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NEW YORK (AP) ? Americans are saying CUL8TR to text messaging, a wireless industry group says, as Internet-based applications such as Apple's Messages are starting to take over from what was once a cash cow for phone companies.
CTIA ? The Wireless Association says Americans sent 2.2 trillion text messages last year, down 5 percent from 2011. That's still 19 text messages per person per day.
Text messages vaulted into the mainstream in 2007, despite often costing 10 cents each. Costs came down quickly as phone companies started selling monthly "bundles" of texts. Now, many phone companies give text messaging away for free as part of a plan that mainly meters the amount of data used. That has helped stave off mass migration to Internet chat applications and Facebook messaging in the U.S., making the decline somewhat surprising, said Pamela Clark-Dickson, an analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media in Britain.
In countries where phone companies have kept the cost of text messaging high, the use of chat applications such as WhatsApp has exploded. Informa estimates that the number of messages sent through such services worldwide exceeded those sent by text last year.
The text message, or Short Message Service, was created in France and Germany in the 80s as part of the specification for the "GSM" digital cellphone standard. The first commercial services appeared in Europe in the 90s.
Clark-Dickson said text messaging will likely remain popular as a way to communicate with people who don't use chat applications. In addition, businesses have started using it as a way to communicate with customers.
"At this point, SMS has still got quite a lot going for it," Clark-Dickson said.
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7 hours ago
Atlanta Department of Correction
Reese Witherspoon and James Toth in mugshots taken after their Atlanta arrest.
If Reese Witherspoon was going to take a turn as belligerent spouse, under arrest and "obstructing your justice," one might think the display was for a starring role. Not so much though, in the case of the Oscar-winning actress' April 21 arrest in Atlanta, which was very real and captured on police video. That footage is now showing up online, validating much of what was already indicated in the initial arrest report.
Witherspoon and her husband Jim Toth were pulled over in Atlanta when he was seen to be weaving in traffic. On Thursday she pleaded no contest to physical obstruction, and he pleaded guilty to DUI.
In the video, originally obtained by TMZ, she's shown interrupting the officer when he speaks with her husband: "I'm a U.S. citizen ... I'm allowed to stand on American ground and ask any question I want to ask," she said.
The officer told her to sit down, but she persisted, saying "I have done nothing against the law!" and then incredulously wondering, "I have to obey your orders?"
Later, as previously indicated in the police report, she asked if he knew her name and said "You're about to find out who I am" when he said he didn't need to know it right at that moment.
After the officer mentions that there's a law for what she's doing, "obstruction," she gets even more feisty: "I'm obstructing your justice? I'm being anti-American?"
Toth tried to smooth things over by apologizing, saying, "I had nothing to do with that."
Off-camera, Witherspoon told the officer she needed to use the bathroom and was pregnant. (In a later interview, however, she denied being pregnant.)
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon will have to pay a $213 fine and Toth must perform 40 hours of community service and attend an alcohol education program. He is now on 12 months of probation.
Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/reese-witherspoon-arrest-video-goes-viral-6C9756580
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May 2, 2013 ? When people create and modify their virtual reality avatars, the hardships faced by their alter egos can influence how they perceive virtual environments, according to researchers.
A group of students who saw that a backpack was attached to an avatar that they had created overestimated the heights of virtual hills, just as people in real life tend to overestimate heights and distances while carrying extra weight, according to Sangseok You, a doctoral student in the school of information, University of Michigan.
"You exert more of your agency through an avatar when you design it yourself," said S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory, Penn State, who worked with You. "Your identity mixes in with the identity of that avatar and, as a result, your visual perception of the virtual environment is colored by the physical resources of your avatar."
Researchers assigned random avatars to one group of participants, but allowed another group to customize their avatars. In each of these two groups, half of the participants saw that their avatar had a backpack, while the other half had avatars without backpacks, according to You.
When placed in a virtual environment with three hills of different heights and angles of incline, participants who customized their avatars perceived those hills as higher and steeper than participants who were assigned avatars by the researchers, Sundar said. They also overestimated the amount of calories it would take to hike up the hill if their custom avatar had a backpack.
"If your avatar is carrying a backpack, you feel like you are going to have trouble climbing that hill, but this only happens when you customize the avatar," said Sundar.
The researchers, who present their findings at 2013 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Paris today (May 2) recruited 121 college-aged participants -- 58 female and 63 male -- from Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea, to take part in the study. The students entered a virtual reality lab and were asked to evaluate the hills. To keep the students from guessing why the researchers added a backpack, they created a cover story saying the backpack made the hiking experience as lifelike as possible.
Sundar said the study may help trainers and game developers design virtual reality exercises and games that are more realistic and more immersive. For instance, just as participants who customized their avatars with a backpack in this study changed their perception of their virtual environment, people with disabilities may feel more empowered designing their own avatars to have physical aids to navigate a virtual environment. Soldiers may want to create their own avatars to better simulate their perceptions of actual conditions in virtual reality exercises.
"Because building avatar identity is critical, it's important to let users customize it," Sundar said. "You are your avatar when it is customized." Future research will look at whether altering more elements of the users' avatar will lead to more extensive changes in how people perceive virtual environments.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Penn State, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/gyXa3ZDssfY/130502082247.htm
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CHALDOVAR, Kyrgyzstan (AP) ? An American military tanker refueling plane carrying three crew members crashed Friday in the rugged mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation where the U.S. operates an air base key to the war in Afghanistan.
There was no immediate word on the fate of the crew. If any of them managed to eject from the KC-135 plane, the search for them would be complicated by the harsh terrain in the region.
The U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan, called the Transit Center at Manas, said it had no immediate information on the cause of the crash, but a resident of the agricultural and sheep-grazing area said the plane exploded in flight.
"I was working with my father in the field, and I heard an explosion. When I looked up at the sky I saw the fire. When it was falling, the plane split into three pieces," Sherikbek Turusbekov said.
The crash site is near Chaldovar, a village about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of the base. Pieces of the plane, including its tail, lay in a grassy field bordered by mountains; the air was infused with the heavy stench of petrol.
The base, which is adjacent to the Manas International Airport outside the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, was established in late 2001 to support the international military campaign in Afghanistan. It functions as an interim point for troops going into or out of Afghanistan and as a home for the tanker planes that refuel warplanes in flight.
The base has been the subject of a contentious dispute between the United States and its host nation.
In 2009, the U.S. reached an agreement with the Kyrgyz government to use it in return for $60 million a year. But the lease runs out in June 2014, and the U.S. wants to keep it longer to aid in the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan is reluctant to extend the lease.
On Monday, a Boeing 747 cargo plane crashed just after takeoff from the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, killing all seven people aboard.
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AP writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Robert Burns in Washington, D.C. contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-military-plane-carrying-3-crashes-kyrgyzstan-150442087.html
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Many options here for improving or decorating our home by improving the home furniture items in the bedroom, kitchen and entire spaces. Now it is easy to shop those products by online shopping service providers.
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People say that only women can decorate the home as she is caring about all the members as well as home also. They all are know the how to assemble a home for decorating the all interior for home. All the house keeping products are here for keeping on the right place only. Many more about our home, those only women can do easily. If we talk about bedroom then they can only furnish smoothly.
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As we all know that home is the most sooth relaxing, loving and peaceful place where we live with all our family members. But in the other side empty home is so boring to spend only few hours. If we are not able to furnish our home suitably then there is no feeling to live at the home. So furniture plays a vital role to decorate the interior of our home. There is home furnishing item by which we can decorate our home for making our lifestyle so better.
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If we talk about home improvement as decorating our home interior like bedroom, kitchen and all the spaces where we can see in our home. Now there are many furnishing products in the market from which we can easily decorate our home as so beautiful way. There are many companies in the market for online shopping for home furnishing items in India. They are responsible for providing the best service to our doorstep.
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It is very useful for the persons who are very busy in the offices and never can go to the market for buy some products and other items. Online shopping sites are offering some better option from the gallery to choose the item which any person wants to buy and never need to go to the crowded market.
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Its suggestion for people to shop the daily uses products online with these responsible companies which are offering the services for online shopping products. If we talk about the home furnishing items for our home bedroom then there are many products for bedroom to decorate itself.
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Bedroom furniture is very important for decorating and feeling some cool when we enter ever. All available bedroom furniture is available on website like bed, table, sofas, TV cabinet Consoles etc. If we talk about bed sheet, many types of bed sheet available in the market. If you want to buy some online bed sheet, only you have to browse the website for online shopping service provider via internet and your can get your product bed sheet in your doorstep.
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If anyone confused about the payment mode, that how to pay to these shopping sites then there are two method for paying them, one is online payment like net banking, visa, master card etc.. And other is cash on delivery.
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There is popular method for cash on delivery to buy some products. Many products are here for sale for our home like mattress protector online which for our bed room as well as.
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So that due to improving the technology by safe browsing for internet and other web designing and developing, people can do more from home only if we talk about shopping online.
Source: http://www.goarticles.co.in/home-furniture-for-decorating-the-entire-interior/
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