Cyclonic Storm Mahasen - Interactive Mahasen

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Shahbagh protest to continue until demand met

The protesters on Friday at a grand rally at Projonmo Chattar, Shahbagh, once again vowed to carry on their movement until their demand of death penalty for all war criminals is met.
In a written speech Imran H Sarker, convener of the Bloggers and Online Activists Network, announced the decision in the afternoon where he has urged the countrymen to expand the protests to all corners including villages and towns of the country.
Imran said, "The slogans will not cease until we meet the final victory".
In order to turn this movement into more matured, expanded, deep and disciplined one they have taken several decisions including formation of human forts to thwart Jamaat-Shibir conspiracy for foiling war crimes trials.
"We all must remain alert and reinforce vigilance in all times everywhere" he said.
The convener said a massive awareness campaign has to be conducted among the people to boycott the war criminals.
"Projonmo Chattar has to be expanded all over the country. The movemens will have to continue in towns, villages and bazaars and every places," Imran went on.
In synchronisation with the Projonmo Chattar, a programme of singing of the national anthem followed by hoisting of the national flag will be observed in all educational institutions including schools, colleges and universities at 10:00pm on Sunday, he said.
Besides, protest programmes of Projonmo Chattar will continue as before from 3:00pm to 10:00pm.
"It is our duty to continue and turn it a worthy fight until we are victorious."
The network activist also said, "We are not dependent to any political parties. We have no fear of any national or international vested quarters, because the people are with us."
"We are the people; we are the source of all power," Imran said.
Later, Imran administered a solemn oath among hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Shahbagh intersection.
"At any cost we will protect our unity and root out last remaining base of war criminals. We have no other alternative but victory. Victory of the people is inevitable. Joy Bangla."
Earlier, thousands of demonstrators started the rally around 3:30pm at Projonmo Chattar demanding capital punishment to all war criminals, including Jamaat leader Abdul Quader Mollah.
Leaders of various student organisations addressed the rally.
The student leaders, once again, affirmed their demand of death penalty for all war criminals.
Lucky Akhter, the Bionic Woman, has been untiringly shouting fiery slogans during the intervals of the speeches.
Organisers following Thursday's candlelight vigil urged all to join today's rally, saying that a declaration of the next course of action will come from the programme.
The candlelight vigil at Shahbagh was joined by people from all walks of life. The number of students -- boys and girls alike -- was overwhelming, many of whom took position at the protest venue soon after 10:00am, chanting fiery slogans.
The countrywide candlelight vigil was part of the nonstop movement demanding capital punishment to all war criminals, including Mollah.
The movement began on February 5, hours after a war crimes tribunal sentenced Quader Mollah to life term in prison for crimes against humanity during the 1971 war.

There’ll be no corruption in Padma Project: Muhith

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has categorically said there will be no corruption in building the Padma Bridge, the largest-ever infrastructure project of Bangladesh that got stalled apparently following fund cancellation by the World Bank and other co-financers.
“I’m 100 percent certain there has been no corruption so far and there won’t be any (corruption)…of course I’m making it sure to the people of Bangladesh,” he told journalists at IFAD headquarters here on Thursday.
Earlier, he had a brief discussion with 23 journalists from developing and developed countries, including Bangladesh, who are in Rome to attend a training workshop arranged by the Reuters, IFAD and IPS jointly.
Fisheries and Livestock Secretary Ujjwal Bikash Dutta and Deputy Secretary, Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance Sultana Afroz, trainers from Reuters and IPS, including the IFAD officials, were also present.
Responding to a question, Muhith said there are many alternative proposals. “But I’m against them…those proposals are tied to procurement…it’ll be done from the budget. The budget in the last four years has doubled.”
The Finance Minister, however, said it would cause hardship if the bridge is built with own funding. “…no doubt about that.”
Replying to a question, Muhith said Bangladesh can surely afford the bridge without the World Bank funding but the cost will be more. “If I get into crore figure, Padma Bridge is a project of Tk 25,000 crore. Providing Tk 5,000 crore each year for the bridge is not a serious problem. I’m concerned a little bit about foreign exchange.”
The Finance Minister said the government is launching the first sovereign bond in April, not for the Padma Bridge but for the general economy.
Responding to another query, Muhith said Padma Bridge is the most difficult and complex bridge in the world not for by length but for the soil of Bangladesh and its mighty river. “….that is where the World Bank would have been very helpful for me.”
On the global lender’s dissatisfaction, he said World Bank’s methods of procedures are wrong. “We investigated 61 parties…there was no evidence of corruption…we’ll carry out the investigation…we’re not dishonest.”

When signs say more than words

Being a child of hearing-impaired parents, she learnt the sign language in a natural way and later underwent a course to make it ‘proper’ for the hundreds of thousands of people in Bangladesh who cannot hear.

But there is no institution to teach those people their first language. “The number (hearing-impaired people) is 3 million. But they don’t know proper sign language. They learn naturally to communicate with each other,” said Santanu Dey, who coordinates an NGO working with the hearing-impaired people and their language.

Giving proper training of their language, Dey told bdnews24.com that they could be good at schools and certain jobs as ‘they can concentrate as because sounds do not disturb them.’

The Society of the Deaf and Sign Language Users celebrated Bangla Sign Language Day on Thursday for the second time after an inter-ministerial meeting of the Ministry of Social Welfare on Jan 26, 2012 decided to commemorate Feb 7 the day every year. The decision still awaiting cabinet nod.

“We will get the day (cabinet endorsed) soon in recognisation of the hearing-impaired people’s rights, and dignity. But they badly need an institute so that they can learn their first language,” the coordinator, Dey said.

He said the institute would conduct research and training on the Bangla sign language. “India has started building an institute in 2011,” he said and that every language has its own sign language.

Activists say hearing-impaired people cannot express themselves after being subjected to torture or violence as general people usually do not understand them. Even during natural calamities, they do not know what is going on.

“There should be (sign language) learning facility at every government training centres so that government staff can understand the language,” said Farah Kabir, Country Director of Actionaid Bangladesh at a discussion on Thursday.

Terming them ‘good workers’ in certain jobs, the director general of the social welfare Nasima Begum suggested them to find out what jobs suitable for them. “We will help you to get that (job).”

The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on different occasions also called upon all television channels to use sign language alongside usual during news bulletins.

State-run television BTV and private channel Desh TV responded to the premier’s call giving a spotlight on an overlooked career.

The presenter Kabir believes opportunities will grow by the time. “But there are not enough of us to go around. If we had an institute, then we could train up people regularly,” she said.

According to Kabir, signing is interesting, but “it’s not easy, lot of enthusiasm needs to learn (sign language).”

“For me, it was easy as I had to communicate at home. But it’s like other language English, French that you learn but if don’t practice you will forget,” she said as she explained about signing.

She said expressions were very important for the signing. “Sometimes you may need to give emphatic gestures and sometimes sympathetic facial expressions. And of course hands are primary tools.”

After home, she learnt the language from the Society of the Deaf that she said only organisation teaches the language in Bangladesh in limited scale. She is also a mentor of that organisation.

After learning sign language, one can work at schools, government agencies or translate for hearing-impaired people during doctors’ appointments and many other purposes, campaigners say.

Pioneering videogame firm Atari gets lifeline

Atari, the pioneering video game company mired in bankruptcy proceedings in both France and the US, said on Tuesday it had found a last minute buyer after the latest leading shareholder gave up on turning the company around.
Atari SA "supports the proposed acquisition of the BlueBay Funds' interests in the Atari group by a longtime videogame professional and a fund advised by Alden Global Capital," the videogamer said in a statement.
Atari was born 40 years ago in California and jumped to fame by bringing the arcade game experience to living rooms worldwide with games such as Pong and Centipede.
The key buyer of the embattled company is Frenchman Frederic Chesnais, a former Atari executive, who is picking up 25 percent of the Atari SA's capital through his own fund Ker Ventures for 400 euros with hedge fund Alden providing financing.

Internet users seeking more 'invisibility'

Consumer efforts to protect personal data and remain "invisible" online is leading to a "data blackhole" that could adversely impact digital advertisers, technology research firm Ovum said Wednesday.
The move to seek "new tools that allow them to remain 'invisible' -- untraceable and impossible to target by data means" will impact advertisers who rely on that information to target their audiences, Ovum said.
Surveying consumers in 11 countries around the world, the research firm said 68 percent of respondents said they would select a "do not track" feature if this was easily available.
"This hardening of consumer attitudes, coupled with tightening regulation, could diminish personal data supply lines and have considerable impact on targeted advertising, customer relationship management, big data analytics and other digital industries," the London-based firm said in a statement.
Mark Little, a principal analyst at Ovum, said Internet users were increasingly getting more access to new tools to "monitor, control and secure their personal data as never before".
The recent scandal involving privacy breaches by mobile messaging service WhatsApp and lingering concerns over data use policies on Facebook and Google are prompting Internet users to be more guarded, Ovum added.
A joint Canadian-Dutch probe concluded last month that WhatsApp breached privacy laws in at least two countries "mainly in relation to the retention, safeguard, and disclosure of personal data".
The joint probe found that most mobile smartphone users did not have a choice to use WhatsApp's messaging app without granting access to their entire address book, in violation of Canadian and Dutch privacy laws.

Making e-commerce easy

Once a month, Mrs. Hossain has to go to her children's school and pay their monthly tuition fees, about Tk 10,000. Just the other day, she heard from a friend how she got mugged on her way back from the bank. Understandably, she feels nervous carrying that much cash around, but she doesn't really have a choice.
Mr Islam is a bachelor. To save time, he avails of one of the services that deliver groceries right to his doorstep. Only sometimes, he does not have the ready cash to pay for everything he needs. He wishes he could use his credit card, but unfortunately the service does not accept one.
This is where Walleto comes in. Walleto is an online payment gateway system, launched in October last year by MCC Ltd. The company introduced Walleto to help entrepreneurs, organisations and individuals enter the e-commerce sector and avail of its services.
Walleto can be integrated with any existing website of any organisation, and just like that, that organisation becomes capable of accepting payments online. Walleto makes it possible for money to change hands without the parties involved getting up from their chairs.
With Walleto, Mrs Hossain's school can receive payments from parents and automatically transfer them to a designated back account, without Mrs Hossain having to worry about carrying cash around. Mr Islam can pay for his groceries at the same time he's ordering them and he only has to wait for the delivery.
Walleto opens up options for consumers and suppliers alike.
Bangladesh is no longer a stranger to online commercial activity. There are around 170 Bangladeshi e-commerce sites out there, peddling everything from electronics to books to groceries. Some allow you to order online and pay on delivery; only a handful, however, allows online transactions �" paying online, via a credit or debit card.
The primary obstacle to more businesses adopting the online payment option is that it is a time-consuming and complex process. The organisation would need to make detailed contracts with the bank of their choice and hire a software company to develop a payment gateway system to fit their needs.
The strength of Walleto is that it has already done all of that. If any organisation wants the advantages of accepting payments online, they simply need subscribe to Walleto. Walleto has already made contracts with the banks and has already developed a universal payment gateway system. Walleto has greatly simplified the process of becoming a true e-commerce vendor simply by existing.
Currently, Walleto accepts payments using Visa, Mastercard, the BRAC Bank Debit card and the Dutch-Bangla Nexus card. This already accounts for more than 20 lakh subscribers from Visa and Mastercard alone. This is only the beginning. Walleto will soon expand to include payment options from credit and debit cards from all the big banks to online payment options like Paypal to mobile payment options. Walleto aims to be a universal payment gateway system, accepting and processing payments via all possible electronic avenues.
This versatility means that Walleto is a one-size-fits-all solution for all sorts of businesses looking to enter the e-commerce sector. From airline bookings to buying books online, to booking a table at a high-end restaurant to sending money to your family back home, to gaming online and shopping for clothes from online catalogues, every transaction will be possible through Walleto. Like Amazon or e-Bay, Walleto aims to become a portal through which anyone will be able to buy anything and more than those sites, where people can do more �" donate to worthy charities and add to the remittance flow.
So far, Walleto has as its clients as diverse as Guide Tours, the Jaago Foundation, Aponjon, Creative Connection (jute diversified product market), Fair Price and many other. Walleto aims to expand its client base and hit the 1,000 mark by 2013.
Walleto represents a new benchmark for e-commerce in Bangladesh. The success of Walleto can only be a boon to the e-commerce sector and a gain for the Bangladesh economy as a whole.

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The four state banks' default loans spiralled in December 2012, due to the various scams unearthed last year.
The cumulative default loans on December 31, 2012, as per the banks' preliminary data, stood at Tk 21,519 crore, up 126 percent year-on-year.
A central bank inspection drive last year exposed a host of irregularities at state banks -- Sonali, Janata, Agrani, Rupali -- and the loans have now been classified as defaults.
The biggest irregularity was detected at Sonali Bank's Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch, where Tk 3,547 crore was embezzled by five firms, including Hall-Mark Group, in the name of bill purchase.
The loans were given to the accused parties by giving “acceptance” to bills of different banks and branches of Sonali Bank.
Of the Tk 3,546 crore of default loans the Ruposhi Bangla branch raked up, Tk 2,600 crore has been classified.
Sonali is yet to repay the remaining amount to the banks concerned, but when it is done the amount will also be recorded as defaults.
Sonali's default loans on December 31 stood at Tk 12,050 crore, up 111 percent year-on-year.
“We have taken drastic measures to recover the default loans. Next year, you will see its outcome,” Pradip Kumar Dutta, Sonali Bank's managing director, told The Daily Star.
He cited the recovery made in January alone -- of Tk 632 crore -- which is 74 percent of the total recovery made in the whole of 2012.
“Apart from the irregularities, the new loan classification policy of the central bank also contributed to the increase in default loan figures,” Dutta said.
Similarly in Janata Bank, the default loan sum shot up 168 percent in December, with its share of the outstanding loans increasing 1.5 times.
Agrani's default loans increased year-on-year by 143 percent to Tk 4,663 crore, and Rupali Bank's 113 percent.
“At the end of last year, the boards of the public banks did not function, which might have led to the rise in default loans,” a top official of Janata Bank said, asking not to be named.
Loan sanctioning upon political persuasion, dishonesty of bank officials caused the spike in default loans, said Khondker Ibrahim Khaled, a former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank.
Khaled, however, disagrees that the change in central bank's loan classification policy had much impact on the final default loan figures.
“It made a very small difference,” he said, adding that the government should issue strict directive to the lawmakers to not pursue loans from public banks, for the sake of bringing down the default loan volumes.
If any irregularity is detected, the finance ministry will have to take stern actions, including on-the-spot dismissal, he said.
Besides, if BB makes any recommendation to the finance ministry regarding the public banks, the ministry would have to take instant action. “The central bank supervision will have to be strengthened further.”

All's Not Lost Extinction rates not so bad

Concerns that many animals are becoming extinct, before scientists even have time to identify them, are greatly overstated, according Griffith University researcher, Professor Nigel Stork. Professor Stork has taken part in an international study, the findings of which have been detailed in "Can we name Earth's species before they go extinct?" published in the journal Science.
Deputy Head of the Griffith School of Environment, Professor Stork said a number of misconceptions have fueled these fears, and there is no evidence that extinction rates are as high as some have feared.
"Surprisingly, few species have gone extinct, to our knowledge. Of course, there will have been some species which have disappeared without being recorded, but not many we think," Professor Stork said.
Professor Stork said part of the problem is that there is an inflated sense of just how many animals exist and therefore how big the task to record them.
"Modern estimates of the number of eukaryotic species have ranged up to 100 million, but we have estimated that there are around 5 million species on the planet (plus or minus 3 million)."
And there are more scientists than ever working on the task. This contrary to a common belief that we are losing taxonomists, the scientists who identify species.
"While this is the case in the developed world where governments are reducing funding, in developing nations the number of taxonomists is actually on the rise.
"World-wide there are now two to three times as many taxonomist describing species as there were 20 years ago."
Even so, Professor Stork says the scale of the global taxonomic challenge is not to be underestimated.

Source: Science Daily

Farm - To - Market Supply technology is key

Less rice is wasted with technological advances

The moder-nisation of farm-to-market supply chains is important for increasing farmers' income, alleviating poverty, cutting food waste and improving the affordability of food staples, according to the authors of a book.
The Quiet Revolution in Staple Food Value Chains: Enter the Dragon, the Elephant, and the Tiger is a joint project by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) that was launched last month.
The book examines the movement of rice and potatoes from the farm to the consumer known as the 'value chain' in three Asian countries: Bangladesh, China and India. Rice and potato are food staples in Asia.
Thomas Reardon, a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics at Michigan State University, United States, and one of the book's authors, says that the study also has lessons for South-East Asian and Pacific island states.
He says that all three countries have found ways to modernise the value chains of these staple crops. He adds that the changes had been introduced at the grassroots and brought about mainly by mobile phones, the use of improved crop varieties and technological changes related to rice milling and potato storage.
Reardon says the rapid rise of modern cold storage facilities for potatoes, which enable them to be supplied out of season, had led to more stable prices and higher incomes for farmers.
These facilities have also helped cut the amount of food wastage along the supply chain. According to a World Bank study which the authors cited between 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the food costs is due to the food wastage in the supply chain.

Did You Know? What is Pareidolia?

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records when played in reverse.
The word comes from the Greek words para ("beside, alongside, instead") in this context meaning something faulty, wrong, instead of; and the noun eidôlon ("image, form, shape") the diminutive of eidos.

Fractal Dimension Puzzling plumage

A new study found that the complexity of fractal patterns on a bird's chest communicates the animal's fitness to potential mates.
Scientists studied male and female red-legged partridges (Alectoris rufa), which both display complicated black-and-white patterns of plumage on their chests. The size, shape and complexity of these patterns can be quantified by what's known as fractal dimension (FD).
epeating patterns that show the same structure when zoomed in and out. Fractals are found throughout nature, from seashells to mountain ranges to broccoli, and apparently, the plumage of red-legged partridges.
In a new study, scientists found that the healthier a bird is, the more fractal-like its plumage becomes.

Downstream Effects Watering fields boosts rainfall

Farmers in California help make it rain in the American Southwest, a new computer simulation suggests. Water that evaporates from irrigated fields in California's Central Valley travels to the Four Corners region, where it boosts summer rain and increases runoff to the Colorado River, researchers report online January 12 inGeophysical Research Letters.
This climate link may be crucial to the 40 million people who depend on the Colorado River for drinking water. That number could nearly double in the next 50 years at the same time that droughts are projected to become more common in the Southwest. Since the Central Valley's supply of irrigation water faces an uncertain future, it's important to examine how shortfalls in California might affect climate change in the region, says study coauthor Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine.
“We have to understand these connections better to deal with changes in water availability,” he says.
The Central Valley is one of the world's most productive agricultural regions. More than 50,000 square kilometers of the valley are irrigated, equaling one-sixth of all irrigated land in the United States.
A study in 2011 showed that watering the area's crops cools local temperatures and increases humidity. But the work didn't find any larger climate ties outside the region, because it relied on a regional climate simulwation, which has trouble estimating conditions along the boundaries of a study area, Famiglietti says.
To overcome this problem, Famiglietti and Min-Hui Lo, now at the National Taiwan University in Taipei, simulated global climate over a 90-year period. They added in 350 millimeters of water coming from groundwater and surface reservoirs to the Central Valley between May and October each year. The researchers say that's a realistic amount of irrigation based on published agriculture and climate data.
The simulations revealed that evaporation doubles in the Central Valley when there's irrigation. That water vapor circulates to the Southwest during the summer monsoon season, which naturally brings rain to the area. “The monsoon is like a big campfire burning away over the Southwest,” Famiglietti says. “The irrigation acts as fuel on the fire.” In addition to bringing more water to the atmosphere, the water vapor brings more energy. And it changes the regional circulation, drawing in even more water vapor from the Gulf of Mexico.
Together, these changes intensify the monsoon season, resulting in a 15 percent increase in rainfall in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona and a 28 percent increase in runoff to the Colorado River compared with simulations lacking irrigation. Some of the water returns to California via the All-American Canal, which brings water from the Colorado River to Southern California, the simulation suggests.
“It's a nice first step,” says hydrologist Michael Puma of Columbia University. “And it's a link that we need to investigate quite a bit more.” Many other variables, such as sea surface temperatures, also influence climate in the Southwest. To better estimate the strength of irrigation's effect in the real world, more complex simulations that take these other factors into account are needed, Puma says.
The study also highlights the importance of investigating irrigation's role in climate in other parts of the world, as well as other ways in which people's use of water might have unintended consequences, Famiglietti says.“What we do with water management really has an impact on climate locally, regionally and globally.”

Shy Phantoms Heart of the matter

A golden age for the neutrino is dawning.
A few decades ago, these shy phantoms that flit nearly unfelt through the interstices of the universe seemed mere leftovers in the world of physics.
They outnumber all other particles of matter, whizzing away everywhere many of them arising in droves from nuclear reactors and nucleosynthesis in stars. Their characteristics made them, to be sure, vitally important building blocks in the 1970s and '80s for theorists who put together the standard model of physics, describing how fundamental forces and particles fit together. Yet, for decades, neutrinos seemed nearly incapable of doing a lick of work. They were like clowns pouring from a circus car, entertainment for theorists but without important jobs in keeping the cosmos running smoothly.
It is about time for the neutrino to add gravitas. “When I first learned about it in the early 1950s, the neutrino had an odd role in nuclear physics, like that of a sort of crazy uncle who was not all there,” physicist and science writer Jeremy Bernstein wrote in an essay in the March-April 2012 issue of American Scientist.
When asked how the neutrino stacks up today, he says: “It is a wonderful particle. It played an important role in the early universe. I mean, everything about it is mysterious. But back in the 1950s, nobody even gave a goddamn. Maybe I learned about it, but nobody was studying it.”
While neutrinos have been rising in mystery and thus stature for some time, their most recent big break occurred last March. It stemmed from measurements made deep inside a granite mountain not far from Hong Kong.

'Scarecrow' Gene: Key to efficient crops

With projections of 9.5 billion people by 2050, humankind faces the challenge of feeding modern diets to additional mouths while using the same amounts of water, fertilizer and arable land as today.
Cornell researchers have taken a leap toward meeting those needs by discovering a gene that could lead to new varieties of staple crops with 50 percent higher yields.
The gene, called Scarecrow, is the first discovered to control a special leaf structure, known as Kranz anatomy, which leads to more efficient photosynthesis. Plants photosynthesize using one of two methods: C3, a less efficient, ancient method found in most plants, including wheat and rice; and C4, a more efficient adaptation employed by grasses, maize, sorghum and sugarcane that is better suited to drought, intense sunlight, heat and low nitrogen.
"Researchers have been trying to find the underlying genetics of Kranz anatomy so we can engineer it into C3 crops," said Thomas Slewinski, lead author of a paper that appeared online in November in the journal Plant and Cell Physiology. Slewinski is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of senior author Robert Turgeon, professor of plant biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The finding "provides a clue as to how this whole anatomical key is regulated," said Turgeon. "There's still a lot to be learned, but now the barn door is open and you are going to see people working on this Scarecrow pathway." The promise of transferring C4 mechanisms into C3 plants has been fervently pursued and funded on a global scale for decades, he added.
If C4 photosynthesis is successfully transferred to C3 plants through genetic engineering, farmers could grow wheat and rice in hotter, dryer environments with less fertilizer, while possibly increasing yields by half, the researchers said.
C3 photosynthesis originated at a time in Earth's history when the atmosphere had a high proportion of carbon dioxide. C4 plants have independently evolved from C3 plants some 60 times at different times and places. The C4 adaptation involves Kranz anatomy in the leaves, which includes a layer of special bundle sheath cells surrounding the veins and an outer layer of cells called mesophyll. Bundle sheath cells and mesophyll cells cooperate in a two-step version of photosynthesis, using different kinds of chloroplasts.
By looking closely at plant evolution and anatomy, Slewinski recognized that the bundle sheath cells in leaves of C4 plants were similar to endodermal cells that surrounded vascular tissue in roots and stems.
Slewinski suspected that if C4 leaves shared endodermal genes with roots and stems, the genetics that controlled those cell types may also be shared. Slewinski looked for experimental maize lines with mutant Scarecrow genes, which he knew governed endodermal cells in roots. When the researchers grew those plants, they first identified problems in the roots, then checked for abnormalities in the bundle sheath. They found that the leaves of Scarecrow mutants had abnormal and proliferated bundle sheath cells and irregular veins.
In all plants, an enzyme called RuBisCo facilitates a reaction that captures carbon dioxide from the air, the first step in producing sucrose, the energy-rich product of photosynthesis that powers the plant. But in C3 plants RuBisCo also facilitates a competing reaction with oxygen, creating a byproduct that has to be degraded, at a cost of about 30-40 percent overall efficiency. In C4 plants, carbon dioxide fixation takes place in two stages. The first step occurs in the mesophyll, and the product of this reaction is shuttled to the bundle sheath for the RuBisCo step. The RuBisCo step is very efficient because in the bundle sheath cells, the oxygen concentration is low and the carbon dioxide concentration is high. This eliminates the problem of the competing oxygen reaction, making the plant far more efficient.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Source: Science Daily

H&M's profit hit by expansion costs

Swedish clothing retailer H&M posted a 6.6-percent rise in annual net profit on Wednesday but said results had been hit by costs for its long-term investments as well as by currency factors.
The cheap-and-chic fashion giant said its net profit rose to 16.9 billion kronor ($2.7 billion, 2.0 billion euros) in 2012 from 15.8 billion kronor in the previous year, and that it increased its market share despite a difficult operating environment.
Gross sales by the firm, world's number two clothing retailer after the Spanish Zara group, rose by 9.4 percent to 141 billion kronor in the financial year that ended November 30, but net sales measured at constant exchange rates gained only one percent, the company said.
"H&M continues to stand strong in a challenging clothing market which in many countries has been even more challenging in 2012 compared to 2011," chief executive Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement.
In the fourth quarter, net profit fell 1.3 percent to 5.29 billion kronor ($830 million), beating a 5.09 billion kronor consensus estimate compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.
H&M said its expansion moved faster than expected in 2012, with 304 new stores opening their doors, mainly in China and the United States.
It proposed holding the dividend steady at 9.5 kronor per share.
"On the whole, these results are on the weak side," said Soeren Lundtoft Hansen, an analyst at Sydbank.
Investment costs for expanding online and mobile sales, as well as for a new, high end fashion brand for women, were higher than expected, he added.
The new brand, & Other Stories, will open its first stores in the coming months in seven European countries.
The company said it plans to open 325 stores in this financial year, including in Chile and in Indonesia via a franchise.
"This is a positive development at a time when same store sales, in my view, will remain subdued amid continued weak consumer spending and strong competition in H&M's market segment," Lundtoft Hansen said.
The Stockholm-based company currently has 2,800 stores in 48 markets and more than 104,000 employees.

Looming worker shortage threatens China economy

China's demographic time bomb is ticking much louder with the first fall in its labour pool for decades, analysts say, highlighting the risk that the country grows old before it grows rich.
The abundant supply of cheap workers in the world's most populous nation has created unprecedented cost efficiencies that underpinned its blistering economic expansion over the past 35 years, propelling the global economy forward.
But now the inexorable consequences of the one-child policy imposed in the late 1970s are beginning to appear, and threaten to impact its future growth.
China's working-age population, defined as 15-59, fell 3.45 million last year, official data showed earlier this month -- the first decline since 1963, after tens of millions died in a famine caused by the Great Leap Forward.
The immediate effect may be small in a nation of 1.35 billion people, but the cumulative effects will accelerate over the coming decades.
The number of people aged between 15 and 64 will drop by around 40 million between 2014 and 2030, said Wang Guangzhou, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government think-tank -- more than Poland's entire population.
"The population is aging so fast that we are running short of time to deal with it," said Li Jun, also of CASS, adding the family planning policy had exacerbated the problem.
China's proportion of over-65-year-olds is projected to double from seven to 14 percent over only 26 years -- a key demographic measure that took the United States 69 years to complete.
"Undoubtedly it will substantially slow down China's potential growth rate," Yao Wei, an economist with Societe Generale in Hong Kong, told AFP.
An ageing population not only means fewer people available to employ and higher labour costs, but investment -- a key driver of China's growth -- will be harder to maintain as families spend their savings on health care, she said.
Chinese authorities maintain that controlling its population growth has been key to increasing its prosperity.
But while China has risen to become the world's second-largest economy, on a per capita basis it still lags far behind the US and other developed countries.
Industrial disputes have become more common in recent years, as workers demand higher pay and better working conditions on the back of growing awareness of their rights and the shortage of skilled staff.
Multinational companies are looking to other developing economies with lower wages for further expansion, with some already moving production bases out of China to rivals such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
In a survey of 514 Japanese manufacturers by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation last year, the number of respondents voting China as the top destination for overseas business fell by more than 10 percentage points on 2011.
Economists said China must look to speed up the transformation of its economic model and move up the value chain.
"The golden period of the manufacturing industry, particularly those depending on exports, has gone," said Yao.
At the same time, she said, the country was woefully underprepared to meet the burden of caring for the elderly.
"The fiscal situation is not prepared and the social security network is not complete," she said.
By around 2060, every three Chinese workers will have to support two people above 60, compared with a ratio of five to one now, according to Li's projections.
It is a crucial challenge for the ruling Communist Party, said Ren Xianfang, a Beijing-based analyst with research firm IHS Global Insight.
"Delivering growth and delivering social security to the general public are the key things for the state to (maintain) its legitimacy."
Analysts said the medical services are increasingly expensive and hard to access, while the country's flagship public pension plans are crippled by problems including insolvency risks, difficulties in expanding coverage and mismanagement.

Nano education: route forward for business

Navid B Saleh
Either we consider the sustained growth of an economy according to classical Solow's model or redefine the growth parameters via Schumpeterian 'Creative Destruction' paradigm, innovation becomes essential for economic development. Foundation of such innovations rests on education and 'Scientific Temper' of a society. Faced with numerous economic challenges, Bangladesh always struggled to balance between meeting minimum basic needs for its population and progressing forward with novel development initiatives. Our failure in establishing a successful biotechnology industry, likely lies in the lack of educational and training deficiencies that should have preceded the industrial and economic efforts. Well-planned educational programmes are essential to develop not only a trained professional class, but more importantly to generate a social temper towards acceptance and nourishment of a new technology. This article attempts to outline a few practical steps towards a comprehensive educational programme on nanotechnology for Bangladesh; global examples and practices will serve as cornerstone for such potential programme outline.
As the leader in nanotechnology research and development, the United States has had federally funded efforts via National Science Foundation to develop educational programmes across the nation. The Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) programme initially promoted singular course development on nanotechnology. Theory-based and laboratory courses were the focus. The NUE programme funded nearly 100 institutions in the US in the first 10 years (2003-2012) to promote nano education. The programme's recent focus has shifted towards more comprehensive nano programmes, which will introduce minors in nanotechnology that includes local non-degree awarding institutions, even aspire to involve industrial trainees, and promote local collaborations. This example may not be directly applicable to a developing country like Bangladesh, due to the differences in federal sponsorship, educational structure, and industry-academia interaction. However, part of these initiatives, not in exact order, can be followed to expedite the education programmes in our region.
India rather, can be an example to be emulated. Jawaharlal Nehru's Palampur Declaration or 'A Statement on Scientific Temper' of 1981 has set India's path towards developing a technologically aware culture. Nehru's establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and universities had served as the necessary infrastructure for technological development. The physical infrastructure then found its soul in the philosophical guidance of Palampur Declaration and Scientific Temper of the nation. Nanotechnology development in India seems to have synced in with the technologically aware culture of the nation as reflected from its national educational and training initiatives. The Indian nano education model in the beginning, somewhat followed the US trend of introducing single courses in the IITs and other technical colleges and universities. However, in a short period of time, their efforts turned out to be more extensive. India is one of the first countries to establish a private institution that is primarily focused on nano education, namely: Amity Institute of Nanotechnology, Noida. The vision of this standalone centre is to promote nanotechnology via organised education efforts and scholarly research. The institute offers Bachelors (four years) and Masters (three years) degrees (BTech, MSc, MTech) in nanotechnology, which likely are one of the first degree-programmes in the world. Amity was followed by establishment of numerous centres, institutes, and university programmes, which include: Centre for Nanotechnology & Advanced Biomaterials (CeNTAB, Thanjavur); academic courses and programmes at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS), IIT-Bangalore, University of Madras, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Mumbai, IIT-Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, etc. Research efforts are also underway in all these institutions as well as in National Physical Laboratory, Delhi and National Chemical Laboratory, Pune. It is to be noted that the leadership of nano education and training in India was initiated by a private institute; whereas, the subsequent endeavours were government patronised.
Bangladesh should not wait to start a focused effort in nano education. The cadre of private universities in the country can serve as the infrastructure to start the nano-related education. Initially, fundamental principles of nano science and nanotechnology can be taught via an elective course. For example, the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (MNS) of BRAC University in Bangladesh is launching such an elective course for its bachelor's degree programme. Over time, other core courses can slowly be introduced discussing specific topics of nanotechnology; for example, synthesis and characterisation of nano-materials, application of nano-materials, nano-optics, nano-electronics, nano-medicine, etc. Later, technical minors can be developed by combining these courses. However, minors and other comprehensive programme development depend on the market demand for such training. Starting a nano education programme in a private university is advantageous because of its relatively flexible curricula with a higher number of elective courses. The internal academic structure is also more relaxed compared to the hierarchical and rigid public universities. Thus the effective strategy can be to begin nano education programmes at private universities and work our way into the public university structure; as government initiatives will be necessary to proliferate the nano education efforts further.
The readers might still be wondering how education efforts lead to business and research initiatives. Again, putting education in the core of development has been exercised in the western world as well as in our regions. The notion is that education will develop human resources, who either will join an existing workforce in the trained area or will generate demand for job growth in that area. In parallel, the education structure will also likely encourage research initiatives in the respective field. Small businesses once established will likely require skilled workforce, which will in turn increase the demand and need for the educational and training activities. Industries will also need new innovations to remain competitive in the national and world market; which will promote research. The educational institutes will collaborate with industries and also make an effort to establish independent research initiatives to compete in the education market. This will improve and foster education. This self-contained loop will thus result in a true impetus for development in a new area of interest. Nanotechnology is a new field for Bangladesh. Beginning with research or investment in industrial sectors can be risky. A void in the trained workforce can compromise both such activities. However, given the high IQ and existing academic-savvy culture of our country, nano education programmes should be the first step to encourage subsequent business and research efforts.
The strategy outlined in this article is one of the many routes that can be followed in Bangladesh. The author currently is leading a nano education effort in his institution funded by the US National Science Foundation. The experiences therein have guided the strategy discussion in this article. The academics, industry professionals, and policymakers of Bangladesh and those who are pursuing nano-related research and education elsewhere, should be brought together to formulate a comprehensive plan for nanotechnology development in Bangladesh. New ideas and strategies will likely emerge from the unique experiences of the other experts, which can only help in taking the most appropriate measures for our country and establish a truly successful nanotechnology education, research, and entrepreneurial programme.

The author is an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina (USC), USA. He currently supervises multiple research projects on nanoscience and nanotechnology at USC.

Sort legal disputes before 3G auction: GP chairman

Grameenphone is undecided about its participation in the 3G auction due to outstanding disputes with the government, said the mobile operator's high official.
“We need to see what the conditions are [for securing 3G licences] and resolve the pending disputes before we take a decision on 3G,” Sigve Brekke, Grameenphone's chairman, said in an interview.
Brekke, who was recently in Dhaka to introduce the company's new chief executive officer Vivek Sood, met with the finance minister, telecom secretary and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission's (BTRC) chairman -- to voice his concerns.
“I am a bit worried about the regulatory situation of Bangladesh. That should be sorted before the 3G auction is held,” he said.
The government and four of the mobile operators -- Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi and Citycell -- are currently stuck in a tug-of-war over value-added tax (VAT) rebate for 2G spectrum licence.
When the operators renewed their 2G spectrum licences in August last year, they had to pay 15 percent as VAT on top of the renewal fee, a pay-out they did not have to bear the first time round.
The licence fee, previously, was inclusive of tax, with the proceeds split as 85 percent to the telecom regulator and 15 percent to the National Board of Revenue.
The operators individually went to court challenging the legitimacy of the 15 percent VAT, with Grameenphone getting the verdict in its favour. Robi, however, was denied the VAT rebate.
The BTRC and NBR then took the matter to the appellate division, where the case is still pending.
Then last year BTRC claimed upwards of Tk 3,000 crore as unpaid taxes and fees from Grameenphone, which the operator vehemently denied.
The operator placed a case to the High Court, with the verdict yet to be heard.
Brekke urged the government to reach out-of-court settlements for the issues before holding the 3G auction, for which the government has finalised $20 million as the base price and a 15 percent VAT on top.
“If not, it will be difficult for us to participate in the 3G auction. We need to be guaranteed a stable environment before we undertake investments of such scale.”
Brekke deemed the base price to be “excessive”, while adding that the VAT on the licence fee was “not logical” as the operators pay taxes for the services.
The company, which deems its voice business to be saturated and sees future growth coming from data transmission services, however, is excited about the advent of 3G service in Bangladesh.
“When 3G will come you will see explosion of data usage,” said the Grameenphone chairman, adding that the company has a 3G-ready network thanks to recent upgrades.
Brekke hopes the price of smartphones, needed to experience the best of 3G's capabilities, will become affordable for all with the roll-out of the service.
The company has seen its growth in subscriber base stagnate in recent months, and Brekke blames it on the SIM tax.
Regarding the employee outrage Grameenphone faced last year, Brekke said the company is in dialogue with the employees concerned to find an agreeable solution for all.
Brekke, who is also part of Telenor, Grameenphone's parent company's board, said the Norwegian telecommunication giant is now turning its attentions to Asia.
“There is tremendous scope for growth in Asia, in both the areas of voice and data,” he said, adding that about half of the group's revenues come from its Asian concerns.
Telenor, which already has operations in Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, is now looking to enter Myanmar.
Global telecom companies are now eyeing the lucrative Southeast Asian country, which is aiming to expand its telephone penetration between 75 and 80 percent by 2016 from the current level of around 10 percent.
Myanmar's communications and information technology ministry has launched tenders for two mobile phone licences, to which Telenor has expressed its interest.
Regarding the group's growth prospects in its home region, Brekke said: “Growth in voice service there [in Europe] is over. While there is still scope for data growth, overall growth prospect is not promising.”

WTO chief in Dhaka

Star Online Report
Pascal Lamy, director general of World Trade Organisation, arrived in Dhaka on Thursday on a two-day visit to discuss different trade related issues.
Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed received Lamy at Shahjalal International Airport in the afternoon.
The WTO chief will hold a meeting with Commerce Minister GM Quader at state guesthouse Padma at 7:00pm, said an official at the ministry.
Apart from holding meetings with the foreign and finance ministers, he will visit Chittagong.
Lamy's visit to Bangladesh is important as the country is largely dependent on WTO policies for overseas trade, Quader said earlier.
Invited by the commerce ministry, Lamy also visited Bangladesh a few months ago.

3 Jamaat men killed; hartal in Bogra Saturday

Star Online Report
Jamaat-e-Islami will enforce a daylong hartal in Bogra on Saturday protesting the deaths of its three activists in clashes over Thursday's shutdown.
Talking to The Daily Star, the president and secretary of Bogra unit of Jamaat said that they will enforce a dawn-to-dusk hartal in the district protesting the deaths.
A Shibir man was killed and at least three were injured critically when the activists of Jamaat and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir clashed with police and Rab personnel in the town.
Abu Raihan, in-charge of Silimpur Police outpost, told The Daily Star that Abdullah, 22, was rushed to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital in Bogra where he was pronounced dead.
The clash broke out after two Jamaat-Shibir men were hacked to death allegedly by the ruling party activists during Thursday's hartal.
Police said a students' hostel was torched during the clash.
Another clash erupted when police intercepted a procession brought out by the hartal activists in Bogra town, reports our Bogra correspondent.
The processionists were carrying the bodies of two Jamaat-Shibir men who were hacked to death allegedly by the ruling party men during Thursday's hartal.
Mokbul Hossain, assistant superintendent of police, told The Daily Star that law enforcers fired around 400 rounds of tear shells and brought the situation under control around 6:45pm, reports our Bogra correspondent.
The activists of Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing Islami Chhatra Shibir exploded four to five cocktails in Shatmatha area during the clash, said the police official.
Additional police and Rab personnel were also deployed, the ASP added.
Jamaat and Shibir blamed Bangladesh Chhatra League, student body backed by Awami League, for the killings, an accusation denied by the ruling party leaders.
The deceased are Abu Ruhani, 22, president of Azizul Haque College, Old Bhaban unit of Shibir and Mizanur Rahman, 30, a Jamaat activist and owner of a hatchery.
Unidentified criminals stabbed four youths in front of Mujibur Rahman Women's College in the town around noon, reports our Bogra correspondent.
They were rushed to Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College Hospital where Ruhani died around 2:30pm.
The injured -- Shamin Miah, Adnan Rafique, and Shabbir Pramanik -- are undergoing treatment at the hospital.
Shibir town publicity secretary Mizanur Rahman claimed armed BCL activists stabbed the Shibir activists while they were picketing during Thursday's hartal enforced by Jamaat-e-Islami.
BCL Secretary Mashrafi Hero however denied the allegation.
In another incident, unidentified miscreants stabbed Mizanur to death when he was working at his hatchery at Satgram, on the outskirts of the town, around 1:30pm.
Mazedur Rahman Jewel, town secretary of Shibir, claimed that victim Mizanur was a Jamaat activist.
Abu Raihan, in-charge of Silimpur Police outpost, confirmed the murder.
Son of Abu Bakker of Mondalpara area in Bogra, Rohany was an honours final year student at social science department of the college while Mizanur Rahman was the owner of Bhai-Bon hatchery in the town.

Small is Big: the iPad Mini

Small tablets are tailor-made for road warriors. They’re easy, light, portable, and have all the power you need to access the internet or write an email on the go. More functional than smartphones, less bulky than laptops, they’re quickly becoming a must-have in every go bag. Now the only question is: Which smaller tablet should you carry? For me, there are two serious contenders �" the Nexus 7 that’s already in my go bag and the iPad Mini Apple shared with me to review.
The iPad Mini comes with a legacy advantage. Apple is the market leader in tablets, selling more than 100 million iPads in fewer than three years. By one recent analysis, iPads account for 98% of all web traffic originating from tablets �" and 54% from all mobile devices, including smartphones. It’s not as if no other tablet comes close: It’s more like every other tablet combined doesn’t come close.
Still, the iPad Mini was only introduced last October, which meant that competitors could beat it to the small tablet market. The Nexus 7 was released earlier in 2012, and, for all intents and purposes, introduced the category*. Cheaper worthy tablets like the Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble Nook also joined the fray, creating need for Apple to create the iPad Mini, and the appealing chance for price pressure on the iPad premium.
So, which one is a smarter choice to toss in my go bag?
On one level, it comes down to the software, specifically the iPad’s iOS versus the Nexus 7′s Android platform. To note the obvious, app selection is vastly superior for Apple devices. The total number of apps available isn’t necessarily make or break, if the ones you need exist on your platform of choice. But the extent to which you need to be future proof is a factor. The Apple and Android development communities are both robust.
One of the simplest hardware decisions is one of the most powerful on the iPad: The placement of the iPad’s home button makes it possible to wake the device with one hand when it’s lying on a surface. On the Nexus 7 the wake-up key is on the recessed side and cannot even be accessed when laying flat. I often use a tablet right next to my laptop for quick reference, and being able to work it with one hand is big plus.
That home button is also your quick access to Siri. With a press of that button, you can access any app and conduct any web search. You can dictate and send SMS and IM messages. As a second screen �" say you’re working at your laptop �" hitting the home button and saying “open IMDB” doesn’t require nearly the level of disengagement from your main task as navigating for the app. It’s akin to hitting an intercom and having an assistant play a crucial supporting role as you stay focussed on the task at hand. Semantic search is still a work in progress, but don’t hold that against this technology, which in addition to providing reliable command and control is also a powerful dictationist. I use Siri to take notes all the time, and it’s usually the way I start writing anything. The Nexus 7 equivalent requires first navigating to a Google search prompt (after using two hands to unlock the device). A painfully long time passes at is processes the request, then tells you (verbally) it is opening the app, then opens the app. It’s a novelty to the point of being worthless. Add to that, in my far-from-scientific tests, word recognition was vastly superior on the iPad.
There other important differences. Google search from the home screen is unexpectedly better on the iPad than on the Nexus 7. IPad also has the clear edge in the PIM Department: both the mail and calendar clients are more usable.
I also prefer notifications on iPad �" the Nexus 7 status bar can get clogged with icons, when all I need to know is that I have something awaiting my attention. Both reveal the entirety of waiting messages with a swipe down from the top, and Android notifications can all be closed with a single swipe �" on the iPad, only each app’s notifications can be cleared en masse. Another a small improvement in iOS would be single icon indicating unseen notifications.
I didn’t want to like the new iPad charging interface �" the lightning connector. Actually, I wanted to hate it, partly because of the inconvenience of potentially rendering my vast collection of “old” adapters obsolete and partly because Apple (almost certainly for revenue reasons, I imagine) chose to move to another proprietary standard and not micro USB. But after using thunderbolt for a while, I’ve become a convert. It’s superior to USB because it’s “reversible” �" it can be plugged in either way. It also provides very satisfying haptic feedback that it has been inserted properly, unlike the analog plug or USB. And, hey, didn’t Palm change their connector more than a couple of times?
I also want to hate 4G models of any kind, not because of the extra hardware cost but because data plans aren’t rational �" I would pay more than twice as much for AT&T’s “Mobile Share” for less data than I contract for now using three iPhones on my family plan. Under Mobile Share, if I added a tablet with only 1 GB of data that would increase the share plan by $25 a month. As it stands now, dropping my personal hotspot and adding 3 GB for an iPad a la carte would increase increase my bill by only $5 for that same 1 extra GB.
Paying a la carte for connectivity on your phones and tablet is maddening, but it’s hardly the fault of the tablet makers. The iPad’s implementation of 4G backup was perfect in my tests, which included above-ground rail commuting. If you happen to be in a 4G-LTE zone, the speed is breathtaking. If your phone can connect, so will your iPad, whenever you do anything which requires Internet, with no special setup. It’s like a hybrid automobile that starts using the standby gas on its own initiative: it is a non-event for you, just as it should be.
Peripheral cabling is also not a fair fight between the iPad and Nexus 7. An optional thunderbolt-to-HDMI cable means that an iPad can be your entertainment hub in most hotel rooms, patched right into that massive flat screen TV. At home it can substitute for a Roku or Apple TV for downloaded video �" and it operates with the cover closed so there is no mirror image you have to hide under a pillow. At present, there is no equivalent on the Nexus 7.
The iPads �" more accurately, iOS 6.0.2 �" does lack one powerful feature found on the Nexus 7: Gesture typing. This input technique allows you to skate across the keyboard to form words rather than tapping individual keys. It’s a surprisingly effective way to type, especially when standing and holding the tablet in one hand. There is no equivalent for Apple devices. (Swype, a third-party app, has been available for Android devices for some time but gesture typing is now part of the OS of the latest Android update, Jellybean 4.2).
That one winning feature may not be a deciding factor. But while I have defaulted to my review iPad Mini for most everything in recent days, I continue to grab my Nexus 7 when I want to jot something down (and can’t, for ambient reasons, use Siri). But adding gesture typing would be an easy fix for Apple, one which would make their 7″ entrant virtually unassailable. I hope the company isn’t adamantly against it, as it seems to be regarding NFC �" also ubiquitous on Android devices and nowhere to be found in the Apple universe.
On battery life, iPad Mini seems a clear winner as well. It charges more rapidly and discharges more slowly than the Nexus 7, in part because the Android device tends to like things running in the background. That’s addressable, but a nuisance task.
For the truly mobile �" those of it who intend to lug it around to use it at home, at work, and everywhere in between �" the iPad Mini is the clear choice for a smaller tablet. A Mini is destined for my go bag, probably this spring. There are rumors that a second generation is coming out as early as March, so I’m holding off on making the purchase until that clears up. But as soon as Apple makes its move on the iPad Mini, one will move into a permanent place in my go bag.

Google seen missing another deadline in EU antitrust caseDG News Service - Despite saying in December that talks with Google could not go on forever, European Union Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia seems resigned to keep waiting. Almunia laughed as he said at a Wednesday press briefing that "talks were continuing." There is no legal deadline for resolving the antitrust investigation, but in December the commissioner had a meeting in Brussels with Google chief Eric Schmidt and asked his team to provide proposals for a settlement agreement by the end of January. "Today is the 30th and tomorrow is the 31st, so I can imagine the proposals are flying in," said Almunia. "Possibly by express post," he joked. A spokesman from Google could likewise confirm only that talks were continuing and said he could not say whether there would be developments in the coming days or weeks. Google has been under investigation by the Commission since November 2011 after rivals accused the search giant of setting its algorithm to direct users to its own services by reducing the visibility of competing websites and services. In all, 14 companies have complained about Google including the U.K.-based Foundem; Microsoft-owned German price comparison site Ciao; Dutch football website Elfvoetbal; French companies Dealdujour.pro and Twenga; British online mapping company Streetmap; and online travel sites Expedia and TripAdvisor. Google controls more than 90 percent of the search market in several European countries. Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @BrusselsGeek or email tips and comments to jennifer_baker@idg.com.

IDG News Service - Despite saying in December that talks with Google could not go on forever, European Union Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia seems resigned to keep waiting.
Almunia laughed as he said at a Wednesday press briefing that "talks were continuing." There is no legal deadline for resolving the antitrust investigation, but in December the commissioner had a meeting in Brussels with Google chief Eric Schmidt and asked his team to provide proposals for a settlement agreement by the end of January.
"Today is the 30th and tomorrow is the 31st, so I can imagine the proposals are flying in," said Almunia. "Possibly by express post," he joked.
A spokesman from Google could likewise confirm only that talks were continuing and said he could not say whether there would be developments in the coming days or weeks.
Google has been under investigation by the Commission since November 2011 after rivals accused the search giant of setting its algorithm to direct users to its own services by reducing the visibility of competing websites and services.
In all, 14 companies have complained about Google including the U.K.-based Foundem; Microsoft-owned German price comparison site Ciao; Dutch football website Elfvoetbal; French companies Dealdujour.pro and Twenga; British online mapping company Streetmap; and online travel sites Expedia and TripAdvisor.
Google controls more than 90 percent of the search market in several European countries.
Follow Jennifer on Twitter at @BrusselsGeek or email tips and comments to jennifer_baker@idg.com.

Nest raises $80 million for thermostat business -- report

The Nest Learning Thermostat has proven to be a huge hit. In October, CNET Reviews Editor-in-Chief Lindsey Turrentine reviewed the Nest and gave it a full five stars out of five, or "spectacular," rating. Turrentine reported that the thermostat, which is capable of learning the user's heating and cooling preferences over time and can save energy costs, "is easy to install and easy on the eyes." In addition, with its built-in Wi-Fi, it can be controlled entirely from a mobile handset.
Nest is founded by Tony Fadell, who led Apple's iPod development team through its "first 18 generations." According to GigaOm's sources, the company is shipping between 40,000 and 50,000 thermostats per month, and could hit 1 million annual thermostats per year by the summer.
Nest declined comment on CNET's request for comment on the GigaOm report.

BlackBerry goes glam, enlists Alicia Keys

Keys said she previously was a BlackBerry power user, but she left the platform after noticing sexier phones at the gym. For awhile she had two phones, but Keys has now moved back to just a BlackBerry.
It's typical for companies to seek endorsements for their products, and some have even named celebrities to positions within the company. Intel, for example, named singer Will.i.am as its director of creative innovation. Typically, such artists show up at various company events, in ads, and just generally talk up the products.
BlackBerry today launched a new operating system and two new devices that it hopes will attract users back to its platform. The company has faced steep market share loss to Apple and Android handset vendors, and BlackBerry 10 is viewed by many to be the company's last shot at winning over buyers.

King's Landing from 'Thrones' gets the Minecraft treatment

Explore one of the 3,000 buildings in the King's Landing area within the WesterosCraft Minecraft server.

(Credit: Maruku/WesterosCraft) Do you love "Game of Thrones"? Do you eat, sleep, and breathe to the tune of the epic HBO television series based on George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels?
I know times are tough, especially since the new season doesn't start until March 31. But we might have something to tide you over until then.

Related stories

• Swords and suds: 'Game of Thrones' gets official beer

Why not spend some time in a virtual recreation of King's Landing as seen on WesterosCraft -- a Minecraft server dedicated to recreating the world of Westeros as seen in "Thrones." In our gallery below, we take a look at the stunning collaborative work done by more than 100 builders who assembled a behemoth tribute to the capital city. We even break down some of the major landmarks for those who adore "Thrones" lore.

BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 smartphones make their debut

One phone, dubbed the BlackBerry Z10, features a full touch screen -- no QWERTY keyboard on this one. The 4.2-inch display has a pixel density of 356 per inch, compared to the iPhone's 326ppi density.
The other, dubbed the BlackBerry Q10, includes a full keyboard similar to those on older versions of the BlackBerry.
"We have the aspiration to be the best keyboard experience period," Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said during an event in New York.
Both devices include 4G LTE capabilities. Verizon Wireless said it will offer both phones to its customers. The Z10 will be available for $199.99 with a two-year contract in either black or white models. The white version is exclusive to Verizon, the company said.
The BlackBerry Z10 will hit several markets by early February, but U.S. buyers will have to wait a bit.
"We expect availability for most U.S. carriers for Z10 to be in March," Heins said.
Along with Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile will also offer the phone. Heins noted the carriers will soon announce their plans for the devices. The phone will retail for $199 with a contract or sell for $599 unsubsidized, the company said.
U.K. buyers will be able to purchase the phone tomorrow from EE, O2, Vodafone, Phones 4u, BT, 3UK, and the Carphone Warehouse. Pricing varies based on carrier and retail partners and is available on pay monthly contracts and pre-paid tariffs.
The Z10 will be available in Canada on Feb. 5. Pricing will vary by carrier partner but will retail for about $149.99 on a three-year contact.
Heins, meanwhile, discussed other features of the new products and operating system, including BlackBerry Flow, which allows users to move between apps. The technology allows users to open and minimize apps through swipes, and everything keeps working. BlackBerry Peek allows users to play a video and check notifications at once.

Unlocking new smartphone becomes harder Saturday

(CNN) -- It's about to get more difficult to move between smartphone carriers and still keep your existing phone.

Smartphones purchased after Saturday can't be legally unlocked without permission from the carrier, according to a recent ruling by the Library of Congress.

Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, making it illegal to access copyrighted content and break digital rights management technologies. The software that locks a smartphone to one carrier is covered by the act, and unlocking a phone is the process of freeing a device so that it can be used with a different wireless carrier.

The Library of Congress has the ability to grant exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which it has done in the past for smartphone users who wished to unlock their phones. That changed with the most recent group of exemptions that went into effect October 28, but the switch included a 90-day grace period that ends Saturday, as TechNewsDaily pointed out.

The new policy only applies to new locked phones purchased after Saturday, meaning it will still be legal to unlock phones purchased before January 26 without permission.

One way to get around the requirement is to buy a full-priced unlocked phone that doesn't have a contract, but doing so adds hundreds of dollars to the phone's price tag. Carriers subsidize the costs of smartphones to draw new customers in with contracts, usually for two years, and then make back the money from monthly voice and data bills.

In its latest ruling, the Library of Congress decided the software on a phone is only licensed to the end user, meaning they don't own it, so therefore the software is not covered by fair-use rules.

Groups that lobbied to keep the exemption argued that making unlocking illegal is anti-competitive and could result in costlier phones and more electronic waste since some consumers would have to buy a new device to switch carriers.

But the final ruling says there are more options now for obtaining an unlocked phone than in previous years. Many phones are available unlocked for full price, and carriers do have policies in place for unlocking phones. Currently the rules vary from carrier to carrier.

For example, AT&T will unlock an iPhone for current or past customers as long as all contracts have been fulfilled. And Verizon's iPhone 5 is usable on AT&T's network.

However, it's unclear whether carriers will tighten these rules about unlocked phones in the future.

Seconds of pleasure: A few cool Vine videos

(CNN) -- For some people, it's been an open question: Is six seconds, the limit before a Vine video starts looping over and over again, enough time for real creativity?

The answer is yes.

About 24 hours into the existence of Vine, Twitter's appropriately brief video-sharing app, it's already clear that users are doing really cool stuff with it -- in much the same way that people found ways to be funny or insightful with just 140 characters of text.

Sure, a lot of the Vine posts we're seeing are random images of crap on people's desks, their lunches or their cats. (Would it really be the Internet without cats?)

But why focus on the negative when you can accentuate the positive? Here are a few of the most interesting Vines we've seen so far. Let us know of ones we missed in the comments.

Apparently This Matters: ReviewerCard

Editor's note: Each week in "Apparently This Matters," CNN's Jarrett Bellini applies his warped sensibilities to trending topics in social media and random items of interest on the interwebs.

(CNN) -- I have absolutely no business reviewing restaurants. Consider the facts: I like Ramen noodles. I burn my meat. And I'm pretty sure a Klondike Bar is the pinnacle of modern cuisine.

I've also heard good things about Applebee's.

But when it comes to restaurant feedback, someone like me can just go online and write literally anything. And people might actually read it.

"Apparently This Matters" Is Jarrett Bellini's weekly (and somewhat random) look at social-media trends.

"Let's avoid that new Italian place, Diane. It says here the meatballs are made from baby seals."

Nevertheless, amateur reviews on sites like Yelp do play an important role in the restaurant industry, and there are plenty of well-intentioned people who actually provide decent feedback.

"The meatballs are amazing! Definitely not made from baby seals."

Still, just being a prolific amateur reviewer doesn't qualify someone for special treatment when he or she goes out to eat.

Or does it?

Because now there's something called the ReviewerCard. Essentially, it's a plastic membership ID that looks like a high-end AmEx. In the middle it states: I WRITE REVIEWS.

The idea is that you flash it before a meal -- thus, informing the staff of your keen ability to use the Internet -- at which point the manager will suddenly break into a cold sweat and start nervously heaping you with extraordinary service.

"Well, hello! I see you write reviews. Allow me to seat you in our special 'Gonorrhea-Free' section."

The card actually started trending this week after several online publications picked up on the company's lofty idea of passive-aggressive extortion, and most took it to task. However, Brad Newman, founder of ReviewerCard, told the Los Angeles Times, "It's not a threat. It's a way to get the service you deserve."

As for the rest of you proletariat filth, enjoy your chicken fingers in Clap Town!

Of course, deserving good service means the ReviewerCard isn't for everyone, and the website explicitly states that they screen applicants for past online activity: "If you are a casual reviewer and only post once in a while, this card is not appropriate for you."

Unless, you happen to have a hundred bucks. In which case, I'm guessing they'll quietly overlook the fact that your one and only entry on Yelp was about Taco Bell, and you described it as "Epic."

Which it is.

The point: ReviewerCard isn't free. In fact, it's downright pricey. And that's why you have to laugh.

Bottom line, Brad Newman is an opportunist who seems to have found a mildly clever way to get stupid people to give him money. Which is completely fair. If you really want to shell out a hundred dollars for a smug piece of plastic that will likely get you dirty looks and a fresh bowl of snot soup long before a complimentary slice of pecan pie, I say go for it. Operators are standing by.

Well, Brad is, anyway.

Not everyone has been quite as forgiving of this whole ridiculous concept. The ReviewerCard definitely is taking some heat.

But much of what's been said online about Newman's idea seems like nothing more than feigned outrage. Because, let's face it, people love to be offended, and nobody with a shred of intelligence actually thinks this is serious.

Fortunately, I might just have that shred of intelligence. But only a small shred. And I mostly use it for remembering my own name.

So, I'm fine with the ReviewerCard. There's plenty of other things in the world to worry about. Besides, Newman has only sold a little more than 100 ReviewerCards -- likely to the same 100 people who, at this very moment, are constructing another strongly-worded online review from their mom's basement.

"Worst. Meatballs. Ever."

Yahoo earnings: Mayer still has much to prove

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Former Googler Marissa Mayer shocked the world last summer by taking the CEO spot at Yahoo, a brand marred by tumultuous CEO tenures and waning relevance.

Since then, Yahoo's stock has been on a tear and analysts are pinning their hopes for a Big Purple Turnaround squarely on Mayer.

Mayer has laid out her plans to usher in a new era at Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500), and she's generated more excitement about the company than any of the numerous other CEOs Yahoo has had in the past decade. That includes a buzz-worthy appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
But industry watchers are now starting to look for proof that Mayer can deliver on her promises.
To be fair, Mayer has only been on the job for two full quarters. In October, results for the third quarter beat estimates but were hardly fantastic. Mayer's next test comes via Monday's fourth-quarter earnings report, and it will be a look into the new Yahoo business strategy -- the results of which Mayer began laying out in an all-staff meeting in September.
Mayer wants Yahoo to focus on personalizing the Web for its users. She's also trying to shake up the company culture, urging Yahoo staffers to move more quickly and interact with the Web the way the company's users do. To that end, she eliminated company-issued BlackBerrys in favor of new Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) phones.
Mayer has also discussed efforts to revamp search and display advertising, as well as focusing on attracting top talent to Yahoo. Her message is convincing, at least to investors: Shares closed Thursday at their highest level since September 18, 2008.
And so Marissa-love has proliferated, with Yahoos and techies alike wondering if Mayer will finally be the one to right the Yahoo ship after years of failings. Adding to the Mayer obsession is her personal life: She gave birth to a baby boy on September 30 and returned to work after a two-week maternity leave.
Related story: Yahoo CEO Mayer's "God" and "baby is easy" quotes go viral
But, as always in business, the proof is in the numbers. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Yahoo to report fourth-quarter earnings of 28 cents per share, up 18% from a year ago. But they're forecasting just a 4% gain in revenue.
Of particular concern is Yahoo's display revenue: sales from banners, videos and other graphic ads. Display sales were flat in the third quarter, but that's an improvement over the sharp falls from previous quarters.
Still, analysts want to see a return to strong growth, not just stabilization.
BCG Financial analyst Colin Gillis put his thoughts in a haiku: "Time for the next stage, of the turnaround story: drive revenue growth," he wrote in a note to clients Tuesday.
Related story: Yahoo ordered to pay $2.7 billion in bizarre Mexico lawsuit
Gillis called Yahoo's display performance "anemic," and he's not happy with revenue from Yahoo's search partnership with Microsoft's Bing. Mayer herself called Yahoo's search results "disappointing" last quarter, and analysts will look to her after Monday's earnings report for more clarity on what she plans to change.
J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth offered tepid optimism about Mayer's reign, saying in a note Friday that he was "encouraged" by her focus on user experience, search, mobile, and more. Like Gillis, he wants more information on changes to search and display, plus investment and recruitment efforts.
Overall, Anmuth said he wants "to see a better path toward improved execution in the core business."
In other words, Mayer's honeymoon period with Wall Street may soon be over. It's time for Mayer to begin proving that her plan to get Yahoo back on track works, starting with Monday's results.