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China sends more copters to quake-hit area

MIENYANG, China (CNN) — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday ordered 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in Sichuan province, adding urgency to the massive relief operations under way since Monday’s devastating earthquake.

As mudslides, debris and fallen rocks blocked rescuers and aid workers from China’s quake-hit areas, Wen ordered 90 more helicopters to the region, Xinhua reported.

Since the 7.9-magnitude quake struck Monday, China has dispatched 20 choppers for dropping food and water, transporting the injured and delivering rescuers, Xinhua reported. Thursday’s order brings the total to 110.

Rescuers continued their attempts to save those trapped beneath the rubble at schools, businesses and homes.

Aftershocks at times forced rescuers to turn away from the fallen buildings, leaving crowds frustrated without knowing the fate of loved ones. Video from one disaster scene shows a woman clinging to a crane after rescuers suspended a mission at a crumbled building, deeming the site to dangerous to enter.

But there were scattered stories of survival. A 3-year-old girl was rescued from beneath a toppled building in Sichuan’s Beichuan County on Thursday, Xinhua said. Photos of the rescue showed the girl sustained a leg injury, but was otherwise alert.

A frightened seventh-grade girl was pulled safely from the rubble of a school dormitory Wednesday evening — 50 hours after she was buried by Monday’s earthquake, state-run media said.

In a weak voice, the trapped girl called out to one of the rescuers, uncle, save me, save me, he said. If anything (bad) had happened to her, the voice could haunt me for the rest of my life.

More than 4.3 million homes collapsed or sustained damage, according to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and the official death toll from the quake had reached 14,866 by Wednesday evening. But casualty figures from various cities indicate a higher number of dead.

The state-run Xinhua news agency has provided death tolls for eight communities in Sichuan province that add up to nearly 20,000, including roughly 7,700 who perished in the town of Yingxiu, near the earthquake’s epicenter. CNN cannot independently confirm the tallies.

The girl rescued at Muyu Middle School in Sichuan province was among 89 children pulled from the rubble alive. At least 201 students were killed when the building collapsed while many were napping, according to China.org. More than 100 children escaped from the school in Qingchuan County, and rescuers were searching for an unspecified number still believed to be trapped.

Wang Guangfen, a nurse, climbed under a cement slab to give the girl, He Cuiqing, medicine, while other rescuers carefully moved slabs until they could remove the girl.

She appeared very fragile, and there were blood stains on her chest, said China.org, quoting Wang. But she was still conscious, and called me aunt when I reached her.

Elsewhere in the stricken region, videotape showed a 3-year-old pulled out alive after more than 40 hours in rubble, and a pregnant woman safely rescued, as a small crowd cheered.

In other developments:

Video showed soldiers and relief teams swarmed over mountainsides and piles of debris in and near the epicenter of the quake in Sichuan province, looking for signs of life. Helicopters were flying overhead, some of them dropping food and other supplies.

Hours after 2,000 troops were dispatched to the Zipingpu dam upstream from the earthquake-hit Dujiangyan City, a probe revealed that the dam is stable and safe, Xinhua reported. It was not immediately clear what type of investigation was conducted. State-run media said earlier that the dam on Zipingpu Reservoir had severe cracks.

Twelve American eco-tourists who were thought to be missing Monday after the quake were able to contact their loved ones by cell phone to let them know they are alive, said an official with World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the tour. But two Chinese WWF volunteers remain missing.

Fifteen British nationals have been reported missing near the panda preserve. We have no reports so far of any casualties to British citizens, but we do remain very concerned about reports of some UK citizens being in the affected area, said William Ehrman, British ambassador to China. We are doing everything that we can to locate them.

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China sends more copters to quake-hit area

MIENYANG, China (CNN) — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Thursday ordered 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in Sichuan province, adding urgency to the massive relief operations under way since Monday’s devastating earthquake.

As mudslides, debris and fallen rocks blocked rescuers and aid workers from China’s quake-hit areas, Wen ordered 90 more helicopters to the region, Xinhua reported.

Since the 7.9-magnitude quake struck Monday, China has dispatched 20 choppers for dropping food and water, transporting the injured and delivering rescuers, Xinhua reported. Thursday’s order brings the total to 110.

Rescuers continued their attempts to save those trapped beneath the rubble at schools, businesses and homes.

Aftershocks at times forced rescuers to turn away from the fallen buildings, leaving crowds frustrated without knowing the fate of loved ones. Video from one disaster scene shows a woman clinging to a crane after rescuers suspended a mission at a crumbled building, deeming the site to dangerous to enter.

But there were scattered stories of survival. A 3-year-old girl was rescued from beneath a toppled building in Sichuan’s Beichuan County on Thursday, Xinhua said. Photos of the rescue showed the girl sustained a leg injury, but was otherwise alert.

A frightened seventh-grade girl was pulled safely from the rubble of a school dormitory Wednesday evening — 50 hours after she was buried by Monday’s earthquake, state-run media said.

In a weak voice, the trapped girl called out to one of the rescuers, uncle, save me, save me, he said. If anything (bad) had happened to her, the voice could haunt me for the rest of my life.

More than 4.3 million homes collapsed or sustained damage, according to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and the official death toll from the quake had reached 14,866 by Wednesday evening. But casualty figures from various cities indicate a higher number of dead.

The state-run Xinhua news agency has provided death tolls for eight communities in Sichuan province that add up to nearly 20,000, including roughly 7,700 who perished in the town of Yingxiu, near the earthquake’s epicenter. CNN cannot independently confirm the tallies.

The girl rescued at Muyu Middle School in Sichuan province was among 89 children pulled from the rubble alive. At least 201 students were killed when the building collapsed while many were napping, according to China.org. More than 100 children escaped from the school in Qingchuan County, and rescuers were searching for an unspecified number still believed to be trapped.

Wang Guangfen, a nurse, climbed under a cement slab to give the girl, He Cuiqing, medicine, while other rescuers carefully moved slabs until they could remove the girl.

She appeared very fragile, and there were blood stains on her chest, said China.org, quoting Wang. But she was still conscious, and called me aunt when I reached her.

Elsewhere in the stricken region, videotape showed a 3-year-old pulled out alive after more than 40 hours in rubble, and a pregnant woman safely rescued, as a small crowd cheered.

In other developments:

Video showed soldiers and relief teams swarmed over mountainsides and piles of debris in and near the epicenter of the quake in Sichuan province, looking for signs of life. Helicopters were flying overhead, some of them dropping food and other supplies.

Hours after 2,000 troops were dispatched to the Zipingpu dam upstream from the earthquake-hit Dujiangyan City, a probe revealed that the dam is stable and safe, Xinhua reported. It was not immediately clear what type of investigation was conducted. State-run media said earlier that the dam on Zipingpu Reservoir had severe cracks.

Twelve American eco-tourists who were thought to be missing Monday after the quake were able to contact their loved ones by cell phone to let them know they are alive, said an official with World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the tour. But two Chinese WWF volunteers remain missing.

Fifteen British nationals have been reported missing near the panda preserve. We have no reports so far of any casualties to British citizens, but we do remain very concerned about reports of some UK citizens being in the affected area, said William Ehrman, British ambassador to China. We are doing everything that we can to locate them.

found here.

Can the USB go from computer dork to Hollywood player?

(CNN) — Foreseeing the future is a tricky business. Why, for instance, should Hollywood moguls have paid much attention when the USB standard emerged in the mid-90’s?

It simply made hooking computers to keyboards, printers and joysticks easier.

Nothing could seem further from their glitzy world. How times change.

Now USB ports are to be found in $300 portable video players and $3,000 50-inch plasma HDTVs.

And they accept flash memory devices, which have undergone a revolution in storage capacity — storing a dozen movies is not a problem.

So in retrospect it was only a matter of time before entrepreneurs tried out this idea: public kiosks that allow consumers to download movies directly onto a USB memory device, to be watched later on their portable video players, computers, or TVs.

Today an Irish startup called PortoMedia has tested the idea in some home markets, and a few U.S. trial cities are to be announced shortly.

Business is being lined up in 30-plus countries, it says, and the service works equally well in Tokyo or small-town India. Its MoviePoint kiosk allows customers to download DVD-quality films in about 20 seconds onto its MovieKey, a USB memory device that costs between $20 and $100, depending on the storage capacity (from 2 to 15 movies).

The films are burned onto the MovieKey with the relevant license at the point of purchase, using Microsoft DRM (digital rights management).

Consumers have several options on the licensing front. Examples: the movie expires 48 hours from hitting Play, or you can play it three times within 30 days, or it never expires (in which case you’ve purchased it).

Now Hollywood is paying attention. A number of major studios have agreed to let their movies be rented through MoviePoint kiosks, and investors in the startup include some big-name film execs.

Sticking it to old movie-watching habits?

A 20-second download is fast, but changing habits takes time.

Most consumers are used to browsing racks of the physical product, either on VHS or DVD, notes Marie Bloomfield, an analyst at Screen Digest. This is a more pertinent issue than the time it takes to deliver the content.

PortoMedia might find encouragement — or a threat — in the rapid spread of DVD kiosks in the U.S., most notably the Redbox kiosks found in McDonald’s, grocery stores and various retails locations.

These kiosks can hold several hundred titles, which cost about $1 per day to rent. Downside: customers must physically return to disc (though it can be to any kiosk, not just the one they rented from).

MoviePoint has some pros and cons compared to the DVD kiosks. Most notably, it can hold far more titles — thousands as opposed to hundreds. And because it copies rather than dispenses these titles, there’s never a problem with running out of stock.

Think about the how much more responsive the content offerings can be if an obscure movie, for example, becomes really popular — like the ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ phenomenon from a few years ago, notes Kurt Scherf, principal analyst at Parks Associates.

Another plus with MoviePoint is there’s no need to return a movie, and no chance of late fees.

For someone in transit — at the airport, for instance — this is a real convenience. And travelers in general face the problem of video-rental stores requiring membership and a local address.

In the trials in Ireland, the ability to delay the rental period was one of the most popular features: the movie might expire 48 hours after you first hit Play, but when you first hit Play is up to you.

For retailers, kiosks using hard drives means not having to worry about packaging and shipping costs, as with physical DVDs. And of course the kiosks take up little space, which makes more room for other products.

We used to have mom-and-pop video stores, and they got wiped out by the big chain video stores, notes Kim Gregson, a communications professor at Ithaca College in New York.

Now mom and pop can compete in terms of variety and quality without sacrificing too much floor space in a small store.

Competing against other formats

There is also a new generation of DVD-burning kiosks allowing titles to be burned onto disc. These kiosks have the advantage of churning out something familiar: the DVD. Drugstore giant Walgreen is going with this approach for selling movies.

But MoviePoint works much faster: about 20 seconds compared to about 15 minutes.

On the down side, MoviePoint requires consumers to purchase extra hardware just to use it. They must buy the MovieKey. And if they want to connect it to a regular TV — usually lacking a USB port — they’ll also have to buy a special dock (called MovieVault).

Compare that to the simplicity of just buying a DVD.

If this thing is perceived as being even the slightest bit complex, it is likely doomed, believes Russ Crupnick, senior industry analyst for The NPD Group, a market research firm. More consumers will likely prefer a disc.

MoviePoint probably has its best shot among early-adopters types who like being the first to try out new things. In the trials in Ireland, the MovieKey became something to show off to their friends — cool and simple, according to PortoMedia spokesperson Jacintha O’Donohoe.

Early adopters can spread the word about the speed of download, as well as the quality and variety of the movies, to the later adopters, suggests Gregson.

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Group claims responsibility for India blasts

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — A little-known group called Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the near-simultaneous bomb attacks in the northwest Indian city of Jaipur that killed at least 63 people and wounded more than 200 on Tuesday.

The group sent an e-mail with a video attachment, claiming responsibility, to a Hindi cable news channel, Jaipur police Inspector General Pankaj Singh told CNN.

Eight bombs went off within 12 minutes and within 500 meters (0.3 mile) of each other Tuesday.

They tore through crowded markets and a packed Hindu temple.

Police defused a ninth bomb. See the aftermath of the explosions

Jaipur, known as the pink city for its rose-colored forts and palaces, is a popular tourist attraction. The majority Hindu city of 2.7 million people has a sizable Muslim population.

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