Dismal Scientist - Recession Watch The U.S. economy contracted late last year, and may spend the first half of 2008 in recession. Moody’s Economy.com tracks the data every day to determine how long and how deep the downturn will be—as well as its effect on the global economy.
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AP - World Bank Leader Urges Action on Food Monday April 14, 8:45 am ET By Harry Dunphy, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The president of the World Bank urged immediate action to deal with mounting food prices that have caused hunger and deadly violence in several countries. Robert Zoellick on Sunday said the international community has "to put our money where our mouth is" and act now to help hungry people. "It is as stark as that." He called on governments to rapidly carry out commitments to provide the U.N. World Food Program with $500 million in emergency aid it needs by May 1. He said the bank is granting an additional $10 million to Haiti for feeding programs, "and I understand others are looking to help." "It is critical that governments confirm their commitments as soon as possible and others begin to commit," Zoellick said. Prices have only risen further since the WFP issued that appeal, so it is urgent that governments step up, he said.
AOL to buy Bebo for $850 million Deal means Time Warner is not gunning for Yahoo, analysts say By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch Last update: 12:10 p.m. EDT March 13, 2008 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- America Online said Thursday it has signed an $850 million deal to buy the social networking site Bebo in a bid to expand its presence in the rapidly growing Internet space. The merger is also seen as a sign that AOL's parent company, Time Warner Inc. (TWX: time warner inc com TWX 14.47, -0.29, -2.0%) , is not about to join the Microsoft-Yahoo fray, although one analyst suggested that the media giant may be dressing AOL up for a sale. Bebo claims a worldwide membership of more than 40 million, and is popular in Ireland, New Zealand and the United States. The company has about 100 employees in offices in the United Kingdom, San Francisco and Austin, Texas. AOL CEO Randy Falco said in a statement that the planned merger would improve the company's position "to offer advertisers even greater reach and marketers significant insights into the desires and needs of consumers."
FCC to launch emergency text alert system April 10, 2008 Federal regulators approved a proposal to institute a nationwide emergency alert system that will notify subscribers via of terrorist threats, natural disasters and child abductions via mobile messaging. The text notification program is a product of the Warning Alert and Response Network Act, a 2006 federal law requiring the Federal Communications Commission to develop upgrades to the emergency alert system. Although the alert program boasts strong wireless industry support, operator participation is voluntary--similarly, consumers may opt out of the program, although they will not be charged for any alerts they receive. Emergency messages will be delivered with a unique audio signature, or what the FCC calls a "vibration cadence." The emergency alert program is expected to launch by 2010.
US Stock Market Crash: Implications on Economy US stocks slumped once again spreading ripples of uncertainty across the financial markets worldwide. This stumble as recorded on 29th February 2008 marked a resultant drop in business activity, which reached a record low since 2001. The credit market losses are estimated at over $600 billion as per UBS AG. American International Group Inc., the largest global insurance company, posted its highest quarterly deficit in 89 years. The following two weeks saw a landslide decline in its stocks. Sprint Nextel Corp. the third largest US wireless carrier also recorded a decline. The figure was very near to the six-year low attained by the company. All the ten industries listed in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index marched a retreat. The axe fell mainly on the banks and the phone companies
Big Brother is watching us all - By Humphrey Hawksley - BBC News, Washington The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game.
500 Million Internet Users in Asia-Pacific FEBRUARY 12, 2008 According to recent estimates there were 6.6 billion people in the world in 2007. Of that number, 1.15 billion, or 17.5%, were regular Internet users. By 2012, eMarketer projects that over 1.7 billion people worldwide (24.5%) will access the Internet at least once per month. This year will see China overtake the United States as the most populous Internet nation in the world and the Asia-Pacific region will top 500 million Internet users. By 2012, nearly 50% of the world’s Internet population will live in the Asia-Pacific region. The share of the world’s Internet users in Europe and North America will fall, though absolute numbers will continue to rise in both regions, as the share of users in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region both grow. The Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries lead the world in terms of Internet penetration, and reached something of a saturation point around 80% of the population in 2007.
Business - For YouTube, a System to Halt Copyright-Infringing Videos By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS - Published: July 28, 2007 New technology would allow owners of videos to provide a digital fingerprint to automatically remove any video that infringes copyrights.
GSMA Mobile World Congress is built around an exceptional conference agenda that features the most prominent CEO and board-level speakers from mobile operators, content owners and vendors from across the globe. The conference will cover both new and existing industry issues and trends, providing informed and thought-provoking insights through balanced, informative presentations and discussions. The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, while creating new business opportunities for operators and their suppliers. The Association's members serve more than 2 billion customers - about 82% of the world's mobile phone users. The 2008 GSMA Mobile World Congress is underway! Barcelona 11-14 Feb 2008
Bell Labs Transfers DVD In 2.3 Milliseconds By David A. Utter - Wed, 03/05/2008 - 7:22pm. We need a new word for fast Imagine downloading the remake of Casino Royale in the time it takes to blink. One experiment by Bell Labs managed to accomplish some astonishing speeds. Just don't wait for your friendly neighborhood ISP to offer comparable speeds anytime soon. The Royal Pingdom blog said Bell Labs managed a transfer rate of 2.05 terabytes per second. You won't find the equipment to handle that for sale on the shelves of big-box electronic retailers. Even more impressively, Bell Labs accomplished the transfer speed over a distance of some 1,584 miles. This is a harbinger of 100Gbps Ethernet, according to Information Week. Royal Pingdom also noted how Google transfers data retrieved by the Hubble Space Telescope by FedEx rather than through electronic transmission. It would take longer for Google to move 120 terabytes of data over the Internet than shipping it by overnight delivery.
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iRazoo is a user recommended, points driven, search engine. What does that all mean? User-recommended (Utilizes our Patent-Pending technology/methodology): A person goes to the iRazoo website and uses it to perform a search query. The search engine produces it's search results. The user then clicks on a search result. The resulting website that comes out of the click is opened up on another web page. That web page has the header of the original iRazoo search engine with the resulting website page beneath it. That header has the following wording “Do you recommend this site, yes or no.” If the user clicks yes, that website url is placed into a database and is cross-indexed to the search term the user entered. After the url and keyword have been recorded by the database, then the next time a user goes to the search engine and types in the same search term, a “user recommended” heading will show in the results page with the indexed url shown below. These “user recommended” results will be shown above the regular search results that are returned by our regular search engine.
TheNewsRoom is the premiere online news site of Voxant, the Viral Syndication Network (VSN). VSN unlocks new markets for news organizations and advertisers around the world by helping them get their news content found, played, and paid for on the millions of Web sites and blogs that comprise the “long tail” of the Web. Through TheNewsRoom and its unique viral embedding technology, VSN distributes and promotes news from more than 170 credible, licensed content sources. Network affiliates include CBS, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press (AP), Reuters, MTV, NHL, AFP, and HowStuffWorks, as well as a variety of website publishers and bloggers.
MySpace is using profile and blog entries to sell targeted ads By Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) -- News Corp.'s MySpace social networking site is using personal details contained on users' profile pages and blogs to sell highly targeted advertising, the company said Tuesday. The Web site started the first phase of its ''interest targeting'' experiment in July, culling likes and dislikes from its users' pages to sell ads in 10 broad categories such as finance, autos, fashion and music. MySpace advertisers can now get much more than the basic demographic data contained in site registration forms, Peter Levinsohn, who heads Fox Interactive Media, told an investor conference. The site has more than 3 million users in each category and can place ads based on responses to questions about users' likes and dislikes, favorite movies and music. Data is even extracted from blog entries, where users write at length about their lives. Targeting ads well can be lucrative for MySpace and its corporate parent, but it can also backfire if users believe their personal expressions are being misused.
Though MySpace, Facebook Dominate, Others Seek Social Networking Niches September 21, 2007: 08:05 PM EST Recent data suggest the game is over in the Web-based social networking field, but that isn't stopping new new players from joining in. The two giants in this field, My-Space and Facebook, collected 91% of all traffic to social networking sites in August, according to research firm Hitwise. The remaining 9% splinters among at least 26 other sites in the same category. MySpace, with more than 200 million members, drew 77% of users to social-network sites, while Facebook, with more than 40 million users, drew 14%. The individual market share falls off from there to under 1.4% or less. Research by other firms tells a similar story. But now that social networking is a proven business model, it's everyone in the pool. Even with the two elephants in the water, there's still plenty of room for smaller fish to swim, industry watchers say.
