ET has your exclusive sneak peek at PSY's next big project!
Video: Stars Party Gangnam Style Backstage at AMAs
The Korean superstar will launch an out-of-this-world Super Bowl commercial Sunday, January 3, and we have your first look behind the scenes of the top-secret shoot this Wednesday.
Also tomorrow, inside Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey's American Idol feud! Plus, the deleted scene deemed too sexy for Twilight.
Sac bonuses
SAC Capital is raising bonuses for portfolio managers by 3 percentage points to help retain employees as the feds’ insider-trading probe moves closer to Stevie Cohen’s $14 billion hedge fund.
Watch it!
Broker Cantor Fitzgerald faces a possible credit downgrade from its BBB rating, Fitch Ratings said.
Curran caught
Mary Curran, an ex- UBS client, admitted to using Swiss bank accounts to hide more than $43 million in the largest individual offshore tax evasion case since a crackdown began in 2008.
Not so dreamy
Boeing shares slipped 2.6 percent to $74.13 after Japan Airlines had a Boeing Dreamliner towed back to a Boston airport gate when the jet leaked fuel while taxiing for takeoff to Tokyo, a day after a fire broke out on another 787 at the same airport.
Staying put
The city reached a tentative deal with the merchants who operate the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market in The Bronx to extend their lease by 10 years, Crain’s New York Business reported.
These days, smartphones are almost all drawing from the same bag of tricks, and it can be hard to tell one from the next. If the average smartphone will do all the basic things you want it to, what does it take to be special? Here are four smartphones with unusual features that really make them stand out.
Nokia Lumia 920
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 (Excellent)
The good: This phone forges new Windows Phone ground with wireless-charging support and a highly sensitive screen you can use with gloves. Moreover, Nokia helps fill in Windows Phone OS gaps with a few missing features.
The bad: A thick, heavy build and slippery finish for some colors make the Lumia 920 harder to hold and carry, and the phone’s overhyped camera doesn’t have enough settings.
The cost: $99.99
The bottom line: Nokia’s Lumia 920 is heavy and thick, but if you want the most powerful, feature-rich Windows Phone smartphone available, this is it.
Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 (Excellent)
The good: Oodles of screen real estate make this terrific for videos, games, and reading, and its improved stylus aids productivity. A blazing quad-core processor, a great camera and strong battery life round out the advantages of this Android 4.1 phone.
The bad: The huge display makes it unwieldy to carry, and hiccups in the S Pen stylus and apps can slow you down. The pricey Note 2 isn’t a suitable tablet replacement across all categories.
The cost: $149.99 to $309.99
The bottom line: Samsung delivers a powerful, boundary-pushing device that gets a lot right. Yet its complicated features and high price raise questions about its purpose.
Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD
Rating: 4 stars out of 5 (Excellent)
The good: This Droid (Verizon) offers fast performance, a big, eye-popping screen and luxurious design. It also has great call quality, lots of storage, 4G data speeds, and unbeatable battery life.
The bad: The major weakness is a camera that produces subpar images. The phone is filled with Verizon bloatware as well.
The cost: $149.99 to $299.99
The bottom line: Motorola’s fast, stylish Droid Razr Maxx HD offers outstanding battery life, but its camera captures unimpressive images.
Samsung Galaxy Beam
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 (Very good)
The good: An integrated pico projector, as well as a dual-core processor, 720p video capture and a 4-inch Super AMOLED screen.
The bad: The projection software needs some work, the 5-megapixel camera sometimes blurs indoor shots, and the Beam is thicker and heavier than many phones.
The cost: $474.49 to $839.99
The bottom line: Despite weak software, the Galaxy Beam’s bright projector pushes boundaries, and strong smartphone features make it a worthy standalone device.
Twice in the past year, state health administrators cut the number of hours caregivers assisted Alex Perez’s severely disabled son at his Westchester home. Both times, the child’s pediatrician was left wondering why the state had reduced the care he had prescribed for the boy.
On Monday, state Rep. Katie Edwards asked Perez if she had been “misled or misinformed” when state healthcare bosses told her that the company that reviews such prescriptions always speaks with family doctors to find a way to help parents.
“Yes,” Perez told Edwards at a town hall meeting in Sunrise for parents of disabled and medically fragile children Monday night.
Perez, whose 13-year-old son, Christian, suffers from cerebral palsy and failure to thrive, was one of a dozen parents and advocates who spoke to several lawmakers and other community leaders Monday night at the meeting called to address the needs of Florida children with severe disabilities and life-threatening medical conditions.
As Perez looked on, Edwards, the meeting’s chairwoman, called a spokesman for the state Agency for Health Care Administration to the podium. AHCA legislative director Chris Chaney said it was common for the private company, eQHealth Solutions, to speak with family doctors to “reach a consensus” over the care for children like Christian.
“Not happening,” several parents shouted from the audience.
“You need to correct this,” Edwards said, speaking to Chaney.
Edwards, a Democrat from Sunrise who was recently elected to the House, called Monday’s meeting at the Sunrise Senior Center following several stories in The Miami Herald about the state’s cutting of in-home nursing care to medically fragile children, which has forced some parents to place their children in geriatric nursing homes. Edwards said she became aware of children like Christian while volunteering at, and raising money for, a Homestead daycare center for children with complex medical conditions.
“They keep finding new reasons to deny services,” Perez told the group about eQHealth, a private company under contract with the state at the center of the controversy. “It’s a very combative atmosphere.”
The plight of children with complex medical needs came to light last fall when civil-rights lawyers with the U.S. Justice Department accused the state of warehousing severely disabled children in geriatric nursing homes — where the youngsters often have little contact with the outside world, and can spend their entire childhood with no social or family interaction. Hundreds of children have landed in such homes, the Justice Department wrote, because state health administrators have dramatically cut in-home and other services to children whose parents care for them at home.
Edwards said it was partly the Legislature’s “fault” that disabled children were suffering from lack of care. For too long, she said, lawmakers avoided getting involved in the details of state health and social service agencies, allowing departments to write their own rules with little legislative guidance, and offering inadequate oversight over how the state’s “limited pool of resources” is spent.
If the state is favoring nursing homes by strangling the flow of dollars to families raising disabled children at home, though, Edwards said that should stop.
Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”
RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage
B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:
While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.
I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.
Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Long before Huell Howser, who passed Sunday at the age of 67, would go on to find his passion shining a spotlight on small towns, landmarks, and places of interest in California, the KCET legend made quite the impression on us at Entertainment Tonight.
Related: Huell Howser Dead at 67
In 1982, the TV icon was a young, dapper reporter excited to cover music's biggest night for ET.
Watch the video for a look back at Howser's signature charm in action.
Benny Avni
Whether Venezuela’s power crisis materializes by Thursday or later on, it’s coming. America will have a role to play, and better choose the right side this time.
President Hugo Chavez won re-election in October; he’s due to be sworn in the day after tomorrow. But he’s too sick to show up.
Chavez, 58, has ruled the oil-rich country since 1999, promoting his (Simon) Bolivarian revolution — but he hasn’t been seen in public or heard from since his latest cancer-related operation in Cuba.
As far as anyone can tell, he’s still in Cuba, where official word has him in “delicate” but stable condition.
In lieu of verifiable data, the Caracas rumor mill is rife with near-death rumors — not to mention stories contending that the man is already up there, in the great Bolivarian playground in the sky.
Anyway, the country’s remaining leaders have all but announced that he’s unlikely to show up to his re-inauguration ceremony.
Which may turn into a major constitutional crisis.
Under the Venezuelan constitution, if an elected president is incapacitated and can’t take office on the Jan. 10 swear-in date, the National Assembly chief assumes temporary powers. He then must call a new presidential election within 30 days.
Here’s where things get a bit messy.
Before he was rushed off to Havana, Chavez named his deputy, Nicolas Maduro, as his successor. But Maduro, a former bus driver who came up the ranks along with an ambitious Evita Peron-like wife, Cilia Flores, lacks the political skills, charisma and ruthlessness of his boss.
In fact, Maduro’s strongest asset, for now, is his tie, cultivated during a stint as foreign minister, with Venezuela’s real puppet masters: Cuba’s Castro brothers. (Maduro also has ins with other Chavistas across Latin America, as well as with the Iranians.)
But if there’s a new election, it’s not at all clear that Maduro can beat opposition leader Henrique Capriles — who in October won more votes than anyone who’d ever run against Chavez.
In fact, it’s not even clear how long Maduro can control Chavez’s ruling party. He must contend, for example, with Diosdado Cabello, the National Assembly president re-elected to that job just last week, whom many believe has his own eyes on the presidency. (Cabello is a former general and loyal Chavez hatchet man).
Can the Chavistas hang together, let alone hold power, without Chavez?
The solution, apparently cooked up in Havana recently, is straight out of “Weekend at Bernie’s”: Prop up the cadaver and pretend Hugo’s coming back — just not quite yet.
Chavez “remains in power and will be sworn in whenever possible,” heir-apparent Maduro told a government-controlled TV channel Sunday. Echoed Cabello: “Chavez was re-elected and will continue being president beyond Jan. 10.”
And the hell with all that constitutional mumbo-jumbo. After all, the nation’s Supreme Court, which would need to decide the matter, is stacked with party loyalists.
Meanwhile, the opposition isn’t yet eager to use a “technicality” to challenge the power structure. Capriles wants to unshackle Venezuela from the Chavistas’ economically destructive hold. But he fears that moving in too quickly to exploit Chavez’s absence would leave him seeming to take advantage of a health crisis. So he’s unlikely to rock the boat for now.
But unless the strongman truly recovers, sooner or later the weekend will be over — and then a constitutional crisis will erupt. What will America do?
In 2009, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a Chavez ally, tried to keep power despite constitutionally imposed term limits. The very independent Honduran Supreme Court joined the legislature and the military to resist the power grab — and show Zelaya the door.
But the Obama administration sawthe unseating of a Constitution-violator as nothing but a “military coup,” and joined a chorus of Chavez allies calling to reinstate Zelaya.
Let’s hope that when Venezuela’s constitutional drama unfolds, Washington will be smarter about picking sides. The imminent departure of “El Loco” could ease hostility toward the United States in Latin America and beyond.
Maybe this time we’ll back our would-be allies for a change.
Twitter: @bennyavni
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More than 4,000 miles from its home base in Doral, Energy International is helping keep the lights on and the power grid humming in Gibraltar, the British territory on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula.
Energy International, a global provider of power plants and energy solutions, sent a temporary plant that will provide power for at least the next two years while a more permanent fix is sought for the territory’s erratic and aging electrical system.
The Doral company was founded 14 years ago as MCA Power Systems and its initial goal was to pursue energy contracts in Latin America. It began 2000 with a name change and in recent years its focus has become global.
“The world needs energy,’’ said Brett Hall, EI’s vice president of finance.
While the 2007-2008 recession curtailed the growth of worldwide energy demand, the U.S. Energy Information Agency has projected that global demand for electricity will increase by 2.3 percent annually from 2008 to 2035.
The potential is especially strong in developing nations. The International Energy Agency estimated that in 2009, 21 percent of the world’s population — 1.4 billion people — didn’t have access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa, the percentage of people without power rises to 69 percent.
Energy International has expanded sales from Latin America and the Caribbean to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, boosting revenue from $100 million annually in 2009 to more than $300 million today, Hall said. This year, EI is anticipating revenue of $350 million to $375 million.
In the next seven years the company, which is privately owned by American shareholders and affiliated with Gecolsa — the Caterpillar dealership in Colombia — hopes revenue will top $1 billion, he said.
Even though Energy International is based in the United States, it does little work domestically. Its sweet spot is emerging economies and contracts of $100 million or less.
“Our focus is to do whatever makes the most economic sense for a particular market,’’ said Hall.
“We’re not going to be building a nuclear power plant,’’ he said. But EI will accommodate its solutions to local fuel supplies whether it’s biofuel, natural gas or heavy fuels that are more prevalent.
When it comes to the type of temporary power solution needed by Gibraltar, which had been plagued by a string of power outages at its archaic electrical facilities, EI can have a temporary plant up and running in 30 to 40 days, supplying the engineering, rental turbines and other equipment and doing the installation.
“We were able to support Gibraltar’s power needs on short notice,’’ said Andres Molano, EI’s vice president of sales. “Some of their equipment required major maintenance and they needed to stop their plants.’’
EI, one of the world’s largest suppliers of interim energy solutions, signed a $12 million contract with the government of Gibraltar in November and the plant was operational by Dec. 21. The agreement includes an option for a three-year extension.
The equipment now in use in Gibraltar is considered part of EI’s fleet and will move on to other energy emergencies when its service in the territory famed for the Rock of Gibraltar is complete.
But when it comes to its permanent power plants, EI will build a facility for a client looking to generate its own power or construct a plant, run it and sell power directly to the final user.
“We can do all the work ourselves. We have all the skills in house — finance, design, operations, maintenance, building and the equipment,’’ said Hall.
Energy International has moved into the Middle East, completing projects in Oman and Yemen and establishing a subsidiary in Dubai in 2012 to pursue business in Africa and the Middle East, said Molano.
“Africa is new to us, but we believe there are opportunities there,’’ he said.
The company also is looking for continued growth in Latin America, especially in Colombia, which is now attracting foreign investors who previously had been spooked by violence.
Remote areas of the Amazon where temporary power solutions are needed also represent opportunity for the company.
“EI is very fortunate to be in a position in which we have more excellent opportunities than capital.’’ said Hall, so this year it will be concentrating on raising equity to finance growth.
“One of our biggest challenges in 2013,’’ Hall said, “will be to find investors or joint venture partners to provide capital that will enable EI to perform these projects so our aggressive revenue growth targets can be achieved.’’
On Tuesday, Broward Sheriff-elect Scott Israel will take over the most powerful elected post in the county, overseeing about 5,500 employees and a $670 million budget.
Past Broward sheriffs have generated colorful and political headlines. Nick Navarro, elected in 1984, ordered deputies to cook crack cocaine to use in drug stings, and ordered the arrest of the rap group 2 Live Crew for obscenity. Ken Jenne, a former state senator, plastered his name on everything from pencils to Frisbees to rugs before he pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2007 and landed in federal prison.
Then Gov. Charlie Crist appointed longtime BSO official Al Lamberti as sheriff. On Election Day a year later, Lamberti won as a Republican in Florida’s most Democratic county. Tens of thousands of voters who turned out to elect President Barack Obama skipped the sheriff’s race, helping Lamberti defeat Israel, a Democrat.
But in 2012, fewer voters skipped the sheriff’s race on their ballot and Israel — with the help of key political allies — ousted Lamberti.
Israel set to work changing BSO immediately. In December, his transition team sent emails to 28 high-ranking employees telling them they would be out once Israel took over. Many top officials had already announced they would be leaving, including BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal, attorney Judith Levine and Undersheriff Tom Wheeler.
After 35 years at BSO, Lamberti said Friday that he has not applied for any jobs and doesn’t plan to open a security firm. (He has been joking about the fact that there is an opening at the CIA.)
Bob Butterworth, a former Broward sheriff and Florida attorney general, calls the sheriff’s job the “most challenging office” in Broward.
“If you can deal with the issues of substance abuse and mental health — and a sheriff can if they wish to do that — I think you can reduce crime in this community by a lot and also reduce the jail population,” Butterworth said.
Beyond staff changes, it is not yet clear how Israel, a 56-year-old former Fort Lauderdale police captain and North Bay Village police chief — will change BSO.
But emails from Israel’s transition team to BSO show that Israel has sought information about every aspect of the agency, including budget forecasts, contracts for everything from garbage collection to lobbying, statistics about the race of employees and even about the protocol for military casket arrivals.
Israel’s senior command staff includes many who played key roles in his campaign, including his new general counsel, Ron Gunzburger, son of County Commissioner Sue Gunzburger, and Lisa Castillo, who worked on Israel’s campaign. The name of her husband, Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo, is also being bandied about as having a role in the Israel administration.
Israel, who lives with his wife, Susan, and teenage triplets in Parkland, will be sworn in at a public ceremony by Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes at 11 a.m. Tuesday at The Faith Center in Sunrise.
The Miami Herald spoke to Israel recently about his views on gun control, politics and other topics.
Q. The Broward sheriff is often described as the most powerful elected post in Broward. Your predecessor, Al Lamberti, tried to define himself as a law enforcement professional — not a politician. Do you view yourself as a politician?
Millions of people have tried out Ubuntu, a free operating system for desktop and notebook PCs. Like Android, Ubuntu is open-source and based on Linux, and while it’s mostly seen as an OS for hobbyists here in the U.S., hardware manufacturers like Dell and HP make Ubuntu PCs for markets like mainland China.
Now Canonical, the startup which drives Ubuntu’s partly community-based development, has announced a version of Ubuntu that’s made for smartphones. The company previously showed off an experimental version of desktop Ubuntu that hobbyists could install on their Nexus 7 tablets. But the version Canonical demoed Wednesday was tailor-made for smartphones.
What makes Ubuntu different?
The smartphone version of Ubuntu bears little resemblance to the desktop version, aside from its graphical style. Its interface is based around gestures and swipes; instead of a back button, for instance, you swipe from the right-hand edge of the screen to return to a previous app. Swiping up from the bottom, meanwhile, reveals an app’s menu, which remains off-screen until then.
Tech expect John Gruber was critical of the Ubuntu phone interface, noting that “gestures are the touchscreen equivalent of keyboard shortcuts” because they need to be explained to someone before they can use them. The Ubuntu phone site itself calls the experience “immersive,” because it allows more room for the apps themselves.
What will Ubuntu fans recognize?
First, the apps. The same Ubuntu apps which are currently available in the Software Center (Ubuntu’s equivalent of the App Store) will run on an Ubuntu phone, provided the developers write new screens designed for phones — much less work than writing a new app from scratch. Ubuntu web apps, already integrated into its version of Firefox, will also work in the phone version.
Second, the dash and the app launcher. Ubuntu’s universal search feature is easily accessible, and swiping in partway from the left edge of the screen reveals the familiar row of app icons.
What unique features does it have over other smartphone OSes?
Besides the gesture-based design, higher-end Ubuntu smartphones will be able to plug into an HDTV or monitor, and become a complete Ubuntu desktop PC. Just add a keyboard and mouse. This feature was originally announced for Android smartphones (using advertising which insults grandmothers), and Android phones featuring Ubuntu are expected before full Ubuntu phones launch.
When will it be available?
Ubuntu phones (not just Android phones with Ubuntu included) are expected to be on shelves starting in 2014. In a few weeks, however, Canonical will have a version available that you can put on your own Galaxy Nexus smartphone to try it out.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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