Morning Digest: Libya troops advance east

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03/30/2011

Good Morning Omss

LATEST NEWS

Libya troops advance east

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Muammar Gaddafi's better armed and organized troops reversed the rapid westward advance of rebels on Tuesday as world powers meeting in London piled pressure on the Libyan leader to step down. | Full Article

Syria's Assad to give first speech since protests

March 30, 2011 01:39 AM ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad will on Wednesday give his first public speech since pro-democracy protests in which more than 60 people have been killed erupted in southern Syria and swept through the country. | Full Article

Stock futures signal higher open

March 30, 2011 04:51 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Wednesday after strong gains on the previous day, with futures for the S&P 500, for the Dow Jones and for the Nasdaq 100 up 0.4 to 0.6 percent. | Full Article

Amazon faces backlash over "music locker" service

March 29, 2011 04:38 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new Amazon.com Inc service that lets customers store songs and play them on a variety of phones and computers is facing a backlash from the music industry that could ignite a legal battle. | Full Article

China leads challenge to "scientific superpowers"

March 29, 2011 09:39 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - China and other emerging nations such as Brazil and India are becoming leaders in science to rival traditional "scientific superpowers" like the United States, Europe and Japan, a top British academy said on Monday. | Full Article

Cavaliers negate James's triple-double to upset Heat

March 30, 2011 12:14 AM ET

CLEVELAND, Ohio (Reuters)- LeBron James's triple double was not enough to help the Miami Heat overcome the lowly Cleveland Cavaliers, who beat the playoff bound Heat 102-90 on Tuesday. | Full Article

Lindsay Lohan avoids criminal charge in Betty Ford quarrel

March 29, 2011 09:22 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Tuesday decided against filing a battery charge against Lindsay Lohan that might have sent the troubled actress to jail over a confrontation at California's Betty Ford Center rehab clinic. | Full Article

Auction set for William and Kate sweet dispensers

March 29, 2011 11:33 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - If you've ever wanted to eat sweets disgorged from the chests of royalty, your time has come. | Full Article


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ABC NewsMail - afternoon edition



Afternoon Edition. Wed 30 Mar 2011
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Top Stories	More Top Stories >
Government orders review of GST The Federal Government has commissioned a review of the distribution of revenue from the goods and services tax (GST) to the states and territories. Back to basics with new skipper Clarke New Australian Test skipper Michael Clarke has promised a return to "old-fashioned basics" and rubbished concerns Ricky Ponting could cramp his captaincy style. E Timor asylum solution is a 'dead horse' Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the Federal Government needs to stop embarrassing itself by pushing its East Timor solution for processing asylum seekers. Alleged Bali bomber nabbed in Pakistan raid Counter-terrorism officials in Indonesia say one of the alleged masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested in Pakistan. Bolt denies article intended to ridicule woman Newspaper columnist Andrew Bolt has continued giving evidence in a civil case in the Federal Court in Melbourne.
The Drum	More from The Drum >
The pot calling the kettle Green Just when you think you've plumbed the depths of progressive hypocrisy, along comes Sarah Hanson-Young to lower the limbo bar of intellectual disingenuousness. If we apply Sarah Hanson-Young's 'guilt-by-association' yardstick to her own political party, it becomes tarred by a toxic taint of its very own. After all, the Greens show no hesitation about collaborating with radical Leftist groups that explicitly call for armed insurrection to destroy Australian democracy. Book burning in the name of democracy The entire print run of a highly critical account of BritainÂ's role in Afghanistan has been bought by the British Ministry of Defence and pulped. Electronic voting a threat to democracy It took off at last weekend's NSW election, but embracing the convenient joys of online voting introduces new risks to this core process of democracy. Politics in the Mucky Country While the Gillard Government has shown itself to be over-reliant on focus groups and unceasing polling, it's the conservative side of politics that has given me the most cause for concern in their grab for potential votes. I will defend to the death Bolt's right to wallow in the mire I don't like Andrew Bolt. I'm sure he doesn't like me. When he responded to an article I wrote, he said I was either a 'liar' or 'simply ignorant'. For my part, I have criticised him repeatedly at some length for his tendentious, ignorant writings. This is the appropriate response to someone saying something we don't like. But the case being tried against Andrew Bolt, in my opinion, is wrong, because he should be allowed the right to express his opinions, however odious they may seem to others.
World	More World Stories >
Alleged Bali bomber nabbed in Pakistan raid Counter-terrorism officials in Indonesia say one of the alleged masterminds of the 2002 Bali bombings has been arrested in Pakistan. E Timor asylum solution is a 'dead horse' Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison says the Federal Government needs to stop embarrassing itself by pushing its East Timor solution for processing asylum seekers. Women take on Walmart in landmark case The United States Supreme Court will hear a potentially landmark case on whether 2 million women employed by retail giant Walmart can file a sex discrimination lawsuit as one unified group.
Science & Technology	More Science & Technology Stories >
Wasps drop ants to take their food New Zealand biologists have documented the antics of an invasive wasp that picks up annoying ants and drops them from a great height. UNE launches US collaboration A collaboration between the University of New England, the University of Newcastle and The University of California's Irvine Medical School will be launched in Armidale today. Python Maximus stretches out to 5.1 metres He is believed to be the largest Australian native snake in captivity and at his latest health check-up, Maximus the scrub python has measured in at a gigantic 5.1 metres.
Environment	More Environment Stories >
Green groups push native forest message Three signatories to Tasmania's forest peace deal have launched television and radio advertisements calling for an end to logging in native forests. Combet praises China's climate action The Federal Government has used a meeting between Climate Change Minister Greg Combet and his Chinese counterpart to try to defuse Opposition claims of worldwide inaction on combating pollution. Camel cull put on hold Culling of camels in central Australia has been delayed because of wet weather conditions.
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What Is Amazon Cloud Drive?

By Brian Barrett

What Is Amazon Cloud Drive?

What Is Amazon Cloud Drive?Amazon's taken a leap into the cloud, and they're taking your music with them. But what exactly is Amazon Cloud Drive? And more importantly: how do you use it?

It's a cloud-based storage service...

You get 5GB of cloud storage, free, that's yours to do with as you please. For some perspective, that's about 1,000 MP3s of middling quality. The focus is clearly music, but you can put documents, photos, and videos on there as well. And going forward, when you purchase music from Amazon, you'll be given the option to save your purchases directly to the cloud to save you the extra step of uploading later.

There are seven storage plans available, from the free 5GB all the way up to 1000GB for $1,000 per year. In fact, the pricing structure is dead simple to remember: you pay a dollar per GB per year.

...that requires a special software...

Just like you need the Amazon MP3 Downloader to get music you purchase from Amazon into iTunes, you'll need to install the Amazon MP3 Uploader to get it out. It's a quick installation and an intuitive interface that lets you pick which songs you'd like in the cloud based on playlist or artist. And again, it's what lets Amazon access your iTunes library, without which the service would be pretty useless.

...and has a few limitations...

You can't really argue with "free," but 5GB probably won't cover your entire music collection. That's fine, but sorting through your songs to get just the right cloud-worthy mix could take a whole weekend. You also can't upload songs that are DRM-protected (as in iTunes MP3s from a few years ago) or saved as lossless files. Amazon's hands are tied on the former, and the latter is understandable given those file sizes.

Speaking of file sizes—get ready to hurry up and wait. Amazon quoted me 12 hours of continuous uploading to get 5GB of music in the cloud.

...coupled with a bunch of incentives...

Amazon's the first major player to offer a service like this, and they're doing their best to get you hooked right away. That means that in addition to the free 5GB, you can tack on 15GB more with the purchase of an Amazon MP3 album. Which means you could put 4,000 songs in the cloud for as little as four bucks, assuming their Daily Deal albums qualify towards Cloud expansion.

Moreover, Amazon MP3 purchases—and honestly, you should be buying your music from there anyway—don't count towards your storage cap. That doesn't appear to be retroactive, which is unfortunate for those of us with a bunch of albums from Amazon already, but good to know going forward.

...is available on the web and on Android...

It makes sense that you can access the Amazon Cloud Drive from your browser, but you can also giggidy get it on your Android device. That's huge, if you've got a smartphone with limited storage and want to save that space for apps.

...but not on iOS...

If you're hoping to access your Amazon locker from your iPad, keep hoping. It looks as though Amazon has blocked streaming through Safari, and the Amazon MP3 app that powers the Cloud Player on Android devices doesn't exist in the App Store (for obvious competitive reasons). You can, however, download songs from the Cloud Drive to your iDevice, where they'll play perfectly—with AirPlay compatibility, even.

...with a jittery playback...

We can confirm that Amazon Cloud Player does, in fact, work. But whether it was just the connection or Amazon itself, playback stuttered quite a bit—especially on higher quality (256kbps) audio. We've also had some difficulties with subsequent uploads after the initial library scan, so it seems that the entire enterprise has some hiccups to work through.

...that provides a model for iTunes.

There have been rumors—so many, for so long!—of Apple moving iTunes into the cloud. And it certainly seems that they're equipped to do so, with a humongous data farm lying in wait in North Carolina. But Apple hasn't pulled the trigger yet, either because they haven't gotten the record labels in line or because they haven't had competition. Amazon Cloud Player potentially solves both of those problems.

Clearly Amazon's worked out some sort of deal that has made the music industry copacetic to cloud storage; all Apple would have to do, presumably, is sign on to the same terms. Which is something they'll want to do, surely, now that a competitor with as much clout as Amazon is giving it up for free. Especially since Amazon is also using its cloud storage as a way to drive its MP3 business, which is increasingly encroaching on Apple's iTunes turf.

So enjoy Amazon Cloud Player for what it is—a way to get most of your iTunes in the cloud, for free, right now—and be excited for the streaming iTunes future it portends. That is, if you even need it at all by then. [Amazon]