BENIDORM RECEIVES NEW POLICE VEHICLES

The Local Police in Benidorm have received three new vehicles this week, two Ford cars and a Land Rover which is fitted with water based equipment to facilitate rescues.

The three vehicles have been leased by the city council and replace five which have now expired, resulting in a saving of nearly 36 thousand euro per year.

BLOOD RUNNING SHORT

The Valencia blood transfusion service is warning that they only have 3 to 4 days supply of blood left, whereas they normally like to keep a minimum of seven days worth of stock to match demand.

Every day, around 800 packs of blood are used across the community and this figure has increased in line with the growth in transfusions and an overall reduction in donations. Expectations are that the health network will require 40,000 units of blood every year.

BBVA BANKS ON THE CLOUD

Spanish bank BBVA has signed a deal with Google, that will see their 110,000 staff use online software rather than that installed on local computers.

This is the biggest move by any financial institution to commit to use so called “cloud computing� techniques, which should improve internal communications within the bank´s network.

COUNCIL SPEAKS YOUR LANGUAGE

Following the success of a recent talk in Dutch, English and German relating to “The Notary in Spain�, the Spanish town of La Nucía is now proposing a new series of talks that will explain various public functions of the town hall to the residents.

The talks will be offered for free to those residents who are registered in the town and will cover a variety of topics from the law to health, in which the town hopes to provide a resource of information before problems may become apparent.

MC DONALDS OFFERING FAMILY DISCOUNTS

The Fast food chain Mc Donald´s has signed a deal with the Federación Española de Familias Numerosas (FEFN), which will allow families covered by the scheme to receive 10% discount in their restaurants.

FEFN is a non profit family based association set up in 2003 with an intention of providing better services and facilities to families in Spain. With around 80 companies already registered on the scheme, the latest addition will no doubt offer some small assistance to families during difficult financial times.

 

Back in September we reported on how modern day technology had allowed one man to be transported back in time some 70 years to the place where he was evacuated during the war. Now, just months later after some help from Leader readers, Mark Harrington has made an emotional trip back to Gisburn, Lancashire and to the place where he spend 18 months after being evacuated from Dagenham in 1941/42.

It was a casual conversation 25 years ago with someone else who had been evacuated during the war that Mark first realised he had all these missing pieces of information and gaps in his memories and decided then he would like to try and track down the family that looked after him so well. However there were no official records taken during the mass evacuation process, something that in later years caused some consternation in the country and Mark quickly came to a dead end and the search pretty much ended before it began. But, after receiving a laptop for his 75^th birthday last year, the internet opened up a whole new world and he found the one person whose name he could remember – Phyllis Bromwich. He also tracked down Mill House in the village of Gisburn where he stayed after searching for images on Google Earth but that is where the search had ended. Despite having some clear and vivid recollections of how the house looked, the nearby river and forest with a fort, he couldn't remember the names of his adoptive parents during that period. “They looked after me so well and treated me like a prince so it is amazing that I don't remember them or didn't keep in touch.” Mark told the Leader at the time.

Just days after the story was published as luck would have it, Graham Wright contacted us saying he lived in Colne, close to Gisburn. He was just here on holiday but when he returned home he promised to check the local voters registers and trade directories. True to his word he got on the case. Unfortunately neither Clitheroe nor Skipton Library held the relevant Electoral Registers – which would have immediately resolved some questions but he got in touch with Mary Kirby from the Gisburn Local History Society who also passed on the details to Bill Pate, the local fund of knowledge for the area. The local newspaper, The Clitheroe Advertiser and Times also contacted the Leader and we were happy to share the story with them to see if there was anyone else who could piece together the final parts of the puzzle.

Mark, now living in urbanisation La Marina, was continually kept updated and spoke to everyone that came forward offering help and information and at the end of October felt it was time to go back to his childhood and visit the Mill House and Gisburn and meet some of the people that had helped him in his search.

Accompanied by his wife Pam, the couple met with their daughter Sarah at her home in Northampton and, accompanied by their Grandson Jack, the foursome made an emotional journey to the village. “Driving up to the house was incredible, it was all the same and exactly how I remember it. Time had moved on but not that place.”

Mark met with Bill Pate at the local deli café and finally he was given the name he had been searching for. “Barlow. As soon as I heard it, I knew that was it, I can't believe I had forgotten it. He said they had moved on and we don't know where to but it would be lovely to meet some descendants of them or see some old photos.” Mark continues, “Bill had been there with his father when we all arrived, he pointed to a little area opposite the café and said that is where we all got off the coach. One boy who had been evacuated there lost his parents in the war and never left.”

News of Mark's story soon spread in the village and he was interviewed by the local press once more. One couple sat there picked up on the conversation and the husband said he was also an evacuee sent to Wales. Another lady said she had some old photos of Mill House and returned the next day to show Mark and reminded him of the vegetable patch of the garden, something he had forgotten about previously. “The hospitality was wonderful, we were made to feel so welcome, they were fantastic people.”

But a highlight had to be the return to Mill House. Now called Holgate House and a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, Mark said much of the exterior house remained untouched, although half the house that had been the original mill had now been developed. The new owners, the Holgate family, welcomed Mark and introduced him to the residents and showed him round, “I was taken up to my old bedroom and 70years on it is still looking the same, the shelf is still under the window that I used to crawl on top of and lean out of the window.” Mark also got to visit the forest where he spent many a happy hour and the fort where he used to play in; a ruin now, it was a key point in helping Mark pinpoint the area when searching on Google Earth just months earlier. It was lucky he didn't wait any longer as Bryan Holgate informed him that permission has been granted for it to be knocked down and redeveloped in to a new house.

Having filled in the blanks and making an emotional return to Gisburn, Mark is grateful and thankful he got the chance to go back and through the Leader would like to thank everyone that got in touch and helped him in his quest, “I can't thank everybody enough. We came away and in no time I wanted to go back. It was absolutely lovely.” And if anyone does know of the Barlow's that used to live at Mill House that would just be the icing on the cake and they can contact gquinn.reporter@gmail.com with any information.

The Euromillions numbers for this draw are: 12 – 22 – 25 – 33 – 45

And the luck stars are: 5 and 7

Good Luck

Prize update:

It is another MEGA rollover as nobody won the main prize AGAIN!!!

Numbers + stars = prize

5 + 2 0,00 €
5 + 1 133.252,60 €
5 + 0 41.804,74 €
4 + 2 1.622,56 €
4 + 1 123,73 €
4 + 0 78,54 €
3 + 2 28,30 €
2 + 2 10,28 €
3 + 1 10,83 €
3 + 0 11,64 €
1 + 2 6,15 €
2 + 1 6,63 €
2 + 0 4,24 €

About Euromillions

Euromillions is Europe’s biggest-ever, rolling jackpot lottery game. The draw takes place every Tuesday and Friday evening in Paris.

Five main numbers are drawn along with two Lucky Stars. Match a minimum of three numbers to win a prize; three main numbers, one main number and two Lucky Stars or two main numbers and 1 Lucky Star.

How to play Euromillions

You simply choose five numbers from 1 to 50 along with two Lucky Stars from 1 to 11. Mark them on your card and that´s it.

The biggest chance of winning the biggest regular prize, has to be Euromillions.

Google has won a landmark ruling against Spanish broadcaster Telecinco, with a Madrid court rejecting the claim that the US search giant should be held responsible for copyrighted material posted to its YouTube video sharing website.

Google hailed the case as a big win for the internet. The court threw out Telecinco´s case, filed in June 2008, and ordered the broadcaster to pay Google´s court costs.

Telecinco had claimed YouTube was damaging its business by airing TV shows before they had been broadcast in Spain, arguing that Google “profits from the exploitation of intellectual property rights”.

In the ruling against the broadcaster, the Spanish court said it was the responsibility of the copyright owner to identify and tell Google when material that infringes intellectual property is on YouTube, noting that the site has tools allowing this to happen.

A Google spokesman said: “We are very pleased with today´s ruling. The win today confirms what we have said throughout this process: YouTube complies with the law. The ruling recognises that YouTube is merely an intermediary content-hosting service and therefore cannot be obliged to pre-screen videos before they are uploaded.”

Aaron Ferstman, Google´s head of communications for YouTube in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, commented in a post on the company´s European public policy blog: “This decision demonstrates the wisdom of European laws. More than 24 hours of video are loaded on to YouTube every minute. If internet sites had to screen all videos, photos and text before allowing them on a website, many popular sites – not just YouTube, but Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and others – would grind to a halt.

“We have always been open to working co-operatively with rights holders and continue to grow our number of partnerships with content owners and hope to be able to work with Telecinco in the future in the spirit of copyright protection, content distribution and new opportunities.”

In June this year Google won a similar case against US media conglomerate Viacom, which accused the company of allowing copyrighted material on its YouTube service. A Manhattan judge threw out the $1bn lawsuit, saying Google could not be held liable for having a “general awareness” that copyrighted videos might be posted to the site.

via Google wins YouTube case in Spain | Technology | guardian.co.uk.

Google says it is under investigation in Spain over its “Street View” mapping feature.

Google Spain spokeswoman Marisa Toro said today a Madrid judge has issued a subpoena for an Oct. 4th appearance by a Google representative.

Spain thus becomes the latest country to take on the Internet search giant over “Street View,” which provides detailed photographs of neighborhoods taken by Google cameras.

Toro says Google will cooperate with Spanish authorities.

The company acknowledged in April that the technology used by its “Street View” cars had also recorded fragments of people´s online activities broadcast over public Wi-Fi networks for the past four years. This is the focus of the Spanish probe.

via Spain Becomes Latest Country to Take on Google – ABC News.

The snappily-titled Asociación para la Prevención y Estudio de Delitos, Abusos y Negligencias en Informática y Comunicaciones Avanzadas (Association for the Prevention and Investigation of Crime, Abuse and Malpractice in Information Technology and Advanced Communications), aka Apedanica, has filed suit in the Police Court of Madrid against the legal representative of Google Spain.

It suggests the company has breached Article 197 of the Penal Code, which provides for between one and fours years' jail for anyone who “intercepts telecommunications, or uses listening, transmission, recording or reproduction devices on any other communication signal”.

When it confessed back in back in May that Street View spymobiles had been “collecting information sent over open Wi-Fi networks”, Google claimed the whole thing was a “mistake”, and later blamed it on a rogue software coder.

This explanation has failed to impress. Apedanica president Miguel Angel Gallardo insisted that “something which was carefully programmed and has been done in 30 countries can´t be an error”.

On 19 May, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, or AEPD) opened an investigation into the matter, and last Tuesday Google Spain´s director general, Javier Rodríguez, promised all culled data would be handed over to the agency.

Apedanica has evidently decided that´s not good enough, and its legal action adds to increasing international pressure on Google over its Orwellian black Opel black ops. ®

via The Register.

Google Inc., under investigation in Germany for the data-gathering practices of its Street View mapping service, now faces probes in Spain, France and Italy for possible violation of privacy laws.

Spain’s Data Protection Authority yesterday ordered an investigation of whether Google breached national privacy rules by collecting and storing data from Wi-Fi networks and information sent over these networks. Italy and France also ordered inquiries.

The Spanish agency “will call on Google to explain whether it has captured data without the consent of citizens in Spain,” it said in an e-mailed statement May 19. It sent a formal request urging Google “to block the data associated with wireless networks gathered in Spanish territory.”

The Hamburg Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday that it’s investigating people at Google on suspicion of criminal data capture. German data regulators are already looking into how cars that Google used to take pictures for Street View ended up with private data from Wi-Fi networks that weren’t password- protected.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, said May 17 that it deleted data mistakenly gathered from Wi-Fi networks in Ireland and was aiming to do the same in other countries.

Company representatives didn’t return calls and e-mails seeking comment yesterday on the latest investigations.

Street View allows Google users to click on maps to see photographs of roadsides. Officials from 30 European countries on May 11 adopted a common approach to keep Google from infringing privacy rights as the service is rolled out in Europe. They want Google, owner of the world’s biggest search engine, to improve blurring techniques used to disguise images and to make faces and license plates harder to recognize.

“The product as such is not in breach, but more measures have to be taken to improve how images are gathered and used,” Gerard Lommel, a Luxembourg member of the so-called Article 29 Data Protection Working Party, said May 11. The group is made up of the European Union’s 27 nations, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Switzerland’s data-protection agency sued Google in November for allegedly failing to comply with proposals to make it harder to identify people and cars on Street View. That case is pending.

via Google Street View Privacy Probe Joined by Spain, Italy, France – BusinessWeek.

One of the cool things about Android is that Google is always innovating and looking to add new features/functions to the OS. Yahoo Tech reports that Google was showing off new software at Mobile World Congress in Spain this week that translates foreign text when the user takes a picture with their Android device´s camera.

At the MWC demo, a Google engineer took a picture of a German restaurant menu with an Android smartphone. The translation software takes the photo, uploads it to Google servers, and translates the text automatically. The translation is then sent back to the user.

In the demo, the image had an item with the German description “Fruhlingssalat mit Wildkrautern” which the Google software was able to accurately translate to “spring salad with wild herbs.” The difference in this Google offering and similar apps already available is that the translation is done on the Google servers.

The reason for that is to allow more processing power to be applied to the translation than the mobile device can muster on its own. The result is supposed to be faster translations. That is assuming that the mobile network in the area is fast enough to send a photo quickly to Google´s servers.

Google offered no indication of when the software would be offered for Android devices.

via DailyTech – Google Shows Off Translation Software for Android at MWC 2010.