TV show choreographer gets 10 years for rape (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? A salsa dance instructor who worked on the TV show "So You Think You Can Dance" has been sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years in prison for raping one woman and assaulting another.

Prosecutors say Alex Da Silva gave dance lessons at salsa clubs where he met aspiring dancers he assaulted. The assaults were not related to the TV show.

Da Silva was convicted of raping a 22-year-old woman in 2002 and attacking another woman with intent to commit rape in 2009.

The jury deadlocked on four other counts, including two more alleged rapes. Those counts were dismissed.

A defense attorney says the women who accused Da Silva were not telling the truth.

Da Silva will be required to register as a sex offender for life.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120127/ap_en_tv/us_salsa_instructor_charged

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Japan's 'Nuclear Alley' conflicted over reactors (AP)

OHI, Japan ? International inspectors are visiting a rugged Japanese bay region so thick with reactors it is dubbed "Nuclear Alley," where residents remain deeply conflicted as Japan moves to restart plants idled after the Fukushima disaster.

The local economy depends heavily on the industry, and the national government hopes that "stress tests" at idled plants ? the first of which is being reviewed this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency ? will show they are safe enough to switch back on.

But last year's tsunami crisis in northeastern Japan with meltdowns at three of the Fukushima reactors has fanned opposition to the plants here in western Fukui prefecture, a mountainous region surrounding Wakasa Bay that also relies on fishing and tourism and where the governor has come out strongly against nuclear power.

"We don't need another Fukushima, and we don't want to repeat the same mistake here," said Eiichi Inoue, a 63-year-old retiree in the coastal town of Obama. "I know they added stress tests, but what exactly are they doing?"

"I oppose restarting them," he said.

Other residents said that economic realities made the plants indispensable, including Chikako Shimamoto, a 38-year-old fitness instructor in Takahama, a town that hosts one of the region's nuclear plants.

"We all know that we better not restart them," Shimamoto said. "But we need jobs and we need business in this town.

"Our lives in this town depends on the nuclear power plant and we have no choice," she said.

On Thursday, an IAEA team visited a plant in the town of Ohi to check whether officials at operator Kansai Electric Power Co. had correctly done the tests at two reactors. The tests are designed to assess whether plants can withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, loss of power or other emergencies, and suggest changes to improve safety.

Their visit, at Japan's invitation, appeared aimed at reassuring a skeptical public that authorities are taking the necessary precautions before bringing nuclear plants back on line. After the visit, IAEA team leader James Lyons said its assessment would be released at the end of the month but deciding whether to restart the reactors was up to the Japanese goverment.

Some experts are critical of the stress tests, saying they are meaningless because they have no clear criteria, and view the IAEA as biased toward the nuclear industry.

"I don't view their evaluation as something that is trustworthy or carries any weight," said Hiromitsu Ino, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and member of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's stress test panel.

The government idled most plants for mandatory tests and maintenance after the Fukushima disaster. Currently, only four of Japan's 54 reactors are operating. If no idled plants get approval to restart, the country will be without an operating reactor by the end of April.

Before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that led to the Fukushima crisis, nuclear plants generated about 30 percent of the country's electricity. To make up for the shortfall, utilities are temporarily turning to conventional oil and coal-fired plants, and the government has required companies to reduce their electricity consumption.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has promised to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power over time, but it still needs some nuclear power until next-generation sources are developed.

In Fukui, 13 reactors at four complexes are clustered along a 55-kilometer (35-mile) stretch of coast with snow capped mountains facing the Sea of Japan. It's known as "Gempatsu Ginza," a phrase that roughly translates to "Nuclear Alley."

Only one of the 13 reactors is still running. The rest have been shut down for regular inspections required every 13 months. To start running again, they must pass the stress test.

Another hurdle will be gaining local support for the plants to restart. While local consent is not legally required for that to happen, authorities generally want to win local backing and make efforts to do so.

Fukui Gov. Issei Nishikawa, however, says he will not allow a startup of any of the prefecture's commercial reactors.

And the city assembly in Obama ? a town that briefly enjoyed international fame when it endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential race_ has submitted an appeal to the central Tokyo government to make Japan nuclear-free.

But officials in Mihama, another town that hosts a nuclear plant, have expressed support for the town's three reactors also operated by Kansai Electric, also called Kepco.

Fukui is a largely rural area, traditionally focused on fishing and farming, but it has a significant textile and machinery industry, and boasts of being a major producer of eyeglasses. Its nuclear power plants supply approximately half of all the electricity used in the greater Kansai region, which includes Osaka and Kyoto.

Several towns' fortunes are tied closely to the nuclear industry.

Community centers and roads are paid by the government subsidies for hosting the plants. Closing the plants not only means losing jobs for thousands of workers, but hardship for stores, restaurants and other service industries.

Many of those interviewed had family members, relatives or friends with jobs at the plants, and some refused to give their names due to fear of repercussions.

Noda has said the final decision on restarting nuclear plants would be political, suggesting that the government would override any local opposition if Japan's energy needs become dire.

Naozane Sakashita, a taxi and bus driver, said his salary had decreased "substantially" after the Ohi and other plants went offline.

"I think these idle plants should resume as soon as their safety is confirmed," he said. "Our jobs and daily life are more important than a disaster that occurs only once in a million years."

Still, he said he is concerned about the safety of the plants because his son works as a control room operator at the Takahama plant.

"If our economy prospers without compromising our safety, of course it would be best to live without nuclear energy," he said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/japan/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120126/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_nuclear

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Source: http://g.mmo02.com/?p=23640

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Fight over changing constants reaches stalemate

It's time to declare a ceasefire in the fight to find out whether the constants of nature vary. What was supposed to be a new superweapon in the battle has turned into something of a damp squib.

Some observations of how hydrogen gas in space absorbs light at ultraviolet wavelengths have hinted that the fine structure constant, responsible for the strength of electromagnetism, is not the same throughout the universe. That would point to exotic new physics, including the existence of extra dimensions and universes other than our own.

But the measurement is tricky, and researchers had hoped that studying how hydroxyl molecules emit and absorb light at radio wavelengths would give a more precise, independent measurement of the effect.

In theory, radio instruments can measure wavelengths 50 to 100 times more accurately than those that detect hydrogen absorption, says Nissim Kanekar at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune, India.

But he and colleagues discovered the reality is more complicated. They observed the emission and absorption of radio waves from hydroxyl molecules in a gas cloud 6.7 billion light years from Earth that was absorbing light from a more distant galaxy.

No silver bullet

Quantum mechanics predicts that a particular set of emission and absorption lines in the hydroxyl molecule should be mirror images of each other, but in this case they found that was not true. Kanekar thinks the puzzling observation may be due to a second hydroxyl cloud lying along the same line of sight. It may absorb some of the radio waves, fouling the measurement.

"We thought we had the silver bullet, but it didn't pan out," says team member Chris Carilli of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Socorro, New Mexico.

Whatever is causing the odd measurement, the observation is simply not accurate enough to determine whether the fine structure constant is changing. "Their measurement is entirely consistent with our result ? and with zero," says John Webb of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who has previously found hints that the constant varies.

Carilli says it may take 20 years to make enough observations with the new technique to settle the question. Only a handful of gas clouds are known that exhibit the hydroxyl signal, but new surveys and radio arrays, such as the Square Kilometer Array, should turn up more examples.

Journal reference: arxiv.org/abs/1201.3372v1

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Obama to take on economy in State of the Union (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Addressing a divided nation amid a determined GOP campaign to take his job, President Barack Obama is preparing to issue a populist cry for economic fairness as he aims to corral the sympathies of middle-class voters 10 months before Election Day.

Obama delivers his third State of the Union address Tuesday in a capital and country shot through with politics, with his re-election campaign well under way and his potential GOP opponents lobbing attacks against him daily as they scrap for the right to take him on.

Obama's 9 p.m. EST address to a joint session of Congress and millions of television viewers will be as much as anything an argument for his re-election, the president's biggest, best chance so far to offer a vision for a second term.

"Almost by definition it's going to be at least as much a political speech as a governing speech," said Bill Galston, a former Clinton administration domestic policy adviser now at the Brookings Institution.

"The president must run on his record," Galston said, "and that means talking candidly and persuasively with the country about the very distinctive nature of the challenges the American economy faced when he took office and what has gone right for the past three years, and what needs to be done in addition."

With economic anxiety showing through everywhere, the speech will focus on a vision for restoring the middle class, with Obama facing the tricky task of persuading voters to stick with him even as joblessness remains high at 8.5 percent. Obama can point to positive signs, including continued if sluggish growth; his argument will be that he is the one to restore economic equality for middle-class voters.

Implicit in the argument, even if he never names Republican presidential frontrunners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, is that they are on the other side. Obama's speech will come as Gingrich and Romney have transformed the Republican campaign into a real contest ahead of Florida's crucial primary next week. And he'll be speaking on the same day that Romney, a multimillionaire, released his tax returns, offering a vivid illustration of wealth that could play into Obama's argument about the growing divide between rich and poor.

Obama will frame the campaign to come as a fight for fairness for those who are struggling to keep a job, a home or college savings and losing faith in how the country works.

The speech will feature the themes of manufacturing, clean energy, education and American values. The president is expected to urge higher taxes on the wealthy, propose ways to make college more affordable, offer new steps to tackle a debilitating housing crisis and push to help U.S. manufacturers expand hiring.

For three days following his speech, Obama will promote his ideas in five states key to his re-election bid. On Wednesday he'll visit Iowa and Arizona to promote ideas to boost American manufacturing; on Thursday in Nevada and Colorado he'll discuss energy; and in Michigan Friday he'll talk about college affordability, education and training. Polling shows Americans are divided about Obama's overall job performance but unsatisfied with his handling of the economy.

The lines of argument between Obama and his rivals are already stark, with America's economic insecurity and the role of government at the center.

The president has offered signals about his speech, telling campaign supporters he wants an economy "that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few." Gingrich, on the other hand, calls Obama "the most effective food stamp president in history." Romney says Obama "wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society."

Obama will make bipartisan overtures to lawmakers but will leave little doubt he will act without their help when it's necessary and possible, an approach his aides say has let him stay on offense.

The public is more concerned about domestic troubles over foreign policy than at any other time in the past 15 years, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Some 81 percent want Obama to focus his speech on domestic affairs, not foreign ones; just five years ago, the view was evenly split.

On the day before Obama's speech, his campaign released a short Web ad showing monthly job losses during the end of the Bush administration and the beginning of the Obama administration, with positive job growth for nearly two Obama years. Republicans assail him for failing to achieve a lot more.

House Speaker John Boehner, responding to reports of Obama's speech themes, said it was a rehash of unhelpful policies. "It's pathetic," he said.

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that Obama is not conceding the next 10 months to "campaigning alone" when people need economic help. On the goals of helping people get a fair shot, Carney said, "There's ample room within those boundaries for bipartisan cooperation and for getting this done."

___

AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_state_of_the_union

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Apple again loses Dutch bid for Samsung tablet ban (Reuters)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) ? Apple again lost a bid on Tuesday to have Samsung tablet computers banned in the Netherlands in a Dutch appeals case over infringing copyrights of its iPad tablet computer.

Apple, which has been locked in legal battles with Samsung in almost a dozen countries involving smartphones and tablets, had appealed a Dutch ruling, which said last year Galaxy Tab 10.1 models were not a copy of Apple's iPad.

A Dutch appeals court dismissed Apple's appeal, confirming the Dutch lower court's ruling.

Apple and Samsung have been suing one another as the two technology giants jostle for the top spot in the booming smartphone and tablet markets.

(Reporting by Gilbert Kreijger; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/tc_nm/us_apple_samsung

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Chicago celebrates music history in revived zone (Reuters)

CHICAGO (Reuters) ? Music that went silent nearly 40 years ago on an historic stretch of Chicago's celebrated Michigan Avenue is poised to return, thanks to an unlikely mix of rock stars, politicians and real estate developers.

Chicago has rezoned Motor Row -- near Chess Studios, the famed "home of the electric blues" -- as a live entertainment district, set to open in early 2013.

The building stock is "quite remarkable," says developer Pam Gleichman, CEO of Landmark America, Illinois, the company spearheading the project.

"This historic location gave birth to all this wonderful music that we listen to today. Chicago is astounding for playing a role in all that history."

Early in the last century, Motor Row was one of the nation's showroom districts for the nascent automotive industry. The buildings themselves were used as marketing tools as they featured large glass storefronts, generous spaces and exotic ornamentation.

Music bloomed nearby -- just north of Motor Row was Record Row, the center of Chicago's recording industry between the late 1940s and the mid-1970s, once second only to New York City. Record labels Vee-Jay, Chess, Wonderful and King all operated studios along the strip, which mainly housed large record distributorships.

Landmark recordings by Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley and others were made there. The Rolling Stones recorded an early EP at Chess and titled one of the songs, "2120 South Michigan Avenue" - the building's address - in its honor.

The dozens of labels that operated on Record Row produced a wide range of genres, said Chicago music historian Robert Pruter.

"It was jazz, it was blues, it was R&B, it was soul, it was gospel and, in some places, it was country and western," Pruter said. "It was a flourishing area."

Today, all the auto showrooms but one are shuttered and no remnants of Record Row remain except Chess Studios, which is operated by a non-profit and is only open intermittingly for tours.

Gleichman said the district will incorporate both the automotive and music narratives and the live music component will feature a variety of music, not just blues.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel started the process by green-lighting a new $50 million L train stop adjacent to the site, Gleichman said.

At least five buildings will be used for live entertainment and restaurant venues as well as a hotel. A former Buick dealership will feature a 9,500-square-foot restaurant with a live entertainment stage and adjoining outdoor space. Running the restaurant is Grant DePorter, which runs the Harry Caray chain of steakhouses.

Partnering on the music end is Cheap Trick, the Midwest rock band that started its career in nearby Rockford, Illinois. The band will operate an Internet radio station from the building, which will also serve as a museum curating the band's nearly 40-year history, including memorabilia and Rick Nielson's vast collection of guitars.

The band plans to approach the venue with no limits, which means either establishing a regular residency or staging special events with special guests.

"Ultimately, if they could play there and not play anywhere else, that would be ideal," said band manager Dave Frey. "It will be like their sandbox."

Alderman Bob Fioretti sponsored an ordinance forcing all new development in the district to be commercial, not residential. The city also plans to widen sidewalks and make streetscapes friendlier for increased foot traffic and outdoor dining.

Fioretti said that despite the Cheap Trick connection, he hopes the district will incorporate the city's deeper blues music past.

"It's easy for the political folks to forget the history. We are the home of the blues and it's something we need to revive," he said.

The revival is a long time coming, say music historians who complain Chicago has done little to acknowledge the many blues, jazz and gospel greats who made their best work here.

"Chicago doesn't really celebrate its musical heritage except for the lakefront festivals," said Bruce Iglauer, president and founder of Alligator Records, the Chicago-based blues music label.

Iglauer said New Orleans, Nashville, Austin and Memphis have capitalized on their unique musical heritages to erect museums, statues, parks and business districts to cultivate a cultural identity that boosts tourism.

"There were visionaries in those cities who could see music as a tourist attraction. That never happened in Chicago. It would be wonderful if it invested in the image of Chicago as a music city on a national level," he said.

Chicago blues star Buddy Guy said he has fond memories of getting his start at Chess soon after he moved to Chicago in 1957. He recalled the first time he saw the Rolling Stones, who came into the middle of one of his sessions.

"I had never saw white guys with hair that long. I said 'what the hell is this?' That was the Rolling Stones and they were trying to get started in Chicago," Guy said.

Guy has called on the city to advocate for a blues museum that would honor the Southern musicians who created and popularized electrified blues in this city.

"Now they call Austin, Texas the live music capital of the world," he said. "But it belongs here."

(Reporting By Mark Guarino; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Tim Gaynor)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/music_nm/us_chicago

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Profile: New RIM CEO dashes hopes for quick turnaround (Reuters)

FRANKFURT/NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Research in Motion Ltd's could have chosen a fiery, inspirational new CEO but they chose a stoic engineer instead, dashing investor hopes for a quick turnaround for the struggling BlackBerry maker.

The softspoken and bespectacled Thorsten Heins, who had worked at Germany's Siemens AG for more than 20 years before RIM, failed to inspire Wall Street on Monday as he pledged to continue on the same path as his predecessors.

RIM shares closed down 8.5 percent at $15.56 on Nasdaq as the promotion of the largely unknown former chief operating officer was a disconcerting surprise for investors who were skeptical about his ability to turn around the Canadian group's fortunes, particularly after Heins suggested RIM didn't need new a strategic overhaul in his first TV appearances.

"I am a little concerned about some of the statements that the new CEO made around not needing drastic changes, focusing on marketing and having had issues with being too innovative," Carolina Milanesi, analyst at research firm Gartner said.

For his part, Heins tried mightily to rally RIM employees, analysts and investors around the sudden executive suite change.

"We will take this to new heights," he promised after taking over from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who finally bowed to investor pressure and resigned. "Innovation is endless, we will have a lot of fun."

But taking a look at his past at former employer, German engineering group Siemens, Heins is not one for transformation.

The Munich-born Heins, 54, started working at Siemens straight out of university in 1984, where he also met his wife Petra, a mathematician and physicist, and where he stayed until his move to RIM in December 2007.

Described as easy to deal and work with, Heins steadily moved up the ranks and eventually was CTO of Siemens' communications unit.

However, while colleagues attest to his calm and collected manner, Heins did not fit Siemens' efforts to build a more dynamic image and an emotional brand.

The criticism back then was that his style and rhetoric would rather reinforce this to-be-shed engineering image rather than selling handsets as life-style products which was one of the strategic guidelines.

Someone who is deemed to be too boring even for Siemens may not be what activist investors had in mind when they called for a new, "transformational" leader to help RIM compete with Apple's hugely popular iPhone and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from Samsung and others using Google's Android operating system.

NOT REALLY CEO MATERIAL?

Heins' former boss at Siemens, Thomas Ganswindt, expressed his faith in Heins's abilities and said that Heins was a "very strong" leader and someone "able to recognize what is needed by an ailing business".

But Heins will have a lot of convincing to do.

One analyst who has met Heins but asked not to be named said RIM's new CEO is "definitely competent" but not necessarily charismatic enough to lead a company.

"He doesn't strike me or a lot of people as being CEO material," said the analyst. "You don't see him leading a group of people through the desert for 40 years."

According to CCS Insight's Ben Wood, "Thorsten is highly respected in terms of his knowledge of the industry and given that this appears to be a rather sudden turn of events, they needed someone who can quickly takeover the helm."

Others questioned whether Heins brings the right set of skills to the job.

"In our view, a CEO with a strong consumer electronics and supply chain background would have been ideal," Shaw Wu, senior technology analyst at Sterne Agee, said, arguing that whether RIM likes it or not around 70 percent of its business is consumer driven.

By the end of a mid-2011 restructuring, Heins was one of two chief operating officers at RIM, responsible for sales and for both hardware and software product engineering.

RIM marked Heins's ascent to the top role with a seven-minute YouTube video in which the 6-foot, 6-inch CEO gave his vision for success with a noticeable German accent.

"He is not very well known outside of the company. He has been working in both Balsillie's and Lazaridis' shadow," said Alexandre Peterc, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.

"He does strike me as someone who knows the industry very well given his background at Siemens. On the plus side he is a veteran of the industry and he knows his stuff, but that said, his background is very much tech and process orientated as opposed to strategic vision orientated."

RIM has been at pains to underline the orderly nature of the handover.

However, another analyst who requested anonymity because of his relationship with the group, said it was astounding that the COO at a company of this size should have been so invisible to the market and investor community.

He said he had heard previously from executives within RIM that Heins was very highly regarded and that he was very much on top of his brief. "His name came up repeatedly, with regards to people at RIM who really rate him."

Nevertheless, the move was reminiscent of Hewlett-Packard's rush to find a replacement after it ousted CEO Mark Hurd. It decided on former SAP AG CEO Leo Apotheker but reversed the much-criticized step four months ago by hiring former eBay Inc CEO Meg Whitman to replace Apotheker.

As takeover talk swirled and the financial world pondered whether Heins had been appointed to lead a turnaround or prepare RIM for sale, he clearly now is going to have to communicate quickly, get to know investors and raise his public profile.

That will likely leave Heins little time to follow the games of his favorite basketball team the Miami Heat or ride his motorcycle, which true to his German roots is a BMW model.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Marilyn Gerlach, Sinead Carew, Kate Holton, Georgina Prodhan and Paul Sandle)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/bs_nm/us_rim_heins

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SC GOP voters focused on economy, beating Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Early results of exit polls in South Carolina show that for most voters, the economy was the top issue when picking a Republican presidential candidate.

Around a third of them said Saturday that someone in their household has been laid off in the last three years.

The preliminary data also show that when it comes to the qualities of their candidate, nearly half want someone who can defeat President Barack Obama in this fall's elections.

The conservative viewpoint of many of the state's GOP voters was also clear. Solid majorities consider themselves conservative and around the same number support the tea party. And well more than half say they are born again or evangelical Christians.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-21-GOP%20Campaign-Voter%20Attitudes/id-2e20efe9f2ad43feb70d200fdebf7986

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An Abundance of Exoplanets Changes our Universe

Earth-sized planets near and far (NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)

Planets in habitable zones, planets orbiting twin suns, miniature solar systems, rogue planets, planets, planets, planets. If there is one single piece of information you should take away from the recent flood of incredible exoplanetary discoveries it is this: Our universe makes planets with extraordinary efficiency ? if planets can form somewhere, they will.

We?ve been sidling up on this fact for some time now, but it?s still a remarkable thing to acknowledge. Ten to fifteen years ago, as the first exoplanet detections began to come in, we understood that what we were seeing was potentially just the tip of the iceberg. These were massive objects (Jupiter sized or greater) and most of them were orbiting much closer to their parent stars than any equivalent giant planet in our solar system ? hence the ?hot Jupiter? moniker that is still used today. Statistics improved, as did our understanding of how detection techniques were biased towards finding these types of planets (owing to their greater gravitational influence on their parent stars), and estimates were made that suggested only a few percent of normal stars harbored such worlds.

Plot of exoplanet mass estimates versus year of discovery (generated from the online Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, thanks to Jean Schneider). The object shown in 1989 is known as HD 114762b, and is open to some debate in terms of actual discovery date and planetary classification as it may in fact be over 100 times the mass of Jupiter, nonethless it exists in this online compilation of exoplanetary data.

Of course time went by and astronomical instruments were refined, more and more data was accumulated, and longer orbital period planets and less massive planets were discovered. The figure to the left here illustrates the evolving range of planetary masses (or lower limits to planet masses) as a property of the year of discovery for confirmed exoplanets (excluding the thousands of to-be-confirmed-candidates from NASA?s Kepler mission). Here in 2012 we?re dipping well and truly into Earth-sized planetary terrain (about 0.003 times the mass of Jupiter on this scale).

By 2010 gravitational microlensing searches for planets were indicating that Neptune-sized objects on large orbits were at least 3 times more common that Jupiter-sized planets at similar distances from their parent stars. And hot on the heels of these measurements new Doppler, or ?wobble?, detections of exoplanets indicated that at least 1-in-4 normal stars should harbor Earth-sized planets within about a quarter of the distance of the Earth from the Sun (0.25 AU).

It was becoming increasingly apparent that planets might be plentiful. Entering 2011 then the first big results from NASA?s Kepler mission began to make waves. With these came the statistical inference that the most numerous types of planets orbiting within 1/2 an Earth-Sun distance (0.5 AU) were Neptune-sized worlds, clocking in with a frequency of occurrence of about 17% (i.e. around 1 in every 6 stars). Close behind came Earth-sized objects, in about 6% of all systems. With a little extrapolation, and assuming a total of 200 billion normal stars in the Milky Way galaxy, it was clear that there might be millions of Earth-sized worlds in the habitable zones of their stellar parents, across the galaxy.

But things were just starting to warm up. The next item was another statistical inference from gravitational microlensing surveys, that now indicated a very substantial population of ?rogue? planets ? giant worlds perhaps ejected from their stellar nests by strong gravitational interactions with other planetary chicks. The conclusion was that free-floating, wandering, objects as large, or larger than Jupiter, outnumbered stars in our galaxy by almost 2 to 1. It?s a remarkable result, but what about planets very much in the grasp of their parent stars, the equivalent of our own solar system?

Recently a new microlensing analysis by Cassan et al. appeared in Nature that explicitly targets planets orbiting between about 0.5 and 10 AU from their parent stars. The results solidify and carry forward all the measurements from before. About 17% of stars (give or take several percent) harbor Jupiter mass planets, cool Neptunes exist around about 52% of stars and Super-Earths (5 to 10 times the mass of Earth) exist around roughly 62% of stars. Even with sizable errors in these estimates (as much as 20-30%) the numbers are astonishing ? there are at least 1.6 planets orbiting from 0.5 to 10 AU for every star in the galaxy. Combine this with the Doppler survey numbers (25% of stars with ?Earth-sized? planets within 0.25 AU), the Kepler numbers (17% of stars with ?Neptunes? orbiting within 0.5AU), and the microlensing estimates of 2 rogue giant planets per star in the galaxy and you have, well you have an awful lot of planets.

Of course one has to be careful in pulling these numbers together. Different detection methods and surveys have different biases, and if (for example) a giant planet orbits at 0.5 AU from its star then dynamical stability may preclude the possibility of other worlds nearby. Nonetheless, the bottom line is, I think, very clear; there really are planets everywhere, and they must number in the hundreds of billions in the Milky Way.

The results of glorious chemical and energy flux on a planet (L. Topinka, USGS)

Despite where we find ourselves, on a small rocky world, there was no reason to believe that the universe would make planets as efficiently as it seems to. Our situation is merely one data point, and a horribly biased a posteori one at that, and our models of planet formation are, to be quite frank, struggling to keep up with the flood of new data. Nonetheless, from the point of view of astrobiology and the search for life elsewhere, planetary bodies remain the primary, critical, target. There are simply no other environments in the cosmos that offer the same potential for diverse and complex chemistry in multiple phases of matter, and the potential for such long-term equilibrium (albeit a dynamic type of equilibrium with energy and chemistry in both sporadic and cyclical flux).

Thus, the sheer abundance of planets profoundly impacts the nature of our exploration of the universe and our quest to understand our own significance or insignificance. There is nothing trivial about the discovery of planetary plentitude, because it means that we are finally on the cusp of seeing whether a statement made two and a half thousand years ago is correct or not:

?To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow?

- Metrodorus of Chios (Fourth Century B.C.)

It?s extraordinary to think how far we have come since these words were written.

(Oh, and as for moons, well don?t even begin to go there. Our solar system carries over 160 natural satellites around with it, so moons might yet turn out to be the most numerous planetary-type bodies of all?)

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2bc1ef488453773e1d3c726dea8ed974

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Obama's State of the Union: Jobs, re-election time

President Barack Obama pauses before shaking hands at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama pauses before shaking hands at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama sings before speaking at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign event, Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, at the Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Vilified by the Republicans who want his job, President Barack Obama will stand before the nation Tuesday night determined to frame the election-year debate on his terms, using his State of the Union address to outline a lasting economic recovery that will "work for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

As his most powerful chance to make a case for a second term, the prime-time speech carries enormous political stakes for the Democratic incumbent who presides over a country divided about his performance and pessimistic about the nation's direction. He will try to offer a stark contrast with his opponents by offering a vision of fairness and opportunity for everyone.

In a preview Saturday, Obama said in a video to supporters that the speech will be an economic blueprint built around manufacturing, energy, education and American values.

He is expected to announce ideas to make college more affordable and to address the housing crisis still hampering the economy three years into his term, people familiar with the speech said. Obama will also propose fresh ideas to ensure that the wealthy pay more in taxes, reiterating what he considers a matter of basic fairness, the officials said.

His policy proposals will be less important than what Obama hopes they all add up to: a narrative of renewed American security with him at the center, leading the fight.

"We can go in two directions," Obama said in the campaign video. "One is toward less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

That line of argument is intended to tap directly into concerns of voters who think America has become a nation of income inequality, with rules rigged to help the rich. The degree to which Obama or his eventual Republican opponent can better connect with millions of hurting Americans is expected to determine November's presidential election.

Obama released his video hours ahead of the South Carolina primary, where Republican candidates fought in the latest fierce contest to become his general election rival.

The White House knows Obama is about to get his own stage to outline a re-election vision, but carefully. The speech is supposed to an American moment, not a campaign event.

Obama didn't mention national security or foreign policy in his preview, and he is not expected to break ground on either one in his speech.

He will focus on the economy and is expected to promote unfinished parts of his jobs plan, including the extension of a payroll tax cut that is soon to expire.

Whatever Obama proposes is likely to face long odds in a deeply divided Congress.

More people than not disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy, and he is showing real vulnerability among the independent voters who could swing the election. Yet he will step into the moment just as the economy is showing life. The unemployment rate is still at a troubling 8.5 percent, but at its lowest rate in nearly three years. Consumer confidence is up.

By giving a sneak peek to millions of supporters on his email list, Obama played to his Democratic base and sought to generate an even larger audience for Tuesday's address. He is unlikely to getter a bigger stage all year.

More people watched last year's State of the Union than tuned in to see Obama accept the Democratic presidential nomination in Denver in 2008.

The foundation of Obama's speech is the one he gave in Kansas last month, when he declared that the middle class was at a make-or-break moment and he railed against "you're on your own" economics of the Republican Party. His theme then was about a government that ensures people get a fair shot to succeed.

The State of the Union will be the details to back that up.

But even so, the speech will still be a framework ? part governing, part inspiration.

The details will be rolled out in full over the next several weeks, as part of Obama's next budget proposal and during his travels, which will allow him more media coverage.

On national security, Obama will ask the nation to reflect with him on a momentous year of change, including the end of the war in Iraq, the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the Arab Spring protests, with people clamoring for freedom. He is expected to note the troubles posed by Iran and Syria without offering new positions about them.

Despite low expectations for legislation this year, Obama will offer short-term ideas that would require action from Congress. For now, the main looming to-do item is an extension of a payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, both due to expire by March.

His travel schedule following his speech, to politically important regions, offers clues to the policies he was expected to unveil.

Both Phoenix and Las Vegas have been hard hit by foreclosures. Denver is where Obama outlined ways of helping college students deal with school loan debt. Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Detroit are home to a number of manufacturers. And Michigan was a major beneficiary of the president's decision to intervene to rescue the American auto industry.

Republican leaders in Congress say Obama has made the chances of cooperation even dimmer just over the last several days. He enraged Republicans by installing a consumer watchdog chief by going around the Senate, which had blocked him, and then rejected a major oil pipeline project the GOP has embraced.

Obama is likely, once again, to offer ways in which a broken Washington must work together. Yet that theme seems but a dream given the gridlock he has been unable to change.

The address remains an old-fashioned moment of national attention; 43 million people watched it on TV last year. The White House website will offer a live stream of the speech, promising extra wrinkles for people who watch it there, and then invite people to send in questions to administration officials through social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Obama's campaign is also organizing and promoting parties around the nation for people to watch the speech.

__

AP deputy director of polling Jennifer Agiesta and Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.

__

Online:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

___

Follow Ben Feller at http://twitter.com/BenFellerDC

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-21-US-Obama-State-of-the-Union/id-ff88c923470f497fa4e83a24497abb70

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It's complicated: Romney struggles to talk wealth (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Mitt Romney is no natural when it comes to "common man" politics.

He bets a Republican rival $10,000 on an impulse. He dismisses $373,000 in speaking fees as "not very much." And he slow-walks the release of his income tax returns but then blurts out a key fact: He pays about 15 percent of his income in taxes because he lives mostly on investment income and not a paycheck.

Such commissions of candor suggest a presidential candidate who is far from an everyman ? and who may have a tin ear for how he sounds to those who are. That could pose a special challenge to Romney in hard-hit Florida, and beyond. In a general election, Romney, who had a privileged upbringing and made millions as a venture capitalist, would be fighting for the votes of average Americans against a president whose mother at times drew food stamps and who worked his way through Harvard Law School to the pinnacle of power.

"When Barack Obama talks about paying off student loans and struggling, people believe him and it resonates," said Barbara Perry, a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Historically, "the common people have to believe that the president knows them and knows their situation and knows their lives."

Republicans hope that in 2012, American voters struggling to get jobs and pay bills are looking past the candidates' personal stories and to their proposals for stabilizing the economy and cutting the nation's staggering debt.

"Barack Obama had an incredible emotional connection with the American people in 2008," said South Carolina Republican consultant Jim Dyke. In the worst economy since the Great Depression, "that connection has dissipated," he added. "The American people may be more interested in a credible plan to address our problems."

The ranks of presidential candidates, and presidents, throughout history are full of American aristocrats, from George Washington to the Roosevelts, Rockefellers, Kennedys and Bushes. Some won by using policy and rhetoric to win support from lower-income voters, a practice that became known as the politics of the common man after Andrew Jackson's 1828 campaign. He won in part by portraying the nation's central bank as an institution that mostly made rich people richer.

So it's possible to run for president, and even win, while wealthy. Indeed, polls suggest that Americans don't begrudge Romney's family fortune or his own success in the private sector. In an AP-GfK survey last month, for example, about half of the respondents said Romney "understands the problems of ordinary Americans." Roughly the same percentage felt that way about Obama.

And efforts to portray Romney as a "vulture capitalist" fat cat at Bain Capital may have backfired against Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, the Republican rivals who launched them. Perry dropped out of the contest on Thursday.

There's evidence that Romney himself is learning to edit out offhand remarks that may be genuine yet jarring to average voters. In a debate Thursday night, Romney referred to having his tax returns "carefully managed," but mostly stayed clear of lifestyle details.

Instead, he equated his wealth with all-American achievement and upward mobility ? the opposite of coasting on his father's success as head of American Motor Corp., Michigan governor and federal housing secretary.

"What I have, I earned. I worked hard, the American way," Romney said to cheers and applause. "I'm not going to apologize for being successful."

It was a refinement of the way Romney has handled the central challenge of his campaign: winning over people struggling to keep their houses and find work when his own background is so far removed. Making it tougher is that the 2012 contest is happening against a backdrop of anger over income disparity, with "99 percenters" protesting policies that help the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans ? including Romney.

And where the Roosevelts and Kennedys won over ordinary people with social policies like the New Deal, Romney is campaigning on a plan to stabilize the economy through investments and tax breaks for "job creators," including the wealthiest individuals.

"Wealthy Democrats can get away with being wealthy so long as they espouse policies favorable to ordinary folks. Wealthy Republicans, by contrast, take a hit when their policies seem to favor the wealthy," said presidential historian H.W. Brands of the University of Texas. "It's the policies that really matter. The personal history is fluff."

Still, Romney has struggled to strike the right note with the masses.

In New Hampshire last month, he suggested that he's feared job setbacks at various points in his career.

"I know what it's like to worry about whether you're going to get fired. A couple of times I wondered if I was going to get a pink slip," Romney said during a campaign stop in Rochester, NH.

But it's highly unlikely he's ever felt the fear of being let go, or of being unable to find work, without a family fortune to fall back on.

Romney's refusal to release his tax forms put a fine point on the issue.

He grudgingly acknowledged that he might, for the first time, release them. But only one year's worth, and not until April, if he is the GOP's presidential nominee. He did reveal that he pays an effective tax rate of 15 percent, lower than what he would pay if he earned a regular pay check. He then disclosed that he earned speaking fees, "but not very much." The amount turned out to be $373,327.62 from 2010-2011.

In New Hampshire, a day after the pink slip remark, he spoke of the importance of having a choice of health insurance companies and declared, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me."

And in a heated debate last month, Romney bet Perry "10,000 bucks," apparently on impulse, when he could have wagered a symbolic dollar, or a beer.

Romney will soon get some practice honing his personal story in a state where he would need to be a master of it in the general election. After the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Romney and the GOP field move to Florida, a massive swing state familiar with the toxic cycle of high unemployment, unpaid bills, home foreclosures and despair.

It's no coincidence that Obama announced a new economic initiative there Thursday. The state suffers from 10 percent unemployment, and more than half of its homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth.

In Florida and beyond, Romney may find that sometimes it's best to keep his thoughts to himself.

"Don't try to stop the foreclosure process," he told the Las Vegas Review Journal in October, describing ways to improve the housing market. "Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120120/ap_on_el_pr/us_romney_common_man

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Search - Small Business Trends

Every two weeks we put together a list of key events for small businesses and entrepreneurs. The following Small Business Events Guide contains worthwhile events for those wanting to grow their businesses:

* * * * *

The Art of the Cold Call // BUSINESS 153
January 23, 2012, New York City

So your startup doesn?t have any money for a fancy ad campaign or a seasoned sales exec. You can barely keep the lights on as it is. But you know that your product is amazing, and if only your clients knew about you, you would be raking in the dollars. For a struggling start up like yours, there is only one way to make that happen. Pick up the phone. Cold calling is a deeply psychological exercise. We?ll start with a brainstorm. Why is cold calling so hard? What do you feel when you get that call? When you make one? We?ll tackle these issues so that you can build up your confidence and deliver a flawless call.

Introduction to Developing Entrepreneurial Ideas
Four Session Series: January 23 & 30, February 6 & 13, New York City

Do you have an idea but you are not sure if you can make a business out of it, or have an idea but need to refine it? Or need help in creating, reviewing or evaluating an idea? This class will focus over four sessions on the idea generation process and generating creative new ideas and turning entrepreneurial ideas into businesses. Often people think they need just one great business idea and this idea will cover them in a ?flash of genius.? While this can be true, often good business ideas get developed, molded, and improved over time. We will discuss both products and services ideas and focus on how to transform an idea or invention into an economically viable innovation and business.

Tax Tips and IRS Examination Advice for Small Business Owners
January 25, 2012, Wheaton, MD

If you are a small business and want to learn tips about taxes and the IRS examination, this class is for you! This class will be taught by small business accountants and attorneys. In this workshop attendees will learn 1) tax tips, 2) how to prepare for tax season, 3) red flags for being selected for examination, 4) the elements of an examination, 5) how an examination proceeds, and 6) potential outcomes. One 2.5 hour session.

How to Drive Buyers for Your Book, in Droves
January 31, 2012 ? ?Twitter chat, 7:00 pm New York time

Presented by the 4th Annual Small Business Book Awards, this hour-long Twitter chat will help authors and aspiring authors learn the secrets to marketing your book.

Today, even the largest publishers do a limited amount to market a book. ?As an author, it?s up to you to take charge, make your book known, and find buyers. ?And today many of the sales efforts focus online, or a combination of online and offline. ?This chat on Twitter, from 7 to 8 pm Eastern time, will features authors and book publicists. ?Twitter chat?sponsored by JustRetweet.com.

Small Biz Success Summit 2012
February 1 ? 23, 2012 ? Online

Presented by Social Media Examiner, this mega-event is designed to help you grow your small business using social media. There?s no travel! You simply attend this online event from the comfort of your home or office. It consists of multiple online webinars and Q&A sessions spread out from February 1 to 23, 2012. ?Recordings and transcripts also available.

You will hear from 28 of the world?s top small-biz social media experts, including: John Jantsch (author, Duct Tape Marketing), Anita Campbell (founder, Small Business Trends), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner and author, Launch), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), ?Brian Clark (founder, Copyblogger Media), Lee Odden (founder, TopRank Online Marketing), Ramon Ray (founder, Small Biz Technology and author, Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses).?? ?->??Register now.

Sponsorships 101: How to Find them, Close them and Create Value for them
February 2, 2012, San Francisco

Events, events, events! They are everywhere, especially in tech. Over the last two years, pariSoma has hosted over 300 events. Some of them were co-organized, some self-organized, and some completely independent. What was needed for many of them were sponsors! Sponsors help you grow your community, create a value add, and of course, cover your costs.

This class will teach you how to look for sponsors, how to engage with them, how to create value for them, and how to close them.

Getting Down to Social Business
February 3, 2012, Atlanta

Social Media, Social Networks, Mobility and Cloud services are impacting all aspects of life today. While ?social? has been driven by personal/consumer enthusiasm, it has carried over to business interactions ? external (with customers and prospects) and internally (between colleagues across the organization and with trusted partners). Topics covered include:

• Changing Corporate Culture to Win Over Customers and Employees in the Social Age
• Big Data and the Social Customer ? How to Turn Information into Insights, Interactions and Long Customer Relationships
• The Subscription Economy: Using Clouds, Marketplaces and Social Strategies to Connect with Today?s Customer
• ROI: How to determine the value of Social Initiatives to the Organization ? How to determine the Value of The Social Customer to the Organization
• Beyond Marketing and Promotion: How Social Initiatives Are Being Used In Overlooked Areas To Help Businesses Compete in Today?s Market
• The Collaborative Organization: Tools and Tactics for Interacting in a Multi-channel, Multi-device World

Speakers include Paul Greenberg, Author of CRM at the Speed of Light, Anita Campbell, Publisher, Small Business Trends, Jeff Nolan, VP of Product Marketing, Get Satisfaction, Jeanne Hopkins, VP of Marketing, HubSpot, and Robin Carey, CEO of Social Media Today.

Where Is Everyone?: The Remote Project Manager?s Arsenal
February 6, 2012, San Francisco

So how exactly does one manage a tribe and change the world, with all these to-do?s and deadlines bogging us down? Not to mention the finicky Skype calls, buried emails, and timezone arithmetic. Join us for practical tips to get more out of you and your team:
- Preemptive strike: attack problems before they happen
- Two (free!) tools for working better, and how to set them up
- Your inbox is a blackhole. Get out of it.
- Social psychology 101
-And more?
Specifically designed with the remote project manager in mind, this class will cover tips that go beyond watercooler politics and planning agendas. Methods will be applicable to MiF-carrying PM?s and jetsetting entrepreneurs, to office bees who occasionally work from home? or anyone who has to work with other humans.

Small Biz Big Things
February 7, 2012, San Francisco

Small Biz Big Things is all about YOU, YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR challenges. In this interactive forum you?ll hear from business growth experts who have built (or are building) successful companies and can share their lessons learned, success stories, growth challenges and victories with you.

Speakers include Scott Hintz, co-founder of Tripit, Jim Fowler, who built Jigsaw and sold it to Salesforce.com, and Tamara Mendelsohn, VP of Marketing for Eventbrite.

Come network, have a great lunch and learn from experts who can help you GROW YOUR BUSINESS.

?

Social Media Week
February 13-17, 2012 ? London, Miami, New York, San Francisco + More

Reflecting the global impact of social media ? and its role as a catalyst in driving cultural, economic, political and social change in developed and emerging markets ? Social Media Week is one of the world?s most unique global platforms, offering a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends in social and mobile media across all major industries.
See website for each city?s schedule of events.

Small Farms Conference
February 25, 2012, Corvallis, OR

The event includes workshops ranging from harvesting rainwater and marketing meat products to grafting vegetables and selling produce to schools and hospitals. Speakers include farmers, OSU faculty, farmer?s market representatives and experts from the state Department of Agriculture.

Other topics include farm financing, land-use legislation and business plan development.

Inc. GrowCo
March 5-7, 2012, New Orleans

Come to GROWCO and master the strategies, tactics, and real-world solutions your company needs to thrive. Packed with actionable insights, GROWCO can be a life-changing event. You?ll learn from mega-successful entrepreneurs whose companies have created millions of dollars of wealth and tens of thousands of jobs?and a lot more.

Seventh Annual Small Business Summit 2012
March 6, 2012, New York City

The Small Business Summit is New York?s premier event for small business owners looking to network with other decision-makers, attend cutting edge seminars and shop around for products & services available to help their small businesses succeed. You?ll network with 500+ attendees, hear from small business experts in exciting presentations and panel discussions, and have a great lunch. The winner of the Small Business Strategy Award will be announced live, plus great raffles and giveaways.

Early Bird Registration Rate of $149 through February 24th.

Geek Girl Cape Cod Boot Camp 2012
March 17, 2012, Cape Cod, MA

Whether you are a beginner newbie who needs hand-holding on all things computer, to the intermediate self-starter entrepreneur who needs some new tools, to you entirely tuned-in code toads looking to learn, there is a workshop for you at this bootcamp. See website for full list of sessions.

2012 Ohio Business Matchmaker
March 20-21, 2012, Dayton, OH

The Ohio Business Matchmaker 2012 event is a unique opportunity for exhibitors, purchasing agents (buyers), trainers, and small business owners (suppliers of goods and services) to come together.

More than 1,300 small business owners who represent small, minority, service-disabled veteran-owned, veteran-owned, HUBZone, women-owned businesses, and approximately 250 purchasing representatives from city, state, county, and federal agencies will be participating this year. Prime contractors and other organizations with a combined purchasing budget representing hundreds of millions of dollars in opportunities will attend as well.

In addition to one-on-one matchmaking meetings, this event will offer exhibitors networking opportunities and workshops covering current topics vital to small business success such as Selling to the Government, Doing Business with Federal Government Prime Contractors, SBA Policy Updates, and Surety Bonding.

Social Tech ?12
March 29-30, 2012, Seattle

Social media marketing is no longer an option for B2B?it?s an absolute necessity. Luckily, we?ve got you covered with over 25 of the leading experts who will teach you how to use social media marketing to generate more inbound leads, grow brand awareness, drive conversions, and increase revenue. You?ll meet with industry insiders as well as other B2B marketers to discuss best practices, winning techniques, current roadblocks, and find out what works for your business!

Infusioncon 2012
April 2-4, Phoenix, AZ

Get ready to learn, network and set new ideas in motion! Join hundreds of small businesses from all around the world at InfusionCon 2012, Infusionsoft?s annual user conference, and experience three days of idea sharing and inspiration in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona on April 2-4.

Innovation Uncensored
April 18, 2012, New York City

Where provocative thinkers collide and engage in meaningful, unexpected conversations. At this event, participants from various industries are charged with sharing smart techniques and exploring the next generation of innovative ideas that are shaping our world.

Confab: The Content Strategy Conference
May 14-16, 2012, Minneapolis

Deep dives. Conceptual discussions. Practical application. Whether you?re a seasoned content vet or new to the game, Confab has something for you. You?re sure to walk away with not only new insights and discoveries, but also the ability to actually DO something with them. A mixed agenda format will offer attendees a variety of ways to engage with and employ the innovative ideas that come from the scintillating content and unexpected environment.

The event content is aimed toward anyone who thinks of themselves as an innovative business leader including but not limited to the fields of technology, design, marketing, entertainment, venture capitalism, energy, infrastructure, non-profits and brand executives.

America?s Small Business Summit 2012
May 21-23, 2012, Washington, DC

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce?s annual event ? America?s Small Business Summit ? unites small business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs from across the country to learn, network, and discuss common legislative and management concerns. Past speakers include former President George W. Bush, General Stanley McChrystal, Small Business Editor of the WSJ Colleen DeBaise, and many more. Attendees help influence our nation?s economic and political agenda by advocating for pro-business policies through the Rally on the Hill portion of the program. The event will take place at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., on May 21-23, 2012. For more information and important dates, check the Summit website, www.uschambersummit.com.

8th Annual Kentucky Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference
June 1, 2012, Louisville, KY

The Annual Kentucky Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference (8th KIEC) will bring together distinguished speakers, tech-based economic development practitioners, researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, students and postdoctoral fellows.

The conference will focus on growing local initiatives powered by science and engineering talent.

2012 Veteran Entrepreneur Training Symposium
June 11-14, 2012, Reno, NV

Designed by Veteran small business owners for Veteran small business owners, VETS2012 brings government agencies, industry leaders and Veteran entrepreneurs together in a small, intimate forum to discuss the questions you need answered.

To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

If you are putting on a small business event or contest, and want to get the word out, please submit it through our Events & Contests Submission Form (it?s free). Only events of interest to small business people, freelancers and entrepreneurs will be included.

Brought to you as a community service by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

About the Author

Laura Leites is managing editor of SmallBizTechnology. In addition to writing about technology tools for SMBs, Laura manages the day-to-day operations of Smallbiztechnology.com. She also produces their live and virtual events, including the Taste of Technology Small Business Series.

Connect with Laura Leites:

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/01/134629.html

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Most Barbour pardons fail notice test: attorney general (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? More than three-quarters of the prisoners and ex-convicts pardoned by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour in his final days in office did not meet the public notice requirements of the state's constitution, Mississippi's attorney general said Thursday.

"The attorney general's updated review of the 203 purported pardons (on the list as published by the secretary of state) shows that 156 have not met the publication requirements of the state constitution," Attorney General Jim Hood said in an e-mailed statement.

Barbour sparked controversy with the pardons, most of which were granted on his final day in office last week. Among those on the list were four convicted murderers and an armed robber who had worked at the governor's mansion on prison work release.

Hood last week sought and received an injunction against those and others on the clemency list on the grounds that their pardons had not met a state constitutional requirement that a notice be published in the community where the crimes were committed. A hearing on the injunctions is scheduled for Monday.

In his statement on Thursday evening, Hood said that of the individuals on the secretary of state's list of those pardoned by Barbour, 116 had insufficient advance publication and 40 had no published notice at all.

Hood is still investigating whether 26 others on the pardon list met the public notice requirement, he said.

(Reporting By Dan Burns; editing by Cynthia Johnston and Dan Whitcomb)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/us_nm/us_mississippi_pardons

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Alienware's extreme value gaming | FT Tech Hub | FTtechhub ...

For an extreme gaming PC maker, Alienware has come up with the smallest and most moderately priced machine in its history in the $699 X51.

The company, acquired by Dell in 2006, is looking to expand beyond the 1 to 2 per cent share of the PC market owned by enthusiast gaming PCs, with a model that is quieter, more affordable and less obtrusive in a living room environment.

I was surprised by its compact size at its launch in San Francisco on Tuesday evening and even more surprised by the price ? I associate Alienware with desktop towers and with prices of over $1500.

But the X51, even at the maximum specifications of a Blu-ray drive, Nvidia GTX graphics card, Intel Core i7 processor, 8gb of memory and 1Tb hard drive, still comes in at just under $1,250 (monitor not included).

And the basic $699 model, with a Core i3 processor and less powerful graphics card, will still be a good experience, according to Jorge Perez, Alienware marketing director.

?We wanted to create a product that stayed true to our brand, but was more accessible from a size and price point to the many people that play games but are not hard-core gamers,? he said.

?This is our smallest desktop ever ? we wanted to build a versatile product that you could see in a dorm room or living room environment.?

The X51 will stand vertically or horizontally, can link up to a big-screen TV with its HDMI output and has 7.1 sound and built-in Wi-Fi. Its graphics are capable of 3D, 1080p ?full? HD and 30 frames per second gameplay.

A classy chassis is what makes it stand out as an Alienware product ? it has three zones where the lighting can be customised and has dark chrome accents.

The box will not look out of place under a TV and, next to aging consoles, its performance on PC games is likely to shine.

Unlike HP, which absorbed its Voodoo high-end gaming acquisition and included its features in more mainstream products, Dell has kept Alienware separate and helped it achieve global reach ? there are now more than 80 Alienware stores in China.

But the X51 will probably be welcomed by Dell management as a sign that Alienware can also reach a wider demographic as well as a bigger global audience.

Source: http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2012/01/alienwares-extreme-value-gaming/

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