Mauritania leader flown abroad after shooting

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritania's president was flown to France for surgery on Sunday after the Western ally against al Qaeda was shot by soldiers in what he said was an accident.

The shooting late on Saturday set the coup-prone northwest African country on edge and President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz appealed to Mauritanians to keep calm in a televised message from his hospital bed.

Although Mauritania has been stable politically since Abdel Aziz seized power in 2008, it lies on the fringes of the Sahara Desert where Islamist gunmen hold increasing sway.

"I want to reassure everyone about my state of health after this incident committed by error," Abdel Aziz said from his bed. "Thanks to God, I am doing well."

He was covered in a sheet up to his neck and the extend of the wounds was not clear. Medical sources said he had been shot in the abdomen.

The president had been flown to France - the former colonial power - for further treatment, communications minister Hamdi Ould Mahjoub told Reuters.

Abdel Aziz was wounded late on Saturday when a military patrol opened fire on his convoy about 40 km (25 miles) from the capital, Nouakchott, the government said. He was driving from the town of Toueila, where he has a ranch.

Officials did not say what had happened to the soldiers who had opened fire on the convoy.

Mauritania launched numerous military operations on Islamist bases in neighboring Mali before a rebellion split that country in two in March, leaving much of it in the hands of heavily-armed groups linked to al Qaeda.

Abdel Aziz was elected in 2009 after seizing power a year earlier in a coup that cut short the rule of Mauritania's first democratically elected president, who had reached out to Islamists.

Split between black and Arab Africa, Mauritania is bigger than Turkey but has only 3.5 million people. The largely desert country produces oil from wells offshore. Its other main export industries are mining and fishing.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer in Paris; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mauritania-president-flown-country-treatment-081341620.html

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Obama, Romney hunker down for debate prep

President Barack Obama greets people on the tarmac as he arrives at Newport News Williamsburg International Airport on Air Force One, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

President Barack Obama greets people on the tarmac as he arrives at Newport News Williamsburg International Airport on Air Force One, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, in Williamsburg, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns in front of The Golden Lamb Inn and Restaurant in Lebanon, Ohio, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks to supporters as he campaigns in Lebanon, Ohio, Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

President Barack Obama high-fives with a child as he arrives at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport in Newport News, Va. on Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Zach Gibson)

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) ? President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are each forgoing time on the campaign trail Sunday in favor of hours of intense debate preparation ahead of their next face-to-face meeting.

Obama, seeking to rebound from a widely panned performance at the first debate, was huddling with advisers at a sprawling riverfront resort in Williamsburg, Va. Romney retreated to his Boston-area home, where the Republican nominee was working to replicate his commanding turn on the debate stage.

The days devoted to debate preparations underscore just how important the next face-off, which falls exactly three weeks from Election Day, is to both campaigns. Millions of Americans are already casting their ballots through early voting, meaning there are few opportunities to recover from slip-ups in what remains an exceedingly close race.

Following a listless first debate, Obama was working with aides on more pointed and aggressive responses to Romney. The campaign's game plan is also to target Romney for what it sees as a willingness to shift his positions to make them more palatable for voters.

"Governor Romney has been making pitches all of his life," Obama spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said of the businessman-turned Republican nominee.

"He knows how to say what people want to hear whether that was during his time at Bain or during the dozens of town halls he did during the primary," she added, referring to the private equity fund Romney used to run.

While Romney prepped for the debate, his campaign released a new television advertisement using footage of Republican running mate Paul Ryan's debate this week with Vice President Joe Biden. The ad, titled "Fiscal Discipline", features clips of Ryan saying the government "can't keep spending money we don't have." His comments are juxtaposed with video from the debate of Biden laughing.

The campaign did not say in which states the ad would run.

Ryan and Biden were each cheered by their party's base after their debate. But the focus shifts back to Obama and Romney on Tuesday at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Obama aides have tried to make debate preparations a higher priority for the president this time around. Ahead of first debate, some of Obama's practice sessions were cut short, and others canceled all together, mainly because of developments in Libya, where four Americans were killed at a U.S. consulate.

Aides say Obama is still dealing with those matters and others. But the urgency that led to interruptions during earlier debate prep has subsided, and the campaign is trying to ensure that Obama stays more fully engaged in his practice sessions.

Despite questions about the effectiveness of his debate preparation, Obama is working with the same team this time around. Senior advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe, along with former White House officials Anita Dunn and Ron Klain, are still running the preparations. Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes has also been added to the team because the second and third debates involve foreign policy.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is playing the role of Romney.

Among the campaign's chief priorities during the practice sessions is sharpening the president's retorts to Romney and drawing a sharper contrast between what the campaign says are Romney's shifting positions on key issues.

The president may have picked up a few pointers from Biden.

Obama watched that debate with aides in a conference room on Air Force One as he traveled back to Washington. The president said little throughout the debate, but did chime in when Biden would deliver a particularly pointed counter to Ryan.

"That's a good one," Obama said, according to aides.

Romney returned to Massachusetts Saturday night, planning to spend most of two days at his Belmont home getting ready for the upcoming debate.

With Romney is Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, who's playing President Barack Obama in mock debates. Playing moderator Candy Crowley is Peter Flaherty, a longtime Romney aide.

Romney typically attends church on Sunday mornings at the chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near his house. He planned to spend Sunday afternoon at a nearby hotel.

Romney spent most of the past week campaigning in Ohio, a state critical to his presidential hopes.

___

Associated Press writer Kasie Hunt in Boston contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-10-14-Presidential%20Campaign/id-22cbf0c4088b46029ddde8ffe71c972b

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Lithuanians sway toward opposition parties

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) ? Lithuanians exasperated with economic hardship handed a stunning victory to a populist party led by a disgraced Russia-born millionaire, nearly complete results of Sunday's election show, while voicing resounding disapproval of plans to build a costly new nuclear power plant.

The opposition Labor Party, led by Viktor Uspaskich, once dubbed as the "pickle king" for having made his fortune selling jarred pickles, was leading with 23.4 percent of the vote after nearly three-fourths of precincts was counted.

The victory set the stage for a coalition with the Social Democrats, who were second with 19.4 percent, and Order and Justice, a populist party led by Rolandas Paksas, a stunt pilot who eventually became president in 2003 ? only to be impeached the following year for violating the Constitution and abuse of office. Paksas' party was fourth with 9.2 percent.

All three parties promised radical policy changes, including increased wages and lower taxes, while the Social Democrats said that Lithuania should postpone introducing the euro until Europe could straighten out its current financial mess.

The current conservative ruling coalition, led by Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius, has expressed its interest in adopting the euro in 2014.

Some 12.3 percent of voters supported the Kubilius-led Homeland Union, which came to power just as Lithuania was sliding into one of the worst recessions in Europe. Kubilius' government was forced to raise taxes and cut expenses to ward off bankruptcy, and largely succeeded given that Lithuania did not have to turn to international lenders for bailout funds.

Lithuania is nevertheless beset with high unemployment ? over 13 percent in the second quarter ? and falling living standards due in large part to higher energy costs. Tens of thousands have left the country to find jobs elsewhere in Europe, and the results of a recent census showed that the Baltic state has lost about 1 percent of its population over the past two decades since splitting from the Soviet Union and that this year the population dipped below the threshold of 3 million people.

Leaders of the three opposition parties met early Monday to hash out the broad outlines of an agreement that could possibly lead to a new government coalition.

However, only half the seats in the 141-member Parliament are determined by party lists, while the other half consists of single-mandates, many of which will require a run-off ballot in two weeks. Only then will a clear picture of who could form the next government emerge.

"Tonight we started to form a working group that will conduct coalition talks and coordinate our moves in the second round (of voting) on Oct. 28," Uspaskich told reporters.

The Labor Party victory in the party-list phase would signify a tremendous comeback for Uspaskich, a member of the European Parliament still under investigation in Lithuania for allegedly fraudulent party finance operations.

In 2006 he was forced to resign as economy minister for a conflict-of-interest case with Russia and suspicions about a faked diploma from a Moscow-based institute. At one point he fled Lithuania, claiming political persecution, only to return to the Baltic state and be perp-walked in handcuffs in front of reporters.

Even if Uspaskich's party wins the greatest number of seats in the 141-member Parliament, it is far from certain that he would get the nod for prime minister, since President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose duty is to appoint the head of government, has expressed deep reservations about Uspaskich's integrity.

Meanwhile, Lithuania's election authority said that nearly two-thirds of voters have rejected the idea of building a new nuclear power plant.

The Central Election Commission said that with 45 percent of precincts counted, some 64 percent of votes cast in the referendum were against the new plant, while 36 percent were in support. The commission said the proportion was unlikely to change.

Although the referendum was non-binding, a strong 'no' vote could torpedo Lithuania's plans to build the facility along with neighbors Estonia and Latvia and Japan's Hitachi, as all sides have suggested that the project made no sense if it lacked popular support.

No less important, the opposition parties geared to take over the government have expressed reservations about the project and said that Lithuania should seek cheaper energy alternatives.

The current center-right government has argued that the plant is necessary to wean Lithuania off its energy dependence on Russia, while critics have countered that the project, at a cost of $6 billion, is too expensive and the Fukushima catastrophe has cast an indelible shadow over Japanese nuclear technology.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-14-Lithuania-Election/id-a284dbd59b2d4f69abea52b9a1627bc0

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Texas Tech stuns No. 5 West Virginia 49-14

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) ? Seth Doege passed for six touchdowns and a career-high 499 yards while Texas Tech's defense shut down Geno Smith and No. 5 West Virginia as the Red Raiders upset the Mountaineers 49-14 on Saturday.

Red Raider fans stormed the field after the win, the most lopsided Texas Tech victory ever over a team ranked in the top five.

Texas Tech's defense consistently stymied West Virginia's offense. Heisman Trophy hopeful Smith completed 29 of 55 passes for 275 yards but couldn't get the ball in the end zone.

The Red Raiders offense had no such trouble.

"When you don't have a pass rush it's a lot easier to make your reads," said Doege, who threw TD passes of 39, 19, 16, 2, 29 and 7 yards. He completed 32 of 42 passes and the six touchdowns matched his career-high. Darrin Moore caught three touchdown passes, which tied his career-high.

Texas Tech (5-1, 2-1) had 18 plays of 15 yards or more, including a 61-yard pass to Jace Amaro and a 53-yard touchdown run by SaDale Foster.

"I thought Seth did a tremendous job running our offense," Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville said. "He's hard-nosed and he ran the ball."

Amaro finished with five receptions for 156 yards.

The Mountaineers (5-1, 2-1) last week converted all five fourth-down tries in their 48-45 win at Texas, but against the Red Raiders they made just two of seven.

"Those guys did a great job of just attacking us," Smith said. "They attacked us the entire game."

Doege had one interception, an improvement over the five he'd thrown in the previous two games.

"He came out and played loose and he was on-point today," Texas Tech offensive coordinator Neal Brown said.

The win for Texas Tech was the second over a top 10 team in as many seasons. The Red Raiders beat then-No. 3 Oklahoma 41-38 to break the Sooners' 39-game win streak in Norman.

On seven first-half possessions the Red Raiders scored touchdowns on five. Texas Tech wasn't as efficient in the second half but by then they were so far ahead it didn't matter.

The Mountaineers fell short of their scoring average (52) by 38 points and got just one touchdown in the second half and that came when the game was already out of reach.

Dustin Garrison scored on a 2-yard run in the fourth quarter to make it 49-14.

The Mountaineers had the third-worst pass defense coming into the game (336 yards) and didn't do anything to improve on that.

The Red Raiders, meanwhile, started fast and kept the Mountaineers off balance. By the time it was all over, they had 168 rushing yards on 29 carries and passed the ball 43 times.

After the Mountaineers failed to convert on fourth-and-3 deep in Texas Tech territory, Doege needed just three plays to get his third touchdown of the game. The senior quarterback first connected with Amaro on a short pass along the near sideline and the receiver turned it into a 61-yard gain ? Texas Tech's longest play from scrimmage this season ? to the Mountaineers 21.

Two plays later, Doege hit Marcus Kennard for 16-yard touchdown pass to put the Red Raiders up 21-7.

Texas Tech's offense already was in rhythm by then, going up 14-0 in the first quarter. Doege hit a wide-open Amaro over the middle at about the 20-yard line and he ran it in for a 39-yard touchdown on the Red Raiders first possession.

Doege then found Eric Ward on a fade route on the far corner of the end zone to put Texas Tech up 14-0.

The Mountaineers answered, momentarily. Smith started with a short field after the Red Raiders squibbed the kickoff. Five plays later Stedman Bailey dived to pull in a 7-yard touchdown pass from Smith and pull West Virginia within 14-7. The drive included a 38-yard pass from Smith to Tavon Austin.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-tech-stuns-no-5-west-virginia-49-231311534--spt.html

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Why California Timeshare May Be a Better Choice than a European ...

Posted by admin on October 14th, 2012

Why California Timeshare May Be a Better Choice than a European Holiday

This article: Why California Timeshare May Be a Better Choice than a European Holiday was written by Jason Tremblay

Plan a California timeshare vacation

Earlier this month, Yahoo Travel ran an interesting article called, Are You an Ugly American? In it, the writer offered 10 insightful tips for how to avoid offending others and blend in better with local cultures when you travel. Among the points covered was one that had to do with expectations about your sleeping arrangements, mattress, and bedding. If you seriously look at the differences in how Americans view the necessities for a good night?s sleep, vs. the viewpoints of people in many other cultures, you may find that a California timeshare sounds more appealing to you than a dream vacation to Europe.

When it comes to travel, it seems, no one really does bedding the way Americans like to sleep quite as well as do American resorts. In many parts of the world, beds are smaller than American mattress sizes, with hotel rooms often offering either separated twin beds or twin beds pushed together.

As the Yahoo Travel article explains so well:

?So here?s a dose of reality in travel: If you favor a king-sized mattress topped with a feather mattress and a down-filled duvet, plus a deep-soaking Jacuzzi tub big enough for two, a separate, glassed-in shower with a marble bench seat and a second shower in the garden, there?s a great country you can visit: California.?

We are not suggesting you forgo a European holiday in favor of a California timeshare vacation. Nothing beats the experience of the history, art, architecture, food, and vibrant culture of each distinctive country in Europe. And with many US-based timeshare brands well represented among European vacation ownership, there are certainly great accommodations throughout Europe that parallel their US counterparts.

But the point made by Yahoo Travel is well taken. If you are looking for a relaxing holiday that offers both a change of pace and all the creature comforts you expect presented in a way that looks and feels like the American ideal of luxury and relaxing comfort? well, for a vacation like that, you might be happiest to simply choose a California timeshare or any other spacious, amenity-loaded timeshare resort here in the USA.

Please visit The Timeshare Authority ? Timeshare news and information for owners, buyers and renters

The Timeshare Authority

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Source: http://www.timeshare-info.co.uk/index.php/2012/10/why-california-timeshare-may-be-a-better-choice-than-a-european-holiday/

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Egypt top prosecutor: standoff with president over

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Canada's Harper says must weigh national security in China ties

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Biden, Ryan hold their own in tough vice presidential debate

Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan went at it in a strong, substantial debate Thursday night. Both men succeeded in articulating their campaign's main talking points, and both likely helped boost the candidacies of their presidential ticket partners.

By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / October 12, 2012

Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin shake hands after the vice presidential debate at Centre College, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Danville, Ky.

Michael Reynolds/AP

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In a strong, substantial debate marked by testy exchanges as well as mutual personal respect, Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan spent 90 minutes Thursday night arguing about everything from the nation?s economy to abortion to Iran and Syria.

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If the job of both men was to support and boost the candidacies of their respective presidential ticket partners, then both succeeded in what likely will be seen as the most important vice presidential debate in US political history.

Mr. Biden strongly questioned the major policies espoused by Mitt Romney, injecting vigor and humor into a campaign tripped up by President Obama?s lackluster and somewhat sour performance in his first presidential debate. Mr. Ryan held his own in the rhetorical cut and thrust of political disputation with his far more experienced opponent, showing what some analysts found to be a surprisingly detailed knowledge of foreign policy and national security issues.

Much of the success of the debate was attributed to moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News, who deftly kept the two men on track through the nine subjects covered in 10-minute segments ? permitting enough back-and-forth to keep it a real debate without allowing the disputants to take over, as many observers had noted about the first presidential debate moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS.

In terms of style, both Biden and Ryan seemed to be natural. At times, Ryan ? who acknowledges his love of Power Point presentations ? bordered on wonkishness. Some post-debate analysts found Biden bordering on condescension to his much younger opponent, chuckling and rolling his eyes at times as Ryan spoke.

"That is a bunch of malarkey," the vice president declared as Ryan criticized the Obama administration?s foreign policies. "Not a single thing he said is accurate," Biden said when Ryan had laid into the administration for what he said was its failure to provide adequate security at the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other embassy personnel were killed last month in a terrorist attack.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/coJbwCn49nY/Biden-Ryan-hold-their-own-in-tough-vice-presidential-debate

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Wear Blue on October 15th to Support Youth Mental Health ...

Reminder: Wear Blue on October 15th to Support Youth Mental Health Awareness

On Monday October 15th please wear blue in memory of Jamie Hubley and help raise awareness for youth mental health.

It will be one year since Jamie has gone.

For more information please visit

Source: http://www.khca.on.ca/2012/10/wear-blue-on-october-15th-to-support_13.html

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Rogers, CIBC may launch Suretap NFC-based payments on October 15th, require a unique SIM

Rogers and Canadian bank CIBC struck a deal for NFC-based mobile payments back in May, long enough ago that it was starting to fade out of the public consciousness. The alliance may be near refreshing our memory with a commercial launch in the cards. MobileSyrup has reportedly scored internal documents that has the two launching their e-commerce collaboration on October 15th under a slightly catchier Suretap name. Unfortunately, the text also suggests that the initial launch will require at least as much hoop-jumping from customers as for the original Google Wallet plans. Avoiding a traditional wallet will demand a BlackBerry Bold 9900 or Curve 9360 on Rogers, a CIBC MasterCard, nearby stores with PayPass terminals, a CIBC app and now a special NFC-enabled SIM card -- a set of criteria that disqualifies almost everyone, especially when there's supposedly a $50 ceiling on transactions. It remains a step forward for mobile payments in a country that has had very few options to start with, but we'd only anticipate widespread adoption once there's a much wider selection of devices and banks.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, RIM

Rogers, CIBC may launch Suretap NFC-based payments on October 15th, require a unique SIM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  MobileSyrup  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/12/rogers-cibc-may-launch-suretap-nfc-based-payments-on-october-15/

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Yankees, O's tied 1-all after 12th in Game 4

NEW YORK (AP) ? Baltimore's bullpen escaped an eighth-inning jam as Alex Rodriguez struck out yet again, Joba Chamberlain was knocked out by Matt Wieters' broken bat and the Orioles and New York Yankees were tied at 1 after 12th Thursday night in Game 4 of their AL division series.

Baltimore's Nate McLouth homered in the fifth and made a leaping catch against the left-field wall to save run in the bottom half, and Robinson Cano hit an RBI groundout in the sixth.

With the Yankees leading the best-of-five series 2-1, the Orioles were trying tried to stave off elimination. A Baltimore win would force a Game 5 on Friday night and push all four division series to the maximum for the first time.

New York had a runner in each of the first eight innings and threatened to take the lead in the eighth. Singles by Ichiro Suzuki and Mark Teixeira off Luis Ayala put two on with no outs, and Cano's grounder to second against Brian Matusz advanced the runners.

Side-arming right-hander Darren O'Day relieved and struck out Rodriguez on four pitches ? A-Rod is 2 for 17 (.117) with no RBIs and nine strikeouts in the series. Nick Swisher flied weakly to right, falling to 1 for 34 (.029) with runners in scoring position in his postseason career.

Both bullpens pitched scoreless ball, with Baltimore allowing three hits over 6 1-3 scoreless innings and the Yankees giving up two hits over 4 1-3 innings.

Chamberlain pitched a 1-2-3 11th, and Wieters led off the 12th with a single to left field. A large piece of the bat went twirling toward the mound and hit Chamberlain's surgically repaired pitching elbow.

Chamberlain threw down his glove and bent over in pain.

He was checked out by trainer Steve Donahue and manager Joe Girardi. While Chamberlain threw three test pitches, Girardi went back to the dugout.

Chamberlain finished his pitches and walked off the field with Donahue. X-rays were negative. David Phelps came and retired three in a row.

The Orioles wasted a chance in the ninth when pinch runner Lew Ford was picked off first by Rafael Soriano.

Derek Jeter singled off Pedro Strop with two outs in the 12th, but Suzuki grounded out.

McLouth had homered into the right-center field seats, reaching down for a 91 mph fastball from Phil Hughes. McLouth has six hits in his last six at-bats against Hughes with three doubles, plus two walks.

With Russell Martin on first with one out in the bottom half, McLouth ran down Jayson Nix's drive while crashing into the wall and doubled up the slow-footed catcher trying to retreat to first, with shortstop J.J. Hardy making a nice relay.

Joe Saunders, who beat Texas in last week's one-game, wild-card playoff, allowed one runner in each of the first five innings and two in the sixth.

Jeter, playing despite a foot injury that forced him out of Game 3, hit an opposite-field double down the right-field line leading off the sixth and took third on Suzuki's sacrifice bunt. Teixeira walked, and Cano drove in Jeter with a grounder to second.

Tommy Hunter relieved and Rodriguez struck out, prompting another round of boos.

Hughes gave up four hits in the first six innings, struck out seven and walked three, throwing 90 pitches. He allowed 35 home runs during the regular season, tied for second-most in the majors.

Saunders allowed three hits in 5 2-3 innings, walked four and struck out five.

New York, playing its first game since announcing the death of Girardi's father, was coming off its dramatic 3-2, 12-inning win Wednesday behind Raul Ibanez's home runs in the ninth and 12th innings. The Yankees were a win from meeting Detroit or Oakland in the AL championship series starting Saturday.

Jeter was moved to designated hitter after fouling a pitch off his foot in Game 3, with Nix starting at shortstop and Rodriguez back at third base. Ibanez pinch hit for Nix with two outs in the ninth and grounded to first.

Rodriguez, pinch hit for by Ibanez in the ninth inning in Game 4, was dropped from third to fifth in the batting order.

Ibanez pinch hit in the ninth Thursday night and struck out to end the inning.

Game 1 winner CC Sabathia would pitch a fifth game for the Yankees. Orioles manager Buck Showalter had not announced his possible starter.

Hughes struggled with his control early, walking leadoff batters in the first, third and fourth innings and escaping two-on trouble all three times. He also threw out a runner at the plate on a comebacker, saving a run.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yankees-os-tied-1-12th-game-4-035556549--mlb.html

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Federal plan designed to create large solar energy plants

The Obama administration has formally adopted a plan to help create large-scale solar energy plants, offering incentives for solar developers to cluster projects on 285,000 acres of federal land in the western U.S and opening an additional 19 million acres of the Mojave Desert for new power plants.

The plan places 445 square miles of public land in play for utility-scale solar facilities.

The program, announced Friday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar at an event in Las Vegas, will apply to new projects only and not the 17 solar facilities already awarded permits or the 78 currently in the approval pipeline.

"This historic initiative provides a road map for landscape-level planning that will lead to faster, smarter utility-scale solar development on public lands," Salazar said.

The plan establishes 17 solar energy zones in six Western states, including 154,000 acres in California. The zones were chosen because they avoided major environmental, cultural or other conflicts. The policy encourages developers to select sites within zones by promising minimal environmental reviews and expedited permitting and a range of additional financial incentives.

But developers can sidestep the zones under certain conditions. Companies may construct plants on 19 million acres designated as "variance" zones, but the government offers fewer incentives to build there. Another 79 million acres are in exclusion zones, where no energy development is allowed.

California has 2 1/2 times more acreage in solar zones than any other state. The state has 750,000 acres in variance areas.

Some conservation groups fought to prevent approval of utility-scale projects in the region, contending that the desert ? home to scores of endangered plants and animals ? was not capable of absorbing industrial-scale projects.

"We are ... disappointed to see that vital habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise is still open to potential development through the variance process," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife.

Critics contend that the policies are too late, coming after years of free-for-all leasing that encouraged rampant speculation. Since leasing began, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been working to process more than 300 solar applications.

Many of those are for land in California's Mojave Desert, where counties have seen the cost of private land soar and the desert given over to thousands of acres of mirrors.

Earlier this week the Interior Department announced that it had surpassed a milestone ? authorizing the first 10,000 megawatts of power. The fast-tracking of solar facilities on public lands is expected to generate nearly 24,000 megawatts of renewable power by 2030, officials said.

But so far, the unprecedented urgency given to solar energy projects on public land has yielded only 50 megawatts of produced power, according to officials.

Janine Blaeloch of the group Solar Done Right supports renewable energy but said wholesale development of the desert is a mistake.

"This should all be happening on rooftops and in cities," Blaeloch said. "But that wouldn't profit the big utilities, and industry wouldn't be able to get tax breaks, so we wreck the desert instead. We aren't getting that public land back. Once it's industrialized, everything that lives there and everything we enjoy about it will be gone."

julie.cart@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/pQYgiIzwA04/la-me-1013-solar-zones-20121013,0,3678016.story

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Top Insider Sales For October 11 Included Primerica And Google ...

In a victory for common sense, the trading behavior of company executives, directors, and large shareholders in the stocks of firms they're registered "insiders" at have been proven profitable to monitor by both academic studies and (more importantly) the experience of your fellow professional investors.

Below are lists of the?top 10 mainly open-market insider purchases and sales?filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission?Thursday, October 11, 2012?as ranked by dollar value.

Please note, however, that?these are factual lists, not buy and sell recommendations. Dollar value is only one metric to assess the importance of an insider transaction, and, frankly, often not even the most important metric that determines if an insider transaction is significant.

Warburg Pincus unloaded $59.9 million worth of insurance carrier Primerica (NYSE:PRI) stock in the names of managing directors Michael Martin and Daniel Zilberman, according to forms filed with the SEC on October 11. The deal was done off the open market as Primerica had previously agreed to repurchase the shares owned by the Warburg Pincus Private Equity X fund. Despite the repurchase, Warburg Pincus still owns 15% of Primerica's common stock with warrants to purchase a further 5-6%.

In a more routine transaction, Larry Page continued selling Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock through an automatic sales (Rule 10b5-1) program.?

FPR Partners made an open market buy of ViaSat (NASDAQ:VSAT), which made the private investment partnership an 11.6% beneficial owner in the communications equipment company. Hany Nada, co-founder of GGV Capital and a director of Glu Mobile (NASAQ:GLUU), made a $9.9 million purchase in the game developer. The purchase was part of an automatic buy (Rule 10b5-1) program on behalf of two GGV funds, which was entered into in February of this year.

At?InsiderInsights.com, we find new investment ideas just about every day using these and?more intricate insider screens?to determine where we should focus our subsequent fundamental and technical analysis. And while stocks don't (or shouldn't) move up or down based on insider activity alone, insiders tend to be good indicators of when real stock-moving events like earnings surprises, corporate actions, and new products may be in the offing.

Source:?InsiderInsights.com?|?Key to Insider Title and Trans Type Codes

Source:?InsiderInsights.com?|?Key to Insider Title and Trans Type Codes

Editor's note: Jonathan Moreland is the founder of Insider Insights and author of "Profit From Legal Insider Trading."

No positions in stocks mentioned.

Source: http://www.minyanville.com/trading-and-investing/stocks/articles/insider-trading-insider-investing-insider-stocks/10/12/2012/id/44936

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Why Do the Swiss Eat So Much Chocolate?

A new study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that a country's chocolate consumption correlates strongly with the number of Nobel Prizes its citizens win. According to the author?s calculations, Switzerland consumes the most chocolate and ranks second behind Sweden in laureates per capita. (The author accuses the Sweden-based Nobel committee of favoritism.) Switzerland doesn?t have the climate to grow cocoa. How did it become known for chocolate?

Because the great chocolate innovators were Swiss. Earlier this year, the Explainer answered the question, ?How did Detroit become Motor City?? In short, although some attribute Motown?s dominance to its vast natural resources, its role in manufacturing probably had more to do with the historical accident that a handful of important industrialists worked there. Henry Ford set up shop in Detroit, as did Ransom Olds and other automotive visionaries. Their companies behaved like today?s dot-coms, creating cross-pollination by sharing employees and ideas. The same process explains how the Swiss came to dominate the chocolate world through a century of remarkable innovation. In 1819, Francois-Louis Cailler developed a recipe to turn gritty cocoa beans into a solid, smooth chocolate bar. Rudolph Lindt eventually perfected the smoothing process by adding cocoa butter with a machine he called the conche. In 1830, his countryman Charles-Am?d?e Kohler added hazelnuts to chocolate. Jean Tobler formulated the Toblerone bar in the late 1860s. Perhaps the greatest innovation came in 1875, when Daniel Peter figured out how to combine cocoa powder with local milk to create milk chocolate, which became an instant sensation. (The Swiss can?t take credit for cocoa powder, which was developed by Dutch chemist Coenraad J. van Houten in 1828.) Eventually, Kohler, Peter, and food magnate Henri Nestl? joined forces to create the Swiss Chocolate Society, which eventually became the Nestl? company. Today, Swiss consumers eat more than 23 pounds of the country?s most famous product per year.

There?s another factor to Switzerland?s high chocolate consumption: wealth. (Which may also explain the correlation with Nobel prizes.) Few cocoa-producing countries are big chocolate consumers, because chocolate is a luxury. Ivory Coast, Indonesia, Ghana, and Nigeria, all of which have per capita GDPs well below the global average, lead the world in cocoa production. By contrast, wealthy Western Europe constitutes 6 percent of the world?s population, but eats 45 percent of its chocolate.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=211d227c7ae9b75c37b0d77a0153e089

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Morning Round-Up: Thursday 11 October | Legal Cheek

"If you ever call me again on my cell phone, I'll strangle you": Angry judge blasts lawyer in high-profile murder case [ABA Journal]

Family of Herbert Smith solicitor lawyer killed in 2002 Bali bombings still fighting for justice [Evening Standard]

Oxford law student: ?new students should seek education, not satisfaction? [Independent Voices]

Member of UK security services granted anonymity in sexual assault trial [The Guardian]

QASA will drive solicitors out of criminal law, Law Society warns [Legal Futures]

Source: http://www.legalcheek.com/2012/10/morning-round-up-thursday-11-october/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=morning-round-up-thursday-11-october

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Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX)

In the coming crush of hybrid ultrabooks?all made to make the most of Windows 8?Sony has the distinction of being the first to reach the PC Labs with the Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX). It comes with a touch screen that takes advantage of Windows 8 touch functionality, as well as a fast 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) and a third-generation Intel Core processor. The hybrid design of the Duo 11 stills has some kinks to work out, and it isn't helped by short battery-life, software glitches, or a design that is uncomfortable to hold.

Design
The VAIO Duo 11 is a convertible ultrabook, meaning that it functions both as a laptop and as a tablet. The transformation relies on what Sony calls the "Smooth Surf Slider design," a spring-loaded sliding hinge mechanism. Lift the back edge of the screen and pull back and up, and the screen slides up into a laptop-like position. Unfortunately, those are the only two positions available, and adjusting the screen angle in laptop mode is out of the question. Also, be careful not to stick anything in the gap behind the screen, below the hinge?exposed springs and ribbon cables could easily be damaged if you tried to close the system on a foreign object.

The 11.6-inch screen adds capacitive touch and 10-finger tracking to the gorgeous 1920-by-1080 resolution IPS display, which not only looks great, it's also a huge step up from the 1366-by-768 resolution display seen on the likes of the Samsung Series 7 Slate (700T1A) or the Toshiba Portege Z935-P300 ultrabook. Gorilla Glass protects the screen from scratches and scuffs, which is important, because even when closed?in tablet form?the display is exposed. One maddening quirk: The touch screen would occasionally stop registering touch input while in laptop mode. Sometimes this could be fixed by switching into tablet mode and back; other times it required power-cycling the laptop. When touch is a major feature in your device, it behooves you to make sure that it works properly.

When closed in tablet mode, the Duo 11 measures 0.71 by 12.60 by 7.84 inches (HWD) and it weighs only 2.9 pounds thanks to a lightweight magnesium-alloy frame and glossy black plastic chassis. It's thin and light enough for use as a tablet, but weight isn't the only factor to consider. The burnished black plastic gathered not only smudges, but also scuffs, which you don't want to see on a device that will be handled constantly. The angular lines of the VAIO Duo 11 are in keeping with the design ID used throughout the VAIO line. It looks great while the Duo is in laptop mode, but the jutting angles and sharp edges aren't comfortable to hold in tablet mode. If there's a flaw in the design, this is it.

The chiclet keyboard is smaller than those usually seen on 11-inch laptops, with no palmrest to speak of, and a shallow typing depth, even for an ultrabook. The full-size keyboard also has slightly undersized keys, making the spacing a bit wider than you'll find on most chiclet keyboards. In the center of the chiclet keyboard is an optical mouse, similar to the optical trackpoint seen on the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. The optical sensor has a polished, rounded surface, which fingertips glide over easily, but it's a different experience than you'll have with a regular trackpad because it's highly sensitive. The mouse buttons are located on the edge of the keyboard, just below the spacebar. The size and dimensions of the hybrid laptop don't provide room for a palmrest.

Finally, Sony overlooked what should have been a basic detail. The Duo 11 comes with a digitizer stylus for handwriting and drawing with the tablet, but nowhere on the tablet will you find either storage for the stylus or any sort of tether point to attach it to. Sony does offer an accessory sleeve for the Duo 11, which includes stylus storage, but without it, the average user will find their laptop and pen separated rather quickly. Thankfully, any Wacom digitizer stylus can be used. Aside from this oversight, using the stylus is great, with 256 levels of pressure sensitivity and automatic palm-rejection letting you rest your wrist on the screen as you would with pen and paper, without causing any problems.

Features
Because the VAIO Duo 11 doubles as a tablet, you'll also find ports and buttons all over the device, rather than grouping them entirely on the right and left sides of the chassis. Some of these connections are standard for ultrabooks, like two USB 3.0 ports (one with power for charging devices while the system is asleep), a card slot (SD/MS), a compact Ethernet port, and 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. Bluetooth 4.0 lets you pair the latest Windows 8 peripherals, and 802.11n Wi-Fi keeps you connected as you roam from room to room. An HDMI port and VGA output let you connect to an external HDTV or monitor, but the Duo 11 is also WiDi-capable, letting you wirelessly stream through any WiDi adapter, like the Netgear Push2TV.

Business users aren't left out either, as the VAIO Duo 11 has integrated Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Symantec Validation and ID Protection Service (VIP), Intel Anti-Theft Technology, and a connection for a desktop port replicator.

Others features have clearly come from the tablet side of the equation, such as the front- and rear-facing 2.4-megapixel cameras and the screen rotation lock button. Internal sensors now include GPS, Accelerometer, Gyro, and Digital Compass. Newer features not seen on previous laptops or tablets include the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Windows Key button, effectively a physical home or start button on the front of the tablet, which duplicates the function of your keyboard's Windows key. Other physical action buttons include volume controls and a screen orientation lock button. Finally, Sony has also built-in Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology, used for pairing the Duo 11 to any device with Sony One-Touch technology, such as the Sony SRS-BTM8 Bluetooth wireless speaker and MDR-1RBT Bluetooth headphones.

Sony has outfitted the VAIO Duo 11 with a 128GB SSD, which makes for speedy two-second boot and wake times, and boosts day-to-day performance. It's the same capacity offered in the Toshiba Portege Z935-P300, but the Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD-DB71 offers a larger 500GB spinning hard drive?because of the moving parts, traditional hard drives aren't well-suited to tablets that will pick up and move in normal use. There's also no room for an optical drive in the slim confines of a convertible ultrabook, so those still using DVDs will need an external drive.

Sony doesn't waste the chance to share a number of preinstalled programs and apps. When you first see the Start Screen, you'll be greeted by a number of VAIO branded apps (VAIO Care, VAIO Message Center, VAIO Update, and VAIO Control Center), along with app tiles for HuluPlus, Kaspersky Now, Skype, and Slacker Radio. The Kaspersky app is tied to a 30-day trial of Kaspersky Internet Security, and you'll also find a trial version of Microsoft Office 2013. Sony PlayMemories Home provides a simple hub for organizing, viewing, editing and sharing images and videos. Sony Album and Sony Music let you organize your media and stream to DLNA compatible TVs and audio systems. Sony SocialLife is more of a meta-app, consolidating social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and news feeds into a single attractive interface. For showing off the digitizer stylus mentioned above, Sony includes Sony Note Anytime, a handwriting recognition app for note taking, and also throws in a copy of ArtRage Studio Pro, letting you doodle and draw to your heart's content.

Sony covers the VAIO Duo 11 with a one-year warranty plus toll-free phone support. Additional accessories are also available for the Duo 11, including a protective sleeve, and a secondary battery slice.

Performance
The VAIO Duo 11 is equipped with the same third-generation Intel Core i5-3317U processor (1.7GHz) used in the Toshiba Portege Z935-P300 and other ultrabooks. The VAIO Duo 11 posted a solid 2.4 point score in Cinebench R11.5, identical to the score of the Toshiba Z935-P300, which uses the same processor. Paired with 8GB of RAM and the aforementioned 128GB SSD, the VAIO Duo 11 offers decent productive capability, as evidenced by its PCMark 7 score of 4,648 points. While it falls short of the Toshiba Z935-P300 (5,477 points) it's significantly more powerful than the Samsung Series 7 Slate (2,352 points) which sports a second-generation Intel Core processor, and is one of the few x86 Windows tablets we've reviewed up to this point.

Intel's integrated graphics processing (Intel HD Graphics 4000) provides enough visual oomph for multimedia and casual games, which is perfect for the touch-based gaming available on the Duo 11. As a result, it scored 1,117 points in 3DMark 11 (on Entry settings), and completed the updated Handbrake video encoding test in 1 minute 25 seconds. For most media tasks, like editing photos or loading graphics-intensive Web pages, this is more than enough graphics capability. High-end gaming, however, is out of reach on this system, as evidenced by unplayable scores in both of our gaming tests, Heaven and Alien vs. Predator; both tests produced an unplayable 12 frames per second when set to lower resolution (1366-by-768) and medium detail (anti-aliasing off).

The VAIO Duo 11 lasted 3 hours 9 minutes in a video rundown test, falling short of the 4:45 Sony estimates in press materials. While the test isn't as varied or detailed as MobileMark?our normal battery test?it does paint a clear picture for the average user. Three hours may make it through two (shorter) movies back to back, but isn't enough time to take you through a full day of work or school. It's especially irritating in the tablet form-factor?plugging in a laptop isn't that big a hassle since they are fairly stationary during use, but it will seriously cramp the use-it-anywhere convenience of a tablet.

While there will be plenty of comparisons made in the coming weeks, the Sony VAIO Duo 11 doesn't make the best first-impression for the emerging hybrid ultrabook category. As an ultrabook the Duo 11's awkward keyboard and short battery-life hamper the productive potential it might have had. As a tablet, the design is uncomfortable and the short battery-life cripples the convenience and entertainment value. The Sony VAIO Duo 11 shows promise, but there's plenty of room to improve.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX) with several other laptops side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX)
??? Razer Blade (2012)
??? Sony VAIO T13 (SVT13114GXS)
??? Eurocom Scorpius
??? Fujitsu Lifebook U772
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/O4mGqy6S_po/0,2817,2410808,00.asp

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How Google Search Won the Hearts and Minds of the UK | The ...

When asked exactly what it is I do, responding with ?managing pay-per-click advertising? or even ?writing online advertising? doesn?t seem specific or sufficient enough explanation for many. So often have I found myself succumbing and short-handedly describing my challenging new work as ?working with Google AdWords.? It seems Britons find it easier to wrap their brains around ?adverts on Google? than of PPC in general. What?s more, with the recent news that Google has now overtaken?Microsoft to become the world?s second largest IT firm, it?s clear that the company?s global internet ubiquity and dominance is definitely a chief issue in PPC and across all internet-based business.

Having grown up during the browser and ?search engine wars? of the noughties ? when competition was abound, and the likes of AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo! and MSN Search all seemed to be? just as dominant and valid as Google (when there still really was a choice) ? the vernacular at my disposal when having to explain PPC to ?civilians? definitely made it simpler to just use Google as my reference point.

Plainly, Google has very truly eliminated any pre-existing element of choice there may have been when opening a browser and starting to surf.

Perusing the PPC blogosphere, it?s become clear to me that Google?s dominance was at the base of much discussion within the industry ? and quite as one would expect too. This year has seen a small handful of topics essentially dominate most of the conversation:

• The on-going battle Google has with its primary English-language rivals ? Yahoo! and Bing.
• Google?s performance (or comparative lack thereof) in China?s market of half a billion users, increasingly outstripped by Baidu.
• The seeming inability of the social media oligarchy to effectively utilise search and their massive user-base to truly compete with search.
• And most recently, Apple?s massive mistake of attempting to live without Google Maps built in to the iPhone 5.

Yet the most interesting subject for a tech-savvy, Earl Grey-sipping, Google-weaned Briton such as myself remains relatively under-discussed. How can Bing-powered searches account for some 34% of the US search engine market?

Baidu?s dominance over Google in China (some 83% compared to Google?s 11%) is somehow less surprising by comparison. Historically, Google?s presence in China has been rather rocky (due in some part to prevalent authoritarian censorship policies in China). What?s more, Baidu simply has a better?understanding?and?experience of the Chinese market and, most importantly, the language.

However this explanation clearly holds no sway when attempting to divulge what it is that puts Google so far ahead of the competition in the UK, in comparison to the USA. I found it striking when Google hit its highest recorded US market share this?May with 66.7% ? mainly as I knew their UK market share was over 90%. So how is it that the US has managed to avoid giving Google quite as much quarter as here in the UK?

As a search engine, Google?s main appeal and edge during the aforementioned ?search engine wars? in the early scramble for the internet, was in its innate simplicity and ergonomically universal design.

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These two early examples comparing Yahoo and Google?s homepages from 1995 & 1997 respectively show just how little has really changed, but also the main reasons for Google?s early success. Plain and simple searching was the aesthetic, with users guided instantly to their single choice on the page: the search box. Yahoo?s in comparison was awash with search options and content, colours and words.

In those formative days of search, the entirely ?internet ignorant? masses of the late-90s simply found Google?s approach less confusing. It?s worth noting that at the time, Google?s search results were often raved to be of the highest quality as well ? yet it is this author?s opinion that aesthetics would?ve trumped results in those early days. What?s more, it?s interesting to see which direction Bing chose to follow some 15 years later when designing its own homepage?

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So could the initial success of Google?s design simply explain it all? Clearly the early days of internet search were when typical habits and modus operandi for internet searching were formulated. Could Britons just have been less willing to let go of these habits in the successive years?

It?s definitely worth mentioning how Yahoo!?s homepage and its US-specific news and content is arguably what won it an American audience during the Internet?s advent. Yahoo never quite captured the minds of the UK market on this front, and its UK-aimed content remains decidedly lacking when one compares the competition provided by UK newspapers and online content factories such as Huffington Post. This was perhaps the real genius of Google?s design: its rudimentary lack of personality and identity.

Where Yahoo! and MSN felt distinctly American to British users, Google felt more universal, and certainly unobtrusively indistinct and more compatible with a UK audience.

Something else to consider is the habitual differences between the UK and the US, as made evident when investigating default search engine providers that come with the various major web browsers (and their market shares). One could argue that being the default search provider with a browser is the most powerful way to gain users. Microsoft?s Internet Explorer (with Bing/MSN-powered default search) has certainly dominated in this arena for quite some time, while Google?s Chrome and Mozilla?s Firefox ? both of which have Google as their default search engine ? somewhat appropriately represent an alliance in opposition against Internet Explorer dominance (not unlike the Bing/Yahoo search engine ?alliance? against Google search). Google?s position as the default search engine for Firefox came at no small cost in the form of a $100 million investment in 2010.

So it?s clear that the major search engine providers understand their strengths and weaknesses. Two years ago, Microsoft invested $100 Million promoting their search engine in the form of Bing?s advertising and marketing budget. Around the same time was when Google spent the aforementioned same amount on securing the default search provider on Firefox.

However, the most revealing aspect of all of this is how Internet Explorer?s continuing (if waning) popularity as the number one browser in the UK as in the US has failed to secure Bing a similar section of the search engine market. IE still owns about 40% of the browser share in the US and about 38% in the UK. One could argue this helps to explain the larger Bing-powered section of the US search market (30%), thus implying that UK users ? 38% of whom still use IE ? must be taking the initiative to actively choose Google as their search engine, changing the search settings in their Explorer.

Although changing one?s search settings in a web browser isn?t the most daunting task imaginable to most, I feel it?s safe to infer that slightly more tech-savvy users are normally more likely to change their search settings in their browser than those less so. Does this mean that the UK?s Internet Users tend to be more tech-savvy? Or does it mean that US users are simply less concerned with their choice of search engine and are therefore happy with their default?

Either way, the coming year is set to see the Internet continue its migration over to mobile ? a still relatively new ?internet space?. The recent furore over iOS 6 and Apple?s Maps application could indicate what the future of search is going to sound like as a fresh wave of arguments arise amidst varying bids to occupy the mobile search market. Perhaps the still-fresh world of mobile represents the methadone Britain needs to wean ourselves off our Google addiction.

Tags | Google, search engines

Source: http://www.thesearchagents.com/2012/10/how-google-search-won-the-hearts-and-minds-of-the-uk/

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The 11 Best UK Boy Bands Of The Past 25 Years: From Take That ...

These Blokes Keep Us Up All Night!

With a blockbuster year nearly behind them (their platinum hit ?What Makes You Beautiful? hit the top four, spawning a number one album and a sold-out tour) and new single ?Live While We?re Young? burning up the airwaves, British boy-band One Direction remind us of one of pop music?s most enduring truths: the most compelling all-male pop groups often hail from Ol? Blighty.

Certainly one could make an argument for Stateside superiority on the backs of such legends as NKOTB, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, but how do those guys stack up against the lads of The Wanted, Take That and 1D? And more importantly, which ones would win in a fight over us? Peruse our Top 10 list of the UK?s cuddliest crooners below and tell us who you think comes out on top in the game of pop!

11. Boyzone: Okay, so this boy band was Irish, but that didn?t stop them from becoming permanent fixtures in the British charts! (And sorry, Westlife ? Boyzone won the coin toss here.) They hit the Top 40 there 19 times, most famously with their panty-melting ballad ?No Matter What.? Just ahead of their 2000 break-up, ?cute one? Stephen Gately came out of the closet, while ?older one? Ronan Keating went on to a hugely successful solo career.

10. The Wanted: One Direction?s fiercest rivals overtook them on the US charts earlier this year when the energetic ?Glad You Came? topped out at #3 on the Hot 100, but their summery follow-up ?Chasing The Sun? didn?t fare as well when it stiffed at #50. Think their next single ?I Found You? has what it takes to put them back at the top?

9. Busted: The turn of the 21st century brought a whole new kind of boy band to the fore: Busted, the UK?s answer to successful American pop-punkers like Blink 182. These bad boys hit the scene with plenty of rude attitude and some out of control eyebrows, both of which helped propel them into the upper reaches of England?s charts.

8. McFly: Picking up where their punky peers in Busted left off, McFly blew up in the mid-aughts by broadening their sound to encompass more contemporary pop styles. Eight years into their career ? a veritable lifetime for boy troupes ? they?re still scoring top five hits in their native country, such as the dazzling ?Shine A Light? featuring Taio Cruz.

7. East 17: These dance-rap hooligans set the ?90s afire with a string of ravey pop hits and an uncharacteristically touching Christmas ballad, ?Stay Another Day.? Years after their fortunes dwindled, they reunited for a trashy reality show, but we choose to remember them this way:

5 ? 6. Bros/ Big Fun: Take a bunch of blonde pretty-boys, dress ?em up in torn jeans, turn on the sex and, voila: boy band! Despite their visual similarities, Bros and Big Fun were distinctly different from each other, each with their own talents, charms, and styles. Needless to say, we could never choose a favorite.

Bros:

Big Fun:

4. 5ive: These athletic blokes scored a late-?90s US hit with the slammin? ?When the Lights Go Out,? proving yet again that the Brits could take the pervasive sound of the international music scene (in this instance, the Swedish-engineered pop-funk of Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, Robyn, et al.) and give it their own distinct twist.

3. JLS: aka Jack the Lad Swing, who bring a much-needed dose of real R&B to the British pop scene. With five #1s under their stylish belts, JLS stand as one of the UK?s premier pop entities, as evidenced by the bizarrely brilliant sampling of ?The Sound Of Music? in their chart-topping 2010 single ?The Club Is Alive.?

2. One Direction: Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis continue to ride the American charts like a sleek Aston Martin, and it?s easy to see why: their singles combine the best of electronic dance-pop with ? duh ? cute guys whose ridiculous haircuts and intricate dance moves make audiences swoon. With ?Live While Will Young? promising to beat the success of their previous singles, it looks like 2013 could be an even bigger year for the young quintet.

1. Take That: No one could have predicted the 20-year success of Take That ? or that its cheeky members Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow would blossom into elder statesmen of UK pop ? but with their last three albums hitting number one and several international tours selling out, it?s safe to say they?ve proven the haters wrong. And yeah, we know they?re all classy now, but the below 1991 video will always hold a Jell? splattered place in our hearts. Nice (naked) butts, boys.

Which of these boy bands did(/do) you swoon for the most? Let us know below, or by hitting us up on Facebook and Twitter!

Source: http://idolator.com/7093391/11-best-uk-boy-bands-take-that-one-direction

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