Liberty already controls number two Dutch operator UPC (1.67 million homes) and has built up a 28.5 percent minority stake in Ziggo ahead of its takeover bid.
But in an official statement, Ziggo said Liberty's offer was “considered inadequate and there is no certainty that Ziggo will receive any revised offer.” Financial details of the bid were not disclosed, but at current prices, a takeover would have cost Liberty at least $6 billion (€4.5 billion).
Malone's cable group is looking to consolidate operations across Europe. Early this year, Liberty acquired Britain's Virgin Media in a stock-and-deal worth around $15.8 billion. The group controls Germany's second-largest cable operator, UnityMedia, and tried to buy number one cabler, Kabel Deutschland (KDG), but was recently outbid by U.K. mobile group Vodafone, which paid $10 billion for KDG.
Hold Your Horses: The main flavor of a sour beer is tartness, like a strawberry or lemon. But many sours also have a "funky" taste that some say smells like a horse blanket or a barnyard. Credit: Morgan Walker
Move over, bitter IPAs and chocolaty stouts. There's a new kid on the craft brewing block, and it's going to knock your salivary glands into action.
It's called "sour beer." When you take a sip, it's like biting into a Granny Smith apple that's soaked in a French red wine: crisp, refreshing and a bit odd.
Look for descriptors like tart, funky, wild, barrel-aged and spontaneous fermentation at bars and restaurants. These beers will very likely be sour. Here are a few bottles to look for in wine and beer shops or even Whole Foods Markets. Just be ready to shell out at least $10 for a 750-ml bottle.
American Sour Ales
Belgian Sour Beers
Do you think you can handle the sour side of beer?
Courtesy of The Bruery
Sour beers are probably the oldest style of brew in the world, but they're just starting to get popular in the States. They were all the buzz at this year's Great American Beer Festival. And with hundreds of brewers now dabbling in sours, it's easier than ever to find them at a local bar or grocery store.
Most sour beers have few or no hops. So they're a good option to try if you don't like bitter beers or you're a wine lover who prefers a pinot noir to a Pilsner, says New Belgium's CEO, Kim Jordan of Fort Collins, Colo.
New Belgium, which produces the ubiquitous Fat Tire Ale, has started a whole series of sour beers called Lips of Faith — one of the most widely available lines of sour.
So what in the heck are these strange brews?
Sours beers are to the adult beverage world what yogurt is to dairy. Its beer that's been intentionally spoiled by bacteria — the good bacteria.
"We use the same microbes that make yogurt, miso and salami," says Alex Wallash, who co-founded The Rare Barrel, in Berkeley, Calif., one of the few breweries in the U.S. devoted solely to making sour beers.
Bacteria gobble up sugars in the beer and convert them into acids, like the ones in Granny Smith apples and lemons. The microcritters also churn out a smorgasbord of flavors and aromas. The result is a brew that has all the complexity of a wine and the zing of a Sour Patch Kid.
"Sour beers are tart like a raspberry or strawberry, but a lot of them are dry, like Champagne," Wallash says. So their taste sits somewhere between an ale, wine and cider, he says. "It will definitely change your expectation about what a beer tastes like. It's a new flavor experience all together."
And one that you might not like right away.
"When I first tried a sour, I was shocked," says Patrick Rue of The Bruery in Placentia, Calif. "I thought it had spoiled, and I threw the rest of the beer down the drain."
But it was too late for Rue. He had been bitten by the sour bug and went on to make some of the first sour beers in Southern California, including the popular Tart of Darkness.
In traditional beer-making, yeast is added to boiled grains to ferment the sugars into alcohol. Then the brew is ready for bottling.
But for sour beers, the process doesn't stop there. Brewers also add the bacteria Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. Sometimes they'll include a dash of Brettanomyces, a type of wild yeast that makes cherry, mango and pineapple flavors as well as an earthy aroma that some call funky, horsey or leathery.
Most sour beers are moved to oak barrels for aging, which can be a messy business. Now how would Homer Simpson handle this situation?
Courtesy of The Rare Barrel
Most sour beers are moved to oak barrels for aging, which can be a messy business. Now how would Homer Simpson handle this situation?
Courtesy of The Rare Barrel
The alternative approach for brewing sours is to go old-school and just let all the wild yeast and bacteria in the air drop into the beer naturally. It's risky but — when done right — can produce magnificent beer.
That's the strategy Ron Jeffries at Jolly Pumpkin in Dexter, Mich., uses. He's a pioneer of the sour movement in America, and he made some of the first commercial sours way back in 2004.
"There's wild yeast and bacteria everywhere, especially if there are orchards nearby," Jeffries tells The Salt. "When you make a happy home for them in your barrels, they just show up and spontaneously ferment — and sour — a beer."
"For thousands of years, all beer had sour notes to it," Jeffries says. "It was refreshing and crisp because people didn't understand how to keep things clean.
"Then with pasteurization, refrigeration and an understanding of how to keep cultures free of bacteria, beers started to become nonsour," he says.
A handful of breweries in Belgium continued to produce sour beers, known as lambics, Flanders ales and guezes. But it's craft breweries in America that are making them fashionable again.
"They're taking the beer style in crazy directions, just like they did with IPAs and porters," Jeffries says. "The reason why you're seeing sour beers gaining popularity is because they taste great, but also because of the creativity of American brewers."
President Obama at the White House on Oct. 17, 2013, drawing lessons from the shutdown.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
“There are no winners here,” President Obama declared at the White House this morning. Then, with an elegant air of nonpartisanship, Obama began to fashion the shutdown into a political weapon. Here’s how he’s going to deploy it.
1. Economic excuse. Obama noted that before the shutdown, the economy was recovering, and the deficit was falling. The fiscal standoff changed all that: “Every analyst out there believes it slowed our growth.” Obama rattled off the damage: families going without paychecks, home buyers and small businesses unable to get loans, consumers cutting back on spending, CEOs reporting that the fiscal anxiety had “set back their plans to hire over the next six months.” Even the “threat of default,” said the president, “increased our borrowing costs, which adds to our deficit.”
Today, this litany of laments looked like simple compassion from the president. But over the next year, it can serve as an excuse. If economic growth or deficit reduction isn’t where we’d like it to be, Obama can blame the shortfall on the “Republican shutdown” or the “Tea Party shutdown.” He’d be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, who spent three years after Sept. 11, 2001, blaming economic disappointment on the damage done when “the enemy hit us.”
2. Republican downgrade. Two years ago, when Standard and Poor’s downgraded the government’s credit rating, it cited our high deficits as well as the 2011 debt ceiling standoff. Ever since, Republicans have argued that the deficits, not the standoff, caused the downgrade. This time, we haven’t been downgraded, but we’ve been put on a credit watch by Fitch, another ratings agency. And this time, there’s no ballooning deficit. Obama wants to make that difference stick. He wants the downgrade threat of 2013 to reinforce the Democrats’ narrative about the downgrade of 2011. “The agency that put America’s credit rating on watch the other day explicitly cited” the congressional standoff, Obama pointed out. The Fitch report, he went on, said that “our economy remains more dynamic and resilient than other advanced economies and that the only thing putting us at risk is—and I’m quoting here—‘repeated brinkmanship.’ ” “That wasn’t a political statement,” Obama added, politicizing the statement.
3. National security. Even after killing Osama Bin Laden, Obama is constantly accused of weakness. No matter what he does in Iran, Egypt, Libya, or Syria, the old portrait of the Democratic president as soft on foreign policy never goes away. What usually helps Democrats in this area is economics. Their devotion to American labor at the expense of free trade comes across as tough on foreigners. But the fiscal showdowns of 2011 and 2013 could add a new twist. This morning, Obama reported that U.S. diplomats have
been hearing from their counterparts internationally. Some of the same folks who pushed for the shutdown and threatened default claim their actions were needed to get America back on the right track, to make sure we’re strong. But probably nothing has done more damage to America’s credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle we’ve seen these past several weeks. It’s encouraged our enemies. It’s emboldened our competitors. And it’s depressed our friends who look to us for steady leadership.
If Republicans stage another big fight over the next debt ceiling, that would be three in a row. It might facilitate a significant political development: the transformation of debt payment into a national security issue. Republicans could become the deadbeat party. Obama seems quite willing to attack them from this angle. And in framing economics as the key to American power, he has reality on his side.
4. The value of government. What happened in 1995 and 1996 has happened again: Closing the government has made Americans miss it. In his remarks today, Obama proposed,
One of the things that I hope all of us have learned these past few weeks is that it turns out smart, effective government is important. It matters. I think the American people, during this shutdown, had a chance to get some idea of all the things, large and small, that government does that make a difference in people’s lives. You know, we hear all the time about how government is the problem. Well, it turns out we rely on it in a whole lot of ways. Not only does it keep us strong through our military and our law enforcement—it plays a vital role in caring for our seniors and our veterans, educating our kids, making sure our workers are trained for the jobs that are being created, arming our businesses with the best science and technology so they can compete with companies from other countries. It plays a key role in keeping our food and our toys and our workplaces safe. It helps folks rebuild after a storm. It conserves our natural resources. It finances startups. It helps to sell our products overseas. It provides security to our diplomats abroad. So let’s work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy.
Congratulations, Tea Party. In the midst of Obamacare’s glitch-ridden debut, you did the one thing that could make us love our government: You took it away and held it hostage. Don’t expect any thanks from the president you helped.
Brain scans show unusual activity in retired American football players
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Sam Wong sam.wong@imperial.ac.uk 44-207-594-2198 Imperial College London
A new study has discovered profound abnormalities in brain activity in a group of retired American football players.
Although the former players in the study were not diagnosed with any neurological condition, brain imaging tests revealed unusual activity that correlated with how many times they had left the field with a head injury during their careers.
Previous research has found that former American football players experience higher rates of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The new findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that players also face a risk of subtle neurological deficits that don't show up on normal clinical tests.
The study involved 13 former National Football League (NFL) professionals who believed they were suffering from neurological problems affecting their everyday lives as a consequence of their careers.
The former players and 60 healthy volunteers were given a test that involved rearranging coloured balls in a series of tubes in as few steps as possible. Their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they did the test.
The NFL group performed worse on the test than the healthy volunteers, but the difference was modest. More strikingly, the scans showed unusual patterns of brain activity in the frontal lobe. The difference between the two groups was so marked that a computer programme learned to distinguish NFL alumni and controls at close to 90 per cent accuracy based just on their frontal lobe activation patterns.
"The NFL alumni showed some of the most pronounced abnormalities in brain activity that I have ever seen, and I have processed a lot of patient data sets in the past," said Dr Adam Hampshire, lead author of the study, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London.
The frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions: higher-order brain activity that regulates other cognitive processes. The researchers think the differences seen in this study reflect deficits in executive function that might affect the person's ability to plan and organise their everyday lives.
"The critical fact is that the level of brain abnormality correlates strongly with the measure of head impacts of great enough severity to warrant being taken out of play. This means that it is highly likely that damage caused by blows to the head accumulate towards an executive impairment in later life."
Dr Hampshire and his colleagues at the University of Western Ontario, Canada suggest that fMRI could be used to reveal potential neurological problems in American football players that aren't picked up by standard clinical tests. Brain imaging results could be useful to retired players who are negotiating compensation for neurological problems that may be related to their careers. Players could also be scanned each season to detect problems early.
The findings also highlight the inadequacy of standard cognitive tests for detecting certain types of behavioural deficit.
"Researchers have put a lot of time into developing tests to pick up on executive dysfunction, but none of them work at all well. It's not unusual for an individual who has had a blow to the head to perform relatively well on a neuropsychological testing battery, and then go on to struggle in everyday life.
"The results tell us something very interesting about the human brain, which is that after damage, it can work harder and bring extra areas on line in order to cope with cognitive tasks. It is likely that in more complicated real world scenarios, this plasticity is insufficient and consequently, the executive impairment is no longer masked. In this respect, the results are also of relevance to other patients who suffer from multiple head injuries.
"Of course, this is a relatively preliminary study. We really need to test more players and to track players across seasons using brain imaging."
###
The participants were enrolled by David Hubbard MD at the Applied fMRI Institute in San Diego, California. The study was funded by the Hubbard Foundation and the Canada Excellence Research Chair Program.
For more information please contact:
Sam Wong
Research Media Officer
Imperial College London
Email: sam.wong@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7594 2198
Out of hours duty press officer: +44(0)7803 886 248
Notes to editors
1. A. Hampshire et al. 'Hypoconnectivity and Hyperfrontality in Retired American Football Players' Scientific Reports, 17 October 2013. DOI: 10.1038/srep02972
2. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK's first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk
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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.
Brain scans show unusual activity in retired American football players
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Sam Wong sam.wong@imperial.ac.uk 44-207-594-2198 Imperial College London
A new study has discovered profound abnormalities in brain activity in a group of retired American football players.
Although the former players in the study were not diagnosed with any neurological condition, brain imaging tests revealed unusual activity that correlated with how many times they had left the field with a head injury during their careers.
Previous research has found that former American football players experience higher rates of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The new findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that players also face a risk of subtle neurological deficits that don't show up on normal clinical tests.
The study involved 13 former National Football League (NFL) professionals who believed they were suffering from neurological problems affecting their everyday lives as a consequence of their careers.
The former players and 60 healthy volunteers were given a test that involved rearranging coloured balls in a series of tubes in as few steps as possible. Their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they did the test.
The NFL group performed worse on the test than the healthy volunteers, but the difference was modest. More strikingly, the scans showed unusual patterns of brain activity in the frontal lobe. The difference between the two groups was so marked that a computer programme learned to distinguish NFL alumni and controls at close to 90 per cent accuracy based just on their frontal lobe activation patterns.
"The NFL alumni showed some of the most pronounced abnormalities in brain activity that I have ever seen, and I have processed a lot of patient data sets in the past," said Dr Adam Hampshire, lead author of the study, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London.
The frontal lobe is responsible for executive functions: higher-order brain activity that regulates other cognitive processes. The researchers think the differences seen in this study reflect deficits in executive function that might affect the person's ability to plan and organise their everyday lives.
"The critical fact is that the level of brain abnormality correlates strongly with the measure of head impacts of great enough severity to warrant being taken out of play. This means that it is highly likely that damage caused by blows to the head accumulate towards an executive impairment in later life."
Dr Hampshire and his colleagues at the University of Western Ontario, Canada suggest that fMRI could be used to reveal potential neurological problems in American football players that aren't picked up by standard clinical tests. Brain imaging results could be useful to retired players who are negotiating compensation for neurological problems that may be related to their careers. Players could also be scanned each season to detect problems early.
The findings also highlight the inadequacy of standard cognitive tests for detecting certain types of behavioural deficit.
"Researchers have put a lot of time into developing tests to pick up on executive dysfunction, but none of them work at all well. It's not unusual for an individual who has had a blow to the head to perform relatively well on a neuropsychological testing battery, and then go on to struggle in everyday life.
"The results tell us something very interesting about the human brain, which is that after damage, it can work harder and bring extra areas on line in order to cope with cognitive tasks. It is likely that in more complicated real world scenarios, this plasticity is insufficient and consequently, the executive impairment is no longer masked. In this respect, the results are also of relevance to other patients who suffer from multiple head injuries.
"Of course, this is a relatively preliminary study. We really need to test more players and to track players across seasons using brain imaging."
###
The participants were enrolled by David Hubbard MD at the Applied fMRI Institute in San Diego, California. The study was funded by the Hubbard Foundation and the Canada Excellence Research Chair Program.
For more information please contact:
Sam Wong
Research Media Officer
Imperial College London
Email: sam.wong@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7594 2198
Out of hours duty press officer: +44(0)7803 886 248
Notes to editors
1. A. Hampshire et al. 'Hypoconnectivity and Hyperfrontality in Retired American Football Players' Scientific Reports, 17 October 2013. DOI: 10.1038/srep02972
2. About Imperial College London
Consistently rated amongst the world's best universities, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 14,000 students and 6,000 staff of the highest international quality. Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and business, delivering practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.
Since its foundation in 1907, Imperial's contributions to society have included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of research for the benefit of all continues today, with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to improve global health, tackle climate change, develop sustainable sources of energy and address security challenges.
In 2007, Imperial College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust formed the UK's first Academic Health Science Centre. This unique partnership aims to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible.
Website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
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.
We already knew that the NSA was collecting a lot of data with its many surveillance tools—like, a lot of data. But new details about the agency's role in the CIA's drone program show that they're collecting incredibly detailed data, too. Detailed enough to catch a terrorist with a single email.
Citing documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the Washington Post reported on how the NSA and CIA work in tandem to gather information on suspected terrorists and their whereabouts, information that they later use to plan drone strikes to take out those terrorists. In one instance, a single "innocuous" email to al-Qaeda agent Hassan Ghul from his wife proved deadly. From the Post:
The e-mail from Ghul's wife "about her current living conditions" contained enough detail to confirm the coordinates of that household, according to a document summarizing the mission. "This information enabled a capture/kill operation against an individual believed to be Hassan Ghul on October 1," it said.
Of course, the NSA had other irons in the fire. The WP reports that the agency had also "deployed an arsenal of cyber-espionage tools, secretly seizing control of laptops, siphoning audio files and other messages, and tracking radio transmissions." But one single email to confirm! That's either some very sophisticated surveillance or one very detailed email.
It's hard to walk away from the Post's story about the NSA and the CIA's drone program—which is worth reading in full—without wondering if some of these same tools are being used on American soil, either to track suspected terrorists or spy on Americans that may or may not be connected to them. Based on what we know from the Snowden revelations, it seems like they probably are. [Washington Post]
"Thor" is coming to the Lucca Comics & Games Fest.
ROME -- The new film from the successful Thor superhero franchise will have its Italian premiere at the upcoming Lucca Comics & Games Festival, organizers said Tuesday.
The Oct. 30-Nov. 3 Tuscan event, dubbed Saturday, Nov. 2, "SaTHORday," with the day's activities rotating around the premiere of Thor: The Dark World, directed by Alan Taylor and starring Chris Hemsworth reprising his role as the muscled Norse god from the original Thor and The Avengers -- both of which will screen ahead of the premiere of the latest film.
The festival will also give priority entry to any moviegoers dressed like any of the superheroes from the Marvel universe.
On the same day, the Lucca fest will also play dress-up with another anticipated blockbuster: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, with models and one festival attendee invited to dress like characters from that film with the help of an acclaimed stylist and a designer. The selected festivalgoer will also be awarded a trip to Rome for the world festival premiere of the new Hunger Games film at the Rome Film Festival on Nov. 14.
Thor: The Dark World will open wide in Italy Nov. 20 under the umbrella of The Walt Disney Co.-Italia.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will be released in Italy a week later.
Facebook announced a pair of changes to the privacy settings for teen users on Wednesday. On the plus side, teens' post will now be shared with a smaller group of people by default. On the potentially problematic side, they'll also be able to share things with the public for the first time.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama plans to sign legislation on Wednesday night ending the fiscal crisis, and federal government employees should expect to return to work on Thursday morning, Office of Management and Budget Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell said in a statement.
Congress passed a bill late Wednesday that reopens the federal government and avoids a damaging default on government debt.
(Reporting by Karey Van Hall; editing by Jackie Frank)
Ready to save some cash on your tech buys? Then you've come to the right place. Our friends at sister site gdgt track price drops on thousands of products every day, and twice a week they feature some of the best deals they've found right here. But act fast! Many of these are limited-time offers, and won't last long.
Today's top deals include gear that could pass for back to school necessities -- if you're convincing. The popular and uber-portable 11-inch MacBook Air (mid-2012) is currently cruising at low-priced altitudes, and budding filmmakers or game coders could make an argument for nabbing Samsung's 46-inch F8000 series LED TV for "research" at its current price point. Want to make the most of your post-ramen bankroll?Join gdgtand add the gadgets you're shopping for to your "Want" list -- every time there's a price cut, you'll get an email alert!
When it comes to slim and reliable laptops, the MacBook Air has always been one of our favorites. This bag-friendly mid-2012 model garnered a gdgt Score of 89, boasts a Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor and weighs just under 2.5 pounds. Sure, with only 64GB of storage space, it may not be as robust as we'd like, but there's plenty of portable drive options out there, and if that doesn't cut it, you can still get a great a great deal on the 128GB model -- currently priced at an approachable $820.
We'd all love to turn our couch time into that idyllic experience, but when budget's an issue, there are still lots of incredible options out there at palatable prices. A 46-inch HDTV experience, bundled with web browsing, Netflix, Hulu+ and Minority Report-like gesture control is definitely nothing to sneeze at. Top that off with a gdgt Score of 87, a low price and free shipping, and it looks to be a pretty sweet deal.
Monster's lineup may include some dubiously priced products, sure, but Dr. Dre and Beats once saw fit to team up with the company for some bass-pumping headsets, too. So when we saw Nokia joining forces as part of its colorful line of products, our interest was piqued. There have definitely been some positive reviews of these in-ear buds, and with an inline volume/mic control and this significant price drop, they're definitely worth checking out. Obviously, it's up to you whether to rock them alongside Nokia's Lumia line or cross the brand borders and jack them into Apple's latest color-rich 5c for your daily jams.
You can never have too much storage space on hand, and portability is a definitely a bonus. The Backup Plus Portable from Seagate managed to snag the "must have" stamp of approval over at gdgt, and with 1TB of room available, it's worth a look. It offers USB 3.0 for quick data transfer rates and a bevy of adapters for Thunderbolt and Firewire 800, so you shouldn't have trouble with connectivity. This version is NTFS, but not to worry; it's pre-loaded with a driver for Mac so you'll be able to swap it out interchangeably across platforms.
The Apache Software Foundation unveiled its latest release of its open source data processing program, Hadoop 2. It runs multiple applications simultaneously to enable users to quickly and efficiently leverage data in multiple ways at supercomputing speed, Apache said Wednesday.
Apache Hadoop is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers using simple programming models. It enables organizations to more efficiently and cost-effectively store, process, manage and analyze the growing volumes of data being created and collected every day.
Hadoop is deployed at enterprise organizations around the globe, including Amazon Web Services, AOL, Apple, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, and Hewlett-Packard.
The latest version of the platform, released Wednesday, has been more than four years in the making and has a number of new components. Most notable is the addition of YARN, (Yet Another Resource Negotiator), which is a successor to Hadoop's MapReduce. The new version splits major functions into two separate daemons, with resource management in one, and job scheduling and monitoring in the other.
YARN sits on top of the HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) and serves as a large-scale, distributed operating system for big data applications, enabling multiple applications to run simultaneously for more efficient support of data throughout its entire lifecycle, Apache said in a news release. Hadoop 2 and YARN gives users the ability to mix batch, interactive and real-time workloads within a stable foundational part of the Hadoop ecosystem, it said.
More than a dozen Apache projects integrate with Hadoop, and 10 more are about to follow, Apache said.
The General Availability (GA) release of Hadoop 2 follows a preview distribution that was released in June, that also included YARN. Apache Hadoop 2 will be released under the Apache License v2.0.
Loek is Amsterdam Correspondent and covers online privacy, intellectual property, open-source and online payment issues for the IDG News Service. Follow him on Twitter at @loekessers or email tips and comments to loek_essers@idg.com.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The grape harvest in the European Union has picked up from the extremely bad 2012 season, wine experts said. But key regions in France are still struggling because of bad weather.
Several wine-producing regions had the worst harvest in a half-century last year, so the European vintners want to regain global market share with a more bountiful harvest. Overall EU production is estimated to swell by 15.2 percent compared with last year.
Thierry Coste, an expert with the EU farmers' union, said Wednesday that overall production will still be below the five-year average. France remained well below the 2011 levels, but Italy and Spain have enjoyed sizable increases.
"We are happy that we have broken with the negative spiral," Coste said.
The European harvest is essential to the global wine industry since the 28-nation EU accounts for about two-thirds of global production and 70 percent of exports, according to European Commission figures.
After output slumped to 148 million hectoliters in 2012 from an average of 175 million hectoliters, it's expected to be back up to around 170 million hectoliters. Coste said it will allow them to get back some market share lost to international competitors like South Africa and Chile.
Still, there was some bad news, especially in France.
"There have been some serious concerns due to weather vagaries for Bordeaux, the Loire Valley and Burgundy because the hail was much stronger and intense than usual," he said, referring to freak hailstorms in late spring that ravaged some of the finest French vineyards.
"Great areas have been strongly affected," Coste said. On top of that, he said the Merlot grape, an essential ingredient in Bordeaux reds, was having trouble flowering.
French production, which dropped from 50.2 million hectoliters in 2011 to 41.4 million last year, is expected to recover only to 44.1 million hectoliters.
Not all is bad news for France. The Champagne region, where an unusual growing season was followed by late harvesting, still has the promise of a great year, the local vintners' committee said.
And when it comes to quality, Coste is hopeful.
"This year the wines might have less maturity and less power than other years. But they will fully express the land they are on," Coste said.
The top European wines often do very well abroad. Overall, the EU vintners are specifically looking at the U.S.
"What we are realizing today is that there is this high demand in the United States and Europe can fulfill that demand," Coste said.
IBM's Watson hasn't been in medical school long, but he already has two jobs. Teaming with the Cleveland Clinic, Big Blue researchers have developed WatsonPaths, a diagnosis and education project, and Watson EMR Assistant, a tool for delving deep into medical records. WatsonPaths is the more ...
A timeline of Congress' battle over the partial government shutdown and expiring federal borrowing authority:
Sept. 20: Republican-run House ignores White House veto threat, votes to keep government open through Dec. 15 if President Barack Obama agrees to cut off money for his 2010 health care law.
Sept. 24-25: Tea party Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and other conservatives speak on Senate floor for more than 21 consecutive hours about using shutdown bill to weaken health care law.
Sept. 27: Democratic-led Senate votes to remove House-approved provision defunding health care law, sends bill keeping agencies open through Nov. 15 back to House.
Sept. 29: House shifts demands on health care law, votes to delay implementation for a year and repeal tax on medical devices. Separately, House votes to pay troops in case of shutdown. Senate approves bill next day, Obama signs it into law.
Sept. 30: Senate rejects latest House provisions curbing health care law. House reworks shutdown bill again, delaying for a year health care law requirement that individuals buy health insurance and requiring members of Congress and staff to pay full expense of health insurance, without government paying part of costs. Senate kills latest House health care provisions.
Oct. 1: Government's new fiscal year begins, partial federal shutdown starts. House stands by language delaying required individual health coverage and blocking federal health insurance subsidies for Congress, requests formal negotiations with Senate. Senate quickly rejects House effort for formal bargaining.
Oct. 2: Embarking on strategy of voting to restart popular programs, Republicans push bills through House reopening national parks and National Institutes of Health and letting the District of Columbia municipal government spend money. Over the next two weeks, they pass more than a dozen similar bills reviving veterans, disaster aid, Head Start and other programs. Democrats mostly vote "no," saying entire government must reopen, and Senate ignores the measures. Obama discusses impasse with congressional leaders at White House, no progress reported.
Oct. 4: Republicans increasingly tie shutdown fight to need for Congress to renew federal borrowing authority by Oct. 17 or risk economy-rattling government default. GOP leaders increasingly shift their conditions for passage of the shutdown and debt limit bills to deficit reduction.
Oct. 5: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says he is bringing most of his department's 350,000 furloughed workers back to work immediately.
Oct. 6: House Speaker John Boehner says House won't pass bills ending shutdown or raising debt limit without negotiations on GOP demands.
Oct. 8: Obama and Boehner suggest they might consider short-term bills ending the shutdown and extending the debt limit to give them time to negotiate.
Oct. 10: Boehner proposes six-week debt limit extension, conditioned on Obama bargaining over spending cuts and reopening government. House GOP leaders discuss standoff with Obama at White House, no deal but both sides cite progress. Congress gives final approval to bill providing death benefits for slain troops and Obama signs it.
Oct. 11: White House, congressional Republicans continue bargaining. A bipartisan Senate group works on a measure that would reopen the government and prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its bills.
Oct. 12: Boehner tells House Republicans that negotiations with White House have stalled. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., begin talks. Senate derails Democratic effort to extend debt limit through 2014.
Oct. 14: Reid and McConnell say they've made progress toward a deal described as extending debt limit to Feb. 7, reopening government until Jan. 15, other provisions.
Oct. 15: Boehner prepares House alternative but it collapses for lack of votes. His proposal would have extended debt limit to Feb. 7, fully reopened government until Dec. 15, ended federal health insurance subsidies for president, members of Congress, other government officials.
This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "Understanding Each Other"
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“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.”
Typically, TechCrunch Cribs goes inside tech companies to show a side of them that cameras don’t often see. But this episode took us to the San Francisco office of CreativeLIVE, the online education startup that broadcasts daily lessons its classrooms live to a worldwide audience — and here, cameras are literally part of the furniture.
So this time around, Cribs just turned our cameras on the people who turn their cameras onto others. So meta! It was very fun to see behind the scenes of a truly modern kind of video studio.
Check out the video embedded above to see CreativeLIVE’s very charismatic co-founder Chase Jarvis show us through the company’s massive San Francisco office, where plants grow on walls, PBR-fueled afternoon rooftop meetings abound, and teachers become worldwide video stars.
creativeLIVE is the world’s leading live, online classroom for creative entrepreneurs. Using a scalable freemium model, creativeLIVE is transforming the $100 billion continuing education market by offering frictionless access to the best teachers in the world via a social video platform. creativeLIVE’s live broadcasts are interactive social classrooms. Anyone in the world can watch the live-streamed classes for free and copies of the courses are available for purchase at any time. More than one million students from over 200...
Stepping back from her busy schedules, Drew Barrymore soaked up the spotlight by covering the November 2013 issue of InStyle UK magazine.
During her interview with the publication, the "Charlie's Angels" actress chats about her daughter and shares how her beauty company Flower affects the parenting of the one-year-old.
"The beauty venture was a good thing for me to do as a parent," Miss Barrymore explained. "Olive is going to pick up a lot on the way I behave, so by being a businesswoman and caring about the things I do, or by being philanthropic with my charity work, I can show her how important it is to get outside of your own world."
While discussing her love for cosmetics, Drew states, "I want to spend more of my time on it because I've been passionate about [it] since I was a kid. I love beauty. I love everything related to beauty and putting all of it together: the packaging, the formula, the presentation."
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will take the Golden Globes stage again for the 2014 and 2015 awards shows.
They wowed the Golden Globes crowd at the 2013 awards show, and in news that sure to please viewers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will have the opportunity to do so again — and again.
The pair has signed on to host NBC's coverage of the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 12, 2014, and as it that weren't enough, they've also made a deal to return for the following year.
“Tina and Amy are two of the most talented comedic writer/performers in our business and they were a major reason the Golden Globes was the most entertaining awards show of last season,” Paul Telegdy, president of alternative and late night programming for NBC, said in a statement. “We’re elated they wanted to host together again and that they committed for the next two years.”
Theo Kingma, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — the organization behind the Globes — said that the return of Fey and Poehler "ensures that the Golden Globes will once again be the biggest, best and most entertaining awards celebration of the year.”
It's no wonder the deal with the comedy duo is getting such raves from those involved. The 2013 show proved to be the highest-rated Golden Globes in six years.
Yan Cabral made his UFC debut on Wednesday with a unanimous decision victory over David Mitchell at UFC Fight Night 29 in Barueri, Brazil, but he lost part of the money he made in the fight as soon as he returned to Rio de Janeiro.
Sources close to the fighter told MMAFighting.com that Cabral had just left the bank when two men robbed him at gunpoint in Marques de Abrantes street, a few blocks from Nova Uniao training center.O Diafirst reported the news.
"I live in Rio de Janeiro for 15 years and it has never happened to me before," Cabral reportedly told O Dia.
According to the report, the TUF Brazil 2 contestant lost some training equipment plus the money he would use to pay his head coach and manager, Nova Uniao’s leader Andre Pederneiras.
BANGKOK — Thai authorities have arrested a bar owner in connection with a lewd sex show mentioned in racy tweets by pop star Rihanna during her recent trip to Thailand, officials said Monday, two weeks after an Instagram photo of Rihanna with a protected primate led to the arrest of two other men.
Officials on the island of Phuket, 680 kilometers (420 miles) south of Bangkok, said Monday the bar owner faced charges of obscenity and operating an entertainment venue without a permit.
Local district chief Weera Kerdsirimongkon said the man was arrested Saturday as part of a crackdown on shows featuring naked dancers.
"Authorities found out about this bar the morning after Rihanna tweeted about it, but we were not able to catch them violating the law until Saturday night," Weera said. "We had been waiting for them and finally caught them red-handed."
Weera said the bar owner could face up to one month's imprisonment and a fine of up to 60,000 baht ($1,900).
This isn't the first arrest triggered by Rihanna's postings on social media. A photo of her with a slow loris, a squirrel-like animal with big eyes, on Instagram led local police to arrest a 20-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy, who could face charges of possession of protected animals. The charge carries a penalty of up to four years in prison and a 40,000 baht ($1,300) fine.
AAAOct. 12, 201310:56 AM ET Snowden: mass surveillance making us less safe AP
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. (AP Photo)
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. (AP Photo)
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden smiles during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. Snowden, who is charged by a U.S. court with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the classified NSA programs, has been granted asylum in Russia. (AP Photo)
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden speaks during a presentation ceremony for the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. (AP Photo)
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden, center, receives the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. Snowden, who is charged by a U.S. court with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the classified NSA programs, has been granted asylum in Russia. At right is Raymond McGovern, a former U.S. government official, at left is former NSA executive Thomas Drake. (AP Photo)
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Friday, Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden, center, receives the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia. Snowden was awarded the Sam Adams Award, according to videos released by the organization WikiLeaks. The award ceremony was attended by three previous recipients. Snowden, who is charged by a U.S. court with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the classified NSA programs, has been granted asylum in Russia. At right is Raymond McGovern, a former U.S. government official, at left is former NSA executive Thomas Drake. (AP Photo)
MOSCOW (AP) — The former National Security Agency systems analyst, Edward Snowden, said that the mass surveillance programs used by the United States to tap into phone and internet connections around the world are making people less safe.
In short video clips posted by the WikiLeaks website on Friday, Snowden said that the NSA's mass surveillance, which he disclosed before fleeing to Russia, "puts us at risk of coming into conflict with our own government."
A U.S. court has charged Snowden with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing those programs.
Snowden described them as a "dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under sort of an eye that sees everything even when it's not needed."
"They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely," Snowden said.
The videos are the first of Snowden speaking since July 12, when the former NSA analyst was shown at a Moscow airport pleading with Russian authorities to grant him asylum, which they did on Aug. 1. That decision has strained the relations between the U.S. and Russia, and President Barack Obama called off a meeting with President Putin at a summit hosted by Russia in September.
Snowden said the U.S. government was "unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth."
In a note accompanying the videos, WikiLeaks said Snowden spoke on Wednesday in Moscow as he accepted the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the U.S. military of deliberately underestimating the enemy's strength for political purposes, and given annually by a group of retired U.S. national security officers. Four former U.S. government officials who were at the ceremony told The Associated Press on Thursday that Snowden is adjusting to life in Russia and said they saw no evidence that he was under the control of local security services. They refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living.
Associated PressNews Topics: General news, Government surveillance, Domestic spying, National security, Intelligence agencies, Political issues, Government and politics, Human rights and civil liberties, Social issues, Social affairs, Military and defense
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IBM's Watson hasn't been in medical school long, but he already has two jobs. Teaming with the Cleveland Clinic, Big Blue researchers have developed WatsonPaths, a diagnosis and education project, and Watson EMR Assistant, a tool for delving deep into medical records. WatsonPaths is the more ...
