Excert from an Interview with Vinod Khosla, VC at Kleiner Pekins:
... Then, as a category, I've always said personalized medicine is very important. Genomic Health is in that category. The idea being, if you get arthritis, or you get a heart attack, or you get cancer, you get the same treatment as [anyone] does. Nobody really looks at the molecular level of what's going on in your body. And two women may have breast cancer but the gene that sort of went bad, and the molecular level expression of that may be very different. Almost all medicine is mass medicine today. Genomic Health is looking at simple facts -- like there's lots of people who shouldn't take chemotherapy. But right now if you have breast cancer that gets in your lymph nodes, you get chemotherapy. Now if half of them don't need it, why put them through the expense, and the pain?
So you start to look inside at the gene expression profile. And based on that you start making more personalized medicine, as opposed to 'one set of genes fits everybody,' mass medicine. Right now, if you look at any analyst report, the passion in medicine is about 'What's a billion dollar drug? What's the next Viagra, and Lipitor for cholesterol, or Claritin for allergies?' One drug fits all. But everybody's version of diabetes or arthritis is different. So personalized medicine is a big category.
A pair of MIT graduate students has developed a futuristic tool for composing live electronic music that is unlike any traditional computer interface.The Audiopad, developed by James Patten and Ben Recht, is a colorful, dynamic, luminescent interface projected onto a table top. It is reminiscent of the futuristic haptic (touch) interfaces seen in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi movie Minority Report, in which Tom Cruise uses his hands to control his computers.
... The Audiopad is projected on a special table equipped with radio sensors that track the position and movement of half a dozen plastic discs, or "pucks."
Most of the pucks control a series of preprogrammed tracks -- the rhythm, the bass line, the melody and so on.
Just out of high school, thousands of miles from friends and parents, and isolated by language and culture from the people around them, young airmen stationed on a U.S. Air Force base in Europe can find life pretty lonely.But now the military's fresh faces can get a bit of the comforts of home -- by wasting their pals in an online shoot-'em-up game.
U.S. Air Forces in Europe, or USAFE, is investing about $200,000 into networked gaming centers at 14 bases scattered across the continent. All told, more than 100 Microsoft Xbox game consoles will be purchased, giving thousands of airmen a familiar new option for their downtime.
Leapin' better than lizards, jumpin' beyond Jehoshaphat, and more than hopping mad, the lowly spittlebug now ranks as nature's best jumper, a scientist in England said yesterday.In fact, if you've got to get up and go, the spittlebug is the best example of how it's done. The reason, of course, is that spittlebugs must get the jump on hungry predators; either jump or be eaten.
According to zoologist Malcolm Burrows, scientists have overlooked the jumping prowess of this amazing little bug.
Burrows says the spittlebug, also known as the froghopper, seems to be the real record-holder for leapability - easily outhopping another hot jumper, the flea.
With legs evolved to act like potent springs, spittlebugs can, for their pencil-eraser size - 6 millimeters - jump higher, relatively, than any other creature known: more than 2 feet into the air.
The Vatican has launched a global campaign against gay marriage in an attempt to reverse the spread of legislation in Europe and the Americas that permits it.In a strongly-worded 12-page document signed by the Pope's chief theological adviser, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Church brands homosexual unions as immoral, unnatural and harmful.
A 34-year-old Austrian mechanic became the first person ever to fly across the English Channel without the benefit of an aircraft, gliding from England to France wearing only a specially-designed suit.Skydiver Felix Baumgartner started his unusual journey from a point some 9,000 metres (30,000 feet) over the English port of Dover at 6:09 am (0409 GMT), and ended it 1,000 metres above Cape Blanc-Nez, near the French port of Calais, where he opened a parachute and landed at 6:23 am.
President Bush has not taken a position on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, but his belief that marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman “is a principle he will not compromise on,” his spokesman said Thursday.
In another 22 years India will have the largest number of diabetes, cardiac and stroke patients in the world. It is estimated that India will have 57 million cases of diabetes, which is an increase of 148 per cent over the current figure of 23 million diabetics.... If this is the case with India alone, it is not difficult to extrapolate the extent of the spectre on a global scale.
...In India, Reliance Life Sciences, a company promoted by the Ambani family, is doing path-breaking R&D work in this area. In 2001, the company, along with the Bangalore-based National Centre for Biological Sciences, was recognised by the US-based National Institute of Health as among the 10 global companies and research institutions working in the area of embryonic stem cells.
The current swathe of new legislation that will protect UK gay and lesbians from discrimination is akin to a “social revolution”, according to National Union of Students (NUS) president Mandy Telford.Speaking in an article for The Guardian today, she said that the repeal of Section 28 and the introduction of same sex partner legal rights are huge steps for “the government and society as a whole”.
Calais, France - An Austrian mechanic has become the first person to fly across the English Channel without the benefit of an aircraft. He glided from England to France, wearing only a special suit, in just 14 minutes.Skydiver Felix Baumgartner started his unusual journey from 9000m - higher than Mount Everest - above the English port of Dover at 6.09am and ended it 1000m above Cape Blanc-Nez, near the French port of Calais, where he opened a parachute and landed at 6.23am.
From the outside, this looks like any other barn tucked into a sleepy mountain hollow of Stickleyville, Virginia in the Appalachians. Rows of tobacco plants skewered on wooden poles hang like dry-cleaning from the rafters while all around the hillsides explode with autumn colors, which mirror the tints of lemon, orange and mahogany in the cured tobacco.But inside this barn a revolution is brewing. Among the unlikely pioneers is Sam Askins, a 54-year-old farmer, whose family has been raising tobacco in nearby Russell County since 1786. “Growing ’bacco is a bad habit,” Askins says with a chuckle as he adjusts his bright orange hunting cap. “So I quit.”
... A government-administered quota system that stabilized the price of tobacco and offered farmers a level of financial security unprecedented in agriculture has collapsed in recent years as American cigarette makers use more and more cheap imported tobacco from major exporters such as Turkey, Brazil and Zimbabwe. Today, an estimated half of the tobacco in a cigarette sold in the United States is foreign grown, according to Department of Agriculture statistics.
In a risky reversal of marketing tactics, some of the world's best-known packaged-food companies have planted their brand names smack-dab onto organic versions of their products.H.J. Heinz Co.'s Organic Ketchup hit supermarkets last year; in April, PepsiCo Inc.'s Frito-Lay introduced Tostitos Organic Tortilla Chips. Meanwhile, Tyson Foods Inc.'s Nature's Farm organic chicken is selling in grocery stores in the Northeast, while in several cities Unilever unit Ben & Jerry's Homemade is testing organic ice cream in four flavors (vanilla, strawberry, chocolate fudge brownie and sweet cream with cookies).
... But now, more companies are wielding the clout of their big brands to secure shelf space in the organic section of mainstream supermarkets.
Until recently, the market for organic products had been almost exclusively in boutique health-food stores and the Whole Foods Market Inc. chain. While U.S. sales of organic foods have nearly doubled over the past five years to $11 billion, they still amount to only about 2 percent of the $485 billion Americans spend on food in stores. Nevertheless, the long-term growth potential is getting hard for large food makers to ignore.
Former environment minister Michael Meacher says evidence of "massive" cross-contamination shows the UK must make a stark choice between growing organic or genetically-modified crops.Speaking on a tour of Canada, where organic farmers are suing biotech giants for spoiling their produce by preventing them calling it GM-free, he said the two types of cultivation could not exist side by side
... You have to make a choice, and the choice frankly is: are we going to go for GM, for which there is no market and no-one wants to buy at the expense of organic, which people do want to buy and for which there is a tremendous market?
"You cannot have both."
He said the oil seed rape blew in the wind over "considerable distances".
Stolen credit card and Social Security numbers. Check fraud. Drained bank accounts. Ruined credit. Nightmares for victims, identity crimes also can be vexing to local police departments trying to unravel the crimes.To help local police officers better understand and investigate these crimes, an electronic package is being mailed out Tuesday to more than 40,000 police departments and other law enforcement authorities, the Secret Service said Monday.
... Complaints about identity theft were at the head of the government's list of consumer frauds in 2002 for a third consecutive year. Experts blame easily available technology.
Thirty years ago, prime-time television series often depicted homosexuals as suicidal or psychopaths. In an episode of "Marcus Welby, M.D.," the doctor tells a tormented patient to "win that fight" against his homosexual feelings. An episode of "Police Woman" centered on three lesbians who murdered the residents of a retirement home.If American television audiences could have seen then what viewers can see now.
The Defense Department announced yesterday that it is canceling a controversial program to develop a futures market that would allow traders to bet on wars, assassinations and terrorism in the Middle East.The plan, which FORTUNE first reported on in its March 3rd issue (Place Your Bets—On War), was abandoned after Democratic senators assailed it as ghoulish, immoral, and absurd. Senator Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota claimed the program would provide a monetary incentive to those wishing to commit acts of terror. Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said the plan would have created "a futures market in death."
The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.Sen. John Warner (R., Va.) said he spoke by phone with the head of the agency overseeing the program, Tony Tether, "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped." Mr. Tether is the head of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as Darpa.
Later, in an interview, Sen. Warner said that Darpa "didn't think through the full ramifications of the program."
It sounds jaw-droppingly callous, not to mention absurd: An Internet gambling parlor, sponsored by the U.S. government, on politics in the Middle East. Anyone, from Osama bin Laden to your grandmother, can bet over the Web on such questions as whether Yasser Arafat will be assassinated or Turkey's government will be overthrown.If the bettors are right, they'll win money; if they're wrong, they'll lose their wagers. The site itself will keep numerical tallies of the current "odds" for various events.
But experts say the DARPA-backed Policy Analysis Market (www.policyanalysismarket.org) is based on a legitimate theory, the Efficient Market Hypothesis, that has a proven track record in predicting outcomes. Basically, the idea is that the collective consciousness is smarter than any single person. By forcing people to put their money where their mouth is, the wagers help weed out know-nothings and give more weight to the opinions of those in the know
Perhaps this application is consistent with the Adminstration's contract killings, personalized/open warefare and transition of the Middle East to a market economy. See Change RE: Military Transformation - NMW
The city is opening a full-fledged high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students - the first of its kind in the nation, The Post has learned.Operating for two decades as a small alternative program with just two classrooms, the new Harvey Milk HS officially opens as a stand-alone public school with 100 students in September.
The cost of health care rose 16 percent in 2002 for Minnesotans with private health insurance, according to a new report from the Minnesota Department of HealthPhysician and hospital services each accounted for about one-third of the overall spending growth between 2000 and 2002. Prescription drugs were responsible for another 22 percent of spending growth.
The 16 percent overall growth rate, up from 10 percent in 2001, is the highest recorded since the department started tracking health care costs in the mid-1990s.
Some cigarettes have a "kick" containing 35 times more "freebase" nicotine - the most addictive form - than others, researchers have found. The findings could help rate the addictiveness of different brands, they say."Free-base" nicotine is a particularly potent form of the naturally-occurring tobacco drug because it is in an extremely volatile, uncombined form. This means it can be much more rapidly absorbed by the lungs and brain than nicotine derivatives such as nornicotine or its salts.
Just as the previews roll before ''Pirates of the Caribbean,'' 9-month-old Gwyneth lets out a high-pitched wail.Her diaper needs changing, so mom Amy Butler lays her down in the theater aisle and gets to work. A few rows up, Jennie Sheeler, 20 months old, shrieks while Johnny Depp swings across the screen in pirate garb.
No one cared about the noise. The 11 a.m. screening was specifically for stir-crazy parents who had given up on going to the movies when their babies came along.
Loews Cineplex Entertainment is expanding its test run of ''Reel Moms,'' started last fall in Manhattan, to several locations this summer. The next Chicago screening, of "Seabiscuit," is at 11 a.m. Tuesday at 600 N. Michigan.
Eventually, Loews and partner UrbanBaby.com, a Web site geared toward mothers in cities, plan to run the program in 15 cities nationwide.
Across Connecticut, aging baby boomers are driving up sales of homes that offer swimming pools, woodland hiking paths and golf courses....In the past five years, an estimated 30 so-called active-adult communities have been built in Connecticut and about a dozen more are waiting to be approved by municipal land-use boards, The Hartford Courant reported Sunday.
... The homes are part of a growing segment of the housing market that began in retiree-rich Florida and now caters to the rising population of men and women 55 and older in Connecticut and elsewhere.
The number of 60-plus residents is expected to increase from 13 percent of the population to 20 percent by 2020, according to the state's Commission on Aging.
The National Association of Homebuilders estimates the nation's 50-plus population is growing at a rate of 10,000 a day.
... For years whaling experts have relied on such witness accounts, as well as the log books of whaling captains, to assess the size of the whale population before large-scale hunting began in the 19th century.... The International Whaling Commission (IWC), for example, estimates that the population of humpback whales in the North Atlantic now - about 10,000 - is about half of what it was before whaling.
But two marine biologists have questioned the basis of these estimates after a study of the genetic diversity of three species of baleen whales - humpback, fin and minke - living in the North Atlantic.
They think the number of humpback whales in the Atlantic before 1800 was not 20,000 as the IWC suggests, but a staggering 240,000.
In a rush to market worthy of the dot-com bubble's headiest days, a stampede of companies is following Apple Computer pell-mell into the online music sales business.
Napster's new owner, Roxio, is scheduled to launch a legal version of the service by Christmas. Musicmatch said Monday that it will soon sell songs through its jukebox application. RealNetworks, America Online, Amazon.com and potentially even Microsoft are planning to sell digital downloads.For consumers torn for years between downloading music illegally through file-swapping services or signing up for complicated monthly subscription services, the impending flood of available music may be little short of overwhelming. And having hundreds of thousands of songs a mouse-click away from listeners could dramatically change the distribution and consumption
Every year, health experts say over 700,000 people suffer a stroke. For centuries, there was no real scientific way to predict for strokes. But now, doctors say magnetic resonance image (MRI) scans of the arteries can accurately pinpoint which patients are at high risk.Not all plaque is dangerous. Some partially block the artery and don't cause symptoms. But if plaque starts to bleed, it can break into little pieces. Those chunks of plaque can then travel to the brain and cut off blood circulation.
The key is identifying which plaque starts to bleed. Some doctors said MRIs may be the answer.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin appealed for trade union calm on future economic reform as parliament adopted landmark legislation on Thursday that will oblige people to work longer for a full pension.
Email service will be available on all domestic flights in North America before the end of next year, although services elsewhere in the world will take two to three years to become widespread, according to the chief executive officer of Tenzing Communications, which provides technology and services for in-flight messaging.United Air Linesannounced a deal with Tenzing last week to provide email on about 400 of its North American domestic flights by the end of this year. The service piggybacks on United's JetConnect service, offered with Verizon Communications and is priced at $US15.98 for up to 2KB of data, and $0.10 for each additional kilobyte.
New research recently released by ACNielsen U.S. shows that organic food buyers are extremely loyal to the category, and intend to keep buying, while non-buyers have virtually no interest in organic products.The study found that, of the one-third of consumers who have purchased organic food or beverage products in the past six months, 85 percent plan to continue purchasing organics. However, among non-buyers, only three percent plan to buy such products in the next six months.
Phil Lempert, food industry analyst and spokesperson for Consumer PreView, said, ‘The high price of organics is the primary obstacle to broader acceptance in the marketplace. I expect prices to decline as more mainstream manufacturers broaden the array of organics available to consumers, but manufacturers and retailers also have a significant opportunity to increase sales by clearing up consumer confusion and providing more education about the benefits of organics.’
The strains on American ground forces as the Bush administration extends their global missions are prompting new debates on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon (news - web sites) over the question of whether the military needs more troops worldwide.... In his most recent testimony this month on Capitol Hill, Mr. Rumsfeld said that if national security required increasing force levels, particularly in the Army or Marine Corps, "Obviously, we would come to Congress and make that request." But "at the moment," he added, "we do not see that that's the case."
Mr. Rumsfeld did not say so expressly, but the concept of increasing troop numbers and costs contradicts a basic tenet of his goal for military transformation, which is to rely on new technology and rewrite doctrine to allow smaller forces to attack with greater speed and deadliness.
OP/ED
... Deconstruct Iraq into a "free market"The (current) U.S. viceroy of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, has stated his intentions very clearly: Iraq is "open for business" (May 26, 2003). A major goal of the country's reconstruction, he says, would be to shift Iraq away from state-dominated economies (May 27, 2003, Chicago Tribune). Bremer and his bosses in the Pentagon envision a "free market" system in Iraq. The Chicago Tribune accurately referred to this plan as a "transformation of the country's economy." The Tribune also correctly assessed that "the establishment of a thriving, market-oriented economy in Iraq has been a key goal of a conservative camp in the Bush administration that hopes the changes will ripple through the Arab world and challenge the established order."
Such plans fit in line with Bush's U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area proposal, which calls for a market open for Israeli and U.S. hegemony, thus demanding not only military occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands (and the Cheba'a Farms of Lebanon), but also economic occupation of the region.
In at least 14 Kinko's stores in New York, Juju Jiang was able to obtain over 450 usernames and passwords. By using a software keylogger that had been installed on Kinko's machines, he was able to monitor everything customers typed in.Jiang was apparantely discovered when a GoToMyPC user noticed that someone was accessing his PC remotely through the Internet. KeyLogger Stealth was the software that was used to capture the keystrokes. Jiang pled guilty and is currently awaiting sentencing.
This is not the first time someone has been caught monitoring users' keystrokes. A Boston College student also pleaded guilty earlier this year to installing similar software on over 100 machines.
Almost one in three Germans below the age of 30 believes the U.S. government may have sponsored the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll published on Wednesday.And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit said.
Online movie download service MovieLink has announced a pact with Disney-owned Buena Vista Pay TV to add new releases and select titles from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Miramax and Dimension films.The Santa Monica, Calif.-based MovieLink, a joint venture of Vivendi Universal, Sony Pictures, MGM, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., said the addition of the Disney titles would increase its catalog to about 400 titles and give it films from six of the seven major movie studios.
The only major studio missing is 20th Century Fox.
More importantly, it adds legitimacy to the concept of on-demand movie downloads to PCs. The business has been in a state of flux because of piracy on popular peer-to-peer networks and concerns over the quality of digital movies but with most of the major studios hopping aboard, MovieLink appears set to find its niche.
A Chinese woman is to undergo six months of cosmetic plastic surgery in an attempt to change her entire appearance.Freelance fashion writer and jewellery dealer Hao Lulu, 24, will have operations to transform her eyes, nose, chin, breasts, abdomen, bottom, legs and skin.
... Correspondents say cosmetic surgery has become increasingly popular in as Chinese women become richer and more conscious of their appearance.
They say some Chinese women are seeking more Western looks, by altering the shape of their eyes and noses.
The demand has created a large number of plastic surgery businesses, some of which are unlicensed.
Back from a four-day whirlwind tour of Iraq, the Pentagon's number two civilian, Paul Wolfowitz, has admitted that many of the Bush administration's pre-war assumptions were wrong.... Among the things Wolfowitz says the U.S. guessed incorrectly was the assumption that some Iraqi Army units would switch sides; that the Iraqi Police would help maintain security; and that regime remnants would not resort to guerrilla tactics.
"I believe this will go down as the first guerrilla tactic in history in which contract killings, killings for hire, going out and soliciting young men for $500 to take a shot at an American, was the principal tactic employed," he said.
In a closed session today, the Moscow City Court denied bail to a business partner of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man and one of its most powerful.The court rejected an appeal to release the man, Platon Lebedev, on bail. Mr. Lebedev was arrested on July 2 and accused of violating a 1994 privatization program, a charge he denies.
Almost a century after Californians gained the right to force a recall election against a sitting governor, the state today appeared on the verge of using the power for the first time and authorizing a vote on whether to oust Gov. Gray Davis.California's counties had submitted to the state more than 1.3 million valid ballot petition signatures needed to secure the recall question a spot on a fall special election ballot, state and local officials said. The number of signatures was nearly a fifth of the 6 million state residents who voted in the election last year.
Second of three articles in series, Can Japan Change?, examines country's antipathy to immigrants and issue of immigration; Japan has rapidly aging population and dwindling fertility; size of its work force has entered decline that experts expect to accelarate; many economists and demographers say Japan's success or failure in addressing concerns of immigrants, who complain of prejudice and discrimination, will go long way toward determining whether country remains economic powerhouse or whether its population shrivels and its economy sinks; experts say only hope for stabilizing population is large-scale immigration, sustained over many years; but Japan is most tenaciously insular of countries, with deeply conservative notions about ethnic purity making it hard for even experts to envision large-scale immigration; Japanese government plans to encourage only kind of 'high end' immigration that would be limited to those with specialized knowledge or skills; critics say that strategy may fail, as Japan is increasingly incapable of competing for foreign brainpower.
Five Anglican archbishops from Africa, Asia and Australia met here today with more than 50 conservative American Episcopalians to convey a warning that if the Episcopal Church USA votes at its convention to accept a gay bishop or to bless same-sex unions, it would "precipitate a dramatic realignment of the church."The meeting at a church here further solidified an emerging alliance between conservative Episcopal bishops in the United States and Anglican leaders from the developing world, where the church is growing most rapidly. They share a sense of alienation from the Anglican dioceses in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, England, Wales and South Africa that have either taken stands in support of gay people or at least not denounced homosexuality.
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday it hired the Institute of Food Technologists to evaluate ways food processors can prevent or reduce the risk of deliberate contamination.The review by the scientific group will look at chemical treatments, temperature controls and technology that could help protect the nation's food supply from attack, the FDA said.
Journalist Rafat Ali is an unusual beast: a laid-off dot-com reporter who's making money online writing about, well, making money online.... Working out of his East London flat, Ali publishes PaidContent, a one-man trade newsletter about the business of online media.
After six months of publication, Ali has earned as much as he would make in a year as an editor at the Silicon Alley Reporter. And he has just won a prestigious European Online Journalism Award for News Weblog of the Year.
Published daily, Ali's site mixes weblog entries with Ali's original reporting. The site boasts a healthy readership and a full roster of advertisers. Though Ali puts in odd hours (he works on New York time), he doesn't seem too stressed about paying the rent
Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez:... His high-profile decision is groundbreaking for a simple reason: He spent a fraction of the money studios usually spend on films. Spy Kids 3-D cost $29 million -- less than the $37 million he spent on the original Spy Kids-- despite the fact that it had 1,400 effects shots and 90 percent of it was shot in 3-D, something never before attempted on a major-release film. To see it, you'll have to don special glasses handed out at theaters.
Mexico cost about the same and was shot in just five weeks -- an unheard of time frame for shooting an epic film.
The average Hollywood film costs as much as $60 million to make. Terminator 3 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger cost $175 million. It will likely make a handy profit -- domestic box office is $118 million so far, and that's not counting sizable foreign sales, TV rights, DVDs and video -- but Warner Bros. would have taken a bath if it had flopped. And many big-budget films do.
... The real reason he loves high-definition tape is the creative freedom it gives him. Since he can see how a shot looks in real time, rather than waiting for the film to be developed, he can dispense with re-shoots or shooting a scene 17 times to make sure he nails it. Tape is so cheap he doesn't have to yell "Action!" He can just keep the camera rolling and let actors feel natural
Eating a diet similar to that of our ape ancestors can have as much of an effect on cholesterol levels as modern medicine does, a new study suggests. Results published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that a strict, low-fat vegetarian diet high in specific plant products can lower levels of bad cholesterol as much as widely prescribed statin drugs can.A number of foods, soy protein and oats among them, have known cholesterol-lowering effects. David J. A. Jenkins of the University of Toronto and his colleagues tested a specific vegetarian diet that combined many of these food groups into one menu that contained high amounts of plant sterols, fiber, nuts and soy protein.
The movie industry announced a broad new anti-piracy public education campaign today, with commercials set to appear on all six broadcast television networks, more than two dozen cable channels and in 5,000 movie theaters nationwide.... The movie industry estimates that it loses between $3 billion and $4 billion annually from pirated DVD discs manufactured mainly in Asia but sold throughout the world. The MPAA has a 100-person office in Hong Kong that prosecutes pirates -- it currently has thousands of copyright violation cases in courts -- and spurs local law enforcement officials to raid pirate DVD factories.
Identity theft in the US has leapt by 79 per cent over the last year, with only a one in 700 chance of thieves being caught, industry watchers have warned.According to analyst firm Gartner, seven million American adults - 3.4 per cent of all US consumers - were victims of identity theft during the 12 months ending June 2003.
As technical challenges go, it's a doozy: With 202 billion pieces of mail posted each year, design a machine that will detect a single letter containing anthrax spores so tiny that thousands could be piled on the period at the end of this sentence. And make sure the contraption isn't triggered by the countless, harmless particles that spew from envelopes as they speed through mail processing machines.
In most respects, the three medications couldn't be more different.One treats allergies and is regularly promoted on television. Another is for male impotence and has spawned a new genre of off-color jokes. The third, for halting arthritis, is an exotic product of biotechnology.
But Claritin, Viagra and Enbrel combine to tell the story of how and why prescription drug prices are rising -- and how consumers are now, more than ever, feeling the financial pain.
Don Christopher's garlic fields have survived droughts and El Nino, gophers and beetles, white mold and roundworm.But the founder of Christopher Ranch, the nation's largest garlic producer, says low-priced exports from could doom U.S. commercial production of the pungent bulb - unless U.S. farmers adopt dramatic, if seemingly unpatriotic, measures.
As a child, Nguyen Thanh Tung was always fascinated by the beautiful paintings of Renoir.Now a prosperous real estate dealer, the 30-year-old can finally afford to own work by his favorite artist, even if they are only copies by Vietnam's skilled masterpiece painters.
Years of poverty and isolation from the West led many in communist Vietnamese to view art as a bourgeois extravagance. But now that has all changed.
Art buying is taking off, driven by a fast-growing middle class with a penchant for decorative furnishings.
Banks are forcing us towards a cashless economy - and, really, what's wrong with that? By Ross Gittins.The banks are winning in their campaign to cut their costs by changing the way we handle money and pay our bills.
They are keeping us out of their branches, killing off the cheque, moving us onto the internet, making money less tangible and pushing us towards the cashless economy.
They are doing all this with the transaction fees they charge - or rather, with the way those fees are structured.
They are doing it with a single motivation: to increase their profits (though, paradoxically, more by cutting their costs than by increasing their revenue from fees).
But their efforts to change our banking behaviour are assisted by a powerful factor: for all but the most set-in-their-ways, the new ways of handling money are more convenient.
By comparing maps of heat emanating from the fading remnants of the Big Bang to maps of the modern universe, astronomers say they have uncovered evidence that some "dark energy" is wrenching the universe apart.The new work, they said, provides independent confirmation of one of the strangest astronomical findings in recent years, that based on studies of distant exploding stars the expansion of the universe is speeding up.
The simplest explanation, astrophysicists say, is that space is imbued with a repulsive, or antigravitational, force first hypothesized in 1917 by Einstein and known as the cosmological constant. But nobody understands this so-called dark energy, although speculations have blossomed in the physics literature in the last few years.
For a glimpse of Europe’s young generation on the move and the future of the borderless continent, head to the late-partying Spanish capital, drink a strong shot of coffee and try to keep up with Stina Lunden, a 25-year-old Swedish transplant.
Care for the mentally ill must go beyond medication and managing symptoms to help people find jobs, go on dates and live productive lives, a presidential commission said Tuesday in a report that recommended a major overhaul of the nation's mental health system.The report said Americans must be taught that mental illness is not shameful so that people will seek out screening and treatment. It said innovative treatments and ideas must get into the field as they are proven effective; today, promising ideas can linger for 15 years or more before moving into routine practice.
Hong Kong and the adjacent Chinese province of Guangdong, centers of Cantonese culture and commerce, are tightly bonded, in sickness and in health.Hong Kong money has powered Guangdong's robust economic growth since the early 1980's. Shortly after severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, emerged in Guangdong late last year, it surged into Hong Kong as seamlessly as the 40,000 tourists and businessmen who pass daily through Lowu, the world's busiest border crossing.
The way we buy automobiles is undergoing a major change as the Internet is helping call the shots for many potential buyers.In May alone, online used car sales topped $500,000 and it could hit $1 million a month by the end of the year. That would make the Internet responsible for 1/4 to 1/3 of all used car sales.
With American corporations under increasing pressure to cut costs and build global supply networks, two senior I.B.M. officials told their corporate colleagues around the world in a recorded conference call that I.B.M. needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar, often high-paying, jobs overseas even though that might create a backlash among politicians and its own employees.During the call, I.B.M's top employee relations executives said that three million service jobs were expected to shift to foreign workers by 2015 and that I.B.M. should move some of its jobs now done in the United States, including software design jobs, to India and other countries.
THE UNITED STATES Navy is quietly and aggressively touting its horn on adapting a Network-Centric philosophy, one that will win them brownie points with Donald Rumsfeld and the current wave of "transformational" thinking flowing through the Pentagon. To rework the old cliche, the network is the weapon, more specifically the glue that binds together sensors and weapons, allowing warfighters to view the battlefield more precisely and apply the force necessary to achieve desired "effects." The new way of fighting is built around Internet standards, including web pages, routers, Ethernet, instant messaging, and chat rooms. Casualties appear to be both expensive customized systems and Microsoft software.
Organic cornflakes. Organic shampoo. Organic mouthwash. Organic deodorant. Organic cotton T-shirts.Even something as vague as style is now commodified in a magazine called Organic Style.
The word organic permeates the American marketplace.
... Organic, it turns out, may be the new empty label of the decade, harnessing society's expanding appetite for all things healthful and environment-friendly.
... Amazon.com executives are working with several large book publishers to develop an expansive online archive that would let users search the texts of tens of thousands of books, according to a published report Monday.... Users who register could then see several pages around the result of the search, but the total amount anyone could view from a single book would be limited, the paper [New York Times] reported.
... The plan could help Amazon counter competition from Google and Yahoo, which pull potential shoppers away from its site, and broaden Amazon's appeal as an authoritative information source, the report [New York Times] said.
... SBC, the nation's second-largest local phone company, announced a partnership with EchoStar Communications Corp. to offer the cobranded "SBC DISH Network" to single-family residences in SBC's 13-state service area.SBC and other phone companies have been rocked by a decline in local phone lines and the willingness of consumers to switch phone providers.
The partnership with EchoStar represents an effort to compete with cable companies that now provide phone service to 3 million U.S. households. Also, the development of Internet-based calling technology figures to greatly expand that figure.
... "For the past several months, we've aggressively looked for the best way to integrate television into our bundles of customer service," Edward E. Whitacre Jr., chairman and CEO of San Antonio-based SBC, said in a statement.
"This first-of-its-kind milestone agreement with EchoStar gives us what we've been seeking and puts us in a great strategic position to compete with any provider - telecom or cable company."
... Caspian - Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering - is up in arms about 'smart shelf' technology which is being used in a Tesco's in Cambridge in the UK, and in a Massachusetts WalMart.Tags determine when a pack of Gillette Mach3 razors - a high-value item - leave a shelf, alerting a camera to record the aisle in question. Another camera can then be alerted when the earlier pack of razors is checked out, meaning that - in theory - there can be a shoplifting alert whenever the second incident doesn't follow the first.
Chemotherapy for millions of U.S. cancer patients could be disrupted by a provision in the Medicare drug prescription legislation now being negotiated in Congress.Oncologists are warning Congress and the Bush administration that a proposed $16 billion cut over 10 years in Medicare payments for cancer-fighting drugs given in doctors' offices could shut down treatment centers and force millions of patients into hospitals for chemotherapy.
Imagine that your doctor, using a small hand-held sensor, could detect from a drop of your blood if you carry the gene for cystic fibrosis, or whether or not you have HIV. Or on the battlefield, a soldier could wear a small sensor that detects the smallest amount of anthrax in the air. In the food industry the same type of sensor could check for the DNA signature of salmonella.Perhaps the most timely application of this new technology would be the possibility of providing immediate detection of biological weapons in civil defense, with sensors placed in airports, subways, post offices and similar settings.
Hong Kong's embattled leader announced the resignations of two senior aides Wednesday and said he would fly to Beijing for talks about the territory's worst political crisis since the 1997 handover.Critics said Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa was the main cause of Hong Kong's deep problems and insisted he too should go.
Tung is under fire over a worsening economy and an anti-subversion bill that critics say would curtail Hong Kong's civil liberties.
... In movies like "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," and television series like "Boarding House: North Shore" on WB and "Surf Girls" on MTV, the tiny, triangle-topped bikini is the millennial equivalent of the power suit — the costume for women who ride 20-foot waves or smash the foreheads of evildoers, thus proving they are just as combative as men.The shifting cultural meaning of the two-piece bathing suit has not escaped manufacturers. At a trade show in Miami this week, Speedo will introduce a string bikini for the first time in its 75 years. Speedo, which has primarily been known for austere-looking tank suits for women who spend hours perfecting their butterfly stroke, has typically aimed its suits at adults. But its string bikini will be pitched mainly at teenagers.
"People are wanting skimpier cuts than they ever have before," said Craig Brommers, Speedo's vice president for marketing. "At the same time, more girls are active in sports than they ever have been before, and for them wearing a bikini is an issue of empowerment in the sense of `here is my body — it is strong and fit.' There is so much more at issue here than merely `sexiness.' "
... Genetically engineered corn and soybeans are becoming so widespread that organic growers - who count on selling their crops for two to three times as much as conventional varieties - say they are having trouble keeping biotech contamination out of their crops.Federal rules bar the use of biotechnology in organic agriculture, and even the slightest bit of biotech contamination can cut the value of the crop by a third or more.
"The first load of corn you send out with every new crop you hold your breath," said Roger Lansink, an organic farmer near Odebolt, Ia. He said a "huge percentage" of organic corn probably contains traces of biotech residue.
Organic crops can be contaminated in a variety of ways. Bags of seed often include traces of biotech varieties. Depending on weather conditions and farming practices, organic corn can easily cross-pollinate with biotech corn in nearby fields.
... The long-term grid vision is that anyone with a desktop machine or hand-held computer can have the power of a supercomputer at his or her fingertips. And small groups with shared interests could find answers to computationally complex problems as never before.Imagine, for example, a handful of concerned citizens running their own simulation of the environmental impact of a proposed real-estate development in their community. They wouldn't need their own data center or consultants. They would describe what they want, and intelligent software would find the relevant data and summon the computing resources needed for the simulation.
American intelligence organizations and military forces, once forbidden from attempts to assassinate foreign leaders by the executive orders of two recent presidents, have now embarked on an open, all-out effort to find and kill Saddam Hussein in a campaign with no precedents in American history.... The campaign to kill him, frankly admitted and discussed by high officials in the White House, Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, has committed the United States for the first time to public, personalized, open-ended warfare in the classic mode of Middle Eastern violence — an eye for an eye, a life for a life.
American officials in the White House and Iraq have argued that Mr. Hussein's survival encourages resistance, and killing him is therefore a legitimate act of war. But the United States has never before openly marked foreign leaders for killing. Treating it as routine could level the moral playing field and invite retaliation in kind, and makes every American official both here and in the Middle East a target of opportunity.
The Swiss investment bank UBS today became the first foreign investor to buy shares on 's dominant Class A share market, which trades in yuan. Previously, foreign investors had been allowed to buy shares only in 's much smaller, dollar-based market.
Americans submit 23 million phone numbers for federal telemarketing do-not-call registry; telemarketers who call numbers on list will face large fines once registry takes effect in Oct; outpouring of public interest in registry far exceeds government's initial expectations; one-fifth of all American households have responded in first two weeks; phenomenon suggests great frustration with phone hawkers, but other feelings lurk beneath surface; many people who have registered their numbers say they feel combination of anger and pity, as well as regret if it costs people their jobs; many identify phone solicitations with broader frustrations, like loss of privacy and constant disruptions in already stressful and busy lives.
Mayor Jim Hahn on Wednesday unveiled details of a proposed $9.6 billion revamp of the world's fifth-busiest airport, Los Angeles International Airport.Hahn, stressing modernization over expansion, says the makeover would heighten security, ensure the future economic viability of the 75-year-old airport and reconfigure airfields and terminals, while cutting the number of gates and capping traffic at 78 million passengers a year.
Food and Drug Administration will require food processors to include amount of artery-clogging trans fatty acids on nutrition labels; experts believe new requirement, which takes effect in 2006 and which does not apply to restaurants, will nevertheless convince them to lower levels of trans fats in their food and provide information to their customers; Dr Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health suggests that fast food restaurants that serve foods high in trans fats with no warning label may be sued by customers who later have heart attacks; some scientists think trans fats, which are actively added to foods, are at least as bad as saturated fats, and some think trans fats are worse; McDonald's, which announced last year that it would switch to oil with no trans fats for cooking its french fries, has never made that switch and says it is still conducting tests; chart showing new food label (M) After more than a decade of debate, the Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday that it would require food processors to include the amount of artery-clogging trans fatty acids on nutrition labels.
Some food companies are recasting themselves as good corporate citizens alarmed at rate of obesity in US and willing to modify their offerings to help avert looming health care crisis; McDonald's Corp and Frito-Lay division of PepsiCo plan to remove saturated fats and trans fatty acids from french fries, chips and other products because of concerns about their link to high cholesterol, heart disease and diabetes; some consumer advocates and health experts doubt that companies that have profited, and helped create, culture of overeating, particularly among children, can be trusted to help put America on diet; Food and Drug Administration Comr Mark B McClellan announces that food labels will have to list levels of trans fatty acid by 2006
Internet chat groups, particularly those using a format called Internet relay chat, or I.R.C., now play an important and growing role in online credit card fraud, according to a report released last week by a group of Internet security experts who form the Honeynet Project. The project sets up computer systems called honeynets that are intended to be easy to infiltrate in order to monitor and record how hackers work.
Chat channels can make it possible for large groups of people to share tactics for criminal activity. The channels also allow access to programs users have placed there that automate the tasks of credit card fraud like checking a stolen card number's validity or systematically searching for Web sites that have card credit information and are vulnerable to attacks.
... The total amount of online credit card fraud last year was more than $850 million, according to Celent Communications, a Boston consulting firm.
From Wired Magazine "The Wired 40"
Terror-proof networks. Surgical-strike weaponry. Cockpit black boxes. Weapons detectors. Satellite surveillance. A boom in spookware is making L-3 the defense contractor of the 21st century. Created in 1997, when ex-Loral president Frank Lanza convinced Lockheed Martin to spin off 10 communications units, L-3 has bought more than 20 companies and grown from a $547 million upstart into a defense giant with $4 billion in sales. The $1.1 billion purchase of Raytheon's Aircraft Integration Systems in 2002 led to a $1.5 billion contract in 2003 to provide logistics support to the Special Operations Command. The more dangerous the world becomes, the more L-3's opportunity grows.
Promise: After decades of nondefense innovation, military priorities will reclaim the leading edge
After a dozen years of hearings and deliberation, the U.S. Agriculture Dept. issued official standards for organic foods last October. And -- surprise, surprise -- a government agency actually did a pretty good job. For the first time, American consumers could buy food labeled "organic" and know that it was actually produced using organic growing techniques -- i.e, without growth hormones, antibiotics, chemical herbicides and pesticides, and genetically altered materials.... Unfortunately, politicians can never resist fiddling with a good idea. So, in the months since the standards were passed, according to an editorial in the August issue of Consumer Reports, a number of attempts have been made to jigger the rules so that foods can carry this designation that otherwise wouldn't qualify. "Everyone wants to label their product organic because it will sell for a higher price," says Jean Halloran, director of the Consumer Policy Institute of Consumer's Union, the nonprofit organization that publishes the magazine.
An Internet radio station out of London is experimenting with a technique that automatically tailors the music it plays to individual listeners' tastes. Some say the approach, which uses collaborative filtering, could prove revolutionary.... Last.fm is a streaming radio station with a built-in collaborative filter that attempts to learn its listeners' likes and dislikes. Based on data gathered, the station delivers a personalized radio stream to each of its listeners.
A report published by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) shows that the illegal music market is now worth $4.6bn (£2.8bn) globally. It believes two out of every five CDs or cassettes sold are illegal.
The battle to stem pirate music appears to be failing as the total number of illegal CDs sold worldwide topped the one billion mark for the first time in 2002.
Food manufacturers will soon be forced by law to show the levels of trans-fatty acids in their products, with the FDA announcing a bid to bring the unhealthy fats to consumers' attention"By putting trans-fat information on food labels, we are making it possible for consumers to make the right choice to lower their intake of these unhealthy fats," US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a statement.
The measure will be made obligatory from January 2006, Thompson said, but manufacturers are expected to start bringing in changes to their products well before that date.
Identity Theft Resource Center.Org
Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in our nation today. Besides dumpster diving, mail theft and lost/stolen wallets, criminals are stealing information by overhearing conversations made on cell phones, from faxes and emails, by hacking into computers, from telephone and email scams, and even from careless online shopping and banking. In fact, more than 20% of all cases involve telecommunications and the Internet. (FTC).
Criminals also steal tens of thousands of pieces of mail each year from the US Postal Offices. See link below for a description of the types of identity theft. - nmw
Identity theft is a crime in which the imposter obtains key pieces of information such as Social Security and driver's license numbers and uses them for his or her own gain. Victims are left with a tainted reputation and the complicated task of restoring their good names.
There are four types of identity theft crime:
Financial ID Theft —This type of case typically focuses on your name and Social Security number (SSN). This person may apply for telephone service, credit cards or loans, buy merchandise, lease cars or apartments.
Criminal ID Theft —The imposter in this crime provides the victim's information instead of his or her own when stopped by law enforcement. Eventually when the warrant for arrest is issued it is in the name of the person issued the citation- yours.
Identity Cloning —In this crime the imposter uses the victim's information to establish a new life. They work and live as you. Examples: Illegal aliens, criminals avoiding warrants, people hiding from abusive situations or becoming a "new person" to leave behind a poor work and financial history.
Business or Commercial Identity Theft —Businesses are also victims of identity theft. Typically the perpetrator gets credit cards or checking accounts in the name of the business. The business finds out when unhappy suppliers send collection notices or their business rating score is affected.
Congress Urged on Tougher Credit LawsThe Bush administration on Wednesday urged Congress to act quickly to strengthen the nation's credit laws, warning that identity theft has already claimed 12 million victims in the United States and could hurt an additional 1 million this year.
Identity theft involves the use of a person's name and other personal information, such as a Social Security number or bank and credit card numbers, to establish credit or buy products.
Microsoft said Tuesday it will begin expensing all equity-based compensation, including previously granted stock options, starting in 2004. Under current accounting rules, companies are required to expense the cost of stock awards immediately, but they don't have to book the cost of options.
Clothes that shrink to fit the wearer and paint that changes colour in the dark moved a step closer to reality yesterday as researchers unveiled the latest breakthrough in nanotechnology.Scientists at Edinburgh University, working with a team in Bologna, announced they had produced "remote control" molecular motors - robots the size of a grain of sand that can spin when directed by a beam of light.
So far, scientists have only managed to design molecular motors that could move in straight lines. The new research is unveiled in this week's edition of the science journal Nature.
Hoping to save thousands of heart-attack victims a year, the American Heart Association has endorsed the cooling of comatose patients whose hearts have been restarted so that they can be brought back to life slowly, suffering less brain damage.Studies in Europe and Australia have shown that comatose patients whose bodies were cooled to 89.6 to 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit and maintained at that temperature for up to 24 hours suffered significantly fewer deaths and less brain damage than patients who were quickly resuscitated, the association said.
Asia-Pacific wireless local-area network (LAN) equipment shipments experienced over 75 percent growth in 2002, but revenue results did not show the same explosive growth rates, according to Gartner.Asia-Pacific wireless LAN equipment shipments totaled 3.4 million units in 2002, a 77.6 percent increase from 2001 shipments of 1.9 million units. However, end-user spending increased just 41.4 percent in 2002 because of falling prices on equipment.
Golf is a big business, but one that David Osiecki says might just be too big in Martin County.The manager of Cobblestone Golf Club in western Palm City says there aren't enough players to go around.
A boom during the 1990s to build newer and lusher links has left about 45 golf courses in Martin County competing for the same group of players.
"Without a question, Martin County has more golf courses on a 12-month basis than they need," said Osiecki, whose semiprivate course has seen a steady decline in the number of rounds of golf being played there each year.
With the country in the throes of an economic slump, NASCAR officials recently severed ties with R.J. Reynolds, their primary sponsor for more than 30 years, and signed a more lucrative, $700 million deal with telecommunications giant Nextel.While other sports have seen their TV ratings dip, NASCAR's ratings have overtaken every major league sport except the NFL.
And with its burgeoning fan base and big-spending corporate backers clamoring for more, NASCAR has systematically retooled its schedule over the past decade, adding more races at gleaming new superspeedways west of the Mississippi, where major markets beckon.
The collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union has paved the wave for a wealth of reforms in modern day Russia. But how has the transition from state control to an independent Russia affected average Russian citizens? A decade after the fall of communism, the experiment of Russian democracy marches on. Beneath the symbols of the former Soviet Union and Czarist imperialism a new, free Russia has emerged.But fledgling democracy is balancing its newfound liberties with remnants of a Soviet bureaucracy. For instance, there's still a two-year wait for a home telephone line.
Scouts Australia will kiss goodbye its traditional khaki-green garb in an effort to modernise its image.The decision was taken on Sunday after a meeting of the Scouts Australia national executive committee.
The new uniform comprises a dark blue shirt, a blue or moss green belt, a scarf and a woggle - the special slide worn by scouts to hold their neckerchiefs.
NEC Corporation, Telecommunications Advancement Organization of Japan (TAO, President: Futoshi Shirai), and Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST, President: Kazuki Okimura) have succeeded in realizing the world's first 100-km-long single-photon transmission using a quantum cryptography system with low cost optical fiber. Under this system secure network communication is guaranteed by the laws of quantum mechanical physics principles.
U.S. and Japanese scientists have pinpointed one cause of a killer heart defect in infants. Congenital heart defects are a leading cause of death in newborns. In about half the cases, the wall dividing the chambers of the heart is damaged, and open-heart surgery is needed to correct it.But the discovery that this can be caused by a mutated gene could enable doctors to correct the problem before the baby is born, said Dr. Deepak Srivastava of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. His report appears in the online science journal Nature.
Scientists have discovered how to overcome the genetic defect that causes the most serious form of muscular dystrophy.Although at an early stage, the research may lead to new treatments for the fatal genetic condition.
Muscular dystrophy is a rare disease that only affects boys. About one in 3,500 children in the UK are born with the most common and severe form, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, each year.
China will launch two satellites within a year to probe and predict geospace storms that could threaten spacecraft safety, a senior scientist said Thursday in Beijing. And it will be the first time European experiments will ever be integrated with Chinese satellites
Located in a single terminal, Logan's Airmall, which is not finished, has only about a dozen stores and restaurants so far, but its design reflects the new reality in air travel. Traffic is down, but security checks have become more intensive, requiring passengers to arrive earlier. That has increased the amount of time passengers spend in the terminal. Airport retail experts say, however, that most passengers are unlikely to become captive customers until they have cleared the security checkpoint.
One would think that, some eight years into the Internet age, enlightened self-interest would have motivated financial services and e-commerce vendors to put a higher value on maintaining the integrity of customer data. But companies' seeming inability to follow a consistent and reliable security model for the use of customer data, and the secretive approach taken to handling credit card security breaches, have helped create a consumer backlash--and a torrent of state and federal legislation.Example - New California Law: Requires companies to disclose any compromise of customer data to every affected consumer residing in California within 48 hours. And if you don't have up-to-date contact information for those consumers, you must post a notification on your Web site--the e-commerce equivalent of a scarlet letter.
A remarkable reversal of sentiment and symbolism has occurred in the five months since designers here and in Milan and London, the site of fervent antiwar rallies, displayed peace flags and, in one instance, staged a love-in that featured a couple in a bed. At that time, European opposition to President Bush's position on Iraq ran so high that Tom Ford, the creative director of Gucci and a fellow Texan, told reporters after his women's show in February, "I'm embarrassed to be an American."But last week in Milan, on the same runway where he had criticized the president, Mr. Ford struck an image that symbolized the virile Texas cowboy in boots and broad hat. Other tried-and-true symbols of American strength and power appeared at Prada, as correct displays of 1950's country-club attire; at Jean Paul Gaultier, as waistcoats inspired by James West, the 1960's television cowboy version of James Bond; at Junya Watanabe, as battle jackets and cartridge belts fashioned from banker's broadcloth; and at Louis Vuitton, as well-scrubbed young men in tennis whites and navy blazers.
... "Whether you believe in America's power and hegemony, you can't help but be affected by it, even subconsciously," said Adrian Joffe, the Paris managing director of Comme des Garçons, which produces Mr. Watanabe's label.
In a lengthy speech in Beijing marking the 82nd anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's founding, President Hu, who is also the head of the party, called on the country's 67 million party members to rededicate themselves to helping the urban and rural poor.
But the bulk of his speech dwelled on the theory of the Three Represents, which Mr. Jiang enshrined as party gospel before handing his major political posts to Mr. Hu.
The theory has been held to show that the party can speak for private entrepreneurs and other so-called advanced forces in modern China while still meeting traditional commitments to the working class.
The European Parliament approved legislation today to require strict labels for food and feed made with genetically altered ingredients, a move that was hailed by environmentalists but pilloried by American farmers.Intended to better inform wary European consumers, the legislation would require supermarkets to label all food containing more than 0.9 percent of a genetically modified organism. So, for example, a cookie made with genetically modified corn oil would carry a label that states: "This product contains a genetically modified organism."
LAPTOP SALES BEAT DESKTOPS FOR FIRST TIME: Sales of laptop computers in stores in the United States outpaced those of desktop computers for the first time in May, according to a survey by the NPD Group, a market research firm. Laptops accounted for more than 54 percent of the nearly $500 million in retail computer sales in May, the company said on Tuesday. That contrasts with January 2000, when laptops represented less than 25 percent of sales volume, NPD said. Stephen Baker, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group, attributed the surge in sales of laptop comput