Preservation board to decide on Herald building

The city of Miami’s historic preservation office has compiled a lengthy, detailed report that substantially bolsters the case for designation of The Miami Herald’s “monumental’’ bayfront building as a protected landmark based on both its architectural merits and its historic significance.

Somewhat unusually, the 40-page report by city preservation officer Megan McLaughlin, which is supplemented by 30 pages of bibliography, plans and photographs, carries no explicit recommendation to the city’s preservation board, which is scheduled to decide the matter on Monday.

But her analysis gathers extensive evidence that the building’s history, the influential executives and editors associated with it, and its fusion of Mid-Century Modern and tropical Miami Modern (MiMo) design meet several of the legal criteria for designation set out in the city’s preservation ordinance and federal guidelines. A building has to meet just one of eight criteria to merit designation.

A spokeswoman for the city’s historic preservation office said there is no obligation to make a recommendation and the city’s preservation board didn’t ask for one.

Supporters of designation, including officials at Dade Heritage Trust, the preservation group that has received sometimes withering criticism from business and civic leaders for requesting designation, said they felt vindicated by the report, even as they concede that persuading a board majority to support it remains an uphill battle.

“It’s important that an objective expert is saying basically the same thing we’ve been saying, particularly in an environment where there is so much pressure,’’ said DHT chief executive Becky Roper Matkov. “It’s very hard to refute. When you look at the building’s architecture and history, it’s so blatantly historic, what else can you say?’’

The report also rebuts key pieces of criticism of the designation effort leveled by opponents of designation, including architects and a prominent local preservation historian hired by Genting, the Malaysian casino operator that purchased the Herald property last year for $236 million with plans to build a massive destination resort on its 10 acres. The newspaper remains in the building rent-free until April, when it will move to suburban Doral.

Citing federal rules, McLaughlin concluded that the building dates to its construction in 1960 and 1961, and not to its formal dedication in 1963. That’s significant because it makes the building legally older than 50 years. Buildings newer than that must be “exceptionally significant’’ to merit designation under city regulations. Opponents of designation have claimed the building does not qualify because it’s several months short of 50 years if dated from its ’63 opening.

The property also has a “minimal’’ baywalk at the rear but there is room to expand it, the report indicates. The building is considerably set back from the edge of Biscayne Bay, between 68 feet at the widest point and 23 feet at its narrowest, the report says. That’s comparable to what many new buildings provide, thanks in part to variances granted by the city, and could blunt criticism that the Herald building “blocks’’ public access to the bay.

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Bicyclist struck, killed near Aqueduct Racetrack

Kendall Rodriguez

Investigators at the scene of a fatal Queens accident Friday.

A man was killed Friday night while riding a bicycle near Aqueduct Racetrack, police said.

The unidentified man was struck by a horse trailer in the racetrack parking lot near 114th Street and 150th Avenue in Queens at around 5:20 p.m., police sources said. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The trailer, which had “Belmont Park” and “Saratoga” written on its side, could be seen several feet from the man’s body, meaning the trailer likely struck the man without immediately stopping, sources said.

Police do not suspect criminality.

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Events showcase Miami’s growth as tech center

One by one, representatives from six startup companies walked onto the wooden stage and presented their products or services to a full house of about 200 investors, mentors, and other supporters Thursday at Incubate Miami’s DemoDay in the loft-like Grand Central in downtown Miami. With a large screen behind them projecting their graphs and charts, they set out to persuade the funders in the room to part with some of their green and support the tech community.

Just 24 hours later, from an elaborate “dojo stage,” a drummer warmed up the crowd of several hundred before a “Council of Elders” entered the ring to share wisdom as the all-day free event opened. Called TekFight, part education, part inspiration, and part entertainment, the tournament-style program challenged entrepreneurs to earn points to “belt up” throughout the day to meet with the “masters” of the tech community.

The two events, which kicked off Innovate MIA week, couldn’t be more different. But in their own ways, like a one-two punch, they exuded the spirit and energy growing in the startup community.

One of the goals of the TekFight event was to introduce young entrepreneurs and students to the tech community, because not everyone has found it yet and it’s hard to know where to start, said Saif Ishoof, the executive director of City Year Miami who co-founded TekFight as a personal project. And throughout the event, he and co-founder Jose Antonio Hernandez-Solaun, as well as Binsen J. Gonzalez and Jeff Goudie, wanted to find creative, engaging ways to offer participants access to some of the community’s most successful leaders.

That would include Alberto Dosal, chairman of CompuQuip Technologies; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of CareCloud; Jorge Plasencia, chairman and CEO of Republica; Jaret Davis, co-managing shareholder of Greenberg Traurig; and more than two dozen other business and community leaders who shared their war stories and offered advice. Throughout the day, the event was live-streamed on the Web, a TekFight app created by local entrepreneur and UM student Tyler McIntyre kept everyone involved in the tournament and tweets were flying — with #TekFight trending No. 1 in the Miami area for parts of the day. “Next time Art Basel will know not to try to compete with TekFight,” Ishoof quipped.

‘Miami is a hotbed’

After a pair of Chinese dragons danced through the audience, Andre J. Gudger, director for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs, entered the ring. “I’ve never experienced an event like this,” Gudger remarked. “Miami is a hotbed for technology but nobody knew it.”

Gudger shared humorous stories and practical advice on ways to get technology ideas heard at the highest levels of the federal government. “Every federal agency has a director over small business — find out who they are,” he said. He has had plenty of experience in the private sector: Gudger, who wrote his first computer program on his neighbor’s computer at the age of 12, took one of his former companies from one to 1,300 employees.

There were several rounds that pitted an entrepreneur against an investor, such as Richard Grundy, of the tech startup Flomio, vs. Jonathan Kislak, of Antares Capital, who asked Grundy, “why should I give you money?”

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Police search for man who exposed himself to young girls in Southwest Miami-Dade

Miami-Dade Police are looking for a man wanted for lewd and lascivious exposure, investigators said Thursday.

“We’re working a couple of cases in the area where a gentleman seen in the sketch is exposing himself to children,” one detective told a concerned parent.

Yanitza Delgado was driving in the area of Southwest 80th St. and 154th Ave. Thursday when police approached her car.

“I think it’s very disgusting,” Delgado said. “I have a 12-year-old daughter. and then I have a 7-year-old. And I really think this is disgusting.”

Cops handed out a sketch and description of the man they said has been exposing himself to young girls in the vicinity of Southwest 72nd and 80th Streets from Southwest 142nd to 154th Avenues.

A 16-year-old girl walking in the neighborhood where cops were handing out flyers said she was a victim.

“I was walking, with my friend over here, and then he passes by, and he’s like ‘Oh, come here.’ And we’re like, ‘what?’ And he’s like, ‘you know where 152nd is?’ We’re like, ‘no.’ But we’re very distant. And when I look down, I see he has his pants down,” the girl said. She did not wish to be identified. “He just drove away laughing. We were very scared.”

Police provided two different sketched to the media, but only one sketch was used on the flyer.

Because they’re dealing with multiple victims, descriptions of the man vary, police said.

Police believe they’re looking for a Hispanic male between 20 and 30 years old.

They said he has short, black hair, brown eyes, and may or may not have a goatee.

It’s a vague description, but they’re hoping handing out fliers will generate some leads.

“I’m so worried,” parent Ana Escobar said. “You know, because, my two daughters they train in that tennis courts right there.”

Investigators said they started receiving reports of lewd and lascivious exposure back in March.

The victim who spoke to CBS 4 News said she saw the man last year but never reported it to cops.

Thursday, she told them her story. She said she hopes it leads to an arrest.

“I’m very glad ’cause at least we can get justice with this man,” the girl said.

Police said the man may be driving a Silver Toyota Corolla sedan or a similar vehicle.

If you think you recognize the suspect, call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at (305) 471-TIPS (8477) or visit  www.crimestoppers.com and select “Give a Tip.” You can also send a text message to 274637. Enter CSMD followed by the tip information and press send.

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H&R Block, Zynga, Akamai are big market movers

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Stock Market:

NYSE

H&R Block Inc., up 89 cents at $ 18.26

The tax preparer’s quarterly loss narrows, helped by cost cuts. It thinks earnings will grow in the upcoming U.S. tax season.

SAIC Inc., down 41 cents at $ 11.26

The defense contractor’s quarterly earnings fall short of Wall Street expectations, and it’s eliminating 700 jobs to cut costs.

Men’s Wearhouse Inc., down 84 cents at $ 30.51

The men’s clothing store chain cuts its outlook, saying traffic dropped in November and it was more cautious about the rest of the year.

Safeway Inc., up 42 cents at $ 17.88

The grocery store chain moves up payment of its quarterly dividend to December from January to avoid potentially higher taxes.

Nasdaq

Zynga Inc., up 17 cents at $ 2.49

The troubled online games maker’s filing with a Nevada regulator could pave the way for it to enter the lucrative U.S. gambling market.

Vera Bradley Inc., down $ 3.07 at $ 23.14

The handbag maker’s forecast for the current quarter comes in short of Wall Street analysts’ average estimate.

Akamai Technologies Inc., up $ 3.56 at $ 39.06

The company, whose products help deliver online content, strikes a deal to provide services to AT&T customers.

Epoch Investment Partners Inc., up $ 5.78 at $ 27.69

Canada’s TD Bank plans to buy the U.S. asset manager for $ 668 million, a 28 percent premium from Wednesday’s closing price.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Oscars Flashback: Amy Adams 2006

It's a benchmark in every actress' career to receive her first award nomination. Whether she loves or loathes awards show and what they represent, it's always a reassuring boost to know that the industry appreciates one's work. In 2006, Amy Adams reached that benchmark as she fittingly stood in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard.

In 2005, Adams appeared in the comedy-drama Junebug, which pulled in a modest $3 million at the box office and was generally unknown to the masses; however it was known to the critics, and well liked by them as well.

VIDEO: SAGs Flashback '98: Jolie Experiences the Reward

Adams was the recipient of most of the film's nominations for her supporting role as a woman who gives birth to a stillborn, whom she had planned to name "Junebug." On the red carpet for her first Oscars, Adams says she's stunned.

"I don't dream this big," she says, awed. "This is Technicolor, folks. This is crazy."

Her applauded performance would only receive a nomination that year and no tears of joy were patted with the tissues in Adams' clutch.

VIDEO: Oscars Flashback '94: Spielberg Wins His First

While her fate at the Oscars that year has proven replicated on each of her three succeeding nominations, the most recent of which was for The Fighter, an Oscar may be in line for her this year.

The 38-year-old actress had three movies premiere this year (Trouble with the Curve, On the Road, The Master) and recently received a Hollywood Film Festival Award for her work.

Those tissues may get some use this year.

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Utility workers who helped restore power after Sandy complain of pay delay

Mike Valaskatgis slept in his National Grid truck for two nights, and then on a cot two more nights before getting a bed in a hotel room during a 10-day visit to New York last month to help in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

The Gloucester, Mass., overhead lineman said he logged 18-hour days working in various Long Island neighborhoods to restore power. He opened his latest paycheck this week, and was disgusted to see that an estimated $7,000 in overtime has yet to be paid.

"It was frustrating up until today. Now I'm angry," he told The Associated Press Thursday in a telephone interview. "I'm going to get it eventually, but I shouldn't have to go looking for it."

AP

A National Grid crew from Fredonia, NY repair power lines that were brought down from the effects of Superstorm Sandy in Port Washington, NY.

Valaskatgis is one of thousands of National Grid utility workers complaining they have yet to be fully compensated. Some say they haven't received their overtime pay, others contend they have gotten paychecks with zeros, while still others say payroll deductions they arranged for mortgage, child support and alimony payments were not made, according to union officials.

The problems, according to a spokesman for energy company National Grid, stem from a conversion to a new payroll software system in the weeks preceding the Oct. 29 storm that knocked out power to millions in the Northeast.

National Grid spokesman Patrick Stella said the company is working swiftly to resolve the problems, but union officials say that just like customers who groused about being left in the dark for days or weeks longer than they expected, workers are growing increasingly impatient waiting for a resolution. Several lawsuits have been filed and complaints have been filed with state attorneys general, union officials said.

National Grid has approximately 17,000 employees in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. It contracts with the Long Island Power Authority to operate electric operations in the New York City suburb and parts of Queens, where more than 1 million customers lost power. Workers from all three states have complained about incorrect or overdue paychecks, union officials said.

"We're very frustrated," said Dan Hurley, president of Braintree, Mass.-based Local 369 of the Utility Workers Union of America. "People are not getting paid." He said some workers have received paychecks for a standard 40-hour work week; others have been paid for less than 40 hours, despite working those hours plus many more in overtime. In other instances, workers have been paid at incorrect hourly rates.

"We had hundreds of workers who went down there," Hurley said of Massachusetts workers who went to New York for several weeks of repair work. "They answered the call, and they would do it again."

He said the trouble started when workers began getting calls from their wives and husbands that they went to the bank and found no direct deposit payments had been made. Others began getting calls that alimony and child support payments, which were supposed to be taken out of workers' paychecks, had not been sent out.

Don Daley, business manager of Long Island-based Local 1049 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, called the payroll problems an example of National Grid mismanagement. "I believe there was some serious negligence on the part of management," Daley said. "We're going into Week Six since this storm and things are still all screwed up."

In some instances, some workers are even being overpaid, said Mike Conigliaro, president of Brooklyn-based Local 101 of the Transport Workers Union. "We're still out there working, but things are not improving."

For some workers, child support payments have been deducted from their paychecks, but apparently have not been received by those expecting payment, Conigliaro said.

Stella, the National Grid spokesman, said staff is working "literally around the clock to fix these issues. This is a top priority in the company." He said the company started a year ago to upgrade its payroll computer system and the final conversion process had started Oct. 3, several weeks before the superstorm struck. "Any conversion would be expected to present some challenges. But then we had thousands of people working extended hours in different sites than they normally would and with significant overtime."

He said those factors "increased the potential for error. These were not normal work circumstances."

He said National Grid deals with more than 25 different unions in the three states, all of which present different work rules. "We're trying to work through all of that," Stella said. "Our goal is to make employees whole in terms of compensation."

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New equity options exchange owned by Miami company starts trading on Friday

MIAX Options Exchange, a new fully electronic, equity options trading exchange, said it will begin trading on Friday.

MIAX Options Exchange is based in Princeton, N.J., but its parent company is Miami International Holdings. While MIAX’s executive offices, technology development center and national operations center are based in Princeton, additional executive offices, and a multi-purpose training, meeting and conference center will be located in Miami, the company said.

MIAX Options Exchange’s trading platform has been developed in-house and designed for the functional and performance demands of derivatives trading, the company said.

INA PAIVA CORDLE

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State lawmakers cautious about projected $437 million budget surplus

TALLAHASSEE --
Initial, positive indications about Florida’s budget for the coming fiscal year could be overtaken by events if the Florida Supreme Court strikes down changes to state employees or the nation plunges over the fiscal cliff, the state’s top economist warned Wednesday.

Speaking to the first meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Amy Baker — coordinator of the Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research — told lawmakers that the current projection of a $436.8 million budget surplus could still change.

"I think the message is that this is not a large cushion," Baker said. "It could evaporate on you if economic circumstances turn against us."

Lawmakers have long watched a decision in the case challenging a 2011 law that required employees to contribute 3 percent of their income to their retirement funds, along with other changes. It could cost the state around $2 billion if the Supreme Court strikes down the law.

A Leon County circuit court judge voided the changes for employees hired before July 1, 2011; justices seemed hesitant about upholding that ruling at oral arguments earlier this year.

But Baker said the so-called "fiscal cliff," a package of federal spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect on Jan. 1 unless Congress and President Barack Obama can reach agreement, also looms large.

If there is a long delay in reaching a deal — one that stretches past January and into March — it could cost the state as much as $375 million, Baker said, comparing it to the debt-ceiling fight in August 2011 that dragged down the state economy.

Even if there is an agreement, it is likely to include some measures that will reduce estimated state income by hundreds of millions of dollars, Baker said.

"There is no likelihood that Florida will escape from the final decision with no changes to our budget," Baker said.

The uncertainty has pushed lawmakers who are optimistic about the numbers to nonetheless urge caution. Senate Appropriations Chairman Joe Negron, R-Stuart, told the committee that he wanted to boost the budget stabilization fund, one of the state’s reserves, to $1.5 billion. That’s at least $500 million over where the fund is projected to be, Negron said.

After the meeting, Negron told reporters that might be as much as the Legislature can do.

"You can never have too much in a reserve, but realistically I think $1.5 billion is a reasonable target to shoot for," he said.

Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said the situation should send a message to advocates for various state agencies in the audience.

"They need to be on notice that there is a lot of uncertainty out there and that this budget if these two things come to fruition is going to be very, very difficult to put together," Thrasher said. "And I think either one of them could devastating to us."

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Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Released from Hospital

After being admitted the hospital on Monday for acute morning sickness, Kate Middleton has left King Edward VII Hospital in London.

The Duchess of Cambridge was accompanied by her husband, Prince William, as she exited the hospital with a smile and a bouquet of flowers.

RELATED: Prince William & Kate Middleton Expecting a Baby

In a statement released by the hospital, it was confirmed that the Duchess had been discharged from the hospital and revealed that she now plans to rest at Kensington Palace, a residence of the Royal Family.

The Duchess' first child, whom she simultaneously revealed to be pregnant with upon divulging the news of her hospitalization, will become third in line to throne regardless of its gender.

RELATED: Kate Middleton: After the Prank

While her pregnancy news fell on poor terms, the Duchess is elated to bring a new member into the Royal Family after marrying Prince William in April 2011.

Middleton is less than twelve weeks pregnant, which is a typically premature pregnancy announcement for the Royal Family, suggesting that the hospitalization encouraged the exciting news, which would have been unveiled to the public by her hospital stay, to be announced by the Royal Family itself.

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Bombing wounds Afghan intelligence chief

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's intelligence chief was wounded Thursday in an assassination attempt in the capital, Kabul, Afghan officials said.

A senior government official said Asadullah Khalid suffered injuries on the lower part of his body when a bomb exploded at the intelligence chief's guest house as he was receiving a visitor. The house is used for private meetings that Khalid doesn't want to hold at the official compound of the National Directorate of Intelligence, the official said.

He official would not provide more details beyond saying the bombing was an attempt on Khalid's life.

AP

Asadullah Khalid in 2007

Khalid was rushed to a medical facility run by the intelligence service, the government official said.

An Afghan police official also confirmed that Khalid was injured in a blast. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information.

Khalid, a former minister of tribal and border affairs and ex-governor of two provinces, was appointed head of the service in September.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

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South Florida foreclosure sales up in third quarter

Miami-Dade County’s foreclosure-related sales rose 43.9 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter and jumped 21.8 percent from a year earlier, as banks sold off more properties, according to RealtyTrac.

In Broward County, third-quarter foreclosure-related sales rose 38.9 percent from the prior quarter, but were down 24.5 percent from a year ago, the real estate data firm based in Irvine, Calif., said.

Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, said Miami-Dade, Broward and Florida generally are showing an increase in bank-owned sales, as well as mirroring the national trend of rising short sales.

“South Florida shows a pretty significant quarter over [prior] quarter increase in bank-owned properties being sold,’’ Blomquist said. “It appears that banks are ramping back up and selling more properties.’’

Foreclosure-related sales – including bank-owned properties and short sales – accounted for 32.5 percent of sales in Miami-Dade and 25.2 percent in Broward in the third quarter. Nationwide, 19 percent of all residential sales were foreclosure-related in the latest quarter, RealtyTrac said.

Across Florida, foreclosure-linked sales rose 47 percent in the third quarter from the second quarter and were up 16.9 percent from a year earlier.

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On shared stage, Sen. Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan take steps toward 2016

WASHINGTON --
Just days after he was sworn in, Sen. Marco Rubio was trying to knock down speculation.

"This is the one job that I wanted. I wanted to be a U.S. senator, not a vice presidential candidate, not a presidential candidate," he told a radio interviewer in January 2011. "I didn’t run to use it as a stepping-stone."

But Tuesday night at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel, Rubio took another step in reaching for the next thing.

Encircled by the buzz over a potential run for president in 2016, the Florida Republican delivered a speech on ways to lift the middle class, calling it "the answer to the most pressing challenges we face" as he tried to project a fresh outlook for a GOP still reeling from last month’s election.

Rubio shared the stage, and a similar message, with another GOP hotshot and likely presidential candidate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan. The ambitious, young politicians — Rubio, 41, Ryan, 42 — competed for the spotlight under the watch of several hundred guests, more than two dozen reporters and viewers of C-SPAN.

Rubio is more polished and charismatic, using the emotional power of his immigrant parents’ tale to drive his message. But Ryan, of Wisconsin, is beloved among conservatives and was equally well received.

The positioning was acknowledged only through a joke.

"You’re joining an elite group of past recipients — so far, it’s just me and you," Ryan said to Rubio, who was given a leadership award by the Jack Kemp Foundation at the group’s banquet Tuesday at the Mayflower. "I’ll see you at the reunion dinner — table for two. Know any good diners in Iowa or New Hampshire?’’

Rubio, who traveled to Iowa on Nov. 17, later joked, "I will not stand by and watch the people of South Carolina ignored."

For Rubio, who arrived in Washington by defeating a sitting governor knocked as a relentless office climber, his continued national emergence is a delicate balance of managing his vow to focus on the Senate with his political drive. He played down talk of becoming Mitt Romney’s running mate, a job that went to Ryan, but with the GOP left without a clear leader and searching for direction, Rubio won’t close doors.

Romney’s loss and other election disappointments have left the party searching for a new direction, and Rubio’s and Ryan’s speeches reflected their efforts to appeal to a broader group of voters. Both made an effort to distance themselves from the impression Romney left that half the country is hopelessly dependent on government — the infamous "47 percent" comments delivered at a private fundraiser in Boca Raton.

They pulled back on partisan rhetoric and tried to project a more hopeful and inclusive vision with a heavy focus on middle-class families.

"Some say that our problem is that the American people have changed," said Rubio, born in Miami to Cuban immigrants who worked blue-collar jobs. "That too many people want things from government. But I am still convinced that the overwhelming majority of our people just want what my parents had — a chance."

Ryan, in his first speech since the election, said: "We’ve got to set aside partisan considerations in favor of one overriding concern: How can we work together to repair the economy? How can we provide real security and upward mobility for all Americans — especially those in need?"

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Habla el hombre que definió qué significa ser un hacker

“Soy un hacker.” La frase la pronuncia, sin titubeos, Pekka Himanen, un finlandés de 39 años que publicó, en 2001, La ética del hacker y el espíritu de la era de la información , un libro fundacional en su análisis de lo que significa la tecnología moderna en nuestra sociedad, y la influencia que tendrán los hackers en la sociedad futura.

La entrevista está por comenzar. El punto de encuentro es un hotel céntrico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, pero en lugar de recibirnos en el salón exclusivo reservado con este fin, el filósofo Himanen (recibido en la universidad de Helsinki a los 20 años) prefiere reunirse en el café del hotel, rodeado de gente y atento a su entorno.

Este hombre, que hoy es profesor en la Universidad de Arte y Diseño de Helsinki, y profesor visitante de la Universidad de Oxford y el Instituto IN3 de Barcelona, y miembro del Instituto Helsinki para la Tecnología de la Información (HIIT) es autor, también, de El Estado del bienestar y la sociedad de la información: el modelo finlandés , que realizó junto con el sociólogo español Manuel Castells.

Himanen llegó a nuestro país invitado por la Universidad Nacional de San Martín, la Universidad Diego Portales y por la Fundación OSDE, pero además de esta convocatoria también lo trajo una de sus grandes pasiones: la investigación. “Estamos estudiando, junto con Manuel Castells, qué tipo de modelo de desarrollo nuevo se necesita después de la crisis mundial. Me refiero a un modelo de desarrollo económico combinado con desarrollo humano. Creo que es fundamental combinar una economía sustentable con el bienestar sustentable”, sostiene al comenzar la entrevista. Según cuenta el filósofo, Argentina es parte de un gran estudio que está llevando a cabo en distintos países de América latina, Asia, África, Estados Unidos y Europa.

¿Usted se considera un hacker?

Sí, claro que sí. Para mí un hacker es alguien creativamente apasionado por lo que hace y quiere hacerlo con otros. No necesariamente tiene que tener que ver con las computadoras, se puede ser hacker del conocimiento o de cualquier otro campo. Es importante decir que utilizo el término hacker en el sentido original del término, que no quiere decir delincuente informático.

¿Y usted es hacker en qué área o con qué especialización?

Yo diría en la filosofía, investigación y quizás en la vida.

¿Cómo es eso?

La etica del hacker es un libro que también habla sobre la filosofía de vida, es decir, uno tiene que preguntarse a sí mismo: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa? ¿Qué es lo que le da significado a mi vida? Esas son grandes preguntas que todos deberíamos considerar.

Popularmente el término hacker tiene una mala connotación pero según usted explica, es un error. En su libro menciona otro término: cracker ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre ambos?

Hacker quiere decir que la persona es creativamente apasionada por lo que hace, y lo quiere realizar con lo que yo denomino “interacción enriquecedora”, es decir con otras personas. Cracker, en cambio, es el delincuente informático, la persona que ingresa en los sistemas informáticos y esparce virus, entre otros delitos.

¿Por qué, entonces, los hackers son considerados delincuentes?

Todo comenzó en los medios de comunicación, en los inicios del software. Por aquel entonces los medios tomaron la palabra hacker y comenzaron a utilizarla como sinónimo de delincuente informático para hacerlo más atractivo y dar impacto en sus noticias, pero la palabra hacker no tiene nada que ver con la delincuencia informática.

Según su libro los hackers informáticos ponen a disposición gratuita de los demás su creación para que la utilicen, pongan a prueba y la desarrollen. ¿Cómo un hacker se transforma en Bill Gates? En otras palabras, ¿cómo se transforma un hacker en un hombre de negocios?

La ética hacker es una ética de trabajo creativa en la era informática que reemplaza lo que Max Weber describió como “ética de trabajo industrial” pero después depende de cuán abierto es uno en el desarrollo de otras cosas. No necesita ser cerrado para ser un éxito, por ejemplo Linus Torvalds está a favor de la apertura total y también ha tenido mucho éxito. Internet corre en Linux, tres de cada cuatro smartphones en el mundo corren en Linux, porque Android está basado en Linux. Pero más allá de eso no hay contradicciones, porque uno puede tener pasión creativa como empresario. Lo importante es dar suficiente nivel de apertura.

¿Cómo ayudan a la sociedad los hackers y las redes sociales en situaciones de conflicto, injusticia social o cuando no hay libertad de expresión?

En situaciones como la guerra de Kosovo o en la Primavera Árabe -levantamientos populares de países árabes realizados entre 2010 y 2012- la difusión de lo que estaba pasando fue a través de las redes sociales. Y es muy importante tener en cuenta que las redes sociales tienen un impacto en la vida real. Si pensamos en la Primavera Árabe, por ejemplo, algunos de los peores dictadores que nosotros pensamos que nunca dejarían el poder, colapsaron. Y las redes sociales colaboraron mucho en la caída de estos dictadores porque la Primavera Árabe estuvo organizada a través de Internet. También en Europa se produjeron hechos similares. Las redes sociales tuvieron gran protagonismo en el movimiento de “Los Indignados”, que produjeron cambios políticos en España y en Grecia.

¿Le parece que lo que escribió hace más de una década sigue vigente?

Sí. El libro es más actual ahora. Si uno toma, por ejemplo, el capítulo de open source o de código abierto, su utilización ha crecido exponencialmente si tenemos en cuenta que Internet corre en software en código abierto y se diseminan en varios equipos como teléfono, grabadores digitales y televisores. Probablemente uno no se de cuenta que está utilizando código abierto, pero todos lo estamos utilizando. En cuanto al trabajo empresarial, la nueva ética de pasión creativa enriquecedora está impulsando al Silicon Valley.

¿Cómo ve a la sociedad futura?

Creo que la gran pregunta es lo que hoy estamos investigando en el proyecto que estoy realizando, donde nos damos cuenta que el viejo modelo de desarrollo ha llegado a su fin y ahora tenemos que replantear las prácticas grandes en la economía, la sustentabilidad ecológica. Creo que vamos a necesitar del potencial completo de la cultura de la creatividad y hemos de desarrollar esa nueva forma de bienestar sustentable, especialmente la sustentabilidad ecológica. Debemos tener en cuenta que el planeta no tiene problema en cuanto al cambio climático, puede continuar sin nosotros, pero nosotros no podemos continuar sin el planeta.

Por último, ¿qué trata de decirnos con su libro?

Para mí la clave es que todos debemos preguntarnos: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa, cuál es mi propósito significativo en esta vida?

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Holly Madison on Her Hospitalization for Morning Sickness

Seven months into her first pregnancy, Holly Madison suffered a scare earlier this week when she was briefly hospitalized for excessive morning sickness, which normally subsides after the first trimester of pregnancy. In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Madison says she was frightened by the incident.

"When [the morning sickness] started happening really late [in the pregnancy] and I was really vomiting a lot during the day, it freaked me out," the former Playboy model said. "I was told to go to the doctor and get an IV and everything. So, that was kind of scary to me just because it seemed like something so unusual...but everything's O.K. so far, so that's good."

PICS: Peepshow! Kim Kardashian & Holly Madison Party in Las Vegas

Madison was cleared by the hospital shortly after she admitted herself and is now back to normal; however, she revealed that doctors warned her that if she were to put too much strain on her body, she would be confined to resting in her bed.

The 32-year-old model, who once dated Playboy's Hugh Hefner, is expecting her baby with boyfriend Pasquale Rotella to be born sometime in March. While the two are expecting a girl, they haven't yet decided on a name for the child.

"We actually have a lot of names we really like, so we're narrowing it down and I think we're going to wait until the day the baby comes and see what her vibe is and then pick one from there," she said.

RELATED: Prince William & Kate Middleton Expecting a Baby

Although extreme morning sickness isn't very common, the Duchess of Cambridge was also recently hospitalized with a similar, more severe case of morning sickness, which caused her to announce her pregnancy much earlier than royals typically do.

"I wish her the best and I'm glad she's getting the best possible care and I'm super excited for her," she said, then offering her suggestion for a baby name. "I think everybody wants to see [the baby] named Diana if it's a girl. I think that would melt the hearts of the world."

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Two men arrested for allegedly stealing packages from LI doorsteps

BAY SHORE, NY — Two men are under arrest for allegedly stealing packages from the doorsteps of homes on Long Island.

Police say the suspects followed a UPS truck around the Bay Shore neighborhood on Tuesday and stole packages after they were left on the doorsteps.

An Apple EarPod, Apple iPad Mini case and two pairs of Skechers sneakers were recovered.

Albert Munoz, of Bay Shore, and Freddy Benavides, Jr., of Central Islip, were charged with criminal possession of stolen property.

It wasn't immediately clear if they had a lawyer.

Freddy Benavides, Jr.

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iPad’sdominance limits apps for other tablets

Q. When are companies going to start writing applications for tablet computers other than the iPad? I own a Pandigital tablet, and when I try to download apps, I’m told they’re either for the iPad or iPhone.

LeRoy Hilton,

Oro Valley, Ariz.

You can expect more apps for non-Apple tablet computers when those devices gain more market share. How soon, or if, that will happen is anyone’s guess.

People who write apps are motivated by the revenue they’re likely to get. They can maximize that revenue by focusing on the tablet computer that is owned by the largest number of people.

Right now, the best opportunity for app writers is the iPad, which in the first three months of 2012 accounted for 68 percent of the 17.4 million tablet computers sold worldwide, according to market research firm IDC. The iPad’s chief competitors, in order of market share, are tablets made by Samsung, Amazon, Lenovo and Barnes & Noble. Pandigital is further down the list.Q. I recently bought a Kindle Fire tablet computer, and I’m disappointed that it cannot be read in the sunshine as other Kindle devices can. Is there anything I can do to make the screen more readable outdoors, such as buying an anti-glare screen protector?

Mary Jo Ready,

Shoreview, Minn.

An anti-glare protector won’t help. The issue is that your Kindle Fire’s LCD, or liquid crystal display, screen is lit from inside, but isn’t bright enough to compete with sunlight. Your only outdoor options are to raise the screen brightness and find some shade. A video that explains how to adjust screen brightness can be found on Amazon’s help pages, at http://www.tinyurl.com/7289vlo. Q. My Windows task bar was always at the bottom of my screen, but the other day it went to the top for some reason. How can I get it back to the bottom of the screen?

Kathleen Gignac,

Bartow, Fla.

The task bar can be dragged to a new location using your mouse. Left-click a blank space on the task bar and, while holding down the mouse button, drag the bar to the bottom of the screen.

You can skip this manual process if you are using Windows XP or Windows Vista. Just go to http://www.tinyurl.com/c7qwp8 and click the automatic “fix it” button. That will return the task bar to its default position at the bottom of the screen.

If you have problems with either of these techniques, the task bar may have become “locked” in its current position. There are directions on the same Web page that explain how to “unlock” the tool bar’s location so it can be moved.

Contact Steve Alexander at Tech Q&A, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn. 55488-0002; e-mail steve.j.alexander@gmail.com.

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Son of slain Miami Gardens car wash owner: ‘He put his own life before someone else’

When Dameion Peart got the phone call from his uncle, he didn’t believe it. He drove to his father’s Miami Gardens car wash to see for himself. He hoped the news wouldn’t be too bad, or maybe the shooting happened someplace else.

He pulled up, saw flashing lights and police tape, and knew it was true.

His father, Errold Peart, had been trying to protect a customer Sunday afternoon from armed robbers at the car wash he ran at Northwest 191st Street and First Place.

The robbers turned their gun on Peart, killing him.

“He put his own life before someone else,” his son said.

Now, Peart’s family began the unexpected task of planning a memorial. He was five days away from his 60th birthday.

He won’t get to see his daughter, Mishka Peart, 23, graduate from the University of Miami’s medical school.

“It’s just sad,” Dameion Peart said. “It was unnecessary.”

When the community heard of the shooting, they started dropping by the scene. They were the ones who lived nearby, longtime customers and friends, each with their own tale of how his father had helped them through the years.

They talked about the times Peart, 59, didn’t charge for carwashes to people short on money. They told Dameion Peart, 32, how his father would give money to people who needed help paying for water and electricity, never asking for the money back.

They shared stories about people who couldn’t get jobs because they had convictions — until Peart gave them work.

One of the younger employees told him it was Errold Peart who convinced her to go back to school.

“He was a very good, kindhearted person and a good father at the same time,” Dameion Peart said. “The community where his business is located, he really helped them out here.”

Errold Peart hailed from Jamaica, where he played cricket and worked at one point at a school for problem children, his son said. He eventually came to the United States, where he continued to play cricket for the USA national team.

Peart represented the USA in five matches at the 1990 International Cricket Council Trophy in the Netherlands, where the batsman was the team’s leading scorer, ESPN reported. The USA made it through the first round that year before losing in the second, according to ESPN.

At first, Peart worked with an airline, his son said, but later decided to open his own business.

He started the car wash more than a decade ago, his son said. He chose the location because it was near a busy stretch of U.S. 441 and near Florida’s Turnpike, the Palmetto Expressway and Interstate 95.

“It was like a landmark,” Dameion Peart said. “Everyone knew him.”

But Peart worried about safety.

“He didn’t like guns. But every year, around this time, for the past three years he got held up at gunpoint and people tried to rob him,” Dameion Peart said. “The last time they even followed him home.”

So Errold Peart got a concealed weapons permit.

On Sunday afternoon, he noticed a pair of young men trying to rob a customer. Errold Peart went out to try and stop it, his son said, only to be shot himself.

The men ran away, leaving behind the customer and a bleeding Peart.

Miami Gardens Police still were looking for the suspects on Monday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477.

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Why Daniel Radcliffe Prefers To Film in Canada

As Daniel Radcliffe continues to segue out of the colossal film franchise that made him a star, Harry Potter, he is broadening his acting career and exploring new locations outside of Harry Potter's U.K.-based sets. While filming the upcoming Horns throughout Canada, Radcliffe told ET Canada why he prefers filming there.

"What is very impressive about Canada is that people don't generally do English accents as much around me as they do in America," Radcliffe said to ET Canada's Erin Cebula. "I could film in Canada again anytime, any day of the week very, very happily."

VIDEO: What Daniel Radcliffe Fears the Most

In Horns, based on a 2010 book bearing the same name, Radcliffe plays a man ("Ig Perrish") who spontaneously has horns extending from his head after his girlfriend was mysteriously murdered. While moviegoers will get an up-close look at his character's life in the film, he reiterated that he doesn't feel as though the public should be granted an in-depth view of his personal life.

"Good actors don't really seek out paparazzi attention and all of that stuff, but to a certain extent, it's unavoidable," the 23-year-old actor said. "I don't think anyone knows me knows me, but I think they have a sense of what I'm like as a person and [I] think that's good, but I don't think the day-to-day details of people's lives--as I've said many times--need to be known."

VIDEO: First ET Interview: Daniel Radcliffe

While Radcliffe may prefer the way he's treated by Canadians, he'll be honored this winter in the U.S. when another of his upcoming films, Kill Your Darlings, premieres at this year's annual Sundance Film Festival, which marks a first for the British actor.

"That'll be the first time that I've actually had a film in a film festival, really," he said with a smile. "That's really, really exciting for me. That's a very big moment."

Horns is set for release in 2013.

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US hearing for DSK set for December 10

AFP/Getty Images

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, left, and Nafissatou Diallo.

A hearing in the civil case of disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been set for December 10, after reports he will settle with the hotel maid who accused him of sexual assault.

"If the case is settled, this will be announced in open court on that day," Bronx Supreme Court Justice Douglas McKeon told AFP on Monday.

The hearing is set for 2:00 p.m. McKeon said he expects the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, to be present, and for Strauss-Kahn to skip the proceedings.

If Strauss-Kahn, 63, and Diallo, 33, agree on the still undisclosed terms of the settlement, the one-time favorite for the French presidency would put to an end his sordid 18-month legal battle in the United States.

Strauss-Kahn's attorney William Taylor told AFP on Friday that negotiations were ongoing but refused to give details of any pay-off.

He called a report in France's Le Monde newspaper that Strauss-Kahn was ready to pay Diallo $6 million if she drops her civil suit "dramatically inaccurate."

Until now, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers repeatedly said they would not agree to a deal and called Diallo a gold digger. Her legal team insisted equally strongly that she wanted her day in court to confront her alleged abuser.

Diallo's allegation of attempted rape in May 2011 triggered a stunning fall from grace for Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as close to announcing he would run in an upcoming French presidential election.

Criminal charges were quickly brought, and then thrown out when Manhattan prosecutors said Diallo's testimony wouldn't stand up in court.

Meanwhile, Diallo filed her own civil lawsuit in a Bronx court, alleging that the 63-year-old leapt on her, naked, and forced her into oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn -- who says a hurried, but consensual, sex act took place in his luxury room -- returned immediately to France after the criminal case disintegrated.

However, by then Strauss-Kahn's career was in tatters, his marriage was on the rocks and he soon faced a string of other sex-related investigations by French authorities.

In France, Strauss-Kahn will learn December 19 if he is to face further investigation into pimping charges arising from allegations that he and associates arranged sex parties with prostitutes.

His lawyers have filed a request for the charges to be dismissed.

French prosecutors last month dropped an investigation into Strauss-Kahn's alleged participation in a gang rape after the woman involved said she had consented and was not pressing charges.

Strauss-Kahn has also been accused by 32-year-old author Tristane Banon of trying to rape her in 2002, but investigators who probed the allegations concluded that while there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Miami-Dade proposes spending $1.5 billion over 15 years to cure sewer system woes

Six months into negotiations with federal regulators over Miami-Dade’s aging sewer system, the county has come up with a $1.5 billion, 15-year plan to rebuild pipes, pumps and sewage treatment plants that in some cases are almost 100 years old.

County leaders devised the proposal in an attempt to fend off a federal lawsuit, and potentially millions of dollars in fines, for not abiding by the federal Clean Water Act. The county also has proposed replacing or repairing a good portion of the 7,500 miles of sewer lines that regularly rupture and spill millions of gallons of raw waste into local waterways and Biscayne Bay.

Before any work is to begin, the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency — which put the county on notice in May — must accept the county’s terms. The plan, referred to as a consent decree, also must be endorsed by a majority of county commissioners. That could come as soon as late January or early February.

One of the largest repair jobs would be a $555 million reconstruction of the controversial wastewater treatment plant on Virginia Key. Entire concrete structures would be rebuilt, and pump stations and electrical systems would be replaced. The plan calls for spending another $394 million on similar fixes to two other wastewater treatment facilities, in Goulds and North Miami.

Another $408 million would be spent replacing and rehabbing the county’s 1,035 pump stations, and miles of transmission lines that run to and from the plants.

The plan has already garnered some criticism.

The Biscayne Bay Waterkeepers, clean-water activists who filed to join the federal action against the county, say spending hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild on Virginia Key is a waste, because the spit of land is likely to be under water within 50 years.

The group points to a recent study by the journal Science that showed the polar ice caps in Greenland are melting at three times the rate originally believed. They also say a climate change compact Miami-Dade agreed to with three other counties — which accepted a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study that shows sea levels will rise 3 feet by 2060 — shows the Virginia Key plant could be in peril.

“Doubling down on Virginia Key the way they’re doing it is just stupid,” said environmental attorney Albert J. Slap, representing the Waterkeepers. “There’s not a dime in it for armoring the plant, or raising it. It’s on a barrier island.”

Doug Yoder, deputy director of the county’s water and sewer department, didn’t dispute the Army Corps findings, and said the county could abandon the Virginia Key plant for a new plant on the western edge of the county if federal regulators make such a demand.

“We certainly don’t want to spend a lot of money fixing up a facility we’ll soon abandon,” he said.

Most of the costs for the overall plan will be covered through county revenue bonds, Yoder said, meaning a future increase in water rates and debt service bills. Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been warning for months that rate hikes are in the offing.

To meet demands from the feds, the county also must abandon by 2027 an outflow system it now uses that dumps up to 120 million gallons of sewage each day miles offshore. The county has until July 2013 to come up with an alternate disposal method.

A project cited in the new plan that had not been publicly addressed previously is the installation of 7,660 linear feet of sewer mains in an industrial area just below State Road 112 and between Northwest 27th and 37th avenues, which now depends on septic tanks. The job of hooking up local businesses there to county sewers would cost a little over $2 million.

Federal regulators began talks with Miami-Dade in May after a series of massive raw sewage spills released more than 47 million gallons of untreated human waste throughout the county. DOJ and the EPA, along with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, sketched out the 78-page consent decree.

Four times between October and December 2011, the sewage treatment plant on Virginia Key alone ruptured, spilling more than 19 million gallons.

The county also has agreed to pay a $978,000 fine for past spills within 30 days of the plan being accepted, with about half the money going to the DOJ and the other half to the state.

DOJ spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment Friday.

In October, the county denied 12 permit applications in the Coconut Grove area by businesses that wanted to install sinks, toilets or showers. The county said it was imposing a moratorium on new sewage outflow from a Coconut Grove-serving pump station.

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Hands-On With the World-Changing $40 Tablet

Aakash2

The Aakash2 is available for $ 40.41 (2,263 rupees), but the government of India will subsidize half the cost for schoolchildren. The tablet is conceived as a tool to help end India‘s rampant illiteracy. Aakash2 will bring school-age children connectivity and unprecidented access to books.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Zynga Holiday Campaign Turns Virtual Goods Into Real-World Donations]

The Aakash2, the second generation of the monumental, ultra-cheap tablet from Indian manufacturer DataWind, arrived in the U.S. Wednesday, with a welcome at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.

DataWind is hoping to prove to the tech and development communities that the $ 40 Aakash2 is faster than its predecessor, the original Aakash, which was much-criticized for its glacial processor.

[More from Mashable: The Top 5 Gadget Innovations of 2012]

You may be wondering what exactly you can put in a tablet that sells for just $ 40.41. The 7-inch Android-powered device has 512 MB of RAM, a 1 Ghz processor, 4 GB of flash memory, a multi-touch capacitative screen, front-facing camera, an internal microphone and speakers. The Aakash2 includes a USB hub, an adapter cable, a wall charger and a 12-month warranty.

Sunseet Singh Tuli, DataWind’s CEO and the visionary behind the tablet, points out that Aakash2 wasn’t conceived for the same demographic as the iPad. It’s developed out of the requisite “frugal innovation” that guides India and the developing world.

“Frugal innovation isn’t about creating an iPad killer, it’s about creating an iPad for him,” said Tuli, pointing to a presentation slide of a lower-class man who’s primary motivation is to receive an education. “This is not a straight commerce effort — it’s an educational effort.”

Even the tablet’s name — Aakash, which means sky in Hindi — references that it was created to awaken students’ potential. The government of India has committed to subsidize 50% of the cost of the device for students, making it available for roughly $ 20.

According to DataWind, the technological breakthrough of the Aakash2, which is why the device can be made so inexpensively, is twofold. First, much of its memory and processing power is transfered to backend servers. Second, the parallel processing environment speeds the user experience in remote areas and congested networks.

The Aakash2 also eliminates hardware features deemed unnecessary for the target audience, such as bluetooth and the HDMI interface. It uses open source software to cut costs, as well.

“This tablet seeks to empower the world’s neediest and bridges the digital divide within our society,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s permanent representative to the U.N. at the launch event. “To us, Aakash2 is the epitome of such high end innovation and excellence.”

The Aakash to was designed and developed in Canada, though it was conceived, assembled and programmed in India. DataWind and the Indian government have received criticism because the process is not entirely domestic, though both said they are committed to moving more of the production process to India when cost allows.

The Indian government has committed to equipping all 220 million students in the country with low-cost computing devices and Internet access over the next five years. To put that number in perspective, just 250,000 tablets were sold in India in 2011. It will cost $ 1.6 billion per year at the rate of equipping 40 million students for each of the next five years. The national government has committed to covering half the cost — $ 800 million per year — and will count on state governments and institutions to cover the remaining 50% of costs. Though it sounds like a daunting figure, $ 800 million is only 5% of India’s annual education budget.

“More and more schools in some of the most impoverished areas are using technology, text messaging and mobile applications to enhance the quality of education and open new doors,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday. “Our challenge is to leverage the power of technology and bridge the digital divide.”

During Wednesday’s event at the U.N., Tuli presented Ki-moon with an Aakash2 tablet for each of the U.N. ambassadors.

Not surprisingly, other countries throughout the developing world have noticed the Aakash tablet’s potential. Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil and Panama have all expressed interest in bringing the low-cost tablet to their students.

“The next arms race is to equip our children with knowledge and information,” Tuli said.

If you’re wondering when you can get your hands on an Aakash2 in the U.S., DataWind plans to begin selling the device in the U.S. in early 2013.

Do you think this low-cost tablet has the power to bridge the digital divide and combat illiteracy? Let us know in the comments.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Val Chmerkovskiy on 'Dancing with the Stars' Season 15

Now that Dancing with the Stars is over, professional dancer Val Chmerkovskiy is revealing his retrospective thoughts on his third season on the show, which concluded in a third-place ending for him and actress Kelly Monaco. Chmerkovskiy developed a tight relationship with Monaco over the season, but admits that he had his sights on another partner in the beginning.

Chmerkovskiy originally joined his brother Maks on the celebrity dancing show as a pro dancer for Season 13, eventually placing eleventh with Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis. After placing tenth with Sherri Shepherd the following season, he became discouraged and secretly aspired to be paired with one of the All-Stars season's least capable dancers.

PIC: Val Chmerkovskiy Checks In To 'General Hospital!'

"Going into the season, I had very different views and my imagination was taking me in a different way. My expectations were very, very different," the 26-year-old Latin dance specialist said. "I was really happy to the idea of Bristol Palin, only because I was so discouraged with my last two seasons."

The Ukraine native then explained that he was daunted by the show's first All-Stars season, which was packed with six former Mirrorball Trophy winners, and if he were to lose with a less capable dancer like Palin, the responsibility for be eliminated would lie with his partner and not him.

Palin eventually finished in ninth place with Mark Ballas after four weeks of dwelling at the bottom of the leader board. While finishing ninth would have been a slight improvement for Chmerkovskiy, he instead made a drastic leap and danced with Monaco to his first finals.

RELATED: Maksim Chmerkovskiy Quitting 'DWTS'

While fan voters typically vote for the show's celebrities, Val's skin-flashing performances, including stripping down to a Speedo in the pair's "surfer flamenco," may have carried the two throughout the weeks despite scores that generally hovered around the middle of the leader board.

Although the show is now over, Chmerkovskiy will be putting his half-naked body on display once again in an upcoming guest role on General Hospital, on which Monaco has starred since 2003 and acted in over a thousand episodes. While he's been criticized for continually taking his shirt off on TV, Chmerkovskiy claims it's not his idea to do so.

"I'm getting all the [flak] for it like it's my idea. They told me specifically, 'Show up [with] no shirt; you're coming out of a gym,'" he said. "I'm just doing what people ask. I'm giving the people what they want."

VIDEO: Melissa and Tony Ecstatic after Winning 'DWTS'

Chmerkovskiy will appear on General Hospital's December 10th episode, airing at 2 p.m. ET/ 1 p.m. PT on ABC.

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WATCH: girl suffers 'painful' dolphin bite at SeaWorld

ATLANTA — An 8-year-old Georgia girl says it "really, really hurt" when a dolphin snatched her hand in its mouth while she fed the animal as part of an attraction at SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla.

But Jillian Thomas of Alpharetta says was concerned that the dolphin didn't get sick from eating the paper carton she held. In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America Monday, Jillian said she prayed for the dolphin after the attack.

Jillian suffered three puncture wounds to her hand. Her father Jamie, who was with her at the theme park when the dolphin lunged from its pool Nov. 21, described his reaction this way: "Instant fear."

SeaWorld officials said in a statement that the safety of their guests is paramount, and that they are taking the situation seriously.

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Wrong turn, then shock and horror at MIA

What began as a day of prayer and fellowship turned into a surreal scene of stunned, bloodied passengers and twisted metal.

There was the sickening sound of crunching metal early Saturday as a busload of Jehovah’s Witnesses was low-bridged by a concrete overpass at Miami International Airport, peeling back the top of the vehicle “like a can of sardines.”

Airport workers running to the scene found shocked passengers thrown into the aisle or trapped in their seats by the wreckage.

Riders in the front rows were crushed — two of them killed, others seriously injured.

The driver of the bus, 47-year-old Ramon Ferreiro, took a wrong turn off LeJeune Road, entering the airport by mistake, then rolled past multiple yellow signs warning tall vehicles. He drove on, approaching an overpass whose sign said “8ft-6in”. The driver either didn’t see it, couldn’t read it, or realized it too late.

The bus stood 11 feet tall.

“The last thing he should have done is to keep going,” said Greg Chin, airport spokesman. “That goes against all logic.”

Ferreiro, whose driver’s seat was lower than those of the passengers, was not injured.

One passenger, 86-year-old Miami resident Serfin Castillo, was killed on impact, and all 31 others were taken by ambulance to local hospitals. Thirteen ended up at Jackson Memorial’s Ryder Trauma Center, where one of them, 56-year-old Francisco Urana of Miami, died shortly after arriving.

Three remained in critical condition Saturday night, and three had been released.

Luis Jimenez, 72, got a few stitches on his lip and hurt his hand. He said the group left the Sweetwater Kingdom Hall about 7 a.m., bound for West Palm Beach.

“I was sitting in the back when it happened,” Jimenez said. “We were on our way to an assembly and lost a brother today. I’m very sad.”

Delvis Lazo, 15, a neighbor and member of the same congregation, described Castillo as a “nice, old man.” He often saw Castillo at religious gatherings, and their families have known each other for more than 15 years.

The last time Lazo saw him was about two months ago, as he prepped for a talk before his congregation.

“He gave me a thumbs up, told me that everything was going to be all right,” he said.

The bus, one of three traveling to the Spanish-language general assembly on Saturday, had been contracted by the congregation, which has fewer than 150 members.

According to public records, the bus belongs to Miami Bus Service Corporation, a Miami company owned by Mayling and Alberto Hernandez that offers regularly scheduled service between South Florida and Gainesville, often used by University of Florida students. At the home address listed for the company and the owners, Mayling Hernandez told The Miami Herald that passenger safety is her primary concern.

“At this time I’m worried about the driver and the families of the victims. I’m praying for them,” she said. “My job is to worry about the safety of the passengers who are our clients. What we do requires a lot of responsibility. I didn’t know the passengers but that doesn’t mean I’m not suffering.”

Neighbor Armando Bacigalupi described the owners as “caring people” and said he had seen buses park briefly in front of the house.

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Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox again said to launch ahead of 2013 holidays

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Bachelorette Ashley Hebert and JP Rosenbaum are Married

Ashley Hebert is a bachelorette no more!

The 28-year-old dentist and her construction manager fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum, 35, walked down the aisle on Saturday in Pasadena, California, reports People Magazine.

The ceremony, officiated by Bachelor and Bachelorette host Chris Harrison, was attended by familiar faces from the series including Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick.

Video: 'Bachelorette' Ashley Hebert and Fiance J.P.'s Passionate PDA

Ashley and J.P.'s exchanging of vows will be televised December 16 on a two-hour special on ABC.

The season seven sweeties will be the second Bachelorette couple ever to televise their walk down the aisle, following in the footsteps of Trista and Ryan Sutter, who married in December 2003.

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Staten Island man in police custody after wife beaten to death

A Staten Island man was taken into custody after his wife was brutally beaten to death, police said.

It was not immediately clear what led to the fatal beating in the family's home on Beechwood Place around 2:25 a.m. this morning, police said.

Cops found 42-year-old Jodi Surinaga unconscious and unresponsive after one of the couple's two children inside the home called 911, sources said.

The mother suffered blunt force trauma to the head, according to police. EMS pronounced the victim dead at the scene.

Investigators did not immediately say whether the children witnessed the horrific crime.

Cops took the victim's 45-year-old husband into custody.

kconley@nypost.com

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Boat Show may block Miami’s 2016 Super Bowl bid

This winter, the biggest NFL match-up in South Florida might be Super Bowl versus Boat Show.

As South Florida readies a bid for the 2016 Super Bowl, it must contend with a major potential conflict on the tourism calendar. The National Football League may move the Super Bowl to Presidents’ Day weekend, already home to the five-day Miami International Boat Show since the 1940s.

It’s a significant enough conflict that, in the past, local tourism officials have declined to pursue a Super Bowl if it fell on boat show weekend. But this time around they may have no choice. For the first time, the NFL is requiring that potential host cities agree to a Presidents’ Day weekend Super Bowl if they want to pursue the big game at all, said two people who have seen the NFL request for Super Bowl bids.

The NFL “invited South Florida [to bid] knowing there was going to be an issue with Presidents’ Day weekend and the boat show,” said Nicki Grossman, Broward’s tourism director. “In the past, South Florida has not responded to a Super Bowl date that included Presidents’ Day weekend. This package is different.”

South Florida vies with New Orleans as the top Super Bowl host, with government and tourism leaders touting the game as both a boon to the economy and a publicity bonanza. But the notion of accommodating both Super Bowl and boat show — not to mention a major arts festival in Coconut Grove — strikes some top tourism officials as a bad idea.

“There is not sufficient hotel inventory available in Miami that weekend to host a Super Bowl,” said William Talbert, president of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We have taken a close look at that weekend, and it’s not physically possible in Miami to host Super Bowl during the Presidents’ Day weekend because of the boat show and the Coconut Grove Arts Festival. The hotel inventory is all being used for these two great events.”

His comments are at odds with the region’s top Super Bowl organizer and reflect the burden that the boat show may be to South Florida’s Super Bowl hopes for 2016 and 2017. The NFL invited Miami and San Francisco to bid for the 2016 Super Bowl by April 1, with the loser vying with Houston for the 2017 game. Talbert said the bid package states both decisions will be made in May.

For now, South Florida’s Super Bowl organizers face a largely hypothetical challenge, because the current NFL schedule has the Super Bowl occurring two weeks before Presidents’ Day weekend. The bid requirements for the ’16 and ’17 Super Bowls include three consecutive weekends as possibilities for the game, with the latest falling on the Presidents’ Day holiday.

Still, possible logistical hurdles may combine with political obstacles if the Miami Dolphins resume their push for a tax-funded renovation of Sun Life Stadium, the Super Bowl’s South Florida home.

Last year, the Dolphins proposed that Broward and Miami-Dade counties subsidize a $225 million renovation at Sun Life as a way to keep the region competitive for Super Bowls and other large events. The renovation includes a partial roof that would prevent the kind of drenching Super Bowl spectators suffered in 2007 when a rare February downpour hit Miami Gardens.

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