In Libya, migrants face ordeals at sea and in jail

In this image made from Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 video, African migrants look through bars of a locked door at Sabratha migrant detention center for men in Sabratha, Libya. Libya’s chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in dangerous sea voyages. (AP Photo/AP Video)

In this image made from Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 video, African migrants look through bars of a locked door at Sabratha migrant detention center for men in Sabratha, Libya. Libya’s chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in dangerous sea voyages. (AP Photo/AP Video)

In this image made from Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 video, migrants look through bars at Sabratha migrant detention center for women in Sabratha, Libya. Libya’s chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in dangerous sea voyages. (AP Photo/AP Video)

In this image made from Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 video, African migrants look through bars of a locked door at Sabratha migrant detention center for men in Sabratha, Libya. Libya’s chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in dangerous sea voyages. (AP Photo/AP Video)

In this image made from Monday, Oct. 14, 2013 video, migrants rest at Sabratha migrant detention center for men in Sabratha, Libya. Libya’s chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in dangerous sea voyages. (AP Photo/AP Video)

SABRATHA, Libya (AP) — The first time the young mother tried to flee to Europe on a rickety boat of fellow migrants from Africa, the overcrowded vessel quickly broke down and filled with water, forcing it to return to the Libyan coast. The second time, she was arrested and placed in a mosquito-infested Libyan detention center, where she has languished for months.

She says she lives on bread and water, with only milk for her 8-month-old girl, and is beaten by guards with a hose if she complains.

"They beat us like goats," said Beauty Osaha, 23, who headed north from her native Nigeria in hopes of a better life. She said the guards at the facility in the ancient city of Sabratha search migrants' bodies, including their private parts, looking for money or smuggled phones.

Libya's chaos in the two years following the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi has turned the country into a prime springboard for tens of thousands of migrants, mainly from Africa, trying to reach Europe in rickety, crowded boats. With police and the military in disarray, human smuggling has reached the level of a mafia-style organized industry in which Libya's militias have gotten involved, according to activists and police.

The danger of the sea journey became particularly clear this month, with three deadly wrecks of migrant boats coming from Libya. At least 365 people, mostly Eritreans fleeing repression in their homeland, died on Oct. 3 when their boat from Libya sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa — one of the worst verified migrant tragedies in the Mediterranean.

Detention by Libyan militias is the migrants' other potential ordeal. Activists say militias hold migrants in stores, schools and abandoned buildings as well as detention centers, abusing them and holding them hostage until they receive money from the migrants' families. Then the migrants are freed, only to try again.

"In these prisons, the principles of the Feb. 17 Revolution are being toppled down. The Libyan authorities must put an end to those pirates," a Libyan rights group called Beladi, or My Nation, said on its website, referring to the "revolution" that led to Gadhafi's ouster and death in 2011.

But Libya's government is weak, virtually hostage to the militias, which originated as rebel brigades fighting Gadhafi but have grown in size and power.

The government has put some militias on the Interior and Defense Ministries' payrolls in an effort to control them, but the militias still do whatever they want. Militiamen this month even briefly kidnapped Prime Minister Ali Zidan, who has frequently spoken of the need to rein in the armed groups.

An official with one militia in Tripoli connected to the Interior Ministry that runs a migrant detention center acknowledged abuses take place but blamed them on lack of training for the young guards. "They only get about two months of training, this is not enough," said Abdel-Hakim al-Balazi, spokesman for the Anti-Crime Department, a militia umbrella group that keeps security in the capital.

He said that migrants detained by his group are sent to larger detention centers in cities in Libya's southern deserts, run by other militias. Soon after, "we just see them free again on the streets," he said. He added that the southern borders are "wide open" with no government control.

After the latest migrant deaths, Zidan said his government was "determined" to stem the migrant flow. He asked the European Union for training and equipment to help patrol Libya's coast and desert borders, including access to satellite imagery.

In the first six months of this year, 8,400 migrants reached Malta and Italy by sea, almost all from Libya, nearly twice the number in the first six months of 2012, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

Cities along Libya's 1,000-mile, largely unpatrolled Mediterranean coastline have become collection points where Africans mass, scrounging up the cash for boat to take them the 200 miles to Malta or Lampedusa. Sabratha, a coastal city of about 110,000 people, is now home to some 10,000 migrants, officials here say.

The true number of migrant deaths at sea is impossible to tell, given the secrecy of the boat journeys. A half hour drive into the desert by a garbage hear outside Sabratha is a makeshift graveyard, marked only with a few stones painted white — with no names — where migrant bodies found washed ashore have been buried.

"Bodies are not buried separately, just all next to each other with no marks to tell who is where," said activist Essam Karar, who documented the burials, taking pictures of the bodies.

Under Gadhafi, Libya's policies shifted depending on his whims. At times, illegal migration was encouraged as a tool to pressure European countries; at other times, security forces carried out wide-scale arrests of migrants.

Now officials and activists say trafficking became more organized and that militias collaborate in the profitable business.

"It's a multinational mafia," said Gamal al-Gharabili, head of Sabratha-based Association for Peace, Care and Relief. Boat owners are mostly Libyans connected with Sudanese smugglers bringing in migrants from Horn of Africa countries, he said.

Abdel-Salam al-Kerit, another Sabratha activist involved in aiding migrants, said the migrants used to have to pay multiple smugglers across the land route through Libya. "Now you pay once and for all," he said. "The network extends from the southern borders of Libya to the shores."

Bassem al-Gharabili, a police officer at the anti-trafficking body in the city, said smugglers have become more professional, using larger boats, and are expert at eluding security forces.

"Traffickers monitor us as much as we monitor them. They have spies in the sea. They could be fishermen," he said.

Ramadan, a 25-year-old Eritrean detained at the Sabratha facility, said he first tried to flee Africa along the Egyptian-Israeli border but was caught by smugglers who tortured him with electric shocks and chopped off some of his fingers.

He then tried crossing to Europe from Libya twice. The first time, he survived a rickety boat packed with 50 people that partially broke down after four hours at sea. Three people on board died. The second time, he was detained in Sabratha. There, he said, he was beaten by guards.

"Better to die. I have nothing," said Ramadan, who spoke on condition his full name not be used, fearing further trouble from officials.

In a dark cell at a detention center in the town of Sorman, near Sabratha, Israel Koja said he ran away from his hometown in Nigeria after militants from the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram stormed his house, tied him up and stabbed him.

Koja, 33, paid $1,200 for traffickers to cross the desert into Libya, but has spent more than a year in the jail.

"I escaped a hell to fall in another hell," Koja said.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-18-Libya-Illegal%20Migrants/id-60191f7c093044c29db04d56f7945e71
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Will Apple's new retail chief think different?

Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts has already made a name for herself elevating customer experience at Burberry. Can she do the same for Apple?

Apple's newest retail chief, current Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, in 2010

(Credit: Samir Hussein/Getty)

Amid the throngs of tourists, Apple's store in London on Regents Street is housed in a richly textured edifice, with the storefront ornately separated into four glass sections, each with its own Apple logo. Without those logos, you might simply walk by, ignoring the busy inside.

It's a stark contrast to the minimalist glass cube of Apple's Fifth Avenue store in New York City, and a good example of how Apple's built its 400-plus store empire. You can walk into any of the company's stores and walk out with the same gadget, but each store is unique.

Just down the street from that London Apple store is Burberry, which itself is fitted with luxurious finishings. But instead of polished, aluminum gadgets on wooden tablets there are handbags and clothes, wrapped in an air of elegance and warmth.

Those London stores could give us some insight into the mind of Angela Ahrendts, Burberry's chief executive who was just named Apple to run its retail empire. Ahrendts, who's been Burberry's CEO since 2006, brings the understanding of an emotive shopping experience -- something that Burberry exudes, and Apple is hell bent on preserving.

London Regent Street Burberry and Apple stores

(Credit: Apple/Burberry)

"Clearly, Apple stores are phenomenally successful. But in the past four or five years, I don't think they've been contributing to the actual building of the brand," said Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillan Doolittle, a retail consultancy. "I think she can make that connection much more direct."

Apple had been looking for a new executive to head its retail efforts since ousting its former chief, John Browett, about a year ago. He was on the job just nine months. The position was left vacant after Ron Johnson, who conceived of the original Apple Stores with Steve Jobs, bolted to take the top job at JCPenney's, only to be ousted himself after he failed to revitalize the department store. Ahrendts will run both Apple's online and offline stores, reporting directly to CEO Tim Cook as a senior vice president. She is said to be starting in the spring.

Apple declined to make her available for an interview.

Angela Ahrendts

(Credit: Burberry)

Ahrendts, who was the highest paid CEO in the UK last year according to CNNMoney, grew up (PDF) in the small Midwestern town of New Palestine, Indiana -- which, as of the 2010 census, had a population of just over 2,000 people. She was brought up by a "spiritual mother and philosopher father," as she puts it, so it's perhaps not surprising that she places such a premium on intuition. At a TEDx talk in Hollywood in March, Ahrendts riffed on the power of "human energy": "Think of energy almost like emotional electricity. It has a powerful way of uniting ordinary people, their connected spirit, to do extraordinary things," she said.

It appears that energy is one of the things that attracted Cook to the Burberry CEO. In a memo sent out to the company introducing Ahrendts, Cook noted that she "led Burberry through a period of phenomenal growth with a focus on brand, culture, core values and the power of positive energy."

In Apple's case, the company's products already hit that growth spurt, which has slowed down some in recent months as the tablet and smartphone markets mature. What hasn't slowed is Apple's efforts to expand its retail empire. Last year the company opened up 33 new retail stores. That's down from 40 the year before, though many more of those stores are being built outside of the US, where Apple hopes to expand and diversify its sales.

And speaking of diversity, it might not be long before Ahrendts makes her mark on the physical stores themselves. "One of the challenges for the Apple Store is, the products really speak for themselves, so the retail experience gets kind of lost. For example, the iPhone itself is the main focus," said Stern. Coming from a luxury retailer, one of the changes Stern thinks we can expect to see with Ahrendts at the helm is more displays and focus on luring people in.

Apple, for its part, has experimented with this concept in recent years, tapping its own iPad tablets as tools to replacing static signage next to its products. The company's also pushed people to use its mobile phone application to let customers research and buy products as well as page employees to come to their help.

More recently, Apple's brought that same ethos to its products. The company's new flagship iPhone 5S, for instance, comes with a gold option, and the cheaper 5C comes in a rainbow of colors. That's in contrast to the black, white and gray that have made up the look and feel of most Apple products for the past decade.

Of course, just because Ahrendts understands the power of intuition, doesn't mean she's not fluent in data and technology. After she arrived at Burberry in 2006 from Liz Claiborne, she ushered in a new digital regime at the at the over-150 year old brand. She brought the company into the social era, offering Facebook fans exclusive goodies, and live-tweeting Burberry models right before they hit the runway. She also incorporated enterprise software like Salesforce and SAP into the company's operations, according to a June 2012 story in Fortune.

She even cultivated a chummy relationship with Salesforce's gregarious CEO Mark Benioff. He declined to be interviewed for this story, instead pointing to a tweet he blasted out with a glowing endorsement:

At Burberry, Ahrendts also helped to marry the online and offline world. Burberry's artofthetrench.com is a site that lets people send in pictures of themselves wearing the company's trench coats. Some items in London stores have RFID tags that let customers watch videos on their phones about how that item was made. And under her watch, the company also held a holographic in-store runway show in 2011 to celebrate the opening of its flagship store in Beijing.

With that said, Apple's already got much of that figured out from a buyer's perspective. It runs only occasional sales at its stores, and has turned even temporary online store downtime into news stories. People spend days, and even take time off work to be the first to buy its products when they go on sale, a process that itself has nearly reached logistical perfection. In that sense, Ahrendts' biggest mark -- changing what happens in the stock rooms and with employees -- might not even be seen in that window display.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57607670-37/will-apples-new-retail-chief-think-different/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple
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Judge Judy Lawsuit -- I've Been Jacked on the Internet!

Judge Judy Lawsuit
I've Been Jacked on the Internet!

Exclusive

The people who bring you "Judge Judy' have just filed a lawsuit, claiming evildoers have been posting episodes of her show on YouTube ... and now she wants a non-TV judge to lay down the law.

Judy has the most popular show in daytime ... it's been that way for 3 years, since Oprah said bye bye.  Here's how big -- 9 million daily viewers.

The company that produces the show -- Big Ticket Television -- gets an enormous amount of money for the show, so the idea that someone is stealing it and not paying a dime has them royally pissed off.

As for the culprit -- his name is Ignacio De Los Angeles.  Ignacio dared to post an episode from 2006 on YouTube.  Big Ticket told him to take it down, but Ignacio ignored. 

Big Ticket wants the judge to use a can of whoopass on Ignacio, Judge Judy style.

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Source: http://www.tmz.com/2013/10/17/judge-judy-lawsuit-youtube-unauthorized/
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In Theaters This Weekend: Reviews of '12 Years a Slave,' 'The Fifth Estate' and More

Steve McQueen's biopic 12 Years a Slave, which has received high praise from film critics, hits theaters on Friday.

The historical drama stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. Ejiofor is joined by a star-studded cast including Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch and Brad Pitt. The Fox Searchlight Film first debuted at the Telluride Film Festival in August where the cast and crew received a standing ovation.

Read what The Hollywood Reporter's film critics have to say about all the films opening this weekend and find out how they are expected to perform at the box office.

PHOTOS: Benedict Cumberbatch: Exclusive Portraits of 'The Fifth Estate's' Leading Man 

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen's slave drama stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Benedict Cumberbatch. Read Todd McCarthy's review here.

The Fifth Estate

Bill Condon's look at WikiLeaks centers on the falling-out between Julian Assange and a key ally. Read John DeFore's review here.

Carrie

Chloe Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore star in Kimberly Peirce's remake of the 1976 horror classic, based on the novel by Stephen King. Read David Rooney's review here.

Escape Plan

Aging action heroes Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger take the screen together in this pulpy retro-actioner from director Mikael Hafstrom. Read Todd McCarthy's review here.

PHOTOS: '12 Years a Slave': Exclusive Portraits of Star-Producer Brad Pitt and His Cast 

Kill Your Darlings

Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan head the ensemble in this jazzy exploration of the birth of the Beat Generation via a violent footnote. Read David Rooney's review here.

All Is Lost

Robert Redford leads a rugged survival-at-sea story from the Margin Call director. Read Todd McCarthy's review here.

Haunter

Vincenzo Natali offers the ghost's side of the story in a sober, supernatural take on Groundhog Day. Read John DeFore's review here.

I'm in Love With a Church Girl

A former drug kingpin romances a religious woman in this faith-based drama. Read Frank Scheck's review here.

VIDEO: 'Carrie'-Inspired Coffee Shop Prank Goes Viral

American Promise

This special jury prize-winning documentary follows two African American boys, who start out at New York's Dalton School, over 13 years. Read Duane Byrge's review here.

Big Ass Spider!

A King Kong-sized spider terrorizes downtown L.A. in Mike Mendez's fun cheapie. Read John DeFore's review here.

2 Jacks

Danny Huston and his nephew Jack star in this modern-day adaptation of Tolstoy's short story The Two Hussars. Read Frank Scheck's review here.

The Human Scale

Adreas M. Dalsgaard's doc looks at efforts to make cities pedestrian-friendly. Read John DeFore's review here.

STORY: Daniel Radcliffe on Why First-Time Directors Beat 'Somebody Who's Done 10 Films and Couldn't Give a Shit' 

The Snitch Cartel

Colombia's foreign language Oscar entry is lively but doesn’t offer nearly enough fresh variations on the Scarface formula. Read Stephen Farber's review here.

Torn

Jeremiah Birnbaum's drama explores the unlikely friendship between two mothers after their sons are killed in a shopping mall explosion. Read Frank Scheck's review here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/reviews/film/~3/p-mSPOJWLZE/reviews-12-years-a-slave-649363
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Ed Lauter, prolific film and TV actor, dies at 74

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Mike Barnes
The Hollywood Reporter

6 hours ago

Getty Images

Ed Lauter arrives at the premiere of "Hitchcock" during AFI Fest in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2012.

Ed Lauter, the always working character actor who played the butler/chauffeur of Berenice Bejo’s character Peppy in the best-picture Oscar winner "The Artist," died Wednesday. He was 74.

Lauter discovered in May that he had contracted mesothelioma, a terminal form of cancer most commonly caused by exposure to asbestos, publicist Edward Lozzi told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lauter recently played a baseball scout opposite Clint Eastwood in "Trouble With the Curve" (2012) and had recurring roles on Showtime drama "Shameless" as Dick Healey and on USA Network’s "Pysch" as Deputy Commissioner Ed Dykstra. Earlier, he recurred on "ER," playing Fire Captain Dannaker.

A native of Long Beach, N.Y., Lauter made his TV debut on a 1971 episode of "Mannix" and arrived on the big screen for the first time in the Western "Dirty Little Billy" (1972). One of those character actors whose name is unknown but is instantly recognizable, he is listed with an incredible 204 credits as an actor on IMDb.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, "Family Plot" (1976), the balding, angular Lauter played Maloney, the dangerous, blue-collar man who knows too much about dapper jewel thief and kidnapper Arthur Adamson (William Devane). Hitchcock cast Lauter after seeing him play Captain Wilhelm Knauer, the sadistic leader of the guards who go up against Burt Reynolds’ convict football team, in the classic "The Longest Yard" (1974).

“Hitchcock came out of his screening room, walked back into the office and said, ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’” Lauter recalled in a 2003 interview. “[His assistant Peggy Anderson], thinking that he meant Burt Reynolds, said, ‘Yes, he is.’ ”

“Hitchcock said, ‘What’s his name again?’ Now, Peggy’s lost; he doesn’t know who Burt Reynolds is? Then, Hitchcock said, ‘Ed something …’ and when Peggy told him, ‘Ed Lauter,’ he said, ‘Yes, we’ve got our Maloney.’ He had actually told Peggy that he wasn’t going to do the film unless he first cast Maloney, the antagonist.”

PHOTOS: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2013

His film résumé also includes "The New Centurions" (1972), "The Last American Hero" (1973), "French Connection II" (1975), "King Kong" (1976), "Magic" (1978), "Cujo" (1983), "Lassiter" (1984), "Death Wish 3" (1985), "The Rocketeer" (1991), "Trial by Jury" (1994), "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995), "Mulholland Falls" (1995), "Seabiscuit" (2003), the 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard," "Seraphim Falls" (2006) and "The Number 23" (2007).

It only seems as if he was in every TV crime drama in history, with parts in "Cannon," "Ironside," "The Streets of San Francisco," "Kojak," "Baretta," "Police Story," "The Rockford Files," "Charlie’s Angels," "Hawaii Five-0," "Simon & Simon," "Magnum, P.I.," "The A-Team," "Miami Vice," "Walker, Texas Ranger," "Homicide: Life on the Street," "NYPD Blue," "Cold Case" and "CSI."

Lauter, who went to college on a basketball scholarship at C.W. Post on Long Island and worked as a stand-up comic, made his Broadway debut in the original 1968 stage production of "The Great White Hope" starring JamesEarl Jones and Jane Alexander.

He has three movies in the can yet to be released: "The Town That Dreaded Sundown," "Becker’s Farm" and "The Grave."

“He was a pal, not just a PR client,” recalled Lozzi. “His former stand-up comedy days would always entertain us behind the scenes with his most incredible impersonations. He called me as Clint Eastwood from the set of "Trouble With the Curve" last year. We really thought it was Eastwood!”

Lauter also was known to do excellent impersonations of Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott,James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart.

The Ed Lauter Foundation and a scholarship fund is being established to honor his work, and the scholarship will be awarded annually to aspiring young actors. His family, which includes his wife of eight years, Mia, asks that donations be made to the foundation.

In the 2003 interview, Lauter recalled: “Someone once said to me, ‘Eddie, you’re a “turn” actor.’ What’s that? He said, ‘That’s when a story is going along and your character shows up and the story suddenly takes a major turn.’ That’s kind of neat.”

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/ed-lauter-prolific-film-tv-actor-dies-74-8C11408676
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Daily Roundup: GoPro Hero3+ review, gdgt's best deals, Android KitKat tease and more!

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/ioIYmS0dh0c/
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Michael Bay Attacked on Transformers 4 Set in Hong Kong, Two Men Demand Money

It sounds like a scene from one of his mega-blockbuster action franchise films, but this scuffle was all too real. Hollywood super-director Michael Bay was attacked on the Hong Kong set of Transformers 4 on Thursday, Oct. 16, authorities confirmed to Reuters. Bay, 48, sustained minor injuries on the right side of his face after two unidentified brothers assailed him, according to the report.

PHOTOS: Celebrity injuries

The fight began when the siblings approached Bay and demanded $100,000 in HK currency, or about $12,900 in U.S. dollars. The ensuing discussion escalated, and the older brother attacked Bay and, later, three police officers. The younger brother was eventually arrested on suspicion of blackmail and assault, while his older sibling was arrested on suspicion of assault.

PHOTOS: Megan Fox's sexy Transformers style

Bay declined medical attention for his injuries. The first of the Transformers films not to star Shia LaBeouf or Josh Duhamel, Transformers 4: Age of Extinction stars Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz and Stanley Tucci, among others.

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/michael-bay-attacked-on-transformers-4-set-in-hong-kong-two-men-demand-money-20131710
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The Future of iOS Gaming Will Take Place in the Real World

Photo courtesy Anki

Apple has always embraced apps and games that demonstrate the strengths of its mobile platform, giving them prominent positions in the App Store or even letting them demo onstage at keynote events. Now the company is focusing beyond the screen with games that use iOS as a backbone for real world gameplay. The latest and greatest? Anki Drive.

This AI-enhanced racing game lets you control toy cars using a free iOS app. Each car has a unique personality and identity, and can detect and react to other cars as it zooms around a race track. Apple surprised many of us when it let this stealth startup debut onstage at WWDC this summer. But now Anki Drive will be available in Apple Stores and online starting October 23 for $200.

“The games and toys we’ve played with since our childhood haven’t really changed much in decades — you still see kids with blocks, race cars, and teddy bears,” Anki CEO and founder Boris Sofman said. “You contrast that with the evolution of the video game industry which has skyrocketed and taken advantage of almost every major technological advancement. We thought, why couldn’t you have the best of both worlds?”

Anki does just that, using AI to give videogame smarts like character evolution to physical objects — in this case, toy race cars. Each car is smart on its own, with a 50 Mhz micro controller onboard, but they use Bluetooth LE and the processing power of an iOS device to handle the sophisticated control algorithms that let the car not only know its position on the track, but also react and strategize against other racing cars. You can race friends or family on the track, a vinyl sheet you roll out onto the floor, with each of you controlling your own car using the app, or you can race against a computerized AI opponent. You can also just sit back, set multiple cars on autopilot, and take bets on which AI vehicle — each designed by renowned automotive designer Harald Belker — will win. Positioning on the track, speed, and virtual weapons like a tractor beam or rail gun can be employed to win a game as well.

Trying out Anki Drive for the first time, it took only a few minutes to get a hang of the strategy involved in beating your opponent (in my case, the first to get five shots on another car). It was also clear that it would take practice to race against the harder levels of Anki’s robotic opponents. The more you play, the more your car gets optimized to you personally, both through the way you play and through the digital features you can upgrade your car with.

“We think Apple was pretty excited to see how its mobile device and technology helped unlock an entirely new way to create video games in the real world,” Sofman said. “Mobile devices are a natural frontrunner for the ‘brains’ behind consumer robotics applications.”

Anki’s not alone in this field, though.

Orbotix co-founder Ian Bernstein told WIRED that he thinks this new realm of mixed-reality gaming is a revolutionary experience.

Orbotix makes a Bluetooth-controlled robotic ball called Sphero that can be used in conjunction with about 25 iOS games (it’s Android compatible, too). Through these apps, the ball can transform from a pseudo game of Simon to a zombie killing machine to an artistic tool. But without a smartphone, Sphero is just a regular old plastic ball.

Why would Apple take a shine to Sphero? In addition to offering it in its stores, the company went so far as to create a commercial highlighting the ball’s propensity to inspire creativity.

Sphero isn’t just a toy; it’s a platform in and of itself, with its own API and SDK developers can use to create more mobile apps and richer experiences with the Sphero ball. It is also an educational tool — existing apps let aspiring developers of all levels string together pieces of code to choreograph a series of Sphero actions. And as the commercial shows, Apple also sees the device as being in line with its own company ideals.

Products like Anki Drive and Sphero are increasingly showing that mobile devices aren’t just tiny computers for accessing the internet and making phone calls. They’ve grown so powerful they can now give life to other devices.

Source: http://feeds.wired.com/c/35185/f/661370/s/328cabe9/sc/5/l/0L0Swired0N0Cgadgetlab0C20A130C10A0Canki0Edrive0Eai0Egaming0C/story01.htm
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4 dead after boat capsizes off Florida coast

Members of the U.S. Coast Gard examine a small white boat, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, in Miami Beach, Fla. Four women died and 10 people were taken into custody after the boat with more than a dozen people aboard, including Haitian and Jamaican nationals, capsized early Wednesday in the waters off South Florida. It was overloaded and lacked lifejackets, according to the Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Members of the U.S. Coast Gard examine a small white boat, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, in Miami Beach, Fla. Four women died and 10 people were taken into custody after the boat with more than a dozen people aboard, including Haitian and Jamaican nationals, capsized early Wednesday in the waters off South Florida. It was overloaded and lacked lifejackets, according to the Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

A small white boat with its center console missing sits on the dock after authorities lifted it out of the water, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 at the U.S. Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, in Miami Beach, Fla. Four women died and 10 people were taken into custody after the boat with more than a dozen people aboard, including Haitian and Jamaican nationals, capsized early Wednesday in the waters off South Florida. It was overloaded and lacked lifejackets, according to the Coast Guard. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Ten people were found clinging to the hull of a small boat that capsized early Wednesday off South Florida, trapping the bodies of four dead women and one survivor in a tiny pocket of air beneath it.

The fifteen people appeared to be making a perilous journey that thousands try each year. Migrants from Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean countries routinely attempt to illegally enter the U.S. by reaching Florida's coast in overloaded or unseaworthy vessels, often through established smuggling networks that include islands in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.

Early Wednesday, one of the survivors called 911 on a cellphone, alerting authorities to their location seven miles east of Miami.

"Sadly, and tragically, we did find four females, adults, underneath the boat that had perished," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Darren Caprara.

The survivor found when Coast Guard officials flipped over the boat was suffering seizures, and he was taken by boat to a Miami Beach hospital, officials said. He was treated and released to federal law enforcement.

The rest of the survivors were in good condition and were taken into custody aboard a Coast Guard vessel while authorities investigated whether they were part of a human smuggling operation. It was not immediately clear whether they would be brought to the U.S. or sent back to their home countries.

"Well, obviously, 15 people on a boat, transiting in the middle of the night with no life jackets is a very, very unsafe condition," Caprara said.

Caprara said that authorities were working to confirm that the people on the boat were Haitian and Jamaican.

"That's still a lengthy process that involves contacting other countries and doing some investigatory research," Caprara said.

The small white recreational boat with its center console missing was towed to dry land. It had been overloaded and lacked lifejackets, Caprara said.

Authorities didn't immediately confirm that those on the boat that capsized Wednesday were migrants fleeing their home countries. However, the circumstances made it seem likely that they were part of a global phenomenon of people taking desperate risks to escape poverty and instability, said David Abraham, who teaches immigration law at the University of Miami School of Law. In a case earlier this month, hundreds of migrants packed into smugglers' boats that capsized on their way from Africa to Europe.

"It should be no surprise to anyone so long as the disparity between the poorest place in the Western Hemisphere and the richest place in the hemisphere is so grave and the distances covered are considered worth the risk," Abraham said.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Coast Guard picked up 508 Haitians and 1,357 Cubans at sea. Since the new fiscal year began Oct. 1, the Coast Guard has reported picking up 93 Haitians and 117 Cubans.

Officials in the Caribbean also have reported a jump in the number of arrests of Haitians making their way to Puerto Rico. An increasing number of Haitians have tried that route because if they can reach the U.S. territory without getting arrested, they can fly on to U.S. cities such as Miami, Boston or New York with fake driver's licenses or other identification that's easier to counterfeit than a passport.

Since the 2010 earthquake, more and more Haitians also have fled for Brazil, which initially welcomed Haitians seeking asylum and later said it would issue a limited number of temporary work visas for Haitians.

"When people are desperate, they do desperate things. That's the problem. We're always concerned when people leave by boat and pay these smugglers," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based advocacy center Americans for Immigrant Justice.

Haitians interviewed at an immigration detention center in Broward County routinely cite cholera, political unrest, dysfunctional law enforcement, ongoing displacement since the 2010 earthquake and, if they're women, vulnerability to sexual assaults in tent camps as reasons for fleeing Haiti in the hopes of receiving asylum in the U.S., Little said.

Cubans who arrive in the U.S. are generally allowed to stay under the "wet foot, dry foot" policy, while those stopped at sea are usually returned home. Other immigrants who make it to land don't receive the same treatment.

The number of migrants who die while crossing the Florida Straits or disappear into South Florida's neighborhoods after successfully reaching shore is unknown.

___

Kay reported from Miami.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-16-US-Capsized-Boat/id-4a4c0d861c7a413ead88bbde6ce283c6
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Report: Amazon's HTC Phone Might Just Be For Prime Members

Rumor has it Amazon is talking to HTC about making its smartphone, and according to a Bloomberg report, that phone might just be for Amazon Prime subscribers.

Read more...

Source: http://gizmodo.com/report-amazons-htc-phone-might-just-be-for-prime-memb-1446594130
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A Peek Into The Private Lives Of 'Burton And Taylor'

Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter star as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Burton and Taylor, a new made-for-TV movie from BBC America.

BBC America

Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter star as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Burton and Taylor, a new made-for-TV movie from BBC America.

BBC America

You have to be of a certain age to remember firsthand the tornado of publicity that erupted when Liz Taylor, the former child star turned screen vamp, first met British stage star Richard Burton on the set of the 1963 movie Cleopatra. But it's still one of Hollywood's most famous and inescapable love stories.

He played Mark Antony, she played the Queen of the Nile, and just like their onscreen characters, they fell in love. Though Liz and Dick were married to others at the time, they began a torrid affair, the coverage of which spread outside the gossip columns. Eventually, they divorced their spouses and got married. After 10 years and many films together, they divorced — then, after a while, married each other a second time, then got divorced again. That all happened by 1976.

In the early '80s, Liz and Dick decided to reunite once again — but this time, only professionally, as the stars of a limited-run Broadway revival of the Noel Coward comedy Private Lives. The play was about a long-divorced couple who meet while on honeymoons with new spouses — but whose love for one another is rekindled during the chance encounter.

Liz, who was popping pills and drinking at the time, may have wished for life to imitate art. Dick, newly sober, considered Liz one more compelling addiction it was wiser for him to avoid. And it's this period of their lives that screenwriter William Ivory examines in the new BBC America telemovie import, Burton and Taylor.

It's a highly entertaining study, for two reasons. One is the decision to peek at the private lives of these very public figures through such a tiny, fixed peephole. It's much more satisfying than watching a boring by-the-numbers recreation of career highlights, like last year's horrible Lifetime telemovie Liz & Dick, starring Lindsay Lohan. That was more focused on getting the costumes and makeup right than caring about the performances or character insights. Burton and Taylor, though, stays in one place long enough to make us feel their emotions — and, because of the excellent performances, believe them.

The performances are the other reason this drama works. The stars of Burton and Taylor sound like unlikely choices, but they mesh perfectly. Helena Bonham Carter, who's spent much of the past decade playing cartoonish characters for Tim Burton and others, plays Liz with a fire, and a vulnerability, that quickly make the impersonation succeed. And as Richard Burton, one of the most commanding and forceful actors of his generation, the movie casts Dominic West, whom fans of The Wire know well as Detective McNulty.

Here, the native British actor gets to drop the accent he used for that HBO series, and approximate Richard Burton's gravelly, velvety tones. West does it so well that he, too, quickly makes you forget about the performer and get drawn into the often intimate action.

Burton and Taylor is as serious as last year's Liz & Dick telemovie was campy. For writer Ivory and director Richard Laxton, it's easily a career best. For the stars, it's one more triumph to add to their already impressive resumes. And for other TV writers and producers looking to dramatize the lives of famous figures, Burton and Taylor — like Steven Spielberg's narrowly focused movie biography of Lincoln — serves as a very clear lesson. Sometimes, when deciding how much of a life to examine, less very definitely is more.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235350255/a-peek-into-the-private-lives-of-burton-and-taylor?ft=1&f=13
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Fox, Polian chide Irsay for criticizing Manning

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay backed down a bit after Broncos coach John Fox and former Colts general manager Bill Polian chided him for comments critical of Peyton Manning.

Fox used his weekly SiriusXM NFL Radio appearance Tuesday to criticize the Colts' owner for sounding ungrateful for all Manning did for his team and city, including winning a Super Bowl in 2007, and Polian used the same platform to say Irsay was wrong in both his facts and opinions.

After a series of tweets defending himself Tuesday night, Irsay took to Twitter on Wednesday to say he meant that if the Colts had given Manning better special teams and defense, they could have won more than one Super Bowl, instead of asking the quarterback to do too much.

He added that he found it hard to see how anyone could misinterpret his comments, but controversy sells, so he understands why people try to stir things up.

In a conference call with Denver media Wednesday, Colts coach Chuck Pagano said Irsay harbors no ill will toward Manning.

"I don't think there's anybody that Mr. Irsay respects and cares for more than Peyton," Pagano said. "What can't you say about Peyton? What he's done for this organization, what he's done for the city, our fans — what he's done for football — it's off the charts. And certainly all I know is that our owner has the utmost respect and love and passion for that guy and always will."

Irsay told USA Today in an interview Tuesday that the Colts turned to Andrew Luck two years ago and released Manning rather than pay him a $28 million roster bonus because they were looking for more playoff success.

"We've changed our model a little bit, because we wanted more than one of these," Irsay said, showing his Super Bowl ring. "(Tom) Brady never had consistent numbers, but he has three of these. Pittsburgh had two, the Giants had two, Baltimore had two and we had one.

"That leaves you frustrated. You make the playoffs 11 times, and you're out in the first round seven out of 11 times. You love to have the 'Star Wars' numbers from Peyton and Marvin (Harrison) and Reggie (Wayne). Mostly, you love this," Irsay added, showing his ring again, according to the newspaper.

Those comments were similar to the ones Irsay made in an interview with The Associated Press last summer, when the Colts owner said his only regrets about releasing Manning were that he wanted the star quarterback to throw his final pass as a Colt and he wished Manning had departed with more than one Super Bowl ring.

So, instead of relying on the high-charged offense Manning directed, Irsay said the team's future February celebrations would come more frequently if the Colts ran a more balanced offense and divided the budget more evenly between the offensive and defensive players.

Irsay's latest verbal barrage, coming as it did this week, created quite a buzz.

Fox normally isn't one to criticize anyone in public, but Irsay's comments clearly struck a nerve.

"I thought it was a bit of a cheap shot," Fox said on SiriusXM. "In my opinion, they were disappointing and inappropriate. You know, Peyton would never say anything because he's too classy to do that.

"They sounded a little ungrateful and unappreciative to me for a guy that's set a standard, won a Super Bowl, won division titles, won four MVP awards, and I'd be thankful for that one Super Bowl ring because a lot of people don't have one."

Polian fired back at his old boss, saying Irsay had it wrong.

"For one thing, I don't believe that Baltimore had two at the time that we were fired, all of us, Peyton, me and the rest of the staff, (coach) Jim Caldwell at the end of the '11 season," Polian said.

He said Irsay was "very upset" after the Colts lost to New Orleans in the 2010 Super Bowl, "and I think it's pretty telling that getting to the Super Bowl in his mind doesn't count. And for anyone who is in the game and who has to make that journey from training camp to the Super Bowl, you know that it's awfully difficult to get there.

"And as John Fox said ... if you have one, you count yourself lucky. I've had teams that have been to six Super Bowls and won one. I'm not ashamed of that record by any means, and I'm certainly not ashamed of what we did in Indianapolis."

Manning is 160-70 in the regular season — joining Brady as the only quarterbacks with 90 more wins than losses — but is just 9-11 in the playoffs with eight first-round exits.

The Broncos — who have won 19 of 23 games under Manning, but lost to Baltimore in the playoffs — visit the Colts on Sunday night in Manning's first return to Indianapolis since his teary-eyed goodbye news conference alongside Irsay in March 2012.

Manning's former coach, Tony Dungy, said on a conference call this week that he thinks Irsay wouldn't have let Manning go had he known Manning would bounce back as he has.

"I can almost guarantee you that if he knew that he was going to be healthy like this and playing this kind of football, in hindsight I don't think he would've done it," said Dungy, who's now an NBC football analyst. "But with everything the way it was at that time, with Andrew being there and being available, knowing the scouting report on Andrew and the percentages of Peyton coming back and playing well at that point, it was the right thing to do."

Irsay defended himself in a string of responses on Twitter on Tuesday night, when he quoted Manning as saying that both he and the owner wanted him to stay in Indianapolis but "circumstances forced our hand."

He finished with a joke, saying he hopes for old time's sake that Manning completes some passes to his old teammates such as safety Antoine Bethea.

Fox and Manning meet with the media following Wednesday afternoon's practice.

___

AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org

___

Follow AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fox-polian-chide-irsay-criticizing-manning-163758329--spt.html
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UCLA to house worldwide database of brain images for chronic-pain conditions

Public release date: 16-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rachel Champeau
rchampeau@mednet.ucla.edu
310-794-2270
University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

NIH funding helps launch network designed to accelerate research, treatments

What do migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis have in common? All involve chronic pain.

A new database featuring hundreds of brain scans and other key clinical information will help researchers tease out similarities and differences between these and many other chronic-pain conditions, helping to accelerate research and treatment development.

The Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA will serves as the main hub for this new Pain and Interoception Imaging Network (PAIN), the first-ever standardized database for brain imaging associated with chronic pain. So far, 14 institutions in North America and Europe are participating.

Building upon their experiences creating a similar but smaller network to study pelvic pain, the UCLA team is now developing this larger chronic-pain network with the help of a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

"We are now recognizing that chronic pain is a brain disease, and if we want to treat it more effectively, we need to better understand and treat the mechanisms in the brain that are driving it," said Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine in the divisions of digestive diseases, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and executive director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA.

According to Mayer, brain imaging is one of the most promising technologies for breakthrough findings in chronic pain. However, research is currently significantly limited, due to the fact that most institutions can only support small studies on their own and lack access to large samples of patients. In addition, there is no standardization of acquired data, making it difficult to combine brain scans from multiple investigators that are obtained using different scanners, techniques and sets of clinical data.

That will change with the new PAIN. The aim is for the network to include information from more than a thousand patients, including both adults and children.

In addition to brain scans, researchers will also have access to clinical and biological information on patients the so-called "metadata" including symptom measures; psychosocial factors; gene expression; immune system information; data on bacteria in the intestines, known as gut microbiota; and environmental data. Researchers can then develop large, overlapping data sets to pinpoint similarities and differences among chronic-pain conditions and correlate brain scans with clinical metadata.

"Like a fingerprint, researchers will be able to pick out distinct patterns from the scans of individuals with each pain condition and, combined with additional information provided by the network, assess how chronic pain manifests differently between men and women, across the life span, or between conditions," said Dr. Bruce Naliboff, a professor in the departments of medicine and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine and co-director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress.

Dr. Kirsten Tillisch, a UCLA associate professor of digestive diseases who directs the neuroimaging core at the Oppenheimer Center, points out that in the future, PAIN will also include information about the tens of trillions of microbes that make up the bacteria living in the intestines. She notes that each patient's gut microbiota is unique, like a signature card.

"Researchers are now exploring the connection between the brain and gut, and the type of bacteria living in the intestine may also play a role in some forms of chronic visceral pain," said Tillisch.

The standardized brain scans will include structural data on grey and white matter and on intrinsic oscillations of the brain "resting state scans." Such scans are obtained when the brain is not engaged in a particular task.

Mayer adds that PAIN may also help researchers in the future identify and pinpoint appropriate treatments by targeting subsets of conditions.

"The more information we can gather about each individual chronic-pain condition, the better we'll be at predicting how subsets of patients will react to therapies," he said.

###

UCLA's Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress, part of the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases, is an NIH-funded multidisciplinary, translational research program partially supported by philanthropy. Its mission is to identify the role of the brain in health and medical disease. The Center is comprised of several research programs which focus on the interactions of the brain with the digestive, cardiovascular and urological systems, chronic pain and mind brain body interactions.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 16-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rachel Champeau
rchampeau@mednet.ucla.edu
310-794-2270
University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences

NIH funding helps launch network designed to accelerate research, treatments

What do migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis have in common? All involve chronic pain.

A new database featuring hundreds of brain scans and other key clinical information will help researchers tease out similarities and differences between these and many other chronic-pain conditions, helping to accelerate research and treatment development.

The Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA will serves as the main hub for this new Pain and Interoception Imaging Network (PAIN), the first-ever standardized database for brain imaging associated with chronic pain. So far, 14 institutions in North America and Europe are participating.

Building upon their experiences creating a similar but smaller network to study pelvic pain, the UCLA team is now developing this larger chronic-pain network with the help of a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

"We are now recognizing that chronic pain is a brain disease, and if we want to treat it more effectively, we need to better understand and treat the mechanisms in the brain that are driving it," said Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine in the divisions of digestive diseases, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and executive director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA.

According to Mayer, brain imaging is one of the most promising technologies for breakthrough findings in chronic pain. However, research is currently significantly limited, due to the fact that most institutions can only support small studies on their own and lack access to large samples of patients. In addition, there is no standardization of acquired data, making it difficult to combine brain scans from multiple investigators that are obtained using different scanners, techniques and sets of clinical data.

That will change with the new PAIN. The aim is for the network to include information from more than a thousand patients, including both adults and children.

In addition to brain scans, researchers will also have access to clinical and biological information on patients the so-called "metadata" including symptom measures; psychosocial factors; gene expression; immune system information; data on bacteria in the intestines, known as gut microbiota; and environmental data. Researchers can then develop large, overlapping data sets to pinpoint similarities and differences among chronic-pain conditions and correlate brain scans with clinical metadata.

"Like a fingerprint, researchers will be able to pick out distinct patterns from the scans of individuals with each pain condition and, combined with additional information provided by the network, assess how chronic pain manifests differently between men and women, across the life span, or between conditions," said Dr. Bruce Naliboff, a professor in the departments of medicine and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine and co-director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress.

Dr. Kirsten Tillisch, a UCLA associate professor of digestive diseases who directs the neuroimaging core at the Oppenheimer Center, points out that in the future, PAIN will also include information about the tens of trillions of microbes that make up the bacteria living in the intestines. She notes that each patient's gut microbiota is unique, like a signature card.

"Researchers are now exploring the connection between the brain and gut, and the type of bacteria living in the intestine may also play a role in some forms of chronic visceral pain," said Tillisch.

The standardized brain scans will include structural data on grey and white matter and on intrinsic oscillations of the brain "resting state scans." Such scans are obtained when the brain is not engaged in a particular task.

Mayer adds that PAIN may also help researchers in the future identify and pinpoint appropriate treatments by targeting subsets of conditions.

"The more information we can gather about each individual chronic-pain condition, the better we'll be at predicting how subsets of patients will react to therapies," he said.

###

UCLA's Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress, part of the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases, is an NIH-funded multidisciplinary, translational research program partially supported by philanthropy. Its mission is to identify the role of the brain in health and medical disease. The Center is comprised of several research programs which focus on the interactions of the brain with the digestive, cardiovascular and urological systems, chronic pain and mind brain body interactions.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

---

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/uoc--uth101613.php
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Brooks Brothers Steakhouse: How's That For Tasteful Shopping?

The Brooks Brothers store on Madison Avenue in New York is planning to open a 15,000-square-foot restaurant next door.

Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

The Brooks Brothers store on Madison Avenue in New York is planning to open a 15,000-square-foot restaurant next door.

Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

Here's a way to stop hungry shoppers from leaving the store for dinner.

Brooks Brothers, the 195-year-old luxury apparel company, is looking to open a restaurant next summer next to its flagship store in Manhattan, a company spokesman tells NPR. The New York Post reports that the restaurant will be a steakhouse — a fitting culinary accompaniment for the purveyor of fine business suits for the moneyed set, we think.

And it's not the only high-end retailer that's jumped into the food business. Ralph Lauren has a restaurant next to its location off Michigan Avenue in Chicago and another in Paris. (Ironically, the Chicago incarnation features French-inspired dishes like escargot, steak tartare and bouillabaisse, while Paris' menu has a whole page for burgers and steaks.)

Tommy Bahama, a lifestyle clothing line with a tropical twist, has restaurants in about a dozen stores, serving seared ahi tuna and rum mojitos. At some megasized locations of outdoor recreation retailer Bass Pro Shops, customers can order hand-breaded alligator and catfish at an attached seafood grill.

Restaurants can be a terrific traffic driver, says Rob Goldberg, Tommy Bahama's senior vice president of marketing — diners peruse the merchandise while waiting; shoppers might stick around for a drink.

They also give companies another way to express their brand: not just through the colors and feel of the clothing, but also through the flavor and aroma of food, Goldberg says. "For us, the restaurant is a really rich way to tell our lifestyle story because it touches all the senses."

Pairing clothing with food is nothing new: The former Marshall Fields in Chicago opened a restaurant on the seventh floor back in 1905, and other department stores like Macy's and Nordstrom also offer dining options. Even Ikea has a Swedish food market.

But these more recent ventures into dining are part of a larger trend in experiential brand management, says Eric Anderson, marketing professor at Northwestern University.

"A lot of retailers are focusing heavily on managing their brands through the customer experience," Anderson says. "It's no longer just the product they sell."

The interior of Tommy Bahama's island-inspired restaurant in New York City.

Dean Kaufman/Tommy Bahama

The interior of Tommy Bahama's island-inspired restaurant in New York City.

Dean Kaufman/Tommy Bahama

Examples of this are abundant. Anderson pointed to Whole Foods Market: It's not just a place where his students shop for groceries, he says — it's also where they go on dates.

Or there's outdoor retailer REI, whose flagship store in Seattle has a climbing wall. Or luxury automaker Bugatti, which launched a collection of men's clothing and accessories during Milan Fashion Week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Urban Outfitters Inc. — which owns its namesake hipster stores, as well as Anthropologie and house-and-garden store Terrain — is pursuing plans in a town near Philadelphia to build an entire shopping village. A local government official we spoke with says it's still just a concept, but the 6.5-acre site could include an Anthropologie, Terrain, boutique hotel, spa or exercise studio and several restaurants.

Granted, not every clothing company should be launching a diner, Anderson says. "If your core competence is in apparel, what business do you have running a restaurant?"

Still, the food venture has worked for Tommy Bahama, Goldberg says: Retail locations with a restaurant attached have, on average, a 20 to 25 percent lift in sales. He says people "try the restaurant on for size" before trying on, say, a shirt.

But he acknowledges the stakes are high — especially when it comes to food. Diners are unforgiving. One tasteless dish, rude server or long wait time could mean that a customer doesn't return to the food or the shirts.

"In a restaurant, we're making a product every 11 minutes with perishable goods," Goldberg says. "And every single plate is a reflection of your brand."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/10/11/232210856/brooks-brothers-steakhouse-hows-that-for-tasteful-shopping?ft=1&f=1008
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Russia keeps faith in U.S. debt, sees default being averted

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian policymakers expressed confidence on Wednesday that U.S. lawmakers would resolve a debt impasse, saying they viewed Treasury bonds as the world's safest investment even in the event of a technical default.

Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters that Russia would not be affected if the U.S. Congress fails to raise a debt ceiling by an October 17 deadline because it holds no short-dated U.S. government securities.

"I hope that both sides will find a way to agree," said Siluanov, who chaired the Group of 20 finance talks in Washington last week. "For us there will be no consequences even in the event of a default."

Russia holds more than two-fifths of its foreign reserves in U.S. Treasuries. The central bank's total gold and forex holdings are just over $500 billion, making them the world's fifth largest behind China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.

Ksenia Yudayeva, first deputy chairwoman at the Russian central bank, described the risk of a U.S. default as very low. "We think that taking the situation to a critical level is a highly unlikely scenario," she said.

"U.S. Treasuries will remain the safest asset in the world even in the event of a U.S. technical default," she said.

To deal with any market volatility that may result from a U.S. technical default, the Russian central bank would roll out its standard range of liquidity measures, Yudayeva said after she and Siluanov testified before a parliamentary committee.

"There would be an increase in volatility on markets. This event is, on the one hand, extraordinary. But in recent years such extraordinary events have happened repeatedly," said Yudayeva, who oversees the bank's market operations.

"The central bank has a large range of instruments to support liquidity. We now have an exchange rate corridor to restrain exchange rate movements. As such, we are prepared for the situation and have a selection of instruments to hand."

(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya and Oksana Kobzeva; Writing by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Pravin Char)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-keeps-faith-u-debt-sees-default-being-114847514--business.html
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Size matters in the giant magnetoresistance effect in semiconductors

Public release date: 15-Oct-2013
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Contact: LaTina Emerson
lemerson1@gsu.edu
404-413-1353
Georgia State University

In a paper appearing in Nature's Scientific Reports, Dr. Ramesh Mani, professor of physics and astronomy at Georgia State University, reports that a giant magnetoresistance effect depends on the physical size of the device in the GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor system.

Giant magnetoresistance indicates a large change in the electrical resistance with the application of a small magnetic field. This effect can be used to detect the presence of small magnetic fields. Magnetic sensors based on this concept are used to read out information stored in magnetic particles on rotating platters in computer hard disks. Other types of magnetic sensors are also used in brushless electric motors within cooling fans in computers, and as wheel speed sensors in some automobiles. Semiconductors are materials with electrical characteristics that fall between those of insulators and metals. Such materials are widely used, especially in electronics.

In research that is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Research Office, Mani studied the magnetoresistance in flat, very thin sheets of electrons in the ultra high quality GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor with his colleagues Annika Kriisa from Emory University and Werner Wegscheider from the ETH-Zurich in Switzerland.

The researchers found that the change in the resistance or resistivity with the magnetic field depends on the size of the device. They demonstrated that, under the application of a magnetic field, wide devices develop a smaller and quicker change, while small devices develop a bigger but slower change in the resistivity. The resistance or resistivity of a material to the flow of electricity is a technologically important property, especially in semiconductors.

In a typical semiconductor, the disorder is so strong that electrons undergo many collisions over a short distance - distance much less than millimeters. Then, the edges or walls of the device have no influence on measured properties because the electrons lose memory of one edge or wall by the time they get to another.

The strong sensitivity of the magnetoresistance to the size of the device observed in this research indicates that scattering with the walls of the device might be making a substantial contribution to electron scattering. This result testifies to the high quality of the semiconductor used in this research, produced by Prof. Werner Wegscheider at ETH-Zurich in Switzerland.

This research team developed a model to understand the observations and deduced that when the semiconductor system becomes of even better quality, the change in the resistance under the application of a magnetic field will become even bigger. Indeed, the change might become so big that the resistance vanishes entirely in the small magnetic field.

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Public release date: 15-Oct-2013
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Contact: LaTina Emerson
lemerson1@gsu.edu
404-413-1353
Georgia State University

In a paper appearing in Nature's Scientific Reports, Dr. Ramesh Mani, professor of physics and astronomy at Georgia State University, reports that a giant magnetoresistance effect depends on the physical size of the device in the GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor system.

Giant magnetoresistance indicates a large change in the electrical resistance with the application of a small magnetic field. This effect can be used to detect the presence of small magnetic fields. Magnetic sensors based on this concept are used to read out information stored in magnetic particles on rotating platters in computer hard disks. Other types of magnetic sensors are also used in brushless electric motors within cooling fans in computers, and as wheel speed sensors in some automobiles. Semiconductors are materials with electrical characteristics that fall between those of insulators and metals. Such materials are widely used, especially in electronics.

In research that is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Research Office, Mani studied the magnetoresistance in flat, very thin sheets of electrons in the ultra high quality GaAs/AlGaAs semiconductor with his colleagues Annika Kriisa from Emory University and Werner Wegscheider from the ETH-Zurich in Switzerland.

The researchers found that the change in the resistance or resistivity with the magnetic field depends on the size of the device. They demonstrated that, under the application of a magnetic field, wide devices develop a smaller and quicker change, while small devices develop a bigger but slower change in the resistivity. The resistance or resistivity of a material to the flow of electricity is a technologically important property, especially in semiconductors.

In a typical semiconductor, the disorder is so strong that electrons undergo many collisions over a short distance - distance much less than millimeters. Then, the edges or walls of the device have no influence on measured properties because the electrons lose memory of one edge or wall by the time they get to another.

The strong sensitivity of the magnetoresistance to the size of the device observed in this research indicates that scattering with the walls of the device might be making a substantial contribution to electron scattering. This result testifies to the high quality of the semiconductor used in this research, produced by Prof. Werner Wegscheider at ETH-Zurich in Switzerland.

This research team developed a model to understand the observations and deduced that when the semiconductor system becomes of even better quality, the change in the resistance under the application of a magnetic field will become even bigger. Indeed, the change might become so big that the resistance vanishes entirely in the small magnetic field.

###

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/gsu-smi101513.php
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