Subway Push Murder Suspect Implicated Self: Police

A suspect believed to be responsible for throwing a man into the path of an oncoming New York City subway train who was taken into custody today has made statements implicating himself, police said.

According to Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne, the suspect has been questioned by police since at least early afternoon and while the suspect is in police custody, he has not been officially charged.

Police are continuing to question the suspect and more lineups have been scheduled for tomorrow, Browne said.

Police have not released the suspect's name but began questioning him Tuesday afternoon about the death of Ki-Suck Han, 58, of Queens, N.Y.

Han was tossed onto the subway track at 49th Street and Seventh Avenue around 12:30 p.m. Monday after Han confronted a mumbling man who was alarming other passengers on the train platform. Han tried to scramble back onto the platform, but was crushed by an oncoming train.

The suspect fled the station, prompting a police dragnet for a man described by witnesses and see on surveillance video as a 6-foot-tall, 200-pound black man wearing dreadlocks in his hair.

Witnesses tried to revive the victim after he was hit and provided descriptions of the suspect to police.

Dr. Laura Kaplan, medical resident at Beth Israel Medical Center who was standing on the platform during the incident rushed to give Han aid after he was hit, she said in a statement released by her medical practice today.

New York Police Department

Bystanders Pull Mom, Son From Subway Tracks Watch Video

"A security guard and I performed 3-4 minutes of chest compressions. I hope the family may find some comfort in knowing about the kindness of these good Samaritans, as they endure this terrible loss," Kaplan said.

"I would like the family to know that many people in the station tried to help Mr. Han by alerting the subway personnel," she said.

Kaplan said she wanted to console the family of Han, who she called "a brave man trying to protect other passengers that he did not know."

The suspect had reportedly been mumbling to himself and disturbing other passengers, according to ABC News affiliate WABC. Police told WABC that the suspect could be mentally disturbed.

The suspect could be heard arguing with Han just moments before he hurled Han onto the track bed, according to surveillance video released by the police. The suspect is heard telling the victim to stand in line and "wait for the R train."

A freelance photographer for the New York Post was on the platform and said he ran towards the train flashing his camera hoping to alert the train to stop in time, but the train caught Han against the shoulder deep platform wall.

The photographer, R. Umar Abbasi, caught an eerie photo of Han with his head and arms above the platform and staring at the oncoming train.

Han was treated by EMS workers on the platform for traumatic arrest and rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to the Fire Department of New York.

"I just heard people yelling. The train came to an abrupt stop about three-quarters into the station and that's when I heard a man was hit by a train," Patrick Gomez told ABC News affiliate WABC.

Police set up a command post outside the train station Monday night searching nearby surveillance cameras to try and get a clear image of the suspect, reports WABC. They said Tuesday that the investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.

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2012 Flash Fiction shortlist: S3xD0ll

Each day this week we will run one of the shortlisted stories from our 2012 Fash Fiction competition. Look for the winning piece in our end-of-year issue - on news stands 22 December. The first story went up yesterday: below is the second of the five.

What our judge Alice LaPlante had to say:

Witty and structurally sophisticated, this piece also exploited tension in a way that kept readers on their toes.

S3xD0ll

By Kevlin Henney

Trouble. Big trouble. Big luscious lips and deep sensual eyes, staring at me. Big, deep and up-to-my-neck-in-it trouble.

Cath is due back any minute. Enough time to contrive an apology, but not enough to undo this mess.

"Don't spend all morning surfing dodgy sites." She winked as she headed for the door. "You need to buy milk and something for dinner. Speaking of surfing, don't forget to renew the firewall and anti-virus subscription; it expired yesterday. I'll be back at two to print out my portfolio."

I should have got my act together and headed out to the shops immediately, renewing the subscription on my return, rewarding myself with a coffee. The rest of the day would have been mine to squander. Should have... but as the door closed, my subconscious had already prioritised surfing with coffee over shopping and subscription renewal.

OK, I'll admit I may have looked at some sites that had nothing to do with my thesis write-up... including a couple that didn't involve pictures of cats. I was tempted to renew the subscription as further procrastination, but it was midday and the high street would be busy, getting busier.

Well, I've just renewed the sub and scanned and fixed the PC, but that's locking the barn door after the horse has bolted and the printer cartridges have emptied. How was I to know one of those sites had the S3xD0ll virus?

When I got back from the shops I thought Cath had returned early because the printer was chuntering away in the background. Cheap 3D printers have knocked the low end out of the consumer products market, with open-sourced and pirated designs online further squeezing the product designer jobs market. Cath, however, has secured an interview and she was going to print out some of her work to take along. In preparation she'd bought litres of plastic and metal powders... now used up. In their place I have a life-sized animatronic sex doll to explain away. Big luscious lips and deep sensual eyes, staring at me with preprogrammed expectation.

And that's the front door.

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Congratulations pour in for William and Kate's pregnancy

LONDON: Messages of congratulations poured in from around the world on Tuesday on news that Prince William's wife Kate is pregnant, as she spent a second day in hospital suffering from acute morning sickness.

The announcement on Monday that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, both 30, are expecting their first child ended feverish speculation about a new royal heir that began immediately after their lavish wedding in April 2011.

The child, to be born next summer, will be third in line to the throne regardless of whether it is a girl or a boy, after a historic agreement among Commonwealth countries last year to end the practice of male primogeniture.

St James' Palace said Kate was still at the "very early stages" of pregnancy -- she is believed to be less than 12 weeks -- but it is thought the news was released because her admission to hospital would have made her condition public.

Kate has hyperemesis gravidarum, a very acute form of morning sickness which affects 3.5 in every 1,000 pregnant women.

Although it is not dangerous for the baby, it can be highly unpleasant for the mother as it causes severe vomiting and carries a danger of dehydration and nutritional deficiencies.

William, the second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, was at his wife's bedside at the private King Edward VII hospital in central London on Monday.

He left without a comment or even a smile for the banks of waiting cameras, although his wife is expected to remain in hospital for several days.

There was reportedly a rush to inform members of the royal family of the news before the public announcement on Monday.

Queen Elizabeth II, her husband Prince Philip, Prince Charles -- for whom this is his first grandchild -- and his wife Camilla were said by the palace to be "delighted with the news", as were Kate's parents, Carole and Michael Middleton.

William's brother Prince Harry, 28, who will be bumped down a place in the line of succession by the new arrival, was reportedly informed by email in Afghanistan, where he is deployed as an Apache helicopter pilot.

The palace said the couple only "recently" became aware that Kate was pregnant although there has been speculation for months, fuelled by images of the duchess sipping water instead of wine at official dinners.

She showed no sign of being ill at a public engagement on Friday, however, when she showed off her hockey skills at her old primary school in high-heeled boots and an Alexander McQueen tartan coat.

All her public engagements for the coming weeks have been cancelled.

News of the pregnancy sparked huge excitement in the British press, although it was tempered with concern about Kate's condition, as well as messages of goodwill from around the world.

Prime Minister David Cameron, a father of four who was informed a short time before the public announcement, led the congratulations by saying the royal couple would make "wonderful parents".

US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, who met William and Kate during a state visit to Britain last year, sent their congratulations on the "welcome news", the White House said.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the news "is going to bring joy to many around the world", while her New Zealand counterpart John Key said the news was "fabulous".

New Zealand had led a push for Commonwealth nations to scrap centuries-old laws barring first-born daughters from inheriting the throne and the grouping agreed to the reform last year at a meeting in the Australian city of Perth.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg confirmed on Monday that the government was putting "the finishing touches" to legislation enshrining the new rules of succession, something he said was a "big, big change".

The Sun celebrated the news on Tuesday with the headline "Kate Expectations" while The Daily Telegraph said the news was cause for national celebration.

"Who would not be delighted at the prospect of a mother's first child, especially a mother who has won affection with her natural beauty and straightforward character?" said its editorial.

Kate, a "commoner" whose parents are self-made millionaires from a party supplies business, met William at St Andrews University in Scotland in 2001.

- AFP/jc

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Nest CEO Fadell: Internet of things is a decade away

Tony Fadell, CEO and founder of Nest Labs, speaking at LeWeb 2012.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

PARIS -- It will take 10 years before the "Internet of things" catches on widely, said Nest Labs Chief Executive Tony Fadell, whose smart-thermostat startup embodies the technology.

"People think there's this Internet of all kinds of crazy devices that are going to talk to each other. It's going to take some time," Fadell said at the LeWeb show here. "Give it five or eight years and then you'll see machines talking to machines. Then it'll be commonplace in ten years or so."

The Internet of things is the idea that networked computing will spread far beyond today's computers and smartphones to things like refrigerators, light bulbs, traffic lights, and really just about anything. It's a real phenomenon, but it's not clear yet how far it will extend beyond straightforward devices like
cars to sci-fi scenarios like bloodstream nanobots.

Fadell, of course, believes the thermostat is ready to plug into the Internet of things, enabling people to control it remotely and for it to tap into weather reports. Nest announced its second-generation thermostat in October, a slimmer model Fadell hopes will find a foothold in a large market.

"The thermostat market is larger than stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, and they're such an energy consumer," with home heating and cooling using more than half of a house's energy, he said. "Nobody has innovated it for 20 or 30 years."

Fadell, "father of the iPod," during his days at Apple, has tried to bring some of his former employer's design sensibility and obsessive customer focus to the thermostat business. And it's brought some of Apple's secrecy, too.

"A startup is about being fast, stealthy, and being ready to sell it right when people are ready to buy it," Fadell said. "That secrecy makes people excited when it comes out" -- which is especially useful with something as mundane as a thermostat.

Asked his opinion about Google's networked eyewear, Project Glass, Fadell said, "It's the next logical extent" for mobile computing, something he believes will be connected to a mobile phone rather than a standalone computing device.

He's intrigued but not yet convinced of its merits, saying it's not clear whether it's transformative technology like the iPhone or arriving before the market is ready for it. And it's got a social hurdle to overcome.

"I'm still getting used to somebody talking to me wearing it," Fadell said.

Though enthusiastic about launching a startup, he was leery of one particular mechanism popular today, Kickstarter. That site ltes interested potential customers directly fund new ideas.

"I'm very positive on kickstarter to find the audience for books and things easier to produce," Fadell said. However, "the hardware things are difficult, and you have to look at how hard they are to produce to see if they're going to come to light. It's when it goes to the mass public, and the mass public demands they have the product and they don't receive it, that's the bad part."

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Mars Rover Detects Simple Organic Compounds

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has detected several simple carbon-based organic compounds on Mars, but it remains unclear whether they were formed via Earthly contamination or whether they contain only elements indigenous to the planet.

Speaking at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting in San Francisco, Curiosity mission leaders also said that the compound perchlorate—identified previously in polar Mars—appeared to also be present in Gale Crater, the site of Curiosity's exploration.

The possible discovery of organics—or carbon-based compounds bonded to hydrogen, also called hydrocarbons—could have major implications for the mission's search for more complex organic material.

It would not necessarily mean that life exists now or ever existed on Mars, but it makes the possibility of Martian life—especially long ago when the planet was wetter and warmer—somewhat greater, since available carbon is considered to be so important to all known biology.

(See "Mars Curiosity Rover Finds Proof of Flowing Water—A First.")

The announcements came after several weeks of frenzied speculation about a "major discovery" by Curiosity on Mars. But project scientist John Grotzinger said that it remains too early to know whether Martian organics have been definitely discovered or if they're byproducts of contamination brought from Earth.

"When this data first came in, and then was confirmed in a second sample, we did have a hooting and hollering moment," he said.

"The enthusiasm we had was perhaps misunderstood. We're doing science at the pace of science, but news travels at a different speed."

Organics Detected Before on Mars

The organic compounds discovered—different combinations of carbon, hydrogen, and chlorine—are the same or similar to chlorinated organics detected in the mid-1970s by the Viking landers.

(Related: "Life on Mars Found by NASA's Viking Mission?")

At the time, the substances were written off as contamination brought from Earth, but now scientists know more about how the compounds could be formed on Mars. The big question remains whether the carbon found in the compounds is of Martian or Earthly origin.

Paul Mahaffy, the principal investigator of the instrument that may have found the simple organics—the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM)—said that while the findings were not "definitive," they were significant and would require a great deal of further study.

Mahaffy also said the discovery came as a surprise, since the soil sample involved was hardly a prime target in the organics search. In fact, the soil was scooped primarily to clean out the rover's mobile laboratory and soil-delivery systems.

Called Rocknest, the site is a collection of rocks with rippled sand around them—an environment not considered particularly promising for discovery. The Curiosity team has always thought it had a much better chance of finding the organics in clays and sulfate minerals known to be present at the base of Mount Sharp, located in the Gale Crater, where the rover will head early next year.

(See the Mars rover Curiosity's first color pictures.)

The rover has been at Rocknest for a month and has scooped sand and soil five times. It was the first site where virtually all the instruments on Curiosity were used, Grotzinger said, and all of them proved to be working well.

They also worked well in unison—with one instrument giving the surprising signal that the minerals in the soil were not all crystalline, which led to the intensive examination of the non-crystalline portion to see if it contained any organics.

Rover Team "Very Confident"

The simple organics detected by SAM were in the chloromethane family, which contains compounds that are sometimes used to clean electronic equipment. Because it was plausible that Viking could have brought the compounds to Mars as contamination, that conclusion was broadly accepted.

But in 2010, Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center and Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of the National Autonomous University of Mexico published an influential paper describing how dichloromethane can be a byproduct of the heating of other organic material in the presence of the compound perchlorate.

They conducted the experiment because NASA's Phoenix mission had discovered large amounts of perchlorate in the northern polar soil of Mars, and it seems plausible that it would exist elsewhere on the planet.

"In terms of the SAM results, there are two important conclusions," said McKay, a scientist on the SAM team.

"The first is confirming the perchlorate story—that it's most likely there and seems to react at high temperatures with organic material to form the dichloromethane and other simple organics."

"The second is that we'll have to either find organics without perchlorates nearby, or find a way to get around that perchlorate wall that keeps us from identifying organics," he said.

Another SAM researcher, Danny Glavin of Goddard, said his team is "very confident" about the reported detection of the hydrocarbons, and that they were produced in the rover's ovens. He said it is clear that the chlorine in the compounds is from Mars, but less clear about the carbon.

"We will figure out what's going on here," he said. "We have the instruments and we have the people. And whatever the final conclusions, we will have learned important things about Mars that we can use in the months ahead."

Author of the National Geographic e-book Mars Landing 2012, Marc Kaufman has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including the past 12 as a science and space writer, foreign correspondent, and editor for the Washington Post. He is also author of First Contact: Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, published in 2011, and has spoken extensively to crowds across the United States and abroad about astrobiology. He lives outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, Lynn Litterine.

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Kate's Illness Sometimes Linked to Twins

Hyperemesis gravidarum, the reason newly pregnant Kate Middleton is in the hospital, is a rare but acute morning sickness that results in weight loss and accounts for about 2 percent of all morning sickness, doctors say.

The condition is sometimes associated with women having twins, experts said.

Women diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum have lost 5 percent of their pre-pregnancy weight, or 10 pounds, said Dr. Ashley Roman, a professor and OB/GYN at New York University Langone Medical Center.

It poses little danger to the tiny heir, doctors said.

"It's traditionally thought that nausea and vomiting is a sign of a healthy pregnancy," Roman said

Dr. Nancy Cossler, an OB/GYN at University Hospitals in Ohio said the condition does not cause loss of pregnancy or birth defects, but it can be a torture to endure.

"The biggest problem with this is how it interferes with your life," Cossler said. "Constantly feeling sick and puking is difficult."

Click here to read about other women with hyperemesis gravidarum.

Hyperemesis gravidarum is thought to be caused by higher levels of the pregnancy hormone, hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, Cossler said. Extra hCG can often be brought on by carrying more than one fetus, she said.

Chris Jackson/AFP/Getty Images

Kate Middleton Pregnant, Admitted to Hospital Watch Video

Kate Middleton, Prince William Expecting Their First Child Watch Video

Prince William and Kate Middleton's Big News Watch Video

In other words, it could be a sign that Middleton is carrying twins. Although there's very little data on twins and hyperemesis gravidarum, one study showed that women carrying twins had a 7.5 percent higher risk of experiencing the acute morning sickness, Roman said.

The extreme morning sickness is usually diagnosed about nine weeks into the pregnancy, and in most cases resolves itself by 16 or 20 weeks, Roman said. In rare cases, it can last the whole pregnancy.

"As the pregnancy is in its very early stages, Her Royal Highness is expected to stay in hospital for several days and will require a period of rest thereafter," a statement from St. James Palace said. Prince William is at the hospital with Middleton, according to the Britain's Press Association.

Click here for photos of Kate through the years.

Roman said doctors prescribe vitamins and ginger capsules at first. If that doesn't stop the vomiting, they will prescribe antihistamines and stronger anti-nausea medications.

Women with hyperemesis gravidarum are also treated with fluids, said Dr. Jessica Young, an OB/GYN at Vanderbilt University. But if left untreated, a pregnant woman who is severely dehydrated for a long period of time could die, "just like any person," Young said.

In extreme cases in which the woman is losing weight and unable to eat, doctors will treat her with intravenous nutrition, Young said.

Hospital stays can vary, and women will often have to be admitted more than once before the condition passes, doctors said.

Hyperemesis gravidarum is somewhat mysterious because some expectant mothers have acute morning sickness during only one of their pregnancies, but have no morning sickness for subsequent pregnancies.

There is a chance that higher levels of hCG, which likely caused Middleton's nausea, could be a sign of a molar pregnancy instead of twins, Cossler said. This would mean Middleton is carrying only a benign growth in her uterus instead of a fetus, or she is carrying a fetus with abnormal DNA and a benign growth. Neither is considered a viable pregnancy.

However, Cossler said molar pregnancies become apparent early on, and doctors would already know whether Middleton had one.

"They would not have released this information," Cossler said of the birth announcement. "I'm certain that they have already eliminated both of those [types of molar pregnancies]."

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Elon Musk: Mars base will open the way to other stars

The SpaceX founder says he'd like to "die on Mars". Why the obsession with going to the Red Planet?

Why are you so keen to get humans to Mars?
Because this is the first time in 4 billion years of Earth's history that it has been possible. That window may be open for a long time - and I hope it is - but it may not be. We should take advantage just in case something bad happens. It wouldn't necessarily be that humanity gets eliminated; it could just be a drop in technology.

Why go to Mars, when advances in telepresent robotics could give us all the physical sensations of being there?
Maybe I'm just being romantic but I do think there is some value to being there in person. We can learn a lot from robotics but it is no substitute for being there. And having a base on Mars, where there is a lot of travel to and from Earth, will create a powerful incentive for developing technology that will enable us to travel to other star systems.

Like the exoplanet recently found in Alpha Centauri 4 light years away?
I think you could figure out how to get there. With a nuclear thermal rocket you could definitely reach a tenth of the speed of light. It would take 40 years, though, which is a long time. You'd have to start off not too old if you wanted to see it.

What could change that?
There are some interesting things I've seen lately about warp drives. You can't exceed the speed of light but you can warp space and effectively travel many times the speed of light. That's kind of exciting. People have found increasingly smarter ways of minimising the energy required [to warp space]. Before, you would need the mass-energy of Jupiter.

Is a warp drive something that SpaceX, your space exploration company, could use?
Sure we'd love to have a warp drive. I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

As a pioneer, is it nerve-wracking to know that the world is watching you and SpaceX?
I'm getting more comfortable with it. It was super-white knuckles in the beginning. We made many mistakes. We only made orbit on the fourth flight. We reached the edge of space on flights 2 and 3, but didn't have enough velocity. If flight 4 hadn't worked, it would have been curtains for SpaceX.

Your Dragon capsule has just returned cargo from the International Space Station. When will you start taking astronauts?
We're hoping to do our first flight with people in three years. Actually, if somebody were to stowaway on the present version of Dragon they'd be able to go to the space station and be fine.

Will you be on the first crewed flight?
It's really up to NASA, our customer. I used to do quite dangerous things, like flying a fighter jet at low altitude. Then I had kids and companies and I want to see them grow up, so I've curtailed my dangerous activities. I'd like to go up, but I won't be the first. The very first flight will be on automatic pilot, so there will be no people on board.

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

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SMRT says no further adjustments of pay for China bus drivers

SINGAPORE: SMRT will not make further adjustments to the salaries of its drivers from China, despite an illegal strike last week over pay and living conditions.

But it will look into the possibility of allowing its drivers to encash their unused leave.

This was the decision communicated to drivers by SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek at a townhall meeting on Monday morning.

Describing what has been a difficult week for everyone in SMRT, Mr Kuek said the management team is surprised and saddened that the situation had reached the point of an illegal strike.

He stressed that the existing compensation and contract terms are fair.

He also said SMRT reviews the salaries of its drivers regularly to keep pace with the market.

This year, it raised the starting pay of those who joined before July by $75, even though there's no contractual obligation to do so for short-term contract workers.

In mid-November, it decided on a second increment of $25 to their basic salary out of goodwill, backdated to July.

This is being communicated to the drivers and will be implemented in December.

Mr Kuek said the full monthly increase in salary from July 2012 would therefore be $100, and this will be implemented as planned.

With these increments, their starting pay is now $1,100.

He stressed that the remuneration package is fair and equitable, including transport, accommodation and utilities amounting to about $275 borne by the company.

Drivers from Malaysia, said Mr Kuek, are not provided accommodation by the company.

With many drivers clocking an average of 60 hours in overtime a month, their gross pay can reach $1,800 or more.

Addressing complaints from some drivers about misrepresentation by agents in China who had hired them, Mr Kuek said SMRT will raise this matter with the relevant agencies to investigate further.

He also urged drivers to use the right and proper channels of communication and feedback to voice their unhappiness.

SMRT, he said, acknowledged that its managers and supervisors down the line could have been more sensitive and responsive to the needs of drivers.

It will address this shortcoming with priority and is strengthening its staff communications and engagement.

Turning to the living conditions of the drivers, Mr Kuek said he visited the drivers' rooms and surroundings recently and agreed with them that things can be improved.

As for bed bugs, the dormitory rooms were fumigated last month and again last week.

Mr Kuek said this appears to be a more persistent problem and SMRT will continue to monitor and act on this.

- CNA/de

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Chrome gains a mobile foothold -- on Android only

The mobile browser market is more volatile than the PC browser market, but Apple consistently keeps the top spot. Chrome now accounts for more than 1 percent of mobile browser usage, Net Applications has found.

(Credit:
data from Net Applications; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Chrome has made a dent in the
mobile browser market -- but only on
Android so far.

Although Google released Chrome for iOS in June, the browser accounted for only 0.01 percent of browser usage on iOS in November, Net Applications' latest statistics show. On Android, it was 4.03 percent for the month, and in the mobile market overall, it reached 1.14 percent of usage.

Chrome is available only for Android devices running version 4.0 or later of the mobile operating system, which means most people can't use it even if they want to. On iOS, Chrome uses Apple's version of the WebKit rendering engine, as required by Apple rules, but wraps it with Google's user interface and other extras. Chrome is "exceptionally profitable" for Google because it drives search traffic and because Google doesn't have to share resulting ad revenue with other browser makers.

In that mobile market, Apple's
Safari continues to dominate with 61.5 percent of usage among people who visited the Web site that use Net Applications' analytics software. Android's unbranded browser has been rising through the second-place ranks, up to 26.1 percent of usage in November from 16.4 percent a year earlier.

Google's mobile-browser growth has come at the expense of the former No. 2, Opera Mini, which has plunged from 20.1 percent in November 2011 ago to 7.0 percent in November 2012. Opera Mini is popular on older-generation phones, but the Norwegian company is struggling to transfer that usage to modern smartphones. It's still ahead of Firefox, which doesn't even show in Net Applications' statistics, though Mozilla has begun pushing hard for influence in the mobile market.

Microsoft's IE leads the desktop browser market, with Chrome and Firefox jockeying for second place.

(Credit:
data from Net Applications; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Mobile browsing -- that done with smartphones and tablets -- now accounts for 10.4 percent of all browser usage. On personal computers, which was responsible for 89.3 percent of browser usage in November, the market is much more stable.

Here, Internet Explorer maintained its lead with 54.8 percent of usage. Second-place Firefox reclaimed a bit of lost ground lost in October to reach 20.4 percent in November. Chrome dropped to 17.2 percent; Safari and Opera were mostly level at 5.3 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

Mobile browser usage has surpassed a tenth of all browsing, according to Net Applications

(Credit:
data from Net Applications; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

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Photos: Kilauea Lava Reaches the Sea

• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Into the Sea

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  A spectacular natural phenomenon was on display early this week as lava from a vent in Hawaii's Kilauea volcano flowed into the ocean, sending up plumes of steam as it made contact with the waves.

  Though lava can still be viewed from Kalapana near the Big Island's Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, ocean entry is no longer occurring, according to the National Park Service.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Sea of Fire

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  The lava traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Kilauea’s Pu'u O'o vent to the ocean. When lava reaches the water, it cools and hardens, forming a lava delta that can be dangerous to nearby onlookers, according to Reuters.

  The news service reported that no communities on the Big Island were threatened by the lava flow.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Volcanic Flare

  
  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters
  

  A burst of volcanic activity erupts from Kilauea’s crater in Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park on November 27.

  The volcano has been erupting continuously for nearly 30 years. No major damage has been suffered by a town since 1986, according to Reuters.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Fiery Encounter

  Photograph by Hugh Gentry, Reuters

  “Ocean entries are beautiful but dangerous,” said Janet Babb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in a statement reported by Reuters. She warned that the steam could be more hazardous than it appears.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Point of Contact

  
  Photograph by Matt Northam, My Shot
  

  A plume of smoke billows where lava from Kilauea meets the sea in this aerial photo taken November 27.

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  











• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Photograph by Peter Vancoillie, Your Shot

  Published November 30, 2012

  
  

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}// end parseResults function

o.trim = function(str) {
return str.replace(/^\s\s*/, '').replace(/\s\s*$/, '');
}

o.doSearchPage = function(){
o.byID = false;

var tempSearch = window.location.search;
var searchTerms ="default";
var temp;

if( tempSearch.substr(0,7) == "?search"){
temp = tempSearch.substr(7).split("&");
searchTerms = temp[0];
} else {
temp = tempSearch.split("&");
for(var j=0;j 0){
o.getItemByID(o.defaultItems.shift());
} else if(o.isSearchPage){
o.doSearchPage();
} else {
o.doSearch();
}

}// end init function

}// end ecommerce object

var store_43331 = new ecommerce_43331();





store_43331.init();

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