Texas students in trouble for wearing Wounded Warrior tees
Texas students in trouble for wearing Wounded Warrior tees

by Mayra Moreno / KENS 5

KENS5

Posted on April 24, 2012 at 10:08 AM

Updated Tuesday, Apr 24 at 1:28 PM

CONVERSE, Texas – They thought it would be a harmless gesture to wear a t-shirt in support of their father who is a Wounded Warrior. But two elementary school girls got in trouble for it.

They violated the dress code, according to a Judson ISD spokesperson.

Their mom said they were just supporting their father.

First grade student, Savannah and fourth grade student, Taylor, were raised in an Army family.

The girls’ father was injured by a road-side bomb in Afghanistan. The family moved to San Antonio not long after Perez-Gorda was injured in 2011.

“I’m paralyzed. I have a TBI [traumatic brain injury],” said Army Spc. Justin Perez-Gorda.

Last week, the family learned they could soon get help from a non-profit organization.

“This organization may build us a home that is safe for my husband to be safe in,” said Josie Perez-Gorda.

They received t-shirts with the organization’s logo on Thursday, so on Friday the two girls wore the shirts to school in support of their father. They got in trouble with their principal at Masters Elementary.

“We do have a standardized dress code,” said Judson ISD spokesperson, Aubrey Chancellor. “We certainly support the military, but we do have to be consistent across the board when it comes to following the dress code.”

Mom and dad are upset and wondering why the school allows students to wear t-shirts with college logos but not one with an organization that supports Wounded Warriors like their father.

“These guys are fighting for our country and they should be able to wear something that honors their parents, especially if they are wounded,” said the girls’ mother.

The district spokesperson said if a parent feels the dress code needs to be changed they are always welcome to attend board meetings to address their concerns.

Texas students in trouble for wearing Wounded Warrior tees | khou.com Houston.

RAP NEWS 6 – Wikileaks’ Cablegate: the truth is out there feat Hillary Clinton & Alex Jones – YouTube.

Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal

More at EndtheLie.com – http://EndtheLie.com/2012/02/28/goodbye-first-amendment-trespass-bill-will-make-protest-illegal/#ixzz1njgNEeNw

Goodbye, First Amendment: ‘Trespass Bill’ will make protest illegal | End the Lie – Independent News.

Millions of computers infected with the stealthy and tenacious DNSChanger Trojan may be spared a planned disconnection from the Internet early next month if a New York court approves a new request by the U.S. government. Meanwhile, six men accused of managing and profiting from the huge collection of hacked PCs are expected to soon be extradited from their native Estonia to face charges in the United States.

DNSChanger modifies settings on a host PC that tell the computer how to find Web sites on the Internet, hijacking victims’ search results and preventing them from visiting security sites that might help detect and scrub the infections. The Internet servers that were used to control infected PCs were located in the United States, and in coordination with the arrest of the Estonian men in November, a New York district court ordered a private U.S. company to assume control over those servers. The government argued that the arrangement would give ISPs and companies time to identify and scrub infected PCs, systems that would otherwise be disconnected from the Internet if the control servers were shut down. The court agreed, and ordered that the surrogate control servers remain in operation until March 8.

But earlier this month, security firm Internet Identity revealed that the cleanup process was taking a lot longer than expected: The company said more than 3 million systems worldwide — 500,000 in the United States — remain infected with the Trojan, and that at least one instance of the Trojan was still running on computers at 50 percent of Fortune 500 firms and half of all U.S. government agencies. That means that if the current deadline holds, millions of PCs are likely to be cut off from the Web on March 8.

In a Feb. 17 filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, officials with the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and NASA asked the court to extend the March 8 deadline by more than four months to give ISPs, private companies and the government more time to clean up the mess. The government requested that the surrogate servers be allowed to stay in operation until July 9, 2012. The court has yet to rule on the request, a copy of which is available here (PDF).

Not everyone thinks extending the deadline is the best way to resolve the situation. In fact, security-minded folks seem dead-set against the idea. KrebOnSecurity conducted an unscientific poll earlier this month, asking readers whether they thought the government should give affected users more time to clean up infections from the malware, which can be unusually difficult to remove. Nearly 1,400 readers responded that forcing people to meet the current deadline was the best approach. The overwhelming opinion (~9:1) was against extending the March 8 deadline.
Feds Request DNSChanger Deadline Extension — Krebs on Security.

Even if you’re one of those luddites who uses Google only for Search – not the increasingly random assemblage of first-generation SaaS apps that make up its unintentionally eclectic portfolio – you’re sure to already be sick of the sticky pop-ups Google has been using to warn customers it is unifying all the services under one comprehensive lack-of-privacy policy.

Google announced in January it would unify most of its services under a single privacy policy and a single set of data-gathering tools that will arrange all Google’s useful data on each of its customers in an efficient database, from which it is much simpler to sell that customer as a commodity to advertisers looking for specific patterns of behavior.

The change actually goes into effect March 1.

Before it does, if you’re cautious at all about the amount of information Google has about you, uncertain at all how little evil Google will do with all the consolidated information or just a little woogy about anyone having big chunks of surveillance on you with a yen to sell it: go erase your Google history now.

Thanks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for pointing out that having decent security and using it are not the same thing.

Tomorrow, after all your odd searches, secret obsessions and kinky lunch reading is ensconced inside a special database, you won’t be able to get to the data any more.

You can delete much of the data Google has on you, though. At least as long as you remember to clear your browser history.

Not the one you always clear before leaving your desk and risking having prying co-workers come look at your cache to figure out what the audio-streamed screams coming from your computer earlier in the day were all about.

The history you have to delete is on Google.com. When you’re signed in, Google keeps track of where you’re going and what you’re looking at, and stores that history on its server files.

Today only you can still delete that data, by following the instructions provided by EFF.

Getting Google to forget you:

First, log in to your Google account.

Then go to account settings then account overview then web history.

Click the button marked “Delete all history.”

Click OK.

That’s it. History is a toggle, so once you turn it off it should stay that way until you reactivate it.

It’s not a big procedure, or a complex one. It is one chance more than any other online vendor has offered you lately to restrict your private data a little.

But you have to actually take the trouble.

Do it now, before you forget.

Last chance to tell Google to forget you | ITworld.

via bbc

Malaysian authorities have deported a Saudi journalist accused of insulting the Prophet Muhammad in a tweet.

Police confirmed to the BBC that Hamza Kashgari was sent back to Saudi Arabia on Sunday despite protests from human rights groups.

Mr Kashgari’s controversial tweet last week sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats.

Insulting the prophet is considered blasphemous in Islam and is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Kashgari, 23, fled Saudi Arabia last week and was detained upon his arrival in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

He had tweeted his doubts about Muhammad on the prophet’s birthday last week. Saudi clerics condemned his remarks as blasphemous.

Mr Kashgari apologised and deleted the tweet, but when he continued to receive threats, he left for Malaysia.

The two countries do not have a formal extradition treaty but Malaysia has good relations with Saudi Arabia as a fellow Muslim country, says the BBC’s Jennifer Pak, in Kuala Lumpur.

Mr Kashgari’s lawyer obtained an injunction on Sunday to allow him to stay in Malaysia until his case was heard, but it was too late, our correspondent says.

“The nature of the charges against the individual in this case are a matter for the Saudi Arabian authorities,” Malaysia’s home ministry said in a statement.

Amnesty International has warned that Mr Kashgari could be executed in Saudi Arabia if he is found guilty of apostasy.

“If the Malaysian authorities hand over Hamza Kashgari to Saudi Arabia, they could end up complicit in any violations he suffers,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui of Amnesty’s Middle East division.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17001900

Intel inside: This “reference design” running Google’s Android operating system is meant to help persuade manufacturers to build their handsets around Intel’s new mobile chips.
Intel

The era of the personal computer dawned thanks in no small part to the chip maker Intel. But the company has been only a spectator to the rise of smart phones and tablets in recent years. These mobile devices use chips based on designs licensed by the U.K. company ARM, which deliver the power efficiency the powerful, compact gadgets require.

Intel is about to fight back.

Last week, Technology Review tried out prototype smart phones and tablets equipped with Intel’s latest mobile chip, dubbed Medfield, and running the Android mobile operating system created by Google. “We expect products based on these to be announced in the first half of 2012,” says Stephen Smith, vice president of Intel’s architecture group.

Known as “reference designs,” the devices are sent out to inspire and instruct manufacturers interested in building products around Intel’s latest technology. “They can use as much or as little of the reference design as they like,” says Smith, who hinted that the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January could bring news of gadgets in which Intel’s chips will appear.

Intel’s Medfield is the latest in its “Atom” line of mobile chips. So far none of them have seriously threatened the dominance of ARM-based chips in mobile devices, in part because they are more power-hungry. However, the new chip represents a significant technological step toward lower power consumption.

Previous Atom designs spread the work of a processor across two or three chips, a relatively power-intensive scheme that originated many years ago in Intel’s PC chips. But now Intel has finally combined the core functions of its processor designs into one chunk of silicon. “This is our first offering that’s truly a single chip,” says Smith. The all-in-one design, known as a system on-a-chip, is a standard feature of the ARM chips so dominant in smart phones today.

The phone prototype seen by Technology Review was similar in dimensions to the iPhone 4 but noticeably lighter, probably because the case was made with more plastic and less glass and metal. It was running the version of Google’s operating system shipping with most Android phones today, known as Gingerbread; a newer version, Ice Cream Sandwich, was released by Google only about a month ago.

The phone was powerful and pleasing to use, on a par with the latest iPhone and Android handsets. It could play Blu-Ray-quality video and stream it to a TV if desired; Web browsing was smooth and fast. Smith says Intel has built circuits into the Medfield chip specifically to speed up Android apps and Web browsing.

Missing out: Intel isn’t among the leading companies in the fast-growing market for smart-phone processors, which all license designs from UK-based ARM Holdings.
Technology Review

One feature that stood out was the camera’s “burst mode,” which captures 10 full-size eight-megapixel images at a rate of 15 per second. Smith says that feature rests on a combination of image-processing circuits built into the Medfield chip and dedicated software tweaks on top, technology that comes in part from Intel’s acquisition of the Dutch image-processing company Silicon Hive earlier this year. This kind of hardware could help apps developed for augmented reality.

Intel’s reference tablet, which used the same Medfield chip as the phone, was running the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. It had a slightly larger screen than the iPad 2 but was about the same in thickness and weight. A limited trial suggested that it was noticeably nicer to use than older tablets based on the abandoned Honeycomb version of Android.

Intel has tried to gain traction in mobile devices before, but those efforts were unsuccessful. In the immediate aftermath of the iPhone’s meteoric rise, the company focused on netbooks and mobile Internet device—computers larger than smart phones that never became popular. A long-term effort to develop an open-source mobile operating system to rival Android, called Meego, was scrapped earlier this year when partner Nokia signed a deal with Microsoft to use Windows instead.

It seems Intel has been hampered by both technical and business-strategy problems that come with trying to change the course of such a large company. It took time for engineers to find a way to compress their usual three-chip design into a single system-on–a-chip, says Smith, and to help Google make Android work on Intel chips. Now Intel finally has a chip that can match and even surpass established mobile chips. “Now we have this in place, we can accelerate,” Smith says. “We haven’t been able to show a production-grade design before.”

Intel has tested its reference handset against a handful of the leading phones on sale today. It says these tests show that Medfield offers faster browsing and graphics performance and lower power consumption than the top three, says Smith.

Linley Gwennap, an analyst with the Linley Group, says it’s very significant that Intel is finally offering a fully integrated system-on-a-chip. “It should make Intel more competitive—they’re kind of at the same level as anyone now,” he says. Gwennap adds that Medfield chips use more advanced technology than the established competition, which means the chip’s features are much smaller. That helps improve power consumption and processing power. “Medfield is based on 32-nanometer technology, while the biggest fabs making ARM-based processors are today shipping either 40 or 45 nanometers,” he says.

That lead is likely to disappear as ARM-based processors catch up in the next year, but Smith says that Intel will start making mobile processors using 22-nanometer technology in 2013. Manufacturers of ARM-based chips say they plan to make that jump in 2014. Gwennap says this next generation will give Intel its best hope of grabbing a significant chunk of a new market: “I expect they’ll get into a few phones with Medfield, and then it will be the 22-nanometer chip that really makes a difference.”

However, Gwennap notes that Intel could lag behind in other ways. Although it has caught up by integrating everything a processor needs into a single chip, established mobile chip makers like Qualcomm are already going a step further by incorporating the usually separate wireless modem chip, resulting in even further efficiency gains. Smith says Intel isn’t ready to talk about when it might also make that step.

Intel Shows Off Its Smart Phone and Tablet for 2012 – Technology Review.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When one tiny circuit within an integrated chip cracks or fails, the whole chip – or even the whole device – is a loss. But what if it could fix itself, and fix itself so fast that the user never knew there was a problem?

University of Illinois professors, from left, Nancy Sottos, Scott White and Jeffrey Moore applied their experience in self-healing polymers to electrical systems, developing technology that could extend the longevity of electronic devices and batteries. | Photo by L. Brian Stauffer | View video of researchers

A team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink. Led by aerospace engineering professor Scott White and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos, the researchers published their results in the journal Advanced Materials.

“It simplifies the system,” said chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, a co-author of the paper. “Rather than having to build in redundancies or to build in a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself.”

As electronic devices are evolving to perform more sophisticated tasks, manufacturers are packing as much density onto a chip as possible. However, such density compounds reliability problems, such as failure stemming from fluctuating temperature cycles as the device operates or fatigue. A failure at any point in the circuit can shut down the whole device.

“In general there’s not much avenue for manual repair,” Sottos said. “Sometimes you just can’t get to the inside. In a multilayer integrated circuit, there’s no opening it up. Normally you just replace the whole chip. It’s true for a battery too. You can’t pull a battery apart and try to find the source of the failure.”

Most consumer devices are meant to be replaced with some frequency, adding to electronic waste issues, but in many important applications – such as instruments or vehicles for space or military functions – electrical failures cannot be replaced or repaired.

The Illinois team previously developed a system for self-healing polymer materials and decided to adapt their technique for conductive systems. They dispersed tiny microcapsules, as small as 10 microns in diameter, on top of a gold line functioning as a circuit. As a crack propagates, the microcapsules break open and release the liquid metal contained inside. The liquid metal fills in the gap in the circuit, restoring electrical flow.

“What’s really cool about this paper is it’s the first example of taking the microcapsule-based healing approach and applying it to a new function,” White said. “Everything prior to this has been on structural repair. This is on conductivity restoration. It shows the concept translates to other things as well.”

A failure interrupts current for mere microseconds as the liquid metal immediately fills the crack. The researchers demonstrated that 90 percent of their samples healed to 99 percent of original conductivity, even with a small amount of microcapsules.

The self-healing system also has the advantages of being localized and autonomous. Only the microcapsules that a crack intercepts are opened, so repair only takes place at the point of damage. Furthermore, it requires no human intervention or diagnostics, a boon for applications where accessing a break for repair is impossible, such as a battery, or finding the source of a failure is difficult, such as an air- or spacecraft.

“In an aircraft, especially a defense-based aircraft, there are miles and miles of conductive wire,” Sottos said. “You don’t often know where the break occurs. The autonomous part is nice – it knows where it broke, even if we don’t.”

Next, the researchers plan to further refine their system and explore other possibilities for using microcapsules to control conductivity. They are particularly interested in applying the microcapsule-based self-healing system to batteries, improving their safety and longevity.

This research was supported as part of the Center for Electrical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Moore, Sottos and White are also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Co-authors of the paper included postdoctoral researchers Benjamin Blaiszik and Sharlotte Kramer and graduate students Martha Grady and David McIlroy.
Self-healing electronics could work longer and reduce waste | News Bureau | University of Illinois.

 In a major twist for one of the technology industry’s largest annual events, Microsoft says the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show will be the last one where it delivers a keynote address and has a booth.

The company puts up a mammoth booth at the event in Las Vegas each January, and it has traditionally delivered the pre-show keynote, starting with Bill Gates back in the day and continuing with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in recent years. Microsoft will still have a booth this year and Ballmer will deliver the keynote on Jan. 9.

Microsoft made the announcement in a post this morning, saying it will continue to send representatives to the show to connect with others in the industry, “but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.”

“As we look at all of the new ways we tell our consumer stories – from product momentum disclosures, to exciting events like our Big Windows Phone, to a range of consumer connection points like Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft.com and our retail stores – it feels like the right time to make this transition,” writes Frank Shaw, the company’s communications chief, in the post. “Microsoft has enjoyed a close to 20-year working relationship with the Consumer Electronics Association – and we look forward to working with CEA for many years to come.”

Apple doesn’t participate in the Consumer Electronics Show, and cited similar reasons in pulling out of the Macworld Expo three years ago.

Update, 10:53 a.m.: Here’s the full text of the statement sent to us by the Consumer Electronics Association …

In the fourteen years that we have invited Microsoft to deliver a keynote address at CES, the company has unveiled some great innovations, from operating systems to gaming platforms to mobile technologies, Both CEA and Microsoft have agreed that the time has come to end this great run, and so Microsoft will not have a keynote at the 2013 CES.

The International CES is widely recognized as the world’s best stage for technology debuts, and each year we experience incredible demand from the world’s leading technology companies for invitations to keynote at CES. We will announce our amazing lineup of keynoters for the 2013 CES beginning in the early summer of 2013.

Microsoft has also informed us that, although their plans for the 2013 CES are not yet finalized, they will not request the Central Hall exhibit space that they have used in past years. Given the huge success of the 2012 CES, with more than 1.8 million net square feet of exhibit space (the second largest show floor in our history) and more than 2,700 exhibitors, we have received expressions of interest for that space from the long waiting list for Central Hall exhibit space. Exhibitors will choose space for the 2013 CES during the 2012 show, and in past years available Central Hall exhibit space has sold out within hours.

Microsoft is an important member of CEA and we wish them all the best as they evolve their plans for new ways to tell consumer stories. We also look forward to their CES keynote on January 9, 2012.

Microsoft says this Consumer Electronics Show will be its last – GeekWire.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — It’s time for T-Mobile to desperately scramble for a viable Plan B now that AT&T has walked away.

Getting bought by AT&T (T, Fortune 500) would have solved most of T-Mobile’s problems. Its customers would finally have gotten access to a true 4G network and top-of-the-line smartphones like Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone.

But after the Obama administration scuttled the deal on antitrust grounds, T-Mobile is left in an even weaker position than in March, when the merger was first announced.

Since AT&T agreed to buy it, T-Mobile has largely sat on its hands, watching its profit, sales and market share sink without any major handset or network upgrades.

It’s not all doom and gloom for T-Mobile: It’s still profitable, and AT&T will be sending it $1 billion worth of wireless spectrum allocations by the year’s end. A roaming agreement with AT&T will also help expand T-Mobile’s coverage to 50 million more Americans.

That’s a nice parting gift, but it’s not even close to enough for T-Mobile to build out a 4G network. And the real prize, the $3 billion break-up fee, will go towards paying down parent company Deutsche Telekom’s debt, not to T-Mobile USA, Deutsche Telekom announced on Tuesday.

That, analysts, say, means T-Mobile will have to act sooner rather than later to figure out its backup plan.

“T-Mobile’s entire strategy is gone,” said George Appling, partner at Booz & Co. “T-Mobile should be worried, because its business isn’t going anywhere, and now it needs to start all over again.”

Making matters worse, Appling predicted a massive exodus of management from T-Mobile now that the merger is off the table. The company had incentivized management to stay as long as the deal was in the works, but now there’s “no reason to stay,” Appling said. That talent drain will force T-Mobile’s hand even more.

A T-Mobile spokesman countered that the commitment level among T-Mobile executives remains “very strong.”

So what are the options for the nation’s fourth-largest wireless company? Experts say it’s eat, be eaten, or strike a licensing deal.

Eat: If it’s going to buy up one or several smaller wireless providers, T-Mobile could do well by making a bid for regional carriers Leap Wireless (LEAP) and MetroPCS (PCS). Both stocks rallied Tuesday along with the rest of the market.

Unlike T-Mobile, both have the spectrum necessary to create a 4G solution, and MetroPCS has already begun to roll out its next-generation network. Appling estimates T-Mobile could save at least $500 million a year by purchasing one of the companies and transitioning to the much more efficient 4G technology.

Such a deal could also restore T-Mobile’s identity as the nationwide value carrier, which got muddied in recent years as the company struggled to determine whether it was in competition with the big boys Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), AT&T and Sprint or low-cost carriers like Virgin, Boost, MetroPCS and Leap’s Cricket network.

Be eaten: If AT&T couldn’t get regulatory approval to buy T-Mobile, there’s no chance its even larger rival Verizon would be able to scoop it up. That leaves Sprint Nextel (S, Fortune 500) as the only U.S. wireless player that might have a realistic shot at playing the role of T-Mobile’s white knight.

Sprint, after all, is the company that everyone thought would buy T-Mobile before AT&T stepped in. Sprint certainly could use T-Mobile’s spectrum, and a tie-up between the two companies could create a much more competitive third option in the wireless market — making it likely that it would receive a blessing from regulators, according to Brett Gordon, professor at Columbia Business School.

But there are many reasons why that deal might not be able to get done: Sprint is rapidly running out of cash, and its network technologies are incompatible with T-Mobile’s. Sprint couldn’t offer anything close to the $39 billion AT&T had bid.

A more likely option is that a Latin American carrier like Telefonica or Telmex would buy T-Mobile to get a foothold in the U.S. market, said Josh King, general counsel at Avvo.com and former senior corporate development executive at AT&T Wireless. A European player is also possible, similar to how Vodafone (VOD) bought a large stake in Verizon Wireless.

But cable operators, once believed to be a potential savior, are now likely out. Cox, Comcast (CMCSA, Fortune 500), Time Warner Cable (TWC, Fortune 500) and Bright House sold their wireless spectrum to Verizon this month.

Dish Network (DISH, Fortune 500) has spent $3 billion on wireless spectrum over the past year, but Frost & Sullivan analyst Brent Iadarola said AT&T is more likely to strike a licensing deal with Dish than the satellite operator is to buy T-Mobile outright.

Make a deal: As a third option, T-Mobile could partner with another company in a spectrum licensing deal.

In what could be an interesting twist, AT&T’s 4G network might make the most sense for T-Mobile. AT&T could allow T-Mobile’s customers to roam on its 4G network in exchange for spectrum licenses that would allow AT&T to deploy 4G faster.

Another possibility is an infrastructure-for-4G partnership with 4G wholesale provider LightSquared, according to Jagdish Rebello, analyst at IHS iSuppli. But that network isn’t expected to deploy until 2013 at the earliest.

“What’s certain is that T-Mobile can’t go it alone,” said Rebello. “They can only call their 3G network 4G for so long.”

T-Mobile: Back to square one – Dec. 20, 2011.