Continue reading Koobe's Jin Yong Reader gets Mirasol, brings color to Taiwanese hearts
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Last year, Nick Paumgarten wrote an interesting article for The New Yorker that detailed the rise of online dating and the effects it's had on web culture. What struck me most were some of the eye-opening statistics he shared about the size and popularity of the industry, beginning with the fact that fee-based dating sites have become, collectively, a billion-dollar industry -- that ?one in six new marriages is the result of meetings on Internet dating site." What's more, online dating is now the third most common way for people to meet.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/KwCZYKYXYDg/
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"The directors nominated this year for the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film Award have each demonstrated an inspired command of the medium. The fact that their prodigious talents have been recognized by their peers is the highest honor a director can achieve," said Hackford. "I offer my most sincere congratulations to each of the nominees."
Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1924274/news/1924274/
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All Critics (87) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (87) | Rotten (1) | DVD (2)
Asghar Farhadi's emotionally epic movie is not just a masterpiece dramatically, it is a movie dramatically of its moment.
It's small. It's real. And it's deeply moving.
This is a trenchant emotional thriller that you watch in dread, awe, and amazing aggravation.
Some films wear their artistry so lightly they appear simply to be happening, the inner workings of the story guided by an unseen hand.
The film involves its audience in an unusually direct way, because although we can see the logic of everyone's position, our emotions often disagree.
This is primarily a human story about a marriage unraveling, the husband torn between love for his daughter and devotion to his father, the daughter torn between one parent and the other.
Sometimes, in an attempt to do the best we can for the people we love, we end up wreaking irreparable damage.
[The film] puts us in the uncomfortable role of the adjudicator.
Culturally specific but universally relatable, this slowly escalating Iranian drama boasts incredibly impressive motivational clarity.
For all the stifled truths of its characters, Farhadi's film feels like a gust of brisk air.
...like being caught in a barbed-wire fence of ethical dilemmas.
Feels like a peek through a neighbor's window.
The progressively tedious atmosphere ultimately prevents the film's final scenes from making any real emotional impact...
Estabelece definitivamente Asghar Farhadi como um dos diretores mais consistentes e fascinantes do Cinema contempor?neo.
More Critic ReviewsSource: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_separation_2011/
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In this photo taken Jan. 27, 2012, women shop for bikinis at a store in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this photo taken Jan. 27, 2012, women shop for bikinis at a store in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this photo taken Jan. 25, 2012, Elisangela Inez Soares rinses off at a shower in Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. According to Soares " not everyone is built like a model." (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this photo taken on Jan. 25, 2012, Elisangela Inez Soares rinses off at a shower in Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. According to Soares " not everyone is built like a model." (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this photo taken Jan. 27, 2012, people shop for bikinis at a store in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
In this photo taken Jan. 24, 2012, people rinse off at the showers at Piscinao de Ramos, an artificial lake in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) ? Tall and tan and young and ... chunky?
The Girl From Ipanema has put on a few pounds, and for many sunbathers on Brazil's beaches the country's iconic itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikini just doesn't suffice anymore.
A growing number of bikini manufacturers have woken up to Brazil's thickening waistline and are reaching out to the ever-expanding ranks of heavy women with new plus-size lines.
That's nothing short of a revolution in this most body-conscious of nations, where overweight ladies long had little choice but to hit the beach in comely ensembles of oversized T-shirts and biker shorts.
"It used to be bikinis were only in tiny sizes that only skinny girls could fit into. But not everyone is built like a model," said Elisangela Inez Soares as she sunbathed on Copacabana beach, her oiled-up curves packed into a black size 12 bikini.
"Finally, it seems like people are beginning to realize that we're not all Gisele," said the 38-year-old mother of four, referring to willowy Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
Clothing designer Clarice Rebelatto said her own swimwear-hunting travails prompted her to found Lehona, an exclusively plus-size beachwear line.
"Honestly, the problem went way beyond just bikinis. In Brazil, it used to be that if you were even a little chunky, finding any kind of clothes in the right size was a real problem," said Rebelatto, herself a size 10. "And I thought, 'I'm actually not even that big compared to a lot of women out there, so if I have problems, what are they doing?'"
Since its launch in 2010, the line has become a hit.
In brash leopard spots and flower prints not meant for wallflowers, the label's 14 bikini styles aren't what you'd normally associate with plus-size swimsuits. The necklines plunge dramatically. Straps are mere strings. And while the bottoms provide too much coverage to qualify for the famed "fio dental" or "dental floss" category of Brazilian string bikinis, they're significantly more audacious than the standard U.S. cut.
"We're working from the principle that bigger women are just like everyone else: They don't want to look like old ladies, wearing these very modest, very covering swimsuits in just black," said Luiz Rebelatto, Clarice's son and director of Lehona.
He said that recent publicity of the brand and several other new swimwear lines catering to plus sizes has triggered an overwhelming number of calls and e-mails from would-be customers.
"They're all excited and they say, 'I've been looking everywhere for a bikini like that. Where can I get one?'" said Rebelatto.
Lehona is currently sold exclusively at big and tall specialty stores throughout Brazil. Its bikinis retail for about 130 reais or $75 ? a relatively high price-point here, but Rebelatto said sales have grown at a galloping pace, though he did not provide any figures.
It's the same story at Acqua Rosa, a conventional swimwear label that added a plus-size line in 2008. Now, plus-size purchases account for more than 70 percent of the brand's total sales, said director Joao Macedo.
It makes sense.
For centuries, large swaths of Brazil were beset by malnutrition, and in 1970, nearly 10 percent of the population in the country's poor, rural northeast region was considered underweight, according to Brazil's national statistics institute.
But the phenomenal economic boom that has lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the burgeoning middle class over the past decade has also changed the nation's once-svelte physique: A 2010 study by the statistics institute showed that 48 percent of adult women and 50 percent of men are now overweight. In 1985 those figures were 29 percent for women and 18 percent for men.
(Still, there's been no rash of plus-size male swimwear lines, as men here wear Speedo-style suits that don't impinge on big guts.)
Analysts attribute Brazil's rapidly widening girth to changes in nutrition, with chips, processed meats and sugary soft drinks replacing staples like rice, beans and vegetables.
And while the country's elite are widely known to be fitness freaks ? and also among the world's top consumers of cosmetic surgery ? those recently lifted out of poverty and manual labor are becoming increasingly sedentary. A 2008 study showed that barely 10 percent of Brazilian teens and adults exercise regularly.
Still, despite their growing numbers, not everyone is eager to embrace "gordinhas" ? or "little fatties," as chunky women are affectionately known here.
Many high-end bikini-makers have turned a seemingly deliberately blind eye to the burgeoning plus-size market. Rio-based upmarket brand Salinas, for example, offers five sizes, from extra-small through extra-large. But their sizing runs notoriously small and it's hard to imagine anyone over a size 6 actually managing to fit into any of the brand's minuscule two-pieces.
Luis Rebelatto of Lehona chalked it partially up to snobbery.
"Some brands, they don't want their image to be associated with chunky women," he said. "Only the thin, the rich and the chic."
While Brazilians' increasing heft is a public policy preoccupation for the government, growth in the ranks of the overweight population has given them increased visibility in Brazilian society. Extra-wide bucket seats for the obese have been installed in Sao Paulo's metro system, and on Sunday the city will host Brazil's first ever Miss Plus Size beauty contest.
"It used to be that people would stare at me," said Soares, the voluptuous sun-worshiper on Copacabana beach. "Now when I come to the beach I see women who are much bigger than me ? and lots of them are wearing bikinis ? so I'm not self conscious any more.
"God makes some people thin but he made me like this," she said, rubbing down the well-oiled bulge of her stomach and thighs. "So who am I to think that he was wrong?"
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A new study may explain why the cancer drug Avastin hasn't worked in the treatment of breast cancer patients. Although the drug stops tumor growth for a short time, it often leads to more invasive tumors in the long run.
The reason for this revved-up invasiveness, researchers concluded from experiments done in mice, is that drugs like Avastin increase the portion of a tumor made of breast cancer stem cells.
Although Avastin, when initially given, causes some cancer cells to die and tumors to shrink, what's left behind are the cancer stem cells, according to the study. These cells can then multiply, and they are among the most lethal cancer cells ? they can sprout new tumors more easily than run-of-the-mill cancer cells.
The finding suggests that clinicians could improve Avastin's effectiveness by blocking this unwanted effect of the drug. It's a potentially bright spot for the drug, after a November decision by the Food and Drug Administration that the drug should not be used to treat breast cancer?after studies showed the drug failed to lengthen patient's lives.
"This result explains why they don't work as well as we hoped it would, and it really points to what we need to do to develop drug combinations that are more effective," said Dr. Max Wicha, author of the new study and an oncologist at the University of Michigan.
The new findings, which may also apply to other drugs in the same class as Avastin, were published Monday (Jan. 23) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The seeds of a tumor
Avastin falls into a category of cancer drugs called antiangiogenic agents, which aim to work by blocking the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors with vital nutrients and oxygen. Without a blood supply, tumors will die, the thinking goes.
"There was a lot of excitement about using these drugs to block the blood supply to tumors," Wicha said. "But the first large studies showed that while Avastin seemed to be preventing tumors from progressing for a few months, the tumors would then start to grow again, and be even more aggressive."
Wicha said he and his colleagues suspected the cause of the new, aggressive growth, might be cancer stem cells. "These cells are the most dangerous, if they're left in the body," he explained. "They're like the seeds of a plant."
The researchers tested their theory by giving an antiangiogenic drug to mice with breast cancer tumors. As expected, the tumors shrank and had fewer blood vessels feeding them. When the team analyzed the cells within the tumors, however, the tumors of mice that had been treated with an antiangiogenic drug had five times more stem cells.
Further, the scientists found, the lack of oxygen ? called hypoxia ? in the tissues that followed the death of the blood vessels had the side effect of encouraging the growth of these dangerous cells. If doctors could combine drugs that kill the cancer stem cells with antiangiogenic drugs, they may have a winning formula, Wicha said.
"Our research suggests that it's going to necessary to target both angles of this at the same time," he said.
Two sides of a drug
The new findings didn't surprise Celeste Simon, a molecular biologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who studies the role of the body's low oxygen environments to human health.?
"Stem cells really like to reside in a low oxygen area," Simon said.
What the study adds, Simon said, is evidence that drugs like Avastin increase the pool of cancer stem cells living in these low-oxygen conditions.
"The notion is that by making the tumor more hypoxic, you're actually selecting for the more aggressive cells," she said. "This and other papers underscore a growing idea in the therapeutic world that, like all treatments, antiangiogenic drugs need to be very carefully evaluated in terms of their full impact on human health."
But more work is needed, she said, to flesh out the full molecular details of the observation. Tumors implanted into mice, such as the study used, aren't always a perfect mimic of human biology. "While these results are intriguing, they need to be followed up, from my point of view, with experiments on more sophisticated mouse models or primary tumors," Simon said.
Pass it on: ?Although Avastin successfully cuts off the blood supply of breast cancer tumors, it also increases the number of so-called breast cancer stem cells that can lead to tumor growth in the long run.
This story was provided by MyHealthNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. ?Find us on?Facebook.
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DAVOS, Switzerland ? Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled his government will bring forward "major transformations" to the country in the coming months ? in areas such as the retirement pension system, immigration, science and technology investment and the energy sector.
Of those reforms, Harper said, getting a grip on slowing the rising costs of the country's pension system is particularly critical.
In the wake of Harper's speech, it now appears the Conservative government could be poised to gradually change the Old Age Security system so that the age of eligibility is raised to 67 from 65.
The opposition NDP and Liberals said that such a move would financially cripple millions of Canadians, and that at a time when world leaders were talking about addressing income inequality, the prime minister's words indicated the opposite may happen in Canada.
Harper made the revelations in a major keynote speech Thursday at the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world's political and business elite.
As expected, the prime minister was critical of Europe and the United States for not adequately dealing with the economic problems that have gripped them in recent months and years.
But it was Harper's assessment of the major changes that lie ahead for Canada that stood out in the speech.
"In the months to come, our government will undertake major transformations to position Canada for growth over the next generation," said Harper.
The Conservative government will table a budget in the coming weeks that is expected to set the stage for years of deficit-slashing and government reform.
"Under our government, Canada will make the transformations necessary to sustain economic growth, job creation and prosperity now and for the next generation," said Harper.
He said that means two things: "Making better economic choices now. And preparing ourselves now for the demographic pressures the Canadian economy faces."
Harper said the country's aging population has become a backdrop for his concern about how to keep the country strong over the long term.
"If not addressed promptly, this has the capacity to undermine Canada's economic position and, for that matter, that of all western nations well beyond the current economic crises."
Indeed, Harper said the country's demographics ? an aging population and a dwindling workforce ? constitute "a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish."
For that reason, he said his government will "be taking measures in the coming months."
Harper did not specify what those measures will be, but he said they are necessary ? not just to bring the government's finances back to a balanced budget in the medium term, "but also to ensure the sustainability of our social programs and fiscal position over the next generation."
"We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending over that period," said Harper. "We must do the same for our retirement income system."
Harper said the centrepiece of the public pension system ? the Canada Pension Plan ? is fully funded, actuarially sound and does not need to be changed.
But he added: "For those elements of the system that are not funded, we will make the changes necessary to ensure sustainability for the next generation while not affecting current recipients."
So far, the government has come forward with a plan to create a private pooled pension system to encourage Canadians to prepare for their retirement.
Still, there are concerns that as baby boomers approach retirement, the cost to government of providing public pensions will skyrocket.
In December, the National Post reported that there was internal debate within the government about increasing the age of eligibility for the other major element of the public pension scheme ? Old Age Security ? to 67 from 65.
Internal government documents project the cost of the OAS system will climb from $36.5 billion in 2010 to $48 billion in 2015. By 2030 ? when the number of seniors is expected to climb to 9.3 million from 4.7 million now ? the cost of the program could reach $108 billion.
NDP finance critic Peter Julian, speaking to reporters in Ottawa, called Harper's speech "ominous words because we don't have any details yet."
Julian said the NDP wants to see the government increase spending on the OAS by $700 million per year, which the NDP says would make the system sustainable, rather than tell seniors they have to work for two more years before they can retire.
"That's completely unacceptable. If he had run on that platform last May, he wouldn't have the numbers he has in the House he has today," Julian said.
The NDP and the Liberals said that increasing funding to the OAS could be financed by reigning in spending on prisons and the F-35 fighter jet, which could cost anywhere between $16 billion and $30 billion, depending on who you ask.
"If he's serious about the demographic shift, he should listen to evidence and invest in hospital beds, not prison beds," said Liberal critic Scott Brison.
Brison said the government should make tax credits refundable for those in the lowest income brackets to help address income inequality in Canada.
"It would be a very regressive step to cut or restrict OAS at a time when income inequality is growing issue," Brison told Postmedia News.
"Harper isn't addressing income inequality. He's proposing changes that would make it worse."
The challenge to the government will now be selling whatever changes it plans to the pension system, something which has dogged previous prime ministers, said Errol Mendes, a politics experts from the University of Ottawa.
Brian Mulroney, months into his mandate, controversially decided to de-index pensions. After a senior confronted him, Mulroney backed away from the plan.
"I bet you (Harper) won't talk about the OAS over here because there will be pictures of that woman saying 'Goodbye Charlie' to Brian Mulroney," said Mendes, referring to the famous 1986 encounter.
Harper issued a scathing criticism of countries in the developed world, which he suggested had forgotten about the importance of creating economic growth.
"Is it the case that, in the developed world, too many of us have in fact become complacent about our prosperity?" Harper asked.
He suggested that developed countries had taken wealth "as a given . . . assuming it is somehow the natural order of things."
As a result, he said, countries in the western world had become focused primarily "on our services and entitlements."
As a result, he said, it's not surprising that, in addition to banks facing debt, countries themselves were also facing sovereign debt crises.
The problem, he suggested, could be "too much general willingness to have standards and benefits beyond our ability, or even willingness, to pay for them."
Harper warned that the wealth of western economies "is no more inevitable than the poverty of emerging ones."
He said the problems afflicting Europe and the U.S. threaten to become even more serious in future.
"Each nation has a choice to make. Western nations, in particular, face a choice of whether to create the conditions for growth and prosperity, or to risk long-term economic decline."
The solution, he said, is for countries to make the sometimes tough, but correct, decisions now.
"Easy choices now mean fewer choices later."
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Among the other priorities Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled where change is coming:
- Energy
The Conservative government will make it a "national priority" to ensure the country has the "capacity to export our energy products beyond the United States, and specifically to Asia."
"In this regard, we will soon take action to ensure that major energy and mining projects are not subject to unnecessary regulatory delays ? that is, delay merely for the sake of delay."
Harper did not explain what he has planned, although he and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver have complained that foreign-backed "radical" opponents of the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project have threatened to slow down hearings by the National Energy Board.
- Immigration
"We will ensure that, while we respect our humanitarian obligations and family reunification objectives, we make our economic and labour force needs the central goal of our immigration efforts in the future."
- Science
The government will continue to make "key investments in science and technology" that are necessary to sustain a "modern competitive economy."
"But we believe that Canada's less-than-optimal results for those investments is a significant problem for our country."
- Trade
Harper expects to complete negotiations on a Canada-European Union free-trade agreement this year.
Furthermore, he said, his government is also committed to completing negotiations for a free-trade deal with India by the end of 2013.
And Canada will begin talks to become a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership while also pursuing opportunities to trade in the emerging market of Asia.
? Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F229/~3/oz4a1qGmtno/story.html
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RIM may be struggling to revamp its smartphone OS, but that's good news if you don't like change?or just want a cell phone bargain. The BlackBerry Curve 9370 ($99.99) doesn't offer the flash, the speed, or the app catalog of other smartphone platforms, but it can do just about everything most users need, and in an unusually svelte form factor. The BlackBerry Curve 9370 is a fitting send off for BlackBerry 7 OS in the face of the upcoming QNX-based BlackBerry 10, assuming RIM can finally get its act together. But if you like apps, you should still buy an Android or an iPhone.
Design, Call Quality, and Apps
The Curve 9370 measures 4.3 by 2.4 by 0.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 3.5 ounces. RIM has been refining this design for years, and it shows; keyboarded smartphones don't get much smaller or lighter than this. The Curve 9370 is made mostly of black plastic, with smoked chrome accents and a textured rubber back panel. The non-touch 480-by-360-pixel LCD measures 2.4 inches diagonally, and looks reasonably bright and colorful. Below the screen are RIM's now-trademark touch pad and four function keys. The four-row QWERTY keyboard is slightly curved and features large, well-separated keys. The keys aren't as raised as before, but the click feel is tuned just right. If you can get your hands around a small device like this one, it's super-easy to type fast.
A true world phone, the Curve 9370 comes?with dual-band EV-DO Rev A (850/1900 MHz) and quad-band EDGE (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) support, although it's limited to 2G data speeds overseas. You also get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. Reception was fine, and voice quality was good in my tests, especially through the earpiece; voices sounded loud and bright, with no background noise. Transmissions through the microphone were also punchy, although the mic picked up a lot of street noise. Calls sounded fine through a Jawbone Era ($129, 4.5 stars), and voice dialing worked perfectly over Bluetooth. The speakerphone was a disappointment, with barely enough volume to overcome a desk fan. It's less powerful than Curves of old, and a clear consequence of the thinner design. Battery life was average at 5 hours and 4 minutes of talk time.
The 800MHz CPU is plenty for this application, and keeps the Curve 9370 moving at a good clip in day-to-day operations. BlackBerry 7 OS (Free, 3 stars) is a modest update of an established and now-dated OS. You get push e-mail for up to 10 Web or work accounts, plus built-in Office document editing and a vastly improved WebKit browser. The preloaded BlackBerry Messenger 6, BBM Music, and Social Feeds apps give the Curve some much-needed social connectivity. Verizon VZ Navigator offers voice-enabled, turn-by-turn GPS directions, but the new NFC chip does nothing for now, as Verizon is prepping its own service and doesn't allow Google Wallet support. BlackBerry App World is still an embarrassment, with a poor selection of apps and unreliable downloads, although by this point many popular apps now have BlackBerry versions.?
Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions
BlackBerrys continue to make good music players, and the Curve 9370 is no exception, with its standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack and microSD memory card slot underneath the battery cover. My 32GB SanDisk card worked fine, RIM throws in a 2GB card, and there's 202MB of free internal app memory and 308MB of free media storage.
Music tracks sounded clear, if a tad bright, over Samsung Modus HM6450 Bluetooth headphones ($99, 4 stars). The music player is about as easy to use as it could be given the phone's form factor, with large album art thumbnails, although the sensitive trackpad makes navigation a chore; at least you can tune the level of sensitivity. BlackBerry Desktop Software works well for syncing media, including iTunes playlists, and comes in both PC and Mac versions. Standalone 320-by-240 QVGA and VGA MP4 and H.264 videos played fine, but anything greater (as well as DivX and Xvid files) wouldn't play.
The 5-megapixel camera has no auto-focus, although it includes an LED flash, face detection, image stabilization, and geotagging. Test photos were sharp and detailed, even indoors, although the amount of noise increased considerably as the lights dimmed. The flash blew out highlights and lit the room unevenly. Recorded videos maxed out at 640-by-480-pixel (standard VGA) and looked a little dark, but played smoothly at 30 frames per second. Kicking on image stabilization knocked the rate down a tick to 29 frames per second, although I still saw some shakes even with it on.?
If you want fast push email on the go and a hardware keyboard, the Curve 9370 is a solid choice, particularly if you travel overseas often but must have Verizon in the U.S. Having said that, keyboarded smartphones haven't seen much love on Verizon Wireless lately; I'd suggest holding out for the keyboarded Motorola Droid 4, which RIM promises will hit in the coming weeks to replace the Droid 3 ($49.99, 3 stars). The Droid 4 packs a slide-out QWERTY keyboard with edge-lit, sharply cut keys, plus an LTE radio, dual-core processor, and 4-inch capacitive touch screen; the Droid 3 lacks LTE and has the older keyboard, but it's still a good budget pick and now $50 less expensive than the Curve 9370. Otherwise, the BlackBerry Bold 9930 ($249.99, 3 stars) is faster, has a sharper screen with touch capability, and records 720p video, but it's larger, heavier, and more expensive than the Curve 9370.?
Benchmarks
Continuous talk time: 5 hours 4 minutes
More Cell Phone Reviews:
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??? Samsung Replenish (Boost Mobile)
??? HTC Titan (AT&T)
??? PCD Wrangler (U.S. Cellular)
??? Nokia Lumia 710 (T-Mobile)
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By msnbc.com staff
Women?s rights groups are claiming victory in their efforts to get the government of Ecuador to shut down underground clinics that they say used torture techniques to try to ?cure? lesbians.
Fundacion Causana, Taller de Comunicacion Mujer and Artikulacion Esporadika, a coalition of Ecuadorian women?s rights activists, started an online campaign on Change.org after working with women who had escaped what they call ?torture clinics.? Many of the women cited physical and psychological abuse, including verbal threats, shackling, days without food or water, sexual abuse, and physical torture in efforts to make them ?straight.?
?After years of campaigning about the practice of torture rehab clinics that claim to cure homosexuality, the Ecuadorian government has committed to deconstructing the belief that homosexuality is a sickness,? Fundacion Causana representative Karen Barba said in a press release issued by Change.org on Tuesday. ?Using Change.org, we were able to achieve victory in closing down ex-gay torture clinics.?
The online petition to close the clinics drew more than 100,000 signatures from across the world.
Earlier this week, President Rafael Correa also appointed Carina Vance, a lesbian and a gay-rights activist, as the new health minister. Vance is former executive director of Fundacion Causana.
Vance succeeds Minister of Health Dr. David Chirriboga, who before stepping down last week announced the government would investigate and close all such clinics in the country, launch a national advertising and awareness campaign against homophobia, and develop a crisis hotline for victims, according to Change.org.
?The Ministry of Public Health, the governing body of Ecuador?s health sector, is committed to strengthening the measures and institutions that contribute to the eradication of abusive practices such as the supposed treatment of homosexuality,? Chirriboga was quoted as saying. ?The Ecuadorian government rejects such practices as criminal and in direct conflict with the individual freedoms granted to all our citizens.?
Thirty so-called reparative therapy clinics were shut down by Correa's government in September after pressure from activists, including Vance, who will continue the campaign against remaining clinics as health minister.
A story on cnn.com on Thursday highlighted stories of alleged abuse by women who visited the clinics. The woman told CNN that her family contacted a center that promised to ?cure? her of her homosexuality when she was 23.?
The woman, now 28, said she was kept in handcuffs for more than three months in a ?therapeutic? center called Puente a la Vida, or Bridge of Life. Concha says she endured all kinds of demeaning and abusive treatment during the 18 months she was held there, according to CNN.
The clinic has since been shut down. CNN said efforts to?reach its former director for a comment?were unsuccessful.
Under?Vance's leadership as health minister, three raids have already taken place in the Quito area, and dozens of women have been rescued, CNN reported.
More from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Zooey Deschanel and Joel McHale will host the Writers Guild of America's awards show from Los Angeles, while Rachel Dratch will do the same in New York, the WGA, West and WGA, East announced on Wednesday.
The two guilds will stage simultaneous awards shows in the two cities on February 19. The WGAW's show will take place at the Hollywood Palladium, while the WGAE's show will be held at the B.B. King Blues Club.
While Deschanel played it straight in the press release announcing the hosts ("I am excited to host the WGA awards. It should be a lot of fun!"), McHale was significantly more playful: "I'm deeply excited to co-host the WGA Awards with Zooey Deschanel. She has that rare combination in that she's beautiful, funny, and smells good. Without writers, movies and TV would be worse than untreated syphilis, so I'm thrilled to hand these fine people awards for their great work."
Deschanel currently stars on the television series "New Girl," and has appeared in the films "(500) Days of Summer," "Our Idiot Brother" and "Elf."
McHale stars in the NBC series "Community" and hosts the E! show "The Soup." He hosted last year's Film Independent Spirit Awards.
Dratch is a seven-year veteran of "Saturday Night Live," and has also appeared in the films "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and "Just Go With It" and the television series "30 Rock."
The WGAE also announced that presenters at its show will include Jonathan Ames, Jimmy Fallon, Geoffrey Fletcher, Steve Kroft, Seth Myers, Kate Mulgrew, James Schamus and Jon Benjamin.
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For those of you using two-step authentication for your Google account, a new update for the Google Authenticator app has just landed in the Android Market. Version 0.85 apparently fixes a few security bugs, and adds some UI improvements -- though we have to say, the app looks exactly the same to our untrained eyes.
Anyone with CyanogenMod 7.1 installed will want to stay clear of this Authenticator update, however, as users of the popular custom firmware are reporting that this new update force-closes at startup on their devices. Our own Chris Parsons has confirmed that the latest version doesn't work with CM 7.1 on his HTC Desire HD and Motorola Atrix, while the app is equally borked on Josh Munoz's CM'd HTC EVO 3D. Because two-step authentication users need the Authenticator app to sign in on a new computer, this could cause a few headaches for anyone affected. So if you're running CM, or a custom ROM based upon it, we'd recommend holding off updating until more is known, or an official fix is available.
In the meantime, if you find yourself unable to use the new version of Google Authenticator, you can always authenticate your account over the phone, or use one of your emergency sign-in codes (you remembered to write those down, right?) After you're signed in, you'll then be able to disable two-stage authentication until either Google or the CM team comes out with a fix.
If you're not running a custom ROM, however, you should be just fine. You'll find the usual QR code and Android Market links after the break.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/q5RL52wnjaQ/story01.htm
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After some fairly sizable blunders last summer, Netflix suffered for the remainder of 2011, losing money and subscribers. Perhaps surprising many, Netflix bounced back today in its fourth quarter earnings -- in spite of the fact that it will continue experiencing losses throughout 2012 thanks to the costs of rolling out its service internationally.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/32Ebfvlx4eQ/
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BEIJING ? The situation had calmed Tuesday in a politically sensitive Tibetan region in southwest China where witnesses and activist groups said security forces opened fire on protesters and killed as many as three people.
Several thousand Tibetans in Ganzi prefecture of Sichuan province marched to government offices Monday and police opened fire into the crowd, an overseas Tibetan activist group said in statements. Three Tibetans were killed and nine wounded in the violence in the prefecture's Luhuo county, the International Campaign for Tibet said.
Another group, the London-based Free Tibet, put the death toll at one and said in an email statement that up to 30 others were shot and wounded in Luhuo, also known as Draggo in Tibetan.
The claims about Monday's protest could not be independently verified.
A Tibetan monk from Shouling monastery in Luhuo said police were patrolling but the situation was peaceful Tuesday after the protest by what he estimated were 10,000 people in front of the county government offices. He said most of the demonstrators were local Tibetan residents plus a few monks and Han Chinese residents.
The monk, who would not give his name, said police fired on the protesters and that one Tibetan farmer was killed. He said 32 others were wounded.
A man who answered the phone at the duty office of the Ganzi public security bureau on Tuesday denied there was any violence in the area, saying "nothing happened here, it's a rumor." He would not give his name.
A man from the county police said "nothing happened" and referred calls to the police command center. A man there said he was not clear about the case and hung up. Neither would give their names.
Tuesday was a holiday for the Lunar New Year and calls to the prefecture government rang unanswered.
The official Xinhua News Agency said late Monday that one protester was killed and five police officers were injured after dozens of people clashed with police over the presumed self-immolation of a monk.
Xinhua quoted police as saying the self-immolation was a rumor, and that the protest turned violent when the crowd began attacking a police station with clubs and stones.
The unrest comes aid already high tensions following the self-immolations of at least 16 Buddhist monks, nuns and other Tibetans in the past year. Most have chanted for Tibetan freedom and the return of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who fled to India amid an abortive uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.
Ganzi is a rugged, deeply Buddhist region filled with monasteries that has been at the center of dissent for years. It is among the traditionally Tibetan areas of Sichuan province and other parts of western China that have been closed to outsiders for months amid a massive security presence.
Many Tibetans resent Beijing's heavy-handed rule and large-scale migration of China's ethnic Han majority to the Himalayan region. While China claims Tibet has been under its rule for centuries, many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for most of that time.
Kate Saunders, the spokeswoman for the London-based International Campaign for Tibet, wrote in an email that other Tibetans were beaten by police and injured. It says leaflets had been distributed saying Tibetans should not celebrate the New Year because of the self-immolations and the overall situation in Tibet. The Tibetan New Year falls on Feb. 22 this year.
China is sensitive to protests by Tibetans because they threaten its control over its western region and may inspire protests elsewhere by Chinese with possible grievances.
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WARSAW, Poland ? Several popular Polish websites are planning to go dark for an hour Tuesday evening to protest the government's plan to sign an international copyright treaty.
Poland's support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has sparked days of Internet protests by groups who fear it could lead to online censorship.
The sites that are protesting are primarily ones that are popular with young people and carry a mix of celebrity news, jokes, funny photographs and other entertaining material.
One site ? http://www.wykop.pl ? said that "under the banner of fighting piracy and concerns about intellectual property, ACTA will limit the rights of each of us."
However, an influential group representing authors and composers ? known by its Polish acronym, ZAIKS ? has thrown its support behind ACTA. ZAIKS argued that ACTA will not hurt Internet freedom but protect the rights of creators. It said that Internet piracy is now robbing artists and the state treasury of hundreds of millions of zlotys (many millions of dollars) in income.
ACTA shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was shelved by lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day in protest.
In recent days, a group calling itself "Anonymous" attacked Polish government websites, leaving several paralyzed on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, most appeared to be working again, though the prime minister's site was unreachable. Still, Polish leaders are vowing to stick to plans to sign ACTA in Tokyo on Thursday.
ACTA has been negotiated by a number of industrialized countries that have been struggling for ways to fight counterfeiting and intellectual property theft ? crimes that cause huge losses to the movie and music industries and many other sectors.
The far-reaching agreement would cover everything from counterfeit pharmaceuticals to fake designer handbags to online piracy. The U.S. government calls it "a groundbreaking initiative by key trading partners to strengthen the international legal framework for effectively combating global proliferation of commercial-scale counterfeiting and piracy."
The United States signed ACTA in October in Tokyo along with seven other countries: Australia, Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco and Singapore.
Now it awaits signing by a number of other parties involved in negotiating the agreement, including the European Union, Mexico and Switzerland, according to the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
Critics of ACTA accuse the negotiating countries of hammering out the agreement in secret and failing to consult with the broader societies along the way.
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By msnbc.com news services
A China Eastern Airlines jet that left Chengdu in China?s Sichuan Province landed in Wuhan in China's Hubei province with an extra passenger.
Feng Yu, 23,?gave birth to a baby girl during the flight, according to a report on ShanghaiDaily.com.
The woman was aided by flight attendants who had training ??but no experience ? in delivering babies.
?I was frightened when the baby?s head came out but the body was still stuck,? flight attendant Zuo Lei told the Shanghai Daily. ?I asked myself to calm down and firmly held the woman?s hand and tried hard to recall what I learned in emergency training.?
The flight crew unsuccessfully attempted to find a medical expert among the passengers on the Boeing 737. Flight attendants then set up an in-flight delivery room after clearing out the last two rows of seats, Zuo said.
Medical workers took Feng and her baby, later named ?Angel,? to a nearby hospital when the plane landed.
?Both the mother and baby are in good condition,? a doctor told the paper.
Yu isn't the first pregnant woman to give birth during a flight. In September, Aida Alamillo gave birth to?baby boy on a Philippine Airlines flight from Manillla to San Francisco.
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PARIS (Reuters) ? Pierre Dukan, the nutritionist behind the popular but controversial Dukan diet, has suggested that France tackle child obesity by giving extra exam marks for slimness.
Dukan, who has sold 8 million copies of his diet book worldwide, made the proposal in a 250-page book called 'An Open Letter to the Future President', which he sent out on Tuesday to 16 candidates for France's presidential election.
The plan calls for high school students to be allowed to take a so-called "ideal weight" option in their final year exams, the "baccalaureat," under which they would earn extra points if they kept a body mass index (BMI) of between 18 and 25.
Those already overweight at the start of the two-year course would score double points if they managed to slim down over a period of two years.
"It's a fantastic motivator," Dukan told Reuters.
"The baccalaureat is really important in France. Kids want to get it, their parents want them to even more, so why not get them to work together on nutrition?"
Weight gain is becoming an increasing problem in France and experts say sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition are to blame.
World Health Organisation (WHO) figures show 50.7 percent of the population were overweight in 2010, including 18.2 percent classed as obese.
"There's a real problem. Since the 1960s the number of overweight people in France has risen from 500,000 to 22 million and it's going up every year," Dukan said.
"When you reach those levels, it's no longer a health problem, it becomes a political problem, and the leaders of the nation need to worry about it."
As well as the suggestion for students, Dukan's book, which will hit French bookshops on Thursday, contains a further 119 suggestions for the future president on ways to fight obesity.
One idea is the creation of a French fast-food restaurant serving more nutritional versions of the ubiquitous burgers and fries.
Dukan has earned an international reputation as diet guru to the stars, although his methods have drawn criticism from some health experts and weightwatchers who say his high-protein meal plan causes fatigue, bad breath and dizziness. But he is also a committed campaigner for the promotion of healthier lifestyles.
He recently met executives from McDonald's France with a suggestion for a healthy "McDukan" burger, made with low-fat meat and with oatmeal bread instead of the usual white bun. Unfortunately, the giant food chain turned him down.
"They were interested, but they said the public wasn't quite ready for it yet," he said.
The BMI, obtained by dividing a person's weight by the square of their height, is used as an indicator of the proportion of body fat. The WHO defines a BMI of 18.5 to 25 as normal, 25 to 30 as overweight, and over 30 as obese.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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Lexington Mayor Eugene Parkison says the main issue the village will face this year is the ongoing economic crisis and how to recover from it.
Mayor Parkison says the village's issues with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency have been addressed.
He says the wastewater treatment plant and water treatment plant are operating.
Parkison says the village will continue to have an economic crisis. He says there are about 18 foreclosures in the village.
Parkison says he meets with the local ministers and social groups once a month to discuss the needs of the community.
Parkison says he hopes in 2013 there will be an upturn in the economy.
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Source: http://www.wmfd.com/newsboard/single.asp?Story=48909
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Researchers have engineered silkworms to produce silk with the strength and elasticity of spider silk. The breakthrough avoids the task of spider farming.
By John Roach
Researchers have hacked the silkworm genome to spin fibers containing spider-silk proteins, a breakthrough that could lead to a long-sought biomaterial for a range of applications such as sutures, artificial ligaments and even bulletproof vests.
To prove the engineered silkworms were actually producing the synthetic silk, the researchers tagged some with green fluorescent protein, creating green-glowing silk.
As spooky as this may seem, it is a big step on a path to manufacturing silk with spider-silk-like qualities without having to venture into the even scarier proposition of spider farming.
Indeed, spider farming isn't even a viable option given?spiders' penchant for?"territorialism and cannibalism," note the researchers in this week's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team, led by Donald Jarvis at the University of Wyoming, isn't the first to incorporate spider silk proteins into silkworms, but is the first to report stable integration of spider proteins in the composite silk fibers.
"On average, the composite fibers produced by our transgenic silkworm lines were significantly tougher than those produced by parental animals and as tough as native dragline spider silk fiber," the team concludes.
The caveat is that "very few of the transgenic animals produced anything nearly so tough. And there was little consistency among the different transgenic lines," John Timmer notes in Ars Technica.
Improved results could come with further transgenic constructs or knocking out some of the silkworm's native genes, he says, but adds improving the inconsistent quality of the silk is "a tough hurdle to clear."
More stories on silk:
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
A five-thousand-year-old material gets new life and super strength thanks to new technology. From the 103rd story of the Willis Tower in Chicago to Apple's future headquarters to a Corning research lab, we see how tough glass can get while maintaining its timeless beauty.
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Source: http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/04/9953057-silkworms-hacked-to-spin-spider-like-silk
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Of all the teams in the Pac-12, the Utes may have drawn the most favorable matchups to open conference play.
Colorado and Washington State to start things off, the two teams picked in the preseason to tie for 10th in the floundering conference? Talk about easing into things.
Unless you?re the last-place Utes.
?There?s no point in our schedule that is favorable,? coach Larry Krystkowiak said. ?It?s kind of fighting for everything that we?re going to try to get.?
At 3-10 and having already lost to Colorado by the fourth-worst margin in program history (73-33), Utah (3-10) is entering a daunting stretch. Washington State (9-5) plays at the Huntsman Center on Thursday, followed by high-flying Washington on Saturday. Next week: games in the Bay Area to take on conference favorites Stanford and Cal.
The Cougars have been better than expected this season behind 14.9 points per game from forward Brock Motum. Motum scored 26 points, including three 3-pointers, in Washington State?s 81-76 win over Oregon State in Spokane.
Motum is 6-foot-10 and polished offensively, the sort of player the Utes haven?t seen this season with the exception of Brigham Young?s Noah Hartsock.
The Utes may need to hold open tryouts sooner if they want to find someone to match up with the Australian.
Story continues below
?It?s going to kind of have to be a team element,? Krystkowiak said. ?We?ve had a few different plans along the way. I thought DJ [Dijon Farr] did a pretty good job on Hartsock. ? He can get locked into guarding somebody.?
But Farr is 6-foot-6 and, at his best, a wing player and 6-foot-10 center Jason Washburn is not known for his defensive grit.
If the Utes can?t slow Motum, there?s no reason they couldn?t be on course for another record-book loss.
Utah point guard Josh ?Jiggy? Watkins said the Utes are in no position to look at the Cougars as another bottom-of-the-Pac team.
?We?ve got to take this game as if this is a Top 25 team,? Watkins said. ?That?s how we have to approach this game, and that?s how we have to play.?
To their kind credit, Washington State is taking the same approach with Utah before jetting off to Colorado to play the Buffaloes on Saturday.
?We understand that Utah is good enough to beat us,? coach Ken Bone said, ?there?s no doubt about it.?
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BERLIN ? Meryl Streep is to be honored for her wide-ranging career at this year's Berlin film festival.
Festival organizers said Monday that the 62-year-old Streep will be presented with an honorary Golden Bear, the event's top award, on Feb. 14.
Festival director Dieter Kosslick says that "Meryl Streep is a brilliant, versatile performer who moves with ease between dramatic and comedic roles."
The two-time Oscar winner will be honored at a screening of her latest movie, "The Iron Lady," in which she plays former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
The festival also will screen older Streep films, including "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Sophie's Choice."
The Berlin event, the first of the year's major European film festivals, takes place Feb. 9-19.
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LAS VEGAS ? The fight to fully legalize online gambling in the U.S. is now less about whether Americans will be able to play and more about who will bring the action to them ? and when.
A recent U.S. Justice Department opinion opened the door for cash-strapped states and their lotteries to bring online gambling to their residents, as long as it does not involve sports betting.
The DOJ memo also enflamed a battle within the industry over how to legalize online gambling that once generated an estimated $6 billion yearly just from poker: Should each state have its own system, or should there be a nationwide law?
While the opinion sent gambling stocks rising, many players who've been shut out from top online poker sites since April just want games to restart and don't care who profits.
"I don't like this legal limbo. Is it legal, or is it illegal?" said writer Brian Boyko, who plays poker as a hobby.
Boyko of Austin, Texas, has been using a small offshore site since executives and others at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were accused of illegally getting banks to process gambling funds.
Most of the U.S. games disappeared after the indictments.
One lawmaker in New Jersey is pushing to make online gambling legal, citing the DOJ memo. State Sen. Raymond Lesniak said he'll try to get a bill to Gov. Chris Christie's desk by next week.
"We can be the Silicon Valley of Internet gaming," he said. "It's the wave of the future."
Online poker boomed in the U.S. over the last decade, but a 2006 law made it illegal to run most online gambling businesses by forbidding financial institutions from processing transactions related to illegal online gambling.
The law, however, didn't clearly specify what kinds of gambling were illegal.
Some forms of gambling, like fantasy sports and horse racing, got explicit carve-outs, while many poker games kept going online as some operators got differing legal opinions about whether the Wire Act of 1961 applied to them.
Since then, poker proponents have argued that the game is different from other casino games like blackjack or slots because it involves significantly more skill.
Even casino companies ? which make far more money from luck-based games than poker ? began pushing for poker-only legislation under the assumption that poker regulations would be easier for lawmakers to stomach than other games.
Meanwhile, New York and Illinois officials asked the DOJ in 2010 whether the Wire Act or the 2006 law prevented them from selling lottery tickets online to adults within their states.
Last week, the DOJ answered: The Wire Act only prevents players from wagering on sports outcomes ? other bets are OK.
The commercial casino industry's top lobbying group in Washington, D.C., believes the DOJ's interpretation of the Wire Act was correct, but added more confusion than solutions.
"There's probably some staffers at work on (Capitol Hill) now taking a real hard look at this as they figure to bring some sanity," said Frank Fahrenkopf, chief executive of the American Gaming Association.
Fahrenkopf said his group will keep pushing Congress for online poker legislation that establishes baseline rules for Internet poker operators.
Within the gambling world ? which includes lotteries, private and publicly-traded companies, American Indian tribes, software manufacturers, offshore sites and others ? there are differing visions for ideal online gambling laws.
Mark Hichar, an outside lawyer for the company that runs the Texas lottery, said the memo removes uncertainty and will prompt lotteries to begin running as many different kinds of games as are allowable under state laws.
"This helps lotteries, which are ... determined to remain relevant and to attract a new generation of players," said Hichar, who represents Rhode Island-based GTECH Corp.
Lotteries have generally opposed federal legislation, pushing for states to retain control of gambling laws.
I. Nelson Rose, a gambling law expert, said the opinion's timing and deference to states could mean trouble for commercial casinos that want an inside track on running licensed online gambling.
"They're going to have problems because when the states legalize, their natural inclination is to give it to the locals," said Rose, who regularly writes about online gambling developments at his blog, Gambling and The Law.
And that, he said, is the big question: Who's going to get the license?
"If you're a Nevada casino operator, you don't want to be competing in more than 50 separate jurisdictions against connected, politically powerful operators," Rose said.
Rose said new federal laws are a longshot in 2012, while states could choose to enter into compacts with other states to pool players, making games more lucrative.
U.S. lotteries could emulate counterparts in Canada that run limited online gambling sites in the provinces, he said.
Recreational player Mark Gorman of Austin, Texas, said he's skeptical, because different DOJ officials under a future president could change their opinion, forcing lawmakers to start over again.
"I wasn't terribly excited that this would change the landscape," Gorman said.
In Nevada, where gambling regulators adopted online poker regulations the day before the DOJ opinion, it's not clear whether casinos will try to let gamblers wager on more than just poker online.
Michael Gaughan, owner of the South Point casino in Las Vegas, said his lawyers are looking at how the opinion has changed legal situation as he tries to become the first Nevada casino operator to run legal online poker in the state.
"I don't know what happens," Gaughan said. "This opens up a whole can of worms, now."
He said he'll wait for their analysis before deciding whether to ask Nevada regulators to expand his plans.
Poker may be a baby step, legalized before other games as states argue that gambling creates jobs, said Alexander Ripps, a legal analyst in Washington for independent gambling market analysis firm Gambling Compliance.
"I think you're going to see it coming down to what to they think can get through," Ripps said. "Once you're in with one thing, then, in theory, down the line you can always get something else in."
Meanwhile, Boyko said, he just wants to be able to trust his money online while the game.
"All I want is a safe place to play poker," he said.
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