Is the iPad Mini as Good as the iPad?

The iPad Mini‘s screen doesn’t have the same “resolutionary” Retina display as its bigger brother, but don’t worry: the Apple snobs appear to have gotten over that. After spending time with his new baby-tablet, The New York Times‘s Nick Bilton gave in, calling the gadget his new “Desert Island Device.” (It replaced his iPhone, by the way.) The inferior screen had worried Bilton like it had others, but no longer: ”I used it for two weeks and my concerns about the screen’s quality are completely irrelevant.” It’s not that Bilton prefers the “fuzzy” screen, as he called it. But the portability of the lightweight Mini outweighs that for him, making this tablet, in his opinion, really the best tablet Apple has ever made.

RELATED: Prepare for an iPad Mini This Month

Considering all the fawning over the Retina display on the iPad proper, it’s pretty amazing to see reviewers toss that upgrade for something that Steve Jobs forbid the company to create. Bilton’s not the only one to prefer the new cousin, even if it is technically worse. Noted Apple-phile Jonathan Gruber said he hadn’t touched the fourth-generation iPad that Apple released this year as well “I’ve gone small and fuzzy,” he wrote. When the Retina display first came out, Gruber called it “pure joy” for his “dream iPad.” But a funny thing happened on the way out of the hype cycle: Apple put out something the masses were supposed to like more than the techies, and that just made everyone like it even more. Call it a holiday miracle, but the Apple snobs may be snobs no more.

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Explainer: Why was pregnant duchess hospitalized?

LONDON (AP) — While morning sickness in pregnant women is common, the problem the Duchess of Cambridge has been hospitalized with is not.

In a statement Monday, palace officials said she was hospitalized with hyperemesis gravidarum, a potentially dangerous type of morning sickness where vomiting is so severe no food or liquid can be kept down. Palace officials said the duchess was expected to remain hospitalized for several days and would require a period of rest afterwards.

“It’s not unusual for pregnant women to get morning sickness, but when it gets to the point where you’re dehydrated, losing weight or vomiting so much you begin to build up (toxic) products in your blood, that’s a concern,” said Dr. Kecia Gaither, director of maternal fetal medicine at Brookdale University and Medical Center in New York.

The condition is thought to affect about one in 50 pregnant women and tends to be more common in young women, women who are pregnant for the first time, those expecting multiple babies and in non-smokers. Gaither said that fewer than one percent of women with the condition need to be hospitalized.

Doctors aren’t sure what causes it but suspect it could be linked to hormonal changes or nutritional problems.

Women admitted to the hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum are usually treated with nutritional supplements and given fluids intravenously to treat dehydration. Dr. Dagni Rajasingam, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said most women hospitalized with the condition are discharged within several days.

“It depends on how well the woman is keeping fluids down,” she said.

If the problem is recognized and treated early, doctors say there are no long-term effects for either the mother or the child. Left untreated, the mother could be at risk of developing neurological problems — including seizures — or risk delivering the baby early.

Gaither said the condition usually subsides by the second trimester.

“The rest of the pregnancy could be entirely uneventful,” she said, adding that pregnant women treated for the condition are usually advised to avoid fatty foods that could aggravate the problem.

Gaither said the duchess would probably be able to meet her usual royal obligations by her second trimester.

“She should be able to meet all her public obligations soon,” she said, advising her to take her vitamins and ensure there are no other underlying health problems. “She should just be looking forward to having a healthy little plump person.”

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Palace says Duchess of Cambridge expecting a baby

LONDON (AP) — Get the nursery ready: Prince William and his wife Kate are expecting their first child.

St. James’s Palace announced the pregnancy Monday, saying that the Duchess of Cambridge — formerly known as Kate Middleton — has a severe form of morning sickness and is currently in a London hospital. William is at his wife’s side.

The palace said since the pregnancy is in its “very early stages,” the 30-year-old duchess is expected to stay in the hospital for several days and will require a period of rest afterward.

It would not say how far along she is, only that she has not yet reached the 12-week mark.

News of the pregnancy drew congratulations from across the world, with the hashtag “royalbaby” trending globally on Twitter.

Not only are the attractive young couple popular — with William’s easy common touch reminding many of his mother, the late Princess Diana — but their child is expected to play an important role in British national life for decades to come.

William is second in line to the throne after his father, Prince Charles, so the couple’s first child would normally eventually become a monarch.

In recent days, Middleton has kept up her royal appearances — recently playing field hockey with schoolchildren at her former school.

The confirmation of her pregnancy caps a jam-packed year of highs and lows for the young royals, who were married in a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey last year.

They have traveled the world extensively as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and weathered the embarrassment of a nude photos scandal, after a tabloid published topless images of the duchess.

Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, said the news bookended a year that saw the royal family riding high in popular esteem after celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s 60 years on the throne.

“We’re riding on a royal high at the moment at the end of the Diamond Jubilee year,” he said. “People enjoyed the royal romance last year and now there’s this. It’s just a good news story amid all the doom and gloom.”

Speculation about when the couple would start a family has been rife since their wedding.

William’s mother — the late Princess Diana — got pregnant just four months after her wedding in 1981. Diana reportedly suffered from morning sickness for months and complained of constant media attention.

“The whole world is watching my stomach,” Diana once said.

American tabloid speculation of the pregnancy has been rampant for months. One newspaper even cited anonymous sources talking about Kate’s hormone levels. Others have focused on the first signs of the royal bump.

The palace said the royal family was “delighted” by the news, while British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter that the royals “will make wonderful parents.”

Whether boy or girl, the child will be next in line behind William in the line of succession to the throne, Cabinet Office officials have said.

Leaders of Britain and the 15 former colonies that have the monarch as their head of state agreed in 2011 to new rules which give females equal status with males in the order of succession.

Although none of the nations had legislated to make the change as of September 2012, the British Cabinet Office confirmed that this is now the de-facto rule.

On the couple’s recent tour of Malaysia, Singapore, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in September, William reportedly said he hoped he and Kate would have two children.

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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless and Paisley Dodds contributed to this report.

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Gunmen assassinate peasant leader in Paraguay

ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Gunmen murdered one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo‘s presidency last June.

Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times early Saturday by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report prepared at the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Curuguaty.

A friend, Mario Espinola, told The Associated Press that Vega was shot down when he stepped outside to feed his farm animals.

Vega was among the public faces of a commission of landless peasants from the settlement of Yby Pyta, which means Red Dirt in their native Guarani language.

He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.

By last May, the peasants finally lost patience and moved onto the land. A firefight during their eviction on June 15 killed 11 peasants and six police officers, prompting the Colorado Party and other leading parties to vote Lugo out of office for allegedly mismanaging the dispute.

Twelve suspects, nearly all of them peasants from Yby Pyta, have been jailed without formal charges since then on suspicion of murdering the officers, seizing property and resisting authority. The prosecutor had six months to develop the case and will present his findings Dec. 16.

Vega was expected to be a witness at the criminal trial, since he was among the few leaders who weren’t killed in the clash or jailed afterward.

He wasn’t charged because he was away getting supplies when the violence erupted at the settlement erected by the peasants inside Riquelme’s ranch, the Naranjaty Commission’s secretary, Martina Paredes, told the AP.

“We think he was assassinated by hit men who were sent, we don’t know by whom, perhaps to frighten us and frustrate our fight to recover the state lands that were illegally taken by Riquelme,” she said.

Riquelme, who died of natural causes about a month after the battle in June, occupied the land during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, whose government gave away land for free to anyone willing to put it to productive use.

A local court in Curuguaty upheld Riquelme’s claim to the land years later. Lugo’s government later sought to overturn the decision, but the case remains tied up in court.

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Nokia Siemens to sell optical networks unit

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Mobile telecoms equipment joint venture Nokia Siemens Networks, which is focusing on its core business, is to sell its optical fiber unit to Marlin Equity Partners for an undisclosed sum.

Up to 1,900 employees, mainly in Germany and Portugal, will be transferred to the new company, NSN said on Monday.

The company, owned by Nokia and Siemens, has sold a number of product lines since it last year announced plans to divest non-core assets and cut 17,000 jobs, nearly a quarter of its total workforce.

Nordea Markets analyst Sami Sarkamies said he expected more divestments after the optical unit deal. This disposal was a small surprise, he said, because NSN needed some optical technology – where data is transmitted by pulses of light – for its main mobile broadband business.

The move may hint the company is preparing itself for further consolidation in the sector by cutting overlaps with other players, Sarkamies said.

The telecom equipment market is going through rough times with stiff competition. French Alcatel-Lucent is also cutting costs.

($ 1 = 0.7689 euro)

(Reporting by Harro ten Wold; Editing by Greg Mahlich and Dan Lalor)

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Investigation under way into New Jersey train derailment, chemical leak

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Federal transportation investigators have begun interviewing the crew of a train that was carrying hazardous materials when it derailed on a railroad bridge in New Jersey, officials said on Saturday.

National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Deborah Hersman said the agency would spend the next two weeks preparing a preliminary report on Friday’s accident in the industrial town of Paulsboro.

A bridge collapse derailed seven of the 82 Conrail freight train cars, and a tanker car that fell into Mantua Creek leaked vinyl chloride into the waterway, which feeds into the Delaware River near Philadelphia.

More than 12,000 gallons (45,425 liters) of the highly toxic and flammable industrial chemical vinyl chloride leaked from a gash in the tanker car’s side following the derailment on Friday morning.

Twenty-two people were examined at a nearby hospital, but air monitors in the area did not register any problem, officials have said. Exposure to vinyl chloride can cause a burning sensation in the eyes or respiratory discomfort.

Investigators were obtaining records from Conrail on inspections of the bridge over the Mantua Creek. They also examined a derailment on the bridge in 2009, as well as any possible impact on the bridge from the high winds and rising waters that accompanied superstorm Sandy.

“We are continuing to question the crew to get additional information,” Hersman said at a press briefing. “We still have some work to do.”

State Senator Steve Sweeney, whose district includes Paulsboro, told Reuters on Saturday that 106 residents who live close to the crash scene were evacuated from the area on Friday night in case any more of vinyl chloride escaped into the air or water.

“What it really was was just to be cautious,” Sweeney said. The residents will be out of their homes for several days, and are staying with friends and relatives or hotels, he said.

Conrail is jointly owned by rail operators CSX Corp and Norfolk Southern Corp.

(This story corrects name of town in second paragraph to Paulsboro, not Paulson)

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Bill Trott)

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Bryce Dallas Howard film among the live-action short films on Oscar nominations shortlist

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “when you find me,” directed by “Twilight” star Bryce Dallas Howard and executive-produced by her father Ron Howard, is among 11 films that have been shortlisted for possible Oscars nomination, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Thursday.

Though the Academy typically only short-lists 10 entries, a tie in the nominations balloting resulted in an 11th title making the list. In all, 125 films originally qualified in the category.

From here, members of the Academy’s Short Films and Feature Animation Branch will select three to five nominees for the Oscars during December screenings in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

Nominations will be announced January 10, with the Academy Awards taking place February 24.

Read the full short-list below.

“A Fábrica (The Factory),” Aly Muritiba, director (Grafo Audiovisual)

“Asad,” Bryan Buckley, director, and Mino Jarjoura, producer (Hungry Man)

“Buzkashi Boys,” Sam French, director, and Ariel Nasr, producer (Afghan Film Project)

“Curfew,” Shawn Christensen, director (Fuzzy Logic Pictures)

“Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw),” Tom Van Avermaet, director, and Ellen De Waele, producer (Serendipity Films)

“Henry,” Yan England, director (Yan England)

“Kiruna-Kigali,” Goran Kapetanovic, director (Hepp Film AB)

“The Night Shift Belongs to the Stars,” Silvia Bizio and Paola Porrini Bisson, producers (Oh! Pen LLC)

“9meter,” Anders Walther, director, and Tivi Magnusson, producer (M & M Productions A/S)

“Salar,” Nicholas Greene, director, and Julie Buck, producer (Nicholas Greene)

“when you find me,” Ron Howard, executive producer, and Bryce Dallas Howard, director (Freestyle Picture Company)

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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier

ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.

Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.

Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.

After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”

Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.

Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.

The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.

Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.

His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.

A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.

It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.

But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.

Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.

“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.

He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

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Geithner on averting cliff: 'I actually think we're going to get there'

Boehner, Geithner (AP/Getty)

With the fiscal cliff looming--and Republicans, like House Speaker John Boehner, slamming the White House's latest proposal--U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hit the Sunday morning talk show circuit, saying the partisan posturing is part of the "political theater" but that he's hopeful a deal will get done.

"I actually think that we're gonna get there," Geithner said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." "I mean, inevitably [there is] gonna be a little political theater in this context--sometimes that's a sign of progress. I think we're actually making a little bit of progress, but we're still some distance apart."

Geithner said the GOP lawmakers need to realize that the burden is on them to work with Democrats, and that the "ball really is with them now."

"There's just no reason why 98 percent of Americans have to see their taxes go up because some members of Congress on the Republican side want to block tax rate increases for 2 percent of the wealthiest Americans," the treasury secretary said.

"They really are in a difficult position," he added. "And they're going to have to figure out their politics of what they do next."

On CNN's "State of the Union With Candy Crowley," Geithner dismissed Boehner's contention that debt talks were at a "stalemate."

"I think we're far apart still, but I think we're moving closer together," Geithner said. "Republicans have said for the first time in decades, if I'm not mistaken, that they are prepared to raise taxes as part of a deal that helps reduce our long-term deficits. Now, what they haven't said to us is how far they're willing to go both on rates and revenues. And that's something we're going to need to see from them if we're going to have an agreement."

He added: "There's going to be a lot of political theater between now and when we get there."

"We laid out a very detailed plan," Geithner said on "Fox News Sunday."

On "Meet The Press," Geithner said he thinks a deal will get done by the end of the year.

"The only thing standing in the way of that would be a refusal by Republicans to accept that rates are going to have to go up on the wealthiest Americans," he said. "And I don't really see them doing that."

Geithner's Sunday talk show tour was met with immediate criticism from the GOP.

"The president and the White House have had three weeks and this is the best we've got?" Boehner asked on "Fox News Sunday." "We are nowhere."

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Verizon may soon launch Samsung Galaxy Camera with 4G LTE

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