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Hub’s data chief chats

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 20 September 2014 | 18.38

Boston's chief information officer was in the Innovation District yesterday, talking about technology and city services with constituents.

"Technology is something that is incredibly important to people," said Jascha Franklin-Hodge.

"Issues around connectivity, free Wi-Fi, what we're doing to make sure that we support technology in our schools, these are things that are critically important to people around the city."

Franklin-Hodge said connecting with the city's tech community is part of his job, along with making sure technology in City Hall is running well and up-to-date.

"We have a responsibility around how we engage the technology community, making sure that we're a good partner," he said. "I don't think we can think about the role of the CIO as being solely focused on internal technology initiatives. It's really how do we help make sure that the city stays a leader in technology-driven government and ensuring that the technology that our citizens have access to ... is just top notch."

Franklin-Hodge was in the Innovation District with the City Hall To Go truck — which offers basic services such as birth certificates and dog licenses — as part of the city's "Chief Chats."

"City Hall to Go allows Boston residents to utilize various city services in their own neighborhoods and our Chief Chats are an opportunity for residents to take this a step further, and directly engage with leaders in the Walsh Administration," said spokeswoman Gabrielle Farrell.

Other chief chats have included Chief of Staff Daniel Koh and Sheila Dillon, head of the Department of Neighborhood Development.


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Alibaba stock soars in jubilant trading debut

NEW YORK — Alibaba debuted as a publicly traded company Friday and swiftly climbed nearly 40 percent in a mammoth IPO that offered eager investors seemingly unlimited growth potential and a way to tap into the burgeoning Chinese middle class.

The sharp demand for shares sent the market value of the e-commerce giant soaring well beyond that of Amazon, eBay and even Facebook. The initial public offering was on track to be the world's largest, with the possibility of raising as much as $25 billion.

Jubilant CEO Jack Ma stood on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as eight Alibaba customers, including an American cherry farmer and a Chinese Olympian, rang the opening bell.

"We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart," Ma told CNBC. "We hope in 15 years, people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart. They changed, shaped the world."

The company's online ecosystem stands apart from most e-commerce rivals because it does not sell anything directly, preferring to connect individuals and small businesses. It enjoyed a surge in U.S. popularity over the past two weeks as executives made sales pitches based on Alibaba's strong revenue and big ambitions.

"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast and are this profitable," Wedbush analyst Gil Luria said.

Trading under the ticker "BABA," shares opened at $92.70 and hit nearly $100 within hours. By the end of the day, the stock rose $25.89, or 38 percent, to close at $93.89.

Some Institutional investors, such as banks or hedge funds, were able to buy the stock at $68 per share, the amount set Thursday evening. Most other investors had to wait until shares started trading publicly, which meant paying a much higher price after adjustments for demand.

Alibaba's Taobao, TMall and other platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce. Most of the company's 279 million active buyers visit the sites at least once a month on smartphones and other mobile devices, adding to the stock's attractiveness as online shopping shifts away from laptop and desktop machines.

Online spending by Chinese shoppers is forecast to triple from its 2011 size by 2015. Beyond that, Alibaba has said it plans to expand into emerging markets and, eventually, into Europe and the U.S.

The company does not compete with its merchants or hold inventory, serving instead as a conduit that links buyers and sellers of all kinds.

"The business model is really interesting. It's not just an eBay. It's not an Amazon. It's not a Paypal. It's all of that and much more," said Reena Aggarwal, a professor at Georgetown.

Yet the track record for Chinese stocks in general does not inspire confidence. Over the last two decades, they have earned a reputation for burning investors in both the U.S. and China. Many of those that do post gains fail to keep pace with inflation. Returns have been depressed by a range of factors, including fraud allegations, questionable accounting and cumbersome regulations.

Analysts say the $90-plus price range is a fair valuation for the shares, but one fund manager suggested Friday that the price might not stay that high.

That price "might be at least for the moment the higher end of the trading range as investors get comfortable with the company," said Kathleen Smith, IPO exchange-traded fund manager at IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

Alibaba's revenue from the quarter ending in June surged 46 percent from last year to $2.54 billion. Its earnings climbed 60 percent to nearly $1.2 billion, after subtracting a one-time gain and certain other items.

In its last fiscal year ending March 31, Alibaba earned $3.7 billion, making it more profitable than eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. combined.

Based in Ma's hometown of Hangzhou in eastern China, Alibaba began in 1999 when Ma and 17 friends developed a fledgling e-commerce business on the cusp of the Internet boom. Today, its main platforms are its original business-to-business service, Alibaba.com, consumer-to-consumer site Taobao and TMall, a place for brands to sell to consumers.

Friday's closing price gave the company a value of $231.44 billion, compared with $150 billion for Amazon and $67 billion for eBay.

Alibaba offered 320.1 million shares for a total offering size of $21.77 billion. Underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to 48 million more shares.

The IPO easily eclipsed the $16 billion Facebook raised in 2012, the most for a technology IPO. If all of its underwriters' options are exercised, it would also top the all-time IPO fundraising record of $22.1 billion set by the Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. in 2010.

Gartner analyst Andrew Frank said Alibaba's success shows that Chinese Internet companies are beginning to challenge Silicon Valley.

"It's not the first Chinese company we've seen in the Internet space, but it's certainly the biggest one that seems to be resonating," he said. "It's a symbol that the Internet dreams of wealth and power are not just limited to a few small cities in the West Coast in the U.S."


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Mansion in fantasy league of its own

This 7,000-square-foot Tudor home on five acres in South Easton has been extensively upgraded, including a "greening" that added solar panels and hot water storage, a pellet stove and blown-in insulation, which have substantially cut utility expenses.

Originally built for former Patriots defensive back Ronnie Lippett in 1988, the property has a football field-sized grass side yard — 95 yards long to be precise.

The current owners have made major upgrades since buying the home nine years ago.

The six-bedroom home has a brick exterior with ­Tudor stucco-style Hardie­Plank along the second floor, along with a 10-zone Buderus high-­efficiency boiler. Two years ago they added eight solar roof panels and two ­solar hot water storage tanks.

This year they installed Croatian marble with embedded seashell fossils in the entry foyer, redid the roof and refinished hardwood floors throughout the house.

The double-height family room, with a pellet stove set inside a Tennessee marble rear wall, has been opened up on both sides. An adjacent kitchen redone in 2004 has oak cabinets and high-end appliances. Off the kitchen is a formal dining room with paneled wainscoting and crown molding redone in 2005 and a newly recarpeted living room with a marble fireplace.

Behind the kitchen sits a sunroom built in 2000 with windows, skylights and glass doors leading out to an in-ground heated pool with an outdoor shower built in 2001.

There's even a bedroom suite on the first floor with a redone bathroom, but it pales in comparison to the second floor master bedroom suite. This large space has oak flooring with a quartz fireplace, Bose surround-sound, four large closets and a master bathroom redone in 2005 with slate floors, a walk-in shower and granite-topped vanities with custom cherry cabinetry.

The signature space on the second floor is a large game room with a built-in granite bar, an electric fireplace and an iron spiral staircase down to the backyard.

The 1,900-square-foot base­­ment, finished in the 1990s, has a full kitchen, full bathroom, bedroom, living and exercise rooms, making it ideal for an au pair or in-law suite, but it could use some freshening.

There's an attached three-car garage, and the current owners just added a 30-­kilowatt generator and propane tanks that can power the entire home for two weeks.

Home Showcase

  • Address: 430 Depot St., South Easton
  • Bedrooms: Six
  • Bathrooms: Four full, one half
  • List price: $1,150,000
  • Square feet: 7,000
  • Price per square foot: $164
  • Annual taxes: $11,379
  • Location: About a mile and a half from shopping along Route 138 in Easton
  • Built in: 1988; upgraded 2005-2014
  • Broker: Chris Mather of Tri Town Associates at 508-644-2900

Pros

  • Green additions including solar panels, vents and hot water tanks, pellet stove, blown-in insulation, HardiePlank exterior
  • Five-acre lot with 95-yard-long grass side yard
  • Large master bedroom suite with four closets and redone slate bathroom
  • Second-floor game room with built-in bar

Cons:

  • Finished basement could use some freshening up
  • Large property to maintain

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Astronauts getting 3-D printer at space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The 3-D printing boom is about to invade space.

NASA is sending a 3-D printer to the International Space Station in hopes that astronauts will be able to one day fix their spacecraft by cranking out spare parts on the spot.

The printer, made by a Northern California company called Made in Space, is among more than 5,000 pounds of space station cargo that's stuffed into a SpaceX Dragon capsule that was supposed to lift off before dawn Saturday. Rainy weather forced SpaceX to delay the launch until Sunday.

Besides real-time replacement parts at the station, NASA envisions astronauts, in the decades ahead, making entire habitats at faraway destinations like Mars.

"If we're really going to set up shop on Mars," we have to do this, Jeff Sheehy, NASA's senior technologist, said Friday. "We really can't afford to bring everything we need for an indefinite amount of time. We'll need to get to the point where we can make things that we need as we go."

At Kennedy Space Center, the company showed off a number of objects made by its 3-D printers. On display was a scaled-down model of an air filter that the Apollo 13 astronauts devised to survive their aborted moon mission in 1970. It took five hours to print the model in a lab.

SpaceX is making the supply run for NASA, the same California company that just won a huge contract to deliver U.S. astronauts to the space station. Its Falcon 9 rocket with an unmanned Dragon is scheduled to blast off at 1:52 a.m. Sunday; slightly better weather is expected.

Other Dragon payloads high on the cool or curious factor: a mouse X-ray machine and 20 mice; 30 fruit flies expected to have a population explosion in orbit, metal plating samples for a private research effort to build stronger golf clubs, and a $30 million instrument to measure the surface wind over Earth's oceans and improve hurricane forecasting.

The small 3-D printer on board is a demo unit meant to churn out sample items made from the same type of plastic used for Lego bricks.

It was designed to operate safely in weightlessness inside a sealed chamber. The printing process is the same as on Earth, creating an object with layer upon layer of plastic.

Once returned to Earth, the little 3-D creations will be "pulled and twisted and peeled and subjected to a lot of tests to determine the quality of the parts," said Sheehy.

Combined with efforts on the ground to make 3-D rocket parts out of metal — even entire engines — the space demonstrations "will give us confidence that the stuff we make by this method, even though it's new and innovative" does, indeed, have the durability of traditional parts, he said.

The space 3-D printer is barely a foot tall, 9½ inches wide and 14½ inches deep, counting the knobs on the front. A commercial 3-D printer — twice the size and dubbed "big brother" — will fly up next year, followed by a grinding machine for recycling discarded 3-D pieces.

"This is a huge, huge time for us," said Brad Kohlenberg, business development engineer for Made in Space.

The Mountain View, California, company has a staff of fewer than 25; most of them traveled to Cape Canaveral for the launch attempt.

This will be the fifth space station shipment for SpaceX, counting the 2012 test flight. The space agency also is paying Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia to make periodic deliveries.

SpaceX, along with Boeing, won huge contracts Tuesday for delivering U.S. astronauts to the space station beginning in 2017. That will enable NASA to stop relying so heavily on Russia, currently the only space station partner able to send crews up and down.

The Hawthorne, California, company founded by billionaire Elon Musk is shooting for its first crewed launch in 2016. The flight test crew will be a mix of NASA and SpaceX employees, confirmed Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance for SpaceX. He said the company is still working out the details on whom to send up.

___

Online:

Made in Space: http://www.madeinspace.us/

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/

NASA: htttp://www.nasa.gov


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Alibaba’s IPO to rock NYSE today

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 19 September 2014 | 18.38

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding will start trading today on the New York Stock Exchange after the Chinese e-commerce juggernaut yesterday priced its initial public offering at $68 per share — the high end of its expected range — to raise $21.8 billion in the largest U.S.-listed IPO.

The price gives the 15-year-old Alibaba a market valuation of $167.6 billion, bigger than that of Amazon, Cisco and eBay. And it has the potential to break the global IPO record if more shares are sold to underwriters.

Little known in the United States, Alibaba controls 80 percent of online sales in China, the world's second-largest economy. Its businesses include consumer online marketplace Taobao and wholesale online marketplace Alibaba.com.

Former English teacher Jack Ma started Alibaba in his apartment with $60,000.

Its revenue in the quarter that ended in June climbed 46 percent from last year to $2.54 billion, while earnings grew 60 percent to almost $1.2 billion. Alibaba earned $3.7 billion in its last fiscal year — more than Amazon and eBay combined.

"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast, and are this profitable," Wedbush analyst Gil Luria said.

Analysts at Cambridge's Forrester Research don't see Alibaba as a threat to U.S. companies in the short-term. Though Alibaba has expansion plans outside China — and has made a string of investments in American companies — it would take "either a major acquisition or a number of years for Alibaba to pull together a platform that could compete with major U.S. companies like Amazon, Apple, eBay and Facebook," the Forrester analysts said in a recent report.

But Alibaba's China business continues to grow, and it will remain a critical partner for brands entering the Chinese e-commerce space, they said.

The U.S can expect to see many more U.S. IPOs by Chinese companies, according to technology forecaster Daniel Burrus of Burrus Research Associates. "And they will be well-funded, and they will be big," he said.

Herald wire services were used in this report.


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Prostate cancer death rate in Boston puzzles researchers

Despite its status as a health care mecca, the Boston area has some of the highest numbers of prostate cancer-related deaths in the state, according to a local nonprofit health group.

"If you look at prostate cancer mortality rates, you will see that statewide data would be probably lowest nationally. But if you start looking at Suffolk County, Boston specifically, that's where the data are the worst," said Dr. Faina Shtern, president of AdMeTech Foundation, a nonprofit supporting early detection and treatment of diseases.

According to Shtern, Franklin County in western Massachusetts has the highest mortality rate at 28.8 percent, with Suffolk County a close second at 26.9 percent.

The numbers are based on data from the American Cancer Society, the state Department of Public Health and the National Cancer Institute.

Shtern, who formerly served as director of radiology research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said the reason behind these high numbers is unclear.

She said it was initially suspected that the high incidence of prostate cancer among African-American men — who are 60 percent more likely to develop it and 240 percent more likely to die of it than white men — played a role, but that would not explain the high rates in Franklin County.

According to 2010 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24.5 percent of Suffolk County identified as black or African-American, but only 1.4 percent of Franklin County identified as the same.

"There is absolutely no scientific evidence of any kind that would indicate why this is happening," Shtern said.


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Hot Property: Competition for condos in Hub hits fever pitch

Shawn Tobin and his girlfriend spent six months looking for a condo in South Boston, trudging out to hundreds of places.

"You'd see the same faces at open houses every Saturday and Sunday, like a comical death march," said Tobin, a 28-year-old who works for a tech media company. "And you'd often have to make an offer within a few hours of seeing a place."

Tobin made an offer on one condo that was $30,000 above the asking price, and found out that 12 other bidders had come in above his offer.

"Then you have buyers come in with all cash and you have no chance if you can only put 10 percent down," said Tobin. "It's frustrating."

That's how it goes looking for property in Boston these days as inventory problems continue to plague the Hub condo market. There were 586 listings in Boston as of Sept. 17 compared to 672 on the same date last year. The median asking price for available units last year was $519,000 — now it's up to $550,000.

John O'Connor of Keller Williams says the shortage of Boston condos explains high presales at luxury condo projects that won't be ready for at least another year, such as Sepia in the South End with 67 percent of 83 units sold, and 22 Liberty Wharf in the Seaport District, which has sold three-quarters of its 118 units.

"This doesn't really help the buyers much who will be entering the market in 12 to 18 months," O'Connor said. "But it tells you how low inventory is driving the market."

Also telling is the high number of sales above asking price. Last month, in nine key markets in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and Somerville, 56 percent of the properties sold for above asking price with 11 going for more than $100,000 over list price, said David Bates, a William Raveis agent and real estate blogger.

"But there is better inventory now in many places than there was in the spring, and that provides better opportunity for buyers this fall," Bates said.

While Boston listings are down, he said available properties are up in other communities. Cambridge has 64 condos on the market compared with 39 at the same time last year.

Single-family inventory is way up this month in some communities, with 167 listings in Newton, a 25 percent increase over last year, and 98 listings in Needham, up 50 percent over last year, Bates said.

And inner-suburb cities such as Malden are seeing more inventory this fall even as the median price for single-family homes shot up to $334,000 compared to $311,000 last year.

"A lot of young professionals who can't afford Cambridge and Somerville are looking to buy in Malden, where there's two T stations that keep them close to the action," said Carla Dongo, manager of Coldwell Banker First Quality Realty in Malden.

"There's also a lot of international buyers coming in, and investors are buying multifamilies," added Joe Duggan, broker/owner of Malden's ReMax Trinity.

But Tobin was set on finding a place in South Boston, where he's rented for the past four years. He just bought an 850-square-foot condo on the same street where he rents for $410,000, but the unit has no parking or open space and he is investing $20,000 to alter the layout and do some sprucing up.

"A first-time buyer who wants to get into Southie these days has to be willing to make some compromises," he said.


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Review: Larger iPhones eliminate reason to switch

NEW YORK — It's easy to dismiss Apple's new iPhones as merely catching up to Android.

After all, phones running Google's Android system long have had larger screens. In addition, many Android phones already have the wireless chips that iPhones are getting for making credit card payments without pulling out a card at retail stores.

But the new iPhones are a big deal for one simple reason: Only Apple has the advantage of building both the hardware and the software, so iPhones are easier to use and more dependable.

There are many flavors of Android out there, and some phones won't run the latest apps or work with accessories such as smartwatches. In addition, many leading apps come to the iPhone first or have features exclusive to iPhones.

There are still reasons to go with Android. Samsung's flagship phones are still slightly larger than the new iPhones, for instance. Their cameras have higher megapixel counts — though that's just one factor in what makes a good photo.

What the new iPhones do is eliminate screen size as a reason to avoid iPhones.

The question, then, becomes: Which one?

___

— Size considerations.

The iPhone 5, 5s and 5c have screens measuring 4 inches diagonally. The iPhone 6 boosts that to 4.7 inches, while the iPhone 6 Plus is at 5.5 inches. Yet the new phones are thinner than the smaller models.

Apple gets rid of glass in the back in favor of an all-aluminum body with curved edges. The new iPhones don't feel as boxy as previous models.

And the new phones make good use of the larger screens. Those with poorer eyesight can choose a "zoom" option so that everything gets blown up to fill the extra space, just like larger Android phones. Otherwise, you can fit in more content, including an extra row of icons on the home screen.

The iPhone 6 Plus also allows apps to rearrange their layout in horizontal mode. Content appears in two columns, so you're not switching back and forth as much. The drawback: The Plus is huge for those who don't regularly carry a backpack or purse.

I personally find past iPhones easier to carry and fit in the pocket, especially when I go out running. Apple will still make last year's 5s and 5c available, at reduced prices. The 5c is essentially 2-year-old technology, so the 5s is the better option.

___

— New features.

The 5s doesn't have the new iPhones' faster processors, but speed should be adequate for the next year or two. But here's what you'll miss, besides the bigger screen:

Only the new phones have the mobile payments technology, so you can start using Apple Pay next month. A new barometer sensor measures elevation, so fitness apps can credit you for climbing stairs and hills.

Where the new phones shine is in the camera. Although the rear cameras stay at 8 megapixels, compared with 16 megapixels in the flagship Samsung phones, performance has improved.

Both phones have new technology for faster and more accurate focus. The Plus model also has a physical image stabilizer to help reduce shake, especially in low-light settings. The iPhone 5s and 6 use software tricks to do that.

I took the iPhone 5s, 6 and 6 Plus, the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Microsoft's Lumia Icon to Central Park to take about 250 photos and 30 videos.

In my limited tests, photos on the new iPhones weren't noticeably better, but that's because the 5s already takes good photos. The Icon takes better shots at night, but its response time is slow and night images sometimes look grainy and distorted. I have found the camera on the 5s to be consistently good, and the new iPhones won't disappoint.

Where improvement is obvious is in some new features:

— There's now a second slow-motion mode — for video at one-fourth the normal speed, rather than just half the speed in the 5s.

— A time-lapse feature lets you combine multiple still shots from the same location over a period of time. Think of those fast-moving videos showing an entire building being constructed in just a minute. I had fun making joggers in Central Park appear to be superhero fast.

— The front camera can now take 10 shots a second in a burst mode, matching what the rear camera can do. You can choose the best shot for selfies. The front camera also lets in more light than before.

The time-lapse and front burst features are part of the new iOS 8 software, so the iPhone 5s gets the improvements with a free download. All iOS 8 phones also have an easier way to adjust exposure, in case the sensors don't get it right.

___

— Storage and pricing.

It's tempting to get the cheapest models with 16 gigabytes of storage — in the case of the iPhone 6, for $200 with a two-year service contract. But phones fill up quickly with photos, music and apps, and iPhones don't let you add storage.

Fortunately, Apple is doubling the storage for its top two models. So $300 at the contract price gets you 64 gigabytes instead of 32 GB, while $400 gets you 128 GB rather than 64 GB. I recommend getting at least 64 GB.

For the Plus models, add $100 to the price. If you don't want a contract with your carrier, add another $450 for an unlocked version.


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Boston anchors Cunard anniversary plan

Written By Unknown on Kamis, 18 September 2014 | 18.38

Luxury ocean liner service Cunard Line will cele­brate the 175th anniversary of its first trans-Atlantic crossing next year in Boston, where its Britannia mail steamer arrived from Liverpool in 1840 on the com­pany's first U.S. stop.

Cunard's flagship Queen Mary 2 will make an expanded version of that crossing in a 12-night cruise from Liverpool to Halifax, Canada, before arriving in Boston on July 12.

"Boston is and always will be a very important city, and we plan on making a big deal out of it next year," spokeswoman Jackie Chase said yesterday on the QM2, which was docked in the Hub and hosted dignitaries to mark the vessel's 10th anniversary and preview next year's festivities.

Cunard reps are meeting this week with Massport and the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau to plan the events.

"Boston and Cunard have a very long history together," Cunard North American president Stanley Birge said, noting the city saved Cunard from ruin in 1844 when the Britannia was stuck in a frozen Boston Harbor. The mayor raised money, and 1,500 people dug for three days to clear a 10-mile channel of ice so the Britannia could leave with its passengers. The fines that would've been levied against Cunard for being late would have put it out of business, Birge said.


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Apple stays close to roots

New iPhones will hit stores tomorrow with the newest version of Apple's mobile operating system — and it's chock full of little conveniences that continue to suggest the company's new credo is slow and steady wins the race.

Or at least the race when it comes to software. Users of iOS 8 won't confront a slew of confusing new features — like the Samsung Galaxy's motion-sensing gestures and eye-tracking technology that never quite worked. Visually, the new system is virtually the same as its predecessor.

It's back to the basics for iOS 8, with one of the coolest updates being a keyboard upgrade that lets users install custom keyboards that work across apps and in email, and programmable shortcuts to type customizable phrases. The mishaps caused by Apple's infamously bad autocorrect system became an almost beloved pop culture phenomenon, but they were also a nagging problem. The new predictive typing system appears to be a huge improvement.

Another welcome addition is widgets, with third-party apps now able to interact with notifications, and allowing users to customize their Today screen with preferred information.

Basic, long-awaited improvements to iMessage include the ability to record voice messages with a tap and share your location. In essence, Apple is trying to be like the popular messaging platform WhatsApp, which still has a leg up on iMessage because it works across platforms.

You'll start to see more inter-app communication with iOS 8 thanks to app extensions, which allow developers to build ways for apps to talk to one another. This seems to have grown out of necessity because Apple's new HealthKit fitness platform pulls in information from a variety of health and fitness apps. App extensions all but guarantee that no matter how good iOS 8 is now, it's only going to get better.

Siri, the much-ballyhooed digital assistant that almost no one uses, has gotten a slight makeover. She now can identify songs thanks to Shazam integration, and seems a bit more swift overall.

There are little touches: like double tapping the home button now brings up recently used contacts. A shutter timer will help you snap the perfect selfie.

So while iOS 8 isn't a blockbuster of new features, it's just familiar enough and just improved enough to make sure Apple fans will remain Apple fans.


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Fed keeps rates low, but brace for the inevitable

WASHINGTON — Record-low interest rates will be around for at least a few more months, the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday.

Enjoy the easy money while it lasts.

By mid-2015, economists expect the Fed to abandon a nearly 6-year-old policy of keeping short-term rates at record lows. Those rates have helped support the economy, cheered the stock market and shrunk mortgage rates. A Fed rate increase could potentially reverse those trends.

Mortgages could cost more. So could car loans. Investors could get squeezed.

"Borrowers should see the writing on the wall," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com. "Interest rates are eventually going to go up. They should pay down variable-rate debt and keep an eye on that adjustable-rate mortgage. They don't want to be caught flat-footed."

Investors, in particular, might recall that mere speculation about the end of the Fed's stimulus shook global financial markets in May 2013. In coming months, as the prospect of higher rates nears, traders might once again dump stocks and bonds and send prices tumbling.

Higher yields on bank accounts and CDs could provide some modest relief for savers and retirees who have struggled for years to get by on meager interest income. But any gains they receive could be diminished by the likelihood that inflation will be higher once the economy is strong enough for the Fed to end its ultra-low rate policy.

Still, on Wednesday, Fed policymakers once again decided: Not yet.

The central bank said it intends to keep its benchmark rate near zero as long as inflation remains under control, until it sees consistent gains in wage growth, long-term unemployment and other gauges of the job market.

The Fed retained language signaling its plans to keep short-term rates low "for a considerable time" after it ends its monthly bond purchases after its next meeting in October.

The decision sent the Dow Jones industrial to a record high. The Dow closed up about 25 points to its 16th record high this year.

"What we heard from the Fed today is really what investors like to hear," McBride said. "The stimulus isn't going to go away overnight."

In its statement, the Fed said it will make another $10 billion cut in the pace of its Treasury and mortgage bond purchases, which have been intended to keep long-term borrowing rates low.

"In the Fed's mind, the economy still has work to do, but it's improving," said Mike Arone, an investment strategist with State Street Global Advisors.

The Fed also clarified the process by which it will eventually unwind its low-rate policies. The Fed said it would first raise its key short-term rate before it stops reinvesting its bond holdings, which have driven the Fed's balance sheet to a record of nearly $4.5 trillion.

The central bank also issued updated forecasts for growth, inflation and interest rates. The median short-term rate supported by Fed policymakers at the end of 2015 is now 1.38 percent, up from 1.13 percent at its June meeting. This suggested pressure from some Fed officials for a faster rate increase than the Fed's statement implied.

The Fed also expects slower growth this year and next than in its last projections issued in June. It predicts that the economy will grow about 2.1 percent this year, down from its June forecast of roughly 2.2 percent. That reduction likely reflects the sharp contraction in the first quarter of this year. The economy has rebounded solidly since then.

On the eve of the Fed's meeting this week, the financial world had been on high alert for whether the Fed would reiterate that it expects to keep its key short-term rate near zero for a "considerable time" after the bond buying ends.

With job growth solid, manufacturing and construction growing and unemployment at a near-normal 6.1 percent, many analysts had suggested that the Fed was edging closer to a rate increase to prevent a rising economy from igniting inflation.

The number of U.S. job openings is near its highest level in 13 years. Layoffs have dwindled. And consumer confidence has reached its highest point in nearly seven years.

Despite the signs of a stronger economy, most economists think the first increase in the Fed's short-term rate won't occur until mid-2015.

The Fed's new statement retained language stating that a range of labor market indicators "suggests there remains significant underutilization of labor resources."

Meeting with reporters after the Fed meeting, Chair Janet Yellen said she still thought the job market has yet to fully recover.

"There are still too many people who want jobs but cannot find them, too many who are working part time but would prefer full-time work and too many who are not searching for a job but would be if the labor market were stronger," Yellen said.

The Fed made only minor changes to its previous statement in its assessment of the economy. The statement was approved on an 8-2 vote.

The dissents came from Charles Plosser, president of the Fed's Philadelphia regional bank, who had dissented at the last meeting, and Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas regional Fed bank. Both are viewed as "hawks" — Fed officials who are most concerned about the threat of inflation and believe the Fed should be moving more quickly to raise rates.

Asked at her news conference whether she had concerns about the dissents, Yellen noted that the committee had approved the policy statement by "an overwhelming majority, and I don't consider the level of dissent to be surprising or very abnormal."

In response to another question, Yellen said it could take until the end of the decade to shrink the Fed's investment holdings to more normal levels.

Before its policy announcement Wednesday afternoon, the Fed had received good news on inflation with a report that consumer prices fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in August, the first monthly drop in prices in 16 months.

In August, U.S. employers added just 142,000 jobs, well below the 212,000 average of the previous 12 months. The slowdown was seen as likely temporary.

But some analysts said it underscored that the economic outlook might remain too hazy for the Fed to signal an earlier-than-expected rate hike.

___

AP Economics Writers Christopher S. Rugaber and Josh Boak contributed to this report.


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Review: Devices, apps act like one under iOS 8

NEW YORK — The scores of new features in Apple's software update for mobile devices can be boiled down to one word: unity.

Many iPhone owners also have iPads and Mac computers, and family members are likely to have Apple devices, too. With the new iOS 8 software for iPhones and iPads, those devices start to act like one. Apps on those devices start to unite, too.

Google's Android software can't compete with iOS' evolving unity because so many different companies manufacture Android devices, and each adds its own variables. Apple knows what goes into the few products it makes and can break down the walls between them.

The free update is available to owners of iPhone and iPad models going back to 2011, though older devices won't get all the new features. The new software will also come with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which come out Friday.

Here's a look at those "unity" features — and why iOS 8 is worth installing:

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— You can start tasks on one device and finish on another.

Let's say you're typing an email reply on your iPhone when you realize the message will be quite lengthy. You can pick up your iPad and finish there. With the upcoming Yosemite update for Mac computers, liking coming next month, you'll be able to use the Mac's physical keyboard, too.

Picking up a task on a second device is easy. Just slide up the small app icon on that device's lock screen, be it an iPhone or an iPad. On Macs with Yosemite, click the icon on the bottom left.

For now, this capability is limited to a handful of apps, including Apple's Maps, Calendar, Mail, Messages and the Safari Web browser. And when you try to open a Web page on a second device, you still have to scroll down to where you were. With Maps, on the other hand, it takes me to the location I was viewing on the other device.

This feature, known as Handoff, will be more useful once outside developers take advantage of it. LG and Samsung have offered similar integration of their phones and tablets, but neither does it as extensively.

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— You'll be able to use your iPad or Mac to send texts or make phone calls.

Currently, you can send text-like messages from iPads and Macs with the Messages app, but the recipient also needs Messages. That excludes Android users. With iOS 8, those iPad and Mac messages will get relayed through the iPhone, so you can reach any other phone. The texting capabilities won't be coming until next month, though.

What you can do now is use the iPad and the Mac to make and receive calls. The devices have to be on the same Wi-Fi network, so this won't help if you left your phone at work. But it's useful if the phone is charging in another room. Call quality was about what I'd expect from a speakerphone.

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— You'll be able to do more without switching from app to app.

If a text message comes in as you're browsing the Web, you can pull down the notification and reply right there. You don't need to leave the Web browser and launch Messages first. You can also delete an email or accept a calendar invite that way.

There are some limitations, though: You get only one reply for text messages. You then have to wait for another message to come in or open the full app. With email, you can mark a message as read or delete it, but you can't reply. Like Handoff, this will be more useful once more apps take advantage of it and let you do more.

Meanwhile, if you're chatting with a bunch of friends, you can see their locations (as long as they've shared it) without having to leave Messages to open a separate Find My Friends app.

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— Members of the same households can share calendars and music more easily.

You pick up to five family members to join your network, for a total of six. These need to be people you trust, as they'll be using your credit card to make purchases. You can require approval for purchases, such as for kids' accounts.

Family members will be able to share each other's books, music, video and apps, so Mom, Dad and Junior won't need to buy separate copies of the "Frozen" movie. A family calendar and a shared photo album also get set up. The individual still gets to decide which photos and videos show up there for other family members to see.

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— And there's more ...

The walls between Apple apps and third-party apps are breaking down. For example, outside developers will be able to use Apple's fingerprint authentication system with iOS 8. Before, it was limited to a few Apple services.

Beyond these "unity" features, owners of the new iPhones will be able to pay for goods simply by holding their device near a credit card terminal at retail stores. All iOS 8 users get quicker ways to type messages and reach favorite and recent contacts.

Although you don't need to rush out to upgrade your devices right away, it'll eventually be worthwhile to do so, especially if you have a recent device or multiple Apple devices. While last year's iOS 7 offered cosmetic changes and new gesture controls, this year's update comes with plenty of new functionality.


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Asian stocks higher on China stimulus reports

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 17 September 2014 | 18.38

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Asian stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday, buoyed by reports that China is providing liquidity to major banks and hopes that the Federal Reserve will not speed up plans to raise interest rates.

KEEPING SCORE: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rose 0.1 percent to 15,929.85 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng surged 1.2 percent to 24,415.89. However, China's Shanghai Composite dipped 0.1 percent to 2,294 while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent to 5,426.10. Markets in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia were higher.

CHINA BANKS: Sentiment was boosted by news reports that China's central bank will inject a total of 500 billion yuan ($81 billion) into the five biggest state banks over three months. Additional financial system liquidity would build on targeted measures to shore up growth, amid a bout of weak economic data. There was no official confirmation of the reports.

FED WATCH: Some investors are hoping that the statement from the Fed meeting that ends Wednesday will maintain the phrase "considerable time" to remain in its plan to raise interest rates. Some analysts said the recent rally in the U.S. dollar, which may dampen some areas of the U.S. economy, has become a reason for the Fed to turn cautious. The Fed has held the rate close to zero for more than five years, and stocks have surged against that backdrop.

THE QUOTE: Chinese support for banks if confirmed "is likely to snap Asian equities out of their Fed-induced slumber," said Evan Lucas, market strategist with IG in Australia. "However I again reiterate that the Fed is still the main driving force in the market currently."

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude was down 7 cents to $94.81 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose $1.96 to close at $94.88 a barrel on Tuesday.


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Group levels abuse allegations against NM dairy

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The New Mexico Livestock Board has launched an investigation into a southern New Mexico dairy after an activist working with an animal welfare group recorded secret video showing workers whipping cows with chains and wire cables, kicking and punching the animals, and shocking them with electric prods.

Board officials confirmed the investigation into the practices at the Winchester Dairy near Dexter on Tuesday, saying they are working to schedule interviews with the activist as well as the workers identified in the video.

"We are investigating it very aggressively. The district attorney is on board and everybody is working hard to make sure we do this right," said Shawn Davis, an area supervisor with the livestock board.

Dairy officials have been cooperating since investigators first arrived last Friday, board officials said.

The dairy said in a statement to The Associated Press that animal care and well-being are central to its operation. As a result, the dairy fired all employees and referred the abusive workers to law enforcement for further review following its own internal investigation.

The dairy also halted milking operations, stopped shipments to all vendors and dispersed thousands of cows to other dairies with strong track records in animal welfare.

"We remain committed to the ethical and responsible treatment of the animals and have learned from this incident," the dairy said.

It was not immediately clear whether the dairy's closure was temporary. Winchester is one of more than 140 family-owned dairies in New Mexico, a state that ranks in the top 10 nationally when it comes to milk production. The industry employs about 4,200 workers and has a direct economic impact of about $1 billion.

The Los Angeles-based animal welfare group Mercy for Animals first sent the video footage to the livestock agency last Thursday. It planned to publicly release a compilation of clips that show the abuse during a news conference Wednesday in Albuquerque.

An activist with Mercy for Animals shot the video while working on the farm in August and September. Aside from the whipping, kicking and punching, the video shows calves being tossed into the back of a truck and cows that can't stand being dragged with heavy equipment or lifted with clamps.

The group said the types of abuses uncovered during its investigations of six separate dairies around the country — including the New Mexico dairy — are all similar.

"So this isn't a matter of a single dairy farm failing to meet industry standards. This is a matter of industry standards allowing for blatant animal abuse," said Matt Rice, the group's director of investigations. "That's why we're calling on the industry to make improvements at all of its facilities to prevent this type of abuse."

Mercy for Animals is specifically calling on Denver-based Leprino Foods, which is supplied by the New Mexico dairy and produces cheese for major pizza chains, to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for kicking, punching and shocking cows and require suppliers to provide safe and sanitary environments for the animals.

"A lot of times, these are really wet, slippery environments that these animals are in and then they fall and injure themselves and that's often when we see workers abusing the animals in an effort to get them up again. They resort to kicking and punching and whipping them," Rice said.

Leprino Foods did not immediately return a message seeking comment.


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Super Bowl mainstay Anheuser-Busch troubled by NFL controversy

One of the biggest sponsors of the National Football League's flagship event, the Super Bowl, said Tuesday it was "concerned" about the league's handling of recent controversies involving two popular players, a signal that ad support for one of the nation's most valuable media properties may be in danger of eroding.

"We are disappointed and increasingly concerned by the recent incidents that have overshadowed this NFL season," global brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev said in a statement. "We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and code. We have shared our concerns and expectations with the league." Anheuser is also the official beer sponsor of the NFL's regular season.

The NFL has been roiled in recent weeks by disclosures that it may have known more about former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice's March assault on a woman he ha since married than its top official, Roger Goodell, has let on. New revelations about child-abuse allegations leveled against Minnesota Vikings player Adrian Peterson have only fueled the view that the NFL has willfully ignored violent behavior by is players. CBS, which paid a reported $250 million to $300 million to broadcast eight Thursday-night football games this season, has made changes to its presentation of the contest for each of the two weeks they have been on the air, eliminating or temporarily pulling music and comedy segments in favor of a more serious tone.

Along with PepsiCo., Anheuser has been one of the staunchest supporters of the Super Bowl, typically buying multiple ads each year at a cost of millions of dollars – $149 million, to be exact, since 2009. The brewer bought four minutes of ad time in Fox's 2014 broadcast of the event, according to Kantar Media, a tracker of ad spending, in support of popular beverages like Budweiser and Bud Light.

To be certain, Anheuser-Busch may be trying to have its suds and drink them, too. A statement of concern is not the same thing as pulling advertising in support of an event, and ad buyers have indicated that NBC has sold a good portion of its coming 2015 broadcast of Super Bowl XLIX.

But a sour note from this large advertiser often perks up ears on Madison Avenue. In 2004, after CBS got into hot water with a Super Bowl broadcast that included a halftime show in which Janet Jackson bared part of her breast, the brewer's president, August Busch, told attendees at an advertising-industry conference that the company would be taking "a more cautious approach" to its advertising. A-B spots at the time included such gimmicks as a dog biting a man's crotch and a flatulent horse ruining a couple's romantic carriage ride.

At the time, Anheuser was still run by the family that founded it. These days, it is a global operation, and sells Beck's, Rolling Rock and Boddington's in addition to Michelob and its ever-present Bud line.

There is chatter that the company could get even bigger, which, if its concerns about the NFL continue to linger, might cause the league additional concern. Anheuser-Busch InBev has recently explored the idea of securing financing to make a run for rival SABMiller, the brewer of Miller Lite, Milwaukee's Best and Grolsch. among others. A merger of two massive brewers would consolidate a  large number of potential malt-liquor advertisers for NFL games under one corporate umbrella.

Could Anheuser-Busch truly afford to reduce exposure of its advertising to football fans? It's a question neither the brewer nor the NFL are likely keen to answer.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs spends big in Holmby Hills

After a years long search with one of the Platinum Triangle's most successful brokers, Sean Combs -- aka P. Diddy or Puff Daddy or Diddle Fiddle or whatever self-applied moniker the entrepreneurial music, fashion and liquor mogul goes by nowadays -- has dropped forty million for a newly built mansion on one of L.A.'s premier residential streets in the Holmby Hills as was first revealed by the ever-busy celebrity property gossip beavers at the L.A Times. The deal went down quietly and off-market in early August for, according to property records, $39 million.

The property was sold, according to property records and several our Your Mama's tattletales by L.A.-based über-luxury developer Niles Niami who purchased the property in May 2012 for $13,750,000. Mister Niami, as is his professional inclination, gave the entire property a complete overhaul. Out went the 13,421-square-foot 1930s ear mansion in its place is an even larger and lavishly luxurious European villa of about 17,000 square feet with 8 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms plus a 35-seat theater, a fitness room and wine storage room. There's an additional 3,000 square foot guest house and, so spilled the gossips at TMZ, a separate spa pavilion with steam room, massage area and full-service beauty salon because a man like Mister Combs does not, children, get his hair trimmed or his toenails clipped in a public salon. Anyhoodles, poodles, a sunken tennis court was removed and the old pool replaced with a new-fangled lagoon style number complete with a grotto and underwater swimming tunnel.

The gated and -- you can bet the farm on it -- thoroughly fortified 1.3-acre estate backs up to an even larger one owned by fashion veteran Max Azria and other high profile peeps in the neighborhood include Google billionaire Eric Schmidt, director Ridley Scott and Formula One Racing heiress Petra Ecclestone Stunt who famously paid $85 million for the former megamansion of Candy and Aaron Spelling. Thirty nine million clams is a shit-ton of money for a single-family house, to be sure, but the Grammy winner's new manse is surrounded by equally expensive properties. Just a few months ago Napster co-founder Sean Parker paid Ellen DeGeneres and Portia Di Rossi DeGeneres $49.5 million for the legendary Brody House -- and not the widely reported $55 million -- and a 30,000-square-foot spec-built megamansion down the street from Mister Diddy's ndw digs was sold in April -- also by Mister Niami, mid y'all -- for $44 million to a foreign but otherwise as yet unidentified buyer.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Digital studio Jibjab acquires startup behind 'Hello Santa' video service

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 16 September 2014 | 18.38

JibJab Bros. Studios, the company best known for its political satires whose backers include Sony Pictures Entertainment, announced that it has acquired Make Believe Studios, creators of the "Hello Santa" subscription service that lets kids have live video chats with Kris Kringle.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Deal marks the first major acquisition for JibJab, founded in 1999 by brothers Evan and Gregg Spiridellis.

"Hello Santa" garners more than 50 million unique monthly visitors over the holidays. JibJab said the deal represents a significant new revenue opportunity for the studio. Under the deal, Make Believe Studios and "Hello Santa" will continue to be led by co-founders Dorian Collier, Jordan Lyall and Sam Dassanayake, and will operate out of JibJab's headquarters in Venice, Calif.

"Building a distributed network of Santas to deliver one-on-one performances to families globally fits perfectly with our mission," JibJab CEO and co-founder Gregg Spiridellis said in a statement.

The "Hello Santa" service in 2013 was priced at $14.99 per call. The service promises to bring "the real live Santa Claus directly into the living rooms of families everywhere, via the magic of video-chat technology." Parents can optionally share facts about their kids, schedule a call and at the appointed time, "Santa" appears to deliver a personalized meeting. Alternatively, users can opt to receive a personalized prerecorded video message from Santa.

This year the Hello Santa app will be live in Apple's App Store and at HelloSanta.com on Nov. 1, 2014. Video calls with Santa will start on Nov. 28 (Black Friday) and will continue through Dec. 24.

Investors in JibJab, which has 75 employees, include Polaris Venture Partners, Overbrook Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment. In 2012, JibJab launched StoryBots, a line of learning and entertainment apps for kids aged 3-6.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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NLRB orders CNN to rehire 100 employees, compensate 200

The National Labor Relations Board has ordered CNN to rehire 100 workers and compensate 200 others for a labor dispute that originated in 2003.

The 11-year dispute stems from CNN's decision to replace a unionized subcontractor called Team Video Services, which provided the network with audio and video technicians, with an in-house nonunion work force in its Washington and New York bureaus.

The NLRB found "overwhelming" evidence of anti-union animus in CNN's failure to bargain with the union about the decision to terminate the subcontracts. The board also found CNN had implemented a hiring plan designed to limit the number of discharged TVS employees to avoid a successorship bargaining obligation.

A CNN spokesperson said, "CNN disagrees with the NLRB decision and we are evaluating our options."

The Communication Workers of America said that CNN's 2003 decision had amounted to a "phony reorganization scheme to get rid of unionized workers."

The union also said the compensation for the 200 employees, who continued to work at the company without the benefits of a union contract, would be "on the order of tens of millions of dollars."

The union also said CNN is required to restore any bargaining unit work that was outsourced since the end of the contracts. The company also must recognize the employees' union and resume bargaining with NABET-CWA Local 11 and NABET-CWA Local 31.

"These workers have waited far too long for this measure of justice to finally be delivered and have suffered far too much as the result of these unlawful activities," said NABET-CWA president Jim Joyce. "CNN should finally do the right thing now and immediately comply with the orders of the National Labor Relations Board issued today."

The union noted that it had immediately filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB after CNN terminated the subcontracts. The case did not go to trial before an Administrative Law Judge at the NLRB for almost five years.

After 72 days of trial, the ALJ ruled in 2008 against CNN and found the network had engaged in "widespread and egregious misconduct" and had demonstrated "a flagrant and general disregard for the employees' fundamental rights." The ruling was appealed, leading to several more legal actions by the union.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Machinima names Daniel Tibbets chief content officer

Daniel Tibbits, who once ran Bunim/Murray Prods digital media division, has joined Machinima as chief content officer, a newly created position at the online entertainment network that targets younger males.

In the role, Tibbets will oversee all of Machinima's programming efforts, content strategy and talent development operations, program planning and scheduling, production, acquisitions, and business affairs, reporting to Chad Gutstein, Machinima's CEO.

He also will manage Machinima's talent development team as it tries to grow audience, gain access to production resources and funding, execute collaborations, and work with advertisers.

Machinima currently has over 24,700 channels in its network, which itself has 385 million subscribers.

Some of its more popular series include "Inside Gaming," "ETC," "AFK," "Chasing the Cup," "Battlefield Friends" and "Sanity Not Included."

The company has recently expressed more of an interest in developing scripted series, after building a following around live action hits "Mortal Kombat: Legacy," "Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist," "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn" and "Battlestar Galactica Blood & Chrome."

Gutstein has been building out his executive ranks since becoming CEO in March.

Recent hires also include Tricia White as chief people officer, and Chris Riley as general counsel.

"Daniel's content and leadership sensibilities plus his creative acumen will serve him well as we seek to build upon Machinima's historical online video programming success," Gutstein said. "As a M2M, we seek to align our original, talent commissioned and network programming against our fanboy and gamer focused programming strategy. Daniel's unique combination of experiences will enable him to execute against that goal with excellence."

While leading the digital media division at Bunim/Murray, Tibbets focused on creating original web series, branded entertainment and sales for online, web and mobile platforms.

He also has worked in the digital departments at CBS Enterprises, Papazian-Hirsch/Rysher Entertainment, Foxlab Inc., and Twentieth Television.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC


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Trump Plaza shuts down; 4th AC casino to close

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino closed its doors early Tuesday, the fourth Atlantic City casino to go belly-up so far this year.

When it opened on May 14, 1984, Donald Trump called it the finest building in Atlantic City, and possibly the nation.

But since then, The Donald has left town and cut ties to its casinos. And the Plaza, like many Atlantic City casinos, has seen better days.

A downward spiral that saw it ranked dead last among the city's casinos ended Tuesday morning as about a half-dozen gamblers who stayed to the end got up from the lone blackjack table in operation or from a few slot machines and walked out beneath the dozens of glittery chandeliers for the last time.

Dealer Ruth Hardrick worked at Trump Plaza for 26 of its 30 years, but is now without a job. She's in a large group: About 8,000 Atlantic City casino workers have lost their jobs this year, and another 3,000 could join them if Trump Plaza's parent company makes good on its threat to shutter the Trump Taj Mahal Casino resort in November.

"What's the next step? Where do we go from here?" she asked. "It's happening all over. A lot of us are in the same boat. You think something will come along (to save the casino). And it didn't."

Unlike Revel, which opened just over two years ago and is still considered new and luxurious, or the still-profitable Showboat, shuttered by its owner in the name of reducing competition for the remaining casinos in town, the demise of Trump Plaza could be seen a long way off.

Despite its prime location at the heart of the Boardwalk and the end of the Atlantic City Expressway (its motto has been "The Center Of It All"), gamblers have been abandoning Trump Plaza for newer, ritzier casinos for years. Its owners, Trump Entertainment Resorts, let it deteriorate in recent years, particularly after a sale for the bargain-basement price of $20 million to a California firm fell through last year.

Jim Redmond is a 60-year-old from Montreal who loves Atlantic City and regularly stayed at Trump Plaza. He says its decline was obvious over the last seven years.

"It did slip every year," he said. "This year they had no bedspreads and they totally gave up on the ice machines. This year the Plaza bar was closed and the 24 hour cafe closed at 2 p.m. The higher-end restaurants were closed. It was so sad to see it get a little worse every year. They really seemed to give up about five years ago."

One only had to walk from the parking garage through a glass-enclosed walkway over Pacific Avenue to the casino and be enveloped in searing heat that approached 100 degrees from the sun beating down on the glass to experience the property's frantic cost-cutting moves; air conditioning the area was one of the expenses that was deemed non-essential.

Illuminated letters advertising the casino's name on its front and back facades burned out and were never replaced. Visitors to the Miss America pageant last week at Boardwalk Hall next door saw a neon sign proclaiming "Trump Plaz Hotel & Cas." On the Boardwalk side, the sign read, "U Laza."

Many restaurants on the first and third floors have been shut down for months. Along an escalator leading to them, fake plastic plants were either missing or stolen from row after row of trays. A self-serve kiosk to redeem player's club points near the parking garage was disconnected and covered in dust.

So far this year, Trump Plaza has won just $36.8 million from gamblers. That's down 31.5 percent from the same period last year, and about the same amount as the Borgata wins during an average two-week period.

Atlantic City began the year with 12 casinos; it now has eight.

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Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC


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Building a better lightbulb

Written By Unknown on Senin, 15 September 2014 | 18.38

Philips Hue Lux Lightbulb ($29.95 and up each or $100 for a two-bulb starter kit with the Philips Bridge, various retailers)

The rumors are true: Lightbulbs are now smart. And the Philips Hue Lux line of smart home lighting aims to be the smartest of them all, with an app that helps you control the brightness of your home from the comfort of your mobile device. Would Thomas Edison be proud? Let's see.

The good: These app-enabled LED bulbs connect with the Hue Bridge, a central hub that plugs into your wireless network. You can dim or brighten the lights or schedule them to automatically turn on or off at a certain time via an easy-to-use app for iOS and Android. Each Hue bulb uses 80 percent less power than a traditional bulb.

The bad: They could be brighter, and they don't emit any colors; only white light.

The bottom line: For the price and the convenience, the Philips Hue Lux line is certainly worth your consideration.


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Booting Up: GM rolling out Wi-Fi across product line

The nightmare of a long drive jammed in a car with all your nearest and dearest could soon be over. In just a few years, family road trips may seem vastly different: Passengers will be able to have their own devices to play a game, stream a movie, or get work done on a computer.

That's because General Motors is working to turn cars into roving Wi-Fi hotspots for up to seven devices, introducing high-speed connectivity into more than 30 of its 2015 models. I had a chance to drive a 2015 Buick Regal with 4G LTE from Boston to New York last week, and it was superconvenient to use my favorite navigation app, Waze, while hooked up to the in-car Wi-Fi. The in-car mobile plans also come with enhanced OnStar, a service that offers emergency response, connectivity to real people, diagnostics and turn-by-turn navigation.

Pretty soon, every car buyer is going to demand this feature, and every manufacturer is going to supply it.

And that means wireless carriers are going to have yet another way to profit from our increased connectivity. Expect more carriers to get into the game, and hopefully pricing to go down as a result — because this could get expensive fast.

GM's plan offers customers either three months or 3 gigabytes of data in a free trial with the option to continue with plans that range between $5 and $50 per month. AT&T customers can add a car plan to their mobile share plan for as little as $10 per month for 200 MB of data.

That's enough to stream more than 6.5 hours of music, surf the Web for 13 hours, or send more than 10,000 emails, according to GM. But think about that for a second: If you have a car full of seven people plugging away on smartphones and tablets, that data gets eaten up pretty fast.

Securing this deal with GM was a major coup for AT&T as competition among potential in-car entertainment providers heats up. Apple and Google are already in the mix, with software that allows an increasing number of apps on your iPhone or Android to be accessed via your car computer. But with the merger of DirecTV and AT&T purportedly close to being finalized, it seems like that's the company with the clear mechanism and pipeline of multimedia content for vehicles.

Then again, there is another way to get Wi-Fi in your car: It's called a portable mobile hotspot, and the beauty of this is that you can take it in your car for family trips. The 4G LTE Verizon Jetpack is available for $129.98 with a two-year agreement on top of a monthly fee. You won't get the enhanced OnStar service, but you will be able to grab it from the car and bring it to your hotel to avoid those awful Wi-Fi fees everyone seems to be charging these days.

So the traditional American hell of forced family interaction, ad nauseam, in close quarters en route to a summer vacation destination is about to be replaced by the serenity of detachment, with each passenger happily distracted. Whether that's a good thing or not is for each family to decide.


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New study on 'income inequality' looks at Mass.

BOSTON — Advocates for changing Massachusetts' personal income tax may have new fuel for their campaign, as a new national study suggests a more progressive income tax that requires wealthier individuals to pay higher tax rates could help states deal with revenue problems.

Standard & Poor's, in a study released Monday, found that the improving fortunes of the nation's top earners corresponds with a decades-long slowdown in tax revenue growth among states. The rating agency says states adopting more progressive, or graduated, income tax rates could be more insulated from the problem, though it stops short of endorsing outright such policy changes.

"In the setting of rising income inequality, the move toward more progressive tax rates may help states generate faster tax revenue growth than would flatter tax regimes," the report concludes.

State Rep. Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat that chairs the legislature's Revenue Committee, says he's not surprised by the findings. He hopes the report helps bolster efforts to address Bay State taxes.

"It's a conversation whose time has come," he said. "The problems that we've got — both with wealth inequality and our regressive tax system — are worth addressing. Our failure to address them would continue the unfairness of the system and the challenges that we have with revenue."

The Tax Fairness Commission, a legislative panel Kaufman co-chaired earlier this year, found that Massachusetts' overall tax system, including state income and sales taxes and local property taxes, places a greater burden on middle and low-income taxpayers than those with higher income. Among that bipartisan commission's recommendations: discarding Massachusetts' flat income tax rate in favor of a graduated tax rate.

Of the 43 states that have a personal income tax, Massachusetts is one of just seven that still imposes a flat rate, which is currently 5.2 percent. Changing the tax's structure, which would require voter approval of a constitutional amendment, has faced stiff opposition over the years.

Michael Widmer, a member of the Tax Fairness Commission who opposed the recommendation, says such an overhaul would only compound income inequality by discouraging business investment.

The president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed research group, he suggested more "modest" changes to the tax code, such as raising the value of certain tax exemptions for individuals and married couples. "That goes directly to the spending power of that person on the lower end that's living in a high cost state and trying to make ends meet," Widmer said.

But Noah Berger, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning budget research group, argues that the state has enacted a series of tax changes over the last 15 years or so that have primarily benefited the wealthy, including reductions in the overall income tax rate and the tax rate on investment income.

The result, he says, is that the lowest income households — those on living less than $21,000 a year — are paying 9.5 percent of their income toward state and local taxes while those in the top 1 percent — those earning about $700,000 or more — are paying just 6 percent.

"Our state tax system has become more conducive to supporting inequality," Berger said. "It taxes higher income people at lower rates than lower income people. That exacerbates the problem."

S&P's report cautioned that a greater dependence on top earners for income tax revenue makes it harder for state policymakers to predict what they'll find in their coffers, since much of their income comes from investments in the sometimes volatile stock market. The agency report closes with this caveat: "tax revenue growth slows as income inequality rises, regardless of a states' tax structure ... changes to state fiscal policy alone won't likely fix what's wrong."


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Exosuit development on accelerated pace

A Harvard researcher is working with the Department of Defense and New Balance to develop a wearable robot that could help the physically disabled walk and help soldiers carry heavy loads longer.

"The technology has tremendous potential for helping those who have limited mobility," said Connor Walsh, who is leading the research at Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. But it also can help those such as soldiers who are extremely physically fit — but have tough, demanding tasks to carry out.

The Soft Exosuit, a lightweight, flexible suit, relies on soft sensors integrated with the fabric to help with walking.

"You've essentially replicated the function of what the muscles will be doing inside the body," Walsh said. "You walk with it and it senses how you walk with it, and that triggers the controller. When you're standing still, it's doing nothing."

For a healthy person, the suit's effects are subtle — until you take it off, Walsh said. When healthy people wear the suit, they will not fatigue as quickly. He said hikers would greatly benefit from the exosuit.

For people with physical disabilities, the exosuit can help in much more dramatic ways.

"These small levels of assistance would be able to restore muscles," Walsh said. "It can help give them that little boost to be more mobile."

Walsh's exosuit is best suited to help people who have some mobility, such as those who walk with canes.

Other devices, including one from Marlboro-based ReWalk Robotics, are much larger and heavier, but let completely paralyzed people walk again.

Walsh's exosuit got a $2.9 million jolt of funding last week from DARPA, the Department of Defense's research division.

Walsh said one of the main applications in the near future could be for soldiers. Because the suit can be worn under clothing, it could help with infantrymen who must walk for hours carrying as much as 100 pounds of gear. Walsh and his team are preparing for another test with the Army soon.

One of the aspects of the suit that make it innovative, Walsh said, is the way textiles are being used to create a "wearable robot." That part of the project has piqued the interest of New Balance.

"Looking at future applications and how they can assist the body from a performance standpoint both for the military service member and our elite athletes is something that is intriguing," said Portia Blunt, apparel innovation manager for New Balance.

Walsh said something like the exosuit could be available to consumers sooner than many expect.

"You could imagine that within two years we'll definitely have a much more refined system," he said. "The technology will enable us."


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MassChallenge’s global scale

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 14 September 2014 | 18.38

MassChallenge, already the world's largest startup accelerator and competition — with programs in Boston, Israel and, in the coming months, the U.K. — continues to push the envelope of international expansion, exploring the possibility of similar programs in Russia, Germany, Switzerland, France, Mexico and Colombia.

"Part of the vision is that we can demonstrate Boston is the global leader in innovation and entrepreneurship," John Harthorne, MassChallenge's founder and CEO, told the Herald from Berlin, one of his stops on a three-week business trip to Russia and Europe. "In most places around the world, resources like mentors, lawyers and investors for startups are missing or poorly coordinated. We have a good system in the U.S. I think we can help create huge growth, as well as open up new avenues for investment and trade between Massachusetts and these countries."

MassChallenge announced earlier this year that it had secured initial funding to launch its first London program. Harthorne said he hopes to announce new partnerships and sponsorships Wednesday for the program, which could begin accepting applications next spring or early summer. Within 18 months to two years, MassChallenge also may open an office in Russia, where Harthorne and MassChallenge mentors were on hand to offer training to 12 IT startups that recently won a competition in Skolkovo, home to Russia's largest accelerator. That training will continue for five weeks via Skype before the entrepreneurs pitch their ideas in late October in Boston, he said.

In Berlin, Harthorne met with partners who are trying to market the program, with a tentative launch in 2016. He also has planned stops in Switzerland and France.

"Right now, we're focused mostly on Europe, but there's also interest in Mexico and Colombia, both of which have been paying us for mentorship and training," Harthorne said. "When we started MassChallenge, we did plan for expansion. But we didn't expect this much excitement and interest. The challenge is keeping up with the demand."


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Sun-exposure tracking device to help users see the light

A MassChallenge finalist says it's developed the first solar-powered, wearable sun-exposure tracker to improve energy, mood and focus, regulate sleep cycle, and monitor ultraviolet light exposure.

Founded by two Harvard Medical School psychiatry professors, GoodLux Technology developed SunSprite, a thumb-sized device with 10 LEDs that light up, based on a person's percentage of light exposure.

On a sunny day, most people need about 30 minutes of bright light within two hours of waking up to improve energy, mood and focus, said CEO Edward Likovich.

On an overcast day, people may need 45 minutes to an hour. And at night, they should avoid the kind of bright light that comes from a computer to fall asleep because it interferes with their circadian rhythms, Likovich said.

"It's exactly the right time for this as the days are getting shorter," he said. "It really makes an impact on people's lives."

Research dating back to 1984 found that bright light could be helpful in treating people with seasonal affective disorder. But it wasn't until 2005 that the American Psychiatric Association recommended that bright light be used before medication to treat the disorder.

"We had written about social isolation and were interested in how you could gratify someone's natural needs before you started tweaking their brain chemistry," said Jacqueline Olds, who founded GoodLux in 2012 with her husband, Richard Schwartz. "Research also shows that bright light in the morning boosts cognitive functioning in older people."

The two teamed up with Harvard engineers Tom Hayes and Kasey Russell, who developed the first prototype for SunSprite in 2012 and the second early this year.

In March, they raised money for the project on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo, where 700 people signed up to buy the device for $99. After tomorrow, the price will be $149.

The device also syncs with your iPhone, allowing you to track your progress in real time and get personalized goals and tips. GoodLux plans to have an Android app available in the coming months.

"My husband and I sit at a computer during the day, so this is a good reminder to get outside," said Jana Eggers, 45, a customer who lived in Boston for 17 years before moving to Charleston, S.C. "They made the device very simple. You can just wear it and see whether you've gotten enough light for the day. And it's solar-powered, so I don't have to worry about batteries."


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Bottle bill foes pour cash into campaign

Well-funded opponents of a ballot question to expand Massachusetts' bottle bill to include 5-cent deposits on bottled water, juice and sports drinks will begin a TV advertising campaign tomorrow to push their cause before the November election.

But Janet Domenitz, executive director of MassPIRG — part of a coalition of environmental groups supporting the bottle bill expansion — hopes that after an unsuccessful 10-year legislative push, voters will see through the "misleading TV ads" and pass the binding measure.

"You can certainly buy a lot of television with that kind of money, but this is a law that's been widely and broadly supported for years, so we're hoping the corrupting influence of big special interest money doesn't change the support for this bill," Domenitz said. "If the vote was taken before a bunch of misleading TV ads, we would win hands-down."

The American Beverage Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group for the non-alcoholic beverage industry, already has contributed $5 million to the "No on Question 2: Stop Forced Deposits" campaign, which has raised $5.4 million in total, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. Supermarkets including Stop & Shop, Big Y and Donelan's also have made large contributions.

The proposed law, which would take effect in April, also would require the state to adjust the deposit every five years to reflect consumer price index changes. And it would increase minimum handling fees paid by beverage distributors and bottlers.

"Question 2 costs a lot and doesn't do much of anything for recycling," said Nicole Giambusso, spokeswoman for the No on Question 2 group.

Passage would increase costs to grocers required to redeem the containers in their stores, according to Giambusso. "Those costs will trickle down to consumers and add nearly $60 million in grocery costs," she said. "And ... we'd only be getting an eighth of a percent of a recycling increase. The other alternative would be to expand curbside recycling, which a lot of communities have. (It) is three times cheaper."

Supporters of the bottle bill expansion have raised just $292,988, according to campaign finance reports. But Domenitz said the grass-roots coalition — which includes the League of Women Voters, Sierra Club, Massachusetts Audubon Society and Emerald Necklace Conservancy — is setting up a "town captain" structure where volunteers will work locally to get out the message in their own communities.

There's one data point that voters need to understand, she said: Carbonated beverage containers with the 5-cent deposit get recycled 80 percent of the time, while only 23 percent of non-deposit beverages are recycled.

"Curbside (recycling) is great, but it's not capturing these beverages," she said.

And anybody who leaves the house "doesn't need a study to back that up," according to Domenitz. "If your kid plays ball at a park or you walk your dog, or you go to the beach, or you live in the city, or you hike a trail, you've had the experience of seeing littered bottle water containers, sports drinks — the things that don't have a deposit."


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Samsung accuses LG execs of damaging its products

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. has accused senior executives of domestic rival LG Electronics Inc. of intentionally vandalizing its washing machines at retail stores in Germany and has asked for an official investigation.

In a statement Sunday, Samsung said it had asked the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to investigate executives from a Korean company who were seen as damaging its washing machines displayed at shopping malls in Berlin. A Samsung spokesman confirmed that the Korean company referred to was LG.

"The people in question have been implicated in deliberately destroying Samsung washing machines displayed at retail stores in Berlin, Germany, where, at the time, the annual IFA electronics trade show was underway," Samsung's statement said. "It is very unfortunate that Samsung had to request that a high-ranking executive be investigated by the nation's legal authorities, but this was inevitable ... the truth must be revealed for the sake of fostering fair competition."

LG Electronics denied Samsung's claim. It said in a statement that while it is true that some of its executives and staff, including a president, had visited a Berlin store and looked at various products, it is common for its employees to examine rival company's products abroad.

"If our company had an intention to destroy products of a certain company to tarnish the image of the product, it would be commonsensical to not have our executives to directly carry out such acts," LG's statement said. "We hope that this incident is not an effort to tarnish our company, which is the global No. 1 maker of washing machines."

LG said the model in question had weak hinges, but it did not say whether its executives had damaged the products.

Samsung said LG tarnished both its brand image and the reputation of its employees with claims that its washing machines were defective.


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