13 Of The Most Popular Tech Company CEOs, According To Their Employees | ||
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Things only get harder if you’re in tech, where everything changes so quickly. And, on top of that, if you’re at a public company where shareholders scrutinize your every move? Forget about it. That’s why staying popular among employees often gets put on the back burner of many tech CEOs. Yet, the truly talented CEOs manage to keep both their employees and shareholders happy. Bloomberg put together a list of the most popular CEOs among US public companies, based on a survey done by Glassdoor. We narrowed it down to the 13 tech CEOs who have the highest approval rating. 13. NetApp’s Tom Georgens Approval rating: 85.5% CEO since: 2009 Market cap: $13.4 billion Revenue (2014): $6.3 billion About: Georgens has more than 20 years of experience in the storage area. He spent 11 years at EMC, before working at Engenio and LSI Logic Storage Systems for 9 years. Georgens is also the chairman of NetApp’s board. 12. EMC’s Joe Tucci Approval rating: 89% CEO since: 2001 Market cap: $57.92 billion Revenue (2013): $23.2 billion About: Tucci was named EMC’s CEO in 2001, a year after joining the company as COO. He transformed EMC’s business from being mostly focused on a high-end storage platform to visualization, cloud, and security software. Before joining EMC, Tucci worked at network solution company Wang Global and RCA Corp. 11. Cognizant Technology Solution’s Frank D’Souza Approval rating: 89.9% CEO since: 1994 Market cap: $29.17 billion Revenue (2013): $8.8 billion About: D’Souza is one of the cofounders of Cognizant, an IT consoling service company. Under D’Souza’s leadership, Cognizant has become an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than 180,000 employees. He’s also on the board of General Electric Co. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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It’s tough being a CEO. You have to constantly meet your sales goals while coming up with new ideas. You have to motivate your employees and keep expanding the business, too. Steve Jobs On Departed Android Founder Andy Rubin: 'Big, Arrogant ...' (AAPL, GOOG) | ||
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Jobs told friends that he thought Rubin was a "big, arrogant f**k," according to Fred Vogelstein's, Dogfight: How Apple And Google Went To War And Started a Revolution. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Google was already working on Android, its own smartphone operating system. Google bought Android, which was Rubin's startup, for ~$50 million in 2005. According to Dogfight, when Apple announced the iPhone, Rubin realized he would have to throw out what he was thinking of launching. He was in a cab in Las Vegas, watching a webcast of the presentation. He made the driver pull over so he could see the whole thing. He said, "Holy crap, I guess we're not going to launch that phone." Ethan Beard, an early Android business development executive told Vogelstein, "We knew that Apple was going to announce a phone. Everyone knew that. We just didn't think it would be that good." Google had phone software that was ready to launch at the end of the year, but it looked awful relative to the iPhone, so it was all scrapped and delayed. "What we had looked so ... nineties," said an Android engineer. The Android team got to work and created the software that eventually went into the HTC G1, Google's first Android-based phone. The software was not as good as the iPhone, but it similar enough to Apple's software that Jobs was furious with Google. "Everything is a f**king rip off of what we're doing," Jobs said of Android, according to Vogelstein's reporting. Jobs had trusted Google's cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board. All three has been telling Jobs about Android, but they kept telling him it would be different from the iPhone. And for some reason he believed them until he actually saw the phone and its software. Once Jobs saw Android's software, and how similar it was to the iPhone, he insisted Google make a lot of changes. There was a meeting with Jobs, Scott Forstall, who designed the iPhone's software, and Google's Larry Page, Alan Eustace, and Rubin. Vogelstein cautions that it was hard to know exactly what happened in the meeting, but says that it was confrontational and nasty. "It got incredibly personal," says one Apple executive who was briefed by Jobs on the meeting. "Jobs said that Rubin was steamed, telling him his position was anti-innovation. And this is where Steve was demeaning to Andy, saying Andy was trying to be like him, look like him, have the same haircut, the same glasses, the same style." Apple got what it wanted from the meeting. Google didn't do multitouch features like pinch to zoom. It forced Google to change how it was going to make the phone unlock. Not only did Jobs tell Google what it couldn't use, but according to Vogelstein Jobs told Google how to take things out of Android. It was a complete capitulation from Google. Rubin was furious that his bosses caved to Jobs. He thought there was plenty of evidence that Apple didn't invent the things it said it invented. Rubin considered quitting Google, but didn't. (Ultimately, Google did add in those features and now it's dealing with lawsuits.) After the meeting with Jobs, he had a sign on his office white board that said, "STEVE JOBS STOLE MY LUNCH MONEY." In the long run, Rubin and Android got the best of Apple. Android has taken over the world. (Though the iPhone is wildly profitable. So, for now, this seems to be a rare instance where both companies are doing well.) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Steve Jobs did not like Android, or the guy that ran it, Andy Rubin, according to a book on the Google-Apple smartphone wars. How An Oil Engineer Discovered Auto-Tune And Changed The Music Industry Forever | ||
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Before inventing Auto-Tune, the software that would change the music industry forever, Andy Hildebrand was a research scientist in the oil industry. Working for Exxon Production Research and then Landmark Graphics, a company he co-founded, Hildebrand developed software for processing data from reflection seismology, a method of estimating properties of Earth's subsurface using reflected seismic waves. His innovations were great for finding oil, and they reportedly made him a lot of money. Here's a screenshot of Landmark's geophysical analysis software today:
His breakthrough with Auto-Tune was inspired by a fluke comment in 1996 or 1997, when a distributor's wife mentioned how great it would be to have a device that kept her singing in tune, according to Greg Milner's "Perfecting Sound Forever." Hildebrand thought this over and realized that the type of processing he used in the oil industry could also correct pitch. As he explained on PBS's NOVA years later: "Seismic data processing involves the manipulation of acoustic data in relation to a linear time varying, unknown system (the Earth model) for the purpose of determining and clarifying the influences involved to enhance geologic interpretation. Coincident (similar) technologies include correlation (statics determination), linear predictive coding (deconvolution), synthesis (forward modeling), formant analysis (spectral enhancement), and processing integrity to minimize artifacts. All of these technologies are shared amongst music and geophysical applications." And here's a screenshot of Auto Tune's music software — note the similarities:
"People couldn't believe what they were hearing," Hildebrand told Milner about debuting the software in the late 90s. "I had trouble convincing several of them that I wasn't pulling wool over their eyes." For Hildebrand creating the software was his way of allowing artist to worry about the emotion of the recording rather than the technical aspects of it. "The singer's first take is often their best, it's full of vitality and emotion," Hildebrand told NPR in 2004. "After the take, their producer will announce 'great but the second phrase was pitchy so let's do it again.' Well, now the singer's worried about pitch and has to focus on the intonation and the vitality and emotion are gone from their performance. What Auto-Tune lets the producer do is fix the first take." Auto-Tune caught on quickly but was treated as an industry secret until Cher brought it to the forefront with her 1998 smash "Believe," which used the software at its most aggressive setting for a strange, robotic effect. "Most major studios were using this software for pitch correction. The studios didn't like to talk about what they were doing," Hildebrand told the Seattle Times. "They didn't advertise the fact they were fixing the singer's pitch, but they did... [Cher] was just the first to make it public." And then it was off to the races, with producers everywhere embracing it. "It's a great and totally acceptable tool," music producer Pat Dillett told Billboard in 2004. "We've been trying to fix pitch for years. Well before Auto-Tune, we've had tons of methods... to speed things up, slow them down, fly them back in [to the track] and get them right. It [was] really hard. So I'm glad it's easy." "Since rising to fame as the weird techno-warble effect in the chorus of Cher’s 1998 song, 'Believe,' Auto-Tune has become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing," wrote The Verge's Lessley Anderson. "But the diss isn’t fair, because everybody’s using it." Of course, not everyone likes what Auto-Tune has done to music. Time Magazine called it one of the 50 worst inventions while others have compared it to body modifications and plastic surgery. Some artists have protested, too, like Jay Z, who released an "anti-Auto-Tune" album and a song called "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." But mostly, audiences have been happy to settle into ignorant bliss about how much our favorite songs, like women on magazine covers, are digitally enhanced. That's why people acted shocked, outraged, and disdainful when unedited tracks of Britney Spears' awful singing recently leaked to the internet (the version we posted is no longer online, but you can find it if you search). But was any one really surprised that Britney sounded so bad? And will this actually hurt her career? Nah, let's just sit back and enjoy the wonders of Auto-Tune. SEE ALSO: Here's what really killing the music industry Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Amazon Exec: 'We Didn't Get The Price Right' On The Fire Phone | ||
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An Amazon executive admitted that the company priced its smartphone too high, Fortune's JP Mangalindan reports. "We didn’t get the price right," Amazon senior vice president of devices David Limp told Mangalindan. "I think people come to expect a great value, and we sort of mismatched expectations. We thought we had it right. But we’re also willing to say, ‘we missed.’ And so we corrected." Amazon's Fire phone originally cost $199 but the company shot the price down to 99 cents after only a few months. In its most recent earnings call, the company admitted that it took a $170 million hit and had $83 million worth of unsold phones. Amazon's phone boasts 3D effects and a camera mode that can automatically identify real-world objects, but it was widely seen as a bit of a flop at launch. Limp says that several software updates since July have fixed some problems users had with the device. Despite the financial hit the smartphone caused, Amazon plans to keep working hard on the Fire phone, taking its usual long-term approach. "When you’re taking risks, they’re not all going to pay off," Limp says. "Those are the facts." SEE ALSO: The First 21 Amazon Employees: Where Are They Now? Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Andy Rubin, Founder Of Android, Is Out Of Google (GOOG) | ||
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Andy Rubin, the Google executive responsible for the creation of Android, is out of the company, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. Google confirmed the report with CEO Larry Page, saying in a statement to the Journal, “I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next. With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion plus happy users. Thank you.” Rubin came to Google when it bought his tiny startup, Android, in 2005. When he got to Google, Android was basically just an idea. By the time he stopped running Android in March 2013, it was the world's most widely used operating system, dominating smartphone market share. Rubin is planning to do a startup incubator for hardware-focused companies, according to the Journal. When Rubin stopped running Android, he stayed at Google to work on robotics, a longtime passion of his. Jessica Lessin at The Information tweeted that Rubin wanted more freedom for his robotics group. She said he wanted a structure like Calico, which is the anti-aging company Google has started. Our guess is that Page views robotics as something he understands better, and considers it core to Google, and therefore would not want to give it the same independence. Google research scientist James Kuffner will take Rubin's spot to lead the robotics group. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Look What Happened To LinkedIn's First Employees | ||
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No matter how you look at it, LinkedIn is one of the stand-out Valley success stories. It has forever changed how we find jobs and network with business colleagues. Jeff Weiner is ranked as the best CEO in the nation, according one rating service, and cofounder Reid Hoffman is a Valley A-lister, worth almost $4 billion. But it wasn't always like this. LinkedIn was founded in December 2002, with a couple handfuls of people. And a few months after it launched on May 5, 2013, it was in danger of being a bomb. People weren't joining the service, until Hoffman "sat down with the team and said, if we don't solve this, we're dead." They came up with one idea: let people upload their email address books to see which of their friends had joined. Thankfully that worked, the site went viral, and today it's a $25 billion company with 313 million members in over 200 countries, and an employer of 5,700. Lee Hower: From PayPal to venture capitalist Lee Hower was part of LinkedIn's founding team in 2002. Today he's a venture capitalist at a firm he cofounded, NextView Ventures, which specializes in seed rounds. LinkedIn wasn't the first wildly successful tech companies he joined early. He was also an early employee of PayPal in product and business development roles, staying through the 2002 IPO and sale to eBay. He left PayPal to join LinkedIn as head of corporate development, staying until 2004, when LinkedIn was very young, but starting to gain traction. Chris Saccheri: From building LinkedIn to stay-at-home dad Chris Saccheri was part of the founding team of LinkedIn, responsible for building the website, a task he worked at for almost nine years. He rose to the rank of director of web development, managing a team of 30. Since LinkedIn is, at its heart, a website, a lot of the credit for its success was due to Saccheri, his colleagues say. Today, he's a full-time, stay-at-home dad for his two kids. He describes the job: "Responsibilities include reading books, leading outings to parks/libraries/zoos, setting limits, making up stories, supervising science projects, volunteering at school ..." Ian McNish: From network guy to angel investor Ian McNish also joined LinkedIn in 2002 as a founding member and spent the next 10 years building the network and data centers that would eventually support millions of LinkedIn users. He stayed at the job 10 years, leaving in May of last year to officially join Box, although he'd already been acting as Box's technical adviser. He's also become a mentor in 500 Startups and is an active angel investor. He describes his first day at LinkedIn like this: "As part of the founding team, my first day in our 'office' was in serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman's apartment. We didn’t have a brand name, prototypes, company-owned or operated computers and we were in a market that had yet to be defined." See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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James Cameron: Virtual Reality 'Is A Yawn' | ||
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A lot of people are really excited about the potential of virtual reality. Facebook bought virtual reality startup, Oculus Rift VR, for $2 billion at the end of March. Google has it's own cardboard(!) virtual headset. You can build your own for a cool $25. If you haven't tried out either, they're extremely immersive experiences which put you right in the middle of a game or location. However, James Cameron isn't convinced it's the next big thing. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal conference panel, the director who is responsible for the two highest-grossing movies of all time — "Titanic" and "Avatar" — and who is known for pushing the limits of technology on screen said he's not impressed with virtual the tech. We first noticed the director's comments on Cinemablend via The Hollywood Reporter. "There seems to be a lot of excitement around something that, to me, is a yawn, frankly," Cameron said at the conference. "The question that always occurred to me is, when is it going to be mature, when is it going to be accepted by the public at large, when are people going to start authoring in VR and what will that be?" Cameron critiqued the technology for being limited to standing.
"What will the level of interactivity with the user be other than just ‘I can stand and look around,'" he added. "If you want to move through a virtual reality it’s called a video game, it’s been around forever." That's not the sort of thing Mark Zuckerberg wants to hear, but don't worry Zuck, Cameron says the Oculus isn't that bad. "Oculus Rift is fine, it’s got a good display and that sort of thing," said Cameron. Cameron is working on three "Avatar" sequels which are expected to be released in theaters 2016, 2017, and 2018. SEE ALSO: James Cameron explains how he wrote 3 "Avatar" sequels simultaneously Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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More Executive Change At Twitter — The Head Of Revenue Product Takes Over As Head Of All Consumer Products (TWTR) | ||
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Twitter is going through executive change, yet again. Just six months after CEO Dick Costolo hired Daniel Graf to be in charge of Twitter's consumer products, Twitter is demoting Graf. Kevin Weil will be in charge of consumer products. A person familiar with Twitter's thinking said the reason for the change is that Twitter wants to execute quicker. This person said Weil has been at the company for five years, working his way up from the mid levels of the company, so he knows the inner workings of Twitter. He knows the head of engineering, so he should be able to get product changes out the door faster. Weil was head of revenue products. He oversaw the roll out of Twitter's ad products, which didn't exist when he started. He will still oversee revenue in addition to consumer. Of course, Weil's promotion begs the following question: Why didn't he get this job six months ago when Graf was hired? Our source didn't have an answer to that question. In July, we interviewed CEO Dick Costolo. We asked him about Daniel Graf. At the time he said, "One of the reasons we brought Daniel in is he's very entrepreneurial. In fact, he's started his own company and ran his own company before." Twitter wanted outsiders to fill in some skill it feels like it was lacking. But, obviously that wasn't working. This shake up follows yesterday's news that Twitter engineering VP Jeremy Gordon is leaving. Engineering and product are separate groups, so the changes are unrelated. But, it looks bad for Twitter. It's more turmoil for a company that's been defined by executive turmoil. This year alone, Twitter has lost COO Ali Rowghani, its head of news Vivian Schiller, and head of media Chole Sladden, just to name a few. All this change led to Brian O'Malley at Brian at venture capital firm Accel Partners saying the following about Costolo in August, "If someone’s gotten divorced once, you really don’t know who’s to blame ... But if someone’s gotten divorced five times, there may be a pattern there." From Twitter's perspective, it knows this doesn't look good. But, it's making changes it believes are best for the company. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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CHART: LinkedIn's Revenue Is On The Up And Up | ||
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LinkedIn reported earnings for its fiscal third quarter of 2014 on Thursday. Revenue and expectations surpassed Wall Street's expectations — it reported $568 million on $0.52 EPS, versus predictions of $557.49 million in revenue on $0.47 EPS. Based on company data charted for us by BI Intelligence, LinkedIn's revenue continues to see steady growth in its three major lines of business — talent solutions, marketing solutions, and premium subscriptions — even though the company's year-over-year growth has been pretty flat. But LinkedIn has also been investing much of its own money to boost membership on the network: It recently redesigned its user profiles and even launched a new app called Connected to make networking among contacts easier.
SEE ALSO: CHART OF THE DAY: All Of Facebook's Revenue Growth Is Coming From Mobile Ads Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ex-Apple Supplier Says A Soured Deal With Apple Forced It Into Bankruptcy (AAPL) | ||
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We're now getting GTAT's take on why the partnership crumbled, thanks to a recent court filing from Daniel Squiller, GTAT's chief operating officer. GTAT was long-rumored to be making sapphire display covers for the iPhone 6. When news broke that Apple wasn't in fact using the sapphire for its main display, shares of GTAT tanked. The company then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which means it can reorganize and continue doing business. But it isn't a great sign for GTAT. Squiller paints a bleak picture of the company's Apple partnership — from GTAT's perspective — suggesting the sapphire furnace manufacturer didn't anticipate the factors that caused it to file for bankruptcy protection. "GTAT incurred losses — resulting in the current liquidity crisis — that GTAT believes were due largely to actions not within its control," Squiller said. He also said the bankruptcy was necessary because its relationship with Apple had become "unsustainable." Here's was the original deal between Apple and GTAT, according to Squiller: The essence of the transaction was for GTAT to install in excess of 2000 sapphire-growing furnaces to be operated in a facility provided by Apple. GTAT would operate the furnaces to produce large quantities of high-quality sapphire for use in Apple’s products. The transaction had the potential to be revolutionary for GTAT’s business and a significant achievement for Apple. However, the deal fell apart after GTAT wasn't able to make enough sapphire crystal in time for the deadline the two companies agreed on. GTAT also said it wasn't able to market its sapphire material and equipment overseas because of exclusivity provisions in its deal with Apple. Squiller ultimately lays GTAT's bankruptcy at Apple's feet. "Given the severity of the losses incurred as a result of the transactions with Apple and the terms of the Apple Agreements, GTAT had little choice but to commence these Chapter 11 cases," Squiller said. However, he did add this caveat to the statement he filed in court: "GTAT is well aware, and the Court and the parties in interest should expect, that Apple would vigorously dispute any attribution of responsibility to Apple for the failure of the sapphire growth and fabrication project or for GTAT’s chapter 11 filing." We've reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post if we hear back. SEE ALSO: Apple Will Find Jobs For Employees At Its Bankrupt Supplier Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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A former Apple supplier, GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT), is in the middle of filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a potentially lucrative partnership with the tech goliath fell apart. NOPE: People Are Getting Rejected Hundreds Of Millions Of Times On Tinder Every Day | ||
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In real life, people date and subject themselves to a lot of rejection just to find The One (or The Two or The Three). One research study published by The Guardian in January suggests the average woman kisses 15 men, has 2 heartbreaks, 4 one-night stands and 4 terrible dates before finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. On Tinder, it's not much different. The New York Times published some stunning facts about the fast-growing dating app that lets users swipe yes or no on other people's profiles based on their photos. Those stats are:
Read those last two points again. There are more than 1 billion swipes, and only 12 million matches. Do some simple math and you realize there's a LOT of rejection happening on Tinder. In fact, rejection could be happening 988 million times per day. The odds, just like in real-world dating, are not in your favor. Tinder rejections aren't as simple to calculate as that, however. To get to 1 billion+ swipes, all 50 million people need to be swiping through at least 20 profiles per day (and you can assume Tinder's number of daily active users is actually lower than its MAUs). Two people may not be viewing each other's profiles on the same day, which could lead to a delayed match, if there is a match at all. A match is only made if both people find each others' profiles attractive. Tinder feelings — even if they're just looks-related — have to be mutual, just like in real-life. We reached out to Tinder to discover how many rejections actually happen per day on the app. We haven't heard back yet, but you can assume its a few hundred million. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Creator Of 'Super Smash Bros.' Once Worked 13 Months In A Row Without A Single Day Off | ||
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It's not easy being a video game developer. Masahiro Sakurai, the director of the game "Super Smash Bros.," which will be released for the Wii U at the end of November, wrote about his experience making the game in a column in Weekly Famitsu. As director, he's in charge of overseeing everything having to do with "Super Smash Bros.," according to Kotaku, which translated pieces of the column. That includes everything from animations to editing what each player can do. Sakurai worked on the previous installment of "Smash Bros.," called "Super Smash Bros. Melee," for 13 months in a row without a day off. "Towards the end, there were instances where I would work for 40 hours straight and then take 4 hours off to go home and sleep," Sakurai writes. Although his workload for the new "Smash Bros." game wasn't quite as intense, he says that he still had to "work from mornings to late nights, even on weekends and holidays." "I hardly have any free time, let alone time to play other games," he writes. That's because there are a ton of new features in the new "Smash Bros." game, not to mention the fact that it was simultaneously produced with the version for Nintendo's 3DS handheld console. But still, even with the long hours and the hard work, Sakurai admits he's still trying to keep healthy. "I'm not depressed and I continue to remain healthy and positive, but developing 'Smash Bros.' is beyond hard," he writes. It's no wonder that so much pressure is on him. Nintendo reported strong earnings this week, saying that it was on track to post its first profit in four years, according to the BBC. And that's thanks to games like "Super Smash Bros." In a financial results briefing on Thursday, Nintendo president and CEO Satoru Iwata says strong interest in "Smash Bros." will give a huge boost to console sales. "Super Smash Bros." for the 3DS was released in September, and has already sold more than 3 million units. "Since characters from various Nintendo games appear in 'Super Smash Bros.,' consumers naturally get to know the entire lineup of Nintendo IP and this title could make them interested in other game franchises," Iwata said. "In other words, the more this game is played, the higher the overall value of the Nintendo IP lineup becomes." SEE ALSO: Not Even Mike Tyson Himself Can Beat 'Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Meet Our New West Coast Bureau Chief, Matt Rosoff | ||
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We've got some exciting internal news. Matt Rosoff is joining Business Insider as the West Coast Bureau Chief. He'll be overseeing our excellent team out west as it expands. Rosoff was previously with Business Insider from 2010-2012, before he made the foolish mistake of leaving. He went to IDG where he led CITEworld, an enterprise technology focused site. Prior to both Business Insider and CITEworld, he spent 10 years as an analyst at Directions on Microsoft. We're thrilled to have him back. He's the rare tech writer that understands consumer companies and enterprise companies. He's a sharp writer and reporter who delivers smart analysis based on solid reporting. He's going to be a great help for editing and growing our west coast team. If you want to know what kind of work Matt is capable of, here's a taste of some of the great stuff he did during his last stint here. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Timex's New Smartwatch Is A Runner's Dream — But It'll Cost You | ||
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Timex recently unveiled its Ironman One GPS+, a new sports watch that comes with a lot of the same features as a smartwatch — except it doesn't need a phone to work. Timex currently has the Ironman One GPS+ available for preorder through its website, but the company says it will go on sale sometime in November. There are two major capabilities that differentiate Timex's new wearable from other fitness trackers and smartwatches out there. It has its own 3G radio for connecting the internet without tethering to your phone, and there's also a built-in GPS for tracking your location. Using these features will probably give the Ironman One GPS+ about eight hours of battery life. Timex announced its new $400 sports watch back in August, but Business Insider got a closer look at it on Thursday. The first thing that stood out was the watch's crisp, clear screen that showed barely any signs of glare. Although sunlight was pouring through giant loft windows from all sides, the watch's display remained visible and bold. This is ideal for a sportswatch, since it should be designed to be worn outside. That's largely because Timex uses Qualcomm's Mirasol display technology for the watch, which uses a small mirror to reflect light rather than emitting it.
The watch is capable of tracking your speed, distance, calories burned, cadence, and other statistics. It doesn't, however, measure your activity in the background throughout the day like a Jawbone or Fitbit band would. Right now, it's meant to act as a tool when you work out so that you don't have to bring your phone with you. This activity tracker-like functionality will probably come to the Ironman One GPS+ in a software update near the end of Q1 2015, Timex tells us. There's 4GB of storage space on the watch for keeping music and storing messages, too. (You'll need a pair of Bluetooth-enabled headphones to listen to that music, however.) Although the watch works on AT&T's network, don't expect to use it for browsing the web — it's not meant for that. Timex says the cellular functionality is largely intended for emergency situations. So, if you become injured or lost during a run, you can send a message to a preselected contact, or choose from a list of contacts. You can store up to 100 contacts on the watch and up to 10 per-written messages.
But there's another scenario in which the watch's cellular connectivity comes in handy, too. Since there's a GPS built in, you can share your location with certain contacts. When you decide to share your location, the watch will send a message to whichever contact you choose with a link to a map where he or she can follow your running route. While most smartwatch makers tend to emphasize that their wrist worn gadgets aren't meant to replace your phone, Timex seems to be doing the opposite. Granted, its new Ironman watch won't actually replace your phone in everyday practice — but Timex says you can leave your phone at home while you go out for a run.
The Ironman One GPS+ seems to include all the features avid runners would want in a sports watch: some storage space for keeping music on the device, plenty of different metrics for measuring performance, integration with fitness apps such as Strava and Runkeeper, and a crisp display you can see in sunlight. It's also waterproof, so you can swim with it too without worrying about inflicting damage. But $400 is still a lot of cash to spend on something that isn't really optimized to be part of your daily life. In fact, it's probably the most expensive smartwatch to date. Both the Apple Watch and Neptune Pine cost $350, while most other smartwatches fall in the $150-$250 price range. That makes the Ironman One GPS+ about twice as expensive as other smartwatches out there. SEE ALSO: Fitbit's New Fitness Tracker Can Display Your Calls And Track Your Location While You Run Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 25 Best Universities In The World For Computer Science | ||
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Computer science is far and beyond the most lucrative degree in the country — if you attend the right school. Deciding among the top universities is tougher than ever, with many schools building out their tech programs in recent years. QS World University Rankings crunched the numbers to make the choice clearer. QS's annual ranking highlights the best universities in the world for studying computer science and information systems, using data based on academic reputation (measured by a global survey that asked academics to identify the institutions where they believe the best work is currently taking place within their field of expertise) and citations per faculty. "Generally, the more often a piece of research is cited by others, the more influential it is," QS notes. You can read its complete methodology here. The top 25 universities around the world for computer science:1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) 2. Stanford University (USA) 3. Carnegie Mellon University (USA) 4. University of Cambridge (UK) 5. Harvard University (USA) 6. University of California, Berkeley (USA) 7. University of Oxford (UK) 8. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland) 9. National University of Singapore (Singapore) 10. Princeton University (USA) 11. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong) 12. University of Edinburgh (UK) 13. Imperial College London (UK) 14. The University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 15. The University of Melbourne (Australia) 16. University of California, Los Angeles (USA) 17. The Australian National University (Australia) 18. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) 19. University of Toronto (Canada) 20. The University of Tokyo (Japan) 21. Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) 22. Cornell University (USA) 22. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) 24. University of Waterloo (Canada) 25. University of College London (UK) SEE ALSO: The 50 Best Colleges In America Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Why 2014 Is The Best Year Ever To Be A Teenage Girl | ||
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The Beatles were among the first pop acts to tap into the roiling emotional undercurrents of what we now call the tween and teen female demo. They weren't the last. Fifty years later, I stood near a side entrance of the Pasadena Convention Center, as a shrill chorus of adolescent screams built into a thunderous if high-pitched roar. A glimpse of an idol, one of the dozen who had gathered that morning to spend the day performing and greeting their fans, had sparked the ruckus, and the shrieking spread like a wave at a baseball game. “It’s Ricky!” one yelped. “RICKY!” Six young girls, dressed in short shorts and flannel over crop tops, a not-so-subtle nod to the 90s, a decade they were not alive during, pounded their fists against the glass window as Ricky Dillon, a Justin Bieber-type walked by and waved to the line, now hundreds of girls and parents deep. He smiled mischievously, then disappeared into a meeting room labeled press. The crowd went wild. It was 8am and I was at InTOUR LA, a convention-style event that featured some of the most massive YouTube and Vine stars, there to hang out, perform, entertain, and meet their fans — almost all of whom were girls, ages twelve to fourteen. Since the fans were minors, each purchased ticket included a complimentary ticket for a parent or guardian. Thought somewhat less excited, the moms and dads stood in line with their daughters, sipping Starbucks from across the street and looking bewildered as their kids yelped and gasped and squealed.
I watched girls line up, jittery and shaky, waiting to angle their camera just so, in order to get a selfie with their idols. There was no security guard, no one pushing them off. Hugs were encouraged. I ran into two girls who were standing at the front of the line. Alissa and Maria, 13 and 14, respectively, stood quietly, holding signs and talking to each other. Their mothers flanked them on both sides. They told me they were there to see Connor Franta “mostly, but everyone is really good.” Franta, whom we wrote about, is a YouTube phenomenon who creates vlogs and posts them a few times a week. He has 3 million subscribers, a smile that could charm a snake, and, the girls tell me, “a really good personality.” The two girls met via Twitter, they said, and they had been talking online for months before meeting for the first time in line that morning, waiting to see their teen idols. “I think it’s good,” Maria’s mom told me. “I think in the beginning, you worry — worry that your kid is in the other room talking to someone not good for them or someone dangerous, and then you realize it’s okay.” Attending INTOUR gave me a lot of insight to the rising popularity of online celebrity, but most of all it proved one thing: if you’re a 14-year-old girl with an internet connection, it’s a beautiful time to be alive.
“It’s a culture of access,” Maria Gonima of Fullscreen, a company that represents and manages YouTube talent, later told me. And that access is increasingly posing a real threat to mainstream celebrity. Think about the teen bubblegum pop of the late 90s. There was Britney and the Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and 98º. Before them, New Kids On The Block. All of them had fans — loads of them — but they remained at a distance, penned behind barricades both literal and psychological. Except for an occasional autograph, there was no way to break the fourth wall. There was no Twitter, no YouTube, no Instagram commenting system or the hope, the dream, that a celebrity would see something you created for them. Unless, of course, you knew where to send them fan mail. (Author’s note: I am still waiting for a letter back from Candace Cameron, who played eldest daughter DJ Tanner on “Full House.”) The closest thing we had to today’s digitized groupie nation were membership clubs we had to pay for; the going rate was around twenty bucks a year for a headshot with a copied signature and maybe some bullshit trading cards. There was no telling who else was in the club, no making a new friend through a shared appreciation for a favorite star. And while our lockers were plastered with pictures ripped out of Teen Beat magazines, today’s superfans create Tumblrs dedicated to their crushes, drawing followers and fans of their own. As Taylor Swift put it in her July oped in the Wall Street Journal, “I haven't been asked for an autograph since the invention of the iPhone with a front-facing camera. The only memento "kids these days" want is a selfie. It's part of the new currency, which seems to be ‘how many followers you have on Instagram.’” Today, the hordes of screaming girls are more than a demographic — they’re a community. Sure, they can be marketed to and exploited by advertisers, just like we were, but the power has definitively shifted. The stars of YouTube and Vine don’t just owe their success to their fans, as celebrities always have, at least in some abstract way. They would scarcely exist without them. Follower counts are power — perhaps the only power that truly matters anymore. Record deals and marketing budgets are nice, but they pale next to the potential viral impact of a few million Instagram followers, or Twitter followers, or Facebook friends. Today's stars are made not from the meetings rooms of big-time executives packaging a picture-perfect ideal of teen lust, but in the bedrooms — or wherever the screens are — of “normal kids” all over the country, all over the world. It was apparent at INTOUR, as I watched hundreds of teenage girls get their phones ready before meeting the dozen or so YouTube stars — people like Connor Franta, Ricky Dillon, and JC Caylen — who were in attendance: the barrier between fans and celebrities has all but fallen. We all exist somewhere on the spectrum of renown. A selfie with a superstar is still a selfie — by its very nature it insists that the idol and the worshipper be on precisely the same plane. Well, not precisely, since the fan is the one with the real power: the one who owns the camera, selects the shot, controls the image, and publishes it for the world to see. The biggest celebrities know this, and the court their fans online assiduously. Rather than constructing an image of perfection, as stars and their handlers have long done, they’re falling all over themselves to prove they’re normal. Because fame today increasingly has to be measurable and trackable in order to be monetized, and if the fans lose drift away, there’s not much left to work with. Don’t let the squeals fool you. Social media has put 13-year-old girls in a rare position of power, and they’re not afraid to use it. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ringo Starr would later say he could “feel” the city as they landed, the day the Beatles came to New York, could feel the energy that came along with a frenzied reception the Fab Four had recently become accustomed to: armies of shrieking young girls.
GOPRO SHARES SPIKE AFTER EARNINGS BEAT (GPRO, SBUX) | ||
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GoPro shares just jumped 8% after the company reported earnings ahead of expectations. Excluding nonrecurring items, the camera company earned $0.12 per share in Q3, beating expectations for $0.08 per share. Q3 revenue surged 45.7% year over year to $280.0 million, which was stronger than the $264.2 million expected. GoPro is famous for its portable mountable Hero line of HD cameras. "The global scale and execution of our HERO4 launch made this the most successful roll out in GoPro's history," CEO Nicholas Woodman said. "HERO4 pushes the performance envelope of our Emmy Award winning capture technology. Advancements in our desktop and mobile content management applications continue to make it easier for our customers to create and share compelling content stories that go on to virally drive awareness and demand for our business. This positions us well for an exciting holiday season." SEE ALSO: DEUTSCHE BANK: These Are The 50 Best Stocks To Buy Right Now Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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LinkedIn Beats, Stock Falls, Then Rises (LNKD) | ||
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LinkedIn reported earnings that were ahead of expectations. The stock fell initially, but then bounced back. It ended up about 1.7%. Here are the major numbers:
In recent months, LinkedIn has made efforts to increase its membership through redesigning its profiles and releasing a new app called Connected that makes networking easier. The company reported 332 million members this quarter, up 19 million from the previous quarter. It said that China is its second largest source of member growth after the US. Here's a look at its historical membership:
The revenue LinkedIn pulls in from its "premium" profile subscriptions increased 43% year-over-year, and it now makes up about 20% of its revenue. Its "talent solutions" products, which help recruiters find the right candidates, make up 61% of the total revenue, and marketing makes up 19%. Although revenue beat expectations, it only increased 45% year-over-year, compared to 47% year-over-year last quarter. Revenue growth has been decelerating for a while:
Earlier this quarter, LinkedIn's plan to break into the $50 billion business-to-business marketing space leaked to Business Insider soon after its acquisition of the company Bizo. The internal memo also noted that LinkedIn plans to turn its marketing solutions products into a $1 billion business by 2017. SEE ALSO: People Have Started Listing Google Glass, GoPro, And Xbox One As Skills On Their LinkedIn Profiles Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Seth Rogen To Play Steve Wozniak In Steve Jobs Biopic | ||
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Comic actor Seth Rogen of "Knocked Up" fame is set to play Steve Wozniak in Aaron Sorkin's upcoming biopic of Steve Jobs, according to Variety. Rogen will play the famous engineer and co-creator of Apple opposite Christian Bale. Sorkin, writer of "The Social Network," and "The West Wing" will pen the film. Danny Boyle, who directed "Slumdog Millionaire," is going to direct. According to Variety, Sorkin says the movie will be based on Walter Isaacson's biography "Steve Jobs" and will be broken up into three long scenes. All of which will take place backstage before a big Apple product launch. The next movie you'll see out starring Rogen is the controversial "The Interview" with James Franco. The premise being the two men tasked by the CIA to assasinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 50 Best Internships For 2015 | ||
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Internship season just ended — but savvy students are already thinking about their plans for next summer. That's why career website Vault has already released its ranking of the top internships for 2015. To compile the list, Vault gathered data from more than 500 organizations that sponsor internships, as well as their interns. The companies were asked to provide descriptions of their programs and details on the number of interns hired, duration of the program, locations and departments in which interns are placed, and application requirements. Vault also asked current and former interns to comment on and rate their experiences on a variety of factors, including the application process, compensation and perks, quality of life, meaningfulness of assignments and training, and full-time employment prospects, on a scale of 1 to 10. These ratings were averaged to determine an overall score for each program. Vault ranks the top 50, but because there were two ties this year, a total of 52 programs were included in the final list.
SEE ALSO: How To Get A Job At Bain — America’s Best Employer Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This Russian Official’s Homophobic Comment Is A Reminder Of Why Tim Cook Is The Only Openly Gay Fortune 500 CEO (AAPL) | ||
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“What could he (Cook) bring us? The Ebola virus, AIDS, gonorrhea? They all have unseemly ties over there … Ban him for life.” Obviously, one Russian official’s insensitive comment does not represent the whole country’s view. But at the same time, Russian politicians are known for openly criticizing the LGBT community, as their anti-gay law explicitly bans "creating nontraditional sexual attitudes." It's worth noting that this type of homophobic attitude outside of the US is what causes a lot of major corporate CEOs to hesitate going public with their sexuality. In fact, with Thursday's announcement, Cook has become the only CEO at any Fortune 500 company to publicly say he’s gay. As baffling as it is, prior to Thursday, there were absolutely zero publicly gay CEOs at any Fortune 500 company. And it’s not because these high-profile, major public companies don’t have any gay CEOs. According to New York Times columnist James Stewart, there are gay chief executives today, but it’s just that none of them are willing to acknowledge it in public. There may be many reasons for this — and this is a complex, private issue that is more of a personal decision — but Stewart points out “conforming to social norms” might be the biggest reason for these big corporations remaining “the last frontiers for gay civil rights.” Telling the story of John Browne, the former CEO of British oil company BP who resigned after being outed as gay, Stewart says: “He (Browne) worried that any disclosure would damage his ability to negotiate with openly homophobic business and political leaders, including Vladimir Putin of Russia.” A lot of these Fortune 500 companies are global in nature and have businesses spread all around the world. Some of their largest clients may be in countries that have more conservative views on homosexuality, and having a publicly gay CEO won't necessarily help any of their sales. In fact, that’s the same idea billionaire investor Peter Thiel — also publicly gay — echoed during an interview with Business Insider. “A lot of these businesses are global in reach, and when you have customers all over the world, it becomes a question of ‘Will they hold that (being gay) against you?'” he said. “It’s not really a question of how tolerant people are in California.” But if anything, Cook’s decision to reveal his sexuality could lead to more public company CEOs announcing they're gay. And that might be exactly what Cook intended to achieve through his essay, as he wrote: “If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy.” Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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After Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly Here's The Main Difference Between Harvard And Stanford | ||
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The Harvard Crimson has a great long look at the differences between the Cambridge, Massachusetts Ivy League stalwart and its cross-coast competitor, Stanford University. What the growing rivalry between the schools might boil down to, though, is a stark difference in educational philosophy. While Stanford is certainly the hottest school in the country right now — with its engineering prowess leading to a near-domination of Silicon Valley — Harvard is playing catch up, The Crimson reports, and "is positioning itself to be the leader in education and research in the 21st century." The difference between the two educational juggernauts is fairly simple — Harvard has a focus on intellectual growth, while Stanford seeks to give its students more practical knowledge. As Meg P. Bernhard at The Crimson writes: Stanford's objective to "qualify its students for personal success, and direct usefulness in life," as stated in its founding grant, differs greatly than that of Harvard, which according to University literature, focuses primarily on the advancement of knowledge. ... Harvard focuses not so much on the application of education, but, as Harvard President Drew G. Faust wrote in an official capital campaign message, on the discovery of knowledge and the education of future leaders. The University remains true to its founding charter from 1650, part of which emphasizes the "advancement and education of youth in all manner of good literature, arts, and sciences." A Stanford computer science major offers a more real-life example — "We see Harvard as more focused on theory, the softer side ... Even in computer science, there's a lot more focus on how you do things as opposed to Stanford, which focuses a lot more on the practicality," he told The Crimson. This philosophical difference could be a reason why many Stanford students are finding early prominence in Silicon Valley. According to The Crimson, "at Stanford, the culture of looking forward is amplified by the successes of current students, not just graduates." As one Stanford history professor told The Crimson, "Every time a Stanford student reads that someone he met at a frat party just sold a startup for $1 million—and that happens a lot here—it dribbles a few more toxic drops into the water ... It shapes students' aspirations." Read more about the differences between Harvard and Stanford at The Harvard Crimson >>
SEE ALSO: 15 Incredibly Impressive Students At Stanford FOLLOW US! Check Out BI Colleges On Facebook Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Meijer Becomes The First Retailer To Accept Both CurrentC And Apple Pay (AAPL) | ||
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Meijer, a grocery store chain based in the Midwest, has become the first retailer to accept both CurrentC and Apple Pay at its stores, reports 9to5Mac's Ben Lovejoy. CurrentC is a rival payment platform to Apple Pay, organized by a group called the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), that uses QR codes rather than NFC technology to make transactions. Meijer's decision to accept both platforms is noteworthy because CurrentC partners that accept Apple Pay will be subject to steep fines when CurrentC starts working next year, according to The New York Times' Mike Isaac. MCX has denied that CurrentC partners will face fines for accepting Apple Pay. However, it has said that retailers accepting Apple Pay cannot also accept CurrentC. CurrentC partners such as CVS and Rite Aid have disabled their NFC terminals, making it impossible to use Apple Pay. That move prompted an outpouring of complaints on Twitter from Apple Pay supporters. We've reached out to MCX and Meijer and will update this post when we hear back. SEE ALSO: Customers Fire Back Against CVS And Rite Aid Over Apple Pay Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Just 7 Years Ago, The CEO Of BP Quit His Job Because He Didn't Want People To Know He Was Gay | ||
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When Apple CEO Tim Cook announced to the public Thursday that he's gay, the news was mostly met with a mixture of warm congratulations and shrugged shoulders. After all, Cook's sexuality was not a secret within the tech and business communities, and many companies these days, including Apple, have explicitly supported same-sex marriage and other issues close to the gay community. What is especially notable about Cook's announcement is how drastically the climate has changed for gay people in corporate America, even in the past 10 years. The case of Lord John Browne, who began his tenure as CEO of BP in 1995, underscores just how fast attitudes have shifted. For years, the executive hid his sexuality from his peers in favor of carrying with him a constant fear that someone, somewhere might have discovered he was gay. And in 2007, he resigned from his CEO job three months earlier than planned in hopes of preventing a London tabloid from continuing to report on his relationship with Jeff Chevalier, a man he met through the escort agency Suited and Booted. The early resignation cost Browne more than $30 million in stock and retirement benefits, and he blames the decision on his years of leading a double life. "If you want to hide your sexuality, it's very difficult to find people in the open," he explains to NPR's Audie Cornish in an interview that aired this past June. "Therefore, you might go elsewhere and you begin to create a pretty dangerous situation." Earlier this year, he published the book, "The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good Business," which includes interviews with other gay executives about their experiences in the workplace and the discrimination they received. In it, he expresses regret at not coming out during his time at BP and encourages other prominent business leaders to do so. In fact, he told Businessweek in June that workers who disclose their sexuality make their companies more profitable by allowing themselves to focus on doing their work instead of maintaining a heterosexual image. In a statement provided to Business Insider, Browne called Cook's decision to make his sexuality public, "an important step in the journey towards full and uncompromising inclusion of LGBT people." "By deciding to speak publicly about his sexuality, Tim Cook has become a role model, and will speed up changes in the corporate world," Browne says. "It is a significant moment for Tim, for Apple, and for LGBT people everywhere who continue to grapple with their own private struggles." SEE ALSO: Apple CEO Tim Cook Just Came Out As Gay Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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'Generation Z' Is Poised To Drive A Surge In E-Commerce Growth | ||
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It's important for retailers to know who their potential customers are online — and what they're interested in — to market to them effectively. BI Intelligence finds that there are surprising and important differences in behavior depending on gender, age (especially for Generation Z), income, and education. Generation Z, those aged 18 to 24, spends almost one in ten of their dollars online. And they are spending a much higher proportion of their income online compared to other generations. Access The Full Report, Charts, And Data By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >> Here are some of the most important stats about who shops online, and how:
Access The Full Report by Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >> In full, the report:
For full access to all BI Intelligence's reports, charts, and newsletters covering the e-commerce industry, sign up and get started.
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Japan's Nikkei 225 index soars over 5% after BoJ easing | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - Japanese shares surged more than five percent on Friday after the Bank of Japan ramped up its vast monetary easing programme, sending the yen into freefall. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index jumped 5.09 percent to 16,455.84 points following the surprise BoJ decision. After a one-day meeting, policymakers said they would add up to 20 trillion yen ($182 billion) to the central bank's current asset-buying scheme, bringing it to 80 trillion yen annually. The yen, meanwhile, plunged to an almost seven-year low of 110.49 against the dollar following the BoJ decision to pump even more money into the economy after a second-quarter contraction. A weak yen is good for Japanese exporters as it makes them more competitive abroad and inflates their repatriated profits. In morning trade before the BoJ announcement, stocks had risen 1.68 percent as forecast-beating US growth data offset another poor set of domestic economic indicators. Investors also cheered reports that Japan's national pension fund, the world's largest, will double the amount of equities it holds in its investment portfolio as it seeks out higher returns to cope with an ageing population. A raft of September economic data released early Friday showed a 5.6 percent drop in household spending, inflation slowing and unemployment rising. However, dealers were in buying mood as the dollar jumped against the yen in response to data showing US economic growth expanding at an annualised 3.5 percent in July-September, against estimates of a 3.0 percent rise.
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Hamilton seeks to divert attention from F1's problems | ||
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Austin (AFP) - World championship leader Lewis Hamilton will bid to divert attention from Formula One's looming financial crisis by seeking his fifth consecutive race win at this weekend's United States Grand Prix. The 29-year-old Briton leads Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg of Germany by 17 points with three races remaining, and 100 points available, as he sets himself to claim his 10th win of the season at the Circuit of the Americas. After a tense, close and often acrimonious struggle with Rosberg, Hamilton knows he cannot relax, notably because next month's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is worth double points. That means Rosberg will retain a mathematical title chance if he is within 50 points of the Englishman after the next two races in America and Brazil. Hamilton came away from the Russian Grand Prix on October 12 with 241 points to Rosberg's 174. Rosberg has no intention of giving up and any fans disgruntled at the absences of the Marussia and Caterham teams from the grid will at least be assured of a potentially ferocious scrap for glory at the front of Sunday's race. "It's still all to play for in the battle for the drivers' championship and I won't be giving up the fight until the flag drops in Abu Dhabi," said Rosberg. "Hopefully, we can keep the entertainment going right to the end for the fans out there enjoying the contest." Hamilton knows what to expect, but will compete in supremely confident mood after successive wins in Italy, Singapore, Japan and Russia. The same period saw Marussia's French driver Jules Bianchi suffer severe head injuries when he crashed into a recovery vehicle in Japan and the recent withdrawal of his team and Caterham from the American contest. That meant this weekend's race will see only nine teams supplying the 18 cars on the smallest grid for a Formula One race since the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix. Both Marussia and Caterham have suffered financial and other problems and paddock observers believe that other teams, notably Sauber and Lotus, could also be threatened by similar difficulties as the sport's distribution of wealth comes under scrutiny. Both teams are under administration and may not race again this year. But at the other end of the paddock, there is a more optimistic mood engendered by the upbeat approach of Australian Daniel Ricciardo, winner of three races this year, who is relishing his return to the United States with Red Bull. "Hand on heart, this is probably the date on the calendar I look forward to the most," he said. "I've loved every minute of being in Austin: when they picked this place for the US Grand Prix, they absolutely nailed it. "The city is awesome. I love listening to live music and this is a great place for that, plus Texas feels like real America, and that's something I've really enjoyed just sinking into the last two seasons. "And then, there's the important bit. The Circuit of the Americas, in my opinion, is the best of the new breed of circuits." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Navy SEAL Who Wrote The Book About The Bin Laden Raid Is Under Criminal Investigation | ||
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The ex-Navy SEAL who wrote the best-selling memoir "No Easy Day" that provided a first-hand account of the raid resulting in the death of Osama bin Laden is under a Justice Department criminal investigation for possibly leaking classified material. Though Matt Bissonnette's 2012 book initially got him in hot water since he failed to submit the manuscript to the Pentagon for review, people familiar with the investigation told The New York Times there is more interest in what he's said in paid speeches at corporate events. From The Times: They include at least one talk last year, at a golf club in Atlanta, in which audience members were asked to turn in their cellphones before he spoke so that nothing could be recorded, according to people who attended the event. Mr. Bissonnette has apologized for failing to have the book vetted through the Pentagon’s required security review process. Bissonnette's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, told The Times he thought an agreement was reached with Justice and the Pentagon to settle the book matter and have Bissonnette forfeit some of the royalties. Instead, a criminal investigation was opened in May or June. The SEAL's book, which he wrote under the pen name "Mark Owen," offered insight into the training and workings of the elite SEAL Team 6 — known as Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) — along with interesting details about the Bin Laden raid. Although it remains the only first-hand book written of the raid, there were few startling revelations from "No Easy Day." A long article about how the May 2, 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan transpired appeared in The New Yorker just three months after it occurred. And other books, including "The Finish" by Mark Bowden, and "Manhunt" by Peter Bergen also recounted what happened, citing both military and civilian sources. The website SOFREP, a military news site run by former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, reported in Aug. 2012 that the public affairs officer for Adm. William McRaven, then commander of Special Operations Command, "[had] been in contact with the author directly, and that (apparently) no classified information has been disclosed in the memoir." SEE ALSO: 25 Things We Learned From SEAL Book 'No Easy Day' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Myanmar president opens unprecedented talks with Suu Kyi, army | ||
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Naypyidaw (Myanmar) (AFP) - Myanmar President Thein Sein opened unprecedented talks with army top brass and political rivals including Aung San Suu Kyi in the capital Naypyidaw on Friday ahead of crucial elections next year. Thein Sein and Suu Kyi walked into the meeting together to begin talks that are the first of their kind in the country as it moves to emerge from decades of outright military rule. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Japan's huge pension fund set for major investment shift: reports | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - Japan will announce Friday that its public pension fund -- the world's biggest -- will double the amount of equities it holds in its investment portfolio, reports said, as it seeks out higher returns to cope with an ageing population. The welfare ministry will agree the Government Pension Investment Fund's plan that will see domestic and foreign stocks account for a combined 50 percent of its portfolio, up from about 25 percent now, the leading Nikkei business daily said. The fund has $1.26 trillion in holdings, equivalent to a quarter of Japan's economy and towering over its nearest competitor -- Norway's $700 billion pension plan. But, unlike some other more adventurous vehicles, it keeps the majority of its cash in super-safe -- and super low return -- Japanese government bonds. With a growing number of retirees and shrinking workforce straining the public purse -- and Tokyo struggling to boost the world's number three economy -- Japan's pension fund managers are looking for ways to improve their returns. Jiji Press news agency also said the fund would double its equity investments, and cut its holding of low-yield sovereign bonds to 35 percent from the current 60 percent. The report has already helped propel Tokyo's stock markets, with the Nikkei 1.68 percent higher by the break and the Topix up 1.52 percent. The expected changes come as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shuffles into place the next piece of his "Abenomics" growth drive. The bid to shake up Japan's slumbering economy after two decades of drift began in early 2013 with a huge public spending bonanza and unprecedented monetary easing from the Bank of Japan. But, now the economy has slowed down and Abe is facing pressure to put in place some of the structural reforms he -- and most economists -- say are necessary.
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British press fights 'Big Brother' after sources outed | ||
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London (AFP) - Britain's security services are set to clash with parliament and the country's powerful press over revelations that police secretly used a controversial law to identify journalists' sources, triggering a wider debate about media freedom in the digital age. Detectives used a law usually reserved for terror suspects to find out the sources for scoops in The Sun and the Mail on Sunday that led to the downfall of two senior officials. Other cases have since emerged, although the full scale of the practice is unknown since police do not need to go through a court under the Regulation of Invest Powers Act (RIPA). In the case of The Sun, the phone records of political editor Tom Newton Dunn were accessed to find out which officers were behind allegations that Andrew Mitchell, the government's senior representative in parliament, swore at police. The tabloid had used the material in a front-page story. "It was a fairly simple process for them to identify which telephone numbers could be linked to police officers," said Dominic Ponsford from the Press Gazette trade magazine, which is running a "Save Our Sources" campaign. - 'Nobody above law': police - RIPA was introduced in 2000 to take account of advances in technology and to comply with European law and specifies when authorities can access communications. But a legal challenge has now been launched in the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which claims that the law is being used in a way that contravenes the right to free speech. "There has been a huge amount of case law at the European Court to say that as part of that right to freedom of expression, the confidentiality of journalist sources has the highest possible protection in law," Ponsford said. Journalists appear to have the backing of Home Secretary Theresa May, the interior minister, who is pushing a law restricting its use to cases of serious crime, and Paul Kennedy, the government's interception of communications commissioner, who has launched a review of the law. But Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley insisted the force would continue to use the law. "Nobody should be above the law, whether it's a member of the public, whether it's a police officer, whether it's a journalist. We should be able to investigate and pursue any one of those," he told the BBC. - 'Asymmetric battle' - The country's newspapers boast of a tradition of holding institutions to account, but now complain that their huge resources and technical know-how are making it an uneven battleground. "Journalists must remain arrows and not the target," Seamus Dooley, secretary of Ireland's National Union of Journalists, recently told a conference on journalism in the age of mass surveillance, hosted at The Guardian newspaper's London headquarters. "The message must be: we are watching Big Brother," he added. Guardian reporter Luke Harding warned the conference that it would remain "an asymmetric battle unless you have the tech skills of Edward Snowden" -- the former intelligence operative who blew the whistle on mass US surveillance. Whistleblowers remain the Achilles heel of the authorities, and newspapers fear that they will be put off coming forward in the future if their anonymity can not be guaranteed. "Our work as journalists would be over," Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told the London conference. "The protection of sources is sacrosanct." - Calls for judicial oversight - As the law stands, a senior police officer can sign off a request to access someone's phone records, although not the actual content of the call or message. "We're just saying the police shouldn't be allowed to mark their own homework, they need external oversight," said Ponsford, arguing also that regulators had failed to grasp the amount of information that can be gleaned from metadata. In a message delivered to the London conference, Snowden said the answer lay not in the law but in more stringent technological safeguards. Others, including Harding, argue that only a return to the pre-digital world of notepads and clandestine meetings in public spaces can deflect the glare of Big Brother. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Asia shares rally after US growth figures | ||
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Hong Kong (AFP) - Asian markets rallied Friday and the dollar edged back towards 110 yen after the United States released forecast-busting economic growth data that soothes concerns about the global outlook. Japanese stocks led the way as the weakening of the yen and a report that the country's vast national pension fund would double its domestic stock holdings offset another batch of poor indicators. Tokyo climbed 1.73 percent, Hong Kong put on 0.70 percent, Shanghai added 0.23 percent, Sydney was 0.59 percent higher and Seoul tacked on 0.21 percent. The US Commerce Department said the world's largest economy grew at an annualised 3.5 percent in July-September owing to stronger exports and defence spending. Expectations had been for a 3.0 percent rise. Thursday's news came a day after the Federal Reserve brought an end to its stimulus programme following months of strong figures that show the economy is well on the track to recovery. "Anything that helps to dispel fears that the US economic recovery is not on pace is encouraging for stock investors," Naoki Fujiwara, fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, told Dow Jones Newswires. However, the reading, coupled with upbeat comments about the jobs market from the Fed, stoked speculation that the bank could hike interest rates earlier than its timetabled mid-2015 date. With rates widely expected to rise next year, traders have piled back into the dollar, pushing it back towards 110 yen. In early Tokyo trade the greenback fetched 109.34 yen, compared with 109.22 yen in New York and 109.08 yen in Tokyo earlier Thursday. Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "If growth continues at this pace -- we think it will -- the first Fed tightening could easily come in the spring, especially if wage gains start to pick up." US stocks were also pushed higher, with the Dow surging 1.30 percent, while the S&P 500 added 0.62 percent and the Nasdaq gained 0.37 percent. In Japan a report in the Nikkei business daily that the country's $1.2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund plans to boost investment in domestic and foreign stocks outweighed more weak economic data. Official figures showed Friday that September inflation slowed further, household spending plunged and unemployment rose, raising further questions about the government's recovery plan, which saw a painful sales tax hike in April. On oil markets US benchmark West Texas Intermediate fell 13 cents to $80.99 while Brent crude was down 31 cents at $85.93. Gold was at $1,202.54 an ounce, against $1,205.80 late Thursday.
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At Halloween, pumpkin spice is everything nice | ||
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Washington (AFP) - Trick or treat! While youngsters dress up as ghosts and goblins and go door to door for Halloween, grown-ups across the United States are indulging in all things pumpkin spice. What started a decade ago as a seasonal Starbucks coffee flavor -- which curiously isn't made of pumpkin -- has blossomed into something of an autumn American obsession. Supermarket shelves are bursting with pumpkin spice cookies, chocolates, marshmallows, waffles, bagels, pasta, potato chips, Greek yogurt, hummus, granola and pudding, to name but a few. Trader Joe's, a hip grocery chain, features "pumpkin-spiced pumpkin seeds" among its arm's length list of edible Halloween offerings. Craft brewers are tapping into a growing market for limited-edition pumpkin-flavored beer. Bartenders mix pumpkin spice cocktails that might go nicely with a pumpkin spice e-cigarette. "Now, everything from your morning coffee to salad mix has some type of pumpkin flavoring," food writer Samantha Bakall of the Oregonian newspaper in Portland, Oregon reported. In a bit of investigative lifestyle journalism, Bakall set out to sample every pumpkin-flavored product she could find. She stopped after 26 items, leaving 17 more untested. "I’ve heard of realtors using pumpkin spice candles when they are staging homes as a way to make prospective buyers feel more at home," added Karen Mishra, a marketing professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mercifully, no one -- at least, not yet -- is marketing pumpkin spice tampons, after a convincing Photoshop image of a spoof pumpkin-scented Tampax box went viral online. - Dollars for pumpkins - Halloween is big business, with American consumers expected to drop $7.4 billion this year on costumes, decorations, candy and more, the National Retail Federation has said. Some of those greenbacks will be spent on real pumpkins. Last year US farmers grew 1.13 billion pumpkins, the Department of Agriculture says. Many if not most became jack-o-lanterns, lit on October 31, then dumped in the trash the next day. For Americans, pumpkins are pregnant with symbolism, even if they've never been a dietary mainstay, said Cindy Ott, author of "Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon." As more and more Americans moved into cities, the pumpkin came to be associated with the romance of nature and the virtues of country life, the St Louis University professor said. "It's the meaning that people are celebrating," she told AFP. "There's no practical reason to put pumpkin spice in a cup of coffee or to put a pumpkin on your front stoop." Starbucks is widely credited for launching the pumpkin spice craze with its Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL, concocted in 2003 in the "liquid lab" at its Seattle, Washington headquarters. It marries an espresso with steamed milk -- that is, a latte -- with pumpkin spice sauce, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg, topped with whipped cream and a dash of pumpkin pie topping. "Nobody knew back then what it would grow to be. It's taken on a life of its own," said Starbucks executive Peter Dukes, who spearheaded the project, in a corporate press release. Yet it contains "absolutely no real pumpkins," according to food activist Vani Hari. On her Foodbabe.com blog, Hari questioned the safety of the PSL's caramel coloring ingredient, as well as the beverage's "toxic dose" of sugar. Andrea Riberi, senior vice president for consumer insights at market research firm Nielsen, said it remains to be seen if the "infiltration" of pumpkin-flavored products is more than a passing fad. - Will they buy again? - "Given the nature that these are seasonal, it will be interesting to see if people who, say, buy a pumpkin-flavored pancake mix will buy it again," she said. But Melissa Connolly, a blogger, web designer and self-described pumpkin obsessive in North Carolina, dismissed any suggestion that America might be approaching "peak pumpkin." "That's like asking if America is reaching 'peak football'," she told AFP in an email. "Pumpkin is here to stay." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US right-to-die woman holds on, in new video | ||
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Los Angeles (AFP) - A young American woman with terminal cancer who triggered shock and controversy when she said she would kill herself on November 1 now says she may wait a little longer. Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old brain cancer sufferer, made headlines earlier this month when a video of her making her suicide threat went viral and was seen by millions of web-users. On Thursday she released a new video in which she said she might temporarily delay her appointment with a self-administered cocktail of potentially deadly drugs. "I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn't seem like the right time right now," she said. "But it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It's happening each week," she said in the video posted on a site set up to raise funds to support right-to-die advocates: www.thebrittanyfund.org. In January, Maynard was given six months to live and told her death would be painful because of the aggressive nature of her cancer. She had been trying for a first child with her husband Dan Diaz at the time, but gave up due to her disease. Maynard and her husband, who had just married when she began having severe headaches, moved from their home in California to Oregon, one of a handful of states with a "right-to-die" law. A doctor could therefore prescribe her the medication she needs to end her own life, surrounded by her family in the bedroom she shares with her husband. Earlier in October, a first video went viral. It has now been viewed more than 9 million times on YouTube. Some 3.5 million people have visited the www.thebrittanyfund.org website. Her story has made headlines around the world: she was featured on the cover of last week's People magazine in the United States. She has previously said she planned to end her life after her husband's birthday on October 26, but before her own on November 19. The new video was recorded on October 13. Maynard has in recent weeks and months been working to tick off items on a "bucket list" of what she wants to do before she dies -- including traveling to the Grand Canyon last week. She is currently on medication to limit the swelling of her brain, but which has the side effect of making her gain weight.
- Debilitating seizures -
A spokesman for Compassion and Choices, the right-to-die organization helping Maynard manage her final days, said Wednesday she will likely end her life in the next week or two. "Brittany's seizures are becoming more debilitating and frequent, so obviously her family worries about her suffering," spokesman Sean Crowley told AFP. "November 1 always was a tentative date. It is now early November. Whether Brittany takes aid-in-dying medication depends upon if her dying process becomes unbearably painful." Maynard's family, including her husband and her mother Debbie Ziegler, are supporting her all the way. "It sounds so cliche: We take things one day at a time," said her husband. "But it's like, that's the only way to get through this," he added. Ziegler added: "It's not my job to tell her how to live, and it's not my job to tell her how to die. "It's my job to love her through it," she said in the new video. Choices and Compassion spokesman Crowley added that, for Maynard's family, grief at her passing will likely also be accompanied by relief. "Anyone who loses a loved one under and circumstances experience grief, but when your loved one dies with dignity, gently and peacefully by going to sleep after taking the medication, rather than prolonged suffering, it is a relief."
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Flu or Ebola? US hospitals prepare for a confusing season | ||
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Washington (AFP) - After weeks of Ebola panic, false alarms and quibbles over quarantine in the United States, health authorities are bracing for a new battle: flu season. The end of October marks the start of influenza season, bringing with it the predictable sniffles, sneezes, fever and aches that can extend well into the spring months. But this year is different for two reasons. First is the Ebola epidemic in West Africa that spilled into the United States when a Liberian man traveled to Texas in September and infected two nurses who helped care for him. The second is the late summer outbreak of enterovirus D68, a respiratory illness that has sickened more than 1,100 people in 46 states since August, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Most areas of the country are reporting a decline in EV-D68, but seven states including California say they are still seeing increases. There is no vaccine against the EV-D68, which has been linked to paralysis and neurologic symptoms in a small number of child patients. Nor is there any treatment on the market to cure or prevent Ebola, though experimental vaccines are being fast-tracked. The prospect of facing all three illnesses in a single season has led the CDC to start a public education campaign to help people understand the risks, and to remind people to get their annual flu vaccine. "There may be some public concern or confusion between seasonal influenza and Ebola this season," a CDC spokeswoman said in an email to AFP, citing past experience with fears over the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). "Flu-like symptoms in US residents this flu season will most likely be caused by seasonal influenza, not Ebola." - Similar symptoms - Flu and Ebola share some common symptoms, such as fever, headache, fatigue and aches and pains. But there are big differences, too. Influenza causes cough, sore throat and runny nose, while Ebola does not. Ebola leads to vomiting and diarrhea within three to six days, severe weakness and stomach pain, as well as unexplained bleeding and bruising. To illustrate these differences, the CDC has issued a flyer titled "Flu or Ebola?" that offers a side-by-side comparison, available at www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/is-it-flu-or-ebola.pdf. The simple, bold print is accompanied by graphics, including one person sneezing on another to show how flu transmits by droplets spewed when sick people cough, sneeze or talk. Ebola transmission is illustrated by a bright red blood drop and needle. "Ebola can only be spread by direct contact with blood or bodily fluids," the flyer says. As part of increased screening measures, patients around the country are now asked to fill out a questionnaire asking if they have traveled to West Africa recently and if they have any Ebola symptoms. "Everybody is screening now, in outpatient offices, in hospital emergency rooms, in ambulatory centers," said Debra Spicehandler, infectious disease expert at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York. "The only problem is we are all spending a lot of time getting prepared for Ebola, so we may have lost our focus a bit on influenza and preparation for the influenza season," she told AFP. The CDC recommends an annual flu shot for everyone over six months of age, preferably by the end of October. Last year, 42 percent of adults and 59 percent of children received their flu shots. The CDC said it is too early to tell how many have received their vaccinations this year. - By the numbers - Every year, between five and 20 percent of Americans get the flu, as many as 200,000 are hospitalized and deaths have reached as high as 49,000 in recent decades, the CDC says. Worldwide, the flu infects anywhere from three to five million people per year and kills up to 500,000, according to the World Health Organization. The current outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the world's largest in history, killing more than 4,900 people and infecting more than 13,000 since the beginning of the year. Ebola is rare, but lethal about half the time. Of the nine patients treated for Ebola in US hospitals this year, however, just one has died. The flu is common, but rarely lethal except among the young, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. Only a doctor can tell if a patient should be tested for Ebola, based on travel history and potential exposure to infected patients. "The important thing is not to panic. The most important thing to be concerned about is the flu, not Ebola," said Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. "The most important thing people can do is get a flu shot." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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13 Of The Most Popular Tech Company CEOs, According To Their Employees | ||
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Things only get harder if you’re in tech, where everything changes so quickly. And, on top of that, if you’re at a public company where shareholders scrutinize your every move? Forget about it. That’s why staying popular among employees often gets put on the back burner of many tech CEOs. Yet, the truly talented CEOs manage to keep both their employees and shareholders happy. Bloomberg put together a list of the most popular CEOs among US public companies, based on a survey done by Glassdoor. We narrowed it down to the 13 tech CEOs who have the highest approval rating. 13. NetApp’s Tom Georgens Approval rating: 85.5% CEO since: 2009 Market cap: $13.4 billion Revenue (2014): $6.3 billion About: Georgens has more than 20 years of experience in the storage area. He spent 11 years at EMC, before working at Engenio and LSI Logic Storage Systems for 9 years. Georgens is also the chairman of NetApp’s board. 12. EMC’s Joe Tucci Approval rating: 89% CEO since: 2001 Market cap: $57.92 billion Revenue (2013): $23.2 billion About: Tucci was named EMC’s CEO in 2001, a year after joining the company as COO. He transformed EMC’s business from being mostly focused on a high-end storage platform to visualization, cloud, and security software. Before joining EMC, Tucci worked at network solution company Wang Global and RCA Corp. 11. Cognizant Technology Solution’s Frank D’Souza Approval rating: 89.9% CEO since: 1994 Market cap: $29.17 billion Revenue (2013): $8.8 billion About: D’Souza is one of the cofounders of Cognizant, an IT consoling service company. Under D’Souza’s leadership, Cognizant has become an S&P 500 and Fortune 500 company, with more than 180,000 employees. He’s also on the board of General Electric Co. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Steve Jobs On Departed Android Founder Andy Rubin: 'Big, Arrogant ...' (AAPL, GOOG) | ||
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Jobs told friends that he thought Rubin was a "big, arrogant f**k," according to Fred Vogelstein's, Dogfight: How Apple And Google Went To War And Started a Revolution. When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Google was already working on Android, its own smartphone operating system. Google bought Android, which was Rubin's startup, for ~$50 million in 2005. According to Dogfight, when Apple announced the iPhone, Rubin realized he would have to throw out what he was thinking of launching. He was in a cab in Las Vegas, watching a webcast of the presentation. He made the driver pull over so he could see the whole thing. He said, "Holy crap, I guess we're not going to launch that phone." Ethan Beard, an early Android business development executive told Vogelstein, "We knew that Apple was going to announce a phone. Everyone knew that. We just didn't think it would be that good." Google had phone software that was ready to launch at the end of the year, but it looked awful relative to the iPhone, so it was all scrapped and delayed. "What we had looked so ... nineties," said an Android engineer. The Android team got to work and created the software that eventually went into the HTC G1, Google's first Android-based phone. The software was not as good as the iPhone, but it similar enough to Apple's software that Jobs was furious with Google. "Everything is a f**king rip off of what we're doing," Jobs said of Android, according to Vogelstein's reporting. Jobs had trusted Google's cofounders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board. All three has been telling Jobs about Android, but they kept telling him it would be different from the iPhone. And for some reason he believed them until he actually saw the phone and its software. Once Jobs saw Android's software, and how similar it was to the iPhone, he insisted Google make a lot of changes. There was a meeting with Jobs, Scott Forstall, who designed the iPhone's software, and Google's Larry Page, Alan Eustace, and Rubin. Vogelstein cautions that it was hard to know exactly what happened in the meeting, but says that it was confrontational and nasty. "It got incredibly personal," says one Apple executive who was briefed by Jobs on the meeting. "Jobs said that Rubin was steamed, telling him his position was anti-innovation. And this is where Steve was demeaning to Andy, saying Andy was trying to be like him, look like him, have the same haircut, the same glasses, the same style." Apple got what it wanted from the meeting. Google didn't do multitouch features like pinch to zoom. It forced Google to change how it was going to make the phone unlock. Not only did Jobs tell Google what it couldn't use, but according to Vogelstein Jobs told Google how to take things out of Android. It was a complete capitulation from Google. Rubin was furious that his bosses caved to Jobs. He thought there was plenty of evidence that Apple didn't invent the things it said it invented. Rubin considered quitting Google, but didn't. (Ultimately, Google did add in those features and now it's dealing with lawsuits.) After the meeting with Jobs, he had a sign on his office white board that said, "STEVE JOBS STOLE MY LUNCH MONEY." In the long run, Rubin and Android got the best of Apple. Android has taken over the world. (Though the iPhone is wildly profitable. So, for now, this seems to be a rare instance where both companies are doing well.) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Burkina opposition slams army 'coup' | ||
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Ouagadougou (AFP) - The army's seizure of power in Burkina Faso on Thursday amounted to a "coup", an opposition leader told AFP, adding that they consider the president's departure "non-negotiable". President Blaise Compaore, who has ruled the country for 27 years, "is again in the process of duping the people," said opposition leader Benewende Sankara. "We have been saying for a long time that he must hand in his resignation. His departure is non-negotiable." Sankara also said around 30 people were killed and more than 100 injured in violence Thursday. It was not clear if the toll related to the whole of the country or just the capital Ouagadougou, where protesters burned down parliament in an uprising against the president. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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How An Oil Engineer Discovered Auto-Tune And Changed The Music Industry Forever | ||
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Before inventing Auto-Tune, the software that would change the music industry forever, Andy Hildebrand was a research scientist in the oil industry. Working for Exxon Production Research and then Landmark Graphics, a company he co-founded, Hildebrand developed software for processing data from reflection seismology, a method of estimating properties of Earth's subsurface using reflected seismic waves. His innovations were great for finding oil, and they reportedly made him a lot of money. Here's a screenshot of Landmark's geophysical analysis software today:
His breakthrough with Auto-Tune was inspired by a fluke comment in 1996 or 1997, when a distributor's wife mentioned how great it would be to have a device that kept her singing in tune, according to Greg Milner's "Perfecting Sound Forever." Hildebrand thought this over and realized that the type of processing he used in the oil industry could also correct pitch. As he explained on PBS's NOVA years later: "Seismic data processing involves the manipulation of acoustic data in relation to a linear time varying, unknown system (the Earth model) for the purpose of determining and clarifying the influences involved to enhance geologic interpretation. Coincident (similar) technologies include correlation (statics determination), linear predictive coding (deconvolution), synthesis (forward modeling), formant analysis (spectral enhancement), and processing integrity to minimize artifacts. All of these technologies are shared amongst music and geophysical applications." And here's a screenshot of Auto Tune's music software — note the similarities:
"People couldn't believe what they were hearing," Hildebrand told Milner about debuting the software in the late 90s. "I had trouble convincing several of them that I wasn't pulling wool over their eyes." For Hildebrand creating the software was his way of allowing artist to worry about the emotion of the recording rather than the technical aspects of it. "The singer's first take is often their best, it's full of vitality and emotion," Hildebrand told NPR in 2004. "After the take, their producer will announce 'great but the second phrase was pitchy so let's do it again.' Well, now the singer's worried about pitch and has to focus on the intonation and the vitality and emotion are gone from their performance. What Auto-Tune lets the producer do is fix the first take." Auto-Tune caught on quickly but was treated as an industry secret until Cher brought it to the forefront with her 1998 smash "Believe," which used the software at its most aggressive setting for a strange, robotic effect. "Most major studios were using this software for pitch correction. The studios didn't like to talk about what they were doing," Hildebrand told the Seattle Times. "They didn't advertise the fact they were fixing the singer's pitch, but they did... [Cher] was just the first to make it public." And then it was off to the races, with producers everywhere embracing it. "It's a great and totally acceptable tool," music producer Pat Dillett told Billboard in 2004. "We've been trying to fix pitch for years. Well before Auto-Tune, we've had tons of methods... to speed things up, slow them down, fly them back in [to the track] and get them right. It [was] really hard. So I'm glad it's easy." "Since rising to fame as the weird techno-warble effect in the chorus of Cher’s 1998 song, 'Believe,' Auto-Tune has become bitchy shorthand for saying somebody can’t sing," wrote The Verge's Lessley Anderson. "But the diss isn’t fair, because everybody’s using it." Of course, not everyone likes what Auto-Tune has done to music. Time Magazine called it one of the 50 worst inventions while others have compared it to body modifications and plastic surgery. Some artists have protested, too, like Jay Z, who released an "anti-Auto-Tune" album and a song called "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)." But mostly, audiences have been happy to settle into ignorant bliss about how much our favorite songs, like women on magazine covers, are digitally enhanced. That's why people acted shocked, outraged, and disdainful when unedited tracks of Britney Spears' awful singing recently leaked to the internet (the version we posted is no longer online, but you can find it if you search). But was any one really surprised that Britney sounded so bad? And will this actually hurt her career? Nah, let's just sit back and enjoy the wonders of Auto-Tune. SEE ALSO: Here's what really killing the music industry Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Sweden Formally Recognized Palestine — And Israel Responded With A Joke About IKEA | ||
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The Swedish government became the biggest European nation to recognize the state of Palestine Thursday — and while the move made Israel furious — it took the opportunity to make a joke about IKEA furniture. "Today the government takes the decision to recognize the state of Palestine," Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said in a statement in the Dagens Nyheter daily. The Israeli foreign minister called it a "very unfortunate decision," Haaretz reported. In his swearing-in earlier this month, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven pledged his government would eventually recognize a Palestinian state. Soon after the Israeli government found out, it summoned the Swedish ambassador to protest the move, according to Haaretz. Sweden went forward however, making the formal announcement on Thursday "as an important step that confirms the Palestinians' right to self-determination," according to a statement. "We hope that we can make the parties a little less unequal," Wallstrom told CNN. "[and] that we might inject some new dynamics into the suspended peace talks." From AP: While the U.S. and European powers have so far refrained from recognizing Palestinian independence, they have become increasingly critical of Israeli settlement construction. The 28-nation European Union has urged that negotiations to achieve a two-state solution resume as soon as possible. In a symbolic move, British lawmakers earlier this month voted in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state. "The Swedish government needs to understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than a piece of furniture from IKEA that you assemble at home," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Haaretz, "and should act with responsibility and sensitivity." In response to Lieberman's comments, Wallstrom quipped (via NPR): "I will be happy to send Israel Foreign Minister Lieberman an IKEA flat pack to assemble. He'll see it requires a partner, cooperation and a good manual." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Charlie Rangel Says Some Republicans 'Believe That Slavery Isn't Over' | ||
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Veteran Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) had some harsh words for the Republican Party during a Thursday campaign rally for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). As he has done repeatedly before, Rangel compared some members of the GOP to confederates from the Civil War era. But at the Thursday evening event, he added that they "believe that slavery isn't over." "We have to win. We have to be able to send a national message with Andrew Cuomo. And the thing is: Everything we believe in — everything we believe in — they hate. They don't disagree — they hate! They think if you didn't come from Europe 30 years ago, you didn't even make it. Some of them believe that slavery isn't over and they and think they won the Civil War!" Rangel shouted. In contrast, Rangel said the Democratic Party is doing "God's work" on issues important to the American people. "And so what we have to do is send a collective voice," he said of the upcoming midterm elections. "Everything we're doing is God's work: education, healthcare, affordable housing, [protecting against] discrimination, paying people the minimum wage." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Amazon Exec: 'We Didn't Get The Price Right' On The Fire Phone | ||
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An Amazon executive admitted that the company priced its smartphone too high, Fortune's JP Mangalindan reports. "We didn’t get the price right," Amazon senior vice president of devices David Limp told Mangalindan. "I think people come to expect a great value, and we sort of mismatched expectations. We thought we had it right. But we’re also willing to say, ‘we missed.’ And so we corrected." Amazon's Fire phone originally cost $199 but the company shot the price down to 99 cents after only a few months. In its most recent earnings call, the company admitted that it took a $170 million hit and had $83 million worth of unsold phones. Amazon's phone boasts 3D effects and a camera mode that can automatically identify real-world objects, but it was widely seen as a bit of a flop at launch. Limp says that several software updates since July have fixed some problems users had with the device. Despite the financial hit the smartphone caused, Amazon plans to keep working hard on the Fire phone, taking its usual long-term approach. "When you’re taking risks, they’re not all going to pay off," Limp says. "Those are the facts." SEE ALSO: The First 21 Amazon Employees: Where Are They Now? Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Andy Rubin, Founder Of Android, Is Out Of Google (GOOG) | ||
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Andy Rubin, the Google executive responsible for the creation of Android, is out of the company, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. Google confirmed the report with CEO Larry Page, saying in a statement to the Journal, “I want to wish Andy all the best with what’s next. With Android he created something truly remarkable — with a billion plus happy users. Thank you.” Rubin came to Google when it bought his tiny startup, Android, in 2005. When he got to Google, Android was basically just an idea. By the time he stopped running Android in March 2013, it was the world's most widely used operating system, dominating smartphone market share. Rubin is planning to do a startup incubator for hardware-focused companies, according to the Journal. When Rubin stopped running Android, he stayed at Google to work on robotics, a longtime passion of his. Jessica Lessin at The Information tweeted that Rubin wanted more freedom for his robotics group. She said he wanted a structure like Calico, which is the anti-aging company Google has started. Our guess is that Page views robotics as something he understands better, and considers it core to Google, and therefore would not want to give it the same independence. Google research scientist James Kuffner will take Rubin's spot to lead the robotics group. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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BILL CLINTON: Republicans Are Trying To 'Cash In On The Misery Of The American People' | ||
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Former President Bill Clinton claimed on Thursday that one of the main reasons Republicans are expected to perform so strongly in the upcoming midterm elections is their willingness to capitalize on the lingering effects of the 2008 economic recession. "Here's the important thing. As a nation we're back to ground zero, we're back to where we were. We got all of our jobs back," Clinton declared at an endorsement event for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D). However, after ticking off quarterly growth statistics, Clinton said, "People don't feel it yet." Clinton said the Republican Party realizes this is "their last time" to press a message of economic gloom and doom. "We are now in the position to define how we're going forward. And the reason all these elections all over the [country] are being so hotly contested is that our friends in the other party think that this their last time to cash in on the misery of the American people," he argued. If Republicans win, Clinton further warned about what policies they will advocate: trickle-down economics and "social policies where you're on you're on your own." Clinton, who has been a top Democratic booster in conservative-leaning states where President Barack Obama is unpopular, said voters should realize Obama isn't on the ballot and the Democratic Party is actually closer to their values. "When I go to these tough places, ... the voters say they want to vote for these Republicans just because they're bashing the president. They're trying to take everybody else off the ballot and put his name on their. And then you ask them what they want and it's the Democrats that are giving them what they want," he said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Fed's First Rate Hike Is In Sight | ||
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FA Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that delivers the top news and commentary for financial advisers. The End Of QE Suggests That The First Rate Hike Is Close (Charles Schwab) The Fed officially ended quantitative easing on Wednesday. The committee maintained the near-zero target rate, and once again used the "considerable time" language. However, they also added that the rate hike will now be data-dependent. The end of QE means that there is "one less thing in the way" of the first rate hike, according to Collin Martin. "With the Fed using more qualitative guidance, we think it will be important to pay attention to each release of the economic projections to get an idea of when the Fed might start hiking rates and how high they may got. We still think a hike sometime in 2015 is most likely," he writes. Older Investors Have A Lot To Learn From Millennials (BlackRock Blog) Millennials were in high school and college as they watched their parents struggle with the financial crisis. As a result, "they perceive pensions as a quaint anachronism" and they "don't believe in the retirement fairy," writes Heather Pelant. Additionally, they have developed extremely good saving habits that the baby-boomer generation did not. First of all, they dedicate nearly half of their incomes to saving and investing — on average 22% goes to savings and 18% goes to investing. Millennials are more interested in investing in the stock market (and have more faith in it, too) than Baby Boomers. In fact, 56% of millennials regularly monitor their investments, and spend approximately 7 hours per months "reviewing the numbers." Strike Gold With Gold-Mining Stocks (Morningstar) The "pickings have been slim" for "bargain-hunting investors," but now's a good time to check gold-mining stocks, according to Christine Benz. Historically, those who have invested in gold-mining stocks have done poorly because it's an extremely volatile group that requires perfect timing. However, Benz argues that investors who are willing to "look beyond the ugly near-term numbers are apt to find" gold stocks attractive. One good reason to invest in gold is that precious metals add diversification benefit to portfolios. Additionally, Morningstar analysts believe that most gold-mining stocks are currently undervalued, and that investors stand to benefit from that in the future. UBS Wants Its Advisers To Serve Only Super-Wealthy Clients (The Wall Street Journal) UBS wants its US-based financial advisers to only serve clients with over $1 million, and to more the clients with smaller accounts to the call center — UBS Wealth Advice Center, according to Corrie Driebusch. And this isn't uncommon: Many US brokerage firms are now pushing advisers to focus on wealthier clients. UBS appears to be following in Bank of America's footsteps. Now, Merrill Lynch isn't paying advisers who are working with accounts of less than $250,000. Instead, those smaller accounts are being moved to its online and telephone-based advice service, Merrill Edge. Since 2011, Merrill Edge has grown to $109 billion. By comparison, the UBS Wealth Advice Center was created in 2013, and so far manages only $8.6 billion. And it looks like they are aiming to grow their call center to something similar to Merrill Edge. Spouses Should Share Long-Term Care Coverage (Financial Planning) Long-term care coverage is expensive. But there's good news: If both spouses are planning on getting coverage, then "a share policy might offer more coverage for less money by letting clients pool their benefits," according to Financial Planning. For spousal sharing, if a client buys a five-year policy, then the couple has 10 years of coverage between them. That means that if one spouse uses two years, then the second can use the other eight. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Look What Happened To LinkedIn's First Employees | ||
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No matter how you look at it, LinkedIn is one of the stand-out Valley success stories. It has forever changed how we find jobs and network with business colleagues. Jeff Weiner is ranked as the best CEO in the nation, according one rating service, and cofounder Reid Hoffman is a Valley A-lister, worth almost $4 billion. But it wasn't always like this. LinkedIn was founded in December 2002, with a couple handfuls of people. And a few months after it launched on May 5, 2013, it was in danger of being a bomb. People weren't joining the service, until Hoffman "sat down with the team and said, if we don't solve this, we're dead." They came up with one idea: let people upload their email address books to see which of their friends had joined. Thankfully that worked, the site went viral, and today it's a $25 billion company with 313 million members in over 200 countries, and an employer of 5,700. Lee Hower: From PayPal to venture capitalist Lee Hower was part of LinkedIn's founding team in 2002. Today he's a venture capitalist at a firm he cofounded, NextView Ventures, which specializes in seed rounds. LinkedIn wasn't the first wildly successful tech companies he joined early. He was also an early employee of PayPal in product and business development roles, staying through the 2002 IPO and sale to eBay. He left PayPal to join LinkedIn as head of corporate development, staying until 2004, when LinkedIn was very young, but starting to gain traction. Chris Saccheri: From building LinkedIn to stay-at-home dad Chris Saccheri was part of the founding team of LinkedIn, responsible for building the website, a task he worked at for almost nine years. He rose to the rank of director of web development, managing a team of 30. Since LinkedIn is, at its heart, a website, a lot of the credit for its success was due to Saccheri, his colleagues say. Today, he's a full-time, stay-at-home dad for his two kids. He describes the job: "Responsibilities include reading books, leading outings to parks/libraries/zoos, setting limits, making up stories, supervising science projects, volunteering at school ..." Ian McNish: From network guy to angel investor Ian McNish also joined LinkedIn in 2002 as a founding member and spent the next 10 years building the network and data centers that would eventually support millions of LinkedIn users. He stayed at the job 10 years, leaving in May of last year to officially join Box, although he'd already been acting as Box's technical adviser. He's also become a mentor in 500 Startups and is an active angel investor. He describes his first day at LinkedIn like this: "As part of the founding team, my first day in our 'office' was in serial entrepreneur Reid Hoffman's apartment. We didn’t have a brand name, prototypes, company-owned or operated computers and we were in a market that had yet to be defined." See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Burkina President Compaore says not resigning, open to talks | ||
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Ouagadougou (AFP) - Burkina's President Blaise Compaore said in a televised speech Thursday that he was not resigning and was open to talks about a transition of power, after the army dissolved the government and parliament following violent protests against the veteran leader. "I have heard the message," Compaore said, adding that he was "available" for talks on "a period of transition after which power will be transferred to a democratically elected president". He added that he was cancelling a state of emergency declared hours earlier. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ex-Apple Supplier Says A Soured Deal With Apple Forced It Into Bankruptcy (AAPL) | ||
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We're now getting GTAT's take on why the partnership crumbled, thanks to a recent court filing from Daniel Squiller, GTAT's chief operating officer. GTAT was long-rumored to be making sapphire display covers for the iPhone 6. When news broke that Apple wasn't in fact using the sapphire for its main display, shares of GTAT tanked. The company then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which means it can reorganize and continue doing business. But it isn't a great sign for GTAT. Squiller paints a bleak picture of the company's Apple partnership — from GTAT's perspective — suggesting the sapphire furnace manufacturer didn't anticipate the factors that caused it to file for bankruptcy protection. "GTAT incurred losses — resulting in the current liquidity crisis — that GTAT believes were due largely to actions not within its control," Squiller said. He also said the bankruptcy was necessary because its relationship with Apple had become "unsustainable." Here's was the original deal between Apple and GTAT, according to Squiller: The essence of the transaction was for GTAT to install in excess of 2000 sapphire-growing furnaces to be operated in a facility provided by Apple. GTAT would operate the furnaces to produce large quantities of high-quality sapphire for use in Apple’s products. The transaction had the potential to be revolutionary for GTAT’s business and a significant achievement for Apple. However, the deal fell apart after GTAT wasn't able to make enough sapphire crystal in time for the deadline the two companies agreed on. GTAT also said it wasn't able to market its sapphire material and equipment overseas because of exclusivity provisions in its deal with Apple. Squiller ultimately lays GTAT's bankruptcy at Apple's feet. "Given the severity of the losses incurred as a result of the transactions with Apple and the terms of the Apple Agreements, GTAT had little choice but to commence these Chapter 11 cases," Squiller said. However, he did add this caveat to the statement he filed in court: "GTAT is well aware, and the Court and the parties in interest should expect, that Apple would vigorously dispute any attribution of responsibility to Apple for the failure of the sapphire growth and fabrication project or for GTAT’s chapter 11 filing." We've reached out to Apple for comment and will update this post if we hear back. SEE ALSO: Apple Will Find Jobs For Employees At Its Bankrupt Supplier Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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One Map Shows Exactly What Obamacare Has Done To The Country | ||
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The number of Americans without health insurance hit an all-time high in 2006. Nearly 44 million people (close to 17% of Americans) lacked even the most basic coverage, meaning they'd have to pay full price for any health treatment, from annual checkups to prescription medications. Data from previous years showed the numbers were following a worrisome trend.
By 2010, as the number of uninsured continued to rise (even while the percentage of Americans without insurance held steady), it was clear America had a problem. In many states, the numbers were far more dismal. Across Nevada, Texas, and several other southern states, more than 22% of the population lacked health insurance. (These numbers vary slightly depending on the data used; the maps below use the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index.) Here's what 2010 looked like, in a visualization created by @MetricMaps:
Today, more Americans have health insurance than ever before. Since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, an additional 10 million people who would have previously had to pay full price for any health treatment can now afford an annual checkup, eye glasses, or birth control pills.
Four million of them are young people between 19 and 25. In states that embraced the ACA's planned expansion of Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, the number of uninsured fell by nearly 40%. A wide swath of Western states, including California, Nevada, and Washington saw the number of their residents with insurance climb sharply. Texas (which opted out of participating in the Medicaid expansion along with several other states, mostly in the South), is now the only state where more than 22% of the population lacks coverage. In total, an estimated 3.6 million Americans who would have likely received Medicaid coverage under the new rules remain uninsured today because they live in states that opted out of the Medicaid expansion. While the population of uninsured Americans seems to be shrinking, the Affordable Care Act itself is far from perfect. Dozens of glitches in the online system of enrollment likely prohibited hundreds from signing up — only six people actually managed to enroll in Obamacare the first day the system rolled out. The law also raised the cost of health insurance for some people who already had private coverage because it forced insurers to provide more benefits and to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Regardless, the Affordable Care Act was created in part to increase the number of Americans with health insurance. And it's undoubtedly achieved that goal. Here's the 2008-2014 action in all its GIF glory: 
SEE ALSO: 11 Charts That Should Make People Embarrassed Of The US Healthcare System DON'T MISS: Obama Just Took A Big Victory Lap On Obamacare Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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These States Have Reportedly Tried To Hide Scary Climate Data From The Public | ||
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Climate change is a grim subject, with warming temperatures, melting ice caps, rising sea-levels, and more frequent and intense severe weather events all projected for the planet's not-so-distant future. For many, the direness of the situation is a spur to action. Just last month, 400,000 people flocked to the streets of New York City for the People's Climate March, a clear message to policy makers that bigger changes are both needed and wanted. And mere days afterward, the United Nations held its 2014 Climate Change Summit, where leaders from around the world gathered to discuss their strategies for reducing carbon emissions and slowing down global warming. For some authorities, though, the bad news is better swept under the rug. In recent years, a number of US states have had disappointing records when it comes to producing, publishing, and using the best climate science. Here are a few of the offenders: NebraskaIn 2013, a bill passed in Nebraska authorizing a $44,000 study on climate change in the state, with one important caveat: The researchers would only be permitted to examine "cyclical" climate change, the result of non-human events such as solar variations. In short, the researchers would not be allowed to factor human activity — by now almost universally acknowledged as the biggest driving factor of climate change — into account. The bill was originally introduced by Sen. Ken Haar without the "cyclical causes" provision. But things took a downward turn when Sen. Beau McCoy introduced an amendment that took human activity out of the running. In defiance of the bill, a group of climate scientists at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln refused to participate in the state-sponsored study and, instead, started their own. The results of their study were released in September, and painted a concerning picture, with projections of higher temperatures, more frequent severe weather events, and reduced snowpack and runoff water from the Rocky Mountains. The state of Nebraska has since abandoned its own study, although the state's Climate Assessment Response Committee will still be required to select an independent study to present to the governor and state legislature with recommendations for future action, reports the Columbus Telegram. South CarolinaA state-sponsored climate study was labeled ready for public review in November 2011, but it stayed under wraps for more than a year before it was finally released in March 2013. The report, now available online on the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (DNR) website, describes potential changes in temperatures, sea level, water resources, and habitat for wildlife, and also details a recent history of warming temperatures across the state, particularly from 1970 on, as shown in the chart below.
While the report was still being withheld, South Carolina news outlet TheState.com reported that "DNR officials say that their priorities have changed and that there is less urgency to release the study, which they say needs some revision." North CarolinaNorth Carolina made headlines two years ago when it passed a bill prohibiting policy makers from basing coastal policies on the latest climate science. The law was passed in June 2012 in response to a 2010 state-sponsored report compiled by the Coastal Resources Commission predicting a 39-inch rise in sea level by 2100 — bad news for tourism and real estate, alike. The chart below, taken from the report, illustrates the projected sea level rise throughout the rest of the century:
Sadly, these aren't the only states slacking on their climate action, although they are among the most extreme. ThinkProgress published a map several months ago identifying 15 states that are governed by climate deniers and eight more whose governors take no stance or have weak climate policies.
In 2005, The New York Times broke a story about a White House official who edited government climate reports repeatedly in 2002 and 2003 in order to downplay links between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It seems that altering, downplaying, or just plain ignoring the most current climate science is sometimes easier for policy makers than facing the tough truths about climate change. Luckily, good climate reports were ultimately made public in the above three states, even if the reports are not currently being utilized to their full potential. With marches, protests, international summits, and other demonstrations of support for responsible climate action happening around the world, perhaps it is only a matter of time before climate science motivates action rather than controversy. SEE ALSO: Shocking Before And After Pictures Of How Climate Change Is Destroying The Earth Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The report was shelved following a series of changes in the DNR, most notably the 
Now, at least until 2016, the law stipulates that coastal policies can only be made using sea-level predictions based on historical data, meaning data that do not account for melting ice caps and other likely climate-related events that could lead to accelerated sea level rise in the future. The law also requires the Coastal Resources Commission to write a new report including sea-level projections only through the next 30 years, to be updated every five years. The report is expected to be completed by March 2015.
The problems don't end with the states. The US federal government, in fact, has a history of covering up troubling climate science.