Microsoft demos Lego Mindstorms EV3 platform using Surface-controlled robot

Robot toys aren't what you'd normally expect from Microsoft's developer-focused Build conference, but that's just what the company served up today. In a chat about developer tools, Microsoft's VP of Web Services Antoine Leblond demoed a version of Lego Education's unreleased Mindstorms EV3 platform using -- what else? -- a brick-built robot and a Surface tablet. Citing the Win RT APIs that let users interact with device-specific protocols (i.e., USB, Bluetooth, etc.) Leblond was able to stream live video of his face, using a separate Windows tablet, to the tank-like franken-toy. All whimsy aside, this MS / Lego collaboration's less about giving kids a neat, remote spying tool and more about making programming fun and approachable. You know, STEM stuff. And we're all for it.

Filed under: Robots, Software, Microsoft

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High court gay marriage decisions due Wednesday

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court is meeting to deliver opinions in two cases that could dramatically alter the rights of gay people across the United States.

The justices are expected to decide their first-ever cases about gay marriage Wednesday in their last session before the court's summer break.

The issues before the court are California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies legally married gay Americans a range of tax, health and pension benefits otherwise available to married couples.

The broadest possible ruling would give gay Americans the same constitutional right to marry as heterosexuals. But several narrower paths also are available, including technical legal outcomes in which the court could end up saying very little about same-sex marriage.

If the court overturns California's Proposition 8 or allows lower court rulings that struck down the ban to stand, it will take about a month for same-sex weddings to resume for the first time since 2008, San Francisco officials have said.

The high court rulings are arriving amid rapid change regarding gay marriage. The number of states permitting same-sex partners to wed has doubled from six to 12 in less than a year, with voter approval in three states in November, followed by legislative endorsement in three others in the spring.

At the same time, an effort to legalize gay marriage in Illinois stalled before the state's legislative session ended last month. And 30 states have same-sex marriage bans enshrined in their constitutions.

Massachusetts was the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry, in 2004. Same-sex marriage also is legal, or soon will be, in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

Roughly 18,000 same-sex couples got married in California in less than five months in 2008, after the California Supreme Court struck down a state code provision prohibiting gay unions.

California voters approved Proposition 8 in November of that year, writing the ban into the state constitution.

Two same-sex couples challenged the provision as unconstitutional and federal courts in California agreed.

The federal marriage law, known by its acronym DOMA, defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits. Another provision not being challenged for the time being allows states to withhold recognition of same-sex marriages from other states.

DOMA easily passed Congress and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the year of his re-election.

Several federal district and appeals courts struck down the provision. In 2011, the Obama administration abandoned its defense of the law but continued to enforce it. House Republicans are now defending DOMA in the courts. President Barack Obama subsequently endorsed gay marriage in 2012.

The justices chose for their review the case of 83-year-old Edith Windsor of New York, who sued to challenge a $363,000 federal estate tax bill after her partner of 44 years died in 2009.

Windsor, who goes by Edie, married Thea Spyer in 2007 after doctors told them Spyer would not live much longer. She suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Spyer left everything she had to Windsor.

Windsor would have paid nothing in inheritance taxes if she had been married to a man.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/high-court-gay-marriage-decisions-due-wednesday-071439132.html

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Fla. sports bar deck collapses, dozens into water

MIAMI (AP) ? A packed outdoor deck behind a popular Miami-area sports bar partially collapsed during the NBA Finals on Thursday night, sending dozens of patrons into the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay.

Miami-Dade Fire Chief David Downey said 24 people were injured. Some were taken to area hospitals, and two people were in serious condition.

Authorities said about 100 people were on the deck of Shucker's Bar & Grill in North Bay Village, north of Miami Beach, when it gave way.

Bar customers and rescuers pulled people from the bay amid a chaotic scene. One witness, Martin Torres, 42, of Los Angeles, said he heard a loud explosion and though a boat had struck the deck. He said he looked out from the restaurant and saw people staring up from the water, and then he and others started helping pull patrons out of the water.

"It was shock," said Torres. "People were yelling. Nobody knew. People came out all wet. They were crying. For a while, nobody knows what was going on."

There was initially some concern that people might have been trapped in the water beneath the crumpled deck. But divers searched the waters as helicopters shined spotlights onto the scene, and Downey said later that crews had completed their search and everyone was accounted for.

"According to witnesses, a lot of people jumped in to help," Downey said. "Those efforts can make a lot of difference sometimes."

The accident occurred around 9:45 p.m. as customers were watching the Miami Heat play the San Antonio Spurs.

WSVN-TV news director Tom Tuckwell told the news station that he had his back to the bay when he heard an enormous roar. When he turned around, he saw people disappeared beneath them.

Heat player Dwyane Wade said after the game, "I'd like to share our concerns as an organization and our gratitude to our fans back in Miami, but share our concerns for all that were injured tonight at Shucker's restaurant."

North Bay Village Mayor Connie Leon Kreps went to the scene and said she was at least grateful that no one had died.

"This is a real tragedy," she said. "Shuckers has been here for many, many years. People come from all around to enjoy the view and the food. This is really unfortunate."

She said the city would undertake a thorough investigation of what caused the collapse.

North Bay Village is a small island in Biscayne Bay with a strip of restaurants, hotels, houses and condos that is attached by causeways to the mainland and also on to Miami Beach. Pouring rain fell early Sunday near the Shuckers site but little was visible as the deck was on the other side from the road jutting into the bay.

Though not as trendy as South Beach, North Bay Village is one of the many tourist spots in and around Miami where locals and visitors converge.

___

AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski contributed from San Antonio. AP photographer Alan Diaz in Miami and writer Bill Cormier in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fla-sports-bar-deck-collapses-dozens-water-043218319.html

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Amazon splits PS4 pre-orders into 'Launch' and 'Standard' editions, Launch is already sold out

Amazon is offering a "Launch Edition" of the PlayStation 4, the only difference being that you're guaranteed to get the console on the day that it's launched. Of course, early-adopters have already cleaned the retailer out, but if you're that desperate to grab the unit on day one, you can always keep hitting F5 in the hope it gets some more in.

Filed under: Gaming, Internet, Sony, Amazon

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Massachusetts teen accused of Facebook terror post freed

(Note: expletive in paragraph two)

By Richard Valdmanis

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts teenager jailed a month ago for a Facebook post that suggested he could do worse than the Boston Marathon bombers was released, a court official said on Friday, after a grand jury refused to indict him.

Cameron D'Ambrosio was arrested on May 1 and accused of "communicating a terrorist threat." The 18-year-old aspiring rapper from Methuen, 30 miles north of Boston, posted lyrics online that included the words "a boston bombing wait till u see the shit I do."

The case sparked a viral online effort by rights activists to have him freed, and demonstrated the growing tension between law enforcement and free speech proponents after a spate of terror and school-violence incidents across the country.

Lawrence District Court Judge Lynn Rooney issued an order on Thursday to release D'Ambrosio after a grand jury chose not to indict, the court clerk's office said. An official at the county prosecutor's office was not available to comment.

"While today is a major victory for Cam, the chilling effect that this case has already had on free speech cannot be undone," said Evan Greer, of Boston's Center for Rights and Fight For The Future, which organized an online petition supporting D'Ambrosio that gathered 90,000 signatures.

Police had arrested D'Ambrosio after fellow students at Methuen High School alerted them of his Facebook posts. If D'Ambrosio had been convicted of the terrorism charge, he would have faced as many as 20 years in prison.

The case came weeks after twin bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264. Investigators said the attack was the work of two brothers of Chechen descent.

Some lawmakers have criticized the FBI's handling of the case, given that the older of the brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had been on a U.S. master list of potential terrorism suspects. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police days after the bombing and his younger brother Dzhokhar was wounded after a manhunt and is in prison for the crime.

Police are also under pressure to avoid a repeat of recent school shootings, including the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last year in which 20 students and six school staff were killed.

"Law enforcement wants to preempt acts of violence before they occur," said Shirin Sinnar, assistant professor of law at Stanford University Law School. "The risk is that you sweep in people who had no intent to cause a crime."

(Editing by Scott Malone and Alden Bentley)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/massachusetts-teen-accused-facebook-terror-post-freed-153322825.html

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Ohio man faces 329 charges in missing women case

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? A man accused of holding three women captive in his run-down home in Cleveland for a decade and fathering a child with one of them has been indicted on 329 charges including murder, kidnapping and rape, prosecutors said.

A Cuyahoga County grand jury returned the indictment Friday against Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver fired last fall.

Castro, 52, is accused of kidnapping Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight and holding them captive along with a 6-year-old girl he fathered with Berry.

The grand jury charged Castro with two counts of aggravated murder related to one act, saying he purposely caused the unlawful termination of one of the women's pregnancies. Castro also was indicted on 139 counts of rape, 177 counts of kidnapping, seven counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools.

Castro's attorneys have said he would plead not guilty to any indictment. Castro, during his brief arraignment last month, tried to hide his face, tucking his chin inside his shirt collar, and did not speak.

Castro is being held on $8 million bail. He has been taken off suicide prevention watch, jail officials said this week.

He was arrested May 6, shortly after Berry broke through a locked door, yelled to neighbors for help and escaped with DeJesus and Knight.

Berry, 27, told officers that she was forced to give birth in a plastic pool in the house so it would be easier to clean up. Berry said she, her baby and the two other women had never been to a doctor during their captivity.

Knight, 32, said her five pregnancies ended after Castro starved her for at least two weeks and "repeatedly punched her in the stomach until she miscarried," authorities said.

She also said Castro forced her to deliver Berry's baby under threat of death if the baby died. She said that when the newborn stopped breathing, she revived her through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The women had vanished separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. They haven't spoken publicly since their rescue.

Castro's two brothers were arrested with him but later were cleared of involvement in the case and were released.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Tim McGinty said the indictment covers only the period from August 2002, when the first of the women disappeared, to February 2007.

Castro will be arraigned on the charges next week, and a trial judge will then be assigned.

The investigation continues, McGinty said. And when the indictment process is completed, the county prosecutor's capital review committee will weigh whether the case is appropriate for seeking the death penalty.

Days after the women were rescued from Castro's home, McGinty had said at a news conference that capital punishment "must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct."

"The law of Ohio calls for the death penalty for those most depraved criminals, who commit aggravated murder during the course of a kidnapping," he added.

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who may be victims of sexual assault, but the names of the women were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearances and after they were found.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-man-faces-329-charges-missing-women-case-222313465.html

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China's next manned spaceflight draws near

CMSE

The Shenzhou 10 spaceship atop its Long March 2F rocket booster has been rolled out to launch pad.

By Leonard David
Space.com

China's Shenzhou 10 piloted mission has entered the final preparation phase, closing in on a mid-June liftoff, according to that country's space officials.

The Shenzhou 10 spaceship, atop its Long March 2F rocket booster, has been vertically transferred from a preparation area to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi desert.

A spokesman from China's space agency, China Manned Space Engineering, announced June 3 that China will soon launch the three-person Shenzhou 10 spaceship to rendezvous and dock with the nation's Tiangong 1 space module, which is already in orbit. [China's 1st Manned Space Docking Mission (Pictures)]

Heavenly Palace
The 8.5-ton Tiangong 1, or Heavenly Palace 1, has been orbiting Earth since September 2011 and was used in China's first piloted rendezvous-and-docking venture ? the three-person Shenzhou 9 space trek ? in June 2012.

The target module's orbit for the Shenzhou 10 mission was adjusted in late May in preparation for the upcoming linkup.

Additional spaceship testing, rocket-function testing and the crew-spaceship-rocket-ground joint testing are being consecutively carried out now ? all leading toward a final status check and confirmation of readiness to launch.

According to Chinese media reports, the Shenzhou 10 mission will be the last of three planned experiments to master the technologies of space rendezvous and docking to enable China to build and operate a large space station around 2020.

CMSE

China's next piloted space mission, Shenzhou 10, will carry three astronauts to a now-orbiting space module Tiangong 1.

Main objectives
Chinese space officials have noted that Shenzhou 10 will be the first "operational" flight in the Chinese human spaceflight program, with four main objectives:

• To ferry a crew and materials between the ground and the Tiangong 1 module and test the performance of the Shenzhou human capsule and its docking system;
• To further test the crew's ability to fly, live and work in the Shenzhou-Tiangong spacecraft complex;
• To demonstrate the adaptability and efficiency of the crew in the space environment and broadcast a classroom lesson to Chinese students;
• To further test the coordination among different systems in the human spaceflight program.

Female astronaut candidate
Zhou Jianping, chief engineer of China's manned space program, told news media in March that one of the three astronauts onboard Shenzhou 10 will include a woman.

While the names of the Shenzhou 10 crew remain unknown, and are typically not released until a few days before the mission, Wang Yaping is being spotlighted by Chinese media as the only female astronaut candidate?being considered for the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft.

Born in 1980 in the eastern coastal city of Yantai, Shandong Province, Wang is a People's Liberation Army Air Force pilot.

In March 2010, China completed the process of selecting a new group of astronauts for its human spaceflight program: Seven Air-Force pilots, including five men and two women, were selected as the astronaut candidates. Wang was one of the two female candidates selected from 15 finalists.

Shenzhou 10 will be China's fifth manned space mission. The first Chinese astronaut, Yang Liwei, flew to orbit in 2003. Before this mission, eight Chinese astronauts ? including one woman, Liu Yang ? have gone into space.

Steady progress
"As China's human space program continues its steady progress towards the construction of a small space station ? scheduled to be completed around the end of the decade ? international interest in the program appears to be waning," said Gregory Kulacki, senior analyst and China project manager for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. [How China's First Space Station Will Work (Infographic)]

Kulacki said that, of all the elements of the mission being talked about in the Chinese press prior to the Shenzhou 10 launch, the educational activities planned for the flight are gaining the most attention. The three-person crew plans to broadcast lessons on space science and exploration to Chinese students across the country.

"China's human spaceflight program now seems to be less threatening to U.S. observers who originally viewed the program with some suspicion,? Kulacki said. ?More relaxed U.S. attitudes about the program, combined with the slow but steady pace of Chinese progress in human spaceflight, may create opportunities for U.S.-Chinese cooperation and collaboration in space.?

However, NASA is currently barred by Congress from collaborating directly with the Chinese space agency.

Pizazz-free program
"Shenzhou 10 will be another step in China's slow but steady human spaceflight program," said Marcia Smith, editor of SpacePolicyOnline.com. "China's program may not have the pizazz of the early Soviet and U.S. space programs, which were much faster-paced, but (the program) appears to be sustainable as China deals with its own economic challenges."

Smith added that while there certainly are those in Congress who do not want to see the United States fall behind China ? or any other country ? in human spaceflight, she does not "sense that a successful Shenzhou 10 mission will alter decisions about NASA's future."

The debate over whether NASA should return humans to the moon, Smith said, "sometimes takes on a 'we need to get back there before China lands' tone. However, "the pro-lunar-return faction sees value in returning to the moon, regardless of China's plans," she added. "They may believe that playing the China card will help them in their quest, but it hasn't helped so far."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's new book, "Mission to Mars ? My Vision for Space Exploration," published by National Geographic. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebook?and?Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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