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Monday, October 31, 2011
Celebrity Birthdays Today: Winona Ryder, Gabrielle Union, Amanda Beard & More!
Hello readers! It’s the late edition of Celebrity Birthdays today, time just got the best of me! I hope you’ve all been having a wonderful Saturday. For all my friends experiencing some snow today, stay warm! Hmmm, in my neck of the woods it was a beautiful 85 degrees. Not to rub it in or anything, heh heh. Who’s blowing out candles on some birthday cake today? A former Charlie’s Angel turns 63, the geek from Sabrina the Teenage Witch is 38 and ‘Homer Simpson’ is 54. Guess who? Happy Birthday, Winona Ryder! The ‘Heathers’ actress turns the big 4-0 today. We first caught glimpse of her when she starred in the 1986 film, Lucas, and it was in her next film, Beetlejuice, where she burst onto the scene. She would go on to star in many of my favorite movies, including Edward Scissorhands, Mermaids, Reality Bites, Little Women and Girl, Interrupted. We can’t talk about Winona without mentioning her little shoplifting jaunt back in 2001. Remember those ‘Free Winona’ T-shirts? Heh. She was sentenced to three years probation and had to perform community service. Her felony charges were later reduced to misdemeanors. Happy Birthday, Gabrielle Union! The Bring It [...]
Lens Band: A Livestrong Bracelet to Eliminate Zoom Creep [Photography]
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Somali militants post tape of 'US suicide bomber' (AP)
MOGADISHU, Somalia ? An al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group on Sunday posted a tape allegedly made by an American citizen who blew himself up during an attack on an African Union base in Somalia's capital that left at least 10 people dead.
The young man, who would be at least the fourth American to become a suicide bomber in Somalia, urges other young people not to "just chill all day" and instead fight nonbelievers around the world.
The website Somalimemo.net, often used by the al-Shabab militia, said Somali-American bomber Abdisalan Taqabalahullaah had emigrated to the U.S. when he was 2 years old.
It was not possible to verify the claims and the U.S. Embassy was not able to comment. U.S. authorities estimate that at least 20 American passport holders have joined the insurgents in Somalia. At least three of them became suicide bombers.
The young man had an American accent and mixed Muslim terminology with American slang as he urged Muslims to carry out attacks against non-Muslims around the world.
"My brothers and sisters, do jihad in America, do jihad in Canada, do jihad in England, anywhere in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in China, in Australia," the voice said. "Anywhere you find (unbelievers), fight them and be firm against them.
"Today jihad is what is most important thing for the Muslim ummah," he said, using a word for the Islamic community. "It is not important that you, you know, you you become a doctor or you become, you know, uh, some sort of engineer."
"We have to believe in Allah and die as Muslims ... Brainstorm," the youth said. "Don't, don't just sit around and, you know, be, be be a couch potato and you know, you know, just like, you know, just chill all day, you know. It doesn't, it doesn't, it will not benefit you, it will not benefit yourself, or the Muslims."
On Saturday, two suicide bombers blew themselves up in an attack on an African Union base that killed at least 10 people. The AU has not released official casualty figures but al-Shabab says dozens died.
About 9,000 AU peacekeepers supporting Somali government troops have almost pushed al-Shabab from the capital of Mogadishu. Earlier this month, Kenya opened a second front, sending hundreds of soldiers across the border into southern Somalia.
The insurgency is outgunned by both forces and has been weakened by a famine in its strongholds. But it still maintains the ability to carry off spectacular attacks, like a truck bomb that killed more than 100 people earlier this month, or Saturday's two-hour attack on the AU base.
Somalia has not had a functioning government in more than 20 years.
___
Houreld contributed to this report from Nairobi, Kenya.
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Python Digestion Study Holds Promise for Human Heart Health
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Researchers report that a combination of fatty acids expands the heart cells of a well-fed snake, a finding that holds promise for treating human heart disease and other ailments.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=6315feb29ebf21086df9c8747b85d9be
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Gap Insurance and Bad Credit Car Sales | Auto Credit Express Auto ...
There are at least two instances when gap insurance makes sense as part of no credit auto loans
In the know
Although gap insurance is never required, there are times when choosing it can be a good decision when accepting a problem credit auto loan.
We certainly know this because we?ve been in the bad credit car sales for close to twenty years here at Auto Credit Express.
A web site we constructed even covers the horrible credit auto loans process so applicants can avoid a tote the note dealer while studying the issues that can lead to repossession.
In particular, one thing that needs to be looked at is the benefits and drawbacks of gap insurance.
Why gap insurance?
Until the last payment, your car really belongs to lender. At the same time, if you get into an accident before it?s paid off, full coverage car insurance will pay for the damage, less your deductible.
Also, if you?re involved in an accident where the car is declared a total loss, the insurance company will pay its retail value (possibly less any deductible) at the time of the accident.
The only problem with this is that if you?re early enough into a loan and you only had a small down payment, your vehicle could be worth thousands of dollars less that the loan payoff. If this is the case, you?ll need to continue making payments until the remaining balance is paid in full.
Admittedly, this is a worst case situation, but it can and it has happened.
This is where gap insurance steps in: If you have it, the insurance company will pay the difference between the amount your auto insurance pays and the balance of your car loan (less any deductible ? although if you weren?t at fault, in many states your car insurance company will cover that as well).
When you need gap insurance
In some cases, gap insurance can be a waste of money. If you have a short-term loan (36 months or less) you will be in an equity situation, even with a bad credit car loan, in a short time.
Also, if your down payment was 20% or more, chances are very good that you will also be in an equity position for all or most of the loan ? especially if the term is 60 months or less.
But in just about every other situation, it usually makes sense to buy gap insurance.
As we see it
In at least two instances, buying gap insurance means you can avoid the possibility of paying thousands of dollars to a lender for a vehicle that?s been damaged beyond repair. You can also avoid defaulting on a loan if this situation might result in your inability to pay the remaining balance of the loan.
At Auto Credit Express we help people with bad credit find a dealer for their best chance at getting an approval for a bad credit car.
So if you?re serious about getting your car credit back on track, you can begin now by filling out our online car loans bad credit application.
Tags: Bad Credit, bad credit car sales, gap insurance
Source: http://www.autocreditexpress.com/blog/2011/10/29/gap-insurance-and-bad-credit-car-sales/
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Fresh iPhone Apps for Oct. 27: Modern Combat 3, Dawn of Magic, Riptide GP, Shantae (Appolicious)
Gameloft?s latest first-person shooter title, Modern Combat 3, kicks off this week?s big game night, but it?s not alone on our Fresh iPhone Apps list. Along for the ride is Dawn of Magic, a classic role-playing game with turn-based graphics and a very Japanese anime aesthetic; Riptide GP, a gorgeous 3-D racing game that puts you on a jet ski and watery tracks; and Shantae: Risky?s Revenge, an iOS port of a side-scrolling platformer that first graced the Nintendo DS.
Just in time for the release of the next Call of Duty: Modern Warfare title on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 comes Modern Combat 3, Gameloft?s first-person shooter franchise that closely parallels its console counterpart. If there?s one thing Gameloft does well, it?s mobile FPS games, and Modern Combat 3 doesn?t disappoint. It includes a 13-mission campaign mode with some pretty stellar graphics: this is a big-budget App Store title, to be sure.
In addition to Modern Combat 3?s story mode, the game also includes an online multiplayer mode in which as many as 12 players can compete. It has six maps to play on and seven different game modes to keep you interested, plus customizable weapons and leaderboards so you can track just how good you really are.
A role-playing game in the brand of the old school like the Final Fantasy series, story is paramount in Dawn of Magic. But that doesn?t mean there aren?t monsters to beat down and magic spells to cast by the truckload, either. The game includes a top-down world, a 16-bit aesthetic akin to the kinds of games we used to see in the 1990s, and turn-based battles that fans of older games may very well relish.
As you progress through Dawn of Magic?s story, you?ll gather companions to make up a team of three fighters you can take into battle, and you?ll be able to switch between them to make use of their different strengths. Dawn of Magic is a pretty big, involved game, and it includes multiple endings, which will give you an incentive to play it through more than once and make different choices.
Riptide GP (iPhone, iPad) $4.99
Great graphics and realistic water effects mark Riptide GP, a racing game in which you take to oceanic courses while riding a jet ski. Riptide uses tilt controls to control your racer, but managing a jet ski isn?t the same as a car or a motorcycle, so you?ll have to contend with water and learn some new skills in order to pick up the best times in all 12 of the game?s races.
Riptide packs three game modes: Race, Hot Lap (a time-trial mode) and Championship, a series of higher-level races in which you have to qualify in order to advance to the championship races. It also includes Game Center and OpenFeint support for leaderboards and achievements, and you can use OpenFeint to compete against your friends by trying to beat their times.
Part role-playing game, part side-scrolling platformer, Shantae is a port from the Nintendo DS that puts you in the roll of a half-genie fighting against another, eviler genie. You?ll explore towns and speak with the townsfolk in order to solve puzzles and complete quests, while searching for objects and power-ups that allow you to reach new areas. Along the way, you?ll battle enemies using Shantaeh?s hair as a weapon.
Shantae includes a fairly big and involved quest, a classic 16-bit graphical style and multiple save slots, so more than one person can enjoy the game on the same device. It also includes Game Center support to provide you with achievements to earn along the way.
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Rangers' Lowe wanted Game 6 in his hands
By DAVE SKRETTA
updated 3:49 a.m. ET Oct. 28, 2011
ST. LOUIS - Mark Lowe wanted the ball in his hand Thursday night.
The Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals had already waged a thriller for the ages, and they were still tied at the start of the 11th inning. Lowe came into the game to face David Freese, who earlier had driven in the tying runs to send the game to extra innings.
"If you don't want to be in that situation I was in as a pitcher," Lowe said, "you're in the wrong business. This is what I've worked for my whole career and I was where I wanted to be."
Too bad his pitch wasn't.
Lowe's change-up drifted over the plate and Freese tattooed it to center field, the winning homer sending the record crowd of 47,325 at Busch Stadium into a delirious frenzy. The homer gave St. Louis a dramatic 10-9 victory and forced the first Game 7 in the World Series since 2002.
"Just worked the count, and I was worried about getting on base, leding off an inning, taking a walk, breaking a bat, single, whatever," Freese said. "Full count came, and I knew he had a good change-up. So I kind of had that in the back of my head. But sitting here, he threw a change up, he shook to the change up and I got the head out."
The rest will go down in baseball lore.
"I didn't have the results I wanted," Lowe said, "but tomorrow's a new day and I could get in there and get a big out and nobody remembers this game. That's baseball."
Lowe hurt his hamstring doing aerobic exercises in late September, and he wasn't on the roster for the first two rounds of the playoffs. He was finally added just before the World Series opener last Wednesday, and his allowed one run on two hits in an inning of work during Game 3 in Texas.
That was his first appearance since Sept. 20 against Oakland.
He hopes to get another chance in Game 7 on Friday night.
"We've been coming back all year long," Lowe said. "It's not our first walk-off loss. We'll come in here ready to go."
___
BLACK AND BLUE: Two of the biggest hitters in the World Series are in wait-and-see mode for Game 7 after picking up injuries Thursday night.
Texas slugger Nelson Cruz strained his groin late in the Cardinals' dramatic, come-from-behind 10-9 victory, while St. Louis could be without outfielder Matt Holliday, who hurt the small finger on his right hand while sliding into third base in the sixth inning.
Cruz followed a homer by Adrian Beltre with one of his own in the seventh inning, but he flied out to right leading off the 11th. Cruz could be seen limping down the dugout steps, and Esteban German replaced him in the outfield in the bottom half.
"Cruz sort of hurt his groin a little bit, and I didn't want to take the chance and run him back out there," Rangers manager Ron Washington said. "I haven't had anything from the medical department as to the seriousness of it, but we'll just have to wait and see how everything is tomorrow."
Washington said that catcher Mike Napoli, who drove in his 10th run of the World Series earlier in Game 6, was OK after an awkward slide at second base. X-rays on his left ankle were negative.
"Napoli is fine," Washington said.
That doesn't appear to be the case with Holliday, who has been banged up a lot this season.
Holliday wandered too far off third base in the sixth inning. Napoli leaped from his crouch and fired a throw down the line, and Beltre slapped the tag on while guarding the base with his foot. Holliday's right hand bent at an awkward angle, and he was called out on the play.
Holliday said after that game he'll be ready Friday ? "I should be able to play," he said ? but manager Tony La Russa offered a more cautious assessment.
"We thought at first he had fractured it, but I was told by the trainer later that it's not a fracture," La Russa said. "I think it's swelling and he's got a pretty good bruise there. So it may be we need to replace him tomorrow."
___
SECOND FIDDLE: No matter how the World Series winds up, the Texas Rangers realize they won't be No. 1 back home. And that's all right.
"That's such a high standard, the Cowboys, in our marketplace," general manager Jon Daniels said. "But I don't really look at it as competition with them.
"I think that our fans are good enough and into the sports scene, especially the championship-caliber teams, that there's enough room for all of us," he added.
There's also the Mavericks to contend with.
Daniels notes attendance has picked up dramatically, with the Rangers drawing just under 3 million this season, "and it was the hottest summer on record."
"I know me being a pampered New Yorker, I had trouble handling it, and you would have, too," Daniels said. "And these guys are 40,000 strong in 106 degrees at 7:05 at night."
___
HALL OF FAME COIN: The House of Representatives voted this week to authorize the U.S. Mint to produce a series of coins honoring the 75th anniversary of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
The bill, introduced in July by Reps. Richard Hanna of New York, Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Joe Barton of Texas, passed by a vote of 416-3. It was co-sponsored by 295 members of Congress.
"The National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act unites every fan of the game in celebrating the timelessness of America's pastime," Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson said.
"The Coin Act will connect every generation in commemorating the impact Cooperstown has had on the national landscape," Idelson said, "honoring our baseball heroes while educating future generations on the historical significance of the game and its lore."
___
AP Sports Writer R.B. Fallstrom contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsFrom ugly to thriller
HBT: The final three innings of Game 6 were as exciting as can be. The first eight, well, they were rather iffy. But here we are, after a 10-9 Cardinals victory over the Rangers, a Game 7 left to decide who will be crowned champion.
Cards rally past Rangers, force Game 7
David Freese homered to lead off the bottom of the 11th inning, and the St. Louis Cardinals forced the World Series to a Game 7 by rallying from two-run deficits against the Texas Rangers in the 9th and 10th on Thursday night.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45069462/ns/sports-baseball/
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Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lern2Play
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Insurer adjusts, to pay 'miracle' Joplin survivor
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Mark Lindquist, of Joplin, Mo., reacts after being released from the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon, Mo. Lindquist, an underpaid social worker who nearly gave his life trying to save three developmentally disabled adults from the Joplin tornado, has been honored by both houses of the Missouri legislature, the Senate resolution calling him "a true hero and inspiration to others." (AP Photo/The Joplin Globe, T. Rob Brown, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Mark Lindquist, of Joplin, Mo., reacts after being released from the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon, Mo. Lindquist, an underpaid social worker who nearly gave his life trying to save three developmentally disabled adults from the Joplin tornado, has been honored by both houses of the Missouri legislature, the Senate resolution calling him "a true hero and inspiration to others." (AP Photo/The Joplin Globe, T. Rob Brown, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Mark Lindquist, of Joplin, Mo., and his sister, Linda Baldwin, walk together prior to Lindquist's release from the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon, Mo. Lindquist, injured in the Joplin tornado, ran up medical expenses that exceed $2.5 million, and the bills keep coming. He requires 11 prescriptions every day. In addition, he'll need more surgery. (AP Photo/The Joplin Globe, T. Rob Brown, File)
FILE - In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Mark Lindquist, of Joplin, Mo., is embraced by his sisters Vehrlene Crosswhite, left, and Linda Baldwin just before being released from the Missouri Rehabilitation Center in Mount Vernon, Mo. By all accounts, Lindquist is a hero, an underpaid social worker who nearly gave his life trying to save three developmentally disabled adults from the Joplin tornado. But heroism doesn't pay the bills, not when the tornado's 200 mph winds tossed Lindquist nearly a block, broke every rib, obliterated his shoulder, knocked out most of his teeth and put him in a coma for three months. (AP Photo/The Joplin Globe, T. Rob Brown, File)
ST. LOUIS (AP) ? Mark Lindquist, whose against-the-odds story of survival and heroism in the Joplin tornado touched people around the world, got some good news Monday: The insurance company that initially denied his medical claim agreed to pay.
Lindquist, 51, was hurt while trying to protect group home residents during the May 22 twister. Lindquist and a co-worker placed mattresses on top of three middle-aged men with Down syndrome in an effort to protect them from the tornado, even climbed atop the mattresses for added weight.
The group home residents died and Lindquist was in a coma for nearly two months, broke every rib, lost most of his teeth and suffered other catastrophic injuries.
Lindquist's job paid barely above minimum wage and he couldn't afford medical insurance.
He sought workers' compensation, claiming he was injured on the job. His company's workers' compensation provider, Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, denied the claim in June "based on the fact that there was no greater risk than the general public at the time you were involved in the Joplin tornado," according to a letter from a claims adjuster.
The decision was devastating because Lindquist's medical bills already are more than $2.5 million, and rising, his sister, Linda Lindquist Baldwin said last week.
But on Monday, a day after an Associated Press story, Accident Fund Insurance Company of America announced it was changing course.
"Upon further review of the case, and receiving additional information on the facts involved in this situation, Accident Fund believes the appropriate decision is to honor Mr. Mark Lindquist's claim for worker's compensation benefits," Mike Britt, president of the Lansing, Mich.-based insurance company, said. "We are committed to working with Mr. Lindquist to ensure he receives all the benefits to which he is entitled and helping him to recover from his injuries."
Lindquist said he was thrilled with the news ? not just for himself but for the doctors who saved him. He had planned to sell his house to try to pay off some of his bills. Now, he said, he may not have to.
"I'm happy ? it's a big worry off my mind," Lindquist said. "I'm glad the doctors are going to get paid because they did such an awesome job with me."
Baldwin said the family, which had planned to meet with an attorney when the claim was denied, still plans to weigh legal options before accepting the payment. But she said the family was overwhelmed by the turnaround.
"What it's going to mean for Mark is long-term help and medical care for him," Baldwin said, adding that Accident Fund has agreed to pay all past and future medical bills related to his injuries. "My only concern is that Mark's cared for. He's younger than I am and will probably outlive me, and I want to make sure he is cared for his entire life."
Britt cited Missouri law in the initial decision to deny Lindquist's claim. He said state laws "limit recovery for injuries received during a tornado to situations where the employee was not subjected to a greater harm than that of the general public."
But Britt said additional review indicated that paying the claim was appropriate.
The Joplin Globe first reported Lindquist's story earlier this month. The AP story published Sunday prompted interest from people, organizations and media nationwide, Baldwin said. Several well-wishers offered donations. An organization for trial attorneys offered up lawyers to work on Lindquist's behalf at no charge.
In an earlier interview with AP, Lindquist and Baldwin said the insurance company's decision to deny the claim never made sense. The EF-5 twister killed 162 people and destroyed more than 7,000 homes, making it among the most deadly single tornadoes in U.S. history.
But Lindquist's own home was not in the path of the tornado and was undamaged. And Lindquist said he never even considered trying to get away from the tornado and leaving behind the three men under his care.
"I loved them almost as much as I love my own kid," said Lindquist, the father of a 12-year-old boy, Creed.
Lindquist's employer, Community Support Services, also had asked the insurance firm to reconsider. Both houses of the Missouri legislature passed resolutions honoring Lindquist for his efforts to save the group home residents, the Senate resolution calling him "a true hero and inspiration to others."
The storm tossed Lindquist more than half a block. Two men out searching for survivors found him buried in rubble, impaled by a piece of metal. Large chunks of flesh were torn off, and pieces of his shoulder crumbled to the ground as the rescuers lifted him to safety.
Things got even worse when Lindquist developed a fungal infection from debris that got into open sores, an infection that killed five other Joplin tornado victims.
Lindquist wasn't expected to survive and was in a coma for nearly two months, first at Freeman Hospital in Joplin, then at a hospital in Columbia and finally at a rehabilitation center in Mount Vernon. It was there that he awoke.
"I'm a walking miracle," he said.
Doctors were stunned by his recovery. He moves slowly but walks. He is regaining use of his right arm and of an eye that was badly damaged. He suffers short-term memory loss but speaks clearly. And he is engaged to a woman he first met three decades ago in Montana ? they rekindled the romance on Facebook and she came to be with him after the tornado.
Amy Susan, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Division of Workers' Compensation, said that 132 workers' compensation claims were filed after the Joplin tornado. Only eight were denied by insurance companies.
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Monday, October 24, 2011
Sarkozy backs down on ECB crisis role (Reuters)
BRUSSELS (Reuters) ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy backed down on Sunday in the face of implacable German opposition to demands to use unlimited European Central Bank funds to fight the euro zone's deepening sovereign debt crisis.
European Union leaders wrangled for hours over procedure and made little apparent progress in forging a strategy to overcome the crisis despite pressure from international partners and financial markets for decisive action.
Sarkozy acknowledged that France's proposal to multiply the firepower of the euro zone's rescue fund by turning it into a bank and letting it borrow from the ECB was doomed for now because neither Germany nor the central bank would agree to it.
"No solution is viable if it doesn't have the support of all the European institutions," the French leader told a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Merkel said only two options remained on the table for leveraging the 440 billion euro ($600 billion) rescue fund, and neither involved drawing on the central bank.
Euro zone officials said the solution was likely to be a mixture of using the European Financial Stability Facility to provide partial guarantees to buyers of new Italian and Spanish bonds and creating a special purpose vehicle with the IMF to attract funds from major emerging countries such as China.
In the only tangible sign of progress on Sunday, leaders said they endorsed a broad framework drafted by their finance ministers for recapitalising European banks to cope with likely losses on Greek and other euro zone sovereign bonds.
But much time was spent on procedural squabbles with non-euro members Britain and Poland demanding that all 27 EU states, including the 10 that are not in the single currency, be fully involved in the crisis response. That forced the calling of another full EU summit for Wednesday evening.
With alarm growing in Washington, Beijing and other capitals about potential damage to the global economy, leaders effectively have four days to work out a comprehensive strategy to halt the crisis that began two years ago in Greece.
They aim to agree on reducing Greece's debt burden, strengthening European banks, improving euro area economic governance and maximising the firepower of the EFSF to try to stop contagion engulfing bigger states. But each of those issues is fraught with difficulty.
After seven hours of EU talks, Merkel told reporters that the decisions to be taken on Wednesday would not be the last step to overcome the crisis.
Before then, she must obtain parliamentary approval from her fractious center-right coalition for the latest series of increasingly unpopular bailout measures.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy acknowledged the Franco-German differences but said: "We are working in a spirit of compromise."
EU leaders pressed Italy to speed up economic reforms to avoid a Greece-style debt meltdown, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi agreed to do so, Van Rompuy said.
Merkel and Sarkozy began the day with a 30-minute private meeting with Berlusconi to underline what a German government source called "the urgent necessity of credible and concrete reform steps in euro area states."
Merkel warned in a speech on Saturday that if Italy's debt remained at 120 percent of gross domestic product "then it won't matter how high the protective wall is because it won't help win back the markets' confidence.
LIFELINE
Finance ministers made progress at preparatory sessions on Friday and Saturday, agreeing to release an 8 billion euro ($11 billion) lifeline loan for Greece and to seek a far bigger write-down on Greek debt by private bondholders.
They also agreed in principle on a framework for recapitalising European banks, which banking regulators said need just over 100 billion euros to help them withstand losses on sovereign bonds, although some details remain in dispute.
A document prepared by the ministers and seen by Reuters outlined possible guarantee schemes to help banks secure access to wholesale funding at a time when many are shut out of inter-bank lending.
The key outstanding issues were how to make Greece's debt burden manageable and how to scale up the rescue fund to shield Italy and Spain, the euro area's third and fourth largest economies, from bond market turmoil that forced Greece, Ireland and Portugal into EU-IMF bailouts.
Markets are concerned that Greek debt, forecast to reach 160 percent of GDP this year, will have to be restructured, but investors do not know what kind of damage they will have to take on their Greek portfolios.
A debt sustainability study by international lenders showed that only losses of 50-60 percent for private bondholders would make Greek debt sustainable in the long term. A senior German banker close to the talks said bank negotiators had offered to take a 40 percent writedown.
This is much more than a 21 percent net present value loss agreed with investors on July 21 and some officials question whether it can be achieved voluntarily, or only through a forced default that would trigger wider market ructions.
However a Reuters poll last week of economists -- many of them from European banks -- showed they expected private investors would be asked to shoulder losses of around 50 percent on Greek debt.
Euro zone officials say recession in Greece is much deeper than expected, the country is behind on privatisations and fiscal targets and market conditions have deteriorated in the past three months. Greek officials fear a run on their banks, the biggest holders of government debt, unless the write-down exercise is carefully managed to restore banks' solvency.
Analysts say the proposed bond insurance scheme could have perverse effects, creating a two-tier bond system in which secondary market prices would be depressed, and removing incentives for states like Italy to take action to reduce debt.
Another idea on the table is to create a special purpose vehicle with the International Monetary Fund to enable emerging nations and sovereign wealth funds to invest in euro zone government bonds. But some EU officials are reluctant to give states like China more say in Europe.
The European Banking Authority told European Union finance ministers on Saturday that if all such bank assets were valued at market prices, EU banks would need 100-110 billion euros of new capital to have a 9 percent core tier 1 capital ratio, an EU source familiar with the discussions said.
Ministers agreed to give banks until June 2012 to achieve this capital ratio, first using their own funds or from private investors, and if that fails, by using public money from governments or as a last resort the EFSF.
With Italy, Spain and Portugal unhappy about the issue on Sunday, but the source said it was unlikely an overall sum for recapitalisation would be explicitly mentioned.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker, John O'Donnell, Jan Strupczewski, Harry Papachristou and Illona Wissenbach; Writing by Paul Taylor; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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Arab strongman: With Gadhafi death, an era passes (AP)
CAIRO ? He often looked like a comical buffoon, standing before audiences, regaled in colorful robes, spouting words that most of the world considered nonsense.
Yet the death of Moammar Gadhafi was a milestone in modern Arab history, in some ways more significant than the overthrow of lesser autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt.
Gadhafi was the last of the old-style Arab strongmen ? the charismatic, nationalist revolutionaries who rose to power in the 1950s and 1960s, promising to liberate the masses from the shackles of European colonialism and the stultifying rule of the Arab elite that the foreigners left behind after World War II.
He was swept aside by a new brand of revolutionary ? the leaderless crowds organized by social media, fed up with the oppressive past, keenly aware that the rest of the world has left them behind and convinced that they can build a better society even if at the moment, they aren't sure how.
Gadhafi was the last of a generation of Arab leaders such as Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Hafez Assad of Syria and Saddam Hussein of Iraq who emerged from poverty, rising to the pinnacle of power either through the ranks of the military or the disciplined, conspiratorial world of underground political organizations.
None of the latter crop of Arab autocrats, including Assad's son Bashar, Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh and even Egypt's colorless, ousted president Hosni Mubarak, could rival them in their heyday in terms of charisma, flair, stature and power.
Their model was Nasser, the towering champion of Arab unity who ousted Western-backed King Farouk in 1952 and inspired Arab peoples with fiery speeches broadcast by Egyptian radio from Iraq to Mauritania.
But Nasser's dreams of Arab unity and social revival crumbled in defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, when Israel seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights of Syria. Nasser died three years later, and the fellow strongmen left behind led their countries instead into a political swamp of corruption, cronyism and dictatorship now challenged by the Arab Spring.
The hallmark of the Arab strongman was unquestioned power, the use of state media to promote a larger than life image and a ruthless security network that stifled even a whiff of dissent. That worked in an age before the Internet and global satellite television which opened the eyes of the strongman's followers to a world without secret police and economic systems run by the leader's family and cronies.
The Arab political transformation is far from complete. Autocratic rulers are facing challenges from their own people in Yemen and Syria. Bahrain's Shiite majority is pressing the Sunni monarchy for reform. Rulers in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are maneuvering to contain the Arab Spring.
Iraq is struggling to build a democracy eight years after American-led arms brought down Saddam's rule.
With Gadhafi's passing, however, a milestone has been passed. The future belongs to a different style of ruler, whoever it may be.
It may be difficult to imagine that the Gadhafi of his final years ? with his flamboyant robes, dark and curly wigs and sagging, surgically altered face ? was a trim, handsome, vigorous 27-year-old when he came to power.
as a strong and vigorous leader. Over the years he had become a caricature figure associated with grandiose dreams such as a "United States of Africa" or seizing all of Israel and sending Jews "back to Europe."
Even when he was younger, eccentricity was the mark of Gadhafi's public persona.
A generation ago, President Ronald Reagan described him as the "mad dog of the Middle East," and his fellow Arab leaders such as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat considered him a dangerous megalomaniac.
Journalists covered his speeches and international visits primarily for amusement.
Images of Gadhafi's final moments ? toupee gone, terrified, confused, powerless in the grip of men who may be about to kill him ? make the ousted tyrant appear more pitiable than powerful.
All that was far from his image when he and his comrades toppled a Western-backed monarchy in 1969 in a bloodless coup, promising to transform his poor, backwater country into a modern state.
Promising a new era for his people, Gadhafi closed a U.S. air base, forced international oil companies to hand over most of their profits from Libyan oil to the Libyan state and shook the world with his unabashed support for terrorist or insurgent movements in Northern Ireland, Palestine, Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Oil gave him a reach beyond his sparsely populated desert land and enabled him to pursue his revolutionary dreams.
In the 1980s, the lobbies of Tripoli's few hotels were populated by representatives of what the West considered the most dangerous groups on Earth ? stiff North Koreans wearing lapel buttons of their leader Kim Il-Sung, Palestinian extremists huddled over cups of sweet tea, European anarchists and revolutionaries ? all come to town to seek the oil-fueled largesse of the "Brother Leader."
While insisting that Libya was the freest nation on Earth, Gadhafi ruthlessly suppressed dissent, dispatched agents to assassinate his opponents abroad and drove thousands of Libyans into exile.
It all came crashing down in the final battle in his hometown of Sirte. A man who came to power as an Arab revolutionary and self-styled leader of the oppressed and downtrodden died a brutal and inglorious death at the hands of the people he purported to lead.
___
Eds: Robert H. Reid is Middle East regional editor for The Associated Press and has reported from the Middle East since 1978.
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Friday, October 21, 2011
Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL)
You can?t always expect a highly distinctive laptop for a bargain price, and that?s certainly true in the case of the Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL) ($649.99 at Best Buy). This is a laptop that, from features to performance to battery life, is a solid middle-of-the-pack selection: You won?t be disappointed with what you get, but you won?t be wowed, either. If all you need is a straightforward system for doing straightforward things, the I14RN-1364PBL will get the job done?merely without a lot of extra flair and individuality along the way.
Design
The glossy lid of the I14RN-1364PBL is decorated with a brushed-metal design, and colored in Dell?s relatively reserved Peacock Blue hue, with a silvery Dell logo positioned dead center providing the only additional adornment. The lid is the flashiest about this laptop, which is otherwise basic black all the way. The metal motif carries over onto the inside of the laptop for the palm rest, though the area between slightly scalloped keys in the chiclet-style keyboard is glossy plastic as well. The keys are not backlit, but a few?the power button, the Caps Lock key, and three in the upper-right corner for opening the Windows Mobility Center and the Dell Support Center, and switching to an external display?glow a bright white when pressed. The touch pad, located just left of center on the palm rest, continues the design, and seemed smooth and responsive; the mouse buttons were also acceptably clicky without being stiff.
The glossy 14-inch widescreen display, which is surrounded by a glossy black bezel (with the webcam predictably located along the top) looks bright, and fairly crisp for purposes of reading. Its resolution is 1,366 by 768, which is pretty much the going standard for laptops of this size. The laptop measures a respectable 1.2 by 13.5 by 9.7 inches (HWD), including the battery compartment that protrudes slightly from the rear. Because the I14RN-1364PBL weighs only 5.2 pounds, it?s not difficult to carry around.
Features
In terms of its internal hardware, the I14RN-1364PBL is par for the course. It?s powered by a 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-2330M CPU, a member of Intel?s 2011 ?second-generation Core? (aka ?Sandy Bridge?) processors. That chip operates with the Intel HD Graphics 3000 integrated video system, which means there?s no discrete card for supercharging gaming. There is, however, there?s a respectable 4GB of DDR3 RAM on board, and a nice-size 640GB hard drive for storing your programs and files. (The drive spins at 5,400rpm, also the typical speed for a laptop of this class.)
Port offerings run the gamut, from classic to contemporary. On the left edge you?ll find a VGA port for hooking up to an old-style monitor and an HDMI port for connecting to a newer one (or an HDTV). A combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port and a multiformat card slot (for SD and MMC) round out the options here; on the right edge, the DVD?RW drive is accompanied by the headphone and microphone jacks and a USB 3.0 port for conducting faster data transfers than USB 2.0 allows; and there?s another USB 3.0 port next to the Ethernet jack on the laptop?s rear panel (also where you?ll plug in your power brick).
If you don?t like the idea of Ethernet cables tying you down, the I14RN-1364PBL supports both 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Intel?s Wireless Display (WiDi 2.0) technology for streaming video and images to your HDTV via a Netgear Push2TV adapter (which is not included).
The operating system on the laptop is the de rigueur Windows 7 Home Premium, which comes preinstalled with a full slate of Dell utilities (including the Dell Stage launcher for easily accessing your videos, music, photos, and more), Microsoft Office 2010 Starter, a trial version of McAfee Security Center, and other bloatware-y items like the Bing Bar, Skype, Windows Live Essentials, and even an eBay link on the desktop.
Your investment in the laptop is protected by a one-year limited parts-and-labor warranty. Best Buy also has an extended warranty program, which offers customers an extra year of protection beyond the one-year warranty of most system manufacturers. There are two plans in this extended warranty program. The standard plan ($119.99) covers the system against normal wear and tear, power surge damage, and includes a ?No Lemon? guarantee in which Best Buy will simply replace the computer if it requires more than four repairs during the coverage period. Best Buy?s advanced plan ($219.99) offers all this, and also covers the system against accidental damage from drops and spills. Other special offers can be found online or in stores, like discounts on printers, software, and tech support plans which are available with any new consumer PC purchased through Best Buy.
Performance
In our benchmark tests, the I14RN-1364PBL for the most part delivered just the performance we expected of it. Its score of 1,844 on our PCMark 7 benchmark test was in line with the lower-end result (1,866)?we saw from the Samsung NP300E5A-A01UB ($599.99 list, 4 stars). The I14RN-1364PBL system was positioned similarly as far as video encoding, needing 2 minutes 30 seconds to convert a file in the open-source software Handbrake: That?s faster than the 3:33 we got from the?Gateway NV55S05u ($579.99 list, 4 stars) or the 2:39 from the?Toshiba Satellite P755-S5215 ($719.99, 3 stars), but well behind the pack leader and Editors? Choice Asus U56E-BBL6 ($699.99 list, 4 stars), with a time of 1:50, and the Lenovo IdeaPad V570-1066AJU ($629.99 direct, 4 stars), with a time of 1:52. The pattern continued for the I14RN-1364PBL with both its 2.09 score in the CineBench R11.5 rendering test (the highest, from the Lenovo V570-1066AJU, is 2.71; the lowest, from the Gateway NV55S05u, is 1.88) and its time of 5:27 processing 12 filters in Adobe Photoshop CS5 (the Lenovo V570-1066AJU was fastest, at 4:01, the Gateway NV55S05u the slowest at 7:48).
The I14RN-1364PBL?s gaming capabilities also proved less than remarkable, with it managing 16.3 frames per second (fps) in Crysis and 14.2 fps in Lost Planet 2, both at 1,024 by 768 with medium-level details; only the Gateway NV55S05u, with a superior graphics chip, could attain frame rates above the 30 fps threshold for smooth playability (and even then, only at this resolution).
With battery life, the story wasn?t much different. The I14RN-1364PBL?s 48Wh battery helped it last 5:23, which is longer than the Gateway NV55S05u (4:54) or Toshiba P755-S5215 (5:01), but nothing compared with the 7:42 the Asus U56E-BBL6 lasted or the 6:37 we saw from the Samsung NP300E5A-A01UB.
If you?re looking for a truly excellent budget laptop, the Dell Inspiron 14R (I14RN-1364PBL)? isn?t quite it?it lags behind other similarly priced and outfitted machines in every performance area. Still, it?s a sturdy little machine that should be able to handle almost any everyday task within reason. You can certainly do worse. But with other machines, such as the more powerful and longer-lasting-on-battery Editors? Choice Asus U56E-BBL6, you can also do better.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/11OoNoDI3vA/0,2817,2394894,00.asp
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Thursday, October 20, 2011
Does Ohio Need Stricter Exotic Animal Laws? (ContributorNetwork)
COMMENTARY | "Caution wild animals." The flashing words appeared for likely the first time on Interstate 70 in Ohio today. Approximately 51 animals were set free by Zanesville exotic animal collector Terry Thompson late Tuesday night before he took his own life. The incident has prompted renewed interest in tightening Ohio's very lax wild animals laws.
Liberal journalists are tapping away at their laptops blaming Gov. John Kasich for allowing an order issued by former Gov. Ted Strickland. The poor living conditions of many exotic animals and the potential for harm to Ohioans is not a partisan but a common-sense issue.
Gov. Kasich was never opposed to reforming exotic animal laws; he thought the sun-setting order was not strong enough and placed the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in charge of drafting a detailed plan. Kasich administration spokesman Rob Nichols spoke to local media today on the exotic animal laws issue. He reaffirmed the governor's commitment to reforming existing laws. According to Nichols, Gov. Kasich felt the Strickland order was not enforceable and had "no teeth."
The executive order issued by Strickland did not go far enough to prevent animal cruelty or to enhance public safety. The expired order did not ban the ownership of exotic animals; it only required owners to register their captive wild animals with the state. The liberal excitement to blame Gov. Kasich for the massive animal hunt going on in Zanesville is ridiculous.
Thompson had a permit for the animals he kept in small changes, so Strickland's order would have had zero impact on the current situation. Thompson's past animal care infractions may have prohibited a license renewal but he could kept his cruel collection by asking his wife to get a permit in her name.
The attack of an elderly caretaker at Kakos Exotics in Lorain County last month also would not have been prevented by the Strickland order. The owner had a permit to keep and sell the offspring of the kangaroo which turned the senior citizen into a bloody mess.
ODNR representatives have worked on new legislation which would have a real impact on exotic animal ownership, sell and transportation for several months. Hopefully common sense and compassion will prevail and true wild animal ownership reform will occur later this year.
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Study: Vaccine reduces malaria in African children
ATLANTA (AP) ? The quest for the world's first malaria vaccine appears to have taken a big step forward.
The first results from a late-stage test in seven African countries were released Tuesday. They show the experimental shots cut the number of cases of malaria in half in young children.
The vaccine still is at least three years away. More testing must be completed to see how well it works in infants and how long protection lasts. Then the vaccine will be reviewed by government agencies in Europe and in individual African nations.
GlaxoSmithKline developed the vaccine. It targets a malaria parasite found in sub-Saharan Africa. There are no plans to market it in the United States.
The research results were released at a malaria conference in Seattle.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Chilly, wet weather in forecast for Series opener
updated 6:32 p.m. ET Oct. 18, 2011
ST. LOUIS - Batter up ... and bundle up!
The weather forecast is calling for temperatures in the upper 40s with a chance of rain and wind for the World Series opener Wednesday night between the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals.
The wind chill is expected to drop into the upper 30s as Game 1 progresses. It was in the mid-50s as the teams took batting practice Tuesday at Busch Stadium, though some players wore ski caps.
It's been damp before in St. Louis during the World Series. A game in 2006 against Detroit was postponed by rain, and there was rain in 2004 against Boston.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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More newsA great matchup
HBT: This is a great World Series matchup of teams with similar strengths and weaknesses. In a close matchup, the Rangers get the edge because of depth.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44952102/ns/sports-baseball/
Wireless limit alerts will prevent surprising charges on your future bills (Yahoo! News)
FCC agreement ensures consumers won't be surprised by extra monthly charges
With much of smartphone advertising focusing on absurdly fast mobile data speeds, the fact that nearly all the major wireless carriers have some sort of monthly bandwidth limit can sometimes be accidentally overlooked. And if you happen to pass the data, voice, or text cap of whatever plan you've signed up for, you can expect overage charges to be tacked on to your normal monthly rate. A new FCC agreement hopes to prevent these charges from surprising consumers by alerting them of impending limits before they are reached.
For the past year and a half, the FCC has been keeping a close eye on carrier bandwidth limitations, and the sometimes surprising charges that go along with breaking them. The wireless carriers ? who make additional revenue off of users who often unwittingly pass their plan's arbitrary limits ? have been hesitant to pen a deal ensuring that all customers know when a cap is about to be broken.
Under the new plan, providers will be required to alert consumers when their monthly data, text, or voice limit is approaching, and then notify them again when they have broken each. Some wireless providers ? including Verizon ? already provide this convenience for many of their customers, but the new mandate ensures that all mobile users will benefit from the same built-in warning system. The FCC stated that the new notification system will be in place on all major carriers within one year.
(Source)
This article originally appeared on Tecca
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Hester, Bears run to victory
Hester scores two long TDs before getting hurt in Chicago's 39-10 blowout
Getty ImagesChicago's Devin Hester (23) tried to hold off Minnesota's Cedric Griffin during Sunday night's game in Chicago.
updated 12:20 a.m. ET Oct. 17, 2011
Between the long touchdown catch and an even bigger kickoff return, this was shaping up as a special night for Devin Hester.
Then, a chest injury cast a big cloud over it.
Hester set the tone with a 48-yard touchdown catch and scored on a career-best 98-yard kickoff return before leaving with a chest injury, and the Chicago Bears routed the Minnesota Vikings 39-10 on Sunday night.
Jay Cutler threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Julius Peppers had two sacks, and the Bears (3-3) held Vikings star Adrian Peterson to 39 yards rushing.
But Hester's injury dampened the mood on a night when they got a much-needed win.
Coach Lovie Smith didn't think the injuries to Hester and tight end Kellen Davis (elbow) were serious, but he's made similar statements in the past about players who wound up missing big chunks of time. Hester did not make himself available for comment.
His 48-yard TD pass from Cutler on Chicago's first possession got the Bears started quickly as they grabbed a 26-3 halftime lead. Hester's kickoff return early in the third quarter erased any chance the Vikings (1-5) had at a comeback.
"You feel you're getting ready to come back, and that kickoff return really changed the momentum," Vikings coach Leslie Frazier said.
It's no secret that teams are inviting danger by kicking to Hester, and Minnesota paid a big price right after Peterson scored on a 4-yard run.
Hester took the kickoff, turned to his right and was touched maybe once on the way to the end zone, making it 33-10. It was his first kickoff return for a touchdown since Nov. 25, 2007, against Denver.
"The shocking part to us is that people still kick to him because he is such a threat," Cutler said.
Or, as Smith put it: "We're all kind of witnessing history every time he touches it."
Hester set a record with his 11th punt return for a touchdown against Carolina on Oct. 2, but the good feelings gave way to concern when the announcement came early in the fourth quarter that he was finished for the game.
Along with the big return, Hester had five catches for 91 yards.
Cutler, meanwhile, had all the time he needed and - for one game, anyway - avoided a big beating. Never mind that league sacks leader Jared Allen was lining up for the Vikings, the Bears' maligned blockers held their ground.
That allowed Cutler to complete 21 of 31 passes while being sacked just once.
The defense did its job, too.
A surprise starter sitting out practice this week with a sprained left knee, Peppers got his two sacks and the Bears made things miserable in general for the Vikings.
Donovan McNabb threw for 177 yards and completed 19 of 24 passes before being lifted for Christian Ponder, but it was a brutal night for Peterson aside from that scoring run.
He simply couldn't get anything against a defense that had been giving up plays at an alarming rate, but the Bears can breathe a little easier after dropping three of four.
They still trail unbeaten Green Bay by three games and Detroit by two with losses to both teams, but they have to feel a little better about themselves as they get ready to play Tampa Bay in London next week.
They looked particularly good in the early going, piling on 151 yards to the Vikings' 43 while building a 16-3 lead in the first quarter.
Hester's TD catch over the middle on Chicago's first possession set the tone, and the Bears simply piled on from there.
Two plays after Adam Podlesh pinned the Vikings on their 5 with a punt, rookie Stephen Paea broke through the line for his first sack and the Bears' first safety since Danieal Manning got one on Aaron Rodgers at Green Bay in September 2009.
Chicago immediately drove 56 yards with Marion Barber running it in from the 3 to make it 16-0 with 3:39 left in the opening quarter. For the record, he didn't attempt a flip after a failed attempt against Carolina two weeks earlier when he landed on his face.
Then again, there were no missteps by the Bears early on.
A defense that came in ranked 29th overall and 28th against the run was all over the Vikings. The offensive line was doing its job, too. And the Bears were playing like a team that wasn't ready to fall into a last-place tie with Minnesota.
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More newsBrady rallies Pats to victory
Tom Brady threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Hernandez with 22 seconds left and the New England Patriots rallied to beat the Dallas Cowboys 20-16 on Sunday.
Giants bounce back, beat Bills
Ahmad Bradshaw ran for 104 yards and a career-best three TDs and Lawrence Tynes kicked a go-ahead 23-yard field goal with 1:32?left to give New York a 27-24?win over Buffalo on Sunday.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/44923507/ns/sports-nfl/
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Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Activision jumps into kids' game with 'Skylanders' (AP)
NEW YORK ? To impress kids these days, it's not enough to make another video game. Mere action figures won't do, either. So Activision is merging the two.
With "Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure," Activision is using some of its "Guitar Hero" technology in a new venture that's part handheld toy, part digital entertainment. Aimed at kids, "Skylanders" is among the latest and most ambitious game in a growing genre that blends a child's physical world with a video game and online media.
The new game marks Activision's latest stab at a must-have holiday hit, less than a year after it killed off its iconic "Guitar Hero" franchise. Although Activision Blizzard Inc. still has hit titles such as "Call of Duty," people are increasingly turning to free or cheaper games on mobile devices and social networks and buying fewer expensive video game discs that account for a large chunk of Activision's business.
"Skylanders," available for $70 beginning Sunday in North America, comes with three 2-inch-tall action figures ? Spyro, the fire-breathing purple dragon, of course, along with others, such as a guy made of tree trunks, or Eruptor, the lava man. Extra figures cost $8 each.
Using a plastic platform about six inches in diameter, the figures connect wirelessly to your video game system, the same way plastic instruments connect to on-screen musicians in "Guitar Hero."
As with other games, you still control their characters on the screen. But you need the figures, which store data and transmit characters' histories to the nearest game console. Each works like a wireless thumb drive for data storage. Connect it to the system, and the game recognizes all that the character has been through.
So you can start playing the game at home on a Wii, grab the Spyro figure and head to a friend's house. There, you can continue playing the game on the PlayStation 3 without losing all you've accomplished on the Wii version. This hasn't been possible before.
Sure, there's stuff like Webkinz, the toy animals that come with secret codes that kids type into a website to play with an online version of their pet. The "Skylanders" figures, though, become an integral part of the game because they store their characters' entire history inside.
"It's DNA-level play," says Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing. "How many times have you wished you could bring toys to life?"
Hirshberg calls it the "first true cross-platform game." That means you can play the game on the Wii, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo 3DS, online and on the iPhone and the iPad.
Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at M2 Securities who follows video games, said the concept is "very risky, but if it pays off, it's going to pay off big."
It's risky, for one, because there's no real way to tell what will drive kids and parents to a holiday feeding frenzy in the way Tickle Me Elmo did in 1996 and the Nintendo Wii did a decade later. It's also a relatively new foray into the world of kids' games for Activision, best known for its "Call of Duty" warfare shooters and the grown-up fantasy fighter "World of Warcraft."
Jeff McKinney, video game editor at Time to Play Magazine, said he played the game extensively over the summer and liked it. "It's a cool concept but if the game wasn't good, it was going to be a novelty."
Spyro has been around since the late 1990s, having gotten its start on the Sony Corp.'s PlayStation console. Activision is trying to breathe fire into the series by combining it with real-life toys.
It helps that Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow, two of the screenwriters for the original "Toy Story," are the writers of the latest game. As the story goes, Spyro and nearly three dozen other characters have been shrunk and frozen by an evil creature called Kaos. Their task: Battle, collect treasures and solve puzzles to save the world from Kaos.
"It's important that the toys were alive," says Yale Miller, producer at Activision. "Not just a piece of plastic manufactured somewhere."
Activision is also throwing its full marketing blitz behind the game. Although it won't say how much it's spending, analysts estimate it's at least in the tens of millions of dollars. Toys R Us has included it in its list of 15 "best toys" for the 2011 holiday season alongside Air Swimmers, the helium-filled, radio-controlled flying fish, and Leapfrog's LeapPad Explorer.
The toys use RFID technology, used by retailers, drug makers and shipping companies to track goods, to store information.
The game is rated E10, meaning it's suitable for everyone over 10.
If it succeeds, other game companies will likely follow. Nintendo, with its beloved Mario characters ? not to mention Pokemon ? is a likely candidate.
"I'm surprised they haven't done it yet," McKinney says.
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Israel says freed soldier in good condition (AP)
JERUSALEM ? The Israeli military says a medical examination has found freed Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit to be in good condition.
The army said Schalit held an emotional phone conversation with his family. It released a still photo of the smiling soldier speaking on the phone.
Schalit is to be flown later to his family at an air base in central Israel.
Schalit was freed by Hamas militants Tuesday after more than five years of captivity in Gaza. Israel is exchanging more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for him.
The Israeli military says Palestinians waiting for released prisoners at a West Bank checkpoint clashed with troops, who fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? Looking dazed, a thin and pale Gilad Schalit emerged from a pickup truck Tuesday under the escort of his Hamas captors and the Egyptian mediators who helped arrange the Israeli tank crewman's release after more than five years in captivity.
Freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, an ashen-faced Schalit struggled to breathe in an interview with Egyptian TV minutes after his release, saying that he had feared he would remain in captivity for "many more years." He said he was "very excited" to be headed home and that he missed his family and friends.
A short while later, the 25-year-old soldier was transferred to Israel, said Israeli army spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, who told a news conference: "Today, Gilad Schalit is with us."
In the first public sighting of Schalit since he was captured, he appeared thin with dark circles around his eyes in the brief video clip and interview broadcast on Egyptian TV. Wearing a black baseball cap and gray shirt, Schalit was taken from a pickup truck and escorted by a contingent of Egyptian officials and masked Hamas gunmen who had whisked him across the border.
The deal, the most lopsided prisoner swap in Israeli history, caps a five-and-a-half-year saga that has seen multiple Israeli military offensives in Gaza, an Israeli blockade on the territory and numerous rounds of failed negotiations.
The Palestinian prisoners, who included dozens of people who had been serving life sentences for deadly attacks, were returning to heroes' welcomes, while dozens of people prepared a joyous homecoming in Schalit's tiny hometown in northern Israel.
"Until we see him, we are following with concern and anticipation," Schalit's father, Noam, told Israel Radio from an air base inside Israel where his family was waiting to reunite with him.
The swap got under way early Tuesday as Hamas moved Schalit across Gaza's border with Egypt, while Israel simultaneously began freeing the Palestinian prisoners. At midmorning, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said his group was no longer holding the soldier.
Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV reported that a high-level Hamas delegation arrived on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with Gaza to hand over Schalit and to greet the returning prisoners.
In an elaborate operation, Schalit was then taken across Egypt's border into Israel and was being flown to the Tel Nof air base in central Israel to be reunited with his family.
Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was at the air force base with Schalit's family, telling them "Gilad will be returning to you shortly," according to a statement from his office.
Asked in a brief TV appearance whether this was the happiest day of his life, Noam Schalit said: "Yes." Noam Schalit has become a ubiquitous figure in Israel since his son's capture and led a massive campaign to press the government into bringing the 25-year-old home.
Before dawn, convoys of white vans and trucks transported hundreds of Palestinian prisoners to the locations in the West Bank and on the Israel-Egypt border where they were to be freed.
Preparations for a mass rally to greet the prisoners were in high gear in a large field in Gaza City. Hamas organizers set up neat rows of thousands of plastic chairs and erected a large stage that can hold hundreds of people. The stage was decorated with a huge mural depicting the capture of Schalit. Hamas orderlies handed out sandwiches and soft drinks to people arriving.
Armed Hamas security guards were deployed on rooftops overlooking the field.
In the West Bank, located on the opposite side of Israel, about 200 relatives of prisoners waited at a West Bank checkpoint as the exchange unfolded.
"We're so excited we can barely breathe," said Mariam Shkair, waiting for her brother, 52-year-old Abdel Latif, who spent 25 years in prison for killing an Israeli soldier. "We are waiting to hug him."
Some of the relatives raised Palestinian flags or the green banners of Hamas. A group of young men chanted, "We will continue our struggle."
The exchange, negotiated through Egyptian mediators because Israel and Hamas will not talk directly to each other, is going ahead despite criticism and court appeals in Israel against the release of the prisoners. Nearly 300 of them were serving lengthy sentences for involvement in deadly attacks.
The exchange involves a delicate series of staged releases, each one triggering the next. The Red Cross and Egyptian officials are involved in facilitating the movement of prisoners.
In Gaza, Hamas militants deployed in force along the road leading into Egypt where Schalit was taken. Shortly thereafter, hundreds of returning Palestinians were slated to enter Gaza on the same road.
When Tuesday's exchange is complete, 477 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, including 27 women, will have been released, several of them after decades behind bars.
More than 200 prisoners, originally from the West Bank, will instead be sent to the fenced-off Gaza Strip. And some 40 prisoners will be deported to Syria, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan, Palestinian officials said. Another 550 prisoners are slated to be released in two months.
Israel's Channel 10 TV said there was a delay at midmorning because two women were refusing to be sent to Gaza and instead asking to be sent to Egypt.
Little is known about Schalit's condition. Although he appeared healthy in the only time he has been seen in captivity ? in a brief and scripted 2009 video released by Hamas ? he was denied all visits, including by the Red Cross, and the state of his mental and physical health is unclear.
Schalit will then be flown by helicopter to an air force base in central Israel, where he will meet his parents, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense minister and military chief of staff.
An intense media campaign to free Schalit made him a national symbol in Israel, and all local radio and TV stations held special live broadcasts Tuesday, following every step of the exchange.
At the Schalits' hometown in Mitzpe Hila, an access road was guarded by police festooned with banners welcoming the soldier. At the entrance, dozens of youths wore white T-shirts with Schalit's image and waved Israeli flags. A loud cheer erupted when the video of Schalit was shown on Israeli TV.
Israel and Hamas have held numerous rounds of talks through German and Egyptian mediators. But officials on both sides have said that conditions prompted in part by the recent Egyptian revolution helped drive them to an agreement. Both sides have been eager to have good ties with the new Egyptian leadership, which brokered the deal.
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