Netflix's results for the third quarter have arrived, and one of its most important numbers, the total amount of US subscribers (not including trial accounts) has reached 29.93 million, more than HBO's last count of 28.7 million. Last year at this time it had notched 25.1 million US customers, and Including trial subscribers it passed HBO's customer base back in April. Internationally it's up to 9.19 million subscribers and is anticipating that it will add more than three million customers total in the next quarter. New original series Orange is the New Black has been a hit and while Netflix still isn't releasing viewing numbers, it says the show will end the year "as our most watched original series ever."
Regarding its original content push, Netflix has already rolled out some of the stand-up comedy specials it promised (Aziz Ansari's is next up on November 1st) and says it will expand soon into original documentaries, largely based on the popularity of that kind of content among its customers.
LONDON (AP) — Britain has agreed to build the country's first nuclear power plant in a generation, ignoring concerns raised by the Fukushima meltdown in Japan as the U.K. seeks to secure its future energy needs and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The government struck a deal with Electricite de France and a group of Chinese investors Monday to build the country's first nuclear power plant since 1995 — a massive project that will bring in 16 billion pounds ($25.9 billion) of investment to keep the lights on amid declining supplies of North Sea gas and rapidly escalating fuel costs.
"If people at home want to be able to keep watching the television, be able to turn the kettle on, and benefit from electricity, we have got to make these investments," Energy Secretary Ed Davey told the BBC. "It is essential to keep the lights on and to power British business."
The deal for the new reactor, which will be built at Hinkley Point in southwest England, underlines the desperation politicians across Europe face in meeting energy needs amid dwindling fossil fuel resources and rising costs.
Germany decided two years ago to shut down all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, following years of anti-nuclear protests and the shock of the meltdown at Fukushima, Japan in 2011. But the effort needed to ramp up renewable energy sources to replace domestic nuclear reactors is proving to be costly: not only do many new wind, solar, water and biomass plants need to be built, but Germany's energy grid has to be overhauled to balance the fluctuating supply such power sources provide.
One of the last barriers to the British deal was removed during a visit to Asia last week by Treasury chief George Osborne, who announced that Chinese firms would be permitted to invest in civilian nuclear projects.
China General Nuclear Corp. and China National Nuclear Corp will provide 30 percent to 40 percent of the financing under the agreement in principle announced today, EDF said in a statement. EDF, which is majority-owned by the French government, will provide 45 percent to 50 percent.
The new reactor won't start generating power until 2023, but the deal stipulates the amount operators will be able charge for electricity to ensure they will be able to recoup the costs of the project.
The deal is also a boon to China, which relies on foreign technology for its generating stations and is trying to develop its own reactors.
• Video of Kanye West proposing to his babymama hits the Internets. [Global Grind]
• Marky Mark Wahlberg in Hongy Hong Kong. [LaineyGossip]
• Shenae Grimes (90210) is 24, Drake is 27, Monica is 33, Kevin Kline is 66 and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones is 77 years old. Click HERE to see who else is celebrating a birthday today.
Inquiry course into radioactivity wins Science magazine prize
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
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Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
College students who are not science majors grasp an understanding of the world at the atomic scale
When physics education researcher Andy Johnson first taught at the college level, he worked hard to find just the right way to explain physics concepts to his students. He noticed, though, that his lectures were not hitting home. "I said all these wonderful things, said them just the right way, but I could hear that it wasn't coming across," Johnson says. Refusing to go on lecturing ineffectively, Johnson started a long-range process of researching what methods of teaching physics were getting the best results.
As one result of his exploration, his course materials entitled Inquiry into Radioactivity have been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.
The Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Inquiry into Radioactivity will be published on October 25.
"Improving science education is an important goal for all of us at Science," says Bruce Alberts, Science editor-in-chief emeritus. "We hope to help those innovators who have developed outstanding laboratory modules promoting student inquiry to reach a wider audience. Each winning module will be featured in an article in Science that is aimed at guiding science educators from around the world to these valuable free resources."
Johnson, who grew up in Denver, was always interested in science. As he puts it, he was always interested in how things worked, and he studied physics in college. Even he, however, started to feel a disconnect between what he was interested in and what he was learning. "I was not learning what I wanted," Johnson says. "It was getting pretty stale."
After getting his Master's degree, Johnson taught college physics for two years. It was then that he felt certain the traditional model of teaching physics through lecture classes just wasn't working.
"Some professors just go right on lecturing," he says. "I don't know how they do it in good conscience."
Johnson started reading articles in the American Journal of Physics on physics education research, and he saw that some educators were getting better results with new methods. He decided to get a PhD at the University of California at San Diego and San Diego State University, where he would study with some of the leaders in the field, including physics education researcher Fred Goldberg.
The curriculum developed at San Diego State University, the Constructing Physics Understanding (CPU) method, had a scheme underlying it that put an emphasis on inquiry. That scheme started with asking students what they thought or knew about a certain topic, followed by a discussion that explored the students' own ideas. Next, some form of experimentation or inquiry was brought in to provide new experiences and food for thought to the students. Throughout, the teacher's role was to guide the students as they followed their own curiosity.
When Johnson went to Black Hills University, where he became the associate director for science education at the South Dakota Center for Math and Science Education, he brought the CPU curriculum with him. He also made a commitment to helping non-science majors to understand radioactivity and radiation at a time when nuclear power was being reconsidered as an attractive source of electricity.
"If we were going to have a nuclear renaissance, we were going to have to have a radiation-literate population," Johnson says.
Despite his commitment to making students radiation-literate, plus the methods he had adopted during his PhD program, Johnson still had to hone his curriculum to truly reach his students, he says. In order to understand radioactivity, for instance, students needed an understanding of atoms. When Johnson discovered that understanding was lacking, he created a homework assignment for his classes, but he says it didn't help. "I just kept seeing what wasn't working and changing things," he says.
Then he spent an entire three weeks of classroom time on atoms.
Ultimately, he developed a special computer simulation that allows students to "build" atoms and then to play with how ions attract and repel, and how unstable isotopes explode, so that his students could develop an understanding of atoms, ions and nuclear stability.
A dramatic highlight of the class occurs when Johnson arranges radioactive antiques, rocks and commercially available radioactive sources around his classroom. "I bring my radioactive sources into the classroom, and the Geiger counters click like crazy."
Students are apprehensive when Johnson asks them to touch a radioactive object for an entire minute, although they later learn that the amount of radiation that reaches their finger is about the same amount that would reach it in eight hours if they weren't touching a radioactive source.
"Inquiry into Radioactivity allows students to measure and explore radioactive decay in a relevant context, such as their classroom and homes, allowing them to address common misconceptions revolving around the topic of radioactivity," says Melissa McCartney, associate editor at Science.
Whether confronting his students with the relative risks of radiation, or simply asking them to develop and work on their own questions about the topic, Johnson has to convince his students that what they're doing is worthwhile. Because his approach is quite different from lecturing and assigning content to memorize, he finds some students need to be encouraged to activate their own motivation and curiosity.
"I have to work hard to get them to accept what I'm doing," Johnson says. "If I do succeed in that, they really enjoy the class."
One strategy Johnson has developed is showing students the online comments written by previous students. Some comments say, "Professor Johnson is really great. This is the first time I've ever understood science. I'm really loving this." Others say, "Professor Johnson never teaches us anything. You have to teach yourself. Why am I paying tuition to teach myself?"
Asking students which class they would choose to take, he then reveals that all of the comments come from the same class, Physics 101. "How could they have such a different experience," he asks his students. "It just depends on what you bring to the class."
According to Johnson's research, students walk away from his class with an understanding of radiation and of the world at the atomic scale. They also develop scientific reasoning abilities. Both are important to the basic science literacy needed to make decisions. Surprisingly, the occasional non-science major gets seriously hooked on the class and decides to go on taking physics classes.
Encouraged with his results, Johnson hopes that his winning the IBI prize and having an essay in Science will lead more educators to the Inquiry into Radioactivity curriculum.
"The materials are all available for download, and I encourage people to use them," he says.
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Inquiry course into radioactivity wins Science magazine prize
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
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| E-mail
]
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Contact: Natasha Pinol npinol@aaas.org 202-326-6440 American Association for the Advancement of Science
College students who are not science majors grasp an understanding of the world at the atomic scale
When physics education researcher Andy Johnson first taught at the college level, he worked hard to find just the right way to explain physics concepts to his students. He noticed, though, that his lectures were not hitting home. "I said all these wonderful things, said them just the right way, but I could hear that it wasn't coming across," Johnson says. Refusing to go on lecturing ineffectively, Johnson started a long-range process of researching what methods of teaching physics were getting the best results.
As one result of his exploration, his course materials entitled Inquiry into Radioactivity have been selected to win the Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction.
The Science Prize for Inquiry-Based Instruction was developed to showcase outstanding materials, usable in a wide range of schools and settings, for teaching introductory science courses at the college level. The materials must be designed to encourage students' natural curiosity about how the world works, rather than to deliver facts and principles about what scientists have already discovered. Organized as one free-standing "module," the materials should offer real understanding of the nature of science, as well as providing an experience in generating and evaluating scientific evidence. Each month, Science publishes an essay by a recipient of the award, which explains the winning project. The essay about Inquiry into Radioactivity will be published on October 25.
"Improving science education is an important goal for all of us at Science," says Bruce Alberts, Science editor-in-chief emeritus. "We hope to help those innovators who have developed outstanding laboratory modules promoting student inquiry to reach a wider audience. Each winning module will be featured in an article in Science that is aimed at guiding science educators from around the world to these valuable free resources."
Johnson, who grew up in Denver, was always interested in science. As he puts it, he was always interested in how things worked, and he studied physics in college. Even he, however, started to feel a disconnect between what he was interested in and what he was learning. "I was not learning what I wanted," Johnson says. "It was getting pretty stale."
After getting his Master's degree, Johnson taught college physics for two years. It was then that he felt certain the traditional model of teaching physics through lecture classes just wasn't working.
"Some professors just go right on lecturing," he says. "I don't know how they do it in good conscience."
Johnson started reading articles in the American Journal of Physics on physics education research, and he saw that some educators were getting better results with new methods. He decided to get a PhD at the University of California at San Diego and San Diego State University, where he would study with some of the leaders in the field, including physics education researcher Fred Goldberg.
The curriculum developed at San Diego State University, the Constructing Physics Understanding (CPU) method, had a scheme underlying it that put an emphasis on inquiry. That scheme started with asking students what they thought or knew about a certain topic, followed by a discussion that explored the students' own ideas. Next, some form of experimentation or inquiry was brought in to provide new experiences and food for thought to the students. Throughout, the teacher's role was to guide the students as they followed their own curiosity.
When Johnson went to Black Hills University, where he became the associate director for science education at the South Dakota Center for Math and Science Education, he brought the CPU curriculum with him. He also made a commitment to helping non-science majors to understand radioactivity and radiation at a time when nuclear power was being reconsidered as an attractive source of electricity.
"If we were going to have a nuclear renaissance, we were going to have to have a radiation-literate population," Johnson says.
Despite his commitment to making students radiation-literate, plus the methods he had adopted during his PhD program, Johnson still had to hone his curriculum to truly reach his students, he says. In order to understand radioactivity, for instance, students needed an understanding of atoms. When Johnson discovered that understanding was lacking, he created a homework assignment for his classes, but he says it didn't help. "I just kept seeing what wasn't working and changing things," he says.
Then he spent an entire three weeks of classroom time on atoms.
Ultimately, he developed a special computer simulation that allows students to "build" atoms and then to play with how ions attract and repel, and how unstable isotopes explode, so that his students could develop an understanding of atoms, ions and nuclear stability.
A dramatic highlight of the class occurs when Johnson arranges radioactive antiques, rocks and commercially available radioactive sources around his classroom. "I bring my radioactive sources into the classroom, and the Geiger counters click like crazy."
Students are apprehensive when Johnson asks them to touch a radioactive object for an entire minute, although they later learn that the amount of radiation that reaches their finger is about the same amount that would reach it in eight hours if they weren't touching a radioactive source.
"Inquiry into Radioactivity allows students to measure and explore radioactive decay in a relevant context, such as their classroom and homes, allowing them to address common misconceptions revolving around the topic of radioactivity," says Melissa McCartney, associate editor at Science.
Whether confronting his students with the relative risks of radiation, or simply asking them to develop and work on their own questions about the topic, Johnson has to convince his students that what they're doing is worthwhile. Because his approach is quite different from lecturing and assigning content to memorize, he finds some students need to be encouraged to activate their own motivation and curiosity.
"I have to work hard to get them to accept what I'm doing," Johnson says. "If I do succeed in that, they really enjoy the class."
One strategy Johnson has developed is showing students the online comments written by previous students. Some comments say, "Professor Johnson is really great. This is the first time I've ever understood science. I'm really loving this." Others say, "Professor Johnson never teaches us anything. You have to teach yourself. Why am I paying tuition to teach myself?"
Asking students which class they would choose to take, he then reveals that all of the comments come from the same class, Physics 101. "How could they have such a different experience," he asks his students. "It just depends on what you bring to the class."
According to Johnson's research, students walk away from his class with an understanding of radiation and of the world at the atomic scale. They also develop scientific reasoning abilities. Both are important to the basic science literacy needed to make decisions. Surprisingly, the occasional non-science major gets seriously hooked on the class and decides to go on taking physics classes.
Encouraged with his results, Johnson hopes that his winning the IBI prize and having an essay in Science will lead more educators to the Inquiry into Radioactivity curriculum.
"The materials are all available for download, and I encourage people to use them," he says.
###
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science as well as Science Translational Medicine and Science Signaling. AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak -- or Woz as he is more commonly known -- has said that he doesn't want an iPad Air because it doesn't meet his needs.
Speaking at Apps World today, Woz revealed that he hadn't seen Apple's iPad event keynote because he was flying, but that he caught up on the news when he landed in the United Kingdom. Having now read up about the iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini, though, Woz says that he doesn't actually want one after all.
"I am constantly following the gadget world but I was on a plane and missed all of the keynote," said Woz. "When I finally took a look at the devices, the iPads didn't hit my needs."
The iPad Air is much thinner and lighter than the fourth-generation iPad. It has a new, speedier A7 processor, as well as the M7 chip introduced with the iPhone 5s. But Woz still isn't impressed. "Yes it's thinner, but I wanted storage. I don't have broadband at home, and you can't get great broadband connection in hotels, so I carry all my personal media in the iPad. So I was hoping Apple has a 256GB iPad," Woz explained. "I was hoping for more storage so I could put every episode of 'Big Bang Theory' on my iPad. So I emailed my wife and said, 'Nope, I don't want one of those."
Apple did introduce a 128GB model of the iPad earlier this year, which continues with the iPad Air, and has added a 128GB version of its iPad Mini to the lineup. However, we think a 256GB version of the iPad might be a little bit much, at least for now. Most people won't need more than the 128GB available, they're using it like a laptop and carrying around their entire music, photo and video collections.
Also, we found it quite surprising that Woz doesn't have broadband at home, but he explained it's "because of his lousy phone company, but that is life."
"It is really sad as I was the one that had a 1MB line back in the day when everyone else was on dial up," he added. "I was the king of the hill."
As for the new Retina iPad mini, Woz says that the 7.9-inch tablet is "just a hair too large" for his liking.
Despite his comments, we wouldn't be surprised if Woz still queues up to buy himself Apple's new iPad. Last year, Woz headed down to an Apple Store in Los Angeles with his wife to queue for a new iPad on the day of launch.
Though most of us probably think time travel only works inside a DeLorean, much smarter folks out there can explain it slightly better than Doc Brown. Like this TED-Ed animation narrated by Colin Stuart. It reveals how time travel is possible, who has time traveled the longest, the history of time travel and the hopeful future. Learn something and then maybe we'll be ready for the future. [TED-Ed]
The glitch-ridden website built for people to purchase compulsory health insurance under the Affordable Care Act will be fixed in time for applicants to enroll in plans before the law’s deadline to sign up, contractors who built the site assured lawmakers on Thursday.
“The experience will be improved as we go forward, and people will be able to enroll by the Dec. 15 time frame,” Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president for CGI Federal, the company that helped build the government website, told members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “We’re seeing improvements day over day.” (People who want their coverage to become effective Jan. 1 must enroll by Dec. 15.)
The launch of HealthCare.gov has been fraught with accessibility problems since it launched Oct. 1. Users have complained that they are unable to create accounts or complete the application process to buy insurance from companies participating in the new government-run marketplace.
On Thursday, the Republican-majority committee questioned four private contractors who coordinated with the Department of Health and Human Services to build the site about why the site has so many early problems.
The contractors testified that their contributions to the site had tested well before the launch and that they had not recommended that the site launch be delayed.
Despite assurance that the website would be fixed in time, the White House on Wednesday night announced that applicants would be able to sign up for insurance until March 1, 2014 — the original deadline was Jan. 1 — without facing a penalty. Republicans and even some Democrats, meanwhile, have called for the law's individual mandate to purchase insurance to be delayed for at least a year because of the problems.
The federal government plans to announce official enrollment numbers by mid-November, officials said.
NASA sees Super-typhoon Lekima ready to make the curve
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
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Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Super-typhoon Lekima is poised to "make the curve" in the northwestern Pacific Ocean today. The storm's track is expected to shift from a northwesterly direction, and curve to northeasterly direction because it has started encountering mid-latitude westerly winds and a trough. NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Lekima just before it began its directional shift.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Super-typhoon Lekima in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 24 at 0105 UTC/Oct. 23 at 9:05 p.m. EDT as it ran into an elongated area of low pressure from the west, as well as mid-latitude westerlies and wind shear. Those factors started to elongate the system and change the storm's direction. The MODIS image showed a well- defined eye, about 25 nautical miles/28.7 miles/46.3 km wide and a thick eyewall of powerful thunderstorms around it.
On Oct. 24 at 11 a.m. EDT/1500 UTC, Super-typhoon Lekima's maximum sustained winds were near 130 knots/149 mph/240.8 kph. It was centered near 23.2 north and 145.4 east, about 274 nautical miles/315 miles/ 507 km east-southeast of Iwo To. Lekima was still traveling to the northwest at 14 knots/16.1 mph/25.9 kph toward the Japanese Island of Iwo To, but it is expected to curve and head toward the northeast in the next day.
Lekima is a powerful storm and is generating very rough seas. Wave heights are near 45 feet/13.7 meters, and those waves are propagating toward Iwo To.
Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that as Lekima moves northeast it will get embedded in the mid-latitude westerly winds. Cooler sea surface temperatures and increasing wind shear will weaken the storm, and it will become extra-tropical in a couple of days.
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NASA sees Super-typhoon Lekima ready to make the curve
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
24-Oct-2013
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]
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Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Super-typhoon Lekima is poised to "make the curve" in the northwestern Pacific Ocean today. The storm's track is expected to shift from a northwesterly direction, and curve to northeasterly direction because it has started encountering mid-latitude westerly winds and a trough. NASA's Terra satellite captured an image of Lekima just before it began its directional shift.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Super-typhoon Lekima in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean on Oct. 24 at 0105 UTC/Oct. 23 at 9:05 p.m. EDT as it ran into an elongated area of low pressure from the west, as well as mid-latitude westerlies and wind shear. Those factors started to elongate the system and change the storm's direction. The MODIS image showed a well- defined eye, about 25 nautical miles/28.7 miles/46.3 km wide and a thick eyewall of powerful thunderstorms around it.
On Oct. 24 at 11 a.m. EDT/1500 UTC, Super-typhoon Lekima's maximum sustained winds were near 130 knots/149 mph/240.8 kph. It was centered near 23.2 north and 145.4 east, about 274 nautical miles/315 miles/ 507 km east-southeast of Iwo To. Lekima was still traveling to the northwest at 14 knots/16.1 mph/25.9 kph toward the Japanese Island of Iwo To, but it is expected to curve and head toward the northeast in the next day.
Lekima is a powerful storm and is generating very rough seas. Wave heights are near 45 feet/13.7 meters, and those waves are propagating toward Iwo To.
Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that as Lekima moves northeast it will get embedded in the mid-latitude westerly winds. Cooler sea surface temperatures and increasing wind shear will weaken the storm, and it will become extra-tropical in a couple of days.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The leading contractors on the Obama administration's troubled health insurance website told Congress Thursday that the government failed to thoroughly test the complicated system before it went live.
Executives of CGI Federal, which built the federal HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, and QSSI, which designed the part that helps verify applicants' income and other personal details, testified under oath before the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The contractors said they each tested their own components independently but that the Health and Human Services department was responsible for testing the whole system from end to end. That kind of testing didn't happen until the last couple of weeks before the system's Oct. 1 launch.
It quickly crashed once consumers tried to use it.
Representing QSSI, Andrew Slavitt told the committee that ideally, end-to-end testing should have occurred well before the launch, with enough time to correct flaws.
How much time?
"Months would be nice," said Slavitt.
"We would have loved to have months," concurred CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell.
The administration's determination to go live on Oct. 1 despite qualms about testing quickly became a focus of the hearing, which turned sharply partisan at times.
Republicans, still committed to repealing Obama's health care law, approached the questioning with a prosecutorial tone, leading New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone to call the whole exercise a "monkey court."
The contractors did say the problems can and are being fixed on a daily basis, and they expressed confidence that uninsured Americans would have coverage by Jan. 1, when the law's benefits take effect, though they would not be held to a timetable.
The hearing comes as President Barack Obama's allies are starting to fret about the political fallout. Democrats had hoped to run for re-election next year on the benefits of the health care law for millions of uninsured Americans. Instead, computer problems are keeping many consumers from signing up through new online markets.
One House Democrat says the president needs to "man up" and fire somebody, while others are calling for signup deadlines to be extended and a reconsideration of the penalties individuals will face next year if they remain uninsured.
Rep. Richard Nolan, D-Minn., told The Associated Press the computer fiasco has "damaged the brand" of the health care law.
"The president needs to man up, find out who was responsible, and fire them," Nolan said. He did not name anyone.
The focus on the contractors is a first step for GOP investigators. After the failure of their drive to defund "Obamacare" by shutting down the government, Republicans have suddenly been handed a new line of attack by the administration itself. Administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, are to testify next week.
Slavitt, representing QSSI's parent company, said the operation's virtual back room, known as the federal data hub, is working well despite some bugs.
But his company was also involved with another part of the system, a balky component for registering individual consumer accounts that became an online bottleneck.
Slavitt acknowledged the registration system had problems but said they've largely been cleared away.
And he also laid blame on the administration, saying that a late decision to require consumers to create accounts before they could browse health plans contributed to the overload.
"This may have driven higher simultaneous usage of the registration system that wouldn't have occurred if consumers could window-shop anonymously," he said.
Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., chairman of the panel's health subcommittee, said he wants to focus on the administration's decision not to allow browsing, or window-shopping. That's a standard feature of e-commerce sites, including Medicare.gov for seniors. Lack of a browsing capability forced all users to first go through the laborious process of creating accounts, overloading that part of the site.
"Who made that decision? When was it made? Why was it made?" Pitts asked.
Without proof, some Republicans are suggesting it was done for political reasons, so shoppers could first see tax credits that work a like discount on their premiums.
Acknowledging what's been obvious to many outside experts, the administration now says the system didn't get enough testing, especially at a high user volume. It blamed a compressed time frame for meeting the Oct. 1 deadline to open the insurance markets. Basic "alpha and user testing" are now completed, but that's supposed to happen before a launch, not after.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are starting to worry aloud about persistent problems with the rollout.
Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley, interviewed Thursday on "CBS This Morning," said that Obama "can't just get stuck on this for the next several weeks." As for calls that Sebelius be fired, Daley said that would be like firing the captain of the Titanic "after the ship hit the iceberg."
Obama says he's as frustrated as anyone and has promised a "tech surge" to fix the balky website. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration will be more transparent about the problems. After more than 20 days without briefing the media, HHS will start regular sessions on Thursday, he said.
In light of the computer problems, some Democrats are saying Obama should consider extending open enrollment season beyond March 31 and revisit the penalties for individuals who don't sign up and remain uninsured. Under the law, virtually all Americans must carry health insurance starting next year or face fines.
On that point, a change in the timeline for signing up for coverage is underway, the White House said. Consumers have until Dec. 15 to apply for coverage that's effective Jan. 1. Even though open enrollment lasts until March 31, people would face a penalty if they postpone buying coverage beyond mid-February. Calling that a "disconnect," the White House said officials will soon issue policy guidance allowing consumers to sign up by the end of March without penalty.
____
Associated Press writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.
The number of health-tracking gadgets and apps is officially out of control. Fitbit just announced its Force activity-tracking watch. Apple integrated Nike+ and activity sensors into its latest smartphone. Jawbone, while initially a Bluetooth headset maker, is now pushing the Up. Nike FuelBand. BodyMedia Link. Pebble. Pear Pro. I can keep going.
Heck, Garmin, which has been making fitness-related GPS devices for years, is on a roll, and I should know because I spent hundreds on a Garmin 810 a couple months ago.
And I love it. I can track my rides, view my progress and get wrapped up in Strava rankings. I truly believe it enhances my fun time on the bike. My Garmin grabs the data right from a magnetic cadence sensor attached to my chain stay; the redundant GPS satellite links track the course; Garmin connect crunches the data; and I transfer the ride to Strava to see how I did compared to others (and to myself). It's all a fun, digital dance that marries my love of technology with that of cycling. Bliss.
But there's a dark -- maybe not dark, but let's call it shady -- side to all of this. The other evening when I was clamoring in the garage to get a ride in before the early fall sunset, I realized I had left my water bottles upstairs in the house. I clacked up the stairs in my biking shoes, grabbed the water bottles and headed back down. I then realized that I left my Garmin charging in the house. Back up the stairs. Back downstairs, I booted up the Garmin only to find that it couldn't connect to my iPhone via Bluetooth. I reset them both and the connection was good. I then flicked on the rear flasher light only to realize that I hadn't charged it in two weeks. Fine, I'd have to make it home before dark.
All of this took about 30 minutes. "At a decent riding pace," I thought to myself, "those 30 minutes equal 10 miles."
Finally on the saddle, I spent the first few minutes bemoaning those lost 10 miles.
The next day, I decided to simply hop on my bike (with helmet, of course) and take a ride. I have no idea how far I went, how fast or at what cadence. And you know what? I had a great time. I was just riding; there were no numbers -- it was just me and the bike.
But I'm not about to give up the Garmin, and I'm also eager to try the Jawbone Up. I love mixing gadgets and exercise in a motivational cocktail consisting of my two favorite hobbies.
In fact, there's part of me that wants to add even more gadgets to my riding. I'd love to try a power meter crankset -- a pedaling system that measures exactly how much power you are exerting into the bike's drivetrain in order to train for efficiency and pedal stroke. They cost around $3,000, so this won't be happening any time soon, but I want one.
I'd also love to try Shimano's Ultegra Di2 electronic-shifting component system. This $2,390 system uses wireless signals and robot-accurate derailleurs in place of cables that can stretch and require more maintenance.
That's almost $6,000 worth of gadgets that don't necessarily make the rider any faster or stronger. You might think that all of this makes riding un-fun, and you might be right. But I'm willing to take that risk to gain more ways to enjoy riding.
Almost every time I go to ride, I'm strapping on a heart-rate monitor, syncing my smartphone with a GPS device, downloading routes to said device, looking up top times on segments, calculating elevation gain, sweating my average speed and immersing myself in the numbers. To some that might seem like a lot of effort just to ride a bike. But it's a ritual I love, a quiet meditation before that moment when nothing can help me but my legs and lungs.
Just last week, a friend built a single-speed bike with no gears. He plans to take it on some of the tougher trails in the area. To me, this sounds like torture: I like dropping to a granny gear so I can eat up the climb and then clicking up to a high gear to shred through the flats. But he likes the simplicity, the lack of technology; just him and the trail.
And I get that. But I'll be over here with my thingamabobs and what's its.
Joshua Fruhlinger is the former Editorial Director for Engadget and current contributor to both Engadget and the Wall Street Journal. You can find him on Twitter at @fruhlinger.
UC Riverside astronomers help discover the most distant known galaxy
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
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Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala iqbal@ucr.edu 951-827-6050 University of California - Riverside
Galaxy is seen as it was just 700 million years after the Big Bang
RIVERSIDE, Calif. University of California, Riverside astronomers Bahram Mobasher and Naveen Reddy are members of a team that has discovered the most distant galaxy ever found. The galaxy is seen as it was just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only about 5 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years.
Results appears in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Nature.
In collaboration with astronomers at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A & M University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Mobasher and Reddy identified a very distant galaxy candidate using deep optical and infrared images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Follow-up observations of this galaxy by the Keck Telescope in Hawai'i confirmed its distance.
In searching for distant galaxies, the team selected several candidates, based on their colors, from the approximately 100,000 galaxies identified in the Hubble Space Telescope images taken as a part of the CANDELS survey, the largest project ever performed by the Hubble Space Telescope, with a total allocated time of roughly 900 hours. However, using colors to sort galaxies is tricky because some nearby objects can masquerade as distant galaxies.
Therefore, to measure the distance to these galaxies in a definitive way, astronomers use spectroscopy specifically, how much the wavelength of a galaxy's light has shifted towards the red-end of the spectrum as it travels from the galaxy to Earth, due to the expansion of the universe. This phenomenon is called "redshift." Since the expansion velocity (redshift) and distances of galaxies are proportional, the redshift gives astronomers a measure of the distance to galaxies.
"What makes this galaxy unique, compared to other such discoveries, is the spectroscopic confirmation of its distance," said Mobasher, a professor of physics and observational astronomy.
Mobasher explained that because light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, when we look at distant objects, we see them as they appeared in the past. The more distant we push these observations, the farther into the past we can see.
"By observing a galaxy that far back in time, we can study the earliest formation of galaxies," he said. "By comparing properties of galaxies at different distances, we can explore the evolution of galaxies throughout the age of the universe."
The discovery was made possible by a new instrument, MOSFIRE, commissioned on the Keck Telescope. Not only is the instrument extremely sensitive, but it is designed to detect infrared light a region of the spectrum to where the wavelength of light emitted from distant galaxies is shifted and could target multiple objects at a time. It was the latter feature that allowed the researchers to observe 43 galaxy candidates in only two nights at Keck, and obtain higher quality observations than previous studies.
By performing spectroscopy on these objects, researchers are able to accurately gauge the distances of galaxies by measuring a feature from the ubiquitous element hydrogen called the Lyman alpha transition. It is detected in most galaxies that are seen from a time more than one billion years from the Big Bang, but as astronomers probe earlier in time, the hydrogen emission line, for some reason, becomes increasingly difficult to see.
Of the 43 galaxies observed with MOSFIRE, the research team detected this Lyman alpha feature from only one galaxy, z8-GND-5296, shifted to a redshift of 7.5. The researchers suspect they may have zeroed in on the era when the universe made its transition from an opaque state in which most of the hydrogen is neutral to a translucent state in which most of the hydrogen is ionized (called the Era of Re-ionization).
"The difficulty of detecting the hydrogen emission line does not mean that the galaxies are absent," said Reddy, an assistant professor of astronomy. "It could be that they are hidden from detection behind a wall of neutral hydrogen."
The team's observations showed that z8-GND-5296 is forming stars extremely rapidly producing each year ~300 times the mass of our sun. By comparison, the Milky Way forms only two to three stars per year. The new distance record-holder lies in the same part of the sky as the previous record-holder (redshift 7.2), which also happens to have a very high rate of star-formation.
"So we're learning something about the distant universe," said Steven Finkelstein at the University of Texas at Austin, who led the project. "There are way more regions of very high star formation than we previously thought. There must be a decent number of them if we happen to find two in the same area of the sky."
"With the construction and commissioning of larger ground-based telescopes the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawai'i and Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile and the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope in space, by the end of this decade we should expect to find many more such galaxies at even larger distances, allowing us to witness the process of galaxy formation as it happens," Mobasher said.
###
Other team members include Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory; Vithal Tilvi of Texas A&M; and Keely Finkelstein and Mimi Song of the University of Texas at Austin.
The University of California, Riverside (http://www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 21,000 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion. A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
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UC Riverside astronomers help discover the most distant known galaxy
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
23-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala iqbal@ucr.edu 951-827-6050 University of California - Riverside
Galaxy is seen as it was just 700 million years after the Big Bang
RIVERSIDE, Calif. University of California, Riverside astronomers Bahram Mobasher and Naveen Reddy are members of a team that has discovered the most distant galaxy ever found. The galaxy is seen as it was just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only about 5 percent of its current age of 13.8 billion years.
Results appears in the Oct. 24 issue of the journal Nature.
In collaboration with astronomers at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A & M University, and the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, Mobasher and Reddy identified a very distant galaxy candidate using deep optical and infrared images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Follow-up observations of this galaxy by the Keck Telescope in Hawai'i confirmed its distance.
In searching for distant galaxies, the team selected several candidates, based on their colors, from the approximately 100,000 galaxies identified in the Hubble Space Telescope images taken as a part of the CANDELS survey, the largest project ever performed by the Hubble Space Telescope, with a total allocated time of roughly 900 hours. However, using colors to sort galaxies is tricky because some nearby objects can masquerade as distant galaxies.
Therefore, to measure the distance to these galaxies in a definitive way, astronomers use spectroscopy specifically, how much the wavelength of a galaxy's light has shifted towards the red-end of the spectrum as it travels from the galaxy to Earth, due to the expansion of the universe. This phenomenon is called "redshift." Since the expansion velocity (redshift) and distances of galaxies are proportional, the redshift gives astronomers a measure of the distance to galaxies.
"What makes this galaxy unique, compared to other such discoveries, is the spectroscopic confirmation of its distance," said Mobasher, a professor of physics and observational astronomy.
Mobasher explained that because light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, when we look at distant objects, we see them as they appeared in the past. The more distant we push these observations, the farther into the past we can see.
"By observing a galaxy that far back in time, we can study the earliest formation of galaxies," he said. "By comparing properties of galaxies at different distances, we can explore the evolution of galaxies throughout the age of the universe."
The discovery was made possible by a new instrument, MOSFIRE, commissioned on the Keck Telescope. Not only is the instrument extremely sensitive, but it is designed to detect infrared light a region of the spectrum to where the wavelength of light emitted from distant galaxies is shifted and could target multiple objects at a time. It was the latter feature that allowed the researchers to observe 43 galaxy candidates in only two nights at Keck, and obtain higher quality observations than previous studies.
By performing spectroscopy on these objects, researchers are able to accurately gauge the distances of galaxies by measuring a feature from the ubiquitous element hydrogen called the Lyman alpha transition. It is detected in most galaxies that are seen from a time more than one billion years from the Big Bang, but as astronomers probe earlier in time, the hydrogen emission line, for some reason, becomes increasingly difficult to see.
Of the 43 galaxies observed with MOSFIRE, the research team detected this Lyman alpha feature from only one galaxy, z8-GND-5296, shifted to a redshift of 7.5. The researchers suspect they may have zeroed in on the era when the universe made its transition from an opaque state in which most of the hydrogen is neutral to a translucent state in which most of the hydrogen is ionized (called the Era of Re-ionization).
"The difficulty of detecting the hydrogen emission line does not mean that the galaxies are absent," said Reddy, an assistant professor of astronomy. "It could be that they are hidden from detection behind a wall of neutral hydrogen."
The team's observations showed that z8-GND-5296 is forming stars extremely rapidly producing each year ~300 times the mass of our sun. By comparison, the Milky Way forms only two to three stars per year. The new distance record-holder lies in the same part of the sky as the previous record-holder (redshift 7.2), which also happens to have a very high rate of star-formation.
"So we're learning something about the distant universe," said Steven Finkelstein at the University of Texas at Austin, who led the project. "There are way more regions of very high star formation than we previously thought. There must be a decent number of them if we happen to find two in the same area of the sky."
"With the construction and commissioning of larger ground-based telescopes the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawai'i and Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile and the 6.5 meter James Webb Space Telescope in space, by the end of this decade we should expect to find many more such galaxies at even larger distances, allowing us to witness the process of galaxy formation as it happens," Mobasher said.
###
Other team members include Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory; Vithal Tilvi of Texas A&M; and Keely Finkelstein and Mimi Song of the University of Texas at Austin.
The University of California, Riverside (http://www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 21,000 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion. A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.
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Share
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Starting today, eBay is introducing a new feature designed to streamline your shopping experience: curated collections. Basically, curators handpick products from eBay's database and arrange them into collections; as part of the initial push, the company is including a few relatively big names among ...
China's Alibaba Group is poised to invest more in U.S. tech companies with the start of a new investment group that the e-commerce giant is setting up in San Francisco .
Alibaba is looking to back "innovative platforms, products, and ideas" that focus on e-commerce and new technologies with the investment group, the company said in an email Wednesday.
The company recently invested in three U.S. tech companies, the latest being ShopRunner, an online retailer that competes against Amazon.com. Alibaba led a recent investment round for ShopRunner that raised US$200 million.
Earlier in the year, the company also funded Quixey, a search engine for mobile apps, and Fanatics, a retailer of licensed sports merchandise.
The U.S. market and Silicon Valley have talent and expertise the Chinese e-commerce company wants to tap into, said Mark Natkin, managing director for Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting. At the same time, Alibaba has ambitions to become more international. Its investments in the U.S. could lay the groundwork for an eventual expansion into the country's market, Natkin added.
"Its often more effective, more cost efficient, to acquire a company that already has demonstrated success in the area you are trying to expand in," he said.
While not as well known in the U.S., Alibaba reigns as the largest e-commerce company in its home market. The company established Tmall and Taobao, two of the country's most popular online retail sites.
In the U.S., the company has a smaller presence with its wholesale supplier sites, Alibaba.com and AliExpress, which sells products to businesses and even consumers across the world.
Alibaba could also decide to list on a U.S. stock exchange, with an initial public offering some reports have estimated could value the company at over $100 billion.
Michael Kan, IDG News Service Beijing correspondent, IDG News Service, IDG News Service
Michael Kan covers IT, telecom and Internet in China for the IDG News Service. More by Michael Kan, IDG News Service
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Starting today, eBay is introducing a new feature designed to streamline your shopping experience: curated collections. Basically, curators handpick products from eBay's database and arrange them into collections; as part of the initial push, the company is including a few relatively big names among ...