Sunday, June 30, 2013

Avril Lavigne Enjoys Pre-Wedding Bash

Avril Lavigne kicked off her wedding celebrations by hosting a party in Cannes, France.

The 'Here's To Never Growing Up' singer threw a pre-wedding bash with her fiance Chad Kroeger on Saturday (29.06.13) but the couple are "technically not married yet" and will officially tie the knot on Monday (01.07.13).

A source told UsMagazine.com that the couple planned an "intimate" three-day celebration with the help of celebrity wedding planner Mindy Weiss, who has posted several photos on Instagram from the region, including a romantic sunset.

The insider added: "It is extremely intimate, just close friends and family."

The Canadian singer sparked rumours she and the Nickleback frontman exchanged vows on Saturday after Mike Heller, CEO of Talent Resources, who works with Avril, tweeted that he was at her wedding.

He wrote: "I'm in south of France about to see my little Rok star #avril get married I am so happy to be part of this special celebration. (Sic)"

He later added: "No pictures will be sent since this is #avril wedding but I will tell you everyone is so excited."

A second source explained that Mike was referring to the three-day long bash rather than suggesting Avril was already married.

The 28-year-old singer previously revealed she was planning a lavish wedding, saying: "I just want to make sure I really enjoy this amazing time and I want all the guests who come to have this once in a lifetime experience. I want everyone to say, 'Wow!' and for it to be special for everyone, not just us."

The 'Girlfriend' singer, who was previously married to Sum 41 star Deryck Whibley, fell for Chad, 38, last summer when he was helping her record her fifth studio album.

She recently said: "I feel most beautiful when I'm around Chad."

Source: http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/avril-lavigne-299070.html?utm_source=ff&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=siteFeed

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30 sent to hospitals in Las Vegas as record heat parks over West, Southwest

In Los Angeles, heat-related power failures snarled traffic, and in Death Valley, where temperatures hit triple digits, the forecast is could bring a record 129 degrees. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

More than thirty people were taken to hospitals for heat-related injuries and illnesses Friday at a music festival in Las Vegas, authorities said, as a wave of life-threatening blistering temperatures blazed across the West.

Clark County fire personnel treated close to 200 people for heat-related nausea, vomiting and fatigue Friday afternoon and evening at the Vans Warped Tour, an eclectic outdoor music festival at the Silverton Casino off the famous Strip.


Most were given water and taken to shaded areas, but 34 had to be taken to hospitals for further treatment, the fire department said.

"It's pretty intense," said Clark County spokesman Eric Pappa. "We're used to summer temperatures of 100, 105. But we're beyond 100. It's a scorcher."

The high temperature officially hit 117 degrees at Las Vegas-McCarran International Airport ? equaling the airport's record ? Friday as thousands of people streamed to the casino site for the festival. The thermostat fell slightly Saturday, leveling at a still-steamy 105 degrees, according to The Weather Channel.

Records are similarly expected to be broken across the West and the Southwest through the weekend and into next week, the National Weather Service said, thanks to a high pressure "dome" parked over the sprawling region.

Death Valley, Calif., could even top 130 degrees Saturday through Monday, just below the world record high of 134 recorded there on July 10, 1913, The Weather Channel said.

Temperatures in Phoenix are expected to soar between 115 and 120 degrees. In western parts of Arizona, temperatures could reach 125.

Officials in Arizona warned residents to take precautions.

"If you get dizzy or lightheaded, those are some signs of dehydration. If you become confused, that's a real warning sign," Dr. Kevin Reilly of the University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine told NBC station KVOA of Tucson.

In Las Vegas, meanwhile, the National Weather Service warned of the potential for a "life-threatening heat event." Temperatures were expected to match those of a July 2005 heat wave when 17 people died in the Las Vegas Valley.

The extreme weather is expected to reach Reno, Nev., reach across Utah and stretch into Wyoming and Idaho, where forecasters are predicting potentially lethal hot spells. Triple-digit temperatures were forecast during Idaho's Special Olympics in Boise.

Matt York / AP

Runners take advantage of lower temperatures at sunrise Thursday in Mesa, Ariz. Excessive heat warnings will continue for much of the Desert Southwest as building high pressure triggers major warming in eastern California, Nevada and Arizona.

Organizers urged coaches to prepare their athletes.

"The basic stuff, wearing breathable, appropriate clothes, staying in the shade as much as possible, staying hydrated is obviously a big thing," Matt Caropino, director of sports and training for Special Olympics Idaho, told NBC station KTVB. "We've put in place some misters that we're going to have at our outdoor venues."

The National Weather Service advised people to keep tabs on signs of potentially lethal heat stroke.

"Heat stroke symptoms include an increase in body temperature, which leads to deliriousness, unconsciousness and red, dry skin," it said in a report. "Death can occur when body temperatures reach or exceed 106-107 degrees."

Los Angeles was forecast to peak between the upper 80s and the lower 90s Saturday as inland communities like Burbank edge toward the low 100s. Palm Springs, Calif., no stranger to steamy summers, may peak at 120 degrees, NBC station KMIR reported. Sweltering heat also is expected for the state's Central Valley, according to The Weather Channel.

While the west remains hot and dry, the east is getting lots of rain that has resulted in flash flooding. Some of the worst flooding was in upstate New York where whole neighborhoods remain under water. ?The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

Commercial airlines were also monitoring conditions because excessive heat can throw flights off course. The atmosphere becomes less dense in extremely high heat humidity, meaning there's less lift for airplanes ? calculations that have to be made individually for every type of aircraft.

Triple-digit heat forced several airlines to bring operations to a halt after Phoenix climbed to 122 degrees in June 1990.

Daniel Arkin of NBC News contributed to this report.

Related:

'It's brutal out there': Weekend heat wave to bake western US

Alaska sweating through brutal blast of heat

Oppressive heat hits West as storms soak East

This story was originally published on

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663306/s/2df405e3/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A60C280C191876780E30A0Esent0Eto0Ehospitals0Ein0Elas0Evegas0Eas0Erecord0Eheat0Eparks0Eover0Ewest0Esouthwest0Dlite/story01.htm

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Can I buy a Nexus 4 from Google, and will att put it on my present (no contract) plan?

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for(i = 0; i Ads by Google";
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if (ad.type == "flash") {
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content += ''; } else if (ad.type == "html") { content += ad.snippet; } else { content += '' + ad.line1 + '
' + '' + ad.line2 + '?' + ad.line3 + '
' + '' + ad.visible_url + ''; } content = ad_template.replace("{title}",title).replace("{content}",content); var pos = i*3 + (i+2); $('#posts .postcontainer:eq(' + pos + ')').after(content); } if (google_ads[0].bidtype == "CPC") google_adnum = google_adnum + google_ads.length; } google_ad_client = "ca-pub-8460099860738313"; google_ad_channel = '5062690591'; /*google_ad_slot = '8040314026';*/ google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '10'; google_ad_type = 'text'; google_image_size = '728x90'; google_feedback = 'on'; google_skip = google_adnum; //]]>

Source: http://forums.androidcentral.com/google-nexus-4/292780-can-i-buy-nexus-4-google-will-att-put-my-present-no-contract-plan-new-post.html

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BlackBerry, Windows Phone see their market share shrink yet again

BlackBerry Windows Phone Market Share

Stop us if you?ve heard this one before: Android and iOS continued to expand their market shares in the United States at the expense of Windows Phone and BlackBerry. The latest numbers from comScore show that Android devices accounted for 52.4% of all U.S. smartphone subscriptions in the spring quarter this year, up from 51.7% in the previous quarter. Apple?s ever-popular iPhone also saw its U.S. market share expand to 39.2% in the spring, up from 38.9% in the previous quarter.

[More from BGR: Apple iOS 7 beta 3 scheduled for release on July 8th]

ComScore?s numbers weren?t so rosy for BlackBerry and Windows Phone, however. In BlackBerry?s case, the company saw its market share drop from 5.4% to 4.8% on the quarter while Windows Phone?s market share dropped from 3.2% to just 3%. In other words, it seems that both Microsoft and BlackBerry are currently losing the battle to establish themselves as major players in the U.S. mobile market.

[More from BGR: Galaxy S4 takes the crown for fastest phone with best battery life]

In terms of individual vendors, comScore found that Apple accounted for 39.2% of subscribers, followed by Samsung at 23% and HTC at 8.7%. HTC shouldn?t feel too comfortable with its third-place finish, however, since its market share dropped by 0.6 percentage points on the quarter while both Apple and Samsung continued to expand.

ComScore?s full press release follows below.

comScore Reports May 2013 U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Market Share

Smartphone Audience Surpasses 140 Million in May

RESTON, VA, June 28, 2013 ??comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore?MobiLens?service, reporting key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry during the three month average period ending May 2013. Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 39 percent OEM market share, while Google Android led as the #1 smartphone platform with 52 percent platform market share.

Smartphone OEM Market Share

141 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (59 percent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in May, up 6 percent since February. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 39.2 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up 0.3 percentage points from February). Samsung ranked second with 23 percent market share (up 1.7 percentage points), followed by HTC with 8.7 percent, Motorola with 7.8 percent and LG with 6.7 percent.

Top Smartphone OEMs
3 Month Avg. Ending May 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2013
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Feb-13 May-13 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Apple 38.9% 39.2% 0.3
Samsung 21.3% 23.0% 1.7
HTC 9.3% 8.7% -0.6
Motorola 8.4% 7.8% -0.6
LG 6.8% 6.7% -0.1

Smartphone Platform Market Share

Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in May with 52.4 percent market share (up 0.7 percentage points from February). Apple ranked second with 39.2 percent market share (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by BlackBerry with 4.8 percent, Microsoft with 3 percent and Symbian with 0.4 percent.

Top Smartphone Platforms
3 Month Avg. Ending May 2013 vs. 3 Month Avg. Ending Feb. 2013
Total U.S. Smartphone Subscribers Age 13+
Source: comScore MobiLens
Share (%) of Smartphone Subscribers
Feb-13 May-13 Point Change
Total Smartphone Subscribers 100.0% 100.0% N/A
Android 51.7% 52.4% 0.7
Apple 38.9% 39.2% 0.3
BlackBerry 5.4% 4.8% -0.6
Microsoft 3.2% 3.0% -0.2
Symbian 0.5% 0.4% -0.1

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blackberry-windows-phone-see-market-share-shrink-yet-165502557.html

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Fatty acids found in fish linked to lower risk of breast cancer

June 27, 2013 ? A high intake of fatty acids found in fish is associated with a 14% reduction in the risk of breast cancer in later life, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

The results show that each 0.1 g per day or 0.1% energy per day increment of intake of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFA) derived from fish was associated with a 5% reduction in risk. To achieve this risk reduction, intake of oily fish such as salmon, tuna or sardines should be 1-2 portions per person per week.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers, accounting for 23% of total cancer cases and 14% of cancer deaths in 2008. Studies suggest that a healthy diet and lifestyle is crucial for the prevention of breast cancer, and dietary fat is one of the most intensively studied dietary factors closely related with risk.

The n-3 PUFAs include ALA, EPA, DPA and DHA. They are involved in chemical messaging in the brain, helping to regulate blood vessel activity and areas of the immune system. The main dietary sources of EPA, DPA and DHA come from oily fish, while ALA is found mainly in nuts, seeds, and leafy green vegetables.

Although n-3 PUFAs are the most promising types of fat to reduce cancer risk, results from human studies are inconsistent.

So a team of researchers based in China set out to investigate the association between fish and n-3 PUFA intake and the risk of breast cancer. Levels were measured from both dietary sources and blood tests.

They reviewed and analysed the results of 26 studies from the United States, Europe and Asia involving over 800,000 participants and over 20,000 cases of breast cancer.

Marine n-3 PUFA was associated with a 14% reduction of breast cancer between the highest and lowest category of marine n-3 PUFA intake. The risk was lowest in Asian populations, probably because fish intake is much higher in Asia than in western countries, say the authors.

Further analysis indicated a dose response: each 0.1 g per day or 0.1% energy per day increment of intake was associated with a 5% reduction in risk. However, no significant protective association was found for ALA -- the plant based n-3 PUFA.

The authors say their analysis, together with previous publications, "supports a protective role of marine n-3 PUFA on the incidence of breast cancer."

They conclude: "Our present study provides solid and robust evidence that marine n-3 PUFA are inversely associated with risk of breast cancer. The protective effect of fish or individual n-3 PUFA warrants further investigation of prospective studies."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/nutrition/~3/kSA6Cy-wQac/130627190653.htm

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Breakthrough in Internet bandwidth: New fiber optic technology could ease Internet congestion, video streaming

June 27, 2013 ? As rapidly increasing demand for bandwidth strains the Internet's capacity, a team of engineers has devised a new fiber optic technology that promises to increase bandwidth dramatically. The new technology could enable Internet providers to offer much greater connectivity -- from decreased network congestion to on-demand video streaming.

Described in the June 28 issue of the journal Science, the technology centers on donut-shaped laser light beams called optical vortices, in which the light twists like a tornado as it moves along the beam path, rather than in a straight line.

Widely studied in molecular biology, atomic physics and quantum optics, optical vortices (also known as orbital angular momentum, or OAM, beams) were thought to be unstable in fiber, until BU Engineering Professor Siddharth Ramachandran recently designed an optical fiber that can propagate them. In the paper, he and Alan Willner of USC demonstrate not only the stability of the beams in optical fiber but also their potential to boost Internet bandwidth.

"For several decades since optical fibers were deployed, the conventional assumption has been that OAM-carrying beams are inherently unstable in fibers," said Ramachandran. "Our discovery, of design classes in which they are stable, has profound implications for a variety of scientific and technological fields that have exploited the unique properties of OAM-carrying light, including the use of such beams for enhancing data capacity in fibers."

The reported research represents a close collaboration between optical fiber experts at BU and optical communication systems experts at USC. "Siddharth's fiber represents a very unique and valuable innovation. It was great to work together to demonstrate a terabit-per-second capacity transmission link," said Willner, electrical engineering professor at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Ramachandran and Willner collaborated with OFS-Fitel, a fiber optics company in Denmark, and Tel Aviv University.

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the technology could not come at a better time, as one of the main strategies to boost Internet bandwidth is running into roadblocks just as mobile devices fuel rapidly growing demands on the Internet. Traditionally, bandwidth has been enhanced by increasing the number of colors, or wavelengths of data-carrying laser signals -- essentially streams of 1s and 0s -- sent down an optical fiber, where the signals are processed according to color. Increasing the number of colors has worked well since the 1990s when the method was introduced, but now that number is reaching physical limits.

An emerging strategy to boost bandwidth is to send the light through a fiber along distinctive paths, or modes, each carrying a cache of data from one end of the fiber to the other. Unlike the colors, however, data streams of 1s and 0s from different modes mix together; determining which data stream came from which source requires computationally intensive and energy-hungry digital signal processing algorithms.

Ramachandran's and Willner's approach combines both strategies, packing several colors into each mode, and using multiple modes. Unlike in conventional fibers, OAM modes in these specially designed fibers can carry data streams across an optical fiber while remaining separate at the receiving end. In experiments appearing in the Science paper, Ramachandran created an OAM fiber with four modes (an optical fiber typically has two), and he and Willner showed that for each OAM mode, they could send data through a one-kilometer fiber in 10 different colors, resulting in a transmission capacity of 1.6 terabits per second, the equivalent of transmitting eight Blu-RayTM DVDs every second.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/matter_energy/technology/~3/zoBY3cb6fMU/130627142406.htm

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Friday, June 28, 2013

Video: BlackBerry's Q1 Report Misses Top & Bottom Line

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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52339109/

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This Climate Fix Might Be Decades Ahead Of Its Time

Global Thermostat's pilot plant in Menlo Park, Calif., pulls carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. The next challenge is to find uses for the captured gas.

Courtesy of Global Thermostat

Global Thermostat's pilot plant in Menlo Park, Calif., pulls carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. The next challenge is to find uses for the captured gas.

Courtesy of Global Thermostat

Every year, people add 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the air, mostly by burning fossil fuels. That's contributing to climate change. A few scientists have been dreaming about ways to pull some of that CO2 out of the air, but face stiff skepticism and major hurdles. This is the story of one scientist who's pressing ahead.

Peter Eisenberger is a distinguished professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. Earlier in his career, he ran the university's famed Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and founded Columbia's Earth Institute. He was never one of those scientists who tinkered into the night on inventions. But he realized he didn't need to be.

"If you looked at knowledge as a commodity, we had generated this enormous amount of knowledge and we hadn't even begun to think of the many ways we could apply it," Eisenberger says. He decided he'd settle on a problem he wanted to solve and then dive into the pool of knowledge for existing technologies that could help him.

He started looking for a way to pull carbon dioxide right out of the air. "And it turned out the best device already exists," he says. "It's called a monolith. That is the same type of instrument that's in the catalytic converter in your car. It cleans up your exhaust."

Eisenberger's monoliths grab carbon dioxide from the air and release it again when you heat them up.

He teamed up with a colleague at Columbia, Graciela Chichilnisky, and formed a company to develop the idea. Global Thermostat got seed money from Edgar Bronfman, Jr. ? CEO of Warner Music Group and the former CEO of Seagram's, his family's business.

The company has built two pilot plants at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif. But of course there are big issues to solve: What do you do with the carbon dioxide once you've captured it, and how do you make money?

"If they don't tell you you're crazy, you're not doing something worthwhile," says Peter Eisenberger, co-founder of Global Thermostat, a firm that's building a device to pull carbon dioxide from the air.

Chris Schmauch/Global Thermostat

"So we then we looked for ways to monetize CO2 and found that lots of people wanted to use CO2 as a feedstock to make a valuable product," Eisenberger says.

Growers pipe carbon dioxide into greenhouses. Oil companies pump it underground to help them squeeze out more oil. Soda companies use it to put bubbles in their drinks. These are mostly small-scale applications.

Maybe someday Eisenberger could get paid to clean up the atmosphere by sucking out the CO2 and burying it underground, though there's no market for that now.

But using carbon dioxide to make fuel could someday be big. So Eisenberger's first project involves using CO2 to feed algae that churn out biofuel.

"Our first demonstration plant is being erected right now down in Daphne, Alabama, with an algae company called Algae Systems, which sits on Mobile Bay," Eisenberger says. "They'll be floating their algae in plastic bags on the top of the water. We'll be piping in CO2 that we pull out of the air, and the sun will do the rest."

Of course, this one project will have zero effect on how much carbon dioxide is in the earth's atmosphere. But Eisenberger has much grander ambitions.

"I believe we have something that's economically viable, so our company will be successful," he says. "But I'm really in this because I want to contribute to a long term solution that the world needs."

Eisenberger says if he can open the door to capturing carbon dioxide from the air ? and make the process cheap enough ? someday we could actually slow down, or possibly even reverse, the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Robert Socolow at Princeton University started hearing a buzz about this technology a few years back.

"It's catchy," Socolow admits. "It's attractive conceptually that one could basically pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for the next several decades and pull it out later and everything would be fine." But the appeal of the idea also worried him ? people might use the mere prospect of this technology as an excuse not to act.

So Socolow spearheaded a critique of the technique, on behalf of the American Physical Society.

Socolow's panel concluded that the technology would be hopelessly expensive, costing $600 for every ton of carbon dioxide it drew out of the air. And the scale would also be huge. In order to capture the emissions would waft into the air from a single coal-fired power plant, you'd need to build a structure 20 miles long and 30 feet high. "It's like the Great Wall of China," Socolow says.

The committee concluded that it would make a lot more sense to cut down on emissions first ? make our cars, homes and factories more efficient. Panel members also said it makes much more sense to capture carbon dioxide directly from smokestacks, where it's concentrated, instead of from the air.

Socolow says, maybe someday we'll have our emissions under control, and then we might need to remove some of the carbon dioxide that's already in the air with a capture technology. But, in his view, that's a long way away. "I locate it in the 22nd century," he says. In other words, this might be a good project for Eisenberger's great-great-great grandchildren.

Researchers currently working on carbon dioxide capture technologies say the American Physical Society critique has made it much harder for them to raise money. Klaus Lackner at Columbia University says he was turned down for a government grant. David Keith at Harvard and the University of Calgary says he struggled to get funding for his small company.

"It's a very powerful report from a very credible group of people, and it may well help to kill us and other efforts," Keith says.

Proponents of air-capture technologies say some of the panel's conclusions are just plain wrong ? especially the estimated cost of $600 per ton.

"We have had third party reports, independent people, evaluating our technology, and it's under $50 a ton," Eisenberger says. He hasn't actually demonstrated that cost yet, and he agrees that nobody should take his word for it. But he's stopped arguing with his critics.

"I'm just going to go do it," he says. "And doing it or not ? that's the answer."

Pursuing a big idea takes some hard-headedness and thick skin.

"If they don't tell you you're crazy, you're not doing something worthwhile," Eisenberger says. "Because what you do when you innovate is you disturb the existing order."

Fortunately, this won't be an academic argument forever. "That's the beauty of science. The people that take the time to come into the lab and see it working and do their own evaluation of the cost and the performance, they know it's not crazy."

If the researchers pursuing this technology can really make it inexpensive to draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, Eisenberger says it could be a game-changer.

We could start producing fuels with the carbon dioxide that's already in the air, instead of unearthing more fossil fuels. This won't happen quickly, though.

"The energy infrastructure of the world is $55 trillion," Eisenberger says. So a technology to replace that is "not like a new Google app."

Still, human societies have made such transitions before. "They just don't happen in a day," Eisenberger says. "But they happen."

There's certainly no guarantee that capturing carbon dioxide from the air would ever become a big enough enterprise to make a difference to Earth's climate. But it won't even be put to the test unless people like Eisenberger give it a try.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/189522647/this-climate-fix-might-be-decades-ahead-of-its-time?ft=1&f=1007

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Pandora Actually Pays $1,300 for a Million Plays Not 16 Bucks

Pandora Actually Pays $1,300 for a Million Plays Not 16 Bucks

Math! It can solve a lot of problems. It can be made deliberately fuzzy. It can help us break down complicated things. Like artist music royalties from streaming music stations. When David Lowery revealed that Pandora paid him only $16 for 1 million plays, there was an outrage. But some deeper math reveals that Pandora might actually pay a lot more than that.

Whip smart writer Michael Degusta put a bunch of numbers together like which royalties go where, what percentage goes to the songwriter as opposed to the publisher and calculated the performance royalty to come up with the number actually paid for 1 million streams on Pandora. His math figured that:

  • Pandora paid a total of about $1,370.
  • The band received a total of about $585.
  • If Lowery received 40% of the performance royalty, ?all he got" for the 1 million plays was in fact around $234.

The total for the entire song is a good amount of money (or okay-ish depending on your perspective) but the total that Lowery received for the song isn't exactly rock star material. It's better than 16 bucks to be sure but still not exactly sustainable income.

How did Degusta come to this math? The biggest chunk of it was in a royalty for the performance itself (and not the songwriting royalty). That performance royalty was $0.0011 per streamed song and for 1,159,000 streamed song, the math works to $1274.90 (it should be noted that this royalty gets split with the label, bandmates, etc.). So maybe the performer of the song gets a bit of money but the songwriter still definitely gets stiffed. The total songwriting royalty was a $42.23 payment. Party on.

You can read more of the math at Michael Degusta's The Understatement. Spurred by this discussion, co-founder of Pandora Tim Westergren also released a statement about how much they pay artists. [The Understatement, Pandora]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/pandora-actually-pays-1-300-for-a-million-plays-not-16-593595346

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Education Reference Guide, National Household Survey, 2011 ...

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This reference guide provides information that enables users to effectively use, apply and interpret data from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). This guide contains definitions and explanations of concepts, classifications, data quality and comparability to other sources. Additional information is included for specific variables to help general users better understand the concepts and questions used in the NHS.

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Product:National Household Survey: Education and Labour
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Video Games' Obsession With Winning Is Killing Them - Kotaku

Two years ago I left a job at Rock, Paper, Shotgun to start a board game site. But that's not the strange part. What's odd is that I've never looked back. I'm getting more out of table games these days than video games, and the biggest reason is that somewhere along the line, video games became obsessed with winning, and it?s killing them.

Forget achievements. Do you ever think about how many bruises you?ve collected, as a video gamer? Every evening you went online and got stomped by strangers. Every towering boss that kicked in your teeth. Every bad call you wincingly made, every time you had your entertainment taken away for not being good enough. You?re a failure! How about that?

I remember a colleague taking a 5 minute break, away from the jittery job of reviewing Battlefield 2. ?It?s fun when you win,? he said, exhausted. ?And boring when you lose. Haven?t we moved past that yet??

No, we haven?t. For a medium that?s evolved from play, video games have an overwhelmingly binary view of success and failure, one so crippling that if we settle into a single player game and make no progress, or lose every multiplayer match in one night, our lives will have been worsened. And we never ask why games are like this. After all, how else could it be?


For a medium that?s evolved from play, video games have an overwhelmingly binary view of success and failure.


Board games have the answer. They speak it so noisily that it?s unbelievable it hasn?t penetrated the Video Games Bunker, but there?s a whole world of analog games that are dedicated to ensuring people simply have fun, all the time.

Let me give you just three examples, and let?s start with Twilight Imperium.

Video Games' Obsession With Winning Is Killing ThemS

Everyone reading this will know how space strategy games work. They?re interstellar knife fights where everyone is working unfathomably hard to take everything away from everyone else; to inflict the worst possible time on everyone else.

Now, let?s look at Twilight Imperium. A space strategy board game with the same pattern of claiming star systems, researching technology and engaging in wars, but where units simply aren?t disposable. Wars in Twilight Imperium are dread things. Which means players simply... talk to one another. The furious struggle of video games is replaced with more sedate maneuvering and politics. Better yet, politics where players inevitably end up roleplaying their race, because the prospect of an apocalyptic computer virus negotiating with space turtles is too entertaining not to do.


The end result is a strategy game that isn?t about chasing victory, and where losing isn?t painful.


The end result is a strategy game that isn?t about chasing victory, and where losing isn?t painful. Video games often deign to give you a happy victory. Like many board games, Twilight Imperium wants to give you moments, and stories, and that doesn?t just give your matches a better chance of being fun. It makes all of gaming more accessible.

Video Games' Obsession With Winning Is Killing ThemS

Next, let?s look at Agricola. A game of being a 17th century German farmer. I know! Calm down.

But Agricola holds a dark secret. It belongs to the clandestine sect of ?Eurogames,? which are a field of board games that let players compete, without anything as unimaginative as letting you actually fight.

So, Agricola is a game where the best farm wins. You?ll want vegetables, and animals, and a family, which means you?ll be scratching together fields, fences and home improvement, and for that you?ll be scrounging peat, wood, clay and still more depressing basics. It?s like a hungover mathematics professor designed Harvest Moon.

Where it gets interesting is that you get all these things from a central board. You can dispatch any family member you like to a space that gets you a certain thing, but where you go? Nobody else can go. And that?s your game. Everyone always gets something in Agricola. Everybody?s always winning, always building, which is satisfying. At the same time, everyone is always losing, feeding your family is always a terrifying prospect, and you all bond over this shared struggle. At the end, someone will have built the best farm, but here?s the thing about eurogames, their victory in the world of play: Nobody will care.

Which brings us to party games. If Twilight Imperium shows how the pressure of competition can be eased, and Agricola shows how it can be avoided entirely, Party Games show how ferocious competition can be kept, but players can be rendered immune to that damage. Let?s look at Bang!.

Video Games' Obsession With Winning Is Killing ThemS

Bang! is a team-based, Wild West shootout. On your turn you can shoot a player sitting next to you, upgrade your weapon, drink whiskey for health, or deploy any one of dozens of surprises hidden in the game?s deck of cards.

Roles are dealt in secret. One player reveals himself as the sheriff. Hidden around the table are the outlaws who want to kill him, the deputies who want to keep him alive, and the renegade who?s doomed. The renegade has to be the last man standing with the sheriff, and then has to kill him, and so muddies the waters to the point that people inevitably end up killing their own teammates.

Bang! is ferociously competitive, AND it features player elimination, and yet it?s incredibly easy going because it?s funny, and it heavily employs random chance, that dirty second skin that competitive video games tore off long ago. Reasons randomness isn?t actually a bad thing? Not only does it encourage unusual play states and reward the ability to adapt (rather than plan), but it also removes the pressure to win, the sting of losing.


Not only does it encourage unusual play states and reward the ability to adapt (rather than plan), but it also removes the pressure to win, the sting of losing.


None of which is to say that strict competition doesn?t have its place. But I can?t help but feel games are more exciting every single time they peek outside of it. I remember being thrilled by every single fight in the Shenmue series, because once in a while the game would continue if you lost a fight. That fight would just become a permanent failure in Ryo Hazuki?s story. And wasn?t the best chapter in the Mass Effect series the suicide mission, where characters you?d come to love could be taken away, forever?

Video Games' Obsession With Winning Is Killing Them

I want you to do something. I want you to buy Damian Sommer and Emily Carroll?s The Yawhg. Out just last week, it's an excellent storytelling video game about preparing for a terrible tragedy, for anywhere from one to four players. See how its stories become that much more tender for being tinted with failure? See how boring winning is?

I have a feeling video games are only working with half a palette. Losing will set us free.

Quintin Smith is a games columnist able to identify different board game manufacturers by their scent. He is not proud of this. He's part of a team working to make a home for play in Shut Up & Sit Down, and @quinns108 on Twitter.

Source: http://kotaku.com/video-games-obsession-with-winning-is-killing-them-511624286

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These Ads Were Named The Best Creative Work ... - Business Insider

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Barbarian Group / Vimeo

Cinder won the Mobile Grand Prix. See what it is in the slideshow.

Every year, the top advertisers in the world gather in Cannes, France to vie for the most prestigious ad awards in the world.

Prizes are given in subjects ranging from mobile ads to outdoor ads that are more than your average billboard.

The best work receives a Grand Prix Cannes Lion.

We've collected the ads that won the top honors.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-ads-were-named-the-best-creative-work-in-the-world-2013-6

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Researchers strike gold with nanotech vaccine

June 25, 2013 ? Scientists in the US have developed a novel vaccination method that uses tiny gold particles to mimic a virus and carry specific proteins to the body's specialist immune cells.

The technique differs from the traditional approach of using dead or inactive viruses as a vaccine and was demonstrated in the lab using a specific protein that sits on the surface of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

The results have been published today, 26 June, in IOP Publishing's journal Nanotechnology by a team of researchers from Vanderbilt University.

RSV is the leading viral cause of lower respiration tract infections, causing several hundred thousand deaths and an estimated 65 million infections a year, mainly in children and the elderly.

The detrimental effects of RSV come, in part, from a specific protein, called the F protein, which coats the surface of the virus. The protein enables the virus to enter into the cytoplasm of cells and also causes cells to stick together, making the virus harder to eliminate.

The body's natural defence to RSV is therefore directed at the F protein; however, up until now, researchers have had difficulty creating a vaccine that delivers the F protein to the specialised immune cells in the body. If successful, the F protein could trigger an immune response which the body could 'remember' if a subject became infected with the real virus.

In this study the researchers created exceptionally small gold nanorods, just 21 nanometres wide and 57 nanometres long, which were almost exactly the same shape and size as the virus itself. The gold nanorods were successfully coated with the RSV F proteins and were bonded strongly thanks to the unique physical and chemical properties of the nanorods themselves.

The researchers then tested the ability of the gold nanorods to deliver the F protein to specific immune cells, known as dendritic cells, which were taken from adult blood samples.

Dendritic cells function as processing cells in the immune system, taking the important information from a virus, such as the F protein, and presenting it to cells that can perform an action against them?the T cells are just one example of a cell that can take action.

Once the F protein-coated nanorods were added to a sample of dendritic cells, the researchers analysed the proliferation of T cells as a proxy for an immune response. They found that the protein-coated nanorods caused the T cells to proliferate significantly more compared to non-coated nanorods and just the F protein alone.

Not only did this prove that the coated-nanorods were capable of mimicking the virus and stimulating an immune response, it also showed that they were not toxic to human cells, offering significant safety advantages and increasing their potential as a real-life human vaccine.

Lead author of the study, Professor James Crowe, said: "A vaccine for RSV, which is the major cause of viral pneumonia in children, is sorely needed. This study shows that we have developed methods for putting RSV F protein into exceptionally small particles and presenting it to immune cells in a format that physically mimics the virus. Furthermore, the particles themselves are not infectious."

Due to the versatility of the gold nanorods, Professor Crowe believes that their potential use is not limited to RSV.

"This platform could be used to develop experimental vaccines for virtually any virus, and in fact other larger microbes such as bacteria and fungi.

"The studies we performed showed that the candidate vaccines stimulated human immune cells when they were interacted in the lab. The next steps to testing would be to test whether or not the vaccines work in vivo" Professor Crowe continued.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/5VWEsxow-z0/130625192547.htm

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

'Nerdy' mold needs breaking to recruit women into computer science

'Nerdy' mold needs breaking to recruit women into computer science [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Alexander Brown
alexander.brown@springer.com
212-620-8063
Springer Science+Business Media

Media can change stereotypes that discourage women from entering many fields

The 'computer nerd' is a well-known stereotype in our modern society. While this stereotype is inaccurate, it still has a chilling effect on women pursuing a qualification in computer science, according to a new paper by Sapna Cheryan from the University of Washington in the US, and colleagues. However, when this image is downplayed in the print media, women express more interest in further education in computer science. The work is published online in Springer's journal, Sex Roles.

Despite years of effort, it has proven difficult to recruit women into many fields that are perceived to be masculine and male-dominated, including computer science. The image of a lone computer scientist, concerned only with technology, is in stark contrast to a more people-oriented or traditionally feminine image. Understanding what prevents women from entering computer science is key to achieving gender parity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Cheryan and team sought to prove that the shortage of women in computer science and other scientific fields is not only due to a lack of interest in the subject matter on the part of women. In a first study, 293 college students from two US West Coast universities were asked to provide descriptions of computer science majors. The authors wanted to discover what the stereotypical computer scientist looks like in students' minds.

Both women and men spontaneously offered an image of computer scientists as technology-oriented, intensely focused on computers, intelligent and socially unskilled. These characteristics contrast with the female gender role, and are inconsistent with how many women see themselves.

The way a social group is represented in the media also influences how people think about that group and their relation to it. In a second study, the researchers manipulated the students' images of a computer scientist, using fabricated newspaper articles, to examine the influence of these media on women's interest in entering the field. A total of 54 students read articles about computer science majors that described these students as either fitting, or not fitting, the current stereotype. Students were then asked to rate their interest in computer science.

Exposure to a newspaper article claiming that computer science majors no longer fit current preconceived notions increased women's interest in majoring in computer science. These results were in comparison to those of exposure to a newspaper article claiming that computer science majors do indeed reflect the stereotype. Men, however, were unaffected by how computer science majors were represented.

The authors conclude, "Broadening the image of the people in the field using media representations may help to recruit more women into male-dominated fields such as computer science. Moreover, the media may be a powerful transmitter of stereotypes, and prevent many women from entering these fields."

###

Reference

Cheryan S et al (2013). The Stereotypical Computer Scientist: Gendered Media Representations as a Barrier to Inclusion for Women; Sex Roles; DOI 10.1007/s11199-013-0296-x.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


'Nerdy' mold needs breaking to recruit women into computer science [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Alexander Brown
alexander.brown@springer.com
212-620-8063
Springer Science+Business Media

Media can change stereotypes that discourage women from entering many fields

The 'computer nerd' is a well-known stereotype in our modern society. While this stereotype is inaccurate, it still has a chilling effect on women pursuing a qualification in computer science, according to a new paper by Sapna Cheryan from the University of Washington in the US, and colleagues. However, when this image is downplayed in the print media, women express more interest in further education in computer science. The work is published online in Springer's journal, Sex Roles.

Despite years of effort, it has proven difficult to recruit women into many fields that are perceived to be masculine and male-dominated, including computer science. The image of a lone computer scientist, concerned only with technology, is in stark contrast to a more people-oriented or traditionally feminine image. Understanding what prevents women from entering computer science is key to achieving gender parity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Cheryan and team sought to prove that the shortage of women in computer science and other scientific fields is not only due to a lack of interest in the subject matter on the part of women. In a first study, 293 college students from two US West Coast universities were asked to provide descriptions of computer science majors. The authors wanted to discover what the stereotypical computer scientist looks like in students' minds.

Both women and men spontaneously offered an image of computer scientists as technology-oriented, intensely focused on computers, intelligent and socially unskilled. These characteristics contrast with the female gender role, and are inconsistent with how many women see themselves.

The way a social group is represented in the media also influences how people think about that group and their relation to it. In a second study, the researchers manipulated the students' images of a computer scientist, using fabricated newspaper articles, to examine the influence of these media on women's interest in entering the field. A total of 54 students read articles about computer science majors that described these students as either fitting, or not fitting, the current stereotype. Students were then asked to rate their interest in computer science.

Exposure to a newspaper article claiming that computer science majors no longer fit current preconceived notions increased women's interest in majoring in computer science. These results were in comparison to those of exposure to a newspaper article claiming that computer science majors do indeed reflect the stereotype. Men, however, were unaffected by how computer science majors were represented.

The authors conclude, "Broadening the image of the people in the field using media representations may help to recruit more women into male-dominated fields such as computer science. Moreover, the media may be a powerful transmitter of stereotypes, and prevent many women from entering these fields."

###

Reference

Cheryan S et al (2013). The Stereotypical Computer Scientist: Gendered Media Representations as a Barrier to Inclusion for Women; Sex Roles; DOI 10.1007/s11199-013-0296-x.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/ssm-mn062413.php

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Italy court convicts Berlusconi on sex charges

By Silvia Aloisi and Sara Rossi

MILAN (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi was handed a seven-year jail sentence on Monday for abuse of office and paying for sex with a minor, adding to the complications facing Italy's fragile left-right government.

The former prime minister will not have to serve any jail time before he has exhausted an appeals process that could take years, but the conviction angered members of his centre-right party who questioned whether he should continue to support the coalition.

The 76-year-old media tycoon expressed outrage at the verdict which he said was politically motivated.

"An incredible sentence has been issued of a violence never seen or heard of before, to try to eliminate me from the political life of this country," Berlusconi said in a statement.

"Yet again I intend to resist against this persecution because I am absolutely innocent and I don't want in any way to abandon my battle to make Italy a country that is truly free and just."

Berlusconi's lawyers announced they would appeal against the ruling that also banned him from holding public office.

Berlusconi was found guilty of paying for sex with former teenage nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, better known under her stage name "Ruby the Heartstealer", during "bunga bunga" sex parties at his palatial home near Milan.

The panel of three women judges also convicted him of abuse of office by arranging to have El Mahroug released from police custody when she was held in a separate theft case.

The verdict closes a two-year trial that has mesmerized Italy with its accounts of wild sex parties at the billionaire's villa outside Milan while he was premier in 2010.

Several members of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party have urged him to withdraw his backing for the government of centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta, which needs the PDL's support.

"It's disgusting, a disgrace," one of his most faithful lieutenants, senior party official Daniela Santanche, told reporters in front of the Milan court.

She said the ruling would not impact the functioning of the government, but other Berlusconi allies were less conciliatory.

"It is absurd to think that the current government can continue to work calmly while the leader of one of the parties backing it is being massacred politically," said PDL senator Sandro Bondi.

Letta's Democratic Party (PD), which was dealt its own blow on Monday by the resignation of Equal Opportunities and Sports Minister Josefa Idem over a tax evasion scandal, said the Berlusconi verdict should be respected and called on the PDL to show restraint.

Berlusconi says the purported sex parties were elegant dinners where the female guests performed "burlesque" shows. El Mahroug denied having sex with Berlusconi.

CALL TO POLICE

In the verdict, the judges said around 30 witnesses in the case, including Deputy Foreign Minister Bruno Archi, should be investigated for perjury for their testimony in favor of Berlusconi.

In May 2010, the then-prime minister called a Milan police station to instruct officials to release El Mahroug, who was being held on suspicion of stealing a 3,000 euro ($3,900)bracelet.

A Brazilian prostitute who lived with El Mahroug had called the premier on his mobile phone to tell him she had been arrested, prosecutors said.

Berlusconi's lawyers have said he made the call to avoid a diplomatic incident because he believed that El Mahroug, who is actually Moroccan, was the grand-daughter of Hosni Mubarak, then the Egyptian president.

The prosecution said he was anxious to cover up the relations he had with her at his sex parties.

The media magnate has recently used his own television stations to promote his version of events, with his flagship Canale 5 channel broadcasting a prime-time documentary on the so-called "Ruby Trial".

The verdict is only part of Berlusconi's legal problems. Last month an appeals court upheld a four-year jail sentence against him for orchestrating a tax fraud scheme in his business dealings - leaving him just one more appeal, at the Supreme Court, which could come within a year.

Despite Berlusconi's professions of loyalty to Letta, he may eventually prefer to gamble on another election, in which he could potentially become prime minister once again.

Even if he opts to keep backing the government, the verdict could make parts of Letta's PD party highly uneasy and increase the coalition's instability, according to Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at Rome's Luiss University.

"The PD would be in the same majority with a person who has been condemned in the first degree for juvenile prostitution, which is not a trivial issue," he said before the ruling. "It would add up to a difficult situation." ($1 = 0.7637 euros)

(Additional reporting by Manuela D'Alessandro; Writing by Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-court-finds-berlusconi-guilty-sex-charges-153729068.html

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Justin Bieber Confirms Perpetual Love for Scooter Braun

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/justin-bieber-confirms-perpetual-love-for-scotter-braun/

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Neiman Marcus plans to raise up to $100M in IPO

NEW YORK (AP) ? Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus plans to raise up to $100 million by returning to the stock market with an initial public offering.

That amount is likely to change, though, as bankers gauge investor interest. The plan to go public, announced in a regulatory filing Monday, comes about eight years after private equity firms TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus bought Neiman Marcus for $5.1 billion.

Neiman Marcus has benefited from affluent shoppers who are willing to drop $1,000 for a pair of stilettos. During the recession, Neiman Marcus was not as hurt by the consumer spending pullback as other retailers, because the wealthy suffered less in the poor economy.

Still, the initial public offering comes at a time when the stock market, which influences luxury spending, has become volatile.

Neiman Marcus won't receive any proceeds from the offering. The Dallas company operates 41 Neiman Marcus stores, two Bergdorf Goodman locations, and 35 discount shops under the Last Call brand. It also operates six Cusp stores, which cater to younger customers.

The Wall Street Journal article reported in late May that Neiman Marcus recently rebuffed a proposal that would involve buyout firm KKR & Co. investing in competitor Saks Inc., the operator of Saks Fifth Avenue, and then engineering a combination of Saks and Neiman.

According to the Journal, Neiman Marcus turned down the proposal for several reasons, including the terms and the complexity of the deal. At the time, Neiman's private equity owners were looking to sell the company outright or take it public.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday on its website that Canadian department store operator and Lord & Taylor parent Hudson's Bay has now emerged as a potential suitor for Saks Inc. It cited an anonymous source familiar with the issue. Hudson Bay could not be immediately reached for comment. A Saks spokeswoman declined to comment.

Dan Hess, CEO of Merchant Forecast, an independent research firm that monitors the retail sector, believes that an initial public offering would do well and that there's an investor appetite for luxury companies.

Neiman Marcus, founded in 1907 by Herbert Marcus Sr., his sister Carrie Marcus, and her husband A.L Neiman, has had a series of owners during its rich history.

The company was sold to department store operator Broadway-Hale in 1969 and began planning national expansion outside of Texas. Through a series of deals, the retailer came under the ownership of the conglomerate Harcourt General, which also published textbooks and owned movie theaters.

In 1999, Harcourt General spun off Neiman Marcus stores and Bergdorf Goodman as its separate, publicly traded entity, the Neiman Marcus Group. In 2005, the current owners took the company private.

Neiman Marcus has a long-held reputation for coddling its wealthy shoppers with customer service that goes above and beyond the standard. In 1984, it established InCircle, the industry's first customer loyalty program. The program now has 144,000 members and generated 40 percent of the company's total revenue in the latest fiscal year. Neiman Marcus expanded its business online in 2000, becoming the first major luxury store to do so.

Now, like other upscale retailers, Neiman Marcus is trying to reinvent its shopping experience for its customers who are increasingly using their tablets and smartphones to research and buy their designer goods.

In the filing, Neiman Marcus says it plans to further meld the online experience with shopping at its stores. It also plans to expand its Last Call and Cusp chains.

In the SEC filing, Neiman Marcus Inc. did not disclose how many shares would be offered, or what the projected price range would be. A regulatory filing by the company also did not disclose what exchange it expects to list the stock on or what ticker symbol it plans to use.

For fiscal 2012, Neiman Marcus had net income of $140.1 million on revenue of $4.35 billion. The retailer had net income of $31.6 million and revenue of $4 billion in fiscal 2011.

Earlier this month the company reported that its fiscal third-quarter net income increased 13 percent on stronger sales, particularly online. Revenue from its online business jumped 15 percent in the period. Revenue from stores open at least a year, considered a key indicator of financial performance because it strips away the effects from recently opened or closed stores, increased 3.6 percent.

_____

Follow Anne D'Innocenzio on Twitter: ?http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/neiman-marcus-plans-raise-100m-ipo-144156556.html

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AOL Launches Its Own News Reader

AOL Launches Its Own News Reader
With Google Reader's demise looming, a host of media companies have jumped to fill the impending void. The latest? Good ol' AOL.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/06/aol-launches-its-own-reader/

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Surprise species at risk from climate change

June 24, 2013 ? Most species at greatest risk from climate change are not currently conservation priorities, according to an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) study that has introduced a pioneering method to assess the vulnerability of species to climate change.

The paper, published in the journal PLOS ONE, is one of the biggest studies of its kind, assessing all of the world's birds, amphibians and corals. It draws on the work of more than 100 scientists over a period of five years, including Wits PhD student and leader of the study, Wendy Foden.

Up to 83% of birds, 66% of amphibians and 70% of corals that were identified as highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are not currently considered threatened with extinction on The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They are therefore unlikely to be receiving focused conservation attention, according to the study.

"The findings revealed some alarming surprises," says Foden, who conducted the study while formerly working for the IUCN Global Species' Programme's Climate Change Unit, which she founded six years ago. "We hadn't expected that so many species and areas that were not previously considered to be of concern would emerge as highly vulnerable to climate change. Clearly, if we simply carry on with conservation as usual, without taking climate change into account, we'll fail to help many of the species and areas that need it most."

The study's novel approach looks at the unique biological and ecological characteristics that make species more or less sensitive or adaptable to climate change. Conventional methods have focussed largely on measuring the amount of change to which species are likely to be exposed.

The new approach has already been applied to the species-rich Albertine Rift region of Central and East Africa, identifying those plants and animals that are important for human use and are most likely to decline due to climate change. These include 33 plants that are used as fuel, construction materials, food and medicine, 19 species of freshwater fish that are an important source of food and income and 24 mammals used primarily as a source of food.

"The study has shown that people in the region rely heavily on wild species for their livelihoods, and that this will undoubtedly be disrupted by climate change," says Jamie Carr of IUCN Global Species Programme and lead author of the Albertine Rift study. "This is particularly important for the poorest and most marginalised communities who rely most directly on wild species to meet their basic needs."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/oMktLx5kFuc/130624075848.htm

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Sugar solution makes tissues see-through

June 23, 2013 ? Japanese researchers have developed a new sugar and water-based solution that turns tissues transparent in just three days, without disrupting the shape and chemical nature of the samples. Combined with fluorescence microscopy, this technique enabled them to obtain detailed images of a mouse brain at an unprecedented resolution.

The team from the RIKEN Center for Developmental biology reports their finding today in Nature Neuroscience.

Over the past few years, teams in the USA and Japan have reported a number of techniques to make biological samples transparent, that have enabled researchers to look deep down into biological structures like the brain.

"However, these clearing techniques have limitations because they induce chemical and morphological damage to the sample and require time-consuming procedures," explains Dr. Takeshi Imai, who led the study.

SeeDB, an aqueous fructose solution that Dr. Imai developed with colleagues Drs. Meng-Tsen Ke and Satoshi Fujimoto, overcomes these limitations.

Using SeeDB, the researchers were able to make mouse embryos and brains transparent in just three days, without damaging the fine structures of the samples, or the fluorescent dyes they had injected in them. They could then visualize the neuronal circuitry inside a mouse brain, at the whole-brain scale, under a customized fluorescence microscope without making mechanical sections through the brain.

They describe the detailed wiring patterns of commissural fibers connecting the right and left hemispheres of the cerebral cortex, in three dimensions, for the first time.

Dr. Imai and colleagues report that they were also able to visualize in three dimensions the wiring of mitral cells in the olfactory bulb, which is involved the detection of smells, at single-fiber resolution.

"Because SeeDB is inexpensive, quick, easy and safe to use, and requires no special equipment, it will prove useful for a broad range of studies, including the study of neuronal circuits in human samples," explain the authors.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/4Wo5sA_hYKA/130623144947.htm

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