FCC chairman urges FAA to revise in-flight iPad rules

No, it doesn’t make any sense that you have to turn off your iPad or Kindle during airplane landings, and now the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to see that change. In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski urged the agency to “enable greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable devices” on flights, The Hill reports. Genachowski went on to say that letting passengers use their devices more during flights is important because “mobile devices are increasingly interwoven in our daily lives” and that they “enable both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

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Springsteen, Alabama Shakes top Rolling Stone’s 2012 best music

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen and newcomer blues-rock band Alabama Shakes landed the top awards in Rolling Stone magazine‘s annual list of the year’s best music on Friday, which featured many of next year’s leading Grammy nominees.

Springsteen‘s 17th studio album “Wrecking Ball” topped the magazine’s list of best albums, with the magazine calling it “rock’s most pointed response to the Great Recession.”

Springsteen, 63, came in ahead of hip hop artist Frank Ocean‘s debut “Channel Orange” at No. 2 and former White Stripes front man Jack White‘s debut solo effort, “Blunderbuss” at No. 3, in the annual list selected and compiled by Rolling Stone editors.

Springsteen, Ocean and White all landed Grammy nods, which were announced earlier this week.

The rest of the top ten albums included Bob Dylan’s “Tempest,” Green Day’s “¡Uno!,” Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Psychedelic Pill,” Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” and Fiona Apple‘s “The Idler Wheel is Wiser…”

“Hold On” by newcomer blues-rockers Alabama Shakes was named the top song of the year, beating off popular tracks by Ocean, White, Springsteen, Dylan and Kanye West in the top 10.

While both the albums and songs lists were dominated by rock and rap artists both old and new, country-pop star Taylor Swift was a surprising entry at No. 2 on the best songs list with her infectious chart-topping hit song “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

Rolling Stone described the song, which landed a Grammy nod for record of the year, “a perfect three-minute teen tantrum about country girls getting mad at high-strung indie boys.”

Pop-rockers Passion Pit’s “Take a Walk,” Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You” and Young and Crazy Horse’s “Ramada Inn” rounded out the top five songs.

Rolling Stone‘s full list of 2012′s 50 best albums can be viewed at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-albums-of-2012-20121205 and the 50 best songs at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-songs-of-2012-20121205

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Aspirin may help older colon cancer patients live longer

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Older adults with colon cancer who were prescribed a daily aspirin were less likely to die than those who weren’t, according to a new study.

While the results need to be confirmed with more rigorous studies, they add to the evidence linking aspirin use to longer survival for cancer patients. Studies have also suggested the inexpensive drug can prevent some types of the disease from occurring in the first place.

Medical guidelines currently endorse the use of low-dose aspirin to prevent heart disease, but not to fight or prevent cancer.

The new study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, included more than 500 colon-cancer patients in the Netherlands aged 70 and older. More than 100 were prescribed daily low-dose “baby” aspirin for heart protection after their cancer diagnosis.

Between 1998 and 2007, the death rate for those prescribed aspirin was about half that of the non-aspirin users. The effect was biggest in people with more advanced cancer and in those who received no chemotherapy.

Anything that might improve survival in elderly adults with colon cancer would be welcome, since there is no consensus on whether to use chemotherapy in those patients, according to the study.

Previous studies have also associated aspirin use with increased survival. Research published in October in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that aspirin therapy could extend survival for colon cancer patients whose tumors had a specific genetic mutation.

Still, more scientifically rigorous randomized controlled trials will be needed to confirm the findings of studies that are based on observation after the fact, and therefore less definitive about what actually causes the effect seen.

“We’re pretty sure this is a real effect, but we’re not sure of the magnitude,” said Dr. Gerrit Jan Liefers of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, an author of the new study. He said he didn’t expect randomized trials would show such a large survival advantage. Liefers is working to develop such a trial in the Netherlands.

One limitation of the study is that it looked at aspirin prescriptions, not actual use of the drug. (Low-dose aspirin for heart-disease protection isn’t available over the counter in the Netherlands.) It’s possible that heart benefits from aspirin might have helped the patients live longer, but the study authors said that alone couldn’t account for the big difference in death rates. Also, there might be differences between the groups unaccounted for by researchers that led to the improved survival among the aspirin users.

Liefers said it’s not completely clear how aspirin might combat colon cancer. One likely route: blocking the enzyme cyclooxygenase-2, or COX-2, which is involved in inflammation and is expressed in about 70 percent of colon tumors.

Boris Pasche, director of the hematology and oncology division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said it would be helpful to figure out who would benefit from and who could skip daily aspirin.

“It’s a fairly benign drug, but it has side effects,” including bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract and the brain, Pasche said.

He said patients should discuss with their physicians whether it makes sense to take aspirin at this point. “This supports the concept, but we need a prospective randomized trial,” he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TFEnSF Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, online November 23, 2012.

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Rent a Satellite and Do Science in Space

The size of a typical satellite ranges from small car to truck. The cost ranges from $ 500 million to $ 2 billion. And the weight goes from 1,000 pounds on up to a couple of tons. So these are pretty big devices, and they tend to hang around in space for 10 to 20 years.

When Peter Platzer, a high-energy physicist, looks up at the sky and thinks about these devices, his mind drifts back to the 1960s and the era of mainframe computers. He sees large, expensive machines that perform a limited set of functions for a limited set of customers. But he believes that the technology now exists to change this equation and make a smaller satellite that people can tweak to handle all kinds of tasks.

To back up his vision, Platzer last year started NanoSatisfi. It’s a tiny company operating for the moment out of a warehouse in San Francisco—part of the Lemnos Lab collective—that’s putting together a nano satellite people can rent. The satellite that NanoSatisfi intends to shoot into space is shaped like a cube and weighs a few pounds at the most. It’s packed full of dozens of sensors, including cameras, a Geiger counter, a spectrometer, and a magnetometer, all of which talk to open-source Arduino computer controllers that can be remotely programmed from Earth.

Platzer expects students, hobbyists, and researchers to rush at the chance to create experiments that can run on NanoSatisfi satellites. His team has written software that lets people test their applications on a practice satellite and then upload their programs to the real thing. The company plans to rent time on its satellites for about $ 250 per week and can have multiple people using the device at the same time. “Each satellite can support about 4,000 customers over a five-month period,” Platzer says.

Through a company called NanoRacks, NanoSatisfi has bought space for a pair of satellites that will go up next year on rockets that are resupplying the International Space Station. All told, NanoSatisfi expects to spend well under $ 1 million to build its satellites, get them in space, and operate them for two years, at which point the satellites will drift back toward Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

The NanoSatisfi work is getting under way at a time when the U.S.’s aging satellite system, used for things like monitoring the weather, has come in for criticism. “I think small satellites could be a true alternative here,”  Platzer says.

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Ghana election, test of democratic reputation

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Voters in Ghana were selecting their next president and a 275-seat parliament in elections Friday, solidifying the West African nation‘s reputation as a beacon of democracy in the region.

Some 14 million people are expected to turn out. President John Dramani Mahama, in office for only five months, is running against seven contenders. A former vice president, Mahama became president in July after the unexpected death of former President John Atta Mills. The 54-year-old is also a former minister and parliamentarian and has written an acclaimed biography, “My First Coup d’Etat.”

His main challenger is Nana Akufo-Addo, a former foreign minister and the son of one of Ghana’s previous presidents. The contender lost the 2008 election to Mills by less than 1 percent. Both men are trying to make the case that they will use the nation’s newfound oil wealth to help the poor.

Ghana, a nation of 25 million, is one of the few established democracies in the region as well as the fastest-growing economy. But a deep divide still exists between those benefiting from the country’s oil, cocoa and mineral wealth and those left behind financially.

In an interview on the eve of the vote, Akufo-Addo told The Associated Press that the first thing he will do if elected is begin working on providing free high school education for all. “It’s a matter of great concern to me,” he said, adding that he plans to use the nation’s oil wealth to educate the population, industrialize the economy and create better jobs for Ghanaians.

Policy-oriented and intellectual, Akufo-Addo is favored by the young and urbanized voters. He was educated in England and comes from a privileged family. The ruling party has depicted him as elitist, which Akufo-Addo calls “a little PR construct.”

“The idea that merely because you are born into privilege that automatically means you are against the welfare of the ordinary people, that’s nonsense,” he said.

Ghana had one of the fastest growing economies in the world in 2011. Allegations of corruption against the ruling party are rife.

Akufo-Addo said that if elected, he would not be able to weed out corruption in the government overnight.

“It’s a long fight,” he said. “But we build the institutions that can fight it.”

He said that in 30 years in politics he has never been accused of corruption.

Many analysts believe Mahama and Akufo-Addo are neck-and-neck.

Results are expected to be announced by Sunday, but could be delayed. If no one wins an absolute majority, a second round of voting will be held on December 28.

All candidates have signed a peace pact and have promised to accept the results of Friday’s poll.

Ghana, a nation of 25 million, has previously held five transparent elections in a row. Nearby Mali, which was also considered a model democracy, was plunged into chaos this March following a military coup.

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Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse contributed to this report from Accra, Ghana.

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Firm says first BlackBerry 10 phone to debut in March, QWERTY phone won’t launch until June

Research In Motion (RIMM) is gearing up for a series of make-or-break releases that could be considered the most important device launches in the company’s history. Everything is riding on the success of the RIM’s BlackBerry 10 platform, which will be unveiled in its finished state on January 30th next year. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is on record confirming that BlackBerry 10 will launch in the first quarter and company COO Kristian Tear previously stated new BlackBerry devices will be available “not too long after” the platform is unveiled late next month, but exact timing is still a mystery. According to Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton, however, RIM’s first two BlackBerry 10 handsets won’t launch until March and June, respectively.

“RIM’s stock has been on a tear recently thanks to a number of upgrades and optimism surrounding its upcoming BB10 platform,” Detwiler analysts wrote in a note to clients picked up by Forbes. “However, as we dig a little deeper, there appears to be a few issues that could set up for some disappointing numbers in the 2013 first half.”

The firm goes on state that AT&T (T) and T-Mobile will launch the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone some time in March, while Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Sprint (S) are targeting May launches. Detwiler also states that the second BlackBerry 10 smartphone, which will feature a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard, might not launch until June.

“Therefore, it is possible RIMM’s February quarter may only see a very small number of BB10 sales with the May quarter also coming in light due to limited QWERTY keyboard shipments and limited shipments to Sprint and Verizon,” the firm continued. “It’s our opinion RIM will ship approximately 400,000 BB10 units in the February quarter and 2.2 million to 2.5 million units in the May quarter. While this is clearly a North American / developed market view, we think this is the right way to look at the 2013 first half because the initial BB10 handsets are higher end and not targeted for emerging markets.”

When asked to comment on the Detwiler note, RIM spokesman Nick Manning reiterated the company’s earlier position. ”Details of the commercial availability for BlackBerry 10 will be announced at the global launch events on January 30,” Manning said in a comment provided to BGR via email. “Our executives have made it clear that the touch screen device will be available shortly after launch with the physical keyboard version to follow shortly after that.”

BGR’s own sources were not able to provide details regarding the exact timing of RIM’s upcoming launches, however we are hearing from reliable sources that RIM’s QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry 10 smartphone will launch well ahead of the June timeframe mentioned by Detwiler.

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“Dancing with the Stars” Burke says voice fine after thyroid surgery

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Dancing with the Stars” co-host Brooke Burke said on Thursday that her surgery for thyroid cancer had gone well and that she had not lost her voice.

“Thank God it’s over. I’m clean, surgery went well & I can talk. Losing my voice was my biggest fear. Thx for all your prayers & light,” Burke said in a Twitter posting.

Burke, 41, a former winner of ABC-TV’s popular celebrity ballroom dancing competition, announced in November that she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

The surgery took place just over a week after the season finale of “Dancing with the Stars” on November 27. The mother of four has said it will leave her with a large scar across her neck.

The thyroid is a gland in the neck that produces hormones that regulate vital body functions, such as heart rate and blood pressure.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; editing by Philip Barbara)

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Obama takes “fiscal-cliff” campaign to middle-class

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama takes his “fiscal-cliff” campaign to the home of a family in Northern Virginia on Thursday to illustrate the impact of letting taxes go up on the middle class, as signs emerge that Republicans are contemplating a change in strategy in their battle with Democrats over deficit reduction.

With about three weeks remaining before steep tax hikes and budget cuts that comprise the so-called fiscal cliff are set to begin, the White House said Obama would visit the home of a family that responded to a presidential Twitter request for real-life stories about the burden of a tax increase on the middle class.

Northern Virginia is a suburban expanse across the Potomac River from the U.S. capital that includes some of the wealthiest counties in the United States as well as populous middle-class developments that have grown up over the past quarter century. Due to its proximity to the White House, the president often uses it as a setting for public relations efforts.

“A member of this family shared her story about how paying $ 2,200 more in taxes next year would impact them if Congress doesn’t act,” said a White House statement, which added that over 100,000 people responded to the Twitter request.

Obama and Democrats in Congress want the tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year to be extended for taxpayers with income below $ 250,000 a year, but not for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

In exchange, the president has said he is willing to consider significant spending cuts that include unspecified changes to “entitlement” programs such as Medicare, the government health insurance plan for seniors.

Republicans are holding out for an extension of all the tax cuts, but have become increasingly divided over the past two weeks about whether they can prevail in the face of Obama’s firm stance and Republican control of only the House of Representatives but not the U.S. Senate.

On Wednesday night, Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee hinted on PBS’ “Newshour” program that a change of strategy might be in the works.

“I think that there’s a lot of thinking about the best way to actually cause the president to actually come forth with a real plan” for deficit reduction that might break the deadlock, he said, adding that “it just isn’t” happening now.

“There’s movement in a lot of directions,” he said. “And so I do think Republicans are looking” at “what is the best way to get us in a place where we actually have the leverage.”

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

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South Africa military plane crashes in mountains

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A South African military aircraft on an unknown mission to an area near the village where former President Nelson Mandela lives crashed in a mountain range, officials said Thursday. It was unclear whether there were any survivors.

The Douglas DC-3 Dakota, a twin-propeller aircraft, had taken off from Pretoria’s Waterkloof Air Force Base on Wednesday night, said Brig. Gen. Xolani Mabanga, a military spokesman. On Thursday morning, soldiers found the wreckage of the airplane in the Drakensberg mountains near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal province, some 340 kilometers (210 miles) southeast of the air base, Mabanga said.

Mabanga said soldiers had been sent to the scene to look for survivors. Mabanga said he did not know what the mission of the aircraft was, though it had planned to land in Mthatha in the country’s Eastern Cape. Siphiwe Dlamini, a Defense Ministry spokesman, declined to immediately comment Thursday morning.

Mthatha is about 30 kilometers (17 miles) north of Qunu, the village where Mandela now lives after retiring from public life. South Africa‘s military remains largely responsible for the former president’s medical care. However, military officials declined to say whether those on board had any part in caring for Mandela.

In November, another South African military flight crash landed at Mthatha, sending several people to the hospital with injuries. However, at that time, the military denied that those on board had anything to do with Mandela’s care.

Mandela, 94, was imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against apartheid before becoming the nation’s president in the country’s first fully democratic vote in 1994.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

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Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday.

The company will spend more than $ 100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.

He told NBC in an interview to be aired late Thursday that only one of the existing Mac lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.

Higher-tech products are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.

Cheaper labor costs have been key in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to have move production to China, but with Chinese wage and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed in recent years.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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