text:
chief goal of industrial chemistry is to produce compounds with
useful characteristics at as low a price as possible. Researchers
from Northwestern University and various other institutions,
along with corporate partners, have certainly fulfilled the first
objective. They have created an exotic blend of polymer and the
ubiquitous nanomaterial, carbon nanotubes, that is stronger than
Kevlar.The new material has extremely high
specific strength and energy-to-failure ratios. That
means that it can absorb a lot of impact without tearing, which in
turn means that the force of the impact will spread out rather than
be concentrated in a single destructive point. The yarn was
produced from double-walled carbon nanotubes and cross-linkable
organic polymers like polyvinylalcohol (PVA).Interestingly,
the yarn fibers themselves had strength characteristics slightly
inferior to kevlar. For the engineers out there, the maximal
reported values for ductility was ~20%, ~100Jg-1 for
the energy to failure ratios, and ~1.4GPa for the specific
strength. But when the fiber bundles were woven together,
forming a macro-fiber with specific strength of ~6 GPa and energy to
failure ratios of ~500Jg-1.These
materials of the woven cloth compared favorably to the 3 GPa strength
of kevlar and its approximately 30 Jg-1 energy
to failure ratio. In other words, that's good enough to
substantiate the University's claim that the material "could be
tougher than Kevlar", at least to some extent.Heat
treatment is one key to increasing the energy to failure ratio,
likely because it activates the polymer cross-linking.Engineering
professor Horacio
Espinosa led the study. He states,
"We want to create new-generation fibers that exhibit both
superior strength and toughness. A big issue in engineering
fibers is that they are either strong or ductile — we want a fiber
that is both. The fibers we fabricated show very high ductility and a
very high toughness. They can absorb and dissipate large amounts of
energy before failure. We also observed that the strength of the
material stays very, very high, which has not been shown before.
These fibers can be used for a wide variety of defense and aerospace
applications."The research was significant as past
strength tests focused on pure-nanotube mixtures, which had
the tendency for the tubes to slip laterally when stressed, weakening
the resulting material. The new composite material is much
stronger as the polymers fix the nanotubes in place.The
research was funded by a $7.5M USD grant from the Army Research
Office to investigate new materials for next
generation bulletproof vests, parachutes, or composite materials
used in vehicles, airplanes and satellites. The project is part
of the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University
Research Initiative (MURI) program, which promotes defense-minded
projects that require a variety of engineering fields to
collaborate.The study on the intriguing new material is
titled "A
Multiscale Study of High Performance Double-Walled Nanotube−Polymer
Fibers" and is published in the journal ACS
future work will focus in part on refining the material strength even
further, the crucial next step will be refining methods to mass
produce the fibers. A great
deal of work has already been put into mass producing carbon
nanotubes, so commercial super-strong carbon-polymer-based body armor
may not be as far off as one might think.


text:
Curious about what it's like to walk in a CEO's shoes? Wonder what obstacles or achievements regularly happen for a startup founder? Or perhaps you've just always wanted to know about an entrpereneur's personal journey?
Then you will not want to miss the special "Ask a Founder" Twitter event featuring Marissa Di Pasquale, Founder and CEO of Cashtivity and a graduate of the Sydney Founder Institute. During this event, which takes place on Thursday, April 24 at 5:00pm PDT (see your local time here), you can log on to Twitter and Tweet any questions you might have for Marissa.
How to Participate?
- This will be a 30-minute Twitter Q&A session.
- It will take place on this Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/Cashtivity
- During the event, Tweet your questions to @Cashtivity and make sure to use the hashtag #askafounder.
- To ask questions prior to the event, submit them here: http://bit.ly/1lCmrEz
- The best questions and answers will be retweeted on the official Founder Institute Twitter, @founding.
About the Founder: Marissa Di Pasquale
Marissa Di Pasquale is the Founder and CEO of Cashtivity, an education company which provides an innovative collaborative platform built entirely of apps to make it fun and easy for kids to learn how to build businesses. Cashtivity was recently named one of Australia's Top Founder Institute Graduates for being awarded a prestigious grant by the Australian government and also competing at the Women 2.0 Conference. Melbourne-based Marissa is a Graduate of the Sydney Founder Institute.
For more free startup events, visit http://fi.co/events.
If you could benefit from expert training and feedback to launch a company, apply to the Founder Institute today. We are currently accepting applications across Australia, in Perth, Sydney, and Melbourne, as well as many other cities worldwide.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Every farmwife has her trusty bucket that she uses around the house and garden. Her bucket is ideal for putting things in or used to accomplish tasks around the house in. Whether it's used as a decoration in her home, used outside for gathering food and flowers from the garden, or used temporarily as a toy for the kids, a good bucket is priceless on the farm.
Today the Farmwives share uses for buckets given to them by Red Hill General Store's Bucket Outlet. Join me as we take a peak inside some of the farmwives homes and gardens and see what they were using their buckets for. You can always visit them individually and stay a little longer by clicking on the links and be sure to check out our Give-a-Way at then end of this post!!!!!
Katie from Pinke Post shows off the Barley Harvest in North Dakota and used her bucket as a centerpiece.
3 Kids & Lots of Pigs packed sandwhiches in their bucket before heading out to VBS, Swim Lessons and all their other busy summer activities.
Or you could store bug spray and sun screen in it so you can quickly grab it on your way out the door for summer activities like Leah from Beyer Beware.
We are thrilled to have Red Hill General Store offer a give-a-way to you our readers. This beautiful Galvanized Embossed Tub can be yours by entering our give-a-way. We love the detailing around the edge of this tub and just think how great it could look as a decoration in your house, or used to bring in fresh produce from the garden.


text:
Ready, set, vote!
Nominee voting is now underway for the 40th annual People's Choice Awards. As always, we're letting you pick the contenders. The top 5 winners in each category will be crowned official nominees during a star-studded announcement ceremony on Nov. 5.
From Favorite TV Bromance to Favorite Female Artist, the 2014 awards are shaping up to be the most contentious yet. To top it off, we've also got a slew of brand new categories that you voted on. The new categories include Favorite Movie Duo, Favorite Alternative Artist, Favorite Country Music Icon, Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Star, Favorite Streaming Series, Favorite TV Movie/Mini-series, and Favorite On-Screen Chemistry (calling all shippers!).
Don't see your favorite on the list? Don't worry. There's a write-in option for each of the 54 categories.
So, what are you waiting for? Vote now!
The People's Choice Awards air Jan. 8 at 9 p.m. EST on CBS.
Read More:
Which TV couple has the BEST On-Screen chemistry? And why? — DISCUSS
Who's the best sci-fi/fantasy star of all time? — Debate
Which movie couple has the BEST chemistry? — Discuss
For the latest pop culture news and voting, make sure to sign up for the People's Choice newsletter!


text:
March 28 Wired.com reportedly received
an unbelievable email claiming that a tipster had obtained a
misplaced fourth generation iPhone. According to the site, they
entered a brief discussion about coverage on the device. The
discussion quickly terminated though when the source start hinting he
wanted money. Wired declined
to buy possibly stolen property and thus walked away from the year's
biggest tech scoop.Gizmodo on
the other hand had took
the bait. Now, not long after police raided the home of a
Gizmodo editor,
police reportedly have located the seller as well.A source
close to the transaction is quoted by Wired.com as
claiming that the seller made an earnest effort to return the phone
to Apple. They claim they tried to contact Apple and searched
for the iPhone user on Facebook, but couldn't find them. They
claim the $5,000 "sale" described by Gizmodo was
really merely for an exclusivity agreement, not the sale of the
actual device. Describes the source, "The idea wasn't to
find out who was going to pay the most, it was, Who's going to
confirm this?"The finder is reportedly a college-aged
Silicon Valley man.If the search
warrant against Chen is any indication, the man may soon
face criminal charges. Police obviously aren't buying the
exclusivity fee claim, particularly after Gizmodo admitted
in writing to buying the phone and numerous staffers at the site
commented on the device's purchase, including site owner and Gawker
President Nick Denton.The police reason that if the finder
wanted to return the phone, why didn't he just turn it in to police?
That, after all, is the legal approach if you discover something
valuable that didn't belong to you.


text:
Free Checking Nearly Twice as Likely at Big CUs Than Banks: Bankrate.com
Credit unions are nearly twice as likely as banks to offer free checking accounts with no strings attached, according to Bankrate.com.
The personal finance content specialist said its 2013 Credit Union Checking Survey of the 50 largest credit unions found that 72% offered standalone free checking compared with 39% of banks.
The survey also found that from 2010 to the end of 2012, the percentage of credit unions offering free checking dropped from 78% to 72%, while it plunged from 65% to 39% at banks.
"While banks have significantly scaled back free checking accounts, free checking remains the rule, rather than the exception, among credit unions," said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at New York-based Bankrate.com.
The 72% figure was the same in last year's survey.
The 2013 survey also found that 96% percent of the credit union checking accounts that Bankrate surveyed are free or can become free with direct deposit, e-statements, transaction activity, other accounts and balances or some combination of those.
Meanwhile, Bankrate.com found, the most commons non-sufficient funds fee at credit unions was $30, compared with $35 at banks,
The survey also found that credit unions' average ATM surcharge jumped 10% over the past year, from $2.08 to $2.29 and that surcharging is nearly universal at both banks and credit unions.


text:
Avoid Solutions Looking for Problems: Editor/Publisher's Column
During the Governmental Affairs Conference, Chip Filson announced his intention to seek an NCUA Board seat, which was the culmination of speeches and online postings criticizing the NCUA's activities throughout the financial and corporate crises. He has launched a petition designed to force President Obama to consider him as a candidate. Chip knows credit unions inside and out, and he's fiercely intelligent. He's highly qualified to sit on the NCUA Board as far as his résumé is concerned.
But this is where I give pause to his idea of reforming the NCUA appointment process, as stated in the petition, "Appointed NCUA governing leaders should hold to the same standards credit unions themselves follow. They should be motivated by the unique contributions and needs of a cooperative business."
The NCUA should absolutely consider credit unions' unique qualities when regulating and overseeing the industry. That's the agency's duty. It is NOT, NOT, NOT, however, the agency's duty to "be motivated by" the seven cooperative principles. Recognizing examiners for their chartering efforts, as Chip has suggested, is a VERY BAD idea. The credit union community is no longer a collection of 22,000 small credit unions. Today it holds more than $1 trillion in assets and 7,000 credit unions. The world has said, we don't need any more financial institutions–perhaps different ones but not more of the same.
Unfortunately, Chip was out of the country when I contacted his office to discuss his concept, but I did scrape bits and pieces of answers to my questions from his recent blog posts. In one titled, "How to apply the 7 cooperative principles to regulatory design," he suggests that the NCUA should practice cooperative principles and notes the insurance fund as an example. He suggests that the funds should be used to the system's benefit.
The NCUSIF and the work of the NCUA were the only things that kept half of all credit unions from going out of business overnight when five corporates failed. The agency wasn't perfect, but it got the job done in fixing the corporate mess to the benefit of the entire industry.
Another post criticizes the agency's reporting of financials related to the corporate crisis, which have been sketchy, but makes the argument using reported capital at the corporates as of December 2007, well before they were conserved and liquidated. As of the month prior to each of the five conservatorships, the combined capital was negative $1.3 billion for U.S. Central and WesCorp and $143 million for the other three. It was gone. At the time of liquidation in the fall of 2010, the five corporates' equity was negative $14 billion.
Additionally, the CLF was an asset of U.S. Central. There was nothing left. That's what happens in a cooperative industry that's overly interdependent. It's all the same money moved around to different pots.
In fact, very few natural person credit unions have ever wanted the CLF or used it, so U.S. Central funded nearly all of it. Only 96 credit unions are direct members even now, and the remaining corporates will not be able to pony up the necessary stock for their members to join the CLF.
Look at the initial funding of the CLF, care of a little arm-twisting from Chip Filson, who was president of the CLF at the time. The corporates didn't want the CLF. Credit unions didn't want the CLF. It was a solution looking for a problem.
Railing against the NCUA for unilateral decision-making in the corporate crisis – which is not true given that credit unions executives served on the boards of the credit unions and had the initial responsibility to oversee the credit unions – rings hollow in light of forced cooperation.
NCUA Board members should have a strong grasp of credit unions and their cooperative nature. Chairman Debbie Matz came from a credit union and a previous stint on the NCUA Board. Board Member Michael Fryzel was the state credit union regulator in Illinois. Gigi Hyland, who occupied the now open seat on the NCUA Board, worked as a credit union attorney, a trade association executive and is actually a CU Development Educator.
While I don't agree with what they're doing all the time, no one can really say these people are not understanding of credit unions' cooperative principles. Again, this petition is a solution looking for a problem.
Chip has emphasized that, "We the people are the government." I agree whole-heartedly. If you don't like something, try to change it. Like it or not, you have to play by the rules or the other players will kick you off the field. No one likes that political appointments are about scratching the back of the person who just scratched yours, but at the NCUA the board members in recent memory really did have a deep understanding of credit unions. Maybe credit unions (or I) didn't like some of what they did, but it wasn't because they didn't understand credit unions.
Before petitioning the president (in a week and a half, Chip had 1,800 of the 100,000 necessary signatures to gather within 30 days to require a response from the president), related issues could be addressed in a more traditional manner and be more effective.
For example, eliminate the restriction that only one person with a credit union background serve on the board at a time. Not only has it been flouted with the most recent NCUA Board make up, but it is not consistent with the bank regulators.
Second, expand the NCUA Board, which would help negate industry influence on the regulator and better avoid situations like the current one where there are only two board members of opposite political parties–and very soon possibly just one board member who could act unilaterally.
I applaud Chip's advocacy for what he very passionately believes to be right for credit unions, and admire his knowledge and voracity, but this movement's goals are not appropriate for a regulatory agency.


text:
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Images as Dr Tony Xia and Roberto Di Matteo tour Villa Park together and take part in internal media work. Pictures by Neville Williams/Aston Villa/Getty Images.
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text:
Samsung introduced at CES 2008 its new line of Series
6 and Series 7 LCD high-definition televisions. Besides the usual features
of a 1080p resolution, 120Hz refresh rates and 4ms response times, Samsung was
proud to point out that its full line (LN40A650T, LN46A650T, LN52A650T,
LN40A750T, LN46A750T, and LN52A750T) will feature a "Touch of Color" design that
adds a hint of amber color naturally blended into Samsung's piano black bezel
With all the excitement of a colored bezel, Samsung may have
forgotten to mention in its press release that its upcoming high-end LCD HDTVs
will come packed with video games. Several models will come with content
preloaded into the set's built-in flash memory, some of which will be games.
Tim Baxter, executive vice president of Samsung, told the AP that simple
games such as Sudoku will be bundled with televisions. Other programs
potentially preloaded on the TV include artwork (for use as a digital picture
frame), screensavers, fitness programs and recipes.
"If you think about the TV experience, it has
historically been a lean-back experience," Baxter said, contrasting it to
the "lean forward" experience of the PC. "We think there are
opportunities to bring very relevant parts of that experience into the living
Users will also be able to add new programs and artwork by
transferring them from the PC to a flash drive, which can interface with the
set's USB slot.
Furthermore, the TV's Ethernet port can also pave the way
for more content options, including news, weather, sports and stocks
information supplied by USA Today in a picture-in-picture window.
Samsung's Series 6 LCD HDTVs will be available starting this
March, with the Series 7 hitting in May.


text:
FedComp Stays Committed to Small Credit Unions
After 30 years in business, the Fairfax, Va.-based core data processing system provider FedComp Inc. made the decision to move the 130 credit unions using its Internet banking product VirtualCU onto the Boise, Idaho-based Database Management Services' more modern HomeCU. That's left FedComp to put more resources into its flagship product, the FedComp Platinum core data processor, as well as add-on services the company has developed over the years.
Originally written in DOS mode, FedComp's core data processing product launched in 1982, according to Bob Duff, CEO/founder for FedComp. Duff has worked in the credit union industry since 1974, and his staff members are industry veterans as well. Combined, FedComp staff has just under 300 years of credit union industry experience, said Karen Rys, vice president of operations.
"We made a conscious effort to build a team with experience in the credit union industry," Rys said.
Small credit unions are FedComp's forte. In the beginning, it only served clients with less than $25 million in assets. Five years ago, the company expanded to serve credit unions with less than $100 million in assets.
"We have a passion for small credit unions," Duff said. "Our motto is to provide the same sense of community to credit unions that they provide to their members."
The company's total number of credit union clients was at a high in the late 1980s at around 2,000, Duff said. It now has around 900, and Duff attributes the fall to an onslaught of mergers.
"We peaked before the merger heyday," Duff said. "The small credit unions are who we're serving, but they're also the credit unions that are merging. That's been our biggest external challenge."
VirtualCU, designed to fulfill the earliest home banking needs of FedComp's credit union clients, came out in the late 1990s as a website that held a link to a home banking interface, where members could view and print their transactional history. A relationship blossomed between FedComp and DMS in the early 2000s, and FedComp later realized DMS' HomeCU would be a better fit for VirtualCU users.
The 130 credit unions set to migrate onto HomeCU will continue to use Platinum simultaneously, and FedComp said it views the change as a welcomed technology improvement for those clients.
"We have strong relationships with our clients, and they come to us regularly with ideas of what they'd like to add to their packages," Rys said. "Sometimes, there's someone else in the marketplace that we can partner with in order to offer that to them."
Platinum's features include a virtual cash drawer and filing cabinet, credit bureau inquiry services, a teller system, loan application tracking capabilities, and inventory management and reconciliation services. Duff emphasized that the system is module-based and allows credit unions to purchase customized sets of features that best fit their needs.
One of Platinum's clients is the $27.9 million Hopewell, Va.-based Vantage Point Federal Credit Union, which signed on with FedComp in 2007. Vantage Point FCU President/CEO Violet West said she learned about FedComp while doing consulting work for the Virginia Credit Union League. At the time, FedComp was in the midst of a project with the league that entailed implementing technology at small Virginia credit unions.
West said her credit union values Platinum's custom report writer, which allows users to select desired fields and create custom reports, the system's ease of use, and the fact it gives tellers a full picture of each member on a single screen.
The $70.3 million, Houston, Texas-based Southern Federal Credit Union began working with FedComp in 1988, when the credit union decided to move from a batch-based data processing system to a Web-based system, according to CEO Jeanne Walker.
Southern FCU Operations Coordinator April Baker, who joined the credit union in 2001, said she likes that Platinum allows staff members to import member profile photos, email members directly, select customized color schemes and block specified content through the system's security settings.
Baker added FedComp ensures its clients' voices are heard when it comes to system changes and updates.
"We can make suggestions about enhancements, and they'll take them into consideration," Baker said. "Sometimes they'll take your idea and expand on it themselves. For example, we asked if we could print from a certain screen, and they took that a step further and developed several new printing capabilities. They're really open to making it more useful for their clients."
Aside from the Platinum system, FedComp produces forms, stationery, and statement processing and marketing solutions through FedComp Supply, a company it created with Norristown, Pa.-based vendor CU ink. FedComp said it's also committed to educating clients by putting out a newsletter, and organizing training meetings.
"We believe in keeping our credit unions trained and up to date," Rys said. "So we enable conversations between our credit unions and find out what kinds of enhancements would help them with their productivity."
Duff said through its partnerships, such as the one it has with DMS, FedComp can help credit unions stay on the cutting edge of technology and successfully serve a young market. He added that from his point of view, the innovations taking place at credit unions are continuing to grow.
"Technology is our biggest focus, and we're looking to put out technology that aligns with what younger folks want," Duff said. "There's a lot of experimentation going on in credit unions. I've really been seeing a lot of risk-taking and new features."
What's next for FedComp and its clients? The company said thanks to HomeCU, its credit union clients can now provide mobile and text banking services to their members. Rys added FedComp plans to work with state credit union leagues on technology projects designed to help small credit unions go virtual.
"The level of service that young members are seeking is something that credit unions need to keep up with," Rys said. "The barrier for credit unions isn't always the dollars, it's the internal capacity that's needed to develop it."


text: Considered by most to be the world's BEST in quality and craftsmanship, the Johnson Precision Magic company is famous for their coins and cups & balls. While they do cost a little more than other brands, you are getting what you pay for. Made in the USA and used by professional magicians worldwide, Johnson Magic products are second to none and highly sought after in the industry!


text:
STMX is a high-performance Common Lisp library for composable Transactional Memory (TM), a concurrency control mechanism aimed at making concurrent programming easier to write and understand. Instead of traditional lock-based programming, one programs with atomic memory transactions: if a memory transaction returns normally it is committed. If it signals an error, it is rolled back. Transactions can safely run in parallel in different threads, are re-executed from the beginning in case of conflicts or if consistent reads cannot be guaranteed, and effects of a transaction are not visible from other threads until committed. This gives freedom from deadlocks, automatic rollback on failure, and aims to resolve the tension between granularity and concurrency.
QueryFS is a FUSE-based virtual filesystem that is based on queries. There are plugins to parse various query syntaxes and each query creates a virtual directory. Currently the most elaborate query language is SQL-based; you can either provide access to data stored in an SQL database, or keep an index of files in the SQL database and generate search directories with symlinks to found files. QueryFS and its SQL2 query DSL fully support creation of refinable searches: for example, the author has an index of downloaded email files; one can see all the distinct senders registered in the DB and then go into a directory of one sender and see all accounts that ever received an email from this sender.
Design Center is a Web application that allows users to change the colour of different layers in a photo. In a photo of a bedroom, there could be layers for the walls, the ceiling, and for the floor. The application lets users change the colour of each and see how a new paint job would look. If used on a furniture store's Web site, different layers could be used for beds, chairs, lampshades, etc. to allow customisation by users.
DSWM (Deep Space Window Manager) is a tiling keyboard-driven X11 window manager. It is based on StumpWM code and is written entirely in Common Lisp and oriented for good usability with minimum startup configuration and good integration with Emacs. The project is under hard development, so it has many experimental features.
Phoros is a Web-based tool for photogrammetric road survey. Storage locations of images and GPS data acquired by a measuring vehicle are stored by Phoros into a PostgreSQL database. Images and a map are then presented on Phoros' Web interface. There, a user can determine and store global coordinates of features shown in the images.


text:
Submit News
Windows Phone 8 Launches on 3 of Top 4 U.S. Carriers With "Killer" Hardware
Jason Mick
October 29, 2012 4:24 PM
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
Windows Phone grows up
"Killer hardware" is not a phrase that's been associated with Microsoft Corp.'s (
) fledgling Windows Phone effort in the past. Much like Google Inc.'s (
) Android, Microsoft has chosen the low road try to court third-parties and differentiate itself on an interface level, rather than necessarily beat the top players hardware-wise.
I. New Features, New Apps
But much like Android evolved to sport some of the most bleeding edge hardware the industry has to offer, Windows Phone 8 represents Microsoft's own evolution; the chance for the mobile veteran to finally show off its decidedly different user interface on high-end hardware.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer describes, "[The Windows Phone 8 handsets are] new killer hardware. I would argue some of the best hardware you will find, if not the best hardware you'll find in any smartphone form factor."
While Microsoft's animated mostly two-tone "Live Tiles" interface (aka Metro UI) tended to draw strong reactions -- either admiration or disdain -- the operating system maker is offering arguably the most radical user interface in the business. You can argue that's a good thing or a bad thing, but you can't fault Microsoft for not innovating; if anything its critics are compelled to argue it has
Microsoft would surely disagree.
In the new operating system release Microsoft
continues to push the boundary
. It now allows a mix of smaller and bigger Live Tiles. Before the only option was to pin or unpin tiles; now you also get the option of growing small tiles to be big or shrinking big tiles to be small.
Customizable tiles in Windows Phone 8
The lock screen is now able to accept animations from apps (with permission from the user) open a world of new possibilities to Microsoft's growing legion of WinPhone app developers, who to date have produced 120,000 total apps.
Demoed examples included feeds from Group, the Picture Roll, or even Facebook, all on your lock screen.
Microsoft has also worked hard to woo high profile app developers, and announced that 46 of the top 50 titles in Android and iOS will now be on the Windows Phone. Long missing new additions include Temple Run and The Walt Disney Comp. (
) hit "Where's My Water?". At the start of 2013 Pandora Media Inc. (
) will be launching an exclusive Windows Phone app with a full year of ad-free music (Microsoft must have paid a pretty penny for that).
Skype is also built into
the new operating system.
Given U.S. carriers' shift to bandwidth-capped connections, another key Windows Phone 8 addition is Data Sense. Microsoft brags that it compresses and decompresses its data traffic much more efficiently than its rivals Apple, Inc. (
) and Google. The net result is that Windows Phone will take longer to hit their data cap and be less likely to incur overages. The built in monitoring will also give users peace of mind that they didn't "accidentally" exceed their allotment.
Data Sense helps Windows Phone users survive on metered connections.
[Image Source: The Verge]
With Data Sense, the phone even automatically crawls onto Wi-Fi networks you have access to, in essence making it sort of the war-driver of the smartphone world. Microsoft estimates that with data sense you will get 45 percent more web browsing per unit of data.
Microsoft also has a brand new children-geared app called "Kid's Corner", which allows kids to play games or apps on their parent's smartphone with parental-imposed restrictions. Microsoft invited Jessica Alba to give her thoughts on the app. She comments, "I love kids corner, I think it's awesome. I love that I can curate the content. I don't have to worry about my kid going into my social media networks or emailing my partners or anything like that. So my daughter who is four, when she was two she got my phone and typed away and it showed up on my Twitter feed."
Jessica Alba loves Windows Phone [Image Source: The Verge]
In other words, Microsoft hopes Kid's Corner will help stop the youngsters from sending embarrassing "tweets" on your behalf.
Microsoft has tied a new feature called "Rooms" into its people hub, which is equal parts an extension Google+ Hangout and an extension of the existing Groups People hub category system.
For fans of Apple's iTunes with a closet liking for Microsoft products, Microsoft also has created an app that allows your Windows Phone to connect with your iTunes library (no Zune Media Player necessary). This means Mac OS X computer users could use Windows Phones, an unlikely, but amusing prospect.
Microsoft has beefed up its Office apps as well. There's superior SkyDrive syncing across the cloud of Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices. And OneNote now supports speech to text notes.
Lastly, Microsoft is
offering up Xbox Music
in finished form. The 30 million track catalog is available for both ad-supported (free) and ad-free ($9.99 USD per month) streaming.
II. Hot Hardware
The remaining piece of the puzzle is hardware.
With Windows Phone 8 Microsoft has pulled abreast of Android and iOS in terms of having fast, multi-core processors, large amounts of RAM, better GPUs, larger screens, etc. The perfect example of that is HTC Corp.'s (
, which features a 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 Super LCD 2 display,
Gorilla Glass 2
protective coating, a dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB DRAM, 16GB internal NAND Flash, LTE, and a 1,800 mAh Li-ion battery.
The phone also sports two chips -- a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for better headphone sound quality and HTC's exclusive pictures-from-video chip technology. Only a couple Android smartphone and the new Windows Phone will have those features; the iPhone is left behind without the ability to capture photos from video and with inferior sound quality.
The HTC Windows Phone 8X
Nokia Oyj. (
) brings some compelling features of its own with its
PureView optical image stabilization
-- a smartphone industry first. Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd.'s (
Windows Phone
also made a brief appearance, although it looked a bit anemic, compared to its high-end brethren. Ballmer praised its strengths primarily by saying that it was "unbelievably thin, incredibly light" -- the handset is arguably less compelling than the actual additional hardware muscle offered by Nokia and HTC.
III. Now on Three of the Top Four U.S. Carriers
The other big news is that,
as rumored
, Verizon Communications -- the joint subsidiary of Verizon Communications Inc. (
) and Vodafone Group Plc. (
) -- is diving into Windows Phone. It will be the exclusive carrier, for now, to carry the Samsung Ativ in the U.S. The Ativ will launch on Big Red, the largest U.S. network, in December.
AT&T, Inc. (
) -- the initial U.S. adopter of Windows Phone -- is rewarded with the high-end Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC 8X, arguably the most compelling launch Windows Phone 8 handsets.
T-Mobile USA, the fourth place American carrier and subsidiary of German telecommunications giant Deustsche Telecom AG (
) is finally getting in on the Windows Phone action, as well, as announced. It will be getting the powerful HTC 8X, in addition to the budget-minded Nokia Lumia 822. Thanks to its recent
merger with MetroPCS
Communications, Inc. (
) T-Mobile could be the carrier to beat for customers who want an 8X.
Windows Phone is finally coming to Verizon's high-speed LTE network.
[Image Source: Android Spin]
That leaves floundering Sprint Nextel Corp. (
), as
the odd man out
; the only major U.S. carrier not to adopt Windows Phone. Sprint has increasingly turned its back on Windows Phone, and -- to an extent -- Android. It is today
pinning most of its sales hopes on Apple
; on the prospect of luring in iPhone 5 customers to its "unlimited" data plan. Sprint recently took out a $7B USD loan to fund a lump sum payment to Apple to convince it to let it carry the iPhone
Windows Phone 8, like Windows 8, will certainly endure its fair share of criticism. But it deserves credit for not shying away from pushing the bounds of user interfaces. And its moves to finally reach parity on certain popular apps, high end hardware, and carrier selection make it much more of a real competitor to Android and Apple, the current kings of the market.
Expect big things from Windows Phone 8.
The Verge
"So if you want to save the planet, feel free to drive your Hummer. Just avoid the drive thru line at McDonalds." -- Michael Asher
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text:
from the University
of Oxford and King's College London have made a
crucial discovery that could lead to the development of better treatments and
maybe even a cure for type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Tim Spector, study leader from the Department of Twin Research at King's
College London, and Professor Mark McCarthy, co-author of the University of
Oxford, have determined how a previously discovered gene that is linked to type 2 diabetes and cholesterol acts as a
regulator for the gene's that reside within the body's fat.
KLF14 has
been linked to type 2 diabetes and cholesterol levels in previous studies. But
now, scientists have figured out how this gene acts as a regulator for genes
located in far-away body fat.
seems to act as a master switch controlling processes that connect
changes in the behavior of subcutaneous fat to disturbances in muscle and liver
that contribute to diabetes and other conditions," said McCarthy. "We
are working hard right now to understand these processes and how we can use
this information to improve treatment of these conditions."
A child
inherits a set of genes from both the mother and the father. In this study,
researchers found that the KLF14 gene inherited its activity from the mother
while the father's KLF14 gene remains inactive. The KLF14's ability to control
distant genes in the body's fat is completely dependent on the mother's
discovered that the mother's KLF14 gene controls other genes associated with body-mass index (obesity), insulin,
glucose levels and cholesterol. This means that KLF14 is a "master
switch" that controls and shows the connections between metabolic traits.
made this discovery by recruiting 800 UK female twin participants and studying
over 20,000 genes in subcutaneous fat biopsies. They also looked at genes in
subcutaneous fat biopsies from Icelandic participants. Between the two studies,
researchers discovered the connections between the KLF14 gene and distant genes
associated with metabolic traits.
is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator
gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes," said
Spector. "This has great therapeutic potential particularly as by studying
large detailed populations such as the twins we hope to find more of these
This study was published in Nature
Genetics, and is part of multinational collaboration funded by the
Wellcome Trust called the MuTHER study.


text:
Pemetrexed/Selected NSAIDs; Aspirin (>325 mg) Interactions
This information is generalized and not intended as specific medical advice. Consult your healthcare professional before taking or discontinuing any drug or commencing any course of treatment.
Medical warning:
Serious. These medicines may interact and cause very harmful effects. Contact your healthcare professional (e.g. doctor or pharmacist) for more information.
How the interaction occurs:
NSAIDs (nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs) or aspirin may prevent your kidneys from removing pemetrexed from your body.
What might happen:
The amount of pemetrexed in your body may increase and cause more side effects than normally expected.
What you should do about this interaction:
Let your healthcare professionals (e.g. doctor or pharmacist) know that you are taking any NSAIDs or aspirin. Depending upon your NSAID or aspirin dose, your doctor may want you to stop taking your NSAID or aspirin for a few days before and a few days after your pemetrexed treatment. Your doctor may want to change the NSAID that you are taking.Your healthcare professionals may already be aware of this interaction and may be monitoring you for it. Do not start, stop, or change the dosage of any medicine before checking with them first.
- 1.Alimta (pemetrexed for injection) US prescribing information. Eli Lilly and Company March, 2015.
- 2.Personal Communication: Alimta - Use with nsaids or aspirin. Eli Lilly and Company February 10, 2004.


text:
Wikileaks aired
hundreds of thousands of classified documents on the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars that were stolen from the U.S Military, and
shared 250,000
stolen classified U.S. State Department cables with The
New York Times and
other news organizations worldwide. The website certainly
irritated the governments of U.S., China, Britain and many other
organizations worldwide. They moved to cut off the site's
funding, first convincing Amazon to throw
it off its hosting platform, then working with Paypal to sever
its primary source of funding. But
when Wikileaks yesterday
published a list of top
targets to hurt U.S. national security, the site seemingly sealed
its own fate. Its Swiss bank account was closed,
and Wikileaks reportedly
lost the money in it (the bank contended that Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange lied in the paperwork, saying he resided in
Switzerland, which he does not).Now the DNS Company, the web
listing organization which provided Wikileaks with
the right to use the domain name "wikileaks.org",
has terminated its
affiliation with the site. That means that attempts to reach
the site by domain name no longer succeed.The site also
lost another
hosting service -- EveryDNS.net -- and has jumped to a mix
of Swiss and French hosting at the present. But France's
government is already moving to ban the site from its nations
servers.Meanwhile the site is under a distributed denial of
service attack from
a "hacktivist" who goes by the moniker The Jester – or
"th3 j35t3r". On his Twitter feed, The Jester writes,
"TANGO DOWN - for attempting to endanger the lives of our
troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations."An
earlier attack exceeded a modest 2-4 Gbps, but a Tuesday attack was
even more potent, reaching a mean 10 Gbps.About the only way
to get to Wikileaks these days is via a Google search, which comes up
with its direct IP address, which is occasionally reachable,
depending on the current volume of fake service requests.Facing
the possibility of his masterwork being taken offline and complete
loss of funding, Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange surrendered
to authorities in Britain on Swedish rape charges unrelated
to the recent leaks. He has warned his followers that if
anything happens to him while he is imprisoned, that a secret key
will be released which will unlock a distributed archived file
containing all the site's unreleased secrets.One of Mr.
Assange's accusers in the Swedish sex crimes trial coincidentally
has ties
to the CIA. Mr. Assange was denied
bail, as he is to be extradited to Sweden for questioning on
outstanding allegations of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion.
When asked if he understood the ruling, he commented, "I
understand that and I do not consent."Apparently the
matter was not left up to his determination.


text:
Submit News
Scientists Show Evidence of How Earth Got Its Oxygen
Jason Mick
June 27, 2013 8:16 PM
Recipient E-mail
Sender E-mail
The precursor to photosynthesis may lie in manganese oxidation
Researchers have solid evidence indicating that massive blooms of
algae in the primordial ocean used the power of the sun to "split" (oxidize) water, releasing its oxygen atoms
as diatomic atmospheric oxygen gas
, while merging the hydrogen with carbon dioxide to build up sugars -- life's primary form of chemical energy storage.
I. What Came Before Modern Photosynthesis?
Researchers even have a good idea of where algae got their photosynthesis genes. Describes geobiology
Professor Woodward Fischer
of the
California Institute of Technology
(CalTech), "Water-oxidizing or water-splitting photosynthesis was invented by cyanobacteria approximately 2.4 billion years ago and then borrowed by other groups of organisms thereafter. Algae borrowed this photosynthetic system from cyanobacteria, and plants are just a group of algae that took photosynthesis on land, so we think with this finding we're looking at the inception of the molecular machinery that would give rise to oxygen."
Cyanobacteria is a
hardy phylum of bacteria
better known as "blue-green algae"
, a misleading name as it's not an algae at all) that's found in every continent. Some exobiologists even believe they may be
descended from extraplanetary microorganisms
that arrived aboard meteors hitting early Earth. Having survived billions of years, the cyanobacteria of today have photosynthetic systems similar to plants and true algae. But researchers believe it wasn't always that way -- there must have been an intermediate reaction that allowed the tiny sugar-factories to evolve towards full-blown synthesis.
Researchers have been hunting for the precursor to nature's primary modern energy storing process -- photosynthesis. [Image Source: Take Pride in Utah]
Professor Fischer and others have long hunted for this stepping stone which is thought to have preceded full-blown photosynthesis. Now he believes there may be an answer.
Maganese, a key component in photosynthesis involved in electron transfer, can also undergo alternative oxidation reactions (similar to the splitting of water) that transfer electrons to the manganese, changing its state without the presence of free oxygen. This reaction could drive the formation of energy-storing biomolecules. Prof. Fischer's
graduate student Jena Johnson
ponders, "Manganese plays an essential role in modern biological water splitting as a necessary catalyst in the process, so manganese-oxidizing photosynthesis makes sense as a potential transitional photosystem."
II. Manganese -- Can You Dig It?
But the researchers need evidence to support their hypothesis -- they need to document chemical and geological evidence of manganese oxidation being performed organically before traditional photosynthesis. The perfect place to look was in magnesium rich sediments deposited before the evolution of traditional photosynthesis.
Manganese is naturally soluble in seawater, with electrons in tow. But when exposed to strong oxidative agents (such as oxidative enzymes in a cyanobacteria), the manganese forms oxidated compounds which are insoluble and precipitate as solids, falling to the sea floor.
In an example of perfect timing the
Agouron Institute
(AGI) has just obtained drill cores of 2.415 billion-year-old South African marine sedimentary rocks. To the excitement of the CalTech team, these rocks showed a high concentration of manganese. Prof. Fisher comments, "Just the observation of these large enrichments -- 16 percent manganese in some samples -- provided a strong implication that the manganese had been oxidized, but this required confirmation."
Grad student Jena E. Johnson inspects an ancient African manganese-rich rock deposit.
[Image Source: CalTech]
The key question was first whether the manganese was truly oxidized and secondly when it arrived there. If it was truly dropped off 2.415 bya (billion years ago), then that would provide strong evidence of an organic origin and the researchers' hypothesis of how pre-photosynthetic bacteria formed oxygen. But ocean currents could easily have deposited the manganese at a later date, invalidating the deposits as solid evidence.
Thus the team had to examine the cores at a micron scale. To do that they developed new X-ray based techniques to examine the abundance of and oxidation states of manganese at a scale as small as 2 microns (2e-6 m, or 2000 nanometers).
Describes Prof. Fischer, "It's warranted -- these rocks are complicated at a micron scale! And yet, the rocks occupy hundreds of meters of stratigraphy across hundreds of square kilometers of ocean basin, so you need to be able to work between many scales -- very detailed ones, but also across the whole deposit to understand the ancient environmental processes at work."
The method was developed in collaboration with
Stanford University
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
professor Samuel Webb
describes, "It's really amazing to be able to use X-ray techniques to look back into the rock record and use the chemical observations on the microscale to shed light on some of the fundamental processes and mechanisms that occurred billions of years ago. Questions regarding the evolution of the photosynthetic pathway and the subsequent rise of oxygen in the atmosphere are critical for understanding not only the history of our own planet, but also the basics of how biology has perfected the process of photosynthesis."
The researchers next verified that the manganese was oxidized via an electron transfer and did not have attached oxygens. This was confirmed.
Together the evidence shows that something was widely oxidizing manganese across the ancient ocean, using a process that predated the oxygen-creating modern photosynthetic pathway. Where modern photosynthesis uses manganese to feed electrons on down a chain of reactions to drive water splitting, this earlier pathway stopped before these reactions, using the oxidation of manganese to directly drive processes, according to the supported hypothesis.
III. Can Researchers Recreate Ancient Bacteria?
Much work remains, though, in formulating what kinds of organic reactions the manganese oxidation may have directly driven. Comments Prof. Fisher:
I think that there will be a number of additional experiments that people will now attempt to try and reverse engineer a manganese photosynthetic photosystem or cell.
Once you know that this happened, it all of a sudden gives you reason to take more seriously an experimental program aimed at asking, 'Can we make a photosystem that's able to oxidize manganese but doesn't then go on to split water? How does it behave, and what is its chemistry?'
Even though we know what modern water splitting is and what it looks like, we still don't know exactly how it works. There is a still a major discovery to be made to find out exactly how the catalysis works, and now knowing where this machinery comes from may open new perspectives into its function -- an understanding that could help target technologies for energy production from artificial photosynthesis.
The team is moving on to a pair of new works to further support the hypothesis. The first involves examining similar core samples from ancient Australian deposits. If the samples show manganese, this would provide further evidence that manganese oxidizing pre-photosynthetic bacteria had spread around the globe.
Second, the team is looking to mutate a cyanobacteria to "go back", ditching the final pathways of photosynthesis to directly drive its biochemical pathways.
If the team can provide further evidence they could prove that bacteria first learned evolved a chain of enzymes to use sunlight to drive oxidation of manganese, before eventually acquiring more enzymes that allowed the splitting of water, improving the efficiency of the process, while allowing for the creation of an oxygen atmosphere and the high-density energy storage needed for multicellular life.
Researchers are working to "turn back the clock", engineering cyanobacteria that use manganese oxidation instead of water-splitting photosynthesis. [Image Source: CA.gov]
Currently the team has published the work on their hypotheses and inspection of the African rock samples in
a paper
[abstract] in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal
. The work was funded by the Agouron Institute,
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
's (NASA)'s
Exobiology Branch
, the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation
, and the
National Science Foundation
Graduate Research Fellowship program
Other authors on the work include CalTech geology
professor Joseph Kirschvink
, and
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) geochemistry
Professor Shuhei Ono
and Ph.D alumni Katherine Thomas.
CalTech [press release]
PNAS [abstract]
"It's okay. The scenarios aren't that clear. But it's good looking. [Steve Jobs] does good design, and [the iPad] is absolutely a good example of that." -- Bill Gates on the Apple iPad
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text:
CDCU College Program Featured on TV
A community development credit union program that helps lower income members save for their kids' college education will be featured today on the Public Broadcasting System's news magazine "Need to Know."
The CDCU is Hope Credit Union, the 28,000-member $162 million credit union, headquartered in Jackson, Miss., participates in the state's college savings account program.
"Need to Know provides a great forum for bringing attention to the tremendous need for responsible financial services that help families prosper during these difficult financial times," said Hope CEO Bill Bynum. "As more and more Americans find themselves outside the banking system, innovative solutions and institutions like Hope are critical to creating ladders of opportunity for struggling families."
"Need to Know" correspondent Stacey Tisdale provides a report on the Mississippi college savings program. The crew recorded students making field trips to the credit union, a grocery store and a college campus, the credit union said.
The college savings program seeks to address the gap in educational attainment affecting low-income and minority students in Mississippi, where less than 15% of 9th graders end up transitioning to and completing college. The two-year pilot project will help more than 500 families develop good saving habits, create a financial nest egg and pave the way for college, according to the credit union.
The television episode also interviewed, Lasonia Christon, whose child is in the program, and describes how the program is helping her create a brighter future for her children, the credit union said. Christon said that in addition to building a college fund for her twins, she has also made important financial decisions for herself. She had been unbanked prior to participating in the program, but is now a Hope Credit Union member with both a checking and savings account.


text:
Amazon may not have a whole lot of luck with the
sales tax-related situation lately, but that certainly won't stop the United
States' largest online retailer. To prove it, Amazon will be releasing a tablet
this year in order to broaden its e-commerce activity.
Tablets have become a large part of the computing
community over the past year or so. The release of Apple's
iPad in April 2010 (May 2010 internationally) made the tablet
a popular new mobile device, having sold 3 million devices in the first 80
days. The iPad
2 (released March 2011) skyrocketed in popularity as well,
with retailers reporting that they were sold out one day after the release.
The Android-based Motorola
Xoom was released in February 2011 and sold approximately 100,000 units
during the first six weeks of sales according to Deutsche Bank analysts. Research
in Motion's PlayBook for Blackberry hit store shelves in April of this year,
selling 50,000 units on the first day of launch.
Among the tablet hierarchy, investors and analysts
place Apple's iPad and iPad 2 at the top and predict that Amazon's
new tablet will be in the No. 2 spot according to Reuters. They believe Amazon's tablet
will beat other tablets that have already released like the Xoom and PlayBook
because both the Xoom and PlayBook are not "clearly connected to
content" while Amazon has music downloads, Kindle eBooks, and videos to buy
or stream.
"In the tablet market, the No. 2 player will
be Amazon," said Mark Gerber, director of technology research at Detwiler
Fenton. "None of these other tablets have really taken off."
Amazon's tablet, which will feature a 9-inch
screen and the Android operating system, is expected to compete directly with
Apple for a few reasons. First, Apple's iPads are connected to content like
iTunes for their music, books and video-related needs. As previously discussed,
Amazon has similar content connectivity as well. In addition, Amazon and Apple
have both released cloud storage services (Cloud
Drive and iCloud respectively)
giving users additional options after purchasing digital content.
While Google also has the Android Market available
for content as well as the Google
Music cloud service, analysts apparently do not believe these
feature can compete as well as Amazon could in the tablet realm.
Amazon is learning that mobility is key to
expanding its reach to consumers, and while it hopes to sell tablets in this
new endeavor, its more concerned with encouraging more spending on its other
products through the use of the tablet.
Amazon's tablet is expected to be introduced
sometime before October 2011.


text:
Guest Opinion: A Freed NCUSIF Would Nip NCUA's Overreach
After the Berlin Wall came down, Congress decided to cash in the peace dividend and began closing military bases. One of the bases that closed was our primary sponsor, McClellan Air Force Base. We decided to convert to a community field of membership. Unfortunately, our federal charter limited the field of membership to such an extent that we had to switch to a state charter to serve the multicounty Sacramento region. Charter choice is important for many reasons. The NCUA Board recently approved a new rule which permits the NCUA to designate a state-chartered credit union as "in troubled condition." The rule allows NCUA to override state regulator determined CAMEL codes. This is one more step by the NCUA to threaten the dual chartering system. I am concerned that credit unions that choose a state charter are finding themselves under de facto federal regulation. That erodes the dual chartering system.
I sit on the Department of Financial Institutions advisory committee for California state-chartered credit unions. At our last meeting, the members of the committee, who represent state-chartered credit unions, shared their concerns regarding their recent examinations in which NCUA examiners acted as if they were the regulator instead of the state DFI. The NCUA has used its authority as the share insurer to take over the examination process. In our SAFE Credit Union examination last year, the examiner in charge was assigned to our examination from the East Coast. The NCUA examiner and his recommendations were out of line and inconsistent with those of the DFI examination team. We clearly saw that the NCUA examination team was trying to override the judgment of the state examiners. The NCUA examiner at one point recommended that we stop lending to members.
Clearly, the NCUA does not have confidence in state regulators. In California, that doesn't make sense. In fact, one could more easily have less confidence in the NCUA.
In California, our state regulator is well-funded and in my experience (over 36 years as either a CPA for credit unions or credit union executive) is well-qualified to regulate state-chartered credit unions. On the other hand, there is a large body of evidence that raises the question of whether the NCUA is a competent regulator. The NCUA is the regulator on whose watch occurred one of the largest financial institution failures in the United States, the failure of most of the large corporate credit unions, as well as numerous catastrophic failures of natural person credit unions.
The dual charter system offers credit unions the option to choose the best regulator. At this time for hundreds of California credit unions, the better choice is a state charter. But that choice is meaningless if the NCUA controls the examination process, determines the CAMEL rating and dictates the findings and determines which solutions are acceptable to resolve the findings.
The reason why the dual charter system is under threat is that the NCUA acts as both the regulator and the insurer. We need to change that. In California, credit unions have the option for private share insurance. I consider that a bad option. The best solution for state-chartered credit unions is to have an independent federal insurer. I would recommend that we ask Congress to make the NCUSIF independent from the NCUA or to allow credit unions to be insured by the FDIC or to merge the NCUSIF and the FDIC. All three options would give state-chartered credit unions an independent insurer.
An independent NCUSIF would end the overhead transfer rate. The NCUA determines (who knows how?) an amount each year that is transferred from the insurance fund to pay for regulation of state-chartered credit unions. Without the overhead transfer, the NCUA would be more accountable for its budget.
An independent NCUSIF would not be conflicted when it comes time for prompt corrective action. The NCUA has in my opinion failed to promptly address failed credit unions because failures are negative publicity for the NCUA and raise questions about failed regulatory oversight.
An independent insurer would have more incentive to investigate failed credit unions to determine the causes of failure. The investigation of why credit unions fail would in my opinion lead to better oversight and regulation. The NCUA has every reason to cover up failures that point to their own lapses in examination and oversight. No one at the NCUA was ever held accountable for the lapses in oversight at the corporate credit unions.
An independent insurer would improve problem credit union resolution when failures occur. The NCUA badly bungled the corporate credit union resolution process. It filed suit against board members and management before filing suit against the most culpable party, the investment bankers who created and sold the flawed investments. The NCUA's actions against board members prejudiced their latter claims against the investment bankers. The NCUA cancelled the corporate director's liability coverage and created a systemwide angst that to this day raises the question of whether volunteers who follow the reasonable man rule are safe from the NCUA lawsuits against their personal assets.
Henry Wirz is president/CEO of SAFE Credit Union in North Highlands, Calif.
Contact 916-971-2201 or email@example.com


text:
Android platform may be the hottest player on the cell phone market,
having recently passed
Apple in the U.S. market, but it's by no means the perfect
platform. Recently there have been concerns
about the battery life of Android smartphones, which
reportedly isn't measuring up to the rival iPhone's.The top
executives at Google tackled
that issue at Google Zeitgeist, Google's outreach summit for
developers. Google's co-founder Larry Page blamed app
developers, stating, "I have noticed there are a few people who
have phones where there is software running in the background that
just sort of exhausts the battery quickly. If you are not getting a
day, there is something wrong."Google CEO Eric Schmidt
chimed in, clarifying the issue on battery drain. He stated,
"The primary consumer of the battery life on these phones is the
transmit/receive circuit. So tuning that and obviously figuring out a
way to not use too much of that extends your battery life. And
people bring in applications that are not particularly smart about
that, which is what Larry is trying to get at."
Page quipped back, "We can give you a bigger battery probably.
I'll see you afterwards."The concerning thing is that
according to some reports, Android's battery life is draining rather
quickly even when in standby or idle -- with no apps running (aside
from the core phone apps) and no data being transmitted.
Fortunately for Google, these reports seem to be putting little
damper on Android phone sales. Android
2.2 is about to make its debut, bringing with it Flash
(hopefully that doesn't cause further battery
issues). And the hot HTC
EVO 4G, the world's first 4G smartphone, will make its debut on
the Sprint network early next month.


text:
About Nfinity ®
Since 2003, Nfinity® has grown into a leading athletic footwear and apparel brand that delivers the best quality and value in team athletic footwear. Nfinity Athletic is the world's first and only brand with a core focus on designing and engineering lightweight high-performance athletic footwear for female athletes.
With uncompromising performance, style and comfort, Nfinity® product innovations specifically address the unique biomechanical needs of the female athlete to enhance their athletic performance and possibly reduce the risk of injury.
The Nfinity® brand's continued goal is to strengthen its position in the sports of Women's Basketball, Cheer, and Volleyball. Nfinity Athletic Corporation was ranked 9th on Inc. Magazine's list of "Top 100 Consumer Product Companies" in 2008. Nfinity was named "Business Innovation of the Year" in 2009, "Product Developer of the Year" in 2010 and "Most Innovative Company of the Year" as well as a Silver Stevie in Marketing for the Nfinity App for iPad in 2012 at the American Business Awards.