Family Hotels In Santa Clarita - Satellites Reveal New Views Of Pakistan's 'Earthquake Island'

Source      - http://www.nbcnews.com/
By            - Becky Oskin
Category  - Family Hotels In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Family Hotels In Santa Clarita

Earth performed the ultimate magic trick last week, making an island appear out of nowhere. The new island is a remarkable side effect of a deadly Sept. 24 earthquake in Pakistan that killed more than 500 people.

Satellite images snapped a few days after the earthquake-triggered island emerged offshore, near the town of Gwadar, reveal that the strange structure is round and relatively flat, with cracks and fissures like a child's dried-up mud pie.

The French Pleiades satellite mapped the muddy hill's dimensions, which measure 576.4 feet (175.7 meters) long by 524.9 feet (160 m) wide. Aerial photos from Pakistan's National Institute of Oceanography suggest the gray-colored mound is about 60 to 70 feet (18 to 21 meters) high.

Gwadar is about 230 miles (380 kilometers) from the earthquake's epicenter. The magnitude-7.7 earthquake was probably centered on the Chaman Fault, Shuhab Khan, a geoscientist at the University of Houston told LiveScience last week.

Geologists think the new island, named Zalzala Koh, is made of erupted mud, spewed from the seafloor when either trapped gases escaped or subsurface water was violently expelled.

The new island could be the result of a mud volcano. Mud volcanoes form when hot water underground mixes with sediments and gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. If the noxious slurry finds a release valve, such as a crack opened by earthquake shaking, a mud volcano erupts, according to James Hein, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Santa Cruz, Calif. Geologists from the Pakistan Navy report that Zalzala Koh is releasing flammable gas. But seafloor sediments commonly hold methane-producing bacteria, so the possible methane coming from the island isn't a clincher to its identity.

Shaking from the powerful Sept. 24 earthquake could have also loosened the seafloor sediments offshore of Pakistan, jiggling them like jelly. The great rivers coming down from the Himalayas dump tons of water-saturated sediment into the Arabian Sea every year. The new island could be a gigantic example of a liquefaction blow, when seismic shaking makes saturated sediments act like liquid, and trapped water suddenly escapes, Michael Manga, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

Similar islands have appeared offshore of Pakistan after strong earthquakes in the region in 2001 and 1945. If the earlier examples hold, the soft mud island won't last a year, disappearing under the erosive power of the pounding of waves from monsoon storms.

Six Flags Magic Mountain - Dollar Steady As U.S. Government Shutdown To Start

Source      - http://www.reuters.com/
By            - Dominic Lau
Category  - Six Flags Magic Mountain
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Six Flags Magic Mountain

The dollar held steady on Tuesday even though much of the U.S. government was due to start shutting down after Congress failed to find a compromise on a bill to fund government operations.

Competing spending measures flew back and forth between Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Democratic-led Senate late into Monday night in Washington but Congress deadlocked over Republican efforts to use the temporary spending bill as a way to delay implementation of President Barack Obama's health care program.

It comes a few weeks ahead of the next political battle to raise the federal government's debt ceiling. Failure to do the latter by mid-October could result in a historic U.S. debt default that would threaten the U.S. economy and send ripples around the globe.

S&P stock futures inched up 0.2 percent, unchanged from earlier price action after the cash index fell 0.6 percent on Monday, while U.S. Treasury futures slipped 5 ticks.

As many as one million U.S. federal employees could face unpaid furloughs, but a shutdown would be unlikely to affect the United States's sovereign credit rating.

Investors are accustomed to political battles in Washington resulting in a last-minute accord and voiced scepticism any shutdown would last for an extended period.

"It may have a knock-on effect on the timing of the potential tapering (by the Federal Reserve). It could have a knock-on effect on the production of economic data. It could have a real impact on consumption if it lasts for more than a day," said a senior trader at a foreign bank in Tokyo.

"People in the market are kind of interpreting this as a kabuki drama if you like, but we are little more concerned than that."

The dollar .DXY was down 0.1 percent against a basket of currencies. It was steady at 98.15 yen, having climbed off a one-month low of 97.50 on Monday as Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was expected to announce his economic growth and tax strategy later on Tuesday.

Japanese manufacturers' sentiment improved sharply in the three months to September to a near six-year high, a closely-watched central bank survey showed on Tuesday, cementing the case for Abe to proceed with a planned sales tax increase next year.

"This is very constructive in terms of the assessment of the current economic situation. There is no reason that Prime Minister Abe should stop raising the (sales) tax," said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan in Tokyo.

Japan's Nikkei share average .N225 rose 0.3 percent after climbing as much as 1.3 percent earlier in the session.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS added 0.2 percent, though it was still not too far away from a two-week low after it slid 1.5 percent in the previous session. Regional trading activity was expected to be light with China and Hong Kong closed for National Day holiday.

China's manufacturing growth edged up only slightly last month with the official Purchasing Managers' Index rising to 51.1 from August's 51.0, but below expectations and adding to worries that its economy recovery has foundered.

In the commodity markets, gold edged up 0.2 percent to $1,329 an ounce after gaining 7.6 percent in July-September, reversing three straight quarters of decline.

Brent crude dipped 0.6 percent to around $107.7 a barrel after gaining 6 percent in the third quarter, also ending a three-quarter losing streak.

Vacations In Santa Clarita - Gmail’s Ongoing Email Slowdown Nearing Resolution

Source      - http://techcrunch.com/
By             - Sarah Perez
Category   - Vacations In Santa Clarita
Posted By  - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Vacations In Santa Clarita

Good news! Today you can blame your non-responsiveness to all those important emails you’ve been ignoring on Google itself. The company’s online email service Gmail has been experiencing issues leading to delayed emails and attachments failing to download, the company confirmed. Earlier this morning, Google said an estimated 0.24 percent of its Gmail user base was affected by these problems, but in an update released later this afternoon, the delays were said to being affecting “less than 50 percent of Gmail users.”

Given the wording of that announcement, it sounded like, at first, things were getting worse instead of better. Gmail has some 425 million users, according to a public announcement detailing the size of its user base, which was revealed last summer at its Google I/O developer conference.

Google has been providing regular updates regarding the situation throughout the day, the first appearing at 10:25 a.m. ET and noting that it was then starting to investigate reports of an issue with Gmail. This was followed by an update over an hour later that informed customers that delays were involved and some attachments were failing to load.

Updates released at 12:43 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:05 p.m., and 2:45 p.m. ET so far only said that the team is continuing to investigate the problem and will update when there’s more information available.

At 3:00 p.m. ET, the company added that the service has been restored for some users, and it expects full resolution within an hour, but this time frame may change. Google did not say which percentage of the “less than 50 percent” of users has had service restored.

We reached out to Google via email for comment on what may have caused this issue, and other details, but you know…

Meeting Space Santa Clarita - Facebook Finally Lets You Edit Posts

Source      - http://mashable.com/
By             - Pete Pachal
Category   - Meeting Space Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Meeting Space Santa Clarita

If autocorrect has ever ruined your Facebook post, your prayers have been answered. Facebook introduced the ability to edit status updates starting Thursday.

The latest update for the Android Facebook app adds the ability to "edit your posts and comments and tap to see all your changes." However, the editing has not been enabled on any of the Android devices we experimented with.

The editing feature will roll out to Facebook users on the web and Android devices over the next day, Facebook confirmed to Mashable. The editing feature is not included in the latest iOS app, but will likely get pushed out in the next update. Users will see the option to "Edit Post" when they click on the drop-down arrow in the top-right corner of a post.

Editing posts was potentially dicey territory for Facebook, since the it brings the danger of a bait-and-switch with followers. A user could conceivably write, "Who likes ice cream?" and get hundreds of Likes and affirming comments, then edit the post to read, "Who wants to beat up some cats?"

Facebook addresses this issue by marking the post as edited and letting users access the history of any edited post with a click. Google+, which has let users edit posts for some time, works in a similar fashion.

Facebook has been slowly granting users more editing capabilities over their content. Users can edit photo captions (that is, status updates with a photo attached) and the ability to edit comments arrived a few months ago. 

It's likely Facebook examined all the potential abuses and concluded the risk in letting users alter posts was minimal. It makes sense: Any user who would mislead followers or friends with a post they intend to maliciously edit would likely soon find themselves with few followers or friends of any value.

For journalists on Facebook, the value of editing posts is even greater. As Mashable's Emily Banks has argued, being able to edit a post in a transparent fashion makes Facebook posts more like articles on a website, and now reporters will be able to make corrections without deleting entire updates and losing conversation threads.

What's your take on editing posts: Yea or nay? Have your say in the comments.

Attractions In Santa Clarita - Apple Beats Android In Smartphone Wars

Source      - http://www.bostonglobe.com/
By             - Hiawatha Bray
Category   - Attractions In Santa Clarita
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Attractions In Santa Clarita

Apple’s timing was perfect. The new iPhone 5s hit the stores two years after I bought an iPhone 4s, entitling me to a $200 trade-in, and a painless upgrade.

But the contract on my other phone had run out a few months earlier. So I picked up an HTC One, powered by Google Inc.’s Android operating system. And I am delighted with it. Android began by aping the iPhone, but it has evolved into software so good that the flow of borrowed ideas runs both ways, with Apple adding a number of Android’s best features.

So which is better? After comparing the way each phone handles several important tasks, it was an easy call. Android’s fine; Apple’s even finer.

This comparison was no cakewalk. Android’s features can vary from phone to phone. It has open-source software, so phone makers like Samsung Corp. and HTC Corp. add their own special tweaks. Phones running Apple’s iOS 7 and its older brother, iOS 6, always work the same way. Still, we can make a few worthwhile side-by-side critiques.

Let’s start with utilities — the tools and controls used to set up the phone and get basic tasks done. Android has long done it better. There is no hunting for the settings control. Just pull down the notifications bar at the top of the screen and there it is. Want to add app shortcuts to a screen? Just touch it to view your options.

The new iOS 7 has caught up in a big way. It now has Control Center, a marvelous menu that pulls up from the bottom of the screen. Control Center allows instant access to a bunch of vital utilities — airplane mode, screen brightness, music volume, a timer, and a calculator. It even has a flashlight mode, so there is no need to download a separate app for that. You can do all these things with an Android, but not quite so easily. Advantage: Apple.

Android came up with the idea of posting notifications of incoming messages on a pull-down menu at the top of the screen, but Apple is perfecting it. The iOS version has always been superior to Android’s and in iOS 7 it has gotten much better. I especially like the today feature, which tells you the day’s appointments, the local weather, and even a preview of what is on tap tomorrow. In this department, Android has lots of catching up to do.

How about device security? The fingerprint scanner on the new iPhone 5s is cool, but a team of German hackers have already figured out how to beat it. Maybe we should stick to the old-school password system that the iPhone uses as a backup. Androids have password protection, too. But what they did not have for a long time was something like Apple’s Find My iPhone feature. This lets users find a lost or stolen phone and remotely wipe the information on it, to protect sensitive data. The new iOS 7 just added a kill switch that can remotely lock the phone to make it permanently useless to thieves.

But Android has closed the gap on security. Last month, it launched Android Device Manager, a website where a user can see their phone’s location on a map. They can order it to blast out a ringtone, or delete stored information. This week, Android added a remote locking feature of its own. With this new tool, my Android phone is as secure as the iPhone.

Both iOS and Android offer excellent speech recognition tools. Android’s Google Now service has actually worked better for me than the iPhone’s vaunted Siri system. Google Now is great for all kinds of online searching, and it even launches the apps on Android phones with a voice command. But the iOS 7 Siri upgrade has pushed Apple back into the lead. It is much faster than the previous edition, with a more pleasant, human-sounding voice (female or male). And it has a heap of features that Androiders can only dream of. You can ask Siri to read your e-mail aloud, play a favorite piece of music, or run a hashtag search on Twitter. I have no doubt that Google will soon pull even, but for now, give it up for Apple.

I still prefer my HTC One. It runs fast as a laser, its screen is much bigger than that of the 5s, and I’m addicted to HTC’s custom-designed screen interface, which displays the latest news headlines and Facebook messages. With help from a few good apps, it can do nearly anything the iPhone 5s can do. Yet the iPhone’s combination of beauty and efficiency is as magical as ever.

Hotel In California - Tackling Fears 'While You Sleep'

Source     - http://www.bbc.co.uk/
By            - Caroline Parkinson
Category  - Hotel In California
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Hotel In California

US researchers suggest smells could be used to calm fears - while people sleep.

People were trained to associate two images, linked to smells, with fear.

During sleep they were exposed to one of those smells - and when they woke they were less frightened of the image linked to that smell.

A UK expert praised the Nature Neuroscience study and said it could help treat phobias and perhaps even post-traumatic stress disorders.

People with phobias are already commonly treated with "gradual exposure" therapy while they are awake, where they are exposed to the thing they are frightened of in incremental degrees.

This study suggests that the theory could be extended to therapy while they are in slow-wave, or deep, sleep.

This is the deepest period of sleep, where memories, particularly those linked to emotions, are thought to be processed.

Brain changes

The researchers showed 15 healthy people pictures of two different faces.

At the same time they were given a mild electric shock. They were also exposed to a specific smell, such as lemon, mint, new trainers, clove or wood.

They were then taken into a sleep lab. While they were in slow-wave sleep they were exposed to a smell linked to one of the faces they had been shown.

Later, when they were awake, they were shown both faces - without the scents or shocks.

They showed less fear when shown the face linked to the scent they had smelt while asleep than when shown the other face.

Their response was measured through the amount of sweat on the skin and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) brain scans.

These showed changes in the areas linked to memory, such as the hippocampus, and in patterns of brain activity in regions associated with emotion, such as the amygdala. 

People were in slow-wave sleep for between five and 40 minutes, and the effect was strongest for those who slept for longest.

'Just one day'

Dr Katherina Hauner, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, who led the study, said: "It's a novel finding. We showed a small but significant decrease in fear. 

"If it can be extended to pre-existing fear, the bigger picture is that, perhaps, the treatment of phobias can be enhanced during sleep." 

She said phobias would be the most obvious area to pursue, as cues tended to be relatively simple, compared with the more complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

And she said much more research was needed to fully understand the effects this therapy could have.

"This was just one day. We really need to see if it can last weeks, months or years."

'Triggers include smells'

 

Jennifer Wild, consultant clinical psychologist at the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry, said: "The sleep study is excellent and has implications for treating phobias and stress disorders, such as post-traumatic stress, where there are a whole range of cues. 

"Many people who have survived traumatic events, such as fires or road traffic accidents, have a physiological fear response to triggers of their memories. 

"Triggers often include smells, such as smoke, petrol, antiseptic smells and alcohol. Infusing these smells during periods of slow-wave sleep could help to extinguish the fear response."

Dr Wild added that the theory could perhaps be extended by exposing people to subtle sounds linked to phobias or traumatic memories during their sleep.

Santa Clarita Local Colleges - Apple Sells Nine Million iPhones Over Debut Weekend

Source      - http://online.wsj.com/
By            - DON CLARK
Category  - Santa Clarita Local Colleges
Posted By - Hampton Inn Santa Clarita

Santa Clarita Local Colleges

Apple Inc. AAPL +4.97% may have a hit with its new iPhone 5S, but prospects for the lower-price iPhone 5C are less clear.

Those conclusions emerged after Apple said Monday that it sold nine million of the two handsets in their first three days on the market—well above what analysts had anticipated. 

The company also said that its quarterly sales and profit margin would likely be at the high end of the company's previous forecast. Apple in July projected revenue between $34 billion and $37 billion and gross margin between 36% and 37%. 

The company's stock jumped $23.23, or 5%, to close at $490.64 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Apple also said that more than 200 million of its devices already were running iOS 7—a free overhaul released last week of the operating system used on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touch devices.

Apple's record volume for the new iPhones compared with five million iPhone 5 models sold on its opening weekend a year ago. Analyst had predicted that six million to seven million of this year's models would be sold in the debut weekend.

But there are caveats with the Apple figures, among them the decision to sell the phone in China in the opening weekend this year. 

And beyond sales by the company to consumers from its own stores and website, Apple's count includes sales to other retailers. While Apple appears to have exhausted inventory of the iPhone 5S, the nine million units include unsold iPhone 5C models at non-Apple retailers, analysts said.

"If you adjust for the 5C, it's not the blowout that it initially looks like," said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. He estimated that three million to four million iPhone 5C models are with retailers and that the number of both handsets in the hands of consumers was 5.5 million.

Apple didn't break down its sales other than to say that demand for the iPhone 5S exceeded supply. "Thanks to all our amazing customers for the fantastic weekend," Chief Executive Tim Cook, a new Twitter user, said in a tweet Monday.

Assessing demand for the phones is particularly difficult because more countries are involved this year: 11, compared with nine for the iPhone 5 release last year. And China, in particular, is a huge smartphone market.

Toni Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said the original iPhone 5 sold two million units in its first weekend of sales in China. He estimated that China likely contributed a similar amount this year.

The cautions aside, analysts still said the rollout was stronger than they expected, as indicated by longer lines at stores than last year. While some Apple analysts were disappointed that the iPhone 5C wasn't priced low enough to attract a new class of buyers, they said there remained a substantial number of iPhone users who wanted to upgrade their phones and that new trade-in programs made the process less expensive.

"People forget that there is a massive installed base out there," said Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI International Group. As a result, when "each phone comes out, the launch gets bigger and bigger."

Several signs indicated strong customer preference for the iPhone 5S. Cantor Fitzgerald said its survey of buyers in New York found that 88% bought that model but that Apple's figures suggested that the less-expensive iPhone 5C also sold well.

Boston-based research firm Localytics said data generated from apps downloaded by users over the weekend indicated that the iPhone 5S sold 3.5 times as many units as the 5C. 

Raj Aggarwal, the firm's chief executive, cautioned that the initial data didn't necessarily show the long-term prospects for the iPhone 5C since sales on the opening weekend could have been distorted by hard-core buyers. "The people who are excited enough to stand in line on a Friday morning, these are the early adopters," he said. "They are more likely to want the more sophisticated top-end device."