Go forth and Tweet! Pope sees web networks as “portals of truth”

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict urged Catholics on Thursday to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to win converts, as he launched his own smartphone app streaming live footage of his speeches.The websites – often associated with endless postings of idle gossip and baby photos – could be used as “portals of truth and faith” in an increasingly secular age, the pontiff said in his 2013...

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The New Old Age Blog: Grief Over New Depression Diagnosis

When the American Psychiatric Association unveils a proposed new version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the bible of psychiatric diagnoses, it expects controversy. Illnesses get added or deleted, acquire new definitions or lists of symptoms. Everyone from advocacy groups to insurance companies to litigators — all have an interest in what’s defined as mental illness —...

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U. of I. to launch tech research center in Chicago

Plans to launch a University of Illinois-affiliated technology research center in Chicago will be unveiled Thursday — the latest...

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200 firefighters battle massive Bridgeport warehouse blaze

Firefighters were still on the scene of a smoldering warehouse in Bridgeport this morning, pouring water on hot spots after...

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First “Firefox OS” Phones Previewed, to Launch in February

Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox web browser, has been promoting its Firefox OS project (once known as “Boot to Gecko”) for some time now. A hardware partnership with Telefonica, the international telecom giant, had been announced, but no phones had yet been unveiled.But in an announcement today on its blog, Mozilla announced the impending launch of its first “developer...

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“Cyborg Foundation” wins $100K Focus Forward prize

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Spanish director Rafel Duran Torrent has won the $ 100,000 cash prize in the Focus Forward Filmmaker Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. The awards, the most lucrative ever given to short documentaries, went to five different shorts, with the top one being Duran Torrent’s “Cyborg Foundation.”The director will also be invited to a Sundance Institute ShortsLab program...

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The New Old Age Blog: Study Links Cognitive Deficits, Hearing Loss

There’s another reason to be concerned about hearing loss — one of the most common health conditions in older adults and one of the most widely undertreated. A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine suggests that elderly people with compromised hearing are at risk of developing cognitive deficits — problems with memory and thinking — sooner than those whose hearing is intact.The study...

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Prosecutors: Peregrine Financial fraud loss exceeds $215M

Peregrine Financial Group's former chief executive stole more than $215 million from customers of his now-defunct futures brokerage...

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Single-digit freeze continues; wind chills at dangerous levels

Chicago's morning weather forecast. ( WGN - Chicago) Brace yourself and bundle up.After a night when temperatures dipped to...

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I Might Be Too Old for Facebook Graph Search

On Sunday, I turned 30.That’s not too old, I tell myself, yet the signs of aging are creeping in. Teenagers listen to music that I either haven’t heard of or believe to be mostly terrible. They use slang I don’t recognize, and I imagine my slang would sound to them like “groovy” or “far out” sound to me.But for the purposes of our tech blog, the most notable sign is how much more active teens...

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