Retailers look to keep Black Friday momentum going (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? With the intensity of Black Friday shopping starting to fade, store chains know they are under pressure to keep the sales momentum going as they enter the next phase of a competitive holiday shopping season.

Chains such as Macy's Inc, Target Corp and Best Buy reported large crowds this year on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that sees millions of Americans start shopping more intensely for the holiday season.

With the National Retail Federation only expecting retail sales to rise a modest 2.8 percent this year, store chains say it is risky to take their foot off the pedal, even with a month to go, including an extra Saturday on the calendar this year.

"Everyone is trying to get the edge to get the people who need to spread their dollars," said Kevin Regan, a senior managing director at FTI Consulting.

After very deep discounts on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, retailers were still offering deep bargains on Saturday morning.

A Gap Inc store in New York's Times Square was boasting of 60 percent off everything. Aeropostale Inc shouted out on its website that everything was 50 percent to 70 percent off in its "Saturday Blowout."

Retailers know that consumers are struggling in the face of higher gas prices than last year and a tough job market.

While they try to keep the shopping interest up, hopefully they will not see the riotous crowds that brawled on Friday over video games, waffle irons and towels.

One of the most outrageous incidents of the day was in the Los Angeles area, where up to 20 people were injured after a woman at a Walmart used pepper spray to get an edge on other shoppers in a rush for Xbox game consoles.

The tough economy, coupled with smart phones leading to highly sophisticated price-comparison habits, mean the pressure to offer consumers something special and affordable is intense, even during the lull that often follows the long holiday weekend.

"We have put together an entire promotional program for the whole season. So we don't shoot all our bullets on the day after Thanksgiving," Jamie Brooks, SVP Retail Services for Sears Holdings told Reuters on Friday.

Deep discounts alone may not be enough.

Macy's Black Friday campaign featured an ad with teen entertainer Justin Bieber. And Macy's Chief Executive Terry Lundgren said on Friday the chain's roster of exclusive products would be a centerpiece of its holiday promotions.

Those efforts, in addition to the requisite deals, must be part of any retailer's strategy to stand apart.

"That's the name of the game now, promote promote promote," said AlixPartners managing director David Bassuk. "They've got to keep it coming."

Retailers are also trying to strike the right balance between not having too much inventory - and having to sell it at massive profit-sapping discounts - while making sure they do not run out of popular items and anger customers.

"The most important thing to our customers is when we see something in an ad and come into the store, we have to have it," said J.C. Penney Co Inc executive Mike Thielmann.

Online shopping soared on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday, suggesting that Cyber Monday - the biggest online shopping day of the year - could be a banner day for retailers with the right mix of discounts, special offers and the now commonplace free shipping.

"The big question for all of us is, will consumers continue to come out through the rest of the season," said John Squire, chief strategy officer of IBM Smarter Commerce.

His firm said online sales soared 39.3 percent on Thanksgiving and 24.3 percent on Black Friday versus last year, with robust growth in searches and sales on mobile phones and tablet computers.

Many executives sounded a cautious note about the economy, despite the promising Black Friday. But they are taking nothing for granted, given the tepid outlook for consumer spending.

"The customer is clearly looking for value, that is something that is going to be with this consumer for a long, long time," Lundgren said on Friday.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba in New York and Jessica Wohl in Chicago; additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111126/bs_nm/us_usa_retail_saturday

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Chemspy chemistry news, views and videos ? Blocking cancer's path

Blocking cancer's path - A concise synthesis of the natural product rasfonin could reignite interest in this molecule as a tool to develop cancer drugs, say scientists from the Netherlands. Adriaan Minnaard and Ben Feringa's group from the University of Groningen developed the synthesis, which has a higher overall yield and takes fewer steps than previous syntheses, they say.

Source: http://www.chemspy.com/blocking-cancers-path.html

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Mexican group asks ICC to probe president, officials (Reuters)

THE HAGUE/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) ? Mexican human rights activists want the International Criminal Court to investigate President Felipe Calderon, top officials and the country's most-wanted drug trafficker, accusing them of allowing subordinates to kill, torture and kidnap civilians.

Netzai Sandoval, a Mexican human rights lawyer, filed a complaint with the ICC in The Hague on Friday, requesting an investigation into the deaths of hundreds of civilians at the hands of the military and drug traffickers in Mexico, where more than 45,000 have died in drug-related violence since 2006.

"The violence in Mexico is bigger than the violence in Afghanistan, the violence in Mexico is bigger than in Colombia," Sandoval said.

"We want the prosecutor to tell us if war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in Mexico, and if the president and other top officials are responsible."

Signed by 23,000 Mexican citizens, the complaint names Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who has a $5 million bounty on his head, as well as Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna and the commanders of Mexico's army and navy.

The lawyers asked the ICC, the world's first permanent war crimes court, to open a formal investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Mexico.

A decision by ICC prosecutors on whether to launch an investigation could take months or even years, legal experts say. The ICC has investigated crimes including genocide, murder, conscription of child soldiers and rape, mostly in Africa.

The Mexican government has denied the accusations and said security policy cannot constitute an international crime.

"In our country, society is not the victim of an authoritarian government or of systematic abuses by the armed forces," the foreign ministry said in a statement in October, when the petition was made public.

"In Mexico, there is a rule of law in which crime and impunity are fought without exception," the statement said.

TICKING THE BOXES

The office of the prosecutor said in a statement to Reuters that it had received the request, would study it, and "make a decision in due course."

The ICC tries cases of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity in states that are unwilling or unable to prosecute these crimes on their own.

"There are a large number of boxes that the prosecutor would need to check off before he could actually open an investigation," said Richard Dicker, an international justice expert with Human Rights Watch.

"It's possible ... but I think you want to be clear on what the challenges and obstacles are."

Several of those requirements have been met: Mexico has signed up to the ICC, the crimes fall within the ICC's time frame, and the case is not already being prosecuted in Mexico.

But in considering the case, ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo will have to decide if the crimes presented in the activists' complaint, such as the torture of criminal suspects, qualify as crimes against humanity.

"The crimes would have to be widespread or systematic, carried out by a state or organization in attacks on a civilian population," Dicker said.

"It's certainly very arguable," said William Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University.

"The prosecutor has been very focused on Africa. The pattern is, he stays within the comfort zone of the United States. Going after Mexicans for the war on drugs falls outside that comfort zone."

Activists claim that Calderon has systematically allowed Mexican troops to commit abuses against the civilian population since the military was deployed to fight Mexican drug traffickers in 2006.

More than 50,000 troops are currently battling drug cartels around the country, while the ranks of federal police have swelled from 6,000 to 35,000 under Calderon's watch.

Human rights activists say that Mexican troops and police are regularly violating the rights of citizens in their crackdown on the cartels.

A Human Rights Watch report has found evidence that Mexican police and armed forces were involved in 170 cases of torture, 24 extrajudicial killings and 39 forced disappearances in five Mexican states.

"We have known for five years that the Mexican army is committing sexual abuse, executing people, torturing people and kidnapping, and there have been no sanctions," Sandoval said, adding that he, like many other Mexicans, knows people who have lost family members in the drug-related violence.

Mexico's national human rights commission received more than 4,000 complaints of abuses by the army from 2006 to 2010. In the same period it issued detailed reports on 65 cases involving army abuse, according to Human Rights Watch.

(Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111125/wl_nm/us_mexico_icc

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Dan Rather: Avoiding the Auction Block (Huffington post)

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Occupy Oakland prevented from re-establishing encampments by police

Occupy Oakland protestors have been cleared out and police are on guard to keep them from?re-establishing any encampments.

Police clad in riot gear and armed with tear gas cleared out?Oakland's?anti-Wall Street encampment early Monday, the latest law enforcement crackdown amid complaints around the country of health and safety hazards at protest camps.

Skip to next paragraph

The raid at the?Occupy?Oakland?camp, one of the largest and most active sites in the movement, came a day after police in Portland, Ore., arrested more than 50 people while shutting down its camp amid complaints of drug use and sanitation issues.

Police in Burlington, Vt., also evicted protesters after a man fatally shot himself last week inside a tent.

Police staged a previous raid on the?Oakland?encampment Oct. 25, but Mayor Jean Quan allowed protesters to re-establish their tent city. On Monday, however, Quan said officials could no longer ignore the problems the camp posed.

"We came to this point because?Occupy?Oakland, I think, began to take a different path than the original movement," Quan said. "The encampment became a place where we had repeated violence and last week a murder. We had to bring the camp to an end before more people got hurt."

Demands increased for?Oakland?protesters to pack up after a man was shot and killed Thursday near the encampment at the City Hall plaza.

Protesters claimed there was no connection between the shooting and the camp. But police identified the slain man as Kayode Ola Foster, 25, of?Oakland, saying his family confirmed he had been staying at the plaza.

Witnesses also told police that one of two suspects in the shooting had also been a frequent resident at the plaza. The names of the suspects have not been released.

Monday's raid came as no surprise to protesters after the city issued its fourth order to abandon the camp. About 300 officers from theOakland?Police Department and seven other law enforcement agencies moved in around 5:30 a.m., arresting 33 people and tearing down about 150 tents.

Another man was arrested later in the morning for trying to break through police barricades and spitting on officers.

Protesters vowed to regroup and return.

"I don't see how they're going to disperse us," said Ohad Meyer, 30, of?Oakland. "There are thousands of people who are going to come back."

Officials declared the operation a success, saying all arrests were peaceful and there were no reported injuries to protesters or officers. Police said those taken into custody likely will face charges of unlawful assembly and lodging.

"This had been a very difficult situation," Quan said. "I'd tried to do what was right for the city and keep the most people safe at every step."

Not everyone in Quan's camp agreed with the show of force.

Dan Siegel, one of the mayor's top legal advisers, resigned over Monday's raid, saying officials should have done more to work with protesters before sending in police. Siegel, a longtime friend of Quan who worked as an unpaid adviser, has been a vocal critic of?Oakland?police and their handling of the Oct. 25 raid.

Video footage of a protest after the Oct. 25 raid showed officers using flash-bang grenades and firing beanbag rounds into the crowd, injuring a number of people and prompting cries of police brutality.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/rREyUPOjYPs/Occupy-Oakland-prevented-from-re-establishing-encampments-by-police

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Arizona recall vote energizes Democrats (AP)

PHOENIX ? Last week's recall election defeat of the Republican legislator who wrote Arizona's tough anti-immigration law and the seating of Democratic mayors in Phoenix and Tucson have given Democrats renewed hope for picking up the state in next year's Senate and presidential elections.

Combined, the outcomes underscored the diversity of voters in what many view as a conservative state even though voters here are split nearly in thirds among Republicans, independents and Democrats.

The Democratic Party argued that Tuesday's recall of state Senate President Russell Pearce was evidence of a broader shift to the left that will reverberate in 2012.

"For the first time in 20 years, we will have Democratic mayors of Tucson and Phoenix," state Democratic Party Chairman Andrei Cherny wrote in an email to supporters. "And for the first time in American history, a state legislative leader - the most powerful politician in Arizona - was recalled from office. These are victories for all Arizonans - ones that six months ago would have seemed all but impossible."

"A year from now, when we are looking back on Election Day 2012, we will point to last night as where things turned around for our party and state," he added.

Republicans dismissed Tuesday's results as coming from an "abnormal election" funded by out-of-state interests upset by Arizona's 2010 enactment of the groundbreaking immigration enforcement law known as SB1070.

"They thought this proved a point. It didn't," said Arizona GOP chairman Tom Morrissey. "It will all be undone in the next election. It was a power grab by the left. They won a battle, they have not won the war by any means."

But the rhetoric, new polls and the emphasis being put on Arizona by the Democrats and President Barack Obama's campaign indicates that the state ? which on the surface appears solidly red with its two longtime Republican U.S. Senators, a GOP near-sweep of statewide offices and one of the country's most conservative legislatures ? is heading into the 2012 elections solidly purple.

In the 2008 presidential race, Arizona was a given for home-state candidate John McCain, the Republican nominee.

And while Republican Gov. Jan Brewer was an easy winner in 2010, Democrat Janet Napolitano twice ran gubernatorial races in the last decade.

"I think that some on the East Coast don't put us there," said Cherny. "But every indication is we are there. The Obama campaign has said Arizona is at the top of the places they are looking at to compete very hard."

In 2012, Obama spokeswoman Ofelia Casillas said, the state will play a "critical role" and has been among the battleground states where its grassroots movement, Organizing for America, has been active. The campaign has also recently hired a Mexican-American regional field director and a Mexican-American fellow who is focused on reaching out to the Latino community.

Those efforts may find fertile ground in a state where Hispanics make up nearly 30 percent of the population.

A recent Rocky Mountain Poll from October showed Obama either about even or apparently ahead of three Republican presidential contenders: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

The same survey also found that only 38 percent of the state's voters call themselves conservative. Thirty-four percent consider themselves moderate while 28 percent call themselves liberal.

"The impression of Arizona as a majority conservative state is more a reflection of gerrymandering and the historically superior strength of conservative forces in getting their voters to the polls," the Behavior Research Center said of the ideological splits.

Indeed, neither party holds a majority of the state's voters. Republicans hold a slight lead with roughly 36 percent of registered voters while roughly 33 percent are independent and 31 percent are Democrats.

The Behavior Research Center pollsters said the recall of Pearce, whom they called "the most powerful conservative voice in state government," may be a "harbinger of what can happen when voters in the center organize to get out their vote and make their election preferences felt."

Organization and appealing to mainstream voters more interested in solving problems than championing extreme politics and hot-button issues like immigration are the focus of the Arizona Democratic party, Cherny said.

In that vein, their hopes in the state's 2012 race for U.S. Senate may have been bolstered last week when Richard Carmona officially entered the race for the seat now held by retiring Republican Jon Kyl. The former surgeon general under President George W. Bush was aggressively recruited by Democratic leaders who hope he will appeal to the state's moderate and independent voters.

Carmona describes himself as a fierce independent and notes that Republicans in the past had also recruited him to run for office. He'll face lesser-known Don Bivens, an attorney and former state party chairman, in the primary, while U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake and businessman Will Cardon will battle for the Republican nomination.

Morrissey, the state Republican chairman, said Tuesday's vote only provides his party's activists with an incentive to work harder. And there's reason for optimism, he said.

"In the wake of all this we still face the same problems: immigration, jobs, education, the economy. It all happens to be tied together," Morrissey said.

___

Clausing reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111113/ap_on_el_ge/us_battleground_arizona

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Rovio Opens The World?s First Angry Birds Store In Finland

Look out, Sanrio. After dominating the mobile world for just shy of two years (haters be damned), Angry Birds is movin' on up into its own retail space. While Rovio plans on opening up shop in China (where the brand is huge, but next to all of the available merchandise is fake) sometime next year, this first store is on their home turf in Helsinki, Finland. It's got a massive slingshot!

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

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Beta Investing: How to Grow and Maintain Family Wealth

11/11/11 Paris, France ? We agreed to write a book on ?family money,? that is, on how families get and keep their fortunes over generations. We are completely unqualified to write the book, because our family never had any money. Still, it is a fascinating subject?and the more we look into it, the more we write about it, the more we come to understand what it is all about. It is not about ?safe, conservative? strategies. Instead, it is a manifesto for the most dynamic capitalism on the planet.

The rich are not like everybody else. They shouldn?t try to be. Most people don?t have any money. People who have money are different. If you want to have money, it stands to reason that you have to do things differently. It?s that simple. Especially if you want to have money for more than a single generation.

For example, everybody is trying to find the stock that will go up. They all want to be an alpha investor ? the big man on campus who puts his money into Google when it opened for business?or the guy who bought Berkshire Hathaway back in the ?70s. That?s the whole game, they believe?seeking alpha.

Alpha is what they call the above-market gains you can get by selecting the right stocks. But the trouble with alpha is that it is as unreliable as a teenage employee. You think you?ve got him all set?and he doesn?t show up for work. You choose one stock that goes up. Then, you choose two that don?t. And then you get a real nightmare stock?and you?re wiped out. Over the long run ? by definition and observation ? most alpha-seeking investors cannot beat the market averages.

But what choice do you have? You?re a typical investor. You?ve got 10 years to build up a small pile of savings into a retirement fund. You do your homework. You take your chances. You hope to get lucky.

If you did that for a long time, your successes and your failures would about balance themselves out. Sometimes you?ll beat the market. Sometimes the market will beat you. Provided you didn?t make any major mistakes. But you don?t have forever. You can?t get average, long-term performance. You don?t have long-term. You only get a piece of it?and you hope it will be the good piece.

A serious family, with a serious long-term wealth strategy, on the other hand, has to do something different. It knows that chasing alpha will give it only average returns over time. It knows that average, long-term returns are very small. It wants to do better than that. And it has time on its side. So, how can it do better? Not by chasing alpha at all. Instead, it goes after ?beta.?

A beta strategy is completely different. Instead of trying to beat the market you make the market your friend. You don?t try to beat it; you just want to join it. And go along with it. But you need to be careful to choose which market you join. You want the market that will take you to your destination. And you need to get aboard at the right moment.

We?ve explored this before?how you could have multiplied your money 150 times just by making three simple investment decisions in the last 40 years. And two of the decisions were exactly the same! Note that these are not alpha chasing decisions. These are beta decisions, choosing which market you want to be in?and waiting until the best possible time to get in.

So let?s go back. You know how Richard Nixon cut the dollar?s link to gold in 1971? It didn?t take much imagination to see what would happen next. Inflation rates would probably increase?and they would inevitably drive up the price of gold.

So, imagine that you started with $10,000. And in the early ?70s ? you had years of opportunity ? you bought gold. Just to keep the math simple, we?ll say you paid about $50 an ounce.

By the end of the ?70s your gold was shooting over $500 an ounce. You made 10 times your money. You were not sure what would happen next, but you read the paper. Paul Volcker, head of the Federal Reserve, vowed to crush inflation. He seemed serious. And by the early ?80s?it was beginning to look like he might win his battle against rising consumer prices.

Again, you didn?t have to have a Ph.D. in economics to realize that falling inflation rates wouldn?t be good for gold. On the other hand, they?d be very good for stocks or bonds. So, you made your second decision. You sold the gold and put the money into the stock market. Gold rose over $800, but let?s say you locked in your sale at $500?a ?10 bagger,? as they say. Again, you had plenty of time to make your move. The price of gold stayed over $500 from the end of 1979 until well into 1981.

The stock market took its sweet time too. But that?s the way beta investing goes. One decision. Lots of waiting. The Dow lollygagged around for five years after 1980 before it hit 1,500. So, let?s say you waited 5 years and bought at 1,500. Then, you waited again. Gradually, the Dow rose. And rose. And rose.

By the end of the ?90s, the Dow rose over 10,000. By January, 2000, it was over 11,000. Then, there were so many warning bells ringing you would have had to be deaf not to hear them. The Dow was up 1,000%. People were starting dot.com businesses with nothing. No business plans. No sales. No profits. They were making millions selling them to investors. Something had to give.

What should you have done? You should have made your third investment decision in 30 years. You should have sold stocks and bought gold again. Stocks were overbought. Gold was oversold. Adjusting for inflation, gold was down 80% to 90% from its ?80 high. Stocks were up 5 times, inflation adjusted, from their ?80 low.

If you?d done that you would have multiplied your money another 6 times. Your original $10,000 would have become $300,000. Then, in gold since 2000, you would have multiplied your money another 5 times ? for $1, 500,000.

But let?s say you missed the clanging bells in 2000s. You just held your stocks. In fact, after a brief drop, they continued to go up. The Dow eventually rose over 15,000 ? giving you a total of about $500,000 at the top. Not too shabby, right?

That?s what beta investing can do for you. That?s what the smart money, the old money, the family money does.

In any event, that?s what we try to do in our family office.

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
for The Daily Reckoning

Bill Bonner

Since founding Agora Inc. in 1979, Bill Bonner has found success and garnered camaraderie in numerous communities and industries. A man of many talents, his entrepreneurial savvy, unique writings, philanthropic undertakings, and preservationist activities have all been recognized and awarded by some of America's most respected authorities. Along with Addison Wiggin, his friend and colleague, Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. Both works have been critically acclaimed internationally. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning.?Dice Have No Memory: Big Bets & Bad Economics from Paris to the Pampas,?the newest book from Bill Bonner, is the definitive compendium of Bill?s daily reckonings from more than a decade: 1999-2010.?

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Returning veterans now battle tough job market (AP)

CHICAGO ? Orlando Ocasio has a Purple Heart. What he needs now is a job.

As a member of the Marine Corps, Ocasio stormed Baghdad in 2003. A year later on his second deployment, he and his team were ambushed on their way to Fallujah, and he was shot in the leg and suffered shrapnel wounds. When he came home in 2004, he got a job at a factory making airline parts, earning about $42,000 a year. He bought a home in the suburbs and settled down with his wife, Monica, to raise their two young boys.

"Then the economy went down and I was laid off, and as soon as that happened we couldn't pay our mortgage, put food on the table," said Ocasio, 31, who has now been unemployed for two years and has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since the ambush.

"We were about 90 days from being homeless."

Ocasio joined the ranks of the 240,000 unemployed veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Unemployment tops 20 percent among 18-to-24-year-old veterans, compared with a national rate of about 9 percent, Department of Labor figures show. And the situation is expected to worsen after 10,000 service members return from Afghanistan and 46,000 come home from Iraq by year's end ? many wounded or suffering from mental trauma.

A measure approved by the Senate on Thursday is aimed at helping unemployed veterans, by providing special tax incentives to companies that hire them and strengthening employment counseling and training programs. The House is expected to approve the bill next week, which would send it to President Barack Obama.

At the Humboldt Park Armory in Chicago, the chatter among men and women who have served was about the economy and the troops that are coming home to yet another battle, the job market.

"I am very concerned for all these troops," said Leroy Holland who spent most of his time on the John F. Kennedy battleship during the Vietnam conflict. "They will go through the turmoil of not feeling like they fit in, the hell of adjusting back to life and in an economy that is ruined. I feel bad for them."

While veterans from that era may see fewer benefits from the tax incentives and credits in the legislation, they have plenty of advice for veterans who are coming home to tough times.

"Please, please don't be shamed to ask for help, especially mental help," said 66-year-old Army veteran James Poriatis, who was injured in the Vietnam war. "We were all mostly ashamed after Vietnam, you don't have to be."

Ocasio, who suffers from anxiety and sleep problems, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Since the ambush in 2004 he has felt distorted.

"Emotionally, physically I just have not been able to recover and here I am, at the VA, seven years later," he said while sitting in a small waiting room on the tenth floor of the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.

With the help of a friend and government assistance in the form of disability pay, Ocasio is now living in an apartment in Chicago with his wife and two toddler sons. Monica, also a former Marine, is a full-time student and mother while Ocasio tries to recover fully from the war and looks for a job.

"We have friends who are on their third and fourth deployments, and they have children, but they don't want to get out of the military because they are afraid to come home and not have a job and medical insurance," Ocasio said. "There are a lot of scared soldiers."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_re_us/us_coming_home_jobless

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Samsung outs pink Galaxy S II and limited edition Galaxy Tab 10.1, plays up battle of the sexes

While some manufacturers play coy with their gender marketing plans (*cough* the Rhyme *cough*), others make no pretense about pandering straight to the sexes. Cue Samsung with two distinct South Korea-only Android offerings for both guys and dolls -- a Galaxy S II painted in pink and a Lions special edition Galaxy Tab 10.1 for baseball fans. Sammy's issuing a limited production run of the popular Honeycomb slate to commemorate its team's Korea Series Championship win, and will pack an autographed ball and jersey in the box. As for that GS II in pinkalicious clothing, well, that's all you ladies are getting -- same beefy specs, same beefy screen and absolutely no charm dongle. These changes may be only skin-deep, but for the swag and style-obsessed alike, it's still nice kit if you can get it.

Continue reading Samsung outs pink Galaxy S II and limited edition Galaxy Tab 10.1, plays up battle of the sexes

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/10/samsung-outs-pink-galaxy-s-ii-and-limited-edition-galaxy-tab-10/

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Ancient lunar dynamo may explain magnetized moon rocks

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The presence of magnetized rocks on the surface of the moon, which has no global magnetic field, has been a mystery since the days of the Apollo program. Now a team of scientists has proposed a novel mechanism that could have generated a magnetic field on the moon early in its history.

The "geodynamo" that generates Earth's magnetic field is powered by heat from the inner core, which drives complex fluid motions in the molten iron of the outer core. But the moon is too small to support that type of dynamo, according to Christina Dwyer, a graduate student in Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In the Nov. 10 issue of Nature, Dwyer and her coauthors -- planetary scientists Francis Nimmo at UC Santa Cruz and David Stevenson at the California Institute of Technology -- describe how an ancient lunar dynamo could have arisen from stirring of the moon's liquid core driven by the motion of the solid mantle above it.

"This is a very different way of powering a dynamo that involves physical stirring, like stirring a bowl with a giant spoon," Dwyer said.

Dwyer and her coauthors calculated the effects of differential motion between the moon's core and mantle. Early in its history, the moon orbited the Earth at a much closer distance than it does today, and it continues to gradually recede from the Earth. At close distances, tidal interactions between the Earth and the moon caused the moon's mantle to rotate slightly differently than the core. This differential motion of the mantle relative to the core stirred the liquid core, creating fluid motions that, in theory, could give rise to a magnetic dynamo.

"The moon wobbles a bit as it spins--that's called precession--but the core is liquid, and it doesn't do exactly the same precession. So the mantle is moving back and forth across the core, and that stirs up the core, " explained Nimmo, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UCSC.

The researchers found that a lunar dynamo could have operated in this way for at least a billion years. Eventually, however, it would have stopped working as the moon got farther away from the Earth. "The further out the moon moves, the slower the stirring, and at a certain point the lunar dynamo shuts off," Dwyer said.

Rocks can become magnetized from the shock of an impact, a mechanism some scientists have proposed to explain the magnetization of lunar samples. But recent paleomagnetic analyses of moon rocks, as well as orbital measurements of the magnetization of the lunar crust, suggest that there was a strong, long-lived magnetic field on the moon early in its history.

"One of the nice things about our model is that it explains how a lunar dynamo could have lasted for a billion years," Nimmo said. "It also makes predictions about how the strength of the field should have changed over the years, and that's potentially testable with enough paleomagnetic observations."

More detailed analysis is needed, however, to show that stirring of the core by the mantle would create the right kind of fluid motions to generate a magnetic field. "Only certain types of fluid motions give rise to magnetic dynamos," Dwyer said. "We calculated the power that's available to drive the dynamo and the magnetic field strengths that could be generated. But we really need the dynamo experts to take this model to the next level of detail and see if it works."

A working model of a lunar dynamo, combined with more detailed paleomagnetic analysis of moon rocks, could give scientists a powerful tool for investigating the history of the moon, Dwyer said. In addition, the study presents a novel mechanism for generating a magnetic field not only on the moon, but also on other small bodies, including large asteroids.

###

University of California - Santa Cruz: http://www.ucsc.edu

Thanks to University of California - Santa Cruz for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115063/Ancient_lunar_dynamo_may_explain_magnetized_moon_rocks

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PFT: Haynesworth gave up vs. Giants

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The Albert Haynesworth experiment in New England clearly wasn?t working. ?Bill Belichick decided to cut his losses Tuesday before Haynesworth became any more expensive.

When Haynesworth joined the Patriots, he took a pay cut in base salary from $5.4 million to $1.5 million. ?He had the chance to make that money back in playing time incentives.

He won?t make any of the money back now.

Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported in August that Haynesworth would have received a $1 million bonus if he played in 20% of the team?s snaps for the year. Almost $3 million more was available if he reached playing time incentives beyond that.

None of that money should be paid to Haynesworth. ?Using snap counts from ESPNBoston.com?s Mike Reiss, Haynesworth has played roughly 30% of the team?s snaps during the first nine games. ?Cutting Haynesworth now should allow the Patriots to avoid any further payment because that percentage should dip below 20% by year?s end.

Haynesworth will be subject to waivers, but we?d be shocked if any team claimed him.

In the end, the Patriots wasted a fifth-round pick (in 2013), $1.5 million, and way too much time and energy on Haynesworth.

Let?s not pretend, however, that this was a financial move. If Haynesworth was playing well, the Patriots would gladly pay him all the money.

He wasn?t playing well at all, which means Haynesworth will go down as yet another recent failed defensive personnel move by Bill Belichick.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/11/08/haynesworth-gave-up-against-giants/related/

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Public Health Students Network at Washington Conference

Published:?Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Updated:?Wednesday, November 9, 2011 02:11

Students from the Florida A&M University Institute of Public Health and members of the Future Public Health Professionals had a chance to go to the American Public Health Association's national meeting Oct. 29 in Washington.

The conference was a chance for students to get a look at cutting edge health research, meet peers from other schools and to meet with high-ranking officials within the public health field, including U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin.

"It's probably the largest meeting where public health professionals and students come and talk about public health research and the latest, best practices in public health,"?said Dr. Cynthia Harris, director and professor with the FAMU Institute of Public Health.

"It's important for us that they get a chance to attend and participate, present research papers and network because we focus on them as future public health professionals."

Eric Walker, a second-year FAMU graduate student and president of FAMU's Future Public Health Professionals, said the conference was a great chance for him and other students to network, but he took away more than that.

"Networking is happening all the time," said Walker. "I found out with this conference, you don't pass up the opportunity to talk to people.

Source: http://www.thefamuanonline.com/news/public-health-students-network-at-washington-conference-1.2667751

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Quote Box: Reactions to Jackson doc guilty verdict (AP)

Reaction to Monday's involuntary manslaughter conviction of Dr. Conrad Murray in the death of Michael Jackson:

? "Michael was looking over us." ? Jackson's sister La Toya Jackson speaking to an Associated Press reporter on the way out of the courtroom.

? "I feel better now." Jackson's mother, Katherine Jackson, who says she was confident this would be the outcome of the trial.

? "Justice was done," family patriarch Joe Jackson as he was leaving the courthouse.

? "Absolutely justice was served," La Toya Jackson upon leaving the courthouse.

? "This man didn't deserve this. They needed a scapegoat." ? Former Murray patient and current friend, Donna DiGiacomo, 53, in Las Vegas. DiGiacomo sobbed as she spoke of the verdict and what she said she thought was "overwhelming pressure to convict."

? "I think that unfortunately, because of AB109, that a completely potentially failed system is now in place. It will be very difficult to achieve an appropriate sentence of incarceration for Dr. Conrad Murray."_ Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, in a post-verdict news conference, referring to California's prison realignment program, which makes it unlikely that Murray will receive the maximum four-year prison term.

? "Our sympathies go out to the Jackson family at this time for the loss that they have suffered ? not a pop icon but a son and a brother ? and I think that's the most important thing to keep in mind today." ? Deputy District Attorney David Walgren, the case prosecutor, in a post-verdict news conference.

? "The defense lawyers should be cited for misrepresenting the truth about Michael's Demerol use and the deliberate misinterpretation of my medical records which caused confusion and wrongly placed blame on me. Put simply they lied. Any sentencing Murray would get would be less than if he had stolen my car. It's time to find out who allowed this incompetent individual to be Michael Jackson's doctor." ? Dr. Arnold Klein, Jackson's longtime dermatologist, who was an element in the trial although he wasn't charged with any wrongdoing and wasn't a witness.

? "Certainly I feel that more punishment could and should have been served but I am pleased that this jury didn't blame Michael for his own death. ... I feel that Dr. Murray and others who benefited from Michael but didn't protect him got off relatively lightly. Michael lost his life and we lost one of the greatest entertainers that ever lived. I lost a friend and will never forget him." ? Rev. Al Sharpton, a friend of the Jackson family.

? "The Estate of Michael Jackson and Michael himself has always believed the jury system works and despite the tragedy that brought about this trial we are in agreement with the jury's verdict. In this case justice has been served. Michael is missed on a daily basis but his genius and his music will be with us forever." ? Jackson's estate.

? "Dr. Murray murdered Michael Jackson and the world now sees that. This (verdict) means more to me than anything. I'm ecstatic." ? Jackson fan Tina Masters, 41, of Long Beach, standing outside the courtroom.

? "It's just a big sigh of relief. This is a big day and one we won't forget." ? Jackson supporter Robby Reverb, 49, outside the courthouse.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111107/ap_en_mu/us_michael_jackson_doctor_reax

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Complicated issues remain before next NBA deadline (AP)

NEW YORK ? NBA players have until Wednesday to accept Commissioner David Stern's latest offer, though the response already seems obvious.

"Right now, we've been given the ultimatum, and our answer is that's not acceptable to us," union president Derek Fisher said.

But the next proposal promises to be worse, surely moving players and owners even further apart and threatening to destroy the 2011-12 season.

Early Sunday morning, the league said it offered players up to 51 percent of basketball-related income ? a figure the union insists is fiction. Regardless, it will drop to 47 percent Wednesday if players don't accept the current offer by the league-imposed deadline.

No agreement by the deadline likely will trigger more calls to disband the union and take on the league in court, a battle that would take months.

"It's fair to say that there are some who believe a vote to decertify is a vote to end the season," said a person familiar with the owners' thinking who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. "The owners are hopeful that the players have a chance to vote on what is on the table, what's proposed now, because no one knows what happens next."

Players don't seem eager to act quickly.

"These are professional basketball players, the finest athletes in the world. How do you think they feel about threats? How do you think they feel about efforts at intimidation?" attorney Jeffrey Kessler said.

Fisher and Kessler said the league's time-sensitive deal ? Stern refused to call it an ultimatum ? came near the conclusion of Saturday's talks.

The sides had hoped they could complete a deal this weekend with the help of federal mediator George Cohen's. He released a statement Sunday commending the parties for "their willingness to examine solutions to their current dispute" and offering to assist in the future.

Although the revenue gap has narrowed, the sides are at a standstill on the system issues players insist are just as important.

The union believes the league's proposals to increase luxury tax penalties, and eliminate or reduce some spending options, essentially would prevent the biggest-spending teams from being free agent options. A "repeater tax" would further punish teams that were taxpayers a fourth time in a five-year span, and players fear the penalty that awaits teams who receive money from the tax pool but suddenly take on salary and go into the tax would discourage spending.

"The big story here is they want it all," Kessler said. "They want the system where taxpayers will never be in the marketplace, and that for repeat taxpayers it's going to be like a hard salary cap. And those deals are not acceptable for players today; it's not acceptable for future generations of players. I said, this is an example of they want a win, win, win, win. We wanted to compromise. They're not giving the players a lot of choice."

Though each side claimed credit for economic moves, it appears there was little to no progress.

Stern said the league proposed a band where players could earn anywhere from 49 percent to 51 percent of BRI, based on revenue growth. Union officials said there was almost no way they could get to the ceiling, leaving them right at the 50-50 split owners have said they wouldn't go past.

Players added they were the ones who were willing to reduce their guarantee down to 51 percent, with 1 percent of that going into a fund for retired player benefits, a move one person familiar with their thinking said was made in hopes of "preserving some of a system that's already being gutted."

Stern said he believed he could get owners to pass the current proposal, even though some hard-liners would prefer a 53-47 split in their favor immediately. That would be in the next proposal, along with a call for a flex salary cap, which players rejected in June before the lockout began.

But Stern said they're ready to go with the one that was put on the table Sunday.

"Well, they certainly would come closer than our current system," he said. "They're, I think, the best we could do at this time. So we're prepared to live by them if they're accepted by the players."

With the union unwilling to take the latest proposal to its members for a vote, both sides also must be prepared to live with the real possibility of the loss of more games and possibly the season.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111107/ap_on_sp_bk_ne/bkn_nba_labor

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Woman suing Bieber faces Vegas battery trial (AP)

LAS VEGAS ? A San Diego woman who claims pop star Justin Bieber fathered her 3-month-old son has a court date in Las Vegas on allegations she slapped an ex-boyfriend.

Court records show 20-year-old Mariah Yeater (YAY'-ter) faces a bench trial Dec. 12 on a misdemeanor battery charge that could get her six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

A police report says Yeater slapped her 18-year-old ex-boyfriend Dec. 21, 2010. The two were arguing about a window broken on the car of the his new girlfriend.

The case was first reported by TMZ.

Yeater's lawyer in the battery case, John Spilotro, says she pleaded not guilty, and he declined to comment further.

Yeater attended school in Las Vegas before withdrawing from 10th grade in 2008.

She is suing the 17-year-old Bieber in California, seeking a paternity test and child support.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111104/ap_en_mu/us_people_bieber_vegas

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Lyndall Hobbs: Nurturing Our Inner Cheapskate (Huffington post)

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Let?s Be Clear: The ?Occupiers? Are Not ALL Degenerates? (Powerlineblog)

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Video: Ohno to run in NYC Marathon

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45173868#45173868

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Israeli navy intercepts Gaza-bound boats (Reuters)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) ? The Israeli navy Friday boarded two boats carrying pro-Palestinian activists toward the Gaza Strip in a fresh challenge to Israel's blockade of the Islamist-controlled territory.

The military said in a statement the boats -- a Canadian vessel called Tahrir and an Irish boat named Saoirse -- which together had 27 people on board, would be taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

"The Israel navy soldiers operated as planned, and took every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of the activists onboard the vessels as well as themselves," the statement said.

A military source said nobody was injured in the operation.

In May 2010, Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish Mavi Marmara aid vessel to enforce the naval blockade of the Palestinian enclave, and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists, some of them armed with clubs and knives.

Israel spurned Ankara's demand for an apology over the incident. Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador two months ago.

Carrying a small amount of medical supplies, the Canadian and Irish boats had sailed from Turkey Wednesday. The Israeli military said they were in international waters when they were stopped, between 40 and 60 miles from the coast.

The activists on board came from Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United States, and included Palestinians and at least one Arab citizen of Israel, organizers said.

The two boats had continued sailing toward Gaza, ignoring instructions to turn around or unload their supplies in Israel or neighboring Egypt, Israeli military officials said.

Citing the need to prevent weapons smuggling, Israel has blockaded Gaza since the Islamist group Hamas seized control of the territory in 2007.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States agreed Israel's interception of the boats was a measure "appropriate for their (Israel's) security."

Israeli authorities said once the two boats had reached Ashdod, they would undergo security checks. Those on board would be questioned, then taken to prison service holding facilities where they will wait until booked on flights back home.

They have the right to a court hearing before being deported.

A U.N. report on Israel's interception of the 2010 Turkish ship said the blockade was a "legitimate security measure," adding "its implementation complied with the requirements of international law." Turkey has rejected that ruling.

Pro-Palestinian groups behind the latest attempt to reach Gaza by sea condemn the blockade as illegal and inhumane.

"We are going to keep sending boats until the immoral blockade of Gaza is lifted," Claudia Saba, a spokeswoman for the Irish Ship to Gaza group told Irish state broadcaster RTE.

DEPORTATION AWAITS

Paul Murphy, a socialist member of the European Parliament on board one of the ships, wrote in an earlier blog post that the mission was in "response to the call from people within Gaza to try to break the siege they suffer under."

Israel allows humanitarian aid, food and some other supplies into Gaza for its 1.7 million people, many of them impoverished refugees, via land crossings it closely monitors. Gaza also has a border with Egypt over which goods are imported.

Gaza's Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised the attempt to break the blockade in a sermon at a mosque on Friday: "We appreciate highly those activists who came in solidarity and we stress that their goal is being achieved whether or not they arrived by exposing (Israeli) occupation (measures)."

Turkey had threatened to give naval protection to future aid flotillas following the 2010 violence, but Ankara has kept largely quiet about this latest operation.

Some of the activists, who dubbed their mission "Freedom Waves," had participated in a thwarted seaborne attempt in June to reach Gaza, which was blocked from setting sail from Greece.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Maayan Lubell, Carmel Crimmins and Washington Newsroom; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111104/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_flotilla_order

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Committee: Dutch professor faked data for years (AP)

AMSTERDAM ? A prominent Dutch social psychologist who once claimed to have shown that the very act of thinking about eating meat makes people behave more selfishly has been found to have faked data throughout much of his career.

In one of the worst cases of scientific fraud on record in the Netherlands, a review committee made up of some of the country's top scientists has found that University of Tilburg Prof. Diederik Stapel systematically falsified data to achieve the results he wanted.

The university has fired the 45-year-old Stapel and plans to file fraud charges against him, university spokesman Walther Verhoeven said Thursday.

Stapel acknowledged in a statement the accusations were largely true.

"I have manipulated study data and fabricated investigations," he wrote in an open letter published by De Volkskrant newspaper this week. "I realize that via this behavior I have left my direct colleagues stunned and angry and put my field, social psychology, in a poor light."

Stapel said he was ashamed and offered his apologies.

The committee set up to investigate Stapel said after its preliminary investigation it had found "several dozen publications in which use was made of fictitious data" in the period since 2004, though Stapel's career goes back to the early 1990s.

This year, Stapel co-authored a paper published in Science magazine that said white people are more prone to discriminate against black people when they encounter them in a messy environment, such as one containing litter, abandoned bicycles and broken sidewalks.

"These findings considerably advance our knowledge of the impact of the physical environment on stereotyping and discrimination and have clear policy implications," the paper's abstract says.

Science has now flagged the article with a note to readers that "serious concerns have been raised about the validity of the findings."

Although the paper that linked thoughts of eating meat eating with anti-social behavior was met with scorn and disbelief when it was publicized in August, it took several doctoral candidates Stapel was mentoring to unmask him.

Verhoeven said the three graduate students grew suspicious of the data Stapel had supplied them without allowing them to participate in the actual research. When they ran statistical tests on it themselves they found it too perfect to be true and went to the university's dean with their suspicions.

In the future, the university plans to require raw data from studies to be preserved and made available to other researchers on request ? a practice already common in most disciplines.

The commission found that co-authors of Stapel's papers seem to have been unaware of the fraud, naively trusting in Stapel's reputation and fooled by elaborate preparations for tests that were never actually carried out.

In his statement, Stapel didn't directly say what his motivations were. He said he had succumbed to competitive pressures and the need to publish. But he said "it's important to me to underline that the mistakes I made weren't for selfish reasons."

The review panel noted Stapel had enjoyed a position of prestige as a professor and head of his department, and that he had access to subsidies and funding for his projects as a result of the fraud.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111103/ap_on_sc/eu_netherlands_science_fraud

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Asus U56E-RBL8

As confident in its looks as it is in its performance, the Asus U56E-RBL8 ($779.99 list at Staples) has almost everything going for it, inside and out. Only a couple of demerits dull the impact of its robust selection of hardware, not the least of which is another Asus budget laptop that offers an almost identical configuration at a lower price. Even if the U56E-RBL8 isn't the absolute best value to be found out there, it?s nonetheless a good one.

Design
There?s distinct "mod business" flair to the U56E-RBL8, thanks to its eye-catching two-tone design scheme. The laptop?s brushed-metal lid is a shiny blue-gray "slate" color, with the silvery Asus logo positioned just above center. You?ll find this color inside the laptop as well: on the keyboard deck, where it?s solidly visible between all the chiclet-style keys. Those keys are a dark gray, with white printing, and include a half-size number pad on the right, though there are no dedicated media keys: The arrow keys double as play controls, and F10, F11, and F12 double as volume controls. Another design fillip that might annoy some users: There?s no right Window key.

The display bezel, which features a webcam on the top edge, is a matte dark gray color, and provides a nice visual contrast, especially when the 15.6-inch, 1,366-by-768 widescreen is activated. The bezel's color is replicated, albeit in a rubberized form, on the palm rest; the touch pad is likewise the same hue, but of a smoother texture. The shiny metal buttons are firm and clicky, but not distractingly so.

The U56E-RBL8 measures 1.1 by 14.9 by 10.7 inches (HWD), which is about average for a laptop of this class and price. Weighing 5.7 pounds, it's marginally heavier than most other comparable systems, but you shouldn't experience too much trouble lugging it around.

Features
If you're buying a laptop priced in the upper portion of the budget range, you'd expect it to be decently equipped from a hardware perspective. There, the U56E-RBL8 does not disappoint. The laptop is driven by an Intel Core i5-2430M processor, a dual-core chip that runs natively at 2.4GHz but can increase in speed to as much as 3GHz when the maximum amount of Turbo Boost is activated. Plus, thanks to Intel's Hyper-Threading technology, the processor can handle four threads at a time, which will bestow a significant performance boost on multithread-aware software. The processor also grants access to the full collection of technologies from the second-generation Core family of products, including Quick Sync Video for accelerated transcoding and Wireless Display 2.0 (WiDi) for streaming video to your HDTV if you have a Netgear Push2TV adapter (a $99 extra).

Sweetening the deal here are the system's 8GB of RAM and 750GB hard drive, which respectively grant you performance efficiency and more space for storing files and installing programs. The port selection is a bit more run-of-the-mill: Ethernet (to complement the 802.11n Wi-Fi), VGA and HDMI for outputting to external displays, and a single USB 2.0 port on the left edge; a multiformat card slot and downward-facing 1.5-watt Altec Lansing speakers on the front edge; and headphone and microphone jacks, two more USB 2.0 ports, and the DVD burner on the right edge. There are no USB 3.0 ports here; they're getting to be staples on even budget PCs, and are significant for their absence.

Asus includes on the U56E-RBL8 a number of its own tools and utilities, including FancyStart (for changing the laptop's boot logo), LifeFrame 3 (for image and video recording and capturing), Power4 Gear eXtreme for easily switching between power-saving settings, and SmartLogon facial recognition software. Of potentially more use is a trial version of Trend Micro Titanium Internet Security.

In addition to a one-year warranty, several additional services are available from Staples for customers who buy the U56E-RBL8 there. These include setting up the new system, data transfer from your old PC to your new one, software installation, and tech support and protection plans that range in price from $14.99 to $169.99.

Performance
As its components might lead you to believe, the U56E-RBL8 offers performance on par with other laptops in the upper echelons of the budget pricing structure, including our two Editors' Choice systems, the Lenovo IdeaPad V570-1066AJU ($629.99, 4 stars) and Asus' own U56E-BBL6 ($649.99, 4 stars). In fact, in our Futuremark PCMark 7 overall-system test, the U56E-RBL8 earned a higher score than either: 2,285 (versus 2,275 for the Lenovo and 2,255 for the U56E-BBL6). It also tied with the U56E-BBL6 for the fastest time converting a video in Handbrake (1 minute 50 seconds), and for the second-highest score in CineBench R11.5 (2.68; the Lenovo V570-1066AJU just eked out a win with 2.71) and the second-fastest time applying a dozen filters and effects in Adobe Photoshop CS5 (4 minutes 2 seconds, only a second behind the Lenovo V570-1066AJU).

The U56E-RBL8 faltered only on our gaming tests, just like the Lenovo V570-1066AJU and Asus U56E-BBL6. It scored highest on our two 1,024-by-768 DirectX 9 tests, 3DMark 06 (5,120 versus 4,831 for the Asus U56E-BBL6 and 4,865 for the Lenovo V570-1066AJU), and Lost Planet 2 (20.2 frames per second, or fps, versus 19.1 for the Asus U56E-BBL6 and 19.3 for the Lenovo V570-1066AJU), but lowest on the real-world games of Crysis (13.1fps versus 15.7 for the Asus U56E-BBL6 and 15.6 for the Lenovo V570-1066AJU). ?High? and ?low? are largely irrelevant concepts here, however, as none of these represent actual playability. For that, you'll need better graphics than the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 system here; one of the few low-cost laptops we've seen recently that can deftly handle lower-resolution gaming is the Gateway NV55S05u ($579.99 list, 4 stars), which managed 36.7fps in Crysis and 38fps in Lost Planet 2.

Though the U56E-RBL8 did not prove a medal-winning champion as far as battery life, it did very well. Its 74Wh battery helped it last 6 hours 30 minutes in our MobileMark 2007 battery-rundown test was well behind the time of the Asus U56E-BBL6 (7:42) and just a shade short of the 6:37 time of the much less expensive Samsung NP300E5A-A01UB ($599.99 list, 4 stars).

Given its excellent components, the Asus U56E-RBL8 is a compelling choice from a performance standpoint: If you need a relatively powerful laptop but don't want to spend more than $800, it has almost everything you need. Its cousin, the Editors' Choice-winning Asus U56E-BBL6, however, delivers equivalent performance in most areas, runs longer on its battery, is equipped with a USB 3.0 port, and costs $80 less. The extra 2GB of RAM in the U56E-RBL8 isn't quite worth that much, so our final recommendation remains with the Asus U56E-BBL6. Even so, the U56E-RBL8 is a fine machine.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/YFnBfMrBPKQ/0,2817,2395705,00.asp

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