Dr. William F. House, Inventor of Cochlear Implant, Dies

Dr. William F. House, a medical researcher who braved skepticism to invent the cochlear implant, an electronic device considered to be the first to restore a human sense, died on Dec. 7 at his home in Aurora, Ore. He was 89.

The cause was metastatic melanoma, his daughter, Karen House, said.

Dr. House pushed against conventional thinking throughout his career. Over the objections of some, he introduced the surgical microscope to ear surgery. Tackling a form of vertigo that doctors had believed was psychosomatic, he developed a surgical procedure that enabled the first American in space to travel to the moon. Peering at the bones of the inner ear, he found enrapturing beauty.

Even after his ear-implant device had largely been supplanted by more sophisticated, and more expensive, devices, Dr. House remained convinced of his own version’s utility and advocated that it be used to help the world’s poor.

Today, more than 200,000 people in the world have inner-ear implants, a third of them in the United States. A majority of young deaf children receive them, and most people with the implants learn to understand speech with no visual help.

Hearing aids amplify sound to help the hearing-impaired. But many deaf people cannot hear at all because sound cannot be transmitted to their brains, however much it is amplified. This is because the delicate hair cells that line the cochlea, the liquid-filled spiral cavity of the inner ear, are damaged. When healthy, these hairs — more than 15,000 altogether — translate mechanical vibrations produced by sound into electrical signals and deliver them to the auditory nerve.

Dr. House’s cochlear implant electronically translated sound into mechanical vibrations. His initial device, implanted in 1961, was eventually rejected by the body. But after refining its materials, he created a long-lasting version and implanted it in 1969.

More than a decade would pass before the Food and Drug Administration approved the cochlear implant, but when it did, in 1984, Mark Novitch, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said, “For the first time a device can, to a degree, replace an organ of the human senses.”

One of Dr. House’s early implant patients, from an experimental trial, wrote to him in 1981 saying, “I no longer live in a world of soundless movement and voiceless faces.”

But for 27 years, Dr. House had faced stern opposition while he was developing the device. Doctors and scientists said it would not work, or not work very well, calling it a cruel hoax on people desperate to hear. Some said he was motivated by the prospect of financial gain. Some criticized him for experimenting on human subjects. Some advocates for the deaf said the device deprived its users of the dignity of their deafness without fully integrating them into the hearing world.

Even when the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology endorsed implants in 1977, it specifically denounced Dr. House’s version. It recommended more complicated versions, which were then under development and later became the standard.

But his work is broadly viewed as having sped the development of implants and enlarged understanding of the inner ear. Jack Urban, an aerospace engineer, helped develop the surgical microscope as well as mechanical and electronic aspects of the House implant.

Karl White, founding director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, said in an interview that it would have taken a decade longer to invent the cochlear implant without Dr. House’s contributions. He called him “a giant in the field.”

After embracing the use of the microscope in ear surgery, Dr. House developed procedures — radical for their time — for removing tumors from the back portion of the brain without causing facial paralysis; they cut the death rate from the surgery to less than 1 percent from 40 percent.

He also developed the first surgical treatment for Meniere’s disease, which involves debilitating vertigo and had been viewed as a psychosomatic condition. His procedure cured the astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. of the disease, clearing him to command the Apollo 14 mission to the moon in 1971. In 1961, Shepard had become the first American launched into space.

In presenting Dr. House with an award in 1995, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation said, “He has developed more new concepts in otology than almost any other single person in history.”

William Fouts House was born in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 1, 1923. When he was 3 his family moved to Whittier, Calif., where he grew up on a ranch. He did pre-dental studies at Whittier College and the University of Southern California, and earned a doctorate in dentistry at the University of California, Berkeley. After serving his required two years in the Navy — and filling the requisite 300 cavities a month — he went back to U.S.C. to pursue an interest in oral surgery. He earned his medical degree in 1953. After a residency at Los Angeles County Hospital, he joined the Los Angeles Foundation of Otology, a nonprofit research institution founded by his brother, Howard. Today it is called the House Research Institute.

Many at the time thought ear surgery was a declining field because of the effectiveness of antibiotics in dealing with ear maladies. But Dr. House saw antibiotics as enabling more sophisticated surgery by diminishing the threat of infection.

When his brother returned from West Germany with a surgical microscope, Dr. House saw its potential and adopted it for ear surgery; he is credited with introducing the device to the field. But again there was resistance. As Dr. House wrote in his memoir, “The Struggles of a Medical Innovator: Cochlear Implants and Other Ear Surgeries” (2011), some eye doctors initially criticized his use of a microscope in surgery as reckless and unnecessary for a surgeon with good eyesight.

Dr. House also used the microscope as a research tool. One night a week he would take one to a morgue for use in dissecting ears to gain insights that might lead to new surgical procedures. His initial reaction, he said, was how beautiful the bones seemed; he compared the experience to one’s first view of the Grand Canyon. His wife, the former June Stendhal, a nurse, often helped.

She died in 2008 after 64 years of marriage. In addition to his daughter, Dr. House is survived by a son, David; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

The implant Dr. House invented used a single channel to deliver information to the hearing system, as opposed to the multiple channels of competing models. The 3M Company, the original licensee of the House implant, sold its rights to another company, the Cochlear Corporation, in 1989. Cochlear later abandoned his design in favor of the multichannel version.

But Dr. House continued to fight for his single-electrode approach, saying it was far cheaper, and offered voluminous material as evidence of its efficacy. He had hoped to resume production of it and make it available to the poor around the world.

Neither the institute nor Dr. House made any money on the implant. He never sought a patent on any of his inventions, he said, because he did not want to restrict other researchers. A nephew, Dr. John House, the current president of the House institute, said his uncle had made the deal to license it to the 3M Company not for profit but simply to get it built by a reputable manufacturer.

Reflecting on his business decisions in his memoir, Dr. House acknowledged, “I might be a little richer today.”

Read More..

IHT Rendezvous: China Calls for 'No Delay' on Gun Controls in U.S.

HONG KONG — The state news agency in China, the official voice of the government, has called for the United States to quickly adopt stricter gun controls in the aftermath of the shooting rampage in Connecticut that left 28 people dead, including 20 schoolchildren.

According to the state medical examiner who was overseeing autopsies of the children, all of them had been hit multiple times. At least one child had been shot 11 times.

All of the children were in the first grade.

“Their blood and tears demand no delay for U.S. gun control,” said the news agency, Xinhua, which listed a series of shootings this year in the United States.

“However, this time, the public feels somewhat tired and helpless,” the commentary said. “The past six months have seen enough shooting rampages in the United States.”

China suffered its own school tragedy on Friday — a man stabbed 22 children at a village elementary school in Henan Province. An 85-year-old woman also was stabbed.

There were no fatalities, although Xinhua reported that some of the children had had their fingers and ears cut off. The attacker, a 36-year-old man, was reportedly in custody. There was no immediate explanation for his possible motives.

On Sunday, the Web site China Smack compiled a range of comments on Sina Weibo, the Twitter-like service in China. One said: “They should issue a bulletproof vest to every American elementary school student as their school uniform.”

Another comment related to President Obama fighting back tears while addressing the nation on Friday:

In the face of Henan children suffering harm, did our country’s leaders shed a tear!? Why is it that when this kind of incident happens, they always pretend to be deaf and mute!? I’m not saying that our leaders have to be like Obama shedding tears, but can we at least be like others in facing the incident? Instead of the mainstream media not even covering it, hiding it, attempting to avoid it every time the country has a “special incident.”

China experienced a spate of attacks on schoolchildren in 2010, with almost 20 deaths and more than 50 injuries. In the fourth of the assaults, a crazed man beat five toddlers with a hammer, then set himself on fire while holding two youngsters.

In another of those attacks in 2010, Zheng Minsheng, 42, stabbed and killed eight primary school students in Fujian Province. Five weeks later, after a quick trial, he was executed.

My colleague Michael Wines reported at the time: “Some news reports stated that Mr. Zheng had mental problems, but most state media said no such evidence existed. Mental illness remains a closeted topic in modern China, and neither medication nor modern psychiatric treatment is widely used.”

“Most of the attackers have been mentally disturbed men involved in personal disputes or unable to adjust to the rapid pace of social change in China,” The Associated Press reported Saturday, adding that the rampages pointed to “grave weaknesses in the antiquated Chinese medical system’s ability to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness.”

Private ownership of guns — whether pistols, rifles or shotguns — is almost unheard of in China. Handgun permits are sometimes (but rarely) given to people living in remote areas for protection against wild animals.

The Chinese school assaults were carried out with knives, kitchen cleavers or hammers, the usual weapons of choice in mass attacks in China. As a precaution before the recent Communist Party Congress in Beijing, the sale of knives was banned in the central area of the capital.

Dr. Ding Xueliang, a sociologist at the University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, speaking about the Chinese tragedy on Friday, told CNN that “the huge difference between this case and the U.S. is not the suspect, nor the situation, but the simple fact he did not have an effective weapon.

“In terms of the U.S., there’s much easier availability of killing instruments — rifles, machine guns, explosives — than in nearly every other developed country.”

In a blog on the Web site of The New Yorker, the magazine’s China correspondent, Evan Osnos, wrote:

It takes a lot to make China’s government — beset, as it is, by corruption and opacity and the paralyzing effects of special interests — look good, by comparison, in the eyes of its people these days. But we’ve done it.

When Chinese viewers looked at the two attacks side by side, more than a few of them concluded, as one did that, “from the look of it, there’s no difference between a ‘developed’ country and a ‘developing’ country. And there’s no such thing as human rights. People are the most violent creatures on earth, and China, with its ban on guns, is doing pretty well!”

Japan, too, has a near-total ban on private gun ownership, and the infrequent mass attacks there — which included a tragic rampage at a primary school in 2001— typically have involved knives.

“Almost no one in Japan owns a gun,” said Max Fisher, writing in The Atlantic in July. “Most kinds are illegal, with onerous restrictions on buying and maintaining the few that are allowed. Even the country’s infamous, mafia-like Yakuza tend to forgo guns; the few exceptions tend to become big national news stories.”

In 2006, Japan had two gun-related homicides. “And when that number jumped to 22 in 2007,” Mr. Fisher said, “it became a national scandal.”

“East Asia, despite its universally restrictive domestic gun policies, hosts some of the world’s largest firearm exporters and emerging industry giants: China, South Korea and Japan,” according to GunPolicy.org, a comprehensive global database maintained by the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney.

In recent weeks, Chinese police officials in Jiangsu Province seized more than 6,000 illegal guns from two underground workshops and warehouses; a retired prison guard in Hong Kong was jailed for 18 months for keeping an arsenal of guns, silencers, grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition in his public-housing apartment; and 17 suspected gun smugglers went on trial in Shanghai as part of a joint investigation with U.S. law enforcement officials.

In the Shanghai case, more than 100 semiautomatic handguns, rifles, shotguns and gun parts were express-mailed to China from the United States. One of the masterminds on the American end was Staff Sgt. Joseph Debose, 30, a soldier with a Special Forces National Guard unit in North Carolina. He pleaded guilty to federal charges in September.

“The defendant traded the honor of his position in the National Guard for the money he received for smuggling arms to China,” said Loretta E. Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “In blatant disregard for everything he was sworn to uphold, the defendant placed numerous firearms into a black market pipeline from the United States to China.”

What’s your view? Would the United States do well to emulate China and Japan, with their comprehensive bans on guns? Or is America a special case because of its Constitutional protections of gun ownership? And apropos of the Fujian attack described above, would you support similarly speedy trials and the death penalty for mass murderers of children?

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E.C.B. Sees a Healing Euro Zone but Warns of Risks

FRANKFURT — Tensions in the euro zone have eased noticeably since the summer, the European Central Bank said Friday, but it warned that the situation remained fragile in part because commercial banks were still in a weakened state.

“There is a risk in spite of the recent improvements,” Vitor Constâncio, the vice president of the E.C.B., said at a press briefing Friday.

In its twice-a-year report on financial stability, the E.C.B. noted a number of indications that the euro zone is starting to heal. For example, borrowing costs for troubled countries have dropped substantially, and banks in Portugal and Ireland have regained access to money markets.

Countries including Spain and Italy have been able to increase their exports because labor costs have fallen, improving their competitiveness, the E.C.B. said. While that is positive, it came about partly because of high unemployment and falling wages.

“This adjustment has had a heavy cost,” Mr. Constâncio said. “But at least we can say the adjustment occurred.”

Unemployment will start to fall by 2014 as the stressed countries begin to grow again, Mr. Constâncio said.

The E.C.B. attributed the ebbing of fear in the euro zone to a combination of central bank policy, improved competitiveness at some countries and progress by political leaders toward creating a more durable euro zone. Mr. Constâncio said it was impossible to separate out how much each of those factors contributed.

The E.C.B. gave itself credit for some of the improvement, including its promise to buy government bonds as needed to contain countries’ borrowing costs. It also lauded the decision by euro zone leaders this week to give the E.C.B. overall authority for regulating banks.

Mr. Constâncio emphasized that, even though the E.C.B. has direct control only over about 150 of the biggest banks as part of the so-called banking union, it sees itself as overseer for the whole banking system, with the power to assume oversight of any bank it chooses. Mr. Constâncio said that political leaders understood this.

The E.C.B. “has legal competence over all the banks,” he said. “This is a very important idea.”

Banks, and falling bank profits, were the major weaknesses identified by the E.C.B. in the report. European bank shares are currently valued at much less than the value of their assets, the report said.

“It really is a very negative judgment by the stock market,” Mr. Constâncio said.

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The Neediest Cases: Disabled Young Man and His Protective Mother Deal With Life’s Challenges

Though he would prefer to put his socks on without his mother’s help, Zaquan West, 25, does not have a choice.

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Joann West is a constant caretaker for her son, Zaquan. Though Ms. West works as a receptionist, the family fell behind on rent.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,104,694

Recorded Thursday:

$137,451

*Total:

$3,242,145

Last year to date:

$2,862,836

*Includes $596,609 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

A genetic disorder has encumbered Mr. West all his life, but he has needed assistance with this particular task since only last year. In November 2011, he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his left thigh that was as big as a football, but he was left less flexible.

“He doesn’t do well with disability, with the label,” his mother, Joann West, 55, said. “He doesn’t tell people that he has a disability. If they can’t see it, they just can’t see it.”

When her son was 13 months old, Ms. West learned he had neurofibromatosis, a disorder that causes tumors to grow on the nerves and, in some cases, to infringe on vital organs, or as was the case last year, to become malignant. It also creates large bumps on the skin known as nodules.

At ages 5 and 8, Zaquan had operations to remove neurofibromatosis clusters that were eating away at his left hip bone. The disease has left his left leg a few inches shorter than his right. After each operation, he had to relearn how to walk.

Because of his physical disability, he was placed in a special-education class at school and given the same homework every night, his mother said.

“I advocated for him,” Ms. West said. “I kept fighting, because he was no dummy. He was physically impaired, not mentally. I went out of my way to try to give him a better life. The system would have failed him more than it did if I hadn’t stepped in.” Her efforts led to his being moved from a special-education classroom to a regular one in second grade.

Ms. West, a single mother, acknowledges that her protective instincts made her a very controlling parent, and she did not allow Zaquan out of the house much, which limited his friendships.

“I was afraid for him,” she said. “The streets, they don’t care about your disability.”

When Mr. West entered high school, it was the first time he had truly been away from his mother’s watchful eyes. He began skipping class, often going to the park or wandering their Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood with truant friends. He eventually dropped out of school.

“It was just me being out on my own and making my own choices,” Mr. West recalled.

Though she did not agree with her son’s decisions, Ms. West said that his need to explore was in some ways a result of her actions. “At a point, I stepped back,” she said, “to allow him to do certain things on his own and do what he wanted to do.”

In 2007, a couple of years after he dropped out, Mr. West joined the Door, an organization focused on empowering young people to reach their potential. There, he obtained his high school equivalency diploma.

Today, Mr. West is job hunting so that he can help pay his and his mother’s expenses.

But paying the monthly bills has become a struggle, Ms. West said, in part because of a recent change in her budget. In August, after an increase in income, they stopped receiving $324 a month in food stamps. The additional income did not cover all their expenses, however, and Ms. West eventually fell behind in the rent on their apartment.

Ms. West, who has been employed in various administrative jobs, currently works as a receptionist for Howie the Harp Advocacy Center, an agency that provides employment help to people with psychiatric disabilities. Her annual salary is about $25,000 before taxes. Her son receives $646 in Social Security disability benefits. After the family’s food stamps were cut off, Mr. West applied individually, and he now receives $200 in food stamps each month.

With the addition of Mr. West’s disability benefits and food stamps, their net monthly income is $2,213. Their contribution for the Section 8-subsidized apartment Ms. West has lived in for the past 30 years is $969.

Knowing she was in need of help, Ms. West’s boss told her about the Community Service Society, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. And the society drew $1,598 from the fund to cover her debt.

Ms. West remains a constant caretaker for her independent-minded son, who, she says, has come to accept her help grudgingly. She says that even if they are not on speaking terms after a disagreement, she is there to lend him a hand.

Both are continuing to deal with the inevitable challenges: Mr. West is awaiting word from doctors on whether a new growth in his lungs is cancerous. But one of his greatest assets, given all that he has overcome, is that he is comfortable in his own skin.

“I’m just always going to be me,” he said, “so why deal with somebody else?”

Read More..

The Neediest Cases: Disabled Young Man and His Protective Mother Deal With Life’s Challenges

Though he would prefer to put his socks on without his mother’s help, Zaquan West, 25, does not have a choice.

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Joann West is a constant caretaker for her son, Zaquan. Though Ms. West works as a receptionist, the family fell behind on rent.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,104,694

Recorded Thursday:

$137,451

*Total:

$3,242,145

Last year to date:

$2,862,836

*Includes $596,609 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

A genetic disorder has encumbered Mr. West all his life, but he has needed assistance with this particular task since only last year. In November 2011, he had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his left thigh that was as big as a football, but he was left less flexible.

“He doesn’t do well with disability, with the label,” his mother, Joann West, 55, said. “He doesn’t tell people that he has a disability. If they can’t see it, they just can’t see it.”

When her son was 13 months old, Ms. West learned he had neurofibromatosis, a disorder that causes tumors to grow on the nerves and, in some cases, to infringe on vital organs, or as was the case last year, to become malignant. It also creates large bumps on the skin known as nodules.

At ages 5 and 8, Zaquan had operations to remove neurofibromatosis clusters that were eating away at his left hip bone. The disease has left his left leg a few inches shorter than his right. After each operation, he had to relearn how to walk.

Because of his physical disability, he was placed in a special-education class at school and given the same homework every night, his mother said.

“I advocated for him,” Ms. West said. “I kept fighting, because he was no dummy. He was physically impaired, not mentally. I went out of my way to try to give him a better life. The system would have failed him more than it did if I hadn’t stepped in.” Her efforts led to his being moved from a special-education classroom to a regular one in second grade.

Ms. West, a single mother, acknowledges that her protective instincts made her a very controlling parent, and she did not allow Zaquan out of the house much, which limited his friendships.

“I was afraid for him,” she said. “The streets, they don’t care about your disability.”

When Mr. West entered high school, it was the first time he had truly been away from his mother’s watchful eyes. He began skipping class, often going to the park or wandering their Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, neighborhood with truant friends. He eventually dropped out of school.

“It was just me being out on my own and making my own choices,” Mr. West recalled.

Though she did not agree with her son’s decisions, Ms. West said that his need to explore was in some ways a result of her actions. “At a point, I stepped back,” she said, “to allow him to do certain things on his own and do what he wanted to do.”

In 2007, a couple of years after he dropped out, Mr. West joined the Door, an organization focused on empowering young people to reach their potential. There, he obtained his high school equivalency diploma.

Today, Mr. West is job hunting so that he can help pay his and his mother’s expenses.

But paying the monthly bills has become a struggle, Ms. West said, in part because of a recent change in her budget. In August, after an increase in income, they stopped receiving $324 a month in food stamps. The additional income did not cover all their expenses, however, and Ms. West eventually fell behind in the rent on their apartment.

Ms. West, who has been employed in various administrative jobs, currently works as a receptionist for Howie the Harp Advocacy Center, an agency that provides employment help to people with psychiatric disabilities. Her annual salary is about $25,000 before taxes. Her son receives $646 in Social Security disability benefits. After the family’s food stamps were cut off, Mr. West applied individually, and he now receives $200 in food stamps each month.

With the addition of Mr. West’s disability benefits and food stamps, their net monthly income is $2,213. Their contribution for the Section 8-subsidized apartment Ms. West has lived in for the past 30 years is $969.

Knowing she was in need of help, Ms. West’s boss told her about the Community Service Society, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. And the society drew $1,598 from the fund to cover her debt.

Ms. West remains a constant caretaker for her independent-minded son, who, she says, has come to accept her help grudgingly. She says that even if they are not on speaking terms after a disagreement, she is there to lend him a hand.

Both are continuing to deal with the inevitable challenges: Mr. West is awaiting word from doctors on whether a new growth in his lungs is cancerous. But one of his greatest assets, given all that he has overcome, is that he is comfortable in his own skin.

“I’m just always going to be me,” he said, “so why deal with somebody else?”

Read More..

Tool Kit: A Trove of Tablets for Young Hands

Parents take note. For approximately the price of a child’s bicycle — about $200 — you can purchase what may be the 21st-century equivalent: a tablet computer.

Children take their tablets, a term defined loosely, as seriously as they do their bikes. So if you are going to buy one that is for them — not you — you had better involve them in the process. They understand that this single device is a million-channel TV, music collection, game machine, camera and e-book library, and a way to socialize with friends. They may not understand — but you will — that in addition to the first $200 or so you lay out for a tablet, you will be paying for music, books, movies and apps far into the future.

So, what to get? The 21 tablets I reviewed for this article each have strengths and weaknesses. Here’s a crash course.

ANDROID TABLETS Android-based tablets for children are the newest versions on the block. Each is on a mission to distract children from the iPad and other mainstream tablets, and choices abound. For about $150, you can get the Kurio 7, MEEP or Tabeo.

The Nabi 2 costs a bit more ($200) but has a noticeably better screen. The Nabi Jr. ($100) is smaller and can double as a baby monitor. Though tricky to turn on, these tablets have colorful silicon bumpers for child-proofing. They also are slower, which I discovered when loading the same app on each one. This is a great test. Angry Birds starts in 10 seconds on the iPad Mini, vs. 33 seconds on the Tabeo.

Look at how much storage the devices have. It can be limited to just four gigabytes. This is important because apps and movies take space. One full-length HD video — about two gigabytes — can use half the storage space on the Tabeo, which means you’ll need to invest more in a micro-SD card.

The best overall option was the four-inch, $150 MG. Pocket-size and powerful — it loaded Angry Birds in 15 seconds — the MG is built around the Google Play app store. The MG comes with a preapproved digital allowance system, so children can do their own shopping. You supply the USB cable and Wi-Fi.

Beware that some of these devices — the Tabeo, MEEP and Kurio — are intended to sell you apps, music, e-books and movies purchased in their special stores. By the time you add in a micro-SD card to increase memory, you may be better off investing in the MG with easy access to mainstream app stores, or the Nexus 7 or Kindle Fire HD.

MAINSTREAM TABLETS My young testers, ages 3 to 12, kept reaching for the iPad first for good reason. They could find the apps they wanted, and the entire experience was familiar. But who wants to pay $300 for the iPod Touch 5, $329 for an iPad Mini or $400 for the lowest-priced iPad 2?

The good news is that the Android options are improving, in terms of app selection and overall quality. Android tablets cost far less, too.

Both the Kindle Fire HD, from Amazon, and Google’s Nexus 7 offer power, apps and parental control features at a price near those for children’s tablets.

The testers were also attracted by the detachable keyboard on the Microsoft Surface ($500 plus $100 for the keyboard). They saw it as a replacement for a laptop they use for homework. But the best non-Apple option I could find was the Kindle Fire HD, a choice made easier thanks to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, a fixed-price subscription-based service ($5 per child) that lets children shop on their own for books, apps, games and movies, without surprise bills.

If price is your sole determining factor, consider turning your iPhone 3s, 4 or 4s into an iPod Touch. With an Internet connection but no cellphone service, they serve as great mini iPad Minis. If you have a dead iPod Touch 4, you can get new batteries for $80 from Apple. Make sure to fully explore the built-in parental controls on both Apple and Android operating systems.

TOY OPTIONS These educational game tablets provide the lowest point of entry, at least in terms of initial cost. VTech’s MobiGo 2 ($50) and the LeapsterGS ($70) are both solid options, considering they come with a suite of onboard activities. VTech’s InnoTab 2 ($80) and Leapfrog’s LeapPad 2 (about $100) take a step closer to the tablet format. You might take this option if (a) your child has never used a multitouch screen, which they will prefer once they’ve used one; (b) you’re just not ready to part with $150 to $200; or (c) you want to ensure your child stays offline.

Downloading new content is difficult, and plug-in game cartridges cost $20 to $25. Once you consider the initial purchase, plus four AA batteries, plus games, you’ve already spent enough more than the cost of a mainstream Android tablet, with a limitless supply of apps.

VIDEO GAME CONSOLES Major contenders this holiday include the clunky, expensive PlayStation Vita ($250) and three better designed options from the company that pioneered the hand-held computing category — Nintendo. These include the Nintendo DSi ($100), the Nintendo 3DS ($170) and its new big-screen edition, the Nintendo 3DS XL ($200). Most software cartridges for those are games like Mario Tennis Open. But look at it another way: there is content you’ll never find in iTunes or Google Play, like highly coveted Pokémon White Version 2 ($35). You can find more educational titles like brain teasers and Art Academy, where your child can learn to draw in step-by-step tutorials.

If you happen to share a home with two or more children, it’s hard to beat the Nintendo DS local play feature, where multiple players can share the same game, as long as they’re in the same room. Based on price, power and app availability, the Nintendo options make more sense, and the DS clamshell design negates the need for a protective silicone bumper.

Explore the robust parental controls that are built into the Nintendo DS system. This includes the ability to lock the 3-D options behind a PIN, as well as the ability to control purchases. You will find Angry Birds but not Cut the Rope, and you generally cannot use the DS players to get access to the Web, but you can download arcade classics like Donkey King Jr. for $4. There’s a modified version of Hulu for TV viewing, provided there is Wi-Fi access.

When it comes to children’s tablets, hardware is only as good as the software it can run. Your child wants the same thing in a tablet that you do — easy use and access to lots of apps so it always contains a fresh experience. All things considered, the iPad or iPad Mini is still the best children’s tablet, but Android options are closing the gap.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 15, 2012

An article on the Personal Tech pages on Thursday about tablet computers for children included outdated information on the availability of Angry Birds on the Nintendo DS and 3DS XL. The game was released for those Nintendo devices on Sept. 25; it is not the case that it is still not available.

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IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 15

NEWS A 20-year-old man wearing combat gear and armed with pistols and a rifle killed 26 people — 20 of them children — in an attack in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, before committing suicide on Friday. It was America’s second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. James Barron reports.

European Union leaders pledged on Friday to take further steps to set up common banking rules for the bloc, but they delayed plans for a shared budget for the euro zone nations as pressure appeared to be easing on the single currency. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

The lesson of Japan’s last major election, which ousted the long-dominant Liberal Democrats, was that a growing hunger for change had seemed to reach a threshold. But voters look ready to return that party to power Sunday, determined to punish the governing Democratic Party for failing to rein in bureaucracies and mishandling the 2011 nuclear crisis. Martin Fackler reports from Kanazawa, Japan.

At the global treaty conference on telecommunications in Dubai, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff. What was that all about, and what does it say about the future of the Internet? Eric Pfanner reports from Dubai.

The U.S. defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, signed a deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as its tensions intensify with neighboring Syria. Germany and the Netherlands will also send Patriot batteries. Thom Shanker and Michael R. Gordon report.

Xi Jinping, the new Communist Party chief and civilian commander of the Chinese military, is moving quickly to make strengthening the country’s armed forces a centerpiece of what he calls the “Chinese dream” of national rejuvenation. Edward Wong reports from Guangzhou.

Nearly a decade after the German government embarrassingly failed in an attempt to ban the country’s leading extreme-right political party, the upper house of Parliament on Friday voted to launch a new effort to have the National Democratic Party deemed unconstitutional. Melissa Eddy reports from Berlin.

SPORTS It’s tough to find a place where this Olympic year didn’t leave a trace, from hermetic Saudi Arabia to tiny Grenada. But for Britain, 2012 was a true annus mirabilis, and the London Games were not the only force behind it. Christopher Clarey looks back.

ARTS Increasing scarcity of Old Masters continues to drive up prices, even in hard economic times, but some bargains of rare beauty can still be had. Souren Melikian writes from London.

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Citing Internet Standoff, U.S. Rejects International Telecommunications Treaty

DUBAI — Talks on a proposed treaty governing international telecommunications collapsed in acrimony on Thursday when the United States rejected the agreement on the eve of its scheduled signing, citing an inability to resolve an impasse over the Internet.

Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press

Participants at the Dubai conference listened on Dec. 3 to Hamdoun Touré of the International Telecommunication Union.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that the United States must communicate that it is unable to sign the agreement in its current form,” Terry Kramer, head of the American delegation, announced moments after a final draft appeared to have been approved by a majority of nations.

The United States announcement was seconded by Canada and several European countries after nearly two weeks of talks that had often pitted Western governments against Russia, China and developing countries. The East-West and North-South divisions harked back to the cold war, even though that conflict did not stop previous agreements to connect telephone calls across the Iron Curtain.

While the proposed agreement was not set to take effect until 2015 and was not legally binding, Mr. Kramer insisted that the United States and its supporters had headed off a significant threat to the “open Internet.”

The messy end to the proceedings highlighted intractable differences of opinion over the ever-growing importance of digital communications networks as tools for personal communications, global commerce, political proselytization and even unconventional warfare.

“The word ‘Internet’ was repeated throughout this conference and I believe this is simply a recognition of the current reality — the two worlds of telecommunications and Internet are inextricably linked,” said Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union.

The United States has consistently maintained that the Internet should not have been mentioned in the proposed treaty, which dealt with technical matters like connecting international telephone calls, because doing so could lead to curbs on free speech and replace the existing, bottom-up form of Internet oversight with a government-led model.

“We cannot support a treaty that is not supportive of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” Mr. Kramer said. His announcement came moments after the telecommunication union, the United Nations agency that convened the talks here, announced that a final version of the text had been formulated.

A bloc of countries led by Russia that included China and the host nation, the United Arab Emirates, argued throughout the negotiations that the Internet was within the scope of the talks because Internet traffic traveled through telecommunications networks.

The goal of the talks, which were led by Mohamed Nasser al-Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates, was to revise a document that was last updated in 1988, when the Internet was in its early stages of development.

Agreement was never going to be easy. Like most U.N. agencies, the International Telecommunication Union tries to operate by consensus, resorting to majority vote only when this fails.

The United States delegation was apparently angered by developments early Wednesday, when Russia and its allies succeeded in winning, by a mere show of hands, approval of a resolution that mentioned the Internet. The informal vote followed an attempt by Mr. Ghanim to gauge, as he put it, “the temperature of the room.”

The United States and its supporters interpreted the wording of the resolution as supporting a shift in the governance of the Internet to bring it under the regulatory framework of the telecommunication union.

The Internet is currently overseen by a loose grouping of organizations, mostly in the private sector, rather than by governments. But at least one, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, operates under a contract from the United States government.

Resolutions are not officially part of the treaty wording, and Russia and its allies previously tried to include a similar clause in the actual treaty. But under a compromise, it agreed this week to withdraw that proposal and settle for the lesser measure. Even that, however, was insufficient to address the concerns of the United States and its supporters.

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Recipes for Health: Red Cabbage, Carrot and Broccoli Stem Latkes — Recipes for Health

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

I love finding things to do with broccoli stems. I find that allowing the cabbage mixture to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before forming the latkes allows the cabbage to soften a bit, and the latkes hold together better.

5 cups shredded red cabbage

1/2 pound carrots, shredded (about 1 1/2 cups)

1 1/2 cups shredded peeled broccoli stems

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

1 teaspoon baking powder

Salt to taste

3 tablespoons oat bran

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cornmeal

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

3 eggs, beaten

About 1/4 cup canola, grape seed or rice bran oil

1. Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment and place a rack over another sheet pan.

2. In a large bowl mix together the shredded cabbage, carrots, broccoli stems, baking powder, sesame seeds, caraway seeds, salt, oat bran, flour, cornmeal and buckwheat flour. Taste and adjust salt. Add the eggs and stir together. Let the mixture sit for 10 to 15 minutes.

3. Begin heating a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Take a 1/4 cup measuring cup and fill with 3 tablespoons of the mixture. Reverse onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining latke mix. You should have enough to make about 30 latkes.

4. Add the oil to the pan and heat for 3 minutes or until hot. When it is hot (hold your hand a few inches above – you should feel the heat), slide a spatula under one portion of the latke mixture and transfer it to the pan. Press down with the spatula to flatten. Repeat with more mounds. In my 10-inch pan I can cook four at a time without crowding; my 12-inch pan will accommodate four or five. Cook on one side until golden brown, about four to five minutes. Slide the spatula underneath and flip the latkes over. Cook on the other side until golden brown, another two to three minutes. Transfer to the rack set over a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm.

5. Serve hot topped with low-fat sour cream, Greek yogurt or crème fraîche.

Yield: about 30 latkes, serving 6

Advance preparation: You can prep the ingredients and combine everything except the eggs and salt several hour ahead. Refrigerate in a large bowl. Do not add salt until you are ready to cook, or the mixture will become too watery, as salt draws the water out of the vegetables.

Nutritional information per serving: 226 calories; 14 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 4 grams polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 93 milligrams cholesterol; 20 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 151 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 7 grams protein

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Citing Internet Standoff, U.S. Rejects International Telecommunications Treaty

DUBAI — Talks on a proposed treaty governing international telecommunications collapsed in acrimony on Thursday when the United States rejected the agreement on the eve of its scheduled signing, citing an inability to resolve an impasse over the Internet.

Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press

Participants at the Dubai conference listened on Dec. 3 to Hamdoun Touré of the International Telecommunication Union.

“It is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that the United States must communicate that it is unable to sign the agreement in its current form,” Terry Kramer, head of the American delegation, announced moments after a final draft appeared to have been approved by a majority of nations.

The United States announcement was seconded by Canada and several European countries after nearly two weeks of talks that had often pitted Western governments against Russia, China and developing countries. The East-West and North-South divisions harked back to the cold war, even though that conflict did not stop previous agreements to connect telephone calls across the Iron Curtain.

While the proposed agreement was not set to take effect until 2015 and was not legally binding, Mr. Kramer insisted that the United States and its supporters had headed off a significant threat to the “open Internet.”

The messy end to the proceedings highlighted intractable differences of opinion over the ever-growing importance of digital communications networks as tools for personal communications, global commerce, political proselytization and even unconventional warfare.

“The word ‘Internet’ was repeated throughout this conference and I believe this is simply a recognition of the current reality — the two worlds of telecommunications and Internet are inextricably linked,” said Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union.

The United States has consistently maintained that the Internet should not have been mentioned in the proposed treaty, which dealt with technical matters like connecting international telephone calls, because doing so could lead to curbs on free speech and replace the existing, bottom-up form of Internet oversight with a government-led model.

“We cannot support a treaty that is not supportive of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance,” Mr. Kramer said. His announcement came moments after the telecommunication union, the United Nations agency that convened the talks here, announced that a final version of the text had been formulated.

A bloc of countries led by Russia that included China and the host nation, the United Arab Emirates, argued throughout the negotiations that the Internet was within the scope of the talks because Internet traffic traveled through telecommunications networks.

The goal of the talks, which were led by Mohamed Nasser al-Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates, was to revise a document that was last updated in 1988, when the Internet was in its early stages of development.

Agreement was never going to be easy. Like most U.N. agencies, the International Telecommunication Union tries to operate by consensus, resorting to majority vote only when this fails.

The United States delegation was apparently angered by developments early Wednesday, when Russia and its allies succeeded in winning, by a mere show of hands, approval of a resolution that mentioned the Internet. The informal vote followed an attempt by Mr. Ghanim to gauge, as he put it, “the temperature of the room.”

The United States and its supporters interpreted the wording of the resolution as supporting a shift in the governance of the Internet to bring it under the regulatory framework of the telecommunication union.

The Internet is currently overseen by a loose grouping of organizations, mostly in the private sector, rather than by governments. But at least one, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, operates under a contract from the United States government.

Resolutions are not officially part of the treaty wording, and Russia and its allies previously tried to include a similar clause in the actual treaty. But under a compromise, it agreed this week to withdraw that proposal and settle for the lesser measure. Even that, however, was insufficient to address the concerns of the United States and its supporters.

Read More..