Lance Armstrong loses his title winning the Tour de France

Lance Armstrong has gone down in history as one of the most frequent winners of the Tour de France, has won seven times. However, on Thursday announced that it will stop fighting against the charges brought by the Anti-Doping Agency of the United States (USADA) against him. The Agency contends that the cyclist maintained a system of doping from 1999 to 2005. 

For Lance Armstrong "Enough is enough" - This decision has sparked a series of reactions that are easily accessible by social networks, Lance Armstrong right now is Trending Topic on Twitter, with the details of the news and of course the views regarding the announcement of Armstrong. 

The USADA pointed out that Armstrong would be stripped of his Olympic medal, his Tour de France all his titles and awards, and I was going to bike racing be banned for life. Armstrong argues that USADA has no authority to strip him of the titles. No matter who is right, there are opinions, but supporters joined Armstrong on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the reviews seemed to lean against the agency and the director, Travis Tygart. Armstrong was picking ten aid shipments per minute on Facebook, with only a handful that declares it a "cheater" - and that was before he had even published his statement, which collected more than 4,000 Likes in half an hour. 

Read more...

Apple it's now the most valuable company

Apple, is now considered the world's most valuable company and history, a precedent had already shown in March this year, having been named the most admired company in Fortune magazine. 

It is now the most valuable company, after its shares reached one of the highest values ​​of the history of New York with  a value of  $648,11. He had also set a limit in March this year with a record $600 per share, but earlier this month, Apple rallied. That is, its shares have risen by 57% so far this 2012, due mainly to the expectations generated by new launches such as the iPhone or the iPad mini for this fall, as the rumors technological handles. Apple now sits a history as one of the companies have managed to break the barrier of $ 600, before Microsoft in 1999 succeeded the feat in the business world. An estimated capitalization reaches 607, 000 million dollars.

Read more...

Ecuador gives asylum to Julian Assange

A Julian Assange have granted political asylum in Ecuador, Assange is the founder of Wikileaks. His fame is due to meet after giving a volume of secret documents from the U.S., which has to be considered by the United States as a terrorist. Ecuador gives asylum to Julian Assange under several reasons to regard him as a professional communication career as a fighter for freedom of speech, press and human rights, plus there are signs that countries are able to retaliate to the detriment security, integrity and life of Assange, apart from being assured that would not endanger the life of Assange to be extradited to Sweden or the United States, just as he could be sentenced to life imprisonment or the death penalty in a U.S. court plus some other reasons as high priority were released this morning. 

 From the news, is the name of Julian Assange one of the most used in Twitter. Julian Assange, requesting political asylum to Ecuador in Britain on June 29, after their resources and legal authorities were exhausted to prevent move to Sweden where he is accused of sexual offenses. Assange maintains his innocence and sexual assault that women say they suffered was consensual. Since then it has remained in the Ecuadorian embassy of Great Britain. 

For this reason, the approval of political asylum the Organization of American States (OAS) has called a special meeting to discuss the case surrounding the situation of Julian Assange a session takes place at 16:30 local time (20: 30 GMT) the issue of political asylum to the founder of Wikileaks, a situation relevant to Ecuador and the United Kingdom. Under Secretary for Asia, Africa and Oceania of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, Rafael Quintero, said Thursday that Ecuador expects the support of the continent to its decision to grant asylum to Assange. 

 While President Barack Obama says the controversy is controversy on diplomatic asylum to the founder of Wikileaks exclusive competence of the United Kingdom and Ecuador. And Wikileaks is an international media published through its website and anonymous reports leaked documents containing sensitive matter of public interest in preserving the anonymity of their sources. The site launch was held in December 2006, activity began in July 2007 and since then its database has grown steadily to accumulate 1.2 million documents.

Read more...

Google will cut 20% of the people of Motorola

Motorola was bought by Google for 12.5 billion dollars in May. According to the news that Google is starting to manage to make some changes to this company. The New York Times reports that Google is planning to lay off 20% of staff, or jobs, around 4,000, this is about a third of the 94 offices around the world. While Google has issued a Form 8-K (with the government of the United States) confirming the cuts and cierres.A Motorola is known as the pioneer in mobile telephony and marketing the first wireless device in 1983. 

 The main objective of the cuts is to return the unit to Motorola phones and cost effectiveness. The Form 8-K confirms that in addition to job cuts, is planning a review of large companies. About a third of 90% of Motorola facilities are closed, and mobile product portfolio "simplified" and focuses on smartphones. Google declined to comment on when jobs begin to be eliminated provision, or which areas are affected, but confirmed the layoffs as reported in The New York Times. The direction of Google says the layoffs are necessary and makes public the commitment to help those laid off find new jobs. 

 It is expected that most of the cuts is in the United States. Motorola represents 11.7% of the activity of smartphones in the United States, placing it as the fourth most widely used brand of smartphones in the country. However, that number fell by 1.1% over the previous year, this points to how sales of business units are currently in decline there too. In recent quarterly results from Google, the first to include Motorola, Google said that Motorola reported a GAAP operating loss of $ 233 million (U.S. $ 192 million for the mobile segment and $ 41 million for the segment of household), or 19 % of revenue from Motorola in the second quarter of 2012.

Read more...

Starfall for the weekend: Perseids

Image NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Meteor Showers
at Flirck

Perseids. Each year there is a meteor shower, or as they say rain of stars, this year it is for Perseids, one of the most popular meteor showers that come this weekend. Amateur astronomer Fred Bruenjes organized this composite image of the Perseids in 2007 of nearly 3,000 images taken during two nights. The picture illustrates that the Perseids come from the same area. You may not be deployed most spectacular of the year, most years, that honor goes to the Geminids in December. However, the shower is almost certainly the most watched meteor shower, coming as they do in the hot months of summer vacation.

Advised to look to the sky in a place as dark as possible and without obstacles to sight in the early hours of the nights of Saturday and Sunday. The Perseids Tears of St. Lawrence are produced when the Earth, in its way, through the tail of comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids are bits of periodic comet Swift-Tuttle.

 As the Earth passes near the comet's orbit, small pieces of debris, mostly the size of grains of sand, but some as large as peas or larger - enter the atmosphere at 60 km per second (134.000 mph .) From an altitude of about 100 km (60 miles), a meteoroid compresses the air in front of him like water before a speedboat, creating a shock wave hot. This is what most people see - not a little of the remains themselves. 

Meteors come from comets are more like clumps of dust that rocks. Even the larger ones are too fragile to reach the ground as meteorites - unlike the pieces of rock and iron, which come from asteroids. Earth passed closer to the comet Swift-Tuttle in 1992 and put on displays Perseid particularly spectacular in the years around then. The rain has returned to normal. The comet will not approach as close again until around 2125, but that does not mean that the Perseids this year will not be worth finding your own piece of dark sky. Try to get as far away from city lights as possible, bring a reclining chair to lie back and be patient.

 There is an application Meteor Counter if you want to capture some images, and then make a recording of critical data for each meteor: time, magnitude, latitude and longitude, along with the option of verbal annotations. Then these data are loaded automatically NASA researchers for analysis. Meteor Counter - (apple store) also offers a news and calendar of events, which are updated by professional scientists to keep you informed of the latest developments and meteor showers the next.

Read more...

Google have to pay 22,5 millions to FTC

Google has agreed to pay $ 22.5 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of cargo to be managed to avoid the privacy settings of Safari for ads aimed at consumers. Google puts the cookies on the computers of users of Safari, despite the fact that, as noted by the FTC, "Google had previously told these users that are automatically opted out of such monitoring, as a result of adjustments default Safari browser used on Macs, iPhones and Cases ". This, according to the FTC, was in direct violation of the privacy solution before between Google and the FTC. The burden of the FTC focused on the fact that Google took advantage of a loophole in Safari to place cookies on users' computers even though Safari, by default, blocks cookies from third-party sites. 

 Google agreed to pay $ 22.5 million civil penalty to settle charges the Federal Trade Commission to trick users of Apple's Safari browser would not tracking "cookies" or the publication of notices to users, violation of a privacy agreement earlier between the company and the FTC. The agreement is part of the efforts of the FTC sure companies live up to the privacy promises they make to consumers, and is the largest fine the agency has obtained for a violation of an order of the Commission. In addition to the civil penalty, the order also requires Google to disable all cookies tracking you said you would not put on the computers of consumers. "The penalty record in this case sends a clear message to all companies under an order of the FTC privacy," said Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC. "No matter how big or small, all companies must comply with FTC orders against them and keep their privacy promises to consumers, or will end up paying many times what it would cost to play in the first place" . 

 In its complaint, the FTC alleged that for several months in 2011 and 2012, Google places a cookie given up advertising on the computers of users visiting Safari sites within the Google advertising network DoubleClick, despite Google had previously told the users that automatically opted out of such monitoring, as a result of the default settings of the Safari browser used on Macs, iPhones and iPads. Google violated an agreement reached with the agency in October 2011, which banned Google - among other things - misrepresenting the extent to which consumers can exercise control over the collection of information. The agreement settles FTC charges before Google used deceptive tactics and violated its privacy promises when it launched its social network, Google Buzz. Google has until February 15, 2014 to expire all cookies participating in today's agreement.

Read more...

Google acquired Wildfire

Google acquired a company that provides software service which makes a connection between various social networks such as Facebook Inc., Twitter, LinkedIn Corp., Pinterest - Wildfire, that causing customers or users can manage their online brand and presence. Google announced the acquisition of the new Wildfire marketing company to grow more strongly in social networks. 

The advertised price was 250 million dollars, as stated in a transaction source close to the worst he has asked not to be named. Wildfire provides software that connects to Facebook Inc., Twitter, LinkedIn Corp., Pinterest and other social networks, other customers are Sony Corp Wildfire and Amazon.com Inc, and more.

Read more...