mendicant geese: 2012

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Apple

A prepared shopper waits for the Seattle Microsoft Store to open, Oct. 26, 2012.

A man waits for the Microsoft Store to open in Seattle on Friday

Courtesy Microsoft.

The first thing you?ll notice about Windows 8 is that it isn?t one operating system. It?s two. There are a couple different ways to do pretty much everything in Microsoft?s new OS. This sounds complicated, but it?s by design. Microsoft?s main goal in building Windows 8 was flexibility?the operating system is meant to run on traditional PCs, touchscreen tablets, and a new class of in-between ?hybrid? devices (picture an iPad with a slide-out keyboard). To make all this possible, Microsoft shoved two different interfaces into Windows 8. For every computing task, you can use traditional Windows programs or new, ?modern? programs, which look and work completely differently from the old stuff. Microsoft is hoping that you?and just as important, programmers?will love the new way. And it?s hoping that all this novelty will propel Windows back to the top of the tech world.

I hope it succeeds. If Windows? new interface takes off, it will be a boon for users, programmers, and for the tech industry as a whole. It will make for better, faster, safer computers, and probably ones that last longer, too. But that?s a big if. The trouble for Microsoft is that Windows 8?s new programming model is pretty similar to Apple?s model?it limits what apps can do, and it requires apps to go through Microsoft?s built-in Windows Store. Lots of Windows users, and lots of Windows programmers, are hooked on the old way of doing things, and they may not take to the Apple-esque model.

The bigger problem is timing: The Windows Store would have been a hit five years ago. Today it?s just one of many app stores, and the Windows name no longer carries the cachet with programmers it once did. In the 1990s, Windows beat the Mac because it attracted more people to create more and better software?and more and better software made Windows better for users, which led to more software, and on and on in a virtuous network effects loop. But now Microsoft finds itself on the wrong end of this phenomenon. Apple?and, to a lesser extent, Android?are winning the network effects war, and it?s going to be very hard for Microsoft to come back.

But first, for people who haven?t used Windows 8, let me describe what I mean by the ?old? and ?new? way of getting stuff done. When you turn on any new Windows computer, your programs will run in one of two distinct interfaces. First, there?s the Windows you?re familiar with?the classic interface that lets you run multiple programs in different windows at the same, and that works best with a mouse and keyboard. In Windows 8, that interface is called the Desktop. If you buy a computer with Windows 8 and you don?t like the fact that everything?s different, just click the Desktop icon and you?ll feel right at home.

Then there?s the new Windows interface. Microsoft used to call it ?Metro,? but that name was too simple (and already trademarked by somebody else), so now, insanely and noncatchily, the company refers to the interface as the ?Modern UI style.? This modern interface is Windows 8?s main view; it?s what greets you every time you start up your Windows 8 computer. Apps designed for this new view are completely different from Windows programs of yore. First, new apps are optimized for touchscreen devices?app elements are big enough to hit with a finger, and the system can respond to multifinger gestures. What?s more, these new Windows programs don?t run in windows. Instead, by default, a ?modern? Windows app takes up your whole screen, and at most you can have two modern apps on your screen at the same time?one huge one and one in a small sidebar. In other words, these are like the apps you run on your iPad.

Just as iOS apps are only available through Apple?s App Store, you can get modern UI style Windows apps only through Windows 8?s built-in Windows Store. And the Windows Store has strict rules: Apps designed for the modern UI must declare how they?re going to use your system, they?re limited to performing only a few actions in the ?background? (that is, when you switch to other apps), they?ve got to be kind to your computer?s battery, and they?ve got to be easy to uninstall and upgrade. In February, when I first wrote about this new regime for Windows programs, many loyal Windows fans responded with horror. The Windows Store seemed to represent the Apple-ificiation of Microsoft. One of the things people love about Windows is the freedom it gives to programmers and users?you can run pretty much any program you want, and programs have the ability to access every part of your system. The new model circumscribes those liberties. It transforms Windows machines into something closer to appliances.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=efcc8c7632cd6514e6c4720cd4fe93c8

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Monday, October 29, 2012

New Pakistan outreach could aid Afghan peace deal

FILE - In this Aug. 5, 2012 file photo, Pakistani Taliban patrol in their stronghold of Shawal in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan. Pakistan has stepped up outreach to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the war-torn country.The target of the diplomatic push has mainly been non-Pashtun political leaders who have been at odds with Pakistan for years because of the country's historical support for the Afghan Taliban, a Pashtun movement. (AP Photo/ Ishtiaq Mahsud, File)

FILE - In this Monday, May 14, 2012, file photo, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, talks to reporters in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistan has stepped up outreach to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the war-torn country. The target of the diplomatic push has mainly been non-Pashtun political leaders who have been at odds with Pakistan for years because of the country?s historical support for the Afghan Taliban, a Pashtun movement. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)

FILE-In this Nov 4, 2009 file picture Abdullah Abdullah, former Afghan Foreign Minister, gestures during a press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan. The influential politician, who was runner-up to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 election, said Pakistani intelligence officials contacted him in previous years, but he refused to speak with them because he did not believe communication should be carried out in secret. Pakistan has stepped up outreach to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the war-torn country. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Pakistan has increased efforts to reach out to some of its biggest enemies in Afghanistan, a significant policy shift that could prove crucial to U.S.-backed efforts to strike a peace deal in the neighboring country.

The target of the diplomatic push has mainly been non-Pashtun political leaders who have been at odds with Pakistan for years because of the country's historical support for the Afghan Taliban, a Pashtun movement.

Many of the leaders fought against the Taliban when the fundamentalist Islamic group seized control of Afghanistan in the 1990s with Pakistan's help, and have accused Islamabad of maintaining support for the insurgents following the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 ? allegations denied by the government.

Many experts agree that Pakistan continues to see the Taliban as an ally, albeit a shaky one, in countering the influence of archenemy India in Afghanistan. But they also say Islamabad no longer believes the insurgents can take over the country or wants them to, a common misperception in the West.

"A Taliban victory on the other side of the border would give a huge boost to domestic militants fighting the Pakistani state," said Zahid Hussain, a journalist who has written extensively about Islamabad's war against the Pakistani Taliban.

Pakistan is also worried that unrest in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of most foreign troops in 2014 could provide the Pakistani Taliban with greater space to establish sanctuaries across the border.

The Afghan and Pakistani Taliban are allies but have focused on different enemies. The Afghan Taliban have battled local and foreign forces in Afghanistan, while the Pakistani Taliban have mainly waged war against Islamabad.

Pakistan's concerns have led it to conclude that a peace agreement that includes all Afghan groups is in its best interests, and contact with its traditional foes among the non-Pashtuns is necessary to achieve that goal, said Moeed Yusuf, South Asia adviser for the United States Institute of Peace.

"I think the fundamental point here is that there is a serious realization among some people who matter in Pakistan that they can't continue to put all their eggs in the Taliban basket because it is too shaky," said Yusuf. "This is a major shift, and a shift that I think everybody should welcome."

The outreach comes as Pakistan, Afghanistan and the U.S. have stepped up efforts to breathe new life into the Taliban peace process, which has been hamstrung by distrust among all the parties involved.

The U.S. and Pakistan recently set up working groups to identify which Taliban leaders would be open to reconciliation and to ensure those holed up on Pakistani territory would be able to travel to the site of talks. Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in discussions to revive a joint commission set up to discuss the peace process.

Pakistan is seen as key to a peace deal because of its ties with the Taliban, and there is hope that Islamabad's increased engagement with non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan will facilitate the process.

"I think one of Pakistan's realizations is that if you want to play a bigger role to reconcile all these groups, you need to reach out to every group," said Rahimullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban. "They will be pushing the Taliban to share power with all these people, but it won't be easy because the Taliban aren't known to share power and the U.S. doesn't want to give them a major share."

Islamabad's historical support for the Taliban and other Pashtuns in Afghanistan, who make up about 40 percent of the population of 30 million, is partly rooted in the sizable number of Pashtuns who live in Pakistan. The ethnic group has always been seen as the best bet for furthering Pakistan's interests in the country.

Pakistan first advertised its overtures to non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan in February when Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar met with a range of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders during a visit to Kabul. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf followed suit in July when he traveled to Afghanistan and invited the group to the opening of the new Pakistani Embassy in Kabul.

There have also been less publicized contacts by Pakistan's ambassador to Kabul, Mohammad Sadiq, and the country's army and intelligence service, according to Pakistani and Afghan officials.

Khar said the policy shift had been in the works for a while but was like a steering a large ship in a new direction.

"You're not able to do it immediately," said the foreign minister.

Pakistan's powerful army is the true arbiter of the country's Afghan policy, but experts expressed doubt that the Foreign Ministry would have pushed ahead without the support of the generals, who have historically had the closest relationship to the Taliban.

One key Afghan leader who has met with the Pakistanis, Abdullah Abdullah, said he appreciated the country's recent attempt to reach out because it was done publicly. The influential politician, who was runner-up to Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 election, said Pakistani intelligence officials contacted him in previous years, but he refused to speak with them because he did not believe communication should be carried out in secret.

"I see a lot of good in reaching out, in engagement, in dialogue," said Abdullah, who is half Pashtun but draws much of his support from the Tajik community.

The outreach has rattled the Taliban, who have warned Pakistani officials that they can't trust the non-Pashtuns, Yousufzai said.

Pakistan will have to overcome significant distrust among the non-Pashtuns. The government has old ties to some of the leaders, who worked with Pakistan in the 1980s to push the Soviets out of Afghanistan, but Islamabad's subsequent support for the Taliban created a huge amount of bad blood.

Despite that, the Pakistanis are hopeful.

"The Pakistani side's view of Afghan negotiations is that you kill on one day and kiss on the next, so while this will be very tough, they think that it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that they may actually get somewhere," said Yusuf, the South Asia analyst.

____

Vogt reported from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-10-27-Pakistan-Afghan%20Outreach/id-6b86d4aacbbb42f2a743185ed3a748a1

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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Soccer-Brazil to play Iraq - in Sweden? Well, it's a trend

SAO PAULO, Oct 10 (Reuters) - While football fans in European capitals will be watching their teams trying to qualify for the 2014 World Cup this week, Brazil supporters will need to travel all the way to Sweden and Poland - to see their side play Iraq and Japan.

That might seem odd but it is part of a trend of teams facing off thousands of miles from their home fans against often less-than-traditional opponents. Among the reasons: Time, money, and globalisation.

Sometimes the trend is a resounding success, such as when Brazil and Argentina filled Giants Stadium for a seven-goal thriller in June. Sometimes not, like last week, when another game between the two was cancelled after the lights failed in the run-down Argentine stadium where it was scheduled to take place.

Often, the matchups and venues sound completely random. Ireland played Italy in Belgium and Oman in England. England played Brazil in Qatar and Italy in Switzerland. Argentina played Nigeria in Bangladesh and Venezuela in India.

The trend is unusual to older supporters who are used to seeing their national side playing at their national stadium. A debate is raging over where the globe-trotting is ultimately good or bad for fans - particularly in Brazil, the undisputed leader in the field.

Part of Brazil's travelling is because it will host the 2014 World Cup. Therefore, it qualifies automatically and is forced to prepare with friendly matches.

Brazil will face Iraq in Malmo on Oct. 11 and then head to Wroclaw to face Japan five days later. So far this year, seven of their nine friendlies have been played overseas.

Meanwhile, decent venues are hard to find in Brazil as many of the biggest stadiums are undergoing renovation for 2014. With most powerful South American and European teams involved in the qualifying rounds, top class rivals are also hard to come by.

TIME AND MONEY

Yet there are other, arguably more important factors that are not related to Brazil hosting the Cup.

Time is one of them because most Brazilian internationals play in Europe. Fifteen of the 23 Brazilians named for this week's double header play their club football in the Old World.

Holding matches close to their bases, rather than making players cross the Atlantic twice in four or five days, keeps the players fresh and their clubs happy.

The Brazilian Soccer Federation, or CBF, has an agreement with European clubs not to make their players fly more than five hours for friendly matches that are not staged on official FIFA dates. That rules out an 11-hour flight to Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.

A bigger element, however, could be cash.

The CBF last year signed a long-term deal that handed over control of its friendly matches to the Saudi-based International Sports Events (ISE).

ISE, who pay the CBF a reported $1.05 million for each game, chooses Brazil's opponent and the city where the game will be played.

The games are "organised, promoted and commercialised" by Pitch International, a London-based sports marketing firm.

The deal, signed by Ricardo Teixeira, the CBF president who resigned his position in March after a spate of corruption scandals, is not popular with Brazilians, who feel facing third-rate opposition in small cities far from home is degrading for the only team to win the World Cup five times.

The managing director of Pitch Int. declined requests to explain how the deal works. Teixeira's successor, Jose Maria Marin, told Reuters: "If Brazil plays abroad it is because it is good for the CBF and good for the Brazil team."

But he and other top confederation officials have suggested elsewhere that not being able to choose who or where they play is hardly ideal.

"We want strong opponents," Marin told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper last month. "But that is not always possible. What is important is getting used to pressure."

DISAFFECTED FANS

That pressure is another complicating factor in how and where Brazil prepare for 2014.

The Brazilian team is one of the favourites to win the tournament on home soil. But they cannot count on unstinting support from their own fans, particularly in the two biggest cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Brazil will open the World Cup at Corinthians' Itaquera stadium in Sao Paulo and the final will be held at the Maracana in Rio.

However, fans in the two cities have booed their own players in recent years, perhaps encouraging the CBF to embrace games abroad or in the provinces, where supporters have fewer chances to see their idols close-up and are more supportive.

Thousands of fans turned on the team during last month's 1-0 win over South Africa in Sao Paulo. A few days later, there was a more festive atmosphere in Recife and the team thrashed China 8-0.

Even outside Brazil, the inability to choose where and when the teams plays has caused embarrassment. A friendly against Argentina was cancelled last week with the players already in uniform and on the field.

The floodlights failed at the home of Club Atletico Sarmiento in Resistencia, a small city in northern Argentina. The club plays in the fourth tier of Argentine football and many wondered why one of the biggest draws in international football were playing at such an run-down venue.

The concern is unlikely to dissipate in the run up to the World Cup and there are calls for the CBF to abrogate the contract with ISE. Especially with fans increasingly alienated from the once-loved national side.

"Down with the Sele?ao," read a recent front page headline in sports newspaper Lance. "Lance supports Brazil but things can't keep on the way they are," the paper's editor-in-chief Luiz Fernando Gomes wrote in an editorial. (Editing by Brian Winter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/soccer-brazil-play-iraq-sweden-well-trend-185415344--sow.html

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bologna tori: Travel Leisure City Guides and Information: Go to

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Source: http://robertsonvance94.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/travel-leisure-city-guides-and-information-go-to-poppit-sands-and.html

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Source: http://bologna-tori.blogspot.com/2012/10/travel-leisure-city-guides-and.html

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Stock futures edge lower after Alcoa results, outlook

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures edged lower on Wednesday after Alcoa kicked off earnings season by warning of a slight slowdown in some markets, highlighting concerns about sluggish global growth, even as its quarterly results beat expectations.

* Stronger demand for aluminum products from airplane and automobile producers helped Alcoa Inc's third-quarter profit beat analysts expectations, but it scaled back its global aluminum consumption outlook for 2012, citing the slowdown in China. Alcoa shares lost 1.4 percent to $9 in light premarket trade.

* China's slowdown is expected to rein in corporate earnings in the third quarter and dent profit forecasts as the world's second-largest economy feels the effect of the debt crisis in the euro zone, a key trading partner of the Asian nation.

* Earlier in the week, the World Bank cut its growth forecast for East Asia on concerns China's slowdown could last longer than expected.

* Analysts forecast third-quarter earnings of Wall Street's S&P 500 <.spx> companies would fall 2.3 percent from the year-ago quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data, which would be the first drop in U.S. quarterly earnings in three years.

* According to data through Tuesday, 94 companies in the benchmark S&P index have issued negative outlooks, compared with 22 positive pre-announcements, for a ratio of 4.3, the weakest showing since the third quarter of 2001.

* Going against general declines was Yum Brands Inc , which gained 2.1 percent to $67.42 in premarket trading. The KFC parent company had raised its full-year outlook after sales in China held up, despite that nation's cooling economy.

* S&P 500 futures shed 0.5 point and were slightly below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 37 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 3.5 points.

* U.S. engine maker Cummins Inc lowered its 2012 forecast for a second time this year, citing delays in customer spending due to a weakening global economy, and said it would cut up to 1500 jobs.

* Chevron Corp , the second-largest U.S. oil company, warned that third-quarter profits would be "substantially lower" than in the previous quarter as a hurricane and maintenance curbed its oil and gas output and a fire hit its refining arm.

* Earnings from warehouse chain Costco Wholesale Corp were a bright spot; the company reported a 27 percent jump in fourth quarter profit, on higher sales and membership fees.

* Coming on the heels of a 2013 profit forecast that was cut last month, FedEx Corp said it plans to slash costs at its underperforming express air freight and services divisions, with profit improvements of $1.7 billion planned at those operations over the next four years.

* Economic data expected Wednesday include wholesale inventories for August at 10:00 a.m. (1400 GMT) and the Federal Reserve's Beige Book of economic conditions at 2:00 p.m. (1800 GMT).

* European shares were lower for a third straight session, hurt by expectations of weak corporate results that may weigh on equity markets into next month. <.eu/>

* Asian shares fell, with Japanese stocks sliding 2 percent to a two-month low, on concerns that the corporate results season will reveal weaker earnings in the face of flagging global economic growth.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/stock-index-futures-flat-alcoa-eyed-083802049--finance.html

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LG Optimus L9 on T-Mobile hands-on - Know Your Cell

The great thing about being at conferences like MobileCon is getting a chance to be one of the first to get a look at devices like the just-announced LG Optimus L9 for T-Mobile.

The LG Optimus L9 sports a 4.5-inch qHD display, has a dual-core 1GHz processor, T-Mobile 4G and a 5-megapixel camera. It's not exactly the highest of high-end phones but it definitely has enough power packed inside and it will launch with Ice Cream Sandwich and be able to be upgraded to Android Jelly Bean.?

The Optimus L9 feels pretty good in your hands, although it's a tad bit boxy. That kind of design is familiar if you've ever touch the Optimus 4X HD?but the L9 does fit better in your hand, in my opinion. We'll have a review for you as soon as we possibly can but check out these other pictures of the LG Optimus L9 until then.?

Source: http://www.knowyourcell.com/news/1626871/lg_optimus_l9_on_tmobile_handson_photos.html

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As Online Retailers Launch Vendor Financing, Is Apple Credit Corp ...

As we have been saying for over a year now, there are two key issues (one of which follows logically from the other) that central bankers are banging their heads against: the increasing scarcity of money good-assets, i.e., credible collateral, that can be pledged in exchange for debt at both the private and public level, and the collapsing cash flows at the corporate and household level (both incidentally direct artifacts of ubiquitous central planning and central banker intervention). This, among various other reasons chief among which is the parallel collapse in CapEx and R&D spending at the corporate level, is the main reason for the now secular decline in corporate revenues, which in turn will impact corporate profitability for years to come (now that the easy cost cuts have been made and firms have no choice but to cut into the muscle), and why any expectations that currency dilution will transform into higher profits in a time when input costs rise far more aggressively than revenues, are merely pipe dreams, as is the market's obsession with expanding PE multiples. Perhaps the best confirmation that the much needed cash flows continue to not materialize, is the news that first Amazon, and now Google, are slowly migrating to a model of vendor financing, whereby they provide credit to their product and service vendors to stimulate top line growth. And while this may boost AMZN and GOOG stock price briefly, all it indicates is what we have all know for a long time: the US consumer is once again tapped out, and is unwilling and/or unable to spend money at the rate needed to justify either the forecast S&P earnings or the applied multiple, confirming fundamentals are even more disjointed from market surreality than previously expected.

From the FT:

Google is getting into the credit business for the first time, with the launch on Monday of a programme in the UK to finance purchases of its search advertising by businesses.
?
The move marks the opening of a new front in the battle between the biggest internet companies, as they turn to their balance sheets as a source of competitive advantage. Amazon said last week that it had begun making loans to independent sellers that offer their products on its marketplace, marking the online retailer?s first move into financial services.

Google?s decision to issue its own credit card, which will also be made available in the US within weeks and other unspecified countries later, signals the company?s first attempt to use its huge cash reserves to support its core search advertising business by subsidising low-interest rate credit lines.
?
It said it would offer customers credit of between $200 and $100,000 a month to pay for their use of Adwords, which places messages next to the results in its search engine and made up the bulk of its $37bn in advertising revenues last year.

Where it gets downright scary however, is the admission of Google's Treasuer for the reason why Google is entering the crediting business:

?They weren?t buying Adwords as much as they need to,? said Brent Callinicos, Google?s treasurer. A pilot lending programme begun in the US a year ago had led to customers advertising more, he added.

Or, stated differently, we have crossed the IRR threshold where without Google's model no longer generates the rate of return our shareholders demand of it. The same shareholders who recently pushed Google to its all time high price and who are perfectly oblivious to this very disturbing dynamic below the otherwise shiny surface.

As for Amazon's endless "diversification" strategy, no surprise there. The one time retailer, which is now into video streaming, cloud sharing, stock exchanging, who knows what else and recently entered the real estate business, has been desperate to expand into something, anything, that will boost its meager profitability, so far without success. The time to experiment may have now run out, since AMZN now too has to provide debt to lever up its "vendors":

Amazon also indicated that its lending was aimed at credit-starved
businesses that would otherwise struggle to finance initiatives such as
expanding the inventory of products they sold on its site.

?We?re
providing a solution to a problem that is vexing many sellers,? Amazon
said. ?A lack of access to cash can inhibit their growth.?

What is left unsaid, is that a lack of cash will lead to a lack of transactions, and a lack of commissions which will immediately crash AMZN's already razor thin margins.

Finally, the admission that corporate cash now has to be used to fund the lowest possible returning IRR project, where discharges and bad loans will soon galore as the ongoing depression once again strikes with a vengeance, in the process crippling long-term profitability prospects, will not be easy to extract. Instead we get spin:

Google executives did not rule out going deeper into financial services with the provision of more lending products to the small and medium-sized businesses that make up the bulk of its 1m search advertising customers, though they said the company was not planning any moves at present.

?

?We are helping them, uniquely, with online marketing ? we aren?t going into a finance business as Google,? said Francoise Brougher, vice-president of sales and operations for small and medium businesses at Google.

Of course not. For now. Because suddenly those massive growth multiples will have to be dramatically readjusted, not to mention starting to value online "retailers" as... banks?

Which finally brings us to the topic of Apple, and its Braeburn hedge fund, which for the time being is allocating its $120+ billion cash stash for safe purposes. How long before shareholders demand a boost to ROEs and insist that Apple pull an AMZN and/or GOOG, and launch Apple Credit Corp, providing credit cards that can only be used to purchase AAPL products?

If we were betting people we would say 3-6 months...

P.S. the currently offered Barclaycard financing option for Apple product purchases is not the same, as the balance sheet risk lies with Barclays, not with Apple's balance sheet. Soon that will change.

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Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-08/online-retailers-launch-vendor-financing-apple-credit-corp-imminent

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What the Penguin Update would Mean for Black Hat SEO and Social ...

Google first released its original Penguin algorithm update in April of this year, 2012; since then, at least one major secondary update has been unleashed and dozens, if not hundreds, of tiny ones have been released on a regular basis.

The original April penguin update deranked or in some way affected at least 3% of internet websites, the second major change to Penguin (in May) affected 0.1% of sites on the web. These figures are indeed small, when the whole of the internet with its hundreds of millions of domains is taken into account, but if you look at specific web niches, the Penguin effect has been quite heavy.

Google Penguin

In essence, since the very first day that Google released Penguin, it has aimed the algorithm at sites whose SEO practices were considered to be heavy on spam type tactics. This is part of a directed policy that actually began with the Panda update that came out in February of 2011 and also impacted SEO spam and low quality web pages.

While most of the internet has little or no involvement with so called ?black hat? SEO,? certain industries, like internet marketing, information sales, online ad revenue pages, and the online business community, were all impacted with above average percentages due to their tendency towards using more aggressive SEO tactics.

These optimization tactics consist of the following:

Link building spam:?Penguin went after websites that had worked at building links whose profile was unnatural and didn?t follow an organic link building pattern; in other words, sites that had either placed backlinks to numerous low quality content farms, blog comment threads, forums or had simply bought links from link farms. What Google wants are web pages that have backlinks coming to them because people actually have an interest in spreading the word about what?s being said: they?re sharing it on their own or letting a webmaster share his site through guest posts on relevant websites because he?s trustworthy in his niche.

Penguin also targeted websites whose backlink anchor text was entirely made up of the same one or two non-contextual keywords that the site was trying to rank for; the more proper approach would have been to use related words or phrases related to the content being discussed

Content Stuffing:?Another SEO tactic that was attacked by Penguin included ?keyword stuffing.? This SEO tactic involves gearing thinly written content towards the search spiders that Google sends out instead of human readers by stuffing the content with as many keywords and phrases as possible to make it noticeable. The result is often a garbled mess that is hard to understand in the worst cases and sounds just plain dumb for being too repetitive otherwise.

Again the logical preference of Google, which wants to deliver quality search results to its hundreds of millions of users, is that the content it ranks well for queries be of high quality, well written and informative, not just something a website owner created to get a high ranking for its own sake.

What Penguin will Continue to Mean for Black Hat SEO

These are the essential and key changes that have occurred since the Penguin algorithm came out, and there have been others that were more minor, but all were in roughly the same vein. Any future updates can logically be assumed to follow the same direction, targeted at black hatters.

This means that the parts of the SEO industry that have geared their rank building practices towards quick rank building methods which could be construed as black hat and inorganic should continue to worry, because their position under Google?s vast and ever more intelligent supervision will only become more and more difficult to maintain.

Of course, black hatters are flexible and almost always have a new trick or two up their sleeve as old methods die out.?But, Google?s algorithms are also getting smarter as search filtering technology improves.

Where Reliable SEO Really Lies

The future of SEO, at least for reliable long term results, seems to be headed in the direction of white hat tactics that relay on the fundamental rules of creating quality, informative content, building a reputation for expertise and creating the kind of trust that gets your content shared on others sites and gets you chances at guest posting on other reliable websites.

SEO in Social Networks

Furthermore, many new avenues of opportunity in exactly these areas are growing through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter, where you can build fan bases much more quickly than through Google ads and website-based references.

The new age of trust based Optimization through social media and other more classical tactics is growing larger every year. The social networks are also a great source of niche community interaction on a level not possible elsewhere except in blog comment threads.

This post was contributed by?Dirk Reagle. Dirk?s writing career has been vast and has spanned the greater length of two decades covering the tech industry. When he?s not writing about SEO, you can find him reviewing companies like www.orbitmedia.com or fishing with his two sons.

Source: http://socialhospitality.com/2012/10/what-the-penguin-update-means-for-seo-and-social-media-marketing/

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Monday, October 8, 2012

Romney to slam Obama foreign policy: ?Hope is not a strategy?

Romney campaigning in Florida (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

LEXINGTON, Va.?Looking to bolster his foreign policy credentials in the final weeks before Election Day, Mitt Romney will accuse President Barack Obama of "passive leadership" in the Middle East and will link last month's deadly attack on the United States consulate in Libya to a larger critique of what he'll describe as Obama's failed leadership overseas.

"Hope is not a strategy," Romney will argue in a Monday morning address at the Virginia Military Institute, according to excerpts released by his campaign.

Romney will use his speech to double down on his criticism of the Obama administration's response on the attack in Libya, which claimed the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens. The Romney team is hoping to capitalize on what they believe is the Obama administration's misstep in pointing to an anti-Islamic video as the trigger for last month's attack as well as criticism over whether the attack could have been stopped in the first place by beefing up security at its overseas outpost.

"The attacks on America last month should not be seen as random acts.?They are expressions of a larger struggle that is playing out across the broader Middle East--a region that is now in the midst of the most profound upheaval in a century. And the fault lines of this struggle can be seen clearly in Benghazi itself," Romney will say, according to his campaign.

He will argue the attack in Benghazi was "likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland" during the 9/11 attacks 11 years ago.

"This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the administration's attempts to convince us of that for so long," Romney will say. "No, as the administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others, especially women and girls; who are fighting to control much of the Middle East today; and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West."

Romney will also use the speech to offer new details on his overseas approach. Among other things, he is expected to call for more direct intervention in Syria, arguing that anti-government forces should have weapons. He will also call for the U.S. to be tougher on Iran, saying that if he's elected president he will "not hesitate to impose new sanctions" on the country to stop the country from acquiring nuclear capabilities.

The speech comes as Romney tries again to gain advantage over what he has repeatedly described as Obama's "weak" and "na?ve" foreign policy approach. But it also comes as Romney tries to clean up his own perceived foreign policy missteps, including his own widely criticized response to the attacks in Libya, in which he accused Obama of sympathizing with those who had launched the attacks there on and on diplomatic missions overseas.

Romney is also still trying to undo damage from an overseas trip he took in July that was largely overshadowed by his suggestion that London hadn't done enough to prepare for the Summer Olympics and by a swipe at Palestinians, whom he suggestion hadn't moved ahead economically because of their culture.

On Sunday, the Obama campaign used the trip to preemptively attack Romney's speech.

"We're not going to be lectured by someone who has been an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy every time he's dipped his toe in the foreign policy waters," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama launched a West Coast fundraising swing.

'The only person who has offended Europe more is probably Chevy Chase," Psaki added in an apparent nod to "National Lampoon's European Vacation."

Romney has come under criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for not offering enough details on what his foreign policy approach would be if he wins the White House. In previewing the speech Sunday, Romney aides argued he would offer "new details" on what his approach would be, but it was unclear exactly how far he would go in detailing exact policies.

"We've gotten various excuses about Benghazi, statements that (the White House) had to pull back from," Eliot Cohen, a former adviser to George W. Bush who is now advising Romney, told reporters Sunday. "But you haven't had an attempt to portray: What's going on here? How should we think about it? What should we do about it? Gov. Romney's going to do step forward and do the kind of things he would do as president--which is to lay out exactly those things."

But the excerpts of his speech included points that Romney has previously made before on the campaign trail, arguing the country's overseas leadership has diminished under Obama's watch.

"I believe that if America does not lead, others will--others who do not share our interests and our values--and the world will grow darker, for our friends and for us.? America's security and the cause of freedom cannot afford four more years like the last four years," Romney will say, according to excerpts. "I am running for president because I believe the leader of the free world has a duty, to our citizens, and to our friends everywhere, to use America's great influence--wisely, with solemnity and without false pride, but also firmly and actively--to shape events in ways that secure our interests, further our values, prevent conflict, and make the world better--not perfect, but better."

Olivier Knox contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romney-slam-obama-foreign-policy-hope-not-strategy-105233601--election.html

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Gridditor for iPhone and iPad review

Gridditor is an iPhone and iPad app that lets layer multiple filters to your photos and displays them in a unique way. Gridditor will shows you four filters at a time, one in each direction (up, down, left, right), and the farther you move in any direction on the grid, the stronger the effect gets. The gird preview allows you to see the effect of applying multiple filters at once and the randomization of the filters shows you creative possibilities you may not have considered otherwise.

Gridditor includes 19 different filters and effects that you can choose from. The default filters are contrasty, bright, vibrant, and dark, but you can change the initial set to be any four filters that you want. You can also individually choose each filter each time. To get a closer look at what one of the versions of your photo looks like, just tap it to make it bigger. If you like how it looks and want to apply the effect, tap the checkmark. Gridditor will the consider this new version the original and randomly choose 4 more effects.

When you're done applying filters to your photo with Gridditor, You can share it to Facebook, Twitter, Mail, assign it to a contact, save to your Camera Roll, or open in another photo editing app.

Gridditor's interface is particularly amazing on the iPad. On the iPhone, you can only see six square of the grid at at time, but on the iPad's big display, you can 12 of the 49 different versions of your photo at once.

The good

19 filters
Unique grid interface that lets you see different combinations of effects at once
Specifically choose which filters you want to consider, or let Gridditor randomly choose four of them for you
Repeat the process over and over
Share to Facebook and Twitter
Open In another photography app for further editing
Universal for iPhone and iPad

The bad

Some users are reporting that it repeated crashes (I have not experienced this on my iPhone 5 or 3rd generation iPad)

The conclusion

The screenshots for Gridditor really don't give it justice, so please be sure to watch the video above to see Gridditor in action. The grid interface, as opposed to just sliders, lets you compare different version of your photo side-by-side which ultimate speeds up the editing process, and with the randomization of filters combined with the interface, Gridditor will likely expose you to ideas that you would've never though of -- stretching your creativity.

$0.99 - Download Now

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Miss Manners on sentiments in the digital age

AP Photo/Universal Uclick

The Associated Press talked with Miss Manners to give readers some pro tips to deal with the evolving etiquette of expressing sincere sentiments in an increasingly impersonal, digital world.

By Heather Hollingsworth, Associated Press

In an age when people can choose among text messages, email, Facebook and old-fashioned stamps and printed cards, the chance to use the wrong method when sending your very best is quite high.

What to do?

Well, the Associated Press went straight to an expert among experts: Judith Martin, author of the syndicated Miss Manners column, who offers guidance on dealing with the evolving etiquette of expressing sincere sentiments in an increasingly impersonal, digital world.

Her general advice is that formal events and intimate expressions require a handwritten note. But for more casual events and occasions, she gives people permission to send an email or text message greeting or even post to Facebook. Just keep it tasteful, OK?

Some of Martin's pro tips:

Getting married? Get ready to write.
"People do still have very formal weddings in which case the invitations and the communication and the expressions of gratitude ought to be in keeping with that style."

Never email the words, 'sorry your mom died.'
"You don't just dash off some casual thing on email. You sit down and write a real letter. Cards are a strange thing because they are in between. I've always been puzzled about why people spend hours selecting a card with a preprinted sentiment instead of just sitting down and writing a sentiment that they feel. It doesn't apply to Christmas cards or Valentine cards, where the picture is a great part of it. But to send, for instance, a sympathy card is the most impersonal way of reacting to something that is very deep and emotional."

Romeo didn't email love letters to Juliet. You shouldn't either.
"I can't imagine that you can print out your electronic love letters and tie a pink ribbon around them and press them to your heart. And yet I've been asked, 'Is it OK to propose marriage by texting?' That would not exactly touch my heart if I were the object of that proposal."

Disinvite the e-vite.
"If someone wants to see me, it seems to me that they can do it personally. If it's an informal party, send me an email. But I don't want to be part of a group that everyone can scrutinize who has been invited. What did this person say and what did this person say? I don't want to participate in a public group discussion about the party. Generally these people don't entertain in such large groups, except for weddings where they do send paper invitations, that they can't contact the individuals."

Don't send an e-card to Miss Manners.
"A lot of them annoy people because they take a long time to download and for those who are sentimental about cards, they can't keep them in the same way. Are you touched, amused, charmed if you get an e-card and you are trying to work and you download it and it has probably loud music that your co-workers are turning around to see what it is? It is an inconvenience and not very charming."

Are you really going to use Facebook to wish your mom happy birthday?
"Facebook has caused a lot of trouble because people don't realize that everybody sees it. Yes, you have privacy controls, but if one of your friends decides to send it on to someone else then you've lost that and it's there permanently. Now, I can't imagine getting in trouble by sending something nice to your mother but perhaps it contains a little zinger that you wouldn't want there permanently. And the amount of damage that people have done to themselves and others by posting things is enormous because these things are read by parents, perspective employers, by prospective lovers. People look and it's all out there. I don't think 'Happy Birthday Mother' does any harm, but you should watch what else you post."

Know where your friends are.
"You have to know someone's actual habits if you are going to reach that person. That's kind of a burden to have to know. This one doesn't answer the phone. This one doesn't check emails. I don't have a solution. I'm just saying that you should be familiar with the range of things that the people you want to reach or legitimately want to reach you use."

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Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Bernanke makes strong defense of Fed rate policies

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Chairman Ben Bernanke offered a wide-ranging defense Monday of the Federal Reserve's aggressive policies to stimulate the still-weak economy.

The Fed needs to drive down long-term borrowing rates because the economy isn't growing fast enough to reduce high unemployment, Bernanke said in a speech to the Economic Club of Indiana. The unemployment rate is 8.1 percent.

Low rates could also help shrink the federal budget deficit by easing the government's borrowing costs and generating tax revenue from stronger growth, Bernanke argued.

The chairman cautioned Congress against adopting a law that would allow it to monitor the Fed's interest-rate discussions. The House has passed legislation to broaden Congress' investigative authority over the Fed ? authority that would include a review of interest-rate policymaking. The Senate hasn't adopted the bill.

Bernanke warned that such a step would improperly inject political pressure into the Fed's private deliberations and affect the officials' decisions.

His speech follows the Fed's decision at its Sept. 12-13 meeting to launch a new mortgage-bond buying program. The goal is to try to drive low mortgage rates even lower to encourage home buying. Increased home sales could help spur hiring and accelerate economic growth.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage is already 3.4 percent, a record low. But some economists think home loan rates could fall further, in part because long-term Treasury yields are much lower: The rate on the 10-year Treasury is just 1.62 percent.

After its September meeting, the Fed said it would keep buying mortgage bonds until the job market showed substantial improvement. It also decided to keep its benchmark short-term rate near zero through at least mid-2015.

In his speech Monday, Bernanke sought to reassure investors that the Fed's timetable for keeping its short-term rate ultra-low "doesn't mean we expect the economy to be weak through 2015." Rather, he said the Fed expects to keep rates low well after the economy strengthens.

Bernanke spoke two days before President Barack Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney will hold a debate in which the economy is the central theme. And on Friday, the government will release its September jobs report. Economists expect only modest hiring and continued unemployment above 8 percent.

The U.S. economy is still struggling more than three years after the Great Recession ended. Persistently high unemployment and weak pay growth have kept spending by consumers weak. That, in turn, has hurt manufacturing and slowed broader economic growth.

The Fed's latest round of bond buying and its plan to keep rates super-low into 2015 will likely provide only modest help, said David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors.

"The Fed is at the tail end of a long series of actions," Jones said. "They have reached a point of diminishing returns."

Bernanke himself made clear Monday, as he has in the past, that the Fed's low-rate policies are no panacea for the economy.

"Many other steps could be taken to strengthen our economy over time, such as putting the federal budget on a sustainable path, reforming the tax code, improving our educational system, supporting technological innovation and expanding international trade," he said.

Still, the Fed chairman reiterated his argument that lower rates boost growth by helping increase prices of stocks, homes and other assets. Greater household wealth tends to make consumers and businesses more willing to spend.

Bernanke noted that when the Fed launched its first round of bond buying in late 2008, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was a little above 6 percent. Today, the rate is 3.4 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s.

Still, the housing market's recovery remains slow, in part because many Americans lack the credit to qualify for a mortgage or can't afford the larger down payments now required.

Responding to a question after his speech, Bernanke said he disagreed with a minority of analysts who fear another recession is nearing. But he said the economy is growing at an annual rate of only between 1.5 percent and 2 percent ? too slow to lower unemployment much.

The Fed's decision last month to launch a new mortgage-buying program was approved by its policy committee, 11-1. Jeffrey Lacker, head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, cast the lone dissenting vote. Lacker has argued that further bond buying won't likely provide much economic help and risks igniting inflation in the future.

Charles Plosser, president of the Fed's Philadelphia regional bank, and Richard Fisher, president of the Fed's Dallas regional bank, have also been critical of the Fed's bond purchases. Plosser and Fisher do not have votes on the Fed's policy committee this year but take part in the discussions.

At the same time, one Fed official who had been skeptical of the bond buying now appears more open to it. Narayana Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Fed, has signaled that he's grown more concerned about the economy's sluggish growth. In a speech a week after last month's policy meeting, Kocherlakota said the Fed should fight high unemployment with an even more aggressive approach than it announced.

Still, like Plosser and Fisher, Kocherlakota lacks a vote on the Fed's policy committee this year.

___

AP Business Writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bernanke-makes-strong-defense-fed-rate-policies-163042949--finance.html

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VoIPNorm's Unified Communications Blog: Lync Conference ...

This is my personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not that of my employer. And yes from time to time my opinion can change.

All information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. VoIPNorm (Chris Norman) makes no representitive as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delay in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.

Source: http://voipnorm.blogspot.com/2012/10/lync-conference-registration-now-open.html

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Monday, October 1, 2012

Animal Cloning Makes Strides In Life & Science (VIDEO)

How do you feel about cloning animals? Have you ever hoped you could make an exact copy of your furry loved one?

A woman named Kit Knotts did just that. When her prized dressage horse Marc started getting older, she asked Dr. Katrin Hinrichs of Texas A&M University to make a new horse, genetically identical to Marc. Today, Kit is the proud owner of Mystic, a 3 month old cloned foal.

Hear Kit and Dr. Hinrich's story straight from the horses' mouth (sorry, I had to!) by watching the video above. And don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Come on, talk nerdy to me!

CARA SANTA MARIA: Hi everyone. Cara Santa Maria here. How do you feel about cloning animals? Have you ever hoped you could make an exact copy of your furry loved one? Well, Kit Knotts did just that. When her prized dressage horse Marc started getting older, she asked Texas A&M Professor of Veterinary Medicine Dr. Katrin Hinrichs to make a new horse, genetically identical to Marc. Today, based in Florida, Kit's the proud owner of Mystic, a 3 month old foal. Marc has since passed away, and Kit's grateful she made the decision to clone him while she still could.

KIT KNOTTS: And it's been an amazing roller coaster, up down, happy, tragic experience, and I wouldn?t trade it for anything.

KATRIN HINRICHS: Kit contacted us to just freeze, culture and freeze, cells from her horse for possible future cloning but she was so interested in the work we were doing she decided to go ahead and fund research in our lab.

CSM: So how exactly do you go about cloning a horse?

KH: It is a really hard thing to do. I think it?s simple in that the steps are very straightforward: get the cell, get the egg, take the chromosomes, out of the egg, put the cell into the egg. But right now there are only four laboratories in the entire world that have ever announced that they?ve produced a cloned foal.

CSM: And in fact, Mystic wasn't the first attempt at cloning Marc. A previous clone, named Mouse, was born, and Kit bonded with him intensely before he died at three months, from intestinal complications apparently unrelated to the cloning process.

KK: Making the decision to keep trying to have these cloned foals was a really hard one. But I decided if I was gonna do it, then I would do it 100 percent. We never thought he would make it but he did and that?s Mystic and he?s now almost four months old. He?s fabulous, he?s the best boy that ever lived.

CSM: If you think about it--I mean, really think about it--that's incredible. Dr. Hinrichs managed to take a small sample of cells from underneath Marc's skin and remove all of his DNA from them. This DNA contained the instructions to build a brand new horse, with Marc's exact same genetic material. Apparently the tricky part was getting the immature eggs, or oocytes, that the DNA would eventually live inside. These oocytes were harvested from healthy mares, matured in the lab, and then their own DNA was carefully removed, to make room for Marc's DNA. With a bit of hormonal manipulation, the oocytes began to grow an embryo inside. Then they were put into the womb of another mare, to grow and mature until birth.

KH: Cloning seems like sort of science fiction, but it?s actually a fairly simple process, and the reason it works is because of the oocyte. The oocyte does the job. We as scientists don?t really do the job. The oocyte is the one that?s doing the miraculous thing here, it is an amazing, amazing cell.

CSM: So, cloned animals have the same DNA, but they live completely different lives. Does that mean Kit has replaced Marc with an exact replica in Mystic?

KH: The very best simile that you can use is an identical twin. Well, how similar are identical twins? Well, you can say, well, they look almost exactly alike. If one?s got blonde hair, the other one?s gonna have blonde hair, if one?s got blue eyes, the other one?s gonna have blue eyes. But then you get into things that just kind of happen to you as you live, in utero, on the ground, and say well if one twin lost his front tooth today does that mean the other twin?s going to lose his front tooth today? Well, nobody would expect that. So they?re identical, but they?re not identical, that?s the thing.

CSM: Oh, and in case you're wondering (like I was) why Marc and Mystic are two totally different colors--I mean, they're supposed to be identical, after all! It's because the Lipizzan breed greys as it ages. When Mystic gets a little older, he too, will turn white. But there's one thing Kit says is exactly the same between Marc and his clones.

KK: If you have ever seen Marc?s joints you would say, ?how could a horse have joints like that?? They were so huge. Same with Mouse. Same with Mystic. They?re gorgeous. They last forever.

CSM: So, I wondered, after all this, just how do Dr. Hinrichs and Kit feel about animal cloning?

KK: One thing I would recommend is for anyone with a special animal and this can be a dog, cat, horse--whatever, if the animal is special, either personally or from a performance point of view or a genetics/breeding point of view, bank their genes now. I would really have regretted if I hadn?t done Marc while he was still alive.

KH: It costs so much--sort of upwards of $150,000--that you would only do it if you really feel that the genetics of the horse you?re cloning are very, very important to preserve.

CSM: What do you think about cloning horses, or animals in general? Is it ethical? Would you want to clone your own furry friends? Let me know on Twitter, Facebook, or leave a comment right here on The Huffington Post. Come on, talk nerdy to me!

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/animal-cloning-science_n_1914404.html

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Apple no longer calls Maps ?the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever?

7 hrs.

Rosa Golijan

Not only did Apple CEO Tim Cook recently apologize for the Apple Maps app and recommended competitors' mapping solutions as alternatives, but now Apple has changed some language related to Maps?on its website as well.

No longer does the Cupertino-based company declare its new Maps app to be "the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever."

We have a screenshot to compare the Apple site's current?language to the old language thanks to?9to5 Mac reader Zaheen Hafzer, who?tweeted?it in response to the blog's post on Cook's apology letter to Apple customers.?"Tim [C]ook should consider changing this line," he wrote.

And lo and behold. A change was made.

This is the original text on Apple's website:

Designed by Apple from the ground up, Maps gives you turn-by-turn spoken directions, interactive 3D views, and the stunning Flyover feature. All of which may just make this app the most?beautiful, powerful?mapping?service ever.

This is the new text:

Designed by Apple from the ground up, Maps gives you turn-by-turn spoken directions, interactive 3D views, and the stunning Flyover feature.? All in a beautiful vector-based interface that scales and zooms with ease.

Notice the big difference?

We have reached out to the folks at Apple to see if they have anything to say about this changed language on their website. We will update if we hear anything of interest.

Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/apple-no-longer-calls-maps-most-beautiful-powerful-mapping-service-6200004

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Business Article Marketing: Does It Work for Larger Companies ...

Author: Steve Shaw | Total views: 30 Comments: 0
Word Count: 799 Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 3:52 PM

For many years now article marketing has been the "go to" marketing tool for small business owners who want to market their websites. Increasingly though, I've noticed that interest is expanding to larger companies as well. I received this question recently from someone who works at a large corporation:

"Do you think that article marketing would work for a large company? I know it works well for small business owners and that it's great for establishing the expertise of an author, but as a large company we want to bring attention to the company and not any particular person in our organization. Also, I don't know if our traditional website would be very marketable. A lot of people these days have blogs and sites with lots of informational content, but our website is a static one that just has info about your company. Many thanks for your input on this!"

I'm so glad that someone asked this! There is no reason why submitting articles wouldn't work for a large company, and I know many SEO specialists who work with large companies and who use article marketing as part of an overall online marketing plan for the company.

I just want to be sure that you understand how article marketing works, and I think that will help you to understand why business article marketing is not restricted to just small businesses, but would actually work for any size of business.

Article marketing is great for establishing the expertise of an author, but that's not the main benefit by a long shot. The main reason that people engage in creating free reprint articles is to get a higher search engine ranking for their website. This is how article marketing helps improve a web page's ranking:

You submit articles on the general topic of your website. These would not be articles about your business or your website, but they would instead be articles that teach your readers things that they need to know about your general niche.

Along with every article you submit you will also create what is called a resource box. A resource box is where you tell a little more about your company, provide a link to your website, and give a reason to click the link to your website. You could list an author name in the resource box if you wanted, but it's not required. Many people who are marketing on behalf of a large company will just list the company name rather than a specific person.

In your resource box, you will have the opportunity to link words of your choosing to your website. The words that you would choose to link are called "keywords". Keywords are words of special significance for your website, words that are accurate in classifying what your website is about and what people are typing into Google to reach websites such as yours.

Through that link in your resource box where the keywords are linked to your website, you are sending very powerful information to Google and the other search engines about what your website is about. This helps Google and the other search engines to classify your website and rank it appropriately. With consistent marketing, ideally the pages on your website will show up high in the rankings when someone does a search for one of your keywords.

You can discover the best keywords for your website by using a keyword research tool--there are many of these available online. When you do keyword research, you will come up with a variety of different phrases associated with the topic of your website, and you will alternate using those phrases in your resource boxes each time you submit an article.

So, that is how article marketing helps business owners--it can help your website to get a higher ranking, and the higher the ranking the more people will be referred to your website. The more targeted visitors who are referred to your website, the more potential sales and business for you.

Article marketing works for all types of websites, whether they're the static traditional website or a blog. Even among small business owners, not everyone has a blog--many are marketing traditional websites.

I hope this helps explain how article marketing can work for people with businesses of all sizes. It's true that small business owners were the first to catch on to the power of article marketing, but now larger corporations are jumping on board too. The purpose of article marketing is to help drive targeted traffic to a website, and that's something that's desirable whether you're a solo business owner or have a huge organization.

Steve Shaw has helped thousands of business owners worldwide build traffic, leads and sales to their websites - grab his free report giving you a blueprint for attracting sustainable, dirt-cheap, long-term, targeted traffic to any website! Go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report and learn how to boost your traffic by up to 600%!

1: What is Cyber Marketing And Why It Is So Important For The Success Of Your Website

Cyber marketing has now become an indispensable segment of e-commerce as well as the internet and World Wide Web related topics. Cyber marketing simply refers to a technique of attracting potential customers by advertising your products or services through such means as websites, emails, and banners.

2: SEO Copywriting: How To Choose Article Marketing Topics To Achieve Maximum Exposure

Distributing articles online can be an effective way to build backlinks to your website -- when done correctly. This article explores how to choose the right topics for your article marketing campaign so that they will be widely accepted and distributed online.

3: Article Marketing Strategy: Putting Together a "Class Schedule" For Your Article Topics

Businesses go to so much trouble when there is one sure-fire, simple, very inexpensive way to attract new clients to a business: Teach a free class. That is what article marketing is like. Your articles are just like free classes. You teach your target readers something helpful in your article. Your resource box then says, "If you enjoyed this article you can visit my website and apply what you have learned."

4: Stumped For What to Write About? 15 Article Topic Ideas...

Do you ever dread sitting down to write because you're just not sure what to write about? When you're doing article marketing, you need to create a steady flow of articles. Even if you feel stumped, I assure you--you have more creative writing ideas in you. You just need a little help in looking at your topic in a new way to come up with new writing ideas. Use these 15 article ideas to start your next brainstorming session.

5: Article Marketing Or Guest Blog Posting : Which Do I Favor?

An analysis of Article Marketing in comparison to Guest Blog Posting as a strategy towards achieving the twin objectives of gaining backlinks and getting massive traffic

Source: http://www.content4reprint.com/internet-marketing/business-article-marketing-does-it-work-for-larger-companies.htm

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