NYT’s Michael Shear Sour Over Sarah Palin’s Lack of Respect for Mainstream Media
May 31, 2011 No Comment
New York Times chief political blogger Michael Shear is a bit annoyed that Sarah Palin is successfully attracting media attention while ignoring reporter’s inquiries and playing hide-and-seek with the press on her “One Nation” bus tour. (Photo by the Times's David Winter.) Shear, who has filed multiple blog posts on the Palin family's
Continue reading …Quantum effect transistor is the world’s smallest, hopes to make a big impact
May 31, 2011 No Comment
What’s better than billions of transistors ? Billions of miniature two-nanometer ones, leaving room for billions more. A team of researchers accomplished just that, using the quantum effect to shrink these semiconductors — and set a new size record in the process — while also managing to keep them operating at room temperature. The team of South Korean, Japanese, and British researchers at Chungbuk National University expect them to “enhance the capabilities of mobile electronic devices” — a mighty vague claim if ever there was one. Not one for modesty, lead researcher Choi Jung-bum proclaims that it “effectively changes the paradigm of such devices.” With no word on mass production, though, we’ll just have to wait and see for ourselves how big of an impact these lilliputian circuits will have. [Thanks, Rohit] Quantum effect transistor is the world’s smallest, hopes to make a big impact originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 May 2011 13:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case in New York has French society taking a hard look at sexist politicians like never before, reports the Telegraph . “[I]f all those who mix power and sex had to account for their actions, half of our [male] politicians would be in trouble,” said one…
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Libyan rebels are rejecting a reported truce offer from Moammar Gadhafi. Word of the offer comes from South African President Jacob Zuma, who met with Gadhafi on Monday. (May 31)
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Finnish firm scraps full-year forecasts and says it may make no profit on phone sales in quarter to end of June Shares in the Finnish phone maker Nokia plunged by 15% on Tuesday as the company warned that it may make no profit on phone sales in the quarter to the end of June, and that overall phone sales will be “substantially below” its earlier forecast of €6.1bn to €6.6bn. The company said that for the period from April to June, operating margins will be “substantially below its previously expected range of 6% to 9% … primarily due to lower than previously expected net sales”. It also scrapped full-year forecasts, saying it was no longer “appropriate to provide annual targets for 2011″. Though it is still the biggest maker by volume of both handsets and smartphones, selling about 100m and 24m respectively per quarter, Nokia has been buffeted at the high end by Apple’s iPhone and smartphones using Google’s Android operating system, while at the low end it faces challenges from “white box” manufacturers from China that can undercut it on price for standard mobile handsets. That forced the company to admit that its operating margins for handsets this quarter “could be around breakeven”. In the second quarter of 2010 Nokia’s mobile phone business made €643m profit on revenues of €6.8bn, and in the first quarter of 2011 recorded €690m profit on €7.1bn of revenue. The collapse in the share price took it down to May 1998 levels. The announcement adds to the deepening sense of crisis around the company, once the undisputed leader in the mobile phone business. It was overtaken for total revenue in the first quarter by Apple, which sold 18.7m iPhones – at nearly five times the average price of a Nokia smartphone, and 10 times the average price of a Nokia handset. Nokia said that its products are coming under intense price pressure, especially in China and Europe, where the combination of cheap phones from other manufacturers running Google’s Android mobile operating system and Apple’s high-end iPhone have squeezed its position. The company reiterated its plan to dump its current Symbian operating system for Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS on its high-end smartphones from “the fourth quarter of 2011″ as part of a longer-term plan to restore the company’s fortunes. Carolina Milanesi, mobile phones analyst for the research company Gartner, said Tuesday’s warnings could mark the low point for Nokia, which has not made a loss in its handset division for more than a decade. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” Milanesi said. “The second quarter should be the worst – if it isn’t then they have worse problems than we thought they did. In the third and fourth quarter this year there will be new products. If they can’t get traction with those then it will be a big issue.” The Finnish company is undergoing a tumultuous upheaval under its new chief executive Stephen Elop, who took over the job in September. He decided that the long-running Symbian software that had powered previous Nokia phones was outdated and that in smartphones, which makes up about a quarter of the 100m handsets the company sells each year, would be replaced over the next two years by Microsoft’s Windows Phone software. Part of the change has involved cutting thousands of staff, including outsourcing many involved with Symbian to the consultancy Accenture. “Strategy transitions are difficult. We recognise the need to deliver great mobile products, and therefore we must accelerate the pace of our transition,” Elop said. “Our teams are aligned, and we have increased confidence that we will ship our first Nokia product with Windows Phone in the fourth quarter 2011.” Analysts said that they found the abrupt change worrying. Lee Simpson of Jefferies & Co said: “You clearly have a Symbian platform that [mobile] operators are avoiding … But it shouldn’t be too surprising that we get another profit warning from Nokia for the Q2 and Q3 periods. What does strike us as quite surprising is the level to which the markets have dropped, we’re talking about breakeven now which is quite a slide. I think this level of shareholder destruction is now starting to look dangerous: what can these guys do to reverse this? Our stance is that it’s very difficult to value this business right now, because it has to be a different animal if and when it gets into recovery.” Jari Honko of Swedbank said: “The truth about Nokia’s competitiveness has come out now. We know that the company is loss-making at a group level. Consensus estimates will react strongly, and so will the shares. We will see more and more reflection on Nokia’s market share, and that is the worst thing to happen to this company, when the scale is shrinking fast.” He added: “It remains to be seen how low [market share] could go, but for smartphones we are talking about going under 20% this year.” Only two years ago Nokia had a 40% share of the smartphone market, but it was passed in the first quarter of this year by Android, with 32%. Nokia had 24% and Apple 18%. Nokia Smartphones Mobile phones Telecommunications industry Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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More than 2 years after US Airways Flight 1549 made a near-miraculous landing in the Hudson River, passengers and crew reunite to unload parts of the plane at a North Carolina museum. (May 31)
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The former chairman of one of Egypt’s major banks has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing a maid at a Manhattan hotel. Police say Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar was arrested at the Pierre Hotel Monday morning. (May 31)
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Stacey Dash and Lisa Raye Get Into It While Filming “Single Ladies” VIDEO Lisa Raye On Wendy Williams Talking Stacey Dash Beef And Ex Husband Cheatin’ (VIDEO) Celebrity Drawings BabiTthai says: Lisa Raye Wow'
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Moby VS Britney 2 Britney Spears VS Moby Moby-Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad (Britney Spears Moments) HeavyMetalGuard says: I couldn't have said it better myself. Moby: 'Britney Spears, Ke$ha songs aren't music' http://t.co/Q2nH9Q9
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• Recovery hit by drop in consumer confidence • US house prices back to 2002 levels US house prices have fallen back to levels last seen in 2002 and consumer confidence has also fallen sharply according to new figures, leading to fresh fears about the country’s economic recovery. A closely watched measure of the property market, Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller home price index, has fallen for eight months in a row and declined by 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, following a 3.6% fall in the fourth quarter of 2010. By the end of March the index hit a recession low and showed an annual decline of 5.1% compared with the first quarter of 2010. According to the survey, nationally home prices are back to their mid-2002 levels. Prices in Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas are below January 2000 levels. The US economy had been showing a better than forecast recovery but the Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes fell to 60.8 in May from a revised 66.0 in April, well below economists’ forecasts for 66.5. A third survey also suggested that growth could be slowing. Ken Goldstein, Conference Board economist, said the figures were evidence that consumers were worried about jobs, food prices and housing. “These are not good numbers, we are back to where we were two month ago. But I think we are bobbing along the waves, not sinking further.” Business activity in the heartland mid-west grew much less than expected last month as sales and employment weakened. The Institute for Supply Management-Chicago business barometer dropped to 56.6 in May, its lowest reading since November 2009. The reading was 67.6 in April, and economists had forecast a May reading of 62.6. “The question is, ‘Is the softer data we’re seeing transitory, or is it likely to persist throughout the remainder of 2011?’ Right now, that’s an open question that investors are trying to figure out,” said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial in Westport, Connecticut. Prices of single-family houses in the 20 largest US cities fell 0.2% from February to March on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Case-Shiller index. Year on year house prices fell in 19 of the 20 big cities polled by Case Shiller when compared with March 2010. Minneapolis saw a 10% annual decline, the first market to experience a double digit drop since March 2010 when Las Vegas was down 12% on an annual basis. Washington DC was the only city where home prices increased. Housing in the capital was up 1.1% on a monthly basis and 4.3% over the year. Seattle was up a modest 0.1% for the month, but still down 7.5% against March 2010. About 28.4% of US homeowners owe more on the mortgage than their house is worth, real estate data firm Zillow said this month. “This month’s report is marked by the confirmation of a double-dip in home prices across much of the nation,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices. “Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight.” Blitzer said that since December 2010 an increasing number of markets had hit new lows. In March 2011, 12 cities – Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon) and Tampa – fell to new lows for the current housing cycle. A rebound in prices seen in 2009 and 2010 was largely due to a tax credit for first-time home buyers, he said. Excluding that policy he said there has been no recovery or even stabilisation in home prices since the recession. US economy Global economy Economics Credit crunch Financial crisis United States Dominic Rushe guardian.co.uk
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