News Bytes

50 million on "Do Not Call" list Americans had to have their names put on a list by September 1, if they don't want to receive telemarketing calls anymore. According to the FTC, 50 million Americans have registered there by now. Anyone who has missed the deadline will be listed with a delay of 90 days. This list is binding for telemarketing companies and people on this list may not be called by them anymore.

At the start of the project there had been problems with people who registered online. The confirmation email had been blocked by spam filters.

California Recall on October 7 The crazy special elections in California have already more or less disappeared again from the German news. However, they are going to take place on October 7. On that day, the Californians will decide whether Governor Davis is going to stay in office - and if not, who is going to be his successor. Since there are hundreds of candidates available, it is possible that the actual winner will only get a ridiculously low percentage of votes and still become governor of one of the most important states of the US.

Berkeley University provides background information for this election, in which also Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a promising candidate. www.igs.berkeley.edu/library

Trained bees find land mines A professor of the university in Montana has trained bees to find land mines. Due to their excellent sense of smell, the bees can find the land mines from a great distance. The reason for this project is that modern land mines are not easily found by detectors, since the explosives are no longer coated with metal, but are wrapped in plastic.

New York: highest ever price paid for skyscraper in New York According to the New York Times, the highest price for a skyscraper of all times has been paid in New York. The skyscraper is a 50-storey building that had formerly been owned by General Motors (GM). The buyer of the 1.4 billion skyscraper is the real estate company Macklowe Properties.

Macklowe Properties is known as the seller of the financial service provider Conseco. Macklowe already owns several buildings in Manhattan. Conseco announced the selling of the skyscraper early on since the company is in the middle of insolvency proceedings.

Blackout in New York: mayor remits traffic tickets A belated treat for the citizens of New York after the blackout on August 14 - despite the fact that the city is almost broke, mayor Bloomberg has decided to have the traffic tickets enforced that were issued during the blackout. This was Bloomberg's reaction to the massive protests about one reported individual case, where one official had written out tickets while one civilian directed traffic nearby because of the pending chaos due to the traffic lights failure.

All traffic tickets issued during the time of the blackout will now be deleted from the computers, all citizens who have already paid theirs will be fully reimbursed. Bloomberg regretted the lack of common sense.

Ohio: giant imprints in cornfield - alien landing site? In the US state of Ohio, giant imprints have been discovered in a cornfield. Some residents believe that alien UFOs have landed there. An expert measuring the electromagnetic radiation on the cornfield, he found it to be significantly higher within the circular imprint than on the rest of the field. Still, many people believe it was just a bad joke.

A different kind of wedding: at the garbage dump In the middle of a large pile of garbage, Dave Hart and Rockie Graham met and fell in love. His job is managing a garbage dump, she lobbies for recycling. In front of 250 invited guests they got married at the garbage dump of Bethel, Maine. "Because burning love shall not turn to ash," according to a serenade written especially for the occasion.

Fight about Libeskind tower escalates The deputy mayor of New York got involved in the fight about Libeskind's design for the new construction of the World Trade Center in New York. Daniel Doctoroff demanded in a letter to the appropriate port authority that the building had to be erected at the exact place the architect had intended. With that, the politician turns on the developer Larry Silverstein. He doesn't want to have the tower built in the northwest corner, but near a planned traffic junction at the center of the area. The architect David Childs who has been chosen by Silverstein himself is supposed to take over control of the execution of Libeskind's design in July according to an official agreement. However, Libeskind is supposed to work with him. In the meantime, the Deutsche Bank has agreed to have its building at Ground Zero torn down, since it had been badly damaged when the twin towers fell down. If everything goes according to plan, the highest tower in the world with 541 meters will be completed by the year 2008.

For the first time, a model of Libeskind's design for the new World Trade Center (Freedom Tower) can also be seen in Germany. In the Jewish Museum in Berlin an exhibition about Libeskind's projects can be seen from September 10, 2003 to December 14, 2003 with the title "Kontrapunkt - Die Architektur von Daniel Libeskind" (Counterpoint - the architecture of Daniel Libeskind). Find more information on www.jmberlin.de.

Americans are the most hard-working people According to a study, US workers are working the longest hours - they work an average of 1,825 hours a year. Europeans work significantly less hours. However, workers in many countries are a lot more efficient than their American colleagues. American workers have to work longer to overtake their European colleagues in many countries where productivity is concerned, according to a study published on Monday by the International Labor Organization (ILO). In terms of productivity per hour, the Norwegians came in first with $38, before the French with $35 and the Belgians with $34. The Americans made fourth place with $32.

For the fourth place, the Americans are working harder than any other industrial nation - according to the ILO 1,825 hours a year. In Europe, this number is usually lower - the Swedes are working 1,581 hours, the French 1,545 hours, the Irish 1,668 hours. According to ILO, the average working hours a year are even as low as 1,444 hours. In terms of total productivity, however, Americans came in first - according to the study, an average worker in the US produced an equivalent of $60,728 a year. Belgium, as the most productive EU country, made $54,333.

Fraud resistant visas now also in Europe Foreigners who need a visa and want to enter countries of he Schengen Agreement such as Germany, France or Italy will have to be fingerprinted and have their passport photo scanned. The EU Commission is planning to pass this right after summer break. The new visas are supposed to contain digitalized photos and fingerprints. Those high-tech visas have two advantages: The traveler's identity can be determined for sure and the person's criminal background can be checked at the same time. So not only the US are controlling more strictly who is allowed in their country and who isn't - the US will have similarly tight controls soon.

Furthermore, the European heads of state have ordered the Commission to prepare the inclusion of biometric data in European passports. In that case, also the iris scans that are still being tested may be a possibility. The decision is to be made at the beginning of next year. Background: starting October 2004, the US want to allow visa-free travel only with the high tech passport.

September 11: reason for travel cancellations A single terrorist attack doesn't necessarily justify the cancellation of an entire booked trip. However, the Frankfurt district court ruled in favor of a plaintiff who hadn't wanted to fly to New York after September 11 anymore and canceled her trip. With this, the court allowed a civil action of a tourist against a tour operator. According to a report in the "Neue Juristische Wochenschrift" the plaintiff had booked a package tour to New York for the time between November 11-24, 2001. After the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, she canceled her trip and wanted her deposit back. The tour operator's opinion was that she didn't have sufficient reason to cancel the trip.

The court, however, saw the terrorist attacks of September 11 as sufficient reason to cancel a holiday in the US. The judges saw the attacks as an act beyond control. According to the law, this gives tourists the right to cancel their trips without having to pay.

Computer instead of professor? In the US, computer programs are evaluating essays that applicants are writing for their applications to business schools. Sounds absurd, but the results are rather surprising: in almost all cases, the electronic brains judge almost the same way a human reviewer would have done. And they even know the strict teacher's jargon. It is widely accepted that computers correct spelling or evaluate multiple choice tests. But now the computers, at least in the US, are also evaluating essays. Sounds a little preposterous at first, since humans (still) have one significant advantage over machines - so far, no software is able to understand the meaning of his thoughts and arguments.

Doesn't matter, say the inventors of essay-grading programs such as "e-rater," "IEA" or "IntelliMetric," who also present demo versions on their websites. Mere computing efficiency is supposed to even out what the e-brains are lacking in sense. Before use, however, the computers have to process several hundreds of traditionally graded essays of different quality about the same subject. The grading software checks syntax, vocabulary, grammar and filters out nonsensical wording. However, the testers don't solely rely on the grading software. A human professor also checks the submitted essays.