Before the cyclist tells all to Oprah Winfrey, see how multiple allegations got his Tour de France titles revoked
Credit: AP
Updated: Friday Aug 24, 2012 | 02:30 PM EDT
By: Kiran Hefa
LAS VEGAS (AP) — As a teenager growing up in Las Vegas, Tanya Angus strutted along fashion runways. She was 5 feet 8 inches, and people told her she had a perfect body.
But at the time of her death Monday, the 34-year-old Angus stood 7 feet 2 inches and weighed about 400 pounds. She was a victim of a rare disorder called acromegaly — or gigantism — that wouldn't let her stop growing.
"'Mom, I don't know why I got it,'" Karen Strutynski recalled her daughter saying. "'But I guess God decided that I could handle it.'"
Handle it she did — by appearing on television specials and in the news, by being vulnerable about a condition that left her face misshapen and gave her chronic growing pains.
Acromegaly is a disorder in which there is too much growth hormone in the body. It's spurred by a non-cancerous tumor that grows on the pituitary gland, and causes growth of bones and organs.
The disorder affected just about everything for Angus. She couldn't pull even the largest of shirts over her head, because she couldn't fit through the collar. She needed specially made shoes, and jewelers stretched her rings to size 20.
"There's nothing made for giants," her mother explained.
Some people judged her daughter, Strutynski said, believing she used a wheelchair because she lacked the discipline to keep her weight down. What they didn't know is that she ate one meal a day, and her medications caused her face to swell.
"People were very cruel until she went into the media," Strutynski said.
After television appearances, Angus became an advocate for those with the disease, corresponding with people from some 60 countries to help them get the treatment they needed.
She saw her mission as helping others get diagnosed before it was too late and the disease got out of control, her mother said.
An autopsy is pending, but Strutynski said it appears Angus died after catching a cold and developing a tear in her big heart.
Her mother plans to keep up Angus' website and continue corresponding with patients struggling to deal with the disease.
"We can't let it end. It's just too important," Strutynski said, her voice cracking. "We can't just let it die with Tanya."
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 and Nasdaq ended lower on Monday as worries over demand for Apple products drove down its shares and as investors braced for earnings disappointments.
But Dell Inc's
Tech heavyweight Apple lost 3.6 percent to $501.75 and was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> indexes after reports that the company has cut orders for LCD screens and other parts for the iPhone 5 this quarter due to weak demand. The stock earlier hit a session low of $498.51, the first dip below $500 since February 16.
"With Apple, it seems as if the sentiment has shifted from this being the one stock that everybody wanted to own to people beginning to look at it as a company (whose) business is slowing down somewhat," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer of North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.
Adding to investor unease, fourth-quarter earnings kick into high gear this week. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October, with S&P 500 earnings growth now seen up just 1.9 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 18.89 points, or 0.14 percent, at 13,507.32. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 1.37 points, or 0.09 percent, at 1,470.68. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 8.13 points, or 0.26 percent, at 3,117.50.
Apple suppliers also lost ground, with Cirrus Logic
The Dow fared better than the other two indexes, helped in part by Hewlett-Packard
Appliance and electronics retailer Hhgregg Inc
Earnings reports are due this week from Goldman Sachs
President Barack Obama warned Congress at a news conference on Monday that a refusal to raise the U.S. debt ceiling next month could mean a government shutdown and trigger economic chaos.
Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.
Decliners were about even with advancers on the NYSE while decliners outpaced advancers on the Nasdaq by about 12 to 11.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war.
France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air strikes on Monday in the vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance grouping al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM alongside Mali's home-grown MUJWA and Ansar Dine militant groups.
"France has opened the gates of hell for all the French," said Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for MUJWA, which has imposed strict sharia, Islamic law, in its northern fiefdom of Gao. "She has fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia," he told Europe 1 radio.
Paris is determined to shatter Islamist domination of the north of its former colony, an area many fear could become a launchpad for terrorism attacks on the West and a base for coordination with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
The French defense ministry said it aimed to deploy 2,500 soldiers in the West African state to bolster the Malian army and work with a force of 3,300 West African troops from the immediate region foreseen in a U.N.-backed intervention plan.
The United States, which has operated a counter-terrorism training program in the region, said it was sharing information with French forces and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.
"We have a responsibility to go after al Qaeda wherever they are," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters heading with him on a week-long tour of European capitals.
As French aircraft bombarded mobile columns of Islamist fighters, other fighters launched a counter-attack to the southwest of recent clashes, dislodging government forces from the town of Diabaly, just 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako. French and Malian troops attempting to retake the town were battling Islamists shouting 'Allahu akbar', residents said.
The rebels infiltrated the town overnight from the porous border region with Mauritania, home to AQIM camps housing well-equipped and trained foreign fighters. A spokesman for Ansar Dine said its fighters took Diabaly, working with AQIM members.
Dozens of Islamist fighters died on Sunday when French rockets hit a fuel depot and a customs house being used as a headquarters. The U.N. said an estimated 30,000 people had fled the fighting, joining more than 200,000 already displaced.
France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss the Mali crisis.
The European Union announced it would hold an extraordinary meeting of its foreign ministers in Brussels this week to discuss speeding up a EU training mission to help the Malian army and other direct support for the Bamako government.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France would do everything to ensure that regional African troops were deployed quickly to follow up on the French military action, which was launched to block a push southwards by the Islamist rebels.
"ORGANISED AND FANATICAL"
"We knew that there would be a counter-attack in the west because that is where the most determined, the most organized and fanatical elements are," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France's BFM TV.
France has said its sudden intervention on Friday, responding to an urgent appeal from Mali's president, stopped the Islamists from seizing the dusty capital of Bamako.
President Francois Hollande says Operation Serval - named after an African wildcat - is solely aimed at supporting the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS which received U.N. backing in December for a military intervention to dislodge the rebels.
Hollande's robust intervention has won plaudits from Western leaders and has also shot down domestic criticism which portrayed him as spineless and indecisive.
Under pressure from Paris, regional states have said they hope to send in their forces this week. Military chiefs from ECOWAS nations will meet in Bamako on Tuesday but regional powerhouse Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has cautioned that training and deploying troops will take time.
Two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bastion of democracy in turbulent West Africa but that image unraveled after a military coup in March left a power vacuum for MNLA Tuareg rebels to seize the desert north.
MUJWA, an AQIM splinter group drawing support from Arabs and other ethnic groups, took control of Gao, the main city of the north, from the Tuaregs in June, shocking Mali's liberal Muslim majority with amputation of hands for theft under sharia.
Malian Foreign Minister Tyeman Coulibaly said the situation had become "untenable" in the north. "Every day, we were hearing about feet and hands being cut off, girls being raped, cultural patrimony being looted," he told the French weekly Paris Match.
ISLAMISTS DESTROY TIMBUKTU SHRINES
Last week's drive toward Bamako appeared to have been led by Ansar Dine, founded by renegade Tuareg separatist commander Iyad ag Ghali in his northern fiefdom of Kidal.
The group has said that the famed shrines of ancient desert trading town Timbuktu - a UNESCO world heritage site - were un-Islamic and idolatrous. Much of the area's religious heritage has now been destroyed, sparking international outrage.
France's intervention raises the threat for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.
Concerned about reprisals at home, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport.
However, top anti-terrorist judge, Marc Trevidic, played down the imminence of the risk, telling French media: "They're not very organized right now ... It could be a counter attack later on after the defeat on the ground. It's often like that."
Military analysts warn that if French action was not followed up by a robust deployment of ECOWAS forces, with logistical and financial support from NATO, then the whole U.N.-mandated Mali mission was unlikely to succeed.
"The French action was an ad-hoc measure. It's going to be a mess for a while, it depends on how quickly everyone can come on board," said Hussein Solomon, a professor at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Brian Love and Catherine Bremer in Paris, Justyna Pawlak and Adrian Croft in Busssels and Louis Charbonneau in New York; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Pascal Fletcher)
By Dahvi Shira
01/14/2013 at 03:50 PM EST
The pop star, 31 – whose failed engagement to Jason Trawick, 41, was announced on Friday – grabbed coffee in L.A. on Monday, sporting a black and white sweatshirt with the four-letter word displayed in large letters across the front.
The former X Factor judge looked casual, wearing shades and her hair in a ponytail.
Once the split was official, a source told PEOPLE, "Britney had a lot of issues with Jason doing his own thing – in business and seeing his friends. In her perfect world he would have been home with her twenty-four/seven, so that was a point of contention; something they were always working on."
But she didn't seem too bent out of shape when she made her outing and grabbed two drinks to go, as she wore a happy grin the whole time.
LONDON (Reuters) - Just as you learn to put up with a nagging toothache, this week is expected to provide fresh evidence that the U.S. economy is getting used to life on the edge of the fiscal cliff.
Of course, putting off that trip to the dentist is not necessarily wise. The longer Washington delays, the more painful it will become to narrow its gaping budget deficit.
But surveys of U.S. consumer confidence in January and of house builder sentiment in December are likely to show resilience, buttressing the argument of equity bulls that Wall Street's firm start to the year is more than a relief rally or a desperate search for higher returns on investment.
Bluford Puttnam, chief economist of CME Group, said the U.S. economy had managed to grow almost 2 percent last year and create about 1.8 million jobs despite stagnation in Europe, a slowdown in China and the deadlocked budget talks.
"So I see a lot of momentum going into 2013," Puttnam said. "If we can get past this fiscal cliff, the economy is poised to have a much more confident year."
Despite fiscal tightening, he said growth could reach 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent.
Puttnam said the next rounds in the budget battle later this quarter would again be bitterly fought and the resolution would again satisfy no one. But, as with the showdown at the end of 2012, the economy would quickly move on.
"There is a one-in-ten chance that the government may even shut down for a week. It's just going to be ugly. And then it will be over. There will be some kind of compromise, and by April it will fade quickly into the background," he said.
THREE GORGES
U.S. retail sales are likely to have increased only 0.2 percent in December, dampened by the budget worries, according to economists polled by Reuters.
But a pair of regional Federal Reserve surveys and the monthly Reuters/University of Michigan consumer poll are projected to improve, while housing starts, new building permits and builders' confidence should all show that the housing recovery stands on firm foundations.
"That's what's really encouraging consumers to feel that the economy is getting better and that the momentum is broadly positive," said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds in New York.
While the phrase fiscal cliff used by U.S. Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke conjured up an image of an immediate plunge at the start of this year, in truth any austerity was always likely to take effect on the economy gradually.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch describes the challenges the United States faces in coming months rather as three fiscal gorges it must leap over.
The government could hit the debt ceiling approved by Congress as early as mid-February; across-the-board spending cuts are due to kick in on March 1; and the ‘continuing resolution' to fund all discretionary government spending expires on March 27.
Ideally, investors would like Democrats and Republicans to resolve all three issues with an overarching agreement to slash the deficit by $4 trillion over the next decade.
Instead, given the dysfunctional state of politics, Webman said the best that could be hoped for was another short-term fix that cuts spending and ends some tax breaks.
"The U.S. doesn't move by grand bargains, by big deals. We move by incremental decisions, and I think we'll make some imperfect but improved decisions over the course of 2013," he said.
CHINA ON THE MEND, EUROPE EERILY CALM
Encouraging economic news from China, including stronger-than-expected exports and imports in December, has also supported the start-of-year move by financial market investors out of cash and into riskier assets.
Figures on Friday are expected to show that the world's second-largest economy grew 7.8 percent from a year earlier, rebounding from the 7.4 percent pace of the third quarter and further allaying fears of a hard landing.
"Given some of the bearish commentary on China a few months ago, this should be a relief for markets and it's good for the world economy," said Derry Pickford, macro analyst at investment managers Ashburton in London.
Continuing calm in the euro zone has also helped equities, even though full-year German GDP data on Tuesday will serve as a reminder of the area's economic malaise.
Europe's largest economy contracted last quarter as factories slashed output in response to weak demand from Germany's neighbors, the Economy Ministry said on Friday.
At a news conference a day earlier, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said he expected a recovery in euro zone growth later this year. But he ruled out an early end to the ECB's crisis policy measures and cautioned that risks were still tilted to the downside. Markets shrugged.
In Europe as in the United States, investors seem to have got used to high levels of policy uncertainty, said Ethan Harris, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
"It appears that the markets will look past brinkmanship moments unless policy makers break new ground," he said.
In Europe, that might mean not just threatening to eject Greece from the euro zone but actually forcing the exit. In the United States, that might mean not just threatening to violate the debt ceiling but actually doing so, Harris said in a report.
As long as such extreme events do not occur, Harris expects periodic swoons in confidence but no acute crisis.
"This renewed resilience is important because we expect many brinkmanship moments in the months ahead. A now-regular pattern has been established where deals are only struck at the last minute and often under market pressure," he wrote.
(Editing by Patrick Graham)
BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north.
The attacks on Islamist positions near the ancient desert trading town of Timbuktu and Gao, the largest city in the north, marked a decisive intensification on the third day of the French mission, striking at the heart of the vast area seized by rebels in April.
France is determined to end Islamist domination of northern Mali, which many fear could act as a base for attacks on the West and for links with al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France's sudden intervention on Friday had prevented the advancing rebels from seizing Bamako. He vowed that air strikes would continue.
"The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe," he told French television.
Residents and rebel leaders had reported air raids early on Sunday in the towns of Lere and Douentza in central Mali, forcing Islamists to withdraw. As the day progressed, French jets struck targets further to the north, including near the town of Kidal, the epicenter of the rebellion.
In Gao, a dusty town on the banks of the Niger river where Islamists have imposed an extreme form of sharia law, residents said French jets pounded the airport and rebel positions. A huge cloud of black smoke rose from the militants' camp in the city's north, and pick-up trucks ferried dead and wounded to hospital.
"The planes are so fast you can only hear their sound in the sky," resident Soumaila Maiga said by telephone. "We are happy, even though it is frightening. Soon we will be delivered."
Paris said four Rafale jets flew from France to strike rebel training camps, logistics depots and infrastructure around Gao with the aim of weakening the rebels and preventing them from returning southward.
"We blocked the terrorists' advance and from today what we've started to do is to destroy the terrorists' bases behind the front line," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told LCI television.
France has deployed about 550 soldiers to Mali under "Operation Serval" -- named after an African wildcat -- split between Bamako and the town of Mopti, 500 km (300 miles) north.
In Bamako, a Reuters cameraman saw more than 100 French troops disembark on Sunday from a military cargo plane at the international airport, on the outskirts of the capital.
The city's streets were calm, with the sun streaking through the dusty air as the seasonal Harmattan wind blew from the Sahara. Many cars had French flags draped from the windows to celebrate Paris's intervention.
"We thank France for coming to our aid," said resident Mariam Sidibe. "We hope it continues till the north is free."
AFRICAN TROOPS EXPECTED
More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy, but that image unraveled in a matter of weeks after a military coup in March which left a power vacuum for the Islamist rebellion.
France convened a U.N. Security Council meeting for Monday to discuss Mali. French President Francois Hollande's intervention has won plaudits from leaders in Europe, Africa and the United States but it is not without risks.
It raised the threat level for eight French hostages held by al Qaeda allies in the Sahara and for the 30,000 French expatriates living in neighboring, mostly Muslim states.
Concerned about reprisals, France has tightened security at public buildings and on public transport. It advised its 6,000 citizens to leave Mali as spokesmen for Ansar Dine and al Qaeda's north Africa wing AQIM promised to exact revenge.
In its first casualty of the campaign, Paris said a French pilot was killed on Friday when rebels shot down his helicopter.
Hours earlier, a French intelligence officer held hostage in Somalia by al Shabaab extremists linked to al Qaeda was killed in a failed commando raid to free him.
Hollande says France's aim is simply to support a mission by West African bloc ECOWAS to retake the north, as mandated by a U.N. Security Council resolution in December.
With Paris pressing West African nations to send their troops quickly, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who holds the rotating ECOWAS chairmanship, kick-started the operation to deploy 3,300 African soldiers.
Ouattara, installed in power with French military backing in 2011, convened a summit of the 15-nation bloc for Saturday in Ivory Coast to discuss the mission.
"The troops will start arriving in Bamako today and tomorrow," said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast's African Integration Minister. "They will be convoyed to the front."
The United States is considering sending a small number of unarmed surveillance drones to Mali as well as providing logistics support, a U.S. official told Reuters. Britain and Canada have also promised logistical support.
Former French colonies Senegal, Niger and Burkina Faso have all pledged to deploy 500 troops within days. In contrast, regional powerhouse Nigeria, due to lead the ECOWAS force, has suggested it would take time to train and equip the troops.
HOUSE-TO-HOUSE SEARCHES
France, however, appeared to have assumed control of the operation on the ground. Its airstrikes allowed Malian troops to drive the Islamists out of the strategic town of Konna, which they had briefly seized this week in their southward advance.
Calm returned to Konna after three nights of combat as the Malian army crushed any remaining rebel fighters. A senior army official said more than 100 rebels had been killed.
"Soldiers are patrolling the streets and have encircled the town," one resident, Madame Coulibaly, told Reuters by phone. "They are searching houses for arms or hidden Islamists."
Analysts expressed doubt, however, that African nations would be able to mount a swift operation to retake north Mali -- a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France -- as neither the equipment nor ground troops were prepared.
"My first impression is that this is an emergency patch in a very dangerous situation," said Gregory Mann, associate professor of history at Columbia University, who specializes in francophone Africa and Mali in particular.
While France and its allies may be able to drive rebel fighters from large towns, they could struggle to prise them from mountain redoubts in the region of Kidal, 300 km (200 miles) northeast of Gao.
Human Rights Watch said at least 11 civilians, including three children, had been killed in the fighting. A spokesman for Doctors Without Borders in neighboring Mauritania said about 200 Malian refugees had fled across the border to a camp at Fassala and more were on their way.
In Bamako, civilians tried to contribute to the war effort.
"We are very proud and relieved that the army was able to drive the jihadists out of Konna. We hope it will not end there, that is why I'm helping in my own way," said civil servant Ibrahima Kalossi, 32, one of over 40 people who queued to donate blood for wounded soldiers.
(Additional reporting by Adama Diarra, Tiemoko Diallo and Rainer Schwenzfeier in Bamako, Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Catherine Bremer, Leila Aboud and John Irish in Paris and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Will Waterman and Roger Atwood)
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The world’s largest gadget show wrapped up on Friday, and the organizers said it was the biggest ever, beating last year’s record in terms of the floor space companies purchased to display their wares.
What was it that drew more than 3,500 companies and 150,000 people to Las Vegas for this mega-event? Here are four gadgets that exemplified the top trends at this year’s International CES.
— Sony‘s 55-inch ultra-high-definition TV
The introduction of high-definition and flat-panel TVs sent U.S. shoppers on a half-decade buying spree as they tossed out old tube sets. Now that the old sets are mostly gone, sales of new TVs are falling. To lure buyers back, Asian TV makers are trying to pull the same trick again. They’re making the sets sharper. This fall, Sony and LG introduced 84-inch sets with four times the resolution of regular high-definition sets. They provide stunning sharpness, but they’re too big for most homes, and at more than $ 20,000, too expensive. At the show, the companies unveiled smaller “ultra-high-definition” sets, measuring 55 inches and 65 inches on the diagonal. They will go on sale this spring. Prices were not announced, but will presumably be a lot lower than for the 84-inch sets, perhaps under $ 10,000.
Both the size and price of these smaller ultra-HD TVs should make them easier buys, but the higher resolution will be a lot less noticeable on a smaller screen, unless viewers sit very close. Analysts expect ultra-HD to remain an exclusive niche product for some years. There’s no easy way to get ultra-HD video content to the sets, so they will mostly be showing regular HD movies. However, the sets can “upscale” the video to make it look better than it does on a regular HD set.
Analyst James McQuivey of Forrester Research believes the TV makers are focusing on the wrong thing. He doesn’t think consumers really care that much about picture quality.
“What matters most is not the number of pixels or the quality of the pixels themselves … but the increasing convenience of the content’s discovery and delivery. This is why TV makers should be investing in a better experience rather than a bigger one,” McQuivey wrote in a blog post.
— LG’s 55-inch OLED TV
Organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, make for thin, extremely colorful screens. They’re already established in smartphone screens, and they have a lot of promise for other applications as well. For years, a promise is all they’ve represented. OLED screens are very hard to make in larger sizes. Now, LG is shipping a 55-inch OLED TV set in Korea, and is expected to bring it to the U.S. this spring for about $ 12,000.
Beyond being thin, power-thrifty and capable of extremely high color saturation, OLEDs are interesting for another reason: they can bend. LCDs have to be laid down on flat glass substrates, but OLEDs can be laid down on flexible glass or plastic. The major obstacle here is that flexible substrates tend to let through air, which destroys OLEDs, but manufacturers seem to have tackled the problem. Samsung showed off a phone that can bend into a tube. It consisted of a rigid plastic box with electronics and an attached display that is as thin as a piece of paper. The company suggested that in the future, it could make displays that fold up like maps — big screens that fit in a pocket.
We’re likely to see the benefits of bendy OLEDs sooner in a less eyebrow-raising but more practical implementation. It may never have occurred to you, but all electronic screens, except for cathode-ray tubes, are flat. With OLEDs, they don’t have to be. LG and Sony showed TV sets with concave screens at the show — not very useful, but an interesting demonstration. In the future, you could have a phone with a screen that laps over onto the edges, providing you with “smart” buttons with labels that change depending on whether you’re in camera mode or music mode. You could have a coffee mug with a wrap-around news and weather ticker. A revolution in design awaits.
By the way, you won’t have to choose between ultra-HD and OLED screens — Sony, Panasonic and LG showed prototype TVs that combine the technologies.
— The Pebble Watch
The Pebble is a “smart” timepiece that can be programmed to do various things, including showing text messages sent to your phone. The high-resolution display is all digital, so it can be programmed with various cool “watch faces.” But what’s really interesting about the Pebble is how it came to be —and that it exists at all.
Young Canadian inventor Eric Migicovsky couldn’t find conventional funding to make the watch, so he asked for money on Kickstarter, the biggest “crowdfunding” website. In essence, he asked people to buy watches before he actually had any to sell. The fundraising was a blowout success. Migicovsky raised $ 10.3 million by pre-selling 85,000 Pebbles. At CES, he announced that the watches were ready to ship.
Kickstarter’s goal is to bring things and events into fruition that otherwise wouldn’t happen, by creating a shortcut between the people who want to create something and the people willing to pay for it. The effect is starting to become apparent at CES. At least two other “smart” watches funded through Kickstarter were on display. Some startups were at the show to drum up interest in ongoing Kickstarter campaigns, including a Swedish company that wants to make a speaker with a transparent body, and a California outfit that wants to produce a swiveling, remote-controlled platform for cameras.
— Creative Technology Ltd.’s Interactive Gesture Camera
This $ 150 camera, promoted by Intel, attaches to a computer much like a Webcam. From a single lens, it shoots the world in 3-D, using technology similar to radar. The idea is that you can perform hand gestures in the air in front of the camera, and it lets the computer interpret them. Why would you want this? That’s not really clear yet, but a lot of effort is going into finding an answer. CES was boiling with gadgets attempting to break new ground when it comes to how we interact with computers and appliances like TV sets. The Nintendo Wii game console, with its innovative motion-sensing controllers, and the Microsoft Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 console, which has its own 3-D-sensing camera, have inspired engineers to pursue ways to ditch —or at least complement— the keyboard, mouse, remote control and even the touchscreen.
Samsung’s high-end TVs already let viewers use hand gestures to control volume, and it expanded the range of recognized gestures with this year’s models. Startup Leap Motion was at the show with another depth-sensing camera kit, this one designed to mount next to a laptop’s touch pad, looking upward.
So far, though, the “new interaction” field hasn’t had a real hit since the Kinect. Consumers may be eager to lose the TV remote, but there’s a holdup caused by the nature of the setup: to effectively control the TV, you need to take command not just of the TV, but of the cable or satellite set-top box. TV makers and the cable companies don’t really talk to each other, and there’s no sign of them uniting on a common approach. Only when both devices can be controlled by hand-waving can we permanently let the remote get lost between the couch cushions.
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
By Mark Gray
01/13/2013 at 04:00 PM EST
Miss American 2013 Mallory Hytes Hagan
CraigSjodin/ABC
1. Modern Day Rags to Riches?
At 18, Hagan moved to New York with only $1,000 in her pocket. "I just didn't know that $1,000 wasn't enough money," she told PEOPLE. "I look back at my parents now for letting me do it and I think, 'Are you crazy?' " I genuinely think they thought I'd be there for three weeks and move back. I hit the ground running and had three job offers in first day."
2. She Wants to Jump Out of a Plane!
Hagan claims she's not a risk taker, but she would love to go skydiving because it's "completely out of control" – the opposite of how she usually behaves. "I think it would be amazing," she said. "I'm truly a Capricorn, so I like to plan out what's going to happen. I think it's about the drive. I'd love to go skydiving. Why not?"
3. She's No Longer the 'Bridesmaid'
If it appeared that Hagan was genuinely shocked when her name was announced as the new Miss America it's because she was. "As a teen, I was third, second and first runner-up. In Miss New York, I was first runner-up twice. My thought process was, 'They're going to get another first runner up photo of me.' I'm thrilled to be here but I didn't expect it at all."
4. She Wants to Stop Sexual Abuse of Children
Her platform, Stop It Now! (which works to prevent child sexual abuse), is close to her heart because several of the women (and possibly some of the men) in her family were sexually abused as children, she told reporters in a press conference. "I never was, but it was something I was going through in my teenage years as my family was trying to find peace in that," she says. She thinks mandatory child sexual awareness education would be "an incredible step for America."
5. She Loves Cosmetics
She may not be different than many women with her interest in cosmetics, but Hagan wants to make a career out of it. A student studying advertising, communications and marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Hagan's dream job would be the global marketing director for a cosmetic company. As part of her duties as Miss America, Hagan will work with Artistry cosmetics. "This will be a wonderful internship," she said.
NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.
The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest flu seasons in recent memory.
The latest numbers do show that the flu surpassed an "epidemic" threshold last week. That is based on deaths from pneumonia and influenza in 122 U.S. cities. However, it's not unusual — the epidemic level varies at different times of the year, and it was breached earlier this flu season, in October and November.
And there's a hint that the flu season may already have peaked in some spots, like in the South. Still, officials there and elsewhere are bracing for more sickness
In Ohio, administrators at Miami University are anxious that a bug that hit employees will spread to students when they return to the Oxford campus next week.
"Everybody's been sick. It's miserable," said Ritter Hoy, a spokeswoman for the 17,000-student school.
Despite the early start, health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot. The vaccine is considered a good — though not perfect — protection against getting really sick from the flu.
Flu was widespread in 47 states last week, up from 41 the week before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday. The only states without widespread flu were California, Mississippi and Hawaii.
The number of hard-hit states fell to 24 from 29, where larger numbers of people were treated for flu-like illness. Now off that list: Florida, Arkansas and South Carolina in the South, the first region hit this flu season.
Recent flu reports included holiday weeks when some doctor's offices were closed, so it will probably take a couple more weeks to get a better picture, CDC officials said Friday. Experts say so far say the season looks moderate.
"Only time will tell how moderate or severe this flu season will be," CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said Friday in a teleconference with reporters.
The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people in an average year. Nationally, 20 children have died from the flu this season.
Flu vaccinations are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Since the swine flu epidemic in 2009, vaccination rates have increased in the U.S., but more than half of Americans haven't gotten this year's vaccine.
Nearly 130 million doses of flu vaccine were distributed this year, and at least 112 million have been used. Vaccine is still available, but supplies may have run low in some locations, officials said.
To find a shot, "you may have to call a couple places," said Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, who tracks the flu in Iowa.
In midtown Manhattan, Hyrmete Sciuto got a flu shot Friday at a drugstore. She skipped it in recent years, but news reports about the flu this week worried her.
During her commute from Edgewater, N.J., by ferry and bus, "I have people coughing in my face," she said. "I didn't want to risk it this year."
The vaccine is no guarantee, though, that you won't get sick. On Friday, CDC officials said a recent study of more than 1,100 people has concluded the current flu vaccine is 62 percent effective. That means the average vaccinated person is 62 percent less likely to get a case of flu that sends them to the doctor, compared to people who don't get the vaccine. That's in line with other years.
The vaccine is reformulated annually, and this year's is a good match to the viruses going around.
The flu's early arrival coincided with spikes in flu-like illnesses caused by other bugs, including a new norovirus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." Those illnesses likely are part of the heavy traffic in hospital and clinic waiting rooms, CDC officials said.
Europeans also are suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain predominates there. China, Japan, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo have also reported increasing flu.
Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue. Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop pneumonia or other severe complications.
Most people with flu have a mild illness. But people with severe symptoms should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other medications to ease symptoms.
Some shortages have been reported for children's liquid Tamiflu, a prescription medicine used to treat flu. But health officials say adult Tamiflu pills are available, and pharmacists can convert those to doses for children.
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Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Catherine Lucey in Des Moines, and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
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Online:
CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm
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