Obama vows ‘much tougher’ stance on US-China trade

President Barack Obama says he will be much tougher with China to make sure it opens its markets to trade with the US.

Mr Obama told Democratic Party senators that he would put “constant pressure” on China and other countries to stick to their side of trade agreements.

But he said he did not intend to take a protectionist stance towards China, warning that “to close ourselves off from that market would be a mistake”.

Tension between the US and China has increased over arms sales to Taiwan.

Relations have also been strained by reports of Chinese cyber attacks on US-run websites and a planned visit to the US by the Dalai Lama.
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Google mystery server runs 13% of active websites

The Google Web Server – custom-built server software used only by Google – now runs nearly 13 per cent of all active web sites, according to the latest survey data from the web-server-tracking UK research outfit Netcraft.

Netcraft data has the Google Web Server (GWS) running nearly 11 million active sites – i.e., sites with recently updated content. This total includes not only sites run solely by Google, but also sites the company operates on behalf of third parties via services like Blogger, Google Docs, and Google App Engine.

Apache is still the most prevalent web server, with nearly 44m active sites, and Microsoft servers are second with nearly 14m. But the Google Web Server tops all others and trails Microsoft by a mere 3m sites – despite being unavailable for use outside what Mountain View has called “the Google Network,” a worldwide proprietary infrastructure that amounts to a private internet.

Apache and Microsoft servers are available to anyone.

Google does not discuss GWS. In the past, some reports have indicated that it’s based on Apache. But in a 2007 web post, über Googler Matt Cutts indicated otherwise. “That’s not correct,” he wrote. “I believe GWS is a custom web server, not a modified version of Apache.”
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Microsoft’s IE 8 misses Windows 7 updraft

Internet Explorer has continued its gentle drift southwards, having missed any boost from last year’s release of IE 8 and the sales onslaught behind Windows 7.

Meanwhile, rival Firefox saw its forward market-share march apparently halted by continued uptake of Google’s Chrome for the month of January.

Netmarketshare numbers for January 2009 reveal that Microsoft’s browser has lost more than seven per cent market share compared a year ago, taking it to a new low of 62.12 per cent for all versions of IE. The browser is also down from 62.69 per cent in December 2009.

IE 8, released in March 2009, has 22.37 per cent market share, just inching past the browser-that-won’t die, IE 6, on 20 per cent. While it was crowing about IE’s growth and overlooking the market share decline, Microsoft repeated past calls for customers to abandon IE 6.
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Japan Orders Toyota to Investigate Complaints Over Prius Brakes

NAGOYA, JAPAN — The Japanese government said Wednesday that it has ordered Toyota to investigate a possible defect in its new Prius hybrid model after receiving 14 reports of brake trouble, another blow for an automaker already embroiled in its biggest-ever recall.

Drivers complained that the brakes on Toyota’s newest Prius momentarily stopped working at low speeds, especially on slippery surfaces, said Kenji Sato, a Transport Ministry official in charge of recall policy.

In one incident in July 2009, a new Prius crashed head on into another vehicle at an intersection, hurting two people in that car. Ten of the 14 complaints about the new Prius, which went on sale in Japan in May, came in January.

A Toyota spokesman, Takanori Yokoi, said dealers in North America and Japan had received “several tens” of reports from customers who said their Priuses had “braked insufficiently” on bumpy or frozen roads.

The automaker is still investigating and is not in a position to release more details, including whether a recall will be necessary, Mr. Yokoi said.
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Oscars could see David vs. Goliath battle

(CNN) — “Avatar,” watch your back. You too, Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep.

Though Oscar watchers say there were few surprises among the nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards, some of the selections indicate a growing respect among Oscar voters for certain films and nominees, making them odds-on favorites (or at least galloping dark horses) when the winners are announced March 7.

Chief among them is “The Blind Side,” the film about a homeless African-American teen taken in by an upscale white family. Sandra Bullock’s nomination for best actress was expected — she’s already won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance — but the film’s inclusion among the best picture nominees was not, said longtime Oscar pundit Tom O’Neil, writer for the Los Angeles Times’ TheEnvelope.com.

“The only real shockeroo in the nominations was the inclusion of ‘The Blind Side’ for best picture,” he said. “That literally blindsided the pundits, who thought that would go to ‘Invictus’ or ‘The Hangover’ or ‘Star Trek.’ ”
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‘Internet addiction’ linked to depression, says study

There is a strong link between heavy internet use and depression, UK psychologists have said.

The study, reported in the journal Psychopathology, found 1.2% of people surveyed were “internet addicts”, and many of these were depressed.

The Leeds University team stressed they could not say one necessarily caused the other, and that most internet users did not suffer mental health problems.

The conclusions were based on 1,319 responses to an on-line questionnaire.

Recruitment was via links on social networking sites. People were asked how much they used the internet and for what purposes.

They were also asked a series of questions to assess whether they suffered from depression.
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Obama firm on Dalai Lama meeting despite China warning

US President Barack Obama intends to go ahead with plans to meet the Dalai Lama despite warnings from China not to, a White House spokesman has said.

Mr Obama told China’s leaders last year in Beijing that he would meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader, White House spokesman Bill Burton said.

China has warned that ties with the US would be undermined if the meeting takes place.

No date has been set but it is expected to take place later this month.

“The president told China’s leaders during his trip last year that he would meet with the Dalai Lama and he intends to do so,” White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters.

“The Dalai Lama is an internationally respected religious and cultural leader and the president will meet with him in that capacity,” he said.

The comments came after Communist Party official Zhu Weiqun said such a meeting would “threaten trust and co-operation” between Beijing and Washington.
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People are quicker when reacting that when initiating

Inspired by Hollywood cowboy films, researchers have delved into the science of gun fights.

Scientists discovered that people move faster when reacting to something than when they perform “planned actions”.

In a gun-free experiment, described in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they studied the speed of these two types of movement.

The work aims to answer why the first to draw his gun in a shoot-out was often the one to get shot.

But, as well as unpicking some of the mythology of the American West, the scientists say their results may be useful for diagnosing and helping people with Parkinson’s disease.

Pairs of participants were put in a button-pressing competition with each other. Each was secretly given instructions of how long to wait before pushing a row of buttons.

“There was no ‘go’ signal,” said Dr Andrew Welchman from the University of Birmingham, who led the research.
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Singapore air show offers scant sales hopes

Military aircraft makers are set to dominate Asia’s largest air show in Singapore this week.

Few, if any, sales of planes to commercial airlines are expected during the event.

But the Asia Pacific region is experiencing a return to growth that should prove lucrative going forward.

So aircraft and equipment makers such as Boeing, EADS, Airbus, as well as Honeywell, Rolls-Royce and Lockheed Martin, are exhibiting at the show.

Attendance and deal-making at the Singapore air show, which is hosted in the east of the city state near Changi airport, will indicate the state of the aerospace industry.

“We’re slowly turning things around,” Jimmy Lau, managing director of the Singapore Air Show, told a news conference.

“Any news is good news this week, as far as I’m concerned.”
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Catcher in the Rye author Salinger dead

Reclusive author JD Salinger, who has died aged 91, was a giant of American literature whose seminal novel, The Catcher in the Rye, lent a voice to the angst and despair felt by generations of rebellious adolescents.

One of the most admired and influential US writers following the success of his 1951 novel and its laconic anti-hero, Holden Caulfield, Salinger published nothing after 1965 and had not been interviewed since 1980.

The author died on Wednesday at his home in New Hampshire, the Harold Ober Associates agency said on Thursday. The cause of death was not announced.

Mystery surrounded much of the last five decades of his life. After being overwhelmed by his new fame, Salinger withdrew from public life, retreating to his house perched on a tree-blanketed hill in the small town of Cornish, New Hampshire.

Memoirs written by his daughter and a former lover affirmed that Salinger still wrote, but there has been no sign of any new book despite the entreaties of his legions of fans.
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