Report: Death toll in China quake exceeds 12,000

DUJIANGYAN, China - The toll of the dead and missing soared as rescue workers dug through flattened schools and homes on Tuesday in a desperate attempt to find survivors of China's worst earthquake in three decades.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the death toll exceeded 12,000 in Sichuan province alone, and 18,645 were still buried in debris in the city of Mianyang, near the epicenter of Monday's massive, 7.9-magnitude quake.

The Sichuan Daily newspaper reported on its Web site that more than 26,000 people were injured in Mianyang.

The numbers of casualties was expected to rise due to the remoteness of the areas affected by the quake and difficulty in finding buried victims.

There was little prospect that many survivors would be found under the rubble. Only 58 people were extricated from demolished buildings across the quake area so far, China Seismological Bureau spokesman Zhang Hongwei told Xinhua. In one county, 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed.

Rain was impeding efforts and a group of paratroopers called off a rescue mission to the epicenter due to heavy storms, Xinhua reported.

More than two dozen British and American tourists who were thought to be panda-watching in the area also remained missing.

Officials urged the public not to abandon hope.

"Survivors can hold on for some time. Now it's not time to give up," Wang Zhenyao, disaster relief division director at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told reporters in Beijing.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed to the area to oversee rescue efforts, said a push was on to clear roads and restore electricity as soon as possible. His visit to the disaster scene was prominently featured on state TV, a gesture meant to reassure people that the ruling party was doing all it could.

"We will save the people," Wen said through a bullhorn to survivors as he toured the disaster scene, in footage shown on CCTV. "As long as the people are there, factories can be built into even better ones, and so can the towns and counties."

State media said rescue workers had reached the epicenter in Wenchuan county — where the number of casualties was still unknown. The quake was centered just north of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu in central China, tearing into urban areas and mountain villages.

Earthquake rescue experts in orange jumpsuits extricated bloody survivors on stretchers from demolished buildings.



Some 20,000 soldiers and police arrived in the disaster area with 30,000 more on the way by plane, train, trucks and even on foot, the Defense Ministry told Xinhua.

Aftershocks rattled the region for a second day, sending people running into the streets in Chengdu. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the shocks between magnitude 4 and 6, some of the strongest since Monday's quake.

Zhou Chun, a 70-year-old retired mechanic, was leaving Dujiangyan with a soiled light blue blanket draped over his shoulders.

"My wife died in the quake. My house was destroyed," he said. "I am going to Chengdu, but I don't know where I'll live."



Zhou and other survivors were pulling luggage and clutching plastic bags of food amid a steady drizzle and the constant wall of ambulances.

Just east of the epicenter, 1,000 students and teachers were killed or missing at a collapsed high school in Beichuan county — a six-story building reduced to a pile of rubble about two yards high, according to Xinhua. Xinhua said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan alone.

At another leveled school in Dujiangyan, 900 students were feared dead. As bodies of teenagers were carried out on doors used as makeshift stretchers, relatives lit incense and candles and also set off fireworks to ward away evil spirits.

Elsewhere in Gansu province, a 40-car freight train derailed in the quake that included 13 gasoline tankers was still burning Tuesday, Xinhua said.

Gasoline lines grew in Chengdu and grocery stores shelves were almost empty. The Ministry of Health issued an appeal for blood donations to help the quake victims.

Fifteen missing British tourists were believed to have been in the area at the time of the quake and were "out of reach," Xinhua reported.

They were likely visiting the Wolong Nature Reserve, home to more than 100 giant pandas, whose fate also was not known, Xinhua said, adding that 60 pandas at another breeding center in Chengdu were safe.

Another group of 12 Americans also on panda-watching tour sponsored by the U.S. office of the World Wildlife Fund remained out of contact Tuesday, said Tan Rui, WWF communications officer in China.

Two Chinese-Americans and a Thai tourist also were missing in Sichuan province, the agency said, citing tourism officials.

Expressions of sympathy and offers of help poured in from the United States, Japan and the European Union, among others.

The Dalai Lama, who has been vilified by Chinese authorities who blame him for recent unrest in Tibet, offered prayers for the victims. The epicenter is just south of some Tibetan mountain areas that saw anti-government protests earlier this year.

Beijing Games organizers said the Olympic torch relay will continue as planned through the quake-affected area next month.

The Chinese government said it would welcome outside aid, and Russia was sending a plane with rescuers and supplies, the country's Interfax news agency reported.

But Wang, the disaster relief official, said international aid workers would not be allowed to travel to the affected area.

"We welcome funds and supplies; we can't accommodate personnel at this point," he said.

China's Ministry of Finance said it had allocated $123 million in aid for quake-hit areas.

The quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976. Financial analysts said the quake would have only a limited impact on the country's booming economy.


Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake

HIV-Positive Man Used Craigslist To Find Rape Victims

DECATUR, Ga. -- DeKalb County police say a man accused of sexually assaulting two women by using the popular Web site Craigslist to lure them to a vacant apartment is HIV-positive.


Eighteen-year-old Allen Jamar McDowell is accused in two separate assaults at an apartment near his home in March and April.

Police spokeswoman Mekka Parish said Tuesday one woman was raped and the other robbed and sexually assaulted at the vacant apartment at 3527 Kensington Road.

Investigators think there are other victims and are urging them to call the the DeKalb County Special Victims Unit at (770) 724-7710.

McDowell was arrested April 19. He also is charged under a reckless conduct law which applies to people who know they have the virus which causes AIDS.

Parish says she does not know the extent of the victims' risk of infection. ,

McDowell remains in custody. It's not clear whether he has an attorney.

Source: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/16184165/detail.html

Surprise of Tanzania's albino MP

Tanzania's first albino MP has told the BBC of her surprise at being nominated by the president - and her determination to fight the discrimination that she and other people with albinism suffer.

Twenty people with albinism have been murdered in the past year in Tanzania, where there is a widespread belief that the condition is the result of a curse.

But a crackdown on the witchdoctors who encourage the killing of people with albinism was recently announced - and as part of this, 48-year-old Al-Shymaa Kway-Geer was appointed.

Al-Shymaa Kway-Geer (right) is a former airline clerk

"It was something very great for me - I didn't expect it," Ms Kway-Geer told BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"I think the president chose me because he believed in me - I'm a very hard-working woman.

"The president chose me at this time, when albinos are being killed and abused."

The BBC's Vicky Ntetema in Dar-es-Salaam said that people were "amazed" when the president made the surprise announcement of Ms Kway-Geer's appointment.



'Zeru'

Instead of having dark skin and black hair, people with albinism are blond with pale skin, because their skin lacks pigment.

As well as the belief that albinism is a curse, witchdoctors in the country use body parts from albinos in magic potions they claim will bring people good luck or fortune.

Ms Kway-Geer was herself victimized when young.

"When I was at primary school, people used to laugh at me, tease me - some didn't even like to touch me, saying that if they touched me they would get this colour," she said.

"People used to abuse me on the road when I took the buses to school. They would run after me - crowds of kids following me - shouting 'zeru, zeru'."

"Zeru" is a Swahili word for albino. Tanzania's albino society says that traditionally, this is a word for ghost-like creatures and is derogatory.

Since the beginning to 2000, the word has been banned.

Ms Kway-Geer says she hopes to educate people about albinism to end the discrimination, and called for a census of albino people.

"First we must find out how many albinos there are all over Tanzania, so that they get education and health," she said.

Albinos are at particular risk from skin cancer and often suffer from poor eyesight.

"Many albinos are poor, and therefore they need help from the government," said the new MP.

Arrests

Our correspondent says that in some parts of the country, people think albinos bring bad luck to the whole community.

While there have not yet been any prosecutions regarding the recent spate of murders, 172 were last month arrested in connection to the cases - 71 of whom said they had been told by witchdoctors to bring them albino body parts.

They remain in custody.

"We are still waiting to find out how far these arrests will go, and how many people will be brought to book," our correspondent says.

She adds that the police don't want to talk about the case for fear of jeopardising their enquiries.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7348528.stm

Identity 'at risk' on Facebook

Facebook has millions of users throughout the world

Personal details of Facebook users could potentially be stolen, the BBC technology programme Click has found.

The popular social networking site, allows users to add a variety of applications to their profile.

But a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, could potentially harvest personal data.

Facebook says users should exercise caution when adding applications. Any programs which violate their terms will be removed, the network said.

Stealing details

Facebook is the darling of the moment, allowing friends to stay in touch, post photos, and share fun little games and quizzes. And it also lets you keep your details private from the rest of the world. Or at least that is the implication.

We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.

We made up the fictitious profile of Bob Smith. He keeps most of his details on his profile private from non-friends.

While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity.

Mining data

So how did we do it?

Using a couple of laptops and our resident coder Pete, we created a special application for Facebookers to add.

One of the reasons Facebook has become so popular so quickly is because of the wealth of applications users can add to their profile pages.

Little games, quizzes, IQ tests, there are thousands of them available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too.

Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application.

We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.

But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users' friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.

When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.

Did you know that you were responsible for other people's security?

Security

Now, many applications do need access to your details, in order to work properly.

We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours.

But the ease with we created our application has many people worried. If it is being used you would not even have to use the application we created to become a victim, you would just have to be a friend of someone who has.

Because these applications run on third-party servers, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it.

Although Facebook's terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.

In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.

So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft?

Paul Docherty is the Technical Director of Portcullis Security, which advises several governments on IT security matters including British government.

He told us he believed that Facebook's terms and conditions stated on the site meant that Facebook had legally covered itself from any liability.

But he added: "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."

He said: "Facebook needs to change its default settings and tighten up security."

He also believes it would be difficult to secure the current system because so many third party applications are now in circulation.

Removal team

We put these concerns to Facebook.

It told us that it has an entire investigations team watching the site, and removing applications that violate its terms of use which would include our Miner application.

It also advises users to use the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop.

Now, all this comes in the month that competitor MySpace opened up its application platform. However, it handles them differently - here all applications run on its own servers so it can see what they are up to.

MySpace also manually checks all submissions and rechecks them if authors wish to change the code. We were unable to create a similar threat to users' security using the MySpace system.

It certainly seems that Facebook's standard security settings are not sufficient to protect your personal information, and those of your friends.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7375772.stm

Italian tax details posted on web

Privacy watchdogs have ordered the Italian authorities to block access to every Italian's personal tax details.

This comes after they were published on the internet and made available for almost 24 hours.

The move to release the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government - and has shocked many tax-shy Italians.

Without warning, the tax authority posted on its website every tax payer's declared earnings and tax paid.

With just a couple of mouse clicks Italians were able to see just how much their favourite footballer, TV star or singer earned and paid in tax.

The idea was also an open invitation to nosey neighbours, making it just as simple to see how much the couple next door earned, or how much your local doctor or priest paid in tax.

The site proved a massive hit. Within hours it was overwhelmed and impossible to reach.

The finance ministry described the move as a bid to improve transparency. Critics condemned it as an outrageous breach of privacy.

The timing of the move, just days before the current administration hands over to Silvio Berlusconi, was intriguing too.

The outgoing government came to power promising to tackle Italians' notoriously lax approach to paying tax - prompting some sceptics to see the move as just end of term sour grapes.

Mr Prodi's coalition cracked down on tax evasion

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7376608.stm

Iran calls for ban on Barbie doll

Iran's top prosecutor has called for restrictions in the import of Western toys, saying they have a destructive effect on the country's youth.

Iran is the world's third largest importer of toys, such as Barbie dolls

The Prosecutor General, Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, said that toys such as Barbie, Batman, and Harry Potter would have negative social consequences.

Mr Najafabadi wants measures taken to protect what he called Iran's Islamic culture and revolutionary values.

Correspondents say Western culture is becoming increasingly popular in Iran.

Mr Najafabadi's comments were made in a letter addressed to Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi, and quoted in several Iranian newspapers.

"The displays of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter... as well as the irregular importation of unsanctioned computer games and movies are all warning bells to officials in the cultural arena," he wrote, according to a copy of the letter seen by Associated Press.

"The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger," he said.

The BBC's Pam O'Toole in Tehran says the increasing popularity of Western culture has been causing concern in Iran's clerical establishment for years.

Revealing

Mr Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys, with many more being smuggled into the country.

In the past, Barbie dolls have been targeted by Iranian authorities bridling at their revealing dress.

In public Iranian women must cover their bodily contours - a rule, correspondents point out, that Barbie conspicuously fails to follow.

"We need to find substitutes to ward off this onslaught, which aims at children and young people whose personality is in the process of being formed," Mr Najafabadi said.

Iran has made previous, unsuccessful, attempts to find substitutes for such toys.

A modestly-dressed version of Barbie and her partner Ken - named Sara and Dara - launched by Iran did not manage to counter the popularity of the Western version.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7371771.stm

Austrian police quiz 'sex captor'

Austrian police are continuing to question an elderly man who admitted holding his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children.



Police said Josef Fritzl also admitted burning the body of a baby who died at the house in Amstetten, Lower Austria.

Mr Fritzl, 73, remains in custody. His daughter, now 42, and her six surviving children have been taken into care.

A lawyer for the victims said the case showed no sign of institutional failure on behalf of the Austrian authorities.

"Up until now there is no sign that there was any mistake by officials," the lawyer, Christoph Herbst, was quoted as saying by the Austrian Press Agency (APA).

"If there had been such a mistake we would obviously have to talk about it."

However, Austrian media are questioning how such grave crimes went undetected for so long.

Lured into cellar

Photos of Mr Fritzl's basement show a concealed network of tiny windowless chambers which were soundproofed.

Prosecutors say Mr Fritzl is expected to be taken into protective custody after appearing before a magistrate.


His daughter, Elisabeth, disappeared aged 18 on 28 August 1984 when, according to her testimony to police, her father lured her into the cellar, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.

She is reported to have been made to write a letter which made it look as if she had run away from Amstetten, a small town about 130km (80 miles) west of Vienna.

The head of the criminal affairs bureau in Lower Austria, Franz Polzer, said Mr Fritzl had admitted sexually abusing his daughter repeatedly during the time he imprisoned her.

Mr Polzer said Mr Fritzl told investigators Elisabeth had given birth to seven children, including twins in 1996, but one died shortly after being born and that he had thrown the body into an incinerator in the building.

The surviving children are now aged between five and 19 years.

Wife 'unaware'

The cellar rooms, covering an area of approximately 60 sq m (650 sq ft), were equipped for sleeping and cooking, and with sanitary facilities.

A reinforced concrete door was built into the wall that separated the "dungeon" from the house and electronically locked - the code known only to the suspect, who provided his captives with food and necessities, police said.

Pictures of Josef Fritzl's house and cellar

Three of the children were kept in the cellar with their mother and had never seen daylight, police told a news conference.

The other three children were adopted or fostered by the suspect, after he forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying she could not look after the baby, according to police.

His wife, Rosemarie, with whom he had seven of their own children, appears to have been unaware of the alleged crimes, police said.

The security chief for Lower Austria, Franz Prucher, said he had been down into the cellar where it was easy to understand how the abuse was not discovered.

"The cellar is very deep," he said. "There you can cry and nobody will hear, nobody. There you can cry as loud as you can, you can hear nothing."

The alleged abuse and Mr Fritzl's apparent double life came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, became seriously ill earlier this month and had to be taken to hospital.

Kerstin is said to be in a coma in hospital.

The media were told the other children who had been kept in the cellar were in surprisingly good physical health, but very pale.

The BBC's Bethany Bell says the case is reminiscent of that of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held captive in a cellar in a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years, who ran to freedom in 2006.

Our correspondent says the people of Amstetten are in a state of shock over the events in their town, compounded by the sudden worldwide media interest.


Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7372477.stm

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Timeline: Austrian cellar case

A timeline of events in the case of a woman in Amstetten, Austria, whose father apparently confessed to holding and sexually abusing her for 24 years in his cellar, during which time she is believed to have given birth to seven of his children.

The events included are based on Austrian police statements issued after the arrest of the 73-year-old father.

28 AUGUST 1984
The suspected abductor, Josef F, allegedly lures his daughter Elisabeth into the cellar of their house, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.

DATE UNKNOWN
Josef and his wife Rosemarie receive a letter in Elisabeth's handwriting saying they should not try to look for her. Rosemarie is unaware of the truth, Elisabeth later tells police.

1988-89 (APPROXIMATELY)
Kerstin, the first of seven reported children, is secretly born (exact date unknown) and raised in the cellar. She is followed shortly by a brother.

1993
A baby is discovered outside the family home along with a letter from Elisabeth saying she cannot care for it. It is taken in by Josef and his wife. A second infant appears in 1994. Both are either fostered or adopted, and are raised by their grandparents.

1996
Twins are born to Elisabeth but one dies shortly after birth and is allegedly taken away and burnt by Josef. The following year, a third infant appears at the house, and is taken in like the previous two, to be raised by grandparents.

2003
A letter arrives from Elisabeth to say she had another baby in December 2002. This child is believed to have been brought up in the cellar along with Kerstin and her brother.

SATURDAY 19 APRIL 2008
Police issue an appeal to missing person Elisabeth F to contact them about her daughter Kerstin, who has been admitted to hospital in Amstetten with a serious illness.

19-26 APRIL 2008
At some point during the week, according to the police statement, Josef releases Elisabeth and the two other children from the cellar, telling his wife Rosemarie she has chosen to return home.

SATURDAY 26 APRIL 2008
Police pick up Josef and Elisabeth near the Amstetten hospital where Kerstin is being treated. Elisabeth's children are found at the house.

SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2008
Police announce the arrest of Josef on suspicion of incest and abduction. All the children are placed in care and Elisabeth is given medical and psychological treatment.

Josef gives police the code to unlock a hidden door to a basement living space made up of a network of tiny windowless chambers.

MONDAY 28 APRIL 2008
Josef confesses to imprisoning Elisabeth in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children. He confirms to investigators that one of their children died in infancy and that he had taken the dead body and thrown it into an incinerator.

Police search Josef's basement. Kerstin remains in hospital, in a serious but stable condition.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7370208.stm

Bird flu: Indonesia's trial run

In the backstreets of a Bali village, all hell has broken loose.

The Balinese rural calm has been invaded by men with megaphones and masks, there are sirens wailing down the main street, and at the centre of it all, Putu Arini sits quietly on the porch of her house, waiting for the police.

Parts of Bali have looked like the set of a germ-warfare film

A few hours ago, her husband was taken to the local health clinic, with bird flu-like symptoms, and now investigators have told her she is being quarantined.

Luckily, all this comes as no surprise to Putu Arini. In fact the village has been planning this for months.

Indonesia has spent the past few days simulating a human bird flu pandemic - according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the largest ever such simulation in the world - and Putu Arini is one of the star players.

And now, as detailed in the script, police are on their way to rope off her house, and stop anyone from entering. Not that anyone would want to, she says.

"Everyone is scared," she told me, getting into character.

"Only a few people are brave enough to go outside their houses. Even my relatives are too scared to visit me here, and I can't leave the house either."

Countries around the world are watching for signs of a human bird flu pandemic, and they are watching Indonesia closest of all. Almost half the world's total human deaths from bird flu died here - 107 people.

And every time someone gets infected, it gives the virus another chance to switch from a disease we catch from poultry, to a disease we catch from each other.

Is Indonesia prepared for an outbreak of bird flu?

The simulation - which lasted from Friday morning until Sunday night - involved 1,000 people and 20 different institutions, from the armed forces to medics, to the foreign and trade ministries. The airport was affected, as was the district's main hospital.

The aim, said Nyoman Kandun of Indonesia's health ministry, was to "examine the government's readiness to quickly cut off a pandemic".

"We want to show the world we are prepared," he said, "ready to contain and stop the virus if a pandemic happens."

The head of the WHO here, Subhash Salunke, admits the simulation was also about learning where the gaps are.

"The world is looking at this as an experiment," he said.

"The plan is very scientific. Implementation is the critical issue. And that's what we're going to learn from the simulation exercise: which are the gaps, what are the holes, and how do we really breach them when it really strikes."

For the past three days, the hospital where Putu Arini's husband was taken has looked like the set of a germ-warfare movie. Medics clothed head to foot in white protective clothing - goggles, gloves and masks - moved like ghostly astronauts around the field hospital tents set up outside the main building.

But this is wealthy, well-connected Bali, and they have been preparing for this for months. Every event was tightly scripted, and the virus emerged in an easily-contained village. Would it look like this for real?

One of those watching the simulation was Ibu Irma from Jakarta's Centre for Disease Control. Indonesia she hinted, wasn't ready to tackle an epidemic in a city.

The simulation had to be as realistic as possible

"We've started with the simple one," she explained. "If we start with the big city? Well, I don't know."

Here at least, she said, houses had large backyards and were well-spaced. If the pandemic starts in the densely packed alleyways of Java's big cities, it could be much harder to handle.

Of course, it is the human story that grabs the headlines, but with bird flu all roads lead back to the same place - the birds that carry it.

Indonesia has been heavily criticised for not containing the virus in its poultry population - it is endemic across most of the country.

It wants to show the world it will do better should a human pandemic emerge here. And whether or not it can does not just matter here - it matters right around the world.

Source:

Mind's Limit Found: 4 Things at Once

I forget how I wanted to begin this story. That's probably because my mind, just like everyone else's, can only remember a few things at a time. Researchers have often debated the maximum amount of items we can store in our conscious mind, in what's called our working memory, and a new study puts the limit at three or four.

Working memory is a more active version of short-term memory, which refers to the temporary storage of information. Working memory relates to the information we can pay attention to and manipulate.

Early research found the working memory cut-off to be about seven items, which is perhaps why telephone numbers are seven digits long (although some early telephone dialing started with a two- or three-letter "exchange," often the first letters of a community name, followed by four or five figures, e.g. PEnnsylvania 6-5000). Now scientists think the true capacity is lower when people are not allowed to use tricks like repeating items over and over or grouping items together.

"For example, when we present phone numbers, we present them in groups of three and four, which helps us to remember the list," said University of Missouri-Columbia psychologist Nelson Cowan, who co-led the study with colleagues Jeff Rouder and Richard Morey. "That inflates the estimate. We believe we're approaching the estimate that you get when you cannot group. There is some controversy over what the real limit is, but more and more I've found people are accepting this kind of limit."

The study was published April 14 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Masters of memory

To prevent subjects from grouping or using other memory-aids, the researchers presented people with arrays of different-colored squares. The subjects were then shown an array of the same squares without the colors. Afterward, they were shown a single colored square in one location, and asked if the color matched that of the square in the same position at the beginning.

"What's nice about this visual task that they used is that it really makes it difficult to use some of those common strategies that are helpful with verbal lists," said Michael Kane, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who was not involved in the new study. "I think Cowan's work has really been convincing in this."

While the average person may only be able to hold three or four things in mind at once, some people have achieved amazing feats of working memory. Contestants at the World Memory Championships (most recently held in Bahrain in September 2007) often recall hundreds of digits in order after only five minutes. But even these masters of memory seem to start with the same basic capacities as everyone else, and improve their abilities with strategies and tricks.

"A very famous study was a test done of a long-distance runner who learned to associate digits together in ways that were meaningful to him with respect to running times," Kane said. "He could repeat back lists of up to 80 digits in the right order, but if you gave him a list of words, he was at seven plus-or-minus two like everyone else."

The new working memory study builds on previous research, but provides the most rigorous mathematical test of the three- to four-item estimate, Cowan said. The team used a mathematical model that assumed people have a fixed number of slots in their working memory, each one of which can only hold one item. When those slots are filled, the model predicted, people would make random guesses. Based on this assumption, the model was able to forecast the various results of the trials with impressive accuracy.

"It is a pretty simple mathematical model but it predicted a very exquisite pattern of data," Cowan told LiveScience. "The results really were simple. With a single value of working memory capacity we could really account for all those different scenarios."

Working memory and intelligence

Although there seems to be a cap on the average number of things a person can remember at once, basic working memory capacity does vary among individuals. Interestingly, those that test well on working memory tasks also seem to do well at learning, reading comprehension and problem solving.

"People accept that intelligence seems to be related to working memory," Cowan said. "The information you can hold in your mind at one time is the information you can interrelate. If you have a better working memory we believe that your problem-solving abilities are better."

Researchers don't know what causes these variations in working-memory abilities - perhaps they are genetic, perhaps they arise from differences in early childhood environments or education.

The good news is people can improve their performance on certain working-memory tasks with training. When children practice these tasks, over time they get better. And not only do their scores on the memory tasks improve, but their scores on tests of attention and reasoning can also rise.

"The jury is still out on how useful this will be, but it's at least suggestive that you can train skills at these tasks, and that this improvement can affect other things," Kane said. "We don't know quite how they work together, but attention and working memory seem to be very close cousins."

It's all in there

Researchers debate the relationship between working memory and long-term memory. While some hold that the two are independent storage facilities, others say working memory is simply the part of long-term memory that we can currently access.

Many scientists believe that almost all of our experiences are encoded into long-term memory, and that forgetting is simply a matter of not being able to access that memory.

"It's in there somewhere, the problem is just getting to it," Cowan said. "Everything gets encoded into long-term memory almost immediately, but it gets encoded in a way that may not be distinct enough to be retrieved."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080428/sc_livescience/mindslimitfound4thingsatonce

Hackers warn high street chains

High street chains will be the next victims of cyber terrorism, some of the world's elite hackers have warned.

They claim it is only a "matter of time" before the likes of Tesco and Marks & Spencer are targeted.

Criminals could use the kind of tactics which crippled Estonia's government and some firms last year, they warned.

The experts were members of the infamous "Hackers Panel" which convened in London this week at the InfoSecurity Europe conference.

The panel includes penetration testers and so-called "white hat" hackers, who help companies tighten up their digital security by searching for flaws in their defences.

Previous panellists include Gary McKinnon, known as Solo, alleged by the US government to have hacked into dozens of US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense computers.

The "hackers" usually remain anonymous, "for security reasons", but this year's panellists agreed to break cover.

Notorious hacker Gary McKinnon has previously taken part in the panel

Common cause

First up was Roberto Preatoni, the founder of the cyber crime monitoring site, Zone-H, and WabSabiLabi, a trading site for security researchers.

His appearance came just a few months after he was arrested by Italian authorities on charges of hacking and wiretapping, as part of the ongoing investigation into the Telecom Italia scandal.

Mr Preatoni told the audience that the attacks in Estonia were a harbinger for a new era of cyber warfare.

"I'm afraid we will have to get used to this," said Mr Preatoni, also known as SyS64738. "We had all been waiting for this kind of attack to happen.

"Estonia was just unfortunate to be the first country to experience it. But very soon, our own [western] companies and countries will be getting attacked for political and religious reasons.

"This kind of attack can happen at any time. And it will happen."

During the two week "cyber war" against Estonia, hackers shut down the websites of banks, governments and political parties using "denial-of-service" (DoS) attacks, which knock websites offline by swamping servers with page requests.

As many of the attacks originated from Russia, the Estonian government pointed the finger at the Kremlin. But Mr Preatoni said that, having spoken to contacts in the hacking community, he was clear that "Putin was not involved".

"In my opinion, this was a collection of private individuals who spontaneously gathered under the same flag.

"Even though Estonia is one of the world's most advanced countries in IT technology, the whole economy was brought to its knees.

"That's the beauty of asymmetric warfare. You don't need a lot of money, or an army of people. You can do it from the comfort of your living room, with a beer in your hand.



Gate control

His warning was echoed by Steve Armstrong, who teaches seminars in hacking techniques, at the SANS Institute for information security training.

"If someone wants to have a pop at the UK, they are unlikely to go for the government web servers. They will go for the lower hanging fruit - companies which are seen as good representatives of the country.

"The likes of Tesco, Marks & Spencer and B&Q can be seen as legitimate targets.

"We have to get the message across to companies [to invest in information security].

"At the moment Chief Executives are only interested in the bottom line. But remember - if tesco.com goes down, that's a lot of shopping."

Mr Preatoni said that the Estonian government's repeated failure to thwart the attacks was proof that we still have "no good solutions" for denial of service attacks.

The panellists then argued over whether Internet Service Providers should do more to tighten security, by helping customers' protect their computers from being "zombified" by hackers for use in distributed DoS attacks.

"Actually, I don't think the ISPs should have any role in security," said Preatoni.

"In my opinion, that's like asking the Royal Mail to be responsible for the quality of your post."

But his view was immediately challenged by the third panellist, Jason Creasey, head of research at the independent Information Security Forum.

"I believe ISPs can play a phenomenal role in security, with a little bit of legal pressure," he claimed.

Net weakness

He was backed by an audience member, Angus Pinkerton, of Lynks Security Consulting. "The only way to defend against a distributed attack is with a distributed defence," he argued.

"I think it's unacceptable that ISPs are content to let their customers be part of bot-nets."

He challenged Steve Armstrong's view that asking ISPs to perform security duties was "fundamentally, censorship."

"This is not about free speech," said Mr Pinkerton. "Free speech does not entitle you to shout fire in a crowded theatre."

In the meantime, Mr Preatoni warned the audience it is "only going to get easier" to carry out a DoS attack, because he claimed the latest net address system, known as Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), is actually more amenable to DoS.

Later, he told the BBC that the rise in cyber attacks originating in China was a convenient cloak for western countries to disguise their own cyber espionage activities.

"It's too easy to blame China," he said. "In fact, legitimate countries are bouncing their attacks through China. It's very easy to do, so why not?

"My evil opinion is that some western governments are already doing this."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7366995.stm

Web 2.0 debates internet's future

San Francisco's Web 2.0 Expo conference brought together thousands of people responsible for crafting the future direction of the internet, and the world of applications - or apps - was front and centre.

Opening up internet programming was a central theme of Web 2.0

Everyone from Microsoft to Yahoo to MySpace was on a mission to woo developers to create exciting applications for their devices.

Jennifer Pahlka of Techweb, one of the conference's co-chairs, said the carrot these big Silicon Valley companies were dangling to entice developers to get involved was that of openness and allowing people to devise programmes without constraints.

"Yahoo was talking about opening up advertising platforms, Mozilla was talking about opening up the mobile web and John Zittrain from Oxford University was talking about openness to drive innovation and creativity so we don't go into this closed system where every application has to be approved by someone else," said Ms Pahlka.

"So I think open versus closed and who gets to define what is open and what isn't is a big theme that dominated the week at Web 2.0."

Throwing down the gauntlet

For Charlene Li, principal analyst at Forrester Research, this over-arching principle of openness was at the heart of two of the week's major announcements.

"I think the combination of Microsoft's Live Mesh and the Yahoo! Open Strategy are throwing down the gauntlet to everybody else to open up as well," he said.

Live Mesh aims to synchronise and unite a multiplicity of devices and applications online.

Yahoo! Open Strategy is about stitching together its online services under the social profile concept for ultimate access.

Ms Li told BBC News: "All this then says that whoever has the best experience, if I can make your connection to the web better than anyone else, you will be loyal to me."

Web 2.0 intersection

The point of delivery was a hot topic throughout the Web 2.0 conference and the focus was undoubtedly on the mobile web.

Mozilla's chairwoman Mitchell Baker is banking on the Firefox browser as being one of the more important platforms for developers who are working on mobile devices.

"I think that Web 2.0 is at an intersection and the software on which it is based and the involvement of Mozilla demonstrates that by being open and allowing interoperability you get more innovative and better efforts," she said.

For the last six months, Firefox has been working on a browser that operates on mobiles and the organisation is already testing its prototype, she said.

To some degree, that takes care of the here and right now, but turning to the next stage in the world of the internet, at Web 2.0 chatter about Web 3.0 was bubbling under the surface.

While largely thought of as the semantic web - where machines understand what is being written - not everyone at this conference was ready to embrace Web 3.0.

Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff described it as "a load of baloney".

"It just shows people can count and it's some piece of marketing flim-flam dreamed up by companies pushing their products," he said.

Opening up

Dean Takahashi of Venture Beat said if you want to find out what the next big thing is, follow the big money.

For the moment that is not happening in the so-called world of Web 3.0.

"The semantic web is a longer term play and so far I don't see highly valued companies popping up there," said Mr Takahashi.

"They are all start ups digging the earth right now and their pay-off will maybe come later."

For the moment, Mr Takahashi said the venture capital landscape is being dominated by the mobile world, social networks and applications.

With a plethora of companies embracing open social networks and the demand for applications increasing, this, he said, is where there real growth will be.

"Starting a plain old application company for something like Facebook, that's like a one or two person company," said Mr Takahashi.

"What you are going to see is other businesses acquiring those small app companies so that they can have a big collection of Facebook apps that will eventually be worth something.

"That's potentially where the money will be."

Get connected

For the moment, Jennifer Pahlka advised users to enjoy the ride that is Web 2.0.

"There is still a really long way to go with Web 2.0," she said.

People were still trying to find ways of "exploiting all those principles of collective intelligence", she added.

"The fundamental aspect of what is gong on just now is more personal and that resonates more with me than the semantic web," said Ms Pahlka.

"I am just more interested in applications that connect me with other people than with a computer that says it can understand what I just wrote."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7368387.stm

Playboy cushion robbery in France

A goods train in southern France has been attacked by robbers who made off with cushions bearing the Playboy logo.


The attack happened in the northern suburbs of Marseille, the regional newspaper La Provence reports.

It says the thieves blocked the track with sleepers, causing the 700m (760-yard) train to screech to a halt, and forced open a number of containers.

Apart from the Playboy cushions, police said it was not clear what else was taken. The train driver was not harmed.

The car used in the robbery was later found burnt.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7368978.stm

Massive gunbattles break out in Tijuana; 13 dead, 9 wounded

TIJUANA, Mexico - Massive gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine.

All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Rommel Moreno, the attorney general of Baja California state, where Tijuana is located.

"Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs," Moreno told reporters.

Eight suspects and one federal police officer were injured in the pre-dawn shootings, none gravely, said Agustin Perez Aguilar, a spokesman for the state public safety department. The suspects are being held on suspicion of weapons possession among other possible charges.

Police recovered 21 vehicles, many with bullet holes or U.S. license plates; a total of 54 guns; and more than 1,500 spent shell casings at various points in the city where the battles broke out, Perez Aguilar said.

At one point, the alleged traffickers fired at one another as their sport utility vehicles sped down a busy six-lane boulevard lined with restaurants, car repair shops, medical offices and strip malls.

Bullet holes could be seen in the walls of a factory building and on the perimeter wall of a housing complex along the road, but no bystander deaths were reported. It was not clear how long the gunbattles lasted.

A mall security guard who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisals said he heard hundreds of gunshots fired, some of which passed near him.

"I hit the ground," the guard said. When he got up again, he said he saw bullet holes in the wall behind him, a dead man lying in a pool of blood and 11 abandoned, bullet-ridden SUVs on the street.

The first shootout claimed seven victims. Three subsequent gunbattles — one outside a hospital — claimed five more, police said. The body of a man police believe to be the 13th victim turned up at a city hospital.

Tijuana, a sprawling metropolis just across the border from San Diego, California, is pervaded by frequent violence, much of it blamed on drug cartels battling for control of lucrative trafficking routes. The city is home to the Arellano-Felix drug cartel.

In January, eight people died in a gunbattle at a Tijuana safe-house apparently used by drug hit men to hold kidnapped rivals. In that confrontation, hit men holed up inside the house battled police and soldiers with automatic weapons for three hours.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080427/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_tijuana_shootout

Reno urged to prepare for worse as earthquakes continue

RENO, Nev. - Scientists urged residents of northern Nevada's largest city to prepare for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors.

More than 100 aftershocks were recorded on the western edge of the city after a magnitude 4.7 quake hit Friday night, the strongest quake around Reno since one measuring 5.2 in 1953, said researchers at the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The latest quake swept store shelves clean, cracked walls in homes and dislodged rocks on hillsides, but there were no reports of injuries or widespread major damage.

Seismologists said the recent activity is unusual because the quakes started out small and continue to build in strength. The normal pattern is for a main quake followed by smaller aftershocks.

"A magnitude 6 quake wouldn't be a scientific surprise," John Anderson, director of the seismological lab, said Saturday. "We certainly hope residents are taking the threat seriously after last night."

But Anderson stressed there was no way to predict what would happen, and said the sequence of quakes also could end without a major one.

Reno's last major quake measured 6.1 on April 24, 1914, and was felt as far away as Berkeley, Calif., said Craig dePolo, research geologist with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

A rockslide triggered by Friday night's quake was blamed for causing a 125-foot breach in a wooden flume that carries water to one of two water treatment plants in Reno, a city of about 210,000.

A backup pump was used to divert water to the plant, and the breach was not expected to cause any water shortages, said Aaron Kenneston, Washoe County emergency management officer.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday night's quake was centered around Mogul, just west of Reno. The area of upscale homes along the eastern Sierra was rattled by more than 100 quakes the day before, the strongest a magnitude 4.2 that caused high-rise casinos to sway in downtown Reno.

The strongest aftershock measured 3.7 and was recorded early Saturday.

Mike Lentini of Reno said Friday night's quake felt "like a big truck hit the building" and awakened his family.

"It's the unknown. It's shaking, and when's it going to stop?" he said Saturday. "And when stuff starts falling off the shelves it's a whole other ballgame."

Jars of mayonnaise and bottles of ketchup and shampoo fell from shelves at a Wal-Mart store in northwest Reno. Overhead televisions swayed at a sports bar in neighboring Sparks, 11 miles east, where bartender Shawn Jones said the rumble was significantly stronger than Thursday's event.

"The bottles were shaking, so I sent everybody outside," he said.

Hundreds of mostly minor quakes have occurred along one or possibly more faults since the sequence began Feb. 28, said Ken Smith, a seismologist at the Reno laboratory. The quakes have occurred along an area about 2 miles long and a half-mile wide.

"We can't put a number on it, but the probability of a major earthquake has increased with this sequence," Smith said Saturday. "People need to prepare for ground shaking because there's no way to say how this will play out."

Among other things, scientists urged residents to stock up on water and food, to learn how to turn off water and gas, and to strap down bookshelves, televisions and computers.

"It's getting a little bit frightening," Daryl DiBitonto of Reno told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "I'm very concerned about this increase in not only activity, but also in magnitude."

The quakes around Reno began a week after a magnitude 6 temblor in the northern Nevada town of Wells, near the Utah border. The Feb. 21 quake caused an estimated $778,000 in damage to homes, schools and historic downtown buildings, dePolo said.

Scientists said they're unsure whether the seismic activity at opposite sides of Nevada is related.

Nevada is the third most seismically active state in the U.S. behind California and Alaska. The Wells quake was the 15th of at least magnitude 6 in the state's 143-year history.

A magnitude-7.4 quake south of Winnemucca in 1915 is the most powerful in state history.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_re_us/reno_earthquake

America's Worst-Selling Housing Markets

Miami-area home sellers looking to unload their properties might want to make sure they have comfortable couches.

It looks like they're going to be there a while.

That's because Miami tops our list of the nation's most sedentary housing markets. These 10 spots feature a potent mix of dropping prices and sluggish sales rates. Also on the list: Denver, San Diego, Baltimore and Chicago.

In compiling our list, we looked at price growth and sales rates in the country's 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas. We took the cities in the midst of year-over-year price declines, based on National Association of Realtors data, then calculated how quickly these cities are shedding inventory from their peaks, which occurred between four and six months ago, based on data from ZipRealty, an aggregator of multiple listing service data. Atlanta, a likely contender for the top ten, was not considered due to irregularities in inventory reporting.

By using sales rate, instead of the months remaining of inventory, we wind up with a figure that shows how quickly homes have been leaving the market from its most saturated point, the most straightforward indicator for measuring sedentary vs. active sales.

In Chicago, for example, where the median home sale price in the fourth quarter of 2007 was $261,000, a 2.6% drop from the previous year, there were 72,842 homes on the market, with 2.2% of them selling each month.

While this sales rate alone isn't extraordinary, it matters because Chicago's housing supply is overstocked, with 50% more houses on the market than two years ago. Prices, as a result, are continuing to sink.
Behind The Numbers

It's important to note that housing markets never contract to zero inventory. Their inventory cushions also differ. From 2002 to 2006, New York had an average unsold inventory rate of 1.7%. But another healthy market during that time, Charlotte, N.C., maintained a 2.9% unsold housing inventory rate.

"Every market is a little bit different," says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a Manhattan-based real estate appraisal company. "But while faster sales don't necessarily mean a bottom is around the corner, it is a significant reversal." That's because prices typically go up after inventory goes down.

Another important point is that the country's most sedentary housing markets are not the ones with free-falling prices.

Some of the country's more active markets are Las Vegas and Sacramento, Calif., where houses are moving off the listing pages at monthly rates of 3.4% and 4.2%, respectively, from their peak inventory gluts.

But both those markets were dramatically overbuilt during the boom, and sales are largely a result of homeowners slashing prices. In Sacramento, 50% of area homes have been marked down from their original listing prices; it’s 48% in Las Vegas, according to ZipRealty.

Chicago-area sales are more sluggish, but even though prices have declined (they are down 2.6% for the year), they're nowhere near the double-digit falls seen in Las Vegas and Sacramento.

The markets that are really in trouble are those in Florida, which have experienced all the overbuilding and lending problems of Las Vegas and Sacramento but are experiencing flat sales. In September 2007 in Orlando, No. 2 on our list, there were 35,365 homes on the market. Since then, available inventory has shrunk at the excruciatingly slow monthly rate of 0.6% per month. It's the same story in Miami, where homes have been selling at an underwhelming rate of 0.2% per month.

Miller says there's generally a three to six month lag between when a city starts putting a serious dent into its inventory and when prices start to improve.

For these 10 markets, that moment can't come soon enough.

Found at: http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-worst-selling-housing-markets.html