Today Amazon locked up the Android ecosystem

 

I have been shouting from the rooftops, well the blog pages, that Amazon is poised to become a disruptor in the mobile space. The company has its own ecosystem that can compete nicely with that of Apple, and today with the launch of Cloud Drive and Cloud Player Amazon is quietly merging it with that of Android. It’s actually bumping out the Android system with its own, truth be told.

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In 2015: Android first, Windows Phone second, iPhone third

Smartphone vendors will ship more than 450 million smartphones in 2011 compared to the 303.4 million units shipped in 2010. Furthermore, the smartphone market will grow more than four times faster than the overall mobile phone market: 49.2 percent in 2011 as more consumers and enterprise users turn in their feature phones for smartphones, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

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Safety agency fails to investigate crib bumper cases

Yet group is trying to decide if the popular nursery product poses suffocation risks

Michelle Bobinski's infant son, Tyler Baker, died in 2007. The Wenona, Ill., boy was found at his sitter's home with his face in a crib bumper pad. “I’d never heard about a child suffocating on anything in a crib,” Bobinski said. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / March 29, 2011)

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The nanny checked on Madison Morr twice during her afternoon nap. The second time, Madison's skin was blue — her face was pressed against the bumper pad that lined the inside of her crib.

A medical examiner found the 5-month-old baby had suffocated, and federal regulators received a death certificate that said she had been trapped against padding in the corner of the crib.

Yet those regulators never examined whether Madison's death involved an unsafe product.

The baby's death in 2006 is one of at least 17 cases where the Consumer Product Safety Commission did not investigate a child's death, even though the agency had reports on file suggesting bumper pads played roles in the fatalities, the Tribune found.

The Tribune looked into some of the cases and found that medical examiners and coroners said bumper pads were involved in the suffocations.

Now the safety agency is in the midst of trying to decide if the popular nursery products are safe, yet is doing so without having investigated all deaths that involved bumpers, which tie around crib slats.

The agency has been hesitant to take a stand on the products' safety despite warnings from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups urging parents not to use bumpers because they present a suffocation risk.

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Potential H1N1 "Swine Flu" Vírus Outbreak Concern On US-Mexico Border

At least three people have died while infected with theH1N1 flu virus, also known asSwine Flu in El Paso, USA and Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, officials have announced. Information regarding one of the patients, a 76-year-old male, indicates that the virus was a secondary factor in his death in February; he had several health problems already.

Fernando Gonzalez, an epidemiologist for El Paso Department of Health, stressed there is no reason for alarm, while at the same time assuring people that the authorities are taking this investigation seriously.

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Enrique Iglesias won't join Britney Spears on tour

NEW YORK (AP) — Enrique Iglesias won't be joining Britney Spears on an upcoming tour despite her announcement that he would.

Spears said Tuesday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America" that the pair would be hitting the road together.

Iglesias representative Gary Mantoosh said later in a statement to The Associated Press his client and Spears won't tour "despite initial reports based on formal discussions of the possible run."

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Finally, California Finds a Surplus: 50 Feet of Snow

David McNew/Getty Images

A field near Bakersfield, Calif., in 2008, part of a three-year drought. Wetter weather has arrived.

SAN FRANCISCO — Sure, fine, California may have its problems right now. There is the budget, yes, what with that pesky $26.5 billion deficit, and the legislative stalemate with its, you know, stalemate-ness. Unemployment is still high, and so is anxiety, about everything from housing prices to radioactive clouds drifting over from Japan.

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Washington Debates Idea of Arming Libyan Rebels

This article is by Mark Landler, Elisabeth Bumiller and Steven Lee Myers..

Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press

A Libyan rebel urged people to leave as government forces shelled an area near Bin Jawad in northern Libya on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is engaged in a fierce debate over whether to supply weapons to the rebels in Libya, senior officials said on Tuesday, with some fearful that providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war and that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda.

The debate has drawn in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, these officials said, and has prompted an urgent call for intelligence about a ragtag band of rebels who are waging a town-by-town battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from a base in eastern Libya long suspected of supplying terrorist recruits.

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