Facebook Is Secretly Working On A New Professional Website | ||
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London (AFP) - Facebook is preparing a new office version of its social networking site to compete with other sites like LinkedIn, the Financial Times reported on Monday. "Facebook is secretly working on a new website called 'Facebook at Work'" that would allow users to "chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents", it said. Facebook last month reported its quarterly profit nearly doubled to $802 million (640 million euros) but saw its stock pounded after outlining a plan to invest heavily in the future instead of revelling in short-term riches. "We are going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively, connecting everyone, understanding the world, and building the next-generation in computing platforms," Facebook founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said then. "We have a long journey ahead," he said. Facebook, which has 1.35 billion monthly active users worldwide, was set up in 2004 by Zuckerberg with fellow students at Harvard University who wanted to set it up as a college networking site. The site has been seeking to broaden its offerings, unveiling an application that lets people chat anonymously in virtual "rooms," evoking the chat rooms from the early days of the Internet. It is also testing a feature that lets users of the leading social network make purchases by simply pressing an on-screen "Buy" button. Facebook completed its multibillion-dollar deal for mobile messaging application WhatsApp last month. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Al Franken Just Torched Ted Cruz's Net Neutrality Stance On CNN | ||
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On Sunday, Minnesota Senator Al Franken appeared on CNN's "State Of The Union" with Candy Crowley and launched into a ripping critique of Texas Senator Ted Cruz's net neutrality position, basically saying that Cruz doesn't understand the issue at all. Following President Obama's November 10 statement urging the FCC to enforce regulations to protect net neutrality, Senator Cruz wrote a strong-minded opinion in the Washington Post. "In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It would put the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities and higher prices," Cruz said in the Washington Post. Senator Franken was not impressed. When Crowley read this statement back to Franken in the interview, the Senator from Minnesota fired back sharply, saying "He has it completely wrong, he just doesn't understand what this issue is. We've had net neutrality the entire history of the internet, so when he says this is Obamacare — Obamacare was a government program that fixed something, that changed things, this is about reclassifying something so it stays the same. This would keep things exactly the same as they've been." You can watch the segment here:
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How This 25-Year-Old Made $66,000 In A Month By Teaching An Online Course | ||
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When the iPhone started taking over the US in 2008, Nick Walter was in Japan doing Mormon missionary work without a smartphone. "When I got home, my dad was super nice and bought me an iPhone 4, and it was my first introduction to apps," the 25-year-old remembers. "I was like 'These things are crazy! They can do anything!'" Since that first introduction, Walter, who graduated from Brigham Young University with an information systems major (which includes elements of both computer science and business), learned to code and started doing freelance work building iPhone apps for local companies in Utah. About four years later, Walter was reading "The 4-Hour Workweek" and was inspired by the idea of creating a business that wasn't super time intensive. Author Tim Ferriss recommended creating an online course, but Walter didn't know what he could possibly teach — until Apple announced its first new programming language in over a decade, called Swift. "From the day they announced it, everyone was on an equal field trying to learn," Walter recalls. "I thought, 'Personally, I'd love to learn it just for fun and future stuff, but I have an opportunity to be one of the first people to teach it to other people. Maybe I could make a class where I'm learning as I teach.'" Walter spent four days reading Apple's documentation of Swift, "kind of translating into English and giving some extra examples." Apple announced its release on June 2, 2014, and four days later Walter posted 50 videos, or one full course, to online education site Udemy. It was an introduction to Swift for beginners, called Swift By Examples. That first month, his course earned him $45,000. The way Udemy works is that it charges students a set price — in this case, $99 — to access the online course as many times as they want. If these students find the course through a link sent by Walter, he gets 97% of the money. If they find the course through Udemy, he splits the money 50/50 with the company.
That month, he earned $66,000, a full year's salary for many people. One might imagine a 25-year-old with that kind of windfall would head straight to Vegas. But Walter, who is a longtime fan of financial guru Dave Ramsey and highly recommends "The Total Money Makeover," did nothing of the sort. "I bought a 2010 Toyota Corolla," he explains. "I got my full emergency fund set up, and I've just been investing the rest in mutual funds." Today, over 8,500 people have taken the original course on Swift, and over 3,500 have gone through the iPhone class. Next, Walter plans to publish a class on how to build apps for the Apple watch (in fact, he's currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund its creation), where he says there's a lot of opportunity for someone who wants to create the kind of income stream that he has. "It reminds me of when apps first came out for the iPhone," he says. "I think there's a real opportunity for people to make apps for this new watch and be the first-comer there. Someone has to be the first weather app or the first jogging app. If you can move quickly enough you're bound to have an awesome advantage." SEE ALSO: 16 Things That Make You A Financial Adult Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Not every month was quite so dramatic. Walter estimates that the following month, he earned $7,500, then $5,000 the month after that. His earnings evened out around $3,000 for a few months, until he put up his second course in September: COMMERCIAL DRONES: Assessing The Potential For A New Drone-Powered Economy | ||
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Not too long ago, when most people heard the word “drones,” they thought of unmanned military aircraft engaged in highly controversial clandestine operations. But when Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon was testing the idea of delivering packages via drones, he made drones with popular commercial application suddenly seem like a viable proposition. While drones are unlikely to become a part of our daily lives in the immediate future, they will soon begin taking on much larger roles for businesses and some individual consumers, from delivering groceries and e-commerce orders to revolutionizing private security, to changing the way farmers manage their crops — perhaps even aerial advertising. In a new report from BI Intelligence, we size the commercial and military drone market to estimate how big the drone industry could become, and which industries are most likely to see drones become part of their business model in the next few years. We also look at what components industries, like GPS and sensors manufacturers, will be working to become drone-ready. And we assess how drone development will proceed in light of stiff safety and privacy concerns and regulatory hurdles. Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today>> Here are some of the issues and opportunities that will impact how the drone industry develops:
In full, the report:
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State Department Shuts Down Its Email System Because Of A Suspected Hacker Attack | ||
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The State Department has taken the unusual step of shutting down its entire unclassified email system because of a suspected hacker attack, the Associated Press reports. The department's classified systems weren't affected by the suspected attack, an unnamed senior department official told the AP. The State Department is expected to discuss the shutdown after it completes security repairs on Monday or Tuesday, according to the AP. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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We may think of Internet of Things (IoT) devices as futuristic looking objects in the home that can lower energy costs and open garage door for you. 
In Defense Of Marissa Mayer (YHOO) | ||
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Yahoo investors are done with Marissa Mayer. After a little over two years with Mayer on the job, two of Yahoo's top ten shareholders have approached AOL CEO Tim Armstrong about running Yahoo, Nadia Damouni and Jennifer Saba at Reuters report. How Armstrong would end up running Yahoo is a bit unclear. Investors wants Yahoo and AOL to merge, and then Armstrong would ascend to be CEO. What happens to Mayer in this transaction? Who knows. Presumably, she's tossed. This is just the latest slap in the face to Mayer by a restless investment community. Earlier this year, Eric Jackson, a fund manager with a small stake in Yahoo began bashing Mayer in blog posts at Forbes, and on TV. Jackson was a fan of Mayer for years, but he flipped his opinion rather suddenly. Then, Starboard, an activist fund that had a stake in Yahoo started a war on Mayer with an open letter questioning her various decisions. And now, this. What has Marissa Mayer done to these investors to earn their scorn? Well, as Reuters points out, since she took over as CEO, Yahoo's stock price has tripled. Hm. Ok. But what has Tim Armstrong done to earn investor's love? Well, he's doubled AOL's valuation since taking over. I'm not a math scientist, so I could be missing something here, but I'm almost certain that tripling is better than doubling.
For two years, there was no way for public investors to get exposure to Alibaba other than to buy Yahoo stock. This is what drove Yahoo's stock price to near-record highs. Alibaba most certainly was the primary driver of Yahoo's share gains. But Mayer could have very easily destroyed Yahoo's share gains with stupid management decisions.
She has made managerial mistakes, but none are catastrophic. Her biggest mistake was hiring Henrique De Castro to run ad sales. He was not the right person for that job. She fired him after a little over a year on the job. After firing De Castro, Mayer got more involved in learning the ad sales side of the business. She just hired Amazon's head of global ad sales, and she's been building up more and more ad sales people. This is important since Yahoo's ad business is flat, which is the main complaint from investors. Mayer and her new hires need to get the ad business turned around. But that doesn't happen instantly, just ask Tim Armstrong. Armstrong is being deified by investors because he has AOL's ad business growing. This is an impressive feat, but it took years. Look at this chart of AOL's ad revenues and quarterly revenue growth.
What happened between the time Armstrong was named CEO, and the company's revenue started taking off? A lot of stuff! Armstrong churned through executives. He bought Patch, and burned hundreds of millions of dollars on it. He was accused of overpaying for Huffington Post when he paid $315 million for it. He fired people. He struggled to nail his vision for AOL. And, importantly, he was attacked by the activist shareholders at Starboard who thought he was mismanaging AOL. Eventually, Armstrong got past all of that. He zeroed in on AOL's strengths and managed the company to growth. He deserves all the accolades he's receiving for getting AOL pointed in the right direction.
Mayer is learning on the job, just like Armstrong. She's bounced from vision to vision. Initially it was mobile, mobile, mobile, then it was content, content, content. There's nothing wrong with changing your mind. As Jeff Bezos says, people who are right a lot of the time are people who often change their minds. Could she be doing a better job? Of course! Many of the criticisms of Mayer are justified. She has failed to grow Yahoo's top line. She hasn't cut headcount to increase Yahoo's profitability. She hasn't grown ad revenue. She hasn't latched onto a viable, working business plan to vault Yahoo to the upper echelon of technology companies in the next 10 years. But it's still early. And these criticisms would have applied to many executives in their early days trying to turn a company around, including Armstrong. Is Mayer the right person to lead Yahoo? If investors just want to tear Yahoo apart and turn it into a holding company for Alibaba shares, then she's the wrong person for the job. Someone else should do that.
Mayer is not dumb. She can be strong headed, and strong willed. But she can see that revenue is flat. She can hear loud, powerful critics preparing to storm the castle. She knows that it's time to start proving that Yahoo can grow. On Yahoo's last earnings call, Mayer laid out a strong defense of her tenure as CEO. On a point-by-point basis she addressed complaints from Starboard. Here, in case you missed it, is her defense:
So, is her run as CEO perfect? No. But, the share price has tripled. She's returned money to shareholders, she's invested in native advertising, and she's starting to monetize Tumblr, a big platform with big potential. She's forming a coherent media strategy, and she's improving Yahoo on mobile devices. Fixing Yahoo wasn't going to happen overnight. Any new CEO that stepped in was going to need at least a year to understand the nuts and bolts of the place, and then another year or two at least to set a turnaround plan in motion. Tossing Mayer for a new CEO would just start that process all over and leave Yahoo right back where it was before Mayer got there. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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But, lots of people will say that Mayer doesn't deserve credit for Yahoo's share price tripling. They say that the only reason it tripled is because of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Yahoo has a massive stake in Alibaba. When Mayer took over, Alibaba was a private company worth ~$30 billion. Two years later, Alibaba is a public company worth close to ~$300 billion.
In fact, Mayer deserves credit for nurturing the relationship with Alibaba. Previous Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was disrespectful to Alibaba CEO Jack Ma, hurting Yahoo. Mayer became friendly with Ma, and her efforts allowed Yahoo to hold onto more Alibaba shares, which have appreciated in value, thus benefiting Yahoo. 
However, it seems like people are forgetting that it took him years to get it right. And investors are unfairly crushing Mayer after just over two years in the job. 
But if shareholders want to aim a little higher, and hope that Yahoo can be a holding company and a viable technology company, she seems like a good fit. She's made a completely irrelevant company at least somewhat relevant in the technology industry. She's infused some life into Yahoo. The 12 Worst Apple Products Of All Time (AAPL) | ||
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Apple is known for the hit products it has released in the last decade: the iPod, the iPhone, and most recently the iPad. But the company hasn't always been a synonym for success. Some of of its products, particularly in the '80s and '90s, were huge flops. From the PowerPC to the Pippin game console, we recount the ill-fated products Apple probably wishes you forgot about permanently. The iPod Hi-Fi was built with Apple's sleek design aesthetic but ultimately failed to deliver the sound quality that third-party competitors could offer. Apple's hockey puck mouse came out with the first iMac, but its shape proved very uncomfortable for users and forced Apple to reconsider its peripheral ergonomics. Before the Apple TV was even a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye, Apple released the Macintosh TV in 1993. It was incapable of displaying TV on the desktop and sold only 10,000 units. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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See Why People Have Pledged More Than $60 Million For This Epic Space Game | ||
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With over $60 million raised solely through crowdfunding, "Star Citizen" is officially the most successful crowdfunded project of all time. The game's runaway success is because "Star Citizen" represents the dream video game for many gamers: It's a space exploration game, first-person shooter, and open-world RPG all combined into one. The ambitious scale of "Star Citizen" means that players can decide how to play the game based on the experiences they'd like to have. For example, you can play as a space pirate, smuggler, bounty hunter, salvager, merchant, spy, information runner, or even enlist in the military. Basically, you're thrust into a "Star Wars"-esque environment with your very own spaceship and the rest is up to you. With thrilling dogfights in space, epic battles planet-side, its own economy, and the ability to discover your own star system, "Star Citizen" is on its way to be the biggest game since "World of Warcraft." You start out in "Star Citizen" with your very own spaceship hangar, where you keep your ship. Depending on how expensive or large your ship is, there are different hangar styles. This is the industrial hangar. As you work your way up, you can purchase new ships for specific tasks. This ship, the RSI Aurora, is a ship you get starting out. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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I Had An Interesting Conversation With Mark Cuban About The Future Of The Internet | ||
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On Thursday, Mark Cuban compared the net neutrality debate to the government regulation railroads faced about 100 years ago. After those comments, I had an email exchange with Cuban about his opposition to President Obama's recent proposal that the internet be regulated just like a utility under something called Title II. (This plan rejects the notion that certain content providers should be able to pay to get speedier service to their sites.) Cuban told me it's impossible to tell what the internet will be used for in the future and letting the government have too much regulatory control now could slow innovation. "We don't know what's next on the net and how it will be impacted by the need for the government to define what can and will happen [there] in some manner that they think protects consumers," he wrote. "What if the need for machine vision is ubiquitous for some application, say self-driving cars. What happens?" Here are some of Cuban's tweets on the subject:
Advocates of net neutrality see this as the best way to ensure that all content distributed over the internet will be treated equally. Many big Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon also distribute content, and the fear is they'll prioritize that traffic over traffic from rival third-party services. There's also a fear that down the road that prioritization could chill innovation and keep scrappy startups from creating the next big thing online. Title II would guarantee that all internet traffic gets to where it needs to go without interruption, much like phone calls. The idea is that the internet is a communication tool that has become far too vital to commerce, education, and just about every other aspect of our lives to have no oversight. Following Cuban's tweets, I pressed him on his argument over email. It was a interesting exchange but still didn't sell me on the notion that leaving things as they are is the best way to protect the internet. His argument comes down to a few broad ideas: First is that wired broadband ISPs have plenty of competition now that wireless 4G LTE networks from Verizon, AT&T, etc., provide speeds that are just as fast, if not faster, than the service you get piped directly into your home. That gives the ISPs plenty of incentive to continue to invest in infrastructure and give you better, faster service over time. "There will come a time in the next decade when 'cutting the cord' refers to cutting your broadband cord," Cuban told me. "How will Title II deal with that? Will Title II sunset in five or seven or 10 years, or will we find the future of broadband cut off at the knees because Title II of 2015 didn't anticipate broadband of 2022?" Second, Cuban points to the fact that wired broadband networks are getting faster all the time, even if they don't have direct competition in most places. And they're doing it without any meddling from Uncle Sam. "I think that ISPs, however you define them, are doing an amazing job increasing bandwidth available to homes," he said. "The idea that Netflix, Hulu, and the aggregate of all [over the top] services can grow to where they are, as quickly as they have and service has gotten better ... is a testament to the actual investment being made on increasing bandwidth." Makes you think. Still, these are all common arguments the ISPs and net neutrality opponents use. They all say they endorse the concept of the "open internet," but too much regulation will harm innovation down the road. Let the free market take over and everything will turn out alright. In theory, they're probably right. But the way the system is set up today gives ISPs a monopoly over the areas they operate. They own the lines that send the internet to your home. And in most places in the country, they're the only lines available. Simply put, there is no competition and no incentive for ISPs to give you better service, faster. You have two choices: use your local ISP or have no internet at all. But it's still a common argument net neutrality opponents use: There's plenty of competition! All four major wireless carriers sell hotspots that let you get online at speeds just as fast or faster as the speeds from wired broadband ISPs. If enough people switch to wireless carriers for all internet access, then wired broadband providers will be forced to get better, these people say. But while that's technically true, wireless broadband is not designed to replace wired broadband. Instead, it's still optimized for mobile devices that sip data on the go. Let's say you get a wireless hotspot from Verizon. For about $60 per month, you get 3GB of data. If you go over that 3GB cap, Verizon charges you extra to get more data. Some carriers like T-Mobile offer unlimited data, but slow down your speeds once you hit the limit within a month. Those speeds are so slow that your device is basically unusable unless you pony up for more data. 3GB is about enough to let you stream two feature-length movies on Netflix. You're hosed after that. Meanwhile, wired broadband ISPs either give you unlimited data or about 250GB for approximately the same price wireless carriers charge for just a few gigabytes. Then there's the connectivity issue. There are wide swaths of the country that don't have access to the wireless carriers' fastest 4G LTE networks. And the two smaller carriers, T-Mobile and Sprint, don't have strong networks in smaller towns and rural areas like AT&T and Verizon do. That's why AT&T and Verizon are able to charge you more for service, they have less competition across much of the US. Maybe in a few decades the country will be blanketed in zippy wireless internet from multiple carriers and we'll laugh at how in 2014 people paid $65 per month or more for internet that only worked in the home. And maybe soon someone (Google? Apple? Facebook?) will see an opportunity and invest the billions necessary to make that happen and usher in a new era of internet access. I hope they do. But that's not the reality of things now. Wireless carriers are only competing to pump internet to your smartphone, tablet, and laptop (via hotspot) while you're on the go. They don't have the bandwidth to compete with traditional ISPs yet. Then there's the idea that ISPs are improving networks even without direct competition. "You may not like the depth of competition wireless currently provides, but wireless networks are getting better by the day and standards are being set for 5G that will compete with wired broadband," Cuban told me. That's true, but those 5G networks are at least a decade away. For wired broadband, the pace of improvement isn't up to par with other developed countries. The US still ranks far behind other developed countries like South Korea, Japan, and the Czech Republic. But, net neutrality opponents will argue, those countries have denser populations than the US, so it's an unfair comparison. You can't compare speeds from Middle-Of-Nowhere, Iowa, to a densely populated country like South Korea, they say. But there's a flaw in that logic, too. The ISPs are investing less and less in building out broadband infrastructure in the US. As Matthew Yglesias of Vox pointed out this spring, telecom companies invested $17.65 billion in broadband between 2005 and 2008. But that investment fell to $12.24 billion between 2009 and 2013. (Cuban didn't buy that when I pointed it out to him, for what it's worth.) I don't buy the population density argument, either. I live in Manhattan, which everyone can agree is a crowded region. Here's a speed test I took using my standard Time Warner Cable connection:
That's a large disconnect. Still, Cuban didn't see much of a problem with that. I agree with Cuban on one thing: We have no idea what the internet will become. Much of the net neutrality debate revolves around getting your Netflix and other streaming content at a fast speed. But that's only part of the issue, and a very narrow way to look at it. The internet 5, 10, or 15 years from now could be a very different place, powering our household appliances, medical equipment, and self-driving cars. But I think that just highlights the need to protect it as much as we can now. Title II may not be ideal, but it's the best weapon we have at the moment. At the very least, it's comforting that Cuban and other opponents of Title II regulation see the potential for the internet. We just disagree on the best way to protect it: trust private companies to keep building out the infrastructure and provide quality, affordable broadband or force them to do so through tighter regulations. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Ousted Rap Genius Cofounder Says He Loves To Steal From Whole Foods And Thinks You Should, Too | ||
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Rap Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam took to Thought Catalog on Friday to detail his love for stealing from Whole Foods, in an essay aptly titled "How To Steal From Whole Foods." "When I started working on genius.com, Whole Foods was our first 'angel investor' — without stealing all the food I stole from the Berkeley Whole Foods [1], I would never have been able to spend a year bootstrapping, working on the site full-time." Rap Genius, which now goes by Genius, lets you annotate text and embed it elsewhere. In the true form of Genius, this essay is also annotated. In this instance, he calls Whole Foods "cheap" and "lackluster," with a friendly staff. Oh, and "paying is optional." His appetite for Whole Foods grew as his company grew. He spent as much as $100 a day at the store, partly to feed his addiction to gluten-free muffins. Moghadam was reportedly ousted from Genius in May after he allegedly annotated the 141-page manifesto written by Elliot Roger, the man accused of going on a shooting spree in Santa Barbara, California. Moghadam says that losing his job also meant he wasn't able to go Whole Foods as often anymore. But that might have been a blessing in disguise, he writes. "In fact, losing my unlimited free Whole Foods is the best thing that ever happened to me," he writes. "It is the main reason I am glad I’m no longer with the company." He said he's lost weight and has kicked his Whole Foods habit down to $30 a day. But still, if others want to be Whole Foods "hustlers," Moghadam has you covered. He provides a handy guide book on how to steal from the store, including tips such as, "If a certain kind of apple is on sale, you can also change tags to get the cheaper price on other apples" and, "You can put anything into the soup container and pay for a soup." Yikes. Read the rest of his stealing guide book on Thought Catalog. Just remember that stealing is wrong. And illegal. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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These Are The Most Creative Techie Resumes We’ve Ever Seen | ||
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Before you can ace an interview for a new job, you have to get your foot in the door. And these days, a traditional resume often just won't cut it. We've found cool, eye-catching resumes on Instagram and Pinterest, but these are the most creative techie resumes we've seen over the years. This guy knows that his employers will stalk him on FB. Brandon created this Facebook album for potential employers. Aaron Tsai created an amazing interactive resume to get a job as an animator. For the full effect, check out the resume here. Florian Mettetel coded Facebookhire.me to woo prospective employers. See Mettetel's whole site. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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How An Awful, Misspelled Presentation Launched The Most Important Startup You've Never Heard Of | ||
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A tiny startup called Docker, which launched a mere 19 months ago and gives its software away for free, has become a huge industry phenom. The biggest names in tech have been calling it up and asking it to be their partner. In the past few months Dell, HP, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, VMware and others have all asked to join forces with this 31-employee company. On Thursday, Amazon got cheers at its customers when it announced it would be supporting Docker, too. This has been a shockingly crazy ride for the startup's founder, 31-year-old Solomon Hykes. He started working on Docker in 2008 in his mother's Paris basement, as a tiny side thing that he thought only a handful of other people would ever care about. Hello Wowlrd?The ride began in as awkward a way imaginable. "The way we introduced Docker, it did not go as planned at all," he laughed. "We had this little project, not ready by any stretch of the imagination. We would go to someone we knew, show it, get feedback, work on it." He had three other guys helping him. They showed it to more and more friends, 5, 10, 20 until they wanted to demo it beyond people they knew. So they signed up to give a "nerdy session" at a tech conference and thought maybe 30 people would show up, Hykes describes. "We didn't think we were cool at all," Hykes laughs. The session was something called a "Lightenting Talk" at a huge developer's conference called PyCon. It turned out that Lightening Talks were a big deal at Pycon. "But no one told me. I got up on stage and there were like 900 people there, it was the main track. I didn't have anything worthy to show. Just this little 'Hello World' thing. I was so nervous, I misspelled Hello World," he laughs. "Inexplicably people went crazy, nuts over the demo. It got leaked on Hacker News. That was our launch. We did not plan any of this." Here he is, on stage, with the awful, misspelled demo that people loved.
Why Docker Scares VMwareThe demo was for something called a "container" used to develop apps that run on cloud computing. The cloud makes it easy for people to run their apps on all sorts of devices. But writing an app that can handle being moved around so much is really tough to do. "If you are a software developer today, chances are you are not trying to build a desktop application, running in one computer at a time. You are probably involved in building something like Gmail or Uber, something that's just running out there on the internet, everywhere and nowhere," Hykes explains. "You need your app to be running on many machines at the same time. As those machines come and go, the app has to evolve and expand to new machines and move around," he says. Until Docker, everyone was coming up with their own ways to solve this problem. But Docker wraps each piece of app into something called a container. You can change the container without changing the piece of an app. The container is smart enough to know where it (what kind of cloud server) and automatically adjust itself so all the parts of an app can float around the internet and still always work together.
Docker is disrupting that virtual machine tech, and threatening one of the kingpins in the enterprise tech world, VMware. VMware isn't waiting around for that to happen. In August, as container mania started taking hold, it got on the phone with Docker to strike up a partnership, Hykes says. The two companies are now working together to build a product that marries VMware's cloud tech with Docker. But there's still some risk that Docker could replace, not compliment. Docker just poached Marianna Tessel, one of VMware's most prestigious early engineers, from her long term position at VMware. She's now heading up Docker's engineering. Ingenius Business ModelDocker also has a really clever business model. It's an open source project, so it gives the software away for free. Most open source companies earn money by selling subscriptions to a special version of their product that comes with support, or special features and they charge for things like training. Docker is doing all that but it's doing something else, from the days when it was DotCloud. It's building a service that's a cross between a GitHub (which hosts software projects in the cloud) and an Amazon (which runs software in the cloud). The part that makes Docker containers so smart is a cloud service running on Docker's own cloud. When developers use Docker for important apps, they pay Docker for this service. The more apps running Docker, the more money Docker makes. "Think about Docker in two parts," he says, meaning the free software plus the cloud. "Compare it to a smartphone. It's way less fun without a data network around it." $10 Million In VC funds And Jerry YangAfter that presentation put Docker on the map, Hykes and his DotCloud cofounders pushed DotCloud aside and joined Ycombinator to build out Docker.
And things took off from there. Docker has been downloaded over 50 million times, it has spawned 128 user groups in 43 countries, there are over 700 developers voluntarily working on it, with 15,000 third-party projects on GitHub using Docker and some big names using it too, like eBay, Spotify, Cloudflare, Yandex, Cambridge Healthcare and Yelp. Yahoo founder Jerry Yang also invested and joined Docker's board. "He's a great guy. I remember being so impressed. Your talking to a billionaire that changed the internet. He's so approachable and talks to you about every day problems as a founder," Hykes describes. The way things are going for Hykes and Docker, he's heading toward an internet-changing, super financially successful future of his own. | ||
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Before Docker, the closest thing to a container was a tech dominated by VMware called a "virtual machine" (VM). VMware was founded in 1998, long before the mobile revolution, to solve a different problem. It tricks a single computer server into hosting lots of different apps, with different operating systems (like a Linux computer running a Windows app).
Smart move. This year, Docker raised $55 million from several top tier VCs including super angel Ron Conway.
These Screenshots Show Why 'Video Game High School' Is So Popular | ||
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If you think video games are big now, just think how big they would be if we reached the point of truly immersive virtual reality. In this future, playing a video game would feel like you were actually questing through mystical lands, racing sports cars, or fighting with guns, all without the possibility of physical harm. Everyone would play video games, and elite gamers would play in school or professional leagues, and star players would be celebrities. This vision is the premise of "Video Game High School," a Kickstarter-backed show that is being promoted as part of a huge YouTube ad campaign. The first episode currently has around 12 million views on YouTube and a rabid fan base. Now in its third season, the show can also be seen at the home of RocketJump Studios as well as Netflix and other paid streaming sites. "VGHS" is smart, funny, ambitious, and well-made, so it's no wonder that it's blowing up. For a preview, check out the highlights in our Episode One Spoilers. Sometime in the future, there's a kid named Brian Doheny who doesn't have a lot of friends. In this picture, bullies are about to steal his digital possessions. Brian lives with his single mother who is addicted to video games, living her whole life in some alternate reality. The kid gets his kicks playing first-person shooters, and right now he's hurrying to join a game that started without him. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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'Rich Kids Of Snapchat' Owner Is Looking To Sell For At Least $30,000 But Only To Another Rich Kid | ||
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"Rich Kids of Snapchat" is a Facebook page and Snapchat account run by someone who claims to be a teenager in the UK. It's a riff off of the popular "Rich Kids of Instagram" account, which now has a TV show associated with it. The Rich Kids of Snapchat account put itself up for sale in a Snapchat story this morning, offering to sell its Snapchat handle, which it says has over 100,000 followers, and its Facebook pages, which have over 500,000 likes, for more than $30,000. Here are some screengrabs of the story:
The teen tried to sell the pages earlier this summer. "Despite being offered $150,000 for this Facebook page and the Snapchat account ‘richkidsnaps’ by an American advertising company, I would like one of you, the users, to take over ‘Rich Kid Snaps’. I don’t want a company coming along and ruining what I created," UK publication The Tab quoted the account owner in July. While the accounts have gotten a lot of recognition, that doesn't mean they've been well received. A bout of bad press caused the creator to write an apology on one of his Facebook pages in July: Hello, So, just what happens on the Rich Kids of Snapchat account? There's stuff like this:
When reached for comment, Snapchat spokesperson Mary Ritti told Business Insider that the company had terminated the "RichKidSnaps" account because the attempted sale violated its terms of service. Specifically it violates Snapchat's rules that a user cannot "buy, sell, rent, lease, or otherwise offer in exchange for any compensation, access to a Snapchat account, Stories, Snaps, a Snapchat username, or a friend link without Snapchat's prior written consent." Ritti added, "As an aggregator, this account also violates the ban on unauthorized API access." Alex Priddis, who handles PR for Rich Kids of Snapchat, declined to comment for this story. (h/t Niv Dror, who spotted the sale on Snapchat) Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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REVEALED: The Top Demographic Trends For Every Major Social Network | ||
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The demographics of who's on what social network are shifting — older social networks are reaching maturity, while newer social messaging apps are gaining younger users fast. In a new report from BI Intelligence, we unpack data from over a dozen sources to understand how social media demographics are still shifting. Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Trial >> Here are a few of the key takeaways from the BI Intelligence report:
The report is full of charts (over 20 charts) and data that can be downloaded and put to use. In full, the report:
For full access to all BI Intelligence reports, briefs, and downloadable charts on the digital media industry, sign up for a two week trial. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This 22-Year-Old Went From Working At McDonald's To Making $1 Million A Year Playing Video Games | ||
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The world of competitive gaming, or e-sports, doesn't require the players to get up out of their seats. But that doesn't mean the players don't sweat. Or make a ton of money. One of the biggest names in the e-sports realm right now is a 22-year-old named Matt Haag, who is better known as "Nadeshot." He's a master at "Call of Duty," and he's part of a team, called OpTic Gaming. He's even sponsored by Red Bull. And just three years ago he was flipping burgers at a McDonald's, according to an excellent profile of Haag in the New York Times. But playing video games is serious work. He and his teammates practice for hours a day, the Times reports. He's monitored by a "sports technologist" to check out the effects of video gaming on his brain. And he has a nutritionist to help him plan healthy meals and to make sure that he's getting enough exercise, according to the Times. That's not out of the ordinary when it comes to the competitive online gaming world, where there's big money to be made. A team of kids from Korea won $1 million for playing another popular game, "League of Legends." Millions of people around the world watched them do it. And much like other gamers who have found fame via social media and sites like Twitch, which Amazon bought earlier this year for close to $1 billion, Haag makes money from video streams as well as sponsorship deals and tournament wins. In fact he'll probably make around $700,000 just from his YouTube site, the Times reports. And Major League Gaming signed him to stream exclusively on their site. Haag has more than 1 million followers on YouTube, and it's easy to see why. His videos range from gaming sessions to personal peeks into his life to late-night food cravings, and everything in between. Still, as it goes with sudden shots to the top of stardom, there's always the worry that it can be gone in an instant. “I think about my future probably at least 10 times a day,” he told the NYT. “I think about what if this all goes away one day? What if for some reason people just aren’t in your live stream tomorrow? What if people aren’t clicking on your YouTube videos tomorrow? What if your team doesn’t work out and you’re not performing that well and you have to quit competitively? What happens when you can’t compete anymore and you want to retire because you’re going insane?” Read the rest of the profile in the New York Times here>> SEE ALSO: Nintendo is making one huge mistake Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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This 22-Year-Old Went From Working At McDonald's To Making $1 Million A Year Playing Video Games | ||
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The world of competitive gaming, or e-sports, doesn't require the players to get up out of their seats. But that doesn't mean the players don't sweat. Or make a ton of money. One of the biggest names in the e-sports realm right now is a 22-year-old named Matt Haag, who is better known as "Nadeshot." He's a master at "Call of Duty," and he's part of a team, called OpTic Gaming. He's even sponsored by Red Bull. And just three years ago he was flipping burgers at a McDonald's, according to an excellent profile of Haag by the New York Times' Conor Dougherty. But playing video games is serious work. He and his teammates practice for hours a day, Dougherty writes. Haag is monitored by a "sports technologist" to check out the effects of video gaming on his brain. And he has a nutritionist to help him plan healthy meals and to make sure that he's getting enough exercise, according to the Times. That's not out of the ordinary when it comes to the competitive online gaming world, where there's big money to be made. A team of kids from Korea won $1 million for playing another popular game, "League of Legends." Millions of people around the world watched them do it. And much like other gamers who have found fame via social media and sites like Twitch, which Amazon bought earlier this year for close to $1 billion, Haag makes money from video streams as well as sponsorship deals and tournament wins. In fact he'll probably make around $700,000 just from his YouTube site, the Times reports. And Major League Gaming signed him to stream exclusively on their site. Together with the money he makes at tourneys and from his sponsorship, he's on track to making $1 million, the Times says. Haag has more than 1 million followers on YouTube, and it's easy to see why. His videos range from gaming sessions to personal peeks into his life to late-night food cravings, and everything in between. Still, as it goes with sudden shots to the top of stardom, there's always the worry that it can be gone in an instant. “I think about my future probably at least 10 times a day,” he told the NYT. “I think about what if this all goes away one day? What if for some reason people just aren’t in your live stream tomorrow? What if people aren’t clicking on your YouTube videos tomorrow? What if your team doesn’t work out and you’re not performing that well and you have to quit competitively? What happens when you can’t compete anymore and you want to retire because you’re going insane?” Read the rest of the profile in the New York Times here>> | ||
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You Can Now Play 'Super Smash Bros.' On A Graphing Calculator | ||
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We truly are living in the future. Nintendo is about to release "Super Smash Bros. for Wii U" next Friday, but why wait to see your favorite Nintendo mascots duke it out in stunning high definition when you can play one of the most addictive fighting games of all time on a low-definition graphing calculator. Major hat-tip to Kotaku's Jason Schreier, who stumbled upon this "demake" while visiting the gaming blog Tiny Cartridge. The game was created by a user on the Omnimaga forums named Hayleia, who created the clone of "Super Smash Bros. Melee" for the Nintendo GameCube for monochrome z80 calculators. The user also made the game on a modular engine, so you can tweak and edit the source code and optimize it for their own device. You can even download the source code here and import it to a compatible TI-83 or TI-84 calculator through USB. Check out some more gifs to see it in action!
Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Uber Is Generating A Staggering Amount Of Revenue | ||
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Mobile ride hailing startup Uber is expected to hit an annual revenue run rate of $10 billion by the end of 2015, sources told Business Insider's Henry Blodget. Uber keeps 20% of every transaction, which means Uber will be netting about $2 billion on $10 billion gross revenue. What's more, most of Uber's revenue comes from 10 of its earliest cities, including San Francisco and New York. When its other 140+ cities mature, you can imagine that $10 billion revenue figure multiplying quickly. San Francisco alone generates hundreds of millions of dollars for Uber. Uber is operating in more than 45 countries without having made a single acquisition. Let's say that all again: Uber is expected to generate $10 billion of which it keeps $2 billion in the next year or two. That's not to say the company is profitable. It spends tons of money on marketing tactics to recruit new users and drivers. Still, those figures for a five-year-old startup are staggering. To put that in perspective, Facebook is expected to generate $10 billion for the first time this year, after 10 years of operation. Granted, Uber and Facebook are entirely different businesses (advertising versus transactional) but yah, $10 billion is a lot. Blodget also learned that Uber's revenue will grow about 300% this year and it's expected to grow another 300% next year. A snapshot of Uber's financials obtained by Valleywag in late 2013 showed Uber generating about $20 million per week. Further, Blodget's sources believe Uber will go public in a few years at a $50-10 billion valuation. Uber's last valuation exceeded $18 billion. SEE ALSO: No, Really, Uber Could Be A $100 Billion Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Amazon’s New Kindle Fire HDX Tablet Is Light And Gorgeous — But It Has Some Serious Limitations (AMZN) | ||
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Amazon has expanded its line of Kindle tablets yet again with this year’s version of the $379 Fire HDX 8.9. The device, which is the same size as Google’s recent Nexus 9 and a bit smaller than the iPad Air, is one of the slimmest tablets you can buy. As is the case with its previous HDX tablets, the online retail giant is pushing its new addition as an entertainment-focused device. And with it’s gorgeous high-res display, it certainly has the hardware to pull it off. After spending a week using Amazon’s new tablet, here's what I came away with. The BasicsThe 2014 edition of Amazon’s new tablet comes with a 2560x1600 resolution display just like its predecessor and the Nexus 9. There’s an 8-megapixel camera on the back and 2GB of RAM, which the company claims will ensure graphics run smoothly. In all honesty, there isn’t too much that’s different from last year’s model. The new tablet comes with Amazon’s new Firefly feature and runs on a new processor, but those are the only key differences. How It Looks And FeelsAmazon’s Kindle Fire HDX is undoubtedly one of the lightest tablets you can buy. In fact, it might be the lightest tablet at just 375 grams. By comparison, the Nexus 9 weighs 425 grams, the iPad Air 2 weighs 469 grams, and Sony’s Xperia Z2 tablet weighs 439 grams. Granted, both Apple and Sony’s tablets come with a larger screen than Amazon’s Fire HDX, but it’s still impressively slim. This makes it incredibly easy to use with one hand.
The back of Amazon’s new tablet is made of a soft, slick material that’s resistant to fingerprints, which is a plus. Both Google and Sony’s tablet were quick to pick up smudges, so the tablets would look a little dirty after just a few minutes of use. There’s one design quirk that has always confused me when picking up an Amazon tablet. Both the power and volume buttons are located on the back, rather than along the side. I understand it probably wouldn’t be possible to make the tablet super slim and light otherwise, but it always throws me off. Using It
Like Amazon’s other devices, the new Fire HDX runs on its Fire OS — a modified version of Android. Although it’s technically based on Android, it doesn’t look very much like the software you’d see on a Google or Samsung tablet. The home screen consists of a carousel of app icons with a menu that sits across the top of the screen. The menu lets you browse different categories such as games, apps stored on your device, photos stored on the tablet, and more. Below the main carousel are a few icons for other options in the OS, such as Amazon’s Silk Browser, the stock email app, the tablet’s camera, calendar, and a few other choices. The carousel layout is a refreshing — it's not the tired app grid layout you’ll find on most other mobile devices. The Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 is a gorgeous, lightweight tablet, but it has its limitations. Although its an Android tablet, don’t plan on using Gmail, Google Maps, or any other Google-made application on it. There’s no access to the Google Play Store, which means if the app you’re looking for isn’t in Amazon’s AppStore, you won’t be able to use it. So, that means no YouTube, no Google Drive, and no Google Maps. Remember, the Fire HDX 8.9 is built for entertainment. So if you frequently use Amazon Prime and love downloading movies, you’ll probably enjoy Fire OS.
Like its predecessor, the new tablet comes with Amazon’s Mayday feature, which is a service that connects you to a member of Amazon’s support team. Firefly is a newer Amazon feature that debuted on the Fire Phone last spring. Firefly allows you to use the device’s camera to scan barcodes on objects, business cards, and email addresses. Once the tablet recognizes the object, it’ll either provide a link to save that person’s contact information or show a listing for that item in Amazon’s online store. Firefly works quickly and it’s incredibly accurate. Within seconds of holding a business card in front of the tablet’s camera, it pulled up that person’s phone number. The software reacted equally as fast when I held up the box for an iPhone case in front of the Fire HDX’s camera. Still, Firefly seems better-suited for a phone than a tablet. Whipping out a large handheld to scan a business card feels awkward. The new Fire HDX’s screen is gorgeous, too. Whether you’re doing some reading or watching Netflix, images and text really pop off the screen. It also seemed to be a bit brighter than the screen on the Nexus 9. The Kindle Fire HDX's battery lasts quite long on a single charge. I was able to get two full days of usage out of the tablet before its battery completely drained. This included streaming a lot of Netflix, playing games like "Dead Trigger" often, and browsing the web. Should You Buy It?
Amazon’s recently released Kindle Fire HDX is an excellent tablet for reading and entertainment, especially if you use Amazon Prime a lot. It’s super light — in fact it’s one of the lightest tablets you can buy — and the screen is gorgeous too. But, you’ll have to be okay with giving up access to Google’s gigantic app store. Amazon has it’s own app store with more than 240,000 apps, although that’s a relative small number compared to both Apple and Google’s stores which offer about one million apps. And, if you’re used to using an Android tablet or an iPad, the software will seem a bit different on Amazon’s Fire HDX. If you don’t really care about apps and just want a tablet for streaming Netflix, reading, checking email, and browsing the web, you’ll be perfectly satisfied with the Fire HDX. Amazon has it’s own app store with more than 240,000 apps, although that’s a relative small number compared to both Apple and Google’s stores which offer about one million apps. SEE ALSO: 15 Apps That Will Make Your Android Phone A Whole Lot Better Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Here's How To Figure Out Everything Google Knows About You | ||
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When you use Google, you are making a deal. You get to use Gmail and search and YouTube and Google Maps for free and in exchange, you agree to share information about yourself. Google gets to sell that information to advertisers. The more Google knows about you, the more it can match you to an advertiser who thinks you are an ideal customer. Advertisers are willing to pay more for ads served to ideal potential customers. For instance, airlines want to target people who love to travel. Children's clothing makers want to target parents. Google uses a lot of methods to learn about you. There's the stuff you tell Google outright when you sign up for its services, like Gmail and Google Maps, or via an Android phone, like your name, phone number, location, and so on. Google also deduces information about you from watching your internet searches (what do you search for? click on?) and from the stuff you do with Google's products. By visiting a site called "Ads Settings" you can see what Google knows about you. It's not that easy to find Ads Settings. First, click on the link below or type it into your browser: https://www.google.com/settings/ Then click on "Account history".
Scroll down to Ads and click on "Edit settings".
This page shows you what Google thinks it knows about you including your age bracket, the languages you speak and ...
... including your interests.
From that page, you can edit that information or "opt out" of allowing Google to share your information with advertisers. SEE ALSO: How Google Inadvertently Crushed A Privacy Browser Company Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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What Some Of Google's Most Elite, Entrepreneurial Employees Are Doing Now (GOOG) | ||
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Since Marissa Mayer started Google's associate product manager program — APM for short — more than a decade ago, it has swelled into one of the company's most elite entry-level positions. Mayer started the two-year rotational training program to home-grow managers who would be "Googley." The program has since become rather legendary, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Steven Levy that he expects an APM alumni to run the company someday. When you pick people who are leaders and show the sort of entrepreneurial zeal that makes them a great fit at Google, you also pick people who are confident enough to leave Google to build their own companies. And a lot have. "We get two to four good years, and if 20 percent stay with the company, that's a good rate," Mayer told Newsweek in 2007. "Even if they leave it's still good for us. I'm sure that someone in this group is going to start a company that I will buy some day." Brian Rakowski was Google's very first APM. Rakowski is now Google's VP of product management focusing on Android. Suitably, Rakowski also now runs the APM program. What's changed since Mayer left the program? Not much, according to Rakowski. "One of the best things about the APM program is that so many incredible people have gone through the program over the last 11 years and want stay involved," he writes on Quora. "In the spirit of tapping into the alumni network, we've also started a APM speaker series where APM alumni who have gone on to do interesting things (at Google or outside) give a talk to the current APMs." Jeff Bartelma left Google to join Dropbox. Bartelma studied engineering at MIT before joining the APM program, where he worked on product search. He eventually left Google to be the director of product at Dropbox in 2010. Si Shen cofounded PapayaMobile in 2008. Shen spent four years at Google working on Android development and marketing and then Maps before founding Beijing-based mobile gaming company PapayaMobile in 2008. PapayaMobile created over 13 games, and then shifted to start making its mobile game engine available to other social game developers. According to its website, the company has over 1,000 titles connecting to its network. Interestingly, Shen also appeared on a popular Chinese dating reality show in 2012, which helped her company become more widely recognized, according to Women of China. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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This Is The First Question The Godfather of Silicon Valley, Ron Conway, Asks Before Making An Investment | ||
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One of the recent speakers was Ron Conway, the legendary founder of SV Angel, who’s best known for making small investments in a bunch of different early stage startups. For example, he invested in Google back in 1999, before the search engine became the behemoth it is now. How does he start his investment process? “Usually the first question I ask is, ‘What inspired you to create this product?’” Conway told the crowd. He said he expects the product to be a solution to a problem the founder personally experienced. The founder has to be able to describe the product “in one compelling sentence” so that the investor can immediately understand what it does, Conway said. Through that first one-minute conversation, Conway tries to answer, “Is this person a leader?” and “Is this person rightful, focused, and obsessed by the product?” He also pointed out that it’s important that founders be decisive, whether it’s making an HR or a product strategy decision. Conway believes “procrastination is the devil in startups.” Another point he made was that it’s always good to bootstrap for as long as possible, meaning it’s better to not take money from a venture capitalist or angel investor; startups should strive to be self-sustaining at first. Perhaps, this is the kind of thinking that's made Conway one of the most successful VC investors in Silicon Valley. Conway says he’s invested in over 700 companies and spoken to thousands of entrepreneurs since 1994. On average, SV Angel invests in about one startup a week, and one out of every 30 companies it looks at. The most successful investment of those? “The investment in Google in 1999,” Conway said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Y Combinator’s Sam Altman has been teaching REPORT: Uber To Announce Spotify Partnership | ||
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Uber will announce a partnership with Spotify on Monday, reports The New York Times' Mike Issac. The partnership will reportedly let Uber customers listen to music from their own Spotify playlists after they order and get in their vehicle. The technical details of how Uber and Spotify intend to accomplish that feature remain unclear. The news comes as some journalists received an invite to an Uber event featuring a yet-to-be-named guest That event teased a "first-of-its-kind partnership." Spotify has been in the news lately, not always in a positive light. The streaming service has become embattled in a public dispute with Taylor Swift, who recently removed her catalogue from Spotify over allegations that she was underpaid. SEE ALSO: Here's How Much Taylor Swift Made In One Year From Streaming On Spotify Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Moscow expels Polish diplomats: ministry | ||
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Moscow (AFP) - Russia has expelled a number of Polish diplomats accusing them of activities "incompatible with their status" in response to expulsions of Russian diplomats by Warsaw, the foreign ministry said on Monday. "The Polish authorities indeed took such an unfriendly and absolutely groundless step. The Russian side took appropriate measures and a number of Polish diplomats have already left the territory of our country for activities incompatible with their status," the ministry said, using diplomatic language that generally refers to espionage, without giving more details. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Facebook Is Secretly Working On A New Professional Website | ||
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London (AFP) - Facebook is preparing a new office version of its social networking site to compete with other sites like LinkedIn, the Financial Times reported on Monday. "Facebook is secretly working on a new website called 'Facebook at Work'" that would allow users to "chat with colleagues, connect with professional contacts and collaborate over documents", it said. Facebook last month reported its quarterly profit nearly doubled to $802 million (640 million euros) but saw its stock pounded after outlining a plan to invest heavily in the future instead of revelling in short-term riches. "We are going to continue preparing for the future by investing aggressively, connecting everyone, understanding the world, and building the next-generation in computing platforms," Facebook founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said then. "We have a long journey ahead," he said. Facebook, which has 1.35 billion monthly active users worldwide, was set up in 2004 by Zuckerberg with fellow students at Harvard University who wanted to set it up as a college networking site. The site has been seeking to broaden its offerings, unveiling an application that lets people chat anonymously in virtual "rooms," evoking the chat rooms from the early days of the Internet. It is also testing a feature that lets users of the leading social network make purchases by simply pressing an on-screen "Buy" button. Facebook completed its multibillion-dollar deal for mobile messaging application WhatsApp last month. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Things You Need To Know Before European Markets Open | ||
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Good morning! Here are the major news stories before the open in London and Paris. Japan Is In Recession And The Yen Hit A 7-Year Low. Unexpectedly poor GDP data just sent Japan into a recession, with a -0.4% contraction in Q3, when 0.5% growth was expected. The dollar hit ¥117 as the news broke, the highest since 2007. A 24-Year Old Streak In The Korean Auto Market Has Ended. South Korea is on track to spend more on vehicle imports from Europe this year than it earns from exports the other way, for the first time in 24 years, as German brands breach the once impregnable fortress of Hyundai Motor and its local rivals. The Landmark Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Link Just Opened. The link is expected to drive billions of dollars of trading every day. Australia And China Just Sealed A Trade Deal. China and Australia on Monday signed a declaration of intent on a landmark free trade deal more than a decade in the making, opening up markets worth billions to Australia and loosening restrictions on Chinese investment. Facebook Is Working On A Professional Development Website. Facebook is secretly working on a new website called "Facebook at Work" that would allow users to keep their personal profile separate from their work profile, the Financial Times reported. Asian Markets Are Down. The unexpected shrinkage of the Japanese economy sent Japan's major stock index, the Nikkei, tumbling 2.96%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng is currently down 0.70%. Romania's Prime Minister Conceded Defeat. Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Sunday conceded defeat in a presidential runoff he had been widely expected to win. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi Is Under Increasing Pressure. Renzi's government has seen a marked drop in its approval rating as economic difficulties have grown but he remains by far the country's most popular leader, a poll on Sunday showed. Reckitt Benckiser Is Spinning Off Its Pharma Business. According to the Financial Times, Reckitt Benckiser could announce that it's spinning off its pharmaceuticals business as early as this week. A Draghi Speech Is Coming. It's a quiet day for European data, with only trade balance information out at 10 a.m. GMT. ECB president Mario Draghi is speaking at 2 p.m. GMT, and 15 minutes later US data on industrial production and capacity utilisation is out. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now | ||
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1. Japan's economy has slipped into recession with GDP unexpectedly falling 1.6% between July and September. 2. Some economists believe Japan's shockingly poor GDP numbers confirm that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is going to call a snap general election. 3. Russian President Vladimir Putin left the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, early, saying he needed sleep after "after enduring hours of browbeating by a succession of Western leaders urging him to drop his support for secessionists in eastern Ukraine," The Guardian reports. 4. Facebook is secretly working on a new professional website that would allow users to keep their personal profile separate from their work profile, the Financial Times reports. 5. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has warned that Britain leaving the European Union would be a disaster. 6. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decried alleged cooperation between the US and Iran in the fight against the Jihadist group Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). 7. The White House has confirmed the death of US aid worker Peter Kassig after the review of a video released by the Islamic State group. 8. A case of bird flu has been confirmed at a duck breeding farm in Yorkshire. 9. New amateur video claims to show the immediate aftermath of the MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine in July. 10. Bill Cosby will not respond to allegations that the actor sexually assaulted women in the past. And finally ... The Leonid meteor shower will be visible tonight. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Good morning! Here's what you need to know for Monday. Sashimi trend helps edge Pacific bluefin tuna towards extinction | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - The Pacific bluefin tuna, a fish used in sushi and sashimi dishes, is at risk of extinction as the global food market places "unsustainable pressure" on the species and others, a conservation body warned Monday. The bluefin tuna joined the Chinese pufferfish, American eel, Chinese cobra and Australian black grass-dart butterfly on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) "red list" of threatened species. The updated list was released by the IUCN at its once-a-decade World Parks Congress in Sydney as it called for better management of protected areas, where some of the decline in species levels has taken place. "Each update of the IUCN 'red list' makes us realise that our planet is constantly losing its incredible diversity of life, largely due to our destructive actions to satisfy our growing appetite for resources," IUCN's director-general Julia Marton-Lefevre said. "But we have scientific evidence that protected areas can play a central role in reversing this trend," she added. For this year's list, the IUCN assessed 76,199 species, with 22,413 judged to be under threat. The Pacific bluefin tuna moved from the "least concern" threat category to "vulnerable" as the species is threatened with extinction due to its use in Asia's sushi and sashimi markets, the Swiss-based group said. As most of the fish caught are juveniles that have not yet reproduced, the population has dropped by 19-33 percent over the past 22 years. It called for fisheries to implement conservation and management measures for the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
- Chinese pufferfish 'critically endangered' -
The Chinese pufferfish, a Japanese delicacy and one of the world's most poisonous vertebrates, was listed as "critically endangered" and its population was estimated to have plunged by 99 percent over the past four decades from over-exploitation. The American eel is reeling from the impact of climate change, parasites, pollution, habitat loss and commercial harvesting, as well as having been hit by the high levels of consumption of its counterpart, the Japanese eel. The IUCN categorised the Chinese cobra as "vulnerable" with the population falling 30-50 percent over the past two decades -- another species hurt by its popularity as a food source. "The growing food market is putting unsustainable pressure on these and other species," the IUCN's biodiversity head Jane Smart said. "We urgently need to impose strict limits on harvesting and take appropriate measures to protect habitats." Another species added to the list was the Malaysian snail Charopa lafargei -- named after the French construction giant Lafarge, which has agreed to try and limit its quarrying activities in the snails' habitat -- the report said. Two species, the Malaysian mollusc plectostoma sciaphilum and the St Helena Giant Earwig, were declared extinct due to habitat destruction. But there was good news for two amphibians in Colombia's Ranita Dorada Reserve -- both members of the poison dart frogs family -- which improved in status and are now categorised as "vulnerable" due to conservation efforts. The World Parks Congress, which will outline a global agenda for protected areas for the next decade before closing on November 19, comes a month after the member nations of the UN's Convention of Biological Diversity met in South Korea to lay out a roadmap to halt species extinction by 2020. The World Wildlife Fund said in its Living Planet Report published in September that there has been a 52 percent decline in mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish overall from 1970 to 2010. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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How The Biggest Scene On Sunday's 'The Walking Dead' Was Faked | ||
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Sunday night’s episode of “The Walking Dead” revolved around two fan favorites, Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride). The two headed out on a rescue mission to save a kidnapped group member, Beth (Emily Kinney), from another unidentified group of strangers. Along the way, the two come across a van hanging off a bridge which leads to one of the episode’s huge practical effects. Last chance to head back before spoilers.
To avoid an oncoming group of zombies, the two jump inside the unstable van, strap on seat belts, and decide to dive headfirst off the bridge while hoping for the best. Here’s how the scene plays out in the episode. You can clearly see the van starts to flip in this first GIF.
However, the scene cuts and in the next shot, viewers see the van crash right side up on all four wheels.
What happened? The van was clearly ready to flip over, right? Yes, it was. According to “The Walking Dead” after show “The Talking Dead,” the series used a total of four identical vans to complete the scene, two of which made the 50 foot drop. In a behind-the-scenes featurette on the episode, “The Walking Dead” crew shows how they faked the van crash to make it look like the duo landed pretty safely. The first time they dropped the van from the bridge, the team attempted to just roll it off after loading the vehicle with a lot of extra weight on the rear end. That didn’t go as planned. The van flipped 180 degrees onto its top.
“The drop itself was a bit of a challenge,” explained co-executive producer Denise Huth in the featurette. “The first drop we did the van landed upside down which we did not want it to do.” The team tried it out again a second time in order to get the look they wanted. During a second drop, another van was dropped from a cable. The second drop gave the crew the shot they needed for Carol and Daryl to survive the crash.
Here's what you end up seeing on the show.
In case you were wondering, while Carol and Daryl did do some filming in the van, the actors had their own stunt dummies on board for the actual crash to show their point of view.
You can watch the entire featurette below. SEE ALSO: Here's when the next big villain will appear on "The Walking Dead" AND: Why "The Walking Dead" casts so many actors from "The Wire" Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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China will never use force to achieve its goals: Xi | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday vowed never to use force to achieve Beijing's goals, including in maritime disputes, just days after US President Barack Obama warned of the dangers of outright conflict in Asia. In an address to the Australian parliament, Xi said his giant and developing nation needed peace, noting that history showed no-one ever benefited from conflict. "A review of history shows that countries that attempted to pursue development with force invariably failed," he said in a lengthy address in which he also reminisced about kangaroos and koala encounters during previous visits to Australia. "This is what history teaches us. China is dedicated to upholding peace. Peace is precious and needs to be protected." But he added: "We must always be on high alert against the factors that may deprive us of peace." Beijing is locked in disputes with four Southeast Asian countries over lonely outcrops in the South China Sea, and with Japan over another set of islets. The leaders of the US, Australia and Japan on Sunday called for peaceful resolutions of the maritime disputes. The day before, Obama had warned of "disputes over territory -- remote islands and rocky shoals -- that threaten to spiral into confrontation". Xi said Monday he was open to dialogue. "It is China's long-standing position to address peacefully its disputes with countries concerned and territorial sovereignty and maritime interests through dialogue and consultation," he said. "China has settled land boundary issues with 12 out of its 14 neighbours through friendly consultation. And we will continue to work in this direction," added Xi. "The Chinese government is ready to enhance dialogue and cooperation with relevant countries to maintain freedom of navigation and the safety of maritime routes, and ensure a maritime border of peace, tranquility and cooperation." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Colombia suspends FARC talks after suspected abduction of general | ||
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Bogota (AFP) - Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has decided to suspend peace talks with the country's largest rebel group, the FARC, ongoing for two years, as the military investigates the suspected abduction of a general. "Negotiations with #FARC are suspended until the facts of the kidnapping of general Alzate are clarified," the Ministry of Defense said in a tweet citing Santos, following a meeting between the president and military leaders.
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Al Franken Just Torched Ted Cruz's Net Neutrality Stance On CNN | ||
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On Sunday, Minnesota Senator Al Franken appeared on CNN's "State Of The Union" with Candy Crowley and launched into a ripping critique of Texas Senator Ted Cruz's net neutrality position, basically saying that Cruz doesn't understand the issue at all. Following President Obama's November 10 statement urging the FCC to enforce regulations to protect net neutrality, Senator Cruz wrote a strong-minded opinion in the Washington Post. "In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It would put the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities and higher prices," Cruz said in the Washington Post. Senator Franken was not impressed. When Crowley read this statement back to Franken in the interview, the Senator from Minnesota fired back sharply, saying "He has it completely wrong, he just doesn't understand what this issue is. We've had net neutrality the entire history of the internet, so when he says this is Obamacare — Obamacare was a government program that fixed something, that changed things, this is about reclassifying something so it stays the same. This would keep things exactly the same as they've been." You can watch the segment here:
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Diplomat chosen as Burkina Faso's interim president | ||
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Ouagadougou (AFP) - Diplomat Michel Kafando has been chosen as Burkina Faso's interim president, officials in the west African country announced Monday and will head the country until 2015. Kafando, one of four candidates, was selected after several hours of negotiation. "The consensus candidate is Michel Kafando," said Ignace Sandwidi, a representative of the Catholic Church, which was involved in the discussions to find a leader. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Cosby lawyer slams 'old, discredited' sex abuse allegations | ||
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Los Angeles (AFP) - Bill Cosby will not respond to "decade-old, discredited" allegations of sexual abuse, his lawyer said, following recent claims that the beloved US entertainer had assaulted a string of women over the years. Cosby made headlines on Saturday when he shook his head in silence when asked if he wanted to address allegations of rape and sexual abuse made against him in recent weeks during an interview on National Public Radio. In the latest allegations to be aired, a woman described in an editorial Sunday being drugged and raped by the comedian in 1969. In a statement on the veteran comedian's website, lawyer John P. Schmitt said Cosby would make no comment on the wave of claims against him. "Over the last several weeks, decade-old, discredited allegations against Mr. Cosby have resurfaced," the statement said. "The fact that they are being repeated does not make them true. Mr. Cosby does not intend to dignify these allegations with any comment. "He would like to thank all his fans for the outpouring of support and assure them that, at age 77, he is doing his best work. There will be no further statement from Mr. Cosby or any of his representatives." Cosby, most famous for playing the patriarch of a middle-class African-American family in NBC television's long-running sitcom "The Cosby Show" between 1984 and 1992, has been at the center of a storm since comedian Hannibal Buress branded him a "rapist" during a stand-up show in Philadelphia last month. A scheduled appearance by Cosby on the "Late Show with David Letterman" was cancelled as the entertainer faced a barrage of accusations. The Washington Post last week published a detailed account by actress Barbara Bowman of alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of Cosby when she was a starry-eyed teenager in 1985. Bowman insisted she had neither sought nor received money from Cosby. She had offered to testify in a civil action brought by a woman who accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her, which was eventually settled in 2006. A total of 13 women who made similar accusations against Cosby had also offered to testify in the case, according to US reports. Publicist and former actress Joan Tarshis was the latest to come forward Sunday. She wrote in a Hollywood Elsewhere editorial that she was raped twice by Cosby when she was 19 years old and working with him in 1969. "The next thing I remember was coming to on his couch while being undressed,” Tarshis wrote of the first incident. "Through the haze I thought I was being clever when I told him I had an infection and he would catch it and his wife would know he had sex with someone. "But he just found another orifice to use. I was sickened by what was happening to me and shocked that this man I had idolized was now raping me. Of course I told no one."
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Japan economy enters recession after surprise Q3 contraction | ||
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Tokyo (AFP) - Japan's economy sank into recession in the third quarter, making it almost inevitable that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will delay a fresh sales tax hike and call snap elections to reinvigorate his power against party rivals, analysts said Monday. Abe's two-year premiership has been largely focused on breathing life into Japan's deflation-plagued economy, and getting a handle on its soaring national debt by tapping into new revenue through raising duties. But a sales levy hike in April -- Japan's first in 17 years --- knocked consumers off their feet, as Abe's approval ratings fall and he uses up political capital in his attempt to restart nuclear power and bolster the role of Japan's military. "In light of the sharp fall in today's preliminary estimate, it now looks likely that PM Abe will call off the hike and announce snap elections," Marcel Thieliant from Capital Economics said in a report following the data release. Japan's gross domestic product shrank 0.4 percent in the third quarter, or at an annualised rate of 1.6 percent, underscoring how the tax rise earlier this year stalled Abe's programme to turn the world's number three economy around. The market's median expectation was for a 0.5 percent expansion, according to economists surveyed by the leading Nikkei business daily. Residential investment fell, capital spending was weak, and consumer spending remained tepid. Exports were in positive territory, but shipments of cars and televisions were not enough to drag the economy into the black. "The data show that the economy is in a recession," said Koichi Fujishiro, an economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "Household consumption is still weak as real disposable income declined...We'll have to wait until December or January to see a rebound in the economy." - Snap elections - The figures comes as speculation swirls that Abe -- who faces a leadership election next year -- will delay boosting Japan's sales tax to 10 percent next year, after the rise to 8.0 percent from 5.0 percent in April. The economy suffered a revised 1.9 percent contraction in the April-June quarter -- or 7.3 percent at an annualised rate -- reversing a 1.6 percent expansion in the first quarter of the year when hopes were still buoyant for Abe's growth plan, dubbed "Abenomics". Last month, the Bank of Japan expanded its already huge monetary easing programme to counter the downturn, but the latest figures will lead to talk of further measures by the central bank. Tokyo has said it would wait to see the final estimate for third-quarter growth, due next month, before making a final decision on the second tax hike. On Monday, economy minister Akira Amari noted that, despite Monday's data, the economy still expanded 0.5 percent in the first nine months of the year. "A positive cycle in the economy is ongoing -- we can't just simply summarise (the data) with the word 'recession'." Tokyo's tax rises are aimed at paying down the country's enormous national debt, but they have put Abe in a tricky position as he tries to balance them with his pro-spending growth plan, launched after he swept to power in late 2012. While most commentators said a dip in spending was inevitable -- millions of shoppers dashed to stores ahead of the tax hike -- the second-quarter contraction was much more painful than many economists had expected. Japanese media have reported that Abe plans to hold a general election on December 14, two years ahead of schedule, as he seeks to bolster his public support on the back of shaky approval ratings. The premier wants an early poll while opposition parties remain weak after the ruling party's spectacular election victory two years ago, pundits said. An election win next month would boost Abe ahead of the Liberal Democratic Party's three-yearly leadership vote in 2015. The Mainichi newspaper said the conservative premier would order the drafting of an additional budget on Tuesday, before announcing his decision to dissolve the lower house of parliament. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Croatia flares deflect glare from outplayed Azzurri | ||
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Milan (AFP) - Ugly flare-throwing incidents at Milan's storied San Siro stadium deflected the glare from under-par Italy as they scraped a precious Euro 2016 qualifying point at home to impressive Group H leaders Croatia. Croatia crossed the Adriatic hoping to protect an impressive unbeaten record against the Italians that stretched back to 1942 when the Azzurri beat the then Yugoslavia 4-0 in Genoa. Instead, Croatia coach Niko Kovac spent most of the post-match period Sunday making apologies for the disruptive behaviour of his country's notoriously difficult fans. "I want to say sorry for what happened with our fans," said Kovac, a former captain of Croatia. "This is not football and it's not a fair image of our country or our people. Kovac, a former captain of the national team, ultimately saw his side underline their superiority against an Italy side which, after a second consecutive first-round exit from the World Cup last summer, is now in construction mode. With an impressive crowd of 66,222 fans inside a packed San Siro, Lazio midfielder Antonio Candreva got the hosts off to a great start in the 11th minute with his debut goal for the Azzurri. But four minutes later, Croatia were back on level terms. Three Italy players backed off while Ivan Perisic was in possession on the left flank and the Wolfsburg midfielder drilled a low shot under the body of 'keeper Gianluigi Buffon. Croatia suffered a blow when Luka Modric hobbled off before the half-hour to be replaced by Inter Milan playmaker Mateo Kovacic. But the visitors made light of the Real Madrid midfielder's absence for the remainder of a match that they should have wrapped up in the final 10 minutes only for Perisic, left in acres of space on the left flank, to fire a great chance wide of Buffon's far post. Croatia remain top of Group H with Italy still in second spot having now failed to beat their rivals in their past seven games. However the UEFA spotlight will again shine on the Baltic nation, who have been issued with sanctions in the past for fans' behaviour. The first signs of any kind of unrest within the stadium appeared shortly after kick-off. Several rocket flares were thrown in the early stages of the game and loud bangs echoed around the stadium after being set off in the Croatia fans' end. Around the hour mark, the incidents reached boiling point. With most of the players camped in Croatia's end, Italy and Juventus goalkeeper Buffon became a target as fans launched flare after flare in his direction. The match was halted momentarily, but officially postponed minutes later by referee Bjorn Kuipers as flares continued to hit the pitch. The players returned to the pitch approximately 10 minutes later and the match resumed with Italy and Croatia both spurning chances to snatch a late lead that would have pulled either team clear of the other at the top of the group. Croatia's fans have a reputation for troublesome behaviour at matches and flares are regularly fired at Croatian league matches. But Kovac said such behaviour had no place in the sport. "There are kids in the stadium. This is not football and it's not a fair image of our country or our people," he said. Conte commented: "I hope the people who carried this out and the people who seen it have no intention of doing it again." The Azzurri coach's biggest worry, however, is Italy's apparent inferiority to a Croatia side whose biggest achievement in international terms was a third-place finish at the 1998 World Cup, a competition Italy have won four times. "Croatia are strong, they're well-prepared and have great individual players who play at the top level. They gave us a tough match," said Conte. However, he added: "In the circumstances and in terms of our objectives, I'm happy with our performance. "I don't want the media to criticise our squad. We still have progress to make." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Rodgers stays hot as Green Bay Packers pound Eagles | ||
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Los Angeles (AFP) - Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy is running out of superlatives to describe the season that star quarterback Aaron Rodgers is having. Rodgers threw six first half touchdowns last week and followed that up with three touchdowns and 341 yards on 22-of-36 passing as the Packers routed the Philadelphia Eagles 53-20 on Sunday. "I've got to figure out new ways to compliment Aaron Rodgers. He's playing at an extremely high level," McCarthy said. Green Bay used another huge first half Sunday at Lambeau Field en route to scoring 50-plus points in consecutive games for the first time in franchise history. The Packers, who blitzed the Chicago Bears 55-14 last week, have outscored their National Football League opponents 219-85 at home this season. "We are just making the most of our opportunities," Rodgers said. "We have had a lot of explosive games. "It starts up front. The offensive line has controlled the line of scrimmage the last two games and really limited the number of hits on me." Eddie Lacy ran for 69 yards and a score on 10 carries, while also making three catches for 45 yards and a touchdown for Green Bay who moved into a tie for first place in the NFC North. Randall Cobb had a game-high 129 yards on 10 catches, Jordy Nelson made four catches for 109 yards a score and Davante Adams also hauled in a touchdown catch in the win. Eagles quarterback Mark Sanchez completed 26-of-44 passes for 346 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. It was the most points Philadelphia surrendered in a game since a 62-10 loss to the Giants on November 1972. "Rain or shine. Win or lose. We have to stick together," said Eagles head coach Chip Kelly. "These guys always come to work. We'll be ready to work when we come back on Tuesday." In St. Louis, Shaun Hill returned as the starter and helped lead the Rams to a 22-7 win over Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. Hill passed for 220 yards and a touchdown and Greg Zuerlein kicked a career-high five field goals in the win. Five-time MVP Manning was intercepted twice in the fourth quarter as the Broncos tried to rally the troops. "Great win. As good a game as we can play," said Rams coach Jeff Fisher. Manning played much of the game without two of his favorite receivers after tight end Julius Thomas was knocked out early with an ankle injury and wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders suffered a concussion early in the second half. Manning finished 34-of-54 for 389 yards and a 42-yard touchdown pass to Sanders in the second quarter. It was only the second time the Broncos were held under 10 points since signing Manning in 2012 -- the other instance being their 43-8 loss to Seattle in the Super Bowl. "Any time you score seven points as an offence you feel like you let your team down," said Manning. Drew Stanton threw touchdown passes to Michael Floyd on the first two drives of the game and the Arizona Cardinals beat the Detroit Lions 14-6 to match the best start in franchise history. Stanton is replacing Carson Palmer, who was lost for the season after suffering a torn ACL in his left knee last week. His touchdown throws of 42 and 12 yards to Floyd in the first nine minutes of the game stood up as the NFL-leading Cardinals (9-1) pushed their winning streak to six. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Djokovic targets Grand Slam glory in Paris | ||
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London (AFP) - Novak Djokovic has set his sights on finally ending his long wait to be crowned French Open champion next year and complete a career Grand Slam. Djokovic brought the curtain down on his 2014 campaign in unexpected fashion by playing a hastily-arranged exhibition match against Andy Murray at London's O2 Arena after Roger Federer pulled out of their scheduled ATP Tour Final just before the match was due to start on Sunday. Federer's shock withdrawal meant Djokovic was crowned Tour Finals champion for the third successive year, ending a triumphant year that included his second Wimbledon title and the year-end world number one ranking for the third time in four years. But it was hardly a day to remember for the 27-year-old, who admitted to feeling awkward when he was presented with the trophy in front of a 17,500-capacity crowd who had just seen their hopes of a fascinating duel between the world's top two unexpectedly dashed. Instead of dwelling on one of the stranger days of his career, Djokovic was quick to turn his thoughts to 2015, when he hopes to at last end nine-time champion Rafael Nadal's reign as the king of Paris clay. The French Open is the only major title missing from Djokovic's Grand Slam collection having lost the 2012 and 2014 finals to Nadal. "Roland Garros is and was and still will be one of the biggest goals that I have. I'll keep on trying, of course," said Djokovic, who has four Australian Open crowns, two at Wimbledon and a single US Open triumph. "Any Grand Slam win is another page in the history books of this sport. "Right now I'm at my pinnacle. I feel physically very fit. I'm very motivated to keep on playing on a very high level. "So as long as it's like that, I'm going to try to use these years in front of me to fight for No. 1 of the world and to fight for the biggest titles in the sport." Before Djokovic turns his attention to the first major of 2015 -- the Australian Open in January -- he will gladly resume his new role as a father to baby Stefan, who was born only a few weeks ago. Djokovic is relishing the chance to help wife Jelena with baby duties for a while, even if the sleepless nights so familiar to new parents are less welcome. "I'm very hands-on. My wife told me what's expected of me!" Djokovic said. "I've seen it before I came to Paris and London. I'm glad during the stay in London for these 10 days I got a lot of sleep. That will not be the case from now. "I'm looking forward to it. It's the most beautiful feeling that I experience and my wife have experience as well holding a baby in your arms. "That will be a lot of that without the racquet in next couple weeks for me." Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Stars sing about Ebola 'chimes of doom' in Band Aid video | ||
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London (AFP) - Stars like One Direction, Bono and Chris Martin featured in the video for the new Band Aid single to raise money for anti-Ebola charities that was shown for the first time on British television on Sunday. Organiser Bob Geldof presented the song on the X-Factor talent show on channel ITV and said it was about "the most anti-human disease," which prevents physical contact because of fear of contagion. The music video begins with graphic images of an Ebola victim's body being carried away, before switching to London's Sarm Studios where around 30 stars recorded the Christmas song on Saturday. "There's death in every tear," sings Grammy award-winning diva Angelique Kidjo, followed by a lyric from Coldplay's Chris Martin: "The Christmas bells that ring there are clanging chimes of doom." "Well tonight we're reaching out and touching you," Bono sings and Seal continues with: "Bring peace and joy this Christmas to west Africa!" The single is the 30th anniversary version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" recorded by Geldof and fellow singer Midge Ure in 1984 with other stars to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia. The song became one of the best-selling singles ever and led to the hugely popular Live Aid concerts in 1985, which had a record-breaking estimated global television audience of 1.9 billion people. No live performance linked to the current Band Aid is planned, but Geldof said he was hoping the song will rise quickly in the charts when it is officially released for download on Monday. "We go to war. We're going to stop this thing. Buy this song," Geldof said on Sunday. "This isn't about me, it's not about you, it's not about them, it's about us," he said. "The reason they did this is that this thing could arrive here on a plane at any time." The Ebola outbreak has claimed more than 5,000 lives since last December, according to the World Health Organization -- almost all in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone -- while the number of infected cases registered worldwide has soared to more than 14,000. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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GOLDMAN: Everybody In Texas Is Resigned To Lower Oil Prices (USO, GS) | ||
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Goldman Sachs went to Texas last week and found one thing: resignation. In a note to clients over the weekend, Goldman equity chief David Kostin writes that the firm went to Texas this week to meet with portfolio managers, and those conversations "started and ended on the topic of oil." "Although still stunned by the ferocity of the selloff," Kostin writes, "everyone we met was resigned to the idea that crude prices would remain low for several years. Although we met many Longhorn alumni, we met no Energy bulls." On Friday, West Texas Intermediate crude prices closed right around $76, while Brent crude prices were just above $79. Kostin notes that Brent prices are down 33% since June, while WTI has declined 30% over that same period. Last week, Business Insider's Tomas Hirst summarized the three major catalysts people are pointing to as the reasons for the tumble in oil prices: slowing global growth, increasing supply, fewer disruptions in global production. But as Kostin writes in his report, "investors are still stunned" by the recent decline. And while the futures market was certainly expecting oil prices to decline through the end of the decade the recent plunge in oil has reshaped this curve and pushed expectations for prices over the next two to three years sharply lower.
As for how this will impact oil production, Kostin expects that $75-$80 a barrel for WTI crude is the point at which US shale producers will reduce activity, and that Saudi Arabia's breakeven oil price for a balanced budget is right around $75. For 2015, Goldman expects Brent prices to be around $84 and WTI to be around $74, and so the firm thinks we will see a reduction in Saudi production and US shale growth. A report by The Dallas Morning News last week said crude oil production in Texas has more than doubled since 2010. And while Kostin writes that capex growth from oil companies, which has accounted for 1/3 of the S&P 500's capex over the last five years, will likely be flat in 2015, overall capex should grow 6% in 2015. Energy companies also account for about 10% of the S&P 500's earnings and 9% of its market cap, Kostin writes. But as lower gas prices are passed through to consumers, and lower input costs benefit some companies, every $10 decline in the price of a barrel of oil should increase 2015 earnings for the S&P 500 by $2. Here's the chart of Goldman's crude outlook.
SEE ALSO: The Era Of $100 Oil Is Over Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Australia and China set to sign free trade deal | ||
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Sydney (AFP) - Australia and China were expected to ink a multi-billion dollar free trade deal later Monday during a visit by President Xi Jinping, officials said. Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce refused to reveal details of the deal, but said he was confident it would be "extremely well received". The FTA would boost agricultural exports and help counter the downturn in mining which hurts the Australian economy. "If we can alleviate that in some way by exports in dairy and exports of beef and exports of wine, horticultural produce, fish, then that is a good outcome for us," Joyce told ABC radio. The Australian Financial Review said the agreement "will liberate more than 90 percent of Australian exports from tariffs over the next four years". Australian financial services providers would have access to China second only to that of providers in Hong Kong and Macau, both part of China. This would include sectors such as banking, securities, futures and insurance, the daily said. The Sydney Morning Herald said the deal should open up "billions of dollars in new markets for Australian exporters". It would allow dairy farmers tariff-free access to China's lucrative infant formula markets without restrictive safeguard caps that apply to New Zealand. Existing 30 percent tariffs on Australian wine sold to China would be eliminated over four years, the Herald said. China is Australia's biggest trading partner, with the two-way flow exceeding Aus$150 billion (US$131 billion). The trade talks began in 2005, but stalled last year over agriculture and China's insistence on removing investment limits for state-owned enterprises. Over the past year Australia has sealed free trade deals with Japan and South Korea. With China's insistence on removing investment limits for state-owned enterprises, the two sides have struggled to seal agreement with Beijing since talks began in 2005. The scheduled post-G20 summit visit by President Xi became a target to finalise the marathon negotiations. Xi was due to address the Australian parliament in Canberra on Monday afternoon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister Josh Frydenberg told ABC radio the FTA would prove "a game-changer" and be worth up to $18 billion to the Australian economy over the next few years. "It will supercharge our trade with China," he said. "Up to 95 per cent of our exports over time will enter the Chinese market tariff free." China sought greater access to invest in Australia, Frydenberg added. The FTA is expected to cover an array of issues, including agricultural tariffs and quotas, manufactured goods, services, temporary entry of people and foreign investment. Last week, Canberra unveiled a deal to ship to China one million Australian cattle worth Aus$1 billion (US$860 million) in an agreement that will double the size of the live export industry. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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10 Foreign TV Shows You Should Be Watching | ||
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While a few new series are coming to air, a few have already received the ax. If you're bored with the current crop of TV shows, we've picked ten of the best series from around the world that you really shouldn't miss. Most are available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon. "Misfits" (UK) What it's about: The dramedy follows a group of lower-class teenage felons who have been sentenced to community service. On their first day, they develop super powers after getting struck during an electrical storm. Why you should watch: The strange, dark, risqué and hilarious world of "Misfits" has been a secret among Europeans and Australians for years airing for five seasons through 2013 making for some of the best supernatural TV since "Heroes." The series won Best Drama Series at the BAFTA Television Awards in 2010. Where to watch: Hulu "Please Like Me" (Australia) What it's about: The dramedy follows twenty-something Josh Thomas as he comes to the realization he's gay. Why you should watch: Gently navigating between touching and hilarious, the Australian series is quirky and refreshingly genuine. While it only reached small audiences in Australia, the series has been critically acclaimed in America with reviews referring to it as the "best new TV comedy you've never heard of" and "one of the year's best shows." Millennial network “Pivot" picked it up for at least another two seasons. Where to watch: Pivot TV "Luther" (UK) What it's about: Gritty, dark, and hauntingly cinematic, Luther follows the investigations of Detective Chief Inspector John Luther (Idris Elba). Why you should watch: The performance by Elba is enough reason to tune into the series. Luther is a blunt instrument consumed by his cases. His best friend for much of the series is a charmingly insane serial killer, Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), who he meets in the series' premiere. The series' pacing and cinematography knows when to let periods of horror breathe without interruption. Where to watch: Netflix See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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There's An Incredible Meteor Shower Happening This Week | ||
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November is the time of year to watch one of the most brilliant meteor showers of the year: the Leonid meteor shower, also known as the Leonids. The Leonids became famous during the 17th century for their impressive show of shooting stars. In 1833, for example, the most stunning part of the meteor shower displayed up to 100 thousand meteor per hour. This year's Leonid meteor shower will not be as spectacular as the one in 1833, but reports suggest that it will still be a site worth seeing. Also, the Leonids are one of the last meteor showers of the year. The Geminids meteor shower will follow in December. The best time to see the Leonids this year will be Nov. 17 and 18 between the hours of midnight and dawn. During those hours, observers can expect to see about 15 meteors per hour, or about one every 4 minutes. The best way to see a meteor shower is to get far away from city lights where you can clearly see the stars. To view the Leonids, astronomers suggest that viewers look at the part of the sky between the East horizon and the point right above to view the Leonids. Below is a map from AccuWeather indicating where in the US that the weather is expected to provide clear skies for the best viewing.
At these speeds, the debris of the comet and the molecules in Earth's atmosphere rub against each other creating tremendous friction. It's this friction that generates heat and light that we then see as a "shooting star". Each meteor shower is named for the constellation from which the falling meteors appear to emerge. The Leonids are named for the constellation Leo, which is Latin for lion. If you're not in a good place to view the Leonids, you can still watch the show because the live online observatory, Slooh, will be streaming the event live (feed below) starting tomorrow, Monday, at 8 pm EST (5 pm PST). SEE ALSO: Humans Have Drilled A Comet For the First Time Ever CHECK OUT: 3 Researchers Just Won $3 Million For Their Game-Changing Physics Finding Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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When Earth passes through the tail of comet Tempel-Tuttle, the dust and debris the comet leaves behind is swept up by Earth's gravity. As a result, the debris strikes the Earth's atmosphere at incredible speeds — for the Leonids it's about 44 miles per second. 20 World-Changing Discoveries Made By Accident | ||
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Some scientific discoveries arrive after years of painstaking, goal-oriented lab work. But surprisingly frequently, world-changing innovation comes from a lucky accident, provided the right person is there to realize the accident's implications. In some cases, a clumsy spill or drop led to the creation of some new substance. In others, unclean or unsafe lab practices revealed the hidden properties of something. And sometimes, a researcher (or even a schoolteacher) looked at something in the world around them and realized that it could be repurposed to great utility and frequently, great profit. With a prepared mind, researchers can turn what they accidentally observed into something useful. Here are 20 such discoveries. Randy Astaiza contributed to an earlier version of this post. The microwave In 1945 Percy Spencer, an engineer for the Raytheon Corporation, was working on a radar-related project. While testing a new vacuum tube that drives a radar set known as a magnetron, he discovered that a chocolate bar he had in his pocket melted. He became intrigued and started experimenting by aiming the tube at other items, such as eggs and popcorn kernels. He concluded that the heat the objects experienced was from the microwave energy. Soon after, on October 8, 1945, Raytheon filed a patent for the first microwave. The first microwave weighed 750 pounds and stood 5' 6" tall. The first countertop microwave was introduced in 1965 and cost $500. Quinine Quinine is an anti-malarial compound that originally comes from tree bark. Now we usually find it in tonic water, though it's still used in drugs that treat malaria as well. Jesuit missionaries in South America used quinine to treat malaria as early as 1600, but legend has it that they heard that it could be used to treat the illness from the native Andean population. The original story involved a feverish Andean man lost in the jungle and suffering from malaria. Parched, he drank from a pool of water at the base of a quina-quina tree. The water's bitter taste made him fear that he'd drank something that would make him sicker, but the opposite happened. His fever abated, and he was able to find his way home and share the story of the curative tree. This story isn't as well documented as some others, and other accounts for the discovery of quinine's medicinal properties exist, but a life-saving tale of an accidental discovery like this is too cool to leave out. X-rays In 1895, a German physicist named Wilhelm Roentgen was working with a cathode ray tube. Despite the fact that the tube was covered, he saw that a nearby fluorescent screen would glow when the tube was on and the room was dark. The rays were somehow illuminating the screen. Roentgen tried to block the rays, but most things that he placed in front of them didn't seem to make a difference. When he placed his hand in front of the tube, he noticed he could see his bones in the image that was projected on the screen. He replaced the tube with a photographic plate to capture the images, creating the first x-rays. The technology was soon adopted by medical institutions and research departments. See the rest of the story at Business Insider  | ||
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Dutch earn resounding win as Italy held | ||
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Paris (AFP) - The Netherlands recorded a morale-boosting win in qualifying for Euro 2016 on Sunday while Italy saw their perfect start to the campaign ended by Croatia in an eventful encounter. Guus Hiddink had indicated that he would resign as coach of the Dutch if they slipped up against Latvia to continue a stuttering start to their bid to reach the finals in France. However, the World Cup semi-finalists recorded their second win in four games in Group A by thumping Latvia 6-0 in Amsterdam as the outstanding Arjen Robben and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar both scored twice. Captain Robin van Persie and Jeffrey Bruma were also on target to ensure that Hiddink -- only appointed for a second spell in charge of the Oranje in the summer -- would not be going anywhere. The only blotch on an otherwise fine evening for the Netherlands was the knee injury that forced Manchester United midfielder Daley Blind off in the first half, although Hiddink's side continue to trail group leaders the Czech Republic by six points. The Czechs made it four wins from four games as they ended Iceland's 100 percent record by coming from behind to win 2-1 in Plzen. The visitors had threatened another giant-killing when Ragnar Sigurdsson gave them a ninth-minute lead, but Pavel Kaderabek equalised late in the first half before an unfortunate Jon Dadi Bodvarsson own-goal decided the match in the Czechs' favour. Meanwhile, in Istanbul, Turkey got their first win of the campaign by beating Kazakhstan 3-1 as Burak Yilmaz scored twice for Fatih Terim's struggling side. In Milan, Italy dropped their first points in Group H in a 1-1 draw with Croatia that was marred by crowd trouble. The evening started well for the Azzurri as Antonio Candreva drilled home to give them the lead 11 minutes in at the San Siro. However, Gianluigi Buffon allowed a shot from Ivan Perisic to go under his body and into the net to bring Croatia level four minutes later, and the game was then halted for 10 minutes in the second half when away supporters sent a hail of flares down onto the pitch from high in the stands. Riot police clashed with fans in the Croatian section of the ground but the visitors could have won it late on, Perisic flashing a shot narrowly wide of the far post. Italy and Croatia are level on 10 points atop the section after four games, with Norway a point behind after a 1-0 win in Azerbaijan thanks to a solitary goal by Borussia Moenchengladbach's Havard Nordtveit. In the group's other game, Malta struck another blow for Europe's minnows by coming from behind to draw 1-1 in Bulgaria, a second-half penalty by Clayton Failla cancelling out Andrej Galabinov's early opener. A first point of the campaign for the tiny Mediterranean archipelago came at the end of a weekend which saw the Faroe Islands win in Greece, Liechtenstein record a rare victory and San Marino hold Estonia to end a sequence of 61 consecutive defeats. - Wales still unbeaten - Elsewhere, Wales extended their unbeaten start in Group B with a battling performance to hold World Cup quarter-finalists Belgium to a 0-0 draw in Brussels. Nicolas Lombaerts hit the post for the group favourites with a first-half shot, but the Dragons held out. "There are six games to play and that's a lot of points and teams will be chasing us down. But we're definitely on the right track," said Wales manager Chris Coleman. The Welsh are second in the group with eight points from four games, one point behind Israel, who were convincing 3-0 winners at home to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Gil Vermouth, Omer Damari and Eran Zahavi all scored for Israel as the visitors had Toni Sunjic sent off in the second half on a night which will see the pressure increase further on their coach Safet Susic. In the group's other game, George Efrem scored a hat-trick as Cyprus won 5-0 at home to Andorra, who have now conceded 17 goals in losing all four games to date. The next round of European Championship qualifiers will be played at the end of March. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Images show Philae's historic comet bounce | ||
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Paris (AFP) - The European Space Agency (ESA)on Sunday unveiled images of the probe Philae after it bounced while making its historic landing on a comet last Wednesday. The discovery came thanks to painstaking follow-up analysis of a series of pictures ESA had released on Friday, the agency said. The photos appeared to show only a trail of dust kicked up by Philae when it touched down and rebounded after a pair of harpoons, designed to anchor it to the comet's surface, failed to work. But closer scrutiny of the images has shown a bright dot that is Philae, as well as a dark dot made by its shadow as it zooms upwards in the rebound. "It appears as a couple of brighter pixels closely accompanied by its shadow in the form of a couple of darker ones just below, both to the right of the diffuse dust cloud shadow," ESA's Rosetta mission said in a blog post. The discovery came from hours of patient work by flight dynamics specialist Gabriele Bellei, the posting said (http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/16/philae_spotted_after_first_landing/). A science lab laden with 10 instruments, Philae was sent down to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by its mother ship Rosetta, after a 10-year trek that covered 6.5 billion kilometres (four billion miles) around the inner Solar System. After its first bounce, it is believed Philae landed and bounced once more before settling around a kilometre from its target site. The lander found itself at an angle and in the shadow of a cliff, which meant its solar panels were unable to capture the sunlight it needed to recharge its batteries. But ESA says Philae successfully carried out its scheduled research programme thanks to a battery that had enough charge for 60 hours' work. Philae has now gone into standby mode for lack of power. Mission managers still have some hope it will revive as the comet races closer to the Sun, bringing greater illumination. Approved in 1993 and launched in 2004, the Rosetta mission aims to uncover the chemical and physical secrets of comets -- primordial clusters of ice and dust that may explain the origins of the Solar System and, say some, of life on Earth. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Romanian PM concedes surprise defeat in presidential vote | ||
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Bucharest (AFP) - Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta on Sunday conceded defeat in a presidential runoff he had been widely expected to win, after early exit polls showed he was neck-and-neck with his conservative opponent Klaus Iohannis. "I congratulated Mr Iohannis for his victory. The people are always right," Ponta said. The prime minister, who had been the overwhelming favourite to win the race, was slightly ahead according to two exit polls which gave him 50.7 percent and 50.9 percent of the vote. But three other surveys put Iohannis narrowly in the lead. The exit polls do not take into account the votes cast in the second-round runoff by Romanians abroad, seen as more likely to vote for Iohannis. The election is seen as pivotal for one of the poorest countries in Europe which has struggled to combat an entrenched culture of corruption. Ponta, 42, had hoped to become Romania's youngest ever president and cement his Social Democrat party's hold on power in the former communist state. "I voted so that our parents can live in a better country and our children have a future here in Romania," Ponta said earlier Sunday as he cast his vote, with his wife and two children in tow. In the first round on November 2, Ponta took 40 percent of the vote against 30 percent for Iohannis. But 46 percent of the ballots cast abroad were for Iohannis compared to just 16 percent for Ponta. According to exit polls, some 61 percent of voters turned out for the election, a record in a formerly communist country plagued by voter apathy. Experts had earlier said that a high turnout could well tilt the balance in Iohannis's favour. First official results are expected overnight from the seventh presidential election since the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu 25 years ago. "The vote has been phenomenal. The turnout was huge," Iohannis told supporters at his campaign headquarters, though he stopped short of claiming victory. Iohannis, 55, from Romania's ethnic German minority, seems uncomfortable in front of the cameras and has faced accusations he is a not a "real Romanian". Rodica Avram, a 56-year-old teacher, said after casting her ballot in Bucharest that she had voted for change. "For the past 25 years we have heard nothing but lies and promises that weren't kept," she said. "I hope we'll finally have a president who respects people and does what he promises." Ponta's main support base comes from the hugely influential Romanian Orthodox Church, as well as his party's traditional electorate of the rural population, small business employees and the elderly and has been able to count on generally steady economic progress. However, the economy fell into recession in the second quarter of 2014, although the government is forecasting 2.2 percent growth over the year.
- Diaspora vote seen as key -
"The key of the second round is getting out the vote," said Christian Ghinea of the Romanian Centre for European Politics. "If the voters in the big cities, who tend to favour the opposition, are mobilised, Iohannis has a chance," Ghinea told AFP. Also crucial is the vote of the diaspora, which numbers about three million. Only 160,000 were able to cast their ballots in the first round, due to an insufficient number of polling stations in countries including France, Germany and Britain. On Sunday, long queues of people snaked outside polling stations in Paris, London and several other cities, according to pictures shown on Romanian television. In the evening, thousands were still waiting to vote in some European cities, sparking renewed anger at the way the vote has been organised. In Bucharest, several thousand people again took to the streets in solidarity with the expatriates they said were "prevented from voting". Despite progress in reforming the justice system -- which has even seen a former minister jailed for corruption -- many were fearful of a backlash if Ponta became president. On what was dubbed "Black Tuesday" in December last year, Ponta's government passed a series of new laws granting immunity to elected officials. The changes were ultimately blocked but Ponta's critics said the episode served as a wake-up call. Iohannis has centred his campaign on the fight against corruption and pledges of economic reform in the country of 20 million people. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Multi-billion dollar Hong Kong-Shanghai link-up launches | ||
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Hong Kong (AFP) - The stock exchanges of Hong Kong and Shanghai on Monday launch a much-anticipated trading link that will see billions of dollars in daily cross-border transactions and partially open up China's closeted equities markets to the world. After weeks of delays the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect finally kicks off, giving international investors access to companies in the world's number two economy, while allowing mainland investors to trade shares in Hong Kong. The link-up, which was described by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) as a "milestone," is seen as a key step towards greater financial liberalisation in China's economy as its leaders embark on a slow process of reform. "It definitely is a game changer, it brings a new dimension to the market and new dynamics, as well," Jackson Wong, associate director for Simsen International Financial Group in Hong Kong, told AFP, calling it a "win-win" situation. "If all this goes well, China will probably put in more financial products, not only stocks," he said, explaining that foreign investors currently can only participate in the limited trading of Chinese financial products. "The whole programme will attract more foreign funds. When you have more funds, that will help the stocks on both exchanges."
- Strict controls remain -
The scheme is expected to allow the equivalent of $3.8 billion a day in cross-border transactions. China's premier Li Keqiang announced plans for the project in April as part of Beijing's push to liberalise its economy and gradually to make the yuan more freely convertible. 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. If an investor buys stocks in the other market, when they sell the money can only go back to their home market account, a so-called "closed path" to prevent "hot money" leaking out. Beijing has granted an initial cumulative quota of 250 billion yuan ($41 billion) for trading of Hong Kong stocks, while 300 billion yuan will be allowed for the Shanghai market, with daily allowances of 10.5 and 13 billion yuan respectively. In preparation for the launch the HKMA, Hong Kong's de facto central bank, on Wednesday said it would lift a daily cap for converting the local dollar to yuan to facilitate the trading link. Analysts say the lifting of the limit will bring easier access to renminbi for local residents and encourage investors to use the currency. The scheme is a long time in the making. A similar idea, the stock "Through Train," was floated in 2007 but derailed because of the global financial crisis. And the latest plan was due to kick off last month but was delayed, with technical issues blamed. However, while there is big interest in the programme, some Chinese traders are reticent. "The two markets differ in terms of trading rules and time, so there's going to be a process of mutual adaptation," Jiang Shiqing, a Shanghai-based strategist with Industrial Securities told AFP. "At (the) current stage, I have no intention (of buying Hong Kong stocks through the scheme). I want to put my limited funds in a market I'm more familiar with," Steven Zhou, an investor based in the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi, said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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