Fierce battles in Syria; US to raise aid to rebels

BEIRUT (AP) ? An artillery shell slammed into a pickup truck, killing nine members of a family during fierce fighting on Friday in Syria as U.S. officials said the Obama administration is poised to send millions more in non-lethal military aid to rebels trying to oust President Bashar Assad.

The attack that killed one woman, her four children and four nieces and nephews, who were all under 12, was the latest carnage to hit the northern town of Saraqeb. Just days earlier, a government airstrike killed at least 20 people, shattering store fronts and setting cars ablaze in the strategic town in Idlib province on the main highway from Syria's largest urban center of Aleppo.

Rebels have wrested much of the countryside of Idlib and other provinces in the north from regime forces, although government troops still control many military bases in the region from which they launch attacks ? including airstrikes ? on opposition-held areas.

Also on Friday, another 18 people were killed in heavy fighting in and around Homs, the country's third largest city near the Lebanese border, and a Syrian Army official was assassinated northeast of the capital, Damascus. The state-run SANA news agency said "terrorists" ? the government's word for opposition fighters ? shot and killed Syrian Army Col. Tamim Abdullah as he was driving home in Barzeh.

The assassination was the latest in a series of killings of government and security officials and regime supporters in the capital. A day earlier, Ali Ballan, the head of public relations at the Ministry of Social Affairs and a member of Syria's relief agency, was killed by gunmen as he was dining in a restaurant in Mazzeh, a western Damascus neighborhood.

More than 70,000 people have been killed so far in the Syrian conflict, which began with largely peaceful protests against Assad's regime in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war. The U.N. Security Council has been deadlocked for months on the Syrian war, and even the most modest attempts to end the bloodshed have failed.

Western and Arab nations blame the conflict on Assad's government. Russia insists on assigning equal blame for the suffering to the Syrian opposition and rebels fighting on the ground, and has cast vetoes, along with China, to block draft council resolutions. A U.N. envoy on Friday gave the Security Council a grim assessment of the two-year war, saying that the Assad government had been uncooperative in negotiations.

In Washington, U.S. officials said Secretary of State John Kerry was expected to announce a significant expansion of non-lethal military aid to the Syrian opposition at an international conference on Syria he will attend Saturday in Turkey. The officials told The Associated Press that Kerry is expected to announce a contribution of between $120 million and $130 million in defensive military supplies, which could include body armor, armored vehicles, night vision goggles and advanced communications equipment.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to preview Kerry's announcement publicly.

Also, the European Union is looking for ways to bolster the forces fighting to oust Assad, and is set to ease its oil embargo on Syria, two diplomats said Friday. The decision would allow the import of oil production technology and the sale of crude from territory held by the Syrian opposition, in close coordination with the movement's leaders, they said. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal decision by the bloc's 27 foreign ministers at a meeting Monday in Luxembourg.

For months, the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has been promoting a peace plan that would call for a transitional government in which Assad would step aside ? a demand the Syrian president has repeatedly dismissed. After briefing the Security Council behind closed doors, Brahimi told reporters: "With the Syrians, I got nowhere."

He said there had been some progress with the Americans and the Russians, "but it is too little."

"If they really believe that they are in charge of looking after peace and security, there is no time for them to lose to really take this question more seriously than they have until now," Brahimi said.

Elsewhere in Syria, heavy fighting was reported near the contested town of Qusair in the central Syrian province of Homs, a day after government forces captured a town in the province and rebels seized a military base in the area. The 18 people killed in central Syrian died during the shelling of Deir Baalba district on the eastern edge of the city of Homs, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

The border region in Homs is strategic because it also links Damascus with the coastal enclave that is the heartland of Assad's minority Alawite sect, a Shiite offshoot. The coast also is home to the country's two main seaports, Latakia and Tartus. Assad's regime is dominated by his Alawites while the rebels are mostly from the country's Sunni majority.

Government forces on Thursday captured the town of Abel, cutting off the road between Homs and Qusair, according to Abdul-Rahman. He said the regime appeared to be trying to conduct a siege on Qusair.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group, said Syrian army warplanes bombarded the area around Qusair on Friday.

Both activist groups also reported heavy clashes in Damascus's southern suburb of Daraya, which the regime has been trying to recapture for months. They also reported clashes in Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa in the north and in the southern province of Daraa, where the uprising against Assad began.

In the country's east, there were reports of heavy fighting in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province, with clashes between government troops and rebels concentrated on the airport in the outskirts of the provincial capital. There were no immediate reports on the casualties in the fighting.

Since late 2012, rebels have been seizing fields in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, one of two main centers of oil production. Most recently, they captured the Jbeysa oil field, one of the country's largest, after three days of fighting in February.

Before the uprising, the oil sector was a pillar of Syria's economy, with the country producing about 380,000 barrels a day and exports ? mostly to Europe ? bringing in more than $3 billion in 2010. Oil revenues provided around a quarter of the funds for the government budget.

Oil production now is likely about half that, according to estimates. The government has not released recent production figures.

The civil war continues to take a heavy toll on civilians.

More than 5 million Syrians have fled their homes because of the relentless fighting, seeking shelter in neighboring countries or in other parts of Syria where the violence has temporarily subsided.

In the past few weeks, U.N.'s humanitarian agencies have warned that they were running low on resources and that without additional funds they would be forced to scale back relief efforts.

On Thursday, U.N.'s Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said children were starving to death in Syria and asked the Security Council to approve cross-border relief operations into Syria to deliver aid them and other civilians.

About half of the $1.5 billion needed to fund Syria's humanitarian needs through June has been collected, Amos said, noting a recent $300 million pledge from Kuwait.

Amos said 6.8 million Syrians were in need, with 4.25 million displaced within Syria and 1.3 million as refugees in neighboring countries.

___

AP writers Matthew Lee and Lara Jakes in Washington and Juergen Baetz in Brussels and Peter James Spielmann at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fierce-battles-syria-us-raise-aid-rebels-171906099.html

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Reflection on: ?Computers and Composition 20/20: A Conversation ...

Douglas Eyman, George Mason University

Eyman focused his article by looking back before moving forward, and by discussing not what he thinks should change as far as writing pedagogy but what should remain the same. Eyman argues that while technology is moving forward at a fast rate, he believes that the perception of such is more so driven by the social uses of specific technologies. He says that the literacy practices people are developing are what is changing most rapidly. Eyman argues that forecasting large-scale technological or social changes is a best guess situation, because future developments depend on current practices and the social, technological, and legal systems already in place to support (or undermine) continued development (328).

Eyman cautions making predictions of future radical changes by way of making the comparison between flying cars to writing pedagogy; he says flying cars exist, but ?they certainly aren?t available. It?s not because we don?t have the technology to make them work?what we don?t have is an appropriate infrastructure ? to allow that technology to be put into use and to flourish. We can imagine equally possible technologies for writing and communication in a digital age, but we should also remember that ? our imaginations should be tempered by an awareness of the kinds of infrastructures and social changes such technologies will require? (328).

Eyman says for years there have been central questions related to technology and writing pedagogy, which will remain relevant even moving forward:

• How can we ?provide equitable access to technology for all students??
• How can we ?prevent plans to use computers as inappropriate and ineffective teacher substitutes??
• How can we ?ensure adequate and competent preparation for teachers who will be using computers??
• How can we ?fulfill the promise of hypertext??
• How can we ?meet the challenges presented by the changing nature of literacy in the electronic age?? (329)

Eyman says he sees these questions as being concerned with probabilities rather than certainties and approaches them as a rhetorician, as he draws on rhetorical theory and methods in an attempt to answer these questions. Eyman says he also sees the primary interest for the field of writing is ?digital rhetoric?the application of rhetorical theory and practice in and through digital media. He makes the distinction between digital literacy, ?being able to effectively use semiotic resources to accomplish particular tasks,? versus digital rhetoric, ?making use of semiotic resources in the process of invention?not just using, but actually making digital texts? (329).

Eyman suggests working from the three following questions when considering the future of writing instruction:

1. ?What is ?writing?? How do we define it and ? what should we consider outside the purview of writing instruction as writing itself takes advantage of multimedia and multimodal semiotic resources??

2. ?Where is writing? And how do the contexts and networks within which writing takes place structure affordances and constraints of writing practice and rhetorical action??

3. ?What does writing do? How does our understanding of rhetoric-as-persuasion and writing-as-action shape our pedagogical goals?? (329)

Eyman says that writing involves making informed rhetorical choices (what writing is), will likely become more mobile and independent of the Internet (where writing is), and is designed to accomplish a task (what writing does) (329-330). Eyman says he also believes there will be more of a movement toward collaborative composition (collective action), not only driven by networked platforms for ease of collaboration but also because of the large amount of research showing the value of collaborative writing (330).

Fred Kemp, Texas Tech University

Kemp cites Clay Shirky?s mention of the change in information distribution after the Internet, where data is no longer physically restrained by the mode of its publication. Kemp says, ?The idea of knowledge itself becomes less a pouring forth from some initial generative portal and more a kind of cloud of understanding that emerges from communities (330). However, this makes me wonder how Kemp is using the term ?communities,? in that with the removal of the physicality of the information/text, how is this community bound up? Where does the cloud of understanding begin and end, to define a particular community?

Kemp makes the huge point that, ?Most any individual in society now has a new agency of access to almost everything anybody has ever thought or written? (330). While I would argue that ?most? and ?everything? are very subjective terms in this context, Kemp?s assessment of agency is rather insightful. He even takes this concept of agency further than just access to information, into the notion of agency in self-publication. Kemp however notes the problems associated with these new agencies, such as information overload and the accuracy of the information. Kemp says this new agency of access has created a necessary shift in instruction from ?what? content students should know to ?how? they should know. Kemp is arguing for a ?make sense of? approach in writing instruction to help students cope with an information-saturated society (331). He argues that the ?Internet is the most appealing and expressive technology that humanity has ever encountered; the point for teachers is not to push that round peg into our square hole, but to make the Internet a productive technology for what people inherently want to do, make sense with each other? (331).

Mike Palmquist, Colorado State University

Palmquist is advocating for the quality and collaborative merits of open-access publishing projects, which are ?transforming scholarly publishing in ways that will lead to the wider and more timely dissemination of our work [and] would require relatively small changes to our publishing practices? (331).

Bill Hart-Davidson, Mike McLeod, Jeff Grabill, The WIDE Research Center

The authors are making the case for robots being the future of writing, in saying that computing will become ?not something that people do but rather the medium that supports what people do? (333). They make the correlation between computing and writing by saying, ?Writing is where the action is but isn?t what the action is about? (334).

The authors then present a robot they have implemented that tracks successful workflow habits of behavior that bear repeating, and that collectively will ?represent successful team strategies, [that] over time, become noticeable as stable patterns of written communication? (335-336). They say the robot aggregates these habits by monitoring communications including discussions, text messages, pictures, emails, et al. between team members.

James P. Purdy, Duquesne University

Purdy is making the argument that as enhancements in portability and mobility continue people?s expectations about accessibility to texts, information, and each other will change as well (336). He says that being online will be an ever-present state and not a locationally dependent action, and that ?writing, reading, and researching activities will happen from anywhere? (336). Purdy says the ?frequency and freeness of these writing, reading, and researching activities will heighten students? sense that the best texts are those that are quickly accessible and always available? (336). He says as this persists ?students will develop less patience for ?gatekept? information. The idea of restricted access may come to seem not only curmudgeonly, but also unproductive for knowledge work? (336).

While Purdy makes the argument, for example, that researchers are no longer hindered by business hours and can quickly access a plethora of information, he takes the notion a bit too far. Even as a student at a university there are courses for which I have had to subscribe to outside academic journals, such as NCTE, to obtain course materials.

Madeleine Sorapure, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sorapure discusses the pros and cons of proprietary software and open-source programs, before making the case of using the Web as a platform for software applications. She says the proprietary versions are expensive and students are not likely to have them available outside of class and that accessibility to computer labs at night and during the weekend was problematic. Whereas the open source programs were free for students to download and offered much the same functionality of of their proprietary counterparts, they were not installed in the computers in the computer labs on campus (likely the university IT department would not allow such downloads).

Sorapure says using Web-based applications removes the constraints associated with downloading/installing proprietary or open source programs. However, Sorapure admits that these Web-based applications are free ?for now,? may require a subscription or premium package upgrade to allow full functionality, require providing personal information to set up an account, or may include advertisements in the HUD (338).

Sorapure says she has also begun incorporating smaller Web-delivered, niche programs that enable specific kinds of compositions, and since they are Flash- or JavaScript-based programs they do not require administrative approval to work on the university?s lab computers (338). She goes on to say that if the development of these Web-based applications continues teaching practices will have to shift and adapt, ?to teach skills and strategies that transfer across applications rather than (or in addition to) specific step-by-step procedures for specific applications? (338).

One interesting pedagogical idea Sorapure suggests is creating and maintaining a wiki where teachers post annotated links to Web applications they have used, sharing and assessing their experiences with the software.

Sorapure also mentions a potential flaw in Web-based applications in which ?many instances, these programs yield what Kristen Arola (2010) described as a ?loss of design agency.? While Arola referred primarily to the design limitations imposed by templates in Facebook and MySpace, other Web-based applications impose limitations and constrain the kinds of compositions that students can produce? (338). ?

Kristine Blair, Bowling Green State University

Blair is making the case for future teachers (graduate students specifically) being able to answer the question, ?Why teach digital writing?? Blair believes being able to articulate the answer to this question is crucial in negotiating politics within academic departments, and to effectively teach students to be literate in the 21st century. She is arguing that teachers need ?to understand how Web-based literacies will change what it means to read, write, and research in college and K-12 environments? (339).

Blair says that introducing graduate students to open-source, free applications can help them to see they have options beyond the standard course management systems available at their current institution, which can also enable them to potentially close existing technology gaps (technology rich institutions versus technology challenged institutions). She also says that as graduate students become more comfortable with and knowledgeable of technology, they have a better chance at bridging the gap that Prensky (2001) identified as existing between digital natives and digital immigrants (340).

Blair goes as far as to say, ?The future relevance of English studies will rest on the ability to share responsibility for teaching multimodal, Web-based literacies? (340).

Blair sums up her argument by quoting Cindy Selfe, who says, ?[To] make it possible for students to practice, value, and understand a full range of literacies ? teachers have got to be willing to expand their own understanding of composing beyond conventional bounds of the alphabetic. And we have to do so quickly or risk ? becoming increasingly irrelevant? (340).

Christine Tulley, The University of Findlay

Tulley is arguing for a new model of assessment in first-year writing programs as the pedagogy moves further form a print-based product to multimodal compositions. She is speculating that as open source tools and applications become more prominent to collect, exchange, and evaluate student compositions the writing program may become less of a closed system within a particular university.

Tulley is questioning the limitations course management systems present as far as assessing student writing, as well as whether the e-portfolio will remain a useful assessment of student progress.

Victor Vitanza, Clemson

Clemson is on such a chaotic and scattered rant that I can barely interpret mere snippets of what the man is trying to say. The gist of his ramblings and science fiction movie references is a comparison between past predictions of what the ?upgrade? from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 would look and feel like versus what the next generation (Web 3.0) will be. While I understand the use of his quirky writing to ?showcase? text as it can be seen on the Internet, his random typos, cute phrases, and switching randomly into French disrupted his underlying message for me; an audience member. I believe the point he?s trying to make is that Web 3.0 will devolve into a chaotic mess, but beyond that I got nothing form the article.

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Google Glass Explorer Editions rolling off the production line, will be delivered in waves

Google just shot out an email to folks who signed up for its Glass Explorers program at I/O last year, and it's spreading word that Glass units have begun to roll off the production line for participants. The roughly 2,000 devs who pre-ordered the spectacles won't be getting them all at once, however, as Page and Co. say they'll be delivered in waves. Mountain View notes it could have waited for every unit to be ready, but decided to send them out as they're made to speed things up. Presumably, winners of the #ifihadglass contest are in line to receive theirs after those who attended the developer powwow, and they'll have to travel to Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco to pick them up. Hit the break to live vicariously through the search titan's guinea pigs adventurers by reading the email in its entirety.

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A look at the North Korea crisis

As the world waits and watches for an expected North Korean ballistic missile test, the U.S. and its allies are prepared to respond if necessary. U.S. officials are conceding North Korea may be increasing its nuclear capabilities but don't expect a nuclear strike. They suggest that other military moves by Pyongyang involving artillery attacks or shelling of nearby South Korean islands could actually present a more serious threat in triggering a conflict.

WHY ALL THE HUBBUB

Since the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea has feared that Washington is intent on destroying the regime. The U.S. worries that Pyongyang will re-ignite the conflict with South Korea, and is uneasy because little is known about Kim Jong Un, the North's new, young leader, and considers him unpredictable. Both sides have ratcheted up the rhetoric and military muscle moves in recent weeks. North Korea threatened a pre-emptive strike against the U.S., and conducted an underground nuclear test in February and a rocket launch in December. The threats are seen as an effort to pressure Washington and Seoul to change their North Korean policies and convince the North's people that their new leader is strong enough to stand up to its foes. U.S. and South Korean troops have been conducting annual joint military drills in the region since early March, including bringing out nuclear-capable stealth bombers and fighter jets in what the Air Force acknowledged was a deliberate show of force.

NORTH KOREAN MISSILES

North Korea has been steadily working to display an increasing capability to launch missiles. Last year it failed in an attempt to send a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket. A subsequent launch in December was successful, and that was followed by the country's third underground nuclear test on Feb. 12. U.S. officials believe the North is preparing to test fire a medium-range "Musudan" missile. And a section in a new Defense Intelligence Agency assessment concludes with "moderate confidence" that the North could deliver nuclear weapon by ballistic missiles. The report notes that the delivery system is still not considered reliable.

U.S. RESPONSE

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which has responsibility for U.S. homeland defense, is watching the region via satellite and the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain, Navy destroyers armed with sophisticated missile defense systems, have been positioned to best be able to detect and track a missile launch. The U.S. is confident it would be able to shoot it down, but would do so only if it appears to be a threat to America or its allies. The U.S. is also prepared to provide military assistance to South Korea in the event of any other type of attack by the North.

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING

Secretary of State John Kerry warned North Korea not to conduct a missile test, saying it will be an act of provocation that "will raise people's temperatures" and further isolate the country and its people. President Barack Obama said his administration would "take all necessary steps" to protect American citizens and he urged Pyongyang to end its' brazen threats. North Korea has issued no specific warnings to ships and aircraft that a missile test is imminent. And the country has begun festivities celebrating the April 15 birthday of the country's late founder Kim Il Sung, which is considered the most important national holiday. China has been a longtime political, military and economic backer of North Korea and is considered to have more real leverage over the North. U.S. officials say there are indications Chinese leaders have become frustrated with Pyongyang's recent behavior and rhetoric.

Associated Press

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Stocks close higher, buoyed by upbeat jobless claims report?

JeeYeon Park , CNBC ? ? ? 2 hrs.

Stocks ended higher Thursday lifted by an upbeat jobless claims report, with the Dow and S&P 500 closing at fresh levels, while weakness in large tech companies limited gains on the Nasdaq.

"The market seems to be on autopilot," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading. "Everyone believes there are some serious issues being overlooked, but no one wants to fight a momentum-fueled rally?Plus, we've been on very light volume; when you see rallies, you want to see buyers."

(Read More: 'Amazed' Cramer Tells Why This Rally Is 'Very Unusual')

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced for the fourth-consecutive session, lifted by Pfizer and Verizon. Hewlett-Packard dropped more than 6 percent.

The S&P 500 also finished higher, while the Nasdaq finished largely unchanged after soaring nearly 2 percent in the previous session. Still, the S&P and Nasdaq are on pace for their second best weekly gains for the year.

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, ended above 12.

Most key S&P sectors closed in positive territory, led by consumer discretionary and telecoms, while techs remained lower.

Shares of major tech companies including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Intelslumped sharply after market research firm IDC said worldwide shipments of personal computers tumbled 13.9 percent in the first quarter, the biggest drop since the firm began issuing quarterly numbers in 1994. At least three brokerages downgraded Microsoft.

(Read More:Suckers! Tech Execs Selling Stock at Record Pace)

"Forget [S&P] 1,660, 1,700, etc. You should be concerned about protecting big gains," wrote Elliot Spar, market strategist at Stifel Nicolaus. "With new money, be selective and patient. ... This is not the first quarter anymore. You'll have to work harder to get on base and then stay close to the bag."

Retailers were among the day's strongest performers. L Brands (formerly Limited Brands) and Ross Stores rallied to lead the S&P 500 gainers after both firms posted higher-than-expected same-store sales in March. Meanwhile, top retailers Costco and TJX reported weaker-than-expected sales, but still traded higher along with the broader market.

JC Penney jumped after three more top executives at the retailer parted ways with the company, according to a New York Post report, following the ouster of Chief Executive Ron Johnson.

Herbalife jumped after the SEC charged former KPMG partner Scott London and his friend Bryan Shaw for insider trading. In recorded conversations, London told Shaw details about earnings announcements for Herbalife and another KPMG client, Deckers. In one call, London referenced rumors that had been spread about Herbalife going private.

Among earnings, Rite Aid surged after the pharmacy chain posted its second consecutive quarterly profit as the company filled more prescriptions and sold more generic drugs.

Pier 1 Imports slid after the furniture retailer posted earnings that were mostly in line with expectations, but handed in a weaker-than-expected outlook.

Banking giants JP Morgan and Wells Fargo are slated to post earnings on Friday. (Vote Now: Will JP Morgan Meet, Beat, Miss?)

On the economic front, weekly jobless claims declined 42,000 to a seasonally adjusted 346,000, according to the Labor Department, after a huge jump in the prior week. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a reading of 365,000.

Import prices fell in March as weak petroleum costs offset a spike in food prices, according to the Labor Department, matching expectations. The tame inflation environment should allow the Federal Reserve to stay on its ultra-easy monetary policy course as it tries to nurse the economy back to health.

On Wednesday, minutes from the Fed's March meeting released suggested some policymakers expect to slow the pace of asset purchases by mid-year and end them later this year. Under its current quantitative easing program, the Fed purchases $85 billion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities each month.

Still, the market rally continued despite concerns about when the central bank might start to pull back its stimulus efforts amid the healing U.S. economy.

Treasury prices eased off their highs after the government sold $13 billion in 30-year bonds at a high yield of 2.998 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of demand, was 2.49.

?By CNBC's JeeYeon Park (Follow JeeYeon on Twitter: @JeeYeonParkCNBC)

? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved

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Don't call it vaporware: Scientists use cloud of atoms as optical memory device

Apr. 3, 2013 ? Talk about storing data in the cloud. Scientists at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have taken this to a whole new level by demonstrating* that they can store visual images within quite an ethereal memory device -- a thin vapor of rubidium atoms. The effort may prove helpful in creating memory for quantum computers.

Their work builds on an approach developed at the Australian National University, where scientists showed that a rubidium vapor could be manipulated in interesting ways using magnetic fields and lasers. The vapor is contained in a small tube and magnetized, and a laser pulse made up of multiple light frequencies is fired through the tube. The energy level of each rubidium atom changes depending on which frequency strikes it, and these changes within the vapor become a sort of fingerprint of the pulse's characteristics. If the field's orientation is flipped, a second pulse fired through the vapor takes on the exact characteristics of the first pulse -- in essence, a readout of the fingerprint.

"With our paper, we've taken this same idea and applied it to storing an image -- basically moving up from storing a single 'pixel' of light information to about a hundred," says Paul Lett, a physicist with JQI and NIST's Quantum Measurement Division. "By modifying their technique, we have been able to store a simple image in the vapor and extract pieces of it at different times."

It's a dramatic increase in the amount of information that can be stored and manipulated with this approach. But because atoms in a vapor are always in motion, the image can only be stored for about 10 milliseconds, and in any case the modifications the team made to the original technique introduce too much noise into the laser signal to make the improvements practically useful. So, should the term vaporware be applied here after all? Not quite, says Lett -- because the whole point of the effort was not to build a device for market, but to learn more about how to create memory for next-generation quantum computers.

"What we've done here is store an image using classical physics. However, the ultimate goal is to store quantum information, which a quantum computer will need," he says. "Measuring what the rubidium atoms do as we manipulate them is teaching us how we might use them as quantum bits and what problems those bits might present. This way, when someone builds a solid-state system for a finished computer, we'll know how to handle them more effectively."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Jeremy B Clark, Quentin Glorieux, Paul D Lett. Spatially addressable readout and erasure of an image in a gradient echo memory. New Journal of Physics, 2013; 15 (3): 035005 DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/15/3/035005

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Building collapses in India; at least 47 dead

People gather around a heap of debris at the site of a building collapsed as a rescue operation continues on the outskirts of Mumbai, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. A half-finished building that was being constructed illegally in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed, killing 35 people and injuring more than 50 others, police said Friday. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

People gather around a heap of debris at the site of a building collapsed as a rescue operation continues on the outskirts of Mumbai, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. A half-finished building that was being constructed illegally in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed, killing 35 people and injuring more than 50 others, police said Friday. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

An Indian social worker talks to injured girl Sandhya Thakur, whose mother was killed in a building collapse, at a hospital on the outskirts of Mumba, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. A residential building being constructed illegally on forest land in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 47 people and injuring more than 70 others, authorities said Friday. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

Indian rescue workers help an injured woman after a building collapse on the outskirts of Mumbai, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. The half-finished building that was being constructed illegally in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed on Thursday, killing 35 people and injuring more than 50 others, police said Friday. (AP Photo)

A hospital worker cares for a 10-month-old child injured in a building collapse, at a hospital on the outskirts of Mumba, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. The residential building being constructed illegally on forest land in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 41 people and injuring more than 50 others, authorities said Friday. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

An injured girl Sandhya Thakur, whose mother was killed in a building collapse, takes a drink at a hospital on the outskirts of Mumba, India, Friday, April 5, 2013. A residential building being constructed illegally on forest land in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 41 people and injuring more than 50 others, authorities said Friday. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)

MUMBAI, India (AP) ? A residential building being constructed illegally on forest land in a suburb of India's financial capital collapsed into a mound of steel and concrete, killing at least 47 people and injuring 70 others, authorities said Friday.

The eight-story building in the Mumbai suburb of Thane caved in Thursday evening, police said. Rescue workers with sledgehammers, gasoline-powered saws and hydraulic jacks struggled Friday to break through the tower of rubble in their search for possible survivors. Six bulldozers were brought to the scene.

"There may be (a) possibility people have been trapped inside right now," local police commissioner K.P. Raghuvanshi said Friday.

At the time of the collapse, between 100 and 150 people were in the building. Many were residents or construction workers, who were living at the site as they worked on it, said Sandeep Malvi, a spokesman for the Thane government.

More than 20 people remained missing Friday afternoon and three floors of the building remained to be searched, said R.S. Rajesh, an official with the National Disaster Response Force who was at the scene.

"All the three floors are sandwiched ... so it's very difficult for us," he said.

The dead included 17 children, police said.

A nearby hospital was filled with the injured, many of whom had head wounds, fractures and spinal injuries. Hospital officials searched in vain for the parents of an injured 10-month-old girl who had been rescued.

At least four floors of the building had been completed and were occupied. Workers had finished three more floors and were adding the eighth when it collapsed, police Inspector Digamber Jangale said.

It was not immediately clear what caused the structure to collapse, but Raghuvanshi said it was weakly built. Police were searching for the builders to arrest them, he said.

"The inquiry is ongoing. We are all busy with the rescue operation; our priority now is to rescue as many as possible," he said.

Police with rescue dogs were searching the building, which appeared to have buckled and collapsed upon itself. Rescuers and nearby residents stood on the remains of the roof trying to get to people trapped inside. Residents carried the injured to ambulances and one man carried a small child caked white with dust from the wreckage.

Raghuvanshi said rescue workers had saved 15 people from the wreckage.

Building collapses are common in India as builders try to cut corners by using poor quality materials, and multi-storied structures are built with inadequate supervision. The massive demand for housing around India's cities and pervasive corruption allow builders to add unauthorized floors or build entirely illegal buildings.

The neighborhood where the building collapsed was part of a belt of more than 2,000 illegal structures that had sprung up in the area in recent years, said Malvi, the town spokesman.

"Notices have been served several times for such illegal construction, sometimes notices are sent 10 times for the same building," he said.

G.R. Khairnar, a former top Mumbai official, said government officials who allowed the illegal construction should be tried along with the builders.

"There are a lot of people involved (in illegal construction) ? builders, government machinery, police, municipal corporation ? everybody is involved in this process," he told CNN-IBN television.

The building that collapsed was illegally constructed on forest land, and the city informed forestry officials twice about it, Malvi said.

A local resident, who did not give his name, said the site was meant to hold a smaller structure and accused officials of turning a blind eye to the problem.

"They made an eight-story building of what was supposed to be a four-story building. People from the municipality used to visit the building but the builder still continued to add floors," he said.

In one of the worst recent collapses, nearly 70 people were killed in November 2010 when an apartment building in a congested New Delhi neighborhood crumpled. That building was two floors higher than legally allowed and its foundation appeared to have been weakened by water damage.

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Ngashangva reported from New Delhi.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-05-AS-India-Building-Collapse/id-5cd55555c5114fc799f814071dde7dd1

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