Monday, 29 April 2013

Gigabit Internet In Vermont Is Cheaper Than Google Fiber

There have been vague rumblings about ISPs stepping up to match Google Fiber's gigabit internet offering, especially since Google announced that the next Fiber city would be Austin. Now 600 residents of Vermont are actually getting those speeds at half the Fiber price. What gives?

The Vermont Telephone Company (VTel), which serves about 17,500 homes, has installed a fiber network and is offering gigabit Internet speeds for $35 a month, compared to Fiber's $70. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company's chief executive is personally interested in upgrading VTel's phone network because it was originally installed in 1890. Infrastructure!

The company paid to install the 1,200 miles of fiber using $94 million of federal stimulus money it won for the project. Gigabit internet will be available to all VTel customers within the next few months, though it's unclear whether the $35/month pricing is here to stay or just part of the pilot. [WSJ via Engadget]

Image via Tim Pierce/Flickr

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5995487/gigabit-internet-in-vermont-is-cheaper-than-google-fiber

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Friday, 26 April 2013

Germany raises 2013 growth forecast to 0.5 percent: Economy ministry

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany will grow by a meager 0.5 percent this year, the government said on Thursday, raising its forecast by just 0.1 percentage points as a lack of investment and weak exports continue to be a drag on Europe's largest economy.

The German Economy Ministry kept its 2014 forecast for solid growth of 1.6 percent and said it was upbeat as the global economy begins to regain traction and crisis-stricken euro zone states make progress with their reforms.

"There is every reason to look to the future with optimism. The German economy is picking up again and is successfully leaving an economic weak phase behind it," German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said in a statement.

Europe's economic powerhouse lost momentum in late 2012 after putting in a strong performance during the first two years of the euro zone crisis. Growth slowed to 0.7 percent last year and the economy contracted by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter as firms postponed investments and foreign trade weakened.

Economists polled by Reuters expect the German economy to avoid recession by growing around 0.3 percent in the first quarter, though a drop in business sentiment and a decline in private sector activity suggest it may be heading for another contraction in the second quarter.

The ministry said firms would spend 2.2 percent less in equipment this year than in 2012, revising down a January forecast for 1.3 percent less investment due to a sharp fall last year.

But it said investment activity was emerging from a trough, with a backlog easing, and would increase by some 3 percent on the year in the fourth quarter.

German growth will be driven by domestic demand this year and next, the ministry said, as shoppers benefit from a stable labor market and disposable income is expected to rise by 2.3 percent in 2013 and by 2.8 percent next year.

The ministry said Germany's unemployment rate would hold steady at a 20-year low of 6.8 percent this year before falling to 6.6 percent in 2014.

It said exports, which have traditionally been the driver of German economic growth, would rise by a muted 1.6 percent this year before surging by 5.0 percent in 2014.

Weakness in the euro zone, where Germany ships some 40 percent of its goods, and China, which had proved a strong alternative market until recently, have weighed on the German economy.

The finance ministry said earlier this week that the German economy had stabilized in the first quarter, though industry remained in a lull and private consumption had not picked up.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, editing by Gareth Jones)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-raises-2013-growth-forecast-0-5-percent-105506766--business.html

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Amanda Bynes Shaved Her Head! See the Pic

Amanda Bynes has joined the not-so-prestigious club of celebrities who have shaved their heads. But instead of buzzing all of her hair, the 27-year-old just lost the sides of her blonde locks for an edgy new look.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/photo-amanda-bynes-shaved-her-head/1-a-534403?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aphoto-amanda-bynes-shaved-her-head-534403

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Google Brings Its New And Improved File Viewer For MS Office Documents To Chrome Beta

office_viewer_chrome_2If you regularly need to open Microsoft Office documents in the browser, Google now offers you a new Chrome extension that renders Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly in the browser. Currently, these documents open in a Drive-based viewer, but after you install the new Chrome Office Viewer (which is officially still in beta), these documents will open directly in the browser. Until now, this feature was limited to Chromebooks, but now it’s also available for Chrome on Windows and Mac. You do need to run Chrome Beta, however, as it’s not available for the stable release channel of Chrome just yet. The advantage of this new plug-in (which weighs in at over 20 megabytes), Google says, is that it ensures that you are protected from malware because the files open in a specialized sandbox “to impede attackers who use compromised Office files to try to steal private information or monitor your activities.” While Google doesn’t say so in today’s announcement, chances are this new feature is at least partially powered by the technology it acquired when it bought Quickoffice last year. When Google launched the Pixel Chromebook in February, it also said it would port Quickoffice to Chrome, using its Native Client technology. Those three months are almost over, so we’ll likely see a bit more from Google with regard to Office documents in the browser.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2UTTJYJG7Zs/

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Monday, 1 April 2013

Texas DA slain in his home; had armed himself

This undated photo taken from the Kaufman County, Texas, website shows Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. McLelland and his wife were found killed in their house, Saturday, March 30, 2013, two months after one of his assistants was gunned down near their office, authorities said. (AP Photo/Kaufman County)

This undated photo taken from the Kaufman County, Texas, website shows Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. McLelland and his wife were found killed in their house, Saturday, March 30, 2013, two months after one of his assistants was gunned down near their office, authorities said. (AP Photo/Kaufman County)

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes speaks at a news conference, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Kaufman, Texas. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their home. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

In this Saturday, March 30, 2013 photo, police block off Blarney Stone Road in Forney, Texas, where Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and wife Cynthia McLelland were found dead in their home near Forney, Texas. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Ian C. Bates) MANDATORY CREDIT; MAGS OUT; TV OUT; INTERNET OUT; AP MEMBERS ONLY

In this Saturday, March 30, 2013 photo, caution tape surrounds the home of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and wife Cynthia McLelland who were found dead in their home near Forney, Texas. (AP Photo/The Dallas Morning News, Ian C. Bates) MANDATORY CREDIT; MAGS OUT; TV OUT; INTERNET OUT; AP MEMBERS ONLY

Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes, center, speaks at a news conference, Sunday, March 31, 2013, in Kaufman, Texas. On Saturday, Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, were murdered in their home. (AP Photo/Mike Fuentes)

(AP) ? Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland took no chances after one of his assistant prosecutors was gunned down two months ago. McLelland said he carried a gun everywhere he went and was extra careful when answering the door at his home.

"I'm ahead of everybody else because, basically, I'm a soldier," the 23-year Army veteran said in an interview less than two weeks ago.

On Saturday, he and his wife were found shot to death in their rural home just outside the town of Forney, about 20 miles from Dallas.

While investigators gave no motive for the killings, Forney Mayor Darren Rozell said: "It appears this was not a random act."

"Everybody's a little on edge and a little shocked," he said.

The slayings came less than two weeks after Colorado's prison chief was shot to death at his front door, apparently by an ex-convict, and a couple of months after Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was killed in a parking lot a block from his courthouse office. No arrests have been made in Hasse's slaying Jan. 31.

McLelland, 63, is the 13th prosecutor killed in the U.S. since the National Association of District Attorneys began keeping count in the 1960s.

Sheriff David Byrnes would not give details Sunday of how the killings unfolded and said there was nothing to indicate for certain whether the DA's slaying was connected to Hasse's.

El Paso County, Colo., sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Joe Roybal said investigators had found no evidence so far connecting the Texas killings to the Colorado case, but added: "We're examining all possibilities."

Colorado's corrections director, Tom Clements, was killed March 19 when he answered the doorbell at his home outside Colorado Springs. Evan Spencer Ebel, a white supremacist and former Colorado inmate suspected of shooting Clements, died in a shootout with Texas deputies two days later about 100 miles from Kaufman.

McLelland himself, in an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado slaying, raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang.

The weekend slayings raised concerns for prosecutors across Texas, and some were taking extra security precautions. Byrnes said security would be increased at the courthouse in Kaufman but declined to say if or how other prosecutors in McLelland's office would be protected.

Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson said he accepted the sheriff's offer of 24-hour security for him and his family after learning about the slayings, mostly over concerns for his family's safety. Anderson said also would take precautions at his Houston office, the largest one in Texas, which has more than 270 prosecutors.

"I think district attorneys across Texas are still in a state of shock," Anderson said Sunday.

McLelland, elected DA in 2010, said his office had prosecuted several cases against racist gangs, who have a strong presence around Kaufman County, a mostly rural area dotted with subdivisions, with a population of about 104,000.

"We put some real dents in the Aryan Brotherhood around here in the past year," he said.

In recent years, the DA's office also prosecuted a case in which a justice of the peace was found guilty of theft and burglary and another case in which a man was convicted of killing his former girlfriend and her 10-year-old daughter.

McLelland said he carried a gun everywhere, even to walk his dog around town, a bedroom community for the Dallas area. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.

"The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it," he said of dealing with the danger, "because they're going to need it more in the future."

The number of attacks on prosecutors, judges and senior law enforcement officers in the U.S. has spiked in the past three years, according to Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County, Calif., district attorney's office who tracks such cases.

For about a month after Hasse's slaying, sheriff's deputies were parked in the district attorney's driveway, said Sam Rosander, a McLelland neighbor.

The FBI and the Texas Rangers joined the investigation into the McLellands' deaths.

McLelland and his wife, Cynthia, 65, were the parents of two daughters and three sons. One son is a police officer in Dallas. The couple had moved into the home a few years ago, Rozell said.

"Real friendly, became part of our community quickly," Rozell said. "They were a really pleasant, happy couple."

___

Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Michael Graczyk in Houston, Angela K. Brown in Fort Worth and P. Solomon Banda in Denver contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-31-District%20Attorney%20Dead-Texas/id-e209dfb33534498c96ae56a704381e76

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Dido: My Son Is Not Named After My Hit Song

"Stanley was actually our favorite name, coincidentally both of our favorite names. He could never have been called anything else to be honest," Dido shares. "I'm so stupid, I didn't think anyone would make the connection."

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/GC4LgmLxYns/

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Four hurt in crash, attack at California Walmart

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? Four people were hurt Sunday when a driver crashed his vehicle into a Wal-Mart and then assaulted customers inside, police said.

Investigators have not determined how fast the driver ? described as a male in his 30s ? was going at the time of the crash but the car went about 10 to 20 feet into the store in San Jose. About 70 people were inside at the time, police Officer Albert Morales said.

After the crash at around 11:15 a.m., the unidentified driver got out of his vehicle and used a blunt object to attack people, Morales said. The driver was arrested when officers arrived.

One person suffered what Morales described as serious injuries. He did not know the extent of the injuries to the three other people but said they were not life-threatening.

Customer Sharon Kaye told the San Jose Mercury News the driver sideswiped her car as he made several runs around the parking lot before driving between poles at the entrance and crashing into the store.

"At first, I thought I may have done something to anger him while driving," she said. "But then I realized he was out to get into the store."

After the crash, the entrance to the Wal-Mart was roped off with yellow police tape, and workers put up large boards covering the automatic doors where the car had entered.

Calls to the store by The Associated Press went unanswered Sunday.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/4-hurt-crash-attack-california-wal-mart-221547965.html

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