Google’s Chrome OS Is Prepared for a Netbook

Abstract: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — When a Google engineer gave top executives computers running the company’s new Chrome operating system, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, tried to hold on to his computer running an older version. “I reached to take the old one, and he reaches to grab it,” recalled Linus Upson, the vice president for engineering in charge of Chrome. “Then he realizes, ‘I don’t need it.’ ” That is because Chrome stores everything that people have on their computers — like documents, photos and e-mail — online, or in tech parlance, in the cloud. In Google’s vision of a world where all computers run on its Chrome OS, anyone can walk up to any computer with an Internet connection and gain access to all their information. If Mr. Brin was momentarily confused, it is no wonder that Google users and analysts are struggling to wrap their heads around what Google is trying to do with Chrome. It is all the more confusing because Google already has a Web browser named Chrome. And Google already has an operating system, called Android. Google says it will become clearer by the end of the year, when the company will introduce to the public a lightweight netbook computer that runs Chrome. Though Google declined to give details of the device, it is expected to be manufactured by another company and branded by Google, similar to the way Google released its Nexus phone, which runs on Android. Google has high hopes for Chrome, and as the company weathers criticism for relying too much on search advertising for revenue, its executives have been describing Chrome as one of Google’s new businesses with huge potential. With Chrome OS, Google is stepping once again into the territory of its archrivals, Microsoft and Apple, both of which make operating systems as well as widely used desktop software like Microsoft Office and Apple iPhoto and iTunes. That software would not work on Chrome computers. Instead, Chrome users would use Google’s Web-based products, like Docs, Gmail and Picasa for word processing, e-mail and photos, or software from other companies, like Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365. Google also plans to open a Chrome app store for software developers to dream up other Chrome tools. The Chrome browser, which is installed on 8 percent of all PCs, shares a name because the operating system is, essentially, the same thing as the browser. “When people look at Chrome OS, they’re going to be like, ‘It’s just a browser, there’s nothing exciting here,’ ” Mr. Upson said. “Exactly. It’s just a browser, there’s nothing exciting here — that’s the point.” Computers running Chrome OS will start in seconds, not minutes, and then users will see a browser through which applications and data can be used. Yet while Google imagines a Web-based future, analysts wonder whether Chrome’s time has passed — before Google netbooks even hit the market. When Google first talked about Chrome last year, netbooks — small, low-cost laptops with keyboards — were all the rage. But since then, smartphones and tablets — slate PCs with touch screens, like the iPad — have crushed that market. “When Google made their decision early on with the Chrome OS project, Android was in its infancy and the tablet market didn’t really exist,” said Ray Valdes, a research vice president at Gartner who studies Internet platforms. “Now things have changed, and I think Google is likely recalibrating its strategy and product mix to take that into account.” Google’s hugely successful Android operating system for mobile phones and tablets adds a level to the confusion. Chrome and Android are built by separate Google teams and the company says there is no conflict between the two. But its executives acknowledge they are not entirely sure how the two will coexist. “We don’t want to call the question and say this one does one thing, this one does another,” said Eric E. Schmidt , Google’s chief executive. “So far the model seems to be the Android solution is particularly optimized for things that involve touch in some form and Chrome OS appears to be for keyboard-based solutions.” But Mr. Upson said that Chrome OS would be a computing platform stretching to hand-held devices, tablets and TVs. “We are starting with laptops and we will expand in both directions,” he said. “Google hasn’t told a great story about how Chrome and Android live relative to each other,” said Michael Gartenberg, a Gartner research director studying consumer applications. “It’s incumbent upon Google to start telling a story that makes sense. It gets to the point of confusion that you have a lot of folks saying, ‘What’s Steve Jobs’s phone number again?’ ” Yet another source of puzzlement: even though Google has been promoting both Chrome and Android as new big businesses, they are free and open-source, meaning that hardware manufacturers don’t have to pay Google to use them on devices, and software developers don’t have to pay to use them to build their own operating systems or browsers. That actually makes perfect sense, said Sundar Pichai, vice president for product management with Chrome, because Google makes almost all its revenue from things people do on browsers. “These are enablers — platforms on which people use Google services,” Mr. Pichai said. “Both offer benefits in terms of how people can use services easily and increase usage, and that gives them a better experience and over all generates more revenue for us.” Though some people might worry about storing their private information on Google’s servers instead of their own computers, Google says Chrome is safer because security updates happen automatically and if people lose their computers, their data is inaccessible once they reset their passwords. Mr. Upson says that 60 percent of businesses could immediately replace their Windows machines with computers running Chrome OS. He also says he hopes it will put corporate systems administrators out of work because software updates will be made automatically over the Web. But the vast majority of businesses still use desktop Microsoft Office products and cannot imagine moving entirely to Web-based software or storing sensitive documents online — at least not yet. Even if Google missed the netbook craze, it may in fact be ahead of its time in imagining a Web-based future, Mr. Gartenberg said. “Android, where everything is very application-dependent, is a response to the things that are here today,” he said. “Chrome is preparing for a future when everything can be delivered through the Web.”

Software
Google Inc
Tablet Computers
Cloud Computing
Android (Operating System)
Laptop Computers
Computers and the Internet
Schmidt Eric E


Faculty Council at Rutgers Says Coach’s Punishment Is Too Lenient

Abstract: The New Brunswick Faculty Council, a group of Rutgers professors, said on Friday that punishing Kyle Flood, the head football coach, with a three-game suspension and a $50,000 fine for contacting a player’s professor to try to make the player eligible was too lenient a penalty. Although the resolution released by the council did not explicitly call for Flood to be fired, it said that the current penalty was “incommensurate with the gravity of his violations of university policies and ethical standards.” Citing the recent dismissals or suspensions of six players for reported offenses that include assault and robbery, the council said, “The apparent decline in ethical and academic standards in the football program strikes at Rutgers’ core value of integrity and is doing great harm to the reputation of the university.” The statement was a sign that the public-relations fire stemming from the off-the-field scandals has not yet been snuffed out. Last week, Rutgers outlined its punishment and released a redacted version of a report on the incident prepared by an outside law firm. The report concluded that Flood’s contact of a professor, which included a personal meeting as well as a series of emails from private accounts to shield the correspondence from public-records laws, violated a university policy barring contact between coaches and faculty members regarding academics and may have violated the university’s ethical code. Rutgers has also said it is investigating potential N.C.A.A. violations. Although neither the student nor the professor has been officially identified, the council said that the professor in question was a part-time lecturer as opposed to a tenured faculty member. This more tenuous condition of employment, it said, made Flood’s contact “much more serious ethically.” Rutgers (1-2) is hosting Kansas on Saturday and No. 2 Michigan State the next weekend. The first game Flood will be allowed to coach again under his current situation is at Indiana on Oct. 17.

Rutgers
Kyle Flood
College football
College


Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado Rips Donald Trump’s Reaction to Orlando Shooting

Abstract: John Hickenlooper , the Democratic governor of Colorado whose name has been floated as a potential vice-presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton, strongly denounced Donald J. Trump for his response to the deadly attack in Orlando, Fla. “We went through the same kind of thing,” Mr. Hickenlooper said in an interview this week, recalling the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. , in June 2012, in which 12 people were killed. He said that he was struck by Mr. Trump’s instinct to turn the Orlando shootings of more than 100 people, nearly half of whom were killed, into an exercise in self-congratulation as opposed to one of empathy. “His meanspirited response, and trying to seize the political opportunity,” Mr. Hickenlooper said of Mr. Trump, was unfair to “the injured victims and their family members.” “He cared nothing for compassion, there was no sense of dignity, and those are the things that generally a community grieving finds nourishing,” Mr. Hickenlooper said. Mr. Hickenlooper’s denouncement could serve to highlight for Mrs. Clinton’s team his instinct to battle the rival nominee, an important role that vice-presidential candidates play for the top of the ticket. So far, the role of attacking Mr. Trump has been filled with relish by Senator Elizabeth Warren , Democrat of Massachusetts, who early on painted him as “dangerous” and “a fraud.” Mr. Hickenlooper’s use of words did not rise to that level, but the governor said he believed that Mr. Trump had shown his true self this week. “To a certain extent, people’s behavior in a campaign is generally a reflection of how they would act in office,” he said.

Donald Trump
Orlando Shooting
Hillary Clinton
Elizabeth Warren
2016 Presidential Election
John W Hickenlooper


Cowboys Won’t Say If Owens Will Play

Abstract: EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — While the off-field adventures of Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo have attracted attention, Terrell Owens ’s health is a far more critical component of Sunday’s game. Owens, Dallas’s Pro Bowl receiver, who participated in a walk-through on Monday, has a sprained ankle and did not practice Wednesday, and his availability is unlikely to be known — at least by non-Cowboys — until Sunday. Team officials did not say Owens had had a setback, but they were less optimistic about his status than they were earlier in the week. “He’s trying to get better,” Cowboys Coach Wade Phillips said. “But this is sometimes a six- to eight-week injury. We’re trying to get him back in three, so that’s where we are. “You’re hopeful. But, realistically, he didn’t practice today at all.” The Giants are not buying it. “He will play,” Giants Coach Tom Coughlin said. “There is no doubt in my mind he will play.” The Cowboys would be missing a huge piece of their offense if Owens could not play or was ineffective. He sprained his ankle Dec. 22 against Carolina, and did not play in the final regular-season game. Owens had 81 catches, including 15 for touchdowns, for 1,355 yards during the regular season. In two victories over the Giants, quarterback Tony Romo threw eight touchdown passes, four to Owens. “I just know that he is a talented player that you really can’t just replace,” Romo said. GLENN EXPECTED TO PLAY The Cowboys expect to have the services of receiver Terry Glenn, who was inactive for the first 15 games of the season after having knee surgery. He played sparingly in the final game against the Redskins and did not catch a pass, but he practiced fully Wednesday. “I’m somewhat encouraged there,” Wade Phillips said. “I wouldn’t say he’s 100 percent, but he’s doing better. I think he may be able to play.” Tom Coughlin is wary about the possible impact the speedy Glenn could have. “That’s the added addition of another big-play guy, another outstanding playmaker,” he said. A FEW GIANTS MISS PRACTICE Giants cornerback Sam Madison (abdominal strain) did not practice, but center Shaun O’Hara (knee) took part in a few drills. The two missed last week’s playoff game against Tampa Bay. Right tackle Kareem McKenzie (ankle) did not practice, but he is expected back Thursday. FALCONS CONSIDER SPAGNUOLO Steve Spagnuolo, the Giants’ defensive coordinator, is a candidate for the head-coaching job of the Atlanta Falcons, but he will not be interviewed until after the Giants’ season ends. On Sunday, Spagnuolo will go head-to-head with a couple of other candidates. Jason Garrett, the Cowboys’ offensive coordinator, and Tony Sparano, Dallas’s assistant head coach/offensive line coach, were each interviewed for the Atlanta job during last week’s bye. THAT’S WHAT HE SAID HE SAID Giants quarterback Eli Manning tends to be bland, perhaps intentionally so, in his answers to reporters, but he had a news conference highlight Wednesday during an exchange about the team’s eight-game road winning streak. Reporter: What is it about the road that you like? Manning: We win on the road. Reporter: What about you personally? Manning: I like that we win on the road.

Dallas Cowboys
Owens Terrell
Football
New York Giants


500: Deadly U.S. Milestone in Afghan War

Abstract: Not long after Staff Sgt. Matthew D. Blaskowski was killed by a sniper’s bullet last Sept. 23 in eastern Afghanistan , his mother received an e-mail message with a link to a video on the Internet. A television reporter happened to have been filming a story at Sergeant Blaskowski’s small mountain outpost when it came under fire and the sergeant was shot. Since then, Sergeant Blaskowski’s parents, Cheryl and Terry Blaskowski of Cheboygan, Mich., have watched their 27-year-old son die over and over. Ms. Blaskowski has taken breaks from work to watch it on her computer, sometimes several times a day, studying her son’s last movements. “Anything to be closer,” she said. “To see what could have been different, how it — ” the bullet — “happened to find him.” For months, the Blaskowskis felt alone in watching their son die in an isolated and nearly forgotten war. And then, in June, the war in Afghanistan roared back into public view when American deaths from hostilities exceeded those in Iraq. In the face of an expanding threat from the Taliban , the conflict is becoming deadlier and much more violent for American troops, who three weeks ago reached their highest deployment levels ever, at 36,000. June was the second deadliest month for the military in Afghanistan since the war began, with 23 American deaths from hostilities, compared with 22 in Iraq. July was less deadly, with 20 deaths, compared with six in Iraq. On July 22, nearly seven years after the conflict began on Oct. 7, 2001, the United States lost its 500th soldier in the Afghanistan war. (The Pentagon says that 563 American service members have died in Operation Enduring Freedom, the umbrella term for the global American-led antiterror campaign that has the Afghanistan war at its center and includes deployments in the Philippines and Africa. Of those deaths, according to an analysis by The New York Times, 510 have occurred in Afghanistan or are directly linked to the war there.) Now, a war that had long been overshadowed by the one in Iraq is back in public view, at the forefront of both news media attention and the presidential campaign. The use of the Afghanistan war for political purposes disheartens the Blaskowskis, they say, but has at least one positive aspect. “The good thing about the heightened awareness now is that at least some of these soldiers’ names are getting out there,” Ms. Blaskowski said recently. “If anything good is coming out of that media attention, it’s that people see that they are truly human. It’s not just numbers. It’s actually brothers and sons and fathers. They’re human.” The numbers, as impersonal as they may be, are quickly mounting, and more families each week are joining the Blaskowskis in their grief. During the first three years of the war, about two-thirds of all American casualties came under so-called nonhostile conditions — illnesses, vehicle crashes and accidental discharges of weapons, for example. But that pattern flipped in 2005. Since then, about 70 percent of American casualties in Afghanistan have occurred under hostile conditions, like small-arms fire, rocket attacks and, increasingly, improvised mines and bombs. In 2007, 111 American service members were killed, the highest annual toll so far in the war. So far this year, 91 Americans have died, a rate faster than last year. At least 78 of those deaths have come in combat; by comparison, 50 were killed during the same period last year. Though Afghan security forces have suffered the vast majority of fatalities in the war, exact numbers are hard to come by. The Defense Ministry said that nearly 600 Afghan soldiers were killed from March 2005 to March 2008, the only period for which it provided statistics. The Afghan Interior Ministry, which began recording police deaths in March 2007, said 1,119 police officers were killed from March 2007 to March 2008. Late last month, the military released data showing that insurgent activity had soared, with attacks in eastern border regions up nearly 40 percent from last year. “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan,” the Atlantic Council of the United States, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to fostering ties between North America and Europe, warned in a report in January. “Unless this reality is understood and action is taken promptly, the future of Afghanistan is bleak.” The report was actually one of the more positive assessments among a deluge of critical reports on the war’s progress issued this year by international study groups. Such dark warnings, along with years of low interest in the conflict among many Americans and even political candidates, have led the families and friends of fallen American service members to wonder whether they perished for a winning cause, a losing one or, worse, a meaningless one. “It’s like people forget about us being in Afghanistan; Larry would tell me that all the time,” said David Rougle, whose brother, Staff Sgt. Larry I. Rougle, 25, of West Jordan, Utah, was killed in a Taliban ambush last October in Kunar Province. “You always hear about Iraq, but you never hear about Afghanistan.” “People have forgotten,” Mr. Rougle said. “There’s a real war going on. People are dying all the time in Afghanistan.” The War Begins to Change On Oct. 10, 2001, three days after American and British warplanes began bombing Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan to open the war, Master Sgt. Evander E. Andrews, 36, was part of a military work crew building a runway at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which was being used to stage American troops and warplanes. Sergeant Andrews was a hard-working man who grew up on his family’s farm in the small town of Solon in central Maine. “He loved the farm and he loved the cows, and he’d come home from leave and go out in the barn and take a deep breath and say, ‘Oh, that smells good!’ ” recalled his mother, Mary Andrews. “Now, who else would say that?” As a boy, he had developed a fascination for trucks and other big equipment. He joined the military to further his goal of becoming a civil engineer and was assigned to the 366th Civil Engineer Squadron of the Air Force. On that October day, a forklift was removing the tailgate of a large truck when the gate fell from the forklift’s grasp and hit Sergeant Andrews, killing him. He became the first American fatality in the war. It was a war of retaliation and pursuit. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration demanded that the Taliban government surrender Osama bin Laden, who was commanding the Qaeda network from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s refusal prompted the start of the American bombing campaign on Oct. 7. By that time, an American force numbering in the tens of thousands had been marshaled across a military theater stretching from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea to fight the new war on terror, an amorphous campaign with Afghanistan at its heart. But during the first few months, the actual American presence within Afghanistan was sparse, with much of the fighting conducted by anti-Taliban opposition groups supported by American advisers on the ground and by coalition airpower. Not only were most of the first 100 Americans to die in the war killed in accidents or illnesses rather than attacks, but almost half also died outside the main theater, across a regional network of supply bases and refueling outposts. It would be many months before combat deaths began to take a heavy toll. Mary Andrews said it had been easier to deal with her son’s death because it came as a result of an accident rather than from enemy fire. “We were thankful that he died at the hands of his own men that he loved, and not at the hands of those who hated him and hated all Americans,” she said. “If someone out of hate killed him, it’s kind of a double grief. But it wasn’t someone out of hate. It was someone who loved him, someone who cared about him.” “I’m not saying it’s easy getting along without him,” she continued, “but it’s easier to think about it that way.” After the initial bombing campaign, Afghan militia forces backed by American and other foreign troops swept the Taliban from power and, by the end of March 2002, had driven most of the surviving Qaeda and Taliban fighters across the border into Pakistan or into hiding in southern Afghanistan. Afghanistan then appeared to enter a period of relative stability. In April, President Bush made a speech promising a vast American-led reconstruction effort in the style of the Marshall Plan, and in the summer, a transitional administration was established under Hamid Karzai. American generals increased American troop levels in Afghanistan to about 9,700 by the end of the year, most with a mandate to hunt for the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. In total, 11 Americans died in connection with the war in 2001, 49 in 2002, and 46 in 2003. But meanwhile, the Taliban was quietly regrouping. Through recruitment drives in the Pashtun-dominated communities of southern Afghanistan and the madrassas of Pakistan, and low-key infiltration from Pakistan into southern Afghanistan, the Taliban began to rebuild its shrunken forces and prepare for a renewed jihad against Afghan and foreign troops. Guerrilla attacks against American troops and their allies steadily increased throughout 2002 and 2003, and in 2004, the nature of the war, and of American casualties, began to shift. Nonhostile causes continued to inflict the majority of deaths that year, including the accident from American fire in eastern Afghanistan that killed Pat Tillman, the former safety for the Arizona Cardinals and arguably the most famous American casualty in the war. But an increasing percentage of soldiers was dying from insurgent gunfire, rockets and bombs. One was Specialist Joseph A. Jeffries of the Army Reserve’s 320th Psychological Operations Company. When Specialist Jeffries was deployed to Afghanistan in February 2004, he told his family little about the danger he was facing. “He kind of led me to believe that it was more cushy than it was,” said his wife, Betsy Jeffries, who lives in Beaverton, Ore. They had married shortly before his deployment, and she was pregnant when he shipped off. His obfuscation “was his way of sheltering me,” Ms. Jeffries said, adding that her husband had joined the military to improve people’s lives. Specialist Jeffries was sent to southeastern Afghanistan to work with Special Forces soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C. Citing secrecy rules, military officials would not reveal the details of his assignments, though Special Forces units have often been engaged in dangerous tasks like hunting down the chief Taliban and Qaeda operatives. As a psychological operations expert, Specialist Jeffries would have had a variety of duties with Special Forces teams, said Tina Beller, a spokeswoman for the Army’s Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command at Fort Bragg. Such experts acted as liaisons between the Green Berets and local residents they encountered, and distributed leaflets and other information that discouraged support for the insurgency and urged support for the coalition. On May 29, 2004, Specialist Jeffries was in a Humvee returning to his base in Kandahar Province from an undisclosed mission when a series of mines planted in a mountain pass exploded near his vehicle, Ms. Jeffries said. He and three other American servicemen, including a Navy Seal and two Green Berets, were killed. Specialist Jeffries was 21. May 2004 was the beginning of a stretch of six months during which hostile acts were to blame for the majority of American deaths. Looking back, that period now appears to be something of a tipping point for American forces in the war. Nearly half of the 51 Americans killed that year died as a result of hostile action, up from about 37 percent in 2002 and 2003. And the battle was about to get far deadlier for the Americans. The Taliban Return Back home, a sense of victory in Afghanistan, however premature or misguided, had taken hold, and the war had begun to fade from the American consciousness, eclipsed by the much larger, newer American-led effort in Iraq, which began in March 2003. When Sgt. Michael J. Kelley, 26, of Scituate, Mass., announced in early 2005 that he was going to Afghanistan, members of his family were heartened that it was not Iraq, where the insurgency was already virulent and widespread, and the conflict seemed far more dangerous. Relief was a common response among parents and relatives of American soldiers deployed to Afghanistan. “You don’t hear as much about Afghanistan,” said Sergeant Kelley’s mother, Karen Kelley. Sergeant Kelley was a quiet man who read a lot, liked to draw and talked about becoming a graphic artist when he had fulfilled his military obligations. Uninterested in college, he had joined the Massachusetts Army National Guard after graduating from high school and, in his civilian life, held a series of jobs including landscaper and cellphone salesman. His mother maintained a brave face as her son left for Central Asia, accepting his assurances that he would be all right, but silently harboring a grim premonition that he would not return home. Sergeant Kelley was deployed to a small, rugged Special Forces outpost in Shkin, in the eastern border province of Paktika, where the Green Berets had been in frequent combat with Taliban rebels. As a field artillery radar operator, his duty was to use radar to locate the source of enemy mortars and rockets to guide accurate counterfire. On June 8, 2005, the base was hit with a barrage of mortars. But Sergeant Kelley had no chance to do his job. At the moment of attack, he was part of a team unloading a Chinook helicopter. The mortar hit the helicopter landing zone, spraying shrapnel and killing Sergeant Kelley and another soldier, Pfc. Emmanuel Hernandez, 22, of Yauco, P.R. “We were just fortunate that we were able to have an open casket,” Ms. Kelley said. “It brought some kind of closure because we didn’t have to wonder whether he was really in there. Other families aren’t so lucky.” The two deaths came amid a surge of fatalities. At least 27 Americans died that June, 25 from hostile causes, making it the deadliest month of the war up to that point for American service members. It remains the second deadliest month in the war for American troops, and the deadliest ranked by those who died in hostile conditions. The month also saw the single deadliest attack of the war so far for Americans: the downing of a Chinook helicopter by an insurgent’s rocket-propelled grenade, which killed all 16 service members on board. The men were on a mission to rescue a team of Navy Seals that had been reported missing in Kunar Province near the Pakistan border. In all, 95 Americans died in Afghanistan in 2005, up from 51 in 2004, and for the first time in the war, hostile deaths in Operation Enduring Freedom outpaced nonhostile deaths. The year 2005 also saw a leap in the Taliban’s use of homemade bombs — improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, in military parlance — most often buried in dirt roads. They were no less deadly than they were proving to be in Iraq. The terrain was ideal for laying traps and hiding bombs. Many American troops were based in mountainous areas that lacked paved roads, and were vulnerable to mines buried in the dirt roadways. They were often forced to conduct their patrols on foot, walking from village to village along goat paths and dried riverbeds, and through narrow rocky passes susceptible to ambushes. (This year, for the first time, more than half of all hostile deaths have been attributed to improvised explosive devices.) Beginning in 2006, the United States would begin to share the burden of casualties with its foreign partners in greater numbers than ever. That year, NATO expanded its range of military operations in Afghanistan, and thousands of British, Canadian and Dutch troops under NATO command — supplemented by Australian, Estonian, Danish and Romanian soldiers — replaced the several hundred American troops that had been trying to fend off a return of the Taliban to its former strongholds in the Pashtun heartland of the south. As the newly arriving troops began to enter the most insecure areas, they encountered a reconstituted Taliban. At least 39 British troops and 36 Canadian troops died in 2006; in the four previous years, the British had suffered five fatalities and the Canadians seven. The death toll remained high for American troops, who, by the end of 2006, numbered about 22,100, most concentrated in the east and southeast. That year, 87 Americans were killed, most in insurgent attacks, and an additional 111 in 2007. Many of the American casualties during the last two years came where American troops, with the support of the Afghan army, were pushing into areas that were under the sway of Taliban insurgents. “The areas we moved into had not had a large constant U.S. presence,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmy Carabello of the 10th Mountain Division. His battalion, the First Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, had responsibility for the security of a large mountainous swath of eastern Afghanistan from the spring of 2006 to the summer of 2007. Over the course of its deployment, the battalion established a constellation of bases and outposts in a series of rugged valleys that had served as corridors for insurgents moving men and supplies from western Pakistan. The 10th Mountain Division soldiers also built roads, schools and medical clinics, and brought government services to villages that had seen none, Sergeant Major Carabello said. The improvements stimulated local economies and began to reconnect the central government to the people of the region. But the gains came at great sacrifice to the troops. Twenty of his battalion’s soldiers were killed in the campaign, most in fighting against the Taliban, and more than 120 were wounded, Sergeant Major Carabello said. “It was a tough fight,” he said. “It was hard, tough soldiering.” Sgt. First Class Jeffrey D. Kettle, 30, of Texas City, Tex., was deployed with the Second Battalion, Seventh Special Forces Group into this same region in early 2006. It was his second rotation in Afghanistan. Sergeant Kettle was a construction and demolition engineer, his family said, and had hoped to join the elite Delta Force. He joined the Army after graduating from high school, following several relatives into the armed services, including his grandfather, who had participated in the D-Day landings in World War II. When he was a boy, he was fascinated by the military. He and one of his brothers, Clayton, would don camouflage clothes and face paint and wage mock battles against imaginary guerrillas in their neighborhood. “They would be in the bushes, in trees, on roofs,” recalled their mother, Cynthia Kettle. “I would get phone calls. ‘Cindy, don’t panic or anything, but Jeffrey is on the roof again.’ He had no fear.” Like so many other service members deployed to war zones, he tried to shield his parents from the harsher realities of his life. But during one phone conversation he revealed to his mother that the Taliban was growing stronger. “He told me, ‘Mom, they’re rebounding.’ That was the word he used, I believe,” Ms. Kettle recalled. “He said, ‘It’s going to get worse before it gets better.’ So I knew things weren’t as tame as it was put out to be.” On Aug. 12, 2007, a bomb buried by the roadway exploded near Sergeant Kettle’s vehicle in the eastern Afghanistan province of Nangarhar, killing him and two other American soldiers. “There weren’t I.E.D.s when Jeff was there the first time,” Ms. Kettle said. “And now they’re getting all the things that Iraq has and they’re bringing in those heinous ways of killing. As I gather, this I.E.D. was ridiculously large. It’s the easiest and most cowardly way of doing things.” A Search for Meaning Louis Brewster’s son, Sgt. Bryan A. Brewster, 24, of Fontana, Calif., died with nine others in May 2006 after their Chinook helicopter developed a mechanical failure and plunged into a deep ravine in Kunar Province. Ever since, Mr. Brewster has scoured the news media in a determined search for news of his son’s distant war. “Outside the Pat Tillman thing, people don’t remember it,” Mr. Brewster said. “As a father it angers me some. It angered me when he was there, especially since Iraq gets all the attention, Iraq gets all the money.” But for Mr. Brewster and many other parents and relatives, the sense of a forgotten loss is more than personal. Many are convinced that the public’s neglect of the war in Afghanistan is actually hurting the soldiers’ chances of success. “It is my sense that it is a pivotal time in this thing,” Mr. Brewster said. “I think it’s a valid war, but because it doesn’t get the attention, it doesn’t get all it needs. Consequently, I think the guerrilla war will be going for a long time.” NATO commanders have said they need at least three more brigades — more than 7,500 troops — to turn the conflict decisively in the American-led coalition’s favor. And numerous analysts, international study groups and nongovernmental organizations have warned that in the absence of a redoubled commitment by the United States’ allies, the American-led coalition’s chances of success look poor. “Afghanistan is not lost, but the signs are not good,” said the International Crisis Group, a nonpartisan group that tries to prevent global conflict, in a February report. “As a reinvigorated insurgency threatens the gains that have been made, and Western capitals, pressured by publics unwilling to accept military casualties, begin to explore endgames and exit strategies, the risk of losing Afghanistan is very real.” On the video clip from last year that the Blaskowskis have seen so many times, Sergeant Blaskowski is standing calmly with two other men at the dirt-filled bastions of their outpost, near the Pakistani border. They are wearing full body armor and their backs are to the camera as they survey the valley below, a hideout of Taliban insurgents and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting American troops had experienced in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. The camera cuts away from the men, then the sound of gunfire erupts, sending soldiers scrambling for cover. In the next shot, the gunfire has stopped and a lieutenant standing near the gabions screams for a medic. A soldier has been hit: Sergeant Blaskowski. A medevac helicopter swoops in to evacuate him to a larger base, but he is declared dead en route. The images have provided Ms. Blaskowski with “some peace,” she said, yet in the same breath she admitted to a hope that her son would come back someday. “I think it isn’t true, and he will call in the middle of the night like he used to,” she said. “We would sleep lightly to listen for that blessed phone call.” “Now,” she added, “we don’t sleep well at all.”

Afghanistan
Taliban
Afghanistan War (2001- )
United States Armament and Defense


A Virtual World but Real Money

Abstract: Correction Appended It has a population of a million. The “people” there make friends, build homes and run businesses. They also play sports, watch movies and do a lot of other familiar things. They even have their own currency, convertible into American dollars. But residents also fly around, walk underwater and make themselves look beautiful, or like furry animals, dragons, or practically anything — or anyone — they wish. This parallel universe, an online service called Second Life that allows computer users to create a new and improved digital version of themselves, began in 1999 as a kind of online video game. But now, the budding fake world is not only attracting a lot more people, it is taking on a real world twist: big business interests are intruding on digital utopia. The Second Life online service is fast becoming a three-dimensional test bed for corporate marketers, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, Nissan, Adidas/Reebok, Toyota and Starwood Hotels. The sudden rush of real companies into so-called virtual worlds mirrors the evolution of the Internet itself, which moved beyond an educational and research network in the 1990’s to become a commercial proposition — but not without complaints from some quarters that the medium’s purity would be lost. Already, the Internet is the fastest-growing advertising medium, as traditional forms of marketing like television commercials and print advertising slow. For businesses, these early forays into virtual worlds could be the next frontier in the blurring of advertising and entertainment. Unlike other popular online video games like World of Warcraft that are competitive fantasy games, these sites meld elements of the most popular forms of new media: chat rooms, video games, online stores, user-generated content sites like YouTube.com and social networking sites like MySpace.com . Philip Rosedale, the chief executive of Linden Labs, the San Francisco company that operates Second Life, said that until a few months ago only one or two real world companies had dipped their toes in the synthetic water. Now, more than 30 companies are working on projects there, and dozens more are considering them. “It’s taken off in a way that is kind of surreal,” Mr. Rosedale said, with no trace of irony. Beginning a promotional venture in a virtual world is still a relatively inexpensive proposition compared with the millions spent on other media. In Second Life, a company like Nissan or its advertising agency could buy an “island” for a one-time fee of $1,250 and a monthly rate of $195 a month. For its new campaign built around its Sentra car, the company then needed to hire some computer programmers to create a gigantic driving course and design digital cars that people “in world” could actually drive, as well as some billboards and other promotional spots throughout the virtual world that would encourage people to visit Nissan Island. Virtual world proponents — including a roster of Linden Labs investors that includes Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com; Mitchell D. Kapor, the software pioneer; and Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder — say that the entire Internet is moving toward being a three-dimensional experience that will become more realistic as computing technology advances. Entering Second Life, people’s digital alter-egos — known as avatars — are able to move around and do everything they do in the physical world, but without such bothers as the laws of physics. “When you are at Amazon.com you are actually there with 10,000 concurrent other people, but you cannot see them or talk to them,” Mr. Rosedale said. “At Second Life, everything you experience is inherently experienced with others.” Second Life is the largest and best known of several virtual worlds created to attract a crowd. The cable TV network MTV, for example, just began Virtual Laguna Beach, where fans of its show, “Laguna Beach: The Real O.C.,” can fashion themselves after the show’s characters and hang out in their faux settings. Unlike Second Life, which emphasizes a hands-off approach and has little say over who sets up shop inside its simulated world, MTV’s approach is to bring in advertisers as partners. In Second Life, retailers like Reebok, Nike, Amazon and American Apparel have all set up shops to sell digital as well as real world versions of their products. Last week, Sun Microsystems unveiled a new pavilion promoting its products, and I.B.M. alumni held a virtual world reunion. This week, the performer Ben Folds is to promote a new album with two virtual appearances. At one, he will play the opening party for Aloft, an elaborate digital prototype for a new chain of hotels planned by Starwood Hotels and Resorts. The same day, Mr. Folds will also “appear” at a new facility his music label’s parent company, Sony BMG, is opening at a complex called Media Island. Meanwhile, Nissan is introducing its Nissan promotion, featuring a gigantic vending machine dispensing cars people can “drive” around. And some of this is likely to be covered for the outside world by such business news outlets as CNet and Reuters, which now have reporters embedded full-time in the virtual realm. All this attention has some Second Lifers concerned that their digital paradise will never be the same, like a Wal-Mart coming to town or a Starbucks opening in the neighborhood. “The phase it is in now is just using it as a hype and marketing thing,” said Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, 50, a member of Second Life who in the real world is a Russian translator in Manhattan. In her second life, Ms. Fitzpatrick’s digital alter-ego is a figure well-known to other participants called Prokofy Neva, who runs a business renting “real estate” to other players. “The next phase,” she said, “will be they try to compete with other domestic products — the people who made sneakers in the world are now in danger of being crushed by Adidas.” Mr. Rosedale says such concerns are overstated, because there are no advantages from economies of scale for big corporations in Second Life, and people can avoid places like Nissan Island as easily as they can avoid going to Nissan’s Web site. There is no limit to what can be built in Second Life, just as there is no limit to how many Web sites populate the Internet. Linden Labs makes most of its money leasing “land” to tenants, Mr. Rosedale said, at an average of roughly $20 per month per “acre” or $195 a month for a private “island.” The land mass of Second Life is growing about 8 percent a month, a spokeswoman said, and now totals “60,000 acres,” the equivalent of about 95 square miles in the physical world. Linden Labs, a private company, does not disclose its revenue. Despite the surge of outside business activity in Second Life, Linden Labs said corporate interests still owned less than 5 percent of the virtual world’s real estate. As many as 10,000 people are in the virtual world at a time, and they are engaged in a gamut of ventures: everything from holding charity fund-raisers to selling virtual helicopters to operating sex clubs. Linden also makes money on exchanging United States dollars for what it calls Linden dollars for around 400 Linden dollars for $1 (people can load up on them with a credit card). A typical article of clothing — say a shirt — would cost around 200 Linden dollars, or 50 cents. As evidence of the growth of its “economy,” Second Life’s Web site tracks how much money changes hands each day. It recently reached as much as $500,000 a day and is growing as much as 15 percent a month. On Tuesday, a Congressional committee said it was investigating whether virtual assets and incomes should be taxed. But many inhabitants simply hang out for free. For advertisers worried about the effectiveness of the 30-second TV spot and the clutter of real world billboards and Internet pop-up ads, Second Life is appealing because it is a place where people literally immerse themselves in their products. Steve F. Kerho, director of interactive marketing and media for Nissan USA, said the Second Life campaign was part of a growing interest in online video games. “We’re just trying to follow our consumer, that’s where they’re spending their time,” Mr. Kerho said. “But there has to be something in it for them — it’s got to be fun; it’s got to be playful.” Projects like the Aloft hotel, an offshoot of Starwood’s W Hotels brand, are designed to promote the venture but also to give its designers feedback from prospective guests before the first real hotel opens in 2008. The new Sony BMG building has rooms devoted to popular musicians like Justin Timberlake and DMX, allowing fans to mingle, listen to tunes or watch videos. Sony BMG is also toying with renting residences in the complex, as well as selling music downloads that people can listen to throughout the simulated world. Sibley Verbeck, chief executive of the Electric Sheep Company, a consultancy that designed the Aloft and Sony BMG projects, said the flurry of corporate interest stemmed from the 10 to 20 percent growth in the number of people who had gone into virtual worlds each month for the last three years. Though exact numbers are difficult to come by, the figure should top a few million by next year, he said. The spread of these worlds, however, is limited by access to high-speed Internet connections and, in Second Life’s case, software that is challenging to master and only runs on certain models of computers. “If it doesn’t crash and burn then it will become real,” he said. “So now’s the time to start experimenting and learning ahead of your competition.” As part of that process, businesses are learning that different rules apply when they venture into an arena where audiences are in control. “Users are the content — that’s the thing that everybody has a hard time getting over,” said Michael Wilson, the chief executive of Makena Technologies, which operates the virtual world There.com and helped build Virtual Laguna Beach. For example, Sun Microsystems kicked off the opening of its Second Life venue with a press conference online hosted by executives and Mr. Rosedale of Linden Labs. But by the time the event was in full swing, several members of the audience had either walked or flown onto the stage, where they were running roughshod over the proceedings. Even Mr. Rosedale got in on the act: he conjured a pair of sunglasses that he superimposed on a video image of a Sun representative talking on a screen behind the stage. (In virtual world lingo, such high jinks are known as “griefing.”) Some corporate events have been met with protests by placard-waving avatars. And there is even a group called the Second Life Liberation Army that has staged faux “attacks” on Reebok and American Apparel stores. (The S.L.L.A. says it is fighting for voting rights for avatars — as well as stock in Linden Labs.) Companies in this new environment have to get used to the idea that they may never know exactly who they are dealing with. Most of those in Second Life have chosen their names from a whimsical menu of supplied surnames, resulting in monikers like Snoopybrown Zamboni and Bitmason Pimpernel; males posing as female avatars and vice versa are not uncommon. Another issue companies have to contend with is that their brands may already be in these virtual worlds, but illegally. Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, said one Second Life habitué created a virtual reproduction of the Ikea catalog to help people decorate their digital pads. Mr. Verbeck of Electric Sheep said copyright infringement was rampant. His company runs an online boutique where Second Life residents sell each other pixelized creations of everything from body parts to home furnishings to roller skates — many of them unauthorized knockoffs. So far, the boutique has not had many requests to stop selling fake products. But “we did have a request from the Salvador Dali Museum — which was great,” Mr. Verbeck said. “Second Life is so surreal that it was perfect.”

Virtual Reality (Computers)
Advertising and Marketing
Computer and Video Games
Computers and the Internet


Muslims Will Judge Obama by Actions More Than Words

Abstract: WASHINGTON — It is too soon to tell whether President Obama ’s 55-minute speech to the Muslim world from Cairo will be the balm to America’s broken relationship with Islam that White House officials hope. Some early signs are promising — and not just that several times someone in Mr. Obama’s audience in the domed hall yelled out, “I love you!” Mr. Obama drew applause by promising that America will never be at war with Islam. While maintaining that the United States will continue to fight terrorism and will not shy away from its alliance with Israel , he also invoked the name “Palestine” several times to refer to a Palestinian state. He called publicly for an end to Israeli settlements in the West Bank , and drew parallels between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, embracing all the children of Abraham. But one thing is already clear. While Mr. Obama’s strong words may resonate today, on the Arab street and in the madrassas and the tea shops and dining tables where the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims congregate, the future actions of Mr. Obama will be far more important. For all the talk right now about how much President Bush alienated the Muslim world, Bush administration officials, from the president on down, publicly said nice things about America and Islam as well. Remember Mr. Bush’s stirring speech, in the early days after September 11? Speaking before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 20, 2001, Mr. Bush sounded eerily similar to Mr. Obama today. “I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world,” he said. “We respect your faith. It’s practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful. And those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying in effect to hijack Islam itself.” “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends,” Mr. Bush said, to applause. “It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.” In the seven more years that he would govern the United States, Mr. Bush would often repeat those words, or ones similar. So too would his advisers. And yet, America’s relationship with Muslims continued to deteriorate. Ultimately, policies matter more than words, many Muslim scholars say. They point to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , the Bush administration’s decision to delay calling for a ceasefire back in the summer of 2006 when Israel was pounding Hezbollah targets in Lebanon , America’s refusal to support a Palestinian national unity government that included the militant Islamist organization, Hamas , despite the fact that the United States had initially pushed for those same elections, expecting Hamas to lose. For Mr. Obama’s words to mean anything, they say, American policy will have to change. And as gifted an orator as the president is, changing the behemoth of United States foreign policy is no easy task, particularly since America’s interests, in many ways, remain the same no matter who is in the White House. Mr. Obama, while calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq (a plus in the minds of many Muslims) has increased the number of American troops in Afghanistan (a minus for many Muslims). He was noticeably silent during the Israeli siege of Gaza earlier this year, which many Muslims revile as disproportionate. During the Cairo speech on Thursday, he repeated the Bush era ban against official American dealings with Hamas, reiterating that his government won’t engage Hamas until it meets conditions imposed by the Bush administration, the European Union , Russia and the United Nations . Whether Mr. Obama can find a way to maneuver between America’s entrenched foreign policy and his own bold vision for trying to forge a peace between America and Islam—and Israel and Palestine, for that matter—may well end up becoming the benchmark against which his presidency will be judged in the Muslim world. “ ‘Show me the money’ is the attitude of the Arab and the Muslim world,” said Ziad Asali, president of the American Task Force on Palestine. But, he added, that Mr. Obama has some credibility at the moment. He pointed to the brewing fight between the Obama administration and Israel on settlements. “This is going to be the litmus test.”


Zimbabwe: Terror Warrant Leads to the Detention of 2 Pakistanis

Abstract: The police in Zimbabwe said Friday that they had detained two Pakistani men heading to South Africa, one of them under an international arrest warrant for terrorism, the state-owned newspaper The Herald reported. Experts have said that even a small attack at the World Cup, which runs until July 11 in South Africa, would get a huge amount of attention. The two men flew from Saudi Arabia to Tanzania, where they fraudulently acquired Kenyan passports before traveling to Zimbabwe by road last weekend. They were detained at the Beitbridge border. The Herald, quoting unnamed security officials, said the terrorism suspect was based in Santiago, Chile.


Georgia: Hostage-Taker Began Ruse in Bed

Abstract: The man who took five firefighters hostage in Suwanee on Wednesday lured them to his home by saying he had a medical emergency and was lying in bed when they arrived to help, police said on Thursday. The man, identified as Lauren Brown, 55, soon flashed a handgun and held the firefighters at gunpoint, said Chief Charles Walters of the Gwinnett County police, and demanding that they help get his power, cable television and cellphone service restored. The standoff ended with gunfire and Mr. Brown was killed.


Intel’s Results Reflect Move to Cloud Computing

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — The Intel Corporation is changing with the times. Intel became the world’s biggest producer of semiconductors thanks mostly to personal computers, which eventually led to chips for server computers. Now, the new hot trend of cloud computing — data centers filled with tightly connected servers — is remaking Intel. On Tuesday, Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif., said that in the three months that ended Sept. 26, PC chips brought in $8.5 billion and chips for servers in cloud computing data centers brought in $4.1 billion. A year ago, PC chips brought in $9.2 billion and data center chips brought in $3.7 billion. The shifting businesses at Intel reflect broader changes in the computing industry, and what Intel chooses to focus on can affect the choices of many other companies. PC sales are in a long decline, as customers increasingly use online services connected to mobile devices. While Microsoft and others try to revive the market with new designs and tabletlike models, in the most recent quarter worldwide PC shipments fell 10.8 percent from the year before, according to IDC. Making PC chips is still a big business, but not the way it once was. The data center group also has much higher profit margins: Operating profit from PC chips was $2.1 billion, down 20 percent from a year ago, while data center chips had an operating profit of $2.1 billion, up 9 percent. That matters, because Intel is already stressing products in networking and advanced cloud systems, to feed the profitability of cloud systems as PCs continue to wane. That means cloud computing leaders like Amazon and Google could benefit even more, and expand their online operations. Having missed much of the market for chips in mobile devices, Intel is also investing in sensors for devices connected to cloud systems. “If you zoom out, we’re not a PC company anymore,” Stacy J. Smith, Intel’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “We still work with PC companies, but we’re deeply involved in automotive, wearables, all kinds of new devices.” Last month, Intel even sponsored Fashion Week in New York, stressing the convergence of clothing and computing. Intel’s net income for the third quarter was 64 cents a share, above the projections of Wall Street analysts. According to a survey by Thomson Reuters, analysts thought Intel would make 59 cents a share, down from 66 cents a year ago. Revenue was $14.5 billion, down slightly from $14.6 billion a year ago, and above projections of $14.2 billion. Intel shares were down about 3.5 percent in after-hours trading, in part because of a projected fourth-quarter dip in demand from cloud companies. “The Intel story has become a tale of two divisions,” said Bill Kreher, an analyst with Edward Jones. “Data centers show incredible headway. There will come a time soon when it will outweigh PC chips.” That doesn’t mean doom for Intel, as the unexpected profitability suggests. All those connected devices increasingly talk with companies that use cloud computing technology and Intel makes most of the chips that go into the servers in the data centers of cloud systems. It does mean Intel has to work hard to be a different company. “About 30 percent of our server business is now to cloud companies, and growing at a fast clip,” said Diane Bryant, head of Intel’s data center group, in a recent interview. “It’s the new opportunity for our revenue stream.” Intel is trying to enter the mobile business and sensors too, so far with little impact. The shift to more data center chips means lots of things will change for Intel, not least the kinds of customers it works with. Intel’s mix of cloud-computing customers shows how much influence is wielded by just a handful of big operations. Of 200 cloud company customers that Intel tracks, just seven take one-third of those chips: Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Facebook, as well as Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent of China. While the rest are now growing at twice the rate of the top seven, Ms. Bryant said, the big companies are unusually demanding customers, even designing their own chip modifications to make their global clouds work better. “More and more of them have custom microprocessors from us,” she said. “What is really different is the pace of their market. They deploy our next-generation processors six months before we formally launch them, buying tens of thousands of chips that they ship to themselves.” In addition, from all the cloud companies 80 percent of every new major purchase is for a more powerful chip. The newer and more powerful chips tend to have even higher profit margins, and also spur Intel to develop new things faster. Last week Amazon announced it would soon have Intel’s most powerful chip available in its cloud. The changes come while Intel’s traditional customers undergo their own radical changes. On Monday Dell, a big maker of servers and PCs, announced it was buying the data storage giant EMC. On Nov. 2, the server and storage businesses of Hewlett-Packard will split off from its PC business, in what top executives hope is a move for a faster-moving business. Intel may also face new competitors in the cloud business. Last week Qualcomm, a major producer of chips for smartphones, announced a big move into chips that work well in cloud systems.

Intel
Cloud computing
Computer Chip
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


French Court Orders Criminal Trial for EADS Shareholders

Abstract: PARIS — A French court on Monday ordered the German carmaker Daimler and the French media conglomerate Lagardère to face a criminal trial on allegations of insider trading in the 2006 sale of shares in the European aerospace and defense group EADS. In a civil ruling in 2009 on similar accusations, the French stock market regulator cleared both companies and more than a dozen executives of civil allegations. The move on Monday capped a seven-year criminal inquiry by French investigative judges into the two companies — former shareholders of the European aerospace group — as well as seven current and former executives of EADS and its Airbus subsidiary. The defendants, all of whom deny wrongdoing, are accused of having been aware of serious manufacturing problems with the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet when they sold EADS shares in March 2006, three months before those troubles became public and the company’s shares tumbled. The troubles ultimately resulted in a three-year delay in the A380 program, leading to a reshuffling in management, the elimination of 10,000 jobs and more than $6 billion in losses. Representatives for Daimler, Lagardère and EADS expressed surprise at the decision to proceed with a criminal trial in light of the regulator’s findings four years ago. In a statement, EADS gave its “full support and confidence” to the accused managers, a group that includes John Leahy, the head of commercial jet sales at Airbus. EADS itself has never faced allegations of wrongdoing in the case. Image An Airbus assembly plant in Toulouse, France, where the A380 is assembled. The jet was delayed three years. Credit Yoan Valat/European Pressphoto Agency Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, identified the other people charged in the case as Noël Forgeard, a former EADS co-chief executive; Jean-Paul Gut, a former EADS chief operating officer and board member; Olivier Andriès, a former Airbus vice president; and Erik Pillet, a former Airbus director of human resources. Andreas Sperl, a former financial director at Airbus who now heads a freighter unit at EADS, and Alain Flourens, a former head of the main Airbus engineering centers who now runs the A380 program, were also charged. Insider trading is rarely prosecuted in France, and its penalties tend to be significantly lower than those in the United States and some other countries. In the case of a conviction, fines generally do not exceed the amount of profit made, and those convicted seldom, if ever, face a prison sentence. “No one will go to jail in a case like this,” said Stéphane Bonifassi, a lawyer in Paris who specializes in white-collar crime cases. The trial is expected to begin next year. The case against Mr. Leahy and the six former executives centers on a series of EADS board meetings in February and March 2006, at which A380 assembly line problems were discussed. The meetings occurred shortly before a period in which the executives were allowed to exercise share options. In its investigation, France’s Financial Markets Authority said it had found no evidence that what the executives were told about the A380’s troubles at that time was detailed enough for a “reasonable investor” to anticipate a significant drop in the share price. The allegations against Lagardère and Daimler date to communications the two companies had with French and German officials beginning in November 2005, in which they expressed their intentions to reduce their stakes in EADS by 7.5 percent each. That was four months before details of the divestment — which took place in April 2006 — became public and roughly seven months before the A380’s problems were announced that June. The French regulator’s investigation found no evidence linking the companies’ stock sales to knowledge of the A380 problems. The sales by Daimler and Lagardère — Daimler once owned 30 percent and Lagardère 15 percent of shares — signaled the first in a series of gradual divestments that culminated this year in the sale of all their remaining holdings in EADS. While it is unusual for the French prosecutors to seek a criminal conviction in cases where regulators have failed to find wrongdoing, it is not unprecedented. In 2002, the American financier George Soros was fined 2.2 million euros, or $2.98 million, by a French court that found he had illegally profited from privileged information about a 1988 takeover bid for the bank Société Générale. A 1989 inquiry by the Commission des Opérations de Bourse — a predecessor of the Financial Markets Authority — found no evidence of insider trading under the rules in place at the time. Mr. Soros ultimately paid a fine of less than €1 million.

EADS
Insider trading
Airbus
Daimler AG
Lagardere SCA


Guards Charged in Smuggling

Abstract: SAN DIEGO — Two men working as security guards for a company under contract to the Border Patrol were arraigned Wednesday in federal court here on charges that they had agreed to accept a bribe to smuggle two illegal immigrants into Los Angeles instead of returning them to Mexico. The men, Christopher Saint-Lucero and Manley Lamont Smith, work for the Wackenhut Corporation, the giant security firm that in 2006 signed a multimillion-dollar contract with the federal government to transport illegal immigrants. The men, both former marines, are accused of conspiring to accept a bribe of $5,000 to take two prisoners to Los Angeles. The guards believed the prisoners were illegal immigrants from El Salvador, but one was actually an undercover Border Patrol agent who prosecutors said had received a tip that Mr. Smith was running a smuggling operation. According to court documents, Mr. Smith was assigned last Sunday to take a group of immigrants to Mexico from a detention facility in Chula Vista, Calif. When the group arrived at the border, the undercover agent and a Salvadoran immigrant were refused entry to Mexico, the court documents state. On the way back to the detention center, the documents state, the undercover agent asked Mr. Saint-Lucero to “give them a break.” He said he could arrange for Mr. Saint-Lucero and Mr. Smith to be paid a total of $5,000 to take him and the other man to Los Angeles. Prosecutors said that Mr. Smith and Mr. Saint-Lucero then made arrangements to hide and transport the men, and that Mr. Smith told another Border Patrol agent that he had successfully completed 10 similar operations. After the guards removed the undercover agent’s handcuffs, he identified himself and arrested them, prosecutors said. The charges, conspiracy to transport illegal immigrants, carry a maximum sentence of 10 years. Marc Shapiro, a Wackenhut vice president, declined to comment.

Smuggling
Illegal Immigrants
San Diego (Calif)


Early Exits Loom for A-List Goalies

Abstract: After being bombarded by the Penguins, after skating off the ice to boos, after being pulled from a playoff game at home, Henrik Lundqvist brooded at the end of the Rangers’ bench. He traded his goalie mask for a cap, his stoicism for a scowl. He was too enraged to even remove his blocker, too detached to watch the two-on-one unspooling right in front of him. The Rangers are supposed to hold the advantage in goal most nights when Lundqvist plays, but especially in this series, with Pittsburgh’s starter, Marc-Andre Fleury, sidelined by a concussion. Fleury’s unavailability has indeed illuminated an edge at the position — for the Penguins, who lead the series three games to one. This has been an odd little playoffs so far. The goalies with pedigrees, with their names engraved on the Vezina Trophy and the Stanley Cup, are in danger of exiting soon, while less accomplished netminders are preserving their teams’ survival. Out West, the two-time Cup winner Jonathan Quick of the Kings is lagging behind the Sharks’ Martin Jones, who backed him up last season. One more misstep by the Blackhawks and the Kings, perennial favorites who have represented the Western Conference in the last four Cup finals, will send them careening out of the first round. In the East, as Braden Holtby dominates for the Capitals and Ben Bishop for the Lightning, Lundqvist is being outplayed by a 21-year-old rookie who, until Tuesday, had never appeared in the postseason. Since then, that rookie, Matt Murray, has saved 47 of 48 shots, including all 31 in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal Thursday, when he shoved the Rangers toward the abyss in a 5-0 victory that was more lopsided than the score suggested. Two days after winning his first playoff game, Murray recorded his first postseason shutout, and afterward, he was asked what it’s like to be him. He chuckled. “That’s a weird question,” he said. To be Murray means standing behind a lectern at a news conference in his socks, with his cap backward and a towel draped around his neck. It means radiating a preternatural calmness that permeates the locker room. It means anticipating puck movement so astutely, surveying the play so precisely, that he always squares up the shooter. “He has a quiet confidence,” Coach Mike Sullivan said. “He knows he’s good.” In Fleury, Murray and the third-stringer Jeff Zatkoff, who started the first two games of this series while Murray recovered from a concussion sustained in the regular-season finale, Sullivan has three viable options. He has three goalies he trusts. It is a luxury, an indulgence, but also a necessity. Whether compelled by injury or ineffectiveness, more coaches seem willing in these playoffs to make changes in goal, and their teams are enduring, or thriving, as a result. Antti Niemi made his 2016 postseason debut for the Stars in Game 4, swiping an away victory to send the Wild to the brink of elimination. Since replacing Steve Mason with Michael Neuvirth after losing the first three games against Washington, the Flyers have won two straight to climb back into the series. The Ducks, after losing their first two games to the Predators with John Gibson in net, switched to Frederik Andersen, who responded by saving 57 of 58 shots to help Anaheim even the series at two games apiece. Come playoff time, teams’ goalie situations are usually set: The entrenched starter starts and the backup backs up, and rarely are the roles reversed. Already this postseason, six teams have used more than one goalie, and the Penguins could wind up deploying more than two, Fleury’s health permitting. The Penguins have not announced their plans for Game 5 on Saturday in Pittsburgh, but Murray factors into them. Expecting to face more than the 17 shots he saw in Game 3, Murray blocked that many through two periods Thursday — including an excellent opportunity, a one-timed rebound by Eric Staal, a fellow native of Thunder Bay, Ontario — before completing his masterpiece. “He’s been thrown into a lot of new situations at a young age, with a lot of pressure,” center Sidney Crosby said. “And I think even the way he plays, it almost looks like it’s part of his game.” Murray called it “a conscious effort” to maintain his equanimity, a process he has been refining since Pittsburgh drafted him in the third round in 2012, the 10th goalie chosen. He dominated the American Hockey League, compiling the longest shutout streak in league history — 304 minutes 11 seconds — before earning a promotion this season, supplanting Zatkoff as Fleury’s backup. Eventually, Murray could become Fleury’s successor, though that topic is too hypothetical, too distant, for him to wonder about. He permitted himself to acknowledge that the past few days have been “exciting, obviously” and “pretty cool” and “pretty emotional,” but said he was able to recalibrate his focus within minutes of the game ending. One more victory, and he will dismiss Lundqvist, the Rangers and the notion of their perceived superiority in goal. With Fleury, the Penguins were contenders. Without him? Not a thing has changed.

Playoffs
Rangers
Matt Murray
Ice hockey
Pittsburgh Penguins


Focus on Names Misses the Steroids Story

Abstract: The feeding frenzy is on. As George Mitchell gets closer to writing and issuing his report on the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball, the prospect of seeing names in the report has people in Major League Baseball nervous and the news media tingling with anticipation. An incident last week demonstrates the focus on names, names, names. A report Thursday on the Boston Globe’s Web site, citing two player agents as sources, said that union officials had briefed agents at a meeting in New York on Wednesday and told them that 11 free agents would be named in the Mitchell report.  My reaction went beyond skepticism. There was no way, I believed, that the union knew what players would be named in the report. They knew which players Mitchell wanted to talk to, and they knew that none of those players had talked to Mitchell’s investigators. But they had no idea if Mitchell would name them in his report. At this point, Mitchell himself may not know what he plans to do. He may not have decided just how juicy he will ultimately make the report. So there was no way union officials could have said what they were quoted as having said. When union officials, who had moved on from New York to Los Angeles for another agents meeting, were reached Thursday night and asked about the Globe report, they explained what they had told the agents and why they told them. It goes like this: Earlier in the week, at their annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla., baseball’s general managers had been asked by reporters if the possibility of players being named in the Mitchell report would have a negative impact on the free-agent market. At least one general manager said it might affect his thinking. Noticing that response, union officials checked the two lists they had — the 139 players who at that point had filed for free agency and the dozens of players Mitchell had invited to meet with his investigators — and found that only 11 names matched. From the union’s point of view, this was good news, because 11 names out of a far larger group of free agents did not seem likely to have an inhibiting effect on the free-agent market. That was the message they conveyed to the agents at the Wednesday meeting. But not all agents are Rhodes scholars, and two left the meeting with a garbled message. Good luck to their clients this winter. By the time the accurate story got out, the inaccurate story had gained widespread circulation. Even in more accurate reports, emphasis was placed on the idea that 11 players could be named, not that the number was probably too small to have an impact on the free-agent market. Which is the sexier story? The names, of course. In recent months, players have been named as having received shipments of performance-enhancing substances from a group of clinics and pharmacies that have been the subject of an investigation by the Albany County district attorney. Not all of the substances were banned by baseball when the players were said to have received them, but they are now. The names of these players have emerged in a curious manner, the way water drips from a leaky faucet, mostly one at a time, mostly to different news outlets and often at times that made the names bigger news than they might have been at other times. Paul Byrd, a Cleveland pitcher, was named in a newspaper report on the day of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series against Boston. Rick Ankiel of St. Louis was named at the height of his, and the Cardinals’, remarkable comebacks. Ankiel was hitting better than .350, and the Cardinals were only a game out of first.  The way the names have been leaked would suggest that no news outlet has all of the names on the district attorney’s list. Rather, it appears that someone, or more than one person, with access to the list has leaked them selectively to embarrass the players. In no steroids investigation have players been the targets. The Balco investigation by the United States attorney in San Francisco centered on steroids distributors, not players. Barry Bonds — remember him? — has been singled out not for steroids use but for the possibility that he perjured himself in his grand jury testimony about steroid use. One theory that would explain the leaks of the names linked to the pharmacy and clinic shipments is that one or more persons involved in the investigation are not satisfied that the players aren’t targets and want to make sure the public and baseball become aware of their suspected involvement. But whatever the motivation, it’s all about the names. Anyone leaking the names knows the news media live for the names. When Mitchell issues his report, he could make reporters’ jobs easier by listing all of the names he includes in an index at the front of the book, giving page numbers for each. He could list them alphabetically, he could group them by teams, he could group them by positions. That way no one would have to spend — waste — time wading through the report to dig out all of the names. The aim of the game, after all, is to get the names, right?

Steroids
Major League Baseball
Mitchell George
Byrd Paul
Ankiel Rick
Bonds Barry
Athletics and Sports


Adding the Sun, Moon and Stars to Google Calendar

Abstract: Q. How can I automatically add the solstices and equinoxes to my Google calendar without having to manually enter them? A. You can easily add solstices, equinoxes, moon phases, holidays and more to your Google calendar in a few ways. For one, the Google Calendar screen itself includes a drop-down menu in the Other Calendars area on the left side of the screen. Click the menu arrow there and select “Browse Interesting Calendars” to see lists of holiday, sports and other types of calendars you can add. The More tab has calendars for the phases of the moon, sunrise and sunset times, and even the stardate system used in the “Star Trek” universe. Click the Preview link to see a sample or the Subscribe link to add a selected item to your Google Calendar. You can also subscribe to online calendars made by other people and have the dates appear in your Google Calendar alongside your other events and appointments. To add an online calendar, you need to find one in the iCalender/iCal (.ics) format . Once you do, go to the Other Calendars drop down menu to “Add by URL” and paste in that calendar’s web address. Several astronomical calendars can be found around the web with a quick search. For example, the iCalShare and CalendarLabs sites have assorted calendars you can browse and add to your Google datebook. Another option, the Full Moon Phase and Astronomy Calendar , includes the dates for solstices, equinoxes, moon phases, meteor showers and similar events. Cleaning Up the Mac OS X Dashboard Q. I have some Dashboard widgets on my Mac that just don’t work anymore. How do I get rid of them? A. Dashboard — Apple’s Mac program for “widgets” that display data nuggets like stock prices and weather forecasts — arrived with Mac OS X 10.4 back in 2005 . While Dashboard is still a part of the current version of OS X (Yosemite), some widgets have fallen by the wayside as their developers have moved on, but you can remove them from the screen with a click or two. Go to the Dashboard by clicking its icon in the Dock or starting it from the Mac’s Applications folder; depending on your hardware, you may also be able to open it from a special keyboard key or by swiping the Mac’s trackpad. On the Dashboard screen, click the minus (-) icon in the lower-left corner. A small black “x” button should appear on the corner of each Dashboard widget icon. Click the “x” for each widget you want to remove from the group. Click the Escape key (or the arrow icon on the right side of the screen) to leave the Dashboard. Apple still maintains a Downloads page for new widgets if you want to refresh your collection. To add new items, click the plus (+) icon on the Dashboard screen (which shows your current widget crop) and click the More Widgets button.

Google
Calendar
Apple
Computers and the Internet
Tech Industry


U.N. Agency Gives Boost to WiMax

Abstract: PARIS, Oct. 19 — The United Nations telecommunications agency in Geneva gave the upstart technology called WiMax a vote of approval, providing a sizable victory for Intel and something of a defeat for competing technologies from Qualcomm and Ericsson. The International Telecommunication Union’s radio assembly agreed late Thursday to include WiMax, a wireless technology that allows Internet and other data connections across much broader areas than Wi-Fi, as part of what is called the third-generation family of mobile standards. That endorsement opens the way for many of the union’s member countries to devote a part of the public radio spectrum to WiMax, and receivers for it could be built into laptop computers, phones, music players and other portable devices. Unlike Wi-Fi, this mobile Internet technology can hand off a signal from antenna to antenna, thus allowing a device to hold a connection while in motion. WiMax potentially can move data at 70 megabits a second across 65 kilometers, or 40 miles. Current fixed-line broadband connections have speeds of about 2 megabits a second. The approval, which came in the form of a consensus of the radio assembly ahead of the World Radiocommunication Conference next week in Geneva, gives WiMax a leg up on Ultra Mobile Broadband, an alternative technology from Qualcomm, and Long-Term Evolution, an equivalent from Ericsson. Intel has been promoting and investing in WiMax for the last three years and led “a pretty substantial amount of lobbying” to prove its case and get the union’s stamp on the technology, said Sriram Viswanathan, vice president of Intel Capital, the company’s strategic investment program, and general manager of its WiMax business. The radio technology is the first to be added to the specifications for third-generation radio standards since the union approved them a decade ago. Even before the union’s endorsement, WiMax had been gathering momentum with Intel’s weight behind it. Lenovo, Acer and a few other makers of personal computers recently committed to using Intel’s WiMax chips, which are expected to reach the market in May. Nokia said last month that it would make its N-series of tablet devices with WiMax when they go on sale next year. Japan, Britain and Switzerland have scheduled auctions in the coming months to allocate licenses in the radio frequency in which WiMax operates, 2.5 to 2.69 gigahertz. But WiMax is not universally cheered. Gary D. Forsee resigned as chief executive of Sprint Nextel last week amid doubts about his strategy, which includes $5 billion to roll out a commercially unproven WiMax network. Sprint Nextel’s WiMax partner, Clearwire, introduced an access card this week for laptops for its high-speed network. Qualcomm said Friday that it "remains dedicated" to providing the technologies, including WiMax, that its operators choose.

WiMax
International Telecommunication Union
Wireless Communications
Cellular Telephones
Intel Corp
Qualcomm Inc


Emilio Massera, Argentina Junta Leader, Dies at 85

Abstract: BUENOS AIRES — Emilio Massera, a leader of the military junta of Argentina ’s bloody dictatorship and the former head of the country’s most notorious political prison, where an estimated 5,000 people were tortured and killed, died here on Monday. He was 85. His death, at a naval hospital, was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, an army spokesman said. Mr. Massera had been mostly bedridden since 2002, when he had a stroke. He had been treated for a heart condition and dementia for years. Mr. Massera, along with Jorge Videla and Orlando Agosti, formed the military junta that, on March 24, 1976, ousted President Isabel Perón, widow of Juan Domingo Perón, the founder of the country’s populist movement. Known by some historians as the “grand orator” of the dictatorship for his captivating rhetoric, Mr. Massera operated the Naval Mechanics School, a clandestine prison known as ESMA where thousands of political prisoners were tortured over the six years of the regime, which collapsed in 1983. Mr. Massera was “the most sinister character in our history because he was a serial assassin, without exaggeration,” Osvaldo Bayer, an Argentine historian, said in a radio interview. “He took advantage of his uniform for power and money.” A federal court convicted him in 1985 of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to life in prison. Then, in 1990, President Carlos Menem granted him and other coup leaders amnesty in what Mr. Menem called a gesture of reconciliation. Born in Buenos Aires in 1925, Mr. Massera was educated at Argentina’s elite naval academy and became a midshipman in 1946. He rose to the rank of full admiral and commander in chief under Mrs. Perón in 1974. In that post, he pressed Mrs. Perón to fight urban guerrilla groups, persuading her to push for laws to beef up security and to stop the insurgents at any cost. He was ruthless in enforcing measures to maintain public order. Mr. Massera ran the military arm of the dictatorship the first two years. As head of the navy, he was also in control of the prison camp at ESMA in Buenos Aires. The admiral visited the camp often, overseeing torture, which included rape. The military tortured most of its prisoners and dumped them, dead or alive, into the River Plate from airplanes. Mr. Massera studied philology as a young man and obsessed over the use of language. “He had a messianic oratory, a sonorous oratory,” said Marguerite Feitlowitz, a literature professor at Bennington College who has written a book about Argentina’s dictatorship. “His speeches were very evil and very polished.” In a speech in 1972 to officers who had been chosen to carry out the death flights, Mr. Massera said, “Death will not triumph here, because all of our dead, each and every one, died for the triumph of life.” After Mr. Massera was convicted of dozens of counts of murder, torture and robbery, he was unrepentant. “Nobody has to defend himself for having won a fair war,” Mr. Massera said after the trial. “The war against subversive terrorism was fair.” Despite Mr. Menem’s pardon, Mr. Massera was arrested in 1998 on charges of having stolen babies born to political prisoners, a crime not covered by the amnesty. His ill health kept him out of prison. In 2005, the Supreme Court, under the administration of President Néstor Kirchner (who died on Oct. 27), declared the amnesties unconstitutional. But the court, confirming Mr. Massera’s dementia, suspended all cases against him, as well as extradition requests from Germany, Spain, Italy and France. Those countries had sought him for the killings of their citizens during the dictatorship.

Argentina
Massera Emilio
Deaths (Obituaries)


A Final Four That Is Filled With Talent and Tradition

Abstract: FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The teams participating in lacrosse’s Final Four weekend at Gillette Stadium took a walk through the stadium Thursday afternoon and craned their necks at the nearly 80,000 seats surrounding them. The curious glances will come their way this weekend as the sport’s premier event returns to New England for the first time in more than two decades. More than 42,000 seats have been sold for the weekend, and brisk walk-up sales are expected given the forecast of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. Although breaking the attendance record of 52,004 for the semifinals on Saturday may be unlikely, any skepticism about moving the event outside familiar mid-Atlantic haunts like Baltimore and Philadelphia has been set aside. Marquee matchups on Saturday kick off the weekend: No. 3 Syracuse (14-2) will play No. 2 Virginia (14-3) at noon, followed by No. 1 Duke (18-1) against No. 5 Johns Hopkins (10-5). The final is scheduled for Monday. “If you’ve never seen lacrosse or you’re a causal fan and even the slightest bit curious, I don’t think you could see two better games than you’re likely to see on Saturday,” Virginia Coach Dom Starsia said. “Anyone who is a fan of sports will be able to appreciate the nuances in these two games.” As with the men’s basketball Final Four this year, when the four top seeds advanced, the consensus in the lacrosse world is that the best four teams in Division I have advanced to the semifinals. While Duke enters the weekend as the favorite, the better game Saturday is expected to be between Virginia and Syracuse. The Orange and the Cavaliers have a history of playing high-scoring games that go down to the final moments. Virginia topped Syracuse, 14-13, in overtime earlier this season in a game that featured nine ties and five lead changes. “I’m not looking forward to 17-16 necessarily,” Starsia said with a smile, “but this game always seems to deliver on a promise.” Syracuse’s reappearance in the Final Four comes after it missed the postseason last year for the first time since 1982. Syracuse had its streak of 22 consecutive appearances in the Final Four end in 2005, and the Orange regained its swagger this year. Overtime victories against Georgetown and Johns Hopkins started a 10-game winning streak that catapulted Syracuse back among the sport’s elite. “Every year we say: ‘We don’t want to just come and make the Final Four. Our goal is to come out and win the whole thing,’ ” the Syracuse senior midfielder Danny Brennan said. “This year we’ve been doing what we’ve wanted, and now we’ve got Virginia.” Duke and Johns Hopkins played a taut game for the national title last year, with Duke’s comeback falling short when the Blue Devils missed two shots that would have tied the score in the final seven seconds. When the teams met in the regular season this year, the game was not as competitive. Duke trounced Johns Hopkins, 17-6, on April 5, and afterward the comparisons of Duke to some of the best teams in lacrosse history began in earnest. Duke’s only loss this season came at Georgetown, 11-7, which is stunning considering that the Hoyas did not even make the N.C.A.A. tournament. Duke has beaten its opponents by an average of more than 8.3 goals. Johns Hopkins Coach Dave Pietramala said the Blue Devils’ attack, led by Matt Danowski, the returning national player of the year, was the best he had coached against. “We have no pressure on us,” Pietramala said. “They’re the team that everyone thinks should win the whole thing. There’s probably a lot of pressure on Duke as they head into this.” On Sunday, the Division II and Division III championship games will also showcase some of the top programs in the sport. Salisbury State (21-0) plays SUNY Cortland (18-1) in the Division III final for the third consecutive year. Cortland’s victory two years ago is Salisbury’s only loss since 2003. Le Moyne (15-1) plays New York Institute of Technology (12-1) with its eyes on a Division II dynasty. Le Moyne has won the past two national titles. A third consecutive title would be unprecedented in Division II lacrosse. “The national championship is where the bar is set with our program,” said Le Moyne Coach Dan Sheehan, who has led the Dolphins to three national titles over all. And with three national champions to be determined by Monday afternoon, the lacrosse world has a new setting for some familiar faces to square off.

Lacrosse
College Athletics
National Collegiate Athletic Assn


In Formula One, the Ups and Downs of Banking on Youth

Abstract: The concept of a Formula One team taking a young driver from go-karting or the lower levels of car racing and nurturing his career, paying his racing costs and grooming him to reach the pinnacle of auto racing is hardly new. It has been going on for decades, and careers have come and gone — including some of the greatest of them, like that of the seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, who was once part of the Mercedes junior team. But this season has been a particularly sensitive one for Formula One’s driver-development programs, as some controversial moves have shed the spotlight on, and raised questions surrounding, the idea of nurturing — but also controlling — a young driver’s career and then suddenly letting it drop. Last month, the Toro Rosso team announced that next season it would drop its driver Jean-Éric Vergne, 24, and replace him with Max Verstappen, 16. Vergne had been raised in the Red Bull young-driver program beginning in the lower formulas. But now, suddenly, he is being let go in favor of a teenager who is in his first season of car racing this year. Helmut Marko, director of the Red Bull young-driver program, explained the move: “Vergne has had three years at Toro Rosso, four years before that in the junior team and every opportunity — everything a young driver needs. Now he must find a way independently after 2014. We are not a pension fund.” Those were harsh words for a driver who had performed brilliantly in the lower categories, winning several series before going on to race and perform well in Formula One. He outscored his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, in his first year and is currently ahead of his new teammate, Daniil Kvyat, a 20-year-old Russian who was also nurtured by Red Bull. But the Red Bull program has rarely given drivers more time than it gave Vergne. And it is clear that the program can work: Its most illustrious laureate is Sebastian Vettel, who has won the last four drivers’ titles in Formula One. Vergne’s teammate last year, Ricciardo, another laureate, was chosen over the Frenchman to graduate to the Red Bull team this year. Ricciardo has so far done better than his new teammate, Vettel, winning three Grand Prix races this season and sitting in third place in the series. “You have to think that you’ve been given the chance, and you just try to use it as good as you can,” Kvyat said. “You cannot really be thinking too much about there is some limited time about it. I’ve been given a chance and I’m just doing my best all of the time, trying to make the best out of it.” The development programs have many critics. Whereas Red Bull only draws from its young driver stable, other programs often overlook their talent. Image Max Verstappen, 16, will replace Jean-Éric Vergne, 24, on the Toro Rosso team next season. Credit Mark Thompson/Getty Images Jules Bianchi, for instance, was part of the Ferrari program for young drivers, but he was passed over for a drive at Ferrari this year when the team re-hired its 2007 world champion, Kimi Raikkonen. Bianchi, a Frenchman, is now racing for the weak Marussia team. But Ferrari did support the career of Felipe Massa for years before signing him to the team in 2006 and kept him until last season. Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 world champion, who started his career with the financial backing of private sponsors, said the very idea behind the programs is flawed. “It’s not because you take a young driver that he will be a champion,” he said. “He’s not a man yet. You don’t know how he will evolve. Maybe he is fast, but you don’t know how he will be in his mind as he grows. And you are not going to make him strong in the head. To be strong in the head, you have to be alone, and be left to take care of yourself, and drag yourself through the difficulties.” One Formula One team that is conspicuously without a young-driver program is Mercedes. It has, nevertheless, profited by hiring Lewis Hamilton away from the McLaren team, where he had been nurtured since he was a child. But Mercedes was one of the pioneers of such programs in the late 1980s, developing a trio of notable contemporaries that became great Formula One drivers: Schumacher, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Karl Wendlinger. Toto Wolff, the leader of the Mercedes racing team, said the team is now considering a new program. “But we are not yet ready, and the simple reason is that there is a championship in our way,” he added. “In the next two and a half months we should be concentrating on getting that done — and probably over the winter we’re going to structure a junior program. And I’m very much in favor of doing it. But if you’re going to do it, you need to do it properly.” An example of a driver benefiting a team other than the one that nurtured him is Robert Kubica of Poland. He joined the Renault driver-development program as a teenager and raced in several Renault series, winning the World Series by Renault in 2005 and earning a test drive at the Renault Formula One team. But he was then overlooked by Renault for Formula One, and BMW took him on. He went on to a brilliant, but short-lived career, winning the Canadian Grand Prix in 2008. Renault finally hired him in Formula One in 2010, but he had a serious accident in rallying during the 2011 winter off-season and his Formula One career ended. But the full package of what a modern Formula One driver needs to succeed has become very complex, said Esteban Gutiérrez, a driver at the Sauber team, and developing the whole set is what most of the young-driver programs aim for. “You cannot only have the talent,” he said. “You have to develop your skills not only on the driving side, but on the technical side, on the public relations side, on the sponsorship side, everywhere. It includes the whole package and you have to be sure that when you reach the top level you have all of these complements pretty well settled.”