Recession sending more students to comm. colleges

CONCORD, N.H. – College freshman Elizabeth Hebert's choice of a four-year school suddenly got too expensive. George Haseltine already has a business degree, but he concluded after several layoffs that he needed more training to get work.

Students at New Hampshire Technical Institute walk top class in Concord, N.H., Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Across the country, community colleges report unprecedented enrollment increases driven by students looking for a bigger, or quicker, bang for their buck and by laid-off older workers.

So, in the middle of this school year, both landed at New Hampshire Technical Institute, which like other community colleges across the country has suddenly grown a lot more crowded.

The two-year schools are reporting unprecedented enrollment increases this semester, driven by students from traditional colleges seeking more bang for their buck and by laid-off older workers.

But community colleges aren't exactly cheering in this down economy: Tuition doesn't come close to covering costs, and the state funds used to make up the difference are drying up.

Final figures aren't in for this semester, but a national group representing community colleges says the average increase from spring-to-spring is dramatic, and similar to what New Hampshire is reporting at its seven schools — a range of 4 percent to 19 percent.

The figure is 20 percent in Maine and South Carolina. One school in Idaho has more than twice the number of students this spring over last.

Last fall, Hebert, of Antrim, began her first semester at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts. But as the economy fell, she began rethinking the thousands of dollars in loans she was carrying — at age 18.

"It was the realization of paying $30,000 a year for four years, and then to take that in loans, it was just way too much," said Hebert, who is now paying $3,000 a semester at NHTI.

Haseltine, 25, of Rochester, said he was tired of being laid off from various jobs, so he drives almost an hour for his two-year criminal justice program. He hopes to become a police officer.

"The economy being in shambles pretty much; being constantly laid off; and not having lucrative job offers," he said. "They are three reasons why."

Nationwide, the average annual cost of community college is $2,402, compared to $6,585 in tuition and fees at in-state public four-year schools, according to the College Board. Average tuition and fees for private four-year schools: $25,143.

Factoring in financial aid, the College Board estimates the average net cost at community colleges is only about $100.

"We have seen it even more and more, mom and dad saying 'Come back home, we can't afford it,'" said Jim McCarthy, admissions director at Pennsylvania's Northampton Community College, where spring enrollment is 10.4 percent higher than a year ago — and for the first time is higher than it was in the fall semester.

New Hampshire is marketing the transfer trend.

"I was going to a much larger school out of state and paying $45,000 a year to go there," straight-A business major Elizabeth Leone says in a TV ad. "I am getting a better experience here at NHTI and it's more affordable and closer to home."

Leone transferred last fall after racking up $20,000 in loans and putting $5,000 more on credit cards for her first year at college in Pennsylvania. She couldn't imagine how much more she would have had to borrow to return.

Going to a community college doesn't require giving up on hopes for a bachelor's degree, since credits often transfer to four-year schools. States including New Hampshire, Maryland and New Jersey have made it easier for students to begin their higher education at a community college and end it at a university.

Several community colleges can trace a bump in enrollment to area layoffs. In Boise, Idaho, after semiconductor maker Micron Technology laid off 1,500 workers, 243 students enrolled at the Larry Selland College of Applied Technology for this spring, more than double last spring's enrollment.

Northampton waives a semester's tuition for people laid off in the last 12 months because of the economy. This semester, 260 students enrolled through the program, more than twice what the school expected.

So why, with enrollment skyrocketing, are many community colleges hurting?

"I get that every place I go," said John Fitzsimmons, president of Maine's community college system. "People can't understand, with more customers, why that isn't good news."

Tuition covers just 25 percent of the cost of education in Maine's system. Other community colleges vary, but all depend on counties or states that in many cases are cutting their funding.

Maine reported spring enrollment increases of 20 percent, after laying off employees and leaving vacant positions open to cope with a $2.9 million state cut. At Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina, the president and two vice presidents are teaching classes because of a $2.3 million cut last fall.

Arizona community colleges have absorbed $19.3 million in cuts and may lose all remaining state aid, said Norma Kent, spokeswoman at the American Association of Community Colleges. Some systems have had to reject thousands of applicants, she said.

"Community colleges are built on access, so for us to turn someone away is like a surgeon saying 'I won't operate on someone who is having a heart attack,'" Kent said.

Community colleges hope the impending federal economic stimulus plan will help keep the doors open. Competing House and Senate versions include billions of dollars for Pell Grant financial aid, long-delayed facility improvements and expansions and job retraining programs.

Maine's Fitzsimmons is all for it, saying "intellectual infrastructure" deserves as much stimulus as roads and bridges.

"Taking people out of the unemployment lines and putting them in school is a great way to take pressure off the economy," he said, "and when we come out (of the recession) we will have people with higher skills and better opportunities waiting for them."

financial crisis

BEIJING (Reuters) – Millions of migrant workers may be out of a job and China's once booming economy may be locked in a downward spiral as the global economic crisis bites, but for a particular Chinese brand of humor it's been a boon.

Many of the jokes have been circulating online, or via text message in a country whose population is obsessed with their mobile phones.

A bank worker calls a colleague, goes one joke on the tiexue.net bulletin board.

"Hey, how's it been going?"

"Not so bad."

"Oh, sorry, I've definitely called the wrong number."

Others adopt a similar tone, but riffing off Communist propaganda slogans.

"In the face of the financial crisis, I have bravely stood up and am marching forward! That's because ... I can't pay back my loans and the bank has repossessed my car."

Internet use has exploded in recent years, but the government keeps a close tab on what appears, removing offensive comments or detaining those who criticize too much on certain sensitive topics, such as human rights.

This hasn't stopped people taking to the Internet to laugh about the crisis, or crack witticisms.

Other Chinese have been messing around with word games, albeit not to everyone's taste, the tonal Chinese language being a gift to jokers and wits alike because a single pronunciation can have several wildly different meanings.

A posting on popular Chinese website sina.com.cn cautions people about sending text message greetings for the Lunar New Year, which was marked last week, lest their meanings be misinterpreted.

The website has published a list of greetings not to send.

"Wealth surging in" is out, as it has the same pronunciation as "Lay-offs surging in."

Likewise, the website cautions people not to wish friends or family "May you have everything you wish for," fearing it could be interpreted as "Pay cut by 40 percent."

The issue has struck an especially raw nerve in China, where superstitions attached to the new year period are strong.

"The atmosphere in the office is very tense, and texts which in past years may have meant good luck are now being seen as a stroke of bad luck," the website paraphrased one worker as saying.

Another joke circulated by text message pokes fun at the fake money which is becoming a worry as incomes start to falter amid what the government calls the "financial tsunami."

"Two people produce fake 15 yuan notes," it starts, already unlikely in itself as there is no such thing as a 15 yuan bill in China.

"They decide to go to a remote mountain area to spend it and buy a candied melon slice for 1 yuan. They burst into tears when they get two 7 yuan notes in change," it ends, the joke being there is also no such thing as a 7 yuan note.

MySpace: 90,000 sex offenders removed from site

RALEIGH, N.C. - About 90,000 sex offenders have been identified and removed from the social networking Web site MySpace, company and law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The number was nearly double what MySpace officials originally estimated last year, said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who along with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has led efforts to make social networking Web sites safer for young users.

Cooper said he wasn't surprised by the updated numbers, and demanded that MySpace and rival online networking site Facebook — which claim to have more than 280 million users combined — do more to protect children and teenagers.

"These sites were created for young people to communicate with each other. Predators are going to troll in these areas where they know children are going to be," Cooper said. "That's why these social networking sites have the responsibility to make their sites safe for children."

The attorneys general received agreements last year from MySpace and Facebook to push toward making their sites safer. Both sites implemented dozens of safeguards, including finding better ways to verify user's ages, banning convicted sex offenders from using the sites and limiting the ability of older users to search members under 18.

Blumenthal, who received MySpace's updated numbers Tuesday through a subpoena, said the information "provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators." A preliminary number of sex offenders found on Facebook was "substantial," but he said the company has yet to respond to a recent subpoena.

MySpace executives said they were confident in the technology they use to find, remove and block registered sex offenders. The company uses Sentinel SAFE, a database it created in 2006 with the names, physical descriptions and other identifiable characteristics of sex offenders that cross-references against MySpace members.

"Sentinel SAFE is the best industry solution to ensure these offenders are removed from social networks," Hemanshu Nigam, the company's chief security officer, said in a statement Tuesday.

MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., has more than 130 million active users worldwide.

A spokesman for Facebook, which claims more than 150 million active users, said Tuesday that protecting its users has always been a priority.

"We have a policy prohibiting registered sex offenders from joining Facebook," said spokesman Barry Schnitt. "We are glad to be able to report that we have not yet had to handle a case of a registered sex offender meeting a minor through Facebook. We are working hard to make sure it never happens."

Still, Cooper said more should be done.

"Technology moves forward quickly, and it's important for these companies to stay ahead of the technology," he said. "And they're not moving fast enough for us."

The push for better restrictions came during a time when social-networking Web sites were seeing exponential growth, with most of it coming in the form of younger users. But along with the younger members came sexual predators who would lie about their age to lure young victims.

Blumenthal and Cooper, who co-chair the State Attorney General Task Force on Social Networking, have led the charge for tougher restrictions to be placed on who joins online social-networking sites.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force report, commissioned by the attorneys general in 2008, researched ways to help squash the onslaught of sexual predators targeting younger social-networking clients. Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies, a report by the task force submitted to attorneys general in December, noted was no surefire way to guarantee online child safety.

The task force also played down fears of Internet sexual predators who target children on social-networking sites. While citing other dangers such as online bullying, the panel said cases of predators typically involved youths well aware they were meeting an adult for sexual activities.

But Cooper said the danger posed by sexual preditors online remains.

"Our law enforcement officers investigating these cases tell us that predators are soliciting children on the Internet and in social networking sites," Cooper said. "We're working to provide more law enforcement to protect our kids, but social networking sites and technology companies must do their part as well."

Microsoft streamlines Windows 7 options

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday said it will heavily promote two main versions of the next Windows operating system in an attempt to avoid the problems it faced by marketing four tiers of the Windows Vista system.

But while the Redmond-based company said it will simplify its message, it did not give up the multitiered approach with Windows 7, which is officially expected at the end of January 2010. All told, there will be at least six different versions.

Microsoft said the primary version for consumers will be called Windows 7 Home Premium, and the one for businesses will be called Windows 7 Professional. Prices have not yet been disclosed.

In addition, it will sell two lower-end versions, Home Basic and Starter edition, to PC makers. The Home Basic edition is intended for sale in developing countries, while computer makers can install the Starter edition on PCs intended for sale anywhere in the world. Neither sport the sleeker appearance introduced with Vista, which is getting a makeover in Windows 7.

The company will also sell a top-end Enterprise version for big corporate customers and a similar Ultimate version for consumers. Those versions will include security features and a few other tools not available in the two main versions.

When Microsoft started widely selling Windows Vista in January 2007, it offered four options: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. Some people who purchased Home Basic complained that they did not realize it lacked the updated user interface.

In the months before Vista was released, Microsoft and PC maker partners promoted certain computers as capable of running the new system. They were disappointed to learn that while their new machines could be upgraded to run the dialed-back Home Basic, they weren't powerful enough for the better-looking Home Premium or Ultimate versions, which led to a class action lawsuit.

Microsoft said in a statement that changes to the way it communicates about Windows 7 should "make these choices as simple and clear as possible for customers and partners."

Microsoft also said all versions of Windows 7 will run well on netbooks, a fast-growing category of small, low-powered laptops meant mostly for surfing the Web and checking e-mail.

(This version CORRECTS that Home Basic edition for intended for sale in developing countries, Starter installed in PCs)

Ford announces battery supplier for plug-in hybrid

WASHINGTON – Ford Motor Co. said Johnson Controls-Saft will supply the battery system for the automaker's first production plug-in hybrid electric vehicle beginning in 2012.

Ford is also expanding its test program to include several utilities around the nation to speed up the commercialization of plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The partnerships, being announced Tuesday at the Washington Auto Show, are part of Ford's strategy to bring a battery-electric vehicle van to market in 2010 for commercial use, a small battery-electric sedan developed with Magna International by 2011 and a plug-in electric vehicle by 2012.

"As we move toward greater electrification of vehicles, we can achieve much more by working together toward a common goal," said Sue Cischke, Ford's group vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering.

The lithium-ion battery system being designed by Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls will include cells along with mechanical, electrical, electronic and thermal components.

Terms of the five-year supply agreement were not disclosed, but the companies have set a production target of 5,000 units a year. The cells will initially be produced at the supplier's facility in France but eventually be assembled in the United States.

"As U.S. vehicle manufacturers commercialize their hybrid programs, the industry will be best served with a qualified and robust domestic supply base," said Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls Power Solutions.

Johnson Controls-Saft is a joint venture between auto parts maker Johnson Controls Inc. and Paris-based battery producer Saft SA.

In the tests, Ford said the utilities were joining its partnership with the Electric Power Research Institute to conduct tests on a fleet of Ford Escape plug-in hybrid vehicles.

The utilities include: New York Power Authority, Consolidated Edison of New York, American Electric Power of Columbus, Ohio, Alabama Power of Birmingham, Ala., and its parent, Atlanta-based Southern Co., Progress Energy of Raleigh, N.C., DTE Energy of Detroit, National Grid of Waltham, Mass., and the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority.

The partnership will allow the utilities to study regional differences and the vehicles' impact on the electric grid

Obama administration to issue executive pay limits

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration plans to limit pay to $500,000 a year for executives of government-assisted financial institutions in a new get-tough approach to bankers and Wall Street, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

Obama plans to announce the new limits with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at the White House on Wednesday.

"If the taxpayers are helping you, then you've got certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog," President Barack Obama said in an interview with "NBC Nightly News".

An administration official familiar with the new restrictions said the most restrictive limits would apply only to struggling large firms that receive "exceptional assistance" in the future. Healthy banks that receive government infusions of capital would have more leeway.

The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the plan had not yet been made public, said firms that want to pay executives above the $500,000 threshold would have to compensate them with stock that could not be sold or liquidated until they pay back the government funds.

The president and members of Congress have been weighing various proposals to restrict chief executives' compensation as one of the conditions of receiving help under the $700 billion financial bailout fund.

Banks and other financial institutions that receive capital infusions, but are considered healthy, could waive the $500,000 salary cap and the stock restrictions. But they would have to disclose the compensation and submit the pay plan to shareholders for a nonbinding vote.

The administration will also propose long-term compensation restrictions even for companies that don't receive government assistance, the official said.

The proposals include:

• Requiring top executives at financial institutions to hold stock for several years before they can cash-out.

• Requiring "say on pay" nonbinding shareholder resolutions.

• A Treasury sponsored conference on a long-term overhaul of executive compensation.

Top officials at companies that have received money from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program already face some compensation limits. But elected officials want to place more caps, a sentiment reinforced in recent days by revelations that Wall Street firms paid more than $18 billion in bonuses in the midst of the economic downturn in 2008.

"I do know this: We can't just say, 'Please, please,'" said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who has proposed that no employee of an institution that receives money under the $700 billion federal bailout can receive more than $400,000 in total compensation until it pays the money back.

The figure is equivalent to the salary of the president of the United States.

Compensation experts in the private sector have warned that such an intrusion into the internal decisions of financial institutions could discourage participation in the rescue program and slow down the financial sector's recovery. They also argue that it could set a precedent for government regulation that undermined performance-based pay.

Obama, in an interview with CNN Tuesday, insisted that the restrictions would not amount to excessive government intrusion.

"There are mechanisms in place to make sure that institutions that are taking taxpayer money are not using that money for excessive executive compensation," he said. "It's not a government takeover. Private enterprise will still be taking place. But people will be accountable and responsible. And that's what we have to restore in the financial system generally."

And some Republicans, angered by company decisions to pay bonuses and buy airplanes, have few qualms about restrictions, especially if they are temporary.

"In ordinary situations where the taxpayers money is not involved, we shouldn't set executive pay," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican in the Senate Banking Committee.

"But where you've got federal money involved, taxpayers' money involved, TARP money involved, and the way they have spent it, with no accountability, is getting close to being criminal."

The administration's compensation announcement will precede its more comprehensive plans for how to spend the remaining $350 billion in the TARP program. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Obama's economic team have been revamping the framework of the program and are expected to announce the changes next week.

Officials are considering a government-run "bad bank" that would take on the bad debts and investments of financial institutions. In addition, the Treasury could seek help from the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to provide banks with guarantees against losses on assets backed by residential and commercial real estate loans.

On Tuesday, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Banking Committee with close ties to Wall Street, warned against the "bad bank" idea saying it could be too expensive and the government would have a difficult time setting a value on the assets. He instead endorsed guaranteeing bad assets at a value lower than what banks have on the books.

Ancient Whales Gave Birth on Land

More than 47 million years ago, a whale was about to give birth to her young ... on land. That's according to skeletal remains of a pregnant cetacean whose fetus was positioned head-down as is the case for land mammals but not aquatic whales.

The teeth of the fetus were so well-developed that researchers who analyzed the fossils think the baby would have been born within days, had its mom not died.

The fossil discovery marks the first extinct whale and fetus combination known to date, shedding light on the lifestyle of ancient whales as they made the transition from land to sea during the Eocene Epoch (between 54.8 million and 33.7 million years ago).

Philip Gingerich, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his team discovered the pregnant whale remains in Pakistan in 2000, and then in 2004, Gingerich's co-authors and others found the nearly complete skeleton of an adult male from the same species in those fossil beds. The adult whales are each about 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) long and weighed between 615 and 860 pounds (280 and 390 kg), though the male was slightly longer and heavier than the female.

(Gingerich is also director of the University of Michigan's Museum of Paleontology.)

Confusing find

On the dig that ultimately yielded the pregnant whale, Gingerich and his team first spotted what looked like a line of chalk on the ground surface, which later turned out to be the teeth of the whale fetus.

"Very quickly I got into the baby's teeth," Gingerich told LiveScience. "Then I kept going around it, and the ribs seemed too big for the size of the animal and they were all going the wrong way. So I have to say I spent the whole day excavating this thing confused about what in the world was going on here."

Soon after, Gingeric discovered another, larger, skull, and he realized the fetus was still inside its mother.

The new species, now called Maiacetus inuus, is a member of the Archaeoceti, a group of cetaceans (an animal group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises) that predate modern toothed and baleen whales. Archaeocetes had mouths full of several types of teeth, as well as nostrils near the nose tip. Both features are seen in land mammals but not in today's whales.

Like other archaeocetes, the newly discovered whale was equipped with four legs modified for foot-powered swimming (sort of like climbing, or scrambling, up a steep hill but instead in water). While the whales likely could support their weight on their flipper-like limbs, they probably couldn't go far on land.

"They clearly were tied to the shore," Gingerich said. "They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth."

Land delivery

The team suggests that Maiacetus fed at sea and came ashore to rest, mate and give birth.

The head-first position of the fetus matches what is found in many land animals, particularly the artiodactyls (pigs, deer and cows), which are thought to have given rise to ancient whales. Human babies also emerge head first, ideally.

Scientists speculate that a head-first orientation allows land mammals to breathe even if they get stuck in the birth canal.

That's not the case underwater. "If you're born in the water you don't want the head out away from the mother until it's going to pop free, because you don't want it to drown," Gingerich said.

In addition, tail-first delivery in modern whales and dolphins would ensure the baby is facing in the same direction as its mother who is likely swimming. To keep mom and baby from getting separated, tail-first delivery would be optimal, Gingerich said.

The research, published in the Feb. 4 issue of the online journal PloS ONE, was funded by the Geological Survey of Pakistan, National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

• Whale News, Information and Images
• Early Whales Had Legs
• Why Whales Sing

• Original Story: Ancient Whales Gave Birth on Land

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Microsoft releases Web Sandbox under open source

San Francisco - Microsoft has made source code for its Live Labs Web Sandbox project for securing Web content through isolation available via open source under the Apache License 2.0, according to a report this week on Microsoft's Port 25 site.

Web Sandbox features technology for mashing up code while maintaining process isolation, quality of service protection, and security. It is intended to address a problem in which Web gadgets, mashup components, advertisements, and other third-party content on Web sites either will run full trust alongside content or are isolated inside of IFrames. This results in many Web applications being intrinsically insecure with unpredictable service quality.

Since announcing the technology preview at Professional Developer Conference 2008 in Los Angeles in October, Microsoft has open-sourced the Web Sandbox framework and is partnering with industry leaders to evolve Web Sandbox into an industry-wide solution, Microsoft said.

Microsoft is looking for developers to experiment with Web Sandbox, even including samples so developers can try to break the Sandbox.

"Since the initial release of Web Sandbox we have received a great deal of feedback from the Web security community. We have also been collaborating with a number of customers, partners, and the standards communities that would like to adopt the technology when it is ready. Our goal is to achieve widespread adoption of Web Sandbox and to help foster interoperability with complementary technologies like script frameworks," Microsoft Live Labs said on its Web Sandbox Web page.

Although Microsoft is using an Apache license for the project, it is not sponsored or endorsed by the Apache Software Foundation, Microsoft said. The company last year became a sponsor of the foundation.

Web Sandbox builds upon Microsoft's experience with DHTML, Windows, Windows Live Web-based gadgets, and the Microsoft BrowserShield project, which leverages JavaScript virtualization through rewriting.

When you watch these ads, the ads check you out

MILWAUKEE - Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too.

Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don't shift based on which people are watching, the technology's ability to determine the viewers' demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they're reaching their target audience.

While the technology remains in limited use for now, advertising industry analysts say it is finally beginning to live up to its promise. The manufacturers say their systems can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 percent of the time, while accuracy for the other measures continues to be refined.

The concept is reminiscent of the science-fiction movie "Minority Report," in which Tom Cruise's character enters a mall and finds that retinal scanners identify him and prompt personalized ads that greet him by name.

But this technology doesn't go nearly that far. It doesn't identify people individually — it simply categorizes them by outward appearances.

So a video screen might show a motorcycle ad for a group of men, but switch to a minivan ad when women and children join them, said Vicki Rabenou, the chief measurement officer of Tampa, Fla.-based TruMedia Technologies Inc., one of the leaders in developing the technology.

"This is proactive merchandising," Rabenou said. "You're targeting people with smart ads."

Because the tracking industry is still in its infancy, there isn't yet consensus on how to refer to the technology. Some call it face reading, face counting, gaze tracking or, more generally, face-based audience measurement.

Whatever it's called, advertisers are finally ready to try it, said advertising consultant Jack Sullivan, a senior vice president of Starcom USA in Chicago. "I think you're going to see a lot of movement toward it by the end of this year in the top 10 markets," he said.

Because face tracking might feel reminiscent of Big Brother, manufacturers are racing to offer reassurances. When the systems capture an image of who's watching the screen, a computer instantly analyzes it. The systems' manufacturers insist, however, that nothing is ever stored and no identifying information is ever associated with the pictures. That makes the system less intrusive than a surveillance camera that records what it sees, the developers say.

The idea still worries Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil-liberties group in San Francisco. Tien said it's not enough to say some system is "not as bad as some other technology," and argues that cameras that study people contribute to an erosion of privacy.

In general, the tracking systems work like this: A sensor or camera in or near the screen identifies viewers' faces by picking up shapes, colors and the relative speed of movement. The concept is similar to the way consumer cameras now can automatically make sure faces are in focus.

When the ad system pinpoints a face, it compares shapes and patterns to faces that are already identified in a database as male or female. That lets the system predict the person's gender almost immediately.

"The most important features seem to be cheekbones, fullness of lips and the gap between the eyebrows," said Paolo Prandoni, chief scientific officer of Quividi, a French company that is another player in face-tracking technology. Others include Studio IMC Inc. in New York.

The companies say their systems have become adept at determining a viewer's gender, but age is trickier: The software can categorize age only in broad ranges — teens, younger to middle-aged folks and seniors. There's moderate demand for ads based on ethnic information, but the companies acknowledge that determining ethnicity is more challenging than figuring out gender and age range.

Prandoni provided The Associated Press a limited version of Quividi's software, which uses an ordinary webcam to stream video to a computer. The trial version tracked gender only, using color-coded circles to distinguish male and female faces.

The sample size was too small to be statistically significant, but it was accurate about 80 to 90 percent of the time.

That might be as precise as the systems ever get, said Deborah Mitchell, a professor of consumer psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Even the human brain can't always determine gender, age or ethnicity.

Still, "even if it gets to 70 percent accuracy, that's still giving you a wealth of information," said Mitchell, who teaches in the Wisconsin School of Business.

That information is certainly valuable to Bill Ketcham, the chief marketing officer of Adspace Networks Inc. His New York company sells video advertising on 1,400 video screens at 105 malls around the nation.

Adspace is testing six TruMedia systems at malls in Winston-Salem, N.C., Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The kiosks display a daily list of top 10 sales at the mall, as well as paid advertising that comes largely from movie studios and TV networks.

A 15-second video ad that replays across Adspace's national network can cost as much as $765,000 per month. So advertisers expect rigorous information about who sees the spots — information that face tracking can now provide, Ketcham said.

For now, at least, Adspace isn't changing the ads based on who's watching — Ketcham said the kiosks' audiences are so large that it wouldn't be practical to personalize ads to individuals.

While advertisers like the face-tracking technology, another privacy advocate, Harley Geiger, questions whether it should be used on consumers without their knowledge. Geiger, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C., said advertisers should be telling consumers what details about them are being collected and for what purpose.

"With the technology proliferating, now or the short-term is the time to consider privacy protections," he said. "If you don't build it in at an early stage it becomes very difficult to build it into an already established system."

Google users get bogus warning on site searches

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Computer users doing Google searches during a nearly one-hour period Saturday morning were greeted with disturbing but erroneous messages that every site turned up in the results might be harmful.

The company blamed the mistake on human error and apologized for any inconvenience caused to users and site owners whose pages were incorrectly labeled.

The glitch occurred between 9:30 a.m. EST and 10:25 a.m. EST, Google Inc. said in an explanation on its company blog. Anyone who did a Google search during that time likely saw the message "This site may harm your computer" accompanying every search result, the company said.

Google said it routinely flags any search results with that message if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously, a practice aimed at protecting its users. Google said it maintains a list of suspicious sites based on criteria developed with StopBadware.org, a nonprofit project headed by legal scholars at Harvard and Oxford universities who research consumer complaints.

Saturday's error happened when Google erroneously applied one of its periodic list updates in such a way that the warning would apply to all URLs, the company said in a statement.

The glitch was caught by on-call staff and the file was quickly fixed, Google said. Since the updates are applied in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing at 9:27 a.m. EST and disappeared no later than 10:25 a.m. EST, with the duration for any particular user approximately 40 minutes, it said.

"We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in to prevent it from happening again," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, in the statement.

Scientist see holes in glacier at Alaska volcano

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Geologists monitoring Mount Redoubt for signs of a possible eruption noticed that a hole in the glacier clinging to the north side of the volcano had doubled in size overnight — and now spans the length of two football fields.

Scientists with the Alaska Volcano Observatory on Friday flew close to Drift Glacier and spotted vigorous steam emitted from a hole on the mountain. By Saturday, they had confirmed the area was a fumarole, an opening in the earth that emits gases and steam, that was increasing in size at an alarming rate.

They also saw water streaming down the glacier, indicating heat from magma is reaching higher elevations of the mountain.

"The glacier is sort of falling apart in the upper part," research geologist Kristi Wallace said.

The signs of heat add to concerns that an eruption is near, which could send an ash cloud about 100 miles northeast toward Anchorage, the state's largest city, or onto communities on the Kenai Peninsula, which is even closer to the mountain on the west side of Cook Inlet. It would be the first eruption since 1990.

Particulate released during an eruption has jagged edges and can injure skin, eyes and breathing passages, especially in young children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems.

It can also foul engines. An eruption in December 1989 sent out an ash cloud 150 miles that flamed out the jet engines of a KLM flight carrying 231 passengers on its way to Anchorage. The jet dropped more than two miles before pilots were able to restart the engines and land safely.

A week ago, the observatory detected a sharp increase in earthquake activity below the volcano and upgraded its alert level to orange, the stage just before full eruption. The warning that an eruption was imminent caused a rush on dust masks and car air filters in Anchorage.

Alaska's volcanoes typically start with an explosion that can shoot ash 50,000 feet high and into the jet stream, but there are warning signs because magma causes small earthquakes as it moves.

Geologist Jennifer Adleman said the observatory has been recording quakes up to magnitude 2.1 but not at the frequency that preceded the last two eruptions in 1989 and 1990.

"We're looking for an increase of seismicity to match the precursor activity," Wallace said. "We haven't seen that yet."

Strike by 24,000 refinery workers averted for now

HOUSTON – A strike by some 24,000 refinery workers was averted, at least for now, as both sides agreed to extend negotiations for at least 24 hours.

Workers at refineries near New Orleans, Houston and as far away as Billings, Mont., will show up for scheduled shifts Monday, though negotiators will be back at the table on Sunday.

"We have made progress in that there was no strike at midnight," said Lynne Baker, a spokeswoman for the United Steelworkers, which represents more than 30,000 oil workers nationwide. "But there are still issues that need to be worked out and notice of a strike could be given at any time if that progress stalls."

The union agreed to a rolling 24-hour extension, which allows the union to give the required one-day notice to strike.

The nation's biggest refiner, Valero Energy Corp., said it would shut down some facilities if workers walk out. So did European oil company BP PLC.

Shell Oil Co., the lead negotiator for the industry, along with Exxon Mobil Corp., said its refineries would continue to make gasoline, diesel and other fuels using nonunion or replacement workers.

Chemical refiners would also be affected. LyondellBassell Industries said it was bringing in managers from locations not involved in contract negotiations to keep refineries going.

A strike would affect 60 producers, Baker said.

Thursday, union negotiators turned down the most recent offer of a 2.5 percent wage increase for each of the next three years, in addition to changes in medical coverage.

The impasse comes with refiners already cutting back production and industry experts are divided over whether a strike would hit the pocketbooks of motorists.

Job numbers are in free fall, which has led to unprecedented declines in miles driven by Americans.

Motorists cut their driving by 12.9 billion miles in November, down 5.3 percent from the same month a year earlier, the largest such decline of any November since monthly data estimates began in 1971, the Federal Highway Administration said this month.

On the surface, that suggests retail gasoline prices should be falling, but refiners are reading the same headlines and have aggressively cut back production.

Refiner cutbacks and the threat of a strike pushed gasoline futures up throughout the week on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Friday, gasoline futures rose nearly 4 cents to $1.27 per gallon. When gasoline futures rise, retail prices tend to follow. The national average for a gallon of gasoline hit $1.846 on Friday. While that's still $1.14 less than last year at this time, gas is getting closer to $2 a gallon just a month after bottoming out at $1.61.

With refiners turning away oil shipments, crude storage levels have risen by about 20 million barrels in the past month, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Antoine Halff, an analyst with Newedge Group, said workers may actually be doing the industry a favor by going on strike with demand for gasoline so low.

Many of the refineries are on the Gulf Coast, near Houston and New Orleans. There are about 4,000 refinery workers in Houston alone. But the strike would reach into states like California and Tennessee, which also have refineries with labor contracts expiring.

Valero told employees Friday that it would close its facilities in Delaware City, Del., and Memphis, Tenn., if there is a strike.

The company said it would keep its Port Arthur, Texas, plant open with a contingency work force that is being trained.

"We would rather reach an agreement without a work stoppage at all," said spokesman Bill Day.

Exxon Mobil said plants would remain operational until a collective bargaining agreement was reached.

Obama readies road map for new bailout spending

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Saturday promised to lower mortgage costs, offer job-creating loans for small businesses, get credit flowing and rein in free-spending executives as he readies a new road map for spending billions from the second installment of the financial rescue plan.

The White House is deciding how to structure the remaining half of the $700 billion that Congress approved last year to save financial institutions and lenders. An announcement was possible as early as this coming week on an approach that would use a range of tools to unfreeze credit, helping families and businesses.

At the end of a week that saw hundreds of thousands of people lose their jobs, Obama also used his Saturday radio and Internet address to tell that nation that "no one bill, no matter how comprehensive, can cure what ails our economy."

During the final three months of 2008, the economy recorded its worst downhill slide in a quarter-century, stumbling backward at a 3.8 percent pace, the government reported Friday. It could get worse.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is trying to finish a plan to overhaul the bailout program begun in the Bush administration. Geithner has said the administration is considering using a government-run "bad bank" to buy up financial institutions' bad assets. But some officials now say that option is gone because of potential costs.

Many ideas under consideration could end up costing hundreds of billions beyond the original price tag. Aides would not rule out the possibility that the administration would seek more than the $350 billion already set aside.

Obama said Geithner soon would announce a new strategy "for reviving our financial system that gets credit flowing to businesses and families. We'll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs. We'll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery."

He said his administration "will insist on unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight and clear accountability so taxpayers know how their money is being spent and whether it is achieving results."

Obama's message, largely repackaged from a week of White House statements, was as much for the country as it was for lawmakers: Pass the separate American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan or things are going to get worse.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned to discuss Obama's legislative agenda during a White House visit Monday evening, an administration official said.

"Rarely in history has our country faced economic problems as devastating as this crisis," the president said. "Now is the time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities."

Obama this past week won passage of a separate $825 billion economic stimulus plan in the House without a single Republican vote. It now heads to the Senate, where Vice President Joe Biden predicts the measure will fare better among GOP lawmakers.

Republicans pledged to work with Obama. But they cautioned against treating government spending like a "trillion-dollar Christmas list" and renewed their opposition to much in the bill.

"A problem that started on Wall Street is reaching deeper and deeper into Main Street. And the president is counting on members of Congress to come together in a spirit of bipartisanship to act," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in the GOP radio address. "Unfortunately, the plan that Democrats in Congress put forward this week falls far short of the president's vision for a bill that creates jobs and puts us on a path to long-term economic health."

Obama has signaled his willingness to compromise. His chief spokesman said the president hoped to "strengthen" the bill as it headed toward a Senate vote in the week ahead.

Republicans said they hope the administration takes into account their wishes.

"Every day brings more news of layoffs, home foreclosures and shuttered businesses," McConnell said. "And across the country, employers are cutting to the bone even at businesses that most Americans never thought were vulnerable."

Republicans, however, kept putting forward their own plans. McConnell promoted a mortgage program for creditworthy borrowers, offering fixed-rate 4 percent loans designed to increase housing demands and lending.

Danny Boyle's `Slumdog Millionaire' wins DGA honor

LOS ANGELES – "Slumdog Millionaire" continued its rags-to-riches march through Hollywood's awards season as its filmmaker, Danny Boyle, won the top honor Saturday from the Directors Guild of America.

Danny Boyle poses with the award for feature film nomination for Slumdog Millionaire backstage at the Directors Guild of America Awards on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009, in Los Angeles.

The win puts Boyle on the inside track for the same prize at the Academy Awards on Feb. 22, since the guild recipient almost always goes on to win the directing Oscar.

While "Slumdog Millionaire" started as an underdog that nearly went straight to DVD, it has emerged as the Oscar favorite. Audiences have embraced Boyle's tale of a poor boy rising to fame and fortune from the streets of Mumbai, and the film triumphed at the Golden Globes and Producers Guild of America Awards, while taking the prize for best ensemble cast from the Screen Actors Guild.

"Slumdog Millionaire" originally was to be released by Warner Independent, but its fate went into limbo after Warner Bros. closed down that arthouse banner. After a brief prospect of going right to DVD, the film found a theatrical home with Fox Searchlight, which has had success with such smaller films as "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Juno."

"I should start by curiously thanking Warner Bros. for actually having the grace to do the right thing, when I think it would have been a lot easier to do the wrong thing, and pass the film on to Fox Searchlight, who are an extraordinary bunch of people," Boyle said as he was introduced earlier in the night as one of the five nominees.

Backstage, Boyle joked about the fact that his award was presented by Joel and Ethan Coen, who won the prize a year ago for "No Country for Old Men."

"To step into the shoes of people like the Coen brothers, I mean, it's phenomenal, because I have, as I admitted in the earlier speech, I've stolen from them all my career," he said. "I mean in a naked and appalling way."

"The Office" won the top honor for television comedy, "The Wire" took the award for TV drama and "Recount" won for TV movie.

Paul Feig received the award for an installment of "The Office," whose competition included two episodes of "30 Rock," the series that has dominated at recent Hollywood honors such as the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

"We're in a real golden age of TV comedy, and I'm just happy to be part of it," Feig said backstage.

The drama series prize went to director Dan Attias for an episode from the final season of "The Wire," a far-reaching drama with a huge cast exploring police, criminals, courts, schools, politics, media and other facets of life in Baltimore.

"Austin Powers" and "Meet the Parents" director Jay Roach was the recipient for the election drama "Recount."

Ari Folman's "Waltz With Bashir" won the documentary award. The film, which is nominated in the foreign-language category at the Academy Awards, is director Folman's animated study of an Israeli soldier struggling to recall suppressed memories of his involvement in the war with Lebanon.

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert was honored with an honorary life membership in the guild.

Michael Apted, the guild's president, noted that Ebert no longer can speak because of complications from thyroid cancer, but he told Ebert, "We're happy that it didn't stop you from writing about our work."

The ceremony featured recorded testimonials to Ebert from directors including Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone.

"The motion picture is the art form I love above all others," Ebert said in a statement recorded via a synthetic computer voice with a British accent. "It is the symphony, and you are the conductors."

Among other guild winners:

• Reality programming: Tony Croll, "America's Next Top Model."

• Children's programs: Amy Schatz, "The Poetry Show."

• Daytime serials: Larry Carpenter, "One Life to Live."

Among Hollywood's many honors on the buildup to the Academy Awards, the Directors Guild prizes have one of the best track records for predicting eventual Oscar winners. Only six times in the guild awards' 60-year history has the winner failed to take home the directing Oscar.

Russian newspaper mourns another murdered reporter

MOSCOW – The dead loom over the morning editorial meeting at Russia's leading investigative newspaper. Novaya Gazeta's staff is trying to plan the next issue and editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov is in an understandably foul mood.

The morning editorial meeting at Russia's leading investigative newspaper takes place in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Jan. 26, 2009. Novaya Gazeta's staff is trying to plan the next issue and editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov, foreground, is in an understandably foul mood. In a country considered one of the most dangerous for journalists, no Russian newspaper has suffered like Novaya Gazeta

In a corner hang photos of four reporters he has lost in the past eight years — one beaten to death, one allegedly poisoned, two shot — the most recent on Jan. 19.

It's not easy to put a paper out these days, Muratov says.

"There's usually a lot of jokes, laughing, talk about ideas. But our batteries are totally spent," says Muratov, 47, billows of pipe smoke filling the long pauses. "How can there be any sort of (normal) frame of mind when a journalist is being buried?"

That journalist was Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old cub reporter. She and a human rights lawyer were shot execution-style by a masked man with a silenced pistol as they walked together a few blocks from the Kremlin.

In a country considered one of the most dangerous for journalists, no Russian newspaper has suffered like Novaya Gazeta. In a country where most media have been cowed into submission, no other newspaper publishes such probing investigative articles and acid commentary about government corruption, police-state politics and Chechnya war abuses.

"Every two or three years, we lose someone," says Elena Kostyuchenko, a 21-year-old investigative writer for the paper. "But you just have to write, write, write and keep writing. You have to."

Some 16 journalists have died in contract-style slayings or under suspicious circumstances in Russia since 2000. Many more have been assaulted or threatened.

Under Vladimir Putin, who became president in 2000 and now is prime minister, the TV networks watched by most Russians were taken over by the state, their news operations highly sanitized. Big-selling newspapers are either sympathetic to the Kremlin or owned by Kremlin-allied business groups.

Of the many free-spirited papers that sprang up when the Soviet Union collapsed, Novaya Gazeta — meaning New Newspaper — is a rare survivor.

Its most high-profile loss was Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter who savaged the Kremlin for its conduct of the war on Chechen separatists. Her shooting outside her Moscow apartment in 2006 provoked worldwide condemnation and major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

Three Chechens — two brothers and a former police officer — are on trial but the prosecution is not offering a motive or identifying any mastermind, leading Novaya Gazeta and others to claim the trial is a cover-up. Putin has claimed the killing was hatched abroad to discredit Russia.

The paper's first fatality, in 2000, was Igor Domnikov, who wrote about regional corruption. He was attacked with a hammer. Seven members of a criminal gang were convicted of his murder in 2007. The lead defendant claimed a regional governor had Domnikov killed for criticizing him. The governor was not charged.

In 2003, Yury Shchekochikhin died of a severe allergic reaction, but colleagues claimed he was poisoned. Shchekochikhin, 53, wrote about high-level corruption and investigated the deadly 1999 bombings of apartment blocks.

In the latest killing, it appears lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who specialized in defending Chechens, environmentalists and human rights activists, was the primary target and Baburova may have been killed after she tried to intervene.

Many at Novaya Gazeta are convinced that nationalist or fascist groups are behind the latest attacks and the paper's own blog is full of anonymous postings celebrating the killings. Others suspect the involvement of security agencies, citing past incidents when Novaya Gazeta's phones were tapped or in 2000, when its computer hard drives were stolen.

Novaya Gazeta writers and editors have attended self-defense classes and keep their notes hidden or stored on secure computer servers. Some use pseudonyms. At least one has bodyguards because of death threats. Others take precautions they won't discuss. Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire ex-lawmaker who is part-owner of the paper, is demanding that authorities allow its reporters to carry guns.

Not all the paper's staff support the idea. Muratov, the editor, does.

"Either we defend ourselves or we go write about nature and birds ... and all positive things. We become a tabloid," he says. "And then we don't write about the security services. We don't write about corruption. ... We don't write about fascism."

Yulia Latynina, a radio show host and Novaya Gazeta columnist who is relentlessly critical of Putin, blames fascist gangs for the killings and accuses police agencies and security forces of sympathizing or even cooperating with them.

Like Politkovskaya, her name appears regularly on death lists circulating on the Internet. Is she afraid? Latynina demurs, saying: "The Kremlin doesn't need another Politkovskaya."

Vera Chelysheva, who writes for the paper's Web site, says most Russians are indifferent to the murders.

"This is a country that lived through the gulag camps, through Stalin, they know how to kill people. That's why no one is taking to the streets in protest," she says. "This is a country that's forgetting its history."

Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta is published thrice-weekly and its circulation has climbed to 270,000, — less than the state-run or pro-Kremlin newspapers but strong among Russians who seek an independent voice on touchy issues such as government corruption or Chechnya.

A libel judgment nearly shut it down in 2002. Then, three years ago, Lebedev and former President Mikhail Gorbachev bought a 49 percent stake for an undisclosed sum. The journalists hold the remaining shares.

Two days after the latest killings, half the front page was filled with a photo of Markelov lying on the sidewalk, blood pooled by his head, and these words of defiance:

"The killers have no fear. Because they know that they will never be punished. But the victims also have no fear. Because when you defend another person, you stop being frightened."

Sri Lanka military says it captures 2 Tamil camps

From Yahoo...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka's military captured two camps used by the Tamil Tigers' suicide squad, killing 12 rebels and seizing a large number of weapons, officials said Sunday amid mounting concern for civilians trapped in the war zone.

Hospital staff help an injured ethnic Tamil who was reportedly evacuated from the war zone and brought to a hospital in Vavuniya , about 210 kilometers (131 miles) north east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009.

According to the Red Cross, some 250,000 noncombatants are trapped in the 115-square mile (300-square kilometer) area near Mullaittivu where advancing government troops have boxed in the separatist Tamil rebels. The government puts the number at about 120,000.

"The humanitarian situation is precarious if not critical," Red Cross spokeswoman Sarasi Wijeratne told The Associated Press. "We have appealed to both parties to allow safe passage for the sick and wounded so that they can get medical treatment," she said.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government, which accuses the Tamil Tigers of keeping civilians in the war zone to use as human shields, had given the insurgents Friday and Saturday to let the noncombatants leave the area.

By the time the deadline expired, only 236 civilians had emerged from the battleground to cross the front line into the government-held areas, according to the Media Center for National Security.

The Tigers deny holding civilians and claim the military offensive is preventing them from fleeing. Although the 48-hour period did not amount to a cease-fire, the government was expected to step up its offensive starting Sunday.

Wijeratne also said the Red Cross has no information about any civilians fleeing, adding that the last medical evacuation it conducted was on Thursday.

"What we are concerned about is the safety of the people there. That's why we are asking both parties to ensure there is safe passage," she said.

On Saturday, ground troops fought their way into the jungles to uncover two camps of the Black Tigers, the suicide bombing squad of the Tamil Tigers, north of Mullaittivu, said an official of the media center who cannot be identified under briefing rules.

He said one camp comprised a two-story underground apartment with luxurious bedrooms, bathroom, an electricity generator and a refrigerator. In the other camp, the troops found a large number of weapons including mortar launchers, rifles, rocket propelled grenades, light machine guns, grenades, mines, bombs, detonators, gas masks and Tamil Tiger uniforms.

The bodies of 12 rebels were also recovered, apparently killed by the troops in the fighting, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara.

"It is a big success because that means the Tigers are leaving their camps and fleeing," he told the AP.

The claim could not be independently verified because journalists have been barred by the government from going into the conflict zone. The Tigers also did not immediately issue any statement on the current battle situation.

The military believes it is now close to destroying the Tigers, who have been fighting since 1983 for a separate homeland for ethnic minority Tamils in the north and the east.

There are no accurate figures for the casualties in the recent fighting around Mullaittivu. The government denies reports that more than 300 civilians have been killed.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the civil war, which grew out of complaints by Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization under successive governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.