SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - Prosecutors are investigating the former management of Italy's troubled Monte dei Paschi bank for bribery and fraud, judicial sources said on Wednesday, as pressure grew on the Bank of Italy and bourse watchdog Consob.
With parliamentary elections less than a month away, the scandal at Italy's third-largest bank has deepened with questions about the role of banking supervisors and the influence of local politicians.
Milan prosecutors said they had transferred an investigation into allegations that Monte dei Paschi executives took bribes to buy toxic derivatives from Dresdner Bank to Siena magistrates investigating the main corruption case.
At the same time, prosecutors in the southern town of Trani, who have previously taken on ratings agency Standard and Poor's, said they had opened an investigation against the Bank of Italy and Consob over accusations they failed in their regulatory duties.
The Siena-based bank is in a crisis over an opaque series of derivatives and structured finance deals that have produced losses of 720 million euros ($970 million) and raised questions about possible corruption by bank officials.
On Wednesday Moody's rating agency said it had put the bank's Ba2 rating under review for a downgrade.
The problems go back to at least 2008 when the bank was struggling to absorb its 9-billion-euro cash acquisition of rival Antonveneta just before the global financial crisis, which hit banks across the world.
Executives from Monte dei Paschi, which depends on a 3.9 billion euro ($5.29 billion) government lifeline, are accused of using the derivatives deals to massage accounts and conceal the impact of past losses on its weakened balance sheet.
Underlining the continued potential for trouble, the bank denied a report that it could face fresh losses of up to 500 million euros from a trade called "Chianti Classico", a 1.5 billion euro securitization of part of its property portfolio.
It said the operation had been submitted to its board for possible restructuring, which could reduce its costs and recoup part of the rights to the assets.
ALEXANDRIA TRADE
As the scandal has grown, authorities have been forced to respond to questions about how the complex derivatives operations could have been allowed to spin so badly out of control without action being taken.
On Tuesday, Economy Minister Vittorio Grilli defended the oversight of the scandal before the parliamentary finance committee and the Bank of Italy released a breakdown of steps it had taken against Monte dei Paschi.
However, many questions remain unanswered over a scandal which was known at least in part to regulators and the bank's own internal audit team as early as 2009 but which was not disclosed to investors until last week.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, who was governor of the Bank of Italy at the time of the deals, has come under scrutiny for his role in events which took place just before his move to Frankfurt in November 2011.
Prosecutors have already been looking at allegations of massive bribes taken to facilitate the Antonveneta acquisition as well as suspicions of fraudulent accounting over the derivatives transactions.
They have also put Monte dei Paschi itself under investigation under a law governing companies' responsibility for crimes committed by their employees.
On Wednesday, Milan prosecutors handed over to their Siena colleagues a separate inquiry into allegations that Monte dei Paschi executives took bribes to acquire toxic derivatives from Dresdner Bank via a Swiss consultancy named Lutifin.
Eighteen people are under investigation, none of them from Monte dei Paschi, although the former head of the bank's finance division Gian Luca Baldassari and another executive are named in prosecution documents seen by Reuters.
Giuseppe Vegas, head of the market regulator Consob, repeated accusations already made by the Bank of Italy and Monte dei Paschi's new management that former executives had concealed vital information from regulators about one deal in particular.
He said Consob had done all it was able to, given the information available to it.
The trade, dubbed "Alexandria", was linked to the bank's holdings of Italian BTP government bonds, which plunged in value as the euro zone debt crisis exploded in 2011.
It was not until October 2012 that the exact details of the trade became clear when the framework document behind the deal was found in a safe by the management team that replaced former managing director Antonio Vigni and chairman Giuseppe Mussari, who left the bank last year.
POLITICAL AGENDA
With less than a month to go before the elections on February 24-25, the Monte dei Paschi scandal has jumped to the top of the political agenda and thrown a spotlight on the tight links between the bank and local politicians.
The center-left Democratic Party (PD), which is leading in opinion polls, has faced particular pressure because it dominates the local government in Siena, the Tuscan town where Monte dei Paschi has been based since it was founded in 1472.
The center-right People of Freedom (PDL) party led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into the affair.
An opinion poll published on Wednesday in the daily La Repubblica showed the center-left coalition's lead over the center-right has fallen slightly but it remained almost 10 percentage points ahead of Berlusconi's coalition.
The Bank of Italy has said it is pursuing disciplinary action against former bank managers which could include fines or other penalties. It is also disputing the 4 million euro payout to Vigni when he was forced out last year.
(Additional reporting by Silvia Ognibene and Emilio Parodi and Danilo Masoni in Milan; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by David Stamp and Jason Webb)
NEW YORK (AP) ? You want resolution on the "30 Rock" finale?
You're gonna get it. Sort of. At least, the sort befitting "30 Rock," with its loopy storytelling mixed with joy in spoofing the culture of TV.
Closure, if that's what it is, comes in a two-minute postscript on this hour episode (airing Thursday at 8 p.m. EST on NBC). But maybe you should just stop reading right now, you "30 Rock" purists who don't want to know what happens or might seem to happen, however wacked-out and ironic it may be.
Which, among other things, includes this sly touch: a reference to the snowglobe revelation with which the medical drama "St. Elsewhere" famously concluded a quarter-century ago.
But there's more. Just before the final fade-out, NBC President Kenneth the former Page (Jack McBrayer) is pitched a new comedy series taking place right there at network headquarters, 30 Rock.
Hmmm. This is no ending. It's a Mobius strip.
The comic coda suggests where many of the characters might be a year from now. But that's not the point of the finale, which mostly wants to have fun. And does.
This last yahoo of "30 Rock" after seven brilliant seasons takes delight in tracking the unraveling of its characters as the show-within-the-show, "TGS," comes to an end with its own final broadcast. After that, of course, its producer, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), its stars, Jenna Moroney and Tracy Jordan (Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan) and other members of the "TGS" staff will have to leave the cozy, kooky nest of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The prospect of doing that terrifies them all.
Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), the newly minted CEO of NBC parent Kabletown, is battling his own existential crisis.
He has gotten the top job he wanted all his life. And as the ultimate Republican capitalist, he has even scored a lash-out from a treasured enemy, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.
"Jack Donaghy is an economic war criminal," Pelosi is seen declaring on a cable news network. "If the Democratic Party controls Congress, I will see to it that he is punished in the worst way possible: by having to come down here and listen to us."
Even with total victory under his belt, Jack still feels unfulfilled. What else can he do? He resigns from the company and begins a journey to discover what might truly make him happy.
Jack's despair includes the fear that he's lost Liz as a friend.
"I don't have that many people in my life," he sobs to Jenna. "I spend Christmas alone in the Hamptons drinking Scotch and throwing firecrackers at Billy Joel's dog."
Out of a job, Liz is miserable as a stay-at-home mom of adopted twins. Conversely, her husband, Criss (played by guest star James Marsden), hates steady employment.
"It's OK to want to work," he consoles Liz. "One of us has to. We just got it backwards: You're the dad."
"I do like ignoring your questions while I try to watch TV," Liz agrees.
(Interestingly, a year hence Liz is seen back at work producing a dumb sitcom with her children in tow. Where is hubby Criss?)
During the finale, "30 Rock" doesn't hesitate to snack on its own past.
Liz and Tracy have an awkward heart-to-heart at the strip club where Tracy lured her on their first encounter on the series' premiere.
And a high point of the episode comes when Jenna revisits the project she starred in years ago, a film with the lips-scrunching title "Rural Juror" (which inevitably comes out sounding something like "ruhr juhr").
On the farewell "TGS," Jenna performs the theme from her new musical adaptation of "Rural Juror," with, inevitably, almost nothing she sings recognizable as English.
It serves as a reminder: "30 Rock" wasn't just a brilliant comedy series. It also forged a comic language of its own.
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Online:
http://www.nbc.com
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Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier
Jan. 29, 2013 ? A new, noninvasive, and low-cost method for the early detection and monitoring of osteoarthritis (arthritis caused by wear and tear) may be on its way, thanks to research by UC Santa Barbara scientists from the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Materials.
By studying patterns of friction between cartilage pads, the researchers discovered a different type of friction that is more likely to cause wear and damage. Their work suggests ways to detect this friction, and points to new research directions for getting to the root cause of arthritis. The findings are published in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Imagine going to the doctor for your aching knees. For some, this may involve uncomfortable needle sticks to draw blood for lab tests, or the extraction of the fluid surrounding the aching joint. But what if your doctor could actually listen to your body, monitoring the way your knees sound as they bend and flex? Research by Jacob Israelachvili, UCSB professor of chemical engineering and materials science; grad student researcher Dong Woog Lee; and postdoctoral researcher Xavier Banquy says that it's possible.
For their work, they used an instrument called a Surface Forces Apparatus (SFA), a device that measures the adhesion and friction forces between surfaces, in this case cartilage -- the pad of tissue that covers the ends of bones at a joint. The degeneration of cartilage is the most common cause of osteoarthritis -- the pads wear away, leaving bone grinding against bone.
What the researchers found is that it isn't just any kind of friction that leads to the irreversible wear and tear on the material. "It is currently believed that a high-friction force, or 'coefficient of friction,' is the primary factor in surface wear and damage," said Israelachvili. "What we found is that this is not the case."
The critical feature is not a high-friction force, but what is known as "stick-slip" friction, or, sometimes, "stiction." Both are characterized by surfaces that initially stick together, and then accelerate away quickly once the static friction force is overcome. With stick-slip friction, the surfaces eventually pull slightly apart and slide across each other, stick again, and pull apart, causing jerky movements.
"That's when things get damaged microscopically," said Israelachvili.
Stick-slip is a common phenomenon. It is responsible for everything from computer hard drive crashes and automobile failures, to squeaking doors and music.
"The same thing happens with a violin string: Even if you're pulling the bow steadily, it's moving in hundreds or thousands of little jerks per second, which determine the sound you hear," Israelachvili said. Each little jerk, no matter how submicroscopic, is an impact, and over time the accumulation of these impacts can deform surfaces, causing irreparable damage -- first microscopically, then growing to macroscopic (large, visible) dimensions. That's when you have to change the string.
But it's not easy to tell the difference between types of friction at the microscopic level, where it all begins. Smooth-sliding joints might feel the same as those undergoing stiction, or the even more harmful stick-slip, especially in the early stages of arthritis. But, when measured with an ultra-sensitive and high-resolution instrument like the SFA, each type of friction revealed its own characteristic profile: Smooth-sliding joints yielded an almost smooth constant line (friction force or friction trace); joints with stiction showed up as a peak, as the "sticking" was being overcome, followed by a relatively smooth line; while stick-slip shows the jagged saw-tooth profile of two surfaces repeatedly pulling apart, sticking, and pulling apart again. According to the scientists, these measurements could be recorded by placing an acoustic or electric sensing device around joints, giving a signal similar to an EKG.
"With a well-designed sensor, this could be a good way to measure and diagnose damage to the cartilage," said Banquy. It could be used to measure the progression, or even the early detection of symptoms related to arthritis.
For a country that's facing a geriatric population explosion, dealing with issues associated with old age is no small matter. Early detection of conditions like arthritis has been a priority for many years, as baby boomers advance in age.
However, the functioning of joints is more complicated, said Israelachvili. The scientists will continue their work by studying synovial fluid -- the lubricating fluid between two cartilage surfaces in joints -- that also plays a major role in whether or not the surfaces wear and tear, and the synergistic roles of the different molecules (proteins, lipids, and polymers) that are all involved in lubricating and preventing damage to our joints.
"There are a number of directions to take, both fundamental and practical," Israelachvili said. "But it looks as if we need to focus our research on finding ways to prevent stick-slip motion, rather than lowering the friction force."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
This Saturday, Frankie Edgar, the one-time UFC lightweight champion, will try to win the belt at featherweight from champion Jose Aldo at UFC 156. We want to know who you think will win this and the other main card bouts.
Here's the drill: Pick a fight from the main card.
Jose Aldo vs. Frankie Edgar - for featherweight title Rashad Evans vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira Alistair Overeem vs. Antonio Silva Jon Fitch vs. Demian Maia Joseph Benavidez vs. Ian McCall
Then go to Cagewriter's Facebook page, like it and tell who you think will win and why. Selected picks will run here on Friday morning. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Google.org is giving a $2.65M grant to the Energy Foundation to support policy reforms that will lead to more intelligent energy use. The effort will focus on three fundamental areas:
Smarter electricity rates that encourage consumers to be more efficient, shift their electricity use to times when it?s cheaper and produce their own on-site energy;
Access to electricity markets for consumers and other businesses so they can be compensated for cutting energy use at key times;
Open data policies that give customers access to their own energy data, which they can use or share with third parties they select, promoting better energy management tools and services.
"One of the best parts about working at Google is the chance to use the Internet and digital technology to help us all manage energy better. We?ve seen big changes in recent years to the way we watch TV, use phones, read and listen to music, yet how we use electricity hasn?t changed much in decades," said Michael Terrell, Senior Policy Counsel, Energy & Sustainability, on the company blog.
"What if instead of a monthly bill we had access to more real-time and actionable information about our electricity consumption? What if our appliances, air conditioners, and lights adjusted automatically to use energy more efficiently and save money? If we did this in every home it would help improve the reliability of the grid and save billions of dollars," Terrell wrote.
Terrell goes on to contend that technology like smart meters and programmable thermostats make it possible to do this today. "The challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century?s grid."
Las Vegas ? Declaring "now is the time" to fix broken immigration laws, President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged Congress to put millions of illegal immigrants on a clear path to U.S. citizenship while cracking down on businesses that employ people illegally and tightening security at the borders.
He heralded a show of bipartisanship between the White House and Senate leaders on basic plans to resolve the issue.
But both the White House and Senate proposals for tackling the complex and emotionally charged issue still lack key details. And questions are emerging over how to structure the avenue to citizenship and whether a bill would cover same-sex couples ? and that's all before a Senate measure can be debated, approved and sent to the Republican-controlled House, where opposition is likely to be stronger.
Obama warned that the debate would become more difficult as it gets closer to a conclusion.
"The question now is simple," he said during a campaign-style event in Las Vegas. "Do we have the resolve as a people, as a country, as a government to finally put this issue behind us? I believe that we do."
Despite possible obstacles to come, the broad agreement between the White House and bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate represents a drastic shift in Washington's willingness to tackle immigration, an issue that has languished for years. Much of that shift is politically motivated, due to the growing influence of Hispanics in presidential and other elections.
Still, some Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, responded cautiously to the proposals from the president, on Tuesday, and the Senate group, which put forward its proposals one day earlier.
"Any solution should be a bipartisan one, and we hope the president is careful not to drag the debate to the left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the House and Senate," said Brendan Buck, a Boehner spokesman.
Gentle Jillian Michaels? As strange as that phrase may sound to fans of "The Biggest Loser" (not to mention former contestants), the tough-talking, take-no-nonsense trainer actually put the tough talk on hold this week as she faced the possibility of getting booted off the ranch alongside her last remaining team member.
Five weeks into the competition, Jillian had already said "so long" to four of her five hopefuls. Her only shot to stay in the game (beyond helping teen Sunny back home) came down to Danni -- Danni, who long ago let Jillian know that she required encouragement and positive feedback in the gym.
And that's just what Jillian offered her. Rather than risk pushing what's left of Team White away with her typical take-no-prisoners style, she took a risk and showed her softer side throughout the week.
Danni, for her part, put her all into every aspect of the competition. When she wasn't working out with Gentle Jillian, she was acing challenges.
The first challenge required players to buy all of their groceries for the week on a budget of $10 a day -- and they had just 15 minutes to do it. Danni, who had no other teammates to pool her resources with, ended up with a packed cart and $8 to spare.
Later, during a swimming challenge, she finished in first place and won a 2-pound advantage on the scale.
But while everything seemed to be going Danni's way, Jillian started to have her doubts.
"At this moment, I'm second guessing myself a lot," Jillian said before Danni stepped on the scale. "I did something different this week. I didn't go crazy or push like I normally did in the past, and I'm now hating myself for that. We're going to lose this weigh-in, and if we do, she's not the only one going home."
But in the end, Jillian found out that sometimes the soft touch is also the winning touch. Danni dropped 9 pounds, putting her percentage of weight loss far above the other teams.
"It just feels so good to have her smile at me," Danni said of Jillian after the weigh-in. "I think right now is the best moment I've had since I've been here."
Of course, while Danni celebrated her best night on the ranch, the night took a turn for the worse for another player. The red team landed in last place and voted out Lisa.
There's no need to feel too bad for the teacher and mom of four. During the where-are-they-now update, Lisa revealed that she's still on track and has now lost a total of 76 pounds.
What did you think of the rare glimpse of the gentle side of Jillian Michaels? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.
January isn?t too early to be thinking about spring, is it? While the weather on the East Coast has been anything but balmy, our editorial team is already thinking ahead to April, when our paidContent Live event will take the stage at the Time and Life Building in Manhattan. Turn up the thermostat and peek at the lineup. And while you have content on the brain, check out our latest job listings from across the country:
We also have more listings from companies like Time Out New York, Turner Broadcasting, Target and more. Click here to see what else is on our jobs board.
Jan. 28, 2013 ? The rise in risky, non-traditional sexual relations that marked the swinging '60s actually began as much as a decade earlier, during the conformist '50s, suggests an analysis recently published by the Archives of Sexual Behavior.
"It's a common assumption that the sexual revolution began with the permissive attitudes of the 1960s and the development of contraceptives like the birth control pill," notes Emory University economist Andrew Francis, who conducted the analysis. "The evidence, however, strongly indicates that the widespread use of penicillin, leading to a rapid decline in syphilis during the 1950s, is what launched the modern sexual era."
As penicillin drove down the cost of having risky sex, the population started having more of it, Francis says, comparing the phenomena to the economic law of demand: When the cost of a good falls, people buy more of the good.
"People don't generally think of sexual behavior in economic terms," he says, "but it's important to do so because sexual behavior, just like other behaviors, responds to incentives."
Syphilis reached its peak in the United States in 1939, when it killed 20,000 people. "It was the AIDS of the late 1930s and early 1940s," Francis says. "Fear of catching syphilis and dying of it loomed large."
Penicillin was discovered in 1928, but it was not put into clinical use until 1941. As World War II escalated, and sexually transmitted diseases threatened the troops overseas, penicillin was found to be an effective treatment against syphilis.
"The military wanted to rid the troops of STDs and all kinds of infections, so that they could keep fighting," Francis says. "That really sped up the development of penicillin as an antibiotic."
Right after the war, penicillin became a clinical staple for the general population as well. In the United States, syphilis went from a chronic, debilitating and potentially fatal disease to one that could be cured with a single dose of medicine.
From 1947 to 1957, the syphilis death rate fell by 75 percent and the syphilis incidence rate fell by 95 percent. "That's a huge drop in syphilis. It's essentially a collapse," Francis says.
In order to test his theory that risky sex increased as the cost of syphilis dropped, Francis analyzed data from the 1930s through the 1970s from state and federal health agencies. Some of the data was only available on paper documents, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) digitized it at the request of Francis.
For his study, Francis chose three measures of sexual behavior: The illegitimate birth ratio; the teen birth share; and the incidence of gonorrhea, a highly contagious sexually transmitted disease that tends to spread quickly.
"As soon as syphilis bottoms out, in the mid- to late-1950s, you start to see dramatic increases in all three measures of risky sexual behavior," Francis says.
While many factors likely continued to fuel the sexual revolution during the 1960s and 1970s, Francis says the 1950s and the role of penicillin have been largely overlooked. "The 1950s are associated with prudish, more traditional sexual behaviors," he notes. "That may have been true for many adults, but not necessarily for young adults. It's important to recognize how reducing the fear of syphilis affected sexual behaviors."
A few physicians sounded moralistic warnings during the 1950s about the potential for penicillin to affect behavior. Spanish physician Eduardo Martinez Alonso referenced Romans 6:23, and the notion that God uses diseases to punish people, when he wrote: "The wages of sin are now negligible. One can almost sin with impunity, since the sting of sinning has been removed."
Such moralistic approaches, equating disease with sin, are counterproductive, Francis says, stressing that interventions need to focus on how individuals may respond to the cost of disease.
He found that the historical data of the syphilis epidemic parallels the contemporary AIDS epidemic. "Some studies have indicated that the development of highly active antiretroviral therapy for treating HIV may have caused some men who have sex with men to be less concerned about contracting and transmitting HIV, and more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors," Francis says.
"Policy makers need to take into consideration behavioral responses to changes in the cost of disease, and implement strategies that are holistic and longsighted," he concludes. "To focus exclusively on the defeat of one disease can set the stage for the onset of another if preemptive measures are not taken."
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Journal Reference:
Andrew M. Francis. The Wages of Sin: How the Discovery of Penicillin Reshaped Modern Sexuality. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2012; 42 (1): 5 DOI: 10.1007/s10508-012-0018-4
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
NEW YORK, N.Y. - After several technical blunders, two unexpected delays and one major shakeup in its leadership, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion is about to raise the curtain for its new smartphone devices in hopes that consumers share the excitement.
The unveiling of the phones and operating system on Wednesday marks the start of an advertising blitz that will stretch to social media, the Super Bowl and beyond as RIM tries to regain the cool factor that was once firmly in its grasp.
If all goes according to plan, the event will also mark the end of a troublesome 12 months that has seen RIM try to stay afloat while its future was constantly in question by outsiders, and its stock price tumbled to the lowest level in about a decade.
While the first hurdles to overcome on Wednesday are the opinions of tech analysts and investor reaction, the true measure of success ? actual sales of the phones ? is still weeks away.
As a crowd of thousands gathers Wednesday at Pier 36, a massive entertainment venue on the shores of Manhattan, chief executive Thorsten Heins will step onto the stage holding the BlackBerry that has been at once considered the company's last hope, but also its biggest hurdle.
Just over a year ago, when Heins took over the top spot at RIM, the smartphone maker was in a state of flux as its marketshare tumbled in North America against growing competition from Apple's iPhone and various devices on the Android operating system.
Analysts had widely blamed the lack of leadership from former co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as the reasons that RIM failed to innovate its way out of trouble, but they also said that Heins had much to prove in hardly any time.
The company was in a bubble, insisting that it hadn't lost its footing in the smartphone industry, even though from the outside their downfall was indisputable.
But as the dust settled from Balsillie's exit in March 2012, Heins began to face the realities of RIM's problems and launched a major overhaul of its middle management and deep cuts to its operations.
While Heins preferred to call it removing a "little fat on the hips," the changes at RIM were a far more strategic and complex surgery.
The company closed some of its manufacturing facilities and announced plans to lay off about 5,000 workers, as it aimed to save $1 billion across RIM's operations by February 2013. Heins reached that savings goal, and he did it three months ahead of schedule.
"He is probably one of the least dogmatic people at RIM," said Carl Howe, vice-president of consumer research at Yankee Group.
"I think he learned from his predecessors."
Despite all of the changes, Heins was still up against the fact that development of the BlackBerry 10 operating system was woefully behind schedule. Already delayed from a launch in 2011, the CEO was forced in June to further push the debut into 2013, missing crucial sales periods like the back-to-school and Christmas holiday shopping seasons.
While analysts hated the idea of another delay, it also bought the company some extra time to tweak the software to capitalize on the weaknesses of competitors' smartphones.
One of those features is the BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows one phone to operate as both a business and personal device entirely separate from each other. Another one lets users seamlessly shift between the phone's applications like they're flipping between pages on a desk.
The BlackBerry Messenger chat program will also get an update that includes video chat and screen sharing options.
RIM's executives also began an aggressive campaign last year to win the developer community. Under its previous leadership, the BlackBerry had practically ignored the growing popularity of smartphone applications for services like Netflix, Skype and Instagram.
A sea of change was coming under its new leaders, and Heins had managed to at least steady a company that was swaying on its pillars by coming up with unconventional ideas.
As the BlackBerry lost steam in North America and Europe, he turned to developing countries like Indonesia and Nigeria to keep revenues flowing in the near term. In those places, consumers were hungry for low-cost smartphones and the BlackBerry was still considered a status symbol.
The decision helped RIM keep its subscriber base steady, and maintain its $2-billion cash reserve, which was set aside for emergencies. It will use some of that money to promote the new phones.
"Up until now I think everything (Heins) laid out in terms of his plan ... he's shown that he's executed on it," said Richard Tse, an analyst at Cormark Securities Inc.
"In terms of what they've done on the development side, in terms of streamlining the operations and preserving the cash, I think he's done a very good job to date."
Investors aren't satisfied with all of his decisions, however, especially when Heins unveiled a rough plan in December that will likely eat into the lucrative service fees charged to BlackBerry subscribers.
Heins told analysts on its most recent earnings conference call that RIM plans to launch an a la carte menu of services where both enterprise customers and casual smartphone users can pick their packages. The change would likely mean reduced revenues in one of the most lucrative areas of its business.
Even on the dawn of the new BlackBerry unveiling, there are still questions about whether RIM will exist in its current form this time next year. Some analysts have said the company will eventually be forced to sell off at least its hardware division, if not more.
"They're in such a difficult position that I can't think of a management change that would help them get out of it," Tim Long of BMO Capital Markets.
"Clearly there are people out there that think the BlackBerry 10 is going to be something that gets them back on the map. We don't think so."
Long said his checks within the mobile phone industry have shown that carriers aren't particularly interested in RIM's touchscreen smartphone, but they're more anxious for the keypad version, or QWERTY phone, due sometime after the initial launch.
"We think that's an issue," he said.
If the stock price is any sign, RIM's investors are at least more confident this month then they've been in a long time. As of Monday's closing price, RIM's shares have risen 167 per cent from its lowest level in about a decade, reached in September, on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Several analysts have boosted their target prices for the company's stock in the past two weeks.
Whatever happens after the new BlackBerrys are unveiled, it's certain that RIM isn't in the clear yet.
"Product transitions are always pretty ugly," said Howe.
"The good news is if you can get yourself through to the other side ... you have an opportunity to disrupt the market yourself."
I've always hated BlackBerry phones. Disgracefully ugly bricks they were—until the BlackBerry Z10. The BlackBerry Z10 is hot. Truly beautiful, elegant hardware. If the OS is as nice as it seemed at CES, I will totally snatch one up. More »
Today?s thief is becoming more and more adept at breaking into your home and quickly robbing your most expensive items without being noticed. Even if you think you live in a safe neighborhood, you can become a victim of theft. With the best security and surveillance equipment, you will be taking the necessary steps to protect your home or business. With our security company, we have several different supplies for residential, business, and industrial security such as security cameras and professional security systems. Don?t postpone taking the necessary steps to protect your home or office, call us today. Security Systems Lakewood CO
Samuel Weigley, Michael B. Sauter and Alexander E.M. Hess, 24/7 Wall St.
The population of the United States living in urban areas is growing faster than the national rate. At last count, more than four in five Americans lived in a metropolitan area, an increase of over 12 percent in the last decade. Meanwhile, the proportion of Americans living in rural areas declined. If this trend continues, nearly all Americans will live in megacities in the near future.
Regardless of whether this happens, more pressure will be placed on mayors to manage their growing populations. 24/7 Wall St. has completed its second annual ranking of the 100 largest cities in the U.S., based on local economies, fiscal management and quality of life measures. To evaluate how well a city is managed over the long-term, we looked at factors like the city's credit rating, poverty, education, crime, unemployment, and regional GDP. The best-run city this year is Plano, Texas. The worst-run is San Bernardino, Calif.
Measuring the effective governance of a city and comparing it to others can be challenging. Each city has its own unique challenges and advantages. The strength of the regional economy, the level of state funding, and the presence of major corporations or industries can all impact a city?s prospects. They play a big part in a city?s employment levels, safety and fiscal stability.
All those factors, of course, are directly affected by how a city is managed. Mayors, school boards, and city councils all have a role to play in that regard. All of these groups must work with the resources available to keep budgets balanced.
24/7 Wall St.: The best- and worst-run states in America
Many of the best-run cities either have at least one industry that is supporting the labor force, or are close enough to major urban centers, such as Dallas, Phoenix and San Francisco, to benefit from jobs available there.
The economies of the worst-run cities fall into two categories. Some were badly damaged by the housing price collapse. These include Riverside and Stockton in California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Others have had much more long-term economic troubles. These include Detroit, St. Louis and Cleveland, whose once-booming manufacturing-based economies have been decimated by jobs going overseas.
Fiscal management is another factor that had a strong impact on where cities ended up on our list. The majority of the best-run cities had their general obligation debt rated Aaa by Moody?s. None of the worst-run cities received that perfect score; some, such as Detroit and Stockton, were rated below investment grade. Stockton is notable for actually defaulting on its debt in June of last year.
These are the best and worst-run cities in America:
Best -run cities
1. Plano, Texas
????????? Population:?271,380
????????? Credit rating:?Aaa, no outlook
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?1.62 (2nd lowest)
Plano, based in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, is the best-run city in America. Among households in the city, 14 percent earned over $200,000 in 2011, the fourth-highest proportion of all cities. Meanwhile, a mere 1.9 percent of households earned under $10,000, which was the second-lowest of all cities. The city?s 1.62 violent crimes per 1,000 people is the second-lowest of all large cities. Plano is home to many corporate headquarters, including J.C. Penney and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. These companies are among the 10 largest employers in the city. The city appears to be largely unaffected by the housing crisis. The median home price rose by more than 5 percent between 2007 and 2011, while the national median price fell by more than 10 percent.
2. Madison, Wis.
????????? Population:?236,889
????????? Credit rating: Aaa, stable
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?3.48 (15th lowest)
Madison is home to the state capitol, as well as the University of Wisconsin?s flagship campus. In addition, the region is a base to employers in fields such as technology and health?care. The unemployment rate of 4.9 percent in 2011 was the second-lowest among all large cities in the U.S. Of the city's adult population, 54 percent have a bachelor's degree, the third-highest rate among the top 100 largest cities. In December, the Madison City Council adopted a rule banning the government from using emergency reserves to fund the operating budget unless two-thirds of members vote otherwise. With the city exercising this kind of caution, it is no surprise Moody?s analytics rates madison general obligation debt as a perfect Aaa, with a stable long-term outlook.
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3. Irvine, Calif.
????????? Population:?215,511
????????? Credit rating:?Not rated
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?0.56 (the lowest)
With almost 97 percent of residents aged 25 and over with at least a high school diploma, and with nearly 63 percent with at least a bachelor's degree, Irvine has the most educated population of all of the 100 most populous cities. The city?s high educational attainment has translated to a highly compensated population -- a whopping 18.8 percent of households earned more than $200,000 in the last year. Irvine has the lowest violent crime rate of all the 100 largest cities, with just 0.56 violent crimes per 1,000 people in 2011. Irvine?s government has received a lot of flack recently for its efforts to transform the Orange County Great Park, with critics arguing that more than $200 million worth of spending has gone to waste. The newly elected City Council has pledged more oversight on spending and has terminated contracts with two firms working on the project.
4. Lincoln, Neb.
????????? Population:?262,350
????????? Credit rating:?Aaa, stable outlook
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?3.71 (18th lowest)
????????? Unemployment rate:?3.9 percent (the lowest)
Lincoln?s 3.9 percent unemployment rate in 2011 was the lowest of all metropolitan areas in the country. The city is home to the University of Nebraska?s flagship campus, which employs more than 8,000. Like Omaha, Lincoln has been spared from the recession more than most places. Home values rose 2.7 percent between 2007 and 2011 compared to a 10.7 percent drop nationwide. In 2011, just 0.36 percent of Lincoln?s homes were in foreclosure, the eighth-lowest rate among large cities. Like many of the other top-rated cities, Lincoln?s general obligation debt is rated as a perfect Aaa, with a stable outlook.
5. Fremont, Calif.?
????????? Population:?216,912
????????? Credit rating:?Not rated
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?1.77 (6th lowest)
Fremont was incorporated in 1956, joining five towns together as a single city. The city is near the core of Silicon Valley, while also connected to San Francisco by the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. It has one of the most educated and high-earning populations in America, with over 51 percent of residents age 25 and older holding a college degree in 2011. That year, median household income was $92,665, the highest of any large city in the U.S. The city has an exceptionally strong manufacturing base, with almost 22 percent of working adults employed in the sector. Among the companies with manufacturing operations in Fremont are tech manufacturers Western Digital and Seagate Technologies, as well as electric car builder Tesla Motors.
Worst-run cities
1. San Bernardino, Calif.
????????? Population:?213,008
????????? Credit rating:?not rated
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?8.76 (27th highest)
Few cities were hurt by the housing crisis to the same extent as San Bernardino, where the median home value declined by 57.6 percent between 2007 and 2011, more than any other large city in the U.S. By the end of 2011, almost 4.4 percent of homes in San Bernardino were in foreclosure, among the highest rates for all large cities. That year, the unemployment rate reached 17.6 percent, or nearly double the U.S. rate and almost 10 percentage points higher than city?s annual rate in 2007. In August, declining home values and rising employee retirement costs forced the city to file for bankruptcy. But the city?s filing is being challenged by its largest creditor, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which is demanding payments.
2. Miami, Fla.
????????? Population:?408,760
????????? Credit rating:?A2, negative outlook
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?11.98 (12th highest)
Between 2007 and 2011, the median home value in Miami fell by 43.5 percent. Additionally, the city had one of the nation?s lowest median household incomes, at under $29,000, while 31 percent of residents lived below the poverty line -- nearly twice the U.S. rate of 15.9 percent. Despite the difficult economic conditions Miamians faced, the city joined with Miami-Dade County to pay for almost 80 percent of the more-than $600 million cost of building a new baseball stadium for the Miami Marlins. The deal has caused significant uproar. While taxpayers pay extremely high costs to service the stadium debt, the team has traded many of its top players. In 2011, the SEC launched an investigation into the agreement.
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3. Stockton, Calif.
????????? Population:?296,367
????????? Credit rating:?Caa3, negative outlook
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?14.08 (8th highest)
????????? Unemployment rate:?20.2 percent (the highest)
Last year, Stockton was unable to fund its pension liabilities and make debt-service payments. As a result, it became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy. The city had been especially hurt by the recession. Its unemployment rate for 2011 was above 20 percent, while more than 5 percent of homes were in foreclosure -- both among the highest rates for any large city. Just before the bankruptcy filing, Moody?s downgraded the city?s credit rating to account for the likelihood of a default. Moody?s noted, ?The Caa3 rating level assumes losses to bondholders will be greater than 20 percent. The negative outlook reflects the high likelihood that losses could exceed our estimates.? Not only have the city?s creditors been affected, but so have city employees and retirees. According to NPR, the city may cut health benefits to reduce its $417 million in unfunded liabilities.
4. Detroit, Mich.
????????? Population:?706,640
????????? Credit rating:?Caa1, negative outlook
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?21.37 (the highest)
Detroit was hit hard during the recession, with the near-collapse of the automobile industry and a further slowdown of the already embattled housing market. The median home value between 2007 and 2011 tumbled by 43.5 percent, or more than four times the rate of decline across the country. The lack of income coming into the city?s coffers in the last few years has led to significant financial difficulty for Detroit. Moody?s currently rates city?s bonds as Caa1, which is considered junk status and the worst-rating Moody?s gave to any major city. Mayor Dave Bing signed a budget that aims to cut $250 million in the 2012-2013 fiscal year, with total spending of $1.12 billion.
5. Hialeah, Fla.?
????????? Population:?229,967
????????? Credit rating:?not rated
????????? Violent crime per 1,000 people:?3.78 (18th lowest)
Home prices between 2007 and 2011 fell by 44 percent in Hialeah, the 10th-highest decline of all 100 largest cities. The median household income of $27,208 in 2011 was the third-lowest of all major cities, after declining by 44 percent during the recession. Of workers residing in Hialeah, 15.5 percent worked in the generally low-paying retail trade, the highest percentage of all of the 100 largest cities. As a result of industry composition, nearly 40 percent of city residents are without health insurance, higher than any other large city in the U.S.
How did your city do? Click here to read all of the best- and worst-run cities
ROME (Reuters) - Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi triggered outrage from Italy's political left on Sunday with comments defending fascist wartime leader Benito Mussolini at a ceremony commemorating victims of the Nazi Holocaust.
Speaking at the margins of the event in Milan, Berlusconi said Mussolini had been wrong to follow Nazi Germany's lead in passing anti-Jewish laws but that he had in other respects been a good leader.
"It's difficult now to put yourself in the shoes of people who were making decisions at that time," said Berlusconi, who is campaigning for next month's election at the head of a coalition that includes far-right politicians whose roots go back to Italy's old fascist party.
"Obviously the government of that time, out of fear that German power might lead to complete victory, preferred to ally itself with Hitler's Germany rather than opposing it," he said.
"As part of this alliance, there were impositions, including combating and exterminating Jews," he told reporters. "The racial laws were the worst fault of Mussolini as a leader, who in so many other ways did well," he said, referring to laws passed by Mussolini's fascist government in 1938.
Although Mussolini is known outside Italy mostly for the alliance with Nazi Germany, his government also paid for major infrastructure projects as well as welfare for supporters.
Berlusconi's comments overshadowed Sunday's commemoration of thousands of Jews and others deported from Italy to the Nazi death camps of eastern Europe. They were condemned as "disgusting" by the center-left Democratic Party (PD), which is leading in the polls ahead of the February 24-25 election.
"Our republic is based on the struggle against Nazi fascism and these are intolerable remarks which are incompatible with leadership of democratic political forces," said Marco Meloni, the PD's spokesman for institutional affairs.
Antonio Ingroia, a former anti-mafia magistrate campaigning at the head of a separate left-wing coalition, said Berlusconi was "a disgrace to Italy".
AMBIGUOUS
Faced by the onslaught of criticism, Berlusconi later issued a statement saying he had always condemned dictatorships and regretted not having spelled that out in his earlier remarks.
"There can be no misunderstanding about the fascist dictatorship," he said, accusing the left of capitalizing on his earlier comments for cheap political gain.
However, it was not the first time Berlusconi has defended Mussolini, whose status in Italy remains deeply ambiguous 67 years after he was executed by communist partisans while trying to flee to Switzerland in April, 1945.
Many Italian politicians, including the speaker of the Lower House of parliament, Gianfranco Fini, come from the ranks of the old Italian Social Movement (MSI) which grew out of the fascist party, although Fini and others have renounced the far right.
Others, including Francesco Storace, Berlusconi's candidate for president of the Lazio region, have stayed true to what they see as the "social-right" tradition of the fascist movement.
Monuments to Mussolini, who came to power in 1922, still dot many Italian cities, including Rome, where a column to Il Duce stands close to the city's main football stadium, within a stone's throw of the foreign ministry.
Although never as fervently anti-semitic as his Nazi allies, Mussolini's government persecuted Italy's Jewish population, which was then estimated to number about 40,000, according to the Jewish Contemporary Documentation Centre in Milan.
The 1938 laws imposed oppressive restrictions on Jews and some 10,000 are estimated to have been deported from Italy between September 1943 and March 1945. Most of them died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
While anti-semitic behavior has not been as prominently reported in Italy in recent years as in neighboring countries such as France, acts ranging from anti-Jewish graffiti to chants at football matches occur periodically.
"We must be very careful to ensure that these sparks, which recur every now and then, cannot bring back tragedies which humanity should not suffer again," outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Sunday.
Okay, love is too strong a strong word. I?ve never quite gotten over the smell of paper and the comforting heft of a much-loved tome, but I?m not quite the reluctant adopter I was a year ago. Still, it seems I?m not alone in making this shift: According to a report from the Pew research Center, the number of readers using e-books increased seven percent in 2012, while the number of readers reading actual print books dropped about five percent.
There are more e-Readers in the wild these days. They?re affordable and convenient. Pew has classified the typical e-book reader (the people, not the devices) as a college graduate between the ages of 40 and 49 who lives in a household with an income of more than $75,000. While that may be the way the data pans our currently, the increasing popularity of these devices suggests that they may spill out of this bracket relatively quickly. As they infiltrate schools in particular, tablets and e-readers are establishing a foothold in American literacy.
So how did I come around on my thinking? There were a few reasons:
Convenience. Instead of carrying two or three books and magazines with me for my commute, I use my e-Reader. It has about five books ready for reading at the moment, and it has a stash of my favorites in case I want something tried and true.
Privacy. I can read just about anything on my e-Reader without inviting comment or criticism. Of course, this is also a bit of a drawback too because I lose the basic interaction readers sometimes have with one another: ?Oh, hey that looks like a good book? or ?I read that too!?
An awesome cover. This is probably the most important reason, though the one that is superfluous: My cover makes the device look like an old leather-bound volume. It changes the initial experience of the device, which helped soften some of my initial resistance.
Still, I?m likely not going to be a spokesperson for these things anytime soon?I?m just more likely to admit they have their uses. Why is this important to acknowledge? Well, it?s a sign that overall tendencies are shifting, but also a sign that the divisions (print or digital) are blurring. And belonging in one camp over another isn?t necessarily regarding the degree of your intelligence or preferences for technology.
Have you also changed your perception of these devices recently? What swayed you?
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three months after Superstorm Sandy devastated coastal areas in much of the Northeast, the Senate moved Monday toward passing a $50.5 billion emergency package of relief and recovery aid after House Republicans stripped it of spending unrelated to disasters.
Despite opposition from conservatives concerned about adding billions of dollars more to the nation's debt, Northeast lawmakers were optimistic about having the 60 votes needed to win Senate approval and send the long-delayed package to President Barack Obama, who has said he would sign it. The House passed the bill two weeks ago.
Lawmakers say the money is urgently needed to start rebuilding homes, businesses, public transportation facilities and other infrastructure damaged by the Oct. 29 storm, one of the worst ever to strike the Northeast. Sandy is blamed for more than 130 deaths in the U.S. and tens of billions of dollars in property damages, particularly in New York and New Jersey.
"There's no excuse for delay," said Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. "We need to get assistance to victims of Sandy as soon as possible.
The biggest chunk of money is $16 billion for Housing and Urban Development Department community development block grants. Of that, about $12 billion will be shared among Sandy victims as well as those from other federally declared disasters in 2011-2013. The remaining $3.9 billion is solely for Sandy-related projects.
More than $11 billion will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster relief aid fund for shelter, restoring power and other storm-interrupted utility services and meeting other immediate needs arising from Sandy and other disasters. Another $10 billion is devoted to repairing New York and New Jersey transit systems and making them more resistant to future storms.
"The funding in this bill is urgently needed," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., as Senate debate began. "Hundreds of thousands of families have seen their lives turned upside down."
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., said Republicans weren't seeking "to undermine" help for Sandy victims, but instead wre trying to make sure that the money was actually being spent on emergency needs.
"We're simply trying to say we need some standards," Coats said.
Earlier in January, Congress approved and Obama signed a $9.7 billion bill to replenish the National Flood Insurance Program, which has received well more than 100,000 flood insurance claims from businesses, homeowners and businesses related to Sandy. Added to the new, $50.5 billion package, the total is is roughly in line with the $60.4 billion that Obama requested in December.
Sandy damaged or destroyed 305,000 housing units in New York and more than 265,000 businesses were disrupted there, according to officials. In New Jersey, more than 346,000 households were destroyed or damaged.
The aid package was greased for passage before the last Congress adjourned and the new one came in on Jan. 3. But Speaker John Boehner refused to bring it to the floor after two-thirds of House Republicans voted against a "fiscal cliff" deficit reduction deal raising taxes on couples making more than $450,000 a year while deferring some $24 billion in spending cuts to have been shared between defense and domestic programs.
The ruckus after the Senate had passed an earlier $60.4 billion Sandy relief package by a nearly 2-to-1 margin on Dec. 28 exposed deep political divisions within Republican ranks. "There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims, the House majority and their speaker, John Boehner," Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fumed at the time.
Top House Republicans responded by bringing new Sandy aid legislation to the floor under ground rules designed to win over as many Republicans as possible while retaining support from Democrats eager to approve as much in disaster aid as possible.
GOP leaders cut spending in the Senate bill unrelated to disasters. One was to transfer $1 billion for training Iraqi policemen to instead be used on bolstering security at U.S. diplomatic missions abroad in the wake of a Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
Also deleted was $188 million for an Amtrak expansion project that included new, long-planned tunnels from New Jersey to Penn Station in Manhattan, and another $150 million for fisheries disasters that states such as Alaska and Mississippi could have shared.
After all the cost-cutting, 179 House Republicans still voted against the disaster aid package with only 49 favoring it. GOP leaders had to rely on yes votes from 192 Democrats to pass it.
As with past natural disasters, the Sandy aid bill does not offset the aid with spending cuts, meaning the aid comes at the cost of higher deficits. The lone exception is an offset provision requiring that $3.4 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects to protect against future storms be covered by unspecified spending cuts of an equal amount in other programs before next October.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, sought to amend the final package Monday with a provision to cut federal programs across the board by one-half of 1 percent through 2021 as a way to prevent the disaster aid from swelling the U.S. debt. Democrats were optimistic Lee would be unable to muster 60 votes needed to prevail.
As of Monday, FEMA said it spent $3.3 billion in disaster relief money for shelter, restoring power and other immediate needs arising from the storm.
New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, New Hampshire, Ohio, Delaware, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have shared that money.
Multi-tasking micro-lights could spark a communications revolution Public release date: 25-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: EPSRC Press Office pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk 01-793-444-404 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Tiny LED lights now being developed could deliver Wi-Fi-like internet communications, while simultaneously displaying information, and providing illumination for homes, offices and a whole host of other locations.
Over the next four years, with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding, a consortium of UK universities led by the University of Strathclyde will be developing this innovative technology to help unleash the full potential of 'Li-Fi' the transmission of internet communications using visible light rather than the radio waves and microwaves currently in use.
Although the potential possibilities offered by Li-Fi are already being explored all over the world, this EPSRC-funded consortium is pursuing a radical, distinctive vision that could deliver enormous benefits.
Underpinning Li-Fi is the use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), a rapidly spreading lighting technology which is expected to become dominant over the next 20 years. Imperceptibly, LEDs flicker on and off thousands of times a second. By altering the length of the flickers, it is possible to send digital information to specially adapted PCs and other electronic devices making Li-Fi the digital equivalent of Morse Code. This would make the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum available for internet communications, easing pressure on the increasingly crowded parts now used.
But rather than developing Li-Fi LEDs around 1mm2 in size, which other researchers around the world are concentrating on, the EPSRC-funded team is developing tiny, micron-sized LEDs which potentially offers a number of major advantages:
Firstly, the tiny LEDs are able to flicker on and off 1,000 times quicker than the larger LEDs this also means they can transmit data more quickly. Secondly, 1,000 micron-sized LEDs would fit into the space occupied by a single larger 1mm2 LED, with each of these tiny LEDs acting as a separate communication channel. A 1mm2 sized array of micron-sized LEDs could therefore communicate 1,000 x 1,000 (-i.e. a million) times as much information as one 1mm2 LED.
Moreover, each micron-sized LED would act as a tiny pixel. So one large LED array display (e.g. used to light a living room, a meeting room or the interior of an aircraft), could also be used as a screen displaying information at exactly the same time as providing internet communications and the overall room lighting.
Professor Martin Dawson of the University of Strathclyde, who is leading the initiative, says: "Imagine an LED array beside a motorway helping to light the road, displaying the latest traffic updates and transmitting internet information wirelessly to passengers' laptops, netbooks and smartphones. This is the kind of extraordinary, energy-saving parallelism that we believe our pioneering technology could deliver."
Eventually, it could even be possible for the LEDs to incorporate sensing capabilities too. For example, your mobile phone could be equipped with a flash that you point at a shop display where everything has been given an electronic price tag, and the price of all the items and other information about them would show up on your phone's display.
You can find out more about the research in an audio slide show on the EPSRC YouTube channel. (NB the full link address is http://www.youtube.com/user/EPSRCvideo?feature=mhum) (NB this will be live from 00.01hrs, Friday 25th January 2012). The title of the audio slide show is 'Li-Fi Multi-tasking micro-lights could spark a communications revolution'.
To enable the remarkable potential to be realised, the consortium has drawn together a unique breadth and depth of expertise unmatched by any other Li-Fi research team anywhere in the world.
Professor Dawson says: "The Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and St Andrews are all working with us, bringing specific expertise in complementary areas that will equip the consortium to tackle the many formidable challenges involved in electronics, computing and materials, for instance in making this vision a reality. This is technology that could start to touch every aspect of human life within a decade."
###
Notes for Editors
The term Li-Fi was coined by one of the partners in the project, Professor Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh in a TED talk in July 2011. For more information see: http://bit.ly/tedvlc
Emerging spin-out companies that are related to this research are: mLED see www.mled-ltd.com/ and pureVLC see www.purevlc.com
The research team will harness LEDs made from gallium nitride, a material whose properties are ideal for high-power, high-frequency applications.
The visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum is 10,000 times bigger than the microwave part of the spectrum. Li-Fi could therefore make a huge contribution to enabling growing demand for internet communications to be met in future.
Li-Fi cannot be achieved using standard incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs.
One micron is one millionth of a metre.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800m a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via research Councils UK.
The University of Strathclyde is one of Europe's leading centres in research on the materials and device underpinnings of 'Solid-State Lighting', the transformative replacement of traditional incandescent and fluorescent lamps by energy-efficient, long-lasting and environmentally-friendly, semiconductor based, light-emitting diode (LED) technology. The University's research in this area over the past decade has been funded by EPSRC, TSB, EU and RCUK programmes totalling more than 15 million.
With the express target of drawing academic and industrial expertise together to address the solid-state lighting/electronics interface and its implications for custom-controlled lighting systems, the University of Strathclyde is establishing a new research centre, the Intelligent Lighting Centre (ILC), based on its leading R&D capability and housed in its innovative Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) a 103 million research and innovation hub currently under construction. The University of Strathclyde is also leading a new 4.6 million Programme Grant 'Ultra-parallel visible light communications: UP-VLC', funded by EPSRC from September 2012 to August 2016, which seeks to investigate the profound implications of solid-state lighting for next-generation optical communications. This programme, involving collaborations with the Universities of St. Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, aims to pioneer the creation of an entirely new data communications infrastructure based on solid-state lighting, where lighting components provide both illumination and an ultra-high-bandwidth 'Light Fidelity (Li-Fi)' technology complimentary to traditional Wi-Fi.
For more information on the University of Strathclyde visit: http://www.strath.ac.uk/
For more information, contact:
Professor Harald Haas, University of Edinburgh, tel: 0131 650 5591, e-mail: h.haas@ed.ac.uk (available from 11 am on Thursday 24th January 2012 for interviews)
Professor Martin Dawson, University of Strathclyde, tel: 0141 548 4663, e-mail: m.dawson@strath.ac.uk (Professor Dawson will be available from 9am on Friday 25th January, 2013)
Images are available from the EPSRC Press Office. Contact tel: 01793 444404, e-mail: pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
Image captions:
ProfDawson.jpg: Professor Martin Dawson from the University of Strathclyde who is leading this research.
ProfHaas.jpg: Professor Harald Haas, from the University of Edinburgh (who originally coined the term Li-Fi), is a partner in this research project.
Ledlight.jpg: In the long-term larger LED lights like this could be replaced by arrays of micron-sized LEDS which will enable many different tasks to be carried simultaneously such as powering a laptop, providing illumination and displaying information.
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Multi-tasking micro-lights could spark a communications revolution Public release date: 25-Jan-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: EPSRC Press Office pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk 01-793-444-404 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Tiny LED lights now being developed could deliver Wi-Fi-like internet communications, while simultaneously displaying information, and providing illumination for homes, offices and a whole host of other locations.
Over the next four years, with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding, a consortium of UK universities led by the University of Strathclyde will be developing this innovative technology to help unleash the full potential of 'Li-Fi' the transmission of internet communications using visible light rather than the radio waves and microwaves currently in use.
Although the potential possibilities offered by Li-Fi are already being explored all over the world, this EPSRC-funded consortium is pursuing a radical, distinctive vision that could deliver enormous benefits.
Underpinning Li-Fi is the use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), a rapidly spreading lighting technology which is expected to become dominant over the next 20 years. Imperceptibly, LEDs flicker on and off thousands of times a second. By altering the length of the flickers, it is possible to send digital information to specially adapted PCs and other electronic devices making Li-Fi the digital equivalent of Morse Code. This would make the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum available for internet communications, easing pressure on the increasingly crowded parts now used.
But rather than developing Li-Fi LEDs around 1mm2 in size, which other researchers around the world are concentrating on, the EPSRC-funded team is developing tiny, micron-sized LEDs which potentially offers a number of major advantages:
Firstly, the tiny LEDs are able to flicker on and off 1,000 times quicker than the larger LEDs this also means they can transmit data more quickly. Secondly, 1,000 micron-sized LEDs would fit into the space occupied by a single larger 1mm2 LED, with each of these tiny LEDs acting as a separate communication channel. A 1mm2 sized array of micron-sized LEDs could therefore communicate 1,000 x 1,000 (-i.e. a million) times as much information as one 1mm2 LED.
Moreover, each micron-sized LED would act as a tiny pixel. So one large LED array display (e.g. used to light a living room, a meeting room or the interior of an aircraft), could also be used as a screen displaying information at exactly the same time as providing internet communications and the overall room lighting.
Professor Martin Dawson of the University of Strathclyde, who is leading the initiative, says: "Imagine an LED array beside a motorway helping to light the road, displaying the latest traffic updates and transmitting internet information wirelessly to passengers' laptops, netbooks and smartphones. This is the kind of extraordinary, energy-saving parallelism that we believe our pioneering technology could deliver."
Eventually, it could even be possible for the LEDs to incorporate sensing capabilities too. For example, your mobile phone could be equipped with a flash that you point at a shop display where everything has been given an electronic price tag, and the price of all the items and other information about them would show up on your phone's display.
You can find out more about the research in an audio slide show on the EPSRC YouTube channel. (NB the full link address is http://www.youtube.com/user/EPSRCvideo?feature=mhum) (NB this will be live from 00.01hrs, Friday 25th January 2012). The title of the audio slide show is 'Li-Fi Multi-tasking micro-lights could spark a communications revolution'.
To enable the remarkable potential to be realised, the consortium has drawn together a unique breadth and depth of expertise unmatched by any other Li-Fi research team anywhere in the world.
Professor Dawson says: "The Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and St Andrews are all working with us, bringing specific expertise in complementary areas that will equip the consortium to tackle the many formidable challenges involved in electronics, computing and materials, for instance in making this vision a reality. This is technology that could start to touch every aspect of human life within a decade."
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Notes for Editors
The term Li-Fi was coined by one of the partners in the project, Professor Harald Haas from the University of Edinburgh in a TED talk in July 2011. For more information see: http://bit.ly/tedvlc
Emerging spin-out companies that are related to this research are: mLED see www.mled-ltd.com/ and pureVLC see www.purevlc.com
The research team will harness LEDs made from gallium nitride, a material whose properties are ideal for high-power, high-frequency applications.
The visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum is 10,000 times bigger than the microwave part of the spectrum. Li-Fi could therefore make a huge contribution to enabling growing demand for internet communications to be met in future.
Li-Fi cannot be achieved using standard incandescent or fluorescent light bulbs.
One micron is one millionth of a metre.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences research Council (EPSRC) is the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and physical sciences. EPSRC invests around 800m a year in research and postgraduate training, to help the nation handle the next generation of technological change. The areas covered range from information technology to structural engineering, and mathematics to materials science. This research forms the basis for future economic development in the UK and improvements for everyone's health, lifestyle and culture. EPSRC works alongside other Research Councils with responsibility for other areas of research. The Research Councils work collectively on issues of common concern via research Councils UK.
The University of Strathclyde is one of Europe's leading centres in research on the materials and device underpinnings of 'Solid-State Lighting', the transformative replacement of traditional incandescent and fluorescent lamps by energy-efficient, long-lasting and environmentally-friendly, semiconductor based, light-emitting diode (LED) technology. The University's research in this area over the past decade has been funded by EPSRC, TSB, EU and RCUK programmes totalling more than 15 million.
With the express target of drawing academic and industrial expertise together to address the solid-state lighting/electronics interface and its implications for custom-controlled lighting systems, the University of Strathclyde is establishing a new research centre, the Intelligent Lighting Centre (ILC), based on its leading R&D capability and housed in its innovative Technology and Innovation Centre (TIC) a 103 million research and innovation hub currently under construction. The University of Strathclyde is also leading a new 4.6 million Programme Grant 'Ultra-parallel visible light communications: UP-VLC', funded by EPSRC from September 2012 to August 2016, which seeks to investigate the profound implications of solid-state lighting for next-generation optical communications. This programme, involving collaborations with the Universities of St. Andrews, Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh, aims to pioneer the creation of an entirely new data communications infrastructure based on solid-state lighting, where lighting components provide both illumination and an ultra-high-bandwidth 'Light Fidelity (Li-Fi)' technology complimentary to traditional Wi-Fi.
For more information on the University of Strathclyde visit: http://www.strath.ac.uk/
For more information, contact:
Professor Harald Haas, University of Edinburgh, tel: 0131 650 5591, e-mail: h.haas@ed.ac.uk (available from 11 am on Thursday 24th January 2012 for interviews)
Professor Martin Dawson, University of Strathclyde, tel: 0141 548 4663, e-mail: m.dawson@strath.ac.uk (Professor Dawson will be available from 9am on Friday 25th January, 2013)
Images are available from the EPSRC Press Office. Contact tel: 01793 444404, e-mail: pressoffice@epsrc.ac.uk
Image captions:
ProfDawson.jpg: Professor Martin Dawson from the University of Strathclyde who is leading this research.
ProfHaas.jpg: Professor Harald Haas, from the University of Edinburgh (who originally coined the term Li-Fi), is a partner in this research project.
Ledlight.jpg: In the long-term larger LED lights like this could be replaced by arrays of micron-sized LEDS which will enable many different tasks to be carried simultaneously such as powering a laptop, providing illumination and displaying information.
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2013
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