HP announces six Ivy Bridge desktops, available April 29th from $699

We've already seen a number of laptops from HP sporting Intel's 22nm micro architecture, most commonly known as Ivy Bridge, but now the company is giving its desktop lineup a similar refresh with six quad-core models that'll be available directly from the manufacturer on April 29th. Of the group, three will feature all-in-one form factors, which include the Omni 220qd -- a rig with Beats Audio and a cantilever design that'll start at $999 -- along with the Omni 27qd, which features a 27-inch display and a $1,199 price tag. The third model will bring a refresh to the TouchSmart 520xt, which features a touch-enabled 23-inch display that'll retail for $999.

The remaining updates are stand-alone desktops, which consist of the HPE h8t, available for $699, and the HPE h8xt -- a more powerful unit that'll start at $799. Those looking to delve a bit further into the high-end will find the HPE Phoenix h9t, which will metaphorically rise from the ashes at $1,149. Curiously, the Phoenix is the only unit that'll simultaneously hit retailers on April 29th -- the five other models won't get their taste of brick and mortar until June 24th.

Continue reading HP announces six Ivy Bridge desktops, available April 29th from $699

HP announces six Ivy Bridge desktops, available April 29th from $699 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Obama damns American people with faint praise (Powerlineblog)

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Firefox 12 now available for download, Windows users get silent updates

It doesn't yet include the opt-in system for plug-ins that Mozilla is working on, but Firefox users can now download an update that adds a few other new features and new tools for developers. If you've lost track, that means were now at version 12.0, and the biggest addition this time around is reserved for Windows users -- they'll now get silent updates that bypass the User Account Control prompt. Apart from that, you'll now get line numbers when you view a page's source code, along with a number of other more minor fixes and performance improvements. You can find the full release notes at the source link below.

Firefox 12 now available for download, Windows users get silent updates originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Himalayan glaciers could be growing, new study finds

A new study published in Nature Geoscience has discovered Himalayan glaciers that are not shrinking at all. They could be getting larger.

Glaciers and sea ice around the world are melting at unprecedented rates, but new data indicates that this phenomenon may be lopsided. It seems that some areas of the Himalayan mountain range are melting faster than others, which aren't melting at all, a new study indicates.

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Specifically, the Karakoram mountain range is holding steady, and may even be growing in size, the study, published in the April 2012 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, suggests.

"The rest of the glaciers in the Himalayas are mostly melting, in that they have negative mass balance, here we found that glaciers aren't," study researcher Julie Gardelle, of CNRS-Universit? Grenoble, France, told LiveScience. "This is an anomalous behavior."

Karakoram mountains

The Karakoram mountain range spans the India-China-Pakistan border. It is home to the world's second highest peak, K2, and has the highest concentration of peaks over 5 miles (8 kilometers) high in the world. It is home to about half of the volume of the Himalayan glaciers.

The researchers used satellite photos to analyze the extent of the ice in about a quarter of the total range ? about 2,167 square miles (5,615 square kilometers). The photos were taken in 1999 and 2008. The researchers used two computer models to translate the images, revealing the elevation of the glaciers and estimating the extent of the ice.

They found that the glaciers are holding steady and based on the numbers might actually be gaining mass. But Gardelle warns this doesn't mean global warming and glacier melt isn't happening elsewhere.

"We don't want this study to be seen as questioning the planet's global warming," she told LiveScience. "With global warming we can get higher precipitation at high altitudes and latitudes, so thickening isn't out of the question." [10 Global Warming Myths Busted]

Glacier growth

Glaciers grow and shrink based on how much snow falls and the temperatures in the area. Why this area isn't showing the melt seen in other areas is still a mystery. "For now we don't have any explanation," Gardelle said. "There's been a study reporting an increase in winter precipitation, this could maybe be a reason for the equilibrium, but that's just a guess."

Because of its location and physical characteristics of the glaciers themselves, it was been exceptionally difficult to study the glaciers in this region. Usually satellite photos are combined with physical readings of the ice extent, and Gardelle says they'd like to get the physical data in the future to validate their findings.

Previous estimates had suggested the Himalayan mountain range as a whole was contributing about 0.04 millimeters per year to sea-level rise. These numbers now need to be adjusted to account for the anomaly of the Karakoram region, and are probably more like negative 0.006 millimeters per year, the researchers say.

"Evidently, extrapolation and analogy have failed in this significant region," Graham Cogley, a researcher from Trent University, in Canada, who wasn't involved in the study wrote in an accompanying essay in the same issue of Nature Geoscience.

"It seems that, by a quirk of the atmospheric general circulation that is not understood, more snow is being delivered to the mountain range at present and less heat," Cogley wrote. "Gardelle and colleagues have demonstrated that the mass balance of Karakoram glaciers is indeed anomalous compared with the global average."

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Fish larvae find the reef by orienting: The earlier the better

ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2012) ? The behavior of marine larvae is central to fully understanding and modeling the pelagic (open ocean) stage for many coastal organisms. For the first time, a numerical study conducted by the University of Miami (UM) incorporates horizontal larval fish navigation skills into realistic 3D flow fields, creating a powerful tool that spells out how larvae use environmental cues to find their way back to the reef after being out on the open ocean. The new model uses reliable larval swimming speeds and vertical migration, known life history traits and spawning time to create realistic scenarios that can be studied in detail.

In an article entitled: "Orientation behavior in fish larvae: A missing piece to Hjort's critical period hypothesis" that appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, scientists Erica Staaterman, Claire Paris and Judith Helgers demonstrate that despite very low swimming speeds -- approximately a few centimeters per second -- orientation behavior during early stages is critical to bringing larvae back to the juvenile habitat. The research team shows that baby reef-fish must possess, as early as possible, the ability to sense cues radiating from the habitat that help them to navigate and survive the pelagic phase.

The team used Hjort's "critical period" hypothesis, which says that fish recruitment variability is driven by the fate of the earliest larval stages, and that food and "aberrant drift" are the main factors contributing to the survivorship during this early phase. According to this hypothesis, the proportion of survivors during this "critical" larval phase is carried over throughout the entire life history of the fish's population.

"Orientation during the "critical period" appears to have remarkable demographic consequences," said UM Applied Marine Physics Professor Paris. "Larvae need to orient themselves soon after hatching to increase their chance to find any reef or to come back to their home reef. This notion of 'larval homing behavior' is a new concept, but it makes sense when compared to other essential larval developmental traits such as first feeding and swimming. If early fish larvae can sense their way home, we were certainly missing an important component in current bio-physical models that would change predictions of marine population connectivity."

"Using this model we can add to Hjorts' hypothesis that 'behavior' is a main factor contributing to the survivorship of the larvae, as well," said Staaterman, a Ph.D. student at UM. "We have discovered that recruitment of reef-fish is linked to signals perceived by the pelagic larvae; if the signals disappear or weaken, larvae can get lost. Therefore, the health of the coral reef and its cues is not only critical to the adult reef-fishes, but it is also essential to the survivorship of their pelagic larvae."

This study also shows the importance of the health of the habitat, even in complex coastal circulation with eddies and counter-currents: The stronger the cue information radiating from the surrounding habitat, the higher the survival rate of the larvae.

The flexible numerical tool that was developed through this study will allow scientists to set up hypotheses about both the nature of the cues and the larval behavior of a wide variety of marine species. This knowledge will allow us to better understand the enigmatic ecological "black box" of the pelagic larval phase, and help communities to better manage marine resources.

"These kind of studies, where the paths of millions of fish larvae are simulated in a model ocean, are really only feasible with the newest generation of numerical models," said Helgers, a computer scientist who contributed to the model algorithm which is designed to answer questions on the interaction of larvae with ocean currents. "The model we have built is fast and reliable, which allows us to perform the complex computations required to track the larvae in a high resolution model ocean."

"The outcomes of this study should serve to re-focus research on basic understanding of what larvae are capable of sensing, how they use their capabilities in the pelagic environment, and finally on the sequential importance of navigational cues needed for survival," added Paris.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Erica Staaterman, Claire B. Paris, Judith Helgers. Orientation behavior in fish larvae: A missing piece to Hjort's critical period hypothesis. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2012.03.016

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Gerry Simpson SmartLine: Business Planning

Discussion on Business Continuity with Patrick Rivait, President, Rivait Business Solutions Inc.

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This article?was prepared by Patrick Rivait and it is one of a series to be presented in this forum.?Patrick specializes in Business Continuity planning and I recommend any reader contact him directly for advice on this valuable service. Patrick can be reached at 519.984.6633

Business Continuity Planning versus Disaster Recovery: Are they the same?
Technology has become entrenched as a cornerstone in most companies? daily operation, regardless of their size or complexity.? Given the potential risks of operating disruption or data loss arising from IT service disruptions, Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) has become a critical function for IT departments or third party IT service providers.
A question that often is raised is ?The organization has invested a great deal of money in support of a DRP by acquiring backup hardware, off-site data co-location, or hosted solutions -- so are we covered??
While this is a broad question, the likelihood that even the best DRP will be sufficient in times of crisis is fairly small.? A bit of additional background may help shed more light.
By definition, Disaster Recovery (DR) is ?The technical aspect of business continuity.? The collection of resources and activities to re-establish information technology services (including components such as infrastructure, telecommunications, systems, applications and data) at an alternate site following a disruption of IT services.? Disaster recovery includes subsequent resumption and restoration of those operations at a more permanent site?

In contrast, Business Continuity (BC) is defined as ?A holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organization and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. The management of recovery or continuity in the event of a disaster. Also the management of the overall program through training, rehearsals, and reviews, to ensure the plan stays current and up to date.?
It becomes a bit clearer from these definitions that DRP is essentially a sub-set of the broader process of BCP.? The DR focus is solely on assets surrounding IT, whereas BC focuses on all the organization assets ? people, brand, buildings, processes, and data.

To help provide further clarification-- in the event off a fire at a workplace, having DR plans to recover information and business systems will be critical in ensuring issues such as safety of client and financial data, production information, orders, compliance for accounting audits and taxation, they do not cover key considerations such as:

???????? how employees and customers will safely be evacuated from the building;

???????? where the business will operate through the immediate response period to the crisis;

???????? who will be responsible for overseeing various sets of activities during, and immediately following the crisis; and what authority they might have during this response and recovery period;

???????? how the organization will communicate to suppliers, customers, employees (and potentially their families) and shareholders or funding sources;

???????? where the operation will relocate immediately after the crisis - ?during the recovery period.
Following a serious event, while it might be useful to access accounting data from a hosted service provider, if there are no contingency plans in place to facilitate the organization?s value-generating functions (such as ongoing production) in order to meet client demands, it is still highly likely that an organization will suffer significant losses to cash-flow and profitability, potentially lose employees through attrition or layoffs, and the customers may be forced to seek alternate providers for their goods and services.? While these issues may appear to be the indirect impact of the critical event (i.e. the building fire), they are actually the direct impact of a failure to have appropriate programs in place to ensure the long-term viability of the organization.
Generally, DRP?s are driven by the IT function within an organization, and hopefully consider the core IT requirements of the various stakeholders within the organization.? On the other hand, a robust BCP should be driven by a Steering Committee that represents all key stakeholders across the organization, and leverage the insights and experience of all key functions that support the organization.? This broader perspective helps ensure that the final plans will be more robust, and that the proposed solutions will be workable and practical in the event that they need to be actioned in the aftermath of a critical event.
In clarifying the difference between these types of plans, it is important to remember that both are critical for ensuring the long-term viability of an organization.? Both plans, when developed and produced in conjunction with one another, will help and organization mitigate both the risks and impacts of a potential crisis.? Both are valuable, and should be considered critical parts of an organization?s regular management process.

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Bee Gees Singer Robin Gibb Wakes Up from Coma

Bee Gees star Robin Gibb has astonished doctors by waking up from a week-long coma. The singer, who has been battling cancer, fell into a coma last Sunday while suffering from pneumonia (a complication of his treatments). Doctors believed that he might never wake up -- but as of this Sunday, Gibb, 62, is one again fully conscious and breathing on his own.

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