WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have posted a video on Facebook to promote a bullying prevention conference they'll host at the White House.

In a taped video message, the president says that bullying should no longer be treated as an unavoidable part of growing up. He says schools and communities must be a safe place where children can thrive.

Thursday's conference will bring together parents, students and educators to discuss ways to stop bullying.

As the parents of two daughters, the Obamas have said this is a personal issue for them. The president also taped an anti-bullying message last year for the "It Gets Better" campaign following a string of bullying related suicides by young people.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc kicks off sales of its latest iPad on Friday, likely extending its lead in the burgeoning market while offering an important snapshot of consumer demand for tablet computing.

Nearly a year after the original proved a smash hit and inspired a wave of imitators, investors will be watching the turn-out for the U.S release of the iPad 2, which Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled last week.

The release -- which as always will be closely scrutinized by fans and investors -- may be a litmus test for the overall appetite for tablets.

Apple may still be hoping for a repeat of April 2010, when thousands of people lined up to buy what was then a largely novel device with an uncertain market. But analysts say the 10-inch touchscreen iPad 2 has been improved incrementally, not reinvented wholesale. It is thinner, faster and adds a pair of cameras for video chat.

The benchmarks for the iPad 2 are clear. The first iPad sold 300,000 units on its first day, 500,000 in the first week, and crossed the 1 million unit mark in 28 days.

Given that the iPad 2 will be available in far more stores to start than was the original model, Wall Street would be surprised if the device fails to outpace its predecessor in the early going.

In addition to being sold at more than 200 Apple outlets in the United States, the iPad 2 will be available starting Friday in the stores of AT&T and Verizon Wireless, as well as Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart.

Unlike last year, Apple did not take orders ahead of the release, so anyone wanting first dibs on an iPad will have to journey to a store. That may help bulk up store lines, providing Apple the buzz it craves and is expert at generating.

That buzz may prove important as rivals from Motorola Mobility to Research in Motion gear up for their own full-blown assault on the same market.

GROWING FAST

Tablet sales are expected to surge to more than 50 million units this year, with Apple capturing more than 70 percent of the market. The iPad 2 hits store shelves in more than two dozen additional countries on March 25.

Apple is releasing the second version of the iPad before many of its rivals have even brought their first tablets to market. Apple sold 15 million iPads last year, generating $9.5 billion in sales, and had the tablet market largely to itself.

The iPad remains the most affordable tablet on the market, starting at $499.

JPMorgan analyst Mark Moskowitz warned this week of a potential bubble forming in the market as early as this year, as Apple's rivals build far more tablets than consumers will actually buy.

He said supply could outstrip demand by as much as 36 percent in 2011 -- a whopping 17.2 million units.

Blackberry maker RIM and Hewlett-Packard are set to release tablets in coming months. Some analysts believe RIM and HP could provide Apple with some competition, because both devices offer unique software, and both have formidable sales channels.

And although Samsung and Motorola have launched tablets, neither appears to be poised to give the iPad a run for its money.

"The technical and form factor improvements of the iPad 2 stand to make it tougher for the first generation of competitive offerings to play catch-up," Moskowitz wrote in a research note on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO – With the original iPad, Apple brought an attractive, easy-to-use tablet computer to the masses at a reasonable price — a feat numerous companies are trying to top.

With Friday's release of the iPad 2, Apple is pulling further ahead, with improvements that make an already excellent tablet even more enticing. It goes to show that when it comes to tablets, Apple refuses to be bested.

The new iPad is skinnier, faster and slightly lighter. It comes with cameras for video chatting and snapping photos, while keeping the same prices, ranging from $499 to $829 depending on the configuration.

Competitors such as Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. sell good tablets of their own, with many of the same features. Motorola's new Xoom even has a higher-resolution screen than the iPad. Still, nobody has been able to match the iPad's simplicity, innovation and style.

The iPad 2 looks much like the first iPad, though it has a sleeker, lighter body with a curved back. All this helps the tablet fit more naturally in my hands, and the modified shape makes it easier to hold for extended e-reading sessions, for example.

Among the most noticeable changes is the inclusion of cameras, one on the front and one on the back.

This is something I've been hankering for, as the iPad's crisp display, measuring 9.7 inches diagonally, seemed like the ideal canvas for video chat. The subsequent arrival of several tablets with front and rear cameras made it practically a necessity for iPad 2.

Fortunately, Apple thought so, too. Both cameras on the iPad 2 work with the company's FaceTime video chat application and the back camera shoots high-definition videos.

A friend I chatted with over FaceTime moved pretty smoothly on the iPad's screen, though the image could have been much sharper. With the front camera, my friend could see me. If I switched to the back camera, I could show him my surroundings.

You can take still photos, too, though I found this awkward given the tablet's size. The results were not fantastic, but self-portrait fans will find the front-facing camera useful for composing new profile photos for Facebook.

The new iPad has Apple's new dual-core A5 chip, which helped applications open more quickly than on the older iPad. The original never felt slow, but the faster I can start a new game of "Plants vs. Zombies," the better.

Add to that a new version of Apple's iOS software. The new processor and the new iOS combined to improve Web surfing, as I could load up pages noticeably faster over my home Wi-Fi network. As expected, videos loaded quickly and generally streamed flawlessly.

The new software allows you to share music and videos from your iTunes library on multiple Apple devices on the same Wi-Fi network. And it now lets you set the iPad's mute switch to function as a screen lock, which makes it even easier to prevent my Netflix movie from rotating mid-scene just because I've shifted my butt on the couch.

The updated iOS comes with iPad 2 and is available as a free download for the original iPad and the two most recent models of the iPhone and iPod Touch.

On Friday, Apple is also rolling out iPad versions of its iMovie video-editing software and GarageBand software for recording and editing music. I tried GarageBand ($5) and was wowed by how simple it was and how well it took advantage of the iPad's touch screen.

If you're musically inclined, you can pick up your guitar and adjust its sound through GarageBand's bevy of amplifiers and effects pedals. If you don't play an instrument (or feel lazy), you can swipe through a list of "smart" virtual instruments. A guitar with preset chords lets you strum by swiping the screen. You can arrange drums on a grid based on how noisy and complicated you want the beat to sound.

The coolest part is how sensitive the virtual instruments are. Start beating your fingers on a virtual drum kit, and you can hit the drums and cymbals harder or softer. You'll get different sounds if you hit the ride cymbal in different places, and you can even tap the rim of the snare instead of just hitting the drum itself.

It's quick and easy to record and edit songs, then save or e-mail them to a friend (who will hopefully applaud your artistic endeavors).

When playing back my musical masterpiece and other content on the iPad 2 I did long for a second speaker — there is just one on its back. Fortunately, that lone speaker did sound quite crisp, even with the sound turned all the way up.

Like the first iPad, the iPad 2 is rated for up to 10 hours of battery life, and it performed like a champ. Playing a mix of videos streamed from YouTube over Wi-Fi and saved on the iPad itself, I got a bit more than 10 hours of entertainment before it died.

You can buy versions that work with either AT&T's or Verizon Wireless' cellular network, rather than just AT&T before. The cheapest model connects only through Wi-Fi. You can also get it in black or white — before, your only option was black.

Without question, the iPad 2 is a great tablet. Still, this doesn't mean the first iPad is ready for the trash can. It's still a stellar gadget, and now it's cheaper (while supplies last) with the arrival of a successor.

Should you feel the urge to have the latest and greatest, however, go for it. Chances are, it will be the best tablet in town — at least until the iPad 3 arrives.

Just in time for the launch of the iPad 2, Instapaper 3.0 has arrived in the Apple App Store. The highly popular news app comes with some useful updates, including new social features and sharing options.

Instapaper is both a website service and an app specially designed for Apple’s iOS operating system, which lets users save web articles for offline reading. According to the Instapaper blog, the app now includes “full-featured, native sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinboard, and Evernote.”

“You can post to any of these services from the app offline,” writes Instapaper developer Marco Arment in a blog post about the updated version, “and the app will queue up the post to be submitted next time it’s online.”

The new update also allows Instapaper users to browse through articles saved by friends in order to find more interesting content. To find friends who also use Instapaper, users can import contacts through either Facbook or Twitter accounts, or by email address.

Other updates included in 3.0 are a new Editors section, which provides users with reccommended articles from around the Internet, put together by “human currators,” as well as an in-app web browser, which the company says makes finding articles easier. Because of these updates, says Arment, “many customers won’t even need the bookmarklet anymore.”

The app’s update also includes “faster downloads, faster page-opening, and less space usage,” the ability to search through all of the content within the downloaded articles, and an optional “smart rotation lock” to keep the screen from flipping around unintentionally.

Anyone who already has Instapaper can get the update for free. Customers purchasing the universal app for the first time will have to shell out $4.99 for the iPhone and iPad version.

In case you missed it in our live blog, here's a quick unboxing of the iPad 2 and one of Apple's new magnetic Smart Covers.

Apple's packaging is elegant, as usual, but doesn't include much beyond the iPad: a USB connector cable, a charging plug, some Apple stickers and a few thin pamphlets.

One nifty thing about the Smart Cover is how precisely the magnets align the cover to the front of your iPad. Just snap it on and it automatically goes to the perfect spot to completely cover your screen.

A former engineer with U.S military contractor L-3 Communications is facing as much as 20 years in prison on charges that he illegally exported military data to China.

Sixing "Steve" Liu was stopped by U.S Customs and Border Protection officers on Nov. 29, 2010, after flying back from a speaking engagement at a highly technical nanotechnology conference hosted by local universities and Chinese government officials.

Apparently, border agents' suspicions were aroused when the agents found a conference lanyard in his luggage during a secondary inspection at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport. Liu had said he'd been in China to visit family.

"Customs officers found a folder containing multiple pages of technical language, pictures of military weapons systems, and documents written in Chinese," wrote U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Lisa Lenches-Marrero, in an affidavit listing the charges against Liu. Border guards also found a laptop. After obtaining a search warrant, federal investigators then discovered hundreds of company documents on Liu's computer, including several that contained technical data on guidance and control systems governed by U.S arms export control laws.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Liu's area of expertise at L-3 Communications was building very small-scale measurement systems using what's called MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) technology. MEMS chips are hot right now: They're what Apple's iPad uses to know how it's being moved around by game-players. Liu was using them to build complex aerospace navigation systems, according to his résumé.

L-3 Communications is the sixth-largest defense contractor in the U.S., according to its website.

Liu had downloaded the data found on his computer without his company's knowledge, was presenting at the conference without permission, and had told a co-worker that he was vacationing in Chicago, court records state.

The U.S Department of Justice described Liu's presentation at the 4th Annual Workshop on Innovation and Commercialization of Micro & Nanotechnology as a "presentation sponsored by the Chinese government." But according to William Parker, founder of biotechnology company Creative MicroSystems Corp., who spoke at the conference in 2009, the event is a legitimate international forum for international researchers, designed to advance understanding of specific aspects of nanotechnology.

In an interview Tuesday, Parker said he was not familiar with Liu's work but was surprised to hear that he went ahead without company approval. "Usually, you have to get clearance to do a talk like this," he said.

Although much of the material on the conference's website was unavailable Tuesday, a cached Web page indicates that the November 2010 event was sponsored by a number of universities and government and scientific agencies, including China's Ministry of Science and Technology.

Liu had spoken at the conference more than once. He was a co-chairman of the event in 2009 and gave a talk entitled "Micro-Navigator for Spacecraft with MEMS Technology" at that year's event. He had been working for L-3 Communications for about seven months at the time of the 2009 workshop.

L-3 Communications said it had "supported this investigation from the beginning and will continue to cooperate fully with federal authorities," but declined to comment further on the matter.

Liu stopped working for the company the day after he was pulled aside at Liberty airport, according to court records.

He couldn't immediately be reached for comment. He was charged on Friday in United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, but the complaint was not unsealed until Tuesday, the date Liu was set to appear in federal court in Chicago.

Robert McMillan covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @bobmcmillan. Robert's e-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com

China says it will step up administration of the Internet this year while continuing to build out the country's fiber-optic backbone and expand broadband access for consumers.

The pledges were made in reports to the National People's Congress, China's parliamentary session that is currently taking place in Beijing.

Internet administration was mentioned in a keynote report on the work of the government. A copy of the English-language version was posted online by The Wall Street Journal. The Chinese government has yet to post the report on its website.

It underlined the importance of culture and noted the need the "strengthen the development of civic morality" and "speed up the establishment of moral and behavioral norms that carry forward traditional Chinese virtues."

The government is gradually expanding regulation of the Internet to keep pace with the emergence of new services, said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing's Marbridge Consulting.

"You'll see an ongoing effort from China's authorities to make sure there are systems in place to regulate and control what sort of content is accessible," he said.

Natkin cited as an example the development of services that offer access to movies through an Internet-connected set-top box. The services allowed users access to almost any content through a menu that automatically downloaded the content from a peer-to-peer file-sharing network.

Initially such services were unregulated, but as they gained popularity the government found no company would take responsibility for the content that was being offered to users. As a result, the government moved to regulate them and there are now a handful of providers licensed to offer such services, said Natkin.

"The Internet is constantly evolving. With the addition of new forms of access come new ways to get around existing regulations," he said. "There's a very strong push in China to make sure that, regardless of access method, whatever content is available is [not what would be considered] unhealthy."

China will continue to expand its infrastructure this year, the government said in a draft of its plan for economic and social development. The report was compiled by the country's National Development and Reform Commission.

It calls for the establishment of projects to push a national broadband Internet agenda, cloud computing, machine-to-machine Internet communications, integrated circuits and flat-panel displays.

The commission said China will add 1 million kilometers of fiber optic cable to the 10 million already laid in the country, and raise the number of broadband Internet ports by 35 million to 223 million.

The report also detailed the break-neck speed at which China's IT manufacturing industry is expanding.

The country produced 57 percent more integrated circuits, 30 percent more electronic components, 35 percent more computers and 46 percent more cell phone handsets last year than in 2009, it said. The report didn't specify if the figures were for the number of units produced or their value.

Software sales totalled 1.3 trillion yuan (US$198 billion) in 2010, up 30 percent on a year earlier.

Martyn Williams covers Japan and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

Those eight days in the womb really made a difference.

Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz beat out Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest person on Forbes's billionaires list published Thursday. Moskovitz was born eight days after Zuckerberg, his Harvard roommate. (See how Facebook is redefining privacy.)

The 26-year-old is worth $2.7 billion, most of which he made through his share in Facebook. Born in Washington, D.C., Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard after two years like the Facebook CEO. Moskovitz served as Facebook's first chief technology officer. Although he no longer works for the company he helped found, he still owns a 6% share in the company. Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein, a former engineering manager at Facebook, launched their own networking firm Asana last month.

This year, there are 20 billionaires under age 40, up from just eight last year. Zuckerberg comes in as the second-youngest billionaire, worth $13.5 billion, nearly five times as much as Moskovitz. If any of these young moneybags are looking for a place to drop some dough, we can think of one writer who would be happy for a handout.

See Mark Zuckerberg, TIME's Person of the Year.

View this article on Time.com

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