Study may explain roots of empathy

When people say “I feel your pain,” they do not mean it literally, but certain people really do feel something that appears to be an extreme form of empathy, UK researchers said.

They said watching someone being touched triggers the same part of the brain as actual touch, and this connection helps explain how we understand what other people are feeling.

People who experience a tactile sense of touch when they see another person being touched — something called mirror-touch synesthesia — was first studied in 2005 in one person.

But researchers at University College London have now studied 10 people with the same condition. “It suggests there is a link between certain aspects of the tactile system and empathy,” said Michael Banissy of the university’s department of psychology, whose work appears in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Banissy and colleagues first did a series of experiments to authenticate peoples’ claims that they felt something when they saw someone else being touched. read more.....

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Laptops giving chronic back pain to millions

Booming sales of laptops have led to a surge in the number of computer users with back and muscle problems, experts have warned. Girls as young as 12 are being diagnosed with nerve damage caused by slouching over screens, a group of leading chiropractors said.

Millions of others are at risk of “irretrievable damage” to their spines, necks and shoulders because of poor posture when using laptops, it was claimed. Back specialists say as many as four in five patients have chronic nerve damage caused by working on portable PCs.

The problem is being driven by falling prices and the increasing availability of wireless technology, which makes portable computers more attractive. Laptop sales in PC World went up by more than 25% last year.

In addition, laptops used at work are not subject to the same health and safety regulations as desktop computers. This makes it more likely they will be used incorrectly. A common problem is perching a laptop on the legs so users stare down at the screen and put strain on their necks, spines and legs.

London-based chiropractor Michael Durntall was among those calling for more research into the issue. He said he had seen dozens of Xrays showing signs of degeneration in the joints of regular laptop users. Durntall added: “Mothers bring in their 12-year-old daughters suffering back pain and when they arrive I can see their slumped posture straight away.

“I also see many people in their twenties and thirties with a dowager’s hump — a rounding at the base of the neck — after only a few years of looking down at a small screen while sitting slumped on a chair for long periods.”

Rishi Loatey, a chiropractor from Wembley, North-West London, said he often treated back and neck pain caused by using a laptop on the move, such as on a train.

Nicola Hunter, a physiotherapist and occupational health specialist, said that hand and arm pain similar to repetitive strain injury was easily induced by resting wrists against the edge of a laptop.

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Almost lost: over 900 bird species

A COMBINATION of climate change and habitat destruction will significantly threaten 400 to 900 bird species by 2050, according to researchers who have carried out a global analysis of the effects of human activities on land-dwelling birds.

By the end of the century, the list will be roughly twice as long.
The birds at risk are those which the researchers predict will lose at least half of their habitat range. They said that although the effects of climate change are significant, they are dwarfed by damage to the birds' habitat due to, for example, logging to convert forest to farmland.

The analysis used data from the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) a five-year project begun in 2001 involving more than 1,300 experts worldwide, which aimed to provide a state-of-the-art appraisal of the world's ecosystems, the services they provide and how to conserve them.

The team used global political scenarios developed by the MEA to project what would happen to habitats over the next century.

Even with the most optimistic assumptions about global action on climate change and efforts to slow habitat destruction in the tropics, large numbers of the 8,750 land bird species were endangered. read more........

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Twenty key inventions of the last 25 years

Cellphones
Car phones were around in the 1970s, but it wasn't until 1983 that Motorola introduced the first widely available handheld cellphone, the DynaTAC 8000x.

Laptop computers
The 28-pound Compaq Portable - Compaq Computer's very first product - was the first portable IBM-compatible PC on the market.

BlackBerries
A Canadian pager company, Research In Motion, shortened attention spans around the world with the launch of the BlackBerry mobile e-mail device in 1999.

Debit cards
Ka-ching! Who needs cash when you've got a debit card? They took off after visa launched its check card in 1995.

Caller ID
Bill collectors are easy to ignore with this invention introduced by BellSouth in 1984 in Orlando.

DVDs
Americans traded all those hours rewinding video cassettes for hours with the introduction of digital video discs in 1995. Lithium rechargeable batteries How many AAs does it take to power a laptop? Almost no one knows, thanks to the durable rechargeable battery Sony brought to market in 1991.

iPods
Walking down the sidewalk hasn't been the same.since November 2001, when Apple introduced its iconic portable digital music player. read more.....

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Tips to click fine Pictures

Proper handling of the camera itself can reduce the number of retakes, helping to make your day easier by decreasing the number of times you need to repeat the dreaded "hold on, I need to take one more". Taking better quality pictures means taking fewer pictures overall since you’re taking fewer bad shots due to bad mechanics.

Holding the Camera
Hold the camera solidly in your hand to prevent the camera from shuddering or shifting too much when pressing on the shutter button, and watch your spare fingers so that they don’t interfere with the lens. One trick is to wrap the camera strap around your fingers so that you will be more conscious of where they are.

Another tip, especially with smaller cameras, is to hold your eye up to the optical viewfinder to capture the image, rather than the electronic viewfinder – this will not only help you see exactly what your capturing, but will also help to stabilize the shot between your hands and your face for less 'camera shake'.

Focusing
As digital cameras have a tendency to take slightly longer to focus than film camera, an important tip is to half-depress the shutter button until the camera has had time to lock the focus, and then completely press the button to take the actual shot - this can often make the difference between blurry, out-of-focus shots, and clear pictures.

Also, with normal picture-taking, shutter speeds are fast enough that a small amount of shake won’t affect the resulting image much, however, there are times when you’d want to use a tripod to compensate: when taking pictures in low light, where the shutter speed will slow down enough to potentially make drag lines, and when using a long zoom, where distant objects are susceptible to blur. In each case, the tripod will settle the image and let you forget about shaking the image and focus on capturing.

Preview
One of the main advantages of a digital camera is being able to preview the pictures after you’ve taken them. If you are trying to capture a specific scene, you can review the shot and see if it looks the way you wanted – if it doesn’t, you can delete the shot and retake it to get it right. Why keep a picture if it’s blurry, or someone’s eyes are closed, or a person is obstructing part of the view?

Archiving
Taking that one step further, there is no worse feeling than seeing the perfect kiss, smile or sunset, reaching for your camera and clicking the button, only to realize that your storage is full and you’ve missed your chance. It’s happened to everyone, but still, you can prevent it by clearing off your old pictures monthly. Bring a second memory card/stick with you when you go on a trip, even if your primary card/stick is large, just in case you need the extra space.

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Steel King: Laxmi Mittal

Laxmi Nivas Mittal (born June 15, 1950) is a London-based Indian billionaire industrialist, born in Sadulpur, in Churu district of Rajasthan, India, and residing in Kensington, London. He was listed in the Forbes List of Billionaires (2006) as the 5th richest man and the richest Indian in the world with an estimated fortune of $23.5 billion and, according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, is the richest in the UK, with a net worth of £14.8 billion. The Financial Times named Mittal its 2006 Person of the Year.

The foreign operations of the family business were passed on to Laxmi Narayan Mittal at an early age. Starting from Ispat Indo in Indonesia, Mittal has become the steel king of the world. By his vision and hard work, Mittal has built the moderate business of his family into a global steel giant, which spans across many countries. The companies of the LNM Ispat group include Ispat international NV, Ispat Karmet and Indo Ispat. From the core business of steel manufacturing, his group is now diversifying into shipping, coal, power and oil enterprises. The most fascinating thing about this man is that he is said to have a knack of buying sick and rusted steel companies and turning them into gold! read more…

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ESPN

ESPN (which formerly stood for the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming 24 hours a day. It was founded by Scott Rasmussen and his father Bill Rasmussen, and launched on September 7, 1979 under the direction of Chet Simmons, who was the network's first President and CEO (and the United States Football League's (USFL) first commissioner). The current president, since November 19, 1998, of ESPN is George Bodenheimer. Bodenheimer is also the current head of ESPN on ABC, having been named to that position on March 3, 2003. Its signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 50,000th episode on February 11, 2007. ESPN broadcasts primarily out of its studios in Bristol, Connecticut; it also operates offices out of Charlotte, San Francisco, and Los Angeles which will open in 2009. Available in over 100 million homes in the United States and over 150 countries and territories via ESPN International. The name of the sport company was lengthened to "ESPN Inc." in February 1985. read more…

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Google gets personal with iGoogle

GOOGLE INC is stepping up efforts to allow its users to personalise how they search the Web, moving beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to search it already offers.

Google's personalized home page now goes by a new name: "iGoogle". It was the company's fastest growing product in 2006, according to Marissa Mayer, Google's VP of search products and user experience, but still trails far behind Yahoo's MyYahoo, which has 50 million monthly unique visitors to iGoogle's 7 million monthly uniques.

Officials told reporters at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters on Monday of moves to allow users to share their own writings, photos, lists and other creative efforts, as well as to give consumers personalised views of the Web through use of their geographical location and search history.

The world's top provider of Web search services is bringing together the more idiosyncratic approach to finding information on the Internet under the umbrella term "iGoogle", the new name for its enhanced personalised home page services.

"We want to personalise the traditional notion of search," Sep Kamvar, lead engineer for the personalisation push, told reporters.

Reinventing the classic Google.com home page-with its simple, uncluttered design-the company is introducing features that range from colourful new Web page designs to helping users publish their own creative content.

Google is borrowing or reinventing ideas that have already become popular features on many social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Bebo and Photobucket, where users are encouraged to share their own creative work with friends.

To help users create personalised features on iGoogle, the company introduced "Gadget Maker", which allows any user who knows how to upload a photo and fill out a simple Web form to publish their content without knowing computer coding.

Google introduced seven templates for creating personalized "gadgets"-publishing features-that include tools for publishing photos, sending virtual greeting cards or creating personal profiles or lists of favourite songs or films.

"I look at personalised search and I think it is one of the biggest advances we have had in the last couple of years," Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president in charge of search and user ex- perience, said.

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Is the Internet truly a managerial tool?

L IFE TODAY runs on 1 and 0. Bits running at the speed of light, from one computer to another, from one memory device to another, an endless run that seems to stretch to infinity.

The internet is no longer a combination of computers; it has taken on a life of its own. Knowledge and information sharing applications are radically transforming the world we live-and work in. Terms like blogs, Wikis and podcasts have moved out of the world of geeks into everyday business jargon.

The new tools of information sharing are more than software tools-they are a part of the internet itself. But are they leading to freedom or a state of anarchy?

These tools give individuals the power to put forth their views, and to be counted in the real sense. They have more freedom to express, share information, distribute it, and have access to information on the go, leading to a world where the concept of dynamic information becomes real. There is a natural tendency for individuals and groups to shield the world from viewpoints that are in opposition to their own. The contradiction is that those who try so hard to silence the voices opposing them wish to, at the same time, maintain their freedom to speak for their own causes.
The Internet is based on the basic premise on which the structure of globalisation stands: the idea of "free flow", whether of capital, labor or intellect. read more......

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More corporate frauds a near the corner room

In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal gain. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds.

WERE YOU about to faint when the police came knocking for your co-worker? You never thought the soft-spoken 40year-old gentleman who taught you ledger entries could ever be a fraudster More than anywhere, appearance may be deceptive in the world of corporate fraud.

Why are people often caught unaware when somebody is accused of fraud? Because the accused is one known to be helpful, polite and inconspicuous. And most importantly, it is that person who enjoys the absolute trust of both superiors and colleagues, according to a study.

A KPMG study of 360 cases across India, Europe, South Africa and the Middle East shows that 36 per cent of fraudsters belong to the finance department. Most fraudsters are middleaged. The survey states that 70 per cent of fraudsters belong to 36-55 year age group.

"Over 60 per cent of the perpetrators are members of top management. Senior managers have access to confidential information, and due to their position it is easier for them to bypass internal controls and inflict greater damage to the company overall," says Deepankar Sanwalka, executive director and head of KPMG Forensic in India. read more.....

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Cnn (Cable News Network)

The Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. It is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System, owned by Time Warner. CNN introduced the idea of 24-hour television news coverage, and celebrated its 25th anniversary on June 1, 2005.

In terms of cumulative (Cume) Nielsen ratings or "unique viewers", CNN rates as America’s cable news network. However, CNN trails Fox News Channel in terms of average viewership.CNN broadcasts primarily from its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta, Time Warner Center in New York City, and studios in Washington, DC. As of December 2004, it is available in 88.2 million U.S. households and more than 890,000 American hotel rooms. The U.S version of CNN is also shown in Canada. Globally, the network airs through CNN International and has combined branded networks and services that are available to more than 1.5 billion people in over 212 countries and territories. CNN has come under criticism by conservatives, mainly on network ratings rival Fox News, claiming it has a liberal bias and by liberals claiming it has a conservative bias. read more…

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Google to Acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today a definitive agreement to acquire DoubleClick Inc., a global leader in digital marketing technology and services, for $3.1 billion in cash from San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman along with JMI Equity and management. The acquisition will combine DoubleClick's expertise in ad management technology for media buyers and sellers with Google's leading advertising platform and publisher monetization services.

The combination of Google and DoubleClick will offer superior tools for targeting, serving and analyzing online ads of all types, significantly benefiting customers and consumers:

• For users, the combined company will deliver an improved experience on the web, by increasing the relevancy and the quality of the ads they see.

• For online publishers, the combination provides access to new advertisers, which creates a powerful opportunity to monetize their inventory more efficiently.

• For agencies and advertisers, Google and DoubleClick will provide an easy and efficient way to manage both search and display ads in one place. They will be able to optimize their ad spending across different online media using a common set of metrics.

"DoubleClick's technology is widely adopted by leading advertisers, publishers and agencies, and the combination of the two companies will accelerate the adoption of Google's innovative advances in display advertising," said Eric Schmidt, Chief Executive Officer of Google. read more....

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What is Weather forecasting?

Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location. Humankind has attempted to predict the weather since ancient times. Today, weather forecasts are made by collecting quantitative data about the current state of the atmosphere and using scientific understanding of atmospheric processes to project how the atmosphere will evolve.

For millennia people have tried to forecast the weather. In 650 BC, the Babylonians predicted the weather from cloud patterns. In about 340 BC, Aristotle described weather patterns in Meteorological. Chinese weather prediction lore extends at least as far back as 300 BC.

Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere at a future time. Prior to the advent of scientific methods of weather forecasting, a large body of weather folklore developed to explain the weather. An example is the Groundhog Day celebration near the end of winter in parts of the United States and Canada. Today, weather forecasts are made by collecting data that describe the current state of the atmosphere (particularly the temperature, humidity and wind) and using physically-based mathematical models to determine how the atmosphere is expected to change in the future. read more.......

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Kick the butt the milky way

Old habits may die hard, but many people around the country are taking one step closer to quitting smoking -- hopefully for good.

MILK NOT only does the body good it may also help you quit smoking, says a study. Consuming milk makes the taste of cigarette bad and by making a few modifications to the diet one can make quitting bit easier, said the study published in April 2007 issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

The study is said to be the first to explore the taste-altering effects of food and beverages on cigarette palatability.

The study examined 209 smokers and asked them to name items that worsen or enhance the taste of cigarettes.

Nineteen percent of them reported that dairy products, such as milk or cheese, worsen the taste of cigarettes; 14 per cent reported non-caffeinated beverages, such as water or juice. And a further 16 per cent reported fruits and vegetables. read more…..

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No stopping online music piracy

Despite success in suing people who download music illegally and in reaching deals with personal networking sites like YouTube, the music industry is still bleeding millions of dollars in sales to online piracy. It is a major issue for an industry that is desperately trying to boost revenue from legal downloads to make up for falling sales of Compact Discs, which declined 23 per cent globally between 2000 to 2006.

To get an idea of the size of the problem, Eric Garland of Web consultants Big Champagne estimates that more than 1 billion digital tracks are illegally traded for free each month. By comparison, Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, which has more than 70 per cent of legal digital music sales in the United States, has sold only a bit more than 2 billion songs since its launch in 2003.

The problem is so-called peer to peer (P2P) networks such as Gnutella and BitTorrent that link millions of personal computers and allow anonymous users to exchange digital music files for free over the Internet. Since the music industry started winning lawsuits against individuals in the last few years, the growth in the number of people using illegal file-sharing software has slowed significantly, but nonetheless it is still growing.

Russ Crupnick, an analyst at consumer research group NPD, said the number of U.S. house holds engaged in P2P over the last year rose 7 per cent, while the number of illegal downloads were up by 24 per cent. "P2P remains an unacceptable problem," said Mitch Bainwol, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. "The folks engaged in the practice are doing more of it.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) succeeded in closing some companies behind file-swapping, such as Grokster and KaZaa starting in 2005. But shutting down the companies that marketed the applications does not always kill the network. "If you've got the software you can still file-share. The rulings just means you can't distribute it anymore," said Wayne Rosso, a former chief executive of Grokster.

Five facts about digital downloading

• Sales of compact discs have fallen by more than 23 per cent between 2000 and 2006 according to the global music trade body IFPI.

• Napster was the first major peer-to-peer file sharing network. It was founded by Shawn Fanning in 1999 and shut down after legal action by the music industry in 2001.

• The Recording Industry Association of America has successfully shuttered or reached agreements with BearShare, eDonkey, Grokster and Kazaa since 2005.

• Apple's iTunes Music Store is the world's biggest digital music outlet and has sold more than 2 billion songs since its 2003 launch.

• More than 1 billion songs are swapped for free every month on file swapping networks, according to Web consultants Big Champagne.

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Imagery Info Deal Between Google and NASA

Google Inc. and NASA Ames Research Center said that they have finalized an agreement to deliver more of the space agency's imagery and information through the Internet's leading search engine.

The collaboration marks another step in a partnership announced 15 months ago when Google unveiled plans to build a 1 million-square-foot campus at the NASA center, located a few miles south of the company's Mountain View headquarters.

Under the arrangement, Ames will feed Google with its weather forecasting information, three-dimensional maps of the moon and Mars, and real-time tracking of the International Space Station and space shuttle flights so the pictures and data are available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Google already draws upon some of NASA's imagery to provide Web surfers with interactive tours of Mars as part of a 9-month-old service.

This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement.

Ames and Google also have vowed to work together to solve complex computing problems, including large-scale data management.

"Partnering with NASA made perfect sense for Google, as it has a wealth of technical expertise and data that will be of great use to Google as we look to tackle many computing issues on behalf of our users," Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement.

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New Release of Microsoft - Pro Vista

For the first time in five years, Microsoft Corp. is finally unveiling a new system for operating personal computers. Now the company must persuade PC buyers that the launch really matters to them. Beginning Thursday, businesses that buy Windows licenses in bulk have first crack at the new operating system, called Vista. Consumers can get Vista on home PCs beginning Jan. 30.

Microsoft and computer vendors contend that Vista will make Windows machines more secure, powerful and graphically dynamic, especially when combined with other products Microsoft is releasing simultaneously. Those include new back-end server software for businesses, as well as Office 2007, which brings sweeping changes to widely used programs such as Word, Outlook, Excel and PowerPoint.

Much is at stake for Microsoft. Most of its revenue and almost all of its profit comes from Windows and Office, funding the company's sexier ventures in video games and music players. But even with all the touted improvements, analysts expect Vista to only gradually emerge, especially in big organizations where upgrading can be a costly, complicated affair. Gartner Dataquest predicts that it will be 2010 before Vista outnumbers the previous operating system, Windows XP, on business computers.

PC makers say Vista will enable computers to do things that previously were difficult or costly. For example, Lenovo Group Ltd., the world's No. 3 PC maker, says Vista greatly enhances data-backup tools it builds into its machines.

"All those capabilities are going to be one step better with Vista," said Clain Anderson, Lenovo's director of software peripherals.

A company with 10,000 employees, for example, likely has 1,000 business applications, many of which need to be tested on Vista before a company can switch its PCs to the new operating system, said Gartner analyst Michael Silver. That process often takes 12 to 18 months and lots of labor by the technology staff. In the meantime, the last operating system, Windows XP, works just fine for most companies -- especially with a security-enhancing patch known as Service Pack 2 that Microsoft released in 2004.

But many buyers want more dramatic reasons to change their PCs.
Kamal Anand, chief technology officer for TradeStone Software Inc., a Gloucester, Mass.-based provider of supply-chain software, examined test versions of Vista and Office and found "no compelling need" to upgrade his company's 100 PCs and laptops anytime soon. Instead, Anand expects Vista and Office to slowly permeate TradeStone as it buys new PCs for employees in coming years.

"Nobody wants to go through the extra time and effort and money to upgrade an existing, well-working system," he said. The programs in Office 2007 have been overhauled in many ways. Generally they can make it easier for people to collaborate on documents and to manage information from multiple sources. Excel in particular packs a wallop, with vastly increased number-crunching abilities. The Outlook e-mail program performs noticeably faster searches for tidbits buried in messages.

Some Office programs also have scrapped their familiar menu structure in favor of a "ribbon" atop the screen that reorders how command choices are presented to the user. While that new interface unlocks many features that were hard to find in previous generations of Office software, it will require some time to get used to, which might give tech buyers pause.

Another potential drag for Office is that the world has changed considerably since the last major release in 2003. Inexpensive, open-source alternatives to Office have gained traction. And rivals such as Google Inc. are increasingly delivering spreadsheets, word processing and other tools for free over the Internet, an attractive choice for smaller companies.

But Office 2007 holds few such attractions for his company. Tabblo employees have largely abandoned Excel and Word for free programs on the Web, praising the flexibility that comes with having files stored online. Just about the only Office program Rodriguez still uses is PowerPoint for presentations.

At Tabblo Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup that lets people assemble, print and share online photo collections, CEO Antonio Rodriguez expects to upgrade many, though not all, of the company's 25 PCs to Vista throughout 2007. Tabblo's staff expects Vista to make it easier to back up files and synch data over multiple computers. Rodriguez and crew also have energetically adopted Microsoft's latest Web browser, Internet Explorer 7.

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Answers Services Abandon by Google

Google Inc. doesn't have all the answers -- a fact underscored by the Internet search leader's decision to abandon a 4-year-old service that hired researchers to field questions on everything from school homework to sports trivia. The retreat, announced in a notice posted on Google's Web site late Tuesday night, represents a rare victory for rival Yahoo Inc.

It also may signal Google's intention to refocus on its core search engine, a moneymaking machine that generates virtually all its profits. Google executives have recently expressed worries about having too many disjointed products scattered across its Web site.

Despite those distractions, Google still holds a large lead over Yahoo in basic Internet search. Google has parlayed that advantage into more rapid profit growth that has lifted its stock price to new heights while Yahoo shares have slumped badly for most of the year.

But Yahoo appears to have outsmarted Google with a free online answer service that has grown rapidly since its introduction less than a year ago. Unlike Google's offering, Yahoo's service doesn't charge money. Instead, Yahoo appeals to the vanity of smart people to ferret out the answers to esoteric questions like "What has Alexander Graham Bell invented other than the telephone?"

• Microsoft Corp. and several specialty Web sites like Keen.com, Answers.com and Answerbag.com also compete against Yahoo and Google in this highly specialized niche of Internet search.
  
• Google's service required its users to pay a researcher anywhere from $2 to $200 to chase down the answers to minutiae like "How many tyrannosaurs are in a gallon of gasoline?"

The Mountain View-based company collected a 50-cent commission on each question, with the remainder going to one of the roughly 800 researchers who have responded to questions since Google co-founder Larry Page conceived the service in 2002. Although it started later, Yahoo's answer service quickly eclipsed Google's. By October, the market share of Yahoo Answers was about 24 times greater than Google's service, estimated Hitwise, a research company that tracks Internet traffic patterns.

Yahoo's users are becoming so adept at answering questions that their responses sometimes even appear on the first results page of Google's own search engine. In its first 11 months, Yahoo's service has accumulated about 160 million answers, according to the Sunnyvale-based company. Google didn't elaborate on the reasons for dropping its service, which will stop accepting questions later this week. The answers to previously asked questions will remain available.

"Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users," software engineers Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher wrote in the closure notice. "We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want.

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Fabulous Gift on this Christmas

DVDs make great gifts because they are easy to wrap and are loved by all

Christmas is all about the giving and gifters can say plenty with the right choice of special DVDs sets for family, friends and loved ones. We offer some guidance, suggestions for making an impact as you shop early and often.

Shoppers this holiday will be greeted by an unprecedented mix of box sets and special editions matching and surpassing the bar set last year by HBO’s $300 pink suede-covered 20-disc Sex and the City complete-series collector’s gift set.

The number of new TV DVD box sets alone is 2 per cent ahead of last year’s record pace, when more than 550 were released, according to The DVD Release Report. It’s true that in many cases studios are doing this to repack previously released single DVDs — and reap some profits before new high-definition video formats take off (they hope).

This year, more series get that treatment, including the Homicide: Life on the Street 35-disc megaset (A&E Home Video, $300) and Six Feet Under: The Complete Series gift set (HBO, 25 discs, $280). Movies, too, are being bundled into boxes that extol various themes (Fox’s $99 Rodgers and Hammerstein Collection and Warner’s $29 Classic Comedy Teams Collection) or chronicle the careers of actors (The Paul Newman Collection, Warner, $60) or filmmakers (Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection, Universal, $60).

But customers do benefit from buying in bulk: A typical DVD costs $12 to $17 individually, but discs can cost $5 or less in a set. “It’s a win-win for both the studios and the consumer,” says DVD Release Report editor Ralph Tribbey.

Gift for Someone Special

• Individual NFL Films highlight DVDs such as San Francisco 49ers:
  The Complete History (Warner, $27; other teams include the Green Bay Packers, Oakland Raiders and Denver Broncos), because as the NFL playoffs
  
• King Kong Deluxe Extended Edition (Universal, $35), because it adds 13 minutes to the already epic-length theatrical edition that features outrageous battles, stunts, creatures and, let’s face it, a scantily clad Naomi Watts — approach, some fans will need glory days to lean on.
  
• Beverly Hills, 90210: The Complete First Season (Paramount, $55), because this series is what made Fox the social network of the 1990s. Along with six more hours of special features.
  
• An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount, $30), because it has been in the headlines ever since its theatrical bow over the summer.
  
• Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 (Disney, $60), because it has last season’s 27 episodes and extended scenes from this Emmy-winning series, which captures surgeons and interns performing under stress in a Seattle hospital — and under the covers.
  
• Ali G Indahouse: The Movie (Universal, $15), because this is the first feature film starring red-hot comedi an Sacha Baron Cohen, who, on the heels of his edgy Da Ali G Show, has become even more of a pop-culture phenomenon with
  
• The Simpsons: The Complete Eighth Season (Fox, $50) or The Simpsons: The Complete Ninth Season (Dec. 19, $50), because it’s the granddaddy of the adult-themed animation craze.
  
• Reds 25th Anniversary Edition (Paramount, $20), because it earned Oscar nominations for all four acting awards (in total it won three: best director, Warren Beatty; supporting actress, Maureen Stapleton; and cinematography).

For more information about Gift on this Christmas visit at www.halfvalue.com and www.halfvalue.co.uk.

Buying Different Type of Running Shoes

An Athletic shoe is a generic name for a shoe designed for sporting activities, and is different in style and build than a dress shoe. Originally known as sporting apparel, today they are known as casual footwear. Depending on what part of the world you live in, they can also go by the name sport shoes, running shoes, gym shoes, tennis shoes, sneakers (American English), trainers (British English), runners (Canadian English), or sandshoes (Australian English). In some urban areas in the United States, the slang for casual athletic shoes is kicks. In Hiberno-English the term is runners. In South African English the term used is takkies.

Choosing a new pair of running shoes can be a daunting task with so many options on the market. If you visit a running shoe store or pick up a magazine about running and jogging, you will find words such as pronation, supination, and neutral to describe your running style. You will find that running shoes come in a variety of types and styles that include those for motion control, support, cushioning, and racing. You will discover that the type of running shoes you need may depend on whether you do road or trail running, whether you are fast, slow or steady, and whether or not you race. Gone are the days when you would simply go into a store and find a pair of sneakers that fit. Today, choosing running shoes has become a science.

Tips & Suggestions on Running Shoes:

• If you are in the market for a new pair of running shoes, don't despair. "Pronation" simply means your ankle rolls inward as you run, while "supination" means your ankle rolls to the outside; "neutral" is right in the middle. To find out what type of foot you have, put a paper grocery bag on the floor and wet the bottom of your foot with a sponge. Take a step onto the paper bag and look to see what kind of a print you made. A wide print means you are probably a pronator while a narrow print, or one with the middle missing entirely, shows that you are more than likely a supinator.
  
• Running shoes are made to fit the three main types of running styles, but they also take into account gait, speed, weight, and pace. Sprinting shoes are built differently than the shoes of longevity that a marathoner would wear. Trail shoes are reinforced to be sturdier as a trail runner might encounter roots, rocks, or other obstacles, while street running shoes are relatively soft and pliable.
  
• Runners should always have a good pair of running shoes; do not be afraid to spend a fair amount of money on your running shoes. Go to a running shoe specialty store and ask for a pair of shoes that fits your running style. Coaches and personal trainers can help you choose running shoes as well. Pronators will need a straight shaped shoe while supinators require a shoe that is more curved. If you are a pronator with a flat arch, you will need a motion control shoe, but if you are a supinator with a high arch, you will require a specially cushioned shoe.
  
• The many choices may seem confusing at first, but in the end, you will have the best shoe for your running style, which will mean better running health for your entire body.

For more information on Running Shoes visit at http://www.halfvalue.com and http://www.halfvalue.co.uk websites.