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Sunday, September 30, 2012
Stocks stumble towards end of solid 3Q
Stocks fell Friday in all industry groups in the S&P 500 except utilities. The biggest losses were in?telecommunications and information technology?stocks. But the big indices are still up 4 percent or more for three months.
In this September 2012, file photo, traders check the prices to begin trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks fell Friday after news that U.S. consumers spent more last month only because higher gas prices forced them to.
Richard Drew/AP/File
EnlargeU.S.?stocks?posted solid gains for the third quarter, although the ride got bumpy at the end.
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Stocks?fell five days of the last six, including on Friday, the last trading day of the quarter. But the big indices are still up 4 percent or more for three months. They're ahead 10 percent or more for the year.
That's despite all the anxiety about the euro, Iran, and U.S. politics.
Actually, those worries are exactly why?stocks?are up, said Uri Landesman, who runs the Platinum Partners hedge fund. He notes that investors around the world feel that U.S.?stocks?look pretty good, compared to some of the alternatives.
"People are scared, and 2008 wasn't that long ago, and Europe remains a problem," he said. Those factors "are keeping the market up in the face of some really questionable economic data and questionable behavior by the Fed."
Investors got some more of that iffy economic data on Friday. The Commerce Department said consumer spending rose a half-percent last month, compared to July. That was a big jump ? but it was driven by higher has prices, rather than by spending on clothing, electronics and general merchandise. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity.
The news pushed?stocks?lower. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 48.84 points to close at 13,437.13. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 6.48 points to 1,440.67. The Nasdaq composite index fell 20.37 points to 3,116.23. The losses had been steeper in the morning before?stocks?recovered somewhat around midday.
Stocks?fell in all industry groups in the S&P 500 except utilities. Telecommunications and information technology?stocks?had the biggest losses.
Many investors worry that the recent gains by?stocks?aren't justified, considering the risks of a confrontation with Iran, weak corporate profits, and Europe's troubles.
"People are wrestling with that disconnect, and trying to choose which chess pieces to move in anticipation" of whatever they think will happen next, said Lawrence Creatura, portfolio manager at Federated Investors.
"It's been a good quarter," he said, "but at least for the day we seem to be limping across the finish line."
Investors are still concerned about Spain's financial health. The Bank of Spain released an audit Friday showing that seven of the country's banks failed stress tests. Moody's, the credit rating agency, is also expected to weigh in on Spain's creditworthiness, and there are concerns the government's rating will be cut to "junk" status.
Stocks?in Europe fell. The CAC 40 in France fell 2.5 percent, the FTSE 100 in Britain was down 0.6 percent, and Germany's DAX fell 1 percent.
Stocks?finished higher in Asia on continued speculation that China's central bank will act soon to help the world's No. 2 economy.
For the year so far, the Dow is up 10 percent, the S&P 500 up almost 15 percent, and the Nasdaq is up 20 percent.
Among U.S.?stocks?with noteworthy moves:
? Bank of America Corp. fell 14 cents, or 1.6 percent, to close at $8.83 after agreeing to pay $2.43 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit related to its acquisition of Merrill Lynch. The company was the best performer of the 30?stocks?in the Dow during September, rising 10.5 percent. Home Depot was the best Dow?stock?for the third quarter.
? Blackberry maker Research in Motion Ltd. jumped 36 cents, or 5 percent, to $7.50 after reporting a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss on Thursday night.
? Shoemaker Nike fell $1.09, or 1.1 percent, to $94.91 after saying its first-quarter net income fell 12 percent because higher sales were offset by increased ad spending. The results were better than Wall Street had expected, but investors seemed more worried about the trail ahead for Nike rather than its performance in the last quarter.
? McDonald's Corp. fell $1.52, or 1.6 percent, to $91.75 after Janney Capital Markets cut its rating and price target, saying difficult year-ago comparisons may pressure sales at stores open at least 13 months, which is a key revenue metric for retailers.
The yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury notes fell to 1.629 percent.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/KtorQmQKwDk/Stocks-stumble-towards-end-of-solid-3Q
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Supersizing the sandwich generation | Inheritance | Retirement ...
About one-quarter of the so-called sandwich generation already has a second slice on top since they care for two or more seniors.
Balancing the demands of family life for today?s parents can be difficult at the best of times. Times are even tougher for many a parent suddenly tasked with the responsibility of caring for their own parents as well. These people make up the sandwich generation ? those raising their children and simultaneously looking after their parents.
But today?s changing demographics ? many of them highlighted in census data released recently by Statistics Canada ? are resulting in a sort of super-sizing of the sandwich generation.
There are incentives to consider the option of moving Mom and Dad into your home or moving your family into their home
The increase in rates of senior or ?grey? divorce means higher odds of caring for divorced parents and maybe even their new partners. As if caring for your married parents isn?t tough enough, we might see a generation of Baby Boomers providing elder care for parents in multiple locations.
About one-quarter of the so-called sandwich generation already has a second slice on top since they care for two or more seniors.
The trend towards having children at a later age also puts more people in the position of having to care for both children and parents. And since people are simply having fewer children period, there are less children to care for the growing ranks of the elderly.
The term ?sandwich generation? was coined by American social worker Dorothy Miller in 1981. A generation later, more than one-quarter of today?s Canadians aged 45-64 have children living with them and also perform some sort of elder care.
Since eight out of 10 in the sandwich generation are also working, it?s not surprising to see more and more retirement homes and nursing care options becoming available to provide the care they may not have the time to provide themselves. In some cases, it?s just not an option for the elderly to live on their own. That said, not all seniors have the resources to afford these facilities ? nor do all of their children.
Beyond the stress of physically caring for parents comes the stress of caring for their money
Statistics Canada reports the number of seniors living with relatives or non-relatives in a private dwelling increased from 285,370 to 393,150 from 2001 to 2011.
There are incentives to consider the option of moving Mom and Dad into your home or moving your family into their home. Selling your parents? home or your home could provide funds to use towards their care. It could also reduce the commuting costs of going back and forth from your home to theirs, since they are not likely to live close by.
And given that Statistics Canada reports that 15% of sandwiched workers have to reduce their work hours, having your parents in your home could mean more time to get the job done ? both your day job and your night job. After all, there are only so many hours in the day.
Beyond the stress of physically caring for parents comes the stress of caring for their money. And practically speaking, there are typically two different problems when it comes to Mom and Dad?s money ? they either have too little or too much.
Too little means they might become a financial burden on you. And if you have siblings, deciding how to split the cost of care can be a delicate subject. Should the cost be split equally? Should the oldest child step to the plate? Should the wealthiest child bear more of the burden? Or the one who makes more money? Or the one who got more financial support from their parents over the years?
Having too much money, while seemingly less of a problem, isn?t always so. One child may want to keep the funds intact in their parents? names, while others might push for an early advance of their inheritance. Beyond that, it?s common to see situations where strategies to move money from one generation to the next or to reduce taxes or probate defeat the original intention or lead to significant costs ? both financially and on family ties ? ranging from mistakes to disagreements to litigation.
The good news on the tax front is that the Canada Revenue Agency provides incentives to Canadians who are caring for elders. It?s possible a senior (or anyone, for that matter) may qualify for a tax credit called the ?disability amount? if they suffer from prolonged symptoms that inhibit their performance of the activities of daily living. Nursing home and caregiver costs may be claimed as medical expenses for another tax credit. And beyond that, there are additional tax credits for ?infirm dependents? as well as ?caregivers? depending on whether or not a senior lives with you or depends on you financially for support.
Having three generations under one roof is more common elsewhere in the world, but perhaps less so here in North America ? right now. One problem with this option is that it could raise an interesting dilemma ? that is, what if you take in your divorced parent and subsequently need to provide care to your other parent? Or maybe your parent has remarried and they require help as a couple? What if your parent passes away and their spouse still requires assistance? Maybe you inherit the house that the spouse is living in?
Odds are moving more in favour of being presented with such situation and Baby Boomers have some decisions to make in the not-so-distant future to ensure they can digest the double-decker sandwich they could soon be served.
Jason Heath is a fee-only Certified Financial Planner and income tax professional for Objective Financial Partners Inc. in Toronto.
Source: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/29/supersizing-the-sandwich-generation/
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Electrons confined inside nano-pyramids
ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2012) ? Quantum dots are nanostructures of semiconducting materials that behave a lot like single atoms and are very easy to produce. Given their special properties, researchers see huge potential for quantum dots in technological applications. Before this can happen, however, we need a better understanding of how the electrons "trapped" inside them behave. Dresden physicists have recently observed how electrons in individual quantum dots absorb energy and emit it again as light.
Their results were recently published in the journal Nano Letters.
Quantum dots look like miniscule pyramids. Inside each of these nano-pyramids are always only one or two electrons that essentially "feel" the constricting walls around them and are therefore tightly constrained in their mobility. Scientists from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), TU Dresden. TU Dresden and the Leibniz Institute for solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) have now studied the special energy states of the electrons trapped inside individual quantum dots.
Sharp energy levels
The behaviour of electrons in a material essentially determines its properties. Being spatially constrained in all three spatial dimensions, electrons inside a nano-pyramid can only occupy very specific energy levels -- which is why quantum dots are also called "artificial atoms." Where these energy levels lie depends on the chemical composition of the semiconductor material as well as the size of the nano-pyramid. "These sharply defined energy levels are exploited, for example, in highly energy-efficient lasers based on quantum dots. The light is produced when an electron drops from a higher energy level into a lower one. The energy difference between the two levels determines the colour of the light," Dr. Stephan Winnerl of HZDR explains.
Seeing electrons inside individual quantum dots
The researchers in Dresden working with Dr. Winnerl were recently the first to succeed in scanning transitions between energy levels in single quantum dots using infrared light. Although, they could only do this after overcoming a certain hurdle: While the pyramids of indium arsenide or indium gallium arsenide form spontaneously during a specific mode of crystal growth, their size varies within a certain range. Studying them with infrared light, for example, one obtains blurred signals because electrons in different sized pyramids respond to different infrared energies. This is why it is so important to obtain a detailed view of the electrons trapped inside a single quantum dot.
The scientists approached this task with the special method of scanning near-field microscopy. Laser light is shone onto a metallic tip less than 100 nanometers thick, which strongly collimates the light to a hundred times smaller than the wavelength of light, which is the spatial resolution limit for "conventional" optics using lenses and mirrors. By focusing this collimated light precisely onto one pyramid, energy is donated to the electrons, thereby exciting them to a higher energy level. This energy transfer can be measured by watching the infrared light scattered from the tip in this process. While near-field microscopy involves major signal losses, the light beam is still strong enough to excite the electrons inside a nano-pyramid. The method is also so sensitive that it can create a nanoscale image in which the one or two electrons inside a quantum dot stand out in clear contrast. In this fashion, Stephan Winnerl and his colleagues from HZDR, plus physicists from TU and IFW Dresden, studied the behaviour of electrons inside a quantum dot in great detail, thereby contributing towards our understanding of them.
Infrared light from the free electron laser
The infrared light used in the experiments came from the free electron laser at HZDR. This special laser is an ideal infrared radiation source for such experiments because the energy of its light can be adjusted to precisely match the energy level inside the quantum dots. The laser also delivers such intense radiation that it more than makes up for the unavoidable losses inherent to the method.
"Next, we intend to reveal the behaviour of electrons inside quantum dots at lower temperatures," Dr. Winnerl says. "From these experiments, we hope to gain even more precise insights into the confined behavior of these electrons. In particular, we want to gain a much better understanding of how the electrons interact with one another as well as with the vibrations of the crystal lattice." Thanks to its intense laser flashes in a broad, freely selectable spectral range, the free electron laser offers ideal conditions for the method of near-field microscopy in Dresden, which benefits particularly from the close collaboration with Prof. Lukas Eng of TU Dresden in the scope of DRESDEN-concept.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Rainer Jacob, Stephan Winnerl, Markus Fehrenbacher, Jayeeta Bhattacharyya, Harald Schneider, Marc Tobias Wenzel, Hans-Georg von Ribbeck, Lukas M. Eng, Paola Atkinson, Oliver G. Schmidt, Manfred Helm. Intersublevel Spectroscopy on Single InAs-Quantum Dots by Terahertz Near-Field Microscopy. Nano Letters, 2012; 12 (8): 4336 DOI: 10.1021/nl302078w
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/gNnVNyOn7fo/120928103756.htm
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How Republican or Democratic Is Your Name?
With our? ?and? ?being points of politics these days, you'd think there would be at least one neutral area of our lives, but no: Even our names tend to be more Republican or Democratic, according to? .?
noticed that certain names popped up more for Republicans (Donald, Sharon) and certain ones went to Democrats (Angela, Willie). To figure out of this was actually a thing, Wilson looked at a Federal Election Commission database of names and political party for people who donated at least $200 to a federal campaign. The interactive above tracks donations from 452,000 Obama donators and 315,000 Romney donators. Wilson only used names that showed up at least 25 times and decided if they were individuals by looking at ZIP codes. The closer a dot is to the left, the more people with that name donate to Obama. For instance, 81 percent of people name Ellen donated to Obama, so that dot lands closer to the left.?
As you can see, women names (the pink dots) tend to support Obama while male name (blue dots) tend to go Romney. While more common names tend to go down the middle, some names within genders skew toward one party, like Brent or Clayton for Republicans. You can also choose to arrange the dots by how much money donated. All the dots shift right at that point, suggesting that individual donors tend to give higher amounts of money to Romney.?
You should definitely also enter your own name into the bottom left hand corner to see where it falls. After all, every single part of you now represents an aspect of your politics, so you might as well figure out which way your name leans.?
.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-democratic-name-191047450.html
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iOS 6 Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: Location data shootout!
iOS 6 removed the Google-powered Maps app that launched alongside the original iPhone in 2007 and replaced it with new Maps app and location services more fully under Apple's control. That's means iOS 6 got features like turn-by-turn navigation, vector-based maps, and Flyover, but lost features like built-in transit directions and StreetView. It also means the quality of the location data changed drastically for many users. While this was hardly unexpected, reaction has varied from "beautiful and perfectly usable" to "dreadful and a deal-breaker."
Recognizing that Apple's new location data, licensed from TomTom and others, seems to vary in quality considerably from place to place, with big, populous American cities tending to be much better than small, rural, international areas, iMore still wanted to put them to a test.
So I got in the car and drove for nearly 6 hours and did just that. Here are the results.
iOS 6 Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: Interface & ease of use
Maps under iOS 6 isn't too much different than the design and feel of what users already had under iOS 5. Upon launching the app you'll be presented with a map of your current location. Along the top you've got a directions button, a search bar, and a link to your contacts so you can get directions to any address for any contact.
When it comes to viewing a map and customizing the views you'll see two buttons in the lower left hand corner. The first is to automatically find your current location. You can tap it twice to use the built in compass to see what direction you're facing. The next button labeled "3D" allows you to enable or disable a 3D rendering of the map on the screen.
In the lower right hand corner you can tap on the page curl in order to customize view options even further. You've got three main map types which are standard, hybrid, and satellite. Standard will give you a drawn out view of maps with streets and other markings clearly labeled. Hybrid gives you an actual live view of what you're looking at along with street labels and other information. Satellite will leave out labels and only give you a live view.
At anytime during navigation you can choose the list icon in the bottom left to view all the directions along your route. Once you start a route it'll automatically activate voice navigation via Siri. You can close out of the app, lock your iPhone, play music, or go about whatever you were doing and Maps will still keep track of directions for you. You'll see your route on the Lock screen and any directions will be announced as they happen via Siri.
iOS 5 Maps is extremely similar when it comes to interface. You will however notice some features in iOS 5 Maps that are blatantly missing in iOS 6 maps such as transit and walking directions.
iOS 5 Maps has two main views and you can toggle between them along the bottom of the screen. They are search and directions. You can also choose the arrow icon in the lower left corner to locate yourself at any time. Under search you can type in the name of any place or city and see it on a map. You can also choose the blue Address Book button to access your contacts and choose a destination that way. If you know the address or place you need to get to, you can type in directions manually as well.
Similar to iOS 6 maps, tapping on the page curl in the bottom right will allow you to view traffic and switch between map view. iOS 5 Maps supports the same kind of maps iOS 6 maps does but adds the list option for list directions. You have this feature under iOS 6 maps as well but it's just moved to the main map view instead of being tucked inside the settings section.
If you're on iOS 6 and aren't happy with the updated Maps app, you still have the option of going to maps.google.com from your Safari browser, bookmarking it on your Home screen, and using that instead. While the interface is different, you'll get all the same map data that Google offered in the iOS 5 Maps app.
Along the top you've got the option to search for a destination, locate yourself, and more. The web version of Google Maps will also give you the option to choose between driving directions, transit info, walking directions, and bicycle routes.
After pulling up driving directions, maps.google.com will give you the different choices in routes to choose from just like iOS 6 Maps and iOS 5 maps do. Once you choose one you can immediately start. Google will track your location just like it would in the native Maps app but you'll have to make sure Safari stays running or you don't navigate away from the page by mistake.
After choosing a route you can view a list of instructions directly underneath it. Tapping the maps icon at the top will give you a map view of the route. In my experience, maps.google.com is much choppier via Safari than both iOS 5 and iOS 6 Maps. Sometimes pressing on a button via the web version wouldn't always work or didn't seem very self explanatory.
When it comes to user interface and ease of use, both Maps under iOS 6 and iOS 5 are easy to use and extremely alike design wise. The web version of Google Maps is choppy and doesn't seem to display data as quickly and efficiently as either iOS 6 Maps or iOS 5 Maps.
iOS Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: Directions
When entering directions into iOS 6 Maps, iOS 5 Maps, and maps.google.com, most of the time, all three apps would present you with the same suggested routes. They also typically showed the same amount of travel time within minutes of each other.
iOS 6 Maps works very much like iOS 5 maps. Just search for a location and get driving or walking directions from your current location or manually type in a from and to address and iOS 6 Maps will give you directions. If there are several routes to choose from it'll show you a map view of each route. You can then tap each route and view the distance and time as well as a list view of the directions. Once you've found the route you'd like to take you can tap the Route button and you'll be on your way. Voice navigation will commence and you can close out of the maps app. Siri will then notify you when you've got a turn or other direction coming up. Anytime you want to view the directions you can tap the turn arrow in the upper left hand corner of iOS 6 Maps in order to view the directions from start to end.
One thing I did find interesting with iOS 6 Maps is that it doesn't always produce the same results each time. You can see above that when I searched for the same location on two separate iOS 6 Map apps on two different devices, the map data looks different on both. I wasn't able to figure out why that is and each time I searched for a location it would show different side streets than the last time I searched.
iOS 5 Maps works the same way iOS 6 maps does but is more robust. You can not only find driving and walking directions but information as well. Anyone who's ever been in a big city they're unfamiliar with knows how important transit directions can be. When you don't have a car, they're a pretty big deal.
Once you've chosen the type of directions you want, you can either locate yourself and choose a location from there or manually type in directions. Once you're done you can tap the Route button and just like with iOS 6 maps, you'll be given several routes to choose from. Tap one to choose it and you'll be given directions along the top of the screen.
Since iOS 5 Maps doesn't support voice navigation you'll only have the option to use regular navigation. Once you've completed a step you can tap the Next button to view the next step. When it comes to driving, voice navigation is definitely a better option and before iOS 6 Maps, there were several third party GPS apps that helped fill in the gap.
Even though you don't have voice navigation, iOS 5 Maps contain much more robust data when it comes to the actual maps you're viewing than that of iOS 6. If you're trying to obtain directions in a rural area, you may not see side streets or other kinds of data in the Maps app under iOS 6 that is present under iOS 5 using Google Maps. That will be a problem for many users.
If you're on iOS 6, maps.google.com makes a good fallback for when iOS 6 Maps isn't giving you the data you need. Since it pulls the same data as the iOS 5 Maps app, you'll get much better mapping data to work with. Again, it would be voice navigation or turn-by-turn directions but you'll see a much clearer picture and in some cases, better directions, than what you get with Maps on iOS 6.
When it comes to mapping data, Maps for iOS 5 and maps.google.com contain much more data and are a lot more reliable than Apple's own iOS 6 Maps app when it comes to rural areas. If you live in a well populated area, iOS 6 Maps will still give you the data that you need and get you from point A to point B without a hitch.
iOS 6 Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: Turn-by-Turn navigation
iOS 6 Maps offers voice navigation and turn-by-turn direction. This is not a feature that is available through either iOS 5 Maps or maps.google.com. If you wanted voice navigation prior to iOS 6, you'd have to rely on a third party app to provide it. Considering some of them can get extremely high in price, it's nice to see Apple providing the feature natively.
Since iOS 6 was released as a beta back in June, I've been using voice navigation rather regularly and have to say I'm quite impressed with the Siri integration and how it works so seamlessly regardless what you're doing on your iPhone. You can run it in the background or view directions and a live map on the Lock screen. Whenever you're about to come up on a new direction, Siri will re-iterate the direction to you. If you've got music playing through your Music app, the music will simply fade out and Siri will provide the direction, then the music will fade back in.
When using turn-by-turn and voice navigation, you aren't typically starting at a map but rather relying on your iPhone to keep you updated and let you know where you're at. When it comes down to it, I've been impressed. I've never gotten myself into a situation where iOS 6 Maps led me in a wrong direction or didn't get me where I needed to go.
When testing locally in my home area that I know well, I did notice that sometimes iOS 6 Maps didn't make the fastest route the top suggestion but it still got me where I needed to go. In rare circumstances, the fastest route I knew wasn't always available but considering they typically involved side streets and directions that may be confusing for people that were not local to the area, I can see why iOS 6 Maps might not bring up a route like this. For users that don't know an area, main streets and fewer turns probably causes less confusion than a route that would have a lot of twists and turns. For simplicity's sake, I get it.
Considering iOS 5 Maps and maps.google.com don't offer turn-by-turn or voice navigation, iOS 6 Maps wins.
iOS 6 Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: Street View vs Flyover
iOS 6 Maps comes with a new feature Apple is calling Flyover. The premise is that you can see an overhead view of an area on the map and use your fingers to pan in and out as well as rotate the map in a pretty amazing 3D view.
While the feature is pretty neat to look at, it doesn't have much application when it comes to real world use. Sure it's cool to use Flyover to view Chicago or other large cities around the world but besides being a cool feature to show off to your friends, you probably won't ever find yourself using it while driving.
Flyover is also only limited to certain areas right now and they're pretty limited. They currently only include large cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, London, New York City, and some other larger metropolitan areas. There are also times when Flyover shows some pretty wild inaccuracies, as you can see above. I don't remember the Eiffel Tower looking quite like that.
Google has a service that is somewhat similar to Flyover called Street View. While it isn't an overhead view, it provides a street level view of areas. When it's available, you'll get an icon next to a location that shows a red circle with a person inside it. Tapping it in iOS 5 Maps will take you down to street level. From here you can move up and down streets and pan 360 degrees in any direction.
While the iOS 5 Maps app offers Street View, you don't currently have access to it from the maps.google.com site in mobile Safari.
Considering Google has had the better part of a decade to put together Street View, it'll be available in a lot more areas than Flyover. It's also a much more useful feature than Flyover when it comes to practical utility.
iOS 6 Maps vs. iOS 5 Maps vs. maps.google.com: The bottom line
Google had a tremendous head start over Apple when it comes to the mapping business (here's what Google Maps looked like on the PalmOS Treo 680 back in 2007 -- a year before the first iPhone was even released). That's obvious when comparing map data between iOS 6 Maps and iOS 5 Maps. Apple probably could have avoided a lot of the negative backlash over iOS 6 Maps if they better set expectations and perhaps released the new Maps with a beta bandaid the way they did Siri. But that's neither here nor there.
If you have an iPhone 5, you have no choice and iOS 6 maps will be your default location service. In my experience, when it comes to practical utility and using the voice navigation in iOS 6 Maps, I've always gotten where I need to go. The addition of turn-by-turn is a spectacular upgrade. The animations are nearly flawless and the out-of-app banners and Lock screen navigation are stellar. In my tests, if I made a wrong turn, iOS 6 Maps would automatically reroute me quickly and accurately. Outlet streets and side streets are not always clearly labeled like they are in iOS 5 Maps but I haven't found it to be something that caused me to lose my way.
The iOS 6 maps themselves are beautifully rendered and the vector illustrations are a huge improvement over iOS 5's bitmap tiles. Flyover is more of a novelty and not a feature that most people will use regularly for mapping, and while StreetView can be as well, seeing was a shop or location looks like at ground level is often more helpful than what it looks like from the clouds.
The loss of transit directions is incredibly inconvenient for those who use them daily. If you happen to have a great transit app in your area, it can mitigate the annoyance, but having to leave Maps for any reason can't be viewed as anything but a regression. Transit apps should be a value add, not a must have.
If you're in a heavily populated U.S. city and there's a great transit app in the App Store that covers your needs, iOS 6 Maps will probably be fine for you, and given the controversy you can be sure Apple is working day and night to make it better.
If you're in other parts of the country or the world where the iOS Map data is poor, maps.google.com and its more robust and reliable data set is a functional alternative and fallback. Web apps are never as good as native apps, but until Google stops enjoying themselves long enough to launch a real Google Maps app into the App Store, it's one of the few ways to complement iOS 6 maps.
If you have a previous iOS device, depend on Maps, and you're on the fence about updating you can stay on iOS 5.1 and keep using iOS 5 maps, but you're probably better off upgrading for a lot of other reasons and checking out third party navigation apps that are more robust than both iOS 5 Maps and iOS 6 Maps.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/xn9q4zV5zWo/story01.htm
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Saturday, September 29, 2012
Yep, The TSA Is Definitely Stealing iPads [Tsa]
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lk6vjZmVxmE/yep-the-tsa-is-definitely-stealing-ipads
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Family Ties: Craft businesses pass their torch from generation to ...
While compiling the article, ?Family Ties: Craft businesses pass their torch from generation to generation,? which appears in CHA?s magazine,?Craft Industry Today?(Fall 2012, Vol. 1, No.3) we were fascinated by the amount of family-owned companies, each with their?own?unique stories, within our industry. ?In the upcoming weeks we will be expanding on this article and sharing CHA member stories on our Blog.? In the coming weeks we?ll be featuring stories from the following members and more:? Hobby Lobby, Dee?s Delights and Beacon Adhesives.
Momenta
By Mike Hartnett
Michael Barker?s parents started selling jewelry when they were college students in 1970. They went into the dormitories and went door to door. In 1972, they opened a retail store in Northwood, NH, and Michael was born the next year.
One of Michael?s earliest memories was of crawling around on the floor behind the glass display cases, amazed at the shark teeth his parents were selling. When Michael was five, his parents took him to his first craft fair. They sold jewelry and cookies and when the fair ended, they used the proceeds to buy Michael a bicycle.
Momenta?s original name was American Traditional Stencils, which began in 1978 when a customer asked Michael?s parents if they could recreate a brass stencil she owned. They said yes, and then quickly taught themselves about photo-etching, the process by which stencils are created from a sheet of thin metal. Michael?s dad later got a patent on a unique form of photo-etching for making jewelry.
?My entire childhood, I remember working in the family business,? Michael said. ?After school and summer vacations were spent packaging stencils and assembling stamps. The stamps were the worst because you had to cut out each piece of rubber by hand, and then glue the rubber to a piece of foam before applying the completed kit to the wood handle.
?But it also taught me at a very young age the value of a dollar,? Michael added.
Like parents, like son: In college Michael started a mail-order company that sold craft supplies. After college he turned the business over to his mother (his parents were divorced by then) and went to law school, vowing never to return to New Hampshire ? or the craft industry.
However, during law school, and later business school, Michael continually gave his mother advice on running the company. ?I still insisted I wouldn?t return,? Michael remembers, ?but I never really let go, either.?
But shortly after 9/11, Michael and his then fianc?e decided to return to New Hampshire. He began managing the business with his mother, Judy Joyce, thinking it would be a two- or three-year adventure.
Challenges lay ahead, however. Stenciling had declined, and Michael made a major change: He transformed it into a paper craft and scrapbook company, and renamed it Momenta.
Marriage, two kids, and 11 years later, Michael is still running the company. Judy worked with Michael for about four years, during which time the company?s sales tripled, so she felt the company was in good hands and she could retire and follow her dream: Today Judy is a Peace Corp volunteer in Dominica. Will a third generation eventually take over?
It?s a little early to tell. Michael?s son Max is six and daughter Brea is three, but Max is interested. Michael has already taken Max to a Jo-Ann store, pointed out the Momenta stickers, and explained how they got there.
?I discuss business with him fairly regularly,? Michael said. ?He is always very interested and I enjoy discussing it with him, although I leave out the more ?difficult? parts of running a company,? Michael added with a smile.
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About Craft & Hobby Association
The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) is an international not-for-profit trade association consisting of thousands of member companies engaged in the design, manufacture, distribution and retail sales of craft products worldwide. For more about CHA, the value of membership, or its award-winning Conferences & Trade Shows, please visit www.craftandhobby.org. View all posts by Craft & Hobby Associationwar in iraq war in iraq government shutdown iraq war over iraq war over maurice jones drew megyn kelly
Affirmative action, rights cases await U.S. Supreme Court
(Reuters) - Affirmative action for minorities, human rights abuses and the constitutional authority for dogs to sniff out crime will top the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda when it returns to the bench on Monday. An even bigger issue, same-sex marriage, lurks on the horizon.
The new term marks the full court's first return to the public eye since June when Chief Justice John Roberts surprised many by joining four more liberal justices in a 5-4 decision that upheld nearly all of President Barack Obama's healthcare law.
The court will start with one of its most anticipated cases, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, and address for the second time the extent to which American judges are empowered to hear lawsuits over human rights atrocities abroad.
On October 10, it will hear perhaps the biggest case on the docket so far, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, and weigh whether using race in undergraduate admissions to increase diversity is still acceptable under the U.S. Constitution.
"When you look at Kiobel and Fisher, and the possibility the court will visit the issues of gay marriage and voting rights, it's already shaping up to be a momentous term," said Ted Shaw, a professor at Columbia Law School and former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Some justices said over the summer break that the court would, as it normally does, move past the divisions that end a term, including this year over a tough Arizona immigration law.
Dissenting justices in that and the healthcare cases read parts of their opinions from the bench, signaling profound disagreement with the majorities.
The court often finds common ground, and last term it ruled unanimously nearly as often as not. But many closely watched cases still produce 5-4 ideological splits. The five more conservative justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and the four more liberal justices by Democratic presidents.
While Justice Anthony Kennedy is at the ideological center, Roberts' vote to uphold most of the Affordable Care Act was a forceful reminder of his capacity to put his own cast on the law. At age 57, he could do so for another quarter century.
"John Roberts enormously strengthened his administrative hand and legal influence in ruling as he did," said Douglas Kmiec, a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. "Now both sides probably believe they need to work for his support, and that's an enviable position for the chief justice."
The court already has accepted close to 40 cases for the new term, filling roughly half of its usual docket.
RACE AS A FACTOR
In Kiobel, the court will again review the Alien Tort Statute, a long-obscure 1789 law that lawyers have used in the last three decades to challenge corporations' alleged aiding or acquiescing in foreign governments' abuse of their own people.
After hearing arguments in February, the court decided to hold a new hearing to address whether judges could hear such claims brought against anyone, not just corporations.
The case has drawn dozens of briefs from other interested parties. The Obama administration has argued that the law could be used, case-by-case, for claims of abuse that might interfere with U.S. foreign relations or respect for human rights.
In the affirmative action case, Texas' flagship university has for several years filled about three-quarters of its undergraduate class by granting automatic admission to students in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes.
While this "race-neutral" approach has boosted the number of black and Hispanic students because of the homogeneity of many high schools, Texas uses race as one factor to fill the rest of each class, with a goal of improving the educational experience.
This has been challenged, and changes in the Supreme Court's makeup may imperil the 2003 decision, Grutter v. Bollinger, that let universities take race into account to improve diversity.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who in that case endorsed race-based admissions at the University of Michigan law school, retired in 2006 and was replaced by the more conservative Justice Samuel Alito.
In addition, Justice Elena Kagan, who was U.S. solicitor general before joining the court in 2010, has recused herself. This could make it hard for Texas to win more than four votes. A decision voiding the program would likely apply, under a different law, to private universities.
Also on the docket are two "dog sniff" cases from Florida that test the boundary of Fourth Amendment protection against illegal searches, and which the court will take up on October 31.
One, Florida v. Jardines, concerns whether a homeowner's privacy was violated when a trained narcotics dog named Franky was allowed to walk near a home, and appeared to correctly detect a marijuana odor from inside. Another, Florida v. Harris, concerns an "alert" given by another dog named Aldo while being led around a truck that contained methamphetamine ingredients.
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
All of these cases could well be dwarfed in public attention should the Supreme Court review any or all of a half-dozen cases concerning same-sex marriages.
Several address the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which requires the government to deny benefits such as Social Security payments to gay and lesbian couples. even if they live in states that allow same-sex marriage.
A federal appeals court in Boston said that requirement should not stand. Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general who last term argued against the healthcare law, represents defenders of DOMA while his opponent in the healthcare case, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, wants DOMA to be invalidated.
Also awaiting review is a lower-court decision striking down California's ban on same-sex marriage, known as Proposition 8.
The Supreme Court is expected to announce this fall whether it will accept any of these cases. Decisions would likely come by the end of June, before the court's usual summer recess.
Meanwhile, the court may also weigh the constitutionality of a provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires states with histories of discrimination to get U.S. Department of Justice permission before changing election procedures.
"We're seeing an increase in voting suppression," said Scot Powe, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and former clerk for Justice William O. Douglas. "If they take a Voting Rights Act case, the betting money is that they will invalidate the preclearance provision. That's a big deal."
(Additional reporting by Terry Baynes; Editing by Howard Goller and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/affirmative-action-rights-cases-await-u-supreme-court-051215244--finance.html
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Thursday, September 27, 2012
Kacsmar: Crazy season even affecting best QBs
How to explain four future Hall of Famers losing on same day? It's more than a fluke
AP file, Getty Images file, ReutSunday marked the first time Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Drew Brees all lost on the same day.
ANALYSIS
By Scott Kacsmar
NBCSports.com contributor
updated 10:36 p.m. ET Sept. 25, 2012
Despite scoring being as high as ever ? the average game has produced 47.6 points ? something is not right with the 2012 NFL season. It is not just the replacement referees either, though they have been a big factor.
Taking a look at the season's statistical quarterback leaders, you see a lot of the usual suspects in the top 10: the demoted Kevin Kolb, second-year players Andy Dalton and Christian Ponder, rookie Robert Griffin III, and the Harbaugh brothers? fearless leaders Alex Smith and Joe Flacco.
Wait. Is that a list of preseason leaders? Surely it cannot be the real thing? But it is. The quarterbacks we have expected elite performance from based on years of past success are not leading their teams to wins so far.
On Sunday, for the first time ever, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger all lost.
These four future Hall of Fame quarterbacks that we have grown accustomed to seeing wins are a combined 3-9 this season. That is as many wins as Kolb has contributed to the undefeated Cardinals. On Monday night, Aaron Rodgers also lost to join the 1-2 club.
It all adds up to a very awkward season in progress, one that lacks a dominant team or elite offense led by a star quarterback. Should this continue, you would have to go back a solid decade (2000-2002 era) to find a similar season.
What are the chances they all would lose in the same week?
That fact of the week may not be as impressive as it sounds when you consider one of these four quarterbacks is usually on a quest to perfection late into the season, or missed an entire season with injury (Tom Brady in 2008; Peyton Manning in 2011).
But Sunday marked the 73rd time all four played in the same NFL week, and the first time they went 0-4. It was the 58th time they all played without playing each other, so the real number to admire is one 0-4 week in 58 opportunities.
Maybe even just as crazy is that Week 2 was the first time they combined to go 1-3; their first losing week ever. The last time all four of their teams, with or without them starting, lost in the same week was another Week 3, back in the 2008 season. That day Rodgers also suffered his first loss as a starter against Dallas.
The 2004 season makes for a good bookmark in NFL history, as it was the year a lot of history-shaping events happened at the quarterback position.
Here is the breakdown of how the four have done in the 73 weeks they all played (since 2004).
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That season was when Manning took his game to an unprecedented level with 49 touchdown passes and a 121.1 passer rating. Brady had a breakout year statistically and won his third Super Bowl in four seasons. Brees finally rewarded San Diego with a career season to start an eight-year run of dominant play. Roethlisberger rewrote both the record books and expectations as the Steelers' rookie quarterback.
With respect to Rodgers and Eli Manning, these four have been the NFL?s gold standard at quarterback the last eight years, as no one else has the long track record of both individual and team success. Either Brady, Manning or Roethlisberger has represented the AFC in the Super Bowl in nine straight seasons. Losing streaks are not common for these four, but historic winning streaks are.
Roethlisberger became the first quarterback in NFL history to have a 13-0 record in the regular season, and he did it as a rookie in 2004. Peyton Manning did the same a year later; starting 13-0 with the 2005 Indianapolis Colts (finished 14-2). Brady achieved the only 16-0 regular season in NFL history with the 2007 New England Patriots. While Manning did it again in 2009 with a 14-0 start, Brees was right there with a 13-0 start for the New Orleans Saints (finished 13-3), which would lead to a Saints? Super Bowl victory.
Rodgers became the fifth quarterback to post a 13-0 regular season record last year (finished 14-1). Currently, Rodgers is suffering the greatest scoring drought of his career. Excluding return scores, the Packers have been held to 12, 16 and 16 points in their three games this season. They also scored only 20 points in their playoff loss to the Giants, putting Rodgers at 1-3 in his last four starts.
Since the other four quarterbacks ended their last season (2010 for Manning) with a playoff loss as well, you have some really bad records in the last few games.
What is going wrong this season?
Each of the four quarterbacks has faced a different situation that has led to their losing start.
Manning has likely faced the toughest start of the four quarterbacks. Not only has he had to deal with adjusting to a whole new team, but there is the physical recovery from the neck surgeries, and it is debatable just how healthy Manning is at this point.
On the field, the Broncos won a thrilling game over Pittsburgh in Week 1, but have dropped consecutive games to two 3-0 teams in Atlanta and Houston. After trailing by 20 points in the fourth quarter of each, Manning led a late rally, but the defense was unable to get the ball back for a legit opportunity at a winning touchdown.
The Broncos are a work in progress, but more rehab to get healthier and better timing with his receivers could help Manning get back to his usual standards. He had a slow start before, recovering after injury in 2008 that led to a 3-4 start before reeling off nine straight wins.
When you consider the 40-point scoring differential the Falcons and Texans each had in their other two wins this season, Denver?s 1-2 record with a pair of six-point losses does not look as bad. However, the schedule is still filled with challenges.
Brady could be sitting at 3-0 had field-goal attempts gone a little differently at the end of the game the last two weeks. First it was New England kicker Stephen Gostkowski missing on a 42-yard attempt that would have beat Arizona in Week 2, but he was wide left. It was the first failed clutch field goal in a loss for the Patriots since Dec. 26, 1999.
This time it was a blown 9-point lead in Baltimore in the fourth quarter. Brady was unsuccessful on the Patriots? last two drives, while the Ravens drove for the game-winning score. Rookie kicker Justin Tucker did not pull a Billy Cundiff this time, but he did barely make the 27-yard field goal with no time left.
Brady is trying to adjust to life without tight end Aaron Hernandez for the time being, and implementing vertical receiver Brandon Lloyd into an offense that's not known to stretch the field. Brady has been sacked seven times, and is on pace for his highest sack total since his first year as starter (41 times in 2001). The added pressure may explain why Brady has not looked as sharp this season.
The best news for New England is that they still play in the AFC East, and are the best team in the division. They have a good shot to notch a win over Buffalo this week, and now the New York Jets will be without Darrelle Revis the rest of the season. This is still New England?s division, even if they are under .500 for the first time in 145 games, snapping that impressive NFL record.
Brees is in a world of trouble at 0-3, and not playing like the prolific quarterback we are so used to seeing in New Orleans since 2006. While the suspension of head coach Sean Payton is a real problem, there is no excuse for Brees to rank 26th in completion percentage (54.7 percent), 27th in yards per attempt (6.60), and 25th in passer rating (77.0).
Brees should be able to wear a blindfold and still hit 60 percent of his passes in this offense, which he knows so well. New Orleans has major problems defensively, but the offense has not met its standard in any of the three games.
Brees struggled against a Washington defense that has been shredded by Sam Bradford and Andy Dalton. He threw a poor interception when he had a chance to tie the game late, and had a rookie-esque pick six against Carolina that contributed to the Week 2 loss.
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More newsGetty Images ContributorNFL, refs?reach tentative deal
??The NFL and the referees' union have reached a tentative contract agreement, ending an impasse that began in June when the league locked out the officials and used replacements instead.
Goodell deserves praise, not scorn
??PFT Live: The man who is taking the most responsibility for the referee lockout is commissioner Roger Goodell. Mike Florio believes that the commissioner is merely taking the blame for the league's 32 owners.
Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/49162762/ns/sports-nfl/
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Chicago Symphony musicians settle strike | OregonLive.com
And just like that, the Chicago Symphony musicians settled their strike. From the Chicago Tribune:
"They entered the negotiating room in the Chicago Symphony Association's lawyer's office at 2 p.m. Monday, and by about 6:45 p.m. a tentative agreement had been reached in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's first musicians strike in 21 years."...The strike became the latest in a series of labor disputes among big-city American orchestras. The tumultuous six-month Detroit Symphony Orchestra strike ended in April 2011 with the musicians accepting a reported 25 percent pay cut. The Philadelphia Orchestra, where Muti was music director from 1980 to 1992, emerged from bankruptcy protection in July and still faces formidable challenges."The orchestra announced shortly before 8 p.m. that the CSO musicians and management had reached an accord for a three-year collective bargaining agreement, to take effect retroactively on Sept. 17. The previous contract expired Sept. 16.
-- David Stabler
"Members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra have been locked out since Aug. 25, and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra musicians have been locked out since Sept. 8 amid management proposals of large salary and benefits cuts. The Minneapolis-St. Paul-based Star Tribune reported that the Minnesota Orchestra's musicians and management were meeting with a federal mediator Monday, six days before the union's contract was set to expire, with management initially proposing to slash musicians' average salaries from $135,000 to $89,000."
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2012/09/chicago_symphony_musicians_set.html
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Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Healthy feet through the best shoes | fitness 4 free online
The feet are silent hard workers of the human body. Although they don't help us see our surroundings, figure out what to say, or move stuff around, they still play a vital role. An important part of human life is going from one place to another and that is the primary responsibility of the feet.
Foot health maintains the optimal state of mobility. This not only means keeping the feet as healthy as possible but also preventing any problems that may cause damage to the feet and its normal functioning. There are plenty of factors to account for to keep the feet healthy. One important consideration is wearing the best type of shoes.
We all have had to move barefoot at some point in our lives, but it is important that proper foot wear is worn to maintain foot health. An important step to keeping the feet healthy is to wear shoes that are best suited for a particular activity. The feet experience different amounts of stress depending on the level of activity. Keeping the feet well supported and balanced during these activities are the key responsibilities of good footwear.
Different activities generally require different sets of footwear and no single pair of shoes is best-suited for all activities. However, all general activities have recommended footwear that cover the various needs of the feet during movement. Different activities like walking, running, cross-training, and sports in general place varying degrees of stress on the feet and are met with specialty kinds of shoes. Properly fitted shoes are also a key consideration in order to keep feet healthy. The right shoes with the right fit ensures that the feet are comfortable and balanced and also prevents damage to the feet resulting in corns, calluses, and plantar fasciitis.
An individual's gait type is a significant factor to determine a person's perfect pair of shoes because of individual variations in foot structures and movement patterns while walking. The general gait types are neutral pronation, overpronation, and underpronation which pose varying needs to an individual and are best accommodated by specific kinds of shoes. Maintaining effective and efficient mobility and keeping the feet healthy are two of the best benefits from wearing the perfect pair of shoes.
Source: http://fitness4freeonline.blogspot.com/2012/09/healthy-feet-through-best-shoes.html
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Left, but returned!
Hey everyone!
Well, I don't know if anyone I used to RP with is around, but anyway, a few years back, I used to be active here and disappeared all of a sudden.
I came back, sort of, and looking for someone to RP with, and I'm a bit rusty, so forgive me.
I write in paragraphs, which I prefer. I'm literate-ish, and I do have some ideas.
I could do some real life based ones, but then there's a high chance that I wouldn't have a clue what the topic will be, so you'll have to talk me through it or I'll help figure out what else we could do. Um, so yeah, I don't know what else to say, so feel free to reply or message me if there's anyone interested in RP-ing with me.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/glTZNJwhiT0/viewtopic.php
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Storytelling Techniques For Effective Business Communications ...
September 24, 2012
Dear PR Pro,
Admit it.
You probably did a fist pump after reading David Carr?s column last week, ?The Puppetry Of Quotation Approval.?
According to Carr, journalists are increasingly acquiescing to PR requests to be manipulated, often in the form of approving quotes. In exchange for access, the journalist agrees to the run quotes by the organization for approval.
Carr summarizes the issue as thus:
It used to be that American businesses either told reporters to go away or told them what they wanted to know. Now, a reporter trying to interview a business source is confronted by a phalanx of factotums, preconditions and sometimes a requirement that quotations be approved. What pops out of that process isn?t exactly news and isn?t exactly a news release, but contains elements of both.
Don?t allow Mr. Carr?s taste for spelling-bee words ? factotum, an employee who does all kinds of work ? to distract you from the big picture.
Your belief that this tug-of-war between journalists and PR has been going on for years and if a journo periodically falls into the moat, it counter-balances the ?Dear PR Lady? posts, is misplaced.
Whether you represent the Kumquat Growers or another software company disrupting the status quo, it?s in our best interest for the public to perceive the media as credible and objective. That?s what enables the storytelling in The New York Times to wield 10X the influence of a news release. So when your company appears in The New York Times, even if the story is balanced with both positives and negatives, the net takeaway is still a positive for the company?s public profile.
But here?s the problem ?
The media?s credibility and objectivity continue to erode as illustrated by the Pew Research study below.
Back to the Carr lament, journalists agreeing to let organizations approve their quotes only accelerates this erosion.
What can we do to help?
Glad you asked.
I propose we start a campaign to bolster the credibility of our journalistic brothers called ?Just Say No to No.?
In other words, we band together to say no to the proposition:
- No quote approval = no access
Because it seems that journalists can?t say ?no.?
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Join a road train, take your hands off the wheel
5 hrs.
The road to driverless cars of the future may be a highway lined with trains of cars that autonomously follow human-driven trucks, according to Volvo.
The car company and its European partners just completed the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) ?project, successfully showing the potential for so-called platooned traffic.
The concept is a step towards a future where we leave all the driving to robots. Here, drivers pilot their cars onto a highway where they join with a regularly scheduled ?road train.??
Once joined up with the train, drivers are free to take their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel. Read the newspaper. Play games with the kids in the backseat. Take a nap. When your exit comes up, drivers manually leave the train. The concept is demonstrated in the video below.
The lead truck is driven by a professionally trained human at speeds up to 55 miles per hour. The cars in the train simply follow the lead vehicle.?
The ability for cars to do so comes from existing camera, radar and laser technology developed for systems such as adaptive cruise control and parking assistance, Volvo said.
The only new features are an interface that humans can use to join and leave trains as well as short-range vehicle-to-vehicle communications systems so that cars in the train can talk to each other.
In addition to the joy of not having to stay focused on the road drive down mind-numbing stretches of highway, the technology will save fuel given the reduced air drag, improved traffic flow, and better utilization of available road real estate, according to the SARTRE project.
Before the trains become a reality, hurdles include obstacle avoidance and sudden braking. But such technicalities are smaller feats than those required for fully robotic cars driving down city streets.
?? via IEEE?
John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/join-road-train-take-your-hands-wheel-1B6072195
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Social Media Marketing Meet Wall Street Arbitrage | Atlantic BT
DreamForce Social Media NOC (Network Operation Center)
Social Media Marketing?s Arbitrage Everything Future
My friend and a great SEO Phil Buckley (@1918) sent me a note on Google+ over the weekend with the picture of DreamForce?s Social NOC (above). Phil reminding me I ?saw? the real time monitoring of the social web implied by DreamForce a year ago. His note reminded me of a story from when I was about ten.
I didn?t know what my father did for a living for a long time. My father was a pension plan manager hedging risk for the very wealthy.?My father?s skill set was narrow. He selected people and funds his clients should trust with their money. Not hard to see why a ten or twelve year old couldn?t explain what his father did for a living on, ?What my parents do for a living,? day (lol).
Little did I know Wall Street was running hard straight for Internet marketing. ?Building my first B2B and B2C ecommerce ?FoundObjects.com (now RIP) in 1999 prior to the pervasive influence of the social web would be an exercise in futility today. FoundObjects.com wasn?t social, it wasn?t a platform for User generated Content (UGC).
Arbitrage, trading one thing for another, ?is what Internet marketing is rapidly becoming. Life inside the largest content network the world has?ever created is social arbitrage. We trade Link Love, Shares, Tweets, Retweets and attention for a relationship with websites and companies we LOVE and ADVOCATE. We champion the cause of a handful of products, brands and companies to our friends. Our network reaches out via six degrees of separation to friends of friends, so SNAP and before you know it your Tweet or Facebook post is being shared by a million people.
The web?s ?infinite inventory? described in The Long Tail by Wired editor Chris Anderson means there is almost no cost associated with adding one or a hundred more products to a scaled ecommerce website. Once an ecommerce site reaches scale?adding more ?digital products? LOWERS inventory carry costs, a truth Amazon?s founder Jeff Bezos learned on Wall Street and brought to Internet marketing with Amazon?s ?partner network?. Bringing Wall Street arbitrage to the sales and marketing of everything may make Jeff Bezos the most?influential man of our times.
Internet Marketing?s ?Arbitrage Everything? Implications
A recent series on PBS about the Civil War discussed how tactics from the last century met technology from the current time with horrible consequences. This mismatch of tactics and technology created massive loss of life. Technology changed the war in ways few generals understood. Google, Bezos and Amazon changed everything about selling products to consumers and services to businesses and now the social web is changing everything again.
Here are the marketing trends Amazon, Google?s and the social web?s new algorithms are using to change ?sales and marketing:
- Infinite Inventory ? Important to sell everything because trading ?generates network presence and money. Trading even for a slight advantage creates huge return spread across the web?s law of large numbers where even a penny x a billion transactions becomes a lot of money ($10M).
?. - Process Is Product ? Infinite inventory creates tremendous NOISE and market ROIL. There is a need to hedge inventory and product creation costs as?Threadless.com and Quirky.com do. These ?mob source? sites share process as the first stage of a product development. They ask for community involvement and votes and produce to what their community wants.
?, - Grabbing For Hearts and Minds ? The new marketing game is not about physical shelf space or territory since ?territory? in a content network is infinite. The new social?marketing is a battle to capture hearts, minds and brand advocacy.
?- - Edleman?s New Conversion Funnel?? McKinsey Consulting partner David Edleman wrote several compelling pieces in the Harvard Business Review explaining the new brand marketing. Edleman?s ?new conversion funnel? defines?marketing based on outstanding experiences and continued brand advocacy across a customer?s social nets after the sale. 90% of brand content is created by?advocates on the social web making Edelman?s new conversion funnel with its discussion about the need for an ongoing relationship after the sale prescient.
-? - Attention Is Money ? In the Attention Economy: Understanding the new currency of business published in 2001, Davenport and Beck predicted attention, not?money, would become the most important and hardest to gain and keep commodity. Attention is related to the only thing we haven?t figured out how to make more of ? time. Since 2001 attention is being crushed by a new army of social signals so Davenport and Beck seem prescient too.
?- - Experience Economy ? In Pine and Gilmore book The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater and Every Business A Stage the authors stressed the need for unique?tactile experiences capable of creating viral marketing. How to bring ?tacticle? experiences online creates one of the unique social marketing challenges of our content networked times.
?- - Platforms vs. Websites ? After conducting research that showed Etsy?s network effect in the gift space at the end of 2010, Etsy moved from few pages in Google to over 100M very fast, I declared the ?closed loop (non User Generated Content) websites dead. The self referential websites of the past was being killed by more open and social ?platform? approaches. Since content demand exceeds any web team?s ability to?supply fresh and relevant content UGC (User Generated Content) must be generated at an ever faster pace. UGC on this scale requires a sophisticated Content Management System (CMS).
?- - Gamification ? ?Gamification: Winning Hearts, Minds and Loyalty Online?sees the?connection between sticky content as defined by the Heath brothers in Made to Stick?and a system to reward ?play? website engagement. Contests and games are among the stickiest kinds of content. ?The new Internet marketing needs games ?played??as competitions over time similar to frequent flier miles and Starbucks free coffee loyalty cards.
?- - Linked Content Network Fundamentals ? In Linked: How Everything Is Connected To Everything Else and What It Means Notre Dame network research Barabasi explains?critical properties of content networks. Content networks create hubs as a result of proprietary linking. Websites with the links and content, the??rich?, tend to get richer faster and faster. Google, Amazon and Apple are hubs and so hard to disrupt or displace.
-? - More and More, Faster and Faster, Better and Better?? The secret structure of Internet marketing is an ever escalating?creation curve. As we create more relevant content faster Google?s costs decline and their profits go up. Google was about to drown in social signals. An?engineer named after Navneet Panda created a faster machine-learning algorithm that saved Google?s network from being swamped by social link spam. Now Google can see how dirty your website?s ?room? is and they want it cleaned up or your website will be grounded.
-? - Storytelling Panda?s Secret SEO Implication ? ?Google?s new stress on QDF (Quality Deserves Freshness) and QDR (Quality Deserves?Relevance) changes the Key Performance Indicators an Internet marketing team must watch. Google?s Panda wants your webpages to ?ping? frequently with updates so UGC (User Generated Content) becomes important. Static Evergreen content needs to be re-created with social signals or it will lose relevance.
-? - The Future Converts Better With Predictive Analytics ? Algorithms and predictive modeling is clearly in Internet marketing?s future. We will look back on?4% conversion rates common to this time?s e-commerce websites and wonder what we were thinking. A new generation of tools spins and snips content based on conversion models in near real time and they are sure to increase conversion rates.
- - Mobile First Disruption ? Mobile is more than programming content for phones. Mobile brings a new way of thinking about content, a responsive platform?agnostic approach. Content created for mobile migrates up and out to other devices. Mobile development should be FIRST and its?principles must guide web development going forward.
-? - SoLoMo Rocks Near Real Time ? It is possible to build a substantial business with a strong mobile presence and weak SEO (search engine optimization).?Once smart phone users join a company?s list mobile engagement and commerce becomes a diversify force, but the ?what?, ?why? and ?who? of mobile marketing is far from determined. SoLoMo also consistently demonstrates real time beats any other time for some types of conversions and engagements. The desire to understand and bend the near real time social web is why DreamForce created the Social Media NOC (Network Operations Center) pictured at the top of this post.
Marketing teams function in the constant NOW of the web?s global content network. When a marketing team reacts to what it?sees on the near real time social web better than competitors they win. ?React better more frequently and you and your company will win more and more, faster and faster and better and better.
PS. I realized after publishing this piece there is a missing trend. I wrote this piece in about two hours because I could pull from an extensive archive of ?Evergreen? related Internet marketing content across ScentTrail Marketing?s more than 500 posts and Atlantic BT?s blog with more than 1,000 posts. I used social tools such as Twylah for Twitter and Scoop.it to help with previously ?scooped? and Tweeted facts and resources.
Reacting in real time requires a substantial archive of creative content capable of being spun, snipped and republished to meet immediate demand. This is why we are creating a new kind of ?Social Content Management System? or Social CMS called SpinSnip. Stay tuned for SpinSnip.
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Tags: arbitrage, Atlantic BT, content, email, Internet, marketing, network, social, tends, WebPosted in: Atlantic BT, Business & Internet, Mobile Marketing, Social Media
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Source: http://www.atlanticbt.com/blog/social-media-marketing-meets-wall-street-arbitrage/
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