Facebook has launched a new photo sharing smartphone app called Camera.
The software allows users to take multiple pictures and share them at once rather than having to upload them one at a time.
Camera also features a feed of friends’ photos.
The launch is unexpected as the program offers users similar tools to Instagram which the social network is in the process of taking over.
Both apps allow users to add filters and make other tweaks to photographs.
Facebook’s Camera photo sharing app offers users similar tools to Instagram which the social network is in the process of taking over
Facebook has agreed to pay $1 billion for Instagram, but the acquisition has not been completed.
Brian Blau, research director at the technology analysts Gartner, said the move may surprise some, but thought it made sense.
“Facebook has to move its business forward,” he said.
“It said earlier that it would keep Instagram as a separate business, but you need to bear in mind that it is buying a unique social network with a specific demographic.
“By doing this Facebook allows Instagram to remain intact while adopting some of its features to ensure its core service maintains its lead as the internet’s most used photo sharing site.”
At present Camera only works on Apple’s smartphones and tablets.
A news release from Facebook did not mention when it might be released for Android or other systems.
The Vatican says it has detained a person, named by Italian media as Paolo Gabriele, who is suspected of leaking a series of confidential documents and letters to the media.
Reports citing unnamed sources said he was the Pope Benedict’s personal butler.
The “Vatileaks” scandal, as it is known, has enraged the Holy See. The leaks have revealed alleged corruption, mismanagement and internal conflicts.
The Vatican said the person detained was being questioned by Vatican magistrates.
Last month, Pope Benedict XVI set up a special commission of cardinals to investigate the leaks.
“The inquiry carried out by Vatican police… allowed them to identify someone in possession of confidential documents,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists.
“This person is currently being questioned.”
Italian media have named the arrested man as Paolo Gabriele, a personal butler and assistant to Pope Benedict XVI and one of very few laymen to have access to the Pope’s private apartments.
Italian media have named the arrested man in Vatileaks scandal as Paolo Gabriele, a personal butler and assistant to Pope Benedict XVI and one of very few laymen to have access to the Pope's private apartments
Among the select number who are allowed to enter the Pope’s private study include four nuns and two secretaries, as well as the butler.
Italian media reports said that a stash of confidential documents had been discovered at his flat, within the walls of the Vatican.
The news of the arrest comes just a day after the president of the Vatican bank, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, was ousted by its board.
The official reason for his departure was his failure to fulfill the “primary functions of his office”, the Vatican has said.
But, according to reports, he was also suspected of being involved in the leaking of the documents.
Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said had been punished for his attempt to make the bank more open.
“I have paid for my transparency,” he told Reuters.
The Vatileaks scandal has filled Italian media – dominating the columns of Italian newspapers and filling TV programmes and magazines.
The leak of a string of highly sensitive internal documents from inside the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, including personal letters to Pope Benedict XVI, has been an evident embarrassment to the Pope, prompting the rare investigation.
The leaked documents include a letter to Pope Benedict by the Vatican’s current ambassador to Washington alleging cronyism, nepotism and corruption among the administrators of Vatican City.
Others concern “poison pen” memos criticizing Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope’s number two, and the reporting of suspicious payments by the Vatican Bank.
If the person detained is a layman he would be put on trial in Italy, under Italian criminal law.
But if he is a churchman, he could be tried for breaching ecclesiastical law by a Vatican tribunal, though this would be extremely rare.
SpaceX unmanned Dragon cargo ship has been successfully attached to the International Space Station (ISS).
Astronauts onboard the platform used its robotic arm to grasp the vehicle and attach it to a berthing port.
Dragon is the first commercial vessel to visit the space station.
It is also the first American ship to go to the orbiting laboratory since NASA retired its shuttles last year.
US astronaut Don Petit was inside the ISS at the controls of the Canadarm2.
Don Petit reached out with the robotic appendage and grabbed the Dragon capsule at 13:56 GMT.
SpaceX unmanned Dragon cargo ship has been successfully attached to the International Space Station (ISS)
“Houston, looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail,” Don Petit radioed to NASA mission control in Texas.
The capture was met by applause from controllers, at the NASA centre and at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California, where Dragon’s flight is also being overseen.
Just under two hours later, Don Petit used the arm to position the Dragon under the ISS’s Harmony connecting node. A good seal was confirmed at 16:02 GMT.
The ISS crew will go inside the ship on Saturday to unload its stores.
The attachment of Dragon to the platform marks a significant milestone in the history of human spaceflight.
Traditionally, this field of endeavor has been the preserve of government-owned and operated vehicles.
But NASA is looking to save money that it can then re-invest in some of its other programmes far beyond Earth, at asteroids and at Mars.
It believes this can be achieved by contracting out the more routine tasks in low-Earth orbit to the private sector.
To that end, it is providing seed funding of approximately $800 million to SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences Corporation, to help them develop new rocket and cargo vehicles.
Orbital’s rocket is called Antares, and its freighter is known as Cygnus. The pair should go into space together for the first time before the end of the year.
Once these companies have proved the performance of their systems, they will start to receive lucrative ISS re-supply payments.
For SpaceX, its contract is valued at $1.6 billon and calls for a minimum of 12 Dragon cargo missions to the ISS.
But freight is just the start. The ferrying of crews to and from the ISS will be the next service NASA buys in.
SpaceX wants this business as well, and is developing the safety and life-support equipment that would allow Dragon to double up as an astronaut taxi.
Veteran comedian Joan Rivers believes it isn’t too soon to joke about Whitney Houston in her grave.
In her book, I Hate Everyone… Starting With Me, which includes a section on travel, Joan Rivers writes: “I hate Houston. It’s crawling with bugs. Oh, wait, that’s Whitney Houston; I’m sorry, my bad.”
Some complained it was too soon, but if you think Joan Rivers is backing off because of a little criticism, she won’t.
Veteran comedian Joan Rivers believes it isn't too soon to joke about Whitney Houston in her grave
A report notes that the 78-year-old Brooklyn native “delivered her A-game for 70 minutes Tuesday night to an estimated crowd of 1,600 at the Hanover Theatre for the Performing Arts.”
Joan Rivers made fun of Goldie Hawn still thinking she’s a hottie (“Do you believe I have a grownup daughter?” “Yes!”).
Dick Clark not retiring from “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” after suffering a stroke (After mocking Clark’s slurred speech, Joan Rivers said: “Dick. It’s (expletive) March); kids on planes (“Where’s Casey Anthony when you need her?”).
Whitney Houston got it again, (“Can I just mention that Whitney looked fabulous at the Grammys? She was in mahogany from head to toe”) and what would have happened if they had Twitter back in the day (“Hi, This is Joan of Arc. Is it just me or do I smell smoke?” and “It’s Amelia Earhart. Where the (expletive) am I?”)
An international team of researchers has identified what they say are the oldest-known musical instruments in the world.
The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe by modern humans – Homo sapiens.
Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old.
The findings are described in the Journal of Human Evolution.
A team led by Prof. Tom Higham at Oxford University dated animal bones in the same ground layers as the flutes at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany’s Swabian Jura.
Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old
Prof. Nick Conard, the Tuebingen University researcher who identified the previous record-holder for oldest instrument in 2009, was excavator at the site.
He said: “These results are consistent with a hypothesis we made several years ago that the Danube River was a key corridor for the movement of humans and technological innovations into central Europe between 40,000-45,000 years ago.
“Geissenkloesterle is one of several caves in the region that has produced important examples of personal ornaments, figurative art, mythical imagery and musical instruments.”
Musical instruments may have been used in recreation or for religious ritual, experts say.
And some researchers have argued that music may have been one of a suite of behaviors displayed by our species which helped give them an edge over the Neanderthals – who went extinct in most parts of Europe 30,000 years ago.
Music could have played a role in the maintenance of larger social networks, which may have helped our species expand their territory at the expense of the more conservative Neanderthals.
The researchers say the dating evidence from Geissenkloesterle suggests that modern humans entered the Upper Danube region before an extremely cold climatic phase at around 39,000-40,000 years ago.
Previously, researchers had argued that modern humans initially migrated up the Danube immediately after this event.
“Modern humans during [this] period were in central Europe at least 2,000-3,000 years before this climatic deterioration, when huge icebergs calved from ice sheets in the northern Atlantic and temperatures plummeted,” said Prof. Tom Higham.
“The question is what effect this downturn might have had on the people in Europe at the time.”
Kim Kardashian stunned when she showed up to the amfAR gala with a classic, Old Hollywood style look in a canary yellow gown to the Cinema Against AIDS event at the Hotel du Cap in Cannes.
But instead of finishing off her look behind closed doors to give the air of perfection, Kim Kardashian flossed and picked her nails as she retouched herself on a yacht.
Kim Kardashian, 31, was seen reapplying her foundation, fiddling with her nails and even flossing before she left for the public event.
And she obviously wanted to look her best as she played with her bracelet and kept on checking herself in the mirror.
But when she was finally ready she was the belle of the ball at the glitzy event.
Kim Kardashian was seen reapplying her foundation, fiddling with her nails and even flossing before she left for amfAR Gala Cinema Against AIDS in Cannes
Fans have noted a definite change in Kim Kardashian’s red carpet style since she started dating Kanye West.
Kim Kardashian’s retro-inspired gown billowed in the breeze as she arrived at the star-studded gala in Cap D’Antibes.
While she certainly went for a more classic style, Kim Kardashian ensured there was still plenty of provocative skin on show with a daring slit up one leg and a plunging neckline that revealed her ample cleavage.
She continued her glamorous theme with Forties’ style curls and bright red lipstick.
Enormous diamond earrings completed the look.
Perhaps the reason behind her classic makeover was boyfriend Kanye West’s absence. The pair have been glued to each other sides during their stay in both London and Cannes but her was absent from the amfAR gala.
Kanye West even flew straight to Cannes from his last show at the London O2 arena, so eager he was to not miss a night with Kim Kardashian, after she flew out earlier in the day.
Inside the prestigious party, Kim Kardashian was pictured enjoying a laugh with her good friend Heidi Klum.
The ladies, who became friends after Kim Kardashian appeared on Project Runway last year, have been spotted gossiping at a number of showbiz parties this week in Cannes, and even enjoyed lunch together aboard a boat a few hours before the amfAR party.
The annual Cinema Against AIDS benefit raises money for AIDS research.
Kosovar Albanian actress Arta Dobroshi ended up being the centre of attention at Cannes Film Festival 2012 thanks to an unfortunate “Marilyn Monroe” moment which saw her skirt blow up to reveal her derriere in one of the worst faux pas’ of the festival so far.
Arta Dobroshi was to promote her movie Trois Mondes (Three Worlds) along with co-stars Raphaël Personnaz and Clotilde Hesme.
The actress turned up looking demure in a blue high waisted skirt with a cream top tucked in and she finished her look off with some nude snakeskin heels with her hair scraped into a high bun.
But Arta Dobroshi ran into problems thanks to the breezy weather in Cannes today.
Arta Dobroshi shows her derriere in embarrassing "Marilyn Monroe" moment at Cannes Film Festival 2012
As she tried to look her best and pose for the waiting cameras her skirt blew up and was reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s infamous white frock moment which saw her dress being blown upwards.
But Arta Dobroshi appeared unaware just how much she was revealing as she continued to pose and smile at photographers who were getting a bit more than they bargained for.
She managed to finally pose with her outfit the way it was supposed to look with the skirt firmly in place.
And she later sat with her co-stars as they posed during the photo shoot for the film.
A new male contraceptive pill could be developed after researchers in Edinburgh, UK, have identified a gene critical for the production of healthy sperm.
Experiments in mice found that the gene, Katnal1, was vital for the final stages of making sperm.
The authors of a study in PLos Genetics said a drug which interrupts Katnal1 could be a reversible contraceptive.
A fertility expert said there was “certainly a need” for such a drug.
Contraception in men is largely down to condoms or a vasectomy.
Experiments in mice found that gene Katnal1 was vital for the final stages of making sperm
Researchers at the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh were investigating the causes of male infertility.
They randomly altered the genetic code of mice to see which became infertile. They then traced the mutations which led to infertility, which led them to Katnal1.
It contains the blueprints for a protein which is important in cells which support the development of sperm. Without the protein, sperm do not fully form and the body disposes of them.
Scientists hope they will be able to perform a similar trick in humans to stop sperm developing, without causing lasting damage.
One of the researchers Dr. Lee Smith said: “If we can find a way to target this gene in the testes, we could potentially develop a non-hormonal contraceptive.
“The important thing is that the effects of such a drug would be reversible because Katnal1 only affects sperm cells in the later stages of development, so it would not hinder the early stages of sperm production and the overall ability to produce sperm.”
He said it would be “relatively difficult” to do as the protein lives inside cells, however, he said there was “potential” to find something else that protein worked with, which might be an easier target.
Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei has filed a competition complaint against US firm InterDigital with European Union regulators.
Huawei accuses InterDigital of “abusing” its position and demanding “exploitative” fees to use its patented technology, said to be essential to 3G in mobile devices.
It added that such moves were against the EU rules which require holders to licence their patents fairly.
InterDigital said it was “committed” to those rules.
Huawei said in a statement: “InterDigital is seeking to leverage its declared 3G standard essential patents to force Huawei to conclude a discriminatory, unfair and exploitative license.
“InterDigital’s demand manifestly breaches the policies of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute calling for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing practices by technology patent holders.”
Huawei accuses InterDigital of "abusing" its position and demanding "exploitative" fees to use its patented technology, said to be essential to 3G in mobile devices
InterDigital, which is based in Philadelphia, owns more than 19,500 mobile communications patents and patent applications.
Huawei said that InterDigital had been trying to take advantage of the dominant position it enjoys in the sector and despite negotiations the two firms had not been able to reach an agreement.
However, InterDigital said that it had been following the rules set by regulators while dealing with various companies across the globe.
“Our long and successful track record of licensing more than 50 companies throughout the mobile industry is proof of that commitment, and of our ability to reach mutually agreeable terms for such licenses,” Lawrence Shay, President of InterDigital’s patent holding subsidiaries said in a statement.
This is not the first time that the two firms have been involved in a patent-related dispute.
Last year, InterDigital lodged a complaint against Huawei, along with another Chinese phone maker ZTE and Finland’s Nokia, accusing them of infringing seven of its patents.
A policeman has been killed and 17 people have been injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside a police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri.
The two attackers, who also died, tried to ram a car into the building in the town of Pinarbasi, Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin said.
A bomb in the vehicle went off shortly after clashes with security guards.
Sixteen civilians and another police officer were also injured, some seriously, reports said.
Some of the people who were hurt were the children of officers staying in nearby police lodgings, Idris Naim Sahin said.
The condition of the second police officer was unclear but Hurriyet newspaper said that he had been revived in hospital.
A policeman has been killed and 17 people have been injured in a suspected suicide bomb attack outside Pinarbasi police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri
The interior minister described how the car had earlier sped through a police check point 90 km (55 miles) away in neighboring Kahramanmaras province, ignoring police calls to stop.
The attackers had driven into Pinarbasi after abandoning plans to strike another, unidentified target, reports said.
Television footage showed frantic scenes outside the police station, with fire engines and ambulances on site. Local media described an exchange of gunfire just before the bomb exploded.
“I heard a gun being fired and saw a policeman fall to the ground and suddenly there was an explosion. Shattered glass cut my hands, and I ran inside,” eyewitness Bahattin Ekinci said.
It is not clear if the device was detonated deliberately or as a result of the shooting.
Hasan Gumus, a civil servant who was working near the scene, said he and his colleagues had heard a “huge blast”.
“We saw a big cloud of smoke rising,” he told Reuters news agency.
Kayseri province is in the centre of Turkey, about 325 km from the capital, Ankara.
Nobody has so far said they carried out the bombing. But in an apparent reference to the separatist Kurdish PKK movement, Idris Naim Sahin said: “The crazy attacks of the terrorist organisation are continuing.”
Clashes between the PKK and the Turkish armed forces have increased in south-eastern Turkey over the past year, and the PKK has in the past carried out bombings in other parts of the country.
In September a powerful bomb in Ankara killed three people and wounded 15. That blast was blamed on the PKK.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will host the biggest radio telescope ever built.
The nations belonging to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) organization took the decision at a meeting on Friday.
The 1.5 billion-Euro SKA’s huge fields of antennas will sweep the sky for answers to the major outstanding questions in astronomy.
They will probe the early Universe, test Einstein’s theory of gravity and even search for alien intelligent life.
The project aims to produce a radio telescope with a collecting area of one million square metres – equivalent to about 200 football pitches.
To do this, it will have to combine the signals received by thousands of small antennas spread over thousands of kilometres.
The 1.5 billion-Euro SKA's huge fields of antennas will sweep the sky for answers to the major outstanding questions in astronomy
South Africa and Australasia had put forward separate, competing bids, and the early indications had been that there would be one outright winner.
But the SKA organization decided both proposals should contribute something to the final design of the telescope.
“We have decided on a dual site approach,” said SKA board chairman John Womersley.
He was speaking at a press conference held at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport following a meeting of the organization’s members in the Dutch capital.
The SKA’s targets will be radio sources in the sky that radiate at centimetre to metre wavelengths.
These include the clouds of hydrogen gas in the infant Universe that collapsed to form the very first stars and galaxies.
The SKA will map precisely the positions of the nearest billion galaxies. The structure they trace on the cosmos should reveal new details about “dark energy”, the mysterious negative pressure that appears to be pushing the Universe apart at an ever increasing speed.
The telescope will also detail the influence of magnetic fields on the development of stars and galaxies. And it will zoom in on pulsars, the dead stars that emit beams of radio waves that sweep across the Earth like super-accurate time signals.
Astronomers believe these super-dense objects may hold the key to a more complete theory of gravity than that proposed by Einstein.
The Australasian bid was centred on a site at Boolardy Station, about 500 km (310 miles) north of Perth in Western Australia. For South Africa, the central location put forward was in the Karoo in the Northern Cape, about 95 km from Carnarvon.
Both have exceptional conditions for radio astronomy in that, being remote territories, they experience very little stray interference from cellular phone networks and TV broadcasts.
Both Australia and South Africa had even started building precursor facilities which they hoped would enhance their bids’ attractiveness.
The SKA’s designers will now have to work out how these smaller radio telescope systems can be incorporated into the final network.
The SKA’s members include the UK, Netherlands, Italy, China, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. India has associate member status.
There will be major industrial return for all members. The next project engineering phase is worth about 90 million Euros. Phase 1 of the project, due to start in 2015/16, was valued at around 360 million Euros. The cost of the last phase was always uncertain and depended on knowing exactly where the SKA would be built and the final design it would take; but a sum of 1.2 billion Euros was considered a likely figure.
The decision to dual-site will undoubtedly increase the cost and complexity of the SKA.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan may have been criticized in her native India for not losing her baby weight fast enough, but she looked nothing short of dazzling at the AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala in Cannes last night.
The Bollywood actress, 38, lived up to her title of “the world’s most beautiful woman” in a gold embroidered sari and coordinating tailored jacket with Mandarin collar.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s hair was piled high on her head and adorned with a slender gold band, while her make-up was understated save the dark eyeliner around her eyes.
The former Miss World, who is married to Abhishek Bachchan, the son of one of India’s best-loved stars, gave birth to her first child, a daughter, in November last year.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan found international fame in the Hollywood film Bride and Prejudice, and Julia Roberts billed her as the world’s most beautiful woman.
An unfortunate recent photograph that captured Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with a double chin, sparked a flurry of cruel criticism, with some suggesting that she has a “duty” to her fans to regain her pre-pregnancy figure.
One website posted a video of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan looking less than her usual svelte self, flicking between photographs of her pre-birth, and photos now.
Called “Aishwarya Rai’s shocking weight gain”, the clip, which came accompanied by elephant sound effects, has been seen more than 500,000 times.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan lived up to her title of “the world’s most beautiful woman” at the AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala in Cannes last night
Dozens more videos in a similar vein have been posted, each with viewing figures in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
Comments left after the video prove that many of those watching have little sympathy for the star.
“She is a Bollywood actress and it is her duty to look good and fit,” one said.
Another added: “She needs to learn from people like Victoria Beckham who are back to size zero weeks after their delivery.”
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has commendably remained cool-headed about the criticism, and has been open about the fact that she is in no hurry to lose the few extra pounds she gained during her pregnancy.
She has said that she simply wants to “enjoy motherhood”.
Indeed, if last night’s appearance at Cannes is anything to go by, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has little to worry about.
Nor is she short of support in her goal to prioritize her new daughter.
Though there is certainly more critique than praise, many have come out in defense of the star, saying that she, like any new mother, should be focusing on her infant, not her diet.
One wrote: “She is a real women looking after a baby. We should be concern [sic] for her health and happiness especially if she is nursing the baby.”
Another said. “Kudos to you Aish for keeping it real and letting your baby have all the bonding and attention she needs with you. Enjoy your life.”
Media commentators in India have said that expectations placed on the country’s most famous stars are impossibly high.
Cinema professor Shohini Ghosh told the New York Daily News: “There is a glorification of motherhood in India and Indian cinema.
“But people are confused because they don’t know whether to glorify Aishwarya in her new motherhood or lament that she is not looking like a runway model.”
Showbusiness columnist Shobhaa Dé added: “She is held up as the ideal of beauty and so there is an expectation on her to look perfect at all times.”
Trading in shares in Bankia, Spain’s fourth-largest bank, has been suspended in Madrid.
Bankia asked them to be suspended ahead of a board meeting this afternoon to reformulate its accounts for 2011 and submit a plan to shore up its finances.
The bank is reported to be due to ask the government for a bailout of more than 15 billion Euros ($19 billion).
Bankia, which is Spain’s fourth-largest bank, was part-nationalized two weeks ago because of its problems with bad property debt.
Bankia, which is Spain's fourth-largest bank, was part-nationalized two weeks ago because of its problems with bad property debt
Any extra government money would be on top of the 4.5 billion Euros in state loans that the government converted into shares in the group in the part-nationalization process.
Shares in Bankia’s parent company Banco Financiero y de Ahorros (BFA) have also been suspended.
Bankia had to reassure its savers last week that their money was safe after a Spanish newspaper reported a run on the bank.
Bankia was created in 2010 from the merger of seven struggling regional savings banks. It holds 32 billion Euros in distressed property assets.
Spain’s economy minister Luis de Guindos said on Wednesday that the government would pump at least 9 billion Euros into Bankia but that more would be available if it was needed.
There have been four attempts by Spanish governments to shore up the banking system since the global banking crisis of 2008.
As part of the latest plan, lenders are having to make 30 billion Euros of extra provisions to cover potential losses on property loans, which comes on top of 54 billion Euros they were ordered to set aside in February.
The health of Spain’s banking system is key to whether the country eventually needs to seek a bailout itself from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund.
But Professor Santiago Carbo Valverde of the University of Grenada, said he thinks Spain’s other large banks are not in as difficult a situation as Bankia.
“Bankia has huge exposure to real estate and bad loans, much larger than other banks.
“Other banks may have trouble as the government is demanding more capital, but I don’t think we will have another big case like Bankia.
“The three largest ones are in better shape as they have lower exposure to bad loans and they are more internationally diversified.”
Spain’s credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s last month on the basis that it would probably have to take on more debt to support its banks.
Its shares fell 7.4% on Thursday to close at 1.57 Euros, which is 58% down from their listing price in July 2011.
Bankia history
• Formed in December 2010 from merger of seven troubled banks
• Most toxic assets moved into holding company BFA
• Listed on the Madrid stock exchange in July 2011
• Chairman Rodrigo Rato resigned earlier in the month before Bankia was part-nationalized
Google has been asked by Microsoft to remove more than 500,000 links from its index in the last month, figures show.
The vast majority of the links in question were ones which took people to sites connecting to pirated Microsoft software.
Google shared the statistics as part of its efforts to be more transparent about what influences search results.
Microsoft’s requests dwarf those of the British Phonographic Institute, which represents record labels.
It asked for 160,000 links to be removed, again because they gave people access to pirated content.
In a blog post explaining its decision to share the figures, Google said it had done so because it believed there should be transparency when “something gets in the way of the free flow of information.”
Google has been asked by Microsoft to remove more than 500,000 links from its index in the last month
In the past it had shared information about official requests from government to get results removed from its search results and revealed when traffic to its services had been disrupted.
Now it has decided to broaden the range of information it shares to include requests from copyright owners.
“We remove more search results for copyright reasons than for any other reason,” a Google spokesman told the AFP agency.
The statistics shared on the copyright section of the Google Transparency Report show the number of requests to remove links has grown sharply.
In July 2011, the point at which its statistics start, Google was getting requests to remove 129,063 links per week. In May 2012 this figure had risen to 284,850. In the past month, more than 1.2 million links on 24,000 separate sites were removed. Requests to de-list links came from 1,296 separate copyright holders.
Google said it granted about 97% of requests to remove links and it usually took about 11 hours for any request to have an effect on search results.
Just under half of the requests for removals, which would mean that anyone searching for a particular term would not see blue links to those pages, came from Microsoft.
The BPI and media firm NBC Universal made the second and third largest number of requests in the last month.
“This data shows that placing all of the burden on copyright owners to deal with infringement is unworkable,” said BPI boss Geoff Taylor.
“It’s wrong for Google to be willfully blind to the clear data it has that particular sites are massive copyright infringers.”
“When Google has been told 100,000 times that sites like The Pirate Bay and beemp3 distribute music illegally, why do they come top – above Amazon and iTunes – when I search for ‘download music’?” he asked.
“It’s irresponsible, it misleads consumers and if Google won’t sort it out voluntarily, Government should get on with doing something about it.”
Rafael “Rafa” Ortiz is the second person to kayak over a Washington waterfall, which is higher than Niagara Falls.
Kayaker Rafael “Rafa” Ortiz, 24, took the plunge at Palouse Falls in Washington State, and paddled himself down the 189-foot fall.
The Mexican extreme kayaker followed in the footsteps, or wake, of the original record breaker, Tyler Bradt, who pulled off the stunt in 2009.
On his Facebook page, Rafa Ortiz recounted the harrowing hurdle after he completed it on April 25.
“It was sooooooo big. U get to the lip, loo down… and then its just a trip. Longest freefall of your life,” he wrote.
“Impact was good. Then the turbulence started pulling me out, one hand in the paddle other hand trying to hold me in my boat. Finally came out.”
Kayaker Rafael “Rafa” Ortiz took the plunge at Palouse Falls in Washington State, and paddled himself down the 189-foot fall
He was not injured at all during the stunt, and the only problem came when he was ripped from his kayak after hitting the water at the bottom of the fall.
According to the Red Bull extreme sports website, that detractor means that it disqualifies Rafa Ortiz from actually being held at the same
His light-hearted retelling of the move shows that he was not too shaken up by the ordeal, but is “glad its over hahaha”.
While this is certainly his highest accomplishment to date, Rafael Ortiz has a number of other credits to his name.
He was the first Mexican to participate in the World Freestyle kayaking championships and has recently taken on the sport of expedition paddling.
The waterfall is part of the Snake River which runs through the south east corner of Washington State.
Niagara Falls, arguably the most famous American waterfall, is only 167 feet high.
Earlier this week, a man tried to commit suicide by jumping over Niagara Falls but was the third person to survive such an act.
The vial said to contain a sample of the late President Ronald Reagan’s blood has been withdrawn from sale by an online auction house.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation had expressed outrage over the auction, in which bidding had reached over $30,000.
Guernsey-based PFC Auctions said in a statement that the vial would now be donated to the Reagan foundation.
The foundation said it was pleased the blood would stay “out of public hands”.
The vial said to contain a sample of the late President Ronald Reagan's blood has been withdrawn from sale by an online auction house
PFC Auctions, based on Guernsey in the British Channel Islands, said in a statement that the seller they were representing had bought the blood at a public auction in the US in February 2012 for $3,500.
The seller had now agreed for the item to be withdrawn from sale and donated to the foundation in “a considerable financial gesture”, it said.
According to the auctioneers, the seller is a “serious collector of presidential memorabilia” who did not think the Reagan foundation had any interest in the blood that he had bought.
The re-auction had “highlighted the importance of this historical artefact” the anonymous seller told them.
“I would personally be delighted to see this important artefact put on public display by the foundation,” the seller said.
The lot included a letter of provenance from the original seller who said their late mother worked at the laboratory which carried out blood testing for George Washington University Hospital after Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
Ronald Reagan, who went on to serve two terms as president, died at the age of 93 in 2004.
Experts urge deep-sea explorers to take care not to spread deep-sea creatures around the world during exploration of the remote ocean floor.
Scientists using the famous Alvin sub say the vehicle picked up limpets from a depth of almost 3,000m and inadvertently transferred them alive to another location more than 600 km away.
It is surprising because the animals had to cope with huge pressure changes as Alvin conducted its dives.
The researchers report the event in the journal Conservation Biology.
Spreading organisms artificially beyond their range in this way could have damaging effects on marine ecosystems, they warn, either by introducing competitors or even disease.
The team urges other deep-sea explorers to exercise extreme caution, and to assume hardy stowaways could be hanging on to their vehicles.
The curious case of the limpets is described by Janet Voight, from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Janet Voight and colleagues were studying lifeforms living around hydrothermal vents off the north-west coast of the United States.
Such vents are among the key study targets of modern oceanographic science – places where amazing collections of animals and other organisms thrive in mineral-rich, hot waters that gush up from volcanic cracks in the seabed.
Indeed, it was Alvin that first discovered these ecosystems in 1977.
On one dive to a depth of 2.7 km on the Gorda Ridge, the team gathered various specimens with the submersible’s sampling tools.
The group then climbed back up the water column and moved Alvin, via its support ship, to a new dive location 600 km to the north, on the Juan De Fuca Ridge, to take yet more specimens.
When the scientists examined their haul back in the lab, they found examples of a limpet (Lepetodrilus gordensis) thought to live only on the Gorda Ridge existing also on the Juan De Fuca Ridge
When the scientists examined their haul back in the lab, they found examples of a limpet (Lepetodrilus gordensis) thought to live only on the Gorda Ridge existing also on the Juan De Fuca Ridge. The team thought it had discovered an entirely new population.
But doubts started to creep in when the researchers realized conditions at the second site could not have met the limpets’ nutritional requirements.
Chemical analysis then confirmed the two populations were in fact one – Alvin, despite being cleaned en route to the second dive, had carried stowaways in its sampling gear.
“It remains a mystery, but we suspect we didn’t fully clean the suction sampler,” said Dr. Janet Voight.
“Perhaps they were in a little crack somewhere. The hose on the suction sampler looks much like the hose on your vacuum cleaner, and perhaps they were hiding in the corrugations. We were late coming up from the dive and it was a bit dark – maybe they just weren’t seen.
“Lepetodrilus are incredibly tough, but there are others animals also from the deep sea that seem to do well when brought up to sea-level pressure – at least for a few days.”
Invasive species are one of the biggest problems in conservation today; introducing something new to an ecosystem can have devastating consequences.
So, for the team to discover it was responsible for the contamination is a matter of some embarrassment. But Dr. Janet Voight says the experience is a wake-up call to everyone working in the deep ocean.
“Hydrothermal vents are the most extreme, specialized habitats you can get – they spew out acidic, metal-rich fluids. And we could be messing with them without even knowing about it,” Dr. Janet Voight said.
“We were a biology cruise and so we should have been the most sensitive to this, but there are geology-focused cruises out there who might not even be aware of this potential.
“By publishing this – although it’s painful to admit errors – we want to make the point that this is something that needs to be taken seriously.”
Elton John has been hospitalized with a serious respiratory infection.
Elton John, 65, was taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles around 6:00 a.m. yesterday morning, according to TMZ.
Doctors ordered the star to rest for seven days, forcing him to cancel four concerts of his Million Dollar Piano residency at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace scheduled for the weekend.
Elton John has been hospitalized with a serious respiratory infection
Elton John was told he needed “complete rest and antibiotic treatment to prevent damage”.
After undergoing a series of tests, he is said to have been released from hospital.
Sir Elton John tells TMZ: “It feels strange not to be able to perform these Million Dollar Piano concerts at the Colosseum.
“I love performing the show and I will be thrilled when we return to the Colosseum in October to complete the 11 concerts.”
The singer added: “All I can say to the fans is <<sorry I can’t be with you>>.”
Elton John was previously forced to cancel two concerts in February, after he came down with food poisoning.
In October 2011, Elton John celebrated performing his 3000th show in Las Vegas, after which he celebrated with the audience and a large cake with EJ3K written on it.
Elton John’s Million Dollar Piano shows are named after the piano he uses, which was especially built for him by manufacturer Yamaha over four years and cost a reported $1 million to produce.
Gina Rinehart, an Australian mining magnate, has become the world’s richest woman, according to the country’s respected business magazine BRW.
The magazine says Gina Rinehart, 58, is now worth A$29 billion ($28 billion), having increased her wealth by nearly A$20 billion in a year.
It is now possible that she could become the world’s first $100 billion person, the magazine says.
It says the heiress to an iron-ore prospecting empire earns A$52 million a day, A$1 million every half hour or A$ 600 a second.
Gina Rinehart, 58, is now worth A$29 billion ($28 billion), having increased her wealth by nearly A$20 billion in a year
“The increase in her wealth is unparalleled. It is a product of foreign investment in new projects, increased production and a recovery in the iron-ore price over the past six months,” BRW wrote.
Gina Rinehart’s rise in wealth means she now surpasses the $25 billion of Christy Walton, the widow of the founder of America’s Wal-Mart retail chain.
However, Gina Rinehart has caused controversy by campaigning against government attempts to tax mining companies.
Gina Rinehart has also been involved in a nasty fight with three of her four children over control of the family trust.
An overview of the average annual hours worked per person in selected countries puts South Korea top with a whopping 2,193 hours, followed by Chile on 2,068.
Workers in UK clock up 1,647 hours and Germans 1,408 – putting them at the bottom of the table, above only the Netherlands.
Greek workers have had a bad press recently but they work longer hours than any other Europeans. Their average of 2,017 hours a year puts them third in the international ranking, based on figures compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
It’s worth mentioning that the OECD has only 34 members – most of them developed countries – and some very important countries, such as India, China and Brazil, are not among them.
The OECD data includes full and part-time salaried workers and the self-employed. It includes all the hours they work, including overtime.
While figures are available for some other parts of the world, they are not directly comparable to the OECD data because they are collated very differently or they are out of date, so we are focusing only on the OECD nations.
But by looking at data from the OECD and the International Labour Organization (ILO) we can see some broad and interesting trends.
“Asian countries tend to work the longest [hours], they also have the highest proportion of workers that are working excessively long hours of more than 48 hours a week,” says Jon Messenger, an ILO expert on working hours.
“Korea sticks out because it’s a developed country that’s working long hours,” he says.
“Normally it’s developing countries like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Thailand, Sri Lanka – countries like this that are working long hours.”
An overview of the average annual hours worked per person in selected countries puts South Korea top with a whopping 2,193 hours, followed by Chile on 2,068
But working longer doesn’t necessarily mean working better.
“Generally speaking, long working hours are associated with lower productivity per hour. Workers are working very long hours to achieve a minimum level of output or to achieve some minimum level of wages because frankly they’re not very productive,” Jon Messenger says.
The picture is very different in the developed world, where working hours have been falling.
“Over the last century, you’ve seen a reduction from very long working hours – nearly 3,000 a year at the beginning of the 1900s – to the turn of the 21st Century when most developing countries were under 1,800 hours,” says Jon Messenger.
“And indeed some of the most productive countries were even lower than that.”
The drop in working hours is in part a reflection of the greater number of part-time workers in the developed world. A large number of part-time workers brings down a country’s average – in the case of Japan, for example, a high proportion of people work excessive hours, but many also work part-time, leaving the country in the middle of the table, with 1,700 hours.
“You have more and more people working part-time hours,” says Jon Messenger.
“They’re quite capable of supporting themselves, quite capable of producing what they need to produce, so it’s just not necessary to work longer than that.”
Tighter labor laws in developed countries, particularly in Europe, have also reduced working hours. The differences between the most developed nations are small but leave entitlement makes a difference.
Jon Messenger says the average Briton works 150 fewer hours than an American.
“The difference is really driven by the fact that the US is the only developed country that has no legal or contractual or collective requirement to provide any minimum amount of annual leave,” he says.
The UK, in contrast, is subject to the European working time directive, which requires at least four weeks of paid annual leave for every employee.
Some European countries have a higher statutory level of paid leave – 25 days in Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden in 2010, according to the European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO). And some employers provide more paid leave than the statutory minimum.
Paid public holidays, which come on top of that, averaged between nine and 10 in the European Union in 2010.
“The combined total of agreed annual leave and public holidays varied in the EU from 40 days in Germany and Denmark to 27 days in Romania – a difference of around 48% or 2.5 working weeks,” EIRO said in a report published last year.
When comparing hours worked, however, there’s one more thing which must be acknowledged.
Each country collects its own data, and their methods may be not always be perfectly comparable.
A new study has found that when it comes to finding a mate, men may not be looking for charm and intelligence, but rather a woman who looks dumb and sleepy enough for a one-night-stand.
In an article soon to be published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, University of Texas at Austin graduate student Cari Goetz and her team focused on the so-called sexual exploitability hypothesis, which is based on the different ways in which men and women approach reproduction.
According to the researchers, early women took a chance by getting involved with emotionally unattached men who had no clear intention of raising children with them.
Men, however, had little concern for the consequences of casual trysts, given that their bodies produce somewhere around 85 million sperm cells every day — per testicle, according to Slate.
Cari Goetz began with the assumption that the brain of modern women is still sensitive to the pregnancy-related consequences of casual sex, making them more reluctant to engage in it than men.
The goal of the study was to test out the hypothesis that a woman who appears silly or inert, or in other words more “sexually exploitable”, is a turn-on for the average straight man.
In the evolutionary psychology sense, the word “exploitable” simply indicates that a woman is willing or can be more easily pressured into having sex, even if she is a prostitute or a nymphomaniac.
A new study has found that when it comes to finding a mate, men may not be looking for charm and intelligence, but rather a woman who looks dumb and sleepy enough for a one-night-stand
The researchers began testing their model by asking a large group of undergraduate students to nominate some specific actions, body postures, attitudes and personality traits that might signal vulnerability, such as exhaustion, intoxication, or low intelligence.
In the end, the participants of the study had produced a list of 88 signs that a woman might by especially receptive to a man’s advances.
Among the chosen red flags were: lip lick/bite; over-the-shoulder look; sleepy; intoxicated; tight clothing; fat; short; unintelligent; punk; attention-seeking and touching breast.
Next, Cari Goetz and her colleagues scoured the Internet for publicly available images of women displaying each of these 88 cues.
Once they had pictures of women licking their lips, partying, wearing sexy clothing, etc., the researchers cross-checked them with a separate group of students who presumed that the photos indeed matched the cues.
The researchers then invited a fresh group of 76 male students and presented them with the images of presumably “ripe-for-the-picking” women, asking them what they thought of each woman’s overall attractiveness, how easy it would be to “exploit” her using anything from a pickup line to physical force, and her appeal to them as either a short-term or a long-term partner.
The study has revealed that the images of fat or short women had no effect. The participants of the study did not view them as either easy to bed or appealing as partners.
But when it came to reading the more psychological and contextual cues -pictures of silly or childish-looking women, or of women who looked sleepy or drunk, men rated them as being easy to ‘score’ with.
More importantly, the dumb-looking and inert women were also perceived as being more attractive than their more lucid or intelligent-looking peers, but only when it came to short-term relationships.
When the men were asked to judge the same liquored-up, silly-looking women in the photos as potential girlfriends and wives, they had entirely lost their appeal on them.
In a follow-up study, the authors tried to add some nuance to their sexual exploitability hypothesis.
Graduate student David Lewis led a project to zero in on the specific type of man who would be most aware to the sort of ‘exploitability’ cues.
David Lewis and his colleagues asked 72 straight men to evaluate the same photos as before.
But this time, the researchers also measured some key personality traits in the men themselves, as well as the extent to which they desired and pursued no-strings-attached sex.
This follow-up study has found that the more promiscuous men who happened also to have deficiencies in personal empathy and warmth were the ones most attuned to female “exploitability” cues, which seems to indicate that not all men are sleazy when it comes to pursuing sex.
Amid a flurry of lawsuits over Facebook’s IPO, Morgan Stanley, the company’s top underwriter, says it’s prepared to pay back investors who were burned when they bought shares.
Morgan Stanley announced in a memo on Wednesday that it is reviewing Facebook trades and would adjust prices for some retail customers who overpaid.
The IPO mishaps have sparked numerous lawsuits against Morgan Stanley, the NASDAQ stock exchange and Facebook itself by shareholders who claimed they hid the social networking company’s weakened growth forecasts just before it went public.
The allegations raised questions about whether top investors profited at the expense of smaller buyers.
Meanwhile, Facebook is in talks with the New York Stock Exchange to move its stock from the NASDAQ Stock Market after the botched IPO on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Facebook’s much-anticipated IPO was delayed by a half-hour on Friday because of technical glitches on the NASDAQ.
Morgan Stanley announced in a memo on Wednesday that it is reviewing Facebook trades and would adjust prices for some retail customers who overpaid
After pricing at $38, Facebook’s stock closed up 23 cents on Friday and has been down since. On Wednesday, it closed up $1, at $32, still down nearly 16% from the IPO price.
NYSE declined to comment.
The news comes as even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dumped his own shares in the company, making $1.13 billion as the stock nosedived, according to company filings.
On Wednesday, shareholders filed a lawsuit against Facebook and the banks behind the company’s stock, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Additionally, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority have begun looking into the matter.
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee has also launched an inquiry and the state of Massachusetts has subpenaed Morgan Stanley, demanding answers.
The House Financial Services Committee said that it was also gathering information for their own review.
Facebook stock rose 3.3% in trading on Wednesday, rising to $32 a share.
However, a new analysis said the stock could fall to as low as $9.59.
That’s a far cry from the $37.58 that Zuckerberg fetched for 30.2 million shares he unloaded on Friday.
By the end of trading on Tuesday however the price had dropped to $31 meaning Zuckerberg saved himself a cool $174 million by getting out early.
Mark Zuckerberg, 28, still holds a vast amount of Facebook stock but his decision to sell off so much will leave investors wondering about his confidence in the company.
The drop is based around the realization that Facebook might not be growing as quickly as initially thought. And the company’s second-quarter growth will likely fall short of expectations as fewer new users join the social networking giant.
Shareholders filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, alleging that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and the banks that backed the Initial Public Offering, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, knew this information, but weren’t forthcoming with it.
On Tuesday, Reuters revealed that the banks’ analysts downgraded their estimates about the future earnings of the company while they were rolling out the IPO.
Business Insider called the move “unprecedented”.
Furthermore, the website reported that the banks revealed to privileged major investors that the share price was likely to tank, but left smaller stock buyers in the dark about this information.
The Securities and Exchange commission is investigating these allegations and the state of Massachusetts has filed a subpoena demanding Morgan Stanley release information about the IPO.
British scientists have discovered that Ichthyostega, one of the first creatures to step on land, could not have walked on four legs as 3D computer models show.
Textbook pictures of the 360-million-year-old animal moving like a salamander are incorrect, say scientists.
Instead, it would have hauled itself from the water using its front limbs as crutches, research in Nature suggests.
The move from living in water to life on land – a pivotal moment in evolution – must have been a gradual one.
Ichthyostega is something of an icon in the fossil world. Living during the Upper Devonian period, it was dubbed a “fishapod”, with its mixture of fish-like and amphibious features.
British scientists have discovered that Ichthyostega, one of the first creatures to step on land, could not have walked on four legs as 3D computer models show
Although it probably spent much of its time under water, at times it was thought to have crawled halfway up onto land on limb-like flippers.
Exactly how it moved on land has been a matter of much debate, however.
Now, a team from The Royal Veterinary College, London and the University of Cambridge, has spent three years reconstructing the first 3D computer model of Ichthyostega from fossils.
It enabled them to study how ancient vertebrates made the “monumental transition” from swimming to walking.
Study author Dr. Stephanie Pierce, of The Royal Veterinary College, said the 3D skeleton allowed them to calculate the range of movement in the joints of its limbs for the first time.
The research suggests the animal shuffled on land using hind limb movements similar to that seen in seals rather than moving its limbs in the familiar walking pattern seen today.
Dr. Stephanie Pierce said: “We’re almost bringing the animal back to life by doing this.
“What we’ve discovered is that some early tetrapods definitely did not have the ability to walk on land. We at this stage are not actually sure which animals – or group of animals – were the first to do this.”
Co-author Prof. Jenny Clack from the University of Cambridge added: “Our reconstruction demonstrates that the old idea, often seen in popular books and museum displays, of Ichthyostega looking and walking like a large salamander, with four sturdy legs, is incorrect.”
The research, reported in a paper in Nature, was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council in UK.
Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest maker of personal computers, is planning to cut 27,000 jobs by end of 2014.
Hewlett-Packard said the cuts – about 8% of its workforce – will reduce costs by up to $3.5 billion a year.
The company said in a statement that the money would be reinvested.
The move was part of a “productivity initiative designed to simplify business processes” and comes as rival products such as the iPad tablet computer eat into HP’s sales.
As part of the changes, the head of HP’s Autonomy division, Mike Lynch, is being replaced by Bill Veghte, HP’s chief strategy officer. Mike Lynch will leave after what HP called a “transition period”.
Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest maker of personal computers, is planning to cut 27,000 jobs by end of 2014
Mike Lynch founded software company Autonomy as a small start-up and turned into one of the UK’s largest technology companies.
It was bought by HP last year for more than $10 billion.
HP employs about 350,000 people worldwide and about 20,000 in the UK. A spokesman said it was too early to say exactly where the job cuts would hit, but no part of the business would escape some losses.
“We have not yet announced specific plans with regards to specific locations. We do expect the workforce reduction to impact just about every business and region,” the spokesman said.
News of the job losses overshadowed the release on Wednesday of HP’s latest quarterly results. The company’s profits and revenues were both better than analysts had estimated.
California-based HP reported a 31% fall in profits in the second quarter to $1.6 billion. Revenue in the period fell 3% on a year ago to $30.7 billion.
Meg Whitman, HP’s chief executive, said: “This quarter we exceeded our previously provided outlook and are executing against our strategy, but we still have a lot of work to do.”
The former chief executive of eBay joined HP in September, vowing to turn around the company after a series of problems including a failed tablet computer and an announcement that it was considering an exit from the PC business.
Her predecessor, Leo Apotheker, was ousted after just 11 months on the job.
HP’s shares, which fell as much as 5% on Wednesday and closed 3% down, were up 6.6% in after-hours trading on Wall Street.
