Six Flags Magic Mountain - Obama Administration Vetoes Ban on Sale of Some Apple iPhones, iPads

Source       - http://online.wsj.com/
By              - BRENT KENDALL and IAN SHERR
Category   - Six Flags Magic Mountain
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Six Flags Magic Mountain

The Obama administration on Saturday vetoed a U.S. trade body's ban on the import and sale of some Apple Inc. AAPL +1.28% iPhones and iPads, a rare move that upends a legal victory for smartphone rival Samsung Electronics Co. 005930.SE -0.86%

 

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made the decision to veto the ban on the Apple devices, citing concerns about patent holders gaining "undue leverage" as well as potential harm to consumers and competitive conditions in the U.S. economy.

He said Samsung could continue to pursue its patent rights through the courts.

The action marked the first time since 1987 that a presidential administration had vetoed an import ban ordered by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

The ITC in June had ordered the import ban and an accompanying cease-and-desist order affecting some older-model Apple iPhones and iPads after finding the products infringed a Samsung patent.

The ban raised concerns among U.S. antitrust enforcers and touched off intense lobbying of the Obama administration by technology companies with opposing positions on the issue.

Critics of the ITC order questioned whether companies should be able to block rival products in cases involving patents that have been deemed to be essential to creating products based on key technologies overseen by industry standard-setting groups.

Apple and some other technology companies argued to the trade representative that the ban was inappropriate because Samsung had committed to fairly license such "standard essential" patents associated with technology for wireless devices.

Samsung insisted it had offered to license its patents to Apple, but the Silicon Valley company had sought to avoid paying for licenses of Samsung's patents.

The South Korean electronics giant and some U.S. technology companies disputed that their commitments to standard-setting bodies mean that patent holders can't seek import bans or court injunctions in enforcing their intellectual property. They argued that a veto of the ITC order would upset decades of settled expectations, weaken the value of patents and discourage innovation.

"We applaud the Administration for standing up for innovation in this landmark case," an Apple spokeswoman said in a statement. "Samsung was wrong to abuse the patent system in this way."

A Samsung spokesman said the company was disappointed by the veto. "The ITC's decision correctly recognized that Samsung has been negotiating in good faith and that Apple remains unwilling to take a license," he said.

The veto concludes one of the most dramatic ITC cases in years. Apple's loss in the case and the subsequent ban was seen as a blow to the company's continued efforts to press cases against competitors it says have copied technology it developed for the iPhone and iPad.

Samsung, meanwhile, is scheduled to face a ruling by the ITC this Friday on whether some of its products infringe Apple patents and should be barred from import as a result. One person familiar with ITC proceedings said it might choose to delay that decision in the wake of the Obama administration's move Saturday.

The ITC cases represent one set of fronts in a global patent war between Apple and Samsung, longtime technology partners that became bitter rivals after Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007 and Samsung later introduced products that contain similar features.

Apple launched a series of patent suits against Samsung, which responded by leveling infringement charges of its own.

The ITC order would have barred the U.S. sale or import of some Apple products still on store shelves, including a version of the iPad 2 made to work on AT&T Inc.'s T +0.14% network, and the iPhone4, which runs on AT&T and T-Mobile USA's airwaves.

Mr. Froman, in a letter explaining the veto, said he came to his decision after extensive consultations with government trade bodies "as well as other interested agencies and persons."

He said he also "strongly shares" concerns raised in a policy statement issued in January by the Justice Department and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which said ITC product bans should rarely be allowed in cases involving standard-essential patents. Among other issues, the agencies discussed the possibility that holders of such patents could use them in ways that would unduly increase royalty rates they might receive for licenses.

DOJ officials were included during the trade representative's review of the Apple ban. A Justice spokeswoman declined to comment.

The Federal Trade Commission, which shares antitrust authority with the Justice Department, has made similar arguments. The FTC in January reached a settlement with Google Inc. GOOG +0.26% after alleging the company was misusing standard-essential patents it acquired from handset maker Motorola Mobility.

An FTC spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Former FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who led the agency during the Google case, said Saturday's veto would benefit consumers and promote innovation.

"When a company agrees to license what is known as a standard-essential patent at fair and reasonable terms, it shouldn't be able to ban importation of a product into the United States simply because it wants a better deal," he said.

Susan Kohn Ross, a partner at the law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, said she was surprised the Obama administration stepped in on the case. Usually, such reviews turn on whether a patent in a case was really infringed, rather than concerns about the kinds of issues laid out in government policy statements.

Either way, this blow to Samsung likely won't have much impact in the bargaining room with Apple, she said. ITC decisions typically don't have as much of an impact in setting legal precedents as rulings in federal courts.

Samsung cannot appeal the veto, but it can continue to press its own court cases against Apple. "Does it in any way end the dispute? No," Ms. Ross said.

Santa Clarita Local Colleges - New Teeth Grown From Urine - Study

Source - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By - James Gallagher
Category - Santa Clarita Local Colleges
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Santa Clarita Local Colleges

The results, published in Cell Regeneration Journal, showed that urine could be used as a source of stem cells that in turn could be grown into tiny tooth-like structures.

The team from China hopes the technique could be developed into a way of replacing lost teeth.

Other stem cell researchers caution that that goal faces many challenges.

Teams of researchers around the world are looking for ways of growing new teeth to replace those lost with age and poor dental hygiene. 

Stem cells - the master cells which can grow into any type of tissue - are a popular area of research.

The group at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health used urine as the starting point. 

Cells which are normally passed from the body, such as those from the lining of the body's waterworks, are harvested in the laboratory. These collected cells are then coaxed into becoming stem cells.

A mix of these cells and other material from a mouse was implanted into the animals.

The researchers said that after three weeks the bundle of cells started to resemble a tooth: "The tooth-like structure contained dental pulp, dentin, enamel space and enamel organ." 

However, the "teeth" were not as hard as natural teeth.

This piece of research is not immediately going to lead to new options for the dentist, but the researchers say it could lead to further studies towards "the final dream of total regeneration of human teeth for clinical therapy".

'Worst source'

Prof Chris Mason, a stem cell scientist at University College London, said urine was a poor starting point.

"It is probably one of the worst sources, there are very few cells in the first place and the efficiency of turning them into stem cells is very low. 

"You just wouldn't do it in this way."

He also warned that the risk of contamination, such as through bacteria, was much higher than with other sources of cells.

Prof Mason added: "The big challenge here is the teeth have got a pulp with nerve and blood vessels which have to make sure they integrate to get permanent teeth."

Hotel In Santa Clarita - Ghostly Image Of Two Of Saturn's Many Moons, Courtesy Of Cassini

Source       - http://www.latimes.com/
By             - Deborah Netburn
Category  - Hotel In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In Santa Clarita

Saturn may be best known for its iconic rings, but the giant planet is also host to more than 53 moons, each one a fascinating and distinct world of its own.

In the ghostly image above, captured by NASA's Cassini mission, you can see two members of Saturn's massive moon family -- Mimas and Pandora -- glowing brightly above Saturn's smooth gray rings.

The large, round moon toward the top of the image is Mimas, the smallest of Saturn's major moons. It is 246 miles across, and scientists believe it is made almost entirely of water ice.

Cassini was approximately 690,000 miles away from Mimas when it took this image, but if you look closely you can still spot the enormous 80-mile wide crater that spreads over a large chunk of the moon's surface. (It looks like a divot on the right side of the moon).

Beneath Mimas, you'll see the oblong moon Pandora, which is just 52 miles across and shaped like a potato. Pandora's strange shape is a result of the moon not having enough gravity to pull itself into a sphere, according to NASA scientists.

You can't see it in this image, but Pandora is coated in dust-sized ice material that covers even its craters.

Cassini was 731,000 miles from Pandora when this image was taken.

Earlier this month, Cassini's hard-working cameras caught a glimpse of Earth as seen from 900 million miles away. Those images can make you feel small and insignificant, but in a kind of glorious way.

Attractions In Santa Clarita - Over a Million Are Denied Bank Accounts For Past Errors

Source - http://dealbook.nytimes.com/
By -  JESSICA SILVER
Category - Attractions In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Attractions In Santa Clarita

Mistakes like a bounced check or a small overdraft have effectively blacklisted more than a million low-income Americans from the mainstream financial system for as long as seven years as a result of little-known private databases that are used by the nation’s major banks.

The problem is contributing to the growth of the roughly 10 million households in the United States that lack a banking account, a basic requirement of modern economic life.

Unlike traditional credit reporting databases, which provide portraits of outstanding debt and payment histories, these are records of transgressions in banking products. Institutions like Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo say that tapping into the vast repositories of information helps them weed out risky customers and combat fraud — a mounting threat for banks.

But consumer advocates and state authorities say the use of the databases disproportionately affects lower-income Americans, who tend to live paycheck to paycheck, making them more likely to incur negative marks after relatively minor banking missteps like overdrawing accounts, amassing fees or bouncing checks.

When the databases were created more than 20 years ago, they were intended to help banks guard against serial fraud artists, like those accused of writing bogus checks. Since then, though, the databases have ensnared millions of low-income Americans, according to interviews with financial counselors, consumer lawyers and more than two dozen low-income people in California, Illinois, Florida, New York and Washington.

Jonathan Mintz, the commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, says banks’ growing reliance on customer databases has frustrated efforts to help an estimated 825,000 New Yorkers without bank accounts gain access to the mainstream financial system.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans are being shut out for relatively small mistakes,” Mr. Mintz said.

As a result, many have no choice but to turn to costly fringe operations to cash checks, pay bills and wire money. Saving for the future, financial counselors say, can be especially difficult.

The ranks of those without bank accounts have swelled — up more than 10 percent since 2009, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — as banks have sharpened their focus on more affluent customers who typically generate twice the revenue of their lower-income counterparts. Many banks are closing branches in poor areas and expanding in wealthier ones, according to an analysis of federal data.

Rejection for would-be bank customers can come as a shock. Tiffany Murrell of Brooklyn says a credit union denied her checking account application in September 2012 even though she had a job as a secretary and was up to date on her bills.

Hotel In California - Back Pain: Doctors Increasingly Ignore Clinical Guidelines

Source - http://www.latimes.com/
By - Monte Morin
Category - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

Doctors have increasingly ignored clinical guidelines for the treatment of routine back pain by prescribing powerful and addictive narcotics instead of other recommended painkillers and by recommending unwarranted diagnostic imagery, according to a new study.

Researchers at Massachusetts' Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School based their conclusion on an examination of roughly 24,000 cases of spine problems in national databases from 1999 to 2010. Their findings appeared online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Well-established guidelines for routine back pain stress conservative management, including use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or acetaminophen and physical therapy," wrote lead author Dr. John Mafi and his colleagues.

Despite these guidelines, researchers found that doctors were doing much the opposite.

Although physical therapy referrals remained steady during the study period, prescriptions for narcotic painkillers jumped 51%. Simultaneously, prescriptions for non-opiate drugs had fallen by the same amount.

Study authors noted that a 2007 analysis found that narcotics provided little to no benefit in cases of acute back pain and that they had also failed to prove effective in cases of chronic back pain.

The jump in narcotic prescriptions therefore raised "significant concerns," the authors wrote, and may be linked to a larger national crisis involving prescription drug deaths.

"Although we lack adequate data to make firm recommendations on narcotic medications, which may be indicated in certain instances, such increases in narcotic prescriptions may be contributing to a current crisis in public health: The rapid increase in narcotic overdose deaths parallels a reported 300% increase in the U.S. sales of prescription narcotics since the 1990s."

Researchers also identified "an inappropriate increase" in the use of "low value" diagnostic imaging that could lead to future cancer in patients because of exposure to ionizing radiation.

While medical guidelines recommended that doctors avoid early imaging or other aggressive treatments, except in rare cases, researchers found that the use of computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) had increased by 57%. 

 

Researchers say that such scans have proved to be of little benefit to patients who lack "red-flag symptoms" and that overuse of the technology has been identified in previous studies as well.

"In 2007, a projected 1,200 additional future cancers were created by the 2.2 million lumbar CTs performed in the United States," the authors wrote.

The authors say that under established treatment guidelines, routine back pain will usually improve within 3 months.

However, referral rates to other doctors, presumably for surgery, had doubled during the study period. (Early MRI for acute back pain was associated with an eight-fold increased risk of surgery, researchers found.)

"The 106% increase in referrals to other physicians is a previously unrecognized and important finding because such referrals likely contributed to the recent increase in costly, morbid and often ineffective outpatient spine operations observed in other studies," the authors wrote.

Nationally, back and neck problems are responsible for more than 10% of all visits to primary care physicians and account for $86 billion in healthcare spending every year.

According to study authors, spending on these conditions has increased more rapidly than overall health expenditures from 1997 to 2005.

"With healthcare costs soaring, improvements in the management of back pain represent an area of potential cost savings for the healthcare system while also improving the quality of care," the authors concluded.

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita - Move Over iPad Mini -- New Nexus 7 Is Current Small Tablet Champ

Source - http://www.forbes.com/
By - Larry Magid
Category - Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

 

Hampton Hotels Santa Clarita

I’ve been using the new Nexus 7 since it was announced last week and, frankly, my iPad mini is starting to look a little weak by comparison.

Unlike the mini, which doesn’t use the higher resolution Retina display like the latest version of its full-sized iPad and latest iPhones, the Nexus 7 has a high definition display (1920×1200/323 pixel compared to mini’s 1024 x 768/163 pixel) screen and is capable of showing 1080p HD video. The difference is noticeable when you read or watch HD video but, I have to admit, that iPad mini is still pretty good when it comes to resolution.   I used both to read parts of a book using Amazon’s Kindle app and, while both were quite clear, I could see that the text was somewhat sharper on the Nexus’ higher resolution screen.

Both have a 1.2 megapixel front and a 5 megapixel rear facing cameras.  Here are the full specifications for the new Nexus 7 and here are the iPad mini specs.

As per price, the 16 GB Nexus 7 costs $229 while the mini starts at $329. That’s a $100 difference for pretty similar hardware configurations.  Google also doesn’t ding you as much for extra storage. A 32GB Nexus (WiFi only) costs $269, while Apple charges $429 for its 32 GB model.

Lighter and narrower but a bit thicker

Bottom line — because it’s not as wide,the Nexus 7, it  not only fits well in the hand but takes up a bit less space in handbags and pockets. It fits pretty easily into the front pockets of my Docker khaki slacks. Of course you could argue that the mini’s extra screen real estate is a bonus compared to the Nexus more petite form factor.

Software

The biggest difference between the two tablets is Android vs iOS.  This is where both reasonable and unreasonable people can argue depending on personal preference. For many of us, the best interface is the one we know so if you’re already an iOS user you’re likely to prefer the familiar iPad interface. Many Android users will likely feel the same about their operating system.

Although it’s hard to argue against Apple’s elegant U.I. and there may be even more to love about  iOS 7 that comes out this fall, I have to give Google credit for — over time — improving and fine tuning Android into an excellent platform for both phones and tablets. One thing I like about the new 4.3 (which comes on the Nexus 7) is that you can create restricted accounts, which makes it a lot more family friendly for parents who want to let their kids use their tablets without being able to buy apps or make in-app purchases or visit naughty websites.

Hotels In Northern California - Android Jelly Bean 4.3 Shines On Nexus 7 But It’s No Key Lime Pie 5.0

Source - http://www.stableytimes.com/
By -  Jerry Miller
Category - Hotels In Northern California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotels In Northern California

Android 4.3 shines as a medium sized update on the new Nexus 7, but it’s not the ‘droid most users were looking for. Android users will have to wait awhile for the Key Lime Pie 5.0 software update, as Google prepares to release yet another Jelly Bean update next week. As far as consolation prizes go, Jelly Bean 4.3 update is not a bad one. In fact when the beta build of 4.3 was first discovered it was thought to be Key Lime Pie based on the significance of what it brings to the table, until the code letters of its build name revealed it to be yet another Jelly Bean release. Now the question is just how many current Android phones and tablets will be compatible with 4.3 upon its release.

Android 4.3 will seek to improve upon that, with full compatibility with Google’s own new Nexus 7 next week. And if vendors are serious about moving beyond the fragmentation era, Samsung and HTC will announce that their Galaxy S4 and One, respectively, have also been built to be forward compatible with the new Jelly Bean release. But while which fraction of Android users will be able to take advantage of the 4.3 update is still in question, it does serve up a decent set of improvements for an x.x release. It’s just no Key Lime Pie, whose features are still unknown but whose 5.0 designation means it’ll bring a significant overhaul to the platform.