The Sexiest Holiday Hairstyles

WENN/Curtis Sabir

Kerry Washington's Airy Ringlets

Use weighty styling products in moderation—save for a light texturizer and a mist of hairspray—if you want to achieve bouncy curls like Kerry Washington's. After forming the spirals with a medium-barrel curling iron, comb through with a vented brush, as a paddle brush may cause the style to fall flat.

David Fisher/Rex Features/ZUMA; Dominique Charriau/WireImage

Kate Hudson's Boho-Chic Bun

Is it just us, or does Kate Hudson's look have a slight floral vibe? Babaii channeled the beauty of Italy to create the star's breezy, yet polished, style. Rather than juggling multiple tools, he used his fingers as a comb so he didn't disturb the natural texture of Hudson's hair.

Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic; Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Zoe Saldana's Undone Ponytail

Despite its effortless texture, Zoe Saldana's low ponytail maintains a dressed-up appearance, and even gets a touch of retro glamour with the added volume at her crown. Her hairstylist, Mara Roszak, used John Frieda's Frizz-Ease Mousse ($5; drugstore.com) on Saldana's damp strands, then rough-dried them to add movement. "To create the perfect natural wavy texture, I loosely braided her hair and let it dry," Roszak said. "I took out the braids, and misted a hairspray all over her head to add extra volume and texture." The Bardot-esque height was made by gentle backcombing at Saldana's crown. Taking sections from either side of the star's head, Roszak overlapped pieces of hair down the back until she formed a low ponytail shape, then fastened the style with hair pins. And remember—the tousled appearance is part of the appeal. "Allow pieces of hair around the face to naturally fall out for a soft, feminine look," Roszak added.

Joseph Gotfriedy/Broadimage

Padma Lakshmi's Soft Layers

Va-va-voom! Not only did Padma Lakshmi's strands stay full and bouncy throughout the duration of the 2012 Emmy Awards, the style also had some animated inspiration. "The look is a modern-day Jessica Rabbit-influenced wave," said Lakshmi's hairstylist, Michael Duenas. He used OSiS Ultra-Strong Cream Mousse ($19; drugstore.com) on dry hair to give the style hold, before blowing out horizontal areas. Duenas then wrapped one-inch sections around a curling iron, directing the spirals away from Lakshmi's face. After adding extra ringlets throughout the style, he misted hair with a flexible hold hairspray. Duenas finished by spritzing OSiS Freeze Finish Hairspray ($19; drugstore.com) onto a boar-bristle brush, and combed out each curl to impart a soft wave. "It's sexy, understated, and ultra-feminine."

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Heidi Klum's Buoyant Curls

One part Farrah Fawcett, one part haute couture, Heidi Klum's bouncy waves at the 2012 Emmy Awards make a statement without appearing overdone. "This look is new for Heidi because it is so soft and sexy," said celebrity hairstylist Oribe, who created the style. "I was inspired by French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, whose models always looked so glamorous." Oribe blow-dried Klum's hair using Volumista Mist ($34; oribe.com) to create body, then used a curling iron to add pin curls. Once the spirals were completely cool, he brushed through the style and misted on Impermeable Anti-Humidity Spray ($38; oribe.com) to lock out the elements.





INSTYLE

Eva Longoria Speaking At The Democratic National Convention

Eva Longoria is very pretty and VERY politically minded.
We're not sure if she's planning on running for office any time soon, but she is definitely trying her hardest to make sure that Barack Obama stays in the White House.
The actress is already one of the 35 national co-chairs in the president's re-election campaign and will be speaking at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September. She'll be one of the few celebrities joining a line-up which is sacrificing star power for powerful women!
Female leaders like Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America Nancy Keenan, U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, contraceptive advocate Sandra Fluke and many more will be taking the podium to speak to the crowd between September 3rd and 6th.
Former President Bill Clinton is also scheduled to pump up the audience along with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro.
In the past, the Desperate Housewives star has applauded Obama's fight for affordable healthcare, access to education, his support for the Hispanic community and his polices which "give everyone a fair shot at the American Dream."




Perez Hilton.com

Facebook cracks down on fake 'Likes'

Facebook is weeding out fake "Likes" on its social network that are being caused by spammers, malware and black marketeers as it strives to maintain credibility as an advertising platform.
Facebook said the number of Likes, or endorsements by users, on corporate pages is likely to drop by less than 1 percent, on average, after the crackdown.
"Newly improved automated efforts will remove those Likes gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or purchased bulk Likes," Facebook said in a post on its official blog on Friday.
"While we have always had dedicated protections against each of these threats on Facebook, these improved systems have been specifically configured to identify and take action against suspicious Likes," the post continued.
Thanks to a growing black market, companies can instantly raise their profile on Facebook by purchasing thousands of Likes at a time — a practice that is forbidden by the No. 1 social network, which has 955 million users.
Many of these Likes come from bogus Facebook user accounts rather than genuine users of the social network.
Meanwhile, various spam-like programs on Facebook deceive users into unwittingly liking something when they perform another action, such as clicking to watch a video.
Facebook said the cleanup will benefit both users and companies that maintain pages on the network, by giving a more accurate measurement of fan count and demographics.
Ensuring the integrity of Likes is serious business for Facebook, which depends on advertising revenue from large brands and other businesses. Many of the ad campaigns that companies conduct on Facebook are designed to garner Likes — a sign that their marketing message has resonated with consumers.
"It's their currency," said Jeremiah Owyang, a partner at research firm Altimeter Group. "Facebook is playing the Federal Reserve, to take the counterfeit currency off the market to ensure that there's quality in the marketplace."
The problem is not unique to Facebook, say analysts, who note that Twitter and Google also grapple with fake accounts, spam and other techniques to game the service.
But for Facebook, the pressure to show that activity on its social network is genuine has grown as concerns have mounted on Wall Street about the company's long-term profit potential.
Facebook estimates that 1.5 percent of its users are "undesirable" accounts set up for purposes that violate its terms of service, according to its most recent 10-Q regulatory filing.
"I think what they're intending to do is get a handle on it before it gets really out of control," Brian Blau, an analyst with research firm Gartner, said.
"You can imagine no business wants to pay for advertising to fake accounts."
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Check for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp 



nbcnews

Andy Roddick should bow out with no regrets

Until my dying day I will remember that game. One game, five shots, 46 seconds. That 46 second game which saw Andy Roddick serve out the US Open of 2003.
There are so many Roddick moments to recall from a distinguished career - I loved the quality and sportsmanship of his epic quarter-final with Younes El Aynouai in Australia earlier that year - but nothing tops that sprint finish to the line at Flushing Meadows.
On a totally green hard court in 2003, before the blue was introduced, Juan Carlos Ferrero managed to get his racket on just one of Roddick's four serves. It was the freedom of an all-American sport-mad kid, just doing his thing.
Roddick, 21, had become a Grand Slam champion and a new American idol, who would end that year as the world number one, had arrived on the international scene.

Fast forward almost nine years and Roddick, on his 30th birthday, found himself announcing his retirement, very calmly and very definitely, to a packed Flushing Meadows press conference.
Friends and family were seated alongside the journalists: Brooklyn Decker, his wife, Larry Stefanki, his coach, Stephen Little, the London taxi driver who drove him randomly one night and became a close friend.
They knew what was coming, the reporters weren't so sure.
Was he pulling out of the tournament? Was it a birthday celebration? Roddick did well to keep the news under wraps and, through the microphones of the media, announced it to the world on his own terms. He deserved that.

Andy Roddick has won 32 career titles in a 12 year professional tennis career. Photo: Getty


It was a sudden development, and the twittersphere reacted with shock, but, if we're honest, it had been coming. For a while, Roddick has struggled to live with the intense pace and quality at the top of the men's game. He's not interested in simply "existing", to use his phrase.
Feeling uncompetitive against the best, Roddick put it simply: "It is time," he said.
And, on Thursday, it was impossible to argue with that.
Then we had Friday night.
Roddick thrashed one of the better prospects in the game (supposedly) Bernard Tomic and there were plenty of fans wondering if he'd made a premature call.
The Arthur Ashe night session is Roddick's stage in America. Nobody has played more times under the New York lights. As he whacked, wheeled, bounced and smiled his way to victory, he put the feeble Tomic firmly in his place. (The Aussie was "pathetic" according to US commentator Patrick McEnroe). Does Roddick have one more glorious run left in him?
Whatever happens here, Andy Roddick has been great for tennis. Like Kim Clijsters, also retiring after this year's tournament (she won in Mixed Doubles last night to prolong her career another day), he will be missed by colleagues, fans and media alike.
We will miss his huge serve, sharp wit, perennial perseverance, even the funny fidgets.
Not a point went by without the right shoulder of his shirt being adjusted. I hope in his next life - in TV studio, office, garden, wherever - he keeps adjusting that shoulder of the shirt and requests a nearby towel.
His press conferences were often legendary. Silly questions would be dispatched to the boundary with tongue-in-cheek disdain. Half-volleys would be snaffled with quick-witted enthusiasm. And he always gave an honest answer.
"How do you rate Gonzalez's chances?" [in the 07 Australian Open Final v Federer].
"Slim."
"What was your favourite press conference?" he was asked last night.
"I don't really rate press conferences. It's not as though I leave the room fist-pumping my way down the corridor after a good one."
Classic, straight-faced, A-Rod.
Earlier, he was on good form on the court. He revealed he got a bit emotional as he walked past a TV studio and a saw a montage of his career. "The sound was down but I'm guessing it was set to an 80s ballad" he quipped.
He loved a bit of chat with an under performing umpire and would try to outwit them at change of ends. Once in Australia, he left the chair advising the crowd: "Stay in college, kids. Otherwise you may become an umpire."
When he needed to be serious, he had no trouble switching gears.
In the past 12 months he has been the most articulate voice of the locker room in the ongoing campaign for a better share of Grand Slam tournament revenues. The players should persuade him to stay as their spokesman and lead negotiations from the sidelines. He has also raised a huge amount of money for charity through his foundation.
Being such a popular player in the UK, it was a disappointment to many that he never won Wimbledon. How he tried.
He came close, especially in 2009, but never managed to avoid Roger Federer, who beat him in three finals. His effort in that marathon All England Club final three years ago was immense and one couldn't help but feel for him as he sat in the runners up chair as Federer paraded yet another trophy. Roddick just wanted to hold it the once.
No regrets though. It was a mighty fine career. Now a new life beckons and he's bound to be a success in whatever field he turns to, which will surely involve talking, a lot of jesting and quite a bit of fidgeting. Good luck Andy.


BBC

Microsoft makes its Facebook shares pay off, report says

Redmond reportedly sold one-fifth of its shares in Facebook right after the social network's IPO, and thus made a tidy profit.


A report suggests that Microsoft offloaded around 20 percent of its shares in Facebook just after the social network went public. In doing so, the software giant received $249 million back -- close to $10 million more than it first invested.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company invested $240 million in Facebook in 2007 for a 1.6 percent stake in the social network. Back then it wasn't a huge amount, but was a major boost for Facebook to have a dominant player on its roster. Soon after, Bing Search and Bing Maps were brought to the social network to display search results and other imagery for pages and businesses.
An Associated Press report said Microsoft sold 6.6 million shares -- roughly 20 percent -- when the social network went public in May. Despite Nasdaq's embarrassing and ill-timed hiccup, Microsoft sold its shares at the IPO price, a world away from Facebook's current trading price.


Add up the numbers -- number of shares multiplied by the share price -- more than $249 million in total. Maybe Microsoft foresaw the steep decline in Facebook shares and sold early, or maybe it's just good business sense. Either way, Microsoft still has a lot more Facebook stock on its hands.
Facebook is trading at $19 a share, down from $38 at its initial public offering in June. The social network has lost half its share value in one three-month period.
Questions were left with Microsoft, which did not respond at the time of writing.
This story originally appeared at ZDNet's Between the Lines under the headline "Microsoft offloads 20 percent of its Facebook shares: report."


 CNET

Expendables 2 raids US box office

Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Terry Crews star in The Expendables 2

Action heroes led by Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have stormed to the top of the North American box office chart with The Expendables 2.

The full-throttle film sequel also stars Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jet Li in the tale of a gang of military mercenaries.
The film took $28.8m (£18.3m) over the weekend, according to studio estimates.
It knocked The Bourne Legacy into second place with $17m (£11m), while animated comedy ParaNorman is in third.
That film features a boy named Norman who can talk to ghosts and works to save his town from a zombie apocalypse.
Will Ferrell's political spoof The Campaign is in fourth place, followed by a new entry for Motown story Sparkle, a remake of the 1976 musical.
Sparkle was the final movie role for Whitney Houston, who starred alongside American Idol winner Jordin Sparks before her death in February.
Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gliberman wrote that the "gravelly conviction" of Houston's performance proved that "this could have been the first step not merely in a comeback but in a major re-invention".
USA Today's Claudia Puig wrote: "Envisioned as a starring vehicle for Sparks, Sparkle is also a fitting curtain call for Houston."
In sixth place in the box office chart, The Dark Knight Rises made $11.1m (£7m), taking it past $400m (£255m) and above The Hunger Games as the second most successful film of the year so far.
The Avengers is still comfortably the year's biggest hit, having taken $618m (£393m) in the US and Canada.



BBC

Katie Holmes & Suri's Car Hit by Garbage Truck

Nearly three weeks after filing for divorce from Tom Cruise, life in New York City isn't without a few bumps in the road for Katie Holmes – literally.

The Mercedes she was traveling in with daughter Suri, 6, was hit by a garbage truck Monday night, police confirm. No one was injured.

The mother-daughter duo were leaving the Chelsea Piers recreational center – not far from their new Manhattan apartment – when a turning garbage truck rammed into their Mercedes, according to a source.

"Suri was crying in the car," says the source, who adds that Holmes, 33, was not driving.

Once Holmes and her daughter were back home, a police report was filed.

This is the second time their car has been hit in four days. Last Friday, a paparazzi car hit their vehicle as they were pulling home after a trip to the FAO Schwarz toy store.

Still, life in N.Y.C. doesn't seem to be slowing down for Suri and Holmes, who was granted primary custody of her daughter, according to sources. The two have been photographed shopping at pet stores, feeding alpacas at the Central Park Zoo and enjoying an icy treat in between.



People

Rafael Nadal Withdraws from the Olympics

Rafael Nadal

Splash News Online

Rafael Nadal will not be competing in the London Olympics, he announced Thursday.

"I am not in condition to compete in the London Olympics and therefore will not travel as planned with the Spanish delegation to take part in the Games," he said in a statement to the Associated Press.

"I have to think about my companions, I can't be selfish and I have to think of what's best for Spanish sport, especially tennis and Spanish players, and give fellow sportsmen with better preparation the chance to compete."

Nadal – who won the men's singles gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – has been battling knee problems for years. Still, he continued to prepare for the Olympics until as recently as this week.

"I tried to hurry my preparations and training to the very last minute, but it was not to be," he said in his statement.

But earlier this week, he documented his training progress online. "Stretching after the practice, more and more eager to arrive to London!" he wrote on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Nadal also said recently that he was "doing everything possible to recover" after competing at Wimbledon. "The hopes are at a maximum, the work is total and I expect to be at 100 percent," he said last Saturday.

Nadal, ranked number three in the world after Wimbledon, had been selected to carry the Spanish flag at the London Olympic Games. 

People

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Heat-Celtics Game 6: It has to be LeBron/Wade show for Heat to survive

Reuters



In all the schadenfreude over watching the Miami Heat lose and seem to unravel, one thing seems to be consistently overlooked — the Boston Celtics are a really good defensive team. They were second in the league in points allowed per possession, they blow up pick-and-rolls, they are tough to score on in isolation. They slow down everyone. They were going to slow down the Heat.
But if LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are really on there is no defense that can stop them.
And that’s what this series has come down to for the Heat — they need LeBron and Wade to be exceptional to win. Not good, like combining to score 57 points on 47 shots in Game 5, they need to be world beaters. Both of them. Every game. They need to put up 65 at least between them and hope that Chris Bosh can pitch in more (he will play more).
Those two especially are going to have to do that on the road in Game 6 because the Heat can’t count on anyone else. If they are going to force a Game 7 it will because the Heat’s stars carried Game 6.
Boston’s offense has looked solid enough the last few games against the Heat, most of that due to Rajon Rondo. He is running the pick-and-roll beautifully with Kevin Garnett (getting KG easy looks rolling to the rim or open spot up 18 footers), he is hitting a few outside shots and he is controlling the flow of this series. Throw in some good buckets from Paul Pierce and Ray Allen and it’s good enough.
Miami is helping out with defensive lapses — often ones of effort. How many times did the old legs of Boston just outrun the Heat players down he floor in Game 5? Dwyane Wade was not alone but was the most prominent guy just getting beat down court, forced into bad matchups because of it that Rondo and the Celtics exploit. That’s not on coach Erik Spoelstra, either — if you can’t get fired up for Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals to bust it every single play there is nothing a coach can do.
Remember, the Heat entered this season wanting to up the tempo — play pressing defense, force turnovers, get out in transition and overwhelm with their athleticism. We saw that kind of defense in Game 1 and the second half of Game 4 from Miami, but that’s it. It was supposed to be their identity, but it isn’t. Not every game, not every play. The committment and effort are not there.
And at the end of the day, that is what this series is about. Boston is a good team that will play good defense and give you maximum effort every night. They will be the best team they can be.
Miami plays like it can flip the switch. But that switch almost never stays on for a full game. They will have a fantastic quarter then go back to coasting on both ends, something they can still win doing in the regular season but it leads to bad habits. The Heat are very self-conscious and that can throw off their confidence in a heartbeat. The Celtics will just put their head down and fight through those kinds of stretches.
Which is why you have to think Boston has the edge at home – this will be their best effort, best game of the series. That’s still not good enough to beat Miami’s best, but do you really think we’ll see that for 48 minutes at both ends of the floor? Do you really think this is the night Wade and LeBron both show up and play their best games? I’m just not sold.



NBC

Apple iOS will kick in 40 percent of Google's mobile profits, says analyst

Google will have arch-rival Apple to thank for a huge chunk of its mobile earnings in 2012.
The search giant's licensing deals with Apple over its Maps and Search apps have been a healthy cash cow since the iPhone debuted in 2007. This year will be no exception.
In an investors note released yesterday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he expects Google to generate around $4.5 billion in mobile revenue this year. And iOS will kick in the largest or close to the largest chunk of that.
iOS will account for around 40 percent of Google's total mobile search revenue, or $1.6 billion, estimates Munster, which ultimately means iOS will generate around 2 percent of Google's total sales for the year.
Those numbers aren't bad, but they're actually conservative compared with an earlier estimate that pegged the iOS contribution at 80 percent of Google's mobile profits, according to AppleInsider.
But what happens if Apple replaces Google Maps with its own in-house map app? Recent reports suggest that Apple has already cooked up a 3D Maps app set to replace Google's app as the default on iOS devices. Regardless, Munster doesn't expect any significant changes to the numbers.
Google Maps will still live on in the App Store, freely available for any person to download, the analyst said. Google recently revealed that its Maps service has attracted more than 1 billion users across the world. Google offers a host of other apps for iOS users, but the Maps app could prove to be the most popular among them even if it's no longer the iOS default



And Google isn't standing still with Maps.
The company unveiled yesterday a host of innovations to the service, including 3D images, offline use, and more shots of Street View.
Still, the move by Apple to replace Google Maps as the default may be just the latest attempt to squeeze out the search giant.
"Moving forward, we expect a continued tug-of-war between Apple and Google," Munster said. "We believe Google is likely to push more of its apps through the App Store, including Chrome, while Apple will continue to innovate around discovery on the iPhone through Siri. Net-net, we believe the core user experience on iOS will remain largely unchanged even if Google Maps is replaced."



Cnet.com

Did lasers find gold-laden lost city of Ciudad Blanca at last?

Underneath the thick, virgin rainforest cover in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, archaeologists have discovered ruins they think may be the lost city of Ciudad Blanca. Legends say the "White City" is full of gold, which is why conquistador Hernando Cortes was among the first Ciudad Blanca seekers in the 1500s.

But the method the modern researchers used was a little different from previous explorers' techniques. The modern-day researchers flew over the area in a small plane and shot billions of laser pulses at the ground, creating a 3-D digital map of the topology underneath the trees.
This is one of the first times this technique, called light detection and ranging (LiDAR), has been used to map ancient ruins. Beyond archaeology, LiDAR researchers at the National Science Foundation are looking to develop the technology for mapping disasters using drones, for military spying and for tracking erosion under rivers and shallow parts of the ocean. 
LiDAR for archaeology Before LiDAR improved enough for their work, archaeologists discovered ruins the old-fashioned way — by hacking through forests using machetes. LiDAR is faster and cheaper.
It's been gaining ground since 2009, when a U.S. archaeology team working on Maya ruins first used the technology to peer beneath 80 square miles (207 square kilometers) of forest canopy in Belize. After four days of laser scanning, team members discovered buildings and agricultural fields they hadn't found in 25 years of study. The team was supported by the then-new National Science Foundation organization for LiDAR science, the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping. [10 Modern Tools for Indiana Jones]
Airborne LiDAR works by sending more than 100,000 short laser pulses to the ground every second while a plane flies over the area of interest. The laser light hits the ground, then returns to the aircraft. The time it takes for the light to make the back-and-forth trip tells researchers the altitude of points on the ground. 
The technology is able to detect height differences of less than 4 inches (10 centimeters) and maps to GPS coordinates within 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). "It's within a step, in many cases," said Bill Carter, University of Houston engineer who develops LiDAR systems for the National Science Foundation.



The Belize archaeology work and the new Honduras findings both used the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping's LiDAR system. There was one major difference between the two projects, however. At the Belize site, researchers thought it was likely there would be new ruins there. They used the LiDAR to scan regions surrounding structures they had already uncovered. On the other hand, in the new study in Honduras, researchers were running on just a hunch — and plenty of private funding. 
LiDAR in Honduras Cinematographer Steven Elkins has been fascinated with the Ciudad Blanca stories for more than a decade. He previously analyzed satellite imagery of the Mosquitia forest, looking for signs of the city. As LiDAR improved, he gathered private investors to pay for the National Science Foundation's laser mapping center to analyze three areas he thought were especially promising. Elkins had originally approached the Honduran government with his idea, but government officials said they knew the forest well and there wasn't anything there, Carter said.



Over several days, National Science Foundation engineers flew over about 60 square miles (160 square kilometers) of forest for Elkins in their dual-engine Cessna planes. At the end of every day, they sent the data to Carter, who was working out of West Virginia. Carter found the first signs of what appeared to be human-made structures within five minutes of analyzing the data, he said. [Archaeology's Tech Revolution Since Indiana Jones]
"I'm the only person right now on the planet that knows that there's these ruins," Carter recalled thinking when he saw what he said were straight lines and right angles that don't normally appear in nature. "My wife walked in and looked over my shoulder and she was the second person to know." 
Carter sent his analysis back to the archaeologists in Honduras, who agreed the structures were man-made. Now, Elkins, along with a team of Honduran scientists, will visit the structures in person and determine what they are and how old they are. The LiDAR coordinates will help them pinpoint exactly where to look in the thick jungle. 
LiDAR for biology, disasters and the military Carter said he found his involvement in discovering the Honduras ruins exciting, but the National Science Foundation's LiDAR center is looking to do much more with the technology. 
So far, center researchers have used LiDAR to map to the ground to assess flooding risk and to find new fault lines in California. They've pinged Floridian citrus groves with lasers to check on the trees' health. Healthy tree leaves reflect a different quality of light back to LiDAR sensors than do sick trees, Carter explained.



The science agency also recently developed a laser that uses green light, which is able to map features underneath shallow water. Biologists want to use this technology to investigate fish spawning grounds, Carter said, while land managers may use a water-LiDAR to keep an eye on erosion. 
In the future, the center hopes to develop smaller, lighter, less expensive LiDAR that is able to ride in unmanned robotic aircraft. The drones could spy for the military, go on a tough Arctic mapping expedition or assess conditions after disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes. 
"As we look in the future, we see the ability to use these types of systems to map the entire Earth," Carter told InnovationNewsDaily. "Certainly all the land areas and shallow coasts."


Msnbc.com

Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth Are Engaged

Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Wedding Party in the U.S.A.!

Miley Cyrus and Hunger Games star Liam Hemsworth are engaged to be married after three years of dating, their reps confirm to PEOPLE exclusively.

"I'm so happy to be engaged and look forward to a life of happiness with Liam," Cyrus, 19, tells PEOPLE.

Australian actor Hemsworth, 22, who met Cyrus when they costarred in The Last Song in 2009, proposed on May 31 with a 3.5-carat diamond ring from jeweler Neil Lane.

Next up for the couple: Cyrus is in the studio working on a new album, while Hemsworth is currently filming Empire State in New Orleans. He'll also shoot Paranoia with Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman before beginning production on the second Hunger Games installment. 

People

Male pill: gene discovery may lead to contraceptive

It may be possible to develop a new male contraceptive pill after researchers in Edinburgh identified a gene critical for the production of healthy sperm.

Experiments in mice found that the gene, Katnal1, was vital for the final stages of making sperm.
The authors of a study in PLos Genetics said a drug which interrupts Katnal1 could be a reversible contraceptive.

Exclusive: Cameron Diaz reveals baby heartache after pregnancy film

Image 6 for 'People 20/05' gallery



Stunning actress Cameron Diaz has one of Hollywood's hottest bodies but she's not happy.

The Shrek star is eager to swap her superfit toned tummy for a baby bulge after making the rom-com What To Expect When You're Expecting.

Reese Witherspoon Goes Hiking with Her Father

From left: Reese Withspoon, dad John Witherspoon, daughter Ava and son Deacon

AKM-GSI

Reese Witherspoon went hiking with her father John in Santa Monica, Calif., on Saturday amid her parents' ongoing legal dispute over his second marriage.

The Oscar winner, 36, took her children Ava and Deacon along for what a witness says was a low-key, quiet walk together.

So, is there a tech bubble or not?

The results of Facebook's IPO last week may indicate there isn't -- at least not in the public markets.

By Kevin Kelleher, contributor

FORTUNE – Does anyone want to talk about a bubble now?

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Charlize Theron Steps Out with Jackson

Splash News Online


Step aside — precious cargo coming through!
New mom Charlize Theron keeps her carry on cutie — son Jackson! — cuddled close as they make their way through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Tuesday.
The trip overseas is not a surprise, as we spotted the bright-eyed baby boy and Theron out and about running errands — which included a stop at the post office for passport photos.
While the reason for their trip remains unknown, one thing’s for sure: It looks like the 6-month-old has moved on from his swaddling stage.

“It sort of looks a bit like a straightjacket — you’re like, ‘Is this child abuse?’ — but for some reason they just love it,” the Snow White and the Huntsman actress, 36, joked shortly after welcoming her son.


People.com

Cisse eyes revenge for Hughes

Djibril Cisse: Knows that a victory over Man City would be particularly pleasing for Mark Hughes



Djibril Cisse believes it would be a sweet moment for former Manchester City manager Mark Hughes if Queens Park Rangers can get a good result at the Etihad Stadium. 



QPR head into Sunday's season finale in charge of their own destiny after moving out of the Premier League relegation zone with a dramatic 1-0 win over Stoke.
The victory, which came courtesy of Cisse's 89th-minute strike, means Rangers will avoid relegation if they draw at City, where Hughes was sacked in 2009 after 18 months in charge.
Many think the Welshman was unfortunate to lose his job after a tumultuous period at the club that included Sheikh Mansour's multi-million pound takeover.
Cisse thinks Hughes, a former fans' favourite at Manchester United, will not be motivated by revenge but still thinks it would be nice for Rangers to triumph over City after the way his manager was treated.
"That would be sweet revenge for him," Cisse said.
"I don't think he is thinking about this - his main concern is to keep QPR up but it will be sweet for him too."

Important

Cisse only joined QPR in January but he has already had a number of ups and downs and was delighted to score such a crucial goal against Stoke.
It was the fifth time the Frenchman has scored in seven appearances, but he has been suspended for seven matches after getting sent off against Sunderland and Wolves, and he felt he owed Tony Fernandes a good performance.
"I am trying to do my best to repay what I owe the people," said the striker, who latched on to Anton Ferdinand's flick-on to seal the late win.
"It was one of the most important goals of my career. It's really important because I know how important it is for the club to stay up.
"I saw Tony after the game and he gave me a hug. I remember having a conversation with him by text, telling him: 'I am going to pay you back what I owe you' and he came and told me: 'Thank you. You paid me back'.
"It was nice of him."


SkySports

Opinion: Why is Samsung so hot right now?

(CNN) -- This summer, Earls Court in London will be the venue for Olympic volleyball, but last night Samsung hired this vast space to launch a single product -- its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S III. (We really liked it incidentally, check out our hands-on preview here).

Hiring such a large space and filling it full of tech heads from all over the world was a sign of extreme confidence from the Korean electronics giant, and you only have to take a look at its last set of figures to see where the bravado is coming from. Net profit for the quarter was 5.05tn won, up 81%, and the main driver for this success was Samsung's Galaxy range of phones.

The Galaxy range has certainly been selling like hot cakes. This week, trend-watchers IDC put the company ahead of the competition in its latest state of the market analysis.

What's interesting to me is how different Samsung's strategy is to its other major smartphone competitor, Apple. There is only one iPhone released every year, and design-wise, each one has been broadly the same as the previous model, with the same size screen.

In contrast, Samsung has a bewildering number of different models that, viewed together, make almost no sense at all to the casual observer. This might seem like a recipe for confusion, but it also means that that Samsung has a phone to suit pretty much every potential customer. Want something pocketable that's cheap? There's a Samsung Galaxy for that. Need lots of power, a massive screen and a stylus to draw pictures with? Samsung Galaxy can help. And on it goes.

Apple is fantastic at making a product that's very aspirational, and it makes an enormous amount of money on every iPhone, but in terms of simply shifting a lot of phones and achieving huge scale, it's Samsung that has the winning strategy.

Both Apple and Samsung are so successful in fact, the battle for the top smartphone slot is starting to look like a two-horse race.

But it won't necessarily always be this way. HTC was the darling of the mobile industry a while back until Samsung arrived to eat its lunch. The transformation in the company's fortunes was rapid, and there's every possibility that Samsung could see an equally rapid turnaround at some point in the future -- in mobiles, you're only as good as your last hit product.

There's also a chance that Samsung's scale could turn out to be a weakness as well as a strength. In some respects, Samsung reminds me of Sony in the years before it all went wrong. There are lots of divisions that don't appear to communicate with each other very well, making a vast number of different products, most of which are decent, but not outstanding.

There's a desire to be the number one player in every category Samsung is in, which is laudable, but probably unachievable. Does Samsung really need to be the number one maker of cameras in the world? Or MP3 players? Probably not. I can't help but wonder whether its smartphone profits are covering up some deeper organizational problems. Then again, it seems to be working for now, so it may all turn out fine.

If a company was to snatch the smartphone crown from Samsung, which would it be? One answer might be Nokia, which may seem like a crazy thing to say following its latest set of disastrous financial results. But there is still a chance that it might not be game over.

Nokia's flagship mobile running Microsoft's Windows Phone, the Lumia 900, has recently appeared in America to decent critical acclaim. In the U.S., Android doesn't have quite the same grip on the market that it does in the UK in particular, so there's an outside chance Nokia could sell enough handsets to convince developers deal with the platform's biggest problem -- a lack of apps.

If that happens, the launch of Windows Phone 8 could open the whole field up again.

CNN

Socialist Francois Hollande wins French presidency

French socialist Francois Hollande has won a clear victory in the country's presidential election.

Mr Hollande - who polled just under 52% of votes in Sunday's run-off - spoke of his pride at becoming president.
Admitting defeat, centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy wished "good luck" to Mr Hollande.
Analysts say the vote has wide implications for the whole eurozone. Mr Hollande has vowed to rework a deal on government debt in member countries.
Shortly after polls closed at 20:00 (18:00 GMT), French media published projections based on partial results giving Mr Hollande a lead of almost four points. Turnout was about 80%.

Jubilant Hollande supporters gathered on Place de la Bastille in Paris - a traditional rallying point of the Left - to celebrate.

People drank champagne and chanted: "Sarko, it's over!"
Mr Hollande - the first Socialist to win the French presidency since Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s - gave his victory speech in his stronghold of Tulle in central France.
He said was "proud to have been capable of giving people hope again".
He said he would push ahead with his pledge to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to "growth".
"Europe is watching us, austerity can no longer be the only option," he said.
After his speech in Tulle, Mr Hollande headed to Brive airport on his way to Paris to address supporters at Place de la Bastille. His voice hoarse, he spoke of his pride at taking over the mantle of the presidency 31 years almost to the day since Socialist predecessor Francois Mitterrand was elected.
"I am the president of the youth of France," he told the assembled crowd of tens of thousands of supporters, emphasising his "pride at being president of all the republic's citizens". "You are a movement that is rising up throughout Europe," he said.
Mr Hollande has called for a renegotiation of a hard-won European treaty on budget discipline championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy.
Mr Hollande's campaign director, Pierre Moscovici, told AFP news agency that Mrs Merkel had congratulated the president-elect by phone, and that the two had agreed to work together on "a strong Franco-German relationship in the interest of Europe".
Mrs Merkel later said she had invited Mr Hollande to come to Berlin soon, AFP reported.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has also called Mr Hollande to congratulate him.


'Respect'
Mr Hollande capitalised on France's economic woes and President Sarkozy's unpopularity.
The Socialist candidate has promised to raise taxes on big corporations and people earning more than 1m euros a year.
He wants to raise the minimum wage, hire 60,000 more teachers and lower the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers.
In his concession speech, Mr Sarkozy told supporters: "Francois Hollande is the president of France and he must be respected."
The outgoing president said he was "taking responsibility for defeat"

Hinting about his future, he said: "My place will no longer be the same. My involvement in the life of my country will now be different."

During the campaign, he had said he would leave politics if he lost the election.
Mr Sarkozy, who has been in office since 2007, had promised to reduce France's large budget deficit through spending cuts.
He is the latest European leader to be voted out of office amid widespread voter anger at austerity measures triggered by the eurozone debt crisis.
In Greece's parliamentary election on Sunday, voters turned against the two main parties which supported tough budget cuts.
It is only the second time that an incumbent French president has failed to win re-election since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
The last was Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who lost to Mr Mitterrand in 1981.
Mr Hollande is expected to be inaugurated later this month. A parliamentary election is due in June.


BBC News

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Google sums up its Java case: 'There was no copying'

In closing statements, Google's counsel reasserts that Google employed Java APIs in a fair-use manner for Android, transforming them into a full smartphone stack.

SAN FRANCISCO -- After Oracle made its closing statements on Monday morning at the U.S. District Court, Google's Robert Van Nest stepped up to the plate, defending Android's implementation of the 37 Java APIs at question in this lawsuit.
Van Nest's core defense rested on positioning this as a case of fair use, asserting that Android is not a copy of Java 5.0 SE but rather a "substantially" different work with different success in the market.
"It's a whole platform that didn't exist before and transformed the use of Java for a smartphone stack," asserted Van Nest.
Van Nest outlined four points to Google's position in this intellectual property suit:

• Sun gave the Java language to the public
• Google built Android using free and open technologies
• Google made fair use of the Java language APIs in Android
• Sun publicly approved Android's use of Java

"Copyright infringement requires that you copy something," Van Nest said. "There was no copying here because Google knew that it couldn't use Sun's source code."
Also on copyrights, Van Nest pointed to the jury's instructions about judging "the work as a whole," which actually consists of all 166 class libraries and all that entails (i.e. implementing codes, names, declarations, etc.) -- adding up to 2.8 million lines of code in Java 5.0 SE. Van Nest added that Oracle has to prove that it was "more likely than not that copyright infringement occurred."
"This kind of use of APIs in this way where you use the minimum you need to be compatible is fair use," Van Nest declared.
Additionally, a good portion of Van Nest's closing arguments was based on the testimony of former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz last Thursday.
Although Schwartz acknowledged that Sun wasn't happy that it couldn't come to a partnership agreement with Google, Van Nest recalled that Schwartz did say that Sun supported Android's use of Java nor did it have any grounds to file a lawsuit.
"For years, Sun had been promoting use of Java programming language," Van Nest said. "That was their whole business plan."
Again pointing to Schwartz's November 2007 blog post in which he congratulated Google for the debut of Android, Van Nest reminded the jury that Schwartz knew Android was written in Java and must have included the Java APIs in question ahead of the SDK release.


"If that isn't an affirmative endorsement of a product, I don't know what is," Van Nest lambasted.
To further hammer down Sun and Oracle's previous support for Android, Van Nest reminded the jury about a video of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison at JavaOne in 2009, where Ellison said Oracle expected to see more Java devices coming from "our friends at Google," and that Google had done "a fantastic job" in opening up Java.
Although specifics about Android revenue and other financial matters have been banned from the presence of the jury in this trial, Van Nest reasserted the open source status of Android as a benefit to the developer community.
"The point is that Google doesn't make any money on licensing or selling Android," Van Nest said, explaining that Google decided to make it open "to foster innovation and get widespread use."
In his rebuttal argument, Oracle counsel Michael Jacobs spoke again about how Android has blocked Java from success in the smartphone market, reiterating that it is "impossible" to compete with a free version of its licensed products.
Jacobs concluded, "We need the help of the justice system to enforce our intellectual property rights."
After closing arguments for the first segment of the trial ended on Monday morning, Judge William Alsup proceeded with the rest of the instructions for the jury about ruling on copyright infringement contentions.
The jury, made up of seven women and five men, will begin deliberating today for one hour and then pick up again on Tuesday morning. Judge Alsup previously warned both parties that the jury could take up to a week to deliberate, but he predicted that they would come back within a day and a half. The decision must be unanimous.
After they return with a verdict, the case will move into the second segment of the trial, focusing on patents.


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