iNewsFactor: July 2010

Monday, July 19, 2010

Windows Phone 7 in depth: A fresh start

by Matt Buchanan

updated 7/19/2010 11:15:01 AM ET

PREVIEW

"What's this?" a girl at a party asked, as I handed her my phone. She touched a square, and everything flipped away. "It's Microsoft's brand new phone. Kind of like a fresh start," I explained. "Oh. It's... neat."

That's the most apt way to describe Windows Phone 7, really. It's a fresh start, and it's neat. It's a clean slate that Microsoft can use as a foundation to build something entirely new, and it's not like any other phone you've used. It manages to do something that's sadly rare for Microsoft, which is to leverage all of these different Microsoft products and services — Bing, Xbox Live, Zune to name a few—and seamlessly bring them together in a single, polished product. Which is exactly what Windows Phone 7 needs to be. (Msnbc.com is an NBC Universal-Microsoft joint venture.)

All images courtesy of Gizmodo
Phone 7 manages to do something that's rare for Microsoft, which is to leverage different Microsoft products and services

Windows Phone 7 is coming out this year, in the next few months — October, possibly — and the basic rundown of "What is Windows Phone 7?" can be found here and here. The version that I've been using for the last few days on prototype hardware (a Samsung phone which will never be sold) has been variously described to me by Microsoft as "beta 2," a "close-to-release-candidate build" and a "technical preview." Developers will be getting phones loaded with it shortly in order to have apps ready for launch. It's representative of what the final Windows Phone 7 interface and experience will be like, though two critical parts were missing, because they're still under heavy construction: Xbox Live and the Apps Marketplace.

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U.S.-Born Radical Cleric Added to Terror Blacklist

Published July 16, 2010 | Associated Press

The Obama administration added a U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support.

The Treasury Department placed Anwar al-Awlaki -- accused by officials of helping plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing -- on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. That means any bank accounts found in the United States belonging to him are frozen. Americans are forbidden from doing business with him. And, it bans him from traveling to the U.S.

The move comes about six months after the U.S. government put al-Awlaki on a secret list of targets to be captured or killed, according to U.S. officials.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki, 39, is not perceived by American officials as a major tactical terror leader on par with al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. But his role as an inspirational exhorter for al-Qaida's cause and his growing involvement in plots aimed at the U.S. has made him a prime target in the effort to counter the militant movement.

China reduces US Treasury debt holdings in May

WASHINGTON

China reduced its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt in May as total foreign holdings of government debt posted a slight increase.

China's holdings fell by $32.5 billion to $867.7 billion, the Treasury reported Friday.

The report said that total holdings of Treasury securities edged up $5.8 billion to $3.96 trillion in May, a slight increase of 0.1 percent compared to April.

The Treasury said that net purchases of long-term securities, a category that covers not only U.S. government debt but also debt of U.S. companies, increased by $35.4 billion in May. That followed bigger gains of $81.5 billion in April and $141.4 billion in March.

While the May figure was down from the previous two months, analysts said it still reflected significant interest on the part of foreigners in holding U.S. government and corporate debt.

U.S. Sends Help to Mexico After Series of Deadly Attacks

Published July 19, 2010 | FoxNews.com

The head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Monday said immigration officials are working closely with Mexican authorities to investigate a series of stunning attacks in Mexico including a car bomb in the border city of Juarez that has drawn comparisons to Middle Eastern terrorism.

While the Obama administration rolls out its plan to deploy 1,200 National Guard and other assets to the southwestern border, the violence in northern Mexico has only escalated in recent weeks.

Eighteen people were massacred at a party in the city of Torreon on Sunday -- more than a month after 19 people were killed at a drug-rehab center in Chihuahua. In the border city of Juarez, where more than 1,500 have been killed this year, a car bomb apparently designed to lure police to the scene killed three people on Thursday.

First Lawsuit Heard Agains Arizona Immigration Law

A showdown over immigration

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Ashley Cooper is not an illegal immigrant. She's not Hispanic.

Yet the 22-year-old who graduated recently from Northern Arizona University spends her weekends in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods in Flagstaff, Ariz., raising money to battle the state's new immigration law. She and other volunteers pass collection cups around soccer matches, neighborhood festivals and quinceañeras— traditional Hispanic coming-of-age parties for girls turning 15.

"I've never been more of a churchgoer in my life than now," Cooper, a volunteer with the Repeal Coalition, a group trying to repeal the state's immigration law, says of her fundraising efforts.

Cooper and others who feel strongly about Arizona's immigration enforcement law are preparing for what could be an onslaught of litigation starting July 29, when the law is scheduled to go into effect. It would require police officers to question the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Russia Ready to Deliver Fuel to Iran Despite Sanctions

Russian companies were ready to supply fuel to Iran, despite unilateral U.S. and European Union sanctions targeting Tehran's oil and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said Wednesday.

"Russian companies are prepared to deliver oil products to Iran. The possibility of delivering oil products to Iran exists, if there is a commercial interest," said Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko.

Russia already expressed its dissatisfaction with sanction measures, agreed last month by the U.S. and the EU, to punish Iran for its defiance in the nuclear standoff with Western countries.

Under Fire, Apple to Discuss iPhone

Published July 14, 2010

| The Wall Street Journal

Fox News has confirmed that Apple will hold a news conference Friday concerning its iPhone 4, which is facing mounting criticism over reception problems tied to antenna design.

An Apple spokesman declined to give further details, including whether the conference will address reported reception problems or Apple's response to those problems. Apple plans to hold the conference at its headquarters, the spokesman said.

Apple watchers speculated that the company will offer a solution. "Given the intense pressure and scrutiny Apple has come under on the problem with the iPhone 4, it's going to be about some kind of fix or compensation for the owners of the phone," speculated Ed Snyder, an analyst with Charter Equity Research.

The Cupertino, Calif., company launched the phone last month to great fanfare as it boasted of a design that put the antenna in a stainless steel band around the phone's frame.

But even as the phone has continued to sell well at stores, it has been plagued with user complaints about dropped calls when the phone is held in a way that covers part of the antenna.

U.S. General: Iran's Threat in Iraq on the Rise

BAGHDAD — The threat to U.S. troops in Iraq from Iranian-backed militants has increased although it will not disrupt the ongoing withdrawal, a top U.S. commander said on Tuesday.

While the overall number of attacks on U.S. military convoys leaving Iraq has been "fairly low," top U.S. commander in the country Gen. Ray Odierno said "a very consistent threat" from Iran-backed groups has increased in the last two weeks.

Tehran is stepping up its efforts to increase its political and economic influence in Iraq as U.S. military capability diminishes, he added.

"There's a very consistent threat from Iranian surrogates operating in Iraq," Odierno told reporters in Baghdad. As a result, security has been beefed up at some U.S. bases in Iraq and joint operations with Iraqi forces against suspected Iranian-sponsored insurgents have been increased.

While the connections between certain groups of Shiite militants and the government in Tehran was "always very convoluted," Odierno was fairly certain of their ties to the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a heavily armed paramilitary force tasked with protecting the clerical regime.

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Leak Foils BP Effort to Choke Gusher With Cap

NEW ORLEANS -- BP engineers working to choke the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico found a leak on a line attached to the side of the new well cap and were trying to fix it Thursday before attempting to stop the flow of crude.

BP said Wednesday evening it had isolated the leak and was repairing it before moving forward. It wasn't clear how it would affect the timing of the operation, or whether oil continued to be slowly closed off into the cap.

Work started earlier Wednesday after a day-long hiatus to allay government fears that the disaster could be made worse by going forward with the tests to determine whether the temporary cap can withstand the pressure and contain the oil. It was the best hope yet of stopping the crude from streaming into the water for the first time since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 people.

The process began with BP shutting off pipes that were funneling some of the oil to ships on the surface so the full force of the gusher went up into the cap. Then deep-sea robots began slowly closing, one at a time, three openings in the cap that let oil pass through. Ultimately, the flow of crude will be blocked entirely.

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Texas Mayor Left Ominous Suicide Note, Keys at Front Door

COPPELL, Texas -- When police arrived at a suburban Dallas mayor's sprawling upscale home, they quickly realized something was very wrong. Rather than attend a City Council meeting, Mayor Jayne Peters had apparently taped an envelope to the door with a key and an ominous note inside.

Something unpleasant awaited them, warned the typed missive.

Inside the two-story brick house, Coppell police found a horrific scene Tuesday night. Peters and her 19-year-old college-bound daughter were both dead of gunshot wounds to the head, an apparent murder-suicide committed by the mayor, investigators say.

Three other notes were found at the house. But they did not offer an explanation for the deaths, only instructions for managing family affairs, such as care for the dogs, Coppell Deputy Police Chief Steve Thomas said Wednesday.

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Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston to Tie the Knot

(July 14) -- Levi Johnston has taken his reconciliation with the Palin family one big step further: He popped the question to Bristol, but they didn't tell her parents she said yes because she was too scared.

Her parents seem less than thrilled.

The cover of Us Weekly shows Bristol Palin, 19, wearing an engagement ring. Johnston, 20, has his arm around her, and both are holding their 18-month-old out-of-wedlock son, Tripp. The cover -- with the headline blaring "We're Getting Married!" -- was shown this morning on NBC's "Today." A video of the magazine's photo shoot in Alaska also was shown.

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Illegal immigrants seeking in-state tuition rates hold 'teach-ins' at Capitol, White House

WASHINGTON

the Capitol and White House steps, that is.

A coalition of student immigrant advocacy groups in Massachusetts, Colorado and California on Wednesday launched a makeshift school in the nation's capital, reminiscent of the "teach-ins" of the 1960s, to encourage a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants through college enrollment.

The first class at "Dream University" — a school with informal classes and volunteer professors and instructors from around the country — was held Wednesday outside the White House, with more planned in the weeks ahead. Students don't get credit for the classes, but they're free.

The first class of about 27 students, several wearing white DREAM University T-shirts, gathered at Lafayette Park, across from the White House.

Cady Landa, a former Boston public schoolteacher, led the students in a discussion of a report recently released by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank.

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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Cleveland Fumes Over LeBron's Process, Not His Decision

Pat McManamon
Senior NBA Writer
Getty Images

CLEVELAND -- It's time to put to rest some fallacies that have followed LeBron James' decision to go to Miami.

First, Clevelanders understood better than anyone that James had the right to change teams. They know it's a free country and he was a free agent. They really and truly know what "free" means -- probably better than anyone. Because every day of the last three years they've lived with the notion.

Heck, Cleveland has seen enough people leave, period, to understand that folks don't always stay in town. They get it.

So to quantify their anger the past few days at James' decision to go to Miami is to misplace it. Cleveland was disappointed James left; they were furious with the way he did it. Had he stayed, they'd have taken him back -- he's a rare basketball player, a once-in-a-lifetime talent -- but his stature still would have taken a hit because they wouldn't have appreciated how he went about his "business."

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Monday, July 12, 2010

Kings Season 1 Episode 4 - Insurrection

David's loyalties are torn when his brother joins the resistance after King Silas offers Gath the territory where David's family lives.

Kings Season 1 Episode 3 - First Night

King Silas makes a sacrifice to save the life of his illegitimate child, while Jack, who has ulterior motives, takes David on a wild night out.

Published July 12, 2010 | Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

A gunman opened fire at an Albuquerque fiber optics manufacturer on Monday, killing five people and wounding four others before turning the gun on himself in what police said was a domestic violence dispute.

The shooting at Emcore Corp. appeared to involve the 37-year-old gunman's ex-wife or girlfriend, police Chief Ray Schultz said. It was not immediately clear whether she was among the dead, or what caliber weapon he used.

Schultz said the gunman was a former employee, but did not release his name.

U.S., Mexican Officials Say They Can't Confirm Arrest of Hezbollah Operative on Border

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Published July 09, 2010

FoxNews.com

Officials in the U.S. and Mexico say they cannot confirm a widely-circulating report out of Kuwait that a Hezbollah leader has been arrested in Mexico.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported last week that Hezbollah operatives had employed Mexican nationals with ties to Lebanon to set up a network in South America designed to target Israel and the West, and that the group's alleged leader, Jameel Nasr, had been arrested in Tijuana.

According to the report, authorities in Mexico conducted a surveillance operation on Nasr, who traveled frequently to Lebanon to receive instructions from Hezbollah militants.

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