iPad dominates tablet Web traffic among tablets

4 hrs.

Brian Chacos , LAPTOP

Those spunky?Android tablets may have made big gains on Apple's flagship slate in recent months in terms of sales, but competitors still have a long way to go when it comes to actual usage. So says Chitika Insights, an ad and analytics firm that claims the iPad still accounts for a full 87 percent of all tablet Web traffic.

For every 100 iPad impressions Chitika receives, it only receives 14.75 impressions from all other tablets combined, VentureBeat reports.

As you can see in the chart below, the Kindle Fire family is far and away the second most popular tablet on Chitika's ad network, and it generates more than 20 times less traffic than the iPad, accounting for just 4.88 percent of all impressions. The vaunted Google Nexus tablets? Just 1.22 percent.

Early reports peg Microsoft's Surface tablet as the most-used Windows 8/RT device, but it only accounts for 0.22 percent of all tablet traffic by Chitika's count???just 0.04 points ahead of the defunct HP TouchPad's share. No wonder Microsoft has broadened the Surface's distribution.

Android tablets, on the other hand, have been on a hot streak of late. Google-powered tablets managed to knock the iPad's market share down to "just" 50.4 percent in the third quarter, which was the Apple tablet's smallest chunk since its launch.

One strong quarter is just the start of an uphill battle for Android, however. As Chitika's numbers show, years of utter dominance by the iPad have given it a substantial lead when it comes to actual usage. It will be interesting to see if the release of the iPad mini and fourth-gen iPad chew into Android's gains when the fourth-quarter sales numbers are released.

Copyright 2012 LAPTOP, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/ipad-dominates-tablet-web-traffic-kindle-fire-distant-second-1C7753000

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Newtown trying to give kids a sense of normalcy

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) ? The children at the Sandy Hook Elementary school won't be returning to classes for another week, but officials from the town, school district and local agencies are doing their best in the meantime to keep them occupied following a massacre at their school two weeks ago.

The students have not attended school since a gunman killed 20 of their schoolmates and six adults on Dec. 14. They are slated to return to a different school next Thursday.

In the meantime, they've been treated to field trips, toy giveaways and some organized play time.

"A couple of the teachers have done pizza parties," said Janet Robinson, Newtown's school superintendent. "Another met her kids at the library so they could have a little reading time together. The most important thing has been connecting the students back to their teacher and their classmates."

The Newtown Youth Academy, a nonprofit sports center, opened its doors to all kids in town at no cost shortly after the shooting. But from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. last week, the building's turf field, basketball and tennis courts, and giant inflatable obstacle course were reserved just for Sandy Hook Elementary students.

There have been arts and crafts for the smaller kids, as well as face-paintings. Some celebrities, including two members of the Harlem Globetrotters and former University of Connecticut basketball star Tina Charles, also have stopped by to play with the children. UConn's men's basketball team was making a trip Thursday.

"The idea was to get them away from the house, the television and all the coverage of this tragedy and get them to a place where kids can just be kids," said owner Peter D'Amico, a longtime youth coach in town.

On Thursday afternoon, school buses were loading up at the Youth Academy for a trip to Stamford and a larger complex, Chelsea Piers, which also has ice rinks and an indoor swimming pool, he said. Sports celebrities, such as Brooklyn Nets forward Kris Humphries, planned to meet them there. No media were allowed.

University of Connecticut psychologist Julian Ford, who spent time counseling in Newtown in the first days after the shooting, said it's important for the grieving process to include an outlet that lets children know that while things will never be the same, it's OK to enjoy life.

"They are all going to be thinking about what happened," he said. "That, unfortunately, is inescapable. But this gives them a chance to say, 'Life is carrying on.' Nothing will be the same, but it's also continuing in ways that it should be."

Some students and their parents on Thursday toured the Chalk Hill school in Monroe, a former middle school being reopened next week for the Sandy Hook students. An open house is planned for Wednesday.

"Getting back into the school is like getting back on the horse," Robinson said. "Some of the scariness is gone once they cross that threshold. They are just so happy to see their teachers."

State police said they plan to keep their contact with the children to a minimum as they continue investigating the shooting.

"We certainly don't want to traumatize them any more than they've already been traumatized," said Lt. J. Paul Vance, the department's spokesman. "If (an interview is) not necessary it won't be done. Our investigators will make all those determinations."

In the meantime, Ford has encouraged parents to keep the kids involved in a normal holiday routine and deal with the tragedy as it comes up, rather than making it a focal point of their lives.

David Connors, who has 8-year-old triplets who attend Sandy Hook, said he and his wife have made play dates with their friends, brought the kids to see family for the holidays and participated in the class get-togethers and recreation events.

"That's been, I think, helpful at least in the short term just to kind of keep them doing things, keep them seeing their friends and being nearby and talking to family," Connors said.

Todd Wood of Newtown has five children, the youngest age 4 and the oldest in college. His children's piano teacher lost a child in the shooting, and the family knows other victims as well.

He said he's found that each child has reacted differently to the tragedy. He said he is not making the shooting the center of his family's life but is not pretending it didn't happen, either.

"We did Christmas, we had our lights here, we've tried to make things as normal as possible," he said. "But we also went down to see the memorials. I don't want to shield them from it. I want to let them grieve in their own way."

Ford said that is healthy. He said children will remember their friends as they go about doing normal kid things.

Chris Wolcott, the sport's academy's operations manager, said the best part of having the kids at the center is that the tragedy is pushed aside, at least for a little while.

"A couple times someone would drop a weight (in the facility's health center) and you would hear a bang and there would be a kid who would freeze for a second," he said. "But that would last a split-second. Most of the time, everyone just had a great time."

___

Associated Press writer John Christoffersen in New Haven, Conn., contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/newtown-trying-kids-sense-normalcy-193206806.html

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City College Of San Francisco Implements Major Changes To Avoid Closure (PHOTOS)

It hasn't been an easy year for the City College of San Francisco.

In July, the two-year college, the largest in the entire state of California, received a letter from the community college commission threatening to strip the school of its accreditation due to poor leadership and lack of adequate resources. No accreditation would deem CCSF ineligible for state funding, which would all but guarantee its closure.

In the wake of closure threats, instances of the school's flagrant mismanagement came to light, including a review that found 92 percent of its spending allocated towards faculty salaries and benefits.

Then in September, a group of student protesters stormed a CCSF Board of Trustees meeting that had assembled to address the school's budget crisis. The demonstrators vehemently opposed a move to assign a special trustee from the state to oversee the college's financial future, demanding their school remain democratic.

In response to the protests, California Community College Chancellor Jack Scott warned that CCSF was in danger of going bankrupt.

So the CCSF Board voted to appoint the special trustee, and administrators have since begun implementing a series of major transformations in an effort to keep its accreditation. The school has until March 15 to prove itself to the accrediting commission.

The San Francisco Chronicle took a look at the specific changes the school is in the process of undergoing in a special report. See some of CCSF's improvements below, and click over to the Chronicle to read the full investigation.

• Layoffs

  For the first time in recent history, City College of San Francisco has promised to lay off dozens of full and part-time employees in January as an effort to manage costs.

• Student Learning Outcomes

  CCSF faculty members have vowed to put more weight on the practice of student learning outcomes, or studying student performance as a means for designing future curricula.

• Enrollment Management

  CCSF officials will study enrollment data to determine what classes to offer and the frequency with which to offer them, a practice that hasn't been employed before.

• A New Mission

  CCSF leaders will revise the school's mission statement to focus on more tangible goals for its students.

• Crackdown on Department Chairs

  CCSF's Board of Trustees voted to send department chairs back to the classroom to teach full-time, thus eliminating the need to hire part-time faculty members. The administrative work previously done by department chairs will be shifted to various deans.

• Fewer Campuses

  The school will reevaluate the more than 100 "instructional sites" dotted throughout the city and determine which leases to forego.

• Budgeting

  CCSF will abandon its "live from year to year" budgeting strategy in favor of creating a three-year projection plan.

Also on HuffPost:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/city-college-of-san-francisco_n_2371784.html

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Tissue Study Could Reshape Advanced Prostate Cancer Treatment ...

A comprehensive study of prostate cancer tissue done in the UK has revealed that a completely new gene network takes over driving the cancer in men who are castrate resistant. The research was published in Cancer Cell.

Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, at the University of Cambridge studied tissue samples from men with prostate cancer. They found that a protein fuels advanced prostate cancer (castrate resistant) by switching on a different set of genes previously not linked with the disease. This research might provide new drug targets to treat the disease and new bio-markers that could be used to monitor progression of advanced prostate cancer.

Previous cell studies have shown that the androgen receptor attaches to and ?switches on? specific genes to drive cancer. This study shows that when androgens are absent from the bloodstream, or when men are on ADT, the androgen receptor continues to fuel the disease by switching on a completely different gene set. This includes genes associated with the production of glucose and fat.

Study author, Naomi Sharma, Urology Academic Registrar at Addenbrooke?s Hospital based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, said: ?This is the first comprehensive tissue study of its kind and shines a new light on the biology of prostate cancer.

?Our understanding so far comes from studies in cells grown in the laboratory. In this sophisticated study using samples directly from patients, we?ve uncovered a much more complex network of cell messages. These messages switch on a completely different set of genes that continue to drive the disease in men for whom standard hormone treatments have stopped working.

?These important findings might provide new targets for the development of new drugs to treat advanced stages of prostate cancer, and new ?flags? to help doctors track the progression of the disease in patients.?

This study is significant as it might change our understanding of how the most important androgen receptor actually works to drive castrate resistant prostate cancer.
Professor Malcolm Mason, Cancer Research UK?s prostate cancer expert, said: ?This fascinating research reframes our understanding of how the androgen receptor works ? painting a very different picture of how it drives cancer.

Source: Cancer Research UK

Joel T Nowak, M.A., M.S.W.

Source: http://advancedprostatecancer.net/?p=3619

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Should We Expect Other Earth-like Planets At All?

Earth-like? Or not.... (Image:PHL @ UPR Arecibo, ESA/Hubble, NASA)

This year has been a spectacular one for exoplanets. New discoveries and new insights have truly pushed the gateway to other worlds even further open.

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In the past 12 months we?ve gained increasingly good statistics on the incredible abundance of planets around other stars and their multiplicity. We also finally seem to have evidence that our neighboring star Alpha Centauri B does indeed harbor at least one world. It is by any set of standards, a great haul.

But I continue to be a bugged by the claims of ?habitable? worlds and ?Earth-like planets? that seem to beset many scientific announcements (including I?m ashamed to say my own). In the spirit of closing out the passage of our 4,500,000,000 th or so orbit around the Sun I thought I?d try to set the record straight, because I think we have so much more to look forward to than simply finding ?another Earth?.

First, when press releases state that a ?habitable? world may have been found, the truth is far more complex. Astronomers and astrobiologists tend to use the term habitable as a shorthand for the presence of liquid water on a planetary surface, implying a range of temperatures between the freezing and boiling point of water. But this also requires a surface atmospheric pressure high enough for water to exist as a liquid without boiling off to vapor, and an atmosphere will alter the transfer of radiation to and from the surface ? often by way of a greenhouse effect.

And this is just the beginning. By this simple criterion even the Earth is only partially habitable ? about 85% of its area remains amenable to liquid water over a year? (a fact that my colleagues Dave Spiegel, Kristen Menou and I reiterated a few years ago). So strictly speaking ?habitable? includes a range of environments that we would find appallingly hostile, including high-pressure, high-temperature climates and those in a sub-arctic category with thin atmospheres.

Sorry, but you're total conjecture (Credit: ESO)

The problem with the newly proclaimed habitable, or even potentially habitable exoplanets of 2012, is that not only do we at present have absolutely no information on the presence or absence of water or an atmosphere, we also have absolutely no idea (beyond informed guesses) about their geophysical history or present state. Geophysics is the dirty little secret here. On Earth the long-term (read millions of years) stability of the Earth?s surface environment close to the ?habitable? state is a direct consequence of geophysical re-cycling, the so-called Carbon-Silicate Cycle. Or to put this more crudely, no volcanism or tectonics, and you get no temperate climate.

This does not mean that some of them don?t hit the sweet spot, but it?s horrendously premature to say so.

Which gets us to the other point, the cavalier use of the phrase ?Earth-like?. Utterance of this can evoke all sorts of images. It may make us think of oceans, beaches, mountains, deserts, forests, fluffy clouds, fluffy bunnies, warm summers, snowy winters, the local pub, or the fabulous hubbub of the local souk.

But this is typically far from the meaning attached by scientists. It can simply indicate a planet with a rocky surface, rather than a world with a thick gaseous envelope. It can mean a world that is roughly the same mass and density as Earth. It can mean a planet orbiting a star like the Sun. Or it can just mean that we got bored of saying things like ?a two-Earth mass object in a close to circular orbit around a roughly 4 billion year old main-sequence star that is similar in mass to the Sun.?

Although at some level this is purely to do with semantics I think it?s important to consider. What I believe we really mean when we say ?Earth-like? is that a planet is Earth equivalent. That is to say that while the planet might feel completely alien to human senses it nonetheless matches many of the same physical and chemical characteristics of Earth. It?s a bit like renting a car at an airport where you?ve reserved the open top red sports-car, only to be told that they?ve run out but you can have ?an equivalent? vehicle. It?ll have four wheels, an engine, and yes you can wind the windows all the way down if you?d like.

And this is critical because one thing we have learned about exoplanets in 2012 is that they are remarkably diverse, and that the configuration and contents of our solar system are somewhat (only somewhat) unusual. For example, none of our planetary sisters belong to what may be the most numerous category of worlds ? objects with masses between that of the Earth and that of Neptune. There?s an absolute load of those out there, but none here.

Our system is also relatively spread out, it is increasingly apparent that the universe likes to build compact orbital architectures of numerous planets with orbital periods of days to weeks. It is also apparent that a majority of planetary systems have likely gone through a far more dramatic period of dynamical rearrangement or dynamical ?cooling? than ours has ? leaving a tell-tale signature in the highly elliptical orbits of major planets.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Although we don?t yet know much about the elemental and chemical composition of exoplanets, we do see a diversity in the contents and conditions of proto-planetary environments. We also suspect that the pathway to any individual world includes an enormous variety of essentially random events ? the process of building a planet is highly stochastic.

On the face of it this might seem a little depressing. After all, finding an ?Earth-like? planet is often described as the holy grail of exoplanetary science, the location of another place that could harbor life in the cosmos. But if all worlds are unique it might be that there are no other places quite like Earth, and if a delicate set of conditions are critical for life this would put a damper on these prospects.

Meet the parents. Carbon chemistry abounds. (Credit:NASA/HST)

However, the chemistry of the universe does seem to be the very same chemistry from which we?ve sprung. Molecules made with carbon are ubiquitous, whether in the sparse interstellar medium or the thickening clouds of forming proto-stellar systems, organic chemistry dominates.

It also permeates the ancient material of our solar system that we see preserved in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites and cometary contents. And life on Earth not only got going fast some 3.5 to 4 billion years ago, it seems to have rapidly evolved into an interlinked world-wide chemical network that robustly preserves the vital genetic blueprints for metabolism and survival ? the core planetary gene set.

While it is true that we do not yet know the actual answer, my personal take on all of this is the following. There may be no ?Earth-like? planet out there, but there are almost certainly Earth-equivalent worlds ? alien but nonetheless amenable to life.

Only the most contrived and strained interpretation of what we see by way of the elemental and chemical composition of the cosmos and of terrestrial biochemistry would suggest there?s something ?special? about what happened here on Earth. Carbon-chemistry rules, and Earth 4 billion years ago was about as alien from Earth today as one can imagine, yet life started up fast. It?s going to happen in other places too.

So, we should not necessarily hold our breath for other Earth-like planets, but we should expect an astonishing diversity of equivalent places. I for one can?t wait to find out how the complex rough and tumble of molecular evolution played out on those other worlds.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=9e0723c3554e5cfd12f8d66e3d1b1dd6

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Is Google Using AdWords Express Budgets To Promote Google+?

Google now offers small businesses using its AdWords Express service a way to promote their Google+ pages seemingly everywhere but on Google+ itself, which Google reasserts should be an ad-free zone. That?omission may make these ads less effective for those seeking new customers or followers to their Google+ pages. Meanwhile, the push gets those same small businesses spending their advertising dollars to promote Google+ itself for Google.

AdWords Express & Google+ Pages

In case you?re not?familiar?with AdWords Express, it?s Google?s version of automated paid search. With AdWords Express, small and local businesses who are in a time crunch and don?t have time to properly set up campaigns let Google run their ads. Google then chooses where to show the ads. Some will appear in Google search results, based on terms that Google selects. Some appear within Google Maps. Some appear on non-Google sites that are part of the Google advertising network.

Since some small businesses don?t have web sites, Google has offered them free ones to use with AdWords Express through its Get Your Business Online service. But now, Google has said businesses can drive visitors to their Google+ pages.

In a?post?late last week Christian Oestlien, a member of?Google Product Management, announced that AdWords Express would now ?offer? businesses a new way to promote their Google+ pages:

Along with the announcement Oestlien mentioned that this option would be available for all Google properties ? except, well, Google+. In fact, Oestlien took a pseudo-swing at Facebook by stating:

? we only show these promotions when they?re appropriate?not overwhelming people with random ads when they?re trying to spend time with friends.

Why No Advertising On Google+?

Many could argue that if you are trying ?attract more followers? they would want to do so on Google+ itself. Why show social network ads in search? Why show them for your Google+ page in maps? This is a hard stance that Google+ took throughout 2012. But the thing is, social ads work. There simply isn?t a better place for admins to try and grow fans with ads than from targeted ads in the social network.

Well, Can You Advertise To Just Google+ Users?

The answer is no. A Google representative?confirmed to us that the only targeting option is ?normal targeting,? so it will reach everyone. This is a huge negative for those AdWords Express advertisers who are trying to build a following for their Google+ page. Seeing that you can?t advertise on the social network and you can?t target those across the Google network with a Google+ enabled account, you have no guarantee that a click is coming from someone who has a Google+ account or if they have even heard of Google+ before.

So Just What Is This New Service That Google Is ?Offering??

The 10,000-foot view of this announcement reads like this:

• You give your money to Google to handle online advertising
• Google spends your money across their network
• Instead of driving traffic to your site, the new?announcement??offers? businesses the ability to let Google drive traffic to a Google property
• The goal is to ?attract new followers and customers? but Google can?t show ads within the social network itself.
• Nor can active Google+ users be targeted

Why Is This A Bit Suspect?

While Google+ has been relatively successful, it has come at the hands of a huge investment. From advertising during big NFL games, to worldwide print and TV campaigns, to big NFL partnerships, Google has spent?inordinate marketing resources on the Google+ product. In a way, Google is now leveraging AdWords Express users? budgets to do so, too.

The glaring lack of ability to target ads on Google+ itself, or even to target users who are on Google+ makes for un-targeted, poor advertising for those looking to build their pages. The majority of those users who click will have to be sold on Google+ first before they can follow a brand page. Instead of hitting active users, advertisers are simply handing money to Google to blast the budget across the general Google network.

None of the other social networks operate in this fashion. Facebook offers a variety of advertising options across the social network, Twitter has a handful of ad options across Twitter. The key is that all of these are on the network that has that social scent trail to it.

So Is This New Service Helpful For Anyone?

Is this worth doing? In some cases, absolutely. If a company doesn?t have resources for a website and they don?t want to promote their Facebook page, this gives them an option to get up and running. If you are on a shoestring budget and need a landing page, this option may?quench?your?thirst?for more eyeballs. The issue isn?t with the ?attract new customers? statement that Oestlien made, but more about the attraction of new followers aspect as there is no Google+ user targeting built into the service.

While this new targeting may look valuable at-a-glance, severe lack of targeting makes it tough to recommend to anyone. From Google?s standpoint however, this would be an ideal selection for advertisers as a big byproduct of the budget is more awareness of the Google+ product.

Related Topics: Google | Google: Google+ | Top News

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Source: http://marketingland.com/is-google-using-adwords-express-budgets-to-promote-google-29583

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Italian For Kids: Reasons Why It's Best To Start Young

Mastering a different language is a thing that most adults struggle with. Nevertheless, for young children, the process is almost instant; since children?s brains are rapidly expanding and are wired to absorb details in order to learn about their ? new world ?, they just have to be given simple instructions to know the basic principles of a language- more often than not, being together with adults in conversation can be more than enough to teach a child.

Openness to studying and easy acquisition of details are among the key reasons why instructing new languages is best done while a person is still very young. Actually, kids are so skilled at learning new different languages they can pick up even the most subtle differences in tones that most grown ups often miss. This ability allows youngsters to achieve a natural-sounding accent that can be hardly distinguished from the ones from native speakers!

Along with achieving more natural accents, teaching new languages while a kid is still young can certainly help enhance mental skills as well as help children have a much better grasp of their native language. As an example, mastering Italian for kids can help them fully understand English better. For the reason that the Italian dialect is definitely a close relative of Latin, an old language from which many English terms originate from. Apart from boosting word knowledge, children may study grammar better by assessing grammar guidelines of one dialect with another. This can help them discover the similarities and differences between languages, an exercise which will certainly only serve to expand their comprehension of communication rules. Using a much better grasp of these rules can help a child communicate his thoughts better.

Another reason why it?s better to start foreign language classes early is it can help widen a child?s viewpoint on the modern world as well as allow them to have an even better understanding for different ethnicities. For instance, kids who understand how to speak a foreign language fluently will be more at ease if they ever visit the country since they won?t be so discouraged by individuals talking a different language. Simply because they can determine what is happening around them, they are able to better comprehend the scenery, activities, food along with other wonderful things that the country can offer, such as art and new music.

Finally, kids who speak more than just one tongue will have a good edge in the academe as well as in their professions. Schools and colleges may have a taste for pupils who can converse different tongues, so teaching a child early can increase his odds of getting into great universities. With regard to careers, alternatively, communicating in a different language opens up opportunities not just in one?s own land, but as well as abroad.

Find more reference and education concepts for your family, know the advantages of teaching Italian to kids. Visit Monnie Wetzel?s site for your reference.

Source: http://www.ezinearticlesplanet.com/articles/education/italian-for-kids-reasons-why-its-best-to-start-young.html

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