How This Woman Is Getting Volunteers To Read To Kids All Over The World | ||
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Annabelle Howard, the founder of a nonprofit organization called Big Fun Education is showing the world how the internet can and should change the way kids learn. It's not about looking facts up on the web. It's about connecting kids with other kids and people that they could never have worked with before the internet. And her choice of internet tools is Google+ and Google's videoconferencing tool, Hangouts. For instance, using Google+ and Hangouts she has:
Those activities came through two of Big Fun Education's programs: Macbeth Goes Social and Reading Without Borders. Macbeth Goes Social coordinates live readings and performances of the play Macbeth with students from around the world. Reading Without Borders connects adults with students to read books about things the kids are passionate about. Howard says her goal is to make theatre accessible and fun for everyone and to get students interested in reading. "Everybody loves feeling connected," Howard tells Business Insider. "It's almost addictive."
She plugged into Google's Connected Classroom Google+ community and found more teachers than she ever expected willing to give her idea a shot. She eventually created her own Google+ community for Big Fun Education that now has more than 500 followers. Once she saw how much kids came alive and engaged with the literature when acting out her plays with other students through Hangouts, she wanted to try to see if she could find other ways to get them reading. After she put out a call for willing readers, the volunteers poured in. She has now connected students and adults in more than 37 countries. Through Macbeth Goes Social, she has seen kids interact with plays they had previously found boring. Through Reading Without Borders, she's watched kids who hated reading get excited about books. The readers become mini-mentors, all through using Google Hangouts. "In this day and age, where everything is known or could be known with a click or a search, we’ve got to remember how to be human," she says. "It’s not all information. It’s about relating to each other. It’s about telling stories. It’s about listening as well as speaking. That can be magic." Howard funds both programs through grants and donations. Learn more about them here. SEE ALSO: A Google Exec Just Beat The World Record For Highest-Altitude Jump From The Stratosphere Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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She started Big Fun Education in 2011, after working for many years as a teacher and publishing almost 30 classic drama adaptations that came with board games. She and her partner, Forrest Stone, wanted to find a way to bring those adaptations digital. They wanted to find a way to use social sharing tools to bring them to as many kids as possible. Amazon's 5th Employee: Here's How Jeff Bezos Talked Me Into Joining The Company (AMZN) | ||
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Tom Schonhoff joined Amazon as its fifth employee in 1995. He had just graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in computer science (he had been working as a software developer throughout the 1980s but never got around to completing college until he was in his early 30s.) Not long after the graduation ceremony, Schonhoff got a phone call from Jeff Bezos. At that point, Amazon's site wasn't even live, but Schonhoff had been beta-testing it. Somebody had given Bezos his name. The founder was looking for a highly skilled developer, but Schonhoff didn't have the right specialization. Bezos insisted he would find a spot for Schonhoff, who ended up building the company's customer service department from scratch. It was an important job, but taking phone calls and delivering packages to the Post Office didn't exactly take advantage of Schonhoff's new degree. He chose to take the job anyway, in part because of his huge confidence in Bezos, whom he had been talking back-and-forth with for several months. "I questioned Jeff really hard about what his business plan was, about his financing, about the software and the design of the store, and so forth," Schonhoff tells Business Insider. "I remember noting very early that I couldn't come up with a question that Jeff didn't have a really well-thought-through answer for, right in hand. And I tried very hard, to punch holes in his plan." Schonhoff says that, try as he might, he couldn't come up with a scenario or possibility that Bezos hadn't already considered carefully. He couldn't come up with a question that Bezos couldn't answer extremely well. "And that's a rare experience," he says. "My sense about Jeff was that he really had covered all his bases and thought it through incredibly well. And that gave me great confidence." That confidence inspired Schonhoff to join the tiny startup. He stayed for about six years. In its early days, Amazon wasn't an "Everything Store" that also makes drones and smartphones; it focused only on books. In the first month, Amazon shipped to people in all 50 states and in 45 countries. Schonhoff remembered that those early orders clearly demonstrated how much of a need people had for the ability to find books not present in their local libraries. People wanted books about obscure topics — the "deeply buried treasures," as Schonoff puts it — like antique pipe organ repair. People would order every book ever written by a specific author. One man in Japan ordered everything in Amazon's catalog that was in any way related to the musical "Annie." "We were not serving the generic, central, high-volume best-seller market," he says. "That was there, but we were giving people a new option that was long-anticipated. That made us really proud." SEE ALSO: The 19 First Amazon Employees: Where Are They Now? Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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One Google Employee Explains Why Working At Google Is So Great (GOOG) | ||
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Google is a legendary employer. With its high pay, smorgasbord of perks, valuable stock options, and amazing tech projects, it is constantly No. 1 on the various "best places to work" surveys. Working there was even the subject of a 2013 Hollywood comedy, the "Internship." So someone posed a question on Quora recently that asked if working at Google really was like a recruitment video, where one person described it "like a big playground." Or was working at Google was "over-rated"? Answer: Uhm. No. The actual experience of working at Google actually gets better as time goes by, says Edgar Duenez-Guzman, a software engineer who has worked for Google for about a year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He writes on Quora: Before I joined Google, I researched the culture, the values and the perks. I kind if hoped it would be awesome, but imagined that it realistically was going to be good, but probably not great. During my first couple of weeks I felt like in the video you posted ... they told us all about the impact we could have, all the great things we would have, and the perks we should use. I figured this was good PR. ... Over a few months I realized that the honeymoon period was not quite ending as I thought. I got to know more about the real culture and the real values of Google. And they were, if anything, even better than what I had hoped. Google gives me amazing freedom to do what I think is important. ... But better yet, one would think that such freedom would cause chaos. ... Yet Google surprised me even more. ... If somebody thinks what I am doing should not be done, they can see it and raise an issue immediately. Now, clearly not everything is perfect. There are issues with Google. It is a large company and growing. It has issues of any large organization. But by and large it is the best place I have ever experienced, and better than I thought it would be. Googlers say those issues are things like: the company is so filled with geniuses, it can be hard to distinguish yourself; there's a lot of pressure to work all the time and spend what remains of your free time on campus, too; it has a big company feel and you can end up feeling like a cog. Still, it's hard to deny how happy many Googlers are overall. One employee summed it up in a Glassdoor review, "If you're ever bored of your current role, there are plenty of new projects and interesting teams to jump onto" and another who has been there eight years said that Google was "likely the last job in my life... ” Here's the recruitment video that some employees say is not over-the-top: Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Chinese Phonemakers Are Preparing To Take On The World | ||
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IF YOU want to understand how China innovates, look no further than its hyper-competitive market for smartphones. Though Samsung and Apple dominate the business globally, the technology superpowers are being squeezed in China by aggressive local manufacturers. Now Chinese firms are selling their handsets abroad in ever-greater numbers and a battle is set to be fought that will reshape the global marketplace for handsets. China's smartphone-makers have a ready launchpad. Thanks to the frugal but feature-rich offerings from local firms, domestic sales have exploded. Over 100m smartphones were sold in the second quarter, accounting for over a third of global sales and making China the world's largest market.
The rise of the inexpensive smartphone is a boon for Chinese consumers, many of whom are going online for the first time. However, Chinese firms are no longer content to scrap for a share of the spoils at home. They are increasingly eyeing lucrative foreign markets. With much fanfare, Xiaomi launched in India in July. It did so in partnership with Flipkart, a leading local e-commerce firm. Xiaomi's handsets are now also available in most of South-East Asia and the firm plans to sell in Brazil next. Though it does not officially sell its phones in America, GPS patterns suggest that around 1m of its snazzy handsets have been detected in the country. As foreigners find it hard to pronounce its name, Xiaomi has even grabbed the website mi.com, perhaps to rebrand itself overseas as "Mi". Another local firm on the move is OnePlus. Reviewers in developed markets have been raving about its clever handsets, which offer top-notch performance and features for around $300--less than half the list price of the latest iPhone. Carl Pei of OnePlus argues that unlike its rivals, his firm was "born a global company". Since its founding late last year, it has targeted 16 countries--including such challenging markets as America and Britain. "It helps that a lot of people don't know that we are a Chinese firm," he confides.
Adding to the advance are those Chinese firms that have long been global, even if they are relatively new to the smartphone business. Huawei has sold unbranded "white label" handsets to telecoms carriers for a while, but is now keenly pushing its own Ascend and Honor brands. Lenovo has spent $2.9 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility, Google's handset division, which dramatically expands its reach in North and South America. It, too, has announced plans for a line of smartphones to be sold only on the internet. Rumours resurfaced this week that Lenovo might even buy BlackBerry, an ailing Canadian handset-maker. That seems unlikely as it makes little sense for a rising star to join hands with a sinking firm: Lenovo already turns a profit on the phones it sells outside China. Moreover, concerns that the Chinese government uses local tech companies to spy--unproven claims that prompted America's Congress to blacklist Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecoms-equipment firm--might prompt Canadian regulators to block any deal. They are emerging in force, but how will Chinese firms fare outside their sheltered home market? Some observers are sceptical, dismissing Chinese technology firms as shameless copycats incapable of innovation--the beneficiaries of a dodgy legal system that allows local firms to infringe international patents and keeps out world-class foreign competition. Google services, including the app store for its popular Android operating system, are effectively blocked in China. Jonathan Ive, Apple's lead designer, gave succour to the naysayers with recent comments dismissing Xiaomi's designs as derivative: "it really is theft and it's lazy and I don't think it's OK at all", he complains. Some things about Xiaomi are clearly borrowed from Apple, from its sleek designs and pleasing user interface to the Jobsian jeans-and-black-top presentations given by Lei Jun, the firm's charismatic founder. A serious threat to Chinese firms as they head overseas is lawsuits from Apple and Samsung, who themselves have long been entangled in nasty battles over intellectual property (IP). Ben Qiu of Cooley, an American law firm, believes that "Xiaomi is in dangerous waters of potential patent-infringement claims on the international markets." But he argues that the firm's clever management team, which includes former Google executives, can navigate these perilous seas because it is well prepared for legal and regulatory battles.
He points out that Tencent, a Chinese internet giant, expanded abroad successfully in part because its general counsel is a seasoned Silicon Valley lawyer. In addition to lawyering up, Chinese handset-makers must also build up arsenals of licences from existing patent holders. To sell phones in rich countries (which, unlike developing ones, strictly enforce IP rights) they have been forced to pay a quarter of revenues to patent holders. Building patent banks can reduce this burden: a mighty arsenal may scare off lawsuits, and patents can be sold or cross-licensed as necessary, to avoid conflict. Lenovo has spent pots of money of late to acquire thousands of patents from NEC, a Japanese firm, from Motorola and from patent trolls. Most importantly, they must come up with valuable inventions in-house. To their credit, Huawei and ZTE are among the world's most prolific generators of new patents. That intense rivalry and race to generate new ideas is the best reason to believe the Chinese upstarts can make it. The confluence of a giant market and cost-conscious consumers has forced them to squeeze component costs, make contract manufacturing more efficient and adopt technological innovations more quickly. This has prepared the best of the local firms to do battle with global titans. There is no denying that many Chinese firms got their start by copying foreign ones at the leading edge. But imitation has often been the starting point for innovation at companies in the rich world. Apple did not invent the compact music player or smartphone. Steve Jobs even flew a pirate's flag atop the old Macintosh headquarters as a reminder to his employees that innovators need to be rule-breakers. That transition from imitation to innovation is happening now at a breathtaking pace in Chinese technology firms. Click here to subscribe to The Economist
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Strikingly, eight of the top ten vendors were local firms. Xiaomi, a startup that only sells online, shot past Samsung to become the leading brand of smartphones in the country. After selling 15.4m in the second quarter (see chart), the firm is on track to peddle 60m handsets this year, and wants to sell 100m in 2015.
This 3-In-1 'Ultimate Laptop Workstation' Works As Advertised, And Also Improves Your Posture | ||
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If there’s one ironic drawback to most laptops, it’s that you can’t use them directly on your lap for an extended amount of time. Without proper ventilation, they get too hot, which is bad for the computer, and bad for you. So I was interested in the BasePro, a so-called "ultimate laptop workstation" that's currently raising money on IndieGogo. It offers three main uses in one package: an ergonomic stand, a backup hard drive, and a USB port.
The company was kind enough to let me try out an early model, which lacked the paint and UV-coating of the finished model. Here’s what you need to know: The BasePro might not win a beauty contest anytime soon, but it's probably the best laptop stand I’ve tried, even though I didn’t really care for the extra storage features.
Let me start with the laptop stand aspect of the BasePro. I used the workstation both on my desk and on my lap — I tried it sitting crosslegged and with my legs straight out — and no matter how I used it, I found myself sitting with improved posture, and I was able to type for longer periods of time. It’s good on the desk, since it doesn’t take up as much space as you’d think, but I actually preferred using it on my lap.
As a MacBook Pro owner who regularly types on the couch, I’ve used all sorts of solutions to keep the computer from burning my beautiful flawless flesh: Folders, books, magazines, and all sorts of pillows. These solutions are okay, but they don’t hold the laptop steady, and they provide minimal ventilation for the computer itself.
I think the BasePro nails it as a laptop stand. But I just don’t buy into all the extra features, which the company emphasizes greatly on its IndieGogo page.
You can buy the BasePro without the hard drive option — that’s $69. But if you want the built-in hard drive, the 1-terabyte model costs $119, 2TB costs $149, and the 4TB BasePro costs $229. It’s nice that you don’t need any additional power adapter to activate these additional features, but I already own a wireless backup drive, and owning a wired external hard drive doesn't appeal to me much anymore. Most of my documents are either in my wireless drive, or handled by one of my various cloud services like Dropbox and iCloud. That said, if you don't currently own an external hard drive and you don't mind the wires, the BasePro is a pretty good deal. Compared to purchasing a standalone external hard drive, the BasePro lets you save about $10 per terabyte on average. Still, that means you need to decide if the stand is worth $70 to you. The BasePro comes with plenty of ports: 4 USB 3.0’s, so you can connect the computer to the workstation, and then the workstation to all sorts of peripherals like printers and flash drives and cameras and monitors.
I would probably use the BasePro to power other monitors, but that’s about it. I’m trying to minimize the number of wires on and off my desk, and most of my laptop-connected accessories, like my printer, are wireless at this point. So I like the BasePro’s ability to charge more accessories, but it requires your computer be plugged in, and I rarely charge more than two devices at once anyhow. The BasePro is solidly built — as a stand, hard drive, and USB hub. If you need any one of these three things, you’ll be happy with this accessory. If you need all three, you're getting a great deal — so long as you don't mind a couple of extra wires. Check out BasePro's IndieGogo page. The company hopes to start shipping in March. SEE ALSO: The Next 'Avengers' Movie Might Demonize Artificial Intelligence All Over Again SEE ALSO: This Phone Has No Frame Around Its Display, But It's Missing A Few Other Things, Too Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The BasePro was a surprisingly good fix for these issues. With its aluminum frame and rubber guides, the BasePro holds the laptop stable while keeping both you and the laptop cool. And the unique shape is well-designed because it also forces you to sit up more, so you’re not hunching over as you look at the screen. I had no idea how much I was bending my neck until I removed the BasePro.
On The 2-Year Anniversary Of Windows 8, Dell Is Promoting Windows 7 PCs | ||
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Microsoft's touch-screen friendly operating system, Windows 8, has now been available for two years, since October 26, 2012. All this time, you've still been able to buy a new computer with Windows 7 instead. That's going to mostly end soon. October 31 is the last day that PC makers can buy licenses of consumer versions of Windows 7 for new PCs. Stores and websites are free to sell the Windows 7 PCs they have in stock after that date, reports ZDNet's Mary Joe Foley, but once that supply is gone, new Windows 7 PCs aimed at consumers should be basically over. October 31 is also the last day Microsoft will sell copies of consumer Windows 7 to install on new PCs. There is an exception, Windows 7 Professional, the version that is geared toward businesses. Although retailers won't be able to sell it after October 31, Microsoft hasn't given a cut-off date for PCs preloaded with this version. Dell is taking advantage of the close-out of some versions of Windows 7. When we visited Dell's website today we were greeted by a promotion of "Windows 7 for the win." There was no similar big promotion celebrating Windows 8's two-year anniversary. That said, if you miss the October 31 deadline and still want to buy a new Windows PC, the current version is Windows 8.1 and it has fixed many of the problems that users had originally complained about. It even lets you boot directly to a "desktop mode" that looks like Windows 7. And if that still doesn't work for you, Microsoft's next version of Windows, Windows 10, will be an even bigger throwback toward older, more popular versions of Windows, from what we've seen of it so far. By the way, there will be no Windows 9. Windows 10 is scheduled to launch mid-2015. SEE ALSO: Steve Ballmer On His Relationship With Bill Gates: 'We've Dusted Up Many Times' Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Mobile Advertising Is Exploding And Will Grow Much Faster Than All Other Digital Ad Categories | ||
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Mobile is growing faster than all other digital advertising formats in the US, as advertisers begin allocating dollars to catch the eyes of a growing class of "mobile-first" users. Historically, there has been a big disparity between the amount of time people actually spend on their smartphones and tablets (significant and growing), and the amount of ad money spent on the medium (still tiny). But BI Intelligence expects that this gap will narrow substantially, as enthusiasm grows for mobile-optimized ad formats (such as interactive rich media and native ads), as targeting improves, and more and more advertisers learn how to effectively use the platform. New data from BI Intelligence finds that US mobile ad spend will top nearly $42 billion in 2018, rising by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43% from 2013. The report looks at the most important mobile ad formats, including display, video, social, and search. The report provides exclusive breakdowns on how spend on each format will grow and why, and examines the overall performance of mobile ads. It also looks at how programmatic ad-buying tools, including real-time bidding, are reshaping mobile advertising. Access The Full Report And Downloads By Signing Up For A Free Trial » Here are some of the key takeaways:
The report is full of charts and data that can easily be downloaded and put to use. In full, the report:
For full access receive to all BI Intelligence's analysis, reporting, and downloadable charts and presentations on the digital media industry, sign up for a free trial. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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IBM's CEO Has Admitted To A Big Failure – And This Could Be The Best Thing She's Done | ||
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On Monday, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty quietly but firmly stopped the madness that had been a noose around her neck since she took office. As part of IBM's disappointing quarterly earnings, she said the company is not going to hit $20 earnings per share in 2015, as IBM has been promising for years. This was known internally as Roadmap 2015. This wasn't a promise made by Rometty, but by her predecessor, Sam Palmisano, a couple of years before Rometty took the helm in 2012. Palmisano was doubling down on a tactic that had worked for him. In 2007, he said he was going to deliver earnings of at least $10 a share by 2010. The company handily beat that number, delivering $11.52 EPS, and became a Wall Street darling. So, he turned around and promised $20 EPS by 2015. But IBM wasn't entering an era of coasting on past investments. The tech industry is going through a radical change. All of the big tech companies are in make-it-or-break-it-mode, from HP to Microsoft. Companies don't want to buy multi-million-dollar software on contracts anymore, then spend millions more on hardware and consulting services to install it in their own data centers. Especially when so many of those huge projects fail. They want to rent exactly the software they need when they need it, hosted elsewhere, and rent the equipment to run their software. That's called cloud computing. And the leader of the cloud, Amazon, keeps cutting its prices as it finds evermore efficient ways to offer cloud services. As companies shift from buying everything to renting it, IBM's revenues are taking a beating. New cloud revenue can't immediately make up for the loss of hardware/software/services revenues. Cloud revenue is recognized slowly over time, not up front when a new contract is signed. Plus, the biggest cloud providers aren't buying hardware, software, and services from companies like IBM. They are building their own. With falling revenue, she tried to grow profits by trimming expenses and laying off workers. She sold business units. IBM even agreed to pay GlobalFoundaries $1.5 billion to take its money-losing microchip business off its hands. IBM tripled its debt to buy back billions of dollars of its own shares, at one point, spending $8.2 billion in a single quarter on repurchases. (Since 2000, IBM has spent $108 billion buying back shares, $12 billion of that in the first half of this year.) This to reduce the number of shares and make that $20 EPS goal. Ultimately, none of it worked. So on Monday, Rometty and CFO Martin Schroeter had to tell Wall Street that they would not hit the target. "Given our third-quarter performance, the actions we're taking and with only 15 months till the end of 2015, we no longer expect to deliver $20 operating earnings per share in 2015," Schroeter said on the quarterly conference call. Rometty doesn't usually join these quarterly calls, but she did on Monday because of this news, and the unusual agreement IBM made with GlobalFoundaries. A huge IBM selloff followed the news, and the shares dropped 7% in heavy volume. Some analysts on the call then questioned if IBM was in a "crises." But here's the thing. This could really be good news for IBM and Rometty. She's no longer jumping through hoops to meet an arbitrary EPS number selected by the previous CEO, from a tactic that made sense in 2007. She is now free to run this company, and implement her own ideas and strategy to start growing revenue, such as the agreement with Apple. She may still fail. But she didn't really have a chance until now. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Tech Industry Has Reached The Moment Of Truth | ||
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Poor performance foreshadows the industry's restructuring
12 Books That Jeff Bezos Thinks Everyone Should Read | ||
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Brad Stone details as much in "The Everything Store," his book about Amazon. "Books have nurtured Amazon since its creation and shaped its culture and strategy," Stone writes. "Here are a dozen books widely read by executives and employees that are integral to understanding the company." We've listed the books here, along with Stone's explanation of why each made the list. This is an update of an article written by Max Nisen. 'The Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro "Jeff Bezos' favorite novel, about a butler who wistfully recalls his career in service during wartime Great Britain. Bezos has said he learns more from novels than nonfiction," Stone writes. 'Sam Walton: Made in America' by Sam Walton "In his autobiography, Walmart's founder expounds on the principles of discount retailing and discusses his core values of frugality and a bias for action — a willingness to try a lot of things and make many mistakes. Bezos included both in Amazon's corporate values," Stone writes. 'Memos from the Chairman' by Alan Greenberg "A collection of memos to employees by the chairman of the now defunct investment bank Bear Stearns. In his memos, Greenberg is constantly restating the bank's core values, especially modesty and frugality. His repetition of wisdom from a fictional philosopher presages Amazon's annual recycling of its original 1997 letter to shareholders," Stone writes. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Sure, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Stanley Druckenmiller Nailed The Biggest Problem Facing IBM (IBM) | ||
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Back in July, we highlighted comments from hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, who called IBM the "poster child" for what was wrong with modern corporate behavior. Druckenmiller said IBM's financial-engineering practices, which include tripling its debt to repurchase stock, were exactly what had been wrong with the economic recovery. But there was something else Druckenmiller nailed that is an even bigger problem for Big Blue: revenue is falling. In Druckenmiller's comments back in July, he said that despite a stock price that had, to that point, risen more than 50% since the 2008 stock market bottom, IBM's sales were identical to what they were six years ago. And on Monday morning, it got worse, as IBM reported earnings that declined 4% year-over-year to $22.4 billion. In morning trade on Monday, shares of IBM were down about 7%. According to data from Yahoo Finance, Wall Street expects IBM's annual revenue in its fiscal-year 2014, which ends in December, to decline 2.3% to $97.4 billion. Those expectations are not yet adjusted for Monday's results, which disappointed by about $1 billion, so the Street's annual expectations are likely to be pared further. And comments from IBM CEO Ginni Rometty certainly didn't do much to engender a great deal of confidence. "We saw a marked slowdown in September in client buying behavior," Rometty said, "and our results also point to the unprecedented pace of change in our industry." Overall, Druckenmiller's comments were in the spirit of highlighting the problems he believed had been created by Fed policy, in particular thwarting capital spending and encouraging companies to engage in financial engineering rather than to invest in their business. At the end of September, IBM had $1.4 billion remaining on its share-repurchase authorization. The company said it expected to request an additional repurchase program at its October board meeting. SEE ALSO: This Is The Scariest Sentence From IBM's Earnings Announcement Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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ANDREESSEN: The American Middle Class Is A Historical Accident | ||
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New York Magazine tech columnist Kevin Roose recently sat down for an epic interview with Netscape creator and power-tweeter Marc Andreessen. They occasionally veered into talking about the future of the economy and particularly about how Silicon Valley's obsession with disrupting industries might affect our future economic system. Here are the most interesting things that Andreessen had to say: The American middle class is a myth Andreessen thinks the American middle class of the mid-20th century is an accident of history, created because much of the industrialized world was bombed out of existence during World War II. "The one major industrial country that wasn’t bombed was the United States. So the United States became the monopoly producer of industrial goods." However, by the late 1960s, Germany and Japan had rebuilt their economies, and it started to fall apart. "It was an accident of history." We need a fairly robust social safety net Capitalism mostly works, he says, but high taxes and a "vigorous safety net" are important, too. "I believe at the individual level, these changes are real and they matter," he says. The new economy — even low-paid jobs — is an improvement "The old farming jobs were f--king terrible jobs. I mean, farmers wake up at 6 in the morning and work 14-hour days. Industrial jobs — people would get killed in these factories all the time. Coal miners — people are trying to protect coal-mining jobs. They’re terrible, terrible jobs ... In developing countries, everybody’s dying to get into modern factory jobs, because the alternative is far worse." Disruption is part of natural economic cycles "We have this new magic machine that cleans hotel rooms, but we’re not going to use it because we want to keep the maids in business. Well, in the old days there used to be a job at the hotel called the guy who lights the coal fire ... If you follow that logic, you would unwind all the way back to where it all started, which was subsistence farming." Silicon Valley disruption is dismantling cartels Speaking specifically about the music and publishing industries, Andreessen says that it's not a bad thing that producers make so much less than they did a generation ago. For example, he says, "... recorded music was an oligopolistic cartel. The only reason why musicians were getting paid what they were getting paid in the 1990s off CDs was because the record labels were price-fixing." Specifically about the music industry, he notes that live music has become a much bigger industry and has become the main source of revenue for a lot of producers. As for whether musicians should get paid more when people listen to their songs online he says: "That’s when we get down into the sticky situation, which is, is our work actually worth what we think it is?"
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Starbucks Might Stop Spelling Your Name Wrong | ||
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Starbucks baristas have become infamous for misspelling customers' names on coffee cups. The company's new order-ahead app will fix that problem, according to Venessa Wong at Bloomberg Businessweek. Starbucks has been testing the ordering app in 150 stores in the Portland area. Wong notes that the app will solve a few problems for Starbucks. "Digital ordering also reduces errors beyond misspelled names — think of all the times when the cashier doesn’t hear an order correctly — and frees up employees for other tasks," she writes. It's also likely that people who use the app will spend more because digital ordering makes them feel removed from the purchase. Brand experts have argued that misspelling names actually benefits Starbucks because people are more likely to share images of their cup on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. A recent YouTube video produced by comedian Paul Gale argues that baristas spell names wrong on purpose to joke with customers. "We can all relate to being the barista because you're annoyed at the world, or you're the person being messed with, or you're the other person in the coffee shop watching the person being messed with," Gale told USA Today. | ||
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This Startup Wants To Overhaul Your Lackluster Retirement Strategy | ||
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You're probably patting your financially responsible self on the back for opening and contributing to your 401(k). According to Chris Costello, however, that might not be enough. Costello is the cofounder and CEO of blooom (yes, three o's), a 401(k) management service that won best of show at the 2014 Finovate fall conference, a trade show that unveils and highlights the latest innovations in banking and tech. "In the 19 years I've been in this business, helping people my parents' age, I've been keenly aware that people my age have been largely shut out of the quality investment advice space for lack of a big enough account," 41-year-old Costello explains. He says that since he left Wall Street in 2004 and started his own financial services firm, The Retirement Planning Group, the most common question he gets is, "Hey Chris, I have this 10-k-4 thing at work and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with it. Could you take a look and tell me what I'm supposed to do?" "80% of the time when I'd look at their statement," Costello recalls, "I'd see that it was significantly screwed up. It would be a 29-year-old with his entire 401(k) in bond funds, or a 33-year-old with her entire account in company stock. I'd see every shape and size, but almost never an appropriate balanced, diversified allocation." Costello isn't the only one who's detected an issue with how Americans approach their 401(k)s. CNBC reports that only 10% of account holders make a change in their investments over the course of the year, according to data from Fidelity. And an ING Direct USA survey found that 50% of American adults who have participated in employer-sponsored retirement plans abandoned them when changing jobs, contributing to the 15 million "orphaned" accounts that made up over $1 trillion in 2010. Between the investors ignoring and abandoning accounts, it seems that many Americans could use some help getting the most from their 401(k)s. That's why Costello and his partners started blooom, which manages your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement account.
Once users sign up, blooom first uses an algorithm to determine the most advantageous mix of available investments for the individual user. It then checks the account every 90 days. At that 90-day mark, the user receives an email that either says the equivalent of "all good," or "we had to make some tweaks." Every few years, blooom rebalances the accounts according to the client's time horizon. As Costello points out in his Finovate presentation, a blooom client can choose not to look at his 401(k) for the next 20 years. "We're 401(k) custodians, and employer agnostic," Costello says. "It doesn't matter where you work. All you need to have is an account and an online login." Currently, blooom is very much a startup. The service has about 100 users and has established itself using $400,000 of the founders' own cash. They're now looking to expand and secure additional funding, and in early 2015, they plan to release iOS and Android apps to accompany the web platform.
Right now, the service costs $10 a month if you have more than $5,000 in your account and $1 if you have less. Before the end of the year, the pricing will change to $1 a month if you have less than $20,000 in your account, and $15 if you have more. This is more expensive than other similar services like Wealthfront, which charges $25 a year to manage $20,000. It's worth noting that although blooom falls squarely in the robo-adviser space with algorithm-based online investment platforms like Betterment and Wealthfront, other services generally don't touch 401(k)s. Investment adviser Financial Engines is the exception — the publicly traded company offers retirement account management as an employee benefit with contracted employers. Costello explains that the dearth of 401(k)-centric services is because 401(k)s are spread among employer-selected brokerages like Fidelity and Vanguard and are therefore harder to consolidate and manage. "There's an additional layer of challenge involved in scaling up a business when you have all these institutions to work with," he says. "That's why the market hasn't been as exploited as with other models." Although blooom is in its nascent stages, there's a pretty obvious way to figure out whether it's a service worth trying: If you don't already have professional advice, are you completely confident in your 401(k) investments? If so, nice work. If not, it might be worth $15 or less a month to be so. SEE ALSO: Here's What To Do With Your 401(k) When You Leave Your Job Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Here Are All The Phones Confirmed To Get Google's Massive Android Update (GOOG) | ||
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Back in June, Google unveiled what's being called the biggest Android update yet. With Android 5.0, or "Lollipop," Google is adding a bunch of changes that are both physical and internal. One of the biggest alterations will be the introduction of Material Design — a new design language that puts more of an emphasis on shadows and colors. There are a handful of under-the-hood improvements, too, such as Project Volta, which is a collection of back end enhancements meant to improve battery life. But, unlike the iPhone, Android devices don't get major software updates all at the same time. It depends on which type of phone you have and which carrier you're on. There are also tons of Android phones that are left out of major carrier updates too. We still don't know exactly when Android 5.0 will be released for every phone, but here's a roundup of what we know so far. Google's Nexus 6 will come with Android 5.0 already installed, and both the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 will receive the update too. Google hasn't announced when it will launch, but Google has reportedly given developers a date of Nov. 3, according to blog Android Police. HTCHTC's One M8 and previous-generation One M7 will both get Android 5.0 as well. Jeff Gordon, the company's global online communications manager, tweeted that both phones will get the upgrade within 90 days of the software's final release. MotorolaMotorola announced last week that its first and second generation Moto X and Moto G will get Android 5.0, along with the Moto G LTE, Moto E, and Droid Ultra, Droid Maxx, and Droid Mini phones. SamsungSamsung hasn't made any official announcements regarding updates for its line of smartphones, but rumors suggest the Galaxy S5 will be able to upgrade come December. Samsung also teased an Android Lollipop update for its new Galaxy Note 4 via Twitter. It's likely that Samsung's other popular phones, such as the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, will also get the upgrade, but we haven't heard anything just yet. LGLG hasn't revealed which of its phones will get Android Lollipop yet either. However, rumors from tech blogs such as GSM Arena and PhoneArena suggest the LG G3 will get the update before the end of the year, and the G2 will receieve the upgrade in early 2015. We'll update this story as more carriers and manufacturers make announcements. | ||
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Scientists Describe Their Work In Emoji And The Results Are Hilarious | ||
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Academic research is not written for the average reader. The level of precision demanded by that work calls for a specialized vocabulary — some would call it jargon — that makes it often incomprehensible to a non-expert. While there's a legitimate case to be made that such language is necessary for accuracy, some think that the whole thing has gone too far. In a recent essay titled "Why Academics Stink At Writing" for the The Chronicle Of Higher Education, the well-known Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker tried to make sense of the "prose style called academese" that he calls "the most conspicuous trait of the American professoriate" along with "wearing earth tones, driving Priuses, and having a foreign policy." As Pinker points out, the Calvin and Hobbes comic where Calvin titles his homework "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes," and then tells Hobbes "Academia, here I come!" is not far off. Pinker has a variety of explanations, including the idea that there's little incentive for academics to write well in a conventional sense. Still, he offers a link to a free downloadable writing guide for academics and mentions his new book, "The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century." The essay got an unexpected response. Researchers who use Twitter took to the internet to tweet descriptions of their work using a language that's theoretically now the argot of the people: emoji. They used the hashtag #emojiresearch. And the results were amazing, if sometimes inscrutable. The Chronicle collected some of the best responses in a Storify, which we've embedded below. What do you think — easier or harder to understand than academic lingo? | ||
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E-Commerce Sales Could Top $100 Billion During The Holidays — Here’s What Retailers Need To Know | ||
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The final holiday quarter of the year is retailers' do-or-die moment. Recently, all the growth is online. We estimate that there will be $100 billion in online sales in the fourth quarter this year in the US, a 16% increase over the same period last year, on pace with previous years. That's much higher than the rhythm for overall retail sales: The National Retail Federation forecasts only a 4.1% growth in November and December this year. In a new report, BI Intelligence takes an exhaustive look at the e-commerce market, estimating holiday sales and shipments, tracking consumer behavior, and outlining the strategies that retailers are using to catch up in e-commerce. Access The Full Market Forecast By Signing Up for A Free Trial Today >> Here are some of the key points in the report:
In full, the report:
To access the E-Commerce Market Update Report and BI Intelligence's ongoing coverage on the future of retail, mobile, and e-commerce — including charts, data, and analysis — sign up for a free trial.
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A Brilliant Ex-Google Engineer And A Brilliant Ex-Stanford Professor Are Working To End Traffic Jams | ||
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Nobody likes traffic jams. And we may not be forced to live with them for the rest of our lives. Young startup UrbanEngines hopes to solve traffic jams by applying the lessons learned from keeping the internet up and running. If anyone can do that, it's the founders of UrbanEngines. Balaji Prabhakar is a former Stanford professor and one of the world's authorities on "internet congestion" or how to keep internet sites up even when they get pounded with traffic. Ditto for Shiva Shivakumar, who spent 10 years as an engineer at Google working his way up to vice president and helping build products like Gmail and AdSense. Their idea is to watch real world traffic so cities can make changes on the fly when they see traffic problems coming, much the same as big internet companies like Google watches their websites.
It occurred to him that street traffic and internet traffic are the same problem, too many people trying to get to the same place at once. He had helped solve internet congestion, could he do the same for real live traffic? Shivakumar had a similar epiphany while working on Gmail. His team had just figured out how to a make each email open 50 nanoseconds faster. "That was a big deal. We had a few hundred million people using Gmail" so when you added up all those nanoseconds, "it was a lot of time," he told Business Insider. He started wondering "how you could apply that 50 milliseconds savings to the real world to really give people back a lot time." He enrolled in Stanford to study the problem and met professor Prabhakar and the genesis of a cool new startup, UrbanEngines, was born.
A lot of companies are trying to sell cities millions of dollars of new sensors and equipment to build "smart cities" that can do this sort of thing. But UrbanEngines discovered that you could track traffic using city-issued items people were already using, like their bus and train passes. It built a system, which it sells to cities, that collects data from these items, so they can predict traffic problems in real time. "You don't need to install more sensors," Shivakumar tells us. This should make it more affordable for more cities to attack the traffic jam problem. Maybe one day, a traffic jam could become as rare an event as a Google outage. UrbanEngines has not revealed how much money it has raised but it is backed by heavy hitters Google Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, early Google investor and board member Ram Shriram, SVAngel, Greylock Partners, and Samsung Ventures. SEE ALSO: Apple And IBM Hope To Change The Way People Work, Starting Next Month Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The idea hit Prabhakar in December, 2007, when he was late for a meeting and "stuck in the mother of all traffic jams," he recounted to Business Insider.
When a city can treat its transit systems the way Google treats its website, it can see when a traffic jam develops and take immediate steps to solve it, like shifting extra trains to the congested area, or re-routing buses and so on. New Apple Designer Marc Newson Made A Beretta Shotgun (AAPL) | ||
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Apple's latest design hire has made a shotgun for Beretta, according to Dezeen Magazine. Marc Newson's take on the Beretta 486 Parallelo will be unveiled in London in November. (The standard version is pictured here). We can expect Newson's firearm to be a 12-gauge side-by-side shotgun with ornate engravings, according to Dezeen. Apple hired Newson, a close friend of chief designer Jony Ive, last month, according to Vanity Fair. It's unclear exactly what Newson will work on at Apple, though his experience designing timepieces suggests he may be involved in future iterations of the Apple Watch. Apple may have also hired Newson to keep Ive at the company. Businessweek talked to some former Apple executives who suggested bringing Newson on could be Apple's way of retaining Ive's interest in working there, as he's already become the world's most famous living designer. SEE ALSO: Apple Just Hired A New Design Genius — Here Are 15 Stunning Things He's Done Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Former SpaceX Exec Explains How Elon Musk Taught Himself Rocket Science | ||
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While it's certainly impressive that Elon Musk has bachelor's degrees in physics and economics from the University of Pennsylvania, it's an absurd understatement to say that prepared him to run SpaceX, his spacecraft company. Jim Cantrell, who was an aerospace consultant at the time, became SpaceX's first VP of business development and Musk's industry mentor when the company launched in 2002. He says that Musk literally taught himself rocket science by reading textbooks and talking to industry heavyweights. Cantrell's first contact with Musk was a cold call in 2001. As he explains to Esquire: "I had the top down on my car, so all I could make out was that some guy named Ian Musk was saying that he was an Internet billionaire and needed to talk to me. I'm pretty sure he used that phrase, 'Internet billionaire.'" Musk learned about Cantrell through Robert Zubrin, the founder of the Mars Society. Musk knew that Cantrell was an expert in Russian rockets and wanted to learn how he could get a spacecraft to Mars. After reading Cantrell's response in the Quora thread "How did Elon Musk learn enough about rockets to run SpaceX?," we asked him to share some insights into his time with Musk. Below, he explains the two-part learning process that Musk used to teach himself rocket science. He committed textbooks to memory."He is the smartest guy I've ever met, period," Cantrell tells us. "I know that sounds overblown. But I've met plenty of smart people, and I don't say that lightly. He's absolutely, frickin' amazing. I don't even think he sleeps." Cantrell tells us that he soon discovered that he and Musk shared an affinity for applied knowledge, and he loaned him some textbooks to study (they "were never returned, by the way!" Cantrell says). The books were "Rocket Propulsion Elements," "Aerothermodynamics of Gas Turbine and Rocket Propulsion," "Fundamentals of Astrodynamics," and the "International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems." He doesn't know exactly how Musk would read or take notes, but he knows that he practically memorized them. "He would quote passages verbatim from these books. He became very conversant in the material," Cantrell says. He built a network of the smartest people.Musk "knows everything about what he's building," Cantrell says, but of course even he understands that he can't master everything. That's why he used Cantrell's network in the aerospace industry to gather some of the best in the business. "It was like spaceapalooza!" For example, they hired the rocket engineer Tom Mueller, who Cantrell says is the smartest propulsion expert out there. Musk respected his deep knowledge and let him take care of things that he'd learned from years of research. In the same way that Musk absorbed books, he tried doing that with other people's expertise. "It was as if he would suck the experience out of them. He truly listens to people," Cantrell says. Musk would absorb this information and then hold his own in conversations — and he didn't hold back. Cantrell says that Musk took a tech entrepreneur's approach to the industry and believed that many of the opinions of industry mainstays were stupid. "He insulted a lot of people in those days! I wasn't insulted, but I was taken aback. He's an original thinker," Cantrell explains. Cantrell left SpaceX in 2002 because he says he simply did not share Musk's intense passion for his mission to land on Mars. But he tells us that he did it out of respect for Musk's passion and has no regrets about his decision. He's currently working on a book about the early days at SpaceX, and he thinks that Musk's genius blend of capitalism, curiosity, and motivation will make him a true pioneer. "He's used a billion dollars to do what NASA couldn't do with $27 billion," Cantrell says. "Boy, it's inspiring." | ||
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Why Mark Cuban Invested $1 Million In This Boxed Wine Company On 'Shark Tank' | ||
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When investor Kevin O'Leary takes a sip of BeatBox Beverages' neon Blue Razzberry Lemonade on the latest episode of ABC's hit show "Shark Tank," he flatly proclaims, "This tastes like sh--." But even though he would rather enjoy a fine Merlot than the entrepreneurs' fruity boxed wine, O'Leary concludes with the rest of the Sharks that BeatBox is on the verge of something big. The entrepreneurs from Austin, Texas, offer proof of concept as well as proof that they know how to penetrate a limited market, which in their case is the state of Texas. It assures the investors that they would be reliable partners to scale the company on a nationwide level. And that's why investor Mark Cuban, who says he actually likes the neon-colored fruit wines, is so quick to lay down $1 million for a third of the company, an investment that's unusually large for the show. BeatBox cofounders Justin Fenchel, Aimy Steadman, and Brad Schultz enter the tank looking for $250,000 in exchange for 10% equity in their company. They tell the investors that they have been self-distributing and using a large packer in Dallas. In the company's first 14 months they have made $235,000 in sales. They got BeatBox off the ground with $55,000 and an additional $100,000 borrowed from family and friends.
Fenchel, as BeatBox CEO, says the money would mostly be used to hire brand ambassadors to set up BeatBox tastings at liquor stores in markets they've determined to be ideal. Cuban doesn't like this strategy. "Your leverage points for any one store aren't great," he says, meaning that getting products in even the largest private store doesn't offer potential for explosive growth. He says they need to instead bring their products to big events with thousands of people. "We've already gotten rid of the biggest risks," Fenchel tells the Sharks, explaining that the founders have already managed to secure the biggest manufacturer in Texas and find markets. They've proven that the product has an audience and that they know how to arrange profitable deals on their own. Franzia, the world's largest producer of boxed wine, has $1 billion in annual sales, Fenchel says, and he's found that the easiest customer acquisitions are the people who buy a box of Franzia for a party only because it's what's at the store. BeatBox is about offering its customers something unique that they could get excited about. O'Leary acknowledges that a beverage can go viral, as Bethenny Frankel's Skinnygirl recently did, when a company focuses on select markets around the country and ignores the rest. Investor Barbara Corcoran offers the BeatBox team $400,000 for 20%, a deal which would bring BeatBox's valuation down to $2 million from the founders' valuation of $2.5 million. O'Leary then offers $200,000 for 20% because he thinks the company is worth $1 million at this point. He also says he'd be a more valuable investor because he's got a wine company of his own, O'Leary Fine Wines, and knows how to penetrate new markets and secure distributors in key states.
Then Cuban chimes in. "You guys don't sell wine," he says. "You sell fun." The entrepreneurs agree. "You get it," Steadman says. Cuban offers $600,000 for a third of the company, which values it at $1.8 million. Meanwhile, investor Lori Greiner quietly conspires on a deal with Herjavec over a notebook. Cuban tells the entrepreneurs they should go with him because he thinks that BeatBox has a shot at going viral, and the only way to do so is to act as fast and big as possible, which he's ready to do. He tells them they need to make a choice. Fenchel is grateful but admits, "We didn't anticipate giving up..." Cuban interjects, "If you've got a counter, just give me it." Without hesitation, Fenchel offers, "Would you do $1 million for a third?" Cuban glances at his notebook for a few seconds. "Yeah!" "I'm jealous of the deal!" Corcoran says. In previous "Shark Tank" episodes, some promising cofounders missed out on deals because they were indecisive. The BeatBox team was prepared for every question and rolled with the punches. Both Steadman and Schultz allowed Fenchel, their CEO, to have the final say on the deal without objecting. They assured the investors that they would be reliable partners. As the founders walk out of the tank, Cuban yells "Let's party!" in his best fry voice. You can watch the full episode at Hulu Plus. SEE ALSO: Daymond John Reveals What It's Like Being A 'Shark Tank' Investor Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The Sharks are impressed but want to know how the entrepreneurs would spend the money. "Tell me how you're going to take it from $235,000 to $5 million," investor Robert Herjavec says.
Facebook Notified The FTC Of An Alleged $2.5 Million Scam (FB) | ||
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On Friday, a New York court ordered a tech support company to cease operations while authorities investigate allegations that it was selling "bogus" tech support to consumers, while masquerading as Facebook and Microsoft. The Federal Trade Commission asked the court to shut down this operation after Facebook alerted the FTC to what the company was allegedly doing, a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider. The alleged scam worked like this, according to the FTC: Pairsys bought "deceptive ads online that led consumers to believe they were calling the technical support line for legitimate companies." They also called people on the phone pretending to be from Microsoft or Facebook. Then the employees talked the people into letting them remotely access and control the person's PC and once they were in the person's computer they sold them " bogus warranty programs and software that was freely available, usually at a cost of $149 to $249, though in some cases, the defendants charged as much as $600." It was lucrative business, according to the complaint, generating $2.5 million in revenue, in 2012, the FTC says. While the judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order while authorities look into these activities, if found guilty, the FTC wants to shut the company down permanently and for the company to refund the people who paid for such services. This is another case where big internet companies will go to authorities to put the kibosh on potentially illegal activities. We know that the big Internet companies like Google and Facebook are monitoring email and files looking for images of explicit images of children, and will report that stuff if found. We also know that Facebook is scouring the internet looking for, and warning its users about, stolen passwords. | ||
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Why Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Sits At The Same Size Desk As His Call Center Employees | ||
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Many young office workers aspire to one day have a spacious corner office, but that dream simply isn't a possibility at Zappos' Las Vegas headquarters. There, CEO Tony Hsieh sits at a desk that is the same size and model as the ones given to new employees at the company's call center, Business 2 Community reports. When we asked why, a Zappos spokesperson told us that one of the company's priorities is creating an environment where employees are able to build honest relationships with one another via open lines of communication. As a result, everyone at the Amazon-owned online shoe retailer is clustered together pretty closely, with people having about 70 square feet of personal space each. Hsieh sits in an open space next to other executives on the third floor of Zappos' building, which used to be Las Vegas' City Hall. Since Hsieh is not particularly fond of the term executive, the company's officers are referred to as "monkeys" and the area where they sit is known as "Monkey Row." Here's Hsieh at his desk:
"Everyone at Zappos is all here for the same goal, so it only makes sense that we can connect with each other whenever we need to," the spokesperson explained. "I cannot really think of another way for a CEO to be more transparent than to have this very open door policy." SEE ALSO: Even CEO Tony Hsieh's Inner Circle Can't Describe Zappos' Insanely Complicated Management Philosophy Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Major Players In The Video Game Industry Are Telling GamerGate Supporters To Cut It Out | ||
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GamerGate is a controversy within the gaming community that has ramped up over the last few months, and now major video game organizations and media outlets are speaking out against it. You can read more about the intricacies of GamerGate over at Gawker, but here's a brief rundown: Some video game fans say that journalists and game developers are too close, and are calling into question the ethics of video game journalists. But it quickly devolved into harassment of women in the industry. Supporters of the movement have rallied behind the "GamerGate" hashtag on Twitter and elsewhere. The hashtag is being blamed for various threats against women. Anita Sarkeesian, who recently canceled an appearance at Utah State University after death threats, says at least one of the many threats against her and feminists at the university claimed affiliation with GamerGate. It has created such a firestorm that Intel pulled advertising from gaming site Gamasutra over an opinion piece about sexism in the gaming industry. Mercedes-Benz pulled (and then reinstated) advertising on Gawker, according to The Washington Post. GamerGate even made the front page of The New York Times. Until now, major game organizations and media outlets have stayed rather silent about their opinions on the issue. And, as Andy Baio points out, GamerGate supporters' "best hope is that the silent are secretly on their side, since nobody else creating stuff seems to be." But in the past few weeks, several have spoken out against the hashtag. The overarching theme is that these organizations haven't spoken up until now because they didn't want to fuel the fire of a losing war. But, as Chris Grant at Polygon writes, "That ends today." He goes on to say that there "has to be a complete rejection of the tools of harassment and fear — we can't even begin to talk about the interesting stuff while people are literally scared for their lives." Game Informer says, "We implore all involved to let 'GamerGate' go, because GamerGate is not an issue." Giant Bomb's Jeff Gertsman issued a letter from the editor last week condemning GamerGate. He writes, "I shouldn't need to say 'hey, don't issue death threats' for people to understand that issuing death threats is a crappy thing to do, but that's where we're at."
Even Simon Parkin at The New Yorker called it a "cringe-inducing Twitter hashtag." "Those who stand against honest debate and dialogue may think that they are protecting a beloved pastime, but their actions compromise its vibrant future," Parkin writes. TechCrunch's John Biggs spoke out against GamerGate on Monday, calling its supporters "trolls." "GamerGate isn’t about gaming," he writes. "It’s an embarrassment to gamers and if it truly represented all gamers I would pull the iPads out of my kids’ hands this instant." The idea of GamerGate supporters being "trolls" who just want a rise out of people may be supported by a chart that Baio tweeted. It shows that most people who tweet about GamerGate only recently created their Twitter accounts. Kotaku's Stephen Totilo writes that "we are all tired of GamerGate," including some GamerGaters themselves. Still, there's more that needs to be said, according to Brianna Wu, one of the women in the game industry who has been harassed. She writes in The Washington Post that more people, especially men in the industry, need to speak up. "This angry horde has been allowed to wage its misogynistic war without penalty for too long," she writes. Either way, it seems that all these organizations are in agreement: The GamerGate hashtag and "movement" needs to stop. And hopefully, by some players in the industry starting to speak out, more will follow suit, and the GamerGate firestorm, and the harassment, can finally come to an end. SEE ALSO: These video game images of Paris look so vivid, we mistook them for the real thing Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The industry's top trade group, the Entertainment Software Association, Why One Artist Went Straight To Menlo Park To Troll Mark Zuckerberg | ||
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Artist Matthew LaPenta wanted to troll Facebook in a big way, so he went straight to the Menlo Park campus to post some of his anti-Facebook-practice artwork. Animal New York reports that "in an homage to Orwell’s 1984 character, LaPenta has dedicated his latest piece to Mark Zuckerberg by plastering his face on homemade streets signs that declare “Big Brother Is Watching You.'" The art stayed up for several days at the Facebook campus before being removed. In an email to Business Insider, LaPenta writes the following about his art: I become a bit obsessed with the facebook color palette a few years ago in some of my minimalist internet interpretations. Facebook had become such an integral part of my life and I thought that it was a bit pathetic to be honest. But on the other side of it I have friends all over the country and the world so it is integral in my everyday routine if I want to keep a connection to all these "friends." The reason I created this new body of work was inspired by facebook aggressive attack on it's users rights. Specifically the part when they say "whatever you post to facebook is ours". Or maybe it was their use of controlling your news feed to do psychological mind experiments. Or it could have been their continued partnership with the NSA. Look I don't hate Mark Zuckerberg, I just think he needed an artistic/comedic reality check. There are a lot of similarities to the 1984 novel by George Orwell and facebook. They have the ability to control the information you are fed and they can see all of your social activity. We have given up our rights to use this free software platform however. It was the users who actively decided to forfeit a bit of freedom. Maybe it's the users that need a comedic reality check. Maybe I made this work for myself. Maybe I need to stop using facebook so much. It's also ironic that I'll probably post this article to my facebook page. Am I bragging, I don't think so. Am I self obsessed? I try hard not to be in this selfie world but facebook has reach and power. It's almost counterproductive to not use it. We just need to always be looking over our shoulder from now on. I was expecting to get a bunch of likes on my facebook page. And that's exactly what I got. I think people get it but they don't open up a dialogue about it. It's so much easier to just click LIKE. Check out some of the photos.  There was this "I heart Menlo Park" tee:  Big Brother is watching you:  Share vs. Take:  Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US teen dies from wounds inflicted by school shooter | ||
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Los Angeles (AFP) - A US teen who had been fighting for her life after a fellow high school student shot her in the head in a Friday rampage has died, the hospital caring for her said. Gia Soriano, 14, "passed away tonight as a result of her injuries," Providence Regional Medical Center said. Soriano is the second teen to die in the country's latest shooting spree, in which a male student opened fire in a high school cafeteria in the northwestern state of Washington, killing one student before shooting himself dead. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Hong Kong, Shanghai cross-trading scheme postponed | ||
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Hong Kong (AFP) - A watershed scheme to allow cross-trading between Hong Kong and Shanghai's stock markets has been delayed indefinitely, a Hong Kong official said Monday, warning the pro-democracy protests that have gripped the city could impact the project's progress. The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect platform, which would enable international investors to trade selected stocks in Shanghai's tightly-restricted exchange, and allow mainland investors to buy stocks in Hong Kong, was widely expected to launch this week. Charles Li, the head of Hong Kong's stock exchange, said on Monday the tie-up had been postponed, adding that the ongoing mass demonstrations demanding Beijing allow the semi-autonomous city free leadership elections could impact the future of the scheme. "If (the protest) drags on, it's impossible for it not to be affected. This is important for Hong Kong," he told reporters. But investors have also reportedly expressed concern about a lack of clarity on taxation and other issues. China's premier Li Keqiang announced plans for the project in April and Chinese and Hong Kong authorities issued a statement then saying it would take "approximately six months" to launch. But in a statement issued late Sunday, the stock exchange said no date had been set for the execution of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect scheme, and it had yet to receive regulatory approval. "There have been market expectations that Stock Connect will commence its operation in October 2014... however, at the date of this announcement, HKEx has not received the relevant approval for the launch of Stock Connect, and there is no firm date for its implementation," the statement said. Li said Hong Kong does not have a say on when it can start although the technical infrastructure is in place. If it goes ahead, the scheme is expected to see volumes on both exchanges rise significantly, particularly Shanghai, but it is subject to strict limits in order to preserve capital controls in China, where Communist authorities keep a tight grip on the yuan currency. Plans for a similar tie-up in 2007 sparked a surge in share prices in both bourses but they were eventually scrapped as the global financial crisis unfolded. Li also told reporters at a press conference on Sunday that he felt pro-democracy activists should now retreat as prolonged protest could harm the city's overall financial stability. "I think retreating with pride is glamorous. I think our kids can consider that," he added. Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets asking for full democratic reforms after Beijing made a decision in August that effectively means all candidates running for the city's top post in future will be screened by a loyalist committee.
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The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now | ||
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1. Dilma Rousseff narrowly beat her rival Aécio Neves for another term as Brazil's president. 2. Investors have not taken the re-election news well. 3. Twenty-five banks failed the European Central Bank's stress test due to capital shortfalls. 4. Nine of those banks were in Italy. 5. Pro-western parties are expected to dominate Ukraine's parliamentary elections in a show of support for new leader Petro Poroshenko. 6. Canadian authorities say Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who killed a solider in Ottawa before opening fire in the Parliament building, made a video recording of himself before the attack. 7. South African soccer captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead Sunday night by intruders, police say. 8. After 10 years, US and British forces officially ended military operations in the the Afghan province of Helmand, allowing Afghan's army to take control of two camps. 9. Thousands of Hungarians protested in Budapest on Sunday over a proposed Internet tax on data transfers. 10. Criticism of the US government's response to Ebola has reached new heights after Kaci Hickox, a 33-year-old nurse who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone, expressed anger after being subjected to a state-imposed quarantine at New Jersey's Newark Airport even though she did not show symptoms. And finally ... In the wake of Tesco's massive profit scandal and lagging sales, new CEO Dave Lewis kicked off the company's turnaround by taking a crew of senior execs on an overnight trip to a remote cottage, where they were ordered to shop at a local Tesco and then prepare food from the purchased groceries. “It’s been a very frenetic time and I wanted to get to know the people and talk about where the business was and where it was heading,” Lewis told The Guardian. SEE ALSO: The 10 Most Important Things In The World Archives Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here's what you need to know for Monday. Kurds thwart new IS bid to cut off Syria's Kobane | ||
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Mursitpinar (Turkey) (AFP) - Kurdish forces have thwarted a new attempt by Islamic State group fighters to cut off the Syrian town of Kobane from the border with Turkey before Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements can deploy. The pre-dawn assault marked the fourth straight day the jihadists had attacked the Syrian side of the border crossing as the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters prepare to head for Kobane, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The peshmerga forces are "ready to go", but they are not expected to deploy to Kobane before Monday at the earliest, Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported. "Technical issues" concerning their transit through Turkey still had to be resolved, Rudaw said without elaborating. Kurdish forces, backed by US-led air strikes, have been holding out for weeks against an IS offensive around Kobane, which has become a high-profile symbol of efforts to stop the jihadist advance. The US military said in its latest update that American warplanes carried out five air strikes near Kobane on Saturday and Sunday, destroying seven IS vehicles and an IS-held building. Ground fighting for Kobane has killed more than 800 people since the IS offensive began on September 16, with the jihadists losing 481 fighters and the Kurds 313, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information. Among the dead are 21 civilians, but the figures exclude IS losses to US-led air strikes, which the Pentagon has said run to "several hundred". The jihadist assault prompted nearly all of the enclave's population to flee, with some 200,000 refugees streaming over the border into neighbouring Turkey. Last week, under heavy US pressure, Turkey unexpectedly announced it would allow the peshmerga fighters to cross its territory to join the fight for Kobane. The main Syrian Kurdish fighting force in the town has close links with the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey and Ankara had previously resisted calls to allow in reinforcements. - 'They don't want the Peshmerga' - The Democratic Union Party (PYD) which dominates Kobane agreed to the offer of the peshmerga troops. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan charged in comments published Sunday that the "terror" group did not really want the peshmerga forces to deploy to Kobane for fear of seeing its influence diminished. "The PYD does not want the peshmerga to come," Erdogan said. "They don't want the peshmerga to come to Kobane and dominate it. "The PYD thinks its game will be spoilt if the peshmerga come. Their setup will be ruined." The PKK and its allies have long had difficult relations with the parties that control the Kurdish regional government and its peshmerga forces in northern Iraq. By contrast Ankara has developed a good working relationship with the Iraqi Kurdish authorities. - 'Destroying Iraqi civilisation' - The lion's share of recent coalition strikes have been in neighbouring Iraq, as Washington has voiced mounting confidence Kobane's fall to the jihadists can be prevented after US arms drops this month. Twelve air strikes were launched in Iraq on Saturday and Sunday -- three of them near Fallujah west of Baghdad and nine around the strategic northern dam of Mosul, which IS briefly held in August and has repeatedly tried to seize back. On Sunday Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi paid a visit to Jordan, one of the five Arab nations taking part in the US-led air strikes. After meeting with his Jordanian counterpart Abdullah Nsur he called for greater cooperation in the battle against IS, which he warned was "destroying Iraqi civilisation". Jordan borders Iraq's Anbar province, much of which has been overrun by the IS. The country has also been struggling to cope with an influx of refugees from the war in neighbouring Syria, where government air strikes on two besieged, rebel-held areas of Homs province killed at least 31 people, the Observatory said Sunday. Meanwhile in Cologne, Germany at least 13 riot police were injured Sunday in clashes with far-right hooligans rallying against Islamist extremism. Earlier this month Kurds in Germany clashed with radical Muslims in the northern city of Hamburg and elsewhere, in street protests fuelled by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Blind sailors set their sights on the Mediterranean | ||
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Aboard the Kapitan Borchardt (Spain) (AFP) - Standing at the helm of a three-masted schooner, Alina Koralewska is having no trouble at all staying the course to Barcelona despite being able to see neither compass nor stars. The 59-year-old Pole is blind and is steering the "Kapitan Borchardt" on the Mediterranean Sea with the help of a talking global positioning programme. "Course 248, left six degrees, left four degrees," the electronic voice feeds into her headset, telling her when to turn the helm and by how much. "I love sailing at night. The sound of the waves, the smell of the sea," says Koralewska, a psychologist and masseuse from the Polish city of Opole. "I asked the deck officer to warn all the fishing boats that I was steering. So far I've managed to not ram into any of them," she says. Koralewska boarded the Polish schooner at the Spanish seaport of Alicante along with around 30 others from Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland -- half of them blind or visually impaired. The six-day trip took them to Ibiza, then Majorca before anchoring in Barcelona. It is the brainchild of the Polish foundation Imago Maris, which provides visually impaired individuals with the chance to experience the sea and meet people from around the world. "Blind people are often withdrawn. Here they open up to others, they feel part of a group. We notice the change sometimes at the end of the trip," says Maciej Sodkiewicz, captain of the schooner and vice-president of Imago Maris. "The blind crewmembers are required to be 100 percent involved," says the professional sailor whose mother is almost blind "but lives a normal life, prepares dinner for the whole family and keeps the house in order". "It's a good school of life. Our youngest sailor, Kuba, learnt how to peel potatoes here. It's the housekeeper who does it back home." - Smell, sound, touch - More than just a series of chores, the journey is also a dream come true. "You have the feeling of freedom. It shows you that you can do whatever you set your sights on," says Andrei Skirins, a tall, hefty Latvian who manages a chain of gyms. "Ever since I lost my sight, I've been dreaming of going sailing. I derive a lot of satisfaction and energy from it and I learn a lot." All aboard say they would do it again. "I enjoyed the raging sea and the wind. It's a great feeling," says German crewmember Sebastian Barschneider. He only has one complaint: "everyone spoke a lot of Polish here. For someone who only speaks English, it was a bit tough." Monika Dubiel, a 26-year-old student in Warsaw, wound up on board by chance. "A classmate had seen me with my white cane, so she came over to tell me about the sailing trip at the dormitory. I liked the idea," she says. "I would just as well have agreed to travel the world on the back of a camel." She says blind people experience the sea differently: "Through smell, be it humid or salty or hinting of seaweed. Through sound, like the lapping of the waves against the hull when I'm lying on my bunk or the noise of the fluttering sails. Through touch: the halyards are more worn out than the sheets." Koralewska steps away from the helm for a fellow crewmember to take over. She proceeds carefully along the deck in the direction of the cabins. "The lifelines are a big help," she says, before adding: "and there's always a cute guy who'll hold your hand". Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Asia mainly up, China slips as stock trading scheme falters | ||
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Hong Kong (AFP) - Asian markets were mainly up Monday after the majority of eurozone banks were given a clean bill of health by the European Central Bank, but China was hit by the postponement of a planned stock-trading connection between Hong Kong and Shanghai. Tokyo was up 0.37 percent by the break, Seoul climbed 0.42 percent, and Sydney was up 0.56 percent, but Shanghai dropped 0.67 percent, while Hong Kong was down 0.94 per cent in morning trade. The Chinese markets were affected by the suspension of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme, which had been expected to launch this week. Charles Li, the head of Hong Kong's stock exchange, said on Monday the tie-up had been postponed, and warned recent pro-democracy protests that have gripped the city for the past month could have an impact on the scheme's progress. He did not say how long the delay would be. Other markets were boosted by a stable euro early Monday after four out of five eurozone banks passed the ECB health test, fuelling hopes that a major cause of economic uncertainty could soon be eliminated, analysts said. The common currency bought $1.2676 and 137.10 yen against $1.2666 and 136.97 yen in New York Friday afternoon. In the most in-depth and stringent audit of eurozone banks ever undertaken -- aimed at preventing a repeat of the crisis that nearly led to the euro's collapse -- the ECB found that 25 out of a total 130 banks had a combined capital shortfall of 25 billion euros ($31 billion) at the end of 2013. The dollar was at 108.18 yen early Monday compared with 108.14 yen in US trade Friday afternoon. US stocks Friday capped a strong week on a high note as good earnings from Microsoft and others overshadowed a poor report from Amazon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.76 percent while the broad-based S&P 500 advanced 0.71 percent. World oil prices extended last week's fall. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in December was down six cents to $80.95 in mid-morning Asian trade and Brent crude for December tumbled 27 cents to $85.86. Gold was at $1,231.06 an ounce against $1,233.37 late Friday. -- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article -- Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ukraine voters embrace West and peace with rebels | ||
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Kiev (AFP) - Pro-Western and nationalist parties were on course Monday for a crushing Ukrainian election win, boosting President Petro Poroshenko's bid to merge his country with Europe and make peace with pro-Russian rebels. Early results and exit polls indicated overwhelming support for Poroshenko's drive to break his war-torn country out of Russia's orbit despite the painful economic measures the Kremlin has levied on its western neighbour in reprisal. Many in Kiev and the West blame the six-month uprising in the east of the country, that has claimed 3,700 lives, on Russian President Vladimir Putin's effort to destabilise Ukraine's new government and create a "frozen conflict" in its vital rustbelt. But parties with links to Moscow or the old Viktor Yanukovych regime that was ousted after his abrupt rejection in February of a landmark EU pact were routed at the ballot boxes on Sunday. "I want the war to end and for out country to join the European Union, although I doubt this will happen very soon," pensioner Bogdan Golobutskiy said as he trudged up to a Kiev polling station on a chilly but sunny morning. Radicals that rejected Poroshenko's peace deal with the insurgents that offered them limited autonomy also had a poor showing -- as did corruption-tainted politicians who had steered Ukraine through two decades of stuttering reforms. Analysts said it was almost certain that Poroshenko will have to share power with Yatsenyuk as premier. "Voters did not want a monopoly of power in one pair of hands," said Vadym Karasyov of Kiev's Institute of Global Strategies. "They voted for a Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk tandem." - 'Irreversible' path to Europe - A buoyant Poroshenko said, in nationally televised comments, said "more than three quarters of voters who took part in the polls gave strong and irreversible backing to Ukraine's path to Europe," The 49-year-old chocolate baron said a majority also supported his search for "political methods" to end the war in the country's industrial east. Results with 10 percent of the precincts reporting showed Poroshenko's group with 21.9 percent of the votes. The People's Front was a very close second with 21.6 percent. Exit polls earlier showed the president's Petro Poroshenko Bloc leading with 23 percent of the vote. Trailing a few fractions of a percentage point behind him was the People's Front led by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk -- a more nationalist leader instrumental in Ukraine's urgent loan negotiations with the West. The two parties are thus within striking distance of the majority needed to form a moderate government that could pursue similar policies to those both back now. Yatsenyuk is widely expected to keep his premiership post. Poroshenko did not address his current premier's job prospects while adding that 10 days would be "more than enough" to form a new cabinet and get back to work. - Turbulent times - The vote came eight months after a winter-long popular uprising that killed more than 100 people ousted Yanukovych in February and sparked the worst standoff between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. The snap general election was called to clear out the last vestiges of the Yanukovych's regime -- a job that Poroshenko appeared to have accomplished with gusto. The exit polls showed the socially conservative Samopomich (Self-Help) group of the mayor of Lviv -- a western Ukrainian bedrock of nationalist passions -- in third place with up to 14 percent of the vote. But the Opposition Bloc of former Yanukovych allies was a distant fourth with less than eight percent. Another pro-Russian party failed to qualify while the Communist Party was on course to be shut out of a Ukrainian election for the first time since its founding by Lenin nearly a century ago. The war with pro-Kremlin rebels and Russia's earlier annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimean cast a long shadow over the polls. Voters in Crimea and in separatist-controlled areas of the eastern Lugansk and Donetsk regions -- about five million of Ukraine's 36.5 million-strong electorate -- were unable to take part. Twenty-seven seats in the 450-seat parliament will remain empty. Insurgent leaders intend to hold their own leadership vote that Kiev rejects next Sunday. "There is nothing good to expect from these elections in Ukraine. War, bombardments, all this horror will continue," said 42-year-old Natalia amid a rare lull in shelling in the rebels' main stronghold of Donetsk. - Giving negotiations a chance - A Moscow-backed peace deal signed by Kiev and the separatists on September 5 has calmed the worst fighting but is constantly broken around the disputed Donetsk airport and near the disputed southeastern port of Mariupol. Poroshenko's insistence that there can be no military victory and that he is ready to negotiate autonomy for pro-Russian regions -- though not independence -- chimed with Ukrainians fearful of open-ended war. Voters came down on the side of moderates rather than more hawkish parties like the Radical Party and Fatherland -- a group led by former premier and 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution leader Yulia Tymoshenko. Tymoshenko herself has been hounded by graft charges and only managed to lead her party to sixth place on Sunday with less than six percent of the vote, according to the early results. Half of the parliament seats are allocated to parties through proportional representation. The other half go to individual candidates and the counting of those races could take several days. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Secular party upbeat as Tunisia awaits 'milestone' vote results | ||
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Tunis (AFP) - Tunisia's main secular party was in a confident mood Monday with vote counting underway following a general election seen as critical for democracy in the cradle of the Arab Spring. US President Barack Obama hailed the North African country's first parliamentary election since its 2011 revolution as "an important milestone in Tunisia's historic political transition". Security forces were heavily deployed to avert extremist attacks on Sunday but polling day passed without major incident, as over 60 percent of an electorate of five million people voted for a 217-seat parliament under a new constitution drafted in January. The election pitted Islamist party Ennahda against its main secular rival Nidaa Tounes, with an array of leftist and Islamist groups also taking part. Analysts predicted no single group would win the outright parliamentary majority needed to govern alone. "We have positive indications that Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) could be leading," party leader Beji Caid Essebsi told reporters. Ennahda declined to offer a forecast ahead of the official results and urged "patience" among the political parties. The ISIE body organising the election could give partial results on Monday, but it has until October 30 to announce the final outcome. It gave the provisional turnout as 61.8 percent. Tunisia has been hailed as a beacon of hope compared with other chaos-hit countries like Libya and Egypt, where regimes were also toppled during the Arab Spring of three years ago. But its transition has been tested by militant attacks and social unrest, while poverty and unemployment which were key factors that sparked the 2011 revolt remain unresolved. Officials described the vote as "historic" and a "defining moment", while voters voiced hope a new parliament would help restore political and economic stability as well as law and order. The whole campaign was fought on the axis of the economy and security. "The spotlight is on us and the success of this (vote) is a guarantee for the future... a glimmer of hope for this region's young people," said Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa as he cast his ballot. Jomaa had warned of possible jihadist attacks after a standoff on Friday between police and suspected militants near Tunis that killed a policeman and six suspects, five of them women. Authorities deployed 80,000 troops and police to protect voters but the day passed without any reports of unrest. The head of the EU's election observer mission, Annemie Neyts-Uytterbroeck, said voting had been "more than satisfactory". - Flirting with disaster - Several parties competed for a seat in the new parliament, some fronted by stalwarts of veteran dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was ousted in the 2011 revolt. His ouster ushered in a coalition government and interim president that won international praise. But the birthplace of the Arab Spring protests flirted with disaster. A rise in militant activity last year when two opposition lawmakers were assassinated by suspected Islamists -- long suppressed under Ben Ali -- threatened to derail the road to democracy. Critics accuse Ennahda -- Tunisia's leading party -- and its secular allies which have been running the country of failing to address people's security needs and shoring up the economy. Ennahda has proposed the formation of a government of national unity and has not put forward a candidate for a November 23 presidential vote, keeping its options open over whom it will back. In the run-up to Sunday's election, Ennahda head Rachid Ghannouchi told AFP he does not rule out an alliance with Nidaa Tounes. Nidaa Tounes chief Beji Caid Essebsi, a frontrunner in the November presidential polls, cast his ballot saying he had "voted for Tunisia". Ghannouchi, meanwhile, said he was encouraged by long queues at the polling stations, saying this "shows Tunisians are very attached to democracy". Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Pan-Pacific trade pact taking shape: Australia | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - Australia's Trade Minister Andrew Robb said Monday the shape of an ambitious pan-Pacific trade agreement was "crystallising", with the 12 nations involved making further progress on market access negotiations. Robb said at the end of the three-day talks in Sydney that trade ministers had laid the groundwork for the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, which would encompass 40 percent of the global economy. "Over the course of our weekend meeting, we have spent a considerable portion of our time in one-on-one discussions," Robb, who is hosting the Australian-leg of the discussions, said in a statement Monday. "That has allowed us to make further progress in the negotiations on market access for goods, services and investment. "We consider that the shape of an ambitious, comprehensive, high-standard and balanced deal is crystallising." The TPP deal has been the subject of discussions for several years, with negotiations slowing while the United States and Tokyo debate key details, including Japanese tariffs on agricultural imports and US access to Japan's auto market. Even so, US President Barack Obama said in June he hoped to have an agreement on framing the deal by November, when he is expected in the region for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Beijing and the G20 summit in Brisbane. Robb said negotiators were making "significant progress" in both the market access and trade and investment rules discussions, and were to consult within their own countries and with each other to "resolve outstanding issues". Supporters of the trade deal say it will free up trade in the region, reduce regulation and increase job opportunities. But opponents argue it would benefit big business rather than the general public, and lead to a rise in the price of medications, fewer Internet freedoms and environmental damage. The 12 prospective TPP members are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The ETF That Tracks Brazil's Stock Market In Japan Is Crashing | ||
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On Sunday, Brazilian President Dima Rouseff won reelection. And as Business Insider's Linette Lopez wrote following the result, Wall Street is not going to be thrilled with this outcome. As Lopez wrote: "Over the last four years the country has taken a turn for the worse. Low commodity prices have hurt Brazilian exports, and so has a Chinese slow down. Inflation is high, and corporate profits are thin. This is a task that Wall Street analysts thought [Rouseff's challenger] Neves was better suited for." And so while stocks in Brazil and the US don't open for several hours, stocks are open in Asia, and the initial read on how investors are taking the news is terrible. Near 10:20 pm ET, the ETF that tracks Brazil's Ibovespa index listed in Tokyo was down over 7% overnight. Here's the chart showing the huge sell off in this ETF in early Monday trade in Tokyo.
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Federer targets number one spot as race for London heats up | ||
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Paris (AFP) - Roger Federer is taking his battle with Novak Djokovic for the world number one spot down to the wire as he arrives at the Paris Masters, which begins on Monday as the hottest player on Tour. While the fight for the top place going to the final tournaments of the season, there is also a sub-plot set to unravel with the newly refurbished Bercy Arena set to determine the final eight places for London. The Swiss 17-time Grand Slam winner won his 82nd career tournament and sixth title at Basel on Sunday, extending his winning streak to 12 matches and record for the year to a Tour best of 66 wins against 10 defeats. Djokovic has been absent in recent weeks after his wife gave birth to their first child, a boy named Stefan last week, while his lead over Federer has been slashed to fewer than 500 points with 2,500 up for grabs at Paris and the season-ending World Tour Finals in London. On top of that, the 33-year-old can also pick up further points when he plays the Davis Cup final for Switzerland against France which begins on November 21 in Lille. "It would be very special to reclaim number one," said Federer. "World No. 1 is what it's all about in our game and with the year I have had and the amount of finals I have played, the level of tennis I have played, I am pleased to see that I have a shot. "But having a shot and being there are two separate things. I am sure that Novak is going to come in very motivated, just after having become a father. I am very happy for him. There are clearly interesting weeks ahead." World number three Rafael Nadal is out for the season as he gets set to have an appendix operation while Swiss number two Stan Wawrinka is guaranteed his place in London and Croat Marin Cilic, ranked seven, qualifies automatically as US Open champion. British two-time Grand Slam winner Andy Murray has also hit top form coming to Paris and outlasted Spaniard Tommy Robredo on Sunday, saving five match points on the way to his third win of the season in 3 hours 20 minutes, the longest ATP final of the year. The victory for the 27-year-old Scot was his 20th match in five weeks, but lifted him into fifth in the race to London, ahead of Japan's Kei Nishikori, Czech Republic's Thomas Berdych and David Ferrer of Spain. Canada's Milos Raonic, a beaten quarter-finalist against rising Belgian star David Goffin at Basel, and the player Federer defeated in straight sets in the final, needs a strong showing coming in at ten, while Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov is also in the running, starting the week at number 11. Federer has had a superb season and will now be looking to get his extended family installed in the French capital as well as recovering from his efforts in Basel where he won a sixth title. "That's actually the goal for the next day or two," said the father of two sets of twins. "It's not a small job," said Federer who has won three of his past four tournaments. "I'm looking forward to Paris, I enjoy playing there," added 2011 winner Federer who lost a year ago to Djokovic in the semi-finals. "I played well last year so let's see how it's gonna go. I play probably on Wednesday (after a bye). I might be a little tired but there's still an opportunity to recover once we get in the city. "I'm playing with confidence, and it's indoors, not exactly a super-grind. I'm in a section of the draw with a lot of big servers," he added in reference to the presence of Ivo Karlovic and Raonic on his side of the draw. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Patston reveals distress over texting affair with Wallabies' Beale | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - The woman at the centre of the Kurtley Beale texting affair said she had been driven near suicide by the scandal, speaking for the first time Monday as the head of Australian rugby union faced calls to resign over the controversy. Wallaby back Beale was found guilty of sending an offensive text message to ARU employee Di Patston, and fined $Aus45,000 ($38,500) by an ARU code of conduct tribunal on Friday. But the tribunal said the evidence could not establish whether a second, more offensive text message and photograph had been sent by Beale, and he avoided suspension and contract termination. Patston, the team business manager, resigned her position following a heated argument on a team flight from South Africa to Argentina in early October. She spoke for the first time since her resignation over the drama, and said she had been driven to the brink of suicide by media coverage that had all but destroyed her personal and professional reputations. She told Monday's The Australian newspaper she was so distraught when she learned of the tribunal's findings that she was physically ill. "If it was one image or two or 20, what does it matter?" she asked. "They were both of very obese women in a very derogatory way. I am overweight and they were both naked with everything exposed. "I'm not good. Life is probably the worst it has ever been. I'm alive but there have been times I haven't wanted to be here."
- Rugby's 'day of shame' -
The damaging fall-out saw Wallaby coach Ewen McKenzie abruptly quit a week ago and be replaced by Michael Cheika. McKenzie was also forced to deny having an intimate relationship with Patston at a tense media conference in the lead-up to his resignation. Moves to reinstate Beale in the Wallabies touring team in Europe following the tribunal's verdict were scotched by Cheika, who said there was "no desperation" to include him. Cheika told travelling Australian media there were no plans to fly Beale to Europe for a five-game tour. "The first thing he needs to do is go and start training. He's been under a fair bit of pressure himself so he needs to go back and get in some condition and then we'll see what happens," Cheika said at Heathrow Airport. The Australian daily described the Beale saga as Australian rugby's "greatest day of shame." "And to think that the player who caused it all is gloating that he has been vindicated," it said. The Daily Telegraph said the ARU will this week reopen the investigation into Beale's mid-air argument with Patston that unleashed the drama. The newspaper also said the affair may now move into the courtroom, with Patston considering legal options. "Civil proceedings could ultimately be the only way of determining the origin of the mysterious second lewd text message, which was proved to not have come from Beale's phone during a group WhatsApp exchange," the newspaper said. Long-time rugby writer Greg Growden on Monday called for ARU chief Bill Pulver to go. "The first to depart has to be Pulver. How many more fumbles and stumbles can one sporting CEO make?" Growden wrote on ESPNScrum web-site. "Pulver is the ARU's shopfront window, and his never-ending bungling of major issues -- the latest involving the Ewen McKenzie-Di Patston-Kurtley Beale fiasco -- has turned Australian rugby into a laughing stock." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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New York Governor Suddenly Changes Tone On Forced Ebola Quarantines Amid Fierce Criticism | ||
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Top New York officials held a press conference on Sunday night outlining new procedures for handling the Ebola virus in the state and city. Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has battled criticism from experts since he and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) unveiled a mandatory 21-day quarantine for healthcare professionals returning from treating the disease in West Africa. The White House said such standards could backfire and discourage US aid workers from traveling to the epicenter of the outbreak. Cuomo's Sunday announcement appears to be a shift to that policy. US healthcare workers and others, who are returning to New York and had direct contact with Ebola victims, will instead simply be asked to stay in their homes for the three weeks. "Over the past four years as governor, I've gone through floods, hurricanes, blizzards. I'm waiting for locusts; there were no locusts yet but I wouldn't be shocked if they arrived. And my practice has been to always err on the side of caution," Cuomo said. "A healthcare professional who returns to this region who had exposure to infected people, or citizens who are returning ... who had exposure to infected people, ... will be asked to remain in their homes for a 21-day quarantine period." During those 21 days, Cuomo said the state's health department will check on the returning US workers twice a day — unannounced — to monitor their conditions and transfer them to a hospital if necessary. Cuomo also said the government will provide financial assistance for those three weeks if their employer does not offer such compensation. He said people can visit the quarantined in their homes. "It's not like this is the toughest duty, these 21 days," he said. The first nurse who was put into forced quarantine in New Jersey slammed the "poorly planned" new policy as unnecessarily draconian because people who contract the virus are not contagious until after they become symptomatic. Cuomo did not offer an opinion on Kaci Hickox, the nurse, saying reporters would "have to ask the Jersey officials." Christie defended the quarantine on Sunday amid criticism from top health officials and from Hickox herself, saying it was "government's job" to ensure public safety. The White House reportedly pressured states that adopted the quarantine procedure over the weekend — New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Illinois — to reverse course. But Cuomo said he felt no such pressure. Last week, New York City's first Ebola patient, Dr. Craig Spencer, developed symptoms and was rushed to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital shortly after. His fiancee and two friends were quarantined. Both de Blasio and Cuomo have repeatedly sought to calm public fears since. Additional reporting by Brett LoGiurato. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Top Baseball Prospect Oscar Taveras Has Died In A Car Accident At Age 22 | ||
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St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Oscar Taveras has reportedly died in a car accident near his home in the Dominican Republic, according to his agent Brian Mejia. The 22-year-old's girlfriend also died in the crash. Cardinals GM John Mozeliak released the following statement: "Obviously, we have deep condolences to his family. We are still waiting for more details before issuing a full statement." Taveras was called up to the Cardinals this year and played in the NLCS 10 days ago. He hit a home run in Game 2. Taveras had been ranked as the second and third-best prospect in the minor leagues before being called up to the Cardinals. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny had high hopes for Taveras, he told the St. Louis Post Dispatch last week: “I think he can be a star. And I think he showed things all season long that showed that. He stepped into some big situations, a different role. He was very much into the competition and trying to figure out how he could help us. Yes, he wanted to play. Yes, he wanted to be the guy out there every day. He realizes he has some things to do to help make that happen.” Here's his home run against the Giants in the NLCS: Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Nurse 'disrespected' in Ebola fight as White House weighs in | ||
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Washington (AFP) - The mayor of New York said that a quarantined nurse had been "disrespected," but gave no indication he would bow to White House pressure over the controversial move intended to stop the spread of Ebola in the United States. Kaci Hickox, who became the first American health worker isolated under the new quarantine orders on Friday, claims she was made to feel like a criminal and that her compulsory quarantining was "inhumane." New York, New Jersey and Illinois have drafted in measures that see medics returning from West Africa -- epicenter of the most deadly Ebola outbreak on record -- quarantined for three weeks, while a fourth state, Florida, has ordered twice-daily monitoring during that period. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to quell the firestorm over Hickox's outspoken remarks over the weekend, in which she hit out at the attitude of officials toward her from the moment she landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey on Friday. "This hero was treated with disrespect, was treated with a sense that she had done something wrong, when she hadn't; was not given a clear direction," de Blasio told a press conference. "We owe her better than that and all the people better than that." Health authorities have also expressed concern that the strict new rules will discourage badly needed health workers from volunteering in the crisis in West Africa, where more than 4,900 people have already died of the hemorrhagic Ebola virus. And US President Barack Obama's administration has urged the governors of New York and New Jersey to reverse the quarantine rules, The New York Times reported. The administration was consulting on a daily basis with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his New Jersey counterpart Chris Christie to modify their orders, according to the report.
- 'Rights violated' -
But de Blasio gave no hint he would support an easing of the restrictions, while railing at the treatment of Hickox -- who has not tested positive for Ebola -- and other health care professionals said to have been stigmatized after working with patients suffering from the disease. On Thursday, 33-year-old doctor Craig Spencer became the first confirmed case of Ebola in New York, after returning from West Africa. He remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital. "Anyone who has heard the nurse explain her situation in her proud, passionate, intelligent voice, knows that what happened to her is inappropriate," said de Blasio. There have been nine cases of Ebola in the United States so far, most among health workers who volunteered in Africa, with only one death. Hickox, who was helping treat patients in hard-hit Sierra Leone before her return to the United States, has been isolated outside the main hospital building. She has only been allowed to wear paper scrubs, and the tent is equipped with just a hospital bed, a non-flush chemical toilet and no shower. On Saturday, she wrote a scathing assessment of her experience. "I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," she told CNN's "State of the Union" show, insisting she was not contagious because she has shown no symptoms and tested negative for the disease. "To put me in prison... is just inhumane."
- 'Haphazard' -
Some health experts have sided with Hickox. "The best way to protect us is to stop (the outbreak) in Africa, and one of the best ways to stop it in Africa is to get health workers who are going there and helping them with their problem," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci told CNN. "When they come back, they need to be treated in a way that doesn't disincentivize them from going there." His comments came as the US envoy to the United Nations, Samantha Power, worried the new quarantine policies were "haphazard and not well thought out." "We cannot take measures here that are going to impact our ability to flood the zone" with health workers, said Power, as she began a tour of West African nations struggling with the disease. "We have to find the right balance between addressing the legitimate fears that people have and encouraging and incentivising these heroes." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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South Africa captain Meyiwa shot dead | ||
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Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa and Orlando Pirates captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead late Sunday near Johannesburg, a police spokesman told AFP, with club officials describing his slaying as a "loss to the nation". Lieutenant-General Solomon Makgale said Meyiwa, 27, was gunned down at a house in Vosloorus, a township about 30 kilometres south of the city, and declared dead on admission to hospital. "We can confirm that Bucs (Pirates) goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa has been shot and sadly declared dead on arrival at hospital," the South African Police Service (SAPS) said on its Twitter feed. Police later said there were seven people inside the house, including Meyiwa, when two suspects entered and another remained outside. Makgale said that the motive behind the attack remained unclear The incident happened at around 2000 SA time (1800 GMT) in Vosloorus township, added police who did not comment on some media reports that the shooting was sparked by a row over a mobile phone. "There was an altercation and Senzo Meyiwa was shot. The three suspects fled on foot after the shooting. “We can assure South Africans that we will do all we can to bring Meyiwa’s killers to book. "A reward of up to R150 000 ($14,000) is being offered for any information that can lead to arrests." Pirates, one of the most popular and successful South African football clubs, also confirmed that the player had been killed. "@Orlando_Pirates family has learned with sadness of the untimely death of our number 1 keeper & captain Senzo Meyiwa," the club tweeted. Irvin Khoza, the club chairman, added: "This is a sad loss to Senzo's family especially his children, to Orlando Pirates & the nation." Meyiwa played for his club in Soweto Saturday and has been in outstanding form for the national team during recent 2015 Africa Cup qualifiers. The death of the national football team captain is the second tragedy to hit South African sport within three days after former world 800-metre athletics champion Mbulaeni Mulaudzi died Friday in a car crash. South Africa team-mates Dean Furman and Andile Jali were among the first to react to the Meyiwa tragedy on Twitter. "Beyond devastated at the loss of our captain and friend Senzo Meyiwa. Thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this terrible time," tweeted England-based Furman, who plays for Doncaster Rovers in the third-tier in the English league. "Just got a call and I was sleeping, but now I cannot sleep because of what I just heard," tweeted Jali, who moved from Pirates to Belgium club Ostend this year. After many years in the South African football shadows, Meyiwa had a meteoric climb to fame with club and country. He displaced national squad goalkeeper Moeneeb Josephs as first-choice at Pirates, the only South African side to be crowned African champions. And a recent injury to South Africa captain and goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune gave Meyiwa a chance in the national team, popularly known as Bafana Bafana (The Boys). New national coach Ephraim 'Shakes' Mashaba not only promoted Durban-born Meyiwa to replace Khune but also made him captain of a team that has been in the doldrums for some years. Meyiwa responded to his promotion by leading the team to victories over Sudan and Congo Brazzaville and draws with Congo and Nigeria, a country South Africa traditionally struggle against. He did not concede a goal in the four matches and if South Africa defeat Sudan in eastern city Nelspruit on October 15 they will qualify the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations tournament. He was also made captain of Pirates and helped the club defeat Ajax Cape Town 4-1 Saturday in a South African League Cup quarter-final. Meyiwa gave a flawless performance and the only Ajax attempt that beat Meyiwa came from a penalty kick. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Brazil's Rousseff, a fighter who held on for new term | ||
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Brasilia (Brazil) (AFP) - President Dilma Rousseff, a former leftist guerrilla once imprisoned and tortured by Brazil's military regime, upheld her reputation for toughness in a hard-fought campaign that won her a new term Sunday. Rousseff, Brazil's first woman president, won a second four-year term in a tight run-off election against business-world favorite Aecio Neves. Rousseff, 66, is known as a no-nonsense manager with a commanding grasp of even the smallest policy details who upbraids her ministers in public when they fall short of her standards. She showed her fighting spirit in her re-election campaign, attacking Neves aggressively and battling back from behind in the opinion polls. An economist by training, she developed her image for tough efficiency as chief of staff to former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who picked her to succeed him after presiding over eight years of prosperity and landmark gains against poverty. But Rousseff, who lacks the natural charisma of her predecessor and mentor, had to battle voters' frustration over a recession, corruption scandals and poor public services to secure a second term. Under Lula's tutelage, she developed a warmer campaign style in the buildup to the elections. Opening up to journalists and voters, she discussed her leisure activities -- she loves "Game of Thrones" and books, saying "I can't sleep without reading" -- and even confessed to once escaping the presidential palace on the back of a friend's Harley-Davidson, cruising through the streets of Brasilia unnoticed. "People always say about women in power that they're hard, managerial. But Dilma is a person with a great sense of humor, fun, extremely caring and generous," said Ieda Akselrud de Seixas, who was jailed with Rousseff in the 1970s. Rousseff also began alluding more frequently to her imprisonment under the military regime, a topic she once shunned. When opponents jeered her during the opening ceremony of the World Cup in June, she responded by saying: "I have come up against hugely difficult situations in my life, including attacks which took me to the limit physically. "Nothing knocked me out of my stride."
- 'Something different' -
Born December 14, 1947 to a Brazilian mother and Bulgarian businessman father, Rousseff grew up comfortably middle-class in the southeastern city of Belo Horizonte. She developed her political spine as a Marxist militant opposed to the 1964-1985 dictatorship. She was arrested in January 1970 and sentenced to prison for belonging to a violent underground group responsible for murders and bank robberies. The judge who found her guilty dubbed her the "high priestess of subversion," journalist Ricardo Amaral wrote in a biography. The book shows a bespectacled Rousseff aged 22 staring defiantly at her military judges. After nearly three years behind bars, during which she said she was tortured by electric shock, Rousseff was released at the end of 1972. She resumed her political path, helping found the Democratic Labor Party (PDT) in 1979 and eventually switching to Lula's Workers' Party in 2000. When Lula took office in 2003, he named Rousseff his energy minister and then, in 2005, his cabinet chief. "She came here with her little computer," Lula said after appointing Rousseff to her first cabinet post in 2003. "She started to talk and I felt something different in her." To bring her out of his shadow and into the spotlight ahead of the 2010 campaign, Lula made sure she was by his side when he cut ribbons on big public works projects. To smooth her somewhat lumbering image, Rousseff underwent a makeover, whitening her teeth, redoing her hair, ditching glasses for contacts and having wrinkles removed from her brow. The effect made her look much younger than the year before, when she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and endured chemotherapy that forced her to cover up hair loss with a wig. The cancer is now in complete remission, doctors say. Twice married, Rousseff has a daughter, Paula, from a 30-year relationship with ex-husband and fellow leftist militant Carlos de Araujo. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Wall Street Will Not Be Kind To Brazil Tomorrow | ||
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Dilma Rousseff has won another term as Brazil's president, reports BBC News. President Rousseff garnered 51.45% of votes cast. Despite allegations of corruption at the highest levels of her administration — especially regarding the massive state oil firm Petrobras — after a close campaign against center-right candidate Aecio Neves, the incumbent will have another four years to right Brazil's ship. It will not be easy, and Wall Street knows that. As a result the markets may punish Brazil's markets in the morning. Over the last four years the country has taken a turn for the worse. Low commodity prices have hurt Brazilian exports, and so has a Chinese slow down. Inflation is high, and corporate profits are thin. This is a task that Wall Street analysts thought Neves was better suited for. He ran a campaign on tightening monetary policy and bringing investment back to Brazil. In fact, a Neves win would've bolstered a Brazilian investment theme popularized by hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz — Brazil, "so bad it's good." Novogratz told investors earlier this year that a Neves win could be the change the country needed. As a result, the Brazilian stock market has been a whipsaw for over and month, rising and falling as Rousseff and Neves duked it out in the polls. Either way, however, says Societe Generale analyst Dev Ashish, monetary policy and foreign investments have their limits. They're far less powerful tools without increased domestic output and demand.
That is why some on the Street have been skeptical that a Neves victory would make a huge difference either way. Last Monday, short-seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Investments gave a presentation on Petrobras, Brazil's quasi-state oil firm, at the Robin Hood Investor conference. His dark thesis on the health of the massive company, sent the stock, Brazil's ETF, and the country's market falling. He said he gave the presentation to warn investors not to buy into what Cantor Fitzgerald once called the Brazil "farce." "... I thought it was timely this week that if that’s what happens and if investors knee jerk run into the Bovespa and buy Petrobras because Neves wins, I think it’s a great entry point on the short side in this story because it doesn’t change the economies of the situation," Chanos told Bloomberg TV. Rousseff's win changes the economics even less. | ||
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He wrote:
Incumbent Rousseff leading by whisker in Brazil vote | ||
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Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazil's leftist President Dilma Rousseff is leading her center-right challenger Aecio Neves with 51.09 percent of the vote to 48.91 percent, with 96 percent of ballots counted, election officials said Sunday. The results were not final, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal emphasized, but show Rousseff is in pole position to retain the presidency. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Another NFL Player Has Injured Himself Doing A Popular Sack Celebration | ||
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Lamarr Houston became the second NFL player in a month to injure his knee doing an emphatic version of the "discount double-check" celebration following a sack. The celebration, made popular by Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers during games and during his State Farm insurance commercials, has been reinvented by some to include a leap at the beginning. Now Houston has become the second NFL player to have his knee buckle when he lands. 
Earlier this season, Detroit Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch tore a ligament in his knee doing the same sack celebration. Tulloch is now out for the season. Houston was eventually carted off the field. What makes Houston's worse it that his came in the final minutes of a blowout loss. Tulloch's injury came when the game was still very much in doubt. Here is Tulloch doing the same celebration. 
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REALITY CHECK: Eurozone Debt Looks Unsustainable | ||
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In July its ten-year bonds were yielding less than 6% and their Spanish and Italian equivalents less than 3%, not far off Germany's. The troubled economies of Europe's "periphery" were beginning to turn around, it seemed, and the European Central Bank (ECB) would do whatever it took to keep the euro zone together. That all went out the window in the global market sell-off of October 15th-16th. Yields on Greek government debt briefly exceeded 9%; the spread between yields on German government bonds and those of debt-addled euro-zone countries widened and lower-rated corporate-bond yields rose sharply too. Part of the rise might have been due to bond markets' declining liquidity (see "Buttonwood: Liquid diet"). At any rate, some ground has since been regained, with corporate bonds especially buoyed by the rumour (later denied) that the ECB was about to buy corporate debt as part of an asset-purchase scheme. But worries that slow growth in the euro zone will be a serious drag on the world economy are increasing. Deflation, which makes debts harder to bear, has taken hold in the periphery, and threatens to afflict the euro zone as a whole. Faith that the ECB will be able to do much about either problem is declining. Against that background some euro-zone debt--both public and private--looks unsustainable.
Between 2007 and 2013 the ratio of government debt to GDP in the euro area rose from 66% to 93%. The spike was more dramatic in the periphery (see chart): in Greece the ratio increased to 175% and in Portugal it virtually doubled to 129%. High government debt itself does not necessarily crimp economic growth. But as bond yields rise, servicing that debt becomes difficult. Italy--with the third-largest stock of government debt in the world, much of it refinanced each year--is a particular concern. According to estimates from Moody's, a rating agency, it will have to find around EUR470 billion of funding next year, worth nearly one-third of its GDP. The financing needs of other peripheral governments are not as drastic, but they are still high. The overhang of private-sector debt is also cause for concern. Overindebted firms struggle to grow and invest, while tying up scarce bank capital, which impedes lending to worthier borrowers. The picture is not uniformly grim. Despite Italy's staggering government debt, its households owe less than Germany's and its non-financial companies not much more. Spain's private sector has deleveraged substantially over the past few years, as big recapitalisations have left its banks better able to withstand write-downs of bad loans. But peripheral countries typically have a long tail of heavily indebted firms. In Portugal around a quarter of listed firms have debts of more than five times their earnings before interest, tax, amortisation and depreciation--the worst ratio in the periphery, points out Alberto Gallo of RBS, a bank. And the proportion of loans in default is still rising in Portugal, Italy and Greece, he says.
On October 26th the results of the ECB's review of the books of big euro-zone banks will be released. They are expected to show few serious problems. Banks have been raising capital to be sure not to be found wanting. After it they may write down more bad loans rather than rolling them over. Another change is to corporate insolvency regimes, which typically make it harder to call in debts or seize collateral in the euro area than in America. All the peripheral countries have either reformed their laws or promised to do so, and the European Commission is pushing a common European standard. Government debt looks more intractable, especially in light of the lacklustre growth and slide towards deflation that now seem entrenched. A recent analysis by Fitch, a rating agency, suggests that it will be very hard for any highly indebted euro-zone government to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio by 20 percentage points over the next eight years, still less return it to its pre-crisis level. Governments need to run primary (ie, before interest payments) surpluses in order to pay off existing debt. The IMF reckons that Italy will reach and maintain a primary surplus of nearly 5% of GDP by 2018, but is less sanguine about other euro-zone debtors. Tax rises and spending cuts are hard to implement. A study of 54 emerging and advanced economies, by Ugo Panizza of the Graduate Institute, Geneva and Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley shows that large and sustained primary surpluses are extremely rare. People in the southern periphery are especially fed up with austerity, which has had a massive cost in terms of unemployment and living standards. More bad news, and the situation could look critical once again. Click here to subscribe to The Economist
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EARLIER this year it all looked so rosy. In April, just two years after Greece imposed the biggest sovereign-debt restructuring in history on its private creditors, it raised EUR3 billion ($4.2 billion at the time) in five-year bonds at a yield of less than 5%. 
There Is One Huge Thing Missing From The ECB's Stress Tests (DIA, SPY, QQQ, TLT, IWM) | ||
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On Sunday, the European Central Bank released the results of "stress tests" performed on 130 eurozone banks. There's a bit of a split on whether or not these results were good. But there is no divide on whether or not the ECB considered one key scenario: deflation. Analysts at Societe Generale said the results show that in an adverse scenario that occurs in 2016, only 7 billion euros of capital would be needed. And given that these stress tests involved banks holding more than 20 trillion euros in deposits, they don't think this is a huge deal. Others aren't so sure, including economist Philippe Legrain who called the results, "Yet another eurozone bank whitewash." In a blog post Legrain, who wrote a book on the eurozone crisis titled, "European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess — and How to Put Them Right," wrote in a blog post on Sunday that the stress test's capital need assumptions are "ludicrously overoptimistic." But aside from how you choose to argue some of the ECB's assumptions, the central bank said, point blank, that it did not consider a situation where prices fall across the eurozone. In a press conference following the results, the ECB's Vítor Constâncio said, "The scenario of deflation is not there because indeed we don't consider that deflation is going to happen." Constâncio added, "But let me highlight that nevertheless, whereas the baseline scenario which is in the stress test has inflation at 1.6 in 2016, in the adverse it comes down to 0.3. So this drop in inflation is indeed factored in, in the exercise and is a very significant drop. So it cannot be said that we did not consider the impact of a scenario of very low inflation. Indeed, we did it in comparison with the baseline." But the problem is that we are already seeing falling inflation across the eurozone, with prices rising just 0.3% across the economic bloc in September. And what's more, deflation has already been a reality for many of the bloc's economies. The Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard noted on Twitter that in the last six months we've seen deflation in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal. And as a whole, the euro area saw prices rise just 0.3% year-over-year in September, according to data from Eurostat, down from increases of between 0.7% and 0.9% a little less than a year ago.
And Legrain goes so far as to argue that deflation would "wreak havoc" on the balance sheets of many eurozone banks, adding that the fact that this wasn't factored into the stress test's scenarios make them a "farce." On Friday, we wrote about how deflation might be a bit of an overhyped worry, as the word's appearance in media reports has surged to a multi-year high in recent weeks. And maybe deflation fears are overhyped when you look at the US, and specifically when you look at the market's recent obsession with inflation expectations via 5-year forward breakevens. After all, inflation data from the US on Wednesday showed that prices rose 1.7% year-over-year. So, below the Fed's 2% target, but nowhere near outright deflation that sees prices fall year-over-year. But when looking at the eurozone, deflationary fears have been the topic of conversation throughout the late summer and fall. And so it seems that by not factoring this scenario into its stress test, the ECB is missing a huge part of what the market is considering when it thinks about "stress" in the European banking system. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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How This Woman Is Getting Volunteers To Read To Kids All Over The World | ||
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Annabelle Howard, the founder of a nonprofit organization called Big Fun Education, is showing the world how the internet can and should change the way kids learn. It's not about looking facts up on the web. It's about connecting kids with other kids and people that they could never have worked with before the internet. And her choice of internet tools is Google+ and Google's videoconferencing tool, Hangouts. For instance, using Google+ and Hangouts she has:
Those activities came through two of Big Fun Education's programs: Macbeth Goes Social and Reading Without Borders. Macbeth Goes Social coordinates live readings and performances of the play Macbeth with students from around the world. Reading Without Borders connects adults with students to read books about things the kids are passionate about. Howard says her goal is to make theatre accessible and fun for everyone and to get students interested in reading. "Everybody loves feeling connected," Howard tells Business Insider. "It's almost addictive."
She plugged into Google's Connected Classroom Google+ community and found more teachers than she ever expected willing to give her idea a shot. She eventually created her own Google+ community for Big Fun Education that now has more than 500 followers. Once she saw how much kids came alive and engaged with the literature when acting out her plays with other students through Hangouts, she wanted to try to see if she could find other ways to get them reading. After she put out a call for willing readers, the volunteers poured in. She has now connected students and adults in more than 37 countries. Through Macbeth Goes Social, she has seen kids interact with plays they had previously found boring. Through Reading Without Borders, she's watched kids who hated reading get excited about books. The readers become mini-mentors, all through using Google Hangouts. "In this day and age, where everything is known or could be known with a click or a search, we’ve got to remember how to be human," she says. "It’s not all information. It’s about relating to each other. It’s about telling stories. It’s about listening as well as speaking. That can be magic." Howard funds both programs through grants and donations. Learn more about them here. SEE ALSO: A Google Exec Just Beat The World Record For Highest-Altitude Jump From The Stratosphere Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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One Google Employee Explains Why Working At Google Is So Great (GOOG) | ||
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Google is a legendary employer. With its high pay, smorgasbord of perks, valuable stock options, and amazing tech projects, it is constantly No. 1 on the various "best places to work" surveys. Working there was even the subject of a 2013 Hollywood comedy, the "Internship." So someone posed a question on Quora recently that asked if working at Google really was like a recruitment video, where one person described it "like a big playground." Or was working at Google was "over-rated"? Answer: Uhm. No. The actual experience of working at Google actually gets better as time goes by, says Edgar Duenez-Guzman, a software engineer who has worked for Google for about a year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He writes on Quora: Before I joined Google, I researched the culture, the values and the perks. I kind if hoped it would be awesome, but imagined that it realistically was going to be good, but probably not great. During my first couple of weeks I felt like in the video you posted ... they told us all about the impact we could have, all the great things we would have, and the perks we should use. I figured this was good PR. ... Over a few months I realized that the honeymoon period was not quite ending as I thought. I got to know more about the real culture and the real values of Google. And they were, if anything, even better than what I had hoped. Google gives me amazing freedom to do what I think is important. ... But better yet, one would think that such freedom would cause chaos. ... Yet Google surprised me even more. ... If somebody thinks what I am doing should not be done, they can see it and raise an issue immediately. Now, clearly not everything is perfect. There are issues with Google. It is a large company and growing. It has issues of any large organization. But by and large it is the best place I have ever experienced, and better than I thought it would be. Googlers say those issues are things like: the company is so filled with geniuses, it can be hard to distinguish yourself; there's a lot of pressure to work all the time and spend what remains of your free time on campus, too; it has a big company feel and you can end up feeling like a cog. Still, it's hard to deny how happy many Googlers are overall. One employee summed it up in a Glassdoor review, "If you're ever bored of your current role, there are plenty of new projects and interesting teams to jump onto" and another who has been there eight years said that Google was "likely the last job in my life... ” Here's the recruitment video that some employees say is not over-the-top: Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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