Actor Ashton Kutcher speaks during the panel discussion for the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour for CBS, the CW and Showtime, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
Actor Ashton Kutcher speaks during the panel discussion for the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour for CBS, the CW and Showtime, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
Actor Ashton Kutcher, center, speaks as co-creator/executive producer Chuck Lorre, left, and and actor Jon Cryer look on during the panel discussion for the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour for CBS, the CW and Showtime, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
Actor Ashton Kutcher, left, speaks as actor Jon Cryer looks on during the panel discussion for the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour for CBS, the CW and Showtime, Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012, in Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jason Redmond)
PASADENA, California (AP) ? A clean-cut Ashton Kutcher said Wednesday that he's interested in continuing with "Two and a Half Men" beyond this season ? and CBS wants him, too.
Kutcher's addition to television's most popular comedy following star Charlie Sheen's implosion was a grand experiment that has worked out better than CBS or the producers could have dreamed.
The show is up 20 percent in viewers over Sheen's final season, the Nielsen ratings company said, and Kutcher has also brought in a younger crowd.
"I've had a blast," said Kutcher, who plays the heartbroken Walden Schmidt. "Since I stopped doing 'That '70s Show' I've always wanted to go back and do television."
Kutcher appeared at a news conference without the long hair and beard he has worn this season. It was cut as part of the plot in an episode of "Two and a Half Men" that airs Monday, he said.
Kutcher will be working on movies after filming for this season of "Two and a Half Men" concludes, but "right now I'm looking at it as a hiatus," he said.
CBS would have to strike a new deal with actors and producers to continue the show beyond this season. All parties seem interested in working it out, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler said.
"In spirit and intent, everybody is very motivated," she said.
Series creator Chuck Lorre said he gave thought to ending the series after Sheen left last season and couldn't imagine it continuing. But CBS and his co-creator, Lee Aronsohn, nudged him to continue.
"Lee said, 'Why not try? If we fail, no one would be physically harmed,'" Lorre said. "It seemed like such a heartbreaking way to end, and we didn't want it to, so we said let's keep the light on."
Writers were able to change the tone by making Kutcher's character a heartbroken Internet billionaire who has everything he wants except the woman he loves. Jon Cryer, who played Sheen's annoying little brother, is now Schmidt's older friend. It was all a welcome tone change, Aronsohn said.
"It's been a lot of fun and a challenge to create a different show with a lot of the same elements," he said.
Lorre, who was the target of sharp barbs from Sheen last spring after he was fired, said he wished his former star well.
"I really do," he said. "I'm glad he's sober and I think it's terrific."
Send in the supplies: RoboCopters in Marines' futurePublic release date: 10-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Vietti onrcsc@onr.navy.mil 703-588-2167 Office of Naval Research
New app will allow Marines to summon a robotic helicopter
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Marines running low on ammo may one day use an app on their digital handhelds to summon a robotic helicopter to deliver supplies within minutes, enabled by technologies from a new Office of Naval Research (ONR) program.
The Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) is a five-year, $98 million effort to develop sensors and control technologies for robotic vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
"AACUS is a leap-ahead technology that allows the Navy and the Marine Corps to move beyond having a highly trained operator fly an unmanned aircraft," said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research. "The program will let us leverage advanced autonomy, but still maintain the central and critical role of the human operator as the supervisor."
Marines based at outposts or in the field will be able to request the autonomous cargo helicopters for rapid resupply of combat essentials.
"We want to turn any helicopter into a logistics machine," said Dr. Mary "Missy" Cummings, program officer for AACUS, ONR's newest innovative naval prototype. "In the near term, we want to succeed in fully-autonomous landings in austere locations, so Marines can get whatever they need on demand.
"In the long term, this could be a real life saver and revolutionize first response," she added. While rapid resupply is the immediate focus for AACUS, long-term applications could include critical medical missions such as casualty evacuation.
Program officials are seeking researchers who will develop threat- and obstacle-detection and avoidance systems, as well as autonomous landing capabilities that can operate across different types of aircraft. They expect teams from industry and academia to join forces to compete for the contracts.
Proposals are due Feb. 22. Officials plan to award up to two contracts in April.
The effort follows the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory's successful program to develop an unmanned system capable of hauling cargo semi-autonomously to landing zones at bases. The prototype, called K-MAX, flew its first combat mission in Afghanistan in mid-December, resupplying Marines with cargo carried in a sling-load.
AACUS, on the other hand, is aimed at internal load-carrying capacity. It will be a major leap ahead in autonomy, said Cummings. While K-MAX requires a trained operator within line-of-sight to fly, any operator will be able to call for AACUS from any location.
"It's going to be designed to work with people who have no flight experience," she said. "An operator will pick up his iPad or Android and make an emergency supply request. He'll request that the helicopter come to him and land as close to him as possible."
The helicopter not only will take off by itself, but will plan its own flight path and navigate its way through the airspace, requiring little to no input from an operator other than to verify its proposed landing site. The concept will require improvement in data processing.
"How you take the data from sensors and integrate them to make these decisionsthat's one of the big leaps," said Cummings. "It's like putting a frontal lobe on the helicopter."
###
About the Office of Naval Research
The Department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps' technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries, 1,035 institutions of higher learning and 914 industry partners. ONR employs approximately 1,400 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel, with additional employees at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Send in the supplies: RoboCopters in Marines' futurePublic release date: 10-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Vietti onrcsc@onr.navy.mil 703-588-2167 Office of Naval Research
New app will allow Marines to summon a robotic helicopter
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Marines running low on ammo may one day use an app on their digital handhelds to summon a robotic helicopter to deliver supplies within minutes, enabled by technologies from a new Office of Naval Research (ONR) program.
The Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) is a five-year, $98 million effort to develop sensors and control technologies for robotic vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
"AACUS is a leap-ahead technology that allows the Navy and the Marine Corps to move beyond having a highly trained operator fly an unmanned aircraft," said Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research. "The program will let us leverage advanced autonomy, but still maintain the central and critical role of the human operator as the supervisor."
Marines based at outposts or in the field will be able to request the autonomous cargo helicopters for rapid resupply of combat essentials.
"We want to turn any helicopter into a logistics machine," said Dr. Mary "Missy" Cummings, program officer for AACUS, ONR's newest innovative naval prototype. "In the near term, we want to succeed in fully-autonomous landings in austere locations, so Marines can get whatever they need on demand.
"In the long term, this could be a real life saver and revolutionize first response," she added. While rapid resupply is the immediate focus for AACUS, long-term applications could include critical medical missions such as casualty evacuation.
Program officials are seeking researchers who will develop threat- and obstacle-detection and avoidance systems, as well as autonomous landing capabilities that can operate across different types of aircraft. They expect teams from industry and academia to join forces to compete for the contracts.
Proposals are due Feb. 22. Officials plan to award up to two contracts in April.
The effort follows the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory's successful program to develop an unmanned system capable of hauling cargo semi-autonomously to landing zones at bases. The prototype, called K-MAX, flew its first combat mission in Afghanistan in mid-December, resupplying Marines with cargo carried in a sling-load.
AACUS, on the other hand, is aimed at internal load-carrying capacity. It will be a major leap ahead in autonomy, said Cummings. While K-MAX requires a trained operator within line-of-sight to fly, any operator will be able to call for AACUS from any location.
"It's going to be designed to work with people who have no flight experience," she said. "An operator will pick up his iPad or Android and make an emergency supply request. He'll request that the helicopter come to him and land as close to him as possible."
The helicopter not only will take off by itself, but will plan its own flight path and navigate its way through the airspace, requiring little to no input from an operator other than to verify its proposed landing site. The concept will require improvement in data processing.
"How you take the data from sensors and integrate them to make these decisionsthat's one of the big leaps," said Cummings. "It's like putting a frontal lobe on the helicopter."
###
About the Office of Naval Research
The Department of the Navy's Office of Naval Research (ONR) provides the science and technology necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps' technological advantage. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in science and technology with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries, 1,035 institutions of higher learning and 914 industry partners. ONR employs approximately 1,400 people, comprising uniformed, civilian and contract personnel, with additional employees at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C.
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
ODESSA, Texas (AP) -- Some schools in West Texas have called off classes after nearly 11 inches of snow fell in the region.
The Ector Independent School District in Odessa canceled classes Tuesday.
Forecaster Cody Lindsey with the National Weather Service in Midland said Tuesday that the area received at least 10.6 inches of snow since Monday morning.
Schools in Midland, San Angelo, Big Spring and Fort Stockton delayed the start of classes by two hours Tuesday due to winter weather.
The National Weather Service says the snowfall was ending Tuesday across West Texas. ?
Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has deflected talk of going public for years but it may finally happen in 2012.
"The Facebook IPO will be the biggest financial event in the tech industry for 2012," Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff said.
It will also be one of the biggest initial public offerings ever in the United States.
Nick Einhorn, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, said he expects Facebook to file its IPO paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the first quarter and start trading on Wall Street later in the year.
With an expected deal size of $US10 billion ($A9.9 billion), Facebook would slip into sixth place on the list of largest US IPOs - between AT&T Wireless Group ($US10.62 billion) and Kraft Foods ($US8.68 billion), according to Renaissance Capital.
A market capitalisation of $US100 billion would put Facebook on a par with McDonald's ($US103 billion), well ahead of Boeing ($US54 billion) but behind Apple ($US376 billion) and another internet giant, Google ($US209 billion).
Facebook's current annual revenue, mostly from online advertising, is estimated to be around $US5 billion compared to $US108 billion for Apple and $US36 billion for Google.
Valuing the social network giant will be difficult, Einhorn said, just as it was for several other internet companies that went public in 2011.
Career-oriented social network LinkedIn was undervalued while online daily deals site Groupon and social games titan Zynga have both been trading at or below their list price.
"I think Facebook is still a fairly young company in a lot of ways," Einhorn said. "But it's certainly established, and it's a significant company. Investors will recognise that."
Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room eight years ago and has seen it grow to more than 800 million members, recently seemed to bow to the inevitability of going public.
In an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS television, Zuckerberg said an IPO was "not something I spend a lot of time on a day-to-day basis thinking about."
But, he added, "a big part of being a technology company is getting the best engineers and designers and talented people around the world.
"And one of the ways that you can do that is you compensate people with equity or options," Zuckerberg said.
"At some point we're going to make that equity worth something publicly and liquidly."
Bernoff said that for Facebook, going public is less about raising funds - the Gawker website reported that Facebook had $US3.5 billion in cash on hand at the end of September - than it is for "respectability."
"The purpose of this IPO is not so much to raise revenue, as it is to put Facebook in a position where it is seen as a public company, one that reports its financial results, and does all the other things that public companies do," he said.
The Forrester Research analyst said he does not expect going public to shake up the innovative culture of a company which has said it plans to hire thousands more employees over the next year.
"You can bet that the strategy from the top will continue to come from Zuckerberg," Bernoff said.
"And in contrast to a few years ago, he's shown a lot more maturity in the way that he presents himself.
"He's also surrounded himself with very good people to manage the company and that helps," he said.
"I think that if you look out four years from now Zuckerberg will still be the CEO.
"The managers around him might shift some but his position there is similar to Bill Gates's position at Microsoft," he said. "And that lasted a very long time."
TOKYO ? A member of the doomsday cult behind a deadly Tokyo subway gassing and other crimes has turned himself in to police after 17 years on the run.
Tokyo police said Sunday that Makoto Hirata, a 46-year-old member of Aum Shinrikyho, conspired with several other members in kidnapping a notary official in 1995 and causing his death.The victim was a relative of a follower trying to quit the group.
Hirata turned himself in to police early Sunday and was detained on the spot.
Aum also released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995 in an attack that killed 13 people and injured more than 6,000. Nearly 200 members of the cult have been convicted, including 13 on death row, in the gas attack and dozens of other crimes.
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Public release date: 10-Jan-2012
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