Germans brew more beer for first time since 2007...

Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) Thu Jul 28, 2011 - Warm weather and a strong export market in the first six months of the year have helped German brewers reverse a long decline in beer production.

The total volume of beer produced in Germany in the first half rose on an annual basis for the first time in four years, up 1.0 percent to 4.946 billion liters, government data showed Thursday.

"It's definitely down to the temperature," said Juergen Hammer, an official at the Federal Statistics Agency, pointing to an unusually warm April and May that had boosted demand.

The amount of beer produced for domestic consumption in the first six months rose from the first time since the hot summer when Germany hosted the soccer World Cup in 2006, edging up by 0.2 percent.

Although the average German of legal drinking age still puts away about 120 liters of beer a year -- roughly a glass a day -- consumption has fallen in recent years as Germans turn to wine and other beverages.

However, foreigners are developing an increasing taste for German beer -- the ingredients of which have been subject to strict government regulation since the 16th century.

The volume of beer produced for export, just over a tenth of national production, grew by an annual 5.3 percent in the first six months of 2011, with a marked 13.6 percent rise in beer destined for outside the European Union.

Most German brewers are relatively small, privately owned companies, although one of the best known international brands produced in Germany, Beck's, is owned by the world's largest brewer, Belgium's Anheuser-Busch InBev.

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Karolina Tagaris)

Elsevier.nl - Buitenland - Moeder Franse aanklaagster had seks met Strauss-Kahn

Moeder Franse aanklaagster had seks met Strauss-Kahn.

Dinsdag 19 juli 2011. De moeder van de Franse schrijfster Tristane Banon, die oud-IMF-topman Dominique Strauss-Kahn beschuldigt van poging tot verkrachting, heeft zelf seks gehad met Strauss-Kahn. Anne Mansouret zou een 'ruige' nacht hebben beleefd met de Fransman.

De moeder heeft lange tijd verzwegen dat zij seks heeft gehad met Strauss-Kahn
'Zou Dominique Strauss-Kahn, of DSK zoals hij in Frankrijk zo liefdevol wordt genoemd, werkelijk een Oudkerkje hebben gedaan in die dure New Yorkse hotelsuite? Misschien is het een beroepsafwijking, maar ik voel de achterdocht gewoon onstuitbaar omhoog komen.'

Lees de weblog van Liesbeth Wytzes: Ik geloof voorlopig niets van Strauss-Kahn-verhaal
Dat onhult het Franse tijdschrift L'Express dinsdag. Mansouret is lid van de Socialistische Partij in Frankrijk en was bevriend met Brigitte Guillemette, de ex-vrouw van 'DSK' en peetmoeder van Banon.

Verzwegen

De twee zouden een keer seks hebben gehad in het OECD-gebouw in Parijs. Strauss-Kahn is daar in 2000 gaan werken als adviseur. In 2002 zou hij hebben geprobeerd Banon te verkrachten. Er heeft maar een jaar gezeten tussen de 'ruige nacht' met Mansouret en de poging tot verkrachting van Banon.

De moeder heeft lange tijd verzwegen dat zij seks heeft gehad met Strauss-Kahn, omdat het ging om de man van haar 'beste vriendin'. Toen zij in 2002 werd gebeld door haar dochter met het nieuws dat DSK had geprobeerd haar te verkrachten, heeft zij direct contact opgenomen met Guillemette.

Excuses

Volgens l'Express heeft Guillemette haar man geconfronteerd met de beschuldiging, waarop hij zou hebben toegegeven dat hij is vreemdgegaan met Mansouret, en achter haar dochter is aangegaan.

Banon besloot, op aanraden van haar moeder, geen aangifte te doen tegen Strauss-Kahn, maar Mansouret heeft hem wel duidelijk gemaakt boos te zijn. De oud-IMF-topman heeft zijn excuses aangeboden, maar hij maakte zich geen zorgen over een eventuele aanklacht. Inmiddels heeft de schrijfster alsnog aangifte gedaan.

Er wordt steeds meer bekend over Strauss-Kahn en zijn uitspattingen. Zo onthulde het Franse tijdschrift Le Point dat DSK seks heeft gehad met drie andere vrouwen voordat hij het New Yorkse kamermeisje zou hebben geprobeerd te verkrachten. Hij wilde voor het begin van zijn campagne voor de Franse presidentsverkiezingen 'stoom afblazen' in New York.

Door Shari Deira

Can Windows 8 finally vanquish the ghosts of XP and Vista?

ZDNet

16 July, 2011. If you’re a Windows watcher, circle this date on your calendar: April 10, 2012. That’s the date when mainstream support for Windows Vista officially ends. And it cannot come soon enough for Microsoft, whose public image was badly damaged by the massively unliked Vista. If the rumors about a possible Windows 8 release in April 2012 are true, it will be an almost perfect changing of the guard.

But vanquishing the ghost of Windows Vista is the easy challenge for Microsoft. Windows XP is still hanging around on stage, bumping into scenery and generally interfering with Microsoft’s careful messaging about all the cool and useful stuff it’s doing today.

I thought about that date as I watched the keynote addresses from this week’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles. Some of the people I follow on Twitter were disappointed that Microsoft didn’t divulge more details about Windows 8 or even publicly release a platform preview.

That shouldn’t have been surprising. WPC is, after all, a show for partners who are out there selling Microsoft products every day. Yes, they want to know what’s coming up, but they’re far more interested in the present. And for their (mostly business) customers, there are only two Windows choices these days: the 10-year-old XP and the still-new Windows 7. It’s almost like Vista never happened.

Consider the words of Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner, who told a packed audience, “Windows XP, Office 2003, and Internet Explorer 6 deserve a standing ovation. We love those products.” As Turner noted, those products made Microsoft and its partners a lot of money. After a pause for dramatic effect, he added, “But they’re dead.”

Oh dear. I guess that means 300 million PCs still powered by Windows XP are zombies, and we all know how hard those are to kill. Which might explain why Corporate Vice President Tami Reller was practically pleading with partners to help them migrate customers away from XP “to a modern OS.”

That’s happening, slowly. XP has lost roughly 10 percent of its share over the past year and should be below the 50% mark by the time Vista support ends next year.

But the paradox for Microsoft is that businesses—notoriously conservative and slow to adopt new technology—are most likely to embrace Windows 7 when it’s old news. When it comes to Windows, businesses like being on the last version, not the current one. When Windows 8 is released, it will instantly make Windows 7 the safe choice for businesses. Not rational, I know, but that’s how the psychology works.

More than anything else, Microsoft is looking forward to shipping Windows 8 so it can finally get back on a regular cadence with its operating system releases: the current one for consumers and early-adopter businesses, the previous one for conservative businesses and cheapskate consumers. With Vista finally out of the mix, that proposition will finally make sense again.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

.Ed Bott is an award-winning technology writer with more than two decades' experience writing for mainstream media outlets and online publications

Free online shopping briefly delights customers...

Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) Mon Jul, 2011 - New Zealand customers at an online shopping site were happily shocked when they got expensive televisions and iPods for free Monday after a computer glitch charged them only postage and handling.

News of the error by Australia-based electronics retailer Dick Smith's New Zealand website, which failed to register the main items, quickly spread through the Twitter community.

"My order just went through. 27 inch iMac. Total price: $4.95'," @Steffen_, tweeted.

A 27-inch iMac would normally cost from A$1,500-A$1800 ($1,500-$1,800).

"There was actually a website issue this morning with a pricing error on the Dick Smith New Zealand website," a company representative said, after the company was tipped off by Twitter.

The firm took the site offline for maintenance, telling customers it was "to improve your shopping experience."

But all may not be completely lost.

An Australian radio station and Twitter users were reporting late Monday that people who had bought products on the New Zealand site for free might be offered a 10 percent discount. ($1 = 0.930 Australian Dollars)

(Reporting by Erin Forster, editing by Elaine Lies)