Former Lab Technician Denies Faulty DNA Work in Rape Cases

A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure.

The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s.

“My work?” Ms. Mitchell said. “No, no, no, not my work.”

Earlier, the city medical examiner’s office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.

So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner’s office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.

The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.

However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. “It couldn’t be me because your work gets checked,” she said. “You have supervisors.”

She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. “I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer,” she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner’s office so long. “Then it was time to leave.”

Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city’s poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.

If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.

Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner’s office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and “false negatives” might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.

“The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.

Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.

Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.

“Up to this point,” Mr. Banks said, “they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there’s an injustice that’s been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases.” He added, “If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?”

The medical examiner’s office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city’s district attorneys’ offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.

But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of “trust us.”

“Given what’s happened,” he said, “that’s cold comfort.”

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Business Briefing | Retailing: Best Buy Shares Rally on Improved Holiday Sales

The Best Buy Company had better-than-expected holiday sales, setting off a gain of $2, or 16.4 percent, in its stock price, to $14.21 a share on Friday. The holiday quarter accounted for about a third of Best Buy’s revenue last year. The chain said that revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.4 percent for the nine weeks ended Jan. 5. The company’s performance in the United States was flat. The chief executive, Hubert Joly, said in a statement that the result was better than the last several quarters. A Morningstar analyst, R. J. Hottovy, said the results showed that some of Best Buy’s initiatives, like more employee training and online price matching helped increase sales.

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F.A.A. to Begin a Review of Boeing 787s

Federal authorities on Friday ordered a review of electrical systems in Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner following a spate of incidents, including a battery fire earlier this week in Boston, 15 months after the technologically advanced aircraft came into service.

In an unusual high-priority review, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would focus on how the 787 was designed, manufactured and assembled and would examine critical electrical systems as well as other quality-control issues.

“We are concerned about recent events involving the Boeing 787,” Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, said during a press conference in Washington. “We will look for the root causes of the recent events and do everything we can to ensure these events don’t happen again.”

Mr. LaHood said the F.A.A. had already spent 200,000 hours to certify the plane before it went into service.

The administrator of the F.A.A., Michael P. Huerta, said the review would focus on the electrical systems of the airplane, including the batteries and power distribution systems, and how they interact with each other.

Raymond L. Conner, the head of Boeing’s commercial airplane division, repeated at the press conference that Boeing had complete confidence in the 787, the first new airplane to be certified in the United States in more than 15 years.

“Every new commercial airplane has issues when it enters service,” Mr. Conner said.

The review, however, will not require the grounding of the 787 fleet, officials said. Boeing has delivered 50 of the airplanes since the first commercial flight in November 2011 and has received orders for more than 800. Eight airlines now fly the 787 – All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines in Japan, Air India, Ethiopian Airlines, Chile’s LAN Airlines, Poland’s LOT, Qatar Airways and United Airlines.

It is uncommon for the F.A.A. to open a review of an airplane it has already certified, but it points to increased concern by regulators.

A Boeing spokesman, Marc Birtel, declined to comment on any review on Thursday evening. But he said Boeing was working actively with the F.A.A. to understand and address “introductory issues” that might come up with the new aircraft.

“While we take each issue seriously, nothing we’ve seen in service causes us to doubt the capabilities of the airplane,” he said.

The review comes amid an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board into why a battery pack caught fire in a parked 787 at Logan International Airport in Boston on Monday. The fire occurred in a Japan Airlines plane from Tokyo after the passengers and crew had left the plane.

The battery, which powers the auxiliary power unit used when the plane is on the ground, sustained “severe fire damage,” according to the safety board.

But with the current focus on the 787’s problems, every incident, however small, is getting extra attention. Earlier on Friday, All Nippon Airlines of Japan reported cracks in the cockpit window of a 787 Dreamliner heading from Tokyo to Matsuyama, the third time that cracks had appeared in the windshield of one of the 17 787s operated by the airline.

The cracks were on the outermost of five layers that compose the cockpit windshield and did not endanger the aircraft, said Megumi Tezuka, a company spokeswoman.

Moreover, she said, cracks of this kind are not unique to the 787 Dreamliner; cracks have appeared in other aircraft types operated by All Nippon from time to time.

“We do not see this as a sign of a fundamental problem” with the aircraft, Ms. Tezuka said.

A bigger concern to investigators would be problems in the plane’s electric systems. The 787, which make extensive use of lightweight carbon composites, relies more on electric systems than previous generations of airplanes. Electrical systems, not mechanical ones, operate hydraulic pumps, de-ice the wings, pressurize the cabin and handle other tasks. The plane also has electric brakes instead of hydraulic ones.

This electric architecture helps cut energy consumption and makes the aircraft more efficient to operate.

In a move to quell the damage to the plane’s reputation, Boeing on Wednesday defended its program and said it stood by its engineering and design choices, including the use of lithium-ion batteries such as the one that apparently caught fire.

Boeing pointed out that the plane had multiple layers of redundant systems and emphasized that any new plane program suffered from glitches in its first few years of production.

So far, airlines that operate the plane have stood by Boeing. After years of production delays, airlines have been eager to fly an airplane that promises significant fuel savings.

This week’s events followed incidents with the plane last month. In December, the F.A.A. ordered inspections of fuel line connectors on all 787s, warning of a risk of fuel leaks and fires. That same day, a United Airlines 787 flying from Houston to Newark was diverted to New Orleans after one of its six electric generators failed in midflight.

Boeing said this week that those problems were not related to the fire incident in Boston. It traced the problem on the United flight to a defective electric panel. It added that the 787 proved during testing that it could fly for more than five hours with just one of its six electrical generators.

Some safety experts agreed that the problems with the 787 pointed more to teething problems than structural faults. But the issues are still an embarrassment for Boeing’s flagship program. The plane maker has said it expects to sell 5,000 787s in the next 20 years.

In a separate matter, Japan Airlines said that an incident on Tuesday involving a fuel leak on a 787 was because one of four fuel valves connecting two tanks had been left open. This caused fuel to flow into a surge tank near the wing tip and out a vent. The plane was towed back to its gate but eventually left Boston for Tokyo after a delay of nearly four hours.

Bettina Wassener contributed reporting from Hong Kong.

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Skype founder browses globe for next tech earner

LONDON (Reuters) – Niklas Zennstrom, co-founder of internet phone service Skype, believes the next hot tech business will just as likely spring from Istanbul or Sao Paolo as from Silicon Valley or the coolest districts of London.

And he is prepared to fly around the world to find it.

“Talent can pop up anywhere in the world, it’s not just one city block,” the Swedish entrepreneur and venture capitalist said at the headquarters of his Atomico fund, based on upmarket New Bond Street in central London.

Zennstrom, who retains faint traces of a Swedish accent despite his years of globetrotting, is looking for start-ups ready to shift up a gear into new markets and has the experience, gained from growing Skype into a service used by millions around the world, to help them.

Skype was sold to eBay Inc in 2005 for roughly $ 3 billion, before being bought back by a consortium including Zennstrom in 2009 and then two years later sold on to Microsoft Corp for $ 8.5 billion, leaving him a multi-millionaire.

“If you have a product that works it’s important to scale (up) the business as quickly as possible,” said Zennstrom, named by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of its 100 most influential people. “As entrepreneurs, usually you may not have that experience; how does Asia work? Europe? Latin America?”

Atomico, founded by Zennstrom in 2006, has invested in companies in northern Europe including Finland-based Rovio, developer of Angry Birds, and Hailo, a London-based startup that has developed an app that connects passengers with taxi drivers and has raised $ 20 million so far.

It also led a $ 105 million funding round for U.S. online retailer Fab in July.

FUTURE PORTFOLIO

The investment fund, whose London office reception is decked out with simple designer furniture and modern art pieces, has opened offices in Turkey and Brazil, emerging markets with growing middle classes eager to shop online and buy internet services.

Zennstrom wants to make these markets a large part of Atomico’s portfolio in future.

The firm in 2011 backed Brazilian online retailers such as car parts supplier Connect Parts and announced a $ 16 million investment in a Russian online travel agency in October.

Atomico is not necessarily looking for the latest gizmo or internet trend, but savvy businesses with talented leaders who can take advantage of growth in nascent sectors such as e-commerce.

And Zennstrom, softly spoken and wearing an open-necked shirt and dark jacket, believes emerging market growth is fuelling a new breed of optimism and ambition.

“It’s a much more of an entrepreneurial spirit (in Turkey and Brazil) compared to southern European where it’s a depressed mindset,” he said.

Zennstrom earned his stripes in the tech world after helping launch file-sharing service Kazaa more than a decade ago, which failed as a business but paved the way for Skype.

He said getting investment today was far easier than when he was starting Skype. It took him a year to secure funding, whereas today the most talented entrepreneurs with the best ideas could take their pick of investors.

There is also increasing recognition that entrepreneurs might want to realize some of the value of their creations, something he said was lacking when Skype became successful.

“There was really no IPO market and it was not really accepted for founders to sell some of their shares to get some money off the table,” he said, adding that before Skype was sold to eBay, he could not even secure a mortgage on an apartment.

“I think we made the right decision for the time in terms of selling (Skype),” he said. “Today as an entrepreneur you have more options.”

(Editing by David Holmes)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Affleck, Argo win big at Critics' Choice Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hours after a surprise snub in Academy Award nominations, Ben Affleck won best director and his film "Argo" was named best picture at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards.

Affleck, whose film was nominated for seven Oscars including best picture but not best director, accepted the award Thursday night at the Broadcast Film Critics Association's 18th annual awards in Los Angeles, joking as he took the trophy that he'd "like to thank the Academy."

Daniel Day-Lewis from "Lincoln" and Jessica Chastain from "Zero Dark Thirty" both added to earlier Oscar nods with Critics' Choice wins in the top acting categories.

Philip Seymour Hoffman won best supporting actor for his role in "The Master" and Anne Hathaway won best supporting actor for "Les Miserables."

The ceremony was broadcast on the CW network.

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The night's winners:

Best Picture: Argo

Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Actress: Jessica Chastain

Supporting Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman

Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway

Young Actor/Actress - Quvenzhane Wallis

Acting Ensemble: Silver Linings Playbook

Director: Ben Affleck

Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino

Adapted Screenplay: Tony Kushner

Cinematography: Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi)

Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood/Katie Spencer (Anna Karenina)

Editing: William Goldenberg/Dylan Tichenor (Zero Dark Thirty)

Costume Design: Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina)

Makeup: Cloud Atlas

Visual Effects: Life of Pi

Animated Feature: Wreck-It Ralph

Action Movie: Skyfall

Actor in an Action Movie - Daniel Craig

Actress in an Action Movie - Jennifer Lawrence

Comedy - Silver Linings Playbook

Actor in a Comedy - Bradley Cooper

Actress in a Comedy - Jennifer Lawrence

Sci-Fi/Horror Movie - Looper

Foreign Language Film - Amour

Documentary Feature - Searching for Sugarman

Song - Skyfall

Score - John Williams

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Online:

www.criticschoice.com

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The New Old Age Blog: Taking a Zen Approach to Caregiving

You try to help your elderly father. Irritated and defensive, he snaps at you instead of going along with your suggestion. And you think “this is so unfair” and feel a rising tide of anger.

How to handle situations like this, which arise often and create so much angst for caregivers?

Jennifer Block finds the answer in what she calls “contemplative caregiving” — the application of Buddhist principles to caregiving and the subject of a year-long course that starts at the San Francisco Zen Center in a few weeks.

This approach aims to cultivate compassion, both for older people and the people they depend on, said Ms. Block, 49, a Buddhist chaplain and the course’s lead instructor. She’s also the former director of education at the Zen Hospice project in San Francisco and founder of the Beyond Measure School for Contemplative Care, which is helping develop a new, Zen-inspired senior living community in the area.

I caught up with Ms. Block recently, and what follows is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Let’s start with your experience. Have you been a caregiver?

My experience in caregiving is as a professional providing spiritual care to individuals and families when they are facing and coping with aging and sickness and loss and dying, particularly in hospital and hospice settings.

What kinds of challenges have you witnessed?

People are for the most part unprepared for caregiving. They’re either untrained or unable to trust their own instincts. They lack confidence as well as knowledge. By confidence, I mean understanding and accepting that we don’t know all the answers – what to do, how to fix things.

This past weekend, I was on the phone with a woman who’d brought her mom to live near her in assisted living. The mom had been to the hospital the day before. My conversation with the daughter was about helping her see the truth that her mother needed more care and that was going to change the daughter’s responsibilities and her life. And also, her mother was frail, elderly, and coming nearer to death.

That’s hard, isn’t it?

Yes, because we live in a death-denying society. Also, we live in a fast-paced, demanding world that says don’t sit still — do something. But people receiving care often need most of all for us to spend time with them. When we do that, their mortality and our grief and our helplessness becomes closer to us and more apparent.

How can contemplative caregiving help?

We teach people to cultivate a relationship with aging, sickness and dying. To turn toward it rather than turning away, and to pay close attention. Most people don’t want to do this.

A person needs training to face what is difficult in oneself and in others. There are spiritual muscles we need to develop, just like we develop physical muscles in a gym. Also, the mind needs to be trained to be responsive instead of reactive.

What does that mean?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re trying to help your mother, and she says something off-putting to you like “you’ve always been terrible at keeping house. It’s no wonder you lost my pajamas.”

The first thing is to notice your experience. To become aware of that feeling, almost like being slapped emotionally. To notice your chest tightening.

Then I tell people to take a deep breath. And say something to themselves like “soften” to address that tightness. That’s how you can stay facing something uncomfortable rather than turning away.

If I were in this position, I might say something to myself like “hello unhappiness” or “hello suffering” or “hello aging” to tether myself.

The second step would be curiosity about that experience. Like, wow, where do I feel that anger that rose up in me, or that fear? Oh, it’s in my chest. I’m going to feel that, stay with it, investigate it.

Why is that important?

Because as we investigate something we come to understand it. And, paradoxically, when we pay attention to pain it changes. It softens. It moves. It lessens. It deepens. And we get to know it and learn not to be afraid of it or change it or fix it but just come alongside of it.

Over hours, days, months, years, the mind and heart come to know pain. And the response to pain is compassion — the wish for the alleviation of pain.

Let’s go back to what mother said about your housekeeping and the pajamas. Maybe you leave the room for five minutes so you can pay attention to your reaction and remember your training. Then, you can go back in and have a response rather than a reaction. Maybe something like “Mom, I think you’re right. I may not be the world’s best housekeeper. I’m sorry I lost your pajamas. It seems like you’re having a pretty strong response to that, and I’d like to know why it matters so much to you. What’s happening with you today?”

Are other skills important?

Another skill is to become aware of how much we receive as well as give in caregiving. Caregiving can be really gratifying. It’s an expression of our values and identity: the way we want the world to be. So, I try to teach people how this role benefits them. Such as learning what it’s like to be old. Or having a close, intimate relationship with an older parent for the first time in decades. It isn’t necessarily pleasant or easy. But the alternative is missing someone’s final chapter, and that can be a real loss.

What will you do in your course?

We’ll teach the principles of contemplative care and discuss them. We’ll have homework, such as ‘Bring me three examples of someone you were caring for who was caring toward you in return.’ That’s one way of practicing attention. And people will train in meditation.

We’ll also explore our own relationship to aging, sickness, dying and loss. We’ll tell our stories: this is the situation I was in, this is where I felt myself shut down, this was the edge of my comfort or knowledge. And we’ll teach principles from Buddhism. Equanimity. Compassion. Deep inner connectedness.

What can people do on their own?

Mindfulness training is offered in almost every city. That’s one of the core components of this approach.

I think every caregiver needs to have their own caregiver — a therapist or a colleague or a friend, someone who is there for them and with whom they can unburden themselves. I think of caregiving as drawing water from a well. We need to make sure that we have whatever nurtures us, whatever supplies that well. And often, that’s connecting with others.

Are other groups doing this kind of work?

In New York City, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care educates the public and professionals about contemplative care. And in New Mexico, the Upaya Zen Center does similar work, much of it centered around death and dying.

People who want to read about this might want to look at a new book of essays, “The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work” (Wisdom Publications, 2012).

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Official Urges Greater Accountability by Euro Members

BRUSSELS — Olli Rehn, the European Union commissioner in charge of the euro currency, on Friday defended the bloc’s austerity policies and urged legislators to pass a law that would let him push countries even harder to shore up their finances.

Signaling little let-up in the need for wrenching adjustments in Europe, Mr. Rehn also issued warnings to a wide range of countries — including some with the region’s largest economies — to keep to the reform path and contribute to overall growth.

France and Finland need to address their declining competitiveness while Germany should do more to open up its services market, Mr. Rehn told a meeting organized by the European Policy Center, a research group.

Meanwhile Cyprus, which is negotiating a European bailout, needs to ease suspicions its financial sector is a hub for money-laundering, he said.

Mr. Rehn acknowledged the value of recent studies by economists at the International Monetary Fund suggesting that damage created by austerity was up to three times more severe than previously thought. But Mr. Rehn also warned those studies may not take sufficient account of the need to restore faith in countries blocked from borrowing money on international markets.

“We have not only the quantifiable effect, which is something that the economists like to emphasize, but we also have the confidence effect,” said Mr. Rehn.

“What would have happened if Italy would have loosened its fiscal policy in November 2011?” he asked, referring to a period when Italy's borrowing costs were rocketing upwards. That situation threatened “both an economic crisis and political dead-end,” but recent reforms and belt-tightening had helped Italy’s economy to stabilize, he said.

Mr. Rehn said efforts were underway among the European Commission, the I.M.F. and the European Central Bank to reach a consensus on the impact of austerity policies.

Mr. Rehn also highlighted evidence showing that public debt levels in excess of 90 percent of Gross Domestic Product — a level in many parts of Europe — meant that economies were more likely to lack dynamism and to experience low growth lasting many years.

Underscoring the plight of Cyprus, the ratings agency Moody’s on Friday cut the country’s debt rating by three notches because of the capital needs of its banks that were heavily afflicted by an earlier debt write-down in Greece. Cypriot banks had invested heavily in Greek bonds, in large part to make use of money that had flooded into the banks by Russian depositors seeking a non-ruble haven.

In a sign of how difficult it will be to help Cyprus out of its financial black hole, Mr. Rehn gave no indications of when an assistance package would be finished. That package was still “very much a work in progress” and any decision would be made “in due course,” he said.

Cyprus still needed to implement "new laws against money laundering” as a precondition for aid, he said. Once “Cyprus reforms its financial sector in line with European principles, we will work alongside Cyprus as we did in Spain,” said Mr. Rehn. He was apparently referring to an agreement reached last year with the government in Madrid to extend tens of billions of euros in loans to restructure and recapitalize its banking sector.

Mr. Rehn also urged members of the European Parliament to speed up an agreement on fiscal legislation.

Those rules would require member states to present their public finance plans to the European Commission in greater detail, and sooner, than is currently required. The commission could then demand revisions, as deemed necessary. For member states that are already in financial trouble, those rules would let the commission conduct regularly scheduled reviews and require more information about a country’s financial sector than is currently the case.

The rules would give “stronger possibilities of pre-emptive oversight as to national budgets before they are finally presented to national parliaments” in order “to ensure that the member states practice what they preach,” said Mr. Rehn.

Failing to pass the law could invite a rerun of events in the middle of the past decade, when Germany and France essentially ignored their deficit-cap provisions, contributing to the current debt-crisis in Europe, warned Mr. Rehn.

“It’s a very serious issue,” he said.

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AUTO EGO

Vacation, ’60s Style

Joe Mamola of Wyckoff, N.J., has brought “Station Wagon Living” into the 21st century with his 1964 Ford Fairlane 500 Ranch Wagon.

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Netflix announces ‘Super HD’ and 3D streaming for select ISPs

Netflix (NFLX) on Tuesday announced new enhanced streaming options for users on select ISPs. Following a series of rumors that suggested as much, Netflix has confirmed the availability of “Super HD” streaming — which is simply Netflix’s branding for 1080p content — and 3D video streaming. Both services are available immediately with a huge caveat: only Netflix subscribers with Cablevision or Google Fiber Internet service have access to the new content. For those lucky subscribers, Super HD and 3D content is accessible using a number of devices including the Wii U, compatible Roku players, the Apple TV, Windows 8 PCs and select smart TVs and Blu-ray players. Netflix’s full press release follows below.

Netflix “Open Connect” Delivery Network Gains Widespread Global Acceptance
Cablevision Most Recent Major Provider to Join Open Connect
New Super HD and 3D Video Formats Available on Open Connect

[More from BGR: Apple’s next iPhone to reportedly feature larger screen and ‘brand new exterior design’]

Jan 8, 2013

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Netflix Open Connect, the single purpose video content delivery network launched last year, is now delivering the majority of Netflix international traffic and is growing at a rapid pace in the domestic market.

In early 2012 Netflix began enabling Internet service providers (ISPs) to receive, at no cost to them, Netflix video directly at the interconnection point of the ISP’s choice. By connecting directly through Open Connect, ISPs can more effectively manage their networks and more efficiently deliver Internet services to consumers, including the more than 1 billion hours of Netflix TV shows and movies consumers watch every month.

Netflix Open Connect is now widely deployed around the world, serving the vast majority of Netflix video in Europe, Canada and Latin America, and a growing proportion in the U.S., where Netflix has over 25 million streaming members.

“Leading-edge ISPs around the world such as Cablevision, Virgin Media, British Telecom, Telmex, Telus, TDC, GVT, among many others, are already participating in Open Connect to provide the highest-possible quality Netflix service to consumers,” said Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings. “Our goal is to have all of our members served by Open Connect as soon as possible.”

“Optimum is committed to providing the highest-quality TV, phone and Internet to our customers, and our new partnership with Netflix supports this critical objective,” said James L. Dolan, president and CEO of Cablevision, the most recent major provider to join Open Connect. “With Open Connect, we are establishing a direct local connection with Netflix that delivers a higher-quality Netflix viewing experience for Optimum customers than Verizon or AT&T can provide, including access to new Netflix Super HD and 3D TV shows and movies.”

Netflix Super HD and 3D

Now available through Open Connect partners, Netflix Super HD is the highest quality video format offered by Netflix, providing an even better picture on 1080p HDTVs.

In the U.S., Netflix is also for the first time offering a small number of titles streaming in 3D through Open Connect partners. Available for 3D viewing are, among other titles, the action fantasy drama “Immortals,” Red Bull Media House’s snowboarding documentary “The Art of Flight,” and a number of titles from the Discovery/Sony/Imax joint venture 3net Studios – including the native, original 3D series “African Wild,” “Scary Tales,” and “Live Fire.” Depending on member demand, Netflix will consider adding 3D titles and expanding availability to international markets.

“These new Super HD and 3D formats are more challenging to deliver than our other video streams, which is why we will deliver them through Open Connect,” said Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery at Netflix. “Any ISP that wants to be able to deliver our new formats can do so easily and for free.”

Netflix members can verify if their ISP is part of Open Connect and provides access to Netflix Super HD and, in the U.S. only, 3D on this Web site: http://www.netflix.com/superhd

ISPs that are not yet on Open Connect can contact Netflix at openconnect.netflix.com to start their Open Connect relationship. As part of Open Connect, Netflix is also sharing its hardware design and the open source software components. These designs are suitable for any other provider of large media files and are very cost efficient.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mass. charge against Gene Shalit to be dismissed

GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. (AP) — A misdemeanor driving charge against retired television movie critic Gene Shalit is set to be dismissed in Massachusetts.

The 86-year-old Shalit was cited in October after his vehicle struck a utility pole and came to rest against a house in Lenox, in western Massachusetts. Shalit, who lives in nearby Stockbridge, wasn't hurt. He told police he fell asleep.

The agreement between police and Shalit's lawyer was approved during a probable cause hearing Wednesday in Southern Berkshire District Court. The hearing was continued to April 2, when the driving to endanger charge will be dismissed.

Shalit's lawyer tells The Berkshire Eagle (http://bit.ly/VL5eMe ) his client won't drive until the next hearing, at which time his driving status will be re-assessed.

Shalit, known for his bushy hair and mustache, reviewed movies for NBC's "Today" show from 1973 until 2010.

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Information from: The Berkshire (Mass.) Eagle, http://www.berkshireeagle.com

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