Groupon hasn’t had a great go of things since becoming a publicly traded company; founder and CEO Andrew Mason was ejected earlier this year, and its so-called “third-party” or daily deal revenue seems to be in a state of continuing decline as more customers shy away from or ignore those emails offering flash sales. But under current CEO Eric Lefkofsky, the focus has shifted to a place where users go to search for deals, which is why the redesigns of its mobile and web presences announced today make a lot of sense.
On mobile, Groupon now has a “Local Explorer” feature, which automatically bubbles up content in the city in which a user is currently located (it used to serve this via a ‘Nearby’ tag only). It detects location changes in the background and sends targeted deals via push notifications, too, which is clearly designed to remind users that the app exists when they’re on holiday and perhaps more likely to be in need of discounted meals at restaurants, etc.
There’s now a search bar at the top of every screen on mobile, emphasizing that new focus under Lefkofsky, and users are also greeted with personalized deal collections unique to each when they launch the app, instead of just a generic layout based on their hometown location. Groupon also moves into 12 new markets on the iPad with this update, which is key if the company is targeting travelers.
On the web, there’s likewise a personalized homepage with “curated collections of deals based on the customer’s interests, previous purchases, [and] purchases by other customers with similar interests,” and there’s a new persistent search bar on every page of the site, which also features autocomplete suggestions. Those, too are designed to increase discoverability.
Also new on the web are results that cross all of Groupon’s lines of business, spanning local deals, travel, restaurants and more, which is clearly aimed at generating some generative cross-market sales from users who are looking for more than one thing at once. Search also gets new filters that are designed to help users pinpoint their own specific areas of interest much more clearly.
Groupon may not be doing as well as some would’ve anticipated five years ago on its birthday, but these redesigns are the surest recent sign that it’s turning the prow of what has become a rather large and lumbering ecommerce ship towards new waters. A lot of these changes seem obvious in light of the current trends among online businesses and startups, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still have significant impact on Groupon’s average level of user engagement. Sadly, Groupon still requires an email to sign up for its website, which is perhaps the single most annoying thing about its platform. Baby steps, I suppose.
Groupon hasn’t had a great go of things since becoming a publicly traded company; founder and CEO Andrew Mason was ejected earlier this year, and its so-called “third-party” or daily deal revenue seems to be in a state of continuing decline as more customers shy away from or ignore those emails offering flash sales. But under current CEO Eric Lefkofsky, the focus has shifted to a place where users go to search for deals, which is why the redesigns of its mobile and web presences announced today make a lot of sense.
On mobile, Groupon now has a “Local Explorer” feature, which automatically bubbles up content in the city in which a user is currently located (it used to serve this via a ‘Nearby’ tag only). It detects location changes in the background and sends targeted deals via push notifications, too, which is clearly designed to remind users that the app exists when they’re on holiday and perhaps more likely to be in need of discounted meals at restaurants, etc.
There’s now a search bar at the top of every screen on mobile, emphasizing that new focus under Lefkofsky, and users are also greeted with personalized deal collections unique to each when they launch the app, instead of just a generic layout based on their hometown location. Groupon also moves into 12 new markets on the iPad with this update, which is key if the company is targeting travelers.
On the web, there’s likewise a personalized homepage with “curated collections of deals based on the customer’s interests, previous purchases, [and] purchases by other customers with similar interests,” and there’s a new persistent search bar on every page of the site, which also features autocomplete suggestions. Those, too are designed to increase discoverability.
Also new on the web are results that cross all of Groupon’s lines of business, spanning local deals, travel, restaurants and more, which is clearly aimed at generating some generative cross-market sales from users who are looking for more than one thing at once. Search also gets new filters that are designed to help users pinpoint their own specific areas of interest much more clearly.
Groupon may not be doing as well as some would’ve anticipated five years ago on its birthday, but these redesigns are the surest recent sign that it’s turning the prow of what has become a rather large and lumbering ecommerce ship towards new waters. A lot of these changes seem obvious in light of the current trends among online businesses and startups, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still have significant impact on Groupon’s average level of user engagement. Sadly, Groupon still requires an email to sign up for its website, which is perhaps the single most annoying thing about its platform. Baby steps, I suppose.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
Double-pronged attack could treat common children's cancer
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
1-Nov-2013
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Contact: Lauren King lauren.king@icr.ac.uk 020-715-35380 Institute of Cancer Research
A dual-pronged strategy using two experimental cancer drugs together could successfully treat a childhood cancer by inhibiting tumour growth and blocking off the escape routes it uses to become resistant to treatment, finds a new study.
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found that combining two separate molecularly targeted therapies could stop processes driving growth in a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, a major cause of cancer death in children.
The drugs, called AZD8055 and AZD6244, block two different signalling pathways involved in cancer growth acting like road-blocks on two separate routes that cancers could otherwise use to evade treatment.
The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research today (Friday, 1 November), was funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Cancer at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), with additional funding from Cancer Research UK, The Royal Marsden Hospital Charitable Fund and the Chris Lucas Trust.
Rhabdomyosarcoma tumours can form anywhere in the body and resemble primitive muscle tissue. Despite advances in treatment options, there has been little improvement in outcome for patients with rhabdomyosarcoma in decades and they remain difficult to treat.
Previous research has shown that many rhabdomyosarcomas display activity of the PI3 Kinase signalling pathway, which plays a key role in cancer growth. However, blocking this pathway in other cancer types can lead to alternative signalling pathways becoming active to compensate, allowing resistance to treatment to develop.
In this study, scientists at the ICR targeted the PI3 Kinase pathway and a second pathway called MAP Kinase, to assess any compensatory signalling and determine if blocking both pathways could effectively inhibit rhabdomyosarcoma cell growth.
The researchers found that the PI3 Kinase pathway was active in 83% of rhabdomyosarcoma samples from patients, and that 43% of these also showed activation of the MAP Kinase pathway. In experiments on rhabdomyosarcoma cells to block either pathway alone, they saw compensatory signalling through the alternative pathway, suggesting that inhibiting both pathways is an essential approach to treatment, irrespective of whether MAP kinase signalling was initially activated.
The researchers tested rhabdomyosarcomas with drugs known to be effective against the PI3 Kinase and MAP Kinase pathways. When they tried the drugs AZD8055 and AZD6244 separately they saw reduced cell growth and a decrease in levels of markers showing the activity of the signalling pathways. However, compensatory activity was clearly evident.
But when they combined the two drugs they found a synergistic effect, with cell growth reduced to a greater extent than with either treatment alone. They saw similar synergistic results when AZD8055 and AZD6244 were used together in mice with rhabdomyosarcoma tumours, with tumour marker levels reduced to less than 30% of those in controls.
Co-author Dr Janet Shipley, Team Leader in Sarcoma Molecular Pathology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said:
"Rhabdomyosarcoma is the main type of sarcoma to affect children and little improvement has been made recently using conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy - survival rates for some patients with this disease remain bleak. More effective targeted treatment is desperately needed. Our study shows that treating with one or other of these two drugs is not a good strategy but that combining them is a very promising option."
Co-author Dr Jane Renshaw, Senior Scientific Officer at The Institute of Cancer Research, said:
"We found that while most rhabdomyosarcoma tumours seem to have active PI3K signalling, inhibiting this pathway alone isn't enough to be an effective treatment. Cross-talk between the PI3 Kinase and MAP Kinase pathways means that cancer is able to find an alternative route, like traffic finding a way around a road-block. Targeting both pathways using two drugs together stops that compensatory action.
"These two drugs are being tested for use against cancers in adults so the next step will be to progress with clinical trials for children using the dual approach."
Nell Barrie, Cancer Research UK's Senior Science Communication Manager, said:
"Understanding the inner workings of cancer cells is crucial to finding the best ways to tackle the disease. This lab research emphasises the importance of targeting each cancer's weak points and combining drugs to develop more effective treatments which are urgently needed to improve survival for children's cancers like rhabdomyosarcoma. Further research and clinical trials will shed light on whether this promising drug combination could help save more lives."
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Double-pronged attack could treat common children's cancer
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
1-Nov-2013
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]
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Contact: Lauren King lauren.king@icr.ac.uk 020-715-35380 Institute of Cancer Research
A dual-pronged strategy using two experimental cancer drugs together could successfully treat a childhood cancer by inhibiting tumour growth and blocking off the escape routes it uses to become resistant to treatment, finds a new study.
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found that combining two separate molecularly targeted therapies could stop processes driving growth in a cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, a major cause of cancer death in children.
The drugs, called AZD8055 and AZD6244, block two different signalling pathways involved in cancer growth acting like road-blocks on two separate routes that cancers could otherwise use to evade treatment.
The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research today (Friday, 1 November), was funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Cancer at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), with additional funding from Cancer Research UK, The Royal Marsden Hospital Charitable Fund and the Chris Lucas Trust.
Rhabdomyosarcoma tumours can form anywhere in the body and resemble primitive muscle tissue. Despite advances in treatment options, there has been little improvement in outcome for patients with rhabdomyosarcoma in decades and they remain difficult to treat.
Previous research has shown that many rhabdomyosarcomas display activity of the PI3 Kinase signalling pathway, which plays a key role in cancer growth. However, blocking this pathway in other cancer types can lead to alternative signalling pathways becoming active to compensate, allowing resistance to treatment to develop.
In this study, scientists at the ICR targeted the PI3 Kinase pathway and a second pathway called MAP Kinase, to assess any compensatory signalling and determine if blocking both pathways could effectively inhibit rhabdomyosarcoma cell growth.
The researchers found that the PI3 Kinase pathway was active in 83% of rhabdomyosarcoma samples from patients, and that 43% of these also showed activation of the MAP Kinase pathway. In experiments on rhabdomyosarcoma cells to block either pathway alone, they saw compensatory signalling through the alternative pathway, suggesting that inhibiting both pathways is an essential approach to treatment, irrespective of whether MAP kinase signalling was initially activated.
The researchers tested rhabdomyosarcomas with drugs known to be effective against the PI3 Kinase and MAP Kinase pathways. When they tried the drugs AZD8055 and AZD6244 separately they saw reduced cell growth and a decrease in levels of markers showing the activity of the signalling pathways. However, compensatory activity was clearly evident.
But when they combined the two drugs they found a synergistic effect, with cell growth reduced to a greater extent than with either treatment alone. They saw similar synergistic results when AZD8055 and AZD6244 were used together in mice with rhabdomyosarcoma tumours, with tumour marker levels reduced to less than 30% of those in controls.
Co-author Dr Janet Shipley, Team Leader in Sarcoma Molecular Pathology at The Institute of Cancer Research, said:
"Rhabdomyosarcoma is the main type of sarcoma to affect children and little improvement has been made recently using conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy - survival rates for some patients with this disease remain bleak. More effective targeted treatment is desperately needed. Our study shows that treating with one or other of these two drugs is not a good strategy but that combining them is a very promising option."
Co-author Dr Jane Renshaw, Senior Scientific Officer at The Institute of Cancer Research, said:
"We found that while most rhabdomyosarcoma tumours seem to have active PI3K signalling, inhibiting this pathway alone isn't enough to be an effective treatment. Cross-talk between the PI3 Kinase and MAP Kinase pathways means that cancer is able to find an alternative route, like traffic finding a way around a road-block. Targeting both pathways using two drugs together stops that compensatory action.
"These two drugs are being tested for use against cancers in adults so the next step will be to progress with clinical trials for children using the dual approach."
Nell Barrie, Cancer Research UK's Senior Science Communication Manager, said:
"Understanding the inner workings of cancer cells is crucial to finding the best ways to tackle the disease. This lab research emphasises the importance of targeting each cancer's weak points and combining drugs to develop more effective treatments which are urgently needed to improve survival for children's cancers like rhabdomyosarcoma. Further research and clinical trials will shed light on whether this promising drug combination could help save more lives."
###
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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.
Circle Internet Financial has launched with $9M of Series A funding to increase mainstream adoption of digital currencies like Bitcoin by providing a payment platform for consumers and merchants. Investors include Jim Breyer, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners.
Circle is a payment platform that wants to make it easy for businesses and consumers to use Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Despite its association with Deep Web black market Silk Road, as well as concerns over its stability, more consumers and companies are beginning to show interest in Bitcoins because they can facilitate online payments at lower costs and with greater security and privacy than existing electronic payment methods. One potential draw for merchants is avoiding the fees and risks of fraud and chargebacks associated with credit cards.
For consumers, Circle says it is building a secure platform that will protect consumer privacy. For businesses and charities, it will provide tools and services that enable them to accept digital currency payments with no transaction fees.
Circle is based in Boston, with international operations headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Treasury, as a money transmitter and is seeking state licenses. John Beccia, the former chief regulatory counsel for the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington, D.C., will also serve as Circle’s general counsel and chief compliance officer.
Allaire also co-founded of Allaire Corporation, creators of Web development language ColdFusion. Allaire Corp. was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, where Allaire became CTO and helped oversee the creation of a Flash-based application platform.
“Bitcoin and digital currency represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future of the Internet and global commerce,” said Alliare in a statement. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to make payments easier, more secure and less costly for consumers and businesses. Digital currency can dramatically reduce the friction and costs currently experienced in the world by merchants and consumers.”
Jim Breyer, Partner at Accel Partners, will join Circle’s board of directors, as well as David Orfao of General Catalyst Partners.
“The dramatic global growth in mobile, social and online commerce is creating the need and potential for a real global digital currency. With Jeremy’s vision for Circle and track record as an Internet pioneer, the opportunity here is to potentially build a significant global company,” said Breyer.
Ask A VC: AngelPad’s Thomas Korte On NYC Expansion, The Incubator’s New $7M Funding Round And More
In this week’s special episode of Ask A VC from Disrupt Europe in Berlin, Germany, AngelPad founder and former Googler Thomas Korte talked to TechCrunch about his incubator’s strategy, expansion and more.
Korte, who launched AngelPad in 2010 with six other ex-Google employees, explained why he’s kept the incubator small, with only around 10-12 startups per session (with two sessions per year). Korte also told us that AngelPad is heading east for its next session, debuting a new session in New York City (interested founders can apply here, and the deadline is Sunday).
While AngelPad was bootstrapped for the past three years with the backing of its founders, Korte also revealed that AngelPad just raised $7 million in outside investment from undisclosed LPs.
As of January of this year, AngelPad had seen 62 companies participate in five sessions. In 2012 alone, AngelPad’s 62 total companies raised $56 million, which is on top of the $25 million they had raised in 2011. The incubator has also seen some impressive exits from portfolio startups, including Twitter’s recent $350 million acquisition of MoPub.
When Brian Klug joined me on the Vector podcast last week, I asked him if including the Apple A7 chipset in both the iPhone 5s and the iPad Air and Retina iPad mini meant the phone was way overpowered, or the tablets were way underpowered. He answered in the best way possible - that the phone was ridiculously overpowered. As part of his iPad Air review, Brian's colleague, Anand Lai Shimpi, puts some context to that ridiculousness. From AnandTech:
This is the first Apple SoC that’s able to deliver good amounts of memory bandwidth to all consumers. A single CPU core can use up 8GB/s of bandwidth. I’m still vetting other SoCs, but so far I haven’t come across anyone in the ARM camp that can compete with what Apple has built here. Only Intel is competitive.
As John Gruber pointed out on Daring Fireball in his review, it's roughly the same amount of raw power as a 2010 MacBook Air. That's the machine I primarily ran iMore on for a year. And now that's in my phone, and in my tablet. Insane.
Pop open Wikipedia and go read Anand's whole review.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Terrorists "found a second chance" to thrive in Iraq, the nation's prime minister said Thursday in asking for new U.S. aid to beat back a bloody insurgency that has been fueled by the neighboring Syrian civil war and the departure of American troops from Iraq two years ago.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a packed auditorium at the U.S. Institute of Peace that he needs additional weapons, help with intelligence and other assistance, and claimed the world has a responsibility to help because terrorism is an international concern.
"If the situation in Iraq is not well treated, it will be disastrous for the whole world," said al-Maliki, whose comments were translated from Arabic. "Terrorism does not know a single religion, or confession, or a single border. They carry their rotten ideas everywhere. They carry bad ideas instead of flowers. Al-Qaida is a dirty wind that wants to spread worldwide."
The new request comes nearly two years after al-Maliki's government refused to let U.S. forces remain in Iraq with legal immunity that the Obama administration insisted was necessary to protect troops. President Barack Obama had campaigned on ending the nearly nine-year war in Iraq and took the opportunity offered by the legal dispute to pull all troops out.
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq between the 2003 invasion and the 2011 withdrawal. More than 100,000 Iraqi were killed in that time.
Al-Maliki will meet Friday with Obama in what Baghdad hopes will be a fresh start in a complicated relationship that has been marked both by victories and frustrations for each side.
Within months of the U.S. troops' departure, violence began creeping up in the capital and across the country as Sunni Muslim insurgents lashed out, angered by a widespread belief that Sunnis have been sidelined by the Shiite-led government. The State Department says at least 6,000 Iraqis have been killed in attacks so far this year, and suicide bombers launched 38 strikes in the last month alone.
"So the terrorists found a second chance," al-Maliki said — a turnabout from an insurgency that was mostly silenced by the time the U.S. troops left.
Al-Maliki largely blamed the Syrian civil war for the rise in Iraq's violence, although he acknowledged that homegrown insurgents are to blame for the vast number of car bombs, suicide bombings and drive-by shootings that have roiled Baghdad and the rest of the nation.
The prime minister warned about the consequences of a political power grab by al-Qaida fighters who are aligned with the Sunni rebellion that is seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. But al-Maliki insisted Iraq is remaining neutral in the Syrian unrest, although Baghdad has been accused of allowing Iranian aid to Assad's forces through its country. The Syrian civil war largely breaks down along sectarian lines.
Sectarian tensions also have been rising in Iraq, but al-Maliki vehemently denied they are the cause for the spread of violence and noted that Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds all have been killed by insurgent attacks.
"There is no problem between Sunnis and Shiites," al-Maliki said flatly. He added: "Al-Qaida believes they should kill all those who do not think alike."
Al-Maliki said he will ask Obama for new assistance to bolster Iraq's military and fight al-Qaida. That could include speeding up the delivery of U.S. aircraft, missiles, interceptors and other weapons, and improving national intelligence systems. Separately, Iraq's ambassador to the U.S. also did not rule out the possibility of asking the U.S. to send military special forces or additional CIA advisers to Iraq to help train and assist counterterror troops.
Shortly after al-Maliki's speech, White House spokesman Jay Carney called continued U.S. aid to Iraq "necessary" and said "denying that assistance would be contrary to our interests."
Obama is expected to raise concerns about Iraq's violence — and ways to reduce it — in his Friday meeting with al-Maliki, Carney said. "And inclusive democratic governance is a key piece of the picture there and always has been," he said.
"What's important to remember, though, is that the violence we're talking about, the attacks we're talking about, are not coming from within the political system," Carney said. 'They're coming from al-Qaida and its affiliates."
Administration officials consider the insurgency, which has rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, a major and increasing threat both to Iraq and the U.S.
Al-Maliki has been accused for years of a heavy-handed leadership that refuses to compromise and, to some, oversteps his authority against political enemies. "I never stepped on the Constitution," he responded Thursday to a question about his government, and defended Iraq's warming relationship with Iran's Shiite clerical regime as necessary for a government looking to work amicably with its neighbors.
He sidestepped a question about whether he will seek another term as prime minister in national elections scheduled for April 2014, calling it a decision best left to the Iraqi people.
Anthony Cordesman, a longtime Iraq scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the U.S. must convince al-Maliki to move toward a more inclusive government to stabilize Iraq and the rest of the region.
"We have to be careful to set clear lines, and not arm Maliki against the growing mass of legitimate Sunni opposition and the much smaller mix of violent Sunni Islamist extremists," Cordesman wrote in an analysis released Thursday. "But, we need to try."
___
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Acura MDX sport utility vehicles roll off the assembly line at a Honda plant in Lincoln, Ala., in May. Overseas investors have U.S. assets totaling nearly $4 trillion, including auto plants, banks and mines.
Joe Songer/AL.com/Landov
Acura MDX sport utility vehicles roll off the assembly line at a Honda plant in Lincoln, Ala., in May. Overseas investors have U.S. assets totaling nearly $4 trillion, including auto plants, banks and mines.
Joe Songer/AL.com/Landov
When many Americans hear the word "globalization," they think: "jobs going overseas."
And sometimes it does mean just that.
But as globalization knits nations closer together, foreign companies increasingly are creating jobs in the United States, not luring them away. Despite the Great Recession, slow recovery and political dysfunction in Washington, the United States remains a top destination for the world's wealth.
Overseas investors have U.S. assets totaling nearly $4 trillion, including auto plants, banks, mines and more. U.S. affiliates of foreign companies employ about 5.6 million people in this country.
On Thursday, President Obama highlighted those investments, and urged foreign business leaders — packed into a Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom — to build more plants and offices in this country.
"There is no better place in the world to do business," Obama said.
The administration welcomed 1,200 participants from roughly 60 countries, and urged them to learn more about an initiative called SelectUSA. Under the program, the U.S. State Department works closely with the Commerce Department to help foreign companies set up shop here.
U.S. ambassadors in 32 countries will now add "economic development" to their list of chores, according to the Commerce Department. The goal is to have local, state and federal officials in all departments working together to smooth the way for foreign direct investments.
Obama told the foreign guests "when you bet on America, that bet pays off," thanks to this country's many economic advantages, including cheap energy, an educated workforce, intellectual-property protections, a sophisticated financial system and much more.
"There are a whole lot of reasons you ought to come here," he said. "We are the land of opportunity. That is not a myth; it's a proven fact. "
U.S. business leaders who spoke at the gathering raised concerns about this country's ability to continue to be attractive to investors. For example, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, a global investment management firm based in New York City, said he has become "alarmed" by Washington's political dysfunction, which he says unnerved many foreign investors.
Speaking on a panel about investing opportunities, Fink said that when some Republican lawmakers used the U.S. debt ceiling deadline as a lever to try to win concessions a couple of weeks ago, they endangered the country's status as a stable place to invest.
"I am very bullish about America," he said. But "it's important that we drop the conversation about default," he added.
Despite any reputational harm done by the October government shutdown and debt-ceiling threat, foreign executives didn't seem deterred about investing in the United States.
"It's very easy to do business here," said Leonardo Figueiro, vice president of the WTC Business Club in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He says that in Brazil, he faces "lots of costs and bureaucracy."
But in the United States, people want to close on real estate deals and open clubs. "We always want to do business in this market," he said. "We built a building in Miami, and now we're looking forward to investing more."
That upbeat assessment could be heard again and again among the foreigners visiting the exhibit booths set up by cities and states.
At the Ohio booth, representatives handed out chocolates shaped like buckeye nuts. At the Carmel, Ind., booth, a large sign made sure visitors knew more about "A City to Experience." Many guests were impressed with the pitches.
"The United States is definitely the leading economy in the world — it's the most stable and progressive," said Hiten Parekh, CEO for the Americas operations of Waaree Energies Ltd., based in India. "This is the No. 1 country in the world for investing."
Blair King, an economic development manager for Alabama Power Co., stood in his state's booth, talking up business opportunities. He said foreigners are impressed with U.S. energy abundance.
When it comes to electric power, "they want to know what it costs," he said. And they often find it's cheaper here, he said.
Speakers at the two-day gathering include Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker and Secretary of State John Kerry. Top executives from Wal-Mart, Caterpillar, Dow Chemical and other U.S.-based companies are participating in panel discussions that end Friday.
This is a pretty cool new iOS app from Russia’s Displair, maker of the Minority Report-styled Multi-Touch “air” display.
Similar to Google-acquired Bump, using an iPhone’s various sensors in combination with its own cloud-powered algorithms, Airlike lets you share photos, videos and contacts with other iPhone users in close proximity, but with one key difference: There’s no need to bump phones or fists. Instead, you flick content through the “air” from one phone to another.
Shunning Bluetooth or WiFi for peer-to-peer networking, the app uses a combination of GPS, and each phone’s gyroscope, compass and accelerometer sensors, and relays that information to its own servers to know when two phones are pointing at each other. You then each confirm a connection and can begin flicking content from phone-to-phone — an experience the company describes in Arthur C. Clarke fashion as “absolutely magic”.
And in our quick testing, the iPhone app works as advertised.
Along with trumping Bump’s need for physical contact, Displair is also talking up Airlike’s functionality over Apple’s own AirDrop phone-to-phone filesharing offering. That’s because AirDrop requires iOS7, whilst Airlike works on iOS6 and upwards, meaning that it supports a greater number of Apple’s older devices.
In addition, and crucially longterm, Displair plans to release Android and Windows Phone versions of the app, making Airlike, just like Bump before it, truly cross-platform.
One thing lacking for now, however, is an Airlike API that other developers can tap into, though I’m told that this is on the roadmap and could be one way the company hopes to monetize the technology.
Interestingly, the ability to transfer money between contacts peer-to-peer is also currently in development, thus taking another page from the Bump playbook.
Meanwhile, the longer term business model revolves around the way Airlike will tie into the Russian startup’s Displair Digital Signage product to enables users to grab content from advertising displays. So, for example, you could walk into a mall, see interesting ad-related content on Displair (or even a standard LCD screen) and have it sent to your smartphone using a simple gesture, much in the same way as the Airlike app works for phone-to-phone content sharing.
TechCrunch’s Darrel Etherington contributed to this article
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked a judge's ruling that found the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk policy discriminated against minorities, and it took the unusual step of removing her from the case, saying interviews she gave during the trial called her impartiality into question.
The city applauded the appeals court's decision. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who was shouted down over the tactic by students during a speech at Brown University this week, said he was pleased by it.
"This is indeed an important decision for all New Yorkers and for the men and women of the New York City police department who work very hard day in and day out to keep this city safe," he said.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the ruling by U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin will be on hold pending the outcome of an appeal by the city. But it may be a nonissue after next week's mayoral election: Democrat Bill de Blasio, who's leading in polls, has said he would drop objections to the ruling, which calls for major changes to the police tactic.
The judge decided in August the city violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of blacks and Hispanics by disproportionally stopping, questioning and sometimes frisking them. She assigned a monitor to help the police department change its policy and training programs on the tactic.
The three-judge panel heard arguments Tuesday on whether to put the ruling on temporary hold while the city appeals the judge's decision. It did not change the deadline for the appeal and said it expected arguments in March, well after the new mayor takes office.
The panel said Scheindlin needed to be removed because she ran afoul of the code of conduct for U.S. judges by misapplying a ruling that allowed her to take the case and by giving media interviews during the trial.
Scheindlin said in a statement later Thursday she consented to the interviews under the condition she wouldn't comment on the ongoing case.
"And I did not," she said.
She said some reporters used quotes from written opinions that gave the appearance she had commented on the case but "a careful reading of each interview will reveal that no such comments were made."
She defended her decision to direct the plaintiffs to bring the case to her, saying she took the most recent case because it was related to a previous case she heard.
The 2nd Circuit said a new judge would be assigned randomly and will deal with any further rulings. It's possible the new judge could order a fresh set of reforms or review the trial testimony and decide the city didn't violate people's civil rights, but it would be highly unusual.
Stop-and-frisk has been around for decades, but recorded stops increased dramatically under Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration to an all-time high in 2011 of 684,330, mostly of black and Hispanic men. A lawsuit was filed in 2004 by four minority men, who said they were targeted because of their races, and it became a class action case.
To make a stop, police must have reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur or has occurred, a standard lower than the probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 10 percent of the stops result in arrests or summonses, and weapons are found about 2 percent of the time.
Scheindlin heard a bench trial that ended in the spring and coincided with a groundswell of backlash against the stop-and-frisk tactic, which became a mayoral race flashpoint. She noted in her ruling this summer that she wasn't putting an end to the practice, which is constitutional, but was reforming the way the NYPD implemented its stops.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the four men who sued, said it was dismayed that the appeals court delayed "the long-overdue process to remedy" the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practices and was shocked that it "cast aspersions" on the judge's professional conduct and reassigned the case.
De Blasio, the city's public advocate, said he was "extremely disappointed" in Thursday's decision.
"We have to end the overuse of stop and frisk — and any delay only means a continued and unnecessary rift between our police and the people they protect," he said in a statement.
His Republican challenger, Joe Lhota, a deputy under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, praised it.
"The next mayor absolutely must continue this appeal," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.
Women working in Head Start programs report poor physical and mental health
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Preston M. Moretz pmoretz@temple.edu 215-204-4380 Temple University
Women working in Head Start, the nation's largest federally funded early childhood education program which serves nearly one million low-income children, report higher than expected levels of physical and mental health problems, according to researchers at Temple University. Their findings are reported in the first-ever survey conducted on the health of Head Start staff.
In a paper published October 31 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, the Temple researchers, led by Robert Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics, reported that:
Six physical health conditionsobesity, asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes or prediabetes, severe headache or migraine, and lower back painwere each between 19-35 percent more common in Head Start staff than in the comparable U.S. population;
24 percent of the staff suffered from significant depressive symptomsenough to be diagnosed with depression;
28 percent reported that their physical or mental health was "not good" on half or more of the 30 days prior to the survey;
15 percent rated their overall health as either "fair or poor;" and
9 percent were absent from work 10 or more days in the last year due to illness.
The work of Head Start staff can be very emotionally demanding as they help children and families living in poverty who face multiple social risks, noted the researchers. Staff members also work for low pay, with teachers' salaries well below those of public school kindergarten teachers. One teacher who participated in the survey summarized her situation by writing, "My job is why I'm stressed all the time and my personal health suffers. I chose a demanding job, but the pay is bare minimum and isn't enough to get by."
The Temple researchers conducted an anonymous, online survey of staff working in 66 Pennsylvania Head Start programs. Of those who participated in the survey, the researchers focused on 2,122 female respondents, which included managers and classroom teachers of three and four year olds, as well as those making home visits to families of infants and toddlers participating in Early Head Start. The survey results were compared with previous national health surveys involving a large number of women whose social and demographic characteristics matched those in the Head Start survey.
"In the 50 years that the Head Start program has been in existence, many studies have reported on the health of the children and families," said Whitaker. "However, no study has ever examined the health of the staff, which is the group on which the program relies to achieve its goals. The staff must be well to do well by the children and their families."
The researchers noted several potential approaches to address the health of the staff, including:
Making staff wellness part of professional development activities;
Using available Head Start mental health resources for families and children to also address the mental health needs of the staff;
Adopting mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques, now used in other emotionally demanding occupations like health care, to prevent and treat psychological distress in the staff;
Changing the workplace culture to increase co-worker support and monitor and adjust the demands placed on the staff;
Incorporating more movement into activities that are designed to promote children's cognitive and social development; and
Improving the quality of food served to staff and children.
"Those working in Head Start have been entrusted with the development and education of some of the nation's most vulnerable and disadvantaged children," said Whitaker. "The adults providing these services deserve a compassionate response to their health problems, which may be due in part to the stressful nature of their important jobs. Addressing the health of the staff may improve outcomes for children in Head Start."
###
The survey was a collaboration between Temple University's Department of Public Health and its Institute for Survey Research.
NOTE: Copies of this study are available to working journalists and may be obtained by contacting Preston M. Moretz in Temple's Office of University Communications at 215/204-4380 or pmoretz@temple.edu.
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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.
Women working in Head Start programs report poor physical and mental health
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Preston M. Moretz pmoretz@temple.edu 215-204-4380 Temple University
Women working in Head Start, the nation's largest federally funded early childhood education program which serves nearly one million low-income children, report higher than expected levels of physical and mental health problems, according to researchers at Temple University. Their findings are reported in the first-ever survey conducted on the health of Head Start staff.
In a paper published October 31 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, the Temple researchers, led by Robert Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics, reported that:
Six physical health conditionsobesity, asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes or prediabetes, severe headache or migraine, and lower back painwere each between 19-35 percent more common in Head Start staff than in the comparable U.S. population;
24 percent of the staff suffered from significant depressive symptomsenough to be diagnosed with depression;
28 percent reported that their physical or mental health was "not good" on half or more of the 30 days prior to the survey;
15 percent rated their overall health as either "fair or poor;" and
9 percent were absent from work 10 or more days in the last year due to illness.
The work of Head Start staff can be very emotionally demanding as they help children and families living in poverty who face multiple social risks, noted the researchers. Staff members also work for low pay, with teachers' salaries well below those of public school kindergarten teachers. One teacher who participated in the survey summarized her situation by writing, "My job is why I'm stressed all the time and my personal health suffers. I chose a demanding job, but the pay is bare minimum and isn't enough to get by."
The Temple researchers conducted an anonymous, online survey of staff working in 66 Pennsylvania Head Start programs. Of those who participated in the survey, the researchers focused on 2,122 female respondents, which included managers and classroom teachers of three and four year olds, as well as those making home visits to families of infants and toddlers participating in Early Head Start. The survey results were compared with previous national health surveys involving a large number of women whose social and demographic characteristics matched those in the Head Start survey.
"In the 50 years that the Head Start program has been in existence, many studies have reported on the health of the children and families," said Whitaker. "However, no study has ever examined the health of the staff, which is the group on which the program relies to achieve its goals. The staff must be well to do well by the children and their families."
The researchers noted several potential approaches to address the health of the staff, including:
Making staff wellness part of professional development activities;
Using available Head Start mental health resources for families and children to also address the mental health needs of the staff;
Adopting mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques, now used in other emotionally demanding occupations like health care, to prevent and treat psychological distress in the staff;
Changing the workplace culture to increase co-worker support and monitor and adjust the demands placed on the staff;
Incorporating more movement into activities that are designed to promote children's cognitive and social development; and
Improving the quality of food served to staff and children.
"Those working in Head Start have been entrusted with the development and education of some of the nation's most vulnerable and disadvantaged children," said Whitaker. "The adults providing these services deserve a compassionate response to their health problems, which may be due in part to the stressful nature of their important jobs. Addressing the health of the staff may improve outcomes for children in Head Start."
###
The survey was a collaboration between Temple University's Department of Public Health and its Institute for Survey Research.
NOTE: Copies of this study are available to working journalists and may be obtained by contacting Preston M. Moretz in Temple's Office of University Communications at 215/204-4380 or pmoretz@temple.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.
Disney might be experiencing a disturbance in the Force.
With the Oct. 24 exit of Star Wars: Episode VII writer Michael Arndt, the studio is under the gun to keep the film on course for a 2015 release despite a script that several insiders say isn't close to ready.
According to those close to the project, producer Kathleen Kennedy and most of the film's creative team have asked Disney to push the release to 2016, but studio CEO Robert Iger is adamant that Episode VII -- perhaps the franchise's most anticipated installment since 1999's The Phantom Menace -- not budge. That has created enormous pressure on all involved, with director J.J. Abrams stepping in to take over scripting duties with Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote 1980's Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, considered the best film in the series.
For his part, Arndt worked exclusively on Episode VII for most of the past year and already had penned a 40- to 50-page treatment before Lucasfilm was sold to Disney in October 2012. But as one of Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriters, who can command more than $300,000 a week doing rewrites, the Oscar-winning scribe (Little Miss Sunshine) was ready to move on to other projects.
Some sources say Abrams has become autocratic in recent months, wresting some casting control from Kennedy. But others disputed that notion, saying Abrams and Kennedy both have been involved in casting sessions. Unlike Kennedy, Abrams is said to be more in sync with Iger's desire to meet the 2015 release target -- which allows zero margin for error -- at all costs.
Although the 2015 schedule already is full of tentpoles including Disney/Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron, Warner Bros.' Superman-Batman mashup and Lionsgate's final Hunger Games, Iger has crafted a Star Wars game plan that hinges on Episode VII hitting the big screen that summer. The studio is expected to roll out Episodes VII, VIII and IX over a six-year period, with at least two spinoffs -- penned by a team including Kasdan and Simon Kinberg -- interspersed between.
Still, another project insider dismisses talk of problems and what the writer shuffle means for what is perhaps Hollywood's most valued franchise. "It's nothing out of the ordinary," says the insider. "Almost every big movie changes writers at some point. There's no drama here."
This is the first report of a four-part series on adult education.
The national debate around education usually focuses on children in school. But there are 30 million adults in the U.S. who have trouble with basic literacy — they struggle to read a menu, a pay stub or a bus schedule.
It also means it's difficult for them to get and hold onto the most basic jobs.
Tens of thousands of other adult learners are slowly and painstakingly trying to fill in the gaps of their rudimentary schooling. The long shadow of their unfinished education still follows them every day.
Learning Which Route To Take
Shirley Ashley, 55, never learned how to read. With classes, she is finally able to read her own bills.
Kavitha Cardoza/WAMU
Shirley Ashley, 55, never learned how to read. With classes, she is finally able to read her own bills.
Kavitha Cardoza/WAMU
Shirley Ashley flips through a folder of certificates she's received in her adult education class. She stops at one that says "Top Performer," points to the words and starts reading.
"I know this is 'top' something; that means I'm doing good," she says.
The word "performer" is still a jumble of letters because Ashley, at 55, never learned how to read. In school she was always in classes for students with learning disabilities, but Ashley says she wasn't learning anything.
"I felt as though they just passed me just to get me out of school," she says.
In the seventh grade, after one teacher told her, "Whether you learn to read or not, I still get paid," Ashley decided to drop out.
She learned how to give her mother medicine based on the colors of the bottles. To hide the fact she was illiterate, Ashley memorized Bible verses so no one at her church suspected. And she limited her travel to a familiar route.
"I couldn't read the name of the bus, but I learned that the left-hand side of the street would take me downtown and the right-hand side of the street was going to bring me back home," she says.
Ashley's inability to read has made it hard to find a job. She's also seen those closest to her take advantage of her illiteracy, especially when it came to money.
"I would have to pay them, my family members, to come over my house to do a money order," she says. "Sometimes I give them $25, sometimes I give them $30."
Ashley has attended classes at a nonprofit literacy center in Washington, D.C., on and off for about eight years. She initially tested at the kindergarten level; she's now reading at the second-grade level.
"When my gas bill come to my house I'm learning how to read where it says 'pay by July 17th.' That makes me feel awesome," she says.
Getting To The Next Level
Ashley is at the "low end" of the literacy spectrum. Jason White, another adult learner, is a little further along.
Marilyn Block tutors Jason White at a local library during a one-on-one session that is part of the Literacy Council of Montgomery County, in Maryland.
Kavitha Cardoza/WAMU
White is 35 and grew up in Louisiana. He dropped out in the 11th grade after years of sitting idle in a special education class. White found ways to cover up his reading struggles, from pretending he's forgotten his reading glasses to relying on a computer's "auto-complete" function — even when he was out with friends.
"Say if you're at dinner with five people and you can't make out or read what's on the menu, someone says they're going to have the salmon fillet, you say, 'Well, I'll have the salmon fillet,' " White says.
He works as a construction worker, and in a sense he's lucky. Adults who dropped out of school are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as high school graduates. For those who do get hired, it often means low-end jobs with no hope of advancing. In tough times, they're often the first ones laid off.
For White, not being able to read means his career has stalled. To advance, he needs a contractor's license, and he hopes he'll be able to pass the exam next month.
"I'm very handy, and we do terrific work, but I'm technically not a contractor until I pass that exam," he says. "So it's, it's a little nerve-wracking, you know?"
White has spent the past two years learning to read with a tutor. Now, he can write his own checks and has just finished reading his first novel. He marvels that he can now read street signs.
"If we're driving somewhere, I can't help but read every sign we pass," he says. "It's like a different world."
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil's superstar singer Caetano Veloso fled to exile in London in 1969 after the country's military dictatorship censored and imprisoned him because of his catchy, anti-establishment anthems.
Now, Veloso is taking a shellacking from the press and his fan base alike, who say he's endorsing censorship by leading the defense of a wide-ranging law that allows Brazilians to block or pull from the shelves any biographical work about them that was created without their consent.
With Brazil's publishers mobilizing to repeal the restrictions, Veloso, romantic crooner Robert Carlos and other singers who became famous under the dictatorship have banded together to defend the 2003 law, which empowers Brazilians to quash works they consider attacks on their "good name or respectability."
That means objections by a biography's subject are enough to get the books removed or even keep them from reaching stores, with many publishers not printing a book if it's not explicitly endorsed by a subject. The law also applies to films and other media, though the debate and legal actions have focused on books. Critics say it is possibly the most extreme law regulating privacy and intellectual property among democratic nations.
Legal experts such as Rio-based attorney Gustavo Tenorio said the law's wording restricting the "publication, exposition and use of the image of a person" could encompass newspaper and magazine articles and TV news accounts. So far, most of the works have portrayed artists and celebrities. But the law opens the door for much wider impacts.
Brazil's Supreme Court scheduled late-November public hearings on the constitutionality of the law in response to a request from Anel, a national publisher's association, to quash the measure. A bill allowing biographies of people with a "personal or professional trajectory that has a public dimension" is also pending before Brazil's lower house and may be voted on next month. If it passes, it would go to the senate.
Meanwhile, the two sides are duking it out in the press, with feisty debates on talk shows and a barrage of op-ed pieces.
The law's defenders, which include other revered icons such as musicians Chico Buarque and former Culture Minister Gilberto Gil, insist it's necessary to protect people's right to privacy and prevent defamation.
"Me, a censor? Over my dead body," Veloso wrote in a recent column in Rio de Janeiro's O Globo newspaper. "In the tug-of-war between freedom of expression and the right to privacy, every caution is necessary."
Still, Veloso, who hasn't suppressed any biography about himself, concluded, "We'll all be enriched if we recognize that the right to privacy must supersede that of free expression."
In a five-minute video posted Tuesday on the Facebook page of the artist group, Roberto Carlos acknowledged that his position had been "radical" and Gil called on judges to balance free speech with privacy protections.
But free speech experts such as Christine Jenkins, a University of Illinois professor whose research focuses on censorship, said the current law's effect was already chilling.
"It's really extreme, it's like something out of Stalin's USSR or a law from Nazi Germany," she said. "It's unquestionably a catchall for censorship, it could be used to stop anybody from writing about anyone. It grinds historical scholarship to a standstill."
Tenorio said under his interpretation, investigative journalism reports are protected speech, while reports focused on a subject's private life, such as affairs, drug use or illness, would not be protected unless it had a direct impact on the subject's performance in the public sphere.
Gustavo Binenbojm, an attorney representing Anel, said he wasn't aware of any cases of the law being invoked to halt the publication of a newspaper or magazine article. "Nobody has had the courage to try that," he said, "it would be too absurd."
He also knew of no major political figure who had blocked a biography, but underscored that "in Brazil, there's such wide fear about this law, that people simply don't attempt these biographies."
Ernesto Rodrigues, author of a biography about Joao Havelange, the mercurial former head of soccer's governing body, FIFA, said the law warps the relationship between biographers and their subjects.
Publication of Rodrigues' book "Jogo Duro," or "Hard Ball," was delayed for a year after Havelange, who had initially signed off on the biography, rescinded his authorization and threatened to go to court to have the book held back.
"Writing a biography in Brazil is like writing about politics under a dictatorial regime," said Rodrigues. "You're scared of writing about certain things and that fear can end up compromising the whole project."
Roberto Carlos succeeded in having an unauthorized biography about him pulled from the shelves in 2007 on grounds that it invaded his right to privacy. Another biographer, Ruy Castro, has suggested it was because "Roberto Carlos in Detail" mentioned the singer's prosthetic leg, the result of a childhood accident about which he's rarely spoke openly.
Critics of the law say Brazil should more closely follow the lead of other Western democracies such as the U.S., where the First Amendment forbids prior restraint in virtually all circumstances and strong libel laws prevent biographers from knowingly printing false, defamatory information.
Veloso's ex-wife and producer, Paula Lavigne, who's acting as the spokeswoman for the artists defending the law, has said such U.S.-style protections wouldn't work in Brazil because of the country's notoriously inefficient court system, which generally awards only small amounts in damages.
Meanwhile, some say they're hoping their adored singers will have a change of heart.
"For me and so many other Brazilians, these guys are idols," Rodrigues said, "and their position on this issue is just not compatible with everything they've stood for their whole lives."
___
Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks in Rio contributed to this report.
___
Follow Jenny Barchfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennybarchfield
There’s now a search bar at the top of every screen on mobile, emphasizing that new focus under Lefkofsky, and users are also greeted with personalized deal collections unique to each when they launch the app, instead of just a generic layout based on their hometown location. Groupon also moves into 12 new markets on the iPad with this update, which is key if the company is targeting travelers.
Also new on the web are results that cross all of Groupon’s lines of business, spanning local deals, travel, restaurants and more, which is clearly aimed at generating some generative cross-market sales from users who are looking for more than one thing at once. Search also gets new filters that are designed to help users pinpoint their own specific areas of interest much more clearly.
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Along with trumping Bump’s need for physical contact, Displair is also talking up Airlike’s functionality over