State of the Art: Microsoft’s Surface Pro Works Like a Tablet and a PC

For decades, Microsoft has subsisted on the milk of its two cash cows: Windows and Office. The company’s occasional ventures into hardware generally haven’t ended well: (*cough*) Zune, Kin Phone, Spot Watch (*cough*). But the new Surface Pro tablet, which goes on sale Saturday, seemed to have more going for it than any Microsoft hardware since the Xbox. Everybody knows what a tablet...

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IHT Rendezvous: The Phantom Province in China's Economy

BEIJING – China has a “phantom province” pumping out nearly 5.8 trillion renminbi (about $930 billion) in gross domestic product last year, about equivalent to the output of its richest province, Guangdong, Chinese media reported this week.How so?Deliberately inflated figures from local officials are largely to blame, domestic media reported, as officials seek promotion for delivering the high growth...

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DealBook: Liberty Global in Talks to Buy Virgin Media

6:59 a.m. | Updated LONDON – Liberty Global, the international cable company owned by the American billionaire John C. Malone, is in discussions to buy the British cable company Virgin Media.In a brief statement on Tuesday, Virgin Media said it was in talks with Liberty Global, which serves almost 20 million customers worldwide.“Any such transaction would be subject to regulatory and other conditions,”...

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The New Old Age Blog: In Blended Families, Responsibility Blurs

Every year, Fran McDowell waited for the summer week when she would sing in a choral festival in the North Carolina mountains, then spend a few days in a lakeside cabin with close women friends.That getaway grew more complicated to arrange — but perhaps more necessary — after her husband, Herb Beadle, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. They had a “gloriously happy” marriage — her first, his second...

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The New Old Age Blog: In Blended Families, Responsibility Blurs

Every year, Fran McDowell waited for the summer week when she would sing in a choral festival in the North Carolina mountains, then spend a few days in a lakeside cabin with close women friends.That getaway grew more complicated to arrange — but perhaps more necessary — after her husband, Herb Beadle, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. They had a “gloriously happy” marriage — her first, his second...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Q.& A.: Fixing Incorrect Photo Dates

Why do my pictures have the wrong dates on them when I transfer them from the camera to the computer with the Picasa program?One reason may be that the date and time settings on the camera were incorrect when the photos were taken. When you snap the shutter, a digital camera records more than just the image; it also embeds other data into the photo file.This information includes the date, time, image...

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IHT Rendezvous: Worse than Poisoned Water: Dwindling Water, in China's North

BEIJING — When 39 tons of the toxic chemical aniline spilled from a factory in Changzhi in China’s Shanxi province at the end of December, polluting drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people downstream along the Zhuozhang River and dangerously fouling the environment, it seemed a grave enough disaster. And it was.So it’s hard to believe, perhaps, but in mid-January, just days after local...

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DealBook: Osborne Promises More Regulatory Power to Split Up British Banks

LONDON – British regulators will have the power to split up banks that fail to separate risky trading activity from retail banking, George Osborne, the country’s chancellor of the Exchequer, said on Monday.As part of an overhaul over how the country’s banks operate, the British finance minister said regulators would be able to forcibly separate firms that failed to maintain a division between their...

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The New Old Age Blog: Therapy Plateau No Longer Ends Coverage

Ellen Gorman, 72, a New York psychotherapist, can’t walk very far and gets around the city mainly by taxi, “which is really expensive,” she said. Twice since 2008 her physical therapy was discontinued because she wasn’t progressing. But after a knee replacement last year, she is getting physical therapy again, exercising with her therapist and building up her endurance by walking in the hallway of...

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The New Old Age Blog: Therapy Plateau No Longer Ends Coverage

Ellen Gorman, 72, a New York psychotherapist, can’t walk very far and gets around the city mainly by taxi, “which is really expensive,” she said. Twice since 2008 her physical therapy was discontinued because she wasn’t progressing. But after a knee replacement last year, she is getting physical therapy again, exercising with her therapist and building up her endurance by walking in the hallway of...

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