Continue reading Wi-Fi Alliance announces Miracast wireless display certification program
Wi-Fi Alliance announces Miracast wireless display certification program originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 May 2012 21:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
kate upton si cover lobster recipes hearts roses flower delivery e cards smash
Jason Hammel came into yesterday?s game with a 2.78 ERA and just three homers allowed in nine starts this season, but the Orioles right-hander served up four homers to the Blue Jays and afterward got about as close to accusing them of stealing signs as he could possibly get without actually doing it.
Here?s what Hammel told Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun:
They?re a very potent offense and if you don?t make your pitches down they?re going to get them out. They were taking some pretty big hacks on my breaking stuff too, which leads me to believe it was something else. It is what it is. I need to keep the ball down.
When you?re locating your fastball, you?re going to give up some home runs there, but the swings they were taking on he breaking stuff, it was pretty amazing to me. I don?t think you can take swings like that not knowing they?re coming. I don?t know. That?s all I can say.
This is far from the first time an opposing pitcher has accused the Blue Jays of stealing signs in Toronto and in fact Amy K. Nelson wrote a whole article about it in ESPN The Magazine a couple years ago, making ?the man in white? famous.
When asked if he was aware of the past accusations, Hammel replied:
There?s rumors and things like that. I don?t know. I can?t speak on that, but they were taking very, very big strong hacks on breaking stuff. It was something I?ve never seen before.
Hammel has started 125 career games. Not only was that the first time he?s allowed four homers, he?d allowed three homers just twice before and gave up zero homers in 65 of those 125 starts.
Toronto has hit .262 with an .803 OPS at home this season, compared to .231 with a .660 OPS on the road. Their splits weren?t quite as extreme last season, but the Blue Jays hit .254 with a .759 OPS at home compared to .244 with a .699 OPS on the road. So ? if they are stealing signs at home the Blue Jays are at least doing a pretty effective job of it.
daytona 500 winner cleveland plain dealer barry sanders barry sanders john scott jimmie johnson juan pablo montoya crash
In April, J?rgen Fauth read from his debut novel, Kino, in our reading series at the KGB Bar alongside Mark Leyner, an author he liked to read when he was a creative writing student in America.? Whether you?re an experienced writer, or you?re just beginning, meeting an author will never cease to be a special experience. As J?rgen Fauth writes about the ties between writers and readers, we hope that our students will also be inspired by the authors they meet through Behind the Book.
I was born and raised in Germany and came to the U.S. as an exchange student in the early 90s. There, I discovered creative writing classes, which were relatively unknown in Germany at the time, and decided I wanted to be a writer.
Through the luck of the draw, I spent my exchange year at Mississippi College, a small Baptist school outside of Jackson, MS, and I was making interesting friends ? the slackers and outcasts, the people who enjoyed skipping chapel and staying out past curfew (which only existed for the female students.) At home, university students were considered adults, with all the rights and responsibilities that came with it, but here, there were rules to break and hall monitors to dodge. It was easy to imagine myself a rebel, and the books we were reading reflected this. The beats were our favorite because even if Mississippi College wasn?t exactly like the fifties; it had more rules and regulations than any place I?ve lived before or since.
With my love for Kerouac and Ginsberg came the siren song of the open road. My Mississippi friends weren?t of drinking age, but they had cars, gas was cheap, and the roads that started behind our dorm led to I-55, which connects Jackson to New Orleans and Memphis, and goes on from there to St. Louis and Chicago. Whenever we got the chance, we drove ? Florida, New York, Denver, San Francisco, it didn?t matter. We drove and drove, and I must have crossed the country four or five times that year, coast to coast, north and south, any which way between.
On these trips, no matter how impulsive or spontaneous, we always brought books with us: Gravity?s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon was the first in the trunk every time, along with an actual copy of Kerouac?s On the Road, the collected poems of Allen Ginsberg, Richard Brautigan?s In Watermelon Sugar ? revolutionary books that allowed just as much youthful, exuberant exploration as the wide country stretching before us. We would sleep in the car; we parked at Bryce Canyon waiting for the sunrise, reading poetry. Outside of Williams, Arizona, the axle broke, and I remember sitting on the curb ? the actual curb, not the air-conditioned waiting room ? reading our favorite Pynchon passages out loud.
I made a great many discoveries during that first year in America, and one of them was the work of Mark Leyner, which I immediately added to our traveling cross-country library. Unlike many of the books I cherished most, his novels ? Et tu, Babe and My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist ? had only come out recently, but in their wild play with language and pop cultural references, I saw them coming from a clear tradition of writers storming the heavens, afraid of nothing. They were also unmistakably contemporary, and that gave them an additional edge. They were hilarious, outrageous, yet somehow deeply felt, and more than the other books that somehow belonged to a time before mine, they seemed to give me the license to try this for myself. You can write this kind of thing right now, Mark Leyner?s books said to me. You can do anything you like.
And I did. After my exchange year was over, I returned to Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz, but it was no longer what I wanted. My German professor greeted me with ?ah, the creative writer,? the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips, and I knew I?d have to leave. I had to get back to America, where I had found encouragement. I applied to the graduate program at the Center for Writers, not far from where I?d spent my exchange year, and took the first serious steps on the long path of becoming a writer.
Decades passed. I wrote stories, I wrote books, I threw half-finished books away. I moved to New Orleans, I moved to the Caribbean, I moved to New York. I wrote and wrote. I got married, I had a daughter. I submitted stories, edited magazines, started a literary community. I got an agent. And finally, nearly twenty years after I had taken my first workshop, I published a book, my novel Kino, which is, among other things, the story of an immigrant who moves between continents so he can keep making art. And when it came time to read from the novel, Behind the Book was kind enough to invite me for an event at KGB Bar. Tom Perrotta, a writer I admire, would read with me ? exciting enough, until, a week before the event, one other name was added to the line-up, somebody who hadn?t published fiction in many years but was now celebrating his return: none other than Mark Leyner, who?d read from his new book, The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack.
I was glad to be the first reader because I certainly didn?t want to follow the others. I read a section from Kino called ?Lang?s Dragon? that was also excerpted in the online magazine Guernica. Tom Perrotta read, then Mark Leyner read, and as expected, his performance was sharp, over-the-top, loaded with word play and whiplash cultural references. He was outrageously funny. When I came over afterwards to ask him to sign a book for me, he asked me to sit, graciously told me how much he?d enjoyed my reading, and we chatted: about the movie War, Inc., which he?d written, about Gerhard Richter Painting, a documentary we both admired, about vanishing advances and making it as a writer.
I left KGB Bar feeling that something had come full circle that night, a long story that had begun in Jackson, Mississippi, led all over the country and the world, and had finally reached its long-awaited pay-off. It was a wonderful reminder about how writers speak to other writers, in ways they can never know or predict. Every book ever written doesn?t just tell its story, it also secretly gives license to its readers to try and write something like it themselves. I can only hope that someone might one day pick up a book of mine, Kino or the next one, and that it nudges them a little closer toward saying, hey, maybe I can do this too.
One blogger likes this post.
angelman syndrome total recall troy tulowitzki katie couric good morning america the rock vs john cena acm awards 2012 january jones
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Central Bank stepped up pressure on Thursday for a joint guarantee for bank deposits across the euro zone, saying Europe needed new tools to fight bank runs as the bloc's debt crisis drives investors to flee risk.
The European Commission's top economic official, Olli Rehn, warned that the single currency area could disintegrate without stronger crisis-fighting mechanisms and tough fiscal discipline.
The twin warnings came as worries about Spain's banks and Greece's survival in the euro area pushed the euro to a two-year low against the dollar and hastened a rush into safe-haven assets such as Austrian and French bonds, whose 10-year yields hit a euro-era low.
Spaniards alarmed by the dire state of their banks moved more money abroad in March faster than at any time since records began in 1990, official figures showed.
The 66.2 billion euros ($82.0 billion) net capital flight occurred before the nationalization of Spain's fourth biggest lender, Bankia, in May due to massive losses from a burst property bubble.
Irish voters seemed set to approve in a referendum a European budget discipline treaty vital to continue receiving EU aid. But the outcome of a second Greek general election on June 17, seen as crucial for Athens' future in the currency zone, is too close to call.
ECB President Mario Draghi urged Europe's leaders to clarify their vision for the single currency quickly, warning the European Parliament that the central bank could not fill the policy vacuum.
"We will avoid bank runs from solvent banks. Depositors' money will be protected if we build this European guaranteed deposit fund. This will assure that depositors will be protected," Draghi said, calling for an EU-wide banking supervision and resolution system.
EU paymaster Germany, reluctant to risk more of its own taxpayers' money in support of euro zone partners, has so far rejected any such joint deposit guarantee.
Chancellor Angela Merkel refrained from comment on calls for a banking union but said Europe should be ready to consider all options to stem its sovereign debt crisis.
"There are integration steps which will require treaty changes. We are not at that stage today but nevertheless there are no taboos," she told a news conference in the Baltic town of Stralsund.
Another top ECB official, executive board member Joerg Asmussen, said in Frankfurt that the 25 or so most important banks in the euro area should be supervised by a supranational watchdog rather than just national authorities.
Draghi, testifying before EU lawmakers, said the financial crisis had "heightened risk aversion in a dramatic way.
"I urge all governments to keep this in mind, because it is better to err by too much in the very beginning rather than by too little," he said, citing the repeated failure of national regulators to correctly assess the needs of failed Franco-Belgian bank Dexia and Spain's Bankia.
EDIFICE AT RISK
Another ECB policymaker, Bank of Italy governor Ignazio Visco, went further, saying political inertia and bad economic decisions had put "the entire European edifice" at risk and only a clear path to political union could save the euro.
"There are now growing doubts among international investors about governments' cohesion in guiding the reform of European governance and even their ability to ensure the survival of the single currency," Visco told the Bank of Italy's annual meeting.
Global investors retreated sharply from equities in May and held more cash than at any stage since the crisis erupted in early 2010, Reuters' asset allocation polls showed.
EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Rehn, speaking at a Brussels conference, said Europe needed both tighter budget discipline and more integrated rescue funds to avert a potential breakup of the euro.
"We need a genuine stability culture and a much upgraded common capacity to contain common contagion," he said. "This is the case, at least if we want to avoid a disintegration of the euro zone and instead make the euro succeed."
The dramatic tone of EU and ECB officials raises pressure on Germany to drop its opposition to bolder rescue measures ahead of a June 28-29 summit that could be a turning point in the euro zone crisis.
In another sign of pre-summit tension, France's new Socialist government is refusing to back Germany's candidate for the influential role of chairman of euro zone finance ministers amid differences with Berlin over joint euro zone bonds and bank recapitalization.
The European Commission, the bloc's executive, called on Wednesday for closer economic union and said its elements should include a banking union, joint financial supervision and bank deposit guarantees.
But a Commission spokesman said on Thursday there was no chance that euro zone banks could be directly recapitalized using the bloc's permanent bailout fund as it stands.
BETTING ON SPANISH BAILOUT
Spanish 10-year bond yields traded at 6.66 percent, close to euro era highs, due to market expectations that Spain may need international help to keep its troubled banks afloat - a prospect flatly rejected by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
"The levels are definitely worrying. Spain is reaching zones where it is harder and harder to finance itself in the capital market," said Viola Julien, fixed income analyst at Helaba Landesbank Hesse-Thueringen.
The uncertainty over Spain, the euro zone's fourth biggest economy, is making it harder for other member states to overcome their own debt problems, despite rigorous austerity programs and structural reforms.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said his country was threatened by "huge possibilities" of contagion, and pressure from rising sovereign bond yields could complicate reforms.
"It is obviously a difficult place to be in, when you have a country displaying massive and concentrated efforts of consolidation and structural reforms, which are obviously politically and socially costly, and sees its position threatened by huge possibilities of contagion," he said.
He warned of a popular backlash if investors demanded deeper fiscal cuts and budget discipline beyond what was already being undertaken.
(Additional reporting by John O'Donnell and Robin Emmott in Brussels, Richard Hubbard and Marius Zaharia in London, Andreas Rinke in Stralsund, Andrew Osborn in Athens, Padraic Halpin in Dublin and Gavin Jones in Rome. Writing by Paul Taylor, editing by Mike Peacock)
screen actors guild royal rumble results sag awards 2012 kyra sedgwick honor killings mary tyler moore x games
FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 file photo, a part of the Maroun Petrochemical plant is seen, at the Imam Khomeini port, southwestern Iran. Technicians battling a complex computer virus took the ultimate firewall measures shutting off all Internet links to Iran's oil ministry and the terminal that carries nearly all the country's crude exports. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 file photo, a part of the Maroun Petrochemical plant is seen, at the Imam Khomeini port, southwestern Iran. Technicians battling a complex computer virus took the ultimate firewall measures shutting off all Internet links to Iran's oil ministry and the terminal that carries nearly all the country's crude exports. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 file photo, an Iranian security guard stands at the Maroun Petrochemical plant at the Imam Khomeini port, southwestern Iran. Technicians battling a complex computer virus took the ultimate firewall measures shutting off all Internet links to Iran's oil ministry and the terminal that carries nearly all the country's crude exports. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) ? Computer technicians battling to contain a complex virus last month resorted to the ultimate firewall measures ? cutting off Internet links to Iran's Oil Ministry, rigs and the hub for nearly all the country's crude exports.
At the time, Iranian officials described it as a data-siphoning blitz on key oil networks.
On Wednesday, they gave it a name: A strike by the powerful "Flame" malware that experts this week have called a new and highly sophisticated program capable of hauling away computer files and even listening in on computer users. Its origins remain a mystery, but international suspicion quickly fell on Israel opening another front in its suspected covert wars with archenemy Tehran.
"This virus penetrated some fields. One of them was the oil sector," said Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military unit in charge of fighting sabotage. "Fortunately, we detected and controlled this single incident."
The Flame virus ? a mix of cyberspy and hard-drive burglar ? has been detected across the Middle East recently. But Iran's linkage to the oil network attack in April could mark its first major infiltration and suggests a significant escalation in attempts to disrupt Iran's key commercial and nuclear sites. Iran is one of the world's leading oil producers.
Two years ago, a virus called Stuxnet tailored to disrupt Iran's nuclear centrifuges caused some setbacks within its uranium enrichment labs and infected an estimated 16,000 computers, Iranian officials say. At least two other smaller viruses have been detected in nuclear and industrial centers.
The Flame program, however, is widely considered as a technological leap in break-in programming. Some experts also see the same high level of engineering shared by Stuxnet, which many suspect was the work of Israeli intelligence.
"It is very complex and very sophisticated," said Marco Obiso, cybersecurity coordinator at the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union in Geneva. "It's one of the most serious yet."
Israel, a world leader in computer security, has never confirmed or denied any involvement in Stuxnet or other viruses that have hit Iranian networks nationwide.
Israel fears that Iran's nuclear program is geared toward developing a weapon that might be turned against it and Israel itself is believed to have nuclear weapons.
Israeli leaders have repeatedly said that "all options are on the table," a phrase that is widely interpreted as meaning the possibility of a military strike and other measures that could include cyberwarfare.
Already, Iran and Israel have traded accusations of carrying out clandestine hits and attack conspiracies in locales stretching from the Baku to Bangkok.
Iran claims Israeli agents are behind the slayings of at least five nuclear scientists and researchers since 2010. Earlier this month, Iran hanged a man convicted of carrying out one of the killings after allegedly being trained by Israel's Mossad spy agency. Israel denied any role.
Authorities in several countries, meanwhile, are investigating possible Iranian links to bombings and plots against Israeli targets and others, including a wide-ranging probe in Azerbaijan's capital Baku.
On the cyber front, Iran says it has sharply boosted its defenses by creating special computer corps to protect crucial online infrastructure. Iran also claims it seeks to build its own Internet buffered from the global web, but experts have raised serious questions about its feasibility.
Iran's Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology Ali Hakim Javadi was quoted by the official IRNA news agency Wednesday as saying that Iranian experts have produced an anti-virus program capable of identifying and removing Flame.
"The anti-virus software was delivered to selected organizations in early May," he said.
That would have been at least two weeks after officials say it penetrated Iran's Oil Ministry and related sites. Within hours, technicians decided to close off the Internet connections to the ministry, oil rigs and the Khark Island oil terminal, the jump off point for about 80 percent of Iran's daily 2.2 million barrels of crude exports.
Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military unit in charge of fighting sabotage, told state radio that the oil industry was the only governmental body seriously affected and that all data lost were later retrieved.
"This virus penetrated some fields. One of them was the oil sector. Fortunately, we detected and controlled this single incident," Jalali said.
Obiso, whose agency is helping to direct the international response to Flame, said the virus first came to the group's attention in mid-April and researchers have been working on unraveling its code since.
"We still think Flame has much more to show," he said.
The Russian Internet security firm Kaspersky Lab ZAO said the Flame virus has struck Iran the hardest, but has been detected in the Palestinian territories, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
It also has been found in Israel ? leading some Israeli security officials to suggest the virus could be traced to the U.S. or other Western nations.
Experts describe it as a multitasking mole. It can wipe data off hard drives, but also be a tireless eavesdropper by activating audio systems to listen in on Skype calls or office chatter. It also can also take screenshots, log keystrokes and ? in one of its more novel functions? steal data from Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones.
Israeli's vice premier on Tuesday did little to deflect suspicion about the country's possible involvement.
"Whoever sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat is likely to take various steps, including these, to hobble it," Moshe Yaalon told Army Radio when asked about Flame. "Israel is blessed with high technology, and we boast tools that open all sorts of opportunities for us."
Iran says is has previously discovered one more espionage virus, Duqu, but that the malware did no harm Iran's nuclear or industrial sites. Jalali said Flame is the third.
Dozens of unexplained explosions also have hit the country's gas pipelines in the past two years. Officials have not linked them to cyberattacks, but authorities have not closed the books on the investigations.
___
Murphy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Raphael Satter in London and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Associated Pressdeviled eggs pie crust pie crust stuffing recipe happy thanksgiving kennedy assassination kennedy assassination
Alternate title: 2006 does not apply
Domenico Criscito, one of Italy?s projected starting XI at Euro 2012 (and a target of the country?s latest match-fixing probe), has been forced out of the country?s squad of Euro 2012. So yeah, this is a big deal.
How big is this Italian match-fixing probe getting? Aside from the list of prominent names being arrested in conjunction with the investigation (including Juventus head coach Antonio Conte), the controversy?s compelled James Richardson to write.
The host of the internet?s ?it? podcast (The Guardian?s Football Weekly) usually confines his benign musings to audio or video. This week, the former Football Italia host has deemed Italy?s latest crisis sufficiently important to take to a keyboard. Groovy.
By ?latest crisis?, I mean to allude to 2006. In the middle of calciopoli, Italy won World Cup 2006. If you bleed Azzurri blue, you might look at that data point and suggest Italy plays its best soccer under fire. Bring on the investigation, somebody (somewhere) is saying. Our team plays better when they?re under pressure.
To which I?d retort: ?What team??
In soccer years, it?s been a long time since Italy was good. How long? Well, way back when Italy was a factor at major tournaments (2006), Zinadine Zidane was still playing. Michael Owen had just returned from Real Madrid, Manchester City?s top scorer was Andy Cole, and Giuseppe Rossi had just debuted ? for Manchester United.
Since 2006, it?s been all downhill for the four-time world champions. They barely make it out of what was ultimately (and surprisingly) a bad group at Euro 2008. They didn?t make it out of their group in World Cup 2010, and drawn in the same group as Spain, Croatia and Ireland, there?s a good chance they won?t get out of their group in Euro 2012.
Head coach Cesare Prandelli has no choice but to select an unremarkable collection of talent that reflects a stoic period in Italian player development. Perhaps in Brazil the likes of Mario Balotelli and Sebastian Giovinco will be the finished product. In Poland, their most accomplished attacker is 34-year-old Toto Di Natale (10 goals in 36 appearances).
At best, Italy is an underdog to beat out Croatia (who has never lost to Italy) for Group C?s second quarterfinal spot. Even if we factor in a ?coming together? factor, they still look like a team riding an expired reputation. Unless Slaven Bilic?s Croatia plays to his country?s unreasonably low expectations, Italy?s in line for another major competition disappointment.
And all that is before factoring in yesterday?s news. Zenit St. Petersburg?s Domenico Criscito, who has spent over two years as Italy?s first choice left back, was forced to pull out of the squad after his room was searched by police in an early Monday raid. You can?t help but feel that were he not part of the team slatted for Euro 2012, he might have been arrest. With Criscito?s Genoa home also combed-over by authorities, it may only be a matter of time (part of the reason for withdrawing).
According to the Italian soccer federation (the FIGC), Criscito?s maintaining his innocence. He?s also sorry about the distraction he?s brought the team, part of an obligatory response. What?s he supposed to say? That the team thrives amid controversy? And he?s going the squad a service?
Best case scenario, for Italy: Criscito is as innocent as he claims, and his absence ends up being inconsequential. No team wants to lose a starter, but Italy?s got options. Giorgio Chiellini is a natural central defender, but he?s coming off a great year on the left for Juventus. The team also has Palermo?s Federico Balzaretti, one of Serie A?s best left backs. Are either of them Criscito? Over Italy?s three crucial group stage games, there may not be a difference.
The distraction of Criscito, however, could have taken the team down. The margins are so thin for Italy, a team that will have to break their Croatia cruse if they?re to make the quarterfinals. Having Criscito around may have provided a slight benefit on the pitch, but off the field, it could have undermined the entire tournament.
new world trade center kellen moore guy fieri ryan braun bryce harper may day paulina gretzky
