Iphone 5 Specs

Apple is Getting Ready for
the iPhone 5 Launch
One of the biggest Chinese
newspapers, China Times, reported
this week that Apple has received a
shipment of 400 , 000 iPhone 5
smartphones, that are to be tested
before the release of 4 ,000 , 000 units
this September . This article suggests
that the big launch will take place in
the second week of September .
Rumors from other iPhone
publications and websites , like iPhone
Italia, who heard this from an
undisclosed executive at Swisscom,
point towards a more exact release
date, it being September 5 , which is
also Labor Day in the U .S . this year. A
major product launch on a holiday is
very unlikely and Apple hasn ’t
confirmed, denied or announced
anything official.
More info from this report indicate
that Apple will also launch the new
iPad 3 around Thanksgiving this year
and that it will be a big improvement
over the current iPad. The device is
being released later than it was initially
thought due to component problems.
Most analysts are skeptical that Apple
will launch an upgrade to one of their
best sellers , the iPad 2 , only 9 months
after it was introduced , while other
analysts say we will see a new iPad
this year in the form of an “ iPad 2
Plus”, which will be a slightly improved
iPad 2 .
Apple has previously launched new
iPhones at the Worldwide Developers
Conference(WWDC ), which is held in
June, and most people were
expecting the iPhone 5 back then .
Attention now turns to September ,
when Apple normally holds its iPod
focused event . Also, because the new
operating system is scheduled to be
released this Fall , it is expected that
the iPhone 5 will be introduced at the
same time as the iOS 5 .
Apple and AT&T Preparing
Staff for the iPhone 5 Release
According to Boy Genius Report (BGR ),
AT& T is expecting a large influx of
customer in September . They have
asked managers in locations all over
the country to finish employee
training so that they can be ready and
available for the big number of
people that will want to purchase an
iPhone 5 immediately after its
introduction.
Other reports show that Apple is
increasing its staff in store locations
around the United States and United
Kingdom . Job listings have been
posted on UK websites , looking for
iPhone sales persons and specialists,
and US Apple stores are asking former
employees to return as part time
employees for “new product
launches ”.
Whether these rumors are true or not ,
we will find out shortly . Apple is
expected to announce something
officially about the iPhone 5 any day
now and they will most likely do that
by the end of August .

Drug may cut menopause after breast cancer chemo

Early menopause is often a side effect for women treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer, but a new study reveals some guarded promise for preventing early menopause breast cancer patients. The results are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

While most breast cancer is diagnosed at later ages, about 6% of women learn that they're ill before age 40 - when they are still of childbearing age. Breast cancer treatments that have shown the best results for for disease free survival include chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, or both. For younger women still hoping for children, these treatments can cause devastating short-term or long-term loss of menstrual periods, and loss of fertility. While many women choose to preserve the option of having children by storing eggs before cancer treatment, the process can be costly and difficult.

Italian researchers conducted a phase three study that included 281 women with breast cancer, aged 18 to 45 years and who had not experienced menopause. Patients were randomly selected to be treated with chemotherapy alone or with chemotherapy and triptorelin, a drug, called a GnRH analogue, that prevents the ovaries from releasing eggs. The researchers followed the women for one year after they had finished chemotherapy.

Among the women who had not received triptorelin, the rate of early menopause was 25.9%. Among the women who had received triptorelin, the rate of early menoapuse was 8.9%, which is 17% lower.

An accompanying editorial by Dr. Hope S. Rugo and Dr. Mitchell P. Rosen of the University of California-San Francisco says that trptorelin therapy should not be recommended as a standard treatment and should be approached with caution in women with hormone-sensitive disease. They also stress that women resuming their menstrual cycles does not mean the same thing as women preserving their fertility. They conclude that using assisted reproductive technology – such as storing eggs before chemo, is “the most effective option for fertility preservation.”
(cnn)

An American soccer star playing for Palestine

An American soccer star playing for Palestine - At six foot five, with his shock of blonde hair shaved into a fat Mohawk and talking in a languid Georgian drawl, Omar Jarun looks like he was once part of an all- conquering college basketball team. But the 26-year-old American doesn't play basketball. Or at least not well. "I played recreational basketball for one season," he told CNN. "People told me I should try it because of my height. But I wasn't any good at it." Instead life had a different path for Jarun, one that would take him far from his native Peachtree City, Georgia. On Sunday he will line up as a defender for the Palestinian national soccer team as they take on Afghanistan in a match that, just one year on from the World Cup final in South Africa, represents one of the first steps towards qualification for the next tournament in Brazil in 2014. Besides being Palestine's first World Cup match on home soil, Sunday's encounter will have extra significance for Jarun. It will be the first time he has ever set foot in the West Bank and he plans to visit his ancestral town of Tulkarem. His team traveled for 24 hours to be able to play their first match against Afghanistan. The game was moved from Kabul to the tiny aluminum smelting town of Tursunzade in southern Tajikistan -- a few miles from the Uzbek and Afghan border -- for fear of violence in Afghanistan. Palestine won 2-0 and now have a good chance of qualifying for the second round where they would play Thailand. The return match, to be held Sunday in Ramallah, will also be a landmark: Palestine's first ever World Cup match on home soil. "My dad taught me to play the game. He would always take me and my brother out and we would always play around the back yard," Jarun says. "I kicked football in high school, and I was actually pretty good at it. They wanted me to pursue it in college but I didn't really want to. I wanted to play with a team, I really wanted to play soccer." Jarun's remarkable story began in Kuwait. Along with his sister, his American mother and Palestinian father, he fled the country in 1990 when Saddam Hussein's forces invaded the kingdom and sparked the first Gulf War. "I remember bombs going off. Missiles shooting off near the apartment. I remember grabbing my bear, me and my sister running to my dad's bedroom and saying: 'What's going on?'" he recalled. "The next morning my dad would come in shaking from the bombs going off. Because we are American, my mom managed to get the entire family in to the U.S. We left everything behind. My parents had nothing." Growing up, Jarun soon discovered his love for soccer, playing for AFC Lightning, the same youth team that nurtured U.S. internationals Clint Mathis and Ricardo Clark. His Arab heritage was seldom an issue, he says, but he noticed a change after 9/11. "By looking at me, I look like a white boy," he laughed. "You don't get judged immediately like my father does. Like an Arab. He gets judged right away. But you look at me and you don't think I'm Arab. "Before 9/11 there were no problems, really. I had always established myself as an American from the Middle East. After 9/11 it was very difficult. My dad would tell me: 'Be careful what you say.' I would get double, tripled-checked at the airport. You know it's for safety for the country, so I don't have many complaints about it." After stints playing for the Atlanta Silverbacks, Vancouver Whitecaps and then in the Polish league, Jarun returned to the U.S. and joined F.C. Tampa Bay in America's second tier league. But by now he had become an international footballer. A scout from the Palestinian Football Federation discovered him while on a tour looking for professional players from the Palestinian diaspora that might qualify to play for the national team. "At the time, when I thought of the national team I thought I could play for the U.S. national team at some point but I never really got the opportunity, so I took this one. I really had no idea I'd be in the Palestinian national team," he said. "I knew it wasn't going to be the best set- up, I knew it wouldn't be particularly professional. But I could do my part. I didn't know what I could do for the Palestinian people apart from play football. So when they told me I could play for the Palestinian national team I said yes." Many will be surprised that Palestine even has a national team. In 1998 FIFA, world football's governing body, recognized Palestine, making it one of the few international bodies to place it alongside other nation states. But following the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, and the imposition of restrictions for residents of the West Bank by the Israelis, the local league was cancelled and national team players were prevented from traveling abroad to fulfil their fixtures. When qualification for the 2006 World Cup began, so many players were prevented from leaving Gaza and the West Bank that only nine could start against Uzbekistan in a match in Doha, Qatar. Today the team is a patchwork of bureaucracy. They fly on seven different sets of papers that make moving through every border, be it Jordanian, Israeli or Tajik, a tough task. One, Roberto Bishara, plays for Palestino in the Chilean first division, a team set up by Palestinian immigrants. Three others are Israeli Arabs who have played in Israel's first division while most of the rest play in Jordan or for teams in the newly professional West Bank Premier League. The coach, Mousa Bezaz and his assistant are French Algerian; eight players and the goalkeeper coach are from Gaza, which is controlled by the militant Palestinian movement Hamas and in many ways cut off from the outside world. Others have an East Jerusalem ID, a separate identity reserved for those Palestinians who live in the divided city or have family there. Gaza-born players who now play in the West Bank have recently been refused re-entry when trying to come home via Jordan. Arguably the team's best player, defender Abdel Latif Bahdari, was repeatedly refused permission to leave Gaza through Egypt due to a ban on visas for men aged between 18 and 40. By the time he finally got out it was too late for him to make the team. Jarun recalls first meeting his teammates. "Their first impressions were: 'Who the hell is this guy? How the hell is this guy Palestinian?' But they welcomed me in like I was one of the brothers. It wasn't like I was an outsider. No one was judging each other. "They could tell I had good intentions for the team. Being an American I can explain to people in America what was going on in their county." Jarun believes victory on Sunday will do far more than send Palestine into the next round. "I think the match is huge man. Sport brings countries together and I don't know a better way for the world to know about Palestine apart from this soccer team," he explained. "Coming from outside, I feel that this is such a big step for this country. We can show that the Palestinians are normal people." An American soccer star playing for Palestine

Online Education May Transform Higher Ed

Online Education May Transform Higher Ed Can online education be the rock that disturbs the placid waters of American higher education? Several industry experts believe it will have a significant ripple effect on colleges and universities of all sizes in coming years—but only if it's subject to regulation, governed by a common set of accreditation standards, and widely accepted by institutions who have long clung to the traditional face-to-face model of instruction. Citing the vast online enrollment gains made by for-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University, Louis Soares, director of postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress, recently dubbed online education a potential "disruptive innovator" in the higher ed landscape. Much in the way cell phones disrupted the traditional landline-based model or discount retailers like Wal-Mart revolutionized the nation's retail market, the for-profit sector—though a subject of intense scrutiny in recent years—has driven changes that could greatly affect the world of higher education, Soares argues. "A disruptive innovation always starts out at a lower quality," he says. "[But], if you take that for-profit energy out of higher education, online [education] wouldn't have grown the way it has in the last 10 years." [Read about the partisan battle over for- profit education.] In the coming decade, experts say, college students should expect an increased presence of online classes at traditional nonprofit schools. Already, about 30 percent of American college students take at least one course online, says Elaine Allen, statistical director of the Sloan Survey on Online Education, which monitors student involvement in online higher education. Though wholly online programs generally target nontraditional students, established institutions that are populated by traditional, high-achieving students are starting to embrace the technology. The University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill and the University of Southern California are among the highly regarded schools that have recently adopted online-centric programs. Efforts made by such schools are not the culmination of a movement online, but rather a hint of inroads into a new market, experts say. "We're at the beginning of elite schools starting to take online seriously," says Richard Garrett, managing director at research firm Eduventures. "They're trying to marry the online experience with the brand of the institution." As technological capabilities expand and more traditional schools embrace online education in the coming years, schools may opt to replace many of their massive, entry- level courses that are traditionally taught in vast lecture halls and are characterized by little to no individual interaction between students and professors, experts say. "Is there a secret sauce to a professor sitting in front of 400 students and lecturing that couldn't be [replicated] online?" asks Soares, of the Center for American Progress. [Learn about the effectiveness of blended learning.] Standardized methods for training professors to teach online is another potential change on the horizon, and one that is essential to online education's future viability, experts claim. Currently, there is no standard for training professors to teach online courses. That need could be met by an association of online schools introducing a pedagogy or could be regulated by an accrediting body, says the Sloan Survey's Allen. It's a void that will need to be filled for the quality of online education to increase and for online instruction to be widely accepted at mainstream universities, she says. "Training is all over the map," Allen adds. "We need to do something about that to address quality." Online Education May Transform Higher Ed