Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Google now accepting 'Google Play for Education' app submissions

Google Play for Education

Third-party group of educators to review each educational app submitted

Google announced on its Android Developers Blog that it is now accepting submissions for its Google Play for Education platform, which will bring education- and age-appropriate apps to schools. The system, which was announced last month, is a subset of the main Play Store that allows bulk purchasing and content curation of apps, books and movies for K-12 schools. Developers who have an age-appropriate app can now mark it for inclusion, where it will then be reviewed by a third-party group of educators.

This third-party will go through each app and determine its subject, grade level and whether or not it meets a set of development guidelines that have been set for the education system. The guidelines (found at the second source link below) indicate that apps, among other things, must not collect personally identifiable information or use student data for any noneducational purposes. Google also has strict guidelines for in-app purchases and advertisements, and encourages developers to submit apps that are either paid or free without ads.

The approval process is expected to take 3-4 weeks for any given app, and Google says that it is currently piloting the Google Play for Education program in schools across the country.

Source: Android Developers Blog; Developer Guidelines

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/U3xw5ul-TUY/story01.htm

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Rise in high-end treatment for low-risk prostate cancer

By Genevra Pittman

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The proportion of U.S. men with early, slow-growing prostate cancer who received robotic surgery and other expensive treatments increased between 2004 and 2009, according to a new study.

Researchers found that use of those therapies also rose among men who were unlikely to die from prostate cancer because they were sick with other chronic diseases when their cancer was diagnosed.

"You can't get at what the right rate (of treatment use) is from our study, but what we did find was treatment with these advanced technologies increased over the past decade, and was fairly common," said Dr. Brent Hollenbeck, who worked on the study at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Evidence has been building that a wait-and-see approach might be most effective for men with low-risk prostate cancer that may or may not progress, rather than scheduling surgery or radiation right away (see Reuters Health story of June 17, 2013 here: http://reut.rs/12EX8fl).

But both doctors and patients have been hesitant to adopt that strategy, also known as watchful waiting or active surveillance, researchers said.

"There's no incentive for (doctors) to do it, because there's no real payment, and it's very complicated. It's not easy to do active surveillance," said Grace Lu-Yao, who studies prostate cancer treatment at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

What's more, she told Reuters Health, "Some patients may just feel they'll go with the most advanced technology and get rid of the cancer, so they'll feel more secure in a way."

Hollenbeck and his colleagues analyzed data on about 56,000 older men diagnosed with prostate cancer and covered by Medicare, the government's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

They found that among men with low-risk cancers, use of high-end treatment - including robotic surgery and high-precision radiation, known as intensity-modulated radiation therapy - increased from 32 percent in 2004 to 44 percent in 2009.

Likewise, the technologies' use among men with other serious health problems increased from 36 percent to 57 percent, Hollenbeck and his colleagues reported on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Those high-end treatments largely replaced the use of older therapies, which became less common, the researchers found. Close to half of men diagnosed with low-risk cancer across the study period took a wait-and-see approach.

According to Healthcare Blue Book, prostate removal costs about $13,000 - and robotic surgery usually adds to the price tag.

Treatment also comes with a risk of side effects including impotence and incontinence.

"In someone who stands to benefit less, when there's no clear advantage to treatment in terms of preventing death from prostate cancer, the cumulative side effects of the procedure may outweigh the aggregate benefit," Hollenbeck told Reuters Health.

However, one of the challenges of taking a more conservative approach, according to Lu-Yao, is that there are no standards for how often to check men to make sure their cancer hasn't grown, or on when to intervene.

And it's not always clear which patients are the best candidates for watchful waiting or active surveillance, she said.

"We understand we are doing a lot of overtreatment, but we don't really know which patients are being overtreated," said Lu-Yao, who wasn't involved in the new research.

It can also be hard to tell which men have a limited life expectancy because of other diseases, and which ones can expect to live long enough to possibly benefit from treatment, Hollenbeck added.

"Patients that are older and have low-risk disease or have a lot of other health problems should really have a frank discussion with their physician about the perceived benefits of treating their cancer," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online June 25, 2013.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rise-high-end-treatment-low-risk-prostate-cancer-200702495.html

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Sony Xperia Z Ultra: hands-on with a 6.4-inch Android phone (update: video)

Sony Xperia Z Ultra handson with a 64inch Android phone update video

Sony's been explaining the design story behind its new Xperia range at a UK briefing, how it's trying to balance both the dematerialization of tech (touchscreens, gesture interfaces) and a design that's both desirable and beautiful -- and Sony's certainly got the latter down on its new smartphone. The Xperia Z Ultra follows the lines of the rest of the Z-series. It has the same "OmniBalance" plane, uniform screen surface, but this time it measures in at 6.4 inches across, but still running at 1080p resolution. Yep, it does feel substantially bigger than the original Xperia Z -- check out our comparison gallery, the new Ultra model dwarfs it. You're looking at a screen width almost identical to a passport and that 6.5mm profile helped fit it into pockets. We managed to cram it into our trouser pockets without an issue. It's certainly a bigger device than the likes of LG's Optimus G Pro or Samsung's Galaxy Note II and you're going to have to test it out for yourself to see if you'd be willing to talk into this Xperia like phone -- it's going to catch the eye.

There's also Qualcomm's notable Snapdragon 800 powering the device on a relatively large 3,000mAh battery, while Sony's simplified the design dropping a few of those much-maligned protective flaps, at least on the headphone socket. There's more impressions and a hands-on video after the break!

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/4dQE8wJ3zdY/

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Britain's Osborne reaches deal on spending cuts

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - Chancellor George Osborne completed talks on Sunday with government departments aimed at securing spending cuts worth 11.5 billion pounds in 2015-16 to help reduce the country's budget deficit, the Treasury said.

The finance ministry said it had reached agreement with all departments, three days before Osborne is due to publish details of their spending limits on June 26.

The talks to find spending cuts starting in 2015 - when voters go to the polls - posed a political headache for Osborne, particularly over the sensitive defence budget and a business department under pressure to do more to revive the economy.

Osborne, who announced the end of the talks on Twitter, will now seek to persuade voters that he has a credible plan to build on recent signs that the economy is gaining strength after two years of stagnation.

He is expected to give more details on Wednesday of billions of pounds of infrastructure spending designed to bolster the recovery.

"We have completed the spending round savings early and without all the arguments you normally get," a Treasury spokesman said. "This shows our determination to take the tough decisions needed to deliver our economic plan and to turn Britain around."

Osborne said earlier that the budget deficit was still too high and he was committed to trying to reduce borrowing and cutting the deficit.

"We are out of intensive care and our job now is to secure the recovery," Osborne told BBC television. "There certainly is a chance of a relapse if we abandon our economic plan."

Britain's Conservative-led coalition government is sticking with its central economic policy of reducing a deficit that peaked at more than 11 percent of gross domestic product before it came to power in May 2010.

Despite tax rises and spending cuts, public borrowing has remained stubbornly high over the past year, and data on Friday showed public net debt climbed to record levels in May.

DEFENCE DEAL

A deal was reached with the defence department on Saturday, Osborne said, ending what analysts saw as one of the most difficult sets of negotiations.

General Peter Wall, the head of the army, said last week that more cuts would seriously damage the country's chances of success in future wars.

Osborne said the defence deal would see cuts to civilian staff numbers, while protecting Britain's military capability.

Agreement was only reached on Sunday with the business department, run by Vince Cable, a senior member of the Lib Dems, the government's junior coalition partner.

Labour, which leads the Conservatives by around 10 points in the polls with the next election due to be held in 2015, accuses the coalition of choking the recovery with its austerity drive.

Labour finance spokesman Ed Balls said he would adopt Osborne's day-to-day spending limits for 2015-16 if his party wins the election. However, he wanted the coalition to spend 10 billion pounds more on capital projects.

Balls said he would be prepared to borrow more to finance extra capital expenditure, an admission junior Conservative finance minister Sajid Javid held up as evidence that Labour couldn't be trusted to balance the books.

"If George Osborne had done that last year or the year before, we wouldn't have had such a flatlining economy," Balls said.

(Additional reporting by William Schomberg; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-austerity-still-needed-avoid-economic-relapse-osborne-123048318.html

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At least 13 dead in bus crash in Montenegro

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) ? At least 13 people were killed and 32 were injured when a bus carrying Romanian tourists swayed off a bridge and plunged into a deep ravine in central Montenegro on Sunday, police said.

Montenegro Interior Minister Rasko Konjevic said the bus with 46 people on board crashed some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the capital, Podgorica. He said the bus was traveling from Romania to Montenegro's Adriatic coast.

Police said the bus plunged from a bridge over the Moraca river during a rain storm and crashed some 40 meters (130 feet) into the ravine. A helicopter was used in the rescue operation mounted by Montenegro police.

Konjevic said "sadly, this death toll could climb further" because seven of the passengers were seriously injured.

The winding road that leads from Serbia in the north through the Moraca canyon and then to the seacoast is notorious for traffic accidents because it is narrow and slippery in wet weather conditions.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/least-13-dead-bus-crash-montenegro-185624354.html

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 series hits the U.S. on July 7

Galaxy Tab 3

7, 8 and 10.1-inch Tab 3 variants heading stateside, pre-orders begin tomorrow

Already announced internationally, Samsung's Galaxy Tab 3 series will be heading to the United States in a couple of weeks. The 10.1, 8 and 7-inch tablets go up for pre-order tomorrow, and begin shipping on July 7. In its latest line-up of Android-powered tablets, the Korean manufacturer has scaled things back a bit, focusing on affordable, thin, light devices for the mass market.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/_njFtyQgBtE/story01.htm

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Jim Carrey On 'Kick-Ass 2': 'In All Good Conscience I Cannot Support That Level Of Violence'

Jim Carrey has distanced himself from the upcoming Universal release "Kick-Ass 2" because of its violent content. Carrey used his Twitter account to pass along the message to his over 10,863,000 followers.

Jim Carrey plays Colonel Stars and Stripes in "Kick-Ass 2," a character who allows his attack dog to bite on the genitals of an enemy. The film and its predecessor are based on the Mark Millar comic book series about a teen superhero named Kick-Ass (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Both films received an "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America for violence, among other indiscretions. (The first film also featured co-star Chloe Moretz, then 11, using the c-word.)

For his part, Millar responded to Carrey's comments on his own website. "As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I'm baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay eighteen months ago," Millar wrote on Millar World. "Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin." Millar, a self-professed Carrey fan, noted that his work in "Kick-Ass 2" is a career highlight.

This isn't the first time Carrey has spoken out about violence. In March of this year, while promoting a sketch for Funny or Die, Carrey called those against gun control in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. "heartless motherf--kers."

Last July, Carrey was just as outraged after the shooting deaths of 12 people during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo.

"Kick-Ass 2" is due out in theaters on Aug. 16. No word yet on whether Carrey will participate in the "Kick-Ass 2" press junket.

  • Increase Access To Background Check Data

    Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

  • Remove Legal Barriers On Background Checks

    Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.

  • Incentivize Sharing Of Background Check Data

    Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

  • Review Criteria For Gun Ownership

    Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

  • Background Checks For Returning Seized Guns?

    Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

  • More Guidance On Background Checks

    Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.

  • Safe & Responsible Gun Ownership

    Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.

  • Gun Lock & Safes

    Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).

  • Improve Gun Tracking In Criminal Investigations

    Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

  • Report On Lost & Stolen Guns

    Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.

  • ATF Director

    Nominate a director for Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.

  • Training For Law Enforcement

    Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.

  • Maximize Enforcement Efforts On Gun Crime

    Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.

  • Increase Research On Gun Violence

    Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

  • Prioritize New Gun Technology

    Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies

  • Clarify Obamacare On Doctors & Guns

    Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.

  • Inform Doctors On Reporting Threats

    Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.

  • School Resource Officers

    Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.

  • Develop Emergency Response Plans

    Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.

  • Clarify Scope Of Medicaid's Mental Health Coverage

    Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.

  • Finalize ACA Regulations

    Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.

  • Address Mental Health Parity

    Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.

  • Start Dialogue On Mental Health

    Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/23/jim-carrey-kick-ass-2_n_3487880.html

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