WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is sharpening her criticism of an anti-Islam video that provoked protests in the Arab world.
Clinton says the film is “disgusting and reprehensible.” She calls it a cynical attempt to offend people for their religious beliefs.
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Once one of the most promising politicians in the nation, Jesse Jackson Jr. has seen his career go horribly wrong—marked most recently by his mysterious disappearance and the revelation that he’s suffering from bipolar depression. What happened to Junior?
Google is accused of threatening to cut Acer off from the official Android teat, after a phone collaboration between the manufacturer and Alibaba was axed at the last minute. Acer and Chinese e-retail giant Alibaba had been planning to launch the CloudMobile A800 smartphone together, Reuters reports, but the event itself was suddenly shut down after Acer was apparently told that “Google would terminate Android product cooperation” if the phone was revealed.
Acer has declined to comment publicly on the issue, but Alibaba proved not to be so reticent. “Our partner received notification from Google” it said in a statement, “that if the new product launch with Aliyun went ahead, Google would terminate Android product cooperation and related technical authorization with Acer.”
That would be a particularly draconian approach, and it’s not something we’ve heard of Google threatening before. It seems the frustration came not from a forking of Android but Alibaba’s intention to use another OS, Aliyun, of its own creation, TNW reports; that runs webapps, based on Alibaba’s servers, though can also install Android apps.
Without a comment from Google, then, or Acer, it’s hard to say what’s happened. Alibaba has not given any indication of what it plans to do next, now that Acer is apparently out of the picture. In a statement, published on the official company news site, it described Google’s decision as “clearly unfair to consumers.”
“We believe that by introducing the Aliyun OS we are giving consumers and hardware makers more options which is the foundation of a healthy and strong market” Alibaba said. “We think that it should be left to the market to decide.”
Google threatened Acer with Android excommunication claims Alibaba is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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In an effort to let its customers know exactly what they’ll get when the iPhone 5 (and downloadable updates) arrive in their country, Apple has broken down what iOS 6 will offer in different territories. US customers will get the full bounty that the mobile OS has to offer, being the only country whose maps will be peppered with 3D buildings. A pretty comprehensive list of 23 iPhone-enraptured countries will join the US in claiming turn-by-turn navigation and traffic information, including most of western Europe, Australia, China and Canada. 49 countries will get their maps augmented by local search results, while directions and satellite imaging will arrive on an even larger list of places you’ll now need to visit.
Siri content, meanwhile, is a little leaner, with the likes of the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia all joining the US on some pretty short lists, gaining Twitter, Sport, Facebook and local search integration. Movie content, including reviews and showtimes, will only be fully enabled in the USA, UK and Canada. Check Apple’s full breakdown at the source below.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software
Apple gives region-by-region breakdown of iOS 6 capabilities: specifies Siri and Maps functionality originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
* Corn crop stabilizes in drought, 3 pct larger than expected
* Soybean crop 1 pct smaller than expected
* US corn, soy 2012/13 end stocks larger than expected
* Drought cuts Russia wheat 9 pct, Kazakh down 4.5 pct
WASHINGTON, Sept 12 (Reuters) — Searing summer drought slashed U.S. corn production to the lowest level in six years and soybeans to the lowest in nine years, the government forecast on Wednesday, but the corn crop is larger than expected, which will relieve the third year in a row of tight supplies.
With the fall harvest running faster than usual, the Agriculture Department lowered its corn forecast by less than 1 percent; traders had expected a cut of nearly 4 percent from August. The surplus at the end of this marketing year would be the smallest since 1996 but 24 percent larger than the trade expectation.
USDA cut its forecast of the soybean crop by 2 percent from its August figure, twice the cut expected by traders. It said the carry-over at the end of the marketing year would be the smallest in eight years although slightly larger than expected.
Besides the United States, drought damaged the wheat crop in Russia and its neighbors. Russia’s crop was 39 million tonnes, down 9 percent from the August estimate and the second large cut in a row. Kazakhstan’s crop was reduced 4.5 percent by USDA.
World wheat supplies are only marginally lower despite the losses, said USDA, and feed grain production also is down less than 1 percent, compared to August forecasts. The world wheat crop is down 5 percent from last year and coarse grains down 2.4 percent. World rice production is on par with last year.
Leaders of the Group of 20 wealthy nations said the U.S. forecasts would help determine if an emergency meeting is needed to constrain an upsurge in food prices. France suggested on Tuesday the creation of strategic stocks to buffer food price gyrations.
U.S. livestock producers have petitioned the Obama administration for relief from a requirement to use corn-based ethanol in gasoline.
Now here’s some awesome (and literal) hand art. Body painter Annie Ralli and photographer Ray Massey were commissioned by an insurance company to come up with images surrounding their tagline which went, “You’re in good hands.”
It took some mad photography and painting skills, but the duo managed to pull it off with their series of hand paintings that look out-of-this-world and realistically good.
You can check out more of their handiwork in the gallery below. You won’t be able to look at your hands in the same way afterwards, I tell you.
[via Bit Rebels]
The technology driving wireless headphones has not yet reached its full potential. But over the past few years, Bluetooth has advanced to a point that less than $500 can buy a pair of headphones with decent audio and respectable battery life. We rounded up four pairs and let ’em duke it out to see if any pair has the stamina and sound you could truly call excellent. More »
SANAA, Yemen — Chanting “death to America” and “death to Israel,” hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen’s capital and burned the American flag on Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.
The string of assaults this week, in Yemen, Egypt and the storming of a U.S. consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, point to an increased boldness among Islamists who have become more powerful since last year’s wave of revolts toppled authoritarian leaders.
WASHINGTON — All eyes are fixed on the money race between President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney and the outside groups cheering them on with attack ads. That attention may allow one of the biggest money stories in the 2012 election to fly under the radar. In the fight for control of the Senate, a coalition of conservative groups have pummelled Democratic senators and candidates in the nation’s closest races for more than a year in an attempt to wrest control of the chamber and make Sen. Mitch McConnell the next Majority Leader.
Since the beginning of last year, these conservative groups have poured more than $50 million into ads — both those reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and so-called “issue” ads that are not — targeting seven of the closest Senate races in the country, according to sources in Democratic campaigns, other ad-watching sources, and a series of publicly-reported figures and those collected from news reports and press releases. This compares to the slightly more than $20 million spent by liberal-allied groups on ads in these seven races.
The seven Senate races surveyed include Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Three have already seen more than $10 million spent against the Democratic candidate, and in only one race is the disparity between conservative outside group spending and liberal outside group spending less than $1 million.
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By training shelter dogs to find the scat of threatened species, Conservation Canines is saving the lives of both dogs and wildlife.
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