Microsoft Office 2013 now available to businesses, wide release still set for Q1 2013

Right on time, businesses with the inside track to Microsoft's account team and partner program can now snag the latest version of Redmond's content production software suite, Office 2013. What's that? You've got the hook up, but you were also hoping for Exchange Server 2013, Lync Server 2013, SharePoint Server 2013, Project 2013, and Vision 2013? You'll be happy to hear that those are also available today -- the already announced "first quarter 2013" release window for Office 2013 stands, when it'll become widely available both digitally and at direct retailers.

The big update to Office this time around comes in the form of Windows 8-style visuals and cloud-based saves using Microsoft's SkyDrive service. We've got a full hands-on right here if you'd like to learn more ahead of next year's big launch.

Filed under: Desktops, Internet, Software, Microsoft

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/03/office-2013-rtm-live/

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Architecture That Saves Nigerians 30% On House Building Cost ...

VENTURES AFRICA ? When Lagos, the commercial heart of Nigeria, moved to create more space for its 15 million populace, it went as far as fighting back the Atlantic ocean off its coast to reclaim millions of square kilometres of land ? a strong indication of the severity of the congestion of the city. James Inedu George, revolutionary Nigerian architect and arguably one of the most talked about amongst his peers, argues, a fundamental problem is that the architecture of Lagos buildings consume too much space. ?Our homes are modelled after the colonial masters? designs,? he says. As migration and economic activities in Africa?s cities skyrockets, new urban planning challenges arise that need architecture and urban planning to proffer new solutions. ?The spacious British design would not work for Lagos any longer,? James asserts.

Nigeria spreads over a surface area of 923,800 km², containing 160 million peoples, and battling a 17 million housing deficit. When the government announced an ambitious plan in August, to construct a million houses yearly to meet the housing challenge, James critiques using an analogy ? ?what if we could build an edifice that could house a million people, would we need 17 million homes?? James? point ? solution thinking and innovative design that saves cost, time, land and resources.

As I munch over a tray of cakes with the design preacher, in one of Lagos? prime real estates, viewing the sparse skyline of the city?s highbrow Victoria Island, James amazes me as he deduces business and lifestyle from architecture. He shares that the high fenced walls of Nigerian structures is a physical indication of insecurity and absence of trust, in the land. ?Architecture isn?t primarily about buildings,? he says. Scooping up his Galaxy Tab and shoving it at me, he quips: ?This is good architecture!? A product with a disruptive design enhancing mobility and work-time better than its antecedent ? the laptop. Architecture is about designing and building products that are efficient, effective and durable.

In September, at the biggest real estate conference in West Africa, Real Estate Unite, the geeky looking artist strode a podium with an iPad in hand, wowing stakeholders with the presentation of an innovative design of two vertically joined duplexes costing 6.7 million naira ($43,000) to erect; in Lagos, home to the 30^th most expensive hotels in the world, it costs at least 11 million naira ($70,000) to build 2 simple duplexes. The double duplex design?s cost effectiveness lies primarily in its frame. In place of the conventional columns of cement blocks piled up and held together by increasingly expensive concrete, is a rectangular metal crane, a quarter of a plot wide and 4 floors high, wrapped around with red bricks(or cheaper tiles); a durable model James discloses was used to erect Oriental Hotel, a popular Chinese architecture filling the skyline of Victoria Island.

The red bricks covering the metal skeleton are 25 percent cheaper than cement blocks, and require no plastering, painting, and mortar, plummeting construction cost by at least 30 percent; at 16,000 naira ($100) per cement bag, not plastering a duplex alone, saves at least 320,000 naira ($2000). The downside to the ?too good to be true story? however, is a scarce high technical expertise (though not expensive) is needed in laying the bricks. Besides employing cheaper and efficient materials, the double-duplex design saves space by deploying an innovative rearrangement of home setting to reduce horizontal space, building higher then breaking out on all sides, mid air, such that the upper floors are wider than the ground floor or lower floors. A 3-vehicle garage occupies the ground floor saving extra land space on the sides of the building that would have been occupied by automobiles. Consequently, four structures comprising 2 duplexes each can comfortable sit on a plot of land; saving the need to acquire more than a plot to build 2, 3 or 4 duplexes. In Lagos, a plot could go for a million naira ($6,400) in underdeveloped areas and skyrocket to $20 million ($128,000) at high brow ends. These seemingly futuristic designs can help save Nigerians costs on housing plans though there is a little set back that reduces the benefits the architecture proposes; Nigerian housing law permits only a maximum of 2 buildings on a plot of land.

The land reclamation project at the Lagos Bar Beach shoreline ? Eko Atlantic, gulping a $6 billion investment from three Nigerian banks and a French group, is expected to house a meager 250,000 residents, with taxes being the only the government revenue source from the urban project, throughout its 78-year lease term. ?We?re not building cheaply,? James laments. The Lagos-based HubCT Technologies Head of Design, believes there is so much the state government could have done with the kind of investment. ?There are large-scale communities that we need to make. There are still 12 million Lagos residents design can solve their housing problem. If we can provide design strings for these markets ? not just buildings, but different architectural solutions to different demographics ? investors can profit 200,000 naira ($1280) overtime, off each of the 12 million consumers.? That?s a whole lot of money! You can do the maths.

Good news is, a few individuals and private bodies are beginning to see a range of the light James beams. Construction of multiple room/flat complexes can be seen dotting the city. Several privately owned hostels and housing schemes are springing around the city to carter to the rising middle class and population explosion. On Commercial Avenue, Yaba, is Skyview Hostel, a blue sprawling edifice reaching to the sky, housing over 300 rooms and toilets, with a standby industrial gen and other amenities. Most of the occupants are young, upward and mobile. Tunde, a sculpturist below 30 lives there, dolling out around 40,000 naira ($254) per month as rent. Real estate is rife!

Unfortunately, urban planning which is a macro-level architecture and dictator of real estate, does not contribute up to 5 percent of Nigeria?s GDP. James insists ?Architecture can be good business.?

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Goke

Oyeniyi Adegoke is a business writer, a staff writer for Ventures Africa, and a blogger with passion for entrepreneurship and disadvantaged kids. He studied Mathematics at the University of Lagos whilst co-building an indigenous social platform, ovaloaded.com, before it was bought over. Goke has published an e-book -- X the Box.

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Source: http://www.ventures-africa.com/2012/12/architecture-that-saves-nigerians-30-on-house-building-cost/

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Vampire on the loose in Serbia?

ZAROZJE, Serbia (AP) ? Get your garlic, crosses and stakes ready: a bloodsucking vampire is on the loose.

Or so say villagers in the tiny western Serbian hamlet of Zarozje, nestled between lush green mountain slopes and spooky thick forests. They say that rumors that a legendary vampire ghost has awakened are spreading fear ? and a potential tourist opportunity ? through the remote village.

A local council warned villagers to put garlic in their pockets and place wooden crosses in their rooms to ward off vampires, although it appeared designed more to attract visitors to the impoverished region bordering Bosnia.

Many of the villagers are aware that Sava Savanovic, Serbia's most famous vampire, is a fairy tale. Still, they say, better to take it seriously than risk succumbing to the vampire's fangs.

"The story of Sava Savanovic is a legend, but strange things did occur in these parts back in the old days," said 55-year-old housewife Milka Prokic, holding a string of garlic in one hand and a large wooden stake in another, as an appropriately moody mist rose above the surrounding hills. "We have inherited this legend from our ancestors, and we keep it alive for the younger generations."

Vampire legends have played a prominent part in the Balkans for centuries ? most prominently Dracula from Romania's Transylvania region. In the 18th century, the legends sometimes triggered mass hysteria and even public executions of those accused of being vampires.

Sava Savanovic, described by the Zarozje villagers as Serbia's first vampire, reputedly drank the blood of those who came to the small shack in the dense oak tree forest to mill their grain on the clear mountain Rogatica river.

The wooden mill collapsed a few months ago ? allegedly angering the vampire, who is now looking for a new place to hang his cape.

Some locals claim they can hear steps cracking dry forest leaves and strange sounds coming from the rocky mountain peaks where the vampire was purportedly killed with a sharp stake that pierced his heart ? but managed to survive in spirit as a butterfly.

"One should always remain calm, it's important not to frighten him, you shouldn't make fun of him," said villager Mico Matic, 56, whose house is not far from the collapsed mill.

"He is just one of the neighbors, you do your best to be on friendly terms with him," he said with a wry smile, displaying garlic from both of his trouser pockets.

Some locals say it's easy for strangers to laugh at them, but they truly believe.

"Five people have recently died one after another in our small community, one hanging himself," said Miodrag Vujetic, a local municipal council member. "This is not by accident."

Vujetic, however, said that "whatever is true about Sava," locals should use the legend to promote tourism.

"If Romanians could profit on the Dracula legend with the tourists visiting Transylvania, why can't we do the same with Sava?"

Richard Sugg, a lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the U.K.'s University of Durham and an expert on the vampire legends, said the fear could be very real. Stress can bring on nightmares, which makes people's feelings of dread even worse.

"The tourists think it is fun ? and the Serbian locals think it's terrifying," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vampire-loose-serbia-140736133.html

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Global water crisis: too little, too much, or lack of a plan?

The global water crisis ? caused by drought, flood, and climate change ? is less about supply than it is about recognizing water's true value, using it efficiently, and planning for a different future, say experts.

By William Wheeler,?Contributor / December 2, 2012

Global water crisis: This article is part of the cover story package for the Dec. 3 issue of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly magazine. A girl looks at water from the Nile flowing from a pump in the Manshiyet Nasser shantytown in eastern Cairo in this file photo.

Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters/File

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For most of history, thirsty humans made do with what moisture fell from above: The sun warmed the salty seas, pure water evaporated into the air and then cooled and fell to the earth as precipitation. There it clung to glaciers, froze and thawed in lakes, was absorbed by plant roots, coursed through fractured bedrock, and seeped slowly through soil, into aquifers. Most of it returned to sea and sky all over again. There is as much of that water on the planet today as when the first amphibian flopped ashore; as much as when the ancient Greeks divined the future in the babble of brooks.

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So why do experts in science, economics, and development warn that a "global water crisis" threatens the stability of nations and the health of billions?

From space, the idea of a global water crisis may seem perplexing: 75 percent of the planet's surface is blue. But usable fresh water is a tiny fraction of what we see ? only 2.5 percent of the water on Earth. And two-thirds of that fresh water is locked away in glaciers, icecaps, and permanent snow. Of the stock of accessible fresh water, 99 percent is in underground aquifers ? some are nonrenewable; and in some that are replenishable, ground water is slurped up faster by a growing population than it can be replaced.

But even so, say experts, the problem is perhaps more an issue of recognizing water's true value, using it efficiently and planning for the lean times, than it is a lack of overall supply.

The ongoing historic American drought, with its cascade effect on food and utility prices at home and food costs abroad, is an example of scarcity's effect.

But superstorm Sandy's deluge and flooding, says Geoff Dabelko, an environmental expert at Ohio University in Athens, is an example of how the term "global water crisis" can be misleading. It tends to imply that there's just one kind of crisis ? a water shortage.

"The kind of dead-cow-carcass-in-the-desert image that global 'water crisis' evokes is very real for some people," Professor Dabelko says. "But there are so many dimensions." Too much water ? whether from flooding, sea level rise, or more extreme storms ? can be just as deadly as too little.

While the balance between water supplies and the demands of a burgeoning population are further complicated by the effect of climate change on delicate hydrological margins, there are those who say there is enough water, if nations learn to plan for a different future ? one in which past abundance is no guide.

The growing thirst for water

Water is a part of everything we do: It feeds crops, powers cities, cools computer servers, and is key to the manufacturing of everything from clothes to cars. The billion more people expected on the planet by 2025 will increase water demand for all of those functions. And just to feed those people, water withdrawals for agriculture are expected to increase by about half.

But it's not only about the additional mouths to feed; it's also the growth of new appetites. Much of the growth in demand will emerge from the swelling sprawl of bustling, slum-pocked metropolises across the developing world. For the first time in history, the share of the global population living in cities recently surpassed 50 percent ? on its way to 75 percent expected by 2050.

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/uaPaVmJ3_pY/Global-water-crisis-too-little-too-much-or-lack-of-a-plan

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Evolution key to free school deal

30 November 2012 Last updated at 11:35 ET By Judith Burns BBC News education reporter

Failing to teach evolution by natural selection in science lessons could lead to new free schools losing their funding under government changes.

The new rules state that from 2013, all free schools in England must teach evolution as a "comprehensive and coherent scientific theory".

The move follows scientists' concerns that free schools run by creationists might avoid teaching evolution.

Sir Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, said he was "delighted".

Sir Paul told BBC News the previous rules on free schools and the teaching of evolution versus creationism had been "not tight enough".

'Creationist myth'

He said that although the previous rules had confined creationism to religious education lessons, "the Royal Society identified a potential issue that schools could have avoided teaching evolution by natural selection in science lessons or dealt with it in a such a perfunctory way, that the main experience for students was the creationist myth".

So far 79 free schools have opened in England with 118 more due to open in 2013 and beyond. They are funded directly by central government but unlike other state-funded schools are run by groups of parents, teachers, charities and religious groups and do not have to abide by the national curriculum.

The new rules mean if a free school is found to be acting in breach of its funding agreement - for example, teaching creationism as a scientific fact or not teaching evolution - the Department for Education will take "swift action which could result in the termination of that funding agreement".

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

The development of the theory of evolution is an excellent example of how science works and there is a clear consensus within the scientific community regarding both its validity and importance ?

End Quote Sir Paul Nurse President, Royal Society

In a letter to the Royal Society, the Schools Minister, Lord Hill, said: "While we have always been clear that we expect to see evolution included in schools' science curricula, this new clause will provide more explicit reassurance that free schools will have to meet that expectation."

Sir Paul Nurse said: "The new clause in the funding agreement should ensure that all pupils at free schools have the opportunity to learn about evolution as an extensively evidenced theory and one of the most fundamentally important tenets of modern biology.

"The development of the theory of evolution is an excellent example of how science works and there is a clear consensus within the scientific community regarding both its validity and importance."

A spokesman for the Department for Education said that the new clause would apply to the Grindon Hall Christian school in Sunderland and two others that this year became the focus of concerns about the teaching of creationism in free schools.

Grindon Hall, which was independent, reopened as a free school in September. The two others approved by ministers are not due to open until 2013.

In July the principal of Grindon Hall said that creationism would never be taught in science lessons.

'Additional safeguards'

Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network, which provides advice and support for groups who want to set up free schools, welcomed the funding agreement changes but said that the existing rules meant free schools already had to teach evolution in science lessons.

"To my knowledge free schools have always had to teach evolution in science, but it is great that the government has reaffirmed its commitment to this," she said.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, organisers of a Teach Evolution not Creationism campaign, said: "A requirement to teach evolution in free schools is an excellent additional safeguard against state-funded creationist schools and must be welcomed.

"However, we continue to be concerned about the three free schools recently approved which are supportive of teaching creationism as science and which we must worry will continue to find ways to circumvent a ban in practice."

Dr Berry Billingsley who leads a Reading University project on how secondary schools handle questions that bridge science and religion cautioned against an oversimplified debate.

"Evolution is a fantastic theory and explains so much about how humans come to be here. It is backed up by evidence and supported by the vast majority of scientists in the biological sciences. Many of those scientists also believe that the Universe is here because of God.

"The importance of studying evolution is indeed the first thing to be said but children also need opportunities somewhere in the timetable to explore the 'Big Questions', which our research shows they want to consider and it is often the science lesson that stirs up those questions."

Paul Bate, of the European Educators Christian Association, agreed schools should teach a broad and balanced curriculum: "Science and religion need each other in this debate. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest scientists of all time said, 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'"

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20547195#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Caption Contest: Mitt Romney and Barack Obama Meet in the Oval Office (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Plastic beads on Mars: Rise and fall of a prank

Xavier Jenks (Domatron Graves)

A picture from NASA's Curiosity rover was retouched for a spoof website to look as if Mardi Gras beads were lying on the Martian surface. The whitish-gray object visible in the center of the picture is an actual scrap of plastic that came from Curiosity and was spotted on the ground.

By Alan Boyle

For a while, it almost looked as if NASA was really spilling the beans?? or rather, the beads?? about the Curiosity rover's hush-hush discoveries on Mars. And that was precisely the problem.

A spoof website, NASAUpdateCenter.us, made a splash on Thursday by proclaiming that Curiosity discovered "small spheres" that turned out to be made of plastic. The purported press release drew heavily on the logos and page design used by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was accompanied by a picture showing strings of the tiny spheres ??which looked suspiciously like Mardi Gras necklaces.

Curiosity's science team is scheduled to provide an eagerly awaited update on the rover mission at an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Monday. Some of the initial news reports?suggested the scientists were getting ready to announce a discovery that would be "one for the history books." (On Thursday, NASA said such "rumors and speculation" were incorrect.)

"I basically thought that with all the hype NASA made last week about an earthshaking release, we could build off that hype and set off the story before them," Domatron Graves, a.k.a. Xavier Jenks, explained in an email. Graves, who told me he's a 25-year-old Mardi Gras production artist and "publicity stuntman" from New Orleans, was the prime mover behind the "plastic beads" prank.

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The website was meant as a joke, and as a sly marketing campaign for Graves' Mardi Gras team, the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus. Hence the plastic beads. One of the pages on the site even featured a "Face on Mars" picture that morphed into the furry visage of Chewbacca from the Star Wars saga.

The way Graves tells the story, NASA wasn't amused. He said he received a phone call from someone claiming to be from JPL, informing him that his use of the space agency's logos was a federal offense. Graves and his Web team had the bogus "press release" taken down by 1 p.m. ET today.

"I'm trying not to go to jail," he told me over the phone.

I haven't yet been able to track down exactly who spoke with him. Bert Ulrich, who serves as a multimedia liaison at NASA Headquarters in Washington, told me he wasn't aware that anyone from the agency contacted Graves. "It's news to us," he wrote in an email.

There is a law on the books that forbids the unauthorized use of NASA's official logos and program identifiers (14 CFR 1221), backed up by the threat of a six-month jail term (18 USC 701). But it's unlikely that NASA would actually pursue prosecution ??and even if the agency did prosecute, you could argue that Graves and his pals would be protected by policies governing fair use and parody. In any case, that argument is now moot.

One of the issues might have been that the look and feel of the fake press release was so serious, even though the claim was clearly ridiculous. Real names were used in the wrong contexts, and the claims were couched in terms typically used to describe Mars' truly weird blueberries. It'd take a sharp observer (like Bad Astronomy's?Phil Plait) to see right away that the whole thing was baloney.

The full text of the bogus press release has been taken down, but you can get a sense of the tone from this screenshot:

Xavier Jenks (Domatron Graves)

This is not a NASA news release, but because of the way it was presented on a spoof website, some people thought it actually came from NASA.

NASA is one of the more trusted agencies in the federal government, although surveys suggest that trust has fallen in recent years. The hubbub over Martian discoveries is particularly sensitive, in light of the misunderstandings surrounding what Curiosity has or has not found so far. So it's understandable that the space agency might not appreciate a spoof that gave the wrong impression?? as opposed to a spoof like the "We're NASA and We Know It" viral video, which celebrates the Curiosity mission's true accomplishments.

If Graves had been able to hold out a little bit longer, he would have added some references to the Mardi Gras krewe's home page ? to signal that the website was a spoof and generate a little online traffic for Chewbacchus. That's what he did in the case of the New Orleans Bigfoot Society, another prank website that he and his friends cooked up last year. But after the hurried removal of the faux NASA Web pages, the spoof website has been reduced to a text-only page with a Web link paying tribute to "the Sacred Drunken Wookiee!"

Let's just hope Lucasfilm doesn't go after Graves for copyright infringement. NASA's displeasure is nothing, compared to the wrath of the "Star Wars" empire.

Update for 10:30 p.m. ET: Veronica McGregor, who manages the news and social media office at JPL, sent me an email that filled in most of the remaining gaps in the story. "What I know about the site is, the manager/owner was contacted," she wrote. "The content on the site was not a concern, in fact we've truly enjoyed all of the spoofs out there. As you mentioned, it was the use of the page design, name and logos ??and the possibility of confusion?? that was the concern. ... We didn't think people would be confused over the beads, just the page design."??

More whimsy about the Curiosity rover on Mars:

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Graves acknowledges that the "Domatron" in his name is a nom d'art, but he insists that the last name is real. "I'm a Graves," he told me. I found his contact information by tracing the domain-registration listing for NASAUpdateCenter.us, and reached him by phone just as he was arranging for the faux press release to be taken down.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/30/15575429-plastic-beads-on-mars-why-nasa-had-spoof-site-killed?lite

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