Hello Kitty takes 'cute' to new heights

Kyodo / Reuters

An Eva Airways aircraft painted with Hello Kitty characters takes off at Narita International Airport in Narita, east of Tokyo.

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com.

Proving once again that there is no limit to the versatility of Hello Kitty, a Taiwan airline has launched new jets heavily laden with the multi-billion-dollar feline franchise.

The inscrutable cartoon cat with the red bow ? notable for nothing except being cute ? is an enduring brand in Asia.?Since her creation by Japan?s Sanrio Co. in 1974, Hello Kitty has been licensed for products of nearly every imaginable kind. The toys, clothes, jewelry and accessories that populate Hello Kitty franchise stores worldwide are a mere glimpse of the possibilities.

Now, Sanrio has licensed EVA Air to decorate Airbus 330-300s with Hello Kitty's likeness.

In December, the third jet in EVA Air?s Hello Kitty fleet took its maiden flight, staffed by flight attendants in Hello Kitty-wear, who passed out airline meals crafted into Hello Kitty likenesses. After dabbing off the crumbs with Hello Kitty tissue and lathering up with Hello Kitty soap, passengers could nap on Hello Kitty pillows or browse limited-edition Hello Kitty duty-free products, according to a press release from EVA.

(For those who suffer cute overload, are there Hello Kitty barf bags? The release did not say.)?

The company clearly is trying to lure a particular demographic ? and probably not the chain-smoking Asian business executives who used to dominate regional flights. Perhaps, suggests one brand expert, the airline is trying to sell itself as the one catering to children and families.

?The bottom line is ? you absolutely have to do something to get noticed by your target customer,? says Derrick Daye, Los Angeles-based brand consultant and managing partner of The Blake Project. ?The bull's-eye the airline is trying to hit overlaps somewhere with Hello Kitty.?

EVA Air first used the Hello Kitty campaign from 2005 to 2009 with two planes flying between Taipei and Japanese airports. EVA must have had some success because it has revived the campaign for its 20th anniversary with three jets serving regional flights.

?In Asia, Hello Kitty is a powerhouse brand. It?s an icon,? says brand expert Daye. ?And it?s low-risk. Sure EVA has to pay Hello Kitty something for licensing ? but as far as associating yourself with Hello Kitty, I think there is no risk.?

Or, as seen from another perspective ? a blog called Hello Kitty Hell, dedicated to lambasting the ubiquitous cat ? Hello Kitty is mysteriously unstoppable.

?As with all things Hello Kitty,? the blog once commented,? ?no matter how bad you think they have become, somewhere out there the evil feline is ready to show that things can always get worse.?

EVA?s Hello Kitty jets fly daily from Taipei to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul as well as Taipei to Fukuoka, Japan four days a week.

Click here to follow Kari Huus on Facebook.

More stories from Overhead Bin:

Source: http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/04/9927189-hello-kitty-takes-cute-to-new-heights

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North Hempstead manual for non-union employees

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1:18 PM By Emily C. Dooley

Nonunion employees in the Town of North Hempstead are getting a manual.

Town board members Tuesday night approved the final batch of policies ? on such topics as using town vehicles, no-smoking areas, and accident prevention and reporting ? and will hand out the manual to the town?s roughly 120 nonunion employees next week.

?This is part of us refining our human resources department...

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Source: http://www.newsday.com/long-island/towns/long-island-now-1.1732330/north-hempstead-manual-for-non-union-employees-1.3430699

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Now you see it, now you don't: Time cloak created (AP)

WASHINGTON ? It's one thing to make an object invisible, like Harry Potter's mythical cloak. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see. They have invented a time masker.

Think of it as an art heist that takes place before your eyes and surveillance cameras. You don't see the thief strolling into the museum, taking the painting down or walking away, but he did. It's not just that the thief is invisible ? his whole activity is.

What scientists at Cornell University did was on a much smaller scale, both in terms of events and time. It happened so quickly that it's not even a blink of an eye. Their time cloak lasts an incredibly tiny fraction of a fraction of a second. They hid an event for 40 trillionths of a second, according to a study appearing in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

We see events happening as light from them reaches our eyes. Usually it's a continuous flow of light. In the new research, however, scientists were able to interrupt that flow for just an instant.

Other newly created invisibility cloaks fashioned by scientists move the light beams away in the traditional three dimensions. The Cornell team alters not where the light flows but how fast it moves, changing in the dimension of time, not space.

They tinkered with the speed of beams of light in a way that would make it appear to surveillance cameras or laser security beams that an event, such as an art heist, isn't happening.

Another way to think of it is as if scientists edited or erased a split second of history. It's as if you are watching a movie with a scene inserted that you don't see or notice. It's there in the movie, but it's not something you saw, said study co-author Moti Fridman, a physics researcher at Cornell.

The scientists created a lens of not just light, but time. Their method splits light, speeding up one part of light and slowing down another. It creates a gap and that gap is where an event is masked.

"You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place," said study co-author Alexander Gaeta, director of Cornell's School of Applied and Engineering Physics. "You just don't know that anything ever happened."

This is all happening in beams of light that move too fast for the human eye to see. Using fiber optics, the hole in time is created as light moves along inside a fiber much thinner than a human hair. The scientists shoot the beam of light out, and then with other beams, they create a time lens that splits the light into two different speed beams that create the effect of invisibility by being too fast or too slow. The whole work is a mess of fibers on a long table and almost looks like a pile of spaghetti, Fridman said.

It is the first time that scientists have been able to mask an event in time, a concept only first theorized by Martin McCall, a professor of theoretical optics at Imperial College in London. Gaeta, Fridman and others at Cornell, who had already been working on time lenses, decided to see if they could do what McCall envisioned.

It only took a few months, a blink of an eye in scientific research time.

"It is significant because it opens up a whole new realm to ideas involving invisibility," McCall said.

Researchers at Duke University and in Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have made progress on making an object appear invisible spatially. The earlier invisibility cloak work bent light around an object in three dimensions.

Between those two approaches, the idea of invisibility will work its way into useful technology, predicts McCall, who wasn't part of either team.

The science is legitimate, but it's still only a fraction of a second, added City College of New York physicist Michio Kaku, who specializes in the physics of science fiction.

"That's not enough time to wander around Hogwarts," Kaku wrote in an email. "The next step therefore will be to increase this time interval, perhaps to a millionth of a second. So we see that there's a long way to go before we have true invisibility as seen in science fiction."

Gaeta said he thinks he can get make the cloak last a millionth of a second or maybe even a thousandth of a second. But McCall said the mathematics dictate that it would take too big a machine ? about 18,600 miles long ? to make the cloak last a full second.

"You have to start somewhere and this is a proof of concept," Gaeta said.

Still, there are practical applications, Gaeta and Fridman said. This is a way of adding a packet of information to high-speed data unseen without interrupting the flow of information. But that may not be a good thing if used for computer viruses, Fridman conceded.

There may be good uses of this technology, Gaeta said, but "for some reason people are more interested in the more illicit applications."

___

Online

Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/science/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120104/ap_on_sc/us_sci_invisible_time

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Liverpool will not appeal Suarez's 8-match ban

By ROB HARRIS

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 5:30 p.m. ET Jan. 3, 2012

LONDON (AP) -Liverpool will not appeal against Luis Suarez's eight-match ban for repeatedly racially abusing an opponent during a match, even though the striker again defended his actions and the club renewed its criticism of the English Football Association's disciplinary panel on Tuesday.

By accepting the punishment despite not accepting culpability, Suarez is not scheduled to be eligible again until the Feb. 11 match against Manchester United, whose defender, Patrice Evra, was the target of the striker's insults.

"I will comply with the sanction, but with the acquiescence of someone who has not done anything and who feels extremely upset about what has transpired," Suarez said on his Twitter account.

The Uruguay international will also have to pay a 40,000 pound ($62,000)-fine for calling Evra "negro" or "negros" seven times in October during a 1-1 draw at Anfield.

"I've never - ever - had a single racial problem with any team mate, player, or person with a skin color or race different from my own. Never," Suarez said. "As a result, I am very upset about what has been said about me in recent weeks, all of which have been very far from the truth. This is further compounded by the helplessness I feel for not having done anything yet being accused of something I did not nor would ever do."

Despite a public outcry, Liverpool continues to back the player who was signed from Ajax a year ago for around $35 million.

"The (Football Association) panel has damaged the reputation of one of the Premier League's best players, deciding he should be punished and banned for perhaps a quarter of a season," Liverpool said in a statement.

The 18-time English champions rebuked the independent FA panel, which was headed by a lawyer, for branding Suarez's evidence unreliable.

"Mr. Evra was deemed to be credible in spite of admitting that he himself used insulting and threatening words towards Luis and that his initial charge as to the word used was somehow a mistake," Liverpool said. "The facts in this case were that an accusation was made, a rebuttal was given and there was video of the match. The remaining facts came from testimony of people who did not corroborate any accusation made by Mr. Evra."

Suarez's claim that the racial slur used in the match was lost in translation was rejected by the FA in its 115-page report that was released on Saturday.

"In my country, the Spanish word for 'black' is a term commonly used and does not symbolize any disrespect, let alone racism," Suarez said on Tuesday. "Everything that has been said beyond that is completely and utterly false."

In justifying the severity of the sentence, the commission said there was likely to be a "corrosive effect on young football fans" if players were seen racially abusing opponents.

While insisting that Suarez did not "engage in a racist act," Liverpool said it needed to move on from the episode.

"Continuing a fight for justice in this particular case beyond today would only obscure the fact that the club wholeheartedly supports the efforts ... to put an end to any form of racism in English football," Liverpool said. "It is time to put the Luis Suarez matter to rest and for all of us, going forward, to work together to stamp out racism in every form both inside and outside the sport."

Liverpool also suggested United launched the disciplinary action because it is a fierce rival of the Premier League champions.

"This case has ... provided a template in which a club's rival can bring about a significant ban for a top player without anything beyond an accusation," Liverpool said.

Liverpool, which is owned by Boston Red Sox tycoon John Henry, insists that it has "been a leader in taking a progressive stance on issues of race and inclusion" as part of an inclusive English game.

"In far too many countries, the issues of racism and discrimination have been covered over or ignored," Liverpool said.

The footballers' union in England said Liverpool's decision not to appeal "shows good judgment."

"We hope they can now move on and ensure that all their employees understand the issues involved and we look forward to them playing an important role in our campaign against discrimination," Professional Footballers' Association chief executive Gordon Taylor said.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Klinsmann to fans: be patient

Juergen Klinsmann is determined to carry off a style revolution for the U.S. national team while urging patience from the country's fans.

Robert Cianflone / Getty Images

Beckham set to stay in LA

David Beckham is set to stay with the Galaxy after turning down a chance to join Paris Saint-Germain.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45585299/ns/sports-soccer/

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Kallis and de Villiers put South Africa on top

By Ken Borland

CAPE TOWN | Wed Jan 4, 2012 5:00pm GMT

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Jacques Kallis completed his second test double century and AB de Villiers scored an unbeaten 160 to put South Africa in control of the third and deciding test against Sri Lanka Wednesday.

Their combined efforts enabled South Africa, seeking their first series win at home in three seasons, to declare 40 minutes before tea on the second day on 580 for four.

At the close, Sri Lanka were 149 for two after captain Tillakaratne Dilshan had scored a quickfire 78. Sri Lanka's leading batsmen Kumar Sangakkara (35 not out) and Mahela Jayawardene (seven not out) were still at the crease.

Kallis, who resumed on 159, had not exceeded 200 in a despite amassing 10,000 test runs until his 201 not out against India at Centurion in December, 2010. The 36-year-old needed just 65 deliveries Wednesday to reach his second double century, in 394 minutes and 280 balls, with 29 fours and a six.

He fell on the stroke of lunch when an attempted lofted drive went off the toe of the bat to Angelo Mathews, who took a tumbling catch at deep mid-on to give persevering left-arm spinner Rangana Herath his only wicket.

Kallis enjoyed some good fortune as two outside edges, on 171 and 183, went through the hands of Jayawardene in the slips, off the bowling of Dhammika Prasad and Mathews respectively.

De Villiers helped himself to 160 not out off just 205 balls, with 19 fours and two sixes.

Jacques Rudolph accompanied De Villiers until the declaration, scoring 51 not out as he helped to add an unbeaten 127 for the fifth wicket off just 123 balls. De Villiers' innings took only 205 balls and included 19 fours and two sixes.

When Sri Lanka batted, Dilshan was quickly into his stride. He blasted 12 fours in his run-a-ball innings, before falling to leg-spinner Imran Tahir.

Dilshan lofted a drive into the outfield but the delivery was a googly that took the inside half of the bat, allowing Graeme Smith to run from deep mid-on and take a superb diving catch.

Lahiru Thirimanne had earlier been bowled through the gate, his attempted drive getting nowhere near a Morne Morkel thunderbolt, for 23.

(Editing by John Mehaffey)

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/01/04/uk-cricket-lanka-idUKTRE8030SL20120104?feedType=RSS&feedName=sportsNews

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Canada's best sniper protects Edmonton's streets

By Kris Sims, Parliamentary Bureau

Posted 5 hours ago

Retired corporal Rob Furlong protected his American brothers by taking out a Taliban fighter from 2,430 metres away. Now the former sniper is protecting the streets of Alberta's capital as a night beat cop.

"I feel that on a much smaller scale, rather than being on the front lines in Afghanistan, I'm back at home, looking after the homefront, still dealing with bad people who bring ill will on innocents," said the soft spoken Furlong, originally from Fogo Island, N.L.

His dad, Cyril, is a marksman himself, and taught Rob how to shoot when he was a wee lad.

"I've wanted to do this since I was a child, and 14 years with the military and the police, I have always had a job where I look to help others."

Furlong is featured in a newly updated book, Ultimate Sniper, written by retired major John Plaster and published by Paladin Press, and appears in the documentary by the same name. Plaster is an icon in the sniper world, and among retired special forces in the U.S. military.

"I carried the original book with me to Afghanistan and got Plaster to sign it," Furlong said, looking at the book on his shelf.

Furlong was a member of the Canadian sharpshooting five-man Special Forces Sniper Cell with 3 P.P.C.L.I., based out CFB Edmonton. The cell was sent to watch the backs of U.S. allies in the mountains of Afghanistan. During one well-documented mission, they spotted Taliban fighters carrying a machine gun up a mountain trail, trying to get above the U.S. forces for an ambush. That's when Furlong took aim.

"That shot that we made that day, we didn't realize what we managed to do."

The bullets used in the .50-calibre McMillan Brothers Tac-50 Rifle were the size of a pop can, and took three seconds to travel the 2.4 km to reach their target.

Furlong was decorated for his efforts by the U.S., but did not receive any similar commendation in Canada.

"I'm not bitter against the army, I loved my career in there," he said back home, where he's settled into his life as an Edmonton cop.

"I still have my dress uniform in my closet. I will never forget it. It means a lot to me," said Furlong. "Policing gives me a little taste of that, but I can be home at night."

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5688883639

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