What is Google Field Trip? The short answer is, an app that tells you when you are near something interesting.
The Play store description:
Field Trip is your guide to the cool, hidden, and unique things in the world around you. Field Trip runs in the background on your phone. When you get close to something interesting, it pops up a card with details about the location. No click is required. If you have a headset or bluetooth connected, it can even read the info to you.
Field Trip can help you learn about everything from local history to the latest and best places to shop, eat, and have fun. You select the local feeds you like and the information pops up on your phone automatically, as you walk next to those places.
Now currently, this app is for our friends across the pond in the USA?sorry UK :(
Personally I like the UI, and think the app could be quite useful when on a ?Field Trip? (or Holiday?) I only installed the App earlier, so it is too early to tell if there is a significant impact on battery life.
An iOS version is on the cards too.
US readers can download the app from the Play store?here.
If you are in the UK, and want to have a look at the app, you can download it from here.
About Stephen Murray
I am a gadget freak! I work in IT as an Application Specialist, testing updates to the software we supply to the motor trade. Follow me on Twitter @mintymurray, read my blog www.minty.org.uk
Sony today announced a 50 billion yen ($645 million) investment in Olympus that will focus on boosting the companies' camera and medical businesses.
In a statement, Sony and Olympus said they want to "enhance their competitiveness" in compact digital cameras. Olympus will provide technologies like camera lenses and mirror cells to Sony, while Olympus will have access to Sony image sensors.
The two firms have also established a medical business venture. They will combine Olympus's manufacturing and R&D expertise, brand recognition, global sales and marketing expertise in medical products, and its lens and optical technologies with Sony's strengths in digital imaging technologies such as image sensors and image technologies, including 3D and 4K. Ideally, the two firms will be able to provide technology to operating rooms and other medical venues.
"Through this alliance, the strengths of the two companies will merge, certainly making it possible for Olympus to contribute to world medical progress by developing a variety of new medical devices that would not be possible by Olympus alone," Olympus president Hiroyuki Sasa said in a statement.
"We are aggressively pursuing the growth of our medical business, with the aim of developing it into a key pillar of our overall business portfolio, Sony chief Kazuo Hirai said in a statement.
Sony has struggled in the last year, sustaining a major hit thanks to the PlayStation Network hack. But newly appointed CEO Hirai told the crowd at February's Mobile World Congress that his goal for the coming months was to rebuild Sony's electronic business, and, apparently, grow a new medical devices arm.
The investment will also help Olympus strengthen its financial base, following the company's confession last year to a 13-year accounting fraud.
Priot to teaming up with Sony, Olympus allegedly rejected offers from medical device maker Terumo and camera maker Fujifilm, Reuters said, adding that the rival companies were looking for more direct contact with Olympus than Sony.
The joint venture, expected to begin by the end of the year, gives Sony a 51 percent stake, while Olympus carries 49 percent.
For more from Stephanie, follow her on Twitter @smlotPCMag.
Qualcomm, empresa considerada la mayor rival de Intel, anuncia el lanzamiento de sus nuevos SoC Snapdragon S4 Play MSM8625Q y MSM8225Q, SoCs cu?druple n?cleo destinados a smartphones econ?micos.
A diferencia del resto de la familia de SoCs Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Series (Plus, Pro y Prime) basados en la arquitectura Krait (basada a su vez en Cortex-A15 de ARM) y fabricados con el proceso de manufactura a 28nm de TSMC, los SoC Snapdragon S4 Play Series est?n basados en la arquitectura ARM Cortex-A5 (compatible con el set de instrucciones ARMv7), la que usa el viejo esquema de ejecuci?n en orden (in-order execution), a diferencia de arquitecturas como Cortex-A7/A9/A15 que usan la ejecuci?n fuera de orden (out-of-order execution); adem?s carecen de cache L2, y est?n fabricados con el proceso de manufactura de 45nm.
Ambos SoC poseen adem?s gr?ficos Qualcomm Adreno 203 (soporte a resoluci?n 720P), controlador de memoria integrado LPDDR2, USB 2.0, controlador de c?mara (8MP), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth y conectividad FM. El SoC MSM8625Q (1.2Ghz) incorpora un modem CDMA/UMTS, mientras que el MSM8225Q (1Ghz) un modem UMTS.
Ambos SoC estar?n disponibles a fines de este a?o.
Link: Quad-core Snapdragon S4 Play klaar voor gebruik in smartphones? (Hardware.Info)
On a trip to Oregon's?Willamette Valley in the spring of 2010, I was using the Google-powered?Maps app on an iPhone 3GS to hunt down wineries while my friend drove.?
That's farm country, and driving on dirt roads is pretty much expected. Nevertheless, it seemed odd when the app told us to turn onto a gated farm driveway.?
Then we saw the sign: "Sorry your GPS brought you here. To get to the winery you came for, turn around and go back?" It was polite, but you could sense that the farmer who posted it was somewhere on his tractor, smirking.
There's an old sailor's adage: Always carry at least two forms of navigation.
While that no longer means "pack a sextant," it does mean you should at least?have a back-up GPS app, a separate GPS device?or even a honest-to-gosh?dead-tree road atlas when you're in unknown territory.?Thanks to the well-publicized shortcomings of Apple's new Maps app???the first one that's?not powered by Google data???our blind reliance on GPS apps has become quite clear.
As a tech writer and navigationally challenged human who's reviewed GPS gadgetry for 10 years, I've learned that?any system can be as flawed as it is useful, and you should never trust it 100 percent.
Back in the early 2000s, before we were married, my wife lived for a couple of years in Washington, D.C. and I would head down there from New York on weekends.?When you're driving along in D.C., numbered roads veer into lettered roads, and?you have to make a lot of weird corrections?every few blocks, all the while risking driving straight into a fountain or a statue of a man on a horse. While D.C. residents take pride in the "National Treasure"-grade mysteries of getting around the nation's capital, outsiders like me fail to appreciate it. So when GPS became a thing, I was all over that.
My wife and I referred to the first GPS navigator as "the other woman," but in reality, this authoritative, British female voice was a relationship counselor: When road rage was high and we weren't listening to each other, we would both listen to her.
During that period, I tested a lot of GPS products for my weekly column on Time.com and for pieces in the New York Times and Money Magazine. I got to try out all of the major brands, and compare them side by side.?With GPS, even D.C. was, for the most part, much easier to get around in.?
But there was one map error that constantly perplexed us: When driving back from the Pentagon City Mall to Southeast D.C., we would always be told to take an exit that didn't exist. New construction, you may think, but there was no evidence that the exit ever existed. At least not where it told us it was.
The sudden surge of consumer GPS gadgets around 2001 and 2002 was caused by the U.S. government allowing civilian hardware to access the?1-meter GPS?accuracy that had previously only been available to military devices.?
But GPS only tells you where you are in latitude and longitude?? building?the visual maps that need to be placed under those pinpoints is a challenging multi-billion-dollar endeavor. Even Google???which stood on the shoulders of mapmakers such as TomTom-owned Tele Atlas and Nokia-owned Navteq when building its remarkable geographical database???can get it wrong every so often.
The world is constantly changing???roads and bridges spring up, while old ones are closed off. Cow pastures become shopping centers. Restaurants and bars open and go out of business. A broken clock may be right twice a day, but?a map of the world really never is.
In 2004 or 2005, TomTom was pitching me on its latest dash-mounted navigator. I had favored Garmin (which used Navteq's maps, which experience had suggested to me were more reliable than the Tele Atlas ones used by TomTom). Nevertheless, I was willing to give TomTom (and Tele Atlas) another try. When I set it up, however, I noticed a real problem: My home wasn't on the map.?
The best rationale was that my street was part of a new-ish apartment development, but excuses don't work when you can't even get home! The apartment complex in question has since been added to the Tele Atlas database???sure enough, it?appears on the new Tele Atlas-powered Apple Maps app.
But even my preferred Garmins gave me trouble. When I went to the wedding of one of my best friends, out in rural Vermont, the GPS system would get me within a mile of his house, but leave me out on a road in the middle of a field. Finding his house from there?required dead-reckoning, though the balloons on the mailbox didn't hurt.
Down in Texas, visiting my brother-in-law, even a simple search for Starbucks once turned into an existential nightmare (made worse by lack of caffeine). The "point of interest"???those geo-tagged yellow pages that are the least reliable part of the GPS map experience???plopped a Starbucks smack in the middle of a quiet residential street. We never did quite figure out where that phantom Starbucks really was, or if it existed at all.
Smartphones were thought to be the holy grail, because they could download fresher (and therefore???we naively assumed???more accurate) maps on the fly. Never again would a random construction project take you by surprise. So we cheered the arrival in 2009 of bona-fide turn-by-turn smartphone?navigation, particularly the free version that?Google offered on the Motorola Droid and subsequent phones running?Android 2.0.
For iPhone users, GPS navigation was a double-edged sword, because without Apple providing a free homegrown navigator,?people who wanted live turn-by-turn instructions had to pay up in the App Store, sometimes up to?$100. The bulk of iPhone owners stuck with the native Maps?app, powered by Google, and even though it was only at its best?when you had a navigator riding shotgun, who could read out instructions,?its accuracy became the gold standard.
Cue all hell breaking loose when Apple swapped it out with their own approach, powered by the Tele Atlas map?database instead of Google's. The problems there are compounded: It's not just that some of the map data is screwy, it's that the points of interest that are pegged to the map can be way off.?
To make it worse, Apple oversold the 3-D multitouch map?manipulation. While?it looks insanely great when fully operational, it looks downright screwy when rendered wrong or used in an unsupported area (like most of the world). Apple bit off more than it can chew and, as CEO Tim Cook's apology indicates, the company is choking.
The other day, my family was packed into the minivan, heading from Seattle to a friend's house across Lake Washington. Our car's navigator was trying to take us over the 520 toll bridge, but Apple's Maps app was saying to go over I-90, which is free. We steered in that direction, and were glad we did: Turns out, the 520 bridge was closed all weekend.
It's at this point that a sane person just throws up his hands. If the free Apple upgrade works some of the time, and my car navi works some of the time, and I've also got the Garmin app and?Google maps via the browser, the real answer is the sailor's law: Reliance on one navigation tool is stupid, so always have a back-up.
Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.
Here?s the data. Costa Rica ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the international women?s bill of rights, in 1986, and its Optional Protocol in 2001. (The US has yet to ratify it.)
Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla Miranda
An Act Promoting the Social Equality of Women became law in 1990. The Beijing Declaration and World Platform for Action that followed the 4th World Conference on Women in 1995 inspired a new series of laws and policies in Costa Rica. Its National Institute for Women (INAMU), established in 1998, oversees all policies that affect women. A cabinet-level Minister on the Status of Women serves as Executive Secretary of INAMU.
At least in the formal sector, Costa Rican women earn 90% of what their male counterparts earn.
Women hold 39% of the seats in the national legislature.
The 2012 Social Institutions and Gender Index ranks Costa Rica #2 overall among 86 non-OECD countries, up from 5th place in 2009.
?Non-OECD? means that Costa Rica, like first-place Argentina, is classified as a developing country. What?s more, it?s a Latin country, one of those whose language and culture gave us the word machismo, and its complement, marianismo.
So, yes, there?s a gap between law and practice. Those of us who live in one of the 34 OECD member, or most-developed countries, know we have gaps here too ? some big enough to swallow lives.
Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla Miranda is committed to closing the gaps. ?Women continue receiving less salary for the same kind of job,? she said in a 2011 Forbes interview. ?Women have a higher unemployment rate in our country. When you analyze the composition of poverty, you will find that most of the families in poverty are being run by a woman. Also, a big issue is violence against women.?
Here?s a quick summary of what I?ve learned about policy and practice, from both research and conversations with those who know the country best.
Family Status
In 1973 Costa Rica became one of the first countries in the world to pass legislation granting parental authority to both spouses. This law also provides for equality in the case of divorce. A 1995 law on common-law marriages took it a step further, providing for equality between cohabiting partners. The 2001 Responsible Paternity Act outlaws discrimination against women with children born out of wedlock or not recognized by the father.
The government of this predominantly Catholic country considers sexual and reproductive health a fundamental right. Women?s access to contraception is guaranteed by the General Health Act, and the Ministry of Health runs outreach programs to increase the use of reproductive health services, including access to contraception. According to the CIA?s 2012 World Factbook, Costa Rica?s birthrate is 1.92, below ZPG and slightly below the US rate of 2.06.
The legal marriage age is 18, but 15-year-olds can wed if both parents give permission. In 1986, 20% of marriages involved teens. By 2010 that number had been almost halved, to 10.5%.
And who does the dishes? As in the US and other ?developed? countries, the domestic power balance is tilting toward equality, and it?s still far from ideal.
Education, Employment, and Economic Status
According to UNICEF, enrollment and attendance rates at primary and secondary schools are higher for Costa Rican girls than for their brothers. The high school enrollment rate is 92% for girls and 87% for boys. High school attendance rates, at 65% and 59% respectively, are lower for both genders but follow the same proportion.
The rate of women?s employment grew 26% between 2000 and 2012, according to an August 2012 World Bank report. The law requires that Costa Rican women and men receive equal pay for equal work. Women are entitled to four months paid maternity leave at 100% of wages, plus three months more in case of medical necessity. Half the payment comes from the national social security system and half from the woman?s employer, as long as she was contributing to Social Security for six months in the year preceding pregnancy. When that?s not the case, the employer pays two-thirds of her salary. Pregnant or nursing mothers cannot be fired except for cause, like any other employee. These rules apply only to women in the formal economy, and not to the many in domestic service or the informal economy.
Even domestic workers have some security, though. Along with Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Panama, Costa Rica has instated means-tested national pension programs for both women and men that do not depend on money paid in. This is especially important for women because we live longer than men. The nation?s poverty rate is just 2%, according to the PensionWatch Country Fact File.
Political Power
Observers note that quotas have been more effective in Costa Rica than in any democratic country anywhere. President Chinchilla Miranda, who took office in 2010, is the nation?s first woman president, one of three currently serving in Latin America and twenty worldwide. The deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court is a woman and so are the presidents of the High Court of Civil Appeals and the Constitutional Chamber and the ambassador to the US.
Central America
The country?s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) now requires that a minimum of 50% of candidates for elective office be women and, significantly, that women?s names be placed alternately with men?s on the ballot for each party slate. In August the TSE reported that 49% of the candidates running for office in the December local government elections are women. Women are almost 39% of the legislature, holding 22 of 57 seats and including the vice president of the assembly, the government party leader, and nine legislative committee chairwomen. (The percentage is 17% in the US.) There were 7 women in the 21-member cabinet as of May 7, 2012.
Violence against Women and Children
The National Institute for Women is particularly active on issues relating to violence against women, providing services to victims as well as advocating for better legal and practical protection. Sex work is legal, but pimping is against the law. Sexual violence remains a problem, with some evidence that rates have increased in recent years. Trafficking in women and even children is a growing concern.
The burgeoning eco-tourism, which has been a boon to the economy, brings sex tourism as well. Prisons, including the women?s prison, are overcrowded, mostly because of drug-related offenses. In the Forbes interview, President Chinchilla described her country as ?caught between the producers in the South and the consumers in the North.? She was talking about drug traffic, but it?s also true of traffic in persons.
These are serious, serious problems. ?It?s easy to come and do bad stuff because there aren?t a lot of police outside the capital,? says Sharon Ann Wildey, an American resident of Costa Rica who loves the country and its people and generously shared her impressions. Even one incident of sexual violence or child abuse is one too many. Yet there is no widespread impunity, according to the US Department of State?s 2010 Human Rights Report.
Ticos support their government because it provides them with education and what Wildey calls ?heroic? medical care. They don?t want government involved in their everyday lives, and outside the capitol and the coastal regions, where crime and police power are both concentrated, they have a rough, macho way of taking matters into their own hands. Overall, perhaps it?s still a good thing to have more teachers than police, as my previous article suggested.
Or maybe not. Is Costa Rica one of the best places in the world to be a woman?
Newsweek?s 2011 list of the 20 best places had no winners in Africa, the Middle East, or Latin America. Can a country that loves peace be a bad place to be a woman?
What do YOU think? We?d love to hear your opinions.
Apple has made a small but significant tweak to its App Store for iOS 6 users, changing the Apps for Passbook section of the store. Before, when you clicked through in Passbook the link that brings you to a list of apps, that's all you saw: a simple listing of compatible apps. Now, there's a new paragraph describing what Passbook is, and what Passbook-enabled apps are capable of.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Stivarga (regorafenib) to treat patients with colorectal cancer that has progressed after treatment and spread to other parts of the body (metastatic).
Stivarga is a multi-kinase inhibitor that blocks several enzymes that promote cancer growth. The drug was reviewed under the FDA's priority review program that provides an expedited six-month review for drugs that offer major advances in treatment or that provide treatment when no adequate therapy exists.
Stivarga is being approved one month ahead of the product's prescription drug user fee goal date of Oct. 27, 2012, the date the agency was scheduled to complete review of the drug application.
"Stivarga is the latest colorectal cancer treatment to demonstrate an ability to extend patients' lives and is the second drug approved for patients with colorectal cancer in the past two months," said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in men and in women and the third leading cause of cancer death in men and in women in the United States. The National Institutes of Health estimates 143,460 Americans will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and 51,690 will die from the disease in 2012.
The safety and effectiveness of Stivarga were evaluated in a single clinical study of 760 patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer. Patients were randomly assigned to receive Stivarga or placebo in addition to best supportive care (BSC), which includes treatments to help manage side effects and symptoms of cancer. Patients received treatment until their cancers progressed or side effects became unacceptable.
Study results showed patients treated with Stivarga plus BSC lived a median of 6.4 months compared to a median of five months in patients treated with placebo plus BSC. Results also showed patients treated with Stivarga plus BSC experienced a delay in tumor growth (progression-free survival) for a median of two months compared to a median of 1.7 months in patients receiving placebo plus BSC.
Stivarga is being approved with a Boxed Warning alerting patients and health care professionals that severe and fatal liver toxicity occurred in patients treated with Stivarga during clinical studies. The most common side effects reported in patients treated with Stivarga include weakness or fatigue, loss of appetite, hand-foot syndrome (also called palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia), diarrhea, mouth sores (mucositis), weight loss, infection, high blood pressure, and changes in voice volume or quality (dysphonia).
In August 2012, the FDA approved Zaltrap (ziv-aflibercept) for use in combination with a FOLFIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil and irinotecan) chemotherapy regimen to treat adults with metastatic colorectal cancer.
Stivarga is marketed by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, based in Wayne, N.J. Zaltrap is marketed by Bridgewater, N.J.-based sanofi-aventis.
The FDA, an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protects the public health by assuring the safety, effectiveness, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines and other biological products for human use, and medical devices. The agency also is responsible for the safety and security of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, dietary supplements, products that give off electronic radiation, and for regulating tobacco products.
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The Balancer plug-in provides a cartoon character that indicates the balance of your browsing, from conservative red to liberal blue.
By Alan Boyle
If you were told that your online reading habits lean toward the conservative or liberal side of the political spectrum, would you seek out more diversity? Or would you stick with the sources who agree with your point of view? Inquiring researchers want to know ??and to find out, they've created Balancer, a free plug-in for Google's Chrome browser.
"The top question that I'm most interested in is, can having real-time feedback about your online news reading habits affect the balance of the news that you read?" said Sean Munson, an assistant professor of human-centered design and engineering at the University of Washington.
Balancer determines whether your reading diet is fair and balanced by recording your visits to websites on a "whitelist" of 10,000 news sources and blogs. Each website has a rating on the liberal-to-conservative spectrum, typically based?on previous research ? for example, the studies that University of Chicago researchers Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro have conducted on media bias and slant. (One of their studies, from 2010, rated the San Francisco Chronicle as the most liberal U.S. newspaper and the Washington Times as the most conservative.) Munson developed ratings for additional news sources, based on the other websites they linked to. (Yes, Cosmic Log is on the list, along with every other news website you've probably ever visited.)
When the Balancer plug-in is installed, a button is added to the browser bar that shows you a cartoon character balancing a conservative-red and a liberal-blue block on a stick. The comparative size of the blocks serves as an indication of how balanced your news diet is. If the stick is tilted way to one side, the cartoon will suggest websites from the other side that would bring your score into balance.
Some of the participants will get the verdict from Balancer right away; others will have to wait for a month while the plug-in gathers control data. That way, Munson and his colleagues can gauge the effect of real-time monitoring.
Personality profile There's one more data-mining twist: When you sign up for the plug-in, you'll be asked a set of questions about personality attributes: Do you consider yourself liberal or conservative? Are you the life of the party? Do you often forget to put things back in their proper place? The answers to such questions add a dimension to Munson's research.
"It's possible that different personality attributes predict reading behavior, as well as how amenable someone is to being persuaded to change reading habits," he told me. "We have found that some people do in fact seek out diversity, but there are also some people who are 'diversity-challenged' when it comes to online news reading."
The plug-in was developed at the University of Michigan, where Munson earned his doctorate, and works only with the Chrome Web browser. It misses out on anything you read via other browsers, including mobile apps. Funding for the project came from the National Science Foundation.
When Munson put his own reading habits to the test, he was surprised to find out how slanted his news diet turned out to be. So he's curious to find out how inclined other people might be to change their ways. "Even self-discovery is a valuable outcome, just being aware of your own behavior," he said in a news release. "If you do agree that you should be reading the other side, or at least aware of the dialogue in each camp, you can use it as a goal: Can I be more balanced this week than I was last week?"
Of course, most people probably think they're already fair and balanced, no matter how their political views look from the outside. So far, a few dozen people have signed up for the Balancer experiment, but Munson and his colleagues hope to sign up many more between now and the November elections.
Eventually, Munson's findings may influence the design of online search engines and recommendation websites. Today, your browser may ask if you're "feeling lucky." Someday, it just might ask if you feel like hearing a different opinion.
But wait, there's more: By now, you're probably asking, "What about privacy?" A browser plug-in that keeps track of your reading habits and matches them up with your personality may sound like a big wet kiss for Big Brother. Munson's aware of the concern: He said the plug-in has been designed to anonymize all the data coming in, and will only keep track of the sites on the 10,000-website whitelist. Any other data ? including records of your visits to the naughty parts of the Internet???will go no farther than your own computer, he said.
"We did that partly to minimize the traffic on our servers, and also to protect privacy," Munson told me. "We've tried to collect as little data as necessary for the study."
Do you trust him on that? What do you think about the idea of tracking your Web browsing for research purposes? (Let's face it: That's being done all the time for commercial purposes.) And what do you think about the idea of fair and balanced news browsing? Feel free to go on the record with your comments below.
More about politics:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
To be completely frank, nothing is simple in life, and the same principle applies to generating more web site site visitors for an current website. If a webmaster submits a selected website into a listing or perhaps a search engine, it could take time to truly see outcomes ? time that the majority on-line enterprise house owners do not have. So just how precisely will you be capable to generate tons of and hundreds of net site visitors on your web site? What can you do to make that occur and make it occur fast?
You have got probably examine tons of of articles giving advice that one of the best ways to get more web site site visitors is by creating and submitting articles concerning the products you are selling and the companies that you just offer. And it?s fairly easy really, all you have to do is get a transparent concept of what you wish to say and how you wish to say it and combine it with decent writing skills, about two to three hours of your time and submit it to EzineArticles or to different on-line publishing sites. And because there is absolutely no cash involved, this system is practiced loads by small enterprise house owners who have a restricted advertising budget. After getting achieved this, you are off to a good begin in getting more visitors and browsers to your site.
But writing and submitting it is just one option to get more web site site visitors on your on-line business. There?s one other option to publish your articles and create free advertising for yourself. There are quite a lot of on-line newsletters whose editors are continuously on the lookout for good and original content. Now the association can be that the net e-newsletter?s editors would help you put your article or your content material onto the e-newsletter and your compensation can be free advertising at the backside of the article. This is what is often referred to as the ?resource field? or ?by line?. Now you could wonder if any good will comes out of six traces of advertisement underneath an article you wrote yourself. The answer relies on what number of newsletters you submit your articles to.
Like in any enterprise, this is a numbers recreation and the Regulation of Averages is obviously at work here. The logic behind it is the more articles you post on completely different newsletters, the more probabilities there are of getting more web site site visitors into your on-line business.
So the following question is how would you find these on-line newsletters that would settle for your work? Do your research. It will not be essentially the most fun job out there, however it?s essential if you would like your on-line enterprise to grow. Check out the variety of present subscribers that they have and pick at least twenty small to medium sized on-line newsletters and start sending them your articles. The reason behind this is huge newsletters are more choosy and refuse to accept articles that have already been printed in smaller newsletters. This isn?t the case with small to medium sized newsletters that practically settle for ay form of article as long as it?s effectively written and suits their article niche.
So does this really assist to get more web site site visitors? Yes and no. Yes it is going to assist loads in generating more site visitors to your web site in case your content material is original, refreshing, and informative and is not boring to read. It additionally helps that you just distribute the article as well as everything that is written in your resource field correctly amongst ezines and on-line newsletters. By doing this, you are one step closer to bringing more site visitors to your website.
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LONDON (AP) -The English Football Association has charged Wigan manager Roberto Martinez for publicly criticizing a referee.
Martinez was unhappy about a penalty being awarded to Manchester United, and about Danny Welbeck avoiding a red card in Wigan's 4-0 loss on Sept. 15.
The FA says Martinez was charged over "media comments which implied that the match referee and/or match officials in general are motivated by bias and/or brought the game into disrepute."
Martinez described Welbeck's challenge on Wigan forward Franco di Santo as "completely reckless," claiming there were tackles "if they had been the other way round ... would have been a couple of red cards."
Martinez said that at Old Trafford, Wigan "don't seem to be measured in the same manner as the team at home."
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Zidane head-butt now a statue
??The historic head-butt that marked the end of France great Zinedine Zidane's international football career is now more than just a memory.
Rooney returns from injury as United wins in cup
LONDON (AP) - Wayne Rooney returned from a monthlong injury absence, helping Manchester United to a 2-1 victory Wednesday that eliminated Newcastle from the League Cup. Arsenal and Tottenham advanced with ease on Wednesday.
Lead capture is ?gotcha marketing?, plain and simple.
You visit a real estate website, see a property you like, then you?re forced to fill out a form in order to get the information you want.
When you fill out one of those forms, you have no idea who may end up with your contact information.
Many real estate websites? sole reason to exist is to capture leads that they sell to real estate agents who don?t know how to generate their own clientele.
Worse yet, some of these lead generation companies will sell your information to more than one real estate agent and/or other organizations.
In many instances, you will be added to someone?s ?drip system? and end up being bombarded with unsolicited e-mails and automated phone calls.
I despise ?gotcha marketing? and do not view my visitors as ?leads? to be used as fodder for ?closing the deal?.
I do call my blog visitors (once) when they download my Moving To Boise e-book or use the advanced features of my MLS search to see if I can answer any questions.
No pursuit, no drip marketing, no persuasion.
Just straightforward, responsive service if you want my help.
Is this any way to run a real estate business?
Check out What Phil?s Clients Say (over here -> -> ->) and see for yourself.
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September 26th, 2012 Posted in Inside Real Estate ?Print This Post
The iPhone 5 started shipping (and hitting store shelves) on Friday, Sept. 21. According to Apple, the company has sold more than?five milli... Read more
17 hrs.
Rosa Golijan
Apple tells us that the iPhone 5 offers "even longer battery life" than any of its predecessors, but what does that really mean? Can the new smartphone keep up ?with ?? or beat ? the competition?
Laptop Mag's Mark Spoonauer conducted some thorough tests while reviewing the iPhone 5, just as he does when checking out other smartphones, to find out.
"Our test goes out and surfs 50 of the most popular websites in succession every 60 seconds," he told me,?in describing the testing procedures Laptop Mag sets up. "It's meant to mimic how people use their phones.?Every minute or so, you might take it out of your pocket and use it."
Apple claims that the iPhone 5 has enough battery power to offer "up to 8 hours of browsing on a cellular connection, up to 8 hours of talk time, and up to 10 hours of video playback time." In?Spoonauer's tests, the device "lasted 7 hours and 13 minutes."
To put that into perspective, consider that the Samsung Galaxy S III, a key?competitor, lasted for six hours and 55 minutes in Laptop Mag's tests. The iPhone 4S lasted five hours and 54 minutes, the HTC One X lasted 5 hours and 59 minutes, the Samsung?Galaxy Nexus lasted 3 hours and 40 minutes. The current champ, when it comes to battery life, is?the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx, with a battery life of 8 hours and 25 minutes, according to Laptop Mag's tests.
"It simply has a bigger capacity battery," says Spoonauer, referring to the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx. "At some point physics has to take over." There's only so much that Apple's clever software tweaks can do to boost the life of a rather small battery. Of course a device such as the?Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx stands a chance of outrunning the iPhone 5 thanks to sheer capacity. "It's amazing that it lasts as long as it does, given how small the battery is in comparison to the competition," Spoonauer points out.
"For the [battery] size, I think that the iPhone 5 offers fairly good battery life," he concludes before cautioning that he has seen some complaints about battery life?on Apple-centric forums.?
We put a lot of trust in Spoonauer's quantitative tests, though, and until the anecdotal evidence of poor battery performance is overwhelming, we'll maintain our faith in his assessment. This little gadget seems to last "longer on a charge than most 4G LTE phones."
Want more tech news?or interesting?links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on?Twitter, subscribing to her?Facebook?posts,?or circling her?on?Google+.
Welcome to this interview of Thomas Cohn, a well-known consumer regulatory attorney, former Federal Trade Commission?(FTC) Regional Director, and 17 year FTC veteran. At Affiliate Management Days East 2012 (on Oct 9-10, 2012), Thomas will be speaking on FTC and State actions versus affiliates and merchants and how to comply with consumer laws to avoid regulatory scrutiny.
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Question: What are the major affiliate marketing threats that you have seen evolve over the past few years on the legislative front?
Thomas: ?There?s a big direct threat on the state level (sales tax legislation). ?On the federal level, there are only indirect threats such as the limited situations in the ?Rockefeller Bill? that became ROSCA.
Beyond legislation, there are new FTC regulations implementing legislation, like the MARS Rule (banning advance fees for mortgage assistance) and the Business Opportunity Rule (more stringent disclosure requirements, covering more types within definition).
But the threat even bigger than legislation or regulation, is simply the continual increase in enforcement actions by state AGs and the FTC against deceptive online marketing, and against the roles played in it by not just merchants, but also affiliates, networks, and others who allegedly play a role in helping to apply the deceptive practices against consumers.
Question: Can you give us an example of a case involving legal compliance?
Thomas: The actions that FTC has brought in the last 12 months have highlighted the FTC?s awareness of deceptive tactics in affiliate marketing, and its increasingly aggressive stance in going after them. ?Whether they involve merchants, affiliates, networks, or other third parties whom the FTC believes are ?assisting and facilitating? these tactics.
This includes FTC cases against merchants like Central Coast Nutraceuticals, Jesse Willms and LeanSpa. ?The ten FTC cases brought against individual affiliate marketers, and the two FTC cases against affiliate networks.
Other third parties may be vulnerable, too: lead generators, list brokers, payment processors and call centers have all been targeted by the FTC. ?There may be more investigations and/or actions against such third parties.
Question: What can affiliate managers merchants do to ensure? compliance with the laws and avoid regulatory scrutiny?
Thomas: Take a look at the enforcement actions cited above that have final orders requiring monitoring, and see how onerous these are to actually implement! ?Then realize that while these don?t apply to everyone, just to the named defendants, you should still consider them in your risk calculus.
Finally, come up with a robust monitoring program that you actually can and will follow, by checking out both merchants and their offers, and affiliates? published content, before doing business with them.
Then, after offers start running, periodically check up on at least those merchants and affiliates that are performing the best, to see just why they are the top performers. ?Are there any deceptive/false/unsubstantiated product claims, including testimonials/endorsements? ?Are there deceptive formats? ?Are there inadequate or missing negative option/free trial and/or continuity/rebill disclosures?
If so, either enforce modifications or terminate the relationship.
Question: What can the affiliate marketing industry do to ensure its growth, regardless of the emerging legislative challenges?
Thomas: Same as above. ?Make sure both merchants and affiliates stay as compliant as possible, or stop doing business with those who don?t. ?The best way to ensure growth is to stay on top of the content being published by reasonably monitoring merchants? and affiliates? advertising.
While online privacy is a perennial hot topic, affiliate marketers and affiliate networks may not be affected much by whatever behavioral targeting legislation is eventually passed. The more immediate privacy-related issue is data security. ?If you ?say what you do? with your consumer data, then you better ensure that you ?do what you say.?
Any major hacking attack or other data breach could quickly bring an FTC investigation and/or enforcement action.
Question: If you were to leave affiliate managers with just one piece of advice today, what would it be?
Thomas: Compliance monitoring.?It doesn?t have to be perfect, but has to be reasonable and consistently implemented.
The FTC doesn?t care about cloaking/masking or other difficulties that affiliate networks/managers face in monitoring affiliates. The FTC?s view is that, if network profits are based on traffic that converts, then the network must do better to ensure compliant affiliate content.
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Affiliate Management Days takes place October 9-10, 2012. More information about Affiliate Management Days being held in Ft Lauderdale, can be found here. Or follow the hashtag #AMDays on Twitter. There?s still time to register using code SBTAM150 to receive $150.00 off your pass.
Be sure to check out the rest of the?interview series from #AMDays.
About Geno Prussakov
Geno Prussakov is the Founder & Chair of Affiliate Management Days and the CEO & founder of AM Navigator LLC. As an award-winning affiliate marketing expert, he has contributed to the online marketing success of such top brands as Forbes, Nokia, Hallmark, Warner Music, Skype, Forex Club, and hundreds of small businesses.
Amy Larson readily admits writing ?9/11 Truth? and ?9/11 Truth Now? in chalk on the First Street sidewalk over Napa Creek.
?I just want people to think for themselves,? said Larson, 29. ?I believe we?ve lost a lot of civil liberties since the 9/11 attacks. I?m really concerned about that.
?This is political free speech,? added Larson, who says the investigation into the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. should be reopened.
Her chalk writing ? which occurred Sept. 11, the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks ? got Larson arrested on suspicion of vandalism.
Home renovation in State of Arizona ( az ) is a way to create your objectives come real. You might have long thought high rooftops, larger closets, skylights, a new lavatory or kitchen, or even a new place for your present house.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government officially linked Iran's state oil company to the country's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Monday, a determination that enables Washington to apply new sanctions on foreign banks dealing with the company.
The Treasury Department determined that the National Iranian Oil Company, one of the world's largest oil exporters, is "an agent or affiliate" of the IRGC, which the United States has long put under sanctions for terrorism and human rights abuses.
The U.S. Congress directed Treasury to determine whether Iran's oil and tanker companies were linked to the IRGC as part of a new package of sanctions signed into law in August.
Adam Szubin, the head of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, told Congress in a letter that the IRGC's influence has grown in the oil company, a petroleum and natural gas producer based in Tehran, and throughout Iran's energy sector.
Iran's elite guard force has recently been coordinating a campaign to sell Iranian oil in an effort to evade Western sanctions, specifically the EU's Iranian oil embargo that went into force in July, the Treasury Department said.
But Szubin said there was not enough information at this time to conclude that the National Iranian Tanker Company was also linked to the IRGC.
Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat who helped craft the sanctions law, urged the Obama administration to continue investigating whether Iran's elite guards are linked to the oil tanker company.
U.S. backers of sanctions applauded the ruling, part of Washington's wider net of oil-related sanctions aimed at choking funding to Iran's nuclear program. The West says Iran is developing weapons, but Tehran says its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.
"Oil transactions with NIOC directly support the IRGC's role in Iran's nuclear-weapons program and its support for terrorism," Representative Howard Berman, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement.
NOT WORTH THE DOWNSIDE
While U.S. companies already are prohibited from buying Iranian oil, the new determination means the United States can impose further sanctions on any foreign bank that facilitates transactions with NIOC, according to the sanctions law.
But the new penalties will not apply to countries that have been granted "exceptions," or waivers, to the sanctions because they have significantly cut their purchases of Iranian oil.
The United States this year issued 180-day waivers for all of Iran's major crude buyers. This month it renewed waivers for Japan and 10 EU countries, while exceptions for China and India are due to be reviewed in coming months.
A sanctions lawyer said the determination could make foreign banks skittish about taking on business that while technically allowed, could hurt ties with the U.S. government or U.S. banks.
"To me, the more significant impact is the stigmatization of NIOC," said Behn Dayanim, a lawyer with Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP in Washington who advises clients on U.S. sanctions law.
"The upside isn't worth the downside if you actually end up inadvertently committing a violation," Dayanim said in an interview. (Editing by James Dalgleish and Mohammad Zargham)
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., Oct. 14, 2011 -- Two staunch military family advocates today spoke on behalf of military children, citing the challenges and stresses they endure to an audience of child support professionals from across the nation.
Speaking at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's national conference here, Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno noted the importance of mentorship and support for military children as they navigate the frequent moves, deployments and separations brought on by more than a decade of war.
"As a teacher and a military mom and grandmother, I have seen firsthand what a big difference a great mentor can make in the lives of our nation's military children," Biden told the audience of juvenile justice and child protection professionals. Her son, Beau, serves in the Delaware Army National Guard.
Biden cited a new program that's already making a difference in military children's lives. Earlier this week, she explained, the Justice Department announced a partnership with the Defense Department to award $20 million to organizations that provide mentoring programs and services to children with a military parent. Among the award recipients are the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the National 4-H Council.
"These mentors and so many other individuals and groups across this country are showing all Americans that there are countless ways to help our military families -- some large and many small, but all important," Biden noted.
Last year, President Barack Obama directed federal agencies to work together on a government-wide approach to supporting military families, Biden said, and "this mentoring initiative represents a powerful response to that call to action."
It's also a fitting example of agencies "Joining Forces," she said. First Lady Michelle Obama and Biden launched that initiative earlier this year to encourage all sectors of society to honor and support military families.
Military children need and deserve this support, she said, as they endure unique challenges and stresses, from multiple moves and schools to deployments and separations.
Biden recalled meeting a teenager whose father had deployed to Afghanistan with the Illinois National Guard. The girl gave Biden an essay she had written about that deployment.
In her essay, the teen said a teacher called her to the office one day. Her first thought was something bad had happened to her dad. "When I got to the office," she wrote, "I saw my mom was there, and she was crying, which made me start crying right away. I asked what was wrong, and she told me that my dad was okay, but we had lost four of our soldiers. I remember crying for days."
The teen and her brother, Biden noted, were the only military children in that school.
"Unfortunately, their story is not unique," she said. "There are approximately 700,000 children throughout the country who have parents serving in the National Guard and reserves -- and so many of them do not live anywhere near a military base.
"As a mom of a National Guardsman," she added, "I know just how important it is for a teacher, a counselor or a fellow classmate to reach out and show support and understanding."
Biden encouraged the audience to reach out to military families.
"Think about how you can take part in bringing some stability, guidance and friendship into their lives," she said.
Odierno echoed Biden's call to support military children and their families. The military has shouldered the burden of multiple deployments and separations for years now, he said, which affects the family members just as it affects the service members.
The nation must maintain its commitment to these families, the general said, especially the families of the fallen and those who are caring for service members wounded in combat.
Odierno noted that more than 4,500 soldiers have died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 32,000 have been injured, with 9,000 of those requiring long-term care.
"The one thing I'm always concerned about with these factors -- repetitive deployments, casualties, death -- is the impact it has on our children," he said. "What are we doing to help them to cope? What are we doing to help them to overcome?"
Programs such as the Defense and Justice departments mentorship partnership will help to ensure military children adapt and excel in the years ahead, Odierno said, but still more help is needed.
"We need engagement from organizations not normally involved in military issues," the general said, "to help us, to provide us expertise, to fill the gaps between where our government programs are able to help our families and where they cannot."
Community support also is needed, Odierno noted, particularly for reserve forces that are geographically dispersed throughout the nation. "We need to be able to reach out to them, to reach out to their children to help them," he said.
Odierno said he'd also like to forge a relationship with nonprofit organizations that support military families so there's better access and coordination, and to other departments and agencies that provide care for children to ensure they're incorporating military family members in their programs.
The general noted his career, which spans 35 years, has spurred 23 moves. His oldest child, he added, attended four different high schools. "First and foremost," he said, "we need continued assistance to school-age children to support seamless transitions between schools."
While much work remains to be done, Odierno said he's grateful for the support Americans have so freely given over this past decade of war. "I've been so impressed by the generosity of American people, that [they] want to reach out, they want to help, they want to assist," he said. "They want to do whatever they can to help our families."
Meetings such as this one, he told the audience, will help to channel this goodwill toward families and "organize ourselves so we can take that generosity, that commitment, that willingness to help ? to get it synchronized and integrated so we can provide best care for all of our children," he said.
While Australia?s elite sportsmen are aiming for top form in the footy finals, young Australians are also striving to achieve their best: It?s now the ?business end? of the year, when kids take to the field in sports finals, school students knuckle down to study for final exams, and young performers prepare for end-of-year eisteddfods.
But how to get the most out of high achievers without overdoing it? A new resource from one of Australia?s leading child psychology practices, The Quirky Kid Clinic? helps young people perform at their best, while maintaining balance and perspective, and not getting burnt out.
?Power Up!? is a step-by-step program that enables schools and clubs to adopt the type of performance psychology used by elite athletes, performers and musicians. Young people striving to perform at high levels in sports, performance, music or academia (including end of year exams) can benefit from these techniques. They include goal setting, self-talk, imagery, arousal regulation, focus and competition planning.
Quirky Kid Clinic?s principal child Psychologist, Kimberly O?Brien says: ?Know- ing how to reach your performance peak is more effective than endless hours of coaching. Power Up! is about avoiding burn out and enjoying what you do best?.
Power Up! will be distributed by the Australian Council of Educational Research. ACER?s National Sales Manager Eirini Lamni says the program is an ?innovation in the way we approach high performing kids. By focusing on the path towards goals rather than just the end-point, young people are armed with useful, healthy strategies to perform at their best. It?s a great resource.?
Power Up! will be launched on the 26th of September at the Sydney Academy of Sport and Recreation, in partnership with Football United. Football United organaises soccer matches, tournaments and camps, providing opportunities for young refugees, or kids from disadvantaged backgrounds to socialise, form networks, and to excel on the sports field.
More information about Power Up! is available at http://quirkykid.com.au
To register to a workshop visit our workshop registration page
Apple has made a small but significant tweak to its App Store for iOS 6 users, changing the Apps for Passbook section of the store. Before, when you clicked through in Passbook the link that brings you to a list of apps, that's all you saw: a simple listing of compatible apps. Now, there's a new paragraph describing what Passbook is, and what Passbook-enabled apps are capable of.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Stivarga (regorafenib) to treat patients with colorectal cancer that has progressed after treatment and spread to other parts of the body (metastatic). 
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Question: What are the major affiliate marketing threats that you have seen evolve over the past few years on the legislative front?
Geno Prussakov is the Founder & Chair of Affiliate Management Days and the CEO & founder of AM Navigator LLC. As an award-winning affiliate marketing expert, he has contributed to the online marketing success of such top brands as Forbes, Nokia, Hallmark, Warner Music, Skype, Forex Club, and hundreds of small businesses. 
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