BOKU company launches Mobile Payments service

The mobile payments space just got a little bigger with the emergence of BOKU, a new company that combines Paymo and Mobillcash into one. Plus, the company has $11 million in new venture funding with which to launch its mobile payments service.

It is just one of the players in what is estimated to be an $8 billion market that involves consumers buying virtual goods and games with their phones. In contrast to content like ringtones, the digital goods are, more or less, for online entertainment rather than strictly residing on the phone. And if the U.S. adoption gets anywhere near that of places like South Korea, they’re in for a successful run. The big question is: Do U.S. consumers want to add more fees to their monthly phone bills?

Those in the U.S. mobile payments space say the time is right, even during or perhaps especially because of the economic crisis. With tighter credit, consumers are looking for responsible ways to buy goods and keep a budget. And payment suppliers say U.S. carriers are increasingly ready to adopt mobile payments as they look for new revenue streams.

DIFFERENT STROKES
The mobile payments market where companies like BOKU and rivals like BilltoMobile are playing isn't exactly the same as other types of mobile payments, like that envisioned for near-field communications (NFC). Nor is it mobile banking. Rather, the idea is for people to pay for digital goods, like accessories for an avatar or an online game, and get billed via their monthly mobile phone bill. The amounts are designed to be low enough so that consumers don’t get sticker shock when they get their bill.

For its part, BOKU wants to create a new standard for mobile transactions by bringing bank-grade mobile payments to the Web, according to Ron Hirson, vice president of product marketing. Key to its success is a global presence, he says. BOKU is live in 53 countries on more than 190 carriers, including all major U.S. carriers. “No one comes close to us in terms of country coverage,” he says. “Publishers come to us because they have customers worldwide.”

The company raised $11 million in venture funding led by Benchmark Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures and Index Ventures, and is unveiling its management team, which includes executives who have had experience at companies like AT&T Interactive, PayPal, O2, FICO, Apple, Google, Bank of America and eBay.

The merger and financing will help the company enable global consumer adoption and accelerate global carrier coverage, executives say. A cross-carrier mobile payments system is necessary to get support from merchants willing to make goods and services available over mobile devices.

BOKU’s U.S. partners include Hi5, Puzzle Pirates, Aeria Games and “hundreds” of apps on Facebook and MySpace. “We are tapping markets where people are not able to pay at all – someone without a credit card or bank account, so it is tapping a new market,” Hirson says.

MULTIPLE PLAYERS
While the combination of Paymo and Mobillcash as BOKU is just coming out of stealth mode, another U.S.-based entity is lying low. BilltoMobile, based in San Jose, Calif., is the U.S. entity using a payment service established by Danal in South Korea, where Danal has been racking up experience in mobile payments since 2000.

In South Korea, up to 70% of all online digital content is purchased using direct mobile billing, and two-thirds of all mobile phone subscribers actively use the service. (South Korea is said to have the 2nd-highest credit-card penetration, so mobile payments are not replacing credit cards.)

Danal builds and operates the payment gateway between merchants and mobile carriers, and it expects it'll catch on in the U.S. U.S. company executives are mum about their exact plans, but The Korea Herald reported earlier this month that Danal – a strategic investor in BilltoMobile – sealed a contract with a U.S. mobile carrier to provide a mobile phone-based payment service. Danal in Korea did not disclose the name of the carrier, indicating only that it was a major company with a nationwide network and significant customer base.

Park Sung-chan, CEO of Danal Co., told the Korea Herald that the United States is “finally opening to us” after 3 years of trying to establish a presence.

A different type of payment system using a mobile phone is Obopay’s model, which allows participants to send money to someone else’s phone. In May, Obopay announced the Obopay Family Account, which lets parents send money to their children or any family member from any mobile phone. Parents get an Obopay Family Prepaid Mastercard issued by The Bancorp Bank for any child at least 13 years old, and it can be used in person, online or by phone with any merchant that accepts MasterCard debit cards. Parents can add money to an account using Obopay’s mobile application, text message, mobile Web or Obopay.com.

“This isn't … some technology down the line,” says Michael Diamond, Obopay’s senior vice president of product development. “This is for anybody with a mobile phone. You don’t need an iPhone – any phone that does text messaging.”

Today, the kinds of services offered by BOKU and BilltoMobile do not involve physical goods, like clothing, although that’s the next logical extension sometime down the line. For now, Hirson says, “we have got a lot of wood to chop.”

source: http://www.wirelessweek.com/News-BOKU-Ups-Ante-Mobile-Payments-061609.aspx

IBM Expands Cloud Computing Appliances and Services

In 2000, the Linux OS was a hot technology, but it had not spread much beyond scientists, researchers and computer programmers. Then I.B.M. declared that it would back Linux with investment, research and marketing, and the technology moved swiftly into the corporate mainstream.

The same thing happened with the PC in the early 1980s, when I.B.M. endorsed that upstart technology and entered the market.

Starting this week, I.B.M. is returning to the same playbook, introducing some initial products, services and a roadmap for its stable of corporate and government customers to comfortably embrace cloud computing.

Cloud computing - in which vast stores of information and processing resources can be tapped from afar, over the Internet, using a PC's, cellphone or other device — holds great promise in the corporate market. The cloud model, analysts say, has the potential to cut the costs, complexity and headaches of technology for companies and government agencies.

Already, Amazon.com, Salesforce.com and Google, among others, offer cloud-based Web services to companies, including e-mail, computer storage and customer management software. But many big companies and government agencies have been reluctant to get on board because of traditional corporate-computing concerns like the security of data, regulatory compliance and reliability of service.

"I.B.M. knows how to do all of those things," said Frank Gens, chief analyst for IDC, a technology research firm. "Its strategy is all about making cloud computing safe for enterprise customers."

Even if I.B.M. succeeds in its bid to make cloud computing more palatable for big corporations, there is no guarantee that it'll be the main beneficiary of the trend. After I.B.M. helped create the PC industry, lower-cost competitors ended up dominating the business.

In the cloud market, I.B.M. plans to take a tailored approach. The hardware and software in its cloud offerings will be meant for specific computing chores. Just as Google runs a computing cloud optimized for Internet search, I.B.M. will make bespoke clouds for computing workloads in business.

Its early cloud entries, to be announced on Monday, follow that model. One set of offerings is focused on streamlining the technology used by corporate software developers and testers, which can consume 30% or more of a company’s technology resources.

The second set is virtual desktop services, in which personal computer software, either from Microsoft or open-source alternatives, is run on remote servers and piped to simple desktop machines equipped with screens and keyboards. I.B.M. found in tests with clients that such virtual PCs, with little desktop processing or storage, can use 70% less power than conventional PCs and reduce technical support costs by up to 40%,.

Both the software development and desktop services are being offered as an integrated bundle of hardware and software for a cloud running inside a corporate or government data center, or as a cloud service hosted in an I.B.M. data center.

Other offerings are planned, I.B.M. executives said, including clouds fine-tuned for data storage, and clouds for business analytics, which is software that analyzes data for patterns of customer behavior, market trends and other potentially valuable information.

I.B.M. calls its approach of fine-tuning hardware and software for specific jobs "hybrid computing." And it'll open a Hybrid Computing Research lab later this year, inviting industry and university scientists to work cooperatively on new application-specific designs intended to improve performance by 100 to 1,000 times compared with today's systems.

The fresh look at computer design is being prompted by the surge in Internet data, from social networking to smartphone applications to sensors monitoring food shipments and electrical use. By 2011, IDC estimates, there will be one trillion Internet-connected devices, up from 500 million in 2006.

"This huge explosion of data is driving a movement to design systems around workloads because it is the only way to deliver the computation needed, and it’s far more energy-efficient," said Kunle Olukotun, a computer scientist at Stanford.

I.B.M. had an initiative, begun in early 2008, called Blue Cloud, which mainly involved adapting its server computers for cloud technology. Most major technology suppliers have cloud-related hardware and software products, including Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Dell. But I.B.M., analysts say, is going further by offering simplified, integrated stacks of hardware and software, as well as cloud services.

I.B.M.’s cloud strategy, the company said, is the culmination of 100 prototype projects with companies and government agencies over the last year, and its research partnership with Google.

“The information technology infrastructure is under stress already, and the data flood is just accelerating,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive. “We have decided that how you solve that starts by organizing technology around the workload.”

One of I.B.M.’s test beds for cloud computing has been the Interior Department’s National Business Center, a service center that handles payroll, human relations, financial reporting, contracting services and other computing tasks for dozens of federal agencies. The center runs two large data centers, one in Northern Virginia and another outside Denver.

Douglas J. Bourgeois, the center’s director, said he is introducing several cloud-style applications over the next nine months including Web-based training, and staffing and recruitment software. And in tests with financial and procurement software, the cloud-computing environment has delivered efficiencies of 40 to 60% in productivity and power consumption, he said.

"For us, like other data centers, the volume of data continues to explode," Mr. Bourgeois said. "We want to solve some of those problems with cloud computing, so we don’t have to build another $20 million data center."

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/technology/business-computing/15blue.html

Adobe systems Acrobat.com Collaboration Services Emerge From Beta

Adobe Systems on Monday will move its Acrobat.com Web-based productivity and collaboration services out of beta and offer for-fee subscriptions to provide what the company hopes will be a new way for business users to collaborate on document creation.

The company also will introduce a spreadsheet service called Acrobat Tables, which goes into preview release on Monday, said Erik Larson, director of marketing and product management for Acrobat.com. Other services already available are a word processing application called Buzzword; a Web meeting application, Adobe Connect Now; and Presentations, an application akin to Microsoft's Office PowerPoint for building presentations.

Web-based services that compete with packaged software like Microsoft Office and IBM Lotus are becoming more prevalent; Google and others also have offerings in this market. Adobe, based on its history in the document-creation and management market, has a strong position to rival Office among business users, at whom Acrobat.com is aimed.

Adobe is offering two subscription levels for Acrobat.com - Premium Basic and Premium Plus. Both are available as either a monthly or annual subscription, Larson said.

The basic level is US$14.99 a month or $149 a year and includes conversion to PDF for 10 documents a month, as well as the ability to hold Web meetings with up to five participants. The plus level costs $39 a month or $399 a year, and offers unlimited PDF conversions and Web meetings for up to 20 participants. Adobe offers telephone and Web support for both subscription levels, Larson said. A special introductory promotion that lasts until July 16 will give customers $15 off the annual plan and $50 off the plus plan, he added.

Adobe also will still offer a free basic version of Acrobat.com services in addition to the subscriptions.

Acrobat.com isn't just aimed at giving business users an alternative to packaged software like Microsoft Office, but in the long run Adobe wants it to help people collaborate on documents in a new way, Larson said. The services in Acrobat.com allow multiple people to work on and edit documents simultaneously with continuous updating so the documents are always current, and give people a view into who's working on what parts of the document when and an ability to communicate with each other from within the application, he said.

The end result provides people with a more efficient and generally more enjoyable way to collaborate on document creation and generation, Larson said, allowing people to cut down on the number of meetings or e-mails creating a business document requires.

"It can be irritating to work with people in general, and technology makes it worse - it can be too technological," he said. Adobe hopes Acrobat.com will provide simple, easy-to-use tools for collaboration so people will actually enjoy working together when using them, Larson said.

Daniel Alegria, a senior art director with interactive agency Genex in Culver City, California, said Adobe's direction with Acrobat.com, if achieved, would be useful for his company, which has used Acrobat.com to collaborate on internal documents.

"We want to view and manipulate information and have it shared across a team and have them share it as we are working toward the project's goal," he said.

Alegria said the idea of using an online application versus a client-side one for collaboration is attractive because "if your computer crashes, your documents don't go with it," he said.

However, Alegria said that it would be helpful if Adobe extended its services beyond managing and allowing people to collaborate on individual documents to providing management and collaboration capabilities for sets of documents for particular projects that span different applications.

"That would be very appealing to us," he said.

source: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/166659/adobes_acrobatcom_collaboration_services_emerge_from_beta.html

Mosquitoes take over Suffolk City

SUFFOLK. - April showers bring May flowers. But in some parts of Hampton Roads, all that rain has also brought out the sting of Mosquitoes. The pesky little critters have particularly made their presence known in Suffolk city.

Heavy rains have left standing water behind. And that, coupled with the warm temperatures mean perfect breeding conditions for mosquitos.

Suffolk resident Kim Holland says she can not grill out or sit on her front porch in the evening without getting attacked by marauding mosquitoes.

"It is like the cousins, the nieces, the aunts, the grandma, the grandaddy, nephews. You see one there. You see one here. You see them in groups. They are in like colonies. They come out all together," she said.

Small wonder with standing water in ditches along her street and a discarded tire with water inside at the end of the block. All perfect breeding grounds for the pesky insects when the weather's warm. Treatment to scale back the mosquito onslaught is already underway with other city crews across Hampton Roads.

Penelope Smelser, Biologist with the Norfolk Health Department says, "When you've heavy rainfall you are going to have Mosquitoes laying eggs. All that's going to start up and you will have a bigger population of mosquitoes."

Smelser says it is about to get worse in a couple of weeks. Recent sampling helps her identify the types of mosquitoes under a microscope and their stages of development. She offers a few tips.

Smelser suggests you "eliminate standing water around [your] yard." She says, "look in every crack and crevice, behind sheds, under decks, places you might not look. If you've standing water you can not tip over, do your best to treat it with things you get from the hardware store, like mosquito dunks."

The product was handed out to Kim Holland who signed up for it at Suffolk City Hall. The mosquito dunks are also available at fire stations throughout the Suffolk city.

Ethel Dirtion plans to get the briquets, but for now is using insect spray.

"I keep plenty of it. I spray it all the time. I'm hoping it works. It gets 'em I tell you. I spray 'em it knocks them out," Dirtion laughed.

She says she also keeps a fly swatter handy too.

If you would like a Mosquito Briquet, you may pick one up at the following locations:

* Fire Station 1: 400 Market Street
* Fire Station 3: 1001 Whitemarsh Road
* Fire Station 4: 837 Lake Kilby Road
* Fire Station 5: 3901 Bridge Road
* Fire Station 7: 6666 O'Kelly Road
* Fire Station 8: 6235 Whaleyville Boulevard
* Fire Station 9: 300 Kings Highway
* Fire Station 10: 4869 Bennetts Pasture Road

source: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_wavy_suffolk_mosquitos_take_over_20090514

Microsoft will soon unveil free antivirus software for PCs

BOSTON (Reuters)- Microsoft Corp is getting ready to unveil a long-anticipated free antivirus service for PCs that will compete with products sold by Symantec Corp & McAfee Inc.

A Microsoft spokesman said on Wednesday that the world's biggest software maker is testing an early version of the product with its own employees. Microsoft would "soon" make a trial version, or product beta, available via its website, he added, but declined to provide a specific date.

Symantec shares fell 1.6% in afternoon trading and McAfee fell 1.8%, while Microsoft was up 1.1%. The Nasdaq composite index was down 1.2%.

Investors are closely monitoring the free service, code named Morro after Brazil's Morro de Sao Paolo beach, amid concern it could hurt sales of products from Symantec and McAfee, which generate billions of dollars of revenue a year protecting Windows PCs from attacks by hackers.

"It iss a long term competitive threat," said Daniel Ives, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, though he added that the near term impact was minimal.

Microsoft has said that Morro will offer basic features for fighting a wide range of viruses, which would likely make it comparable to low end consumer products from Symantec and McAfee that cost about $40 per year.

Their top-selling products are security suites that come with features including encryption, firewalls, password protection, parental controls and data backup.

Three years ago, Microsoft entered that market with Live OneCare, which turned out to be a commercial flop. It announced plans in November to kill that product suite, saying it would launch the free Morro service by the end of 2009.

Analysts said they are looking forward to examining Morro's beta to see exactly how its features compare to those in products from competitors.

Microsoft has said it'll provide protection from several types of malicious software including viruses, rootkits, spyware and trojans.

Officials with McAfee and Symantec have said they do not see Morro as a threat.

Joris Evers, a spokesman for No. 2 security software maker McAfee, said his company is already enjoying strong growth despite competition from free antivirus products that are on the market.

"On a level playing field, we are confident in our ability to compete with anyone who might enter the marketplace," he said.

A spokesman for Symantec, the biggest security software maker, could not be reached for comment. Trend Micro Inc, the No. 3 player, declined comment.

source: http://www2.canada.com/topics/technology/news/gizmos/story.html?id=a810da67-0023-4ade-b074-680eb277fecb

Google Apps Outlook sync in front of Exchange-using IT

Google Apps is a set of tools that allows companies to move many IT services, such as e-mail and calendaring, to Google's online cloud resources. A new tool will allow those that rely on Outlook to easily migrate from an Exchange server to Google Apps with virtually no change from the end users' perspective.

Called Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, it allows "simple, two-click" migration of data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps. Then, instead of using Web versions of Gmail, Google Contacts, or Google Calendar, users can continue to use Microsoft's Outlook client to connect to those services. When not at work, users can still access e-mail, calendar, and contacts via Google's online interface.

"You get the cost savings, security and reliability of Google Apps," according to Google's product page, "while employees can use the interface they prefer for email, contacts and calendar." It can even allow users to create meetings and invite contacts whether they are using Google Apps or Exchange.

Google insists the tool isn't an admission that business users aren't interested in adopting Google Apps for some or all of their IT needs. By way of example, the search giant points to semiconductor firm Avago, which migrated to Google Apps in order to save $1.6 million a year in IT costs. The company gave its 4,100 users the option to move to Google Apps from its Exchange server, but about 12 percent simply chose the path of least resistance and continued to use the familiar Outlook.

"We look at [Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook] as a way to provide choice for users who like to do things the old, Outlook way," Google product manager Chris Vander Way told Reuters.

Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook is available to those using the Premier or Education editions of Google Apps. It is not available to the free "standard" edition, which relies on display ads to pay for the service.

source: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/06/google-dangles-outlook-sync-in-front-of-exchange-using-it.ars

Microsoft Gives Windows 7 Box Art

Microsoft gives PC users something to gaze at

As Microsoft continues its marketing push for the Windows 7 operating system, the company is systematically releasing details and information about its latest Windows OS.

After announcing a public release date of October 22 this year, the official box art for each Windows 7 version has been released. The image offers details on Ultimate, Professional, and Home Premium versions of the OS.

The October 22 release date will ensure Microsoft will have the OS available for the 2009 holiday shopping season -- the OS can be sold OEM, or be bundled on PCs and notebooks sold by B&M retailers -- though the Redmond-based company will miss out on back-to-school sales.

There were numerous unconfirmed images of the Windows 7 box art floating around the internet for weeks, but images first revealed by CentrumXP proved to be accurate when they were later added to the official Microsoft Windows 7 OS page.

Microsoft continues to launch a PR campaign aimed at helping PC users forget about Windows Vista -- considered a flop among many reviewers and PC users -- so they can be better prepared for Windows 7. The company is expected to announce pricing information and other details regarding its highly-anticipated OS in the coming weeks.

Even though Windows 7 has gotten a lot of media attention, it'll see light competition from Apple's Snow Leopard OS and Google Android OS this fall -- despite the pressure, Windows 7 should quickly shoot to the top of sales charts.

source: http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Releases+Windows+7+Box+Art/article15349c.htm

Analysis of Palm Pre parts and Charger

In addition to its gecko-like grip, the latest Palm Pre touchstone super power is the ability to squeeze $5 worth of components into a $70 price tag.

We kid the Pre, honestly, because as other sites have already noted today, many electronics companies have been taking bargain bin components, adding a slick coat of paint, and charging a premium for some time now.

Still, $5 worth of commodity plastic and transistors marked up to $70? Surely there is some other latent super power slumbering within the plastic confines of this phone charger that will awaken with a flash someday? Right?

Resource: http://gizmodo.com/5282223/the-70-palm-pre-touchstone-5-for-the-parts-65-is-for-the-privilege

Milwaukee official reports first swine flu death

Milwaukee officials say an adult in the city is the first in Wisconsin to die from H1N1 or swine flu.

Air France crash jet's black boxes may never be recovered from Atlantic Ocean

Accident investigation chief 'not optimistic' as Brazilian navy divers head for site of wreckage

French officials said today there were no signs of problems with Air France Flight 447 before takeoff and it was unclear whether the chief pilot was at the controls when the plane plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The head of France's accident investigation agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, also said he was "not optimistic" that rescuers would recover the plane's black boxes miles underwater.

Pilots on long-haul flights often take turns at the controls to remain alert. Asked whether the chief pilot was in the cockpit when the plane went down, Arslanian told a news conference in France that there was no information either way.

"We don't even know the exact time of the accident," he said.

But Arslanian said there was no indication of problems with the plane before it left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night en route to Paris.

At the search scene Brazilian navy divers rushed to reach the wreckage and start retrieving debris from the Atlantic.

Four navy ships with recovery equipment and a tanker were heading to a three mile (5km) strip of water strewn with plane seats, an orange buoy, wiring, metal pieces and jet fuel stains about 745 miles north-east of the coastal city of Recife.

As the navy battled rough weather, officials warned of the difficulty in finding the flight data and voice recorders – the black boxes – that hold clues to why the plane crashed during a severe storm in the middle of the night.

Officials said the recorders needed to identify the causes of the mysterious crash could be on the ocean floor at a depth of 6,600 to 9,800 feet (2,000 to 3,000 metres).

The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water.

One expert said it could be among the hardest recoveries since the decades-long search to find the Titanic.

"If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack," said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.

However, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said he was confident that the black boxes – two separate devices containing cockpit voice recordings and instrument data – offer the best chance of finding out why the Airbus jetliner vanished. .

"I think a country that can find oil 6,000 metres under the ocean can find a plane 2,000 metres down," he told reporters yesterday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil's state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

Officials from the US National Transportation Safety Board and from Eurocontrol say that investigators have many ways to begin investigating the accident even before they recover any wreckage or the black boxes.

"Investigators will have to do a forensic analysis, by piecing together all available information as best they can," said Jim Hall, a former chairman of the NTSB.

They will review the maintenance records of the aircraft, interview the crews who flew the plane in the last few weeks and go to the locations where recent maintenance was done to interview mechanics.

They will also study the personal histories of the crew members and reconstruct what they did in the last 36 hours before the crash.

"In other words, they'll be compiling as much background information as they can to compensate for the lack of other data," Hall said.

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/03/air-france-crash-black-box

Suicide bombing at Iran mosque killed 30

A bomb at a Shia mosque in south-east Iran killed 30 people and Injured 60, the ILNA news agency reported.

The suspected suicide bomb exploded at the Ali Ebne-Abitaleb mosque as people gathered for evening prayers in the predominantly Sunni city of Zahedan. No person or group has claimed responsibility.

Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, which shares a border with Pakistan. The province faces serious security problems and there are frequent clashes between police and drug dealers and bandits.

Shortly after the explosion, security forces discovered and defused a 2nd bomb near the mosque, the semi-official FARS news agency reported.

The attack was carried out on a public holiday for Shia Muslims.

Iran is preparing for a presidential election on June 12, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking a 2nd term and faces three challengers.

A bomb attack in Zahedan in February 2007 which killed 18 people Revolutionary Guards was claimed by Jundallah, an insurgent group that says it is fighting for the rights of Iran's Sunni Muslim minority.

The presidents of Iran, Pakistan & Afghanistan met in the capital Tehran for their 1st summit on Sunday, in an effort to improve cooperation in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking and tackling other regional security problems.

Pakistan & Afghanistan are battling to stem the spread of Taliban insurgencies in their countries, and Iran & Pakistan want a stable Afghanistan because the drugs trade has had a dire effect on Iran and past Afghan violence sent millions of refugees across the border.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5403362/Suicide-bombing-at-Iran-mosque-leaves-30-dead.html

Bing search redesigned by MSN search

SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corp. is rolling out a redesigned search site in the coming days and hopes it will lure more Web surfers than the two most recent incarnations, Live Search and MSN Search.

The new site, Bing, adds touches intended to make everyday Web searching a little less haphazard. Bing also tries to make it easier for people to buy things, book travel and find credible health information.

History has not been kind to even the best search innovators. Many companies, including Amazon.com Inc. and IAC/InterActiveCorp., and startups like Hakia, ChaCha and Cuil have tried to improve on the basic "10 blue links" format of search results, but Google Inc. has remained unstoppable.

Microsoft's last effort, Live Search, failed to catch on partly because the software maker didn't do much to promote it. Marketing is no guarantee of success _ IAC heavily advertised makeovers of Ask.com _ but this time, Microsoft appears to be taking no chances. Ad Age reported Microsoft plans to spend as much as $100 million on advertising Bing.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has been stuck in third place behind Google and Yahoo Inc. for years. Its share of U.S. search queries was 8.2 percent in April, according to the research group comScore Inc. Google was used for 64.2 percent of queries, and Yahoo's share totaled 20.4 percent.

The numbers are important. Google's healthy profits are tied to its search dominance, because companies will pay more to reach a wider audience when they place ads alongside search results. Microsoft, by contrast, posted a quarterly loss in its online advertising business.

"We want to do better," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday at The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.

"There are times in our history where we've felt a little bit like Rocky," he continued, referring to the fictional underdog boxer. "It takes persistence in this stuff. You don't always get things right."

When asked why Microsoft chose "Bing," he said, "The name is short, it's easy to say, it works globally."

To mount a credible challenge to Google, Microsoft tried taking over Yahoo last year. But after Yahoo rebuffed its $47.5 billion offer, Microsoft turned its attention to improving its own Live Search.

Ballmer reiterated Thursday that Microsoft is still interested in a search partnership with Yahoo, and not an outright acquisition, but he didn't disclose any new details.

Some of Bing's features showed up on a Microsoft blog in March, when the new site was known as "Kumo." The most obvious difference is a bar of links running down the left-hand side of Bing search results pages. Some searches _ especially ones for celebrities or travel destinations _ yield links to help narrow results into categories. For pro athletes, it might offer links for statistics and highlights. For Thailand, categories include weather and real estate.

Bing also lists related search terms on the left, not at the bottom of the page like Google does. It keeps track of recent searches and gives people a way to e-mail links from that search history or post them on Facebook.

For some types of queries, Microsoft is positioning Bing as a destination rather than a quick gateway to other sites. For airfare searches, Bing produces results from Farecast, a travel-comparison startup Microsoft acquired last year.

Shopping with Bing can yield an Amazon.com-like experience, with ways to narrow results by price, brand and the availability of free shipping, without leaving the search page.

Bing also tries to guide searchers to trustworthy medical information. Type in "chicken pox" or "tendinitis," and the first result is a Mayo Clinic article. (Google's top result for chicken pox comes from kidshealth.org; for tendinitis, it shows a Wikipedia link.)

Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk said Bing won't bite into Google's search share because the Google habit is too hard to break. But people who have been using Yahoo as a secondary "information portal" may switch to Bing, she said.

"Yahoo won't have anything to make it stand out in comparison to either of the two other experiences," she said.

To keep up with its rivals, Yahoo has been tweaking its search results as well, to include different types of information depending on the query. For instance, it would show photos in response to searches for landmarks or dossier-style listings for people.

Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo's search strategy, said he was "completely baffled" by the claim that Bing "provides something we don't provide."

"It could be that people are reacting to the form and presentation, which is different, as opposed to the substance and information."

Microsoft isn't banking on beating Google, said Mike Nichols, a general manager in the search group. But Microsoft does want to transform its also-ran search image.

"We want to capture a unique position in consumers' minds. They need to know why is it that they should use this product," Nichols said in an interview.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst for the research group Directions on Microsoft, praised the new features and said an extensive ad campaign gives Microsoft a chance to increase its share.

But "I have to wonder," he said, "whether users are really crying out for a new search engine."

source http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052801752_2.html

U.S. man 85 who gave secrets to Israel spared prison

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An 85-year-old former civilian employee of the U.S. Army was fined but avoided prison time on Friday after earlier pleading guilty to giving classified documents to Israel in the 1980s in a case the sentencing judge said was "shrouded in mystery."

Court documents showed that Ben-Ami Kadish, who was fined $50,000 but spared prison time, reported to the same handler as Jonathan Pollard, an American who spied for Israel in the 1980s and triggered a scandal that rocked U.S.-Israeli relations.

"Why it took the government 23 years to charge Mr. Kadish is shrouded in mystery," U.S. District Judge William Pauley said during the sentencing hearing in Manhattan federal court. "It is clear the (U.S.) government could have charged Mr. Kadish with far more serious crimes."

Kadish pleaded guilty in December to acting as an unregistered agent of Israel. He was arrested in April 2008 on four counts of conspiracy and espionage. The spying charge, dropped under a plea deal, had carried a possible death sentence.

"I am sorry I made a mistake," a frail-looking Kadish said during the sentencing hearing. "I thought I was helping the state of Israel without harming the United States."

The judge said he gave a lenient sentence due to Kadish's age and infirmity, but said Kadish had committed "a grave offense" and had "abused the trust" of the United States. For much of the hearing, Kadish sat slumped in his chair with heavy eyelids. At one stage, he had to be shaken awake by his lawyer.

MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEMS

Prosecutors had recommended no prison time as part of the plea deal. They said between 1980 and 1985 Kadish provided classified documents, including some relating to U.S. missile defense systems, to an Israeli agent, Yosef Yagur, who photographed the documents at Kadish's residence.

Yagur also was Pollard's main Israeli contact. Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to spying for Israel in 1986. Israel gave Pollard citizenship in 1996 and acknowledged he was one of its spies in 1998.

During the hearing, the judge questioned a prosecutor as to why it took so long to charge Kadish when the telephone records on which the case was based were available in the mid-1980s.

"There is no mystery behind it, it's just what happened," said prosecutor Iris Lan, who explained she understood it took the FBI that amount of time to assemble the evidence.

The judge also questioned Kadish's lawyer about how Kadish was able to earn $104,000 in 2007 when he does not work. His lawyer said it was from investments.

Kadish was born in the United States but grew up on a farm in Palestine before the founding of the modern state of Israel. He served in the British and U.S. armies in World War II.

From 1980 to 1985, Yagur asked Kadish to obtain classified documents, which Kadish retrieved from the U.S. Army's Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey, according to a sworn statement by Kadish. Kadish said he kept up a friendship with Yagur after 1985.

"While Kadish knew he was aiding Israel, an ally to the United States, he also knew his crime compromised the national security," the judge said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE54S65H20090529

A DEEP VIEW ON NIAGARA

The Niagara Falls is huge waterfalls on the Niagara River, spanning the international border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York. The falls are 17 miles (i.e. 27 km) north-northwest of Buffalo, New York and 75 miles (i.e. 120 km) south-southeast of Toronto, Ontario, connecting the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York.

Niagara Falls is composed of two major sections divided by Goat Island: Horseshoe Falls, the majority of which lies on the Canadian side of the border, and American Falls on the American side. The smaller Bridal Veil Falls are also located on the American side, separated from the main falls by Luna Island.

More than six million cubic feet (168,000 m³) of waterfalls over the crest line every minute in high flow and almost 4 million cubic feet (110,000 m³) on average. It is the most dominant waterfall in North America. The Niagara Falls is renowned both for it beauty and as a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Managing the stability between recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 1800s.

LATEST DIGITAL PAINTING TECHNIQUE

Digital painting is a rising art form which traditional painting techniques such as watercolor, oils paintings and etc. are applied to computer by means of digital tools, a digitizing tablet and stylus, and software.

Digital painting thrives mostly in invention art. This painting is widely used in theoretical design for film, television and video games. Digital painting software like Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Art Rage, GIMP, and open Canvas give artists a similar atmosphere to a physical painter.

There are different types of digital painting, including impressionism, practicality and watercolor. There are both positive and negative points on digital painting.

In general the digital painting user can create their own brush style using a combination of texture and shape. So as the digital painting allows the artist to work in an organized, mess-free environment.

Still some argues that there should be more control for an artist to hold a physical brush. Some artists believe that something is missing in digital painting compared to other paintings.

Gov. Heineman Announces 42 Law Enforcement Camera System Grants

(Lincoln, Neb.) Gov. Dave Heineman today announced more than $330,000 in grants from federal highway safety funds to Nebraska law enforcement agencies. The grants through the Highway Safety Alcohol Incentive Funding permit the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety to provide support to local law enforcement agencies with training and equipment that is used to prevent alcohol-related crashes.

Seventeen police departments and twenty-five Sheriff’s Offices across Nebraska received the grants to install a total of ninety-nine new in-car camera systems. In-car camera systems are used to aide in the apprehension and prosecution of drinking drivers as well as providing a measure of safety for the officers.

“With the holidays approaching, it is a good time to remind everyone to make sure that every driver is a safe and sober one,” said Governor Heineman. “These grants will help our law enforcement officers keep our roads safe.”

According to the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety, in 2007 Nebraska law enforcement officers arrested 13,437 drivers for driving under-the-influence. Early reports suggest that more arrests could be recorded this year.

“Everyone can help law enforcement too. Report every suspected drunk driver immediately to law enforcement by dialing *55 or 911. Remember that you are not only saving others on the road, but the drunk drivers themselves,” said Beverly Neth, Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Bank of America’s Lewis Testifies, Gets Subpoena Over Bonuses

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Kenneth Lewis, chief executive officer of Bank of America Corp., testified for four hours at New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s offices in a probe of $3.6 billion in bonuses paid at Merrill Lynch & Co. just before it merged with the bank.

“I answered the questions that were asked to the best of my knowledge,” Lewis, 61, said yesterday after the deposition, before being driven away from the attorney general’s office in lower Manhattan in a black Lincoln Navigator. “I hope this brought some clarity.”

Benjamin Lawsky, a special assistant to Cuomo, said after Lewis left that the attorney general’s office served the bank during the deposition with a subpoena to produce a list of the individual bonuses.

“The attorney general is severely disappointed in Bank of America’s decision in not turning over specific information: who got what bonus at Merrill Lynch,” Lawsky said. “The list goes to what individuals got and when they got it.”

Cuomo has been examining whether Merrill broke securities laws when it paid the bonuses. He is cooperating with U.S. Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky in a federal probe of executive pay at banks that received money from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program. Merrill and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America have received about $45 billion in TARP money. The bank completed its acquisition of Merrill on Jan. 1.

Bank’s Offer

Bank of America has been offering the names of individual bonus recipients to Cuomo for two weeks on the condition that he keep them confidential, said Robert Stickler, a bank spokesman in phone interview yesterday.

“He refused to do that,” Stickler said. “We believe our employees are entitled to privacy in terms of their compensation. We also believe that to make the compensation of individuals public would put us at a competitive disadvantage with people who want to recruit our employees.”

Stickler had no comment on the subpoena.

Asked whether Cuomo’s office got the list of individual bonus recipients from former Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain, who testified for Cuomo for the second time this week, Lawsky declined comment.

Thain’s Testimony

Thain, when deposed by Cuomo’s office on Feb. 19, said he couldn’t identify those who got bonuses, citing orders from Bank of America that he keep the information confidential. Cuomo went to court Feb. 23 to compel Thain to disclose the recipients. A judge ruled he was free to disclose the names.

Thain testified again on Feb. 24 for 2 1/2 hours, said his attorney, Andrew Levander.

“He cooperated thoroughly and answered whatever was asked,” Levander said of Thain’s Feb. 24 testimony in an e-mail. Levander declined to comment on whether Thain was asked to identify bonus recipients.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried will decide if Thain’s testimony will become public, according to Levander.

Lawsky said Lewis’s testimony yesterday lasted about four hours and covered “many topics.”

In a Bloomberg Television interview on Feb. 25, Lewis declined to comment on whether he or the bank directed Thain not to disclose the recipients.

Lewis also said the acquisitions of Merrill and Countrywide Financial Corp. have been “stars” so far this year.

Merrill will be “a thing of beauty” over the long term, Lewis said. Merrill, the New York-based securities firm, lost $15.8 billion in the fourth quarter.

Lewis flew on a corporate jet for the deposition by Cuomo’s office “because of the importance of this meeting,” Timothy Gilles, a Bank of America spokesman, said in an interview.

Source www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayqn2mJk9zjA&refer=home

St. Martin Island

Forty-eight kilometers from Teknaf, St. Martin's is the country's only coral island and an unspoilt paradise. Named Narikel Jinjira (Coconut Island) by the locals, the dumbbell shaped St.Martin's has an area of only 8 sq. km. which reduces to about 5 sq. km. and in places from 1-4 meters during high tide.

The Cox's Bazar Holiday Complex of Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation on the island is an shore tourist resort having comfortable accommodation, catering, sightseeing and other facilities.

PM aims for world class education

Gordon Brown has pledged to help Britain achieve a "world class" education system where young people from every background can prosper.

In a speech at the University of Greenwich, the PM called for a "culture change" and promised to assist all young people in "seizing the opportunities available to them". Low expectations and acceptance of failure have "held our country back for too long", he said.

The PM said:

"I believe that each young person has talent and potential. Each some gift to develop. Each something to give to the good of the community.

"The Britain I strive for is a Britain with no cap on ambition, no ceiling on hope, no limit to where your potential will take you and how far you can rise: a Britain where the talents of each contribute to the well being and prosperity of all."

Mr Brown outlined a number of Government priorities, including increased parental participation, improved early learning and the recruitment of the best possible teaching staff. The Government plans to introduce more one-to-one and small group tuition and increase the number of young people staying in education beyond 16, he said.

Other measures include annual improvement targets for schools and incentives for the best teachers to go to underperforming schools through schemes such as Teach First and Teach Next. The Government will also create a new "UCAS-style" system for matching apprentices with businesses and provide support for apprentices worth anything from £3,000 up to £15,000 for highly skilled jobs such as engineering.

The PM was accompanied by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Mr Balls will take part in a live webchat in Downing Street on 1 November at 15:00 GMT.

THOUSANDS JOIN QUITNOW CONTEST TO STOP SMOKING

VICTORIA – The Province and the BC Lung Association are congratulating approximately 7,000 British Columbians who are actively working to quit smoking by participating in the BC Lung Association’s QuitNow and Win contest, said Mary Polak, Minister of Healthy Living and Sport, and Scott McDonald, executive director of the BC Lung Association.

“As we kick off National Non-Smoking Week, it’s encouraging to see so many British Columbians make a commitment to improve their health by eliminating tobacco use,” said Polak. “The personal stories shared by QuitNow and Win participants on Quitnow.ca reflect the powerful and negative hold a nicotine addiction has had on many British Columbians and their families. It takes courage to make this commitment and I commend each participant and wish them every success.”

The QuitNow and Win contest launched on Nov. 24, and British Columbians began registering their plan to quit smoking. When registration closed on Jan. 5, 2009, more than 7,000 smokers had registered, and those who live tobacco-free between Jan. 6 and Feb. 2, 2009 are eligible for $20,000 in prizes.

“We are thrilled by the number of people who entered the QuitNow and Win contest,” said McDonald. “They’re already winners in our eyes. Smoking is a terrible addiction, and quitting remains the single most important thing a person can do to ensure a long, healthy life. That’s more valuable than any contest prize could ever be.”

QuitNow and Win is supported by ActNow BC, which is government’s healthy living initiative to encourage British Columbians to lead healthier lives through increased physical activity, healthy eating, eliminating tobacco use and healthy pregnancies.

“I’ve always wanted to quit, but haven’t had the motivation,” said Torrie Cherot, a Victoria resident who is participating in the contest and celebrating her 24th birthday. “QuitNow and Win has provided me with a jumpstart to quit smoking. I feel better about myself and have more energy every day that I don’t smoke.”

Since 1977, National Non-Smoking week has promoted a wide range of support for smokers to quit, while helping prevent non-smokers from becoming smokers and promoting the rights of individuals who do not smoke.

Deeyenda Virus Hoax

The "Deeyenda" virus warnings are a hoax. CIAC has received inqueries regarding the validity of the Deeyenda virus. The warnings are very similar to those for Good Times, stating that the FCC issued a warning about it, and that it is self activating and can destroy the contents of a machine just by being downloaded. Users should note that the FCC does not and will not issue virus or Trojan warnings. It is not their job to do so. As of this date, there are no known viruses with the name Deeyenda in existence. For a virus to spread, it must be executed. Reading a mail message does not execute the mail message. Trojans and viruses have been found as executable attachmentsto mail messages, but they must be extracted and executed to do any harm. CIAC still affirms that reading E-mail, using typical mail agents, can not activatemalicious code delivered in or with the message.

Probing dark energy

Scientists have studied the night sky for thousands of years searching for clues to help them understand the universe. The South Pole Telescope (SPT)team, including Case Western Reserve University professor John Ruhl and graduate student Zachary Staniszewski, achieved a major milestone toward using a new technique to probe the most mysterious component of the universe, dark energy.

Staniszewski is the lead author on the multi-institution collaboration's paper, “Galaxy clusters discovered with a Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect survey” released Oct. 10 in a pre-publication posting on astro-ph, an electronic preprint archive. The paper chronicles the discovery of three galaxy clusters using a new survey technique.

The technique relies on an effect that galaxy clusters have on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) light that passes through them. The SPT team surveyed a 40-square-degree patch of sky looking for galaxy clusters via this effect, called the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect. The survey found four galaxy clusters, one previously known and three new ones. It is the first time this technique has been used to discover new clusters.

The 10-meter South Pole Telescope’s millimeter-wave camera captures images of the CMB, radiation left over from 270,000 years after the Big Bang Galaxy clusters affect the brightness of the CMB after it has passed through them; this brightness change is the SZ effect, and is independent of distance to the galaxy cluster, unlike the optical or x-ray brightness of the clusters.

These galaxies, Staniszewski says, are likely billions of light years away and about seven billion years old.

Part of the data set was taken by Staniszewski during his winter stay at the South Pole manning the telescope. Bolstering the confidence that the newly discovered clusters are real, the paper includes analysis of data from follow-up optical observations with the Blanco Cosmology Survey instrument, led by University of Illinois astrophysicist and SPT collaborator Joe Mohr.

“The theory of how galaxy clusters imprint a signal on the CMB has been around for nearly 40 years, when two Russian physicists first proposed it in 1969,” Staniszewski said. “The SZ effect has been seen in clusters that were already identified by optical and x-ray observations, but no one had yet used it to discover a brand new galaxy cluster. These are the first galaxy clusters discovered using this method.”

The SPT will produce a larger catalog of new clusters with more data and analysis. “These three new clusters are just the tip of the iceberg," Ruhl said. “The full survey is what will help us achieve our ultimate goal, which is to understand dark energy.”

“The expansion of the universe is accelerating, and because of that we believe that dark energy dominates the energy density of the universe. Dark energy provides a negative pressure, or repulsive force, that accelerates the expansion, rather than slowing it down like the attractive force of gravity does,” Staniszewski said. “We're trying to figure out what dark energy actually is, and it turns out that a survey of galaxy clusters can be used to trace the expansion history of the universe, which can tell you about the dark energy."

Gravity works to pull pockets of galaxies together, into clusters, a process that is more effective at early times when matter is dense. Dark energy speeds up the expansion of the universe and spreads out the matter, which slows down clustering. Counting the number of galaxy clusters as a function of time throughout the history of the universe can therefore be used to understand dark energy.

The SPT science team, led by principal investigator John Carlstrom at the University of Chicago includes more than 40 scientists from Case Western Reserve, University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, Cardiff University, University of Colorado, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of Illinois, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, McGill University, and NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center.

BITTERNUT HICKORY - Carya cordiformis, Wang., Koch

THERE ARE SEVEN READILY recognizable hickories in Missouri but bitternut hickory is the only hickory tree which has long, sulphur-yellow colored buds. It is widely distributed over the state.

The nut is nearly globe-shaped and covered by a thin husk which is partially winged along the lines where it splits. The kernel is bitter but the squirrels don't seem to mind it. For them it is an important winter food which they store in hollow trees and bury in the ground. Forgotten buried nuts become new trees. The leaf, ranging from 6 to 10 inches long, is compound with 7 to 9 elliptically shaped leaflets. They are usually broadest above the center with toothed edges. These leaflets are supported from hairy stalks and are dark yellow-green and smooth above, pale and slightly hairy below.

In winter, this tree can be identified by its slender, pale gray twigs which are dotted with corky rises. The bark is nearly smooth and light gray when young, remaining on the trunk for several years. As the tree ages the bark becomes shallowly furrowed with thin interconnecting ridges.

Small bitternut hickory trees will grow in dense shade under the tops of sugar maple, white oak, white ash, and black walnut among others and still survive. It is a moderately fast growing tree, but short lived compared with other hickories.

Bitternut hickory wood is used to some degree in making handles, but is used largely for making charcoal for outdoor barbecuing. This wood smoke gives meat a rich flavor and aroma. Some meats are smoke cured with hickory because of its distinctive taste. It also makes an excellent fuelwood for cook stoves, furnaces or fireplaces.

Preventing Anemia in Pregnant Women

Half of all pregnant women develop iron-deficiency anemia because their volume of blood increases and because the growing fetus needs iron. Anemia during pregnancy can lead to an increased risk of premature delivery and a low-birth-weight baby.

To prevent these problems, pregnant women need twice as much iron as women who are not pregnant. Pregnant women can get more iron from eating more iron-rich foods, from supplements, or from both. Medical care during pregnancy should include screening for anemia.

The doctor giving prenatal care may prescribe iron supplements, which should be taken as directed. Pregnant women should notify their doctors if they have uncomfortable side effects such as constipation. The doctor also may give advice on how to get higher levels of iron through eating iron-rich foods.

Surat Diamond Cluster

India leads the globe in diamond manufacturing with 60% share in value, 85% in volume and 92% share in the number of pieces produced. In India, rough diamonds have been mined since historic times. But it was only after the year 1962 that processing, cutting and polishing of diamonds developed as an industry. Nearly 80% of the country's natural diamond processing is done in Gujarat, of which Surat and Navsari, account for most of it.

In recent years, diamond-cutting centers have also come up outside the state of Gujarat especially in Mumbai (Maharashtra), Trichur (Kerala) and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), but mainly in the artificial diamond industry.

Explore the new Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk

Walk, camp, be captivated by the beauty, mystery and history along the 54km Great Walk through the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area.One of Queensland’s growing number of Great Walks, it passes through Lamington and Springbrook national parks and the ancient volcanic landscape of the Mount Warning caldera, following the footsteps of the traditional Aboriginal people whose ancestors walked this land for thousands of years.

Bond funds

Bond funds generally have higher risks than money market funds, largely because they typically pursue strategies aimed at producing higher yields. Unlike money market funds, the SEC's rules do not restrict bond funds to high-quality or short-term investments. Because there are many different types of bonds, bond funds can vary dramatically in their risks and rewards. Some of the risks associated with bond funds include:

Credit Risk — the possibility that companies or other issuers whose bonds are owned by the fund may fail to pay their debts (including the debt owed to holders of their bonds). Credit risk is less of a factor for bond funds that invest in insured bonds or U.S. Treasury bonds. By contrast, those that invest in the bonds of companies with poor credit ratings generally will be subject to higher risk.

Interest Rate Risk — the risk that the market value of the bonds will go down when interest rates go up. Because of this, you can lose money in any bond fund, including those that invest only in insured bonds or Treasury bonds. Funds that invest in longer-term bonds tend to have higher interest rate risk.

Prepayment Risk — the chance that a bond will be paid off early. For example, if interest rates fall, a bond issuer may decide to pay off (or "retire") its debt and issue new bonds that pay a lower rate. When this happens, the fund may not be able to reinvest the proceeds in an investment with as high a return or yield.

UK Trade & Investment

UK Trade & Investment is the government organisation that supports companies in the UK doing business internationally and overseas enterprises seeking to set up or expand in the UK.

Our global network of offices work in close partnership with the English regional development agencies and devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We can provide businesses with:
1 introductions to sector networks – industry leaders, universities, other centres of excellence and collaborative partnerships;
2 bespoke information on key commercial considerations – company formation, financial incentives, labour, real estate, transport, utilities and regulatory issues;
3 thorough regional analysis and informed advice to help choose the right location; and
4 a pipeline into central government to help safeguard business interests.

French and Italian Painting of the 18th century

The taste for rococo—intimate and charming subjects painted in pastel colors—gave way by mid-century to the simpler, more restrained forms of neoclassical art. In Italy, travelers on the Grand Tour patronized painters of ancient and modern landmarks for souvenirs, while in France a sober and restrained look, like that of Roman reliefs, would serve the Revolution.In the eighteenth century, a brisk trade in painted views of Venice and Rome grew up in response to tourists' demands for souvenirs. Canaletto, Bellotto, Guardi, and Pannini were at the forefront of production. Italian painters were also commissioned by foreign princes to decorate their palaces. It is a mark of the times that Tiepolo, perhaps the most celebrated Italian painter of the eighteenth century, died in Spain after completing an ambitious mural program for the royal palace in Madrid.

After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the center of French society moved from the court at Versailles to Paris. Elegant interiors were decorated with motifs with sinuous curves and arabesques. The S curve of this rococo style was incorporated in paintings such as the fêtes galantes of Antoine Watteau, which showed pleasure-seeking ladies and gentlemen socializing in a pastoral setting. François Boucher, who started his career as an engraver copying Watteau's paintings, indicated the taste of the mid-eighteenth century in his idealized depictions of courtly beauty.

In the closing decades of the century, a surge of interest in archaeology and a rediscovery of the straight lines and regularized proportions of Greek and Roman art supplanted the curvilinear and sensual shapes of the rococo. The French Revolution (1789–1799) profoundly changed the entire political system and subsequently the governmental structure that had supported the arts since the early reign of Louis XIV. Jacques- Louis David created new motifs suited to the political needs of the revolution and also of the Emperor Napoleon, reinterpreting the principles of classicism.

McGain Ruled Out Of India Tests With Injury

Australia leg spinner Bryce McGain has been ruled out of the four-Test series in India with a shoulder injury and will return home, Cricket Australia (CA) said in a statement on Friday.

The 36-year-old failed to recover from the injury he suffered during last month's Australia A tour of India, dealing a blow to the tourists' inexperienced spin attack.

"A decision on a potential replacement player for McGain would be taken in due course," the statement said.McGain had been included in the absence of seasoned spinners. Off-break bowler Jason Krejza is the other specialist spinner in the squad.

Hen Wallow Falls

The trip to Hen Wallow Falls is a pleasant walk through hemlock and rhododendron forest. A signed side trail leads to the base of the falls by way of steep switchbacks. Hen Wallow Creek, only two feet wide at the top of the falls, fans out to 20 feet at the base. The waterfall is 90 feet high.

The hike to the falls is 4.4 miles roundtrip and considered moderate in difficulty. Hikers continuing on the Gabes Mountain Trail beyond the falls can enjoy an impressive old-growth forest.

Access Trail: Gabes Mountain
Trailhead: Park in the designated hiker parking area at Cosby Picnic Area (near the entrance to Cosby Campground). Then backtrack on foot approximately 100 yards along the road to the signed start of the Gabes Mountain Trail.

Pneumonia

Also called: Bronchopneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lung, usually caused by an infection. Three common causes are bacteria, viruses and fungi. You can also get pneumonia by accidentally inhaling a liquid or chemical. People most at risk are older than 65 or younger than 2 years of age, or already have health problems.

If you have pneumonia, you may have difficulty breathing and have a cough and a fever. A physical exam and history can help determine if you have pneumonia. Chest x-rays and blood tests can help determine what is wrong. Treatment depends on what made you sick. If bacteria are the cause, antibiotics should help. Viral pneumonia may get better with rest and
drinking liquids.

Preventing pneumonia is always better than treating it. The best preventive measures include washing your hands frequently, not smoking, and wearing a mask when cleaning dusty or moldy areas. There is a vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia, a bacterial infection which accounts for up to a quarter of all pneumonias.

Seed dissemination

Variations in fruit structures largely depend on the mode of dispersal of the seeds they contain. This dispersal can be achieved by animals, wind, water, or explosive dehiscence.

Some fruits have coats covered with spikes or hooked burrs, either to prevent themselves from being eaten by animals or to stick to the hairs, feathers or legs of animals, using them as dispersal agents. Examples include cocklebur and unicorn plant.

The sweet flesh of many fruits is "deliberately" appealing to animals, so that the seeds held within are eaten and "unwittingly" carried away and deposited at a distance from the parent. Likewise, the nutritious, oily kernels of nuts are appealing to rodents (such as squirrels) who hoard them in the soil in order to avoid starving during the winter, thus giving those seeds that remain uneaten the chance to germinate and grow into a new plant away from their parent.Other fruits are elongated and flattened out naturally and so become thin, like wings or helicopter blades, e.g. maple, tuliptree and elm. This is an evolutionary mechanism to increase dispersal distance away from the parent via wind. Other wind-dispersed fruit have tiny parachutes, e.g. dandelion and salsify.

Coconut fruits can float thousands of miles in the ocean to spread seeds. Some other fruits that can disperse via water are nipa palm and screw pine.Some fruits fling seeds substantial distances (up to 100 m in sandbox tree) via explosive dehiscence or other mechanisms, e.g. impatiens and squirting cucumber.

Obama's Victory Speech

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

Aquarium

Marine aquarium
A marine aquarium is an aquarium that keeps marine plants and animals in a contained environment. Marine aquaria are further subdivided by hobbyists into fish only (FO), fish only with live rock (FOWLR), and reef aquaria. Marine fishkeeping is different from its freshwater counterpart because of the fundamental differences in the constitution of saltwater and the resulting differences in the adaptation of its inhabitants. A stable marine aquarium requires more equipment than freshwater systems, and generally requires more stringent water quality monitoring. The inhabitants of a marine aquarium are often difficult to acquire and are usually more expensive than freshwater aquarium inhabitants. However, the inhabitants of saltwater aquariums are usually much more spectacular than freshwater aquarium fish.

Types of marine aquarium

Marine aquarists typically divide saltwater aquariums into those housing fish only, fish with live rock and those primarily designed to house corals and other invertebrates (also known as reef aquariums).

Live rock
Live rock is rock that has been in the ocean, composed of limestone and decomposing coral skeleton, usually around a coral reef such as those around Fiji, and is usually covered with beneficial algae, coralline and tiny invertebrates and bacteria that are desirable in the aquarium. Some examples of the microfauna commonly found on live rock are crabs, snails, feather dusters, brittle stars, starfish, limpets, abalones, and an occasional sea urchin, sea anemone, coral, and sea sponge. Also, if the aquarist is unlucky, a mantis shrimp. Bristleworms are also common, most of which, while unattractive, are not harmful and are useful scavengers; some species can be pests, however. The addition of live rock is one of the best ways to ensure a healthy aquarium, as the rock provides a buffer to maintain high pH (8.0-8.3), alkalinity, and acid-neutralizing capacity. Alkalinity is often known by a rather confusing term, "carbonate hardness", or KH. This is usually measured in "degrees" (dKH) or meq/L.

The microfauna found on live rock are detrivores and herbivores (as they eat algae and fish waste), and provide fish with a natural, attractive shelter. Live rock usually arrives from online dealers as "uncured", and must be quarantined in a separate tank while undergoing the curing process, which involves the inevitable die-off of some of the rock's inhabitants and the subsequent production of undesirable ammonia and nitrite. Live rock that is already cured is available at most pet stores that cater to saltwater. Live sand is similar to live rock and is equally desirable.

Reef aquarium
A reef aquarium or reef tank is an aquarium containing live corals and other animals associated with coral reefs.

These aquarium setups vary from having many fish that vary from chlorinating fish and spawning fish, which attempt to recreate life specific to one region of the world like the Great Barrier Reef, to the more prevalent and often spectacularly colored mixed reef that blend hard and soft corals from around the world.

Unlike the marine aquarium, which are built to house various types of fish, the main attraction in many reef tanks are the varieties coral and other invertebrates.