Over 64% of compatible devices are already running iOS 7, according to Apple, making it by far the company's most successful mobile operating system. In all, iOS 7 was downloaded over 200 million times in the first five days after it was released. 
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/e7jhy1OgDyA/Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, introduces the new iPad Air on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, introduces the new iPad Air on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks on stage before a new product introduction on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Software Engineering at Apple, speaks on stage before a new product announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks on stage before a new product introduction on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Software Engineering at Apple, speaks on stage before a new product announcement on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple Inc. is refreshing its iPad lineup in hopes of reclaiming lost ground in the tablet market and slashing the prices of its Mac computers to intensify the pressure on the beleaguered makers of PCs running Microsoft's Windows.
Tuesday's unveiling of Apple's latest products primes the company for a holiday shopping season onslaught aimed at a list of rivals that includes Google Inc., Samsung Electronics, Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
A thinner, lighter and faster-running tablet computer called the iPad Air highlighted the event in San Francisco. Apple Inc. also showed off a souped-up iPad Mini that boasts a faster microprocessor, a high-definition display screen and a higher price than its predecessor.
The iPad upgrades, coming a year after the release of the tablet's previous generation, fell largely in line with analyst expectations.
In a surprise, Apple is introducing slightly revamped MacBook Pros at prices 9 percent to 13 percent below the previous versions. What's more, Apple is giving away its latest Mac operating system — Mavericks — for free, as well as several pieces of software, including programs called iWorks and iLife that provide many of the same tools as Microsoft's Office.
"We are turning the industry on its ear," Apple CEO Tim Cook said of the company's strategy.
Technology analyst Patrick Moorhead predicted the discounted MacBook Pros will force personal computer makers to cut the prices of their machines by at least $100 for the holidays.
And Ovum analyst Jan Dawson thinks Apple's giveaway of the operating system and software programs "is now teaching people to expect both of those things to be free. While this won't disrupt Microsoft's business overnight, it will create further pressure on Microsoft to bring down prices."
If that happens, it would be another blow for Microsoft, which has seen its Windows revenue suffer in recent years as personal computer sales sink amid a shift to smartphones and tablets.
Apple triggered the upheaval with the 2007 release of the first iPhone followed up with the 2010 introduction of the iPad.
While both products have a fierce following, Apple has been losing market share to rivals who primarily make mobile devices running on Google's Android software. As Apple is now doing with its Mavericks software for Macs, Google gives away Android to device makers who can afford to undercut the prices for iPhones and iPads.
Despite the competitive pressure, Apple has steadfastly refused to cut prices on its top-of-the-line products. Instead, it has sold older versions of its Phones and iPads at slight discounts to consumers who are willing to settle for something less than state-of-the-art technology.
The Cupertino, Calif. company is hewing to that philosophy with its latest tablets. The iPad Air will start at $499, just like its predecessors, while the new iPad Mini will sell for $399 — a 21 percent increase from the price of the first Mini. The price of the original Mini, which runs at slower speeds and lacks a high-definition display screen, is falling from $329 to $299.
As it has done for more than year, Apple will continue selling the iPad 2 — a tablet that came out two-and-half years ago — for $399.
"Apple doesn't want to play in the mud with declining prices" on iPads, Moorhead said.
The strategy hasn't been a hit with investors who are unhappy with the Cupertino, Calif. company's slowing growth as it loses sales to lower-priced alternatives. Wall Street also is disillusioned with Apple's lack of another breakthrough product since the death of co-founder and chief visionary Steve Jobs two years ago.
Apple's stock dipped $1.49 to close at $519.87 Tuesday. The shares remain about 25 percent below their peak reached 13 months ago.
The iPad Air's main appeal is a more svelte design and a faster microprocessor, the same kind of chip in the iPhone 5S that Apple released a month ago. The new tablet weighs just 1 pound, compared with 1.4 pounds for the previous version. Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller hailed it as a "screaming fast iPad," noting that it is eight times faster than the original model that came out in 2010.
The iPad Air will go on sale Nov. 1. The new iPad Mini will be available at a still-to-be-determined date later in November.
They are coming out at a time when Apple needs to reassert itself in a tablet market. Google, Amazon.com and Samsung have been winning over consumers with flashy tablets that sell for $200 to $400. None of the rivals boast the 475,000 apps that Apple says are made for the iPad, but that vast selection hasn't mattered to many cost-conscious consumers.
The research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that Android tablets will end 2013 with a 50 percent share of the worldwide market versus 49 percent for the iPad. Just two years ago, the iPad commanded a 65 percent market share compared to 30 percent for Android tablets.
Apple sold 14.6 million iPads during the three months ending in June, down 14 percent from the same time last year. It marked the first time Apple has posted a year-over-year decline in iPad sales.
It might have happened again in the latest quarter ending in September. Although Apple isn't scheduled to report its results for the latest quarter until next Monday, a statistic released at Tuesday's event gave a hint of how the iPad fared in the period.
Cook said Apple's total iPad sales since the device's inception surpassed 170 million units earlier this month. Given that Apple sold 155 million iPads through June, that means fewer than 15 million were sold in the quarter ending in September. Apple sold 14 million iPads in last year's quarter ending in September.
__
Ortutay reported from New York.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-22-US-TEC-Apple-Event/id-aacb1e53d77d46bda1e6493421b1a5d1WASHINGTON (AP) — There's some good news on college tuition. Yes, the cost has gone up — but not as much in the past.
For in-state students at a four-year public college or university, published tuition and fees increased this year on average $247 to $8,893. That's a 2.9 percent increase — the smallest one-year increase in more than 30 years, the College Board said Wednesday in its annual report on college prices.
Out-of-state prices, as well as the costs to attend public two-year colleges and private institutions rose but they also avoided big spikes, said Sandy Baum, co-author of the report. These more moderate increases could lessen concern that an annual rapid growth is tuition prices in the new normal.
"It does seem that the spiral is moderating. Not turning around, not ending, but moderating," Baum said.
The average published cost for tuition and fees at a private college for the 2013-14 academic year was $30,094 — up $1,105. An out-of-state student at a public college or university faced an annual average price tag of $22,203, which is up $670. The average price tag to for an in-state student to attend a two-year institution was much less at $3,264 — up $110.
Most students don't actually pay that, though. There are grants, tax credits and deductions that help ease the cost of going to college. About two-thirds of full-time students get grants, most from the federal government.
But, in the two years leading up to the 2012-2013 school year, the federal aid per full-time equivalent undergraduate student declined 9 percent, or about $325.
That means students have to foot more of the bill themselves.
"The rapid increases in college prices have slowed, however, student and families are paying more because grant aid is not keeping up," said David Coleman, president of the College Board.
While the average published price for tuition and fees for a private college is $30,094, the net price is $12,460 — up $530 from last year. The net price is what they actually pay after grants. There were years this decade that saw the net price going down, but it has gone up the last two years.
The average published in-state price for tuition and fees at a public four-year school is $8,893, but the average net price is about $3,120.
Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, in a statement called it "troubling" that overall grant aid is not keeping up with prices. Her organization represents the presidents of U.S. colleges and universities.
"Institutions are committed to holding down costs, but it is equally important for state and federal governments to play their part to make college affordable," she said.
The College Board is a not-for-profit membership group that promotes college access and owns the SAT exam.
The report spells out the large declines in state appropriations given to public institutions in recent years. These cuts have been blamed for rises in college costs. Other causes often cited range from the high cost of health care for employees to the demand by students for flashier campus amenities.
Among the other findings in the report:
— Adding in costs for room and board to live on campus, average annual published costs: At public, four-year universities, $18,391 for in-state students and $31,701 for out-of-state students; $40,917 for private colleges and universities; $10,730 for in-state students at public two year schools.
— The average published tuition and fees at for-profit institutions increased by $70 to $15,130 — an increase of less than 1 percent.
— New Hampshire and Vermont had the highest published in-state tuition and fees at both four-year and two-year institutions. Wyoming and Alaska had the lowest published in-state tuition and fees at a four-year institution, while California and New Mexico had the lowest in-state among two-year schools.
— In 2012-2013, $238.5 billion in financial aid was issued to undergraduate and graduate students in the forms of grants from all sources, Federal Work-Study, federal loans and federal tax credits and deductions. Also, students borrowed about $8.8 billion from private, state and institutional sources.
— About 60 percent of students who earned bachelor's degrees in 2011-2012 graduated with debt, borrowing a total of $26,500 on average.
___
Online: http://www.collegeboard.org/
___
Follow Kimberly Hefling at http://www.twitter.com/khefling
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-23-College%20Costs/id-cbb97a1995f64809aef10822cba69da7Time to set up a play date! Following the surprise news that Jersey Shore star Paul "Pauly D" DelVecchio is a new dad, costar Snooki, who is mom to 14-month-old son Lorenzo, is sharing her congratulations.
"YAY so happy for Pauly!!" she says in a statement to Us Weekly. "Now Lorenzo has a girlfriend! Pauly will be an amazing father." (Snooki welcomed her first child with fiance Jionni LaValle in August 2012.)
PHOTOS: A look back at Snooki's pregnancy
The 26-year-old reality star and DJ confirmed to TMZ on Tuesday, Oct. 22 that he recently welcomed a baby girl with a former fling. "I'm proud I'm a father," he said. "I am excited to embark on this new part of my life."
A source tells Us that Paul D only found out he was a father recently. "She contacted him after the baby was born. He of course had to take precautions before believing the baby was his, but he is definitely excited to be a dad," the insider explains. "Pauly is taking responsibility and will be in this child's life one way or another."
Pauly D's relationship with the mother, who used to work as a cocktail waitress, was a "one time hook up," the source tell Us. TMZ reports that the woman is 26 and hooked up with Pauly D in Vegas. She currently lives in New Jersey, and an insider tells Us she also has a son from a previous relationship.
PHOTOS: Snooki's body evolution
On Tuesday, Pauly D retweeted a congratulatory message from AKR Public Relations. "Excited for my dear @DJPaulyD who is going to be an amazing father!" owner Amanda K. Ruisi wrote. "Proud of you. xoxo Auntie Amanda."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Here's more fallout from the government's partial shutdown: Early tax filers will have to wait an extra week or two to get tax refunds next year.
The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday it will delay the start of next year's filing season by up to two weeks to give programmers time to finish updating the agency's computers.
The 16-day shutdown, which ended last week, came at a critical time as the agency was working to update more than 50 systems used to process returns, the IRS said in a statement.
The filing season had been set to start Jan. 21. Acting IRS head Danny Werfel said the agency is working to shorten the delay and will announce the exact start date in December.
The delay will affect early filers, many of whom rush their returns to the IRS so they can get refunds quickly.
The April 15 deadline for filing individual tax returns, which is set by law, remains unchanged.
"Readying our systems to handle the tax season is an intricate, detailed process, and we must take the time to get it right," Werfel said. "The adjustment to the start of the filing season provides us the necessary time to program, test and validate our systems so that we can provide a smooth filing and refund process for the nation's taxpayers."
This is the second year in a row the agency will have to push back the date when it starts processing tax returns. This year, the agency delayed filing season until Jan. 30 for most filers because Congress made last-minute changes to the tax law.
Federal income tax refunds averaged more than $2,800 this year. The IRS issued more than $228 billion in refunds this year. Most of that money was issued before March 1.
___
Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap
This latest nugget of news out of Nokia's big event in Abu Dhabi should be of particular interest to mobile photographers. According to @tnkgrl, aka our buddy Myriam Joire, the phone manufacturer will be bringing RAW image support to its flagship Lumia handsets, the 1520 and 1020. This will allow ...
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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Edyta Zielinska
edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu
215-955-5291
Thomas Jefferson University
When the pros and cons of prostate cancer treatment are spelled out using an online interactive program developed by Thomas Jefferson University researchers, more patients choose active surveillance over therapy, according to research being presented Wednesday (October 23rd) at the Society for Medical Decision Making annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.
A recent clinical study showed that mortality rates for early stage prostate cancer were the same for men who choose active surveillance such as periodic PSA testing and biopsy, versus those who chose to treat their disease immediately with radiation or surgery (N Engl J Med, 367:203, 2012). The research suggested that in cases of low-risk prostate cancer, aggressive treatment may not offer a long term survival benefit, and yet is associated with a number of side effects such as urinary incontinence and sexual problems. However, the vast majority of men diagnosed with low-risk cancer undergo aggressive treatment rather than active surveillance.
To ensure that patients make their treatment decisions based on the most current medical evidence and their own values and preferences, a research team at Thomas Jefferson University led by Ronald E. Myers, Ph.D., developed an online program called the Decision Counseling Program (DCP) to help patients clarify their treatment preference and discuss their options with the clinical team. This online program is unique to Jefferson.
First, patients are shown a printed summary of answers to frequently asked questions by treatment type. Some of the questions include: "What treatment option is best for long term survival?" and "What are the side effects." With the help of a nurse, the patient then identifies the top 3 reasons the patient may or may not want to initiate active surveillance (pros and cons). The patient then ranks those reasons by importance. The nurse enters the reasons and rankings into the online program and generates a 1-page summary report that helps patients visualize their preference to active surveillance versus aggressive treatment. A copy of the report is given to the patient and the clinical team. The report is used as a point of discussion during the patient's clinical visit with an urologist and radiologist.
The research team tested the program with 23 low-risk prostate cancer patients. After participating in the Decision Counseling Program and speaking with the clinical team, 83 percent of the patients decided on active surveillance, rather than aggressive treatment. In addition, says Dr. Myers, "patients were more knowledgeable, and reported feeling more informed, more supported and less conflicted in their decision after going through the program. They understood their options better, and felt like they were making a treatment decision that was right for them."
###
Authors are available for interview on site at the conference or by phone.
For more information, contact:
Edyta Zielinska
(
215)955-5291
edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu.
Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), the largest freestanding academic medical center in Philadelphia, is nationally renowned for medical and health sciences education and innovative research. Founded in 1824, TJU includes Jefferson Medical College (JMC), one of the largest private medical schools in the country and ranked among the nation's best medical schools by U.S. News & World Report, and the Jefferson Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Population Health and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Jefferson University Physicians is TJU's multi-specialty physician practice consisting of the full-time faculty of JMC. Thomas Jefferson University partners with its clinical affiliate, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals.
Published 10-21-2013
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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: 22-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Edyta Zielinska
edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu
215-955-5291
Thomas Jefferson University
When the pros and cons of prostate cancer treatment are spelled out using an online interactive program developed by Thomas Jefferson University researchers, more patients choose active surveillance over therapy, according to research being presented Wednesday (October 23rd) at the Society for Medical Decision Making annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.
A recent clinical study showed that mortality rates for early stage prostate cancer were the same for men who choose active surveillance such as periodic PSA testing and biopsy, versus those who chose to treat their disease immediately with radiation or surgery (N Engl J Med, 367:203, 2012). The research suggested that in cases of low-risk prostate cancer, aggressive treatment may not offer a long term survival benefit, and yet is associated with a number of side effects such as urinary incontinence and sexual problems. However, the vast majority of men diagnosed with low-risk cancer undergo aggressive treatment rather than active surveillance.
To ensure that patients make their treatment decisions based on the most current medical evidence and their own values and preferences, a research team at Thomas Jefferson University led by Ronald E. Myers, Ph.D., developed an online program called the Decision Counseling Program (DCP) to help patients clarify their treatment preference and discuss their options with the clinical team. This online program is unique to Jefferson.
First, patients are shown a printed summary of answers to frequently asked questions by treatment type. Some of the questions include: "What treatment option is best for long term survival?" and "What are the side effects." With the help of a nurse, the patient then identifies the top 3 reasons the patient may or may not want to initiate active surveillance (pros and cons). The patient then ranks those reasons by importance. The nurse enters the reasons and rankings into the online program and generates a 1-page summary report that helps patients visualize their preference to active surveillance versus aggressive treatment. A copy of the report is given to the patient and the clinical team. The report is used as a point of discussion during the patient's clinical visit with an urologist and radiologist.
The research team tested the program with 23 low-risk prostate cancer patients. After participating in the Decision Counseling Program and speaking with the clinical team, 83 percent of the patients decided on active surveillance, rather than aggressive treatment. In addition, says Dr. Myers, "patients were more knowledgeable, and reported feeling more informed, more supported and less conflicted in their decision after going through the program. They understood their options better, and felt like they were making a treatment decision that was right for them."
###
Authors are available for interview on site at the conference or by phone.
For more information, contact:
Edyta Zielinska
(
215)955-5291
edyta.zielinska@jefferson.edu.
Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), the largest freestanding academic medical center in Philadelphia, is nationally renowned for medical and health sciences education and innovative research. Founded in 1824, TJU includes Jefferson Medical College (JMC), one of the largest private medical schools in the country and ranked among the nation's best medical schools by U.S. News & World Report, and the Jefferson Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions, Population Health and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Jefferson University Physicians is TJU's multi-specialty physician practice consisting of the full-time faculty of JMC. Thomas Jefferson University partners with its clinical affiliate, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals.
Published 10-21-2013
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.
By Kim Palmer
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio legislative panel on Monday voted in favor of the state expanding its Medicaid program for the poor in a victory for President Barack Obama's signature federal health reform law.
The decision permits Governor John Kasich, a Republican who otherwise opposes the reform law known as the Affordable Care Act, to bypass the state's Republican-dominated legislature to expand Medicaid, a move strongly opposed by many Ohio conservatives.
Ohio joins 25 states and the District of Columbia in either moving forward with expanding Medicaid or requesting modifications to the plan. Medicaid expansion is a major plank of Obama's health reform law, which aims to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance.
"I think Ohio and its decision to move forward will be a big incentive for others to look at both the human costs and the fiscal and economic impact," said Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy.
The decision to expand Medicaid by the seventh most populous state presents a victory for the law, coming on the same day Obama has said he is "frustrated" over the problematic launch of the government website for the program.
Kasich endorsed the Medicaid expansion in February, but state lawmakers failed to act on it. Going through the Ohio Controlling Board, a special legislative panel composed of six legislators and one Kasich appointee, provided an alternate path for the governor.
The Board voted 5-2 to approve the use of $2.5 billion in federal money, which the governor has said would cover 275,000 additional low-income Ohio residents, starting in January and continuing through June 2015.
Though the expansion plan had the support of prominent medical and business groups, such as the Ohio Manufacturers' Association and the state's Chamber of Commerce, some conservatives are expected to sue. Nearly 40 Republican legislators last week formally protested Kasich's request to the board, which represents a majority of the Republican caucus in the state House.
"The basis for this government is supposed to be that everybody gets to vote," said State Rep. Louis Terhar, a Republican, on the panel's decision. "What just happened in there is that 90 percent of the people in Ohio just got disenfranchised because they didn't get to vote."
Ohio Senate President Keith Faber, a Republican, said the Senate is introducing legislation to "rein in the Controlling Board's ability to make such sweeping adjustments in budget items that are better considered by the legislature as a whole."
More than 8 million Americans are expected to receive health coverage under the new Medicaid definition in 2014. Rowland said the expanded definition will help the working poor, particularly low-income adults without dependent children.
(Reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland and Jo Ingles in Columbus. Editing by Andre Grenon; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Dan Grebler)
If you missed it, earlier today we announced that Android Central is the official community partner of the Samsung Developers Conference. As official community partner, we're going to be streaming a live show from the conference floor Oct. 28-29. Android Central Live will feature our very own Phil Nickinson and Andrew Martonik, plus interviews with Samsung reps, speakers, thought leaders … and YOU.
Android Central is excited to produce this show, not only as a service to our amazing community, but to provide a platform for Android developers looking to show off their apps. If you're going to be at the conference, you should join us on stage because it's going to be a lot of fun!
If you're a developer planning to attend the event, consider this your casting call!
We're busy setting up our interview schedule RIGHT NOW, so if you'd like to appear on Android Central Live, now is the time to act. Email me at james@mobilenations.com ASAP to request an interview slot. Tell me what you'd like to talk about, if you have an app to demo, and basically blow me away with the awesome Android goodness you're going to bring to the stage.
See you in San Francisco!
     |
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/8pwR3ohTNnY/story01.htmIf Cisco thought it was unloading a consumer brand that no longer fit with its enterprise focus by selling its Linksys business unit to Belkin, Cisco's in for a surprise: Belkin is embarking on an ambitious campaign to once again make Linksys a major player in the SMB networking market.
"Linksys had been successfully selling SMB infrastructure products into the marketplace for more than 20 years," said Ben Thacker, global vice president of Belkin enterprise business. "Linksys was one of the largest suppliers of switches and routers into the 5- to 99-seat environment. Now under the Belkin International organization we know the Linksys brand can be successful again catering to this environment."
[ For quick, smart takes on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld TechBrief -- subscribe today. | Find out what topics and issues affect tech's biggest names and news makers in the IDGE Insider CEO interview series. | Read Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog for what the key business trends mean to you. ]
Indeed, Linksys had significant shares of both the consumer and SMB markets when Cisco acquired it in 2003. But Cisco rebadged Linksys's business-oriented hardware as Cisco products and used the Linksys brand solely for consumer devices. A source inside Linksys, however, tells me that many of the Linksys business-unit engineers remained and came over to Belkin as part of the acquisition.
Belkin, meanwhile, is best known as a consumer-electronics manufacturer, selling cables, smartphone and tablet cases, outlet strips, webcams, and simple home-automation devices. But dig a little deeper and you'll find that Belkin has a robust line of business-oriented products, too, ranging from KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) hardware for controlling rack-mounted servers to the hulking racks those servers are mounted into.
Belkin's first Linksys-branded products after the acquisition were aimed at consumers, but starting in November and continuing into 2014, the privately held company will launch a host of new Linksys products into the SMB market.
The first wave, which Belkin will announce in November, will include a line of unmanaged gigabit switches with between 5 and 24 ports. Dual- and single-WAN VPN routers are the next item on the roadmap, and these will be followed by single- and dual-band 802.11n wireless access points, and dual-band 802.11ac wireless access points.
The Network Magic software that Linksys acquired from Pure Networks a number of years ago will also apparently be returning to the limelight.
In January, Belkin intends to ship Linksys-branded indoor and outdoor IP surveillance cameras, along with a two-bay network video recorder. In the March/April timeframe, Belkin plans to announce a line of managed gigabit switches in configurations ranging from 8 to 52 ports, as well as some PoE (power-over-ethernet) switches.
Later in 2014, Belkin will introduce cloud-management solutions (although the company revealed few details as to what that will entail). This will be followed by an office-automation initiative that will include Belkin's existing WeMo product line for power management and lighting controls with some new products the Linksys team is working on.
The Linksys divestiture ended Cisco's involvement in the consumer market, so one has to wonder if the company's management imagined they'd end up competing with their former business unit in the business market. This should be fun to watch.
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday offered "no excuses" — and little explanation — for the computer bugs still frustrating Americans who are trying to enroll online for insurance plans at the center of his health care law. But software developers tasked with building the site said they saw signs a year ago that the debut could fail.
One source of the troubles appears to be the testing procedures employed before the rollout three weeks ago. Several developers of the HealthCare.gov website told The Associated Press they were worried for months about the system's readiness and whether the software meant to link key computer systems was being properly put through its paces.
In addition, congressional investigators raised concerns before the rollout that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had taken on the job of testing the computer systems for the new markets during the final weeks before the sign-ups opened Oct. 1. That job is often handled by specialized software companies.
Obama, who emphasized the website's simplicity in the week's leading up to the insurance sign-ups, admitted there could now be "no sugarcoating" the problems even as he talked up the benefits of the law at a Rose Garden event that had the feel of a pep rally.
"The website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," he said.
He insisted that the problems would be fixed and all Americans seeking insurance would be able to sign up. But it was not clear how quickly that would happen. The administration is beefing up call centers and encouraging more people to enroll over the phone while the website problems persist.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The glitches have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior White House officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the health insurance markets, known as exchanges, opened.
Obama stopped short of apologizing for the failures, saying instead that "nobody is more frustrated than me."
Even as he spoke, more problems came to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week.
The White House says additional technology experts from both inside and outside the government are being brought in to work on the failures.
Administration officials initially blamed heavy website traffic for the frozen computer screens that many people encountered when they first logged on. Since then, they have also acknowledged shortcomings with software and some elements of the system's design, although the administration has yet to fully detail exactly what went wrong with the online system and who was responsible for the problems.
It appears the problems were well-known to some of those designing the system. One developer said that in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 launch, he and his colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch deficiencies in computer code.
"It was an extremely tight deadline," said the developer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was told not to talk to the news media about his work.
A review of internal structural diagrams obtained by AP also revealed the complexity of the system. The diagrams show that applicants must submit at least 50 pieces of personal information, including income and immigration status. That data is then connected to at least eight distinct federal computer systems, including the Social Security Administration and the Peace Corps.
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials preferred a "data services hub" — a traffic cop of sorts for managing information — instead of a setup that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information.
On Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services said the data hub was working, but the initial consumer experience had not lived up to the public's expectations. "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials have so far refused to say how many people have actually managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach the projections from the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Officials have instead pointed selectively to figures putting the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites. The applications must be completed before people can enroll in insurance policies.
An internal memo obtained by the AP showed that the administration had projected nearly a half million people would actually enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty.
Officials say that at this point they are not considering extending the enrollment window beyond that time. They also say they are not considering taking the website down for an extended time to address the problems, but instead will do that maintenance during low-traffic overnight hours.
But the White House appeared to open the door to not penalizing those whose efforts to sign up were confounded by the system's problems.
"The law is clear that if you do not have access to affordable health insurance, then you will not be asked to pay a penalty because you haven't purchased affordable health insurance," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
So far, no one within the administration is known to have been fired for the problematic rollout. Some Republicans have focused their ire on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, though the White House says she continues to have the confidence of the president.
Sebelius is scheduled to testify about the botched rollout before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week. Representatives from some of the contractors working on the websites were also scheduled to testify before the committee on Thursday.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Luis Alonso and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Jack Gillum at http://twitter.com/jackgillum
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-21-Obama-Health%20Care/id-fac638ddb1234a6695440edaacbd959dWritten on October 19th, 2013 by Carlos S. Ryan
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As we all know, Americans are living longer. Women especially.
But here's what you may not know: French, German, Swedish, Italian, Japanese, British, Dutch and Canadian women are living longer too, but their lives are getting longer faster than ours. Take a look at this from the National Academy of Sciences.
This is a comparative life expectancy chart. The red dots show the average lifespan of American women compared to women in nine other well-off countries (represented by the black dots.) As you can see, we aren't doing so well. Or, rather, American women since 1979, compared to those other countries, are underperforming. We are at the bottom of the improvement pile.
That happy little dot dancing higher and higher above each pile since 1989 is Japan. That's where women live longest on Earth. As of 2006, when the data were collected, the average Japanese female died at 85.98 (just short of an 86th birthday). American females, on average, died six years earlier, at 80.2. It's a gap that seems to be widening. French women come up second (84.39), Italian women third (84.09).
Here's the chart for men:
American men are also falling behind. The longest lived males on Earth are Australians (at 79.27 on average), followed by Japanese (79.20) then Swedes (78.92). The average American guy departs at 75.64. The lag is not as drastic as for women. The ladies have the bigger problem.
Back in the '60s, American women were among the longest-lived in the world. But then, between 1980 and 2006, female life expectancy grew at about 60 percent the rate for comparative countries and we are now ranked 28th.
What happened?
In 2011, the National Institutes of Health issued a report that tried to make sense of it all. Right away, they found our weak spot. "U.S. women have relatively high mortality rates at the younger older ages," they said, which means when women hit their 55th birthdays, for the next almost 20 years, roughly 55 to 75, they will die more often than women in comparable countries. Americans get more lung disease, more heart disease, more diabetes. If Americans reach 75, they get competitive again, but that early old age is where we lose ground. American men showed pretty much the same weakness at roughly the same times.
The authors declared themselves puzzled. "The relatively poor performance of the United States," they wrote, is "perhaps all the more surprising in light of the fact that the United States spends far more on health care than any other nation in the world, both absolutely and as a percentage of gross national product."
So what's causing this difference? The panel explored the usual suspects. Are Americans too obese? Do they smoke too much? Exercise too little? Eat poorly? Have too many poor people? Too much hormone therapy? Is the health care system itself to blame?
Good questions, all, but the panel was unable to discover any special culprit. To my surprise, they found our health disadvantage "could not be explained simply by reference to problems associated with an inefficient health care system, the lack of universal health care coverage, or large racial and socioeconomic disparities in the United States." Which left them pretty much where they started — puzzled. "To date," the authors conclude, "no satisfactory explanation of these patterns has been proposed."
The Super-Old ...
Whatever it is we're doing wrong hasn't yet compromised our population of very old or super-old people. We have a highly competitive group of Americans in their late 80s, 90s and early 100s. The dangling question is how old can today's babies expect to be? Will there be lots and lots of centenarians at the turn of the next century?
For the moment, all we know is that the oldies keep getting older. The NIH report says that in 2002, 2003 and 2004, life expectancy in France increased by 10 months, which is a crazy pace (and I'm guessing it hasn't stayed that way). At some point, one imagines, we will hit a wall. The Japanese, the French, the Australians can't keep it up forever, but where that wall is, or who will hit it first, I don't know.
... Get Even Older ...
In July, 2010, The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare suggested Japanese women may be averaging 86.44 years, while Japanese men are closing in on 80. "Remarkably," says the NIH report, "these levels represent increases in average life spans of almost five months for women and four months for men compared to the previous year." The race to get older, apparently, gallops on. But Americans, alas, aren't keeping up.
The Olmsted Locks and Dam project is under construction on the Ohio River between Illinois and Kentucky.
The Olmsted Locks and Dam project is under construction on the Ohio River between Illinois and Kentucky.
This week's congressional compromise to end the government shutdown and raise the debt ceiling had a few other provisions as well.
One of them allows additional spending on a lock and dam project on the Ohio River between Kentucky and Illinois.
The amount is $2.1 billion — a rounding error compared with the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling. But it's still enough to rile budget watchdogs, as well as hard-line conservatives who call it pork-barrel spending by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican.
The Army Corps of Engineers has been working on the new lock and dam on the Ohio River since 1988. It's located between the towns of Olmsted and Monkeys Eyebrow, Ky., a few miles up from where the Ohio meets the Mississippi.
It's just downstream from the old set of locks and dams, which date to the 1920s. Some of the machinery operating the locks still needs to be raised and lowered by hand — "by these crews of men and women that are out on an old steamboat," says James Bruggers, who covers energy and the environment for the Louisville Courier-Journal.
In this video, the Army Corps of Engineers demonstrates how the current system works.
"These two old locks and dams that are just upriver from the Olmsted project are a really great example of our nation's crumbling infrastructure," Bruggers says. "They're already sort of a choke point for this commercial barge traffic."
The barges carry coal, grain and other cargo — about 90 million tons per year.
This is one of the biggest construction jobs going right now in the United States, with massive blocks of concrete being lowered into the river.
One of the nearby cities is Metropolis, Ill. Bruggers says it's "sort of appropriate" because the project has "a Superman theme."
"When you go visit the site, you actually see a 14-story-tall crane," he says.
Like a lot of megasize construction projects, Olmsted's cost has gone up. In fact, it's gone up 300 percent since work started.
And it seems only natural that one of Kentucky's senators, the leader of all Senate Republicans, would want to keep the project going, right?
But McConnell says he didn't put the funding provision into this week's spending bill. Two senators on the appropriations committee — Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, and Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee — say they did it.
Still, Steve Ellis at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense says the legislation is only 35 pages long. McConnell had to have known the Olmsted money was in there.
And Ellis says he had to have decided to leave it in.
"It doesn't take a media professional to recognize that the optics of this look really bad," he says.
More substantively, Ellis says this was the wrong time and place to commit the money, especially for such a troubled project.
"The thing is, there are tons, I mean, scores and scores of projects and programs," he says. "Why this particular project was plucked out of, you know, the hundreds that are available is beyond me."
And conservative groups are blasting McConnell over what's been dubbed the "Kentucky Kickback."
The Tea Party Victory Fund has a fundraising email calling McConnell a "fake conservative" and the provision "the cost of selling out the conservative movement."
The Senate Conservatives Fund issued a statement saying that "this is what's wrong with Washington and it's what wrong with Mitch McConnell."
The Senate Conservatives Fund is already on the air in Kentucky, backing McConnell's primary opponent, Tea Party candidate Matt Bevin.
McConnell has long supported the Olmsted project. The new money was requested by the Obama administration, and McConnell told Politico that it actually saves money — $160 million — by preventing a gap in spending.
PARIS (AP) — The U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, according to a newspaper report that offered new details of the massive scope of a surveillance operation that has angered some of the country's closest allies. The French government on Monday summoned the U.S. ambassador for an explanation.
The report in Le Monde, co-written by Glenn Greenwald who originally revealed the NSA surveillance program, found that when certain numbers were used, the conversations were automatically recorded. The surveillance operation also swept up text messages based on key words, Le Monde reported, based on records from Dec. 10 to Jan 7.
The Le Monde reporting emerged as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris for diplomatic talks Monday about a peace process for Israel and Palestinian authorities.
"This sort of practice between partners that invades privacy is totally unacceptable and we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a meeting in Luxembourg with his European counterparts. Fabius said the U.S. ambassador had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
Similar programs have been revealed in Britain and Germany. In Brazil, the revelations so angered the president that she cancelled a state visit to Washington and publicly denounced the U.S. for "violation of human rights and of civil liberties."
The most recent documents cited by Le Monde, dated to April 2013, also indicated the NSA's interest in email addresses linked to Wanadoo — once part of France Telecom — and Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American telecom company. One of the documents instructed analysts to draw not only from the electronic surveillance program, but also from another initiative dubbed Upstream, which allowed surveillance on undersea communications cables.
Neither the U.S. embassy nor State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki had immediate comment.
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Follow Lori Hinnant at https://twitter.com/lhinnant
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Associated Press writer Raf Casert contributed from Luxembourg.
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