Two years ago, Google drove its way into a fair amount of hot water when it accidentally (as was claimed) scooped up private data over WiFi while collecting Street View and location data. Now, the Justice Department has cleared the prolific mapsters of the wiretapping violations. The DOJ made its decision not to push for prosecution based on reports from employees and investigating key documents reports Wired. The Wiretap Act (which is the relevant one here) was argued to only pertain to "traditional radio services," by US District Judge James Ware, but neither the DOJ or FCC said they could find any evidence that Google accessed the date it snared. In an extra move of openness, the search giant has also released the entire FCC report on the Street View investigation (redacted to protect identities) which can be found in the more coverage link. So, next time you see the famous camera-topped wagons roll around, you can leave your tin hat in the closet.
British boy band The Wanted performed on The Voice, and didn't hesitate to describe one of the less fun aspects of that experience in an interview.
That being Christina Aguilera.
The judge "is a total bitch," the band's Tony Parker ranted to Now FM, in an interview that has since been yanked from YouTube. He continues:
"She might not be a total bitch in real life, but to us, she was a total bitch ... she just sat there and didn't speak to us. Wouldn't even look at us."
"She was quite rude," Siva Kaneswaran (second from right), added, backing up the claim by Parker (second from left). "I mean, Who does that?"
Max George (middle) chimed in, "She was a bit scary, to be honest."
When asked to compare their time on The Voice with their recent appearance on American Idol, George said, "J. Lo's hot, Christina's nothing special."
The Wanted performed on The Voice the same night Justin Bieber showed up to debut a preview of his "Boyfriend" video, and said that Aguilera was equally cold to the "Baby" crooner, making a weird face as Bieber went in for a hug.
Aguilera, for her part, denies she snubbed anyone: "Haha," she tweeted. "Can't a girl have a little Bieber Fever after getting kissed by the Biebs?"
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REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - Iceland's former prime minister was found innocent on Monday of three major charges of negligence related to the country's 2008 economic collapse, and guilty of a smaller count that carried no prison sentence.
The verdict by a special court was seen by many as little more than a slap on the wrist for Geir Haarde, the only leader in the world to face prosecution over the global crisis. He had faced up to two years in prison if found guilty of the more serious charges, including neglecting to deal with an overblown banking sector.
Haarde looked on and showed no visible emotion as the 15-judge court issued its verdict, convicting him of failing to hold dedicated cabinet meetings ahead of the crisis. About 70 people, including his family and political supporters, attended the session.
Moments later, he told reporters that the judges had tried to appease a public opinion angry at a political elite perceived as fostering an unsustainable banking system that grew to 10 times Iceland's GDP just before the meltdown.
"It is absurd," a furious-looking, red-faced Haarde said.
"It is obvious that the majority of the judges have found themselves pressed to come up with a guilty verdict on one point, however minor, to save the neck of the parliamentarians who instigated this," he added.
Outside the court, a protester banged on a pot, in a repeat of the gesture that Icelanders carried out at the height of the crisis in the streets outside parliament. The protests were the biggest ever seen in Iceland, occasionally turning violent in a nation renowned for its peaceful nature.
All of Iceland's top banks went under in 2008 just days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which led to a freeze on global interbank lending. The country's crown currency nosedived and many Icelanders who had taken out foreign currency loans found themselves saddled with even bigger piles of debt.
Despite the anger, many Icelanders say the 61-year-old Haarde, generally seen as a decent person who was too soft in his role as prime minister, should not have been the only politician put on the stand.
"He was the captain on the bridge, but there were more ministers," said Arni Einarsson, a pensioner. "The politicians thought that Iceland was like the Titanic - unsinkable."
"NOT UNIQUE"
Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, who served in Haarde's cabinet during the boom years that preceded the crisis, said the verdict had taken her by surprise.
"I never thought the charges were sufficient to warrant the indictment and subsequent trial," she told state television.
Haarde said that while his government could have done something different in the run up to the island's worst-ever crisis, he doubted he could have stopped it.
"Look at what the leaders of the central banks of the U.S., the UK have said repeatedly - they didn't see this crisis coming. The IMF didn't see this crisis coming," he told Reuters after the verdict, which was broadcast live on TV.
"Look at what is happening in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy. Our situation is not unique."
Haarde, who had pleaded innocent to all charges, said he is considering taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Eirikur Bergmann, political science professor at the Bifrost University north of the capital, called the ruling "a slap on the wrist".
"He's not convicted on any of the charges leading up to the crisis - sponsoring the system that proved unsustainable," said Bergmann. "It is an in-between ruling to calm both sides of society."
Though the economy is recovering from the crisis and Iceland successfully completed a bailout program led by the International Monetary Fund, people remain distrustful of state institutions. Polls show that parliament has the support of only 10 percent of the public.
Capital controls remain in place, damaging the economic recovery.
(Writing by Alistair Scrutton, additional reporting by Omar Valdimarsson in Reykjavik and Anna Ringstrom and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
Bieber sends a Borat-themed tweet to the California woman who accused him of fathering her child. By Jocelyn Vena
Justin Bieber Photo: MTV News
Justin Bieber went on a bit of a Twitter spree over the weekend, telling his millions of followers that it was time for a "RANDOMTWITTERHOUR."
While many of his tweets relayed innocuous thoughts on topics like Chuck Norris' pajamas, his feelings about the content of fruit salad and how his track "Boyfriend" is really about the migration of birds, there was one tweet in particular that stands out.
At the end of his "Random Twitter Hour," Bieber had this message for Mariah Yeater, the California woman who accused Bieber in late 2011 of being her baby's father. "And now #RANDOMTWITTERHOUR has come to an end....last one....," he wrote. "Dear mariah yeeter [sic]...we have never met...so from the heart i just wanted to say..."
Dear mariah yeeter...we have never met...so from the heart i just wanted to say... youtu.be/RaPpjTZa9bA
He then tweeted to an audio link from the 2006 film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan," in which Borat says, "You will never get this, you will never get it, la la la la la la. He behind his cage. He cries, he cries and everybody laughs. She goes, 'You never get this.' But one time he break cage and he 'get this' and then we all laugh. High five!"
Bieber wasn't lying about his tweets being random as there hasn't been any news on the Yeater/paternity front since late November when Yeater promised to submit her son for a paternity test, despite the paternity suit having been dropped. The tweet does stay on message with Bieber's denial that he had anything to do with Yeater or her baby.
The pop singer maintained his position on the paternity accusation during the entire process, even taking his own DNA test to prove that he wasn't the baby's father. "As far as the whole baby situation, it's unfortunate that it had to happen like that," he said in an interview at the height of the allegations. "People make false accusations, but things happen in this industry, and you have to keep your head high and be positive."
Gabe Saporta and Co. prove to MTV News that they bring the party. By Rya Backer
Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta and Alex Suarez Photo: MTV News
An interview with Cobra Starship ought to come with a warning: Once the cameras start recording, throw away anything you'd previously prepared, because Gabe Saporta and Co. are card-carrying hams.
Anyone who's familiar with members Ryland Blackinton and Alex Suarez's takes as "Dick Bagwell" and "Vincent Twice (Vincent Twice)," respectively, in our Musical March Madness videos of years past knows how invested they can become in adopted personages (to say nothing of Blackinton's other alias, Guy Ripley), but I was just as happy to learn that their authentic selves were just as animated. Between us: Now that I've gotten a bit of distance from the situation, I can also admit that as a female who grew up in early aughts Manhattan, I was pretty excited to go out on a (albeit, synthesized reality) date with the lead singer of my beloved Midtown — the band which upon its demise was how Cobra Starship was born.
"I needed a band and ... you were like the first people I asked," Saporta said, regarding his reaching out to Suarez and Blackinton, who were once in a band together called This is Ivy League.
Suarez added, "Gabe was like, 'Hey, look, I'm starting this new band. You guys should come and be a part of it. I would love to have you guys. I don't know what's going to happen."
Not willing to let go of the good thing his band with Blackinton amounted to, "[Suarez] said no at first," Saporta solemnly remembered about his first shot at getting a new band together.
Eventually, the pair obviously came around, and alongside Victoria Asher and Nate Novarro, Starship have become a pop-rock behemoth, known for big choruses and dance floor-ready tracks. So, it only made sense to take Suarez and Saporta to the Village Party Store on our First Date. Surely, the makers of party music would feel at home at the party store, right?
My suspicions were confirmed. And between learning how to host a "gritty" party to being branded with a Cobra temporary tattoo down my right forearm, it's safe to say that the group brings the party wherever they go.
Brain surgery for epilepsy underutilizedPublic release date: 23-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-4608 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study indicates effective treatment should be far more common
Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adoptedin fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The study, published this month in the journal Neurology, showed that the number of Americans having the surgery has not changed in the decade since release of the effectiveness study, though surgical treatment is now uniformly encouraged by neurology and neurosurgery professional societies.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million Americans have epilepsy. Hundreds of thousands of these men, women and children suffer from uncontrolled seizures, but nationally only a few hundred are treated surgically each year with UCSF performing about 50 of the operations.
Among people who do have the operation, the study found, there are significant disparities by race and insurance status. White patients were more likely to have surgery than racial minorities, and privately insured patients were more likely to undergo surgery than those with Medicaid or Medicare.
"As a medical community, we are not practicing evidence-based medicine with regard to the treatment of patients who have epilepsy," said Edward Chang, MD, chief of adult epilepsy surgery in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the UCSF Epilepsy Center. "There are a lot of people who are taking medications and continuing to have seizures even though they can potentially be seizure-free."
A MODERN SURGERY FOR AN ANCIENT DISEASE
Epilepsy has been recognized as an important neurological condition since ancient times and its name means "seizures" in Greek. It can be inherited or it can be caused by anything that injures or irritates the brain. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, described it in detail in his writings some 2,500 years ago, and it is believed to have afflicted many famous people throughout history, including Julius Caesar.
UCSF is one of the world's leading institutions involved in epilepsy research, with one of the few medical centers that has top-ranking departments in relevant areas: neurology, biomedical imaging, and neurosurgery.
Paul Garcia, MD, director of the clinical epilepsy program and a study co-author, said that most patients referred to UCSF for surgical evaluation have had uncontrolled seizures for many years despite trying several medications. Research has shown that after the first two medicines fail, it is uncommon for patients to gain complete seizure control with medical treatment alone. Without control over their seizures, patients are at risk for physical injuries or even dying. Furthermore, the seizures often interfere with normal life activities such as driving, studying and working.
To see how widely this type of surgery has been used, Chang and neurosurgery resident Dario Englot, MD, PhD, accessed a national database of all of the surgeries across the United States for the last 20 yearsa timeline centered on the Canadian study. They found that there has been no increase in the 10 years, even as diagnoses of epilepsy have increased along with the number of hospitalizations for seizures.
Part of the problem is awareness, both among patients and care providers, Chang said. New anticonvulsant drugs appear on the market often enough to provide physicians with new drug combinations for their patients to try. Brain surgery can be more daunting than having to swallow fistfuls of pills, even though surgery is much more effective for many people. The problem though is that new medications are not very effective if previous ones already failed, according to Chang. Epilepsy surgery in the modern era has been repeatedly shown to be safe and effective.
Also, many people with epilepsy are not getting the specialty care needed to properly identify the source of the seizures. The study found a significant trend that patients are being evaluated less at epilepsy centers and more at community hospitals often without dedicated epilepsy expertise. The result is that some patients may not receive an adequate workup, and in many cases, the source of the seizures can be very difficult to find without special expertise. "The success of epilepsy surgery totally depends upon the accurate localization of seizure onset region," Chang said.
The decade-old Canadian study showed that more than nearly two-thirds of all people who underwent surgery as part of the study in the 1990s were seizure-free. Fewer than 10 percent of patients in the study who relied on drugs alone achieved the same degree of freedom from seizures.
"Even though this important evidence was published 10 years ago now, we have not seen increases in the number of patients," Chang said. "We need to do better."
###
The article, "Epilepsy surgery trends in the United States, 1990-2008" is authored by Dario J. Englot, David Ouyang, Paul A. Garcia, Nicholas M. Barbaro, and Edward F. Chang and appears in the journal Neurology. See: http://www.neurology.org/content/78/16/1200.abstract
This work was supported in part by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
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.
Brain surgery for epilepsy underutilizedPublic release date: 23-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-4608 University of California - San Francisco
UCSF study indicates effective treatment should be far more common
Ten years ago, a landmark clinical trial in Canada demonstrated the unequivocal effectiveness of brain surgeries for treating uncontrolled epilepsy, but since then the procedure has not been widely adoptedin fact, it is dramatically underutilized according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The study, published this month in the journal Neurology, showed that the number of Americans having the surgery has not changed in the decade since release of the effectiveness study, though surgical treatment is now uniformly encouraged by neurology and neurosurgery professional societies.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million Americans have epilepsy. Hundreds of thousands of these men, women and children suffer from uncontrolled seizures, but nationally only a few hundred are treated surgically each year with UCSF performing about 50 of the operations.
Among people who do have the operation, the study found, there are significant disparities by race and insurance status. White patients were more likely to have surgery than racial minorities, and privately insured patients were more likely to undergo surgery than those with Medicaid or Medicare.
"As a medical community, we are not practicing evidence-based medicine with regard to the treatment of patients who have epilepsy," said Edward Chang, MD, chief of adult epilepsy surgery in the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and the UCSF Epilepsy Center. "There are a lot of people who are taking medications and continuing to have seizures even though they can potentially be seizure-free."
A MODERN SURGERY FOR AN ANCIENT DISEASE
Epilepsy has been recognized as an important neurological condition since ancient times and its name means "seizures" in Greek. It can be inherited or it can be caused by anything that injures or irritates the brain. Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, described it in detail in his writings some 2,500 years ago, and it is believed to have afflicted many famous people throughout history, including Julius Caesar.
UCSF is one of the world's leading institutions involved in epilepsy research, with one of the few medical centers that has top-ranking departments in relevant areas: neurology, biomedical imaging, and neurosurgery.
Paul Garcia, MD, director of the clinical epilepsy program and a study co-author, said that most patients referred to UCSF for surgical evaluation have had uncontrolled seizures for many years despite trying several medications. Research has shown that after the first two medicines fail, it is uncommon for patients to gain complete seizure control with medical treatment alone. Without control over their seizures, patients are at risk for physical injuries or even dying. Furthermore, the seizures often interfere with normal life activities such as driving, studying and working.
To see how widely this type of surgery has been used, Chang and neurosurgery resident Dario Englot, MD, PhD, accessed a national database of all of the surgeries across the United States for the last 20 yearsa timeline centered on the Canadian study. They found that there has been no increase in the 10 years, even as diagnoses of epilepsy have increased along with the number of hospitalizations for seizures.
Part of the problem is awareness, both among patients and care providers, Chang said. New anticonvulsant drugs appear on the market often enough to provide physicians with new drug combinations for their patients to try. Brain surgery can be more daunting than having to swallow fistfuls of pills, even though surgery is much more effective for many people. The problem though is that new medications are not very effective if previous ones already failed, according to Chang. Epilepsy surgery in the modern era has been repeatedly shown to be safe and effective.
Also, many people with epilepsy are not getting the specialty care needed to properly identify the source of the seizures. The study found a significant trend that patients are being evaluated less at epilepsy centers and more at community hospitals often without dedicated epilepsy expertise. The result is that some patients may not receive an adequate workup, and in many cases, the source of the seizures can be very difficult to find without special expertise. "The success of epilepsy surgery totally depends upon the accurate localization of seizure onset region," Chang said.
The decade-old Canadian study showed that more than nearly two-thirds of all people who underwent surgery as part of the study in the 1990s were seizure-free. Fewer than 10 percent of patients in the study who relied on drugs alone achieved the same degree of freedom from seizures.
"Even though this important evidence was published 10 years ago now, we have not seen increases in the number of patients," Chang said. "We need to do better."
###
The article, "Epilepsy surgery trends in the United States, 1990-2008" is authored by Dario J. Englot, David Ouyang, Paul A. Garcia, Nicholas M. Barbaro, and Edward F. Chang and appears in the journal Neurology. See: http://www.neurology.org/content/78/16/1200.abstract
This work was supported in part by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
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.
Students, teachers, and parents in New York State don't know what to make of this bizarre question on the state exams. Let's see if you can do better. Sharpen your pencils! But first, everyone's familiar with the story of the pineapple and the hare, right? More »
Spotify's Android app has been in need of an update for some time—especially when compared to its beautiful Windows Phone offering. Fortunately, the wait is over, and the new version is much improved: it's cleaner, more visual, and wants to help you find as much new music as possible. More »
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