An updated version of Skype just appeared on the Android Market sporting a crucial improvement: it now supports two-way video calling on a wide range of current Android handsets, rather than the meager four that had previously received preferential treatment. If you have a recent phone from HTC, Samsung or Sony Ericsson (excluding the Arc), then you’re probably in luck. Oh, and LG Revolution (Verizon) and Acer A5 owners can get their vogue on too. Running Gingerbread is a must, though, because Froyo will only let you use your device’s rear camera, which is obviously quite difficult to pose for. Check out the source link for the full list of supported handsets and let us know if you run into problems. [Thanks, Nathan] Skype two-way video chat finally arrives on more Android handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Aug 2011 04:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Continue reading …Isaac Turnbaugh: Man Acquitted Of Friend’s Murder Confesses To Police, Walks Free
August 4, 2011 No Comment
In 2004, Isaac Turnbaugh of Vermont was acquitted of killing his coworker. Police say he recently contacted them, however, and confessed to the murder. But there’s not much they can do. Some might call it an outrage, but he’s protected under a basic Fifth Amendment concept better known as “double jeopardy,” and prosecutors say their hands are tied. “He could have turned over a video tape of him committing the murder and it wouldn’t change the fact that double jeopardy is attached,” Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell told The Huffington Post. “We had our chance. The jury acquitted him and, just in the same way OJ could confess today to his wife’s murder, it wouldn’t affect what could be done to him.” Turnbaugh, now 28, stood trial in 2004 on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Declan Lyons, 24. The two men were coworkers at the restaurant American Flatbread in Waitsfield, a town located about 20 miles southwest of Montpelier, Vt. Lyons, engaged and expecting his first child, was found dead outside the restaurant on April 12, 2002. He had been mixing sauce in an outdoor cauldron when witnesses inside the restaurant heard a loud popping noise. WPTZ reported that, when the waitresses went outside to investigate, they found an unresponsive Lyons on the ground with a gaping head wound. Police had no suspects in the case until the following month, when Turnbaugh went to a party and allegedly told six friends that he had shot Lyons. One of the friends told Turnbaugh’s mother and she reportedly contacted the police. “The whole reason he was charged was because he was sitting around the campfire with friends taking mushrooms and, amidst some sort of schizophrenic break, he confessed to this shooting, to being responsible for [the terrorist attacks of] 9/11 and an assortment of other things,” Turnbaugh’s former attorney, Kurt Hughes, told HuffPost. During police questioning, Turnbaugh denied killing Declan Lyons and said he considered him a “really good buddy.” Friends also described Turnbaugh and Lyons as good friends, which made it difficult to establish a motive. “All of us can’t fathom why this would have happened,” former co-worker Jen Moffroid told WPTZ in August 2002. “Not a lot of bad vibes. Not a lot of animosity . . . You don’t know what to believe and we’re just trusting in the system and hoping that the police and courts can figure out what really happened here. We all would really like to know what really happened.” Hughes said the case was extraordinary, in that he had easy access to Lyons’ coworkers and friends — a rare convenience for a suspect’s defense. “They all loved Isaac as much as they loved the victim. It was unlike anything I had been involved in before,” he said. Following his arrest, Turnbaugh was diagnosed with a serious mental illness. The case did not go to court for roughly two years. When it did, Turnbaugh’s lawyer argued that his client was ill and said that the FBI was unable to establish that a rifle belonging to his client was the murder weapon. According to WCAX, prosecutors never denied that they did not have a motive for the crime, but were hoping that lies Turnbaugh had told police — as well as his confession at the party — would help them to prove premeditated murder. On April 6, 2004, after five hours of deliberation, jurors found Turnbaugh not guilty of murder. Sorrell said that he was surprised by the verdict. “We had these admissions from him, but he had a very good lawyer who was able to raise reasonable doubt that if you couldn’t believe that he was involved with 9/11, then you couldn’t believe that he was involved in this murder,” the Vermont attorney general said. “The jury did its job. We gave it our best shot. Our justice system isn’t always perfect, but it is darn good.” In the month after he was found innocent, Turnbaugh found himself in hot water with police following a 7-hour standoff in which he was involved. Other than that, he has kept a relatively low profile. That is, until he contacted police in Montpelier recently and allegedly confessed to killing Declan Lyons. There is, however, nothing police can do about it. According to Anne Bremner, a Seattle attorney and legal analyst, the double jeopardy clause forbids authorities from trying Turnbaugh again for murder in this case. “The framers of the Constitution wanted to preclude government harassment of citizens via successive and potentially harassing prosecutions,” Bremner explained to HuffPost. “Let’s take Casey Anthony’s case,” Bremner continued. “Even if she confesses to Barbara Walters, Oprah, or Larry Flynt, for that matter, double jeopardy would preclude charging or prosecuting her again.” Once again, attorneys on both sides are in disagreement about the alleged confession. “He’s mentally ill. He made similar so-called confessions before the trial, so it’s nothing new. It’s part of his illness [and] it sounds like he’s having a relapse of some sort,” Hughes said. Sorrell, on the other hand, believes Turnbaugh’s alleged confession. “He gave some details this time that were consistent with evidence in the case,” Sorrell said. “Clearly, the victim had a head wound, but the police were never able to find any bullet or bullet fragments enough to do any ballistics, so we did not have evidence of any particular caliber or any particular gun. We believed it was a high-powered rifle, and we knew that Isaac Turnbaugh owned a 30-30 rifle. So, this time, he did say he shot him in the head with the 30-30.” There have been speculation and rumors that authorities could go after Turnbaugh on other potential charges such as perjury, but Sorrell said the defendant did not testify on his own behalf, so perjury is out of the question. Besides that, the statute of limitations is up and “that’s not what we’re looking to do here,” he said. A civil suit is also unlikely, the attorney general said. “Quite frankly, I’m not sure that the victim’s family would be looking for monetary reward,” Sorrell said. “[Secondly], even if they got a verdict for a hundred million dollars, I’m not sure they would be in a position to collect a dime from Isaac Turnbaugh.” Police have not talked to Turnbaugh since his alleged confession. He did not respond to an interview request from The Huffington Post. According to Sorrell, authorities still believe Turnbaugh is the killer, and do not plan to re-open the case. “It’s just a terrible tragedy,” he said. “But, he has to live with what, in fact, he has done.”
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Cargill Issues Ground Turkey Recall — 77 Salmonella Victims Confirmed Cargill recalls 36 million pounds of ground turkey Jar of Hearts – Kelsey Ezell, Terra Dodd, & Kyauna Cargill greenhouseefx33 says: RT @ msnbc_health : BREAKING: Health officials recalling 36 million lbs of ground turkey produced by Cargill linked to a CA death http://on.msnbc.com/roExFg
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Until last month, Goran Hadžíc, once leader of Croatia’s Serb minority, was the last free man on the list of 161 people indicted for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. His capture has brought an end to one of the
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Regulator says half of British teenagers and 25% of adults now have smartphones as sales outstrip regular mobiles Britons’ appetite for Facebook and social networks on the go is driving a huge demand for smartphones – with 60% of teenagers describing themselves as “highly addicted” to their device – according to new research by the media regulator, Ofcom. Almost half of teenagers and more than a quarter of adults now own a smartphone, with most using their iPhone or BlackBerry to browse Facebook and email. The study, published on Thursday, also shows that smartphones have begun to intrude on our most private moments, with 47% of teenagers admitting to using their device in the toilet. Only 22% of adults confessed to the same habit. Unsurprisingly, mobile-addicted teens are more likely than adults to be distracted by their phones over dinner and in the cinema – and more would answer their phone if it woke them up. Separate figures shared exclusively with the Guardian show that, for the first time, smartphone sales outstripped sales of regular mobiles in the first half of this year as the enormous demand continues to rise. Just over half of the total 13.6m mobile sales from January to June 2011 were smartphones, according to research by GfK Retail and Technology UK. Of the new generation of smartphone users, 60% of teenagers classed themselves as “highly addicted” to their device, compared to 37% of adults. Ofcom surveyed 2,073 adults and 521 children and teenagers in March this year. The regulator defines teenagers as aged between 12 and 15, with adults 16-years-old and above. “Ofcom’s report shows the influence that communications technology now has on our daily lives, and on the way we behave and communicate with each other,” said James Thickett, Ofcom’s director of research. “Our research into the use of smartphones, in particular, reveals how quickly people become reliant on new technology – to the point of feeling addicted. As more and more people acquire smartphones, they are becoming an essential tool in peoples’ social lives whether they are out with friends socialising or using Facebook on the move.” Facebook remains far and away the most popular website for mobile users, with users spending almost four times the amount of time socialising online than using Google or any other website. Unsurprisingly, multi-tasking teenagers said they were less likely to read books if they owned a smartphone. But they also said that owning a smartphone made them more likely to ditch games consoles like the PS3 and the computer, in favour of their pocket-sized handset. The huge boost in smartphone sales has led to a 67% increase in mobile data use as phone users watched videos and sent emails on the go. Mobile operators, such as O2 and Vodafone, have been put under huge strain by the new load. But Thickett said the carriers are coping with the enormous demand. “The research is saying that people are keeping their phones on longer and becoming addicted to them. This isn’t a problem now but something we need to be aware of. Operators have responded by upgrading their networks so it is being coped with,” Thickett said. Despite being a nation of mobile addicts, Ofcom found that truisms still apply when it comes to traditional media like TV and radio. Other findings show: • Britons are spending more time in front of the TV (four hours a day last year, compared to 3.8 hours in 2009). This is partly due to the rise of on-demand viewing, most notably Sky+, and an increase in the number of homes with high-definition TVs. Two newcomers to the HD market, Freeview HD and Freesat HD, have established themselves as more-affordable competitors to Virgin Media and Sky. • The new generation of broadband, delivered by fibre-optic cables, is now available for 57% of UK households – though just 500,000 have adopted it. Four in five of those with superfast broadband said they were satisfied with the service, compared to 57% satisfaction with their previous broadband. • Aside from offline gaming, Brits who own games consoles are most likely to use it for watching video content (22%), online gaming (22%), and watching DVDs (19%). Just over one in 10 said they browse the web via their games console, while 9% use it to watch BBC iPlayer. • Britons sent an average of five text messages a day last year, contributing to a total of 129bn texts sent – up by 24% in 2009. • Nearly 10m TV sets were sold in 2010, almost all of which were HD ready. The rise of internet-enabled TVs continued, with 1m sales last year, and 3D living room viewing remained a marginal activity, with 125,000 sales of 3D TVs. However, Ofcom warned that older Britons risked being left behind in the “digital revolution”. While 90% of adults aged 35-44 have the internet at home, this falls to just a quarter of over 75s. The survey showed that 51% of over 75s own a mobile phone, compared to 99% of 25-34-year-olds. Ofcom said that, for the first time, more than half of 65- to 74-year-olds have access to the internet at home, while just over three quarters own a mobile phone. More findings: mobile phones • 47% of British teenagers and 27% of adults own a smartphone • Sixty per cent of adults and 37% percent of smartphone owners describe themselves as “highly addicted” to their device • Nearly half (47%) of teenage smartphone owners admit using their device in the toilet, compared to 22% of adults. TV • Brits watched an average of four hours of TV a day last year, up from 3.8 hours in 2009. • Almost all (93%) of homes had multi-channel TV, with 4% sticking to analogue terrestrial TV. • Nearly 10m TVs were sold in 2010, almost all of which were HD ready. There were 1m internet-enabled TV sales during 2010, and 125,000 sales of 3D TVs. Radio • 91.6% of Brits listened to the radio in the first quarter of 2011 – up from 90.6% in 2010. • Just over a quarter (26.5%) of radio listening is digital, while analogue accounts for 65% of all listening. • One in five households (18%) households use the internet to listen to the radio. Internet • Around 57% of UK households had access to superfast broadband by the end of June 2011. • Nearly half (48%) of UK adults said they used social networking sites in first three months of 2011 – up from 40% in 2010. • On average, internet users spent around 50 hours at their computer in April 2011, equivalent to 1 hours and 40 minutes a day. Smartphones BlackBerry Mobile phones Facebook Internet Social networking Twitter Ofcom Television industry Social media Digital media Internet, phones & broadband Social trends Television iPhone Apple Telecoms Email Computing Consumer affairs Josh Halliday guardian.co.uk
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Madeleine Pulver freed unhurt after 10 hours strapped to fake bomb in case prime minister said was ‘like a Hollywood script’ The parents of an Australian teenager who was trapped for about 10 hours with what turned out to be a fake bomb strapped round her neck said she was “a little tired, a little sore” after her ordeal in the wealthy Sydney suburb of Mosman. Madeleine Pulver, 18, was freed unhurt from the device late on Wednesday by bomb squad specialists. Police later said there had been no explosive, but confirmed that there was a note making demands. Det Supt Luke Moore, of New South Wales police would not reveal the note’s contents, but said: “We are treating this as an attempted extortion, a very serious attempted extortion.” As police launched a manhunt for a masked man said to have broken in to the family home, Madeleine’s father Bill Pulver, a wealthy business executive, fought back tears as he talked about his daughter’s horrifying ordeal. “We as parents are extraordinarily proud of Maddy,” he said, his wife Belinda at his side. “I think she has woken up this morning in pretty good spirits. She’s a little tired, a little sore, from holding this damned device in place for about 10 hours.” Pulver said his daughter was “incredibly grateful” to officers who spent hours with her “showing little regard for their own personal safety”. The drama began on Wednesday afternoon when the family contacted police saying Madeleine had been attacked and a strange device attached to her. Nearby homes were evacuated and streets cleared. The teenager told police a man wearing a mask broke into her home and confronted her while she was in the kitchen. The man forced her to stay still while he fitted the device to her neck, before fleeing the house. Moore said they had not identified a prime suspect and were trying to establish how the man got into the house. “We are treating this as an individual incident,” Moore said. “We have absolutely no information to suggest this is linked to any other crime.” New South Wales police’s assistant commissioner, Mark Murdoch, said the device was sophisticated and was designed to look like a bomb as part of a “very, very elaborate hoax”. Australia’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, said she was shocked when she heard about the case. “When I looked at it this morning, the first thing I said was, ‘It’s like a Hollywood script – the kind of thing you would see at the cinema or on TV’,” she told Fairfax Radio. Australia James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Google lawyer accuses rival companies including Apple, Oracle and Microsoft of running an anti-competitive strategy to stifle innovation and push up prices Google has accused Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and “other companies” of trying to make Android smartphones more expensive to consumers by running a “hostile, organised campaign” against it by using “bogus patents” acquired from the bankrupt Canadian company Nortel and their existing patent holdings. Its chief legal officer, David Drummond, alleges that the companies are effectively imposing a “tax” to push up the price of Android devices. “Microsoft and Apple have always been at each other’s throats, so when they get into bed together you have to start wondering what’s going on,” Drummond wrote in a blog post . But Microsoft has hit back, with its general counsel Brad Smith claiming on Twitter that Microsoft invited Google to bid jointly for the Nortel patents – and was turned down. Representatives from Apple and Oracle declined to comment. Drummond alleges that the rival companies are using an “anti-competitive strategy [which] is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re actually worth” and using them to stifle innovation. Drummond writes that “in this instance we thought it was important to speak out and make it clear that we’re determined to preserve Android as a competitive choice for consumers, by stopping those who are trying to strangle it”. He asserts that: “Microsoft and Apple’s winning $4.5bn (£2.7bn) for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1bn. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means – which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop.” A consortium including Microsoft, Apple and RIM won the bid for the Nortel patents , which cover a number of communications technologies, against a consortium of Google and Intel. Google had made a preliminary bid of $900m before the auction, but was eventually outbid despite having large reserves of cash. Drummond says: “A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a ‘tax’ for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation.” Microsoft has sued HTC, Motorola, Samsung and Barnes & Noble, claiming that their use of Android infringes patents that it holds, while Apple has filed a number of similar suits asserting patent claims against other companies. HTC has admitted that it is paying Microsoft a set amount for each Android device it sells. The amount has not been disclosed but it believed to be between $5 and $15. Apple recently won a ruling in the US that HTC infringes patents covering the iPhone. And Oracle is currently suing Google in a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit alleging that Android infringes copyright relating to its Java programming language, acquired through the purchase of Sun Microsystems. Google launched its Android mobile operating system at the end of 2007, with the first phones appearing about a year later. It makes it available for free to handset makers, unlike companies like Microsoft which charges around $15 per handset using its Windows Phone software. Android phones have exploded in popularity, making more than a third of all smartphones sold around the world. The platform has displaced the former leader Nokia, which is abandoning its Symbian operating system in favour of Windows Phone. Apple and RIM have their own mobile operating systems which they do not license. Google has been hampered by a lack of intellectual property in wireless telephony, which has exposed it to patent-infringement lawsuits from rivals such as Oracle. Drummond says Google is looking to strengthen its patent portfolio; it recently bought more than 1,000 patents from IBM. It is also in talks to buy InterDigital, a key holder of wireless patents valued at more than $3bn, according to the Wall Street Journal. The most valuable patent that it uses covers its “PageRank” search algorithm used for organising its search results: it has an exclusive license on that from Stanford University, where Sergey Brin and Larry Page developed it. Though the PageRank patent is now available for licensing, Google has the rights to determine who can license it. Patent acquisitions are expected to accelerate, with IBM and Kodak often mentioned as shopping intellectual property on the market. Google Apple Computing Oracle Software Microsoft Smartphones Mobile phones Android Telecommunications industry Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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Bank of Japan sells more than one trillion yen to stem currency’s value Japan has followed in Switzerland’s footsteps and intervened to stem the strength of its currency, which has been boosted by investors seeking safe-haven investments. The Bank of Japan had spent more than one trillion yen (£7.7bn) before the close of trading in Tokyo on Thursday, according to local reports, in an effort to drive down the value of the yen. It sold yen heavily on the foreign exchanges, and also eased monetary policy by expanding its asset purchasing scheme and offering more cheap loans to financial firms to encourage them to keep lending. The latest move in the crisis that is gripping the financial markets came as shares in London and Europe were expected to rebound, following Wednesday’s widespread heavy losses . Financial spreadbetters expect the FTSE 100 index in London to open some 30 points higher, while Germany’s Dax is seen opening 70 points higher and France’s CAC up 40 points. The intervention came after days of official warnings that the yen had risen so much that it threatened to derail Japan’s recovery from the devastating tsunami and earthquake in March. On Wednesday, Swiss authorities moved to stem what the national bank called the “massive overvaluation” of the Swiss franc. The Swiss National Bank announced a surprise interest rate cut to ease buying pressure on its currency. Japan’s intervention pushed the yen beyond a two-week low of 79 yen, from 77.10 yen. Finance minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan had consulted its international partners but acted on its own. “Japan is just in the process of recovering from a natural disaster so these currency moves are certain to have a negative impact on the economy and financial markets,” he said. Global economy Japan Economics Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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