Development of nonvolatile liquid anthracenes for facile full-color luminescence tuning: Application to foldable light-emitting devices expected

June 23, 2013 ? A research team headed by Dr. Takashi Nakanishi, a Principal Researcher of the NIMS Organic Materials Group, Polymer Materials Unit, developed a full-colour tunable luminescent liquid material with excellent light stability based on an anthracene molecule, which is a general organic fluorescent dye.

A research team headed by Dr. Takashi Nakanishi, a Principal Researcher of the Organic Materials Group (Group Leader: Masayuki Takeuchi), Polymer Materials Unit (Unit Director: Izumi Ichinose) of the National Institute for Materials Science (President: Sukekatsu Ushioda), developed a full-colour tunable luminescent liquid material with excellent photostability based on anthracene, which is a general organic fluorescent dye.

In the development of full-colour display monitors, mobile devices, and other electronic devices, organic molecular and polymer materials are essentially important, as they offer advantages such as light weight, flexibility, and printability. However, in virtually all cases, the light-emitting organic molecular materials developed until now have had difficulties to demonstrate their inherent luminescent performance due to various problems, which include low photostability (durability to prevent discoloration or decolorization under photoirradiation) and aggregation of molecules in the coating process. Moreover, from the viewpoint of production of flexible devices, materials should be free of deterioration of the continuous emissive layer, even when subjected to excessive bending and folding. On the other hand, development of organic molecular materials which enable simple, low-cost manufacture of full-colour luminescence devices, in comparison with individual synthesis of organic molecular materials that display various luminescent colours, is also desired.

The team led by Dr. Nakanishi developed a blue-emitting liquid material which is free of aggregation among adjacent anthracene parts, has a melting point of approximately -60 ?C, and is thermally stable up to about 300 ?C, by attaching highly flexible branched alkyl chains around an anthracene core moiety, which is a fluorescent general dye molecule. This material is a low-viscosity liquid with viscosity of approximately 0.3 Pa-s at room temperature and is a blue-emitting with an absolute fluorescence quantum yield of ca. 55% and photostable more than 5~10 times longer lifetime than that of commercially-available anthracene dyes. Furthermore, because other luminescent dye molecules can be doped homogeneously in this liquid, it was found that full-colour luminescence tuning is available assisted by up to 96% fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) of dyes by single blue-light (365nm) excitation.

In this research, a blue-emitting anthracene liquid with excellent photostability was synthesized, and a liquid material which displays high quality full-colour luminescence and precise luminescence tuning by the facile operation of doping the liquid with other dyes was developed. Since the nonvolatile liquid material developed in this work can be coated on the surface of various substrates, production of organic multicolour devices with stable single color excitation can be expected. A continuous active emitting layer can be maintained, without breaking or interruption even when bent and folded, which is a favorable property for the development of foldable flexible devices.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/wiw-4VNFXlY/130623153502.htm

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WikiLeaks: Snowden going to Ecuador

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Admitted leaker Edward Snowden took flight Sunday in evasion of U.S. authorities, seeking asylum in Ecuador and leaving the Obama administration scrambling to determine its next step in what became a game of diplomatic cat-and-mouse.

The former National Security Agency contractor and CIA technician fled Hong Kong and arrived at the Moscow airport, where he planned to spend the night before boarding an Aeroflot flight to Cuba. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said his government received an asylum request from Snowden, and the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said it would help him.

"He goes to the very countries that have, at best, very tense relationships with the United States," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., adding that she feared Snowden would trade more U.S. secrets for asylum. "This is not going to play out well for the national security interests of the United States."

The move left the U.S. with limited options as Snowden's itinerary took him on a tour of what many see as anti-American capitals. Ecuador in particular has rejected the United States' previous efforts at cooperation, and has been helping WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, avoid prosecution by allowing him to stay at its embassy in London.

Snowden helped The Guardian and The Washington Post disclose U.S. surveillance programs that collects vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, but often sweeping up information on American citizens. Officials have the ability to collect phone and Internet information broadly but need a warrant to examine specific cases where they believe terrorism is involved.

Snowden has been in hiding for several weeks in Hong Kong, a former British colony with a high degree of autonomy from mainland China. The United States formally sought Snowden's extradition from Hong Kong but was rebuffed; Hong Kong officials said the U.S. request did not fully comply with their laws.

The Justice Department rejected that claim, saying its request met all of the requirements of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong.

During conversations last week, including a phone call Wednesday between Attorney General Eric Holder and Hong Kong Secretary for Justice Rimsky Yuen, Hong Kong officials never raised any issues regarding sufficiency of the U.S. request, a Justice spokesperson said.

A State Department official said the United States was in touch through diplomatic and law enforcement channels with countries that Snowden could travel through or to, reminding them that Snowden is wanted on criminal charges and reiterating Washington's position that Snowden should only be permitted to travel back to the U.S.

The Justice Department said it would "pursue relevant law enforcement cooperation with other countries where Mr. Snowden may be attempting to travel."

The White House would only say that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the developments by his national security advisers.

Russia's state ITAR-Tass news agency and Interfax cited an unnamed Aeroflot airline official as saying Snowden was on the plane that landed Sunday afternoon in Moscow.

Upon his arrival, Snowden did not leave Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. One explanation could be that he wasn't allowed; a U.S. official said Snowden's passport had been revoked, and special permission from Russian authorities would have been needed.

"It's almost hopeless unless we find some ways to lean on them," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.

The Russian media report said Snowden intended to fly to Cuba on Monday and then on to Caracas, Venezuela.

U.S. lawmakers scoffed. "The freedom trail is not exactly China-Russia-Cuba-Venezuela, so I hope we'll chase him to the ends of the earth, bring him to justice and let the Russians know there'll be consequences if they harbor this guy," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

With each suspected flight, efforts to secure Snowden's return to the United States appeared more complicated if not impossible. The United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, but does with Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador. Even with an extradition agreement though, any country could give Snowden a political exemption.

The likelihood that any of these countries would stop Snowden from traveling on to Ecuador seemed unlikely. While diplomatic tensions have thawed in recent years, Cuba and the United States are hardly allies after a half century of distrust.

Venezuela, too, could prove difficult. Former President Hugo Chavez was a sworn enemy of the United States and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, earlier this year called Obama "grand chief of devils." The two countries do not exchange ambassadors.

U.S. pressure on Caracas also might be problematic given its energy exports. The U.S. Energy Information Agency reports Venezuela sent the United States 900,000 barrels of crude oil each day in 2012, making it the fourth-largest foreign source of U.S. oil.

"I think 10 percent of Snowden's issues are now legal, and 90 percent political," said Douglas McNabb, an expert in international extradition and a senior principal at international criminal defense firm McNabb Associates.

Assange's lawyer, Michael Ratner, said Snowden's options aren't numerous.

"You have to have a country that's going to stand up to the United States," Ratner said. "You're not talking about a huge range of countries here."

That is perhaps why Snowden first stopped in Russia, a nation with complicated relations with Washington.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "aiding and abetting Snowden's escape," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

"Allies are supposed to treat each other in decent ways, and Putin always seems almost eager to put a finger in the eye of the United States," Schumer said. "That's not how allies should treat one another, and I think it will have serious consequences for the United States-Russia relationship."

It also wasn't clear Snowden was finished with disclosing highly classified information.

"I am very worried about what else he has," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she had been told Snowden had perhaps more than 200 sensitive documents.

Ros-Lehtinen and King spoke with CNN. Graham spoke to "Fox News Sunday." Schumer was on CNN's "State of the Union." Sanchez appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press." Feinstein was on CBS' "Face the Nation."

___

Associated Press White House Correspondent Julie Pace and Associated Press writers Matthew V. Lee and Frederic J. Frommer in Washington, Lynn Berry in Moscow, Kevin Chan in Hong Kong and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wikileaks-snowden-going-ecuador-seek-asylum-170935684.html

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Dueling Headlines ? ?Snowden seeks asylum in Ecuador? edition (Michellemalkin)

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Decisions imminent, Supreme Court has wide range of options in gay marriage cases (Star Tribune)

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Obama to unveil climate plan in Tuesday speech

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is preparing to unveil his long-awaited national plan to combat climate change in a major speech, he announced on Saturday.

"There's no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change," Obama said in an online video released by the White House. "But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can."

People consulting with White House officials on Obama's plan, to be unveiled Tuesday at Georgetown University, say they expect him to put forth regulations on heat-trapping gases emitted by existing coal-fired power plans. They were not authorized to disclose details about the plan ahead of the announcement and requested anonymity.

Environmental groups have been pleading with Obama to take that step, but the administration has said it's focused first on controls on new power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency, using its authority under the Clean Air Act, has already proposed controls on new plants, but the rules have been delayed ? to the chagrin of states and environmental groups threatening to sue over the delays.

An administration official said last week that Obama was still weighing whether to include existing plants in the climate plan. The official wasn't authorized to comment by name and requested anonymity.

The White House wouldn't disclose any details Saturday about what steps Obama may call for. But his senior energy and climate adviser, Heather Zichal, said last week that controls on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants would be a major focus. She also said the plan would boost energy efficiency of appliances and buildings, plus expand renewable energy.

Putting a positive spin on a contentious partisan issue, Obama said the U.S. is uniquely poised to deal with the serious challenges posed by climate change. He said American scientists and engineers would have to design new fuels and energy sources, and workers will have to adapt to a clean energy economy.

"We'll need all of us, as citizens, to do our part to preserve God's creation for future generations," Obama said.

Environmental groups have for months been pushing Obama to make good on a threat he issued to lawmakers in February in his State of the Union address: "If Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will." Obama's move to take the matter into his own hands appears to reflect a growing consensus that opposition in Congress is too powerful for any meaningful, sweeping climate legislation to pass anytime soon.

"They shouldn't wait for Congress to act, because they'll be out of office by the time that Congress gets its act together," Rep. Henry Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in an interview.

Environmental groups applauded the announcement that Obama was finally releasing a plan for executive action, but made clear they want to see firm proposals ? including controls for existing power plants.

"Combating climate change means curbing carbon pollution ? for the first time ever ? from the biggest single source of such dangerous gases: our coal-fired power plants," said Frances Beinecke, president of the National Resources Defense Council. "We stand ready to help President Obama in every way we can."

Another key issue hanging over the announcement ? but unlikely to be mentioned on Tuesday ? is Keystone XL, a pipeline that would carry oil extracted from tar sands in western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. A concerted campaign by environmental activists to persuade Obama to nix the pipeline appears to be an uphill battle. The White House insists the State Department is making the decision independently.

Obama's speech on Tuesday will come the day before he leaves for a weeklong trip to three African nations.

___

Online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcL3_zzgWeU

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-06-22-US-Obama-Climate-Change/id-f720b89da85949c8a69abe7bac2e11fd

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Background check contractor that vetted Snowden subject of a probe

The Inspector General's office is conducting a criminal investigation into the company that did a background check on Edward Snowden in 2011. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

The federal contractor that performed a 2011 background check on Edward Snowden, the self-identified leaker of two confidential government surveillance programs, is the subject of a probe, the inspector general of the Office of Personnel Management told lawmakers Thursday.

?Yes, we believe that there ? there may be some problems,? Patrick McFarland, the OPM?s inspector general, said of Snowden?s background check, according to Reuters.

Snowden, who is a former employee of defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed himself as the source for documents detailing government Internet and telephone data-gathering programs. He is believed to currently be in Hong Kong.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., characterized the probe into USIS as a criminal investigation, but the company said it had never been made aware that it was the target of any such investigation.

?It is a reminder that background investigations can have real consequences for our national security,? McCaskill said of the revelations Snowden first made to British newspaper The Guardian. The senator said that there may be widespread problems with government background checks. At least 18 investigators running checks have been convicted of faking results over the last six years, she said.

USIS said in a statement released Thursday that the company has ?never been informed? that it is under investigation for criminal conduct. The company said it conducts thousands of confidential background checks for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and other government agencies every year, and does not comment on the checks.

USIS said that it received a subpoena the OPM inspector general?s office in January 2012. The company ?complied with that subpoena and has cooperated fully with the government?s civil investigative efforts,? it said in the statement.

The company says it has more than 6,000 employees and 100 federal government contracts.

On Thursday, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., called separately for an investigation into how access to top secret information is granted to government contractors.

?These men and women have access to some of our most sensitive national security information,? Nelson said in a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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The insecure Internet

This is a bit of a follow-up to yesterday's post on how NSA hacks into e-mail accounts. The information comes courtesy of a talk I had with the ACLU's Chris Sogohoian, who is probably one of the leading intellectual forces probing the intersection of technology, privacy and surveillance. (If I've gotten any of it wrong, it's on me, not him.)

Let's call it the Yahoo problem.

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Google and most other Internet content providers use SSL, a protocol that encrypts data as it passes through a network.

Yahoo does not use SSL encryption by default.

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Yahoo users communicate with other Yahoo users are sending their data through the networks without encryption. (If they're savvy enough, they can, as of January 2013, enable it, but, honestly, how many Americans know what SSL actually is?)

Ok, you might be saying to yourself: I don't use Yahoo. I use Gmail.

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But many Gmail users send e-mail messages to Yahoo users.

So when a Yahoo communication communicates with a Google communication, by default, it can't be encrypted unless the Yahoo sender has enabled encryption, which, again, requires a basic understanding of why doing so would be worth the time.)

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If someone wanted to tap into Google to Yahoo communications, she could do so by finding a place on the fiber optic wire that the electrons zip through, tap in, and simply read and see everything in real-time.

This is why, incidentally, you need to make sure to use the "https" indicator whenever you're using public Wifi; it's very easy to for malevolent folks to sniff data from unsuspecting users at Starbucks, and then exploit it for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

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Why doesn't Yahoo make SSL the default? Cost, maybe. Or maybe, since the NSA acquires unencrypted Yahoo e-mail in bulk overseas, it doesn't want to give the government a reason to serve Yahoo with a lot of FISA orders and requests. Don't ask, don't tell. There is also a tradeoff of sorts.

Google has been a leader in the field of forcefully and willfully adding security to its communications over time. Microsoft, Yahoo and other internet firms have followed Google's lead in many instances.

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Where Google leads today in the practice of only certifying a specific set of certifying authorities, or transactional middlemen, who give both ends of a communication a measure of security by verifying that the sender of a communication is indeed the sender who sent it.

Chrome browers are embedded with a list of certificates that Google has pre-cleared, in essence, for use with its own e-mail and content. These are stored locally and checked against the certificates that Google has already validated for the pipeline in question.

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Think of this way. Certifying Authorities are the friendly patrol officers on the net. You are an e-mail. You need to find an officer to escort you somewhere else. So you interrogate the officer you find. Is he a real officer? Does he have credentials? Do you recognize him? If the answer is yes, then you let him be your escort. If the answer is "no," then you run to the police station and make a complain. This is how Google's certificate pinning is supposed to work. It makes sure that the patrol officer's name is the same name that's on his police badge, and also makes sure that the police officer is a legitimate part of the force and is working the right beat at the right time.

Of course, a lot of content providers don't make sure that the police officers escorting their messages through the Internet are actually the ones who are supposed to be there. They accept most of the 400-or so certifying authorities. Valid sites might their certificates expire, and most browsers won't interrupt your experience with this news unless you ask it to. It's hard, but not impossible, to hack into a certifying authority and pose as someone you're not.

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One reason why Google leads on certifying authorities is because they were burned by a fake one in 2011. Google caught hackers in the act because a user in Iran complained to the company that his browser was having difficulty accepting the certificate. That's because the certificate was being spoofed by hackers associated with the government. They managed to burrow into the servers of a small Dutch certifying authority used mainly by the Dutch government. Using the fake certificate, the Iranian government could easily read real-time communication from 250,000 Gmail users inside the country.

The Internet is much larger than Google mail or website content, so what researchers like to call the "SSL certificate vulnerability" ought to be an urgent matter for companies to work together to fix.

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I'll end with this paradox.

The more secure a system is, the harder it is for the government to hack into.

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If all the world's gatekeepers used SSL and certificate pinning, the NSA would not be able to collect nearly as much digital communications as they do now. (There are ways to break SSL, but it is not scalable and requires midstream collection. See here:)

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/insecure-internet-154300126.html

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