Microsoft: This Is How We Design Today

Microsoft has never been cool and its product have never looked cool. The 38-year-old company was founded on 1s and 0s. Design was never in the company's DNA. It was never about aesthetics and it didn't have to be. But its plain to see that the Microsoft of today is a little bit hipper, a little bit cooler and a heck of a lot better looking. They even had their very first "Snow Fall" today! (Update: This was actually Microsoft's second, not first Snow Fall.)

In a piece titled "Modern design at Microsoft: Going beyond flat design," Steve Clayton, editor of Microsoft's Next blog, takes us on a cursory journey of how Microsoft thinks about design today. Which is basically rooted in a handful of design principles that have been around for more than a century. Better late than never, right? Right.

Function Over Form

Before everything went mobile and ecosystems were a thing to contend with, Microsoft built products that worked but generally looked ugly by today's standards and benchmarks. The original Xbox looked nothing like Windows, they didn't talk to each other, and Windows Mobile was a bastardized version of its desktop counterpart. Now all three look, feel and work together.

Clayton points out that the company finally "started to think differently about design" three years ago when its "brilliant community of designers" established a design ethos that eventually came to light when Windows Mobile turned into Windows Phone 7. But that shift in thinking probably happened well before that. Remember Courier? It was so drastically different in terms of what Microsoft's UI and UX was that it freaked Ballmer out. But like anything else that is so the opposite of Microsoft, the Courier was built in a tucked away lab where both the Xbox and Surface were also conceptualized and executed upon. So it wouldn't surprise me if this drastic change in appearance and experience started in an off-the-beaten-path area known only to a few.

Modernity

But Clayton says otherwise. In February of 2010, the design leads from across Microsoft gathered to figure out just how to make design more consistent across all of its products. Drawing upon three centuries old principles, "these external influences are foundational to design at Microsoft both today and tomorrow."

The Modern Design Movement (The Bauhaus), with its focus on making the ?function? beautiful is the first influence. At the heart of the Bauhaus philosophy is stripping away superfluous decorations to focus on the essence of the functional. There are many parallels in today?s computing world. The practice of mimicking real-world materials such as glass, brushed metal or leather, and effects such as drop shadows, reflections and lens flares, are an attempt to adorn experiences without being functional. When Sam Moreau, design director for Windows, says, ?The content is the interface,? he?s channeling his inner Bauhaus.

In other words, focus on making the product actually work because adding superfluous crap is basically an admission that it doesn't work in the first place.

International Typographic Style (or Swiss Style) is the second influence. It?s a graphic design style that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. The hallmarks of Swiss Style are great typography, a focus on layout and grid systems, and the use of bold, flat color. It?s a style that is seen in way-finding signage at airports and other transportation hubs, which are by their nature busy and information-dense environments ? hence why it works so well in our busy, digital world. When this approach is infused with the things people love (their photos, their people, their apps), you end up with something as personal and unique as Windows Phone.

Ah, the KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid. Tell me what I want to know when I want to know it.

The field of Motion design is the third influence. Early pioneers such as Saul Bass used great graphic design, typography and motion to create title sequences that set an emotional stage for films. In creating a stage for creativity, expression and productivity in products such as Windows, Office, Bing, Visual Studio and Xbox, designers understood that not only could motion support those activities, it could also aid usability and create a positive emotional impact.

Typography has a way of influencing us on a subconscious level. Sometimes you just see a typeface and it elicits an emotional reaction.

Five years ago none of this would've seemed possible, and it's still very possible that none of this will have any affect on the products, since Microsoft's longstanding record of screwing things up still holds true. You need only go as far back as the Surface to realize that. Or even more recently, Windows 8.1 and the return of the start screen. Or even the Xbox One kerfuffle over used games. But at least it still looks cool?and if they really are implementing functional changes based on these principles, it could start being cool, too. [Microsoft]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/microsoft-this-is-how-we-design-today-511913156

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Global netizens worried over US spying

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? News that the U.S. government has been snooping on Internet users worldwide came as little surprise to global netizens, who said Friday they have few expectations of online privacy as governments increasingly monitor people's digital lives, often with Internet companies' acquiescence.

Privacy activists concerned over the U.S. National Security Agency's selective monitoring of Internet traffic called on people to take measures to better protect their digital data ranging from emails to photos to social network posts. But most people eschew encryption and other privacy tools and seemed resigned to the open book their online lives have become.

"It doesn't surprise me one bit. They've been doing it for years," said Jamie Griffiths, a 26-year-old architect working on his laptop in a London cafe. "I wouldn't send anything via email that I wouldn't want a third party to read."

From Baghdad, to Bogota, Colombia, many said they already carefully censor what they write online and assume governments are regularly spying on online activity, be it as part of global counter-terrorism or domestic surveillance efforts.

"The social networks and email have always been vulnerable because tech-savvy people know how to penetrate them," said Teolindo Acosa, a 34-year-old education student at Venezuela's Universidad Central who was leaving a cybercafe in Caracas.

Leaked confidential documents show the NSA and FBI have been sifting through personal data by directly accessing the U.S-based servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AOL, Skype, PalTalk, Apple and YouTube.

Following Thursday's revelation, U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday that the surveillance did not "target" U.S. citizens or others living in the U.S. ? which does not mean their communications were not caught up in the dragnet.

But that didn't dampen the outrage of people who resent what they consider Washington's self-anointed role as the world's policeman.

"To the United States, everyone is suspicious, even the pope!" said leftist Colombian Sen. Alexander Lopez. "Everyone is under observation these days and this should be taken up by the United Nations."

Lopez said he has no plans to close his Google and Microsoft email accounts. He figures he'll be spied on no matter what he does.

The revelation of global data vacuuming could hurt U.S. technology companies if Internet users become disillusioned and abandon them in favor of homegrown alternatives that offer greater security.

U.S. privacy activist Christopher Soghoian said he finds it "insane" that so many politicians outside the United States use Google gmail accounts.

"This has given the NSA an advantage over every other intelligence system in the world. The Americans don't have to hack as much, because everyone in the world sends their data to American companies," he said.

Hossam el-Hamalawy, a blogger with Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists, one of the Egyptian groups that helped spearhead the 2011 uprising, said the dearth of locally developed Web tools means many around the world are simply stuck with U.S. sites, even if they know the government is monitoring them.

"The problem is that there is no alternative," he said. "If you don't use Facebook, what is the alternative social network available for the Internet user who is not an IT geek?"

Soghoian predicted an increasing push by governments and companies in Europe in particular, where privacy has been a much bigger issue for voters than in the United States, away from storing data in U.S.-based server farms.

Indeed, under U.S. law it is not illegal for the NSA to collect information on foreigners.

The disclosure of the NSA data-vacuuming program known as PRISM is only the latest "of many U.S. government programs created to infringe on personal freedoms," said Carlos Affonso Pereira de Souza, a technology policy professor at FGV think tank in Rio de Janeiro.

Going back well into the 20th century, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand ran a secret satellite communications interception network that became known as Echelon and searched information including telexes, faxes and emails, according to experts including U.S. journalist James Bamford. The system was the subject of a 2001 European Parliament inquiry.

According to a U.N. report released this week, such surveillance has been on a global upsurge with governments increasingly tapping into online personal data and even discouraging online anonymity by passing laws prohibiting it.

The governments of China, Iran, Bahrain are among other nations that already aggressively oversee online activity, in many cases putting people in prison for political blog posts and other messages.

Israel's attorney general in April upheld a practice allowing security personnel to read email accounts of suspicious individuals when they arrive at the airport, arguing it prevents militants from entering the country.

The U.N. report said such activity has been expanding as technology advances, and that countries should prioritize protecting people's online rights.

"In order to meet their human rights obligations, States must ensure that the rights to freedom of expression and privacy are at the heart of their communications surveillance frameworks," the report reads.

Its author, Guatemalan Frank La Rue, calls for legal standards to ensure "privacy, security and anonymity of communications" to protect people including journalists, human rights defenders and whistleblowers.

Civil libertarians in the United States were much more upset about a different revelation published Wednesday, that the NSA has been collecting the phone records including the calls, numbers, times and duration of all U.S. citizen customers of the telecommunications giant Verizon.

___

Associated Press writers Vivian Sequera in Bogota, Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, Jill Lawless in London, Bradley Brooks in Sao Paulo, Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas, Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad and Tony G. Gabriel in Cairo contributed to this report. Jack Chang contributed from Mexico City.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/global-netizens-worried-over-us-spying-211114986.html

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Mobile Miscellany: week of June 3rd, 2013

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought additional peeks at the purported Nokia EOS cameraphone, leaked screenshots of the BlackBerry OS 10.2 update and the arrival of a new budget smartphone from Huawei in the UK. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of June 3rd, 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/xsp3-83mCgg/

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OnlyMyEmail Personal (2013)

What do I want to see when I look at my Inbox? Only my email, of course, not any spam, phishing scams, or other trash. For $19.99 per year, OnlyMyEmail Personal (2013) offers exactly that. It's not as flexible as some antispam solutions, but in my real-world tests its accuracy was nothing short of astounding.

When you sign up for the service, you get a brand-new email address within the onlymyemail.com domain. You're perfectly free to use this as your sole email address, but the company recognizes that most people would rather have a root canal than change email providers. So, with your subscription you get the ability to filter any two POP3 email accounts.

OnlyMyEmail has existed in more-or-less its current form for over ten years. It doesn't change, because it doesn't need to change. As with other products that don't use traditional version numbering, I've added "(2013)" to the name to distinguish this review from others.

Getting Started
To set up a POP3 account for filtering, you log in to your OnlyMyEmail account and enter the account's username, password, and mail server. There's a link to test your information, to make sure that OnlyMyEmail can access it.

Next, you must reconfigure your regular email client so that it downloads mail from your onlymyemail.com account. You can download mail via POP3 or IMAP, whichever is more convenient. Once you've completed this simple configuration, you'll get your email as usual, but you won't see any spam, just a daily report of messages deleted by the service.

When someone sends you a message, the OnlyMyEmail service receives and processes it before passing it along to you. According to the FAQ, this can take from two to ten minutes, a fact worth remembering when you're awaiting an important message.

Some Limitations
As noted, the only type of external email account that OnlyMyEmail can filter is a POP3 account. The free Cloudmark DesktopOne Basic 1.2 will filter one account of any type: POP3, IMAP, Exchange, even Web-based mail. If you need antispam for multiple accounts, Cloudmark DesktopOne Pro 1.2 will do the job.

Users of OnlyMyEmail Personal are limited to filtering 400 external emails per day. That's not much of a limit. I'm on email all day, every day, and I rarely receive over 200 messages. Note that this limit does not apply if messages are sent directly to your onlymyemail.com account.

Typically you'll keep sending outbound messages through the same SMTP server you've always used. If you do choose to send via OnlyMyEmail's SMTP server, there are a few limits. You can't sent to more than 25 recipients at once, and you can't sent more than 100 messages per hour. OnlyMyEmail CEO Stephen Canale points out that this limits the flow of email from compromised accounts and makes OnlyMyEmail "a very unattractive target for spammers to subscribe or hack." Canale went on to say, "We're effectively useless to spammers, and very proud of it."

All of the service's activity happens online, with nothing at all installed on your system. Because of this, it doesn't need a help system or a tech support team. Users are encouraged to read the online FAQ and troubleshooting tips, with an option to submit bug reports and feedback.

Simple Configuration
You don't necessarily have to perform any configuration beyond the initial setup, but there are a few areas to explore, starting with your preferences for what sort of mail should be deleted. The service always deletes spam; turning off that feature isn't optional. By default, it also deletes viruses, virus alerts, and mail from foreign domains.

You can also configure it to delete direct marketing mail, newsletters, chain letters, and mail from listservs or Yahoo groups. If you find that you're missing mail that you actually want, you simply whitelist the sender. There's also an option to manually create a list of senders to always allow or to always block.

An unusual feature called OME Passcode gives you a way to ensure specific messages will always get through. Your passcode must be 8-15 characters, no spaces, with at least one letter and one digit. If a sender includes the passcode as the very first word in the message subject, OnlyMyEmail will always let it through.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/aJsfSQFPZUo/0,2817,2420091,00.asp

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Dissecting Big Tech's Denial of Involvement in NSA's PRISM Spying Program

The National Security Agency and the FBI have been tapping into the servers of nine technology companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, to collect audio, video, photographs, e-mails and other documents under a program code-named PRISM, according to a report in the Washington Post. But the tech companies named have responded to questions about the story with statements that may leave out as much as they say.

All the major technology companies named in the Post's report have adamantly denied that they have given the government full access to its servers in similar prepared statements.

President Obama said today that members of Congress have repeatedly been informed of these programs. "The relevant intelligence committees are fully briefed on these programs. These are programs that have been authorized by broad, bipartisan majorities repeatedly since 2006. And so I think at the outset, it's important to understand that your duly elected representatives have been consistently informed on exactly what we're doing," he said.

Still, while Obama says that data being collected on emails and Internet activity is targeted at foreign nationals and not U.S. citizens, the tech companies have all released similar prepared statements to the media denying involvement in this program.

The Statements

Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Microsoft: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it."

Google: "Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data."

Google's CEO Larry Page released a blog post on Friday again denying knowledge of the program. "We provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law," said Page.

Facebook: "Protecting the privacy of our users and their data is a top priority for Facebook. We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg released an additional statement on Friday, saying Facebook "hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday."

Yahoo: "Yahoo! takes users' privacy very seriously. We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network."

Paltalk: "We have not heard of PRISM. Paltalk exercises extreme care to protect and secure users' data, only responding to court orders as required to by law. Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers."

AOL: "We do not have any knowledge of the Prism program. We do not disclose user information to government agencies without a court order, subpoena or formal legal process, nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers."

Dissecting The Wording and What They Can't Say
The similarity in all the statements is clear. All mention that they would only comply with orders for requests to access information if forced to do so under the law and that they do not provide "back door" or "direct" access to their servers and to user account information.

Experts believe that commonality in statements could mean a few things. The first is that the companies simply can't talk about this to begin with.

"If these companies received an order under the FISA amendments act, they are forbidden by law from disclosing having received the order and disclosing any information about the order at all," Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told ABC News.

John Black, an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, shared a similar opinion. "Many times these laws say they have to comply and they can't disclose their compliance," Black said.

However, the companies are talking about it, they aren't simply saying "no comment." Apple and Paltalk are even specifically saying they have never heard of PRISM.

Rumold says that could be a technicality. "Apple might have had no idea of the government's codename for the program, which was PRISM. What Apple didn't say is that we have never given the NSA access to our data." Rumold went to Berkeley Law and is involved with lawsuits with the NSA and the Department of Justice about some of the other wiretapping cases.

Google, on the other hand, said there was no backdoor to its servers. "Back door at Google might have one meaning, but what they didn't say is they aren't giving the NSA widespread access to data, which they could potentially say if they had not received an order and given the NSA access to their data," Rumold said.

Black echoed a similar thought about the wording "direct access" and the back door phrase. "They seem consistently careful in saying we don't give back door access to the government servers. That's not the same thing as saying the government has no way to access any of our data." Black suggested that maybe the NSA doesn't have far-reaching or direct access to the servers, but the companies don't deny that the government can get information when they have a court order through some sort of shared servers.

Marc Ambinder, author of Author of Deep State: Inside The Government Secrecy Industry, told ABC News something similar. PRISM is in part a software system that allows the government to sift through large amounts of data in different formats, he explained. When the Internet companies came on board, as the leaked document shows, it required them to make their data compatible with the system.

That doesn't mean all data coming from, say, Apple or Google, would be readable through the PRISM system. It just means that when a court order was granted, there was a system already in existence that allowed the government to intake and immediately use the data Apple or Google provided in compliance with a FISA court order.

James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said in a written statement that the Post report and another on phone surveillance by The Guardian contained "numerous inaccuracies," and that the data collection only targets non-Americans outside the United States.

President Obama today stressed that members of Congress have repeatedly been informed of these programs."The programs that have been discussed over the last couple days in the press are secret in the sense that they're classified, but they're not secret in the sense that when it comes to telephone calls, every member of Congress has been briefed on this program," he said.

Still, both Black and Rumold say it is highly unlikely that the technology companies wouldn't have been informed of these programs.

"Google is probably the biggest collection of information on earth. It would be shocking to me that the NSA wasn't attempting with all its power to get access to Google," Rumold said. "Google might have very well fought a valiant and difficult fight to keep the NSA away from it, but there is only so much it can do as an American company if you get a valid United States court order."

And that's where Google CEO Larry Page makes the point about making these programs more transparent. "Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed?there needs to be a more transparent approach," he said in the blog post released Friday. "Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive."

ABC News' Abby Phillip contributed to this report.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dissecting-big-techs-denial-involvement-nsas-prism-spying-220514258--abc-news-tech.html

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Browns WR Josh Gordon suspended for 2 games

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon (13) works on a drill during minicamp practice at the NFL football team's practice facility in Berea, Ohio Thursday, June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon (13) works on a drill during minicamp practice at the NFL football team's practice facility in Berea, Ohio Thursday, June 6, 2013. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan)

Cleveland Browns receiver Josh Gordon has been suspended without pay for the first two games next season for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy.

Gordon also was fined two additional game checks on Friday. He will be eligible to return for the third week of the season.

It's the second year in a row that the Browns have a key player suspended early in the season. Cornerback Joe Haden was suspended four games last season for violating the league's policy on performance-enhancing substances.

Gordon, a second-round pick in the supplemental draft out of Baylor, caught 50 passes last season for a team-leading 805 yards and five touchdowns, developing into the Browns' best deep threat. Gordon was dismissed from Baylor's team after being twice suspended for marijuana use.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-06-07-FBN-Browns-Gordon/id-af6f0b2d08b64192a57269be1645fa13

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DNA on beer cans leads to NY suspect's arrest

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) ? Authorities say a burglar's decision to knock back a couple of beers during a break-in at an upstate New York home led to his arrest.

Onondaga (ahn-uhn-DAH'-gah) County prosecutors tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse (http://bit.ly/14vfeMo ) that 29-year-old Moses Wilson was stealing copper piping from a vacant rental home in Syracuse in early February when he found an unopened case of beer in the basement.

Officials say he drank some of the beer during the burglary. Prosecutors say police were able to match Wilson's DNA to DNA found on the cans.

Wilson was arraigned Tuesday in Onondaga County Court on charges of burglary and petit larceny. He is being held in jail on $10,000 bail. It couldn't immediately be determined if he had a lawyer.

___

Information from: The Post-Standard, http://www.syracuse.com

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2013-06-05-Beer%20Can%20DNA-Arrest/id-852fbbc7f3284d7d8b514e45df2d55b5

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Kirk Douglas on Gun Control: 'America's Cowboy Days are Over'

By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Kirk Douglas may have brandished a six shooter in films like "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" and "Man Without a Star," but he wishes America wouldn't follow his big-screen example.

"I often played the good cowboy on screen, riding in to save the day," the 96-year old Douglas writes in a Huffington Post opinion piece. "Now, everybody thinks he is a cowboy too. That frightens me. We have become a cowboy country with too many guns."

Douglas acknowledges that he has guns in his own homes - souvenirs from his days as a cowboy hero - but writes that he always made sure to keep them locked up in a safe so his children, and later his grandchildren, could not access them.

Stricter guns laws must be enacted, Douglas writes, because it is easy to buy or find weapons.

The action hero from Hollywood's Golden Age writes that he was compelled to come out in favor of gun control after reading about a 5-year-old Kentucky boy who accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old sister last month with the .22-caliber rifle he received for his birthday.

President Obama has been pushing for tighter gun laws, including background checks for firearms sold online and at gun shows, but legislation has faced fierce opposition from some members of Congress and the gun lobby.

Douglas said he hoped that the country would take action.

"I am 96 years old," Douglas wrote. "I have many grandchildren. I would hate to leave them a world where guns are easily accessible. Children don't vote, adults do. It's time to do something to make our children safer. America's cowboy days are over."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kirk-douglas-gun-control-americas-cowboy-days-over-004111442.html

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On guns and more, NH Sen. Ayotte backs GOP leaders (The Arizona Republic)

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NSA has backdoor access to Internet companies' databases ...

NSA director Keith Alexander

(Credit: Getty Images)

A top-secret surveillance program gives the National Security Agency surreptitious access to customer information held by Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies, according to a pair of new reports.

The program, code-named PRISM, reportedly allows NSA analysts to peruse exabytes of confidential user data held by Silicon Valley firms by typing in search terms. PRISM reports have been used in 1,477 items in President Obama's daily briefing last year, according to an internal presentation to the NSA's Signals Intelligence Directorate obtained by the Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers.

Excerpt from top-secret PRISM presentation. Click for larger image

This afternoon's disclosure of PRISM follows another report yesterday that revealed the existence of another top-secret NSA program that vacuums up records of millions of phone calls made inside the United States.

Other services that are reportedly part of PRISM include PalTalk, Skype, and AOL. Dropbox is listed in the presentation as "coming soon."

Some of the companies named in the pair of news reports responded this afternoon with statements indicating they did not provide direct server access, or PRISM was not as described. Apple said: "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Joe Sullivan, Facebook's chief security officer, said: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinise any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law." A Google spokesman said: "We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully."

Microsoft's statement is probably the most detailed:

We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it.

The carefully-worded statements leave open the possibility, however, that the NSA would be given indirect access to company servers that would still permit queries for user information to be submitted. NBC News confirmed from two sources this afternoon that a data collection program called PRISM exists.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported this evening that the NSA's monitoring includes AT&T and Sprint -- not only Verizon -- and extends to credit card companies. The story also said the spy agency "obtains access to data from Internet service providers on Internet use such as e-mail or Web site visits," citing former government officials, without elaborating.

The spy agency's apparent direct access -- the FBI is used as an intermediary, but NSA analysts perform the searches -- appears to be the result of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which authorizes secret court orders that force U.S. companies to turn over business records. That sweeps in metadata and also the content of confidential communications, including e-mail, video and voice chat, videos, and photos, the leaked presentation says.

The Washington Post said it received the classified PowerPoint slides about PRISM and other supporting documents from a "career intelligence officer" who wanted to "expose what he believes to be a gross intrusion on privacy." The documents are recent, with dates as recent as April 2013.

PRISM access appears intended to be used primarily for NSA agents to monitor the activities non-U.S. citizens (the majority of Facebook and Gmail users, for instance, live in other countries). But without oversight and other checks, such a powerful capability could be abused.

The PRISM slides suggest the program started one month after Congress approved a controversial wiretapping law in August 2007 that opened the networks of telecommunications companies to the NSA. A CNET FAQ at the time said: "The new law effectively expands the National Security Agency's power to eavesdrop on phone calls, e-mail messages and other Internet traffic with limited court oversight. Telecommunications companies can be required to comply with government demands, and if they do so they are immune from all lawsuits."

The U.S. national intelligence chief responds
National intelligence director James Clapper released two statements this evening addressing both sets of disclosures. Talking about the Internet companies, he said there are "extensive procedures, specifically approved by the court, to ensure that only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted, and that minimize the acquisition, retention and dissemination of incidentally acquired information about U.S. persons."

Clapper also addressed the revelations about Verizon and the other phone companies. "All information that is acquired under this program is subject to strict, court-imposed restrictions on review and handling," he said.

Yesterday's disclosure of the Verizon surveillance offers hints of how the phone companies may be forced to comply. That secret order, issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, relies on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, 50 USC 1861, better known as the "business records" portion. It allows the government to obtain any "tangible thing," including "books, records, papers, documents, and other items," a broad term that includes dumps from private-sector computer databases with limited judicial oversight.

The Justice Department's secret interpretation of Section 215 was what alarmed Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Udall (D-Colorado) when the Patriot Act was up for renewal two years ago. Both senators served on the intelligence committee and were briefed on the NSA's activities.

FBI Director Robert Mueller hinted during a 2011 congressional hearing that there was a secret legal memorandum prepared by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel that authorized a broader use of Section 215 than is publicly known.

Wyden, who was present at that hearing, told Mueller that he was "increasingly troubled" that intelligence agencies are "relying on a secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act. "I believe that the American people would be absolutely stunned," Wyden said, if they knew what was actually going on.

Here's more from the Post's report:

Analysts who use the system from a Web portal at Fort Meade key in "selectors," or search terms, that are designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target's "foreignness." That is not a very stringent test. Training materials obtained by the Post instruct new analysts to submit accidentally collected U.S. content for a quarterly report, "but it's nothing to worry about." ...

Like market researchers, but with far more privileged access, collection managers in the NSA's Special Source Operations group, which oversees the PRISM program, are drawn to the wealth of information about their subjects in online accounts. For much the same reason, civil libertarians and some ordinary users may be troubled by the menu available to analysts who hold the required clearances to "task" the PRISM system.

There has been "continued exponential growth in tasking to Facebook and Skype," according to the 41 PRISM slides. With a few clicks and an affirmation that the subject is believed to be engaged in terrorism, espionage or nuclear proliferation, an analyst obtains full access to Facebook's "extensive search and surveillance capabilities against the variety of online social networking services."

Last updated at 1:00 a.m. PT Friday

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57588143-38/nsa-has-backdoor-access-to-internet-companies-databases/

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Compulsive no more: Clues to what causes compulsive behavior could improve OCD treatments

June 6, 2013 ? By activating a brain circuit that controls compulsive behavior, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can block a compulsive behavior in mice -- a result that could help researchers develop new treatments for diseases such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette's syndrome.

About 1 percent of U.S. adults suffer from OCD, and patients usually receive antianxiety drugs or antidepressants, behavioral therapy, or a combination of therapy and medication. For those who do not respond to those treatments, a new alternative is deep brain stimulation, which delivers electrical impulses via a pacemaker implanted in the brain.

For this study, the MIT team used optogenetics to control neuron activity with light. This technique is not yet ready for use in human patients, but studies such as this one could help researchers identify brain activity patterns that signal the onset of compulsive behavior, allowing them to more precisely time the delivery of deep brain stimulation.

"You don't have to stimulate all the time. You can do it in a very nuanced way," says Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT, a member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the senior author of a Science paper describing the study.

The paper's lead author is Eric Burgui?re, a former postdoc in Graybiel's lab who is now at the Brain and Spine Institute in Paris. Other authors are Patricia Monteiro, a research affiliate at the McGovern Institute, and Guoping Feng, the James W. and Patricia T. Poitras Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a member of the McGovern Institute.

Controlling compulsion

In earlier studies, Graybiel has focused on how to break normal habits; in the current work, she turned to a mouse model developed by Feng to try to block a compulsive behavior. The model mice lack a particular gene, known as Sapap3, that codes for a protein found in the synapses of neurons in the striatum -- a part of the brain related to addiction and repetitive behavioral problems, as well as normal functions such as decision-making, planning and response to reward.

For this study, the researchers trained mice whose Sapap3 gene was knocked out to groom compulsively at a specific time, allowing the researchers to try to interrupt the compulsion. To do this, they used a Pavlovian conditioning strategy in which a neutral event (a tone) is paired with a stimulus that provokes the desired behavior -- in this case, a drop of water on the mouse's nose, which triggers the mouse to groom. This strategy was based on therapeutic work with OCD patients, which uses this kind of conditioning.

After several hundred trials, both normal and knockout mice became conditioned to groom upon hearing the tone, which always occurred just over a second before the water drop fell. However, after a certain point their behaviors diverged: The normal mice began waiting until just before the water drop fell to begin grooming. This type of behavior is known as optimization, because it prevents the mice from wasting unnecessary effort.

This behavior optimization never appeared in the knockout mice, which continued to groom as soon as they heard the tone, suggesting that their ability to suppress compulsive behavior was impaired.

The researchers suspected that failed communication between the striatum, which is related to habits, and the neocortex, the seat of higher functions that can override simpler behaviors, might be to blame for the mice's compulsive behavior. To test this idea, they used optogenetics, which allows them to control cell activity with light by engineering cells to express light-sensitive proteins.

When the researchers stimulated light-sensitive cortical cells that send messages to the striatum at the same time that the tone went off, the knockout mice stopped their compulsive grooming almost totally, yet they could still groom when the water drop came. The researchers suggest that this cure resulted from signals sent from the cortical neurons to a very small group of inhibitory neurons in the striatum, which silence the activity of neighboring striatal cells and cut off the compulsive behavior.

"Through the activation of this pathway, we could elicit behavior inhibition, which appears to be dysfunctional in our animals," Burgui?re says.

The researchers also tested the optogenetic intervention in mice as they groomed in their cages, with no conditioning cues. During three-minute periods of light stimulation, the knockout mice groomed much less than they did without the stimulation.

Scott Rauch, president and psychiatrist-in-chief of McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., says the MIT study "opens the door to a universe of new possibilities by identifying a cellular and circuitry target for future interventions."

"This represents a major leap forward, both in terms of delineating the brain basis of pathological compulsive behavior and in offering potential avenues for new treatment approaches," adds Rauch, who was not involved in this study.

Graybiel and Burgui?re are now seeking markers of brain activity that could reveal when a compulsive behavior is about to start, to help guide the further development of deep brain stimulation treatments for OCD patients.

The research was funded by the Simons Initiative on Autism and the Brain at MIT, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/J817kn5x2yI/130606154712.htm

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This Government Phone Tapping Thing Just Got as Bad as It Could

NBC News has learned that under the post-9/11 Patriot Act, the government has been collecting records on every phone call made in the U.S.

? NBC Nightly News (@nbcnightlynews) June 6, 2013

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/hSmkkqMgtU0/this-government-phone-tapping-thing-just-got-as-bad-as-511762830

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'Purge,' 'Internship' Try To Outrun 'Fast & Furious 6' At Weekend Box Office

Ethan Hawke flick and Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson comedy vie for top spot before 'Man of Steel' arrives next week.
By Ryan J. Downey

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1708630/internship-purge-box-office-predictions.jhtml

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Sudan police use teargas to break up protest

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudanese police used teargas to break up an anti-government protest in the capital Khartoum on Friday, witnesses said.

Some 150 people gathered near a mosque in the Omdurman suburb to protest against high inflation, shouting "the people want to overthrow the regime" and throwing stones at police, several witnesses told Reuters.

Among the protesters were residents from a region north of Khartoum displaced by a dam, who complained they had not been compensated for the loss of their homes.

Police, who dispersed the crowd, were not immediately available for comment.

Sudan has avoided an "Arab spring" of the type that unseated rulers in Egypt and Tunisia, but President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has faced small street protests and dissent from inside his ruling circles.

(Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sudan-police-teargas-break-protest-213329391.html

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Showyou video discovery app announces new channel platform for creators

More and more video discovery apps are starting to pop up, with even big-name brands such as Samsung joining the race to have the best offering out there. But while this particular field is still relatively young, startups like Showyou are already thinking ahead by launching creator-focused programs of their own. With the newly minted Showyou Channels, the service is taking a slight cue from sites who are familiar with creating and distributing videos (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.), announcing that the idea is to provide users with a hub where they can make original content and easily share it with the world. What's more, Showyou also has a revenue model in place which allows people to make a little cash from their vids, though that won't necessarily be a requirement. Only time will tell how far Showyou can go, but, if anything, we're definitely interested in seeing how its evolution plays out.

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Manson follower gives new murder details in 20th parole hearing

?

Damian Dovarganes / AFP file

Corrections officer Sandra Fuentes (L) assists inmate Leslie Van Houten (R) as arrives for her parole hearing before members of the Board of Prison Terms 28 June 2002 at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California.

By Linda Deutsch, Associated Press

CHINO, Calif. ? Former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten told a parole board on Wednesday, in unprecedented detail, how committed she was to the murders Manson ordered ? but insisted that she has changed and is trying to live a life for healing.

?

The 63-year-old Van Houten addressed the board during her 20th parole hearing. Hours later the California parole board announced they had denied Houten?s release.

"I know I did something that is unforgiveable, but I can create a world where I make amends," Van Houten said. "I'm trying to be someone who lives a life for healing rather than destruction."

Van Houten was convicted of murder and conspiracy for her role in the slayings of wealthy Los Angeles grocers Leno and Rosemary La Bianca. They were stabbed to death in August 1969, one night after Manson's followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others, including celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, filmmaker Voityck Frykowksi and Steven Parent, a friend of the Tate estate's caretaker.

Van Houten did not participate in the Tate killings but went along the next night when the La Biancas were slain in their home. During the penalty phase of her trial she confessed to joining in stabbing Mrs. La Bianca after she was dead.

With survivors of the LaBiancas sitting behind her at the California Institution for Women, Van Houten admitted she participated in the killings ordered by Manson.

"He could never have done what he did without people like me," said Van Houten, who has been in custody for 44 years.

After years of therapy and self-examination, she said, she realizes that what she did was "like a pebble falling in a pond which affected so many people."

"Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca died the worst possible deaths a human being can," she said. "It affected their families. It affected the community of Los Angeles, which lived in fear. And it destroyed the peace movement going on at the time, and tainted everything from 1969 on."

Van Houten was portrayed at trial by her defense lawyers as the youngest and least culpable of those convicted with Manson, a young woman from a good family who had been a homecoming princess and showed promise until she became involved with drugs and was recruited into Manson's murderous cult.

Now deeply wrinkled with long gray hair tied back in a ponytail, Van Houten at times seemed near tears but did not break down at the Wednesday hearing.

She said in strong terms that she had never resisted Manson's call to participate in fomenting a race-based revolution.

She said that when she heard the Manson family had killed Tate and others, she felt left out and asked to go along the second night.

Parole board commissioner Jeffrey Ferguson asked her, "You felt left out and you wanted to be included the next time, is that correct?"

"Yes," Van Houten said, adding that another of the women tried with Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, had been like a sister to her and she knew that Krenwinkel had participated in the first round of killing.

"She had crossed the line in her commitment to the race war and I wanted to cross the line, too. ... It was something that had to be done," she said.

Van Houten said she was heavily into drugs at that time, using everything from marijuana to LSD and methamphetamines. But she said on the night the La Biancas were slain she was not on drugs.

Ferguson asked if she had any moral compunction about what she was doing.

She said she did not.

"I twisted myself to the point where I thought this had to be done and I participated," she said.

Asked if she would have done the same had children been involved, she answered, "I can't say I wouldn't have done that. I'd like to say I wouldn't, but I don't know."

Asked to explain her actions, she said, "I feel that at that point I had really lost my humanity and I can't know how far I would have gone. I had no regard for life and no measurement of my limitations."

Van Houten has previously been commended for her work helping elderly women inmates at the California Institution for Women where she and other Manson women have been incarcerated. She earned two college degrees while in custody.

If paroled, she would be reversing a trend. Other members of Manson's murderous "family" have lost bids for parole.

One former Manson follower, Bruce Davis, actually was approved for parole last year only to have Gov. Jerry Brown veto the plan in March, saying he wanted the 70-year-old Davis to reveal more details about the killings of a stunt man and a musician. Davis was not involved in the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

She was convicted along with Manson, Susan Atkins and Krenwinkel. Van Houten was sentenced to death along with them but their sentences were reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole when the death penalty was briefly outlawed in the 1970s.

Manson himself, now 78, has stopped coming to parole hearings, sending word to officials that prison is his home and he wants to stay there.?

? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2ce5aa37/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C0A50C187818590Emanson0Efollower0Egives0Enew0Emurder0Edetails0Ein0E20Ath0Eparole0Ehearing0Dlite/story01.htm

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BMW expanding ConnectedDrive with web browsing, Siri, S Voice and Android support

BMW has been refining its ConnectedDrive services for months, but that was apparently only a prelude to greater things: the automaker just outlined a roadmap for 2013 and beyond. The company is rolling out iDrive 4.2 firmware for the 2014 model year that supports web browsing while stopped, iAP Bluetooth control through iOS devices and integration with both Siri Eyes Free and S Voice. The new revision also brings voice search for locations through Google, and a ConnectedDrive Store lets drivers buy services without leaving the car.

There's more to come in the long run. BMW will add support for Android apps later this year, for a start. It also wants cellular services to be commonplace. Many of its cars will have built-in SIM cards from July onward, and the company expects that cellular access will eventually be standard or near-standard worldwide -- certainly in i-series cars, where it's needed for remote control. About the only catch to the strategy is the current lack of upgrade plans for those with older vehicles. If you're using a 2013 BMW or earlier, you may have to settle for owning the Penultimate Driving Machine.

Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Wireless

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Source: BMW (1), (2)

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'Lost Cat': Do we ever really know our pets?

Caroline Paul thought she knew her cats inside out ? until one went missing and came back revitalized. She and illustrator (and partner) Wendy MacNaughton tell the story of their journey into the life of their cat.

By Marjorie Kehe,?Monitor books editor / June 6, 2013

Since writing "Lost Cat," says Caroline Paul, many readers have come up to her and Wendy MacNaughton telling them "how important their cats are to them.?

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Caroline Paul's life was turned upside down when she was involved in a plane crash. But then, while she was recovering, there was a further shock: One of her two beloved pet cats went missing. Caroline grieved, fretted, and fussed for five weeks until suddenly Tibby came back ? fat, happy, and full of a bravado never seen before.

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What had happened? Where had Tibby been? Who was this strange new Tibby?

Hoping to get some answers, Caroline enlisted the help of her friend (now her partner) Wendy MacNaughton. Using GPS technology, cat cameras, and psychics, they did their best to decode Tibby's secret life. They tell the story of their quest in Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology, written by Caroline and illustrated by Wendy.

Monitor books editor Marjorie Kehe recently talked with both Caroline and Wendy about their book and their experiences.

Q. You wrote a book about an obsession with a lost cat. Are people starting to treat you like crazy cat ladies?

Caroline: Mostly ? unless I?m reading them wrong ? I don't think people think that I?m crazy. But we?ve had a lot of people come up to us and tell us how important their cats are to them and many have used the phrase, ?My cat saved my life.? So I think there?s a lot of people out there who have the same bond with their animals as we did throughout this story.

Sure, let?s be honest, we have gotten a couple of crazy-cat-people comments. But even people who are dog lovers are saying that they were really touched by [the book] because they had a similar feeling? about their animals. And the truth is, this story is called "Lost Cat" but it is really lost humans and it?s about the way our animals can bring us back into the world.

Q. There's been a lot of debate in recent years about whether or not domestic cats should be allowed outdoors. You do allow your cats outdoors. As a result, you lost one ? but he came back better than before. Has this experience changed your thoughts on the indoor/outdoor car question?

Caroline: I always have had cats [that were both] indoor and outdoor cats. I grew up in the country. It was just, I never even heard of anything called an indoor cat. But I definitely understand both sides of the issue. I understand that people keep their cats inside because they don?t want them harmed and because there are concerns about the wildlife that cats hunt, like songbirds.

Wendy: When we started this whole thing, as you know, I wasn?t much of a cat person at all and now I?ve become as crazy as Carolyn. Maybe even crazier. And so I?m terrified that something is going to happen to my babies. But I also see how happy and full their lives are out there. So we make sure to bring them in every night.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/2G8VDOGXCrE/Lost-Cat-Do-we-ever-really-know-our-pets

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'Toddlers & Tiaras' Gives Us Yet Another Reason to Flinch

This week, the sixth season of Toddlers & Tiaras (TLC, Wednesdays, 9 p.m. ET) got under way. We met three new, pint-sized beauty queens, Alexa, Janeyah, and Brooke. No doubt, as the season progresses, their momagers will commit all sorts of atrocities in the name of pulchritude. Generally speaking, no one (outside of the deluded pageant parents themselves) denies that this ...

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/toddlers-tiaras-controversy-pageant-dad-calls-moms-fat/1-a-538293?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Atoddlers-tiaras-controversy-pageant-dad-calls-moms-fat-538293

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OpenStack Cloud Builder Mirantis Raises $10M In Second A Round From Red Hat, Ericsson And SAP Ventures

Mirantis has raised another $10 million from Red Hat, Ericsson and SAP Ventures to fuel the growing demand for the build out of OpenStack systems for private and public cloud environments. The financing came in a second round of Series A funding. Mirantis raised $10 million in December from?Dell Ventures, Intel Capital, and West Summit Capital, which also participated in this current round.?Mirantis CEO Adrian Ionel said in an email that when Mirantis did the first part of the round, some investors wanted to put in more money.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fTLb4X12KEM/

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Sennheiser CX 685 SPORTS

Sennheiser and Adidas teamed up a few years back to make exercise-friendly earphones, and the line was recently updated. The CX 685 SPORTS, at $69.95 (direct), is another well-designed, sweat-proof, moisture-resistant in-ear option from this collaboration. It delivers deep bass at top volumes without any distortion and balances things wonderfully with crisp, but never overly-bright or harsh highs. Alas, the CX 685's only real flaw is what it lacks: There's no inline remote control or microphone for mobile devices?an odd choice for an exercise earphone pair in the era of app-based workouts.

Design
The CX 685 uses a blue, silver, and black color scheme, with blue silicone ear tips and black support fins protruding from the earpieces to rest against the ear and provide superior stabilization. The fit, therefore, is quite secure. A Sennheiser logo subtly graces the left earpiece, and the Adidas logo graces the right.

The expertise Adidas brings to the table is in the form of ergonomic design and workout-friendly materials. Thus, the flexible materials that line the cable and parts of the earpieces are sweat-proof and moisture-proof, as well as shock absorbent.

Despite the overall solid design, the lack of an inline remote doesn't make much sense to me. So many exercise apps integrate music, so it's a disappointment to not even have volume controls on the CX 685. The argument that it's a less expensive pair so it needn't include a remote is obsolete, thanks to the presence of so many less expensive earphone models with inline remotes and mics.

The CX 685 ships with three pairs of eartips (small, medium, and large), a shirt clip, an earwax cleaning tool, and a snazzy black Velcro-sealing carrying pouch.

Performance
On tracks with strong sub-bass content, like the Knife's "Silent Shout," the CX 685 does not distort, even at maximum (and unsafe) listening levels. Not only does it deliver the audio cleanly, but it does so with quite a bit of deep bass thump. This is not really an overly-bass heavy earphone pair, but it definitely packs some sub-bass boosting. Since this is an exercise-focused pair and not a critical listening tool, we'll consider this a positive characteristic.

Regardless of whether you'd choose to exercise to Bill Callahan's "Drover" or not, it provides an excellent testing ground for the CX 685's sonic capabilities. Too often, the vocals on this track lack enough treble edge and definition and receive a bit too much low-mid boosting, while the drums, on a bass-heavy pair, will often get so much bass boosting that they compete with the vocals for space in the mix. Through the CX 685, we get a perfect balance?Callahan's baritone delivery still packs plenty of rich low-end, but it has just the right amount of high-mid contour to it. The drums get a bit of boosting in the lows, but nothing over-the-top. The overall mix sounds as it should?dynamic, crisp, powerful.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild", the kick drum loop's attack can often sound muted on bass-heavy or cheaper earphones. Through the CX 685, its attack has plenty of crunch, while the kick drum's short sustain is delivered with a nice low frequency push. The sub-bass synth hits that accent the loop are delivered with power, but nothing that overwhelms the balance of the mix. Basically, this is an earphone pair for those who love crisp vocals and guitars as well as a nice, rich bass response. It doesn't sound as if there's a subwoofer rattling your skull, but the bass is strong enough to make hip hop, dance, and electronic tracks?often staples of the exercise playlist?feel powerful.

And just for the record, if you happen to listen to classical music when you exercise, that, too, sounds solid through the CX 685. John Adams' "The Chairman Dances" begins with the bright, crisp bowing of higher register strings, and soon the lower register strings and brass join in. Each instrument gets attention in this balanced mix. The lows aren't unnaturally boosted but neither are they anemic, and the growl of the brass is attention-grabbing, but never harsh nor thin.

There's no shortage of solid exercise earphones, so if you're looking for one with more booming low-end, consider the bass-heavy (and more expensive) Beats by Dr. Dre Powerbeats. If it's not powerful bass response you crave so much as the inline remote and mic that the CX 685 lacks, both the pricier Bose SIE2i and the Sony XBA-S65 are solid options. Meanwhile, if you want solid sound in an exercise pair, but prefer on-ear headphones to in-ear options, the? Polk Audio's UltraFit 2000 won't disappoint. At $70, however, the Sennheiser's only disappointment is the missing inline remote control and mic?it sounds excellent and if sonics are your main priority, it's a winner.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/q78afrSczmo/0,2817,2419794,00.asp

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