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Saturday, January 7, 2012

Microsoft's Windows 8 Will Feature Robust Storage Spaces

Microsoft's Windows 8 will offer a new feature, Storage Spaces, designed to both protect data and organize physical drives for maximum use.

In a Jan. 5 posting on the ?Building Windows 8? blog, Rajeev Nagar, a group program manager on the Windows Storage and File System team, broke down the two overarching themes behind Storage Spaces: one, the ability to organize multiple physical disks into storage pools, and two, the use of virtual disks (which he refers to as ?spaces?).

A Windows 8 user will need only one physical disk to create a storage pool, although that will prevent the creation of mirrored or parity spaces capable of data redundancy in the event of some catastrophic failure. According to Nagar, there is ?no requirement for an even or odd number of physical disks.?

Those physical disks can be connected through USB, SATA (Serial ATA) or SAS (Serial Attached SCSI), he added. ?Storage Spaces delivers on diverse requirements that can span deployments ranging from a single PC in the home, up to a very large-scale enterprise datacenter,? he wrote. ?Once physical disks have been added to a pool, they are no longer directly usable by the rest of Windows?they have been virtualized, that is, dedicated to the pool in their entirety.?

Thanks to something called thin provisioning, raw storage capacity translates into a much larger mirrored space?in the blog?s example, some 4TB of raw physical space transforms into 10TB of capacity once it?s been added to the pool. ?Thin provisioning ensures that actual capacity is reserved for the space only when you decide to use it,? he wrote. ?Previously allocated physical capacity can be reclaimed safely whenever files are deleted, or whenever an application decides that such capacity is no longer needed.?

Should a pool disk fail, Storage Space can reallocate data. ?There?s another resiliency attribute, called parity,? he added, ?which directs Storage Spaces to store some redundancy information alongside user data contained within the space, thereby enabling automatic data reconstruction in the event of physical disk failure.??

Microsoft is unveiling a flurry of Windows 8 features in the ramp-up to the operating system?s release sometime in the latter half of 2012. In a separate posting on the blog this week, for example, the Windows team also detailed Windows 8?s streamlined ability to reset or refresh a PC experiencing issues. Resetting a Windows 8 PC will, obviously, wipe out all the user?s personal data while reinstalling the operating system; refreshing it, on the other hand, will preserve all that personal data, along with key settings and any ?Metro?-style apps.

Microsoft will almost certainly offer additional Windows 8 glimpses during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is slated to kick off with a Jan. 9 keynote speech by CEO Steve Ballmer.

Follow Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter?

Source: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Microsofts-Windows-8-Will-Feature-Robust-Storage-Spaces-700432/?kc=rss

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Friday, January 6, 2012

Obama to usher in election year with eye on Republicans (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama will start setting the tone on Wednesday for an election-year strategy that attempts to capitalize on voter frustration with Congress but which could also mean further legislative gridlock as he seeks a second term.

Stepping back into the 2012 campaign spotlight just a day after Iowa held the first contest of Republican presidential hopefuls, Obama will travel to Ohio, a state considered crucial to his re-election chances.

The Democratic president, fresh from a 10-day Hawaii vacation, will make the case for his economic policies as he tries to draw a contrast with Republican candidates vying to face him on the November ballot.

But after a year of bruising legislative battles, he is expected to keep the heat on congressional Republicans who he has accused of obstructing his economic recovery efforts and whom he blames for much of the dysfunction in Washington.

Obama is expected to keep hammering on populist themes, portraying himself as a champion of the middle class, and aides say he will roll out further executive orders to create jobs to

show voters he will take steps on his own if necessary.

"If Congress refuses to act and if Republicans choose the path of obstruction rather than cooperation, then the president is not going to sit here," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

President Harry Truman railed against a "do-nothing" Congress on his way to re-election in 1948, but analysts say Obama faces risks if he tries to emulate that.

They warn that a go-it-alone approach can only yield small-bore projects of modest benefit and that Obama could alienate some independent and moderate voters if they blame him for increasing partisan rancor.

Republicans, who see Obama's economic policies as ineffective and his spending plans as wasteful, accuse the president of campaigning instead of governing and have signaled continued resistance to his approach.

William Galston, a senior fellow at Washington's Brookings Institution, said Obama needed to be seen rolling up his sleeves and engaging directly with his Republican foes instead of distancing himself from them.

"There are very serious problems facing the country and I think the people are likely to believe the president out to be part of the solution," he said.

WINNING STRATEGY?

Despite that, Obama's aides believe they have a winning strategy after he faced down Republicans in December to gain a two-month extension of expiring payroll tax cuts.

The White House now believes the president has the upper hand politically in efforts to turn it into a full-year extension of the tax breaks, which independent economists say are vital to the U.S. economic recovery.

Though public discontent over persistently high unemployment has kept Obama's approval ratings below 50 percent, public perceptions of Congress are far worse after a bitter summer dispute over debt and government spending.

Now, Obama's aides believe cracks may be forming in Republican opposition to some parts of his long-stalled $447 billion jobs package as lawmakers begin to worry their own re-election prospects may be jeopardized by failure to act on job creation.

But Obama will face major challenges in maintaining any momentum in the months ahead, with Republicans reluctant to offer Obama any further legislative successes that might contribute to his re-election.

On top of that, Obama's aides appear at times to be struggling with his re-election message.

After a White House official told reporters at a briefing in Honolulu over the weekend that working with Congress was "no longer a requirement" once the payroll tax cut is extended beyond February, senior administration officials rushed to insist that Obama had no intention of ignoring lawmakers.

Still, many analysts see a congressional stalemate likely to persist until after the election.

Meantime, Obama plans to take his case directly to the electorate in a series of jobs and economy speeches around the country, what aides call an enhanced "ground game." He will speak on Wednesday at a high school in a Cleveland suburb.

Work is also under way on his January 24 State of the Union speech, which is expected to echo the populist themes of social justice he laid out in a speech in Kansas in early December.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull and Laura MacInnis. Editing by Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/uscongress/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120104/pl_nm/us_obama_campaign

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Friday, December 16, 2011

Immigration paranoia: Why are Americans being arrested? (The Week)

New York ? Activists say U.S. citizens are being detained under a federal program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants

An already controversial Obama administration push to find and arrest illegal immigrants is facing a new round of criticism from civil rights and immigrant groups, who say that documented U.S. citizens are being detained under the program. How often is this really happening? Here, a brief guide to the federal government's immigration crackdown, and some of its unforeseen consequences:

Are immigration agents really detaining U.S. citizens?
Yes, at least in a flurry of recent cases. These people are typically picked up by local police for other reasons ? U.S. citizen Antonio Montejano of Los Angeles, for example, was arrested for allegedly shoplifting a $10 bottle of perfume last month. But in custody, he was tagged as a suspected illegal immigrant by federal agents, acting on bad information in their database. As is typical in these cases, Montejano was supposed to be released quickly, but immigration agents told police to hold him in a local jail for possible deportation.

SEE MORE: Is Alabama's tough immigration law turning kids into bullies?

Wait, they can do that?
In theory, it's OK to hold people who have been arrested if they're genuinely suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Under the controversial Secure Communities program, federal agents can tell police to keep criminals locked up, pending an investigation into the detainees' legal right to be in the country. But mistakes happen: Montejano spent two extra days in jail after the judge in his shoplifting case ordered him released. "I was telling every officer I'm an American citizen," he tells the Los Angeles Times. "Nobody believed me."

Could Montejano take legal action?
Possibly. "Any case where an American is held, even briefly, for immigration investigation is a potential wrongful arrest," says Julia Preston in The New York Times. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which runs Secure Communities, takes the allegations "very seriously," spokesman John Morton tells the Times. "We don't have the power to detain citizens," he says.

SEE MORE: Should 'citizen juries' decide illegal immigrant status?

How often is this happening?
That depends on whom you ask. The American Civil Liberties Union points to the cases of Montejano and three others as irrefutable evidence that the problem is real, and widespread. The ACLU cites a study which found that 82 people were held ? for up to a year ? at Arizona immigration detention centers until a judge said they couldn't be deported because they were citizens. But the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank dedicated to reducing immigration, says the ICE database "contains no records of U.S. citizens who were detained by or for ICE."

Sources: Center for Immigration Studies, LA Times, NY Times

SEE MORE: The 'dramatic' decline in illegal immigration: 3 theories

View this article on TheWeek.com
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Investment in China falls amid world doldrums (AP)

SHANGHAI ? Foreign investment in China fell nearly 10 percent in November in the latest evidence of the rising toll that weakness in the West is taking on the world's No. 2 economy.

The $8.8 billion in foreign direct investment in November ? down 9.8 percent from a year earlier ? was a sudden deterioration compared with an increase of 8.8 percent in October, the Commerce Ministry said. Foreign direct investment covers spending on physical assets such as factories and doesn't include financial assets such as stocks.

Exports, industrial production and property dealings are slowing, and China's leaders wrapped up their annual economic planning conference on Wednesday with statements suggesting they will be more pro-active in moving to fend off the chill from the European debt crisis.

With the European Union ? China's largest export market ? in the doldrums, Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang described trade prospects as "grim."

"The impact of the global economic climate means the foreign trade environment is very severe," Shen said. He said China would step up efforts to encourage imports and boost exports by focusing on faster growing regions such as Russia and other emerging economies.

Export growth has fallen steadily since hitting a peak of nearly 36 percent in March, and economists are forecasting foreign trade will be a drag on growth next year.

Foreign direct investment in January-November rose 13.2 percent to $103.8 billion ? a slowing from the 15.9 percent increase seen in January-October, when total foreign direct investment was $95 billion.

An 18 percent increase in investment from other Asian economies to $89.6 billion, helped to offset a 23 percent decline in U.S. spending this year, as of the end of November, to $2.74 billion. Investment from the EU held steady, edging up 0.3 percent from a year earlier to $5.98 billion.

At their yearly economic work conference, Chinese leaders pledged fine-tuning to ensure stable and more balanced growth while fighting inflation, but offered no major shifts in policy.

The gathering endorsed the ruling communist party's agenda for keeping a "prudent" monetary policy to counter inflation and a "pro-active" fiscal policy to support growth.

It also pledged to keep curbs on the property sector in place to guard against a rebound in prices, and called for keeping the value of China's currency, the yuan, "basically stable," according to a statement issued by the official Xinhua News Agency.

China plans to prop up falling exports by setting up special trade "bases" and aiding exporters in inland areas, which have lagged behind the richer coastal regions, state media cited Commerce Ministry officials as saying.

Tax cuts and increased government spending in key areas such as high-tech and energy are also likely, though analysts say they do not expect stimulus comparable to the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) package deployed in response to the 2008 global crisis.

By targeting specific sectors, authorities aim to prevent the sort of runaway investment, driven by bank lending, that drove inflation to 6.5 percent in July and has left housing prices prone to inflate into financially risky bubbles.

With labor unrest flaring and financial conditions deteriorating across many sectors, from small companies to government-backed building projects, Beijing's mantra is "stability."

That word was repeated five times in just one sentence of the official dispatch that vowed continuity in policies for the sake of keeping social stability.

An expected transition next year to a new generation of communist leaders has accentuated Beijing's obsession with keeping control.

China's economy grew 9.1 percent in July-September but is expected to slow to below 9 percent growth in the coming year, as weaker demand at home compounds the impact from fragile conditions in Europe and the United States.

Given the weakness in demand for Chinese exports overseas, the leaders reiterated their intention to boost domestic demand to build an economy less dependent on foreign trade and investment.

___

Follow Elaine Kurtenbach on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ekurtenbachsh

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_economy

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Comet Lovejoy Survives Fiery Plunge Through Sun, NASA Says (SPACE.com)

This story was updated at 8:50 p.m. EST.

A newfound comet defied long odds today (Dec. 15), surviving a suicidal dive through the sun's hellishly hot atmosphere, according to NASA scientists.

Comet Lovejoy plunged through the sun's corona at about 7 p.m. EST today (midnight GMT on Dec. 16), coming within 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) of our star's surface. Temperatures in the corona can reach 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 million degrees Celsius), so most researchers expected the icy wanderer to be completely destroyed.

But Lovejoy proved to be made of tough stuff. A video taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft showed the icy object emerging from behind the sun and zipping back off into space.

"Breaking News! Lovejoy lives! The comet Lovejoy has survived its journey around the sun to reemerge on the other side," SDO researchers tweeted today.

SDO is one of many instruments that scientists ? eager to record and study the comet's presumed demise ? trained on Lovejoy as it streaked toward the sun.

"We have here an exceptionally rare opportunity to observe the complete vaporization of a relatively large comet, and we have approximately 18 instruments on five different satellites that are trying to do just that," Karl Battams, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., wrote on the Sungrazing Comets website today, before Lovejoy's closest solar approach.

Battams runs the website, which is devoted to comets discovered by two different spacecraft: NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which is operated jointly by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). [Death of a Comet: Photos of Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy]

Preparing for the end

Lovejoy has a core about 660 feet (200 meters) wide. It belongs to a class of comets known as Kreutz sungrazers, whose orbits bring them very close to the sun.

All Kreutz sungrazers are thought to be the remnants of a single giant comet that broke apart several centuries ago. They're named after the 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first showed that such comets are related.

Comets plunge into the sun on a regular basis, but they rarely give much advance notice of their suicidal intentions. That's why scientists were so excited about Lovejoy. Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered the icy wanderer on Nov. 27, giving researchers plenty of time to map out their observation campaign.

And that campaign has been intense, involving five different spacecraft. In addition to SDO, SOHO and STEREO, scientists planned to use Japan's Hinode satellite and ESA's Proba spacecraft to track Lovejoy's movements, Battams wrote.

NASA also created a website providing updates about the comet's pass through the corona, as well as images of the event beamed down by SDO. It can be found here: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/lovejoy.php

For his part, Terry Lovejoy said he was happy to have made a contribution, and he marveled a bit at all the attention the comet has been getting.

"It's been tremendous," Lovejoy told SPACE.com. "Apparently it's all over Facebook, and I don't use Facebook. But there's a lot of interest. I think a lot of people like the name ? the Lovejoy name seems to strike a chord with people."

A dramatic escape

Lovejoy is quite large for a sungrazing comet, and experts expected it to die an impressive death. The website Spaceweather.com, for example, predicted Lovejoy would blaze as brightly as Jupiter or Venus in the sky as it neared the sun.

Battams also expected a good show, saying the comet might even be visible from the ground around sunset today in the Northern Hemisphere.?

"I do think that it will put on a spectacular show for us and will be the brightest Kreutz-group comet that SOHO has ever observed," Battams wrote last week.

Though the early returns are just starting to come in, those forecasts appear to be on the money. Observations from various spacecraft do indeed show Lovejoy flaring up significantly as it neared our star.

Researchers will keep analyzing the images to better understand the comet's daring solar approach. And now skywatchers apparently have another shot to catch a glimpse of the resilient Lovejoy on Friday morning (Dec. 16).

For observers in North America, the comet will rise approximately 5 to 10 minutes before dawn and will be situated to the?upper right of the sun. If Lovejoy is still shining at least as brightly as Venus, it may be visible, experts say.?

You could also try to spot Lovejoy after the sun comes up, if you're exceedingly careful. Block the rising sun behind a distant building and focus on the part of the sky 3 to 4 degrees above and to the right of the sun (your clenched fist held at arm's length is equal to roughly 10 degrees). CAUTION: Never point binoculars or a telescope at or near the sun, and never look directly at our star with the naked eye. Serious eye damage can result.

And don't get your hopes up, either. The comet may well be too faint to see, experts say.

Note: If you take any good pictures of Comet Lovejoy and would like them to be considered for a future story or image gallery, contact SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

SPACE.com assistant managing editor Clara Moskowitz (@ClaraMoskowitz) contributed to this story. You can follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter: @michaeldwall. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111215/sc_space/cometlovejoysurvivesfieryplungethroughsunnasasays

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

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