Wednesday, December 30, 2009
How The Rich are Debt-Free
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Hi,
===========================================
Crisis ???
The Rich are debt-free and do really have
a lot of options in life.
If you want to be rich, you must know
- what kind of income to work hard for,
- how to keep it, and
- how to protect it from loss.
That is the key to great wealth.
Discover this kind of income in:
===========================================
Cheers,
Labels: become debt free, debt free, lifestyle guide
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Oprah's departure presents problem for TV stations
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CHICAGO - For more than two decades, Oprah Winfrey has been the inspirational, change-your-life champion who reigned over daytime television much like Johnny Carson once ruled late night.
Now she's ready to say goodbye, leaving a huge void for broadcast TV even as she raises the possibility of more Oprah than ever when she starts her own cable network.
Winfrey told viewers Friday that she will dim the lights on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" at the close of its 25th season in late 2011.
"I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to know when it's time to say goodbye," she said, holding back tears. "Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit. It's the perfect number, the exact right time."
For the hundreds of network affiliates who depended on Winfrey to deliver millions of viewers every day, Friday's announcement starts an 18-month clock to find a way to fill the space left behind after the end of the most successful daytime talk show in television history.
Winfrey's show "is one of daytime television's very foundations," said Larry Gerbrandt, an analyst for the firm Media Valuation Partners in Los Angeles. "You could, and stations did, build their schedules around her. They gave it the best time period, leading into their news, and used it to promote other shows."
Winfrey cautioned viewers that they would hear "a lot of speculation in the press about why I am making this decision," warning them not to listen to the "conjecture." But she offered no specifics about her plans for the future, except to say that she intended to produce the best possible shows during the final two years.
"I just wanted to say whether you've been here with me from the beginning or you came on board last week, I want you all to know that my relationship with you is one that I hold very dear," she said. "Your trust in me, the sharing of your precious time every day with me has brought me the greatest joy I have ever known."
It has also brought her a fortune estimated at $2.7 billion. As a newcomer, she chipped away at the dominance of Phil Donahue. She flirted with a tabloid format for a time, but gradually reinvented her show to focus on themes of inspiration, hope and the power of positive thinking.
"She's made such an imprint in today's society. She's just part of everyone's lives," said Yasmeen Elhaj, a 19-year-old student from Chicago who was in the studio for Friday's announcement. "People talk about Oprah like that's her friend. So that's why everyone is sad to see her go because she's just a giving person, feels like she's your home girl."
The show has a breadth that no other has been able to match. A serious hour on domestic abuse could be followed the next day by a rollicking party with the Black Eyed Peas.
When Whitney Houston and Sarah Palin wanted to talk this fall, Winfrey's show was their first stop. An endorsement by Winfrey for her book club is a make-or-break opportunity for authors.
But even Winfrey was not immune to the dips in ratings that have plagued broadcasters as viewers flock to specialty programming on cable. Her average audience - easily the largest of daytime talk shows - fell from 12.6 million in 1991-92 to 6.2 million in 2008-2009.
This season, boosted by blockbuster interviews with Palin, Houston and others, the show is doing better, averaging 7.2 million viewers a day.
The decline in audience numbers has long argued for a move to cable, where audiences are increasingly able to finding niche programming.
Winfrey, 55, is widely expected to start up a new talk show on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, a joint venture with Discovery Communications Inc. that was first announced last year. It will replace the Discovery Health Channel and debut in some 80 million homes.
Discovery is pouring resources into OWN to prepare for its January 2011 launch. Chief Financial Officer Brad Singer told analysts this month that Discovery plans to invest $30 million to $40 million in 2009 on programming, staffing and other costs.
Discovery also is lending the venture $100 million, and OWN hired "Oprah" co-executive producer Lisa Erspamer this month as its chief creative officer. Erspamer is expected to move from Chicago to Los Angeles in January.
Winfrey's move to cable leaves a gap in the afternoon programming at many TV stations, where it leads into the local evening news and is popular with advertisers. At the peak of her ratings in the 1990s, Oprah could almost single-handedly prop up the newscast on WFAA-TV in Dallas, an ABC affiliate, because her fans stayed with the station, said Mike Devlin, the station's president and general manager.
"I hate to see her go. I'm an Oprah fan," Devlin said. "But all things end."
There are other syndicated shows available - "Live with Regis and Kelly," "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," "Rachael Ray Show," "Dr. Phil" and "The Tyra Show" - but none has the reach or influence of "Oprah."
And it's not easy to come up with a winning formula. Magic Johnson, Megan Mullally, Queen Latifah, Tony Danza, Lauren Hutton, Sinbad and Keenen Ivory Wayans are just some of the people who have tried to launch talk shows with abysmal results.
"There's always cycles in the television business," said Emily Barr, the president and general manager at WLS-TV in Chicago. "We are thrilled to have had this long association with Oprah and we will miss her, but we will also move on and see what else is out there."
Nakashima reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers David Bauder and Andrew Vanacore in New York contributed to this report.
Labels: Oprah Winfrey, The Oprah Winfrey Show
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Monday, December 28, 2009
New poll shows 'Tea Party' more popular than Republican Party
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A new Rasmussen poll finds that the tea party movement's popularity is growing, so much so that it garners more support than the Republican party on a generic Congressional ballot. The poll hints that the burgeoning discontent among conservatives within the GOP threatens to splinter the party at a time when the popularity of President Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress are waning as we head into an election year.
The tea party movement was conceived out of antipathy for President Obama's economic stimulus plan and cultivated by groups like Freedom Works and conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck. Its guiding principals are centered around opposition to tax increases and the expansion of federal government spending. The movement rose to prominence when it organized highly-publicized protest gatherings across the country on April 15th of this year.
As reported by Talking Points Memo, the respondents to the Rasmussen poll were asked the following question:
"Okay, suppose the Tea Party Movement organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district, or the Tea Party candidate from your district?"
The response of all those who were polled was Democratic 36%, Tea Party 23% and Republican 18%. Further, the poll found that independents are more inclined to vote for a tea party candidate over Democratic or Republican candidates.
While some Republicans have expressed dismay over the emergence of the tea party movement, others have suggested that the GOP should embrace the group and its issues.
Tea party sympathizers recently proposed a resolution to make the RNC withhold its endorsement and funding unless candidates pass an "ideological purity test." The movement will hold its first national convention this January in Nashville, and Glenn Beck has indicated that he intends to stake out a more activist role in politics going forward by holding seminars across the country to educate conservatives on how to run for office without the support of a major political party.
But the Republican party has yet to determine whether or not they can harness the energy emanating from the right wing without being pulled out of the mainstream. This dilemma was highlighted by the GOP's November loss of a congressional seat it had held since the 1800s, after a tea party-supported candidate pressured the establishment Republican out of the race. That race suggested something rather striking: while the GOP may not be able to win without the support of the tea party movement, they might not be able to win with it running the show either.
-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog
Labels: lifestyle guide, Rasmussen poll, tea party
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Friday, December 25, 2009
Sizing up the Kennedy dynasty's next generation
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WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over.
There's talk the Kennedy political bloodlines are running thin. Some say the younger brood lacks the grit and zest for political combat that drove the liberal Democrat to become one of the leading politicians of the last 40 years.
Yet it's probably too early to write off one of America's most powerful and popular families. A new generation of Kennedys, many of whom are active in humanitarian and political causes, could emerge to extend the dynasty.
Among the possibilities:
- The late senator's eldest son, Edward Kennedy Jr. The Connecticut attorney, 48, said he's considering following in his father's footsteps in politics but has no immediate plans to do so.
- Former six-term Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy, 57, the eldest son of Robert Kennedy. He recently balked at running for his uncle's Senate seat. His congressional background could help if he returns to politics. But his public image was hurt in 1997 after his former wife, Sheila Rauch Kennedy, published a book about their marriage.
- One of Joe Kennedy's two sons, Joseph Kennedy III. He could seek his father's old House seat if the current holder, Democratic Rep. Michael Capuano, wins the special election to replace Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.
- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest of Robert Kennedy's 11 children. She was lieutenant governor of Maryland, but her 2002 gubernatorial bid sputtered.
- Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy. The youngest son of Ted Kennedy has used his struggles with depression and substance abuse to champion better care for the mentally ill, but there are no signs he's eager for a Senate seat.
Other possibilities include the children of the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who was founder of the Special Olympics and one of Ted Kennedy's siblings.
Timothy Shriver is chairman and CEO of Special Olympics. Maria Shriver is California's first lady. Anthony Paul Shriver founded Best Buddies International to help people with intellectual disabilities. Mark Shriver, a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates, works for Save the Children.
By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Kennedy, lifestyle guide, next generation, political dynasty
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The World's Most Powerful People 2009
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The 67 heads of state, criminals, financiers and philanthropists who really run the world.
"I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies." — Napoleon Bonaparte
Power has been called many things. The ultimate aphrodisiac. An absolute corrupter. A mistress. A violin. But its true nature remains elusive. After all, a head of state wields a very different sort of power than a religious figure. Can one really compare the influence of a journalist to that of a terrorist? And is power unexercised power at all?
In compiling our first ranking of the World's Most Powerful People we wrestled with these questions - and many more - before deciding to define power in four dimensions. First, we asked, does the person have influence over lots of other people? Pope Benedict XVI, ranked 11th on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, or about one-sixth of the world's population, while Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke (No. 8) is the largest private-sector employer in the United States.
Then we assessed the financial resources controlled by these individuals. Are they relatively large compared with their peers'? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at a composite ranking of market capitalization, profits, assets and revenues as reflected on our annual ranking of the World's 2000 Largest Companies. In certain instances, like New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (No. 51), we judged the resources at his disposal compared with others in the industry. For billionaires, like Bill Gates (No. 10), net worth was also a factor.
Next we determined if they are powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 67 slots on our list - one for every 100 million people on the planet - so being powerful in just one area is not enough to guarantee a spot. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways. Take Italy's colorful prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi (No. 12) who is a politician, a media monopolist and owner of soccer powerhouse A.C. Milan, or Oprah Winfrey (No. 45) who can manufacture a best-seller and an American President.
Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.
To calculate the final rankings, five Forbes senior editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power. Those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score, which determined who placed above (or below) whom.
U.S. President Barack Obama emerged, unanimously, as the world's most powerful person, and by a wide margin. But there were a number of surprises. Former President George W. Bush didn't come close to making the final cut, while his predecessor in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, ranks 31st, ahead of a number of sitting heads of government. Apple's Steve Jobs easily made the list, while Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star governor of California (alone, the world's fifth largest economy) did not.
Barack Obama
How powerful is he? Let's count the ways:
* Presides over world's largest, most innovative, most dynamic economy.
* Commander-in-chief of planet's richest, deadliest military.
* Finger on button of nuclear arsenal containing more than 5,000 warheads.
* Head-of-state of world's sole superpower.
* His Democrats have majorities in both U.S. House and Senate.
* Recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize, apparently for general awesomeness.
Hu Jintao
* Paramount political leader of more people than anyone else on the planet; 1.3 billion Chinese, some 70% in their prime working years of ages 15 to 64 powering world's low-cost workshop, transforming nation.
* Biggest buyer of U.S. debt avoided Chinese meltdown during financial crisis with massive stimulus package to encourage domestic spending.
* "Coming-out party" at 2008 Beijing Olympic Games showcased young, modern, harmonious society; reality often quite different — few political, religious, press freedoms; brutal suppression of Tibet; refusal to acknowledge Taiwanese independence.
* Still, credible estimates have China poised to overtake U.S. as world's largest economy in 25 years — although, crucially, not on a per-capita basis.
Vladimir Putin
* Prime Minister might as well be known as Czar, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians.
* Vastly more powerful than his handpicked head-of-state, President Dmitry Medvedev.
* Presides over one-ninth of Earth's land area, vast energy and mineral resources.
* Former KGB officer unafraid to wield his power; invading Georgia, cutting off natural gas supplies to Ukraine or Western Europe (again).
* Declared nuclear power has veto on U.N.'s Security Council.
* "I'm deeply convinced that constant change is not for the better."
Ben S. Bernanke
* Former chairman of Princeton's economics department and noted Great Depression scholar now guiding world's largest economy through Great Recession; has overseen massive growth in Fed's balance sheet, from less than $900 billion in liabilities in August 2008 to more than $2.1 trillion today.
* With federal funds rate now effectively 0%, the so-called Bernanke Doctrine calls for using monetary policy to stave off deflation.
* "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost."
Sergey Brin and Larry Page
* If knowledge is power, maybe information is too. Brainy duo met in Stanford computer science Ph.D. program, now trying to put all the world's information at your fingertips.
* Known for collecting best and brightest young tech talent at Mountain View, Calif., "Googleplex"; employees encouraged to spend one day a week on personal projects; company often named "Best Place To Work" in America.
* Google guys' combined net worth of $30.6 billion would place them third on the Forbes 400.
* Yet despite professed intentions to "do no evil," Google is blamed in some quarters for decimating traditional publishing, journalism. Brin: "Some say Google is God, others say Google is Satan."
Proceed here now. Forbes.com
by Michael Noer and Nicole Perlroth,
Labels: lifestyle guide, most powerful people, power
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Monday, December 21, 2009
You power: The decade’s new media revolution
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Most of us can't get through our days now without being reminded of technology we didn't have or didn't use in 1999. But as we Tweet via our BlackBerrys or watch the latest viral video from the YouTube application on our iPhones, we may be taking for granted just how much media developments have affected our culture and transformed our lives in the past decade.
"What has happened between the beginning of the 21st century and now I think is the most profound part of the new media revolution," says Paul Levinson, a professor of communication and media studies and Fordham University and the author of "New New Media." "In particular, what makes these newer media so important is that it turns the consumers into producers."
Developments like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter have allowed audiences to participate in producing content that can easily be distributed to others. Before, that kind of power was reserved mainly for big companies.
"In previous times, no matter what, someone was deciding what you were going to hear and see and watch and listen to," notes Ken Hudson, a digital media consultant in Toronto. "But now there are also individuals that produce content. And so if the story is worth telling or if it's worth hearing, it's going to be heard."
The ability to distribute content we produce has also led to a new age in the news media. We now give the credibility and regard to some bloggers that was once reserved for those employed by a major newspaper, wire service or television network, says Hudson, who thinks the 21st century has seen the rise of what he calls the "democratization of media."
We can see and hear all of this user-produced content from almost anywhere nowadays. The convenience of the laptop computer developed into smart phones that help us become content producers from where ever we happen to be at the time.
With so much information from so many sources at our fingertips at all times, there has been talk that it's bad for interpersonal connections. But the media experts seem to disagree.
"Social media is letting people create much, much bigger communities than they ever have before," says Barna Donovan, chair of the communication department at Saint Peter's College.
Websites like Facebook allow people to reclaim any part of their lives at any time, Levinson says. Developments like Twitter allow us to be in touch with people we’re close to - or people we're not even close to - throughout the day without ever having to pick up a phone.
And Skype, which provides video chats for anyone with an Internet connection, lets us see and hear people who might be halfway across the world - for free.
"That's like the revolutionary thing that's happening right now," Levinson points out. "The idea that you can talk to someone and see their face and have a video conversation with them that doesn't cost anything - that would have been science fiction 10 years ago."
In addition to challenging the authorities' rule with user-produced content, audiences are also having a powerful impact on society through technologies like Hulu, which allows free television viewing online.
By flocking to what we want to see, instead of what the networks want us to see or the Federal Communications Commission permits us to see, we are creating a loophole in censorship, says Donovan, who is writing a book called "Violence is Good: How Anti-Media Paranoia Threatens Free Speech and Democracy."
"We are able to see just what kind of values the culture really lives by and what kind of things they believe in," he says. "It’s going to be difficult to impossible to censor and keep audiences from explicit content."
But, as significant as the "democratization of media" has been, Hudson says he thinks more significant developments are on the way.
"I think we've just seen the beginning of it. I don't think we really understand how it's going to revolutionize our society," he said, noting that, appropriately, "I think we're in charge of where it's going to take us, which is also revolutionary."
– Laura E. Davis, AP
Labels: lifestyle guide, new media, social media
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Friday, December 18, 2009
Court hears tale of L'Oreal heiress' riches
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PARIS - A French family drama worthy of a soap opera landed in court Friday, as the daughter of France's richest women questioned whether her mother has lost her mind and frittered away a fortune on a man known for befriending high-society celebrities.
Francoise Bettencourt Meyers' two-year legal campaign against the man she accuses of taking advantage of Liliane Bettencourt, her 87-year-old mother, has already included a failed attempt to have her mother put under court-ordered supervision. A judge heard her complaint Friday.
Bettencourt, heiress to the French cosmetics giant, L'Oreal, ranks just ahead of Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal on this year's Forbes' list of the world's richest people, with a fortune estimated at $13.4 billion.
Her only child, the 56-year-old Bettencourt Meyers, claims that author and photographer Francois-Marie Banier, 62, has taken advantage of her mother's alleged "mental frailty" to wring gifts including cash and art worth around euro1 billion ($1.5 billion).
Last September, a French prosecutor dropped his own investigation into the affair after finding that Bettencourt was in full possession of her mental and physical capacities and that she hadn't been taken advantage of by Banier.
The daughter, as member of L'Oreal's board of directors, is in line to inherit all of her mother's shares in L'Oreal, one day giving her ownership of more than one quarter of the cosmetics giant.
For his part, Banier is a colorful character who lives in a large apartment near the Luxembourg Gardens, zooms around Paris on an old, blue motor scooter and has befriended celebrities ranging from Salvador Dali to Johnny Depp.
In an interview Thursday with the French newspaper Le Monde, Banier denied that he had ever taken advantage of Bettencourt.
The gifts, which included cash, life insurance policies, and paintings by Picasso and Matisse, "are gifts from a totally lucid woman, which I refused for a long time to accept," Banier said.
Banier said he met Bettencourt in 1969 when he was 22, when he began discussing poetry with her husband in the home of Pierre Lazareff, a French journalist. He says he exchanged "thousands" of letters with the older woman over the years, and that her gifts were made over a roughly ten-year period beginning in 1995.
He said their relationship can't be reduced to a question of money.
"What shocks people is that a woman of her standing would break conventions like this," Banier said. "What she gave me is nothing alongside what she taught me."
A profile of Banier in the magazine L'Express detailed a long and mind-bending list of the rich and powerful that Banier has befriended, starting with wealthy heiress Marie-Laure de Noailles when he was 19 and she was 64.
Asked in that interview if "he didn't have better things to do" when he was that age, Banier grew angry.
"Do you realize the stupidity of that question? It's like asking why I would go to see Leonardo da Vinci."
Bettencourt has made only one public statement on the affair, telling Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper last year that the whole thing was "very unpleasant and upsetting." She said her gifts to Banier "were not very much" in proportion to her wealth.
"My daughter is going to have to accept that I'm a free woman," Bettencourt said.
By GREG KELLER, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Francois-Marie Banier, Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, L'Oreal, lifestyle guide, Liliane Bettencourt
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Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Scientists, lawyers mull effects of home robots
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PALO ALTO, Calif. - Eric Horvitz illustrates the potential dilemmas of living with robots by telling the story of how he once got stuck in an elevator at Stanford Hospital with a droid the size of a washing machine.
"I remembered thinking, 'Whoa, this is scary,' as it whirled around, almost knocking me down," the Microsoft researcher recalled. "Then, I thought, `What if I were a patient?' There could be big issues here."
We're still far from the sci-fi dream of having robots whirring about and catering to our every need. But little by little, we'll be sharing more of our space with robots in the next decade, as prices drop and new technology creates specialized machines that clean up spilled milk or even provide comfort for an elderly parent.
Now scientists and legal scholars are exploring the likely effects. What happens if a robot crushes your foot, chases your cat off a ledge or smacks your baby? While experts don't expect a band of Terminators to attack or a "2001: A Space Odyssey" computer that takes control, even simpler, benign robots will have legal, social and ethical consequences.
"As we rely more and more on automated systems, we have to think of the implications. It is part of being a responsible scientist," Horvitz said.
Horvitz assembled a team of scientists this year when he was president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and asked them to explore the future of human-robot interactions. A report on their discussions is due next year.
For years, robots have been used outside the home. They detect bombs on the battleground, build cars in factories and deliver supplies and visit patients in hospitals.
But the past few years have seen the rise of home robots. Mainly they are used for tasks like vacuuming (think Roomba). There are also robotic lawn mowers, duct cleaners, surveillance systems and alarm clocks. There are robotic toys for entertainment, such as Furby. Robotic companions, like Paro the harbor seal, comfort the elderly. By 2015, personal robot sales in the U.S. will exceed $5 billion, more than quadrupling what they are now, according to ABI Research, which analyzes technology trends.
"You won't see Rosie from `The Jetsons,' but you're going to see more and more robots that help maintain your home. They'll pick up stuff off the floor, stock your fridge, carry stuff from the car," said Colin Angle, CEO of iRobot Corp., which makes the Roomba.
As such 'bots become more sophisticated, they could complicate questions about product liability. Ryan Calo, a fellow with Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, pointed out in a recent panel discussion at Stanford Law School that the original manufacturer might not always be liable if a robot went haywire.
"Robots are not just things the manufacturer builds and you go out and use them in a specific way. Robots can often be instructed, they can be programmed, you can have software that is built upon by others," he said.
There are no laws in the U.S. specifically governing robots, and discussion of them usually leads to science fiction writer Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which debuted in his 1942 short story "Runaround."
The first of Asimov's laws is that robots should do no harm. It's also one of the biggest considerations when manufacturing the next generation of personal robots.
"If a robot becomes increasingly autonomous and can make its own decisions, what happens if the robot does not carry out the exact wishes of the person?" said George Bekey, a robotics researcher and professor emeritus at University of Southern California.
As robots interact more closely with people, the bonds some people form with the machines - even ones that do not look like humans - might need to be considered.
Shoppers personalize their Roombas, naming and decorating them, for example. Angle recalled an incident when a soldier plucked a banged-up military robot nicknamed Scooby from an Iraqi battlefield and carried it to a depot to be fixed.
"It's doing you a service, you're going to get attached to it," Angle said.
Ronald Arkin teaches a course on robots and society at Georgia Tech and directs the school's Mobile Robot Laboratory. His most recent book is titled "Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots."
"There needs to be ethics embedded in the systems," he said. "It's not just making a system that assists someone. It's making a system that interacts with someone in a way that respects their dignity."
Horvitz said his panel will recommend more research into the psychological reactions humans have to robotic systems. The group, he said, also suggests machines be designed with the ability to explain their reasoning to humans.
While ethicists, lawyers and roboticists ponder how to best integrate humans and autonomous machines, there is some evidence that a balance is already beginning to be struck.
After returning to the Stanford hospital on another occasion, Horvitz noticed a sign hanging above the spot where he had his harrowing experience. It read: "Please Do Not Board The Elevator With The Robot."
By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer
Labels: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Furby, home robots, lifestyle guide, Paro, Roomba
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Friday, December 11, 2009
Virgin Galactic to unveil commercial spaceship
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LOS ANGELES - After five years of secret construction, the cloak is coming off a privately funded spacecraft designed to fly well-heeled tourists into space.
The long-awaited glimpse of SpaceShipTwo, slated for rollout Monday in the Mojave Desert, could not come sooner for the scores of wannabe astronauts who have forked over part of their disposable income for the chance to float in zero gravity.
"We've all been patiently waiting to see exactly what the vehicle is going to look like," said Peter Cheney, a 63-year-old potential space tourist from Seattle who was among the first to sign up for suborbital space rides marketed by Virgin Galactic. "It would be nice to see it in the flesh."
Virgin Galactic spokeswoman Jackie McQuillan promised a "theatrical unveil" followed by a cocktail party for paying passengers and other VIPs.
SpaceShipTwo's debut marks the first public appearance of a commercial passenger spacecraft. The project is bankrolled by Virgin Galactic founder, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson, who partnered with famed aviation designer Burt Rutan, the brains behind the venture.
SpaceShipTwo is based on Rutan's design of a stubby white prototype called SpaceShipOne. In 2004, SpaceShipOne captured the $10 million Ansari X Prize by becoming the first privately manned craft to reach space.
Since the historic feat, engineers from Rutan's Scaled Composites LLC have been laboring in a Mojave hangar to commercialize the prototype in heavy secrecy.
The last time there was this level of hoopla in the high desert was a little more than a year ago when Branson and Rutan trotted out to great fanfare the twin-fuselage mothership, White Knight Two, that will ferry SpaceShipTwo to launch altitude.
Despite the hype, hard work lies ahead before space journeys could become as routine as air travel.
Flight testing of White Knight Two has been ongoing for the past year. The first SpaceShipTwo test flights are expected to start next year, with full-fledged space launches to its maximum altitude by or in 2011.
It remains unclear when Virgin Galactic customers will receive their astronaut wings, but it will largely depend on how the test program fares. Some 300 clients have paid the $200,000 ticket or placed a deposit, according to the company.
SpaceShipTwo, built from lightweight composite materials and powered by a hybrid rocket motor, is similar to its prototype cousin with three exceptions. It's twice as large, measuring 60 feet long with a roomy cabin about the size of a Falcon 900 executive jet. It also has more windows including overhead portholes. While SpaceShipOne was designed for three people, SpaceShipTwo can carry six passengers and two pilots.
"It's a big and beautiful vehicle," said X Prize founder Peter Diamandis, who has seen SpaceShipTwo during various stages of development.
The ability to view Earth's curvature from space has been limited so far to government astronauts and a handful of wealthy people who have shelled out millions to board Russian rockets to the orbiting international space station.
After SpaceShipOne's history-making flights, many space advocates believed private companies would offer suborbital space joyrides before the end of this decade.
George Washington University space policy scholar John Logsdon called the milestones to date "measured progress."
"They've been appropriately cautious and making sure that every step is done correctly," he said.
Tragedy struck in 2007 when an explosion killed three of Rutan's engineers during a routine test of SpaceShipTwo's propellant system. The accident delayed the engine's development.
Virgin Galactic plans to operate commercial spaceflights out of a taxpayer-funded spaceport in New Mexico that is under construction. The 2 1/2 hour trips - up and down flights without circling the Earth - include about five minutes of weightlessness.
SpaceShipTwo will be carried aloft by White Knight Two and released at 50,000 feet. The craft's rocket engine then burns a combination of nitrous oxide and a rubber-based solid fuel to climb more than 65 miles above the Earth's surface.
After reaching the top of its trajectory, it will fall back into the atmosphere and glide to a landing like a normal airplane. Its descent is controlled by "feathering" its wings to maximize aerodynamic drag.
Virgin Galactic expects to spend more than $400 million for a fleet of five commercial spaceships and launch vehicles.
It's not the only player in the ultra-secretive commercial space race. A handful of entrepreneurs including Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, computer game programmer John Carmack and rocketeer Jeff Greason are building their own suborbital rockets with dreams of flying people out of the atmosphere.
By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer
Labels: Burt Rutan, lifestyle guide, Sir Richard Branson, SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic
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Monday, December 7, 2009
Destroyed US town a model of eco-living as it rebuilds
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GREENSBURG, Kansas (AFP) - With all eyes on US efforts to combat climate change at next week's UN summit in Copenhagen, one Kansas town is going green in a big way -- and setting an example for American communities.
On the evening of May 4, 2007, a category-five tornado swept through the rural midwestern town of Greensburg, killing nine people and obliterating 95 percent of the urban landscape, including the school, the hospital and more than 900 houses.
But this community of 1,400 is rebuilding stronger than ever, in a remarkable comeback billed by Greensburg GreenTown -- a grassroots organization involving town residents, local officials and business owners -- as a "model for sustainable building and green living."
In the wake of disaster, local leaders vowed to rebuild their town as the first in the United States to have all municipal projects constructed to the highest environmental and efficiency design standards.
The efforts have attracted green experts and enthusiasts from around the world because of the Greensburg's environmentally sustainable principles through renewable energy.
Whereas previously the town's only pull was having the world's largest hand-dug well, it now hopes to put itself on the map for eco-living.
A water conservation system turns rain into drinking water, wind turbines on the edge of town provide eco-friendly enery throughout the community, and the street lamps light up roads with LED lights. gEven the larger building projects are aiming for an almost 100-percent green record. Greensburg's eco-friendly, under-construction hospital, for example, has a heating and cooling system based on geothermal energy.
In May 2008, then-president George W. Bush saluted Greensburg with a glowing review of the town's efforts, saying he wanted to celebrate the community's "journey from tragedy to triumph."
Bush spoke to students graduating from the high school here, saying the town "is back and its best days are ahead," and pledging to continue federal aid for the community.
The December 7-18 UN summit in Denmark's capital Copenhagen will be a landmark move for US environmental efforts, with President Barack Obama scheduled to attend amid growing calls for a comprehensive, international treaty to confront the climate crisis.
Washington announced last month that, relative to a 2005 benchmark, it would reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020, 30 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2030 and ultimately 83 percent by 2050.
The US numbers have been criticized, however, as falling well below the contribution needed.
According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to reach a two-degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) warming target, a cut of 25 to 40 percent is needed by industrialized countries by 2020 compared to the 1990 benchmark.
The US target for 2020 would be the equivalent of only a four-percent cut against this benchmark, the IPCC says.
by Emmanuel Dunand
Labels: eco-living, Greensburg, Kansas, lifestyle guide
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Friday, December 4, 2009
Angelina Jolie tops Forbes celebrity 'power list'
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NEW YORK (AFP) - Superstar actress and humanitarian advocate Angelina Jolie has unseated talkshow diva Oprah Winfrey as the world's most powerful celebrity in a new survey published by Forbes magazine Wednesday.
The top ranking is based on income over the past 12 months as well as web references, press clippings, broadcast mentions and major magazine covers devoted to the celebrity, Forbes said.
Oscar winner Jolie, 33, one half of the Hollywood golden couple dubbed "Brangelina" with Brad Pitt, earned 27 million dollars between June 2008 and June 2009.
Her earnings and "famous face," Forbes said, were enough to dethrone media maven Winfrey, who earned 275 million dollars.
Jolie, who came in third last year, is known for balancing her movie career and work as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency with her ever-growing six-child family with Pitt.
In third place was pop legend Madonna -- absent from last year's top ten -- whose tabloid antics and hit world tour "Hard Candy" boosted her profile and earned her 110 million dollar, the magazine said.
In fourth place was singer and actress Beyonce Knowles with earnings of 87 million dollars, who was lauded by Forbes for her "multi-platform empire."
The top male power-player Tiger Woods came in fifth with 110 million dollars in earnings. Despite a year beset by injury, the star golfer remained the world's highest paid athlete.
A lucrative touring schedule was enough to catapult rock legend Bruce Springsteen to the sixth spot with 70 million dollars in earnings, and bump director Steven Spielberg to seventh, whose work on the Indiana Jones sequel earned him 150 million dollars.
Actress Jennifer Aniston took the next spot, a cut above her former husband Pitt, with movie hits and tabloid splashes earning her the eighth spot.
With earnings of 28 million dollar, Pitt came in at ninth with his headline-making family life with partner Jolie and a blockbuster turn in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
Rounding out the top ten was basketball wizard Kobe Bryant, whose first appearance in the upper echelons of celebrity power came thanks to big-bucks endorsement deals after the Beijing Olympics.
Anthemic, soul-searching band Coldplay were the most powerful Brits on the list this year with a debut at the 15th spot, following a sold-out world tour and a smash hit album, "Viva la Vida."
Also debuting, at number 49, was Barack Obama -- the first head of state to hit the Forbes's Celebrity 100.
With his historic election to the US presidency in November 2008, the former Illinois senator and bestselling author became "the most famous person in the world," Forbes said.
Labels: Angelina Jolie, lifestyle guide, most powerful celebrity, Oprah Winfrey
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