Depardieu skips drink-drive court for Strauss-Kahn film

PODGORICA: Gerard Depardieu skipped a drink-driving court appearance in Paris on Tuesday to work on a film in Montenegro in which he will play Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but claimed he had told French officials he would be absent and the matter had been settled.

The "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Green Card" and "Asterix & Obelix" star, who has already pleaded guilty to driving his scooter while intoxicated, could not attend court because he was on a planned trip to Montenegro, Depardieu told reporters in Podgorica.

"I fled neither from the court, nor from justice," Depardieu said after meeting with Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.

"I informed the court, I never fled.... I am ready to appear when they want, on the condition that I am there and that I can defend myself," the French star said.

But the no-show meant the hulking actor, embroiled in a bitter tax row that saw him take Russian nationality and angrily vow to quit France, risks being tried by a criminal court where he could face up to two years in jail.

The 64-year-old was in the Balkan nation to meet producers of the film in which he will play the disgraced ex-IMF boss Strauss-Kahn. A police official there told AFP that rumours he was seeking Montenegrin citizenship were false.

Depardieu has said he wants the role because he did not like Strauss-Kahn, who was tipped to be the next French president until a sordid US sex scandal ended his career, because he was "like all French people, a little arrogant".

The actor, whose highly-publicised flight into tax exile has embarrassed President Francois Hollande, was arrested in Paris in November after falling off a scooter he was riding while three times over the legal alcohol limit.

If he had turned up Tuesday in court he would have escaped with a small fine and penalty points on his licence. Now the rotund actor, whose many previous exploits include urinating in a bottle on a plane, could face criminal proceedings.

But Depardieu insisted the case has already been settled.

"The justice (system) in France and my lawyers have informed me that all is fine," he said.

He said he was not a "criminal, I've slipped with my scooter, I fell asleep, that's it.

"I had a low level of alcohol in (my) blood as I had a salad with a drop more of vinegar and it was over the limit," he said jokingly.

"This issue is settled, all is fine and I can return to France and there will be no problems."

Depardieu hit the headlines in December when he bought a house just over the border in Belgium after accusing the French Socialist government of punishing "success, creativity and talent" with allegedly excessive taxes.

That prompted Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to brand his move as "shabby and unpatriotic" -- which in turn prompted the actor to threaten to give up his French citizenship.

The saga became ever more farcical when Russian President Vladimir Putin, eyeing a potential propaganda coup, offered the star Russian nationality.

Depardieu leapt at the chance, travelling last weekend to get his new passport and for some hugs and a meal with the Russian strongman in his sumptuous dacha in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

He was later given a hero's welcome -- and an offer of a free apartment and the job of culture minister -- in Mordovia, a Russian region best known for its Soviet-era gulags.

In the unlikely event that he spends at least six months of the year in Russia, he would benefit from a tax rate of just 13 per cent. His anger at the French government was focused on its planned 75 per cent tax on millionaires.

France's top constitutional authority, the Constitutional Council, struck down the proposed new tax rate on December 29, but the government has vowed to push ahead with it.

- AFP/jc

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Mauz goes all 'Minority Report' as a mouse replacement

Mauz is currently up as a Kickstarter project.

(Credit:
Amanda Kooser/CNET)

LAS VEGAS--We tech writers are constantly comparing real products to what we've seen in sci-fi movies. I'm still waiting for my Hoverboard, but at least we're inching a little closer to some "Minority Report"-style computer interfaces with the Mauz, a device that turns your iPhone into a mouse with special skills.

The hardware portion of Mauz is reasonably discreet. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit:
Amanda Kooser/CNET)

Mauz is like a combination of the
Wii remote, the Kinect, and a desktop mouse. It involves a small device that plugs into your iPhone and an app that makes the magic happen.

Visiting Mauz at
CES 2013, I caught the team looking pretty stressed as they struggled with getting Mauz to work over Wi-Fi at the same time 50 gajillion other exhibitors were weighing down the network. They did get it up and running to show off using the phone like a traditional mouse with touch-screen clicks; like a Wii by manipulating a 3D model on-screen by waving the iPhone in the air; and like a Kinect by switching between tabs on a browser by waving a hand in the air above it.

So how does this experience compare with Tom Cruise waving his hands around and getting things done in "Minority Report?" It's not really very close, but you can see the potential. Mauz uses the iPhone's front-facing camera to detect hand movement. That means you can wave your hand over it to change channels, for example. It's far away from the super-detailed work we saw Cruise do, but for right now, we'll take what we can get.

The Mauz demo I saw was conducted with a production-ready prototype. The electronic innards are all ready to go and the app is running. A freshly launched Kickstarter project is aiming to get the funding together to go into production. The early-bird pledge price for a Mauz is $45. The Mauz team estimates it will take about six months to get the device into production.

A lot of the potential for the Mauz centers around harnessing the capabilities of the iPhone. Users can set shortkeys and the app can could be extremely customized to work with specific devices and programs. It also frees you from the flat surface of your desk, giving you an opportunity for a more natural interface with your computer. Plus, you can pretend you're Tom Cruise if you're into that sort of thing.

Mauz works up in the air as well as down on a desk.

(Credit:
Amanda Kooser/CNET)

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Pictures: Wildfires Scorch Australia Amid Record Heat

Photograph by Jo Giuliani, European Pressphoto Agency

Smoke from a wildfire mushrooms over a beach in Forcett, Tasmania, on January 4. (See more wildfire pictures.)

Wildfires have engulfed southeastern Australia, including the island state of Tasmania, in recent days, fueled by dry conditions and temperatures as high as 113ºF (45ºC), the Associated Press reported. (Read "Australia's Dry Run" inNational Geographic magazine.)

No deaths have been reported, though a hundred people are unaccounted for in the town of Dunalley, where the blazes destroyed 90 homes.

"You don't get conditions worse than this," New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told the AP.

"We are at the catastrophic level, and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."

Published January 8, 2013

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CIA Nominee May Have 'Zero Dark Thirty' Problem

Navy SEALs are seen fighting through a dust storm in the new thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow, "Zero Dark Thirty." (Columbia Pictures/AP Photo)

There’s only one White House staffer portrayed in the new movie “Zero Dark Thirty,” and it is someone described in the credits as “National Security Advisor.”

It’s a position that’s possibly filled in real life by John Brennan, the president’s counterterrorism advisor, who President Obama nominated Jan. 7 to be director of C.I.A.. The character in the movie, with references to the C.I.A’s involvement in the flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that led the U.S. into war in Iraq, explains to a frustrated agency representative the difficulty of the president’s decision in acting on partial intelligence.

Spoiler alert: The president does ultimately act on that partial intelligence and Osama bin Laden is nabbed.

The character in real life – Brennan – has been opposed by some for his work at the C.I.A. under President Bush and the “enhanced interrogation” policies like waterboarding that also play a prominent role in the movie.

President Obama makes a cameo in the movie in the form of a “60 Minutes” interview in which he declares that, “America doesn’t torture, and I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture.”

That declaration is viewed, in the film, by a table full of CIA agents in Pakistan who have been involved in “enhanced” interrogations.

The U.S. used waterboarding on three al Qaeda detainees at secret prisons run by the CIA.  It  ended the practice of using secret prisons in September of 2006 under President Bush and in 2009 President Obama signed executive orders in his first days in office that banned of the use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques.

But that was after the techniques had already scuttled Brennan’s first chance to head the CIA.  Brennan wasn’t nominated to be CIA director back in the early days of the Obama administration, but he was widely considered to be a front-runner for the job. ABC’s Jake Tapper reported at the time that Brennan withdrew his name for consideration and most of the opposition came as a result of his work at the C.I.A. when those techniques were in use.

And there is indication that they will make his nomination difficult this year.

“I appreciate John Brennan’s long record of service to our nation, but I have many questions and concerns about his nomination to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially what role he played in the so-called enhanced interrogation programs while serving at the CIA during the last administration, as well as his public defense of those programs,” said Sen. John McCain after Brennan was nominated Monday.  ”I plan to examine this aspect of Mr. Brennan’s record very closely as I consider his nomination.”

The movie has certainly brought “enhanced interrogation” – it’s critics call it torture – back into the conversation about the war on terror, as ABC’s Lee Ferran reported Monday:

Last week three high-powered senators, Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) and 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain (R.-Ariz.), revealed they had written two letters to Morell in December demanding to know what impact the CIA may have had on the depiction of enhanced interrogation in the film and whether the agency “misled” the filmmakers into thinking the tactic was effective.

“As you know, the film depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees. The film then credits CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques as providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the [bin Laden] compound,” one letter says. “The CIA cannot be held accountable for how the Agency and its activities are portrayed in film, but we are nonetheless concerned, given the CIA’s cooperation with the filmmakers and the narrative’s consistency with past public misstatements by former senior CIA officials, that the filmmakers could have been misled by information they were provided by the CIA.”

Brennan, for his part, has said he opposed torture techniques, as Jake Tapper reported back in 2008 when Brennan removed his name from consideration for the C.I.A. job in 2008.

In a letter released to the media, apparently by Brennan or someone operating on Brennan’s behalf, the former CIA official wrote, “It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush Administration such as the preemptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, too include waterboarding. The fact that I was not involved in the decision making process for any of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored. Indeed, my criticism of these policies within government circles why I was twice considered for more senior-level positions in the current Administration only to be rebuffed by the White House.”

But Brennan did defend the practice in news media interviews when he described the actions of C.I.A. director George Tenet. This is what Brennan told CBS’s Harry Smith about enhanced interrogation in 2007: “The CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as enhanced interrogation tactics, and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures….There have been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hard-core terrorists. It has saved lives. And let’s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.”

Brennan has also spoken out in support of “rendition” – the practice where the U.S. government captures terror suspects in one country and relocates them to another. That’s a practice still employed by the Obama administration, according to a recent Washington Post investigation.

Related: Watch Martha Raddatz’s Nightline interview with ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ Director Kathryn Bigelow:

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World's oldest pills treated sore eyes

In ancient Rome, physicians treated sore eyes with the same active ingredients as today. So suggests an analysis of pills found on the Relitto del Pozzino, a cargo ship wrecked off the Italian coast in around 140 BC.

"To our knowledge, these are the oldest medical tablets ever analysed," says Erika Ribechini of the University of Pisa in Italy, head of a team analysing the relics. She thinks the disc-shaped tablets, 4 centimetres across and a centimetre thick, were likely dipped in water and dabbed directly on the eyes.

The tablets were mainly made of the zinc carbonates hydrozincite and smithsonite, echoing the widespread use of zinc-based minerals in today's eye and skin medications. Ribechini says there is evidence that Pliny the Elder, the Roman physician, prescribed zinc compounds for these uses almost 250 years after the shipwreck in his seminal medical encyclopaedia, Naturalis Historia.

The tablets were also rich in plant and animal oils. Pollen grains from an olive tree suggest that olive oil was a key ingredient, just like it is today in many medical and beauty creams, says Ribechini.

The tablets were discovered in a sealed tin cylinder called a pyxis (see image above). The tin must have been airtight to protect its contents from oxygen corrosion.

"Findings of such ancient medicines are extremely rare, so preservation of the Pozzino tablets is a very lucky case," says Ribechini.

The cargo of the wreck, discovered in 1989, is rich in other medical equipment, including vials and special vessels for bloodletting. This suggests that one of the passengers may have been a physician.

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1216776110

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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AIM deal begs questions: Tan Cheng Bock

SINGAPORE: Former long-time PAP backbencher Tan Cheng Bock has weighed in on the controversy surrounding the sale of computer systems used by town councils, raising several questions in a post on his Facebook page on Monday, including whether it was right and beneficial to give up ownership of software developed using public funds.

Dr Tan, who was chairman of West Coast-Ayer Rajah Town Council from 2001 to 2004, also questioned whether the town councils, as "public institutions" - a description that was disputed by Tampines GRC MP Baey Yam Keng, who said they were "political organisations" - did the right thing selling the system to Action Information Management (AIM), "a company owned by a political party with its own agenda".

The sale of the systems to a company that is wholly-owned by the PAP "begs a few questions", said Dr Tan, "especially when the company may not serve, 'due to material change', an opposition ward".

"This software is developed using public funds by town councils. Is it right for the TCs to give up ownership in this manner?" he asked.

"So did the town councils as public institutions do the right thing, selling (the system) to a company owned by a political party with its own agenda?"

Dr Tan also questioned the need to introduce AIM as a "middle man" between the town councils and the software developers. He asked if this arrangement raised the town councils' costs, which will eventually be borne by constituents.

"As AIM is now the owner, is it going to pay the costs for any upgrade or new software development? How much is AIM then going to charge the town councils, which now is at the mercy of AIM?" he wrote.

"As town councils are public institutions, citizens are certainly uncomfortable with political party-owned companies transacting with the town councils.

"Much more clarity and transparency are needed."

In response to TODAY's queries, Dr Tan said he "had no problem" with the town councils harmonising the systems in 2003, but added that he was not around when a consultancy was engaged to review the systems -it later recommended that the systems be sold to a third party.

The episode was sparked by Workers' Party (WP) Chairman Sylvia Lim attributing Aljunied-Hougang Town Council's less-than-stellar performance in the Dec 14 Town Council Management Report to AIM's sudden termination of its contract.

It led to a war of words between WP and the PAP town councils.

But Mr Baey, who had to field several questions on the same issue during his regular Facebook chats on Sunday, felt the matter had been unnecessarily politicised.

Noting that town councils are run by political parties, Mr Baey, who is the vice-chairman of Tampines Town Council, added: "I feel that we may be reading too much into the political association. Because in the first place it's a political organisation."

Although town councils provide a public service, Mr Baey felt that "they're not public institutions; they're not a public service company".

"They do not belong to the government. They're governed by government regulations, but they're definitely not run by civil servants; and they're not a public agency," he told TODAY.

Questions on whether the tender process was properly done and if there was a conflict of interest regarding the sale were also directed at Mr Baey during his Facebook chat.

He responded that the focus should instead be on whether AIM had failed in its commitment to the town councils and whether its fees have been unreasonable.

- TODAY/jc

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FeltAudio debuts clip-on Bluetooth speaker and earbuds

The FeltAudio Rewind in white.

(Credit:
FeltAudio)

If you're always losing your Bluetooth headphones or speakers, FeltAudio's products could be for you. The FeltAudio Pulse is a tiny Bluetooth speaker that can be clipped on to a shirt pocket or belt, while the Rewind is a pair of in-ear headphones with a retractable cable.

The Pulse speaker works quite simply. You pair it with your handset and clip it on to some part of your clothing. When you're not using the speaker (or if you want the speaker playing back audio while attached to your phone), you can clip it to special Felt cases -- these are lined on the insides with actual felt -- which will be available for the
iPhone 5 as well as iPad. The company is working on versions for
iPad Mini and new
iPod Touch.

The FeltAudio Pulse speaker attached to an iPhone.

(Credit:
FeltAudio)

The Rewind headphones are a little more confusing. Since these are retractable Bluetooth headphones, we're guessing you'll need to clip the receiver portion (and case) to your shirt while listening to music. When you're done, the headphones retract into the portable case, which can then be attached to the back of a Felt case. There's also an inline mic on the cable for phone calls.

While we aren't sure if having a speaker or pair of headphones attached to the back of an phone case is a good idea for everyone, we're definitely impressed at the simplicity and elegance of the concept. The FeltAudio case, Pulse speaker, and Rewind headphones will all be available in white, gray, and black. No word yet on price and availability.

This is how the headphones would look stored on the back of a FeltAudio iPhone 5 case.

(Credit:
FeltAudio)

(Source: Crave Asia via iLounge)

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Billions of Earthlike Planets Found in Milky Way

Tens of billions of Earthlike worlds are strewn across the Milky Way, many of them circling stars very much like our own sun, astronomers said today.

Earlier research suggested that rocky planets might be much more abundant around small stars than sunlike ones. (Also see "New 'Super Earth' Found at Right Distance for Life.")

But a fresh analysis of data from NASA's Kepler mission, which launched in 2009, suggests this is not the case, according to new research presented at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.

"We found that the occurrence of small planets around large stars was underestimated," said astronomer Francois Fressin, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A Starry Night ... Full of Planets

To find planets, Kepler stares at a patch of sky in the constellation Cygnus, made up of about 150,000 stars. The space telescope detects potential alien worlds by watching for telltale dips in starlight created when planets pass in front of, or "transit," their parent stars.

Using their own independent software for analyzing Kepler's potential planet detections, Fressin and his colleagues estimate that about 17 percent, or one in six, of all the sunlike stars in the Milky Way host a rocky planet that orbits closer than the distance at which Mercury orbits our own sun.

Since the Milky Way is home to about a hundred billion stars, that means there are at least 17 billion rocky worlds out there. (See Milky Way pictures.)

When the team expanded their search to Earth-size orbits or larger, they found that half of all sunlike stars may host rocky planets.

"Every time you look up on a starry night, [nearly] each star you're looking at has a planetary system," Fressin said.

A Hundred Billion Planets?

Rocky planets are just a fraction of the total number of planets in our Milky Way, however.

A study of the number of potential worlds orbiting M-dwarfs—faint stars smaller than our sun that make up the vast majority of the stellar population—suggests our galaxy may be home to at least a hundred billion planets overall. (See "Four White Dwarfs Found Eating Earthlike Planets.")

"Based on our calculations, which are very complimentary to those of [Fressin] ... we are showing that there is about one planet per star, and that gives us a total of about a hundred billion planets throughout our galaxy," said Caltech planetary astronomer John Johnson.

"The vast majority of those planets are orbiting stars that are very much different from our sun."

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Cops Break Down as They Describe Aurora Horror

Two veteran police officers broke down on the stand today during a preliminary hearing for accused movie theater gunman James Holmes, with one officer choking up when he described finding the body of a 6-year-old girl inside the theater.

Sgt. Gerald Jonsgaard needed a moment to compose himself as he described finding the little girl, Veronica Moser Sullivan, in the blood splattered theater in Aurora, Colo.

An officer felt for a pulse and thought Veronica was still alive, Jonsgaard said, but the officer then realized he was feeling his own pulse.

A preliminary hearing for Holmes began today in Colorado, with victims and families present. He is accused of killing 12 people and wounded dozens more in the movie theater massacre. One of Veronica's relatives likened attending the hearing to having to "face the devil."

The officers wiped away tears as they described the horror they found inside of theater nine.

Officer Justin Grizzle recounted seeing bodies lying motionless on the floor, surrounded by so much blood he nearly slipped and fell.

Grizzle, a former paramedic, says ambulances had not yet made it to the theater, so he began loading victims into his patrol car and driving to the hospital.

"I knew I needed to get them to the hospital now, " Grizzle said, tearing up. "I didn't want anyone else to die."

Arapahoe County Sheriff/AP Photo

James Holmes Tries to Harm Himself, Sources Say Watch Video

Aurora, Colorado Gunman: Neuroscience PhD Student Watch Video

Grizzle drove six victims in four trips, saying that by the end there was so much blood in his patrol car he could hear it "sloshing around."

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

An officer who took the stand earlier today described Holmes as "relaxed" and "detached" when police confronted him just moments after the shooting stopped.

The first two officers to testify today described responding to the theater and spotting Holmes standing by his car at the rear of the theater on July 20, 2012. He allegedly opened fire in the crowded theater during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Officer Jason Oviatt said he first thought Holmes was a cop because he was wearing a gas mask and helmet, but as he got closer realized he was not an officer and held Holmes at gunpoint.

Throughout the search and arrest, Holes was extremely compliant, the officer said.

"He was very, very relaxed," Oviatt said. "These were not normal reactions to anything. He seemed very detached from it all."

Oviatt said Holmes had extremely dilated pupils and smelled badly when he was arrested.

Officer Aaron Blue testified that Holmes volunteered that he had four guns and that there were "improvised explosive devices" in his apartment and that they would go off if the police triggered them.

Holmes was dressed for the court hearing in a red jumpsuit and has brown hair and a full beard. He did not show any reaction when the officers pointed him out in the courtroom.

This is the most important court hearing in the case so far, essentially a mini-trial as prosecutors present witness testimony and evidence—some never before heard—to outline their case against the former neuroscience student.

The hearing at the Arapahoe County District Court in Centennial, Colo., could last all week. At the end, Judge William Sylvester will decide whether the case will go to trial.

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Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence. A new technique can embed secret data during a phone call on Skype. "There are concerns that Skype calls can be intercepted and analysed," says Wojciech Mazurczyk at the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland. So his team's SkypeHide system lets users hide extra, non-chat messages during a call.

Mazurczyk and his colleagues Maciej Karaś and Krysztof Szczypiorski analysed Skype data traffic during calls and discovered an opportunity in the way Skype "transmits" silence. Rather than send no data between spoken words, Skype sends 70-bit-long data packets instead of the 130-bit ones that carry speech.

The team hijacks these silence packets, injecting encrypted message data into some of them. The Skype receiver simply ignores the secret-message data, but it can nevertheless be decoded at the other end, the team has found. "The secret data is indistinguishable from silence-period traffic, so detection of SkypeHide is very difficult," says Mazurczyk. They found they could transmit secret text, audio or video during Skype calls at a rate of almost 1 kilobit per second alongside phone calls.

The team aims to present SkypeHide at a steganography conference in Montpellier, France, in June.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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