Google pushes U.S. states to open public records

WASHINGTON (AP) -- By providing free consulting and some software, Google is helping state governments make reams of public records that are now unavailable or hard to find online easily accessible to Web surfers.
The Internet search company hopes to eventually persuade federal agencies to employ the same tools -- an effort that excites advocates of open government but worries some consumer-privacy experts.
Google plans to announce Monday that it has already partnered with four states -- Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia -- to remove technical barriers that had prevented its search engine, as well as those of Microsoft and Yahoo, from accessing tens of thousands of public records dealing with education, real estate, health care and the environment.
These newly available records will not be exclusive to the search engines owned by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.
Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of more than 65 watchdog groups that advocate greater government openness and accountability, lauded Google's efforts. Since the September 11 attack on the United States, many public agencies have tried to restrict certain data from the Internet due to concerns about national security.
Despite the obvious benefits of this Google initiative for those conducting Web searches, privacy advocates said they are worried about unintended consequences, cautioning that some records may contain personal and confidential information that should not be widely available.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said many public health and financial records should not necessarily be widely available because they often contain citizens' Social Security numbers. Such information should be redacted from records regardless of whether they're viewed online or in person at a government office, he said.
Rotenberg also said Google has a "checkered past" on privacy, noting that the company tracks Internet search users who access government data in order to target ads at them. EPIC recently filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission urging it to investigate Google regarding such activities, as well as its proposed acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick.
Officials from states partnering with Google are hopeful that the education and tools provided to them by the Mountain View, California-based company will make it easier for average citizens to navigate agency Web sites.
"Unless you had a master's degree in government administration, you probably wouldn't find the actual information you're looking for," said Chris Cummiskey, Arizona's chief information officer.
J.L. Needham, who manages Google's public-sector content partnerships, said at least 70 percent of visitors to government Web sites get there by using commercial search engines. But too often, he said, Web searches do not turn up the information people are looking for simply because government computer systems aren't programmed in a way that allows commercial search engines to access their databases.
Still, if users can't get the information they're looking for, they blame the search engine, not the government, Needham lamented. The remedy, which Google has been working on with state technology officers for roughly six months, is to create virtual roadmaps by which search engines can find the databases that store public records.
"We have a vested interest in ensuring that the results we provide in every area, including government services, are high quality, authoritative and trustworthy," he said. Google has had discussions with several federal agencies, including the departments of Education and Energy, about making their data easier to access, Needham said.
Not all government officials have responded favorably to Google's effort, Needham said, sometimes because they assume Google is trying to sell them a new service.
California's chief information officer, Clark Kelso, said he is concerned about the consumer-privacy issues raised by this initiative and he has directed all state agencies to redact Social Security numbers and other confidential information from documents that will now be available online.
Time Warner is the parent company for CNN.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: Sega serves an ace with 'Virtua Tennis 3'

What better way to unwind after a tough day at the office than by playing tennis against the likes of Roger Federer, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Andy Roddick?
You can -- virtually speaking, of course -- if you own a Microsoft Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3, and the latest sports title from Sega. In fact, the new "Virtua Tennis 3" looks so realistic that TV passers-by might think it's a televised match.
From the main menu, players can choose from a number of game modes: World Tour, where you can create your own player and begin to compete around the globe to achieve top ranking; Tournament, a five-match singles or three-match doubles game against computer-controlled players; Exhibition, a single match mode for one to four players on the same television; Court Games, a collection of 12 minigames for two to four players (including the fun arcade-style Alien Attack ); and Tennis Academy, a tutorial mode with training tips and challenges.
In the Xbox 360 version, the one played for this review, you also can engage in online matches with up to eight friends in cyberspace (via Xbox Live; $49.99 a year), but this option is curiously absent from the PlayStation 3 version. The PS3 version, however, offers "true" high-definition graphics (1080p support), though the Xbox 360 looks about as good.
Both games offer near photorealistic visuals with incredibly detailed players and courts, authentic "camera" angles and ultra-fluid animation.
Serving, lobbing, slicing and smashing the ball are fairly easy. You use the left analog stick to move the player around the court, anticipating where the ball will land and then pressing a button for the desired shot: A for topspin, B or X for a defensive slice or Y for a lob shot when the opponent is near the net.
After pressing the shot button, use the left stick again to determine the shot's direction. When playing doubles with A.I. (artificial intelligence) players, you can give offensive or defensive instructions to your computer-controlled partner with one of the four "trigger" buttons on the shoulders of the Xbox 360 controller.
The World Tour mode is the meat and potatoes of "Virtua Tennis 3," which lets players first build a male or female pro by selecting from hundreds of options for facial features and color, hair, height and weight, racket color and uniform, and even play style (left- or right-handed, backhand style and posture).
Then it's time to create a name and select a home base by rotating the world and picking a country. After that, it's game time: Travel around the world and take on competitors, view your tour calendar and read incoming e-mail from within the game (with advice from your coach and the odd, snarky remark from rival players).
As you win matches and master your volleys and footwork, you also can earn apparel and equipment and unlock other goodies.
The game contains 25 courts to play on (grass, carpet, clay or hard), in countries such as the United States, France, England, Australia, Argentina, Canada and Japan. It features 20 tennis stars, including Federer, Amelie Mauresmo, Roddick, Tommy Haas, Williams and Sharapova.
There's a lot to love about "Virtua Tennis 3" as Sega has served up a gorgeous and challenging tennis game with plenty of modes and customizability.

Schools say iPods becoming tool for cheaters

MERIDIAN, Idaho (AP) -- Banning baseball caps during tests was obvious -- students were writing the answers under the brim. Then, schools started banning cell phones, realizing students could text message the answers to each other.
Now, schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device. Devices including iPods and Zunes can be hidden under clothing, with just an earbud and a wire snaking behind an ear and into a shirt collar to give them away, school officials say.
"It doesn't take long to get out of the loop with teenagers," said Mountain View High School Principal Aaron Maybon. "They come up with new and creative ways to cheat pretty fast."
Mountain View recently enacted a ban on digital media players after school officials realized some students were downloading formulas and other material onto the players.
"A teacher overheard a couple of kids talking about it," Maybon said.
Shana Kemp, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said she does not have hard statistics on the phenomenon but said it is not unusual for schools to ban digital media players.
"I think it is becoming a national trend," she said. "We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology -- it keeps a lot of the problems down."
Using the devices to cheat is hardly a new phenomenon, Kemp said. However, sometimes it takes awhile for teachers and administrators, who come from an older generation, to catch on to the various ways the technology can be used.
Some students use iPod-compatible voice recorders to record test answers in advance and them play them back, 16-year-old Mountain View junior Damir Bazdar said.
Others download crib notes onto the music players and hide them in the "lyrics" text files. Even an audio clip of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" take on how a bill makes it through Congress can come in handy during some American government exams.
Kelsey Nelson, a 17-year-old senior at the school, said she used to listen to music after completing her tests -- something she can no longer do since the ban. Still, she said, the ban has not stopped some students from using the devices.
"You can just thread the earbud up your sleeve and then hold it to your ear like you're resting your head on your hand," Nelson said. "I think you should still be able to use iPods. People who are going to cheat are still going to cheat, with or without them."
Still, schools around the world are hoping bans will at least stave off some cheaters.
Henry Jones, a teacher at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, California, confiscated a student's iPod during a class and found the answers to a test, crib notes and a definition list hidden among the teen's music selections. Schools in Seattle, Washington, have also banned the devices.
The practice is not limited to the United States: St. Mary's College, a high school in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, banned cell phones and digital medial players this year, while the University of Tasmania prohibits iPods, electronic dictionaries, CD players and spell-checking devices.
Conversely, Duke University in North Carolina began providing iPods to its students three years ago as part of an experiment to see how the devices could be used to enhance learning.
The music players proved to be invaluable for some courses, including music, engineering and sociology classes, said Tim Dodd, executive director of The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke. At Duke, incidents of cheating have declined over the past 10 years, largely because the community expects its students to have academic integrity, he said.
"Trying to fight the technology without a dialogue on values and expectations is a losing battle," Dodd said. "I think there's kind of a backdoor benefit here. As teachers are thinking about how technology has corrupted, they're also thinking about ways it can be used productively."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Social-networking sites link Hispanic youth

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Indie rocker Eric Monterrosa checks his ElHood.com Web page at least three times a day, answering fans, surfing for other new Latin artists and keeping in touch with friends from his native Colombia.
ElHood is sort of a bilingual MySpace promoting the latest in Latin music, and for Miami-based Monterrosa, it has become a personal and professional lifeline. It is also the latest in a wave of Hispanic social-networking sites building links across the U.S., Latin America and Spain, all hoping to capture coveted advertising dollars.
"A lot of Latin artists are plugged in," Monterrosa said. "So if you want to find them it's easy. If you go to sites like MySpace, you have to go through all sorts of genres, types of music, and languages."
About 56 percent of Hispanics in the United States use the Internet, compared with 71 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 60 percent of non-Hispanic blacks, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But the number of Hispanics online jumps to 67 percent among 18- to 27-year-olds -- the group most likely to visit social-networking sites and one coveted by advertisers.
The online gathering spots allow users to post profiles and keep in touch with friends, as well as expand their circle of acquaintances. Ads and partnerships that help spread new music keep the sites afloat.
ElHood's easy-to-use tools make it a breeze for first-time surfers -- artists and fans -- who often mix Spanish and English in their profiles.
Other Hispanic sites to pop up in the last year or so include the entertainment-oriented Quepasa.com, the mostly English MiGente.com, and a Spanish version of the global networking site Hi5.com.
This week, News Corp.'s MySpace announced it's jumping into the market with a new Spanish-language site for U.S. Hispanics and a pan-regional site for Latin Americans.
Another site, Vostu.com, presents itself as an alternative to Facebook.com, where students post profiles of themselves visible to a mini-network of their college or high school classmates. A group of mostly Hispanic Harvard business students launched Vostu in February, targeting prep schools and universities across the Spanish-speaking world.
Dan Kafie, the 24-year-old Honduran native who co-founded Vostu, believes his site can compete with the larger ones because it's specially tailored to the needs of a relatively small but affluent group.
"There's similar types of sites, but they don't capture the cultural subtleties," Kafie said. "We thought there's an opportunity."
For example, Facebook has relied mostly on e-mail addresses provided by schools, something academic institutions in Latin America don't necessarily offer. Then there's the language issue. Some larger sites let users perform basic tasks in Spanish, but drill down and the more advanced tools are still in English.
Vostu takes extra security measures, a nod to concerns in countries where kidnappings are common. It limits the initial number of members on each school network to 100 people and requires additional checks for those seeking to join.
Because texting is especially popular among Latin American teens, the site also offers its own integrated version of instant messaging, Kafie said.
But are technology, culture and language enough to draw people away from MySpace, Facebook or Google Inc.'s YouTube?
These days, Hispanic youth in the U.S. are already creating their own communities in mainstream sites. Students in California recently used a section of MySpace to organize walkouts to push for the creation of a federal holiday honoring farmworker advocate Cesar Chavez.
Tamara Barber, a Forrester Research analyst who focuses on Hispanic consumer technology, believes the smaller Hispanic social-networking sites can compete, even with MySpace stepping into the ring.
"I don't think MySpace in Spanish is going to put all these sites out of business," she said. "The Hispanic market online is largely untapped. The fact that MySpace is coming out right now shows that Hispanics are a significant opportunity."
ElHood co-founder, Argentinean-born wunderkind Demien Bellumio is already tapping. The 30-year-old, bicultural, tech-savvy hipster represents exactly the demographic his site targets.
Bellumio talks in rapid-fire -- English or Spanish, you choose -- about his company, Hoodiny Inc., which owns the site. Thanks to a deal with the Warner Latin America label, Hoodiny also offers complete artist catalogues online and develops Web sites for top artists such as Mexico rockers Mana, Miami-based rapper Pitbull and Ricky Martin.
To Bellumio, it makes sense that the social-networking sites would be among the first Internet sites to successfully market to Hispanics.
"Music is a huge part of our culture. And people are looking for a way to come together," Bellumio said. By tracking the demographics of his users for record labels and artists, he also provides important marketing data that other, larger sites do not.
Monterrosa, who performs under the name Monte Rosa, believes there's growing need for services targeting the Latino population in the United States.
"More young people come to this country and don't have a family," Monterrosa said. "They are here to strive or to study and they need contacts. They don't have money to go to shows or clubs, but they can reach out to people who also like the same things," he said. As for those in Latin America, they can connect with music and youth scenes that are difficult to find outside the big cities.
To succeed in the long term, the sites will need to meet the expectations of a new breed of Hispanic Internet users, said Richard Chabran, head of the nonprofit California Community Technology Policy Group, which has studied Hispanic use of the Internet.
"The youth, they want it to be fast. They want it to be hip, and they want to see themselves in it -- but not just themselves," he said. "People who are serious about the Hispanic market realize that if you put up a site in Spanish and it's not done well, they're going to get you."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Jobs: Apple customers not into renting music

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs indicated Wednesday he is unlikely to give in to calls from the music industry to add a subscription-based model to Apple's wildly popular iTunes online music store.
"Never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it," Jobs told Reuters in an interview after Apple reported blow-out quarterly results. "The subscription model has failed so far." (Full story)
His comments come as the company he co-founded gears up for contract renewal negotiations with the major record labels over the next month.
Since Apple launched iTunes in 2003, it has sold more than 2.5 billion songs and now offers increasing numbers of television shows and movies.
Many in the music industry hope iTunes will ultimately start, in effect, renting music online, so record companies can make more money from recurring income. But Jobs said he had seen little consumer demand for that.
"People want to own their music," he said.
Industry executives and analysts told Reuters last week that they expect Apple to push for further concessions from record companies on selling music without copy-protection software known as digital rights management (DRM).
In February, Jobs urged all four major record labels to drop DRM, a move that some observers at the time said was sparked by the pressure Apple faces from European regulators to open the iPod/iTunes family to other technology platforms.
Already Apple, owner of the market-leading iPod digital media player as well as iTunes, has cut an early deal with EMI Group Plc, the third largest-record company, to sell music without copy protection software.
"There are a lot of people in the other music companies who are very intrigued by it," Jobs said of the move to sell songs without copy-protection software. "They're thinking very hard about it right now."
The Apple/EMI deal leaves Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment -- a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann -- and Warner Music Group Corp. in a tough spot, analysts say.
"We've said by the end of this year, over half of the songs we offer on iTunes we believe will be in DRM-free versions," Jobs said. "I think we're going to achieve that."
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Report: Attacks using Microsoft Office

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A rising number of cyberattacks are taking aim at specific individuals at critical government agencies and corporations using e-mails with corrupted Microsoft Office files, according to a published report.
USA Today reported that opening up one of the corrupted files that is attached to an e-mail relinquishes control of the PC without the user's knowledge. The cyberattacks are targeting federal agencies and defense and nuclear contractors, according to the report.

Security firm MessageLabs says it has been intercepting a series of attacks from PCs in Taiwan and China since November, the paper reports. In early 2006, there were one or two such attacks a week, but by March MessageLabs intercepted 716 e-mails carrying corrupted Office files. They were sent to 216 different agencies and companies, according to the paper.
"The attacks are working," Alan Paller, research director at security think tank The SANS Institute, told the paper. "Penetrations are deep and broad."
The Office file attacks are "very targeted and very limited," Mark Miller, director of security response for Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500), told the paper.
Microsoft warns of security holes

How the Wii is creaming the competition

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- A year ago it looked like game over for Nintendo's storied console business. The Kyoto-based gamemaker--whose Nintendo Entertainment System ushered in the modern age of videogames--was bleeding market share to newer, more powerful systems from Sony and Microsoft.
Even as the videogame business grew into a $30 billion global industry, Nintendo saw its U.S. hardware sales shrink to almost half of what they had been nearly 20 years earlier.

Today, as anybody within shouting distance of a teenager knows, Nintendo is the comeback kid of the gaming world. Instead of joining Sony (Charts) and Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) in the arms race to pack their consoles with ever-higher-performance graphics chips (to better attract sophisticated gamers), Nintendo built the Wii--a cuddly, low-priced, motion-controlled machine that broke the market wide open by appealing to everyone from grade-schoolers to grandmas.
Unorthodox? Maybe. Effective? You bet.
The Wii is a pop culture smash of such dimensions that Nintendo still can't make consoles fast enough. Even so, it's outselling Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360--at least since January. (The Xbox had blowout pre-Christmas sales.) And while its competitors lose money on every console they build, expecting to make it back selling high-margin games, the Wii was designed to sell for a profit from the get-go.
Nintendo blows by forecasts
Nintendo's turnaround began five years ago, when the company's top strategists, including CEO Satoru Iwata and legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, zeroed in on two troubling trends: As young consumers started careers and families, they gradually cut back on game time. And as consoles became more powerful, making games for them got more expensive.
Studios thus became more conservative, putting out more editions of Madden NFL and fewer new, inventive games that might actually grow the market.
Iwata and Miyamoto eventually concluded that to gain ground, Nintendo would have to do something about the game controllers, whose basic design had hardly changed since the first NES paddles. Changing how the controllers interacted with the consoles would mean changing how engineers designed a system's electronics and casing and eventually the games themselves.
The first product to test the new strategy was not the Wii but the DS handheld game system, released in 2004. To appeal to a broader audience, Nintendo abandoned the kid-friendly Game Boy name it had given its other popular handhelds, while building in Wi-Fi networking, voice recognition, and two touch-screens.
The idea was not to load the DS with technology but to help draw in new gamers by offering options other than the old button-based controls. Some DS games would work through the tap of a pen and simple voice commands.
The trouble with gee-whiz gadgets
The $150 gadget got off to a tepid start. Until gamers tried it, they tended to be wary. "People thought it was weird," says Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo of America. "It took about two years for people to warm up to it."
But warm up they did, largely thanks to Miyamoto. The creator of Nintendo's blockbuster franchises--Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda-- offered up Nintendogs, a Tamagotchi-like simulation in which players use every feature of the DS to nurture virtual puppies. The game struck a chord with female gamers in particular, says John Taylor, an analyst at Arcadia Research.
During the first holiday season after Nintendogs hit the market, Nintendo sold 5.6 million DS units--a standout performance that was nearly twice its total for the rest of the year.
Soon after Nintendogs, the company released Brain Age, a game designed for more mature players in which they solve a series of puzzles by filling in answers or speaking phrases aloud. "That further bolstered the market by attracting older boomers and even senior citizens," Taylor says. The DS surge encouraged Nintendo executives, who saw their strategy to grow the market taking shape.
They wouldn't have to wait long to put it to a bigger test. Work had already begun on the console, code-named Revolution, that would become the Wii.
Club Penguin, Webkinz corner the tween market
Nintendo's top strategists knew early on that they wanted to build a machine with a wireless, motion-sensitive controller. But equally important was the chip that would be the brains of the Wii console itself. The more powerful processors that Sony and Microsoft were using would make the screen action look better but would also guzzle more electricity.
What if Nintendo used a cheaper, lower-power chip instead? After all, the DS, with its efficient mobile processor, had already proven that you could create new gaming experiences without the fastest chips. A low-power chip also meant that the machine could be left on overnight to download new content.
It was settled: The design team made the risky decision to build the Wii around a chip similar to the one that powered the GameCube, an earlier Nintendo entry that posted disappointing sales. If the Wii succeeded, it wouldn't be on the strength of breathtaking graphics.
Next, engineers settled on a new approach for the Wii's looks. Just as the DS shunned the Game Boy name to appeal to a broader audience, the Wii would adopt a sleek white exterior instead of the toylike loud colors used on the GameCube. Even CEO Iwata got involved in the design process; at one point he handed engineers a stack of DVD jewel cases and told them the console should not be much bigger.
Why so small? To work with the motion-sensitive wireless controller Nintendo planned, Iwata reasoned, the console would have to sit directly beside the TV. Make it any larger and customers would hesitate to leave it there.
Videogames get real
While the console team worked on the shell, Miyamoto and another team perfected the controller. He was determined that its design be as simple as possible--he insisted on several revisions that enlarged the "A" button to make its importance obvious.
When design work was done, players could arc the Wii remote to throw a football in Madden NFL 07, tilt it to steer off-road vehicles in Excite Truck, and swing it to play sports like Wii tennis and baseball. Market tests suggested that the product was everything its designers hoped: engaging enough that nongamers might give it a go, and simple enough that newbies could quickly get up to speed.
Finally it came time for Nintendo to market the Wii to the world. In addition to its standard TV campaigns targeting schoolkids, the company pumped 70 percent of its U.S. TV budget into programs aimed at 25-to 49-year-olds, says George Harrison, senior vice president for marketing at Nintendo of America.
He even put Wii ads into gray-haired publications like AARP and Reader's Digest. For Nintendo's core users, he took a novel, Web-based approach: "To reach the under-25 audience," he says, "we pushed our message through online and social-networking channels" including MySpace.
But Nintendo's most effective marketing trick was to give away its killer app, Wii Sports, with every $250 console. It was a calculated attempt to speed up the process that brought success to the DS. And because Nintendo makes about $50 in profit on every Wii sold, it can afford to give away a game.
To be sure, not everything has gone according to plan. Although Nintendo shipped more than 3 million Wiis in 2006, supply-and-demand problems have plagued the machine since its launch. Demand continues to outpace supply and may continue to do so until summer.
It's a problem many businesses wouldn't mind having, but it means that Nintendo might be leaving money on the table--something no company can afford to do for long, not even the newly revived Nintendo.
John Gaudiosi is a freelance journalist in Raleigh, N.C.

China aims to further tame Web

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday launched a campaign to rid the country's sprawling Internet of "unhealthy" content and make it a springboard for Communist Party doctrine, state television reported.
With Hu presiding, the Communist Party Politburo -- its 24-member inner council -- discussed cleaning up the Internet, state television reported. The meeting promised to place the often unruly medium more firmly under propaganda controls.
"Development and administration of Internet culture must stick to the direction of socialist advanced culture, adhere to correct propaganda guidance," said a summary of the meeting read on the news broadcast.
"Internet cultural units must conscientiously take on the responsibility of encouraging development of a system of core socialist values."
The meeting was far from the first time China has sought to rein in the Internet. In January, Hu made a similar call to "purify" it, and there have been many such calls before.
But the announcement indicated that Hu wants ever tighter controls as he braces for a series of political hurdles and seeks to govern a generation of young Chinese for whom Mao Zedong's socialist revolution is a hazy history lesson.
"Consolidate the guiding status of Marxism in the ideological sphere," the party meeting urged, calling for more Marxist education on the Internet.
The Communist Party is preparing for a congress later this year that is set to give Hu another five-year term and open the way for him to choose eventual successors. In 2008, Beijing hosts the Olympic Games, when the party's economic achievements will be on display, along with its political and media controls.
In 2006, China's Internet users grew by 26 million, or 23.4 percent, year on year, to reach 137 million, Chinese authorities have estimated.
That lucrative market has attracted big investors such as Google and Yahoo. They have been criticized by some rights groups for bowing to China's censors.
The one-party government already wields a vast system of filters and censorship that blocks the majority of users from sites offering uncensored opinion and news. But even in China, news of official misdeeds and dissident opinion has been able to travel fast through online bulletin boards and blogs.
Authorities have also launched repeated crackdowns on pornography and salacious content. The latest campaign against porn and "rumor-spreading" was announced earlier this month.
The meeting also announced that schools and sports groups would be encouraged to use healthy competition as a way to shape youth, the report said.
"Sports plays an irreplaceable role in the formation of young people's thinking and character, mental development and aesthetic formation," the meeting declared.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Yahoo sued for informing China on dissidents

NEW YORK (AP) -- A human-rights group sued Yahoo Wednesday on grounds the U.S. search company assisted China's communist government with torture by revealing information that led to the arrest of dissidents.
The World Organization for Human Rights USA is seeking unspecified damages and wants Yahoo to actively secure the release of any detainees.
The group said businesses that operate abroad need to be more aware of their responsibilities.
"They should not be participating actively in promoting and encouraging major human-rights abuses," said Morton Sklar, executive director for the Washington, D.C.-based organization.
Yahoo has acknowledged turning over data on its users at the request of the Chinese government, saying company employees face civil and criminal sanctions if they ignore local laws.
Without commenting directly on the federal lawsuit the human-rights group filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Yahoo spokesman Jim Cullinan said such a matter is "better suited for diplomacy than it is in the legal forum."
He said that although company officials are "distressed that citizens in China have been imprisoned for expressing their political view on the Internet," Yahoo plans to keep offering services in China out of a belief the Internet can promote change and transform lives in that country.
Dissidents reluctant to join complaint
The lawsuit cites federal laws that govern torture and other violations of international law. Plaintiffs included jailed dissident Wang Xiaoning and his wife, Yu Ling, who was visiting San Francisco this week as part of the group's campaign.
Sklar said he knew of three other cases, but the dissidents were reluctant to join the complaint for fear of harm to their families living in China. Among those three dissidents is journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced in 2005 to 10 years in jail.
Part of the lawsuit's goal will be to determine how widespread Yahoo's assistance was, Sklar said, "and to stop this practice of U.S. corporations being complicit."
Yahoo rivals Microsoft and Google also have been accused of helping the Chinese government crush dissent in return for access to booming Internet markets, but only Yahoo has been accused of directly assisting in a dissident's arrest.
Google has offered a censored version of its popular search engine, while Microsoft shut down, at Beijing's request, a popular Chinese blog that touches on sensitive topics such as press freedoms.
Activists, meanwhile, have criticized Cisco Systems for selling computer-networking equipment that could potentially be used to monitor Internet use.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Ms. Pac-Man,' 'Sudoku' join iPod games lineup

Apple's popular iPod mobile media device, with 100 million units sold since 2001, has evolved from a music machine to a digital photo album, video player and podcast platform.
Most recently, fifth-generation iPod owners have begun downloading games from Apple's iTunes Store for $4.99 apiece, ranging from tile and card classics, such as Mahjong and Texas Hold 'Em, to newer puzzle favorites Tetris and Bejeweled.
All family-friendly games are controlled using the iPod scroll wheel and are viewed on the iPod's 2.5-inch color screen. You can listen to music while playing a game.
Two new titles have just been added to the lineup -- "Ms. Pac-Man" and "EA Sudoku" -- bringing the total number of games to an even dozen.
Here's a look at each offering:
'EA Sudoku'
Now you can take all the fun of this wildly popular number puzzle with you wherever you go. If you haven't yet tried your hand at a game of Sudoku, the goal is to fill in the blank squares on a 9-by-9 grid with numbers -- but the catch is that each row and column must contain numbers 1 though 9, with no repeats.
What's more, the nine 3-by-3 boxes that make up the grid must also contain numbers 1 through 9. Sudoku puzzles start with some numbers in the grid so you can begin the deduction process to fill in the rest.
In "EA Sudoku" for the iPod, users turn the scroll wheel around to select a spot on the grid by pressing the middle button, before turning the wheel again to select a number from 1 through 9. If you're not sure which number goes in this square you can "pencil" in possible answers, such as a 6 or 7, which shows up in a smaller font.
"EA Sudoku," which offers a tranquil Japanese Zen garden theme, lets you choose the level of difficulty, including optional tutorial and help. It also lets players select how to navigate around the grid (scrolling or four-way touch, or both) and provides stats such as how long it takes to finish the game and total number of grids completed.
As an interesting feature, players also can enter a Sudoku puzzle from a publication in the Newspaper Mode to play on the iPod or help solve the puzzle with the computer's assistance.
'Ms. Pac-Man'
What better way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ms. Pac-Man, which first debuted in noisy arcades in 1982, than by having the game playable on your iPod?
You probably remember how to play "Ms. Pac-Man" -- move the hungry heroine around a maze so that she can eat all the dots to complete the level, but she must avoid the four roaming ghosts who are after her. If Ms. Pac-Man devours one of the four power pellets per level, the chase is temporarily reversed so she can eat the ghosts to gain points.
Complete with retro graphics, sound effects and the cute "coffee break" animations that reward you with between-level story sequences, "Ms. Pac-Man" is a somewhat faithful reproduction of the arcade hit -- down to the four unique maze designs and 256 levels. Players can choose to play in Original, Normal or Easy mode, select which stage they'd like to start at or learn the rules and controls with the optional tutorial.
But a word of warning: It may take a while to get used to the iPod scroll wheel to move the ghost-chomping Ms. Pac-Man around. You must gently tap the iPod wheel in one of four directions to move Ms. Pac-Man around -- and not press the buttons down, or else the game pauses to return to the menu screen.

Study: Teens protecting their profiles

NEW YORK (AP) -- Teens generally don't think twice about including their first names and photos on their personal online profiles, but most refrain from using full names or making their profiles fully public, a new survey finds.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project reported Wednesday that two-thirds of teens with profiles on blogs or social-networking sites have restricted access to their profiles in some fashion, such as by requiring passwords or making them available only to friends on an approved list.
The study comes amid growing concerns about online predators and other dangers on popular online hangouts like News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook, which encourage their youth-oriented visitors to expand their circles of friends through messaging tools and personal profile pages.
Social-networking sites have responded by offering users more controls over how much they make public and warning them about revealing too much.
According to Pew, fewer than a third of teens with profiles use their last names, and a similar number include their e-mail addresses. Only 2 percent list their cell phone numbers.
But 79 percent have included photos of themselves, with girls more likely to do so. Eighty-two percent use their first names, and half identify their schools.
"Teens are manifesting the tension between wanting to keep themselves safe online and wanting to share themselves with their friends and potentially make new ones," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist at Pew. "Teens, particularly girls and younger teens, have gotten the message about protecting themselves on social networks, but the fun of these networks is the ability to share yourself with others on them."
Dashiell Feiler, a 16-year-old high school junior, said he keeps his profiles open, but uses at most his first name and last initial. He said people who find him tend to be friends anyway, but he left off his full name as a precaution.
"I just thought I didn't want anybody to figure out where I live," he said.
According to Pew, 45 percent of online teens do not have profiles at all, a figure that contradicts widespread perceptions that the nation's youths are continually on MySpace. Lenhart said younger teens, in particular, tend to stay away, some because they fail to meet a site's minimum age requirements.
Most of the teens with profiles say they use the sites to stay in touch with existing friends. Only half of teens with social-networking profiles say they use the sites to make new friends.
A third of teens online say they have been contacted by strangers, not necessarily through social-networking sites. Of those, 21 percent say they responded to learn more about that person, and 23 percent say they felt scared or uncomfortable by the encounter.
The telephone study of 935 American youths, ages 12 to 17, and their parents was conducted October 23 to November 19 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Virtual vines grow on world wine web

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- David Dain Smith lives in Missouri, but his California winery is just a click away, waiting to spring to life in the dim glow of his computer screen.
Smith is making wine through Crushpad, a winery where the grapes are real but the experience is as virtual as members want it to be with e-mail updates, live chat and Web cams.
For Smith, a 49-year-old microbiologist working in pharmaceutical sales, the dream of making wine seemed like it would have to wait until retirement.
"Do you have $3 million sitting around? Well, I don't," Smith said.
He's now making Dain wines, to some acclaim, while keeping his day job.
At $5,000 to $10,000 to make the minimum one barrel a year, Crushpad costs more than stomping grapes in a garage. But it's far from the financial plunge of setting up a winery.
The meeting of technology and enology has democratized other areas as well, New York musician Lane Steinberg said.
Years ago, wine criticism was for a privileged few. Today, Steinberg is one of scores of keyboard connoisseurs who rate wines on his Red Wine Haiku Review Web site, which rates wine by poetry. ("Berry jangle jumps/Through a hoop of a sunrise/A swinger's breakfast" was his description of one pinot noir.)
San Francisco-based Crushpad was started by businessman Michael Brill after he noticed that neighbors were fascinated by the vines he planted in his backyard and realized there was a market ready to be tapped.
Members sign up to make at least one barrel of wine per year (300 75- milliliter bottles) and decide what style of wine they want and what grapes they want to buy from numerous suppliers available.
Winery staff keep their virtual vintners up to date with e-mails and Web postings. When the fruit comes in, Web cams show the crush, complete with live chat so viewers can question the workers, who respond to computers equipped with voice-recognition software.
Further along in the process, members can participate in blending and bottling decisions and design their own labels.
Staff, including Crushpad winemaker Mike Zitzlaff, are there to make sure enthusiasm doesn't triumph over experience.
"The client is never wrong, but there are varying degrees of wrongness," he explained.
Interaction isn't all by Internet. Several members take vacation time to take part in key events, such as bottling, or to just hang out.
Smith is one of those who visits often, but when he can't get out to California, "the Web cam is pretty neat."
He's got about 500 cases of wine in barrel this year and has even received a 92 (out of 100) rating from influential wine critic Robert Parker.
On the opposite side of the world, Australian winemaker Stuart Bourne sees online wine as a way to reach a big audience and shake some of the stuffing out of traditional venues in the process.
"Wine is not to be sat on a table and stared at," he said.
Bourne, winemaker at the Barossa Valley Estate winery in South Australia, recently held an online tasting in which tasters had been sent samples ahead of time so they could sniff and sip along.
Tasting at the computer just doesn't have the romance of cozying up to a tasting room bar, so Bourne took a deliberately informal approach.
When it came time to pour, he cheerfully told his unseen guests, "Why don't we have a bit of a snort?" -- which is something you almost never hear in Napa -- before going on to discuss the winery's 2003 E&E Black Pepper shiraz.
Live chat meant he could answer questions directly.
"It was an amazing experience to know that you can be sitting in Australia in front of a camera and know that around the world there's a whole lot of other people sitting there watching and participating with you," he said.
Still, having to be on camera at 4 a.m. to be in sync with tasters in the United Kingdom and North America led to a less than palatable pairing: toothpaste and wine.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Internet radio broadcasters dealt setback

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Internet radio broadcasters were dealt a setback Monday when a panel of copyright judges threw out requests to reconsider a ruling that hiked the royalties they must pay to record companies and artists.
A broad group of public and private broadcasters, including radio stations, small startup companies, National Public Radio and major online sites like Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, had objected to the new royalties set March 2, saying they would force a drastic cutback in services that are now enjoyed by some 50 million people. (Time Warner is also the parent company of CNN.)
In the latest ruling, the Copyright Royalty Board judges denied all motions for rehearing and also declined to postpone a May 15 deadline by which the new royalties will have to be collected.
However, they did grant leniency on one point, allowing the webcasters to calculate fees by average listening hours, as they had been, as opposed to the new system of charging a royalty each time every song is heard by an online listener. That exemption counts for last year and this year. After that, the new per-song, per-listener fee structure goes into effect.
Many webcasters say the sharply higher royalty fees will put them out of business. Talk of the ruling dominated a one-day meeting of Internet radio broadcasters being held in Las Vegas alongside the annual conference of the National Association of Broadcasters, a group representing local radio and TV stations.
N. Mark Lam, the CEO of Live365 Inc., a privately held company that aggregates audio streams from thousands of radio stations and other small webcasters, said that under the new royalty rules, "there is no industry."
Lam, who joined the venture capital-backed company about two years ago, said Live365 just barely broke even last year and had about 4.5 million unique listeners every month.
Also on Monday, several Internet radio broadcasters announced a campaign to raise awareness of the issue and encourage listeners to write to their representatives in Congress.
Small broadcasters have received relief from Congress in the past, benefiting from a law passed five years ago that gave them a break on royalty rates. The legislation allowed them to pay about 12 percent of their revenues instead of having to calculate per-song, per-hour rates like larger companies had to.
David Oxenford, a lawyer representing several webcasters, said the next step was likely an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but he noted that process could take at least a year. Meanwhile, he said, the prospects of successfully getting a court to block the decision of the royalty board judges is slim.
SoundExchange, a nonprofit group that collects the online royalties from webcasters and distributes them to record labels and artists, hailed the ruling in a statement and said it looked forward to working with Internet radio companies in order to ensure that the industry succeeds.
Jonathan Potter, the head of the Digital Media Association, which represents several large webcasters including Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN network, said his group was not currently in talks with SoundExchange but may be soon. He said his group and other webcasters would be turning to Congress, where he said he sees "a lot of legislative support."
The royalties in question only cover digital transmissions of music, and don't apply to terrestrial radio stations, as traditional radio play is seen as a benefit for record labels by promoting sales of recorded music. Both digital broadcasters and regular radio stations pay a separate royalty to the publishers and composers of music.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Google, Clear Channel In Pact To Sell Radio Ads

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- In Google Inc.'s (GOOG) latest foray into traditional advertising, the Internet giant will begin selling radio commercials on stations owned by Clear Channel Communications Inc. (CCU), the country's largest radio chain.
Under a multi-year partnership to be announced Monday, Clear Channel will set aside about 5% of the ad spots on more than 675 radio stations for Google to sell through its online-purchasing system.
The deal for the first time gives Google access to prime radio air time and popular major-market stations, marking an important step in Google's inroads into the $20 billion radio business. Beyond radio, the relationship also could be Google's most significant opportunity to date in its elusive efforts to extend online supremacy into traditional advertising markets.
For Clear Channel, the pact has the potential to tap thousands of Google's Internet ad partners who don't buy commercial airtime on radio. The relationship could be an important revenue source as traditional ad sales for over-the-air broadcasts stagnates amid competition for listener attention and marketing budgets.
The Google pact also adds a twist to Clear Channel's beleaguered private- equity buyout. The $19 billion sale is scheduled for a shareholder vote Thursday, giving Clear Channel investors just days to assess how the new relationship might affect the radio company's prospects.
Tens of thousands of advertisers already use Google's online-auction system to price, target and purchase ad sales across the Web, and the company has made no secret of its ambition to become a hub for advertising in newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Google last year started tests of ad sales on radio and in newspapers, and recently Google agreed to sell TV ad spots through satellite provider EchoStar Communications Corp. (DISH).
Early efforts have been mixed. Google has signed on prominent partners like the New York Times Co. (NYT) and has drawn new advertisers to existing media. Deals have been slow to deepen, however, as many media players remain unsure skeptical about Google's promises of driving up advertising rates and wary of a partner perceived to be eroding traditional media's foothold in advertising spending.
In one of Google's first offline targets, Google last December began a test program to create, target and sell radio ads using an automated-advertising platform. To supporters, Google has brought simplified ordering, lower costs and transparency to the arcane and clubby world of radio advertising.
So far, though, Google has been able to offer advertisers spots on roughly 900 of the 12,000 U.S. stations - too few to be a major player in radio sales. Most large radio companies, reluctant to undercut their own ad sales efforts or cede control over how advertising time is sold on their stations, also has given Google most "remnant" inventory, or commercial spots sold at the last minute at relatively low prices.
The deal with Clear Channel expands Google's push into radio. It nearly doubles the number of stations on which Google can sell ads, even as the radio giant is sheds about 450 of its current 1,100 radio stations. And, unlike Google's ongoing partnerships with radio chains such as Emmis Communications Corp. (EMMS), Clear Channel also has opened up ad slots at all times of day and across its stations in the country's biggest markets, including powerhouses such as KIIS-FM in Los Angeles and Z-100 in New York.
Drew Hilles, national director of audio sales for Google, acknowledged that media companies have been cautious about Google's "ambiguous" plans to spread into traditional advertising. He said, though, that the Mountain View, Calif., company wants to become a cherished supporter for media companies to draw more advertisers, and at the same time, provide Google's existing ad partners more venues to market their businesses. Hilles said he hopes eventually to open the Clear Channel partnership to Google's entire advertising base.
Clear Channel may be making a bigger leap than other radio companies, but it is still proceeding cautiously. The San Antonio company agreed to partner with Google only after several months of negotiations, and Clear Channel retains a broad measure of control over its ad sales. Google will focus primarily on advertisers who are new to radio, while Clear Channel's existing sales forces will maintain responsibility for the company's relationships with its most lucrative advertisers and complex ad packages.
Even with the tentative scope of the deal, John Hogan, president and chief executive of Clear Channel's radio operations, said he believes Google is key to broadening the advertiser base for radio, which should spur ad demand and in turn higher prices for commercials in an industry where ad rates largely have been stagnant.
"This is an opportunity to bring what we hope is a significant number of new advertisers to Clear Channel radio," Hogan said. "We feel we're putting the hottest sales organization in media today to work selling our radio stations."
Hogan is expected to join Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt Monday at a National Association of Broadcasters conference to announce the partnership. The companies expect Google-brokered ad sales to start at the end of June.
Clear Channel and Google declined to detail financial terms of their relationship, including how they would split revenue from ads Google sells. Radio industry executives have said Google expects to keep half the revenue from its brokered radio ads, though Clear Channel likely received a more favorable split.
Once the program is running, advertisers will bid for 30-second commercial spots through Google's online ad-buying system, which will be made compatible with Clear Channel's advertising-sales technology. Bidders can design a commercial and then specify the time of day a commercial will air, the station format and part of the country where the ad will appear - all without a sales representative. Advertisers will be able to choose whether they want ads to air in New York or Cincinnati, for example, but won't be able to pick individual radio stations for their spots.
If the radio advertising sales prove successful, Clear Channel eventually could give Google a greater slice of its commercial inventory.
For Clear Channel, the Google deal could introduce new advertising revenue at a time when growth in the industry overall is flat or slow as a tide of entertainment and information options keep consumers from tuning into radio as much as they used to.
At Clear Channel, which derives roughly half its revenue from radio and the other half from billboard advertising, radio revenue grew 6% last year, outpacing the industry as the company cut back on the amount of commercial time to push up ad rates.
The drain on broadcasting revenue and the public market's dissatisfaction with the radio industry were reasons the San Antonio-based company agreed to a $19- billion buyout last November from Bain Capital Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners L.P.
In recent months, key Clear Channel shareholders have derided the price of $ 37.60 a share as too low. For their part, the private-equity buyers have resisted raising the price because of concerns about the prospects of the radio industry.
It remains to be seen if the pact with Google can be a significant growth catalyst for Clear Channel's radio business, but the timing of the partnership could complicate the shareholder vote on the company's sale, which seems likely to be defeated at current terms. Hogan, though, said the Google deal was part of "business as usual" at the radio giant. "This is a partnership that has been in the work for a lot longer than the potential merger has been in the works," he said.
-By Shira Ovide, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5287; shira.ovide@dowjones.com

Robotic trio wins 'Super Bowl of Smarts'

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- After six weeks of strategy and sweat, a coalition of high school teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Nevada took the top prize at the FIRST Robotics competition, otherwise known as the "Superbowl of Smarts."
Bobcat Robotics from South Windsor, Connecticut, Highrollers from Las Vegas, Nevada, and Gompei and the HERD from Worcester, Massachusetts, won before thousands of screaming high-school participants.
"It was absolutely amazing. We had our ups and downs, but for the most part our robot performed flawlessly," said Colin Roddy of the Worcester team.
"We didn't expect to win at first, but it got better as the matches progressed," said Christopher Jelly from the Bobcat Robotics team.
A good arm is golden for a robot as well as a baseball pitcher.
"We have our arm that we were able to score pretty quickly with, to pick up the inner tubes off the ground," said Alex Sambvani of the Highrollers.
Building a good machine is not enough to make it to the final rounds. Team members had to scout other players to come up with a three-team coalition where there is strength in offense, defense and technique.
These young people had six weeks to perfect their machines. And they had the enthusiasm of any athletic competition. From tie-dyed shirts to human hair dyed in school colors, competitors from 23 countries showed that math, science and brains can provide a lot of excitement. (Watch why building robots is only part of the experience )
The students' creations are made with the same basic parts. Students must construct robots that can complete simple, and sometimes goofy, tasks -- such as shooting balls or stacking inner tubes.
Inventor Dean Kamen, best known as creator of the Segway transporter, began the competition in 1989 to rev up interest in math and science. "To sit passively in a classroom is a 19th-century format," Kamen said.
Ryan Gula of Milton High School in Alpharetta, Georgia, was hooked on the challenge after his first robotics club meeting.
"It's kind of like a puzzle that you have to put together, and you have to work with each group, to make sure everything fits together. And there's a lot of communication that way," said Gula, whose team made it to the final rounds of the larger FIRST robots.
Milton High adviser Suzy Crowe, a self-described geek and math teacher, said, "I don't think a lot of people think of science and technology as creative. There's nothing more creative."
Whether it is computer programming, wiring a motor or scouting rivals to develop strategy, students said the skills they develop often go beyond the contest. Clearly, the event has piqued the interest of major sponsors such as NASA, which will broadcast webcasts of the competitions.
"People look at robotics and think, yeah, it's just a big technology thing, and if you don't go into engineering, you're never going to use the stuff. Before I joined the club, I didn't know how to use a power drill," Milton senior Bryce Taylor said.
"It's just a simple skill that it's nice to know how to do it. I've learned a lot of stuff like that, that is going to stick with me for the rest of my life even if I don't go into something like engineering."
In its 18 years, FIRST has aimed at getting young women interested in technology careers. For Milton freshman Erin McPherson, it's working.
"When I came into eighth grade, I was more language-arts focused, and I thought that was what I wanted to do. I really didn't think I was very good at math or science, and then I started doing this, and pretty much my focus has shifted entirely," she said.
Now, she said, "I want to go to Georgia Tech and probably major in computer science or something like that."
Milton sophomore Stephanie Kosturik concentrated on checking out the competition during the preliminary battles.
"We sit in stands and take notes about all the groups, about whether they are offensive or defensive, what their strengths and weaknesses are," she said. "So if we get to a final in our competition and we can choose an alliance, we know who to choose that will work with us so we can win."
Robotics team members from Atlanta's Carver School of Technology set up a square playing field with goals at each corner. Their smaller Vex robot earned points by scooping up softballs and shooting them into goals.
In his first year with the robotics club, Thomas Hayes is captain of the "Hypnobots" team. A few days before the finals, he and other team members were doing some final tweaking.
"I want to be an engineer or a game designer, so this year I found out they were starting a robotics team," he said. "I was very excited. This is a very good opportunity for me to get 'hands on' and also see my creations at work."
It's the first year of coaching for Carver math teacher Regene Logan and biology teacher Kelsey Holec.
"They convinced me with their smiles and their stories from last year and just their dedication and their excitement about robotics," Holec said.
Figuring out glitches has led to some long nights and a real passion to build a better bot.
"They are taking engineering to a new level, " Logan said. "If they see something wrong, they take the initiative. They don't wait for someone to tell them to do something different."
Hayes said that not finishing first at one tournament turned out to be one of the best things that happened to the team.
"Our previous tournament, we came in second place. If we had won first, we would have sat down and said, 'Oh, our robot kicks butt, there's nothing else for us to do.' So second place made us sit down and realize what really was wrong and how to make a better robot," Hayes said.
One "Hypnobots" driver, team member Akanimo Effang, said he looked forward to meeting competitors from around the world as much as the competition itself
"Even though we feel that our robot is very efficient when scoring, and very maneuverable, our opponents are from around the world," Effang said. "We don't know what to expect."

Google Earth maps out Darfur atrocities

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- If you Google the word Darfur, you will find about 13 million references to the atrocities in the western Darfur region of Sudan -- what the United States has said is this century's first genocide.
As of today, when the 200 million users of Google Earth log onto the site, they will be able to view the horrific details of what's happening in Darfur for themselves.
In an effort to bring more attention to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has teamed up with Google's mapping service literally to map out the carnage in the Darfur region.
Experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million more have been displaced since the conflict flared in 2003, when rebels took up arms against the central Sudanese government.
The new initiative, called "Crisis in Darfur," enables Google Earth users to visualize the details in the region, including the destruction of villages and the location of displaced persons in refugee camps. (Interactive: See how the new technology works)
Elliot Schrage, Google's vice president of global communications and public affairs, joined museum director Sara J. Bloomfield to make the official announcement about the new feature.
"At Google, we believe technology can be a catalyst for education and action," Schrage said. " 'Crisis in Darfur' will enable Google Earth users to visualize and learn about the destruction in Darfur as never before and join the museum's efforts in responding to this continuing international catastrophe."
The Google Earth mapping service combines 3-D satellite imagery, aerial and ground-level maps and the power of Google, one of the Internet's most widely used search engines, to make the world's geographic information user friendly. Since its inception in June 2005, nearly 200 million people have downloaded the free program.
Using the high-resolution imagery of Google Earth, users will be able to zoom into the Darfur region for a better understanding of the scope of the destruction. (Interactive: See where Darfur is located)
More than 1,600 damaged and destroyed villages will be visible, as will the remnants of more than 100,000 homes, schools, mosques and other structures destroyed by the Janjaweed militia and Sudanese forces.
The Holocaust museum also has compiled a collection of photos, data and eyewitness testimony from its archives and number of sources, including the U.S. State Department, nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations and individual photographers. That material also will be available when Google Earth users visit the Darfur site.
The "Crisis in Darfur" initiative is the first of what is expected to be several collaborations between the museum and Google Earth to highlight the dangers of genocide around the world.
The museum also announced Tuesday the creation of a mapping project with Google Earth on the Holocaust, when Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II.
That project will use Google Earth to map key Holocaust sites, such as Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, Warsaw and Lodz with historic content from its collections to illustrate the enormous scope and impact of the Holocaust. Each place links to a featured article with related historical photographs, testimony clips, maps, artifacts and film footage.
"Educating today's generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth," Bloomfield said.
"When it comes to responding to genocide, the world's record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most."

First Amendment extends to MySpace, court says

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- A judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.
The three-judge panel on Monday ordered the Putnam Circuit Court to set aside its penalty against the girl, referred to only as A.B. in court records.
"While we have little regard for A.B.'s use of vulgar epithets, we conclude that her overall message constitutes political speech," Judge Patricia Riley wrote in the 10-page opinion.
In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.
The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.
A.B. appealed, arguing that her comments were protected political speech under both the state and federal constitutions because they dealt with school policy.
The Court of Appeals found that the comments were protected and that the juvenile court had unconstitutionally restricted her right of free expression.
There was no number for Shawn Gobert in publishing phone listings. The Associated Press left a message seeking comment Monday at Greencastle Middle School.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

New 3-D movies more than a gimmick

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- By the end of the decade, Darth Vader could be rattling sabers with his enemies above the heads of moviegoers, and Buzz Lightyear could be flying off the screen on his way to infinity and beyond.
A growing number of blockbuster, live-action films and animated movies are expected to be offered in 3-D in the next few years, as thousands of theaters around the country are outfitted with the special projectors and screens needed to show the films.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation SKG, is so gung-ho about 3-D that he has said his studio might start exclusively releasing movies in the format as early as 2009 with its "Monsters vs. Aliens" movie.
"For Memorial Day weekend 2009, I would like to see 3,800 locations and 6,000 screens that we can put our movie on. And if they are there, then we will be exclusive in 3-D," Katzenberg said at a recent investors conference.
So far, moviegoers have reacted positively to the few 3-D films that have been released in recent years.
"Meet the Robinsons" from The Walt Disney Co. debuted March 30, earning $25.1 million in its opening weekend.
More than a quarter of that revenue came from the 581 screens across the country that showed the film in 3-D, the company said. Those moviegoers were even willing to pay a few extra bucks to don special glasses and watch characters leave the screen.
A number of high-profile filmmakers have 3-D project in the works, including Peter Jackson, Robert Zemeckis and James Cameron.
Walt Disney Co. has released 3-D versions of three animated films and recently signed a deal with Zemeckis to produce more. The studio is also rumored to be making the sequel "Toy Story 3" in 3-D, a report the studio declined to confirm.
These days, 3-D films are more than just a gimmick.
For theaters owners and studios, the technology could be a lifesaver, luring people back to multiplexes for an experience that cannot be matched by sophisticated home theater systems or stolen by pirates with hidden camcorders.
The theater industry is also battling competition from video games and other alternative entertainment along with Internet downloads that will soon deliver high-definition films directly to homes.
Film exhibition companies looking to protect their business believe 3-D will boost revenue. Some industry executives think theaters can add as much as 50 percent to the cost of a ticket for a 3-D feature.
"If we can sell 10 percent to 15 percent of our tickets annually at a higher price point, that's a real mover of the needle," Mike Campbell, chief executive of Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater chain, said at the investors conference.
About 700 theaters across the country are now outfitted with 3-D technology, with thousands of others moving to spend the $17,000 needed to install the equipment.
Moviemakers, meanwhile, estimate that making a movie in 3-D can add as much as $15 million to the cost.
Today's 3-D technology is far more advanced than that used in the 1950s, the heyday of gimmicky 3-D films.
Previous 3-D systems projected two images on the movie screen, one for each eye. That required the use of red and blue lenses or even glasses with mechanized shutters that opened and closed quickly to separate the images.
With newer systems, moviegoers still need to don special glasses but not the cheap cardboard variety with blue and red lenses.
Instead, special polarized lenses will separate the stereo images projected on specially coated screens.
RealD, a Beverly Hills company, is the leader in modern 3-D with systems that will be operating on about 1,000 screens by the end of the year.
Its technology uses a special movie screen painted with a silver oxide to direct more light back to the viewer instead of scattering wavelengths the way normal screens do.
The theaters also use digital projectors that show movies stored in bits on a computer hard disk rather than traditional film.
Dolby Laboratories Inc. recently unveiled plans to market its own 3-D technology that would work with existing movie screens.
"The momentum is gathering, and I think this is probably the most exciting thing from a filmmaking and filmgoing experience that has happened in my time in the business," Katzenberg said. "There's nothing more compelling than this."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Google gag: Free Internet through your toilet

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Presiding over a company with a market value of $143 billion apparently gives Silicon Valley's most famous billionaires a good sense of humor -- and a case of corporate potty mouth.
Senior executives at Google Inc. launched their annual April Fools' Day prank Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing systems.
Code-named "Dark Porcelain," Google said its "Toilet Internet Service Provider" (TiSP) works with Microsoft Corp.'s new Windows Vista operating system. But sorry -- septic tanks are incompatible with the system's requirements.
The gag included a mock press release quoting Google co-founder and president Larry Page, a step-by-step online installation manual, and a scatological selection of Frequently Asked Questions. On some Google sites, the company's official logo -- a multicolored "Google" that changes according to the season and on holidays -- substituted a commode for the second "g."
"There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," Page said in the facetious statement. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and -- splat -- right onto your PC."
Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, called TiSP a "breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."
TiSP is the latest April Fools joke at the Mountain View, California-based company, where hijinks pervade cubicles all year long. In blogs, Google employees joke about the recent injection of green dye into milk in the cafeteria, while another talks about zany underlings filling the vice president of engineering's office with sand.
Eric Raymond, a software developer in Malvern, Pa., and author of the New Hacker's Dictionary, said TiSP nailed several important tenets of hacker humor.
The concept of free wireless access parallels a legitimate, four-year deal between Google and EarthLink Inc. to provide free wireless Internet service throughout San Francisco starting in early 2008.
As part of the spoof, Google said TiSP would be offered in three speeds: Trickle, The No. 2, and Royal Flush. That's a reference to "Net Neutrality," a big political battle over tiered pricing that Google and other e-commerce companies are waging in Congress against cable and telephone companies.
"The leitmotif of hacker humor is precise reasoning from utterly bizarre premises, and once you're in that groove, you're absolutely fearless about going deeper," Raymond said. "We also have a tendency to deliberately zigzag between highly intellectual humor and utter slapstick. The more zigzags you can manage in a single spoof, the funnier it is."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Turkey to block 'insulting' Web sites

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A parliamentary commission approved a proposal Thursday allowing Turkey to block Web sites that are deemed insulting to the founder of modern Turkey, weeks after a Turkish court temporarily barred access to YouTube.
Parliament plans to vote on the proposal, though a date was not announced. The proposal indicates the discomfort that many Turks feel about Western-style freedom of expression, even though Turkey has been implementing widespread reforms in its bid to join the European Union.
On Thursday, lawmakers in the commission also debated whether the proposal should be widened to allow the Turkish Telecommunications Board to block access to any sites that question the principles of the Turkish secular system or the unity of the Turkish state -- a reference to Web sites with information on Kurdish rebels in Turkey.
It is illegal in Turkey to talk of breaking up the state or to insult Ataturk, the revered founder of modern Turkey whose image graces every denomination of currency and whose portrait hangs in nearly all government offices.
Ataturk is held to be responsible for creating a secular republic from the crumbling, Islamic Ottoman Empire.
Several prominent Turkish journalists and writers, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, have been tried for allegedly insulting Ataturk or for the crime of insulting "Turkishness."
European calls for free speech have angered some nationalist Turks, who view the recommendations as interference in their internal affairs.
Last month, Turkey blocked access to the popular video-sharing site YouTube after a complaint that some videos insulted Ataturk. The ban was lifted two days later.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Tech-savvy marathons keep racers connected with fans

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Brendan Burke's cell phone was beeping within minutes of the start of his wife's marathon in San Diego. A text message arrived with her latest time as she crossed the six timing mats around the course.
It didn't matter that he was across the country at home in New Jersey.
Pushing to make the 26.2-mile races more friendly to fans and runners alike, marathon officials are increasingly offering free online tools to help spectators and loved ones back home track runners along courses that can span entire cities.
"At each point I could see what her time was and I would figure out her pace to see how she was feeling," Burke, 33, said of his wife's debut marathon in 2005. "It really gave me a sense that I was there running with her."
The systems aren't flawless, but they do help fans monitor runners via a Web site, a cell phone text message or e-mail.
No longer must family and friends take their best guesses and wait. And wait. And wait.
During the April 16 Boston Marathon, for instance, the curious can use their computers to check on the progress of up to five runners at a time. Last year, 10,232 Boston marathon runners, or about half, signed up for alerts, up from 9,836 in 2005.
In Chicago, meanwhile, fans can stop by participating Starbucks coffeehouses along the course and ask marathon volunteers with laptops to look up runners on the spot.
Runners are provided with radio-frequency identification chips that attach to shoelaces. As they cross large rubber mats along the course, a radio transmitter inside the chip sends a unique ID number to an antenna, which routes the information to a central database.
From there, depending on which options a runner has chosen, the information is sent to the cell phone or e-mail address on file. Elapsed time: two to four seconds.
Some races put restrictions on who can receive alerts but not on tracking runners online.
As Nadine Valco ran through the streets of New York last fall, her fan base followed her progress closely at home in Columbus, Ohio.
"My friends and family and co-workers were really encouraging with my training, but obviously with the expense and time of getting to New York, they couldn't be there," said Valco, who has run seven marathons. "But they could say, 'Cool, there she is at 5K."'
New York started using the chips seven years ago to track its runners for timing and online viewing of an athlete's splits. Today, transmitters send automatic updates to the address of your choice -- whether on a computer, cell phone or BlackBerry -- from 11 points along the course.
"We need to make our events as attractive, as exciting as possible to continue to meet the demands of the marketplace," said Richard Finn, New York City Marathon spokesman. "You've always got to keep on freshening up your event."
A series of triathlons sponsored by consulting firm Accenture sends automated voice updates from several points to spectators signed up for alerts. Last year, the marathon in Green Bay, Wisconsin, posted online splits for runners every mile.
One of the most tech-savvy races is the Houston Marathon, which started an alert system in 2001 and has since added an online map of a runner's progress, an elaborate post-race summary of a runner's results and video clips searchable by a runner's name.
Houston's offerings -- free with the $75 entry fee -- benefit participants while pleasing corporate sponsors because of high traffic on the marathon's Web site, spokesman Steven Karpas said.
The systems aren't foolproof. Running her first marathon in New York last year, Lara Kail registered her own e-mail address, her brother's cell phone and her aunt and uncle's e-mail.
Kail, 30, got the correct updates which she wanted for posterity's sake. But her brother received just one blank message. Her aunt and uncle: nothing.
"It was a little disappointing," the New York market researcher said. "Lucky for me, I had a good day, but what would have happened if I'd fallen way off my target and they had no clue where I was on the course?"
Keeping track of a runner can also be costly, a factor as race fees for some marathons top $100. Systems can cost $1 to $2 per runner -- charged as part of the entry fee -- or up to $20,000 for a marathon with 10,000 competitors.
Major vendors include chip company ChampionChip, of Nijmegen, Holland, and timing companies Active.com of San Diego and Mika Timing of Cologne, Germany.
After introducing text messaging in 2005, the San Diego and Nashville marathons didn't offer any alerts or online tracking last year because of the expense.
This year, both races plan an experiment with real-time tracking of phone-carrying runners via Global Positioning Satellite technology, and they may reintroduce traditional alerts and online tracking after turning to sponsors for help.
The updating adds a space-age twist to an event that legend dates to ancient Greece. The modern race started at the reborn Olympics in Athens in 1896, and early marathons consisted of a few dozen runners at best.
Today's larger races can feature 30,000 or more athletes, all having fans who want results quickly if not instantaneously.
Computer chips were introduced in the mid-1990s to replace results manually compiled from tags ripped from runners as they finished. They also serve as checkpoints as race directors hope to avoid fiascos like the 1980 Boston Marathon, where Rosie Ruiz was crowned female champion after jumping into the race less than a mile from the finish.
The biggest challenge is managing a complex system of electronics within a short amount of time, said Harald Mika, founder of Mika Timing, which times Chicago and about 200 other races a year.
"If you do have a problem, you'd better fix it within two minutes," he said.
In some cases, rubber mats aren't placed correctly; in other instances, a timing company doesn't send the information properly. Sometimes a phone company or e-mail service blocks messages as spam, although race officials try to notify companies that tens of thousands of e-mails may be coming on race day.
While the systems can misfire, sending blank or delayed messages, they can also work too well -- coldly updating friends with the details of a poor race.
That's a lesson Valco learned as stomach cramps slowed her time in New York. The chip, she realized, added insult to injury.
"Even while on the New York course I was thinking, 'Everyone in Columbus knows it just wasn't the race I had hoped it would be,"' she said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.