NJ court requires subpoena for Internet subscriber records

By JEFFREY GOLD, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 2 minutes ago

NEWARK, N.J. - Internet service providers must not release personal information about users in New Jersey without a valid subpoena, even to police, the state's highest court ruled Monday.

New Jersey's Supreme Court found that the state's constitution gives greater protection against unreasonable searches and seizures than the U.S. Constitution.

The court ruled that Internet providers should not disclose private information to anyone without a subpoena.

A Washington lawyer who handles Internet litigation, Megan E. Gray, said the ruling "seems to be consistent with a trend nationwide, but not a strong trend."

"It's contrary to what is happening with rights of privacy at the federal level," Gray said. "But it's all over the board for the states, with a mild trend toward protecting this information."

The 7-0 ruling upheld lower court decisions that restricted police from obtaining the identity of a Cape May County woman accused of retaliating in 2004 against her boss after an argument by changing her employer's access codes to a supplier's Web site.

Police obtained the woman's identity through her Internet provider, Comcast Corp., by tracing an Internet fingerprint left by her computer. The fingerprint consisted of an Internet protocol address, often called an IP address, that could be identified only by Comcast.

Police obtained a subpoena for the data from a municipal court, but higher courts said a grand jury subpoena was necessary because an indictable offense was at issue.

Police must seek a criminal grand jury subpoena to get such information, the court found. And it said the woman's 2005 indictment on a charge of theft by computer cannot stand unless prosecutors have enough proof without the evidence, now suppressed, that they got from Comcast without having the right subpoena.

It was not immediately known how the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office will proceed. Prosecutor Robert L. Taylor did not return a message seeking comment.

Prosecutors can resume their pursuit of the information.

"Suppression under the circumstances present here does not mean that the evidence is lost in its entirety. Comcast's records existed independently of the faulty process the police followed," Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote for the unanimous court. "And, unlike a confession coerced from a defendant in violation of her constitutional rights, the record does not suggest that police conduct in this case in any way affected the records Comcast kept."

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On the Net:

Court ruling: http://tinyurl.com/5yyz25

Skype to sell unlimited international calls for $9.95/month

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Mon Apr 21, 12:02 PM ET

NEW YORK - Skype, the Internet calling subsidiary of eBay Inc., is introducing its first plan for unlimited calls to overseas phones on Monday

The plan will allow unlimited calls to land-line phones in 34 countries for $9.95 per month, said Don Albert, vice president and general manager for Skype North America.

The countries encompassed include most of Europe, plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Malaysia.

Calls to domestic land lines and cell phones are included as well, as are calls to cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore, but not cell phones in other countries.

Skype has already been selling unlimited calls to the U.S. and Canada for $3 a month. It is expanding that offering with another plan, for $5.95 per month, that gives free calls to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, and a discount on calls to other places in Mexico.

Skype is generally used as a software application running on a computer equipped with a microphone and speakers or a headset. But subscribers will also have the option to call a local number from their phones and be connected to international numbers that fall under their plan, paying only local access charges or using their cell-phone airtime.

Unlimited international calling plans have been popping up in recent years from hardware-based phone services like Vonage International Holdings Corp. and cable companies, but the prices are generally higher, and the plans are add-ons to basic calling plans that cost even more.

Skype said its subscribers called phones for 1.7 billion minutes in the first three months of the year, compared with 14.2 billion minutes used in computer-to-computer sessions, which are free.

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On the Net:

Skype: http://www.skype.com

Some rivets on Titanic were substandard

Some rivets on Titanic were substandard

The tragic sinking of the Titanic nearly a century ago can be blamed on low-grade rivets that the ship's builders used on some parts of the ill-fated liner, two experts on metals conclude in a new book. The company, Harland and Wolff of Belfast, Northern Ireland, needed to build the ship quickly and at reasonable cost, which may have compromised quality, said co-author Timothy Foecke. That the shipyard was building two other vessels at the same time added to the difficulty of getting the millions of rivets needed, he added. ''Under the pressure to get these ships up, they ramped up the riveters, found materials from additional suppliers, and some was not of quality,'' said Foecke, a metallurgist at the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology who has been studying the Titanic for a decade. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic, advertised as an ''unsinkable'' luxury liner, struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912 and went down in the North Atlantic less than three hours later. ''The company knowingly purchased weaker rivets, but I think they did it not knowing they would be purchasing something substandard enough that when they hit an iceberg their ship would sink,'' said co-author Jennifer Hooper McCarty, who started researching the Titanic's rivets while working on her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in 1999. The company disputes the idea that inferior rivets were at fault. The theory has been around for years, but McCarty and Foecke's book, ''What Really Sank the Titanic,'' published last month, outlines their extensive research into the Harland and Wolff archives and surviving rivets from the Titanic. McCarty spent two years in Britain studying the company's archives and works on the training and working conditions of shipyard workers. She and Foecke also studied engineering textbooks from the 1890s and early 1900s to learn more about shipbuilding practices and materials. ''I had the opportunity to study the metallurgy of several rivets,'' McCarty said. ''It was a process of taking thousands of images of the inside of these rivets, finding out what the structure was like, doing chemical testing and computer modeling.''Seeing the kind of levels we saw in different areas, in different parts of the ship led us to believe they would have been ordered from different people,'' she said, adding this may have led to the weaker rivets. The two metallurgists tested 48 rivets from the ship and found that slag concentrations were at 9 percent, when they should have been 2 to 3 percent. The slag is a byproduct of the smelting process. ''You need the slag but you need just a little to take up the load that's applied so the iron doesn't stretch,'' Foecke said. ''The iron becomes weak the more slag there is because the brittleness of the slag takes over and it breaks easily.'' Foecke said the main question was not whether the Titanic would sink after hitting the iceberg, but how fast the ship went down. He believes the answer is provided by the weak rivets. His analysis showed the builders used stronger steel rivets where they expected the greatest stress and weaker iron rivets for the stern and the bow, where they thought there would be less pressure, he said. But it was the ship's bow that struck the iceberg. ''Typically you want a four bar for rivets,'' Foecke said, using the measurement for the strongest rivets. ''Some of the orders were for three bar.'' Harland and Wolff spokesman Joris Minne disputed the findings. ''We always say there was nothing wrong with the Titanic when it left here,'' he said. When the iceberg hit the Titanic, it scraped alongside the ship. Foecke said this affected a number of seams in the bow and the weak rivets let go, putting more pressure on the strong rivets. ''Six compartments flooded. If the rivets were on average better quality, five compartments may have flooded and the ship would have stayed afloat longer and more people would have been saved,'' Foecke said. ''If four compartments flooded, the ship may have limped to Halifax.'' The company does not have an archivist, but it refers scientific questions on the Titanic to retired Harland and Wolff naval engineer David Livingstone, who also has researched the ship's sinking. He said he largely agrees with the authors' findings on the metallic composition of the rivets, but added their conclusions that the rivets were to blame for the sinking are ''misleading and incorrect'' because they do not consider the ship's overall desgn and the historical context. ''You can't just look at the material and say it was substandard,'' Livingstone said. ''Of course material from 100 years ago would be inferior to material today.'' He said he has found no document to support the argument that Harland and Wolff knowingly used substandard material. He pointed out that the Olympic, a ship the company built at the same time using the same materials, had a long life with no troubles. The third vessel turned out in the early 1900s was attacked and sunk in World War I. Livingstone said he is not sure why iron rivets were used in the bow and the stern but believes it may have been because a crane-mounted hydraulic rivet machine could not reach those points. He said the iron rivets were wider to compensate for the difference in strength. Contrary to Foecke's theory, Livingstone said, the Titanic did not go down fast compared to other ships that have sunk. He said the Titanic did not capsize _ as do most sinking ships _ but maintained an even keel until the last moment, going down after about 2 1/2 hours when the weight of the water it took on became too much. William Garzke, chairman of the forensics panel of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers based in New Jersey, said wrought iron was commonly used at that time, but steel was the newer, stronger choice. Garzke, who also has studied the Titanic sinking, said the two scientists made a good point about the variability of the rivets, but ''the problem is not the metallurgy of the rivets, it was the design of the riveted joints.'' He said that the company used only two rivets at the site of impact, when three would have p

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CDC: Flu season worst in 4 years; vaccine didn't work well

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer Thu Apr 17, 7:30 PM ET

ATLANTA - The current flu season has shaped up to be the worst in four years, partly because the vaccine didn't work well against the viruses that made most people sick, health officials said Thursday.

This season's vaccine was the worst match since 1997-1998, when the vaccine didn't work at all against the circulating virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The 2007-2008 season started slowly, peaked in mid-February and seems to be declining, although cases are still being reported, CDC officials said.

Based on adult deaths from flu and pneumonia, this season is the worst since 2003-2004 — another time when the vaccine did not include the exact flu strain responsible for most illnesses.

Each year, health officials — making essentially an educated guess — formulate a vaccine against three viruses they think will be circulating. They guess well most of the time, and the vaccine is often between 70 and 90 percent effective.

But this year, two of the three strains were not good matches and the vaccine was only 44 percent effective, according to a study done in Marshfield, Wis. That seemed to match the experience in other parts of the country.

"We've had a pretty heavy season, both adult and pediatric. And there were a good number of cases — more than usual — who had received a vaccination," said Dr. Niranjan Bhat, a children's infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

The CDC compares flu season by looking at adult deaths from the flu or pneumonia in 122 cities. This year, those deaths peaked at 9 percent of all reported deaths in early March, and remained above an epidemic threshold for 13 consecutive weeks. In 2003-2004, they peaked at more than 10 percent of all deaths, and surpassed the epidemic threshold for nine weeks.

"Our season is not quite as high but is lasting a little longer," said Dr. Dan Jernigan, deputy director of the CDC's influenza division.

Pediatric deaths are another way flu seasons are compared. So far this season, 66 children died, including 46 who were not vaccinated. In 2003-2004, 153 children died.

Each year, the flu results in 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths, according to official estimates. The elderly, young children and people with chronic illnesses are considered at greatest risk.

The CDC started working with the Marshfield Clinic in central Wisconsin to get a better gauge of vaccine effectiveness while a flu season was in progress. Almost the entire population in the Marshfield area — about 50,000 people — gets health care at clinic offices, which has complete vaccination and electronic medical records.

This year, most of the illness has been due to Type A H3N2 Brisbane strain, which was not in the vaccine. That strain tends to cause more hospitalizations and deaths, contributing to this season's severity, CDC officials said.

Type B Florida strain, also absent from this year's vaccine, has also been causing illness. Marshfield data showed that the vaccine was completely ineffective against the Type B virus, and was 58 percent effective against the Brisbane virus.

Jernigan acknowledged that some people may lose faith in the flu vaccine and skip it next year. But he noted even this year's mismatched vaccine still offered 44 percent protection overall and likely reduced the severity of illness in those who got the flu.

The Marshfield study and a flu season update are being published this week in a CDC publication, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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On the Net:

The CDC publication: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

The oldest Americans are also the happiest, research finds

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO - It turns out the golden years really are golden. Eye-opening new research finds the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The two go hand-in-hand: Being social can help keep away the blues.

AP Photo: George O'Hare, 81, a retired Sears manager from Willowbrook, Ill., is seen at his home...

"The good news is that with age comes happiness," said study author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist. "Life gets better in one's perception as one ages."

A certain amount of distress in old age is inevitable, including aches and pains and the deaths of loved ones and friends. But older people generally have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults, Yang said.

This is partly because older people have learned to lower their expectations and accept their achievements, said Duke University aging expert Linda George. An older person may realize "it's fine that I was a schoolteacher and not a Nobel prize winner."

George, who was not involved in the new study, believes the research is important because people tend to think that "late life is far from the best stage of life, and they don't look forward to it."

Yang's findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28,000 people ages 18 to 88 took part.

There were ups and downs in overall happiness levels during the study, generally corresponding with good and bad economic times. But at every stage, older Americans were the happiest.

While younger blacks and poor people tended to be less happy than whites and wealthier people, those differences faded as people aged.

In general, the odds of being happy increased 5 percent with every 10 years of age.

Overall, about 33 percent of Americans reported being very happy at age 88, versus about 24 percent of those age 18 to their early 20s. And throughout the study years, most Americans reported being very happy or pretty happy. Less than 20 percent said they were not too happy.

A separate University of Chicago study found that about 75 percent of people aged 57 to 85 engage in one or more social activities at least every week. Those include socializing with neighbors, attending religious services, volunteering or going to group meetings.

Those in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to do at least one of these activities.

Both studies appear in April's American Sociological Review.

"People's social circles do tend to shrink a little as they age — that is mainly where that stereotype comes from, but that image of the isolated elderly really falls apart when we broaden our definition of what social connection is," said study co-author Benjamin Cornwell, also a University of Chicago researcher.

The research rings true for 81-year-old George O'Hare, a retired Sears manager in Willowbrook, Ill. He's active with church and AARP and does motivational speaking, too. His wife is still living, and he's close to his three sons and four grandchildren.

"I'm very happy because I've made friends that are still living," O'Hare said. "I like to go out and speak in schools about motivation."

"Happiness is getting out and being with people, and that's why I recommend it," he said.

Ilse Siegler, an 84-year-old retired nurse manager in Chicago, has a slightly different perspective. Her husband died 35 years ago, and she says she still misses him every day.

She has vision problems and has slowed down with age. Yet she still swims, runs a social group in her condo building, volunteers in a retirement home and is active with her temple. These all help "make life more enjoyable," she said.

While Siegler said these aren't the happiest years of her life, she's content.

"Contentment as far as I'm concerned comes with old age ... because you accept things the way they are," she said. "You know that nothing is perfect."

Cornwell's nationally representative study was based on in-home interviews with 3,005 people in 2005 and 2006. While it didn't include nursing home residents, only about 4 percent of Americans aged 75 to 84 are in nursing homes, Cornwell said.

It's all good news for the aging population. However, Yang's study also found that baby boomers were the least happy. They could end up living the unfortunate old-age stereotype if they can't let go of their achievement-driven mind-set, said George, the Duke aging expert.

So far, baby boomers aren't lowering their aspirations at the same rate earlier generations did. "They still seem to believe that they should have it all," George said. "They're still thinking about having a retirement that's going to let them do everything they haven't done yet."

Previous research also has shown that mid-life tends to be the most stressful time, said Cornell University sociologist Elaine Wethington. "Everyone's asking you to do things and you have a lot to do. You're less happy because you feel hassled."

The new studies show "if you can make it through that," there's light at the end of the tunnel, Wethington said.

Google shares soar 20 percent to record 1-day gain

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Business Writer Fri Apr 18, 5:40 PM ET

SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc.'s stock soared 20 percent Friday, restoring $28 billion in shareholder wealth as Wall Street renewed its love affair with the Internet search leader after weeks of worry about an online advertising slowdown.

Driven by stellar first-quarter results that surprised industry analysts, Google shares surged $89.87 to finish at $539.41. It marked the biggest one-day gain since Google's initial public stock offering in August 2004, leaving the shares at their highest closing price since January.

Google had lost favor with investors as Web surfing data and the faltering U.S. economy raised concerns that people aren't clicking as frequently on the Internet advertising links that generate most of the Mountain View-based company's revenue.

The trend threatened to chip away at Google's earnings because the company typically gets paid by the click.

Although there were signs of decelerated clicking in the United States, Google more than offset any negative effects by expanding its foreign business and tweaking its online ad system in a way that helped reap more revenue per click.

The first-quarter performance reinforced the belief that Google is a "must-own stock," American Technology Research analyst Rob Sanderson wrote in a Friday note.

"While (economic) concerns won't be completely dispelled, we believe the growth story remains intact and investors will again fall in love," he wrote.

Dinosaur Securities analyst David Garrity also is convinced that the worst is over for Google's stock, which was down 35 percent in 2008 before the first-quarter earnings changed investor sentiment.

"We think (Google's stock) has seen its 2008 low. Onward and upward," wrote Garrity, who expects the price to hit $750 during the next year.

Friday's rally still left Google shares well below their peak of $747.24 reached less than six months ago. At that point, Google's market value stood at $235 billion, about $66 billion, or nearly 40 percent higher, than at Friday's close.

Whether Google's stock can get back to where it once was will depend largely on how much more the company's earnings and revenue growth tapers off. With the company's annual revenue headed toward $20 billion, it's becoming more difficult to produce the hefty gains that excite investors.

For instance, Google's first-quarter revenue climbed 42 percent. That's impressive, but well below the 63 percent growth in 2007's first quarter.

Google's profits could be squeezed later this year if it has to spend more money to upgrade the data centers that power its search engine and other online services like e-mail, said Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal. He said he thinks additional investments probably will be needed, given some of the data centers are three or four years old.

Microsoft Corp.'s bid to acquire Yahoo Inc. also could create a more formidable competitor to Google. Recognizing the threat, Google is trying to help Yahoo thwart Microsoft's takeover bid by using its lucrative advertising system to place commercial links on Yahoo's Web site. The potential partnership, in the midst of a test scheduled to be completed next week, would likely face intense antitrust scrutiny.

If nothing else, analysts believe Google wants to delay a combination between Microsoft and Yahoo for as long as possible to give it a better chance to widen its lead in the Internet search market, which currently generates the biggest chunk of online advertising.

Google ended the first quarter with a 60 percent share of the U.S. search market, up from 58 percent at the end of the fourth quarter, according to comScore Media Metrix. Yahoo was in second at a 21 percent share followed by Microsoft at 9 percent.

Despite the challenges ahead, Google still has ample opportunities to grow as advertisers shift more of their spending to the Internet from other media like newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

The Internet is expected to capture about 7 percent, or $44 billion, of the total worldwide advertising market this year. Analysts say the percentage of Internet advertising lags behind the amount of time consumers are spending online, suggesting that marketers will need to ramp up their spending even more if they want to reach potential customers.

Google also has been adding more advertising vehicles to supplement its search engine. Just last month, the company bought DoubleClick Inc. for $3.2 billion in an effort to sell more graphical advertising. And Google is starting to show more video advertising through its increasingly popular clip-sharing site, YouTube.com.

Finally, the first quarter represented a tipping point in Google's maturation into an international company that's becoming less vulnerable to the ups and downs of the U.S. economy. Google collected most of its first-quarter revenue outside the United States, the first time that has happened in the company's 9 1/2-year history.

Besides diversifying its business, the higher international revenue should also help boost Google's profit because it should keep company's tax rate slightly lower than it has been in past years.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt left little doubt he expects the company to prosper as he hailed the first quarter results.

"It's clear we are well positioned for 2008 and beyond, regardless of the business environment we are surrounded by," Schmidt told analysts.

Is it her genes? Oldest known person turns 115 on Sunday

Is it her genes? Oldest known person turns 115 on Sunday

By RICK CALLAHAN, Associated Press Writer

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. - Maybe it was a lifetime of chores on the family farm that accounts for Edna Parker's long life. Or maybe just good genes explain why the world's oldest known person will turn 115 on Sunday, defying staggering odds.

AP Photo: Edna Parker holds a rose that she was given during a birthday party for her...

Scientists who study longevity hope Parker and others who live to 110 or beyond — they're called supercentenarians — can help solve the mystery of extreme longevity.

"We don't know why she's lived so long," said Don Parker, her 59-year-old grandson. "But she's never been a worrier and she's always been a thin person, so maybe that has something to do with it."

On Friday, Edna Parker laughed and smiled as relatives and guests released 115 balloons into sunny skies outside her nursing home. Dressed in pearls, a blue and white polka dot dress and new white shoes, she clutched a red rose during the festivities.

Two years ago, researchers from the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University took a blood sample from Parker for the group's DNA database of supercentenarians.

Her DNA is now preserved with samples of about 100 other people who made the 110-year milestone and whose genes are being analyzed, said Dr. Tom Perls, an aging specialist who directs the project.

"They're really our best bet for finding the elusive Holy Grail of our field — which are these longevity-enabling genes," he said.

Only 75 living people — 64 women and 11 men — are 110 or older, according to the Gerontology Research Group of Inglewood, Calif., which verifies reports of extreme ages.

Parker, who was born April 20, 1893, was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest of that group last August after the death of a Japanese woman four months her senior.

A widow since her husband, Earl, died in 1938 of a heart attack, Parker lived alone in their farmhouse until age 100, when she moved into her son Clifford's home. She cheated death a few months later.

One winter night, Clifford and his wife returned home from a high school basketball game to find her missing. Don, their son, says he discovered his grandmother in the snowy darkness near the farm's apple orchard. He scooped up her rigid body and rushed back to the house.

"She was stiff as a 2-by-4. We really thought that was the end of her," he said.

But Parker recovered fully, suffering only frostbitten fingertips.

Fifteen years later, her room at the Heritage House Convalescent Center in Shelbyville, Ind., about 25 miles southeast of Indianapolis, is adorned with teddy bears and photos of her five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great grandchildren. She's outlived her two sons, Clifford and Earl Jr.

During a visit this week, Parker was captivated by a new album of photos and documents from her life that Don's wife, Charlene, had assembled.

"That's the boys," she said hoarsely, tapping a photo of her two late sons in their youth. "Clifford and Junior."

Her two sisters also are deceased. Georgia lived to be 99, while her sister Opal was 88 when she died.

Parker's long-lived sisters are typical of other centenarians, according to Dr. Nir Barzilai, director of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Institute for Aging Research in New York. Nearly all of them have a sister, mother or other relative who lived a long life, he said.

"Longevity is in the family history," Barzilai said.

He and other scientists have found several genetic mutations in centenarians that may play a role in either slowing the aging process or boosting resistance to age-related diseases.

Perls said the secret to a long life is now believed to be a mix of genetics and environmental factors such as health habits. He said his research on about 1,500 centenarians hints at another factor that may protect people from illnesses such as heart attacks and stroke — they appear not to dwell on stressful events.

"They seem to manage their stress better than the rest of us," he said.

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On the Net:

New England Centenarian Study: http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian