Amazon launches iPhone application

Amazon has launched on the Apple App Store an iPhone application that makes it possible to take a picture of a product and then send it to the online retailer, which will try to match it with products in its inventory.

Amazon said its new mobile application was made available on the App Store on Wednesday. The software is meant to simplify shopping on the iPhone and the iPod Touch, which can access the Web through a Wi-Fi hot spot.

The application offers access to other retailers, such as Target and Macy's, but its features, which include "one-click" shopping, are focused on Amazon.

The app is a quick and easy way for iPhone and iPod Touch users to shop, browse, and buy with Amazon. Customers can build visual lists of things they want to remember, buy, or even learn more about.

Amazon in April introduced a mobile service called TextBuyIt that lets customers with Amazon accounts find and buy products by sending a text message to the online retailer.

Users only have to reply to the response and confirm the order in order to purchase items.

London hospitals systems infected

Three London hospitals whose computer systems were infected with a relatively old worm are now almost back online.

Around 5,000 PCs at St Bartholomew's, the Royal London Hospital and The London Chest Hospital were hit in mid-November by an infection of Mytob, a worm that e-mails itself to other PCs and can be used to put other malicious software on a machine.

About 97 percent of those PCs are now clear of Mytob, according to a statement issued Friday. The remaining PCs, which are located in non-clinical areas, should soon come back online.

As a precaution, all of the PCs were shut down after the infection was discovered. The infection affected computers used to admit patients, and the hospitals diverted emergency patients to other facilities for a short time.

The PCs did have antivirus software made by McAfee installed. McAfee, which received a sample of the Mytob strain infecting the hospital's PCs, said its up-to-date products do have the have the right signature to detect the worm.

It remains unclear how the PCs were infected. Mytob was discovered in early 2005, and most security products can detect it. A spokesman for the hospitals said on Monday an investigation is ongoing.

Source: YahooTech

Nokia to pull out of Japanese market

The world's largest cell phone maker is pulling out of one of the world's biggest cellular markets. Nokia said on Thursday that it will stop developing handsets for NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile, effectively ending a push that began five years ago when Nokia re-entered the Japanese market with the launch of 3G services here.

The current global economic conditions pushed Nokia to withdraw from the Japanese market, said Thomas Jonsson, a company spokesman. Faced with lower demand for cell phones the company is examining its operations worldwide and decided that development for the Japanese market is not a priority.

Nokia will keep a research and development center open in Japan and continue its procurement activities. The plan also won't affect its high-end Vertu brand handsets. A recent press report, which Jonsson declined to comment on, said Nokia would launch an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) next year through which it would provide service for Vertu.

Nokia's decision probably says more about the Japanese market than it does about Nokia. Handsets from NEC, Fujitsu, Sharp, Panasonic and other domestic makers, which are typically developed in close cooperation with carriers and highly tuned to local tastes, are most popular here and no foreign phone maker enjoys the same level of popularity here that it does in other major markets.

The Blockbuster set-top box is here

Blockbuster has officially entered the "battle of the boxes" with the launch of its new set-top box today.

The box will serve movies to TVs over the Internet and is going against Netflix's set-top box solutions (Xbox, Roku, and Tivo). Blockbuster's MediaPoint box allows users to watch thousands of movies without the need of a monthly subscription.

To get the MediaPoint player, made by 2Wire, Blockbuster subscribers will have to pay a one-off $99 fee, which also includes 25 pre-paid movies. After that, users pay between $1.99 and $3.99 for each DVD rented, without a monthly subscription fee.

Netflix's box also costs $99, besides your chosen monthly subscription. But unlike Blockbuster's 2500 "of the best, biggest and most current movies available", Netflix offers its whole 10,000 DVD collection for rental through its box.

The major difference between the MediaPoint box and Netflix's is that Blockbuster does "progressive playback" in comparison to Netflix's streaming, meaning that the video quality is independent of you broadband's connection speed. By progressively downloading the movie on the box (up to five movies storage capacity), Blockbuster's solution can offer a much more consistent video quality. In comparison, Netflix's service which can reduce the movie's quality if your Internet connection slows down

Is BlackBerry Storm better for business than the iPhone?

The Storm is obviously a response by RIM and Verizon Wireless to the runaway success of Apple's iPhone, which is offered exclusively in the U.S. by AT&T.

Features such as a touch-screen-only interface and automatic switching between landscape and portrait modes are sure indicators of that. But the Storm also has some appealing advantages over the iPhone, such as the ability to read and edit Microsoft Office documents.

While Apple has taken steps to make its iPhone enterprise-friendly, RIM has far more experience in that regard. For example, the Storm's e-mail capabilities are basically the same as other current RIM smart phones.

Besides connecting to personal e-mail accounts, Storm works out of the box with Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise and, of course, BlackBerry Enterprise Server. And many IT folks are already familiar with BlackBerry's e-mail capabilities, making it easy to integrate the device into existing setups.

The Storm comes with two other significant advantages for enterprise users. The first is DataViz's Documents To Go, which enables you to view and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

A longtime staple on Palm smart phones such as the Treo, this application provides seamless access not only to Office documents uploaded from your desktop computer, but also to e-mail attachments. In addition, the BlackBerry Storm has support for cutting and pasting, a significant shortcoming with the iPhone.

In-flight internet access with Virgin America

Monday, Virgin America plans to become the latest airline to offer in-flight Wi-Fi Internet, a service with a problematic past that still promises far-ranging flexibility in entertainment.

The San Francisco-based carrier has scheduled the service for one Airbus A320 aircraft, joining American Airlines as the only carriers in the world to offer full Internet access.

Dubbed Gogo, the service lets passengers browse the Web, use e-mail and instant messaging, download video and connect to secure networks through three wireless access points on the plane. Voice calls over the Internet are not allowed.

If Virgin America's test flight is deemed successful after about a week of flying, the airline will expand the service to 24 other planes in its fleet by mid-2009.

With two carriers offering the service commercially, in-flight Internet is making a serious comeback after a two-year period of dormancy.

The previous generation of in-flight Wi-Fi, operated by Connexion by Boeing, was shut off at the end of 2006. Its satellite-based system proved to be too expensive for domestic carriers, and Connexion couldn't find enough passenger demand for the $30-a-flight service.

TV ads contribute to childhood obesity

Banning fast food advertisements from children’s television programs would reduce the number of overweight children in the U.S. by 18 percent and decrease the number of overweight teens by 14 percent, economists have estimated in a new study.

The researchers used several statistical models to link obesity rates to the amount of time spent viewing fast food advertising, finding that viewing more fast food commercials on television raises the risk of obesity in children. The study appears in this month’s issue of The Journal of Law and Economics.

But the researchers’ estimate relies on older data gathered in the late 1990s, according to Elaine Kolish, a spokesman for the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Since then, two of the largest fast food chains -- Burger King and McDonald’s -- and more than a dozen other packaged food companies have signed on to the council’s Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, she said, pledging to advertise only their healthier products to children under age 12.

As a result, both Burger King and McDonald’s now air ads for children’s meals including apple sticks and low-fat milk. “I can’t help think that two huge chains advertising apples and milk to kids is going to be affecting children’s preferences,” Ms. Kolish said.

Only three countries -- Sweden, Norway and Finland -- have banned commercial sponsorship of children’s programs, and study authors acknowledged that the chances of such a ban in the U.S. are slim.

But since ads are a tax-deductible business expense, the researchers also analyzed the potential impact of eliminating federal tax deductions for fast food ads aimed at children. Such a move would curb childhood obesity by 5 to 7 percent, the analysis found.

BlackBerry Storm, the new iPhone rival

The new Blackberry Storm lets users take pictures, play movies and music and visit Facebook and MySpace pages with ease, and has the 'world's first "clickable" touch screen.' The phone and e-mail device that just a few years ago could be found mostly clipped to the belts of high-powered professionals, isn't just for workaholics anymore.

For years, the Waterloo, Canada, company has been the de facto provider of e-mail devices for corporations. But the company has its sights on the consumer market. It launched its first-ever mainstream TV ad campaign this year and is partnering with Verizon Wireless to expand a marketing blitz that has touted the Storm on TV and in print.

RIM is trying to gain market share as tech-savvy consumers embrace smartphones, which are hand-held computers that enable users to make calls, surf the Web, check e-mail and maybe even watch TV. Smartphones account for 12.6% of handsets in use in the U.S. market and for 19% of recently acquired phones, according to Nielsen Mobile.

Like other handset makers, RIM faces competition from Apple's iPhone, whose sales have surprised analysts since its June 2007 launch. According to NPD Group, the Apple gadget was the top-selling phone in the third quarter, followed by Motorola's RAZR and the Blackberry Curve.

Amazon CloudFront, the content distribution network

Amazon announced the launch of its new CloudFront content delivery network (CDN) service. CloudFront, which is built on top of the company's S3 cloud storage platform, boosts download speeds by caching content on servers nodes on the edges of the network.

Amazon first revealed plans for the service in September. It launched the beta and disclosed details of the pricing structure. CloudFront's pricing model is tied to consumption and decreases with higher volume, a factor that could make it a more competitive choice for smaller companies. The price also varies depending on the edge location because Amazon charges less for pushing bits to places where its operating costs are lower.

For edge locations in the United States, customers can expect to pay $0.170 per GB for the first 10TB per month. Customers pushing over 150TB will pay $0.090 per GB. Amazon is operating edge locations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Because the service is built on top of S3, developers who are already leveraging Amazon's cloud storage technology will have very little trouble adopting CloudFront. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels claims that some of its S3 customers got CloudFront fully configured for their content within 10 to 15 minutes.

CloudFront's tight S3 integration and pay-for-what-you-use pricing may prove attractive, but the major incumbent players in the CDN arena aren't going to sit still and let Amazon eat their lunch. Limelight is slashing its pricing and Akamai is aggressively leveraging its patents on CDN technology to keep itself at the forefront.

Although Amazon's entry into the growing CDN market isn't likely to be a major disruptor, it will boost competition and could also make S3 look more appealing to some prospective Amazon customers.

Build robots with new Microsoft's tools

Robot fans will be happy to know that they can download the Express Edition of the developer tools for free, although they’re prohibited from redistributing the runtime code that a commercial robotic product would require.

Professional developers, educators, and students who purchase either the Standard Edition or Academic Edition ($499.95 each), on the other hand, are free to distributed unlimited copies of the runtimes (previous versions of these packages limited distribution to 200 copies).

The development kit’s Visual Programming Language is a simple drag-and-drop tool that enables you to create and debug robotics programs using blocks that represent various services. The latest version provides a simple method for defining and configuring distributed applications (i.e., programs that can run across networked devices).

Improvements to the Robotics Developer Studio 2008’s Visual Simulation Environment (VSE), meanwhile, now provide the ability to record and play back simulations before a real robot executes the program. The VSE tool also includes a new floor-plan editor that simplifies the process of creating simulation environments, including indoor, outdoor, and urban locales.

Microsoft claims the latest version of their development package features runtime performance that is 1.5 to three times faster in message throughput between services, and that services now load twice as fast.

Is Apple building its own search engine?

There are multiple reports that Apple is working on a search engine of some sort.

At first glance, the rumors make sense. Apple’s Safari browser has 6-7% market share, and currently uses Google as the search engine for both the standard and iPhone/iPod versions (unlike other browsers, you don’t have a choice). They also have a suite of personal productivity tools through Mobile Me that bring some hard core users to their servers daily. All of that traffic and usage equates to a lot of searches, which can be monetized heavily.

Also, Apple can’t be super pleased with Google’s competition to the iPhone with Android. Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who’s also on Apple’s board of directors, sits out of discussions involving Apple’s mobile strategy, and rumor is he may leave the board.

But one important fact that isn’t checking out - if Apple were building a search engine, they’d be hiring search experts and engineers. But the big companies heard the same rumors, none have lost search employees to Apple, or heard of any specific hirings.

That alone almost certainly rules out a full on search competitor. You can’t do it without people who know what they’re doing.

Apple also loves the fees they receive regularly from Google for search marketing dollars earned from Safari. They obviously aren’t in the advertising business today, so even if they did launch a search engine they’d still heavily rely on Google or its competitors for the advertising piece. So why invest all that capital into search?

The answer is they’re not. But the rumors persist, and we believe they have a nugget of truth. Here’s what we think is really going on: Apple doesn’t like the search experience on its mobile devices, and may be building a radically different user experience which is much more visual than exists today. It will likely still be powered by Google results, but Apple may present it in a very different way that suits mobile users much better.

American Airlines boarding cards go mobile

The idea is instead of the traditional paper boarding passes, passengers will use their mobile phones or PDAs to board an airplane. American Airlines tried out this new method for the first time on Thursday with passengers leaving on domestic flights from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

This is how it works: when buying the ticket online, passengers must provide an active e-mail address to which their boarding pass will be sent, in the form of a 2D bar code.

Upon arriving at the airport, the passenger can open the e-mail on their Internet-enabled mobile device to have the bar code scanned at the Transportation Security Administration's checkpoints and at the airline's gates.
Passengers can also use the same method for check-in luggage at American Airlines' self-service machines, ticket counters, or curbside check-in facilities.

During the introduction of this new feature, there are a few minor restrictions. Passengers can list only one person in their reservation and must be traveling on American or American Eagle nonstop or a trip that doesn't involve changing planes, to a domestic destination.

The destination, however, can be anywhere within the 50 United States, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
This is just the beginning, if the tryout proves successful with the TSA, American Airlines will extend this new mobile boarding method to other U.S. airports.

Big waist raises risk of early dead

The wide-scale study found that carrying excess fat around the middle increases the risk of early death, even in people not considered to be overweight.

Researchers from Imperial College London, the German Institute of Human Nutrition and other European institutions compared the waist sizes of participants with the same body mass index. They also calculated the ratio of their hip and waist measurements.

Body mass index (BMI) is a formula that expresses body weight in relation to height and is widely used to screen for weight problems. A BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal for an adult.

The study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that an increase in waist circumference of about two inches raised the risk of death by 17 percent in men and 13 percent in women.

Large waists may lead to higher mortality risk because fatty tissue around the middle produces hormones and other compounds that can lead to the development of cardiovascular diseases and cancers, the study said.

The authors said a key finding of the research was uncovering the extent of the connection between distribution of body fat and risk of dying early, independent of BMI.

Researchers did not focus on why some people develop bulging waistlines, but they said anyone with a large waist should increase their daily exercise, avoid drinking alcohol excessively and improve their diet.

The study tracked nearly 360,000 participants for about 10 years.

Hitachi self-encrypting hard drive

Hitachi announced on Tuesday the third generation of its 2.5-inch Travelstar hard drive with built-in encryption, the Travelstar 5K500. This is a 5400rpm, SATA II hard drive that comes in capacities ranging from 120GB to 500GB, and is designed for notebook PCs, external storage, gaming consoles, as well as other mobile and enterprise applications.

Considering the wide range of implementation, the new hard drive comes in a few versions. The one for notebooks focuses on low power consumption. The version used for enterprise has Hitachi's Enhanced Availability technology that lets the drive operate 24 hours a day at high-speed.

Nonetheless, according to Hitachi, its new drive features a halogen-free design, consumes less energy, and is more eco-friendly than other drives of the same type.

The new Travelstar 5K500.B's features optional hard-drive-level Bulk Data Encryption. The "optional" notation means that
customers need to ask for the data encryption feature to be turned on at the manufacturer. This is because, according to Hitachi, in some markets such as China or Russia, special permits are required to buy or use hard drives with built-in encryption.

With BDE, the data is scrambled using a key as it is written to the disk and then descrambled with the key as it is retrieved, giving users transparent protection. It also helps simplify the drive redeployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for the time-consuming data-wiping process.

G1 costs less to make than iPhone

When it comes to the next-gen phone wars, two handsets immediately come to mind: Apple's iPhone and the G1 from HTC and T-Mobile, the first commercially available phone to run Google's Android OS.

The G1 retails to new customers for $399, while the basic-model iPhone goes for $199. Despite those numbers, DowJones, CNN, and iSuppli have discovered that the G1 is actually 10 percent cheaper per unit to manufacture than Apple's offering, something smug iPhone users are sure to love.

It costs HTC $144 to make a single G1, whereas the iPhone costs $160 each. What's not explained is why the G1 sells for twice the cost of the popular iPhone. It could be the 3-megapixel camera or hardware keypad, but the general lack of internal memory (the G1 has 1GB removable, the iPhone has 16GB internal) counters that.

While this information probably won't change anybody's buying decision, it's still interesting to see exactly how much of your purchase is subsidized by the carrier and how much is just pure profit.

YouTube links deal with MGM

Hollywood is warming up to the Internet's top video site. YouTube will announce an ad-revenue sharing deal with MGM - home of James Bond, the Pink Panther and Rocky - that will let the site show full-length movies for the first time from a major Hollywood studio.

Jordan Hoffner, YouTube's head of content partnerships, called the agreement a "watershed moment' for the company: "We are really happy about MGM. They have an incredible library."

It's easy to understand why YouTube is excited. Founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen want the site to be more than just a destination for clips of skateboarding dogs, experiments involving Mentos and Diet Coke and the occasional Simpson episode that needs to be taken down immediately because of copyright infringement.

After all, there are only so many ads YouTube can put into a short clip like "Tiger vs. Bear." A feature-length film like "Rocky IV" has room from many more marketing messages.

The site is already showing full-length independent movies like "Harold Buttelman, Daredevil Stuntman." Now YouTube can boast that it has the kind of big budget movies that people can watch on Hulu.com., News Corp partnership with NBC Universal.

Reduce the risk of prostate cancer

Although it’s one of the most common cancers suffered by men, there are ways to minimize the risk of getting it, said chief of urologic oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.

Here are five of them:

1. Get Tested. All men age 50 and older should be tested annually for prostate cancer.

There are two types of prostate cancer screening: the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test and the digital rectal exam.

The first test measures the level of PSA in the blood. PSA is a substance made mostly by the prostate. Too much PSA in the blood may indicate prostate cancer. However, high levels of PSA may also be indicative of infection, inflammation or an enlarged prostate.

The second test involves a doctor or nurse placing a lubricated, gloved finger into the rectum to check the prostate for lumps and anything else unusual.

If either test raises a red flag, doctors may follow up with a prostate biopsy. This is the most accurate way of checking for cancer. However the test is invasive and can result in a urinary tract infection, as well as urinary and incontinence problems.

2. Get Plenty of Vitamin D. Spending time in the sun and taking a daily supplement will help men increase their levels of vitamin D and possibly reduce their risks of prostate cancer.

Calcium may reduce the amounts of biologically active vitamin D in the body, so milk drinkers should also look for additional sources of vitamin D, which can be found in cod liver oil, tuna and salmon.

3. Quit Smoking. In addition to harming the lungs and the heart, smoking may also be responsible for the spread of prostate cancer.

A 2003 study from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that men under the age of 55 who had prostate cancer and were current or former smokers were 66 percent more likely to see the cancer spread into other areas of the body.

4. Reduce body fat. Being overweight and maintaining a diet that is high in saturated fat, as well as processed and red meats, are risk factors for prostate cancer.
Fatty diets have been found to increase testosterone production, which in turn increases the risk of prostate cancer. Research has also shown that men who consume red meat at least five times a week had a 2.5 percent increase in developing prostate cancer than men who ate red meat less then once a week.

5. Eat a Variety of Healthy Foods. There has also been promising research that shows pomegranate, soy and foods high in lycopene, such as tomato sauce, reduce the risk of prostate cancer, adding that maintaining a healthy diet is one of the best ways men can reduce their risk of cancer.

Source: Marrecca Fiore - Fox News

Salesforce moves into cloud computing

Given the resources required to provide software-as-a-service, it seems practical that companies should offer available resources to paying customers. Chicago company Salesforce.com, the worlds biggest online Customer Relationship Management solutions provider, is the latest to enter the ‘Cloud computing’ arena, sharing its resources with developers and allowing third party applications on its infrastructure.

The company’s new platform, Force.com, utilizes Visualforce, the company’s existing framework for building and deploying user interfaces. This means developers can create their applications on Force.com and utilize Salesforce.com features such as payment and billing systems and subscriber relationship solutions. They will also be able to “publish data to any Web site”, or “build public applications that run entirely on Force.com”. In future the platform will also integrate with Facebook and Google application environments, allowing developers to utilize features from both.

Salesforce.com’s CEO Marc Benioff announced the company’s move into the Cloud during the recent Dreamforce event: "cloud computing, or platform-as-a-service, has enormous potential for the enterprise. Cloud computing offers almost unlimited computing power and collaboration at a massive scale. With Force.com Platform-as-Service, we are providing the necessary building blocks to make cloud computing real for the enterprise."

Microsoft offers free software to web startups

Microsoft is giving away free software to early-stage Web start-up companies as part of a worldwide program called BizSpark.

BizSpark aims to help startups get off the ground by providing production licenses and technical support for several Microsoft products. The licenses are free for the first three years, after which the startups must start to pay.

As well as helping startups, the program gives Microsoft a way to promote the use of its software at a time when open-source alternatives have matured, and as rivals such as Google and Salesforce.com are promoting their cloud platforms for building Web applications.

Other products covered by the program include Office SharePoint Portal Server, BizTalk Server and Systems Center, with Dynamics CRM to be added soon. Startups also get a subscription to the Microsoft Developer Network and a Community Technology Preview of Microsoft's Azure cloud software announced last week.

To qualify for BizSpark, companies have to be privately held, less than three years old, have annual revenue of less than $1 million, and be developing an online service or hosted application.

They also have to be nominated by one of the partners Microsoft is signing up for the program, which include investment companies, university incubators and economic development agencies, said Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft's vice president for Strategic and Emerging Business Development.

CNN and hologram technology

Today CNN beamed a hologram of correspondent Jessica Yellin from Grant Park in Chicago to its election headquarters in New York, and it was stunning.Bathed in a pool of light and glimmering around the edges, Yellin suddenly appeared in the center of the CNN newsroom to chat with anchor Wolf Blitzer about the huge crowd massing in and around Grant Park in Chicago in hopes of a victory by Barack Obama.

After detailing events in Chicago, Yellin explained the technology that made her hologram possible.

She was standing, she said, in a tent in Chicago surrounded by a ring of 35 high-definition cameras that were in sync via computer with cameras in New York. The 35 Chicago cameras created her image and then sent it to the cameras in New York, so that she appeared in real time as a hologram.

"It's like I follow in the tradition of Princess Leia," Yellin said jokingly.

Blitzer ended the interview, saying, "You were a terrific hologram, Jessica. Thank you very much."

Talk about Tuesday night being historic: It's a safe bet no anchorman ever ended a conversation with a correspondent thanking her for being a good hologram.

Blood test predicts obesity

According to new research by scientists, the degree of change in blood triglyceride levels following a fatty meal may indicate susceptibility to diet-induced obesity.

Triglycerides are a form of fat that is transported in the blood and stored in the body's fat tissues. They are found in foods and also are manufactured by the body.

These findings suggest we may someday be able to use a simple blood test to identify those at risk for obesity. The ability to identify more susceptible individuals would make it possible to target obesity-prevention resources on those who need them most.

The global obesity epidemic is thought to be caused in part by consumption of a diet high in fat and carbohydrates, which promotes weight gain. This propensity to gain weight and become obese when consuming a high-fat diet is at least partially controlled by genes, with some individuals gaining more than others while eating the same diet.

The researchers screened rats for vulnerability to diet-induced obesity by measuring the increase in blood triglyceride levels following a single high-fat meal. They then fed the rats a diet high in fat over the next four weeks.

They were able to predict which animals would become obese over the four-week period by examining the earlier metabolic response to the high-fat meal: the smaller the triglyceride change, the greater the weight gain.

There currently are no simple biomarkers for predicting susceptibility to diet-induced obesity, and thus no clinical tests that assist physicians in identifying those at risk for becoming obese. The current findings suggest that a change in blood triglyceride levels may someday be used as such a tool.

Future studies will entail a thorough investigation of the mechanism behind differences in the change in blood triglycerides.

Hubble Space Telescope repaired

NASA's space agency managers announced that they had successfully restarted the broken Hubble Space Telescope, but acknowledged that they won't be ready to send a repair team to the 18-year-old instrument until May at the earliest.

After reactivating two cameras on Hubble, scientists beamed its first pictures to Earth since a glitch idled the telescope several weeks ago.

They released an image of a pair of interacting galaxies that appeared to form the number 10 -- a picture that inspired NASA officials to declare the telescope had scored a "perfect 10" as it got back to work.

The new pictures were testimony to their success. The images were made with the scope's Wide-Field Planetary Camera and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. NASA said it hoped to have the other instruments operating in the next few days.

There was no certainty the switch to Side B would work. That unit had sat idle in space for 18 years while its brother did all the work. But now that it's operating, said Hubble manager Preston Burch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., he feels "very confident" it will continue to work in the coming weeks.

NASA also announced Thursday that a repair mission to Hubble would be delayed once again. Before the data-handling unit broke, a team was to depart for the telescope Oct. 14 to replace faulty gyroscopes and worn batteries. NASA said the mission would be delayed until at least February while engineers took a new data-handling unit out of storage and prepared it for launch.

That unit, it turned out, wasn't operable. It had been partly disassembled. When it was put back together, it "didn't handle the commands properly," Burch said during a news briefing at NASA headquarters in Washington.

The repair mission, whenever it happens, will be the last for Hubble. NASA had not even planned to make this one but was forced into it by Congress after a public outcry in support of the telescope.

TiVo and Netflix joined

It has been a long time coming, but Netflix and TiVo have finally teamed up to bring streaming shows and movies to TiVo owners' TV screens. The two companies announced today that they have begun a test of the new capabilities in "several thousand US households" today, and expect it to be available to the public in early December.

Through the partnership first envisioned in 2004, Netflix subscribers who own the TiVo Series3, HD, or HD XL will be able to stream over 12,000 movies and TV shows through Netflix's online streaming service. In order to do so, users will first need to visit the Netflix website in order to add movies and TV episodes to their instant queues, which will then be displayed through the TiVo. From there, users can browse their instant queues and make selections right from that comfortable dent in the couch.

This isn't the first time Netflix's streaming service has tried to leave the PC and made a foray onto the big(ger) screen, but it is one of the first attempts to do so with a product as mainstream as the TiVo. Netflix introduced its own set-top box called the Roku in May of this year, a $99 device that could stream content from subscribers' accounts to the TV. Although the price is astonishingly affordable compared to similar options (the Apple TV still costs more than $200, for example), the public is still somewhat resistant to adding yet another box to their entertainment systems. The same applies to the LG BD300 Blu-ray player with Netflix capabilities.

In July, however, Netflix and Microsoft made headlines by announcing that the Xbox 360 would gain Netflix streaming capabilities, and for free (outside of your monthly Netflix subscription). That announcement really got the streaming video fans excited, and the natural progression from there is to bring Netflix content to the most ubiquitous DVR system on the market, the TiVo.

"Joining forces with Netflix creates the ultimate video on demand service and solidifies TiVo's leading position as the one-box solution for aggregating, searching, and delivering the best content available anywhere right to the TV," TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said in a statement. "Adding Netflix to our already vast library of content differentiates TiVo even further from any other offering in the market today."

Much of the online video market is still struggling to find ways to users' TV screens while keeping DRM firmly in place. Today's announcement is another step forward for digital distribution, as TiVo's massive installed user base will surely help give Netflix a leg up in the market.

Laser treatment for acne

Acne is a skin disorder which is common among the age group of 18-25. This skin disease is usually associated with a lot of pimples, scars and huge open pores. There are several treatments for acne scars. The most recent latest treatment is the laser treatment for acne scars.

This laser acne treatment is the latest technology advancement in the field of medicine to ensure the complete removal of the acne scars from the face and the back of the human body. This medical procedure is usually done by dermatologists and they are done in laser clinics in hospitals.

The acne scars laser treatments are mainly done with the help of wave lengths that are usually assorted. The laser treatments are also of several intensity levels, which is mainly due to the different levels of scars and acne in the human body.

Laser acne will not only remove the occurrence of the acne bacteria but it also helps in reducing the red skin that is usually caused by acne and its pimples. This procedure which is done in the hospitals takes a bit of procedures to be done before hand.

The dermatologist will have to first determine whether the patient is suitable for this type of acne treatment. After this, he/she determines the type of laser to be used for the laser treatment for acne scars.

The intensity of the laser treatment can also be determined between you and the doctor to ensure that you get the results that you wanted. The tissues that are not needed are completely removed with the help of the carbon dioxide laser.

For most acne patients, a single acne laser treatment is enough, but for others who have more severe acne problems, more than one treatment is required. There is another kind of laser which is known as ablative laser treatment for acne scars. This laser eliminates the outer layers of the skin along with the tissues of the scar which helps a lot in lowering the visibility of the acne scar.

Laser acne treatment cost is expensive but is the most effective way to remove acne scars fast and permanently.

Microsoft to sell Office as a web service

In addition to the online services components of Windows 7, Microsoft is announcing plans to provide online versions of: Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote that will run in a web browser.

Janice Kapner, head of communications for Microsoft's "information worker" group, which produces the Microsoft Office products, said the company decided to unveil its plans -- which have been an ongoing topic of speculation -- to be part of the broader cloud computing and online services announcements that have headlined the company's Professional Developers Conference here this week.

"We're here sharing at PDC so that people recognize that Office is part of the bigger strategy for the cloud," she said. "I know people have been talking about this stuff for a long time, but customers ... are really now embracing it much more than just talking about it."

Google beat Microsoft to the market for online productivity products with its Google Docs and Spreadsheets offering, which Microsoft has dismissed as too short on features to be a real competitor to its dominant Office products, which have some 500 million users globally and contribute to the Microsoft Business Division's $18.9 billion in fiscal 2008 revenue (more than 31 percent of the company's total).

But Microsoft clearly sees the niche Google has filled and appears unwilling to cede it to the Internet search giant. Microsoft hopes the offering will also cut down on piracy of Office.

"We just recognize that a one-size-fits-all solution isn't appropriate," Kapner said. "... Clearly we need to be respectful of what customers want."

Microsoft is building "lightweight" versions of the four key pieces of its Office suite, which will be sold to businesses through volume licensing agreements and as hosted services -- paid as a subscription -- much like the Microsoft online services the company provides now for its server products such as Exchange and Sharepoint.

Consumers will be able to get these Web companions to Microsoft's full-fledged productivity software through Office Live, which has both a free service supported by advertising and a paid offering.

Kapner said the company is still in the early stages -- calling a planned demonstration during today's Windows 7-focused keynote a "sneak peek" -- and, as such, it is not announcing specific plans for pricing the product.

The company gave few details on its schedule for bringing online Office to market, other than a planned technology preview -- limited to a select group -- by the end of the year. She did say that the online offerings are part of the next version of Office, currently going by the name Office 14. Microsoft has been mum on the product's schedule.

The online Office suite will work in the three major Web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

Microsoft does not envision people using the online version of Excel to work on an 8,000-line spreadsheet or write a major term paper with online Word. Instead, the company expects the online offerings to be best-suited for collaboration, editing and reviewing and other less-intense tasks.

Source: Seattle Times

Microsoft Azure, the new cloud development platform

Windows Azure is a "services-based operating environment," competes with Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) as a scalable hosting environment on which developers can build and host their applications.

Microsoft is releasing a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Windows Azure in the U.S. at PDC, and eventually will host the service in global data centers.

The announcement of Windows Azure was expected, as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a public appearance earlier this month that Microsoft was readying a Windows cloud offering it would reveal in only a few weeks.

Ozzie said a team of Microsoft developers led by Amitabh Srivastava, vice president of Windows Azure team, had begun working on Azure just before Amazon unveiled EC2. He said he tipped his hat to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team for bringing its offering to market before Microsoft.

"All of us are going to be standing on their shoulders" as the technology industry transitions from offering and using traditional software run in enterprise IT networks to running more applications on the Internet via cloud-computing environments hosted by large vendors, Ozzie said.

However, he noted that Microsoft had "somewhat broader and different objectives" than Amazon in developing Azure, since unlike Amazon, it has the responsibility to support a vast global network of software developers and applications already built on its infrastructure software.

Ozzie dipped into the past to show how cloud computing has evolved beyond the virtualization and utility models that have been present in corporate IT systems for 30 years or more and were pioneered by his former company, IBM.

Previously, companies developed these networks for their own employees and didn't expect to be serving customers and partners outside the firewall, he said. But "things are materially different when building systems to serve the world of the Web than it is ... serving those that live in the company's four walls," Ozzie said.

Developers can use Microsoft's familiar .NET tools to build applications on Windows Azure and Microsoft used those tools to develop the environment, said Srivastava, who took the stage Monday after Ozzie to describe Azure in more detail. Eventually, Microsoft also will host all of its own Web-based services on Azure, he said.

Key to Azure is a Fabric Controller that "manages the lifecycle of the services" that developers build, Srivastava said.

The Fabric Controller "views all of the data center as fabric of shared hardware resources that can be managed and shared with all the services there," he said. This enables Azure to update developer's applications automatically, sparing them the hassle of updating those applications across individual PCs across the enterprise, Srivastava said.

Windows Azure also separates applications from the OS layer using Microsoft's virtualization technology, which also eliminates the need for updating desktop PCs when updating applications. This has long been a sore spot for corporate IT teams and has been seen as a stumbling block for enterprises to update to the latest version of the Windows client OS, Windows Vista.

Ozzie did not say when Windows Azure would be generally available, but said Microsoft will be discussing the platform in more detail in the next several days at the show.

Amazon EC2 adds Windows and SQL Server

Amazon's EC2 service yesterday went into full production mode. The cloud computing platform shed its beta label and, in so doing, gained a service level agreement. These changes mark EC2's transition from an experimental development platform into an enterprise-ready cloud solution, broadening EC2's reach to include those customers who might have otherwise been attracted to AT&T's Synaptic Hosting.

Reliability is one of the major concerns regarding the viability of cloud computing; performing business-critical activities in a remote data center may well be an unacceptable risk for many businesses. EC2's SLA promises 99.95 percent availability (this translates to a little over 4 hours of downtime per year). Coupled with S3's 99.9 percent availability promise, these services should now be an option for a much broader audience.

Amazon also announced a public beta of the availability of Windows and SQL Server on EC2. First announced earlier this month, the company is expecting customers to use Windows EC2 for a range of activities, from running ASP.NET web applications to media transcoding to High Performance Computing. Not surprisingly, Windows EC2 will cost more than the operating systems available (Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenSolaris) but, with the scalability and flexibility EC2 offers, it could become a highly compelling hosting platform.

The company also described features planned for next year, including improved management and monitoring of cloud applications and automatic load balancing and scaling. These will allow applications on EC2 to both distribute load between EC2 instances and dynamically alter the capacity of the application's EC2 instances to accommodate changes in demand. This kind of capability truly justifies the use of cloud computing, as it provides cheap and easy scaling in a way not possible with conventional hosting.

Tesofensine is the new obesity drug

Tesofensine can produce weight loss twice that of currently approved obesity drugs, and should be studied in phase III trials. These are the conclusions of an Article published early Online and in an upcoming edition of The Lancet, written by Professor Arne Astrup, Department of Human Nutrition, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues.
Increased obesity prevalence worldwide, in both developed and developing countries, results in more people with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders, and cancer. Whilst gastric bypass surgery substantially reduces bodyweight and obesity-related disease, the researchers believe a treatment gap exists between the effectiveness of currently marketed obesity drugs and gastric-bypass surgery.

Tesofensine – which inhibits the presynaptic uptake of the neurotransmitters noradrenaline, dopamine and serotonin in the brain – has been shown to be safe and effective in animal models. It also caused unintended weight loss when it was given obese patients with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease when it was researched for those conditions. The drug works by suppressing hunger, leading to an energy deficit which burns off excess body fat.

This randomised, placebo-controlled phase II study was done in five Danish obesity management centres, and involved 203 obese patients (body mass index 30-40 kg/m2), weighing a mean of just over 100kg. They were prescribed a limited-energy diet and assigned to tesofensine 0.25mg (52 patients), 0.5 mg (50), 1.0 mg (49), or placebo (52), all once daily for 24 weeks.
The primary outcome was percentage change in bodyweight. A total of 161 patients completed the study, and an analysis showed that the mean weight loss recorded for placebo and diet was 2.2kg and for tesofensine 0.25mg, 0.5mg and 1.0mg it was 6.7kg, 11.3kg, and 12.8kg respectively. For the 0.5mg and 1.0mg doses, this represented a weight loss around twice that attained using sibutramine or rimonabant*, the currently-approved therapies in Europe. Blood pressure was increased in the 1.0mg group.The most common side-effects caused by tesofensine were dry mouth, nausea, constipation, hard stools, diarrhoea, and insomnia.

The authors conclude that the 0.5mg dose of tesofensine is more promising than the 1.0mg dose because it produces a similar weight loss with less side-effects. They say: “We conclude that tesofensine 0.5 mg, once daily for 6 months, has the potential to produce twice the weight loss as currently approved drugs; however, larger phase III studies are needed to substantiate our findings.”

Bad circulation symptoms

There are millions of people around the globe taking treatment for bad circulation, and there are many others who suffer from bad circulation, but not aware of that. Most people ignore the symptoms or take it lightly and hence fail to diagnose it in time. When the person dies all of a sudden, then only others realize that he/she was suffering from bad circulation. This is why bad circulation is sometimes referred as a silent killer.

Bad circulation, in medical terminology Peripheral Vascular Disease PVD, is a medical condition which is somewhat similar to carotid artery disease and coronary artery disease. Bad circulation is caused when fatty deposits are accumulated in the inner linings of the artery wall. This accumulation results in the blockage of blood circulation. Bad circulation in arteries leads to the kidneys, arms, hand, legs, and feet. Most people who suffer from bad circulation may have fatty deposits in the arteries of brain and heart. This can cause the death of the patient from heart attack and stroke.

Bad circulation is considered as a serious condition and can result in heart attacks, loss of limbs, stroke, and in many cases even death. However if found in the early stages, bad circulation may be prevented or treated in the early stages with meditation, drug treatment, surgery, life style changes, or mostly a combination of all these treatments.

Some of the main symptoms of bad circulation are legs and or feet falling to sleep, cramping of the buttocks, legs, or feet, pain in the legs, swelling of the legs, tired aching feet; and very low temperature in your hands, arms, legs, or feet. If you feel that you have some or most of the symptoms then you may have been suffering from bad circulation. It is better to visit your family doctor and take a complete check up. Bad circulation can be diagnosed by a physical examination, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging angiography MRA, and X-ray angiography.

Some lifestyle changes which can help you to lower your risk include controlling diabetes, quit smoking, controlling blood pressure, and consuming low cholesterol diet. Bad circulation can be prevented to some extend by taking healthy fat free diet and regular exercises.

All we have to do is take a good look at the lifestyle we are living and it should be quite obvious to everyone why this is happening. First of all most people do not get enough exercise which is a crucial factor in allowing our blood to circulate properly. Bad circulation can lead to heart attack and strokes and if that is not enough all the fast food and fatty foods most people eat, only add to the problem.

Free PSP themes available

You would probably like to download a free PSP theme. Virtually all PSP users do. The PSP has become an incredibly well known, and well loved, machine, and part of that is the flexibility it affords its users. Ipod socks are totally superfluous when you have the freedom to choose the exact way your PSP looks and behaves!

Download A Free PSP Theme Tip 1-Don't use the main Sony site!
A lot of people never bother to look beyond the main Sony Playstation website when they are looking for themes for their PSP. It is virtually impossible to find a unique PSP Theme if you are downloading it from the same place as everybody else. Although there is no shortage of themes to choose from on the main site, there are a lot of people choosing them. Look somewhere else!

Download A Free PSP Theme Tip 2- Do an internet search
A lot of people will use the main search engines to find out how to download a free PSP theme, but use a bit of clever thinking, and you can get what you want. Instead of doing a direct search engine search for themes, look for PSP communities on the internet? Try to see if you can find some forums or newsgroups. This can be a really useful source of resources, sometimes from members of the forum, and sometimes just from threads. You can find custom-made PSP Themes on these dedicated forums.

Download A Free PSP Theme Tip 3- Don’t use a download!
You can try using one of the simple art programs on your computer to design your own original Theme. Virtually any of the simple art programs will allow you to produce a simple wallpaper, and this should be compatible with your PSP as long as you create it as a JPEG file. Another possibility is to get someone who is good with art to actually design a theme for you. You can find a PSP forum which has some decent Themes, and ask whoever designed the themes you like the best if they will create one for you. Often they will be happy to do it, although they may charge you a little for doing the job.

You can do a lot more with downloading free PSP Themes than just following everybody else with EA games wallpapers etc from the official Sony site. Be original, and you will enjoy your PSP more!

New treatment for prostate cancer

Radiation oncologists are now using what's sort of a GPS for the body to fight prostate cancer. Frank Fiore chose external beam radiation to fight his cancer. “The option that gave me decreased risk and flexibility, less intrusion and the best success,” he said.

The Calypso 4D Localization System, is sort of a GPS for the body and not only could it be used in prostate cancer, but eventually for tracking other cancers as well. Radiation specialist Dr. Dan White said that three tiny radio transponders are implanted into the prostate prior to treatment. “Those are implanted trans-rectally by the urologist, similar to when the patient gets a biopsy,” he said.

A computer program then tracks the transponders, which shift naturally as the prostate does during treatment over time. “By knowing where it is, we can treat a smaller area, because we are not worried about missing it,” White said. This lowers the odds of damage to surrounding tissues and ups the odds of killing off the cancer. “Hopefully this will translate into us being able to give higher doses of radiation to the prostate, better tolerated by the patient and hopefully lead to higher cure rate,” the doctor said.

The Calypso 4D Localization System utilizes proprietary electromagnetic technology in conjunction with implanted Beacon electromagnetic transponders in the prostate. The system is designed to enable doctors to accurately and objectively position cancer patients for radiation therapy treatment, and then measure and monitor tumor motion during radiation therapy delivery.

Continuous knowledge of the tumor location is expected to provide greater confidence to clinicians and patients when they know that the radiation beam is always on target. Because the product platform does not require expertise in interpreting x-ray or ultrasound images, it greatly reduces the time to perform patient setup, a well-recognized bottleneck in the radiation department workflow.

Calypso Medical Technologies, is a Seattle, WA based privately held medical device company founded in 2000. The Company’s proprietary tumor localization system utilizes miniaturized implanted devices (Beacon electromagnetic transponders) to continuously, accurately, and objectively pinpoint the location of tumors for improved accuracy in radiation therapy. Calypso addresses two major issues in modern radiation oncology: errors in treatment set-up and tumor motion during treatment. In addition, the Calypso® 4D Localization System’s non-ionizing electromagnetic guidance has the potential to improve work flow efficiency and treatment room utilization. The technology is designed for body-wide cancers commonly treated with radiation therapy, including prostate, breast, lung, head, neck and other radiation therapy target organs.

Studies are now underway in breast and lung cancer using this technology. It can be used even if the prostate is removed, by implanting the transponders in the prostate bed.

iTunes makes Blu-ray useless

Apple announced today that it has not only become the world's most popular TV programming store, thanks to 200 million unit sales of TV shows, but that all four of the major networks--CBS, Fox, ABC, and NBC--are offering high-definition content on the iTunes store.

If Apple is the world's leading store for buying TV shows and the world's largest music retailer, how can Blu-ray and it's measly 8 percent market share, expect to compete with Apple's freight train as it starts to pick up steam in the movie space?

Considering the fact that as of this past January, it had sold 7 million films on iTunes after 15 months of availability. Consider the fact that Blu-ray hit the 7 million-units-sold mark after 18 months, and it's quite obvious that people are ready and willing to download films instead of buying an expensive player and media to go with it.

Granted, the movies Apple has sold are standard definition and of the 2,500 films currently offered on iTunes, the 600 HD films can only be rented, but does that even matter? When we consider the cost of ownership between Apple's integration and Blu-ray's, it's difficult to see how it would make sense on any level to choose the latter. Not only are Blu-ray players more expensive than an Apple TV, it'll run you about $30 just to have one HD movie in most cases. And if you want to rent Blu-ray films from Blockbuster, it'll be $5.99 and you'll be forced to leave the house. The only logical way to get Blu-ray films into the house is through Netflix and even that company has raised its rates by $1 to make up for the additional cost of providing Blu-ray movies.

iTunes is growing at a rapid rate and it's no longer just a music store. And as more consumers find that they can have HD content in their homes with little or no effort, iTunes will claim another victim.

Startups, a great source of business

New start-up businesses are a constant feature of the business landscape. There will always be entrepreneurs willing to go it alone and launch their own business, in order to find greater independence job satisfaction, increase personal wealth and build a more secure longer term future.

But starting a business isn't just of benefit to entrepreneurs. Start ups also represent a valuable market segment for suppliers of an extremely wide range of goods and services. Start ups can be easier and therefore more profitable to sell to, more loyal in the longer term, and spend more on their initial orders.

Far from being overlooked, there are a number of significant reasons why you should be looking to target start up businesses as part of your B2B sales and marketing strategy:

Start ups have a wide range of needs

When a new business starts up it usually needs to source practically everything from scratch. Their needs are wide ranging including everything from recruitment and financial advice to office furniture, IT, marketing and printing. Often their initial purchases in these areas are likely to be far greater than when the businesses are more established and mature.

Start ups are a growing market, even in a recession

Despite recent economic uncertainties, the rates at which new businesses are started seem to be unaffected. In fact new business start up rates seem impervious to economic woes and even go up in troubled times. This can be because people lose their jobs and look to self employment for a new career, or partners who haven't worked start their own business to bring additional income into the household. So start up businesses can represent one of the few vibrant and growing sectors of the economy.

Start ups are ready to buy now

New businesses are in a position to make buying decisions far faster, because they need to get trading as quickly possible. This can make your sales effort far easier, making your sales more profitable. It's also easier to get a foot in the door as start ups are more receptive than mature businesses which may have a well established supplier base.

Start ups can help you increase market share

Getting your products or services sold into businesses when they first start up can really help you steal a march on your competitors. In fact if you act quickly you can become supplier to a new business before your competitors even know they exist. If you operate in a specific industry sector, new entrants are often the lifeblood of that sector, and exploiting them can help you increase your market share

Start ups make loyal long term customers

New business owners often need a little extra help, guidance and advice from their suppliers. If you can provide this support alongside your products or services, you'll build potential long term customers for your business who are far less likely to defect to your competitors.

In summary, if your company is looking to source new customers - as most businesses always are - then you should make sure that you include targeting new business start ups from your local area, region or industry vertical as part of your sales and marketing strategy.

Acne questions and answers

Acne is a very common disease. People who have it tend to have similar kinds of questions about it and its treatment. This section addresses some of the common questions asked by people with acne. Please remember that your dermatologist is always the best source of specific information about your individual health issues, including acne.

Questions and Answer does follows:

What causes acne?

The causes of acne are linked to the changes that take place as young people mature from childhood to adolescence (puberty). The hormones that cause physical maturation also cause the sebaceous (oil) glands of the skin to produce more sebum (oil). The hormones with the greatest effect on sebaceous glands are androgens (male hormones), which are present in females as well as males, but in higher amounts in males.

Sebaceous glands are found together with a hair shaft in a unit called a sebaceous follicle. During puberty, the cells of the skin that line the follicle begin to shed more rapidly. In people who develop acne, cells shed and stick together more so than in people who do not develop acne. When cells mix with the increased amount of sebum being produced, they can plug the opening of the follicle. Meanwhile, the sebaceous glands continue to produce sebum, and the follicle swells up with sebum.

In addition, a normal skin bacteria called P. acnes, begins to multiply rapidly in the clogged hair follicle. In the process, these bacteria produce irritating substances that can cause inflammation. Sometimes, the wall of the follicle bursts, spreading inflammation to the surrounding skin. This is the process by which acne lesions, from blackheads to pimples to nodules, are formed.

I wash my face several times a day. Why do I still get acne?

Many people still believe that acne is caused by dirty skin. The truth is, washing alone will not clear up or prevent acne. Washing does, however, help remove excess surface oils and dead skin cells. Many people use all kinds of products, including alcohol-based cleansers, and scrub vigorously, only to irritate the skin further and worsen their acne. Washing the skin twice a day gently with water and a mild soap is usually all that is required. However, acne is actually caused by a variety of biologic factors that are beyond the control of washing. For that reason, you should use appropriate acne treatments for the acne.

Does stress cause acne?

Stress is commonly blamed for the development of acne. Stress can have many physiologic effects on the body, including changes in hormones that may theoretically lead to acne. In some cases the stress may actually be caused by the acne lesions, not the other way around! If the acne is being treated effectively, stress is not likely to have much impact on the majority of people.

I never had acne as a teenager. Why am I now getting acne as an adult?

Usually, acne begins at puberty and is gone by the early 20s. In some cases, acne may persist into adulthood. Such types of acne include severe forms that affect the body as well as the face (which afflict males more than females) and acne associated with the menstrual cycle in women. In other cases, acne may not present itself until adulthood. Such acne is more likely to affect females than males.

There are several reasons for this. As females get older, the pattern of changes in hormones may itself change, disposing sebaceous glands to develop acne. Ovarian cysts and pregnancy may also cause hormonal changes that lead to acne. Some women get acne when they discontinue birth control pills that have been keeping acne at bay. Sometimes young women may wear cosmetics that are comedogenic-that is, they can set up conditions that cause comedones to form.

What role does diet play in acne?

Acne is not caused by food. Following a strict diet will not, clear your skin. While some people feel that their acne is aggravated by certain foods, particularly chocolate, colas, peanuts, shellfish and some fatty foods, there is no scientific evidence that suggests food causes or influences acne. Avoid any foods which seem to worsen your acne and, for your overall health, eat a balanced diet--but diet shouldn't really matter if the acne is being appropriately treated.

Does the sun help acne?

Many patients feel that sunlight improves their acne lesions and go to great lengths to find sources of ultraviolet light. There is no proven effect of sunlight on acne. In addition, ultraviolet light in sunlight increases the risk of skin cancer and early aging of the skin. It is, therefore, not a recommended technique of acne management, especially since there are many other proven forms of treatment for acne. Moreover, many acne treatments increase the skin's sensitivity to ultraviolet light, making the risk of ultraviolet light exposure all the worse.

What is the best way to treat acne?

Everyone's acne must be treated individually. If you have not gotten good results from the acne products you have tried, consider seeing a dermatologist. Your dermatologist will decide which treatments are best for you. For more information about the types of acne treatments that are available, and for basic acne treatment guidelines, please see Acne Treatments in the main part of AcneNet.

What kind of cosmetics and cleansers can an acne patient use?

Look for "noncomedogenic" cosmetics and toiletries. These products have been formulated so that they will not cause acne.

Some acne medications cause irritation or pronounced dryness particularly during the early weeks of therapy, and some cosmetics and cleansers can actually worsen this effect. The choice of cosmetics and cleansers should be made with your dermatologist or pharmacist.

Heavy foundation makeup should be avoided. Most acne patients should select powder blushes and eye shadow over cream products because they are less irritating and noncomedogenic. Camouflaging techniques can be used effectively by applying a green undercover cosmetic over red acne lesions to promote color blending.

Is it harmful to squeeze my blemishes?

Yes. In general, acne lesions should not be picked or squeezed by the patient. In particular, inflammatory acne lesions should never be squeezed. Squeezing forces infected material deeper into the skin, causing additional inflammation and possible scarring.

Can anything be done about scarring caused by acne?

Scarring is best prevented by getting rid of the acne. Dermatologists can use various methods to improve the scarring caused by acne. The treatment must always be individualized for the specific patient. Chemical peels may be used in some patients, while dermabrasion or laser abrasion may benefit others. It is important that the acne be well controlled before any procedure is used to alleviate scarring.

How long before I see a visible result from using my acne medication?

The time for improvement depends upon the product being used, but in almost all cases it is more a matter of weeks or months instead of days. Most dermatologists would recommend the use of a medication or combination of medications daily for 4 to 8 weeks before they would change the treatment. It is very important for patients to be aware of this time frame so they do not become discouraged and discontinue their medications. Conversely, if you see no change whatsoever, you might want to check with your dermatologist regarding the need to change treatments.

Would using my medication more frequently than prescribed speed up the clearing of my acne?

No--always use your medication exactly as your dermatologist instructed. Using topical medications more often than prescribed may actually induce more irritation of the skin, redness and follicular plugging, which can delay clearing time. If oral medications are taken more frequently than prescribed, they won't work any better, but there is a greater chance of side effects.

My topical treatment seems to work on the spots I treat, but I keep getting new acne blemishes. What should I do?

Topical acne medications are made to be used on all acne-prone areas, not just individual lesions. Part of the goal is to treat the skin before lesions can form and to prevent formation, not just to treat existing lesions. Patients are generally advised to treat all of the areas (forehead, cheeks, chin and nose) that tend to break out rather than just individual lesions.

My face is clear! Can I stop taking my medication now?

If your dermatologist says you can stop, then stop--but follow your dermatologist's instructions. Many times patients will stop their medication suddenly only to have their acne flare up several weeks later. If you are using multiple products, it may be advisable to discontinue one medication at a time and judge results before discontinuing them all at once. Ask your dermatologist before you stop using any of your medications.

Does it matter what time I use my medication?

Check with your dermatologist or pharmacist. If you were taking one dose a day of an antibiotic, you could probably take it in the morning, at midday or in the evening, although you should pick one time of day and stay with it throughout your treatment. With oral medications prescribed twice a day or three times a day, you should try your best to spread out the doses evenly. Some antibiotics should be taken on an empty or nearly empty stomach. For optimal results with topical treatments, you should strictly follow your dermatologist's recommendations. For example, if instructed to apply benzoyl peroxide in the morning and a topical retinoid at bedtime, it is important to follow these directions strictly. If the two were applied together at bedtime, for example, you could decrease the efficacy of the treatment because of chemical reactions that make them less effective.

I have trouble remembering to take my oral medication every day. What's a good way to remember? What should I do if I forget a dose?

This is a common problem. Many patients try to associate taking their medication with a routine daily event such as brushing teeth or applying makeup. It also helps to keep the medication close to the area where the reminder activity is carried out.

In most cases, if you miss a day of your oral treatment, do not double up the next day; rather, get back to your daily regimen as soon as possible--but there may be different instructions for different oral medications. Ask your dermatologist or pharmacist about what to do if you miss a dose of your particular medication.

I have been using topical benzoyl peroxide and an oral antibiotic for my acne and have noticed blue-black and brown marks developing on my face and some discoloration on my body. The marks are especially noticeable around acne scars and recently healed lesions. Is this a side effect of medication and is it permanent?

It is not possible to make general statements about side effects of medications that apply to individual cases. A dermatologist should be consulted. The facial marks and body discoloration described by the patient in this case do fall within the range of side effects of some antibiotics.

Unique patterns of pigmentation are sometimes seen in acne patients treated with certain oral antibiotics—particularly minocycline. The pigmentation patterns that appear may include:

* Localized blue-black or brown marks in and around acne scars and in areas of previous acne inflammation

* A "muddy skin" appearance that may cover much of the body

* Diffuse brownish pigmentation of the feet and lower legs.

The pigmentation side effect gradually disappears after the therapy is discontinued.

Any side effect of a medication should be noted by the patient and brought to the attention of the physician. While most side effects are temporary they should be discussed with the physician and monitored.


My doctor is prescribing a topical retinoid for my acne. He said a retinoid is a substance related to vitamin A. If the drug is related to vitamin A, shouldn't vitamin A dietary supplements be helpful in getting rid of acne?

Dietary vitamin A is essential to good health, especially vision. It has healthful effects in the skin. Large doses of vitamin A for the treatment of acne is not recommended on grounds of safety. The retinoids and retinoid-like substances used as topical treatments for acne are prepared especially for their potent effect on the shedding of cell lining in the sebaceous follicle. Their use should be monitored by a dermatologist.

Dietary vitamin A has multiple health effects in the human body. Vitamin A is essential for good vision. Extreme vitamin A deficiency can result in blindness, usually accompanied by dry, scaly skin. Vitamin A overdose that far exceeds the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of 5,000 IU can have effects nearly as catastrophic. Extreme vitamin A overdose can cause the skin to blister and peel—an effect first seen in early North Pole explorers who nearly died after eating polar bear liver that has an extraordinarily high vitamin A content.

Topical retinoids are usually prescribed as a treatment for moderate to severe acne. Side effects are chiefly dermatologic, including redness, scaling and dryness of the skin, itching and burning. These side effects can usually be managed by adjustment of the amount and timing of retinoid applied to the skin. Dose adjustment must be discussed with the dermatologist who prescribed the treatment.

Are there any acne treatments specifically for people with dark skin? Are there any treatments specifically harmful to dark skin?

There are no acne treatments specifically for use on dark skin. Acne treatments are generally as safe and effective on dark skin as on light skin. Some treatments for acne scars may cause temporary lightening of dark skin.

Acne is a common skin disease that has the same causes and follows the same course in all colors of skin.

Very dark or black skin may be less well-moisturized than lighter skin. Topical anti-acne agents such as benzoyl peroxide that have a drying effect on the skin should be used under the supervision of a dermatologist. Benzoyl peroxide also is a strong bleach and therefore must be applied carefully to avoid inadvertent decolorization of a patch of hair, towels or clothing.

Darker skin has a tendency to develop post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (excessive skin darkening at places where the skin was inflamed). Severe inflammatory acne may result in dark spots. The spots resolve over time; a dermatologist may be able to recommend cosmetic measures to make the spots less apparent until they resolve. Some acne treatments, such as topical retinoids and azelaic acid, may also help fade the discoloration.

Removal of acne scars by dermabrasion or chemical peeling may cause temporary lightening or darkening of dark skin in the areas of treatment. Scar treatment should be discussed with a dermatologist or dermatologic surgeon before it is undertaken.

Alterations of melanin (dark pigments that give the skin its color) pigmentation such as vitiligo and melasma are not related to acne, but they may be present simultaneously with acne. The diagnosis and treatment of melanin pigmentation disorders such as vitiligo requires a dermatologist with knowledge and experience in treating these conditions.

Is acne that appears for the first time in adulthood different from acne that appears in adolescence?

Acne has a specific definition as a disease of sebaceous follicles. This definition applies to acne that occurs at any age. However, it may be important to look for an underlying cause of acne that occurs for the first time in adulthood.

Current understanding of the causes of acne vulgaris is described in the Main Text section Why and how acne happens. In brief summary, acne vulgaris develops when excessive sebum production and abnormal growth and death of cells in the sebaceous follicle result in plugging of follicles with a mixture of sebum and cellular debris and formation of comedones (blackheads and whiteheads). Bacteria in the follicles—chiefly Propionibacterium acnes, the most common bacterial colonist of sebaceous follicles—may contribute to the inflammation of acne by release of metabolic products that cause inflammatory reaction. The pathogenic events, which cause disease, in the sebaceous follicle are believed to be due in large degree to changes in levels of androgenic (male) hormones in the body—a circumstance usually associated with growth and development between ages 12 and

Some acne investigators believe that although this understanding is generally correct, there is more yet to be learned about the causes of acne vulgaris.

Acne that appears after the age of 25-30 years is (1) a recurrence of acne that cleared up after adolescence, (2) a flare-up of acne after a period of relative quiet—for example, during pregnancy, or (3) acne that occurs for the first time in a person who had never previously had acne.

Acne that occurs in adulthood may be difficult to treat if there are multiple recurrences. Some patients with severe recurrent acne have undergone repeated courses of treatment with the potent systemic drug isotretinoin.

Acne flares in association with pregnancy or menstruation are due to changes in hormonal patterns.

Acne that appears for the first time in adulthood should be investigated for any underlying cause. Drugs that can induce acne include anabolic steroids (sometimes used illegally by athletes to "bulk up"), some anti-epileptic drugs, the anti-tuberculosis drugs isoniazid and rifampin, lithium, and iodine-containing drugs. Chlorinated industrial chemicals may induce the occupational skin disorder known as chloracne. Chronic physical pressure on the skin—for example, by a backpack and its straps, or a violin tucked against the angle of the jaw and chin—may induce so-called acne mechanica. Some metabolic conditions may cause changes in hormonal balance that can induce acne.

Some lesions that appear to be acne may be another skin disorder such as folliculitis—infection and inflammation of hair follicles—that require different treatment than acne. Acne that appears for the first time in adulthood should be examined and treated by a dermatologist.

My 15-year-old daughter has what I would describe as a very mild case of acne. She has made it much worse by constant picking and squeezing. She looks in the mirror for hours, looking for some blackhead or blemish she can pick or squeeze. Does she need psychological counseling?

Excessive picking and squeezing of otherwise mild acne is a condition called excoriated acne, seen most often in young women. A dermatologist may provide effective counseling.

The typical person with excoriated acne is a person—often a young women—who is so distressed with her appearance due to acne that she literally tries to "squeeze the acne out of existence." The acne is often very mild, but the person's face may constantly be covered with red marks from squeezing, and open sores where lesions have been picked open.

The word excoriate means to scratch or abrade the skin. Excoriated acne is a medically recognized condition that should be discussed with a dermatologist. Occasionally giving in to a temptation to squeeze a blackhead is not defined as excoriated acne. Hours in front of a mirror, squeezing and picking every blemish, is a definition of excoriated acne. A dermatologist may be able to counsel the patient regarding a course of treatment in which the patient can participate, but keep "hands off."

Can the rate of secretion or the composition of sebum be altered by diet? If it can, shouldn't alteration of diet be considered a treatment for acne?

Diet has never been proven to have a role in the cause or treatment of acne. Dietary manipulation may have a role in the treatment of some scaling diseases of the skin, but not in the treatment of acne.

Dietary cause is one of the most persistent myths about acne. Foods, such as chocolate or greasy foods, do not cause acne, but certain foods seem to make some people's acne worse. The following can bring on or worsen it:

Hereditary factors

An increase in male hormones found in both males and females

Menstruation

Emotional stress

Oil and grease from cosmetics, work environment

No food has been shown to be effective in preventing or treating acne. A healthy diet is, of course, necessary for good general health.

Shouldn't I just try to eliminate sebum from my body?

No. When it isn't blocked in your pores, sebum helps keep your skin healthy.

Why does acne usually start at puberty?

No one knows for certain. What is known is that the sebaceous glands that produce sebum get much larger at puberty than they were before.

Why does the skin around a pimple turn red?

This redness is caused by the body's inflammatory response. Inflammation is a sign that your immune system is working to fight an infection. However, the inflammatory response doesn't always work perfectly, and can even be the cause of scarring.

If my skin turns red, does that mean that I'm going to have scars?

Usually, no. Even when there will be no permanent scar, the aftereffects of the inflammatory response can leave the skin red for months, sometimes for more than a year.

What are free radicals?

Free radicals are byproducts of oxidation in your body. We all need oxidation to occur as part of our life process, but there is concern that the buildup of unrecycled free radicals contributes to many conditions, including skin damage. Antioxidants, including several of the active ingredients in Acuzine, help prevent the buildup of free radicals.