You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? Democrats are unhappy that newly revealed Internal Revenue Service documents show the agency screened for progressive groups seeking tax-exempt status, not just the tea party organizations for which the IRS was already under fire.
Democrats also want to know why the Treasury Department inspector general who investigated IRS targeting of conservative groups didn't mention that terms like "Progressives" and "Healthcare legislation" were on the same lists agency workers used to find applications to review closely.
"The Inspector General seriously erred in not making clear in both the audit report and his testimony on this matter that 'Tea Party' and 'Progressives' were included" in the lists IRS workers used to screen applications, Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., wrote Monday in a memo his aides distributed. Levin is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
That Treasury investigator, J. Russell George, released a report in May detailing "inappropriate criteria" the IRS used to single out conservative groups for intensified treatment, and has testified to congressional committees several times. He never affirmed that progressive groups were sought out as well, although he cautioned lawmakers that he recently had found lists that raised concerns about other "political factors" he did not specify.
Levin's complaint came hours after Danny Werfel, the new IRS chief, told reporters that his agency's screening of groups seeking tax-exempt status was broader and lasted longer than has been previously disclosed.
In a conference call with reporters, Werfel said that after becoming acting IRS chief last month, he discovered "inappropriate criteria that was in use" and ordered the practice halted immediately. Previously, investigators have said agency officials ended the targeting of conservative groups in May 2012 ? not revealing that screening for other political viewpoints had continued.
Werfel did not specify what terms were on the lists. But later Monday, Levin's Democratic staff released 15 lists that IRS screeners used to find groups that merited close attention, and lists from April 2013 included the terms "Paying National Debt" and "Green Energy Organizations."
Those lists, which changed over time and were dated between August 2010 and April 2013, also included the terms "Progressive" and "Tea Party" as well as "Medical Marijuana," ''Occupied Territory Advocacy," ''Healthcare legislation," ''Newspaper Entities" and "Paying National Debt." The lists ranged from 11 pages to 17 pages and were heavily blacked out to protect sensitive taxpayer information.
Neither the 15 IRS lists released by Democrats nor a separate IRS document obtained by The Associated Press addressed how many progressive groups received close scrutiny or how the agency treated their requests. Dozens of conservative groups saw their applications experience lengthy delays, and they received unusually intrusive questions about their donors and other details that agency officials have conceded were inappropriate.
A statement by the GOP staff of House Ways and Means said, "It is one thing to flag a group, it is quite another to repeatedly target and abuse conservative groups."
The term "Tea Party" appeared on the earliest IRS lists, though by 2012 it was replaced by more generic descriptions of political activity. IRS regulations allow it to grant tax-exempt status to groups mostly engaged in "social welfare," but not if participation in political election campaigns becomes their "primary" activity ? guidelines that agency officials concede can be vague and confusing.
Werfel ordered a halt in the use of spreadsheets listing the terms ? called BOLO lists for "be on the lookout for" ? on June 12 and formalized their suspension with a June 20 written order, according to the IRS document obtained by the AP.
That document also referred to terms including "Israel" and "Occupy" as being on the lists. Those terms did not appear on the lists released by Ways and Means Democrats.
The document obtained by the AP blamed the continued use of inappropriate criteria by screeners on "a lapse in judgment" by the agency's former top officials.
In a letter to George he wrote Monday, Levin asked him to describe why his May report omitted mentioning that "Progressives" appeared on the IRS lists.
On Monday, Karen Kraushaar, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, said their May audit focused on terms the IRS used to pick cases to be studied for political campaign activity, which might disqualify a group from tax-exempt status. Other terms were listed for other reasons, such as helping screeners find possible cases of fraud, she said.
Kraushaar said the inspector general was reviewing whether other criteria used by IRS officials led to expanded scrutiny for some groups "and why these criteria were implemented."
Werfel's remarks came as he released an 83-page examination he has conducted of his embattled agency. The conclusions, which Werfel cautioned were preliminary, so far have found there was "insufficient action" by IRS managers to prevent and disclose the problems but no specific cases of misconduct.
"We have not found evidence of intentional wrongdoing by anyone in the IRS or involvement in these matters by anyone outside the IRS," he told reporters.
Werfel's report describes new procedures aimed at preventing unfair treatment of taxpayers. They include a fast-track process for some groups seeking tax-exempt status and a new board that will recommend any additional personnel moves "to hold accountable those responsible" for the targeting of conservative groups.
The top five people in the agency responsible for the tax-exempt status of organizations have already been removed, including the former acting commissioner, Steven Miller, whom President Barack Obama replaced with Werfel.
Werfel's comments and report drew negative reviews from one of the IRS' chief critics in Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"As investigations by Congress and the Justice Department are still ongoing, Mr. Werfel's assertion that he has found no evidence that anyone at IRS intentionally did anything wrong can only be called premature," Issa said.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., whose panel is also investigating the agency, said the IRS "still needs to provide clear answers to the most significant questions ? who started this practice, why was it allowed to continue for so long, and how widespread was it?"
Werfel, initially named the IRS' acting commissioner, is now the agency's deputy principal commissioner because federal law limits the time an agency can be led by an acting official.
___
Associated Press writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dems-unhappy-irs-screened-progressives-too-071908269.html
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Customers whose kids racked up in-app purchase bills without their knowledge can reportedly now begin to seek some form of compensation. An email from the ?Apple In-App Purchase Litigation Administrator? has begun to hit inboxes, and 9to5Mac managed to get hold of a copy:
If your iTunes account was charged for an in-app purchase made by a minor in a game app without your knowledge or permission, you could be entitled to benefits under a class action settlement.
The parties have reached a settlement in a consolidated class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. (?Apple?) regarding in-app purchases of game currency charged by minors to an iTunes account without the account holder?s knowledge or permission. If the settlement is court-approved, your rights may be affected. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California authorized this notice. The Court will have a hearing to consider whether to approve the settlement so that the benefits may be paid. This summary provides basic information about the settlement.
Those who racked up $30 or less will receive a $5 iTunes gift card as compensation, but those who exceeded that may end up receiving a cash reimbursement. Any iMore readers received the same email? Shout out in the comments!
Source: 9to5Mac
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Mozilla has released Firefox 22, and there are a pair of under-the-hood changes that make the new version a pretty big deal. In addition to landing full-blown WebRTC support, Firefox 22 also includes the awesome OdinMonkey JavaScript optimizer.
With OdinMonkey on board, Firefox users around the globe now have built-in support for web-based apps and games that rival their native counterparts. It?s somewhat similar to Chrome?s Native Client, but OdinMonkey focuses on code compiled using Emscripten. The result is blazing fast performance that makes you forget you?re using a browser.
Sceptical? Try out Mozilla?s Bananabread demo. The 3D world looks fantastic, and the game runs well on fairly modest hardware.
There may not be much to play right now, but game developers will follow soon enough. Mozilla and Epic have already laid the groundwork, by?porting the Unreal 3 engine. That should make it simple enough for games like Infinty Blade and Mass Effect to find their way to your browser.
You?ll still need ?a gaming-ready PC to play them, of course. Just because bigger, better games are coming to your browser doesn?t mean the system requirements will be dropping. That?s easy enough to see in the Bananabread demo. It runs much better on my ballsy workstation than my last-gen Toshiba laptop.
OdinMonkey isn?t just about games, of course. It makes Firefox 22 capable of running ported apps, too, and they should arrive in the near future. As the retail launch of Firefox OS approaches and the Firefox Marketplace fills up, Mozilla?s faithful will have plenty of high-performance apps to pick from.
Where does WebRTC fit in? Communication will no doubt play an important role in many of these apps and games. WebRTC provides a fully open platform that developers can use to deliver experiences like Skype and Ventrilo within their apps.
With these additions, Firefox is better equipped than ever to challenge Chrome for the web app and gaming performance crown. Of course, the Foundation would tell you that it?s not about beating its competitors. It?s about pushing the web forward and providing the best experience possible to Firefox users.
Source: http://www.geek.com/apps/firefox-22-brings-odinmonkey-for-web-gaming-webrtc-for-chat-1560122/
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By Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants attacked key buildings near Afghanistan's presidential palace and the U.S. CIA headquarters in Kabul, a brazen assault that could derail attempts for peace talks to end 12 years of war.
The Taliban, who have said they are willing to take part in talks with the United States and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration, said they launched the early morning assault, which triggered a 90-minute firefight.
A U.S. envoy was in Kabul on Tuesday to try to smooth the way forward for the stalled talks in the Gulf state of Qatar ahead of the pullout from Afghanistan of most of the NATO-led troops next year. He had been expected to meet reporters at the U.S. Embassy, but the conference was called off.
Karzai was also due to attend, but his whereabouts were not known. A palace official said he was safe.
A Reuters reporter at the palace said the attack began soon after 6.30 a.m. (10:00 p.m. EDT) when at least one man opened fire with an automatic rifle close to a gate to the palace in central Shash Darak district. The fighting was over before 8 a.m.
Reporters at the palace gates for security checks took cover when the firing started.
A senior government official told Reuters four or five attackers had used fake identify papers to try to make their way through security gates in the Shash Darak district, which leads to Kabul's most tightly guarded areas.
One car made it through, but a second vehicle was stopped and those inside began shooting. Grenades were thrown.
The area is home to the presidential palace compound, the Ministry of Defense and an annexe of the U.S. embassy at the old Ariana Hotel. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Afghanistan station is based there.
Afghan forces and U.S. servicemen returned fire and explosions resounded through the area. Children walking to school were caught in the shooting, but escaped serious injury.
A thick plume of smoke was seen rising from the Ariana at the height of the exchanges.
One of the attackers was killed when he detonated a bomb on his body, the government official said, and three or four were killed by security forces. At least two Afghan security guards were killed.
The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Jim Cunningham, condemned the attack and called on the Taliban to once again commit to the nascent peace process in Doha.
"We remain steadfast in supporting the Afghan government and people against the scourge of terrorism and the violence directed against them," he said.
REJUVENATING PEACE TALKS
U.S. officials have been trying to rejuvenate peace talks in Qatar, thrown off course after rows last week over the opening there of a Taliban office.
The U.S. envoy appointed to help Kabul pursue peace with the Taliban, James Dobbins, arrived on Monday and met Karzai and the Afghan body intended to negotiate with the insurgents.
He told reporters that Washington was trying to determine if the Taliban were willing to engage in talks.
In claiming responsibility for the attack, the Taliban said it had targeted the presidential palace, the CIA office and the Defense ministry.
But Afghan security officials told Reuters they believed it had been carried out by the Taliban-linked Haqqani Network. The Haqqani Network is accused of masterminding high-profile attacks in Kabul and is believed to have close links to al Qaeda.
Adela Raz, a spokeswoman for Karzai, dismissed the suggestion that the palace had been under threat, saying any shooting had taken place far from the compound's walls.
The Defense ministry said the assault had been aimed at the Ariana.
In southern Afghanistan, a roadside bomb killed eight women, two children and an elderly man travelling in a minivan in southern Kandahar province on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Kandahar government said.
(U.S. envoy had been due to meet reporters at embassy, not at the palace, paragraph 3)
(Additional reporting by Dylan Welch; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-attack-afghan-presidential-palace-reuters-witnesses-022942464.html
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This 50-foot-wide magnet is going nowhere fast: It will take more than a month for scientists to roll the magnet across land and sea to its new home.
This June photo provided by Brookhaven National Laboratory shows a red stabilizing apparatus that will be used to transport a 50-foot-wide electromagnet storage ring, at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., on eastern Long Island.
Brookhaven National Laboratory/AP
EnlargeCompared to ants, we humans have a ways to go in the science of moving large objects.?
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But we're getting better at it. We've shown we can safely cart 165,000-pound space shuttles from hangars to launch sites to an L.A. museum. We're pretty good at hoisting steel girders to the top of skyscrapers and grand pianos into second-story apartments.
The latest test: a 15-ton magnet.?
Long Island scientists will on Saturday begin to move a 50-foot-wide, 15-ton electromagnet about 3,200 miles to Chicago, in what is expected to be a more than month-long trip, according to? Brookhaven National Laboratory, the magnet's original home in Long Island, where it was built in the 1990s.
The magnet is being transported to Illinois?s US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, where scientists from 26 institutions worldwide will use it for a new experiment called Muon g-2 that will study muons, subatomic particles that exist for just 2.2 millionths of a second.
"The transport of the ring from Brookhaven to Fermilab is a great example of the cooperation that exists between national laboratories," said James Siegrist, associate director of science for high-energy physics with the U.S. Department of Energy, in a press release. "The Muon g-2 experiment is an important component of the future of particle physics in the United States."
Moving a 15-ton anything is no easy task, and moving a 15-ton magnet is more difficult still, as the magnet can?t be taken apart or twisted more than 1/8th of an inch without ruining the superconducting coils inside and making the magnet ? and the long, expensive move ? useless. That means the super magnet must be slowly rolled across the eastern United States, aboard a truck and barge specially designed for the job.
The move is expected to cost some $3 million ? a sum substantially less than the $30 million it would cost to build a new electromagnet.
"It costs about 10 times less to move the magnet from Brookhaven to Illinois than it would to build a new one," said Lee Roberts of Boston University, spokesperson for the Muon g-2 experiment, in a press release. "So that's what we're going to do. It's an enormous effort from all sides, but it will be worth it."?
The truck, which looks something like a U.F.O. painted Ferrari red, will be guarded with rolling barricades as it chugs across land and will travel mostly at night at no more than 10 miles an hour.
No word yet on whether or not the truck will be repurposed as a transportation option for members of the slow-travel, slow-food movement.
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June 17, 2013 ? Due to the fluctuating availability of solar energy, storage solutions are urgently needed. One option is to use the electrical energy generated inside solar cells to split water by means of electrolysis, in the process yielding hydrogen that can be used for a storable fuel. Researchers at the HZB Institute for Solar Fuels have modified so called superstrate solar cells with their highly efficient architecture in order to obtain hydrogen from water with the help of suitable catalysts. This type of cell works something like an "artificial leaf." But the solar cell rapidly corrodes when placed in the aqueous electrolyte solution.
Now, Ph.D. student Diana Stellmach has found a way to prevent corrosion by embedding the catalysts in an electrically conducting polymer and then mounting them onto the solar cell's two contact surfaces, making her the first scientist in all of Europe to have come up with this solution. As a result, the cell's sensitive contacts are sealed to prevent corrosion with a stable yield of approx. 3.7 percent sunlight.
Hydrogen stores chemical energy and is highly versatile in terms of its applicability potential. The gas can be converted into fuels like methane as well as methanol or it can generate electricity directly inside fuel cells. Hydrogen can be produced through the electrolytic splitting of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen by using two electrodes that are coated with suitable catalysts and between which a minimum 1.23 volt tension is generated. The production of hydrogen only becomes interesting if solar energy can be used to produce it. Because that would solve two problems at once: On sunny days, excess electricity could yield hydrogen, which would be available for fuel or to generate electricity at a later point like at night or on days that are overcast.
New approach with complex thin film technologies
At the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB) Institute for Solar Fuels, researchers are working on new approaches to realizing this goal. They are using photovoltaic structures made of multiple ultrathin layers of silicon that are custom-made by the Photovoltaic Competence Centre Berlin (PVcomB), another of the HZB's institutes. Since the cell consists of a single -- albeit complex -- "block," this is known as a monolithic approach. At the Institute for Solar Fuels, the cell's electrical contact surfaces are coated with special catalysts for splitting water. If this cell is placed in dilute sulphuric acid and irradiated with sun-like light, a tension is produced at the contacts that can be used to split water. During this process, it is the catalysts, which speed up the reactions at the contacts, that are critically important.
Protection against corrosion
The PVcomB photovoltaic cells' main advantage is their "superstrate architecture": Light enters through the transparent front contact, which is deposited on the carrier glass; there is no opacity due to catalysts being mounted onto the cells, because they are located on the cell's back side and are in contact with the water/acid mixture. This mixture is aggressive, that is to say, it is corrosive, so much so that Diana Stellmach had to first replace the usual zinc oxide silver back contact with a titanium coat approximately 400 nanometers thick. In a second step, she developed a solution to simultaneously protect the cell against corrosion with the mounting of the catalyst: She mixed nanoparticles of RuO2 with a conducting polymer (PEDOT:PSS) and applied this mixture to the cell's back side contact to act as a catalyst for the production of oxygen. Similarly, platinum nanoparticles, the sites of hydrogen production, were applied to the front contact.
Stable H2-Production
In all, the configuration achieved a degree of efficacy of 3.7 percent and was stable over a minimum 18 hours. "This way, Ms. Stellmach is the first ever scientist anywhere in Europe to have realized this kind of water-splitting solar cell structure," explains Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fiechter. And just maybe anywhere in the World, as photovoltaic membranes with different architectures have proved far less stable.
Yet the fact remains that catalysts like platinum and RuO2 are rather expensive and will ultimately have to give way to less costly types of materials. Diana Stellmach is already working on that as well; she is currently in the process of developing carbon nanorods that are coated with layers of molybdenum sulphide and which serve as catalysts for hydrogen production.
Watch the "artificial leaf" in action: http://www.helmholtz-berlin.de/aktuell/pr/mediathek/video/energieversorgung/superstratzelle_de.html
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