Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/187759119?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Hulu challenges cable with first original drama (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Hulu, the popular online video service, has taken another step to becoming a full-fledged alternative to cable television by commissioning its first scripted original TV show to go live next month.
The new political documentary-style drama "Battleground" is set in Wisconsin and executive-produced by JD Walsh, Hagai Shaham and Marc Webb. It follows Hulu's first original documentary series Morgan Spurlock's "A Day In The Life."
The majority of Hulu's programming to date has been licensed from its parent companies, News Corp, Walt Disney Co and Comcast Corp's NBC Universal, as well as other program makers.
Andy Forsell, Hulu's programming executive, said Spurlock's show had been a success based on data it collected on its audience, but he declined to reveal the program's view counts.
Spurlock's series is being followed up with a second season and being joined by another six-episode documentary series called "Up to Speed" by Richard Linklater, who is perhaps best known for movies "Dazed and Confused" and "School of Rock".
The challenge for Hulu is to ensure it can generate a return on investment in expensive content like scripted drama, which is typically more costly than producing a documentary or reality show.
"We can make the economics work, I've got a budget for originals but there's not the same pressure as a traditional network since we don't have worry about filling airtime," Forsell said.
The original shows will be available on Hulu's free Web service rather than just to its paying Hulu Plus subscribers as the start-up increases its user base and builds its reputation for original programming. But Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said the dual revenue model of advertising and subscription fees is key to Hulu's future.
"At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50 percent more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services," Kilar said in a blog post on Friday.
PAYING SUBSCRIBERS
Hulu said on Friday it had more than 1.5 million paying subscribers at the end of 2011, and revenue grew 60 percent to $420 million.
Early last year, Kilar forecast that Hulu would generate around $500 million in revenue during 2011. The revenue miss was indirectly blamed on a "soft advertising market" in the second half of the year.
Like other Web companies trying to bring more TV shows and movies online, Hulu is in a race with rival Netflix Inc to buy and develop more content to add to and maintain its subscriber base.
Kilar said the company will spend around $500 million on content in 2012 covering new content acquisition, re-licensing existing content on the service and originals. It is an increase from the $375 million it said it spent last year.
Netflix, which has some 23 million U.S. subscribers, said last March it had secured exclusive rights to the 26-episode television series "House of Cards" a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher.
It was reported last year that Netflix would spend around $100 million to produce the show.
Services like Netflix are increasingly being recognized as direct competition or replacements for premium cable channels such as Time Warner Inc's HBO and CBS Corp's Showtime.
(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120115/tv_nm/us_hulu
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Russian space probe descending to Earth
MOSCOW?? A failed Russian probe designed to travel to a moon of Mars but stuck in Earth orbit is due to come crashing down within the hour, creating a shower of fragments that could survive the fiery re-entry.
The unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe is one of the heaviest and most toxic space derelicts ever to crash to Earth, but space officials and experts say the risks are minimal, as its orbit is mostly over water and most of the probe's structure will burn up in the atmosphere anyway.
Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said that Phobos-Grunt ("Phobos-Soil") will crash between 12:50 and 1:34 p.m. ET. Other sources suggested re-entry might come even earlier than that window. The probe could come down anywhere along an orbit that would place it over the Pacific Ocean, South America, the Pacific and southern Europe. The rest of the world, including the U.S. and Canada, is outside the risk zone.
"The resulting risk isn't significant," said Heiner Klinkrad, head of the European Space Agency's Space Debris Office that is monitoring the probe's descent.
He couldn't say where exactly the probe may enter the atmosphere, but said that "most of Europe is excluded from an impact risk."
Roscosmos predicts that only between 20 and 30 fragments of the Phobos probe with a total weight of up to 440 pounds (200 kilograms) will survive the re-entry and plummet to Earth.
Klinkrad agreed with that assessment, adding that about 100 metric tons of space junk fall on Earth every year. "This is 200 kilograms out of these 100 tons," he said.
Thousands of pieces of derelict space vehicles orbit Earth, occasionally posing danger to astronauts and satellites in orbit, but as far as is known, no one has ever been hurt by falling space debris.
Phobos-Grunt weighs 13.5 metric tons (14.9 English tons), and that includes a load of 11 metric tons (12 tons) of highly toxic rocket fuel intended for the long journey to the Martian moon of Phobos. It has been left unused as the probe got stuck in orbit around Earth shortly after its Nov. 9 launch.
Roscosmos says all of the fuel will burn up on re-entry, a forecast Klinkrad said was supported by calculations done by NASA and ESA. He said the craft's tanks are made of aluminum alloy that has a very low melting temperature, and they will burst at an altitude of more than 60 miles (100 kilometers).
"These tanks are expected to release the fuel above 100 kilometers, and then the fuel is going to burn in the atmosphere and later the tanks are going to burn up themselves as well," Klinkrad told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his office in Berlin.
-
More space news from msnbc.com
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Will pop icons make music video in space?
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: Pop music's reigning power couple, Jay-Z and Beyonce, are welcome to make a video in space, Virgin Galactic says. They can even bring their daughter along.
- Get involved in a global night-sky checkup
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- Why you can't see sci-fi movie filmed in space
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Will pop icons make music video in space?
The space era has seen far larger spacecraft to crash. NASA's Skylab space station that went down in 1979 weighed 85 tons (77 metric tons), and Russia's Mir space station that deorbited in 2001 weighed about 143 tons (130 metric tons). Their descent fueled fears around the world, but the wreckage of both fell far away from populated areas.
The $170 million Phobos-Ground was Russia's most expensive and the most ambitious space mission since Soviet times. The spacecraft was intended to land on the crater-dented, potato-shaped Martian moon, collect soil samples and fly them back to Earth, giving scientists precious materials that could shed more light on the genesis of the solar system.
Russia's space chief has acknowledged the Phobos-Ground mission was ill-prepared, but said that Roscosmos had to give it the go-ahead so as not to miss the limited Earth-to-Mars launch window.
Its predecessor, Mars-96, which was built by the same Moscow-based NPO Lavochkin company, also suffered an engine failure and crashed shortly after its launch in 1996. Its crash drew strong international fears because there were 7 ounces (200 grams) of plutonium onboard. The craft eventually showered its fragments over the Chile-Bolivia border in the Andes Mountains, and the pieces were never recovered.
The worst ever radiation spill from a derelict space vehicle came in January 1978 when the nuclear-powered Cosmos 954 satellite crashed over northwestern Canada. The Soviets claimed that the craft completely burned up on re-entry, but a massive recovery effort by Canadian authorities recovered a dozen fragments, most of which were radioactive.
Phobos-Grunt also contains a tiny quantity of radioactive cobalt-57 in one of its instruments, but Roscosmos said it poses no threat of radioactive contamination.
The spacecraft also carries a small cylinder with a collection of microbes as part of an experiment by the California-based Planetary Society that designed to explore whether they can survive interplanetary travel. The cylinder is attached to a capsule that was supposed to deliver Phobos ground samples back to Earth.
It's not clear whether or not that capsule would be destroyed during re-entry, but the chances that it will ever be found are extremely low.
This report includes information from The Associated Press and msnbc.com.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46005190/ns/technology_and_science-space/
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Audi combines HUD with gesture controls, leaves us wanting
The setup uses one HUD in front of the driver, another in front of the passenger and yet another display in the middle that's viewable by both people in the front seats. While that's not particularly revolutionary, the transfer of information from one display to the next is. If the passenger looks up a restaurant using their own display, she can swipe it over to the center HUD, providing the driver with navigation instructions. The display tech is still a few years away from production, but don't expect the gesture controls to come along for the ride.
Continue reading Audi combines HUD with gesture controls, leaves us wanting
Audi combines HUD with gesture controls, leaves us wanting originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Monday, January 16, 2012
Supernova traced to collision of white dwarf stars
Type 1a supernovae, exploding stars that can outshine entire galaxies, were instrumental to the Nobel Prize-winning discovery that a mysterious "dark energy" is fueling the expansion of the universe. But astronomers haven't been able to pin down what causes these massive stellar explosions.
Now, after studying a Type 1a supernova in a nearby galaxy, two researchers say that they must be the result of a collision between two white dwarf stars. They made their case this week in the journal Nature.
Pinning down the origins of these so-called standard candles, which can be used to help determine the brightness of other objects, may aid scientists in sharpening their understanding of the nature of dark energy.
As astronomers map out the known universe, it can be hard to tell whether a tiny speck of light is from an object that is bright but far away or dim but nearby. Type 1a supernovae, on the other hand, are thought to all shine at the same peak brightness, which allows scientists to determine how far away they are.
But a Type 1a supernova isn't as sharp a tool as it could be because astronomers still don't understand exactly how it comes to be. Scientists also suspect that the older a supernova is, the less accurate its brightness might be because the chemistry of those early-universe stars was different.
In order for astronomers to build on the previous research and figure out what dark energy is, they need to learn more about Type 1a supernovae, said Bradley Schaefer, an astronomer at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and lead author of the Nature paper.
One theory about these exploding stars is that they erupt after the gravity from a white dwarf ? a burned-out star usually composed of carbon and oxygen ? starts pulling in matter in from an orbiting companion star. When the white dwarf reaches a critical mass ? about 1.4 times the mass of our sun ? it blows up. The force of the explosion might strip a layer off the companion star but leave it largely intact.
A competing theory is that Type 1a supernovae occur when two white dwarf stars that orbit each other gradually move closer together until they collide and explode, annihilating both.
If astronomers could find a companion star in the neighborhood of a recently exploded supernova, it could help settle the question.
Schaefer and graduate student Ashley Pagnotta decided to look for one in a nearby galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud. They focused on one particular supernova remnant, called SNR 0509-67.5, and began making plans to observe it with a telescope.
As it turned out, that wasn't necessary. On Jan. 25, Schaefer caught a glimpse of NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" on the Web. For a moment, he thought he'd been scooped. It was the supernova he'd been planning to study.
Thankfully for Schaefer, the researchers who took the photo had been looking at a different aspect of the supernova. But it turned out to be just what he needed ? near the center of the supernova, there were no stars to be seen.
This supernova could not have been fueled by a companion star that survived; therefore, it must have been the result of two white dwarfs dancing toward their deaths, he said. And because Type 1a supernovae are all so similar, Schaefer said, it's likely that what holds for one would hold for them all.
Just to be sure, Schaefer is looking at other Type 1a supernovae in the Large Magellanic Cloud to see whether the same pattern holds.
Until more evidence is in, however, some researchers aren't sure the findings can be generalized.
"They've done a pretty accurate work" on SNR 0509-67.5, said Pilar Ruiz-Lapuente, an astrophysicist at the University of Barcelona in Spain who is conducting a similar search in our Milky Way galaxy. "But two paths can lead to the final result."
amina.khan@latimes.com
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Sunday, January 15, 2012
Remains of the Day: Most Americans Spend More on Monthly Tech Bills Than Utility Bills [For What It's Worth]
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Balmy winter brings plenty of economic surprises
FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2012 photo, winter hats are displayed on a sales rack, in New York. Stores are supposed to be in the throes of clearing out cold weather items like coats and wooly sweaters to make room for spring receipts. Instead, unusually mild temperatures across a broad swath of the country has left them with mounds of winter merchandise they're trying to get rid of at rock bottom prices, a move that's taking a toll on profits.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2012 photo, winter hats are displayed on a sales rack, in New York. Stores are supposed to be in the throes of clearing out cold weather items like coats and wooly sweaters to make room for spring receipts. Instead, unusually mild temperatures across a broad swath of the country has left them with mounds of winter merchandise they're trying to get rid of at rock bottom prices, a move that's taking a toll on profits.(AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Winter jackets are on sale at Timberland, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 in New York. Stores are supposed to be in the throes of clearing out cold weather items like coats and wooly sweaters to make room for spring receipts. Instead, unusually mild temperatures across a broad swath of the country has left them with mounds of winter merchandise they're trying to get rid of at rock bottom prices, a move that's taking a toll on profits. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Hooded fleece jackets are on sale at Who.A.U, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012 in New York. Stores are supposed to be in the throes of clearing out cold weather items like coats and wooly sweaters to make room for spring receipts. Instead, unusually mild temperatures across a broad swath of the country has left them with mounds of winter merchandise they're trying to get rid of at rock bottom prices, a move that's taking a toll on profits. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Out of a relatively balmy winter have sprung some economic surprises. People have more cash in their pockets because they aren't turning up the thermostat. Airlines don't have to de-ice planes or battle blizzards. And shoppers are finding great deals on coats and boots.
But there are also disappointments. Merchants are stuck with unsold shovels and snow blowers. Drugstores say customers aren't buying cold medicine or getting as many flu shots.
The weather has been so mild that at some hardware outlets, rakes are flying off the shelf, and grass seed is outselling ice-melting salt.
"I haven't seen this mix of sales since I can remember," said David Ziegler, whose family owns nine Ace Hardware stores in the northwest Chicago area. "They're buying rakes ... just because it's warmer and people are not holed up."
This winter has been remarkably tame, especially in regions accustomed to a three-month tussle with freezing temperatures, snow, sleet and ice. In the Northeast, only four Decembers in the last 117 years have been warmer, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather feels especially gentle after two straight seasons of bitter cold and heavy snow. And it will take much more than Friday's relatively moderate snowstorm in the Midwest and Northeast to change that.
For Rocco A. Guadagna, it's been a lazy winter. He owns a lawn care and snow-removal company in Buffalo, N.Y. Because he charges an upfront fee for an entire season of plowing, he's getting paid even though he's hardly had to do any work.
Last year, his plows went out 42 times, more than usual. This year, he went out Friday for just the second time. But he doesn't think customers mind paying for something they barely use.
"Ninety percent, when they pay me, they say 'I hope I never see you,'" he said.
He's not the only one saving money. The weather and low natural gas prices have combined to push down home heating costs for the 51 percent of American households that use gas.
A typical bill this winter will be $700, a 3 percent drop from last year and the fourth straight year of declines, according to Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Director's Association.
Jim Cusick, a state employee in St. Paul, has been able to run his radiators less and catch up on an out-of-control home heating bill aggravated by the big, drafty old house where he lives with five of his six kids.
Because of last winter, Cusick said, he owed his utility more than $3,000 in back payments. As of this month, he said, his negative balance is down to $650.
"It's a bummer for the kids. They miss the skating and stuff," Cusick said. "But if winter stays mild, life will be better."
Airlines are enjoying savings, too. During storms, they often lose money because of refunds, delays and added costs for labor and expensive de-icing fluid.
United Continental Holdings Inc., the world's largest airline, said December snowstorms in 2010 hurt its fourth-quarter profit by $10 million and wiped out $25 million in revenue from fares and fees.
Not this season though. There were about 7,000 flight cancelations in the U.S. in December, down from 29,000 the year before, according to FlightStats. On-time performance improved to 79 percent, from 66 percent the year before.
The weather is a mixed bag for stores that offer outdoor gear. Henry Carter, co-owner of 9th Street Cycles, a bike store in Brooklyn, N.Y., said sales of winter equipment have been slow, but bike sales have been surprisingly brisk. And customers are riding more. So instead of the occasional cleaning or adjustment, the repair shop is busy will full tuneups.
"That's usually the stuff of summertime," he said.
For retailers, the weather has been a challenge and an opportunity. They want the weather to be cold, but not too cold. They hope for a few snowstorms that inspire people to buy coats and snow blowers, but not blizzards that keep shoppers inside for days.
So, while more people are out shopping now, they're not buying the bulky winter merchandise. And since they can't sell it, stores have to discount it heavily, which eats away at profit.
Now, instead of clearing out what's left of the cold-weather stuff to make room for spring supplies, they have mounds of winter things for sale at rock-bottom prices.
Coats are the biggest headache. They take up a lot of space, and they are expensive, so big markdowns hurt the bottom line more. Stores are discounting coats by 70 percent on average, and many are slashing prices on entire coat departments.
"Stores can't get rid of the outerwear fast enough," said Scott A. Bernhardt, chief operating officer of Planalytics Inc., a research firm that uses weather patterns to advise stores what they should buy to sell to customers.
Barbara Paschal of Muncie, Ind., recently got a coat at Sears for $48, marked down from $120. Still, she's holding off on buying gloves for three of her four teenage sons.
"There's no reason to buy gloves," said Paschal, noting the temperature is around 40 degrees. "If we get snow, then I will get the gloves."
Drugstore operators Walgreen Co. and Rite Aid Corp. both say the warm weather has hurt sales of cough, cold and flu products compared with last year. They are also giving fewer flu shots and filling fewer prescriptions.
Walgreen administered about 5.3 million flu shots between August and December, down from 6 million over the same period in 2010. In December, prescriptions for cough, cold and flu treatments were down 1.5 percent at established stores.
The temperatures have even stifled good-natured winter humor.
Ellen Shubart, who volunteers for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, recently started guiding a tour of the city's underground walkway system downtown called "Warm Walk, Cool Architecture."
The jokes she devised about gloves, boots and hats have been falling flat.
"We planned it with the idea that it's going to be cold outside," she said.
___
Associated Press writers Anne D'Innocenzio, Samantha Bomkamp and Marley Seaman in New York City; Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, N.Y.; Barbara Rodriguez in Chicago; and Patrick Condon in St. Paul, Minn., contributed to this report.
___
Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .
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