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Georgia claims it has world's oldest person, 130 (AP)


(Yahoo! News: Most Viewed) Submitted at 7/8/2010 9:38:18 AM


SACHIRE, Georgia – Authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia claim a woman from a remote mountain village turned 130 on Thursday, making her the oldest person on Earth.


Antisa Khvichava from western Georgia was born on July 8, 1880, said Georgiy Meurnishvili, spokesman for the civil registry at the Justice Ministry.


The woman, who lives with her 40-year-old grandson in an idyllic vine-covered country house in the mountains, retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965, when she was 85, records say.


"I've always been healthy, and I've worked all my life — at home and at the farm," said Khvichava, in a bright dress and headscarf, her withering lips rejuvenated by shiny red lipstick. Sitting in the chair and holding her cane, Khvichava spoke quietly through an interpreter since she never went to school to learn Georgian and speaks only the local language,


Mingrelian.


Her age couldn't immediately be independently verified. Her birth certificate was lost — one of the great number to have disappeared in the past century amid revolutions and a civil war which followed the collapse of the Russian Empire.


But Meurnishvili showed two Soviet-era documents that he says attest to her age. Scores of officials, neighbors, friends, and descendants backed up her claim as the world's top senior. The Gerontology Research Group currently recognizes 114- year-old Eugenie Blanchard of Saint Barthelemy, France, as the world's oldest person. The organization is yet to examine Khvichava's claim.


Khvichava has a son, 10 grandchildren, 12 great grandchildren and six great, great grandchidren.


Khvichava's 70-year-old son Mikhail apparently was born when his mother was 60. She said she also had two children from a previous marriage, but says they died of hunger during World War II.


Although Khvichava has difficulty walking and has


stayed largely in bed during the past seven years, she makes a point of hobbling unaided to the outhouse on the other side of the yard, loathe to be a nuisance, Mikhail said.


Though her body has all but quit on her — her fingers cramped and deformed by age mean she can no longer maintain her love of knitting — relatives say her mind remains sharp. " Grandma has a very clear mind and she hasn't lost an ability to think rationally," said Khvichava's granddaughter Shorena, who lives in a nearby village.


To mark the centurion's birthday, a string ensemble played folk music out on the lawn, while grandchildren offered traditional Mingrelian dishes like corn porridge and spiced chicken with herbs to all guests as the party. Five Filters featured article: Headshot - Propaganda, State Religion and the Attack On the Gaza Peace Flotilla. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.


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13


Microsoft Page-Turning Patent Could Spell Trouble For Apple’s iBooks


Leena Rao (TechCrunch) Submitted at 7/8/2010 10:07:53 AM


Apple, Amazon, and others have worked hard to simulate the experience of reading a book on a tablet computer, device or smartphone. Specifically, Apple’s iBooks iPad application has a page turning feature that replicates the curling of a page when you flip pages in a book. But Microsoft is claiming that it invented this feature in a patent application, according to a GoRumors report. The patent application, which was filed in 2009, appears to have been filed with Microsoft’s Courier touch-based tablet in mind. But unfortunately, that project was tabled a few months ago. Essentially, Microsoft is trying to patent making a virtual page turn exactly like a real page.


Here’s an excerpt from the application:


One or more pages are displayed on a touch display. A page-turning gesture directed to a displayed page is recognized. Responsive to such recognition, a virtual page turn is displayed on the touch display. The virtual page turn actively follows the


page-turning gesture. The virtual page turn curls a lifted portion of the page to progressively reveal a back side of the page while progressively revealing a front side of a subsequent page. A lifted portion of the page is given an increased transparency that allows the back side of the page to be viewed through the front side of the page. A page- flipping gesture quickly flips two or more pages.


While Microsoft applied last year, it seems that the patent has not actually been awarded to the company yet. But the tablet is dead, so it’s unclear what the benefit would be to Microsoft at this point (besides maybe engaging in a bit of legal patent fun with Apple).


But the action that is being patented seems fairly obvious, which may prevent the patent from being awarded. After all, it is nothing more than an animation of a page being turned, an “invention” which goes back to the days of Guttenberg. CrunchBase Information Apple Microsoft Information provided by CrunchBase


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