Heat off to Finals, beat Pacers 99-76 in Game 7

MIAMI (AP) ? Their season, their legacy, their reign atop the NBA was all at stake, and the Miami Heat responded in a manner befitting defending champions ? with a blowout.

LeBron James scored 32 points and grabbed eight rebounds, ailing Dwyane Wade matched his postseason high with 21 points, and the Heat ran away from the Indiana Pacers 99-76 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on Monday night.

In the NBA Finals for the third straight year, the Heat will play the San Antonio Spurs in a series that starts Thursday in Miami.

"They're just an amazing group of guys," said Heat managing general partner Micky Arison, not long after handing the East championship trophy to Chris Andersen, who held it aloft as teammates standing around him celebrated. "They've given us an incredible season so far, but it's a long way from over."

It could have ended on Monday, of course. The Heat had alternated wins and losses with the Pacers in the first six games of the series, and were coming off their worst offensive outing of the year in Game 6.

They responded with a rout, despite shooting just under 40 percent, well below their norm.

"By any means necessary ... we took care of business," James said.

Miami led by as many as 28 points, a shocking amount for a series that had an aggregate score of Heat 569, Pacers 564 entering Monday night. The Heat actually trailed by six in the early going, were still down 21-19 after the first quarter and it was starting to look like it was going to be one of those down-to-the-wire nights.

Not even close.

James exited with 5:08 left, shaking retired soccer star David Beckham's hand as he made his way to the Heat bench for a relatively subdued celebration. Not long afterward, security personnel started what's become a familiar task in Miami ? surrounding the court and stretching out a yellow rope, preparing to hold people at bay for the looming on-court trophy presentation.

"You never want to take anything for granted," Wade said afterward. "Being here three straight years in a row, going back to the finals, is an amazing feat. I'm just glad we were able to do it. Everything that happened in the first six games didn't mean anything to us. It was about tonight. It was about Game 7. It was about finding a way to win here at home."

More than a few people didn't stick around to see the East title formally presented. After all, it's an all-or-nothing season for the Heat ? and this trophy isn't the one that will satisfy them.

Ray Allen added 10 points for Miami, which earned its 78th victory of the season, matching the 11th-best, single-season total in NBA history.

Roy Hibbert scored 18 points for the Pacers, who got 14 from David West, 13 from George Hill and 10 from Lance Stephenson. All-Star Paul George was held to seven points on 2-for-9 shooting and fouled out early in the fourth quarter.

George was the last Indiana player on the floor as Miami prepped for its postgame celebration, shaking any hand he could find before being walked toward the visiting locker room by Pacers coach Frank Vogel, who slung an arm over his star's shoulder.

His time will likely come ? someday.

Not yet, though. Not with this Miami team built for titles. It's the fourth trip to the finals for the Heat, who won the title in 2006 and have now been there all three years of the "Big Three" era, falling to Dallas in 2011 and then topping Oklahoma City in five games last year.

"The great thing is we're a young team and we are past the building stage," George said. "This is really our first year tasting success. The rate we are going, we see championships soon."

They're getting closer. A second-round loss to Miami in six games last year was followed by a seven-game, conference-finals exit this time around.

Still, they'll be watching the title round.

Miami went 2-0 against San Antonio this season, though neither of those games should be considered harbingers of what's ahead. The Spurs rested four regulars in the first meeting, the Heat were without three injured starters in the second matchup.

James delivered an inspirational address of sorts to his team Monday morning, publicly revealing no details of what he said afterward other than insisting that the Heat would be ready.

He was right. After 5 minutes, it was 12-6 Indiana. After that, the rest of the half was pretty much all Miami.

Once the Pacers cooled off a bit, the Heat immediately went into pull-away mode. Over the final 19 minutes of the half, Miami's edge was 46-25. Over the final 11 minutes, it was 33-14, as James and Allen outscored the Pacers by themselves.

Allen did less pregame shooting than usual on Monday. He was at the arena several hours before game time ? as is his custom ? and got in a pregame workout, but once he found a groove, he decided that was enough. And after going 13 for 46 in the first six games of the series, the NBA's career leader in 3-pointers had to believe that he was simply overdue to get going.

His first shot on Monday was a 3-pointer that connected, giving the Heat a 26-23 lead.

The Heat never trailed again.

By halftime, it was 52-37, with James scoring 18 points, Chris Bosh and Wade combining for 17 and Allen adding 10 more. And what had to be most troubling to the Pacers at halftime was their 15 turnovers, a number Vogel said earlier Monday would spell trouble if his team committed that many in the entire game.

And in the third, the run the Pacers so desperately needed never arrived. Indiana was still within 13 with 3:37 left in the period when Hibbert picked up his fourth foul. Ordinarily, that would mean someone goes to the bench, though Game 7 on the road for a trip to the finals hardly could be classified as an ordinary occasion.

So Vogel ? who was second-guessed for not having Hibbert on the floor for the final moments in overtime of Game 1, when James got to the rim easily for a game-winning layup ? left his center out there with four fouls.

Barely a minute later, it backfired. Hibbert picked up his fifth late in the third, and George got to five fouls by getting whistled twice in the final 46.1 seconds of the quarter.

By then, the outcome was obvious.

It was Miami's night.

NOTES: Miami's Norris Cole and Indiana's Jeff Pendergraph were ejected with 2:17 left after exchanging some heated words. ... Heat F Chris Andersen's streak of 18 straight field goals made (he had been 15 for 15 in the series) was snapped in the first half. ... Beckham, who is deciding whether he wants to bring a Major League Soccer team to Miami, was seated next to the Heat bench for the second straight game. Justin Bieber and Flo Rida were also in the crowd, as was reigning American League MVP Miguel Cabrera. ... The Pacers fell to 2-4 all-time in Game 7s, including 0-4 in road editions of winner-take-all games to decide the Eastern Conference title. ... Hibbert did not elaborate Monday about his comments that drew a $75,000 fine after Game 6, saying he wanted to focus on basketball instead.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/heat-off-finals-beat-pacers-99-76-game-032232249.html

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WWDC 2013 Predictions: Here Comes iOS 7, But What Else?

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) doesn't kick off until next Monday, but the internet's been wildly speculating about the company's plans for months. Some of it is almost definite (hello, flat design) and some of it's absurd (stop it with this). Here are all the goodies we actually expect Tim Cook and his funky bunch throw at us next week.

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iOS 7

If there's anything we can be almost positive about seeing on stage next week, it's the new, improved, and very very likely smashed-flat iOS 7.

The most notable feature to Apple's overhauled platform, of course, will be the presumably updated design forged by the hands of Jony Ive. Gone should be the skeumorphism that most of us have grown to, well, tolerate, and in its place should come cleaner lines, brighter colors, and an otherwise more Metro-like aesthetic. Whatever the change may be won't be a total shift; an overhaul to the degree we've been seeing in some of the mockups floating around would definitely be unsettling to some users. But you can expect to be carrying around a cleaner, simpler, and overall more pleasant experience in some form. A change that looks a little like this:

As far as functionality goes, there's a very good chance Flickr and Vimeo integration?which already exist for OS X Mountain Lion?should be making its way to your iOS device in much the way it has integrated Facebook and Twitter. And this is likely going to be part of the generally more efficient experience Apple is aiming towards.

It seems inevitable that the lockscreen will be redesigned. And while we still don't know exactly how, an improved way of accessing notifications is definitely on the table. Which will then take you to your new and improved Notification Center that could very well turn your desired information into sets of widgets, meaning the exact information you're looking for would be much easier to spot.

Overall, we're definitely expecting the biggest change in iOS 7 to be aesthetic. Anything else is just gravy.

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Macs

Both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are just about due for a refresh, which will almost certainly center around a bump to Intel's new Haswell processors. There's also hope of a MacBook Air with a retina display, which would likely be the extent of the hardware updates. Don't hold your breath for the latter, though.

Diminishing stock of current Apple goodies does certainly point to some sort of new lineup, so while there's almost definitely going to be something new as far as hardware goes, it's best to set expectations for those awesome new processors and not much else. We'll take it.

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OS X 10.9

There's been word of an OS X 10.9 (internally/fancily codenamed Cabernet) delay floating around that claims iOS 7 development forced Apple to pull engineers from OS X. But considering that WWDC is for, as its name might suggest, developers, the chances of not at least getting a preview of the updated operating system are incredibly low. So while we might not be able to get our grubby little hands on it right away, we'll have some idea of what to expect.

As part of a general trend towards total, seamless integration between Macs and mobile devices, 10.9 should likely have some performance tweaks as far as things like iCloud and iMessage go, both of which have been notoriously unreliable . There have also been some reports that 10.9 will finally feature Siri integration, which would hopefully mean some performance tweaks for Siri herself. A move towards more comprehensive voice control would definitely make sense for Apple, especially following Google's recent impressive voice search rollout.

And while it's highly unlikely we'll see a complete user experience overhaul, there will supposedly be some power-user enhancements that mostly focus on things like tags and tabbed browsing in Finder. So the devs in the audience next week should be thrilled. The more casual user likely won't even notice. Enhanced multi-monitor support should also be hitting, which is something users have been waiting far too long for.

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iCloud

Considering that Apple has recently acquired 18 patents from Maya Systems related to "innovative axis-based user interface technology," it's possible we MAY see a major improvement to the way you interact with Cloud.

iCloud is majorly lacking as far as allowing users to control and interact with the files they have stored, and browsing from mobile devices is virtually impossible. So Apple's definitely going to need to make the move at some point?iCloud needs to become much more transparent and easier to manage if its going to compete with the third-party cloud services currently littering the market.

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iRadio

Part of this iCloud overhaul could be announcement of the long-awaited, long-overdue iRadio, the music streaming service Apple's had a bit of trouble getting off the ground. Namely because, at least initially, Apple decided to play the part of parsimonious bastard in their rights negotiations with record labels. After realizing that their offer of 6 cents per 100 listens was, perhaps, a bit stingy (considering Pandora's rate is 12 cents and Spotify's 35), they reportedly raised their offer to match Pandora's.

But supposedly?and after managing to get both Warner Music and Universal Music Group on board?Sony may still be holding Apple back from its streaming dreams. In early May, there was word floating around that the music giant wanted Apple to cough up more than what they get from Pandora, reasoning that Sony deserves it due to Apple's "broader ambitions." A smart move on Sony's side should iRadio become as big as iTunes?but also one that could be holding us back from seeing what sort of streaming service Apple's been cooking up for just a bit longer.

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AirDrop for iOS

There's been a consistent flurry of rumors that iOS may finally feature AirDrop integration ever since the peer-to-peer file-sharing feature hit OS X Lion over two years ago. And just as luck has it?the rumors are back!

Should the dream become a reality, you'd be able to transfer photos and documents directly to a friend's device, which will catch all your generously shared goodies in a special downloads folder. It's incredibly easy for Apple to slash a segment of iOS at the last minute, so it's just as possible that we'll be coming up AirDrop-less again next week. But according to 9 to 5 Mac, AirDrop?should it exist?will be able to work between two iOS devices and maybe between iOS and OS X.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/wwdc-2013-predictions-here-comes-ios-7-but-what-else-511207258

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How We Need to Legislate Drones

All but seven states have proposed or adopted legislation relating to the domestic use of drones, or unmanned aerial systems, in domestic airspace, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Now, at the invitation of the Aerospace States Association, EFF has rung in with the three crucial elements that all drone legislation must contain to balance privacy rights with free-speech concerns.

Some proposals floated so far, such as California?s AB 1327, lay out a decent framework for limiting the use of drones by law enforcement. Few states, however, have adequately handled the use of drones by private individuals. Texas' recently passed (but so far unsigned) HB 912 manages to mess up both sides of the table by allowing cops to use drones without a warrant while also hampering the press' ability to use drones in newsgathering. The ACLU has a comprehensive breakdown of the legislation, along with analysis of the good, the bad and the ugly and what has passed into law so far.

On Friday, EFF staff attorney Jennifer Lynch submitted a set of recommendations for states seeking to regulate drones. In her letter, Lynch outlines three straightforward principles that, at a minimum, must be included in any UAS legislative scheme.

?UAS are capable of highly advanced and near-constant surveillance through live-feed video cameras, thermal imaging, communications intercept capabilities, and backend software tools such as license plate recognition, GPS tracking, and facial recognition,? Lynch writes in the letter. ?They can amass large amounts of data on private citizens, which can then be linked to data collected by the government and private companies in other contexts.?

First, law enforcement must be required to obtain warrants before using drones in investigations to protect the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens from overbroad or undue data collection. Second, commercial drone operators must be held to established privacy standards and must disclose the details of their operations. Third, legislation that regulates private and media use of drones must strike an appropriate balance between privacy and First Amendment protected activities such as newsgathering.

EFF believes that the public has a right to know where drones are being used, what kind of information the surveillance technology records, how long the data will be stored, who has access to the data and whether the information can be used outside of the original, stated purposes.

For the last several years, EFF has engaged in a transparency campaign to force disclosure of information on domestic drone deployment. Through three successful FOIA lawsuits, EFF has obtained and published details drone flights across the country. Friday?s filing follows a list of privacy-enhancing recommendations EFF filed with the Federal Aviation Administration in April.

Lynch?s three-page letter to the Aerospace States Association is worth reading in full whether you?re a legislator or a member of the public.

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Republished under Creative Commons license from Electronic Frontier Foundation

Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-we-need-to-legislate-drones-511178947

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Sen. Frank Lautenberg Dies, Right Wing Blogs Spew Hatred (Little green footballs)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/310194423?client_source=feed&format=rss

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ASUS FonePad Note hands-on at Computex 2013 (video)

ASUS is joining the big smartphone / tablet / don't call it a phablet fight, and its first salvo is the 6-inch FonePad Note. We don't have to tell you that it's big, and that it stretched the limits of our hands when we briefly played with it. The 1080p display is suitably crisp enough, although this early demo unit was unable to be steered any further than the lock screen. However, that screen should at least look familiar to anyone who's played with the first FonePad. There's also a built-in stylus to use with it, one that's almost half as long as the phone itself, and this can be holstered in the back -- making it awfully like the Galaxy Note in more than just name. It's also worth noting the dual front-facing speakers, although there was no chance to test audio quality. Catch our brief eyes-on video after the break.

Gallery: ASUS FonePad Note hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, ASUS

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/03/asus-fonepad-note-hands-on-computex-2013/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Chasing Lightning

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Chasing Lightning
Storm chaser Tim Samaras and his son died on Friday in a tornado, after years spent chasing extreme weather.

Source: National Geographic News
Posted on: Monday, Jun 03, 2013, 9:16am
Views: 11

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128465/Chasing_Lightning

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Despite hot issues, lawmakers meet public less

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) ? From her front row seat at the Fort Dodge Public Library, pugnacious retiree Betty Nostrom wasted no time grilling the U.S. senator standing before 80 constituents over how he was investigating the deaths of four Americans in Libya last fall.

"Or will that just be swept under the rug?" Nostrom asked Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, kicking off an hour of polite, though pointed, questioning.

Farmers, nurses and veterans took turns pressing Grassley on gun control, immigration, the deficit and the Internal Revenue Service scandal, and listening to his answers.

Some in the audience applauded. Others scoffed. But all embraced the chance to put their representative to Washington on the spot, face to face, during the town hall style meeting, a staple of American civics that's growing increasingly scarce.

These days, lawmakers generally are holding fewer in-person public gatherings with constituents than they have in past years, evidenced by the smattering of such events last week during the Memorial Day congressional recess. Instead, members of Congress are relying far more on telephone and online forums, according to watchdog groups, political organizations and lawmakers themselves.

"There's a myth out there that legislators aren't listening," said Brad Fitch, president of the Congressional Management Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group that advocates best practices for members of Congress. "They are, but we're seeing them shift to other forums, and the discussions often aren't as robust."

Why the shift? For one, angry crowds, sometimes in the thousands, mobbed public question-and-answer meetings in lawmakers' home states during the raucous debate over health care legislation in 2009. Then there was the shooting rampage in 2011 at a public appearance in Tucson by then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz.

Such incidents spooked lawmakers, who also were facing constituents deeply down on Washington and frustrated by high unemployment and foreclosure rates.

Beyond any security concerns, politicians have practical reasons for changing to a more frequent electronic format. Many say those numerous benefits of outweigh the big drawback: They lose the personal touch, the handshake moment at the end of a robust discussion, that can tighten bonds with their constituents.

Some lawmakers say electronic versions of town halls are more efficient and convenient than the real thing.

Rep. Jim Gerlach, R-Penn., says he can check in with voters at home without having to travel back, often holding constituent conference calls on Mondays or Tuesdays when Congress is in session.

It's not just convenient for a lawmaker to arrange. They pay a service to simultaneously call thousands of numbers and ask them to stay on the line for the event to begin. It's also convenient for constituents to participate. They don't have to take off of work or get in a car, and they can linger and listen as long as they like.

In an era of shrinking congressional office budgets, advocates say electronic forums also are appealing because they reach many times more people and are cheap to advertise via a single email sent to thousands.

About 20 people showed up for Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney's meeting in Union, S.C., last week. Mulvaney recalled once advertising a meeting by paying for 1,800 first-class mail notices. He said four people showed up.

Lawmakers more conveniently can collect the contact information from participants in the electronic forums than the in-person kind.

In Fort Dodge, a Grassley aide passed around paper cards for the 80 attendees to fill out return after the meeting for staff to record.

Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said he once held a call that attracted 50,000 listeners, and he uses the conference calls to conduct opinion polls.

"It gives us a real pulse," Franks said. "In my judgment it's just a wonderful way to go."

At the same time, electronic town hall meetings decrease the risk of ugly confrontations that can be caught on video and posted on YouTube.

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said opponents or interest groups sometimes hijack public events and heckle the members. With teleconferences, they are easier to weed out, Boustany said.

The convenience of picking up the phone may make it easier for people to participate in an era when busy schedules and perhaps apathy or disgust with Congress may keep voters from engaging in a nation where fewer than 1 in 5 people approves of the job Congress is doing.

All this means the odds are that most people in the U.S. won't get the chance to interrogate their lawmakers in person during Congress' summer break, despite a series of hot issues on Capitol Hill, including immigration, the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the IRS' targeting of conservative political groups and the Justice Department's seizure of media outlets' telephone records.

"You have all this and members of Congress have effectively stopped doing town hall meetings," says Matt Kibbe, president of the tea-party organizer Freedomworks. "I find quite remarkable that they are unwilling to meet with their customers."

Grassley is a big exception.

He's diligently continued holding frequent in-person town hall meetings, annually meeting his promise to visit each of Iowa's 99 counties despite being the target of angry conservatives in 2009 during the health care debate and despite the logistical challenges.

Grassley insisted there's still value in the traditional way, calling the give-and-take with constituents the glue that binds him to them.

"I can read their letters and talk to them on the phone. But you don't fully understand," he said last Wednesday. "Here, I look them in the eye. They look me in the eye. It's more full communication."

With that, he headed out the Fort Dodge library door, headed to his fourth town hall of the day. And it was only 1 p.m.

____

Babington reported from Washington.

___

Follow Thomas Beaumont on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TomBeaumont and Charles Babington at https://twitter.com/CBabington

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/despite-hot-issues-lawmakers-meet-public-less-114445257.html

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