Apple iPad 3: Speculation Surrounds Early March Release

Apple is tipped to be holding a media event next month where it will announce the hotly anticipated iPad 3, just under a year after the iPad 2 broke cover.

Japanese Apple blog Macotakara believes that the tech giant is looking to hold the iPad 3 debut in early February, with a product release scheduled for early March, one year on from the iPad 2, which went on sale on March 11, 2011.

Macotakara cited sources familiar with the iPad production line in Asia and the US: "According to Asian supplier and a source in United States, Apple seems to prepare to hold Special Event in early February."

While the Japanese site doesn't provide much more information than that, this new snippet of news does tally with earlier reports from Bloomberg, stating that production of the iPad 3 had already begun, and would reach maximum capacity by February.

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The iPad 3 is widely expected to feature a super-high resolution Retina display as its key selling point; a Retina screen would offer twice the resolution of the outgoing iPad 2, but may cause the iPad 3 to be slightly thicker than its predecessor.

A speed bump from the adoption of a new quad-core A6 processor is also on the cards, but as the design as a whole isn't expected to change, some speculation now surrounds the name, which may be iPad 2S to reflect a minor update to the tablet and not a major overhaul.

Apple is holding a media event geared towards education in New York on Thursday, January 19; although this announcement may introduce interactive textbooks which will, presumably, run on the iPad, it is highly unlikely that any new hardware will be announced at the same time.?

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Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/283573/20120118/apple-ipad-3-speculation-surrounds-early-march.htm

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Li Na, Azarenka into 2nd round at Australian Open

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a backhand return to Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus makes a backhand return to Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus reacts during her match against Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

Victoria Azarenka of Belarus waves to the crowd after defeating Britain's Heather Watson during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Andrew Brownbill)

CORRECTS MISSPELLING OF RUSSIAN PLAYER'S FAMILY NAME - Italy's Flavio Cipolla makes a backhand return to Russia's Nikolay Davydenko during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Sarah Ivey)

Blaz Kavcic of Slovenia prepares to serve to Britain's James Ward during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship, in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

(AP) ? Li Na returned to the tournament that launched her onto the global stage last year, breezing to a 6-3, 6-1 win over Ksenia Pervak of Kazakhstan on Monday in the first round of the Australian Open.

Li was a trailblazer for China last year, reaching a Grand Slam singles final for the first time before losing to Kim Clijsters in the deciding match of the Australian Open. At the next major, she won the French Open to become the first player from China to win a Grand Slam singles title.

"I hope I can go one better this year," Li said of her Australian Open campaign. She had a confidence-boosting buildup that included match wins at the Hopman Cup and Sydney. "So I was happy what I'm doing. ... Yeah, I think I just continue. This week was another story. So nothing about how I was doing in Perth, how I was doing in Sydney. This tournament is even bigger, more important."

Fifth-seeded Li could meet Clijsters much earlier than the final this time, with the pair drawn into the same tough quarter along with No. 1-ranked Caroline Wozniacki. Clijsters and Wozniacki were both due to play first-round matches later Monday.

Third-seeded Victoria Azarenka won 12 straight games to finish off Heather Watson 6-1, 6-0 in 67 minutes in the opening match on center court.

Azarenka, one of six women who can finish atop the rankings depending on results at Melbourne Park, is coming off a victory over Li in the Sydney International final last week.

"Well, the score is easy. To actually play the match, it's never easy, especially for me coming here only Saturday," she said of the win over Watson, adding she was unsettled because she had to get to Melbourne Park so early there was nowhere open to buy her morning coffee.

"First time I actually hit on center court was today in the morning," she said.

The Sydney champion has gone on to reach the Australian Open final six times since 1997, winning twice. Li Na won in Sydney last year but lost the Australian Open final to Clijsters two weeks later.

After her win over Li in Sydney on Friday night, Azarenka is starting to gain a following in Melbourne's Chinese community.

"After beating Li Na, a lot of Chinese people started recognizing me," the 22-year-old from Belarus said about her experience at a Chinese restaurant. "That's a plus."

She'll get more local attention in coming days, with a second-round match against Australian wild-card Casey Dellacqua, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Serbia's Bojana Jovanovski.

For now though, the local attention is on 19-year-old Bernard Tomic, who rallied from two sets down to beat No. 22-seeded Fernando Verdasco 4-6, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-2, 7-5. A five-set win over the 2009 semifinalist will no doubt give Tomic a confidence boost as he attempts to become the first Australian man to win the title since 1976.

"Today wasn't fun, it was torture," said Tomic, who reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals last year. "I don't know how I found the energy to lift, how I did it, but I thank the crowd."

Eighth-seeded Mardy Fish, the highest ranked of the U.S. men, had a 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win over Gilles Muller to progress along with 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, No. 7 Tomas Berdych, No. 10 Nicolas Almagro, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez, No. 21 Stanislas Wawrinka and No. 30 Kevin Anderson.

Of the six women who can reach the top ranking, eighth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska has the biggest task, having to win the Australian title. She had a battle on her hands just to make the second round, fending off American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-7 (10), 6-4, 6-2 in a three-hour match on Show Court 2. Mattek-Sands hit a 81 winners but also had 65 unforced errors.

Radwanska remained composed after trading breaks early in the third set, winning five of the last six games.

Other women advancing included No. 16-seeded Peng Shuai of China, No. 20 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, No. 22 Julia Goerges of Germany, No. 26 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain and Eleni Daniilidou of Greece beat 41-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan 6-3, 6-2.

After an unusually cool buildup to the tournament, some players were unsettled by the strong breeze and rising temperatures that hit 93 on Monday.

In later matches, Clijsters was due to play Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal and Wozniacki, still searching for her first major title, faced Australia's Anastasia Rodionova.

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are on the same side of the draw for the first time since 2005.

Third-seeded Federer, a four-time Australian Open winner, was set to play on Rod Laver Arena in a Monday night match against Russian qualifier Alexander Kudryavtsev. Second-ranked Nadal had the last match on Hisense Arena ? the second show court at Melbourne Park ? against Russian Alex Kuznetsov.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-16-TEN-Australian-Open/id-5979ffd9df444b7f86ae234ad6aadc60

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Cruise tragedy conjures memories of Titanic

The first interviews of survivors ? and the first impressions of people across the world ? of the ill-fated Costa Concordia cruise liner that ran aground and tipped over in Italy are yielding predictable comparisons to another tragedy.

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"Have you seen 'Titanic'? That's exactly what it was," said Valeria Ananias, a 31-year-old Los Angeles schoolteacher aboard the ship who crawled along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells in a desperate attempt to reach rescue boats.

Are such comparisons to a 100-year-old tragedy fair? Accurate? It seems that the world views the Concordia through a prism of fact, myth and fantasy that surrounds the Titanic, largely because of the popular movie that came out in 1997 and is being re-released in 3D this year.

Just ask the handful of people visiting "Titanic the Experience," a tour through recovered artifacts and replicas of the famed ship in Orlando.

"When I saw the Concordia on the news this morning, this is what I thought about," said Tom Keill, a Pennsylvania tourist who took the Titanic tour Sunday morning. He and his family shuffled past rooms that recreated first-class cabins, past the lavish replica staircase, past an actual deck chair that once sat on the vessel. (The restrooms in the museum are described by staff as being "through the gift shop, behind the wall and past the iceberg.")

Keill, like virtually everyone who has seen the movie, has thought about what they would have done during such a disaster ? and now the Concordia allows us to update and refresh those thoughts. The vessel hit a reef or rock just off the coast of Italy, leaving five people dead and sending hundreds more searching for a way to escape as the boat tipped. Authorities said 15 people remain unaccounted for.

"It looked like it was sheer panic on the Concordia," said Keill, whose two young sons are "really into" Titanic history, which is why the family visited the exhibit while on vacation.

His son, 6-year-old Tyler Keill, was a bit more philosophical after walking past a piece of the Titanic's hull and a large piece of white frost meant to replicate the iceberg that the Titanic struck.

"It's really sad that the Titanic is history," Tyler said to his mom while in the gift shop that sells Titanic replica china, jewelry and 100th anniversary mugs. "But life goes on and we learn from our past."

But have we?

Ominous beginnings?
The Titanic and the Concordia have many similarities.

The Titanic was the biggest ship built to date in England at that time ? and the Concordia was the biggest ship built so far in Italy. One crashed into an iceberg, the other, a reef or rock.

Christened in 2006, the Concordia was the largest and most luxurious in the Costa cruise fleet, boasting bars, restaurants, a gym, large spa and several lavish suites.

In its day, the Titanic had similar amenities ? although there were more severe class differences on the Titanic, and the chasm between first- and third-class passengers was enforced by class-only eating, sitting and mingling areas. In today's cruising world, the passengers in the $199 cabins on the weekend cruises out of Miami can, and do, sun themselves alongside the folks in the $3,000 suites.

The Concordia was slightly larger (952 feet to the Titanic's 883 feet) and both had a top speed of 23 knots. Ominously, both had issues with their christening, and believers in superstition may attribute the ships' tragedies to it.

Before a ship's maiden voyage, it's common for a dignitary to "christen" the vessel by breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull for good luck.

The Titanic was never christened. The Concordia was christened during a ceremony when the ship came online, but the champagne bottle never broke. After each tragedy, people wondered whether the lack of a proper christening was a bad omen.

Improved safety standards
But then there are the differences. The Titanic had 2,207 people on board; the Concordia about 4,200. The Titanic was much smaller: 46,328 tons compared with the Concordia's 114,500 tons.

And of course, there were the safety measures developed over a century to ensure safety.

Safety standards for large passenger ships grew out of a convention in 1914, two years after the Titanic disaster ? which means that all modern-day cruise ships, including the Concordia, should have benefited from the lessons learned from the Titanic. The rules eventually were adopted by the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations.

Ships are required to have public address systems for announcements to passengers, and lifeboats must be at least partially enclosed. They also must hold weekly "abandon ship" and fire drills. More recently, the safety group had determined that the greatest safety threat to passengers was the evacuation of large ships.

Lifeboats also are required to be capable of being loaded, launched and maneuvered away from the ship within 30 minutes of the Master's signal to abandon ship.

As was detailed during the hour-long tour of "Titanic: The Experience" in Orlando ? complete with a guide dressed in a Victorian-looking peacoat and hat ? the radio operators aboard the ship didn't relay what they thought were non-essential messages about icebergs to the ship's officers. Meanwhile, people aboard the ship didn't panic because the ship listed only a few degrees. There weren't enough lifeboats for all of the passengers aboard and some lifeboats left without being full.

Cruise ships commemorate Titanic's voyage

And that's one comparison between the Concordia and Titanic that appears to be correct: Both were disasters affected by human error.

"It's amazing that 100 years later, we're still arguing about how many lifeboats are needed, what kind of training the crew had and what the evacuation procedures were," said Bob Jarvis, a maritime law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "One-hundred years later, we still don't do a good job getting passengers ready for a disaster."

Chaotic evacuation
Many passengers aboard the Concordia have complained the crew didn't give them good directions on evacuating and waited so long to lower the lifeboats that many couldn't be released because the ship was listing so heavily.

Ananias, the L.A. schoolteacher, said they were forced to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the ship to a waiting rescue boat below.

Some passengers also have complained that the Concordia's captain, Francesco Verusio, abandoned the cruise liner before all his passengers had escaped. The Titanic's captain, Edward Smith, died the night the ship sank. Some historians say he went down with the boat.

Authorities are holding the Italian captain for investigation of suspected manslaughter and abandoning his ship, among other possible charges. According to the Italian navigation code, a captain who abandons a ship in danger can face up to 12 years in prison.

A century ago, people thought the Titanic was unsinkable because it was so large and mighty. Today, people marvel that a ship like the Concordia could have run aground while sailing a routine course.

"To see a ship like this in 2012, with all the sophisticated navigation equipment, doing something that it does every week, you don't expect that today," Jarvis said. "And we all think we know about the Titanic because of the 1997 film. Now we have something to compare it to."

Stories like the Concordia make people like Cindy and Terry Carroll think long and hard about taking a cruise. The married couple from Hamilton, Ontario, are longtime Titanic buffs and made sure to stop by the museum ? which also features a Titanic-themed dinner theater in the evenings ? during their weeklong Orlando vacation. Neither has ever been on a cruise, though, in part reluctant because of what they know of the Titanic. It was a fear Cindy Carroll had overcome ? at least until now.

"A friend had finally talked me into going," Cindy Carroll said with a laugh. "Now, probably not."

AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner contributed from Washington.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46006657/ns/travel-news/

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Titanium dioxide film enhances the sun's natural disinfection power

Friday, January 13, 2012

The world population is estimated to be seven billion and all these mouths need feeding. With fears about overfishing and the sustainability of fish stocks in our seas fish farming is becoming big business. As with all farming there are issues about maintaining the health of stock and how to prevent bacterial infection. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Microbiology demonstrates that a prototype water purification reactor containing a thin film of titanium dioxide (TiO2) is able to enhance the sun's natural disinfection properties This device could reduce the need for expensive antibiotics or poisonous chemicals.

Outbreaks of infectious diseases by bacteria and other microbial pathogens can cause substantial losses of stock in aquaculture. While antibiotics, biocides and conventional disinfectants can be used, they are expensive and leave behind chemical residues. Using sunlight for disinfection is not a new idea however conventional solar disinfection is slow and inefficient.

Researchers from CQUniversity, Australia, addressed this problem by adapting thin-film fixed-bed reactor (TTFBR) technology to provide treated water. In the reactor water contaminated by Aeromonas hydrophila was slowly passed over a sloping film of TiO2 at a fixed rate and in full sunlight. Results showed that using TiO2 as a photocatalyst increased the effectiveness of solar disinfection by over 10 times.

Prof Rob Reed, one of the team who performed this work explained, "Other people have looked at using TiO2 as an enhancer of solar disinfection, but they either used a suspension of TiO2 particles in water, or artificial UV to test their reactors. Our TTFBR technology is very effective at killing pathogens at high levels of natural sunlight and consequently is particularly suited to countries with sunny climates and is especially useful to developing countries where sunlight is abundant but other resources are scarce."

###

BioMed Central: http://www.biomedcentral.com

Thanks to BioMed Central for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116724/Titanium_dioxide_film_enhances_the_sun_s_natural_disinfection_power

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Demi Lovato Struggles Through People's Choice Award Performance [Video]


We adore Demi Lovato. That must be stated up front.

She's our readers' choice for Celebrity of 2011, after all, and we're thrilled she took home one of the biggest People's Choice Awards last night, Favorite Pop Artist.

But the young star's performance of "Give Your Heart a Break" simply wasn't her finest moment, from the wild hair extensions to the mullet-like dress to the notes that simply weren't carried very well. Hey, we all have off nights.

Watch the rendition now and see if you agree:

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/demi-lovato-struggles-through-peoples-choice-award-performance-v/

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Harsh sentence for Rod Blagojevich: Did his fight reflexes cause him harm?

Despite his apparent contrition in court, Rod Blagojevich wasted little time after sentencing before vowing 'to fight through adversity.' Legal experts suggest his boxer's instincts antagonized the judge.

On Wednesday, moments after former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was told he was going to federal prison for 14 years, he was outside the courthouse quoting a Rudyard Kipling poem and suggesting that despite the judge?s order to report to prison in two months, the fight was not over.

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?This is a time to be strong, this is time to fight through adversity.? We?re going to keep fighting on through this adversity and [we?ll] see you soon,? Mr. Blagojevich said.

The suggestion that he wasn?t through fighting is perceived as unusual, especially after Blagojevich directed an apology to US District Judge James Zagel earlier that morning.

?The jury decided that I was convicted and I am accepting of it. I acknowledge it, and, of course, I am unbelievably sorry for it,? Blagojevich said.

They are words that ring hollow for many trial watchers.

Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn said Wednesday that because Blagojevich continually referred to his actions as ?mistakes? and not crimes makes his final admissions ?the courtroom equivalent of the weasel's apology.?

?In all this tangle of words and seeming self-reproach, I do not see a simple admission of intentional wrongdoing. The ?mistakes? he refers to are still not crimes in his mind ? they are things he said and did that he now ?accepts? that the jury found were a crime,? Mr. Zorn wrote.

Ever since his arrest in December 2008 on corruption counts largely related to schemes to sell President Obama?s former US Senate seat in exchange for campaign contributions and political favors, Blagojevich has positioned himself as a scrappy street fighter in the ring against political enemies determined to knock him out.

One explanation is that Blagojevich indeed trained as a Golden Gloves boxer while in high school, participating in two fights before moving on to college.

Yet the skills Blagojevich learned in the ring did not help him in his political life.

?He?s a guy who?s not served well by those instincts. He just doesn?t understand what his priorities should be,? says Patrick Cotter, a former US prosecutor now in private practice in Chicago.

Legal experts say the severity of Blagojevich?s sentence ? by comparison, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan received 6-1/2 years on corruption charges ? is due in part to the continued adversarial approach he?s taken toward the legal system, and Judge Zagel in particular, since the start of the first of his two trials in 2010.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ZYY3Gzh1Ulk/Harsh-sentence-for-Rod-Blagojevich-Did-his-fight-reflexes-cause-him-harm

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My Eyes Orgasmed When I Saw the Samsung Super OLED TV [Video]

My eyes have never felt as good as when they saw Samsung's Super OLED TV. IT WAS SOO CLEAR. It's beaaaautiful. Seriously, you'll see just a shadow of its gorgeousness in the video above. Criminally good lookin'. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LXrq7fPGcMQ/

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Samsung reveals 15- and 17-inch Series 5 laptops to arrive during 'back-to-school season'

Is it ever too early to trot out back-to-school laptops? Not if you're Samsung. Here at CES, hidden among the company's razor-thin Series 9 laptops and bright yellow gaming rig we found two mid-range laptops built for students, and other folks who just want something affordable and capable. What we have here are a pair of redesigned Series 5 notebooks, with 15.6- and 17.3-inch displays, respectively. And particularly given that they'll start at about $799 and max out around $1,199, they're looking pretty tempting. At this early stage, Samsung won't say much about likely specs, but so far, it seems that the specs could be quite generous. Take the display, for example. Both have the same matte, 300-nit display used in the new company's Ultrabooks, and the resolution is fixed at 1600 x 900 for the 15-incher, and 1080p for the larger model. At the high end, they'll both be available with a Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor, JBL speakers, a 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M card with Optimus, an optional Blu-ray drive and up to 1TB in storage (2TB for the 17-inch version). Not too shabby for a mid-range laptop, especially if Samsung keeps its word and caps the price at $1,200. Plus, if we do say so, the keys are sturdy and pillowy, and the whole package isn't bad-looking either, though we'll let you, dear readers be the judge.

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

Samsung reveals 15- and 17-inch Series 5 laptops to arrive during 'back-to-school season' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/10/samsung-reveals-15-and-17-inch-series-5-laptops-to-arrive-durin/

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Job growth quickens; unemployment near 3-year low (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? Employment growth accelerated last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, the strongest evidence yet the economic recovery is gaining steam.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the biggest rise in three months and beat economists' expectations for a 150,000 gain.

The unemployment rate dropped from a revised 8.7 percent in November to its lowest level since February 2009, a heartening sign for President Barack Obama whose re-election hopes could hinge on the state of the labor market.

"The labor market is healing, but we still have a long way to go to recoup the losses we have endured. We may be close to a tipping point where gains can become more self-feeding," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

A string of better-than-expected U.S. economic data in recent weeks has highlighted a contrast between the recovery in the world's biggest economy and Europe where the economy is widely believed to be contracting.

The stronger-than-expected jobs data was overshadowed in financial markets by concerns over Europe's debt crisis, sending U.S. stocks marginally lower. U.S. government debt prices rose and a broad index of the dollar's value hit a one-year high.

Republican presidential hopefuls have blasted Obama's economic policies as doing more harm than good.

The latest economic signs, however, could offer him some political protection. Over the course of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, the most in five years.

The jobless rate, which peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, has dropped 0.6 percentage point in the last four months.

Obama welcomed the employment report and urged Congress to extend a two-month payroll tax cut through 2012 to help sustain the recovery.

"We're moving in the right direction. When Congress returns they should extend the middle-class tax cut for all of this year, to make sure we keep this recovery going," he said.

Employment remains about 6.1 million below its pre-recession level and at December's pace of job growth, it would take about 2-1/2 years to win those jobs back.

Unseasonably mild weather last month accounted for some of the boost to payrolls, contributing to hefty gains in construction employment. Courier jobs also rose sharply, a gain the Labor Department pinned on strong online holiday shopping.

Those jobs could be lost in January and the unemployment rate might rise as Americans who have abandoned the hunt for work are encouraged back into the labor market.

FASTER JOB GROWTH PACE STILL NEEDED

The household survey, from which the unemployment rate is derived, showed most of the drop in the jobless rate was due to gains in employment as the labor force shrank only modestly.

While economists generally regard the payrolls figures from the government's survey of employers as the most-reliable gauge of hiring, employment as measured by the household survey has now shown five straight months of solid gains.

A broad measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have stopped looking and those working only part time but who want more work, also dropped to an almost three-year low of 15.2 percent from 15.6 percent in November.

All told, 23.7 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed.

With the labor market still far from healthy, the debt crisis in Europe unresolved and tensions over Iran threatening to drive up oil prices, the U.S. economy faces stiff headwinds.

Economists predict the recovery will lose a step early this year after expanding in the fourth quarter at what is expected to be the fastest pace in 1-1/2 years.

This should keep alive the possibility of the Federal Reserve embarking on a third round of asset purchases to spur stronger growth, even though prospects of a further easing of monetary policy were damped a bit by the jobs data.

"The Fed will be watching for further credible evidence that this improving trend is gaining traction because we also went through a better period in the first quarter of last year," said Anthony Karydakis, chief economist at Commerzbank in New York.

New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley on Friday suggested the U.S. central bank was still leaning toward further policy easing, describing the recovery as "frustratingly slow" and the unemployment rate as "unacceptably high."

GOVERNMENT A DRAG

All the job gains in December came from the private sector, where payrolls rose 212,000 - the most in three months. Government employment contracted 12,000, with most of the drag coming from the local government segment.

The pace of government job losses is moderating. Some states have been reporting an increase in revenues and states even hired more teachers last month.

For all of 2011, the private sector added 1.9 million jobs, while government employment fell 280,000. A measure of the share of industries that showed job gains during the month rebounded in December after falling sharply in November.

Construction payrolls increased 17,000 after falling 12,000 in November. Mild weather has boosted groundbreaking for new homes. Transportation and warehousing employment jumped 50,200.

The bulk of the rise came from the messenger industry, which added 42,000 jobs, reflecting an increase in deliveries of online purchases made during the holiday season.

Manufacturing jobs rose 23,000, the largest increase since July. Factory employment rose 225,000 last year, sustaining gains for the first time since 1997.

Retail employment rose 27,900, slowing after hefty gains in November as retailers geared up for a busy holiday shopping season. But temporary hiring - seen as a harbinger of future hiring - fell 7,500 in December after gaining 11,200.

Even though employment picked up last month, hourly earnings rose a modest four cents, indicating that most of the jobs being created are low paying.

This is a potentially troubling sign for consumer spending, which has been largely supported by a reduction in savings.

"Firms need to grow wages faster if consumption is to accelerate. There is not a lot of appetite to give raises," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120106/bs_nm/us_usa_economy

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