Nebraska GOP chooses Senate challenger for Kerrey

This April 15, 2012, photo, shows state Sen. Deb Fischer, left, during a debate against state Treasurer Don Stenberg, right, and state Attorney General Jon Bruning, right rear, in Omaha, Neb. The three top Republicans vying for Nebraska?s U.S. Senate nomination scrambled through a final full day of campaigning on Monday, May 14, 2012, as the race appeared to tighten and election officials predicted above-average turnout for the nationally-watched contest. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

This April 15, 2012, photo, shows state Sen. Deb Fischer, left, during a debate against state Treasurer Don Stenberg, right, and state Attorney General Jon Bruning, right rear, in Omaha, Neb. The three top Republicans vying for Nebraska?s U.S. Senate nomination scrambled through a final full day of campaigning on Monday, May 14, 2012, as the race appeared to tighten and election officials predicted above-average turnout for the nationally-watched contest. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

In this April 15, 2012 photo, state Attorney General Jon Bruning, center, participates in a debate against state Treasurer Don Stenberg, right, and state Sen. Deb Fischer, left, in Omaha, Neb. The three top Republicans vying for Nebraska?s U.S. Senate nomination scrambled through a final full day of campaigning on Monday, May 14, 2012, as the race appeared to tighten and election officials predicted above-average turnout for the nationally watched contest. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

FILE - In this March 8, 2012 file photo, Nebraska Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate Bob Kerrey speaks in Omaha, Neb. Nebraska Republicans choose a candidate to square off against Kerrey, a former senator seeking another turn on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

(AP) ? Nebraska Republicans on Tuesday were choosing a candidate to square off against Democrat Bob Kerrey, a former senator seeking another turn on Capitol Hill in one of the year's most hotly contested Senate races.

The GOP primary fight illustrates a years-old split between the two wings of the GOP. State Attorney General Jon Bruning, backed by establishment Republicans, is trying to overcome a spirited challenge from state Sen. Deb Fischer, who has tea party support. State Treasurer Don Stenberg also was on the ballot.

Elsewhere, Oregon was deciding whether to give its 25 presidential delegates to Mitt Romney, the all-but-certain GOP nominee. Nebraska Republicans also were weighing in on the GOP race though no delegates would be allotted in a vote that amounts to a beauty contest. The state's 32 delegates to the Republican National Convention later this year will be determined at the state convention on July 14.

Romney was 171 delegates short of the 1,144 needed for the nomination and is on pace to get them before the month ends. He was spending the day in Iowa, a competitive general election battleground, delivering a speech on the economy as he looks to counter President Barack Obama on voters' top concern.

Idaho voters also were picking nominees for state and congressional offices.

But the biggest race Tuesday was Nebraska's GOP Senate primary.

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, a two-term moderate, is retiring and both parties are eyeing his seat. Democrats want to keep it to maintain their Senate majority, while Republicans see an opportunity in their drive to win back control of the Senate.

Democrats control the Senate 51-47, plus two independents who caucus the majority. But the outcome in November of several competitive Senate races could result in a power shift.

Kerrey, who served Nebraska as governor and as a U.S. senator before leaving Congress in 2001 to become a university president in New York, reluctantly agreed to run again to help give Democrats a shot at holding a seat they've long controlled.

Republicans in Washington turned to Bruning, who has been successful in statewide races. But in the final stretch of the Senate campaign, he has found that his nomination is hardly assured.

Fischer, a rancher in rural Nebraska, has mounted a feisty campaign that in the past few weeks has attracted attention and endorsements from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and other tea party darlings. She's also backed by an outside group, created by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, that's running TV ads on her behalf.

Stenberg, for his part, has argued that he is the only "genuine, life-long conservative" in the race.

___

Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington and Grant Schulte in Lincoln, Neb., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

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Facebook Helps Third-Party Mobile Apps Grow Today?So It Can Monetize Their Content With Ads Tomorrow

Facebook Mobile MoneyThe fundamental misunderstanding of Facebook's mobile prospects is that it's?trying to compete with iOS and Android?for in-app payment revenue via HTML5. It's not. What Facebook really wants is the content produced by apps on every platform, which it can monetize with ads. Payments revenue?is a very nice bonus, but not critical.?That's why Facebook announced today that it's making money on mobile for everyone else by pouring traffic into their apps. Facebook says?it drove 160 million visitors and 1.1 billion visits to third-party apps last month, up from 60 million visitors and 320 million visits in February. And now?seven of the top 10 grossing iOS apps and six of the top Android apps integrate it to power discovery and virality.?By showing that it can drive traffic to mobile apps, devs will keep integrating Facebook and sending it news feed stories that the social network show ads next to.

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One World Trade Center Becomes the Tallest Building In New York Today [Architecture]

After six years of construction, One World Trade Center will surpass the 1250-foot Empire State Building as the tallest in New York this afternoon. When construction is finished, the final height of the building will be 1368 feet, with the antenna spire pushing the edifice to the patriotic height of 1776 feet. [NY Daily News] More »


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Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up

Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akama, adoption rate up

Here's an odd one: average connection speeds around the globe dropped 14 percent to just 2.3 Mbps during the last quarter of 2011. The drop off remains something of a mystery since the data used to calculate that result doesn't include mobile broadband (so its increased adoption can't be dragging down the whole) and Akamai offers no explanation. Still, it's not time to start panicking, just yet. Even though speeds in the US dropped 5.3 percent from the previous quarter, average connection rates are still up significantly over the previous year. Otherwise, things largely stayed the same. Global broadband adoption was steady at 66 percent and the US continued to trail its friends across the Pacific (by a lot) in the race for the fastest Internet connections.

Interestingly, while the number of broadband connections stayed consistent the number of narrowband lines (under 256 Kbps) declined dramatically. Yet, the percentage of the wold's population connected to the web managed to increase 2.1 percent quarter over quarter -- and 13 percent for the year. So, while it may seem that the internet had a temporary set back in Q4 of 2011, the long term trends look good. The number of people online is increasing, the average speeds being pulled down by those people is climbing and the number of folks stuck in the dial up era is dropping. To get a copy of the full report hit up the source.

Internet speeds drop around the world according to Akamai, adoption rate up originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Brit Morin Engages $1.25M From Marissa Mayer, Aileen Lee, Founders Fund And More To Launch Her First App, Weduary

Screen Shot 2012-04-30 at 7.08.05 AMBrit Morin, the Martha Stewart of tech, is today announcing a $1.25 million seed round for her technology and content company Brit. The list of investors is actually pretty sympatico with "the next generation of lifestyle" branding of Brit & Co, with fashion-heavy Index Ventures, tech fashionista Marissa Mayer, KCPB's Aileen Lee, Tina Sharkey and Seth Goldstein, Kevin Colleran, Annabel Teal, General Catalyst Partners, Founders Fund Angel and DMGT all going in. In addition to the funding the company is also launching its first app, Weduary, which lets tech-savvy couples build their own attractive and dynamic wedding websites. The Facebook app, which users can try for free, lets prospective brides and grooms build a custom wedding website in four steps, leveraging the Facebook social graph to make it easy to import photos from Facebook, invite guests, coordinate registry details and other event RSVPs.

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Acer releases app to hurry the ICS-ification of Iconia slates (video)

Acer releases app to hurry the ICS-ification of your Iconia A500 (video)

Patience, they say, is a virtue. Try telling that to a tech-savvy tablet owner, whose friend already got an ICS update. Acer started pushing out an Android 4 update to lucky Iconia 500 owners earlier in the week, but for those who've yet to receive it, all is not lost. The tablet maker has taken the unusual step of releasing an app dedicated to getting you the upgrade asap. Can't wait a moment longer? Point your slate at the Play store and search for "Acer" and then simply look for the free Iconia Tab Update Enhancement app. Virtues are overrated anyway.

Continue reading Acer releases app to hurry the ICS-ification of Iconia slates (video)

Acer releases app to hurry the ICS-ification of Iconia slates (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Releases Full Report On Street View Investigation, Finds That Staff Knew About Wi-Fi Sniffing

evilbearEarlier today Google released the full report of the FCC's investigation into the collection of? "payload data" from open Wi-Fi networks -- aka passwords, email and search history from open networks -- that its fleet of Street View cars obtained between 2008 and April 2010. An earlier and heavily redacted version of the report was released on April 15 but today's version only redacted the names of individuals. The report found no violation of any wrong doing by the company because there was no legal precedent on the matter. The FCC found that Google did not violate the Communications Act citing the fact that Wi-Fi did not exist when it was written. However,?the FCC did fine Google $25,000 for obstructing the investigation, which was presumably the outcome of Google refusing to show the FCC what the data being collected entailed because it might have shown that the company broke privacy and wiretapping laws. Google says any obstruction was result of the FCC dragging out the investigation. Interestingly enough, the report did reveal that the data harvesting was not the act of a rogue engineer and that said engineer notified the Street View team of what was going on. (Wait. What? Google knew this was going on! It gets even better.)

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Ask Engadget: best 'money is no object' laptop?

Image

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Chris, who simply has too much money to blow on a super-laptop. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"I sold my business and I want to replace my laptop [HP Pavilion G6] with a completely unreasonably expensive top of the line machine. I want it to do everything I do (gaming, coding, web design) all at the same time. Apart from the fact I need two hard drive bays, I'm completely open-minded, so what should I be buying? Thank you!"

Quell your gnashing teeth, members of the 99 percent, he's done well for himself and now he needs our help. We were able to trick out an Alienware M18x to full capacity for $6,700 -- with an over-clocked 4GHz Intel Core i7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, two 2GB NVIDIA GTX 675M GPUs in SLI mode and 1.2TB of SSD RAID storage. That's the benchmark, folks: who out there can find something more powerful?

Ask Engadget: best 'money is no object' laptop? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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