blocks of the bombs.

The criminal complaint filed against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said he was using a cellphone moments before the blasts.

U.S. officials also said he has told interrogators he and his brother were angry about the U.S. wars in Muslim Afghanistan and Iraq.

After closed-door briefings on Capitol Hill with the FBI and other law enforcement officials, lawmakers said earlier this week that it appeared so far that the brothers were radicalized via the Internet instead of by direct contact with any terrorist groups and that the older brother was the driving force in the bomb plot.

In Russia, U.S. investigators traveled to the predominantly Muslim province of Dagestan and were in contact with the brothers' parents, hoping to gain more information.

The parents, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, plan to fly to the U.S. on Thursday, the father was quoted as telling the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The family has said it wants to bring Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body back to Russia.

Investigators are looking into whether Tamerlan, who spent six months in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region in 2012, was influenced by the religious extremists who have waged an insurgency against Russian forces in the area for years. The brothers have roots in Dagestan and neighboring Chechnya but had lived in the U.S. for about a decade.

There was a new twist in the accounts of how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured last week.

Two U.S. officials say he was unarmed when police captured him hiding inside a boat covered by a tarp in a neighborhood backyard. Authorities originally said they had exchanged gunfire with him for more than one hour Friday evening before they were able to subdue him.

The U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation, said investigators recovered a 9 mm handgun believed to have been used by Tamerlan from the site of a Thursday night gunbattle that injured a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer. Dzhokhar was believed to have been shot before he escaped.

The officials told the AP that no gun was found in the boat. Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis said earlier that shots were fired from inside the boat.

Asked whether the suspect had a gun in the boat, Davis said, "I'm not going to talk about that."

Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, did respond to the report.

"Within half a mile of where this person was captured, a police officer was shot. And I know who shot him." Schwartz said. "And there were three bombs that went off, and I know where those bombs came from. ... To me, it does not change anything. This guy was captured alive and will survive. True or not true, it doesn't change anything for me."

At MIT, bagpipes wailed as students, faculty and staff members and throngs of law enforcement officials paid their respects to MIT police Officer Sean Collier, who was ambushed in his cruiser three days after the bombing.

The line of mourners stretched for a half-mile. They had to make their way through tight security, including metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs.

Boston native James Taylor sang "The Water is Wide" and led a sing-along of "Shower the People."

Biden told the Collier family that no child should die before his or her parents, but that, in time, the grief will lose some of its sting.

"The moment will come when the memory of Sean is triggered and you know it's going to be OK," Biden said. "When the first instinct is to get a smile on your lips before a tear to your eye."

The vice president also sounded a defiant note.

"The purpose of terror is to instill fear," he said. "You saw none of it here in Boston. Boston, you sent a powerful message to the world."

In another milestone in Boston's recovery, the area around the marathon finish line was reopened to the public, with fresh cement still drying on the repaired sidewalk. Delivery trucks made their way down Boylston Street under a heavy police presence, though some damaged stores were still closed.

"I don't think there's going to be a sense of normalcy for a while," Tom Champoux, who works nearby, said as he pointed to the boarded-up windows. "There are scars here that will be with us for a long time."

___

Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston, Lynn Berry in Moscow, and Kimberly Dozier, Adam Goldman, Eric Tucker, Matt Apuzzo, and Eileen Sullivan in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-bomb-investigation-extends-russia-215024259.html

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U.N. rights chief urges Angola to cut "huge" rich-poor gap

(Reuters) - The United Nations' top human rights official urged Angola's government on Wednesday to reduce the huge disparities between rich and poor that have developed in the oil-rich country despite considerable progress since the end of a 27-year civil war in 2002.

Angola, which is Africa's No. 2 oil producer, has posted rapid growth since the end of the war, but opposition parties and rights groups have long accused President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of doing too little to combat widespread poverty.

Speaking in the capital, Luanda, after a three-day visit, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay praised the government for progress in rebuilding the country's infrastructure and clearing thousands of landmines.

"This development has not been without controversy," she said. "Two issues that have consistently been brought to my attention are the huge disparities that have developed between the richest and the poorest, and the sometimes harsh methods used to evict people from land earmarked for development, especially in and around Luanda."

Dos Santos, who has been in power since 1979, was easily re-elected last year for a new five-year term during which he has pledged to improve the distribution of Angola's vast oil wealth.

His government says it cut poverty levels to about 39 percent of the population in 2009 from 68 percent in 2002, and increased public spending in this year's budget by over a quarter to help improve social conditions.

Pillay said she stressed in a meeting with Dos Santos on Wednesday the importance of cutting the wealth disparities over the next four or five years.

The U.N. official said the president and Cabinet ministers accepted that problems remained and seemed genuinely committed to improving human rights.

She said, however, that the government must tackle alleged abuse - especially sexual abuse - of migrants by security forces and border officials that has persisted for the past decade, especially on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"During my visit to a remote border crossing in Lunda Norte, I received indications that sexual abuse of female migrants is continuing, as well as theft of property," Pillay said.

Recognizing that the irregular entry of tens of thousands of migrants every year, many seeking to dig illegally for diamonds, causes major problems and that the government has the right to deport them, she said it must do so humanely.

Pillay said other problems included implementation of laws on freedom of expression and assembly, including the "heavy-handed" suppression of protests, and the fact that millions of Angolans, including 68 percent of children under age 5, had not been listed in the national identification registry.

(Reporting by Shrikesh Laxmidas in Lisbon; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-rights-chief-urges-angola-cut-huge-225405459.html

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Tara Reid Demands "Fame" Discount at Store, Throws Fit When Denied

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What Not To Do In Your Startup Promo Video

Every now and then I see something so ridiculously stupid, it's just begging to be called out. That's the case with this promotional video from the kind folks at Rippln, which is more or less a two-minute case study in how not to pitch your soon-to-be ultra-viral app to the general public, or the press, or potential employees or investors.

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

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NASA's other rocket for hire, Antares, is poised for test launch

The Antares rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., is set for a first test launch Wednesday evening, weather permitting. Its maker is, like SpaceX, under contract with NASA to ferry cargo to the International Space Station.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / April 17, 2013

The Orbital Sciences Corporation Antares rocket is seen on the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) Pad-0A at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia Tuesday.

Courtesy of Bill Ingalls/NASA/Reuters

Enlarge

Orbital Sciences Corp., one of two companies NASA has hired to ferry cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), is set for the first test launch of a new rocket it has built to handle the task.

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Liftoff of the rocket, dubbed Antares, currently is scheduled for early Wednesday evening EDT from a new launch pad built at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility on the Virginia coast.

"It's going to be the biggest and loudest and brightest thing that's ever been launched from Wallops," says Frank Culbertson, a former NASA astronaut and the executive vice president who oversees Orbital Sciences' advanced-programs group. The facility typically launches sounding rockets, research balloons, and conducts aviation research. It hasn't been the site of an orbital mission since 1985.

This mission's goal is to place a dummy version of the company's Cygnus cargo carrier into orbit. If it succeeds, the company aims to launch a loaded cargo module to the station this summer in a demonstration of its ability to meet NASA's standard for operating at the space station. If all goes well on that mission, the company plans the first formal delivery of cargo in the fall, under a $1.9-billion contract with the space agency.

For Orbital Sciences, Wednesday's launch represents a vital milestone along its path from late entry into NASA under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to launch pad.

"My confidence level is very high," Mr. Culbertson said during a prelaunch briefing Tuesday. The company has been working on the rocket for six years. It's the latest in a line of launch vehicles the company has built in the more than 30 years it has been building rockets, satellites, and other space hardware for civilian and military use.

For NASA, Antares and the new launch facility built to service it represent "a critical capability not only for NASA and the ISS program, but for the entire nation," offers Phil McAlister, the agency's director of commercial spaceflight development.

"We saw after Columbia how tenuous our lifeline is to low-Earth orbit," he adds, referring to the Columbia disaster in February 2002, when the shuttle disintegrated on reentry, killing its seven-member crew. "That one tragic accident made it really challenging for NASA to maintain the ISS during that very difficult period of time."

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/XRcjAnlYA3s/NASA-s-other-rocket-for-hire-Antares-is-poised-for-test-launch

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PFT: Jim Thorpe's sons win lawsuit over his remains

AP

Predictably, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam denies wrongdoing by the company he runs, Pilot Flying J, in connection with customer discounts and rebates.? Even more predictably, the FBI and IRS wouldn?t have descended on company headquarters on Monday without evidence to support the allegations.

The evidence seems extensive, and much of it in the form of secretly recorded conversations.? Those conversations include an admission from a key employee of the company that Haslam was aware of the practice of shorting customers.

The 120-page affidavit was posted by the Cleveland Plain Dealer after being filed in court on Thursday.? We?ve read the entire thing.

The affidavit explains at paragraph 6 that a confidential informant contacted the FBI on or about May 4, 2011 to report that another employee of Pilot Flying J had confided ?that certain Pilot employees had been intentionally defrauding some of Pilot?s Customers by deliberately charging these Customers a higher price than the contractually agreed upon price, and then concealing the fact and nature of this increased price from these victimized customers.?

The informant recorded conversations with the other employee, who then agreed to cooperate in the investigation.? The second employee, after entering into a non-prosecution agreement, provided information about the fraudulent practices ? and began recording conversations with other Pilot Flying J employees.

The affidavit contains excerpts from numerous conversations and meetings.? For example, at paragraph 63 of the affidavit Pilot Flying J V.P. of Sales John Freeman had this to say during an October 25, 2012 Regional Directors meeting at Freeman?s lake house:? ??Hey this is a game.? We?re playin? f?kin? poker with funny money, and it?s liar?s poker with funny money because of all this cost-plus stuff.? So, you know, I?m not, I don?t want to get into a moral or ethical conversation, because I believe that if a guy?s gonna butt-f?k you then we got to go to butt-f?kin? him harder. . . . Some people are tits and some people ass guys and some people want their discount managed through the system and some people like a big check.? I mean, f?k, sell it to ?em the way they want to buy.? And understand, the f?ker?s got the ability to know what the hell you?re doing to ?em.? Okay??

Freeman said later in the meeting, ?F?k ?em early and f?k ?em often.?

Freeman referred repeatedly to having to ?buy an airplane? when Western Express, a trucking company, realized what was happening.? Specifically, instead of paying Western Express $1 million to rectify the situation, Pilot Flying J bought an airplane from Western Express that was on the books for $7 million, and on which Western Express owed $1 million.

At paragraph 81 of the affidavit, a recorded conversation contains an admission from Freeman that Haslam knew about the Western Express situation.? ?[H]e knew all along that I was cost-plussin? this guy,? Freeman said.? ?He knew it all along.? Loved it.? We were makin? $450,000 a month on him why wouldn?t he love it?. . .? Did it for five years, cost us a million bucks.? I mean, we made $6 million on the guy, cost us a million bucks.?

The recorded conversations potentially represent the tip of the evidentiary iceberg.? The affidavit was submitted to justify the search warrants that the FBI and IRS executed on Monday.? The company?s files and computers (including email chatter) possibly will contain many more references to the alleged scheme.

In the interim, Pilot Flying J should prepare to buy more planes.? While the company allegedly preyed on unsophisticated trucking companies by shorting them on discounts and rebates, those unsophisticated trucking companies are likely sophisticated enough to hire lawyers who will sue Pilot Flying J for a full refund, plus punitive damages.

Likewise, Pilot Flying J can now count on its competitors aggressively trying to convert customers by printing off the affidavit, highlighting some of the comments from Freeman, and asking those customers if they really want to continue doing business with a company like Pilot Flying J.

While these are only allegations and both the company and its employees are entitled to the presumption of innocence, the contents of the affidavit paint a picture that can get ugly for Haslam, in multiple ways.? As to the biggest question ? whether Haslam will face criminal liability ? the most important witness of them all could end up being John Freeman.

If Freeman flips and gives persuasive testimony against Haslam, Jimmy could be going down.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/20/jim-thorpes-sons-win-lawsuit-over-his-remains/related/

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Slovenia insists it's not the next Cyprus

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) ? Slovenian officials have a message for the world: Don't panic ? we won't be the next to fall.

The tiny European Union member is trying to convince its people and foreign investors that it won't be the next in line for a banking system collapse and a messy international bailout.

"We are absolutely no Cyprus," says new Slovenian Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek. "We don't need help. All we need is time."

But time is running out for the Balkan state, once considered an East European success story and a model for the rest of the region on how to build a post-communist economy. With few specifics from leaders on a rescue plan, some economists are skeptical they can live up to their promises.

Slovenia desperately needs fundamental reform of its banking and economic system if it is to avoid the same fate as Cyprus, a fellow member of the 17-strong group of European Union countries that use the euro. The island nation was forced to ask for a bailout from its fellow eurozone countries, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund when it could not afford to support its bloated banking sector.

Now the fear is Slovenia could face the same fate. While its overall public debt load is well below the EU average, the country of 2 million is facing difficulties refinancing its debt. That has fueled fears that Slovenia ? which accounts for 0.4 percent of the eurozone's overall economy ? could become the sixth eurozone nation to require assistance.

At the core of Slovenia's problems are its state-run banks, which control about 60 percent of the country's banking sector.

The Alpine country's banks have been on a lending spree for years, loaning money to unprofitable state companies or privileged officials who used the cash to buy the firms they ran, using the state assets as collateral.

Many such businesses have now collapsed or have huge debts. A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation says that the equity of the state banks has been "virtually wiped out." As much as 15 percent of all loans are now non-performing, the third-highest ratio in the eurozone, the Paris-based group said.

"In Slovenia, tycoons have stolen everything," Mico Pavic, a retired construction worker said at Ljubljana's main Presern square, where a Gypsy folk band created a relaxed atmosphere at odds with the country's situation. "I have been here since 1960, and I have not seen a bigger crisis."

Bank officials say that despite fears of a financial sector collapse, there has been no rush on banks to pull out cash from private saving accounts. That is primarily because Slovenes ? despite a recent spate of anti-government protests ? traditionally trust their state, which has provided them in the past with good welfare and standards of living.

"We are not some kind of a tax haven for global billionaires, nor does our banking sector constitute the bulk of our GDP," Bratusek said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, apparently referring to Cyprus where the bulk of saving accounts belonged to wealthy Russians. "Not all is rosy in Slovenia, but that is true for all of Europe."

Cyprus agreed last month that in return for a 10 billion euro bailout loan it would contribute a further 13 billion euros ? mainly by breaking up one of its banks and forcing haircuts of up to 80 cents on the dollar for anyone with more than 100,000 euros in a deposit account.

Janko Medja, the head of Nova Ljubljanska Banka, Slovenia's largest troubled state-run bank, said Slovenia will avoid a similar deal because of the comparative size of their banking sectors.

Slovenia's banking sector is worth about 130 percent of the country's GDP of about 36 billion euros. The sector in Cyprus, by contrast, had swollen to eight times the nation's annual economic output.

The core of the Slovenia's problems is the failure to privatize the economy, including the state banks, Medja said.

"It is safe to say that the problem for this house, with NLB having a 30 percent market share in Slovenia, accumulated over the past 10 years, and we are having a very tough job of restructuring it," Medja, who took over late last year to try stabilize the bank, said in an interview.

"It will take a couple of years to get to a rebound situation," he said, adding that the bank will initially need some 400 million euros ($524 million) for immediate recapitalization. Economists estimate that NLB needs some 2.5 billion euros ($3.2 billion) for a complete bailout.

"We in the NLB are proceeding as if there will be no need for a bailout," Medja said.

But the Slovenian banks' troubles are large enough for investors to fear the government might face huge costs rescuing them. That has pushed up the government's borrowing rates in bond markets to near the levels Cyprus faced on the eve of seeking the bailout.

"Recent events have underlined our view that the Slovenian government will struggle to finance itself this year despite the small size (relative to GDP) of its troubled banks and public debt," Capital Economics Ltd., a London-based analyst group, said. "To avoid a bailout, the government will need rapidly to put in place a credible plan to tackle the banking crisis."

The government is setting up a so-called bad bank to retake shaky loans and investments off banks' hands and is working "literally day and night" on fixing the financial sector, Bratusek said.

"The first priority of our government is the stabilization of our banking system," said Bratusek, whose center-left government took over two months ago after the fall of previous center-right Prime Minister Janez Jansa over corruption allegations. "But that alone won't help our economy, as we also have to also stabilize our over-indebted companies."

Slovenian economic analysts are unimpressed by the new government actions taken so far.

"It is still possible that Slovenia will escape the bailout, but it depends on government measures," analyst Joze P. Damjan said. "The problem is that we still don't know what those measures are."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-21-Slovenia-Bailout/id-03d7a2d5b2aa487fa0446ceccc72e041

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AP PHOTOS: Scenes from the past 24 hours in Boston

AAA??Apr. 19, 2013?3:10 PM ET
AP PHOTOS: Scenes from the past 24 hours in Boston
By The Associated PressBy The Associated Press, Associated Press??

The usually busy Kenmore Square in Boston is virtually deserted at lunchtime Friday, April 18, 2013 during a call for "shelter-in-place" for Boston and some area communities. Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said as the manhunt intensified for a young man described as a dangerous terrorist. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

The usually busy Kenmore Square in Boston is virtually deserted at lunchtime Friday, April 18, 2013 during a call for "shelter-in-place" for Boston and some area communities. Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said as the manhunt intensified for a young man described as a dangerous terrorist. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

In this photo provided by Harold Cobin, traffic is halted and an Amtrak Acela train sits on the track in Norwalk, Conn., Friday, April 19, 2013, after Norwalk police were asked by Boston police to search the train for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the the remaining Boston Marathon bombings suspect. An Amtrak spokesman said the southbound train was allowed to continue to Washington about 9:30 a.m. Amtrak suspended service between Boston and Providence, R.I., about 5:45 a.m., Friday at the request of Massachusetts authorities. (AP Photo/Harold Cobin)

In this image taken from a mobile phone video, the father of USA Boston bomb suspects, Anzor Tsaraev reacts as he talks to the media about his sons, in his home in the Russian city of Makhachkala, Friday April 19, 2013. One son is now dead, and one son Dzhokhar Tsaraev is still at large on Friday suspected in Monday's deadly Boston Marathon bombing which stunned friends who have pleaded for the surviving brother, described as bright and outgoing young man, to turn himself in and not hurt anyone.(AP Photo)

Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, speaks with the media outside his home in Montgomery Village in Md. Friday, April, 19, 2013. Tsarni urged his nephew to turn himself in. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Maret Tsarnaeva, an aunt of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing, holds a reporter's smart phone which displays a scene from the bomb site, as she speaks to journalists in the lobby of her apartment building in Toronto on Friday April 19, 2013. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His brother, a 19-year-old college student who was dubbed Suspect No. 2 and was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday's deadly bombing at the marathon finish line, escaped. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young)

Most of Boston is shut down as law enforcement continues its massive manhunt for the remaining suspect in the marathon bombings. Police say one suspect is now dead and the other is on the run after a violent night of gunfire and explosions near Boston, which left one MIT police officer dead.

Here is a gallery of photos looking back at the past 24 hours in the search.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-19-Boston-Marathon-Photo-Gallery/id-236825b638844c6c9ffa8da9d9efec53

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Ryan Lochte's E! Show Starts New Movement: 'Swimming Awareness'?

The Olympian's 'What Would Ryan Lochte Do?' reality series will show him on dates and hanging with family.
By Elizabeth Lancaster

"What Would Ryan Lochte Do?"
Photo: E! Entertainment

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706081/ryan-lochte-reality-show-swimming.jhtml

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SAP's cloud computing push stalls in Asia

By Harro Ten Wolde

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - SAP AG's Asian business stumbled at the start of 2013 when top sales managers left the business software company, giving rivals an edge just as customers were switching from hardware to cloud computing.

The German company vowed to get its Asia Pacific business back on track after the problems pushed its first-quarter earnings and revenue below analyst forecasts. Its shares fell 2.8 percent on Friday.

SAP and rivals such as IBM and Oracle are dashing to meet surging demand for cloud computing, which allows clients to reduce costs by ditching bulky and costly servers for network-based software and storage in remote data centers.

With the cloud services market forecast to grow 18.5 percent this year to $131 billion worldwide, according to research firm Gartner, competition is fierce and software firms face a challenge to adapt.

"We had some leadership changes in the region. That is why we saw some misses in the quarter," said SAP's co-Chief Executive Jim Hagemann Snabe.

He promised the Asia Pacific region would be back on track in the second quarter as the sales pipeline looked good and important sales positions were now taken care of.

SAP shares were down 2.8 percent at 57.95 euros by 0932 GMT, while a broader index of European technology companies was down 0.7 percent.

The biggest disappointment in SAP's quarterly results was SAP's performance in the Asia Pacific Japan region (APJ), said Stacy Pollard, an analyst at JP Morgan.

Its software and cloud subscription revenue there declined 7 percent, lagging the Americas, where revenue jumped 49 percent, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where it grew 13 percent.

"While weakness from other software and IT services names over the last month had already pushed down expectations (and the SAP share price), we would still expect another 3 to 4 percent correction to shares today," Pollard said.

TRANSFORMATION

SAP software helps companies to manage supplies, human resources and customers relations. It is reducing its reliance on traditional business software to become a major player in cloud computing.

Snabe said the industry was transforming as customers turned to web-based software products.

"Hardware is in trouble," he told Reuters Insider.

SAP faces competition in Internet-based software from IBM and Oracle and nimbler rivals like Salesforce.com Inc and Workday Inc. It spent $7.7 billion last year to buy Internet-based computing companies Ariba and SuccessFactors.

Its main competitor, Oracle, reported a 2 percent drop in software sales in its fiscal third-quarter ended in February.

SAP said it had snatched market share from Oracle and others as customers turn to cloud services, which are seen as less vulnerable to the global economic downturn as there are no upfront costs for program licenses, hardware or installation.

SAP said it still expected operating profit this year to be 5.85 billion to 5.95 billion euros ($7.65-7.78 billion) at constant currencies, up 12-14 percent from 5.21 billion in 2012.

"Given the ... weak results from competitors, we would not overemphasize the first-quarter results," said Oliver Finger, an analyst at DZ Bank, who rates the stock a "buy". "Moreover, the first quarter is traditionally the least important quarter for SAP and the company remains confident overall."

SAP's first-quarter operating profit excluding special items rose 8 percent to 901 million euros, missing an average forecast of 968 million in a Reuters poll of analysts.

Revenue was also up 8 percent at 3.64 billion euros, but missed even the most pessimistic estimate in the Reuters poll, where individual estimates ranged from 3.73 to 3.9 billion.

(Editing by Christoph Steitz and Tom Pfeiffer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/saps-cloud-computing-push-stalls-asia-100555577--sector.html

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GOP Senate candidates face off in Taunton debate

Of the two GOP candidates who sparred with one another Thursday night in Taunton ? as prelude to the April 30 primary election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by John Kerry ? it was state Rep. Daniel Winslow who came across as more willing to compromise for the sake of his party?s future.

Unfortunately for Winslow, the results of a straw poll following the debate showed those in attendance overwhelmingly supported the views expressed by candidate Michael J. Sullivan.

The third of the three candidates, Gabriel Gomez, opted to attend a meet-and-greet on the North Shore and did not attend the Q&A at the Holiday Inn.

Toward the end of the debate the candidates butted heads when asked if their party needed to take steps to recast their image with voters.

Winslow said the GOP?s priority should be to support ?the most electable conservative candidate we can.?

?We don?t need to rebrand ourselves, we need to be as we are and be faithful to the grand principles of opportunity, prosperity and growth,? in order to remain relevant,? he said.

Sullivan said ?we should be electing the best candidate? and proclaimed himself ?much more conservative than Dan,? especially in terms of fiscal matters.

?The Democrats are afraid to have my name on the general ballot,? Sullivan said.

Winslow raised his voice, saying if Republicans continue to turn a blind eye to shifting demographics and cultural trends, and project an image of inflexibility, they alone would be responsible for their political demise.

?We can?t afford to lose the culture wars. We have to agree to disagree on matters of freedom, faith and conscience,? Winslow said.

?We have to have an inclusionary, not exclusionary, view, and if we don?t we won?t be competitive, and it will be our own fault,? he said.

Sullivan declined an opportunity to respond.

The straw poll showed 67 votes for Sullivan, 16 for Winslow and three for the absent Gomez. Those participating in the poll paid $10 apiece.

Both candidates used this week?s Boston Marathon bombing as a backdrop for their pro-death penalty stance.

Winslow, a former district court judge, said he appreciates the inherent value in the death penalty, which he described as ?organized retribution.?

The bomber or bombers who killed three and maimed more than 150 on Monday have ?lost the right to live,? he said.

Winslow, 57, said, ?If elected I would do nothing to change that law.? He said he would leave it up to state legislators to decide if Massachusetts needs to adopt the death penalty.

Sullivan said if nominated, and if he defeats either Stephen Lynch or Ed Markey, he won?t support any ?so-called compromise bill? on Capital Hill for reforming gun laws.

The 58-year-old Sullivan stressed that background checks won?t prevent gun-related massacres like the Newtown, Conn., shootings, and insisted that the federal government should establish a means of keeping a record of anyone who has been adjudicated as mentally ill.

?Crime guns are not guns that are sold at gun shows,? Sullivan said.

He also took a tougher anti-abortion stance than Winslow. Sullivan said if the state of Mississippi closes its last abortion clinic, he would not interfere.

?It?s a state?s decision to make,? he said.

Winslow, however, said the emphasis should remain on a woman?s right to decide whether she wants to abort the pregnancy, but not to the extent of a third-trimester abortion.

Taunton City Councilman David Pottier, a Republican who supports Gomez, said he?s pleased that his party has ?three strong candidates? to offer.

Also attending the debate were Republican state representatives Shaunna O?Connell and Keiko Orrall.

Source: http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x1641166886/GOP-Senate-candidates-face-off-in-Taunton-debate?rssfeed=true

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Union chief: LEOFF-1 firefighters a minority - Fri, 19 Apr 2013 PST

Kelly Fox has been the president of the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters union since 1996, and he?s been a firefighter in Olympia longer than?that.

So he is understandably defensive about some of the things that have been written about people who do that job in Washington, following the recent Associated Press series about pension abuses. Fox thinks that people may not understand a crucial bit of context about the pension abuses ? the fact that they were entirely centered on a system that was changed decades?ago.

?The line firefighter who goes out on calls all day??

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Kelly Fox has been the president of the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters union since 1996, and he?s been a firefighter in Olympia longer than?that.

So he is understandably defensive about some of the things that have been written about people who do that job in Washington, following the recent Associated Press series about pension abuses. Fox thinks that people may not understand a crucial bit of context about the pension abuses ? the fact that they were entirely centered on a system that was changed decades?ago.

?The line firefighter who goes out on calls all day long ? we?re not the guys who did that,? said Fox. ?But we?re the ones who are going to see the citizens out there saying, ?You?re sticking it to us and taking money from poor?kids.???

Fox?s choice of words there was specific. Because it was I, not long ago, who wrote that pension-spiking firefighters were sticking it to us and hurting poor?kids.

Now, I really did, and really do, think that. The people who are busily looking for reasons not to pay for schools, social services, parks ? and that is most of us ? will dine out on the stories of pension abuse for years. That kind of pension gaming, by cities looking to push firefighters off their payrolls and by the firefighters themselves, will have a political cost that far exceeds its financial?one.

Fox gets that. But as one of the vast majority of firefighters who are outside the retirement system that is ripest for abuse, he feels that when someone like me writes about what ?firefighters? are doing, that I?m painting with an enormous?brush.

?It is not a complete picture,? Fox?said.

The pension-spiking abuses were uncovered by an AP reporter who did a three-part series on various problems in the pension, disability and medical systems for state workers. The series included an example of three firefighters in Lakewood who received raises just weeks before retirement that drove up their lifetime pensions by as much as $1 million,?collectively.

Those firefighters are part of the LEOFF-1 pension system, a lavish and expensive system that was replaced in 1977. Most of the abuses or problems uncovered by the AP stories involved LEOFF-1 pensioners. Many critics of the AP series, and of my column, say there was an insufficient explanation about how small LEOFF-1 is, relatively, and the fact that it is so well-funded that the state has not needed to contribute to it for 13?years.

Fox said that around 200 working firefighters and cops around the state are part of the LEOFF-1 system ? relatively few cops or firefighters on the plan are still working. Of course, around 8,000 retirees are now covered by the plan, and the ongoing expense of their retirements is by no means a closed?matter.

Fox was emphatic in repeatedly noting that he did not support the kinds of pension spiking that occurred. But he was also emphatic that such abuses could not occur under the LEOFF-2 system. For one thing, he said, retirement benefits for those firefighters are established not by final salary, as in LEOFF-1, but by the highest 60-month average pay a firefighter?received.

He and others have also argued that when it comes to the LEOFF-1 retirements, we?re not talking about frontline firefighters ? the people out there in the communities, going out on calls ? but on late-career folks who have moved into?management.

?You?re talking about very few people, and it?s primarily folks who have ? 34, 35, 36 years on the job,? he?said.

Finally, Fox took issue with the impression that all retiring firefighters were seeing big late-career raises. The AP reported that LEOFF-1 retirees saw an average of 5.5 percent raises in their last year of employment; at a time of deep budget-cutting, such a pattern is loathsome. And it is in no way mitigated by the fact that the LEOFF-1 system is well-funded ? there are millions of state tax dollars in that fund that are not simply there to be?plundered.

But Fox argues that LEOFF-2 firefighters are not seeing such late-career raises, in part because the system was reformed to remove the incentive for pension?spiking.

?Across the state, we?re seeing most people taking pay freezes, if not reductions,? he?said.

Fox makes fair points. For my money, the most important thing he does is avoid attempting to excuse the abuses ? which many have done, wrapping themselves up in a self-pitying claim of victimhood at the hands of the press ? while attempting to stick up for the basic decency of his?members.

?This really does hit us hard as an organization and a profession,? he?said.

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at?@vestal13.

Source: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/apr/19/union-chief-leoff-1-firefighters-a-minority/

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Italian parliament fails to elect state president

By Barry Moody and Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's parliament failed to elect a new state president in its first vote on Thursday, with deep splits in the center left torpedoing a quick victory for its official candidate Franco Marini.

Marini, a former Senate speaker, won 521 votes, well below the required two-thirds majority of 672 of the 1,007 electors, comprising members of both houses of parliament and regional representatives.

A second ballot will be held later on Thursday and two votes a day will continue through the weekend if necessary.

Marini's clear failure, in a vote which is key to filling a government vacuum since the deadlocked general election in February, was a slap in the face for center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani. He badly split his party by nominating Marini in a deal with center-right boss Silvio Berlusconi.

Many rebellious center-left parliamentarians voted in the secret ballot for academic Stefano Rodota, candidate of the populist 5-Star Movement of former comic Beppe Grillo.

Rodota won more than 240 votes and there were also more than 100 blank or spoilt ballots.

Nichi Vendola, head of Bersani's leftist ally SEL, said nominating Marini "was a mistake. The result was worrying. Marini was a candidate who united the center right, not the center left."

He said unless things changed, his 46 representatives would keep voting for Rodota.

Roberto Fico, from Grillo's movement, said: "The Berlusconi-Bersani marriage did not work, so the consensus behind Rodota is growing."

After three rounds of voting, only an absolute majority is required but the chances for Marini, 80, may decline as time passes, wrecking Bersani's deal with Berlusconi which is aimed at helping him form a minority government.

Bersani has repeatedly refused to agree to Berlusconi's demands that they form a broad coalition government together. But it is widely believed he wants to parley an agreement on the presidency with center-right willingness to support a minority center-left government.

FURY ON LEFT

The vote for a successor to President Giorgio Napolitano, whose term ends on May 15, is a crucial step towards resolving the stalemate since an inconclusive election in February which left no party with enough support to form a government.

However the choice of Marini provoked fury in Bersani's Democratic Party (PD) and an open revolt by his rival, Matteo Renzi, the 38-year-old mayor of Florence.

Renzi described the 80-year-old Marini as "a candidate from the last century" who had no charisma or international standing, adding that he was only chosen because he was acceptable to Berlusconi.

"The PD is in fragments, it doesn't exist anymore," Renato Brunetta, the parliamentary leader of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party, told Canale 5 television.

Until the new president is elected, the paralysis that has hobbled attempts to form a government for more than 50 days since the election will continue.

The PD, which controls the lower house of parliament, has the largest number of presidential electors with 430, ahead of Berlusconi's PDL with 211 and the 5-Star Movement with 162.

If no candidate succeeds in the initial rounds, the required threshold drops to a simple majority from the fourth round. But it is unclear whether Marini would remain in the race or drop out if he failed to secure the two-thirds majority.

That could lead to the PD abandoning hopes of a deal with the center right and going for a candidate like former Prime Minister Romano Prodi, one of Berlusconi's oldest political enemies. Such an outcome is widely seen as likely to lead to an election within months.

The head of state is a largely ceremonial figure but has a number of vital political functions, as Napolitano demonstrated in 2011 when he put Mario Monti at the head of a government of technocrats to replace the scandal-plagued Berlusconi.

It will be up to the new president to end the political deadlock left by the election, either by persuading the parties to come to an accord that would allow a government to be formed or by dissolving parliament and calling a new national vote.

February's election gave Bersani's center-left alliance control of the lower house of parliament but short of the Senate majority it needed to form a government.

The 61-year-old former industry minister has faced growing pressure from Renzi and others in his party after throwing away a 10-point opinion poll lead before the vote.

While the fiery Grillo remains firmly opposed to the main parties, agreement over the candidacy of Marini could signal greater willingness on the part of Bersani and Berlusconi to come to an understanding that would avert immediate new elections.

However Brunetta said the revolt in the PD ranks suggested the prospects of a government accord being reached remained highly uncertain.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie and Paolo Biondi; editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italys-parliament-fails-elect-president-first-vote-120150830.html

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NH legislator calls women 'vaginas' in House email

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) ? A Republican legislator is drawing ire for referring to women as "vaginas" in an email to his House colleagues during a debate over repealing a law allowing people to use deadly force to defend themselves.

In an email sent April 1, state Rep. Peter Hansen of Amherst referred to a speech given by another lawmaker, who described how he had been able to retreat without using deadly force in public.

"There were two critical ingredients missing in the illustrious stories purporting to demonstrate the practical side of retreat. Not that retreat may not be possible mind you. What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina's of course. While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims," Hansen wrote, according to messages posted online this week by liberal blogger Susan Bruce.

Other lawmakers, NARAL-Pro Choice New Hampshire and state GOP Chairwoman Jennifer Horn were among those saying the remark debased women.

"These comments are repugnant and unbecoming of an elected official," said House Republican Leader Gene Chandler of Bartlett. "They have no place in public discourse. Rep. Hansen's comments in no way reflect the opinions of House Republicans or the Republican Party. Rep. Hansen should apologize immediately."

Hansen, 70, said Tuesday that he didn't regret the remark and that critics don't understand the context.

"My point in the choice of words was two-fold: One was shock content and the other was to try to get into the mind of the perpetrator," Hansen told The Telegraph of Nashua. "This is something that has been totally blown out of proportion."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nh-legislator-calls-women-vaginas-house-email-132928929.html

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New keyboard for touchscreens

Public release date: 17-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Antti Oulasvirta
antti.oulasvirta@mpii.de
0049-681-302-71927
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Typing on today's mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with the thumbs. Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. It has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are limited to typing at a rate of around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rates achieved on physical keyboards. The researchers set out to create an alternative to QWERTY that offers substantial performance advantages for users. The researchers incorporated models of thumb movement into a computational optimization algorithm.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and colleagues from the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech quickly realized that slight changes to the layout, like exchanging a few keys, would not be sufficient for a significant improvement. Words like "on, see, you, read, dear, immune, based", frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only, making the typing burdensome. This initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry with the goal of improving typing performance and minimizing the strain for the thumbs.

Antti Oulasvirta says "The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method."

The computational optimization process had two goals: To minimize the moving time of the thumbs and to approximate alternating sides as well as possible. The result achieved by computational optimization was rather unexpected. In the new keyboard KALQ, all vowels, with the exception of the letter "y", are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. To fully benefit from this layout, the users were trained to move their thumbs simultaneously. While one thumb is typing, the other one can move to its next target.

Per Ola Kristensson says "The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices. However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to give users the incentive to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing."

Finally, the authors developed probabilistic error correction methods that took into account how thumbs move and also statistical knowledge about the texts users type. Their error correction method enabled trained users to type more quickly while retaining an acceptable level of errors. With these improvements, users were able to reach 37 words per minute, which is the best ever reported for two-thumb typing on touch-screen devices, significantly more than the approximate 20 words on a split QWERTY that regular users can achieve.

The researchers will present their work at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris on May 1st. CHI is the principal international forum for outstanding research and development in human-computer interaction.

###

KALQ will be made available as a free app for Android-based smart-phones at the beginning of May. For more information, including illustrations and a video, visit the project page: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~oantti/KALQ/

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 17-Apr-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Dr. Antti Oulasvirta
antti.oulasvirta@mpii.de
0049-681-302-71927
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Typing on today's mobile phones and tablets is needlessly slow. One limitation is that the QWERTY layout is ill-suited for tablets and other touch-screen devices when typing with the thumbs. Two-thumb typing is ergonomically very different from typing on a physical keyboard. It has been established that normal users using a QWERTY on a touch-screen device are limited to typing at a rate of around 20 words per minute, which is slow compared to the rates achieved on physical keyboards. The researchers set out to create an alternative to QWERTY that offers substantial performance advantages for users. The researchers incorporated models of thumb movement into a computational optimization algorithm.

The researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and colleagues from the University of St Andrews and Montana Tech quickly realized that slight changes to the layout, like exchanging a few keys, would not be sufficient for a significant improvement. Words like "on, see, you, read, dear, immune, based", frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only, making the typing burdensome. This initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry with the goal of improving typing performance and minimizing the strain for the thumbs.

Antti Oulasvirta says "The key to optimizing a keyboard for two thumbs is to minimize long sequences with a single thumb. We also want to place frequently used letters centrally close to each other. Experienced typists move their thumbs simultaneously: While one is typing, the other is approaching its next target. We derived a predictive model of this behaviour for the optimization method."

The computational optimization process had two goals: To minimize the moving time of the thumbs and to approximate alternating sides as well as possible. The result achieved by computational optimization was rather unexpected. In the new keyboard KALQ, all vowels, with the exception of the letter "y", are placed in the area for the right thumb, whereas the left thumb gets assigned more keys. To fully benefit from this layout, the users were trained to move their thumbs simultaneously. While one thumb is typing, the other one can move to its next target.

Per Ola Kristensson says "The legacy of QWERTY has trapped users with suboptimal text entry interfaces on mobile devices. However, before abandoning QWERTY, users rightfully demand a compelling alternative. We believe KALQ provides a large enough performance improvement to give users the incentive to switch and benefit from faster and more comfortable typing."

Finally, the authors developed probabilistic error correction methods that took into account how thumbs move and also statistical knowledge about the texts users type. Their error correction method enabled trained users to type more quickly while retaining an acceptable level of errors. With these improvements, users were able to reach 37 words per minute, which is the best ever reported for two-thumb typing on touch-screen devices, significantly more than the approximate 20 words on a split QWERTY that regular users can achieve.

The researchers will present their work at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris on May 1st. CHI is the principal international forum for outstanding research and development in human-computer interaction.

###

KALQ will be made available as a free app for Android-based smart-phones at the beginning of May. For more information, including illustrations and a video, visit the project page: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~oantti/KALQ/

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/m-nkf041713.php

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Chinese Gaming Publisher Yodo1 Raises $5M In Round Led By Singapore's SingTel Innov8

Yodo1, a Beijing-based company that works intensively with Western game developers to bring their titles to the Chinese market, raised $5 million from SingTel Innov8, the corporate venture arm of a mobile carrier. An earlier investor, Changyou Fund, also participated in the round. Yodo1 has a co-production model where they actually get access to the code base of a Western developers’ game. They modify the graphics, virtual goods and music for local Chinese tastes. An example CEO Henry Fong points to is Ski Safari, a game from Brisbane, Australia’s Defiant Development. In the platformer title, a character races up and down ski slopes (kind of like last year’s indie hit Tiny Wings out of Germany). For the Chinese version, they made the architecture of the houses in the background more Chinese, added a zither to the music and put in terra cotta warrior outfits. “We’re a full blown co-production team,” Fong said in an interview a few weeks ago at San Francisco’s Game Developer Conference. “We deeply culturalize the game.” Yodo1 says it now has 25 million monthly actives in China for games that it co-produces, including XMG’s Powder Monkeys, HandyGames’ Clouds & Sheep, and Robot Entertainment’s Hero Academy. The company is also adding five to six million new players each month, and daily actives and revenue are doubling month-over-month. That reach comes at a time when the Chinese smartphone market is finally reaching maturity. Mobile analytics startup Flurry said February was the month when China finally passed the U.S. in terms of the number of active Android and iOS devices. At the same time, local payment options are getting better. In late 2011, Apple added local bank card payments, which cut down on fraud dramatically. Fong also said that the country’s three major carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, did a re-start with local carrier billing that made it easier for mobile developers to monetize their users. A rival, CocoaChina, which does both first-party games and publishing, said it expects to see a mobile game do between $10 million and 15 million in revenue per month in China this year. Fong chose SingTel as a lead for strategic reasons. The parent company of the fund has about 450 million mobile subscribers across Southeast Asia, which makes for a nice potential base of future customers. Here’s a presentation he recently did on how to break into the Chinese

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