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The UK economy grew slightly faster than initially estimated in the first three months of the year, official figures show.
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Health Minister Michael McGimpsey will present his plans to deal with upcoming cuts to his budget later.
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PC giant Dell launches its Streak tablet and joins an increasing number of firms offering mobile touchscreen devices.
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A Thai court approves an arrest warrant for ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra on terrorism charges linked to recent deadly protests.
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The first European trial of alleged Somali pirates is to open in the Netherlands over an attack in the Gulf of Aden.
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Silicon chips that are allowed to make mistakes could help ensure computers continue to get more powerful, say researchers.
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Has more money for Africa led to fewer coups?
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The abortion rate has dropped for the second year running in England and Wales, statistics show.
But experts said it was still too early to say whether there was a downward trend.
The total number of abortions was 189,100 in 2009 – a rate of 17.5 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, according to the Department of Health figures.
This compares to 18.2 in 2008 and comes after a general upward trend for the past 40 years which peaked in 2007.
The abortion rate in Scotland also fell last year to 12.4 per 1,000.
Funding
Ann Furedi, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the largest abortion provider in the UK, said: "Abortion figures tend to fluctuate slightly year-on-year so we can’t call this a trend yet, especially with the background of the last few decades’ gradual rise."
And she added: "Unintended pregnancy and abortion will always be facts of life because women want to make sure the time is right for them to take on the important role of becoming a parent.
"Abortion statistics are reflective of women’s very serious consideration regarding that significant role within their current situation."
At the beginning of the 1970s the abortion rate was around the 8 per 1,000 figure, but after almost continuous year-on-year increases it rose to 18.6 two years ago.
Since then it has fallen, but experts remain cautious as in previous years there have been slight drops or a levelling off which have not been sustained in the long-term.
The figures also show that the proportion of abortions carried out before 10 weeks has risen, with many putting this down to the increase in funding which has improved access over the past decade.
The abortion rate was highest at 33 per 1,000 among women aged 19, 20 and 21, although that too has dropped since last year.
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1010: TheDaily Mailappear to have learned more French than me. Yes indeed. Here’s how they describe yesterday’s drama on Court Suzanne Lenglen: "Andy Murray spent four hours and four minutes on Monday trying to haunt Richard Gasquet with that most felicitous French phrase: deja vu." TheDaily Telegraphsuggest that "perhaps next time Murray should just leave the locker room imagining that he is two sets down", whilethe Timescompares Murray to a tree: "The transformation of Murray from a teenage sapling with a tendency to wilt in the breeze to sturdy professional oak was further demonstrated… yesterday." Fair enough. And whilethe Sunfret about Murray "putting his fans through the wringer" when it’s not even Wimbledon yet,the Guardiancalls the match "the Battle of Wounded Knees" in which "Murray’s right ultimately proved to be in better shape than Gasquet’s left". More on Murray’s wonky knee later.
1004: And here is Justine Henin and she receives a rapturous reception on her long-awaited return to Roland Garros from the 23 people who have managed to show up on time at Court Philippe Chatrier.
1000: Ah bonjour to you. I’m already starting to fear I will run out of French words before week one is out. Oh, hang on, I already have. Tant pis! Anyway, top-drawer start to the day in Paris where we’ll see Justine Henin play her first match at Roland Garros since winning the title three years ago, while on Court 4, Britain’s last remaining female participant (in singles) Katie O’Brien is up against veteran American Jill Craybas.
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The Crown Prosecution Service’s attempts to convict primary-school children of rape have consistently failed. According to court statistics, they have tried six times in the last decade and six times the 10-or-11-year-olds in the dock have been acquitted of that charge.
Yesterday, two more small boys were found not guilty – a divided Old Bailey jury instead convicted them of attempted rape. Their names have been placed on the sex offenders register, a status that is likely to have repercussions on the rest of their lives. They will be sentenced in eight weeks.
Chief Crown Prosecutor, Alison Saunders, stood outside the court yesterday afternoon to justify putting the boys and their eight-year-old victim through the ordeal of a full trial.
“The decision to prosecute was not taken lightly,” she insisted, reminding reporters that the CPS has a “duty to prosecute where there is sufficient evidence to do so and a prosecution is in the public interest”. This morning, however, some are questioning whether the public interest was served.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, columnist Philip Johnston asks whether there is “any other country in the world where the pre-pubescent fumblings of children would result in a rape trial?” He regards it as “astonishing” that the little boys were convicted “but even more amazing is that it even came to court at all”. It is a view echoed by other commentators today – see this round-up of responses.
Prosecutors in England and Wales are certainly under pressure to take more alleged rapists to court, particularly those accused of unlawful intercourse with a minor – statutory rape. Guidance states that “the public interest requires the prosecution of an offence of unlawful sexual intercourse with a girl under 13 unless exceptional circumstances exist”.
So were there “exceptional circumstances” in this case?
Some would argue that the fact the alleged perpetrators were only 10-years-old was just that. The law of statutory rape was clearly not devised to criminalise very young children whose first sexual encounters go too far.
Many rape statutes specify that statutory rape occurs when the complainant is under a certain age but also that the perpetrator is over a certain age. No such distinction applies in England and Wales.
In a speech last year, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, reminded staff that “the Code for Crown Prosecutors makes clear that the interests of a youth must be considered” when deciding whether it is in the public interest to go ahead with the prosecution of a young child. He also said that prosecutors are obliged by law to “have regard to the welfare of any children appearing in court, whether as defendants or not”.
He pointed out that “England and Wales has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world, much lower than in the majority of our European counterparts”.
Few other Western nations would even consider prosecuting a 10-year-old for any crime, never mind statutory rape.
“For example in the Scandinavian nations the age of criminal responsibility is 15, in Portugal and Spain it is 16, and in Belgium and Luxembourg it is 18,” Mr Starmer said. Having taken the decision to treat very young children as criminally responsible for their actions in Britain (the age of criminal responsibility in Scotland is currently eight), the youth prosecutor “makes important decisions regarding outcomes for very young offenders that are made by care and social services agencies in most European countries,” Mr Starmer told his audience.
The fact that the boys were accused of “statutory rape” raises further questions. The issue of consent from the eight-year-old girl did not apply in this case because the law assumes she is too young to give it. The jury did not need to consider whether this was a game of “doctors and nurses” that got out of hand, or even whether the girl had participated or encouraged the activities.
Their conclusion was simply that the boys tried and failed to have intercourse with her. With very young defendants there must be a question as to whether they can be expected to have an understanding of the complexities of the law in this area. It is one thing to “know right from wrong” but another to understand that the criminal justice system would regard touching private parts with a play-mate as potentially a matter which risks years in jail and a lifetime on the sex offenders register.
The CPS code reminds prosecutors that the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 states “it shall be the principal aim of the youth justice system to prevent offending by children and young persons”. The reason for taking children to court is primarily to stop them breaking the law in future, not simply for retribution or to punish misdemeanours in the past.
As the act makes clear, that preventive approach “provides a new guiding principle to which all agencies and individuals can relate their work and responsibilities”. So a further question for the CPS is whether prosecution in this case made it less likely that the two boys will re-offend.
“I don’t think anyone who has sat through this trial would think for a moment that the system that we employ is ideal,” the judge, Mr Justice Saunders, said. He was reflecting on the proceedings but his remark has been seized upon by those who think the case should never have come to court in the first place.
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Samsung’s managed to cram a Digital SLR sensor into a compact hybrid body, but how does the NX10 perform? We’ll be taking an in-depth look at this new concept from Samsung.
The Samsung NX10 has been getting a huge amount of attention because it’s the first mirror-less digital SLR hybrid with an APS-C format sensor. It’s true that the Micro Four Thirds format cameras from Olympus and Panasonic have been out for a while, but they use a smaller sensor format. The key questions are, then, whether the NX10 can compete on level terms with digital SLRs, and whether it offers any quality advantage over Micro Four Thirds?
Hybrid cameras have many advantages and one fairly major disadvantage. The advantages include smaller, lighter bodies with fewer moving parts (there’s no need for the mirror or pentaprism used by SLRs) and full-time live view. This makes them easier to understand for users migrating up from a compact digital camera.
The disadvantage is that you have to make do with an electronic viewfinder rather than the optical viewing system of a digital SLR. Even with the latest high-res EVFs, it’s a big difference. You don’t get the same definition or clarity in mixed lighting conditions, and it’s harder to judge the focusing visually.
The NX10 is a new approach from Samsung. Previous forays into the digital SLR market were conventional digital SLRs produced in partnership with Pentax. The badges and some interface elements were different, but essentially the Samsung GX10 and GX20 were Pentax cameras in disguise. The NX10, though, is Samsung’s own design.
The specifications are quite impressive given the NX10’s price. They include a 14.6-megapixel CMOS sensor with a maximum sensitivity of ISO 3200, a 3-inch ‘AMOLED’ display (seen here) with 614,000 dots and a 1280 x 720 HD movie mode.
The standard kit lens is an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 with Samsung’s own Optical Image Stabilizaton system, but there’s also a 50-200mm f4-5.6 OIS telephoto zoom and a 30mm f2 fixed focal length ‘pancake’ lens available separately.
The NX10 has all the manual controls and features you’d expect from a digital SLR, including full program AE, aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual modes and the ability to shoot both JPEG and RAW files. RAW files can be processed using the Samsung RAW Converter software that comes with the camera, but this is a PC-only program so Mac owners will have to wait for third-party software publishers to add support for this camera.
Beginners needn’t feel intimidated, though. The NX10 comes with a range of scene modes which can be selected manually and a Smart Auto mode where the camera analyses the scene and chooses the on that’s most suitable. The autofocus system offers a face-detection mode, and there’s a Beauty Shot mode for enhancing portrait shots.
On paper, the NX10 looks pretty good. In the flesh, it’s even better. The body is certainly smaller than a digital SLR’s and, because there’s no mirror, a whole lot slimmer. You can see just how slim the body is in this overhead shot (though the kit lens is a good deal fatter than the 30mm ‘pancake’ lens fitted here).
In fact the Samsung is no bigger than Panasonic’s G-series SLR hybrids, despite the fact that its APS-C sensor has around twice the area. Olympus’s Pen cameras are a little smaller, though by the time you’ve extended Olympus’s retracting 14-42mm lens, it’s actually longer than the Samsung’s.
The design and the finish and the feel of the controls are equally impressive. The NX10 feels light, comfortable and sturdy in your hands. The power switch (around the shutter release), the top control wheel, and the mode dial have a firm, positive feel. The buttons on the back are perhaps a little small – especially the directional controller – but they’re clearly labelled and work well.
Samsung’s menu system has been designed to be more straightforward for beginners, but the position of the menu button above the top left corner of the display is quite odd – you keep expecting to find it with the other buttons near the navigational controller.
It’s also a bit too easy to accidentally press the white balance button (the right navigational button) with the heel of your right thumb as you hold the camera. The display is pretty busy, with icons running down both sides and shooting information along the bottom, and it’s a shame there isn’t some kind of simplified interactive display where you can highlight the setting you want on the screen and change it directly.
Whether or not it is aimed at beginners, the NX10 also has all the features more experienced and adventurous photographers will be looking for. As well as auto-exposure bracketing, it offers white balance bracketing and Picture Wizard bracketing too. Picture Wizards are Samsung’s name for picture styles like ‘vivid’, black and white, ‘natural’ modes and more.
Like other manufacturers, Samsung offers a mode which attempts to control highlights and shadows in high-contrast scenes, effectively extending the camera’s dynamic range. It’s called ‘Smart Range’, and it’s comparable to Nikon’s ‘Active D-Lighting’ and Sony’s Dynamic Range Optimizer. Here, it’s held on to the detail in this rock as well as the brighter landscape and sky in the background.
Samsung says the AMOLED (Active-Matrix Organic Light-Emitting Diode) display is thinner, brighter and offers better response times than conventional displays, as well as excellent colors. It doesn’t look that different to other displays, to be fair, though it does offer extremely wide viewing angles. That could be useful, because the display is fixed and doesn’t swing out and rotate like the Panasonic G1/G2’s, for example, or Nikon’s D5000 digital SLR.
The electronic viewfinder is a little less impressive. It has much higher resolution than those in compact superzoom cameras, but it still looks slightly pixelated, and it doesn’t show much detail in darker areas. This is the price you pay with hybrid SLR designs, but for many users it will be well worth it because of the advantages.
The full-time live view offered by the NX is massively superior to the live view you get with a digital SLR. You don’t get the delay and the mechanical noise as the mirror flips up out of the way, and the autofocus is much, much quicker. If you prefer using an LCD to a viewfinder to compose your shots, the Samsung’s mirror-less design is a better long-term choice than a digital SLR.
The manual focus mode isn’t bad either. The problem here with the hybrid design is that an electronic viewfinder isn’t as good as an optical finder for judging focus. The NX does magnify the viewfinder image when you turn the focus ring, which makes it easier to judge when your subject is sharp, but it’s still not quite as quick or as positive as a digital SLR.
Sometimes manual focusing is essential, even with the most sophisticated multi-point AF system, especially when your subject is on an angled plane like this and you want to exploit shallow depth of field.
The focus ring doesn’t have a distance scale, though, so you can’t use old-fashioned zone focusing and depth of field control. But the lens does use internal focusing, which means that the front element doesn’t rotate, so there’s no problem using polarizing or graduated filters.
The movie mode works well, too. The autofocus still works as you film (though face-detection mode is not available), and keeps up reasonably well as long as your subjects don’t move too quickly. The footage can get very ‘choppy’, though, if you don’t keep the camera still, and this seems to be a feature of HD cameras in general – the extra resolution tends to make poor shooting technique all the more obvious. The in-built microphones do suffer from wind noise, but there’s a Wind Cut function which helps reduce it.
The lack of an external microphone socket will limit the Samsung’s appeal for real video enthusiasts, and there are no manual exposure controls in the movie mode, though you can set the lens aperture manually, choosing a large aperture to get a ‘cinematic’ look with reduced depth of field, for example. You can apply fade in/out effects to your clips, too.
You can play movies back on an HDTV using the camera’s HDMI interface, though you’ll have to buy the cable separately. It’s compatible with Samsung’s Anynet+ system, so if you own a compatible Samsung TV you should be able to operate the camera in playback mode with your existing remote.
The main point about the NX10, of course, is that it should provide digital SLR quality, and it certainly does that. You won’t necessarily see much difference in definition from the 14-megapixel files this camera produces compared to the 12-megapixel images of Micro Four Thirds cameras or Nikon’s digital SLRs, but then Canon’s 15 and 18-megapixel APS-C SLRs aren’t any sharper either.
What you do get with the Samsung are clean, clear, richly-detailed images with plenty of saturation and contrast. In fact, sometimes the colors can be a little overpowering. The ‘Vivid’ Picture Wizard was used for this shot to make the most of the bright seaside colours.
It’s not bad at high ISOs, either. At the ISO 3200 maximum, the quality is pretty borderline, but at ISO 1600 it’s fine. It’s well up to current digital SLR standards and, if you’ve just moved up from a compact, you will be amazed at the quality improvement you get from the bigger sensor.
The 18-55mm kit lens is especially good. It’s light and compact, and the zooming and focus actions are very smooth. It delivers sharp detail right up to the edge of the frame, and there’s very little chromatic aberration or distortion. In fact as kit lenses go, it’s one of the best.
With its full-time live view, the NX10 has some appeal for beginners simply because it’s a more straightforward step up from a compact, but all the rest about hybrids being easier to understand than D-SLRs is a myth. All digital SLRs have full auto modes than any beginner can operate, and they always did have. The NX10’s mirror-less design makes it simpler for those used to compacts, but its in-depth features and controls are just as complicated as an SLR’s.
The NX10 is a great camera nonetheless. It’s cheaper, lighter and simpler than a D-SLR and yet delivers the same image quality and features. The current line-up of three lenses and a pair of external flashguns (the larger ED-SEF42A flash unit and 50-200mm lens are shown above) is a little restricted, but it’s early days yet and as long as Samsung adds more lenses over time, the Samsung should prove a strong rival both to Micro Four Thirds cameras and low-end to mid-range digital SLRs.
It’s a little harder to split these three groups of cameras for quality. Micro Four Thirds sensors might be physically smaller, but a process of constant development has yielded a level of image quality that rivals APS-C sensors, despite the size difference, and Olympus and Panasonic also produce some very sharp, low-aberration lenses.
The definition in this shot is exactly what you’d expect from an APS-C sensor. The NX10 has a slight megapixel advantage over many of its rivals, but it’s not enough to make any obvious difference to the pictures.
That doesn’t mean the NX10 underperforms. Quite the contrary – its rivals set very high standards, and it’s to the Samsung’s credit that it matches them.
Samsung’s first APS-C format hybrid SLR has been a little while coming, but it really has been worth the wait. The NX10 is surprisingly compact, well-made, and stylish. It handles well and takes top quality pictures too. It proves that APS-C hybrids can work as well as D-SLRs, and it comes in at a very competitive price.
Investigators at the site of Saturday’s jet crash in southern India find the plane’s flight data recorder.
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Experimenting with shutter speed on your camera is a simple way to achieve some great effects. We’re moving beyond the idea of simply capturing more light today, and showcasing three ways in which you can do something a little different with a slow shutter speed.
Light painting is a fairly broad term, used to describe all manner of different techniques. In this Quick Tip, we’re talking about the idea of selectively adding light to a dark scene, illuminating only the areas you choose to. It’s a great way to emphasise certain aspects of a composition.
You’ll need a fairly dark scene, and something bright to shine on the parts you’d like to “paint with light”. This could be a torch – great for larger, outdoor scenes – or something like a candle for far smaller compositions.
We actually posted a video tutorial on how to do this a few months ago, which talks through the whole process:
Don’t forget that you’ll most likely need a tripod and, ideally, a cable shutter release to ensure that your shot remains crisp and sharp.
Light Graffiti again involves a very dark scene and a long exposure, but rather than painting a subject with light, the light itself becomes the subject. You’ll want something really bright – a torch, glow stick, or anything similar can work well. Experimentation is key, and it might take a while to get the effect you’re looking for.
Try drawing letters and spelling out a message, tracing the outline of an object in the scene, or drawing your own cartoon. If you can get the exposure just right, it’s also fun to use light to interact with other objects in the scene, as shown below:
Experimenting with your own light graffiti is, quite simply, great fun. You don’t need expensive equipment, just plenty of time and a creative imagination. Start with an exposure time of several seconds, and adjust it depending upon the result. As with light painting, a tripod is an absolute must.
The final technique to discuss centres around movement rather than light. Keeping one subject within your photograph completely still while everything else moves creates a fantastic effect:
This is a wonderful way to capture motion in an image – something that can be really difficult to achieve. Because you’ll likely be shooting in a lighter environment, the shutter speed used won’t need to be as long as either of the above techniques. It might be possible to hand hold the camera for shots like these, but for better, crisp results you’ll still need a tripod and some careful planning.
Coupling a flash with this technique gives you an even greater range of options to experiment with. We posted an in-depth tutorial on this several months ago, entitled How to Use Flash With a Slow Shutter to Create Motion and Ghosts. It’s a great place to start when experimenting with a slow shutter speed and flash photography.
Have you captured any images that fall into the above categories? I’d love to see them. Feel free to post a link in the comments below.
A top scientist warns a patent on the first synthetic life form would give its creator a monopoly on a range of genetic engineering.
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A woman being questioned by police about historical sex abuse in south Down is charged with 15 offences.
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