Patrick Stewart to star in Seth MacFarlane TV show

Sir Patrick Stewart currently voices a character on Seth MacFarlane's animation American Dad!

Sir Patrick Stewart is to star in a new comedy series from Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

Blunt Talk will feature the 73-year-old as British newsman Walter Blunt, who goes to America to conquer cable news and educate the masses on how to live.

US cable network Starz has ordered 20 episodes over two series, to begin next year.

It will be Sir Patrick's first regular TV role since Star Trek: The Next Generation, which ran from 1987 - 1994.

The new show will see the veteran actor as the host of an interview show, who shares his often unwanted guidance while dealing with a dysfunctional news staff, numerous ex-wives, children and an alcoholic assistant.

The series will be written and produced by Jonathan Ames, the creator of HBO comedy Bored to Death. MacFarlane - who hailed Sir Patrick as "one of the greatest actors alive today" - will serve as executive producer.

Ames said it had "been a delight" to work with both Sir Patrick and MacFarlane on the show, although he had at times found it tricky.

"The only problem is that sometimes on conference calls Seth will uncannily recreate Patrick's voice, and I'm not sure who's talking, but other than that it's been smooth sailing," he said.

Sir Patrick will next be seen on the big screen in X-Men: Days of Future Past

Sir Patrick has worked with MacFarlane numerous times in recent years.

He has voiced several characters in adult animation Family Guy, and has a recurring role on American Dad! He also served as the narrator on MacFarlane's 2012 film Ted.

"My career took an abrupt and radical left turn when Seth MacFarlane created CIA deputy director Avery Bullock on American Dad," said Sir Patrick, who will next be seen on the big screen in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

"This new character, Walter Blunt, is not at all like Avery, thank God, because this is live action and I am a Knight of the Realm.

"Blunt is, however, much smarter than Avery and has his own TV show, which has to be better than being deputy director of the CIA."

Starz' chief executive officer Chris Albrecht added: "In the character of Walter Blunt, Seth, Jonathan and Patrick have found the alchemy that makes a borderline alcoholic, mad-genius-Brit the man you want fighting in America's corner.

"Seth and Jonathan have struck the right balance between biting wit and outright absurdity in building this world, and we cannot wait for Patrick to breathe life into Walter."

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Alstom to consider $17bn General Electric offer

French engineering company Alstom is considering a $16.9bn (£10bn) offer from US firm General Electric (GE) for its energy business.

But the French firm said it would be open to a rival bid from German firm Siemens, which is also interested in its power turbines business.

Siemens has said it would make an offer if given access to Alstom's books.

Both bidders have already met French President Francois Hollande to discuss their potential offers.

GE's chief executive, Jeff Immelt, said he had had a "productive two-way dialogue" with the French government.

"We think we've got a good deal and it's going to be executed," he added.

'Strategic merits'

Alstom, whose power business generated $15bn in sales last year, said it would use the proceeds of a GE deal to concentrate on the other side of its business, which makes TGV high-speed trains.

In a statement, the French firm said its board recognised "unanimously the strategic and industrial merits" of the GE offer, and that it would make a decision by the end of May.

"Alstom's employees would join a well-known, major global player, with the means to invest in people and technology to support worldwide energy customers over the long term," said Alstom's chairman and chief executive, Patrick Kron.

But the company also said it would give Siemens access to its books so the German firm could weigh up a competing bid.

Mr Hollande, who met the bosses of Siemens and GE on Monday, said the French government would place a priority on preserving jobs at one of the country's key industrial firms.

France's economy minister has already said the government would block any deal it sees as unfit.

For either deal to go through, Alstom would also need the backing of Martin Bouygues, the billionaire chairman of family conglomerate Bouygues, which is the firm's largest shareholder with a 29.4% stake.

Rolls-Royce bid

Alstom has about 93,000 employees in 100 countries around the world, and employs about 18,000 people in France.

The engineering giant had to be bailed out by the French government in 2004, and has suffered heavy debts and a fall in orders over the past decade.

Separately, British engineering firm Rolls-Royce has confirmed it is in talks with Siemens over the sale of its gas turbine and compressor business.

The Rolls-Royce offer is part of a new strategy that the German engineering group will present on 7 May, a Siemens spokesman said.

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Lab volcano gives lightning clues

This slow-motion video shows the experiment in progress

Don't do this at home. Corrado Cimarelli makes his own volcanoes that spout ash vertically at hundreds of metres a second.

The Italian is studying the awesome sight of lightning that is often observed in eruption plumes.

His "lab volcano" allows him to recreate and study the processes that give rise to the necessary electrical conditions.

The hope eventually is to learn something about the nature of volcanoes purely from their lightning behaviour.

“The lightning can tell us a lot about the structure of the eruption plume and the ash particle sizes within it,” Dr Cimarelli told BBC News.

Such information could give an indication of whether a particular eruption was likely to pose a risk to aviation, he added.

The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich researcher was speaking here in Vienna at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly.

His lab volcano is no mountain; the vent is only about 3cm wide. But it is able to reproduce the conditions that trigger volcano lightning very successfully.

The set-up is essentially a hot, pressurised metal tube from which real volcano ash particles (from Popocatepetl in Mexico) are accelerated at high speed.

Slow-motion video captures mini-lighting strikes dancing around the exhaust jet.

To get discharges in a real volcano, there needs to be a large electrical potential between different regions of the eruption cloud.

Ash particles can be charged by fracturing them and by rubbing them together.

Sakurajima volcano in Japan produces regular, spectacular flashes

If the charges are big enough and are located in the right places in the plume, a bolt can jump from one location to another.

It is clear from the experiments that particle size is a critical factor. The smaller the particles, the higher the number of bolts.

“That’s the beauty of these experiments,” said Dr Cimarelli.

“Things that are unconstrainable in nature can be constrained in the lab. And that’s what we did. We changed systematically the sizes of the material we were using and we noticed that if we decreased the grain size of the ash, we produced more flashes.”

Dr Cimarelli’s team is now taking the lessons learned out into the field to study lighting at Sakurajima volcano in Japan. It is the type of volcano that produces regular, spectacular flashes.

The scientists want to test the idea that you could extrapolate ash size from the frequency of lightning events.

“The size of the particles determines the time of residence in the atmosphere and the smaller they are, the longer they stay up to be carried by the winds," said Dr Cimarelli.

"This means, of course, that if you have smaller particles, those particles can be carried long distances. And this is bad news for aviation, which we all know from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption in 2010.”

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That's the beauty of these experiments... things that are unconstrainable in nature can be constrained in the lab”

Dr Corrado CimarelliLudwig Maximilian University of Munich

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Scientists probe Earth's last warm phase

The study used data from the new NEEM ice core drilled in Greenland

By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News, Vienna

Scientists now have a fuller picture of what happened at the poles during the last warm phase on Earth.

Known as the Eemian, this time period extended from roughly 129,000 years ago to about 116,000 years before present.

The poles were known to have been a few degrees warmer than they are today.

But by pulling together more than 40 ice core and marine sediment records, researchers, led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), have obtained the most comprehensive assessment yet.

It confirms that the Antarctic emerged from Ice Age conditions first. The Northern Hemisphere followed.

"Interglacial conditions, warm conditions, were in place earlier in the Southern Hemisphere than in the Northern Hemisphere," explained Dr Emilie Capron from BAS.

"Eventually, the Northern Hemisphere catches up and then both poles are warmer than they are today.

"It's something we knew looking at a few records, but now we have more records showing exactly the same pattern," she told BBC News.

The researcher was speaking here in Vienna at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly.

The data synthesis has been completed as part of the Past4Futureproject, an EU-funded initiative that seeks clues about what will happen to the Earth's climate in the decades ahead from an understanding of its past behaviour.

Scientists will now use the information to test their computer models.

If their simulations can reproduce the variation in temperatures across the land and ocean surfaces during the Eemian there will be greater confidence in the models as they look forward in time.

This has already been done for one model, "and its simulations are on the right track," confirms Dr Capron.

For her analysis, the BAS researcher combined five ice cores and 39 marine sediment records.

These can be used to infer past temperatures.

By studying the ratio of light to heavy molecules of water in the layers of the ice cores, for example, it is possible to gauge the likely precipitation conditions, and therefore the prevailing temperatures, during the ancient snowfalls on Antarctica and Greenland which formed them.

The fine layers in the Baltic Sea cores are expected to give up important new information

And something similar can be done using the mud layers of marine sediments.

These contain the skeletons of microscopic organisms called foraminifera, and the chemistry of their hard parts is heavily influenced by the temperature of the surface waters in which they swam.

"But having the temperatures is not enough," explained Dr Capron.

"If you are going to compare the climate from one place to another, you need a common chronology for all the different records. And this was the great challenge in this study - to try to transfer all the palaeoclimatic records on to just one time chronology, because we are working beyond the time where we can use radiocarbon dating."

One way to line up these types of records is to look for distinctive markers such as ash layers from major volcanic eruptions.

One set of marine sediment records that came too late to be included in the study is the newly-retrieved cores that were drilled from the Baltic Sea at the end of last year.

Under the International Ocean Discovery Program, scientists took cores from seven locations that trace the history of the Baltic Sea back in time from the present, all the way to, and through, the Eemian.

Preliminary study of these cores reveals extremely fine layers that should throw up fascinating new insights on the climate history of the region.

"The sediments of the Baltic basin provide a link between the continental and marine records," Dr Thomas Andren, the program's co-chief scientist, reported here at the EGU meeting.

"The Baltic is complicated because it reflects both the inputs of freshwater precipitation over land and also the inflow of marine water. These new cores will allow us to pull apart these signals, to see the climate history of the Baltic in unprecedented detail."

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These new cores will allow us to see the climate history of the Baltic in unprecedented detail”

Dr Thomas AndrenInternational Ocean Discovery Program

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Film download prices 'to be determined by screen size'

The smaller the screen the cheaper the cost to watch a movie in future, Mr Katzenberg suggested

The cost of watching a newly released film will depend upon the size of the screen on which it is viewed in future, the head of Dreamworks Animation says.

Those who watched on a "movie screen" would pay the most while those using smartphones would only pay a small fee, Jeffrey Katzenberg said.

This pricing model will be common in 10 years' time, he told a US conference.

But one commentator suggested it would be tricky to accurately identify the precise size of the devices used.

Mr Katzenberg - who runs a studio that has produced movies such as Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda - was speaking at the Milken Global Conference in California.

This bills itself as a forum for people to find solutions to challenges in business, as well as other areas.

"Movies are not a growth business," Mr Katzenberg told delegates.

Technical hurdles

Referring to the way films are distributed after their initial cinema release, he said: "I think the model will change and you won't pay for the window of availability.

"A movie will come out and you will have 17 days - that's exactly three weekends, which is 95% of the revenue for 98% of movies.

"On the 18th day, these movies will be available everywhere ubiquitously and you will pay for the size," he said.

The pricing model he suggested was $15 (£9) per film for a movie-sized screen, $4 (£2.40) for a 75in (190cm) TV and $1.99 (£1.20) for a smartphone.

Typically film studios have around three months to show a film in the cinema before it is released for distribution on other media channels.

"It will reinvent the enterprise of movies," he said.

Greg Maffei, chief executive of TV distributor Liberty Media Corp, agreed with Mr Katzenberg.

"Few networks are impacted by technology more than the media business," he said.

But technology website The Verge thought the idea faced some technical hurdles.

"Given the diversity of video streaming options available today, it's hard to imagine a security system that would reliably recognise the exact size of the screen it's being displayed on," wrote commentator Vlad Slavov

.Jeffrey Katzenberg set out his vision for the future of film releases

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US economic growth slows sharply to 0.1% in first quarter

Unusually bad winter weather had contributed to the economic slowdown, the US Commerce Department said

US economic growth slowed sharply in the first quarter of the year, growing at an annual rate of 0.1%.

The rate is the slowest for a year and a large fall on the 2.6% increase in gross domestic product (GDP) in the final quarter of last year.

An unusually cold and disruptive winter, coupled with tumbling exports, contributed to the decline, the US Commerce Department said.

But it said economic activity already appeared to be bouncing back.

Business investment fell by 2.1%, with spending on equipment plunging by 5.5% at an annual rate compared with a year earlier.

Residential construction, which was inevitably hit by the unusually cold winter fell by 5.7% although it was also hit by higher house prices and a shortage of available homes for sale.

The US trade trade deficit deficit widened, thanks to a sharp fall in exports which shaved growth by 0.8 percentage points in the first quarter. Businesses also slowed their restocking, with a slowdown in inventory rebuilding reducing growth by nearly 0.6 percentage points.

But consumer spending - which drives 70% of growth in the US economy - grew by 3%, although the increase was dominated by a 4.4% rise in spending on services, reflecting higher utility bills during the bitterly cold winter.

Rebound

A cutback in spending by state and local governments also helped offset a rebound in federal activity after the 16-day partial government shutdown last year.

But most economists expect a strong rebound in growth in the April-June quarter. The consensus view is the economy will expand by 3% in the second quarter.

Analysts said stronger growth will endure through the rest of the year as the economy derives help from improved job growth, rising consumer spending and a rebound in business investment.

"Everything else is showing us that the economy is picking up," said Gus Faucher, from PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.

"This weakness is not carrying through to the second quarter."

                                      The Federal Reserve has been buying bonds to                                      keep interest rates low and boost growth

In fact, many analysts believe 2014 will be the year the recovery from recession finally achieves the robust growth needed to accelerate hiring and reduce still-high unemployment.

If the economy rebounds as strongly as they suggest, it will have experienced the fastest annual expansion in the economy in nine years.

Tapering to stay

The last time growth was as strong was in 2005, when GDP grew 3.4%, two years before the nation fell into the worst recession since the 1930s.

Unemployment is expected to fall to 6.2% by the end of this year from 6.7% in March.

Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors, said he expected job growth to average above 200,000 a month for the rest of the year - starting with the April jobs report, which will be released Friday.

"Those are the types of job gains which will generate incomes and consumer confidence going forward," he added.

The growth figures come a few hours before a policy statement from the US Federal Reserve, the country's central bank.

But few expect the disappointing news to have any impact on the scaling back of the Fed's economic stimulus, which has seen it cut bond purchases by $10bn per month.

"We rule out that the Fed will modify its policy outlook on the back of today's GDP report and the gradual tapering is set to continue in the coming months," said Annalisa Piazza, from Newedge Strategy in London.

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Analysis

Andrew WalkerBBC World Service Economics correspondent

This is a standstill number. If we follow the British practice of giving the figures as a quarterly growth rate to one decimal place we get 0.0%.

Yes, we knew that bad winter weather would be, as it were, a headwind that would slow the US economy down. But this was a much sharper loss of momentum than expected.

It does give some support to the views of the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen that the economy is not back to normal health and will need the stimulus from Fed policies for some time yet.

Still, consumer spending was quite strong in the new figures and the chances are that the slowdown in growth will be relatively short-lived.

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Microsoft to launch Xbox One game console in China

The ban on consoles has seen PC games dominate the Chinese gaming market

Microsoft has said that Xbox One will go on sale in China in September.

It is the first foreign company to announce the sale of its consoles in China after the country lifted a 14-year old ban in January this year.

Microsoft will launch the console in collaboration with BesTV New Media Co, a subsidiary of Shanghai Media Group.

China's gaming market, which is currently dominated by PC, mobile and online games, is seen as a key growth area for console makers.

"Launching Xbox One in China is a significant milestone for us and for the industry," said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice-president at Microsoft.

The firms did not disclose the expected selling price in China.

'Opportunities are endless'

China banned gaming consoles in 2000, citing their adverse effect on the mental health of young people.

The restriction stayed in place, with a brief exception made for the PlayStation 2 in 2004.

Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have since missed out on the rapid growth of gaming in the country.

The industry generated revenues of $13bn (£8bn) in 2013, a 38% jump from a year ago.

But majority of that is dominated by PC gaming, not least because of the ban on games consoles.

However, earlier this year China said that it would allow foreign firms to make consoles within Shanghai's free-trade zone and sell them in China after inspection by cultural departments.

"Creators and gamers alike have eagerly awaited a new generation of entertainment experiences in China, and their wait will be over with the arrival of Xbox One this year," said Enwei Xie, who will head Xbox China for Microsoft.

The two firms said they would also launch an programme that will enable creators and developers to build, publish and sell their games on Xbox One in China as well as in other markets where Xbox is available.

"The opportunities are endless for creators to unleash their imaginations for games, online education and fitness experiences for China and beyond," said Mr Xie.

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"The opportunities are endless for creators to unleash their imaginations for games, online education and fitness experiences for China and beyond”

Enwei XieMicrosoft

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Google halts student Gmail advertisement scans

Google promotes its web apps as an easy way for students to collaborate on projects

Google has stopped scanning millions of Gmail accounts linked to an educational scheme, after it targeted users for advertising purposes.

The decision includes email accounts associated with Google Apps for Education (GAE).

This initiative provides teachers and students with access to free apps and storage, as well as customised @schoolname.edu email addresses.

The U-turn follows reports the scans might have breached a US privacy law.

Google highlighted its use of such scans when it updated its terms and conditions last month.

"Our automated systems analyse your content (including emails) to provide you personally-relevant product features, such as customised search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored," the terms read.

However, the Education Week website said this data-mining activity might place the firm in breach of the US Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The firm had already been sued over the matter in California by two students who said they had been required to use Gmail by their university, it added.

The UK's largest teachers' union greeted the change in policy.

"Commercialisation seeps into all corners of children's lives," said Christine Blower, general secretary, of the NUT.

"The targeting of children with advertising ranging from fast food to designer clothes is relentlessly pursued by commercial companies. This is a welcome move."

Scan switch-off

More than 30 million students, teachers and administrators use GAE, Google says.

The University of Westminster, the University of St Andrews and Southampton's Oakwood Junior School are among its UK customers.

Other clients include Nigeria's Ladoke Akintola University of Technology and the American University in Cairo.

Google had prevented adverts from being shown from within GAE's own apps, but the scans could have been used to tailor what appeared when users visited a website using the firm's AdSense platform.

"We've permanently removed all ads scanning in Gmail for Apps for Education, which means Google cannot collect or use student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes," wrote Google for Education director Bram Bout on a company blog.

The change is also promised for users who signed up to Gmail as part of the service while at school or university, but have now moved on.

In addition, Mr Bout said, it would also be rolled out to current and legacy users of Google's Apps for Government and Apps for Business services.

However, other Gmail users will still have their accounts scanned.

"It is certainly telling that a company like Google, which is so reliant on data driven advertising, is taking steps to act on people's concerns about their privacy," said Emma Carr, deputy director of the campaign group Big Brother Watch.

"Scanning emails is clearly intrusive, so any step to protect children is a positive one. However, Google could certainly go further by introducing the same controls for users of all ages and for all of its services."

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Spanish police arrest Dani Alves banana thrower suspect

Dani Alves told the BBC that Sunday's racist insult was not an isolated case

Spanish police say they have arrested a spectator suspected of throwing a banana at Barcelona's Brazilian footballer Dani Alves last weekend.

The racist incident took place as the player was about to take a corner in a match at Villarreal on Sunday.

Alves responded by peeling and eating the banana - which received praise worldwide and sparked a large social media campaign against racism.

The man detained has been identified as a 26-year-old Villarreal supporter.

He has been named as David Campaya Lleo, local media say.

The club said earlier the man involved had had his season ticket withdrawn and been given a lifetime ban.

The Barcelona defender expressed his surprise at the outpouring of support in the wake of the banana affair. His team eventually won the match 3-2, at Villareal's El Madrigal stadium in Castellon on Spain's east coast.

Alves told BBC Brasil on Wednesday it was "not an isolated incident", and that he had been denouncing racist insults for six years.

"I hope that this (campaign) can be an alert to ban this kind of attitude from football altogether. I hope the debate about racial prejudice will not fade away, but stays on permanently and not be restricted only to football," he added.

Lifetime ban

Reports suggest the suspect in detention may have had links to one of the Villarreal's youth teams, although the team has not commented on this.

In a statement earlier this week, Villarreal said the club "deeply regrets and condemns the incident".

The Italian premier (left) and national football coach share a moment of solidarity with Dani Alves

In earlier comments to Brazil's Radio Globo, Alves said he wanted the opposition fan who threw the banana to be publicly shamed.

He also criticised Spain for its approach to racism, saying: "They sell the country as being first world but in certain things they are very backward."

The hashtag "we are all monkeys" took Twitter by storm after fellow Brazilian footballer Neymar tweeted a photo of himself smiling on Instagram with a banana, side by side with his toddler son.

Professional footballers, celebrities and ordinary people alike have since posted photos of themselves, banana in hand, on social media.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi became the latest public figure to join the campaign when he posed for reporters, sharing a banana with Italian football coach Cesare Prandelli.

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South Korea ferry owner 'ignored' warnings

Chonghaejin Marine, owner of the Sewol, allegedly brushed aside warnings about the ship

The owner of the sunken South Korean ferry ignored an off-duty captain's warnings about the ship's stability, prosecutors have said.

They say the captain warned that the ship should not carry too much cargo after it was refurbished. Two company officials have been detained.

The vessel was carrying three times its recommended maximum cargo weight.

It had 476 passengers on board when it sank on 16 April - 174 were rescued. More than 200 bodies have been found.

Most of those on board were high school students. About 90 people are still missing and divers are searching for them off South Korea's southern coast near Jindo.

The refurbishment carried out by owners Chonghaejin Marine took place between October 2012 and February last year, shortly after the company purchased the Sewol ferry.

They built extra passenger cabins on the third, fourth and fifth decks.

The off-duty captain, named by prosecutors as Shin, had warned the company that this move had altered the 6,825-tonne ship's balance and undermined its ability to stabilise itself.

Prosecutors said these warnings were brushed aside, according to news agencies.

On top of that, the ferry was carrying more than three times its recommended maximum cargo. It had left the port of Incheon with 3,606 tonnes of freight and cargo.

Investigators are now looking into whether the ship sank from overloading and changes in the structure of the ship, and whether it had enough ballast water to accommodate the extra load.

The ferry's refurbishment had been approved and met safety standards, but Chonghaejin may have made additional changes afterward, said investigators.

Prosecutors revealed that skipper Lee Joon-seok, seen here being rescued on 16 April, was the substitute captain for that day

Kim Han-Sik (centre), the elderly chief executive of Chonghaejin Marine, being helped to the prosecutor's office

Two Chonghaejin officials have been detained on suspicion of accidental homicide, stemming from professional negligence in connection with the sinking, Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the company's chief executive officer Kim Han-sik was summoned to the prosecutor's office in Incheon for questioning.

It has also emerged that the captain who was piloting the Sewol on the day of the accident, Lee Joon-Seok, was a substitute for Shin, who was on holiday.

Lee has since been detained with 14 other crew members.

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