Archive for August, 2008

WASHINGTON, Aug 11th, 2008 – Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.

The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.

People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.

Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don’t. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don’t create reflections or shadows.

It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation’s Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.

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A Russian advertising executive who sued her boss for sexual harassment lost her case after a judge ruled that employers were obliged to make passes at female staff to ensure the survival of the human race.

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:12PM BST 30 Jul 2008

The unnamed executive, a 22-year-old from St Petersburg, had been hoping to become only the third woman in Russia’s history to bring a successful sexual harassment action against a male employer.

She alleged she had been locked out of her office after she refused to have intimate relations with her 47-year-old boss.

“He always demanded that female workers signalled to him with their eyes that they desperately wanted to be laid on the boardroom table as soon as he gave the word,” she earlier told the court. “I didn’t realise at first that he wasn’t speaking metaphorically.”

The judge said he threw out the case not through lack of evidence but because the employer had acted gallantly rather than criminally.

“If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children,” the judge ruled.

Since Soviet times, sexual harassment in Russia has become an accepted part of life in the office, work place and university lecture room.

According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Women also report that it is common to be browbeaten into sex during job interviews, while female students regularly complain that university professors trade high marks for sexual favours.

Only two women have won sexual harassment cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one in 1993 and the other in 1997.

Human rights activists say that Russian women remain second-class citizens and are subjected to some of the highest levels of domestic abuse in the world.

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“Loving someone is giving them the power to hurt you, but trusting them not to.” – Anonymous

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Hello, my name is Vaia Abatzis and I’m a casting producer for ABC’s hit show, “Wife Swap.” I am holding a nation-wide casting call to find fun and outgoing costume enthusiasts along with their family.

I’m looking for people who love to dance, and enjoy sharing their hobby with their families.  I’m hoping to find families who are passionate about their hobby, and who feel that they have a lot to teach another family through their own professional and personal experiences.

If you have seen the show, you know we pride ourselves on casting a wide array of families from all different walks of life who would like the opportunity to educate the viewing audience about their particular parenting philosophy, their beliefs and their way of life.

Families must consist of two parents and at least one child over the age of 5. Families who appear on the show receive a $20,000 honorarium and if you refer a family who appears on our show, you will receive a $1,000 finder’s fee PER family.

If you are unfamiliar with the show, the premise of Wife Swap is to take two different families and have the moms switch places to experience how another family lives. This is meant to be a positive experience for people to not only learn but teach other ways of life. If you would like more information about the show, go to ABC.com and you will find “Wife Swap” under the primetime listings.

If you are interested, please contact me at the office ASAP at 646 747 7943 or e-mail your phone number to vaia.abatzis@castingrdf.com and I will call you directly.

Feel free to forward this on to anyone you believe would be interested.

Thank You,
Vaia Abatzis

Vaia Abatzis|Casting Producer|Wife Swap
RDF USA| 1790 Broadway| 11th Floor| New York| NY 10019
tel. + 646-747-7943|  fax + 212-586-3419
Vaia.Abatzis@castingrdf.com  | www.rdfusa.com

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Eight iPhone owners have joined an elite clan: Their Apple gadget is running a program that cost nearly $1,000.

W hen the iPhone first hit the market in June 2007, those who paid the $499 entry price — and signed the two-year AT&T contract — owned a status symbol. A year later, we have the iPhone 3G, Apple’s speedier, sleeker and, most important, less expensive smart phone, which introduced a section for downloading third-party applications. Now that the phone is affordable enough for a wider audience, a new status symbol has emerged: a seemingly useless application called I Am Rich.

Its function is exactly what the name implies: to alert people that you have money in the bank. I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone’s App Store for, get this, $999.99 — the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program’s developer. Once downloaded, it doesn’t do much — a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext “I Am Rich.” Once activated, it treats the user to a large, glowing gem (pictured above). That’s about it. For a thousand dollars.

Apple apparently had some problems with I Am Rich. After initially approving it for distribution, the company has since removed it from the store. Heinrich, a German software developer, has yet to hear back from Apple concerning the removal. “I have no idea why they did it and am not aware of any violation of the rules to sell software on the App Store,” Heinrich said in an e-mail with The Times today.

But Apple couldn’t pull it down before curious aristocrats — eight of them — had purchased it. Six people from the United States, one from Germany and one from France dropped a grand for the gem in the first 24 hours it was available, Heinrich said. That’s $5,600 in revenue for Heinrich and $2,400 for Apple, which collects 30% of each sale for “store upkeep.”

In the e-mail, Heinrich said there seemed to be a market for the program. “I am sure a lot more people would like to buy it — but currently can’t do so,” Heinrich said. “The App is a work of Art and included a ‘secret mantra’ — that’s all.”

A possible explanation for its removal: A screen shot of an App Store review that has been circulating around the Web recently, showing a user’s complaint that he purchased it accidentally. “I saw this app with a few friends and we jokingly clicked ‘buy’ thinking it was a joke, to see what would happen. … THIS IS NO JOKE…DO NOT BUY THIS APP AND APPLE PLEASE REMOVE THIS FROM THE APP STORE,” it read.

I Am Rich isn’t the first software that has been removed from Apple’s store. Box Office, a movie showtime resource, and NetShare, which let users connect a computer to the Internet using the iPhone’s 3G wireless data service, disappeared without a trace. Apple did not respond to phone calls for comment.

UPDATED: In a follow-up e-mail, Heinrich said he had not yet received his $5,600 check from Apple, which has a policy of paying developers at the end of each calendar month. He’s unsure how the app’s removal will affect the payment process.
“I’ve got e-mails from customers telling me that they really love the app,” adding that they had “no trouble spending the money,” he said.

UPDATED: Heinrich confirms the validity of the review pictured in the screenshot, and Apple has refunded his and another buyer’s money. “I don’t want to collect money from people who did this by accident and I am glad that Apple returned the money for two orders,” Heinrich said.

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