Canada says reviewing F-35 report, denies plan to cancel

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government said on Thursday it was reviewing an independent report on the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, but denied that it had decided to cancel its planned purchase of 65 of the Lockheed Martin Corp warplanes.

The CTV network reported earlier that the cost of Canada's planned F-35 purchase was set to soar in cost and the government would start looking at alternative planes.

The media report was the latest embarrassment over the F-35 for the Conservative government, which announced in July 2010 it would buy 65 of the Joint Strike Fighters for C$9 billion.

Ottawa consistently brushed off critics who said the figure was too low, but had to launch a formal review of the project in April after a spending watchdog said the initial decision to buy the jets had been based on bad data from officials who deliberately downplayed the costs and risks.

CTV, citing unnamed sources, said the government would next week release an independent study showing the cost of buying and maintaining the jets was in fact around C$40 billion ($40.4 billion), much higher than the initial estimate of C$25 billion for purchase and maintenance.

The television network did not say what time period the C$40 billion covered. The C$25 billion estimate was for 20 years.

Andrew MacDougall, spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said the government was reviewing the report prepared by the accounting firm KPMG, but that reports indicating the government had decided to cancel its F-35 buy were false.

He said the government planned a "comprehensive public update" before the House of Commons takes a Christmas break at the end of next week.

"We are committed to completing the seven-point plan and moving forward with our comprehensive, transparent approach to replacing Canada's aging CF-18 aircraft." MacDougall told Reuters.

CTV said Ottawa would launch a new review of how best to replace its aging fleet of CF-18 fighters, which will be retired in 2020, and could remove a requirement for the new jets to have stealth capability. Possible alternatives include Boeing Co's F-18 Super Hornet.

The $396 billion F-35 program, the largest in Pentagon history, is already late and well over budget.

The Canadian Defense Ministry did not hold an open competition to replace the CF-18s, saying the F-35 was the only plane that could meet all of Canada's requirements.

In April, Ottawa responded to the spending watchdog's criticism by stripping the Defense Ministry of responsibility for buying new jets and handing it to the Public Works Ministry.

No one in the office of Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose was immediately available for comment.

Lockheed is developing three variants for the U.S. military and eight partner nations: Britain, Canada, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands.

Neither Lockheed nor the Pentagon's F-35 program office had any immediate comment on the Canadian media reports.

($1=$0.99 Canadian)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Andrea Shalal-Esa in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canada-says-reviewing-f-35-report-denies-plan-034825715--finance.html

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Apple?s (AAPL) Tim Cook Announces Mac Production Coming to U.S.

In a wide-ranging television interview with Brian Williams on NBC?s Rock Center, Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook revealed that the tech giant plans to bring production of some Macs back to the United States from China next year.

?You know, this iPhone ? as a matter of fact, the engine in here is made in America. And not only are the engines in here made in America, but engines are made in America and are exported. The glass on this phone is made in Kentucky. And so we?ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States. Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States,? Cook told Williams.

While Mr. Cook did not specify which Mac products will be made in the US, according to Reuters, ?the effort is expected to go well beyond simple final assembly of devices, with Apple and unnamed partners building most or all of the components in the United States as well.?

Questioned about Maps, meanwhile, Cook told Williams that Apple ?screwed up,? and denied that Cupertino was placing corporate strategy before the consumer experience. He said Apple is ?putting the weight of the company behind [fixing its map system].?

This was Cook?s first TV interview since replacing Apple?s late legendary co-founder Steve Jobs, who resigned due to health reasons in August 2011.

Cook also gave a lengthy interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, which was released on Thursday morning. During one interesting section of that interview he explained why former iOS head Scott Forstall had to leave as part of an executive shakeup at Apple last month. Cook?s reply led to believe that the exec wasn?t strong on collaboration:

[via BW] ?The key in the change that you?re referencing is my deep belief that collaboration is essential for innovation?and I didn?t just start believing that. I?ve always believed that. It?s always been a core belief at Apple. Steve very deeply believed this.

So the changes?it?s not a matter of going from no collaboration to collaboration. We have an enormous level of collaboration in Apple, but it?s a matter of taking it to another level. You look at what we are great at. There are many things. But the one thing we do, which I think no one else does, is integrate hardware, software, and services in such a way that most consumers begin to not differentiate anymore. They just care that the experience is fantastic.

So how do we keep doing that and keep taking it to an even higher level? You have to be an A-plus at collaboration. And so the changes that we made get us to a whole new level of collaboration. We?ve got services all in one place, and the guy that?s running that [Cook is referring to Jony Ive, senior vice president of industrial design] has incredible skills in services, has an incredible track record, and I?m confident will do fantastic things.?

Cook also touched on the ongoing conflict between Samsung and Apple. When asked about the ?awkwardness? of the fact that besides being one of Apple?s biggest suppliers, Samsung is also one of Cupertino?s biggest competitors and an opponent in litigation, Cook replied:

?Life is a complex thing sometimes, and yes, it?s awkward. It is awkward. I hate litigation. I absolutely hate it. For us, this is about values. What we would like, in a perfect world, is for everyone to invent their own stuff. We love competition. But we want people to have their own ideas and invent their own stuff. So after lots of trying, we felt we had no other choice. We tried every other avenue, and so we?ll see what happens in the future. ?

Commenting opaquely on the much rumored Apple television set, Cook didn?t say if it exists or when it?s coming:

?Our customers have an incredibly high bar for us. We have an even higher bar for ourselves. So we want to do great work, and yeah, people are always talking about what we may do next and when it might happen, but honestly we?re driven much more internally by great people who want to do great work. As I look around the table at the executive team, arguably, at least in my opinion, we have the best designer in the world, the top silicon expert in the world, the best operational executive in the world, and the best leaders in marketing, software, hardware, and services. These are people that have very high standards that are driven to do things beyond what other people have thought. And I think it?s that ambition and that desire and that thrust for excellence that make creating new things even more likely.?

Businessweek?s 9,000 word interview that offers a detailed look at what it?s like to run the world?s most innovative and valuable firm, with a current market value of approximately $514 billion [$547.24 p/sh], can be found here.

Source: http://wallstreetpit.com/98072-apples-aapl-tim-cook-announces-mac-production-coming-to-u-s/

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Gregoire signs Wash. gay marriage law

Former Army Major Margaret Witt, right, and Lori Johnson, left, stand in their south hill home, Monday, Dec. 3, 2012 in Spokane, Wash. They are planning to marry in a few weeks after receiving one of the first marriage licenses for same sex couples this week. Witt fought the Army over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and was with President Obama when he signed the repeal. (AP Photo/The Spokesman-Review, Jesse Tinsley) COEUR D'ALENE PRESS OUT MBI

Former Army Major Margaret Witt, right, and Lori Johnson, left, stand in their south hill home, Monday, Dec. 3, 2012 in Spokane, Wash. They are planning to marry in a few weeks after receiving one of the first marriage licenses for same sex couples this week. Witt fought the Army over "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and was with President Obama when he signed the repeal. (AP Photo/The Spokesman-Review, Jesse Tinsley) COEUR D'ALENE PRESS OUT MBI

Heather Kawmoto, center left, and her partner Kay Lancaster stand with their daughter, Kayleigh Kawmoto, 9, during a signing ceremony for Referendum 74, a citizen-passed measure that legalizes same-sex marriage, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, in Olympia, Wash. Gay couples can marry beginning Dec. 9. Kawmoto and Lancaster are planning to wed that day. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

As Secretary of State Sam Reed, right, looks on, Gov. Chris Gregoire hands off one pen and reaches for another as she goes through a stack of them while signing Referendum 74, a citizen-passed measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, in Olympia, Wash. Gregoire and Reed both signed the document at the ceremony, which allows gay couples to marry beginning Dec. 9. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Gov. Chris Gregoire, left, applauds as Secretary of State Sam Reed holds up the signed certification of Referendum 74, a citizen-passed measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, in Olympia, Wash. Gregoire and Reed both signed the document at the signing ceremony, which allows gay couples to marry beginning Dec. 9. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Gov. Chris Gregoire signs Referendum 74, a citizen-passed measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, in Olympia, Wash. Gregoire and Reed both signed the document at the ceremony, which allows gay couples to marry beginning Dec. 9. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) ? Gov. Chris Gregoire has signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in Washington state, which now joins several other states that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

Gregoire and Secretary of State Sam Reed certified the election on Wednesday afternoon, as they were joined by couples who plan to wed and community activists who worked on the campaign supporting gay marriage. The law doesn't take effect until Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, will open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses.

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday. Same-sex couples who previously were married in another state that allows gay marriage, like Massachusetts, will not have to get remarried in Washington state. Their marriages will be valid here as soon as the law takes effect.

"This is a very important and historic day in the great state of Washington," Gregoire said before signing the measure that officially certified the election results. "For many years now we've said one more step, one more step. And this is our last step for marriage equality in the state of Washington."

Last month, Washington, Maine and Maryland became the first states to pass same-sex marriage by popular vote. They joined six other states ? New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont ? and the District of Columbia that had already enacted laws or issued court rulings permitting same-sex marriage.

Referendum 74 in Washington state had asked voters to either approve or reject the state law legalizing same-sex marriage that legislators passed earlier this year. That law was signed by Gregoire in February but was put on hold pending the outcome of the election. Nearly 54 percent of voters approved the measure.

The law doesn't require religious organizations or churches to perform marriages, and it doesn't subject churches to penalties if they don't marry gay or lesbian couples.

Heather Kawamoto and Kay Lancaster of Tacoma attended the signing event Wednesday afternoon with their 9-year-old daughter, Kayleigh Kawamoto.

Kawamoto and Lancaster have been together more than 14 years, and domestic partners since 2007, and both said they can't wait to finally pick up their marriage license as soon as the Pierce County auditor's office opens at 6:30 a.m. Thursday. They will marry in a small ceremony on Sunday in Tacoma.

"It's something we've hoped for and dreamed of," Lancaster said. "I didn't dare hope that it would be this soon, and we're just thrilled that it is."

Lancaster and Kawamoto said that the reality of their impending marriage sunk in in the past few days, as they were writing their vows.

"We never knew we'd be able to say those things to each other," Lancaster said, starting to cry, as Kayleigh quickly handed her a tissue.

Maryland's law officially takes effect Jan. 1, however couples can start picking up marriage licenses on Thursday, as long as the license has an effective date of Jan. 1. Whether clerks of court issue a postdated license is up to them, however. They are not required to do so. Maine's law takes effect on Dec. 29. There's no waiting period in Maine, and people can start marrying just after midnight.

In addition to private ceremonies that will start taking place across Washington state this weekend, Seattle City Hall will open for several hours on Sunday, and several local judges are donating their time to marry couples. Aaron Pickus, a spokesman for Mayor Mike McGinn, said that more than 140 couples have registered to get married at City Hall, and weddings will begin at 10 a.m.

Washington state has had a domestic partnership law in place since 2007. The initial law granted couples about two dozen rights, including hospital visitation and inheritance rights when there is no will. It was expanded a year later, and then again in 2009, when lawmakers completed the package with the so-called "everything but marriage" law that was ultimately upheld by voters later that year.

This year, lawmakers passed the law allowing gay marriage, and Gregoire signed it in February. Opponents gathered enough signatures for a referendum, putting the law on hold before it could take effect.

There are nearly 10,000 domestic partnership registrations with the secretary of state's office. Most same-sex domestic partnerships that aren't ended prior to June 30, 2014, automatically become marriages, unless one of the partners is 62 or older.

That provision was included in the state's first domestic partnership law of 2007 to help heterosexual seniors who don't remarry out of fear they could lose certain pension or Social Security benefits.

Marcy Kulland and Terry Virgona, both 59 and from Tacoma, said they plan to get married on Sept. 28, 2013 to celebrate their 22nd anniversary.

"I'm just ecstatic. Now we're legitimized," Kulland said. "It's just absolutely wonderful."

However, she that while the state law is a great step forward, as long as federal law continues to deny federal recognition of same-sex marriages, there's more to be done.

"This completes us, it doesn't complete our work," Kulland said.

___

Follow Rachel La Corte at http://www.twitter.com/RachelAPOly or http://www.facebook.com/news.rachel . Contributing to this report were AP writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md. and Clarke Canfield in Portland, Maine.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-06-Gay%20Marriage/id-8429a2b8fbe74a04967fdb236f9859d9

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Assad regime distributed gas masks and radiation suits to troops - Source

An anti-Mursi protester is stopped by a riot policeman as they are separated from supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi on the other side, during clashes outside the presidential palace in Cairo, December 5, 2012. (Reuters)

Military halts clashes as political crisis grips Egypt CAIRO, (Reuters) - Egypt's Republican Guard restored order around the presidential palace on Thursday after fierce overnight clashes killed seven people, but passions ran high in a struggle over the country's future. The Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, criticized by his opponents for his silence in the last few days, was due to address ...?more

Source: http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32069

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Deception can be perfected

Public release date: 6-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso
h-anyaso@northwestern.edu
847-491-4887
Northwestern University

Can a repeated lie become a truth?

EVANSTON, Ill. --- With a little practice, one could learn to tell a lie that may be indistinguishable from the truth.

New Northwestern University research shows that lying is more malleable than previously thought, and with a certain amount of training and instruction, the art of deception can be perfected.

People generally take longer and make more mistakes when telling lies than telling the truth, because they are holding two conflicting answers in mind and suppressing the honest response, previous research has shown. Consequently, researchers in the present study investigated whether lying can be trained to be more automatic and less task demanding.

This research could have implications for law enforcement and the administering of lie detector tests to better handle deceptions in more realistic scenarios.

Researchers found that instruction alone significantly reduced reaction times associated with participants' deceptive responses.

They used a control group -- an instruction group in which participants were told to speed up their lies and make fewer errors, but were not given time to prepare their lies -- and a training group, which received training in how to speed up their deceptive responses and were given time to prepare their lies. In the training group that practiced their lies, the differences between deceptive and truthful responses were completely eliminated.

"We found that lying is more malleable and can be changed upon intentional practice," said Xiaoqing Hu, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Northwestern.

Hu said they were surprised that even in the instruction group, members who were not given time to prepare their lies and told only to try to speed up their responses and make fewer errors were able to significantly reduce their deceptive response reaction time.

"This was really unexpected because it suggests that people can be really flexible, and after they know what is expected from them, they want to avoid being detected," Hu said, noting the findings could help in crime fighting.

"In real life, there's usually a time delay between the crime and interrogation," said Hu. "Most people would have time to prepare and practice their lies prior to the interrogation." However, previous research in deception usually gave participants very little time to prepare their lies.

Lie detector tests most often rely on physiological responses. Therefore, Hu said further research warrants looking at whether additional training could result in physiological changes in addition to inducing behavior changes as observed in their study.

###

"A Repeated Lie Becomes a Truth? The Effect of Intentional Control and Training on Deception" was recently published in Frontiers in Cognitive Science. In addition to Hu, co-authors include Hao Chen and Genyue Fu of Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua, China.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 6-Dec-2012
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Hilary Hurd Anyaso
h-anyaso@northwestern.edu
847-491-4887
Northwestern University

Can a repeated lie become a truth?

EVANSTON, Ill. --- With a little practice, one could learn to tell a lie that may be indistinguishable from the truth.

New Northwestern University research shows that lying is more malleable than previously thought, and with a certain amount of training and instruction, the art of deception can be perfected.

People generally take longer and make more mistakes when telling lies than telling the truth, because they are holding two conflicting answers in mind and suppressing the honest response, previous research has shown. Consequently, researchers in the present study investigated whether lying can be trained to be more automatic and less task demanding.

This research could have implications for law enforcement and the administering of lie detector tests to better handle deceptions in more realistic scenarios.

Researchers found that instruction alone significantly reduced reaction times associated with participants' deceptive responses.

They used a control group -- an instruction group in which participants were told to speed up their lies and make fewer errors, but were not given time to prepare their lies -- and a training group, which received training in how to speed up their deceptive responses and were given time to prepare their lies. In the training group that practiced their lies, the differences between deceptive and truthful responses were completely eliminated.

"We found that lying is more malleable and can be changed upon intentional practice," said Xiaoqing Hu, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Northwestern.

Hu said they were surprised that even in the instruction group, members who were not given time to prepare their lies and told only to try to speed up their responses and make fewer errors were able to significantly reduce their deceptive response reaction time.

"This was really unexpected because it suggests that people can be really flexible, and after they know what is expected from them, they want to avoid being detected," Hu said, noting the findings could help in crime fighting.

"In real life, there's usually a time delay between the crime and interrogation," said Hu. "Most people would have time to prepare and practice their lies prior to the interrogation." However, previous research in deception usually gave participants very little time to prepare their lies.

Lie detector tests most often rely on physiological responses. Therefore, Hu said further research warrants looking at whether additional training could result in physiological changes in addition to inducing behavior changes as observed in their study.

###

"A Repeated Lie Becomes a Truth? The Effect of Intentional Control and Training on Deception" was recently published in Frontiers in Cognitive Science. In addition to Hu, co-authors include Hao Chen and Genyue Fu of Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua, China.

NORTHWESTERN NEWS: www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/nu-dcb120612.php

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How to Budget if You're Agile | Business 2 Community

Becoming a more agile organization isn?t easy. There are so many nuances to keep in mind that we even decided to dedicate an entire section of our blog to helping people successfully pull it off. Today, I want to call your attention to a particular challenge of becoming agile that you might not have thought about: budgeting. Typically, the finance department runs on an annual budget. For agile departments, planning that far advance can be really difficult and confusing. How am I able to plan out the budget for an entire year, if I only really know what activities I?m doing for the next 2 months?

Does this sound like a problem that you and your department have faced? Well if it does, then you are in luck. About a week ago, I came across a great post by agile marketing enthusiast, Jim Ewel, off his blog, Agile Marketing.net, that talks about this very issue.

One radical solution Ewel suggests is to toss out yearly advanced budgets all together. ?Too much can change, and a yearly budget for most businesses is an approximation, and often not very accurate,? writes Ewel. Now admittedly, this is a pretty radical shift and may overly rock the boat. Few organizations are open to that level of change. Ewel admits that while he believes that this is the best solution, it?s also the most radical and therefore difficult to implement. If you?re a little concerned here don?t worry, as Ewel also offers a more sedate alternative to this problem.

?Base your budget not on marketing activities, but by understanding the average lifetime value of a customer, as well as the average cost of acquisition of that customer, and marketing?s portion of that cost of acquisition,? suggests Ewel. So in other words, budget on your goals. So, let?s say you need to grow your sales (aka acquire more customers) by a certain amount in the next quarter. Let?s assume that your goal is to acquire 50,000 new customers in the next year, and the average lifetime value of a customer is $500. Let?s also say did some data crunching and came up with the marketing cost associated with acquiring that customer is 15% of the average lifetime value of that customer ($75). Then your budget for acquiring new customers for the New Year is $3,750,000 ($75 x 50,000), it?s that simple. If you are still a little hazy here, I recommend checking out Ewel?s entire article on the subject as he goes through a couple more examples.

Analyzing and understanding your marketing costs in this new way not only makes budgeting easier, but also has a whole heap of other benefits. For example, as Ewel points out this helps ?focus you on the right goals: acquiring new customers and the revenue that they bring with them.? Additionally, by adopting this strategy helps you and your team become more flexible. No longer will changing goals pose such a significant challenge to you and your team. Crafting your marketing budget in this manner allows you to better evaluate your marketing activities. It allows you and you team to be able to quickly draft up an image of what it takes to achieve certain goals and whether or not they are realistic. So there you have it, some quick and simple ways to tackle that challenge of learning how do budget now that you?re agile.

Source: http://www.business2community.com/strategy/how-to-budget-if-youre-agile-0342571

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Number of devices running Jelly Bean doubles in a month, Gingerbread still dominates Android

Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe.?This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition. WhatsApp, the leading messaging app firm, had just 1 million users as late as December 2009. By the end of 2010, that number had grown to 10 million. Right now, it likely tops 200 million, though there is no current official number

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/number-devices-running-jelly-bean-doubles-month-gingerbread-172548104.html

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