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Roland Burris said Wednesday that he would be ready to join the Senate in a very short time "after talking with Democratic leaders who now support him and work on legal obstacles still unresolved.

Burris, nominated by Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois to fill the seat vacated by the Senate president-elect Barack Obama, she said she was happy and satisfied with his meeting with Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin


"All my interest in this experiment is to be prepared" to represent Illinois, Burris said, "and very soon I will have the opportunity to do so."

Burris' legal affairs, in 71 years, including a pending decision from a court in his home state on whether it requires the signature of the Secretary of State Jesse White in his papers for certification, and its presentation on Thursday before a committee that is considering the dismissal of Blagojevich.


Leaders of the upper house on Thursday, expect to be asked under oath if Burris something Blagojevich promised to change the appointment. Burris said Wednesday during a press conference that was not involved in any "pay to be nominated."

For his part, Obama has remained outside the discussion, saying in his own news conference that the decision on whether to allow Burris join the leaders of the Senate is the same, but you knew that you would be pleased and happy to work with him if it is ratified.


Senate leaders were under significant pressure to quickly resolve the issue of Burris before their racial and political opaquen more 111er the Legislature and congressional consideration of an economic stimulus bill that would cost one trillion dollars.

The board of black lawmakers on Wednesday voted unanimously in favor of supporting the nomination of Burris. Chairwoman Barbara Lee noted that 41 members of the group plan to send a letter to Senate Democratic leaders asking that Burris is ratified immediately.


Meanwhile, Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, sued on Wednesday to the Senate under the argument that the refusal to ratify Burris is unconstitutional.

"This is a situation where we have a senator who has already lost its first day (in Congress)," said legislator Democrat Elijah Cummings. "The only thing is that it just takes oath for the office immediately. This is perfectly obvious."


Senate leaders were not quite ready to do that, but abruptly changed his position from the previous day in the sense that Burris lacked adequate documentation to be ratified, and the stain of corruption charges against him credibility Blagojevich he or any nominee for governor.

Patients with Parkinson's disease who implanted electrodes in the brain improved substantially more than those who only took drugs, according to the largest experiment to date of deep brain stimulation.

The study, which observed the patients for six months, offers more encouraging news for those suffering from Parkinson's. The new technique reduced the tremors, stiffness and shaking of the members and allowed the subjects to move more freely for almost five hours more per day.


But the research also revealed a greater risk than anticipated. 40% of patients receiving these "brain pacemakers" suffered serious side effects, including a surprising number of falls with injuries.

"We had a patient who was so good that rose to repair your roof, fell and broke both legs," said lead author Fran Weaver, Hines Veterans Hospital, outside Chicago. "Patients are feeling better so that they forget they have Parkinson's."


The disease has no cure. Patients suffering from increasingly intense tremors and periodically stiff members as your brain stops producing dopamine, a chemical needed for the movement. May have difficulty walking, speaking and writing, and often fight depression.

The usual treatments include medications to stimulate dopamine production. But over time, the drugs can cause trembling movements that are as disturbing as those fighting the disease.


With the system of deep brain stimulation, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2002 for advanced Parkinson's and that has been practiced in thousands of patients, a surgeon implanted electrodes in the brain, which is then connected to a a pacemaker-like device that can be adjusted, turn on and off. This mechanism, implanted under the collarbone or in the abdomen, sends small electrical impulses to the brain nerve cells to turn hyperactive.

The new findings are published in Wednesday's edition of the journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers studied 255 patients with advanced Parkinson seven veterans hospitals and six university. The patients were randomly assigned the surgery along with standard medication, or medication alone.

The computer company Apple announced on Tuesday that deleted the end of March antipiracy devices of music it sells on its iTunes platform.

The announcement came during the exhibition Macworld Expo in San Francisco (California, western United States) which introduced the new MacBook Pro computer and updating the range of Macintosh programs. These developments were presented by the vice president of marketing for the company, Phil Schiller.


"We have worked with major houses discs and from today, iTunes will offer 8 million songs without DRM (Digital Rights Management) and the end of the quarter will have 10 million songs without DRM," said Schiller.

Record companies would militate for the Internet can not buy songs or an album without those devices that limit the acquisition to a single consumer.


In addition, Apple announced the end of the single tariff of 99 cents per song in the United States, which is interpreted as a concession to the companies who were asked to time Apple asked for more money to download music from iTunes.

From now the rate will be agreed by the publishers of music and songs can be sold for 69 cents, 99 cents or $ 1.29.

Technology companies may have courted to rivals offering good price and seductive in 2008, but this year is nothing more sexy to close insurance arrangements.


No signs of an imminent economic recovery, technology companies focused on producing decent earnings and trying to cope with falling stock prices and the attitude of customers economical.

When you consider opportunities to acquire a rival, firms are more cautious and prefer to reach agreements that do not exhaust its cash and in what the company has purchased a healthy business, which generates cash that can be absorbed without pain.


That means that 2009 could well be the year of small and medium agreements indicated bankers and venture capital investors.

There could be a series of multimillion-dollar purchases, especially if Microsoft Corp. revives its bid for Yahoo Inc.


But the huge plays only a small part of the turnover of technology this year, compared with those of the past five years, they said.

The bankers said that they are preparing for business in the "middle market" that the agreements would cover less than 500 million dollars.


"Large companies, strategic and probably not very effective processors make significant acquisitions," said Jeff Bistrong, who leads the group of technology investment banking Harris Williams. On the contrary, he expects more purchases in the size of a mouthful. "

"Most (of companies) keep powder dry and liquidity as it can, given the slowdown in this interim period," said Bistrong.


A WAVE OF SMALL AGREEMENTS

The bankers said that technology will not have many agreements in the early months of the year, but the pace accelerated modestly anger in the second half as they continue down the values of the companies targeted.


Peter Falvey, co-founder of Revolution Partners, an investment bank specializing in technology, said the activity would increase by the end of the first quarter, when buyers and sellers to assess how much money they have and how they see their profits.

Even then, most of the agreements is around 50 and 250 million dollars, he said. The acquisitions will not have the glamor of the supply of 47,500 million dollars that Microsoft made to Yahoo or the sale of Electronic Data Systems to Hewlett-Packard Co by 13,000 million dollars.


These agreements, even if they have money, they often involve high risks of integration, that companies do not want to assume in a market that went out the prospects for growth.

The big banks like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, which traditionally have the most succulent arrangements, banks are struggling with the "mid-market agreements for less than $ 200 million," said the head of a group of high technology bank, who asked not to be identified because his comment is related to the company's strategy.


A PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the outlook for mergers and acquisitions in 2009 predicted that in the technology segment, there will be an "aggressive procurement activity by industry leaders as (...) advantage of low prices, which occur once per decade, to fill gaps in its portfolio and strategic arrangements for cross-sector processors.

There will be action in the areas of Internet, software, computers and networks, said the report. The green technology is another area where bankers expect agreements.

And in the segment of the chip, desperate to cut costs, manufacturers could seek out partners.

Apple Inc said on Tuesday it would remove the copy protection for songs sold on the Internet and found your laptop thinner, 17 inches, but the absence of Steve Jobs and a product disappointed Wall Street .


Shares of Apple fell more than 1 percent, well behind the rise in the Nasdaq's 1.81 percent, reflecting frustration at the lack of news at the conference of marketing, previously submitted to the iPhone to the world .

"There were some innovative products, but no real success stories of sales," said Robert Francello, head of operations with shares of Apex Capital hedge fund. "People were initially optimistic, but now it is as if to make money on the table," he said.


Apple said its iTunes music store, which sold 6,000 million songs so far, will feature a club of 10 million songs free of digital rights and copy protection, towards the end of the quarter, for between 69 cents and 1.29 dollars song.

Copy protection software, also known as digital rights management (DRM by its Spanish acronym), has generated controversy among music fans and labels.


The songs will also be available for download to iPhones by air rather than through the computer.

The company decided not to use the Macworld to launch a major new product, as it did in the past when presented devices as crucial for the industry as the iPhone.


In years past, product launches at Macworld the company had generated so much expectation that could overshadow the events of the largest shows for the Consumer Electronics. The 2009 Electronics Show begins this week in Las Vegas.

Tuesday's event produced few surprises. Apple announced a 17-inch laptop for $ 2799 is the thinnest and lightest in the history of the company, as well as small renovations home movies and software for photographers.


The event ended with the singer Tony Bennett singing "The best is yet to come" and "I left my heart in San Francisco" in reference to Apple, which no longer attend the cultural event held annually by the followers of the Mac

Jobs, an icon in past events, was not in sight, despite some expectations that appear. Last month, the company said that its CEO and the seller would not do a special presentation at Macworld.


This created new concerns about the health of the surviving cancer and many observers said that Apple had no firm plans to launch a great product at Macworld.

The 2008 ended very well, in terms of market share for the Firefox browser. Although still far behind Internet Explorer, its position was permanent growth. Now reaches 21% of the global market.

For its part, in another dissent, the Chrome from Google, just step on the 1% of the sailors.


According to several companies that carry these measurements, the Internet Explorer remains low, and the Mozilla browser is over 21% of the global market.

The work he did and said that Net Applications in December 2008 - Internet Explorer use dropped to 68.5% compared to 69.77% the previous month.


The rest of the browser space wins. The clearest example is Firefox, Mozilla, which already owns 21.34% of the global market.

Other players


Behind the first and second ranked competitors: Apple Safari and Google Chrome 7.93%, with 1.04% of the market. Below are the Opera (0.71%), Netscape (0.57%) and Mozilla, with a market share of 0.08 percent.

The work of Net Applications shows that IE gave 7.9 points for participation, while Firefox and Safari 4.5 gained about 2.4 points.


John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, said that "reach 20% market share is an important milestone for Firefox and Mozilla. It was a great achievement by the world community of Mozilla."

The cyber attacks are one of the greatest threats to the security of the United States, outside of a nuclear war or weapons of mass destruction, and are increasingly difficult to prevent, experts warned Tuesday that the FBI.

Shawn Henry, assistant director of the division of the FBI, told a conference in New York that the attacks on computers pose "the most significant risk to national security, apart from a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities. "


"Out of a nuclear device or other destructive weapons, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence services, the threat to our computer system is the most critical burden on us."

American experts evoke a "cybergeddon or cyber Revelation in which an advanced economy - where everything important is connected or controlled by computers - would be sabotaged by" hackers "(hackers).


Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety of New York (northeast), described "a huge potential threat" against all the structures, from banking institutions to drinking water systems and hydroelectric dams.

Henry said that terrorist groups are working to create a virtual September 11 "would cause the same kind of damage to our country, everywhere, on all networks, as well as they did in 2001 estrellando aircraft against buildings."


An attack of this scale in line never happened so far in the United States but hacking - was once a sport for astute criminals - is evolving rapidly in the world into a weapon of war.

Russian hackers allegedly mounted attacks on the networks of Internet in Estonia and Georgia last year, and Palestinian supporters orchestrated attacks against hundreds of Israeli websites in recent days.


After years of combat against criminal groups operating in the Internet, the FBI and the security services of other countries know that "hackers" are the enemies of a more innovative and poachers.

"Before people literally chasing trasportaba pockets with cash," said Donald Codling, responsible for coordination between the FBI and the department of homeland security.


"Now the criminal can use your SIM card and move money around the world, and its partners can withdraw money at ATMs in the currency of their choice. For us it is extremely difficult to catch them."

Codling, like others involved in the fight against crime, said an upset admiration for the skill of highly motivated enemies that often lead them a step ahead.


Christopher Painter, a specialist from the FBI in charge of international coordination, described another fundamental weakness in the fight against cyber crime: the threat is often invisible and therefore not taken seriously.

"It's not like a fire," he says. "It is difficult to realize the magnitude of the threat. We often find that a company has been attacked, and they say it does not even know."

The South Korean manufacturer Samsung Electronic and Internet giant Yahoo! One hand, and their counterparts LG and Netflix, on the other hand, announced two partnerships to connect the TV to content on the web.

Samsung and Yahoo! announced on Monday that put a signature program of the California televisions capable of linking with South Korean Internet giant.


"Some models in the range of flat screen TVs and high definition will be equipped with an engine Yahoo!, An applications platform for the fifth generation that allows viewers to interact on the Internet, explained the two groups in a joint statement. This software will link the viewer with content such as information, photos, videos, stock quotes, etc.., Available on these websites via Yahoo!

Samsung expects to launch these televisions in 13 countries in America and Europe this year.


For its part, the South Korean LG also reported on Monday that will market high-definition televisions broadband designed to provide Internet download movies that are available in the catalog of Netflix. These TVs LG remove the need to buy a console to access the programming of this U.S. site.

Netflix, which has eight million subscribers, allows renting movies by mail, but increasingly offer downloads of films and programs online.


These innovations will be presented in the electronic lounge officially opens Thursday in Las Vegas (Nevada, west).

The U.S. group announced on Tuesday, Microsoft had sold 28 million copies of its Xbox 360 video game console since its launch in late 2005, after a good Christmas period that allowed him to increase his lead over the PlayStation 3 (PS3) from Sony.

"Despite a difficult economic context," the Xbox recorded in 2008 the best year in its history, "Microsoft said in a statement, which came on the market for video games only six years ago.


The group launched an aggressive pricing policy by proposing the cheapest console on the market (179 euros for the basic model).

Microsoft has in Europe with eight million customers, thus increasing the advantage over the PS3 more than a million consoles, "said the note from the company to explain that these figures were due to" an excellent year-end. " According to the research institute GFK, sales increased by 100% in December 2007 in relation to the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.


The PS3 (which costs 399 euros) has sold worldwide to 19.5 million units since its marketing in late 2006.

The Nintendo Wii (249 euros), which targets a family audience, it dominates the market with more than 45 million consoles sold so far.

Pakistan on Tuesday categorically rejected the Indian allegation that "official agencies" Pakistanis are involved in the attacks in Bombay in late November and said that these allegations only serve to increase regional tensions.

Shortly before, the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh, had stated that "some official agencies" in Pakistan had supported the armed men who attacked the heart of his country in November and accused Pakistan of using terrorism as an instrument of state policy. "


The Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued a strong statement in response, accusing India of launching a "propaganda offensive". "The government of Pakistan categorically rejects the unfortunate allegations against Pakistan today by the prime minister of India in New Delhi," said the statement. "Instead of responding positively to the Pakistani offer of cooperation and constructive proposals, India has decided to launch a propaganda offensive," he added.

"There is sufficient evidence to show that, given the sophistication and precision of military attacks in Bombay, had to be supported by some official agencies in Pakistan," Singh said at a press conference in New Delhi.


The head of the Indian government also accused Pakistan of using "terrorism as an instrument of state policy," reiterating that the country had "encouraged and welcomed in the past, insurgents hostile to India.

These statements by the Indian prime minister, much tougher than usual, take place after New Delhi on Monday to convey Islamabad with a dossier evidence "overwhelming" of the involvement of Pakistani elements "in the attacks in Bombay and denounce" probable "complicity of senior officials in Pakistan.


India, U.S. and Britain against attacks that left 172 dead, including nine of the assailants-a Lashkar-e-Taiba, clandestine armed Islamist group in Pakistan. This movement, which denied any involvement in the attacks, allegedly trained to command 10 attackers, all of them Pakistanis according to New Delhi, with support from "elements" of the Pakistani regime, which is linked to intelligence services in Islamabad, say responsible Indians who sought anonymity.

Since the Islamist attacks perpetrated from 26 to 29 November against the Indian financial capital, India and Pakistan face diplomatically but has not officially taken concrete steps that could lead to war.