NCAA Football 14

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ChiCitySports is the ultimate Chicago Sports Fan community. With active forums for all Chicago Area teams, we leave no stone unturned. We try and give fans a relaxed atmosphere to discuss sports. We understand things can get heated so we attempt to run this place like a sports bar, as compared to a daycare.

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Final compromise issued on birth-control mandate - The Seattle Times

Originally published June 28, 2013 at 9:37 PM | Page modified June 28, 2013 at 10:26 PM

WASHINGTON ? The Obama administration issued its final compromise Friday for religiously affiliated charities, hospitals and other nonprofits that object to covering birth control in their employee health plans.

The Health and Human Services Department said the final plan simplifies how insurers provide the coverage separately from faith-based groups and gives religious nonprofits more time to comply. However, the changes are unlikely to resolve objections from faith groups that the requirement violates their religious freedom.

More than 60 lawsuits have been filed challenging the rule. The cases are expected to reach the Supreme Court.

The birth-control rule was first introduced in February 2012 as part of President Obama?s health-care law. The original plan exempted churches and other houses of worship, but required faith-affiliated charities, universities and other nonprofits to provide the coverage for their employees.

The regulation became an election-year issue as Roman Catholic bishops, evangelicals and some religious leaders lobbied for a broader exemption. The Obama administration offered a series of accommodations, leading to the final rules released Friday.

Under the compromise, administration officials said they simplified the definition of religious organizations that are fully exempt from the requirement. The change means a church that also ran a soup kitchen would not have to comply.

Other religious nonprofits must notify their insurance company that they object to birth-control coverage. The insurer or administrator of the plan will then notify affected employees separately that coverage will be provided at no cost. The insurers would be reimbursed by a credit against fees owed the government.

Michael Hash, director of the health-reform office of the Health and Human Services Department, said the final regulation spells out in more detail the buffer between religious charities and contraceptive coverage. Faith-based groups were given another reprieve ? until Jan. 1 ? to comply.

Judy Waxman, of the National Women?s Law Center, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., said her organization could accept the plan. ?It?s fair,? she said.

However, Eric Rassbach, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm challenging the contraception-coverage rule, said: ?It doesn?t really change the overall way they?re trying to do this.? The Becket Fund represents many of the organizations challenging the regulation in federal court.

Lawsuits against the requirement are split almost evenly between nonprofit plaintiffs ? including several Roman Catholic dioceses ? and for-profit businesses, which say the rules go against their religious beliefs. For-profit businesses are not included in the accommodation released Friday.

Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby Stores is the largest and best-known of the businesses that have sued. On Thursday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver allowed the lawsuit to move forward on religious grounds. The judges said the portion of the law that requires Hobby Lobby to offer certain kinds of birth control to employees is particularly onerous and sent the case back to a court in Oklahoma.

On Friday, the lower court granted Hobby Lobby a temporary injunction against full enforcement of the law. Businesses that fail to comply potentially face fines based on the number of workers they employ and other factors. The amount for Hobby Lobby could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Neither the Catholic Health Association, a trade group for hospitals, nor the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had an immediate reaction Friday, saying the regulations were being studied.

Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021291582_healthcontraceptivexml.html

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Nokia told to adopt Android before it?s too late

Nokia Android Analysis

If Nokia had a dollar for every time some pundit, analyst or tech blogger said it should switch from Windows Phone to Android, the company?s recovery would be much further along than it is right now. That didn?t stop?Bernstein Research analyst Pierre Ferragu from recommending yet again in a recent note to clients that Nokia bail on Microsoft?s mobile platform and embrace the dominant Android operating system.

[More from BGR: Galaxy S4 takes the crown for fastest phone with best battery life]

Nokia should ?take the pill before one cannot afford to do so anymore? and switch to Android before it?s too late, Ferregu wrote in a research note picked up by Barron?s. Continuing to rely on Windows Phone and Nokia?s ?Asha? feature phone platform while cash dwindles is an?exercise?in futility, according to the analyst.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry?s Black Friday: Company sheds billions in market value as comeback hopes fade]

?Nokia should consider it?s [sic] near term future,? Ferregu wrote.??The company is facing two structural challenges: its exposure to the disappearing feature phone market and the lack of traction of Windows phones. Both could cost Nokia a lot of cash in the near term, in restructuring, marketing / distribution support, and operational losses, which means it could be too late to address the problem in a ?couple of years. From that perspective, a decision concerning a new platform strategy appears urgent. Better to take the pill before one cannot afford to do so anymore. We wouldn?t be surprised to see Nokia adopting Android as its new low-end platform by year end.?

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nokia-told-adopt-android-too-182021388.html

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Major changes needed for coral reef survival

Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ken Caldeira
kcaldeira@carnegiescience.edu
650-704-7212
Carnegie Institution

Washington, D.C.To prevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required, says a new study from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira. They find that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed in inhospitable ocean chemistry conditions by the end of the century if civilization continues along its current emissions trajectory. Their work will be published July 3 by Environmental Research Letters.

Coral reefs are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. But they are very sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to coastal pollution, warming waters, overdevelopment, and overfishing.

Ricke and Caldeira, along with colleagues from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace and Stanford University, focused on the acidification of open ocean water surrounding coral reefs and how it affects a reef's ability to survive.

Coral reefs use a mineral called aragonite to make their skeletons. It is a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. When carbon dioxide, CO2, from the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, it forms carbonic acid (the same thing that makes soda fizz), making the ocean more acidic and decreasing the ocean's pH. This increase in acidity makes it more difficult for many marine organisms to grow their shells and skeletons, and threatens coral reefs the world over.

Using results from simulations conducted using an ensemble of sophisticated models, Ricke, Caldeira, and their co-authors calculated ocean chemical conditions that would occur under different future scenarios and determined whether these chemical conditions could sustain coral reef growth.

Ricke said: "Our results show that if we continue on our current emissions path, by the end of the century there will be no water left in the ocean with the chemical properties that have supported coral reef growth in the past. We can't say with 100% certainty that all shallow-water coral reefs will die, but it is a pretty good bet."

Deep cuts in emissions are necessary in order to save even a fraction of existing reefs, according to the team's results. Chemical conditions that can support coral reef growth can be sustained only with very aggressive cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

"To save coral reefs, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not use the atmosphere and oceans as waste dumps for carbon dioxide pollution. The decisions we make in the next years and decades are likely to determine whether or not coral reefs survive the rest of this century," Caldeira said.

###

The World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project is provided support from the U.S. Department of Energy, which developed a software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

The Carnegie Institution for Science is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 28-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Ken Caldeira
kcaldeira@carnegiescience.edu
650-704-7212
Carnegie Institution

Washington, D.C.To prevent coral reefs around the world from dying off, deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are required, says a new study from Carnegie's Katharine Ricke and Ken Caldeira. They find that all existing coral reefs will be engulfed in inhospitable ocean chemistry conditions by the end of the century if civilization continues along its current emissions trajectory. Their work will be published July 3 by Environmental Research Letters.

Coral reefs are havens for marine biodiversity and underpin the economies of many coastal communities. But they are very sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to coastal pollution, warming waters, overdevelopment, and overfishing.

Ricke and Caldeira, along with colleagues from Institut Pierre Simon Laplace and Stanford University, focused on the acidification of open ocean water surrounding coral reefs and how it affects a reef's ability to survive.

Coral reefs use a mineral called aragonite to make their skeletons. It is a naturally occurring form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. When carbon dioxide, CO2, from the atmosphere is absorbed by the ocean, it forms carbonic acid (the same thing that makes soda fizz), making the ocean more acidic and decreasing the ocean's pH. This increase in acidity makes it more difficult for many marine organisms to grow their shells and skeletons, and threatens coral reefs the world over.

Using results from simulations conducted using an ensemble of sophisticated models, Ricke, Caldeira, and their co-authors calculated ocean chemical conditions that would occur under different future scenarios and determined whether these chemical conditions could sustain coral reef growth.

Ricke said: "Our results show that if we continue on our current emissions path, by the end of the century there will be no water left in the ocean with the chemical properties that have supported coral reef growth in the past. We can't say with 100% certainty that all shallow-water coral reefs will die, but it is a pretty good bet."

Deep cuts in emissions are necessary in order to save even a fraction of existing reefs, according to the team's results. Chemical conditions that can support coral reef growth can be sustained only with very aggressive cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.

"To save coral reefs, we need to transform our energy system into one that does not use the atmosphere and oceans as waste dumps for carbon dioxide pollution. The decisions we make in the next years and decades are likely to determine whether or not coral reefs survive the rest of this century," Caldeira said.

###

The World Climate Research Programme's Coupled Model Intercomparison Project is provided support from the U.S. Department of Energy, which developed a software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals.

The Carnegie Institution for Science is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with six research departments throughout the U.S. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and planetary science.

---

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?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/ci-acn062813.php

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Gillmor Gang Live 06.28.13 (TCTV)

Gillmor Gang - John Borthwick, Kevin Marks, Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recording live today at 1pm Pacific.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Bz-3usazY-Q/

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Silver At Less Than 19 Dollars An Ounce? Are You Kidding Me ...

By Michael

The day that silver traders have been waiting for has arrived.? On Wednesday, the price of silver dropped another 5 percent.? As I write this, it is sitting at $18.55 an ounce.? On Wednesday it hit a low that had not been seen in three years.? Overall, the price of silver has declined by?34 percent?this quarter.? That is the largest quarterly move in the price of silver in more than 30 years.? So what does all of this mean?? It means that we are looking at a historic buying opportunity for those that are interested in silver.? Yes, gold is undervalued right now as well, but it is absolutely ridiculous how low the price of silver is.? At the moment, the price of gold is about 66 times higher than the price of silver is.? But they come out of the ground at about a 9 to 1 ratio, and unlike gold, silver is used up in thousands of common consumer products.? Those that want to invest in silver should be shouting for joy that prices have fallen this low.? If you have been waiting and waiting and waiting to ?load the boat?, your moment has arrived.

In my previous articles, I have warned over and over again that we would see wild swings in the prices of gold and silver.? For example, I wrote the following?back in April?

As I mentioned above, gold and silver are going to experience wild fluctuations over the next few years.? When the next stock market crash comes, gold and silver are probably going to go even lower than they are today for a short time.? But in the long run gold and silver are going to soar to unprecedented heights.

Investing in gold and silver is not for the faint of heart.? If you cannot handle the ride, you should sit on the sidelines.? We are entering a period of tremendous financial instability, and holding gold and silver is going to be like riding a roller coaster.? The ups and downs are going to shake a lot of people up, but the rewards are going to be great for those that stick with it the entire time.

Right now, a lot of people that bought silver when it was 25 dollars an ounce or 30 dollars an ounce are probably feeling discouraged.

Don?t be.? You will be just fine.? When the price of an ounce of silver hits 100 dollars an ounce you will be very thankful for the silver that you stored away at those prices.

We are moving into a time when we will see more volatility in precious metals prices than we have ever seen before.? That means there will be some tremendous opportunities to make money.? But in order to make money, you have to buy low and sell high.

The current decline in the price of paper silver does not have anything to do with the demand for actual physical silver.? In fact, demand for physical silver is higher than it ever has been before.

For example, sales of silver coins by the U.S. Mint have set?a brand new all-time record high?during the first half of 2013.

Last year, the U.S. Mint sold 33 million ounces of silver for the entire year.

This year, the U.S. Mint is on pace to sell 50 million ounces of silver for the entire year.

So don?t be alarmed that the price of silver is falling.

Instead, be very, very thankful.

Hopefully it will go even lower.

And you know what?? There is a decent possibility that the price of silver may go down a bit more.? This will especially be true during the initial stages of the next financial panic.

When the price of silver does dip, it is a perfect opportunity to load the boat, because even many mainstream analysts are projecting that the price of silver is headed into the stratosphere over the long-term.? For example, the following is what Citi analyst Tom Fitzpatrick?told King World News?the other day?

Again, if you look at silver going back to the 2008 correction, we got down to levels below $9, then we saw the silver price multiply by a factor of over 5 times. So assuming this marks a point near the end of the correction in silver, then our bias would be one that would take silver not only to new all-time highs, but we would look for a target as high as $100 for silver

A chart illustrating the projections that Fitzpatrick is making can be foundright here.

There are so many reasons to own silver (even as opposed to owning gold).? The following is an excerpt from a?recent article?about silver that really caught my attention?

*****

7. Silver is way below its nominal record price of $50 in 1980.? It is even further below the government inflation adjusted level of $135.? And if you use REAL inflation adjusted numbers, like Shadowstats, the REAL 1980 inflation adjusted price of silver would have to be $450!? Silver is a precious and depleting resource and when you look at the price of housing, cars, education, food, energy, taxes, insurance?back in the 1980?s, it is insane to think that silver is so cheap on any level.? Especially when the uses of silver have skyrocketed since the 1980?s.? It is now used in technology on a massive scale and is even now said to cure cancer.? Heck, they did not even have Silver Eagle sales back then, or the Silver Bullet Silver Shield for that matter.

8. This time it is going to be much larger!? None of the problems from the 2008 Banking Crisis have been solved.? In fact it is orders of magnitudes worse. ? What started out as an institutional? problem, is now a sovereign nation problem.? This collapse will not be a puny multi ? billion dollar corporation like AIG disintegrating, it will be the Trillion dollar economies of the nations of the world and the Quadrillion dollar derivative monster markets cracking apart.? There is no financial, political or social safety net left.? We destroyed all of that in 2008 and are on a debt based junkie delusion.

The collapse of currencies will affect every counter-party, debt based asset in the world.?Your cash, stocks, bonds, Real Estate, pensions, insurance, all of it.? The collapse of financial contracts will lead to the collapse of all political and social contracts.? The Anger Phase of humanity is coming and only real assets with no counter party risk will be worth anything.? Most commodities have storage or degradation issues leaving only precious metals as a real store of wealth.

9. 1:65 Ratio makes silver the only choice.??The current gold to silver ratio is: 1 ounce of gold is worth 65 ounces of silver.? These come out of the ground at a 1:9 ratio!? That means just to get back to the natural mining ratio, silver would have to out perform gold 600%.? This is regardless what happens to the dollar value of gold.? If gold goes to $13,000 an ounce, silver at a 1:9 ratio would be $1,444 silver.

10. The historical stockpiles of silver are destroyed.? We know implicitly that gold has been treasured and kept secure.? While silver has been used and abused as a cheap, industrial metal like tin.? Since the price of silver has been under attack since the Crime of 1873, silver has been used in such small quantities that it has been destroyed.? The US government in 1950 had 5 billion ounces of silver in its strategic stockpile, now it has ZERO. So if gold and silver come out of the ground at a 1:9 ratio and gold has been treasured and silver stockpiles destroyed, logic would dictate that the end of this silver bull market will find the gold to silver ratio BELOW 1:9 and I think it will come close to a 1:1.? Either way, we are a long way away from those levels which makes silver so exciting right now.

It is the destruction of huge stockpiles like this that explains the decade long supply deficit to the growing demand of silver.? Do not forget that we are only 7 years away from the United States Geological Survey?s prediction that if we continue to consume silver at these rates, silver would be the first metal to become extinct.? When I challenged the USGS on that statement,?they said that only a massive revaluation of silver to bring on more production and wiser use of silver would stop the extinction.? I don?t think we will ever run out of silver, but I do believe that the free market will crush this paper manipulation and that anyone holding physical silver on that day will then have a lottery ticket in real value.

*****

You can read the rest of that excellent article?right here.

Do you want some more reasons to own silver?

The following are some excerpts from an excellent article?by Mark Thomas?

*****

The amount of silver consumed annually and bought for investment exceeds currently exceeds total annual mining output and has for years. That gap has been filled by sellers willing to sell from existing inventories and as prices rise. As time passes this will naturally push prices significantly higher until this fundamental imbalance reaches a true equilibrium price where supply is closer to demand.

*****

Both industrial and investment demand for silver is growing in excess of the annual increase in mining production growth. The available inventory is low and will get even tighter over time. These two factors will lead to a continued tighter supply-demand situation going forward.

*****

Silver is an industrial metal with over 10,000 commercial applications. Because it is one of the best electrical and thermal conductors, that makes it ideal for electrical uses such as switches, multi-layer ceramic capacitors, conductive adhesives, and contacts. It is used in some brazing and soldering as well. Silver is also used in solar cells, heated automobile wind shields, DVD?s and some mirrors.

*****

Silver is an essential element in the electronic gadgets that are a growing part of our digital age. It is in every cell phone, smart phone, tablet, computer keyboard, solar cells and every radio frequency if ID device (RFID). This makes it an essential element going forward as the world becomes more addicted to gadgets. The growth and rising living standards of people in the emerging economies will drive long-term growth of new customers that will demand more and more electronic gadgets.

*****

Silver?s industrial demand should increase 60% to 666 million ounces per year by 2016 from 487 million ounces in 2010. Current annual mine production is only around 700 million ounces per year growing a few percent annually.

*****

Of a total of fifty billion ounces of silver that have been mined in history, only two ounces (estimate) or 5% remain in above ground inventories available to be bought and sold. This is due to silver being used up in industrial applications in very small quantities, which makes it unprofitable to recycle at today?s prices. A lot of silver is used in minute quantities in industrial products which are used up and discarded without being recycled.

*****

The total amount of silver available to trade in the physical silver market is only about $70 billion versus the total gold market which now exceeds $4.3 trillion. As you can see from these numbers, the total market size of the silver market is only 1.6% of the size of the entire gold market. This lack of liquidity and use of extreme leverage in its respective futures market produces wild volatility in price fluctuations of silver.

*****

You can read the rest of his excellent article?right here.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Let us hope that the price of silver stays below 20 dollars an ounce for as long as possible, because once this opportunity is gone we will probably never see it again.

It is important to realize where we are in the greater scheme of things.? The world is moving toward another major financial crisis which will usher in a brief period of deflation.? Unlike many others that are talking about the coming economic collapse, I have always maintained that we are going to see deflation first and then the response to the crisis will give us the rip-roaring inflation that so many talk about.? The following is an excerpt from one of my articles?where I talk about this?

So cash will not be king for long.? In fact, eventually cash will be trash.? The actions of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve in response to the coming financial crisis will greatly upset much of the rest of the world and cause the death of the U.S. dollar.

That is why gold, silver and other hard assets are going to be so good to have in the long-term.? In the short-term they will experience wild swings in price, but if you can handle the ride you will be smiling in the end.

During the initial stages of the next major stock market crash, gold and silver will not do very well.? But that is okay.? Dips are buying opportunities.

As the coming economic crisis unfolds, governments and central banks all over the world will desperately attempt to resuscitate the global financial system.? We are going to see money printing and ?stimulus packages? on a scale that we have never seen before.? Crazy things will happen with stocks, bonds and currencies.

When the dust finally settles, those that are holding ?real money? will be the ones that will be in the best shape.

Did you already share this? No? Share it now:

Source: http://investmentwatchblog.com/silver-at-less-than-19-dollars-an-ounce-are-you-kidding-me/

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Voyager 1's journey to solar system's edge upends theories

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A Garbage-Crushing Trash Can You Control With Your Bare Hands

Who likes taking out the trash? Nobody, that's who. We'll do anything we can to avoid trips to the curb, or the garbage chute, including letting it pile up for weeks on end. But a giant mountain of stinking trash in your kitchen isn't the only solution. This stainless steel trash can includes a manual compressor letting you squeeze roughly twice the amount of trash into its 10 gallon capacity.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/TUfLkUAdbH0/a-garbage-crushing-trash-can-you-control-with-your-bare-584924314

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Australian government dumps PM Gillard for former leader Rudd

By James Grubel

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's ruling Labor Party elected former leader Kevin Rudd as prime minister and dumped Julia Gillard on Wednesday, in a dramatic move to try and head off a catastrophic defeat at elections due within three months.

The return of Rudd could now see Australia go to an election in August rather than the set date of September 14, to cash in on his greater popularity with voters and an expected honeymoon period with the electorate.

Rudd, a former diplomat who speaks Mandarin, won a Labor Party ballot with 57 votes to Gillard's 45. Gillard promised to quit politics if she lost the ballot.

The leadership change followed a series of opinion polls showing Gillard's minority government could lose up to 35 seats at the looming elections, giving the conservative opposition a massive majority in the 150-member parliament.

But polls also show Rudd is more popular with voters and his return to the prime ministership, which he lost to Gillard in June 2010, could stem the size of Labor's election loss.

The shift from Gillard to Rudd is unlikely to have any major policy implications, as both are strong supporters of Australia's military alliance with the United States and strong supporters of growing ties with top trading partner China.

Gillard has struggled to win public support despite ongoing economic growth and low unemployment and low interest rates at a time when other developed countries are struggling to keep out of recession.

Gillard has also pushed social reforms that pour money into schools, and which help disabled people gain access to much-needed free care, but the changes have done little to shift her dwindling support in opinion polls.

Voters have also remained angry that her government, which holds a one-seat majority with support from the Greens and a clutch of independents, introduced a controversial carbon tax in a backflip from her 2010 election promise not to do so.

Several key ministers, including Treasurer Wayne Swan and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, have said they would not serve under Rudd.

Rudd said he would hold no grudges against internal critics who have openly slammed his previous stint as prime minister, and said he would not punish ministers who have remained stubbornly loyal to Gillard.

"If I win this ballot, every effort I have in my being will be dedicated to uniting the Australian Labor Party. No retributions, no paybacks, none of that stuff. It's pointless, it's old politics," Rudd said ahead of the vote.

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/australian-pm-gillard-calls-vote-leadership-062922948.html

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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S

If you were waiting for a full Windows 8 convertible tablet/laptop combo, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S ($999) has potential. Its innovative design gives you a laptop full time that you can use as a tablet part time. It's a good leap of faith by Lenovo, but internal components and battery life in particular hold it back from being great.

Design and Features
The IdeaPad Yoga 11S is the little brother to the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 ($999) we saw last year. The Yoga 11S looks a lot like the Windows RT-powered Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 ($669) we looked at earlier this year, thought the Yoga 11S is a smidge thicker and heavier.

The Yoga 11S measures about 0.67 by 12 by 8 inches (HWD), and weighs in at 2.96 pounds. Like the other IdeaPad Yoga systems, the Yoga 11S is a convertible tablet that acts like a laptop. When you first open the system, it looks very much like a normal clamshell laptop. Once you swing the lid past 180 degrees, however, you'll be able to use the system's tent mode (like an a-frame), stand mode (screen out, but keyboard facing the table), and tablet mode (just what it sounds like).

The tent mode and stand mode are innovative, though limited to specific uses (mainly to present videos or presentations on a table without needing the keyboard). When in tablet mode, the Yoga 11S works like a somewhat heavy slate tablet PC. Compared to the Editors' Choice Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro ($999) or the Dell Latitude 10 ($749), the Yoga 11S is a little heavier and a little more awkward on account of its larger chassis. The Surface Pro and Latitude 10 have smaller 10-inch screens, and hence are easier to carry.

On the other hand, the Yoga 11S has a very comfortable and sturdy keyboard that is a joy to use in laptop mode. The keyboard isn't backlit, but the trackpad is multi-touch. The screen also has 10-point touch, so you have quite a few ways to interact with the bright IPS screen. The screen sports a 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is short of the Microsoft Surface Pro's 1080p screen, but the Yoga 11s' screen is bright and quite clear. You may not miss the extra screen space unless you're working on large spreadsheets or megapixel images.

When you swing the lid over past 190 degrees, the keyboard and touchpad automatically deactivate, but they are still tactile, i.e. they are not a smooth surface like on the back of a true slate tablet. If you think this will bother you, you may want to try the Yoga 11S out in a store first. That said, slate tablets above are a lot less comfortable to type on, even the Surface Pro with the Microsoft Type Cover. If there's any real nit to tablet mode, it's that the system vents warm to hot air right into the arm that's holding the tablet or on your supporting palm, depending on how you have the tablet oriented. This is a consequence of using a ultrabook-class Intel Core i5-3339Y processor instead of a lower powered Tegra 3 processor as in the Windows RT-equipped Yoga 11.

The Yoga 11S comes with a capacious 256GB SSD in this configuration, along with 8GB of system memory. This means you'll have plenty of space for files before you have to resort to using the SD card slot for additional storage space. The system comes with one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port for connecting a mouse and external hard drive, respectively. The system also comes with a full-size HDMI port for connecting an external display. The Yoga 11S comes with a 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi adapter for connecting to your home router.

The system comes with an ambient light sensor to control the screen's brightness, but it's a little overly aggressive. The screen dimming and brightening frequently while in use distracted and annoyed us, often when we were reaching for the touch screen. The room itself was brightly lit, so it was the process of using the laptop that made the screen dim. Also, you may need to get used to the screen rotating due to the built-in gyroscope and accelerometer. Lenovo added its motion control interface to Windows 8, and while novel it's more of a gimmick than a useful interface, especially since the touch screen and touchpad are so responsive. Essentially, you can interact with the Yoga 11S in a plethora of manners, so if you're looking to develop an innovative software package, interface, or use for the PC, this is the system to get.

The Yoga 11S comes with quite a few pre-loaded programs, including McAfee Security Advisor, Accuweather, Kindle, Rara music, Evernote Touch, Zinio, Lenovo Companion, Lenovo Support, Skype, Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Enfeel Birzzle (a touch-based block puzzler), SugarSync, FilmOn Television, an ad for Microsoft Office, Intel AppUp, and eBay. The Yoga 11S comes with a one-year base warranty.

Performance
The Intel Core i5-3339Y CPU, 8GB of memory, and 256GB SSD combine to give the Yoga 11S decent, though not stellar, performance. The Yoga 11S got a passable 3,829 point score on the day-to-day PCMark 7 test, far ahead of Intel Atom-powered systems, but behind the Surface Pro and other Core i5-powered systems. The Yoga 11S did boot up and wake from sleep in seconds, as you would expect from a SSD-powered system.

The major disappointment for the Yoga 11S is its short rundown time of 3 hours 31 minutes battery rundown time on our standard battery test. This is short of other ultrabooks and tablets in this price range. The low battery life is probably due to the Yoga 11S's smallish 42WHr sealed battery. If battery life is important to you, recent Haswell-powered laptops have shown promise, so you may want to wait for the next rev of the Yoga with 4th-generation Intel Core. However, there is no official word from Lenovo for when or if that will happen.

As an innovative next-generation form factor, the Lenovo Yoga 11S is a cool experiment and shows potential. As a usable laptop and convertible tablet, the Yoga 11S isn't quite all there yet. It's usable, yes, innovative, yes, but has far too short a battery life to replace both the laptop and tablet in your life. Maybe next year this will be an irresistible combo. For now, the Yoga 11S shows promise, but is held back a bit by what it can deliver.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo Yoga 11S with several other laptops and tablets side by side.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/B03dxaaBI8Y/0,2817,2420958,00.asp

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LinkedIn Gets A Little More Watchful, Now Tells You Who's Viewed Your Updates, And Where You've Been Looking

LinkedIn, the social network used by people for job hunting and making other business connections, is adding two more enhancements to its homepage that highlight one of its creepier, but occasionally useful, elements: how it tracks what people visit on the site and then reports on that activity.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/sN9wqpdm-xI/

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Taptu

Taptu is a free online RSS feed reader that also has apps for Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Nook. Taptu's identifying feature is that it combines RSS with a magazine-like layout and the option to include feed content from big-name media outlets and your own private social media streams (similar to Feedly, Flipboard for iPad, and the like). You can add vertical columns that hold customized feed streams, much in the way Tweetdeck lets you sort your feeds and alerts into columns. Taptu offers a few great customization features, including the ability to color-code feeds. But the service has wrinkles, enough to put me off from using it as my replacement to Google Reader (I chose G2Reader for personal use). If you like magazine-style content and are stuck on having native mobile apps, though, Taptu could be the right way to go.

Signing Up
Using Taptu requires integrating it with an existing account: Google, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. I'm completely turned off by services that don't allow a simple email or username and password sign up, seeing as I don't know exactly how much of my personal information the service is going to take from my other accounts.

To test the app, I caved and gave it access to my Google account. It connected to find my Google Reader data, although it doesn't automatically display it. Rather, Taptu has you build your feed display from a long list of options, which include an existing Google Reader material you may have, but also incorporates news sites, online magazines, and a whole host of options. You end up selecting which feeds from all these choices you'd like to see in your primary display area. Each item can be color-coded, a nice touch in my book, although folder organization is missing entirely. Instead, you have vertical columns of streams, and my only problem with that is they are harder to organize and see at a glance than a simple folder with items inside it.

Visuals
Taptu definitely has a flashier look than simple RSS feed readers such as The Old Reader, G2Reader, Feedly, or SwarmIQ. It's much more akin in design to something like Flipboard or Pulse.

I can appreciate that some people prefer a graphically rich design, but I almost think of products like these as being something different than RSS feed readers. While I enjoy Flipboard for browsing leisurely from time to time, that's not how I interact with RSS feed content, which instead keeps me abreast of trends. I tend to follow blogs primarily, and I watch a few news sites but mostly to browse headlines, wherein the simplicity of RSS makes sense. I'd rather see a few lines of text when scrolling headlines than glance at inches upon inches of highly designed graphics.

Another flaw: Taptu shows you two share buttons, one at the top left on the banner bar (see the slideshow), and one on the top right of each post, which makes it confusing to know what exactly you might be sharing from the leftmost button. (Answer: Despite their different locations, the both only share the immediate post.)

While testing the app in the Chrome Web browser on Mac OS X, I hit a few instances of buggy displays when trying to connect to my social media feeds (see the slideshow for an example). A pop-up display looked like it was supposed to prompt me to sign into the account in question, but it showed up (multiple times) as translucent or not fully rendered.

These are the kinds of issues and inconsistencies that need to be ironed out before I would seriously consider using Taptu on a regular basis.

Is Taptu for You?
Taptu can't import OPML files, and that was as big a turn-off for me as the inability to sign up using a username and password. A spokesperson from Taptu confirmed that users will not be able to import Google Reader data after July 1, and it's not clear to me whether existing Google Reader integration will continue to work either (it all depends on whether Taptu is pulling data from your Google account all the time or if Taptu imported the data behind the scenes for you).

The free service offers plenty, and could make for a great app to have if you like magazine-style content and exploring online articles more than browsing top headlines and trends from your own tightly managed set of feeds. I also like that Taptu really pushed mobile apps to market, as an increasing number of users rely on their mobile devices more than desktop and laptop computers. Taptu needs to focus more on fixing and improving what it already has on offer rather than beefing up new tools and features. There's still a good deal of ironing that needs to be done, particularly with the interface, to make Taptu more usable and straightforward.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/kp0rfRYw6fk/0,2817,2420938,00.asp

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Video Game Tech Steers Cyborg Cockroach

Scientists are harnessing the power of motion-based gaming technology to drive cyborg cockroaches on autopilot, envisioning a future where the intrepid insects could be wired to survey a disaster zone.

Researchers at North Carolina State University previously showed that they could steer roaches by remote control with a lightweight chip fixed to the critters. Now they're demonstrating that they can send the insects along a digitally plotted path with the help of Microsoft's Kinect, the motion-sensing system that allows people to play Xbox games without a controller.

More sophisticated roach reconnaissance could be life-saving in disaster areas that are too dangerous for humans to enter. The same technology that allows Kinect to scan a room could help roach rescuers map the inside of a collapsed building, the researchers say. Roaches could also be equipped with microphones to detect survivors, or even small speakers to allow two-way communication between remote rescue crews and people who are trapped. [See Video of Cockroaches on Autopilot]

"We want to build on this program, incorporating mapping and radio frequency techniques that will allow us to use a small group of cockroaches to explore and map disaster sites," Alper Bozkurt, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State, said in a statement. "The autopilot program would control the roaches, sending them on the most efficient routes to provide rescuers with a comprehensive view of the situation."

Bozkurt and his colleagues figured out how to manipulate Madagascar hissing cockroaches by wiring the creatures' antennae and cerci, the sensory organs on the insect's abdomen that cause it to scurry away from danger. Electrical signals that stimulate the cerci send the roaches running, while charges sent to the antennae control the insects' direction.

The team incorporated Kinect into their own electronic interface to automatically steer and track the movements of the insect along a charted path. A video of one of the cyborg roaches shows it lurching from point to point along a curved route.

Researchers elsewhere have been creating technologically enhanced roaches with other power sources. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University last year demonstrated how the insects could be outfitted with an implantable biofuel cell that converts sugar into electricity, used to power sensors on the insect or manipulate it remotely.

Remote-controlled cockroaches are also making their way outside of university labs. For a donation of $100, a project on Kickstarter called RoboRoach promises the tools to create "the world's first commercially available cyborg" controlled by a smartphone.

The NC State team is presenting their work on July 4 at the annual conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Osaka, Japan.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/video-game-tech-steers-cyborg-cockroach-153955884.html

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StickNFind Releases An SDK For Its Clever Bluetooth Tracking Sticker

Think of the possibilities, developers. Find lost keys or the TV remote, or a child. Make an electronic Marco Polo game! Embed the StickNFind Bluetooth sticker in an museum exhibits as a sort of supercharged RFID educational system. The world could be yours. With StickNFind's new SDK, the company behind the novel Bluetooth sticker is hoping developers will make the little device more than a one trick tiny horse.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/gcm7G7JCJq0/

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Astronomers find three planets in Gliese 667C's habitable zone

Astronomers have a good day when they detect one planet inside a star system's habitable zone. A mostly European team of researchers must be giddy, then, as it just found three of those ideally located planets around Gliese 667C. The group has combined existing observations from the ESO's Very Large Telescope with new HARPS telescope data to spot the trio of super-Earths, all of which could theoretically support liquid water. As long as the discovery holds up, it may have a big impact on exoplanetary research: it shows both that three super-Earths can exist in one system and that more than one survivable planet can orbit a low-mass star. We can only do so much with the findings when Gliese 667C is 22 light-years away, but it's good to learn that space could be more human-friendly than we once thought.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/IK0wDR6mCZE/

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Hong Kong says Snowden has left for third country

HONG KONG (AP) ? A former National Security Agency contractor wanted by the United States for revealing highly classified surveillance programs has been allowed to leave for a "third country" because a U.S. extradition request did not fully comply with Hong Kong law, the territory's government said Sunday.

Hong Kong's government did not identify the country. Snowden, who has been in hiding in Hong Kong for several weeks since he revealed information on the highly classified spy programs, has talked of seeking asylum in Iceland.

However, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency cited an unidentified Aeroflot official as saying Snowden would fly from Moscow to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela. The WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group tweeted that Snowden was "over Russian air space" and later said in a statement he was bound for an unnamed "democratic nation via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."

The White House had no immediate comment about the departure, which came a day after the United States made a formal request for his extradition and gave a pointed warning to Hong Kong against delaying the process of returning him to face trial in the U.S.

The Department of Justice said only that it would "continue to discuss this matter with Hong Kong and pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel."

It acknowledged the U.S. extradition request, but said U.S. documentation did not "fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law." It said additional information was requested from Washington, but since the Hong Kong government "has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

The statement said Hong Kong had informed the U.S. of Snowden's departure. It added that it wanted more information about alleged hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by U.S. government agencies which Snowden had revealed.

WikiLeaks said it was providing legal help to Snowden at his request and that he was being escorted by diplomats and legal advisors from the group. Its founder, Julian Assange, who has spent a year inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sex crime allegations, told the Sydney Morning Herald that his organization is in a position to help because it has expertise in international asylum and extradition law.

Snowden's departure eliminates a possible fight between Washington and Beijing at a time when China is trying to deflect U.S. accusations that it carries out extensive surveillance of American government and commercial operations. Hong Kong, a former British colony, has a high degree of autonomy and is granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China, but under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs.

Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., but the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political.

The Obama administration on Saturday warned Hong Kong against delaying Snowden's extradition, with White House national security adviser Tom Donilon saying in an interview with CBS News, "Hong Kong has been a historically good partner of the United States in law enforcement matters, and we expect them to comply with the treaty in this case."

Snowden's departure came as the South China Morning Post released new allegations from Snowden that U.S. hacking targets in China included the nation's cellphone companies and two universities hosting extensive Internet traffic hubs.

He told the newspaper that "the NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data." It added that Snowden said he had documents to support the hacking allegations, but the report did not identify the documents. It said he spoke to the newspaper in a June 12 interview.

With a population of more than 1.3 billion, China has massive cellphone companies. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile network carrier with 735 million subscribers, followed by China Unicom with 258 million users and China Telecom with 172 million users.

Snowden said Tsinghua University in Beijing and Chinese University in Hong Kong, home of some of the country's major Internet traffic hubs, were targets of extensive hacking by U.S. spies this year. He said the NSA was focusing on so-called "network backbones" in China, through which enormous amounts of Internet data passes.

The Chinese government has not commented on the extradition request and Snowden's departure, but its state-run media have used Snowden's allegations to poke back at Washington after the U.S. had spent the past several months pressuring China on its international spying operations.

A commentary published Sunday by the official Xinhua News Agency said Snowden's disclosures of U.S. spying activities in China have "put Washington in a really awkward situation."

"Washington should come clean about its record first. It owes ... an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on," it said. "It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programs."

____

Sylvia Hui in London and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-says-snowden-left-third-country-081745849.html

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U.S. Pet Poll: Most Prefer Dogs, 18 Percent Want Dinosaur

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T Magazine: The Collections | The Top Five Menswear Shows in London

London Collections: Men, in only its third season of menswear shown separately from womenswear, just wrapped. Next stop, Milan ? and then on to Paris. Here, my five favorite looks from the Spring/Summer 2014 runways so far.

Slide Show: The Best of the London Collections

Source: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/the-collections-the-top-five-menswear-shows-in-london/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Cape Wind gets $200M investment from Danish fund

BOSTON (AP) ? The Cape Wind offshore wind project has secured a $200 million investment from a Danish pension fund in what the wind farm's president said Tuesday is a milestone for the long-delayed project.

In a statement announcing the commitment, PensionDanmark's chief executive Torben Moger Pedersen noted the fund has already invested in two offshore wind projects in Denmark, and said it was "delighted to participate in the Cape Wind project."

The $2.6 billion Cape Wind project aims to be the United States' first offshore wind farm.

But the project, proposed in 2001, has been beset by lengthy review and entrenched opposition and has been seeking investors.

The PensionDanmark announcement is the first guaranteed financing commitment of a specific dollar amount that's been announced by Cape Wind.

In March, Cape Wind said The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ would coordinate its financing, and also invest in the project, but no specific commitment was disclosed. Cape Wind has said its turbine supplier, Siemens, was tentatively committed to a $100 million investment.

Cape Wind is also pursuing a Department of Energy loan guarantee of an unspecified amount.

PensionDanmark's investment is conditioned on whether Cape Wind officials have the rest of the project financed by year's end, but Pedersen said he's confident they will.

Cape Wind president Jim Gordon said PensionDanmark's "important investment is a milestone in the Cape Wind project." Project spokesman Mark Rodgers said the fund is a respected global voice on offshore wind financing, and called their commitment "a great validation of the soundness and merits of the project."

But project opponent Audra Parker of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound called Tuesday's announcement a "non-event," noting the $200 million is less than 10 percent of the project's development costs.

She said pending lawsuits and opposition from some prominent Massachusetts business groups, who recently took out newspaper ads against Cape Wind, "show 2013 is the beginning of the end for Cape Wind."

The project, planned for Nantucket Sound, is touted as a way to reduce pollution and dependence on fossil fuels, while jumpstarting a new industry that can bring critical jobs and local investment.

But critics say the project will ruin the pristine sound while producing electricity at above-market cost that will make Massachusetts less competitive.

Cape Wind plans to be operating by 2015, when the starting price for is power of 20 cents per kilowatt hour under its power purchase deals. That's well above the cost of other alternative and fossil fuel sources, including onshore wind and natural gas.

But state regulators who approved the deals, which Cape Wind made with the state's two largest utilities, said Cape Wind's benefits are worth the price.

Cape Wind is proposed as a 130-turbine wind farm. But since it doesn't have committed buyers for 23 percent of its planned power output, officials are currently trying to finance just the first 101 turbines, then seek investors for the remaining turbines if and when it finds a buyer for the remaining power.

If the project ends up being smaller than originally planned, the price of Cape Wind's electricity goes up under the terms of its existing power purchase deals.

PensionDanmark's Pedersen said Cape Wind is an attractive investment at a time when bond yields are low and said he's confident the long-stalled project will succeed. The weather conditions off New England are comparable to those off Denmark, and he believes the region will prove a similarly good place for offshore wind energy, he said.

"It fits very well into our business portfolio," Pedersen said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cape-wind-gets-200m-investment-danish-fund-233434160.html

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Fed suggests it's closer to slowing bond purchases

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Chairman Ben Bernanke ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying the Federal Reserve will likely slow its bond-buying program later this year and end it next year because the economy is strengthening.

The Fed's purchases of Treasury and mortgage bonds have helped keep long-term interest rates at record lows. A pullback in its $85 billion-a-month program would likely mean higher rates on mortgages and other consumer and business loans.

Speaking at a news conference after a two-day Fed meeting, Bernanke said the reductions would occur in "measured steps" and that the bond purchases could end by the middle of next year. By then, he thinks unemployment will be around 7 percent.

The chairman likened any reduction in the Fed's bond purchases to a driver letting up on a gas pedal rather than applying the brakes. He stressed that even after the Fed ends its bond purchases, it will continue to maintain its vast investment portfolio, which will help keep long-term rates down.

The ultra-low borrowing rates the Fed has engineered have been credited with helping fuel a housing comeback, support economic growth, drive stocks to record highs and restore the wealth America lost to the recession.

Anticipating higher rates, investors reacted Wednesday by selling both stocks and bonds. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 206 points. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note shot up to 2.33 percent from 2.21 percent.

"There's fear you'll see an expanding economy, which has a tendency to push up interest rates," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer of BMO Private Bank.

Some investors worry that higher rates will cause investors to shift money out of stocks and into higher-yielding bonds. Others fear that the economy might not be ready to absorb higher rates and that consumers and businesses could pull back on borrowing.

Talley Leger, a strategist at Macro Vision Research, said investors had become hooked on the Fed's efforts to keep rates at record lows.

"Markets are asking for expansion of already stimulative policies, and they're not getting it," Leger said. "It's like drug supplier and an addict."

After its two-day policy meeting ended Wednesday, the Fed issued an updated economic forecast, which sketched a brighter outlook. And in a statement, it said the "downside risks to the outlook" had diminished since fall. Fed members voted to continue the pace of its bond-buying program for now.

At his news conference, Bernanke suggested that increased home prices and household wealth, a stronger construction industry and steady consumer spending would help support economic growth and offset higher mortgage rates.

"Generally speaking, financial conditions are improving," he said.

The Fed's more upbeat forecast helps explain why it thinks record-low rates may soon no longer be necessary. Low rates help fuel economic growth. But they also raise the risk of high inflation and dangerous bubbles in assets like stocks or real estate.

Timothy Duy, a University of Oregon economist who tracks the Fed, called its statement "an open door for scaling back asset purchases as early as September."

The fact that the Fed foresees less downside risk to the job market "gives them a reason to pull back" on its bond purchases, Duy said.

Asked at his news conference whether it will be difficult for the Fed to clearly communicate its plans for scaling back the bond purchases, Bernanke agreed.

"We are in a more complex type of situation," he said. "We are going to be as clear as we can."

In its statement, the Fed also said it would maintain its plan to keep short-term rates at record lows at least until unemployment reaches 6.5 percent.

In its updated economic forecast, Fed officials predicted that unemployment will fall to 7.2 percent or 7.3 percent at the end of this year from 7.6 percent now. They think the rate will be between 6.5 percent and 6.8 percent by the end of 2014, better than its previous projection in March of 6.7 percent to 7 percent.

The Fed also said inflation was running below its 2 percent long-run objective, but noted that temporary factors were partly the reason. It said inflation could run as low as 0.8 percent this year. But it predicts it will pick up next year to between 1.4 percent and 2 percent.

David Robin, co-head of the futures and options desk at the brokerage Newedge, said he didn't think Bernanke's upbeat assessment matches an economy that's just "muddling along."

Investors may suspect the Fed is looking for a reason to scale back the bond purchases, Robin said. "It's a big mess," he said.

The statement was approved on a 10-2 vote. James Bullard, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, objected for the first time this year, saying he wanted a stronger commitment from the Fed to keep inflation from falling too low.

Esther George objected for the fourth time this year, again voicing concerns about inflation rising too quickly.

At his news conference, Bernanke declined to address speculation that he will step down as Fed chairman when his term ends in January.

He was asked to respond to comments Monday by President Barack Obama, who said Bernanke had already stayed longer than planned. The president's remarks added to expectations that Bernanke intends to step down.

Bernanke avoided the question.

"I would like to keep the discussion on monetary policy," he said. "I don't have anything for you on my personal plans."

David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, suggested that Bernanke had achieved a key goal Wednesday: Clearing up the confusion he'd created when he sent a mixed message to Congress last month about when the Fed might start to slow its bond buying program.

"What Bernanke did was clarify" when it will taper its bond purchases, Jones said.

___

AP Business Writers Paul Wiseman and Christopher S. Rugaber in Washington and Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fed-suggests-closer-slowing-bond-purchases-190107515.html

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