Feb. 27, 2013 ? Football fans have become accustomed to viewing televised games from a dozen or more camera angles, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Electro-Communications (UEC) in Tokyo suggest another possible camera position: inside the ball itself.
The researchers have shown that a camera embedded in the side of a rubber-sheathed plastic foam football can record video while the ball is in flight that could give spectators a unique, ball's-eye view of the playing field. Because a football can spin at 600 rpm, the raw video is an unwatchable blur. But the researchers developed a computer algorithm that converts the raw video into a stable, wide-angle view.
Kris Kitani, a post-doctoral fellow in Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute, is aware that a football league is unlikely to approve camera-embedded footballs for regular play. Even so, the BallCam might be useful for TV, movie productions or training purposes.
One of his co-authors, UEC's Kodai Horita, a visiting graduate student last year at the Robotics Institute, will present a paper about BallCam on March 8 at the Augmented Human International Conference in Stuttgart, Germany.
Kitani said BallCam was developed as part of a larger exploration of digital sports. "We're interested in how technology can be used to enhance existing sports and how it might be used to create new sports," he explained. In some cases, athletic play may be combined with arts or entertainment; a camera-embedded ball, for instance, might be used to capture the expressions on the face of players as they play catch with it.
Other researchers have developed throwable cameras that produce static images or use multiple cameras to capture stabilized video. The BallCam system developed by Kitani and Horita, along with Hideki Sasaki and Professor Hideki Hoike of UEC, uses a single camera with a narrow field of view to generate a dynamic, wide-angle video.
When the ball is thrown in a clean spiral, the camera records a succession of frames as the ball rotates. When processing these frames, the algorithm uses the sky to determine which frames were made when the camera was looking up and which were made when it was looking down. The upward frames are discarded and the remaining, overlapping frames are stitched together with special software to create a large panorama. Similar stitching software is used by NASA to combine images from Mars rovers into large panoramas and is increasingly found in digital cameras.
The algorithm also makes corrections for some distortions in the image that twist yard lines and occur because of the speed of the ball's rotation. Further work will be necessary to eliminate all of the distortion, Kitani said, and a faster camera sensor or other techniques will be needed to reduce blurring. Multiple cameras might also be added to the football to improve the finished video.
Politicians? manners these days seem to take their cues from gargoyles. (c FlaglerLive)
By Paula Dockery
-?Ci-vil-ity?(noun):? politeness, courtesy. ??Civ-i-lize?(verb):? to raise from a primitive state to an advanced and ordered state of cultural development. ??Civil War?(noun):? a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.
Once upon a time those who were afforded the opportunity to govern treated each other with respect and courtesy while working together to do what was in the best interest of those that elected them.
While they did not always agree on the details of policy, they worked together with a spirit of cooperation, coordination and shared responsibility. Those who possessed the art of negotiation and diplomacy were honored, hailed, and recognized as highly effective and skilled leaders.? Working across the aisle with members of the other party was the true trademark of a democracy.
A win was declared when a desirable outcome was reached that positively affected society as a whole.
We were taught to respect the office even if we disagreed with the individual holding it. Whether you ?liked? the president or not, the individual elected to that office deserved to be addressed as president. That is what a civil society does.
President Ronald Reagan recognized the importance of inclusion and epitomized this concept in uniting us as Americans. He reached across the aisle to Speaker of the House Tip O?Neill to work together for the sake of all Americans. He didn?t sacrifice his principles but rather understood that policy should be long-term and incremental. He understood that you don?t get everything you want but you continue to move forward, slowly and steadily, to lay the building blocks for future generations of leaders.
What has changed? How have we reached a point when anger, obstructionism, bipartisanship and manufactured crises have replaced diplomacy, cooperation, negotiation and problem solving?
A win is now defined by one?s ability to make the other cave or by a defeat at the polls. It is defined by who won at spinning the message or who raised more money to distort the other party?s views, intentions or character. It has become personal, ego-driven and selfish. Taking credit and assigning blame have replaced sharing responsibility and celebrating mutual success.
We have become so polarized that working across the aisle is considered disloyal. Disagreeing with the actions of your party is considered traitorous. Bucking the extreme factions of either party makes you vulnerable in a primary battle.
Holding moderate views, where the majority of voters are, brands you a RINO or a DINO ? a Republican in name only or a Democrat in name only. Factions of their own party have unwisely dismissed good people with crossover appeal like Governors Chris Christie and Jon Huntsman.? Cabinet nominees, like Sen. Chuck Hagel, have been targeted for defeat, despite having been touted as a great candidate for the position. His crime was putting independent thought over party loyalty.
The change needs to start with the parties. The tents need to be larger. The tone needs to be more civil. Tolerance needs to replace hatred, anger and ridicule.
How can we be a united people when the parties spend the vast majority of their resources attacking fellow Americans?
The American people are fed up. They want, and deserve, representation that is focused on defining problems and addressing them with an open heart and mind, a spirit of cooperation and unity and a willingness to consider all facts and opinions before passing judgment.? They want commonsense, knowledge-based solutions. They don?t care who gets the credit; they want and expect results.
There is plenty of credit to go around, unless, of course, the motivation is to demonize your opponent as a political strategy for election or re-election.
Voters want the bitter, petty, personal attacks to be replaced by effective leadership, bipartisan cooperation and a spirit of unity.
With approval numbers for Congress at an all-time low, it?s time to wake up, start listening, shake hands, roll up our sleeves, embrace diversity, practice tolerance and empathy and work slowly and steadily toward a healthy civil discourse.
Truly effective leaders are knowledgeable, work well with others, admit and learn from their mistakes and put the well-being of others above partisanship and their own political ambitions.
Any volunteers?
Paula Dockery was term-limited as a Republican state senator from Lakeland after 16 years in the Florida Legislature. She can be reached by email here.
Please support FlaglerLive. Go to our Contributions/Donations Page.
New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New fabrication technique could provide breakthrough for solar energy systemsPublic release date: 27-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Colin Poitras colin.poitras@uconn.edu 860-486-4656 University of Connecticut
Atomic layer deposition process could greatly improve efficiency of solar rectenna arrays
A novel fabrication technique developed by a University of Connecticut engineering professor could provide the breakthrough technology scientists have been looking for to vastly improve the efficiency of today's solar energy systems.
For years, scientists have studied the potential benefits of a new branch of solar energy technology that relies on nanosized antenna arrays theoretically capable of harvesting more than 70 percent of the sun's electromagnetic radiation and simultaneously converting it into usable electric power.
But while nanosized antennas that also serve as rectifiers have shown promise in theory, scientists have lacked the technology required to construct and test them. The fabrication process is immensely challenging. The nano-antennas known as "rectennas" because of their ability to both absorb and rectify solar energy from alternating current to direct current must be capable of operating at the speed of visible light and be built in such a way that their core pair of electrodes is a mere 1 or 2 nanometers apart, a distance of approximately one millionth of a millimeter, or 30,000 times smaller than the diameter of human hair.
The potential breakthrough lies in a novel fabrication process called selective area atomic layer deposition (ALD) that was developed by Brian Willis, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Connecticut and the former director of UConn's Chemical Engineering Program.
It is through atomic layer deposition that scientists believe they can finally fabricate a working rectenna device. In a rectenna device, one of the two interior electrodes must have a sharp tip, similar to the point of a triangle. The secret is getting the tip of that electrode within one or two nanometers of the opposite electrode, something similar to holding the point of a needle to the plane of a wall. Before the advent of ALD, existing lithographic fabrication techniques had been unable to create such a small space within a working electrical diode. Using sophisticated electronic equipment such as electron guns, the closest scientists could get was about 10 times the required separation. Through atomic layer deposition, Willis has shown he is able to precisely coat the tip of the rectenna with layers of individual copper atoms until a gap of about 1.5 nanometers is achieved. The process is self-limiting and stops at 1.5 nanometer separation.
The size of the gap is critical because it creates an ultra-fast tunnel junction between the rectenna's two electrodes, allowing a maximum transfer of electricity. The nanosized gap gives energized electrons on the rectenna just enough time to tunnel to the opposite electrode before their electrical current reverses and they try to go back. The triangular tip of the rectenna makes it hard for the electrons to reverse direction, thus capturing the energy and rectifying it to a unidirectional current.
Impressively, the rectennas, because of their extremely small and fast tunnel diodes, are capable of converting solar radiation in the infrared region through the extremely fast and short wavelengths of visible light something that has never been accomplished before. Silicon solar panels, by comparison, have a single band gap which, loosely speaking, allows the panel to convert electromagnetic radiation efficiently at only one small portion of the solar spectrum. The rectenna devices don't rely on a band gap and may be tuned to harvest light over the whole solar spectrum, creating maximum efficiency.
Willis and a team of scientists from Penn State Altoona along with SciTech Associates Holdings Inc., a private research and development company based in State College, Pa., recently received a $650,000, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to fabricate rectennas and search for ways to maximize their performance.
"This new technology could get us over the hump and make solar energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels," says Willis. "This is brand new technology, a whole new train of thought."
The Penn State Altoona research team which has been exploring the theoretical side of rectennas for more than a decade is led by physics professor Darin Zimmerman, with fellow physics professors Gary Weisel and Brock Weiss serving as co-investigators. The collaboration also includes Penn State emeritus physics professors Paul Cutler and Nicholas Miskovsky, who are principal members of Scitech Associates.
"The solar power conversion device under development by this collaboration of two universities and an industry subcontractor has the potential to revolutionize green solar power technology by increasing efficiencies, reducing costs, and providing new economic opportunities," Zimmerman says.
"Until the advent of selective atomic layer deposition (ALD), it has not been possible to fabricate practical and reproducible rectenna arrays that can harness solar energy from the infrared through the visible," says Zimmerman. "ALD is a vitally important processing step, making the creation of these devices possible. Ultimately, the fabrication, characterization, and modeling of the proposed rectenna arrays will lead to increased understanding of the physical processes underlying these devices, with the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of solar power conversion technology."
The atomic layer deposition process is favored by science and industry because it is simple, easily reproducible, and scalable for mass production. Willis says the chemical process is particularly applicable for precise, homogenous coatings for nanostructures, nanowires, nanotubes, and for use in the next generation of high-performing semi-conductors and transistors.
The method being used to fabricate rectennas also can be applied to other areas, including enhancing current photovoltaics (the conversion of photo energy to electrical energy), thermoelectrics, infrared sensing and imaging, and chemical sensors.
Over the next year, Willis and his collaborators in Pennsylvania plan to build prototype rectennas and begin testing their efficiency.
"To capture the visible light frequencies, the rectenna have to get smaller than anything we've ever made before, so we're really pushing the limits of what we can do," says Willis. "And the tunnel junctions have to operate at the speed of visible light, so we're pushing down to these really high speeds to the point where the question becomes 'Can these devices really function at this level?' Theoretically we know it is possible, but we won't know for sure until we make and test this device."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Blackstone, one of the world's largest investment houses, is pitching to large institutional investors in Hong Kong and mainland China to help it launch a new real estate fund for Asia, where property prices are rising strongly.
Among the potential institutional investors, known as "limited partners" for their investments in private equity funds, that Blackstone has been talking to is China Investment Corp (CIC) in Beijing, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), said people familiar with the matter.
CIC is the mainland's US$300 billion sovereign wealth fund, whose funding comes mostly from the country's massive foreign exchange reserves. The HKMA is the de facto central bank for Hong Kong and also manages the city's large reserves.
Both the CIC and the HKMA have a strong desire to diversify their investments abroad for stable and higher returns, rather than merely buying traditional assets such as foreign government bonds. China is already the largest holder of US debt.
"Both CIC and HKMA were pitched. Given their long-standing good business ties with Blackstone, I think it is very likely that both will put some money in its new real estate fund," said one of the people, who declined to be identified as the talks remain private and confidential.
Both CIC and HKMA were pitched. Given their long-standing good business ties with Blackstone, I think it is very likely that both will put some money in its new real estate fund
Blackstone began marketing its new Asia-dedicated property fund late last year and it aimed to raise a total of about US$2 billion for the fund, which would bet on large-sized property investments in major Asian economic powers such as China and India, said the sources.
Last October, Stephen Schwarzman, a co-founder and chairman of Blackstone, said during a brief visit to Hong Kong that his firm would not quit the mainland's property market despite growing concerns about the outlook of the real estate sector. Such worries come after years of efforts by Beijing to check rising property prices and speculation.
Blackstone, already one of the largest property investors globally, aimed to buy property assets at "discount for size", said Schwarzman during his last trip to the city.
Blackstone competes with a growing number of American rivals in Asia, such as KKR, TPG, and the Carlyle Group. Like all the other major global private equity funds, it is also keen to make direct investments in mainland firms, but real estate investments have played a more significant role for Blackstone given some successful stories in this sector in recent years, said the sources.
In China, Antony Leung Kam-chung, a former Hong Kong Financial Secretary, has been leading Blackstone's fund-raising efforts for years, after he was appointed the firm's top executive for the so-called greater China region including Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the mainland. Thanks to Leung's good relations with Beijing, he has already managed to convince CIC to invest in some other Blackstone funds.
The fundraising process of Blackstone's new Asia-dedicated real estate fund is ongoing and the first closing period could be late this year, said the sources. Typically, a large government-backed institutional investor like CIC is expected to put several hundred million US dollars in one such fund.
Whenever you decide to begin a bodybuilding program you will need a workout schedule. This will help you stay focused and is a necessary part of muscle growth. The schedule is what will get your muscles used to the rigors of strength training and help you gain muscle mass.
A workout schedule for bodybuilding will consist of two components: exercise and rest. You will need to strength train on a regular basis. Usually, trying to do this every day at the same time is a good idea as it helps your body get used to it and keeps you from not putting it off for later. Once you establish a schedule you will get into the rhythm of things and can begin transforming your body.
Rest is another important factor in your bodybuilding schedule. Your muscles need rest in order to recover from the training. When you strength train, your muscle tissues are broken down. They need time to repair themselves so they may grow. This part is just as important as the exercise itself.
If you are looking to gain muscle mass in a very short period of time, you will need to follow an intense exercise program. Begin each workout with a short warm up. This should be five to ten minutes of light cardio. Walking on a treadmill or riding a stationary bike will work well for this. You should also be sure to stretch your muscles after warming up so they will be ready for the workout.
Warm up before each exercise using approximately half the weight you will use during your working sets. Perform around four to six repetitions with the lighter weight. This will prepare your muscles to work under heavier loads.
Exercise each muscle group, doing two to three sets of each with eight to 12 reps. As time goes by, you will decrease the number of reps while increasing the amount of weight. This is what makes it an intense workout. You are pushing your muscles to the max by using heavier weights. More reps here won?t do you more good, in fact, they may wind up doing less. You don?t want to over train your muscles, you simply want to stimulate them, not annihilate them. More weight is what will do this for you in a short amount of time.
Move through all your exercises and cool down afterwards. Post-workout stretching will help you relax the muscles and begin the repair process. You muscles need to stay flexible, with msucle flowing nutrients to them in order to grow. Work out three to four days a week hitting different muscle groups on different days. Splitting it up like this also keeps you from over training. Rest the remaining days. Your muscles will thank you for it by beginning to grow stronger and before you know it you?ll gain more muscle mass in a short period of time than you ever thought possible.
KALAMAZOO (WWJ/AP) - A jury has found a man guilty on all counts in the robbery and slaying of a 74-year-old Kalamazoo antiques dealer. A second suspect awaits trial.
Deliberations began Friday and ended Tuesday when the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court jury found 21-year-old Antonio Livingston guilty of first-degree murder, first-degree home invasion and assault with intent to rob.
The murder conviction carries an automatic penalty of life in prison without parole. Sentencing is March 25.
Prosecutors say Livingston was present when John Aguilar beat Robert Medema to death in August in his home. ?A 16-year-old runaway, who?d been staying with Aguilar, testified that Aguilar and Livingston had told her to watch for Medema the day of his death ? but said she didn?t know they?d planned to kill him.
Livingston testified he thought he and Aguilar were just going to pick up items for a garage sale. He said Aguilar told him to go through a window into Medema?s house, but that he never thought a crime would occur.
Aguilar is scheduled to go on trial in April.
(TM and ? Copyright 2013 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Though they're no longer married, Denise Richards is still taking care of Charlie Sheen -- on Twitter. The friendly exes shared a little back-and-forth banter on Sunday, Feb. 24 that ended with Richards telling Sheen it was time to go to bed.
AP, Getty Images file
It all started with Richards cleaning out her garage to create a playroom for her adopted baby girl Eloise, and daughters Sam, 8, and Lola, 7, whom she shares with Sheen, 47. While cleaning, the 42-year-old actress was watching the 2013 Oscar show and tweeted "you look ravishing" to ABC's Robin Roberts. Sheen replied to Richards' tweet, writing, "Hash tag suck up."
PHOTOS: Hollywood's friendliest exes
The mother of three, who divorced Sheen in May 2011 after three years of marriage, wrote back, "Come help me clean the damn garage for their playroom."?
"I'm BUSY LADY! LOOK!" Sheen tweeted with a picture of himself hanging out with a friend.
"Yes I see," Richards replied. "Time to pack it in and GO TO BED you have a 5:30am call . . . 3 1/2 hrs so get your ass up to your room."
PHOTOS: Denise's dating history
But her ex-husband wasn't done with his night of fun. The "Anger Management" actor wrote back, "I SAID LOOK!" with a second photo of himself holding a bottle and digging in his fridge.
Gus Ruelas / Reuters
The actor's found success in films like "Wall Street" and TV shows like "Two and a Half Men," but his off-screen life hasn't been as smooth.
"Charles . . . not to be a buzzkill . . . But this is the point where the night can go sideways," Richards answered him.
PHOTOS: Denise's life as a mom
The playful argument between the exes was interrupted by a fan who wrote, "How cute... most people would have this convo via text in private but celebs decide to have it on Twitter."
Richards responded, "Well if these are our public messages imagine our private ones . . . "
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's curtains on the 85th annual Academy Awards, but despite a run time that clocked in at three hours and 35 minutes, this edition of the Oscars was a relatively brief affair.
True, it was longer than the previous two shows, but it was a far cry from the late 1990s and early aughts when the program occasionally topped four hours of entertainment and acceptance speeches.
or now, the 74th Academy Awards in 2002 will retain its crown as the longest show in Oscar history. Credits on that program, which was hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and saw "A Beautiful Mind" capture Best Picture, finally stopped rolling after four hours and 23 minutes.
Two other Oscar telecasts ran over four hours - the 1999 show with Goldberg hosting ran four hours and two minutes and the 2000 version came in at four hours and four minutes with Billy Crystal as emcee.
The most recent program with Seth MacFarlane as ringmaster and a cavalcade of musical acts from the likes of Shirley Bassey and Barbra Streisand isn't even the longest Oscars in the past five years. That honor goes to the 2010 broadcast with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin co-hosting over a three hour and 37 minute show.
The relatively brief running time (at least historically speaking) didn't stop MacFarlane from cracking wise about the languorous pacing of the show. At one point, he quipped that the broadcast was going to keep running until the 2014 Oscars and at another he joked that that 86-year-old Best Actress nominee Emmanuelle Riva ("Amour") was 9 when the show started.
Just imagine how old she'd have been by the time the 2002 show wrapped up.
FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, file photo, the exterior of a Barnes & Noble bookstore is seen in Salem, N.H. Barnes & Noble. Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble, disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday morning Feb. 25, 2013, that he wants to acquire the company's stores and website, but not the business that makes the Nook e-reader or the company's college bookstores. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, file photo, the exterior of a Barnes & Noble bookstore is seen in Salem, N.H. Barnes & Noble. Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble, disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday morning Feb. 25, 2013, that he wants to acquire the company's stores and website, but not the business that makes the Nook e-reader or the company's college bookstores. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
FILE - In a Feb. 26, 2008 file photo Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes & Noble, is seen in New Orleans. Riggio disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday morning Feb. 25, 2013, that he wants to acquire the company's stores and website, but not the business that makes the Nook e-reader or the company's college bookstores. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The last remaining national bookstore chain is being taken off the shelf and dusted off for sale.
Barnes & Noble's founder Leonard Riggio disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that he wants to acquire the company's stores and website, but not the business that makes the Nook e-reader or the company's college bookstores. No price was disclosed.
It's the latest attempt by a company founder to take back control of all or part of a company he started. Best Buy's co-founder Richard Schulze is mulling a bid for the electronics retailer, and Michael Dell earlier this month announced a $24.4 billion deal to take the namesake computer company he founded private.
The deals are a way for executives to exert more control over companies without the need to run everything by shareholders. In all of these cases, the founders have devoted decades to the businesses, and the companies are struggling to survive in a changing retail landscape.
"When you've got control outside public eye or public market, you can invest and translate your strategy at your own pace," said Peter Wahlstrom, analyst at Morningstar. "It's him believing he can run it better by himself without the distraction of the digital side. He believes the brand has value that's not being recognized by investors."
Barnes & Noble, based in New York, has been struggling to find its place as more readers have shifted to electronic books and competition has grown from discount stores and online competitors. The company, which has 689 bookstores in 50 states and 674 college bookstores, has been trying to avoid the fate of its former rival Borders Group, which did not adapt to the growing threat of the Internet and e-books and went out of business in 2011.
Technically, Riggio, who is chairman of the chain, didn't found the original Barnes & Noble store in New York when it opened in 1917. But he bought the store and brand name in the 1970s. Under his leadership, Barnes & Noble became a one of the pioneers of the "big box" format in which national chains would set up large stores that offer a wide selection of merchandise under one roof.
The company also pioneered bookselling in general. In 1975 it began offering 40 percent off New York Times best sellers, which was then unheard of in the bookselling business.
Throughout the 1980s, the company expanded through acquisitions. It bought B Dalton Bookseller in 1987 and BookStop in 1989. Then it went public in 1993 and established its Web site in 1997.
But the company was hurt by Internet retailers like Amazon.com and discounters such as Wal-Mart and Costco expanding their book selections. Barnes & Noble has been proactive, investing heavily in its Nook e-book readers and a digital library. It struck a deal with Microsoft last April to create a Nook subsidiary. But the Nook faces competition from other devices like Apple's iPad Mini, Amazon's Kindle and Google's Nexus tablet.
And the unit is far from profitable. Earlier this month, the company said it expects Nook media revenue of less than $3 billion in fiscal 2013. It also anticipates a loss for the unit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to exceed the $262 million loss recorded in its 2012 fiscal year.
This follows a report from the retailer in January that its Nook unit revenue fell 12.6 percent to $311 million during the critical holiday period. Overall sales during the holiday period fell 10.9 percent at bookstores and online compared with a year ago. Barnes & Noble is scheduled to report third-quarter results Thursday.
Barnes & Noble bookstores, though, have been profitable even though they're facing falling sales. The company has broadened its offerings in stores and sells more high-margin games, educational toys and other non-book items to improve results.
In its fiscal second recent quarter ended Oct. 27, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in the retail segment ? which includes the stores and the Web site that Riggio wants to buy ? doubled to $28 million, helped by selling higher margin products. Revenue from that segment fell 3 percent to $996 million. Overall, the company's net income totaled $2.2 million, up from a prior-year loss of $6.6 million. Revenue was nearly flat at $1.88 billion.
Monday's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Riggio, who is Barnes & Noble's largest shareholder with nearly 30 percent of the company's shares, will seek to negotiate a price with the company's board and pay for the deal with cash and debt. Riggio is making the offer in order to facilitate the company's review of its strategic options for separating its Nook business, according to the filing.
Barnes & Noble said the offer will be considered by a committee of three independent directors. But there is no set timetable for the process.
Morningstar's Wahlstrom said the deal makes sense considering the retail side of the business has been overshadowed by investments needed for the Nook business. He added that the move by Riggio was not unexpected: His large stake in the company ? and history with it ? would likely make finding extra financing the company needs easier.
"Riggio feels like he can run it better than just about anyone else, and with four decades of operating history there's not much reason to believe that he can't," he said.
On the news, Barnes & Noble shares rose $1.55, or about 11.5 percent, to close at $15.06. Its shares have traded in a 52-week range of $10.45 in mid-April to $26 later that same month.
A suitcase-sized Canadian spacecraft launched Monday aboard an Indian rocket is designed to spot large asteroids that cross paths with our planet.
By Miriam Kramer,?SPACE.com / February 25, 2013
A view of Canada's asteroid-hunting NEOSSat satellite from above. The $25 million satellite is about the size of a suitcase and designed to seek out large asteroids near Earth.
Canadian Space Agency
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A small Canadian satellite launching from India on Monday will be the first spacecraft specifically designed to search for large asteroids and monitor space junk in the solar system.
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The Canadian Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite, or NEOSSat, will seek out and track huge space rocks orbiting the sun from its position in Earth orbit, its builders say. The satellite will also track space debris and satellites still in service in Earth's orbit, splitting time between its two missions.
"The project with the CSA is essentially to survey the sky and get the best, improved near-Earth asteroid population and the ones that can sometimes cross Earth orbit," said Denis Laurin, a CSA space astronomy program scientist working on the NEOSSat mission.
The $25 million NEOSSat spacecraft is about the size of a suitcase and destined to circle the Earth every 100 minutes in an orbit about 497 miles (800 kilometers) above the planet. [See how NEOSSat tracks asteroids (Video)]
NEOSSat is due to blast off atop an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle at 7:20 a.m. EST (1220 GMT) on Monday from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India. The PSLV rocket will also launch the larger SARAL ocean-monitoring satellite for the Indian Space Research Organisation and five other small spacecraft, including two tiny nanosatellites billed as the?world's smallest space telescopes.
One benefit to having NEOSSat in orbit and hunting for asteroids is that the satellite can survey the sky during Earth's night and daylight hours, Laurin added.
Most ground-based?asteroid mapping technologies?today require a dark sky, but a space telescope like NEOSSat doesn't depend upon the night sky. When searching from orbit, the satellite can survey parts of the sky close to the sun, a nearly impossible feat for ground telescopes, said William Harvey, a CSA senior project manager with NEOSSat.
NEOSSat will analyze the asteroids it monitors in great detail, giving scientists the chance to understand what the space rocks could be composed of and where their orbits take them, mission scientists said.
The small spacecraft isn't capable of catching relatively small space rocks like the Russian meteor that exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk on Feb. 15, or?asteroid 2012 DA14, a?130 foot (40 meters) rock?that buzzed close by Earth on that same day.
"NEOSSat will probably reduce the impact hazard from unknown large NEO's by a few percent over its lifetime, but is not designed to discover?small asteroids near the Earth?that may be on collision course," NEOSSat co-principal investigator Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary told SPACE.com.
Instead, the satellite aims to track Atira and Aten class space rocks ? asteroids that pass within Earth's orbit or occasionally cross the planet's orbit, Hildebrand added.
The asteroids NEOSSat will search for are at least 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) from Earth. The satellite will look slightly behind and in front of the Earth, as well as east and west of the sun to spot any asteroids far off in Earth's orbit.
"I'm hoping people will get interested in following up the NEOSSat mission with other missions. Maybe some of the?asteroids?will become candidates for future missions or mining," Harvey said. "They could be unmanned or other endeavors. It's a very interesting time. This could be the start of one of the next missions for humans."
NEOSSat's mission is part of the High Earth Orbit Surveillance System project by the Defence Research and Development Canada agency, which is a partner in the mission with CSA. It was built by Microsat Systems Canada, Inc., which also built the CSA's small MOST space telescope that launched in 2003.
You can watch the launch of NEOSSat live via?India's official Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle webcast.
Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter?@mirikramer?or SPACE.com?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?
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The debut of the PlayStation 4 in New York City Wednesday (Feb. 20) was as remarkable for what it showed as for what it didn't show: Sony unveiled a raft of beautiful, incredibly realistic new games, but not the console itself. The device, perhaps in a straight-from-the-lab rough appearance, was somewhere offstage, driving the giant projectors that broadcast previews of upcoming games around the Hammerstein Ballroom.
Out-of-site-yet-everywhere seems to be the overall metaphor of the PlayStation 4 (PS4), as Sony described it. The PS4 (which Sony plans to sell by year's end) is not so much a machine as a network ? with games delivered from the cloud, games that can follow you as you move from the PS4 to a mobile device, and the ability to post video clips of your adventures or even broadcast entire games online.
"We're making it so your friends can look over your shoulder virtually and interact with you as you play," said David Perry, co-founder of Gaikai, a company that Sony bought to build its cloud-gaming network.
But not only friends will be watching. Sony will. "The PlayStation network will get to know you by understanding your personal preferences and the preferences of your community and turn this knowledge into useful information that will enhance your gameplay," Perry said.
Every important technology has good and bad uses. Some of the upcoming games that Sony showcased for the PS4 explore, perhaps unwittingly, the darker side of omnipresent, omniscient networks similar to what Sony is building.
Suckerpunch's new game "inFAMOUS: Second Son" explores the surveillance state. "Right now, there are 4.2 million security cameras distributed all around Great Britain. That's one camera for every 14 citizens," said game director Nate Fox, in a dramatic introduction to the game. "It is hard to put your finger on what that sense of security is worth, but it is easy to say what it costs ? our freedom."
Like Great Britain, the PS4 will also have a vast network of cameras ? not one for every 14 citizens, but one for every console owner. At the presentation, Marc Cerny, head of the PlayStation hardware platform, showed a photo of a depth-sensing stereo camera for the PS4, designed to track the new Dualshock controller as it moves.
The danger in "Second Son" is that some individuals have developed super-human powers (a la "Heroes") that make them living weapons. They carry no traditional weapons and show no physical signs of danger ? rendering all the modern surveillance tech impotent.
But what if new security technology could go beyond the physical? What if it could read people's intentions and predict their next moves?
What if it were like the PS4?
Sony believes that PlayStation owners simply give off so much data as they interact intensively with the console, other devices and the network that it can know what its users intend to do.
"People haven't' changed, but now everybody's broadcasting. And once you've seen it, all of it, how do you look away?"
That's not a quote from a Sony or game-company executive. It's from the lead character in the upcoming Ubisoft game "Watch Dogs." It follows a vigilante character with access to all that information. As he walks through Chicago, message windows pop up, showing details about the people he passes. Marcus Rhodes, a 43-year-old Iraq War veteran, is unemployed. Sandy Higgins, a grade-school teacher, recently won a child-custody battle and has a 30 percent chance of being a crime victim. [See also:?Is Your Cellphone Under Surveillance?]
In the clip, the vigilante uses the knowledge to find a woman in danger and to track her attacker in a chase through the city. But as the police then pursue him, the game shows how much data the protagonist himself is giving off.
It's rather unlikely that the PlayStation 4 was designed to be a mass surveillance device, a Trojan Horse of a game console designed to slip spooks into the living room. Far likelier, Sony just wants the games to be more involving and better targeted for the customers, so they will buy and play more games.
"If we know enough about you to predict the next game you'll purchase, then that game can be loaded and ready to go before you even click the button," Marc Cerny said.
But still, the PS4 will collect a lot of information. That itself, in the right imagination, could be fodder for a good dystopian video game.
This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.?Follow Sean Captain @seancaptain
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
London, Feb 23 : Embattled tech firm Nokia will start manufacturing cheaper mobile handsets in a bid to fend off growing competition from Chinese rivals at the lower end of the market, it has emerged.
The new models are due to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congressindustry convention in Barcelona next week.
The move suggests that Nokia is expanding its focus after concentrating in the past two years on catching up with Apple and Samsung in more expensive smartphones, the Telegraph reports.
According to the paper, sources told a UK-based news agency that Nokia could introduce cut-price basic phones aimed at competing with the likes of Huawei and ZTE, as well as a new, lower-price model of its Lumia smartphones running on Windows Phone 8 software.
Nokia has struggled with growing competition in both smartphones and lower-end handsets.
Its Lumia smartphone range was widely been seen as a make-or-break product line for Nokia due to its high margins, the paper said.
Its success is seen determining whether Chief Executive Stephen Elop made the right decision two years ago in switching to Microsoft Windows software from its own Symbian system, it added. (ANI)
Feb. 24, 2013 ? The Children's Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern has deepened the understanding of the environment within bone marrow that nurtures stem cells, this time identifying the biological setting for specialized blood-forming cells that produce the infection-fighting white blood cells known as T cells and B cells.
The research found that cells called early lymphoid progenitors, which are responsible for producing T cells and B cells, thrive in an environment known as an osteoblastic niche. The investigation, published online February 24 in Nature and led by Dr. Sean Morrison, also establishes a promising approach for scientists to map the entire blood-forming system.
Scientists already know how to manufacture large quantities of stem cells that give rise to the nervous system, skin, and other tissues. But they have been unable to make blood-forming stem cells in a laboratory, in part because of a lack of understanding about the niche in which blood-forming stem cells and other progenitor cells reside in the body.
"We believe this research moves us one step closer toward the development of cell therapies in the blood-forming system that don't exist today," said Dr. Morrison, Director of the Institute and Professor of Pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "In understanding the environments for blood-forming stem cells and those of different kinds of progenitor cells, we can work toward reproducing those environments in the lab and growing cells that can be transplanted to treat a host of medical conditions."
These findings eventually may help increase the safety and effectiveness of bone-marrow transplants, such as those needed after healthy marrow is destroyed by radiation or chemotherapy treatments for childhood leukemia, Dr. Morrison said. The findings also may have implications for treating illnesses associated with loss of infection-fighting cells, such as HIV and severe combined immunodeficiency disease, better known as bubble boy disease.
The Nature study augments earlier work by Dr. Morrison and his team that showed endothelial cells and perivascular cells lining the blood vessels in the bone marrow create the environment that maintains haematopoietic stem cells, which produce billions of new blood cells every day. The latest study shows that bone-forming cells create the environment that maintains early lymphoid progenitors.
"Our research documents that there are different niches, or microenvironments, for blood-forming stem cells and restricted progenitors in the bone marrow," Dr. Morrison said. "One way that bone marrow makes different kinds of blood-forming cells is by compartmentalizing them into different neighborhoods within the marrow."
The researchers identified niches for stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors by determining which cells are the sources of a growth factor (CXCL12) necessary for the proliferation of those two populations of blood-forming cells. By taking the same approach for other growth factors in the bone marrow, researchers should be able to map the niches for every kind of blood-forming progenitor cell in the bone marrow, Dr. Morrison said.
The UTSW paper's first author is Dr. Lei Ding, a former postdoctoral research fellow at the Children's Research Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at UT Southwestern. Dr. Ding is now an assistant professor at Columbia University.
Research support came from the HHMI and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
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Lei Ding, Sean J. Morrison. Haematopoietic stem cells and early lymphoid progenitors occupy distinct bone marrow niches. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature11885
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Demonstrators hold a giant opposition flag during a protest against Syria's President Bashar Assad in Bustan al-Qasr district in Aleppo, Feb. 22, 2013. REUTERS/Muzaffar Salman
The main Syrian opposition grouping has said it turned down invitations to visit Washington and Moscow to protest what it described as international silence over destruction of the ancient city of Aleppo by Syrian missile strikes.
A statement late on Friday by the Syrian National Coalition, an umbrella group of opposition political forces, said it also had suspended participation in a Friends of Syria conference of international powers due in Rome next month to protest the attacks it said have caused many civilian casualties.
"Hundreds or civilians have been killed by Scud missile strikes. Aleppo, the city and the civilization, is being destroyed systematically," the statement said.
"The Russian leadership especially bears moral and political responsibility for supplying the regime with weapons," it added, referring to Moscow's status as a leading ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
"In protest of this shameful international stand, the coalition has decided to suspend its participation in the Rome conference for the Friends of Syria and decline the invitations to visit Russia and the United States."
The invitations had been extended to opposition coalition leader Mouaz Alkhatib after he met the Russian and U.S. foreign ministers in Munich this month.
The invitations were made shortly after Alkhatib offered to negotiate Assad's departure with members of the Syrian government who were not tainted by having participated in the crackdown on the 23-month-long revolt.
Rocket attacks on eastern districts of Aleppo, Syria's industrial and commercial hub, killed at least 29 people on Friday and trapped a family of 10 in the ruins of their home, opposition activists in the city said.
On Tuesday activists said at least 20 people were killed when a large missile hit the rebel-held district of Jabal Badro, also in the east of the contested city.
If you're at all interested in computing technologies, you probably find yourself asking what is a network or what exactly is a protocol? Beginners in the computer world looking to actually start working with computer networks should be building up a technical background with computer networking standards. This course is designed for those who have little to no experience in networking, but want to learn solid skills to build upon.
Lessons Lesson 1: Getting Started with networking fundamentals 00:15:14 Lesson 2: Basic networking fundamentals 00:16:34 Lesson 3: Wired Network Media 00:29:10 Lesson 4: Network Topologies 00:25:27 Lesson 5: OSI Model 00:27:35 Lesson 6: TCP/IP Communication 00:28:41 Lesson 7: IP Addressing 01:20:00 Lesson 8: TCP/IP Command Line Tools 00:37:06 Lesson 9: Name Resolution 00:36:26 Lesson 10: DHCP 00:27:09 Lesson 11: Routing 00:22:37 Lesson 12: Remote Desktop Services (RDS) 00:14:39 Lesson 13: Wireless networking 00:31:45 Lesson 14: Network Security 00:37:18 Lesson 15: IPv6 Fundamentals Lesson 16: Preparing for Your networking fundamentals (98-366) Certification Exam 00:26:49 Lesson 17: Next Steps 00:09:12
FILE - In this March 23, 2010 file photo, Inaki Urdangarin, the son-in-law of Spain's King Juan Carlos, delivers a speech at the CTIA wireless show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Urdangarin, married to the king's second daughter, Princess Cristina, is accused of having used his position to embezzle several million dollars in public contracts assigned to a nonprofit foundation he set up. The corruption scandal is contributing to the public's diminishing respect for the monarchy. With the 75-year-old king's reputation in decline and several health scares recently, Juan Carlos and the Spanish monarchy are facing one of their biggest crises ever. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)
FILE - In this March 23, 2010 file photo, Inaki Urdangarin, the son-in-law of Spain's King Juan Carlos, delivers a speech at the CTIA wireless show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Urdangarin, married to the king's second daughter, Princess Cristina, is accused of having used his position to embezzle several million dollars in public contracts assigned to a nonprofit foundation he set up. The corruption scandal is contributing to the public's diminishing respect for the monarchy. With the 75-year-old king's reputation in decline and several health scares recently, Juan Carlos and the Spanish monarchy are facing one of their biggest crises ever. (AP Photo/Isaac Brekken, File)
MADRID (AP) ? When King Juan Carlos appeared at a basketball game in front of thousands of subjects, he was greeted by persistent heckling and whistling. It was an unprecedented spectacle in a nearly four-decade reign over which the monarch has basked in the nation's love and respect.
What happened? The immediate cause is a corruption scandal engulfing Juan Carlos' son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, which has angered Spaniards in a time of crushing austerity. But the aging Juan Carlos himself has seemed increasingly out of touch with his people as they try to keep afloat in Europe's economic storm.
Urdangarin, married to the 75-year-old king's second daughter, Princess Cristina, is accused of using his position to embezzle several million dollars in public contracts assigned to a nonprofit foundation he set up. The businessman, who denies any wrongdoing, faces questioning along with his wife's personal secretary. He gives closed-door testimony on Saturday before an investigating magistrate.
Juan Carlos, whose health has been declining along with his reputation, and the Spanish monarchy are facing one of their biggest crises ever.
"There is no deep-seated admiration for the monarchy as an institution as you'll find in the U.K. or in Holland," said Tom Burns Maranon, who has written several books about Juan Carlos. "The whole thing is almost a personal loyalty to the king. If the king's standing and reputation comes shooting down, then you're in a very sticky position."
The charismatic Juan Carlos, who took the throne in 1975 two days after the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco, is widely credited with helping the country usher in democracy ? and with saving it by staring down a military coup in 1981.
Yet the stories of greed emerging from the Urdangarin case have deepened the sense that the royals are living large at the expense of a suffering nation. Juan Carlos was vilified last year after going on a luxurious African safari to hunt elephants while his subjects were being battered by economic woes and sky-high unemployment.
There is no major movement in Spain to eliminate the monarchy and restore a republican form of government. So far, only the leader of the regional Catalan Socialist Party has called openly for Juan Carlos to abdicate and allow his son, Crown Prince Felipe, to take the throne and bring the monarchy more in line with the 21st century.
But the sense of the king's popularity propping up the monarchy ? a phenomenon known as "juancarlismo" ? appears to be fading. A January poll showed about half of Spaniards approved of the king, an impressive rating ? but sharply down from the three-quarters support he enjoyed a year before.
The king's health, meanwhile, has been a subject for concern over the past two years. He has had operations on both hips, a knee and for a benign lung tumor. On March 3, he will undergo back surgery, the royal palace said Thursday.
When Dutch Queen Beatrix, also 75, announced in January that she would abdicate and pass the crown to her eldest son, some wanted the same thing to happen in Spain.
But experts say the monarchies in the two countries are completely different. The Netherlands has a history of abdications for reasons of age, while in Spain it has been extremely rare.
Urdangarin is a former professional and Olympic handball medalist and the deals he landed were for things such as organizing seminars on using sports as a lure for tourism. Once presented to his countrymen as the perfect husband, Urdangarin has now become one of Spain's most detested figures.
A year after he first gave testimony, Urdangarin, 45, will return to a tribunal in Palma de Mallorca to answer more questions from investigating magistrate Jose Castro. Urdangarin hasn't been formally charged, but all indications point to a long and drawn-out trial that will keep suspicions of royal extravagance swirling.
The royal family has responded by barring him from official functions and pulling his profile from the monarchy's website. When both Urdangarin and his brother-in-law Prince Felipe attended the final of the world handball championship, which Spain hosted and won, they didn't even look at each other.
"He's been ostracized and separated from the royal family," said Burns Maranon. He said it will be a blow for the royal family if he's jailed but "even worse if he got off scot-free."
Meanwhile, the case is getting closer and closer to Princess Cristina, with her personal secretary, Carlos Garcia Revenga, set to make statements before the magistrate on Saturday.
Garcia Revenga hasn't been formally accused. The royal family has used this as an argument to keep him in his post as it waits for justice to take its course. But the question that arises is whether or not Princess Cristina knew about her husband's alleged activities.
"I don't see why Princess Cristina would be accused of anything," said Urdangarin's lawyer, Pascual Vives. "Her situation is radically different from those facing accusations."
Ironically, Urdangarin and his wife have the title of the Duke and Duchess of Palma, the same city investigating the case. Responding to popular revulsion, city hall said it removed the street name "Duques de Palma" ? one of the municipality's most central thoroughfares ? because of the "less-than-exemplary behavior toward the title."
It's only a symbol, but it reflects the loss of reputation the monarchy is suffering at an especially difficult time for Spaniards.
___
Associated Press writer Harold Heckle contributed to this report.
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London, Feb 23 : Embattled tech firm Nokia will start manufacturing cheaper mobile handsets in a bid to fend off growing competition from Chinese rivals at the lower end of the market, it has emerged.