BBC

Technology always has an influence on language. When printing came in, it brought new words into the language. When broadcasting first started new words came into the language. And now the internet has come along so it’s not surprising that quite a large number of new words have come into English vocabulary since, especially the last 10 years really since the world wide web came into being. And of course if you’ve got emails, and most people have these days, then you will have encountered the word Spam. Spam flooding your email box with ads or other unwanted messages. But why the word Spam for this sort of thing?

Spam was originally a tinned meat back in the 1930s, a brand name for a particular kind of cold meat. But it became very fashionable when Monty Python, the satirical television comedy series back in the 70s and 80s they had a sketch where just for fun they had spam with every item on the restaurant menu – bacon and spam, egg and spam, ham and spam, spam and spam. Spam spam spam spam… and they actually sang a song about it and it caught on.

And therefore it became a real part of the language meaning any unwanted material of any kind and so when the internet came along it wasn’t surprising really that spam became part of that kind of experience. And the evidence that it’s become part of the language is not just because of the noun spam which you might expect to see in the internet context but because it’s generated other kinds of linguistic expression as well.

You’ve now got verbs based upon it, and adjectives based upon it. You can now have ‘I’ve been spammed’ or ‘somebody’s spamming me’ and the actual people who do the work themselves who send all these horrible emails out to everybody so that we’re flooded with these things, what are they called? Well there’s a new noun, they’re called ‘spammers’.

Intel hit with $1.45 billion fine in Europe

Intel Corp. was fined a record $1.45 billion by the European Union on Wednesday for using strong-arm sales tactics in the computer chip market — a penalty

that could turn up the pressure on U.S. regulators to go after the company, too.

The fine against the world’s biggest chip maker represents a huge victory for Intel’s Silicon Valley rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., or AMD, the No. 2

supplier of microprocessors to PC makers.

AMD has sued Intel and lobbied regulators around the world for the past five years, complaining that Intel was penalizing PC makers in the U.S. and abroad

for doing business with AMD.

Although the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also investigating, AMD seems to have found its most sympathetic ear in Europe.

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by „deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market.“

„Intel did not compete fairly, frustrating innovation and reducing consumer welfare in the process,“ she said.

The commission told Intel to immediately stop some sales practices in Europe, though it wouldn’t say what those were. Intel said it was „mystified“ about

what it was supposed to change but would comply while it appeals the fine.

The Santa Clara, Calif., company also defended its sales practices — which include rebates to big Intel customers — as legitimate.

„This is really just a matter of competition at work, which is something I think we all want to see, versus something nefarious,“ Intel CEO Paul Otellini

said in a conference call with reporters.

AMD Chief Executive Dirk Meyer said the decision was „an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market.“

„We are looking forward to the move from a world in which Intel ruled, to one which is ruled by customers,“ Meyer said in a statement.

The biggest previous fine levied by the European Union for anticompetitive behavior was $1.3 billion, brought against Microsoft Corp. last year.

Whether Intel could face punishment in the U.S. remains to be seen. But the EU’s fine against Intel could push the issue to the forefront for the Obama

administration.

„If there was ever a time not to appear to be a large firm behaving badly, this would be it, as the financial collapse has the U.S. and EU competing for

which government is the most proactively protecting consumer rights,“ warned Rob Enderle, a technology industry analyst. „This judgment makes Intel the ball

in what is likely an international game of one-upmanship.“

The Obama administration signaled this week that antitrust enforcement would be pursued more vigorously than in the Bush administration, whose Justice

Department filed only three anti-monopoly cases, all involving mergers. Yet the Justice Department has been silent on whether it is investigating Intel.

The Federal Trade Commission investigation of Intel could result in the agency asking a court to order Intel to alter its practices. A spokeswoman for the

FTC declined to comment.

Stephen Kinsella, a lawyer specializing on European antitrust law, cautioned that Europe is known for its aggressive antitrust enforcement and that a case

brought against Intel in the U.S. or elsewhere might be milder.

The EU fine is „hugely significant because it’s Intel, and the amounts at stake are enormous,“ he said. But „it is known that the commission takes a very

hard line on this type of behavior.“

The Intel-vs.-AMD fight exposes an ugly part of the business for microprocessors, which essentially are the brains of personal computers.

Unlike other parts of the PC industry that have lots of competitors, microprocessors come from only two sources. Intel has about 80 percent of the market,

and AMD — headquartered a few miles away in Sunnyvale — has the rest. That means a victory for one is a defeat for the other.

The process of getting a chip into a computer and onto the shelves has two main steps, and AMD has cried foul about Intel’s behavior at both stages.

First, a computer maker has to agree to buy the chips. In that stage, AMD has alleged, Intel has illegally used its dominant position by offering huge

rebates to PC makers that promise to buy lots of Intel’s chips. AMD argues that the discounts can effectively make some chip orders free, and that it would

have to lose money on sales in order to keep up.

The case before the European Commission alleges that Intel illegally undermined AMD with computer makers Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and NEC.

In AMD’s U.S. lawsuit against Intel, set to go to trial next year in Delaware, executives from Gateway complained that Intel’s threats of retaliation for

working with AMD beat them „into guacamole.“ The lawsuit also quotes Toshiba officials saying Intel’s financial incentives amounted to „cocaine.“

Second, chip makers help persuade stores to carry PCs with their processors inside, and pay the retailers to help promote the machines. In the case before

the EU, regulators said Intel paid Germany’s biggest electronics retailer to stock only Intel-based computers at its MediaMarkt superstores — even in

Dresden, where many AMD chips are made.

Kinsella, the specialist on European antitrust law, said „loyalty rebate“ programs are common, but become a problem when dominant companies use them. In a

similar European case, tire maker Michelin was fined in 2001 over its rebate program in France.

Kinsella said the accusation that Intel paid companies specifically not to use AMD’s products would set this case apart from others.

„If that’s true,“ he said, „that would be pretty far out there in terms of examples of abuse.“

Investors were expecting the Intel fine and seemed unfazed. Intel stock lost 8 cents to close at $15.13. AMD was up 3 cents at $4.38.

Sleeping and eating – the French do it best

PARIS (Reuters) – True to their reputation as leisure-loving gourmets, the French spend more time sleeping and eating than anyone else among the world’s wealthy nations, according to a study published Monday. The average French person sleeps almost nine hours every night, more than an hour longer than the average Japanese and Korean, who sleep the least in a survey of 18 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Despite their siesta habit, Spaniards rank only third in the poll after Americans, who sleep more than 8.5 hours. And while more and more French people grab a bite at fast-food chains these days or wolf down a sandwich at their desk, they still spend more than two hours a day eating. That means their meals are twice as long as those of the average Mexican, who dedicates just over an hour a day to food, the OECD’s „Society at a Glance“ report on work, health and leisure in Asia, Europe and North and South America found. The Japanese, scrimping on sleep and burdened with long commutes and working hours, still manage to spend close to two hours a day eating and drinking, placing them third behind New Zealanders. The Japanese like to spend what remains of their scarce free time watching television or listening to the radio. This takes up 47 percent of leisure time in Japan. Turks, on the other hand, spend more than a third of their leisure time entertaining friends. The survey showed that the split between work and leisure time within certain countries is striking. „Italian men have nearly 80 minutes a day of leisure more than women. Much of the additional work of Italian women is apparently spent cleaning the house,“ the OECD said in a statement. The OECD has 30 members. The survey covers only the countries for which appropriate figures were available. (Editing by Robert Woodward)

Obama backs Chrysler bankruptcy as wise move

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama announced Thursday that Chrysler would head into bankruptcy with the aid of up to another $8 billion in taxpayer money, a last-resort attempt to quickly restructure the struggling giant. He blasted hedge-fund creditors whom he said held out for a richer deal.

„No one should be confused about what a bankruptcy process means,“ Obama said. „This is not a sign of weakness but rather one more step on a clearly chartered path to Chrysler’s revival.“

As part of the deal, Chrysler is signing a partnership with the Italian company Fiat. The government will be an investor in the revamped Chrysler and will help choose its new directors, but the Obama administration does not plan to help manage the company.

Bankruptcy doesn’t mean the nation’s No. 3 automaker will shut down. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing would allow a judge to decide how much the company’s creditors would get while the company continues to operate. The goal is for the whole process to happen quickly, Obama said, perhaps within a couple months.

The president said that Chrysler has been responsible for helping to build the American middle class, but over the years also had been weakened by „papering over tough problems and avoiding hard choices.“

„For too long,“ Obama said at the White House, „Chrysler moved too slowly to adapt to the future, designing and building cars that were less popular, less reliable and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors.“

The Obama administration had long hoped to stave off bankruptcy for Chrysler LLC, but it became clear that a holdout group of creditors wouldn’t budge on proposals to reduce Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt. Obama praised all the constituencies that have offered sacrifices and blasted those that did not.

He said a group of investment firms and hedge funds were holding out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer bailout.

„I don’t stand with them,“ Obama said at the White House event.

He called Chrysler one of the „most storied automakers“ in the annals of the country.

Car hits crowd watching Dutch queen, kills 5

APELDOORN, Netherlands – A Dutch driver careened through police barriers and plowed into a crowd of merrymakers cheering their popular queen Thursday, in a premeditated assault on the royal family that killed five bystanders and injured 12, authorities said.

The speeding car, already dented apparently from catapulting bystanders into the air, passed within a few meters (yards) of the open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and her family down a parade route, then smashed into a stone monument.

„I think that it has become clear that this happened with premeditation,“ Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said.

Prosecutors said the driver, badly injured and still in his crumpled car, acknowledged targeting the queen and her family.

„The man said that his action was aimed at the royal family,“ said prosecutor Ludo Goossens.

The driver, whose name was not released, „is formally suspected of … an attack on members of the royal house and manslaughter or murder,“ Goossens said, and he could face life in prison.

The motive for the attack was unclear. Dutch media, citing neighbors, said the assailant recently was fired from his job and was to be evicted from his home. Police identified him as a 38-year-old Dutch man with no history of mental illness or police record, but they would not release his name.

Officials in Apeldoorn said the driver had a map of the queen’s route.

Celebrations were canceled for Queen’s Day, the national holiday that was to draw millions of people to street dances, picnics and outdoor parties under sunny skies around the country. Flags were lowered to half staff. The Dutch Embassy in Washington canceled a scheduled reception.

A shaken Queen Beatrix extended her sympathies to the victims in a brief nationally televised address. „What began as a great day has ended in a terrible tragedy that has shocked us all deeply,“ she said.

The driver apparently acted alone and was not linked to any terrorist or ideological group. No explosives were found in his car or in his home, said Goossens.

„From initial contact with police before the suspect was removed from the car … we have reason to believe it was a deliberate action,“ Goossens told reporters.

The driver apparently tried to intercept the bus as it turned a corner to a road leading to the gates of the Het Loo palace a few hundred meters (yards) from the intersection in this eastern Dutch town.

Though the sequence of events was still murky, he apparently crashed his small black car through two sets of police barriers, smashing his windscreen and damaging the front of the vehicle even before slamming into the monument.

The final few seconds were captured on video and film by news teams following the royal family in a press bus.

Reporters saw people thrown high in the air from the impact or tumbling down the street, their broken limbs askew. First aid crews and police officers ran to the victims and applied revival techniques.

The driver, bleeding from the head and nose, was slumped against the seat when police lifted him out and put him into an ambulance.

Earlier, Apeldoorn Mayor Fred de Graaf said eight of the 13 injured were in serious condition, with two men and two women killed. Later, a third man died of his injuries, said Apeldoorn municipality spokesman Toon Schuiling. Two teenagers and a 9-year-old girl were among the severely injured.

„We are speechless that something so terrible could have happened,“ the queen said in a rare televised appearance. „My family, and I think everybody in the country, sympathize with the victims, their families and friends and all who have been hit so hard by this accident.“

Dutch television footage showed Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife, Princess Maxima, standing at their seats in the bus’s high open platform and watching in astonishment. Maxima held her hand over her mouth in apparent horror.

The bus was not hit and no one in the queen’s entourage was injured.

A policeman narrowly escaped injury when he jumped off his bicycle to avoid being hit.

Shortly after the crash, investigators and a sniffer dog examined the car for explosives, then sliced off the roof of the car for a closer inspection.

Journalist Peter von de Vorst told RTL television that the incident was like watching a horrible movie.

„It was a really nice day. Then you hear a bang. Everyone looks up and you see people indeed flying through the air. This must be a joke or a strange prank. Then suddenly panic, and you realize that something really terrible has happened,“ he said.

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to the main Dutch cities on Wednesday night and Thursday to celebrate the national holiday, originally intended to celebrate the birthday of Beatrix’s mother, Queen Juliana.

The royal family normally spends the day in a small Dutch community.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090501/ap_on_re_eu/eu_netherlands_parade_crash;_ylt=AgYc0HsKAzu0i6umC501F5IDW7oF

What you need to know about swine flu

WASHINGTON – A never-before-seen strain of swine flu has turned killer in Mexico and is causing milder illness in the United States and elsewhere. While authorities say it’s not time to panic, they are taking steps to stem the spread and also urging people to pay close attention to the latest health warnings and take their own precautions.

„Individuals have a key role to play,“ Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Q: How do I protect myself and my family?

A: For now, take commonsense precautions. Cover your coughs and sneezes, with a tissue that you throw away or by sneezing into your elbow rather than your hand. Wash hands frequently; if soap and water aren’t available, hand gels can substitute. Stay home if you’re sick and keep children home from school if they are.

Q: How easy is it to catch this virus?

A: Scientists don’t yet know if it takes fairly close or prolonged contact with someone who’s sick, or if it’s more easily spread. But in general, flu viruses spread through uncovered coughs and sneezes or — and this is important — by touching your mouth or nose with unwashed hands. Flu viruses can live on surfaces for several hours, like a doorknob just touched by someone who sneezed into his hand.

Q: In Mexico, officials are handing out face masks. Do I need one?

A: The CDC says there’s not good evidence that masks really help outside of health care settings. It’s safer just to avoid close contact with someone who’s sick and avoid crowded gatherings in places where swine flu is known to be spreading. But if you can’t do that, CDC guidelines say it’s OK to consider a mask — just don’t let it substitute for good precautions.

Q: Is swine flu treatable?

A: Yes, with the flu drugs Tamiflu or Relenza, but not with two older flu medications.

Q: Is there enough?

A: Yes. The federal government has stockpiled enough of the drugs to treat 50 million people, and many states have additional stocks. As a precaution, the CDC has shipped a quarter of that supply to the states to keep on hand just in case the virus starts spreading more than it has so far.

Q: Should I take Tamiflu as a precaution if I’m not sick yet?

A: No. „What are you going to do with it, use it when you get a sniffle?“ asks Dr. Marc Siegel of New York University Langone Medical Center and author of „Bird Flu: Everything you Need To Know About The Next Pandemic.“ Overusing antiviral drugs can help germs become resistant to them.

Q: How big is my risk?

A: For most people, very low. Outside of Mexico, so far clusters of illnesses seem related to Mexican travel. New York City’s cluster, for instance, consists of students and family members at one school where some students came back ill from spring break in Mexico.

Q: Why are people dying in Mexico and not here?

A: That’s a mystery. First, understand that no one really knows just how many people in Mexico are dying of this flu strain, or how many have it. Only a fraction of the suspected deaths have been tested and confirmed as swine flu, and some initially suspected cases were caused by something else.

Q: Should I cancel my planned trip to Mexico?

A: The U.S. did issue a travel advisory Monday discouraging nonessential travel there.

Q: What else is the U.S., or anyone else, doing to try to stop this virus?

A: The U.S. is beginning limited screening of travelers from Mexico, so that the obviously sick can be sent for treatment. Other governments have issued their own travel warnings and restrictions. Mexico is taking the biggest steps, closings that limit most crowded gatherings. In the U.S., communities with clusters of illness also may limit contact — New York closed the affected school for a few days, for example — so stay tuned to hear if your area eventually is affected.

Q: What are the symptoms?

A: They’re similar to regular human flu — a fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people also have diarrhea and vomiting.

Q: How do I know if I should see a doctor? Maybe my symptoms are from something else — like pollen?

A: Health authorities say if you live in places where swine flu cases have been confirmed, or you recently traveled to Mexico, and you have flulike symptoms, ask your doctor if you need treatment or to be tested. Allergies won’t cause a fever. And run-of-the-mill stomach bugs won’t be accompanied by respiratory symptoms, notes Dr. Wayne Reynolds of Newport News, Va., spokesman for the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Q: Is there a vaccine to prevent this new infection?

A: No. And CDC’s initial testing suggests that last winter’s flu shot didn’t offer any cross-protection.

Q: How long would it take to produce a vaccine?

A: A few months. The CDC has created what’s called „seed stock“ of the new virus that manufacturers would need to start production. But the government hasn’t yet decided if the outbreak is bad enough to order that.

Q: What is swine flu?

A: Pigs spread their own strains of influenza and every so often people catch one, usually after contact with the animals. This new strain is a mix of pig viruses with some human and bird viruses. Unlike more typical swine flu, it is spreading person-to-person. A 1976 outbreak of another unusual swine flu at Fort Dix, N.J., prompted a problematic mass vaccination campaign, but that time the flu fizzled out.

Q: So is it safe to eat pork?

A: Yes. Swine influenza viruses don’t spread through food.

Q: And whatever happened to bird flu? Wasn’t that supposed to be the next pandemic?

A: Specialists have long warned that the issue is a never-before-seen strain that people have little if any natural immunity to, regardless of whether it seems to originate from a bird or a pig. Bird flu hasn’t gone away; scientists are tracking it, too.

Susan Boyle’s Life Lesson

You could call it the battle of the shopworn cliches, but for once they’re completely appropriate. Nearly everything written or said in the last week during the media feeding frenzy following Susan Boyle’s truly stunning performance on the Britain’s Got Talent TV show has made mention of phrases like „Beauty is in the eye of the beholder“ or „You can’t judge a book by its cover.“

Regardless of what the future may hold for the self-professed „never been kissed“ middle-aged matron from Scotland, whether it be the start of a true career or merely a Warholian 15 minutes of fame, Ms. Boyle has already taught all of us a valuable lesson in terms of how we as people perceive ourselves and others.

Of course, it’s a lesson that, as per the never-ending relevance of those aforementioned cliches, always seems to be re-learned every now and then.

Just last August, for example, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi was deprived of singing in person at the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics in Beijing because Chinese officials judged her to be not good-looking enough. Instead, classically cute 9-year-old Lin Miaoke lip-synched Peiyi’s pre-recorded vocal performance and was quickly being hailed as „an instant star“–at least until the truth emerged. And even then, the music director claimed the deception was „in the national interest,“ because they wanted to „put forth the perfect voice and the perfect look.“

On a more commercial rather than political level, one remembers the controversy over the video for the early ’90s C & C Music Company hit song „Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),“ which found plus-sized Martha Wash’s voice lip-synched by the more svelte Zelma Davis.

Coming as it did right on the heels of the infamous Milli Vanilli lip-synch scandal, it resulted in a lawsuit as Wash, who’d been deemed „unmarketable“ for the video because of her size, successfully sued to receive proper credit and royalties as the vocalist on the track.

And then there was the video for Blues Traveler’s debut hit „Runaround,“ which provided its own clever commentary on the subject of image and marketablility.

In any event, here’s hoping that Susan Boyle’s story helps all of us to try and keep from forming opinions about people based solely on their appearances. As she’s decidedly proven, if you give someone half a chance, you never know what you may find once you get below the surface.

It’s a wonderful world!

1. The Internet

It is everywhere. More than half a billion people use it, and the number of people who are online increases by 100 million every year. In 1994 there were only a few hundred web page. Today there are billions. It has revolutionnized the way we live and work. But we are still in the early days. Soon there will be more and more interactivity beetween the user and the website, and we will to able to give instructions using speech.

2.  Medical Science

Surely nothing has done more for the comfort and happiness of the human race than the advances in health care! How many millions of people have benefited from the humble aspirin? How many lives has penicillin saved? Average life expextancy worldwide has risen dramatically over the past 100 years, from about 47 years in 1900 to about 77 years today.