Microsoft's New Private Cloud Strategy to Get Detailed on January 17th

On January 17th we will be able to learn some more info on Microsoft's System Center 2012 vision, as well as on the company's plans for private cloud.

The Redmond-based software giant will hold a virtual event on that day, to offer some additional info on the cloud options its customers can take advantage of.

Participants will be engaged in a private cloud discussion with two Microsoft executives: Satya Nadella, president, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft, and Brad Anderson, corporate vice president, Management and Security Division, Microsoft.

The Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud event will also include an executive panel and Q&A, as well as a scenario based demonstration that comes straight from the Microsoft Technology Center in Redmond, WA.

This year, Microsoft is expected to show increased focus on the delivery and marketing of cloud products for a variety of customers.

?The definition, business value, and technology benefits of the ?the cloud? have been hotly debated in recent months. Most agree that cloud computing can accelerate innovation, reduce costs, and increase business agility in the market,? the company notes.

?In 2012, cloud computing will transition from hype and discussion, to part of every enterprise?s reality, and IT is uniquely positioned to lead this transformation and help business reap the benefits of cloud computing.?

ZDNet's Mary-Jo Foley suggests that Microsoft might be set to unveil the products included in its System Center 2012 family at that event. These products were expected to arrive before the end of 2011.

At the TechEd conference in May last year, the company suggested that these products would become widely available in early 2012. Chances are that all these products will be launched by April, Mary-Jo Foley states.

System Center would become a key part of Microsoft's private cloud strategy, the company's officials reportedly confirmed.

The Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud event will be broadcast on January 17th starting with 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET on Microsoft's website.

Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-s-New-Private-Cloud-Strategy-to-Get-Detailed-on-January-17th-244869.shtml

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Conn. man gets 70 years for kidnapping ex-wife (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. ? A prominent former advertising executive declared that he has hired an "assassin" to kill his ex-wife just before being sentenced Wednesday to 70 years in prison for holding her hostage for more than 13 hours and burning down the Connecticut home they once shared.

Richard Shenkman, 62, was sentenced in Hartford Superior Court, where a jury convicted him in October of 10 charges including kidnapping, arson, assault and threatening. He faced a potential of nearly 80 years in prison.

Shenkman and his ex-wife, Nancy Tyler, were in the middle of divorce-related court hearings when he abducted her from her office's parking garage in downtown Hartford on July 7, 2009, and forced her at gunpoint to drive about nine miles to the home in South Windsor.

Authorities said Shenkman and Tyler were due in court for a divorce-related hearing later that morning, and he was supposed to turn over the house to her or face jail time for contempt of court.

Tyler testified that Shenkman threatened to kill her, fired a gun near her head and threatened to blow up the house. She escaped unharmed during a standoff with police, and he was arrested after running out of the burning house.

During Wednesday's sentencing hearing, Shenkman told Judge Julia Dewey that he has hired an experienced killer to murder Tyler. The judge had rejected a motion by Shenkman's attorney to delay sentencing for further psychological evaluation of his client.

"When Nancy Tyler's lifeless body is lying in the morgue ... I will have made my point," Shenkman said. "There is nothing this system can do to prevent Nancy Tyler's murder."

Shenkman is the brother of Mark Shenkman, founder and president of one of the nation's largest money management firms, Shenkman Capital Management. Richard Shenkman's former advertising firm, Primedia, produced the "Gayle King Show" in 1997, starring Oprah Winfrey's best friend.

Shenkman wore an orange prison jumpsuit and his hands and legs were shackled. Dewey rejected his request to have the handcuffs taken off for the hearing. He had also grown a full gray beard since he was convicted, and his shoulder-length hair that was in a ponytail during the trial was untied.

Defense attorney Hugh Keefe said Shenkman's remarks show his client is mentally ill.

"I've never seen a defendant say things like that at sentencing," Keefe said. "He demonstrated he was off the reservation big time."

Keefe called the prison term "ridiculously stiff" and said he will appeal the convictions.

Tyler had urged the judge to impose the maximum prison sentence, saying Shenkman has terrorized her, her family and her friends for years. She begged the judge to "give us some peace."

"Mr. Shenkman's campaign of destruction has been devastating," Tyler said. She said after the hearing that she wasn't worried about the murder threats.

"I am very relieved and planning to go back to my life with my family and friends in safety," she said.

Prosecutor Vicki Melchiorre told the judge that Shenkman "will never stop trying to destroy" Tyler, and she asked for the maximum sentence.

"He got exactly what he deserved," Melchiorre said later. "I think he was pathetic. I think this was his last opportunity to terrorize her and he took it."

Dewey called Shenkman a narcissistic and self-centered man who would do anything to get his way.

"You are never going to be rehabilitated," the judge said before announcing the sentence, which also included an order for Shenkman to pay $100,000 restitution to Tyler.

Shenkman had mounted an insanity defense, but Tyler testified that her ex-husband often acted "crazy" to get his way.

Tyler testified at the trial about her harrowing ordeal, saying Shenkman handcuffed himself to her, fired a handgun twice near her head, prepared a noose for her and claimed to have rigged the house with explosives as swarms of police surrounded the home. Tyler had called a friend on her cellphone in concern over seeing Shenkman's minivan near her office and urged her to call police just before she was kidnapped.

Tyler said Shenkman handcuffed her to an eyebolt in a basement wall at one point, and that she managed to unscrew the bolt and run outside when Shenkman went upstairs to check on police activity.

Shenkman talked on the phone to dispatchers and police officers several times during the ordeal. The jury listened to the recorded conversations, in which Shenkman sometimes sounded frantic, screamed, used profanity and several times counted down the seconds to his threatened killing of Tyler.

Tyler described how Shenkman became increasingly enraged at police during the ordeal for not meeting his demands, which included having a priest administer Tyler last rites and having authorities fax over a marriage license so he and Tyler could get remarried.

Police testified that the nearly 15-hour standoff ended when Shenkman came out of the burning home, which was uninsured at the time, and pointed a handgun at his own head. Minutes later, officers shot Shenkman with rubber bullets and used a stun gun on him twice before subduing him and taking him into custody.

Shenkman and Tyler married in 1993, and she filed for divorce in 2006. A judge approved the divorce in 2008, but court proceedings continued as Shenkman appealed.

He also is charged with burning down his and Tyler's beachfront home in East Lyme in 2007 just before he was to hand it over to Tyler as part of their divorce. He awaits trial on those charges.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120105/ap_on_re_us/us_divorce_hostage

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Scores killed in Iraq bombings targeting Shiites

Mohammed Ali grieves over the coffins of his son, Abbas Mohammed, 9, and his daughter, Fatima Mohammed, 15, before burial in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Mohammed Ali grieves over the coffins of his son, Abbas Mohammed, 9, and his daughter, Fatima Mohammed, 15, before burial in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

Hana Abbas Lazim, 11, grieves at the hospital for her slain father was killed in a bomb attack in Sadr City eastern of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

People gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Sadr City eastern of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. A wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

People gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Sadr City eastern of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. A wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

Iraqi security forces and people, seen through smashed glass of a damaged vehicle, gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Sadr City eastern of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Wave of explosions struck two Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday, killing and injuring dozens of Iraqis, police said, and intensifying fears that insurgents are stepping up attacks after the U.S. troop withdrawal that was completed last month. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

BAGHDAD (AP) ? An apparently coordinated wave of bombings targeting Shiite Muslims killed at least 78 people in Iraq on Thursday, the second large-scale assault by militants since U.S. forces pulled out last month.

The attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents, come ahead of a Shiite holy day that draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across Iraq, raising fears of a deepening of sectarian bloodshed. Rifts along the country's Sunni-Shiite faultline just a few years ago pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.

The bombings in Baghdad and outside the southern city of Nasiriyah appeared to be the deadliest in Iraq in more than a year.

Thursday's blasts occurred at a particularly unstable time for Iraq's fledgling democracy. A broad-based unity government designed to include the country's main factions is mired in a political crisis pitting politicians from the Shiite majority now in power against the Sunni minority, which reigned supreme under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Some Iraqis blame that political discord for the lethal strikes.

"We hold the government responsible for these attacks. They (the politicians) are bickering over their seats and these poor people are killed in these blasts," said Baghdad resident Ali Qassim not long after the first bomb went off.

The attacks began during Baghdad's morning rush hour when explosions struck the capital's largest Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City and another district that contains a Shiite shrine, killing at least 30 people, according to police.

Several hours later, a suicide attack hit pilgrims heading to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, killing 48, police said. The explosions took place near Nasiriyah, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.

Hospital officials confirmed the causalities. Authorities spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release figures of the dead and wounded, who numbered more than 100.

The blasts occurred in the run-up to Arbaeen, a holy day that marks the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a revered Shiite figure. During this time, Shiite pilgrims ? many on foot ? make their way across Iraq to Karbala, south of Baghdad.

Baghdad military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the aim of the attacks is "to create turmoil among the Iraqi people." He said it was too early to say who was behind the bombings.

Coordinated attacks aimed at Shiites are a tactic frequently used by Sunni insurgents.

The last U.S. combat troops left Iraq on Dec. 18, ending a nearly nine-year war. Many Iraqis worry that a resurgence of Sunni and Shiite militancy could follow the Americans' withdrawal. In 2006, a Sunni attack on a Shiite shrine triggered a wave of sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

"People have real fears that the cycle of violence might be revived in this country," said Tariq Annad, a 52-year-old government employee in Sadr City, after Thursday's bombings.

Attacks on Wednesday targeted the homes of police officers and a member of a government-allied militia. Those strikes, in the cities of Baqouba and Abu Ghraib outside Baghdad, killed four people, including two children, officials said.

Two weeks earlier, militants killed at least 69 people as a wave of bombs ripped through mostly Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad. An al-Qaida front group in Iraq claimed responsibility.

Iraq's political mess is providing further ammunition for extremists.

Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government issued an arrest warrant for the country's top Sunni politician last month. The Sunni official, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, is holed up in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north ? effectively out of reach of state security forces.

Al-Maliki's main political rival, the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, is boycotting parliament sessions and Cabinet meetings to protest what its members say are efforts by the government to consolidate power.

Gala Riani, a Middle East analyst at IHS Global Insight, said the political storm feeds into Sunni fears they could be marginalized by the Shiite-dominated government ? worries that Sunni militants are trying to exploit.

"The political crisis has set up a perfect scenario for Sunni militants to re-establish themselves," she said. "It's very sectarian in nature and gives them fuel for their fire."

While the political showdown appears far from being resolved, there are tentative signs of progress.

Al-Maliki met Thursday with the Sunni speaker of parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, a member of al-Hashemi's Iraqiya party. In televised comments afterward, they described the talks as positive and said they will work to find a way out of the crisis.

Earlier, both men condemned Thursday's bombings. So did Britain's Foreign Office minister for the Middle East and North Africa, Alistair Burt, who urged Iraq's leaders to renew their efforts to break the political impasse.

Meanwhile, six Iraqiya lawmakers broke ranks with their party over the boycott by attending a parliament session. Ahmed al-Jubouri, one of the Iraqiya lawmakers who participated, said he did so to "encourage all blocs to sit together and open dialogue."

___

Associated Press writers Sameer N. Yacoub, Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Mazin Yahya in Baghdad, and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-01-05-ML-Iraq/id-49a504d6a1f046e992517cddaec08998

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Arieso study: iPhone 4S data use is nearly double that of the of iPhone 4

So, first things first. Arieso, the ouftit that conducted this here study, is a company that makes ends meet by "optimizing mobile networks." In other words, there's just a bit of motivation to find results such as these in studies like this. Now that we've got that cleared up, you may be interested in knowing that Apple's iPhone 4S users are consuming around "twice as much data as the previous iPhone model, and even more than iPad tablets due to increasing use of online services like the virtual personal assistant Siri."

Of course, this relates only to those sampled, but there's no question that the inclusion of Siri gives users one more reason to tap into their data plan. According to prior studies, the iPhone 4 used only 1.6x more data than the iPhone 3G, while the iPad 2 consumed 2.5x more data than the iPhone 3G. As time marches on, more and more websites are tailoring themselves for mobile use, and there's obviously no stopping the proliferation of data-sucking apps. Whatever the case, we'd just encourage you to mind that data tier (if you're in one) -- wouldn't want to have to ask Siri how to raise money to cover overages, no would you?

Arieso study: iPhone 4S data use is nearly double that of the of iPhone 4 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Reuters, Arieso  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/05/apple-iphone-4s-data-use-greater-iphone-4/

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Samsung Exhibit II 4G (T-Mobile)

The Samsung Exhibit II 4G is a nice, if low-key update to the original model. But there's a twist: This time around, T-Mobile is promoting it in both prepaid ($199.99) and standard two-year contract versions ($29.99). Either way, if you're on a tight budget, you can get a solid Android cell phone.

Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The Exhibit II 4G measures 4.5 by 2.4 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 4 ounces. The dark blue plastic, tapered edges, and textured plastic back panel make the Exhibit II 4G comfortable to hold and talk on. It looks more like a standard slab-style touch screen phone than the previous model did, as it loses the distinctive (if ultimately pointless) pinched chin at the bottom. In exchange, it gets a bigger screen. The 3.7-inch, 480-by-800-pixel display looks sharp and bright, and the slight uptick in size makes typing more comfortable than before, especially in portrait mode.

The Exhibit II 4G is a quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) and tri-band HSPA+ 21 (850/1700/2100) device with 802.11b/g/partial-n Wi-Fi. It also supports Wi-Fi calling, which is one of our favorite T-Mobile features. Voice quality was fine overall, with a clear if somewhat hollow tone in the earpiece, decent gain for loud outdoor environments, and average reception. Transmissions through the mic sounded clear.

Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era Bluetooth headset ($129, 4 stars). There's no voice dialing over Bluetooth, which makes hands-free use while driving perilous. The speakerphone was fine for quiet environments but could have used more volume. Battery life was fine at 9 hours and 37 minutes of talk time, in a mix of less-demanding 2G and Wi-Fi modes.

You get a lightly modified version of Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), including Samsung's TouchWiz overlay. There's no word yet on an Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) update, despite Samsung's pledge at Google I/O back in May. The 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 CPU is a tad faster than the 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird CPU found in the first Exhibit, resulting in a roughly five percent improvement across the board in our benchmark tests. Neither single-core chip will compete with top-end handsets, but the Exhibit II 4G feels quite responsive in day-to-day use. It should also have no problem running most of the 300,000+ third-party apps in the Android Market.

Samsung Media Hub lets you rent or purchase movies and TV shows; you can also share the content on up to five compatible Samsung devices. T-Mobile also preloads its own live and on-demand TV app. There's a fair amount of bloatware, along with useful preloaded apps like Google Maps Navigation for free, voice-enabled turn-by-turn GPS directions, plus Polaris Office for basic Word and Excel file editing, Zinio Reader, and Yelp.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
The top edge holds a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack. My 32GB SanDisk microSD card worked fine in the memory slot, which Samsung located underneath the stiff battery cover. There's also 1.02GB of free internal device storage. This is a fun media player; music tracks sounded clear through Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones ($99, 4 stars), and the music app works smoothly and displays large album art thumbnails. Standalone H.264 and MP4 videos played nicely in full screen mode up to 720p; 1080p files wouldn't transcode on the fly, but that's a minor issue.

The 3-megapixel auto-focus camera has an LED flash; there's also a front-facing VGA (0.3-megapixel) camera for video chats. The camera remains the Exhibit II's weak link; it's fine for throwaway photos, but they all looked overexposed, and there wasn't enough detail. Standalone videos fared better; while they maxed out at 640-by-480-pixel resolution, they played smoothly at 30 frames per second and looked reasonably balanced overall.

As long as you don't need your phone to replace your camera, the Samsung Exhibit II 4G is a solid buy. The white HTC Wildfire S (Free, 3.5 stars) offers a smaller form factor and HTC's useful Sense UI overlay, but it trails the Exhibit II 4G in overall performance. The newer LG-built T-Mobile myTouch (Free, 3.5 stars) is closer to the Exhibit II 4G, with similar specs across the board; it has a slightly better camera, but its UI isn't quite as smooth as the Exhibit II 4G's. Our favorite touch screen smartphone on T-Mobile remains the far more expensive Samsung Galaxy S II ($229.99, 4.5 stars), with its fast dual-core performance, beautiful 4.5-inch screen, HSPA+ 42 data speeds, and its powerful 8-megapixel camera with 1080p video recording. But if you're on a budget, you'll be very happy viewing this Exhibit.

Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 9 hours 37 minutes

More Cell Phone Reviews:
??? Samsung Exhibit II 4G (T-Mobile)
??? Huawei Mercury (Cricket Wireless)
??? Samsung Repp (U.S. Cellular)
??? HTC Wildfire S (MetroPCS)
??? Samsung Illusion (Verizon Wireless)
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/4xciTKuhqyo/0,2817,2397958,00.asp

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Learn language faster with gestures

LANGUAGE classes of the future might come with a physical workout. People learn a new language more easily when words are accompanied by movement.

Manuela Macedonia and Thomas Kn?sche at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, enrolled 20 volunteers on a six-day course to learn "Vimmi", an artificial language designed to make study results easier to interpret. Half of the material was taught using spoken and written instructions and exercises, while the other half was taught with body movements to accompany each word, which the students were asked to act out.

Students remembered significantly more of the words taught with movement, and used them more readily when creating new sentences (Mind, Brain and Education, DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01129.x).

Whilst this may seem intuitive for words that have a physical counterpart, like "cut", the pair were surprised to find the trick also worked for abstract words like "rather" that have no obvious gestural equivalent.

Based on fMRI scans, the pair argue that enactment helps memory by creating a more complex representation of the word that makes it more easily retrieved. Unpublished results from tests in real language classes suggest that the method "could really speed up foreign language learning in schools", says Macedonia.

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Judge: Black church rightful owner of KKK store

FILE - In a Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008 file photo, Rev. David Kennedy, pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church, stands outside The Redneck Shop in Laurens, S.C. (AP Photo/Patrick Collard, File)

Story Published: Jan 3, 2012 at 11:09 AM PST

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - After a lengthy legal battle between a black South Carolina church and members of the Ku Klux Klan, a judge has ruled that the church owns a building where KKK robes and T-shirts are sold.

A circuit judge ruled last month that New Beginnings Baptist Church is the rightful owner of the building that houses the Redneck Shop, which operates a so-called Klan museum and sells Klan robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. The judge ordered the shop's proprietor to pay the church's legal bills of more than $3,300.

Since 1996, the Redneck Shop has operated in an old movie theater in Laurens, a city about 70 miles northwest from Columbia that was named after 18th century slave trader Henry Laurens.

Ownership of the building was transferred in 1997 to the Rev. David Kennedy and his church, New Beginnings, by a Klansman fighting with others inside the hate group, according to court records. But a clause in the deed entitles John Howard, formerly KKK grand dragon for the Carolinas, to operate his business in the building until he dies.

After years of trying to have the property inspected, Kennedy and New Beginnings sued Howard and others in 2008. On Dec. 9, a judge ruled in Kennedy's favor.

There was no answer at the store's telephone number Tuesday, and Howard's attorney did not immediately return a message.

Howard has defended his business in the past.

"If anything turns people off, they shouldn't come in here," Howard told The Associated Press in 2008. "It's not a thing in here that's against the law."

The Redneck Shop has been the target of protests and attacks from the start. A few days after it opened, a Columbia man crashed his van through the front windows and was charged with malicious damage to property. High profile black activists have staged several protests outside the store, and Kennedy has regularly picketed there as well.

Kennedy has a long history of fighting racial injustice. He protested when a South Carolina county refused to observe the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, and he helped lobby to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome.

Kennedy said Tuesday his congregation was elated by the judge's decision, which he said he had already discussed with local police in hopes of being able to visit and inspect the property this week.

"It has been a long time coming," said Kennedy, who learned of the ruling this week. "We knew we had done everything right. ... The court knows that we have suffered."

Kennedy said his congregation's numbers have decreased in recent years as some of its 200 members became fearful of reprisals from Klan members. Nazi and Confederate symbols have been tacked to the door of the double-wide mobile home where New Beginnings now meets, Kennedy said, and dead animals have been left at the building.

"A lot of people became so afraid," Kennedy said. "I just told them that it is part of our faith to endure."

Kennedy, who has previously said he would like to close the store and hold his church meetings there, declined Tuesday to detail his plans, saying only that he thought some parishioners would feel uncomfortable worshipping in the structure that once segregated moviegoers and now sells Klan-related materials.

"I don't count anything out," Kennedy said. "I think that the church would do good in that building."

Source: http://www.kcby.com/news/national/Judge-Black-New-Beginnings-Baptist-Church-rightful-owner-of-Ku-Klux-Klan-store---136606143.html

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