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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Hong Kong silent so far on possible Snowden extradition

HONG KONG (AP) ? Hong Kong was silent Saturday on whether a former National Security Agency contractor should be extradited to the United States now that he has been charged with espionage, but some legislators said the decision should be up to the Chinese government.

Edward Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has admitted providing information to the news media about two highly classified NSA surveillance programs.

It is not known if the U.S. government has made a formal extradition request to Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong government had no immediate reaction to the charges against Snowden. Police Commissioner, Andy Tsang, when was asked about the development, told reporters only that the case would be dealt with according to the law. A police statement said it was "inappropriate" for the police to comment on the case.

When China regained control of Hong Kong in 1997, the former British colony was granted a high degree of autonomy and granted rights and freedoms not seen on mainland China. However, under the city's mini constitution Beijing is allowed to intervene in matters involving defense and diplomatic affairs.

Outspoken legislator Leung Kwok-hung said Beijing should instruct Hong Kong to protect Snowden from extradition before his case gets dragged through the court system. Leung also urged the people of Hong Kong to "take to the streets to protect Snowden."

Another legislator, Cyd Ho, vice-chairwoman of the pro-democracy Labour Party, said China "should now make its stance clear to the Hong Kong SAR (Special Administrative Region) government" before the case goes before a court.

China has urged Washington to provide explanations following the disclosures of National Security Agency programs which collect millions of telephone records and track foreign Internet activity on U.S. networks, but it has not commented on Snowden's status in Hong Kong.

A formal extradition request, which could drag through appeal courts for years, would pit Beijing against Washington at a time China tries to deflect U.S. accusations that it carries out extensive surveillance on American government and commercial operations.

Snowden's whereabouts have not been publicly known since he checked out of a Hong Kong hotel on June 10. He said in an interview with the South China Morning Post that he hoped to stay in the autonomous region of China because he has faith in "the courts and people of Hong Kong to decide my fate." Tsang said in interview broadcast on local television that he could not comment when asked about a local newspaper report that Snowden was in a police "safe house."

Snowden and his supporters have also spoken of his seeking asylum from Iceland.

A prominent former politician in Hong Kong, Martin Lee, the founding chairman of the Democratic Party, said he doubted whether Beijing would intervene at this stage.

"Beijing would only intervene according to my understanding at the last stage. If the magistrate said there is enough to extradite, then Mr. Snowden can then appeal," he said.

Lee said Beijing could then decide at the end of the appeal process if it wanted Snowden extradited or not.

A one-page criminal complaint unsealed Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, said Snowden engaged in unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information. Both are charges under the Espionage Act. Snowden also is charged with theft of government property. All three crimes carry a maximum 10-year prison penalty.

The complaint will be an integral part of the U.S. government's effort to have Snowden extradited from Hong Kong, a process that could become a prolonged legal battle. Snowden could contest extradition on grounds of political persecution.

Hong Kong lawyer Mark Sutherland said that the filing of a refugee, torture or inhuman punishment claim acts as an automatic bar on any extradition proceedings until those claims can be assessed.

"Some asylum seekers came to Hong Kong 10 years ago and still haven't had their protection claims assessed," Sutherland said.

Organizers of a public protest in support of Snowden last week said Saturday that there were no plans for similar demonstrations this weekend.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hk-silent-far-possible-snowden-extradition-051344237.html

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Development of nonvolatile liquid anthracenes for facile full-color luminescence tuning: Application to foldable light-emitting devices expected

June 23, 2013 ? A research team headed by Dr. Takashi Nakanishi, a Principal Researcher of the NIMS Organic Materials Group, Polymer Materials Unit, developed a full-colour tunable luminescent liquid material with excellent light stability based on an anthracene molecule, which is a general organic fluorescent dye.

A research team headed by Dr. Takashi Nakanishi, a Principal Researcher of the Organic Materials Group (Group Leader: Masayuki Takeuchi), Polymer Materials Unit (Unit Director: Izumi Ichinose) of the National Institute for Materials Science (President: Sukekatsu Ushioda), developed a full-colour tunable luminescent liquid material with excellent photostability based on anthracene, which is a general organic fluorescent dye.

In the development of full-colour display monitors, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, organic molecular and polymer materials are essentially important, as they offer advantages such as light weight, flexibility, and printability. However, in virtually all cases, the light-emitting organic molecular materials developed until now have had difficulties to demonstrate their inherent luminescent performance due to various problems, which include low photostability (durability to prevent discoloration or decolorization under photoirradiation) and aggregation of molecules in the coating process. Moreover, from the viewpoint of production of flexible devices, materials should be free of deterioration of the continuous emissive layer, even when subjected to excessive bending and folding. On the other hand, development of organic molecular materials which enable simple, low-cost manufacture of full-colour luminescence devices, in comparison with individual synthesis of organic molecular materials that display various luminescent colours, is also desired.

The team led by Dr. Nakanishi developed a blue-emitting liquid material which is free of aggregation among adjacent anthracene parts, has a melting point of approximately -60 ?C, and is thermally stable up to about 300 ?C, by attaching highly flexible branched alkyl chains around an anthracene core moiety, which is a fluorescent general dye molecule. This material is a low-viscosity liquid with viscosity of approximately 0.3 Pa-s at room temperature and is a blue-emitting with an absolute fluorescence quantum yield of ca. 55% and photostable more than 5~10 times longer lifetime than that of commercially-available anthracene dyes. Furthermore, because other luminescent dye molecules can be doped homogeneously in this liquid, it was found that full-colour luminescence tuning is available assisted by up to 96% fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) of dyes by single blue-light (365nm) excitation.

In this research, a blue-emitting anthracene liquid with excellent photostability was synthesized, and a liquid material which displays high quality full-colour luminescence and precise luminescence tuning by the facile operation of doping the liquid with other dyes was developed. Since the nonvolatile liquid material developed in this work can be coated on the surface of various substrates, production of organic multicolour devices with stable single color excitation can be expected. A continuous active emitting layer can be maintained, without breaking or interruption even when bent and folded, which is a favorable property for the development of foldable flexible devices.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/physics/~3/wiw-4VNFXlY/130623153502.htm

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HIV is being used as a possible cure for cancer (Americablog)

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Line Expands Its Mobile Messaging Empire On Android With Third-Party App Downloads Incentivised By Line Coin

The new breed of mobile messaging apps -- Japan's Line & China's WeChat, to name two -- are already siphoning off social energy by adding features traditionally associated with full-fat social networking. Line has also been pushing to become an entertainment hub in its own right. Today, it's pushing its Android app ecosystem even further by adding an incentivised third party app discovery feature.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/iohh9O-3nsE/

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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Senate immigration bill boosted by border deal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Far-reaching immigration legislation offering the prize of U.S. citizenship to millions is swiftly gaining ground in the Senate following agreement between Republicans and Democrats on dramatic steps aimed at securing the border with Mexico.

The deal to double Border Patrol agents and fencing along the Southwest border won support Thursday from four undecided Republican senators for the immigration bill that's a top priority for President Barack Obama. More appeared likely to come on board, putting the legislation within reach of securing the bipartisan vote that its authors say is needed to ensure serious consideration by the GOP-controlled House.

"It is safe to say that this agreement has the power to change minds in the Senate," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a lead author of the bill. "With this agreement, we have now answered every criticism that has come forward about the immigration bill."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the deal should satisfy those Republicans concerned that the border security provisions in the bill were too weak. "If they can't accept these provisions, then border security is not their problem," McCain said.

The deal was developed by Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, in consultation with Schumer, McCain and other members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who wrote the immigration bill. It prevents immigrants now here illegally from attaining permanent resident status until a series of steps have been taken to secure the border.

These include doubling the Border Patrol with 20,000 new agents, 18 new unmanned surveillance drones, 350 miles of new fencing to add to the 350 miles already built, and an array of fixed and mobile devices to maintain vigilance, including high-tech tools such as infrared ground sensors and airborne radar.

The new provisions would be put in place over a decade, in line with the 10-year path to a permanent resident green card that the bill sets out for immigrants here illegally. During that time, the immigrants could live and work legally in a provisional status.

Vice President Joe Biden told a predominantly Latino crowd of 1,100 gathered in Las Vegas for the national conference for the League of United Latin American Citizens that now is the time for a "fair, and firm and unfettered path for 11 million people" to become U.S. citizens.

"The question you should ask is, 'What will immigration reform do for America?'" Biden said Thursday. "The answer is clear and resounding: It can and will do great things for America."

Hoeven said the 10-year cost included $25 billion for the additional Border Patrol agents, $3 billion for fencing and $3.2 billion for other measures.

It's "border security on steroids," said Corker, who along with Hoeven had been uncommitted on the immigration bill. Both are now prepared to support it, assuming their amendment is adopted, as is expected to happen early next week. Sens. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., also announced their support Thursday.

Corker and Hoeven had said they expected the legislation to be formally unveiled in the Senate late Thursday, but for unexplained reasons that did not happen. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., adjourned the Senate around 10:30 p.m., saying the amendment was nearly ready and the Senate could move forward with it Friday.

The deal on border security came together quickly earlier this week after talks had bogged down over Republicans' insistence that green cards be made conditional on catching or turning back 90 percent of would-be border crossers. Schumer, other Democrats and Obama himself rejected this trigger, which they feared could delay the path to citizenship for years.

The breakthrough came when the Congressional Budget Office released a report Tuesday finding that the bill would cut billions of dollars from the deficit.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., an author of the bill who helped run interference between Corker and Hoeven and Democrats in the group, said that with the CBO finding in hand, he sat down with Schumer and Corker and said, "OK, let's go big."

The idea immediately appealed to the left and the right.

For Republicans, it provided concrete assurances that the bill would achieve a secure border. For Democrats, it offered goals that, if dramatic, were achievable and measurable.

Still, not everyone was won over.

Shortly before Corker and Hoeven went to the Senate floor to announce their agreement Thursday afternoon, five leading Republican opponents of the bill held a news conference to denounce the deal as little more than an empty promise.

"In short I think this amendment is designed to pass the bill but not to fix the bill," Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said.

About 10 Republicans have indicated they will vote for the bill, far more than enough to ensure it will have the 60 votes required to overcome any attempted filibuster by last-ditch opponents. Democrats control 54 seats, and party aides have said they do not expect any defections.

In addition to the border security components and eventual citizenship for the 11 million people now here illegally, the immigration bill would create new work visa programs and expand existing ones to allow tens of thousands of workers into the country to work in high- and low-skilled jobs.

Employers would have to verify their workers' legal status.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-immigration-bill-boosted-border-deal-073020424.html

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A Hologram-Projecting R2-D2 Birthday Cake Makes Us Insanely Jealous

We've seen a lot of awesome cake designs over the years, but this is the first time we've been genuinely envious over what a six-year-old was served at his birthday party. After all, who wouldn't want an R2-D2 birthday cake that actually projects holograms like the one Marc Freilich made for his son Alexander?

Saturday, June 8, 2013

A Simple Design Tweak Makes Sleeping Bags Less Like Straight Jackets

A tapering mummy-style sleeping bag is easier to travel with since they can be compressed extremely compact. But if you suffer from even a smidgen of claustrophobia, spending a night in one can be like sleeping in a straight jacket. To make them more comfortable and compatible with those of us who toss and turn, Nemo has created a spoon-shaped sleeping bag which provides extra space where it's needed, without sacrificing portability.