Santa Clarita Local Colleges - Go To Bed Late And Gain Weight Says New Study

Source - http://guardianlv.com/
By - Rebecca Savastio
Category - Santa Clarita Local Colleges
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

 Santa Clarita Local Colleges

Terrible news for night owls everywhere-a new study that has been published in the journal Sleep says if you go to bed late, you will gain weight, even if you are otherwise healthy and do not have a weight problem. Main researcher Andrea Spaeth performed a controlled study, which split groups into those who slept from 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. and those who slept from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. The seemingly unfortunate lot who stayed up until 4:00 a.m. ate more, and not only that; the food they ate was more fattening, meaning it was more calorie-dense and fat laden.

While previous studies have been done in this area, Spaeth and other researchers claim their study contained more subjects, and showed more weight gain. “Although previous epidemiological studies have suggested an association between short sleep duration and weight gain/obesity, we were surprised to observe significant weight gain during an in-laboratory study” Spaeth said. The study consisted of 225 people.

All of the study subjects were encouraged to be sedentary, that is, to avoid exercise, and they all had unlimited access to food during the duration of the study. There were some major differences, though, among several lines. Speath explained:

Among sleep-restricted subjects, there were also significant gender and race differences in weight gain. African Americans, who are at greater risk for obesity and more likely to be habitual short sleepers, may be more susceptible to weight gain in response to sleep restriction. Future studies should focus on identifying the behavioral and physiological mechanisms underlying this increased vulnerability.

Contrary to what the study might appear to prove at first glance, there was no magic reason why the late hours and lack of proper sleep caused more weight gain. The simple explanation is that people were hungry because they were awake longer, and therefore, ate more.

The comparison could be staying out late at night, dancing the night away, feeling starving at 3:00 a.m., piling into a friend’s car and heading to the diner for a big breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage and hash browns. The more activity you do, the hungrier you feel.

While a greater level of activity burns more calories, in the case of the study, the amount of food consumed superseded the amount of calories burned. Study subjects were also drawn to much fattier and calorie dense food than subjects who got the right amount of sleep. While researcher s did not offer a ready explanation for why the food consumed during the late night hours was more rich, a non-scientific observation could liken the sleep deprivation to any situation in which someone is drawn to comfort food. In this case, comfort food could sooth the pain of not getting enough good quality sleep.

Another possibility is that the extra activity could rev the metabolism and therefore cause more hunger than would normally be felt. While those examples are simply speculation, the study could certainly shed light on the extreme importance of getting the recommended eight hours of sleep rather than going to bed late when trying to manage weight gain.

Hotel In Santa Clarita - US Plans New Restrictions On The Snacks Schools Sell

Source - http://www.bostonglobe.com/
By - Mary Clare Jalonick and Connie Cass
Category - Hotel In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In Santa Clarita

The days of eschewing healthier school lunches and filling up on cookies from the vending machine are numbered.

For the first time, the Agriculture Department is telling schools what sorts of snacks they can sell. The new restrictions announced Thursday fill a gap in nutrition rules that allowed many students to load up on fat, sugar, and salt despite the existing guidelines for healthy meals.

‘‘Parents will no longer have to worry that their kids are using their lunch money to buy junk food and junk drinks at school,’’ said Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who pushed for the new rules.

That does not mean schools will be limited to doling out broccoli and brussels sprouts.

Snacks that still make the grade include granola bars, low-fat tortilla chips, fruit cups, and 100 percent fruit juice. And high school students can buy diet versions of soda, sports drinks, and iced tea.

Banned are some beloved school standbys, such as doughy pretzels, cookies, and those little ice cream cups with their own spoons.

The bottom line, Wootan said, is that the food must have nutritional value.

‘‘There has to be some food in the food,’’ she said.

Still, 17-year-old Vanessa Herrera of Rockaway, N.J., is partial to the Cheez-Its and sugar-laden vitamin water in her school’s vending machine.

Granola bars and bags of peanuts?

‘‘I don’t think anyone would eat it,’’ Herrera said.

The snack rules don’t take effect until the 2014-15 school year.

Accommodation In Santa Clarita - Tax Bite Curbs U.S. Growth Along With Consumer Spending

Source - http://www.bloomberg.com/
By - Shobhana Chandra
Category - Accommodation In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Accommodation In Santa Clarita

Growth in the world’s largest economy was less than originally estimated in the first quarter as an increase in the U.S. payroll tax took a bigger bite out of consumer spending than previously calculated.

Gross domestic product grew at a 1.8 percent annualized rate from January through March, down from a prior reading of 2.4 percent, Commerce Department data showed today in Washington. Household purchases were trimmed to a 2.6 percent advance -- still the fastest in two years -- from the 3.4 percent gain estimated last month.

Americans cut back on services from vacations to legal advice as the two percentage-point increase in the payroll tax caused incomes to drop by the most in more than four years. At the same time, an improving labor market and rising home prices are underpinning consumer confidence, one reason economists project growth will pick up in the second half of the year.

“You’re not seeing a big pullback in consumer spending, it is just weaker than previously estimated,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “The housing recovery will continue to push forward. Overall growth is going to be stronger in the second half.”

Stocks and Treasury securities rallied on speculation the weaker-than-projected growth reading will prompt Federal Reserve policy makers to delay reducing bond purchases. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1 percent to 1,603.26 at the close in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note fell to 2.54 percent from 2.61 percent late yesterday.
Financial System

Elsewhere, the Bank of England today said lenders are vulnerable to an abrupt increase in long-term interest rates as it warned confidence in the financial system remains fragile. The central bank ordered a review of banks’ exposure to interest-rate risk, which it said is not properly understood.

The U.S. government’s GDP estimate is the third and final one for the quarter. The 0.6 percentage-point reduction was the biggest for a final reading of GDP since the figure for the third quarter of 2009, which was lowered by the same amount.

The median forecast of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 2.4 percent rise in first-quarter GDP, the same as the Commerce Department previously estimated. The economy grew at a 0.4 percent pace in the last three months of 2012.

The downward revision was centered in consumer spending on services, with the updated figures showing a 1.7 percent gain compared with a prior estimate of 3.1 percent. Outlays in the category that includes tourism, legal help and personal care items such as haircuts, dropped in the first quarter from the previous three months. Spending on health-care services grew at a slower pace than previously projected.

Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita - Big Weight Loss For Diabetics, But No Drop In Heart Risk

Source - http://www.upr.org/
By - Nancy Shute
Category - Hotel Reservations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

HotelReservationsInSantaClarita

Hundreds of overweight or obese people with diabetes have been able to do something very few Americans have done: lose a big chunk of weight and keep it off for 10 years.

So should it matter if that epic weight loss didn't reduce the risk of heart disease? Maybe not.

That's one response to the results of the Look AHEAD clinical trial, which checked to see if losing weight reduced heart disease risk in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Maintaining a healthful weight is an important way to prevent and manage diabetes. It's also helps reduce heart disease risk. So the researchers were surprised to find that even though the study participants lost weight and kept it off, they didn't reduce their risk of heart attacks, stroke and chest pain.

Researchers at 16 institutions had organized a long-running clinical trial to measure the effect of weight loss, enrolling more than 5,000 obese or overweight people ages 45 to 75 with Type 2 diabetes. They averaged about 200 pounds.

Half of the group was assigned to an intensive lifestyle intervention that involved eating less — 1,200 to 1,800 calories a day — and putting in at least three hours of moderate exercise a week. They got counseling and attended meetings to help them stick with the program.

Those people lost an average of 8.6 percent of their body weight in the first year, which isn't easy to do. Most weight-loss studies can eke out only a few percentage points of change in that time.

The people in the control group, who didn't get the lifestyle help, lost almost 1 percent of body weight in the first year.

Both groups managed to avoid major backsliding, which typically happens with weight-loss trials. The intervention group gained some weight back in years two through five, but ended up with a 6 percent loss over 10 years. The control group lost weight gradually, and was down about 4 percent at the end. All told, 1,193 people stayed with the trial throughout.

Excess weight is considered a risk factor for both cardiovascular disease and diabetes, so the researchers figured they'd see improvements in both.

Instead, they had to stop the trial early, after almost 10 years, when it was clear that the people in the weight-loss group weren't getting any extra protection from heart attacks, strokes, or angina.

But the trial wasn't a failure, the the researchers say. It shows that people with diabetes "can lose weight and maintain that weight loss," lead author Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University, reported at the American Diabetes Association meeting in Chicago. The results were published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The weight-loss group also had better glycemic control and lower systolic blood pressure, spent less money on medications, had less sleep apnea, and was more likely to have a partial remission of diabetes. They were less likely to land in the hospital. And they also felt better.

"This study in no way disproves the important of weight reduction and exercise," says Dr. Douglas Zipes, a distinguished professor emeritus at the Indiana University School of Medicine and past president of the American College of Cardiology. "There were significant benefits achieved."

The control group took more statins and other drugs to reduce cardiovascular risk, Zipes notes, which could have clouded the study's findings.

And he says that years of evidence showing that eating well and exercising reduce heart disease risk still stand. "We've been able to reduce mortality from heart disease by 60 percent over the past three decades," he said.

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - Weight Loss No Help For Heart In Diabetes

Source - http://www.medpagetoday.com/
By - Charlene Laino
Category - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

An intensive lifestyle intervention focusing on weight loss did not reduce the rate of cardiovascular events in overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes, according to final results of the randomized controlled Look AHEAD trial.

The study was halted in September on the basis of a futility analysis that showed no significant differences in the composite primary outcome of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for angina between those who had the intervention and those who only received support: 1.83 versus 1.92 events per 100 person-years, respectively (P=0.51).

Rena Wing, PhD, of Brown University, and colleagues reported their findings simultaneously online in the New England Journal of Medicine and at the American Diabetes Association meeting here.

Nonetheless, people in the intervention group benefited in terms of a host of other ways, Mary Evans, PhD, director of Look AHEAD at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, told The Gupta Guide.

"They sustained 6% weight loss over 10 years. They had clinically meaningful improvements in glycated hemoglobin levels and less diabetes and less retinopathy. There were also improvements in quality of life and reduction in depression," she said.

Evans said explanations for the lack of benefit among people in the intervention group include greater use of medications in the control group. "The drugs, particularly statins, could have lowered their risk of cardiovascular disease.

"Or perhaps people in the intervention group didn't achieve enough weight loss," she said.

The Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) trial enrolled 5,145 overweight or obese patients with type 2 diabetes at 16 centers in the U.S.

Patients were randomized to either an intensive lifestyle intervention that focused on cutting calories and increasing physical activity or to a control group that only received diabetes support and education.

When the trial was stopped in September 2012, the median follow-up time was 9.6 years.

Weight loss was greater in the intervention group than in the control group throughout the study (8.6% versus 0.7% at 1 year; 6.0% versus 3.5% at study end).

The intense lifestyle change also produced greater initial improvements in fitness and cardiovascular risk factors, except for LDL cholesterol. But the between-group differences diminished over time.

As for adverse events, the rate of self-reported fractures was significantly higher in the intervention group: 2.51 versus 2.16 per 100 person-years in the control group (P=0.01). However, there was no significant difference in the rate of adjudicated fractures (1.66 and 1.64 per 100 person-years, respectively).

A limitation of the study is that patients who were motivated to lose weight were recruited, so the findings may not generalize to all patients, the researchers said.

In an accompanying editorial, Hertzel Gerstein, MD, of the University of Hamilton in Ontario in Canada, wrote, "Even with no clear evidence of cardiovascular benefit, the Look AHEAD investigators have shown that attention to activity and diet can safely reduce the burden of diabetes and have reaffirmed the importance of lifestyle approaches as one of the foundations of modern diabetes care."

Hotels In Northern California - Mandela's Health Worsens, Condition Now 'Critical'

Source - http://www.reuters.com/
By - Ed Cropley
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The worsening of his condition is bound to concern South Africa's 53 million people, for whom Mandela remains the architect of a peaceful transition to democracy in 1994 after three centuries of white domination.

A government statement said President Jacob Zuma and the deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Cyril Ramaphosa, visited Mandela in his Pretoria hospital, where doctors said his condition had gone downhill in the last 24 hours.

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve and are ensuring that Madiba is well looked after and is comfortable," it said, referring to him by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president after historic all-race elections nearly two decades ago, was rushed to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 with a recurrence of a lung infection, his fourth hospitalisation in six months.

Until Sunday, official communiques had described his condition as "serious but stable" although comments last week from Mandela family members and his presidential successor, Thabo Mbeki, suggested he was on the mend.

Since stepping down after one term as president, Mandela has played little role in the public or political life of the continent's biggest and most important economy.

His last public appearance was waving to fans from the back of a golf cart before the final of the soccer World Cup in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium in July 2010.

During his retirement, he has divided his time between his home in the wealthy Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, and Qunu, the village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province where he was born.

The public's last glimpse of him was a brief clip aired by state television in April during a visit to his home by Zuma and other senior ANC officials.

At the time, the 101-year-old liberation movement, which led the fight against white-minority rule, assured the public Mandela was "in good shape" although the footage showed a thin and frail old man sitting expressionless in an armchair.

"Obviously we are very worried," ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu told Johannesburg station Talk Radio 702. "We are praying for him, his family and the doctors."

"ABSOLUTELY AN ICON"

Since his latest admission to hospital, well-wishers have been arriving at his Johannesburg home, with scores of school-children leaving painted stones outside the gates bearing prayers for his recovery.

However, for the first time, South African media have broken a taboo against contemplating the inevitable passing of the father of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation" and one of the 20th century's most influential figures.

The day after he went into hospital, South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper carried a front-page headline saying it was "time to let him go".

"He's absolutely an icon and if he's gone we just have to accept that. He will be gone but his teachings, what he stood for, I'm sure we've all learnt and we should be able to live with it and reproduce it wherever we go," said Tshepho Langa, a customer at a Johannesburg hotel.

"He's done his best," he added. "We are grateful for it and we are willing to do the good that he has done."

Despite the widespread adulation, Mandela is not without detractors at home and in the rest of Africa who feel that in the dying days of apartheid he made too many concessions to whites, who make up just 10 percent of the population.

After more than 10 years of affirmative action policies aimed at redressing the balance, South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal societies, with whites still controlling much of the economy and the average white household earning six times more than a black one.

"Mandela has gone a bit too far in doing good to the non-black communities, really in some cases at the expense of (blacks)," Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 89, said in a documentary aired on South African television this month.

"That's being too saintly, too good, too much of a saint."

California Vacation Packages - Apple Wins Patent Suit Against Samsung in Tokyo On Touch Panels

Source - http://www.businessweek.com/
By - Takashi Amano and Mariko Yasu
Category - California Vacation Packages
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

California Vacation Packages

Apple Inc. (AAPL) won a patent lawsuit in Japan, as a Tokyo judge ruled that Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) smartphones and a tablet computer infringed on its visual effects for touch panels.

Samsung and Apple, the world’s two biggest smartphone makers, have each scored victories in patent disputes fought over four continents since the maker of the iPhone accused Asia’s biggest electronics maker of “slavishly copying” its devices. The companies, are competing for dominance of a global mobile-device market estimated by researcher Yankee Group at $346 billion in 2012.

Samsung infringed Apple’s patent on the way an iPad or iPhone screen seems to bounce when a user scrolls to the end of a file, the Cupertino, California-based company said in the lawsuit.

In August, Tokyo District Judge Tamotsu Shoji ruled against Apple in a lawsuit that claimed Samsung smartphones and tablet computers infringe on an invention for synchronizing music and video data with servers.

The Tokyo District Court in February rejected Samsung’s request to suspend sales of iPhones and iPads in the nation.

Shipments of tablet computers in Japan jumped 104 percent to 5.68 million units in the year ended March, according to Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd. Apple controlled 53 percent of the market, while Samsung ranked fifth with a 4.3 percent share, the researcher said last month.

Smartphone shipments rose 4 percent to 6.81 million units in Japan during the first three months of 2013, according to research company IDC. Apple had 40 percent of sales, while Samsung didn’t rank in the top five, the researcher said last week.

Hotels In Northern California - Big Banks Are Violating National Mortgage Settlement, Report Says

Source - http://www.washingtonpost.com/
By - Danielle Douglas
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

A new study supports complaints by state prosecutors that some of the nation’s biggest banks have violated the terms of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, a landmark agreement to clean up shoddy foreclosure practices.

The court-appointed monitor of the settlement said in a report Wednesday that Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo have dragged their feet in processing homeowners’ requests for lower monthly loan payments.

It is the same charge being made against the banks by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two were among the 49 state attorneys general who brokered the settlement with the top five mortgage servicers last year.

The deal was supposed to ensure that struggling homeowners would not have to endure the same miscommunication, delays and botched paperwork that was commonplace after the housing bust. But, according the monitor, some things haven’t changed.

Four out of five banks failed at least one of the 29 metrics the monitor used to measure their compliance with the 304 servicing standards outlined in the settlement.

The report “affirms that the pattern of violations by Wells Fargo that my office documented in New York is harming homeowners nationwide,” said Schneiderman, who threatened to sue Wells Fargo and Bank of America in May over the violations. “These flagrant violations put homeowners in New York and across the nation at greater risk of foreclosure.”

The most common problem found among the servicers, in particular at Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, was failure to notify homeowners of any missing documents in their modification requests within five days of receipt, according to the settlement monitor, Joseph A. Smith Jr. Citigroup and Bank of America were also cited for providing inaccurate information to borrowers before beginning a foreclosure.

“Progress is being made in a number of areas, but other harmful practices endure,” Shaun Donovan, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said during a call with reporters.

Donovan said other banks are likely to join the settlement agreement in coming weeks.

“It is time for [the banks] to live up to their end of the deal,” he said. “. . . If they don’t, we’ll explore all options to remedy this situation, from fining them to hauling them back into court.”

Servicers cited in the report must put in place a plan approved by the monitor to correct the problem. If the problem reoccurs within six months, the monitor can take legal action and seek fines of up to $5 million.

The report said all of the banks cited are fixing the problems. JPMorgan has given refunds to 2,000 borrowers after improperly charging them for a type of mortgage insurance.

Bank of America spokesman Dan Frahm said the bank “took immediate action” to resolve the problems found in the report. He said the issues did not result in “inaccurate foreclosures or improper loan modification denials.”

ResCap, formerly known as Ally Financial, passed the monitor’s tests through the end of 2012, but the company’s bankruptcy proceedings this year delayed additional testing. The monitor is now working to continue the process.

The monitor’s office received nearly 60,000 consumer complaints between October and March. A majority of the grievances involved borrowers who said they were bounced around to different bank employees rather than being given a single point of contact. Homeowners also complained that banks were initiating foreclosures while simultaneously negotiating a modification, a practice known as dual tracking.

“A lot of the complaints closely correlate with the failures that we found,” Smith said.

He said his office is developing some new metrics to, among other things, clearly define what documents borrowers have to file when applying for a loan modification.

A key objective of the settlement was to improve the way servicers interact with struggling homeowners. In some respects, the banks have accomplished that goal. There were no reports of servicers losing documents or using forged paperwork to quickly foreclose on borrowers — the sorts of allegations that led to investigations and the eventual agreement in the first place, said Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.

“There is a difference,” he said. “You look at the dysfunctional system that we saw three years ago . . . banks never could have provided the kind of homeowner relief we’re seeing today under their old system.”

The five servicers have provided $50.6 billion worth of loan modifications, short sales, refinancing and forbearance assistance to more than half a million borrowers across the country, according to a report released last month by the settlement monitor.

“We have some more work to do, but we’re better off today than we were a year ago,” Smith said. “A lot of the metrics were passed. The process has gotten better. Servicers are more responsive.”

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Candy Crush Soon To Hit The Stock Market; Developer Hired Analysts To Pursue IPO

Source - http://www.hngn.com/
By - Julie S
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

This may sound really weird but its developer, King, has hired Wall Street firms including J.P Morgan Chase, Credit Cruisse, and Bank of America to pursue this IPO plan. They will be discussing the pricing and timing of the IPO.

So why did King decided to do IPO? “King's success and growth presents numerous opportunities for the business to develop further, and one option would be to take the company public,” King told the Wall Street Journal. “However, while it's an option for the future, we would not comment on when we could consider making such a decision."

This move by King is a brave move for a game developer after Zynga’s performance plummeted to 70 percent of its IPO price. It will be quite difficult for the investors to decide to put their money on another online game.

However, mobile game developers may be successful if they are able to convince the investors since mobile game sales were projected to yield over $9 billion this year which is 13.5 percent higher than last year.

Candy Crush is not alone in this plan as other games are also planning to do IPO such as Kabam Inc.’s Kingdom of Camelot and The Fast and The Furious 6 which may be offered to the public in 2014. Rovio Entertainment Ltd., developer of Angry Birds, also expressed its interest, and then there is Supercell Oy that introduced as Clash of Clans and Hay Day.

Once Candy Crush becomes successful, we should expect more games joining the stock market soon. While others believe that investing on games is not a wise decision, it will still depend on how King can convince the audience to invest to them.

Meeting Space Santa Clarita - Facebook Jealous Of Vine? Instagram Might Be Adding Video

Source - http://www.latinospost.com/
By - Robert Schoon
Category - Meeting Space Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Meeting Space Santa Clarita

After Facebook sent out enigmatic coffee-stained postcard press invites to a June 20 event, saying "A small team has been working on a big idea. Join us for coffee and learn about a new product," rumors are hitting the internet that Facebook's Instagram might be adding video capability.

The anonymously sourced report comes from TechCruch, whose source says that Facebook will reveal on June 20 that Instagram will be adding a feature that will allow people to make short videos and share them on the popular social network. If this is true, Facebook would be following Twitter's lead. The rival social media network added Vine to iOS on Jan. 24 2012, an app and service which allows users to post six-second videos to their tweets. Vine became available for some versions of Android early in June.

While the Instagram video report is not confirmed and could be a red herring, there are indications that Instagram video may be coming. Earlier in May, former deputy social media editor for Reuters, Matthew Keys, reported that Facebook was testing a video feature for Instagram internally, according to an anonymous source. According to Keys' report, the feature would allow users to upload a video between five to 10 seconds long from their mobile devices, and share them on Instagram's network. Keys had no information about a launch date or whether Instagram's hallmark filters would be included as part of the new service.

The move by Facebook could be the most likely rumor attributed to the June 20 event, given how popular Vine — at the moment, a six-second video sharing social media service that is owned by Twitter — has become in the past six months. Twitter bought Vine in the fall of 2012 and debuted it in January 2013, albeit only for iOS devices.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Apple Adding 'Kill Switch' To iPhones

Source - http://edition.cnn.com/
By - Doug Gross
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

It's called "Apple picking," a growing wave of crime in which thieves target mobile devices, particularly iPhones and iPads.

Now the company that gave the crime its name is taking a step to stop it, with a "kill switch"-style update aimed at making the mobile gadgets less valuable to thieves.

Activation Lock will be part of iOS 7, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system expected to roll out in the fall. The feature will require an Apple ID and password before the phone's "Find My iPhone" feature can be turned off or any data can be erased.

At a keynote address opening its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, the company said the same ID and password will be needed to reactivate a device after it's been remotely erased.

"We think this is going to be a really powerful theft deterrent," said Craig Federighi, a senior vice president at Apple.

As mobile devices become more popular, stealing them has become a unique sort of crime that has law enforcement and government officials taking notice.

In New York, a special police unit has been created to deal with stolen mobile devices.

The overall crime rate in the city increased 3% last year -- but "if you subtracted just the increase in Apple product thefts, we would have had an overall decrease in crime in New York," Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said.

Advocates have been calling for so-called kill switch tools in all mobile devices for some time.

Apple's announcement came the same week that George Gascon, the district attorney in tech hub San Francisco, plans to meet with the New York state attorney general and representatives of cell phone companies to discuss ways of discouraging mobile-device robberies.

In a letter last year to the Federal Communications Commission chairman, the wireless industry's trade association released details of a voluntary effort to "help law enforcement deter smartphone theft."

A major plank of that effort is the creation of a database for smartphones reported stolen. Phones on the database, which is scheduled to be up and running at the end of November, could not be activated and would not work on an LTE network in the United States.

Budget Hotels Santa Clarita - Prime San Francisco Parking Spot Sells For $82,000

Source - http://www.foxnews.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Budget Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Budget Hotels Santa Clarita

A San Francisco real estate agent recently sold a parking spot a block from AT&T Park for $82,000.

Sean Sullivan, the real estate agent, told FoxNews.com that the building’s location is ideal, with tech firms like Instagram popping up in the area. He pointed out that the area is flush with eateries and a marina is nearby for boating enthusiasts.

The 8-by-17-foot space was apparently sold by an apartment owner in the mixed-use building. It is otherwise unusual for owners to be able to turn around and sell the parking space that comes with the apartment, he said.

"The person who bought this spot can use it when he goes to Giants games or he can rent it if he wants," he said. "It could make for steady income."

Sullivan pointed out that there is another parking spot in the building that was sold for $95,000 a few years back.

Santa Clarita Local Colleges - Hands-Free Systems In Cars Are More Distracting Than Handheld Phones, Study Says

Source - http://www.mercurynews.com/
By - Gary Richards
Category - Santa Clarita Local Colleges
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Santa Clarita Local Colleges

Buy a new car today and you'll most likely be able to use your voice to send text messages and emails, check your Facebook page or order takeout food while driving. No need to hold a cellphone in your hand.

But using hands-free devices that translate speech into text is actually more distracting than using a handheld phone, a study released Wednesday by AAA's Foundation for Highway Safety concludes. The finding poses a direct challenge to the direction that many automobile manufacturers, working closely with high-tech firms, are moving.

"We're addicted to our phones, and once we hear the ping of a text or the ping of an incoming call as we drive, it's

hard to ignore," said Chris Murphy, director of the California

Office of Traffic Safety, calling the study's conclusions a five-alarm warning for motorists.

What makes the use of these speech-to-text systems so risky is that they create a significant cognitive distraction, researchers found. The brain is so engrossed in interacting with the system that, even with hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, the driver's reaction time and ability to process what's happening are impaired.

The new research shows that distracted drivers don't move their eyes from the road as often, getting a kind of tunnel vision. It means drivers check their mirrors less frequently and are less likely to notice hazards not directly in front of

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them.

Around 9 million cars are now fitted with voice-recognition systems, and this number is expected to soar to 62 million by 2018.

The new study comes the same week Silicon Valley icon Apple (AAPL) introduced "iOS in the Car" as part of its new operating system. The company says, "iOS in the Car seamlessly integrates your iOS device -- and the iOS experience -- with your in-dash system. If your vehicle is equipped with iOS in the Car, you can connect your iPhone 5 and interact with it using the car's built-in display and controls or Siri Eyes Free." Microsoft already offers its own car system, called SYNC, and other tech companies and carmakers are offering such capabilities.

Although such innovations are meant to reduce distracted driving and increase safety, don't count on it.

"What we really have on our hands is a looming public safety crisis with the proliferation of these vehicles," AAA spokeswoman Yolanda Cade told the Associated Press. She characterized the rush to equip cars with Internet-enabled systems as "an arms race."

studies indicate that half of Americans believe that built-in Web-based systems in cars carry little if any risk.

Gloria Bergquist, vice president for public affairs at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in Washington, told the New York Times that carmakers are trying to keep consumers connected without having to hold phones while driving -- which her group insists is safer.

"We are concerned about any study that suggests that handheld phones are comparably risky to the hands-free systems we are putting in our vehicles," she said. "It is a connected society, and people want to be connected in their car just as they are in their home or wherever."

The AAA study, conducted by researchers at the University of Utah, says speech-to-text systems require greater concentration by drivers than other potentially distracting activities like talking on the phone, talking to a passenger, listening to a book on tape or listening to the radio.

The AAA study compared how drivers performed under various types of distractions, including listening to the radio, talking on a handheld phone and using a hands-free device. It used eye-scanning technology to determine where drivers focused their attention, and also tested reaction time to such visual cues as brake lights.

Wednesday's report comes on the heels of an increasing number of studies about how dangerous texting while driving is, whether holding the phone or not. Last year, the U.S. National Safety Council estimated that 24 percent of all motor vehicle crashes in the United States involve cellphones. And in January, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety reported that nearly 35 percent of drivers admitted to reading a text or email while driving and over 26 percent admitted to typing one.

"Our devices are now our primary focus, and driving is a distant second," said motorist Marguerite Sinnett of Morgan Hill. "Many times, I see drivers, including 18-wheelers, slow down, speed up and drift because they are talking on the phone.

"They have no clue about their driving; the phone prevails," she continued. "I see probably about 40 percent of drivers talking on a handheld phone or looking in their laps. It's hard to put the genie back in the box once it's out."

Hotel In Santa Clarita - iRobot To Unveil Virtual Business Partner

Source - http://bostonherald.com/
By - Marie Szaniszlo
Category - Hotel In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita
 

Hotel In Santa Clarita

The people who brought you the Roomba vacuum cleaner have teamed up with Cisco to develop an entirely different robot, one that may just help make the pesky business trip a thing of the past.
Bedford-based iRobot will unveil the Ava 500 video collaboration robot at the InfoComm conference in Orlando, Fla., this week, its first creation designed to work in the office.
“Our goal is to give executives a compelling alternative to going to meetings in person,” said CEO Colin Angle. “They’re not giving up the opportunity to sit down at a table, see people’s expressions or follow them out to the hallway to have follow-up conversations.”

Using an iPad, you tap on the Ava 500 app and select where you want to “go” — an office, a factory or any other facility equipped with the robot — and whom you want to see.
At that location, Ava — which stands about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds — maps its surroundings so that it can find its way around offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects.
You can choose to let it go either in “private” mode, where the 21.5-inch Cisco HD screen on the robot’s “head” appears blank, or in “public” mode, where your face is displayed on the screen. If you choose the latter, you can see and be seen, and you can remotely stop to have an ad-hoc hallway conversation with a colleague along the way.
“The real value of the robot is that spontaneity,” said Angie Mistretta, director of telepresence solutions marketing at Cisco.
After your meeting, Ava allows you to “go” anywhere else in the building before it heads back to its docking station to recharge.
The robot’s mobility, security and the quality of its video all make it “radically” better than Skype, Angle said.
When it goes on the market early next year, Cisco expects the estimated, one-time cost will be under $70,000. But Angle said the robot also will be able to be leased for between $2,000 and $2,500 per month.
Although initially Ava is expected to be used for business, Mistretta said the robot also could be used in education, allowing students to ask questions of a professor individually after a lecture, and in manufacturing, allowing a company to bring in a remote expert to diagnose and fix a problem.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/business/technology/technology_news/2013/06/irobot_to_unveil_virtual_business_partner#sthash.a7zVCCcd.dpuf

The people who brought you the Roomba vacuum cleaner have teamed up with Cisco to develop an entirely different robot, one that may just help make the pesky business trip a thing of the past.
Bedford-based iRobot will unveil the Ava 500 video collaboration robot at the InfoComm conference in Orlando, Fla., this week, its first creation designed to work in the office.
“Our goal is to give executives a compelling alternative to going to meetings in person,” said CEO Colin Angle. “They’re not giving up the opportunity to sit down at a table, see people’s expressions or follow them out to the hallway to have follow-up conversations.”

Using an iPad, you tap on the Ava 500 app and select where you want to “go” — an office, a factory or any other facility equipped with the robot — and whom you want to see.
At that location, Ava — which stands about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds — maps its surroundings so that it can find its way around offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects.
You can choose to let it go either in “private” mode, where the 21.5-inch Cisco HD screen on the robot’s “head” appears blank, or in “public” mode, where your face is displayed on the screen. If you choose the latter, you can see and be seen, and you can remotely stop to have an ad-hoc hallway conversation with a colleague along the way.
“The real value of the robot is that spontaneity,” said Angie Mistretta, director of telepresence solutions marketing at Cisco.
After your meeting, Ava allows you to “go” anywhere else in the building before it heads back to its docking station to recharge.
The robot’s mobility, security and the quality of its video all make it “radically” better than Skype, Angle said.
When it goes on the market early next year, Cisco expects the estimated, one-time cost will be under $70,000. But Angle said the robot also will be able to be leased for between $2,000 and $2,500 per month.
Although initially Ava is expected to be used for business, Mistretta said the robot also could be used in education, allowing students to ask questions of a professor individually after a lecture, and in manufacturing, allowing a company to bring in a remote expert to diagnose and fix a problem.
- See more at: http://bostonherald.com/business/technology/technology_news/2013/06/irobot_to_unveil_virtual_business_partner#sthash.a7zVCCcd.dpuf

The people who brought you the Roomba vacuum cleaner have teamed up with Cisco to develop an entirely different robot, one that may just help make the pesky business trip a thing of the past.

Bedford-based iRobot will unveil the Ava 500 video collaboration robot at the InfoComm conference in Orlando, Fla., this week, its first creation designed to work in the office.

“Our goal is to give executives a compelling alternative to going to meetings in person,” said CEO Colin Angle. “They’re not giving up the opportunity to sit down at a table, see people’s expressions or follow them out to the hallway to have follow-up conversations.”

Using an iPad, you tap on the Ava 500 app and select where you want to “go” — an office, a factory or any other facility equipped with the robot — and whom you want to see.

At that location, Ava — which stands about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds — maps its surroundings so that it can find its way around offices, manufacturing floors and laboratories without bumping into people or objects.

You can choose to let it go either in “private” mode, where the 21.5-inch Cisco HD screen on the robot’s “head” appears blank, or in “public” mode, where your face is displayed on the screen. If you choose the latter, you can see and be seen, and you can remotely stop to have an ad-hoc hallway conversation with a colleague along the way.

“The real value of the robot is that spontaneity,” said Angie Mistretta, director of telepresence solutions marketing at Cisco.

After your meeting, Ava allows you to “go” anywhere else in the building before it heads back to its docking station to recharge.

The robot’s mobility, security and the quality of its video all make it “radically” better than Skype, Angle said.

When it goes on the market early next year, Cisco expects the estimated, one-time cost will be under $70,000. But Angle said the robot also will be able to be leased for between $2,000 and $2,500 per month.

Although initially Ava is expected to be used for business, Mistretta said the robot also could be used in education, allowing students to ask questions of a professor individually after a lecture, and in manufacturing, allowing a company to bring in a remote expert to diagnose and fix a problem.

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Stocks Slide In Asia As Japan Holds Policy Steady

Source - http://www.businessweek.com/
By - Elaine Kurtenbach
Category - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Stock markets slid Tuesday in Asia, as Japan's central bank ended a policy meeting with no fresh stimulus or moves to curb bond market volatility.

Uncertainty also weighed on emerging markets in Asia, with mainland China's financial markets closed for a national holiday following the weekend release of discouraging data for the world's second largest economy.

Japan's Nikkei stock index fell 1.1 percent to 13,354.60 a day after soaring 4.9 percent following an upward revision of first quarter economic growth data.

A statement issued by the Bank of Japan at midday called for no major policy changes but reiterated its expectation for a moderate recovery in coming months, noting an improvement in exports and resilient demand in Japan.

However, the central bank offered no new monetary easing or measures to curb volatility in government bond prices that has alarmed some in recent weeks.

Regionally, an overnight decline on Wall Street weighed on sentiment, while investors in Hong Kong awaited the reopening of China's markets on Thursday, following the Dragon Boat festival.

"During the holiday, the data from China was not so good. It was below market expectations, so investors are waiting," said Linus Yip, a strategist at First Shanghai Securities.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was down 1.1 percent at 21,389.09, while Korea's KOSPI slipped 0.7 percent to 1,919.33. Shares were lower in Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore but rose in Australia.

A decision by the Standard & Poor's ratings agency to raise its outlook Monday for its credit rating on the U.S. government's long-term debt did little to boost spirits, as the Dow Jones industrial average slipped 0.06 percent, or 9.53 points to 15,238.59. The broader S&P 500 index was down 0.03 percent at 1,642.81

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares edged down 0.2 percent to 6,400.45 while Germany's DAX rose 0.6 percent to 8.307.69. The CAC-40 in France fell 0.2 percent to 3,864.36.

Over recent weeks, investors have grown fearful that the Federal Reserve will reduce the amount of financial assets it buys in the markets — so-called tapering.

The prospect of unchanged Fed policy in the near-term, which became more likely last week following the release of strong job numbers, has weighed on the dollar. The euro rose to $1.3270 from $1.3261 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar fell to 98.18 yen from 98.70 yen.

Oil prices held steady, with the benchmark rate down 2 cents at $95.75 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 26 cents to close at $95.77 per barrel on the Nymex on Monday.

Six Flags Magic Mountain - NC State downs Rice in 17 innings

Source - http://msn.foxsports.com/
By - RALEIGH
Category - Six Flags Magic Mountain
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Six Flags Magic Mountain

Brett Williams doubled in Tarran Senay in the top of the 17th inning to help North Carolina State beat Rice 5-4 on Sunday in the longest super regional game in NCAA history.

 Senay drove in the run that tied it in the ninth inning and set the stage for N.C. State (49-14) to make its first College World Series appearance since 1968.

''It's been special these last two days,'' Senay said. ''It doesn't matter how we get the W, as long as we win. It's a great feeling, and we'll see how we do in Omaha.''

Rice (44-20) tied a season high with three home runs. Two were solo shots by Christian Stringer, who homered and hit a go-ahead double in Game 1 and has four of the Owls' six extra-base hits in the series. Before the super regional, Stringer had one home run in 62 games this season.

N.C. State starter Logan Jernigan held Rice to two hits over five innings, including Stringer's first home run, but just as in Game 1, the Wolfpack struggled to scratch out runs early.

Owls starter Jordan Stephens allowed one earned run in 6 1-3 innings, and N.C. State left 16 runners on base.

But in the ninth, Game 1 hero Jake Fincher drove in a pair of runs with a double into the right-field corner and scored on Senay's double to tie it at 4.

The Owls left the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth when No. 3 hitter Keenan Cook popped a bunt back to pitcher Grant Sasser to send the game to extra innings.

''The first baseman was almost on the grass,'' Rice coach Wayne Graham said. ''Any kind of bunt to the right side would have scored the run. It didn't exactly go in the right direction.''

After that, it was a duel between bullpens. The teams were a combined 0 for 22 at the plate following a 77-minute rain delay in the 12th until Rice's Leon Byrd singled in the 16th.

N.C. State's bullpen held Rice without a hit for 7 1-3 innings after the ninth, and Rice's John Simms gave up only one hit in 6 2-3 innings before the Wolfpack broke through in the 17th.

''The drama, you only enjoy that when you come out on top,'' Williams said.

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - Dollar Still In Firing Line Ahead Of U.S. Jobs Report

Source - http://www.reuters.com/
By - Sophie Knight and Ian Chua
Category - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

After falling as much as 3 percent to a seven-week trough of 95.90 yen on Thursday, the greenback was trading at 96.65. That was 0.4 percent lower than late U.S. levels, with dealers citing selling from Japanese exporters on concerns that it could take time for the dollar to recoup its losses.

Traders said while there was no concrete trigger for the vicious selloff in the greenback overnight, the move has helped flush out some long USD positions ahead of the non-farm payrolls report due at 1230 GMT (8.30 a.m. EDT).

Just last month, investors had turned bullish on the dollar on the belief that upbeat data would prompt the U.S. Federal Reserve to roll back its $85 billion per month bond-buying program.

However, some traders have cut their dollar-longs after recent data raised concerns that Friday's jobs data will disappoint.

"It appears that markets are positioning for a weaker number," said Barclays Capital analysts.

Barclays Capital is, however, forecasting a 175,000 rise in employment, above the 170,000 expected by economists polled by Reuters.

"We think that an outturn close to our forecast could lead to broad USD strength, especially versus low-carry currencies."

The dollar index .DXY remained sluggish on Thursday, dropping 0.1 percent to 81.637 after slumping 1.3 percent to three-month lows on Thursday.

Against the euro, the greenback steadied after losing 1.2 percent on Thursday to a three-month low of $1.3306. It was last at $1.3251, little changed from late New York levels.

Market participants said the euro's move was more driven by the dollar's weakness against the yen than the European Central Bank (ECB)'s widely expected decision to leave its benchmark rate at a record low 0.5 percent.

Indeed, the resurgence of the yen left the euro down 0.5 percent at 127.76 yen, close to the five-week low of 127.53 it plumbed on Thursday.

The recent rise in the yen threatens to undermine the Bank of Japan's stimulus efforts, which have weakened the Japanese currency, helping exporters' overseas revenues up.

"Japanese exporters weren't selling forwards outright before because they expected too much; they wanted to see a higher (dollar) level above 100, like 105," said the director of a research firm who asked not to be identified.

"But the Ministry of Finance don't care about the level so much. They talked it up to 95 and then it got to 100, he said, adding the ministry would happy enough if the dollar remained above 90.

Japanese government officials said they were concerned about the sharpness of the yen's move but did not express any overt worries about the level of the currency.

"We are watching these moves, but this is not about intervention and I don't think we have to respond immediately," Finance Minister Taro Aso told a news conference.

The yen gained 1.7 percent against the Australian dollar to 91.40, after rising as high as 91.20, a level not seen since January 9.

The Aussie also resumed its recent slide after the U.S. dollar's broad weakness plucked it off a 20-month low of $0.9435 on Thursday. It lost 0.7 percent compared to late U.S. levels to $0.9500, within reach of its 2011 trough of $0.9388.

Hotels In Northern California - U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records Of Verizon Calls

Source - http://www.nytimes.com/
By - CHARLIE SAVAGE and EDWARD WYATT
Category - Hotels In Northern California 
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night.

 The order, signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The order does not apply to the content of the communications.

Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It is not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers. The order prohibits its recipient from discussing its existence, and representatives of both Verizon and AT&T declined to comment Wednesday evening.

The four-page order was disclosed Wednesday evening by the newspaper The Guardian. Obama administration officials at the F.B.I. and the White House also declined to comment on it Wednesday evening, but did not deny the report, and a person familiar with the order confirmed its authenticity. “We will respond as soon as we can,” said Marci Green Miller, a National Security Agency spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

The order was sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that regulates domestic surveillance for national security purposes, including “tangible things” like a business’s customer records. The provision was expanded by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which Congress enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The order was marked “TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN,” referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration’s aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks.

The collection of call logs is set to expire in July unless the court extends it.

The collection of communications logs — or calling “metadata” — is believed to be a major component of the Bush administration’s program of surveillance that took place without court orders. The newly disclosed order raised the question of whether the government continued that type of information collection by bringing it under the Patriot Act.

The disclosure late Wednesday seemed likely to inspire further controversy over the scope of government surveillance. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration. “On what possible basis has the government refused to tell us that it believes that the law authorizes this kind of request?” she said.

For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it.

“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

They added: “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

A spokesman for Senator Wyden did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the Verizon order.

The senators were angry because the Obama administration described Section 215 orders as being similar to a grand jury subpoena for obtaining business records, like a suspect’s hotel or credit card records, in the course of an ordinary criminal investigation. The senators said the secret interpretation of the law was nothing like that.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act made it easier to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain business records so long as they were merely deemed “relevant” to a national-security investigation.

The Justice Department has denied being misleading about the Patriot Act. Department officials have acknowledged since 2009 that a secret, sensitive intelligence program is based on the law and have insisted that their statements about the matter have been accurate.

The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011 for a report describing the government’s interpretation of its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But the Obama administration withheld the report, and a judge dismissed the case.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Samsung's Surprise Patent Win Could Block Apple iPhone 4 Sales In US

Source - http://www.guardian.co.uk/
By - Charles Arthur
Category - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

Samsung has won a surprise victory in a patent battle with Apple that could see the iPhone 4 and 3G-capable iPad 2 banned from sale in the US.

The decision – over a patent deemed essential to conform with the 3G standards, which Samsung has pledged to license freely – will be appealed against by Apple, which said that it will have "no impact" on the availability of its products in the US.

The final judgment by the International Trade Commission, which only adjudicates on requests for import bans to the US, will intensify debate over the US patent system, which is seen as hobbling competition in some fields. It came just hours after Barack Obama pledged to shake up his country's patent litigation system, with reform of the ITC among its objectives.

The ITC decided that the provision of 3G mobile data links in the iPhone 4, released in 2010, and 3G-capable iPad 2, infringed US patent 7,706,348. It rejected Apple's contention that Samsung had failed to license the patent on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) terms, as is required for standards-essential patents (SEPs). The iPhone 5 and 4S, and iPads released in 2012, are unaffected by the decision.

Apple and Samsung have been fighting a war of attrition through the various patent courts in the US and around the world in which they have sought to ban and otherwise limit sales of each other's products in Europe, the US, Australia and Asia. The ITC decision is the most significant win for Samsung in the US after a series of losses and indeterminate rulings there.

The decision to allow Samsung's request for a ban is controversial, because the FTC in January demanded a consent order from Google in which it would pledge that its Motorola subsidiary would not seek sales bans against "willing licensees" of SEPs.

It will also focus attention on the ITC, which has been used by a number of companies including Apple, Samsung, HTC, Nokia and others to seek import bans over alleged patent infringement against rivals in the hugely valuable smartphone business. On Tuesday, Obama announced plans to overhaul many of the US's patent litigation systems, including "change the ITC standard for obtaining an injunction to better align it" with the tests applied in US federal courts. Those effectively preclude sales bans over SEPs on willing licensees.

In Europe, the antitrust arm of the European Commission has indicated it will take legal action, perhaps including fines, against Samsung for seeking sales bans over SEPs against Apple – the same scenario in which the ITC has backed Samsung. One of the ITC's commissioners dissented from Tuesday's ruling, citing "public interest grounds".

Normally, the owner of a patented technology can decide whether or not to license it, and what rate to charge for it. But with SEPs, the owner pledges to a standards body to offer it on FRAND terms to any licensee. The payment for such patents is usually small – perhaps amounting to a fraction of a penny per use – in return for widespread use. That allows other companies to build their products to an agreed standard. Systems such as the 3G and Wi-Fi wireless networking and the H.264 video encoding/decoding standards incorporate hundreds of patents, all of which are licensed under FRAND terms.

In its judgment, the ITC said that Samsung's FRAND declarations "do not preclude" a sales ban. However, that is at odds with the FTC and European Commission position over SEPs.

"We believe the ITC's final determination has confirmed Apple's history of free-riding on Samsung's technological innovations," Samsung said in a statement to the AllThingsD website. "Our decades of research and development in mobile technologies will continue, and we will continue to offer innovative products to consumers in the US."

Apple said it was "disappointed" with the decision and that it would appeal to a federal court. Its only other alternative to avoid the import ban would be to appeal directly to Obama.

"Samsung is using a strategy which has been rejected by courts and regulators around the world," an Apple spokesperson said in a statement to AllThingsD. "They've admitted that it's against the interests of consumers in Europe and elsewhere, yet here in the US Samsung continues to try to block the sale of Apple products by using patents they agreed to license to anyone for a reasonable fee."

Apple has been seeking a US sales ban without success on a number of Samsung smartphones and tablets after it won a jury verdict and $1.05bn in damages against the South Korean company in a Californian court in August 2012. That case revolved around patents which Apple has not made part of a standard, and which it said Samsung knowingly infringed. The jury rejected counterclaims by Samsung that Apple had infringed a number of SEPs.

Lucy Koh, the judge in the case, has so far declined to allow that ban, and has ordered a retrial affecting about $400m of the damages award.

Attractions In Santa Clarita - Scientists Solve 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Mystery Of Life And Its Link To Meteorites

Source - http://thespacereporter.com/
By - Press Release
Category - Attractions In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Attractions In Santa Clarita

It seems life may have received a boost from asteroids smashing into the surface of Earth early in its life.

According to a newly published report produced by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of Washington, life-producing phosphorus may have landed on Earth 3.5 billion years ago, providing a boost to early life forms.

USF professor Matthew Pasek, who led the study, says the phosphorus, when released in water, may have over time incorporated themselves into prebiotic molecules. The phosphorus, which has been found in asteroids, was likely carried to Earth via comets and meteorites, which released the element when impacted Earth.

By focusing on the Hadean and Archean eons of early Earth, the scientists were able to discern that meteorites delivered phosphorus in minerals currently not seen on the surface of Earth. By examining Earth core samples from Zimbabwe, Australia, Wyoming, West Virginia, Florida the team was able to determine the origin of the minerals. According to researchers, the minerals likely corroded in water, releasing large amounts of phosphorus in a form only found during Earth’s early formation. The phosphite would have likely resulted in an adjusting of the chemistry of Earth’s early oceans, with its chemical signature later becoming trapped in marine carbonate where it was preserved.

“The importance of this finding is that it provides the missing ingredient in the origin-of-life recipe: a form of phosphorus that can be readily incorporated into essential biological molecules,” said Roger Buick, a co-author of the study.

There are few natural sources of phosphite that are Earth-based. Some of the examples include lightning strikes, geothermal fluids  and possibly microbial activity under extremely anaerobic condition. However, none of the Earth-based forms could have produced the quantities of phosphite needed to be dissolved in early Earth oceans that gave rise to life, according to researchers.

According to the report, the conditions that led to a boom of life on Earth no longer exist and the elements delivered by asteroids are few and far between. Previous research has already confirmed that before the emergence of DNA-RNA-protein life , the earliest forms  of life on Earth evolved by relying on RNA alone. While the evolution of early life is fairly well understood, it remained unclear how early RNA–based life forms synthesized environmental phosphorus, which in its current form is relatively insoluble and unreactive.

This is not the first study to propose how life may have evolve from elements delivered to Earth via asteroids and comets. A number of scientists have examined and noted the abundance of reactive phosphorus in the form of the mineral schreibersite, a iron–nickel phosphide.

The report is published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.