American College of Physicians, CECity launch new quality improvement technology platform

Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
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Contact: David Kinsman
dkinsman@ACPonline.org
202-261-4554
American College of Physicians

American College of Physicians and CECity to test cloud-based platform integrating secure social networks, communications, professional portfolios and quality reporting tools with an app store to address national patient safety and quality priorities

Orlando -- A new partnership is set to provide expanded access to MedConcert, a new and innovative multi-tenant cloud-based platform for healthcare, designed to cost-effectively scale and spread continuous quality improvement and address key patient safety issues. The announcement of the alliance of The American College of Physicians (ACP) and CECity.com, Inc. (CECity) came at this week's 37th Annual Meeting of the Alliance for CME.

The strategic alliance is beginning with a diabetes pilot test in ACP state chapters. Working closely with internists and their practice teams, the pilot will test the full power of MedConcert to improve diabetic patient care processes and outcomes. Applications (Apps) will include ACP's innovative Medical Home Builder along with an automatically populated PQRS-based diabetes registry, patient survey tools, and a Facebook-like communication networking capability. In addition, pilot participants will have access to pay-for-performance and recertification opportunities.

Dr. Louis Diamond, MD, FACP, president of Quality Healthcare Consultants and adviser to the project, noted that, "As we continue the journey from a focus on performance measurement to improvement, we need a platform to link interventions to the specific identified gaps in care. Such a platform must be user friendly to individual healthcare professionals and teams, facilitate communications, and importantly, learning. Such a platform is MedConcert, powered by CECity, and the focus of this pilot".

Dr. Michael Barr, MD, MBA, FACP, senior vice president of the Division of Medical Professionalism, Practice & Quality at ACP adds, "ACP is very excited about this collaboration with CECity. MedConcert represents a truly innovative approach to engaging physicians and other health care professionals in meaningful quality improvement activities. This unique platform combines quality improvement tools with educational content, innovative graphics to highlight improvement opportunities and progress, and the ability to create networks of like-minded colleagues through its social networking features."

MedConcert provides healthcare providers and organizations access to a cost-effective, reusable platform in which Apps can be plugged in to address a wide variety of critical quality, safety and financial needs. Apps include patient surveys, clinical registries, quality reporting, population health management and coordination of care applications, to address issues such as reducing hospital readmissions through enhanced care coordination.

Using Web 2.0 social networking tools available within MedConcert, healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations are able to build secure communities of practice, which have been demonstrated to drive the quality improvement process. The platform provides professionals within these communities with access to communication and collaboration tools to support the sharing of best practices through learning and action networks, private messaging services that enable patient-centered care coordination across disparate systems, professional portfolios in support of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and Continuing Medical Education (CME), and registry-based performance improvement solutions to help physicians better manage their practice and the health of their patient population.

"CECity is proud to partner with the ACP to launch MedConcert. Our goal is to connect health care professionals 'across walls' in a meaningful way to create communities of practice that enable care coordination, drive continuous performance improvement and encourage lifelong learning," said Simone Karp, RPh, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of CECity. "In this new era of patient-centered health care we need affordable, scalable innovations that allow all stakeholders to collaborate to achieve the "Triple Aim" for patients and that support the physician practice under new financial models, such as ACOs. We appreciate the opportunity to realize this vision in collaboration with the ACP through MedConcert."

###

About ACP

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. The ACP is a national organization of internists physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP members include 132,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists in cardiology, endocrinology, pulmonology, psychiatry and more, as well as medical students. For more information about ACP, visit http://www.acponline.org. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.

About CECity

Founded in 1996, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based CECity (http://www.cecity.com) is the healthcare industry's leading software as a service provider of cloud-based applications and distribution networks for Performance Improvement, Quality Reporting, Maintenance of Certification, and Lifelong Learning. Healthcare professionals and organizations, including quality improvement organizations, physician practices, hospitals and health systems, health plans, medical publishers, associations and specialty societies, pharmacy chains, certifying boards, and educational providers, count on CECity to power their high stakes solutions for continuous quality and performance improvement, care coordination, patient registries, professional education and development, board certification, REMS, patient safety and medication adherence, population health informatics, and quality reporting in support of health care and payment reform. For more information about CECity, visit http://www.cecity.com or call 412-586-3311.

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

Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: David Kinsman
dkinsman@ACPonline.org
202-261-4554
American College of Physicians

American College of Physicians and CECity to test cloud-based platform integrating secure social networks, communications, professional portfolios and quality reporting tools with an app store to address national patient safety and quality priorities

Orlando -- A new partnership is set to provide expanded access to MedConcert, a new and innovative multi-tenant cloud-based platform for healthcare, designed to cost-effectively scale and spread continuous quality improvement and address key patient safety issues. The announcement of the alliance of The American College of Physicians (ACP) and CECity.com, Inc. (CECity) came at this week's 37th Annual Meeting of the Alliance for CME.

The strategic alliance is beginning with a diabetes pilot test in ACP state chapters. Working closely with internists and their practice teams, the pilot will test the full power of MedConcert to improve diabetic patient care processes and outcomes. Applications (Apps) will include ACP's innovative Medical Home Builder along with an automatically populated PQRS-based diabetes registry, patient survey tools, and a Facebook-like communication networking capability. In addition, pilot participants will have access to pay-for-performance and recertification opportunities.

Dr. Louis Diamond, MD, FACP, president of Quality Healthcare Consultants and adviser to the project, noted that, "As we continue the journey from a focus on performance measurement to improvement, we need a platform to link interventions to the specific identified gaps in care. Such a platform must be user friendly to individual healthcare professionals and teams, facilitate communications, and importantly, learning. Such a platform is MedConcert, powered by CECity, and the focus of this pilot".

Dr. Michael Barr, MD, MBA, FACP, senior vice president of the Division of Medical Professionalism, Practice & Quality at ACP adds, "ACP is very excited about this collaboration with CECity. MedConcert represents a truly innovative approach to engaging physicians and other health care professionals in meaningful quality improvement activities. This unique platform combines quality improvement tools with educational content, innovative graphics to highlight improvement opportunities and progress, and the ability to create networks of like-minded colleagues through its social networking features."

MedConcert provides healthcare providers and organizations access to a cost-effective, reusable platform in which Apps can be plugged in to address a wide variety of critical quality, safety and financial needs. Apps include patient surveys, clinical registries, quality reporting, population health management and coordination of care applications, to address issues such as reducing hospital readmissions through enhanced care coordination.

Using Web 2.0 social networking tools available within MedConcert, healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations are able to build secure communities of practice, which have been demonstrated to drive the quality improvement process. The platform provides professionals within these communities with access to communication and collaboration tools to support the sharing of best practices through learning and action networks, private messaging services that enable patient-centered care coordination across disparate systems, professional portfolios in support of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and Continuing Medical Education (CME), and registry-based performance improvement solutions to help physicians better manage their practice and the health of their patient population.

"CECity is proud to partner with the ACP to launch MedConcert. Our goal is to connect health care professionals 'across walls' in a meaningful way to create communities of practice that enable care coordination, drive continuous performance improvement and encourage lifelong learning," said Simone Karp, RPh, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of CECity. "In this new era of patient-centered health care we need affordable, scalable innovations that allow all stakeholders to collaborate to achieve the "Triple Aim" for patients and that support the physician practice under new financial models, such as ACOs. We appreciate the opportunity to realize this vision in collaboration with the ACP through MedConcert."

###

About ACP

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. The ACP is a national organization of internists physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP members include 132,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists in cardiology, endocrinology, pulmonology, psychiatry and more, as well as medical students. For more information about ACP, visit http://www.acponline.org. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.

About CECity

Founded in 1996, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based CECity (http://www.cecity.com) is the healthcare industry's leading software as a service provider of cloud-based applications and distribution networks for Performance Improvement, Quality Reporting, Maintenance of Certification, and Lifelong Learning. Healthcare professionals and organizations, including quality improvement organizations, physician practices, hospitals and health systems, health plans, medical publishers, associations and specialty societies, pharmacy chains, certifying boards, and educational providers, count on CECity to power their high stakes solutions for continuous quality and performance improvement, care coordination, patient registries, professional education and development, board certification, REMS, patient safety and medication adherence, population health informatics, and quality reporting in support of health care and payment reform. For more information about CECity, visit http://www.cecity.com or call 412-586-3311.

---

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

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/acop-aco012312.php

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Parents May Hold Key to Treating Kids' Obesity (HealthDay)

MONDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Parents and caregivers should be involved in treatment programs for obese children and should lead by example, praise children's progress and use setbacks as learning opportunities, experts say.

"In many cases, the adults in a family may be the most effective change agents to help obese children attain and maintain a healthier weight," Myles Faith, an associate professor of nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in an American Heart Association (AHA) news release.

"To do so, the adults may need to modify their own behavior and try some research-based strategies," added Faith, who is the chair of the writing group that published an AHA scientific statement in the Jan. 23 issue of Circulation.

The statement authors examined previous research on child obesity treatments that used behavioral change strategies and featured extensive involvement by parents and other adult caregivers.

Faith and his colleagues identified a number of strategies that have been linked to better outcomes, including:

• Working together as a family to identify specific behaviors that need to be changed.
• Setting clearly defined goals -- such as limiting TV viewing to no more than two hours per day -- and monitoring progress.
• Creating a home environment that encourages healthier choices, such as having fruit in the house instead of high-calorie desserts or snacks.
• Making sure parents commend children when they make progress, and don't criticize them if they do backslide. Instead, helping children identify ways to make different decisions if they're faced with the same kind of situation again.
• Never using food as a punishment or reward.
• Keeping track of progress toward goals.

"While these strategies were implemented by health care professionals in a treatment program, the psychological principles on which they are based provide sound guidance for families of obese children as well," Faith said.

More information

The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about childhood obesity and treatment.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/parenting/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120124/hl_hsn/parentsmayholdkeytotreatingkidsobesity

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Zimbabwe teachers join national strike over pay (AP)

HARARE, Zimbabwe ? More teachers in Zimbabwe on Tuesday joined a national strike in which government workers are seeking to double their salaries.

Their action on the strike's second day, and the absence of more staff from government offices, began to disrupt routine services in the southern African nation.

Main schools in Harare sent pupils home early Tuesday as teachers heeded the call by labor leaders. They are demanding the lowest monthly salaries of $250 are raised to $538 to meet the minimum needs of an average family of five.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister's Morgan Tsvangirai's party, in charge of the labor and finance ministries in the nation's shaky coalition, said in a statement Tuesday it cannot meet the demands of 235,000 government employees without increased revenue from diamond mining controlled by the President Robert Mugabe's party.

The former opposition Movement for Democratic Change of Tsvangirai, a former labor leader, said it wanted to pay "a living wage" to ensure government facilities and departments provided viable services.

"It is possible to raise the funds if diamond revenues are remitted to the treasury" controlled by Finance Minister Tendai Biti, it said.

In his 2011 year-end budget statement, Biti said mining groups in the controversy-mired diamond fields of eastern Zimbabwe pledged to pay $600 million into state coffers this year. But possible profits from diamonds were far higher, he said.

Tsvangirai's party said Tuesday Mugabe's ZANU-PF party "continues to hold back on those national resources that should benefit all Zimbabweans."

Mugabe's party has denied hoarding revenues from diamonds. Human rights groups accuse the party and military chiefs of involvement in illicit diamond trade and rights violations and killings in eastern Zimbabwe, the recently discovered site of one of the world's largest alluvial diamond deposits.

The Apex Council, the umbrella body of public service labor groups, said in a statement the momentum of the five-day strike was building and its leaders were picketing schools and government offices where there were "pockets of resistance."

"The strike will demonstrate the seriousness and resolve workers can take on bread and butter issues," it said.

Lines of people seeking government services formed Tuesday at undermanned government offices that remained open. Nurses stayed at their posts awaiting a decision on strike action from their labor group, the Zimbabwe Nurses Association, health department officials said.

The militant Progressive Teachers Union, the second largest teachers' organization, said it had lost faith in the coalition that had failed to act against "workers who subsist on corruption." They were against the strike and kept some services running. In a statement Tuesday, it said politicians were using the teachers' plight for "sheer grandstanding" to score political points.

"No political party has been sympathetic to government employees ... at one time we were made to believe that the selling of diamonds shall neatly dress our wretched lives," the statement said.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_re_af/af_zimbabwe_strike

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Verizon posts $2B 4Q loss on pension adjustment

NEW YORK (AP) ? Verizon paid dearly to put iPhones in the hands of subscribers in the latest quarter, holding back its profits in the hope that its customers will rack up higher monthly bills and stay loyal.

The quarter saw the launch of the iPhone 4S, the second model to be sold by Verizon, and it was clear that many had been waiting for it. Verizon sold 4.3 million of them, and 7.7 million smartphones total.

But by the upside-down logic of the wireless industry, higher sales mean lower profits for the quarter. Verizon Wireless subsidizes each smartphone by hundreds of dollars, figuring that it will make the money back in service fees over a two-year contract. That means the wireless division, though still highly profitable, posted a rare drop in operating income for the fourth quarter.

In the results of Verizon Communications Inc., the phone company that owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, this was masked by large charge for adjusting the value of its pension plans.

The New York-based company on Tuesday said that it lost $2.02 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the last three months of 2011. That compares with net income of $2.64 billion, or 93 cents per share, a year ago.

Verizon had warned that the big pension charge was coming.

Excluding the pension effect and another one-time item, Verizon earned 52 cents per share. That was a penny shy of the average forecast of analysts polled by FactSet. Comparable earnings last year were 54 cents per share.

Verizon had warned that hefty smartphone sales would hold back earnings, but analysts had expected a slightly smaller drop. Verizon shares fell 76 cents, or 2 percent, to $37.64 in premarket trading.

Revenue rose 7.7 percent to $28.4 billion from $26.4 billion a year ago. The latest figure was in line with analysts' expectations.

Wireless accounted for all of the revenue increase, as Verizon's wireline division saw a small decrease. The "old" phone company essentially breaks even, despite the popularity of its cable-like FiOS TV and Internet service.

Usually, Verizon's overall revenue increase is driven higher monthly wireless service revenues, as it gains customers. But this quarter, the largest contributor to the rise in revenue was phone sales, which doubled from last year to $2.2 billion.

Verizon Wireless added 1.2 million new subscribers on contract-based plans, which are the most lucrative. It was the second-best result in the last two years, further solidifying the company's position as the industry leader, with 87.4 million phones and other devices on contract-based plans, and 108.7 million total.

Vodafone Group PLC of Britain owns the remaining 45 percent of Verizon Wireless, and lays claim to a corresponding share of the profits.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-24-Earns-Verizon/id-929d7568e2024580a20d27b52c19c0a0

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Uzbeki refugee arrested on terror charges in Chicago (Reuters)

DENVER (Reuters) ? An accused member of an Islamic group that is suspected of plotting attacks in Germany, Turkey, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan has been arrested and charged with providing support to foreign terrorists.

Jamshid Muhtorov, 35, an Uzbekistani refugee who resides in suburban Denver, was taken into custody on Saturday at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago by FBI agents, federal authorities said on Monday.

A criminal complaint charging him with providing and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization was unsealed in Denver on Monday shortly after Muhtorov made his initial court appearance in Chicago.

Court documents filed in the case said Muhtorov was heading overseas to fight on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based extremist group that opposes secular rule in the U.S.-backed former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan and seeks to replace the current regime there with a government based on Islamic law.

The public defender assigned to Muhtorov at his court appearance could not immediately be reached for comment.

An FBI affidavit for Muhtorov's arrest said German authorities in 2007 disrupted an IJU plot and arrested three operatives of the group targeting unidentified facilities with explosives. It said Turkish authorities separately seized weapons and detained "extremists with ties to the IJU."

The court affidavit also said the organization claimed responsibility for attacks in 2008 that targeted coalition forces in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack against an unidentified U.S. military post.

In addition, the group conducted simultaneous suicide bombings in 2004 of U.S. and Israeli embassies, as well as of a Uzbekistani government office, all in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, FBI agent Donald Hale wrote in the FBI affidavit.

Federal prosecutors said Muhtorov's arrest, capping a "long-term investigation," highlights "the continued interest of extremists residing in the United States to join and support overseas terrorists."

If convicted of the charge against him, Muhtorov faces up to 15 years in prison.

The FBI began monitoring his telephone calls and email messages last March, including a conversation in July in which he told his daughter he would never see her again "but if she was a good Muslim girl he will see her in heaven," Hale's affidavit said.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Paul Thomasch)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/us_nm/us_security_uzbeki_arrest

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Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Reynolds to star in "Big Eyes" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES, Jan 22 (TheWrap.com) ? Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Reynolds will play Margaret and Walter Keane in an indie biopic about the couple whose art -- especially paintings of doe-eyed children -- became a pop phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s.

While their art was reproduced and marketed around the country, their home life was unhappy: Margaret Keane was the artist, but her husband took credit. In fact, it carried Walter Keane's name, rather than the shy Margaret's.

When the two divorced, both claimed rights to the paintings. Ultimately -- in federal court -- Margaret Keane painted a picture to prove that she was, in fact the artist. When the judge asked Walter Keane to paint, he declined, saying his sore shoulder prevented him from painting.

The judge found for Margaret Keane.

Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski wrote and will direct the film. Tim Burton is producing through his Tim Burton Productions. Lynette Howell and Jamie Patricof are producing through their Electric City Entertainment.

"We are ecstatic to have this dream cast for our dream project," the directors said in a written statement. "Walter is a larger-than-life antihero -- charming, funny, dangerous and a little crazy. Ryan will knock it out of the park. As for Reese, she will be perfect as Margaret -- soulful, decent, transforming from vulnerability to learning to fight for herself."

Alexander and Karaszewski know their biopics: They wrote "Ed Wood," "The People vs. Larry Flint" and the Andy Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon."

With Burton, they're working on a new version of "The Addams Family."

"Big Eyes" has been on Alexander and Karaszewski's to-do list since at least 2009.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/film_nm/us_reesewitherspoon

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Pirated Movies

While some cyberlockers use ads, they mostly make money by encouraging people to buy premium accounts. They do that by making the free download process cumbersome, asking users to poke around to find the download button, and then sometimes forcing them to wait for a minute or more before they can punch another button and download the file. (That's, um, what I've heard, in any case.) All the while, the sites push ads for their premium services, which allow faster, easier, simultaneous downloads. (4shared, for example, charges $6 or $7 bucks a month for premium service, which it says lets you download 100 gigabytes of data per month.)

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=63ef3fb24ef6fbffbd4237b81683cf89

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Is Camille leaving 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills'?

Tibrina Hobson / Getty Images

According to Radar, Camille Grammer might not be back on "RHOBH."

By Anna Chan

Fans of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" have watched Camille Grammer go through some trying times on the hit?Bravo reality show. And now, Radar Online is reporting that the reality personality may not return next season.

"Producers are asking Lisa Vanderpump, Adrienne Maloof and Kyle Richards if any of their wealthy female friends would be interested in appearing on the show," a network insider reportedly told the website. "It's an open secret that Camille most likely won't be back for a third season."

A source close to the show told us that casting decisions have not yet?been made.

Bravo had no comment on Camille's rumored exit on Friday.

Would you miss Camille if she left? Who do you think should leave the show? Take our poll, and share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

{"contentId":"10201860","totalVotes":"10758"}

If one person had to leave 'RHOBH,' who should it be?

?

Related content:

Dana Wilkey	? 30.5% (3,279 votes)
Kim Richards	? 25.8% (2,778 votes)
Taylor Armstrong	? 19% (2,039 votes)
Brandi Glanville	? 15% (1,610 votes)
No one should leave. The cast is great!	? 4.2% (450 votes)
Camille Grammer	? 2.4% (259 votes)
Kyle Richards	? 1.8% (194 votes)
Adrienne Maloof	? 0.8% (81 votes)
Lisa Vanderpump	? 0.6% (68 votes)

Source: http://theclicker.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10201860-is-camille-leaving-real-housewives-of-beverly-hills

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Southwest posts $152M 4Q profit on strong traffic (AP)

DALLAS ? Even with a tough economy and high jet fuel prices, Southwest Airlines Co. made money in the fourth quarter and could do better this year.

Travel demand was strong enough in the final three months of 2011 for the carrier to keep planes nearly full and raise fares.

The carrier's fourth-quarter net income rose 16 percent to $152 million, and profit was slightly higher than analysts expected. Revenue jumped to $4.11 billion.

CEO Gary C. Kelly said he expects strong revenue in the first quarter too, based on passenger-booking trends.

People travel more when the economy is strong, and there are signs that growth is recovering from the 2007-2009 recession.

Auto sales picked up late last year. U.S. factory output rose sharply in December. And the stock market is up ? the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 3 percent so far in 2012.

"2012 is going to be better for Southwest. It's going to be a good year for the airline industry," said Ray Neidl, an analyst with Maxim Group LLC. "The airlines can double their profitability" over 2011.

Neidl said that's possible ? even with just modest economic growth ? because airlines are limiting flights, which keeps planes full and lets them raise fares.

In the fourth quarter, Southwest filled more than 80 percent of its seats, an unusually high percentage. And the average passenger paid a fare of $140.18, up 10 percent from a year earlier when including price increases at its AirTran Airways subsidiary.

At Southwest and most other airlines, the biggest challenge to making money will be high jet fuel prices.

Southwest paid 34 percent more at the pump to fill its fleet of Boeing 737s, and its fuel tab came to $1.49 billion for the final three months of the year. Fuel averaged $3.29 per gallon.

And there's little relief in sight. Southwest expects to spend $3.35 per gallon in the first quarter, up 14 percent from the same period last year.

Southwest tries to protect itself from fuel price spikes by hedging ? in effect, locking in some of its fuel spending at guaranteed prices.

All of Southwest's increase in fourth-quarter net income came from gains on fuel-hedging contracts. Without those one-time gains, Southwest's adjusted profit was $66 million, or 9 cents per share, down from $115 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier.

Still, the results beat analysts' prediction of 8 cents per share, according to FactSet.

Southwest shares rose 30 cents, or 3.3 percent, to $9.32 in midday trading.

With the addition of AirTran Airways, which Southwest bought last year, revenue rose to $4.11 billion.

Southwest paid $1.4 billion for AirTran, which allowed it to expand into Atlanta, Mexico and the Caribbean, but it said Thursday that the cost of combining the two airlines will end up at $500 million. The company said it saved $80 million in overlapping expenses in 2011 and expects the annual savings to go much higher.

Southwest, which carries more passengers in the U.S. than any airline, was the first major U.S. carrier to report fourth-quarter results. United Continental Holdings Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc. and US Airways Group Inc. will release their figures next week, and analysts expect all three to show operating profits for the usually weak fourth quarter.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines is expected to report a loss and to keep losing money in 2012. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in November and has begun trimming marginal flights, which could push some travelers to its more-successful competitors.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/earnings/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_southwest

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Romney braces for final full day in South Carolina

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 1997 photo, House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and his wife Marianne leave their home for Capitol Hill. Dredging up a past that Newt Gingrich has worked hard to bury, the GOP presidential candidate's ex-wife says Gingrich asked for an "open marriage" in which he could have both a wife and a mistress. In an interview with ABC News' "Nightline" scheduled to air Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, Marianne Gingrich said she refused to go along with the proposal that she share her husband with Callista Bisek, who would later become his third wife. (AP Photo/Mark Wilson)

FILE - In this Jan. 7, 1997 photo, House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and his wife Marianne leave their home for Capitol Hill. Dredging up a past that Newt Gingrich has worked hard to bury, the GOP presidential candidate's ex-wife says Gingrich asked for an "open marriage" in which he could have both a wife and a mistress. In an interview with ABC News' "Nightline" scheduled to air Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, Marianne Gingrich said she refused to go along with the proposal that she share her husband with Callista Bisek, who would later become his third wife. (AP Photo/Mark Wilson)

Republican presidential candidates, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich share a laugh during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, reacts to the audience as he participates in the Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Republican presidential candidate former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, participates in a Republican presidential candidate debate at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) ? Mitt Romney entered the final full day of campaigning in South Carolina's GOP primary contest Friday scrambling to fend off challenges from more conservative rivals Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum and insisting he's the one that Republicans can trust to "post up well" against President Barack Obama

A year out from Inauguration Day, Republicans are capturing the most attention with their riveting contest, with Obama seemingly spoiling for a fight .

With South Carolina's critical primary only a day away, Gingrich was gaining on Romney, and South Carolina's Sen. Jim DeMint declared it a "two-man race." But Santorum insisted he's still part of the equation and that he's finally drawing enough campaign contributions to compete aggressively in next-up Florida and beyond.

Rick Perry's departure from the race, a raucous Charleston debate and fresh reminders of Gingrich's tumultuous personal life promised to make the dash to Saturday's voting frenetic and the intra-party attacks increasingly sharp. Republican Party Chairman Reince Preibus, in a morning appearance on CNN, insisted the tone wasn't all that negative and said "a little bit of drama" was good for the GOP as it sorts out the strongest challenger to Obama.

Romney, appearing on Fox News Channel, called Gingrich "a feisty competitor" but argued the former House speaker was not the best man to put up against Obama. Santorum, who turned up on C-SPAN, said the GOP presidential race "has just transformed itself in the last 24 hours" and that's he's still very much part of the mix.

At Thursday night's debate, he offered himself as a more reliable conservative than either Romney or Gingrich.

"I've been fighting for health reform, private sector, bottom-up ... for 20 years, while these two guys were playing footsies with the left," Santorum said.

Romney, whose lead has shrunk in the race's closing days, opened the day by waving the endorsement of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and planned stops along the coast, in the state's midlands and conservative north. Gingrich, gaining fast and buoyed by Perry's endorsement, concentrated on the south, especially the heavily pro-military Charleston area.

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, was rallying supporters in four stops statewide, including the conservative upstate, the home of his evangelical base. The libertarian-leaning Ron Paul, whose support has slipped with his light campaign effort here, hoped to whip up his supporters with a six-city fly-around.

Saturday's victor "is likely to be the next president of the United States," DeMint, a tea party leader, predicted on "CBS This Morning." He hasn't endorsed a candidate in the race.

The GOP race spun wildly Thursday, beginning with news that Santorum had edged Romney in Iowa, a reversal of the first nominating contest more than two weeks past.

Perry, having struggled in vain to build support in his native South, quit and endorsed Gingrich. Gingrich, meanwhile, faced stunning new allegations from an ex-wife that he had sought an open marriage before their divorce. An aggressive debate punctuated the day.

Santorum played aggressor during the faceoff, trying to inject himself into what seemed increasingly like a Romney-Gingrich race after Perry's endorsement of his onetime rival.

"Newt's not perfect, but who among us is," Perry said in backing Gingrich. "The fact is, there is forgiveness for those who seek God and I believe in the power of redemption, for it is a central tenet of my own Christian faith."

Gingrich angrily denounced the news media for putting his ex-wife front and center in the final days of the race and spreading her accusations. "Let me be clear, the story is false," he said when asked at the opening of the debate about her interview.

Santorum, Romney and Paul steered clear of the controversy.

"Let's get onto the real issues, that's all I've got to say," said Romney, although he pointed out that he and his wife, Ann, have been married for 42 years.

Gingrich and Santorum challenged Romney over his opposition to abortion, a well-documented shift but a potent one in evangelical-heavy South Carolina.

Recent polls, coupled with Perry's endorsement, suggested Gingrich was the candidate with the momentum and Romney the one struggling to validate his standing as front-runner.

Gingrich released his income tax records during the course of the debate, paving the way to discussing Romney's. The wealthy former venture capitalist has said he will release them in April, prompting Gingrich to suggest that would be too late for voters to decide if they presented evidence Obama could exploit.

"If there's anything that's in there that's going to help us lose the election, we should know before the election. If there's not, why not release it?" Gingrich said. His effective tax rate, roughly 31.6 percent of his adjusted income, was about double what Romney told reporters earlier this week he had paid.

Romney, asked about the issue Friday on Foxl, said he didn't want to give Obama and the Democrats a "nice little present of having multiple releases." He said that past GOP nominees John McCain in 2008 and George W. Bush before him released their taxes at tax deadline time, and said he'd do likewise. He didn't say how many years of returns he would release.

Gingrich grappled with problems of a different, possibly even more crippling sort in a state where more than half the Republican electorate is evangelical.

Marianne Gingrich told ABC's "Nightline" that her ex-husband had wanted an "open marriage" so he could have both a wife and a mistress. She said Gingrich conducted an affair with Callista Bistek, now his wife, "in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington" while she was elsewhere.

"He was asking to have an open marriage and I refused. That is not a marriage," she said in excerpts released by the network well ahead of the debate.

Santorum, asked about the issue Friday on C-SPAN, said it would up to voters to decide "whether these are issues of character" that matter in the race. But he said that when such actions occur when someone is serving in public office, "that has an additional level of relevance."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-20-GOP%20Campaign/id-71495f368c7c4be0bccf3868efe1306a

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GroupShot iPhone app is photography magic (Appolicious)

Have you ever set up a perfect family picture, but each time you snap, someone is looking away or making a funny face? Well there?s a promising new photo app,?GroupShot, that can help. GroupShot allows photographers to select a batch of group snaps taken in succession and then swap out the closed-eyed or gape-mawed with the best head shots in the bunch to create a new image with everyone looking their best. While the app has a few issues, the technology behind it is astounding. GroupShot is a fantastic addition to an iPhone photographer?s toolkit with the financial backing, according to TechCrunch, to keep making it better.

GroupShot is obscenely easy to use. Select a series of group photos ? at least two ? and the app selects the better background (although it can be manually exchanged for another). Then it?s a matter of drawing crude circles around the face you want to replace. A complex algorithm gets to works behind the scenes offering a selection of facially recognized alternatives. A simple tap selects the new face, and then the app performs its hocus-pocus.

GroupShot comes loaded with sample images, and on those the effects are seamless. My personal experience was not quite as smooth. When using old group shots not intended for this purpose, the app did brilliantly on the facial recognition front, but left obvious seams in the finished product. The output resolution was rather too low for good printing as well.

The remedy for me was using a camera replacement app like?Camera+ or?Camera Genius with burst mode, instead of just asking everyone to stay still for a while. If the images in the batch are evenly scaled and head angles remain fixed, the results are nothing short of magical.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/applecomputer/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/appolicious_rss/rss_appolicious_tc/http___www_appolicious_com_articles10807_groupshot_iphone_app_is_photography_magic/44233139/SIG=12qei3o9u/*http%3A//www.appolicious.com/tech/articles/10807-groupshot-iphone-app-is-photography-magic

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Iowa State U. Cancels Finance Course With Biblical Theme - The ...

January 17, 2012, 11:10 am

Iowa State University has dropped plans to offer a course on how biblical principles can be applied to business management after some faculty members and the local American Civil Liberties Union chapter complained that the class would violate the separation of church and state at the public institution. The Iowa State Daily reports that opponents of the one-credit finance course said the planned curriculum would have promoted a particular religious viewpoint and was insufficiently academic.

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Source: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/iowa-state-u-cancels-finance-course-with-biblical-theme/39740

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Costa Concordia cruise ship death toll at 11

Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.

Italian coastguards pleaded angrily with the captain of a stricken super-liner to return to his ship, according to recordings released on Tuesday as divers found five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia.

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The discoveries took the known death toll to 11. One German who was listed as missing has been accounted for, Italy's civil protection department said, leaving 23 people still missing four days after the giant cruiser carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.

Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.

On Tuesday, rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive. Inside the ship, which lies semi-submerged on its side, heavy floating furniture and pitch-black conditions made conditions dangerous.

A tearful firefighter told Reuters: "Virtually all the dry part has been searched. It would need a miracle to find anyone alive in the wet part." No survivors have been found since Sunday.

Before the five bodies were found and the German was accounted for on Tuesday, those missing were 14 German, five Italian, four French and two American passengers plus four crew from Italy, Peru, India and Hungary.

Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.

At an appearance before a magistrate, Schettino said he believed he should be credited with saving "hundreds, if not thousands of lives" because he brought the ship close to shore after it hit a rock, lawyer Bruno Leporatti said.

Schettino also claimed that he did not abandon the ship while passengers were still aboard.

But newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coastguards repeatedly order him back on board.

"GO BACK ON BOARD!"

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" one coastguard says.

Speaking by radio from a lifeboat, Schettino pleads: "Do you realise that it is dark and we can't see anything?"

The coastguard shouts back: "So, what do you want to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!"

Officials did not confirm the tape's origins but other shouts heard in the background added authenticity. The Coast Guard official on the tape told a local newspaper he could tell by the "tone of the captain's voice" that something was very wrong. Schettino's lawyer said he would not comment.

The owners of the 114,500-tonne vessel - the biggest passenger ship ever wrecked and twice the tonnage of the Titanic - accused their captain of causing the disaster by sharply deviating from the charted course.

The ship foundered after striking a rock as dinner was being served on Friday night. The owners say the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders, who included a retired Italian admiral. Investigators say it was within 150 metres of shore.

Schettino has denied the charges and was questioned by magistrates on Tuesday. His lawyer said he also gave hair and urine samples for toxicology tests.

Three controlled blasts were detonated early on Tuesday to allow firefighters and scuba divers to enter inaccessible parts of the ship.

"Now we will have better access to the gathering points on the ship, where it seems there might be more chance of finding someone, dead or alive," said firefighters' spokesman Luca Cari.

"They will take micro-cameras in there, and we will be simultaneously looking at the few remaining dry areas and also the wet areas," he said. The weather improved slightly from Monday but seas were still choppy.

GIANT PLEASURE PALACE

The giant cruiseship, a floating pleasure palace of bars, spas, state rooms and tennis courts, slid a little on Monday, threatening to plunge 2,300 tonnes of fuel below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding marine nature reserve.

This forced a brief suspension of rescue efforts, which were also halted overnight on Monday though searches are set to continue through Tuesday night. A coastguard said they would go on until the entire ship had been checked.

Hopes of finding more survivors are fast fading, more than three days after the 290-metre long ship rolled on its side with a long gash in its hull.

Most of the passengers and crew survived despite hours of chaos and confusion after the collision. The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.

Video taken from a rescue helicopter in the early hours of Saturday, using a night vision camera, showed an extraordinary scene of dozens of passengers being gingerly lowered on ropes down the upturned hull of the ship into rescue boats.

The wreck, with a long gash below the waterline, looms over the normally tranquil island of Giglio.

Senior firefighter Luciano Roncalli told Reuters that all the unsubmerged areas of the liner had been searched.

Environment Minister Corrado Clini said he would declare a state of emergency because of the risk that the ship's fuel would leak into the pristine Tuscan Archipelago National Park. No fuel spillage has been detected so far, he said.

Clini said on Tuesday morning that he had given the salvage company until Wednesday to come up with a plan to remove the fuel and 10 days for a plan to remove the ship.

SKIPPER DENIES CHARGES

"You don't have to be a Nobel prize winner to understand that a ship of that size should stay far from the coast," Clini said on television on Tuesday morning.

Schettino's lawyer issued a statement saying the skipper was "broken up, troubled and saddened by the loss of life". But he believed he had saved many lives by carrying out a difficult emergency manoeuvre with anchors after the accident, which turned the ship closer to the shore.

The father of the ship's head waiter told Reuters his son had telephoned him before the accident to say the crew would salute him by blowing the ship's whistle as they passed close by Giglio, where both the waiter, Antonello Tievoli, and his 82-year-old father Giuseppe live.

Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi on Monday blamed errors by Schettino for the disaster. He told a news conference the company would provide its captain with any assistance he required. "But we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he added.

Foschi said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500 metres to the Giglio coast. Schettino denies being too close and says the rock he hit was not marked on charts.

The ship is resting in about 20 metres (60 feet) of water but could go down by as much as 130 metres if it shifts free from the rocks.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/pmQLw8I_QDA/Costa-Concordia-cruise-ship-death-toll-at-11

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Washington hires Tosh Lupoi as new D-line coach

SEATTLE (AP) ? Steve Sarkisian has completed the makeover of his defensive coaching staff at Washington by hiring Tosh Lupoi away from California to be the Huskies new defensive line coach and defensive run game coordinator.

Washington announced Lupoi's hiring on Monday. Along with his responsibilities as a coach, Lupoi is regarded as a top recruiter on the West Coast.

Lupoi has spent the past four seasons as defensive line coach for the Golden Bears. Lupoi previously played defensive line at California where he was first introduced to new Washington defensive coordinator Justin Wilcox.

Sarkisian says Lupoi will have an "immediate impact" both coaching on the field and as a recruiter.

Source: http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/article/Washington-hires-Tosh-Lupoi-as-new-D-line-coach-2574186.php

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Bodies of snowmobilers pulled from Minnesota lake (Reuters)

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) ? Divers recovered the bodies of two men Sunday whose snowmobile sank after hitting open water on a lake near the Twin Cities, the first thin-ice related deaths reported in Minnesota in a mild winter that has left ice unreliable across the state.

Dozens of people have fallen into frigid waters around Minnesota this winter as unseasonably warm temperatures have weakened ice and in some cases left patches of open water such as those on Lake Charlotte northwest of Minneapolis.

"It was a single snowmobile and it appears to have just run right into open water," said Captain Greg Howell of the Wright County Sheriff's Office. "It's been a bad year for ice."

Howell said divers recovered the bodies of two young adult men Sunday afternoon and were withholding their names pending a positive identification and notification of family members.

A 66-year-old man from Buffalo, Minnesota, riding an all-terrain vehicle had reported seeing a snowmobile drop into the lake on Saturday night, went to investigate and was rescued by a neighbor when his ATV also sank into the water, Howell said.

"It's fortunate we weren't looking for three instead of two," Howell said.

Searchers found snowmobile tracks leading straight to an area of open water on the lake and family members reported two men missing who were thought to have been snowmobiling on the lake Saturday night, Howell said.

Divers located the snowmobile, but have not yet pulled it from the lake, Howell said.

The ice depth ranges from an inch to 12 inches on lakes in the county with open water in some spots, Howell said.

Across Minnesota people have reported falling through the ice this winter on-foot, in cars, riding ATVs and snowmobiles, and even in an ice boat, which has steel runners and a sail, officials have said.

(Reporting By David Bailey; Editing by James B. Kelleher)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120116/us_nm/us_minnesota_snowmobile_deaths

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Property Vendor Finance ? Buying Property Made Easier! ? Prsafety ...

When you would like to get your own property without experiencing the complete bothersome procedure that normally arrives with receiving the financial situation in which you require from a standard lending institution, after that it is sensible to get financing from property vendor finance technique. There are many people that desire to get straight into the real estate market in order to make positive cash-flow although not all of us have an indisputab credit history as well as can find the money for the complete 10 percent advance payment on the property that they can want to obtain.

Thanks to vendor finance programs, you stand a great possibility of having your perfect property. It will be a whole lot simpler to get financing for the purchase of your own property by way of vendor financing. You will be also offered unique products in which conventional loan company can?t match. With traditional finance companies, you care even if it?s just Feel about lacking a single transaction, in case you do, next kiss and lick your own property goodbye.

Although your credit history isn?t specifically one that you can become very pleased of, you have an prospect to get the financing in which you will need in order to get your property through making use of the vendor financing system. Standard lending institutions require borrowers to possess a particular credit ranking and a credit history that is nearly best in order to acquire the financing you require in order to buy their particular dream property. Yes! You can nevertheless dream about having a property regardless of whether your current credit history features a number of smears in which you would somewhat forget about, just about all many thanks to vendor finance programs!

With the vendor financing program, creditors are available the prospect to pay out much less each and every month. In comparison to the month by month transaction possibilities offered by standard loan company, this program certain tends to make more impression. You do not need to be concerned about paying out a great deal of money at the finish of the month in order find the money for the mortgage loan.

Vendor finance gives you the possibility to very own your very own property without having harming on your own in order to meet the requirements demanded simply by typical lenders. You do not have to borrow, plead and even steal in order to make upward the 10 percent deposit on the property that will you have got your own eye on. You additionally do n?t need to possess a squeaky clean credit history in order to turn out to be suitable to acquire the loan to buy your dream property. Even if you have had a downright negative credit in the prior, you are nevertheless suitable to receive the financing to obtain a property.

For more info, visit Vendor Finance and Vendor Finance

Source: http://www.prsafety.org/property-vendor-finance-buying-property-made-easier/

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Newt Gingrich Ad Bashes Mitt Romney For Moderate Views, French-Speaking Abilities

Newt Gingrich is just throwing $h!t at the wall at this point.

During his college years in the '60s, Mitt Romney spent two years as a Mormon missionary in France. Now, Newt is trying to use that time against his rival as part of his desperate, scorched-earth campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

Here's his new ad, titled "The French Connection" ...

Newt Gingrich Ad - French Connection

The crux of the ad - that Mitt Romney isn't too different politically from failed Democratic Massachusetts presidential hopefuls Michael Dukakis and Sen. John Kerry - might've been effective, but Newt is clearly just bitter at this point.

In a parting shot, the voiceover explains: "Just like John Kerry," the voice in the ad says, "he speaks French too!" Mitt Romney: He's ... multilingual!

Guess he and Jon Huntsman are automatically DQ'd in Newt's mind.

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/newt-gingrich-ad-bashes-mitt-romney-for-moderate-views-french-sp/

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Obama asks Congress for $1.2 trillion increase in nation's borrowing limit (Star Tribune)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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Gadget Watch: Control a PC with body motions

A boy plays with a motion sensing 3D version of the video game Fruit Ninja at the LG exhibit at the 2012 International CES tradeshow, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

A boy plays with a motion sensing 3D version of the video game Fruit Ninja at the LG exhibit at the 2012 International CES tradeshow, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

An industry affiliate tries out a Prime Sense depth control camera to change the volume on a television at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, in Las Vegas. The technology allows control of electronic devices with body motion. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

Prime Sense employee Adi Berenson demonstrates the use of depth control cameras at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012, in Las Vegas. The technology allows control of electronic devices with body motion. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

LAS VEGAS (AP) ? Don't trash your keyboard and mouse just yet. But three companies at the International Consumer Electronics Show demonstrated depth-sensing cameras that let you to control your computer by moving your hands or body.

Microsoft's Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 console has already popularized these cameras for gaming. Now, the technology is being set loose for use on other devices. However, like many gadgets shown at the annual Las Vegas-based extravaganza of phones, PCs and TVs, the cameras aren't quite ready for the mass market.

The companies showed off their cameras to give software developers and gadget makers a chance to work with the technology and incorporate it in their products. For the rest of us, it's a taste of what the future might hold.

WHY IT'S HOT: The cameras represent another challenge to the keyboard-and-mouse regime, which is already being eroded by touch screens. If you're in front of a depth-sensing camera, you don't have to touch the screen to control it with your fingers or hands. (This works with non-depth-sensing cameras as well, but they're not as good at figuring out what you're doing.) At the PrimeSense booth, visitors could browse and play the contents of a digital video library with hand gestures ? basically, anything you'd do with a mouse today. The Israeli company's camera goes into the Kinect and is now sold separately as the Asus Xtion.

BEHIND THE LENS: The cameras can tell how far away things are in their field of vision. PrimeSense does this by sending out an invisible pattern of light, and registering how it's deformed when it hits objects. SoftKinetics' camera works almost like radar, but with light: it sends out infrared light and measures how fast it comes back. Where it takes longer, it figures out that that part of the image is further away.

THE DOWNSIDE: If you buy one of these now, there isn't much you can do with it, unless you're a software developer. The Asus Xtion comes with a few simple Kinect-like games for your PC. For all of these cameras, the depth-sensing range is limited to about 12 feet, and at the far end of the range, accuracy is reduced. That means finger gestures may not be picked up from across the living room.

AVAILABILITY: Microsoft said it will start selling a "Kinect for Windows" camera starting Feb. 1st, for $249. Asus started selling the Xtion in December for $149. SoftKinetics, a Belgian company, started selling its camera around the same time for $499.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2012-01-13-Gadget%20Show-Gadget%20Watch-Depth%20Cameras/id-ea3dab201f9448c4a85d2a97c3d030b0

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CES 2012: Makerbot Replicator prints large 3D objects in two colors (Yahoo! News)

Regular printers may be boring, but 3D printers are not. Not only can they be used to create new bones and military spiderbots, they can also be used to make figments of your imagination come to life. If you're thinking of getting your own, check out the newly-announced MakerBot Replicator. Sure, you can't print a car out with it, but it can at least make larger objects that its predecessor, the Thing-O-Matic. It can also use two colors at once.

MakerBot Industries, which makes artificial hermit crab shells on the side, unveiled the Replicator at the recent 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The company's new product can make objects as big as a loaf of bread, which is great if you have super sized printing needs. You can even choose between the kind of plastic Lego bricks are made of or biodegradable corn plastic for its feedstock, which is what you call the spools of material it uses to print your creations. It can make you dual-colored figures, too, though this feature will cost you extra.

Unlike the Thing-O-Matic that you have to build on your own, the Replicator will be shipped fully-assembled. This means it comes ready to print objects that you've either designed on your own using a 3D modeling program or downloaded from the internet. Now available for pre-order, the basic Replicator model will cost you $1,749, while the one that's capable of dual-color printing costs $250 on top of that.

(Source)

This article was written by Mariella Moon and originally appeared on Tecca

More from Tecca:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20120114/tc_yblog_technews/ces-2012-makerbot-replicator-prints-large-3d-objects-in-two-colors

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Golden Globe nominees ready for Gervais' wrath (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? When Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais took sharp swipes at Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, Robert Downey, Jr. and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association at last year's ceremony, some criticized the comedian for going too far.

Downey described the vibe as "hugely mean-spirited, with mildly sinister undertones."

With Gervais back for his third turn as Globes host on Sunday, nominees are already preparing themselves for the British funnyman's pointed jabs.

"I'll probably get the piss taken out of me, but it's fine with me," said Elton John, nominated for his song from "Gnomeo & Juliet." "I'm British. I can take it."

Johnny Galecki, who is up for his first Golden Globe for his work on TV's "The Big Bang Theory," said that when he got word he was nominated, "one of my first five thoughts was, `Oh Christ, Gervais is going to make fun of me.'"

But the actor isn't really worried.

"I'll be flattered by it," said the 5-foot-5-inch Galecki. "I'm looking forward to it. I hope he doesn't just zero in on the height. That's just easy pickings."

Damian Lewis, nominated for his work on the TV series "Homeland," said he might also be an easy target for Gervais.

"If he's got a thing about redheads, I'm a sitting duck," Lewis said.

"Glee" and "American Horror Story" executive producer Ryan Murphy is excited about Gervais' return and the spice he brings to the three-hour telecast.

"It's always good with the shows to have an unpredictable element to them, and he certainly is that," Murphy said. "He's very funny and very smart and I think he will make nominees even more nervous than they already are, which is kind of funny."

Seth Rogen, who produced and starred in best picture nominee "50/50," is also looking forward to Gervais' return. He even went online to check out what the comedian said last year.

"It was the first time in a long time I'd gone on YouTube and watched something an awards show said," Rogen said.

Supporting actor nominee Christopher Plummer said he appreciates Gervais' irreverence.

"I think finally everybody's come to that same conclusion: That that's him, he doesn't mean it, but he's very funny," Plummer said.

Jean Dujardin, nominated for his starring role in the silent film "The Artist" (which is also up for best picture and is the night's leading nominee with six bids), said it would be an honor if Gervais even mentioned him.

But there's a caveat, the actor said: "If he mocks me, he has to do it silently, without any words."

The 69th annual Golden Globe Awards will be presented Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and broadcast live on NBC.

___

AP Entertainment Writers Derrik J. Lang and Anthony McCartney contributed to this report.

___

AP Entertainment Writers Sandy Cohen, Derrik J. Lang and Anthony McCartney can be reached at www.twitter.com/APSandy, www.twitter.com/derrikjlang and www.twitter.com/mccartneyAP.

___

Online:

www.goldenglobes.org

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120111/ap_en_ot/us_golden_globes_ricky_gervais

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