Source: http://news.yahoo.com/people-suffering-intimate-partner-violence-better-help-110000295.html
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Moved by the Assad regime's rapid advance, the Obama administration could decide this week to approve lethal aid for the beleaguered Syrian rebels and will weigh the merits of a less likely move to send in U.S. airpower to enforce a no-fly zone over the civil war-wracked nation, officials said Sunday.
White House meetings are planned over the coming days, as Syrian President Bashar Assad's government forces are apparently poised for an attack on the key city of Homs, which could cut off Syria's armed opposition from the south of the country. As many as 5,000 Hezbollah fighters are now in Syria, officials believe, helping the regime press on with its campaign after capturing the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border last week.
Opposition leaders have warned Washington that their rebellion could face devastating and irreversible losses without greater support, and the warnings are prompting the United States to consider drastic action.
Secretary of State John Kerry postponed a planned trip Monday to Israel and three other Mideast countries to participate in White House discussions, said officials who weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
While nothing has been concretely decided, U.S. officials said President Barack Obama was leaning closer toward signing off on sending weapons to vetted, moderate rebel units. The U.S. has spoken of possibly arming the opposition in recent months but has been hesitant because it doesn't want al-Qaida-linked and other extremists fighting alongside the anti-Assad militias to end up with the weapons.
Obama already has ruled out any intervention that would require U.S. military boots on the ground. Other options such as deploying American air power to ground the regime's jets, gunships and other aerial assets are now being more seriously debated, the officials said, while cautioning that a no-fly zone or any other action involving U.S. military deployments in Syria were far less likely right now.
The president also has declared chemical weapons use by the Assad regime a "red line" for more forceful U.S. action. American allies including France and Britain have say they've determined with near certitude that Syrian forces have used low levels of sarin in several attacks, but the administration is still studying the evidence. The U.S. officials said responses that will be mulled over in this week's meetings concern the deteriorating situation on the ground in Syria, independent of final confirmation of possible chemical weapons use.
White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said Obama's advisers were considering all options to hasten a transition in Syria.
"The United States will continue to look for ways to strengthen the capabilities of the Syrian opposition," she said.
Any intervention could have wide-reaching ramifications for the United States and the region. It would bring the U.S. closer to a conflict that has killed almost 80,000 people since Assad cracked down on protesters inspired by the Arab Spring in March 2011 and sparked a war that has since been increasingly defined by sectarian clashes between the Sunni-led rebellion and Assad's Alawite-dominated regime.
And it would essentially pit the United States alongside regional allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar in a proxy war against Iran, which is providing much of the materiel to the Syrian government's counterinsurgency and, through Hezbollah, more and more of the manpower.
Syria's precarious position in the heart of the Middle East makes the conflict extremely unpredictable. Lebanon, across the western border, suffered its own brutal civil war in the 1970s and the 1980s and is already experiencing increased interethnic tensions. Iraq, to Syria's east, is mired in worsening violence. And Israel to the southwest has seen shots fired across the contested Golan Heights and has been forced to strike what it claimed were advanced weapons convoys heading to Hezbollah, with whom it went to war with in 2006.
Iran could wreak havoc in the region through its support of Shiite militant groups, and U.S. officials fear Iran may seek to retaliate for any stepped-up American involvement by targeting Israel or U.S. interests in the region. It's also unclear what American action would mean for relations with Russia, which has provided Assad with military and diplomatic support even as it claims that it working with the United States to try to organize a Syrian peace conference.
At the same time, it's unclear how Washington could fundamentally change the trajectory of a conflict that has increasingly tilted toward Assad in recent months without providing weapons to the opposition forces or getting involved itself.
The administration has been studying for months how to rebalance Syria's war so that moderate, pro-democracy rebels defeat the regime or make life so difficult for Assad and his supporters that the government decides it must join a peace process that entails a transition away from the Assad family's four-decade dictatorship.
But Assad's military successes appear to have rendered peace efforts largely meaningless in the short term. While Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have been trying to rally support for the planned conference in Geneva ? first envisioned for May and since postponed until July at the earliest ? even America's allies in the Syrian opposition leadership have questioned the wisdom of sitting down for talks while they are ceding territory all over the country to Assad's forces.
Beyond weapons support for the rebels, administration officials harbor deep reservations about other options.
They note that a no-fly zone, championed by hawks in Congress such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would require the U.S. to first neutralize Syrian air defense systems that have been reinforced with Russian technology and are far stronger than those that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had before the U.S. and its Arab and European allies helped rebels overthrow him in 2011. And unlike with Libya, Washington has no clear international mandate for authorizing any strikes inside Syria, a point the Obama administration has harped on since late 2011 to explain its reticence about more forceful action.
Homs has one of the biggest Alawite communities in Syria and is widely seen as pro-Assad. The rebels control the city center, however, with regime forces besieging them on the outskirts.
Many towns north of Homs also are rebel-controlled, while to the south Hezbollah-backed government forces have been clearing rebels from villages and towns. Fierce fighting there over the past three weeks has killed dozens of rebels, troops and Hezbollah fighters and wounded hundreds.
Seizing control of Homs would clear a path for the regime from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, and firm up its grip on much of the country.
___
AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-us-close-ok-arming-syrian-rebels-225528415.html
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Streaming service provider Twitch is updating its software development kit to help its developer partners increase engagement with players and viewers that are tuning in to their games. The new online toolkit will be especially useful for community portals, providing more social features, as well as tools to improve content discovery.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/YSsyOLeiDiw/
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The app ecosystem is showing no signs of slowing down. That’s what Apple essentially announced today, revealing that there are now 900,000 iOS applications?available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Though the app stores are getting filled up and shifting more of the revenue to top publishers, the market itself is not decreasing as a result. The company added 250,000 more iOS applications to its App Store from 2012 to 2013, in between its annual WWDC announcements. The year before, it had added 225,000 applications (between 2011 and 2012), and before that, some 200,000 new apps?came on board. That’s incredible growth, actually, because you would almost think that App Store growth would have been the other way around – that there would have been an initial gold rush as developers filled its virtual shelves with new apps, then growth would have slowed over the years as all the “good ideas” were taken, so to speak. Even now, it’s harder than ever for indie developers to really make it on the App Store, but that doesn’t seem to be impacting the number of new apps available. And while it’s true that some are just now starting to shift their focus to Android and Google Play (which is starting to see a few success stories of its own), it appears that shift has not come at the expense of Apple’s iOS. App Growth Over The Years: 900,000-650,000 = 250,000 new apps between 2012-2013 650,000-425,000 = 225,000 new apps between 2011-2012 425,000-225,000 = 200,000 new apps between 2010-2011 The App Store gold rush is clearly still in its early days yet.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dS7F1gNLEhY/
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Last week I had an interesting Twitter conversation regarding a popular rhetorical strategy surrounding maker-spaces, New Librarianship, participatory culture, and the other assorted ?big ideas? for the future of libraries.? Now, I think makerspaces are pretty cool and I certainly don?t want anyone to think I want to be slagging on making/hacking/tinkering but, even though makerspaces are rad, they?re being marketed with some pretty suspect rhetoric. Let me give you a few examples:
?We believe the library of the last century is the library of consumption, an institution that reflects the broadcast era of media, the place where you watch, read, and listen passively from an armchair. The library of this century is the place where new social relationships are forged and knowledge is created, explored, and shared.? (Nate Hill & Jeff Goldenson, ?Making Room for Innovation?, Library Journal, May 16, 2013 [link])
?Librarianship is not about artifacts, it is about knowledge and facilitating knowledge creation. So what should we be spending our precious resources on? Knowledge creation tools, not the results of knowledge creation.? (Dave Lankes, The Atlas of New Librarianship, p. 43)
?So what does it mean for libraries to give our communities the tools, access, training, and permission to make, hack, and tinker instead of simply consume?? (Laura Britton, ?The Makings of Maker Spaces, Part 1?, Library Journal, Oct. 1, 2012 [link])
?By bringing makerspaces into libraries, we can adapt to changing student needs and supporting knowledge creation in addition to knowledge consumption.? (Erin Fisher, ?Makerspaces Move into Academic Libraries?, ACRL TechConnect, November 28, 2012 [link])
?Based on the idea that libraries are for creation, not just consumption, maker spaces don?t just upend the normal programming model?they have the potential to reinvent the public library.? (Brian Kenney, ?Meet Your Makers?, Publishers Weekly, Mar. 29, 2013 [link])
?The consumption library, to me, is the library that sort of sits back and waits for people to come inside of its doors, to discover what they have, to take it home, to consume it in the privacy of their own home, to consume it one as a time as individuals. Whereas the creation library is the library that sort of embraces that idea of imagination and begins to redesign even its physical space in terms of creation.? (Ken Roberts, ?The Future of Libraries?, Dec. 6, 2012 [link])
Did you catch it??The common thread and the?favored tactic in the literature surrounding libraries and maker-spaces is to draw a sharp distinction between the consumption of knowledge and the creation of knowledge. By ?knowledge consumption? most writers seem to mean reading; by ?knowledge creation? most seem to mean hacking, tinkering, building, making, or collaborating. And the way the conversation is being shaped by this rhetoric, it?s clear that knowledge consumption is old and in the way and what we really need is to forge ahead into a bright future of knowledge creation. Yes, some librarians make the case that we need both creation and consumption (e.g., ??in addition to knowledge consumption?), but the rhetorical device is still in play: knowledge can be either consumed or created, and the library of the future is weighted towards creation.
And, so, I tweeted:
This sparked a long discussion of creation vs. consumption, but as is usually the case with Twitter, it was sort of all over the map. So, I figured I should explain my reasoning here on the blog. Put simply, the rhetoric of knowledge consumption versus knowledge creation equivocates over the concept of knowledge, forcing an adversarial false dilemma. What?s worse, if we try to clarify the equivocation, it quickly becomes apparent that it makes absolutely no sense to contrast knowledge consumption with knowledge creation because, in the context of a library, they?re the same damned thing. Allow me to explain?
First of all, there are two wildly different senses of ?knowledge? at play in the consume/create rhetoric. Start with the type of knowledge in ?knowledge creation?: what is getting created? Well, makerfolk surely aren?t talking about printing knowledge on a Makerbot. At least, I hope they aren?t, because that would be some next-level craziness. No, makerbrarians are most likely talking about creating a certain type of new beliefs, which brings us to the first type of knowledge: epistemic knowledge. And all we mean by creating epistemic knowledge is something along the lines of coming to new justified, true beliefs. It?s like, ?if you tinker with an Arduino, you will acquire knowledge? and there?s nothing wrong with that at all. We acquire new beliefs and new knowledge all the time: it?s called learning.
But, what about the type of knowledge in ?knowledge consumption?? Can we consume beliefs? That is, can we consume mental states?? Ummm, no; your psychic vampire otherkin friend is just delusional. But, we can consume recorded knowledge. Someone knows or believes something, they want to share it, and so they write it down, film it, paint it, and so on. That recorded knowledge is now something consumable: you can read it, watch it, view it, and so on. And we consume recorded knowledge/belief all the time: it?s called information.
So, when I hear makerbrarians proclaim that traditional libraries are about knowledge consumption and future libraries are about knowledge creation, I make a mental substitution: traditional libraries are about information, future libraries are about learning, and so libraries must move away from information in order to facilitate learning.
Wait?what?
This may come as a shock, but libraries have been places of learning for quite some time. It?s kind of our schtick. On the flip side, it?s not clear what a pure creation space would be in the absence of? information ?consumption.? I?m pretty sure that you need to manipulate some information to make that 3D print of Chewbacca riding on a TARDIS, or whatever it is that 3D printers do.
KHAAAANNNN!!!!
Anyway, it should be pretty obvious that, when taken literally, the knowledge creation vs. knowledge consumption distinction is simply bad rhetoric. If anything, consumption and creation?understood as information and learning?are inseparable: you need one to achieve the other. So, saying that we need to replace one with the other is, for lack of a better term?dumb. But, of course, it?s just sloppy rhetoric; the participabrarians don?t really mean to imply that libraries have never been about knowledge creation. Perhaps they mean something more like this?
Traditionally, libraries have invested mostly in the collection, preservation, and provision of access to certain types of information and certain types of cultural objects (i.e., literature) all for the purposes of self-directed learning and/or enculturation. But, in the future, libraries will need to invest more heavily in providing their communities with the tools needed to create technologically-mediated cultural objects and information. It?s not that creation and consumption are opposed to one another, rather, the balance is simply shifting away from collecting information and shifting towards collecting the tools required to process information.
Is that better? Closer to the intent of the consume/create distinction? I think it probably is. But, even the watered down version is still problematic because it highlights a rather sizable lacuna in the maker movement manifesto: what makes learning to build a small computer or learning to design and 3D print a small plastic object a greater social good or more intrinsically valuable than the myriad other types of learning available in the library?* Is learning how to make your iPhone open your garage door a more valuable skill than learning a new language? Is there something available in the Thingiverse to help patrons study for finals? For the GED? For the citizenship exam? Is there an app for storytime? Sure, geek elites like Cory Doctorow will argue that making and hacking are absolutely critical to the future of information literacy (?If computers are on your side, they elevate every single thing we use to measure quality of life. So we need to master computers???to master the systems of information, so that we can master information itself. That?s where makers come in? [link]). But, we?re not all technological determinists like Doctorow and it?s a hell of a category mistake to assume that understanding a piece of hardware is necessary for information literacy. It?s like saying that you have to be able to make a paintbrush to appreciate art (or to be a painter). Other fablabrarians make vague pronouncements about improving communities, like, ?instead of building better bombs, emerging technology can help build better communities? [link]. Again, I?m sure you can improve a community through tinkering, but you can also improve it through promoting literacy or providing information about sustainability or literally a million other activities. So, it?s still not clear how the future of libraries is in tinkering.
I?m not saying that the things you can do in a maker space aren?t cool, useful, and important. They absolutely are. I?m completely okay with saying that makerspaces have a place in the library because they do address certain, important information needs. But, I?m not sold on the thoroughly Whiggish rhetoric that makerspaces are the inevitable future of what libraries should be?and, moreover, I am uncomfortable with rhetoric that pits makerspaces against other library offerings. Even if the makerbrarians concede that the consume/create distinction is just a catchy soundbite or elevator pitch to throw out when we need to show the ?continued relevance? of libraries to potential funding sources, all that implies is that non-maker services somehow aren?t relevant. Put another way, not only is the consume/create distinction a false dichotomy, and not only does it avoid questions of social value, but it?s also unnecessarily adversarial. A library patron who wants to read a book is not ?simply consuming.? Story-time can also ?embrace imagination.? The ?results of knowledge creation? are often cherished parts of a community. Let?s change the rhetoric and treat all of our community and patron needs with respect, not just the needs that can be met with ABS and LEDs.
* I should acknowledge that some makerspaces also include activities like sewing, crafting, bicycle repair, and other non-digital offerings. Some rent tools or guitars. Some will even show you how to butcher a hog. These are all awesome. Shoot, I?d love to be able to take a bike tech class. And, if you squint hard enough, you can probably come up with a story that all learning is, in a way, making. But, generally speaking, when librarians talk about makerspaces they?re talking about the 3D printing/hacking/app-building/Arduino programming sort of digital makerspace.
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Source: http://senseandreference.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/creation-consumption-and-the-library/
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Even so, this is not to say that auto insurance coverage is a total economic burden. It only says that there are goods like auto insurance coverage that the government imposes you to get for your personal sake even though you do not truly like it?.
Many would contemplate auto insurance as an added economic burden. And who would not ? Think about paying for anything that you are not sure if you will ever going to use. The worst thing is, auto insurance is not the solution you can decide on not to purchase.
Nonetheless, this is not to say that auto insurance is a total economic burden. It only says that there are items like auto insurance that the government imposes you to purchase for your personal sake even even though you do not genuinely like it. Nonetheless, you can not do anything about it anymore and have to accept it as it ought to be.
Anyway, if you are prepared to purchase your next automobile insurance coverage policy or prepared your initial car insurance coverage policy, consider acquiring on-line. Why? Let us count the causes
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VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican took another step Wednesday to show greater financial transparency by publishing the first annual report from its financial watchdog agency and announcing new regulations to fight money laundering and terror financing.
The report from the Financial Intelligence Authority showed the agency received six internal reports on suspicious transactions in 2012, up from one a year earlier, and that two were sent onto Vatican prosecutors for investigation.
But the 10-page report made scant mention of any supervisory operations carried out in 2012. International financial authorities have recommended the agency conduct inspections and issue internal regulations to fight money laundering and terror financing.
The report also made no mention of the troubles that led to the suspension of credit card services inside the Vatican for several months, an embarrassment that inconvenienced the thousands of people who visit the Vatican and its museums each day.
The Vatican created the oversight agency in 2010 in a bid to shed its image as a secretive tax haven and improve its reputation in global financial circles following a series of scandals at its bank and a money laundering investigation launched by Rome prosecutors in 2010.
As part of that effort, the Holy See submitted itself to the Council of Europe's Moneyval evaluation process, which assesses countries' compliance with international anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing norms.
The Vatican in July passed the test on the first try and Moneyval said it had made great progress in a short amount of time. But the Holy See received poor or failing grades for the watchdog agency and its bank.
Specifically, Moneyval said the role, authority and independence of the watchdog agency was unclear and that the Vatican bank's rules for customer due diligence, wire transfers and suspicious transaction reporting were insufficient. It said the bank needed an independent supervisor and must conduct a thorough risk assessment to ensure that it knew its clients and the risks it faces.
The report issued Wednesday addressed few of those recommendations.
"I'm not here today to say that everything is great and perfect," said Rene Bruelhart, the agency director.
But at a press briefing, he stressed that a lot had been accomplished and that the Vatican was committed to pursuing the Moneyval process. He said that within the coming weeks and months, the Vatican would update its laws to more closely respond to the Moneyval recommendations and he said that screening of the bank account-holders was currently under way.
"We are more than on the right track in having an increased amount of suspicious transactions reports, that's also a clear sign that this type of screening is taken very seriously," he said.
The Vatican must submit a progress report to Moneyval in September, Bruelhart said.
In addition to the report, the Vatican has recently announced other measures aimed at greater financial transparency, including publication of the annual report of its bank and enlisting an international agency to certify the bank's compliance with anti-money laundering and anti-terror finance norms.
The watchdog agency has two main functions: one, as a financial intelligence unit that gathers and analyzes financial information, and the other supervising and regulating the Holy See's government, including the bank.
While the report released Wednesday provided 2012 statistics and updates on the financial intelligence work of the agency, there was slim information about the supervisory and regulatory work conducted in 2012.
There were no reports, for example, of any on-site inspections being carried out or any sanctions being meted out for infractions. The report was also silent on Moneyval's recommendation that the financial authority review the NGOs that work inside the Vatican for compliance with anti-money laundering and anti-terror finance norms.
And it made no mention of the decision by Italy's central bank to compel Deutsche Bank Italia to stop providing electronic payment services to the Holy See on Dec. 31. That meant that for several months in 2013, until a new service provider was found, visitors to the Vatican Museums ? they numbered 5 million last year ? and the Vatican post office had to pay cash for tickets and any other transactions.
While the cash-only problem didn't begin until Jan. 1, after the 2012 reporting period, presumably the problems that led to it were known last year.
In its decision, the central bank had cited the fact that the Vatican had insufficient banking supervision. Bruelhart, however, said Wednesday the dispute was between the Bank of Italy and Deutsche Bank, not the Vatican.
___
Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vatican-releases-1st-report-financial-watchdog-111238426.html
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The ?conversational search? that Google demonstrated at last week?s Google I/O conference is now available to users of its Chrome browser, and it?s a significant leap in how we use search engines.
I?m 17 years now into writing about search, and I?ve seen all types of things that have promised to revolutionize the space, especially products that trot out words like ?natural language? and ?semantic search? but fail to deliver.
Conversational search has natural language, semantic search and more built into it, and while it?s far from perfect, this really is one of those?significant?changes that makes even a ?seen it all? person like me sit up and take notice.
What Google is doing is hard, and yet when it works, it feels natural, easy, like it should be. Let?s do some examples, and then I?ll cover some of the ?under the hood? stuff and how to get it, at the end.
If you have the latest version of Chrome, you can click on the microphone in the search box to speak your search.
That?s not new. Google rolled that functionality out almost two years ago. The difference is that ?search by voice? now speaks back to you, similar to how the Google Search App works?for the iPhone or Android. Once you speak, you?ll see your words appear:
Then you?ll get your results:
Sometimes, especially for searches where Google can call upon its Knowledge Graph facts, the results will be topped by a direct answer, or an information ?card,? to use Google?s term for facts presented this way in Google Now.
In the example above, where I spoke ?how old is Barack Obama,? Google showed a card with the answer but also pulled Obama?s age out of the card in order to speak an answer to me: ?Barack Obama is 51 years old.?
That?s cool and impressive, speaking a search and getting an answer read back to you. But that?s not the real magic. What?s really special is that you can continue your search ?conversation? by asking further questions in a way you could never do with regular search, by making use of pronouns and other shortcuts that reference things in your previous query.
For example, after doing the search above, I asked, ?how tall is he? and got back this:
?Barack Obama is six feet one inch tall,? came back the spoken response, along with a text answer. But I hadn?t asked tall Barack Obama was. I?d asked, ?How tall is he.? Google smartly figured out the ?he? I was talking about was Barack Obama.
Humans understand this easily. We talk to each other, and we keep track of what we say to each other in a conversation, usually keeping all the antecedents ? pronouns and shortcut references to previous things ? straight. But search engines typically have no memory like this. They?ve generally treated each search we do as if it is unconnected to the previous one.
Actually, both Google and Bing do have some ?history smarts.? Google has been doing ?Previous Query? since 2008; Bing has been doing ?Adaptive Search? since 2011. With both, what you searched for before is sometimes effectively added to your subsequent search. For example, a search for ?new york? followed by a search for ?travel? might cause some of the searches for travel to be about New York travel.
Previous query refinement is helpful, but conversational search is a step beyond. It?s not about simply adding terms to your subsequent query. It?s about parsing the language you use so the search engine understands, really comprehends, what you?re talking about.
When the search for ?how old is Barack Obama? was done, Google had to understand that Barack Obama was an actual person, not just two words that it effectively is trying to character match. That?s smarts it gained as part of the Knowledge Graph that went live a year ago. Those smarts also helped it know that ?age? might be a specific fact it knows about Obama.
When the next search was done, Google had to understand that ?he? was a pronoun for someone, rather than again just trying to character match the word. Next, it had to think who the ?he? might be and look to the previous query to find a person that it might be referencing, Obama. Finally, it went back to the Knowledge Graph in order to find an exact fact that matched Obama?s height ? which meant understanding that ?tall? was an indirect request for height.
This is hard stuff. This is natural language processing,?the ability for a search engine to really understand what a sentence is about, coupled with semantic search, the idea that facts and pages are all connected together in ways that aren?t immediately visible but understood behind-the-scenes.
Let?s keep going. Next, I asked Google, ?who is his wife,? and got back this:
?Barack Obama?s spouse is Michelle Obama since 1992,? Google spoke to me, now understanding that the ?his? was a reference to Barack Obama and ?wife? was a request for a fact it could look up from the Knowledge Graph.
Could you keep going? Sure. Next, I asked, ?how old is she,? and got back:
?Michelle Obama is 49 years old,? came the spoken response. To get this, Google kept up with my antecedents through three questions extending out from the original one.
I don?t have the right software installed at the moment to properly screen capture this in action, but you can try it for yourself, as I?ll explain more. However, the animated image below will give you a sense of it.
Those are screenshots that I took last week at Google I/O, working with conversational search on a demo machine.
Conversational search doesn?t always work right. The further you go into a conversation, I?ve found, the more likely it will eventually stumble. Sometimes, it won?t even converse when you?d expect it to. The four-query-long example I?ve shown above took a couple of attempts to get right.
Google acknowledged this, when I spoke with people about it at Google I/O and tested it out directly. If the company formally announces the support in Chrome (so far, it hasn?t ? it was just quietly released), I wouldn?t be surprised if it warns to expect bumps.
But while the engineers and other product folks sometimes?visibly grimaced when I hit such bumps doing my testing in front of them, I was far more impressed by how often it worked ? and that it worked at all, as well as it did. I?m looking forward to seeing it grow.
Sometimes you can speak and get answers back from a single question that takes in more than what you explicitly said because Google knows where you?re at or you?ve given it access to some of your private information.
Weather is a good example. Here, I spoke, ?Will it rain tomorrow?? and got back:
Google spoke to me, ?No, rain is not expected tomorrow in Newport Beach. The forecast is 70 degrees and cloudy? and displayed the weather forecast. I hadn?t told it where I was, or that I wanted a weather forecast explicitly. But it knew my location, knew rain was related to weather and delivered up a great answer.
If you?ve enabled Google to access personal information through the Gmail Field Trial?(a bad name since it now includes things beyond Gmail), speaking something like ?what?s happening today? can bring back your agenda:
It doesn?t speak your agenda to you, but it?s still pretty amazing ? assuming you?re comfortable using Google?s own services. If you don?t use Google Calendar or don?t use Gmail, the experience is far less compelling.
Answers don?t always come from the info cards like those shown in the Obama queries. For example, when I asked, ?places to eat in San Francisco,? Google came back with:
Google spoke back to me, ?There are several listings for restaurants near San Francisco,? then showed me local restaurant reviews. None of these actual reviews were spoken.
Similarly, when I spoke ?Newport Beach? to Google, it spoke back saying, ?Here is some information about Newport Beach? but didn?t read any of the actual results:
Google didn?t even try to read more about Newport Beach using the description out of the Knowledge Graph box on the right, something it did do when I spoke a search for ?Barack Obama? to it.
Of course, on the desktop, it?s hard to say how useful having anything read back really will be. Indeed, speaking questions on the desktop when that was introduced two years ago seemed odd, especially for anyone who might be in an office. Getting responses read back is very cool but not necessarily that useful on a desktop, in the way it is with a mobile device.
Perhaps the usefulness may change when voice-activated conversational search happens. That?s not part of today?s rollout.
With voice-activated search, your computer would always be listening for you to say a ?hotword? ? likely to be ?OK Google,? as demoed last week, and then it would know you want to search.
So, if you were not at your keyboard for some reason but needed to do a search, you?d speak, ?OK Google, how old is Barack Obama,? and your computer would automatically do that search.
Always listening? Google told me it?s still figuring out exactly how all this would work, but it will likely involve an?extension?for your browser that would only listen when you were on the Google home page or on a search results page. And when it was listening, the only thing that would actually get sent to Google would be the words after the ?OK Google? command, Google said.
We?ll see how it all plays out. It may be that conversational search remains more a utility for mobile devices, with the desktop as a type of training area to help people better understand what they can do while mobile.
It may also be that conversational search will help encourage people to simply type their queries in a more conversational style, using?antecedents in a way they don?t now.
Maybe that will come, but currently, conversational search does not work if you type. In fact, that?s an excellent way to see the immense difference that conversational search provides.
Try that series of Barack Obama-related queries I did above by typing them in, rather than speaking, and it falls apart when you ask, ?how tall is he,? as you can see:
Out of conversational search ?mode,? because you?re typing, Google makes no attempt to figure out who the ?he? is that you were referring to, so answers about Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp come up instead.
As I said, Google hasn?t posted officially about the availability of conversational search being out there, but it is live. Android Central noticed that it?s now out if you have the latest version of Chrome. So to enable it, update. You do that by going to Settings in Chrome, then selecting Help, then it should check if it?s up-to-date and prompt if not.
On my Mac, after updating, I was at version 27.0.1453.93. Oddly, on my Chromebook, I simply couldn?t get it to update out of version 26. I haven?t checked on my Windows 8 computer yet.
FYI, this is not Google Now for Chrome. It might look like that, and Google Now for Chrome and/or the desktop is expected, but this doesn?t provide any of the predictive search answers that Google Now provides.
Enjoy playing with it. For search marketers, it?s a glimpse into an entire new world where people might be seemingly finding you for very generic terms, because the queries no longer express all that was actually searched for.
Ironically, the much-hated ?Dark Google? world over the past year or so, where Google has been withholding search terms done by logged-in searchers (except from advertisers) may have been good training on how to cope?with what now will be withheld by searchers themselves ? exact terms, no longer necessary as they ?converse? with Google.
For searchers, it?s an advancement that may?fundamentally?change their search habits, where they get even more comfortable just talking to that ?best friend? they?ve already been turning to for ages for answers on all types of topics.
For Google?s competitors, it?s another challenge in keeping up. Google Now is already doing amazing things anticipating searches. Now Google?s conversational search is allowing searchers to get casual with the service, plus it sets things up to entice searchers to share more of their own information directly using Google?s other services, so they can speak things like ?what?s happening today? and very personal answers.
Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Conversational Search | Google: Gmail Search Field Trial | Google: Google Now | Google: Google Search App | Google: Voice Search | Google: Web Search | Top News
Source: http://searchengineland.com/googles-impressive-conversational-search-goes-live-on-chrome-160445
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APLost in the question of whether the Seahawks face fines for future player suspensions is the reality that, based on the policy created by the NFL in 2008, they likely paid more than $60,000 for suspensions that happened in 2012.
The NFL has declined comment on the question of whether and to what extent the Seahawks have been fined for past suspensions, explaining that this information isn?t disclosed for any team.? But the league office has confirmed that the formula developed in 2008 still applies, and it?s public knowledge that three Seahawks were suspended during the 2012 season:? offensive lineman Allen Barbre, safety Winston Guy, and cornerback Brandon Browner.
Barbre came first, suspended the first four games of the season under the performance-enhancing drugs policy.? He was cut after the suspension ended in October.
Under the league?s policy, the Seahawks faced fines for the second suspension (Guy) and the third (Browner).? Based on their salaries for 2012, Guy lost $97,500 in salary during his four-week suspension.? The policy converts 25 percent of that into a fine, which equates to $24,375.
Next up was Browner, who served a four-game suspension and forfeited $109,411 in base salary.? Since Browner?s suspension was the third of the year, one third of his lost salary became a fine.? That?s $36,470.
The total of the two fines is $60,845.
This year, the Seahawks will be fined if there?s another suspension under the substance-abuse policy, the policy regarding steroids and related substances, or the personal-conduct policy, given that defensive end Bruce Irvin already will miss the first four games of the year after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
It?s unclear whether fines will make teams more careful about acquiring players who carry the red flag of a possible violations.? Former Chiefs G.M. Scott Pioli said on Tuesday?s PFT Live that the league has discussed the possibility of stripping draft picks as an alternative to fines.
That could be the best way to handle the situation.? Team?s view fines as a cost of doing business; losing draft picks impacts competitive interests, and thus are more likely to get the franchise?s attention.
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Microsoft is clearly determined to sew up some of the best content for the Xbox One: it just revealed a special, multi-year partnership with the NFL. The two are working on an optimized experience that better integrates fantasy football, including score displays, onscreen updates and Skype. They also promise exclusive content, naturally, including a lock on translating many of these experiences to tablets. The partnership will extend to the real arenas, too -- among other technologies, Microsoft will bring Surface tablets to coaches and players to improve their communication and play calling. There aren't many more details so far, but it's evident that Microsoft wants to cater to football fans with a lot more than just its existing ESPN app.
Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft
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If you watched the London Olympics last summer, you saw a parade of top athletes touting the nutritional qualities of their favorite eatery: Subway. Watching Apolo Ohno or Robert Griffin III bite into a veggie footlong with avocado or hearing that Subway is ?the official training restaurant of athletes everywhere,? you might get the idea that the food served at the chain isn?t that bad for you?that it?s even?healthy.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/videos-massive-tornado-rips-oklahoma-215949606.html
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) ? Libya's deputy prime minister says an investigation has indicated that a deadly explosion in Benghazi last week was an accident and not an attack.
Awd el-Buraasi told reporters in Tripoli Sunday that military officials do not believe that the blast in a busy area of Benghazi was planned. Three people were killed in the incident.
Benghazi, where Libya's 2011 revolution that ousted Moammar Gadhafi began, has suffered a series of assassinations and attacks on security and diplomatic missions over the past year, including the attack on the U.S. Consulate that killed the ambassador and three others.
El-Buraasi says a special command center has been set up there to oversee security. Notably absent from the operation are militias that provide security in the absence of a strong military or police force.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/top-libyan-official-benghazi-explosion-accident-204817457.html
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Thirteen years ago, the Vienna-based International Press Institute held a regional conference in Amman to deal with press freedom issues in the Arab region.
At the time, I was invited to speak at the conference about my work: using the Internet to fight censorship. I was also pleased to hear from the then-minister of information that the country would become an Internet hub and was encouraging the unhindered use of the Internet for exchange of information.
At the time, I suggested setting up an Internet radio in the country, where radio was still a government monopoly, and was encouraged to do so by officials.
Using the promises made at the IPI conference, and with help from UNESCO and the Open Society Foundation, I set up the Arab world's first Internet radio (ammannet.net) with the aim of training radio journalists that don't practise self censorship.
Within a few years, and as promised, the audiovisual sector received a boost by a temporary law that allowed for the first time the private ownership of radio frequencies.
By 2005, we got a 10-year licence for an FM station (now called Radio Al Balad). Tens of other FM radio stations (mostly commercial) were licensed, as were several university-based radio stations outside the capital. But radio licensing failed to break the prevalent culture.
Attempts at introducing investigative journalism had limited success even though Jordan was the first Arab country to introduce an access to information law.
This toothless law failed to break up the anti-transparency culture, playing into the hands of people who decided to use the Internet to circumvent existing platforms and restrictive laws.
Traditional media failed to satisfy the hunger for information of a very young population, leaving the field open; the Internet was thus convenient in a country that had long embraced globalisation.
Jordan experienced an explosion of news websites that complemented an explosion in online creativity as well as an almost world record number of social media participants (Facebook subscriptions, for example reached nearly two million).
With this explosion of websites, chaos also happened. Coupled with the new found courage following the Arab Spring, new websites became political battlegrounds for change and reform, especially for fighting corruption.
At the same time, the chaos allowed a misuse of information, with some website owners smearing a host of public and private individuals.
Attempts to deal with this issue produced two important recommendations by royallyl-initiated committees. The recommendations called for professionalisation of the media, breaking open the journalists' union and initiating self-regulatory bodies to curtail media abuse.
However, the recommendations of the National Agenda and the Media Strategy Plan were not implemented by successive governments, leaving traditional media incapable to deal with the young public's or the anti-government forces' desire to use the Internet for political purposes.
Unable to curtail online cases of undocumented "character assassination", the government moved to curtail news websites.
An amendment to the Press and Publications Law obliging local websites that publish news and commentary to be licensed by the Press and Publications Department was railroaded in Parliament.
Also website owners are obliged to be responsible for all content including commentary.
The new amendment was rejected by many Jordanian journalists and human rights activists.
The current prime minister who opposed it when he was in Parliament moved to make sure it is not implemented and the amendment might be rescinded.
Much reform is needed to raise Jordan's media standing despite the fact that the current government has been much more inclined to press freedom issues and was not blamed for any major case of press freedom violation or restriction of journalists.
Holding the IPI congress in Amman this week is a positive change that should be used to kickstart badly needed media reforms. It will be helpful to use this opportunity to adopt the mechanisms needed for a truly free media in the country.
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Follow Daoud Kuttab on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daoudkuttab
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/fighting-for-media-freedo_b_3308316.html
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An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security force members gather at the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)
Civilians inspect the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraq's wave of bloodshed sharply escalated Monday with more than a dozen car bombings across the country, part of attacks that killed at least 95 people and brought echoes of past sectarian carnage and fears of a dangerous spillover from Syria's civil war next door.
The latest spiral of violence ? which has claimed more than 240 lives in the past week ? carries the hallmarks of the two sides that brought nearly nonstop chaos to Iraq for years: Sunni insurgents, including al-Qaida's branch in Iraq, and Shiite militias defending their newfound power after Saddam Hussein's fall.
But the widening shadow and regional brinksmanship from Syria's conflict now increasingly threaten to feed into Iraq's sectarian strife, heightening concerns that Iraq could be turning toward civil war.
The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must balance its close ties with Iran ? the main regional ally of Syria's Bashar Assad ? and its position among fellow Arab League members and neighboring Turkey, which strongly back Syria's mainly Sunni opposition.
Al-Maliki appears determined to boost security crackdowns to keep Iraq's minority Sunnis from taking a more high-profile role in the anti-Assad forces, which have received pledges of support from the longtime insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq.
There have been no claims of responsibility for the current flare-up of violence, capped by Monday's body count that was the highest death toll for a single day in 10 months. Yet some analysts believe it's difficult to separate Iraq's deep sectarian suspicions from the Shiite-Sunni split over Assad, which has also led to clashes in Lebanon.
"Iraq now has moved into a bigger circle that covers Syria and Lebanon," said Baghdad-based political affairs analyst Hadi Jalo.
Al-Maliki is not only worried about his Sunni rivals possibly deepening their involvement in the rebel cause in Syria, said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Al-Maliki's worries extend to Iraq's semiautonomous northern Kurdish region, which has close links to Assad foe Turkey.
"Al-Maliki believes this is the time to be tough and show he is in control of the country," said Clawson. "What we are seeing is the backlash to that."
The U.S. and its Western allies strongly support Syria's political opposition, but have been reluctant to significantly boost weapons flow to rebel fighters because of worries over Islamic militants who have joined the anti-Assad brigades. But the deepening refugee crisis in the region, along with concern over spillover violence, is often cited by Arab states and Turkey urging greater Western intervention.
Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began expanding protests over what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. Many Sunnis contend that much of the country's current turmoil is rooted in the policies of al-Maliki's government, which they accuse of feeding sectarian tension by becoming more aggressive toward Sunnis after the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011.
Mass demonstrations by Sunnis, which began in December, have largely been peaceful. However, the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.
Hours after Monday's stunning blitz of attacks ? stretching from north of Baghdad to the southern city of Basra ? al-Maliki accused militant groups of trying to exploit Iraq's political instability and vowed to resist attempts to "bring back the atmosphere of the sectarian war."
He also blamed the recent spike in violence on the wider unrest in the region, particularly Syria.
"You cannot remove the Syrian element from what's happening in Iraq," said Sami al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. "The outcome of the war in Syria has big consequences for both Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites. What we see now is an extension of that in some respects."
The worst of Monday's violence took place in Baghdad, where 10 car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 48 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said.
In Balad, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing 13 Iranians and one Iraqi, a police officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
Meanwhile, in the predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq, twin car bombings ? outside a restaurant and at the city's main bus station ? killed at least 13 people and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of the city's health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.
"All of a sudden, a thunderous explosion lifted my car and put it back on the ground," said Sami Saadon, a Basra taxi driver who suffered shrapnel injuries in his chest. "I could barely open the door and I crawled outside the car, where smoke and dust were everywhere."
A car bomb later struck Shiite worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in the southern city of Hillah, killing nine and wounding 26, police and health officials said.
Monday's violence also struck Sunni areas.
A car bomb in Samarra, north of Baghdad, went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13. In the western province of Anbar, the hub of Sunni power, gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, officials said.
Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 bodies dumped in a remote desert area. The victims, who included eight policemen kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed by a gunshot to the head, officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.
"How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?" asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. "Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before."
___
Associated Press writers Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra and Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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BANGKOK (AP) ? Evidence of a steady economic recovery in the U.S. helped push world stock markets higher Monday.
A gauge of future economic activity issued Friday rose more than expected, a sign that the world's biggest economy is improving. Consumer confidence also rose, offsetting several lackluster reports on slowing manufacturing and an increase in applications for unemployment benefits.
Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.7 percent to 6,735.31. Germany's DAX gained 0.5 percent to 8,440.38. France's CAC-40 advanced 0.3 percent to 4,012.55. Wall Street looked set for a flat opening, however. Dow Jones industrial futures were nearly unchanged at 15,316. S&P 500 futures were flat at 1,663.10.
Asian stock markets were broadly higher. Japan's Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.5 percent to 15,360.81. Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.8 percent to 23,493.03. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.5 percent to 5,209. Benchmarks in mainland China, Taiwan, and Indonesia also rose. South Korea's Kospi fell 0.2 percent to 1,982.43.
Investors will have a slew of data to sift through this week, including U.S. homes sales and durable goods orders. Analysts are somewhat pessimistic about the strength of China's recovery but are expecting to see solid improvement in the U.S.
In Washington, remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to members of Congress on Wednesday will be closely examined for hints about the future direction of the central bank's monetary policy.
The Fed is currently conducting the third round of massive bond purchases known as quantitative easing to help drive down interest rates and spur lending. But recently improving data on the U.S. economy has led to speculation that the Fed might consider winding the program down earlier than expected.
"What everyone is watching for is any comment from the Fed chief on asset purchases or any clarification on current thinking," said Mitul Kotecha of Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. "The timing of any decision on winding down asset purchases is still very much undecided so it seems unlikely Bernanke will be categorical or provide strong timing about a reduction" in quantitative easing.
HSBC's survey on China's manufacturing growth, to be released Thursday, is also highly anticipated. Analysts at Credit Agricole are expecting a slight deceleration due to seasonal factors, from 50.4 in April to 50.3 in May.
"More signs of weakness will add to global growth worries. I think markets are particularly sensitive to this data release," Kotecha said.
Wall Street stocks again pushed higher Friday after the Conference Board said its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.6 percent last month after a revised decline of 0.2 percent in March. The index is intended to predict how the economy will be doing in three to six months. Separately, the University of Michigan's preliminary survey of consumer confidence climbed to 83.7. Economists had predicted that the gauge would climb to 76.8.
Benchmark oil for June delivery was down 57 cents at $95.45 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In currencies, the euro rose to $1.2846 from $1.2829 late Friday in New York. The dollar fell to 102.54 yen from 103.18 yen.
___
Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-stocks-rise-signs-steady-us-recovery-091112139.html
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