World Newspapers online. 06-25-2013 Science

O3b will put a series of satellites 8,000km above the Earth to provide communications to those parts of the world that have poor fibre optic infrastructure.

With backing from blue chip companies such as Google, O3b believes its novel system can change the broadband experience for millions of people.

The network's first four satellites will launch from French Guiana.

They will ride a Soyuz rocket from the Sinnamary spaceport, with lift-off scheduled for 15:53 local time (18:53 GMT).

It will take just over two hours for the Soyuz's Fregat upper-stage to raise the satellites to their operational altitude.

O3b will handle primarily voice and data traffic for mobile phone operators and internet service providers. It will pick up this traffic as the spacecraft pass overhead and then relay it to ground stations, or teleports, for onward connection to global networks.

Although other satellites routinely do this, O3b is taking a markedly different approach.

By flying in a Medium-Earth Orbit of 8,000km, its satellites will be a quarter of the distance from Earth than is the case with traditional geostationary (GEO) telecommunications spacecraft, which sit some 36,000km above the planet.

This should reduce substantially the delay, or latency, of the signal as the voice or data traffic is routed via space.

"The network was designed to avoid much of the difficulty that satellite connectivity provides today which is this delay," said O3b CEO Steve Collar.

"We've all been on a satellite call and you have that 600 milliseconds delay, which doesn't sound like much but it's enough to make that connection almost unusable. It's just as much of a problem on data networks. If you are on the internet and are searching for a site, it affects your behaviour if you get slow responses. You'll stop using the service. We wanted to fix those problems and the only way to fix them is to bring the satellites closer to Earth."

O3b is promising round-trip transmission time of a little more than 100 milliseconds.

The satellites will operate in the high-frequency Ka-band and have the capability to deliver 10 beams, at 1.2Gbps per beam, to each of O3b's seven operational regions.

The company expects to start services at the end of the year, once it gets eight spacecraft in orbit, but the intention is to put up perhaps as many as 20 eventually.

Jake Davis, 20, was convicted of computer hacking for his role in the notorious group LulzSec.

He cannot contact anyone who associates themselves with the wider Anonymous hacktivist collective.

He told the BBC he planned to release a prison diary and to write a film about the internet.

Davis returned to Twitter on 22 June after finishing his 37-day term at Feltham young offender institution.

During that time he penned what he described as a "nerdy" diary, wrote using pen and paper, which he hopes to publish online once it has been subjected to legal checks.

He is forbidden from creating encrypted files, securely wiping any data or deleting his internet history.

In June 2012 he pleaded guilty to being part of LulzSec, an offshoot of Anonymous famed for attacking several high profile sites including Sony Pictures and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Shortly after being released, he tweeted: "654 days on curfew and 37 days in Feltham. Up next: Another 365 days on licence (parole) and 1,825 days of intense monitoring. Free though!"

He had been sentenced to 24 months - but he had been wearing an electronic tag for 21 months which counted against his term.

Licking elbows Davis is now based in Islington, north London, where he said he was working on a number of projects.

He said he had begun an unspecified project with contemporary art firm Artangel - the company told the BBC it had had "several exploratory chats with Jake over the past six months", but would not go into further detail.

Longer term, he told the BBC he would write a fictional film about the internet, working with production company Fly Film, who could not be reached for comment on Monday.

Publically on Twitter, he has been sharing anecdotes about his time inside. In one post, he wrote: "I was sacked as a prison cleaner for mopping too near a computer. Those deadly, soapy mops are a serious threat to GCHQ, make no mistake!" As alter ego Topiary, Davis's last tweet before his arrest in July 2011 read: "You cannot arrest an idea."

On Sunday, in a nod to that sign off, Davis joked: "You can arrest an idea, you can imprison an idea, you can warp an idea, you can break an idea, but you still can't lick your own elbow."

While he wishes to distance himself from the hacking world, he has pledged support to Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence contractor who leaked secret documents regarding the monitoring of internet users.

Spanish researchers have found a way to mimic the shifting movement of a hamster inside a ball to get their Rosphere robot moving.

The electronics controlling the robot replace the hamster and act as a swinging weight to propel it forward.

Field trials have shown the Rosphere could help monitor soil conditions on arable land.

The Rosphere was developed by a four-strong team at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) who tried to find a method of locomotion that would not be thwarted by uneven or difficult terrain. Wheeled and legged robots can struggle on shifting ground or places strewn with lots of large and small objects.

The rolling robot's control systems swing on a spindle that sits at the centre of the hollow spherical device. By shifting the position of the electronics package on the spindle it is possible to make the robot roll forward. Drive wheels at either end of the spindle twitch the package to get the robot moving. Operating just one drive wheel helps the robot steer.

As well as drive motors to set the control system swinging, the robot's electronics include a wireless communication system and it can be fitted with cameras and other sensors to monitor environmental conditions, such as moisture levels and temperature.

The robot can also be operated remotely so an operator can take over if it gets trapped or cannot find a way through a field of obstacles.

Early work with the Rosphere has involved rolling it along furrows between crops. Eventually its creators hope the robot will be able to travel regularly around fields to monitor conditions and tell farmers the best time to water or otherwise tend their crops.

Tapie, a member of France's business and sporting elite, says he has nothing to hide in the affair which has embroiled members of Sarkozy's cabinet, including IMF chief Christine Lagarde, his former finance minister.

While both Sarkozy and Lagarde deny wrongdoing, the case is one more legal headache for the former president whose supporters would like to see run for the top job again to rescue his divided conservative party.

The investigation is into whether a 285 million euro ($374 million) financial award that Tapie won in 2008 was a result of political influence.

"I'm not worried about the merits of the case," said 70-year-old Tapie, who served as a minister in Socialist President Francois Mitterrand's government in the 1980s, but moved to the right and backed Sarkozy at the 2007 election.

"I'm wondering what they could possibly find," he told Europe 1 radio shortly before being taken in for questioning by police specialized in financial crime.

Tapie alleged that the now-defunct bank Credit Lyonnais defrauded him by purchasing his interest in sports clothing company Adidas in 1993 for 315.5 million euros only to sell it a year later for 701 million euros.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the close ties between Tapie and members of Sarkozy's inner circle influenced the government's decision in 2007 to turn to a private arbitration tribunal to settle the long-running dispute.

The arbitration went in Tapie's favor with an award which, including interest, amounted to 403 million euros.

Under French law, Tapie - the owner of a regional newspaper chain whose has raced cars, dabbled in acting and bought cycling and soccer teams - could be kept in police custody for as long as 96 hours as he is questioned on suspicion of organized fraud.

TRIAL AHEAD?

Socialist President Francois Hollande, who came to power just over a year ago vowing to rid France of what he said were unfair advantages accorded to the elite under Sarkozy, has said he wants to get to the bottom of the arbitration affair.

He has continued to back Lagarde and the chief executive of France Telecom, Stephane Richard, both of whom have been caught up in the scandal.

Although Lagarde was not placed under formal investigation - a step meaning that "serious or consistent evidence" points to probable implication in a crime, Richard - her former aide - was.

U.S. stock futures pointed to Wall Street joining the falls, adding to the drop the major indexes have already suffered. .N

The declines stem from Federal Reserve's signal that the era of cheap central bank money - which saw many assets hit record highs - was coming to an end, but have been exacerbated by China's battle to transition to a lower growth economy.

Both events are unprecedented and have driven a sharp rise in risk aversion by investors fearing a long period of volatility across markets.

"The more liquidity you've got in the system, the more disorderly the potential could be, so that's the real fear about this," said Josh Raymond, market strategist for City Index.

The shift out of assets which have benefited most from cheap money has been sharpest in the U.S. debt market, where yields on 10-year Treasury notes spiked to two-year highs of 2.6 percent on Monday.

This rise, and the brighter outlook for the U.S. economy, which was behind the Fed's decision, has favored the dollar against most major currencies. The dollar index .DXY was up 0.4 percent at 82.66 on Monday, building on last week's 2.2 percent rally, its biggest weekly gain in 19 months.

Against the yen, the dollar was up 0.1 percent at 97.97 yen while the euro fell 0.1 percent to $1.3105 after dropping as low as $1.3078, a level not seen since June 6.

STOCKS SHUNNED

As investors retreated into the dollar, share markets everywhere have tumbled, with the falls heaviest in many of the world's major emerging markets.

MSCI's benchmark index for stocks in the emerging world .MSCIEF fell for a fifth straight day on Monday to touch one-year lows, led by China shares, which tumbled to their biggest daily loss in almost four years.

The rise in Treasury yields and better prospects for the U.S. economy have undermined the attraction of emerging markets, as China's efforts to clean up its banking system and switch to a slower growth trajectory raises fears of greater instability.

"The China story is something that people are aware of and keeping an eye on, but broadly people are still digesting the comments of the Fed," RBS emerging markets analyst Mohammed Kazmi said.

U.S. hospital stocks have rallied this year as investors expect the companies to benefit as more Americans are covered by health insurance and hospitals lose less money treating the uninsured.

The offer of $21 per share, a premium of 70 percent to Vanguard's Friday close, represents the highest price for the stock since the company's initial public offering in 2011.

Vanguard, founded in 1997, was taken private by a group led by the Blackstone Group in 2004 and the private equity firm is still the largest shareholder with a 38 percent stake. Founder and CEO Charlie Martin holds 4.18 percent.

Vanguard shares were trading at $20.73 before the bell.

The deal includes the assumption of $2.54 billion of debt.

"It's a very smart deal for (Tenet) to be doing at this juncture and I think gaining the services of both Keith Pitts and Charlie Martin ... is crucial to this," said CRT Capital Group analyst Sheryl Skolnick, who has a "buy" rating on both companies. Pitts is the company's vice chairman.

Analysts said the premium paid by Tenet was reasonable, given the potential savings from the deal. Tenet said it expects the deal to add to earnings in the first year and estimates annual savings of $100 million to $200 million.

Tenet shares, which closed at $41.85 Friday, were trading up 6 percent in trading before the bell on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

"This acquisition will take Tenet into new geographic markets, expand the breadth of our service offerings, diversify our earnings sources and increase the benefits we expect to realize under healthcare reform," Tenet CEO Trevor Fetter said in a statement.

Tenet operates 49 hospitals and 122 free-standing outpatient centers hospitals in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and several states in the U.S. Southeast.

Vanguard owns and operates 28 acute care and specialty hospitals in the U.S. Midwest, South and Massachusetts.

Gibson Dunn & Crutcher was Tenet's legal counsel and Lazard, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays and Teneo Capital were financial and strategic advisers.

Vanguard was advised by J.P. Morgan. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom was legal counsel.

Madiba, as he is affectionately known, is revered among most of South Africa's 53 million people as the architect of the 1994 transition to multi-racial democracy after three centuries of white domination.

However, his latest hospitalization - his fourth in six months - has reinforced a realization that the father of the post-apartheid 'Rainbow Nation' will not be around for ever.

President Jacob Zuma, who visited Mandela late on Sunday with African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, reflected the national mood when he told a news conference that Mandela remained critical.

"All of us in the country must accept that Madiba is now old. As he ages, his health will trouble him," Zuma said, declining to give specific details about Mandela's medical condition or other information from his hospital visit.

"Given the hour, he was already asleep. We saw him, looked at him and then we had a bit of a discussion with the doctors and his wife," Zuma said. "I don't think I'm a position to give further details. I'm not a doctor."

U.S. President Barack Obama is due to visit South Africa this week as part of a three-country Africa tour but Zuma said Mandela's worsening state of health should not affect the trip.

"Nothing is going to stop the visit because Madiba is sick," Zuma said.

"WE WILL MISS HIM"

Mandela's deterioration this weekend, two weeks after being admitted in a serious but stable condition with a lung infection, has caused a perceptible switch in mood from prayers for recovery to preparations for a fond farewell.

"If it's his time to go, he can go. I wish God can look after him," said nurse Petunia Mafuyeka, as she headed to work in Johannesburg.

"We will miss him very much. He fought for us to give us freedom. We will remember him every day. When he goes I will cry."

There was some concern among the public about doctors trying to prolong the life of South Africa's first black president, one of the 20th Century's most influential figures.

"I'm worried that they're keeping him alive. I feel they should let him go," said Doris Lekalakala, a claims manager. "The man is old. Let nature take its course. He must just rest."

In the court's next term, starting in October, the court will consider whether three appointments President Barack Obama made to the board in January 2012 were invalid because the Senate was not technically in recess at the time.

The case, which involves weighty constitutional issues that are the constant subject of political battles between Congress and the White House through different presidential administrations, addresses what is known as "recess appointments."

That refers to when a president makes an appointment - while senators are in recess - to a position otherwise requiring Senate approval, often naming an appointee who would have had trouble winning Senate confirmation.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in January that the appointments to the panel, which normally has five members, were invalid.

The appeals court agreed with Noel Canning, the bottling company that challenged Obama's move, in finding that the president did not have the authority to make the appointments.

The U.S. Constitution allows the president to make appointments when the Senate is in recess. Such appointments expire at the end of the congressional session.

In Monday's brief order announcing it was hearing the case, the court asked the parties to address an additional question on whether the president can make recess appointments when the Senate convenes every three days for so-called pro-forma sessions.

Backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Noel Canning argued that an NLRB ruling against it was invalid because of the appointments, which meant the board lacked a quorum.

Obama made his NLRB appointments on January 4, 2012, when the Senate was in session but not conducting business. The congressional session began on January 3, according to the Senate website.

Presidents from both parties have used their recess appointment authority to make appointments when the Senate is not conducting business.

Island Air, a Honolulu-based carrier with a handful of island-hopping planes that Ellison bought in February, confirmed discussions between Island and Phoenix-based Mesa Air Group, the parent company of Hawaii's interisland go! Airlines.

"We are committed to building a strong regional airline and part of that process is exploring all options including discussions with Mesa Air," Island Air Chief Executive Officer Paul Casey said in a one-sentence statement.

Honolulu's Star-Advertiser newspaper reported on Thursday that Ellison was arranging to take control of go! Airlines, citing an unnamed source familiar with the deal.

Mesa CEO Jonathan Ornstein was not immediately available for comment. A spokeswoman said the airline flies 40 flights a day in Hawaii using a fleet of five 50-seat CRJ-200 jets.

Oracle declined to comment.

Hawaii aviation historian Peter Forman said a deal for Island Air to purchase go! would not only secure more flights for Ellison's island of Lanai, but also could indicate that Ellison intends to become a player in the Hawaiian airline market.

Many industry observers have expected another airline to enter Hawaii to compete with Hawaiian Airlines for the tourist- rich interisland market. Combining go! and Island Air would give Ellison critical mass and a platform from which to compete.

"He's gaining the recognition that he is serious about becoming the second interisland airline in Hawaii. There has been a vacuum for serious competition to Hawaiian (Airlines)," Forman said.

In March 2013, Forbes Magazine listed Ellison, 68, as the world's fifth richest man, and the third richest American, with a net worth of $43 billion.

The funding will be launched on Monday at a 4:00 p.m. lender call that the billionaire investor is expected to join, the sources said.

The $5.2 billion is split between a $2.2 billion six-year term loan B-1 and a $3 billion three-year term loan B-2. The six-year tranche will have standard 1 percent amortization, while the shorter-dated tranche amortizes at 10 percent, they said.

Icahn declined to comment on details of the term loans on Friday.

As previously reported, initial price guidance in May was in the LIB+350 area, subject to change due to market conditions.

Earlier this week, Icahn repeated his interest in owning Dell, saying in a telephone interview with Thomson Reuters LPC on Tuesday that he was moving forward with his plans to line up $5.2 billion in credit facilities. His comments echoed statements he made earlier that day in an open letter to Dell shareholders.

"Nothing has changed regarding the financing," Icahn said in the interview. "We expect to have $5.2 billion in the next couple of weeks. Our investment bank is already committing $1.6 billion and my affiliates and I would provide $2 billion, if necessary."

Icahn's letter to Dell's shareholders came on the heels of a series of reports that Icahn could exit the Dell race after struggling to raise the $5.2 billion in debt he needed to back a leveraged recapitalization he proposed to Dell's board on May 9.

In May, Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management initiated talks with banks and asset managers to line up financing to back a leveraged recapitalization of Dell as an alternative to an existing buyout offer led by Dell and Silver Lake Partners for $13.65 a share, or $24.4 billion. Jefferies has already committed $1.6 billion.

FUNDING SEEN READY BEFORE JULY 18 VOTE

Icahn is expected to have the financing lined up for a July 18 shareholder vote on the Silver Lake bid.

Icahn is offering a new path for shareholders. Under the May 9 leveraged recapitalization plan, Icahn proposed giving shareholders the option of receiving either a distribution of $12 per share in cash or $12 per share in stock valued at $1.65 per share. Now, Icahn is asking that Dell shareholders agree to a tender offer for 1.1 billion shares at $14 apiece in a stock buyback.

Edward Snowden, the onetime contract analyst for the National Security Agency, left Hong Kong after the U.S. government sought his extradition on espionage charges, WikiLeaks said. He landed in Moscow, where a CNN crew spotted a car with diplomatic plates and an Ecuadorian flag at the Russian capital's international airport.

WikiLeaks, which facilitates the publication of classified information, did not disclose what country would be Snowden's final destination. But Ecuador has already given WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange refuge in its embassy in London for a year after he unsuccessfully fought extradition to Sweden in British courts.

And Washington is asking Ecuador, as well as Cuba and Venezuela, not to admit Snowden, a senior Obama administration official told CNN on Sunday. The United States also is asking those countries to expel him if they do admit him, the official said, and a source familiar with the matter told CNN that the U.S. government has revoked Snowden's passport.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it was routine to revoke the passports of people charged with felonies. She would not comment specifically on the status of Snowden's passport, but said, "Persons wanted on felony charges, such as Mr. Snowden, should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States."

Snowden "left Hong Kong legally" and is headed to Ecuador "via a safe route for the purposes of asylum," WikiLeaks said in a statement issued Sunday afternoon. He is accompanied by diplomats and lawyers for WikiLeaks, including former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, according to a statement from the organization.

"The WikiLeaks legal team and I are interested in preserving Mr. Snowden's rights and protecting him as a person," said Garzon, who also represents Assange. "What is being done to Mr. Snowden and to Mr Julian Assange -- for making or facilitating disclosures in the public interest -- is an assault against the people."

The bug, which has since been repaired, was part of the Download Your Information tool, which lets Facebook users export all the data from profiles, such as posts to their timeline and conversations with friends. People using the tool may have downloaded inadvertently the contact information for people they were somehow connected to.

Some people upload their contact lists or address books to Facebook, which the company then uses to suggest new friends they can connect with who are already using the service.

Though the number of people impacted is sizable, the actual spread of their contact information appears to be limited. The phone numbers and e-mail addresses were not exposed to developers or posted publicly. It is only shown to people they had at least a tentative connection with, and who may have already had their contact information.

Even in that pool, it was only exposed to people who had used the data-exporting tool. "For almost all of the email addresses or telephone numbers impacted, each individual email address or telephone number was only included in a download once or twice. This means, in almost all cases, an email address or telephone number was only exposed to one person," Facebook's security team said in a post.

The company says it has no evidence that the bug was "exploited maliciously" and that there have been no complaints so far.

The social media company announced the bug on Friday afternoon. The issue was discovered by a third-party security researcher who submitted it through Facebook's White Hat program.

Facebook's White Hat program is set up so that people such as security researchers can report any vulnerabilities they find on the social network and get a reward for $500 and up in return.

These types of programs are common at Internet companies.