A new study out of Pacific Lutheran University shows that fetuses can learn individual speech sounds like vowels and consonants while still in the womb. The study, set to be published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, is the first to indicate that language learning can begin prenatally.Researchers gathered data from 40 infants in the U.S. and another 40 in Sweden, all less than 3 days old. The newborns were tested on two types of vowel sounds — 17 from their native language sounds and 17 from a foreign language. Researchers then measured the infant’s response to the sounds by how long they sucked a pacifier connected to a computer. The babies could control how many times they heard the vowels by sucking continuously on the pacifier, hearing the same vowel sound until they paused. Sucking the pacifier again produced a new sound. According to Science Daily, the pattern reveals how infants absorb new information:Continue Reading… … Read More
Marshall Fine: Live from the Dubai International Film Festival: Day 1
Whenever I mention to a friend that I’m heading off to a film festival – which usually refers to Sundance or Toronto, the two I travel to each year – the usual response is, “That sounds like fun.”As though I were going on vacation.Certainly there are vacation-like aspects to these trips: travel, a hotel stay, escaping from your daily routine into a new environment.Read More…
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Greg Suhr: Hail To The Well-Paid, Politically-Respected Chief
This article comes to us courtesy of San Francisco magazine.By Bennett CohenIN THE MOVIE VERSION OF SFPD CHIEF Greg Suhr’s improbable career, the lead would go to Bruce Willis–a square-jawed, middle-aged white guy who makes up in swagger for what he lacks in hair. The city’s top cop looks like a throwback to the San Francisco that the ’60s forgot, but he sounds like a “closet social worker,” as his good friend, ex-supervisor Bevan Dufty, puts it–a combination that has made him that rarest of things in this ultra-left city: a police chief whom almost everyone seems to be rooting for.Read More…
Insurance company’s skydiving cats cause alarm
Some pet-owning web users reacted with shock this week to a Swedish insurance company’s new advertisement featuring cats skydiving, set to the soothing sounds of artist R. Kelly. The uproar was actually enough to get CNN’s attention. Reached by reporters, the insurance company Folksam…
Angry Bonds? Bloomberg LP Lets Developers Play With Its Data
Financial data just little (little) more fun, with Bloomberg LP announcing a new platform for third-party applications powered by the Bloomberg data and news.
There are already more than 45 apps available on the new platform, called the Bloomberg App Portal, including products for data analysis, portfolio management and risk analysis. The app portal can also be used to by Bloomberg clients to share proprietary tools with their own employees, according to a release.
The offering should help Bloomberg compete with Reuters and Markit, both of which have launched similar projects.
“I know a lot of people thought of us as sort of a closed system. Maybe this will make people look at us a bit differently,” Bloomberg co-founder Tom Secunda told The Financial Times, which reported that like Apple before it, Bloomberg will take a 30 percent cut of app store sales. Of course, unless you sit at a trading desk or design financial software, and maybe even then, what you really want to know is, will there be games? Not as far as we can tell, but here’s the next best thing:
With RiskVal’s Angry Bonds, view the most lucrative USD Treasury securities instantly. Our proprietary relative value analytics arm you with the Top 5 Bond trades of the day based on current levels against 3 Months of historical data on True ASW, OIS Spread, 2+ RVS, Yield Roll, and ASW Roll. Richest and cheapest trades are displayed in real-time by maturity or origin buckets so you can pick the securities with the most potential for your investment strategy.
Which Treasury bond has the cheapest ASW spread over the last 90 days? Which bond has the best 3-month Roll down in the entire Treasury curve? Getting actionable answers to these complex questions requires effort to set up and then maintain with each new bond announcement; Angry Bonds tells you what you need to know for a fraction of the cost of a standard system.
Sounds like fun! … Read More
Expect Google Maps for iOS 6 by the End of the Year
Basically. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
If there’s one thing the Great iOS6 Map Crisis of ’12 has taught us, it’s to appreciate the mapping function we have, or rather had. Google Maps isn’t perfect (just try finding the High Street station), but at least it’s never turned any highways into roller coasters, unlike Apple’s new offering. And so as the initial disbelief faded, the question became: When the hell are we getting a version of Google Maps available through the App Store?
The New York Times has an answer for you: “by the end of the year.” Hopefully.
The Gray Lady reports:
Google is developing a maps application for iPhone andiPad that it is seeking to finish by the end of the year, according to people involved with the effort who declined to be named because of the nature of their work.
We can already hear you whining, “But whyyyy?” Well, Google wasn’t exactly prepared for Apple to boot its maps off the iPhone, as the companies’ existing contract still had some time left on the clock.
And according to at least one of the Times’ sources, Google wants whatever it releases to include 3D imagery, but all of Google’s 3-D imager is trapped in Google Earth, “which is a separate app with a separate code base from Google Maps, so it would take some time to combine the two.” Sounds like there’ll be a lot of all-nighters happening for the GOOG’s resident cartographers. At least they won’t be bored anymore, right?
Meanwhile, Google chairman Eric Schmidt is basically rubbing Apple’s face in its terrible faceplant. Reuters relays a few of his choice comments:
“We think it would have been better if they had kept ours. But what do I know?” Schmidt told a small group of reporters in Tokyo. “What were we going to do, force them not to change their mind? It’s their call.”
We’re starting to suspect Mr. Schmidt might have been an eccentric mafia enforcer in a previous life. In fact, we can’t help but wonder whether Google is even in any rush to get this app out the door, or whether the company is taking its sweet time, under the theory, “That’ll teach them to appreciate us properly.” … Read More
Sailing a way of life for some families
Picture a sailing vacation: swimming in tropical waters, lazy days exploring palm-tree-lined islands, eating mangoes and watching sunsets. Sounds nice, right? What if it were not for a week or two, but a year or two … or five? … Read More
