Cher Wang: HTC will grab as many patents as it can

Cher Wang HTC will grab as many patents as it can

HTC co-founder and chair Cher Wang has said that her company plans to register and buy a host of patents in order to maintain parity with its competition. Speaking at the firm's 15th anniversary party, she said that despite being unable to use S3 Graphics' patents in ongoing litigation, the company will register and purchase patents in a variety of "different fields." It looks like we can expect to see a lot more filings at the USPTO in the future, and perhaps a few more buyouts along the way.

[Image Credit: WSJ / Zuma Press]

Cher Wang: HTC will grab as many patents as it can originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E. Coli Scare Takes Raw Beef Liver Off the Menu in Japan

Raw beef liver: Your goose is cooked.

Starting in July, restaurants in Japan will be?banned from serving raw beef liver after a food-safety panel deemed it a health risk.

The move, announced Tuesday by the health ministry, slices into a proud part of Japan?s culinary culture, banishing a favorite dish from local bars and barbecue restaurants. It?s the equivalent of Buffalo wings vanishing from American bar menus.

The culprit is E. coli ? a potentially deadly strain of the pathogen called O-157. Because it can produce a powerful toxin, it can cause serious illness, even in small doses. The food-safety panel said its verdict is the only preventative measure effective enough to ensure consumer health, following tests that showed the pathogen can fester inside the meat as well as on its surface.

In Iwate University inspections of 173 cow livers from 16 Japanese locations, three samples were found to be contaminated with the O-157 strain inside the meat, not just on its exterior. Japan Real Time has more.

Follow Scene Asia on Twitter @WSJscene.

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Dads' household duties worth less than Mom's

By Eve Tahmincioglu

What would you value more? Mom cooking dinner for the family, or Dad killing a spider in Junior?s room?

While women are still dealing with the gender wage gap at work, when it comes to the unpaid work moms do at home, their imaginary paychecks would be bigger than those of their husbands.

As Father?s Day approaches this weekend, it?s time to take stock of what dads do for their families beyond just bringing home a paycheck. Alas, the household chores they tend to do aren't worth as much as the sweat equity moms put in at home year round, according to two recent reports.

Insure.com calculated what they deemed to be daddy duties, including things such as barbecuing, killing bugs and mowing the lawn. The study found the domestic tasks would total about $20,248 a year if they were paid work. That compared to $60,182 annually for moms for doing things such as cooking, cleaning and nursing wounds. The value of the work was based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for how much similar jobs out in the real work world would pay.

Another study by Salary.com found that the value of what working dads do at home is actually rising. The company looked at online responses from nearly 3,000 dads who reported on the number of hours they put into tasks at home, including everything from cooking to driving kids around, and found the value of what the dads did jumped to $36,757 this year from $33,858 the previous year. A previous study of work done by working moms found what the moms do at home is valued at $66,979, compared to $63,471 in 2011.

The dads in Salary.com?s sampling were doing more laundry this year, about 1.4 hours, compared to 1.2 hours in 2011; but they cut back on their kitchen time, from 2.7 hours to 2.2 hours.

Women are still the ones doing the heavy lifting at home, said Nancy Folbre, a professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. But she cautioned against giving this type of data on what dads do too much credence.

?They underestimate both what mothers and fathers do,? she noted.

Indeed, Emmet Pierce, a spokesman of Insure.com, said his firm's research was not a scientific study but rather a ?lighthearted view of fatherhood. It?s not that every dad conforms to this, but it gives a broad view of what fathers do.?

Dads are doing more around the house, but a shift from that 1950s mentality has been slow.

A study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics released last year found: ?On an average day, 20 percent of men did housework ? such as cleaning or doing laundry ? compared with 49 percent of women. Forty-one percent of men did food preparation or cleanup, compared with 68 percent of women.? And a 2008 Gallup poll found that women are much more likely to do most of the household chores, while men are primarily taking care of the family cars and doing yardwork.?

But traditional family roles are being questioned. A report released Monday by Boston College?s Center for Work & Family found that those dads who choose to stay at home with their kids made ?a conscious choice and commitment to be home with their children to the benefit of their families, their wives? careers, and their own personal fulfillment.? And the center reported 3.4 percent of at-home parents are dads today, compared to 1.7 percent 10 years ago.

?Nearly all fathers are increasingly likely to experience active caregiving, and the result will require employers to adapt their thinking and their actions regarding who needs support to do so adequately,? said Brad Harrington, author of the study and executive director of the Center for Work & Family. ?This is not simply a women?s issue.?

Folbre believes that gender responsibilities as they relate to household work are being ?renegotiated? but there?s still some resistance and inertia when it comes to change. ?We still have a really long way to go,? she added.

Here's a rundown on what working dads do at home and the value of their household tasks from Salary.com:

?

?

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Inner ear may hold key to ancient primate behavior

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

CT scans of fossilized primate skulls or skull fragments from both the Old and New Worlds may shed light on how these extinct animals moved, especially for those species without any known remains, according to an international team of researchers.

The researchers looked at the bony labyrinth in fossil remains and compared them to CT scans previously obtained from living primate species. The bony labyrinth of the inner ear is made up of the cochlea -- the major organ of hearing -- the vestibule and the three semicircular canals which sense head motion and provide input to synchronize movement with visual stimuli.

"Almost in every case where there is a fossilized skull, the semicircular canals are present and well preserved," said Timothy Ryan, assistant professor of anthropology, geosciences and information sciences and technology, Penn State. "They are embedded in a very dense part of the skull and so are protected."

Normally, researchers assess the locomotor behaviors of extinct animals, including primates, by examining limb bones. However, frequently the only fossilized remains found are from the head. By comparing the semicircular canals of extinct species to those of existing species, the researchers could determine if the extinct animals moved with agility -- leaping like monkeys or lemurs or swinging from limb to limb like gibbons -- or travelled more slowly like baboons or gorillas.

They could make this determination because the size of the three semicircular canals is closely related to their sensitivity.

Previous research showed that there is a direct relationship between the size of the semicircular canals and the degree of agility an animal exhibits. There is also a direct connection between the size of these canals and the size of the animal.

Correcting for animal size, the researchers compared scans from 16 fossil species spanning New World monkeys, Old World monkeys and apes, to living primates whose locomotor behaviors are known. Included in the study are some of the oldest fossil anthropoids -- the group that includes monkeys, apes and humans -- from the Fayum Depression in Egypt.

"The fossil anthropoids analyzed here clearly fall into the range of variation of modern primates, making agility reconstructions based on extant taxa relatively robust," the researchers reported in today's (June 13) issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The researchers believe that the relatively high degree of correspondence with known behaviors suggests that this method produces accurate reconstructions of locomotor agility.

The researchers found that the earliest anthropoids moved in the medium to medium slow range, slower than predicted. They found that other early anthropoids that predated the split between monkeys and apes also fell in the medium slow category, including the well-known species Aegyptophithecus from about 29 million years ago and other animals from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

But once the split between Old World monkeys and apes occurs, both monkeys and apes fall in the medium to medium fast range like macaques. This includes Proconsul heseloni found in Kenya and considered one of the first apes.

The scans from New World monkeys, dating from 12 to 20 million years ago, showed the animals were relatively agile similar to cebus monkeys or tamarins.

"Most of the fossil New World monkeys we examined are known only from cranial material with no associated post-cranial fossils," said Ryan, who is also co-director of the Center for Quantitative Imaging. "We had no idea about their locomotion."

The researchers now have predictions of what these New World monkeys were doing and they know that they were faster than their Old World ancestors.

"The research suggests that the last common ancestor of Old World monkeys and apes would have been an animal of medium agility, much like living macaques," said Ryan. "But what is really surprising is that the early ape, Proconsul, appears more agile than expected. "

This result suggests that the living large-bodied apes, such as gorillas and orangutans, may have evolved their slower locomotor patterns from these more agile ape ancestors.

###

Other researchers on this project were Mary T. Silcox, assistant professor of anthropology, University of Toronto; Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Biology, Penn State; Xianyun Mao, recent graduate student in statistics, Penn State; David R Begun, professor of anthropology, University of Toronto; Brenda R. Benefit, professor of biological anthropology and Monte L. McCrossin, associate professor and director, museum, New Mexico State University; Philip D. Gingerich, curator, William J. Sanders, and Iyad S. Zalmout, graduate student, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan; Meike Kohler and Salvador Moya-Sola,, Catalan Institute of Paleontology, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Erik R. Seiffert, associate professor of anatomical sciences, Stony Brook University; Elwyn Simons, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus and scientific director, Duke University Primate Center and Fred Spoor, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The National Science Foundation and the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada supported this work.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


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.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 13-Jun-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State

CT scans of fossilized primate skulls or skull fragments from both the Old and New Worlds may shed light on how these extinct animals moved, especially for those species without any known remains, according to an international team of researchers.

The researchers looked at the bony labyrinth in fossil remains and compared them to CT scans previously obtained from living primate species. The bony labyrinth of the inner ear is made up of the cochlea -- the major organ of hearing -- the vestibule and the three semicircular canals which sense head motion and provide input to synchronize movement with visual stimuli.

"Almost in every case where there is a fossilized skull, the semicircular canals are present and well preserved," said Timothy Ryan, assistant professor of anthropology, geosciences and information sciences and technology, Penn State. "They are embedded in a very dense part of the skull and so are protected."

Normally, researchers assess the locomotor behaviors of extinct animals, including primates, by examining limb bones. However, frequently the only fossilized remains found are from the head. By comparing the semicircular canals of extinct species to those of existing species, the researchers could determine if the extinct animals moved with agility -- leaping like monkeys or lemurs or swinging from limb to limb like gibbons -- or travelled more slowly like baboons or gorillas.

They could make this determination because the size of the three semicircular canals is closely related to their sensitivity.

Previous research showed that there is a direct relationship between the size of the semicircular canals and the degree of agility an animal exhibits. There is also a direct connection between the size of these canals and the size of the animal.

Correcting for animal size, the researchers compared scans from 16 fossil species spanning New World monkeys, Old World monkeys and apes, to living primates whose locomotor behaviors are known. Included in the study are some of the oldest fossil anthropoids -- the group that includes monkeys, apes and humans -- from the Fayum Depression in Egypt.

"The fossil anthropoids analyzed here clearly fall into the range of variation of modern primates, making agility reconstructions based on extant taxa relatively robust," the researchers reported in today's (June 13) issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

The researchers believe that the relatively high degree of correspondence with known behaviors suggests that this method produces accurate reconstructions of locomotor agility.

The researchers found that the earliest anthropoids moved in the medium to medium slow range, slower than predicted. They found that other early anthropoids that predated the split between monkeys and apes also fell in the medium slow category, including the well-known species Aegyptophithecus from about 29 million years ago and other animals from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

But once the split between Old World monkeys and apes occurs, both monkeys and apes fall in the medium to medium fast range like macaques. This includes Proconsul heseloni found in Kenya and considered one of the first apes.

The scans from New World monkeys, dating from 12 to 20 million years ago, showed the animals were relatively agile similar to cebus monkeys or tamarins.

"Most of the fossil New World monkeys we examined are known only from cranial material with no associated post-cranial fossils," said Ryan, who is also co-director of the Center for Quantitative Imaging. "We had no idea about their locomotion."

The researchers now have predictions of what these New World monkeys were doing and they know that they were faster than their Old World ancestors.

"The research suggests that the last common ancestor of Old World monkeys and apes would have been an animal of medium agility, much like living macaques," said Ryan. "But what is really surprising is that the early ape, Proconsul, appears more agile than expected. "

This result suggests that the living large-bodied apes, such as gorillas and orangutans, may have evolved their slower locomotor patterns from these more agile ape ancestors.

###

Other researchers on this project were Mary T. Silcox, assistant professor of anthropology, University of Toronto; Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Biology, Penn State; Xianyun Mao, recent graduate student in statistics, Penn State; David R Begun, professor of anthropology, University of Toronto; Brenda R. Benefit, professor of biological anthropology and Monte L. McCrossin, associate professor and director, museum, New Mexico State University; Philip D. Gingerich, curator, William J. Sanders, and Iyad S. Zalmout, graduate student, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan; Meike Kohler and Salvador Moya-Sola,, Catalan Institute of Paleontology, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Erik R. Seiffert, associate professor of anatomical sciences, Stony Brook University; Elwyn Simons, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus and scientific director, Duke University Primate Center and Fred Spoor, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The National Science Foundation and the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada supported this work.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


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.


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Egypt authorizes military to arrest civilians

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Tim Cook Isn't Steve Jobs—So What? [Apple]

Apple's CEO Tim Cook should be happy. Yesterday's Apple show-n-tell was the most important since the original iPad's introduction—an action-packed gangbang of hot new hardware and shiny software updates, rather than the snooze fests that were starting to become the norm even when Steve Jobs was on stage. More »


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Can positive reality shows succeed?

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Can USA score hits with inspirational reality shows? After becoming the top-rated cable network with a slate of optimistic, aspirational dramas, USA is branching out into reality - as well as comedy and late-night.

But it will soon find out if its sunny approach to drama can also work for reality, a genre where trumped-up conflict can lead to quick ratings success.

USA's "The Moment," expected to air this fall, finds Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner helping people achieve dreams like becoming a race car driver or deep sea diver after abandoning them to work 9-to-5 jobs. Warner can relate: He stocked shelves at a supermarket as he tried to break into the NFL. USA is also considering a series order for "The Choir," about uniting communities around music.

Sundance and Oprah Winfrey's OWN are in the midst of big pushes for positive-minded reality shows. But USA's viewership may make "The Moment" the ultimate test of whether uplifting reality programs can thrive on cable as well as feuding housewives do. OWN has struggled for ratings since premiering last year, despite recent improvements. Sundance doesn't release ratings.

Other cable networks, meanwhile - from USA's fellow NBCUniversal property, Bravo, to Viacom's VH1 - have found that nothing makes ratings pop like a gang of quasi-celebrity women popping champagne. And then bickering.

Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise is a cacophony of petty catfights, and VH1's primetime ratings soared 33 percent in the first three months of the year, thanks in part to the conflict-packed "Basketball Wives" and "Mob Wives."

The "wives"-oriented shows tend to be the most fight-filled because they have no built-in competition, like "Survivor," "American Idol" or "The Amazing Race," all occasionally inspiring reality shows that juice their drama by stressing competitors' personal stories.

With no immunity idols or sing-offs to win, Bravo and VH1's wives turn on one another. Calamity and ratings ensue.

But what about shows like those on OWN, Sundance and - soon - USA, where no built-in competition exists, and the stars don't fixate on spats? Storytelling relies on drama, and such shows need to work harder to find it. A man's struggle to overcome his self-doubt on "The Moment" may be more intense than a race through a maze on survivor. But the maze is more visual.

USA hopes to deal with that challenge by offering reality personalities who are as unflappable as the characters on USA dramas. The network's fictional characters tend to be good, sexy and likeable, and to live in seaside locales. But the real-life characters will have to overcome real problems, said Heather Olander, USA's senior vice president of alternative programming.

"We wanted to make sure we're not giving you a prize for the sake of giving you a prize. That's not entertaining," she said. "It's more of a 'Rocky' or 'Karate Kid' story than, 'Here is it is on a platter.'"

The network is going into reality for the first time since its 2005 rebranding under the slogan "Characters Wanted." USA's other reality pilots include "Bride or Best Man" in which a groom and best man try to plan a wedding, and the competition "Romancing the Globe," in which contestants look for love all over the world.

Although USA hasn't decided whether to order "The Choir," which is based on a British series, it showed scenes of it at its upfront presentation to advertisers last month.

One that received a particularly warm response featured a nattily dressed, mild-mannered choirmaster, Gareth Malone, walking into a rough-and-tumble bar to ask if anyone would like to join a choir he's starting.

It felt like a Sasha Baron Cohen stunt from "Borat" or "Bruno" - watch the strange man put himself in grave danger - but it went in an unexpected direction. A few patrons signed up to sing.

All reality shows aspire to such moments. The challenge is finding them. Among the critiques of OWN is that it may be killing itself with kindness by emphasizing rosy outlooks over conflict.

In interviews, OWN and Sundance executives told TheWrap they saw no reason to go negative, saying it wouldn't match their brands.

OWN Co-President Erik Logan said "bringing light," to borrow Winfrey's phrase, was an inherent part of the network.

"We think that we can have a very successful network that returns great value to our partners and nourishes and brings light to all of the viewers and our advertisers and our affiliates," he said. "The right way is going to be staying on brand and on mission."

That doesn't mean shying away from controversy, he said, noting that an upcoming episode of "Our America With Lisa Ling" will profile couples who swap partners.

"It's like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe there's going to be swingers on the Oprah Winfrey Network,'" he said. "But when they sit down you get a better understanding of how they see the world. And that is bringing light."

OWN's other upcoming shows include "Lovetown, USA," about matchmaking in a small town. Over the weekend it premiered "Lives on Fire," about female firefighters, and "Real Life: The Musical" a reality series in which people say difficult things - from "I love you," to "Marry me" - through song.

OWN has been projected to lose $142.9 million this year, but says it positive approach is steadily working. It notes that its ratings have been up for 20 consecutive weeks in target demo, women 25-54. For the year to date, it is also up in double digits in primetime and total day viewers in the demo.

Sundance, meanwhile, sees its reality shows as an alternative to more mainstream ones - just as the channel, which launched in 1996 with an emphasis on independent film, provides an alternative to mainstream hits.

"There's room for the blockbusters and the independents," said Sundance Channel general manager Sarah Barnett. "We don't want to do what everyone else is doing."

Last week, the network premiered "Push Girls," about four women paralyzed from the neck or waist down, and their pursuit of their dreams while living in Hollywood. The network also just greenlit "Get to Work," about a job program for the chronically unemployed, which is scheduled to air in August.

Barnett stressed that the victories on Sundance channel reality shows are hard-fought.

"People really struggle. It's like real life," she said. "Transformation and positive outcomes don't come easy."

One of the "Basketball Wives" says she has seen the light - and wants to bring more of it. During last week's reunion special, star and executive producer Shaunie O'Neal acknowledged the fourth season had too much fighting and not enough positivity.

"This season was bananas. It definitely was a lot more bad than good. And even when we did have the good, the bad seemed to outweigh it," she said. "We are going to do our best moving forward to show you some better content, some more positive, intelligent women, that, you know, we've got our act together."

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