Baidu announces Android OS alternative, confirming its mobile aspirations
September 5, 2011 No Comment
At present time, Baidu’s a desktop web browser / search engine based in China that’s meant to mimic Chrome (though it’s actually wrapped around IE code). The company, however, has its sights set on conquering the mobile front as well, introducing Baidu Yi OS at its annual get-together. The new platform is essentially a forked version of Android, which will provide a lot of the same functionality and services we’re used to seeing from Google; Baidu, though, is adding a dash of flavor by throwing in its own bundle of apps — such as native maps, reader, music, web apps, and even a program similar to Google Places — as well as strong cloud integration for backups, storage and sharing. The new OS will likely be up against intense competition from Nokia , Alibaba , Xiaomi and Windows Phone Tango (amongst others), so the Chinese mobile space may get rather interesting in the coming years. Baidu announces Android OS alternative, confirming its mobile aspirations originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Tape records anger of fugitive who went on to kill after girlfriend told him their relationship was over A tape recording of the conversation between Raoul Moat and his girlfriend that prompted his murderous rampage following his release from prison was played to an inquest jury on Monday. In the recording, Moat reacted angrily when Samantha Stobbart told him their relationship was over. Within days of his release from Durham prison, Moat shot and injured 22-year-old Stobbart, the mother of his child, and killed her new boyfriend, 29-year-old Chris Brown. Moat asked Stobbart: “What’s wrong?” “It’s over”, she replies. “Over what?” he asks her. “I’ve had enough” she says. “Of what?” Moat says. “Everything” she replies. Moat says: “We had one argument the other day. Let’s not get all silly about it.” He complains that “everybody is getting on my case” and that he is getting “picked on”. The conversation ends with the phone being slammed down. In a second call, Moat tells Stobbart: “You are the only person I have ever cared about. I can’t have you out of my life. I’m going to go crazy, man.” She tells him she has met a new man who is “a lot younger than you”. Superintendent Jim Napier, of Northumbria police, said: “It is clear from the evidence that Moat’s break-up with Samantha Stobbart was the catalyst for his murderous acts.” Moat, 37, died following a six-hour stand-off with police marksmen in July 2010 after a rampage during which he shot and blinded PC David Rathband, an unarmed officer, as he sat in his police car. Moat shot himself in the head after the stand-off at Rothbury, Northumberland, during which police twice fired XREP Tasers that had not been approved by the Home Office. The 11 members of the jury sworn in at Newcastle crown court will decide whether the Taser rounds contributed to the former nightclub doorman’s death. Moat had been serving an 18-week prison sentence for assault when the call was made in June 2010. Police retrieved three recorded calls from the prison during their investigation. The coroner, David Mitford, told jurors that an inquest was needed because “Mr Moat met his death when he was effectively detained”. He added: “It will not have escaped your attention that there were some weapons called Tasers used on the night in question. Those Tasers were supplied to Northumbria Police by a firm called Pro-Tec Limited.” He asked the jurors to try to do “the impossible” and forget what they had already heard about the Moat case. “There have been lots of theories and conclusions drawn, some of which may have been accurate, some of which may not,” he said. The inquest will focus on the events in Rothbury on 9 and 10 July, he added. There will be questions about the weapons used, how police managed the incident, how officers dealt with the deceased and how he acted, the jury was told. But it will first hear why so many officers were involved in the “manhunt”, the coroner said. Barristers for the Moat family, the chief constable of Northumbria, West Yorkshire police and Pro-Tec were in court, Mitford said. Moat’s brother, Angus, and his uncle and biological father were also in court. The inquest is expected to last four weeks. Raoul Moat Crime Police Tasers Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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Rebecca Leighton was freed from prison after charges against her over deaths at Stepping Hill hospital were dropped The nurse who was released after six weeks on remand accused of contaminating saline at a Cheshire hospital, leading to the deaths of three patients, has indicated that she wants to return to work. Rebecca Leighton was released from Styal prison on Friday after all the charges against her were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service . The 27-year-old was arrested in July after unexplained deaths at Stepping Hill hospital, in Stockport, and was charged in connection with contaminating bags of saline with insulin and criminal damage with intent to endanger life. She has always denied any wrongdoing. Leighton said she had been in a “living hell” after she being locked up for something she had not done. The investigation centred on bags of saline solution that were sabotaged with insulin and initially focused on five deaths, but police later said the deaths of two of those patients – Vera Pearson, 84, and George Keep, also 84, both from Cheadle – were no longer part of their inquiry. They are still examining the suspicious deaths of Tracey Arden, 44, 71-year-old Arnold Lancaster and Alfred Weaver, 83, who all died at Stepping Hill. Greater Manchester police were called after an experienced nurse noticed a sudden and inexplicable drop in patients’ blood sugar levels on two interconnected wards. Leighton remains suspended from practising after an interim order by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and has vowed to clear her name. Her solicitor, Carl Richmond, said his client, from the Heaviley area of Stockport, was prepared to do whatever it took to prove her innocence. He said: “She wants the opportunity to have her suspension lifted and then she will make the decision what to do next. “She has worked as a nurse for a long time, so that’s obviously in her thoughts, but she’s still a bit raw. She wants to clear her name professionally, and that’s her priority at the moment.” Asked whether Leighton would return to work at Stepping Hill, Richmond said: “I don’t know if she would or wouldn’t. It might be too difficult. “The finger of suspicion was firmly pointed at her, and you don’t recover from that quickly. She needs to clear her head and decide what’s best for her in the long term.” Richmond said he believed his client had been made a scapegoat by police, who are investigating the deaths of seven patients – and potentially 40 in total – connected with sabotaged saline drips. He said: “They jumped the gun and tried to build the case against her from there, rather than the usual method of bailing her pending further inquiries.” Greater Manchester police’s assistant chief constable, Terry Sweeney, said the force would leave no stone unturned in the search for the person responsible for the contamination. He said the investigation was complex and officers needed to speak to 700 people – patients, staff and visitors. Crime Nursing Health Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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A small plane that crashed and burst into flames Sunday killed one person and ignited a fast-moving brush fire that bore down on a California mountain community, forcing residents to flee from at least 100 homes. (Sept. 5)
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Younis al-Mauritani detained in western city of Quetta with two other members of terror group Younis al-Mauritani, a senior al-Qaida commander believed by some experts to be the organisation’s “foreign minister”, has been captured by Pakistani security forces working with the CIA, the Pakistani army said on Monday. Mauritani – who was detained in the western city of Quetta with two other al-Qaida members – played a central role in the group’s plots against the west, the army said. He is the most high profile al-Qaida figure to have been arrested in Pakistan for several years, and his detention marks another blow to the group following the deaths of Osama bin Laden in a US raid on 2 May and the second in command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, in a CIA missile strike last month. The discovery that Bin Laden had been living in Pakistan for several years caused acute embarrassment to the country’s authorities, which have been under intense pressure to prove they are committed to the fight against al-Qaida. In the years immediately following the 9/11 attacks, a series of leading al-Qaida figures were captured in Pakistan, but there have been fewer high-profile arrests in recent years. “Mauritani was tasked personally by Osama bin Laden to focus on hitting targets of economical importance in United States of America, Europe and Australia,” a statement from the Pakistani military said. “He was planning to target United States economic interests including gas and oil pipelines, power generating dams and strike ships and oil tankers through explosive-laden speed boats in international waters.” According to the statement, Mauritani was arrested with the help of US intelligence agencies, showing that anti-terror co-operation between the countries is continuing despite the deep tensions between Islamabad and Washington following the death of Bin Laden. He had reportedly been planning a major attack in Europe, which triggered a terror alert in Germany late last year. The detention also confirmed that many of al-Qaida’s leaders remain in hiding in Pakistan. al-Qaida Pakistan Global terrorism Saeed Shah guardian.co.uk
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PM says Gibson inquiry will examine extent of intelligence-sharing by British secret services with the Gaddafi regime David Cameron has asked the Gibson inquiry into alleged UK complicity in torture to be widened to examine the extent of intelligence-sharing by British secret services with the Libyan Gaddafi regime, including rendition and torture. He will set out details of how the Gibson inquiry will look into the allegations in a Commons statement updating MPs on the fall of the Gaddafi regime. Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary in the previous Labour government, said he welcomed the development but said he had never endorsed any secret programme of rendition or torture by the intelligence services. Straw said the inquiry could look into allegations that the security services may have been involved in operations without his knowledge or permission. The prime minister’s spokesman responded to the uncovering of a tranche of documents in Tripoli showing the intimate links between British intelligence and Libya by saying the Gibson inquiry was well placed to look at the allegations. He said current British ministers have not seen the documents, and it was not entirely clear what they signified. He added the terms of reference of the Gibson inquiry would not need to be changed to include the new Libyan allegations. The Gibson inquiry has been stalled by the refusal of some lawyers to co-operate with it and by the need for some civil cases to be completed first. This opens the possibility that the Gibson inquiry will look into Libyan allegations first since they are not subject to UK civil court cases. The papers were found in the offices of Moussa Koussa, Libyan’s head of intelligence services, who defected to Tunisia and then to Britain in late March. Downing Street said Moussa Koussa had not been given immunity from prosecution, but stressed he had been free to leave the UK. The documents show the UK provided intelligence to Libyan authorities in 2004 on Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who is now a commander with Libyan rebel forces. Britain was interested in gleaning intelligence on Belhaj because of his membership of the proscribed Islamist group the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which had links with a-Qaida. He was delivered to the Libyan authorities by the US after being captured in Bangkok. He is now head of the military council in Tripoli, showing the extent of possible Islamist influence in the new regime, and the unpredictable nature of relations between the regime and the UK. Belhaj has claimed he was tortured by the CIA in Bangkok. Straw pointed out that the intelligence and security committee, a select committee set up by the prime minister to oversee the accountability of the security services, examined allegations of British complicity in torture in 2007, and found no evidence. Straw said he did not know if the new allegations were credible, but said “these allegations must be examined in very great detail. It is very important that they should be These allegations are a very great source of concern to anyone, including myself. “The position of successive British governments was very clear and that was they we were opposed to unlawful rendition and any use of torture. Not only did we not agree with it, nor were we complicit in it and we did not turn a blind eye to it,” Straw added. He pointed out that the intelligence and security committee had itself pointed out that Straw had rejected some MI6 planned operations, showing the concern he had shown on the issue. “I did not just tick submissions,” he said. He added Britain’s desire to weaken al-Qaida “would never ever have justified our connivance or complicity in the use of torture, and it did not”. Straw raised the possibility of senior intelligence figures keeping operations from him by saying “no foreign secretary can know all the details of what its intelligence agencies are doing at any one time, and that is why it is important these allegations are examined by Sir Peter Gibson’s inquiry”. He defended the principle of the general co-operation between the British government and Libya on the basis that it led to Libya abandoning weapons of mass destruction voluntarily in 2003, describing this as “a major step to a more peaceful Middle East”. Libya Middle East Africa Torture Human rights Muammar Gaddafi Moussa Koussa David Cameron Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media As usual, August has been the cruelest month for President Barack Obama. From the stupid debt-ceiling debate to the even dumber jobs speech snafu, he has taken hit after hit after hit from both sides of the aisle with the press amplifying each negative message. But underneath every one of these so-called gaffes, there is Bill Daley. It’s clear to me that whatever I may have thought about Rahm Emanuel, he was simply better at what a Chief of Staff is supposed to do than Bill Daley can hope to be. Jonathan Chait has a column in Sunday’s New York Times that highlights how ineffective Daley really is , though that’s not the primary focus. This has been the summer that liberal discontent with Obama has finally crystallized. The frustration has been simmering for a while — through centrist appointments, bank bailouts and the defeat of the public option, to name a few examples. But it has taken the debt-ceiling standoff and the threat of a double-dip recession to create a leftist critique of the president that stuck. If messaging is a part of the Chief of Staff’s duties, and I believe it’s one of the central parts, then Daley clearly fails on all counts. Every single issue is framed inside right-wing themes, from the decision to suspend new EPA standards to the debt-ceiling debate. There is no progressive message, not even a small bone offered up to progressives who might be able to swallow a short delay in implementation if there is some small sensible reason. Yet, time after time, Daley offers up those nuggets to the Chamber of Commerce, the Republican Party, and conservatives, presumably in the hope that some will be reasonable. There’s a term for that. In some circles, some might call it insanity. I call it a failure to serve a wider constituency. If a 30-year veteran of Congressional politics sees no hope of reasonableness , why can’t Daley? Even on the level of the mundane, there was no excuse for the ridiculous scheduling “error” to have happened, much less for it to get any traction, and that was, once again, all Bill Daley . If Daley didn’t know that Wednesday, the day Congress returns from its five-week break, was also the night of the NBC/ Poliltico -sponsored GOP debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California—moderated by NBC’s Brian Williams, and featuring, for the first time, Texas Gov. Rick Perry—he should have. Yes, it’s one debate of 20 to come, but the contretemps made the president look like he was mischievously, sneakily trying to steal his potential opponents’ thunder. In an editorial entitled “Oh, Grow Up,” critical mostly of Boehner and Company, this paragraph stood out: “It’s possible that the White House failed to seek Mr. Boehner’s back-room agreement before making its formal request. That’s hard to believe, even from an administration that is maladroit politically, to put it kindly.” The Hill ’s Sam Youngman made essentially the same point in his report : “The back-and-forth has left some Democrats in Washington worried that the White House is becoming a rudderless ship.” Daley, the ship’s skipper, has made no public comment so far. Exactly. It was stupid to try and intentionally step on their debate, and uncharacteristic of what President Obama has stood for in the past. He has always welcomed debate, not tried to squelch it. And if it wasn’t intentional (I think it was), then it was stupid. Either way, it was a lose-lose proposition that opened the door wide for the left side of the aisle to be very angry because: a) it gave the appearance that the White House “caved”; and b) It left all of us feeling like Boehner and Co got a nice chance to be jerks at our expense. Again. That slice of stupid was only over scheduling a speech. Why don’t Republicans complain about Daley? Why should they? He’s acted in their best interests over and over again. There’s no doubt in my mind that the debt-ceiling debate would not have turned into such a debacle, nor would it have once again left Democrats — centrist and liberal alike — feeling like they’d once again been forced to give up everything to a bunch of terrorist hostage-takers, had Bill Daley bothered to actually craft a message that wasn’t written by the right-wing establishment. The video at the top of this post is a perfect example. Listen to Tom Donohue at the US Chamber of Commerce brag about how he’s “like this” with Bill Daley : CAVUTO: Finally, very quick, personally, I know you guys broke bread not too long ago. You are across the street from one another. So, are you guys getting along? Is your association getting along, is Commerce getting along now with the president? How would you describe relations? DONOHUE: I think relations are fine. We worked very closely with Bill Daley. We worked with the whole gang while they were trying to do the deficit and debt issue. CAVUTO: Right. DONOHUE: We really encouraged everybody in the Congress that we couldn’t default. I think we would have put three European countries out of business. I think we’re all going to work together to try and get a very serious program from the 12 apostles. (LAUGHTER) That exchange followed Donohue’s announcement that the U.S. Chamber will be introducing their very own jobs plan which includes, among other things, tax repatriation (a terrible idea), and more domestic oil drilling. You know, I just don’t want a White House Chief of Staff to be that buddy-buddy with one of the Riders of the Apocalypse. And how arrogant is it for a trade association to be unveiling *their* jobs plan? They may think they’re in charge of this country, but we still have three branches of government they have to deal with, two of which would be involved in their so-called jobs plan. I’m not exempting the President from this tirade. After all, he hired the guy. But as much as I support him and will continue to, I have no faith in his Chief of Staff, and think it’s time for him to replace Daley with someone who is capable of crafting a stronger message and dealing with the right-wing idiots in Congress with a stronger hand. There was absolutely no reason for us to give up the advantage on Medicare that we had after Paul Ryan managed to lead Republicans right down the rabbit hole of destruction. The right wing was on the verge of self-destruction and instead of capitalizing on it, Daley’s message seemed to affirm it. It would have been a good time for President Obama to have drawn a line. But as Chait notes: And then, this summer, Obama let the G.O.P. hold the debt-ceiling vote hostage to extract spending cuts. I think he should have called the Republicans’ bluff and let them accept the risk of a financial meltdown. But the reason Obama chose to cut a deal is that calling their bluff might have resulted in catastrophe. And Obama made a point of back-loading the G.O.P.’s budget cuts so as not to contract the economy. He may have chosen wrongly, but he chose exactly the priorities liberals now insist he ignored — favoring economic recovery over long-term goals. Maybe. But do we hear this message? No. Where is Daley out there on the Sunday shows, pushing back on the idea that in hostage situations, the reasonable guy in the room will try to save the hostage? He’s nowhere? Instead, week after week is filled with Republican messages and right-wing memes. With friends like Daley, who needs enemies? It’s time for President Obama to admit that his strategy of trying to co-opt the right-wing with a pro-business Republican type like Daley was a mistake, ask for his resignation, and put someone in there who will at least manage to get some liberal messaging out of the White House. We don’t have time to wait. The election may well hang on what Bill Daley’s next failure is.
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Type: Book Title: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth: The Jefferson Bible See all customer reviews Product Description: THE LIFE AND MORALS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH: The Jefferson Bible was Thomas Jefferson’s effort to extract the doctrine of Jesus by removing sections of the New Testament containing supernatural aspects as well as perceived misinterpretations he believed had been added by the Gospel writers. It gives an account of the events of Jesus’s life without references to angels, genealogy, or prophecy. Miracles, references to the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus, and Jesus’ resurrection are also absent from the Jefferson Bible in its focus on the physical life and moral teachings of Jesus rather than its spiritual aspects. It does however include references to Noah’s Ark, the Great Flood, the Tribulation, and the Second Coming, as well as Heaven, Hell, and the Devil. See the details
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Live Nascar Race News NASCAR Unleashed Screenshots!!! Fly over before NASCAR race emileejainsure says: http://t.co/2aBevVA White House- NASCAR flap sign of contentious times
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