Israel Acts to Curb Illegal Immigration From Africa
By ETHAN BRONNER - Published: December 11, 2011 (an excerpt)
JERUSALEM — The Israeli government on Sunday announced plans to spend $160 million on efforts to stem the growing number of Africans who enter the country illegally, seeking jobs and political asylum. The money will go toward work on an Egyptian border fence that is already under construction, an expansion of detention centers and increased policing of companies that hire undocumented workers.
About 50,000 Africans have moved to Israel in the last six years.
“If need be, we will close businesses so that the enterprise known as the State of Israel does not close,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a cabinet meeting that focused on the issue.
Over the past six years, about 50,000 Africans, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have trekked across the Sinai into Israel, some of them working in hotels and on construction sites, others living in rundown urban neighborhoods, unable to find work and relying on refugee agencies.
All well-off countries face the challenge of how to handle poor foreign migrants and how much credence to give their accounts of political persecution. But the situation in Israel is complicated by Jewish history and has led to a national debate. On the one hand, this is a small country that wishes to maintain a strong Jewish majority. On the other, the Jews’ past of eviction and persecution makes some here argue that Israel should have special sensitivity for those fleeing prejudice and conflict.
Mr. Netanyahu said that the overwhelming number of Africans who slip into Israel are not political refugees, but are looking to improve their economic status. He said they pose difficulties for the people they settle among. Poorer Israelis, in particular, resent the Africans’ arrival and compete with them for jobs.
“We hear the outcry coming from Israel’s cities,” he said. “We will continue to care for refugees, but they make up a minimal part of the human wave. Entire populations are starting to move, and if we don’t act to stop this we will be flooded.”
Refugee advocacy groups in Israel contend that Mr. Netanyahu is wrong, that the majority of those who arrive here are fleeing civil wars or political persecution.
Mr. Netanyahu plans to visit several African countries early next year and said he would raise the issue of repatriating the refugees.
The influx of Africans began in 2005 after the Egyptian police attacked Sudanese refugees who were camped out in Cairo and demanded asylum. More than 20 people were killed, and word spread that Israel would provide them a better welcome and more job opportunities.
The Israeli government hopes that the fence being built along the Egyptian border will keep out most infiltrators. The demands for a fence have grown in the past year with the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the increase in tensions with Cairo that followed his ouster.
Three months ago, demonstrators in Cairo ransacked part of the Israeli Embassy, leading the Israeli government to airlift its diplomatic personnel from Egypt. In August, infiltrators from the Sinai killed eight Israelis near the popular Red Sea resort of Eilat; in fighting afterward, Israeli troops killed five Egyptian security personnel.
But both governments say they wish to maintain ties, and Israel said it would send a new ambassador to Cairo on Monday. No new permanent home for the Israeli Embassy in Cairo has been found.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
The Art of Listening By HENNING MANKELL - An Excerpt
The Art of Listening
By HENNING MANKELL (An Excerpt from NY Times)
Published: December 10, 2011
Maputo, Mozambique
I CAME to Africa with one purpose: I wanted to see the world outside the perspective of European egocentricity. I could have chosen Asia or South America. I ended up in Africa because the plane ticket there was cheapest.
I came and I stayed. For nearly 25 years I’ve lived off and on in Mozambique. Time has passed, and I’m no longer young; in fact, I’m approaching old age. But my motive for living this straddled existence, with one foot in African sand and the other in European snow, in the melancholy region of Norrland in Sweden where I grew up, has to do with wanting to see clearly, to understand.
The simplest way to explain what I’ve learned from my life in Africa is through a parable about why human beings have two ears but only one tongue. Why is this? Probably so that we have to listen twice as much as we speak.
In Africa listening is a guiding principle. It’s a principle that’s been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the time or even the desire to listen to anyone else. From my own experience, I’ve noticed how much faster I have to answer a question during a TV interview than I did 10, maybe even 5, years ago. It’s as if we have completely lost the ability to listen. We talk and talk, and we end up frightened by silence, the refuge of those who are at a loss for an answer.
I’m old enough to remember when South American literature emerged in popular consciousness and changed forever our view of the human condition and what it means to be human. Now, I think it’s Africa’s turn.
Everywhere, people on the African continent write and tell stories. Soon, African literature seems likely to burst onto the world scene — much as South American literature did some years ago when Gabriel García Márquez and others led a tumultuous and highly emotional revolt against ingrained truth. Soon an African literary outpouring will offer a new perspective on the human condition. The Mozambican author Mia Couto has, for example, created an African magic realism that mixes written language with the great oral traditions of Africa.
If we are capable of listening, we’re going to discover that many African narratives have completely different structures than we’re used to. I over-simplify, of course. Yet everybody knows that there is truth in what I’m saying: Western literature is normally linear; it proceeds from beginning to end without major digressions in space or time.
That’s not the case in Africa. Here, instead of linear narrative, there is unrestrained and exuberant storytelling that skips back and forth in time and blends together past and present. Someone who may have died long ago can intervene without any fuss in a conversation between two people who are very much alive. Just as an example.
The nomads who still inhabit the Kalahari Desert are said to tell one another stories on their daylong wanderings, during which they search for edible roots and animals to hunt. Often they have more than one story going at the same time. Sometimes they have three or four stories running in parallel. But before they return to the spot where they will spend the night, they manage either to intertwine the stories or split them apart for good, giving each its own ending.
A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, where I work as an artistic consultant. It was a hot day, and we were taking a break from rehearsals so we fled outside, hoping that a cool breeze would drift past. The theater’s air-conditioning system had long since stopped functioning. It must have been over 100 degrees inside while we were working.
Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water in a brotherly or sisterly fashion. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.
I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and we decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”
The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. I had an instinctive feeling that it would prove to be important.
Finally he, too, spoke.
“That’s not a good way to die — before you’ve told the end of your story.”
It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue.
Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in some obscure digital vault. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great chronicle of humanity out into the endless universe.
Who knows? Maybe someone is out there, willing to listen ...
Henning Mankell is the author of many books, including the Wallander novels. This article was translated from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally from the Swedish.
Excerpt From The New York Times – The Opinion Pages Are All Bloggers Journalists?
Excerpt From The New York Times – The Opinion Pages
Are All Bloggers Journalists?
Introduction –
A federal judge in Oregon ruled that Crystal Cox, a blogger who was sued for defamation after she accused the founder of an investment group of acting illegally and unethically, cannot claim protections afforded to journalists under state shield laws. In his ruling, the judge noted that Ms. Cox was not affiliated with a “newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.”
What are the implications of this ruling for bloggers and journalists? How should judges decide who is protected and who isn’t?
The Problem With Pre-Internet Laws
Kelli L. Sager is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. She represents newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, authors, Internet companies and other publishers.
The unstated questions that have fueled much of the discussion about bloggers are two-fold: whether bloggers have the same constitutional rights as other authors or publishers, and whether bloggers should be afforded certain statutory protections that apply to mainstream media, such as retraction statutes and reporters’ shield laws.
It's hard to imagine excluding bloggers from the protections that shield laws provide.
The first question is easy to answer: the rights of free speech and press under the First Amendment does not and cannot depend on the medium through which information is exchanged. Whether the expression is conveyed by a lonely pamphleteer or the world’s most sophisticated communications company, First Amendment protections apply. The notion that bloggers have some lower standard of protection is wholly inconsistent with what the United States Supreme Court has recognized as a necessary marketplace of ideas, where one’s ability to communicate freely is not dependent on access to a printing press or broadcast equipment.
The second question is more complex, because it depends in part on the language in a particular statute, and the purpose for which it was enacted. Retraction statutes, for example, typically are intended to provide needed “breathing space” for the exercise of free speech, recognizing that sometimes mistakes will be made. Such statutes also provide an incentive for the timely correction of inaccuracies -- a purpose that benefits the subject of the story as well as the publisher. So why wouldn’t retraction laws apply to bloggers, who can – and often do -- correct a misstatement almost instantaneously? Courts have had little difficulty finding that retraction statutes apply to Web sites; the same rationale includes bloggers.
A similar analysis applies to shield laws, which protect journalists from being compelled to reveal confidential sources and other information. Because most laws were written before the Internet existed, they often refer to then-existing media -- newspapers, magazines and the like -- or simply to “journalists,” without defining who is a journalist.
More than five years ago, a California appeals court rejected the argument that the state’s shield law does not cover web publishers. The court wisely declined the invitation to evaluate whether web publishers are “legitimate journalists,” recognizing that doing so is a dangerous step for any branch of the government to undertake. Instead, the court focused on whether the website in question was actively engaged in the gathering and dissemination of information to the public.
Given the many important stories originating from bloggers, it is hard to imagine a rationale for the wholesale exclusion of those writers from the protections that shield laws provide, whether they are called “journalists” or not.
Rethink Shield Laws
Stuart Benjamin is the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke University Law School and the co-author of "Telecommunications Law and Policy."
The really interesting question is whether blogging should change the legal regime applicable to journalism. This question arises most directly with respect to journalist shield laws and a possible reporter’s privilege. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted statutes giving journalists some protection against subpoenas, and in each case the question arises of exactly who is covered.
The costs and benefits of the protections for false statements seem to have increased in the blogging era.
But I want to raise the less obvious question of the impact of blogging on the desirability of the existing protections against libel and defamation.
Beginning with New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the Supreme Court crafted First Amendment protections for false statements of fact on matters of public concern -- requiring “actual malice” if the statement is about a public figure and negligence for a private figure. The Supreme Court opinions laying out these standards do not limit these protections to journalists, or to media more generally.
The opinion a few days ago in Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox mistakenly treats references in some cases to the media as a limitation of the protection to media defendants. But the mistake was in some ways understandable.
In the 1960s and 70s, when the Supreme Court laid out free speech limits on libel and defamation, the obvious potential sources of false statements that could seriously harm one’s reputation (and thus be worth suing for libel or defamation) were large organizations like newspapers, magazines and broadcasters. Do the freedoms extolled in the Supreme Court opinions have the same resonance when everyone and his brother can publish false information to the world at the push of a button? I’m not sure. Both the costs and benefits of the protections for false statements seem to have increased in the blogging era, and it is not obvious to me which have increased more.
And note that the United States is an outlier in the level of constitutional protections it provides to libel and defamation defendants. In the almost 50 years since New York Times v. Sullivan, many other countries have considered a similar regime, and not one has adopted it.
According to the Law
Kyu Ho Youm, the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, is the author of “International and Comparative Law on the Journalist’s Privilege: The Randal Case as a Lesson for the American Press.” He is on Twitter as @MarshallYoum.
Judge Hernandez ruled correctly that Crystal Cox, the self-proclaimed “investigative blogger,” was not a journalist, so she was not privileged to protect her source. But his textual interpretation of the Oregon shield law shows that the pre-Internet law needs updating. As the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated recently, in an era of changing technology and society, “the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.”
Judges will continue with their traditional journalist-oriented approach unless their state laws become more ambiguous.
The federal court ruling reinforces the judicial reluctance to read bloggers and other journalistic outsiders (“outliers”?) into state shield law. Judges are more likely to continue with their traditional journalist-oriented approach to source protection unless their state laws are ambiguous enough to allow them creative interpretations.
Yet I wish that the still evolving rights for bloggers had been more searchingly examined by Judge Hernandez, instead of focusing on “media person” and “medium of communication” under the Oregon law. Not every blogger can be a journalist entitled to the source protection. And some bloggers deserve protection if their work is similar to that of mainstream media professionals.
In deciding whether a blogger can claim the journalistic privilege, as journalism scholar Jason Shepard of California State University-Fullerton suggested, judges should scrutinize:
1.) whether the blogger’s stated purpose centered on news-gathering and dissemination;
2.) whether news-gathering and editorial decision-making processes were regularly employed; and
3.) whether the end product of the blogger’s work was sufficiently important within the context of public interest.
Otherwise, the privilege would be too broad to serve worthy bloggers in a meaningful way.
Significantly, one of the congressional shield law proposals in the mid-2000s featured some, if not all, of the functional journalistic criteria for privileging non-traditional journalists like bloggers.
A Broader Definition of ‘Journalist’
Ellyn Angelotti teaches about social media, digital trends and media law at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalism and democracy in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Everyone knows that you no longer need to buy ink by the barrel to be considered a publisher. Your grandmother can do it with a laptop.But can anyone be considered a journalist? That is the focus of the Cox ruling. It suggests that a journalist may need to act on a set of professional standards to be recognized as a protected member of the tribe.
Instead of focusing on who is doing the publishing, it is more important than ever to look at how they are doing it.
So who is a journalist? A journalist -- good or bad -- possesses a hunger to pursue the truth and to share it in compelling ways. Yet some of the best journalists have had no academic training in the field.
Blogs compete with mainstream media every day. In some cases, they have become more trustworthy as sources of information than some old school practitioners. Oregon’s shield law does not recognize the blog as a “medium of communication” worthy of special protection. Such a narrow definition of journalism is archaic.
Instead of focusing on who is doing the publishing, it is more important than ever to look at how they are doing it. It's true that the public’s confidence in online news is shaky at best. The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk. But it shouldn't matter whether the person calls himself a journalist or not, nor where he publishes a story. The quality of the story and the integrity of the method of reporting should count. By that standard, some bloggers would qualify as journalists while some deadwood reporters at newspapers would fail.
The First Amendment is not just for journalists. It affords all Americans the right to unfettered speech. We should celebrate how technology lets us express more speech than ever before -- without discriminating against the “non-journalists.” That doesn't mean that online publishers should not be judged according to an evolving set of standards and practices.
Are All Bloggers Journalists?
Introduction –
A federal judge in Oregon ruled that Crystal Cox, a blogger who was sued for defamation after she accused the founder of an investment group of acting illegally and unethically, cannot claim protections afforded to journalists under state shield laws. In his ruling, the judge noted that Ms. Cox was not affiliated with a “newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.”
What are the implications of this ruling for bloggers and journalists? How should judges decide who is protected and who isn’t?
The Problem With Pre-Internet Laws
Kelli L. Sager is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP. She represents newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, authors, Internet companies and other publishers.
The unstated questions that have fueled much of the discussion about bloggers are two-fold: whether bloggers have the same constitutional rights as other authors or publishers, and whether bloggers should be afforded certain statutory protections that apply to mainstream media, such as retraction statutes and reporters’ shield laws.
It's hard to imagine excluding bloggers from the protections that shield laws provide.
The first question is easy to answer: the rights of free speech and press under the First Amendment does not and cannot depend on the medium through which information is exchanged. Whether the expression is conveyed by a lonely pamphleteer or the world’s most sophisticated communications company, First Amendment protections apply. The notion that bloggers have some lower standard of protection is wholly inconsistent with what the United States Supreme Court has recognized as a necessary marketplace of ideas, where one’s ability to communicate freely is not dependent on access to a printing press or broadcast equipment.
The second question is more complex, because it depends in part on the language in a particular statute, and the purpose for which it was enacted. Retraction statutes, for example, typically are intended to provide needed “breathing space” for the exercise of free speech, recognizing that sometimes mistakes will be made. Such statutes also provide an incentive for the timely correction of inaccuracies -- a purpose that benefits the subject of the story as well as the publisher. So why wouldn’t retraction laws apply to bloggers, who can – and often do -- correct a misstatement almost instantaneously? Courts have had little difficulty finding that retraction statutes apply to Web sites; the same rationale includes bloggers.
A similar analysis applies to shield laws, which protect journalists from being compelled to reveal confidential sources and other information. Because most laws were written before the Internet existed, they often refer to then-existing media -- newspapers, magazines and the like -- or simply to “journalists,” without defining who is a journalist.
More than five years ago, a California appeals court rejected the argument that the state’s shield law does not cover web publishers. The court wisely declined the invitation to evaluate whether web publishers are “legitimate journalists,” recognizing that doing so is a dangerous step for any branch of the government to undertake. Instead, the court focused on whether the website in question was actively engaged in the gathering and dissemination of information to the public.
Given the many important stories originating from bloggers, it is hard to imagine a rationale for the wholesale exclusion of those writers from the protections that shield laws provide, whether they are called “journalists” or not.
Rethink Shield Laws
Stuart Benjamin is the Douglas B. Maggs Professor of Law at Duke University Law School and the co-author of "Telecommunications Law and Policy."
The really interesting question is whether blogging should change the legal regime applicable to journalism. This question arises most directly with respect to journalist shield laws and a possible reporter’s privilege. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted statutes giving journalists some protection against subpoenas, and in each case the question arises of exactly who is covered.
The costs and benefits of the protections for false statements seem to have increased in the blogging era.
But I want to raise the less obvious question of the impact of blogging on the desirability of the existing protections against libel and defamation.
Beginning with New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the Supreme Court crafted First Amendment protections for false statements of fact on matters of public concern -- requiring “actual malice” if the statement is about a public figure and negligence for a private figure. The Supreme Court opinions laying out these standards do not limit these protections to journalists, or to media more generally.
The opinion a few days ago in Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox mistakenly treats references in some cases to the media as a limitation of the protection to media defendants. But the mistake was in some ways understandable.
In the 1960s and 70s, when the Supreme Court laid out free speech limits on libel and defamation, the obvious potential sources of false statements that could seriously harm one’s reputation (and thus be worth suing for libel or defamation) were large organizations like newspapers, magazines and broadcasters. Do the freedoms extolled in the Supreme Court opinions have the same resonance when everyone and his brother can publish false information to the world at the push of a button? I’m not sure. Both the costs and benefits of the protections for false statements seem to have increased in the blogging era, and it is not obvious to me which have increased more.
And note that the United States is an outlier in the level of constitutional protections it provides to libel and defamation defendants. In the almost 50 years since New York Times v. Sullivan, many other countries have considered a similar regime, and not one has adopted it.
According to the Law
Kyu Ho Youm, the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, is the author of “International and Comparative Law on the Journalist’s Privilege: The Randal Case as a Lesson for the American Press.” He is on Twitter as @MarshallYoum.
Judge Hernandez ruled correctly that Crystal Cox, the self-proclaimed “investigative blogger,” was not a journalist, so she was not privileged to protect her source. But his textual interpretation of the Oregon shield law shows that the pre-Internet law needs updating. As the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated recently, in an era of changing technology and society, “the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.”
Judges will continue with their traditional journalist-oriented approach unless their state laws become more ambiguous.
The federal court ruling reinforces the judicial reluctance to read bloggers and other journalistic outsiders (“outliers”?) into state shield law. Judges are more likely to continue with their traditional journalist-oriented approach to source protection unless their state laws are ambiguous enough to allow them creative interpretations.
Yet I wish that the still evolving rights for bloggers had been more searchingly examined by Judge Hernandez, instead of focusing on “media person” and “medium of communication” under the Oregon law. Not every blogger can be a journalist entitled to the source protection. And some bloggers deserve protection if their work is similar to that of mainstream media professionals.
In deciding whether a blogger can claim the journalistic privilege, as journalism scholar Jason Shepard of California State University-Fullerton suggested, judges should scrutinize:
1.) whether the blogger’s stated purpose centered on news-gathering and dissemination;
2.) whether news-gathering and editorial decision-making processes were regularly employed; and
3.) whether the end product of the blogger’s work was sufficiently important within the context of public interest.
Otherwise, the privilege would be too broad to serve worthy bloggers in a meaningful way.
Significantly, one of the congressional shield law proposals in the mid-2000s featured some, if not all, of the functional journalistic criteria for privileging non-traditional journalists like bloggers.
A Broader Definition of ‘Journalist’
Ellyn Angelotti teaches about social media, digital trends and media law at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalism and democracy in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Everyone knows that you no longer need to buy ink by the barrel to be considered a publisher. Your grandmother can do it with a laptop.But can anyone be considered a journalist? That is the focus of the Cox ruling. It suggests that a journalist may need to act on a set of professional standards to be recognized as a protected member of the tribe.
Instead of focusing on who is doing the publishing, it is more important than ever to look at how they are doing it.
So who is a journalist? A journalist -- good or bad -- possesses a hunger to pursue the truth and to share it in compelling ways. Yet some of the best journalists have had no academic training in the field.
Blogs compete with mainstream media every day. In some cases, they have become more trustworthy as sources of information than some old school practitioners. Oregon’s shield law does not recognize the blog as a “medium of communication” worthy of special protection. Such a narrow definition of journalism is archaic.
Instead of focusing on who is doing the publishing, it is more important than ever to look at how they are doing it. It's true that the public’s confidence in online news is shaky at best. The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk. But it shouldn't matter whether the person calls himself a journalist or not, nor where he publishes a story. The quality of the story and the integrity of the method of reporting should count. By that standard, some bloggers would qualify as journalists while some deadwood reporters at newspapers would fail.
The First Amendment is not just for journalists. It affords all Americans the right to unfettered speech. We should celebrate how technology lets us express more speech than ever before -- without discriminating against the “non-journalists.” That doesn't mean that online publishers should not be judged according to an evolving set of standards and practices.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Michael Jackson top earning dead celebrity
Michael Jackson - still alive and famous !!!
Cover Media – 12 hours ago
Michael Jackson has been named the highest earning dead celebrity.
The King of Pop died two years ago from acute Propofol intoxication but his legacy has lived on and he has earned more dead than in the recent years before he passed away.
Forbes magazine have released their list of the year’s Top Earning Dead Celebrities and have placed Michael in the number one spot with an income of $170 million.
Elvis Presley came in second with $55 million, thanks in part to the Cirque du Soleil show Viva Elvis
Marilyn Monroe made a surprising entry at number three with $27 million. The glamorous 50s icon has not been on the list for a while.
An upcoming biopic of the star may have increased interest in the late actress. My Week With Marilyn starring Michelle Williams is due out next month.
Michael is actually the second highest earning pop act, dead or alive, coming in just behind rock band U2.
Top Earning Dead Celebrities – October 2010 to October 2011
1. Michael Jackson - $170 million Musician Died: June 25, 2009 at age 50
2. Elvis Presley - $55 million Singer, Actor Died: Aug. 16, 1977 at age 42
3. Marilyn Monroe - $27 million Actress Died: Aug. 5, 1962 at age 36
4. Charles Schulz - $25 million Cartoonist, creator of the "Peanuts" franchise Died: Feb. 12, 2000 at age 77
5. John Lennon - $12 million Musician Died: Dec. 8, 1980 at age 40
6. Elizabeth Taylor - $12 million Actress Died: March 23, 2011 at age 79
7. Albert Einstein - $10 million Scientist Died: April 18, 1955 at age 76
8. Theodor 'Dr. Seuss' Geisel - $9 million Author of the famed "Dr. Seuss" children's books Died: Sept. 24, 1991 at age 87
9. Jimi Hendrix - $7 million Musician Died: Sept. 18, 1970 at age 27
10. Steig Larsson - $7 million Author of "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" series Died: Nov. 9, 2004 at age 50
Saturday, October 22, 2011
7 Gadgets That Won't Be Around in 2020
An Excerpt - 7 Gadgets That Won't Be Around in 2020
By Seth Fiegerman
NEW YORK -- Hindsight may always be 20-20, but you don't need particularly great foresight to know many of the gadgets on today's market won't be around in 2020 given how quickly the tech industry keeps changing. In the first half of the 2000s, retailers were buzzing about the prospects of MP3 players and netbooks, but by the end of the decade, those products had largely been replaced by smartphones and tablets.
As tempting as it may be to imagine otherwise, some of the gadgets you may rely on most right now will likely suffer the same fate and be killed off or made obsolete by the end of this decade. Sure, you may still be able to find these products for sale in certain niche stores, but they will no longer be produced for a mass-market audience.
"You can still find and buy VCRs and there are people still using mainframes from 1992, so it's not like this stuff disappears forever," says Stephen Baker, an industry analyst at the NPD Group. Baker notes that the main reason retailers continue to market and sell outdated products is to cater to shoppers who buy them for nostalgia's sake, but for all intents and purposes the market has left these products in the dust.
So which popular products today will join the likes of VCRs, cassette players and transistor radios in the next few years? We asked five tech analysts to offer their thoughts on the gadgets that will largely be phased out by the end of this decade.
Standalone GPS Systems
The days of spending $200 or more on a standalone GPS device won't last much longer, analysts say.
"Portable navigation devices like those sold by TomTom and Garmin will probably not be sold in 2020, just because mobile phones will have taken on that function themselves and because GPS systems will be standard equipment in cars," says Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester, a market research firm. As a result, there won't be much of a need to buy a product whose only function is to tell you directions.
If there is a demand for these GPS systems, it will likely come from a very specific segment of consumers.
"Maybe you could argue there will be a market for guys climbing Mount Everest or long-distance truckers or the military, but for the vast majority of consumers, standalone GPS systems will be irrelevant and redundant," Baker says.
E-Readers
The e-reader has already undergone significant changes in its short history, evolving from a product with a keyboard to one with a touchscreen and more recently being integrated into a kind of a tablet-hybrid, but according to Golvin, the market for e-readers will mostly disappear by the end of the decade.
"The tablet will largely supplant the e-reader in the same way that the iPod increasingly gets displaced by smartphones," Golvin says. "Tablets will take on the e-reader function of handling magazine, newspaper and book reading." In essence, spending money on an e-reader that can only handle reading when tablets can do this and more will come to seem as useless as buying a GPS system that can only look up directions when other technology does this as well.
Just how small the e-reader market becomes may depend somewhat on advancements in display technology. One of the biggest incentives for consumers to buy a pure e-reader is to have an e-ink display (like reading from a book) rather than a backlit display (like reading from a computer screen), but according to Golvin, manufacturers are already working on ways to merge the two reading experiences and create a tablet that doubles as an authentic e-reader.
Even then, there may be still be some e-readers on the market at the beginning of next decade, but not many.
"It could be that by 2020 you can still buy a super cheap e-reader for $20, but by and large, the volume of sales will be so close to zero as to be indistinguishable, like CD players are now," he says.
Feature Phones
Several of the products that are likely to be phased out will ultimately be the victim of advances to smartphones, and none more directly than feature phones.
Tim Bajarin, a technology columnist and principle analyst with Creative Strategies, predicts that 80% of all phones sold in 2015 will be smartphones and every phone sold in 2018 will be a smartphone. This rapid decline will come about thanks to a drop in prices for consumers and an increase in revenue opportunities for carriers.
"Even today, the money that is made is not on the phone itself but on the services," Bajarin says, noting that carriers will opt to "fade out" their feature phone option in favor of smartphones with more services.
Low-End Digital Cameras
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S last week, smartphone competitors probably weren't the only ones beginning to sweat. Digital camera makers also have much to be worried about. Apple's newest phone has a killer 8-megapixel camera that takes in more light and records video at 1080p HD video. Until recently, those kind of specs were unique to digital cameras, but increasingly smartphones are taking over the market.
"Flip cameras went bye-bye and now low-end camera functions are being taken over by smartphones," says Rob Enderle, principle analyst for the Enderle Group. Going forward, consumers will have less incentive to carry around a camera when they already have a phone in their pocket that takes quality pictures. "The point-and-shooters -- and particularly the cameras that sell for under $200 -- will eventually go away and be replaced by cellphones that do the same thing."
On the other hand, Enderle predicts more expensive and high-tech cameras may have a brighter future, though not by much, as a smaller market of photo enthusiasts seek out professional-quality cameras that go above and beyond what's offered on a phone.
DVD Players
DVD players are in the process of being phased out now by Blu-ray players and will likely be erased from the consumer landscape by the end of the decade.
“The DVD player should be replaced by digital delivery,” says Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan, who points to streaming movie services like Netflix as being the future. “Blu-rays and whatever the next generation high-end movie format emerges could prolong the lifespan because of challenges around streaming, but eventually the disc is going to be phased out.”
The idea of placing a disc into a DVD player to watch a movie will eventually seem as outdated as placing a record on a turntable, which brings us to the next product on our list…
Recordable CDs and DVDs
Using CDs and DVDs to view and store content will soon be a thing of the past.
"CDs are clearly not going to make it over the next 10 years because everything will shift over to pure digital distribution, so all those shiny discs will be gone," Bajarin says. This will be due in part to more streaming options for music and movies and a greater reliance on digital downloads, combined with more efficient storage options for consumers, including USB drives, external hard drives and of course the cloud.
"All a CD is is a medium for distribution of content ... and within 10 years, you won't need a physical transport medium," Bajarin says.
Video Game Consoles
Popular video game systems such as the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox may still be in homes next decade, but they will look much different. Rather than buy a separate console, Enderle expects that consumers will instead buy smart televisions with a gaming system built into it, not to mention tablets and smartphones that will continue to ramp up their gaming options.
“It looks like analog game systems won’t make it until the end of the decade,” Enderle says. “You are already seeing the Wii have a tough time holding on to the market and PlayStation has been struggling for a while.”
The gaming systems that will succeed in the future will be those that manage to move away from being focused solely on video games and more on other entertainment options such as movies, evolving from a traditional game console into more of a set-top box.
By Seth Fiegerman
NEW YORK -- Hindsight may always be 20-20, but you don't need particularly great foresight to know many of the gadgets on today's market won't be around in 2020 given how quickly the tech industry keeps changing. In the first half of the 2000s, retailers were buzzing about the prospects of MP3 players and netbooks, but by the end of the decade, those products had largely been replaced by smartphones and tablets.
As tempting as it may be to imagine otherwise, some of the gadgets you may rely on most right now will likely suffer the same fate and be killed off or made obsolete by the end of this decade. Sure, you may still be able to find these products for sale in certain niche stores, but they will no longer be produced for a mass-market audience.
"You can still find and buy VCRs and there are people still using mainframes from 1992, so it's not like this stuff disappears forever," says Stephen Baker, an industry analyst at the NPD Group. Baker notes that the main reason retailers continue to market and sell outdated products is to cater to shoppers who buy them for nostalgia's sake, but for all intents and purposes the market has left these products in the dust.
So which popular products today will join the likes of VCRs, cassette players and transistor radios in the next few years? We asked five tech analysts to offer their thoughts on the gadgets that will largely be phased out by the end of this decade.
Standalone GPS Systems
The days of spending $200 or more on a standalone GPS device won't last much longer, analysts say.
"Portable navigation devices like those sold by TomTom and Garmin will probably not be sold in 2020, just because mobile phones will have taken on that function themselves and because GPS systems will be standard equipment in cars," says Charles S. Golvin, an analyst at Forrester, a market research firm. As a result, there won't be much of a need to buy a product whose only function is to tell you directions.
If there is a demand for these GPS systems, it will likely come from a very specific segment of consumers.
"Maybe you could argue there will be a market for guys climbing Mount Everest or long-distance truckers or the military, but for the vast majority of consumers, standalone GPS systems will be irrelevant and redundant," Baker says.
E-Readers
The e-reader has already undergone significant changes in its short history, evolving from a product with a keyboard to one with a touchscreen and more recently being integrated into a kind of a tablet-hybrid, but according to Golvin, the market for e-readers will mostly disappear by the end of the decade.
"The tablet will largely supplant the e-reader in the same way that the iPod increasingly gets displaced by smartphones," Golvin says. "Tablets will take on the e-reader function of handling magazine, newspaper and book reading." In essence, spending money on an e-reader that can only handle reading when tablets can do this and more will come to seem as useless as buying a GPS system that can only look up directions when other technology does this as well.
Just how small the e-reader market becomes may depend somewhat on advancements in display technology. One of the biggest incentives for consumers to buy a pure e-reader is to have an e-ink display (like reading from a book) rather than a backlit display (like reading from a computer screen), but according to Golvin, manufacturers are already working on ways to merge the two reading experiences and create a tablet that doubles as an authentic e-reader.
Even then, there may be still be some e-readers on the market at the beginning of next decade, but not many.
"It could be that by 2020 you can still buy a super cheap e-reader for $20, but by and large, the volume of sales will be so close to zero as to be indistinguishable, like CD players are now," he says.
Feature Phones
Several of the products that are likely to be phased out will ultimately be the victim of advances to smartphones, and none more directly than feature phones.
Tim Bajarin, a technology columnist and principle analyst with Creative Strategies, predicts that 80% of all phones sold in 2015 will be smartphones and every phone sold in 2018 will be a smartphone. This rapid decline will come about thanks to a drop in prices for consumers and an increase in revenue opportunities for carriers.
"Even today, the money that is made is not on the phone itself but on the services," Bajarin says, noting that carriers will opt to "fade out" their feature phone option in favor of smartphones with more services.
Low-End Digital Cameras
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S last week, smartphone competitors probably weren't the only ones beginning to sweat. Digital camera makers also have much to be worried about. Apple's newest phone has a killer 8-megapixel camera that takes in more light and records video at 1080p HD video. Until recently, those kind of specs were unique to digital cameras, but increasingly smartphones are taking over the market.
"Flip cameras went bye-bye and now low-end camera functions are being taken over by smartphones," says Rob Enderle, principle analyst for the Enderle Group. Going forward, consumers will have less incentive to carry around a camera when they already have a phone in their pocket that takes quality pictures. "The point-and-shooters -- and particularly the cameras that sell for under $200 -- will eventually go away and be replaced by cellphones that do the same thing."
On the other hand, Enderle predicts more expensive and high-tech cameras may have a brighter future, though not by much, as a smaller market of photo enthusiasts seek out professional-quality cameras that go above and beyond what's offered on a phone.
DVD Players
DVD players are in the process of being phased out now by Blu-ray players and will likely be erased from the consumer landscape by the end of the decade.
“The DVD player should be replaced by digital delivery,” says Ian Olgeirson, a senior analyst at SNL Kagan, who points to streaming movie services like Netflix as being the future. “Blu-rays and whatever the next generation high-end movie format emerges could prolong the lifespan because of challenges around streaming, but eventually the disc is going to be phased out.”
The idea of placing a disc into a DVD player to watch a movie will eventually seem as outdated as placing a record on a turntable, which brings us to the next product on our list…
Recordable CDs and DVDs
Using CDs and DVDs to view and store content will soon be a thing of the past.
"CDs are clearly not going to make it over the next 10 years because everything will shift over to pure digital distribution, so all those shiny discs will be gone," Bajarin says. This will be due in part to more streaming options for music and movies and a greater reliance on digital downloads, combined with more efficient storage options for consumers, including USB drives, external hard drives and of course the cloud.
"All a CD is is a medium for distribution of content ... and within 10 years, you won't need a physical transport medium," Bajarin says.
Video Game Consoles
Popular video game systems such as the Wii, PlayStation and Xbox may still be in homes next decade, but they will look much different. Rather than buy a separate console, Enderle expects that consumers will instead buy smart televisions with a gaming system built into it, not to mention tablets and smartphones that will continue to ramp up their gaming options.
“It looks like analog game systems won’t make it until the end of the decade,” Enderle says. “You are already seeing the Wii have a tough time holding on to the market and PlayStation has been struggling for a while.”
The gaming systems that will succeed in the future will be those that manage to move away from being focused solely on video games and more on other entertainment options such as movies, evolving from a traditional game console into more of a set-top box.
The Seven Weirdest Things About Moammar Gadhafi
An Excerpt
- Seven Weirdest Things About Moammar Gadhafi
Col. Moammar Gadhafi, the dictator who ruled Libya for 42 years, was killed by rebels in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday. A dictator who oppressed his own people and sponsored terrorism abroad, Gadhafi's legacy will be stained by violence. But beyond his brutality, Gadhafi will be remembered for something else entirely… being a first-class weirdo.
In no particular order, ABCNews.com brings you the seven weirdest things about Moammar Gadhafi.
1. The "Bulletproof" Tent: When Gadhafi was at home in Tripoli, he lived in a well fortified compound with a complex system of escape tunnels. But when he travelled abroad, this "Bedouin" brought a bit of the desert with him, camping out in the world's capitals. The tent was so heavy it needed to be flown on a separate plane, wherever the dictator travelled. To complete the Arabian Nights theme, Gadhafi often would tether a camel or two outside.
2. All-Female Virgin Bodyguard Retinue: They apparently weren't around when Gadhafi needed them most on Thursday, but the eccentric dictator was historically protected by 40 well trained bodyguards – all of them women. The bodyguards, called "Amazons," were all reportedly virgins who took a vow of chastity upon joining the dictator's retinue. The women, trained at an all-female military academy, were handpicked by Gadhafi. They wore elaborate uniforms, as well as makeup and high-heeled combat boots.
3. His "Voluptuous" Ukrainian Nurse: For a decade, Galyna Kolotnytska, a Ukrainian nurse often described in the press as "voluptuous," was regularly seen at the dictator's side. Kolotnytska was described in a leaked diplomatic cable as one of Gadhafi's closest aides and was rumored to have a romantic relationship with him. Several other Ukrainian women served as nurses and they all referred to him as "Papa" or "Daddy."
4. Crush on Condoleezza Rice: In 2007, Gadhafi called former Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice his "darling black African woman" and on a 2008 visit she made to Tripoli, the dictator gave her $200,000 worth of gifts, including a ring and a lute. But it wasn't until rebels stormed his Tripoli compound that the depths of the dictator's infatuation were exposed. There among Gadhafi's belongings was a carefully composed photo album made up of dozens of images of no one but Rice.
5. Fear of Flying and Elevators: Part of the reason Gadhafi loved travelling with that tent of his was because he was worried about lodging in a hotel where he'd have to ride an elevator. According to leaked diplomatic cables, the Libyan didn't like heights much either, and would only climb to a height of 35 steps. He therefore wasn't much of a fan of flying, refusing to travel by air for more than eight hours at a time. When he would travel to New York of the U.N.'s annual general assembly, he would spend a night in Portugal on the way to the U.S.
6. Bunga Bunga: In 2010, one of Gadhafi's most eccentric pastimes was exposed by Italian prosecutors investigating Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. A 17-year-old prostitute named Karima el-Mahroug, better known as Ruby Heartstealer, revealed that she had been invited to an orgy, called a "bunga bunga." "Silvio told me that he'd copied that formula from Muammar Gadhafi," she told prosecutors according to La Repubblica. "It's a ritual of [Gadhafi's] African harem."
7. An Eclectic Wardrobe: In those photos of world leaders standing shoulder to shoulder on the sidelines of this or that international forum, Gadhafi was always the easiest to pick out. His wardrobe was an eclectic mix of ornate military uniforms, Miami Vice style leisure suits, and Bedouin robes. Gadhafi, who pushed for a pan-African federation of nations, often decorated his outfits with images of the African continent. He'd sport safari shirts printed with an Africa pattern, or wear garish pins or necklaces of the continent.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
The World's Fastest Growing Airports - An Excerpt
Istanbul tops list of world's fastest-growing airports
- An Excerpt
AFP Relax – Tue, Aug 2, 2011
Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport is the world's fastest growing airport, according to a new report released by Airports Council International (ACI) August 1.
The World Airport Traffic Report 2010, which analyzed the performance of over 1,300 airports in 157 countries around the world last year, suggests that traffic at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, completed in 2009, jumped by 75 percent last year.
That puts it considerably ahead of Campinas in Brazil, the world's second-fastest growing airport, and Rio de Janeiro, the third.
Charleroi in Belgium and Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport rounded off the top five list.
Overall, traffic through the world's airports grew by 6.6 percent in 2010, the report shows, a total of 5.04 billion passengers -- the first time global air travel has passed the 5 billion mark.
The fastest growth was observed in Latin America and the Caribbean (13.2 percent), ACI said, followed by the Middle East (12 percent), Asia-Pacific (11.3 percent) Africa (9.5 percent), Europe (4.3 percent) and North America (2.5 percent).
Preliminary statistics show that for the first six months of this year, global passenger traffic is up by six percent again.
The busiest airports in the world overall were Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson in the US, Beijing, Chicago in the US, London Heathrow and Tokyo Haneda.
However, stripping out domestic passengers to include just international travel, London Heathrow holds the top spot, followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle, Hong Kong International, Dubai International in the United Arab Emirates and Frankfurt in Germany.
The world's fastest-growing airports
1. Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, Turkey
2. Viracopos-Campinas, Brazil
3. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
4. Charleroi, Belgium
5. Moscow Sheremetyevo, Russia
6. Belo Horizonte, Brazil
7. Bogota, Colombia
8. Phuket, Thailand
9. Shanghai Pudong, China
10. Muscat, Oman
11. Ankara, Turkey
12. St Petersburg, Russia
13. Medan, Indonesia
14. Shanghai Hongqiao, China
15. Milwaukee, WI, USA
Data from Airports Council International - http://www.airports.org/
- An Excerpt
AFP Relax – Tue, Aug 2, 2011
Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport is the world's fastest growing airport, according to a new report released by Airports Council International (ACI) August 1.
The World Airport Traffic Report 2010, which analyzed the performance of over 1,300 airports in 157 countries around the world last year, suggests that traffic at Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport, completed in 2009, jumped by 75 percent last year.
That puts it considerably ahead of Campinas in Brazil, the world's second-fastest growing airport, and Rio de Janeiro, the third.
Charleroi in Belgium and Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport rounded off the top five list.
Overall, traffic through the world's airports grew by 6.6 percent in 2010, the report shows, a total of 5.04 billion passengers -- the first time global air travel has passed the 5 billion mark.
The fastest growth was observed in Latin America and the Caribbean (13.2 percent), ACI said, followed by the Middle East (12 percent), Asia-Pacific (11.3 percent) Africa (9.5 percent), Europe (4.3 percent) and North America (2.5 percent).
Preliminary statistics show that for the first six months of this year, global passenger traffic is up by six percent again.
The busiest airports in the world overall were Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson in the US, Beijing, Chicago in the US, London Heathrow and Tokyo Haneda.
However, stripping out domestic passengers to include just international travel, London Heathrow holds the top spot, followed by Paris Charles de Gaulle, Hong Kong International, Dubai International in the United Arab Emirates and Frankfurt in Germany.
The world's fastest-growing airports
1. Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport, Turkey
2. Viracopos-Campinas, Brazil
3. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
4. Charleroi, Belgium
5. Moscow Sheremetyevo, Russia
6. Belo Horizonte, Brazil
7. Bogota, Colombia
8. Phuket, Thailand
9. Shanghai Pudong, China
10. Muscat, Oman
11. Ankara, Turkey
12. St Petersburg, Russia
13. Medan, Indonesia
14. Shanghai Hongqiao, China
15. Milwaukee, WI, USA
Data from Airports Council International - http://www.airports.org/
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