Microsoft?s next-generation ?Gemini? Office update reportedly slated for fall release

By Martyn Herman LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Whether by design, necessity, self-interest or because of all three, nurturing youngsters has become fashionable for England's elite with no expense spared in the hunt for the new Wayne Rooney or Steven Gerrard. The length and breadth of the country, scouts from top clubs are hoovering up promising footballers barely old enough to tie their bootlaces in a bid to unearth the 30 million pounds ($45.40 million) treasures of the future. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-next-generation-gemini-office-reportedly-slated-fall-001327308.html

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Fongo makes a very public bid for control of Wind Mobile

Canadian carrier Wind Mobile has faced no small amount of tumult in recent months, culminating in direct control by Orascom and talk of shopping the provider around to the highest bidder. We didn't entirely anticipate just who would take up the offer, however: Fongo, best known for its former Dell Voice initiative, has made an overt bid for Wind. The VoIP provider wants to extend Wind's network network across the country while moving subscribers over to Fongo within the space of a year, theoretically creating a perfect match between cheap cellular access and free internet calling. Before anyone pops champagne corks, we'd warn that there's heavy amounts of publicity and symbolism involved in the acquisition attempt. Fongo is offering $1 and a 49 percent stake in its own venture -- that draws attention to its service, but might not hold up in a fierce bidding war. There may be more involved, but we'll have to wait before we know just how serious the move could be. Wind's parent Globalive has declined comment, while Fongo tells us it's waiting on a formal response before putting more of its cards on the table.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile

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Source: Fongo

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/h9_s-rN2lHc/

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And that's the way it was: March 27, 1947 : Columbia Journalism ...

He?s been called ?arguably the most powerful arbiter of consumer tastes? in personal technology. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Marissa Mayer have sought out his opinion. And profiles from the height of his influence in the mid-aughts, linger droolingly on his substantial compensation. But Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal?s lead technology writer, began his career as a journalist in what might be thought of as the anti-capital of the digital age: Detroit.

After graduating from Columbia?s J-school in 1970, Moss was hired as reporter for the Journal, where he?s been ever since. He started off covering the auto industry in Detroit, then moved to Washington, where he reported on labor, energy, and national security. In 1991, he started writing ?Personal Technology,? a weekly WSJ column that he conceived of and created while the personal computer was still in its toddlerdom. In the column, Mossberg reviews new products and analyzes issues that affect the industry?from the perspective of the consumer.

Along with his WSJ colleague Kara Swisher, Mossberg founded and hosts the Journal?s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, CA. The annual conference brings together technologists, and climaxes with a prominent industry leader or leaders being interviewed by Mossberg and Swisher on stage. (The most famous of these sessions was the joint interview of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.) The two columnists also co-edit the All Things Digital website.

From the now-famous first line of his first column??Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it isn?t your fault??Mossberg has been demanding that companies build with the user in mind. And technologists, by their own testimonials, have listened, sometimes incorporating Mossberg?s criticisms and suggestions into their product designs. When it comes to personal technology of the past two decades, Walt Mossberg has been the most influential journalist writing, and the first consumer among equals.

Sang Ngo is an associate editor at CJR.

Source: http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/and_thats_the_way_it_was_march_18.php

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Heat start to move on after streak ends

Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade reacts as he watches a free throw by Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Chicago on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The Bulls won 101-97, ending the Heat's 27-game winning streak. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade reacts as he watches a free throw by Chicago Bulls forward Luol Deng during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Chicago on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The Bulls won 101-97, ending the Heat's 27-game winning streak. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Miami Heat forward Shane Battier grimaces after he was called for a foul during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Chicago Bulls in Chicago on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The Bulls won 101-97, ending the Heat's 27-game winning streak. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Miami Heat forward LeBron James, center, and guard Mario Chalmers, right, listen to guard Ray Allen during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Chicago Bulls in Chicago on Wednesday, March 27, 2013. The Bulls won 101-97, ending the Heat's 27-game winning streak. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Their winning streak finally over, the Miami Heat did on Thursday what they had planned to do all along.

They took the day off.

While the circus atmosphere around the team may slow down now ? until the playoffs start, anyway ? the way the reigning NBA champions go about their business over the final 11 games of the regular season probably will not. Miami's epic, historic, sometimes-mindboggling 27-game winning streak ended with a 101-97 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night, and Heat guard Dwyane Wade was among those sounding absolutely relieved afterward.

"It really didn't matter to us," Wade said. "If you get it, it's awesome. If you don't, we still won 27 games in a row. That's pretty awesome. So, we really weren't like, 'We've got to get that record.' Not at all. And now that it's over, I'm glad it's over."

Next up: Friday night at New Orleans, where the Heat will try to return to their winning ways.

Miami's quest for NBA history ended with the Heat six games shy of matching the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers for the league's longest winning streak. The Lakers will keep their record, but the biggest Lakers star of this generation offered the Heat plenty of respect when their run was over.

"I think just as a student of the game, as a fan of the game, you appreciate those kind of streaks and you realize how difficult it is to put together that big of a streak," Lakers star Kobe Bryant said after learning of the Heat loss. "Obviously the Lakers winning 33 in a row was phenomenal, but the Heat's one was just as impressive."

Still, the Heat insist they can get better.

When Indiana beat the Heat on Feb. 1, Miami coach Erik Spoelstra's postgame theme was that his club had to get better. Nearly two months later, when the Heat streak ended in Chicago, much of Spoelstra's postgame remarks had the same theme.

Players understood his point.

"At the end of the day, a win is a win in our league," said reigning MVP LeBron James, who averaged exactly 27 points per game during the 27-game winning streak. "We've gotten better throughout the season. Each and every month we've improved. We've started from behind some games, but for the most part we've played some great basketball. We're not a team that builds bad habits. That's not even who we are so we're not worried about that."

No matter how they did it, no matter how many double-digit deficits they erased or fourth-quarter comebacks they pulled off, the bottom line was Miami enjoyed 7? weeks of dominance.

Entering Thursday, 10 NBA teams hadn't won 27 games yet this season.

"Really proud of the grind of the last few weeks from my guys," Miami forward Shane Battier, who was part of a 32-game win streak at Duke, 22 with the Houston Rockets and now 27 with the Heat, wrote on Twitter early Thursday. "The focus and effort (and luck) was phenomenal."

Battier closed that tweet with two hashtagged words ? onward and upwards.

Whether it was because they were revered or reviled, the Heat probably got more eyeballs on NBA regular-season basketball than any team had in some time, with people watching to root for either the streak continuing or the streak ending.

They were must-see TV, as proven by national networks like ESPN and NBA TV scrambling to pick up Heat games as the streak rolled along. ESPN said the overnight rating for Heat-Bulls was the fifth-best of any regular-season game ever shown on the network.

Media coverage was as intense as any time during the Big Three era in Miami. On Monday in Orlando, the visiting locker room was overwhelmed by reporters. And on Wednesday in Chicago, Wade freely said he was ready for the circus to end.

"I don't know who half you people are," Wade said.

For those who still need streaks to follow, there's plenty of options.

Women's basketball is chock-full of them right now, with Baylor (32), Notre Dame (28) and Delaware (27) all taking streaks that at least match the Heat run into NCAA regional games this weekend. The NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins were seeking for a 14th straight win against Winnipeg on Thursday night. In men's college basketball, Louisville takes a 12-game winning streak into its Midwest Regional semifinal against Oregon on Friday night.

As far as the NBA goes, the longest current winning streak now belongs to the New York Knicks ? a mere six games.

What the Heat did obviously won't be exceeded this season, and probably not for a while. If Miami won every game left on its schedule and swept all four playoff series, they would end the year with another 27-game winning streak.

Don't count on that one happening. Bryant may have tipped his cap to the Heat, but not all the Lakers were exactly heartbroken that their franchise will keep the record.

"We kept the streak," Lakers center Pau Gasol said. "And it's about time that Miami lost."

During the streak ? starting from the moment Miami lost in Indiana on Feb. 1 to the final buzzer in Chicago ? every other NBA team lost at least five times. Nearly two-thirds of the league lost at least 10 games. Orlando lost more than anyone else, falling on 23 occasions. Maybe the biggest sign of Miami's dominance was that 12 teams endured more defeats during the streak than the Heat had lost all season.

Starting Friday, they begin another chapter.

"Now that it's over," Wade said, "let's look back on it as something that was great."

___

AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-28-BKN-Heat-Streak-Over/id-7417fe43e81b43f785e2a9be6957ce0c

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LA schools settle claims over lewd 'tasting games'

FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2012 file photo, Mark Berndt, right, a former South Los Angeles-area elementary school teacher at Miramonte Elemenary looks to his attorney, Victor Acevedo during his arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court Metropolitan Branch. The Los Angeles school district will pay millions of dollars to settle claims and lawsuits filed by students and families from an elementary school where Berndt was accused of spoon-feeding children semen in what he called "tasting games," lawyers in the cases said Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photos/Al Seib, Pool, File)

FILE - In this Feb. 21, 2012 file photo, Mark Berndt, right, a former South Los Angeles-area elementary school teacher at Miramonte Elemenary looks to his attorney, Victor Acevedo during his arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court Metropolitan Branch. The Los Angeles school district will pay millions of dollars to settle claims and lawsuits filed by students and families from an elementary school where Berndt was accused of spoon-feeding children semen in what he called "tasting games," lawyers in the cases said Tuesday, March 12, 2013. (AP Photos/Al Seib, Pool, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The Los Angeles school district will pay millions of dollars to settle claims and lawsuits filed by students and families from an elementary school where a third-grade teacher was accused of spoon-feeding children semen in what he called "tasting games," lawyers in the cases said Tuesday.

District officials did not reveal the total amount of the settlement, but attorney Raymond Boucher, who represents several Miramonte Elementary School students, said each claimant will receive $470,000.

District General Counsel David Holmquist said the settlement covers 58 of the 191 claims and lawsuits filed by students and parents against the district after the January 2012 arrest of former third-grade teacher Mark Berndt on 23 charges of lewd behavior spanning five years at Miramonte.

A few of the cases involved another Miramonte teacher, Martin Springer, who was charged with lewd acts on a child in a case involving a second-grader that authorities said was fondled in class in 2009.

The accusation surfaced after Berndt's arrest, Holmquist said.

The 58 people involved in the settlement are all students, he said.

Prosecutors said in Berndt's "tasting games" he fed students his semen on cookies and by spoon, sometimes blindfolding and photographing them. Berndt, who taught for 32 years at the South Los Angeles school, has pleaded not guilty in the criminal case.

Springer has also pleaded not guilty.

The allegations against Berndt came to light when a drugstore photo technician noticed dozens of odd photos of blindfolded children and reported them to authorities. Investigators said they discovered a plastic spoon in Berndt's classroom trash bin that was found to contain traces of semen.

Boucher, who represents 13 of the 58 students in the settlement, said proving some of the claims would have been a problem at trial.

Some children did not have photographs of themselves eating the cookies laced with a milky white substance, or of being fed spoonfuls of it, he said.

In addition, there was no way to prove the substance in photos was semen, he added.

Parents also understood that with so many claims, a jury verdict could bankrupt the district, he added.

"We had to do a balancing act and we understood, if you go that second route and you wind up (with the district) in bankruptcy, these clients will never receive compensation for what they've been through," Boucher said.

Frank Perez, an attorney representing eight students, said parents chose to settle rather than put their children through the emotional upheaval of litigation and to put the case behind them.

Other attorneys blasted the settlement amount as paltry and said they would proceed with their cases.

"This is lifelong trauma," lawyer Brian Claypool said.

Attorney John Manly said the district has not yet explained how the alleged incidents went undetected for so long.

"The district got a great deal today," he said. "There's not been a single explanation of who knew what when."

The case led to a wide-ranging overhaul of how the nation's second-largest school district handles allegations of sexual abuse after it was revealed that previous complaints about Berndt's behavior were ignored.

It also shined a light on how slowly state officials act to censure teachers and led to a flurry of allegations of teacher-student sex abuse in the district and in other school systems.

Shortly after Berndt's arrest, the school district temporarily removed all 76 of the school's teachers along with staff and administrators, putting them on leave and having them report to an empty high school nearby.

Six months later, when the new school year began, 43 of them returned to a restructured Miramonte with a new principal. The rest either retired or went to new schools.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-13-Los%20Angeles%20School%20Molestation/id-ed2aaf7e97f44649ab88fe3dfa281d31

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96% West of Memphis

All Critics (98) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (94) | Rotten (4)

A true-crime story that begins with a notorious murder case and grows into a chilling indictment of the American justice system.

And justice for all? Hardly.

It tells the story of a terrible crime compounded by a grave injustice that's been remedied, but only in part, so it's impossible to have a single or simple response to the movie.

What sets this film apart from previous efforts to document the story is that Jackson and Walsh financed a private investigative team with legal and forensic experts who re-examined old evidence, conducted new interviews and found new witnesses.

Happy, sad, inspiring, infuriating, right and terribly wrong, all at the same time.

Berg's film is as much an indictment of the state of Arkansas' legal system as it is the prosecution.

The case is more intriguing than the film about it.

Isn't unnecessary, but it's often superfluous.

The film suggests these powerless, poorly educated young men were scapegoated because they would be missed by nobody of importance -- the justice system equivalent of the cannon fodder recruited from the same socioeconomic straits.

It's nice to have all the twists and turns of the iconic case contained tidily in one well-crafted film, although there are no real revelations here.

"West of Memphis" becomes a greatest-hits concert of prosecutorial misconduct, and you'll agree when the film asserts that prosecutors knew they had the wrong guys.

Incredibly, after three documentaries on the subject, there are still things to reveal about the West Memphis Three.

"West of Memphis" does nothing to displace its predecessor films as masterpieces of investigative filmmaking, but complements them as a riveting capstone to an epic and tragic tale.

West of Memphis is the real vindication - even if it is incomplete.

In the end it won't matter if this is the fourth movie about the same subject; you can never learn its lessons often enough.

West of Memphis caps off the Paradise Lost/West Memphis Three saga with a line up full of perpetrators including the media, the West Memphis PD, the legal establishment and suspect gift wrapped with a smoking gun.

Injustice in West Memphis, Arkansas

Berg lays out her case with the logic of a first-rate prosecutor and the theatricality of a born storyteller.

Good to know these guys are finally free.

West Of Memphis isn't afraid to show us the graphic nature of the crime and more importantly, it isn't afraid to point fingers at those whose actions deserve to be questioned.

It's reasonable to question whether the time and resources poured into this project might have been better spent highlighting a miscarriage of American justice that nobody knows about rather than one that enjoys a celebrity profile.

The most intense, nail-bitingly suspenseful thriller franchise "from the dark side" these days is not the product of a screenwriter's imagination.

The most intriguing and worthy aspect of this accomplished documentary is that it never lets anyone forget the biggest tragedy of the many threaded through this story - the helpless children who never deserved the brutal fate handed to them.

Somewhere along this narrative's mammoth timeline, examining the construction of modern social heroes became more important than the memories of three little boys.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/west_of_memphis/

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Raiding Your 401(k) to Pay Bills: Weighing the Pros and Cons

Recent statistics on the prevalence of IRA and 401(k) raiding is alarming. It showcases, in a small way, some of the desperation inherent in our economic situation. Certainly tapping one?s 401(k) should be reserved for the most dire of financial circumstances, but where do you draw the line. Before we get into some of the expenses which would require an individual to raid his/her 401(k), let?s give a friendly reminder of the consequences.

Any 401(k) early distribution would require taxes to be paid on the amount withdrawn, according to you individual tax rates. In addition, you will incur a 10% early withdrawal penalty. That means if you have a $100,000 401(k) and are in a 20% tax bracket, you?ll end up paying about $30,000 for withdrawing early ($20,000 in tax and $10,000 in early withdrawal fees). The dark horse of early withdrawals is the amount you lose in investment income. A $100,000 401(k)?even if invested in today?s volatile market?would probably net you at least a semi-decent annual return, plus compounding year over year. Withdrawing early means missed investment income, including the compounding?which is the biggest deal of all.

Extreme caution is certainly needed when even thinking of tapping your retirement funds. With that in mind, here is an interesting list of the average American family budget. I?ve bolded items I would personally even ever consider funding with my retirement account.

• Mortgage/Rent
• Home Insurance
• Health Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Car Insurance
• Food
• Gas
• Cell Phone
• Electricity
• Water, Sewer, Gas
• Television/Internet
• Entertainment

That?s my personal list. Your list may be longer, but perhaps similar. As you can see, there are some things that, if pressed, I would live without. I would have to be pretty desperate to eat my children today and have nothing saved for my retirement years tomorrow.

Unfortunately, there really aren?t too many positives about having to drain your retirement account to pay daily, life-sustaining bills. The cons of such a decision may outweigh the need to keep the home, feed the children and otherwise survive. At that point, the products we provide become useless. However, there are a great many who likely need their retirement funds for general expenses. Let?s hope things get better before they get worse.

?

Source: http://www.silverstone.net/tapping-your-401k-to-pay-bills/

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