Sunday, June 30, 2013

Portland's New Streetlights Are Psychedelic, Carnivorous Plants

Portland's New Streetlights Are Psychedelic, Carnivorous Plants

If you've seen one streetlight, you've pretty much seen them all. They're important, sure, but they're usually not much to look at. The lamps that popped up across Portland are a little bit different. A little more like giant, carnivorous plants.

Read more...

    


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/LlfToVpGz1A/portlands-new-streetlights-are-psychedelic-carnivorou-619917815

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UPDATE ON US CITIZEN MURDERED IN ALEXANDRIA EGYPT, JEWISH COLLEGE STUDENT WHO ONCE LAUDED RELEASE OF MOROCCAN JIHADI PRISONERS??.

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Sorry that he?s dead, surely didn?t deserve that, but dude?..

From Andrew Bostom :?Sickeningly tragic?

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Jewish student killed in?Egypt?http://bit.ly/12tfcHE??2-y ago lauded?Morocco?s release of jihadist prisoners?http://bit.ly/mQeVk2

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF

06/29/2013 12:56

Andrew Pochter active at Hillel; stabbed in Alexandria at protest.

Protesters demonstrate in Sedy Gaber in Alexandria, June 28, 2013

Protesters demonstrate in Sedy Gaber in Alexandria, June 28, 2013Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghan

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt ? An American college student stabbed to death?during a protest in Egypt?was in the country teaching English to children and improving his Arabic, according to a Facebook post on Saturday that appeared to be from his family.

According to the?The Kenyon Collegian, the student newspaper, Pochter was active in Hillel, the campus?s center for Jewish life, and lived at the group?s on-campus house.

Andrew Pochter, 21, from Chevy Chase, Maryland, died after being stabbed in the chest in the coastal city of Alexandria, where anti-government protesters stormed an office of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood.

It was not clear what Pochter was doing at the protest, but Egyptian officials said he was carrying a small camera.

More here.

This entry was posted in Egypt. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://tundratabloids.com/2013/06/update-on-us-citizen-murdered-in-alexandria-egypt-jewish-college-student-who-once-lauded-release-of-moroccan-jihadi-prisoners.html

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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Video: Public Pension Cost Cover-Up?

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52346193/

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A Mobius Strip Track Makes Magnet Hovercrafts Even Cooler

Superconducting magnets are freakin' awesome. You should know this already. But the folks at the Royal Institution took it a step further with their futuristic upside-down, M?bius strip track that's fit for a racing game set in 21xx. Hopefully this is what the Hot Wheels of the future are like. Err, "Hot Superconducting Magnets," I guess.

But on top of the sheer cool-factor of seeing something hover upside down, you'll also get a nice explanation on how this kind of stuff actually works. It's not as great as getting an actual superconducting magnet car and accompanying track of your own, but here's to hoping. [Boing Boing]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/a-mobius-strip-track-makes-magnet-hovercrafts-even-cool-618712302

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Dispatch Editor's Blog

Editor Kurt Wanfried shares his view of the news in Madison County and Southern Oneida County.

View from the Back Street

Mary Messere, the former Madison County historian, describes herself as historian/writer/photographer who loves music, history, making videos, poetry, art and travel. Her entertaining blog covers all that and more.

Source: http://oneidadispatch.com/articles/2013/06/29/news/doc51cdc4136c849235378052.txt

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Microsoft rolls out the next version of windows, 8.1, at its annual Build developers conference today. It's a big deal. Windows 8 was a crazy ambitious step, what follows is just as important. This is what Microsoft's taken from your months of feedback (or just, yelling).

Almost everything coming in 8.1 seems like a genuine improvement. The question, then, is exactly how much improvement. It's not so much good news/bad news as good news and wait that's all the good news? That's part of Microsoft's plan, though, as it's focusing on smaller, faster releases.

We'll be updating this post throughout Microsoft's keynote (refresh to see the latest updates), but we've started you with an overview of what's going into the update. You can watch the keynote live here.

To Start

Welp, you can boot to desktop now. You can also boot basically anywhere else you want, too?the All Apps screen, individual apps, the Start Menu.

The Start button also returns, but it only flings you into the Start Screen?no old school Start menu.

There are also some new tile sizes: The smaller square tiles (like Windows Phone 8's), which let you cram more stuff onto your homescreen, and the gigantic square tile, which can display a bunch of information, like emails or calendar appointments.

You can select a group of tiles at once and drag them into their own group, which you can name, like a folder.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Swiping up from the Start screen brings up All Apps, which can now be sorted in more ways. This is a nice improvement from the swipe-then-tap required to bring this up in Windows 8.

The start screen can be customized to more colors and has some "motion accents" that move as you scroll through the metro tiles. Or, blessedly, you can just put your desktop wallpaper behind the Start screen.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

As a whole, the changes to the Start screen are pretty indicative of the update as a whole. A few functional improvements, some of which are highly anticipated, but just as much window dressing and little flourishes.

Wider Customization

Microsoft's big push for 8.1 is to make Windows feel more customizable, and that goes beyond the Start screen.

All your Modern/Metro apps will get automatic updates through the Windows Store in 8.1.

The most visible change is the tweak to multitasking. "Snap View", or the ability to pin a Metro app to either side of the screen, has been changed to let you drag to resize the apps. Meaning: If you want to have, say, Mail on the left side and a browser on the right, you can have each app take up 50 percent of the screen, or drag the divider around to your liking.

The new snap features open new Metro apps automatically, but we still aren't sure how this works with forcing an app to default to open in its own window.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

In addition to this, you can have up to four apps snapped as vertical columns on your screen. All screens can take four apps, but obviously you're going to want a larger monitor to handle them (16:9 or 21:9 being ideal).

IE11 in Metro can now open more than one window, and can have infinite tabs.

Microsoft has looked into allowing you snap apps as horizontal rows?either at the top and bottom of the screen, or within columns created by snapped apps?but that's not currently possible. Yell about this some more and maybe it'll show up in an update down the road.

The lock screen can now be a moving collage of photos from your PC, SkyDrive, and Phone. You can also do things, like answer Skype calls, from the lock screen as well.

Mail will be updated in an upcoming build to have some new features like "sweep", which gets rid of all of the same spammy emails of a type. So, LivingSocial: you can get rid of every LS app at once, or only keep the oens from with the past 10 days or so.

Music got a new auto-generating playlist feature that makes a whole playlist from a selected artist.

Gestures

The on-screen keyboard has some new gestures. You can slide up from any key that has a number as a secondary key, and the number will be inserted automatically, instead of having to switch to a different panel.

You can use hands-free swiping to scroll through apps, which is allegedly helpful for stuff like the new Food and Drinks app, which is more or less a huge cookbook.

Multi-Monitor

We know you'll be able to keep the Start Screen pinned to one screen permanently now, but we'll have more specifics soon, hopefully.

Each monitor will now have its own scaling factor, meaning that you can zoom in with a high DPI monitor, and then move the app to a lower DPI screen without it being huge and awful. The app just resizes on its own.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

SkyDrive

SkyDrive features more prominently in 8.1. You can decide in all your apps whether to view files on your PC or on SkyDrive, and where things are saved. We'll add further features as they're announced.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Settings

We're going to see a lot of new APIs today that will allow developers to make apps more customizable. We're also told that the first party Microsoft apps will have more options as well. We'll have more details as the specific APIs are announced.

Search

Search is a big addition for Windows 8.1. Well, "change" is probably more appropriate.

In Windows 8, Search was broken down to search by applications, on the web, in the store, through your files. You decided which you'd see.

In 8.1, Search is universal. Searching for any term will bring up a "hero" display if you press enter, showing you results from the web, in your files, and anywhere else, which you scroll through.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

If you just type into the field, though, the pane on the right hand side of the screen will display results in real time, a lot like Apple's Spotlight. This is a good thing, in theory, but we still want to see how it works in a day to day setting.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Apps

Performance is supposed to be faster for all apps in 8.1. We'll let you know if we see the difference.

For devs, there are new performance analysis tools in Visual Studio 2014 to test network health, battery life effects, and other variables with app performance.

There's also a new tool to make push notifications easier to put into apps. So for users, notifications should be better in the apps you use.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

The Store is totally remodeled, with new lists that make it easier to find things.

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

Windows 8.1: Everything You Need to Know

There are some new ways to use graphics resources, called tiled resources, which you can find out more about here.

3D Printing

Microsoft is partnering with Makerbot, 3D Systems, Form Labs, Autodesk, and several other software and hardware companies to add 3D printing support to 8.1.

Windows Phone 8.1

Apparently we're going to be hearing about Windows Phone, too, which is unexpected. We're going to be adding details about it as we have them.

Business

Microsoft is also pushing new enterprise features, like better and easier encryption. Obviously, Windows 8 wasn't a huge hit for that sector, so this is sorely needed. More details to come here.

Good thing? Bad thing?

Windows 8.1 brings good stuff to the table. The question isn't really if it's good, but if it's good enough. A lot of that will depend on how the new developer tools are implemented going forward, and how much developer support overall improves this year.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/windows-8-1-everything-you-need-to-know-585637162

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Microsoft Opens Up Bing As A Platform For Developers

P1110654At its Build developer conference today, Microsoft announced that it is opening up quite a bit of Bing‘s advanced functionality to developers. As Microsoft corporate VP Gurdeep Singh Pall noted, developers are already using Bing APIs, of course, but apps can now use Bing’s entities and knowledge, natural user interfaces, optical character recognition and new mapping and visualization capabilities, including Microsoft’s just-announced 3-D imagery for maps. As Singh Pall noted, Microsoft has been using all of these capabilities privately already, of course, but he thinks that “if we can do something with an API that is good, third parties can do something that is dynamite.” Bing, he said, “is not just a great search engine, but the team has built some great capabilities.” Bing, after all, is pretty good at understand user intent, unstructured content on the web and other queries and data types that are not trivial for a developer to implement. The team, he said, always believed that Bing could do a lot of things that can “actually be very valuable outside of the search box. For a long time, we’ve now thought that you could use these capabilities to create some great experiences.” Developers will get access to much of Bing’s data, including it web index and relevance engine, as well as its knowledge base and understanding of entities. The Bing team has also worked on lots of natural user interface technologies, including voice recognition, which will also be available for developers to add to their apps. Here is a full list of the new capabilities for developers: Bringing the World?s Knowledge to Your Apps Understanding the World:?We think knowledge is more than just a ?graph?. It requires combining the web?s deep sets of information with insights derived from understanding the people, places, things, and actions in the real world.?The Bing Entity API?allows developers to create applications using this understanding to build scenarios that augment users? abilities to discover and interact with their world faster and more easily than they can do today. Natural and Intuitive User Experiences The Gift of Sight:?Giving machines the ability to see and understand is a long-held science fiction dream. TheBing Optical Character Recognition?(OCR)?Control?enables developers to integrate Microsoft?s robust cloud-based visual recognition capabilities into their applications. Write Once, Read Anywhere:?The world is shrinking and information is increasingly more global. The?Bing Translator Control?lets apps detect text and delivers automatic machine translation into a

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/zKH5JqixuWo/

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Kat Von D and Deadmau5 Break Up Again

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Page Not Found - Yahoo!

Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo!, try visiting the Yahoo! homepage or look through a list of Yahoo!'s online services.

Please try Yahoo Help Central if you need more assistance.

Source: http://rss.news.yahoo.com/rss/techblog

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Tenn. man charged in Romney tax return scheme

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) ? A Tennessee man has been charged in a scheme involving former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's income tax returns.

The U.S. Justice Department said 34-year-old Michael Mancil Brown of Franklin was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Nashville and charged with six counts of wire fraud and six counts of extortion.

Brown is accused of having a letter delivered to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP accounting firm in Franklin last August, demanding $1 million to keep the returns from being released. The Justice Department said Brown falsely claimed that he had gained access to the PricewaterhouseCoopers internal computer network and stolen tax documents for Romney for tax years before 2010.

A phone number listed for Brown had a message saying it was not receiving incoming calls. He did not immediately return an email message sent Wednesday evening.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tenn-man-charged-romney-tax-return-scheme-000257791.html

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Get ready for invading Asian tiger mosquitoes

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128787/Get_ready_for_invading_Asian_tiger_mosquitoes

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Awkward! Prince Harry Seen with Current & Ex-Girlfriend

While all of Britain’s finest were enjoying the royal wedding of the Duke of Northumberland’s youngest daughter, Prince Harry found himself in a love triangle. Things became a little awkward for the prince when former flame Chelsy Davy and current girlfriend Cressida Bonas attended the ceremony and shared in the festivities. Davy was a beautiful maid of honor at the wedding; after dating Prince Harry for five years the couple called it quits in 2009.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/prince-harry-attends-royal-wedding-current-ex-girlfriends/1-a-539886?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aprince-harry-attends-royal-wedding-current-ex-girlfriends-539886

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New home sales near five-year high, prices rise

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of new U.S. single-family homes rose to their highest level in nearly five years in May, confirming the housing market's strengthening tone.

The Commerce Department said on Tuesday sales increased 2.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000 units - the highest level since July 2008. It was the third straight month of gains in new home sales.

Sales increased 3.3 percent in April. Economists polled by Reuters had expected new home sales to rise to a 462,000-unit rate last month.

Compared with May 2012, sales were up 29 percent.

Home sales data will be closely watched in the coming months for signs of strain from the rise in mortgage rates.

The housing market recovery, which is helping to soften the blow on the economy from tight fiscal policy, has been largely driven by record-low mortgage rates, thanks to the Federal Reserve's generous monetary stimulus.

The Fed last week said it expected to start slowing the pace of its bond-buying program later this year, bringing it to a halt around the middle of 2014. That has pushed up mortgage rates, which had already been rising since early May.

Economists do not believe the increase in mortgage rates is sufficient to undo the housing market recovery. Data last week showed confidence among home builders spiked to a seven-year high in June and they were upbeat about sales over the next six months and prospective buyer traffic.

Last month, the inventory of new homes on the market increased 2.5 percent to 161,000 - the highest since August 2011 - as builders ramp up production to meet the growing demand.

Still, supply remains tight, putting upward pressure on prices. The median new home price increased 10.3 percent from a year ago.

At May's sales pace it would take 4.1 months to clear the houses on the market, up from 4.0 months in April. A supply of 6.0 months is normally considered as a healthy balance between supply and demand.

Sales last month were up in the Northeast, Midwest and West. They fell in the South. Sales in the Midwest were the highest since November 2007.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/home-sales-near-five-high-prices-rise-140245119.html

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Another Chinese Muallaf...: The First Step Is Always The Hardest


Since I was registered myself as muslim, this year is going to be my 5th Ramadhan fasting month. I was eager to study as much as I can regarding Islam, however I was stuck at bottleneck that most people won?t tell you the difference between cultural and Islam. I am fully believed that Islam is the righteous religion, a way of life, ad-Din. Whenever I?m dealing with complication between cultural and Muslim, there are hardly anyone may explain about it regardless of self-esteem customs and community perception. Although Islam principle can be easily adopted by all walk of life, the controversy aroused whenever a ?custom made Islamic cultural? being applied on a reverted muslim.

Last year December, I received an email from Must Read publisher, a local publisher that involved in Islam genre. They asked me whether I?m interested to write a book in Malay language. I was hesitated due to my Malay language is merely fit the required writing and speaking standard, still a very long way to go with professional writing. Despite of language matter, another concern is what kind of book should I write? Whether it?s just a personal travelogue or blogging alike article? As most readers realized that my article is focus more on current issue and cultural matter.

Also, lack of experience in writing Malay article into any magazine or book is the bottleneck. I have no idea what should a formal article looks like, also what kind of content may get rid by publisher. After a deep thought about it, I agreed to write a book with Must Read publisher. Since I have to work at daylight, my writing journey is fully launched at nighttime. Dealing with English-Malay language is really challenging me, there are few specific words hardly translated into Malay word, sometimes it need to be described into a long way around just to suit the same meaning. For an example:

Optional = mempunyai lebih daripada satu pilihan
In order to describe this word ?Optional? into Malay language, I used more than 3 words to express the same thing. I had a funny thought that just write some English article then translate it into Malay article, it turn out to be my absurd idea. There will be looks like ?Google Translate? article that translating words directly without taking care of the whole layout. The whole interpretation is gone without a proper layout in written article.

After finished writing a Malay article, I was asking help from my wife and Malay friends to correct the grammar mistakes. Apparently there were a few ?Creative phrases? that is confusing them, thus I had to explain what I wanted to express exactly and rewrite the article. Sometimes I took more than one week to finish a 4 pages article.

Alhamdulillah, my first book ever ?Dengan Lafaz Dua Kalimah Syahadah? is going to be published at next month. Although it was planned to release on May, it needs much longer time to furnish the product. Out of coincidence, I embraced Islam back in Ramadhan month while my book will be released on the same holy month. It took me 5 years to achieve my dream, struggling from being blank about Islam until I share my thought about it.

According to my personal survey about reverted Muslim writers, most of them disappeared after their books being published for one or two titles. Very few reverted Muslim still consistent in writing books and most importantly, there are always be readers who interested at their books. Ironically, books growing fast to suit what readers desired to know about. Which mean the awakening of Faith like Tawheed is easily overlooked by most readers, as if being Muslim is fully granted to realize the Greatness of Creator, regardless of certain act or speech that might spoil our Tawheed unconsciously.

Therefore, I choose the different way of writing in my project. Asides my travelogue as a reverted Muslim, I do writes about intermarriage and community perception against reverted Muslim. I?m still uncertain that would my book being best selling or end up as my last writing project, at least I will keep on update my blog and never asking payment from my blog readers (including those annoying advertisement).

Hence I would like to thank everyone who sharing a lot great story with me whether via email or blog comment, also my friends who voluntarily checking my grammar mistakes. As one of my friend who work at publishing company told me that ?Writing book won?t make you rich, but sharing your thoughts with public is priceless.?

Keep on writing, inshaAllah.

Source: http://lifemualaf.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-first-step-is-always-hardest.html

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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Start your week with the Greatest Android Podcast in the World!

Android Central Podcast

Welcome to Monday, boys and girls. For better or worse, we're at the start of a new work week. But we can help kill at least one hour of the day. The gang got back together Friday afternoon for our first Android Central Podcast in a couple weeks. This one's audio-only, and it's a great listen from directly within the all-new Android Central app!

So pour a cup of coffee and let us lead you through the past week or so in Android news. We'll cure what ails ya.

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/DHm5EQRJ-Yg/story01.htm

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Why Gaming Is Still A Great Bet For Investors | TechCrunch

Kristian has been at the forefront of the rapidly transforming game industry since 2001.?After serving as Electronic Arts? executive vice president of digital, he left three months ago to focus on startups. Today, he leads seed-stage investments with Initial Capital and serves on the board of Supercell, the #1 iOS grossing game company in the world. Before that, he co-founded, ran and then sold social gaming pioneer Playfish to?Electronic Arts for $400M in 2009. He was also?a co-founder of mobile gaming pioneer Macrospace ? today Glu Mobile (Nasdaq: GLUU) in 2001 through the successful IPO in 2007.

TechCrunch writer Kim-Mai Cutler and Benchmark Capital general partner Mitch Lasky recently wrote two insightful pieces on venture investment in games (here?and?here) ? both expressing some degree of skepticism of venture capital models for funding game startups. I agree venture funding is not for every game startup, and certainly not every game startup makes for a great venture investment. However, I would argue the case for venture funding for games is today stronger than ever.

Here is why:

Why game startups are better off with venture investment than publisher funding

There are broadly speaking three models available for a game startup today: bootstrapping (including crowd-funding), publisher financing and venture financing. For those who can afford the risk and have cash readily available, bootstrapping always trumps the other two. It comes with maximum freedom, control and upside in a success case.

But the risks are very real and significant.?Those unable to bootstrap because of the risks or ambitions of the project should in my view consider venture investment over publisher financing models.

Publishing as an idea for digital pure plays is simply turning out not to work very well. Many have tried it with very little to show for it. This is because the typical publisher value-add of financing, marketing, technology and distribution through retail channels doesn?t translate well to the digital world. It says something that not a single game in?today?s iOS top-25 grossing?has been ?published? by a third party as far as I can tell.

While developers continue to need financing, the rest of the ?publishing services? have become obsolete in four key ways:

  • Publishers can?t compete with atomized marketing services by specialists:?As the digital market has matured, player acquisition, telemetry, cross-promotion and other marketing services have become widely available as independent specialist services that compete on price and quality of the service. Companies like?Swrve?(one of our portfolio companies at Initial Capital),?Chartboost,?HasOffers,?Nanigans,?Flurry?and a host of competitors are evolving their services at a blistering speed, requiring only a small set of increasingly available talent at the developer end. Doing it directly is not just cheaper and more flexible as the world changes, it also forces a more profound understanding of player flows and distribution challenges, which ultimately helps uncover product design insights.
  • Publisher channel access may accelerate your success, but will not define it: Much has been made out of the advantage that big game publishers have in?terms of access to Apple or Google in terms of promotions. Clearly, being featured helps generate initial downloads. However that success is short-lived if?you are unable to retain your audience and acquire users independently at a profitable cost?of acquisition. Plus, you won?t be re-featured unless you generate the numbers.?A game investor worth their salt will be able to make the right introductions here?anyway. The incremental publisher value here is small.
  • Holding on to rights to extend IP has become critical to value creation:?As Lasky emphasizes in his post, gaming even in the games-as-a-service world is inherently hits driven. For a game startup to become valuable over time, it needs to find ways of anchoring its success around building franchises. Ownership of intellectual property (IP) and all extension rights becomes important. Angry Birds-maker Rovio and Moshi Monsters-maker Mind Candy have shown that game originated IP is an increasingly viable base to build out a broader IP following with over 40 percent or revenue from each being attributed to non-game products. At the same time, the halo marketing effect from these non-gaming products can still contribute value to the core gaming product. Publishing deals are typically structured for the publisher to get hold of this.
  • Long term margins help you hold onto key talent:?Perhaps most importantly, success in games has always been about key?creative talent. The more cash a game startup is able to create, the more it can?afford to invest in everything from the office to culture to individual, innovative?compensation models for rockstar talent. Signing away a revenue share limits?these options and ultimately is likely to encourage the best talent to leave.

Venture financing from a specialist fund that understands games should therefore be seen as a compelling alternative for game startups. It provides the financing value add, typically at far more flexible terms, without any of the restrictions to value creation that lower margins or complicated IP terms can create. And you could even get good folks around the table for advice how best to build for long term success and shareholder value. It should be no surprise that today?s most promising game companies including?Supercell,?King,?Kabam,?Rovio?and?Kixeye?are all venture-funded.

What about the case for investors ? does it still make sense to invest in games?

The digital pure play market growth has recently been characterized by the rapid?rise and occasionally fall of new entrants. Zynga is cited as the key example by both?Cutler and Lasky. A thoughtful?article by Tadgh Kelly about ?Peak Mobile??further?highlights the cycles any individual platform tends to go through. In a world of few?game acquirers and a troubled IPO market, does the venture model therefore need a?re-think?

In my view and that of Initial Capital, which is an?investor in?Supercell,?Brainbow,?Supersolid,?Space Ape Games?and others, the case for continued investment is strong.

Even though some VCs are shying away from games, here are five reasons why I and Initial Capital are doubling down on games:

  • A continued virtually unopposed growth opportunity in digital:?The next generation consoles are doing a wonderful job at distracting the big publishers away from the fastest growing parts of the game industry. That clears the water for pure digital plays to gradually build up dominance with new IP on new hardware platforms. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick?s?recent dismissive remarks about mobile, and EA?s strategy of ANDs: consoles and?PC and mobile and online (which dilutes their excellent talent across too many opportunities) are cases in point.?The innovators? dilemma confronting the big guys is creating continuing unopposed growth opportunity for new and established digital pure plays alike. That is giving new players time to build up the brand and marketing advantages that big publishers have held for years on what are rapidly becoming legacy platforms.
  • There are plenty of ?blue water? opportunities on new platforms:?Very few game play styles or categories on personal screens, like four- to seven-inch screens across mobile phones and tablets, feel mature at this point. Clash of Clans? take on the tower defense genre, Candy Crush Saga?s interpretation of Match Three games and Hay Day?s way of approaching farm games are possibly the most mature examples out there. But who is making the category-defining racing game, the best first person shooter, sports game, real-time strategy, monster breeding or puzzle adventure game on these platforms? The console guys are hamstrung by their lack of focus.The starlets who already dominate one or two categories will have similar focus?challenges due to successes to date. Seldom have there been such clearly profitable, well-defined opportunities for new startups to re-imagine these experiences for personal touch screens.
  • The opportunity has gone global:?The traditional gaming ?Galapagos Islands? of Japan, Korea and China have been overrun by the great global equalizers of Android and iOS. This creates unprecedented opportunities to go global. Supercell?s Clash of Clans is currently the #1 game on iPad in China and #11 in Japan. For Candy Crush, the same positions are #64 in China and #4 in Japan. This is not to belittle the differences in local tastes, marketing channels and in some cases app stores or distribution mechanisms. But the opportunity to reach the other half of the game industry that these countries represent has never been more tangible.
  • Unprecedented margins:?Because of the margin structure and low headcount requirements of the industry, companies can become very profitable very quickly. Recent lessons from other companies that have grown too quickly are causing newer companies like Supercell to be more thoughtful. They are banking their profits, stabilizing their mid-double-digit operating margins and re-investing carefully into nurturing and expanding their talent base. This is also great news for top talent as it gets to increasingly share in the financial success both through company perks, private and public share sales and also dividends.
  • The M&A and IPO markets will be back. And there?s nothing wrong with dividends either:?It will just take time. Large M&A deals in games are unlikely to be on the horizon. The traditional console folks are too busy fighting each other and do not have the resources to acquire an increasingly confident set of digital pure plays. The leading pure plays on the other hand are mostly focused on ensuring their own model scales before embarking on aggressive M&A. M&A is particularly hard an industry in the middle of a disruption where talent and inspiration are more important than scale. While Zynga?s troubles may have damaged the IPO prospects for the next 18 months or so, if the new generation of companies can show sustained profitability, they will be in an incredibly strong position to consider listing later. Some will undoubtedly choose to stay private and pay out dividends in the medium-run, which is fine from a venture investors perspective. But the option will be there.

The next few years for games will be choppy. But the fundamentals for gaming investments are stronger than ever. As Lasky says, you have to be building a game company and not just a game for venture funding to make sense. And for a venture fund to consider gaming investments, you need to understand the sector.

But neither of those mean that venture investments in games aren?t alive an well. In fact, the team at Initial Capital remain as bullish on the sector as we led the seed round into Supercell. We continue to seek out the very best, most inspired design and coding teams who want to define where games will go next and help them get started with capital, advice and structure.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/17/gaming-venture-capital/

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Monday, June 17, 2013

Get the Most Out of Your Home Appliances (Without Taking Them Apart)

Get the Most Out of Your Home Appliances (Without Taking Them Apart)

When was the last time you had to salt your perishables, got dishpan hands, or beat your laundry against a washboard? Chances are, not recently. Your home appliances do so much for you, shouldn't you return the love? Here's how to keep your domestic machine in peak condition without putting on a tool belt.

The Refrigerator

Refrigerators are pretty basic machines; there are really only about five major components to them. And to know how to take care of them, it helps to first know how they work.

Refrigerators utilize a compressor pump to condense hot refrigerant vapor, and cycle it through a series of heat-exchanging condenser coils on the exterior of the machine, where the lower ambient air temperature dissipates the heat and cools the vapor back to a liquid. The refrigerant then flows through a series of internal heat exchangers, known as evaporator coils, where it sucks up thermal energy, expands back into a gas, gets pumped back out to the condenser coils, and the process restarts.

Long story short: The longer and more often the compressor runs, the faster it will wear out, so maintaining the fridge's thermal integrity (aka "close the door, you're letting all the cold air out") is essential.

Every three months, give the door seals a scrubbing with some warm, soapy water. While you're washing them, inspect the gaskets for wear or cracking. Also, give the fridge a once-over to make sure it's still level, and run a vacuum with a brush attachment over the fan and condenser air inlets to prevent dust bunnies from accumulating. If your fridge has one of those fancy in-door water dispensers, be sure to swap out the filter twice a year to prevent it from clogging, and empty the ice bucket monthly to prevent old cubes from absorbing odors.

The Dishwasher

Dishwashers spare your hands from scrubbing by heating a small basin of water to about 130 degrees F, and shooting it from water jets attached to a spinning arm in the bottom of the machine. Hot, sudsy water blasts your flatware clean before rinsing it in the same matter.

Like the refrigerator, making sure everything remains watertight is key. Once every three months or so, give the door gasket a good cleaning with a bit of warm soapy water to remove any grit or grime that might prevent it from sealing. Also, check that the water jets in the spinning arms are clear of obstructions. If they're not, clean out the goop with a toothpick or needle-nose pliers. And while you've got your head in the dishwasher, check the wastewater drain grill (it's under the spinning arms, in the floor of the washer) for obstructions, clearing them as necessary.

The Washing Machine

While washing machines are great at getting dirt out of your clothes, they aren't so great at getting the dirt they got out of your clothes out of themselves. If your clothes come out dingy after a cycle, it may be time to clean your cleaner.

For older top-load washers, let the clothing-free tub fill with a full load's worth of hot water, add a quart of bleach, and let it agitate for a minute before pausing the cycle. Let the bleach solution soak in for about an hour before you complete the wash cycle. Next, repeat the process with a quart of white vinegar (which removes odors).

For front-loading washers, dissolve four tablespoons of baking soda in four cups of warm water (you can also use a quarter cup of vinegar in a quart of water if you prefer). Soak a washcloth in this solution and go to town on the tub to remove dirt residue from the inside of the tub. Then, run a rinse cycle to finish.

The hoses that carry water into and out of the washer may be constructed from heavy gauge rubber but they aren't indestructible. Check them occasionally for signs of wear?blisters, cracks, sponginess?and replace them as necessary. Or don't, and just wait for one to burst and shower you with scalding water.

Finally, give the washer a nudge now and again to make sure that all four feet are flat on the ground to eliminate vibration. Most washers are equipped with adjustable, front leveling legs?just rotate the leg to adjust its height and secure it using a lock nut. Many washers also have self adjusting rear legs?tilt the machine forward on its front legs to automatically extend the rears.

[Repair Clinic - Apartment Therapy - House Logic - Nat Geo - Top Image: Santiago Cornejo / Shutterstock]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/get-the-most-out-of-your-home-appliances-without-takin-512332890

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RolePlayGateway?

Even the God-Queen Bleeds

Image

Even the God-Queen Bleeds is a plot being run in the continent of Viridian on Althaea. The plot begins in a simple manner: Viridian worships the God-Queen Sarene Iracot, the one woman who controls all functions of Viridian and its people. She, to them, is their god; a divine ruler sent down from the Heavens to rule over Viridian.

However, a simple person in the wrong place and the wrong time discovers Sarene's secret: she is not immortal for gods do not bleed (how this is discovered will be discussed between myself and the person I choose to uncover the truth about Sarene).

Players will decide whether they will play their characters as a part of the Denouncers, a rebel group to overthrow the God-Queen, or be a Devout, a loving follower of their God-Queen.

How the plot unveils itself and unfolds is solely up to the content presented by those who take part by creating dynamic and interesting, involved, characters. There are many twists already planned by myself and, I am sure, several more to be added as players fluff out the plot.

Allegiances will be made. Betrayals will be preformed. A God-Queen will either live forever or die by her people's hands.

The beginning has been written.

The end is up to you.

GM Note: I am looking for someone to head the Denouncers. This player must be active and dedicated to the plot; seeing it from beginning to end. This is a very important piece and it cannot be lost. If you cannot commit, please settle for a member of the group, and not its leader.

The Devouts side of the story will be lead by me, of course, as I am playing Sarene for the time that she is alive.

Currently I am hiring for both sides and more.

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway

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Anki Drive isn't just a car racing game, it's an iOS-based robotics platform

Anki Drive isn't a just car racing game, it's an iOSbased robotics platform

When Anki Drive was demoed live on stage during Apple's WWDC, we saw a modern take on classic slot cars using iOS devices and Bluetooth-equipped toy vehicles -- basically a racing video game rendered with real world objects. But there's actually a lot more to it than that. Earlier this week, we talked briefly with Boris Sofman -- Anki's CEO and cofounder -- about the product and the startup's history and ambitions. While playing the game and taking pictures was off limits, we got the opportunity to examine the cars up close. Read on after the break.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/15/anki-drive-isnt-just-a-car-racing-game-its-an-ios-based-robot/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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