KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan’s leader flew to the nation’s south on Tuesday as the region prepares to vote on secession and pledged to respect a division of the country into two new states if that’s the choice of the people. The rare visit by President Omar al Bashir came just five days before what’s expected to be an overwhelming vote for separation, fueled by mistrust and resentment after decades of conflict between the two sides. Bashir made clear that he prefers a united Sudan, but he reaffirmed a vow to recognize a new southern nation if that’s the outcome at the polls. “Whether unity or secession, people should respect it (the results) in good spirit,” said Bashir in a speech to…
Continue reading …Sony shows off 11.6-inch VAIO laptop with AMD Zacate goodness inside (hands-on)
January 5, 2011 No Comment
AMD’s Fusion processors might finally be well and truly official, but all the hardware that will wrap around them hasn’t yet filtered through into public knowledge. One such machine is the above, as yet unnamed, VAIO laptop from Sony. It’s an 11.6-inch machine driven by an E-350 Zacate chip (meaning a dual-core APU running at 1.6GHz ) and the particular unit we handled also came with 4GB of RAM, 500GB of HDD storage, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth and that utterly delectable pink lid. Construction felt solid enough, with little to no flex in the keyboard and a sturdy display hinge. This HDMI-equipped laptop also feels pretty light in the hand and is easy enough to hold and to adore with just one hand. The one thing that shocked and disappointed us was that once we unplugged it from the mains, the VAIO offered us a measly three hours and six minutes of autonomous runtime. Before you rush to accusing AMD of over-promising with its Fusion chips, do note that it was running an Internet Explorer-based graphical benchmark, which obviously isn’t your typical usage scenario, as well as Sony’s excessively frugal 3500mAh battery. This thing with a beefier power cell could be a pretty gorgeous lightweight mobile computer, in our opinion, let’s see if Sony decides to give us such an option when it makes it official some time soon. The AMD rep informed us that this and all the other Zacate laptops should be making their way to market in the next six weeks. Gallery: Sony shows off VAIO laptop with AMD Zacate goodness inside (hands-on) Sony shows off 11.6-inch VAIO laptop with AMD Zacate goodness inside (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Even though we’re still not convinced we’d ever need a videophone , we’d be remiss if we neglected to tell you that the kids from Leadtek have announced the US launch of the AMOR8210. Already making a pretty big splash in Taiwan, this bad boy features a cordless handset, VoIP and plain ol’ telephone support (via respective RJ45 and RJ11 ports), widgets (including audio and video players) and integration with surveillance and health monitoring devices. Pretty, pretty, pretty good, if you ask us. Interested? PR after the break. Continue reading Leadtek AMOR8210 videophone makes US debut at CES Leadtek AMOR8210 videophone makes US debut at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Click here to view this media In a press conference earlier today, House Democratic leaders unloaded on House Republicans for their hypocrisy on their effort to repeal health care reform. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was almost sneering when she made her remarks : Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, addressing reporters at a news conference with other House Democratic leaders Tuesday, called the GOP move “disingenuous” and “nothing but political theater.” “It is a Kabuki dance,” she said. “The fact of the matter is we’re not going to repeal health care. It is not going to happen.” Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, cited projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noting that the Democrats’ overhaul will lower the federal deficit over the long term. As a result, she argued, a GOP-led health care reform repeal would “do very serious violence to the national debt” — undermining a central Republican pledge of fiscal responsibility. The Republicans “will employ budget gimmicks” and “Enron-type accounting” to make the claim that a repeal of health care reform won’t increase the debt, predicted Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland. “That kind of flim-flam” is what people came to expect of Republicans the last time they ran Congress, he said. Of course it’s theater. They’ve got to play to the base, after all and hold a symbolic vote on a symbolic bill which will never go anywhere. The repeal bill uses the term “job-killing” at least 5 times according to Dave Weigel, and of course, it’s named the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”, after all. That title and this little act of foot-stomping on the part of Republicans makes me want to tell them all that it’s nap time in Washington, hand out their pacifiers and blankies and turn out the lights. Who will win the framing war on this one? Will it be the GOP, with their “job-killing” frame, or the Dems with their “Enron-type accounting” frame? GOP has long held that the health reform law is a ‘job-killing’ bill, but never put any statistics up to support that. Also, as DeLauro notes, somewhere between the campaign and the draft of this bill, the word “replace” was forgotten. Repeal, yes. Replace? Not so much.
Continue reading …Seagate reveals 9mm 2.5-inch GoFlex external HDD, third-party GoFlex certification process
January 5, 2011 No Comment
CES is just kicking off in earnest tonight in Vegas, and Seagate’s wasting no time in dishing out a smattering of new releases. Up first is the outfit’s slimmest external drive yet: the new, ultrathin GoFlex HDD, which holds a 2.5-inch drive within, but measures just 9mm thick — that’s 38 percent slimmer than the existing GoFlex drive. At least initially, it’ll only be offered in a 320GB model, and the USB 3.0 port ensures that it’ll run laps around your older USB 2.0 model. Mum’s the word on pricing, but you can expect it to ship out this spring. Moving on, there’s a new raft of GoFlex for Mac external drives, which arrive HFS+ formatted and ready to play nice with Time Machine. Each one ships with FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 adapters, but allow for USB 3.0 or eSATA to be used with Windows PCs. The GoFlex for Mac houses a 2.5-inch HDD and will sell for $199.99 (1TB) / $249.99 (1.5TB), while the limited edition of that very product will only be available in a 1TB ($199.99) version. There’s also a GoFlex Pro for Mac, housing a 7200RPM 2.5-inch HDD and costing $149.99 (500GB) or $179.99 (750GB). Wrapping up this collection, there’s a GoFlex for Mac drive that’ll go for $219.99 (2TB) or $279.99 (2TB). Lastly, and potentially more importantly, Seagate is finally opening up the GoFlex standard that it has been pushing so vigorously of late. As of now, the only products that support the GoFlex platform — which allows various connectors to be attached to your existing HDDs — are Seagate-branded. But today, Seagate’s revealing a Certified GoFlex Storage System that’ll enable third-party vendors to make wares that are also welcome in the family. Here at CES, the company is planning to showcase a line of prototype concept devices, and while we’ve yet to see what exactly those are, we are told that the certification also endorses the soon to be established SATA-IO Universal Storage Module (USM) specification. Better still, a number of other companies (Antec, GIEC, Hi-Sense, Ionics and Thermaltake) are planning to showcase GoFlex-approved gear here at the show, including a TV, a laptop, desktop PC, “plug computer,” DVR and docking station. Needless to say, the possibilities here are near-endless, and we’re definitely looking forward to see just how many odd places a GoFlex adapter ends up . Update: We just got a look at what the SATA-IO USM modules slots might look built into the likes of a ThermalTake case — spot them immediately below! Gallery: SATA I/O Universal Storage Module at CES 2011 Continue reading Seagate reveals 9mm 2.5-inch GoFlex external HDD, third-party GoFlex certification process Seagate reveals 9mm 2.5-inch GoFlex external HDD, third-party GoFlex certification process originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Juba (Sudan): Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir arrived to a red-carpet welcome at Juba airport on Tuesday, on a rare trip to the south just five days before it votes in a referendum on independence. Mr. Bashir was greeted on his arrival by southern leader Salva Kiir, senior southern…
Continue reading …By Amy Goodman When it comes to food safety, as with airline safety, mine safety, pick an industry: Regulations save lives. Related Entries January 4, 2011 Obama Signs Big, Pricey Food Bill January 4, 2011 GOP Gears Up to Take Down Health Care Reform
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The battle for the connected living room is about to heat up in a big way: the Wall Street Journal reports that Cisco will announce a new series of connected cable boxes here at CES tomorrow, as part of a larger announcement that combines online video with recorded and live television. You scoff now, but keep in mind that Cisco owns Scientific Atlanta, which makes an absolutely huge number of cable boxes for providers like Time Warner and Comcast — and if Big Cable embraces connected TV by distributing integrated Cisco hardware, well, we’d say upstarts like Apple and Google might just go home with their tails between their legs. On the other hand, the WSJ says “cable operators will be able to customize the software interface and decide on pricing” for Cisco’s new boxes, so it’s possible America’s favorite corporations will completely bungle everything at the first opportunity. We’ll be there live tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens. Cisco joining connected TV party with updated cable boxes at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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CNN's Eliot Spitzer on Monday's Parker-Spitzer bizarrely labeled former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney “very conservative” on Monday's Parker-Spitzer as he cited the prominent Republican's support for legislation similar to ObamaCare: “I think it was interesting…that Governor Romney, a very conservative Republican , embraced the notion of the individual mandate as a governor” (audio available here ). Spitzer and co-host Kathleen Parker brought on Congressman-Elect David Schweikert just before the bottom of the 8 pm Eastern hour to discuss congressional Republicans' aim to pass a repeal of ObamaCare during the upcoming session. During most of the interview, the former Democratic governor of New York pressed the Arizona Republican about the individual mandate. Midway through the segment, the CNN host asked, “But wasn't the idea behind the individual mandate basically saying to people who do not buy insurance, since you're going to get the care, we're going to charge you something so that when you get it…you've paid for it. Isn't- is that a notion you think is fair at its root?” [ Video embedded below the page break ] read more
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Blackbirds are having a hard time staying alive in the Southeastern US Just a few days after 3000 blackbirds fell from the sky in Arkansas, about 500 birds dropped to their death in Louisiana, littering a stretch of highway near Baton Rouge. (Jan. 4)
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