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Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Incipio Frequency Galaxy S4 case

Incipio Frequency case for Galaxy S4.

It's time to start looking at Galaxy S4 cases, and we're kicking things off with the Incipio Frequency case, courtesy of the fine folks at ShopAndroid.com. The Frequency is billed as a "textured impact-resistant case," and indeed that's what you get.

Actually, that's only part of what you get. The Frequency is a three part system.

First you've got the case, which you see here. It's a matte TPU, with the lower half of the back done up in a sort of textured graph design. It's a opaque, which gives things yet another dimension. It's functional as well, giving you a little more grip down at the bottom. The case wraps around the front of the phone, keeping the display from touching when left face-down. It's easy enough to get on, but not so tough to get off that you'll hate yourself doing so later.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/EFREvAArxWM/story01.htm

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Millions pass up free health subsidy

May 6, 2013 ? Millions of seniors are turning down free money.

The Low Income Subsidy for Medicare Part D is a rare beast in economics research. The subsidy provides prescription drug coverage essentially free for low-income adults. That means it is what economists call a dominant option. For those who are eligible, there is no rational reason not to choose it. And yet, a new study shows that many eligible seniors do not take advantage of the program, despite outreach efforts by the Social Security Administration.

"We examined the role of seniors' cognitive abilities in explaining this puzzle," said J. Michael McWilliams assistant professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital and senior author of the paper. "If impaired abilities to access and process information are a root cause, simply providing seniors with more information is unlikely to help them make better choices."

McWilliams and his team analyzed data from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study on seniors who were likely eligible for the Low Income Subsidy and found that seniors with lower cognition and lower basic math abilities were less likely to enroll in Medicare Part D, and less likely to apply for the subsidy if they did enroll in Part D. The study results will be published in JAMA Internal Medicine on May 6.

Can competition drive value?

In addition to raising important questions about how to best extend important benefits to a vulnerable population, the study raises questions about the extent to which consumer choices can be relied upon to reward value and drive competition in Medicare in general, the researchers said.

Medicare Part D provides seniors with a variety of plans to choose from for prescription drug benefits. The low-income subsidy reduces the cost of premiums and co-pays, and for the lowest income group the cost of benefits is entirely covered.

Those who qualify for Medicaid and are also in Medicare are automatically enrolled and get the subsidy without needing to take any action on their own. Other low-income adults must apply for the benefit, and estimates suggest that more than 2 million people who would qualify for a benefit fail to apply, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Harvard researchers focused on those who qualify but must apply for the subsidy.

"For those who are already enrolled in Medicare Part D plans and eligible for fully covered prescription drugs, this is not 'Here's thirty plans, pick the best one.' This is, 'Here's free money, do you want it?'" said lead author Ifedayo Kuye, a student at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School.

Even such a simple decision requires a high level of cognition, the researchers said. In order to meet the needs of this population, which includes many people with high medical needs, including chronic conditions, the design of the program probably needs to be changed, they said. One possible remedy the researchers suggest would be to make the subsidy an opt-out program for those who are eligible, so they would not need to take any extra steps to benefit from the program.

These findings have broader implications about how much reformers should rely on choice and competition in Medicare to drive down costs, the researchers said, because competition only works if consumers are choosing wisely and rewarding value in the marketplace.

The power of competition to drive value is an important component in many health care reform initiatives, including the proposal to transfer Medicare to a voucher system, and the health insurance exchanges that are being set up as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Seniors may need more help

"We may need the government or other agencies to do more on behalf of seniors and other health care consumers, both for their own well-being and if we want competition to be a force for driving up value in health care," Kuye said.

"Choice is generally a good thing, but options in health care can be very complex and consumers can have great difficulty identifying the best one," McWilliams said. "To improve decisions and enhance competition, the government and exchanges may need to play more active roles. Expecting the availability of choices and information for consumers alone to cure our health care system is unrealistic."

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/IQlTykwunX4/130506181715.htm

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Israel airstrikes loom over US diplomacy on Syria

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, right, welcomes Secretary of State John Kerry, left, to his office at the Pentagon in Washington, Monday, May 6, 2013. Hagel invited Kerry to the Pentagon for a working lunch to discuss a range of national security issues. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington on Monday, May 6, 2013. Carney answered questions on Syria and chemical weapons, as well as Israeli action in Syria. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

MOSCOW (AP) ? Secretary of State John Kerry is making his case to Russian President Vladimir Putin for Russia to take a tougher stance on Syria at a time when Israel's weekend air strikes against the beleaguered Mideast nation have added an unpredictable factor to the talks.

Kerry arrived Tuesday in Moscow for talks with the most powerful ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Officials said Kerry hopes to change Moscow's thinking on Syria with two new angles: American threats to arm the Syrian rebels and evidence of chemical weapon attacks by the Assad regime.

Over the weekend, Israeli warplanes targeted what Israel claimed were caches of Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terror group. Such weapons would allow Hezbollah to strike Tel Aviv and as far as southern Israel from inside Lebanese territory.

Israel's willingness to hit Syrian targets it sees as threats to its own existence has complicated the Obama administration's internal debate over what to do about Syria.

Israel's actions put Damascus and Moscow on notice that the U.S. and its allies may not wait for an international green light to become more actively engaged in the Syrian conflict. The administration said last week it was rethinking its opposition to arming the Syrian rebels or taking other aggressive steps to turn the tide of the two-year-old civil war toward the rebels.

At the same time, Israeli involvement in the war carries risks. Instead of prodding Russia into calling for Assad's ouster, it could bring greater Arab sympathy for Assad and prompt deeper involvement from Iran and Hezbollah, actors committed as much to preserving Assad as to fighting the Jewish state.

Although Israel hasn't officially acknowledged it carried out the airstrikes, Syrian officials on Monday were blaming Israel, calling them a "declaration of war" that would cause the Jewish state to "suffer."

Russia, alongside China, has blocked U.S.-led efforts three times at the United Nations to pressure Assad into stepping down.

U.S. officials are hoping Syria's behavior could shift Russia's stance.

"We have consistently, in our conversations with the Russians and others, pointed clearly to Assad's behavior as proof that further support for the regime is not in the interest of the Syrian people or in the interest of the countries that have in the past supported Assad," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

U.S. officials said the administration doesn't believe the weekend activity will force President Barack Obama's hand, noting that the main U.S. concern is the use of chemical weapons by Assad, while Israel's top concern is conventional weapons falling into the hands of its enemies.

The chemical weapons argument is now under surprising attack, with former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte saying over the weekend she and fellow members of a four-member U.N. human rights panel have indications the nerve agent sarin was used by Syrian rebel forces, not by government forces.

That theory was rejected by U.S. officials. The State Department said the administration continues to believe that Syria's large chemical weapons stockpiles remain securely in the regime's control.

The Obama administration opened the door to new military options in Syria after declaring last week it strongly believed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in two attacks in March. Two days after that announcement, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said arming the Syrian rebels was a policy consideration.

Until now, U.S. efforts to bolster the rebels' fighting skills and gather intelligence on the groups operating inside Syria have been limited to small training camps in Jordan, according to two U.S. officials who weren't authorized to speak about secret activities and demanded anonymity.

There are several options for escalation, ranging from arming the rebels to targeted airstrikes and no-fly zones. However, arming the rebels is the most likely escalation, officials said.

While the Israeli actions have made Kerry's Russia efforts more unpredictable, some in Congress tried to be optimistic.

Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he hopes Kerry can persuade Russia to use its influence to convince the besieged Syrian leader that he should step down.

"Hopefully the cooperation on the (Boston) Marathon bombing will open the door there," Ruppersberger said.

After visiting Moscow for the first time since he became secretary of state, Kerry will travel to Rome for talks with members of the new Italian government, as well as meetings with Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh to discuss Middle East peace prospects.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-07-US-Syria/id-254e021efab94867a8107c6efc62188a

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Monday, May 6, 2013

NRA's next president to lead its court fights against gun control

By Andrea Lorenz

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Alabama lawyer Jim Porter, in line to become the next president of the National Rifle Association, is expected to spearhead the group's court challenges of gun-control laws enacted in several states since the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting massacre.

Porter, 64, the son of another Alabama lawyer who served as NRA president from 1959 to 1961, is likely to succeed David Keene on Monday in the two-year post at the nation's leading gun-rights organization.

The longtime member is chairman of the legal affairs committee for the NRA, which has headed off federal attempts to approve new gun ownership restrictions, including a U.S. Senate proposal last month for expanded background checks.

Porter told NRA members at their annual convention in Houston on Saturday that President Barack Obama was "AWOL" on border security, the deficit and national security, but "scheming and plotting" to take away Americans' gun rights.

"There is nothing, nothing that criminals do with guns that isn't already against the law," Porter said.

In a speech to the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association in June 2012, Porter called Obama a "fake" president and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder "rabidly un-American."

The NRA's focus is far different now from what it was when Porter's father, Irvine Porter, led the organization. The NRA then focused mainly on shooting and hunting. Its emphasis shifted in later decades to lobbying against restrictions on guns.

Porter, the NRA's first-vice president, who by tradition is expected to be elected president on Monday by the board, introduced the outgoing president, Keene.

"If I have anything to say about it, you just heard from your next president of your National Rifle Association," Keene told the crowd..

Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president and chief executive, remains the most visible leader of the group.

CHALLENGING GUN RESTRICTIONS

Keene told the Washington Times earlier this week that Porter would be a "perfect match" as NRA president as it focuses on court challenges to state laws restricting gun ownership.

"As we are likely to win most of the legislative battles in Congress, we will have to move to courts to undo the restrictions placed on gun owners' rights in New York, Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado," Keene told the newspaper.

Connecticut and New York expanded assault weapons bans and restricted the capacity of ammunition magazines after a gunman killed 20 students and six adults at a Connecticut school in December.

Colorado, where a gunman killed 12 people and wounded 58 others in July 2012 at a midnight showing of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises," approved restrictions on the size of ammunition clips and universal background checks.

Porter, a 1971 graduate of the University of Alabama, told the New York group last year that the fight to protect the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution setting out the right to bear arms had just begun, and that Obama's "entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-Second Amendment."

On Saturday, Tom King, an NRA board member from East Greenbush, New York, said Porter was a likable family man and successful attorney who would be a good NRA president.

"I say things that are controversial too, everybody does," King said. "If you want to take something out of context and say, 'He said that, that's controversial,' and you want to attack him for that, that's your prerogative or anyone else's prerogative, but Jim is a good man."

(Additional reporting by David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nras-next-president-lead-court-fights-against-gun-044247373.html

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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Solar plane lands in Ariz., 1st leg of major trip

Solar Impulse co-founder, pilot and CEO Andre Borschberg, left, greets pilot Bertrand Piccard at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, early Saturday, May 4, 2013, after completing the first leg of its coast-to-coast flights across the United States. It is the first time that a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel, will attempt to fly across America. Solar Impulse began its journey Friday in San Francisco in its attempt to reach New York. (AP Photo/Scuteri)

Pilot Bertrand Piccard talks about Solar Impulse, the Swiss solar-powered airplane, at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, early Saturday, May 4, 2013, after completing the first leg of its coast-to-coast flights across the United States. It is the first time that a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel, will attempt to fly across America. Solar Impulse began its journey Friday in San Francisco in its attempt to reach New York. (AP Photo/Scuteri)

Solar Impulse, the Swiss solar-powered airplane, piloted by Bertrand Piccard, is shown at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, early Saturday, May 4, 2013, after completing the first leg of its coast-to-coast flights across the USA. It is the first time that a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel, will attempt to fly across America. Solar Impulse began its journey Friday in San Francisco in its attempt to reach New York. (AP Photo/Scuteri)

PHOENIX (AP) ? Alone in the single-seat cockpit and high above the American Southwest, pilot Bertrand Piccard could hear only his plane's gear box and the quiet whine of four electric motors. No noisy jet engines.

He's flying Solar Impulse, considered the world's most advanced sun-powered plane.

Piccard piloted the craft for 20 hours, first cruising along the California coast after taking off from Moffett Field in Mountain View near San Francisco just after dawn Friday. He passed over Edwards Air Force Base, where other aviation milestones have been made, and then touched down early Saturday morning at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

He landed having used only three-quarters of the plane's battery power.

"It's a little bit like being in a dream," Piccard said as he stepped on the tarmac.

The plane's creators, Piccard and fellow pilot Andre Borschberg, said the trip is the first attempt by a solar airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel to fly across America.

But Piccard said Saturday afternoon that even more important than marking another aviation milestone is the hope that the journey will provide an exponential boost for interest in renewable energy and clean technologies.

"If an airplane can fly day or night with no fuel, just on the sun's power, of course it means that everybody in daily life can use this technology for his house, for heating and cooling systems, for lighting, for cars, for trucks. There's so much we can do now to have a cleaner future," Piccard said.

From Phoenix, the aircraft will travel to Dallas-Fort Worth airport in Texas, Lambert-St. Louis airport, Dulles airport in the Washington area and New York's John F. Kennedy airport. Each flight leg will take about 19 to 25 hours, with 10-day stops in each city.

Borschberg is hoping to pilot the last leg, which could afford him the chance to fly past the Statue of Liberty.

The plane, which has previously impressed audiences in Europe, is powered by about 12,000 photovoltaic cells that cover massive wings and charge its batteries.

The delicate, single-seat Solar Impulse flies around 40 mph and can't go through clouds. It weighs about as much as a car, making it vulnerable to bad weather.

Its average speed for the first leg of the trip was about 60 knots with a tail wind, Borschberg said. Ideally, the plane climbs up to about 27,000 feet or so during the day to collect solar and charge the batteries.

Borschberg and Piccard were ready for a series of tours over the next few days to show off the technology to Phoenix school children, university researchers and others.

"There are a lot of people who want to see this airplane," Piccard said.

So how hard is it to fly a solar plane?

Despite the aviation advancements made over the last century, Piccard said he and Borschberg have a lot in common with the early pioneers.

"One hundred years ago, the planes had to fly in good weather and there was only one person on board," Piccard said. "Now we have completely new technology, we fly with no fuel at all. But, of course, we need to fly in good weather and we carry only one pilot on board.

"We're starting a new cycle. It's really the beginning of something new."

___

Montoya Bryan reported from Albuquerque, N.M. Associated Press writer Haven Daley in Mountain View, Calif., also contributed to this report.

___

Online:

http://www.solarimpulse.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-04-US-Solar-Plane/id-48d28865a1354e7da2635ab48a782cf4

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Alt-week 5.4.13: Atacama's mystery skeleton, move to Mars, and lights out for Herschel

Alt-week takes a look at the best science and alternative tech stories from the last seven days.

Well, here we are. It's happening. We're officially talking about setting up a human colony on Mars. Not only is this very real, it's something you can be part of. You don't have to leave the planet to get your extra-terrestrial fix though, as our two other stories demonstrate. This is alt-week.

Filed under: Science, Alt