US Q4 industrial output stronger than thought: Fed

WASHINGTON: US industrial production fell in January but the final quarter of last year was much stronger than originally thought, the Federal Reserve reported on Friday.

January's production contracted 0.1 per cent, and manufacturing output fell 0.4 per cent.

But industrial production as a whole expanded at a 2.6 per cent annual pace in the October-December 2012 quarter, compared to the previous estimate of just 1.0 per cent, and manufacturing expanded 1.9 per cent, compared to the previous estimate of 0.2 per cent.

That suggested that the initial government estimate of an 0.1 per cent contraction in the economy last quarter could be revised upward.

Manufacturing output in December was revised up to 1.1 per cent and November 1.7 per cent.

January's production was hit mainly by a 3.9 per cent contraction in automotive products, while energy production surged 3.1 per cent.

- AFP/xq

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Microsoft fine-tunes shift from Messenger to Skype

Microsoft is moving ahead with its aggressive plans to move users on its Messenger instant-messaging service to Skype.

Late last year, officials said to expect Microsoft to retire Messenger in all countries in the first quarter of 2013 with the exception of mainland China. The new timetable is slightly lengthier, but not much.

Officials are now saying they plan to discontinue Messenger for a "test group" comprising about one percent of the installed base of "tens of millions" on March 15. Starting April 8, Microsoft will begin phasing out Messenger for the remaining users, starting with those in English-speaking countries, and ending with Portuguese (for some unspecified reason). The entire "retirement" should be completed by April 30 or so.

The phase out is for the desktop version of Messenger, said Parri Munsell, Director of Marketing Integration for Skype. Munsell said that the desktop version of Messenger represents the "vast majority" of the Messenger user base. Skype officials are not providing a timetable as to when Microsoft plans to retire Messenger on mobile and/or multivendor platforms.

Microsoft has been pushing desktop Messenger users to move to Skype for the past couple of months via pop-ups that show up when users sign into Messenger. To proactively move over, users can sign into Skype using their Microsoft accounts, which are the same as their Messenger IDs, and Messenger contacts will be automatically added to Skype so that both Skype and Messenger contacts are merged. (Users can opt to see only their Messenger contacts by selecting "All" in the contacts list and then "Messenger.") The Skype team has posted some introductory how-to guidance on this. Here's more help on merging Messenger and Skype accounts.

(An aside: Those using Skype on
Mac clients, Windows 8/Windows RT clients and Windows Phone 8 already can sign in today with their Messenger/Microsoft IDs. In case you're wondering when Microsoft will update the WP8 Skype beta and/or move to a final version, company officials are not saying. I asked.)

If you're like me and not so keen on the Messenger-to-Skype move, you can keep using Messenger until Microsoft shuts you off from the service, sometime between March 15 and April 30 or so. Once that happens, you won't be able to sign into Messenger any longer.

If you're using Messenger via a third-party instant messaging service -- like Trillian, Digsby, Pidgin or IM++, for example -- you will have a somewhat longer reprieve from being shut off.

"Third-party APIs (application programming interfaces) will eventually be shut down," Munsell said. Each third-party service has its own timetable for doing this, which Munsell said would be up to them to announce. While this won't happen as quickly as Microsoft's own Messenger phase-out, users shouldn't expect Messenger to be supported through these services for the long-term.

As to why I'm not so keen on this move, it's not because I'm afraid of using something different or new. While Munsell noted that the Skype team is aware there's a learning curve for those accustomed to Messenger who will be moving to Skype, I don't think it's all that substantial. A few of my contacts already have moved off Messenger to Skype and the transition has not been smooth. They often don't receive IMs I've sent them at all, in spite of Skype IM indicating that all is fine. Some have found managing multiple conversations simultaneously to be a chore compared to how this works with Messenger today.

Munsell said Microsoft has not seen anything indicating there will be widespread problems. "We don't see anything on any scale of concern to us," he said when I asked.

Microsoft/Skype's message is users will gain new capabilities by moving from Messenger to Skype. Among these, Munsell said, are the ability to edit and delete messages, and the ability to move seamlessly from IM to Skype audio/video.

I'm curious if others who've already moved off Messenger to Skype have hit any roadblocks -- or found any new capabilities worth writing home about. Readers?

This story originally appeared on ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft updates timeline for moving 'millions' from Messenger to Skype."

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Why We Walk … and Run … And Walk Again to Get Where We're Going

You have to get to a bus stop to catch the once-an-hour express ... or to a restaurant to meet a friend ... or to a doctor's office. You've got maybe a half a mile to cover and you're worried you'll be late. You run, then you stop and walk, then run some more.

But wait. Wouldn't it be better to run the whole way?

Not necessarily.

A new study by an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio State University tests the theory that people subconsciously mix walking and running so they get where they need to. The idea is that "people move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption," said the professor, Manoj Srinivasan.

Srinivasan asked 36 subjects to cover 400 feet (122 meters), a bit more than the length of a football field. He gave them a time to arrive at the finish line and a stopwatch. If the deadline was supertight, they ran. If they had two minutes, they walked. And if the deadline was neither too short nor too far off, they toggled between walking and running.

The takeaway: Humans successfully make the walk-run adjustment as they go along, based on their sense of how far they have to go. "It's not like they decide beforehand," Srinivasan said. (Get tips, gear recommendations, and more in our Running Guide.)

The Best Technique for "the Twilight Zone"

"The mixture of walking and running is good when you have an intermediate amount of time," he explained. "I like to call it 'the Twilight Zone,' where you have neither infinite time nor do you have to be there now."

That ability to shift modes served ancient humans well. "It's basically an evolutionary argument," Srinivasan said. A prehistoric human seeking food would want to move in a way that conserves some energy so that if food is hard to find, the hunter won't run out of gas—and will still be able to rev it up to escape predators.

The study, published on January 30 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, doesn't answer that question of how we make such adjustments.

Runners: Take a Break if You Need It

The mix of walking and running is also something that nonelite marathoners are familiar with. Covering 26.2 miles might take less of a toll if the runner stops running from time to time, walks a bit, then resumes a jogging pace. "You use less energy overall and also give yourself a bit of a break," Srinivasan noted. (Watch: An elite marathoner on her passion for running.)

One take-home lesson is: Runners, don't push it all the time. A walk-run mix will minimize the energy you expend.

Lesson two: If you're a parent walking with your kid, and the kid lags behind, then runs to catch up, then lags again, the child isn't necessarily trying to annoy you. Rather, the child is perhaps exhibiting an innate ability to do the walk-run transition.

Potential lesson three: The knowledge that humans naturally move in a manner that minimizes energy consumption might be helpful in designing artificial limbs that feel more natural and will help the user reduce energy consumption.

The big question for Manoj Srinivasan: Now that he has his walk-run theory, does he consciously switch between running and walking when he's trying to get somewhere? "I must admit, no," he said. "When I want to get somewhere, I just let the body do its thing." But if he's in a rush, he'll make a mad dash.

"Talk to you tomorrow," he signed off in an email to National Geographic News. "Running to get to teaching now!"

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Falling Meteor Causes Blast, Injures Hundreds

A massive meteor shower slammed into Earth near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, located about 1,000 miles east of Moscow in the Ural Mountains.

Dashboard cameras captured a blinding flash of light streaking across the sky. Moments later, the fragments smashed into the ground. The impact, and the sonic boom of the meteor entering the atmosphere, shattered windows around the city and knocked over a wall at a zinc factory.

SEE PHOTOS: Meteorite Crashes in Russia

Witnesses said they thought a war had broken out.

"I saw a body moving in the skies. In a moment there came a flash - we first thought it was fireworks but a moment later we saw a trace as if from the rocket followed by an explosion in a couple of minutes. The window broke ... tea, bread, water - everything fell on the floor," one restaurant waiter in Chelyabinsk said.

Officials told the Russian news agency Interfax that more than 500 people were injured, most by broken glass. Of the 12 people hospitalized, at least three of them were in serious condition.

One scientist told Russian television the meteor was a big one, weighing perhaps tens of tons, but stressed that it was not related to the asteroid that is expected to buzz close to Earth later today.

Regional officials said the one large fragment fell in a lake, but debris had been reported in three parts of Russia and in Kazakhstan.

Schools in the region closed for the day after most of the windows were blown out, citing freezing temperatures, which were below zero degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

Debris from the meteor was found in three sites around the country, but emergency services say ground zero was Chebarkul Lake, just west of Chelyabinsk.

The meteor knocked out cell phone networks, but electricity and water supplies were not affected. Rosatom said all its nuclear power facilities were functioning normally.

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How Facebook makes breaking up hard to do

Paul Marks, senior technology reporter

(Image: Andy Kingsbury/Corbis)

I am not particularly prone to earbugs, but Jimmy Ruffin's emotive Motown classic What Becomes of the Brokenhearted began playing in my mind when I came across this intriguingly titled research paper last week: "Design for forgetting: Disposing of digital possessions after a breakup".

Yes, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, and love is in the air. For people who have recently suffered a break-up, though, it’s a tough day to get through - and this research shows how social technologies are making it tougher still. It asks if the "huge collections of digital possessions" couples now acquire in latter-day, online-social-media-rich relationships make breaking up, er, hard to do.

It seems it does, as Corina Sas at Lancaster University in the UK and Steve Whittaker of the University of California, Santa Cruz, are due to tell a computer interaction conference - which, appropriately, takes place in April in Paris. The pair asked 24 people who had recently split with their lovers how they dealt with the digital detritus of their affair - texts, emails, music, video clips, Facebook messages or photos - stored across multiple gadgets, from computers to mobile phones, cameras and even digital picture frames.

Perhaps not too surprisingly they found their subjects developed a variety of "digital disposal" strategies, depending on the degree of hurt. That has led the researchers to suggest ways in which the likes of Facebook could develop novel features to help newly split couples better manage what they call "digital forgetting".

The 24 subjects revealed three main break-up strategies, Sas says: "Some people tended to keep too much digital content, leaving them subjected to painful reminiscences. Others impulsively deleted digital possessions they may later want. Still others engaged in immediate discontinued use and later selective disposal."

Whittaker adds: "Many people make multiple mistakes when they dispose of digital possessions: some immediately delete too impulsively but later regret not keeping stuff."

Your digital relationship is more difficult to dispose of than burning love letters in days of yore, and your Twitters and Facebooks are the major bugbear. The relationship traces we leave on social networking systems "could be particularly difficult to remove and emotionally taxing when accidentally revisited", Sas says.

"Some of the greatest problems related to interactions and content in Facebook where couples were constantly reminded of their ex. Unless they unfriend them, partners could easily see what the ex is up to."

To the rescue, of course, comes even more technology.

Sas and Whittaker would like to see Facebook offer more "couple-oriented" features that make it easier to erase a couple's joint content later - a kind of digitally mediated pre-nup. That might get over the problem of having relationship material present on other friends’ pages, outside your control but still visible to you.

They also propose development of - and get this for ambition - automatic relationship-information harvesting software. "This tool would gather together all the digital possessions relating to the ex in one place. At the moment possessions are spread across laptops, phones, Facebook, et cetera, so it's hard to hide or delete everything about the ex," says Whittaker.

They realise this is no trivial task - but it's worth the effort, they believe. Automatically hoovering up a couple's digital pictures, emails and text messages would require a raft of artificial-intelligence techniques, from face recognition to machine learning and "entity extraction". "That would generate a unified set of digital possessions that can be later dealt with appropriately," says Sas.

In the meantime, her advice is to quell the red mist re the digital stuff post break-up. "Keeping or deleting everything may be tempting, but acting on such impulses may not the best approach in the long run. Instead try to create some immediate distance from digital possessions and revisit them later to choose only the most memorable ones." Rather like putting your old photos in a tin until you’ve cooled off, then.

If not, to quote Jimmy Ruffin, "all that's left is an unhappy ending".

Paper reference: Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems (in press)

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CDL, CapitaLand, StarHub in list of sustainable companies

SINGAPORE: Three companies in Singapore have made it to the exclusive Global 100 list, which consists of the world's most sustainable companies.

The companies are City Developments Limited (CDL), CapitaLand and StarHub.

Esther An, general manager of corporate affairs at City Developments says globally, buildings can account for 40 per cent of energy consumption and 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ms An said: "Even in Singapore, the building sector is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emission. So therefore, we are in a strong position not just to implement sustainable business practices, but also to influence our stakeholders."

To do this, CDL has adopted traditional green practices, like using eco-friendly methods and materials to shrink its carbon footprint.

But as a company, she said sustainability cuts across all levels.

Talking about sustainability is not just PR talk," she said. "You have to put it in action. We have adopted a triple bottom-line approach, which is to strike a balance between financial, environmental and social performance."

CDL is one of three companies in Singapore to make it to Corporate Knights Global 100 in 2012 - For CDL it was the fourth consecutive year on the list.

The firm was ranked 52nd, up from 62nd the year before.

This is Knights' ninth annual list, which narrows down a field of about 4,000 companies before settling on its top 100.

When Knights makes the list, they are not just taking a company's green initiatives into consideration. They also look at things like CEO-to-average-worker pay ratio, leadership diversity and employee turnover.

In total, companies are scored on up to 12 performance indicators. Telco StarHub made its first appearance on the list, holding on to the 66th spot.

Developer CapitaLand also made the list for the second year, ranking 77th. The firm moved up 10 spots from the previous year. Chief Corporate Officer Tan Seng Chai said it takes a lot more than just green buildings to keep a company sustainable - it takes people too.

Mr Tan said: "We want to ensure our employees feel very engaged with the company and sustainability has become one of the critical factor. We are seeing more talents growing up the ranks. And today we have something close to 30 per cent of females in senior management. It is quite a progress for us."

More investors are weighing a company's environmental and social attitudes before putting their money down, meaning sustainability is something companies can no longer afford to overlook.

"Sources of energy become more expensive so if you continue to depend on traditional source of energy, then your cost of running a business in the long term will become higher," said Mr Tan.

Ms An said: "If we don't practice business models that can help to reduce the use of natural resources, that can mitigate carbon footprint, what is this world becoming to? And without the planet, no businesses will survive and there will be no buyers, no market and no individuals."

- CNA/xq

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Apple patent promises way to eliminate lousy photos

Snapping bad pictures with your iPhone could become a problem of the past if a new Apple patent ever sees the light of day.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the patent application dubbed "Image Capturing Device Having Continuous Image Capture" envisions a process in which your smartphone camera captures and processes a sequence of quick images of the same shot.

That by itself may not sound too innovative. But taking it a step further, your smartphone would then automatically pick the best image of the bunch based on exposure times and other factors.

The idea behind the patent is to work around a frustrating flaw of many smartphone cameras -- shutter lag. There's a delay between the time you press the button to take the photo and the time the photo is actually taken. Such a lag can result in blurry or poorly composed photos, especially if you're trying to shoot a fast-moving object.

Human errors, such as a shaky hand on the camera, can also lead to bad photos.

The process described in Apple's patent would allow you to keep your finger on the camera button to quickly snap a series of shots in succession until you release your finger. Those images are stored in a buffer. The technology would then review the buffered images, choosing the best one based on a variety of factors. You'd then have an opportunity to review that choice to see if you agree with it.

As the patent explains it:

The method can automatically select one of the buffered images based on one or more parameters. For example, the selection may be based on an exposure time of one of the buffered images and optionally an image quality parameter (e.g., image contrast). Alternatively, the selection may be based only on the image quality parameter. The sequence of images can be captured just prior to or concurrently with receiving the user request. The method can include automatically displaying the selected image on the display of the image capturing device.

(Via AppleInsider)

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Are Honeybees Losing Their Way?

A single honeybee visits hundreds, sometimes thousands, of flowers a day in search of nectar and pollen. Then it must find its way back to the hive, navigating distances up to five miles (eight kilometers), and perform a "waggle dance" to tell the other bees where the flowers are.

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.

"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Wright's study adds to the growing body of research that shows that the honeybee's ability to thrive is being threatened. Scientists are still researching how pesticides may be contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a rapid die-off seen in millions of honeybees throughout the world since 2006.

"Pesticides are very likely to be involved in CCD and also in the loss of other types of pollinators," Wright said. (See the diversity of pollinating creatures in a photo gallery from National Geographic magazine.)

Bees depend on what's called "scent memory" to find flowers teeming with nectar and pollen. Their ability to rapidly learn, remember, and communicate with each other has made them highly efficient foragers, using the waggle dance to educate others about the site of the food source.

Watch as National Geographic explains the waggle dance.

Their pollination of plants is responsible for the existence of nearly a third of the food we eat and has a similar impact on wildlife food supplies.

Previous studies have shown certain types of pesticides affect a bee's learning and memory. Wright's team wanted to investigate if the combination of different pesticides had an even greater effect on the learning and memory of honeybees.

"Honeybees learn to associate floral colors and scents with the quality of food rewards," Wright explained. "The pesticides affect the neurons involved in these behaviors. These [affected] bees are likely to have difficulty communicating with other members of the colony."

The experiment used a classic procedure with a daunting name: olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. In layman's terms, the bee sticks out its tongue in response to odor and food rewards.

For the experiment, bees were collected from the colony entrance, placed in glass vials, and then transferred into plastic sandwich boxes. For three days the bees were fed a sucrose solution laced with sublethal doses of pesticides. The team measured short-term and long-term memory at 10-minute and 24-hour intervals respectively. (Watch of a video of a similar type of bee experiment.)

This study shows that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide. "This is particularly important because one of the pesticides we used, coumaphos, is a 'medicine' used to treat Varroa mites [pests that have been implicated in CCD] in honeybee colonies throughout the world," Wright said.

The pesticide, in addition to killing the mites, might also be making honeybees more vulnerable to poisoning and effects from other pesticides.

Stephen Buchmann of the Pollinator Partnership, who was not part of Wright's study, underscored how critical pollinators are for the world. "The main threat to pollinators is habitat destruction and alteration. We're rapidly losing pollinator habitats, natural areas, and food-producing agricultural lands that are essential for our survival and well being. Along with habitat destruction, insecticides weaken pollinators and other beneficial insects."

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'Blade Runner' Charged With Murdering Girlfriend

Oscar Pistorius, the Olympic and Paralympic athlete known as the "blade runner," was taken into custody in South Africa today and charged with the murder of his girlfriend, who was fatally shot at his home.

Police in the South African capital of Pretoria received a call around 3 a.m. today that there had been a shooting at the home of 26-year-old Pistorius, Lt. Col. Katlego Mogale told The Associated Press. When police arrived at the scene, they found paramedics trying to revive 29-year-old Reeva Steenkamp, the AP reported.

At a news conference early today, police said Pistorius was arrested and had requested that he be taken to court immediately.

PHOTOS:
Paralympic Champion Charged with Murder

Mogale said the woman died at the house, and a 9-mm pistol was recovered at the scene and a murder case opened against Pistorius, the AP reported.

Police said this morning that there were no other suspects in the shooting, and that Pistorius is at the police station.

Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images; Mike Holmes/The Herald/Gallo Images/Getty Images

Oscar Pistorius: Double Amputee Going to Olympics Watch Video

Valentine's Day Is All About the Men in Japan Watch Video

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said Pistorius' hearing will be Friday at 9 a.m. local time. His court hearing was originally scheduled for this afternoon but has been postponed to give forensics investigators time to carry out their work, NPA spokesman Medupe Simasiku said.

The precise circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear. Local reports say he might have mistaken her for a burglar, according to the AP.

VIDEO: Double Amputee Races to Win Olympic Gold

Police said they have heard reports of an argument or shouting at the apartment complex, and that the only two people on the premises were Steenkamp and Pistorius.

Police confirmed there have previously been incidents of a domestic nature at the home of Pistorius.

Pistorius, a sprinter, had double below-the-knee amputations and a part of his legs has been replaced with carbon fiber blades. In 2012, he became the first double-leg amputee to participate in the Olympics, competing in the men's 400-meter race.

He also competed in the Paralympics, where he won gold medals in the men's 400-meter race, in what became a Paralympics record. He also took the silver in the 200-meter race.

Steenkamp, according to her Twitter bio, is a law graduate and model. She tweeted Wednesday, "What do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow??? #getexcited #ValentinesDay."

Steenkamp recently appeared on the cover of FHM magazine, in commercials and was due to appear on a reality-TV show, "Tropika Island of Treasure."

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US begins to batten down the cyber hatches at last

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

(Image: Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images)

It's not often that a US government spokesman is left speechless. But when we called the Department of Homeland Security in September 2009 to ask them about the fact that Chinese engineers had published details on how to bring down the US power grid, the initial silence down the line spoke volumes about the gravity of the matter.

Now President Barack Obama has decided to do something about the severe cyberthreat posed to critical US infrastructure, from power grids to gas pipelines, water reservoirs, dams and the telecommunications networks that underpin both commerce and, indeed, our digitally dependent lifestyles.

"Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions and our air-traffic control systems, we cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing," the president said in his State of The Union address last night.

So in an executive order he signed yesterday, Obama instructed companies running critical US infrastructure to join an experimental programme in which they will share threat information with each other and with government on the kind of cyberattacks they are dealing with day to day. The broad-brush aim will be to develop meaningful - and agile - defences that can be used across different infrastructure types, with standards agreed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The order will enforce a new level of collaboration between the US director of national intelligence (who runs the 16 intelligence-gathering arms of the government), the Department of Homeland Security and the firms at the helm of essential utilities. Details are scant - the US Department of Commerce is expected to reveal more later today - but a White House fact sheet says that one thorny complicating factor will be the "multinational ownership" of many such firms, making information-sharing potentially risky.

Obama's move echoes the situation in the UK, where GCHQ - the latter-day heirs of Alan Turing's Bletchley Park codebreakers - work alongside the Ministry of Defence and the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure to identify infrastructural and criminal cyberthreats, with the aim of giving "the UK the balance of advantage in cyberspace". However, a UK National Audit Office report issued this week revealed that the UK's chronic cyber-skills shortage (the last government taught schoolchildren Excel and PowerPoint instead of computer programming, Google famously noted) will make it tough to fight the online battle adequately for at least 20 years.

This is a particular shame in the light of the fact that the digital forensics experts at the CrySys Lab in Budapest, Hungary, last week revealed that it is indeed possible to reprogram the powerful Stuxnet, Flame and Duqu malware packages that were released to - among other unknown infrastructure targets - attack Iran's nuclear programme. And who oversaw the release of these potent cyberweapons that anyone can now reprogram? Step forward, Barack Obama.

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