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Monday, March 11, 2013

Facetune: A Simple Editor for Your Selfies

Sometimes your smartphone snaps don't make you look that great. Facetune is there for those occasions when you could use some help in the appearance department. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/VP9Rl8Bt0jI/facetune-a-simple-editor-for-your-selfies

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

China says U.S. is top source of hacking attacks on country

BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States was the origin of more than half of the hacking attacks on China in the first two months of 2013, state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday, amid escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington over the use of the Internet.

Beijing and Washington have been squaring off for months over the issue of cyber attacks, each accusing the other of hacking into sensitive government websites.

China has long singled out the United States as the top source of intrusion on its computers.

China's top Internet security agency, the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Center (CNCERT), said the hacking attacks from other countries have become "increasingly serious", Xinhua said.

For the first two months of the year, 2,196 control servers in the United States "controlled" 1.29 million host computers in China, making it "the top-ranking country" that hacked into servers and host computers in China, according to Xinhua.

"A large amount of facts have proven that for many years, China has been one of the primary victims of cyber attacks," an unnamed official from the China National Internet Information Office told Xinhua.

In February, the Defense Ministry said that two major Chinese military websites, including that of the Defense Ministry, were subject to about 144,000 hacking attacks a month last year, almost two-thirds of which came from the United States.

A U.S. computer security company in February said that a secretive Chinese military unit was likely behind a series of hacking attacks mostly targeting the United States, setting off a war of words between Washington and Beijing.

China has denied the allegations and said it was the victim.

The hacking dispute adds to diplomatic tension between China and the United States, already strained by Chinese suspicion about Washington's "pivot" back to Asia and arguments over issues from trade to human rights.

(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Michael Perry)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-says-u-top-source-hacking-attacks-country-073136110.html

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Freed UN peacekeepers cross safely into Jordan

Jordan Pix via Getty Images

Chief of Staff Mishaal al Zaben greets the 21 Filipino UN peacekeepers who were held hostage as they arrive in Amman after crossing into Jordan from Syria on Saturday.

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi, Reuters

Twenty-one United Nations peacekeepers captured by Syrian rebels and held for three days in a southern Syrian village crossed safely into neighboring Jordan on Saturday, rebels and a U.N. official in Damascus said.

The Filipino peacekeepers were taken by the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade to the border, about 10 km (6 miles) south of the village of Jamla where they had been held since being captured on Wednesday.

"They are all on the Jordanian side now and they are in good health," said Abu Mahmoud, a rebel who said he had crossed over into Jordan with them.

In the Syrian capital, Mokhtar Lamani, who heads the Damascus office of U.N.-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, confirmed that the men had crossed into Jordan.

The Jordanian government initially appeared taken by surprise by the arrival of the peacekeepers - who had been expected to be retrieved instead by a U.N. convoy inside Syria and possibly taken to Damascus.

That convoy was held up earlier on Saturday in a village north of Jamla, a rebel activist said.

Youssef Badawi / EPA

Mokhtar al-Lamani, head of the Damascus office of the UN-Arab League envoy to Syrian Lakhdar Brahimi, said that the 21 UN peacekeepers have been freed by Syrian rebels handed to the Jordan authorities.

The group - part of the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) that has been monitoring a ceasefire line between Syria and Israel in the Golan Heights since 1974 - was seized by the Martyrs of Yarmouk rebel brigade three days ago.

They were held in Jamla, a village one mile from the Israeli-occupied Golan and 6 miles north of the Jordan border. After their capture insurgents described them as "guests" and said they would be freed once President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from around Jamla and stopped shelling.

A brief truce was agreed on Saturday morning to allow for the peacekeepers' retrieval. Although the two-hour window of that ceasefire passed at midday (1000 GMT) before they could be extracted, the relative calm prevailed long enough for the rebels to take them south to Jordan.

A rescue effort on Friday was delayed by heavy bombardment and abandoned after nightfall, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said.

REGIONAL SPILLOVER

Syria's two-year civil war has spilled periodically across the Golan Heights ceasefire line and Syria's borders with Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey, threatening to engulf the region. The conflict began as peaceful protests, but turned violent when Assad ordered a crackdown on the demonstrations.

Ladsous warned on Friday that once the peacekeepers were freed, "we would strongly expect that there would not be retaliatory action by the Syrian armed forces over the village and its civilian population".

Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said the army had been targeting areas outside Jamla where he said the rebels were concentrated, not the village itself. "We know for sure what we are doing and we know where the peacekeepers are," he said.

"The Syrian government forces are doing exactly what they have to do in order to bring back safely the peacekeepers, guarantee the safety and security of the inhabitants of these villages (and) get these armed group terrorists out of the area."

In several videos released on Thursday, the peacekeepers said they were being treated well by civilians and rebels.

The United Nations said the captives had been detained by about 30 rebel fighters, but Abu Issam Taseel, a Martyrs of Yarmouk activist, said the men were "guests", not hostages, and were being held for their own safety.

Under an agreement brokered by the United States in 1974, Israel and Syria are allowed a limited number of tanks and troops within 20 km of the disengagement line.

A U.N. report in December said both the Syrian army and rebels had entered the demilitarized area between Syrian and Israeli forces. It said that violence in the area showed the potential for escalation across the frontier, jeopardizing the ceasefire between the two countries.

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Stroke prevention device misses key goal in study

This undated image provided by Boston Scientific on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 shows an experimental heart device called the Watchman. The future is unclear for the promising heart device aimed at preventing strokes in people at high risk of them because of an irregular heartbeat. Early results from a key study suggested it is safer than previous testing found, but may not be better than a drug that is used now for preventing strokes, heart-related deaths and blood clots in people with atrial fibrillation over the long term. The new study was to be the top presentation Saturday, March 9, 2013 at an American College of Cardiology conference in San Francisco. But the group took the unprecedented step of pulling it from the program just before it was to go on because Boston Scientific released results early to investors. (AP Photo/Boston Scientific)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? The future is unclear for a promising heart device aimed at preventing strokes in people at high risk of them because of an irregular heartbeat.

Early results from a key study of Boston Scientific Corp.'s Watchman device suggested it is safer than previous testing found, but may not be better than a drug that is used now for preventing strokes, heart-related deaths and blood clots in people with atrial fibrillation over the long term.

More than 2.7 million Americans and 15 million people worldwide have atrial fibrillation. The upper chambers of the heart quiver instead of beating properly. That lets blood pool in a small pouch. Clots can form and travel to the brain, causing a stroke.

The usual treatment is blood thinners such as warfarin, sold as Coumadin and other brands. But they have problems of their own and some are very expensive. The Watchman is intended to be a permanent solution that would not require people to take medications for the rest of their lives. It's a tiny expandable umbrella that plugs the pouch, and is inserted without surgery, through a tube pushed into a vein.

A study four years ago suggested the device was at least as good at preventing strokes as warfarin is, but the procedure to implant it led to strokes in some patients. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration narrowly recommended approving the Watchman but the federal agency required a second test of its safety and effectiveness.

The new study was to be the top presentation Saturday at an American College of Cardiology conference in San Francisco. But the group took the unprecedented step of pulling it from the program just before it was to go on because Boston Scientific released results early to investors.

The study was led by Dr. David Holmes Jr. of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He and the clinic have a financial stake in the device.

The study involved 407 patients ? 269 assigned to get the device and 138 to get warfarin. It had three main goals, and it clearly met the first on safety ? strokes, heart-related deaths, blood clots and serious complications a week after implant or release from the hospital.

"The early concerns about safety of the device ... have been alleviated," Holmes said.

The other two goals were estimated based on just 88 patients who have been tracked for 18 months after treatment. Strokes and blood clots occurred no more often with the device in those patients. However, the results suggest the device will not prove better than warfarin at 18 months on a wider measure ? a combination of strokes, heart-related deaths or clots.

Whether that will be enough to win FDA approval remains to be seen. Dr. Gordon Tomaselli, a Johns Hopkins University heart specialist and former president of the American Heart Association, said he was reassured that the device seems safer, and said it might be approved just for people who cannot tolerate blood thinners long term.

"It's a mixed result," he said. "There still are complications" but fewer of them in the new study.

Dr. Hadley Wilson, cardiology chief at Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, enrolled patients in the new study and predicts the FDA will require even more testing.

"It would be difficult for approvability without further study," he said.

___

Online:

Atrial fibrillation info: http://bit.ly/odcTTM

Watchman device: http://www.bostonscientific.com/watchman-eu/index.html

Study info: http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01182441

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed on Twitter at (at)MMarchioneAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-09-Stroke%20Blocker/id-f5e746cd917d41078ca1594cf48d9ec7

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Keith Urban Glad 'American Idol' In Voter's Hands Now

'It's more of a relief," Urban says about not having to decide the fate of the top 10.
By Gil Kaufman, with additional reporting by Kelly Marino

Keith Urban and Nicki Minaj on "American Idol"
Photo: FOX

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1703270/keith-urban-american-idol-judge.jhtml

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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Guy Gets Netflix Tattoo, Netflix Gives Him A Free Year Of Service

We understand people who love Netflix. Who needs a dumb cable bill anyways? But some people love their streaming-video service more than others.

Twitter user @TheRealMyron showed his love by getting a tattoo in honor of the website. When he tweeted the tattoo at Netflix, the company's account responded by giving him a free year of the service.

That's really nice and all, but we're pretty sure this guy would have paid for another year of Netflix himself. He seems pretty dedicated. There's clearly no need to convince him to support your company. After that one guy got paid $15,000 to get the Romney logo tattooed on his face, people might think they'll get rewarded for getting dumb things permanently stamped on their bodies. Let's just hope this doesn't become a trend.

Earlier on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/netflix-tattoo_n_2838516.html

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Remake of the 1981 film Evil Dead plays at SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? Plans to remake the 1981 cult horror film "Evil Dead" may have brought some initial skepticism, but with the original filmmakers behind the scenes and a fresh-faced director and cast to inject youthful enthusiasm, the South by Southwest festival crowd welcomed the reboot with open arms.

Sam Raimi, who directed the original, and Bruce Campbell, who starred in it, produced the new "Evil Dead." Fede Alvarez, a Uruguayan directing his first feature-length film, oversaw a small cast with Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Jessica Lucas, Lou Taylor Pucci and Elizabeth Blackmore.

The film reimagines the plot of the first Evil Dead but replaced the original five college students on vacation with five high school friends reuniting to help one of them kick a drug addiction. When they find the "Book of the Dead" in their cabin, a demon emerges to possess the students one by one until only one remains.

Gone is the iconic hero Ash, played by Campbell, with Alvarez taking a more ensemble approach that gives Levy and Fernandez equal time.

The mix of fire-hose blood spray, psychological terror and black humor, though, remain true to the campy original that boiled the horror movie genre down to its essence. Robert Tapert, who produced the original and the remake, said Evil Dead was intended for drive-in movies and crowded theaters, but most fans only discovered it on VHS or DVD years later.

"You need to see this with other people, where you can yell and scream. There needs to be a party atmosphere," he said, in explaining his desire to update it. Festival-goers at South by Southwest played right along, cheering, screaming and laughing in all of the right places.

Alvarez said Campbell recruited him to take on the project after years or rumors that he, Raimi and Tapert were planning to remake the low-budget, indie masterpiece t that launched their careers. Alvarez insisted on making the film without computer generated images, instead taking 70 nights to film it using many of the old-school special effects that Raimi used 30 years ago.

"A good movie is about showing real stuff, if you see something fake you wake up from the movie dream," he said. "The other reason was to make the movie timeless. Today's CGI looks great, but five years from now, you say, 'God, what was I thinking?'"

Levy, who stars in the television series "Suburgatory," called the weeks spent in special prosthetics and covered in slimy fluids "torture."

"It was a really long shoot and it felt like it went on forever," she said.

Raimi screened his low-budget 1981 film at the Cannes Film Festival and eventually signed a distribution deal, however the extreme violence and gore initially earned the film an X rating and it still carries an NC-17. The $375,000 movie grossed $2.4 million at the box office, but launched Raimi's career. He made two sequels with Campbell playing Ash, "The Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness." The film also spun off a video game, comic book and musical.

Raimi later directed Hollywood blockbusters including the first three "Spider Man" films, "The Gift" and the recently released "Oz The Great and Powerful."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-09-US-FILM-SXSW-Evil-Dead/id-1b5f3aece3fc4ed2bcca269fb1af7780

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