As human beings, there are some traits that we all have in common?two hands, one heart, red blood, and, unfortunately for most of us, a wealth of debt.?
The average American carries a $47,000 debt load, and as a nation, nearly $2?trillion of our collective debt is either delinquent or 90 days past due.?
Part of the problem in figuring out where to begin getting out of the red is knowing who to turn to for help. Maybe you're too embarrassed to fess up to your issues or you can't afford a financial advisor. So you might pick up a $20 self-help book or enroll in a $200 debt makeover course online.?
Save your money. Some of the greatest advice out there can come from the person standing next to you in line at the grocery store. To prove our point, we've rounded up 10 truly inspiring stories of real consumers who faced their debt head-on and managed to come out on the other side.?
Impertinent. Mumbling. Offended. Teary-eyed. Rachel Jeantel, star witness for the prosecution in George Zimmerman's murder trial, was all of those, and more, as her testimony Wednesday provided new details into Trayvon Martin?s last moments and infused racially loaded commentary into an already-sensitive trial.
Storefront, a startup that launched this past fall out of San Francisco startup accelerator AngelPad focusing on helping businesses find short-term real estate rentals for ?pop-up shops? and other temporary stores, is set to announce today that it?s taken on $1.6 million in seed funding.
The investors in the seed round include Mohr Davidow Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, 500 Startups, David Tisch?s BoxGroup?and?Sand Hill Angels, among other angel investors.
Storefront?s co-founder and CEO Erik Eliason said in an interview that the new funding will be put toward helping the service expand beyond its native San Francisco, where over the past six months the company has helped over 100 large and local brands open pop-up shops (including the Storenvy space which we recently profiled for TechCrunch TV) and listed over 3 million square feet of retail space. That geographical expansion is already underway, with the recent launch of Storefront listings in New York City.
The funding will also be used to add more hires to Storefront?s team, which currently has six full-time staff.
The idea behind Storefront is to help make it just as easy to open a brick-and-mortar shop as it now is to sell stuff online, matching up sellers looking for retail space with existing real estate owners who are currently facing 10 percent vacancy rates.
Eliason put it this way:
?Our bigger vision is that it?s really easy to open a store online with Etsy or Storenvy. But offline there are still so many friction points with setting up a store. Things like Square make things like payments easier, but finding the space, securing the space, furnishing the space ? it?s not an easy process.?
As for the competition? Traditional commercial real estate brokers are not focused on the short-term rental space for the increasingly popular ?pop-up? market, because it?s not as lucrative for commissions, Eliason says. Craigslist has short-term real estate listings, but those come with all the hassles that exist for, well, everything on Craigslist.
In terms of revenue, Storefront does not charge any commission on the rental of a space itself. The startup makes money by taking a referral fee for any purchases that it helps facilitate after the space has been leased, such as sales of furniture, fixtures, temporary staff, signage and insurance.
Overall, it?s a smart idea at a very smart time (with a catchy name to boot), so it?s no wonder that it?s gotten the attention of investors. If Storefront can execute its vision throughout the U.S., it could turn into something big.
Storefront is a marketplace for short-term retail space. We make it easy for brands to open pop-up shops and streamline the short-term lease process for brokers, shopping centers, and space owners. We want to make starting an offline store as easy as an online store, and empower anyone to do so. Along the way we want to: Make retail space more accessible Connect retailers and their communities Foster and grow the sharing economy Help shoppers discover unique, local and authentic products Find the perfect space So, you...
It's not every day we see Windows Phone being used to launch a major new feature, but Twitter has done just that. An update to its official app has just enabled automatic translation if you happen to be reading a person's tweet that isn't in English. The tweet isn't translated in your actual timeline; instead you have to manually click through, but that's nothing to complain about. Microsoft's Bing Platform, also released yesterday, is likely being used as the backend, so this feature could very well come to Twitter's official apps on Android and iOS (not to mention a whole range of other apps) in the near future.
We're all familiar with the, uh, pitfalls of Apple's iOS Maps app. But Peder Norrby, the founder of a Stockholm-based tech company called Trapcode, has managed to capture some of the most bizarre 3D mapping glitches in high definition?turning them into lovely, surreal vignettes.
FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Free Syrian Army fighters sit in a house on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Free Syrian Army fighters sit in a house on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra, File)
FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2012 file photo, A wounded woman still in shock leaves Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Syria. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo, File)
FILE - In this March 8, 2012 file photo, A boy named Ahmed mourns his father, Abdulaziz Abu Ahmed Khrer, who was killed by a Syrian army sniper, during his funeral in Idlib, northern Syria. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2012 file photo, Abdullah Ahmed, 10, who suffered burns in a Syrian government airstrike and fled his home with his family, stands outside their tent at a camp for displaced Syrians in the village of Atmeh, Syria. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)
FILE - In this Nov. 29, 2012 file photo, Night falls on a Syrian rebel-controlled area of Aleppo, as destroyed buildings, including Dar Al-Shifa hospital, are seen on Sa'ar street after airstrikes targeted the area a week before. More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria's conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Narciso Contreras, File)
BEIRUT (AP) ? The civil war in Syria has now killed more than 100,000 people, a grim new estimate Wednesday that comes at a time when the conflict is spreading beyond its borders and hopes are fading for a settlement to end the bloodshed.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll through a network of activists in the country, said most of the 100,191 killed in the last 27 months were combatants.
The regime losses were estimated at nearly 43,000, including pro-government militias and 169 fighters from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group ? a recent entrant in the conflict.
The Observatory said 36,661 of the dead are civilians. Recorded deaths among the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad reached more than 18,000, including 2,518 foreign fighters.
Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said he suspected that the toll actually was higher, since neither side has been totally forthcoming about its losses.
The United Nations recently estimated that 93,000 people were killed between March 2011, when the crisis started, and the end of April 2013, concurring with Abdul-Rahman that the actual toll is likely much higher.
The Syrian government has not given a death toll. State media published the names of the government's dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.
Abdul-Rahman said that the group's tally of military deaths is based on information from medical sources, records obtained by the group from state agencies and activists' own count of funerals in government-held areas of the country. Other sources are the activist videos showing soldiers who were killed in rebel areas and later identified.
The new estimate comes at a time when hopes for peace talks are fading. The U.N.'s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Tuesday an international conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.
Regime forces are pushing into rebel-held areas in an attempt to secure the seat of Assad's power in the capital of Damascus and along the Mediterranean coast in the heartland of the Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad belongs.
The offensive, along with new reports that Assad has used chemical weapons in 10 different incidents in the conflict, also prompted Washington and its allies to declare they have decided to arm the rebels.
On Wednesday, the Observatory said the regime drove rebels out of the town of Talkalakh, along the border with Lebanon. The town, which had a predominantly Sunni population of about 70,000 before the conflict, is surrounded by 12 Alawite villages located within walking distance of the Lebanon border.
The government takeover will likely affect the rebels' ability to bring supplies, fighters and weapons from Lebanon.
The town also lies on the highway that links the city of Homs to Tartus, in the coastal Alawite enclave that is home to one of Syria's two main seaports.
Syrian state TV showed soldiers patrolling the streets of Talkalakh, inspecting underground tunnels and displaying weapons seized from the opposition.
The governor of Homs, Ahmed Munir, told the private Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that some rebels in Talkalakh handed their weapons over to authorities. He said the town was a major area for infiltrators from Lebanon.
"Talkalakh is clear of weapons," Munir said.
Southeast of Talkalakh, government forces also took control of the village of Quarayaten on a highway that links the rebels to another supply route from Iraq, according to an activist who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety.
The regime victories are likely to help it advance on rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, he said. The activist, who is connected to rebels in Homs, spoke by Skype.
The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, urged the U.N. to help civilians in Talkalakh open routes to facilitate the rescue of women, children, the elderly and the wounded.
The fighting has increasingly taken on sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad's regime is dominated by Alawites, and has been backed by Hezbollah fighters, particularly in towns near the Lebanese borders.
The conflict has also polarized the region. Several Gulf states, including Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia, back the rebels. Shiite powerhouse Iran is a major Assad supporter.
Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia after that country condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.
The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a "foreign invasion."
Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are "trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army."
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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Barbara Surk in Beirut contributed to this report.
The winter solstice marks the shortest day and the longest night of the year, and it's a great time for exploring River Bend Nature Center at night!? Join us on Friday, December 21st from 7pm to 9pm, and celebrate with a hike under the stars as we explore Solstice traditions around the globe, including a traditional Native American pipe ceremony.? Hike on luminary lined trails, gather around the campfire to sip cocoa, and learn about the amazing animals and owls that roam River Bend at night from our naturalist volunteers.? Join us for a night of inspiration as we look forward to longer and lighter days.? Appropriate for all ages, open to the public!
June 26, 2013 ? A new UC San Francisco study highlights the potential importance of the vast majority of human DNA that lies outside of genes within the cell.
The researchers found that about 85 percent of these stretches of DNA make RNA, a molecule that increasingly is being found to play important roles within cells. They also determined that this RNA-making DNA is more likely than other non-gene DNA regions to be associated with inherited disease risks.
The study, published in the free online journal PLOS Genetics on June 20, 2013, is one of the most extensive examinations of the human genome ever undertaken to see which stretches of DNA outside of genes make RNA and which do not.
The researchers -- senior author and RNA expert Michael McManus, PhD, UCSF associate professor of microbiology and immunology and a member of the UCSF Diabetes Center, graduate student Ian Vaughn, and postdoctoral fellow Matthew Hangauer, PhD -- identified thousands of previously unknown, unique RNA sequences.
"Now that we realize that all these RNA molecules exist and have identified them, the struggle is to understand which are going to have a function that is important," McManus said. "It may take decades to determine this."
The RNA most familiar from textbooks is the messenger RNA that is transcribed from DNA in genes and that encodes the amino acid building blocks of proteins. The transcription of messenger RNA from DNA is a key step in protein production. The rest of the DNA on the cell's chromosomes was once thought not to be transcribed into RNA, and was referred to as junk DNA.
Today, scientists estimate that only 1.5 percent of the genome consists of genes, McManus said. But over the last two decades other kinds of RNA have been identified that are transcribed from DNA outside of gene regions. Some of these RNA molecules play important biological roles, but scientists debate whether few or most of these RNA molecules are likely to be biologically significant.
Among the RNA transcribed by the DNA outside of genes, the UCSF researchers identified thousands of previously unknown RNA sequences of a type called lincRNA. So far, only a handful of lincRNA molecules are known to play significant roles in human biology, McManus said.
Previous research has shown that lincRNAs can have diverse functions. Some control the activity of genes that encode proteins. Others guide protein production in alternative ways.
"RNA is the Swiss army knife of molecules -- it can have so many different functions," McManus said.
The development of RNA-sequencing techniques in recent years has made possible the collection of massive amounts of RNA data for the first time.
To identify unique RNA molecules that are transcribed from human DNA, the UCSF researchers re-examined data on RNA transcription that they gathered from more than 125 data sets, obtained in recent years by scientists who studied 24 types of human body tissues. The new study represents one of the largest collections of lincRNAs gathered to date.
McManus said that the findings are in general agreement with those reported in September 2012 by researchers associated with a project called ENCODE, which included among its goals the detection of RNA transcripts within the genome. Many of the cells examined in ENCODE were long-lived laboratory cell lines and cancer cell lines, whereas the data analyzed in the UCSF study was from normal healthy human tissue, McManus said.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? One moment I was standing in a quiet, secure and heavily guarded area and the next it had turned into a battlefield.
It was 6:30 a.m., and I waiting with about 20 other journalists for an escort into the palace for a speech by President Hamid Karzai. It was a routine assignment for Kabul journalists, and the presidential compound is a scenic and peaceful oasis lined with pine trees in my chaotic hometown.
Suddenly I saw the four armed men jump out of their vehicle. They kneeled down and started shooting. Two of them fired at presidential palace security guards stationed at a checkpoint. The two others aimed their weapons at the Ariana Hotel, where the CIA is known to have an office.
I didn't know what to do. Bullets were flying all over. Gunfire was coming from different directions. No one really knew who were the attackers and who were the security forces because both sides were wearing similar uniforms.
I thought at first that this must be an insider attack or an argument between security guards. I just couldn't believe that Taliban fighters could have made it this far into the presidential compound, through two checkpoints. After about a minute, I realized the attackers must be Taliban because they were firing in so many different directions.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Rahim Faiez, a correspondent with The Associated Press in Afghanistan since January 2002, was waiting in a security area outside the heavily fortified Afghan presidential compound in Kabul for an escort to the palace to cover a speech by President Hamid Karzai when he got caught up Tuesday in a brazen Taliban attack. This is his account.
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I hit the ground and kept my head down, asking myself, what I should do? I looked around to try to find a place to use as a shelter and call my office ? report the news as fast as possible.
Mostly, though, my thoughts focused on my small children ? my nearly 6-year-old son, Mohammad Akmal, and my two daughters, Hadia, who is 4, and Muqadasa, just 15 months.
Some other reporters took shelter behind an armored SUV used by an American television network. A few others lay in a ditch.
I saw a white, small, religious shrine nearby, and crawled about 10 to 15 meters (yards), then ran as fast as I could toward the wall of the shrine. I saw blood on my clothes but was sure I had not been hit. Later I noticed scratches on my arms and knees from pulling my body across the ground.
I finally reached the wall and thought it was safe enough to take my mobile phone and call the office.
Breathless and scared, I shouted over the phone to a colleague, "David, attackers are inside and a shooting is going on." He was shocked.
Grenades and rockets were exploding in the background and automatic weapons were firing. My colleague asked, "Are you safe, Rahim? Are you OK? I replied I was fine, even if I wasn't entirely.
Then I managed to take a deep breath and started reporting, the battle still going on in the background.
Most of the reporters moved with me behind the shrine.
Looking out, we saw a small boy, around 6 years old, wearing a school uniform and running close to us. He was so brave, not crying, but of course very worried.
We grabbed him and pulled him behind the wall. He didn't know how to call his parents but one of the reporters had a number for the director of his nearby school. He called and told the director that one of his students was with us and safe.
I wanted to move out from behind the wall and take some photos with my cell phone. But bullets kept coming and never gave me the chance. We all wanted to leave from our precarious position, but security guards from the other gate, about 50 meters (yards) away from us, kept shouting that we must stay there. Otherwise we could be shot from the CIA building because guards there wouldn't know who we were.
We sheltered behind that wall for about an hour until the shooting finally eased. During that time, my father called me twice. I lied to him, telling him I was farther from the battle than I really was.
More guards moved into the area, first securing it and finally motioning to us one by one to leave. By then, we later learned, eight attackers and three guards lay dead.
But at the moment I wasn't sure whether other attackers were hiding nearby. I felt safe only when I finally got away from the area. I called my father and told him I was on my way back to the office and not to worry.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Rahim Faiez, a correspondent with The Associated Press in Afghanistan since January 2002, was waiting in a security area outside the heavily fortified Afghan presidential compound in Kabul for an escort to the palace to cover a speech by President Hamid Karzai when he got caught up Tuesday in a brazen Taliban attack. This is his account.
Leap Motion is about a month away from shipping its 3-D gesture controller to consumers, and it wants to make sure there are plenty of apps for users to play with. With that in mind, the company is opening up access to its Airspace app store for any developers who are already testing out the device, and it will further open its developer portal to those who don't already have access to it.
One of the wonderful things about getting your first iPhone was the sheer self-sufficient simplicity of the thing?here was a device that served as a map, mp3 player, notebook, phone, and anything else you might need, all crunched into a beautiful little package. But if this year's WWDC was any indication, that era of autonomous Apple devices is nearing an end.
A lot has already been said about the graphic design changes made by Jony Ive in iOS 7, from the app icons, to the colors, to the typography itself. But there are plenty of other things to be gleaned from this new iOS. Underneath the cosmetic changes?which look far more radical than they act?we can see the faint outline of a foundation being laid for a new generation of mobile devices.
A User Interface With a Physics Engine
Parallax looks cool and all, but it?s also just a taste of what?s to come from iOS 7?s cryptically named dynamic motion controls, in the UIKit. Connecting animated UI elements with the accelerometer transforms them into nearly real-world objects, which respond to the gestures and movements of the user.
According to Matt Webb, the founder of London UX studio Berg, we?re seeing the emergence of a UI hybridized with a physics engine. ?As flat as the visual design of iOS 7 is, this is where Apple's skeuomorphs have gone: Into the behavior of the UI itself,? he said over email. ?There's a whole new design language here, just waiting to be discovered.?
Once developers start to unpack and explore this new language, we'll begin to see all of the ways in which this physics-based UI can be utilized. Some have called parallax a gimmick, but it's really more of an appetizer for the many ways the accelerometer could make the iOS interface adaptable to the world around it. Imagine if your phone knew to switch into a simplified mode when you're on your bike, or in the car. Or if you could shake away notifications. Or if on-screen objects reacted to light, motion, and touch the same way off-screen objects do.
Most of us reached our functional limit for iOS 7 criticisms sometime last week, but there are a few interesting tidbits that may tell us something about the future iPhone 5S or 6. As Philippe Azimzadeh has pointed out, plenty of the new UI details deal with color. For example, certain graphic elements will change according to the color of the background behind it. Even the apps themselves have been given their own distinct ?mood? colors.
All of this hints at the introduction of multi-colored iPhone or iPad bodies, which users could customize their iOS skin to complement. Down the line, the UI color scheme and hardware color schemes might be completely interchangeable. In fact, it seems as though Apple is attempting to make every UI element on the homescreen ?disappear,? by presenting the control center text over a semi-transparent lens, and by unifying the color scheme between navigation and status bar. Only apps themselves will have a consistent palette.
Apple is built upon a very specific design ethos: each product has its own definite hard- and software language and appearance. But personalization may be the future.
New Sensors, New Interactions
There's been plenty fo speculation that the forthcoming iPhone 5s (or 6) will likely incorporate new sensors. Those could include a fingerprint sensor, which would tailor the iOS interface to users based on biological data, or an altitude sensor, which would increase the precision of location-based services and apps. The future iPhone UI could adapt your security settings based on your location?either at home, work, or out in public.
Nick Bilton hinted at this a while back when he interviewed a sensor engineer for The New York Times. "One way to [increase security and privacy on mobile phones with sensors] is to build software that detects how you hold and interact with the device?almost like a motion fingerprint," he wrote. "After you use a new phone for a short period of time, it will start to learn your patterns and automatically lock or unlock the phone accordingly. This could be used for more secure banking too."
We may be about to see that prediction come true. The swipe-anywhere unlock gesture in iOS 7 could be a step towards introducing fingerprint-based security, for example. And the newfound adaptability of the UI?using the accelerometer?paves the way for developers to incorporate other sensor data into UI behaviors, including security based on location.
The iPhone as Digital Brain
From Greek gods to modern computers, humans tend to mold their inventions in their own image. Mobile devices are no different: Traditionally they encase a series of systems in a single shell. But that?s quickly changing, since there?s no reason that hardware peripherals need to be sandwiched within the same device. At WWDC, we got a taste of how Apple is opening up iOS to pull data from new hardware platforms?for example, the new iOS 7 car app, which will connect your phone to your in-car dash.
Industrial designer and Gizmodo contributor Don Lehman describes these as ?hardware apps,? and explains that this could be where Apple delves into smart watch territory, if they do at all. ?One of the biggest points of design for smart watches is battery consumption the more capabilities you add to a device, the more power it consumes,? he says. ?But if the device acted as a peripheral to the smartphone, it could offload some of those also allows you to keep cost and size down.?
We?re already beginning to see the emergence of a UI that would support a series of peripherals. On the iOS 7 pull-down control center, for example, we?re given a quick read of what?s up in terms of weather, iCal, and other disparate apps. That functionality could carry over to display info from hardware platforms.
Building a ?Connective Tissue? Between Devices
We can?t talk about hardware apps without talking about what?s linking all these peripherals to our phones. ?Just like Apple's ?Digital Hub? strategy from the last decade," says Webb, "they're putting the pieces in place to become the ?Internet of Things? hub too." iOS 7 will support AirDrop, finally enabling iOS users to exchange files between devices without Wi-Fi. On the AirPlay side of things, 9to5 Mac reports that Apple is also planning to open up AirPlay Audio to developers, allowing them to leverage audio on any hardware platform, rather than just certain types of audio devices.
One of the less-discussed features unveiled at WWDC this year was something called the Apple Notification Center Service, which will allow your phone to push notifications to any other Bluetooth-enabled hardware. The ANCS is what will allow your phone to push iCal notifications directly to, say, a Bluetooth-enabled smart watch, or headphones, or wireless speakers. That sounds fairly small, but according to Webb, the ANCS is an early indication that Apple is laying the groundwork for a network of smart devices that are in constant contact.
All of these newly connected devices will need a central iOS 7 command center, too. Days before WWDC even happened, Webb speculated that Apple will eventually introduce an app to collect all of the hardware peripherals in iOS. He named this imaginary feature ?Nightstand,? (analogous to Newstand) and described it as a ?virtual table for physical things.? It?s easy to imagine iOS 7?s new control center fulfilling this function, too. Meanwhile, a combination of AirDrop, AirPlay, and Bluetooth will work together to form a ?connective tissue of a peripheral ecosystem around smartphones, just as USB was for peripherals around the PC.?
Of course, speculation is just that: speculation. But in many ways, WWDC was the opening salvo to an entirely new kind of Apple product ecology?one that is far more flexible and immersive than anything we?ve seen before. Future iPhones and iPads won?t be phones so much as brains, acting as central processors that suck data from dozens of sensors and hardware apps, communicating through an interface that adapts to the world around it.
A hacker has exploited Facebook?s graph search to collect a database of thousands of phone numbers and Facebook users. Both parties agree that all the information was left public by users (even if the users themselves may still not realize it). But Facebook issued him a cease and desist after the hacker continued to scrape data and argued with Facebook that the availability of the information invades users' privacy.
LONDON (AP) ? For the second straight year, Rafael Nadal is leaving Wimbledon early after a stunning loss to a little-known player ranked in the hundreds.
In one of the tournament's greatest upsets, an ailing Nadal was knocked out in straight sets Monday by 135th-ranked Steve Darcis of Belgium ? the Spaniard's first loss in the opening round of any Grand Slam event.
The free-swinging Darcis defeated the two-time champion 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8), 6-4 on Court 1, ending Nadal's 22-match winning streak and eliminating one of the Big Four of men's tennis on the very first day of the grass-court Grand Slam.
After serving an ace down the middle on match point, Darcis conceded he was as surprised as everyone.
"Nobody was expecting me to win," he said. "So I had to play a good match, relax, and enjoy the game. That's what I did."
There were no surprises for the other big names: Defending champion Roger Federer, bidding for a record eighth Wimbledon title, and second-seeded Andy Murray both won in straight sets on Centre Court.
Nadal was sidelined for seven months with a left knee injury after losing in the second round of Wimbledon last year. He seemed to be struggling physically Monday. He was unable to turn on the speed or use his legs to spring into his groundstrokes, limping and failing to run for some shots.
Nadal declined to blame any injury and gave full credit to the 29-year-old Darcis, who had never beaten a top-5 player before and has yet to go beyond the third round of any Grand Slam.
"I don't ... talk about my knee this afternoon," Nadal said. "Only thing that can say today is congratulate Steve Darcis. He played a fantastic match. Everything that I will say today about my knee is an excuse, and I don't like to put any excuse when I'm losing a match like I lost today."
Darcis, who had won only one previous match at Wimbledon, played the match of his life Monday, going for his shots and moving Nadal from corner to corner. Darcis amassed a total of 53 winners, compared with 32 for Nadal.
"Of course, Rafa didn't play his best tennis," Darcis said. "I could see it. So I took advantage of it, tried to fight. Maybe he was not in the best shape ever. Maybe he didn't play his best match. But I have to be proud of me, I think."
Darcis said he didn't know whether Nadal was injured, or was just troubled by the grass conditions.
"Not the day to talk about these kind of things," Nadal said. "I am confident that I will have a good recovery and be ready for the next tournaments."
Darcis finished the match in style, serving his 13th ace as Nadal failed to chase the ball.
Darcis is the lowest ranked player to beat Nadal at any tournament since Joachim Johansson ? ranked No. 690 ? defeated the Spaniard in 2006 in Stockholm. Gustavo Kuerten, in 1997, was the last reigning French Open champion to lose in the first round at Wimbledon.
Nadal was coming off his eighth championship at the French Open this month. But on this day he never looked like the player who has won 12 Grand Slam titles and established himself as one of the greatest players of his generation.
Last year, Nadal was ousted in the second round by 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol, a match that finished under the closed roof of Centre Court.
After that loss, Nadal took the rest of the year off to recover from the knee problem, missing the U.S. Open and Australian Open. Since returning to action this year, he had made it to the finals of all nine tournaments he entered, winning seven.
After winning the French Open, Nadal pulled out of a grass-court tuneup in Halle, Germany. He came to Wimbledon without any serious grass-court preparation.
"The opponent played well," Nadal said. "I had my chances. I didn't make it. So in grass (it's) difficult to adapt yourself, to adapt your game. When you don't have the chance to play before, I didn't have that chance this year, is tougher. I didn't find my rhythm."
Ten years after his first Wimbledon championship, Federer opened play on Centre Court as defending champion and looked right as home as he dismantled Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 6-2, 6-0.
This was a grass-court clinic lasting 68 minutes. Federer had 32 winners, seven aces and just six unforced errors. He won 90 percent of the points when he put his first serve in. When his serve is clicking, Federer usually is unbeatable. On this day, he won his first 15 service points and 24 out of the first 25.
"I'm happy to get out of there early and quickly," Federer said. "So it was a perfect day."
Last year, Federer equaled Pete Sampras and William Renshaw with seven Wimbledon titles. He is now contending to become the first man to win the tournament eight times, which would bring his total of Grand Slam titles to 18.
Federer came out wearing a white collared jacket with orange trim, then quickly got down to business. He never faced a break point and broke six times.
Federer has a habit of making things look easy. And so it was in the opening game when, stranded at the net, he reached behind him for a reflex forehand volley that landed in for a winner. In the third set, Federer lifted a perfect backhand lob over the 6-foot-6 Hanescu for a break and a 5-0 lead.
Murray, the U.S. Open champion who again tries to become the first British man to win the trophy since Fred Perry in 1936, got off to a strong start with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 win over Benjamin Becker of Germany.
"It was a tough start for me. He is a very good grass player," Murray said. "I was ready and to win in three sets was a good start. There's always nerves at the start of a Grand Slam and I'm glad to get it out of the way and hopefully I can improve as it goes on."
It was Murray's first match on Centre Court since he beat Federer on the grass for the gold medal at last year's London Olympics ? a month after losing to Federer in the Wimbledon final. The two could meet in the semifinals this year.
The weather was mostly cloudy but dry for the beginning of the two-week championships. Among those in the Royal Box were former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Pippa Middleton, the younger sister of Prince William's wife, Kate.
In women's play, there was an early upset as fifth-seeded Sara Errani was eliminated by Puerto Rican teenager Monica Puig 6-3, 6-2.
Puig slugged 38 winners in overwhelming Errani in the first match on Court 18. The 19-year-old Puig, playing her first grass-court tournament as a pro, completely outplayed the Italian veteran with her hard-hitting baseline game.
Puig said she has been building on a recent run of success, including a third-round showing at the French Open.
"Definitely pulling off some big career wins and not being afraid to close out matches, which was my problem at the beginning of the year," she said. "Finally just having the confidence to close them out."
In other women's matches, second-seeded Victoria Azarenka overcame a right knee injury from a scary fall beating Maria Joao Koehler of Portugal 6-1, 6-2.
Azarenka screamed in pain after slipping and falling at the baseline in the second game of the second set. She sobbed on court and received medical treatment.
Playing the rest of the match with a heavy wrap on her right knee, Azarenka limped noticeably but managed to win comfortably against an opponent making her Wimbledon debut.
"I was in such pain at the beginning, it wouldn't let go," Azarenka said. "I think it calmed down."
Third-seeded Maria Sharapova, the 2004 Wimbledon champion, came through a first-set tiebreaker and beat 37th-ranked Kristina Mladenovic of France 7-6 (5), 6-3.
Sharapova drew attention over the weekend by delivering a sharp news-conference rebuke to Serena Williams over critical comments attributed to the top-seeded American in a recent magazine article. Sharapova swatted away questions about the feud Monday.
"I've said everything that I wanted to say about the issue," she said. "Wimbledon started. This is my work. This is my job. I'd really appreciate it if we move on."
Other women's winners Monday included No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki, No. 12 Ana Ivanovic and No. 16 Jelena Jankovic.
Advancing among the men were No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, No. 10 Marin Cilic, No. 15 Nicolas Almagro and No. 18 John Isner. Janko Tiparevic, seeded No. 14, lost to fellow Serb Viktor Troicki, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (5).
Sony's unveiled its latest addition to its Xperia Z series, a new smartphone that blurs the line between smartphone and tablet once more -- the appropriately-named Xperia Z Ultra. Packing a 6.4-inch display that runs at 1080p resolution, it bests other similarly giganticsuperphones that all currently hover around 720p. This new screen is paired with Qualcomm's latest and greatest mobile processor, the impressively potent 2.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800, throwing in 4G LTE connectivity too.
It all weighs in at 212 grams (over 50 grams more than the Xperia Z) but the body has been slimmed down to a mere 6.5mm uniform thickness, jostling with the barely-announced Ascend P6 for title of thinnest phone despite those high-end specifications (and screen dimensions). There's 16GB of built-in storage, 11GB of which is user-accessible, while a microSD slot will add an additional 64GB if needed. To power that screen, Sony has also cranked the battery pack up to 3,000mAh and we're hoping that will be enough for all those high-end components it'll be powering. There's no specifics on LTE bands just yet, but the phone also packs a pentaband HSPA radio, ensuring the global model will play nice on AT&T's 3G service, at least, when it launches later this year. We've got more details (especially on that display) after the break.
Changing minds about climate change policy can be done -- sometimesPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erik Nisbet Nisbet.5@osu.edu 614-247-1693 Ohio State University
Simply communicating the benefits is not enough
COLUMBUS, Ohio Some open-minded people can be swayed to support government intervention on climate change but only if they are presented with both the benefits and the costs, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that those who were open-minded didn't change their view if they heard arguments for only one side of the issue.
People who are relatively more closed-minded did not change their mind regardless of the messages they received, or what their original views were. There was also no evidence of open-minded people becoming less supportive of government intervention, no matter if they heard both sides of the argument or only one.
"Climate change is such a polarizing issue that has received so much attention, so it is very difficult to influence people to change their opinion," said Erik Nisbet, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
"But our results suggest there are ways to approach the issue that may have some impact, at least for a segment of the public."
The study appears online in the Journal of Communication and will be published in a future print edition.
The study involved a nationally representative sample of people who participated online. First, participants filled out a questionnaire asking a variety of questions and seeing where they stood on government intervention in climate change.
Four weeks later, the participants watched either one or two short videos that took sides on whether the government should take action to reduce the effects of climate change. Some saw only a video for or against government action, while others saw both pro and con videos. (See the videos here, here and here.)
"In the real world, people are getting multiple competing messages on all kinds of important issues. We wanted to have an experiment where we could compare people who are exposed to one side of an argument to those who saw two sides in our videos," Nisbet said.
But it is not just the messages themselves that determine people's attitudes. Nisbet and his colleagues also measured a key individual difference in people how open- or closed-minded they are when grappling with an issue like climate change.
The researchers used several questions from an often-used and validated psychological test to determine open-mindedness. Participants were asked how much they agreed with statements like "Even after I have made up my mind about something, I am always eager to consider a different opinion."
After viewing either one or two videos, the participants were asked again as they were four weeks earlier about their views on government intervention on climate change.
Nisbet said it wasn't surprising that there wasn't much change in most people's views on the issue. But there was that interesting interaction in which open-minded people became more supportive of government intervention if they saw videos both for and against intervention.
"I think a lot of people would expect seeing both the pro and con videos would leave viewers unchanged in their views, because the messages would cancel each other out," Nisbet said.
"But that wasn't true for open-minded people. Seeing both videos seemed to stimulate them to think more about both sides of the issue, and lead them to the side they thought had the better argument."
The results suggest that climate change denialists may be less effective in swaying public opinion than many scientists and advocates fear, and may even hurt their own cause among those who are most open-minded, according to Nisbet.
"Some people, when they hear both sides, will more carefully deliberate the tradeoffs of climate change policies and actually become more supportive of government efforts to mitigate the problem."
However, some findings of the study suggest changing the minds of closed-minded people may not be hopeless, Nisbet said.
The researchers asked participants how they viewed the costs versus the benefits of government action on climate change, both before and after they watched the video or videos.
The results showed that open-minded people are willing to consider the benefits of changing the status quo, while closed-minded people focus on the dangers of changing and were more likely to support maintaining the status quo.
This suggests that closed-minded people may be influenced by messages that focus on how government approaches to climate change may preserve the status quo by, for instance, protecting our lifestyle or nation's economic status.
"That approach still needs to be tested, but there is promise there," he said.
###
Nisbet conducted the study with P.S. Hart of American University, Teresa Myers of George Mason University and Morgan Ellithorpe of Ohio State.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Contact: Erik Nisbet, (614) 247-1693; Nisbet.5@osu.edu
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Changing minds about climate change policy can be done -- sometimesPublic release date: 24-Jun-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Erik Nisbet Nisbet.5@osu.edu 614-247-1693 Ohio State University
Simply communicating the benefits is not enough
COLUMBUS, Ohio Some open-minded people can be swayed to support government intervention on climate change but only if they are presented with both the benefits and the costs, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that those who were open-minded didn't change their view if they heard arguments for only one side of the issue.
People who are relatively more closed-minded did not change their mind regardless of the messages they received, or what their original views were. There was also no evidence of open-minded people becoming less supportive of government intervention, no matter if they heard both sides of the argument or only one.
"Climate change is such a polarizing issue that has received so much attention, so it is very difficult to influence people to change their opinion," said Erik Nisbet, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
"But our results suggest there are ways to approach the issue that may have some impact, at least for a segment of the public."
The study appears online in the Journal of Communication and will be published in a future print edition.
The study involved a nationally representative sample of people who participated online. First, participants filled out a questionnaire asking a variety of questions and seeing where they stood on government intervention in climate change.
Four weeks later, the participants watched either one or two short videos that took sides on whether the government should take action to reduce the effects of climate change. Some saw only a video for or against government action, while others saw both pro and con videos. (See the videos here, here and here.)
"In the real world, people are getting multiple competing messages on all kinds of important issues. We wanted to have an experiment where we could compare people who are exposed to one side of an argument to those who saw two sides in our videos," Nisbet said.
But it is not just the messages themselves that determine people's attitudes. Nisbet and his colleagues also measured a key individual difference in people how open- or closed-minded they are when grappling with an issue like climate change.
The researchers used several questions from an often-used and validated psychological test to determine open-mindedness. Participants were asked how much they agreed with statements like "Even after I have made up my mind about something, I am always eager to consider a different opinion."
After viewing either one or two videos, the participants were asked again as they were four weeks earlier about their views on government intervention on climate change.
Nisbet said it wasn't surprising that there wasn't much change in most people's views on the issue. But there was that interesting interaction in which open-minded people became more supportive of government intervention if they saw videos both for and against intervention.
"I think a lot of people would expect seeing both the pro and con videos would leave viewers unchanged in their views, because the messages would cancel each other out," Nisbet said.
"But that wasn't true for open-minded people. Seeing both videos seemed to stimulate them to think more about both sides of the issue, and lead them to the side they thought had the better argument."
The results suggest that climate change denialists may be less effective in swaying public opinion than many scientists and advocates fear, and may even hurt their own cause among those who are most open-minded, according to Nisbet.
"Some people, when they hear both sides, will more carefully deliberate the tradeoffs of climate change policies and actually become more supportive of government efforts to mitigate the problem."
However, some findings of the study suggest changing the minds of closed-minded people may not be hopeless, Nisbet said.
The researchers asked participants how they viewed the costs versus the benefits of government action on climate change, both before and after they watched the video or videos.
The results showed that open-minded people are willing to consider the benefits of changing the status quo, while closed-minded people focus on the dangers of changing and were more likely to support maintaining the status quo.
This suggests that closed-minded people may be influenced by messages that focus on how government approaches to climate change may preserve the status quo by, for instance, protecting our lifestyle or nation's economic status.
"That approach still needs to be tested, but there is promise there," he said.
###
Nisbet conducted the study with P.S. Hart of American University, Teresa Myers of George Mason University and Morgan Ellithorpe of Ohio State.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Contact: Erik Nisbet, (614) 247-1693; Nisbet.5@osu.edu
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Erste Group Bank on Monday reversed guidance from just two months ago, saying it plans a cash call to help repay emergency state funding and that operating profit will fall this year rather than hold steady.
Its stock fell almost 10 percent, roughly matching what analysts say will be the extent of earnings dilution from the new shares.
Central and eastern Europe's No. 3 lender said it will raise about 660 million euros ($867 million) in equity in the third quarter and that operating profit will fall as much as 5 percent this year.
The bank said it would repay 1.76 billion euros in non-voting participation capital it raised in 2009 to help it weather the financial crisis. Austria provided two thirds and private investors the rest.
The stock fell as much as 9.6 percent to 19.85 euros and was off 7.4 percent by 1325 GMT, against a 1.4 percent fall for the Stoxx European banking sector index <.sx7p>.
Analyst Dirk Becker at Kepler Cheuvreux said it was disappointing that Erste had gone back on its promise not to issue shares, and that Austrian regulators had told the bank to replace at least a third of crisis funding from 2009.
"The short-term performance of the stock could now be negative because of the upcoming rights issue but we believe the long-term story remains attractive," he told clients in a note, keeping his "hold" rating.
Erste and the Austrian central bank declined comment on whether regulators had insisted on a rights issue to replace part of the aid. Finance Minister Maria Fekter called the repayment "more than positive for taxpayers".
Erste said it expected a slight improvement in economic performance in central eastern Europe in the second half, even though growth rates would remain moderate.
"Erste Group expects the operating result to decline by up to 5 percent in 2013, due to expected lower operating income only being partially off-set by lower operating cost," it said.
Its risk costs were set to fall about 10-15 percent in 2013, mainly due to improvement in Romania, where it reiterated it expected to make a profit this year.
EYES ON RAIFFEISEN
Erste said repaying increasingly expensive capital would save 149 million euros after tax in 2014 and 158 million in 2015, rising in subsequent years, and was expected to help improve earnings per share from 2014.
Its rights issue was "subject to market conditions and the approval by its management and supervisory boards", it said.
"The planned capital increase ... will further strengthen Erste Group's capital base so that Erste Group expects to meet its targeted 10 percent fully loaded Basel 3 common equity Tier-1 ratio by December 31, 2014," it said, referring to meeting new capital adequacy rules.
ING analysts questioned whether Erste's move would prompt Austrian peer Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) under its new management to "make a copycat move to tap equity markets and repay its chunk of participation capital".
Erste has been trading at nearly 10 times 12-month forward earnings, a premium to RBI on nearly 8 times, according to StarMine, which ranks analyst estimates by forecasting accuracy.
Raiffeisen - which got 2.5 billion in participation capital, of which 1.75 billion came from the state - declined to comment except to reiterate that a capital increase was an option depending on market conditions.
Deutsche Bank said it did not expect Raiffeisen take any action on its balance sheet until Chief Executive Karl Sevelda had a chance to put his new organizational structure in place.
"The pressure to act will, however, clearly have risen following Erste Group's planned capital increase," it said in a research note. RBI shares fell 2.7 percent to 23.235 euros.
J.P. Morgan Securities , Morgan Stanley Bank and Erste itself will run the Erste capital increase.
Adjusted for proceeds from the capital hike, Erste's core Tier 1 ratio under capital adequacy rule Basel 2.5, excluding participation capital and retained earnings in the first quarter, would be 10.2 percent instead of 9.6 percent, it said.
Erste estimated the switch to Basel III standards would have a negative impact of 30 basis points. It is also switching its method of calculating risk-weighted assets in Romania in 2015, which would have a negative impact of about 40 basis points.
BEIJING (AP) ? Chinese workers keeping an American executive confined to his Beijing medical supply factory said Tuesday that they had not been paid in two months in a compensation dispute that highlights tensions in China's labor market.
The executive, Chip Starnes of Specialty Medical Supplies, denied the workers' allegations of two months of unpaid wages, as he endured a fifth day of captivity at the plant in the capital's northeastern suburbs, peering out from behind the bars of his office window.
About 100 workers are demanding back pay and severance packages identical to those offered 30 workers being laid off from the Coral Springs, Florida-based company's plastics division. The demands followed rumors that the entire plant was being closed, despite Starnes' assertion that the company doesn't plan to fire the others.
The dispute highlights general tensions in China's labor market as bosses worry about rising wages and workers are on edge about the impact of slowing growth on the future of their jobs.
Inside one of the plant's buildings, about 30 mostly women hung around, their arms crossed. One worker, Gao Ping, told reporters inside an administrative office in the plant that she wanted to quit because she hadn't been paid for two months.
Dressed in blue overalls and sitting down at a desk, Gao said her division ? which makes alcohol prep pads, used for cleaning skin before injections ? had not been doing well and that she wanted her salary and compensation.
Workers in other divisions saw how badly her division was doing, thought the whole company was faring poorly and also wanted to quit and get compensation, said Gao, who had been working for the company for six years.
Starnes, 42, denied that they were owed unpaid salary.
"They are demanding full severance pay, but they still have a job. That's the problem," he said, still in the clothes he wore when he went to work Friday morning.
Chu Lixiang, a local union official representing the workers in talks with Starnes, said the workers were demanding the portion of their salaries yet to be paid and a "reasonable" level of compensation before leaving their jobs. Neither gave details on the amounts demanded.
Chu said workers believed the plant was closing and that Starnes would run away without paying severance. Starnes' attorney arrived Tuesday afternoon. Chu later told reporters that there would be no negotiations for the rest of the day.
Starnes said that since Saturday morning, about 80 workers had been blocking every exit around the clock and depriving him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office.
The standoff points to long-ingrained habits among Chinese workers who are sometimes left unprotected when factories close without severance or wages owed. Such incidents have been rarer as labor protections improve, although disputes still occur and local governments have at times barred foreign executives from leaving until they are resolved.
Starnes said the company had gradually been winding down its plastics division, planning to move it to Mumbai, India. He arrived in Beijing a week ago to lay off the last 30 people. Some had been working there for up to nine years, so their compensation packages were "pretty nice," he said. Then workers in other divisions started demanding similar severance packages on Friday, he said.
Kevin Jones, who advises U.S. companies on Chinese labor and employment law, said it is better if American executives stay at home and let their local managers lay off workers.
In a case last week, Jones said the chief financial officer of a U.S. telecommunications equipment maker wanted to come to Beijing to explain the situation and give 41 white-collar workers their termination notices.
"We told him to stay in America," said Jones, who chairs the Shanghai-based Faegre Baker Daniels labor and employment practice. The company's lawyers met with six employee representatives in a hotel. "We had two bodyguards but that was just in case things got out of control," Jones said.
Christian Murck, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said Chinese labor law specified a minimum severance pay in the event of a layoff due to economic necessity or if someone is dismissed due to cause, but not a maximum one.
"There is a kind of structural weakness in the way the labor law is set up that leads to negotiations and disputes when departures occur," Murck said.
A new food and drink fair is set to bring together seventeen of Birmingham?s independent food and drink traders, who will showcase their products to guests including food bloggers, journalists, online foodies, and members of the public.
Named #FutureFoodies, with the now heavily-used Twitter hashtag reflecting its emphasis on social media, this event will take place on Wednesday 26 June at Hotel La Tour, a luxury hotel in central Birmingham?s emerging Eastside district.
Between 5.30 and 8.30pm, visitors will enjoy complimentary samples of locally-produced food and drink in the spacious lobby and cafe area. The spread will range from chutneys and cheeses, to canap?s, cocktails, burritos, brigadeiros, Birmingham-brewed beers and handmade confectionery.
Hotel La Tour?s own brasserie, Aalto Restaurant, will create a lavish Dessert Bar, presenting freshly-baked sweet treats with matching dessert wines
Other businesses exhibiting include artisan delis such as Lewis?s of Moseley, drinks purveyors like the Birmingham Whisky Club, and restaurants like Le Truc Cafe. Collectives of independent producers are also represented, by Heart of England Fine Foods (HEFF) and the Digbeth Dining Club, Birmingham?s first street food fair, which runs every Friday.
#FutureFoodies is led by Dine Birmingham, Birmingham?s online restaurant, food and drink guide. The event is organised in collaboration with The Gastro Card, Yelp Birmingham, and Midlands Food Bloggers, three organisations with a commitment to promoting local independent food businesses.
Ahmed Ahmed, creator and editor of Dine Birmingham, explained the motivation for the event:
?Through running Dine Birmingham, it?s become obvious, not only that the city has a very rich food and drink culture, but also that people are sharing their opinions about it every day via social media.
?#FutureFoodies is about promoting Birmingham?s gourmet entrepreneurs in a new, community-driven way. People have been really vocal on Twitter in telling us which traders they?d like to see. In fact, most of the businesses in the final line-up were recommended by Dine Birmingham?s online followers.?
The event is supported by Visit Birmingham, the city?s official leisure tourism programme. Emma Gray, Director of Marketing Services, said:
?Birmingham?s independent food scene has really taken off in recent years ? we?ve seen an explosion in street food, pop-up culinary events and local traders serving up fresh, regional produce.
?With over half of visitors coming to Birmingham due to its acclaimed culinary scene, food is a key part of our destination offer. #FutureFoodies is a unique event that will further boost Birmingham?s gastronomic image, demonstrating the vast range of food and drink available in the city.?
In keeping with the social media theme, members of the public wishing to attend #FutureFoodies are invited to join an online guestlist, which can be accessed by visiting www.dinebirmingham.co.uk/futurefoodies
Leap Motion is about a month away from shipping its 3-D gesture controller to consumers, and it wants to make sure there are plenty of apps for users to play with. With that in mind, the company is opening up access to its Airspace app store for any developers who are already testing out the device, and it will further open its developer portal to those who don't already have access to it.
A hacker has exploited Facebook?s graph search to collect a database of thousands of phone numbers and Facebook users. Both parties agree that all the information was left public by users (even if the users themselves may still not realize it). But Facebook issued him a cease and desist after the hacker continued to scrape data and argued with Facebook that the availability of the information invades users' privacy.
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Public release date: 24-Jun-2013
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