An Ohio woman who was the first US recipient of a near-total face transplant unveiled the results of her surgery which restored key features after she was shot by her husband five years ago.

Connie Culp, 46, who was left without a nose, a palate or lower eyelids following a shotgun blast in 2004, underwent a procedure last December that lasted 22 hours at the Cleveland Clinic in the state of Ohio.

Surgeons transplanted about 80 percent of Culp's face using facial tissue from a dead woman that was placed like a mask atop her own. Almost her entire face was replaced, except for the forehead, upper eyelids, lower lip and chin.

The team of 11 surgeons who performed the operation said Culp, who was missing bone support and had been unable to eat or breathe without a tube in her windpipe, could now perform functions normally.

"We think this ... procedure has changed her life dramatically," Maria Siemionow, the clinic's director of plastic surgery research, told a news conference.

Although the clinic had revealed the surgery in December, Culp's identity and the incident that had disfigured were kept under wraps.

"Well, I guess I'm the one you came to see today," Culp said after being helped up to the podium.

But, she added, "I think it's more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person's face."

When Risal Djohan, a plastic surgeon at the clinic, first looked at Culp's injuries two months after she was shot, "he told me he didn't think, he wasn't sure, if he could fix me, but he'd try," the patient recalled.

"Here I am, five years later. He did what he said -- I got me my nose," she said with a laugh.

Siemionow said the transplant "was the most complex functional restoration in the world today."

"We have transplanted for the first time in the world the largest scheme of the face, which was combined with the bones, with the entire nose and functional units, including lower eyelids, upper lip and including also her palate" she said.

The world's first partial face transplant was conducted in France in 2005.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/world/i-got-me-my-nose-first-us-face-transplant-recipient-steps-out-20090506-aumz.html

Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation's first face transplant. Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman. (May 5)

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Microsoft Windows 7 is the next release of the Windows client operating system, built on the secure foundation of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Performance, reliability, security, and compatibility are core tenets of this release as we collect your feedback to meet our engineering goals of making Windows 7 the best-performing and most stable Windows operating system to date. New innovations in the product are designed to augment your ability as an IT professional to better provision and manage increasingly mobile PCs, protect data, and improve both end-user and personal productivity.

This is the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

You can directly download from this URL, but you'll need to paste it into your browser's address bar.

Source: http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Microsoft-Windows-7-64bit/1231525922/2

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Google has launched a contacts manager that users of services like Google Docs, Picasa, and Calendar can use, without having to be a Gmail users.


Aimed at letting users share contacts more easily between different services, Google Contacts works like any other contacts function. You can import and export your contacts from other sources such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo, or Hotmail. For Apple you must use a utility called "A to G."


If you are part of a business, school or other organization using Google Apps, the administrator will have to enable this functionality within the control panel by clicking on the "add more services" link, finding the "Contacts" option and clicking the "add it now" button.

You can find the stand alone contact manager here.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10233244-2.html

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Asustek Computer plans to launch an 11.6-inch Eee PC later this month, but will still consider 10-inch the mainstream specification for 2009, accounting for 50% of total shipments, while 11.6-inch models will account for 30%, according to company president Jerry Shen.

The company will launch a 15.6-inch mid-range to high-end CULV-based ultra-thin notebook, the XS15, priced at 799-999 euro (US$1063-1330) and a 13.3-inch model priced at 599-699 euro in July. The company also plans to launch 14-inch models this year, Shen noted.

Shen also pointed out that panel supplies will have a chance to suffer shortages in May and June, while DRAM may see price increases, but is unlikely to face a shortage.

Source: http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090504PD205.html

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