EU Bids for Power Over National Budgets
May 13th, 2010Via: CBC:
Senior administrators of the European Union proposed on Wednesday that they be given unprecedented power to scrutinize the spending plans of countries before national parliaments vote on those budgets.
The EU’s executive commission’s bid was a move to crack down on widespread government overspending and to begin to deal with the debt crisis that threatens the exchange value of the euro.
U.S. Probes Morgan Stanley
May 13th, 2010Via: Wall Street Journal:
U.S. prosecutors are investigating whether Morgan Stanley misled investors about mortgage-derivatives deals it helped design and sometimes bet against, people familiar with the matter said, in a step that intensifies Washington’s scrutiny of Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis.
Morgan Stanley arranged and marketed to investors pools of bond-related investments called collateralized-debt obligations, or CDOs, and its trading desk at times placed bets that their value would fall, traders said. Investigators are examining, among other things, whether Morgan Stanley made proper representations about its roles.
Among the deals that have been scrutinized are two named after U.S. Presidents James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson, a person familiar with the matter said. Morgan Stanley helped design the deals and bet against them but didn’t market them to clients. Traders called them the “Dead Presidents” deals.
The probe is at a preliminary stage. Bringing criminal cases involving complex Wall Street deals is a huge challenge for prosecutors. The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a firm or its employees knowingly misled investors, a high bar. The government launches many criminal investigations that end without any charges being filed.
Man Fitted with Robot Arm Controlled by the Mind
May 13th, 2010It’s unfortunate that killer robots are the inescapable flipside of this kind of stuff.
Whether you love the machines, or dread them (or both), this is pretty remarkable.
Via: BBC:
Every morning Christian Kandlbauer wakes up, dresses himself, and gets in his car to drive to work.
This may sound mundane, but for the 21-year-old Austrian these are remarkable feats.
Doctors say he is the first person in the world to drive a car using a mind-controlled robotic limb.
Four years ago Christian lost both his arms after being electrocuted by 20,000 volts. Now he is able to control all of the joints in his left prosthetic arm by merely thinking about what he wants his arm to do.
He has a conventional prosthetic fitted on his right side.
Experts at the medical technology company, Otto Bock Healthcare, which developed the mind-controlled arm, say it is the first project of its kind in Europe.
On Wednesday, they will announce at an international conference in Leipzig, Germany, that the technology is ready to leave the laboratory and be put to everyday use.
“UK patients could benefit in the next few months,” says Dr Hubert Egger, head of the research and development project for the mind-controlled arm.
“Christian is the first patient in Europe where this surgery was done, and the first person in Europe with this mind-controlled prosthetic. In the future we hope to fit patients in the UK with prosthetics like this.”
Dr Egger’s team is publishing detailed surgical and technical guidelines for the mind controlled arm.
It involves a new technique known as targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR), where nerves that once controlled a lost limb are used to control a prosthesis.
Christian was the “guinea pig” for the four-year research project.
Surgeons at Vienna General Hospital transplanted the nerves that previously controlled his healthy limb to the chest muscles in a six-hour operation.
The transplanted nerves allow electrical impulses from the brain to reach the muscles in the chest.
The muscles act like a booster, amplifying the signal to a level that can be picked up by electrodes on the surface of the chest.
These signals are interpreted by a micro-computer, and used to control a prosthesis which responds in real time to thoughts from his brain.
This allows him to control his prosthetic arm as if it were his real arm.
Now Christian can drive, hold down a job, and even grasp a glass of beer.
“I feel very happy,” he told the BBC in a telephone interview. “It is like my earlier arm – I feel that my arm is a part of my body.”
$3 Microscope Plugs into Cell Phones
May 13th, 2010Via: MIT Technology Review:
Inexpensive, lightweight device provides basic medical diagnostics and images.
A small digital microscope that costs just a few dollars can plug into a cell phone and perform basic medical diagnostics that would ordinarily require expensive lab equipment. The microscope, which uses no lenses, saves on cost and weight by using algorithms to get more information from images. The device can generate blood counts and identify disease cells and bacteria from simple images sent through a USB cord to a cell phone that uses software to processes the data. The latest version of the microscope integrates an interference-based contrast method to provide better images in addition to diagnostic information.
Freddie Mac Has a Message for Strategic Defaulters?
May 13th, 2010This is posted mainly its comedic value. It might also serve as a study in apoplexy as applied to economic commentary.
Via: ML Implode:
This guy may just win my Dick-of-the-Year Award hands down. Did he just say: “simply continuing to pay the bills might be best?” I can’t be sure because there’s no way that my heart could stand reading that paragraph again. Best for whom, Donald? You are such a… I cannot believe what a… wait, no. I’m not going to do it; my health has to come first.
And yes Don, over time the housing market will come back… as will the market for dot-com IPOs. Everything comes back… eventually… that’s why I’m still holding onto my skinny ties. I even imagine that perhaps one day… Freddie Mac will be profitable again? But when, Don… when? I’m 48 years old and in pretty good health… will I live to see that day?
Britain: Identity Cards Set to Be Scrapped
May 13th, 2010While this seems like good news, expect the other shoe to drop soon enough.
Via: BBC:
Identity cards will be scrapped under plans announced by the new Conservative and Lib Dem coalition government, new Home Secretary Theresa May has said.
Their abolition is among measures the parties have agreed to reverse what they say was “the substantial erosion” of civil liberties in recent years.
Other proposals include reforms to the DNA database, tighter regulation of CCTV and a review of libel laws.
Labour claims ID cards help tackle benefit fraud and identity theft.
The Tories and Lib Dems have both opposed ID cards from the outset, arguing they are expensive, intrusive and have done little to tackle the most serious threats to society such as terrorism and organised crime.
In a statement, the Home Office said it would announce “in due course” how the process of rescinding ID cards and the accompanying National Identity Register would move forward.
Until Parliament passes legislation banning them, ID cards remain valid and people can still apply for them. Migrant workers from outside the EU and thousands if British citizens in the North-West of England, where the scheme was being piloted, have already been issued with cards.
Home Office officials said they would advise anyone thinking of applying to wait for further announcements.
Compulsory ID cards were introduced for foreign nationals in 2008. However, attempts to require certain workers in sensitive roles, such as airport workers, to have them ran into trouble.
Home Depot Must Actually Pay Inventor For Invention
May 13th, 2010Via: Consumerist:
Home Depot had a problem: their employees kept sawing off their own extremities with the saws they used to cut lumber for customers. Michael Powell invented a gadget which fixed the problem, and offered to sell the device to the chain for $2,000 each. Then, the inventor’s lawsuit alleged, Home Depot simply stole the gadget’s design, made their own, and wouldn’t compensate him. “F*** Michael Powell. Let him sue us.” one executive said at the time. Now the chain must pay him a judgment of about $25 million.
Paying Powell for his invention in the first place would have cost $4 million for the devices that are now installed in 2,000 stores.
Outsourcing Unit To Be Set Up In Indian Jail
May 13th, 2010Via: BBC:
Authorities in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh are planning to set up an outsourcing unit in a jail.
The unit will employ 200 educated convicts who will handle back office operations like data entry, and process and transmit information.
The project will begin at Charlapally Central Jail, near the state capital Hyderabad, in the next four months.
India is a hub for the outsourcing industry, but this is the first time a unit will be set up inside a jail.
The prison, with 2,100 inmates, is Andhra Pradesh’s most modern with state-of-the-art facilities.
The proposed outsourcing unit is a public-private partnership between the department of jails and an IT (information technology) company, Radiant Info Systems.
California Now in Top Ten for Highest Government Default Probabilities in the World
May 13th, 2010Via: Credit Writedowns:
The usual suspects are on the list including Dubai, Ukraine and Latvia. The one thing to notice is that California has now cracked the top ten with a 20% default probability.
Arrest of 13 CIA Agents Sought in Spain
May 13th, 2010Via: Harper’s Magazine:
Prosecutors attached to the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid are reportedly requesting that Judge Ismael Moreno issue an order for the arrest of thirteen CIA agents involved in an extraordinary rendition operation from 2004, the newspaper El País reports this afternoon, citing sources within the court.
The case relates to Khaled El-Masri, a greengrocer from Neu-Ulm, Germany, seized by the United States as a result of mistaken identity while he was on vacation in the former Yugoslavia. El-Masri was placed on a CIA-chartered jet that arrived in Macedonia from Palma de Majorca in January 2004, en route ultimately to Afghanistan. It appears that Majorca was used regularly as a refueling and temporary sheltering point for the CIA, with the knowledge of the prior conservative government. While held in the notorious CIA prison known as the Salt Pit, El-Masri was apparently tortured during extensive interrogations before intelligence officers realized that they had seized the wrong man. The Washington Post reported that CIA agents, fearing the consequences of releasing him, argued for his continued detention and in fact held him for at least several weeks after his release had been ordered. Condoleezza Rice, then national security advisor to President Bush, intervened and directed his release. El-Masri’s CIA abductors entered Spanish territory using forged British passports, according to the prosecutors. They are seeking James Fairing, Jason Franklin, Michael Grady, Lyle Edgar Lumsen III, Eric Matthew Fain, Charles Goldman Bryson, Kirk James Bird, Walter Richard Greensbore, Patricia O’Riley, Jane Payne, James O’Hale, John Richard Deckard and Héctor Lorenzo, according to information provided by the Spanish Guardia Civil. The case is also under investigation in Germany.
