MobileMe subscription about to expire? Don't renew it just yet

If you've already paid the US$99 for Apple's MobileMe service, but your account is due for renewal within the next ten days or so, it might be a good idea to hold off on renewing it for now. Apple's rumored to be heavily revamping its MobileMe service this year, and we expect to hear announcements about the service upgrades at WWDC on June 6. Some rumors even suggest that parts of MobileMe may be available at no charge after the update.

It's been a perennial rumor that Apple will stop charging $99/year for much of its MobileMe service. The rumors have always suggested Apple will offer basic services (like email and over-the-air device syncing) for free, while paying subscribers will have access to things like website hosting, online photo galleries, storage options through iDisk, and now potentially wireless streaming of music via the rumored iCloud service. Year after year this rumor has failed to come to fruition, but many are hoping this is the year Apple will finally split MobileMe into two services: free/basic and subscription/full access. There's already precedent for making certain parts of MobileMe free. Find My iPhone/iPad used to be a service for MobileMe subscribers only, but last November Apple made it free to anyone with an iPad, iPhone 4 or current-gen iPod touch.

The bottom line is that if you're only making limited use of MobileMe's services right now and your account is set to expire within the next couple of weeks, wait to see what's in store at WWDC before you shell out another $99 for another year. You may or may not lose access to some MobileMe features as soon as your account expires; we've been hearing conflicting reports about this from some readers, suggesting the service is indeed due for an overhaul relatively soon. You'll still have access to email services for up to two weeks after your account expires, at which point Apple will supposedly throw the switch and delete all of your MobileMe data. That means if your account hasn't expired already, you're in good shape until WWDC.

Speaking only for myself, if MobileMe's email and device syncing services do indeed become free-to-all after WWDC, I'm not likely to pay for access anymore. I've made very limited use of iDisk -- it's absolutely terrible compared to Dropbox, especially the way iDisk behaves in the Mac OS X Finder -- and MobileMe's gallery service is cumbersome compared to other photo sharing services I've used. As for iCloud, I have pretty much zero interest in what I've heard of it thus far, because I don't believe the internet infrastructure where I live can handle the types of services iCloud will supposedly offer. On the other hand, if Apple knocks it out of the park with the MobileMe upgrade, I may still happily drop some cash on the service. It all depends on what we hear at WWDC.

MobileMe subscription about to expire? Don't renew it just yet originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 30 May 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Presidential Proclamation--Great Outdoors Month

Release Time: 

For Immediate Release

-------
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION

For generations, America's great outdoors have ignited our imaginations, bolstered our economy, and fueled our national spirit of adventure and independence. The United States holds a stunning array of natural beauty -- from sweeping rangelands and tranquil beaches, to forests stretching over rolling hills and rivers raging through stone-faced cliffs. During Great Outdoors Month, we rededicate ourselves to experiencing and protecting these unique landscapes and treasured sites.

As America's frontier diminished and our cities expanded, a few bold leaders and individuals had the foresight to protect our most precious natural and historic places. Today, we all share the responsibility to uphold their legacy of conservation, whether by protecting an iconic vast public land, or by creating a community garden or an urban park. Last year, I was proud to launch the America's Great Outdoors Initiative, a project that empowers Americans to help build a new approach to conservation and outdoor recreation. My Administration hosted dozens of regional listening sessions to collect ideas from people from across our country with a stake in the health of our environment and natural places. Our conversations with businesspeople, ranchers, hunters, fishermen, tribal leaders, students, and community groups led to a report unveiled in February, America's Great Outdoors: A Promise to Future Generations, which lays the foundation for smarter, more community-driven action to protect our invaluable natural heritage.

Our plan will restore and increase recreational access to public lands and waterways; bolster rural landscapes, including working farms and ranches; develop the next generation of urban parks and community green spaces; and create a new Conservation Service Corps so that young people can experience and restore the great outdoors. To implement these recommendations, my Administration is dedicated to building strong working relationships with State, local, and tribal governments, as well as community, private, and non-profit partners across America. The First Lady's "Let's Move!" initiative encourages youth to enjoy what our outdoors have to offer. These programs and partnerships will improve our quality of life and our health, rejuvenate local and regional economies, spur job creation, protect wildlife and historic places, and ensure our natural legacy endures for generations to come. All Americans can read the report and learn more at www.AmericasGreatOutdoors.gov.

As we commit to protecting our country's outdoor spaces, we also celebrate all they have to offer. Our public lands and other open areas provide myriad opportunities for families and friends to explore, play, and grow together -- from hiking and wildlife watching to canoeing, hunting, and fishing, and playing in a neighborhood park. These activities can help our kids stay healthy, active, and energized, while reconnecting with their natural heritage. This month, let each of us resolve to protect our great outdoors; discover their wonders; and share them with our friends, our neighbors, and our children.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2011 as Great Outdoors Month. I urge all Americans to explore the great outdoors and to uphold our Nation's legacy of conserving our lands for future generations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

       BARACK OBAMA

Marisa Miller AnnaLynne McCord Emma Heming Vitamin C Scarlett Johansson

The Cost Of Your Commute, Ctd

A reader writes: Regarding Lloyd Alter's "food cost" post, bicycle couriers spend all day riding their bike, while most commuters ride between 30 and 60 minutes per day. The calorie requirements for a bike courier versus a commuter look rather...

Georgina Grenville Michelle Trachtenberg Amanda Bynes Ana Ivanovi Jessica Cauffiel

Dumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal?

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden's killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those "enhanced interrogation techniques" legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does it?

Now, you couldn't call me a legal scholar. I've never set foot inside a law school, and in 66 years only made it onto a single jury (dismissed before trial when the civil suit was settled out of court). Still, I feel at least as capable as any constitutional law professor of answering such questions.

My answer is this: they are irrelevant. Think of them as twentieth-century questions that don't begin to come to grips with twenty-first century American realities. In fact, think of them, and the very idea of a nation based on the rule of law, as a reflection of nostalgia for, or sentimentality about, a long-lost republic. At least in terms of what used to be called "foreign policy," and more recently "national security," the United States is now a post-legal society. (And you could certainly include in this mix the too-big-to-jail financial and corporate elite.)

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Report suggests Android's lead over iOS has stopped growing

Android, iOS and RIM's BlackBerry OS are at a standstill in the smartphone market. Results from Nielsen's May survey show that Android is holding steady at 37% market share, iOS at 27% and BlackBerry at 22%. Even among the smaller players like Windows Phone and webOS, this stalemate situation holds true.

One thing that is going up is data usage, especially among Android users. On average, Android users download 582 MB of data per month. iOS users come in second with a 492 MB of usage and webOS is third with 448 MB per month. The bulk of this usage is app downloads followed by streaming online music and mobile radio. Wonder how these percentages will change once Apple unveils it new cloud services?

Report suggests Android's lead over iOS has stopped growing originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 31 May 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube Live now streaming select partners in real time

Not content with limiting its dominance in streaming uploaded videos, YouTube is now ready to take on competitors like Justin.TV and Ustream. The new YouTube Live service is being rolled out to select YouTube partners and will enable real-time broadcasting. In its official announcement, Google states that "The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead."

You can check out live broadcasts at http://www.youtube.com/live, where you'll also find a schedule of upcoming episodes from beta partners like Revision3 and Destructoid. You're also able to subscribe to YouTube Live broadcasts -- which will ensure you're notified when a new episode is coming up.

YouTube Live now streaming select partners in real time originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 08:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The GOP Targets Food Safety (Again!)

House Republicans are laying down new markers for 2012 budget cuts, continuing their battle to weaken consumer protections in the name of fiscal austerity. As I reported earlier this month, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) has been quietly leading the push to slash discretionary spending—which must be approved by Congress every year—as party leaders negotiated a budget and deficit deal.

Now, a House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Food and Drug Administration has decided to cut funding for food safety by $87 million, the Washington Post reports, and the full House is likely to pass the reduction as well. Consumer advocates worry the House GOP's food-safety defunding will undermine FDA's ability to enforce a sweeping new food safety law that passed with bipartisan support last year:

Food safety advocates said that without additional money—let alone the current funding FDA receives—the agency will not be able to meet many requirements of the new law, including increased inspections of food manufacturing plants, better coordination with state health departments, and developing the capacity to more quickly respond to food-borne illnesses and minimize their impact.

The proposed cut is in line with previous GOP efforts to defund food safety and other consumer protections. Earlier this year, House Republicans made a far more drastic push to gut funding for food oversight, proposing to cut $241 million from the FDA’s food safety budget for the rest of 2011. The newly proposed $87 million cut for 2012 is relatively less draconian, and as such, it could conceivably be among the discretionary cuts that could make their way into a grand bargain over the budget and debt ceiling. The House GOP's logic for starting out big is becoming increasingly obvious: By moving the goal posts so far to the right, less drastic compromise deals seem moderate by comparison.

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New band of the day ? No 1,033: The History of Apple Pie

Their name might sound as twee as Belle and Sebastian's book club, but this lot are flying the flag for lo-fi noise rock

Hometown: London.

The lineup: Stephanie Min (vocals), Jerome Watson (guitar), James Thomas (drums), Kelly Lee Owens (bass, backing vocals), Aslam Ghauri (guitar).

The background: With Mona's debut album getting so-so reviews, the Vaccines record underperforming, and Brother hardly becoming the stadium giants of their frankly unrealistic ambitions, it's not been a vintage year so far for bands. Meanwhile, outfits from opposite ends of the sonic spectrum such as Wu Lyf and Odd Future are doing things differently, operating, notionally at least, more as collectives with music as just one aspect of their outputs. And the sheer plethora of singer-songwriters and solo performers, whether folk, country, grime-tinged or neo-soul, suggests the writing's on the wall for the traditional four-square indie rock band.

But there's Yuck getting rave notices, and now here come the History of Apple Pie, helping to keep the guitar/bass/drums unit alive. In fact, they're mates of Yuck, or anyway Yuck have been saying nice things about them, and like their London counterparts they appear to have a similar reverence for late-80s US and UK rock. We've had the C86 revival, courtesy of Vivian Girls and, oh, too many to mention. Now it makes sense to move on to the 1987-8 revival as we approach the 25th anniversary of that period. We've read that they're also influenced by 13-era Blur and Pavement, but that amounts to the same thing, because they, too, were born out of the dream melange of melody and noise as pioneered by Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine.

This isn't quite clear from their debut single You're So Cool, which incidentally was written about a schoolfriend (of theirs, not ours) who knew every word to the film True Romance. This one, in terms of clarity of production and vocals, nods more to 60s girl groups as per the C86 bands. It's on B-side Some Kind that their 88-worship becomes apparent as a burst of guitar-noise like a revving motorbike leads into a tune that uses Dinosaur Jr's Freak Scene ? the Smells Like Teen Spirit of the pre-grunge generation ? as its model, with an MBV-ish approach to dazed-and-confused, when-you-wake-you're-still-in-a-dream sleep-singing from the two girls in the band, who play the Bilinda Butcher/Deb Googe roles to near perfection. On Tug, over a chugging rhythm and an overlay of solo guitar drizzle, "singing" becomes a series of gaseous, sibilant sighs. Woozy does it. We're not sure about their name ? it's a bit twee ? but the History of Apple Pie are giving bands a good name.

The buzz: "Gloriously melodic slice of lo-fi noise-pop" ? musicfansmic.net.

The truth: They're at the Strawberry Wine stage of their development. Let's see if they've got a You Made Me Realise in them ...

Most likely to: Kill the idea that the band is dead.

Least likely to: Go on a killing spree.

What to buy: You're So Cool is released on 27 June by Roundtable.

File next to: Dinosaur Jr, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Yuck.

Links: myspace.com/thehistoryofapplepie.

Wednesday's new band: To Kill a King.

• Indie
• Pop and rock

Paul Lester

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Cydle i30 is a digital TV receiver for iPhone

Can't get enough of watching the local TV stations? Cydle has a solution coming for your iPhone.

The soon-to-be-released Cydle i30 is a digital TV receiver "sled" for the iPhone. Featuring its own 1100 mAh battery, it'll snag that local PBS outlet, four Spanish-language stations, and three full-time religious channels that you just can't wait to watch. And yes, since your local network stations are required to broadcast their content not only over cable, but also through digital over-the-air broadcasts, you'll be able to watch just about any network show and enjoy all of the advertising as well.

The advantage of the Cydle i30 is that it doesn't require a Wi-Fi connection or use your precious 3G data plan bits, and many times digital TV is about the only way you're going to be able to watch local sporting events or soap operas on your iPhone. Cable network apps such as Comcast's Xfinity TV provide a lot of on-demand content to watch on your iPhone, but not much live TV. They're also dependent on a Wi-Fi network.

No price or expected ship date has been released for the i30.

Cydle i30 is a digital TV receiver for iPhone originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Claudette Ortiz Julia Stiles Marisa Miller AnnaLynne McCord Emma Heming

Apple files trademark infringement against WhiteiPhone4Now website

Apple's legal team finally caught up with Fei Lam, the teenager from New York who was selling white iPhone 4 conversion kits, and filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against him.

Lam claimed to be getting white iPhone 4 parts directly from Foxconn and was reselling them on his website, whiteiphone4now.com, for US$279. He supposedly raked in over $130,000 from his endeavor until a "private investigator", thought to be hired by Apple, accused him of selling stolen goods.

The trademark lawsuit was filed and voluntarily dismissed in one motion suggesting Apple and Lam reached some type of settlement. Lam is likely out of business as the wording of the dismissal leaves the door open for Apple to refile the claim in the future.

Apple files trademark infringement against WhiteiPhone4Now website originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kasey Chambers Megan Ewing Kristanna Loken Aubrey ODay Drew Barrymore

Apple education deal rumored for WWDC

BGR broke out a rumor today suggesting Apple may unveil a new Back-To-School promotion at WWDC. As part of this sale, everyone who buys a new Mac with their educational discount would receive a free iPod touch or $200 off the cost of an iPad.

For the past several years, Apple has kicked off a back-to-school promotion in late May or early June. It would not be surprising to see this discount extended to the iPad this year.

The WWDC part of this rumor, though, has us scratching our heads. In previous years, these promotions were announced on Apple's website. There was no event, not even a press release. Yes, they occurred around the time of WWDC, but they were not announced at WWDC. Why would this year be any different?

Apple education deal rumored for WWDC originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Julia Stiles Marisa Miller AnnaLynne McCord Emma Heming Vitamin C

Google to revamp iOS search website

Google is about to change up its search website for iOS devices according to a find by phoneArena. When viewed on an iOS device, Google's search page currently features the familiar search field with links to Images, Places, News and more at the top. The new iOS-optimized search page will feature tabbed browsing and large app icons to allow the user to better distinguish between search results.

The new Google search page does away with the small links at the top of the page and replaces them with large icons. Furthermore, tapping on the "More" button reveals a host of additional large icons linking to various Google sites, including Finance, YouTube and Maps. It's clear from the leaked images that Google is trying to make it easier for smartphone users to navigate its search site on a small screen by making it feel like a mobile app.

The upcoming change was revealed when a phoneArena reader visited google.com on his iPhone. He used the new site for a few minutes, but it quickly reverted back to the current site. The fact that the new site was live for a while suggests that Google might be close to rolling it out soon. Check out phoneArena for more pics of what the new site will look like.

Google to revamp iOS search website originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 30 May 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take That

Stadium of Light, Sunderland

The doom-mongery about the music business is put into sobering perspective by the eyewatering statistics concerning Take That's live reunion with Robbie Williams, touring with them for the first since 1995. Progress Live, named after last year's best-selling reunion album, the fastest selling of the century, is the UK's biggest stadium tour of all time.

A mind-boggling 1.76 million people will see 27 UK dates, eight of them at Wembley Stadium (breaking the record seven set by Michael Jackson's Bad tour). Some 1.34 million of those tickets were snapped up within 24 hours of going on sale, more than doubling Take That's own record, set on 2008's Circus tour. This tour involves 238 trucks, six weeks of rehearsals, a rumoured �15m budget and the Pet Shop Boys as the support band, whose scaled-down yet typically classy performance felt a bit like Michelangelo in to do the kitchen ceiling. It's hard to imagine a bigger pop event short of Britain's biggest boy-turned-manband actually playing on the moon: when an Apollo-style countdown was accompanied by a crowd noise like several hundred rockets, it felt like they were.

The opening night had been given extra bang by the sense that, if anything went wrong, it would be on a scale not seen since Williams popped out for a drink at Glastonbury and came back a decade and a half later.

Prior to the tour, the erstwhile prodigal confessed to a nerves-induced "meltdown". Then the band's head almost blew away ? that's the giant sculpture dominating the stage, not, thankfully, songwriter-leader Gary Barlow. So it felt like a bad omen when the band appeared as a quartet, before Barlow quickly explained: "We've got someone else joining us later."

Not even explosions of ticker tape, elevating platforms, glowing stages, ghost-like dancers wielding flaming torches, dancing trees, roller-skating bees, and even a giant caterpillar could match the collective gasp when Williams finally appeared, alone, carried aloft on a glass chariot.

The gigantic metal stage may well have been created from melted down unsold CDs of the former bad boy's last two wobbly solo albums, but pop has missed his showmanship and unpredictability. He delivered Let Me Entertain You and Angels so effortlessly he could have been singing in the pub, not for 54,000 people.

But when he suddenly sang "I've just done some coke and I've shagged a whore, that's what a superinjunction is for", it was hard to know whether he was heading dangerously off message or it was part of the show. Moments later, it was just like the old days. "When Robbie left?" said Howard Donald. "Sacked, not left!" his bandmate corrected him.

Grins and a group hug later, the band upstaged their jawdropping visuals with the sight of five men performing the classic pop anthems that made them ? Pray, Relight My Fire, and Back For Good ? and dancing and smiling like they'd never been away. How long the reunion will last is the multi-million dollar question. But when the quintet sang Never Forget in front of an illuminated robot so tall it towered above the stadium, it felt like that almost mythical event: a once in a lifetime pop experience.

Rating: 5/5

• Take That
• Pop and rock

Dave Simpson

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The Oil Terror Threat

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross reminds us that if al Qaeda attacked the Saudi oil supply they could still seriously damage the US economy: The kingdom relies on its Abqaiq facility to process two-thirds of its crude oil, and on two primary terminals...

Nicole Richie Norah Jones Nicky Hilton Garcelle Beauvais Kristy Swanson

Why Adam Ant is not the first pop star who likes to be beside the seaside

Adam Ant's decision to tour Britain's coastal towns marks a welcome revival of a historic pop tradition

In June, Adam Ant will embark on a five-date tour of seaside towns ? and revive a long lost tradition in the process. As an astute observer of pop culture, the Antman must know that British coastal towns provide the quintessential homegrown music experience, what with the fading Victoriana and the licence for blustery fun and ? even better ? anarchy.

The big cities might think they're at the cutting edge, but it's the seaside where British pop first thrived ? from postwar gigs to seaside brawls between mods and rockers. The mix of showbiz, cheap pills and even cheaper thrills combined to forge an English pop vision far more vivid than that created by art schools.

Growing up in Blackpool, I felt cut off from the epicentre of pop action. But if I had been a teenager in the 60s I could have seen endless Beatles gigs, watched Jethro Tull, or witness Jimi Hendrix set fire to his guitar on stage (one of only two occasions this actually happened).

The 60s was the last decade that Blackpool could be considered the second city of showbiz; even Frank Sinatra would think nothing of playing there. A few decades earlier, George Formby, the UK's biggest homegrown star, would happily live in Blackpool and perform there for months on end. He even recorded songs about the place, such as the lascivious and censor-baffling Little Stick of Blackpool Rock.

Back then, seaside towns captivated the public imagination. The Beatles would dress up for pantomime pictures on the beach in Margate and play residencies in coastal townssuch as Bournemouth. It was a huge part of the pop conveyer belt and probably a cheap thrill in the days before LSD and touring America. The Beatles never left behind the inspiration of the seaside, though. Paul McCartney is believed to have thought up Magical Mystery Tour while looking at one of Blackpool's illumination trams.

Unfortunately, by the time the Specials fell apart on their own seaside tour, the tradition was dying along with the towns themselves. Perhaps they were too old fashioned for the amphetamine-driven cynicism of the era. Morrissey, of course, wrote one of his best songs, Everyday Is Like Sunday, about a visit to Borth in Wales.

Since then, Brighton has become a hip enclave and Blackpool has bravely soldiered on as a piss-up paradise. Elsewhere, other seaside towns have become fascinating curios ignored by the showbiz and entertainment culture that was once part of their DNA. Maybe Adam Ant's jaunt will revive this tradition and more artists will feel the need to be beside the seaside.

• Adam Ant
• Pop and rock
• Blackpool

John Robb

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Thousands Flee Violence in Sudan's Abyei Region

From VOANews.com:

The United Nations reports thousands of people are fleeing the conflict in the disputed Abyei region between north and south Sudan. Aid agencies describe the situation as volatile, with sporadic shooting and looting reported.

Before northern Sudanese troops marched into Abyei and fighting erupted last week, an estimated 110,000 people lived in the town. Now, air and road patrols by UNMIS, the U.N. Mission in Sudan, report few civilians are present.

The United Nations says humanitarian organizations in Abyei have had their offices ransacked and stocks of emergency relief items looted. Many aid workers have left the area because of insecurity.

Tens of thousands of internally displaced people reportedly have poured into Southern Sudan's Warrap, Unity and Northern Bahr El Ghazal state. A spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, Jambe Omari Jumbe, says it is difficult to get an accurate count of the numbers fleeing.

"Many of them are still on the move and some of them are actually hiding in the bushes. But, according to some estimates ... we know that between 20,000 and 30,000 people are actually on the move. Many are in need of food and water and with recent heavy rains may be vulnerable to water-borne disease and infections," said Jumbe.

IOM is coordinating the delivery of emergency assistance to the internally displaced people. It is providing trucks, essential non-food relief items, fuel and medicines to support humanitarian operations.

Jumbe says a mobile clinic has been put on standby in Wau to provide help if requested by other humanitarian organizations in the area.

Read more here.

 

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A Holiday For Young Men

Don Gomez, a veteran of the Iraq War, writes that "Memorial Day is no longer an abstract holiday honoring a faceless mass of heroes from a history textbook": When once I may have thought of Memorial Day veterans as old...

Teri Hatcher Lauren Bush Natalie Zea Brody Dalle Taryn Manning

Flick Colby, Pan's People co-founder, dies

Driving force behind Top of the Pops' fondly-remembered dance troupe has died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 65

The driving force behind Top of the Pops' fondly-remembered dance troupe Pan's People has died of bronchial pneumonia at the age of 65.

Flick Colby was the dancer and choreographer credited with co-founding the group that went on to become an iconic part of British pop culture.

Before the age of the music video, which dawned with the arrival of MTV, the dance troupe provided the visual entertainment when an artist could not appear on the BBC show.

They were not the first such group to appear on the pop programme - they were preceded by the Go-Jos - but they were TOTP's first exclusive set of dancers.

And they came to be as synonymous with the much-loved chart show as cigar-chomping Jimmy Savile and the pounding Led Zeppelin theme tune.

Although Colby was an American who grew up in Clinton, New York, it was on British television that she found fame.

She joined dancers Babs Lord, Ruth Pearson and Dee Dee Wilde and recruited Louise Clarke and Andi Rutherford to form Pan's People in 1966.

At the time, their outfits were seen as somewhat skimpy and their dance routines considered daring. It was, after all, a while before audiences grew accustomed to semi-naked women shimmying provocatively in every other hip hop and dance music video.

As well as being a staple of 1960s and 1970s TOTP, Pan's People featured on a number of other TV shows, including The Two Ronnies.

Although at first Colby was both choreographing the routines and dancing with the group, she later retreated to a behind-the-scenes role only.

She would often have just a few hours to come up with a sequence for a song on TOTP, which may explain the comically literal moves the group sometimes pulled.

They last appeared on the show in April 1976, dancing to Silver Star by The Four Seasons.

When the group split after this final performance, the women were said to have remained close friends.

But Colby eventually moved back to the US, where she married and settled down in Clinton with her husband George and opened a gift shop.

When her husband died earlier this year, Colby was already seriously ill with cancer herself and she never fully recovered from her bereavement, her publicist said.

Her condition deteriorated before finally leading to the bronchial pneumonia she died of at her home in Clinton on Thursday.

Philip Day, who has been Pan's People's publicist for more than 40 years, said: "Challenging as the task was, the ladies, spearheaded by Flick, made it a pleasure.

"Never a moan, always on time and true professionals at all times. I will never see their like again."

• Dance
• BBC

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Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 2011

Release Time: 

For Immediate Release

     For over two centuries, brave men and women have laid down their lives in defense of our great Nation.  These heroes have made the ultimate sacrifice so we may uphold the ideals we all cherish.  On this Memorial Day, we honor the generations of Americans who have fought and died to defend our freedom.

     Today, all who wear the uniform of the United States carry with them the proud legacies of those who have made our Nation great, from the patriots who fought at Lexington and Concord to the troops who stormed the beaches at Normandy.  Ordinary men and women of extraordinary courage have, since our earliest days, answered the call of duty with valor and unwavering devotion.  From Gettysburg to Kandahar, America's sons and daughters have served with honor and distinction, securing our liberties and laying a foundation for lasting peace.

     On this solemn day in which Americans unite in remembrance of our country's fallen, we also pray for our military personnel and their families, our veterans, and all who have lost loved ones.  As a grateful Nation, we forever carry the selfless sacrifice of our fallen heroes in our hearts, and we share the task of caring for those they left behind.

     In his second Inaugural Address, in the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln called on our embattled Nation "to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."  On this Memorial Day, and every day, we bear a heavy burden of responsibility to uphold the founding principles so many died defending.  I call on all Americans to come together to honor the men and women who gave their lives so that we may live free, and to strive for a just and lasting peace in our world.

     In honor of our fallen service members, the Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 11, 1950, as amended (36 U.S.C. 116), has requested the President issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace and designating a period on that day when the people of the United States might unite in prayer.  The Congress, by Public Law 106 579, has also designated 3:00 p.m. local time on that day as a time for all Americans to observe, in their own way, the National Moment of Remembrance.

     NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Memorial Day, May 30, 2011, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at 11:00 a.m. of that day as a time to unite in prayer.  I also ask all Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance beginning at 3:00 p.m. local time on Memorial Day.

     I request the Governors of the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half staff until noon on this Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels throughout the United States and in all areas under its jurisdiction and control.  I also request the people of the United States to display the flag at half staff from their homes for the customary forenoon period.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-seventh day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

BARACK OBAMA

Soft Cell Beyoncé Nelly Furtado Leeann Tweeden Bali Rodriguez

Rod Stewart ? review

Newbury Racecourse

It is difficult to overstate the importance of Rod Stewart in the music world of the 1970s. Having fused hard rock, blues and killer melodies in the genuinely pioneering Faces, his reinvention as a chart-topping scream idol was little short of a masterstroke.

After drowning in a sea of schmaltz in the 1980s, Stewart has spent the last two decades coasting on past glories while playing occasional short but lucrative stadium tours that turn his peerless back catalogue into ultra-slick karaoke. The result is tonight's entertaining but ultimately frustrating spectacle of a once-great interpretive singer going lazily through the motions. At 66, he remains a snake-hipped and roguish showman, but his vocal rasp is not the force it was. His husky growl will always be affecting on lovelorn anthems such as You Wear It Well and I Don't Wanna Talk About It, but is frequently lost among the proficient grooves of his cabaret revue band.

He has not written any new material in a decade, preferring the easy option of his Great American Songbook series of classic covers, but eschews those songs tonight in favour of roustabout revisits of his well-worn past hits. As Stewart dons a polka-dot shirt and tartan jacket to boot footballs into the crowd while bellowing Hot Legs exactly as he did in 1985, it is hard to imagine a once-great artist more defiantly entrenched in his comfort zone. The closing Do Ya Think I'm Sexy transforms the whole field of baby boomers into one giant wedding disco, before he encores with the epic guff of Sailing. Stewart begins a two-year Las Vegas residency in August. They are made for each other.

Rating: 3/5

• Rod Stewart
• Pop and rock

Ian Gittins

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Joss Stone Majandra Delfino Maria Bello Jennifer Gareis Ashlee Simpson

iOS 5 to feature 'completely revamped' notifications, widgets

TechCrunch reports that iOS 5, expected to debut at WWDC next month, will feature a "completely revamped" notification system and widgets. Apple has long been rumored to be revamping its notifications system in iOS, and many have expected that such a notification system revamp would make its way into iOS 5.

The widgets functionality is somewhat a new concept, however. Besides TechCrunch's mention that there will be iOS widgets, nothing else is known about what they'll look like or what function they'll perform. MacRumors postulates that iOS widgets could "presumably provide quick access to information without the need for launching dedicated apps, much the same as Dashboard widgets in Mac OS X." They might also function similarly to a pretty cool concept video of how widgets might work in iOS.

iOS 5 to feature 'completely revamped' notifications, widgets originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 27 May 2011 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jessica White Anna Friel Monica Bellucci Minki van der Westhuizen Katharine Towne

President Obama Signs Oklahoma Disaster Declaration

Release Time: 

For Immediate Release

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Oklahoma and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms and flooding during the period of April 21-28, 2011.
 
Federal funding is available to State and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms and flooding in the counties of Adair, Cherokee, Delaware, Haskell, Le Flore, McIntosh, Muskogee, Okmulgee,  Pittsburg, and Sequoyah.
 
Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
 
W. Craig Fugate, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named William J. Doran III as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.
 
FEMA said additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the State and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
 
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  FEMA (202) 646-3272.

Giuliana DePandi Pamela Anderson Amber Arbucci Christina Aguilera Kate Hudson

Alexis Petridis on pop's worst year

It doesn't carry quite the same import as the busting of the Trafigura superinjunction, or the on-the-spot reporting from the heart of the Arab spring, but it was a great Twitter moment nonetheless: Ben Goldacre, writer of the Guardian's Bad Science column, recently announced to an aghast cyber-audience that his mum was Noosha Fox, the Goldfrapp-influencing frontwoman of 1970s pop band Fox.

He did it with enviable panache, casually mentioning it on a Twitter feed more usually concerned with the machinations of big pharma, midway through Fox performing S-s-s-Single Bed on the 1976 series of Top of the Pops, currently being repeated on BBC4. "When she married my dad it was the only time the word 'epidemiology' appeared in the music press," he added.

Soon the name Noosha Fox ? not one that's been much on the public's lips since her last hit, 34 years ago ? started trending. That's partly because it's a great obscure pop pub fact; but also because Fox's performance had already caused consternation by dint of being the only thing on said 1976 TOTP series that didn't leave you wondering if those barmy theocracies that ban all music might have a point.

I confess, I approached the repeats with considerable excitement. I like seeing old music in the context of its times: it acts as a corrective to the nostalgia industry's discreet editing of history; and, furthermore, I'm an unabashed fan of the kind of guileless, forgotten, mid-70s, medium-wave radio-pop that punk understandably, but a little unfairly, obliterated from memory (and that the first Guilty Pleasures album attempted to rescue). That means music like Fox's, Sailor's Glass of Champagne, Clout's Substitute, and Couldn't Get It Right by the Climax Blues Band.

Or at least I thought I was. It took about a minute of Sailor's follow-up to Glass of Champagne, Girls Girls Girls, to make me strongly reconsider my position on the unfairness or otherwise of punk obliterating guileless, mid-70s, medium-wave radio-pop from memory. After two, I was pretty much ready to form Sham 69 myself.

If you haven't seen it, it's difficult to express how awful TOTP ? and by extension ? pop music seems to have been in 1976. Every week, something comes on that causes you to be gripped by the absolute certainty that an unequivocal nadir has been reached and that things can only get better: second-division glam-rockers Mud going disco in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable; Dave Lee Travis's mirthless novelty record Convoy GB. It's invariably followed by something even worse: JJ Barrie's No Charge; second-division glam rockers the Rubettes going country in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable; and, my personal favourite, Paul Nicholas's awe-inspiring Reggae Like It Used to Be.

This, just to clarify, features the bloke off Just Good Friends boldly announcing that in 1976 ? the year of Lee "Scratch" Perry's Super Ape, the Mighty Diamonds' Right Time, Max Romeo's War Ina Babylon and Augustus Pablo's King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown ? the only reggae worth listening to is that made by Paul Nicholas. His jaunty presentation of this controversial theory, for which he wore a bowler hat, could only have been improved had he been forced to perform in front of an audience composed entirely of angry Rastafarians.

And yet the TOTP repeats are worth watching, largely because they throw the 2011 charts into an unexpectedly forgiving light. Recently, listening to the top 40 has seemed like a grim business. For one thing, it's become weirdly sclerotic. Singles loaf around it uselessly for months on end, until you can't imagine who's buying them. Rihanna's S&M has been in the charts for 27 weeks: surely everybody who likes it owns it by now?

For another, the top 40 is in a stage of conformity. Traditionally, you look to R&B and hip-hop for edge and sonic innovation in the charts: they're the genres that come up with the ideas pop producers subsequently steal. But pop seems to have caught up with urban music (the influence of French DJ David Guetta's brand of commercial electro-house is all-pervading) which means that everything currently sounds like everything else. Nevertheless, if you think the charts seem moribund, a cursory glance at the TOTP repeats will confirm that they're wrigglingly, obscenely alive compared to 35 years ago: a useful thing to remember next time you're confronted by the kind of bore who tells you rock and pop was, by default, better in the past.

However sick you may be of Rihanna, or Katy Perry, or whatever variation on David Guetta's brand of commercial electro-house is currently setting up camp in the top 10, you can console yourself with the fact that: a) at least it's not Paul Nicholas in a bowler hat telling Peter Tosh where to get off; and b) 12 months on from the TOTP series currently being repeated, the charts looked distinctly healthier, not just as a result of punk and new wave, but because of disco, soul and all that reggae that wasn't like it used to be. All of which proves that, even when it appears to be in its death throes, pop has a habit of reinventing itself.

• Pop and rock
• Twitter

Alexis Petridis

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Tricia Helfer Elena Lyons Brooke Burns Lena Headey Ali Larter

Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time

We're not entirely sure of the time line here, but it looks like Google has now rolled out the SPDY HTTP replacement to its full bevy of Web services, including Gmail, Docs, and YouTube. If you're currently using Google's Chrome browser you're probably already using SPDY.

We originally reported on SPDY way back in November 2009, when Google introduced it as yet another experiment in making the Web faster, like Go, Native Client and speculative pre-connections. Over the last 18 months, though, SPDY support has found its way into the stable build of Chrome.

SPDY is basically a streamlined and more efficient version of HTTP. At its most basic, SPDY introduces parallel, multiplexed streams over a single TCP connection -- but at the same time, SPDY allows for prioritization, so that vital content (HTML) can be sent before periphery content (JavaScript, video). All in all, the SPDY protocol can halve page load times, which is obviously rather significant.

The best bit, though, is that SPDY is an open-source project. HTTP 1.1 is a lumbering beast that needs to be replaced before low-latency real-time computing really becomes a reality, and SPDY is one of the best options currently on the table. To be honest, we're not sure why SPDY hasn't received more coverage -- it's awesome in every way. At the moment, though, the only way to help speed up SPDY's proliferation, is with an experimental Apache mod.

As far as actually 'trying it out,' your best bet is downloading Chrome, hitting up some Google sites, and then checking chrome://net-internals to see your active SPDY sessions. SPDY is a transparent replacement for HTTP, though, and as such it's rather hard to see its effects. Google's sites definitely feel fast in Chrome, but there are more technologies than just SPDY at work.

Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jennifer Morrison Adrianne Palicki Amanda Righetti Michelle Branch Melissa Howard