Psy and Hammer, plus 10 more

South Korean pop sensation + Oakland rap legend = magic. Plus, other notable tunes spanning jazz, reggae and beyond.

10:20PM EST November 19. 2012 - How do you extend the life of the year's biggest pop-music fad? Bring the Hammer down with Gangnam Style/2 Legit 2 Quit. The rap icon's appearance with the South Korean YouTube sensation was the biggest, best surprise of Sunday's American Music Awards, and the mash-up is a blast, too. One thing's for sure: Hammer won't hurt him. -- Brian Mansfield

USA TODAY music critic Jerry Shriver highlights 10 intriguing tracks found during the week's listening.

Danko/Manuel, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
The intensity of this meditation on The Band's singers is overwhelming; from the new Live from Alabama.

High Up Over the Wall, The Big Cats.
Fab Four-inspired harmonies just pour out of the new The Ancient Art of Leaving: Two Parts.

I'll Remember You, Elvis Presley.
The man from Memphis wooed NYC in '72 with concerts captured on new Elvis: Prince from Another Planet.

Cleveland, Low Cut Connie.
Eric Burdon's Animals anthems echo through this track from the roots-rockers' new Call Me Sylvia.

Crazy Dreams, Beres Hammond.
Despite the title, this is a sweet, soul-soothing slice of reggae.

There is No Greater Love, Clifford Brown.
The trumpeter led The Singers Sessions with Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Helen Merrill.

Since I've Been Loving You, Led Zeppelin.
The live Plant-Page interplay is astonishing; from the new Celebration Day 2007 reunion.

Little Aches and Pains, Paul Kelly.

"What doesn't kill you makes you weaker,'' laments the Australian singer on the newSpring and Fall.

Snake Oil Capitol of the World, Graham Parker.
On the new Three Chords Good, the Brit pub-rocker reunites with The Rumour for first time in 30 years.

Souvenir, Clayton Brothers and Friends.
Benny Carter's moving ballad gets a tender workout on the new The Gathering

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Google Outage Shows Business Risks in China

BEIJING—Disruptions to Google Inc.'s GOOG +1.65% Web-search and email services in China over the weekend underscore the uncertainty surrounding Beijing's effort to control the flow of information into the country, as well as the risks that effort poses to the government's efforts to draw global businesses.

Chinese users of many of Google's services reported a lack of access late Friday, halting use of everything from Google's search engine to its Gmail email service to its Google Play mobile-applications store. The Mountain View, Calif., company said that its own statistics showed a sharp decline in traffic from China, and it said that the problem didn't appear to be within its equipment.

Services returned on Saturday, though users in some parts of the country said use was unpredictable and unreliable over the weekend.

The source of the disruptions couldn't be determined. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, an agency that oversees China's Internet industry, didn't respond to list of questions sent on Sunday.

Internet experts pointed to China's Internet censorship efforts, which have been ratcheted up ahead of the 18th Party Congress, a meeting of top Communist Party leaders in Beijing that began on Thursday. The meeting is expected to end this coming Thursday with the unveiling of a new slate of top party leaders, making it a sensitive time in the eyes of Beijing.

"There appears to be a throttling under way of Web access," said David Wolf, founder of consulting firm Wolf Group Asia. Citing recent articles in foreign media about corruption and wealth in China spurred by the party congress and the fall of former party star Bo Xilai, he said, "that's their primary concern, people getting news either through Google or through its services."

Chinese authorities often tighten Internet control around sensitive subjects and events. But a number of users in recent weeks say Internet disruptions have worsened to an unexpected degree ahead of the congress. In a recent interview, Matthew Prince, chief executive of CloudFlare Inc., a company that provides Web-performance and security services for websites, said the company's engineers and consumers have reported increased difficulties with traffic out of China since the end of August.

The websites of the New York Times and Bloomberg News became unavailable in China this year just as each ran articles describing the wealth accumulated by China's leaders. Attorneys for the family of Wen Jiabao, China's premier, denied the Times's report that his family had amassed a $2.7 billion fortune over two decades, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman has said the report "blackens China and has ulterior motives." The family of Xi Jinping, China's vice president and the widely expected successor to Hu Jintao as China's president and head of the Communist Party, hasn't commented publicly on the Bloomberg article, which detailed wealth accumulated by Mr. Xi's family. Neither article accused the leaders of wrongdoing.

Sophisticated Chinese users can use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent the system of Internet blockages that is sometimes called the Great Firewall. But some VPN operators, such as the Witopia service, in recent weeks also have said they have been blocked.

Google's services are still widely available in China despite its declaration in 2010 that it wouldn't censor its search results in China anymore and would shift searches to Hong Kong, a Chinese city that isn't subject to Beijing's censorship restrictions. But the services can be unreliable and sometimes don't function right away, troubles that experts attribute to Beijing's censorship efforts. Google is now only a minor player in terms of market share in China's search business, which is dominated by Baidu Inc.BIDU +0.03%

Beijing risks a backlash if it were to block Google outright on a long-term basis, said Mr. Wolf, of Wolf Group Asia. Many corporate users rely on Gmail and other Google services, and a blockage could make China a less-attractive place to do business. In addition, disruptions are increasingly unappealing to businesses that rely on cloud services, which are offered by Google and others and in which data are stored remotely.

"If China insists in the medium and long term of creating another Great Firewall between the China cloud and the rest of the world, China will be an increasingly untenable place to do business," Mr. Wolf said.

Such a move also could put Beijing in violation of its free-trade commitment under the World Trade Organization, which China joined in 2001. China has said it complies with WTO requirements.

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UFO enthusiasts admit the truth may not be out there after all

Declining numbers of “flying saucer” sightings and failure to establish proof of alien existence has led UFO enthusiasts to admit they might not exist after all.

For decades, they have been scanning the skies for signs of alien activity.

But having failed to establish any evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life, Britain’s UFO watchers are reaching the conclusion that the truth might not be out there after all.

Enthusiasts admit that a continued failure to provide proof and a decline in the number of “flying saucer” sightings suggests that aliens do not exist after all and could mean the end of “Ufology” – the study of UFOs – within the next decade.

Dozens of groups interested in the flying saucers and other unidentified craft have already closed because of lack of interest and next week one of the country’s foremost organisations involved in UFO research is holding a conference to discuss whether the subject has any future.

Dave Wood, chairman of the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (Assap), said the meeting had been called to address the crisis in the subject and see if UFOs were a thing of the past.

“It is certainly a possibility that in ten years time, it will be a dead subject,” he added.

“We look at these things on the balance of probabilities and this area of study has been ongoing for many decades.

“The lack of compelling evidence beyond the pure anecdotal suggests that on the balance of probabilities that nothing is out there.

“I think that any UFO researcher would tell you that 98 per cent of sightings that happen are very easily explainable. One of the conclusions to draw from that is that perhaps there isn’t anything there. The days of compelling eyewitness sightings seem to be over.”

He said that far from leading to an increase in UFO sightings and research, the advent of the internet had coincided with a decline.

Assap’s UFO cases have dropped by 96 per cent since 1988, while the number of other groups involved in UFO research has fallen from well over 100 in the 1990s to around 30 now.

Among those to have closed are the British Flying Saucer Bureau, the Northern UFO Network, and the Northern Anomalies Research Organisation.

As well as a fall in sightings and lack of proof, Mr Wood said the lack of new developments meant that the main focus for the dwindling numbers of enthusiasts was supposed UFO encounters that took place several decades ago and conspiracy theories that surround them.

In particular, he cited the Roswell incident, in 1947 when an alien spaceship is said to have crashed in New Mexico, and the Rendlesham incident in 1980, often described as the British equivalent, when airmen from a US airbase in Suffolk reported a spaceship landing.

Mr Wood added: “When you go to UFO conferences it is mainly people going over these old cases, rather than bringing new ones to the fore.

“There is a trend where a large proportion of UFO studies are tending towards conspiracy theories, which I don’t think is particularly helpful.”

The issue is to be debated at a summit at the University of Worcester on November 17 and the conclusions reported in the next edition of the association’s journal, Anomaly.

The organisation, which describes itself as an education and research charity, was established in 1981. Its first president was Michael Bentine, the comedian and member of the Goons.

It contains both sceptics and believers in UFOs and has been involved in several notable sightings and theories over the years.

Its current president Lionel Fanthorpe has claimed in its journal that King Arthur was an alien who came to Earth to save humans from invading extraterrestrials.

The summit follows the emergence earlier this year of the news that the Ministry of Defence was no longer investigating UFO sightings after ruling there is “no evidence” they pose a threat to the UK.

David Clark, a Sheffield Hallam University academic and the UFO adviser to the National Archives, said: “The subject is dead in that no one is seeing anything

evidential.

“Look at all the people who now have personal cameras. If there was something flying around that was a structured object from somewhere else, you would have thought that someone would have come up with some convincing footage by now – but they haven’t.

“The reason why nothing is going on is because of the internet. If something happens now, the internet is there to help people get to the bottom of it and find an explanation.

“Before then, you had to send letters to people, who wouldn’t respond and you got this element of mystery and secrecy that means things were not explained.

“The classic cases like Roswell and Rendlesham are only classic cases because they were not investigated properly at the time.”

But Nick Pope, who ran the MoD’s UFO desk from 1991 to 1994 and now researches UFO sightings privately, said there was a future for the subject: “There’s a quantity versus quality issue here.

“So many UFO sightings these days are attributable to Chinese lanterns that more interesting sightings are sometimes overlooked.

“The same is true with photos and videos. There are so many fakes on YouTube and elsewhere, it would be easy to dismiss the whole subject out of hand.

“The danger is that we throw out the baby with the bathwater. And as I used to say at the MoD, the believers only have to be right once.”

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Mini tablets better for work or play?

How does the iPad mini fit into the big picture?

The range of 10-ish inch tablets from the likes of Apple and Samsung have a multitude of uses, but they can be a bit too cumbersome to lug around. Regardless of how thin and light they are, their 10-inch footprint just isn't travel-friendly. This is the sweet spot which 7-ish inch tablets such as the iPad mini are targeting, offering a device which easily slips into a small travel bag or even a large pocket. But these mini tablets won't appeal to everyone.

After spending the weekend with the Apple's new 7.9-inch iPad mini I don't think I'd recommend it as a budget tablet for using around the house. If it's only going to sit on your lap, or on the kitchen bench, you're better off spending the extra cash on the extra screen real estate of a full-sized iPad. If you're on a tight budget then I'd still lean towards an old iPad 2 rather than an iPad mini for using around the house.

For me, I'd say the iPad mini comes into its own as you walk out the door. It's the first iPad which actually fits in my jeans pocket, although it is a tight fit. As such the iPad mini is handy for popping out to a cafe to do a little reading or get some work done, when you're looking for more screen real estate than a smartphone but don't want to carry a larger device in a bag. The iPad mini would also slip into many jacket pockets -- an appealing prospect if you catch the train to work every day. This improved portability alone could be enough to convince some people to own both a full-sized and mini tablet, even though Apple hasn't added or removed features from the iPad mini to position it as a companion device to the iPad rather than a competitor.

Of course the iPad mini certainly isn't the first mini tablet, it's clearly in response to the successful 7-ish inch Android offerings. To be fair, it took Android a few goes to get it right. The original Samsung Galaxy Tab was a slow, cumbersome and expensive beast which wasn't worth getting excited about unless you were busting a gut to be an early adopter. Both hardware limitations and the phone-centric Android 2.2 share the blame. Even this time last year, offerings such as the Acer Iconia A100 left a lot to be desired. But the latest crop of 7-ish inch Android offerings such as the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire have come a long way, finally forcing Apple to retaliate with the iPad mini.

As someone who tends to work on the go, and isn't wedded to any one vendor or ecosystem, the big question for me has been; what's the best size for a tablet as a portable productivity tool? Your answer will depend on what you do for a crust -- for me it's all about typing.

When it comes to typing on the screen with two thumbs, holding it in portrait mode, I find Apple's 7.9-inch iPad mini is still a fraction too wide for my liking. I actually find the slightly narrower 7-inch tablets more comfortable for this task -- assuming they're not too heavy. Weight was an issue with the early 7-inch Android tablets but it's hard to complain about the Nexus 7 at 340 grams, not far off the iPad mini's impressive 308 grams. Of course at this point it's also worth entertaining thoughts of the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II, if you're looking for the convenience of only carrying one device. 

If your idea of productivity is related more to how much you can see, rather than how fast you can type, then the 7.9-inch iPad obviously becomes more attractive. If you're a spreadsheet jockey you might find that extra inch is exactly what you needed.

Perhaps a more important question here is not which is the most productive tablet size but whether you can actually be all that productive with a tablet. Again your mileage will vary depending on what you're trying to do. Typing on a tablet, not to mention editing, can be slow going compared to a notebook. Even if you've got a travel keyboard, multi-tasking on a tablet is also cumbersome compared to a full desktop OS (yes, I know about the four-finger swipe). It will be interesting to see how the Microsoft Surface stands up as a productivity tool, it shows a lot of promise although at 10.6-inches it's even less travel-friendly than a full-sized iPad. I think I'd be more interested in the Surface Pro, or a third-party tablet running Windows 8, rather than a Windows RT device.

As portable as the iPad mini might be, if I really needed to get a lot of work done I'd still bite the bullet and throw my small notebook in my bag. How about you -- can you get much work done on a tablet? What's the best size for your needs?

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Howard's effort not enough for Lakers

The talent-laden Lakers have dropped two straight to open the season — their opener at home against the Dallas Mavericks followed by a 116-106 thumping by thePortland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night.

To make matters worse, two-time MVP Steve Nash, brought in by the Lakers in the offseason along with six-time All-Star Dwight Howard, was injured late in the first half against Portland.

"We've got to learn how to play together," said Howard, who had 33 points and 14 rebounds in the loss to Portland. "You've got to be good before you can be great."

The Lakers' stockpile of stars lacked a sense of urgency against the Blazers, who led by as many as 19 points.Nicolas Batum had 26 points and Damian Lillard, the sixth overall pick in the June draft, had 22 points and 11 assists in his NBA debut.

Kobe Bryant had 30 points and Howard's output Wednesday night was a vast improvement over his debut the night before against the Mavs, when he had 19 points and 10 rebounds but made just three of 14 free throws before fouling out. The Lakers lost that one 99-91.

But it was apparent for the second night in a row that the Lakers were still getting used to each other. The starters rarely played together during an 0-8 preseason.

"We didn't expect to just come together and be awesome," Howard said. "It's always a process. We've got to stick with it so that at the end of the year we can have a trophy."

Nash collided with Lillard and limped to the locker room. Although the team initially reported he was fine, Nash struggled when he returned for the second half and left the game for good a short time later.

The team said he had a bruised left leg. He said after the game he hopes to play Friday when the Lakers host the Clippers.

"We're not sharp," Nash said. "I think the guys are trying, we just didn't live up to what we're trying to do."

The Blazers, who finished 28-38 last season and out of the playoffs, opened their season with eight newcomers on the roster after an offseason rebuilding effort around All-StarLaMarcus Aldridge, Wesley Matthews and Batum.

"People probably didn't expect us to come out and beat that type of team, but we've been competing very hard in practice, and we did that same thing tonight," Lillard said. "We were flying around, lots of energy. I think our activity kind of wore on them."

Portland pulled out to a 30-26 lead late in the first quarter after Matthews' 3-pointer. Lillard extended the lead to 35-26 with a running bank shot in traffic.

J.J. Hickson's jumper made it 41-34 for Portland, but Bryant answered for the Lakers with a 3-pointer. Batum's fast-break jam gave the Blazers a 46-40 lead and Portland went into halftime with a 62-57 lead.

Portland took its momentum into the second half, going up 72-64 on another dunk by Batum. Sasha Pavlovic's 3-pointer gave the Blazers an 88-76 lead just before Howard was called for his fourth foul.

Matthews' jumper made it 102-83 in the fourth quarter. Batum had a 3-pointer to make it 108-94 as the game slipped out of reach for the Lakers.

Batum's opener comes after an uncertain offseason as a restricted free agent. The Blazers got into a poker match with the Timberwolves over the 23-year-old Frenchman, eventually matching Minnesota's four-year offer sheet worth more than $45 million.

Batum, like the rest of the Blazers, was trying to keep the victory low-key.

"This was just one game, just one game," he said. "It was a really good win, but we've got to focus on the next game on the road."

Portland visits Oklahoma City on Friday night.

The Blazers wore new red uniforms for the opener and encouraged fans to wear red, but the crowd was nonetheless sprinkled with plenty of Lakers gold. Among them was a fan that lifted a sign reading, "I love Steve Nash."

"The morale is fine, but nobody wants to lose," Lakers coach Mike Brown said. "We've just got to focus on what it will take for us to get a win. That's defense, first, and then, obviously, we've got to take care of the basketball."

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