CEOs see slow, uneven recovery: Roundtable (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? Chief executives expect the U.S. economy to continue its slow, uneven recovery over the next few months and are concerned about the rising costs of raw materials and the expense of complying with regulations, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

One in four CEOs polled by the Business Roundtable cited materials as their main cost worry, followed by the cost of complying with regulations, which worried 24 percent.

"There are old fashioned regular business pressures. Commodity prices, oil prices, challenges with health care costs," said James McNerney, CEO of Boeing Co (BA.N) , who serves as chairman of the Roundtable.

The group's quarterly CEO Economic Outlook index was little changed. It inched up to 77.9, from 77.6 in the third quarter. Any number above 50 represents growth. They estimated real U.S. gross domestic product would rise 2 percent next year.

"We continue to see strengthened fundamentals in American business but it's combined with an uneven and slow recovery and reflects continued uncertainty by CEOs over the next six months," McNerney said on a conference call with reporters.

"We're right at the point where the economy is growing but not enough to offset productivity and create jobs," McNerney said.

Of the Business Roundtable CEOs polled, 35 percent said they expected to add jobs in the United States over the next six months, down from 36 percent who expected that in October. Sixty-eight percent expected their companies' sales to rise in the next six months, up from 65 percent last quarter.

Corporate America has taken a cautious but generally positive view of 2012, despite the worries posed by the European debt crisis. General Electric Co (GE.N) on Tuesday forecast double-digit percentage growth in profit next year, and DuPont (DD.N) said earnings per share could rise 12 to 17 percent next year.

The Roundtable, which represents businesses that collectively generate $6 trillion in annual revenue, surveyed its members between October 31 and November 18.

(Reporting by Scott Malone in Boston, editing by Dave Zimmerman and Gerald E. McCormick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/bs_nm/us_usa_economy_roundtable

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'Matrix'-Style Learning Implants New Skills in Brain (LiveScience.com)

Hollywood science fiction stories such as "The Matrix" and "Inception" have suggested how virtual worlds or dreams could manipulate human learning or create new memories. Now, a new experiment has shown how scientists could someday implant new skills or memories in the waking life ? without people even being aware of what they're learning.

Traditional learning has always required conscious effort and practice ? whether it's dribbling a basketball or playing the piano ? so that the physical or mental practice translates into certain brain activities repeated again and again. But U.S. and Japanese researchers found that just repeating the related brain activity in the head can allow people to improve performance on certain skills.

"It can 'incept' a person to acquire new learning, skills or memory, or possibly to restore skills or knowledge that has been damaged through accident, disease or aging, without a person?s awareness of what is learned or memorized," according to the new study.

The researchers used fMRI brain scans to first identify patterns of brain activity related to seeing a visual shape oriented in three different directions. They then trained volunteers to activate brain-activity patterns related to one of the three shape orientations, but masked the learning behind an arbitrary task by asking the volunteers to try making a green disc appear bigger on a computer screen.

The size of the green disc was linked ? without the volunteers knowing ? to activating the correct brain- activity pattern. Volunteers were free to randomly try all sorts of different ways to concentrate their minds, such as remembering scenes from a famous animated film or simply trying to imagine a bigger green disc.

Once trained, the volunteers took a new series of tests aimed at consciously identifying the orientation of visual shapes. They performed better at visually identifying the orientations related to the brain-activity patterns that they had unconsciously learned.

"The most surprising thing in this study is that mere inductions of neural activation patterns corresponding to a specific visual feature led to visual performance improvement on the visual feature, without presenting the feature or subjects' awareness of what was to be learned," said Takeo Watanabe, a neuroscientist at Boston University.

The experiment has only worked for training the early visual cortex ? a back part of the brain that recognizes patterns as well as moving and non-moving visual objects. But the 'fMRI neurofeedback method" developed in the study might eventually work for different types of memory skills, learning muscle movements for sports, or rehabilitation after a serious injury.

"In theory, hypnosis or a type of automated learning is a potential outcome," said Mitsuo Kawato, director of the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan.? "However, in this study we confirmed the validity of our method only in visual perceptual learning. So we have to test if the method works in other types of learning in the future."

Kawato also cautioned that researchers must avoid using the method in an "unethical way." Presumably they're still OK with Neo learning kung fu or Trinity getting the pilot skills to fly a helicopter.

The study is detailed in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Science.

This story was provided by InnovationNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow InnovationNewsDaily on Twitter @News_Innovation, or on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111213/sc_livescience/matrixstylelearningimplantsnewskillsinbrain

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Kate Gosselin Runs Marathon, Mouth

She used to running after her eight children and used to chase Jon Gosselin around like a grating banshee, so it's no surprise that Kate Gosselin finished a marathon Sunday.

The reality mom, who bundled up on an unusually chilly night in Las Vegas, with a top that said "Finishing Is Winning," ran it in just 4 hours, 59 minutes and 21 seconds.

"I'm not one to do anything lightly," Gosselin said prior to the race. "I either do it or I kill it. I guess this is considered killing it." Does that include her marriage? Ohhhh ...

The 36-year-old Gosselin, who's been a runner for three years, trained for the marathon on the roads near her Wernersville, Pa., home, often in below-freezing temps.

And by finishing 26.2 miles in the Las Vegas Rock N' Roll marathon, Kate Gosselin hopes to set an example for her kids besides exploiting them on reality TV for cash.

"I am running because I want to show that with dedication and determination anything is possible," she said. "I want them to remember the moment when their mom completed a marathon, knowing that nothing should stop them from attaining their goals."

That includes milking face lift rumors. Never let the truth stand in the way!

[Photo: WENN.com]

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/12/kate-gosselin-runs-marathon-mouth/

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Samsung BD-D5500

The Samsung BD-D5500 Blu-ray player is the scaled-back version of the Editors' Choice BD-D5700 ($199.99, 4 stars). The two are very similar, but at $159.99 (direct), the BD-D5500 adds 3D support at the expense of integrated Wi-Fi and performance. You do get a nice selection of Web apps and services, and the player handles Blu-ray discs well, but mediocre DVD-upconversion performance and slower speeds hold it back. If you want a good Blu-ray player but don't want to spend much, consider the Editors' Choice?Panasonic DMP-BDT110 ($134.99, 4 stars), which is less expensive and faster than the BD-D5500.

Design
When unplugged, the 1.5-by-16.9-by-8.3-inch (HWD), 3.8-pound player's front panel has no distinguishing markings or buttons save for a silver Samsung logo on the left side and a covered USB port to the right. When plugged in but not turned on, it only shows a touch-sensitive power symbol next to the disc tray. When you power the player up, however, it comes to life and lights up an LED information display and touch-sensitive Stop, Play/Pause, Menu, and Eject buttons. The back panel holds an HDMI output, another USB port, component and composite video outputs, an optical audio output, and an Ethernet port.

The remote is an 8.5-inch-long slab with large, flat buttons in a logical layout. The playback buttons glow in the dark, but the remote is otherwise unlit. Volume and Channel rockers are located at the bottom of the remote, above that, but below the navigation pad, are dedicated Netflix and Smart Hub buttons that offer instant access to the BD-D5500's streaming media services.

Samsung offers dozens of online services and apps through its Smart Hub, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Vudu, YouTube, and Pandora. The most commonly used media services are free (or paid through the services' individual accounts), but a handful of apps and services are "premium," and can cost a few dollars to download or access content, like the Mobiscope webcam browser or Bejeweled 2, both available for $4.99.

Performance
The BD-D5500 was sluggish in our lab tests, especially with startup times. The player took an average of 22.4 seconds to boot up, much longer than many Blu-ray players, like the BD-D5500's bigger brother, the Editors' Choice Samsung BD-D5700 ($199.99, 4 stars). It loads non-BD-Live discs in just 13.4 seconds. For standard Blu-ray discs, it took an average of 18.8 seconds to get to the disclaimer screen. For BD-Live Blu-ray discs, the player began loading online content in an average of 29 seconds, and started playing video in an average of 1 minute, 3.6 seconds. For a faster experience, the Editors' Choice Panasonic DMP-BDT110 starts up in just 2.4 seconds, and loads BD-Live discs in an average of 53.2 seconds. Also, the even-less-expensive Sony BDP-S380 ($109.99, 3.5 stars) starts up in 3.3 seconds and loads BD-Live discs in just 43.6 seconds.

We test Blu-ray players using the HQV benchmark Blu-ray, and in our trials, the BD-D5500 fared quite well, despite some minor film issues. 30 frames-per-second (fps) video looked fine, with few artifacts or motion problems. The player showed some judder with 24 fps film footage, however, especially with horizontal movement. This is a typical problem for Blu-ray players, though, and won't likely seriously impact playback.

The BD-D5500 played Blu-ray discs well. In 2D, the Blu-ray release of The Big Lebowski looked clear and smooth, but there was notable choppiness with the horizontally flying pin in the Gutterball sequence. The IMAX Under the Sea 3D Blu-ray looked good, and the player showed the 3D content with no issues. DVD upconversion was decent but unimpressive, with the player doing little to reduce the noise (or, granted, the nearly 30-year-old film grain) in Scarface. The BD-D5700 offers much-better upconversion, not to mention faster start-up times and built-in Wi-fi, but you won't get 3D support.

Samsung's BD-D5500 isn't a bad Blu-ray player, but it's a bit sluggish for the $160 price. If you're a Samsung fan and you can live without 3D support, go for the $200 version of the player, the BD-D5700. Even better, the Editors' Choice 3D-ready Panasonic DMP-BDT110 is both faster and less expensive.?

More Blu-ray Player reviews:

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??? Panasonic DMP-BDT110
??? Oppo BDP-93
??? Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player (NSZ-GT1)
??? Sony BDP-S780
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/cXGyiHQKhz4/0,2817,2396123,00.asp

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Senseg's tactile display gets demoed on a tablet, products anticipated within 24 months

We've seen Senseg's tactile display technology demoed on a few different devices in the past, but CNET has now gotten a quick look of the company's latest tech on a tablet, along with some additional word on its future. As with previous prototypes, the screen doesn't rely on any moving parts as some other tactile displays do, but instead employs an electrostatic field-based system that allows different parts of the screen to produce varying degrees of friction. As Senseg notes, that opens up a number of interesting possibilities for gaming, as well as other applications where you may not always want to look at the screen. Of course, that tablet is still very much a prototype, but Senseg's Dave Rice says that he's "optimistic" we'll see actual products using it "within the next year," although he notes that could extend to 24 months. See the video after the break or at the source link below.

Continue reading Senseg's tactile display gets demoed on a tablet, products anticipated within 24 months

Senseg's tactile display gets demoed on a tablet, products anticipated within 24 months originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/01/sensegs-tactile-display-gets-demoed-on-a-tablet-products-antic/

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Taylor Swift Gets a Haircut!

Taylor Swift found a unique way to celebrate her multiple Grammy nominations this week: a haircut!

The blonde superstar Tweeted a photo of her new style yesterday, as you can see the addition of bangs and a few layers below. Take a close look now:

Is it an improvement? A step in the wrong direction? Speak now, T Swizzle fans. What do you think?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2011/12/taylor-swift-gets-a-haircut/

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Novak Djokovic Cast In 'Expendables 2'

The already impossibly badass cast of "The Expendables 2" just got even more badass, albeit in a rather unexpected way.
Instead of tapping a new action movie hero to join the star-studded likes of Sly Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis, it's an athlete who's joining the "Expendables" ranks. Specifically, the currently number one-ranked tennis player [...]

Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2011/11/30/novak-djokovic-cast-in-expendables-2/

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