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17 August 2012 | New York Times

Time and CNN reinstate journalist after review

Time magazine and CNN are reinstating the commentator Fareed Zakaria after a review of his work in light of his admission that he plagiarized parts of a New Yorker article in a recent column for Time. “We have completed a thorough review of each of Fareed Zakaria’s columns for Time, and we are entirely satisfied that the language in question in his recent column was an unintentional error and an isolated incident for which he has apologized,” a Time spokeswoman said in a statement on Thursday. “We look forward to having Fareed’s thoughtful and important voice back in the magazine with his next column in the issue that comes out on Sept. 7.” The magazine suspended Mr. Zakaria, 48, on Friday after he apologized for copying sections of his column on gun control — in the Aug. 20 issue — from an article written by the historian Jill Lepore of Harvard in The New Yorker. After the news, CNN also suspended him as host of the weekly program “Fareed Zakaria GPS” and said that a shorter blog post that he had written for CNN’s Web site had similarly unattributed excerpts. CNN and Time magazine are both part of Time Warner. The similarities in the texts were spotted by the conservative Web site NewsBusters, and quickly spread across the Internet after appearing on the media blog JimRomenesko.com.

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17 August 2012 | Euractiv

Logos on cigarette packages to disappear?

The European Union is considering banning logos on cigarette packs as part of an upcoming review of its law to deter smoking, a spokesman said after Australia's highest court upheld a similar ban. The Australian court on 15 August dismissed a legal challenge to the government's ban, in a case filed by British American Tobacco, Britain's Imperial Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco. The ruling means that starting in December, all cigarette packs sold in Australia will brandish plain olive packaging. The EU will publish a draft revision to its 2001 Tobacco Products Directive in the autumn, and may introduce more stringent rules on packaging as well as extend legislation to newer tobacco products such as electronic cigarettes. "Many things are being discussed, including the possibility of plain packaging," Antonio Gravili, a spokesperson for the European Commission, told a news briefing on Thursday. Printing larger graphic images on cigarette packs of the diseases linked to smoking is another option, Gravili said. The EU's 2001 Directive required all member states to ensure that cigarette packs carry text health warnings and in 2005 the Commission recommended a series of graphic images to illustrate health risks. Most EU countries have since adopted these pictures. Once the directive's revision is completed, it will need the approval of the EU's 27 countries and over 700 members of the European Parliament before it can become law.

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17 August 2012 | Mashable

Scientists convert a 53,000-word book into DNA

In a scientific first, Harvard University researches successfully transformed a 53,426-word book into DNA, the same substance that provides the genetic template for all living things. The achievement could eventually lead to the mass adoption of DNA as a long-term storage medium. Published Thursday in the journal Science, the experiment aimed to demonstrate the viability of storing large amounts of data on DNA molecules. Since the data is recorded on individual nucleobase pairs in the DNA strand, DNA can actually store more information per cubic millimeter than flash memory or even some experimental storage techs, IEEE Spectrum reports. The difficulty is in the translation — both to DNA and back again. The researchers Besides the storage density, DNA storage has two more advantages. The first is longevity; DNA lasts for thousands of years (or even millions, if it’s trapped in amber). The second is future-proofing: Since DNA is the basis of all life, future societies will always have technologies available to read it. There are downsides, though. There’s the cost — DNA-sequencing equipment is still relatively expensive — but the data is also unchangeable once it’s encoded. DNA is strictly a write-once medium.

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17 August 2012 | Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union

EBU bid to manage new Internet portal gets more support

A bid by the European Broadcasting Union to manage a worldwide Internet domain portal specially for radio has won more support. The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) says it backs the EBU’s application to manage the .radio domain. The EBU has applied to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to manage the top level domain name .radio to create a world-wide radio community. Under the proposal, registration will be available via the EBU to all eligible radio representative organisations and broadcasters, Internet radios, radio amateurs, radio professionals and their respective representative organisations, as well as companies providing radio-specific products and services. ICANN has extended the formal period for public comment to 26 September 2012 to meet the demands of individuals and organisations. Its open forum is at: https://gtldcomment.icann.org/

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17 August 2012 | Bloomberg

Facebook tests service to include more ads in news feeds

Facebook, owner of the world’s most popular social network, is testing an advertising service that lets companies cast a wider net by placing more promotional messages in users’ News Feeds. Under the program, companies can place ads in users’ main feeds on smartphones and personal computers even if those members or their friends haven’t signaled they like the advertiser, said Annie Ta, a spokeswoman for Facebook. Until now, these types of ads only showed up on PCs to the right of the Facebook News Feed, which displays activities by friends and companies or groups a user has “Liked.” Facebook is grappling with investor concerns about its growth prospects as more users access the service from wireless devices, where its advertising options have been limited. Facebook rolled out its first mobile ad service for companies earlier this year with “Sponsored Stories,” enabling companies to pay for content in the News Feed after members or their friends have indicated they like a company. The new test service includes limits so that a member’s News Feed isn’t filled with too many advertisements, Ta said. The test is the company’s third major effort in mobile advertising. Earlier this month, Facebook unveiled a tool that helps developers advertise their wares.

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17 August 2012 | Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union

German team win prize for work on 3D TV

German researchers have won a major international award for their work on a system that will allow people to watch 3D displays without special glasses. A team from Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute scooped the IBC 2012 Best Conference Paper for their work on the ability to create signals for glasses-free 3D displays from two-camera stereoscopic origination. The premise of the paper is that 3D television to the home will only achieve mass popularity when it can be enjoyed by multiple viewers without the need for glasses. Current production techniques are stereoscopic, using two cameras and image chains and delivering an image to each eye using special glasses. Autostereoscopic displays – glasses-free 3D – require at least five views and preferably very many more. The Fraunhofer paper describes the design of an algorithm capable of being implemented in relatively low cost hardware that will go inside television receivers to convert stereo 3D to the required number of multiview images, in real time.

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