New looks and a familiar favorite for NBA 2013-14

Houston Rockets' Dwight Howard, center, shoots over San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan. left, and Danny Green (4) during the first half of a preseason NBA basketball game, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Houston Rockets' Dwight Howard, center, shoots over San Antonio Spurs' Tim Duncan. left, and Danny Green (4) during the first half of a preseason NBA basketball game, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Miami Heat's LeBron James (6) shoots over Brooklyn Nets' Joe Johnson (7) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013 in New York. The Nets won the game 86-62. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose warms up before an NBA preseason basketball game against the Denver Nuggets in Chicago on Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Los Angeles Clippers power forward Blake Griffin, center, goes up for a dunk as Utah Jazz power forward Derrick Favors and point guard Scott Machado look on during the first half of their NBA basketball game, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Dwight Howard moved on and Derrick Rose came back, though Kobe Bryant won't quite yet. Nine first-time coaches are coming in and David Stern will soon head out.

With different looks all around the NBA in 2013-14, one familiar sight remains: LeBron James and the Miami Heat are entering another season as the team to beat.

The two-time defending champions will collect their rings Tuesday night, then open against the Chicago Bulls, who with a healthy Rose might be the team that can unseat the Heat.

Or maybe it's San Antonio or Indiana, both a game away last year — actually, the Spurs were just seconds away — from finishing off Miami. Perhaps it's the Nets or Clippers, after both picked up pieces of the old Celtics that had the Heat's respect but not their number.

If someone does dethrone King James, it won't be because he was satisfied with two titles and lost his edge.

"When the hunger is gone, I'm going to give it up," James said. "I've got a talent and I'm going to take full advantage of it. So I'm hungry.

"I love the game. There's nothing I would do more than play this game of basketball. So the championships are all great, but I'm playing for more than that. I've got a bigger calling than that."

If he means becoming the best ever, he might be on his way. With four MVP trophies and no noticeable weaknesses, the gap with his peers is getting larger and the one with the greats before him is shrinking.

"He's the best on the planet right now. I don't know what you can do, but just hope that he misses," said Nets coach Jason Kidd, one of the nine coaches getting his first opportunity. In total, 13 teams changed coaches.

James did miss in the closing seconds of Game 6 of the NBA Finals, but the Heat got the rebound to set up Ray Allen's tying 3-pointer, pulled it out in overtime and won Game 7 to deny the Spurs a fifth title.

San Antonio may get another chance to finish the job, or may not even be the best team in Texas after Howard joined James Harden in Houston.

Howard bolted after one unfulfilling season in Los Angeles, where he and Bryant never found a working partnership. The center already seems happier and healthier in Houston, where he and Harden can build a potent inside-outside tandem.

As for Bryant, he'll watch the Lakers' opener, and who knows how much more, while he continues to rehab from a torn Achilles' tendon. Questions over how well he can play at 35 after such a serious injury, along with Howard's departure, created unusually low expectations for the Lakers.

Instead, the buzz in Los Angeles is about the Clippers, who hired Doc Rivers to coach while Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett went to Brooklyn after Boston's breakup. That also could make both longtime losers not only the current kings of their cities, but also contenders to reach the NBA Finals — which are returning to the 2-2-1-1-1 format after 29 years of 2-3-2.

Here are five other things to watch around the NBA this season:

SITTING SPEEDSTERS: While Rose returns after sitting out last season with a torn ACL, Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo remain out recovering from knee surgeries. A healthy Westbrook makes Oklahoma City a title contender while Rondo could help the Celtics exceed expectations — or perhaps become the next player they trade.

UP AND COMERS: They're not ready to contend for a title, but keep an eye on New Orleans, Washington and Cleveland, all with dynamite young players who may be good enough to carry their franchises back to the postseason.

CHANGING COMMISSIONERS: Adam Silver replaces the retiring Stern as commissioner on Feb. 1, exactly 30 years after Stern took office. Silver has done much of the heavy lifting for years, but he'll be replacing one of the greatest executives sports has seen. "I'm excited for the league and for the future, and for the fact that having been at the league now for 36 years, we've reached this point and there's a really extraordinary executive in Adam ready to take it to the next level," Stern said.

SUMMER STORIES: Business will really pick up after the next NBA champion is crowned. Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins, should he decide to enter the draft, could become the most sought-after prospect in years. Free agency will then open on July 1 with James and Carmelo Anthony perhaps set to top the class.

WHO WINS?: The Heat are the choice of everyone from odds makers to the executives who voted in the NBA.com GM survey. But they were enormous favorites last season after a 27-game winning streak during a 66-win regular season and almost fell. This time, there's even more teams capable of finally knocking them off. "They are the favorites, but I don't think they're the heavy favorites," Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley said. "Everybody's picking the Heat right now, but there's some teams, they're going to have some stiff competition."

___

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Briancmahoney

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LinkedIn's Intro tool for iPhones could be a juicy target for attackers

Some people think a lot can go wrong if you have your emails pass through LinkedIn's servers with the company's new Intro technology.

Earlier this week, the company released LinkedIn Intro, a plug-in for the iPhone's native email app that attaches people's LinkedIn profile information to their emails. The service is meant to add more professional context to emails, but it does that at the expense of users' private data, some security experts say.

[ Build and deploy an effective line of defense against corporate intruders with InfoWorld's Encryption Deep Dive PDF expert guide. Download it today! | Stay up to date on the latest security developments with InfoWorld's Security Central newsletter. ]

By transmitting sent and received emails through LinkedIn's servers, which then scrape and analyze them for data, the service essentially amounts to a "man-in-the-middle attack," security consulting firm Bishop Fox wrote in a staff blog post.

"The introduction of new data sources into a medium rife with security issues such as email is a dream for attackers," Bishop Fox wrote, noting that it could only be a matter of time before someone uses the service to launch a phishing attack.

The concept of being watched online, in an age of targeted advertising, cookies, geolocation data and the National Security Agency, is not new. But in trying to embed LinkedIn profile information into people's email, the company looks at too much information, said Carl Livitt, managing securities associate at Bishop Fox. "The company used a massive hammer to crack an egg," Livitt said.

For online attackers, Intro makes LinkedIn a juicy target, he said.

LinkedIn maintains a privacy policy for the service, which states that each piece of data is encrypted with a key that is unique to the user and his device. "The servers themselves are secured and monitored 24/7 to prevent any unauthorized access," it says.

Though LinkedIn doesn't say that it decrypts emails while they're on the servers in order to make modifications and attach people's profile information, that's what's happening, Livitt said.

But some other observers don't think Intro raises any new security issues. "It's the same situation as every other cloud service provider," including Google, Yahoo, AOL and many others, said security expert and author Bruce Schneier. "You have to trust them."

"It's just another company ... in it for the money," he said. "Before, it was 1,000 companies you had to trust -- now it's 1,001."

LinkedIn may already be walking on thin ice when it comes to data security. The company suffered a major breach of its password database last year, which saw millions of hashed passwords appear in an online forum in Russia.

In a statement, a LinkedIn spokeswoman said the company takes the privacy and security of its members' data seriously, and that it has "taken a thoughtful approach to ensure we've put the right security precautions in place for the LinkedIn Intro product."

If the security risks are real, is the service that Intro provides worth it? That comes down to being a personal choice, Bishop Fox's Livitt said, but for him the answer is "no."

"I would not recommend Intro to any of my clients," he said.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/linkedins-intro-tool-iphones-could-be-juicy-target-attackers-229602?source=rss_mobile_technology
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Tepco can't yet be trusted to restart world's biggest nuclear plant: governor

By Antoni Slodkowski and Kentaro Hamada

NIIGATA, Japan (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power Co must give a fuller account of the Fukushima disaster and address its "institutionalized lying" before it can expect to restart another nuclear station, the world's largest, said a local government official who holds an effective veto over the utility's revival plan.

"If they don't do what needs to be done, if they keep skimping on costs and manipulating information, they can never be trusted," Niigata Prefecture Governor Hirohiko Izumida told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Izumida must approve the embattled utility's plans to restart the reactors at Kashiwazaki Kariwa, the world's biggest nuclear complex on the Japan Sea coast some 300 kms (180 miles) northwest of Tokyo.

A former economy and trade ministry bureaucrat who has emerged as a leading critic of Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, Izumida said he would launch his own commission to investigate the causes and handling of the Fukushima crisis and whether strengthened regulatory safeguards were sufficient to prevent a similar disaster.

Izumida, 51, declined to provide a timetable for completing that review - a process that could force the utility to scrap or abandon one of the key assumptions behind its turnaround plan.

"If Tokyo Electric doesn't cooperate closely with the prefecture nothing will be solved," he said. "Unless we start we won't know," he added when asked how long his review could take. "If they cooperate with us, we will be able to proceed smoothly. If not, we won't."

Even if Japan's nuclear safety regulators approve Tepco's restart plans for its Niigata reactors, Izumida can effectively block it because of the utility's need to win backing from local officials. That gives Izumida, a political independent, a platform for calling for a wider reform of Asia's largest listed electricity utility, which provides power to 29 million homes and businesses in and around Tokyo.

REMOVE TEPCO FROM FUKUSHIMA CLEAN-UP

Izumida urged Japan's government to strip Tepco of responsibility for decommissioning the wrecked Fukushima reactors, and consider putting it through a taxpayer-funded bankruptcy similar to the process used to restructure Japan Airlines.

Without that kind of sweeping restructuring, Izumida said, Tepco could be left without the resources needed to ensure the safety of its remaining nuclear plants.

In its current form, the utility threatens to be distracted by how to fund the dismantling of the Fukushima reactors over the next 30 years and the more immediate problem of containing contaminated water at the Fukushima site, Izumida said.

"Unless we create a situation where 80-90 percent of their thinking is devoted to nuclear safety, I don't think we can say they have prioritized safety," he said.

Izumida also called on the government to make more than 6,000 workers involved in decommissioning at Fukushima public employees. A Reuters investigation of working conditions at the plant found widespread abuses, including skimmed wages and the involvement of illegal brokers.

"The workers at the plant are risking their health and giving it their all. They are out in the rain. They are out at night," Izumida said. "The government needs to respect their efforts and address the situation."

A Tepco spokesman said the utility would cooperate with Izumida's investigation. "Safety is our utmost priority and we are not acting on an assumption of nuclear restarts," said Yoshimi Hitotsugi. "We want to work on this issue while gaining the understanding of the local population and related parties."

BEHIND SCHEDULE

Tepco has posted more than $27 billion in losses since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The disaster knocked out cooling systems, triggered meltdowns in three reactors and a radiation release that forced more than 150,000 people from nearby towns to evacuate.

It is behind schedule on its initial business turnaround plan, which had called for firing up at least one reactor at Kashiwazaki Kariwa by April.

The utility says it can return to profitability in the business year to March without restarting the sprawling complex. But if all seven of the Niigata reactors were operational, Tepco says it would save $1 billion in monthly fuel costs.

The utility's admission in July - following months of denials - that the Fukushima plant was leaking radioactive substances into the Pacific Ocean was evidence that Tepco has not changed, Izumida said, adding the utility developed a culture of "institutionalized lying."

He said that unless the utility changes its corporate culture he won't be able to trust it to run the nuclear plant in the prefecture.

"There are three things required of a company that runs nuclear power plants: don't lie, keep your promises and fulfill your social responsibility," Izumida said.

(Editing by Kevin Krolicki, Edmund Klamann and Ian Geoghegan)

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• Tokyo Electric Power Co
• Japan

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tokyo-electric-cannot-yet-trusted-restart-nuclear-plant-130642183--finance.html
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First Listen: Justin Bieber Releases A New Song Titled ‘Recovery’

"You can't just fall and not get over things"

Posted by: Trent on October 28, 2013|

"Yesterday is gone, Tomorrow is Here"

It is time, once again, for a #MusicMondays update from the prince of pop Justin Bieber. His 10 week plan of releasing a new song every Monday morning leading up to the release of his new album in December rolls on today with the release of a new song titled Recovery. This song is a bit more upbeat than the previous songs we’ve heard in Mondays past but the R&B vibe is still going strong. Honestly, for the life of me, I don’t hear the appeal of these songs but JB drives the kiddies wild so there are plenty of folks out there who love his sound. Click the embed above to hear Recovery in full and see if it tickles your fancy … then, click below to read an official statement released by The Biebs that explains to fans the inspiration behind the song.

Yeah, both Justin and Selena Gomez are getting a lot milage out of their break-up … not that I blame them, to be honest. Are any of you digging on Recovery? Have the songs released thus far from Justin Bieber‘s new album inspired you to want to hear more?

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LinkedIn's Intro tool for iPhones could be a juicy target for attackers

Some people think a lot can go wrong if you have your emails pass through LinkedIn's servers with the company's new Intro technology.

Earlier this week, the company released LinkedIn Intro, a plug-in for the iPhone's native email app that attaches people's LinkedIn profile information to their emails. The service is meant to add more professional context to emails, but it does that at the expense of users' private data, some security experts say.

[ Build and deploy an effective line of defense against corporate intruders with InfoWorld's Encryption Deep Dive PDF expert guide. Download it today! | Stay up to date on the latest security developments with InfoWorld's Security Central newsletter. ]

By transmitting sent and received emails through LinkedIn's servers, which then scrape and analyze them for data, the service essentially amounts to a "man-in-the-middle attack," security consulting firm Bishop Fox wrote in a staff blog post.

"The introduction of new data sources into a medium rife with security issues such as email is a dream for attackers," Bishop Fox wrote, noting that it could only be a matter of time before someone uses the service to launch a phishing attack.

The concept of being watched online, in an age of targeted advertising, cookies, geolocation data and the National Security Agency, is not new. But in trying to embed LinkedIn profile information into people's email, the company looks at too much information, said Carl Livitt, managing securities associate at Bishop Fox. "The company used a massive hammer to crack an egg," Livitt said.

For online attackers, Intro makes LinkedIn a juicy target, he said.

LinkedIn maintains a privacy policy for the service, which states that each piece of data is encrypted with a key that is unique to the user and his device. "The servers themselves are secured and monitored 24/7 to prevent any unauthorized access," it says.

Though LinkedIn doesn't say that it decrypts emails while they're on the servers in order to make modifications and attach people's profile information, that's what's happening, Livitt said.

But some other observers don't think Intro raises any new security issues. "It's the same situation as every other cloud service provider," including Google, Yahoo, AOL and many others, said security expert and author Bruce Schneier. "You have to trust them."

"It's just another company ... in it for the money," he said. "Before, it was 1,000 companies you had to trust -- now it's 1,001."

LinkedIn may already be walking on thin ice when it comes to data security. The company suffered a major breach of its password database last year, which saw millions of hashed passwords appear in an online forum in Russia.

In a statement, a LinkedIn spokeswoman said the company takes the privacy and security of its members' data seriously, and that it has "taken a thoughtful approach to ensure we've put the right security precautions in place for the LinkedIn Intro product."

If the security risks are real, is the service that Intro provides worth it? That comes down to being a personal choice, Bishop Fox's Livitt said, but for him the answer is "no."

"I would not recommend Intro to any of my clients," he said.

Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/linkedins-intro-tool-iphones-could-be-juicy-target-attackers-229602?source=rss_mobile_technology
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Police: Chris Brown charged with assault in DC

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chris Brown was charged with assault after a fight broke out early Sunday near a Washington hotel, the latest problem for the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer with a snarled legal history.

Brown and another man were charged with felony assault in the altercation that started just before 4:30 a.m., D.C. police spokesman Paul Metcalf said.

The man who was attacked received treatment for his injuries at a local hospital and was released Sunday. Police wouldn't elaborate on his injuries but said the felony charge was based in part on the extent of the injuries. The victim's name wasn't released.

Christopher Hollosy, 35, was also charged with felony assault, police said. Police wouldn't say how Brown and Hollosy may have known each other.

Brown and Hollosy were being held pending a court hearing Monday, Metcalf said.

Neither Brown's publicists nor his attorney Mark Geragos responded to messages left Sunday.

Brown was in Washington to perform Saturday night at an event billed as a "Homecoming Weekend" party at a downtown club. Howard University was celebrating its homecoming, though a university spokeswoman said the party was not sponsored by or affiliated with the school.

Brown remains on probation for assaulting his on-again, off-again girlfriend Rihanna just before the Grammy Awards in 2009. The photos of Rihanna's bruised face caused outrage among many fans.

Brown pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault and received five years' probation.

His probation was briefly revoked earlier this year after a traffic accident. A hit-and-run charge was dropped against him, but the judge gave him 1,000 more hours of community service when he reinstated his probation.

Brown, who lives in Los Angeles and is originally from Virginia, has been involved in other altercations since 2009. Police have said a 2012 brawl at a New York nightclub began when members of the rapper Drake's entourage confronted Brown on the dance floor. Neither was charged in the fight that turned into a bottle-throwing free-for-all.

Brown also tussled with singer Frank Ocean and others during an argument about a parking space outside of a recording studio in Los Angeles, according to witness accounts given to deputies at the time. Ocean said he suffered an injured finger, but no charges were filed.

Brown's arrest could affect his probation in the Rihanna assault case. Brown is due back in court Nov. 20 in Los Angeles to update a judge on his probation. Prosecutors could seek a revocation of his probation or ask a judge to impose additional penalties.

Steve Cron, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney, said prosecutors and a judge may wait to see how the Washington case plays out before taking any action against Brown.

"Just the fact that some guy says 'he hit me' doesn't mean he's in violation" of his probation, Cron said.

The potential penalties would depend on the exact wording of Brown's sentence, he said.

___

Associated Press writers Chris Talbott in Nashville, Tenn.; Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles; and Oscar Gabriel in Washington contributed to this report.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/police-chris-brown-charged-assault-dc-155400273.html
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The Slow, Uneven Rebuilding After Superstorm Sandy

Samantha Langello and her daughter Alanna, 2, stand in front of their flood-damaged house in Fox Beach on Staten Island, N.J.

Joel Rose/NPR

Samantha Langello and her daughter Alanna, 2, stand in front of their flood-damaged house in Fox Beach on Staten Island, N.J.

Joel Rose/NPR

After Hurricane Sandy, the south shore of Staten Island looked like it had been hit by a tsunami. The storm surge devastated whole neighborhoods suddenly, in a matter of hours. In the year since the storm, some families have been rebuilding their homes and their lives. Others are ready to sell their flood-damaged properties and move on.

Joe Salluzzo lives in a neighborhood called New Dorp Beach, a few blocks from the ocean. He rode out the storm on the second story of his brick bungalow, which he's been repairing himself every since.

People are coming back "little by little," Salluzzo says. He's staying put: "This is the only house I got."

Around the corner, Linda Azzara is basking in the sunshine on the deck in her front yard. A year ago, she was clinging to it for dear life as the flood waters rose.

"We were the last family rescued here. They took us from the deck here, from the top step, in a boat," she says.

Today Azzara's yard is immaculate. And her house is in good shape, too. But she says the repairs cost her $80,000 out of her own pocket. Azzara says her insurance company was no help. She says few of her neighbors saw any payments from theirs either. Officials at FEMA say they've distributed more than $8 billion in total disaster assistance in New York. But in her neighborhood, Azzara says that help has been inconsistent.

"FEMA helped some of us, and not some of us. It was a weird thing. I think it was who came to your house," she says. "If you were lucky to get somebody with a little heart, they helped you. If not, they gave you $200."

'We Are Staying!!!'

Azzara has a red and white sign on her fence that says "We Are Staying!" You see the same sign in windows and front yards up and down her block. But for many of her neighbors, the hard work continues.

Electricians are still working on the house next door. A few houses on the block have new windows and doors. Others look like they've been abandoned since the storm.

"Everybody thinks a year later, we're New York and ... everybody's fine and dandy. No, it isn't," says Scott McGrath, who lives across the street. "It's real out there. It's still a lot of people needing help."

McGrath and his wife started a non-profit organization called Beacon of Hope New York to help rebuild the neighborhood. They made the "We Are Staying" yard signs. But McGrath admits that not everyone will. Like many of his neighbors, McGrath has to decide whether to meet new requirements to raise his house further off the ground or face a huge jump in his flood insurance premiums.

"You can walk up and down the block and you're gonna see For Sale signs in a lot of areas. They're selling their homes due to the fact they're not gonna be able to pay that flood insurance — so you might as well cut your losses now," McGrath says. "A lot of people are gonna take a hit on their property."

A year after Superstorm Sandy some residents of Fox Beach on Staten Island are determined to stay in the flood-ravaged town.

Joel Rose/NPR

A year after Superstorm Sandy some residents of Fox Beach on Staten Island are determined to stay in the flood-ravaged town.

Joel Rose/NPR

Homeowners across the region are finding they can't sell their houses for anything near what they were worth before the storm. But in another part of Staten Island, there is one big exception to that rule.

When Rebuilding Is Not An Option

Samantha Langello opens the door to her house in the Fox Beach neighborhood — or what's left of it. Sandy was the third big flood here in 5 years.

"It kind of just melted," Langello says. "The salt-water like just ate through the sheet rock."

When the state offered to buy these homeowners out at pre-storm values, almost all of them jumped at the chance. Real estate broker Joseph Tirone — who owns a rental property in Fox Beach — helped organize the effort. Tirone says the first checks went out this month.

"Rebuilding was not an option here. Not in this area," he says. "When they start getting their checks, I think initially they're gonna be extremely happy. But I think walking away from their home, I think that's gonna be tough on them."

Langello — toting a 2-year-old on her hip — says it's not easy to watch the neighborhood where she's been raising her two young children turn back into marshland.

"Sad and relief are probably the two main emotions," she says.

Langello knows her family is lucky to be getting the buyout.

"You get a little tired of picking up your wet sea-smelling clothes and going through things to see what you can salvage. In that sense I'm relieved that I won't have to deal with the clean-up ever again," she says.

Langello hopes other Sandy victims can know that feeling, too. But for most, that sense of relief may still be months or years away.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/28/240782531/the-slow-uneven-rebuilding-after-superstorm-sandy?ft=1&f=3
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