The layer’s parameters:
Blending Options>Drop Shadow

Blending Options>Inner Shadow

Blending Options>Gradient Overlay

Gradient’s parameters:

Blending Options>Stroke

Gradient’s parameters:

Using the details from the next table, we’ll try to write the button’s name:

The layer’s parameters:
Blending Options>Outer Glow

Blending Options>Gradient Overlay

Gradient’s parameters:

Select now the Rectangle Tool (U) to represent on the lowest button’s half a darkening:

The layer’s parameters:
Fill 0% on the layers.
Blending Options>Gradient Overlay

Gradient’s parameters:

Plans to take iPlayer-type services to TV sets are being scrutinised by the BBC Trust.

The BBC-backed proposals want to produce set-top boxes that can go online to access on-demand TV services such as the iPlayer and ITVplayer.

The device is aimed at the majority of UK homes that have not signed up for on-demand subscription TV services and do not have a Personal Video Recorder.

Setting up such services rests on getting approval from the BBC Trust.

Public views

In its submission to the Trust laying out its plans for the Project Canvas scheme, the BBC wrote: “the 53% of UK households that do not subscribe to pay television services risk falling behind”.

“Freeview is already failing to offer the full range of BBC licence fee funded television and radio services,” it added.

This situation would only worsen as the internet became the main way that TV programmes are distributed to viewers.

Project Canvas aims to bring together many broadcasters as well as ISPs and web firms such as YouTube to back a common technology that will make all the content accessible via the TV set-top box.

The initial devices are expected to be set-top boxes, with a net connection, that could cost up to £200.

The public – and any other interested parties – are being invited by the BBC Trust to contribute to its two-stage consultation process.

The first stage closes on 17 April. By 8 June, the BBC Trust will publish its preliminary conclusions, at which point the second stage of the consultation will commence.

This next stage closes on 22 June and the Trust said it would aim to deliver its findings by 24 July at the latest.

Subject to approval, Project Canvas is due to launch in 2010.

The consultation comes in the wake of a decision by the UK Competition Commission to block the creation of an on-demand video service, known as Project Kangaroo.

The service proposed to make available current TV shows from Channel 4 and ITV as well as archived material from the BBC.

Declaring that Project Kangaroo “has to be stopped”, the Competition Commission said viewers would be better served by having the three broadcasters as “close competitors” rather than collaborators.

© BBC 2009

Type : Manga

Other Title(s) : Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan, The King of Bread, Fresh Made Japan

Summary :
This story is about Azuma Kazuma, a Japanese teenager who enters the bread world right after middle school. When he was a little boy, he met a baker who taught him how to bake bread for the first time, and opened little Kazuma’s eyes to his godly given gift in baking, ‘solar hands’. Kazuma’s hands are warmer than a normal person’s, helping the yeast ferment faster and he has a knack for inventing breads and giving a whole new meaning to baking. He goes out into the vast world, and makes many friends but many enemies too. This manga is the perfect blend of comedy, puns, and baking. Each character reveals a touching story as to why they started baking. A must-read!

Genre(s) : Action, Comedy, Shounen

Artist(s) : Takashi Hashiguchi

Author(s) : Takashi Hashiguchi

Official Volumes (edit): 26

Scanslation Status (edit): Ongoing

Licensed By (edit): Viz Media

Scan Groups (edit): Manga-Heaven, Maximum7, Minna-scan, Null, Panda7, Nytrogyn, SnoopyCool

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Women in strained marriages are more likely than other wives to have high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Researchers at the University of Utah studied more than 300 middle-aged and older couples who had been married more than 20 years. Each couple answered questionnaires about their relationship and mental state and took lab tests.

They found women in marriages with high levels of strife were more prone to depression and metabolic syndrome, a cluster of symptoms such a thick waist, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and abnormal blood sugar that significantly raise the risk of heart disease.

“What we found is that negative aspects of the marriage — a high level of conflict and discord — were associated with increased levels of metabolic syndrome for women and not for men,” said Tim Smith of the University of Utah, who is studying marriage quality and heart disease.

“That seemed to be explained by the fact that women in strained marriages also reported more levels of depression,” a known risk factor for heart disease, Smith said in a telephone interview.

The study is being presented at a meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society in Chicago.

Smith, who worked on the study with doctoral student Nancy Henry, said a bad marriage was roughly equivalent to leading a sedentary life in terms of raising the risk of metabolic syndrome.

He said the findings represent one of many factors a woman should address to reduce her risk of heart attack. But he said women should tackle other potentially more serious issues first.

“It’s silly if someone is a smoker to talk to them about difficulties with their spouse,” he said. “You have to start with the stuff that is most dangerous.”

(Editing by Will Dunham and Xavier Briand)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

By Kathy Finn

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Britney Spears kicked off her first tour in five years on Tuesday, promoting her latest hit album “Circus” before an adoring hometown audience with jugglers, acrobats, rings of flame and lip syncing.

“Britney’s my girl. I knew she’d be great,” said Chris Peterson, 28, who drove to New Orleans from Pensacola, Florida, for the concert. “I’ve been a fan since I was 14.”

The pop star, attempting a comeback after a high-profile meltdown, pulled out all the stops before a sell-out crowd of 16,400 to launch her much-anticipated world tour.

Spears, 27, became a worldwide phenomenon when she burst onto the music scene 10 years ago after breaking into show business on the “Mickey Mouse Club” television show.

But she has done only a handful of live concerts in recent years as her personal life careered out of control, including stints in psychiatric care, an ugly divorce, losing custody of her two sons, shaving her head and partying without panties.

Back on stage, Spears looked fit and dazzling dressed as a ringmaster as she performed more than a dozen songs in a parade of skimpy costumes.

The launch of her 44-concert tour, which heads to Britain in June, was heavy on spectacle and was met with wild applause and cheers.

The circus-themed production featured Spears strutting and gyrating through extravagant sets on three stages, surrounded by dancers, martial artists and performers who dropped from the rafters on fabric streamers and mechanical rings.

Launching her tour in New Orleans gave Spears the chance to mount her comeback near her hometown of Kentwood, Louisiana.

She seems to have pulled herself together in the past year, with support from her father Jamie, who took control of her affairs in a court-ordered conservatorship after the singer’s bizarre public behavior.

Spears has also focused on her family, spending more time with her children and insisting that her sons, Sean Preston and Jayden, be allowed to accompany her on tour.

Her return to the concert circuit and sales of her album appear to be a measure of her ability to still attract the attention she once garnered from fans around the world.

“Circus,” her sixth studio album, debuted at No. 1 in the United States and five other countries when it was released in December and won her three MTV Video Music Awards.

But some fans at the New Orleans show were disappointed that she remained distant from her loyal supporters.

“I hoped she would talk directly to the audience, especially since this is her home, but she didn’t say anything,” said Kelly Dupont, who lives in nearby Baton Rouge.

New Orleans resident Stephanie Chandler, who saw a live performance by Spears eight years ago, was harsher.

“I was very disappointed. She’s just not in it,” Chandler said. “If you’re going to lip sync, then you’d better bring on the dancing, but she didn’t.”

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A Canadian filmmaker plans to have a mini camera installed in his prosthetic eye to make documentaries and raise awareness about surveillance in society.

Rob Spence, 36, who lost an eye in an accident as a teen-ager, said his so-called Project Eyeborg is to have the camera, a battery and a wireless transmitter mounted on a tiny circuit board. www.eyeborgblog.com/

“Originally the whole idea was to do a documentary about surveillance. I thought I would become a sort of super hero … fighting for justice against surveillance,” Spence said.

“In Toronto there are 12,000 cameras. But the strange thing I discovered was that people don’t care about the surveillance cameras, they were more concerned about me and my secret camera eye because they feel that is a worse invasion of their privacy.”

Spence, in Brussels to appear at a media conference, said no part of the camera would be connected to his nerves or brain.

He does not intend to create a reality TV show and the camera will be switched off when not needed, he said.

“I don’t want to go into a locker room. I don’t want to show the world me going to the bathroom either … I’m not a life-caster and I don’t plan to be one,” he said.

(Reporting by Bate Felix; Editing by Louise Ireland)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have created a strain of the human AIDS virus able to infect and multiply in monkeys in a step toward testing future vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people, according to a new study.

This strain of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, was developed by altering a single gene in the human version to allow it to infect a type of monkey called a pig-tailed macaque, the researchers said on Monday.

The genetically engineered virus, once injected into this monkey, proliferates almost as much as it does in people, but the animal ultimately suppresses it and the virus does not make it sick, they said.

The strain is called simian-tropic HIV-1, or stHIV-1.

Researchers hope to be able to test possible new AIDS drugs and vaccines in monkeys before trying them in people.

There is a “cousin” virus to HIV called SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus, that causes a disease similar to AIDS in certain types of monkeys.

But this monkey AIDS virus is not identical to the one that infects people and is not a perfect substitute for testing drugs and vaccines against HIV.

“If our research is taken further, we hope that one day perhaps in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be able to make vaccines that are intended for use in humans and the very same product will be able to be tested in animals before human trials,” Paul Bieniasz of the Rockefeller University in New York, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.

Scientists have struggled to create an AIDS vaccine.

“If you make a drug that’s effective against HIV, sometimes it works against SIV and sometimes it doesn’t. So that basically devalues SIV as an animal model for doing experiments involved with developing drugs,” Bieniasz said.

“Now if you want to develop a vaccine, essentially what you have to do is to make a parallel vaccine for HIV and for SIV. You can test the SIV vaccine in animals and then have to make the leap of faith that the same approach would work equivalently in humans.”

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said in making the genetically engineered virus they removed the HIV version of a gene, known as vif, and inserted the SIV version. This gene acts to thwart proteins made by the monkey that that kill viruses.

Bieniasz said the scientists may need to make additional changes in the stHIV-1 to make it better for testing vaccines.

The genetically engineered virus infects the monkeys and during the early course of infection is a reasonably good mimic of what happens in HIV-infected people, Bieniasz said.

But after initially spreading in the monkey’s body, the animal succeeds in suppressing the virus — not completely clearing the virus but driving it to very low levels.

“The slight problem is the monkeys don’t go on to develop AIDS, they don’t get sick,” Bieniasz said.

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Strange Terrain: Undersea Oddballs of Lembeh Strait

Predators erupt from volcanic sands, and delicate pygmy seahorses hide in plain sight in the strange world of Indonesia’s Lembeh Strait.

Jarang sekali terlihat seekor lumba-lumba hidung botol berwarna merah muda beredar di sebuah danau Louisiana. Mamalia ini diambil gambarnya oleh kapten kapal charter setempat Erik Rue yang sedang mempelajari lumba-lumba sejak hewan itu pertama kali muncul Danau Calcasieu, kawasan air payau yang terletak di utara Teluk Meksiko, barat daya AS.

Sejak diketahui berbaur dengan lumba-lumba berwarna normal tahun lalu, lumba-lumba berwarna pink ini telah mengundang animo kedatangan sejumlah pengunjung ke Danau Calcasieu. Kapten Rue (42) pertama kali melihat lumba-lumba pink itu berada bersama kawanan 4 lumba-lumba lain. Salah satu lumba-lumba diketahui sebagai induk yang selalu mendampingi anaknya yang berwarna merah muda itu.

“Seperti dicat, tubuh lumba-lumba itu sepenuhnya berwarna merah muda. Aku tak pernah melihat yang seperti ini sebelumnya,” kata Kapten Rue.

“Mamalia itu berwarna pink mulai dari ujung moncong hingga ekornya dan matanya yang kemerah-merahan menunjukkan hewan ini albino. Kulitnya mulus berwarna merah muda tanpa ada bercak apapun. Aku telah memerhatikannya sekitar 40 hingga 50 kali sejak hewan itu pertama kali muncul dalam kelompok keluarganya di Jalur Kapal Calcasieu.”

Regina Asmutis-Silvia, ahli biologi senior Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, menyebut lumba-lumba ini ‘benar-benar menawan’. “Aku tak pernah melihat seekor lumba-lumba berwarna seperti ini sepanjang karirku,” kata Regina Asmutis-Silvia.

“Manusia harus menghormati keberadaan hewan ini. Caranya adalah menyaksikan dari kejauhan, membatasi diri dalam mengamati hewan ini serta jangan memburu atau membuatnya terganggu,” tambahnya.

JIM
Sumber : daily mail,kompas

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is testing a new version of its online search service internally under the name of Kumo.com, a spokesman for the software company said on Monday.

The service is not yet available outside the company, but may eventually form part of Microsoft’s attempt to catch up with Internet search leaders Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.

The new service was unveiled in an internal memo sent by the head of research at the company’s online services division on Monday. It did not provide details about the new features.

“Kumo.com exists only inside the corporate network, and in order to get enough feedback we will be redirecting internal live.com traffic over to the test site in the coming days,” said the memo from Satya Nadella. “Kumo is the codename we have chosen for the internal test.”

The memo was first made public on The Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital blog.

Microsoft’s Nadella reckons the company can put together a better search engine than those currently available.

“We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks,” Nadella said in the memo. “An explorer pane on the left side of results pages will give you access to tools that help you with your tasks.”

The Redmond, Washington-based company is struggling to catch up with runaway internet search leader Google, which is beginning to encroach on Microsoft’s core software business.

Last year, Microsoft made an unsuccessful attempt to buy Yahoo for $47.5 billion. Executives at both companies have left open the possibility of a deal or partnership involving only Yahoo’s search business.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Carol Bishopric and Anshuman Daga)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved