Bryant gives No. 81 to Owens

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Associated Press

GEORGETOWN, Ky. -- Terrell Owens missed his flight but got his number.


When he finally makes it to town -- a little late -- he'll be wearing his familiar 81.

"I said, 'Hey, man, I'm not going to make no big spectacle about it. You've got a bigger legacy and a number than I do. I've been on several teams like you, but I've changed my number several times. You've had the same number. I don't need your money. At the end of the day, all I want you to do is take care of one of my little league programs in Miami. Send them a small donation and we'll go from there.

-- Antonio Bryant

The Cincinnati Bengals' latest addition missed his overnight flight from the West Coast and had to take a later one on Thursday, delaying his debut at training camp.

The Bengals had planned on him arriving early in the day, taking his physical and signing his one-year contract while the rest of the team held its first workout. They scheduled an introductory news conference after the morning practice.

The news conference had to be rescheduled for after the evening session. Coach Marvin Lewis wasn't sure whether the 36-year-old receiver would arrive in time to work out.

On his Twitter account, Owens posted a note Wednesday night saying he was headed to see a movie. He didn't explain why he missed his flight on Thursday, but confirmed that his news conference had to be rescheduled.

"My Press conf about my "Decision" 2 take my talents 2 Cincy will b held 2nite after 7pm practice!!" he tweeted, playing off LeBron James' one-hour television show announcing his decision to leave Cleveland.

Owens also misspelled Cincinnati in one of his tweets and was quickly corrected by a follower.

"Okayyyyyy I got it now, 2 n's & 1 t! CINCINNATI!! LOL!" he tweeted.

He'll have to make a donation to keep his favorite uniform number.

Receiver Antonio Bryant got No. 81 when the Bengals chose him over Owens in the offseason, giving him a four-year deal. Bryant said after the morning practice that he had already talked to Owens and agreed to give up his number.

"I'm a realist," Bryant said. "I said, 'Hey, man, I'm not going to make no big spectacle about it. You've got a bigger legacy and a number than I do. I've been on several teams like you, but I've changed my number several times. You've had the same number. I don't need your money. At the end of the day, all I want you to do is take care of one of my little league programs in Miami. Send them a small donation and we'll go from there.' "

With Owens late in arriving, Bryant was a focus of the Bengals' first workout -- for his knee, not his number.

He had surgery for torn cartilage in his left knee during training camp with Tampa Bay last year. He was limited to 39 catches for 600 yards and four touchdowns. The Bengals signed him to a $28 million deal, hoping he would provide another outside threat with Chad Ochocinco.

Bryant backed off workouts last month because the muscles around the left knee didn't feel strong enough, causing him to be cautious. He went through drills tentatively on Thursday, never running at full speed. He said he would sit out the evening practice to work on strengthening the leg.

"The only thing I'm struggling with right now is just being comfortable and mentally just putting [the left foot] down and doing what I want to do without thinking, 'Oh, I might feel pain,' " Bryant said. "That's my biggest hurdle right now."

Lewis insisted that Bryant's knee problem had nothing to do with the decision to sign Owens this week. Bryant isn't so sure.

"Maybe so," he said. "But it's a business and there's a purpose behind being here and that's winning championships, and right now we look pretty good on paper, I'll tell you that much.

"I'm a team player. It's all about having the best team. If I owned the team, I would definitely go after the best players if possible, especially with the situation they acquired him. I definitely would have went after the guy."

Running back Cedric Benson fully participated in the workout. Benson met last week with commissioner Roger Goodell about his offseason arrest in Texas on a charge of misdemeanor assault. Benson is accused of punching a bar employee, a charge he has denied.

Benson hasn't heard anything more from Goodell, who could discipline him.

"We had a good talk, a good session," Benson said. "I guess no news is good news."

Notes

CB Leon Hall did conditioning instead of participating in practice. Hall said he slightly hurt his lower back during a recent workout. ... OT Andre Smith, the team's first-round pick last year, will concentrate on conditioning for the first few weeks of camp. Smith broke his left foot on Sept. 1 last year, limiting him to appearing in six games. ... TE Jermaine Gresham, the team's top pick this year, missed the first practice in a contract dispute. ... CB Adam "Pacman" Jones sometimes covered Ochocinco. After one play, Jones playfully slapped Ochocinco on the helmet and the receiver playfully slapped him back -- but harder. Then, Ochocinco talked to him on the sideline. Later, when Jones successfully covered Ochocinco on a play, the receiver gave him a congratulatory high-five.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

Mighty oil-eating microbes help clean up the Gulf

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By JOHN CAREY, environmental writer


Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oceana, told the New York Times that as much as 40 percent of the oil might have evaporated when it reached the surface. High winds from two recent storms may have speeded the evaporation process.

Although there were more than 4,000 boats involved in the skimming operations, those cleanup crews may have only picked up a small percentage of the oil so far. That’s not unusual; in previous oil spills, crews could only scoop up a small amount of oil. "It’s very unusual to get more than 1 or 2 percent," says Cornell University ecologist Richard Howarth, who worked on the Exxon Valdez spill. Skimming operations will continue in the Gulf for several weeks.

Some of the oil has sunk into the sediments on the ocean floor. Researchers say that’s where the spill could do the most damage. But according to a report in Wednesday’s New York Times, "federal scientists [have determined] the oil [is] primarily sitting in the water column and not on the sea floor."

Perhaps the most important cause of the oil’s disappearance, some researchers suspect, is that the oil has been devoured by microbes. The lesson from past spills is that the lion’s share of the cleanup work is done by nature in the form of oil-eating bacteria and fungi. The microbes break down the hydrocarbons in oil to use as fuel to grow and reproduce. A bit of oil in the water is like a feeding frenzy, causing microbial populations to grow exponentially.

Typically, there are enough microbes in the ocean to consume half of any oil spilled in a month or two, says Howarth. Such microbes have been found in every ocean of the world sampled, from the Arctic to Antarctica. But there are reasons to think that the process may occur more quickly in the Gulf than in other oceans.

Microbes grow faster in the warmer water of the Gulf than they do in, say, the cool waters off Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez spill occurred. Moreover, the Gulf is hardly pristine. Even before humans started drilling for oil in the Gulf — and spilling lots of it — oil naturally seeped into the water. As a result, the Gulf evolved a rich collection of petroleum-loving microbes, ready to pounce on any new spill. The microbes are clever and tough, observes Samantha Joye, microbial geochemist at the University of Georgia. Joye has shown that oxygen levels in parts of the Gulf contaminated with oil have dropped. Since microbes need oxygen to eat the petroleum, that’s evidence that the microbes are hard at work.

The controversial dispersant used to break up the oil as it gushed from the deep-sea well may have helped the microbes do their work. Microbes can more easily consume small drops of oil than big ones. And there is evidence the microbes like to munch on the dispersant as well.

It is still far too early to know how much damage the spill has done — and may still be doing — to the environment. Tar balls continue to wash up on beaches. And the risk of a leak remains, until the well is permanently capped sometime in the next few weeks.

Tide hopes to end drought of repeat champions

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By Christopher Walsh, BamaOnLine.com Senior Writer

They won the national championship.


They brought home the Heisman Trophy.

They also won the SEC Championship Game and dispatched all challengers along the way, all while playing for one of the most high-profile programs in college football, the University of Alabama.

“I don’t think the bullseye is going to get any bigger,” junior linebacker Dont’a Hightower said about this upcoming season. “At some point you just not worry about it. You have to go out and do what you have to do.”

Yet saying that and doing so are two completely different things, especially with everything magnified when seen through a crystal football.

That’s why the biggest question heading into fall camps is can the Crimson Tide win it all again? Already Alabama, which hasn’t lost a regular-season game since 2007, has been slated as the team to beat, and expected to be tabbed No. 1 in virtually every preaseason poll.

But to understand how difficult it is to repeat, consider the following:

No program has ever won back-to-back BCS Championship Games. Only Florida State has played in three straight BCS title games (1999-2001), while Ohio State, Oklahoma, Southern California, Miami all played in two.

The last team to successfully defend its SEC title was Tennessee in 1997-98. Alabama last did it in 1978-79, way before the championship game was conceived in 1992.

Nebraska was the last program to enjoy back-to-back perfect seasons, 1994-95.

Last season Alabama was the first SEC team to go unbeaten in conference play for a second straight year since Georgia in 1981-82 (both 6-0). The Bulldogs, who were led by running back Herschel Walker, were also the last team to do it three straight years having gone 6-0 in 1980 - losing only one regular-season game during that span (13-3 at Clemson in 1981).

Alabama lost two regular-season game over the five-year span between 1971-75 (to Auburn in 1972 and Missouri in 1975), but you have to go all the way back to 1938-40 to find the only time in SEC history a program went undefeated in the regular season three straight seasons. Tennessee was a perfect 30-0 under Robert Neyland, but the Vols lost two of their three bowl games.

Yeah, it’s that tough. Just ask Nick Saban.

When the coach won his first national title at LSU in 2003, the Tigers came back and went 9-3. They opened with a narrow 22-21 victory against Oregon State and lost Week 3 to Auburn, 10-9, before getting hammered at Georgia 45-16.

LSU ended up playing Iowa in the Capital One Bowl with Saban leaving Baton Rouge for the Miami Dolphins.

This time, though, even his wife Terry could see the wheels already spinning from the stands when Saban got the Gatorade treatment and was subsequently on stage after beating Texas at the Rose Bowl, thinking about what was next. Pretty soon his returning players were too.

“I think that’s the great thing about coach, he never lets you sit and relax,” senior quarterback Greg McElroy said. “As a player, as a guy who’s been around special teams, really successful teams, I don’t want to have that complacency, that sense of relaxation. I want to feel pressed. I want to strive for something. We understand this year is completely different from last year. No one is going to hand us the trophy now because of what we accomplished last year.”

One of Saban’s best offseason aids was a video of champions like Michael Jordan talking about complacency and Warren Sapp telling how teammates wouldn’t even pick up their playbooks the season after winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

“They didn’t really see the point,” Hightower explained. “They had won the Super Bowl, why should they? But guys are coming in and doing extra workouts, extra film and everything. I don’t see anybody on the team being complacent like that.”

Saban also banned use of the word “defending,” reinforcing the idea that last season was last season, over and in the past.

“Everybody asked the (New York) Yankees when they were in training camp, is it going to be more difficult to repeat this year winning the World Series than last year?” Saban said. “All 25 guys said, ‘Yes, absolutely it would be.’ But nobody could really answer the question ‘Why?’ I think the ‘why’ comes from it’s more difficult to focus on the process of what it takes to being successful when you’re coming off of success.”

So four main obstacles stand in the Crimson Tide’s way, never mind whatever setbacks might arise along the way:

1) The schedule: Alabama’s last six SEC opponents this season will all be coming off bye weeks, giving them extra time to recover and prepare.

2) Defensive experience: The Tide is essentially replacing nine starters, including three All-Americans, and six of the top seven defensive backs. However, the replacements, as McElroy put it, “Their talent is unbelievable.”

“I honestly think we can complete just as good as we did last year,” Hightower said. “We lost Terrence Cody and guys like that, but we have Josh Chapman. I don’t know if he’s one of those guys everyone knows about, but I guarantee you’re going to know about John Chapman before the end of the season. We have a lot of young guys who are going to come in and help us out on defense.”

3) Every specialist is new: Alabama will have a freshman kicker and punter along with new faces at long-snapper, holder, kick-returner, punt-returner, the signal-caller on punt coverage and maybe even the person who picks up the tee. Special-teams coach Bobby Williams might consider nametags for everyone during meetings through, say, October.

4) The spotlight.

Only the pressures felt tying to win another championship can also be an advantage because the Tide has already been through it all once before. The competition? Not so much.

“It’s never gonna be easy,” junior running back Mark Ingram said. “But we know what it takes to get back to that point and win the championship. We know what we did, how hard we worked.

“But now we’re working even harder. We got to keep pushing ourselves harder because we have a bullseye on our back. Every team is going to give us their best shot when they play us. I’m sure we’re circled on everybody’s schedule this year.”

Try circled, underlined, highlighted and in all caps with stars on the side, off the page and on the wall.

Just the way Alabama wants it.

“The way I look at it, if you’ve been to the mountain top, why would you settle for anything less?” McElroy said. “Our motivation is coming from someplace else this year, it’s coming from our accomplishments to become a good team. All you can really do is put your best foot forward on the way to winning a game.

“The right things have to fall into place for you to win a national championship.”

Belk store in Florida earns LEED silver

Belk Inc.’s department store in Port Orange, Fla., has been certified as environmentally friendly by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The building won silver-level certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. LEED certification stems from the use of environmentally friendly materials and practices that minimize the use of energy, lighting, water and materials.

The Belk store opened March 10.

Tim Belk, chairman and chief executive of the Charlotte-based retailer, dubbed the certification “an important step for Belk in our sustainability efforts.” By using less energy and water, “our store will save money for families, businesses and taxpayers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute to a healthier environment for both our store associates and the larger Port Orange community.”

The designers of the Belk store used landscaping and reflective pavement to minimize the heat-island effect. Native plants, drip irrigation and reclaimed water reduce the need for watering of landscaping. The store also features water-efficient toilets and faucets. In addition, most of the waste from construction was recycled and diverted from landfills.

Belk is the nation’s largest privately owned department store company. It operates 306 stores in 16 Southern states.

Read more: Belk store in Florida earns LEED silver - Charlotte Business Journal

7 Jobs to Skip College For

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by Susan Johnston, PayScale.com

Ask most high school guidance counselors, and they'll tell you a college degree is your key to a well-paying job. But that's not always the case. While lawyers, doctors, and many other professionals still require degrees, Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at Payscale.com, helped us pinpoint several jobs that don't.


But before you ditch your plans to attend a four-year college, note that these jobs do require specialized knowledge, obtained through either a vocational training program or an on-the-job education. (And many people in these occupations do have college degrees, so one certainly can't hurt.)

"There's no high-paying job that doesn't require a high-level skill," says Lee. "You can learn it on the job, but you're going to have to learn it." With the rising cost of college tuition, pursuing one of these career paths may make sense.


1. Freelance Photographer: $47,800 median salary

Lee says that non-degree jobs tend to fall into one of two categories: technical or entrepreneurial. Being a freelance photographer requires a high degree of business savvy in addition to photography skills. Depending on the type of work you do, you might take product shots, family portraits, corporate head shots, wedding pictures, or other images, and then touch up the pictures digitally and send them to clients for review.

2. Private Detective or Investigator: $50,600 median salary

This is another career that requires a lot of personal initiative. Private detectives or investigators might testify at hearings, analyze data, search databases, or question suspects. Knowledge of psychology and the law, critical-thinking skills, and the ability to listen and read body language are also useful.

3. Elevator Mechanic: $61,500 median salary

"When [elevators] break, people are miserable," Lee points out. He adds that the job often requires travel and working at odd hours (for instance, so you can fix an elevator before an office building opens)--which may pay more. Successful elevator mechanics generally have a knack for understanding complex mechanical systems, assembling and disassembling elevator parts, and following safety standards.

4. Nuclear Power Reactor Operator: $79,100 median salary

Since nuclear power reactor operators work with highly sensitive equipment, they need an understanding of physics and engineering, as well as active learning and troubleshooting skills. The higher pay correlates to the highly specialized skill set required.

5. Personal Trainer: $37,500 median salary

Knowledge of nutrition, anatomy, and first aid are helpful, so many personal trainers have a college degree or specialized certification. Since an independent personal trainer's income is tied to the number of clients he or she trains, time-management skills, physical stamina, and customer service skills are assets in this field.

6. Director of Security: $62,400 median salary

Someone might start out as assistant to the director of security and work their way up. Tasks might include analyzing security data, investigating security breaches, and supervising others. Lee says jobs like this are "not a bad track for someone who is more physical or manual, where it's about on-the-job training and less about formal programs."

7. Air Traffic Controller: $60,200

Although the job doesn't require a college degree, the FAA screens prospective air traffic controllers with a pre-employment test and other requirements, so it's a competitive field. The job might entail monitoring aircraft, issuing take-off and landing instructions, and directing ground traffic.

Boston-based freelance writer Susan Johnston has covered career and business topics for The Boston Globe, Hispanic Executive Quarterly, WomenEntrepreneur.com, and other publications.

Source: Salary data provided by online salary database PayScale.com. Salaries listed are median annual salaries for workers with five to eight years of experience and include any bonuses, commissions, or profit sharing.

Trader’s Cocoa Binge Wraps Up Chocolate Market

LONDON — To some, he is a real-life Willy Wonka. To others, he is a Bond-style villain bent on taking over the world’s supply of chocolate.

In a stroke, a hedge fund manager here named Anthony Ward has all but cornered the market in cocoa. By one estimate, he has bought enough to make more than five billion chocolate bars.

Chocolate lovers here are crying into their Cadbury wrappers — and rival traders are crying foul, saying Mr. Ward is stockpiling cocoa in a bid to drive up already high prices so he can sell later at a big profit. His activities have helped drive cocoa prices on the London market to a 30-year high.

Mr. Ward, 50, is not some rabid chocoholic, former employees say. He simply has a head for cocoa. And, through his private investment firm, Armajaro, he now controls a cache equal to 7 percent of annual cocoa production worldwide, a big enough chunk to sway prices.

“Globally, he is unmatched in his knowledge of cocoa,” said Tim Spencer, a former Armajaro executive.

Armajaro maintains offices in West Africa, helping Mr. Ward keep tabs on major cocoa crops. “We even have our own weather stations — our very own that no one else has in some parts of the world,” Mr. Ward, soft-spoken and tan, said in a video interview this year with a financial news service.

Now, traders here are buzzing that Mr. Ward has placed an audacious $1 billion bet in the London market for cocoa futures. This month, he bought 241,100 metric tons of beans, they say.

His play has some people up in arms. While some see it as a simple bet that cocoa prices will rise on falling supply, others say Mr. Ward has created a shortage of cocoa simply to drive up the price himself.

The German Cocoa Trade Association and others wrote an angry letter to the London exchange on which cocoa is traded, demanding that it take action against what the association characterized as a “manipulation.”

The British news media has christened Mr. Ward “Chocolate Finger,” a nod to the Bond villain Auric Goldfinger. And on Facebook, someone has created a “Choc Finger” page featuring Mr. Ward’s face superimposed on a pig that is bellying up to the trough.

The fear is that Mr. Ward will become the go-to source until the annual cocoa harvest, which starts in October. With candy makers starting to stock up for the holiday season, they may be forced to pay him ever-higher prices — and cocoa has already jumped 150 percent since 2008.

“The squeeze was really timed perfectly,” said Eugen Weinberg, an analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

Mr. Ward and his firm, which has not acknowledged buying the cocoa contracts, declined to comment for this article.

Attempts to corner a particular market come and go in the rough-and-tumble world of commodities trading. During the 1970s, Nelson Hunt and his brother, William, tried but failed to corner the world market in silver.

While Mr. Ward lords over the world of cocoa, he is a bit of a mystery outside of that universe. Former employees, acquaintances and peers say that, in person, he does not fit his villainous nickname, and characterize him as friendly and intelligent.

Despite rattling the markets with large investments, Mr. Ward prefers to keep a low profile.

After working as a motorcycle courier, Mr. Ward was introduced to commodities in 1979, when he became a trainee for the tea, rice, cocoa and rubber operations at the conglomerate Sime Darby.

He first made his mark in cocoa with a big bet in the mid-1990s, when he was at Phibro, then the commodity trading arm of Salomon Smith Barney.

Mr. Ward opened his own firm in 1998 with another founder, Richard Gower. Its name, Armajaro, is a mixture of their four children’s names.

Mr. Ward’s appetite for risk extends beyond the cocoa market. He is also an avid rally racer who once drove a red 1947 Allard sports car thousands of miles in a race from London to Cape Town. He plans to race in a similar rally in January in a 1971 Ford Escort.

His fellow driver will be Mark Solloway, who was badly injured in a crash involving Mr. Ward in 2002 in Poland. When Mr. Solloway ended up in a local hospital, a distraught Mr. Ward, who had been driving their car, arranged for a private jet to fly him to London for treatment.

“He’s the greatest and most generous person,” Mr. Solloway said.

Mr. Ward lives with his wife and two sons in a four-story red-brick town house in the upscale Mayfair district of London. A brisk, 15-minute walk away are Armajaro’s offices, housed in a Georgian mansion with marble floors, soaring ceilings and a courtyard.

At first, Armajaro focused solely on cocoa. Later, it started trading coffee and then other agricultural commodities.

Today, Armajaro manages more than $1.5 billion in assets, mostly in hedge funds. But through another business, it remains one of the world’s largest suppliers of cocoa. It has buying operations in the Ivory Coast, Indonesia and Ecuador.

By most accounts, Mr. Ward profited handsomely by orchestrating a similar cocoa squeeze in 2002. That move, which earned him his chocolate-themed nicknames, caught the attention of financial regulators here, but their findings were never made public.

This time, seeing an even bigger investment, some cocoa organizations complained to the exchange, threatening to take their trades elsewhere. In a letter, the exchange said its investigations had turned up “no evidence of abusive behavior.” A spokesman for the exchange declined to comment further.

In any case, chocolate lovers should not worry too much, analysts said. Cocoa accounts for only about 10 percent of the price of most ordinary chocolate bars.

The situation could change, however, if the next cocoa harvest falls short of expectations — or if Mr. Ward keeps buying.

“That really scares us. That he would double up the bet and buy more September contracts,” said a London cocoa trader who asked that his name not be used because he might want to do business with Armajaro in the future. Still, the trader seemed in awe of Mr. Ward’s play, adding: “If I had the guts and money, I would do that, too.”

Julia Werdigier reported from London, and Julie Creswell from New York.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 25, 2010, on page

Kaye Cowher dies of cancer at 54

ESPN.com news services


Kaye Cowher, the wife of former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher, died Friday after battling skin cancer. She was 54.

"Kaye was such a loving and compassionate person and she was the foundation of our family," Bill Cowher, now an NFL analyst for CBS, said in a statement. "Kaye was always at my side throughout my career as a player, coach, NFL analyst and, most importantly, as a parent to our three daughters Meagan, Lauren and Lindsay. They will miss their mother dearly."

Born Kaye Young in Bunn, N.C., she met Bill Cowher at N.C. State in 1976, where he was a football player and she and her twin sister Faye played women's basketball. The couple married in 1981.

"Kaye was the rock that we could all lean on in the tough times. She was looked up to by so many people and I cannot say enough about what Kaye meant to our family," Cowher said. "Her memory will never be forgotten."

Kaye Cowher played a key role in her husband's decision to retire from coaching in 2007 and move full-time to Raleigh, so the family could be together as their daughters completed their high school and college basketball careers.

Meagan, Lauren, and Lindsay Cowher all followed their mothers' footsteps into Division I college basketball. Meagan and Lauren played together at Princeton, while Lindsay currently plays at Wofford.

Kaye Cowher and her sister led N.C. State to the Atlantic Coast Conference's first women's basketball title in 1978. They also appeared in a Wrigley's Doublemint gum commercial.

Kaye Cowher played one season for the New York Stars and two with the New Jersey Gems in the Women's Professional Basketball League until that league folded in 1981.

The family has requested privacy. Services will be held in North Carolina on Monday, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer

By ERIKA KINETZ, AP Business Writer Erika Kinetz, Ap Business Writer – 1 hr 55 mins ago

MUMBAI, India – It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.

If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery.

The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing. It has a solar power option too — important for India's energy-starved hinterlands — though that add-on costs extra.

"This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer," human resource development minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times when he unveiled the device Thursday.

In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte — co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab — unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own.

Negroponte's laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99.

Sibal turned to students and professors at India's elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a "lukewarm" response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually.

Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said falling hardware costs and intelligent design make the price tag plausible. The tablet doesn't have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, and the use of open-source software also adds to savings, she said.

Varma said several global manufacturers, including at least one from Taiwan, have shown interest in making the low-cost device, but no manufacturing or distribution deals have been finalized. She declined to name any of the companies.

India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20.

"Depending on the quality of material they are using, certainly it's plausible," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research. "The question is, is it good enough for students?"

Profitability is also a question for the $35 machine.

Epps said government subsidies or dual marketing — where higher-priced sales in the developed world are used to subside low-cost sales in markets like India — could convince a manufacturer to come on board.

This and similar efforts — like the Kakai Kno and the Entourage Edge tablets — show that there is global demand for an affordable device to trim high textbook costs, she said.

If it works, Epps predicts the device could send a shiver of cost-consciousness through the industry.

"It puts pressure on all device manufacturers to keep costs down and innovate," she said.

The project is part of an ambitious education technology initiative by the Indian government, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to India's 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online.

So far nearly 8,500 colleges have been connected and nearly 500 web and video-based courses have been uploaded on YouTube and other portals, the Ministry said.

Tropical Storm Bonnie Might Develop This Week

Paul Yeager
Contributor

(July 20) -- The weather has been fairly quiet on the tropical front since Hurricane Alex and a near tropical storm moved across the western Gulf of Mexico earlier this summer, but that's beginning to change. The National Hurricane Center is monitoring an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean for possible development, one that could become the second named storm of the Atlantic season during the next couple of days.

The storm would be called Bonnie and could affect Florida and the Gulf of Mexico late this week through the weekend, after first moving through the Caribbean.

As of early Tuesday afternoon, National Hurricane Center meteorologists were giving the system a 60 percent chance of developing into an organized tropical cyclone, which means at least a tropical depression (a tropical low pressure system with sustained winds of no more than 38 mph) or a tropical storm (sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph) within the next 48 hours.

The likelihood of the system strengthening enough to become Bonnie has increased today; the disturbance started to become better organized and is in a region where overall conditions will be conducive for development. Still, according to National Hurricane Center experts, it does not yet have a closed circulation, which is necessary for an organized tropical system. In addition, the developing system will continue to interact with Caribbean islands, which could slow development.

Whether it organizes and strengthens enough to become Bonnie, it will bring heavy rain to the islands, including Haiti, during the next few days as it moves northwestward. Rainfall in excess of 8 inches can fall during a short period of time, especially in mountainous areas, resulting in the risk of life-threatening flash flooding.

The system is expected to move west-northwest over the next several days, a track that would threaten Florida and the Gulf of Mexico during the latter part of the week and into the weekend. The details of the threat, including the potential intensity of the system and the precise path, are not yet being projected by the hurricane center.

The familiar forecast cone will not be issued until (and unless) the system is upgraded to at least a tropical depression.

Filed under: Nation

U.S. Navy Successfully Uses Laser to Shoot Down Drones

Posted by Charles Cooper

The U.S. Navy has used a a laser weapon to shoot down four unmanned aerial vehicles in a test that rings up memories of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" missile defense shield in the 1980s.

The successful test of the Laser Weapon System off the coast of California was announced during the Farnborough International Air Show, which is taking place this week in England.

The technology, jointly developed with Raytheon, used industrial strength lasers, is more than just your run-of-the-mill PR exercise. In its write-up of the technology, Scientific American correctly notes that the shoot-down of the drones over water constitutes an advance over previous Raytheon tests which focused on static targets.  Mike Booen of Raytheon gave USA Today the money quote for the day: "The targets came in over the ocean, and it was a good day for lasers, bad day for drones."

Still, don't expect deployment any time soon. Even if the follow-up tests come through with flying colors, the technology is likely going to take several more years before it's ready for combat situation. (Coincidentally, the breakthrough made the rounds on the anniversary of the day that U.S. astronauts walked on the moon in 1969.

Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police

Image via Wikipedia

By RAY SANCHEZ

That Anthony Graber broke the law in early March is indisputable. He raced his Honda motorcycle down Interstate 95 in Maryland at 80 mph, popping a wheelie, roaring past cars and swerving across traffic lanes.


But it wasn't his daredevil stunt that has the 25-year-old staff sergeant for the Maryland Air National Guard facing the possibility of 16 years in prison. For that, he was issued a speeding ticket. It was the video that Graber posted on YouTube one week later -- taken with his helmet camera -- of a plainclothes state trooper cutting him off and drawing a gun during the traffic stop near Baltimore.


In early April, state police officers raided Graber's parents' home in Abingdon, Md. They confiscated his camera, computers and external hard drives. Graber was indicted for allegedly violating state wiretap laws by recording the trooper without his consent.

The BCFX Football Experience

Gamestop.com

 BCFx – The Doug Williams Edition is a first-of-its-kind game that immerses players in the rich culture, history and pageantry of football game day on Historically Black College and University (HBCU) campuses. The game fuses realistic, bone-jarring football action created using the Unreal 3.0 engine with two unique new rhythm games – the interactive Halftime Show and Drum Line Challenge. In addition, a wealth of historical data has been integrated in the Legacy Museum and dozens of licensed tracks performed by college football’s most entertaining marching bands are included in the game’s Jukebox.

•Authentic Gameday Experience - Realistic gridiron action puts you in the heart of the game while authentic stadiums, fight songs, marching bands and dynamic crowds immerse you in a true game day experience.

•Halftime is still Game Time – Super human band drills and drum major performances will keep you in your seat for the halftime show. Compete in an interactive band challenge for second half momentum or sit back and enjoy the show.

•Drumline Challenge – Battle it out in a head-to-head, rhythm-based mini game. Features more than 100 authentic drum cadences and songs from which to choose.

•Legacy Museum – Experience a tribute to the great institutions represented in the game and learn more about legendary players such as Doug Williams, Jerry Rice and immortal coach Eddie Robinson.

Click on the link below to visit the BCFX website.

http://www.bcfxgame.com/

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sitesell.com

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Charlie Ward Returns To Tallahassee

Florida State's first Heisman winner, its first quarterback to lead the team to a national championship and perhaps the greatest athlete in school history returned to Tallahassee Thursday night.

Charlie Ward signed autographs, took pictures with fans and held a silent auction at a local law office in an effort to generate funds for the football scholarship program and ministry at the Westbury Christian School in Houston where he is the head football coach.

Warchant.com caught up with Ward prior to the event and spoke to him about a variety of topics, including his thoughts on his former teammate Derrick Brooks getting his Florida State jersey retired this season, coach Jimbo Fisher taking over the program and the new Heisman campaign for Seminoles quarterback Christian Ponder.

If you'd like to donate money and learn more info you can visit the school's website (www.westburychristian.org) or stop by the Pittman Law group located at 1028 East Park Avenue, Tallahassee, FL, 32301. All contributions are tax deductible. Ward is hoping to generate enough to award scholarships to five families.

What's it like to be back in Tallahassee? It has to bring back some great memories?

I wish it wasn't a rainy day like this, but it's always good to come back home. I drove over to my hometown in Thomasville (Ga.) to see my parents and then back to Tallahassee. They'll be there forever. They won't be moving anytime soon. I don't get home as often as I would like, or as much as my parents would like or as much as the people here would like, but I'm very busy in Houston with my family (he and his wife Tonja have two children), work and other things that we have going on there. Nevertheless, it always feels good to back home."

How did you get involved in coaching high school football and what's the experience been like so far?

"It's been very good experience. I'm grateful that I was able to do it. Coach (Jeff) Van Gundy gave me an opportunity to coach at the NBA level (as an assistant for the Houston Rockets). I was blessed to meet someone at the high school level and he gave me an opportunity to be a coach and get some hands on experience. It's been a bit of a learning curve just like anything else when you start something new. I'm learning at a rapid pace. Just like when (former Florida State) coach (Bobby) Bowden, (former FSU offensive coordinator and current Georgia) coach (Mark) Richt and (FSU) coach (Jimbo) Fisher started out I'm learning on the go too. I've had some kids go on to college, but more importantly I've been able to dig into kids' lives and help them see who God is through the way you live our life. It's a great experience and I'm grateful that God has chosen me to be a coach."

Are you running a similar offense to the one you played in at Florida State where you're in the shotgun a lot? Are the plays similar

"Yes, 100 percent. I'm just trying to replicate that because in college we were very simple and at high school you have to be simple as well. We don't have that much time to do that many things. We are running a similar offense but we are doing some up-to-date things as well. I've been out of it for a minute, but still got my football mind."

What does tonight mean to you to have so many fans and people come out and give money towards your football program?

"I'm always grateful, because I'm working with these kids on a daily basis. It's great when people are willing to help support the effort of those who are less fortunate and give them an opportunity to experience football I'm always grateful to people who want to help because that's what my parents always taught me."

Your former FSU teammate Derrick Brooks is going to have his college jersey retired this season, an honor you also received. What was your reaction when you heard the news?

"I'm very happy for him. A lot of times people want to say it's long overdue, but it's all part of God's timing. I'm very grateful that they thought that highly of him and the things he's done for Florida State to be able to retire his jersey. It's special when you can have anything retired because it means you are leaving a legacy and you've done some good things that people recognize. I'm grateful that I got the opportunity to play with him for four years and that he's my friend."

Derrick mentioned having some mixed emotions on the coaching switch from coach Bowden to coach Fisher. What are your thoughts on the switch? (Ward and Bowden were inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame together in 2006)

"Anytime you have change for anything there's always going to be mixed emotions, especially if you've been tied to one guy for a long time. Things happen and now we've got an opportunity to move forward in a different direction with coach Fisher. He's brought some hype into the program and I hear recruiting is up, the fan base is coming back and players are working harder than ever. All those things are good things and now it's a matter of going out on the field and executing and putting it all together."

What do you think of Florida State's current quarterback Christian Ponder and the school launching a Heisman campaign for him? What kind of impressions has he made on you?

"Well, I know Christian. He came out to Houston last year to help out with our quarterback camp. I actually knew him before that. I'm grateful that he has an opportunity to be mentioned for the Heisman. That means that he's put himself in a great position to win it, but I'm sure his main goal is to win a national championship. I know he will see this as an opportunity to lead his team. He's very smart, of course, and I'm sure he's helping out a lot of guys because he's a great role model. He's a big kid, bigger than I realized. More importantly, he's a guy that exudes a quiet kind of leadership and the kind of guy that gets other players' going. He's also very efficient. And there are some things off the field that he's displayed that have an effect. Even if he doesn't say a word guys have to respect him. His lifestyle in general says volumes about his leadership."