Nokia announces PureView 808 with a 41 MP sensor

Today at their MWC2012's press event, Nokia brought the PureView teaser to fever pitch with the 41 megapixel camera of the Symbian Belle-running Nokia PureView 808.

The Nokia 808 PureView uses a 41 MP sensor, which captures image data from seven adjacent pixels and condenses it into one, resulting in stills at around 5 MP resolution with amazing detail and low noise levels. The optics are Carl Zeiss and there's Xenon flash and a LED one acting as a video light.

Technically, the sensor is able to capture 3 MP, 5 MP, 8 MP, 38 MP at 4:3 aspect ratio and 2 MP, 5 MP [Default], 8 MP, 34 MP at 16:9.

Video recording goes as high as FullHD 1080p at 30 fps and there's also 720p@30fps. Video is H264 encoded and supports stereo sound. The large image sensor allows 4x zoom in 1080p and 6x in 720p.

Nokia 808 PureView

The Nokia 808 PureView has a single-core 1.3 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM and runs Symbian Belle. The display is a 16:9 4" AMOLED unit of nHD (640 x 360) resolution covered with curved Gorilla Glass.

There's NFC, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, USB on the go and 16 GB of onboard storage.

The Nokia 808 PureView should be on the shelves around May 2012.

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Nokia 808 PureView video and camera samples emerge

The Nokia 808 PureView's 41MP camera is causing quite a stir at the MWC and we finally get to see its full-sized camera samples. Alongside the four photos are also three full HD 1080p video samples.

All of them are really impressive, so let's start.

This is what everyone has been waiting for - Nokia 808 PureView's full samples from its 41MP camera.

Nokia 808 PureView camera samples

Update: Nokia Conversations are kind enough to release another batch of untouched photos straight up from the Nokia 808 PureView. Download them by clicking here.

Now, to the equally impressive 1080p full HD video samples. They are a month old, so they're definitely taken with pre-release software. They still look stunning, especially the first one, shot at night in low light.

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MWC 2012: Nokia overview

Last year Nokia didn't announce a single new phone at the MWC, but this year they came ready to steal the show. As expected, they unveiled the Nokia Lumia 610 WP7 Tango phone, worldwide availability for the Lumia 900 and a three new Ashas, but what really sent the crowd into a roar was the Nokia 808 Pure View.

Mary McDowell had to repeat it twice, so that people could be sure they didn't mishear - the 808 Pure View packs an amazing sensor with a whopping 41 megapixels resolution. Yep, 41MP. The camera lets you snap 3MP, 5MP and 8MP photos and because they're saved in a new image format, you can zoom in those photos with little image quality degradation at any time after taking the photo.

Or you could squeeze out almost every megapixel that the sensor has a shoot a 38MP image. That's more than most DSLRs!

The new Nokia Lumia 610 isn't meant to wow you, it's meant to be a highly affordable Windows Phone mobile. With an expected price of ?189, the Lumia 610 brings the price point for entry into Microsoft's mobile world way down.

We also got three new feature phones, all of them Ashas. The Asha 302 is a QWERTY messenger with Microsoft Exchange email support. The other two - the Asha 202 and Asha 203 - are single and dual-SIM phones respectively and come with a repertoire of 40 free games - a combined worth more than the price of the phones themselves.

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Nokia announces Asha 302, 203 and 202

Mary McDowell came on stage and got busy right away announcing three new Nokia Asha phones - the Asha 202, Asha 203 and Asha 302. The Asha 302 is a QWERTY messenger, while the Asha 203 is identical to the Asha 202, but with an extra SIM slot.

The Nokia Asha 302 features extensive communication skills. It features Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp integration, but also - get this! - Microsoft Exchange email. That's a first for a Nokia feature phone.

Nokia Asha 302

The 302 runs on a 1GHz processor and has 14.4Mbps HSDPA which, McDowell pointed out, is faster than a lot of low-end Androids.

The Nokia Asha 302 is shipping now for ?95 ($130).

The lower-end Ashas feature 2.4" touchscreens and come with the Nokia Browser. Both have 2MP cameras. There's also Bluetooth, microSD card slot for cards up to 32GB and FM radio.

The Asha 203 has a second SIM slot and will remember personalized settings for up to five SIM cards, so several people can easily share a single phone.

Those two come with a huge pack of EA games, no less than 40. You can download those off the Nokia Market for free during the first 60 days. That's equivalent to ?75 of added value.

Nokia Asha 202 and 203

That's more than the price of the phones themselves, they'll go for about ?60 ($80). Launch is set for the next few weeks.

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MWC 2012: Various brands overview

This year's MWC is a busy place, with pretty much every maker and every type of mobile device you can think of on display. We've covered the headliners, but now it's time to visit some of the less popular names, many of which had some very interesting gadgets to show.

We're kicking off with ZTE, who have a droid flagship to rival any of the top dogs here in Barcelona.

We're still roaming the MWC floors, scouring for exciting new gadgets and we'll be posting them here as soon as they're ready, so keep an eye on this space, as we'll be updating it with new info as it becomes available.

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MWC 2012: Samsung overview

There was no Galaxy S III from Samsung, contrary to expectations, but they did show a new phone - the Samsung Galaxy Beam, with (you guessed it) a built-in projector. It shared the spotlight with two 10.1-inch tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Tab 2 10.1.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 brings Samsung's S Pen stylus where it belongs - a big screen. We've no talent for painting whatsoever, but couldn't wait to try and sketch something on the Android version of Photoshop Touch.

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 should be a more affordable tablet (though pricing isn't revealed yet), with specs comparable to those of the original Tab 10.1. The Tab 2, however, tops the old version with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box and records FullHD video.

Samsung's earlier attempts to combine a phone and a portable microprojector fizzled out, but they're at it again. The Samsung Galaxy Beam is a fairly standard dual-core droid, with the notable exception of the nHD projector. It can project an image with a 50" diagonal.

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ZTE announces new quad-core ICS-powered Era

The Era will have a robust QHD (960 x 540) 4.3 inch screen and 8GB of internal memory, all running on a Tegra 3 chipset. It will also feature HD Voice wideband audio as well as Dolby sound.

The press release also lists some huge goals by ZTE, including becoming a top three handset manufacturer by 2015. This comes after controlling 3.2% of the market share last year, and while that may not sound like much, was enough for them to take fifth place. It certainly doesn't hurt to aim high, and the Era's sweet-sounding specs might help them achieve that.

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Panasonic Eluga power brings more bang to Europe

Panasonic have unveiled the Eluga power, a bigger, better Eluga flagship.

It has a 5" 1280 x 720 LCD display, a dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, Android 4.0 and 8 GB of on-board storage among others.

Panasonic Eluga power

The handset is IP57-certified, meaning it's dust protected and water resistant just like the original Eluga.

The Eluga power has a thicker body (9.6 mm as opposed to the Eluga's 7.8 mm) and omits the OLED display.

There's an 8 MP camera with 1080p video recording.

Eluga power hands-on

Panasonic claim that the Eluga power's battery is super fast to charge taking about 30 minutes to get to 50%, and 57 minutes to refill to 80% of juice.

There's no information on pricing and availability for the Europe-bound Eluga power.

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Nokia officially announce Lumia 610 and world Lumia 900

After many leaks, it's now official - Nokia announce the Lumia 610 at the Mobile World Congress as well as the global availability of the Lumia 900.

Running Windows Phone 7.5, the Lumia 610 is powered by an 800MHz single-core Snapdragon S1 processor and 256MB of RAM and 8GB storage.

With a 3.7" WVGA TFT LCD screen, the Lumia 610 stands at 119mm x 62mm x 12mm and weighs 131.5 grams.

The camera of the Lumia 610 is a 5MP unit with auto-focus and a LED flash. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS are on board, as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack, microUSB port and a 1300mAh battery.

The Nokia Lumia 610 will come in white, cyan, magenta and black for the price of 189 ?. Nokia expects the device to hit the market some time in Q2.

The Lumia 900 will make its global debut this year. Elop said the high-end Windows Phone device will also hit Canada with Rogers in its LTE version and DCHSPA, which doubles the speed of regular HSPA+ for the rest of the world.

The global version of the Lumia 900 will come in its usual colors, white, cyan and black and will retail for 480?. Like the Lumia 610 it will too out in Q2.

In addition, Nokia is updating some of the applications on Windows Phone as well as introducing new ones. Nokia Drive is one of the updated apps.

The updated Nokia Drive includes not only updated maps and content, but also the addition of speed limits, which is handy. And to make it even harder to resist, Nokia have thrown in full offline capabilities.

The new one is Nokia Reading. It is a personalized news feed app, just like Google Reader on Android or Pulse. Nokia Reading provides local language content as well as books and news. Nokia will provide the app as a free download, too.

In addition, Windows Phone is coming finally to China. And because of the need to reach emerging markets, Nokia announced the minimum requirements for devices to run Windows Phone 7 is now just 256MB of RAM on devices with Qualcomm 7x278 family of chips.

Developing...

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ZTE announces Orbit, Tango-powered smartphone

As of now, little is known about the Orbit, save for the fact that it comes with a 5 MP camera and 4GB of internal memory, and it will run the latest version of Windows Phone, Tango.

The Orbit is the second ZTE device to run Windows Phone, after the ZTE Tania, which was announced last September.

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Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD announced, quad-core beast

Huawei just went official with their latest 10-inch MediaPad, after last night's foreplay.

We saw the beast on display yesterday at Huawei's press event but only now we got to learn the full specs. The MediaPad 10 FHD runs on Huawei's proprietary quad-core K3V2 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz. The amount of RAM is the impressive 2 GB but there are only 8 gigs of on-board storage. Fret not though, as it has a microSD card slot to expand that.

The IPS display is a real treat - a FullHD-worthy 1920 x 1200 resolution resulting into a pixel density of around 226 pixels per inch, which is more than what any ultrabook, tablet or netbook out there can match.

Connectivity options are duly covered with HSPA+ speeds plus LTE (we're guessing in separate versions). An 8 MP camera on the back is in charge of imaging.

The MediaPad 10 FHD offers an aluminum unibody construction, it weighs 598 g and is just 8.8 mm thick.

The MediaPad 10 FHD will become available worldwide in Q2 of 2012.

For live pictures of the MediaPad 10 FHD you can check out our hands-on.

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Syria: Can Assad fight his way to political survival?

Despite the death and destruction his security forces are raining down on opposition-held neighborhoods in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad is unlikely to succeed in crushing a year-old rebellion. International revulsion at the crackdown and the breadth of an uprising that has seen Syrians take up arms in a fight to the death also make it increasingly unlikely that Assad will manage to reestablish the status quo ante through military force. But even if he can't win, Assad may have reason to believe, as he surveys the national and international battlefield he has created, that he can nonetheless fight to a messy draw. The difference between a draw and a defeat, for Assad, now amounts to this: Will he be at the table when a political solution to the conflict is negotiated?

The European Union on Monday announced new sanctions against Assad's regime in support of demands that he end his assault on opposition strongholds and accept an Arab League plan that requires him to surrender power. But the EU measures amounted largely to an incremental tightening of those previously imposed. The meeting in Tunis last Friday of the "Friends of Syria" ad-hoc forum also confirmed that while Western and Arab powers concur on the need for Assad to step down -- and before that, to halt his assaults on rebel-held areas and allow in humanitarian relief supplies -- there is limited agreement on new strategies to pursue those goals. Western powers have no appetite for direct military involvement in Syria, not only because of post-Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya intervention fatigue, but because the sectarian and regional political stakes in Syria's conflict threaten region-wide chaos. Support for direct military intervention appears to be lacking even if those doing the fighting are not Western troops: Qatar failed in its efforts to persuade the Friends of Syria to back intervention by an Arab force that would invade Syria to open humanitarian corridors to besieged cities.

(PHOTOS: Free Syrian Army Joins Anti-Assad Protests)

Qatar has since defaulted to the Saudi view that arming Syria's rebels is, as the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, put it, "an excellent idea." The vociferous advocacy of the Gulf states for funneling weapons to the insurgents reinforces widely held suspicions that they're probably already doing so. There may even be some non-lethal aid from Western countries, including communications equipment, medical supplies, night-vision goggles and other such equipment, reaching rebel forces. But the Saudis, who reportedly walked out of the Friends of Syria forum at one point, allegedly decrying its "inaction," could not persuade the forum to endorse even that idea.

The U.S. certainly remains skeptical of the proposal to send weapons to the opposition. "We don't really know who it is that would be armed," said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a CBS interview last weekend, noting the amorphous nature of the opposition and the fact that some of its elements are inimical to U.S. foreign policy goals. The Syrian opposition had the backing of al-Qaeda and the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas, she said, raising the question of who the U.S. would be supporting if it provided arms. "Despite the great pleas that we hear from those people who are being ruthlessly assaulted by Assad, you don't see uprisings across Syria the way you did in Libya," she continued. "You don't see militias forming in places where the Syrian military is not, trying to get to Homs... So if you're a military planner or if you're a Secretary of State and you're trying to figure out do you have the elements of an opposition that is actually viable, that we don't see."

(PHOTOS: Inside Syria's Civil War)

The U.S. and its allies may have hoped to crown the Syrian National Council (SNC) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, as they did with the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council ahead of the intervention in Libya last year, but the fact that the Tunis gathering hailed the SNC as "a" rather than "the" representative of the Syrian people was telling. The extent of the SNC's authority on the ground remains questionable, and even its influence over the Free Syrian Army -- the umbrella insurgent organization of defectors from the regime's army and civilian volunteers, whose own control over fighting units on the ground appears to be limited -- is far from established. Some have argued that providing arms will help to organize the rebellion and build up the political authority of the SNC leadership under whose auspices such arms would be provided. But Clinton's concerns may have been underscored by Sunday's news that some of the SNC's most senior leaders had broken away to form the Syrian Patriotic Group, challenging the effectiveness of the SNC and giving less equivocal backing to armed rebellion.

While the majority of U.N. member states have backed the Arab League plan, Assad still enjoys strong support from Russia and Iran, and countries such as China and Iraq insist that any solution in Syria be based on diplomatic reforms and dialogue with the regime, rather than its a priori replacement. Needless to say, the Assad regime concurs: Even while it continued to rain artillery fire down on Homs and other opposition strongholds on Sunday, the regime also managed to stage a referendum on a package of constitutional reforms. Opposition leaders denounced the vote as a farce given the war being waged, and there's no way it could be taken as a sign of national consensus behind Assad-led reforms. But even if the regime's claim of a 57% turnout was exaggerated, Western journalists in the major cities of Damascus and Aleppo saw thousands of young voters turning out to participate in the poll in spite of opposition calls for a boycott. That served up a timely reminder that Assad's regime retains a substantial support base, with a number of key constituencies -- particularly his Alawite sect that dominates key military units, as well as Christians and other minorities that together make up as much as a third of the population -- fearful of their prospects should the rebellion triumph.

(MORE: Three Acclaimed Journalists Die Covering the War in Syria)

By militarizing the political contest in Syria, Assad has effectively created a sectarian civil war that presents the Syrian population with stark choices that work in his favor. And the more intense and protracted the military conflict becomes, the greater the danger that the de facto leadership of the rebellion passes to more extreme and sectarian elements -- which, of course, reinforces Assad's own hold on his core support.

All sides in Syria, then, appear to be hunkering down for a protracted civil war -- a conflict of a type that, given the external backing on which the combatants rely, is unlikely to end in a rout by either side. And if it ends at the negotiation table, as the Balkan wars of the 1990s did, Assad will be hoping at least to secure his place as a key player at the table. Indeed, even the SNC in a statement last Friday appeared to walk back from its refusal to engage with the regime, saying that negotiation -- if the regime first agrees to a cease-fire -- "is still possible and is likely the best way to achieve the desired goal of regime change." Council members and Western diplomats also tell reporters that Russia's role remains crucial in achieving any settlement to end the violence, despite its dissent from the international consensus.

No surprise, then, that European Union officials were careful following the adoption of the new sanctions on Monday to stress the importance of the role of Kofi Annan, the former U.N. Secretary General who has been appointed as joint U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria. His job, of course, will be to talk the Assad regime and its enemies into some sort of workable compromise that can end the violence.

MORE: Just When They Needed It Least: The Syrian Opposition Fractures Again

VIDEO: Why They Protest: Egypt, Libya and Syria

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Intel announce two new Atom CPUs for phones and tablets

Intel is serious about getting a piece of the handheld action this time - they announced two new processors and chipsets to join what's already powering the likes of the Lenovo K800 and the Orange Santa Clara.

The first processor is called Atom Z2580 and features two cores (the same Medfield design like the fist one) with HyperThreading allowing the processor to run four threads simultaneously. It will be clocked at 1.3GHz, potentially going up to 1.8GHz with Turbo Boosts.

It's paired with a powerful GPU too - PowerVR SGX544MP2, which is supposed to double the performance of an SGX543MP2 found in the iPhone 4S.

Intel have their own LTE-capable modem that will work with the Atom Z2580 and all these components will be shown off in a brand new reference design.

With a little luck, it will go the way of the Santa Clara and be offered as a consumer phone too. However, that's unlikely to happen before the first half of 2013 at the earliest .

The second chipset includes the Atom Z2000, a low-end single-core processor running at 1GHz and without HyperThreading. There's a downclocked SGX540 GPU and an Intel-made HSPA+ modem.

The Atom Z2000 will get its own reference design and will target low-end phones. There's no word on availability, but probably won't be soon either.

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MeeGo 1.2 update for Nokia N9 goes live

About a month after it was seeded to developers for testing, the v1.2 update for MeeGo goes live. The update weighs in at 284MB and it may take a while to install (up to 40 minutes according to Nokia).

But it's well worth the wait. With it, you'll get to make video calls and finally put that front-facing camera of the Nokia N9 to good use. MeeGo 1.2 also offers folders in the app launcher so you can get the place more organized.

Other improvements include updates to the camera and gallery and copy/paste functionality with brackets.

You can start the installation straight from the N9, just check for updates if you haven?t received a notification already. And don't forget to leave a comment with your impressions of the updated MeeGo OS.

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Plane makes emergency landing at Newark Airport

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Newark Liberty Airport has reopened after a United Express flight from Atlanta made an emergency landing, forcing an hour-long shutdown.

There were no reports of injuries among the 71 people aboard.

Authorities say Flight 5124 landed around 6:20 p.m. Monday, shortly after the pilot was approaching the airport to land as scheduled and noticed a landing gear problem.

Newark firefighters were called to the scene, but found no smoke or fire aboard the plane.

A spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the airport was closed shortly after the landing. Two of the airport's three runways reopened about an hour later.

Additional details were not immediately available.

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Gingrich slams Santorum as a 'big labor Republican'

NASHVILLE (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday slammed rival Rick Santorum as a "big labor Republican," accusing him of siding with unions over Memphis-based FedEx when the Senate grappled with a labor dispute in the 1990s.

Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman and House Speaker, is hoping to revive his struggling campaign in the South, and he tailored his message Monday to Republican voters in Tennessee. Although polls show a close race between Santorum and Mitt Romney, Gingrich challenged the former Pennsylvania senator and his conservative credentials.

"I think there are profound reasons that Rick lost the Senate race by the largest margin in Pennsylvania history in 2006 and I think it's very hard for him to carry that all the way to the general," Gingrich said. "Then he comes South and you take the case right here. He voted for the unions over FedEx. I suspect most folks in the state don't know that. But in fact he was a big labor Republican in Pennsylvania and I suspect when you get to Memphis and you say to people, 'Gee, this is a guy who wanted to guarantee that FedEx give into the unions.' Santorum won't be as popular the following morning."

Gingrich was referring to a provision in a 1996 spending bill for the Federal Aviation Administration that sought to help FedEx truck drivers in their efforts to organize. A group of Democrats held up the FAA bill to protest what they said was an attempt to help FedEx prevent its truck drivers from forming a union.

In 2006, Democrat Bob Casey soundly defeated Santorum in his re-election bid.

Gingrich said if Romney wins the Michigan primary on Tuesday, "you'll see things start to clarify. If, as people expect, you end up with a Romney victory in Michigan tomorrow, I think you'll see Santorum getting a very different second look."

Bypassing Michigan and Arizona, the other primary on Tuesday, Gingrich said voters in Tennessee and his home state of Georgia could rejuvenate his presidential bid, which has stalled since he claimed a surprise victory in last month's South Carolina primary. The former House speaker said a handful of states voting on the mega-contest day of March 6 could propel him to wins in Mississippi and Alabama next month and delegate-rich primaries later in the spring in Texas and California.

"Then all of the sudden, the same media which said I was dead in the fall, I was ahead in December, I was dead in early January, I was ahead in mid-January, all of the sudden they're going to say ... Gingrich will be back again," he said during a luncheon with local Republicans.

Tennessee and Georgia hold nearly one-third of the 419 delegates at stake in the 10 states voting on Super Tuesday, contests Gingrich views as crucial to his struggling presidential bid. His campaign sees a potential backdoor opening if either Romney or Santorum stumbles, setting the stage for another showdown in a prolonged series of primary contests.

At a rally on the grounds of the State Capitol, Gingrich, a former history professor, said President Andrew Jackson would have been "enraged" by President Barack Obama, citing the president's recent decision to apologize for the actions of U.S. troops who burned Qurans while destroying documents on a military base in Afghanistan.

"Jackson understood that you want your opponents to respect you," Gingrich said, overlooking a statue of the 19th century president riding horseback. "They don't have to like you but they have to understand that you're formidable and you're dangerous."

Gingrich was reaching for a strong showing in Tennessee even as a statewide poll underscored his challenges here. A Vanderbilt University poll showed Gingrich at 10 percent in the state, trailing rivals Santorum with 33 percent and Romney with 17 percent. The poll of 767 likely Republican primary voters was conducted Feb. 16-22 and had a margin of error of 3 percent.

"The race remains very fluid in this state and will likely continue to move in response to the primaries in Michigan and Arizona," said John Geer, a Vanderbilt political scientist and co-director of the Vanderbilt Poll. "Still, this poll suggests the climb is steep for the speaker, but far from impossible in this unpredictable year."

Earlier, Gingrich attended a health care forum at the law firm of former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker Jr., R-Tenn., urging Republicans to think of this time as "the beginning of the replacement debate rather than just the anti-Obamacare debate." Gingrich has said he would repeal Obama's health care law if Republicans win congressional majorities.

Gingrich has offered a number of alternatives to the new health law, offering a tax credit to help people buy health insurance or the ability to deduct part of the costs from their taxes.

The former speaker returns to Georgia on Tuesday for a three-day bus tour around his home state, hoping to halt a monthlong slide.

"My basic hope is to pick up some delegates virtually everywhere, pick up a lot of delegates in the South and Southwest and then with Texas and California, be totally in the race," Gingrich said.

___

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Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm's Dirty Laundry

In an unprecedented collaboration between Anonymous and WikiLeaks, the secret spilling site began leaking Sunday night portions of a massive trove of e-mails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that Anonymous obtained by hacking the company in December.

WikiLeaks did not mention the source of the reported five gigabytes of e-mails in its press release, but did say it has been working for months with 25 media outlets from around the world to analyze the documents.

The first batch of leaked e-mails purport to show that Stratfor monitored the political prankster group known as The Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical, which has been targeted by The Yes Men over the company’s handling of the Bhopal disaster. The e-mails also purport to show Stratfor’s attempt to set up an investment fund with a Goldman Sachs director to trade on the intelligence Stratfor collects, as well as give insight into how the private intelligence firm acquires, and sometimes pays for, information.

Stratfor, somewhat akin to a privatized CIA, sells its analyses of global politics to major corporations and government agencies.

Members of Anonymous with direct knowledge of the hack and transfer of data to WikiLeaks told Wired that the group decided to turn the information over to WikiLeaks because the site was more capable of analyzing and spreading the leaked information than Anonymous would be.

“WikiLeaks has great means to publish and disclose,” the anon told Wired. “Also, they work together with media in a way we don’t.”

“Basically, WL is the ideal partner for such stuff,” the anon continued. “Antisec acquires the shit, WL gets it released in a proper manner.” Antisec is the arm of Anonymous that is known for hacking into servers.

According to Antisec participants, Stratfor was targeted not just for its poor security, but also because of its client list, which includes major companies and government entities

“We believe police and employees who work for the most significant fortune 500 companies are the most responsible for perpetuating the machinery of capitalism and the state,” said one Antisec participant in December, “That there will be repercussions for when you choose to betray the people and side with the rich ruling classes.”

Anons also told Wired that future collaborations with WikiLeaks could involve a series of hacks that will be announced, one after another, every Friday for the foreseeable future. If that happens, the Stratfor e-mail release could be the first sign of a new, powerful alliance between the two groups, each of which has vexed and angered the world’s most powerful governments and corporations.

When WikiLeaks received the documents on a server it controlled, it acknowledged the successful transfer with a coded, public Tweet, according to an anon with direct knowledge of the collaboration.

A document provided to Wired that could not be authenticated indicated that the media partners of WikiLeaks agreed to parcel out stories on the leaks over the coming week and a half. Those media partners do not include previous partners such as the Guardian and U.S. partners The New York Times and the Washington Post.

According to the document, e-mails about WikiLeaks and Anonymous will be disclosed Wednesday, followed by separate disclosures on Italy, the Middle East and then Asian countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, among others. The project, code-named Rock Guitar, is officially named “The Global Intelligence Files.”

Stratfor had been aware that the e-mails would likely be published in some form by Anonymous, but said in January that the e-mails should not embarrass the company.

The collaboration between WikiLeaks and Anonymous is an odd couple pairing. WikiLeaks has largely crumbled over the last 18 months, due to internal disagreements over the management style and legal problems of its outspoken leader Julian Assange. By contrast, Anonymous is an amorphous group with no leadership structure.

If Anonymous continues feeding WikiLeaks with documents, the secret spilling site could return to a prominence that seemed lost due to technical difficulties, legal troubles, in-fighting and public fallings out with media partners in the wake of the site’s publication of a massive trove of U.S. documents in 2010 and 2011.

WikiLeaks’s alleged source for those documents, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is facing a U.S. army court martial and a possible sentence of life imprisonment.

As for how the collaboration between the two groups went, an anon with direct knowledge of it indicated that the new relationship had some tough moments.

“There were some natural tensions as usually can happen inside partnership,” the anon said. ”I hope this was only the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

Quinn Norton is a writer and photographer who peripatetically covers net culture, copyright, computer security, intellectual property, body modification, medicine, and biotech.
Follow @quinnnorton on Twitter.

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Ex-defendent in Rutgers bullying case testifies against suspect

Rutgers University student Molly Wei received frantic text messages from Dahrun Ravi while she was questioned by police about the alleged webcam spying of Tyler Clementi's gay tryst, she said today in court.

"I think that he thought we were going to get in trouble, so he wanted to make it seem like it was more of an accident," Wei, 19, testified in a New Jersey court today.

Wei took the witness stand to testify against Ravi, 19, who is accused of activating a webcam to spy on his roommate, Clementi, 18, just days before Clementi killed himself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge.

Both Wei and Ravi viewed the images on Wei's computer. Wei has pleaded guilty to two counts of invasion of privacy and entered a pretrial intervention program.

Today, Wei said that Ravi texted her multiple times when she was being interviewed by police about the alleged spying, asking her what exactly she was confessing to investigators.

"Did you tell them we did it on purpose? What did you tell them when they asked why we turned it on? I said we were just messing around with the camera," Ravi said in messages.

Ravi is charged with witness tampering for the messages he sent to Wei, in addition to invasion of privacy, bias intimidation, and hindering arrest.

Wei responded to Ravi's messages saying that she had told investigators "everything" that had happened on Sept. 19, 2010, when Ravi came to her dorm room after Clementi asked the room to himself for the night.

Ravi proceeded to show Wei how he set up his webcam to be remotely activated, and used Wei's computer to turn it on. The pair watched "briefly" as an image of Clementi and another man standing up and kissing came on the screen, Wei said. They then turned the webcam off, she testified today.

"We were both just kind of really shocked, like, I can't believe we just saw what we did," she said. "It shouldn't have happened and we saw something that we didn't expect to see and it just felt weird."

Following the initial viewing, Ravi left the room and Wei's roommate, Cassandra Cicco, and Cicco's friends came to the room and asked to view the webcam. Wei activated the camera again for "like two seconds," before shutting it off, and the girls left, she said. The image on the screen was similar to the one previously, with Clementi and another man standing and kissing, this time with their shirts off.

Rutgers Jury Won't Hear Why Clementi Wanted Room Change

Earlier today, Judge Glenn Berman ruled that the jury will not be allowed to hear Clementi's complaint to the school that his roommate used a Webcam to spy on him.

The complaint was included in Clementi's request for a dorm room change after he twice caught roommate Ravi watching him while on a gay date.

Clementi listed as his reason for wanting a different dorm rooms as: "Roommate with webcam spying on me/want a single room."

Clementi's shocking death became the focal point for a national campaign to stop cyber-bullying and homophobic bullying among students.

Prosecutor Julie McClure, who has called Ravi's actions "malicious, purposeful, and criminal," claimed today that the online request showed that Clementi knew about the spying and felt intimidated by Ravi. McClure said in the first day of the trial that Ravi targeted Clementi because he was gay.

Defense attorneys Steven Altman and Philip Nettl argued against admitting the reason for Clementi's room change request - "Roommate with webcam spying on me" -- into evidence, saying it was hearsay that was unreliable. The statement may or may not have authored by Clementi himself, and was not investigated by the university at the time of the request to be true, Altman argued.

The judge ruled that the part of the statement in which Clementi accuses Ravi of spying could not be admitted.

The debate over evidence came midway through the morning testimony of witnesses called by the prosecution, including two students who saw or heard about the webcam incident from Ravi.

Ravi's friend Scott Xu said that Ravi had never expressed any dislike of gay people, but that he did tell Xu he suspected Clementi was gay. Ravi also told Xu and other friends on their ultimate Frisbee team about Clementi's sexual encounter that Ravi had seen on the webcam, Xu testified.

Xu said he never heard Ravi make a disparaging remark about gay people or Clementi's encounter.

"The only thing I heard was that (Clementi's male guest) looked 'shady,'" Xu testified.

When asked if Ravi had ever described any other gay people, Xu said that his friend had met a gay man at Rutgers orientation.

"He did mention one at orientation. He said he liked him because he was rich," Xu said.

Another Rutgers student, Pooja Kolluri, testified that she had seen images of Clementi kissing another man on a computer owned by Rave's friend Molly Wei on Tuesday, Sept. 21, two days after the first webcam activation. This time, Wei activated the camera and Ravi was not in the room, Kolluri said.

Kolluri testified that several girls watched the image for about five seconds before turning it off. Ravi had entered Wei's room later, she said, and they discussed the incident.

"He said he didn't have a problem with (Clementi) being gay," Kolluri testified, noting that Ravi had commented on Clementi's male guest. "(He said) he looked very old."

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DIY Guy Cranks Out Guitar Amps Made of Ouija Boards, Beer Cans

DIY guitar amp maker Robert Brenne uses unorthodox raw materials like this Ouija board to make his musical equipment.

After seeing video of a beer can turned into a guitar amp, Robert Brenne got inspired to try his hand at home-brewing his own custom music gear out of oddball parts.

A mid-20s pop-culture fan, Brenne tends to make amps that reflect his interests and personality. Browse his website and you’ll find amps made of vintage Nintendo gear and merchandise from the likes of Pac-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“I like finding what someone had and really liked as a kid, like a Ghostbusters lunch box,” he told Wired. “Now that you’re older, you can’t really display it in your house, but as an amp it’s functional.”

Pairing that collector’s eye with DIY spirit, Brenne turned to the web, where you can find instructions for almost everything, from building a videogame in a box to making zombie makeup out of grocery store items. He stumbled onto RunOffGroove.com — in particular, plans for the Ruby amp circuit.

Then he took a quick soldering lesson from his father and got to work on his first amp.

“Building the circuit was very trial-and-error. When I first did it, I had a lot of buzzing but not a lot of guitar sound,” Brenne said. “I felt I was on the right track and I had to keep going. Once I finally got it, I thought, ‘If you can do it with a beer can, you can do it with anything.’”

Brenne built amp after amp, eventually turning his new hobby into a business. Now his shop, Artistic Amplification, offers custom-built guitar or auxiliary amps made from virtually anything, ranging from decorative vases to Sesame Street paraphernalia.

What Portlandia‘s Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are to pickling, Brenne is to amplification.

Brenne’s played guitar for more than 10 years and finds that every DIY amp produces a unique tone, with wood amps sounding very different from those made of metal or plastic. (Compare the sound of his cigar box amp to the tone of one made from a Ghostbusters thermos.)

For every amp, he said he seeks out something that is unique and visually appealing to use as a base. Some source material he receives from donors; other items he finds at thrift stores, antique sales or even lying around his house. No matter an amp’s point of origin, they’re all fitted with the Ruby circuit.

Build times vary. An easy-to-retrofit item might take two or three hours to convert, while more complicated projects can take eight hours.

A rotary phone contains a lot more interior material to work around or remove than a cigar box, for example, and if an item possesses some unique characteristics, Brenne does his best to maintain that functionality. (His rotary phone amp’s handset serves as a speaker.)

The DIY amp wizard clearly likes board games — he built a chess guitar amp and a Hungry, Hungry Hippos auxiliary amp — but he loves Metallica. He’s also got a history of building amps to give to his favorite musicians: Most recently, he sent a White Stripes-inspired phone amp to Jack White’s Third Man Records.

Brenne knew Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett had a Ouija signature guitar, so building a Ouija board amp was only a matter of time. Brenne made one and sent it to the band.

“I’m told it’s hanging in the equipment manager’s office out in their California studio,” he said. “I’m hoping a pic pops up sometime.”

Short term: Nathan Mattise writes about pop culture and produces the Storyboard podcast for Wired. Long term: He patiently awaits news of an Oasis reunion tour.
Follow @nathanmattise and @TheUnderwire on Twitter.

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Second student dies as gunman is identified

A second victim of the teenage student who allegedly opened fire at Chardon High School in Ohio has died.

Russell King, Jr., 17, was pronounced brain dead at 12:42 a.m. at Ohio's MetroHealth Medical Center, according to the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office.

The alleged shooter who killed two and wounding three others has been identified as T.J. Lane, according to a fellow student who witnessed the incident and ABC News' Cleveland affiliate WEWS.

The attack left "friends laying all over the place" in puddles of blood, one student told ABC News.

Nate Mueller, a junior at the school, was having breakfast with three friends when he heard a loud pop like a firecracker about 7:45 a.m., he told ABC News.

A friend yelled, "Duck" and Mueller told ABC News he turned to see fellow student Lane standing by his table. Mueller said Lane took a second shot and saw a friend get hit.

"He was over the table in a pool of blood," Mueller said, and another pal "was on the floor in a puddle of blood next to him."

A third friend "had not been hit yet as I jumped over him," Mueller said.

Mueller got on the floor and was trying to crawl away when a shot rang out and he felt a bullet graze his ear. He was not badly injured, he said, with just a small red mark left on his ear.

"It was terror. Everything had just gone tunnel vision, like, I need to get out of here," Mueller said. "You see glances of your friends laying all over the place. There's blood, there's people screaming, everybody's just running in different directions and you're just trying to get out. That's all you can do, get out of the school and not look back even though your friends are back there."

Two students were taken by ambulance to Hillcrest Hospital and three were taken by helicopter to MetroHealth Hospital, according to WEWS.

A student identified by MetroHealth Hospital as Daniel Parmertor died from the wounds Monday. His family released the following statement through the hospital:

"We are shocked by this senseless tragedy. Danny was a bright young boy who had a bright future ahead of him. The family is torn by this loss. We ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time."

Another students at MetroHealth Hospital is in critical condition, according to police.

Police have not officially identified Lane as the gunman, saying only that the shooter has not yet been charged and that he is a juvenile.

Mueller described Lane as "a quiet kid. Freshman year he got into a 'goth' phase and didn't talk to that many people anymore. He never egged anybody on. He just went about his business."

But Lane's family life had been disrupted by divorce and violence, WEWS reported. His parents divorced in 2002, and his father later served time in jail on assault and other charges, according to the station.

Classmates described Lane as a outcast who'd been bullied. In late December he posted a poem on his Facebook page that read: "He longed for only one thing, the world to bow at his feet," and ended ominously: "Die, all of you."

Lane allegedly opened fire with a handgun just before 8 a.m. in the school cafeteria where students were eating breakfast, authorities and witnesses said.

The shooter was chased out of the building by a teacher and later turned himself in to a passerby, authorities said.

The suspect is in custody at Geauga County Safety Center, according to WEWS.

"Our prayers go out to the five victims and their families," a choked up School Superintendent Joseph Bergant said at news conference. "It's a horrible tragedy."

In the wake of the shooting, perhaps in a sign of solidarity, many of Lane's classmates -- including many in the "friends" column on Lane's Facebook page -- had the Chardon High School "Hilltoppers" logo as their Facebook profile pictures.

Geauga County Sheriff Daniel McClelland praised the reaction to the shooting.

"A prompt entry was made into the school. They went into the school and located the victims. It became readily apparent that the shooter had fled already," McClelland said. "The individual was apprehended some distance from the school and had fled on foot."

The officer said police created a security perimeter to make sure the gunman could not return and a search, including a K-9 unit, was launched for the suspect.

Parent Teresa Hunt told WEWS that she was texting with her daughter during the lockdown and her daughter said she heard five shots fired in the cafeteria about 7:30 a.m. Her daughter texted that students were scared and that four people had been shot.

Chardon student Evan Erasmus told WEWS that a student had tweeted that he was going to bring a gun to school, but that no one took him seriously.

The Chardon Fire Department was called to the school at about 7:45 a.m. in response to a report of "several people shot," according to Inspector William Crowley of the Chardon Fire Department.

Multiple law enforcement agencies, including a SWAT team, rushed to the school.

The superintendent immediately canceled classes at all schools in the district. Students who were still on school buses were being dropped back off at their homes and parents were called to pick up their children that were already at school.

The Chardon School District sent a voicemail to parents that schools are closed and high school students are being moved to the middle school, according to WEWS.

Parents received the following message:

"As of 9:00 AM the alleged sole CHS gunman is in custody and Chardon High School students are being moved by safety forces to Maple Elementary. Parents or legal guardians can pick up their students up any time. Chardon Middle School students are also being released to parents."

Ohio Gov. John Kasich tweeted around 9:30 a.m., "Pls pray for wounded Chardon HS students, their families, and their community; appears things under control now."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has eight agents on their way to the scene and they are expected to trace the firearm.

Chardon is a village in Geauga County, about 35 miles east of Cleveland.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is now official

We saw it on a billboard yesterday, so it is hardly a surprise. Now it is official. Samsung just took the cover off its latest Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, which features an S Pen. Unlike its 5.3" relative however, the newcomer leaves no question marks over its identity - it is now strictly a tablet.

The spec sheet of the tablet is still rather scarce. We know that it features a dual-core CPU, clocked at 1.4GHz, HSPA+ connectivity, and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 also packs some quite interesting software tricks. One of them is multi-screen functionality. It enables you to watch videos or browse the web, while sketching out notes with the S Pen. The 10.1" screen is certainly helpful here. The said feaure also makes the tablet a seriously useful educational tool.

S Pen functionality has gone even further in the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. The slate features S Note - an app which enables you to combine notes and sketches together with web content and other digital media. The app also integrates search engines seamlessly, thus allowing you to drag and drop content without switching screens.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 will also come preloaded with Adobe's Photoshop Touch and Ideas apps. Both applications integrate the S Pen completely, therefore allowing you to let your creativity go wild.

We are surely going to find out more about the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 today, so stick around for more info on the tablet, including hands-on impressions.

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Prosthetics Breakthrough Might Fuse Nerves With Fake Limbs

Prosthetic limbs, like this one, might one day be as lifelike as the real thing. Photo: Sgt. Ray Lewis/Bouhammer.com

A replacement limb that moves, feels and responds just like flesh and blood. It’s the holy grail of prosthetics research. The Pentagon’s invested millions to make it happen. But it’s been elusive — until, quite possibly, now.

The body’s own nerves are arguably the biggest barrier towards turning the dream of lifelike replacements into a reality. Peripheral nerves, severed by amputation, can no longer transmit or receive any of the myriad sensory signals we rely on every day. Trying to fuse them with robot limbs, to create a direct neural-prosthetic interface, is no easy task.

But now a team of scientists believe they’ve overcome that massive barrier. Their research is still in the early stages. But if successful, it’d yield artificial arms and legs that can move with agility; discern hot from lukewarm from freezing; and restore even the subtlest sensations of touch.

“We think the interface problem is key to enabling the neuro-prosthetic concept,” Dr. Shawn Dirk, one of the researchers behind the finding, tells Danger Room. “And solving that is how we’re going to give amputees their bodies back.”

Dirk, alongside colleagues at Sandia National Laboratories, the University of New Mexico and the MD Anderson Cancer Center, set out to develop a synthetic substance that could act as a scaffold — that is, an artificial structure that can support tissue growth — successfully merging severed nerves with robotic limbs.

Of course, researchers have already made plenty of efforts to directly integrate nerves and prosthetics. But, according to Dirk, they typically “didn’t use technology that was compatible with nerve fibers,” which are tightly bundled and flexible. “Nerves need to grow and move around; they’re not going to integrate well with a stiff interface.”

Yes, the material comprising the scaffold had to be flexible and fluid, but it also needed to be extremely conductive. Nerve signals are highly localized, and also very, very subtle. An effective neural-prosthetic interface would need to transmit thousands of different signals per second to mimic the behavior of a real limb and its relationship to the brain and body.

To create that ideal interface, Dirk and his colleagues developed their own biocompatible polymers, meant to mimic the properties of nerve tissue. The material is also porous, so that nerves can extend through it, and lined with electrodes, to vastly enhance conductivity.

When surgeons placed the scaffolds onto the severed leg nerves of rats, it didn’t take long before the rats’ own nerve fibers started to grow through the scaffold and fuse back together. Even better, the synthetic material wasn’t rejected by the rats’ immune systems.

“There was a very limited inflammatory response,” Dirk says. “That’s important, because we’re looking for an interface that won’t be rejected by the body. We want something that can last years, decades, and hopefully entire lifetimes.”

The finding marks a huge, huge improvement over previous research efforts. Even Darpa, the Pentagon’s far-out research arm and a leader in prosthetic science, couldn’t seem to figure out a direct neural-prosthetic interface that was adequately sensitive and had a lifespan longer than a few months. In 2010, the agency asked for new research proposals that’d solve both those problems.

And while new prototype prosthetics have some incredible abilities, none of them include a direct interface. In fact, they’ve been designed to avoid one altogether. One Pentagon-funded project used “targeted muscle reinnervation surgery” to develop prosthetics that transmit signals from a bundle of nerves in the chest. Another, led by Johns Hopkins scientists, uses brain-implanted micro-arrays to transmit cues to an artificial limb.

A direct neural-prosthetic interface still remains years away. But if this polymer holds up in subsequent tests, it’ll mean prosthetics far more lifelike than even the most impressive artificial limbs currently in development. Most importantly, in the words of Darpa, prosthetics hooked right into the nervous system “would incorporate the [artificial] limb into the sense-of-self.”

Katie Drummond is a New York-based reporter at Danger Room, covering the wild world of military research, and a contributing editor at The Daily.
Follow @katiedrumm on Twitter.

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NASA scientist wins free space trip on rocket plane

PALO ALTO, Calif. — A NASA scientist has won a free flight to suborbital space, but he may not be able to claim the prize.

Thomas Goodwin, a physiology and bioengineering researcher at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, won a suborbital flight on XCOR Aerospace's Lynx vehicle, a $95,000 value. Goodwin's name was randomly selected here Monday (Feb. 27) at the 2012 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC-2012).

"I'm not sure I can accept this," Goodwin said, referencing his status as a government employee, which may prevent him from using the prize. "I'm very surprised."

If government regulations and red tape prohibit Goodwin from claiming the award, a backup is ready to step up; XCOR officials drew an alternate name just in case. Conference attendees who registered in advance were entered in the drawing.

XCOR's Lynx is a two-person space plane designed to take off and land on a conventional airport runway. In addition to flights with paying passengers, the rocket-powered vehicle is being designed to carry research experiments to suborbital space.

XCOR officials have said the Lynx could be in flight-test operations by the end of 2012. The company plans to charge $95,000 per seat when the space plane is up and running. XCOR also announced Monday that it recently secured $5 million in equity funding that will help fund its work on the Lynx.

Whoever eventually goes up in the space plane will be in for a real treat, XCOR officials said.

"Hang onto your hat, because it's going to be one amazing ride," said former NASA astronaut and space shuttle commander Rick Searfoss, XCOR's chief test pilot.

XCOR isn't the only company developing craft to take scientists, experiments and tourists up to suborbital space. Virgin Galactic, for example, is charging $200,000 for rides on its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, which seats six passengers, along with two pilots.

NSRC-2012, which runs through Wednesday (Feb. 29), brings scientists and educators together to talk about how commercial suborbital spacecraft can help advance research in atmospheric science, physics, planetary science, biology and physiology, among other fields, according to conference organizers.

The meeting is jointly hosted by NASA, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute.

You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Israel probably won't tell the U.S. if it's going to attack Iran

Israeli officials have reportedly let it be known that they won't give their United States counterparts a heads up if the country decides to launch an airstrike against Iran. According to the Associated Press, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told this fact to every American official coming to Israeli hoping to talk them out of a pre-emptive strike of Iranian nuclear facilities. Officials say it's for the U.S.'s own good, since if they don't know about the strike in advance, they can't be blamed for failing to stop it. Never mind that most of Israel's enemies don't trust anything they say and would likely assume that the Americans were behind it anyway. 

RELATED: Did Israel Blow Up an Iranian Missile Base?

Israeli leaders likely also assume (rightly) that the United States doesn't want to help, so they will make any decision on a possible attack without American input. Netanyahu will be in Washington next week to meet with President Barack Obama and top Congressional and diplomatic officials. This news won't get those talks off on the right foot. 

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Detroit automakers race to keep up with sales

DETROIT (AP) -- Auto sales are growing so fast that Detroit can barely keep up.

Three years after the U.S. auto industry nearly collapsed, sales of cars and trucks are surging. Sales could exceed 14 million this year, above last year's 12.8 million.

The result: Carmakers are adding shifts and hiring thousands of workers around the country. Carmakers and parts companies added more than 38,000 jobs last year, with industry employment averaging 717,000 for 2011. And automakers have announced plans to add another 13,000 this year, mostly on night shifts.

But there's a downside. The newfound success is straining the factory network of the Detroit automakers, as well as the companies that make the thousands of parts that go into each vehicle. This could lead to shortages that drive up prices.

And it also has auto executives in a quandary. They got into trouble in the first place largely because their costs were too high. Now, they fear adding too many workers.

Ford, for instance, is "squeezing every last component, transmission, engine out of the existing brick and mortar," says Jim Tetreault, vice president of North America manufacturing.

Still, the hiring surge bolsters the argument of those who supported the federal bailout of General Motors and Chrysler in 2008 and 2009. The bailout has been a major issue in the days leading up to Tuesday's Michigan Republican primary.

And the hiring is good news for communities around the country that saw hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs disappear. Starting in 2005, GM, Ford and Chrysler closed 28 factories and eliminated 88,000 jobs. Parts companies cut another 234,000.

Now, if sales hit 15 million by 2015, as some experts predict, the three Detroit automakers could hire another 20,000 people, predicts Sean McAlinden, chief economist for the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

"You can only squeeze so much out of the same amount of people," says Itay Michaeli, an auto analyst at Citi Investment Research.

Laurie Schmald Moncrieff, president of a small parts-manufacturing company near Flint, Mich., says when demand for auto parts collapsed, she shifted production to parts for companies in green energy, aerospace and defense.

Now, automakers and other parts suppliers have her on speed dial, trying to line up everything from fuel pump parts to tools that make hoses. She just added six workers and may hire another five. "I see tremendous growth coming in the near-term," she says.

Like many parts suppliers, she's having trouble finding people with the skills to run machinery in her plant.

The hiring binge couldn't have happened at a better time for Michigan. Many of the new auto jobs came around the Great Lakes where the Detroit Three have most of their factories.

The bailout that helped bring the jobs could be a deciding factor in who wins the Republican presidential nomination. Both front-runners, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, opposed the bailout, and Tuesday's Michigan primary will show whether Romney damaged his chances in his native state.

Romney stuck to his stance on Monday, saying in an appearance on Fox News that President Obama favored the United Auto Workers union in the bailout. The president "was paying off the people that supported him and that, by the way, are trying to get him re-elected," Romney said.

But in a state where unemployment was above 14 percent just three years ago, any jobs are welcome. And Michigan is not the only region to benefit. Ford is adding positions in Louisville, Ky., Chicago and near Kansas City, Mo. Chrysler is adding jobs in Belvidere, Ill., and General Motors is hiring at plants in Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas and New York.

New jobs with auto companies don't pay as well as the old ones. Under union contracts, companies can pay new hires around $16 per hour, a little more than half the pay of longtime workers.

Foreign carmakers are also shifting production to the U.S. because of higher sales and the weak dollar, which cuts the profits they get from selling vehicles exported to America. Nissan is adding workers in Tennessee. Toyota just hired staff at a new plant in Blue Springs, Miss. Honda is hiring in Alabama and Ohio. Hyundai and Kia plants in Alabama and Georgia are running flat-out but can't meet demand for some models such as the Hyundai Sonata and Elantra.

The sales rebound comes with risks that are familiar to Detroit. Crank up production too much and carmakers have to sell vehicles at deep discounts. Boost production too little, and companies could run short of vehicles such as pickup trucks. And even if they find the right balance now, automakers are leery of raising long-term costs by adding plants and workers.

Six years ago, Detroit's automakers were losing billions, in part because they had too many plants and workers. And union contracts forced them to pay workers even if plants were shut down. So automakers kept the factories running regardless of whether vehicles would sell in order to cover expenses. They built too many cars and trucks and sold them cheap, sometimes at a loss.

Now, they're doing everything they can to keep costs under control.

Growth is putting the squeeze on Hyundai and Kia factories. But the affiliated companies will build as many vehicles as possible at two U.S. plants before constructing a new factory. John Krafcik, Hyundai's U.S. CEO, says the first choice is to find areas inside the plants that are slowing the assembly lines and fix them, "because plants are expensive."

GM also will try to handle growth by stretching factories, says North American President Mark Reuss. But he thinks the company will have to hire more workers if sales this year reach 13.5 million or beyond.

Auto factories in North America will reach 90 percent of their capacity if sales hit 14 million, says Michael Robinet, managing director of IHS Automotive Consulting, which forecasts auto production.

The lack of factories, though, could cause automakers to run short of pickup trucks this year, says McAlinden.

Detroit automakers, which dominate truck sales, had far too many pickup factories just seven years ago. They have closed eight truck plants since 2005, removing the ability to build 2.25 million pickups a year. With only nine North American pickup plants left, they may have cut too much, McAlinden says.

Last year Americans bought 1.8 million pickups, an 11 percent increase over 2010, as the economy improved and small and large businesses began replacing their aging vehicles. Pent-up demand is fueling the sales. The average age of a truck on U.S. roads has reached a record 11 years.

If sales increase as projected, companies also could run short of compact cars and small SUVs.

It adds up to what could be a challenging but profitable year for the industry, says Schmald Moncrieff, who runs the Michigan parts factory.

"A lot of things are going to start breaking loose all at once," she says.

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Ohio shooting suspect's family 'devastated'

CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — The family of a teenager suspected of opening fire in the cafeteria of a suburban Cleveland high school, killing one student and wounding four others, says it is "devastated" by the shootings.

In a statement issued to WKYC-TV in Cleveland Monday night (http://on.wkyc.com/A4Yohv ), a lawyer representing the family of T.J. Lane offered "their most heartfelt and sincere condolences" to the family of slain student Daniel Parmertor, adding that they are praying for the four other injured students from Chardon High School.

Lawyer Robert Farinacci says Lane's family is trying to understand how the tragedy happened.

The shooting Monday morning sent students at the 1,100-student school screaming through the halls.

The FBI says the suspect was arrested near his car a half-mile from Chardon. He was not immediately charged.

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Recreational marijuana measure to be put to Colo. voters

DENVER (Reuters) - Colorado voters will be asked to decide whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in a November ballot measure, setting up a potential showdown with the federal government over America's most commonly used illicit drug.

The measure, which would legalize possession of small amounts of marijuana by adults, is one of two that will go to voters in November after a Washington state initiative to legalize pot earned enough signatures last month to qualify for the ballot there.

"This could be a watershed year in the decades-long struggle to end marijuana prohibition in this country," Art Way, Colorado manager of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement. The Alliance supports the initiative.

"Marijuana prohibition is counterproductive to the health and public safety of our communities. It fuels a massive, increasingly brutal underground economy, wastes billions of dollars in scarce law enforcement resources, and makes criminals out of millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens."

Colorado is one of 16 states and the nation's capital that already allow marijuana use for medical purposes even as cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law - and public opinion is sharply divided on the merits of full legalization.

No states allow marijuana for recreational use, and California voters turned back a ballot initiative to legalize the drug for such use in 2010, in part because of concerns about how production and sale of the drug would be regulated.

Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice has cracked down on medical cannabis operations in several mostly western states including Colorado and Washington, raiding dispensaries and growing operations and threatening landlords with prosecution.

A spokesman for Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said on Monday that the office opposes the legalization proposal.

"The attorney general will oppose any measure that makes marijuana more accessible," spokesman Mike Saccone said.

The Colorado measure, if approved by voters, would legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana or up to six plants for cultivation, said Mason Tvert, co-founder of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

It would also set up a regulatory framework for the sale of cannabis products and the application of sales and excise taxes, in addition to legalizing the cultivation of industrial hemp.

WOULD EARMARK TAX REVENUE FOR SCHOOLS

A provision of the measure would also annually earmark the first $40 million in tax revenue generated from pot sales to fund public school construction, Tvert said, although he could not estimate how many tax dollars would be generated.

Any remaining money over $40 million would go to the state's general fund, he said.

Colorado voters rejected a measure to legalize small amounts of cannabis in 2006, but Tvert said the new proposal with its taxing provision, and potential jobs created through the marijuana industry and peripheral businesses would make it more palatable to voters.

"The time is right," he said, citing a December poll by Public Policy Polling that showed 49 percent of Colorado voters now support legalization.

Nationwide, an October 2011 Gallup Poll that found a record 50 percent of Americans polled supported legalizing marijuana use, up from 36 percent five years earlier.

Under a medical marijuana law enacted in 2000, Colorado currently maintains a registry of more than 80,000 card-carrying patients and rules governing how physicians and distributors operate.

However, federal prosecutors launched a crackdown last month against nearly two dozen medical marijuana dispensaries located within 1,000 feet of schools, giving proprietors 45 days to cease operations or face civil and criminal penalties. That deadline lapsed on Monday.

Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver, said an investigation was underway to determine if the alleged violators complied with the ultimatum.

A second round of notifications to other pot dispensaries who federal authorities said were in violation of the 1,000-foot law will be notified "sooner rather than later," Dorschner said.

Proponents of legalized recreational possession initially submitted more than 163,000 signatures on a petition to place their measure on the ballot, but the state's secretary of state declared the petition insufficient on February 3.

Advocates then submitted an additional 14,000 signatures two weeks ago, and after a second review, the state certified that the proposal would qualify for the general election ballot on November 6, 2012.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Cynthia Johnston)

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Gunmen open fire on bus in Pakistan, 18 killed

In 2012, Yahoo! News will tell the nation’s story through the experiences and views of real Americans like you. Watch the first Remake America video »

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Facebook Shakes Hardware World With Own Storage Gear

Facebook's hardware team is now building storage gear -- while decorating the walls at the company's new HQ in Menlo Park, California. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Facebook already built its own data center and its own servers. And now the social-networking giant is building its own storage hardware — hardware for housing all the digital stuff uploaded by its more than 845 million users.

“We store a few photos here and there,” says Frank Frankovsky, the ex-Dell man who oversees hardware design at Facebook. That would be an understatement. According to some estimates, the company stores over 140 billion digital photographs — and counting.

Like the web’s other leading players — including Google and Amazon — Facebook runs an online operation that’s well beyond the scope of the average business, and that translates to unprecedented hardware costs — and hardware complications. If you’re housing 140 billion digital photos, you need a new breed of hardware.

In building its own data center on the Oregon high desert, Facebook did away with electric chillers, uninterruptible power supplies, and other terribly inefficient gear. And in working with various hardware manufacturers to build its own servers, the company not only reduced power consumption, it stripped thee systems down to the bare essentials, making them easier to repair and less expensive. Frankovsky and his team call this “vanity free” engineering, and now, they’ve extended the philosophy to storage hardware.

“We’re taking the same approach we took with servers: Eliminate anything that’s not directly adding value. The really valuable part of storage is the disk drive itself and the software that controls how the data gets distributed to and recovered from those drives. We want to eliminate any ancillary components around the drive — and make it more serviceable,” Frankovsky says during a chat at the new Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, which also happens to be the former home of onetime hardware giant Sun Microsystems.

“Break fixes are an ongoing activity in the data center. Unfortunately, disk drives are still mechanical items, and they do fail. In fact, they’re one of the higher failure-rate items. So [we want to] be able to quickly identify which disk has failed and replace it, without going through a lot of mechanical hoops.”

As with its data center and server creations, Facebook intends to “open source” its storage designs, sharing them with anyone who wants them. The effort is part of the company’s Open Compute Project, which seeks to further reduce the cost and power consumption of data center hardware by facilitating collaboration across the industry. As more companies contribute to the project, the thinking goes, the designs will improve, and as more outfits actually use the designs for servers and other gear — which are manufactured by Facebook partners in Taiwan and China — prices will drop even more.

When Facebook first introduced the project last spring, many saw it as a mere PR stunt. But some big-name outfits — including some outside the web game — are already buying Open Compute servers. No less a name than Apple has taken interest in Facebook’s energy-conscious data-center design. And according to Frankovsky, fifty percent of the contributions to the project’s open source designs now come from outside Facebook.

For Peter Krey — who helped build a massive computing grid for one of Wall Street largest financial institutions and now advises the CIOs and CTOs of multiple Wall Street firms as they build “cloud” infrastructure inside their data centers — Facebook’s project is long overdue. While building that computing grid, Krey says, he and his colleagues would often ask certain “tier one” server sellers to strip proprietary hardware and unnecessary components from their machines in order to conserve power and cost. But the answer was always no. “And we weren’t buying just a few servers,” he says. “We were buying thousands of servers.”

Now, Facebook has provided a new option for these big name Wall Street outfits. But Krey also says that even among traditional companies who can probably benefit from this new breed of hardware, the project isn’t always met with open arms. “These guys have done things the same way for a long time,” he tells Wired.

Hardware by Committee

Facebook will release its new storage designs in early May at the next Open Compute Summit, a mini-conference where project members congregate to discuss this experiment in open source hardware. Such names as Intel, Dell, Netflix, Rackspace, Japanese tech giant NTT Data, and motherboard maker Asus are members, and this past fall, at the last summit, Facebook announced the creation of a not-for-profit foundation around the project, vowing to cede control to the community at large.

The project began with Facebook’s data center and server designs. But it has since expanded to various other sub-projects, and the contributors include more than just web companies. Rackspace contributes, but so does financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Rackspace is leading an effort to build a “virtual I/O” protocol, which would allow companies to physically separate various parts of today’s servers. You could have your CPUs in one enclosure, for instance, your memory in another, and your network cards in a third. This would let you, say, upgrade your CPUs without touching other parts of the traditional system. “DRAM doesn’t [change] as fast as CPUs,” Frankovsky says. “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could actually disaggregate the CPUs from the DRAM complex?”

With a sister project, project members are also working to create a new rack design that can accommodate this sort of re-imagined server infrastructure. A traditional server rack houses several individual machines, each with its own chassis. But the Open Rack project seeks to do away with the server chassis entirely and turn the rack into the chassis.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is running an effort to build a common means for managing servers spread across your data center. Part of the appeal of the Open Compute Project, says Peter Krey, is that the project takes a “holistic approach” to the design of data center hardware. Members aren’t designing the data center separately from the servers, and the servers separately from the storage gear. They’re designing everything to work in tandem. “The traditional data center design…is Balkanized,” Krey says. “[But] the OCP guys have designed and created all the components to efficiently integrate and work together.”

This began with Facebook designing servers specifically for use with the revamped electrical system built for its data center in Prineville, Oregon. And soon, the effort will extend to the storage gear as well. Frankovsky provides few details about the new storage designs. But he says his team has rethought the “hot-plug drive carriers” that let you install and remove hard drives without powering a system down.

“I’ve never understood why hot-plug drive carriers have to come with these plastic handles on them,” he explains. “And if you’ve actually mounted a drive inside one of those drive carriers, there are these little bitty screws that you inevitably lose — and you’ll likely lose one onto a board that’s live and powered. That’s not a good thing.”

He says that the new design will eliminate not only the screws but the carriers themselves. “It’s a completely tool-less design,” Frankovsky says. “Our techs will be able to grab hold of a ‘slam latch,’ pull it up, and the act of pulling it up will pop the drive out.”

Frankovsky calls it “small stuff.” And that’s what it is. But if you’re running an operation that size of Facebook, that small stuff becomes very big indeed. In making one small change after another, Facebook is overhauling its infrastructure. And in sharing its designs with the rest of the world, it hopes to overhaul much more.

Cade Metz is the editor of Wired Enterprise. Got a NEWS TIP related to this story -- or to anything else in the world of big tech? Please e-mail him: cade_metz at wired.com.

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Alt Text: Disturbing Science Books for Kids

Stories about rocket monkeys and other spacefaring animals are perfect for children.
Photo: U.S. Army

Former astronaut Mike Kelly — I like the phrase “former astronaut,” as if he decided that the astronaut game wasn’t for him and went into real estate instead — is writing a children’s book called Mousetronaut: A Partially True Story.

In it, he tells the tale of a mouse who supposedly enjoyed being in zero gravity, unlike all the other rodents in his cage who clung to the sides of it in pure, searing murine terror.

Ignoring the fact that a “mousetronaut” is technically someone who travels through a mouse, I’m happy that we’re finally seeing stories about lab animals that are at least partially true. Previous children’s favorites like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and Monkey Shines: An Experiment in Fear have taken tremendous liberties with the truth. For instance, in Frisby the titular mouse wears a little cape, and in Monkey Shines, the murderous, jealous, mind-reading tufted capuchin makes noises that sound much more like a golden-bellied capuchin.

Let’s hope Mousetronaut is a tremendous success, if not for the children’s sake, then for me personally. I have a series of amusing and edifying children’s books about lab animals in the works.

For example:

Bravebunny, The Rabbit Who Was Probably Somewhat Less Terrified Than the Other Experimental Rabbits

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Control Group

Gaster, The Eyeless Fruit Fly

Are You My Mother, Or Just Chicken Wire Wrapped With Terrycloth?

The Special Amazing Friendship Club: Animals Who Were Launched Into Space and Left to Die

Screw You, Professor Jerk, and Screw Your Stupid Maze Twice

Vivisection Vivian, The Inside-Out Frog

The Prettiest Bunny: A Story of Cosmetic Testing

The Giving Beagle

Junkie: The Rat Who Died Because He Preferred Heroin to Food

Where the Statistically Valid Things Are

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Who Was Not Allowed To Eat in Order to Learn Something About Carbohydrates or Something

Pat the Bunny for Precisely 10 Seconds at 10 Minute Intervals for Three Weeks

Everyone Poops; Graduate Students Have to Clean It Up

Bread and Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate for Frances

Clifford the Big Red Swollen Infected Dog

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie Laced With Pesticide

The Cat in the Lab

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears: An Analysis of Frequency Modulation in the Female Aedes aegypti (Journal of Entomological Research, Vol XXVII, No. 3)

Puff, the Magic Dragon Does Not Exist

The Runaway Bunny and the Resulting Tularemia Outbreak

Curious George Is Not So Curious Now, Huh?

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Research

Frog and Toad Are Excellent Instruction Tools for High School Biology Classes

The Tale of Squirrel No. 341593-B

Chocolate, the Chocolate Lab Who Ate Chocolate in a Lab

The Cat Who Could See Colors: A Psychoactive Tail

The Ugly Duckling Who Got Uglier

The Lorax Drinks Clorox

The Monster at the End of This Academic Career

Old McDonald Had a Laboratory Animal Supply Company

Grab Your Sister’s Hamster: Fun Science Experiments for Kids

The Tale of 4,000 Bad Rats

The Poked Little Puppy

- - -

Born helpless, naked and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a control group, a control freak and a control tower.

Award-winning humorist Lore Sjöberg is the author of The Book of Ratings, a founder of The Brunching Shuttlecocks, and the creator of The Cyborg Name Decoder. His work has appeared in Wired magazine, Adbusters, and has appeared on NPR's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered.
Follow @loresjoberg and @theunderwire on Twitter.

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