New Zealand Wants a Hollywood Put on Its Map

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Standing by his desk in New Zealand’s distinctive round Parliament building, known locally as the Beehive, Prime Minister John Key proudly brandished an ornately engraved sword. It was used, he said, by Frodo Baggins, the protagonist of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and in the films it possesses magical powers that cause it to glow blue in the presence of goblins. ...

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Scientists See Advances in Deep Learning, a Part of Artificial Intelligence

Hao Zhang/The New York TimesA voice recognition program translated a speech given by Richard F. Rashid, Microsoft’s top scientist, into Mandarin Chinese. Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising...

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Scientists See Advances in Deep Learning, a Part of Artificial Intelligence

Hao Zhang/The New York TimesA voice recognition program translated a speech given by Richard F. Rashid, Microsoft’s top scientist, into Mandarin Chinese. Using an artificial intelligence technique inspired by theories about how the brain recognizes patterns, technology companies are reporting startling gains in fields as diverse as computer vision, speech recognition and the identification of promising...

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Gadgetwise Blog: Having a Beer With a Smartphone

Drinking beer used to be simple. But the exploding popularity of craft beer over the past several years has changed that, giving beer drinkers a new world of possibilities — and a range of hard decisions. Predictably, the ever-expanding roster of oatmeal stouts and vanilla porters has been accompanied by the creation of dozens of beer-related apps. These include local guides to the best pints,...

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Indian Prostitutes’ New Autonomy Imperils AIDS Fight

MUMBAI, India — Millions once bought sex in the narrow alleys of Kamathipura, a vast red-light district here. But prostitutes with inexpensive mobile phones are luring customers elsewhere, and that is endangering the astonishing progress India has made against AIDS. Indeed, the recent closings of hundreds of ancient brothels, while something of an economic victory for prostitutes, may one...

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Israeli Troops Kill a Palestinian in Shooting That Tests Cease-Fire

Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA group of Palestinians run from the Israel-Gaza border, as an Israeli army vehicle drives along the security fence, in the southeast Gaza Strip on Friday. GAZA — Health officials said on Friday that a 20-year-old Palestinian was killed and nine others wounded in a clash with Israeli soldiers in the southeast Gaza Strip, testing the cease-fire between...

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Tool Kit: Online Shopping Tips for the Holidays

Some people may be looking forward to leaving Thanksgiving dinner before the pie is served to join the Black Friday rush, which will begin during dinnertime Thursday, earlier than ever, at stores like Sears, Walmart and Lord & Taylor. But for those who prefer to stay for the pie course, avoid the lines and freezing temperatures and shop from the comfort of their homes, there are just...

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Recipes for Health: Apple Pear Strudel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesThis strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer. Filling for 2 strudels: 1/2 pound mixed dried fruit, like raisins, currants,...

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Recipes for Health: Apple Pear Strudel — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York TimesThis strudel is made with phyllo dough. When I tested it the first time, I found that I had enough filling for two strudels. Rather than cut the amount of filling, I increased the number of strudels to 2, as this is a dessert you can assemble and keep, unbaked, in the freezer. Filling for 2 strudels: 1/2 pound mixed dried fruit, like raisins, currants,...

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When Phones Come Out Long Before the Turkey

ATLANTA — Caleb J. Spivak will be busier with his phone than his fork this Thanksgiving. Mr. Spivak, 23, is spending the holiday with his boyfriend’s family in Kennesaw, Ga. His mother will be in Virginia with his grandmother. His sister will be in Ohio, his father and brother in Florida. And his friends will be all over the country. So he’ll post photographs of dinner to show his...

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Israel and Hamas Maintain Cease-Fire, After Push by the U.S. and Egypt

CAIRO — A cease-fire agreed to under intense Egyptian and American pressure between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to halt eight days of bloody conflict seemed to be holding on Thursday, averting a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip without resolving the underlying disputes. With Israeli forces still massed on the Gaza border, a tentative calm in the fighting...

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A Call for Japan to Take Bolder Monetary Action

TOKYO — Act irresponsibly. Toru Hanai/ReutersShinzo Abe, Japan’s ex-prime minister and head of the Liberal Democratic Party, is expected to return to the top job next month. For years, proponents of aggressive monetary policy have offered this unusual piece of advice as a way to end Japan’s deflationary slump and invigorate the economy. Print lots of money,...

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New H.I.V. Cases Falling in Some Poor Nations, but Treatment Still Lags

New infections with H.I.V. have dropped by half in the past decade in 25 poor and middle-income countries, many of them in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS, the United Nations said Tuesday. The greatest success has been in preventing mothers from infecting their babies, but focusing testing and treatment on high-risk groups like gay men, prostitutes and drug addicts has also paid...

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New H.I.V. Cases Falling in Some Poor Nations, but Treatment Still Lags

New infections with H.I.V. have dropped by half in the past decade in 25 poor and middle-income countries, many of them in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS, the United Nations said Tuesday. The greatest success has been in preventing mothers from infecting their babies, but focusing testing and treatment on high-risk groups like gay men, prostitutes and drug addicts has also paid...

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For Web Images, Creating New Technology to Seek and Find

STANFORD, Calif. — You may think you can find almost anything on the Internet. But even as images and video rapidly come to dominate the Web, search engines can ordinarily find a given image only if the text entered by a searcher matches the text with which it was labeled. And the labels can be unreliable, unhelpful (“fuzzy” instead of “rabbit”) or simply nonexistent. To eliminate...

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