Oprah Winfrey charms "chaotic" India at book event (Reuters)

JAIPUR, India (Reuters) ? Amid raucous cheers from thousands of admirers, television superstar Oprah Winfrey praised the contrast of calm and chaos in India at the region's largest literature festival fast becoming a global cultural gala.

Considered one of the world's most influential women, Winfrey lived up to her billing as the headline draw at an event boasting literary giants such as Tom Stoppard, Michael Ondaatje and Richard Dawkins, charming the crowds on Sunday morning.

"I came here with an open mind, and it has been expanded... It's the greatest life experience I have ever had," Winfrey said at the annual Jaipur Literature Festival in India's north-western state of Rajasthan.

"You feel like you're in the centre of something bigger and greater than yourself."

Hundreds of eager visitors jostled against barricades at the back of the main stage area as Winfrey began speaking. Security guards struggled to shut the main entrance gates as angry admirers tried to push their way inside.

"It's like being in a video game. I don't know which way to look," Winfrey told crowds on her arrival in Mumbai. "It's a bit chaotic, but there's an underlying calm, a flow, that you all seem to understand. India is a paradox."

The 57-year-old has caused a media storm in India, with news channels and front pages filled with stories of her touring the city of Mumbai with the Bachchans, Bollywood's first family. On Sunday she drew huge cheers as she appeared on stage in a traditional Indian churidar kameez smock.

"I will take with me a sense of calmness, and a genuine respect... people don't talk religion here, they live it," Winfrey said.

Her appearance on Sunday was seen as a welcome distraction from the Salman Rushdie furor that has overshadowed the five-day festival, after the author cancelled his planned visit due to reported assassination threats against him.

The talk-show host and interviewer's "Book Club" turned little-known authors into global stars, with 59 of the club's 70 selected books making the USA TODAY Top 10 best-sellers list.

Winfrey told the festival that in 2008, after witnessing the completion of her mission to get then-Senator Barack Obama to the White House, she stuck a picture of a woman riding a camel on her pinboard, that said "Come to India."

"It was important for me to go to slums but not show the worst of the worst, but show that people can live in poverty and still have hope and meaning in their lives," said Winfrey, who also called for Indians to work to eradicate discrimination against widows in society.

(Editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120122/stage_nm/us_india_festival_oprah

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Alesis brings a pair of new musician-friendly iPad docks to NAMM

If there's been one must have accessory at NAMM this year it's been the iPad. That's right, no mixer, instrument or microphone is stealing the show, it's Apple's 9.7-inch slab of touchability that everyone is after. Alesis is just one of many companies creating compelling musical offerings around the iOS tablet with its latest products, the AmpDock and DM Dock. The DM Dock turns your iPad into the thumping, bumping and crashing heart of an electronic drum system. You can tap out rhythms and build drum sets with the touchscreen, but it's when you start plugging triggers into the 13 1/4-inch inputs that it really comes to life. The AmpDock, as you may have guessed, turns that A5 processor's attention towards your axe. There's a standard 1/4-inch jack as well as a combo XLR / 1/4-inch plug for connecting a second guitar or a mic. The AmpDock also has a separate pedalboard that allows you to control some program parameters while keeping the tablet safe from stray stomps. Check out the gallery below, as well as the video after the break.

Gallery: Alesis AmpDock and DM Dock

Continue reading Alesis brings a pair of new musician-friendly iPad docks to NAMM

Alesis brings a pair of new musician-friendly iPad docks to NAMM originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sundance opens with eye on broken American dreams (Reuters)

PARK CITY, Utah (Reuters) ? The Sundance Film Festival opened on Thursday night with four features, including a documentary highlighting America's housing crisis, the fractured American dream and values humbled by today's lackluster economy.

The documentary, "The Queen of Versailles," follows self-made former billionaire and timeshare mogul David Siegel and his wife Jackie, who at first glance may not seem in touch with many Americans who have struggled in the current, downbeat economy.

The film, which debuted Thursday night to a packed house and solid applause, opens with the couple constructing their dream house: A sprawling 90,000 square foot mansion named "Versailles" inspired by the French palace.

But the story eventually comes to resemble many of the lessons learned by those who have lost their homes, jobs and experienced the effects of the economic crisis.

"The American dream has always been this idea of home ownership," director Laura Greenfield told Reuters, but the film shows the Siegels dealing with the slumping economy, like many in the United States, and "how they downsize and cope with the situation," eventually rediscovering what is important to them.

"They do take on this everyman quality that ends up putting them nearer to us in terms of the overreaching of America and downsizing and getting back to core values," said Greenfield.

"Versailles" is one of several high-profile films here that show Americans tackling problems associated with the weak economy, greed and dreams reevaluated.

"It's no secret that times are dark and grim," Robert Redford, whose Sundance Institute for independent filmmaking backs the festival, the largest gathering for U.S. independent filmmakers, told reporters on Thursday.

Even though Americans were experiencing some hopelessness, including a Washington in "paralysis," Redford said Sundance audiences could be upbeat because while some films "might be reflective of these hard times...there is not paralysis here."

10 DAYS; 100+ FILMS

Overall, there are more than 100 fiction and documentary films showing at the festival that runs for the 10 days in the ski resort town of Park City, Utah, east of Salt Lake City.

Other opening night screenings include two fictional tales, "Hello I Must Be Going" starring Melanie Lynskey as a demoralized, divorced 35-year-old who moves back in with her parents and "Wish You Were Here," an Australian film starring Joel Edgerton as a man clinging to a shattered family.

"Searching For Sugar Man," competing in the world documentary section, completes the opening night lineup. It is one of many films here centered on musicians and shows two fans looking into the mystery of how a would-be 1970s rock icon declined into obscurity.

Festival director John Cooper said the opening night films reflect the choice of more experienced storytelling at a festival that prides itself on being a launch pad for careers and for premiering low-budget hits like "Little Miss Sunshine" and documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

"We like a filmmaker who knows the ropes -- something that will play well," he said.

Of all the opening films, Greenfield's "Versailles" was the most hyped. Adding to the buzz, David Siegel sued the filmmakers and Sundance for defamation over promotional materials for the film, but Greenfield said she could not comment on the lawsuit.

Coming into the festival, other films on which audiences and buyers are focused include Spike Lee's "Red Hook Summer," "Red Lights" with Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver and Robert De Niro and Stephen Frears' "Lay The Favorite" starring Rebecca Hall, Bruce Willis and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

"Bachelorette," with Kirsten Dunst and Isla Fisher tells of a group of young, single women casting aside bitterness at a hedonistic bachelorette party. Numerous other stars are expected to appear including Kate Bosworth, Chris Rock, Julie Delpy and Paul Simon as the tiny, snowy town transforms into promotional suites and film parties.

Redford talked of the "two sides" of Sundance with marketers having descended upon its success years ago and at times misplaced hype, but said it was still a place for indie filmmakers to find their feet.

Sundance is offering filmmakers a new service this year advising on the latest methods of Internet distribution and Redford heralded more freedom and control for filmmakers by releasing films and reaching audiences via the Web.

"It's pretty obvious we are in a period of tremendous change," he told the opening film audience. "We embrace it."

(Reporting By Christine Kearney; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120120/en_nm/us_sundance_opening

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Roy Speckhardt: Let's Stop Voting in Churches

Think about the last time you voted. Was it in a school? A government building? What about a church? It's only intuitive that where you vote, and what's visible in the polling location, impacts how you vote. That's why there is a political line 75 to 100 feet or more from the polling place over which ads for various campaigns and parties must not cross. It would be an unfair advantage, and possibly even intimidating, for campaigns to advertise any closer. It's no different with religious messages, many of which have real political consequences. So it's time to stop voting in churches, which are hardly neutral grounds for the issues of the day.

A Baylor University study just published in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion found that having a church in clear sight can influence people's answers to questions. Co-author Wade Rowatt pointed out that the "important finding here is that people near a religious building reported slightly but significantly more conservative social and political attitudes than similar people near a government building." The Baylor study confirms an earlier Stanford University study that shows the same effect when looking specifically at how people's voting place influences their vote. Stanford researcher Jonah Berger said, "Voting in a church could activate norms of following church doctrine. Such effects may even occur outside an individual's awareness." A follow-up study in the laboratory asked participants to vote on several issues after being shown images of specific voting places. This showed that participants were less likely to support a stem-cell initiative if they were shown church images than if they were shown school images or a generic photo of a building.

Psychologically, this phenomenon is known as "priming," where what you are initially exposed to goes on to impact your responses or decisions afterward. It's a well-researched effect and explains what is happening in the polling places. So the studies covering this issue are sound and their conclusions make sense: where you vote matters.

Since polling place influences the vote, governments and election boards should do all they can to find neutral voting locations. And it would seem very unlikely that churches would be chosen if neutrality were the aim. Why not use schools, courthouses, firehouses and the like instead? It's been argued that some places exist where the church is the most convenient, and that may be true in certain exceptional rural areas, but that's no justification for the many thousands of churches used in some thirty percent of polling places today.

When connecting with American Humanist Association members, examples of clear-cut cases of abuse abounds. An Illinois member voted in a church that displayed a four-foot wooden crucifix right above the election judges. Another member in California was confronted with a large marble plaque dedicated to the "unborn children" who are "killed" by abortion and containing a quote from the Bible justifying the notion that the soul is alive in the womb. And a New York member voted in a room featuring large religious slogans on the wall behind the voting machines. Sure there are some churches that utilize gymnasiums carefully cleaned of religious paraphernalia, but even those places have the power to inappropriately influence the vote. Let's move the vote exclusively to public buildings.

?

Follow Roy Speckhardt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/americnhumanist

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roy-speckhardt/voting-locations_b_1219734.html

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Sony Ericsson swallows $317 million pre-tax loss as end draws near

Sony Ericsson's tearful breakup continues with more woe as as the venture had to eat a pre-tax loss of €247 million (roughly $317 million). Bosses cited "unfavorable macro-economic conditions" and the Thai flooding as the reasons for the loss. Ericsson probably won't mind having such an unfavorable penultimate quarter with the company, given that it's set to receive €1.05 billion (around $1.9 billion) when Sony buys out its share of the joint telecoms business within the next month.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson swallows $317 million pre-tax loss as end draws near

Sony Ericsson swallows $317 million pre-tax loss as end draws near originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Satellite Spots Costa Concordia Shipwreck From Space (SPACE.com)

An Earth-watching satellite has snapped a stark view of the Costa Concordia shipwreck from space, showing the huge ocean liner on its side just days after it tragically ran aground off Italy's Tuscany coast.

The new satellite photo was taken Tuesday (Jan. 17) by an Earth-observation satellite operated by DigitalGlobe, a Colorado-based company that uses a constellation of spacecraft to take high-resolution images of Earth.

In the satellite view of the Costa Concordia shipwreck, the luxury cruise ship is visible through a scattered cloud layer, as it lies half-submerged off the coast of Giglio, Italy. The ocean liner hit a reef on Jan. 13 and tipped over.

The Costa Concordia was carrying about 3,200 passengers and a crew of 1,000 when it ran aground, according to news reports. The accident killed 11 people, with more than two dozen others still missing, the ABC News reported today (Jan. 18). Rescue efforts were suspended today due to rough seas that apparently shifted the huge ship.

DigitalGlobe operates a constellation of three satellites ? the Quickbird, Worldview-1 and Worldview-2 spacecraft, each equipped with cameras to provide high-resolution imagery of Earth for commercial uses. The company also uses aircraft to collect Earth images from lower altitudes.

This is not the first time satellites have snapped images of Earth to chronicle major news events. A swarm of Earth-monitoring satellites regularly snap images of the Earth for commercial customers and military uses. They have been used to track natural disasters, such as the devastation from the March 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, as well as aid recovery efforts.

In January of 2011, a DigitalGlobe satellite snapped a view of the compound of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which U.S. soldiers later raided in a May 1 attack that killed the terrorist leader.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120118/sc_space/satellitespotscostaconcordiashipwreckfromspace

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Analysis: BlackBerry licensing seen RIM's likeliest scenario (Reuters)

TORONTO (Reuters) ? Research In Motion may still see software licensing as an important part of its turnaround plan, even though Samsung has denied that it might pay to use the BlackBerry maker's technology or even buy the company.

RIM has likely held talks with several handset makers about using its new QNX platform, said a prominent RIM shareholder, who said he was briefed by the company. The operating system, already used in the PlayBook tablet, will power RIM's next-generation smartphones due out later this year.

The shareholder, who declined to be identified because he was unauthorized to speak on the record, said he also believes Samsung is interested in a licensing deal despite its statements to the contrary.

"I'm secure they're talking about licensing stuff," the shareholder said, referring to the South Korean smartphone maker. "I don't know if they're looking to buy the company and I don't care."

RIM's existing product lineup has struggled to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from Samsung and other manufacturers using Google's Android operating system.

It also faces a resurgent Microsoft, which has built mobile software that powers Nokia's newest devices, among others.

The Canadian smartphone company has hemorrhaged U.S. market share after a year marked by product delays and a botched launch of its PlayBook tablet. That has led to a 75 percent drop in market valuation and incessant talk about a sale of the company.

RIM's shares have jumped nearly 40 percent since a Reuters report in December cited sources saying RIM had rebuffed takeover overtures from Amazon.com and others because it prefers to fix its problems on its own.

Two of those sources said at the time that RIM could strike technology licensing deals to boost revenue.

During RIM's earnings conference call five days earlier, founder and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis and his salesman cohort Jim Balsillie promised that RIM would look at all strategic alternatives as it seeks a turnaround.

"We are leaving no stone unturned," Balsillie said. "We ask for your patience and confidence," Lazaridis added.

The prospect of RIM shopping its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 software to rivals or even opening up its unique network for their use has excited some investors and analysts more than the less likely scenario of an outright sale.

"If Samsung or any other Android partner were to integrate RIM's enterprise services like Blackberry Messenger into their offering, they would achieve instant differentiation in the increasingly monochrome Android space," Frost and Sullivan analyst Craig Cartier said.

BREATHING ROOM

Such a deal would presumably give RIM's stock a lift and ease some of the intense pressure on the company's co-chiefs for drastic change.

"The ideal scenario for them would be to find something which unlocked additional value which could appease shareholders while they continue to run the business themselves," Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said in an interview.

Still, he expressed doubt that rival handset makers would rush to snap up a licensing agreement with RIM given most are well served by Android, Microsoft has created a viable alternative, and RIM has failed to deliver in the past.

"Ultimately it's not proven in the market and they've got a pretty patchy track record in terms of actually delivering these things on time and then being as good as they say they're going to be," he said.

The Playbook, RIM's first experiment with the QNX software, was panned when launched last spring because important features were missing from the tablet. Since then sales have been poor. RIM recently delayed its first QNX-equiped BlackBerry phones until late 2012.

Even so, Taiwan's HTC and others might consider licensing QNX because of the cost associated with using Google's free software, after Microsoft unleashed a storm of litigation and eked out royalty agreements on many of those using Android.

As Scotia Capital's Gus Papageorgiou points out, RIM could offer QNX at a lower price or even for free and then charge via network operators once these new customers sign up for the popular BlackBerry Messaging service or RIM's famous enterprise-grade security and compression.

But that plan would have its drawbacks.

"If RIM were to license out QNX and allow all devices to tap into BlackBerry services, it could drastically impede the competitive advantage of its existing devices," Papageorgiou said, suggesting it may then have to offload the handset unit.

As always, much depends on how the two men most responsible for both the roaring success of the Blackberry and its more recent stumbles envision RIM's future.

Lazaridis and Balsillie, who own each 5 percent of the company, have taken on a more humble tone in recent quarters but have shown no outward signs that they're ready to quit.

Yet if tech precedent plays out, time may be in short supply for any seismic shift at RIM.

"As you've seen with the likes of Nokia and Palm, when things go wrong they can unwind very quickly," Atlantic's Cordwell said.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Frank McGurty)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120118/bs_nm/us_rim

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