'Jersey Shore' star Pauly D teams up with 50 Cent (AP)

NEW YORK ? He's talked about it, but now Pauly D is officially a member of 50 Cent's music group.

The "Jersey Shore" star officially signed to the rapper's G-Note label Thursday. The label focuses on dance and pop music ? a good fit for Pauly D, since he's known as a DJ as well as a reality star.

He's been working in music since he was 16 and parlayed his success on the MTV hit series into becoming an in-demand DJ. Pauly D even joined Britney Spears for a few dates on her recent "Femme Fatal" tour as an opening act.

A few months ago Pauly D confirmed that he and the rapper were working together.

50 Cent said Pauly D was a "great addition to G-Note and G-Unit family" and called him smart and creative.

____

Online:

http://www.g-noterecords.com/

____

Alicia Quarles is the AP's global entertainment editor. Follow her at http://www.twitter.com/aliciaquarles

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_en_mu/us_music50_cent_pauly_d

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Oil price rises to $100 a barrel again (AP)

Rising consumer confidence and escalating tensions in Iran pushed oil to about $100 per barrel on Tuesday.

Here's how energy prices traded.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange:

Benchmark crude rose $1.58 to finish the day at $99.79 per barrel.

Gasoline rose 2.1 cents to end at $2.5391 per gallon.

Heating oil rose 5.12 cents to finish at $3.0211 per gallon;

Natural gas rose 10.8 cents to end at $3.633 per 1,000 cubic feet.

On the ICE Futures exchange in London:

Brent crude rose $1.84 to finish at $109.86 a barrel.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/energy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_glance

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Surgeons perform better with eye movement training

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) ? Surgeons can learn their skills more quickly if they are taught how to control their eye movements. Research led by the University of Exeter shows that trainee surgeons learn technical surgical skills much more quickly and deal better with the stress of the operating theatre if they are taught to mimic the eye movements of experts.

This research, published in the journal Surgical Endoscopy, could transform the way in which surgeons are trained to be ready for the operating theatre.

Working in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong, the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and the Horizon training centre Torbay, the University of Exeter team identified differences in the eye movements of expert and novice surgeons. They devised a gaze training programme, which taught the novices the 'expert' visual control patterns. This enabled them to learn technical skills more quickly than their fellow students and perform these skills in distracting conditions similar to the operating room.

Thirty medical students were divided into three groups, each undertaking a different type of training. The 'gaze trained' group of students was shown a video, captured by an eye tracker, displaying the visual control of an experienced surgeon. The footage highlighted exactly where and when the surgeon's eyes were fixed during a simulated surgical task. The students then conducted the task themselves, wearing the same eye-tracking device. During the task they were encouraged to adopt the same eye movements as those of the expert surgeon.

Students learned that successful surgeons 'lock' their eyes to a critical location while performing complex movements using surgical instruments. This prevents them from tracking the tip of the surgical tool, helping them to be accurate and avoid being distracted.

After repeating the task a number of times, the students' eye movements soon mimicked those of a far more experienced surgeon. Members of the other groups, who were either taught how to move the surgical instruments or were left to their own devices, did not learn as quickly. Those students' performance broke down when they were put into conditions that simulated the environment of the operating theatre and they needed to multi-task.

Dr Samuel Vine of the University of Exeter explained: "It appears that teaching novices the eye movements of expert surgeons allows them to attain high levels of motor control much quicker than novices taught in a traditional way. This highlights the important link between the eye and hand in the performance of motor skills. These individuals were also able to successfully multi-task without their technical skills breaking down, something that we know experienced surgeons are capable of doing in the operating theatre.

"Teaching eye movements rather than the motor skills may have reduced the working memory required to complete the task. This may be why they were able to multi-task whilst the other groups were not."

Dr Samuel Vine and Dr Mark Wilson from Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter have previously worked with athletes to help them improve their performance through gaze training, but this is the first study to examine the benefits of gaze training in surgical skills training.

Dr Vine added: "The findings from our research highlight the potential for surgical educators to 'speed up' the initial phase of technical skill learning, getting trainees ready for the operating room earlier and therefore enabling them to gain more 'hands on' experience. This is important against a backdrop of reduced government budgets and new EU working time directives, meaning that in the UK we have less money and less time to deliver specialist surgical training."

The research team is now analysing the eye movements of surgeons performing 'real life' operations and are working to develop a software training package that will automatically guide trainees to adopt surgeons eye movements.

Mr John McGrath, Consultant Surgeon at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, said: "The use of simulators has become increasingly common during surgical training to ensure that trainee surgeons have reached a safe level of competency before performing procedures in the real-life operating theatre. Up to now, there has been fairly limited research to understand how these simulators can be used to their maximum potential.

"This exciting collaboration with the Universities of Exeter and Hong Kong has allowed us to trial a very novel approach to surgical education, applying the team's international expertise in the field of high performance athletes. Focussing on surgeons' eye movements has resulted in a reduction in the time taken to learn specific procedures and, more importantly, demonstrated that their skills are less likely to break down under pressure. Our current work has now moved into the operating theatre to ensure that patients will benefit from the advances in surgical training and surgical safety."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Exeter.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/VNOr_aNOIW8/111130100222.htm

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Kanye West leads Grammy nominations, ahead of Adele (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Rapper Kanye West led the field of Grammy contenders on Wednesday with seven nominations, including song of the year for "All of the Lights".

But British singer Adele and R&B singer Bruno Mars were close behind with six apiece, including nods for the three big awards of album, song and record of the year.

Other leading nominees for the major music awards include Foo Fighters, also with six nominations, while rapper Lil Wayne and newcomer Skrillex had five nominations apiece.

Nominations for the top awards were announced during a televised concert in Los Angeles and winners in all 78 categories will be announced at a ceremony on February 12.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111201/music_nm/us_grammys

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

If anything can save the Honeycomb tablet?field, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus ($399 list, 16GB)?can. Slim, elegant, and entertainment-focused, this is about as good as a 7-inch Google Android Honeycomb tablet gets. But while Samsung manages to solve one of Honeycomb's most critical problems with a custom app store, this product line is still slightly uncomfortably wedged between budget and high-end tablets.

Physical Design and Connectivity
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus looks like a shrunken-down version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 ($469, 3.5 stars) and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($499, 3.5 stars.) These are the best-looking, best-built Android tablets on the market, slim black and gray slabs (in this case, 7.6 by 4.8 by .39 inches and 12.1 ounces) clearly made of quality materials. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 will slip unnoticeably into a coat pocket. It's lovely.

The Tab 7.0 Plus has its Power and Volume buttons, as well as its MicroSD card slot, on the side. The 2-megapixel front camera is at the top of the bezel, to the right of the speaker, which also faces the user. The 1024-by-600 pixel TFT LCD is pretty standard for tablets of this size.

This is a Wi-Fi-only tablet, connecting to 802.11b/g/n networks. It also has Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth and wireless syncing, so you can connect it directly to a Wi-Fi-Direct-capable PC to transfer files.

Performance and Apps
The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus runs Android Honeycomb 3.2 on a dual-core?Samsung Exynos 1.2GHz processor. It benchmarked blazingly fast, and the tablet runs very smoothly even with Samsung's many complex TouchWiz extensions over standard Android.

Samsung has heavily skinned this tablet. It comes with a whole bunch of custom widgets. You can pop up a "quick action" bar from the bottom of the screen to give you speedy access to a task manager, calendar, world clock, memo pad, calculator, or music player. Samsung added custom e-book reader, magazine subscription and photo editing apps, none deletable, to Google's standard trove.

The big win here, though, is Samsung's custom app store, Samsung Apps. In the past Samsung Apps has been a lackluster collection of about two dozen apps Samsung delivers as sweeteners for their products, but it's blossomed into a good-looking storefront of several hundred tablet-oriented apps; the links all take you to the Android Market, so you don't have to sign up for another account. This is the best approach I've seen so far towards solving the Android Market's problems with discovering tablet apps. Fortunately, as a 7-inch tablet running Android 3.2, the Tab 7.0 Plus can also run Android phone apps in zoomed mode, which isn't a panacea but doesn't look that bad.

The 4000mAh nonremovable battery delivered 6 hours, 33 minutes of continuous video playback, a very good result for a 7-inch tablet.

Entertainment and Peel Remote
Samsung pitches this as an "entertainment tablet" whose flagship app is Peel Smart Remote, a potentially awesome TV companion which would be far more awesome if it worked.

Peel's idea is compelling: it shows all the programs playing on your TV as graphical "cards" which you can sort by genre, drilling down to see program details or flipping over to watch similar shows. When you select a card, it should set your TV to watch the show, although it can't set your DVR to record a show in the future.?

But I had serious trouble with the actual remote parts of Peel Smart Remote, which use the tablet's weak IR emitter. I tried the remote with three Insignia and Sharp TVs and Roku, AppleTV and Dish Networks set-top boxes. Setup was always a problem. The Peel had trouble detecting and switching the TVs' inputs. Trying to move the cursor on the AppleTV caused the TV to switch off. Operating the TiVo, there was a serious lag between sliding the fast-forward button on the remote and having the TiVo respond, which made the device difficult to operate. Aiming it at the Dish receiver, parts of channel selections were sometimes cut off, sending the device to the wrong channel. The app also threw up various errors pretty frequently, such as "No content available at this time, please check back later!" As a result, I can't recommend this app.

I had much better luck playing video on this tablet. The Tab comes with Media Hub, Samsung's elegant but pricey video store ($2.99-$3.99 to rent movies, $9.99 and up to buy movies, $1.99 to buy TV shows) as well as Google's own video rental service. H.264, MPEG4, XVID and DIVX videos all played smoothly at up to 1080p resolution, with audio coming through clearly over wired or Bluetooth headphones. If you want to play your video on a TV, you'll have to shell out for a $34.99 Multimedia Dock which provides HDMI output.

The tablet is also a dandy music player, running all the usual Android music services including Google Music. Samsung's TouchWiz hacks include quick access to the music player popping up from the bottom status bar, and the tablet played all the usual music formats.

The two cameras aren't very high-res, but they're high quality. The 3-megapixel rear camera is very good indoors, taking sharp, clear images. The 2-megapixel front camera is unusually good in low light. Both cameras have somewhat slow shutter speeds; I found that passing cars, for instance, could get blurry.

Video recording indoors resulted in very noisy 720p movies at 24 frames per second; outdoors, I got cleaner 720p movies at 30 frames per second, but with blown-out bright areas.

The tablet comes in 16GB and 32GB ($499) models; the 16GB model, which we tested, had about 13GB user-accessible and worked fine with our 32GB SanDisk MicroSD card, which popped into a slot in the side.

Conclusions
There are a lot of very similar Android Honeycomb-based tablets on the market. The Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is more expensive than the Acer Iconia Tab A100 ($349.99, 4 stars); it's also faster, slimmer and more elegant. (The Iconia got a higher rating because there was less competition when it was released back in August.) Compared with the T-Mobile Springboard ($429.99, 3.5 stars) it's less expensive and speedier, with more useful software, although it lacks 3G. The Archos 80 G9 ($299.99, unrated) costs less, but it's slower, feels cheaper and lacks Samsung's software extensions.

Our current Editors' Choice for small tablets is the completely different Amazon Kindle Fire ($199.99, 4 stars), which isn't nearly as flexible as the Galaxy Tab, but it's easier to use and half the price. For larger tablets, we prefer the Apple iPad 2 ($499.99, 4.5 stars) because of its far, far superior collection of tablet-focused apps.

This is a very good tablet, but here's the central problem: The Android Honeycomb app selection is stillborn, and industry interest is moving towards the next version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. The good news is that the Tab 7.0 Plus is slated to get an ICS upgrade at some point. If you like the features on this tablet (other than the poorly working remote), by all means get it. But I'd wait to see if ICS brings a flourishing of tablet apps that could make Android tablets better able to compete with the app king, the Apple iPad 2.

More tablet reviews:

??? Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus
??? ViewSonic ViewPad 10pro
??? T-Mobile Springboard 4G
??? Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet
??? Amazon Kindle Fire
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/T-XElrOlwPI/0,2817,2396848,00.asp

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Packing and patrolling, U.S. troops roll out of Iraq (Reuters)

CAMP ECHO, Iraq (Reuters) ? Camp Echo's dusty motorpools are empty, its private contract caterers have long gone home and murals depicting the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York's twin towers have been painted over.

One of the last seven U.S. military bases in Iraq, Echo is in rapid handover to Iraqi hands as American soldiers there pack up and complete their final task - protecting the last few departing troops heading home south across the Kuwaiti border.

Nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein, the U.S. mission in Iraq is fast winding down with only 13,000 troops left in the country. Hundreds are departing each day until the end of 2011.

Hundreds of convoys of military vehicles and civilian trucks have gone south into Kuwait since President Barack Obama last month said troops would leave as scheduled, effectively ending the large-scale U.S. military presence on Iraqi soil.

"It's time. The president and everyone is saying it's time. We did as much as we can," U.S. Army Sergeant Fred Fox said at Echo in Diwaniya, 150 km (95 miles) south of Baghdad.

"It's time for us to go home and let them take care of their own," he said.

Soldiers left on Camp Echo, like other bases in Iraq, are still patrolling to protect themselves, the highway south and the base even as they pack up and hand over equipment from vehicles to air conditioners to the Iraqi armed forces.

On Echo, rows of white SUVs, construction vehicles and jeeps sit parked waiting for Iraqi officials to check U.S. inventories. U.S. troops are leaving behind anything not cost-effective to ship elsewhere, like concrete blast walls.

Nearby, sand-colored MRAP armored vehicles warm their engines before trundling out on patrol to secure Highway One.

Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the sectarian conflict in 2006-2007, when suicide bombers claimed hundreds of victims each day and inter-communal killing between Sunnis and Shi'ites ravaged Baghdad and other cities.

Attacks and bombings still happen almost daily. Iraqi forces are battling a Sunni Islamist insurgency and rival Shi'ite militias backed by Iran.

At the height of the war, Iraq had more than 100 attacks a day. Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops died in eight and a half years and at least 60,000 Iraqis were killed in the violence. In 2006 alone, 17,800 Iraqis were killed, government statistics say.

Attacks on U.S. forces are far less common now, though officials have warned insurgents may try to pick up their assaults in the last days of the American withdrawal.

U.S. forces at Camp Echo still face one or two attacks a week, usually roadside explosives. The base was last mortared a few months ago.

Patrols from Echo head out daily scouring highways or nearby fields for suspicious piles of trash, dead animals on roadsides - clearing anything that could be used to hide explosives targeting convoys.

"We know they can't destroy us, but they do want to try to show they are the ones who forced the Americans out," Captain Mark Barnes, an army intelligence officer.

"WAITING FOR THE WORD"

Before Obama's announcement, U.S. officials had held months of talks with Iraq's government over the possibility of keeping a small contingent of several thousand American troops in Iraq as trainers to help local armed forces.

But Iraq's multi-sectarian leadership lacked the political capital to push through any agreement that would have granted legal immunity to remaining U.S. troops, effectively blocking a new accord on troops staying for the moment.

Civilian trainers will remain in Iraq to help teach Iraqi forces how to use the new U.S.-made hardware they have purchased, from F-16 fighters to Abrams tanks. Around 200 U.S. military personnel will be attached to the U.S. embassy.

"This tour is all about bringing our soldiers home, getting them out of Iraq and turning over to Iraqi forces," said Sergeant Derrick Grabener. "We have to keep the mindset that we are still here until we cross over the border."

Camp Echo is down to the basics. Private mess hall caterers have been replaced by army cooks and soldiers now run their gym. Photographs of U.S. troops have been taken off the base's office walls.

A mural painted in honour of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, which helped propel the United States into its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been painted over to stop images being defaced once the Americans leave.

"We are basically getting light on the ground. Every soldier is consolidating down to one duffle bag," Staff Sgt. William Cannon said. "We are pretty much ready to go when they give us the word."

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111130/wl_nm/us_iraq_withdrawal_troops

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Brain Training Software Beats Out Crosswords

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